loft slideshow

all the descriptions are on my flickr page too!

King Harvest Has Surely Come

Matthew pictures!
... and a special happy birthday to alex who (hold your breath) turns 15 today. and i can still remember (vividly) going to see him when he was born. Em's birthday is soon too (sweet... 17) and, of course, we have the Kelsey-Raleigh 9 Day Birthday Sweep!

FOX explains the economy with strippers

... and the world makes so much more sense. fully story on veraci.

where in the world is carmen sandiego???

if you've been wondering where i've been, why i've fallen off the face of the planet, et al, let me grant you the three most basic answers i can:
1. andrew...
2. butler library
3. VERACIFIER

if you haven't visited our friends over at NNN lately, start moving your traffic. really, you don't like pictures ofm y baby brother nearly as much as making fun of jenna bush's new engagement. (will they serve bojangles??? see, i told you it's fun.)

so, GO.

oh and, yeah, i'm blogging there. unabashed self-promotion.

falling slowly

THE TEMPS!!!

...

= : )

the way i love you

See the World - Gomez

Day to day
Where do you want to be?
Cause now you're trying to pick a fight
With everyone you need

You seem like a soldier
Who's lost his composure
You're wounded and play a waiting game
In no-man's land no-one's to blame

See the world
Find an old fashioned girl
And when all's been said and done
It's the things that are given, not won
Are the things that you earned

Empty handed, surrounded by a senseless scene
With nothing of significance
Besides a shadow of a dream
You sound like an old joke
You're worn out, a bit broke
An' askin me time and time again
But the answer's still the same

See the world
Find an old fashioned girl
And when all's been said and done
It's the things that are given, not won
Are the things that you earned

You've got a chance to put things right
So how's it going to be?
Lay down your arms now
And put us beyond doubt
So reach out it's not too far away
Don't mess around now, don't delay

See the world...

making silk-screen fun at home!

it's time for those RIOTS NOT DIETS shirts, ladies.

Another Celia Star

... from the woman who reminds me which way home is.

FROM THE BELLE TOWER
We all love Paris' trauma and drama

By CELIA RIVENBARK

Paris Hilton's teary screams to her mama, pleading with her to save her from the slammer (and just as bad, the color orange which is almost impossible to wear) told me all I needed to know. Acorn, meet tree. Both believed that they were entitled to special privileges and what possessed that numbskull judge not to see that?

On the other hand, the unseemly scene softened my view of Paris, who at 26, is getting a bit long in the tooth for the youthful indiscretion defense. With only her mama to save her, as they reached out perfectly manicured hands to one another, I was reminded of Michelangelo's beautiful cracked fresco depicting the outstretched fingers of God reaching to Adam. OK, maybe not.

Truth is, I know lots of Southern women who had two or three knee babies by the time they were 26, so there wasn't a lot of time for drunken dinners at Il Sole followed by clubbing and homemade porn with one's current squeeze.

Paris, turning to her mama to fix everything, delivered a quintessentially Southern, and possibly even heartfelt, performance.

Sure, her mama's as shallow as a pie plate but, even so, Paris knew that when all else failed, Mama would fix things or at least die trying.

Remember in "Steel Magnolias" how Sally Field gave her daughter a kidney? If she had been a real Southern mama, she'd have offered both of 'em up along with her heart.

I'm not saying that being a protective mama is strictly a Southern quality (curse?), but I do believe that a Southern mama is statistically more likely to plunge a butter knife into the gut of anyone who would ever hurt her baby girl, even if the baby girl is old enough to wear faux denim Koret pantsuits and order "senior coffee."

We simply won't accept seeing our daughters unhappy, even if they've brought it all on themselves.

You don't ever read headlines about a mama in, say, North Dakota, plotting to kill off her daughter's competition for chief cheerleader or prom queen or even valedictorian (if'n she's homely).

Naw. It's always some crazy Southern mama who does stuff like that. That, and banana pudding warm from the oven, is how we show our love.

Oh, and one more thing. I'm tired of the same people who seem to know every nuance of Paris' problems complaining about how she's dominating the news. ("If only they'd stop talking about her, I could resume reading my Mensa journals. Osgood, my good man, another snifter of brandy!") Shut up; you love it or you'd turn the danged channel.

Y'all know I'm right.

ONLINE | To read past Celia Rivenbark columns, go to her page at MyrtleBeachOnline.com.

swimming upstream

i'm just listening to amos lee sing night train and thinking about love, faith, and strength.



“Consider it nothing but joy when you fall into all sorts of trials, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect effect, so that you will be perfect and complete, not deficient in anything.”

James 1:2-4

wild wild wild: glow in the dark printer ink, diy dye

How Make Glowing Printer Ink - Watch more funny videos here

be my love

Dispatches from New Hampshire

Just an hour before the democratic debates are set to begin and the press has convered on Manchester, NH.

The old guard - CNN, ABC, FOX (NBC, where are you?) - takes up about fifty percent of the gym here at St. Anselm College, but the real story is all the international press that's here.

El Mundo has four representatives, Swedish TV, Swedish newspapers, French newspapers, Danish newspapers - everyone has sent a small flock to cover this: Election '08 -- in '07.

American rationalizations of this extra-early election coverage span the guantlet: frustration over the war in Iraq, celebrity effect, the You Tube Generation - but what is the foreign interest? Yes, the election of our next president has a huge effect on the rest of the world, but where in the media-fed public hysteria is there any ground for a real, several-correspondent trip interest?

