on hiatis...

as you all know we are on tour so this blog is not being updated during that time....

so check out our tour blog here:

www.facebook.com/josiahwolfjetlag

they are posted on our wall, as well as under the notes tab!

see you all soon....

the best dog on the internet

it's not max i can tell you that right now. his name is buster. i just found him. he has the best dog blog award. he has had a blog since '09 and he's only a year and a half. he is so cute. he has lots of dog friends and lots of family and his "parents" have their own blogs and they all live in NY and i am a little jealous. the pictures are so great and even though the entries are short mostly they are so good! lots of pictures in each one!

http://ewix2.blogspot.com/

there are so many dog blogs!! it's great. i want to read them all. oooh... it would seem that max has something to say:

dear human dog friends,

i don't know about these other dog blogs. i haven't read them and i can't vouch for anything i haven't personally seen. i could bet that these dogs are pretty awesome but i can't vouch for it.

i am not a big complainer like some dogs. but if my human dog ever leaves me in a room all day with the heater on at 85 degrees...

i think i might bite her. no no i am a good dog. good dog good dog! i would never. i had a great time it was like a sauna in there. i think i lost a few winter pounds and did some pretty strenuous bikram yoga in the afternoon so i feel pretty limber. i have to say i do feel limber. limber limber limber. like a litttle yogi doggie. yes. yogi. doggie. good dog good dog!

right.

firstly it should be known that i didn't leave the heater on to 85. i set it to 67 which should have been what the peak was. i don't know what the hell happened. i can only assume that max decided to mess around with the buttons because he was bored and then went crazy because he got too hot. bikram yoga?? who is he trying to fool??

anyway. i have also just discovered the greatest cat blog!! it actually far surpasses buster's blog in poetic and humorous content. i am in love with this family! we three, ginger cat tales is the name and they live on some amazingly beautiful farm in wales. yes please!!

http://wethreecats.blogspot.com/


bed bed bed.

new information has come to light

i have suffered from chronic migraines since i was 12 or so. at least that's when i can first remember getting them. it may have started earlier than that but i don't know for sure. it was several years into them that i tried any kind of medication. imitrex. that seems to be the one drug for migraines. over 2/3rds of my life i have had this problem. and no matter what i stop doing (e.g. no alcohol, chocolate or excessive stress), they still happen.

the migraine runs in my family. my mother and my father get them. my aunt gets them. my cousins get them. everyone has a few similar symptoms. like certain smells and too much of anything at all bring them on. some last for days. but i am the only one who throws up. and when i say throws up. i don't mean once and then i'm good. i mean i throw up every few minutes for an entire day. no food. no water or any liquid whatsoever can pass my lips without coming up. and definitely no medication of any kind. agony in a nutshell. and nasty on the body let me tell you. there's nothing good about vomiting every type of stomach and possibly liver contents (to the point of seeing blood traces in it).

over the years i have had a little help here and there from people wanting to see me find the cure, without really helping me find a cure. there is no cure so that's probably why it hasn't been found. more than anything people say "drink more water - #1 cause of a headache is dehydration!". more often than not however i have had little or no help let alone sympathy from people. they can't see anything wrong, so i must be making it up to get attention (yup, had that one thrown at me a few times). just take an aspirin. no. can't do that. makes me throw up. sorry. i will refrain from taking any more time to retell the countless times people (boyfriends included) have denied me help because they didn't think it was serious. meanwhile i am vomiting my ass off and ready to die any moment. nothing serious about that. true.

OK! here's where we get to the interesting bits of new information that are on the one hand very helpful and on the other hand making me question the ability for anyone in my family to properly care for themselves and for me.

firstly, the most shocking thing i just discovered is that migraines are a disease. i have a disease. that is kind of mind blowing. that kind of makes me feel like i am right when i say - there is no cure for this. sure there is really expensive medication i could be on. which i really probably should be. i am probably very stupid not to be on imitrex. i'm sorry. i just realized i have a disease. i don't mean to harp on about it. it's all making sense now. i'm not crazy. i have a disease.

secondly, and maybe actually more important than the first bit, is that even though the majority of my family suffers from this disease - no one has gotten a diagnosis, no one takes the proper medication, and no one even knows what kind of migraine they have. and that includes getting me diagnosed! i have been vomiting my face off since as long as i can remember and my mother never figured out why?? what the hell is wrong with this family? i kind of can't stand these people at the moment.

this leads me to my third (in two parts) and most awesome discovery. as i have now mentioned several times, i profusely vomit every time i get a severe migraine. not only have i discovered what that is but i now know that i have more than one kind of migraine. self diagnosed, yes, but what can one do with no insurance?

part one: i have cyclic vomiting syndrome. it is exactly as it sounds. over and over and over for the entire day. consistent in it's length each episode. no ability to consume during that period. my diaphram bruises from this usually. they say the esophagus bruises and sometimes tears but for me it's the diaphram. it doesn't have to come with migraine, for some people it just happens on it's own.

part two: the vomiting is making me think that i have "abdominal migraines" which cause severe stomach problems (when i don't throw up i have OTHER problems that shall remain nameless). i also think i have "migraine with aura" which means senses are hypersensitive mostly to light and sound. i have to cover my eyes and put cold compress over them to keep from feeling like my face is going to explode and is too hot.

