drink away the awkward

Today's very short post is an homage to the office holiday party. It was actually better than I expected, but taxing nonetheless. I had the pleasure of meeting up with a work friend beforehand and here's a haiku about the segue between the two activities:

tater tots and beer
waiting for them to appear
small talk forever

picture: drinks at the Meierei Brewery in Potsdam, Germany, September 2011, film, Canon Tlb

demands

There a lot of things that evoke homicidal urges, albeit fewer now that I don't work in food service, which is frankly TOO much interaction with the underbelly of humanity to maintain equanimity off the clock. One thing that really sets off the boil is the @!$%^$ cat screeching at 2am, or 4am, or 1am, or any am except the am at which we are meant to be done sleeping. You see, she takes our middle of the night bathroom breaks as a cue to begin Operation Breakfast. It used to be the signal for her "midnight" snack, which we managed to eradicate about two months ago. What does the operation entail? She goes into the bathroom and howls at the top of her little lungs. For extra acoustic fervor, she will get into the tub where it echoes off the porcelain. Crafty little shit. Sometimes a harshly toned "HEY" is enough to settle the issue with short-lived results. But I finally figured out a solution that makes her go silent after about three minutes, and you will find it in the last line of today's first haiku.

howling falsetto
rings in my ears until I
shut the bathroom door

//

her belly sways as
she scurries to the window
to binge and purge plants

top picture: the kitchen sink of our apartment in Atlanta (pre-dog), August 2008, digital 
bottom picture: same apartment, demanding food, May 2008, digital 

runny

It's pretty tempting to skip out on this tonight. My day ballooned into something I wasn't expecting, and I managed to pick up some sniffly, sneezy something or other that is making me cranky because I take irrational pride in never getting sick. Possible Lesson: pride comes with a price. Actual lesson: wash your hands more, dummy. So here's my half-hearted (mouth-breathing) attempt at writing a haikus today because when you want to do a thing, you have to keep the long game in mind even when the short game is messy. Funny that I can't seem to write a short sentence as I introduce 17 syllable poems. My syntax is as runny as my nose!  

sneezing and hungry
on the train, can't find the words
is it bedtime yet?

//

it's more work to get
from here to there, but it beats
letting yourself down

picture: Bixby Bridge a little before sunset, June 2014, film, Canon Tlb 

tonic

This evening I listened to Mary Oliver's interview from the On Being podcast while I made a batch of my breakfast "bread" (a.k.a. almond honey cake/bread thing that is hard to classify but is amazing with coffee). What an incredible person she is. I've started about 5 sentences and trashed them all because I can't capture the way the podcast made me feel. The closest I can get is that feeling I associate with the resolving note of a song, the tonic or "home note," as it's often referred to. It's the one that feels round and whole and like you've finally collapsed into your chair after an exhausting run up and down the stairs. She made so many seemingly simple but incredibly powerful observations. Knowing very little about her other than the weight of her name, I'm excited to learn that the natural world plays such a major role in Oliver's work. A quick google search reveals that me not knowing about her naturalism is sort of like not knowing that Oprah had a talk show. Oh well, at least I'm here now. And here are today's not-very-related haikus about running on a day when it feels harder than I want it to:

I imagine each
person having their best run
to get through my own

//

the cascade of leaves
glinted in the sun as I
hoped for it to end*

*more about this conflict in a future post

picture: a rangy tree at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, May 2012 (?), film, Canon Tlb 

look up

The woods are kind of like a stereogram (think: magic eye); if you let your eyes rest, you start to realize you're surrounded by movement. Cheesy, but so true. This morning on my walk through Prospect Park I stopped along a wooded path because I saw a chipmunk racing along the boulders to my left. Then I saw a second chipmunk. Then a cardinal. And a blue jay. And a chipmunk on the other side of me. And leaves fluttering to the ground. There was a sea of movement that I had almost walked through without even noticing because of whatever flim-flam was swirling around my head at the moment. I'm sure there were dozens of similar scenes that I missed on the walk, but I'm happy to have noticed this one.

this morning I stood
still while chipmunks scampered on
rocks, and the dog whined

//

walked home from the train
to the sound of plinking rain.
wet feet, peaceful mind

picture: the bluebelle field at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, May 2012, film, Canon Tlb 

what's your jam?

Not a single day goes by without some sort of music, whether it's coming from my own hands or filtered through my music box (otherwise known as an ipod because I still haven't put music on my phone). Supposably*, there are people out there who just don't care for music, much like there are people who don't like chocolate (sorry friend I know who doesn't like chocolate - if you ever get around to reading this you will find out that I still think you're a weirdo). I'm not sure what I would do without either, but especially music because I use it in so many ways. There's wallowing, cheering up, slowing down, speeding up, connecting with others, getting away from others, concentrating, distraction, feeling creative, and stepping outside the uptight box I live in, which can sometimes creep back into the making of music and really ruin what should be a good time.

In old-time music, musicians gather in what are called "jams," which result in music that is of the moment. There is no sheet music and there's no one way to play a song. There are agreed upon melodies and basic structures/conventions to be followed, otherwise it would be chaos, but for the most part, it is a collective creation that comes out of whoever is in the jam at any given moment. It's incredible, and I had no idea it existed before attending the Swannanoa Gathering, an old time music camp near Asheville, NC. It's also my personal kryptonite because everyone has a role and unless the jam is large, it is hard to hide. My ear isn't sophisticated enough to pick up a tune I don't know right away, whether it's the melody or the chord changes, and there will always be tunes I don't know. I'm working on it, although I'm still too chicken to work on it with other people. For now, I'll leave you with some old-time pictures and a few haikus (2 old-time specific and 1 universal):

fiddle bows, tapping

toes, banjos running away,

searching for the groove.

// 

circle round, sit tight

banjo on the left, guitar

to the right. now jam.

//

whatever you want

to feel, you just have to choose

the tune for the mood

example of a small jam, taken at Clifftop, a music festival in West Virginia, July 2015, film, Canon Tlb

another jam circle in the background, taken at Swannanoa, July 2014, film, Canon Tlb 

a friend's cd release party at Clifftop, West Virginia, July 2015, film, Canon Tlb 

*supposably = not a typo. inside joke for whoever gets it!

top picture: two Australian friends I met at Swannanoa playing tunes on the steps of Warren Wilson College, July 2015, film, Canon Tlb 

cup or cone?

Every weekend we do a long run. This usually happens on Saturdays and is sometimes part of a greater training plan and sometimes it's just a reason to feel accomplished. If there's no required distance, we shoot for an 8 mile loop through Prospect Park. Then we run through a host of Saturday errands (e.g., compost drop off, dealing with library books, getting odds and ends at the grocery store, etc.). In the past couple of months, I have added "get ice cream at Ample Hills" to that list because the traditionally wired part of my brain says, "run more = eat food you normally avoid." The more open-minded, less fatphobic part of my brain knows that if I want ice cream, I can eat ice cream whenever the hell I want. There are other reasons I tend to avoid it, namely the craptastic way I feel afterwards, but it would be dishonest to omit the calorie-driven nonsense. Anyway, here's today's bite-sized version:

sugar headache comes
on quick, but it's worth every
last bite of goodness

top picture: an old Breyer's Ice Cream sign near California, MD, June 2011, film, Canon Tlb 
bottom picture: Charrow at an ice cream pit stop during a bike ride, Laurentians, Canada, July 2010, film, Canon Tlb