Be the dandylion

First public performance of typing

41 second ecerpt from 3 minute looped video

I can finally say to my children...

that when I was 30, I had to walk through the snow in my pajamas to do laundry!

It's been snowing all night. It still is. Everything is covered in this beautiful, virginal blanket of white (a good 5-6 inches thick)-- my car, the streets, the sidewalks. I have been walking to work the last few days. I was going to drive today, as I have equipment to take with me. Now, the question is-- will I drive or walk? In both cases, I will tarnish the landscape (although I can hear someone scrapping the sidewalk right now). On the one hand, I will be protected from elements, as will the camera equipment, but I will have to dig the car out of the snow and let it heat up a bunch. On the other hand, I will be more environmental, get snowed on a bunch (so soggy and cold when I get there), and will be carrying increasingly heaving bags on the walk. I predict they will take the same amount of time (digging/heating vs. walking).

What to do.

Oh, and no one ever talks about how snow isn't white when it snows. It's blue. The clouds are thick, and diffuse so much llight, the world is icy blue. It looks like a job for color film!

California in winter

Since I spent the last holiday in Indiana, and all of summer, I went to California for the winter break. We drove through LA, through OC, and through the desert. We spent New Year's in Palm Springs, drinking champagne and revealing in having privacy at last. I was struck by California-- all I missed about it and all that made me want to leave. One thing that stood out for me was the desert itself, something I have missed the most.

Last spring, I showed my Indiana students an image by Gary Winogrand, taken in the southwest (not California, but similar landscape). I asked them to describe the image in detail. "There is a child, about two, only wearing a diaper..." would be a typical answer. When they got to the landscape, the descriptions became: "The landscape is barren, lifeless, " "nothing is alive," "there is a storm coming," "desolate," "isolated." And while these descriptions might all be true, they pained me.

I missed that landscape. The barren, lifeless, desolate, isolated landscape. But it is a dramatic landscape. The mountains cut out of the ground like teeth. The sand forms perfect topographical maps of the wind. Going to a place where you can see from horizon to horizon and the road is a straight line. It is tempting to shoot past it, ignore it, turn up the radio and the air conditioning to block it out. But there is a geological symphony outside that window! There is a hardy and hidden ecosystem of astounding age and dexterity! You have to plan to live in the desert. You can't just show up and expect your needs to be handed to you. The desert does not take Visa or Mastercard in exchange for water and shelter. You have to bring them.

Anyway, it was awesome.

New Year's Eve, we stopped at such a spot, on such a road. The land rolled with the washes of water from the infrequent rains. I aimed the camera to the sky, and four minutes later got this. Not long after that, we heard the pack of coyotes and rain back to the car, laughing and screaming into the night where only the stars could hear us.

Holidays

A few weeks ago, I was so tired, so homesick, so plain-old-sick, that I bought my plane ticket to California much earlier in my schedule than I should have. I depart in a mere six days, with projects to grade, boxes to pack, pets to arrange for sitting, shows to dismantle... Home is such an alluring concept, as is the romanticized notion of it being a place you can return to, rather than you take with you (whether you like it or not).

Ice has been forming on the windows. It makes straight lines, like the frozen tracks of winter foot-racers. It glistens on the blue mornings, the ones when I love it here. Last weekend, we woke three days in a row to fresh, perfect blankets of clean, white snow, gently covering everything I could see from my hallway window (including the apartment I will soon move into). I could see it from the bed, and before I looked, I knew from the laughter the neighbor's children had already made a snowman in the yard. (Have I found a Norman Rockwell winter?) As quickly as it came, one warm evening and rain storm later, it was gone, the sky was back to gray, the ground muddy and cold.

We have made many fires in the wood stove (while we still can), but moving and leaving for most of the holiday leaves me glum... my favorite thing to do this time of year, whether for only a week or a month, is to open the boxes of Christmas decorations and fling their contents around the house, marvel at the toys for adults, their bright colors and optimistic outlooks, and only put them away when their kitsch has worn thin. I think I will have to have a special equinox festival this coming year, so I will not miss out on my favorite time. Christmas in March it is!

P.S. I finally added more images to Flickr. Enjoy!

Aerial Photography

Thankgiving

My first college course, my first fall away from home (eleven long years ago), was a writing intensive "California culture" course. We had very vague writing prompts, that may have been followed by something like "or write whatever you feel like writing." I think we were supposed to be writing persuasive essays, or thoughtful analyses on the nature of culture. I ended up writing about my personal observations of my immediate culture, then comparing them to the ideas posed by our readings. The professor loved it and I earned a very high "A" in the course.

