Indian summer heat

Right about now I begin to idealize real autumn and winter. Thank goodness for a hefty fan to blow warm air out one window in the evening and draw cooler air in the other. Thank goodness for perfectly airy summer blankets my father-in-law brought back from Israel. 

We have a new kitten (!) - not pictured. My wife found her hiding in a storage cranny at a school, and we caught her together. She is a glorious happy-go-lucky little tabby. We've named her Matilda. We are currently spending...quite a lot of time on tasks related to her. Please cross your fingers with us that at the conclusion of our feline diplomacy program/introduction protocols, she and our adult cat will have a beautiful friendship.

I'm listening to two songs from Erin today:

"I Could Have Been" - Fire Swimmer

"effortlessly, i feel everything" - The Man The Myth The Meatslab ("so reminiscent of 'Anthems for a Seventeen Year-Old Girl' and making me nostalgic but also like a sequel to it" she said)

Black-and-white December

"It's a new year/or about to be..."

(My current earworm.)

I'm looking at some film pics I got back from the lab recently (will share some soon), headphones on, introverting whilst my girlfriend putters around the apartment talking to her mom on the phone. My muscles are pleasingly sore from a class yesterday. We have a bit of joint time off right now. We went to a beautiful public garden today and strolled between botanical continents as the sun passed in and out of cloud cover, the air becoming somuchcolder every time it disappeared.

January is not traditionally a power month for me. I'm feeling a bit of seasonal blues currently and I struggle in general with feeling out of sync with the cultural vibe at this time of year. In November and December, it feels like we're getting it right for the colder darker time of year - focusing on rest, food, loved ones, warmth, coziness, adding beauty and light to our homes. The holidays are overblown and overly stressful for sure, but at their most basic, the priorities feel correct.

Then in January our culture switches abruptly into "GET OFF YOUR ASS and IMPROVE yourself!" mode. I love self-improvement, but it's a bit harsh and it's not what I'm personally feeling at this time of year - I consider winter a success if I keep up most of my existing positive habits and do some things that are interesting to me.

How about you? How are you doing?

Happy New Year to you.

xo

The important things, on a rainy day

But some days I love my commute

It's too long, it's too early, it's inconvenient...but some days, nonetheless, I love my commute.

I begin by shutting our cat in the bedroom, sneaking a bicycle out of a closet and then out the front door, letting the cat out, and then letting myself out. Don't be too bright, don't be too noisy, let sleeping girlfriends lie. Out the front gate, stars, cold air, headlights, deepest blue, pulling my muffler up.

The first half of my journey is the train, in which hopefully I am not too tired and in which hopefully there is no one wantonly broadcasting smartphone noise. I take the train that gets me to my destination fifteen minutes early, rather than five minutes late. I write, usually needing to take a few extra moments on the train platform at the end of my ride to finish up, hurrying the last of my dreams out onto paper before they can scuttle away into my forgetfulness.

The second half of it takes me along the shore of the bay by bicycle. At this time of year: The pre-dawn sky is painted a delicate ombre over the hills of the East Bay, and overhead it is ornamented with moon and morning star. I hear seagulls crying and watch pelicans fly across the panorama. The water dances in black and silver beneath the Bay Bridge. I take note of the speed of traffic on the bridge's westbound deck today, as my coworker is meeting her own commuting fate in her car there. The newer, glassier skyscrapers begin to glisten. I feel alive, alert, grateful. The world is not yet noisy. I have been at home in this city for so long.

Second pandemic Valentine's Day

And sixth Valentine's Day together
means:
homemade dinner and cake
squabbles over kitchen space
apologies
defending ourselves from
our bloodthirsty
feline daughter
as we watch a movie we've
seen three times already together
that my lover can sing along to in
its entirety
afterwards
placing a joint shampoo order
(domestic bliss)
and a cat litter order
"I think we do pretty well
considering the circumstances"

November bookmarks

Days, lately, in photos

Hot days in a top-floor apartment = blinds down all afternoon, big fan blasting. It still reliably gets 10 degrees hotter inside than outside on those days.

Immature acorns.


A nice neighbor. I say hi to her every time I pass her yard.

Add pomegranates to the list of fruits I have seen successfully cultivated by home gardeners in my area. Another recent addition: olives!


I have taken up coloring again to keep my hands busy during team meetings on Zoom.