there is another type of migraine i get. i recently started getting them again after years of not getting them. i now know they are called "ice pick migraines". that pretty much sums it up. imagine an ice pick stabbing you in the head for several seconds while you are enjoying a nice conversation with your boyfriend and causing you to freak out, grab your skull and run to the bed. it pretty much feels like i am having a stroke or what i assume that feels like. these are more terrifying than the other migraines because they come from nowhere and then leave before you even know what the hell happened. and there's no medication for something that only lasts seconds. even though it repeats a few times before buggering off.

another interesting albeit confusing bit of information is that a migraine is not a headache. a headache is a symptom of a migraine but not the same thing. abdominal migraines and silent migraines don't have head pain. um. i'm still studying so perhaps someday i will understand all of this.

all in all my migraines have greatly distressed me. i have missed so much school and work in my life because of them. and i can't tell you how many times i was convinced everyone thought i was lying when i had to call in sick the morning of my shift. so much shame. if only i had known it was a disease i could have said that. instead i didn't tell bosses for years because i was afraid they wouldn't hire me. new jobs would scare me because i would be waiting for them to fire me for missing work more than other people and "this time they aren't going to believe me" ran through my head many times.

what disturbs me the most is that my mother, a self proclaimed healer and knower-of-all-things-medical AND who suffers from this as well AND who held my hair when i threw up AND who nursed me back to health growing up, never told me why i threw up like that. it's really fucking dangerous actually. no one should be vomiting bile. and not regularly especially. it's sickens me to think about how i could have had more help earlier on but i didn't. and of course i am the world's biggest procrastinator. i hate doctors and i hate being probed and having to tell my life story and then just get handed a packet of samples for medication. no thanks.

if your child was that sick wouldn't you get it figured out? when i started getting the ice pick migraines in high school i still lived at home and things were terrible then, but shouldn't my mom have tried to get me checked out? even with no money she should have been able to do something. i vaguely remember talking about a cat scan and then never getting one.

i am finally lucky to have a love in my life who takes as good care of me as can be done when i am sick. even though one time he was very mean and wouldn't help me - but that was a few years ago and i say he rather makes up for it now. when he is away i get a little sorry for myself because it reminds me of all the years before that of being alone and not being able to take care of myself. i am still nervous about them and i don't know when that will go away. i guess as long as i don't have proper medical care.

who wants to bet i wake up with one tomorrow because i sat in bed too long to type this manuscript with the computer screen glaring into my eyes?

i hope i don't.

bindi bindi baby!

who knew our little maxie was such a handsome indian lady! i found this little dog dancing around the living room in one of my scarves and with a bindi on his little furry head!

you can see what things are coming to around here without our beloved Man Of The House. crazed and deprived after 6 weeks (or is it more than that??) with one more long week to go before we see him, we have got to do things as we see fit. and that includes dressing up and being silly.

perhaps this is a good way to cope with insanity and isolation. better than the alternative certainly. no darkness here at the Charlie Brown Estate. no sir. just weird and eccentric behavior since there's no one here to tell us otherwise. it's like leaving two children to run the house.

well with one week left, and the inspiration of max's idea to don a costume for the hell of it, you may find the next several entries full of costume drama. yes. that's a great idea.

thanks max!

joi de vivre

oh happy little friends that make me nothing short of giddy! i have neither owned nor made either of these crafts (my birthday is in july *ahem*), however the very idea of them is almost more than i can bare. first we have the felted animal. OH! how i love them so. what could be more perfect than a baby hedghog and its mama??? not much in this world i can assure you.



then we come to the beloved japanese craft of amigurumi! these are dolls crocheted into the cutest little things! like animals and cupcakes and other cute things that no one can live without!

the hardest part of this post was picking the photos. there are so many many millions of amazingly cute and perfect little dolls that it was so hard to pick the ones that i liked more than others! it's almost not possible, but these are pretty good representations. and these crafts are something i should be aspiring to make.

I LOVE THEM SO MUCH I WANT TO CRY!!!

i am a country girl it would seem

this week i have busied myself with the old fashioned craft of making my own dresses! i made four in tote though three are really good. i will have to redo the first one because it's rather boring and not at all how i imagined it. but i improved greatly with each dress! and each one is hand sewn. it took me one day for the first and one and a half days for the each of the other two.

the first dress here is the simplest. it is a nice little shift dress made from a floral flannel with an a-symmetrical bib in the front and a little curve bib in the back. this dress is modeled after a dress my aunt gave me that i love.



dress number two is a model of my marc jacobs dress that is a favorite of mine. this one is a step up in complexity. three fabrics this time. a brown stretchy wool as the main body with navy blue sweatshirt fabric as the top shoulder and bodice piece. and a stripey cotton as the bib and hem trim. the front and back also have different shape. straight across in the front and in triangles in the back (think baseball tee shirt).



the third dress is the most complex. it involved a lot of ruche about the sleeves and the front/back of the waist. this dress is also modeled after a favorite dress i wear alot. this is made of cotton fabrics and a leather braided lace with little beads at the end! the first attempt to make grommets for the lace was futile. they fell off right away. so sad. BUT. i was ready to make my way through thick and thin. so i took my navy blue darning thread and stitched around the holes to make my own even better looking "grommets". this little dress is my favorite.



