How did my nephew get to be four?!
Even though his daddy still calls him “the baby” sometimes, he’s a little kid now (!). And he’s stubborn and funny and wild and smart and just a delightful little person. Even if he is growing up too fast. Happy birthday!
It’s the birthday of Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington today, one of the pioneers of jazz and the man who (with Billy Strayhorn) helped elevate the dance orchestra to an art form.
Even if you don’t know jazz, you probably know some Ellington:
I have been planning to make a few jackets/blazer alteratives to wear to work for about six months now. Over the weekend I finally got the first one prepped and cut out–a cotton ikat longer length jacket inspired by a designer I saw and can’t afford:
I’m using a pattern I made once years ago (pre-blog!) so I got cocky and didn’t make a muslin to test the fit. Let’s hope this pile of pieces turns out how I want it to.
Here’s a poem I think about every time it’s hard to get the body moving and the brain firing. I like to think the “tiny explosions at the waterlines” are due to coffee.
Waking from Sleep
Inside the veins there are navies setting forth,
Tiny explosions at the waterlines,
And seagulls weaving in the wind of the salty blood.
It is the morning. The country has slept the whole winter.
Window seats were covered with fur skins, the yard was full
Of stiff dogs, and hands that clumsily held heavy books.
Now we wake, and rise from bed, and eat breakfast!
Shouts rise from the harbor of the blood,
Mist, and masts rising, the knock of wooden tackle in the sunlight.
Now we sing, and do tiny dances on the kitchen floor.
Our whole body is like a harbor at dawn;
We know that our master has left us for the day.
1. I deeply enjoyed The Toast‘s list of “Every Californian Novel Ever,” including #16: John Muir Climbs A Tree And Describes It For Thirty-Eight Pages.”
2. This weekend is supposed to be rainy so I think I can finally settle down and sew. (Last weekend I co-hosted a bridal shower, which was maybe the most Adult Woman I’ve been in my life. Buying my house was just Adult.)
3. Here are some Toby toes to finish out our week:
I’ve been sitting on this piece from New York Magazine for a while now, because I wanted to try to explain what a big deal it is that I’ve recently started wearing makeup–not just tinted moisturizer, but the whole shebang: foundation, concealer, eye shadow, mascara (and curled eyelashes) and yes, lipstick. I’m just going to pull some quotes though, because my story really boils down to, “I was insecure and didn’t want to draw attention to myself with makeup. But now I’m more confident (and also getting old).”
This article nails that progression. From trying out a bright color in her 20s and immediately shrinking away from it:
The first time I wore [bright red lipstick] out, to a Soho club, I suffered from an irrational fear that the lipstick police would appear and ask me to remove it, as though I hadn’t yet earned the right to be so bold with my own face. […] This was … well, they don’t call it fire-engine red for nothing. It was impossible to miss. All I had to learn now was how to be someone who didn’t want to be missed.
[…] The desperation and thrust for self — the aggressive attempt to project a person you aren’t yet but very much want to be — so perfectly captured in those misplaced lips succinctly sums up most of my 20s, when I hung on to that tube of Russian Red as both a promise of things to come and proof I was headed in the right direction.
To finally the push to try it again in her 30s (which was my push exactly):
Then, one evening in my early 30s, after an especially long day at work, I walked into Bloomingdale’s on a whim. It was payday, and I wanted to reward myself for surviving. I wanted to feel like someone new.
It was time to feel like someone new. Someone who can finally wear bold lipstick.
Here’s a prose poem’s way of saying the favorite hippie phrase, “Everything is exactly the way it should be.”
Looking for the Differences
by Tom Hennen
I am struck by the otherness of things rather than their same-
ness. The way a tiny pile of snow perches in the crook of a
branch in the tall pine, away by itself, high enough not to be
noticed by people, out of reach of stray dogs. It leans against
the scaly pine bark, busy at some existence that does not
need me.
It is the differences of objects that I love, that lift me toward
the rest of the universe, that amaze me. That each thing on
earth has its own soul, its own life, that each tree, each clod is
filled with the mud of its own star. I watch where I step and see
that the fallen leaf, old broken grass, an icy stone are placed in
exactly the right spot on the earth, carefully, royalty in their
own country.
It’s the birthday of John Muir and Charlotte Bronte (author of Jane Eyre). If they’d ever met, I think would have gotten along pretty well.
…Dang, maybe I need to write something about Charlotte coming to California and seeing the redwoods with John?
Stick your tongue out at it and don’t let it get you down.
1. This week had fewer meeting but more high-stakes ones (creatice presentations, meetings to win clients over, etc.). Getting ready for all of it felt like this:
2. Kind of related, I had Doc start watching Mad Men from the very beginning, which is fun to do at a time when everyone is focused on how it will end. This time around I can pay more attention to the music (and the costumes), helped out by articles like this.