So many boats in my dreams, this last while. Boats and boats and then again boats. I like boats, always have (particularly those powered by muscle not motor), maybe as the result of having for a father a man who in his youth was a sailor or maybe as the result of my Piscean nature.

It’s crazy-hot here now and it’s not even June yet.

Brokeny can be a good thing. Brokeny can be a thing I like, and often is.

Mmmmm, hands.

This year, watching the Tour de France on TV, I heard one of the announcers say, “There’s the beautiful sunflower field” and it made me happy that, given all the manful muscling in the pelotonic tumult, he thought to mention that quiet golden place. Since then the words”There is the beautiful sunflower” have lodged themselves in my imagination in the inexplicable way certain words and phrases do from time to time, becoming something like a prayer or an offering or a streamer of solace unfurled the way a strand of birch bark can be freed from the tree.

Also?

Butcher’s charts take it all apart.

Sewing patterns put it all together.

The sundering and the reconciling … they interest me, both. I maybe love taxidermy because it requires both; I should maybe love the jigsaw puzzle more than I do, for the same reason.

Often I think of the poetry of objects
about the way a seam is resolved
or the way a spine grows
about the things we make with our bodies
and the bones from out of our bodies

Sometimes I feel like Reepicheep finally arrived at the edge of the world and sometimes I feel like I’m standing way up high on a tall place where I have to make a choice about whether I’ll step off and float away, or not.

You know, I’m not really a big fan of birds (the Byrds, yes, birds, no). Okay, truth be told, I find them horrible and creepy, more than is strictly reasonable — if in fact there’s a degree of finding-birds-horrible-and-creepy that could be characterised as “reasonable”. Mostly, of course, my distaste for birds doesn’t matter, doesn’t have an impact on my life — except when preparing a whole chicken for consumption. Yow. Now that is the stuff nightmares are made of. Mostly, however, I don’t think about birds or worry about birds.

How to catch an octopus
by Patrick Widdess

When I grow up, I want to be a people. A people with antlers.

The carapace is a wonderful thing in its own right and I can celebrate its utility and its beauty — I can, I honestly can. But I never really forget that for all its protective value, it’s also a small, confined place, like a pedestal … or a prison.

Ice is nice. Okay, if you’re me, it’s more than nice.

Blue-and-white china is a lovely thing indeed. I have rarely seen any that I did not like, at least a bit, at least the colour scheme if not the pattern. Because while green is queen, blue is definitely her consort, and the consort’s most worthy consort is white.

I have seen the face of compromised sanity and it looks like Santa.

If you take away my periodic PMS madness and my 92%-of-the-time short fuse, I’m a pretty fun gal.

I took my kids to see Zombieland the other day. (Because yes, I am an awesome mother.) It was a highly enjoyable experience, more than any of us had anticipated, honestly, and chief among the many excellent moments was the scene in which the four nonzombies who are our heroes realize the rules of quotidian life no longer pertain and lay waste to a souvenir shop, smashing and crushing and pulverising all the cheap tat that stocks the shop’s shelves. It is an exhilarating moment, for sure, because transgression so often is, and transgression that involves destruction? Ding ding ding! We have a winner, folks!

Today is the day for the beautiful bones.

When colour isn’t present to advance the story, form and texture are what keep the narrative moving.

I am very, very afraid of fire. Very, very afraid of it and very, very — o so very — compelled by it.

Last May, I ran a half-marathon. It was a dreadful experience, in ways I can’t, even four months later, fully articulate. I can tell you that I wasn’t jubilant when I crossed the finish line, I didn’t feel the lightness of spirit I had anticipated. Not at all. In fact, I was bitterly disappointed in myself because I hadn’t run the way I wanted to run and because in the months of training I’d done to prepare for the race, I’d lost all the things I value about running, sacrificed them to this goal of propelling myself 21.1 kilometres in tandem with thousands of strangers, in a specific and challenging amount of time.

I went to Ikea a couple of weeks ago with my friend Allysun. It was delightful, as trips to Ikea can be when you’re not there to make some big significant purchase (cos let’s face it, there’s more than a little truth to the old “Ikea: Swedish for ‘Out of Stock’” joke.) But this was a fun outing, no pressure, just cruise around with a friend, have a yammer, and enjoy the Ikean spectacle.

What could be better than starting your day with a little head?

by guest blogger rachel cheetham douglas

i went bra shopping the other week. i have a small collection of racerback tops that just sit there in my closet, year after year, because i don’t have any racerback bras to wear underneath. well, that’s not true. i have two racerback bras, but i can’t wear them because they’re itchy and hateful and itchy and they ride up and did i mention they’re itchy? itchy is a funny word. say it. you almost feel a little japanese. or maybe i’m overcaffeinated today. whatever, the point is that goddamn i hate those bras.