the day is full of herbs

With the temperatures suddenly freezing, it's way past time to put the garden to bed. All the Sarracenia have been moved to a basement window. Do you know how cold a glazed clay pot can get? Very, very cold, it turns out. It was like carrying the inverse of a hot potato.
I also cut back the sage, orange mint, thyme, oregano and lemon balm. I'm going to take a bath and then decide what to do with it. Right now the kitchen is overflowing with fragrant leaves.
Meanwhile, am being sorely tempted by $10 sale over at Threadless. Does my pastor sister-in-law need the "Best Friends Forever" T-shirt for Christmas? Hmmm.

Today's book: To my embarrassment, am still reading Idoru. Put it down for a bit to read The Provincial Lady in Wartime by E.M. Delafield, which was hilarious.

joy/melancholy

A touch of melancholia stains the Blackwood residence this week. I chalk it up to illness and the weather. I could also be drained from the euphoria of hearing Kate Bush's first album in twelve years. The day after it came out, I just lay on the floor listening to it and spiritually taking off. Hearing her voice again was wonderful beyond all expectations. And her music is magnificent. I can't believe she let us contemplate "The Red Shoes" for twelve years. At last we can all forget "Rubberband Girl."
I'm trying to hang on to her energy and generosity this week, but it's a little hard. The holidays are always a time of professional reckoning. I was hired around this time & have to survive my yearly review; I also have to weigh whether it's worth staying in a job that gets increasingly static and mediocre. Obviously this year I'm leaning toward "not." I can't remember my last really good night at work. On the other hand, what else could I do? I'm not very disciplined and have a limited skill set. I feel stuck. What would Kate Bush do? She would probably sit down at the piano, and I do have that option...
At least there's a midnight "Goblet of Fire" show to look forward to. As "research," I am going to make a martini and read some fanfic. Outside, you can actually hear winter blowing in. It's supposed to drop something like 30 degrees tonight.

Vote

Don't forget to vote today, chickens. You don't need an ID or a registration card or anything. If you're registered, they know where you live. And if you don't vote, you'll contribute to low voter turnout, which will in turn contribute to tiresome editorials in the news-paper about low voter turnout. Nobody wants that. So vote.

Kidnap Mister Sandy Claws?

Today's book: "Idoru" by William Gibson. One day I will sit down and read these books in order. Meanwhile, cherish fanciful notion of eventually tying together my diverse interests into series of genius novels, futuristic or otherwise. *pauses to moon over bespectacled author photo*

Today's film: "The Nightmare Before Christmas." My gentleman-caller thoughtfully Netflixed this for me, although it was not available until just after Halloween. I had not seen it since high school and was particularly keen to see Tim Burton's early short "Vincent," narrated by the late Mr. Price. He is something of a hero of mine (and a time-travel sex object besides). So last night I watched "Vincent" and the first half of the main film. The short looked and sounded marvelous, and it would be a rare treat to come across unexpectedly. Unfortunately, its tiny narrative simply trails off, as Mr. Burton's stories tend to do. Vincent's conflict - be Vincent Price or a normal boy? - is so nicely set up, I wanted him to do something besides fall on the floor at the end. Oh well. It still looked nice, and it was a shivery pleasure to hear Mr. Price whisper "Nevermore" without having to sit through Roger Corman's "The Raven." (Which has its campy merits. "Go to the graveyard at this time of night? Despoil the dead?") As for the main film, it's less impressive on the small screen, and the story feels pretty half-assed. But the idea of Santa Claus being kidnapped and tortured by the denizens of Halloween-town is pretty great. I will always love the "Kidnap the Sandy Claws! Chop him into bits!" song.

Ia! Ia!

Sorry, I never did write about "At the Mountains of Madness." I may have OD'd on Lovecraft by the time I got to it. The timing was also bad in that we experienced a great cold snap here the week I read it. Yes, it took me a week to read a hundred-page book; I kept picking up other things. It was sort of like watching "Dr. Zhivago" - it's just going to make you cold. And after reading a pile of Lovecraft, you know they're going to stumble upon unnameable secrets, and be chased by something they can't quite see, and it won't catch them for some vague reason & they'll end up gibbering wrecks. That's pretty much what happens in this book. I loved the six-foot albino penguins, however.

