spring, you're a weirdo.

i say this with all the authority of one nerd calling another nerd out - this is fully covered under the "takes one to know one" clause.

i am not insulting the lovely earth on which we make our home or the seasons that the earth swirls around in.

all i'm saying is, last week there were giant, fat, glistening, wormy-smelling worms everywhere.

this week there are just randomly scattered french fried onions all over the sidewalks.

i don't know which is worse to step on.

the crunch tonight was pretty unnerving.

the devil i know

i've been turning this phrase over in my head for a couple of days. i've been thinking more about the devil i don't know, to tell you the truth.

fantasizing about him.

i'm tired of playing it safe with the devil i know.

i'm tired of staying overweight. i'm tired of having boundaries that are about as effective as a 20-year old rubber band. i'm tired of being the one who is always a good listener, even when my heart isn't in it. i'm tired. i'm beginning to feel the shortness of life... the wasting of days, weeks, years.

the devil i know is multifaceted and complex and moody.

he involves filing cabinets and microsoft outlook and putting things in numerical order and pressing green buttons. he drives a stick shift as a matter of pride. he hasn't created anything in years because he's waiting for the time to be right. he can be hopeless, lazy, and sad. he eats too much. he likes to sneak cigarettes. he won't make time for me to do the important things. cook. clean. care for me the way i deserve to be cared for. he's good at procrastinating. someday, he whispers, it will just work out. just hang on. just keep nibbling at mediocrity and eventually you will get to the syrupy center of success.

he lies. he cheats. he hides.

let's face it. my frontal lobe has been fully formed for seven years now, nearly eight. i know the difference between things that are bad and things that are good. right and wrong. day and night.

dead and alive.

today, at work, i unwrapped one of those little dove promise candies, and here is what the wrapper said:

what would you attempt to do if you knew you would not fail?

wow. if i knew. if i was guaranteed success. i need another twenty lifetimes to do all of those things.

i would create. i would finally exhale all of the creative wishes i have been holding in my chest since i was small and i learned that art wasn't a useful path to pursue. that poetry wasn't practical. that fiction was an indulgence.

i would get back to sketching fashion ideas. i would get a pottery wheel. i would become a reporter for rolling stone, if for no other reason than the person who did the clapton and beck article used the wrong form of discreet.

i would write a movie, a musical, and a room full of songs. i would play the guitar and the violin and the mandolin, and even the steel drum. and the piano.

i would open a bakery. i would serve the world's best sandwiches and the most beautiful croissants and the most adorable cupcakes and i would brew inspiring coffee.

i would start a small independent record label and handpick the artists i love. i would put out records, just for fun.

i would build a house from scratch. i would learn carpentry, masonry, whatever "-ry" i need to learn to make it happen. i would design and decorate the entire place myself. i would learn how to landscape and garden, and then i would build that, too. i would build furniture. sew drapes and sheets and bedspreads.

mostly, i would wake up. i would own my life instead of letting it own me. i would stop getting blood blisters from overzealous filing cabinets. i would stop waking up with back pain. i would stop lamenting my declining skin, hair, face.

i would walk up to the devil i don't know and kiss him full on the mouth. and i would never look back.

peace and gas station coffee.

today, all i wanted was some peace. i had a heck of a week (ok, two weeks) at work. i needed "me" time.

ever since the snow started melting, the waterfall near my house has been roaring so loud that it keeps me up at night. it sounds like the howling wind, except it never, ever stops.

ithaca falls

today i wandered over and took some photos of the falls. then i drove to the other waterfall, across town. on the way, i got the worst craving for gas station cappuccino. you know the stuff. it's nothing but hot cocoa, really.

i parked in the parking lot of buttermilk falls state park, got out, walked around, took some photos.

when i got back in my car to drive away, the woman in the car that had just parked next to mine got out. she was wearing a sweater almost identical to my favorite sweater in 1999. she had bad hair and skin. she was so excited to get to those falls. she was arranging her hair like she was about to knock on a door for a hot date.

it's really amazing what nature can do to us. it makes me giddy and peaceful, and i know it does the same thing for at least one other person on this earth.

buttermilk falls

almost spring

i love this time of year... almost. it's the almost-end of winter. the place where you can go for a week straight with no coat, but there is still a chance that you'll get smacked with the final blast, maybe just cold, maybe cold and snow, but at any rate, it will come: the last death rattle of winter.

and the snow from the last overwhelming snowstorm is almost melted. there are a few piles hanging tenaciously on, like we actually want them around. they remind me of that one guy, and you know this guy, who will NOT leave the party. everyone else is gone. the food and drink is all put away. you have even gone so far as to put on your pajamas and brush your teeth right in front of the guy, just please, for the love of pete, why won't he LEAVE?

because he thinks he's welcome. and he probably wasn't even invited in the first place. he probably invited himself.

i think i'm starting to relive some painful memories from my past, when all i wanted to do was draw an acceptable analogy to the unwelcome-ness and the continuing persistence of this snow and well, winter in general, while i'm at it.

time to go home, guy. i'm ready for spring.

crazy heart

i recently saw crazy heart at the local theater.

i like those sad cowboy kind of stories. i like desolation, mistakes, and shots at redemption.

i read a lot about crazy heart. i read about how it wouldn't have worked without t bone burnett. the man is a freaky genius.

it wouldn't have worked without jeff bridges, either.

by the way... his website is so fun. lots of little cool things to unearth over there. and he has a decent photography habit, too.

but all of the reading, and anything i was expecting to think about during the film? by the time bad blake stumbled out of his chevy suburban in front of the spare room bowling alley, it was gone. my usual super-annoying meta-awareness was taking a nap in the back room while i threw myself wholeheartedly into the small slice i was getting to see of bad blake and his hassles and his heart.

i absolutely loved maggie gyllenhaal. i've never seen a movie where she had such a large role, and she was magical. i believed her for each and every second. that's rare for me, to find that kind of trust with a female actor. and robert duvall? and colin farrell? i want to call them the icing on the cake, but they were more substantial than that. it was like cutting a perfect slice of beautifully iced cake, only to discover that it's filled with sliced fresh strawberries.

and one of the biggest treats in the whole thing? this song. it's called, "the weary kind" that was co-written by t bone burnett and ryan bingham.

i love the song. i love the voice. i loved the whole movie, and i really recommend it.

about two verys

i got an email from my best friend in the entire universe. in it, she wrote, "you are very, very hard on yourself."

two verys.

it rung in my head for days, until finally i decided i had to do something about it. i don't want to be very very anything...except OK. happy. well-adjusted.

welcome to my attempts to do just that.

love,
amelia