disappearing into

day trips out of london during the week are spectacular: empty trains. countryside. tourist-less sites. grey-bright afternoons filled with stillness & tended stones, fields, cows, & the surrealscape of sheep in low grass (in some places it felt like we were traversing across a strange mini-golf course). the english countryside lends itself well to breathing, to the wonders of lost-ness, to disappearing for days.

piercing quotations

quotation mark earrings? yes, please!

{via postgradhaircut}

tying one on

i may have tied one on last night after my reading (it went well & it was incredibly fizz-filled to have J here to support me). so today i'm feeling a little, well, like i wish i was being wheeled around & that i had a paper bag on hand at all times. tomorrow we are off to stonehenge. nothing like trains & prehistoria to counteract a wild night.

{image via retrofuture}

sexy covers

a sexy (& sinister) clash cover for you this brilliant monday.

recycling wind

the idea of a tote made from a recycled sail makes me so happy. like something stitched with wind. and really, today would be the perfect sort of day for sailing. but since that's not really possible, Z & i are thinking to head off to some gardens instead, to a sea of flowers & greening & the first bees of a season. tonight we'll be getting our flat ready for our house guest (yay!) and sipping on the spring-ness of hendricks & cucumbers. this weekend will be filled with old friends (not one, but two of my mfa cohort will be here!), fresh market food, & london london london. (i'll also be anxiously preparing for a small reading monday. wish me luck!). happy friday everyone!

beautiful machines

because i was a sport-playing teenager, i learned to loathe exercising indoors or without a ball-chasing purpose. as a twenty-something, this has meant that most of my cardio has come from walking/hiking/bicycling. but last week i sucked it up & joined the gym across the street. i've been feeling a little bit dark at the edges (my brain curling like burnt paper) & thought exercise might be a way to feel less stressed/ more motivated. so far. so good. this morning i had the mandatory meeting with the personal trainer. & though i was not excited (can't a gal just get her cardio on without someone watching?!) it wasn't so bad. i'm actually not unhealthy! plus, the trainer agreed with my cardio to clear my cluttered writer's head plan.

(i can't decide if i'm thrilled or disappointed that none of the machines i used today were as intricate as the 1920s exercise apparatus above. and my workout clothes? way less classy.)

{via exerciseproper}

stun-glasses

these sunglasses from oliver peoples are fabulous. too bad they are mad expensive. i own one decent pair of sunglasses & i'm always scared i'll forget the case or smash them. (& by decent i mean like $30 & they currently need an eyeglass screw). i can't even imagine the wreck i'd be with a pair that cost as much as my wedding dress. still, those curves are sweet! (i think i'll just head down to the camden markets for a £5 pair that i can toss in my bag and not worry about).

wednesdays have gone to the words

it's been a while since i followed through on my wednesdays. but now seems as good a time as any to pick it back up. here's a water-lyric by annie finch:

Gulls at Todd's Point

Shivering, knowing how lines of the tide

use seaweed, and sea-drift, and sea-touch (and bone)

to etch with, I wait to be marked on the sand

(a dragged sag of rockweed, a bulbed grace undone),

moved each way like feathers, slipped slow like a hand,

or whitened past breath. I’ve been moved till I’m gone

and nothing is ready to hold me inside—

following gull-shadows back over the land,

hiding myself. But there’s no place to hide,

whitening my hair in the wind or at dawn;

seagulls are whitening too, and they mourn,

turning and turning.

vespa love

who says you can't have crazy-love shots at any time? our friends j & r have been married almost four years now. & damn--hotpants! the extra sweet part? the vespa is no prop--june rides that hot red thang to work everyday (she's a professor!).

{via growingtreephotography}

volcanic ash over london

grounded planes. abandoned runways. ash alchemized to glass. ice the size of small houses. flash floods. paralyzed skies. smoke plumes. it is a rather strange time to be in europe. it's quieter. sharper. anxious. volcanoes are usually such shy & slumbering disasters. then with a literal bang, we seem to have found ourselves in a serious flight crisis. of course, my best friend J is scheduled to arrive on satuday. i haven't seen her since the wedding. & there's so much of a city to unfold! so please cross your fingers (especially for all these stranded & stressed-out people--the stories of people out of money, sleeping in airports on issued crackers makes my stomach ache). dream of clear skies, of this pesky volcano settling itself back into blackout.

i spy with my ampersand eyes

Z surprised me yesterday with an early birthday cheer up gift (still no ring & each day it feels less & less likely). as i've said before, i have quite a thing for ampersands. their curve is sweet & sexy. their function of conjoining so necessary! naturally, this snellen-style ampersand chart makes me feel giddy with nerdiness. that's right, punctuation swoon. (they are, in fact, sold out. but if you are fast you can get a cheaper proof--which is how Z sneakily got one for me.) i hope your weekend is kicking off with some sort of fireworks!

libraries of inspiration

this morning i am off to see: the jaw-dropping size of the british library, some famously halved caryatids, & the literary sector of london. i need a bit of a catalyst & these places feel like they will fire solid starting pistols. i'll also take a classic can of inspiration, please.

