Photo Journal, no 9. | Season Limbo

A brief radio silence, I know. Because, I was feeling slightly pukey for a few days--not sick, exactly, because as I will tell anyone who listens--I never get sick. But, my appetite was on a severe wane, which made me terribly miserable as food is one of my great pleasures in life. And then, also, the weather here became balmy and pleasant, a week of 70 degree days, which totally, completely depressed me. I look forward to winter all year long. Also, when the trees are stripped bare, as they are now, there's no defense against a sunny day. And if there's one thing I like even less than warm temperatures, it's a sunny day. I prefer much prefer bad weather, or simply, weather.

Here are some photos from Thanksgiving weekend, when Wolfman, the pup, and I took a stroll through the Apex Community Park greenway. I'm not usually one for greenways (too crowded; I much prefer actual nature reserves), but I do enjoy the swampy views Apex Community Park provides. And, also, that's one of our first "hang out" locations, the Wolfman and me, when we were just getting to know each other. That sense of nostalgia does pull me in.

Your Weekend Mixtape, no. 3 | Gravel Crunching Under Stout Boots

1. “Buried in Teeth,” Mariee Sioux; Faces in the Rocks, 2007.
2. “Kaufman’s Ballad,” Megafaun; Gather, Form, & Fly, 2009.
3. “Classic Girl,” Jane’s Addiction; Ritual de lo Habitual, 1990.
4. “For Today,” Jessica Lea Mayfield; With Blasphemy, So Heartfelt, 2008.
5. “Lake of Fire,” Meat Puppets; Meat Puppets II, 1984.
6. “I Will Not Be Myself,” Deer Tick; The Black Dirt Sessions, 2010.
7. “A Holy Measure,” Wovenhand; The Threshingfloor, 2010.
8. “Sanguine,” The Avett Brothers; The Gleam, 2006.
9. “Cursed Sleep,” Bonnie Prince Billy; The Letting Go, 2006.
10. “The Battle of Evermore,” Led Zeppelin; Led Zeppelin IV, 1971.
11. “Past Times With Good Company,” Blackmore’s Night; Under a Violet Moon, 1999.

12. “Kaiku,” Moonsorrow; Verisakeet, 2005.

Gravel crunching under stout boots is a very autumnal sound for me, and so this is an autumn soundtrack. Autumn makes me think of a number of things very fondly--warming up in the mornings next to the open stove with the sounds of a banjo filtering from my tiny mp3 speakers, and dressing in layer upon layer, flannel and knits, like the grunge superstars of my childhood in the Pacific Northwest, and of course, bonfires and my beloved Renaissance Faire and epic fantasy novels, and, yes, Past Times with Good Company. So, despite my best efforts, this mix is a bit disjointed, I know. These sounds, though, however disparate, all speak to me of autumn and the things I love so about this season, and they make me excited for my dark, deep, gloomy winter to come. How I love my winters, and autumn is like a gorgeous formal introduction to the grey season ahead.

Been Thrifting, no. 1 | Raleigh Flea Market for Black Friday (ish)

I'm not sure that this past weekend's whim of a trip to the Raleigh Flea Market would be worth posting about, if not for this amazing Schoolboy Kittens Smoking in the Bathroom portrait we snagged. When I saw it, I yelped. And Wolfman laughed and handed me a 20 dollar bill. (To all outward appearances, it would seem that we are a very anachronistic couple [that is a nice word for it], as he always has cash on him, and I never seem to; I am the debit card carrier, however, and all my cash ends up being broken for ones and used as bus fare. Such are my ultra romantic spending habits.) I've been sporadically collecting art and prints for about a year now, but have not hung anything on our walls yet. A) Because our walls are made of some indestructible material which will not take a nail and B) Because of a frame shortage; frames are much too practical an item for me to think about spending money on and C) Technically, our landlord did ask that we not put too many nails in the walls--ah, the woes of renting. Currently, these bad boy kittens only have a home leaning against the record player in the living room, but this hanging impasse will be remedied once I'm on furlough next week. It's on my To Do While on Furlough List along with watching "You've Got Mail" and "While You Were Sleeping" and learning myself how to weave rugs.

