Out of hopeful green stuff woven
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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in the "Bezige Bij" journal:[<< Previous 20 entries]
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03:54 pm
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In her little toe
Anouk was like a bird, as her last name suggested. All her movements were infinitely small and deliberate. I studied the bones in her fingers as she cut her kroket and elegantly covered it in mustard. I had the feeling that she could make taking out the garbage elegant.
Her fingers were long, as if they were made to play the piano or harp. I studied her designs which have a nineteenth century quality about them, and yet at the same time were modern. Lace fences, cast iron kiosks, Escher inspired gardens in a pallette of black and white.
I ate my chicken and eggplant sandwich far too fast. I had already gulped down the first half as she was nibbling on the first bites of her kroket. I listened to her tell about the project we would be working on for the next two months. Although I am a year older, it is clear that she is the senior in this situation. She is the teacher and I am the student. I wonder what I have been doing with my time.
In 1999 I spent several days in Paris. I remember talking to an Australian guy at the hostel and he said, "These Parisian girls, they have more style in their little toe than you and I have in our entire bodies." Anouk was born in Geneva, but again, I was struck by this sentiment. I felt like a country bumpkin pretending to be a designer. Intimidating.
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08:11 pm
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Moving office
Cleared my stuff out of my office today. A new renter will be sitting at what was my desk tomorrow. It feels significant, saying goodbye to Absurd Nederland.
I've been spending a lot of time painting and staining and generally finishing up the office in the house. It isn't finished, but it is workable and feels fresh.
Going to collapse on the couch now.
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03:13 pm
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In For the Kill - La Roux
I do like this song:
The actual video to which embedding has been disabled.
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11:42 am
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Killer Cappuccino
For our birthdays we bought an espresso machine, one of the manual ones where you can fiddle with all the settings. It's like a manual camera; you need to become familiar with how it works but once you are the results are superior. Since two weekends ago we also have a bean grinder. Again, much fiddling ensued, but we are now adept and, damn!, can we make a killer cappuccino. It makes weekends spent at home reading that much more perfect.
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03:51 pm
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Ah, well, today is what it is...
"Home" is a fiction, a provincial state of mind, a longed-for destiny rather than a point of origin. Houses, while sometimes "loved," are more often places of death, denial or madness. But travel (as opposed to tourism) makes us experience the world, and ourselves, and helps us glimpse "reality" through the shocks to and displacements of our "knowledge."
from Rare and Commonplace Flowers: The Story of Elizabeth Bishop and Lota de Macedo Soares
http://www.amazon.com/Rare-Commonplace-Flowers-Elizabeth-Bishop/dp/0813530334
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12:48 pm
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The hour badly spent
I'm not sure what I should be doing, so I'm reading poetry. This is not for lack of many things to do; it is a long mastered act of procrastination. Reading poetry somehow justifies avoiding responsibility in my mind. Of course, it's bullshit, but I'm easily fooled and have only a slight sense of guild, if you'll believe that.
I'm not sure if I'm scared to begin. Probably I am. Or if it is still part of another long mastered skill, sabotaging my potential success.
But I will make allowances and share some poems by Rilke and and Elizabeth Bishop, and when I've told myself in so doing that I haven't completely wasted the morning, I will hold onto some sense of accomplishment and ride that wave for whatever its worth into the afternoon during which I actually complete some of things I set out to do today. I'll start easy by folding the laundry and bringing my bike to the repair shop. Physical things are always easier because it is not as likely that I will be distracted. Then maybe I will feel able to sandwich a couple of uncomfortable phone calls in-between these actions, using the momentum like one does when removing a band-aid. Then, maybe I will feel calmer and I will have the focus to finish some more difficult tasks.
( Some Poems )
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10:07 am
[Link] | The past couple of days I have been feeling surprisingly calm, strong, certain. I feel it when I walk into a room, my presence is solid. People turn to look and smile.
Yesterday I was at school all day for presentations from my fellow students. I could hear myself laughing unselfconsciously. My laugh had a clear sound that echoed through the room. It made people want to come and talk with me during the breaks, ask me my opinion and include me in their conversations. People can feel when you have something say.
