Trying to Remember What I Read in 2014

Visit from the Goon Squad- Jennifer Egan
The Flamethrowers - Rachel Kushner
Lullabies for Little Criminals- Heather O'Neil
The Human Stain- Philip Roth
Pastoralia- George Saunders
The Goldfinch- Donna Tartt

Currently reading: Swann's Way- Proust and Bad Feminist- Roxane Gay

To be honest- this was a weak showing. There were many books I read half of, but I don't think I can count those. I am glad, however, how many ladies are on this list.

I'm having a bit of a rough day. I couldn't sleep last night and felt angry about it and in the process kept Kyle awake, who does have to work today. I made him eggs and kale juice in the morning as some form of an apology but it feels cruel to sabotage someone's sleep and potentially throw off their entire next 24 hours. I have become a sleep hog. I love sleeping. I love my unadorned bed. I love the weight of quilts and the different textures of blankets nuzzling my chin: so soft is our white cotton blanket, and the orange-indian rice-colored afghan from Gramps draws back in time, enveloping me physical and mental comfort. The afghan has the familiar feel of hand made, family made, of the blankets that magically appeared in every room of my childhood home each fall. Then the quilt, the only intentional blanket we bought, that is also old and frayed, but not from our families or our past but rather the generic past: the thought of unknown hands meticulously piecing it together. This last one I love for it's mystery.

I have many things to do today and can not bring myself to do any of them. I have been duped by a restless night and am in a sour mood. Thinking about the dark early morning hours of feeling like the only cure for this insomnia would be to go for a long hard run. At that moment I wanted to do anything but lay in bed but felt trapped. I had to try and try and try to sleep until morning and then feel useless all day. What is it that throws a kink in these physical routines of ours? Why do I always assume I can predict and control and coach my body into doing something different?

This is boring but functioning as an excellent way to procrastinate.
Hit me up with book recommendations for 2015 if you have them/if anyone ever stumbles upon this blog anymore.

Sweet day dreams XOX

trying to get back in the habit

I just started reading Swann's Way, the first installment of In Search of Lost Time by Proust. I feel somehow socially mandated to read this- as if I could not call myself a well educated person without those words having wrapped themselves around my tongue at some point in time.

Bear with me as I try to ease back into this blogging thing, this internet black hole that I can only assume will return to me with the structural edits embossed upon it like a tangible marker of time.

It had immediately rendered the vicissitudes of life unimportant to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory, acting in the same way that love acts, by filling me with a precious essence: or rather this essence was not merely inside me, it was me. 

a saturday i wish it was morning reflection

remembering that so much has been good and unexpected and oh-how-quickly it could change.

A Rant

I have forgot to document you- life. 

Tonight on the train, I took the Q, a train I never take that mysteriously to me curves only slightly and momentarily into manhattan, arching back into the bouroughs. When it dips out and up or out and down- it emerges out of the earth and loops itself onto the lighted bridges that gracefully connect these floating islands. 

On the way into manhattan from queens there was essentially no one on the train. I plopped my bag next to me preparing for a silent ride home- a long hour stretch to consume a podcast or read the latest harpers. 

Quickly we dove under the

His bag fell on my feet and I said sorry I have to say something- I just came from a performance where the artist was reading a piece of itali Calvino and hen I got on this train and you sat down next to me and were reading If on a winters night a traveller. And then I remember I met all those people in the Balkans and I. First read italo Calvino on a train and a bus and traveling through the Balkans. And I thought how these follow you- or you follow those that you seek after- travelled peoples and travels. And I chose to take the subway home over a cab for this reason- to watch and observe rather than to sit isolated swilling through shameless article after article served onto- dare I ruin this mood- Facebook feed.

I had a minor health scare recently. It made me feel so many things I had never felt before. In the most terrible way it made me imagine that I wanted the world to stop if I wasn't here. If I am brutally honest I wanted nothing to go on if there was not the possibility for me to witness or consume it-which for someone who simultaneously believes in ghosts and nothing after death... Well it makes absolutely no sense. And then I routine to tradition and good luck charms and amulets. And Facebook. And excerise. I momentarily and I suppose let's hope longer became crazed with throwing all tools at my disposal towards luck when only a few years ago I could have chosen science. But sometimes reason fails and smarts only come with age. 

Snap

Crafty Cactus

I Spy Kansas City

Found via Fold Object.