Sunday, July 10, 2011

Pacific Northwest 2011

Specifically Fancyland, with jackie and sacha. I've been having the best time with only a little over a week in here. almost two weeks since leaving new orleans. i have let the chill in the air seep into my bones, balm my anxieties. i lay in the hammock and read, eat burritos, laugh and giggle and sleep next to jackie. i write and read and look and i feel safe and unfettered. jump into cold cold water and sit on warm warm rocks. its good. good. good.
xoxo

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

The beginnings of Summer

Well, since I left my last house, i've been holed up at Richie's. Spring stuck around for a long time, so i'm not complaining. In fact, he facilitated a nice little incubator for ideas and a couple of dresses in the last month. I know it looks like chaos, but Lady Grey loves this place best of all.



I finished the job I was in the middle of when I moved, much to my and my back's relief. I cannot believe the pain that I forced myself to endure. Next time I hurt myself that bad I need to just get a job as a barista, or do data entry or something. Anything but sewing. But i was happy with the dresses.





Besides that, I've been hand raising a little chick, it seems that she just wouldn't take a liking to any of the moms, just me. and i never thought infectious diseases were cute before but she has chicken pox! I didn't even know chicken's got chicken pox. ha, I'm a genius.

I wasn't really planning on being around here that long this summer, and i'll be taking off to Arcata to visit Jackie within a couple of weeks. Also up to South Carolina for a wedding and a stop in Asheville. I have been dreaming about paper and friends.

Hope y'all are well.
xoxo

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

The Bonnet Carré Spillway and dwelling on possible trouble ahead.




Jason called the other night at 1am. "How does Richie feel about the river?" he asks. "Is he moving things into the attic?"

In this laissez-faire city of New Orleans, it hasn't even really been too much of a topic of conversation. I can only explain it with a quote from The Wind in the Willows "The mole knew well that it is quite against animal-etiquette to dwell on possible trouble ahead, or even allude to it; so he dropped the subject."

Yesterday morning we went out to the opening of the Bonnet Carré Spillway. It basically works like this, the Mississippi levees can only handle about a 20 feet rise, we were at 17 yesterday and the crest of the mississippi is in Memphis right now, flooding homes and displacing people.

In the past when the Mississippi got unusually high, I never really understood how it was taken care of. I assumed that if you engineered such a huge river into a channel instead of spreading across the entire Mississippi delta as it once did, then a little rise was no big deal. The spillway wasn't built until after the great flood of 1927. "It was first opened during the flood of 1937, and nine times thereafter through 2011 to lower river stages at New Orleans." ( Baton Rouge Advocate. http://www.2theadvocate.com/news/18440594.html?showAll=y&c=y. Retrieved 2008-05-01.)

Do you remember that feeling of when your father would throw you into the air, and you knew you would always be caught? That trust? I don't trust machines that much now. Don't trust airplanes, nor breathing devices. I can ride my bike and breath on my own. But when I was young, I wanted to be a pilot, a scuba diver, and an astronaut. As I grew older I realized that I did not want to put so much faith in machines to keep me alive.

I live in New Orleans and the mere fact that this place still exists has a lot to do with machines, engineering, structures, pumps, all kinds of man made operations. I guess I'm fine with the contradiction mostly because it's not blatant. The opening of the Bonnet Carré Spillway has made me come face to face with my contradictions.

"Downriver, anxiety and preparations continued to mount. As some state prisoners were filling sand bags in Mississippi and Louisiana, about 200 inmates at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola, which is bordered on three sides by the Mississippi, have been evacuated and more will move soon.

On Monday morning, before a crowd of onlookers, the Army Corps of Engineers partly opened the Bonnet Carré spillway, allowing some of the river to flow into Lake Pontchartrain and thus relieving pressure as the Mississippi approaches New Orleans.

But that is not likely to be enough, and corps officials have requested permission from the Mississippi River Commission, a federal advisory agency, to open the Morganza spillway in Louisiana. That spillway has been opened only once, in 1973, and even a partial opening would result in widespread flooding that would affect thousands of people in parts of southern Louisiana. " (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/11/us/11river.html)


The only time they opened the Morganza Spillway was in 1973, and when they tried to close it, they had to sink barge after barge into the river to get it to stop going that way. Richie says that the river has been trying to go that way for a long time, maybe 100 years and we keep fighting it. It seems an odd beast.

If either the Morganza Spillway or the Old River Control Structure were to fail, the consequences for Louisiana, the region, the nation, and international commerce would be immense. In this event, the main channel of the lower Mississippi River would likely change permanently to the Old River and Atchafalya River channels in the Atchafalaya Basin, thus bypassing Baton Rouge and New Orleans. Existing port facilities may have to be relocated or replaced, as would Morgan City and many smaller communities. Transportation by road, rail, sea, and barge would all be dramatically affected. Sedimentation and erosion patterns would change, including development of a new river channel and delta, as well as a new pattern of floodplains. Changes to salinity of coastal waters (less saline near new delta, more saline near present delta) would affect marine life, fisheries, beaches, and coastal marshes, as well as submerged infrastructure.[3][17](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morganza_Spillway)


All I'm going to say is, my horoscope said this month would be calm. Calm my ass.
xoxo

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Moved Again

This is how i feel about it:

"Nibble, nibble, gnaw,
Who is nibbling at my little house?"

