I made this during the baby’s morning nap. Made with a still camera, my great uncle’s scrap butterfly art and istopmotion. This is straight-from-camera stop motion. I liked it better unedited. This is the story of a butterfly who escapes from her ordinary life in the search for love. The love she finds is one that can never be. then I got sick of trying to make her wings flap so I gave up. enjoy.
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Dec
31
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Dec
31
Hiccups
My grandpa once grew a cabbage that was bigger than my dog. He also grew a carrot that was bigger than my grandmother. He won awards. Gramps grew everything huge. He ate healthy before it was cool and made his own pasta, tomato sauce, and wine from his own grapes. He boiled water to purify it before you could buy it bottled at the store. He died at 60 from a rare cancer of the stomach lining.
One day he got the hiccups and they didn’t stop. He saw the doctor a few days later and was diagnosed with a tumor the size of a golf ball. He died a month later. The tumor was nearly the size of a basket ball. Gramps grew everything huge.
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Feb
15
I Love NY
I like New York. They have meatballs on the corners of their streets. They make them into sandwiches with cheese and other things. I didn’t have one but I liked that I could if I wanted to.
Tonight, I am going to The Hayden Planetarium because I want to see stars and there are too many buildings in the way. There, I’ll think of my family and our trips to Disney World. We liked Space Mountain best and would wait in the two-hour-long line tortured by anticipation. And halfway through the line, at the hologram picture of Jupiter, my father’s love of science and games would kick in:
“Name the four largest moons of Jupiter or go to the end of the line.”
And there we were, my brother and I, back at the end of the line repeating “Ganymede-Callisto-Io-Europa-Ganymede-Callisto-Io-Europa” with a determined, rhythmic fury. By the time we made it on the ride, we were alive and gnashing our teeth. Careening around corners, our chests heaving, we’d scream out “Ganymede-Callisto-Io-Europa!” (Interestingly, 7 years later, and high on acid, I was kicked off this ride for yelling the very same thing.)
Tonight, I’ll watch the planets orbiting above my head in the dark. The earth will look small and I will almost disappear. They will talk about light-years and you will finally seem closer to me.
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Feb
12
Dear Tom,
This morning, in the shower, I spotted a spider. He crept along the outside of the clear plastic liner - - I could see his underbelly; his soft spots. When he saw me he stopped dead. We watched each other through the drops of water chasing down the curtain between us. Normally, I hate spiders. They are so yucky. But this morning (this spider) was different. I leaned in closer to get a better look and he ran sideways and up. His sudden dash made me jump backwards and slip. I hit my elbow against the wall on my way down. From the wet shower floor, I watched him; moving left, then right, then right again; stopping every now and then to see where I was. His movements were so unpredictable; a random pattern that made me uneasy, made me afraid to move at all. I thought about smashing him. I would hold my breath and take him out. I would try not to hear the crunch or think about his life at all. But instead I just sat there, the water getting colder; my breath catching in my chest. I was wounded on the shower floor, and he was moving right, left, left, stop. Right, right, left, stop. p.s. You’re the spider.
5
This morning, it is a miserable 5 degrees and the woods have turned into glass; one gust and the whole forrest will shatter. I want so badly to take a walk at the park, stand at the cliff over the Chagrin River and breathe; watch my breath turn to clouds.
Rehabilitation
I used to work at the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center in Kirtland, Ohio.
It was my job to feed the broken birds of prey - the ones who could not be rehabilitated, the ones who would live out the rest of their lives in cages.
It was my job to look after the orphaned rabbits, birds, squirrels, and everything in between, until they could be released back into the wild.
“Just hold the rabbit in your left hand and squeeze the dropper with your right. You know it’s enough formula when it starts comin’ out their nose…hold the legs tight, they can kick so hard they’ll break their own backs…”
The tiny rabbit squirmed in my hand; terrified wide eyes; heart thumping madly.
I thought, “God help me, I’m drowning a bunny. ”
“Okay, that’s enough. Now hold it upside-down ‘til it all pours out.”
My rabbit dangled with a sort of dejected compliance, milk spurting out of its nose in fits. There had to be a better way to do this. I put him back in the incubator praying he would forget me. “I’m so sorry,” I whispered, “Fuck.”
Eventually, I got to know my rabbit so well that I could tell by his eyes, or the way he breathed, when he’d had enough. I could tell because he looked like me; sounded like me. I’d think of what my mother would say when there was a spider in my room and I couldn’t sleep,
“He is as afraid of you as you are of him.”
“Try not to look the raptors in the eye, it makes them nervous. Sing to them. …and watch your fingers.”
Red-tailed Hawks, Peregrine Falcons, Great Grey Owls, American Kestrels and Sharp-shinned Hawks; they were all broken or blind or clipped or sad. Every morning I placed frozen mice in lifelike positions on the branches in their huge cages. I’d tried not to flinch when they’d swoop down silently over my head and pick each mouse off, one by one, sometimes slicing them in half. They were beautiful and heartbreaking and frightening all at once. God, I loved them, and I wanted my love to fix them. I wanted them to believe they could fly again, but their eyes were all worn or missing or dark; a hopelessness that left them hollow and incomplete, in halves like their frozen mice.
“Remember the risk you’re taking: Baby birds are susceptible to imprinting. If you’re not careful, they will become irreversibly bonded to you.”
My sparrow was beautiful. He needed to be fed every hour, so I took him everywhere with me. He went to Astrophysics in a shoebox on Tuesdays and Thursdays. He went to Detroit and waited in the coatroom while I played Chopin on stage. He slept on my nightstand by a copy of To Kill a Mockingbird, which I faced the other way just in case he questioned my intentions. When it was time, he soared into the sky like nothing I’d ever seen. He never looked back.
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Feb
09
Try Eggs, Maybe
I stepped outside my door this morning to a winter wonderland; every branch on every tree shining white. The icicles— dripping, dancing, dripping. When I see this, I think of my mother driving me to school on a morning when I’d forgotten my lunch and missed the bus. She’d swear awhile and look mean. Then, she’d look around at the winter landscape, at the icicles, at my breath fogging the car window, at my finger tracing a heart on the glass–and the tension would melt away.
“It’s a fairy land!” she’d say.
“Do you see them? They are in the air - they are all around us!” And somehow, before me, the snow flakes would sprout wings and come to life.
Today, there are millions of them. They are schooling like cavefishes; like doves; like whip-poor-wills. I want to run to the cabin where I spent New Year’s. I want to make love to you on the edge of the cliff where the swallows dive deep into their caverns, into the warm earth. I have eaten a bowl of oatmeal this morning and it has given me that extra kick I needed!
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Feb
08
Anonymous asked: Your first pet?
I used to go to school carnivals specifically to win goldfish. My mother didn’t like pets. They left footprints on her perfectly straight vacuum lines and smelled up our museum-house. It was harder to say no to a PTA-bred, school-won goldfish, so I brought them home in little zip-locked baggies by the fistful. My brother would knock them out of my hands at least once before I got them home. I’d cry and soothe my bag-o-fish in the same manner… ”It’s okay Squirt. He’s a jerk.” and from then on, Squirt would be my confidant, my little finned friend-for-life, to whom I’d tell all my secrets. Squirt later committed suicide by leaping from his bowl onto the pink marble tile of my bathroom sink.
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Feb
08
More honest grunting and moaning by fantastic pianists.
I got to meet Mose 2 years ago. At 83 years old, he’s still gigging and is kind, humble, hip, and as rockin’ as ever.
Mose Allison - Baby Please Don’t Go
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