I cannot tell a lie: I bought the horse heads.

Sycorax Pine: Oh my god, D. I want these SO MUCH.
D: What are they?
Sycorax Pine: False eyelashes.  They're cut according to traditional Chinese motifs.  See, these are peonies.  And these are tiny horse heads!
D: Honey... [He leans in close, and whispers tenderly in my ear.] They're abominations.
On what occasion would I wear these, you might ask?
The eyelash makes its own occasion, I'd reply, with a repressive glare and a flirtatious bat.

Holy Crap: Love

Everything on my stunning friend shannonpareil's tumblr (Holy Crap, A Talking Biscuit) has been graceful and longing-inducing lately.  When we were teenagers, we used to write verse (sonnets, free verse, sestinas) while bored in class, trade them in the hallways between periods, and each complete the other's poem in the next class.  She's that kind of friend.

I give you two reflections on love, courtesy of her.  This:


And this:


things i pretend

  • you are on a trip.
  • you are on a trip to the amazon in search of el dorado.
  • you are on a trip to the moon.
  • you are on a trip anywhere that is beyond the range of modern communication.
  • you are a character in a book i fell in love with, but now the book has ended, and you only live in the pages.
  • you’re just in the other room while i stand in the kitchen cooking dinner.
  • i haven’t met you yet.


Planet of the Lawns: Rise of the Fiddlehead Ferns

I'm not sure how to feel about Farfara's new lawn. (Mère Sycorax, looking at pictures of my new garden: "Would you really call that a lawn?" SP: "Yes." Mère Sycorax: "Really?") It's scraggly, starved, and unkempt.  Except where it covers our vast septic field; there it's lush, verdant, and self-satisfied.

When D and I bought the house, we were somehow convinced that it was a small lawn.  But we weren't taking into account the scale of greater Farfara's twelve acres.  In fact, the grassy section is considerably larger than any lawn we would have gotten with a city lot.



I have to agree with John Green (in this, as in so many matters): lawns can be economic and environmental nightmares. And, anglophile though I am, I don't find them to be the most attractive landscape strategy. I'd like to keep just enough of Farfara's lawn to play bocce and croquet on.  Let the rest be given over to fiddlehead ferns!