and that's not all. i made 8 little acoustic guitar pins for our tour. no picture though. yeah for hand made goods!

the house of hard labor

it is good to start the blog with a nice semi-family portrait. the back door with all it's new paint and happiness!


but the front porch is by far the best part of the whole project. i painted the window trim white and the concrete floor a nice rose. the doors are orange with blue trim though i don't actually like the orange. it's the same orange on the concrete steps. too orange! i wanted something more muted and burnt looking. ah well.

some good friends came over to paint with me on the day of april 10th. i am eternally grateful to the ones who came and really worked their asses off for our little house to become a nice place to look at! thank you thank you! we got a 3rd of the walls painted that day. the next week i painted on my own. i finished the last wall including the parts we thought too dangerous to paint around the electrical lines. i somehow did not become electrocuted and die.

it took me alone an entire week of painting to cover all three doors, screen doors, door trimmings, porch ceiling and flooring. i still even have a little bit of detail work to repaint. and the house will need a second coat! they assured me this paint goes on one coat guaranteed. ha! no way jose.



before i could paint the back/side doors i of course had to tear down the horrid awnings that covered them. they each came down fairly easily in one piece. horrid horrid things they are. now the walls are painted however they do need to be caulked in the huge holes that are left where the bolts lived. i don't even want to mention how much insect life/death was living in the awning crevices. DEE-sgusting.

one of the sad reasons it took me so long to finish the exterior work... is that there was a bee. an enormous furry bee. it was the strangest thing. if i was outside it was zooming around my head and chasing me around the yard. not much work can get done in this manner. it is very sad. i am not even kidding. this bee had such a vendetta for me that i couldn't even go outside during certain hours of sunshine and beautiful weather because if i stepped outside the bee would suddenly be there to terrify the hell out of me. i have no idea why it wanted to be around me and me alone. and it wouldn't be there by the door when i was merely standing inside the door looking around to see if was there... it would suddenly appear at my head shortly after i emerged. i tried to kill it with wasp spray just to get some work done in peace. it wouldn't die! it was so much faster than the wasps it never could be hit long enough.

but i got him in the end. only once i had finished painting and he sneaked into the front porch did i get to spray the living daylights out of him. i should have taken a picture. it's cruel perhaps but i am so convinced this bee had it out for me. it was HUGE. as big as my thumb. crazy scary hateful creature.



i would like to state for the record that max hasn't lifted a finger to help me.



even though i built him a little fenced in area. which he hates.

happiness abounds

today is full of happy moments. thrift shopping, peanut butter ice cream, restocking my library loans (including some serious heavy weight authors), and returning crap to lowe's. the most rewarding, as silly as it may sound, is the moment i stood at the counter of my most cherished neighborhood thrift store in xenia holding the above sunglasses in hand and asking "how much?".

"oh, i'd say about 50 cents..." said the sweet elderly cashier.

i hid my excitement and said "please add them to my fare." i thought... "did she just say 50 CENTS??????"

for in my hands and for the most meager sum of 50 cents i held a pristine pair of vintage tortoise shell ray ban wayfarers. it took every ounce of energy to not reveal this fact to my seller and to calmly thank them and walk out of the store without laughing and jumping up and down.

50 cents. i am so shocked. these are not cheap (new ones go from 180-300 or more) these are THE glasses of my generation not to mention of every subsequent generation since 1937. and they are definitely vintage. perhaps from the 80's. they do not have a ray ban logo on the lens or the arm but the inside of the arm states very clearly the brand and style. they are the real deal. heavy and solid with just the right shade of lens and angle in the frame. that gentle lean forward from the face. the logo on both lens is a tiny b&l. i researched that detail and it's legit (b&l of course standing for bausch & lomb). in fact it wouls seem that the ray ban logo is a newer design and that my glasses are form the 70's or 80's! online these exact glasses go for 180 on a vintage sunglasses site and 225 on ebay. 50 cents. yes. 50 goddamn cents. considering i have wanted these glasses for several hundred years you can see why i am so excited. my mom always wore ray bans though her style has mostly been the malcom x style (club master style). awesome to say the least.

this is as satisfying a triumph as the 5 days of painting that makes our house look very very cute.

oh so tired

house related posts are soon to come with pictures. i have continued painting alone the past two days and to be honest i think i have one more day of work. needless to say i am so tired i can't write anything worth reading. perhaps tomorrow evening.

and so i will leave you with this photo taken today of max. post bath (to rid his fur of three painty spots) and in pure sunny heaven drying off. boy do i love this dog.

solitude

LAUGH, and the world laughs with you;
Weep, and you weep alone.
For the sad old earth must borrow it's mirth,
But has trouble enough of it's own.
Sing, and the hills will answer;
Sigh, it is lost on the air.
The echoes bound to a joyful sound,
But shrink from voicing care.

Rejoice, and men will seek you;
Grieve, and they turn and go.
They want full measure of all your pleasure,
But they do not need your woe.
Be glad, and your friends are many;
Be sad, and you lose them all.
There are none to decline your nectared wine,
But alone you must drink life's gall.

