weekly poem

What I Learned From My Mother

I learned from my mother how to love
the living, to have plenty of vases on hand
in case you have to rush to the hospital
with peonies cut from the lawn, black ants
still stuck to the buds. I learned to save jars
large enough to hold fruit salad for a whole
grieving household, to cube home-canned pears
and peaches, to slice through maroon grape skins
and flick out the sexual seeds with a knife point.
I learned to attend viewing even if I didn't know
the deceased, to press the moist hands
of the living, to look in their eyes and offer
sympathy, as though I understood loss even then.
I learned that whatever we say means nothing,
what anyone will remember is that we came.
I learned to believe I had the power to ease
awful pains materially like an angel.
Like a doctor, I learned to create
from another's suffering my own usefulness, and once
you know how to do this, you can never refuse.
To every house you enter, you must offer
healing: a chocolate cake you baked yourself,
the blessing of your voice, your chaste touch.

by Julia Kasdorf
(from her book Sleeping Preacher, 1992)

Julia Kasdorf grew up Mennonite and told stories about her people in Sleeping Preacher (1992). "It's not a culture of individual reflection or individual identity. It's not useful to sit around and think about yourself in that world. It's a world of collective identity, and storytelling is a form of collective writing." (bio taken from Good Poems, Viking, 2002, ed. Garrison Keillor)

nuff said.

etsy urban hip, week 12: plum line

I know, Dad, it's misspelled. It's a pun, y'all. I've had good luck with purple lately - in fact, my featured item here is sold out, and I include it because it's my only purple, and I'll be replacing it soon, I hope - so I'm featuring all purple by my clever girlfriends. It's a lovely color for fall. And fall, God willing, is on the way - it was freezing all last weekend, but now the air is actually visible again. Ugh. October cannot come fast enough. Plum it up.


FannyMae by BoringSidney, $75.00


Twilight Capelet by fringe, $56.00


Destash or De vorce fab vintage polished cotton purple and gold stylized roses close to 4 yards by rustchic, $12.oo


No. 008b FUSCHIAPHOBIA by Talula, $28.00

Grape Jellyfish by leavesofglass, $18.00

best spam ever

I like to check my yahoo junk folder from time to time because the subject lines are sometimes their own reward:

"Is it possible to imagine a more piffling, derisory sum."

Probably; but points for "piffling."

rust, dust and jadite, part 1

When I was in high school, my best friend Jenny and I collected paper ephemera and Americana - mostly Victorian postcards - and we used to love to spend Saturdays sifting through bins of paper offerings at flea markets. (I know, I know, we were sooooooooo badass. You wish you were edgy like us.) All summer, I've had a powerful nostalgic urge to do it again, so I spent a couple of my last summer Saturdays in flea markets and antique malls, getting my hands dirty, burning up camera batteries and picking up treasures. Jenny and I both transplanted to Illinois for college, and she still lives here too, so we reprised our flea market shopping at an enormous outdoor market in St. Charles three weeks ago.

I was mainly looking for interesting pieces of vintage costume jewelry that I might be able to take apart and rework. I didn't find much, but I did pick up a handful of unusual oddments that will be appearing here and there over the next few weeks. I did find two prize pieces of jewelry that I have no intention of taking apart, however. The first was a long chain of handforged sterling silver round links in varying sizes, with a hook at one end to allow you to wear it looped twice as a choker, looped three times as a bracelet, hooked in the middle as a lariat, or as one long necklace. Very, very cool, and a sweet $7. I seem to have neglected to take a picture of it yet. The second was a piece that I found in a booth full of eclectic jewelry very badly presented, tangled up together in shallow trays. I found what I thought were two pieces that I wanted to see untangled, and so I embarked on a ten-minute project to get all the bits clear. When I finally got it free, I found that all the parts that interested me were in fact part of one very large brass necklace. It turned out to be a vintage piece from the mid-70's designed by Rafael Alfandary, a mechanical engineer turned jewelry designer. I held it up to Jenny, browsing two booths over, who made a face and said, "It doesn't look like it belongs on a person." I mouthed, "I love it!" back at her, and proceeded to try to get the attention of the frazzled woman who ran the booth. As I had no idea at the time who Rafael of Canada was, I was unimpressed when she said, "Oh, that's by Rafael of Canada. See the signature on the back?" and I tried to haggle. She was only frazzled in appearance. No haggling for Kateri. I decided she wanted too much for it, and we moved on elsewhere. But my attention was compromised, and I fretted and fidgeted, and said, "Well, I did just make a biggish jewelry sale..." and finally Jenny said, "All right, go get it." So I did, and I've not regretted it. It's a gorgeous, enormous, organic piece of distinctive jewelry and I'm proud of it. Here 'tis:

The second noteworthy thing I encountered in St. Charles was a pair of Civil War era handcuffs. This is one of the most brutal-looking things I've ever seen. It's hard to tell from the photographs, and the owner of the booth wouldn't let me open the case (it took some convincing to get her to let me take a picture), but these don't appear to have any apparatus for opening them once they're on. Ruminate on that a while. The tag on these reads "Civil War Era Wrist Shackles: Obtained from the descendants of John Crowe, an Alabama soldier who transported slaves."

It grows late. More tales of rust and dust tomorrow, same batty channel.

WE WERE ON A BREAK!

I opted out of posting the Urban Hip Accessories collection this week, and I'm not sorry. It was intentional (although if anyone missed it, I'm pleased that you noticed!).

