Sunday, December 27, 2009

Home Making Advice From My Dad

--as he pulled a loaf of bread out of the oven and showed us how he had shoved a knife through the center.

"You know how this bread always comes out frozen in the middle? Well if you put a butter knife through the middle, the knife heats up and conducts the heat to the middle. And that's just a neat little homemaking tip."

I'm going to Seattle tomorrow, more to come.

Thursday, December 24, 2009

A Christmas Adam

Today my little sister informed me that since tomorrow is Christmas Eve, today is Christmas Adam.
Being home has been nice so far--I'm trying to keep busy with several sewing projects which will show up here with my swimsuits eventually. I also suspect I am quickly using up the household supply of emergency candles. Perhaps it's all the time I've been spending with Jack that has reminded me how much I love having candles everywhere. Although it might be dangerous since I have already fallen asleep with candles burning several times, and just now I cracked a miniature mason jar with a tea light in it.
If you are in need of some last minute Christmas music, check out Stereogum's Christmas mp3s. They've added some more, but my favorite off of this list is "Kiss me on Christmas". This leads me into my list of unnecessary items I bought today. The list includes: one bra, a music box that plays "let it be" (gift), communist toy soldier (prank), and Elna Baker's memoir New York Regional Mormon Singles Dance (splurge--a hardback copy of a book I've never heard of ?). I'll give a full review when I finish reading, but just reading the first essay I can already tell that this book is going to be simultaneously entertaining and depressing.

First of all, it's girls like Elna that make me hate my life sometimes. Of course her memoir talks about how she used to be the big girl who lost 80 pounds and subsequently has to deal with both Mormon and non-Mormon men wanting to date her. But, for one they never show pictures of her when she was fat--and from here I just see success.

On the other hand I relate to her sentiments on the pressures of trying to find "the one" or just A one in Mormon culture. I'm only twenty-one and with most of my friends already married or at least engaged; I feel like a spinster-nun hybrid.

I've always been pretty quiet and shy in public, but that certainly doesn't mean that I can't carry myself well or that I have a feeble personality. I remember conducting a meeting at church and having an adult come up to me afterwards to tell me that with my brains, beauty, and poise I would certainly attract a lot of attention from boys in college. NOT THE CASE.

It probably doesn't help that I just watched two inspirational movies back-to-back and now feel like I need to do something big.

I can only hope that my ventures into single Mormon culture post-graduation and even pre will be half as entertaining as Elna's.



I don't doubt that my fair share of adventure it waiting for me.

Starting 9am tomorrow at my brow waxing.


HAPPY CHRISTMAS ADAM!

Friday, December 18, 2009

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Rhubarb Crisp

Sunny afternoon, end of June.

I walk out onto the porch and sit

on the top step with a bowl in my lap.

I’m trying to mix red and green rhubarb

With sweet oats and brown sugar.

I can smell the cinnamon and butter.

My arms are getting tired.



I bite a raw slice of rhubarb,

its skin a ripe red but tart as a lemon.

My eyes tear up, I swallow quickly and

keep stirring. I remember

picking long stalks for pies from

my grandma’s yard as a kid, the same

summer cousin Ben fed his brother’s shirt

to a neighbor dog. We found the shirt hours later

in a pile of leaves on the side of the road.


After finding the shirt we all traipsed down to the tire

swing in the woods as if nothing had happened.






Underwood Five


I lift the typewriter,

from the top shelf

my arms shaking

from the weight.

I blow off a blanket

of dust and it whispers,

“Make me new again.”



I feed the typewriter a single

white sheet of paper.

the carriage returns

like a doorbell ringing

The letter “o”

sticks.



The keys chattering

self-consciously,

“D n’t f rget me,

L ve me as I am.”




Tri-Met


I’m sitting on the train home from work,

across from a man, his yellowing

beard flecked with tobacco stains

that match the ones on his hands

and face. He’s coated in a layer of

urban grime.



His hands rest on the handle of

a kelly green oxygen tank as if

it where a knotted wooden

walking stick. Vibrant tattoos,

spayed across his old skin

like graffiti on the side of an

abandoned building.



Four right angles hooked together

like a barrel of monkeys, smaller

ones wrap in a chain

from his wrist to his elbow

like Christmas lights wrap a tree.

The points look like legs jutting out

or barbed wire.


What would he think

if he knew that a black man

just gave up that seat?



On the Factory Floor


It’s like the “I Love Lucy” episode,

the one where she works in the chocolate factory,

but instead of chocolates I’m watching golden

flour-dusted potato rolls go by.


Instead of a frilly apron and big white hat

like the one Lucy wears, I have my waist length

hair tucked up into a fluorescent orange hard hat

and I’m wearing a white sweat drenched t-shirt,

jeans that haven’t been washed all week, and scuffed

brown leather boots.



I watch the rolls in groups of twelve—two rows of

six side by side. Like a part of the machine,

I take away extras and throw them

into a white plastic basket and when there aren’t

enough I take rolls out of the basket

and throw them back on the conveyor belt.



I squint, and see some rolls with black and white

machine grease splattered on them.

The manager says it is completely

edible, but no one wants to eat a roll that looks spattered

with pigeon poop.



Sometimes I grab an extra roll and hold it under my

hand, when no one is looking I rip off the top

and let the soft bread dissolve on my tongue.


I wish it were like “I Love Lucy”,

I would fail miserably, shoving rolls

down my shirt and into my mouth.

Everyone would laugh, and the show

would be over.

Breakfast

Bread in a toaster,

you dumped me in a

grove of blueberry bushes,

that summer we jumped in

all the fountains just for fun.

