Fin

"Carrot Nose" from Ewe & Eye & Friends
Stitched on 32 ct. linen, DMC floss

Whee! Just made it! I managed to get one last project finished in 2010. Not that I started it in 2010. But whatever.







I've been busy crafting this month. It was a tremendous feeling to make gifts, rather than buy them. I barely entered a store all month. One of my favorite pieces of handiwork was for a woman I work with whose name begins with F. I found this pattern on Flickr and couldn't resist.

For everyone else, I wanted to make an ornament. Something small and simple. Something I could work on while watching Netflix... So I flipped through a new book I picked up: A Rainbow of Stitches. I love everything in this book. Each chapter focuses on a color (green, pink, red, blue). It's mostly straightforward cross stitch, with some other types of embroidery thrown in. The pictures are great, and it has a modern and French feel to it. Yummy book.

I settled on a mitten in the red chapter. And I started stitching...and stitching...



About 20 in all. A perfect thing to work on with morning tea, or while watching TV.




Then I needed to figure out what to do with them. My first thought was to do something with felted wool.


But it wasn't a pretty sight, and I'm not the most precise crafter. Using that many pins per mitten didn't sound like a hot idea. And I'm sure whatever I was doing here I was probably doing incorrectly.



So I went through my fabric stash and looked for the tiniest print possible. I think this green is perfect. Next, I set up an assembly line of stitching, sewing, pressing, and assembling. It took a few tries to figure out how to work the thread in to create the hoop to hang the ornament. But once I got it, the project came together in no time.







All my little soldiers!

It was one of the most genuine gifts I've given. And I think this is something I will try to do each year.



Happy New Year, everyone. Hope 2011 brings brilliant surprises for us all. xo

Where I prove two things

1) I can't let go of things and 2) I'm correct.

So I'm reading Joyce Carol Oates' The Faith of a Writer. It's highly . . . academic. A little stuffy, but with some gems. One of them goes like this:

One thinks too of William Faulkner's composition of this greatest novel, The Sound and the Fury, which began as a troubling and inexplicable image--the vision of an unknown little girl with muddy underpants climbing a tree outside a window--and slowly expanded into a long story that required another story or section to amplify it, which in turn required another, which in turn required another, until finally Faulkner had four sections of a novel, published in 1929 as The Sound and the Fury. It was not until two decades later when Malcolm Cowley edited The Portable Faulkner that Faulkner added the Appendix that is now always published as an integral part of the novel.

"I am doing a novel which I have never grasped . . . . There I am at p. 145, and I've no notion what it's about. I hate it. Frieda says it's very good. But it's like a novel in a foreign language I don't know very well--I can only just make out what it is about." (89)

Aha!

I hear the sweet bells of victory and righteousness ringing. They sound nice.

While I enjoy analyzing a book as much as the next person, that can be exactly the problem. The reader always reads into the piece more than the writer intends. And while a writer's voice is a hallway into his or her psyche, it's only a hallway. And it doesn't always open doors that lie in the shadows. As I write, I think more about my duty to the reader, to making the words sound true. I'm not always sure where the story is going, and sometimes there is no story. But I reread and rewrite out of respect for the reader. Not because I need to make grand statements about life or relationships or the universe. I'm only opening the front door to my hallway.

Nuts!

This weekend, I fell into rapture with this blog: lilfishstudios.blogspot.com. Awesome photography, high regard for nature and the outdoors, and some seriously awesome crafting. While there, I came across her recipe for West African peanut soup. And holy shit--who can say no to a soup that requires six cloves of garlic and a jar of peanut butter? Not this girl. I quickly got to work.

First, the band of characters... EVOO, peanuts, natural peanut butter, broth, chopped tomatoes, brown rice, red pepper flakes, green bell pepper, onion, garlic. You can get the actual recipe here. Note: I did not use as much liquid as she lists; my Creuset can't handle that much. And I prefer a thicker soup.

Saute onions, peppers, garlic, red pepper flakes in olive oil...

While that's all cooking down, open all the cans and chop the peanuts...

After a while, you get a goulash-y soup going. I was worried that I should have put more rice in or used less liquid...

But then I added the jar of PB and the chopped nuts. As the soup cooled a little, it got gooey. Like, well, melted peanut butter. Mmmm

My favorite part has been sopping it up with crusty bread. It's seriously filling, and I have been eating half-mug-fulls at a time. It freezes really well, and it will be awesome to heat up on nights like these when the Canadian winds are sweeping in and bringing the first serious snowfalls and I just want to put on wool socks and pull the quilt closer around me.

