Hey now I'm famous!




Seriously, did I piss someone off? This has to be the worst photo of me I've seen lately. I know they took at least one other one. I can't look at it without laughing. I look like a demented Pocahontas.

I just wrote two wordy posts over at CraftyTown: Go on over and check 'em out.

For now, since my hands are tired, here's the lyrics to a Rufus Wainwright song currently rockin' my world.

Go or Go Ahead

Thank you for this bitter knowledge
Guardian angels who left me stranded
It was worth it, feeling abandoned
Makes one hardened but what has happened to love

You got me writing lyrics on postcards
Then in the evening looking at stars
But the brightest of the planets is Mars
Then what has happened to love

So I will opt for the big white limo
Vanity fairgrounds and rebel angels
You can’t be trusted with feathers so hollow
Your heaven’s inventions, steel eyed vampires of love

You see over me, I’ll never know
What you have shown to other eyes

Go or go ahead and surprise me
Say you’ve lead the way to a mirage
Go or go ahead and just try me

Nowhere’s now here smelling of junipers
Fell off the hay bales, I’m over the rainbows
But oh Medusa kiss me and crucify
This unholy notion of the mythic power of love

Look in her eyes, look in her eyes
Forget about the ones that are crying
Look in her eyes, look in her eyes
Forget about the ones that are crying

Go or go ahead
And surprise me
Go or go ahead
And just try me

I am drawn to this idea: A story told only in words tattooed on willing people. The story will be published or summarized in no other form; only participants will get to read the story. A catch: you do not get to choose the word, though you choose the location on your body. For more info seeShelley Jackson's INERADICABLE STAIN : SKIN PROJECT.

R.I.P. Douglas Way Sr., who passed away Saturday evening.

Finally got around to uploading some pics I took last weekend. Explanatory titles are below the images.


We live in a pretty place, here in New England.



This is a bendy tree down by a dog-friendly bend of the Mill River.



Dogs like it here.



If this was a movie you'd see them wagging.



Getty gave up on North Hatfield, I guess...



... but the Great Pumpkin didn't.


Merry autumn y'all.

I just spoke to my mom, who is keeping vigil at my Grandfather's bedside, along with my father, my grandmother, and a cousin of my dad's. Yesterday, when he became unresponsive, they spent the entire day in his room, playing music and reading poems aloud. Are you praying? I asked. Not exactly, she said. I blurted out that there was a Buddhist prayer they could do, you know, if they felt like it. I explained it to her: Picture the person bathed in light, happy and healthy and at peace; imagine them merging with the light and accepting death; make it a happy thing, in order to let their spirit go without turmoil. My family, like most, doesn't talk about spirituality much. We're Quakers, too, so there isn't much talking at all during services. But my mom liked the Buddhist prayer idea, and I think she's gonna do it. Because I was right there during the death of my boyfriend's father a couple of years ago, which was a very non-traditional death and after-death experience, I feel like I kind of have some street cred with my family when it comes to people dying. What a strange thing to be known for. My sister's the pregnant one (currently making her a minor celebrity in our infant-starved family), and I'm the death-experienced one. At least I can feel useful instead of helpless.

I ran into an old friend yesterday. Lats I saw her, she was freshly married, working part-time at a hair salon, and part-time at a phone-survey place. Now she's pregnant (and, like my twin, is having a girrl, due in February) and teaching at Smith! You go, girl. We have a date to catch up next Thursday. I'm excited.

The "girrl" above is a typo but I like it.

Also yesterday was a dinner meeting of the MassLive Northampton bloggers. Our photos were taken and they're planning on putting us in the Spfl'd Republican, on quarter-page ads along with pull-quotes from our blogs. Yikes! I think it'll be hilarious. I had forgotten photos would be taken, and I had my hair in two braids and was wearing a v-neck sweater tied with a leather cord. I just know I'm gonna look like Pocahontas. With glasses.

I've been writing a bunch of stuff on CraftyTown, too, so be sure to take a look.

Also, update on my Grandfather: He drank 8 oz. of chocolate milk a couple of days ago so he's still hanging in there.

Singer/Songwriter Elliott Smith Dead Of Apparent Suicide

Oh my god. I am literally reeling with the news of this. Can't think of what to say. I'm a huge fan! ohh...