As we speak, the french delegation is standing over me eating grapes. Maybe the free Cordon Blue won them.

Andrew's learning how to hold a boom. He's the tallest person here.

More from my favorite columnest, the Peanut Queen herself...

FROM THE BELLE TOWER
Mom jeans need to stay in back of closet
CELIA RIVENBARK

T his just in: "Mom jeans," those disasters in denim with the 9-inch zippers and waistlines that threaten to crawl all the way up to your armpits, are making a comeback.

Precious Lord, take me now.

Lampooned in a classic "Saturday Night Live" skit circulated on the Internet for years, Mom jeans are, frankly, hideous. No one looks good in them, with their strange and cruel propensity to broaden the hips, flatten the butt and taper in a ghastly fashion at the ankle.

Extreme Mom jeans even come in odious pale blue washes and feature an elastic waist that tells the world: "Why, as a matter of fact, my idea of a good time IS dinner at The Cracker Barrel at 4 p.m. followed by a "Murder, She Wrote" marathon on TNT."

The phrase "Mom jeans" is so universally understood it has even made its way into Urban Dictionary, which notes they are "usually accompanied by a sexy cardigan boasting birds or wildlife and accented by a quilted purse."

Well, those quilted purses are light and easy to carry, but if you want to, as "SNL" said so perfectly, "let the world know you're not a woman; you're a MOM!" just wear your Mom jeans with one of those cardigans with a cardinal straddling each breast and bird's nests for pockets. Yes, the look is complete, the message is clear: You have officially stopped trying.

So whom do we blame for the return of these high-rise horrors? Our pop culture icons, of course.

Mom jeans are showing up on Jessica Simpson, Mischa ("Feed me!") Barton, Fergie, Scarlett Johanssen and even Jennifer Lopez, who, I'm sure, is terribly upset that she can't find any trimmed in dead baby seal fur.

Of course, there are some women who are thrilled to have Mom jeans back on the scene after years of too many low-rise jeans that celebrate, rather than reign in, the aptly named "muffin top," that unfortunate belly fat that puffs out above the low-rise waistline.

The truth is there are plenty of women and teens who have no business wearing the super-low rise jeans (I'm thinking, in particular, about anyone who shows her thong above the low-rise waistline or who has allowed all of us to see the top two-thirds of an American Eagle flapping above her butt cheeks) but no one, I repeat, no one, looks good in Mom jeans.

Even sexpot Simpson, photographed in her Mom jeans recently, looked as if she needed to be hauling webbed chairs and Capri Suns out to the soccer fields instead of nibbling on hottie John Mayer's earlobe like a piece of cheese.

Mom jeans? Think I'll pass.

i would give you a bouquet of newly sharpened pencils if i knew your name and address...

but then this not knowing has its charms.


school bells ring!!! (even though it's summer)
so i'm very busy with homework.
and next new networks.
and duck.
and decorating.
and wiktatorship.
and house beautiful.

and homework.
and class.
and summer.

and commuting.

and mostly homework.

buuut....
this, dear ones, a little homework for your webby eyes:

"To His Piano" by Howard Nemerov.

To His Piano

Old friend, patient of error as of accuracy,
Ready to think the fingerings of thought,
You but a scant year older than I am
With my expectant mother expecting maybe
An infant prodigy among her stars
But getting only little me instead–

To see you standing there for six decades
Containing chopsticks, Fur Elise, and
The Art of Fugue in your burnished rosewood box,
As well as all those years of silence and
The stumbling beginnings the children made,
Who would believe the twenty tons of stress
Your gilded frame's kept stretched out all this while?

since we're going away this weekend I can bet there will be pictures in the near future... plus some of pretty lamposts : )

hooray hoorah!!

happy commencement to the class of 2007!

it's graduation up here "on the hilltop" of broadway and 116th again... soon (two, three, five) it'll be me too!

new pictures are up at flickr!!! www.flickr.com/photos/raleighbeth

best new picture ever

pledge

only on public radio can you describe a donation as, "and for your penannual gift," and know - automatically - everyone knows exactly what you mean.

if you have to ask...

Lucky mag does this segment called "does this outfit work?" http://www.luckymag.com/magazine/features/howto_20070502

answer: if you have to ask, dear god no.

how did i know you were yankee?

i recently had a long conversation with a southern expat who wandered into my office about the tribulations of life in the tundra. the focus of our dissertation was, by and large, how the conspicuous lack of sweet tea and warm sun was enough to force anyone into the state of yanktitude my mother has warded off (or at least tried to) with a lob lolly switch and enough raid to stop even a monster invasion before the likes of, say, ivan or katrina.

every week or so she pops in on the promise that 310 offers what little refuge she can seek in the form of three guarantees:
* warm co-cola in a can (honestly, y'all. if you're starting to gag, go wash your mouth out with camay some camay and come back to me when you know up from down, my mama will show you what's up)
* a fine selection of music you could expect played at courtyard 280, otherwise known as the shack behind those trucks parked six deep, a little skynyrd if we're desperate but generally some dixie chicken. feats don't fail me now!
* something to eat that has not been made: diet, low-fat, without sugar, without butter, without taste.