Our girl.

Beautiful color from the liquidambar trees.


My shady walks are becoming gradually less so...

Rosehips are ripening, and reminding me it's a good time of year for rosehip tea (a gracious source of vitamin C).

Friday afternoon traffic

I drive to the city, walk on the beach with my mom at mid-day. The sand has been packed down by the recent rains. Get stuck in a bit of traffic coming back, eat carrot sticks from a jar clamped between my thighs, sing along to "High by the Beach." Marvel at the billboards for cocktails, spirits, B2B tech nonsense, a movie that was supposed to come out in March of last year and still hasn't been released. Marvel at the city streets, parks, and apartment buildings that suddenly look different now that I could feasibly live there if I wanted. It's always been a strange thing, being from a city I couldn't afford to live in myself, and now finally, at my 31-year-old income bracket, partnered, and with rents crashing, that's maybe not the case.

When I land back in the East Bay, I hunt down a very well-hyped, expensive apple that I have sold but not yet laid eyes on, buy two of them back from the little grocery I sold them to. As I promised my girlfriend, I go in two masks deep, face shield and all. It's over ten months that I've been working primarily or entirely remote now. Tasting our fruits is one of the things I miss.

Proper outings are such a rarity now that it's all refreshing in a way (save for those walkers who are unmasked). Even traffic has become semi-interesting, now that I spend my afternoons - and evenings and nights and mornings... - stuck at home rather than stuck in a car on my way home. Safe in a car with a good long playlist, what's to complain about?

Sunday morning/collage

High fog outside - homey weather. I grew up deep in the fog. I remember hourless white skies. Clumps of fog rolling humorously, gothically down the street outside our windows. Am almost able to drink it through my skin like a redwood tree.

The smell of tea tree oil on my chin. Inside a soft cotton mask.

S. has turned all the lights on, opened the blinds, and made the bed by the time I return from the bathroom in the morning. 

Warm running tights.

Crows yelling in the power lines overhead.

Winterfall

Happy winter, friends.

I celebrated solstice by: getting a gorgeous-smelling fir wreath and a bunch of winter berries on the branch delivered, and by washing our bedding. (My logic goes: sleep is a spiritual practice, in winter especially; bed is the altar; therefore make it extra nice for holidays. The coziest bed for the longest night.)

I always thought it a crying shame in Illinois that the wonderful "Christmas" lights got taken down in December. How about a mental health innovation: leave them up! Help get your neighbors through the grim wastes of February!

I decided myself last year, after reading The Little Book of Hygge, that I would carry on freely through the rest of winter with any previously December-bound practices of light, warmth, and ritual that I cared to.

Speaking of indoorsy pursuits: yesterday I started learning Esperanto. I never understood the appeal of a constructed language before. But I see why people like this one. It's delightfully simple, organized, and exception-free. So friendly. Lots of immediate reward.

And I've enrolled in a community college linguistics course for the spring semester...for the third time! Spring 2009, Spring 2017, Spring 2021. Long story short, there were obstacles the first two times (respectively: being nineteen, living with a felon). The third time will be a charm.

What about you - winter rituals? Winter plans?

Point & shoot photo album: August 2020

Candle bath to cure some tension.

Morning sleepiness and loving it.

An unusual white peach variety that has a trademark stripe of golden flesh running through it - exactly on the cleft.



Treasures left by my coworkers for me to find on returning for my once-a-week office day.

Those dry-farmed tomatoes...incredible.

Look at these fallopian shapes!

Celebratory fancy take-out dessert - for my girlfriend's last final exam and me getting a raise.

Relishing the evenings as they get earlier.

Dreaming of fresh air

Flashback...to when we were sheltering in place, but could also go outside, because the air wasn't hazardous to breathe. New summer/fall realities on the West Coast, people. 

It's been difficult. I am cranky and emotionally worn out. I would love to walk on this path by the waterfront again. Hopefully it won't be too many more days.

Relatedly, I really spoke too soon last week, because for all the sun was strange on Tuesday morning, it had nothing on Wednesday. 

Wednesday the sun didn't really rise for us - the entire Bay Area existed in an eerie orange dusk for the entire day due to a very high layer of smoke. We woke to ashes. It's hard to describe. Imagine streetlights and headlights being on at 11 am. We were not able to turn off our indoor lights at any point.