Grounded

After three weeks of travelling, I was meant to be flying home today.

However, there is a huge cloud of volcanic ash hovering over the UK and it looks like I will be grounded in Texas a little while longer.  Hopefully, the tulips won't be finished before I get home.

School and work will have to wait, and so will my younger daughter's appointment to get a retainer.  Thank goodness my older daughter had the foolhardy notion foresight to bring an entire suitcase of GCSE books and materials.  Meanwhile, we have the great big silver lining of more time with Texas friends, more Mexican food, and more sun.  As we wait, we may have to adopt a semblance of "normal" life -- meaning, time for homework, homecooked meals, and hopefully, a return to the blogworld.

domestic sensualist

Months ago I was nattering on about something and I described myself as a domestic sensualist.  Several readers commented that it sounded like a good blog name . . . and so I filed it away in one of the dustier recesses of my brain.  Seeing that the world of blog is an ever-expanding universe, you just never know when you are going to need another blog, right?

Over the past year, I've gotten to know Julochka at Moments of Perfect Clarity -- and discovered someone who is a kindred spirit.  Well, she is a much more creative and prolific kindred spirit; so let's call her an inspiration, really.  We love lots of the same things -- especially food and books -- and then she loves even more things.   We are both rather greedy, really.

Like me, Julochka is a displaced American who has been exploring the world long before blogging made travel so easy.  Although she makes her home in Denmark, the place is too small to contain her.  Truly.  This summer, Julochka pioneered the concept of Blog Camp and I was fortunate enough to spend the weekend with her.  Not only did the experience totally DISPROVE my husband's belief that blog friends are not real friends (because they are), but it created this big bubbling energy that continues to impact my life in interesting ways.

Although Julochka speaks fluent Danish now, and has acquired a sense of irony and Scandinavian cool, she still retains that American zest -- and the openness to embrace new people and new ideas.  The woman is an absolute whirlwind of collaboration.  One evening, her fertile brain was spitting out ideas and she struck on the notion of the two of us starting a foodie blog . . . not just recipes, but also stories, and book reviews, and food politics, and, well, inspiration.

And so, we launch domestic sensualist today.  We will be posting every day this week, so Please come and visit us!

Blog Camp

Stonehenge

I've been to Stonehenge several times, but there is always something a bit startling about seeing it -- just there, up on the rise of the hill, as one putters single-file down the A303. It looks exactly how you imagine it will look; (and why shouldn't it, really, because we've all seen images of those iconic slabs of standing stone.) And yet, there is something about its very familiarity that always feels surprising to me. Somehow, it manages to feel both grand and cozy, familiar and unfamiliar, all at the same time.

I know that I'm too fond of stretching metaphors, but it's not unlike meeting blog friends in the flesh (and voice and mannerism). So strangely familiar, and somehow known . . . and yet suddenly there is unfamiliar texture and context, too.

Julie, Judith, Blanca, Kristina and Agnieszka

This weekend, I hosted a Blog Camp at my house -- sort of an English franchise of the Danish original. It was not unlike the summer camps that I attended as a child, at least in the sense that we talked nonstop, laughed a lot and didn't sleep much.

Of course, the activities were a bit different: We didn't go swimming, build a fire circle, or sing Kumbaya, and the only "hike" we took was more of a stroll -- with the ultimate destination being a pub at the end of the road. And of course we had lots of wine and cappuccino, and fancy Nikon cameras, and twitterings, and field trips to World Heritage Sites . . . and I definitely didn't enjoy any of those at Prairie Valley Church Camp.

However, it had exactly the same intensity as a summer camp experience. In a very short time, strangers -- (albeit, strangers whose online "diaries" I had been reading for months) -- felt more like best friends. Even better, there was the knowledge that promises "to write" and "stay in touch" would be kept.