Feast, and your halls are crowded;
Fast, and the world goes by.
Succeed and give, and it helps you live,
But no man can help you die.
There is room in the halls of pleasure
For a long and lordly train,
But one by one we must all file on
Through the narrow aisles of pain.

sleep not

the rain is just starting and i can't sleep. sometimes my mind cannot shut down. try as i might to quiet myself and even go so far as to pray for my mind to just stop thinking so much, i cannot make it stop until i have no energy left and sleep finally takes me. i was reading in bed earlier and falling alseep... when i turn the light off and lay down my thoughts came in a flood.

ian lindsay turner. i can't stop thinking about you, my friend, who is dead. i can't believe how dead you are. cremated even. no longer walking and no longer laughing and loving every movie you see no matter how bad it is. because to you, being kind is the most important way to be. no matter how angry you want to be. no matter. you, my friend, my father, my most loyal companion. who for many years i didn't talk to because you refused to stop being friends with my mother. no matter what she did to you. no matter that she bled you dry and left you alone to die without her. no matter. no matter that i can't stop thinking about you being alive. you should be here. there's no good reason that you aren't here. there's no good reason you shouldn't know my children when they arrive and there's no good reason you are dead and she isn't. only that perhaps god does things he shouldn't. shame on him. to take away a person who if only he had more time could have done the things he was too afraid to do. you were a mess and in a sad state but you could have come through and you could have been happier.

i lay here in bed and you are the catalyst for the flood of thoughts that come rushing at me tonite. family is really the main issue. your family. my own. why there are so many people i am supposed to love who i don't even know what to do with because they are never around. i'm never around. i can't really be mad at my family for being so splintered when i just do the same things in the end. i don't want to have them because they don't want to have each other and they don't want to have me. i keep thinking about my aunt who i became so close to in CT and who never calls me, never writes and it's as if we never spent the winter with each other. what impact has it made on her life? i know i think about her all the time. i know i love her. i can't say if she feels the same. i call and call and call and she never calls back. i finally get her on the phone and she says "you caught me". as if to say "if only i hadn't answered you wouldn't be talking to me and i would be so much happier". i don't know what this family of mine is in to. both sides are the same. they are all in little cliques a few of them that get along well or live near each other - they are close and hang out and do family things together. they are all groups that don't talk to each other. and then there's me and my mom who are 3,000 miles away my whole life and i don't know any of these people. and when i try to know them as an adult i can't get close. it's too late.

i realized tonite somewhere in the flood, that i have no name to call my own. yes i have names, first, middle and last. my last name does not belong to me. i am not a hodson. i never lived with my father and i never grew up with that family. why do i have his name? i am not a krause by blood. my mother is adopted and she didn't take her maiden name back when she divorced my father. why did she keep the name of a man she dispises so intensely? even my middle name isn't mine to keep. danae is a greek myth. a name for a woman whom zeus impregnated and gustav klimt painted. this was supposed to be my first name. the fact that it isn't means it's not supposed to be here with me. and i never go by my full first name. this is the name my mother calls me. and anyone who calls me by my full name makes me cringe. my nickname is what everyone calls me. liz. it's an awful name. i never liked it.

beanie. that's what everyone called me when i was growing up. but i made them stop. and now no one calls me that. i regret thinking it was childish as a young teen. i was too serious suddenly and that name seemed silly. i never laughed and i never joked around any more so it didn't fit. now i wish it was the only name i had. it's better than any that i have been given legally. ian lindsay turner is a great name. i remember how much i wanted to be you when i was little. you lost the hair on your head when you were still young and i cut off my hair on top to make it look like yours. when you said my full name it sounded nice. not mean or cringy.

i miss you more than ever my friend, who is dead, from now on.

yes, i agree... it's very silly

the garage. it is done. well not the window trim, and a few bits need to be touched up with brown (the underside of the eaves). it's a crappy garage ok?? it's lucky i didn't tie a chain around it and raze it with my truck! it's life is in my hands! i hope you like blue because we are about to be SURROUNDED BY BLUE. it looks nice with the green grass. and some day there will be flowers everywhere and you won't regret it then. no sir.

that being said it is the same color as this blog. well, it's supposed to be. alright calm down. that wasn't on purpose. it just so happens to be my favorite color in the entire world. AND i already chose that color before i made this blog. AND i wasn't even thinking about the house when i made the blog so please just calm down. take a slow silent inhalation. a slow silent exhalation.



our dog smells of grass. when he is sleeping i like to nuzzle my face into what i can only refer to as the doggie donut hole. NO NO NO! you are misunderstanding me! PLEASE! calm down... the doggie donut hole is the middle of the circle that a dog makes when he is snuggled in a little ball. his little face is tucked under his hind leg. IT"S CUTE damnit. nothing weird or inappropriate ok? sheesh. i like to nuzzle my face there because i can whisper little things to him and he is soft and warm and i can look into his big round eye and tell him sweet things that a dog might like to hear. SEE? innocent.

ok.



