sunday

i keep meaning to write about other stuff than what happens in a simple day-to-day sense. i have a bunch of stories i'd like to tell, or at least learn to start telling. one thing i think about when i look out into our back yard:

our yard has an extensive dirt patch under two of the large trees, near the garage. aside from gardening, my main passion in the yard is splitting logs for the fire. second behind the logs is picking up broken glass from the dirt.

every time it rains, the ground spits out dozens on shards of old glass, from bottles broken over the last hundred years. i amble slowly through the back of the yard, watching for the glint of glass amongst the crumbles of turned-over dirt. i pick up every bit i see, in hopes that one day kids will run barefoot through the yard.

once, i found an unused .38 bullet.

i am very satisfied with my two handfulls of tiny green shards, and dump them into the garbage totes at the back of the yard. after the next rain, the ground brings forth another couple handfulls of glass, like some detoxifying crop which it is my job to slowly harvest.

every time it rains, the low patch of the walk through our yard floods just a little, and every time it rains i know that earthworms stick themselves out of holes in the earth to rub up against their neighbors. the vibration of my feet on the walk sends them wriggling back into their holes like the ends of spaghetti slurped into mouths. perhaps the worms bring out the glass that they've found in their spelunking, 8 inches under the grass.
- - -
today we overslept, and i woke to see that it had just passed 8am. i stood and reached for my pants, and the phone in my pocket rang. jason calling to see if we were still up for sledding with the boys. i said that we probably were, but that no one was up, and that we were going to metropolis for coffee first anyway. we'd talk later. (later didn't work out with boys' naptimes and minnesotans' departure times).

into josh's car, we drove to metropolis, where we squeezed five around a tiny table, adding a sixth when stephanie (of "...and tyler") showed up. good visit.

back into the car, we went to downtown evanston, where i realized how cold i was without a beard.

we stopped in a comix revolution, where i got two newer chris ware books, as well as ulysses, and di got perseopolis.

headed over to bookman's alley, where we found some other treasures, including a book on the voyage of the beagle, then home.

dan, letta and josh got ready to leave, and we saw them off. i did dishes while di laid down for a nap. i started working on the bike again,a nd spent the afternoon in the basement.

ate some panang curry chicken leftover from friday, then started in on answering emails. holy crap, i have a lot to do tomorrow.