Pub Lunch/Shadow Shot Sunday

The pub:

hub of socializing

cherished by the English

for its rituals

beer and idle chat

good grub

a smoke (no more)

but still, the shadowy scent

soaked into wooden beams
and trod-upon tiles

Sunday lunch

in Oxfordshire

nothing to see but sheep

on the hillside

blessed sunshine

hot enough

to justify umbrellas

(but not the rainy day kind)

strong enough

to create shadows

on nearly the longest day

of the year

the sun and clouds

play

throwing down shadows

over this country quilt

the landscape looks so empty

but besides the sheep

there are two of us

with love to my Father

on Father's Day

xx

I'm a rogue (or is it off-road?) blogger on Shadow Shot Sunday

sponsored by Hey Harriet

I read, therefore I am

a view of the bookshelf

just within arm's reach of my desk

Most bloggers are keen readers -- and as such, will ruefully acknowledge that blogging time tends to eat into the reading time that would otherwise be devoted to novels, poetry, newspapers, etc. Of course, the blogging paradox (just one of many, really) is that blogs are always acquainting us with hitherto-unknown reading material . . . even as they erode the spare minutes that might be used to read all of this wonderful stuff.

One of my favorite "Texas" novels, Moving On by Larry McMurtry, opens with the main character sitting in a old Ford, reading Catch-22 and eating a Hershey bar. These words always stick in my mind: Sometimes she ate casually and read avidly -- other times she read casually and ate avidly.

I've come to think of blog-reading and novel-reading in just this same way. Sometimes blogging is my meat and drink, and novel-reading is just a bedtime snack; at other times, that order of importance reverses itself.

In the past week, I've been feasting on novels -- and been too preoccupied, too satiated, to venture much into the blog-world. In a 24 hour period lasting from Monday afternoon (when I bought the book at Waterstone's in Reading) to Tuesday lunch-time (when I ignored both phone and doorbell in order to finish it), I was gorging myself on the un-put-downable Hearts and Minds by Amanda Craig. I had exactly the kind of reading experience described by theorists as "unconscious delight." As I child, I experienced the reading trance all the time: the world outside of my book would cease to exist, and I would be in the book. I also think of it as flashlight-under-the-covers reading . . . because just like my childish avid reader self, I could not go to sleep (bedtime or not) until I had completely consumed the story.

I only experience this avidity, this total book greed, a few times a year now . . . and I often wonder how much of it is the book, and how much the need to be lost in reading? Pondering this question made me remember a reading meme that Peggy, of Johnstone Journal, tagged me for a couple of months ago.

Out of all the thousands of books we read, why do certain ones cast a spell? I couldn't begin to answer that question, no more than I could read a strand of DNA, and yet I am certain that there are magical words and worlds that have formed the person that I am.

Childhood favorites:

Dr. Seuss

Frances Hodgson Burnett's books

Laura Ingalls Wilder's "Little House" books

Maud Hart Lovelace's "Betsy Tacy" books

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

Comfort reading:

The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford

Jane Austen's oeuvre

The Egg and I by Betty MacDonald

Laurie Colwin's novels and short stories

Anne Fadiman's essays

The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler

Gifts from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Journals by May Sarton

Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott

Adult novels that I read at an impressionable age:

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Couples by John Updike

The Alexandria Quartet by Laurence Durrell

All The King's Men by Robert Penn Warren

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera

anything that I found hidden under my mother's bed

Unforgettable literary heroines:

Maggie Tulliver

Jane Eyre

Jo March

Lily Bart

Elizabeth Bennet

Isabel Archer

Madame Bovary

Anna Karenina

Tess of the D'Urbervilles

Blanche Dubois

Aurora Greenway

Susie Salmon

Memorable books I've read this year:

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee

A Fortunate Child by Elizabeth Wix

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

The Post-Birthday World by Lionel Shriver

I've made up categories to suit myself, but if you would like to see the original meme, read this. Play along, if you please . . .

Haiku Festival

Each year the fresh shock

a tight bud unfurls, reveals

hot pink peony

Please visit Elizabeth, at About New York

for a full list of Haiku Festival participants

There's always room for one more

Bee: blown away by so much blogging brilliance

(well, really I was at The Savill Garden)

Every now and then I make noises, (mostly mutterings to myself), about not acquiring any new blogs to love. After all, I'm already at saturation point. I cannot keep up with all of the blog-friends that I already feel emotionally committed to . . . and that is not to mention emails, Facebook, and the phone calls that I owe my mother.

