September 30th, 2009

A knit night. Cold in my apartment (knit a blanket?). Susanna - put your money where your mouth is and comment already! Harriet's even cold.

September 29th, 2009

Shoulder fixed! Thanks acupuncture! (Lime juice on everything from now on.)

September 28th, 2009

Meditation on no umbrella. Also I threw out my credit card accidentally today at lunch. And I just blew out the light-bulb in my kitchen. Awesomeness abounds today - Murphy's law rules.

September 27th, 2009

Success for the nothing weekend! Radiolab: Parasites. Harriet: psychically communicating.

September 26th, 2009

The weekend of nothing begins! Hooray! (Except for carrying around heavy things for Harriet.) P.S. The paper birds, now pasted, look awesome.

September 25th, 2009

I was greeted this morning with an email about my lazy life-style, chastising me for not posting at all on Friday. So, a word of explanation: I had about the longest week in the entire world, I'm working on a pretty little cold, my shoulder is not treating me well, and I have woken up before 9:00am for the last 12-13 days in a row. So last night, when leaving work with my equally tuckered co-workers someone suggested the gloriously ridiculous Asian Pub for a quick drink (one, mind) we all were happy to go along. Four drinks later, when I got home, I watched Heroes online, under a blanket, with a sleeping and snoring cat. This is a recipe for blog-disaster. I went to sleep guilty, I woke up guilty (but well rested).

September 24th, 2009

Tonight I'll paste the paper birds around the mirror. And drink beer. And dance around my apartment.

September 23rd, 2009

Acacia, Buckwheat, Blueberry. Honey from Mosul and Nepal, the Mosul honey is crispy and melts. Beekeeper jokes about his 70s porn mustache, he keeps saying "I'm just a beekeeper." Saxelby Cheesemonger (why aren't their more mongers in the English language any more?) four different cheeses, paired with honey. Honey with cinnamon. On to whisky: burning peat, lavender in a test tube, orange peel, more honey, vanilla pods.

September 22nd, 2009

Yesterday I bought myself flowers at the Green Market - lovely green and springy and totally inappropriate for fall (despite my intense love of fall). These aren't those flowers, but these ones are also pretty, springy, and smell sweet in my apartment. I extracted from the workplace an arrangement for each hour spent guarding an installation by The Bruce High Quality Foundation. In case people couldn't resist the allure of chalk and a chalkboard I was there to hold them back. Don't worry Bruce, Claire High Quality Bitch has got your back.

September 21st, 2009

This is much too rigid a photo to post for today, to follow up Bright Star, but I couldn't find a photo I've taken today that could stand up to Jane Campion. Maybe I could sew something and put it here, but it would have to smell like heather.

September 20th, 2009

Spent a lovely fall day with Dorothy in her charming, nicely-chilly, bright home. Spent some time caravaning in a silver car parade. Spent some time walking towards Eleanor Roosevelt's house, talking about tongues and necks carved from alabaster, and saddles carved from wood. Spent some time at the Eveready diner (!) contemplating my "Stardust Burger." But mostly spent time thinking that it sucks how far Seattle is from New York.

September 19th, 2009

In congratulations to Sara and Mike and their wedding today, I post the following gem, sent four years ago next month, at the very beginning of their courtship:

10/17/05

hey claire,
anyway, things are well over here, boring mostly. my only excitement is this obsession for sara, which gets worse by the day. good news is that apparently she also has a bit of a long-distance crush on me as well, as weird as this whole thing is. i HAVE to see if I like this girl nearly as much as i THINK i do having never really SPOKEN to her before. Its just one of those things... life is too short, you know? Not to get all sappy or anything, but she could turn out be like... the coolest thing that ever happened to me! haha. (nah, i'm not THAT crazy. well, maybe partly, but aren't we all?) anyway, for now we're just sending emails to each other incessantly, and last night we exchanged phone numbers for the first time, though I'm not really inclined to call her just yet (mainly for fear that I'll sound like an idiot. Phew.. did you know there were guys as pathetic as me out there?)

