Things that are small & grown in Imperial Beach (the series continues).

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Sometimes a day involves burying dead chickens and stripping lemon verbena for tea. Sometimes that day also brings the tiniest of tiny carrots into your life. For me, that day was Wednesday. I was harvesting carrots for lunch with Misha and pulled out a handful, including the tiniest of tinies!

 

 

Here’s a shot of the smallest four, which I brought home (the others were eaten in a salad).

 

 

Then, on Thursday, I planted melons and lettuce and stacked onions for drying. And found a small onion for this project.

 

 

Then, while looking through photos, I found this one that Misha took last summer, where my face is big and shiny and strange looking. But look what I’m holding!

 

 

Onions & tomatoes come from Suzie’s Farm; the carrots are from Wild Willow.

 

Stay tuned for more tiny tinies!!

 

 

Things that are small: farmers’ market edition (photo series) (mine).

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Hello and welcome to the 2nd installation of Things that are small, where I’ll show you a fruit lineup, featuring the smallest of doughnut peaches. Doughnut peaches are like regular peaches that got sat on by very small butts. Perhaps squirrel butts? That’s funny to think of.

All fruits pictured are from Sweet Tree Farms, one of my farm bffs. Annie is their farmer (remember when I wrote about her boobs in a poem?) and yesterday was her birthday. In honor of it we all sang terribly and ate carrot cake. But nevermind carrots! Today is about tiny peaches!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“I want to shake out a fat broom” (poem by Alice Walker) (hand-lettered).

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It’s funny to me that I don’t even know Lisa Congdon and yet I post things she’s made, like the above Alice Walker. I guess that’s what blogs do, let us be in touch with people we wouldn’t otherwise. I like it when people tell me that they read my blog–it’s always a confession. If you’re reading this, thanks for reading this. When you tell me that you read this, I get pretty joyful.

 

Poem about eras ending (mine).

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For Later

 

We drove through bikinis, walked the paved strip

by the water as kids flirted and cursed. Clouds were low,

unmelting; dolphins moved through metallic

 

ocean. Sean found a piece of unopened candy on the road

and pocketed it. I wasn’t cold or sad or verbose; I was happy

he’d found something to eat later.  I’m always thinking

 

of the delight eating provides  me and how to dispense that.

At the party, Dean’s family was casual and kind, circles

of Ritz crackers beaming on trays. We saw the solar

 

eclipse, made watchable  by the thick sea’s clouds. Night

light over sun. She was scooped, our bulb; we watched

her portioned. Whether you care about weather or not,

 

you could see it. And on cement, below, a group of us

talking, all seemingly young, hands at our sides, no

stones in our pockets to smooth down, to hold.

 

Sideyard success. Serious joy.

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The sideyard was so much fun. I was this happy:

Except I was wearing a blue crown with curled ribbons longer than my hair, a patterned poncho, and wings made out of leaves (made by Jen), and not a clown costume. As Frankie puts it,

best thing about the sideyard poetry readings:

the folks walking past on the other side of the hedge

on their way to friday-night-party

catching clips of outloud poetry

and the quick image of

a writer in the light

as they pass

What was also wonderful was how many people there were (estimates are in the high 90s), and the flower bouquets with artichokes in them (made by Ellie of course):

and how everyone got so drunk that no one bought books like these:

and perhaps the greatest miracle of the whole event is that not a single neighbor yelled at us. And people bought Misha’s photographs! And I didn’t even have a hangover the next morning! And the next morning was Saturday, and Ellie and I split a mushroom and bacon fritatta covered with blue cheese with whole wheat toast and raspberry jam. The end.

Mary Moon: she’s a vegetarian (song).

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When I was sixteen years old I was the only vegetarian around—I lived in a small town and I guess everyone ate meat.

 

I had three best guy friends; we were a bit of a foursome. We once made a short film with my video camera where one of them, Eoin, turned into a cigar Indian while trying to thieve objects in a house (including toilet paper). The house was my house and we still quote that movie; it’s called “Sitting Bull” and my parents still have that cigar Indian.

 

The point is, I was the vegetarian of the group. They used to sing this song to me constantly. Listening to it now, I feel good about being compared to Mary Moon. She’s an intellectual, but despite this fact, remains quite sexual. I’m down with that.

 

This one goes out to Tom, Eoin, and Schnibbe, who taught me this song, to speed up at yellow lights, and the meaning of a “rusty trombone.” Gross.

 

Things that are awesome (Sunday edition).

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garlic scapes are awesome

roses smell awesome

tampons are awesome

women that use diva cups are awesome

old ladies who dye their white hair purple are awesome

men with babies strapped to their fronts are awesome (so is anyone with a baby strapped to their body)

bare feet are awesome

mixed recycling is awesome

happy hour prices are awesome

bicycling feels awesome

tie dye is awesome

“Made in the USA” is awesome

having a sister is awesome

homemade hot sauce tastes awesome

grilling is awesome

finishing projects is awesome

making pancakes for yourself is awesome (so is making pancakes with anyone)

driving a tractor is awesome

getting high on coffee is awesome

artichokes are awesome

handshakes are awesome

wordplay is awesome

DJ names are awesome

blueberry season is awesome

reading is totally awesome

i think rollerblading looks awesome but i only did it once so i don’t know for sure

being taken out to lunch is awesome

feeding people is awesome

riding shotgun is awesome

James Brown will always be awesome

writing poems is for sure awesome

giving poems to people is awesome

whiskey is awesome

ginger beer is awesome

old friends are the most awesome of awesome

homemade muffins are awesome

thrift stores are awesome especially the sunglasses section

records are awesome

the word “platypus” is awesome and so is “spritz”

hip hop lyrics can be really awesome

bartering is awesome

letters in the mail are undeniably awesome

bacon is awesome why didn’t anyone make me eat it earlier it so so goddamn awesome

summer coming on is awesome

Misha is number 1 awesome

treasures are awesome (like bird bones or gemstones)

wind turbines are awesome

root beer floats are awesome

notebooks are awesome especially new notebooks

woodcuts are awesome

worms are awesome

herbs are awesome

friendship bracelets are awesome

monks are awesome and so are nuns

hats are of course awesome but we already knew that

getting an mfa is awesome and i’m almost done doing it!!!! awesome over & out.

 

 

 

James Baldwin wrote it; Heather Garner sewed it (image).

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“Perhaps home is not a place but simply an irrevocable condition.”

-James Baldwin, from “Giovanni’s Room”

 

Thank you, Heather, for the beautiful present.

 

(You can buy Heather’s handcrafts on her etsy site. She might even take embroidery requests!)

 

And here’s a painting of Baldwin, by Beauford Delaney, that I especially love.

 

 

Have you read “Giovanni’s Room” yet? Please do.