Cover

The morning starts as if a dream, with downed trees and misty silence.



Thoreau and I tramp down uneven cement and stone. We turn through brambles and glide over patches of green.

What is this day? Where did everyone hide during the storm? I spent late last night pacing the floor in my pajamas and peering out the window, watching the wind and rain sprint and then gust/gush down Jefferson Avenue. I waited for the end of the siren's piercing wail. I would not call this fearless moment. James checked the weather online and when the siren did stop, we calmed Thoreau and then slipped back into bed. As I dropped into slumber, I could hear the ever-fading voice of James telling me where one should go in case of a tornado. I dreamt of water pouring through a cracked window and the dark, musty corner of the basement of my childhood home. We sat at a card table with an emergency radio, playing cards by candlelight.

intention

For this small space in time, sitting, ankles crossed and toes curled, I feel the weight of those pints and cigarettes, that shoddy conversation, my fake smile.

The elastic curve of my forehead draws up and my breath skims and shakes. Why do I even try to pretend? What brings this flourescent light to my eyes? What blocks out each corresponding memory?

people is place

Your thin lipped, toothy smile, surrounded by grizzled, tan pallor. Your Jeans, too short, hanging loosely around your minuscule frame. Your spindly fingers grasping the bar, cutting elbows jutting behind you. Bottles line the wall. Posters blanket the ceiling. We are enveloped in the smoke stale air. The fan turns and I am alone. This darkness, this dirty dreary edgy hole. No window. Light floods from the small stage. Light lingers around the bar. Light peeks from the top of the soundboard. Stacks of chairs line one wall, the wall covered in posters and shimmering spectres of the past, thousands of staples. Thousands.

I once had a dream that I was compelled to remove those staples one by one. Hours of bloodied knuckles and splintered wood rewarded with a tetanus shot and a cold Budweiser. As I drained the last drop from the bottle, the walls of the bar started to crack and then crumble. Each in turn fell backward...leaving only the roof above us and beyond it, the starry sky brilliant.

Would you?

Swing, swing, skip, step into the dusk.

no new enhancements

but so much more. I've not posted much over the past two years. Sporadic strange descriptions of cloudy, drowsy days, a few favorite videos, mentions of local activities, small bits of news. I plan to write more, Dear Hearts, for this small gathering of friends. No expectations. Just truth through the dusty frames. Just moments of here and there. Some music. Some memories. A few small hopes. And many plans.

10

I find myself surrounded by wrinkled, sad laundry and warm air and evening light. I am serenaded by Mark Kozelek's ACDC covers and the whirring hum of our new bronze toned vintage-looking oscillating fan. What is this time? What is the time? And where are you? Days and hours and minutes away, in a solemn room, in a neighboring country.

watch signs. keep right.

a lovely and odd bicycle safety video featuring the music of Jon Brion.

Impressions of the Past

Absolutely gorgeous video directed by photographer Tim Lytvinenko

Megafaun "Impressions of the Past"
Directed by: Tim Lytvinenko - http://luceoimages.com

Megafaun - Impressions of the Past from Hometapes on Vimeo.

Learn more about Megafaun

Buy "Gather, Form & Fly" on 2xLP or CD



My friend Leah and her Lil Leah puppet on her birthday with the boys from Megafaun at the Bottletree in Birmingham, Alabama. I love this picture. It's magic.

brookwood

2004 - Charla and Tom stood at the end of my hospital bed. I felt rather tired and under accessorized. A day of steroids can do this to a girl. The white patterned cotton gown and drab bedclothes. The plain striped walls and pale pictures. The exhausted looking television in the corner of my vision. Tom and Charla appraised the damaged/damage and smiled. They knew that I would eventually be okay, no matter what. It had been quite a scare, indeed. I would make it. I would find my way. Tom handed me a copy of Modest Mouse's newest record. And as he and Charla said their good byes and departed, I slipped the cd into my discman and reclined.



...everyone's a building burning
with no one to put the fire out
standing at the window looking out
waiting for time to burn us down
everyone's an ocean drowning
with no one really to show how
they might get a little better air
tf they turned themselves into a cloud

from blame it on the tetons by modest mouse

golden mouthed moments

I didn't expect it to be like this. Not now. Not during my first quarter back at school. Not in the midst of huge promising projects at work. Not now. But with the stress of it all came this, burning and bending, bashing in all plans.

FOALS // SPANISH SAHARA from dave ma on Vimeo.