{via automatism}

postcards from italy

italy through the peephole of our camera.

(sigh. i spent a long time choosing the exact number of pictures so as to finish at the end of the song. i see now when previewed online that sometimes the photos take time to load. oh well).

small perfections, or a kind of self indulgence

my first impulse after any kind of sadness or loss is to find unexpected sparks, tiny things which fill me up with fizz. an example--having lived here for 8 months now, i have perfected the ability, without measuring, to pour the exact right amount of milk into the pan for morning hot chocolate. and by exact, i mean milk that when poured hot hits right at the lip of any of our (three) mugs. there's something to be said for elegance on a small scale. not too mention that i actually look forward to the sound of the gas igniting--a tiny parachute bursting open in the kitchen.

p.s. the above heart chocolate was consumed at the flower market on valentines day. heart petals in the milk bubbles of my beverage are not quite my style. also, i am slide-showing it up for the italy pictures. soon to be posted!

blackout, lemons

things that have gone wrong since our arrival back: one dead mouse, one lost wedding ring, one black out, one sh#$%y internet connection (hence the lack of italy pictures). right now it feels a little like london is handing us some serious lemons. the tiny upsides: the pesky mouse is finally caught (of course he decides to go in the trap while we are away so that we couldn't release him); we spent most of last night in the romantic glow of the streetlamps because we were candle-less (of course!) & had only small book lights to navigate by. but the wedding ring? well, i'm more than devastated & just trying to hang in. we've searched high & low (interrupted by lack of light) & still haven't found it. i dreamt all last night of Z finding it & slipping it on my sleeping hands. the grief of its possible-real loss woke me up this morning. the ring (above, though in gold) was made by andrea corson & is a slim beautiful thing. during the wedding ceremony, as per jewish tradition, the nearly thousand-year-old custom is to place the ring on the right index finger instead of the ring finger. this tradition stems from the ancient belief that the index finger was directly connected by a special artery to the heart—so joining the bride & groom’s hearts & the blood of the two families. i know that losing the ring isn't symbolic of something larger, but it's hard not to feel like we've broken something.

{image via laurenlemon}

home-made soup

Z & i are back in london after a staggering week of city-ing & eating, family & unfathomable architecture. post sleeping off plane-rides & airport food, we spent the whole of yesterday rearranging our flat so we could feel a sense of newness, of this incredible edging into spring. truthfully, it felt like moving into our flat all over again--what a thrill to wake up facing a new direction, on the other side of the room, like finding yourself mid-night in a strange hotel! but this morning i also woke up feeling a little under energized. so Z is making me some delicious soup as we catch up on the domesticities of trip returns. i highly recommend trying this roasted amazingness, not in the least because it is very little work (just chop & shove into the oven, blend & then heat). i fell in love with parsnips on my first trip to nova scotia--Z's mom made traditional matzah-ball soup that featured these ghosted vegetables & i've been hooked ever since.

p.s. i promise there are actual pictures of italy to come this afternoon. despite some sadness, it's actually fantastic to be back in our dark city--we're home!

firenze

Z & i arrived in firenze after a bit of the usual ridiculousness of traveling (though the training was wonder-lovely, complete with the delicious crumblings of italian cookies) . & seriously, what a spectacular city! in a minute we're off for a day of research & wandering & tasting. i'm sure we'll be beat when we return, but i can't wait to sit on our hotel balcony & unwind. after three years of planning for this trip, i'm actually exhilarated & anxious in equal measures. so wish me luck!

roma!

such silences! there's been no internet-ing for us for the past week & it's been both a relief (seriously!) & a bit of a challenge. this is a city of history & light & ruins and less of the high-tech connections (i'm writing this from a mcdonald's where we found wireless finally!). for me, part of traveling has been the experience of writing the details out on here, unraveling the experiences as a language of happening. that said, traveling is also so much about folding oneself into a city--the feeling & movement of it. in rome, this has been about letting go of our usual way of being--of stressing & rushing & bouncing between deadlines; of internet & telephones & technology as a time saving. instead of the bustle & dust of london we've been enjoying a type of lengthening, of the light--of wandering & eating (my god, the food!) & listening to the song of another language spoken on trams & sidewalks & in hotel lobbies. we've been doing a lot of reading & soaking in the history it takes to create a ruin.we've also been forgetting to sleep! (who wouldn't, what a place to be!) i promise to post more regularly this week, but i am thinking of taking a bit of this less computerered mentality home with me. happy monday from rome!