Saturday, May 24, 2003

No shad milt with which to celebrate, but I drove to Shrunkin' in the silvery drizzling rain, wipers on too slow, playing "One Too Many Mornings" loud enough to pierce my eardrums, then followed with "I'll Keep It With Mine." Happy birthday! Sapidissima! The most beautiful card I've ever seen. Dean heard on the radio yesterday that a bill has been passed to make SHAD the Connecticut state fish!

Posted at 3:19 PM by Laura W. Petix.

Friday, May 23, 2003

Wow!! Jerry's Artarama is the greatest.

Posted at 9:20 PM by Laura W. Petix.

This shad milt situation is so "Absolutely Sweet Marie"-ish.

Hours of troubled, half-awake dreams of shad; shad milt; shad shacks; calling numbers to find shad milt; joss paper-like scraps scattered around my phone, scribbled with numbers and notes about how to get milt; red Chinese lanterns; information about finding milt written in scrawled Japanese characters that I can't read; Waking up--is it time to call about the milt?--No, it's too early--Is it time yet this time? What time is it now? God. And then when I couldn't take it any longer, and I crawled out and dialed, it was a shad shack machine. A machine. A machine that mentioned shad roe and shad filets, and that's all, so I hung up. And then I thought, wait, maybe if I left a message asking if maybe maybe they secretly have milt, too... so, a minute later I called back, and there was nothing. The machine was gone: dead silence. Why is there a shad shack when it's never open; why is there a shad shack machine when it's never on? Why does the sign say buck shad when they don't have buck shad? Oh, why does shad treat me so bad?

Posted at 2:26 PM by Laura W. Petix.

Aaagh. CAn't stop dreaming about shad, so I stumbled up and called the nu mber. NO shad milt, only roe & filet. CRUEL Shad Shack!

Posted at 10:18 AM by Laura W. Petix.

Thursday, May 22, 2003

Aaaaaah!!! Matrix 2 was the silliest thing I have ever seen in my life!

Posted at 11:41 PM by Laura W. Petix.

Blackberries remind me of roe, the way they burst in your mouth. (Not shad roe--I mean raw roe.) Except, instead of salty, they're sweet.

Posted at 6:06 PM by Laura W. Petix.

Forget about any of that, when you've got willow tree songs, and rain songs, and silver airplane songs, and river songs, and Levon & Rick singing "Soul Deep"! And the basement tapes. Drift Away. Now and then, there's a fool such as I.

Posted at 5:03 PM by Laura W. Petix.

"He was long and tall, had plenty of cash--he had a red cadillac and a black moustache!"

Thursday-ingSelfPortrait: Part 1, thinking about lawnmowers; Part 2, forgetting about lawnmowers by listening to Bob.

Posted at 4:10 PM by Laura W. Petix.

Having your head upside down helps, and so does listening to "Standing In the Doorway," after your sleep is disturbed, ruined and TORTURED by endless lawnmowers. Lawnmowers are the bane of my existence. "L&T" is so darned great, I can't believe it. It's Thursday. Rainy, rainy, smeary Thursday. The battery spring in my Yepp is worn out, so now I have to remove the dead battery with needle-nosed pliers. Yesterday, in the process, a perfectly good one disappeared into thin air. If you find a triple-A Energizer e2 titanium lying around in an unexpected spot, don't throw it away. It's probably mine, and it's brand new.

Posted at 3:38 PM by Laura W. Petix.

Wednesday, May 21, 2003

Spargel! Oh, delightful!!

Posted at 4:49 PM by Laura W. Petix.

It smells like a fishbowl outside. Wonderful intense t.v.d.c. made by The Slack--strong, sweet, and foamy. Picked this up off the hood of someone's car. Tiny, and so exquisite. I used to play with them when I was little, on Dolphin Road. Big ones, with a delicate liquid-filled bubble in each bulge, that I'd very carefully unpeel, remove, collect. I can't remember what I pretended they were, though.

Posted at 3:22 PM by Laura W. Petix.

In my dream, I was at this antique shop that had two other old bears like Teddy, but they were both a little different.
Unique.

Posted at 12:43 PM by Laura W. Petix.

Oh man. The best berries are blackberries.

Posted at 12:40 AM by Laura W. Petix.

Tuesday, May 20, 2003

[3:15 PM, in the lot:] Second spot from the end, lines up with the alley. That's where I park. Roof at a slant. Sit at the tall table on the tall chair, sipping a bohemian & reading Allen Ginsberg. At the next table, a guy ate a muffin, with piercings: 2 ears, 2 eyebrows (I think), nose, 2 lips, tongue. Dr. John playing on the sound system. On my way out, I asked the lady if it was Dr. John, and she smiled, pleased, laughing, and said, "Yes, it is." Time Expired.

Posted at 7:27 PM by Laura W. Petix.

Monday, May 19, 2003

[Chinese notebook, 3:54 PM:] Good stiff foam. Listening to "L&T". "Well, my back's been to the wall for so long, it seems like it's stuck / Why don't you break my heart one more time just for good luck?" Beagleometer says it's 89 degrees, but the beagleometer lies. Drank everything and the cup's still half full of foam. I asked the guy at the art store if I could pay with a twig (it was in my pocket, instead of enough change), and he said I could.

Posted at 4:48 PM by Laura W. Petix.

Sunday, May 18, 2003

Shadblow
by Linda Pastan (poet laureate of Maryland from 1991 to 1994)

Because the shad
are swimming
in our waters now,

breaching the skin
of the river with their
tarnished silvery fins,

heading upstream
straight for our tables
where already

knives and forks gleam
in anticipation, these trees
in the woods break

into flower--small, white
flags surrendering
to the season.

(for Mary) :-)

Posted at 10:20 PM by Laura W. Petix.

Some of my tulips: one (I love the transparent delicacy of shading), two (looks like a Georgia O'Keeffe!), three (another gorgeous double-fluffy), four (this kind just opened for the first time today, in the front), five (that one red tulip is trying to pretend it's a yellow). All photos by me, and usually my hands are far too unsteady to get non-blurry closeups!

Posted at 8:12 PM by Laura W. Petix.