Saturday song (The Head and the Heart).

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Katie put this song on a mix for me. It’s track 14 and I skip to it as I drive up the winding hill toward home. And I sing along to it very loudly, especially the lyric that Katie must have known I’d need, the crescendo of “Been talking ’bout the way things change/my family lives in a different state.”

And then today talking to Andrew of Shake the Baron who is my friend and is moving to live in a cabin by a lake and teach guitar and record music for people and make songs through the winter. He listens to songs for melody, I listen for lyrics. Hopefully someday we’ll write a song together.

This video is is in a lonely place, a high underpass somewhere where the acoustics make them loud and resonant. I wonder how much of songs is still in the stones there. Either way I’ll sing along.

A good day (recap).

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Sara and I eating breakfast in the sunny square of window in downtown White River Junction before she drove the five hours back to New York

 

Walking into work having just been with someone who has known more than one of my lives

 

Running after work in new sneakers up a hill I’ve never walked and scaring a group of long-necked wild turkeys, finding oyster mushrooms on the side of the road and the sun that flashed on the leaves

 

A date with Misha, wine tasting at my new restaurant, then him rushing around the country store with a new long-handled rake in his hand and me grabbing paint chips (free colors!) before the store closes at 9pm plus some Vermont dark chocolate at the checkout

 

The possibility of a new friend

 

And the night is not yet over

 

(via this isn’t happiness)

Poet for hire.

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Call Sean. His resume boasts a solo exhibition at the Sideyard Poets and Writers Event and numerous book arts victories. He is also a founding member of the Poets Trampoline Club.

Especially if you’re famous, you should definitely call him. There is nothing our celebrities need more these days than a poet.

“Like torpedoing birds” (photo story) (mine).

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Last week I met this man in the coffee shop. He was well-spoken and friendly and we chatted. Here he is:

(from Peter Money’s website)

I didn’t meet Allen Ginsberg; he’s dead and likely never visited White River Junction. The man I did meet recommended that I read Joanne Kyger. As it turns out, she’s great! She’s beautiful!

Then the other day I got in the truck and there were four pumpkins sitting shotgun. I put one out by the mailbox and two along the driveway and one is still riding shotgun.

(from this isn’t happiness)

It’s autumn and the mums are on display. I’ve been reading The Collected Writings of Joe Brainard and oh I love it so much I love it so much.  Also, we’ve been drying sliced tomatoes, storing them in oil, stacking them in the cupboards where they’ll wait until they’re given as gifts. Here’s a painting by Joe Brainard, of a tomato.

(from The Met)

Outside, everything is in motion from the wind, the leaves flying to the ground like torpedoing birds.

(from Misha’s flickr)

 

The end.

 

“The World’s Only Loofah Poem” (mine).

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The World’s Only Loofah Poem (I mean it’s gotta be, right?!)

 

                  (This poem was written after remembering a conversation that took place on Vermont Street in San Diego, when Sam mentioned that she doesn’t use a loofah and Caity went ballistic with incredulousless and I laughed so hard but agreed with her bafflement completely–even Misha uses a loofah!–then on the phone I told  Katie this story and she said, “I don’t use a loofah either. Does everyone use a loofah!?”)

 

Call me crazy but

I was under the impression

that once loofahs were invented

everyone just started using one!

Loofahs are the greatest!

They spread soap with ease

and bubbles! I can’t imagine

using soap with economy

without one! How else

would I wash so well,

would I scrub this self?

A washcloth hurts

my skin and my hands

are just hands! I need

my drugstore loofah!

Don’t you? Don’t

YOU!?

 

 

Life at Littleleaf (photos of a new home).

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We’ve named our homestead Littleleaf, come visit. Raspberries grow through the chilly autumn nights.

 

 

 

We bought chickens from a man named Dan; we haven’t named them yet. I visit them every day and hold each one for a couple of minutes. They don’t love me yet, but soon.

 

 

 

Last Sunday, we celebrated. We bought our first farm animals, and before that, we planted the greenhouse full of food. I harvested all the cherry tomatoes, which are still coming.

 

 

 

Homestead in the background, man in the foreground.

 

 

 

The day was warm. We inspected tools in the barn. Well, Misha did.

 

 

 

The sun sets earlier every day. The trees are the color of our chickens.

 

***

 

All photos by Misha. See more.

Things that are NEW (list).

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Things that are NEW:

 

1. My dad no longer has a mustache. (My dad has had a mustache my entire life. My mom has literally never seen his upper lip before.)

 

2. We got CHICKENS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Four ladies and a cock.

 

3. My parents live in Austin, TX. It’s true what they say: you can never go home again.

 

4. I quit a job after one day. Adios, youseguys!

 

5. I’m currently cooking a VAT of French onion soup. That is a lot of soup. (I’m using the word “vat” loosely here, considering I have no idea how much soup amounts to one. But trust me: soup for days.)

 

6. My closest friend lives over an hour away (insert sad emoticons here).

 

7. Almost every item of clothing that I’ve been wearing for the past THREE YEARS is packed away in a box labeled “Summer.”

 

8. I read a memoir. (I hate memoirs! Not this one though. Probably because I know the author. Also she is very, very skilled at describing food.).

 

9. THE LEAVES ARE CHANGING COLORS EVERY DAY IT IS SERIOUSLY A DYNAMIC EXPERIENCE TO WATCH.

 

10. I thought I was eating bacon the other day, but…it was ham. I ate ham, you guys. This is Really New.

 

I AM A TREASURE HUNTER & RASPBERRIES ARE MY TREASURES (poem) (mine).

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I AM A TREASURE HUNTER & RASPBERRIES ARE MY TREASURE

 

I am a treasure hunter hunting

raspberries, red gems hiding

underneath crisp green leaves

 

***

 

When I’m picking raspberries, I sing “Yes I’m a treasure hunter, call me the treasure planter” to the tune of this song and it makes me feel AWESOME.