wtf?

William Fitzsimmons - I Kissed a Girl (cover)

I found William Fitzsimmons when I was in grad school and his mellow tunes definitely got me through some tense days. Though he's on my iPod, I had sorta forgotten about W.F. for a while there until the other day when I was hanging out with Jersey Shore (a new guy at work) and wouldn't you know it--he just discovered William Fitzsimmons, so today we listened to his new album Gold in the Shadow all morning in the Kitchen. And I also learned that William Fitzsimmons is playing in Northampton this coming weekend...and the tickets are RIDICULOUSLY cheap. I think we're going.

I love Katy Perry's "I kissed a girl," but I may almost love William Fitzimmons cover as much or more!

Sustainability Definition: McDonald's vs a New York Chef | Friend of the Farmer

Sustainability Definition: McDonald's vs a New York Chef | Friend of the Farmer

I love the blog Friend of the Farmer. I appreciated his recent posting. Wanted to share it!

it's not June...but still...

This week has been so busy. I have been constantly going going going and feeling exhausted. I am not sleeping very well or very much and am wanting nothing more than a day off in my own house to sleep and sleep and sleep, but as B2 still hasn't heard back from the contractor who's supposed to look over my cabin, FAT CHANCE! But, while feeling frustrated about that, I am still feeling so grateful for my friends putting up with me and am trying to focus on the positive, like how I am enjoying couch surfing between three houses--an opportunity which was afforded to me because of this tree business.

I stayed with uber pregnant M and the girls M & S Tuesday - Thursday nights this week while N was away. It was really nice to hang out with M and have the nights to ourselves after the girls were asleep; to chat about the Farm and our lives before the Farm. We spent some more time together Friday afternoon, driving out to an appointment in Northampton, meeting up with N there. It was so refreshing to leave the Farm and have nothing but open highway in front of us. The drive out was a breath of fresh air, while simultaneously making me crave a roadtrip.

After I left M & N to their romantic weekend away, I tooled around Northampton, killing time before meeting up with a friend. If you are ever in the area, stop by Smith College to either see their amazing greenhouses or their lovely library. Do what I did: find a copy of the book you are reading (and presumably left at home), go to the upper floors and sit next to a window which overlooks the campus, let the sun pour in on you, feel warm and contented as a cat.

Driving home after my dinner date I felt soothed and sleepy, content. Time away, even if just for a day, felt good and refreshing. I was wandering through the radio stations of Northampton when I came across a local station playing a song which, though new to me, sounded vaguely familiar. "Who is this? Why do I know this voice? It almost sounds like the Decemberists...but is it?" After some searching today I discovered that it IS the Decemberists "June Hymn," off their latest album, "The King is Dead," which I just got from TSO this week and haven't even had the time to listen to. It is lovely. I know, I know, the title of this song is not quite apropos, just wishful thinking.

Happy weekend!

being held

Being held can mean many things. At the Farm we sometimes say things like, "so and so is being held on such and such team." To be held, to be supported, to get what we need, to offer something.

Sometimes being held means moving in with friends when a tree falls on your house; spending hours feeling heard; being complimented, told that you are good at what you do, reminded of struggles and where you came from.

I just found this song, "In your arms," by Jason Zerbman and think it's the perfect end to today, to the work week.

if I was richer

Today in the Kitchen one of the guys posed the question, "if you received $5,000,000, how would you spend it?" Of course we all had similar answers like:

• pay off student loans
• buy a new car
• give some money to family
• travel
• donate to non-profits

But, now that I have been thinking about it more--bored out of my mind at the Reference desk--I've come up with a wish list of other things I'd buy too. I love fantasizing about having money. I also like fantasizing about spontaneous dance numbers in places like the Library. Tonight I am imagining doing "Forget you," (or the other version) by Cee-Lo. I didn't even realize it until I started listening to the lyrics again, but it does feel apropos.