I am on the tenth day of my MS relaps-a-cation. I've started a second round of steroids. With my trusty aluminum cane and a pair of padded slippers, I've overcome biting foot pain and an unbalanced gait to get from room to room. And the rest of the time...I lie here on the futon and wait. I rest. And hour after hour passes by. The light creeps up and down the windowsill. The snow keeps melting on the lawn, all traces of winter storms disappearing. And slowly, in their own achingly quiet way, my symptoms have started to melt away as well. Yes. I know it's going to take some time. Even so, I can feel strength returning and the smile returning to my face.

respite

I, in my whale pajamas and bedhead braids, am suddenly aware.
It's the kidney-bean-shaped, hand-with-splayed-fingers sized numbness just to the looking-down left of my belly button and the coldness of the hardwood floors. The floor is damp with melted snow. I hold my cup and saucer high, sauntering from kitchen through the dark bedroom and into my Saturday. I set down my coffee and crawl back into bed, tucking my arms and shoulders under the edge of the comforter. My bare feet wallow in the tuck of sheets at the foot of the bed.

Where are you going, my Love? What are you doing? Folding back pages and trying not to bend the spines.

I am warm.

Where are you again? Bent over desk, pulling on your beard thoughtfully. You close your brown eyes and open them again to scan and comprehend the words on the printed page before you. You inhale, catching the heated air into your brown, battered lungs.

My mind is swarming and spilling into sleep.

swim

You turned your fork over with quiet grace. Crumbs traced, fell into tiny raked lines, golden. I took another sip of coffee. I turned to the window. These late nights, the pressure in my head, my left hand stained with ink, my eyes tired and stale, these late nights had to end. You smiled and tilted your head to watch our waitress ramble down the aisle. Her shoes gleamed in their own rigid, florescent loveliness.

Holiday

500 hundred miles or so into tomorrow, I will turn and stretch in my car seat and look out into the darkness, scanning the horizon for that hint of light, that faded lovely glow in the distance. Birmingham. The Magic City. I will look to James and smile sleepy tears of excitement. Soon I will see our families. Soon I will hold my grandmother's hand.




Christina Courtin - Rainy -
one of my favorite tracks recently posted on Said The Gramaphone.

Winter 1993

Sometimes, dearest, I just stop. Because I don't understand.

Sometimes I look at my life and say...yes. All of these things.

Sometimes I turn and look at you.

Sometimes I remember that trailer on the edge of town. Sometimes I remember a white bench seat in an old two door, the engine humming in the chilly Winter wind. The awkward windows. The scene on the screened-in porch. Weren't they all scenes. Weren't they all waiting. Why didn't they say one thing. I was in the midst of a Midwestern Austen adaptation. Longing. Silence. Longing. Silence. Whispers. Anticipation. Silence. All in the middle of a god-damned cornfield.

You were there, corn silk hair and gray eyes. You were there, all form and no function. You were there, hands in pockets and digging at the gravel road with the toes and heels of your shoes. I was there and I walked away, cold air burning red into my tear-stained cheeks.



Sharon Van Etten - For You from the album Because I Was In Love

Pied Piper Triumphant

I reached down to nervously clutch my purse. My hand furrowed down between chair and desk to find a lonely lunch bag. I caught myself and stared up at my Advisor. I had almost captured her lunch. "So..." she smiled and dragged one hand across her hair as she tapped and tapped the mouse. She turned her head to me. Her bangs stood out sideways from her head, a dangerous angle, sharp and satirical.

"Um...I don't know. Um..." We stopped for a moment as I fumbled through the papers upon my lap. I was so ashamed of the amounts of Ds and Fs and what-have-you's on my transcripts, but so proud of the memories that they produced. Every year of incompletes, save one, stood for this lovely, terrific life I led. Every F for a series of mornings, overslept or just delinquent...from what adventures? From stuffing students into my little blue car for seemingly pointless but truly amazing day excursions to St. Louis. To the family farm. To Denver, Colorado. To defunct Utopian communities dotting the Midwest. To shows in Chicago, Atlanta, Nashville, and New Orleans. To late night rock shows at the Nick. To laying about on rainy days discussing nothing but the weather while Red House Painters beat the din that marched my heart to it's adolescent sadness My only regret is time. That I am 31 and have so much math yet to learn.

"So? What do you think?" She had brushed her unwieldy bangs down. Her eyes peered through her slim glasses. Click. Click-click.

"Yes. I think that's great. Those classes sound perfect."

And with that...I became a student again. At last.

Múm "Sing Along" from Team G on Vimeo.