Before this Fall October 28, 2009

I’m wary of trees

The leaves- when lush

with languid August rush- they

lie and lull

Make me stupid

beneath midnight canopy

beneath summer Cygnus, Lyra-

These fill and brim your silvered eyes

Flit the skies and play across

lips pressed like hands in prayer

What can I trust

when morning is on your tongue?

(like summer, you run-

-I remember)

shooting and stabbing,

sharp, so sweet

Make me stupid

until September

 

Eh, something I’m working on.  See, if I’m ‘working on it’, it means- do not criticize.  It also means I’ll shove it into my daily planner amid fifteen other short and long pieces that I’ll never get back to, and lately I feel vulnerable putting up long finished pieces.  Like running a race, you have to have an excuse afterwards for your performance, even if it’s a good one.  

Got a long way to go and a short time to get there.

The Halloween parade is tonight- I love Uniontown parades!

Boring Monday Blog October 26, 2009

This is the month that never ends…yes it goes on and on my friends…   Remember Shari Lewis and Lambchop?  Man, Violet used to watch that as a toddler- the most annoying PBS show!!  Just thought of it…

This is an obligatory, courtesy blog-  because I’ve been too busy to commit to anything of substance.  October isn’t dragging by any means, it’s just jam packed with sanity-challenging…stuff.  Halloween started this past weekend for us- Saturday night was party-hopping.  Several old friends, family, etc.  was nice, but didn’t get to bed until 3:34 which ruins the following day for me- got out of bed around noon!  Now, this week contains TWO parades the kids march in, WPIALS at Slippery Rock, a doctors apt. at Children’s in the ‘Burgh, and preparations to the yard and house for the kids’ party on Ghoul’s Night (I LOVE halloween)- (and I have to fit my running in here and there- I had a great running week last week) plus my niece and nephews are coming over for trick or treating, which s the best trick or treating around- seriously looks like the set of E.T. in my ‘hood- it’s awesome.  Anyhow, I’m out… I’ll keep you posted

Rest Stops and Parking Lots October 18, 2009

I have a favorite place to fall apart and dismantle: odd mile markers and rest areas…always the car. 

I drove halfway through Ohio, collected my Columbus Marathon Bib number, packet, spent fifteen on parking and turned my coat collar up to block the stinging cold wind.  I walked countless back-and-forth miles up and down N. High Street.  All alone I visited the (rather sparsely exhibited) Museum of Art.  The sculptural collection of Dale Chihuly (Chihuly, Illuminated) emited a soft, heated flourescent buzz.  I drove around for awhile.  I chased my aunt down.  I sat in another parking lot.  I sat in the Hyatt Regency lobby watching cut-out people with stand-up strollers and put tab-A-through-slot-B Coach Bags and Coach toddlers.  Finally, after many hours, I decided to drive home and not race; so at 7:00pm I pointed the Jetta eastward on Route 70 and cried until I couldn’t anymore.  That’s the honestly sad truth.  My lips were numb and my eyes were twitching so I pulled over once in the “Stop only for Emergency” Lane and once at a rest area twenty miles west of Zanesville.  I cried until my eyes couldn’t offer any more.  It was pathetic and never had I been so comforted by the Pennsylvania welcome sign.  Ugh.   Horrible. 

Don’t sit in your car for too long, in solitude, on a dismal day with your head already swirling with jumbledyjumble staring at treetops and stratocumulous clouds. Take it from me.

(above, perched- Pallas)

Sunday Sicklies October 12, 2009

We’re all sick kids.   Colby’s wandering around with a quilt wrapped around him, looking like royalty- King Nyquil.   Violet’s room even smells toxic.  My nose is constantly dripping, but not to the point of making walrus tusks out of t.p., which I ordinarily will do. 

I feel like I’ve spent the weekend in bed.  Maybe because I did.  Life revolved around the bed after running ten miles Saturday afternoon, culminated in some Tylenol PM (sore) taken much, much too late, and resulted in waking at 11:20 am today.  I felt like I was late for the first day of tenth grade or something- utterly lost.  Did I miss the bus?  I don’t know the last time I slept so much. And it didn’t stop there- I remained horizontal all afternoon posting things on Craigslist, eBay and various forums hoping to rake in some needed cash.   Someone please buy my stuff.  Now tis late Sunday nigght and I’m STILL lying across the bed!  I must get out tomorrow- maybe put down some miles, run some errands- visit the mountains, chase some hobbits.  It’s really getting thick with autumn aura out there- I was amazed by the difference in the mountains when I was there Saturday morning-  the leaves are changing here, but up there they were absolutely beautiful and peaking.  I was along the river…..wow.  I want to get back up there and all of us go hiking before a good rain or wind destroys the foliage. 

Looks like I will not be a rock star after all- my services are unwanted.  Oh well, I really don’t think I could’ve pulled it off anyway (sniff sniff) 

Five days until Columbus (insert scared-face icon)  I’m a little stiff and sore after a ten-miler- NOT GOOD.  I just want to be fast.

and
Running is something that we’ve always done and

mostly I can’t even tell what I’m running from

(Amanda Palmer- Runs in the Family- great song)   Ho hum ho hum I guess it’s time to EXPIRE retire.