I saw School of Rock at a Sunday matinee: loved it. Even though the plot was very typical and somewhat obvious, it was done very well. There were a lot of great lines. ("You have to feel it in your head, your brain, AND your mind!") Jack Black and all of the kids were great. It even touched on real-life issues my musician friends face - balancing a rent-paying job with devoting all of your time to a band in the hope that someday you'll make enough from it to support yourself. Of course I can apply that to myself too, as a part-time artist. I still sometimes wonder if I should quit my job and go to grad school and become an artist full-time, which is what I've wanted to be since I was a kid - I'd live in NYC and make art, scrounge for an agent and a gallery, and hang out with people way hipper than me who drink too much and are completely self-absorbed.

Okay, maybe those last few parts I mentioned aren't what I want.

The problem with being an artist is that it's a solitary pursuit. Suddenly you look up from your desk and realize you haven't spoken to another human for four days. I need socialization. I liked my situation in college, with a big warehouse-like space filled with a warren of students' studios, always someone making art on the other side of a plywood wall. But I didn't socialize much with the other (and mostly cooler) artists. I felt too uncool. They all really committed to the role - smoking constantly, drinking cheap beer, taking drugs whenever available, oil paint all over their clothes, scruffy-looking but sexy. I was somewhat scruffy, but didn't drink much, smoke, or do drugs. So I was at a disadvantage.
Luckily, in my final year I found some nerdy artist friends and I stopped feeling intimidated.

At this site, a classic song is translated to the Latin and back to English. Here's a sample:

magnae clunes mihi placent, nec possum de hac re mentiri.
(Large buttocks are pleasing to me, nor am I able to lie concerning this matter.)
quis enim, consortes mei, non fateatur,
(For who, colleagues, would not admit,)
cum puella incedit minore medio corpore
(Whenever a girl comes by with a rather small middle part of the body)
sub quo manifestus globus, inflammare animos
(Beneath which is an obvious spherical mass, that it inflames the spirits)
virtute praestare ut velitis, notantes bracas eius
(So that you want to be conspicuous for manly virtue, noticing her breeches)
clunibus profunde fartas(*1) esse
(Have been deeply stuffed with buttock?)

I am sitting here mushing and kneading a ball of Silly Putty in my left hand. (Actually's it's Pacificare Behavioral Health putty; it's a promo item from work that's supposed to de-stress us, or something.) Occasionally I pull it into a rope and try to yank it hard enough for it to snap into two. Then I try to join the flat snapped-off ends together perfectly, to get it to melt back into one. Right now I have an overwhelming urge to chew on the putty. My teeth are itching for it. But I know it won't chew well, will taste terrible, and I will regret it immediately. So instead I am typing about it, here for you.

This, right now, is the story of my life.

I just called my grandmother. She says my grandfather is not doing well - he's in bed, has refused all food and drink, and tried to speak to her but couldn't be understood. She says that our visit made a big difference in him; he was alert and animated (and he smiled a bunch of times) on Sunday. So maybe now that we've gone, he's going to let go. I think we're all ready for it, though I get a lump in my throat whenever I think about it. Of course.

I've been relatively lucky in the ancestor roulette - this is my first grandparent to die. Before this the only relatives I ever met that died were two great-grandmothers (one on each side of my family) who died when they were 99 years old. I barely knew either of them. I'm essentially estranged from my other set of grandparents (long story, too personal to blog), so losing this grandfather is very sad.

Though it's really the Alzheimer's that's doing him in, the actual cause of death will probably be dysphagia (dehydration). He has a living will that specifies no hospitals, which means not getting even an IV drip to give him fluids. So since I feel totally helpless while waiting, I did a google on what kind of death this might be like. Here are some links, if you're curious:

This is really about assisted vs. unassisted suicide;

as is this one from the Hemlock Society;

and here's a reassuring Reuter's article about the subject.

My grandfather's on morphine, and has people around constantly to moisten his mouth, see that he's comfortable, etc., so I think it should be relatively okay.