Julia's kitchen

Other things I want:

• Julia Child's stove
• copious amounts of body butter and mint julep lip balm from Savannah Bee
• a set of All-Clad Copper Core 6000-7SS pots
•  a really cool sink like this (I guess the pots, stove and sink wants are coming out of my want for a really cool house...or to just be in my cabin again...*sigh*)
• clothes and bonnets like those worn in Jane Austen's time. Yes, I would wear them to work
• really, really expensive stationary
• a new iPod
• a donkey...I don't know why...I have always loved the way that they bray...this may grow tiresome
• a personal clothing designer

What's on your wish list?

an apology

I have been away from writing, at least the blog, for a bit. More soon from me, but here's something from a favorite:

"Why I Wake Early"
 

Hello, sun in my face.
Hello, you who made the morning
and spread it over the fields
and into the faces of the tulips
and the nodding morning glories,
and into the windows of, even, the
miserable and the crotchety—

best preacher that ever was,
dear star, that just happens
to be where you are in the universe
to keep us from ever-darkness,
to ease us with warm touching,
to hold us in the great hands of light—
good morning, good morning, good morning.

Watch, now, how I start the day
in happiness, in kindness.

-- Mary Oliver 

who knew unicorns were Irish?

Duke Humphries, Ole Shillelagh's, Kennedy's Pub, Four Green Fields, Patrick O'Ryans--all pubs which I haunted in my younger days. I think fondly back to those days, and today especially, miss the pants off those nights: sitting around drinking beer with friends; rehashing the week and talking about papers; making plans for places we'd go to together, things we'd see; just being together.

The soundtrack to my young twenties definitely would include many a funny Irish song, including this one.

Happy St. Patty's Day everybody!

kiss me, I'm Irish

What is Frodo doing?

Everybody wants to be Irish on St. Patrick's Day! Ok, maybe not really Irish, but pretend to be Irish.

Here in the United States we like to celebrate St. Patrick's Day every year by wearing green, drinking copious amounts of beer (also preferably green) until we get drunk, wearing green t-shirts (the really hipster looking ones made my Old Navy are preferable) and shamrocks, making leprechaun jokes all day and doing jigs...It's more than a little sad that these are the things we associate the Irish with.

So, Happy St. Patty's Day to everyone! 
Blarney, shillelaghs, leprechaun, GUINNESS! There, I said it. I'm done.

If I were back home for St. Patty's Day plans for tonight would have already been made at least a week ago, and we would have already gone to the party this past weekend at the Ole' Shillelagh in Detroit (near Greektown, not too far from my old stomping grounds at Wayne State). If you live in Detroit or anywhere in SE Michigan you must go at least once...like next year! It's a WILD time, for sure!

St. Patty's Day has never been a big deal for anyone at the Farm, but I hope to change that this year with some friends...

The photo is from this site, for a pub back home. You're welcome!

extra extra

Children's Book Week is from May 2-May 8 this year. What's Children's Book Week, you ask?

Well, according to the Children's Book Council,

"It all began with the idea that children's books can change lives. In 1913, Franklin K. Matthiews, the librarian of the Boy Scouts of America, began touring the country to promote higher standards in children's books. He proposed creating a Children's Book Week, which would be supported by all interested groups: publishers, booksellers, and librarians.


Mathiews enlisted two important allies: Frederic G. Melcher, the visionary editor of Publishers Weekly, and Anne Carroll Moore, the Superintendent of Children's Works at the New York Public Library and a major figure in the library world. With the help of Melcher and Moore, in 1916 the American Booksellers Association and the American Library Association cooperated with the Boy Scouts in sponsoring a Good Book Week.

In 1944, the newly-established Children's Book Council assumed responsibility for administering Children's Book Week..."

So, what does this mean for us? How can we celebrate Children's Book Week?

• Check out these officially sponsored events 
• Print this FREE bookmark and form for your young readers
• Check out local events 
• Encourage your kid(s) to write and illustrate a children's book of their own
• JUST READ with your kids, talk about reading, ask kids what they LOVE about their favorite books!
• READ READ READ READ...see a theme?

For the link to the above information and more, click here.
Picture found here.

three questions

I am always amazed with the videos that people make--this is M. Ward's "Chinese Translation."

idle days

What is the "ides of March," all about anyway?  Well, "ides," harkens to the middle of a Roman month, which in turn calls to mind the events around the assasination of Julius Caesar. Historians believe that the "ides of March" expression is traced back to the events on March 15, 44BC, when Julius Caesar was murdered. The murder was a double crossing of epic acclaim, as Caesar was betrayed by dozens of noblemen, and even Marcus Brutus, Caesar's own apprentice.

