… a 34-degree day makes you peel off the jacket and ride around with the car windows down.

Posted by tee in sense of place
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Posted by tee in freelancing, photos
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Everything is white. The three or so inches of snow lingering on the ground and in the pinon and juniper and cactus is white, the slopes rising on three sides all around me is white, the fog drifting over the peaks is white, the valley floor is white, even the entirety of the sky for 50 miles across the valley is pure white, in rare overcast, with no variation on which to rest an eye. What I’d give for the tiniest hint of deep blue, or even gray. Something, anything, but flat, contrasty, headachy white.

For the first time since we moved here, I feel restless and trapped and claustrophobic on this mountain. But without the mental energy to climb down off of it and go do something else today, or more than that the fierce lack of interest in going out there into all that painful white, I decided to make tortellini in pesto with artichokes instead.

There’s a reason I love this valley, and days like today aren’t it. Now would be a good time for that wood stove. Or the thick plastered walls, in warm tones that cast colorful shadows in their window wells, of the house that’s still only sketched out rough and shaky in pencil out on that five acres until spring.

I’d have perched myself on the stone seats of that rock masonry heater/fireplace early this morning with a pillow and blanket, and not budged until the white broke.

Posted by tee in de la vida, favorites
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Shane and I dropped Sarah off at the Boys & Girls Club around five to hang out for a little while, then we snuck off for a working dinner at one of our favorite spots. Food was great, always is, but on the way back to the studio Shane said he was crashing pretty hard all of a sudden. A few minutes later, I started to fade fast too, though at the time I thought it was probably the power of suggestion more than anything else. But by the time we got back in and to work, we were both so desperately tired we curled up on the office couch for a few minutes.

Just before I was out, my eyes drifted over to the clock and I made a messy mental note that it was 6:10, and that we should really make sure we don’t sleep past 7 since we have to pick up Sa… zzzzzzz.

I blinked awake, disoriented, I must have fallen asleep sitting up. Shane still leaning against me, fast asleep. I looked at the clock: 7:30. Shook Shane awake, tried to move fast to get our stuff ready and go get Sarah before the club closed at eight. Both of us were so out of it and dragging so badly, and even now two hours later so groggy, still, that we actually wonder if there was something in the food.

Not that it matters - that place is so good it’s almost worth it. If it happens again we’ll just remember to get take out from now on and eat it in bed with the lights out.

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An incredibly upsetting, vivid and wildly up and down dream last night that, despite being all of those things, was also hard to wake up from. As if the upset needed to happen and I was trying to hang onto it tight in the dream because I couldn’t make it happen outside of one.

I stayed home today while everyone else went in. I even bowed out of an invitation I’ve been looking forward to for weeks. More and more I’ve been looking for excuses to be by myself - it’s indiscriminate, not really related to mood or to specific people or circumstances but just an increasing inability to chill or brainstorm or work or relax if other people are milling around. And yet an upcoming trip to the city, surrounded by thick crowds of strangers and rushing cars and loud, buzzing activity, is the only thing that seems to lift it.

Maybe it’s not as much being alone that I’m craving as it is being unnecessary.

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Posted by tee in fun stuff, kids + pets, photos
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Locking up the office last night I noticed the temperature had dropped fast since we were out around dinner time, and a thin layer of ice fog was developing just over the tops of our heads. We work near the train station, and in the dark the train’s horn, coming in from the east edge of town best I could tell, echoed and bounced all the way down the tracks to where we stood in the empty parking lot. I waited for the beam of light to round the corner and light up the fog, but it was still too far away.

Driving home along the fairly deserted 160 at that hour with all those patches of fog three or four feet overhead was like driving through a congregation of ghosts.

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