just yesterday - a day where my coke supply had done dried up like the dirt in august and i was brandishing my last remaining can of salvation as if it were the holy sceptor of possibility to the students banging down my door with near-impossible demands - she stopped by with pictures from her recent escapade back down south to tuscaloosa (roll tide) for the annual KA old south ball.

what beautiful pictures. (although, i'd like to go on record here amd now to say that as soon as my nana turns away long enough that i can scan those pictures in without her screeching, "don't ruin my photo albums! i worked hard on those for more years than you've seen on this planet!" and flying at me like a bat of hell, i will indeed scan those pictures for posterity and supply the general familial population with our photos en digi, you know, so we can, say, actually hold on to them for aw hell maybe posterity. (just call me crazy as the day is long.) i digress. i only meant to say that my mother was the prettiest i've ever seen in her old south pictures. she just looked like she fell off the plantation. and no plantation that's now turned into an intersection of state routes and a peach stand like shady dale (not even a stopsign!) but like the farm that would have made twelve oaks looked like the poor cousins way out that we just don't talk about much. she was always just so gorgeous. (honest mama.) right there, those pictures, when i saw those when i was a little girl, that was what set my bar for "beauty." obviously i've never matched it - i think it's a daughter's perogative to know, quite firmly, that her mother is just the most beautiful woman alive - but now this girl's pictures did come close. and to be honest - there is an ounce of integrity that just demands it - this is tuscaloosa. ain't much goin on down there with that readin, writin, and 'rithmatic, so it surely leaves plenty of time to put on the dog.

now, the interesting thing is she also brought her pictures from the theta formal here. and by formal i mean completely informal. and by theta i mean not actually since they don't do anything that real sororities do or make those dues worthwhile. honestly, if you don't get to throw the best mixers and themed parties where people walk away with more nostalgia than just a "proof it happened" plastic beer cup, it's not real. the plastic beer cup alone actually probably sums that up quite well. i don't care how many flowers you had printed on it. unless you come back in forty years to "just smell the basement" of the fraternity house down the street, it's not real greek life. just ask my cousin kay.

so my expat in crime says to me: you remember when you were little? remember when your mother taught you how to pose for the camera?
me: yes. painfully. years of therapy have failed to block it out.
her: like christmas poses. all cute with the fake presents. remember that?
me: what's this past tense. my mama just took one of those with me on the stairs just last year. i was moaning the whole time, "mama, i don't fit in my florence eisman anymore, don't you think you've got enough of this." and was quiclky reprimanded with ah, "oh hush. now, sit still or we're putting the champagne away." it did the trick. i think the same threat would have worked when i was four.
her: right. so. you remember learning how to pose with groups?
me: oh god. yes.
her: learning how to turn in, where to put your hands
me: "HEAVENS TO MURGATROID BUNNY WILL YOU STOP PUTTING YOUR ARMS ON PEOPLES SHOULDERS! THEY GO DOWN! DOWN, DOWN, DOWN! DO YOU HEAR ME? DOWN! GOD ALMIGHTY. I CAN'T BELEIVE YOU'RE MY FLESH AND BLOOD. THIS IS YANKEE. THIS MUST BE FROM YOUR FATHER."
her: aw, my mama did that to me too. and we didn't even have yankee blood. but my daddy's got people in detroit - their second cousins - but they're there nonetheless. and they got transferred there for a job. but still, yeah, it's all my daddy's fault too.
me: well, it's always true.
her: okay, so, now i want you to look at these pictures.

now, all the girls looked lovely in both sets. (obviously those from loosa were cuter, but i'm being nice. and to be fair, alabama girls do go a little heavy on that whole eyeliner thing, don't they sizzle?) but in the pictures from the south, all the girls were standing just so, i mean, they were poised. everyone was angled in just right, hands to their kneees in this almost playboy bunny kind of way that was way too charming to have ever been really associated with that beyond a fleeting moment. and one could really argue that the bunnies, knowing this is the best way to stand, stole it from the South.

the girls from the north were all helter skelter. no one quite knew what to do with their hands. where to put their arms. how to bend their legs. clearly, their mother had not looked apalled at the pictures from their seventh grade dances and shreiked, "good land of the living get in here and do this with me." and then pulled out the full-length mirror when you were still "doing something funny" with your foot. and then, turning away in utter dispair, shook her head and said, "it's just impossible, i give up. i must have failed you as a mother if you can't even get this right." and you realize the error of your ways is so severe that not only will you still hear about it when you're seven nine and your mother is on her deathbed (you've been keeping her on life support just so she can finish her last few lectures and get it all out before toasting st. paul at the pearly gates with a glass of piper chilled just so) that you spend the next three days of spring break fastidiously tied to the mirror until you, too, can bend and grin with the best of them.
(or so you think.)

this necessary cycle of southern upbringing is something i've discussed with all my fellow greystoners at length in the summer - when we could get our really cool counselors to show us how to do it in a "sexier" way (clearly they didn't have my mama) - and with my dear friend the-new-mommy elizabeth during pictures sessions with the old bitties at docent shoots at the b'ham museum of art. (daouh-sin.)