Shakespeare--"borrowing" from Plutarch's version of the famous scene--wrote about J. Caesar's demise, and in doing so immortalized the line, "Beware the ides of March." Is anyone else as impressed as me at all the lines that we use from Shakespeare without always being aware of it!?

Caesar:Who is it in the press that calls on me?
I hear a tongue shriller than all the music
Cry "Caesar!" Speak, Caesar is turn'd to hear.

Soothsayer:
Beware the ides of March.

Don't confuse that ides of March with this one.

Caesar:
What man is that?

Brutus:
A soothsayer bids you beware the ides of March.

Julius Caesar Act 1, scene 2, 15–19

you really got a hold on me

She & Him, You Really Got a Hold On Me, MTV Canada

Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward are She & Him. I love this cover of "You really got a hold on me.

date a girl who reads

Thanks M for knowing I would LOVE this.

"Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes. She has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.

Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag.She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she finds the book she wants. You see the weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a second hand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow.

She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.

Buy her another cup of coffee.

Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.

It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas and for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry, in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.

She has to give it a shot somehow.

Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.

Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who understand that all things will come to end. That you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.

Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilightseries.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.

You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.

You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

Or better yet, date a girl who writes." 

~ Rosemarie Urquico

hard times require furious dancing

In losing someone I revert back to what I know best: I write; I read, I read, I read, especially poetry; I spend time with those dearest to me, comforted by the laughter that they can pull from me, bubbling it to my surface; I revel in nature, listening to every snapped twig, every bird call, every wind-stirred leaf, no matter the minutiae of it.

I have been spending a lot of time reading and rereading Mary Oliver's poetry; Alice Walker's new book of poems, Hard Times Require Furious Dancing; Seamus Heaney's new book of poems, Human Chain.I also just discovered (and I'm still not sure how I've never seen this before) The Sun (magazine.)

I sent an email to all of my relatives after my Auntie Lou died. In the email I shared how I felt about losing her, how I wish we had had more time--things that people say when they feel a void. But I also shared happier memories of her, beginning a domino effect of shared memories amongst us; hearing others' stories, learning more about the other side of her that I didn't see. One thing I truly value and love about my family is that in loss we try and find solace in laughter. When we are hurting we recount the tales of the departed and oftentimes laugh without reserve. Thinking about this very thing I was thankful to read something which Alice Walker wrote in the Preface to her new collection of poems:

"I have learned to dance. It isn't that I didn't know how to dance before; everyone in my community knew how to dance, even those with several left feet. I just didn't know how basic it is for maintaining balance. That Africans are always dancing (in their ceremonies and rituals) shows an awareness of this. It struck me one day, while dancing, that the marvelous moves African Americans are famous for on the dance floor came about because the dancers, especially in the old days, were contorting away various knots of stress. Some of the lower-back movements handed down to us that have seemed merely sensual were no doubt created after a day's work bending over a plow or hoe on a slave driver's plantation...Hard times require furious dancing. Each of us is the proof."

So, today I am dancing. 

missing like hell

Your absence has gone through me
Like thread through a needle
Everything I do is stitched with its color.
~W.S. Merwin, "Separation"

Gone - flitted away,
Taken the stars from the night and the sun
From the day!
Gone, and a cloud in my heart.
~Alfred Tennyson


If I had a single flower for every time I think about you, I could walk forever in my garden.  
 ~ Claudia Ghandi

Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime, and falling in at night.  I miss you like hell.  
~ Edna St Vincent Millay

I think we dream so we don't have to be apart so long.  If we're in each other's dreams, we can play together all night.  
~ Bill Watterson, Calvin & Hobbes 

singing the blues

We lost my dear favorite Auntie Louise yesterday. I am fighting sadness by thinking of her sitting somewhere with my Dad, drinking a beer and talking about the good 'ole days. 


I found comfort again in these words, which my Auntie wrote to me after I lost my Dad, ironic that I find them again and they are about how I move on without her: 

"People say 'keep a stiff upper lip,' try talking like that! My greatest prayer and hope for all of you is that you will continue to live!  Live life to the fullest! You don't have to dig a hole and pull it in after you. Do something amazing for yourself, with your life and or with someone!" 

