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1.17.2014

OF THINGS THAT ARE MOSSY + HAPPY WEEKEND


all in all it's been a really lovely week. 

i got a sitter a couple nights ago and snuck off to see saving mr. banks and the secret life of walter mitty and cried the entire way through both. walter mitty, in particular, is amazing. the plane sequence, though!

i lucked into a real good writing groove. i got so much out, it felt like i really cracked it open. which of course means that next week i will suck and decide that i'm a hack and that i'll have to give back the advance and call it all off. (this happens about every three weeks or so, on average.) 

i won THE most satisfying level of candy crush last night. and then found a moment of rare emotional clarity (as well as a few minutes of free therapy) from a modern family episode? blue note cards.

i walked in on my dad building a rocket ship in the garage with huck out of the cardboard box his new desk came in. he'd fashioned a palette out of a flattened 12-pack of pepsi and was in the middle of painting a giant green space alien on one side while huck ran around "catching spiders" with a fishing net. hang on, photographic evidence:


yep.

(at some point i miiiiiight be persuaded into hauling the real camera out for things like this.)

in a moment of whatever-ness i went into the bathroom today and re-pierced the third hole in my right ear that i'd DIY-pierced in that very same spot in that very same bathroom in a similar moment of whatever-ness when i was 17. i'd let it close up when i was in college and i'd missed it ever since. and so. i wrote earlier this week that middle school natalie was having her resurgence this month, and i guess now we've graduated on into high school natalie. making the same dumb decisions over the same bathroom sink, fourteen years later. how's that for symmetry!

i went out for a walk yesterday to see if i could force some interesting thoughts into my head, but instead all i did was wonder about doorknobs. doorknobs! first of all, doorknob is a wonderful word. and secondly, when did we get so many doorknob options? and why? how does one decide these things? think about it, some turn, some you push, some you squeeze with your thumb, how do you know what will make you happy? and when did it become the norm to have a doorknobs the shape of elephant trunks? what a weird idea. a half mile or so from my parents' home is this sprawling new development made up of identically different homes, all vaguely crafstman looking, all completely devoid of any life forms. it is interesting to note that i did not see one other living person while i was out. at 4pm. no sign of life anywhere. i do think i am not cut out for that kind of thing.

then i met these odd two trees and texted them to brandon, who wrote back and said, "i feel embarrassed for the first one, and a strange need to kneel down and worship the second."


brandon is funny.

but!

i did have a rare moment last weekend where everything in my life started to make sense. i have this pinterest board i'm obsessed with that is made up of nothing but forests in the middle of nowhere. lord of the rings type crap. it doesn't make any sense to me but it makes me absurdly happy. so we were driving around the back ends of town, where all these tiny farmhouses live positively dwarfed by these enormous fir trees, smoky chimneys and foggy grass, and then there it was, i could see it. brandon and his lumberjack beard chopping down wood for the fire, my love of scratchy wools and wood grains and pebbled leather, crackling fires in the fireplace and enormous pots of soup. i saw it all and for the first time i could see me there too, very clearly. it made me wonder if my someday farmhouse in the middle of the trees is coming up sooner than i expected, which made me wonder if maybe i am getting old. but there will definitely need to be a pick up truck, that much is certain. betsy the flying potato the second. and a goat, probably. but we're not there yet. new york isn't quite finished with me and i'm not finished with her, though i'm in a lot less of a hurry to get back there as i expected to be. i have my theories.

lastly, huck has been bathing in a bathtub that is bigger than his whole bedroom. 


and that is all. have a lovely weekend!

23 comments:

  1. I can't wait to read your book. Can't. Wait. (Is that too much pressure? I take it back!)

    Glad you're having a good time (hell yeah for writing grooves!). And, that bathtub is amazing. I'd like to live in it.

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  2. There is certainly something magical about those wild woods and thick, misty forests. I live in the wild wilderness of North Idaho, with my bearded man, and our adventures into the mountains only to return home for some delicious soup. (I know you were once in Moscow as well, and the NW the best?)

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  3. Adore all of this. I feel those draws to the some-day-woods, too. Oh, the foggy trees.

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  4. These are my favorite kind of posts. Favorite.

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  5. the tree commentary made my day!

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  6. i have never ever commented on this blog before but i've been going through some old journaling down in the depths of folders upon folders in my computer and finding things written way back when. earlier tonight i re-read a letter i'd sent to a friend so long ago in which i'd copied/pasted part of Running Down a Dream and linked to this blog. and here is the link again in this very post. strangemagicwonderness

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  7. you have such a beautiful blog...and a beautiful boy!

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  8. i just read this with a cup of coffee in hand, sitting in my little nook, and it was utterly perfect. :)

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  9. I'm so excited for your book! -Hanna Lei

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  10. Oh I can't wait to read your book. And I think the wilderness life suits you perfectly.

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  11. aww, Huck's face- bless! The trees out of your window look like a shot out of Twilight. R-Patz, where you at?

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  12. That bathtub is absolutely huge. Super cute!

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  13. We are so living parallel lives with our city/suburbs life. Except I'm not writing a book, just trying to find my dream job. Maybe equally frustrating, soul searching, and liberating. Maybe.

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  14. Ahhhhh great bath-tub picture there!!!!!!!!!!! I'm also a big fan of the woods - I want to settle down in the countryside because walking through woodland and undergrowth makes me feel so calm. I can't imagine not having it right on my doorstep!

    p.s your husband would make a brilliant lumberjack. Just saying.


    Flora

    www.floraemay.blogspot.com

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  15. He sure seems to love that bath. The look on his face looks like pure bliss

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  16. What a terrific place and beautiful photos! Huck is getting so big!!!

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  17. Great post - loved it - took me to many different places in my head :)

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  18. You're getting real good. For real. Like professional good ;)

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  19. I went and got my smoky-mountain-tree-farmhouse-goat scenario. Just so you know, it's a good life. But you gotta get two goats. One simply does not do the trick.

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  20. I have the same vision of a home nestled deep in the woods. And my childhood home in the PNW? Our neighbors had a goat. Didn't really matter to them that our neighborhood was smack in the middle of suburbia... These Oregon posts sure do make me nostalgic!

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  21. So, I started taking green juice about 2 years ago after I heard my cousin talking about taking a green drink product and "alkalizing" your body.
    Green drink

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