high fives on a diamond boat.

life is fun and weird. and while reviewing these photos/recent memories i am reminded that dang, i like it.

real live kids....existing.

first cold day installation hang out. then i got hit in the leg by football.

this weird thing in the middle of kealing junior high. ummm...ack!

a roll around with dirty booty (not to be confused with mason)!

meet dorothy. she blows a whistle and all her water buddies gather around her for tasty treats. sometimes she gives me one. i got a hug from her last week.

it's time. time to sail away on the buddyship and never be scared again.

You can't just nail a bird to your windowsill and call it a lovely day.

Fuuuuuck. I'm stuck.

Not doing work not doing work. I forgot to write about some great nature encounters that I think are portentious. One is that while I was riding my bike a few days ago, a grackle flew into my armpit. Another is that when I got home from said bike ride, a really cute puppy was in my yard. He had no tags and no collar, and was pretty into sniffing my panniers for some gro-gros. Then there were strange, dark lizards on the washer that were about three times the size of a gecko. Meg and I agree this is something to do with unfamiliar proximity to unfamiliar beings. Roles changing? I don't know.

moon secrets.

austin is full of moon tonight. i don't mind. i want to hold hands.

in honor of national blog action day:

holy aioli!

exist.

oh, friends. rob brezsny did it again:
"In his book Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, religious scholar Mircea Eliade speaks of Qaumaneq, a special capacity that may be magically obtained by Eskimo shamans. It's "a mysterious light the shaman feels inside his head, an inexplicable searchlight, a luminous fire. It enables him to see in the dark, both literally and metaphorically speaking, even with closed eyes, allowing him to see through darkness and perceive things that are hidden from others." Even if you're not an Eskimo shaman, Pisces, you now have the potential to wield a power with resemblances to Qaumaneq."

Pretending a little to be Jessica.

Jess.

I just woke up in your room, like, an hour ago. I also woke up at 6. The rain is coming down I put a glass of water on the nightstand it looks good there. Why'd you reconfigure? But this is nice, too. Listening to that weird, percussive rain sound in your still-bright room (even in the shadows, because it's dark outside), in your bed, smelling Jason's breakfast--I can really understand why you needed this room. I am in love with your hanging plant. I can hear it whisper to my spirit. It's telling me to grow.

If it were Sunday I'd never leave. I'd roll over. I'd wait for you to come home and read a book or something. But it's just another manic...

And I know what my house looks like this morning. I know my room is filled with dead leaves and the curtain's wet, my sheets are cold, my laundry's overflowing from that old canvas boat bag. I'll be confronted with bok choy or bananas or oranges that are not juicy at all. I'm gonna take a shower and dress and shuffle with the radio on, make some lunch and off to work.

If it were Sunday, I'd never leave this place. You got a nest of perfitude, dude. Well, almost perfitude.

This is a detail, so you can tell me I'm just a lame-o for even saying it BUT what about another fitted sheet that goes and stays on the mattress mattress, so when the featherbed scoots around, you can see more pink or some yellow or something? A floral surprise? (insert cute, excited-and-eager-to-please cartoon raccoon noise here.)

Or, what about putting this guy where your chair is?

Ummmm. Why did Jill Greenberg cut off his butt?

K. Check you later.
Love,
Stabo.

life is important.

after a long day of cruffle measuring, b tacos, albino squirrel watching, life contemplating, flower picking, nap taking, bike riding, friend laughing, and woooork, i feel good. and would like to share my recent observations of this changing season. let's have a sleepover. let's braid.

one for you. you. and you.

team october!

a true friend.

a.m. thick.

oh, and this.

OMGeez!!!!

This is a baby polar bear who grew up to be called Knut, and Berliners are psyched because today he got up on his hind leggums for the first time. Lil' bro be five month.

eating like someone else...

Pretty sure I told JD about my HEB sammy binge last night (in my car) (in the parking lot of the big HEB in San Marcos.) (It was turkey and cheese on stale marble bread.) (I found a tur-scrappen in my car this afternoon.) (There were some generic cool ranch Doritos there, also.). Now you all know.

But, I was thinking it could be kind of funny to try eating like someone else. Just pick someone you see and try to eat like them for a while. You might even go back to eating like you but reacting like they would. Just thinking about switching identities, lately. Might want to just be someone else for Halloween. Maybe that will be my fix.

I just Google-ed "eat." What kind of world are we living in? I'll tell you. A big, gay one.

Is there pizza-flavored kibble?

OK, so this afternoon was kind of weird. There are a couple of contributing factors. I'm glad there's a teenage mutant ninja poodle who's also having a crazy day. I'm glad his benefactor is looking as jazzy as Leonardo.

Careful what you wish for.

Easy come, easy go. So long, Dr. A.

meet the tribe.

yo, i know i'm a youtubin junky right now but whatever, i found this:



i want to hang out with twyla tharp.
not only to teach some horses sweet dance moves but to hook up with that doogie look-alike.

So, pretend I'm named Leitha and I live in the forest, and you're an evil queen...

I was wondering whether we can get together and play Dungeons and Dragons and blog about that. Because, why not have some unstructured, creative play in our lives?

calm.

cool lady sammy.

wow. i'm having wednesday morning revelations left and right. maybe cause i'm drinking twig tea. maybe cause shirley macLaine is coming for a visit.
maybe cause MOP MOP is coming toooo???!! does anyone know how much i love mop mop?
does mop mop know? i sure hope so.
i will one day adopt her calm nature. i will one day smell like her.
but for now, i'll just hang out with her. maybe we'll go see shirley's talk about her spiritual journey together! oh heck.



looook. her toes can do it too!

"And so my baby's growing up"

I'm trying to write some paper about teaching competencies in the English language arts classroom, thinking about writing as a recursive process.

A lady in line for coffee just said that some guy (whomI can only assume is her friend or coworker or something) said he was her bitch today so she can order anything on his tab. Not to get all WOST on your asses or anything, but pejorative gender terms are starting to harsh my mellow.

Maybe I'm getting sensitive for the classroom. I don't know. I just think we can all do better. We can all pick better words.

One of the competencies I'm writing on has to do with writing being a process--recursive, ongoing, developmental, integrative. And as I write about how to teach that, I'm realizing that thought and formation of schema and reality is a process that's recursive, ongoing, developmental, and integrative, so the articulation of those thoughts and lessons should be, too. But kids really want these ideas to be fixed. I mean, I know a lot of my students want to learn stuff and be done with it. They don't really know yet that everything is always changing and that that's kind of great. So...teaching writing has a lot in common with teaching about life. Hmph.

Uh, on an unrelated note, what can we do with the phrase "vocabulary of dirt?" I've had it stuck in my head, and was thinking about writing some companion poems to that book called Appalachia that I think I've made all of you examine (by Charles Wright, my hero). But I don't know if it sounds too much like "empire of dirt." The ideas I have in mind don't meld well with Trent Reznor's aesthetics, although writing some response songs to Nine Inch Nails could be a fun project for a rainy day, too.