And loss always makes me think of this poem:

"Funeral Blues"

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He is Dead.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the woods;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

W.H. Auden

this is nice on a cool, rain-ish day

I know I just shared Laura Marling's "Ghost," but "New Romantic," is also wonderful. Also great on days like today are Mary Oliver poems.

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
~ Mary Oliver

End of my week. So tired. Nap time.

Happy I-wish-it-was-spring-it's-cool-and-rainish-out-where-is-the-sun?

celebrating being a girl WOOT WOOT!

March 8th was International Women's Day 2011--better late than never.

the ashes

It's Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the Lent season.  TSO has been emailing this story to me for years now, a tradition of sorts, something I look forward to; the tradition continues as now I too send it out each year to all of my friends and close family.  This year I also share it with you.

Taken from Jacob the Baker by Noah benShea.

"...It was Mr. Gold who counted time and eventually spoke first.

'Jacob, where do you find the strength to carry on in life?'

'Life is often heavy only because we attempt to carry it,' said Jacob. 
'But, I do find a strength in the ashes.'

'In the ashes?' asked Mr. Gold.

'Yes,' said Jacob, with a confirmation that seemed to have traveled a 
great distance.

'You see, Mr. Gold, each of us is alone.  Each of us is in the great 
darkness of our ignorance.  And each of us is on a journey.

'In the process of our journey, we must bend to build a fire for 
light, and warmth, and food.

'But when our fingers tear at the ground, hoping to find the coals of 
another's fire, what we often find are the ashes.

'And, in these ashes, which will not give us light or warmth, there
may be sadness, but there is also testimony.

'Because these ashes tell us that somebody else has been in the night, 
somebody else has bent to build a fire, and somebody else has carried
on.

'And that can be enough, sometimes.'

music uh huh

I love music so much.

Music helps me get through the days' work in the Kitchen, is listened to while I pull and yank at weeds in my summer garden, is solace in sadness. Finding music which moves you is like finding a great book: you find an author you love then you seek out those who inspired them and those who inspired them and so on and so on; doing research only to discover that this little known singer or rising star is not only an umbrella in the storm, but an umbrella, muck boots and a rain coat. (I'm tired, pardon the lame analogy!)

This is Laura Marling, a new find who I'm digging on. Thanks Mumford & Sons for the heads up.

today was windows down-no coat glorious

"i thank You God for this most amazing"

i thank You God for this most amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
wich is natural which is infinite which is yes


(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)


how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?


(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

e.e. cummings

jumbled thoughts of life and being 6

Six years ago I received a phone call telling me that my best friend L and husband K were welcoming their second daughter into this world. Six years ago. It feels like forever since then. I called to wish Audrey a "happy birthday," this weekend and briefly chatted with her and bestie L in the midst of a birthday party. Hanging up I was left alone with my thoughts; what will the rest of Audrey's life hold for her? The first six years of a human life is rife with so much growth, development, movement and change...and then what? As I pondered this I began to think of the last six years of my own life.

What was I doing six years ago? Six years ago at this time of year I was freaking out about grad school, I was going, right? What was I doing with my life? Where should I apply? But for what programs? At that point in my life I had decided to make a go as a writer and apply for MFA programs. But where? The Midwest, where I hailed from? Or the East coast? Be nearer family again? Or continue working at the Farm and go to school too?

I was accepted to the program I wanted to be accepted to...but I didn't even go. I moved back to the Midwest, changed my mind (for practicality's sake) and became a Librarian. And now, six years later, I am a Farmer (again) and a Librarian. My life has changed in so many ways and so many wonderful things, which I could never have foreseen, have come to pass. Life is good.

My thoughts feel jumbly today...I don't know why I bothered to post. I will end my weird digression with this lovely passage:

When I was One,
I had just begun.
When I was Two,
I was nearly new.
When I was Three
I was hardly me.
When I was Four,
I was not much more.
When I was Five,
I was just alive.
But now I am Six,
I'm as clever as clever,
So I think I'll be six now for ever and ever.
~ A.A. Milne

this is EXACTLY how I feel

I want I want

These dudes (Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros), along with Old Crow Medicine Show and my Mumford & Sons will be on a limited US tour of the SouthWest.