It's Wednesday which means there's a new Onion. A favorite news brief from today's issue:

God's Gift To Women Returned
TUSCON, AZ—Moments after unsuccessfully propositioning all of the female patrons at the Kon Tiki Lounge, God's gift to women, 31-year-old Patrick Roland, was returned to his maker Monday night. "That Pat guy was cute, but he sure was pushy," said Debbie Werner, a fellow Lounge patron. "He kept trying to buy me Cosmos, but I told him to buzz off. A few minutes later, he stumbled out the door and got run over by a bus." Werner said she hopes that next time God's feeling generous, He gives women something more useful, like money.

You never really appreciate your socks, individually, until you have to hang all of them up to dry in your tiny three-room apartment because someone broke the dryer (air was blowing, but drum not spinning) and didn't leave a note on it and before you figured it out you had done two big wet loads of laundry and it was 10:30 p.m. with no laundromats open. I had to find some thin rope and string it wherever I could (from roller-shade bracket to closet rod, for example) to make clotheslines. My bedroom looks like a tenement, with two criss-crossing lines of hankerchiefs, underwear, and socks. I stuck a broomstick between two kitchen chairs and hung everything I could put onto a clotheshanger from it (a lot of stuff that had been hanging up in my closet is now in a big pile) and set up a big fan to blow onto it.

One other wonderful feature of my building's (coin-op) laundry machine is that the washer doesn't spin the clothes dry; you can literally squeeze water out of the clothes when the load is done. So this morning I still have sopping-wet sweaters lying on paper bags on the floor and stiff wet jeans hanging off of chair backs. It's frickin' ridiculous. I should just lug everything to the laundromat after work but that almost seems like a defeat. Sickly, I paid for two dryer-loads before I figured out the stupid thing wasn't actually spinning, so I feel like I've paid for these clothes to be dry already. So get dry, dammit! This shit is insane!

You never really appreciate your socks, individually, until you have to hang all of them up to dry in your tiny three-room apartment because someone broke the dryer (air was blowing, but drum not spinning) and didn't leave a note on it and before you figured it out you had done two big wet loads of laundry and it was 10:30 p.m. with no laundromats open. I had to find some thin rope and string it wherever I could (from roller-shade bracket to closet rod, for example) to make clotheslines. My bedroom looks like a tenement, with two criss-crossing lines of hankerchiefs, underwear, and socks. I stuck a broomstick between two kitchen chairs and hung everything I could put onto a clotheshanger from it (a lot of stuff that had been hanging up in my closet is now in a big pile) and set up a big fan to blow onto it.

One other wonderful feature of my building's (coin-op) laundry machines is that the washer doesn't spin the clothes dry; you can literally squeeze water out of the clothes when the load is done. So this morning I still have sopping-wet sweaters lying on paper bags on the floor and stiff wet jeans hanging off of chair backs. It's frickin' ridiculous. I should just lug everything to the laundromat after work but that almost seems like a defeat. Sickly, I paid for two dryer-loads before I figured out the stupid thing wasn't actually spinning, so I feel like I've paid for these clothes to be dry already. So get dry, dammit! This shit is insane!

Hi. I'm back. I was in Florida, where I swam, rode on kiddie rides, and saw the B-52s perform; then I came home, had an out-of-town house-guest for an overnight (T, in town to spend time with her brother she's only met once several months ago, who her mom had given up for adoption before she was born and didn't tell T until the brother contacted her mom; he lives about four blocks away from me) and then I went to a wedding three hours away, which was very nice and fun. Dave and Kelsey: TLF. They exited the church to a guitar-only version of "Panama" courtesy of Mr. D. Crommet.

Then there was some craziness. My grandfather is not doing well. He has been slowly, very slowly, sliding downhill because of Alzheimer's. It's been very sad and frustrating to watch. He recently seems to have had a small stroke, or one in a series of small strokes, that somehow made him decide to stop eating, and especially, drinking. So instead of going home after the wedding, I went up to Laconia to see my grandfather and try to give some comfort to my grandmother. My parents and sister had arrived before me.

Apparently it's a fairly common old-person thing, the not wanting to drink fluids; put water in their mouths and their body just doesn't want to try to swallow, too afraid to choke on it. So nursing home aides put thickener in their drinks and spoon it to them like babies. The thickener is just starch - it doesn't add flavor. Thickened juice sounds okay, but gelatinized black coffee (which my grandfather took a spoonful of) is pretty gross to me. Anyway, he's all thin and his voice is whispery and reedy-dry, and a good 90-percent of the time he was incomprehensible. He did seem to realize we were all there, his family around him, and that seemed to make him happy. He'd smile and look like himself again. But then he would move his arms and legs, restless and agitated, like he wanted to get out of the loungechair and walk somewhere, though he's far too weak for that. He'd occasionally jerk his whole body in a startle response like babies sometimes do. At one clearer point he said, "I want a new brain."