i listened to phillip roth's "indignation" on cd the past two days. man that is a good book. the reader was awesome. dick hill. he did every voice so well, from new jersey jewish and midwest anglo, to virginian twang. and the women too. this is my new favorite thing. books on cd from the library. I KNOW. everyone else already has been listening to books on tape for a hundred years and i am late on the wagon. can you please calm down. thank you. this book is about a young jewish boy from jersey who moves from his little town there to a little town in northern ohio to attend college. the family he has and the school he transfers to all make him feel crazy and a bit isolated - that he is nothing like any of them. he meets a great girl... with a whole slew of issues and then tragedy insues. this is a newer book of his that came out in 2008, but takes place in 1951. and the cover is perfect. very propoganda-esque and cool.



sometimes it feels as if max and i live on another planet. like we are little fugitives on a renegade planet or maybe it's a space station. no one is here, even though we have contact with earth and her people, we are on our own. we live off of rations and only go out when we have to get more supplies. we do everything here. and if we can't do it here it doesn't get done. well, mostly. sometimes we visit earth and hang out with friends and talk to them on the phone. but it's distant in a way. mostly everything is just the two of us. i am the leader of course and max is number one. he acts as security and he takes his job very seriously. he is a silly dog in the day time, but when the sun goes down you had better watch out. maxwell valentine is a BEAST. he will tear your face off! that's fine with me because i am in no mood to be invaded by space aliens coming to conquer our little lonely planet. we do not want what they are selling no sir. perhaps i should fashion a little helmet and suit of armor for mr. valentine. and for me a laser gun. NO! we are a peaceful planet. no guns and no helmets.

but i do have a sledge hammer in case any aliens stop by.

migraine be damned

i painted the garage today. these are my injuries. this image will surely disturb even the steeliest of tummies... but worry not the pain is all part of the process. in truth i hold my roller a little to tightly. the blister on my toe however is not from my roller. that would be ackward. i was wearing sandals as it is very warm here and i couldn't keep my tennies on because they got wet from earlier when i cleaned up the yard, freed the compost from it's winterly confines and washed out the composty buckets. my nose bled when i was fixing up the compost. i had no idea it was bleeding because it was so humid and i had a hankie over my nose (stinky compost) and the blood sort of coagulated in my nose and on the hankie. only when i removed the hankie did i know...

this is the grossest blog.

the garage looks great, though i have to say i am on the fence about the color. mostly due to me thinking it was darker. i don't want a fluffy blue garage and house. i want to be taken seriously. my teal zeal was much darker on the sample and even on the little blob atop the can. i am not including a picture because the camera makes it look even lighter than it is which is already lighter than i thought. perhaps it will get darker by tomorrow. or perhaps i am an idiot because i didn't think about how much light would be on the house, making it look lighter.

and all of this in the midst of a migraine. so i said be damned! i have no desire to lay around all day when there are things to be done. at times i did feel as though i might pass out but i took little cold water breaks and soaked my head several times. mr. max was good all day. probably because he had no way to be bad since i kept him tied up in the yard while i was working. i can't keep an eye on that silly dog it's too much. i wouldn't get anything done!

now it's evening and i am resting.

even though i have done none of my scheduled duties today i feel quite satisfied. tomorrow i will get up early and finish painting the garage (just the way way high up parts to do). then i can get back to my real work. bass, pins, writing for money (ha what a joke).

constant goal that is rarely attained: no longer minding that some things are just not to be controlled. and if i do mind, learn to make it float away into the air.

our houses dream so hard

little jet lag lions are a sight to behold! what fun they will have on tour next month. little happy felt lions.

i close my eyes and imagine myself to be a little felt lion. soft and warm and brightly colored. stitched oh so lovingly and with a sweet face.

i did not sleep much last night. my anxiety was fierce and my insides hurt. oh what fun it is to be a girl. i woke up too many times to count and at three a.m. max leapt out of bed barking his little head off in the kitchen and i followed him. i nearly had a heart attack. i was sure that this was it. all my irrational fears of the faceless intruder were real and we were about to meet our maker. he barked and barked and barked and barked. the loudest bark in the world. dead silence in the air and all i can here is the blood blasting in my eardrums and max barking.

that was it for me. i tossed and turned the rest of the morning praying the sun would just hurry the hell up already. meanwhile i should stress that the instant max is done barking he climbs back into his little bed and passes out cold - snoring. am i the maniac because i fight sleep until it takes me? or is he crazy because he falls asleep instantly as if to say "no big deal man". what a jerk. the best sleep i got was from 7 -8. i woke up with lines on my face and my arms were numb.

this morning for some strange reason i had the urge to find my first boyfriend on facebook. it randomly dawned on me over tea. why - i have no clue. i never think about him. so i searched around some friends pages and googled him. i finally found him and discovered he moved back to the bay and owns a realtor's office in montclair. i found him on facebook. there are no pictures of him anywhere.... i mean nowhere. apparently he now looks like a lovely tree. don't realtors always have silly headshots on their websites? no. his do not. and he is a tree on facebook.

perhaps he is horribly deformed now and is ashamed to show his face. that might make selling houses a bit ackward. i did not contact him. it's a little nerve wracking.