Faulkner Follow-up

From the Amazon.com official review:

Notoriously “difficult,” The Sound and the Fury is actually one of Faulkner’s more accessible works once you get past the abrupt, unannounced time shifts—and certainly the most powerful emotionally.

Um, emotionally powerful, yes. Because I hated every minute of it. Difficult, yes. We're in complete accord there. One of his more accessible works? Good lord.

I finished it late last night--just to finish it. The characters are all despicable, and I found nothing about it riveting--besides maybe the second chapter, Quentin's stream of consciousness. But even that was only moments of lucidity strewn between odd action and thoughts. Had Faulkner seen Boston? I'd like very much to know what part of Boston this little girl is supposed to live in. I couldn't picture it. Poor immigrant rural-ish housing along the river and uncrowded? Even in 1929, I can't see that in Boston.

This book pissed me off like Death of a Salesman pissed me off in high school. Men having breakdowns--loud, yelling, confusing--but not believable. And offering nothing to really latch onto or empathize with. Both stories trigger eye rolling on this end.

I'm almost dreading choosing my next book. As are you, I figure.

Fuck Faulkner

  

I innocently grabbed The Sound and the Fury off my bookshelf Friday night. I settled into my jammies, got under the quilt, put on my reading glasses, picked just the right pen with which to make notes, and opened this musty-smelling edition. And immediately thought WTF?

It's so incredibly difficult to understand. Quickly I became the Fury and the Sound was my incessant bitching.

I've been sharing online my favorite passage of rubbish nonsense:

I wasn't crying, but I couldn't stop. I wasn't crying, but the ground wasn't still, and then I was crying. The ground kept sloping up and the cows ran up the hill. T.P. tried to get up. He fell down again and the cows ran down the hill...we went toward the barn. Then the barn wasn't there and we had to wait until it came back. I didn't see it come back. It came behind me and Quentin set me down in the trough where the cows ate.

Yeah. That's page 15. It would have helped to know that the first chapter is written from a mentally ill person's perspective. I got that nugget off Amazon--and my mom. I grew up in a house with few books, but my mother apparently loves this book. Wha??? It makes Infinite Jest look like a pony ride. So now I'm reading it because it's pissing me off, and it's pissing me off as I read it. It's sort of a zen cycle I've got going on there. I like a lot of obscure stuff, but I'm not enjoying this.

***

And then there was the cooking portion of the weekend. Shepherd's pie this week. Seriously lazy shepherd's pie. I used a lot of store-bought crap, which goes against my push toward fewer processed foods and fewer chemicals. The stomach tends to steer the cart sometimes. Don't hate.

Cheddar, beef, premade mashed potatoes, gravy mix, cream cheese, creamed sweet corn. This is clearly not a dish for the faint of heart. But with all the kale and beans I've been eating lately, I decided to go in the opposite direction this weekend. The word cheese was floating through my head like a blimp made of sparkles.

While heating up the potatoes (to which I added cream cheese and butter), I browned up the ground beef.

Once the beef was browned, I added the gravy.

Into a casserole dish, I layered the beef, corn, and potatoes. I then added lots of cheddar. No pussyfooting around here--lots of cheddar.



Thirty minutes in the oven, and out came this little gem. Can I get an amen?!

 

While eating, I found the BBC rendition of Bleak House (nine salacious chapters to this miniseries). It doesn't get a lot better than jammies, melted cheese, and a period-piece movie. Heavenly. We'll see about Faulkner in the coming days.

Gone quiltin'

The whiteboard outside my office. Nashua quilt show begins today. Pictures to come.

And so jammy weekend season begins

Today I declared to be the first of jammy weekend season. I went grocery shopping Saturday night, which is my favorite--it's quiet, mellow, trance-like. There are no cranky children, no frazzled parents, no obstinate teens, no power corporate types. Just me. And a few guys buying beer on their way to someplace else. I mostly have the whole store to myself.

So, hunkered down with provisions, I woke this morning and took it wayyy easy. Hot chocolate, reading a little of The Book of Night Women (seriously, it's outstanding), toast with melted peanut butter...all the makings of a relaxed Sunday.

Eventually, I got myself motivated to begin a project I eyed recently: a beautiful flying geese miniature quilt. So I set myself up with candy, broke out the sewing machine and other props, and started in.