I have had a tough week emotionally, and yet I think it is good. It has forced me to work through a number of things that were scaring me. Lingering things that I really needed to put to rest, and I think I am far in the process of doing so. I feel stronger for the process.
I keep typing specifics about the situation and then deleting them. There is such a back story to tell, and I don't want to tell that story here. I guess it doesn't matter, beyond recording that I feel good and in power and in control of myself. I'm happy for that. I feel grounded.
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05:29 pm
[Link] | Oh, and the heat is now working after two days of not.
And, as of today I have an I-phone. Yeah!
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03:27 pm
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Working towards resolutions
( Jotting down thoughts )
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10:28 am
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Notes project
Which particulars are not so important as long as there are particulars.
Anchors, not interchangeable, specific, intimate.
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05:26 pm
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Where I am with my study right now
( ... )
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08:23 pm
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Not bad advise, actually.
In 2010,  bezigebij resolves to... Overcome my secret fear of gardens.
Go to foliage every Sunday.
Find a better nederland.
Go gardening three times a week.
Start an utrecht fund.
Spend more time with my plants.
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03:31 pm
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Parties, gardens day trips and politics
This morning I emptied my camera. It was long overdue. While sifting through the photographs it occurred to me that I haven't posted any images here in a while and that perhaps I should. Most of the photos aren't great, but they do offer insight into what I have been up to. That's reason enough to share.
Shall we start in reverse chronological order? Let's.
Evidence of my glamorous life. I spent 7 hours yesterday planting bulbs in the drizzle. Around this water element, which we searched high and low for and found and the local junk supply shop in Eemnes, I have planted a literal bed of snow drops. Really, there are easily 250 snowdrop bulbs planted here and I intermingled them with a sprinkling of Chionodoxa - a wonderfully blue star shaped flower that also blooms in early March.
Oh, and the little tufts of grass that you see are Ophiopogon. I rarely use Ophiopogon but here it suited perfectly.
I am very pleased with the water element because it looks almost exactly like the element I sketched in my initial design, without knowing whether or not we would be able to find something like it. I wanted a robust, "earthy" feature that "had a history" to contrast with the clean lines and extreme newness of the rest of the design. This house in from the 1910's and has a new extension for a very modern kitchen, which was built a couple of years ago. I wanted the garden to form a relationship with the extension but also acknowledge the original house.
Here you see the house. The rabbit's new home will soon be built in one of the niches in the aluminium pergola construction. The landscaper, who is a big animal lover, made the pergola construction 10 cm. wider than designed because he felt this would give the rabbit more space. Technically the planned space is big enough but more space is rabbit-friendlier. Presently we are debating whether or not to change it back to the initial design. The garden will feel more spacious if we do, I think. However, I am trying to objectively present the pros and cons of both choices to the client. I feel like a slightly evil person for thinking, "But it's a rabbit..." I care more about the human space.
But what do you think of the pergola? Snazzy new material, no?
And it has also been agreed that the blue door will be painted the same gray as the rest of the window panes come Spring.
( Lots more and all of it equally random )
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03:58 pm
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Voor degene met de snelvergeten namen
Ramses Shaffy - August 29, 1933 - December 1, 2009
Hearing this song always reminds me of my 5th grade class in Amsterdam.
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03:03 pm
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Immigration and the (im)possibilities
Tess and I are busy planning a trip to the Pacific Northwest next summer. Since I spent a summer there when I was ten part of me has always dreamed of moving to the region. And now that I am busy researching the area again, the desire to do so is becoming again very real. Portland sounds like it would be a perfect match for me, for us, on so many levels.
But I really need to stop myself before I get too excited, because right now it is impossible and the chance of the laws changing to make it possible - in the short term - are slim.
It doesn't matter how many states recognize same sex marriage, until the laws are changed on a national level, foreign same-sex partners will not be recognized and thus do not qualify for visa's and greencards.
In my research I've come across some useful information. Apparently last February there was a bill presented to the House of Representatives to change this situation. For a new bill, it seemed to do well, but if I look at the website and the blog there, it's going to be a long process.
I think that part of the problem is that hardly anyone is aware that bi-national couples gain no rights with the new marriage and domestic partnership laws on State level. And strictly speaking, this is an immigration law issue. It is an issue that affects only a small minority within a minority population.
