I had occasion to attempt clothes shopping yesterday. It’s always been a daunting task for me, now more so since Caitlyn thinks that department stores are for running in. She knows she can get around (under) the clothes faster than I, and it amuses her no end to have me chasing after her. I’ve never really gotten into shopping for shopping’s sake, although I certainly tried when I was a teenager. The chief problem is that I’m tall and narrow, and while the models and fashion industry say this is what women should look like, it’s still impossible to find …
Category: dreaming out loud
I try not to think about high school all that much. I didn’t really care for the experience. Sure, it wasn’t as horrible as it could have been, but it didn’t live up to the hype of the Brat Pack movies and Seventeen magazine. I’ve read Odd Girl Out, and I didn’t suffer what those girls did, the rumors and the backstabbing. I didn’t make it high enough on any one’s radar to worry too much about the sudden subtle shifting of the social sands. Instead, I spent those years reading lots of books, waiting for graduation, and ignoring as …
Ian and I have known each other seven years. In that time, we have moved – majorly, like entire lives in boxes, needing storage units and large trucks – five times. Now, I’m packing for Move Number Six. It’s a shorter move, just down the road 10 minutes, not to another state (or country!), but it still means everything goes in boxes and we need to rent a truck. We have many of the boxes from previous moves, some that date all the way back to Santa Barbara, all nicely pre-labeled so I don’t have to think much about what …
We visited the McBryde Garden of the National Tropical Botanical Garden with Robert and Jo last week. Took lots of pictures; hopefully some of them will find their way to the gallery. The plants were lovely, naturally, but I found myself somewhat annoyed by the self-guided tour pamphlets’ constant reminders of how rare and endangered the garden’s plants are. It seems the precious status of the plants in a botanical garden would be a given, since there’s probably a reason these specific plants are receiving that degree of care. No one puts dandilions in a botanical garden. Surely, there is …
Enormously full week; feeling overwhelmed and more than a little behind. We watched an orange moon rise out of the sea one evening, five days past full, a ship on fire behind the streaming clouds, sailing for Valhalla. We sat on the beach, watching the path of light between us and the moon waver and ripple on the restless ocean. At first, the way was marked only by flashes of darkened gold on the black water, but gradually it became a highway dappled with shadows, wide enough for a tin man, a scarecrow, and a lion to walk with me. …
More pictures of fish. Ian has discovered underwater photography, frequently shooting entire rolls in a single snorkeling expedition. He was the last one out of the water yesterday at Queen’s Bath; the vacationers we met there wondered why he was taking so long. “He really likes the water, doesn’t he?” “Yes, but he won’t come out till he’s finished shooting his roll of film.” “He’s got a camera?” Recently finished reading Rose Daughter, Robin McKinley’s second retelling of Beauty and the Beast. The entire book is a celebration of the magic of growing roses, and reading it is much like …