I purchased the materials at Checkerberries Quilt Shop, which is one of the most adorable quilt shops I've ever been in. It's full of beautiful fabric in muted tones--rustic Americana. Civil War prints, Little Women-inspired materials and quilts. It's all yummy. And the woman who runs the place is a sassy little minx. And it's right nearby, in Northwood, NH. I went there for the first time recently and was in awe.

Anywho

I haven't quilted in a long time. Years. I don't know why. Crafting tends to be an on and off thing for me. When I'm stressed or shutting down, I craft more. At least that's what I've observed from a bird's eye view of my life. At points when I've lived with someone I didn't care for, I've been my most productive. Right now? I think I'm just happy that it's autumn, don't have social plans, and wanted to stay away from watching TV and movies all day on the computer (so much for canceling cable). So I got started.









This project, part of the "Jo's Little Women" series is a black and gold combination in the flying geese pattern. It's tiny, so it stitched up quickly--maybe three to four hours total so far.

The afternoon was spent at my kitchen table, with soup simmering on the stove, the dryer rumbling, and the sewing machine humming. I'm happy with how quickly this came together. There's something about that sense of accomplishment--sometimes it feels outside my reach. But I realize I'm my own worst enemy. There were a few times when I stood up from the table and my mind raced with other things I could be doing. It took discipline to sit back down and sew another row. I'm pretty fleeting about things. It's frustrating to have my mind racing in so many different directions.

But I did it! I made the whole front. Next will be buying batting, piecing the layers together, and beginning the stitching. Now THAT could take a while. But it's so stinking cute, and I'm so stinking proud of myself.

Hope your Halloween weekend was fab-o.

Cold weather cooking

This morning I woke to a cold, gray sky. I made myself semipresentable, grabbed the camera, got into the car, and headed for town.

I'm proud of my tiny, odd mill town. I haven't been here quite a year yet, but I every evening when I drive through on my way home from work, my heart fills when I come around the first bend and see the old mills looming large over the left side of the main drag, and the tiny shops all in a row to the right. So even though we're a little past prime up here, this morning I took pictures to capture fall in Newmarket.

I drove around some of the side roads too, down to the Great Bay. I didn't realize there were so many luxe houses here. But I do appreciate that the town has a little of everything. Along with the out-of-the-way richies, there are lots of hipster college kids, many earthy hippie types, and the locals who grew up here. In front of the coffee shop, it's typical to see a Lexus parked next to a beat-up pickup truck. And it's typical to hear conversations about graffiti as a growing problem, the band that played last night at the Stone Church, and local drum circles. I revel in it. Probably because it reminds me of Amherst and Northampton, MA.

The sky never lightened after this morning's sojourn, and stitching alone in my apartment, I could feel my fingers growing colder. But I come from a long line of yankees who proudly refuse to turn on the heat until absolutely necessary. No way does 45 degrees warrant anything more than another sweater. And maybe a blanket over my lap. And maybe some soup to warm me up.

I read several recipes and then came up with the following. It turned out quite good. Enjoy!

I started out cooking up some kielbasa in olive oil to give the pot a smoky flavor--just enough to get it warm and juicy, but not enough to brown it. Then I tossed in three cloves of chopped garlic and a healthy sprinkling of red pepper flakes.


Next, I poured in four cups of chicken broth. I wanted organic, but I also wanted something low in sodium. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find both in the same package. So I chose organic over low sodium. Depending on your salt sensitivity, you may want to do the opposite. Considering the other ingredients, this is a pretty salty bowl of soup.

Once the broth was warmed through, I put in a chopped bunch of kale. I've never cooked with kale before, but it shrinks just like spinach (and isn't half as tedious to prepare).  

When the kale was good and shrunken down in the pot, I added a handful of Parmesan cheese (which is essentially adding a layer of salt as well as yumminess).

Next, the star of the show: small white beans. These are another first for me today. I dumped in the whole can for added liquid and a slight thickener.

Finally, I added pistou, which is French and fancy for "half a container of store-bought pesto." Kidding--my Frenchie ancestors would kick me for buying a container of the stuff, and I do make good pesto from scratch. But damn, a girl doesn't always have time for that sort of nonsense. That's when a tub of pesto comes in handy.

And what soup doesn't cry out for a slice of crusty bread and a little butter? Tonight I found a darling rosemary rustic bread at the bakery. I used some quality local butter. And the final results:

 Hope you had a great weekend too.

xo

Taking reader questions

"do you have thoughts or inner dialogue that you keep special/private that you don't share with the world?? that you don't offer up for their interpretation or ridicule?"

This question from a recent email exchange has been on my mind for a couple days. And I was trying to figure out why I had a strong reaction to it. The word ridicule kept bouncing around between my ears. Ridicule, ridicule, ridicule.

