I’m back. To two happy and demanding cats, sweaty temperatures, and the piles of everything that I was able to leave behind for a fortnight, now supplemented with piles of still-packed luggage, shortly to become piles of laundry.

As soon as the dust settles there will be pictures.

I’m heading out and over the ocean; going home to Scotland for a family do, and then on to France for some relaxation. Ahhhh.

One of the fun things about spending time with family is that I get to visit things I’ve made in the past. Here’s something (someone?) I’ll be seeing this weekend – a doll I made several years ago. Nice to know she’s got a good home.

Back in two weeks!

I was nominated for a thinking blogger first by Miss Frugality, and then by Gooseflesh. Any more nice attention and I’ll have to break out in a vivacious rendition of I Feel Pretty from West Side Story.

My 5 are:

Spirit Cloth, for bringing my focus right in to the surface of the work. And then deeper.

The Next Stop Will Be for his quirky perspective on life, especially in the city. Full disclosure: the man’s my honey.

SouleMama for keeping me interested in her daily parenting adventures even though I’m not remotely a mom.

Poppalina for being willing to tackle the hard subjects openly. And being funny about it.

And since I was gonna nominate her before she tagged me, Gooseflesh. I can’t think of the ocean in the same way anymore.

During the week when I get home late and exhausted and wanting to make my work, I don’t clean up. By Friday I sometimes have a mountain of dirty dishes crowding my kitchen.

I’d like to think I’m above feeling like a bad person for not doing dishes, and I’ll quote Barbara Sher on housework any day (“If you don’t love doing it, stop”), but the truth is that it bugs me to see mess, and I feel like somehow I should do better.

This week I tried a new approach. Filthy dishes as still life.

Feeling better already.

There’s new construction going all over the Brooklyn neighborhoods where I spend my time. The next block of my street scarcely has two of the commercial buildings that were there three years ago. There are towers pushing up along the river, and ringing McCarren Park.

It’s easy to feel angry and scared about the change, and the ugliness, but the other day as I was walking past the building site for some luxury glass condos, Fishing in the Morning by Dar Williams came on to my headphones:

Let’s go fishing in the morning,
Just like we’ve always gone,
You can come inside and wake me up,
We’ll pack and leave by dawn…

And you’ll say I hear something,
And I’ll say never you mind,
It’s just our two poles knocking in the back seat,
And your truck is running fine, today, and everything is fine.

Listening to the lyrics, I looked up at the open structure and saw workmen, so high up that they looked like tiny ink drawings of men, or miniature dolls. Instead of feeling bitter or sad, I was filled with the sense that the steel beams have something useful to say about the relentlessness of change, and that the men perched on the metal bones were showing me the smallness and perfection of each life.

We’re two fishing poles in the back seat,
We’re the rolling on and on…

I’ve been tagged by Spirit Cloth for the “seven random facts/habits” meme, so here are mine:

1. I’m addicted to historical novels by Dorothy Dunnett. One outcome is that while reading on the subway, this

   
   
   has been visible to all, and I have been suffering the imagined indignity of being perceived as a romance reader.

2. …which leads me to my second thing. Whenever (rarely) I buy an issue of Martha Stuart Living, I feel as self-conscious as if I were buying porn. Perhaps these two really belong in a single “I get embarrassed while reading” category.
3. I keep and categorize beads which are faulty and unusable: a bowl of white pearls, one of stones, and one for colored pearls and glass.
4. Sometimes when I’m going to sleep I think, “Soon there will be coffee.”
5. As a child I had two guinea pigs called Gin and Tonic. I don’t know who named them. I like liquid G&Ts, but that came later.
6. I once shook hands with Lady Di.
7. I can write backwards.

I pass it on: the next stop will be, pink nest, miss frugality, the brown wall, and buddha is.

The Rules
Start with 7 random facts/habits about yourself.
People who are tagged have to write their 7 things on their blog, then choose another 7 people {or in my case as many as possible} to get tagged and list their names. Don’t forget to leave them a comment to tell them they have been tagged and to read your blog.

Walking in New York, you see spirals everywhere. Or at least I do. I’ve started photographing them – these ones from the Greenpoint neighborhood of Brooklyn:

The more you look, the more you find.

In other news – I’ve been tagged for 2 memes in just a couple of days. I have my thinking hat on and I’ll post soon…