so says the straw hat

In your brother's old bedroom there was a hole in the wall or a giant faded painting or writing.  Something I never really saw and you explained it once but I can no longer hold the story in my hands. We watched Animal House late one night in your bedroom when you used to sleep upstairs. It wasn't the version you usually saw on TV. I think the boobs made you feel uncomfortable when I was sitting right next to you. I don't know how late it was when I left. We were in high school then. When I turned 19 I stubbed my toe really bad in Canada on my first ever drinking binge. I remember ice cubes. You bought me a ring. I don't know if I got sick or not but the next day I didn't want to eat anything at all. We were supposed to leave but I decided I wanted to stay. When you dropped me off at my house in Bothell I wouldn't let you kiss me goodbye. When you moved downstairs I showed up once, 4am, pouring rain. I had a habit of doing that to you. Showing up just when...

Today, when I was trial-watching a pair of three-year-old twins (one girl, one boy) I asked them if they liked their "Tea-Tea" (their current nanny). The little boy looked at me very seriously and said "Yes. She is my best friend." And my heart melted. When my friend's baby K. talks he is speaking the incoherent tonal language of a 1-year-old. I listen very seriously. Sometimes he tells me jokes and then we belly laugh. Today we went to a park near his house and he befriended some five and six year old girls who carried him and pulled him around the whole place. He was loving it. And also a little confused by the whole thing. Me too!  My friend says she has never met anybody like me - who doesn't want to just spend some time away alone after spending the afternoon with a toddler. It is unusual. I want to use this year to recognize that my joy stems from being around and interacting with children. Some people are born to race cars or be acrobats ...

By Herve Bouchard Illustrations by Janice Nadeau This is a short graphic novel about two boys experiencing their fathers death. It is written from the point of view of the older, smaller brother. It seems he is not very well liked, but without any particular reason. He loves a character named Scott Carey...I cannot figure if this is a fictional person or a real athlete or movie star or what. The book has beautiful illustrations and is a pretty and lovely story that manages to show a little about how families and people deal with death, with children, and how strange death can be to a child. Really do check out Janice Nadeau's site--her work is so soft and pretty. In this book it is used particularly well to help emphasize the feelings of loneliness and loss, particularly in one sequence where each page shows more and more people walking away from the scene of tragedy until finally nobody is left but the poor heartbroken mother. On her website, under the books tab, you can ta...

By David Sedaris First, a simple praise to the library for allowing me to read all these books I would have probably not purchased on my own. Now, I have long known, loved, appreciated the library but in the two years since I moved to Austin something has been amiss. Somehow (constantly changing addresses, bizarre branch hours, no texas ID) every time I went to the library I did not manage to get a library card. I still read books. Kindle books and Anis books and bought books and borrowed books. But I did not have the freedom of just taking, giving back, and taking some more. And now that I am back in the library game I can officially say it was a sorely missed part of my life. Once, my friend Jon said sex was like a strange beast that you never really missed when you were not having it (he might be the only guy I know that feels that way about sex) but once you were having it you just wanted it ALL THE TIME. That is how I feel about the library. Alright. This books is an odd little...

I am on day 10 of 28 day elimination diet to figure out if I have allergic or other reactions to food...So far so good. Phase 1 is really limited, and really delicious. Packed with veggies and fruits and more veggies. More Kale please! Put it in a smoothie! Put it in my brown rice! Put it in my salad! Yum. That was a pretty bad chant about Kale. I hope you loved it. Look at this delicious and healthy soup I am so excited to make! I will take and post pictures when it is done. For now, here is a picture of UNHEALTHY but DELICIOUS things I sometimes make. It is fun to put pictures in my blog. Just given y'all something to look at.  These were girl scout and fruit inspired dark chocolate cupcakes I made for fun a long while back. Orange, "Grasshopper" or mint, "Tag-Alongs" or Peanut Butter and Strawberry. They were tastier than they looked. Anlo, a known cupcake critic was so excited about them he seriously wanted me to open my own business. The next time I...

By Sherman Alexie Yes. Sometimes I read YA. Because I love it. There is something that touches the gut so much more readily. Something more honest about YA. Or maybe this is just a good book with a simple story. I like the simplicity and the harshness of book written for younger audiences. Especially one like The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, that is not afraid to deal with heavy subjects, curse, and somehow maintains the voice of a believable child protagonist. Super-quick to read, great story, funny and poignant. I think I should never say poignant when I talk about books ever again. I will leave it in right here just to point out that I hope to NEVER write "poignant" again in response to a book. It seems such a trite and poorly thought out response. Like I just got lazy with my adjectives. Regardless, people should most definitely read this book.

Some days the fact that I lost five years worth of photographs feels almost like a heart breaking. Sometimes like fog. Sometimes like nothing at all. This technology thing lacks permanence. I have nothing to hold. When I was 16, somebody took all of the CD's out of my car. I had just organized them by frequency-of-listening first, and alphabetically second. And in just a single night they were all gone. The thief had taken them from my own driveway. I was sad, but also never learned to care about CD's again. They suddenly became something that could not really be kept, were meant to be lost, held little value or worth. Almost like they treated me poorly so I got revenge by never looking their way again. Who knows.  But my photographs being gone. So many things from so many years that I will never have back. I can't find my trip to Costa Rica in 2005. Or my relationship with Ben. Or going to Australia. College. Paris. I better start making back ups. Some of my pi...

By Tina Fey Picked up BossyPants at our local library and just finished reading it. It was great. I somehow feel like if I saw Tina Fey on the street today I would be able to approach her as a friend - big smile on my face "Tina!!" and she would be equally surprised and excited to see me after all these years. Maybe it is because I felt a twinge of understanding when she talked about taking good news and turning it into complete anxiety or because her subject matter was just strange enough to remind me of some papers I got away with writing in my scholarly persuits. Regardless, I loved it. It was funny, honest (I think?), and totally ridiculous at the same time. Good job Tina Fey for working so hard and being so funny! Gold stars. I won't call it my favorite part, because there were a lot of great moments in this book--but definitely a highlight and a change of tone was the chapter where she has "prayers" for her daughter. They were funny, heartwarming (not wo...

Three cherries sitting on the plate looking just like kisses. I cooked my first Dal inside the belly of a wedding gift tonight and my husband, who does not eat beans, was excited to know about the taste. Later, we entered the house and it smelled good like somebody else's home. When he asked after the taste I told him how it filled me all the way up to the brim. Sometimes, when I am driving in January, windows down because of this hot southern sun, I wonder what my hair looks like in the sunlight and wind against the bigness blue of Austin's sky. And sometimes, when I am driving and he is sitting beside me I reach out for his arm, southern sun warm, and it feels just like all the birds coming home.

1) Stop using so many emoticons. Challenge: stop using them at all. They are mashed up punctuation that is supposed to depict emotion?! Once, I emoticoned a co-worker over gchat with a classic ;b and he said "what is that supposed to be?" It was endearing and made me realize that I then had to say..."Well, Peter, fellow co-worker, father of 2 adults, friend and software developer, that is a smiley face emoticon where I am simultaneously winking and sticking my tongue out at you. I did this to convey that my last comment was a quirky retort." This is not the reason I am stopping the emoticons. I am stopping them because they are popping up EVERYWHERE in my daily correspondence and I do not like that I feel this impulse to put punctuation together in a way the symbolizes a face in order to express some sort of overall tone of the email. If I cannot write to express tone then I should not write at all. Plus I don't think anything done too much is a good thing. I am...