There are several answers to this question. And my first reaction was--maybe I'm an optimist. I have a readership of maybe six, plus the occasional stray who lands here. And all y'all know me. I don't believe ridicule is an issue. If it is, good for you. Thank you for spending so much time thinking about me.

But, then, I'm not really an optimist. More a realist. So my second answer to anyone who comes across this blog and decides to take out their upset on me is, "Fuck'em if they can't take a joke." Sometimes I'm happy; sometimes I'm sad. Sometimes I'm on a roadtrip with Stevie Wonder; sometimes I'm steps away from writing a grocery list. I'm not really here to impress.

 

 

Currier & Ives

The point of this blog was for self discipline. I decided it would be good for me to have a middle-of-the-road place where I'm not trying to write the Great American Novel and I'm not scrawling a deeply personal journal entry. It's a playground for me to explore the craft further. And it's a way for me to throw my fifty cents out there in more than 140 characters and away from the motley crew I'm friends with on Facebook. If I want to write a research paper on Allen Ginsberg, I will, damn it.

But in the end, "not really" is the answer. Of course I keep some shit to myself. But I'm also a pretty open book. That's my choice as an artist, a writer. My favorite writers and poets took huge risks in putting themselves out there. All in hopes that some other poor schmuck would come forward and say, "me too." I tout the gritty truth among my better qualities. I don't write anything here that I wouldn't say to a good friend. And with many of you, I've shared much more/worse. I'm human. And this weekend, when I am camping in Maine, I'm sure I'll share all kinds of inappropriate tidbits by the campfire. And I don't care. Life is too short to give a shit about some things.

Writing be silent talking

Kudos to Boston for putting on a fantastic Boston Book Festival yesterday. Compared to last year, it was grander, the weather was better, the venues were larger, and the list of sessions more numerous.

I left NH around 10:30, got to Wellington Station (now lovingly referred to as Beef Wellington Station), and boarded the orange line. On the train, a loud, confident guy holding American and don't-tread-on-me flags was lecturing a sweet group of Canadian 20somethings. "I'm paht of the Nohth Shoha Tea Pahty blah blah blah." By the time we got to my stop, North Station, he had talked about taxes, the price of gas, how all our freedoms are about to be ripped from us, and that FOX News is the ONLY reputable news source. I managed to bite my tongue the whole way. Asshat.

http://summit.haaaa.net/speakers/

The first session my friend and I attended was Time and Place, at the Old South Church on Boylston. The first two readers felt restrained and too serious. But I was there for Gish Jen. And she delivered. What a feisty little minx! Here's a Harvard graduate who's been published in all the hot spots (New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly...), and she was personable. She laughed, she was smart, but never stuffy.

Her latest book, World and Town, was released this month. I'm looking forward to reading this and delving into the depiction of voice: the old Vermont farmers, whose dialect is terrifically informal and probably unsettling to an outsider; a long-settled immigrant, whose English is textbook perfection; and a teenager girl who has seen Cambodian refugee camps, the mean streets of a city akin to Lowell, and finally a rural landscape.

The next session we hit was Fiction: Reality Bites, at the Church of the Covenant on Newbury Street. A perfect day for stepping on fallen leaves, looking at beautiful people, and ducking into echo-y chambers of stained glass--the way the afternoon sun shines on the dust in the air and each movement in each pew sets off a creak.

Readers for this session included Brando Skyhorse--fascinating life story, of which he shared only a little. He spoke with the kind of humor one develops when the truth is too embarrassing to take seriously. Great speaker; not so hot a reader. He read too fast--and his words were all description, so there was no time to picture what he was offering the listener.

Second was Allegra Goodman, who read from The Cookbook Collector. I'm not sure I care for the subject matter; I just wasn't drawn in. She is an interesting character, however. Very quirky personality. My friend called her "cute." I warmed up to her as she spoke, but she was goofy as hell. I would totally be that nervous and goofy in front of a crowd too, however, so who am I to judge?

http://bit.ly/akTpME

The third writer in this session was Marlon James. Now, ladies, I admit the first thought I had was, in the words of Jada, "He is foine!" And then he spoke. With a Jamaican accent. And told us he's an Austen fan. And quoted Pride and Prejudice. Are you fucking kidding me? Deep breath.

Looks and voice aside, what an incredible writer! He read from The Book of Night Women, a story about 18th century Jamaican slavery, written in, according to Bookmarks Magazine, a "lilting Jamaican patois."