 

1:49 a.m. October 6, 2009

After a few weeks of my REM cycle dishing out some pretty nasty dreams, I  find myself in a quite nice one.  A very, very nice one, actually.   And wouldn’t you know it?  I’m yanked from it by Violet yelling for me- she’s sick and her body is not cooperating at barely two o’clock in the morning.  So I’m fumbling and blurry-eyed measuring out the pink-stuff and plotting my return to the dream.  Hopping back under the covers I scrunch my eyes tightly shut like I did as a kid when I’d awake suddenly in the night and pretend to be asleep so the ghosts or burglar or dead coalminers I imagined were just outside in the hall would pass me over.   I’m placing myself back in the scene-  to no avail.  Wasn’t happening.  In fact, I can’t even fall back asleep.  *sigh*  I’m strongly considering calling off work because my head feels like it’s in a vice (am I developing whatever Violet has?).

(colby spied on me yesterday and snapped this)

7:44 a.m.  There’s ice on my windshield.  ICE.  WTH?  I’m in a dense fog….yep, sick.  I’ve called in to work, dropped Colby and Carene off at school, took Murphy out, grabbed the paper and now I’m under a few pounds of blankets thinking about a second shot at dream recovery.  The trash truck is loudly letting the block know that it is backing up.  Wow.   October.  I’m still amazed at what a year can do when we’re ignorantly staring down the face of the future.  I’ll be back…

Zombies are good people. October 2, 2009

I am eating the most incredible tasting white veggie pizza.  Mmmmm. I am a movie snob- I LOVE movies- but not just any run of the mill mainstream caca that Hollywood craps out.  It’s gotta have substance, complexities and GOOD ACTING at the very least!  I’m not even into B-horror films like my peers are; they’re stupid (the movies, that is).  This drives my family crazy because if they see something that looks good, I jump on the computer and check rottentomatoes.com, and a few other sources for reviews.   Yeah, for years I’ve been torturing them all with critic statistics.  Slightly embarrassing too, because that means I’m putting all of my faith in someone else’s opinion, but somehow I rationalize it anyway.  My point is that I’ve been wanting to see Zombieland since I saw the previews (I know, zombies hail for the aforementioned B-film genre, but hey, I’m full of contradictions).  I really loved Shaun of the Dead and this movie looked zombie-silly too.  I like Zombies, there you have it.  So I’ve been staying away  from rottentomatoes.com all week because for once I didn’t want to spoil my going to see it tonight.  Seriously- it’s been hurting….. I mean, is it a tomato meter rating of 53%?   19%?  In which case I would not even go.  I’m lame.  I couldn’t fight the temptation any longer (can I ever?) and checked- 89%!!   Yay!  Worthy of an Angie-sized popcorn with extra salt!! 

I have a pretty full weekend to keep myself busy… Heart Walk, paint prepping, car cleaning, house cleaning, hopefully mix something fun in with all of that.  I need out of the house.  (What I NEED are cash donations so I can go see my man Michael Patrick for some quality tattoo time ) Have a great weekend-  and sadness- stay at bay! 

Breaking and Entering October 1, 2009

I’m longing for some old fashioned breaking and entering- criminal mischief of the investigative kind.  My mom, usually the co-conspirator.  I was digging around on my old blog to see what I was doing years ago at this time and came to my Oct 2, 2006 post.  I LOVE this house we broke into.  Anyone recognize it?  Well, here’s my old post…. because like F. Scott Fitzgerald describes, I’m always “being borne back ceaselessly into the past”…   Not much changes- running, feeling better.

Ohhhh…ahhhh…that’s better.  Where have you been, lost friend? I’m feeling much, much, better, thank you. Autumn is settling her bones around here; exoskeletons in mass graves amongst the dying crab grass. I’ve been running these evening, against time, in a frantic way… as if october’s spiny fingers are at my back urging me on, crunching the battlefield leaves and onward into the white gory of winter. Look up Sunny Day Real Estate. Listen. cry. whatever…hey, you do what you like, okay? I’ve been exploring haunted houses. Well, hopefully (haunted, that is). We broke into (my mother, aunt, dale) a personal obsession of mine on Third Street in Connellsville. Enchanting…the things that permeate my sleeping subconsious. For every nineteenth century home that I walk through, I momentarily become those former inhabitants. Silly, I know. I belong to another time, that’s certain.

Octobrrrrrrr October 1, 2009

We lost the town cup yesterday   That’s the race and the trophy cup passed between historic rivals Uniontown and LH (booooo!).  Last year both girls and boys won, this year….not.  I was so frozen when I got home that I sat in fetal position in the bottom of the shower until the hot water ran out and my feet still didn’t want to work.  In October celebratory fashion we watched Interview with the Vampire last night and I had odd dreams with long haired men in them.   Ha- I think I had a nightmare about the nineties.  No, but I did wreck my wagon in my dream and I woke up in a momentary panic that I had no car…I like that split second rush you get in a waking dream state, but not so much when it involves my Jetta. 

I’m a sight this morning- hair piled sloppily on my head in a bun, glasses on, bright green sweatshirt with a leprechaun on the front of it.  Reminds me of the sweatshirt my grandma Dee would wear…. it had a playboy bunny on it and she didn’t know it LOL.  I don’t know what just made me think of it, but my brother once slapped a bumper sticker on her car “Free the Weed” , emblazoned with a big marijuana leaf.   She thought it was a sticker for lawn weed control and drove around like that.  I miss her.  I miss her home being a refuge.  A place where dinner is always on the stove   I’m hunched over in my fancy garb coveting an enormous brownie-muffin. No french toast today; I decided, rather than regular pan brownies, to put the batter in muffin cups and put a big spoonful of cream cheese mixed with a little milk and sugar on top- viola!  Cheesecake brownies!  They turned out pretty damn good.  I don’t want to play jail today and I’m in denial that I only have twenty minutes to get ready- I better accept it and shut the laptop.  Happy October1!