The children answered:

"The wind, the wind,
The heaven-born wind,"

and went on eating without disturbing themselves. Hansel, who liked the taste of the roof, tore down a great piece of it, and Gretel pushed out the whole of one round window-pane, sat down, and enjoyed herself with it. Suddenly the door opened, and a woman as old as the hills, who supported herself on crutches, came creeping out. Hansel and Gretel were so terribly frightened that they let fall what they had in their hands. The old woman, however, nodded her head, and said: "Oh, you dear children, who has brought you here Do come in, and stay with me. No harm shall happen to you." She took them both by the hand, and led them into her little house. Then good food was set before them, milk and pancakes, with sugar, apples, and nuts. Afterwards two pretty little beds were covered with clean white linen, and Hansel and Gretel lay down in them, and thought they were in heaven.

The old woman had only pretended to be so kind; she was in reality a wicked witch, who lay in wait for children, and had only built the little house of bread in order to entice them there. When a child fell into her power, she killed it, cooked and ate it, and that was a feast day with her. Witches have red eyes, and cannot see far, but they have a keen scent like the beasts, and are aware when human beings draw near. When Hansel and Gretel came into her neighborhood, she laughed with malice, and said mockingly: "I have them, they shall not escape me again!" Early in the morning before the children were awake, she was already up, and when she saw both of them sleeping and looking so pretty, with their plump and rosy cheeks, she muttered to herself: "That will be a dainty mouthfull" Then she seized Hansel with her shriveled hand, carried him into a little stable, and locked him in behind a grated door. Scream as he might, it would not help him. Then she went to Gretel, shook her till she awoke, and cried: "Get up, lazy thing, fetch some water, and cook something good for your brother, he is in the stable outside, and is to be made fat. When he is fat, I will eat him." Gretel began to weep bitterly, but it was all in vain, for she was forced to do what the wicked witch commanded.

And now the best food was cooked for poor Hansel, but Gretel got nothing but crab-shells. Every morning the woman crept to the little stable, and cried: "Hansel, stretch out your finger that I may feel if you will soon be fat." Hansel, however, stretched out a little bone to her, and the old woman, who had dim eyes, could not see it, and thought it was Hansel's finger, and was astonished that there was no way of fattening him. When four weeks had gone by, and Hansel still remained thin, she was seized with impatience and would not wait any longer. "Now, then, Gretel," she cried to the girl, "stir yourself, and bring some water. Let Hansel be fat or lean, to-morrow I will kill him, and cook him." Ah, how the poor little sister did lament when she had to fetch the water, and how her tears did flow down her cheeks! "Dear God, do help us," she cried. "If the wild beasts in the forest had but devoured us, we should at any rate have died together." "Just keep your noise to yourself," said the old woman, "it won't help you at all."


Early in the morning, Gretel had to go out and hang up the cauldron with the water, and light the fire. "We will bake first," said the old woman, "I have already heated the oven, and kneaded the dough." She pushed poor Gretel out to the oven, from which flames of fire were already darting. "Creep in," said the witch, "and see if it is properly heated, so that we can put the bread in." And once Gretel was inside, she intended to shut the oven and let her bake in it, and then she would eat her, too. But Gretel saw what she had in mind, and said: "I do not know how I am to do it; how do I get in?" "Silly goose," said the old woman. "The door is big enough; just look, I can get in myself!" and she crept up and thrust her head into the oven. Then Gretel gave her a push that drove her far into it, and shut the iron door, and fastened the bolt. Oh then she began to howl quite horribly, but Gretel ran away, and the godless witch was miserably burnt to death."

BE NOT FOOLED BY EMPTY BEAUTY! YOU WILL BE EATEN! USED. THROWN TO THE TRASH PILE AS BONES!!

Saturday, February 19, 2011

My Father was a Spatula

My father was a spatula that learned new ways of feeling, hurtled through the air out of a big rig's window at over 65mph. My mother was a bowl that soon followed and broke of sadness.

I was a spoon picked up off the side of the highway. I lived my life rattling in an old woman's dusty drawers. She rattled the the halls of her dusty house that saw 3 boys grow up and then disappear on the highway that she had cursed from day one. She tried to give them everything they needed but they just threw it away as soon as they were gone. She said this over custard.

Monday, February 14, 2011

Valentine's Day

valentine's day means lady grey's birthday. and she wont let me forget it. she woke me up at 6 am saying "its my birthday!!" and then she went and played all night. Richie came to my door with a giant heart with new bike tires inside. love love love.

Thursday, February 10, 2011