Gentleman-caller and I threw our Halloween party this weekend. It was a success, I think. Some of my friends (including the lovely Ardenstone) drove a long distance to attend, which I deeply appreciate.

Today a former colleague called, with whom I haven't spoken for about two years. She's in town for a Bengals game, and we're having lunch tomorrow. Woot! I really, really have missed her.

Are you lost, sweetheart?

This is for my gentleman-caller, whom I love very deeply.

Have you read Watership Down?

A coworker asked me that last night as we discussed this story. It was hard to answer - yes, I've read it, not recently, but it's one of the oldest building blocks in my mind. The first time I read it was in second grade after watching the cartoon. One of our teachers actually read it to the class, and I read it on my own either beforehand or concurrently. I remember the blank look on a classmate's face as the teacher defined the lapin term "hraka" as "droppings"; I already knew what it meant, and remember watching the blank face break up into second-grade merriment once he realized what "droppings" were. I've reread it once or twice but associate it the most with second grade. It was my favorite book for a long time, until I got to fifth grade or so and tackled "Gone with the Wind." (I always enjoyed giving withering looks to adults who said "That's a mighty big book you've got.")

I think I liked the survivalist aspect of the plot, and the rabbit mythology laid out in the book. I loved the idea that just a rabbit hopping across the lawn is part of its own epic struggle. It seems odd to label the book "fantasy" but it really is, in an agreeably down-to-earth way. You certainly also learn a lot about real-life rabbits. I didn't know females were called does, or that pregnant ones could reabsorb their litters from stress. Adams puts you in your place a couple times when the rabbits' world intersects with the human - I guess that's his call to respectful stewardship. It would be interesting to reread it as an adult, but it almost seems unnecessary. All the names and details are pretty deep down in my brain - as a deteriorating nonagenarian I fully expect to rant about Fiver and General Woundwort.

I'd never heard of this island before yesterday, though, and was interested to learn it's notable for its sea birds. That explains the oddly (I always thought) prominent role of Keehar.

Finally, while the cartoon appears to have spawned many annoying DVD spinoffs, I was hugely gratified to hear the "Bright Eyes" reference in the Wallace and Gromit movie.

I keep hoping for you, Pumpkin

Yesterday I baked pumpkin cookies, largely because I wanted the smell in the apartment. The smell of baking pumpkin is supposed to enhance erections in men, so I figured it might not do me any harm either. I don't actually like sweets, so I took the cookies to work. Well. By the end of the night I had messages from every guy in the office about how good they smelled and tasted. I could not stop laughing. The erection thing strikes me as bullshit - honestly, do erections need a whole lot of help, generally? - but the idea was amusing.

Here's the recipe, you darling nonexistent reader:

1 c. sugar
1 c. pumpkin
1/2 c. cooking oil
1 egg, beaten
2 c. flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. milk
1 tsp. vanilla
1 c. chocolate chips
1/2 c. nuts

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine sugar, pumpkin, cooking oil and beaten egg. Sift flour, salt, cinnamon and baking powder; add to pumpkin mixture. Dissolve baking soda in milk and vanilla and add to mixture. Then add chocolate chips and nuts. Drop on lightly greased cookie sheet. Bake approximately 10-12 minutes. Do not over bake. Cookies will be soft and moist.

found on the risky but indispensible cooks.com.

Dispatches from the Tower

Today's book: Finally finished "Arbella: England's Lost Queen" by Sarah Gristwood. I ended up sympathizing more with the author than the subject, because Arbella's character and motives are pretty obscure. She was the niece of Mary, Queen of Scots, and stood a good chance of inheriting the throne from Elizabeth I. Instead, Mary's son James acceded, and Arbella was thrust to the side, eventually to marry without the king's consent and spend the rest of her life in the Tower as punishment. Gristwood obviously loves her and wants her to be a strong, self-motivated woman, but the author's historical discipline keeps having to rein in her imagination. Certainly Arbella wasn't given the opportunity to accomplish much. I would probably have enjoyed this book more if I'd been more knowledgeable about the Elizabethan era going in; I'd never even heard of Arbella. It's always satisfying to finish a big nonfiction book, though.

Next: "At the Mountains of Madness," which has finally been located at the library. Today it is quite dismal out, so I expect to spend the afternoon baking and reading.

