Diary of a Carpenter's Daughter

May 21, 2008

I don't like spiders. I mean, I really don't like spiders. This can pose a problem when one is doing construction: having to crawl under trailers to fix something, tearing apart a deck, ripping up a roof.

The first two are particularly prime locations. Dad has stories of coming out from underneath homes after inspecting the foundation or the plumbing, only to find a Black Widow spider somewhere on his clothing and narrowly escaping a bite. Various kinds of spiders, large and small, loved the deck we ripped up last summer as well, but at least I wasn't confined in a small space.

Surprisingly, though, the roof we're working on down river hasn't been too much of a spider problem. No, it's been living inside the building we're working on that's posed the problem. Most specifically, spiders in the bedroom.

Daddy Long-legs don't really bother me [although I really wish I hadn't just looked them up on Wikipedia]; neither do itty bitty or small jumping spiders. My reaction to them is non-threatening. Any spider that is bigger than a dime, hairy, black, or a round body, however, and I am so out of there.

Some sort of dime-sized, hairy, black spider has just crawled across my sleepy bag and disappeared between the side of the bed and the wall. I'm not sure how well I am going to sleep tonight.

Under Pressure

must write must write must write must write must write must write must write must write must write must write must write must write must write must write must write must write must write must write must write must write must write must write must write must write must write must write must write must write must write must write must write must write must write must write must write must write must write must write must write must write must write must write must write

doesn't really accomplish much.

Punny Nun in Sunglasses

A nun in a grey habit and grey coat just crossed the street towards my house and turned right; I watched her through the front window. Frail and thin, her sunglasses were thick, chunky, wrapped around her head. They were the kind outdoor enthusiasts wear to protect themselves from the rays of the almighty sun. I doubt, though, her intentions are to block out the brightness of a great son.

For Wednesday - Why not?

S(c)hamu Institute Assignment #4:

• Photocopy pages (bw, color, both) from random books (your favorite, what's closest, most often turned to)--could be just one book, no more than 10.
• Staple them together (top left hand corner, zine style, in the middle)
• Post/Give/Chuck/Slap them to someone else (someone who inspires you, someone who needs to get a clue, someone who keeps asking you for reading recommendations, a belated birthday present, any reason.)
• Process should take no more than 2 hrs and pages should be in someone else's hands by Aug 1st.

The Country and The City

'Is it anything more than a well-known habit of using the past, the "good old days," as a stick to beat the present? [I Want to be a Cowgirl] It is clearly something of that, but there are still difficulties. The apparent resting places [open range, children's books], the successive Old Englands [The Wild West] to which we are confidently referred but which then start to move and recede, have some actual significance, when they are looked at in their own terms [Giddy Up, Cowgirl!]. Of course we notice their location in the childhoods of their authors, and this must be relevant [Susan Lowell]. Nostalgia, it can be said, is universal and persistent; only other men's nostalgias offend. A memory of childhood can be said persuasively, to have some permanent significance[Cindy Ellen, Little Red Cowboy Hat]. But again, what seemed a single escalator, a perpetual recession into history, turns out, on reflection, to be a more complicated movement: Old England [Old West], settlement [cattle drives], the rural virtues [gender roles]--all these, in fact, mean different things at different times, and quite different values are being brought to question [gender, identity, power, imagination].'

-- Raymond Williams, The Country and the City
(1975, 21-2; notes mine)

For the Newlyweds

J & E, Welcome Home.

(Cross stitch by me, pattern from Subversive Cross Stitch.)

Because We're Going...

...to the Brighton Town Hall!!!

CONGRATULATIONS J & E!!!

Many, many sweet years together....