And yet, today I found myself falling passionately in love with two new blogs. As with any new infatuation, I wanted to know EVERYTHING about the person and wished that I could read and read until I had absorbed every word.

(Of course, this was not possible . . . as I had already squandered precious time taking children to school, eating breakfast, walking six miles, buying some new plants, tweaking various things in the garden, answering some emails, feeding chickens, making pesto, tutoring a six-year-old, vacuuming the living room . . . you get the idea. I did, however, miss out on the grocery shopping that I had planned.)

The really annoying thing is that I have "known" about these blogs for months, and yet I didn't follow that URL. (The really good thing is that I can still catch up . . . if I stop sleeping, maybe.)

For your reading pleasure:

dovegreyreader scribbles - this self-described "bookaholic" really doesn't need my patronage, as she already has readers and blog-fame galore, but I can't resist her bookish views. I think of myself as fairly well-read, but dovegreyreader is in a class all her own. She reviews a book nearly every single day . . . ! Although I have various hobbies, pursuits and pleasures, reading is the most constant love. This blog makes me feel that, given a good book and a cup of tea, I can always be well-amused.

Ngorobob House: Life from the Hill -- this soulful, beautifully written blog makes me wish that I were a tad bit more adventurous. Janelle has more than one story about being chased by elephants. I'll just leave it at that and let you discover her colorful life in Tanzania on your own.

Had we but world enough, and time . . .

Monopoly Money

Build or Go Bust

Yesterday I stumbled upon a blog brouhaha.

A certain Anonymous criticized a blogger for writing about a party thrown by some artistic friends. In addition to concluding that the vast majority of bloggers were self-absorbed and self-indulgent, Ms Anonymous contended that writing about parties was a slap in the face to struggling Americans. Do you people know there is a recession? wrote Anon.

Well, yes Anon; I think that we are all very much aware of the general economic decline around us. How could we not be? But perhaps -- and this is just a thought -- blogs are a place to get away from the front page and the sliding stock market?

I am the fretting sort, and I can't seem to stop myself from endless speculation and worry about it all. Just as the ancients scrutinized animal entrails for clues to the future, I listen to conversations and scan my own middle-class landscape for signs of economic health or sickness.

Although we know a mostly affluent group of people, the overwhelming majority of them are involved in finance and property -- two occupations which have suffered from a dizzying reversal of fortune. Nobody is talking -- well, not much -- but yesterday I was with a woman who burst into happy, relieved tears when she found out that her son had just won a major scholarship. (Her husband has been out of work for months.)

This weekend, when my husband and I endured a family bout of Monopoly, I couldn't help but draw parallels between the strategies of this game and the real-life financial world.

I taught my children to play Monopoly using Ganny's Rules -- as instituted by my game-loving grandmother. Perhaps Ganny was a trader at heart, because she liked to emphasize the elements of risk and reward. Wheeling and dealing were encouraged, and so was incentive -- in the form of a big pot of money. We always kept a $500 bill tucked under Free Parking, and any tax/penalty money got deposited there, too. If you were lucky enough to land there, you ended up with a fat bonus that could potentially save your bacon. We all speculated wildly, plowed all of our funds into development, and suffered from the dramatic windfalls and declines which made the game a tad more exciting. My brother ALWAYS wanted Park Place and Boardwalk -- the most expensive properties. He would trade for anything in order to get his hands on them. He often went broke trying to develop them, but if he succeeded, he would inevitably drive everyone else out of the game.

Sigmund wasn't having any of that. He made us play by the rules: no extra money; no borrowing; no trades. For most of the game we played in a state of boring gridlock. Everyone owned something that someone else needed, and all property development was thus stagnant. It reminded me our banking industry, frankly. I finally caved in and traded youngest daughter what she needed . . . in a deal that had no benefit to me. Although I had built up a sizeable fortune through the conservative investments of railroads and utilities, I eventually lost it all. There's always that one expensive hotel stay too many.