Wolfman's flea market habits consist heavily of scouring the military surplus and examining many an antique weapon. (He is a collector of blades and a bow enthusiast, specifically.) He found these boot covers in a plastic tub full of handsome military coats (think Captain Jack Harkness), and they sort of perfectly solve his Five-Finger-Shoe dilemma of only being able to find short men's toe socks, not tall socks to keep his shins warm in the winter.

Also found: a 12 cup coffee pot (sort of fortuitous considering Wolfman had been wishing throughout his entire four day holiday weekend that he had a gigantic coffee pot so he could sip coffee all day long--we previously had only a four cup coffee pot and a french press), and for five bucks, a leopard print knock-off snuggie which Wolfman models above. He predicts that I will fall asleep as soon as I put the snuggie on every night. He is correct.

Photo Journal, no. 8 | Carpet Sharks

I don't care so much for kittens. I told this to the teenage girl who works in the shop where Wolfman teaches guitar, she of lilty, whispy, indie songs on open mic night. This was back when Wolfman had just brought Xena home, and she still fit in the palm of his hand, and he didn't want to leave her alone in the house so would bring her with him to work. Lilty, whispy teenage girl had asked me, "So, how are you liking the kitten?," or something like. And I answered in my typically honest, socially inept way, "Well, I don't," or something like. Poor teenage girl looked at me as if I were some sort of monster, and I was quick to add the disclaimer, "I mean, I like cats okay, so I kind of can't wait for her to be an adult cat already," but it was too late for me. I could not redeem myself after admitting to not liking kittens. And, as it turns out, joke is on me because Xena and her sister Birgitte (who we brought home at my insistence [I had a moment of weakness akin to seeing a too expensive silk scarf while "window shopping" and buying it, followed by instant regret]) are never growing up, it seems. They will never be adult cats. They will never get big. Heather, whose wild outdoor cats are mother and siblings to our kittens, insists that all the other kittens are normal-sized now. But not our little runts.

The point, however, is that though I sometimes want to punt these little carpet sharks (as I've not so affectionately termed them), my husband sure does love them. And I sure do love him. (And look at those eyelashes! What a gorgeous hunk of man!) And, there's always our handsome boy, Lunchbox. I do love that dog. Best and handsomest dog ever.

Photo Journal, no. 7 | To the Renaissance and Back

1. Wolfman, in chainmail.
2. Clif Bar, Knitting, Horn flagon, Faire address: Ready for a long drive.
3. Spider, hiding on a sheep skin rug.
5. Late lunch: Cider, turkey leg, and sausage on a stick.
6. Boss Wench, my new future band name.
9. When we see the camel, I say, “Oh, look how pretty it is,” at the same time Wolfman says, “What an ugly beast.”
11. Leather Mystiques, of Oregon, where Wolfman purchased his piebald gauntlets.
12. Scottish babies.
14. “Creaking above thy very head hang the silent corpses of Henry’s dead.”
17. A boy draws what Wolfman recognizes as the Nine Realms in the dirt.
18. “Poke a dead man with a stick!”

If I can’t write about it, it must have been fun. That is the rule of my life and writing habits. Let me just say this, we did not want to leave. I envisioned an RV with a couple goats tethered to it, and a life for us as traveling craftsmen of some sort. Leather? Metal work? Corset fitting? Weaving? Something, something creative and with our hands, and traveling from Renaissance Faire to Renaissance Faire across the country. Wolfman says, “We’d be poor,” to which I respond, “But we’d be happy. (And we're already poor.)”

Now, to learn some craft.

Rumination, no. 1 | Full of Thanks

Here is the thing: I am a bona fide whiner. I just watched a season 5 episode of 30 Rock in which Liz is talking at Pete, and he throws his arms up over his face and says something like, “I feel another complaint coming on!” That is, essentially, what “conversations” between Wolfman and me sound like many an evening after work. Work is most often what I complain about, but also, and more specifically, I complain about people. Because? I am not a people person, I guess. I’m working on that. Really.