-mike

Aw, I live in hope that there are guys as "pathetic" as Mike out there. Happy wedding.

September 18th, 2009

Today I was reminded of my old cat Rander, and was sorely tempted to post his picture here. But he doesn't fall into my "rules" so, alas, I will just implore everyone who met him in his lengthy feline life to think of him now with fondness.

September 17th, 2009

Do the people at Sotheby's get inured to the wonderful shooshing noise of their escalator? Does food in a hot stone bowl with lots of kochujang ever get old? Will unreliable behavior in good friends ever stop surprising me? This, however, I do know as true: it never gets old when the itunes genius plays TLC's "Creep."

September 16th, 2009

Chthonic has come up two times today for me, randomly (well as much as chthonic is ever a randomly occurring word). This resulted somehow in Autobiography of Red (thanks D) appearing on my lap and I remembered that approximately 8 years ago today I was making a set of transparencies of Girodet's Endymion painting in different shades of blue. This was a jumping off point for blue and it's pleasing to think about starting that project.

This photo is vaguely chthonic, even if someone thought I was peeing between cars on the street (I wasn't).

Thanks Anne Carson, thanks NYTimes book review, thanks JA for kick-starting my knitting.
Endymion
Geryon

September 15th, 2009

Spotted on the subway: Man in a diamond pinky ring spelling out BIFF. Please, please, please let that be his name. In my mind it is. Just like in my mind Dan walked home from that Scottish girl's apartment in his big pink bunny suit. Unrelated: my office got crazy today (see photo).

September 14th, 2009

I wish I could include here a recording of the woman who lives across the alley from me practicing her flute. I think she must be practicing for the Rite of Spring, at least something by Stravinsky. It's like being in The Magus. It's all over the place and highly mysterious and jumpy in a riot-inducing kind of way. I love it. It's always been one of my favorite things about my apartment. That and the proximity to the giant color-organized Salvation Army.

September 13th, 2009

Happy Birthday to Susanna. Napping on the couch, learning that a text can reassure in exactly the right way.

September 12th, 2009

Got home too late to post this (3:00AM is not still technically 9/12/09 but I'm cutting myself some slack, as Jessie pointed out "the day isn't really over until you go to bed"). Stood for approximately 16 hours. Dreamed about the phrase "rolling, arctic fear". Shook 250 hands. Drank too much champagne.

September 11th, 2009

All I did today was work. And get my name erroneously in the New York Times:
New Aerie for a Penn Station Eagle

September 10th, 2009

Now everyone at the laundromat thinks I'm a creep for taking pictures of my laundry. The wind is throwing around water that's not rain. I found a cover of a 1980 American Orchid Society Bulletin.

September 9th, 2009 (09/09/09!)

W train leaving Broadway.

September 8th, 2009

JJ's Asian Fusion on 31st Avenue. First time EVER that I didn't get the edamame dumplings. Momentous and shocking.

P.S. to September 7th, 2009

It was really hard to pick one picture today, I even had a video that was highly tempting and might end up on facebook for a lack of somewhere better. Mostly it was hard to pick because of the above gem.

September 7th, 2009

Baby ZBK, a bear claw, a long walk. Borscht.

September 6th, 2009

Brown, orange, neon green bikini for Markus. Boat. Beach. Wind. Dogfish skeleton.

September 5th, 2009

Commissioned to design a logo for The C@t and Cr0w yarn/fiber store in Mt. Horeb, Wisconsin. Here's what I have so far.

September 4th, 2009

Some interior design assisting, some napping, some running, some cutting-out of paper birds in flight.

September 3rd, 2009

Ava, Markus and I are about to enter District 9 (and Whole Foods).

September 2nd, 2009

Knitting with Jess at Whole Foods. Indian food and bread pudding and magical "Claire Brightwater" bottled water. Lovely changing color wall. Jess's amazingly beautiful baby blanket.

September 1st, 2009

A big ole' mur-cake evening.