i concluded that this mortification process was actually an integral part of the mothering cycle and will be sure to traumatize my babies equally as much so long that at least by high school their formal pictures have them looking like they're the only ones in their new york pictures who can really ham it up with grace and class. in other words, so that they don't look either ugly, slutty, or fat, things we all have to admit to doing by mistake at some point or another. my mother once insisted on buying me the most whorish dress in the world for a fall semi-formal, explaining to me that as long as i held myself like the innocent little kid i was, it didn't matter at all. to this day, she loves those photos. the mortification may have eaten into my soul and pocket book with more years of therapy (on top of the lifetime sentance i'd already earned) and conservative looking cardigans (DO YOU HAVE YOUR WRAP???? hahaha... ha. oohhh, banana.) but, to be honest, she was exactly right. minus that one picture she'll never forgive me for where my hands are on another girl's shoulder (to explain that they all had wet nails and i was no more getting close to them than the man in the moon and thought this picture idea was stupid as hell was obviously not valid whatsoever. hte picture happened and i looked stupid.) at least by prom this was all straightened out - and i'll be the first to tell you now that i can bend-and-pose with the best of them.

what's worse is that, in discussing this, we both realized that at our sister camps (so to speak, we largely didn't do much but wave to them from canoes) on lake summit (edith on our side!), they actually taught us how to do this. everytime they took a cabin picture, our counselors would go around and carefully place our hands and tell us how to bend - a good thirty minute process - and holler at the top of their lungs, "now hold it!" until that picture was snapped, shot, and we were all in perfect formation in our sunday whites.

i think that this may be one of the most crucial things i've ever learned how to do, and looking at the gossip picture page in vanity fair, i think we should teach a lesson to the north. y'all look stupid when you're spread all over the page, and i suggest you take a hint from hell's belles, because even when they've come back from a 10k, they'll still pose in style. (thanks to heather ann for the shot)



me: save your confederate money, boys.
her: the south shall rise again.

happy as a lark

i am happy as a lark. or a bee. or anything else that warrants this much blessing. i'm just so happy.


we made a DELICIOUS bruschetta and pasta last night, but foodies among you might have some recommendations on how to jazz up the pasta a little. i actually think, in retrospect, a little chicken stock would do the trick... and maybe wilting the leaves a bit.

Serves 4

1 TB sea salt
10 oz (dry) angel hair pasta
1 bunch watercress (or other tender green like spinach or arugula)
3/4 cup Parmesan cheese, grated
11/2 cups artichoke hearts, cut into 1-inch pieces
2 TB lemon juice
1/2 cup crème fraîche
sea salt, to taste

Fill large pot with water and bring to boil. Add one tablespoon salt, then add pasta and cook according to package directions.

Separate the watercress leaves from their stems and combine leaves with the Parmesan and artichokes hearts and set aside.

Drain pasta after it cooks, reserving 2 tablespoons of pasta water. Quickly return drained pasta to warm pot and stir in lemon juice and the reserved pasta water.

Mix pasta with crème fraîche then add watercress mixture. Salt to taste and serve warm.

Nutrition Info

Per serving (7.15 oz-wt.): 380 calories (110 from fat), 12g total fat, 6g saturated fat, 18g protein, 54g total carbohydrate (8g dietary fiber, 3g sugar), 30mg cholesterol, 640mg sodium


it was very tasty.

today is our year end show! i would be freaking out, but it actually seems i have everything under control. yay mad event planning skills: this looks so easy.

oh, oh, oh and guess what! i officially turned in my deposit to columbia... i am now enrolled!!!!

empty subway cars and thunderstorms

i'm listening to ray lamontagne, and the day began with the blower's daughter in a near empty subway car pulling away from the 103 street stop in a way that made me stop and look around in that way that you just don't remember to on a daily basis. when did my sadness turn to sentimentality? when did old love become nostalgia?

so much has changed in the past few years - as rosemary constantly tells me, the twenties are really, really hard. i don't think that's true for most people, but it's definitely been true for us - maybe there's this certain meloncholy you have to know and this sort of steadfast loneliness you have to breathe to taste it. but what strikes me as how much of it's actually over. it sometimes feels so much like i crossed the atlantic on a piece of driftwood, surviving storm and sun and heat and waves a hundred feet high as skyscrapers and now, looking back from the shallow end of the other shore, i'm just sort of filled with the mist of it. i don't want the waves back. i don't want those nights perched beneath my window in outright plea, but i don't think i'd realized how much it's shaped me - made me just more me - until now, until then, sitting on that train as it sped along uptown. it seems like now i'm moving forward without even having to do anything. it's bizarre.

but, anyway. on to important things, like music for thunderstorms:
van morrison - caravan
ray lamontagne - trouble
little feat - willin
sia - sunday
alexi murdoch - orange sky
iron + wine - evening on the ground
joe crocker - into the mystic
damien rice - blower's daughter

last night we had one hell of a thunderstorm. made me miss ole bamy once again (and i think it's a sin).

ooh, now advice!
i need help choosing my photo for my id card for school. i get to send in my own, and here are my options so far:




Poem: "Count your fingers" by C.D. Wright from One Big Self: An Investigation. © Copper Canyon Press. Reprinted with permission. (buy now)

Count your fingers

Count your fingers

Count your toes

Count your nose holes

Count your blessings

Count your stars (lucky or not)

Count your loose change

Count the cars at the crossing

Count the miles to the state line

Count the ticks you pulled off the dog

Count your calluses

Count your shells

Count the points on the antlers

Count the newjack's keys

Count your cards; cut them again

the brazen, the brave, the baby, and patron.

so i imported the duck to the burg for the weekend and while the pressure cooker came out steamy, i think he survived.

it was a pretty hectic trip.

