The one that put Clark Griswald to shame....

Surprise! Something new!

I'm still alive. Although this stupid weather it doing it's best to give me a stroke and fill me with HATE. So, I thought I'd bundle up and spend more than three hours outside in the cold darkness last night. But there was beer and a TRAIN! and cookies so all was well.

Anyway, here's a photo essay of the debauchery in which I partook. (I just made up my own semantics right there)

Theme was a Christmas Light hash. In which we would be taking in all the urban tackiness of the holiday season. While wearing red Santa hats. One would think we would like our eyes to be OPEN to observe said tackiness but NO! not hashers. We will take our dose of visual christmas cheer thru mostly closed eyelids, thankyouverymuch.

[if that doesn't make sense...click the picture to make it larger]




Obilgatory pre-run photo...to my left is friend Jen who long ago went to KOREA and has returned briefly only to leave again for Canadia. No fair, eh? Note she has both beer and pumpkin schnapps in hand. In my opinion, schnapps should come with a Z-pack prescription because one of the rules of schnapps is that it must be drunk (erm drank?) straight from the bottle therefore harboring the germs of all those who are present. So, eww.




First stop is the home of the hare for tonight's trail. Backyard bonfire and games were promised. I learned that one good way to keep grownups occupied for the better part of 45 minutes is to hide 6 superballs in a huge pile of leaves and make them find them IN THE DARK and promise them a stupid prize. Worked like a charm. [And I am still not sure there were actually SIX in the pile because I didn't find ANY. *ahem*]



Anyone recognize the lamp in the front window? Bonus points and stupid prize if you do. You win all TEN hashers plus the pooch who made themselves at home on the lawn of the presumably very hip folks who own the lamp. I heard the lamps go for like $1500 on ebay. There is no end to the tackiness that can be found in the Lou.



Sober as the day is long, I'm sad to say. And on my computer it looks strangely like I'm holding Derek's head in my outstretched left hand. I am not.



Me being unbelievably witty and pretending to pull out the Bumble's teeth. Remember? The misfit elf, who wanted to be a dentist, pulled them out so he wouldn't be so scary? I for one felt that he should be without his teeth but at this point no one was listening to me because there was food. So I figured I'd take care of the teeth myself. WITTY!



Bumbles bounce!!

The Beating of My Heart

All is well. Just sharing some pictures that make me smile. They are beautiful to me in their fierceness and stregnth.

I am incapable of leading with my head instead of my heart. That will mean higher highs and lower lows that at this point in my life seem to have very sharp edges. This is nothing new and it's not likely to change. The only promise I can give you is that I'm unlikely to write about it again. [and there was much rejoicing!! yay! yay!]

-To fall in love is easy, even to remain in it is not difficult; our human loneliness is cause enough. But it is a hard quest worth making to find a comrade through whose steady presence one becomes steadily the person one desires to be.

-Anna Louise Strong

Backpedaling

To Have Without Holding
Marge Piercy

Learning to love differently is hard,
love with the hands wide open, love
with the doors banging on their hinges,
the cupboard unlocked, the wind
roaring and whimpering in the rooms
rustling the sheets and snapping the blinds
that thwack like rubber bands
in an open palm.

It hurts to love wide open
stretching the muscles that feel
as if they are made of wet plaster,
then of blunt knives, then
of sharp knives.

It hurts to thwart the reflexes
of grab, of clutch; to love and let
go again and again. It pesters to remember
the lover who is not in the bed,
to hold back what is owed to the work
that gutters like a candle in a cave
without air, to love consciously,
conscientiously, concretely, constructively.

I can't do it, you say it's killing
me, but you thrive, you glow
on the street like a neon raspberry,
You float and sail, a helium balloon
bright bachelor's button blue and bobbing
on the cold and hot winds of our breath,
as we make and unmake in passionate
diastole and systole the rhythm
of our unbound bonding, to have
and not to hold, to love
with minimized malice, hunger
and anger moment by moment balanced.

I stole this from Oh the Joys. It was just too beautiful not to share and every time I read it, I speaks to me differently.

Yes indeed it is hard to love wide open. To have and not to hold.

Perhaps I was scared and went looking for trouble.

"I believe it is possible for two people to look at the same thing and see things completely different."