Asked to read a "dangerous" passage, James chose to read a passage in which a slave learns to read. Afterward, he spoke about his passage choice. In sum: There's danger in love and in giving one's heart. But the danger of knowledge, of critical thought, can be the most deadly. Considering the amount of violence in this book, I was touched by his choice.

His writing is beautiful. From the passage he read,

So Homer commence teaching Lilith how to read. Lilith don't know why her, but glad to have the new feeling rise in her when she see a letter shape into something when they in front of her. A cup was something that she could hold and pour tea into, but a cup was also a c-u-p.

and

Writing be silent talking

Simple but smart. Really clever and thoughtful. My friend and I felt fortunate to have gone to the session and come across this writer we might otherwise not have encountered.

Full up on the written word, my friend and I hit the bars. First stop was Top of the Hub. Hella expensive drinks; but, really, the charge is for the phenomenal views of Boston. And the drinks deliver an ass-kick pretty quickly. I had a beer later but was mostly on water for the rest of the evening so I could drive home.

From there we joined a pub crawl through Faneuil Hall. The initial reaction was a wrinkled nose because FH tends to be where college kids learn to drink. Loud bars jam packed with young people who aren't interesting yet. But we were early and didn't encounter any of that business until we were heading out of the city. Watching it all, however, made me realize it's been a long time since I was that young. Even then, out in Amherst, I just didn't aspire to that. I absolutely did stupid things, but decidedly different stupid things. I'm so glad to be an adult. To be unique and on my own track. I have no desire to travel back and do it again. Onward!

Where I wax poetic about an angelheaded hipster . . .

Today is the anniversary of Allen Ginsberg's first public reading of his famous poem "Howl." He was only 29 years old that night.

Peter Orlovsky/Archive of Allen Ginsberg

I was thrilled to find this piece, written about the event. It's full of all the usual suspects and plays up to the romance that follows the Beats.

I loved Allen in college because he was a fucked up kid from a fucked up home who kept his nose in books and, eventually, blew the world away. He put the word fuck in poetry. Fuck. He wrote about masturbating. His whole last collection is mostly about shitting. The week he died, a poem of his was published--perhaps in the New Yorker. It was a couple pages and pretty much listed all of the lovers he'd had--from the life loves (Orlovsky) to the pizza boy who didn't know what was coming . . . He wrote openly about how he saw and experienced the world the whole way through life:

what more could I name, the smoked ashes of some cock cigar, the cunts of wheelbarrows and the milky breasts of cars, wornout asses out of chairs & sphincters of dynamos--all these 

--Sunflower Sutra, 1955

1955. He wrote the word cunt in a poem in 1955. That invigorates me.

He also wrote about politics. He lived politics. As a radical. In his last years, he sent at least one poem to President Clinton. I read that he received a polite thank you in response--too bad. Billy shoulda taken the opportunity to visit Allen in his apartment in the Village and had a good sit down.

I met Allen the year before he died. I called his agent and booked a three-day event for him at UMass Amherst. The other members of the Distinguished Visitors Program were more than a little hesitant, figuring he couldn't fill an auditorium (bunch of engineering students who'd never heard of him). He was incredible. He led a couple poetry classes I was in (the profs were in heaven), went out to dinner with people ("No salt!" his manager kept scolding), and gave a phenomenal reading.

Sitting in the center of the front row of a packed, standing-room-only theater, I listened to him read and recite and sing. He sang Blake ("Tyger! Tyger! burning bright") and read "America" ("America I've given you all and now I'm nothing."). And eventually, he read "Howl," shouting "Moloch" at the end:

Moloch! Solitude! Filth! Ugliness! Ashcans and unobtainable dollars! Children screaming under the stairways! Boys sobbing in armies! Old men weeping in the parks!

After the reading, I spent time with him, and many anxious others, at a small reception. Sitting indian-style before him, I felt the awkwardness--a man who has lived many lives, now sitting above eager college students who are looking for answers--but without questions. I read that he felt a heavy weight to be a wise sage to those he met. I can only imagine how exhausting this must have been.

I put something about him on Facebook earlier, and a friend who was there with me that night just wrote that it was a privilege to see him in Amherst that evening. It was.

I believe he died about a year later. Though sad, I was touched and inspired by the number of people who came out of the woodwork--there were so many readings and gatherings and memorials. Western Mass is that kind of place: a lot of deep, smart folks living in the woods and mountains. I met a lot of people in those following weeks, though none held fast. And I also heard, several times over, my favorite lines of his:

--We're not our skin of grime, we're not our dread bleak dusty imageless locomotive, we're all beautiful golden sunflowers inside, we're all blessed by our own seed & golden naked hairy accomplishment--bodies growing into mad black formal sunflowers in the sunset . . . 