friday night: in at eleven thirty. home by twelve-thirty. "dinner" until two thirty.
saturday: up at nine thirty. breakfast with momma. (grits and mims and fruit.. oh god momma, i forgot! he doesn't like fruit!!! he was only eating to be polite!!! granted, how you can not like fruit i don't understand, but i don't eat fish, so i'm willing to give every one their room on things.) drive to richfield (one hour). get lost (half an hour). babytime. borrow prius. drive home. wine store. whining. naptime for duck. duck pond for mommy and raleigh. everybody up. rb and duck to brueck-kowal-smithfield "you know, this area is the nicest area really... very elite..." we will not choke on our laughter. help emmy choose jewlery. be supportive big sister and not smack her over head saying "you idiot of course you look gorgeous." instead point out she looks very beautiful, and those earrings compliment your outfit perfectly. make polite conversation with brueck-smiths-kowals. drive emily and amy to prom. get lost. get found. take pictures. drive to richfield. dinner. fighting. cute baby. more fighting. drive home. ahhh. duck: pure exhaustion.
sunday: up, up, up! we hvae the museums to go to! uh, no. lay about lazily, pack summer clothes, convince mother i look whorish in old black dress. leave black dress at home. make margamommies. determine margamommies could kill a five hundred pound man. revamp to margaraleighs. eat cheese. play three rounds scrabble. even with a passed turn, rb butchers duck and mommy. REIGNING QUEEEN!!! drive to richfield. duck steals matthew from arms of his mother and i wave arms jealously about. duck snickers with evil-empire undertones. flight/drunk. home. chinese food. conk out.

so, there was lots to survive.. i mean, he met three whole families.

but the best part was meeting matthew!!!

pictures:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/raleighbeth/

liddy dole doesn't snort

it's that time of year when, as the pink buds from the trees impossibly bright, and we've left behind that first harbinger of spring in the dark wet bark on an early march morning, i find myself missing the deck at 5084 pinehurst and its daily-rainrinsed white chairs that stick to your skin from the heat and my french press and fresh from the ice box lemon pound cake and nana's audible tirades falling out of the breakfast room window to me and my book, sitting in the sun, snowy ending in the drive, the black snake below, and the lizards hanging out by feet.

this is when it's important to pick up celia rivenbark, author of one of my favorite books ("we're just like you only prettier") and the newer "bless your heart, tramp."

it, plus an email from rosemary that just said (no lie) "i know this great teahouse just off 280" - yeah, we're going out to tea, off the highway. at least i'ts not the interstate. could always be worse. plus, 280 is my idea of home.

this just about sums up everything i know to be true in this world (thank you mama, libby, jimdaddy, nana, and aunt linda, our favorite second-southerner):

liddy dole doesn't snort - celia rivenbark

it should come as no surprise that elizabeth dole poster princess for the conservative steel magnolia, has stated that she never snorted cocaine. let me just say thta, on behalf of all southern chickhood, i believe that the reporter who asked that question should have his mouth washed out with camay. [if you don't know what camay is, you might as well stop reading here. david corey will remember countless trips to brunos and publix to buy it en masse every single time we drove back down south. and the time in knoxville we had to try three different markets to find it, the only soap worth using. this was, of course, no silly romp through the highway that made my soap loyalities seem suspect if not a bit supercilious, but rather a life-affirming absolute. there is no other way to clean. period. and it works on everything. just ask mama.]

it's notthe cocaine part that bothers me, rather it's the notion that a southern woman would be cpaable of 'snorting' anything. just as everyone knows that southern women do not sweat (we glow), it is also a geographical and genetic fact that we do not 'snort.' it simply isn't done.

you can take one look at the lidster and know that no way, no how, has this woman ever done lines of cocaine off a tattered copy of who's next while her pre-bob boyfriend strummed a sitar in the corner. nope. elisabeth dole isn't interested in lines of anything unless it's halston.

so while all the world is wondering if and when bush lite did or didn't do drugs, i'm m ortally offended that a 'southeren' woman of mrs. dole's obviuos breeding and background would be asked such an awful question. i just hope her poor ol'mama back in salisbury, north carolina, didn't have to hear such foolwishness or she most certainly would have had to be revived with spirits of ammonia.

of course, having lived in the sin-filled city of washington d.c. for so many years, elisabeth dole has surely faced the normal temptations that beset a belle in foreign lands.

these include such go-ahead-everybody-does-it atrocities as giving money as a wedding gift or, worse, learning that yankee wedding staple: the chicken dance. a true southern belle would never, ever squat at the knees and flap her elbows out while wearing dyed-to-match peau do soie pumps. why, she'd sooner snort.

through all her years of living in washington, elizabeth dole has mained belle-like dignity. ("oh, no thank you, mr. mayor, i couldn't possibly join you for a, what did you call it, toot?") surely, she has had to resist the advances of unscrupulous yankees who are unaccustomed to seeing a well-coifed woman in a fuschia st. john's knit running a cabinet meeting, finding this, in the words of orrin hatch, 'hot!hot!hot!'

now, i do confess that whlie i believe elizabeth dole should not have had to answer such a vulgar question, i am having the time of my life watching the other presidential candidates stumble all over one another to discuss their druggie pasts. (and who would want to get high with al gore anyway? he's gotta be making that up.)

bush lite has finally admitted (after running from the press and hiding in stalls with his feet up) that he hasan't used drugs in twenty-five years, or roughly the average of a first-time drug offender in one of his highly touted tough-on-crime texas prisons.