not as nerve wracking as deciding late last night to send my mother the song i recorded about her two years ago. we have started emailing a little. correction. i emailed her a week ago and asked for a list of the songs she used to sing me as a child. i want to record some for a friend who is having twins soon. i block her emails and forgot they go to my trash so i assumed she never wrote me. i found three emails all about a mile long. full of stuff that i don't know anything about and that has nothing to do with the songs. i emailed her again asking to supply the list if possible and she is cleverly putting it off with this response "oh that list is easily 500 songs deep. and most of them are passed down not written down but i can try to record some and send them to you". we shall see. she is sending me the novel she's writing. i gave her our address. possible mistake i don't know yet. i may start receiving more mail than i care to.

and so i sent her the song. she asked to hear my songs and i figured what the hell. let's start there. the anticipation of her reply is kind of making me crazy. i shouldn't have sent it.

and now the day begins.

the gallery

book club. tonite we have dubbed ourselves "the gallery". i think it's well-suited to our little menagerie. tonite we discussed a wonderful book "the shadow of the wind" and i was sad that you were not here to enjoy this with us. you are certainly missed. max had nothing to add conversationally but he did interrupt me several times with little whimper arks and a persistant demand for enjoyment of cupcake and spanish tortilla.

*side note: ark is in fact the exact sound he makes and they are so teensy and quite but they go on for too long in my opinion*

my first spanish tortilla came out very well and i absolutely love making them and vow to make them forever more. i served pineapple and my guests brought a catalan red wine with a little bull firgurine at the neck. smashing! i did not partake but the men enjoyed it heartily.

our book takes place in barcelona and i dressed as frida kahlo since my wardrobe is limited to mid century mexican - that's as close to spain as i could get. every book evokes a theme in our club and i love to dress up!

next book is 1984!

perfect storm

today is the antithesis of my perfect yesterday. i fully expect more to go wrong than already has.
the wind is howling maniacal obscenities while the sky turns from darkly apocalyptic to calm and sunny. max hasn't left my side all day. i don't think he appreciates all this ado.

our power went out earlier while i was in the middle of listening to what i just recorded as my new cover song. luckily the lights glitched briefly in time for me to punch in an apple save button combo. then it all flipped off and has only just turned back on a little bit ago. 2 hours no power.

tonight is book club at our house and strangely the weather is very fitting. we just read "the shadow of the wind" carlos ruiz safron and it's a bit of a spooky book. it's almost as if God heard me when i pondered the thought "what shall i do to dress up the mood in the style of tonight's book theme?". candles and howling maddening wind and possible rain. that's how.

now i must venture out to buy potatoes and an onion. with the power back i can make my spanish omelet for my special guests of the evening.

no matter how the evening transpires i will surely add a second entry tonite.

perfect day

we woke at 8. max and i. tea and email. max romped in the dewy grass for a bit and i tried to find more dead snakes. instead i found that our flowers in the back are daffodils! i am going to try and move them to the front because they are just in the middle of our backyard and lonely.

i took max for a long walk. the sun is high and the wind is warm. we took our usual route up the road from our house and onto the side road where not much traffic comes and the road winds back and forth through farm land. there are no crops yet this year, just freshly tilled land for miles all around.

the wind blew warm and fresh with the smells of grass and dirt and a tiny hint of manure. i would say the temperature is around 80. if we had a little lake and a boat we would be sailing. that's how strong and steady the wind is.

we rounded the first of several bends and came to a long stretch of road. the wind seemed to bend with us and tease our hair just a little leaving the forceful wind behind us. the clouds are those little wispy ones that fill the sky with patchy gauze.

it was beautiful and it made me cry. i was so happy it made me cry. i'm a big baby and it's true most things make me cry for one reason or another. but all this serenity and me - in the middle of it - overwhelmed me a bit. my environment makes me moody. i am sensitive i guess.

yesterday our neighbor burned the brush in his front yard. it was strange to me. but i grew up in the city. today he is mowing for the first time since last fall. i should be doing the same. at the very least i should rake the leaves and get the yard ready for future mowing. i like doing country things. it's much better than anything in the city.

even if i don't get to go to my favorite organic vegetarian restaurant everyday.

write and wrong

in junior high school my troubled mind began to show it's face. i had been removed from public art school. now i wore a polyester plaid skirt and a sour face. i hated authority (especially male) and seemed to have no issue with announcing this to anyone who was stupid enough to cross me.

i wasn't always so angry.

it's fairly safe to say that i've always had trouble in school. in recent years i have come to the realization that i had a learning curve as steep as an archway. my mother and i moved alot and my schools changed every few years, sometimes more. i could list the scroll-worthy series of reasons why i had issues. for a time i assumed everyone thought i was stupid. and ugly. i got that last one alot. one thing is certain, my mother is tremendously smart. the kind of smart that only masterminds - serial killers, super villians, csi detectives and research librarians embody. and while she imparted as much worldy wisdom as possible, she was also busy breaking me into a thousand useless shards.

growing up i could, with relative ease, do anything creative or crafty. i was a dancer and an actor. no trouble there. but when junior high school hit i had no legs to stand on. i was supposed to be held back to repeat 6th grade again. i am not sure how my mother got me into 7th grade. i couldn't do math very well - i hate math to this day. numbers make me uncomfortable. words. i love words. i couldn't function in class. i had an almost allergic reaction to solving problems, and i had an even harder time absorbing information. and i never did homework. it made me feel stupider.

