Sunrise

just near the solstice and the sun comes up so early. I've been on night patrol with Prussia.

I should explain. I cancelled her appointment with the vet reaper way back when, and miraculously, she rebounded, put weight and spunk back on and has been enjoying life greatly. 

Until two days ago when she started to get weak in the legs, walk like a drunkard then finally lose the use of her legs at all. 

I have been blessed to be able to work from home so I can be near her. Nights I nap beside her, monitoring her. Bringing the food and water dishes to her face to take from. 

For now, I'm not taking her to the vet. She is resting and I pray that I can keep her comfortable until that final rest comes. That being said, I will of course bring her to the vet if she shows any sign of pain. 

For now, it's watching the sunrises together. 

classic

drove my friend out to jersey to pick up a motorcycle he bought off craigslist. the guy was also selling this 1967 mercury. his garage stuffed to the gills with love reminded me of my dad's. a happy feeling. 

on my doorstep

an unusually humane june, it seems. The rain comes frequently and it's cool. The leaves still feel tender, new on the trees. 

rose colored iphone

slowly making my way back to reality after two months spent mostly in shanghai.  re-orientation to new york has included several walks to the river and much gazing at the sky.  despite the fact that the weather since my return has been described as 'mostly cloudy', i've still seen more blue sky in these few days than in two months in china.
i feel guilty being so negative about my experience in china, but the truth is, the apocalyptic level of pollution thoroughly colored my time and mood there.  call me country girl--i couldn't deal.  i felt like i'd visited the future of our planet.  and it was scary and depressing.
so this photo seems like it's supposed to relate, but really it doesn't.
ever get excited about the sky and clouds then realize it's just because you're wearing sunglasses, and the person next to you thinks you're crazy because all they see is grey?
to remedy this, i held my sunglasses in front of my iphone to take the above image.

that magic hour

my photography teacher always said that the key to beautiful photos was to wait until your shadow stretched longer than your body. last night as jade, his brother kip and i walked by bryant park we noticed that our heads had crossed the quite broad 6th avenue before we'd stepped off the curb. beautiful magic.
then i spread my legs for dramatic flair.

it's bitter baby but it's very sweet...

okay, so i'll admit that i have recently found myself falling prey to a whole slew of issues i never thought i'd care about or consider relating to the process of aging. getting old, the kitty joe is. these issues manifest themselves in the most random places and catch me quite off guard. case in point: the other day when i landed in california for a family visit. standing on the sidewalk after mowing down a table full of mexican food, i noticed my baby nephew's arm scrawled with a message from his girlfriend.
understand that i still have to hesitate before i can type out those words 'baby nephew's girlfriend', much less accept them to be true.
understand that it really doesn't seem like long ago that i watched him being born.
but as i hesitated, i had time to realize that wow, my baby nephew is SEVENTEEN for chrissakes. and i was also seventeen when chris bowers wrote those red hot chili pepper lyrics on my arm and made me swoon and like a good cliched teenager, i washed around those letters hoping to extend their smudgy life as long as possible. or at least until he returned from seattle.
and this also didn't seem that long ago.
kyle was five months old.

a sunday smile

rain and grey all day today. but this is happening.

welcome spring. tell me you're not fooling.

i've never been excited by april fool's day. i mean, who really cares? not that tricking people into believing bold faced lies hasn't been a past practice of mine. in fact, when i was fourteen and gina what's-her-nose misunderstood something i said which led her to believe that i'd actually WRITTEN the lyrics scrolled on my trapper-keeper, i became drunk with the power of fooling my peers. it entertained me through the ridiculous time that was early high school. yes, love and rockets paid me $50 for every song i wrote for them. no, i actually hadn't spent last summer commuting to UC Berkeley and taking part in the nerd program--i mean Gifted and Talented program. really i was on tour as a back-up singer for the cure. because my singing doesn't cause even my cat to run away. ask my sisters. actually, you probably already know.
yes, i was engaged to my exchange student and only studying spanish so that i could flee the country after my next tour. and did you know that my hair is actually naturally curly? i straighten it daily with a flat iron.

at first this was amusing. but soon i realized i could get anyone to believe anything i said. why not? it's human nature to believe. once i discovered this, the stories didn't seem so fun. add to the equation that i actually do occasionally have true and outlandish stories to tell, whose truth and impact became compromised by the false ones....and it was time to come clean.

so yeah, april fools. not my cup of tea.
but what DOES excite me about today is the abundant sunshine and a peek out the window at the pink magnolia trees and the yellow forsythia. it's like a freakin' easter egg over here! welcome spring. tell me you're not fooling.

because while you californians may not be impressed with this meager display of 'early' spring, the seasons mean more to me on the east coast than i ever could have understood while living west. i'm not even one to poo-poo the winter, however harsh it may be. and in my book, that's really harsh. but after the total barren look for however many months, when those blooms start to show their color in this grey winter scape, it makes you want to scream, SPRING! REBIRTH! RENEWAL! really, it's so dramatic and cliched. but it gets all the way down to your toes and you just want to go to the park and jumprope.