--Sunflower Sutra, 1955 

Picture yourself in a boat on a river . . .

Today was a bad day. One in a recent series. I drove home late, doing breathing exercises, giving myself a little pep talk, even just thinking strings of curse words in righteous anger. And then I did what I always do when I find myself too far on one end of the spectrum: I think in opposites.

Thinking in opposites is a trick I learned in college. When struggling in lit classes to explain any given piece, a professor might say, "Explain it by first explaining what it isn't." A little obscure, perhaps. But insightful.

So opposites. What if I didn't have this stressful job? What job would I enjoy that would not be stressful? Hmmm . . . maybe running a little craft shop, teaching classes in embroidery. That sounds dreamy. And what if I were not just always talking about being a writer, but actually had the iron will to sit my fanny down and write? What time of day would I write? Would I type or use a new pen? And what if instead of cobbling something together each day to eat, I actually took the time to plan out weekly meals? That would be healthy and probably more economical. And maybe, eating the right foods, the inflammation in my back would go down.

No, I'm not exactly curing cancer here. But I did realize something sadly obvious: I don't have a vision of what I want my life to be. I have certain flash glimpses, and I have concepts. But there's no clear end goal in mind.

"The Awakening," Washington DC. Photographer: Ryan Sandridge

It may be because I am a slacker. That certainly carries weight here. But part of it is also that we let life happen to us, many of us. And we are swept up in what happens to us and go where the tide takes us. Before you know it, you're married, paying a mortgage, coaching your kid's soccer team, mowing the lawn, making lunches, and watching reruns. At that point, is there time in the day to consider one's self? One's own needs? My guess is that's how people come to just exist.

So what the hell is my excuse? My only dependent is a nine-pound cat missing most of her teeth. I'm saddled with school loans. I have ongoing fears of being a bag lady because times were tough when I was a kid. And I like to have a good time and not worry about money. Okay. But that aside, why don't I have a vision of what I want my life to be? It means I have no goals. I am just existing, but without a spouse, house, and child's love to keep me feeling fulfilled.

Copyright Alexandra de Steiguer

My opposite lives differ widely. And maybe that is what has me rolling along in neutral. Sometimes I am the earth mother, living in a farm house with a wraparound porch, growing my own food. Sometimes I am a city girl who spends time with a writing group and arguing politics at a hookah bar. Sometimes I defect to Paris or Canada. Sometimes I own a small, old cape on a rocky shore and run a craft shop.

The thing about New Hampshire is that it's very . . . settled. Almost everyone I know is married, has kids, etc. They are living their lives. There's not as much time to think about options. And I've been alongside everyone, year after year, existing. But I think I like the sound of a cape. A quiet life of creation.

Rockport, MA, on the last weekend of the summer

September?! WTF?

Hurricane Earl, for all its hype, provided a sprinkle here in NH. We hearty New Englanders have such a beating-the-chest-yelling-Hit-Me! attitude about these things. So boo hiss on that lackluster performance.


However, sure that the ocean would speak more loudly than the clouds, I went with a couple friends to Halibut Point State Park in Rockport, MA, Saturday afternoon.

I'd forgotten how beautiful the park is. I haven't been since the summer before I moved to NH, about five years ago. Halibut is the place we went to cool down on hot days--not a beach, per se, but a fiercely rocky, rugged section, with views all the way up to Maine. Anyone wanting to avoid crowds should check this out.

The old quarry is the first thing one sees. A beautiful, still pool of water, with the ocean waiting beyond.

Then there's a winding path of green that opens up to the harsh shoreline. We were there in the waning afternoon sun, along with many others who were eager to see big waves. And the waves were . . . okay. Great by NE standards, but still piddly small.

We got pretty close to the action. I could feel the sea spray each time water came up over these rocks. Folks started to back up as the water came in. I did see one girl go out onto a rock that was surrounded by water. Dumb dumb dumb.

And then there's the company I keep. I love these crazy broads. So mellow and free spirited. When we reached the shore, all three went our separate ways. Each of us spent time alone, taking it all in and thinking about everything and nothing. We finished the day off with drinks and apps at the Choate Pub in Ipswich.

The best line, however, came from the ride home. Friend: This was the best night ever. Me: Hiccup.

Classy as always. Peace out.