enjoy the ride, y'all. and, liddy, don't forget to keep your gloves on. like mama told you, you don't know where those hands have been.

the kid stays in the picture

IN LIKE FLYNN

how could i be so remiss!

when we were in yo-hio, papa sent us a whole box full of cotton. we put it in a vase and put it around the house like other people put flowers.

we loved it.

heart of dixie's home to me

well, rosemary did this great post about how she misses southern ohio, and in my trade of trades, i'm posting about how much i miss hell's belles, highway 280, and even the summit. (that's right y'all, i miss a mall.) i miss linca-lonca road (though that's georgia), i want mayhaw jelly on my biscuit, i'm fairly sick of bagels, and i want lemon pound cake on the deck looking at the hawks and wondering about snowy ending.
to wit:
i miss home. (southern pines shelby county!!!!)

so, in the honor of our great rosemary, a little humpday honor to our sleepy sweet home alabama. (roll tide roooolll)



Moonlight and magnolias, starlight in your hair
All the world a dream come true
Did it really happen, was I really there
Was I really there with you

We lived our little drama, we kissed in a field of white
And stars fell on Alabama that night
I can't forget the glamour, your eyes held a tender light
And stars fell on Alabama last night

I never planned in my imagination, a situation so heavenly
A fairy land that no one else could enter
And in the center, just you and me, dear
My heart beat like a hammer, my arms wound around you tight
And stars fell on Alabama last night

Yes, we lived our little drama
We kissed on the dunes so white
And stars fell on Alabama
Last night


mmm... birmingham!

and naked vulcan, our crowning glory:

heart of dixie's home to me

well, rosemary did this great post about how she misses southern ohio, and in my trade of trades, i'm posting about how much i miss hell's belles, highway 280, and even the summit. (that's right y'all, i miss a mall.) i miss linca-lonca road (though that's georgia), i want mayhaw jelly on my biscuit, i'm fairly sick of bagels, and i want lemon pound cake on the deck looking at the hawks and wondering about snowy ending.
to wit:
i miss home. (southern pines shelby county!!!!)

so, in the honor of our great rosemary, a little humpday honor to our sleepy sweet home alabama. (roll tide roooolll)



Moonlight and magnolias, starlight in your hair
All the world a dream come true
Did it really happen, was I really there
Was I really there with you

We lived our little drama, we kissed in a field of white
And stars fell on Alabama that night
I can't forget the glamour, your eyes held a tender light
And stars fell on Alabama last night

I never planned in my imagination, a situation so heavenly
A fairy land that no one else could enter
And in the center, just you and me, dear
My heart beat like a hammer, my arms wound around you tight
And stars fell on Alabama last night

Yes, we lived our little drama
We kissed on the dunes so white
And stars fell on Alabama
Last night


mmm... birmingham!

and naked vulcan, our crowning glory:

penguins and pephalents

hello, india!

K. Edwards 'back to me' --- fantastic lyrics.

I've got ways to make you sorry
start my life with someone else
I've got ways to make you fall
I'll tell you all the things that I lied about
I've got ways to make you mad
Laughing at the girl sitting on your lap
I've got ways to make you sing my songs
Ones I ain't written yet

I've got lights you've never seen
I've got moves I've never used
I've got ways to make you come
back to me

I've got ways to make you strange
Drug you up and drag you home
I've got ways to track you down
In all of the places you like to go
I've got ways to make you crazy
wear all the things you always wanted me to
I've got ways to make you run
My daddy is coming for you

I've got lights you've never seen
I've got moves I've never used
I've got ways to make you come
back to me

I've got ways to make you hear me
just by whispering your name
I've got ways to make you think
you'll never be happy again
I've got ways to make you see
I'm so much better than before
I've got ways to make you swear
you won't want your old life anymore

I've got lights you've never seen
I've got moves I've never used
I've got ways to make you come
Back to me

Twinkle, twinkle, little bat! How I wonder what you're at.

so, unbeknownst to me, there is this great alice in wonderland sculpturegym on the east side of central park. (my provincial dt/ws would, perhaps, explain that ignorance a bit...) that's nut of it.

anyway, last night, after fetching andrew after work and falling madly in love with this desperately fabulous orange jacket we were dilly-dallying our way home up the park, enjoying the splendid evening in the city, and he took me to this marvellous monument of youthful urban literati, and - be still, my beating heart! - i happily played like a four year old for a good twenty minutes. (ahem, so did he.)

how fun is this! a rabbit to kiss!

we also made a quite delcious coq au vin, but i need to ask emma why skipping steps two through six (or rather, ignoring them and reworking them differently due to the creative license reasonably brought on by the delicious vino nobile da montepulciano, where, of course, we should return and re-drink under that hazy tuscan sun) made no noticable effect on our little feast. although, it was a tiny bit too liquidy (well, very) but we decided next time that it's the perfect way to make a risotto to go-go with it. that'll work, right?

mmm. and delicious cheddar-chive-jack biscuits on the side. i'm going to enjoy a scrumptious lunch of leftovers oggi.

