I took the first photo at the community garden where my partner has a plot, and it looks much duller than I remembered. This became even more obvious when I sliced off the top to use for my website’s header.
Part of the blame for that falls to my digital camera, which does poorly with low light and action, and is also skittish around children and wolves.
From truth…
…to lies…
…to truth…
…to dreams.
Part of it has to do with my own perception. How can a flat picture on a screen compare to standing on a hill at the onset of a cool spring night, the air rich with plant smells? I’m sure the sum total of impressions from my other senses influenced my memory.
I punched up the color in this picture three times. While the first picture is the one I took, and the third one matches my memory, the second one might be closer to reality. The fourth one isn’t quite hyperreal, but it looks more like an idealized, imagined sunset.
Even though number two is probably most accurate, three is more truthful in a way. It still can’t capture the energy of being alive with cold wind in your face, but the extra vibrancy conveys a bit more of the energy I remember.
They say that cameras don’t lie. But that depends. Do you count a lie of omission as a lie?
This November had so many issues that if it were a person, it would be waist-deep in therapy, hopped up on dubious psych meds, and answering a lot of kind-yet-probing questions from well-meaning-yet-irritating family and …
If someone prefers physical books to ebooks, don’t make them justify it. If someone doesn’t have a smartphone, don’t make them justify it. If someone doesn’t have internet access at home, don’t make them justify …
If there’s one thing I love more than sneakiness, it’s food. If there’s one thing I love more than food, it’s sneakiness. I had a hard time deciding which order food and sneakiness needed to …
Over the past month and a half, three separate people have told me that Christmas is on Friday this year. Two of them even talked to me at length about the benefits of a Friday …
Excluding my flower inspiration message, it’s been three weeks since my last post. One might think that I haven’t had anything to say, that nothing noteworthy has happened in my life or crossed my attention …
Today I had a wonderful morning, and went into the afternoon with high hopes. And what do high hopes lead to? Disappointment.
I was going to post this as a facebook status, but the stark naked words looked kind of dramatic. Hence, I have turned my grumpy sentiment of the day into a flower inspiration message. I don’t know what kind of plant that is, even though the photo is one out of a gazillion photos I took at the botanical garden just last month. The flowers look like upside down trumpets, which makes it inspirational.
Searching for funny videos to watch on youtube, at some point I ended up typing in the names of things I like, followed by the word “parody.” Adam Ant parody? Yes, as it turns out, …
I have survived the dangers of Labor Day*, and summer is unofficially over. Today, as planned, I will write about the aspects of summer that make the heat a little bit less like a demonic torment upon your very soul almost worth it. If you recall, I originally had the idea for this single post back in early July, but instead wrote a weekly series about how awful summer is.
Fresh produce
While I have a couple of dedicated vegetable haters in my life, basically everyone else loves fresh produce. There’s practically no similarity at all between off-season, pale pink, water-fruit grocery store tomatoes, and the tangy, earthy ones that come from the garden (or farmer’s market) in August. Wild black raspberries are a constant in Southern New England, bushing out and claiming wide areas in their thorny dominion. Stomping down the thorny, outer parts of raspberry patches to get at the inner berries has been part of every summer, for as long as I can remember. And the scratches are always worth it.
I also love the smell of cut grass. It has a similiar earthy quality to that fresh tomato smell I love so much, and since I’ve had grass tea, I guess I can count it as produce. Even though I generally don’t.
Crazy prehistoric cabbage that’s the size of a basketball.
A bounty of blueberries.
Sweet, wild black raspberries, found hidden in a tiny park in my town.
Tomatoes lined up, waiting to ripen and become caprese salad.
The ice cream truck
It’s been years since I’ve bought anything from the ice cream truck, but just hearing it drive by, knowing I could head it off at the right side street and buy a Ninja Turtle Pop (They had better still make those. Was that a threat?), always makes me feel better about having my sweaty legs chafing on the upholstery.
The 4th of July
I’m not especially patriotic, but in my family, Independence Day is a ten hour extravaganza of grilling, homemade ice cream, and fireworks from all sides of the lake. People parade their motor boats around the lake where my family gathers, and throw water balloons at the onlookers. Water balloons that a deft kayaking can usually find floating on the water later, and throw at unsuspecting siblings.
Thunderstorms
Pre-thunderstorm air, with gray storm clouds and wind whipping in my face, is the one variety of summer weather that makes me feel alive the way I do on a windy, cold day. And rain itself is something I love. I’ve spent many summer days eagerly awaiting rain like the coming of Christmas.
I wrote this post earlier in the summer, but held it back because August was so cool. But now that it’s September and summer has returned to toy with us some more, I have decided …
Back in olden days in Great Britain, you and your wealthy friends might be driving down the road in your olden days equivalent of a Porsche. Maybe talking about what sweet ride it is. “Oh …
Cookouts are a hotbed of danger, awkwardness, and yard games. It’s bad enough trying to sit comfortably at a sun-baked picnic table splattered in bird shit, but really, that’s only the beginning. With Labor Day …