Elizabeth, Beth, Betsy and Bess

This book was fabulous. I highly recommend it to any Shirley Jackson fan. Certainly it's a minor work, like The Sundial, and mostly interesting to me for the perspective it gives her better-known books. Both The Haunting and We Have Always Lived In The Castle are told from the perspective of variously tormented heroines. You only gradually realize how people are reacting to them and how genuinely terrifying they are, and by that point they've pulled you in & won your sympathy. The Bird's Nest switches between a third-person description of its main character, Elizabeth, and a first-person account from her psychiatrist. The story is pretty much "Sybil": Elizabeth battles her multiple personalities, and eventually resolves the conflicts she feels about her childhood. Like Eleanor and Merricat, she lives mostly in her own mind, rejecting the uncaring outside world. Jackson's detached narration means you don't worry or care for Elizabeth. But you can't escape a steadily growing dread, beginning in an early scene when Elizabeth raises her face to her psychiatrist and, instead of his patient, he sees what he calls a "grinning fiend." A subplot involves Elizabeth's aunt and something awful that may have happened long ago; it doesn't hold together, but it does stick with Jackson's favorite theme that horror begins at home. Not as good as The Sundial, but much better than Hangsaman.

Our poor Hepzibah

Today's book: "The House of the Seven Gables" by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

I had so been looking forward to this book. Hawthorne's story "Young Goodman Brown" is an October classic, and I also love "The Birth-Mark." I guess he's more palatable in short form. In theory, there's nothing wrong with this book: It's got ghosts, a haunted house, and a protagonist named Hepzibah. But I was driven mad by the infinite descriptive passages and the utterly immobile plot. Of course, the plot is all about immobility, so Hawthorne probably is a literary genius. The climactic chapter, in fact, traces the course of a day in which a dead man sits in a chair, listing all the things he's NOT doing, and all the things that are NOT happening in the house. I'm talking myself into admiring the book, but finishing it last night was a huge relief. I guess I'm just a sad product of my action-driven generation.

Next: Shirley Jackson's "The Bird's Nest," about a woman with multiple personalities! I think. Hard to find but obtained from the marvelous Mercantile Library.

Cthulhu fhtagn!

As the merry season of Halloween approaches, I cannot stop humming this catchy song. It is certainly Lovecraft's time of year. I am very pleased about this.

Gentleman-caller and I are planning a Halloween party. He has forbidden me to "go insane" and make cookies shaped like severed fingers. Fortunately, he is not the boss.

Harvest time approaches. I will be putting basil blended with olive oil in the freezer, and drying lots of mint & lemon balm. Sadly for the cats, the great harvester Death has already claimed their favorite catnip plant. I spoke somberly to them about how the time will come for us all, but they merely blinked and vigorously bathed themselves.

Today's book: At the Mountains of Madness, by Howard Phillips Lovecraft. Have not actually read it, but intend to.

Wasn't that a mighty storm

Holy living fuck.
We've lost the city. Looks like the Times-Picayune is still down. I feel very helpless as the first 72 hours run out. I have no money, canned goods or medical expertise to donate. All I can do is watch the news with my hand over my mouth. (I don't normally do this.)
Fuck.

Long before the Superdome ...

I'm headed to bed now and don't know what state New Orleans will be in tomorrow. Sounds like the storm is just starting to hit. It's such a gorgeous and sensuous city- sure, there's the bawdiness around Bourbon Street, but the entire city is suffused with sensual beauty. The air smells good, the food is good, the ever-present music is good. My gentleman-caller, not a Dixieland jazz fan, makes fun of it at every opportunity. But I love the live oaks and the architecture that picks up their delicate lines, and God I love the beignets, and how everywhere you look something is growing. The city just wants to be graceful and beautiful and enjoy itself. Its filth and crime and river mud only set it off. I wish I could protect it tonight.