One of the essays I always remember was talking about Thanksgiving. I wrote something like how it was all this work and all these family members I mostly didn't know, the awkwardness, the good food, etc. When I found the essay years later, I was surprised by how much negative sarcasm it was riddled with. I am a sarcastic person-- it is my style of humor-- but mostly I was recounting these activities in such a negative light.

I bring this up because I really did feel those things at that time. Thanksgiving was a stressful, frustrating ritual filled with food catching fire, smelly old folks swapping pills, pomp and circumstance and uncomfortable shoes. As far as I was concerned, it was an interesting experience I would skip if I could and would not participate in as an adult (other than going to relatives' homes and letting them do it).

There was a trend on t.v. shows of friends in their 20s getting together and having a Thanksgiving of their own, sans family. I tried that once for a person I was living with. I cooked all day and prepped for two. We sat down at the meal, and it was over in fifteen minutes. "Well," I thought, "I tried, but it still seems pretty stupid."

Last summer, I read a memoir, "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle." The details aren't important, but she pointed out a detail I had never thought about. The idea of this meal replicating a celebration made by religious zealots (who were dumb and planned poorly), in honor of actually overcoming their racism and hence, not starving to death, always seemed a little lame. As I was reading more about food culture, about how (before trade) you only ate what was in season, or what could store over winter, the idea of the pumpkin pie and squash soup was appealing for the first time. Having never been a fan of pumpkin pie, this was quite a discovery. The sweet, fruity, squashiness was delicious as it had never been. The memoir went on to talk about all the traditional Thanksgiving staples as being native and inherent to the North American continent, hence, a truly American meal (turkey, cornbread, pumpkin pie, etc.).

This year, I made the decision not to go home for Thanksgiving, in leu of going home for the winter break. I kept saying I would 'probably' make a meal, but kept secretly hoping to be invited to someone else's. J came back for the week, and mostly we have been hanging around, killing time (I hate killing time). I kept saying, "you don't mind if I don't do Thanksgiving dinner, right?" and he kept saying, "not at all." But I was feeling guilty about it. Top it off with a whole week of hanging around town or the city (i.e. not making art or applying to jobs, i.e. killing time), I felt this was a truly wrong decision. Last night, around 9PM, I said, "J, I don't have a plan. I don't have recipes picked out, but I am making a shopping list and we are having Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow."

Thus began the ritual of cooking a meal, preparing a bird (we had a free-range, local-farm chicken instead of a giant turkey), preparing sidedishes (the one time of year I make multiple sides of veggies), gravy (I don't even like gravy), and taking a stab at an heirloom stuffing receipe and a pumpkin pie (why didn't I just buy one?). I couldn't believe how gross and fascinating it was to separate the skin of an animal from its muscles, to thrush my fingers in that new space, pushing in tiny cubes of butter, cloves of garlic, and twigs of rosemary. J looked at me like I was crazy as I revealed the secret ingredient to my home-prepped sun-dried tomatoes.

It took all day.

I utilized every culinary technique I have learned in my life. J went out and bought a meat thermometer for me (nope, didn't have one). My step-mother's stuffing (recipe retrieved from an internet site which copied it out of sunset magazine). I marveled at the beautiful smells of the fresh herbs-- from the food and the tips of my fingers. I remember when it was first published, her outrage at the maazine's inclussion of the phrase "can be substituted for dried herbs." At least the internet copy removed that phrase from the receipe. Chopped onions in everything (the finer the better, but what a chore). Cornbread for the stuffing (did I leave my skillet in the last rental?). Potatoes, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, bacon-greese gravy. Cranberry sauce. Zuchinni and yellow squash. Country-style biscuits.

The point is, I made it, it took hours, and it was delicious. The onions tasted of butter and rosemary. I never noticed flavors transfer that way. The gravy still tasted like bacon, ergo, I loved it.

Rethinking

I know it is Wednesday at 11 o'clock in the morning. It is the one time the whole town knows, because they are testing the tornado warning siren. I never know what time it is by the sun. The sun rises after 7:30 and sets before 5:30. It is always partially dark when I am outside. Most days are bleak and overcast-- constant cloud cover. On Monday, the day looked so beautiful, I walked to work. I realized it was because it was sunny-- 36 degrees and sunny, so I walked. Today is cloudy and 50 degrees, and I could barely drive my car to work.

When I need a mental break, I look at sail boats online. This morning, I found a blog of a young couple who sailed a boat (one of the ones I am looking at) across the Pacific ocean. The photos are amazing. (I feel like I haven't seen anything amazing in a while.)

