...with frosting to decorate a little lemon cake.
7/30: realizing
...that I could make myself (vegetarian) chicken noodle soup. I was feeling under the weather because of my COVID booster yesterday, so soup for lunch and dinner was perfect.
7/29: morning, afternoon, evening
We went to get our 2nd COVID boosters this morning. I don't know if they'll help us elude the variant that's going around, but at least we'll have done what we can as we get ready to head back to school.
I did my own Quiet Writing this afternoon! I set myself up at home rather than in the campus library, but I set my timer and kept myself going for an hour, just as I used to at school. And it was productive: it helped me organize some thoughts before a writing project next week, and it helped me develop some new thoughts.
I re-read Forever by Judy Blume this evening. I realized that it could be relevant (for comparison/contrast purposes) in my essay on Annie on My Mind, so I Kindled it and finished it in one sitting. It has been decades since I read it, but so much of it was familiar, down to particular sentences.
7/28: using old comic books
...to make grid collages. I had bought a box of them a few years ago, thinking that they could be fun to work with, and arranging squares from them today gave my spirits a lift.
7/27: rereading
...Tracy Barrett's King of Ithaka. I had last read it in 2011, and though I remembered some things, the portrayal of Helen had slipped out of memory--and that meant that I could be surprised, even shocked, all over again.
7/25: making strata
...with eggs, cheese, milk, and hard bread for lunch. I'd never made it myself before, but my mother would make it when I was little, and Chris' mother made it for us once when we were visiting, so it has memory-resonance that I was happy to (re)activate in the present.
7/24: Simon sitting
...(or, more precisely, laying) beside me while Chris and I watched TV. He's come a long way from being the skittish cat we brought in from the cold.
7/23: troubleshooting
...some technological troubles: one with printing and another with graphics-making. I didn't come up with perfect solutions, but I made some progress. And at least it's enough progress that I can let it go for the night without being completely frustrated.
7/22: sending
...an article about Eliane Radigue to my brother. I recently read it in Artforum and loved learning about her music (and then listening to some online), and I think my brother will be interested too. He may already know about her work, but even so he may like the way the article discusses it.
7/21: buying
...100 packs of Crayola 24-count crayons to donate to a back-to-school backpack program. I had a kind of roving anxiety after dinner, so I decided to head to the store to do something rather than stay at home and spin in worry.
7/20: finishing
...a book that I was excited to read but that turned out to be disappointing. I'm glad I read it (no wonderings about it now), but I'm also glad to move on to other things.
7/19: a new pair
...of reflexology sandals. I've had my old pair for maybe ten years? They're pretty much worn out, so new ones were in order!
7/18: despite
...some unsmoothness and difficulties in gaining traction today, I pretty much got done what I had hoped (emailing, snail-mailing, writing, working on a pamphlet project). One exception was exercising: I did stretches instead (including my favorite-of-all-time 10-minute "power stretch" on an old DVD), and that was a good substitution.
7/17: combining
...two things this evening: doing some sewing and beginning to rewatch the new Netflix Persuasion. Chris and I watched it together yesterday and laughed out loud at parts, and it kept me good company tonight as I ironed and pinned.
7/16: making
...more grid collages. I'm hosting a swap with a handful of people, and I'm happy that these other folks wanted to give grid collages a try and then share their results with one another. I was also happy to have some time in a flurry of colors today.
I also made chocolate chip cookies. I used this recipe (https://joyfoodsunshine.com/the-most-amazing-chocolate-chip-cookies/) because of the excellent comments it received, and the cookies turned out well. At the last minute I added cinnamon and cardamom to the batter because for me that combination is always special.
7/15: uncrowded
The grocery store was the least crowded I think I've ever seen it. I guess people didn't want to be shopping early on a Friday evening. I'm glad I did.
7/14: leaving
...the final 35 minutes of The Go-Between by L. P. Hartley to listen to tomorrow. It'll be an incentive to walk. There was a part in tonight's listening that made me gasp out loud.
7/13: ribbit!
I went kayaking after moonrise so I could enjoy the full moon. It was behind the clouds for a good bit of the time, so I just enjoyed paddling" on the night lake. Frogs were croaking loudly, and for the first time in my life I heard "ribbit" in their croaks.
7/12: two things
Having a new thought while beginning to write a short essay. Clear ideas feel hard to come by these days, so I was grateful for the aha! moment and the reminder that it can be fun to think.
Reading the phrase "scalene wish" in an Artforum article by Audrey Wollen. Wollen used it to refer to three wishes, connected but of different scopes (and not entirely reconcilable).
7/11: making
...blueberry cornbread from the Moosewood Cookbook. It's become a bit of a summer tradition.
7/10: buying
...the right color of thread to bind pamphlets made from an awkward shade of off-white/ivory/cream. I usually use thin crochet thread for binding, but the stores here don't have a shade that works, so I've been trying different embroidery flosses. I finally found one that blends with the paper in an okay way, and I realized that if I use 4 strands of the floss rather than all 6, the cleaner, less bulky line made by the thread fits better with the small size of my pamphlets. I happily used it to bind a batch of new pamphlets, and I even re-bound an older pamphlet for which I had used a less-good color match and 6 strands. It looks so much better now.
7/9: listing
...and explaining some of my favorite things for a mail swap. I almost dropped the swap before it started because I got self-conscious at the prospect of writing about myself, but I decided to find a way to be okay with it. And it was fun to think of which dear-to-me-things I wanted to share.
7/8: being glad
...that I bought Haiku in English: The First Hundred Years. It arrived today (earlier than anticipated), and I've already enjoyed dipping into it.
7/7: figuring out
...a title for an otherwise wordless pamphlet I've been working on: Because Bees Are Few. It's a variation of a line from a poem by Emily Dickinson. Once I thought of it, it seemed perfect, as if I heard a little "click" in my brain.
7/6: experimenting briefly
...with "original xerographies" of my own. After I finished photocopying something for a friend, I did three prints while moving a little piece of blank paper on the glass plate as the machine was copying. The results were not what I would have guessed at all! (And one of them I quite like.)
7/5: picking up
...a copy of Bruno Munari's Original Xerographies which I ordered through interlibrary loan. Looking through it this afternoon was restful and exciting--both of which effects were welcome on a day when I've felt a bit besieged by things at large (and small).
7/4: vegan hollandaise
...on an open-faced sandwich (tartine?) with tomato slices, vegetarian "bacon," lettuce, za'atar, and pepper.
7/3: tilde eating
...eagerly at dinnertime. We need to pace her eating these days, both in terms of how much she eats and when, so it's as consistent as possible. Sometimes that's a challenge because she doesn't always feel like eating when the clock says it's time. I try to entice her with different ways of presenting the food--but there are only so many kinds of cat food that she's allowed to have, so there are limits to what I can use as bribes. After some push/pull at earlier eating sessions today, I was grateful for her enthusiasm when faced with her dinner.
7/2: turning
...my head to look behind me while kayaking and seeing some pink clouds I would have missed otherwise.
7/1: writing
...two short notes this morning that I had been nervous about, and getting two kind replies by this evening.
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