and that's where grammar comes in. whether it was 7th grade or 8th i don't remember - i recieved my worn out copy of an english grammar workbook. how was i supposed to understand how this worked? i knew i could speak very well - my mother speaks like a victorian queen. i hesitate to say i couldn't read well but looking back i might as well have been illiterate. grammar, syntax, and the use of tenses, verbs, pronouns and the like alluded me. i knew they existed. i was well read. i had no practical application. and no energy to put into learning how to apply it or anything else for that matter. i had other things to think about.

this problem continued and worsened until i left school. grammar still alludes me actually, hence the inspiration for this entry. recently i have started writing content for anonymous clients with www.textbroker.com. every critique i receive has been the same....

you have no idea how to use a comma.

really?

in my ignorance i had forgotten that in order to write - for money - as an adult - i should probably have a proper grasp of the english language. i don't like conformity and one of my favorite things about the english language is how much freedom one has. new words appear everyday (if you hang out with my friends it can be more like every few hours)! but this has no place in the world of nameless faceless content writing or writing at all probably. as you can see here i don't even like using capital letters. i don't like them. but i use them in my professional life as it were. at least i can get that right. and people seem to enjoy for the most part what i've written.

until today. i recently wrote a brief article on "astral projection and isochronic tones". for those of you who have no idea what the hell i'm talking about, astral projection is when someone's mind travels into a spiritual realm outside of the body (an out of body experience). isochronic tones are literally tones that one may use to elicit the trance-like state needed to project. now i don't necessarily ascribe to this - though i am curious how effective the tones are (they work for insomnia and mood issues). but this is the kind of thing i grew up with. the phrase "travel to an astral plane" was no less common in my house than say "butter for my toast please". so i thought i'd have no problems nailing this. with a little research and a nice conversation with a friend i wrote confidently.

i failed. this person hated my article. wow. the criticism (i asked to receive it and boy did i) was on one hand alarmingly harsh and on the other hand extremely helpful. they caught me at a good time. i did not retaliate.

even when they said "and this line really made me cringe".

i broke free... well mostly (a message from max)

my female human-dog (f.h.d.) spent the morning furiously cleaning our house. apparently we had company coming and she needed to eliminate all the hair i had worked hard to accumulate in the corners of every room. i like the house clean mind you. but no one had come to see us until today and to be honest i didn't think it was dirty to begin with.

as for me i spent a good amount of my day sleeping. this morning i had a good run in the backyard for all of five minutes before my f.h.d. called "breakfast!" which happens to be the most irresistible word i know. every morning i try to resist the urge to bolt like lightening at the sound of this word but my friends i must confess that my mind is weak. some days i can hold out when she says "cookie!" which i am learning is the afternoon and evening call i receive when my f.h.d. thinks i've wondered to far from her. it's true that i do love cookies, i mean who doesn't? i might love eating poop just as much but i have yet to hear her call me back to her yelling 'poop!". that would be the day.

after my breakfast i slept. that's a thing i like to do. right after breakfast i run to their bed and tunnel under the covers for a brief respite. today, perhaps due to the frenzy of cleaning, my nap was thrice interrupted before i was finally banished to the living room. i suppose the linens did need washing. i don't personally find myself to be a nuisance but it's possible i do cause a tiny speck of frustration for my h.d.'s. speaking of my h.d.'s... i wonder where that other one has got off to? i seem to remember he lived with us briefly when i was first adopted. hmmm... he is my play friend and perhaps that's why i'm a little bored these days. i hope he comes back i like sleeping with his shirt.

the sun was shining today! my goodness that sun was right there on the porch and i took my second - or maybe my third - nap of the day in a little patch of sun. the music around here is pretty nice and i like to drift off to whatever is on the stereo (yes i know what a stereo is. i am 6 after all).

a few times i got up to see what my f.h.d. was up to and to see when i might get another cookie. the floor was a bit wet and i had a pretty good time watching her wash the floors with a big wet towel and something that got the floor all misty and we both slipped around a little. but i can only hang around watching someone hand wash a floor for so long before i need to take another nap.

at this point she came to interrupt yet another nap of mine to sweep my precious little porch! i defied and stood amidst the dust clouds no matter how many times she said i could have a cookie if i was a good boy and sat inside so i woulnd't die from inhaling all the dust. ok ok ok but i'm going to sit on the other side of that door because frankly, i don't feel comfortable when you close doors in my face and you stay on the outside of it. well, it was worth it my friend. because after she left the porch to go clean some other part of the house....

i slipped out the screen door. she left it wide open. it wasn't my fault. man oh man. the freedom was good. i sniffed this, i sniffed that, i peed on a few flowers, and in general had a really awesome time. i don't wear a watch so i'm not sure how long i was outside on my own but it seemed like maybe a half an hour. i had just found the tastiest piece of poop in the backyard - i don't know what varietal it was though i normally dine on goose - when my f.h.d. comes running to the backyard and seeing me yells my name and generally gets a little crazy. i know she hates that i like poop so you better believe i was scarfing it down as fast as i could before she got to me. i did get most of it. she swooped me up and i thought she was going to get all mad at the poop but she just hugged me and told me she loved me. it was confusing.

and i finally got another cookie. something about my breath being "poopy"?