I want to go.

I want it bad.

This song is called "40 Day Dream." You're welcome.

sap makes me hopeful too

I have been going through a poetry reading phase again--this usually hits me about this time of year, when the white has become oppresive and certain days' temperatures trick us into thinking of spring.

Mummy Dearest let me tag along with her the other day when she picked up Lil Fish and her niece M from Pre-K; one of those beautiful, sunny winter days. One of the other parents said to Mummy that this is the time of winter which she likes most because it starts to feel hopeful: it is getting warmer and the sap is running. It made me smile to think of the tapped trees, buckets hanging under spigots and running sap as a hopeful sign of spring, but a truer one I couldn't think of.

So, I sit and am hopeful. I am hopeful that spring really is close at hand. I am hopeful that my seeds arrive soon as I am eager to feel the beginnings of life through their rectangled packaging. I am hopeful.

"White-Eyes"
In winter
all the singing is in
the tops of the trees
where the wind-bird

with its white eyes
shoves and pushes
among the branches.
Like any of us

he wants to go to sleep,
but he’s restless—
he has an idea,
and slowly it unfolds

from under his beating wings
as long as he stays awake
But his big, round music, after all,
is too breathy to last.

So, it’s over.
In the pine-crown
he makes his nest,
he’s done all he can.

I don’t know the name of this bird,
I only imagine his glittering beak
while the clouds—

which he has summoned
from the north—
which he has taught
to be mild, and silent—

thicken, and begin to fall
into the world below
like stars, or the feathers
of some unimaginable bird

that loves us,
that is asleep now, and silent—
that has turned itself
into snow.

~ Mary Oliver 

thanks

Just wanted to send an appreciation out into the cyber universe to Kitty Cat and Lauri, two new followers (and anyone else I've missed recently). I really appreciate that people stop by and read my ramblings or just come to enjoy some fun music or great poetry!

Harper Lee HUZZAH!

Harper Lee and Truman Capote

I just read this article. I am so excited for Harper Lee, Joyce Carol Oates, Wendell Berry and Meryl Streep--among others--who are set to receive the National Medal of Art!

"You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view--until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it."
~ Harper Lee,  To Kill a Mockingbird

      “If you are a writer you locate yourself behind a wall of silence and no matter what you are doing, driving a car or walking or doing housework you can still be writing, because you have that space.” ~ Joyce Carol Oates


Harper Lee and hottie Gregory Peck
(Peck played Atticus Finch,
movie verion of To Kill a Mockingbird)





"When despair for the world grows in me, and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be -- I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought or grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.” ~ Wendell Berry

"I believe in imagination. I did Kramer vs. Kramer before I had children. But the mother I would be was already inside me." ~ Meryl Streep

Pics found here and here.

Also, Massachusetts' Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival is also scheduled to receive an award!

desktop confessional

I have heard as much weird shit working as a librarian as I have working in the mental health field. No lie. Sometimes patrons feel the need to share a little piece of their personal history, reach out to someone else, try to connect, TMI it just a little. In a less than five minute conversation tonight these are some of the interesting gems which I learned about one of our patrons:

• hasn't been in a library in years
• turned off phone and internet at home to force herself to leave the house
• grand kids are troubled, so she wants to read a book to, "not knock some sense into them," but rather, "hit them with love."
  
• bought $2000 worth of beads, not the cheap kind...I mean some cheap ones...but a lot of silver and gold nice ones...she put an ad on Craiglist to find someone to work on beading things with her and no one ever responded..."Oh, I love your necklace!" (That was a particularly great stream of conscious! Look out Virginia Woolf!)
  
• wants Craiglist to come out with a book, Craigslist for Dummies, she'd get it
• suffers from medical fibromyalgia
• has a medical memory problems (she told me this after asking my name, TWICE in about thirty seconds)

Tonight, for some odd reason, the library is rife with weird and cranky adults and confused teens. Is there going to be a full moon soon or something!?
Thinking of how my desk felt like a confessional made me think of Dashboard Confessional, which made me want to listen to some of their old, angsty stuff...ah...tonight is shaping up to be just like a Laura Numeroff book...