The Green Flash

There exists an optical phenomenon known as The Green Flash. Ever seen it? Pas moi, but I’ve been told it occurs right before sunrise or sunset, a momentary refraction of light that moves slower in the lower, denser air than in the thinner air above, enhanced by mirage and probably myth. Tssssss. (I’ve also heard the flash is accompanied by a hiss as the sun hits the water, but honestly I think I got this info from The Blue Lagoon and do not always trust the science of Christopher Atkins.)

What is not so widely known is that there exists another, lesser known Green Flash, a moment of pregnant phenomenon when I raise my head from the nausea and actually look cute. Oh, it’s brief, this moment, a flash of glow before I sink into the bloat of latter pregnancy, my eyes suddenly smaller, my breathing almost an embarrassment. I so wanted to catch this elusive Green Flash but I must have blinked, because the other day I looked down and noticed the tell-tale swell of an ankle. Quick! I turned to Bryan—take a picture of me! But it was too late, so I leave you with this: the sight of a pregnant lady sinking into her 21^st week (if you really concentrate you can hear the hiss).

More than halfway there, people.

xo,
S

No Harm in Asking

I can't decide if I hate this guy or if maybe I'm a little bit in love with him.

It's kind of unbelievable, really, but it's on the internet so I just know it's true. What do you think? Is it real or fake? Funny, fortuitous or flat-out disgusting? And if you are of the funny/fortuitous club and have the finances, I would like just $100,000. I mean, I'll take a cool $mil if that's what you want, but really I just need $100,000. So you should probably give me $200,000 seeing as how I'd have to pay 50% in taxes. Baby needs a new pair of shoes. And a house. Donate button's pretty rusty there in the right-hand column. Give to charity. Or don't. Go buy $200,000 worth of Cool Ranch Doritos, whatever, it's your money. I'm just saying I'll take it if you want to give it. (I just happen to suck at asking.)

Happy Monday,

S

Shoes I Used to Wear (A Post On the Literal Shoes I Used to Wear)

I used to wear shoes so high I could see a light layer of dust on top of the fridge.
I took these red shoes backpacking through Europe, crammed them in the bottom of my bag one winter in Paris. I wore them on New Year's Eve as Bryan and I tried to find a bar, a club, a restaurant we could afford, finally settling for gyros on the street corner with me in these red, red shoes. At a few minutes to midnight we were on the metro, so we got off at the next stop not knowing where we were and ran up the stairs to the street just in time for the countdown. Trois, deux, une...we kissed on a street corner in Paris amid a crowd of French people making out, my life momentarily a Robert Doisneau poster taped to a dorm room wall, and to this day that night in those red shoes stands as one of my most romantic.
I eyed these gold glitter shoes for months at a transvestite store on Haight Street until they were the last pair and went on sale seeing as how most men's feet are larger than mine. When I wasn't wearing them I kept them on my desk as inspiration for something.
I bought these for my birthday one year--can't remember which though I'm fairly certain it started with a 2. (I have always loved a well-placed rainbow.) The night I wore these a man told me I walked like a cocktail waitress, and though I'm not sure how he meant it, I hold that still as one of the best compliments I've ever received.

These shoes are vintage, from the 20's, the fabric inside the sole worn metallic threads. Of all my shoes I loved these the most, wore them to bars and parties, sometimes during the day. With jeans? That was the joke back then, everything held up to have its cute-quotient questioned. Yes? With jeans? Because everything looked cute with jeans. When I wore them I imagined all the fun the shoes had had in the past 80+ years, what sort of evenings, the stories they might tell, and I was just so happy to be a part of it.

Then there are these: another vintage pair of hand-beaded shoes, the wooden heels carved with palm fronds and fruit, a score at a flea market one Sunday morning. One of the heels on these is stained dark brown, and so I always thought it was blood, because, well, why not? A woman dancing in a nightclub in Cuba for so long that her heels bled, yes? You just know her name was Lucia.

