Yeah!
Fall’s for nothing if not holing up to nurse a fucked ankle, cooking, salivating lasciviously over Louise Brooks films, or brewing ideas. Bike rides and hikes are harder to get on with but god are they what keeps us going.
For all the comforts of these things, there’s an edge of uneasiness — cabin fever — and to get out is to remember that I am part of the world and not just my personal space. I’d almost forgotten!
I quit my job a few days after falling down a dark stairway (while hurrying from work). I’ve been lovingly cared for and nursed back to health, and yesterday was my first hike since falling. I’m already planning the next ones with hopes of avoiding reinjury. I can bike normally, at least(!).
Being unemployed is lame, of course, but it also means there’s time live a lifestyle of complete lushiness — sleeping in, cookin, going to every event we want!
Like… APE — we went to both days and met the likes of Susie Cagle, Dan Clowes, Jason Shiga, Dame Darcy (I still have the creepy ballad she sang at Isotope stuck in my head), Chris Ware, Liz Prince, etc. We listened to rad panels on Comix in the Library, Kramers Ergot 7 (awesomely curmudgeonly contributing artists like Chris Ware and Sammy Harkham battled and griped about production of the weird, giant, hand-bound book and Jaime Hernandez and Johnny Ryan spoke too. A little.)
It's me? Swoony.
Trio of Hellen's buttons from APE08.
I was excited to see that Hellen is published now, by Papercutter, aaaand I got some’a her buttons. There were tons of really inspiring and inspired people. I was glad to meet Melaina, whom K met a while back at a local comicartist meetup. He bought all of her comix and I’ve squeezled them and read each one. She writes amazing autobiographical stories, mainly about celibacy and love.
I’ve been reading comics like mad — most from APE or K’s collection — impressed, moved and delighted by Jaime Hernandez’s Hopey Glass collection, Shiga’s Empire Park and Bookhunter, David B. (I’m on Epileptic, still), Susie Cagel’s Favorites and This is What Concerns Me, Utility Sketchbook (anon), Goodin’s The Man Who Loved Breasts, and Gabrielle Bell and many others.
Favorites, by Susie Cagle
Utility Sketchbook
Robert Goodin, another all-too-modest artist.
I still think we should start a private comic library!
In October, I took M + K to Green Gulch to share a tea ceremony (thin tea) with them for M’s goodbye (everything good moves to New York). It was blissful. I think I smiled the whole time. Later we drove recklessly toward Hog Island, bashed oysters in front of Toby’s Feed Barn, drank in the hot sauce, brine, cheese and each other. We miss her a lot, but it was a good sendoff.
Outside the tea garden at Green Gulch
Hog Island Oyster aftermath @ Point Reyes Station
I feel like I’ll forget everything that’s been happening lately because I’m not carrying any cameras, which is lame. K helps by sharing his phone for snapshots.
E and I brainstormed about pickles. She's 7!
Cook’d, or just recent edibles:
- chicken (rosie’s) tikka masala over rice
- pumpkin soup with creme fraiche and mashed potatoes (soup’s always better by day two)
- copying Spork’s cauliflower sauté with homemade aioli
- overdoing La Chouffe and rediscovering the comfy kitsch of holiday reserves
- remembering anything with fresh straus milk is heavenly (wheatabix! tea!), or fage yogurt
- cooking breakfast at home, going slowly…
- Black Velvet (Samovar) tea at home or Vien’s soy lattes at Blue Bottle Linden
- Bar J*les, sekrit of Hayes and so good Devendra Banhart eats there with us. Um.
