Joan

"We tell ourselves stories in order to live. The princess is caged in the consulate. The man with the candy will lead the children into the sea. The naked woman on the ledge outside the window on the sixteenth floor is a victim of accidie, or the naked woman is an exhibitionist, and it would be 'interesting' to know which. We tell ourselves that it makes some difference whether the naked woman is about to commit a mortal sin or is about to register a political protest or is about to be, the Aristophanic view, snatched back to the human condition by the fireman in priest's clothing just visible in the window behind her, the one smiling at the telephoto lens." — Joan Didion

1966

1966 and lovely, I'd give my feet and toes to have been alive for the premiere. I watched this movie for the first time a few months ago, when summer was just beginning, and I will never forget the blur of yellows and reds in that little living room in Idaho, sitting with a heap of pillows and two new friends (a man and a woman, in fact), sleepy eyes scanning subtitles to a language I wish I had learned while still in school (I suppose there's still time), and falling in love with this woman's face (I still don't know her name, and I'd be a failure at pronouncing it, anyhow).

China

Two sets of vintage Lenox china (one almost identical to this pattern) sit in boxes, waiting for me to make my next move. They were both gifted to me, one belonged to my grandmother, the other my great-grandmother.

One set contains teacups whose insides are perfectly stained purple from red wine (I always serve wine in teacups) from the many cocktail parties I hosted while living in my studio apartment in Moscow, Idaho. I should probably be punished for this (I hope my grandmothers understand), but I will never try and scrub them clean.

Ducks

All of my things are in boxes. After living in Idaho for some years and completing graduate school, I have returned to my parents' home in Bellingham. I am waiting for the next thing, for my man to pack his 4x6 U-haul and move to Washington next week, for us to move together to the city. Home alone and dreamy (my parents have gone to San Francisco for the weekend), I get the idea to look in my Dad's closet for the knit sweater with the stitched ducks, circa Randy Pries 1979. I remember the duck sweater from old photographs of my father, bundled on a grey coast of California winter, on his honeymoon stay in Pajaro Dunes (my mother could confirm this, I'm not positive it was the honeymoon, that could have been his perfect flannel coat). My father doesn't save much, but I know the sweater's back there, somewhere deep, near his starch white tennis sweater from Alameda High School. I find it. The ducks on the sweater are orange and golden brown and look like Thanksgiving. I miss a crisp autumn. I feel it passing.

Introductions

This is a blog for your grandmother. I know little about computers. I'm a bit bored. I have a friend in France and I'd like to show her my cowboy boots.