Thank you, Jeff. You've been on my mind lately.

It's very cold here, in this house of little insulation. Christmas is nice, though. I got such a crazy, ridiculous thrill wrapping presents today, hanging delicate name tags on them, and worrying a bit about their reception. I love giving, sometimes to an inappropriate point (either in terms of just general discretion or my checkbook). I have often wished we gave gifts like hobbits did - constantly. Christmas and birthdays are just another excuse to do what I want to do every third tuesday. My brother insists that I'm impossible to give to, and I insist that this is nonsense. "I like anything beautiful!" I cry, and he replies: "Oh, right, and I like hideous and malformed things."

I wonder if some of you know what it is of your words that stick in my mind, that get stuck on replay. Do you know that I remember things you've said to me from three years ago? Or that something you probably thought was inconsequential got lodged in my head and hasn't left. It's probably been soaked in all forms of my experiences. What you say has become mine. The words are cherished as a creation of yours, but read into my life.

I try to save little funny moments here, in general. Today my friend Sue said that I belonged more to the sea than the city, and also that I belonged in a Thomas Hardy novel. I agreed on the count of the sea but thought myself "too whimsical" for dour old Hardy. She agreed, and imagined him sending me away saying "I cannot take this woman! She is too silly!"

When we entered a shop (I had just performed a dance for my brother) I looked over the mill pond into the setting sun, and saw a flock of birds far off fold into itself like bread being kneaded. They flashed and winged off. They were so far off they looked like a flash of smoke, or a wayward dark cloud. They just nipped out of view in half a second, out of the corner of my eye.

My dad and I decorated cookies. I felt quite creative - I gave the Tyrannosaurus Rex cookie a bloody mouth and made sure to mark Austin on each of the Texas cookies. The six pointed stars were my favorite, and I used black currents and slivers of almonds in a beautiful pattern.

2002-12-23, The house of little insulation

before / after

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