Tonight's movie: Sunset bloody Boulevard, an unsolicited loan from a well-intentioned but clueless new colleague trying to make friends. "You like movies? You've got to see this." What a tedious exercise in misogyny. We get it! You find her pitiful and threatening! Give me the Simpsons' "Streetcar!" any day.

wet hot american summer

This week's adventure has involved the plumbing in my old house-cum-apartment building. I do not own it, which is good, because the plumbing is in trouble. Black water would come sludging up out of the bathroom sink; then the kitchen sink refused to drain; and now both drains are repaired but the bathroom floor is now constantly covered with water of unknown origin. I feel like Jennifer Connelly. If only David Bowie were here.
Speaking of gentleman-callers, mine took me to the "Pub at Rookwood Mews" last night. I thought it would be an agreeable evening of beer in a dark wooden setting. However, it was crammed to the rafters with people in tank tops. We drank our pints with imprudent haste and watched a deeply tanned, silver-haired man in an open white shirt glide through the room like a ghost. Nobody seemed to notice him but us, and then he vanished. So we hastened back here and watched "She-wolf of London," which was much better.

Today's book: "Julie and Romeo" by Jeanne Ray. Everyone else read this about five years ago when it came out. I picked it up yesterday with the idea of having it for an upcoming plane ride, then stupidly started flipping through it, and now it's finished.

You know I'm not a saint

Another dancing post. Sorry for the long delay (I say to my nonexistent readers). I got bad family news last week and pretty much withdrew into myself in response. The selfish phase of that reaction is now over and I'm ready to come back into the world. So I went dancing with two good friends tonight. It was great. Some old flames were flickering around. I ended up thinking a lot about a former gentleman-caller, whom I met at a similar club. Dancing always brings back sensory memories of him: metal through flesh, sweaty vinyl pants turned inside out, smeared eyeliner. I'll always miss him when I'm out there.

Today's book: Arbella: England's Lost Queen by Sarah Gristwood. I'm just starting it.

Today's plant: Sarracenia leucophylla. It has a gorgeous white pitcher and a flower bud.

Pray for daylight

Mmm. Just in from dancing at The Dock. My feet are killing me and the imprint of my fishnets is well pressed into my knees. God, I love dancing there. I didn't really talk to anyone tonight so I do not have any lively little anecdotes to tell... just went and danced and came home v. happy.

Today's book: "Hank Williams The Biography" by Colin Escott. My boss loaned me this so I sort of have to read it, but it's very good. I own no Hank records but will have to remedy that. Next month I turn 29, so this is nice and timely.

Today's plant: Drosera capensis, supposedly a sturdy plant, which hates me. I have two that are unhappy in the sun and the shade and the heat and the cool indoors. They must be self-destructive and doomed a la Hank.

The Master would not approve.

Well, I did not get to meet Mr. Campbell; there were too many people at the signing. I should've called ahead. My gentleman-caller and I waited for an hour and a half, but they were nowhere near getting to my group, and I had to get back to work. It was fun to see the crowd, though, and I was happy for Bruce that he drew so many fans. One guy had a great "Shaun of the Dead" shirt with a pattern that resembled one of Zombie Pumpkins'. "Bruce Campbell will sign all your books, but he will sign only one piece of memorabilia," announced a woman. "People in group F may now get in line - that's F, as in Fake Shemp." I just loved it. But I had to get back to work.

As consolation, we watched the "'Manos' The Hands of Fate" episode of MST3K after I got off work. I am now in love with Torgo!

Groovy.

Bruce Campbell is doing a book signing tonight at Joseph-Beth. Yeeee! I do not usually ask for autographs or any of this sort of thing... what is the point of an autograph? I tend to think. And if you're a fan of someone, buy their book or watch their movies, don't fuss around trying to meet them. But this is Bruce Campbell. I wonder if he's tired of being asked about the Evil Dead remake? Yeeeee! My gentleman-caller is jealous.

Today's book: If Chins Could Kill (oh, okay, and the new one too).

Today's plant: Turkish oregano. I bought it sort of as a joke this spring - I had Greek oregano last year and thought it would be funny to compare the two. (Ha! Ha!) But my God! This stuff has completely taken over a very large pot, and is threatening to spill over the sides. I use it more than I mean to, just to cut it back some. No wonder Cyprus is such a mess. Turkish = fierce!

Vote

Residents of Ohio's Second Congressional District should vote today. I plan to finish my book and then stagger through the quelling heat to my polling place. Usually I make it a point to bypass the campaign people out front, but I might shake hands with the Paul Hackett folks. He's awful cute.