I tried to do some of the Buddhist meditations you do when someone's dying - basically you picture them having a good death, surrounded by acceptance and peace, with the person completely healthy and happy. But the room was too noisy and busy, and he couldn't be still. So I said goodbye when everyone else did, and I hid my crying, because that's what my repressed WASPy family does.

My sister and bro-in-law had rented a car to get up there so I made them drive me home Sunday night. We ate at Spoleto's and on Monday morning I called my boss - "I know this is really last minute, but do you mind if I take the day off?" - and we three went to Casablanca, where we ate crepes in the window and watched the short and cute Pulaski Day Parade march down Main Street. Then they were all into the shopping. And then they left and now I'm doing laundry and the Red Sox game is in the background just because I don't have anything better to watch or do and I'm feeling lazy. I figure I deserve it.

I'm going to be away on business (and then a wedding) until Sunday, so there's gonna be a break from blogging. See you then!

I love this idea: At the GALLOP PICTURE EXCHANGE you drop off a picture to be screened onto a t-shirt, and purchase a t-shirt with someone else's image on it. Unfortunately they're in England, but it looks like you can email them.

This image/shirt is available:



as is this one:



Go, be a part of this crazy experiment.

I wake up to NPR news so sometimes I hear stories through a semi-conscious haze. This morning I swear I heard that Roger Ebert had died, so I went online to make sure. He's alive (right??) but in my search I found Ebert's Answer Man column Archives on the Chicago Sun-Times site. Pretty interesting stuff about movies new and old.

I liked this letter, especially the Tom Clancy quote at the end (maybe he's not so bad after all):

Q: I've noticed an interesting trend over the last few years: You can sometimes tell who the "bad guys" are in a movie or TV show by what computer they use. For instance, on "24," all the bad guys used PCs while the good guys all used Macs. The same holds true for "Austin Powers," "Legally Blonde," etc. Why do you think Apple always gets the plumb roles? I'm of the opinion that Hollywood loves the underdog and has a close relationship with Apple computer, whereas PCs seem controlled by a megalomaniac in Seattle. Are there a lot more Mac zealots like me in Hollywood? Does Apple pour sponsorship money in big-budget studio movies?

Justin Toomey, Athens, Ohio


A: Since many Windows machines look alike, Apple is one of the few manufacturers that can gain by product placement, which accounts for some of the Macs. It's true that the movie industry and creative types in general prefer the Mac. The novelist Tom Clancy sends e-mails with this signature line: "Never ask a man what computer he uses. If it's a Mac, he'll tell you. If it's not, why embarrass him?"

Hey, I finally posted on-topic today over at CraftyTown - a review of a fine store called Glamourpuss. Thanks to Lesa for telling me about the store; I love it.

I saw two flicks this weekend - American Splendor and Lost in Translation. AS was great, but Lost was amazing. Bill Murray is just superb in this movie. Even during the funny parts - even during a karaoke scene - I was never thinking "Oh, he's doing the same schtick I've seen him do on SNL." Scarlett Johansenn was good too. Not incredible, like Murray was, but still very solid. I found it funny and touching and a little heartbreaking. Plus now I really want to go to Tokyo; I've wanted to go for years, but this movie clinched it.

I failed to find a dress to wear for the wedding, so I might end up wearing something I already have (and where's the fun in that?). I was hoping 25 Central could help me, since I had a quick look at their stuff during work Friday, but it seems that in the past two days they've sold out of all of their size smalls in the non-$300-dresses. I blame the Smithies. I might have to go to the dreaded mall after work. Wednesday morning I'm flying to Orlando for a media event (along with four coworkers) and won't be back until early evening Friday, so time is getting short.

In other news, I had a ham sandwich. Not really, but I did have some bacon. Yummy.

My brother-in-law pointed out this excellent site to me: 365 Days Project has a different odd song every single damn day. He says today's is particularly great but I'll have to wait until I get home to hear it.

It looks like Magnolia was actually a look into the future.

