OctoberSpinster

just a few things that make me happy these days

• knowing now how to wind my way through the streets of quincy to the weymouth bridge and 3A
• it being 8:47pm and just walking back from a swim in the ocean
• seeing the family of Canadian geese with their goslings who live at the rotary of 3A and rt 123
• the slow playground sign with the little 50's style girl on it, in hanover
  
• work and my coworkers, and the fact that one gave me some amazing fancy office supplies the week of my birthday, not knowing it was my birthday, just knowing i would like them
• being far away from things that cause me pain and where i cause disappointment to my friends
• my holga and the anticipation that comes with working with real film
  
• my Shiloh
  
• the thought of gardening in my new house, the thought of moving into my house
  
• planting morning glories
• being brave enough to go to a classic car show on my own and actually talk to people
• taking a class to learn how to make lampglass beads
  
• my dorky rocktumblers
• my friends who get it
• my massive seaglass collection and trying to figure out how to turn them into outsider art
• my pen and ink drawings - my zentangles
• plans to learn italian
• my new hope anchor tattoo
• my family, including the cousins coming out of the woodwork on facebook
• the Cats vs the Dogs - risd baseball, next game august 2008
• knitting and someday figuring out the mysteries of crochet
• Addie and Silas
• care packages from awesome friends
• making care packages for awesome friends
• the wind turbine in Hull, which actually says 'Hull' on the side, just in case you didn't know where you were
• the 2 skeleton keys a friend picked up for me in maine last weekend, esp the one marked with 666, how many people can say the have the key to hell?
  

my back porch here overlooks a field, which abuts a marshy area.  since i've been here it's been overgrown with grasses growing waist length in areas.  growing best where the sea had deposited seaweed washed across the street and pooled in the marshier spots.  today though there was a man out there with a rider mower trying to tame these wild grasses and clean things up for the summer tourists.  as i sat out there watching the clouds and his progress,  was amazed when after one close pass to my deck, when he drove away, the sky was filled with flying creatures.  looking closer, i saw that they were large dragonflies.  they were to fast to count as they darted about, but close enough to see their double wings and large size, there had to be upwards of fifty of them, all zinging about.  it was incredible.  they settled as the mower moved to the other side of the field, but as he approached again, they again took flight.  i'd never seen so many, and it made me wonder if they had little gallivespian riders with their poisonous spurs scoping out the landscape.  (yes i'm a dork and love philip pullman's trilogy).  this was a sight that i have to commit to memory, as it couldn't have been captured by a camera, not even a holga.

my sister is funny and very smart, her being a phd and all. 

i mentioned to her that i had used some gluten free flour for the red velvet cupcakes i made the other night (note that i do see the humor in using such flour and using honey instead of sugar, in a dessert that is inherently white trash),  she scoffed at me and said "what's wrong with gluten?!  i LOVE gluten!  gluten is good!".  she expressed her exasperation with a whole bevy of foodie ideas and i understood it all and agreed

maybe you had to hear her say it, but i just think it's great.

gluten is good!

I  think that in the the next big celebrity reality series, The Kardashian’s, the ’real’ housewives of orange county and ny, Lauren Conrad and company, the girl’s next door, the Gotti’s, Donald Trump and that Tequila chick should be placed on several rafts and set adrift in shark infested water trailing hunks of bloody meat......

like a lot of people, i do what i can to reduce reuse and recycle. it's quite trendy now, but that's not why.  living green actually interests me, gardening, composting, caring for the earth.  i've grown heirloom varieties of tomatoes for years.  organic, co-ops, farmer's markets, whole foods, raw foods, handcrafted, diy.  i've always lived under the belief that i was born in the wrong century, i belong in a slower time, when things were more real, when machines could be fixed with a wrench, not with code.

unlike a lot of people, i have realized that my fascination and desire to live a more sustainable life is not to born out of a desire to save the earth, but rather out of my fascination with post apocalyptic landscapes, and fantasies of surviving when the world begins again.  i blame this on the 80's, watching Dawn of the Dead, The Day After, Blade Runner, The Unbelievable Truth during my formative teen years.  living in the shadow of the cold war, the looming idle threat of nuclear war, the empty cold consumerism of the 80's.  i wanted to be one of the last people on earth, roaming empty shopping malls, scavenging the empty houses.  to watch the grass grow through pavement and be one of the ones who remembered what it all once was.  Girlfriend in a Coma and the Stand are two of my favorite books, i've read them each obsessively too many times, i sink into them and never want to leave. 

it all ties in  together in my head somehow, it's a tangled mess in there, but that starting with small green habits, can lead to bigger ones and help to try to live off the grid a little, which all leads to preparedness for what comes next.

are there other's like me out there, recycling and bringing their own bags, looking like they're trying to save the world, but really just waiting for it to end?