And then there are these. Ugly flat mom shoes I bought while still on maternity leave. I don't know what I was thinking other than I guess this is my life: hairy toes and sensible shoes for pushing a stroller, my fingers smelling of peanut butter. I had to bribe Zoey to try these on which I think is a pretty good barometer for moxie. Would a 4 year old want to wear it? If the answer is a quick no, then no. Just no. On these I blame hormones and me trying to find my new normal when life was anything but.
These days I wear ballet flats, boots with no heel, Havianas when it's warm. I don't know when it was that I lost the ability to wear heels, but I am certain I no longer walk like a cocktail waitress, the dust on the top of the fridge now thick, though who cares if I can't even see it?

A Deep Blue Period

Know how much I’m craving spring? This much—here is an actual train of thought I had the other morning as I walked to work: the city is too gray. Gray buildings, gray sky, gray sidewalks and streets. If I were Mayor Queen Master of Something I would pass an ordinance that each building be painted a different color. Pink and green, turquoise, orange…then the city would look more like the Caribbean and people would surely smile more. Right? Note to self: pick up some fresh fruit on the way home today.

Then I saw this amazing art installation and immediately felt quenched. Like if a soul could be quenched, mine was. Check out artist (and diver) Jason deCaires Taylor. He creates these immense ingots and anchors them to the seabed. He chooses material conducive to marine life, so that new coral reefs adhere and grow like children. The result is hauntingly beautiful.

Did you know? Over the past few decades we’ve lost over 40% of our natural coral reefs. Scientists predict a current demise of 80% by 2050. I’ll shut up now and just post some of the delicious photos.

It'salmostspring, it'salmostspring, it'salmostspring...sounds vaguely like inspiring.

xo,

S

Grainy Photos of Double Double Helixes, Animal Style

I forgot to show you what Zoey got me for Christmas...
She replicated a photo of me when I was her age, right down to the pearls*. I'd be lying if I said this didn't make me a little teary.** I'd also be lying if I didn't say I felt some sick sense of BOW DOWN BEFORE MY AWESOMELY STRONG DNA.


*With the help of her Grandma DD.
**Then again, I also got teary the other day when Jamba Juice told me they were out of Peanut Butter Moo'd.

Honestly I Just Want Pajamas, Hold the Jeans

I was all set to make fun of this infomercial until I realized that I have a few pairs of the Official Pajama Jean stacked in my closet only they are called jeggings, cost more and don't seem to feature any sort of Smooth Butt Lifting Technology. Then I felt like a real asshole.

Still I refuse to order anything from an infomercial featuring softcore porn music because that would make me feel worse about my pregnant self than I do when I order oatmeal at Starbucks because it's healthy, but can I have extra brown sugar? And no nuts? Just two packets of brown sugar, please. Make that three. Thanks.

xo,

S

First Post of the Year (And It's a Winner)

This is a total C U Next Tuesday kind of post. Except it’s not next Tuesday but this Tuesday, i.e. it’s a bitch and—oh! Happy New Year!

See, something’s fallen flat in the land of Petunia and it sure as hell ‘aint my stomach. I am 18 weeks pregnant and uninspired. Tired. For days now I have paused over a post centered around this video about dent removal.

And while it is kinda’ super awesome and I am for sure buying some canned air just for Bryan’s truck it begs the question: really? Dent Removal? Because that’s all I got these days. Which is how I imagine men must feel when they can’t get it up. Soft and sleepy, a little bit defensive. So? If only there were a little blue pill for writers needing inspiration, canned air for those that can no longer breathe.

Because then I read this article about how blogs are dead. And maybe it came to my attention too close to the news of thousands of birds dropping dead from the sky (not to mention the fish), but I started to wonder if it wasn’t true. Is blogging dead, dying, falling from the www heavy with too many characters? Tell me the truth now: do you read as many blogs as you used to?

To close out this peppy first post of the year I will tell you that the other day I saw the newspaper headline The Year We Stopped Talking. Which seemed like a lovely title to a book that needs to be written about something that has been written a thousand times before, because that’s all we humans ever do is talk and then stop. The Year We What? Is it an omen, the end of days with fish falling from the sky and birds beaching themselves on shore? Or is this the ramblings of hormones gone amok, the same ones that have turned the palms of my hands into roadmaps, visible blue veins going somewhere off the beaten track?