march arrives, mars attacks!

Happy new month!

March first already -- I can hardly believe it. February was a bit of a foggy blur, somehow. (foggy blur sounds like a lame batman villain excuse: "I don't know, officer. I was just standing here minding my own business and then everything went, you know, foggy and blurry. When I came to I was as surprised as you are to see myself in this fog suit. I know nothing about the mayor of Gotham being bound and gagged in the trunk of my car or about the sixteen canvas bags stamped with dollar signs and full of non-consecutive twenties that one would assume, if one knew anything about this, are to keep him from rolling around and making noise.")

favorite overheard comment at the library this week: "I'm not a hippie, I'm an anarchist! We hate hippies! ... I eschew all labels!" (she was fooling around when she said it, but it was still funny!)

most difficult to decipher note made during Decemberists' Concert last month, just looked at by me today: Maybe I should have looked at my notes a little sooner because I have NO IDEA what "eyebrow devils" means. EYEBROW DEVILS?? I must also note that there is definitely room for improvement in my rock show penmanship.

Deep Prince thought: So, I was walking in the park today listening to my ipod (as is my habit), and Let's Go Crazy came on. Many times I'll skip older songs so I don't wear myself out on them. (more likely: my ipod, which is either dying a slow electronic death or nearing sentience, will refuse to let me skip or randomly skip songs itself.) Anyway -- Let's Go Crazy, says Prince. Okay, says me. The lyrics that jumped out at me this time are ones that make me think that people who say that Prince is the modern incarnation of those sexy mystic poets of yore (Donne, Marvell, Kabir, etc.) are on to something:

We're all excited
But we don't know why
Maybe it's 'cause
We're all gonna die
And when we do
What's it all for
You better live now before the grim reaper
Come knocking on your door, tell me
Are we gonna let de-elevator bring us down, oh, no,
let's go

Let's go crazy
Let's get nuts

I know you could argue it down to the "hey, baby you know you want to/carpe diem (in my pants!)" school of poetry, but I think there's more to it than that; the fear of god is present as well. (Metaphysics of Prince 101 -- I would totally take this class!)

Sick in the right way: I love this post at Said the Gramophone (and the song, too):"Huey "Piano" Smith suffers from chronic and severe cases of both rockin' pneumonia and boogie-woogie flu. Such a dual affliction is admittedly as rare as steak tartare, but Smith's song, prototypically symptomatic of his condition, leaves no doubt about the authenticity of his so-called suffering. [...] In fact, so profound is Smith's case that not even Jonas Salk himself would be capable of finding a cure. Thank goodness then that the man known as "Piano" learned to live with his ailment, even joining forces with the similarly sick: namely, a baritone sax player, who, if my ears do not deceive me, has a mean case of R&B fever, and a drummer with whooping cough of soul.

(there is some really funny and wonderful text represented by ellipses above, so you'd best go over there and check it out.)

And now, some photos for the first of March:


I think a hellebore on March 1 should become a new blog tradition. This, like last year, was taken at the garden center since I don't have any hellebores of my own. (why don't I? They're so pretty!)


Oooh -- these were fun. There was plastic wrapped around the edges of the usually open building to keep it a little warmer for the plants, which made a surprisingly good backdrop for a photo. This one looks kind of asian to me.


this was from the 28th -- cherries starting to bloom at laurelhurst park. Hooray!