our friend came over this afternoon and they talked the day away. talk talk talk. sometimes i couldn't even get a word in or a lap to sit on. they didn't care one bit i had things to say and naps to take. at least they took me for a long walk. but all they talked about was girlie things and so i just tried to focus on tightening my abs while i walked. i'm not ripped or anything but i've got some pretty good definition. ladies!

after our friend left i took another nap while my f.h.d. did some computing and writing an article that seems a little spooky to me but then i was half asleep. i think it's about listening to sounds that make you go out of your body. or something like that. i wonder if dogs can go out of their bodies? it kind of seems that way when i dream. it's as if i were off in some field running and jumping around in the flowers and nipping at the butterflies. or maybe that was from babe pig in the city... sometimes my real life and my movie life get a little mixed up. i'm very sensitive to film.

well i've worn myself out from all this writing so i have to go to bed now. time to tunnel under the covers if i can get away with it.

more messages from max soon to come.

goodness i love matzah

my first passover seder today. i shared it with a small group made of family and new friends though sadly it didn't include my boyfriend and his brother and sister. i helped mamah prepare a little bit of the seder foods which amounted to me talking her ear off while she ran around the kitchen actually making the food. i managed to dice 3 apples and a cup of walnuts for the choraset (pronounced horaset). i brushed up on my passover research last night so i wouldn't be a complete inept at the feast. my research only helped me in one way. i now knew a little more about the world than i did when i got up yesterday. in practical terms it did nothing to help me understand the profound significance that this holiday holds. however it did allow for terribly interesting conversation with miss mamah about the history of judaism - a subject of which she knows an insanely huge amount about. every day i spend with her i learn something new.

our passover seder included the usual suspects:

charoset - diced apples, walnuts, cinnamon, red wine and yumminess.
bitter herbs - two bowls actually of horseradish and the fresh one almost killed me.
shankbone - i did not touch it and it scared me but i admire what it represents.
egg - this is supposed to be roasted but i think mamah may have hardboiled it. cheater ;)
parsley - this is dipped in salt water to represent spring and the sorrows of jewish children. it's very tasty.

our main meal was enough to send me over the edge. matzah ball soup, chicken with kale and mushroom, and asparagus with lemon. and of course MATZAH. not one but two kinds. whole wheat and white. PLUS passover friendly brownies. did i mention the matzah? i adore matzah. i want it all the time. i even looked for it at costco and yet it alluded me.

i didn't know any of the songs myself but it was so neat to hear miss mamah sing them all in hebrew. of course everyone joined her but it was apparent that she had the floor and killed it each time. i like when she sings and i know it makes her happy. i loved it when my mother sang and so i am reminded of her in a sweet way. that is a rare occurrance and i am happy to revel in those moments.

our faithful leader, from here on out known as papa rabbi, along with miss mamah recited the majority of the stories of passover and i think the extent may have been for my benefit. i was learning as i went after all. there are some very interesting things about passover that i have yet to really grasp fully.

this year in the house of mamah and papa rabbi.... next year in jerusalem!

you must be new here. nu?

this is in fact a day to remember. a day of NEW and NU.

• his birthday party was early this afternoon and he is four years old. and he knows what he wants from life. he is four and he knows more than i do at 31. he has a gift for honesty not laced with the brutality of disappointment. his is the honesty of those with pure hearts and active imaginations. he knows the facts are in and truth is king. i know this already but his openness is astounding. i have been honest yet dishonest if you can understand what that means. it means i need truth, i seek it and ask for it and do everything i can to give it. and yet i fail. i am asking too much. i want to be taken back to my life at four and savor the purity i had - that we all had - the days when, even though subliminal forces were at work, i had no practical knowledge of them and therefore no motive to act on them. these days i move as close to my childhood as possible.

• she is my adopted mamah. i will call her that here from this moment on because she is that to me. my own mother is not here. she hasn't been and i don't see her in my future. my mamah is a gift to me. she doesn't belong to me, she belongs to my boyfriend and his siblings. it wasn't always this way... we have grown into this life because we love the same person and he is her son and i am his girlfriend. she is a good teacher and today taught me a new yiddish word - nu. she finally saw a serious man with her daughter and so she told me what it means. so? well? so what's up? what's new? and? i am making a point to learn more yiddish and the history of that language. i like dialects because they so often come out of oppression. people need privacy when there is none to have. creating an entire language out of other languages that people have forgotten about and saying "this is what bonds us now - no one can hurt us if we keep our words a secret". there is so much power behind that. i wish i had my own secret language. the power you have over me is the one i wish i had over you.
  

• this is my first blog. i am making a poor first impression so please forgive me. this promises to be rich if not oysgeputst. though the title of this blog may seem confusing or unsuited upon first glance - i can assure you it is a true statement. there will be articles of interest and personal information (though i will never give names if possible) along with things i make like food, music and crafts, film, new findings and at times my dog may post in place of me. his name is the only name i will use. maxwell valentine. my own goals are unclear to me as of yet, the only one at present being that i want to do this. i know that blogging experts will tell you to focus on one topic so you can gain a loyal audience. i am not interested in only one topic. it sounds very limiting and to be honest quite flat. i intend to be round. and that is that. please join me if you don't like expectations.