I took a couple of days off from Etsy this week. Thursday and Friday, I didn't log in at all or even look at the front page, except to answer a convo from a customer. And it was nice. I'd realized that as much as I love Etsy and as grateful as I am for this extraordinary venue, too much time within the walls of craft heaven tends to narrow my world more than I'd like. Used correctly, Etsy expands your world, but the comings and goings of the community were affecting my mood out of all proportion. So I went cold turkey. I got a lot more done a lot faster at the office, and consequently I left early two days in a row and got to enjoy myself out in the world. I read a largish chunk of my current book - Housekeeping vs. the Dirt by Nick Hornby; more on that in another post. I made a bunch of new jewelry, and came up with a new design for lariats using vintage buttons instead of clasps. I felt calmer.

This couldn't last, of course, because I'm an Etsy addict and an Etsy businesswoman, and I started to miss it; however, my time away served as a good reminder of the maxim "all things in moderation." I don't tend to be moderate, ever, but it's good business practice, and good community behavior, to act in moderation. It's good to remember that I have other responsibilities in addition to those I bear towards my customers, most especially a responsibility to balance in my larger life. Perspective is everything, and I enjoyed my two days with a different one.

Thanks for reading; here endeth the lecture.

because she's funnier than i am

I'm just sending you to Kaitlyn's blog for her post o' the evening. Trust me, you want to read it. There's monkeys in there.

http://kaitlynfae.blogspot.com/2007/08/in-lieu-of-something-interesting.html

weekly poem

Egg

I'm scrambling an egg for my daughter.
"Why are you always whistling?" she asks.
"Because I'm happy."
And it's true,
Though it stuns me to say it aloud;
There was a time when I wouldn't
Have seen it as my future.
It's partly a matter of who is there to eat the egg:
The self fallen out of love with itself
Through the tedium of familiarity,
Or this little self,
So curious, so hungry,
Who emerged from the woman I love,
A woman who loves me in a way
I've come to think I deserve,
Now that it arrives from outside me.
Everything changes, we're told,
And now the changes are everywhere:
The house with its morning light
That fills me like a revelation,
The yard with its trees
That cast a bit more shade each summer,
The love of a woman
That both is and isn't confounding,
And the love
Of this clamor of questions at my waist.
Clamor of questions,
You clamor of answers,
Here's your egg.

by C.G. Hanzlicek

(from his book The Cave: Selected and New Poems, 2001)

etsy urban hip, week 11: think cool thoughts

It continues to be unbearably hot in Chicago, like living in a damp inferno. And the first person who points out the physical impossibility of such an environment will be summarily dismissed from my presence, thank you very much. I stand by my oxymoron. So without further ado, cool and soothing accessories:

No. 55e Ethereal by talula, $16.00

Lillian by boringsidney, $95.00

The Lily Lariat by fringe, $45.00

Finland meets the bayou Marimekko Ananas Fabric bag in lime green by rustchic, $54.00

Ice Necklace by leavesofglass, $34.00

weekly poem

For Kaitlyn, embarking on her great adventure. I wish you new experiences and challenges, fascinating people and wonderful stories, all of which I expect to hear about. Godspeed, Katie Scissorhands. I love you.

where we are
(for edward field)

i envy those
who live in two places:
new york, say, and london;
wales and spain;
l.a. and paris;
hawaii and switzerland.

there is always the anticipation
of the change, the chance that what is wrong
is the result of where you are. i have
always loved both the freshness of
arriving and the relief of leaving. with
two homes every move would be a homecoming.
i am not even considering the weather, hot
or cold, dry or wet: i am talking about hope.

by Gerald Locklin

(from his book The Iceberg Theory, 2000 - sorry no link, it seems to be not only out of print, but ungettable)

it. is. unbearably. muggy.

Enjoy the cooling imagery. I'm going back to bed.

woo hoo!

I made my 100th sale today. Thanks, Etsy, and all my wonderful, beautiful customers!

heartbroken, but in a good way

I got a treasury spot on Etsy earlier this week, and built a treasury I've been planning to do for some time, focusing on graphic novels and zines. We have some genius authors out there, and I wanted to showcase their work. I got incredibly lucky today, and Jared, who is the administrative force behind Etsy's brilliant interactive graphics, chose my treasury to be featured on the front page, so all these great artists got to be the first thing anyone saw today when they visited Etsy. Unfortunately, the only reason I know this is because my faithful friend Fringe told me about it. I, alas, was at the Simpsons Movie. The irony of my cartoon distraction is not lost on me. The sting is slightly mitigated because Jared commented that he wanted my treasury "to last forever." As I am half in love with Jared, partly because of his own graphic genius with Etsy, but mostly because of his hair, that made me a little dizzy. Anyway, here's the list. If I say so myself, I think it rocks.

etsy urban hip, week 10: I love the movies

Everything about them: the big screen, the big and little stars, the great lines, the bad lines, the storylines, even the sticky floor. And especially the moment when the lights go down. That's my love of a sense of ritual at work. I'm going to go to a matinee today just because I can.

I was only looking for movie-themed items in our shops this week, but they turn out to be fairly color-coordinated as well (except for mine; but I think it works anyway). Nice work, girls. My guest feature this week is Louise Black; please visit her shop for more gorgeously original and weirdly gothic fashion.

Holly Golightly Luxury Shrug by fringe, $135.00

Mildred Pierce earrings by leavesofglass, $22.00
Pretty in Pink by boringsidney, $80.00
No. 150 Diva by talula, $48.00

Vampire Lestat Mojo III vintage tooled metallic leather and lace cuff all recycled from New Orleans by bayousalvage, $18.00

Marie Antoinette Pink Lace Rococo Party Dress OOAK by louiseblack, $235.00