Our financial world has lurched, sickeningly rapidly, from the first "strategy" to the second -- and now we are in the widening gyre. (This famous phrase of Yeats' suddenly occurred to me, but a financial writer had already gotten there first.) Everyone's instincts are to rein back on spending and tuck any surplus under the mattress -- people are being criticized for having parties, for goodness sake -- but that will just drive more businesses into bankruptcy. (My friend whose husband lost his finance job? She's in catering: mostly weddings and parties.)

Who could possibly forget, even for an hour, about this strange, shaky new world we live in? There is never more than one degree of separation between a person who is still okay -- and a whole bunch of others who aren't. My list of friends and acquaintances read like News items. A friend of a friend lost all of her money with Madoff. A friend is stuck with buy-to-let tenants who are months behind on their rent. An acquaintance had to lay off nearly all of their employees when the Royal Bank of Scotland called in their loan. (Perhaps they needed the money for Sir Fred Goodwin's £703,000-a-year pension pay-out?)

Why shouldn't we occasionally want to read or think about something else?

Woolworth's: gone, but not forgotten
Our local storefront is drawing the musicians who play for small change

A new perspective

Learning to see:

looking out of The National Gallery

onto Trafalgar Square

Nelson's Column anchors the picture

The London Eye centers it

For most of my life, I was the person who always forgot to bring her camera on holiday. My family used to joke that by the time we got a roll of film developed, we had no idea what we would find on it: a bit of Halloween, somebody's birthday, a random school event, everyone dressed up for Easter. We took a decidedly casual approach to our recorded memories . . . and now I'm starting to wonder about all of the things that we've forgotten.

I've almost always owned a camera -- but something just basic; something that I didn't really know how to use.

One of the many unexpected things that blogging has brought into my life is a fledgling interest in photography. Although I've always had a reverence for words, I've just begun to appreciate the possibilities of images.

It has also occurred to me that my notoriously unobservant eye needn't remain that way. We can actually teach ourselves to see -- not just with an eye for more detail or better recall, but with an expanded sense of possibility for what seeing actually means.

At its best, blogging is a reciprocal dialogue. Lately, I have been noticing a fascinating confluence of ideas.

Confluence:
A flowing together of two or more streams.
The point of juncture of such streams.
The combined stream formed by this juncture.

As an example, on Friday I visited The National Gallery in London. As I was exiting the museum, I noticed how a glass hallway made an interesting vertical frame for some of the most iconic images of London. I truly don't think I would have noticed this view if I hadn't had a camera in my hand. Even just a few months of trying to record -- not just what I see, but something much better -- has started to expand the lens I look through.

I was thinking about this idea when I read Reya Mellicker's essay: Photography Changes How and What We See. I strongly urge you to read Reya's essay in its entirety-- and also her thoughtful and wonderfully inspiring blog The Gold Puppy -- but in the meantime, I'm going to share some of the thoughts that jumped out at me.

The more we look at photographs, the easier it is to perceive what we’re accustomed to ignoring. Not long ago, Lucy (a brilliant photographer) happened to mention how photographs tend to show up all of the power lines/signage/trash bins that we are accustomed to just visually tuning out. It was one of those random confluences, as I had just had that realization myself. My attempts to take pictures of the countryside have made me so aware of the signs of human encroachment: power lines everywhere! (More confluence: As I went back to find the link, I discovered that Lucy had mentioned this again.)

In photographs, we are given a glimpse of the world through the eye, and in many ways through the heart, of other beholders. Suddenly we are able to see things and people, situations and landscapes, perspectives, angles, colors and shapes that we might never have noticed on our own. This idea is all mixed up in blogging for me. The personal aspect of blogging -- the fact of being able to participate (through commenting) in what you see and how it makes you feel -- has transformed the idea of "the world" for me, both shrinking and expanding it. I've also realized that some people will find what I see (whether it is Trafalgar Square or the view outside of my window) exotic and interesting . . . just because it is different from what they see. Somehow, this enables me to appreciate my life in a different way: To think of it as something that I am crafting everyday.

