Joslyn Hamilton (smallstones)

This was an actual conversation with my friend Lark today. Lark is my erstwhile personal trainer but he is also, and more importantly, an old and dear friend. The genius of Lark’s personal training talent is that he knows how to meet each client on their level. My level is hopelessness and despair, coupled with self-discipline and a driving need to be productive. He motivates me with humor and cynicism. It’s perfect. 

This is what $40 worth of cheap candles from Cost Plus looks like. Normally I’m not a cheap scented candle PERSON, but I’ll tell you what, 9 days of dead-rodent-in-your-house will turn you — will turn anyone, really — into a fan of cheap scented candles. This is a last resort. Previously, I have tried:

1. baking soda
2. diluted peppermint oil sprayed liberally along the floorboards
3. a lot of lilies
4. complaining
5. whining
6. crying
7. a very small expensive citrus-scented candle from The Whole

These things were all powerless against the scent of rat-rot. Time to bring out the big guns.

This is my friend Michael’s dog Tigerlily. We hike together sometimes. She’s a sweet natured thing with just a hint of a dark side, so I feel like I really get her, and she, in turn, does me the favor of remembering who I am. She also reaaaaaaaally likes to lick my face, which I’m not that into. I’m not actually not a dog person. I love all animals equally but, like they say in Animal Farm, some are more equal than others. For instance, that mouse/rat/whatever that’s slowly rotting in my wall right now? I don’t love it. On a continuum of dead rotting mouse to flaming tiger, I’d say dogs are somewhere in the low-middle. It depends whether or not the list includes invertebrates, particularly banana slugs. If you consider those scourges “animals,” then dogs get bumped up quite significantly. 

I was listening to this Radiolab podcast called Deception about how people who have the gene where they can lie to themselves are generally happier healthier people overall. It has something to do with having an extra special amount of white matter in the brain and being able to compartmentalize your positive thoughts from your true thoughts and convince yourself that you are a really good person who would never think about bad things and who basically sees the good and chaste in everything. They’ve done all sorts of scientific studies on  how these are the ones who end up happy and successful and win Olympic gold medals and have lots of babies and just generally make it through life unscathed, mainly because they’ve somehow managed to convince themselves that life is not a total shit show and that there is good in the world. I was listening to this, and I was thinking, I am so fucked. 

But on the bright side, I managed to take a picture of myself with minimal jowls. 

This is all I know about Budapest.

And by Budapest, I mean my cat. As for the city, I also know very little, but also way too much. I went to Budapest once, with my last boyfriend, who was half Hungarian. He was a one of a kind, piece of work kind of guy. He was an anomaly, and I have never met anyone like him. Neither has anyone else. For starters, he was the only vegan Hungarian who has ever walked this earth. The Hungarians do not have a word for “vegan.” So, traveling with this person through meat-loving Budapest was an adventure and an inconvenience. Our days consisted of long, circuitous walks through cold Soviet-built streets and haunted medieval alleys to the one vegan restaurant in the city. It was inside an old converted bunker from the Cold War days. The significance of this symbolism did not escape me. Our relationship expired on that trip. And I was left with… well, not much. But Budapest the cat stuck with me. She is my ally. With most people, she vacillates being standoffish and cruel. But Budapest and I are kindred spirits. In the mornings, when no one else is around, she cozies up with me and this one particular old tattered, raggy cashmere sweater that she absolutely adores. I think it reminds her of her mom cat, honestly. She smothers that thing with love and affection (and drool). The sweater was a leftover from another old boyfriend I left behind many years ago. Or vice versa, who knows. Anyway, at this point, it’s just me and Budapest and the sweater. We get by.

Wandering the De Young on my creative hooky day (a new monthly tradition), listening to the Babel soundtrack to drown out The Others, for the second time in my life I looked up and gasped at this shadow art. The best things at the De Young aren’t even really things. 

I bought this teapot about five years ago. At the time, I worked at a yoga studio on Divisadero Street in San Francisco. Next door was a shop selling Southeast Asian imports. This teapot sat in the window, and I had my eye on it. But I wasn’t in the habit of buying myself things. Then, one day, I saw a sign. The store was going out of business. I’m afraid I did capitalize on their demise. I got my hands on the teapot for a very good sum. It has served me well. One of the two spiral handles has broken off, so now, instead of picking it up, I must tilt it gently forward to dispense tea. Today, we are drinking Midsummer Night, a blend by Tea Sparrow that includes “a dramatic and whimsical play of jasmine, rose and lotus notes.” I do love me a whimsical tea. 

For more about me and tea

Christy brought me these red gladiolas. They are really tying the room together. Outside, it is raining and dark and blustery and quite nasty. This is my favorite kind of weather. Because inside, it is cozy and warm and calm, and I have red gladiolas and sleeping kitties and homemade soup and a new song by Hudson Bell called “The Other Side” that is making me really happysad right now. And no reason to leave. Contentment.