We titled the album

“Business Casual Snow Angels”.

I will never drink the love potion,

no matter how good it tastes.



Why would anyone

want Extra

ordinary?

An ankle is not unlike a

consequence. (Sit! Stay.)

Double your pleasure,

double your fun.



Espoire

It’s an old cliché that

hope is like a star,

steadily burning

but easily crowded out

by harsh electric lights.

Sometimes the twinkling

icicle lights hanging from

my window seem more

real—closer than the

thousands of weak stars

getting old and tired,

dimming

on their way out.



Natural Medicine


The frizzy-haired physician

sitting cross-legged on the

examination table while I

sit in a chair, tells me that

women are lunar creatures.



And I imagine women circling

the earth, unable to break away

from its pull. Having no light

of their own, they reflect. . .

And throughout the month their size

fluctuates from full to a slim crescent.

The woman glares and

asks me incredulously,

Just what, exactly, don’t you understand?

Outdoor Survival



When you’re lost in the
woods--stop, stay in one place.

Build a lean-to out of branches,
use your spoon and start
digging your latrine,
light a fire and send out
smoke signals, just don’t
wander.

Studies show that people
walk in circles when their lost,
and your rescuers might miss
you if your circle is too big.

What no one tells you
is how long to wait.
Until your hair is long and grey
like Rip Van Winkle’s?
Or just until the moon is full?
What if no one is searching
for you?

Or maybe they are yards
away hidden in the trees, waiting
for you. Maybe they are lost too.



Chicken of the Sea



We are at the aquarium when she tells me

that the last time she threw up, shoulders hunched over

the porcelain toilet bowl, strands of blonde hair

grazing the seat, her index finger probing her throat,

she threw up tuna fish.


I wanted to stop, and I knew I’d never

Again make myself vomit

Once I’d thrown up tuna fish.


I imagine the miniature tuna swimming

up my throat, trying to force there way out.

Then the salmon I saw on a hike in sixth grade

that died trying to go home.


That salmon stopped eating,

put everything it had

into swimming upstream,

its mouth turning into

a beak. It slowly

began decomposing

but thought about

nothing but the task at hand.


The pressure of the vomit coming up

her throat like that salmon, swimming

against the current. And the smell:


like a dead fish lying on the sand under a hot sun,

frozen in a last gasp, ribs beginning to show through scales.

Blended with the slimy green algae that floats on

the surface of the pool you haven’t used in years

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Because I told my Mom I would post this conversation

I love my mom, this is fairly typical phone conversation between the two of us:

Me/K: I am going die of boredom driving home. Christmas better be worth it!

Mom: I hope your idea of a good Christmas isn't being showered with expensive gifts because I'm just not feeling it.

K: What?? That was exactly what I was expecting!

M: Well, we are remodeling the bathroom--isn't that a nice present that you can enjoy on a daily basis?

K: No. I think the bathroom is fine the way it is!

M: Gus says it repulses him (Gus is the family cat).

K: Gus??

M: Yes, I just walked by and he said the bathroom repulses him and he hates it when Kirsten says things like that.

OH THE HUGE MANATEE!!!


I saw this picture on a professor's door in the JFSB and I LOVE it. And the grinch.

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Prelude to a Merry Crystal Meth-mas


an update on my Thanksgiving weekend/ everything that has happened since

TUESDAY

Left Provo. Nothing exciting happened.WEDNESDAY
I had an adventure trying to park the red yacht on the street in Portland while I got my hair cut then rushed to the temple to wait for my roommate to come out with her new husband!! I wish I had the pictures because she looked absolutely beautiful.

Then I sat at the single ladies table at the luncheon-- it was great.

THURSDAY

Actually the least exciting day of the break. I got in another fight with my Dad and ate. A lot.

FRIDIA

Lots of reading and spending time with my sisters. Then I went to help put together the floral centerpiece's for my roommate's reception. The reception was out at Pumpkin Ridge--I am sad it was so dark by the time the reception started that you couldn't see how beautiful the drive up was. I picked up one of the the roommate's friends from High School so she could be there and it was interesting talking to her. The reception was amazing. Better food than Thanksgiving.

SATURDAY

Shopping solo.
I started out on the east side with Bolt, then moseyed over to Xtabay which is a little hard to find but well worth the hunt. They had some of the best vintagedresses I've seen in a long time--too bad I couldn't justify buying another dress. Then I headed back to the west end Narcisse, Frances May, and the Radish Underground. All three of these stores were participating in the shop local black Friday weekend, so I scored a great deal on blue wool NOA NOA ruffled shrug. Then I went down to Pioneer Place to check out the holiday pop-up Flurry, which I quite honestly wasn't very impressed with. On the way home I stopped by the local cemetery for some pictures in my newest purchase:

Juust Kidding. This is baby S who I went to play with later Saturday night after I stopped by at A's birthday party. I think baby S remembers me, and even if we didn't we still had a great time playing together and it made me so happy to see him and his family.

Here's the cemetery picture:
I headed back to Provo on Sunday where it's been mostly back to business. Squincher has been dying to do every one's makeup so we had a little photo shoot with G's brother where you can see more of my new favorite shrug.

On Thursday night I went to the Beehive Bazaar with Candy. It was a lot of fun, but we are so crafty we mostly ended up with a lot of ideas for crafts. But I also got a floral cameo bracelet and a pretty card:

It says, "I want to be where you are". Ironically, this Sunday morning I woke up to snow at Lumberjacqueline's house, but I am also working on finishing up this swimsuit for class today.
I would call it the Olive Green Grecian Goddess Swimsuit, but that's a mouthful.