But, the exception to that not liking people thing? Immediately—I’m talking as soon as I laid eyes on this poor sucker—the man I call Wolfman, whose mother actually named him less anthropomorphically, Jared, my now husband, is a people I like. If not a people person, I am at least a Wolfman person. So, he is, inevitably, the first thing that pops in my mind when I contemplate the word “thankful.” (I hear it’s the time of year for doing that.) He is, inevitably, the first thing that pops in my mind when I contemplate a lot of subjects—Wolfman and food, my numbers one and two favorite things to think about.

So, when I think about my husband, I am so full of thanks I, literally, am on the brink of tears. (I’m a crier.) I am thankful for that man, with his beard-face-scratchy-kisses and his gorgeous arms, and that handsome devil face. I am so thankful that he appeared in my life, that I wore blue tights with a mini skirt that one day and caught his eye, that we held on in those first tumultuous months of marriage. I am so happy that he is the one that I get to come home to, and on days when he works later than me, that he comes home to me (even though I might spend a good half hour complaining at him [but never, it should be noted, not ever, about him]). If this blog is about one thing, it is about the impetus to move forward, to find a better way to be me, to hold myself accountable, and he is the reason I want to be smarter, stronger, more adept, more skilled and accomplished. I am a grade A slacker, always have been, but I don’t feel quite so much like sandbagging now that he’s around. I want to be great, because he is great. (No, really guys, he is.)

But also, I’m so thankful for him because I am also so thankful for humor. Very often the day-to-day pattern of my life would feel very much like drudgery if not for the fact that at least (at least) four times a day, I belly laugh. At least four times a day, I throw my head back and laugh—LAUGH—I make that sound in my throat that is less a laugh than a bark, and I revel in my own laughter, really. I love my laugh because it is the same too-loud, too-long, too-big laugh that all the women in my family share. And often, my husband is the one making me laugh. That grocery list pictured above? I asked Husband Dearest to write down Gas-X (dairy and I do not get along, though I love it so), and he writes Lady Anti-Fart Pills, “You know,” he says, “for Ladies to suppress farts, because Ladies don’t fart.” Still, days later, I keep thinking about that grocery list and giggling to myself.

Those are the big things, then. I am thankful this year, and every year, for Wolfman and for Laughing That Laugh That is More a Bark than a Laugh.

Some other things I’m thankful for:

1. My very good step-dog, Lunchbox Chaos Vaughn. Best and handsomest dog around.

2. The women in my family mentioned above. I love those gals. They, also, are big on the laugh-o-meter; constant giggling when I have the pleasure of being in the same room with them.
3. Tea, hot or cold, preferably with honey, and if I’m in Wolfman’s café, the red tea latte (which he always, even when he is not working, steps behind the counter to make me himself, another reason to be thankful for him; also, he has a cute butt).
4. This gorgeous autumn. The most gorgeous autumn in recent memory.
5. Songs about witches.
6. Epic fantasy novels and television shows, which make me crave adventure and crusty bread and open fire.
7. A roof over my head, food in my belly, clothes on my back, and a lack of concern for tomorrow. I’m cared for, I’m loved, I’m safe and settled.

Photo Journal, no. 6 | Page Upon Page Upon Page

So much for being the Get Up and Go type, the girl who can live just as easily in a tent as under a roof, with a strong foundation beneath her feet. How did I accumulate so much--so much damn stuff, shelves overflowing with books and leaving me no place to hide knitting projects from those horrible kittens. And then there is the closet issue, the clothing, which I've been weeding week by week, but still I ran out of hangers this weekend. The addition of two paradise fish, in particular, sitting in respective bowls in the kitchen, taking up already limited counter space, proves that I am so like my grandmother, and the longer Wolfman and I live in this same house, comfortable-like, the more this home will mirror hers. And I love her home; I love all the hidden treasures in nooks and crannies, love her to-capacity book shelves. But, should we need to get up and go, should that be required of me, can I leave all these things behind? Am I still capable of being a proper nomad?