time has told me, and other songs: the tuesday afternoon playlist

Van Morrison - Avalon of the Heart
Lucinda Williams - Words
The Holmes Brothers - "(What’s So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love & Understanding?"
Patty Griffin - Heavenly Day
Taj Mahal - Corrina
Rosie Thomas - Much Farther To Go
Bob Dylan If You - See Her Say Hello
Brett Dennen - She’s Mine
Dean & Britta - Words You Used To Say
Andrew Bird - Fiery Crash
The Decemberists - Summersong
Nick Drake - Time Has Told Me
Meg Baird - The Waltz of the Tennis Players

i'm wide awake, it's morning

it's spring it's spring it's spring!!!

our loft is beautiful, my emma isn't getting pnuemonia, i am not either, and i'm waering a skirt... and i'm not chattering my toofs!

it's sprrrriiiiiiiiiiiiing!!!

now, granted, i'm in a severe missing-dixie phase. (why did i leave? what, job opportunity? ahhh. what kind of reason is that!) but tonight i'll make cheddar biscuits while andrew makes his coq au vin, and that will tide me over for the day; and yes yes yes it's lovely out.

more pictures of matthew when my father figures out how to use a camera.

i don't LIKE big. i like SMALL.

this is my I DON'T LIKE THIS. WHY DID YOU KILL MY EASY DINNER. face:


this is the face i will make later, when my roommate pledges to never have dinner with me again because someone takes a certain liberty in over-including:


it's only fair to point out that i am inexorably tied to her for more dinners than anybody else. and this, therefore, is a very troubled face.

night rocking - blumenthal

It could be the stars or the full moon
or your breathing beside me, or perhaps
it is merely the old, familiar hand of restlessness
leading me from the water, but something
shakes me from sleep this night
and, like an old widow who misses her husband,
I go to the living room and rock my way
to a vague remembering. Naked, a bottle of wine
in one hand, a hunger for clarity in the other,
I rock forward and back, the way I’ve seen
old sailors rocking in rest homes, the wind gone.
I take an account of the things in the room—
salt, pepper, books, an empty wine glass—
their terrible, relieving mundanity,
and I know that, as I sit here and rock,
my thighs clinging to the polished wood,
you are lying in bed, the shape of my body
pressed to the sheets the way a victim’s blood
holds the shape of an accident, and you are,
perhaps, dreaming of loving a man who is not
always leaving you, and I am a man rocking
who sees in the small movements of this chair
the comings and goings of tide, the departures
of the restless, and the constant returnings
of the infidel. And I go on rocking until,
finally, the bottle is empty, and I peel
my back from the chair, return to the bed
the way an old beach sleeper returns to the print
of his body in sand, and I sleep again,
knowing you will wake in the morning, stretch
your small hands toward me, forgiving me
as sand forgives the restlessness of tide,
as an old widow forgives the beatings of her dead husband.

and one more, for easter : )

great pictures from moo

barn doors are open

Yolanda Johnson: Duct tape will not make an honest man out of you.

linking is still the new post-it note

Emily Yoffe on Facebook: I got such a ping of pleasure when a connection was made that it occurred to me the Bush administration could stop violating the laws on national security letters and instead just send friend requests to terrorism suspects—how could they resist?


http://www.slate.com/id/2161920?nav=tap3

now, i think the best part of all of this is is that this article is the PERFECT example of exactly what slate does right. at the very end, yoffe says: But I will be interested to see if Facebook and sites of its ilk end up being a granfalloon, or a revolution.
pensive, beat-rejecting reader that i am, i thought to myself (rather humbly, if not embarassed), "um, what is a granfalloon?" and don't you know it, but that word is written in blue, the international color of hyperlinking peace, and... tada! i'm given straight to the wikisphere where a presumably reliable souce expounds for me on the nataure of granfallooness in my life.

i love the modern era

the end of blindness!

i cannot wait for the eighteen months to be over when our new office will be built and i, oh luxury!, will have a window.

Gulfs of Absence

Message Wierda:

loft/life partner:

i have been swallowed whole by a parade of upper east side prepsters. they drink gin and tonics year round and say things like "charming." my time in captivity has so far been draining, but today they let me out to go to the petstore so i could do model-drawings for rousseau the rat. i was not allowed to take a rat home with me, however. i was also encouraged to adapt my story to a feret, a more homey creature for these types i suppose, instead.

i said ra ra ra long live the rat! and bought a pair of brown chucks in defiance.

still, their entreat continues. i am worried the next pair of soles i purchase will be needole-point stubbs. and i will not where house shoes out in public.

captively yours,
raleighbeth.


Message Smith:
Dear Raleigh,

Despite your best efforts to distract me from my frustrations with a dose of witty prose and anecdotal jabs at UES club and culture normally so heedlessly disarming, i remain unfettered in my convictions. Upon arriving back at our house this morning to the 3 bottles of andre neglected and yet still so loyally standing salute in the refrigerator awaiting their certain mortal sacrifice i concluded that you, indeed, spent the night out again. Though i tried throughout the morning to keep my hostilities at bay and keep in perspective the very nice relationship you are embarking upon and how important it is for me to learn that as an adult, i must learn to share and compromise and cooperate with my fellow man. However, only hours later reading the paper in the living room without you, i was overtaken by my sadness and feeling of abandonment and in a fit of rage stormed down into your room and amassed a large pile of relics from your former inhabitance and burned them all outside in my little cigarette hovel.

