Sunday, June 25, 2006 

words i never thought i'd utter....

i miss dallas



it was home for nearly nine years.

i used to complain in a properly hip(ster) fashion about how interconnected and at times incestuous it was... but i miss going to regular haunts (shit, i miss having regular haunts) and running into someone i know.

this weekend has been calm and restorative, if that's a word one can apply to a segment of time that a human being experiences. i've made several loaves of ciabatta. stayed up late writing letters and reading rorty. watched the sopranos and listened to a ceaseless loop of andrew bird.

a couple of the loaves i made this weekend came out... oddly shaped. it reminded me a bit of melissa's poem on androgny and that creative endeavour known as writing: the pen(is} mightier than the sword.



on the whole things are going well. yesterday was tempered by a simple joy; it reminded me of how i felt back when i first started blogging on sdt. i enjoyed driving to and from work. i was productive as hell.

looking forward to the coming weekend with family and loved ones.

Thursday, June 22, 2006 

wow.

this is difficult to believe. arcadia and my favorite mex-mex restaurant gone. ... just a few years after a couple of bars down the street (and a ghengis grill) were charred, not to mention the historic baptist church just a few blocks away that burned down in 2002.

no time for commentary (i've work to do) -- but whoa.

Friday, June 16, 2006 

Ciabatta and Strange Coincidences

Yesterday I treated myself to copper highlights at the local Aveda salon to celebrate the fact that I start my new job on Monday (yes, they pushed it back a week).

I was sitting on a leather bench in the front of the salon, a halo of foil binding the chemicals to my hair when a familiar face topped with ropes of black curls entered the establishment and walked by.

Joe?

He looked my direction and I could see the moment when he recognized shan beneath the glamorous foil flaps.

We hugged in wide-eyed excitement, exchanged several-sentence updates and our contact info and then he was whisked off to have his hair cut.

I haven't seen this guy in over four years.

I had heard that he'd gotten married a while back, an event complete with Alan's crazy machinations (this is the guy who once ran naked down a residential street in Dallas yelling Nietzsche's my bitch!) -- but I'd no idea that he has a 6-month old infant. That is crazy!

Joe was a big part of one of the most amazing days of my life (this easily qualifies for the top ten): the legendary toobing trip down what we thought was the Guadalupe. Ten or so college kids, several cases of Lone Star, itineraries and adventures. Joe's house was difficult to locate the first time around (and we doubted Bran and Hiyam's combined sense of direction would safely deliver them) so we scribbled "JOE" on pizza boxes with arrows pointing in the appropriate =====> direction and stapled them to poles.

Joe and I had gone to purchase said Lone Star when we spotted the little red truck whose cab held my two best friends. We tailed them, trying to crouch down so they wouldn't see us (a remarkable feat, given that we were in a telltale new red VW bug) and we got to experience them experiencing our signs. We called our friend Dave, who was back at the house with a white board managing the day's itinerary (you can cross off "purchase beer" and "get bran and hiyam" here -- they're on their way!).

What an incredible, long, day. The Comal River was freezing; I'll never forget Michael Bryant discovering that the concrete on the side of the river at one of the stop off points (or, you know, someone's private property. it's hard to tell) was warm. Ignoring the ants, we all pulled our toobs over and laid across the warm goodness. Took pictures. Laughed.

At the end of the trip we sang childhood songs and ate Cheetos. Allowed our drivers to sober up and headed back to Austin.

-------

yesterday i made provolone ciabatta melts (see my recipe site for details). they were a hit. i will likely spend the day putting together my double-sauce enchiladas, although they won't be the same without sharing them with my favorite hughes in the whole big huge world.

Thursday, June 15, 2006 

sailboats and scorpion tales

i am once again occupying the same space as scorpions, which means i spend a lot more time looking at the floor than usual, i shake out my clothes before dressing and turn on lights at night before walking across my little apartment.

i fear that my lifelong boasts of being the only caughey (richard hugh I branch) never "gotten" will literally come back to sting me.

as i've said before on sdt -- a scorpion is the only bug i'll kill (i'd kill roaches but it's so much easier and cleaner to chase them outside). for some reason they are fond of the pool; jim scoops out at least one per morning. he flings them onto the beautifully green lawn, which makes me think twice before walking barefoot to see the fish in the pond/fountain. the backyard here is gorgeous and peaceful. a baby deer and her mama come for a drink of water each morning around six-thirty.

***

yesterday i drove about 20 miles west on 620 to my uncle pat's and my good sweet lord the drive was stunning. i spent several hours sailing (if by sailing you mean sitting around, talking and drinking beer) with uncles pat and mike, honorary aunt mary and cousin jus. i did get to steer the boat (which is a little like flying a plane for reasons too complicated to explain just now) and pull some cords at pat's direction and learned to tie a really nifty knot.

i also saw hippie hollow for the first time.

***

all in all a very full, lovely day. it started out with conversation w/ sue around 6:30 (the deer made an appearance), was punctuated with an inane attempt by bush to convince us that all is well in iraq, and ended with a long conversation with my best friend before snuggling the kitties and succumbing to sunburned slumber.

the kitties are hungry. here's to a great thursday, the possibility of what lies before us.

Friday, June 09, 2006 

a dios dallas

not much else to say at the moment. there are books to pack, cats to coax into crates, final preparations to enact. my five-year-old tabby knows that something is up; he is meowing at me from the top of the bookcase.

it's going to be a loud ride to austin.

 

Actually,...

actually, that was just a paraphrase from someone who critiqued my paper. what i actually said is:

Since what we behold is only really what we interpret, are we not projecting our interpretations onto others and believing that we are "beholding" them?

So do we become what we percieve we behold? (Are we then not in charge of what we become?)



And, believe it or not, this string of language had much to do with Chaucer's "The Nun's Priest's Tale."

 

the wisdom of youth

we become what we interpret




i wrote this in a paper on chaucer five years ago.

Monday, June 05, 2006 

just like that, she's gone

yesterday jack jumped into the back of a minivan and parked her head between two seats, where two young children patted her and spoke to her of games and their yard, little secrets in excited young voices. i shook hands with their mother before she buckled herself into the front seat and drove away with my little dog.

and then i cracked.

i know she's going to be happier; the mom wants jack to sleep on the bed with her. they have trees. and two kids with all the time in the world for catch and fetch and tug-of-war.

i forgot to tell them to say "night-night" to indicate that it's time for bed.

i hope she slept well. i hope that she is happy. i miss my doggie.

Saturday, June 03, 2006 

and then came june

may blew by, a sort of nebulous series of moments in pace with time, travels and joyous occasions, spaghetti and friends and family... and then a decision.

i took a job. on the 12th i will be editing for an imprint of Harcourt based in austin.

there's a lot to do between now and friday, when i pull up a couple of roots and transfer them 200 miles south. the cats are coming with me.

jack will hopefully be in a lovely new home with a backyard and children.

change is afoot!

anyone feel like dinner and mojitos at the meridian room on tuesday?

----

my cousin courtney's ceremony was beautiful. i forget that i cry at these things... i feel so honored to have been among those who came to celebrate the ten years they have been together and the promise of those to come.

i have many many pictures to post once i get my technology issues settled. for now, here is one taken a while back:



the lovely woman on the left has been a great influence on my life. she also has very shiny hair.

she's not asian... she's my sister.