The most I can do right now is book my holiday flight to California. It looks similar to those pictures, though the water was never that blue, and it is very cold. I wonder if I will wear shorts there?

One more walk in Shades

Life takes us to strange places, down strange roads, and presents us with queer options. In May of 2007, I was offered a job in Indiana. I was going to take it, but I wasn't sure if J should come with me, or continue his work in California until we figured our next move. He came with me-- I made him swear it was because he wanted to. He did it for us. I was doing it for my career.

J has just taken a (similarly temporary) job in California. He is moving back. We looked at our schedules and realized this morning today was the last weekend day we would have to ourselves before he left. After having pancakes and coffee, we headed for our favorite wilderness. Shades (of Death) State Park.
It is a totally different color now than the hyper green it was only two months ago. Everything is gold and leaves spinning. The pond was so covered, you couldn't tell where the earth fell into the water.

Fall

There are a lot of leaves on the ground.
They fall like rain from the sky, but golden and soft.
I have sleeping eyes... is it time to hole up for winter?

Canoeing

This weekend, we went canoeing on Sugar Creek. It is regionally known for its scenic views and easy paddling. We opted for a really long trip-- 15 miles-- which meant we did have to speed up at some point. There was also a lot of drinking, mostly on the parts of everyone else in the water. I assume it is like that all the time, not because they heard two time-tested lifesavers were among them!

The canoeing was beautiful. The drunk people were funny. The workout was nice but not too strenuous.

As you might have noticed, I took a mini-va-cay from updating the site this weekend. Because of implications of Indiana's homicidal motives, twitters about canoing, and lack of daily death references, my parents jumped to the conclusion I had actually died in the river. Obviously not: I believe no body of water can kill me (though I don't plan to try my luck any more than I have already). I do have to revert to my earlier hypothesis that Indiana is trying to kill J. During a routine canoe stop for a bathroom break, he fell in a ditch and sprained his wrist. Don't worry-- he's fine. But it is hard to not find it a little funny.

Indiana killing me softly

A few months back, after a series of near catastrophes (read here and here; I never wrote about the car accident) we had come to the conclusion that Indiana was trying to kill J. All in good fun, to say such a thing, but there were some close calls, and some of these things we are still recovering from.

We specifically thought it was after J. Anything that happened to me, well, I had gotten in the way of 'it' getting to him. Then, summer arrived.

I haven't had a chance to post images, but Indiana seems to be a veritable cornucopia of insect life. The numbers of wasp species is stunning; the Dobsonfly was shocking; the giant butterflies skiting about have sent interns and J after them with nets for a key scene in the video. All of these constantly send me to my favorite bug ID site to see what is what, and what it does.

Which brings me back to my hypothesis that Indiana is trying to kill me. Don't get me wrong-- Texas tried to kill me once in August, more than a decade ago. I had enough mosquito bites to make my knees swell and send me into a fever. Apparently my immune system has had enough and developed an allergy to them (as it does with everything else I get too much of: cats, contact lenses, strawberries). In Florida, I grew my allergy to the black fly, lovingly called a "no-see-'em." My feet may still be scarred. Those were places I was visiting. They were temporary. I actually live here. On purpose! And the chiggers of Indiana are welcoming me with open arms-- I have the welts to prove it.

Welts, sunburn, ragging rivers have not stopped the filming of my project. Occasionally, we are stung by nettles (oh, good, I found them first), swarmed by gnats (they go straight for the eyes, then up the nose), chased by wasps, and generally cut off from bathrooms, food and water (starting to keep all these things in the car).

Still worth it...

A toad in the hand

We scout locations. We hike in flip-flops. We make videos in mud. Everywhere we go, my interns find frogs, butterflies, and magic. It seems like the world does have this capacity after all.

4-H Fair: Showing small-town pride in your children

There is a phenomenon us city dwellers have heard of (not in a detailed kind of way, but in "the name sounds familiar" kind of way) and that is the 4-H club. I was in a 2-H club in high school--the history and humanities club, but I am pretty sure it's not the same thing. 4-H has something to do with raising animals while in school. Even when you read about it, it is fraught with vagueness, like this giant, inside joke that city folk specifically aren't supposed to understand.