unfortunately, this drastic and desperate attempt to unburden myself of my truly gripping grief stood to ultimately exacerbate my loneliness and longing because there, in the shadow of the flames so consuming your arts and crafts, thomas pink oxfords, hanna andersen longjohns, and ballet flats was the silhouette of your shining face. in that moment, i realized... i will love you always. perhaps as i get older and wiser, the grief will blossom into a celebration of your life and spirit, and i can look up and out in a northeasterly direction and feel that somewhere, in an overpriced bistro on madison, my little raleigh is looking up and thinking of me, too.

fingers crossed, active citizens

because i have to go to court tomorrow to explain why i can't be called for jury duty when i don't live here... wish me luckluckluck!

the current playlist - for rosemary

no cars go - arcade fire (neon bible version) because it's just so damn great.
goodnight and go - imogen heap i'm definitely partial to hide and seek (where are we? what the hell is going on?) but this is pretty. it's just sort of unabashedly girly like walking through the lulu guinness spot in the fragrance section of bloomies at christmastime. which is somehow annoying, and somehow also completely ethereal, unavoidable, bliss.
pictures - sia because everyone's a current to an ex.
head home - midlake this makes me think of fall. fall in dc, or late summer in dc, but not so much the miserable part as the shipwreck part. it makes me think of the old wednesdays and the malay place. and bug bites. and it makes me smile.
lake marie - john prine i love this song. i just love this song. i adore this song.
sons and daughters - the decemberists i agree, roz. about all of it : )
astral weeks - van morrison because i'm falling in love. and because we both adore vm. and jenzo, remember the lantern-bed-rigging in beantown?
at the bottom of everything - bright eyes ohhh i love the imagery in this song. "We must hang up in the belfry
where the bats and moonlight laugh"
daniella - john butler trio it's dani's themesong!!! minus "you got what i want, why don't you give it to me." only john butler trio is way cooler than stupid ray.
secret hour - birdie busch i'm girly. and i love this one.
bunny ain't no kind of rider - of montreal theme song
officer - kate earl highway 280 in afternoon traffic and trying to find a parking spot at the wal-mart. there are so few people who understand that in my current life. but this song is that moment.
she moves in secret ways - polly paulusma sort of like birdie busch, only it reminds me of d.c.
the well and the lighthouse - arcade fire loooooooooooooooooove it.
fidelity - regina spektor have you seen the you tube video??? such a great song. and duck and i don't launch into an argument about samson (we really have to look that stuff up) when we hear it. it's a great shower song too : )
soft and warm - voxtrot i LOVE vox. as you know. but i love this song as much as "the start of something" -- thanks to corn for that.
(songs for my) sugar spun sister - the stone roses sentimentality : )
last night i dreamt of mississippi - nicolai dunger because, really, last night i dreamt of mississippi. i listen to this on the subway when i'm feeling overwhelmed and suddenly some tourists from home trip on and you can tell they're from home not because they look lost, but because they look NICE. because the men simply WON'T sit down (because there are LADIES to sit down) and because the women are always done up. not tacky like riverchase done up, but pretty like mountain brook or buckhead done up. like kay. like linger longer road done up.
alfie - lily allen ohh i love this. dno't watch the video though. i can't get the flashing puppet out of my head.
travelin thru - dolly parton theme song.
neighborhood #1: tunnels - arcade fire theme theme theme very special theme song.

blogger is being weird

and i can't upload any images.
so, until then:

How to Tell If You're a Participant or a Staff (A Handy Guide for Day Programs)
by David Moreau from You Can Still Go to Hell and Other Truths About Being a Helping Professional

If you have a bowel movement at work and no one records it in a
communication book — you're a staff person.

If someone shouts at you from the other side of the room, Did you
wash your hands? every time you come out of the bathroom — you're a participant.

If your feet don't quite touch the ground when you're sitting in one of
the cafeteria chairs — you're a participant.

If you know where the candy is in Jolene's office — you're a staff
person.

If you can run out to Subway or Burger King for your lunch — you're a staff person.

If you're in a wheelchair — you're a participant.

If you get a buzz cut every staff day — you're a participant.

If you've never ridden in the back seat of the van — you're a staff
person.

If you can walk in the office without being asked, Where are you
supposed to be? — you're a staff person.

If the soap dispenser is on the side of the sink opposite your one good
hand and you can't reach high enough to keep the automatic faucet
from getting your sleeve wet — you're a participant.

If you can give a hug without someone telling you, Remember circles —
you're a staff person.

If you go out for cigarette breaks — you're a staff person.

If your paycheck is for $1.82 — you're a participant.

today's new glasses day!!! yipppy!!!

love some bananas

I love Columbia. This is the best example of what appears on our soc-gr-fac listserv:

Hi,

I made a mistake. I ordered like 15 kilos of bananas on freshdirect.
I get rid of them half the price of freshdirect. I m living across
Lehman Library (415 west 118th street apt 22). if you're interested
we can settle a meeting time.

Hope some of you love bananas.

best,

clement

Matthew Keller Smith...

... Finally a Matthew worth loving!
l
(ha)


And especially for my littlest brother:

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought—
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”
He chortled in his joy.

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

Welcome to the World, Baby Boy!

I have a new brother. He's not yet named (he was only just born) but he's healthy, happy, and apparently, really beautiful. (I looked like Baby Huey when I was born and my parents were honest about it, so I'm hedging my bets on Brother actuall being a beautiful baby.) He's pinky fair, jet black hair, and big blue Irish eyes... and my dad says he looks like Bumpy. (Maybe they'll name him Franklin.)

Baby Brother, we're so excited!!!