In some ways I also don't feel like I have a right to complain. I mean, I am presently in a country that does recognize my relationship. Tess and I are together, and it's not like I needed to move here to achieve that; I was here already. I shouldn't complain. I should be happy that our situation is not as dire as some. But that sort of resignation does not really appeal to me. These laws are wrong and flawed and need to be changed. I need to start paying attention to them and doing what I can to change them and speed up the process. I would like to encourage you to do the same.
Some useful links:
The situation as it is is explained well here:
http://www.immigrationequality.org/template.php?pageid=2
and in more detail here:
http://www.immigrationequality.org/template.php?pageid=27
Organizations that are working on this issue, and their suggestions as to how to help:
http://www.loveexiles.org/UAFA_2009.htm
http://www.out4immigration.org/immigration/homepage.html
http://www.immigrationequality.org/template3.php?pageid=1154
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03:01 pm
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You don't want to know how much I've been reading about "authentictiy" lately; it makes one cynical.
Chicago's famous blues scene is a world of grungy bars set in upscale neighborhoods, where affluent white tourists bask in the musical tradition of the black working class. According to Grazian's fascinating study, this fertile stew of contradictions makes for a cultural Rosetta Stone that helps us decipher the relations between art, business and postmodernity's quixotic search for the real. The ironies go on forever. As fans flock to blues venues in search of authentic black culture, they are served up a commodified and caricatured "minstrel show" of endlessly repeated blues standards punctuated by off-color jokes; inevitably, a backlash sets in amongst aficionados, who set off to ever smaller bars in ever poorer neighborhoods where the truly authentic blues are said to reside. Sociologist Grazian is less interested in finding authenticity than in understanding the "symbolic economy of authenticity" by which we accrue social status and seek out an "idealized reality" that "might render our lives more meaningful." If that theory sounds stuffily academic, be assured that Grazian's approach is anything but. Much of his research methodology consists of hanging out in blues joints, drinking beer, striking up conversations, occasionally sitting in with the band on the sax. The result is a elegantly written exploration, both skeptical and sympathetic, journalistic and erudite, of the many diverse subcultures, both black and white-tourists, regulars, bartenders, impresarios, musicians-that stake a claim to the blues.
- from a review of "Blue Chicago: The Search for Authenticity in Urban Blues Clubs"
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10:20 am
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Good things
Men working in *our* garden.
Happy dance! Happy dance! Happy dance!
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O, and Tess came back very happy and excited after the first of her 7 children's book illustrations in Amsterdam yesterday night. Girl's got talent, but I knew that already...
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And, the Sally Mann exhibition is at the Fotomuseum in Den Haag is very much worth checking out. I was there Saturday with Monique. Had a wonderful day as a whole actually. I love Monique and when I don't see her for a while I forget how much we connect. Monique and I need to see each other more often.
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And for some reason I find myself singing this today:
Tags: good things
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08:55 am
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More Halloween
And then we have my nephews and nieces celebrating Halloween:
I'm sure most people would be distracted by the flower getup, but all I can think is, "Poor kid has my feet..."
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09:01 am
[Link] | Slept well last night, really well, for the first time in a while.
Yesterday I placed an order for literally thousands of bulbs. It's late in the season to place the order, but I still have time. I look forward to the physical act of putting them in the ground in the coming weeks. I am also planning on potting up a bunch of bulbs. Some I will sell in the spring to put directly in gardens. However, I am also scheming on selling flowering bulbs in pots on Koninginendag.Koninginendag is a national holiday celebrating the queen's birthday and takes the form as what is essentially an nation wide garage sale. I am thinking I can equip each pot with a tag that doubles as a business card and marketing action.
(And suddenly I am reminded of this scene from Oliver Twist and I see myself singing "Blue, bluebells, blue...")
I have four gardens being built right now which should be completed in the the coming weeks. They are all good and innovative designs and I am pleased with the results thus far. It makes me happy to create something that I know hasn't been created in that way before.
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09:05 am
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Heehee
Mom and Dad celebrating Halloween. Just noticing now that they have matching glasses hanging from their shirts too. :)
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