we're standing on the very edge, over

music: little tornado, aimee mann
mood: missing the ground

you can't stop
doodling in
paisley.

i fill pages
with sad children,
& party hats.

all a sudden
everything is becoming
ever graceful.

i can promise but you won't mistake your shadow

mood: hey, home is strange when you're not here
music: the szabo songbook, heartbreak scene

"she was so hungry for knowledge
she ate a professor for lunch."

-the red shoes & other tattered tales, karen e. gordon

i've been suffering the most glorious swimming in time; guiltless drawn-out headings to nowhere. (three hours for lunch, bergamot-scented mornings, whither-wanders.) i am counting out my final days in halifax for a while, every single one is saturated with possibility. this makes me notice lovable things i was beginning to forget - mostly, misplaced seashells on the sidewalks & the kites of citadel hill.

creeping over us like the thyme

song: if, islands
mood: suspire

these are tales from the periwinkle picnic (in nova scotia, we call sea-snails 'periwinkles,' even if they're grey-green and the reposite colour of ocean). watermelon, strawberries, blackberries & the sun already setting in our eyes! sometimes in the summer you would call when my toes were buried in the musselshell sand & we would talk about time, about distance. but i'll ignore your spurious signal, i am indifferent and need this nothing to say. all right; alright. i watch the tide creep up, mitten our fingers & sandal my toes. i am happy. i read the letter once, then slipped its pale envelope somewhere in the chronology of ancient pages.

(we are going away awhile, now)

weighing: what to take & what to forget

instructions from the handkerchief handbook

menu: apple, chevre & chive sandwiches
music: song to bobby, cat power

monogram: if you were lucky enough to inherit a set of monogrammed napkins or even find a set at a flea market, this fold gives you the chance to show it off. lacy or hemstitched edges also come front & center in this fold, so consider using it for any napkin with embellished edges.

white-cap fold: try a sweet and appealing fold reminiscent of the crisp caps worn by women in 18th century france & holland. it's a great fold for showcasing napkins with embroidered corner details.

demi-fan: an easy fold that dresses up a casual meal. there's no need for extra starch or pressing - this easygoing fold will hold its own with any fabric.

-the new book of napkin-folding

miller: the novelist, the playwright?

music: jocasta, noah and the whale
mood: smatterings of the mattering smalls

this is how we say goodbye:
i tell you that i'll find you
somewhere, when we are
the least suspecting.
you hug me close and
say please do.

postscript: i've noticed my words growing shorter, turning into adages of recollection. i think it's less a conscious effort to be cryptic, more that i lack the need to be understood. a week! school is almost finished: i wrote an exam today and went for a walk beside the ocean. (an elderly man with seagull eyes; three mauve mussel-shells.) i'm wearing the months & years as layers now, seeping illimitable among themselves. the truth is so many things are residual, like salt-stains on the skin; the most imperceptible of marks.

here are sun-drenched sounds of warming days in the form of a formless mix-tape. instead of mailing this to one of you, i am posting it for everyone. i hope you haven't heard a few of the songs, i hope they make you smile. i want you to be hopeful. this morning, i packed away my winter scarves.

an inscription at salonae, the mountain goats
underground movies, the auteurs
fireflies (live), jenn grant
tivoli, griffin and the true believers
cherry tulips, headlights
eidus, the vintage mangoes
rivers of babylon (live), belle & sebastian
fortress, tanya davis
the coffee beanery, casey dienel
here comes the sun, richie havens
black hole, she & him
i live a lot of places, woodpigeon
bank accounts (live), sarah slean
libraries, seabear
like a mountain, timbre timber
shine, margo guryan
time and space, the accidental
the longest year, karma controllers
la belvedere, florent marchet
devices, the terrodactyls

mirror images: a potrait of ea

song: private lawns, angus & julia stone
mood: a case of the copycat sillies

here's a new photograph from andrea's visit with me in halifax.

it was not taken in a museum house in darmouth. aug '07

i bought a new journal (hardcover moleskine), because i was growing apathetic and heart-weary with the old. sometimes, i think rebeginnings shouldn't come so easy.

i'm in the library, working on my second to last paper, stealthily eating an orange & squares of dark chocolate. overwhelmingly, i have the feeling i'm being watched.

n. has revealed the recipe for 'secret' espresso. yesterday, m. and i drank small & perfect cups before we went to study. if you can find me, i'll make some for you.

a sturdy paragraph of synesthesia

this is page 13.

to the lighthouse, the lighthouse

song: cotton, the mountain goats
mood: awayward

(welcome the stranger stories you will know by heart.)

i've been thinking about qui(n)tessentials, reducing myself into self-satisfied bareness. i will become structured pale-green as the curled & teasing tongues of an april tulip.

When the last days come
We shall see visions
More vivid than sunsets
Brighter than stars
We will recognize each other
And see ourselves for the first time
The way we really are

the rain falls through us like dust & will no more turn to snow. this is the new season & we sit on stone steps, playing crokinole, laughing for the sunlight. i am infused with a sudden attitude of purpose. i am cultivating a transient pattern. singularities.

grown-up cousins (but before growing up)

music: yellow lights, marissa nadler
mood: perhappiness!

already wise to the foolishnesses of april

listening: roboxulla, the jealous girlfriends
learning: first in the morning & last thing at night

"...this passage reminded me of me remembering you."

a smile in passing, a perhaps - you've seemed indifferent (all the same) since our promises of friendship glowed dim. you are oblivious from the other side of bibliographic barricades, whenever you walk by my stifled downtown windows. now you break silence, shatter it with pigeon-houses, submarine species, belles-lettres. and not regret, not pity, not a hundred thousand things. i gave you just enough for poetry; my offering was art.

this week, i will never stop studying. curling in the library corners, i read about italian renaissance philosophy and eat my breakfast (image one) with bresson's films (image two). the noses of may flowers wet, wet in the rain. origami text taking obtuse thought-shapes as i walk through the dusk & quiet. silk & tweed & ocean are gentle on my face.