I did know there were supposed to be animals, and as that is my favorite part of the LA County Fair, I tricked two of my NYC friends (who also find themselves inexplicably in Indiana) into going. As we were later going to a play, they asked me with dubious arch of eyebrow, "so, should we go there for an hour, then off to our play?" An hour? But what if it is wonderful? What if it is the best thing there is? (Keep in mind, I almost invited them to the Fort Ouiatenon Spring Festival, which ended up being boring except for jumping into the river. So I was a little worried about talking it up too much.) Just in case of a bust, we also arranged to have drinks between fair and play, and the three hours I asked them to set aside seemed more logical.

When we arrived, we couldn't help noticing the smallness of the county fairgrounds. The only county fairs I have ever been to have been in counties with populations as big as this state, so I should have expected it. I became afraid. We walked through the booth area. There were only six booths. I became very afraid. Then we saw the baby animal tent and all was well. It's amazing how baby animals melt all hearts equally, even those of the coolest New Yorkers. Here you see my beautiful friend becoming so overcome by the cuteness of a goat, that she cannot pose for a photograph. As least she is there for size comparison, and as a reference point for delight-reaction.

We ended up spending the three hours looking at the animals, cakes, and science projects. We also watched a horse-ridding demonstration. In case you haven't googled 4-H by now, it is basically a fair of agricultural and craft/home-making demonstrations by school-aged children, so they can grow up to be smart in rural knowledge. You know, all that stuff city-folk have forgotten (like milking cows, slaughtering chickens, baking pies, sewing dresses, racing horses, castrating sheep, etc.).

Some of it seemed so surreal. For example, all the kids were wearing helmets on the horses (while helmets are not required or encouraged in this whole state-- I have definitely left California). No sooner had we commented on it, when a running horse fell and half rolled on his young rider. [I thought, oh no, not again. Luckily, there was a doctor closer to her than me.] Other surrealnesses were in our plain ignorance. In the sheep pens, we noted some were sheared, others not, and some seemed to be dressed like klansmen. I'm sure there is a reason. We are still learning the local language and something has been lost in translation.

Small town photos

Carving of a bird with a thought bubble containing a name and a Masonic symbol.
My foot at bottom for size and texture.
Pine Hills State Park, 2008

I hate to always say something good with something bad but I am going to give a couple here.

I was talking to the library archivist today and she was saying these areas I have been hiking have been popular destinations for more than one hundred and fifty years. They would load up in the back of a wagon, take all morning to get there, have a picnic, and ride back by evening.

We went on a marvelous hike before J left town again at the Big Pine State Park (right next to Shades). The above was taken at one of these ancient picnicking spots. It is no wonder that the cliff is covered in ancient and charming graffiti, from generations of wily youths. How many of my students are off doing that same thing right now?

So my complaint is about the photos I took (using a funny camera, I admit, but still. More here). I used to get very good pictures developed and printed at Target, and for some (dumb) reason, I was convinced that Walmart's mail-in service would be similar. No. Probably the worst prints I've ever seen, and the CD was hardly well done enough for heavy Photoshopping for the Internet. Lesson continually learned: you get what you pay for.

Another contrasting set of random events.

My step-mom had to put one of her/our cats to sleep today. She was sixteen or so. That's a lot for a cat, but it is still sad.

And I am confirmed for a solo show in January in Georgia. I am now confirmed as a nationally showing artist.

I Could Touch the Sky

Possible explanation for warm spot

My mosquito bite has made a section of my arm a little puffy, red, and hot to the touch. Perhaps it is not what I think it is.

Grave Spider

My parents said on the phone, "we're glad to see nothing upsetting has happened lately."

Wash your hands before you eat

Following Water

Only one mile from where I am living here in Rochester, N.Y., is a waterfall. There is no need to go on an epic journey to get to it--it is right in the middle of the city. There is no mecca-like exchange in the awe of nature-- it is right under a freeway. I can't tell you how sad it is to me that the freeway was put there. I can see the use of the river and the falls in historic commerce and production--this is an area born of the Industrial Revolution after all. But a freeway? Right over it? No, you can't see the falls from the road. It's probably better that way. Fewer accidents.

But they were lovely falls.

And just downstream of them, maybe two miles...

More falls! I know, can you believe it? I have seen more water falls this month than in my entire life combined. The river winds north (I didn't really know they did that), and empties into Lake Ontario, at the northern border of the country. I didn't see any Canadians trying to get across by boat, like the Cubans do in Florida. But is was a fascinating feeling to have stood at so many borders of our country. How many people never see these things?



The river concludes its journey in a bay that connects with Lake Ontario.

I can't remember the last time I saw a beach. With sand even.

Niagara Falls

I went to the U.S. side of Niagara Falls last night. A huge, rushing river, then a cliff. No one in the water. This time.