Black Table has a funny yet very creepy interview with the cagey, morally-bankrupt webmaster of a soft-core kiddie porn site. The article is titled WHY DOES CHILDSUPERMODELS.COM EXIST, ANYWAY? and I wouldn't go to that site unless you're ready to be seriously disturbed and saddened. Just read the interview.

I can't seem to stop sneezing and blowing my nose - my annual first-frost cold might be beginning tonight. I found this appropriate image from Engrish:

I just wrote another Craftytown entry. I'm still kind of flailing around there. I haven't really figured out what I want to (and can) say. It doesn't help that we're in crunch-time at work and I don't have time to wander around downtown during lunch. I do want to post a review of the new expensive craft-ish store - it's called KOMJ or something (four letters that don't make a word). I'll have to stop in sometime today first.

I went to the open mike at Harry's last night - and where the hell were you? I got there at 10:30 expecting it to be packed and there were three people there. Henning hadn't even started playing. Eventually I spied L hiding in the smoky moonlit corner and I joined her. It was a surreal night. Weird performances, each unique and odd. I don't want to dis anyone who has the balls to go up and perform so I just won't say any more. It was cool to see Jeff play; he uses a sequencer (not sure that's the right name) to play with himself. (Heh) He'll play a few bars and hit a pedal and it will play what he just played in a continuous loop. So he plays his own backup guitar, kind of. He also had a drum machine in there. Really cool sounding.

Tonight I'm back on schedule, hosting dinner-and-TV-night with the girls, A and T (who are 17 and 14, for those keeping track at home). I feel bad about T, who was frustrated she missed out on a massive trip to the mall I took Saturday with A and three of her friends. A couple of them were buying birthday gifts for T so it's kind of good she wasn't there. Instead T went with some old White Brook friends to the Easthampton Fall Festival (a trade show with a bunch of boring booths in the high school gym) and then to Fright Fest at Six Flags, but she said it wasn't fun. T is trying to be polite to her old E'ton friends, who adore her, but she really has never felt much of a connection with them. She connected immediately with her new PVPA friends, who are as smart and creative as she is. She seems happier than I've seen her in a long time. But what do you do, if your old friends just aren't who you want them to be?

I had a similar situation in jr. high and high school; I was part of a sizeable clique of nerds and geeks, but my sister and I never felt totally comfortable with them. They wore makeup and perfume and (most) were overweight and in marching band and were kind of judgemental and had fluffy pink bedspreads with white poster beds and didn't have any creative outlets at all. The boys were similar except either painfully tidy and uptight (polo shirts, khaki shorts, and white izod socks pulled up to their knees), or really slobbish and messy (one had a fabric-covered three-ring binder that was shiny with french fry grease). So my sister and I picked the three people we felt the most affinity with - a creative band-member girl, an artsy sorta-punk newcomer, and a messy boy - and we clung together at parties. After school we'd get together with one or another, making art, reading Shakespeare aloud (for an English class), or playing Super Mario Bros on Nintendo. At night, if it wasn't freezing, we'd walk "downtown," i.e. the two strip malls nearest our suburban development (which had a movie theater, a 24-hour diner, a supermarket, a K-Mart, a Burger King on one side and a McDonald's on the other, and a row of tiny stores), singing Elvis Costello songs and trying to get the harmonies right, talking back to the cars full of semi-scary guys cruising the neighborhood who'd stop and ask us if we needed a ride or wanted to "party", spray-painting tropical fish with a stencil on the new housing development's cement culvert that the skateboarders had taken over. It still wasn't perfect but we did the best we could.

It was pretty wild to see how everyone had changed the summer after our first year in college. A couple of the uptight boys, who had gotten into prestigeous schools, came back complete drunks and potheads. A couple of the girls really let loose and now frequently "hooked up" at parties, where they would drink until they blacked out. A few of them ended up dropping out of good colleges to go to community college. They had all worked so fuckin' hard in high school they were completely burnt out by the time they reached college. Mamas, dont let your babies grow up to be high-achieving perfectionists with insular social lives, because they make really bad choices when they find out what they've been missing.

I got a letter (an account of a dating "dealbreaker") published in Salon. If you're not a member, just watch the stupid ad - it's worth it. Just call me "Erin" - I'm the second to last story.