What do you want on your tombstone?

I want to smell like earl grey and sandalwood. I want to be found dead surrounded by the coziest of sweaters, the comfiest of blankets, the dessicated skeletons of my bosom buddies, my favorite tea, a bowl of blueberries, and a steady stream of books and art. There would be glade anemones and ranunculous woven in my hair. Fluffy hills of whipped cream in colorful footed bowls on the shelves. Glass bottles of every shape and color would hang from the ceiling and clink with the breeze. The walls would echo with my last vulgar obscenities. I would be holding a single spoon. There would be a claw-footed bathtub filled with shimmering, gold-green olive oil.

Keep the party going. I want dance music to be played at my funeral. I want everyone to eat well, and drink even better. I want people to light sparklers and bottle rockets off my funeral pyre. I want to glow in the dark, to shoot screaming high into the sky at the trembling hands of my friends. I want them to forget everything for a moment but the taste of clean, cold fruit in their mouths, and the tilting, wheeling sensation that comes from looking up for a long time.

My idea of heaven

Rule: It is occasionally proper to be a diva. It is less okay to be emo. Figure out the fine line regarding your eventual return to wherever it is you believe you came from.

Holy crap wow

Zero Holding

by Robyn Sarah

I grow to like the bare
trees and the snow, the bones and fur
of winter. Even the greyness
of the nunneries, they are so grey,
walled all around with grey stones —
and the snow piled up on ledges
of wall and sill, those grey
planes for holding snow: this is how
it will be, months now, all so still,
sunk in itself, only the cold alive,
vibrant, like a wire — and all the
busy chimneys — their ghost-breath,
a rumour of lives warmed within,
rising, rising, and blowing away.

"Zero Holding," by Robyn Sarah, from The Touchstone. © House of Anansi Press, 1992. Reprinted WITHOUT permission.


No rule this week, I have a massive amount of germs attacking my body. Just enjoy the lovely writing of this lady.

New Year thoughts for 2011

On my desk there is a clementine and a hard-boiled egg.

The clementine has a delicate, fragrant peel and bright, juicy segments all following each other in an endless radial loop. To consume, we peel the segments off the whole one by one and pop them into our mouths. Each one bursts with citrus freshness and the sweetness that comes from all things wholesome, simple, and natural.

The egg has always been the symbol of beginning. It is an oval capsule of life yet dormant. The smooth shell - still unblemished - will be cracked, destroyed: a jagged discard. But something animate comes out. It is blinking, peeping, stumbly. The fluff we see is the cushiony buffer of promise and potential.

Happy new year.

Rule: Get a little dreamy about the new year.