Photography creates a bridge between what we expect to see, and all there really is to see. How profound is that? And it makes sense on so many levels. Yesterday I was reading an interview of David Lynch and he mentioned -- with much excitement and awe -- that his highly pixilated camera could capture "something like 4,000 pieces of information per photograph." I don't even have 20/20 vision or artistic vision . . . much less the pixilated kind. Strangely enough, this mechanical device actually reveals so many mysteries.

The truth is that visually, we scan for what we know, for what we expect and for what we value, ignoring all the rest, which is a pretty narrow view when you think about it. But put a lens between the human eye and the world, capture an image, and many possibilities open up. Photography presents us with a way to see the unseen, to notice what isn’t usually obvious, and in so doing, opens the mind’s eye in many ways.

Life is so unexpected

Why would you name your house "Hailstone?"

There is a tendency, in most of us, to romanticize our home and all that it represents. Even if our "nest" is a grotty hovel, it is still a shelter. Perhaps this partly explains why the English have a penchant for naming their little plot and pile of bricks. Even if you don't own a Manderley or a Brideshead, you might lay claim to a Lark Rise or a Pear Tree Cottage. Pity the postman and the pizza delivery boy, but one of the charming idiosyncracies of English life is the tendency to give one's home a name. Although many names are simply descriptive or functional -- ie, The Cottage or The Old Bakery -- others are whimsical, fanciful and downright strange. Because I have a habit of traipsing up and down my road, I often contemplate the nature of house names. What, for instance, could Hen Cloud possibly mean? What romantic (or bloodthirsty) person decided that Hunter's Moon was a fitting name for a bungalow?

The name which most perplexes me, though, is "Hailstone." What were these people thinking? Did their house survive a battering of ice pellets? Does it still carry the scars? Do they take an odd sort of pride in enduring misfortune?

Or is this negative name a sort of talisman, meant to ward off bad luck? If you always expect the worst, does it keep bad luck from trailing you?

Even though we all know that life is unexpected, and that we never know what is going to be around that next bend, why does an assertion of this fact always surprise me so?

A couple of days ago, one of my friends sat in my kitchen crying. Life in general had gotten on top of her; but specifically, she was just completely fed up with the house construction project that had frazzled her nerves. If you believe that your house is one part sanctuary and one part cozy nest -- and I do -- then the mess, noise and lack of privacy associated with the home improvement process will often make it difficult to appreciate the end-goal. (Ironically, it was especially easy to "feel her pain" as we could hardly hear each other for the assault of the electric buzz saw and drill. All week long, my old windows have been wrenched from their frames.)However, by yesterday afternoon, my friend was feeling a bit more positive. The downstairs bathroom and some other pesky problem areas were finally finished, and a happy conclusion to home renovation was in her sights. Last night, as they enjoyed their new woodburning stove, she and her husband thought that the smoky smell was a little too smoky. Sadly, it turned out that their bedroom was on fire.

Getting an unexpected phone call late at night, when you have already gone to bed, rarely proves pleasurable. Like a telegram, there is something about the late-night phone call that just makes the heart beat faster. Please come get us, said my friend.

What followed was a long and surreal night involving fire trucks, the Red Cross, an emergency room visit, too much whisky, broken glass and broken sleep. I couldn't have imagined it; it was one of those experiences that you assume will never happen to you or anyone you know.

Today is the one-year anniversary of my adventure in blogging, and I had planned a very different sort of post. But blogging, like life, is fluid -- and subject to all sorts of changes. In real life, unexpected things are negative perhaps more often than not. We have had a variety of hailstones -- some too private to mention -- in our life this week. Even so, it is a mental relief to share some of what goes on in my mind and life in this space.

Unlike real life, blogging brings the unexpected into my life on an almost daily basis -- and I can honestly say that it has always been a pleasure.

Awards Season

Thanks for the beautiful bouquet!

This is my 100th post, and it hasn't escaped my attention that there is a blogging convention for celebrating that occasion. Since I am also nearly at the end of my first blogging year, I thought that I would throw some flowers at (just some!) of the wonderful blogs/people who have added so much color and beauty and interest to my life in the past 11 3/4 months.

I feel a little bit like Kate Winslet today . . . okay, she's richer, blonder, more talented, younger, more beautiful and so on . . . but we both have two kids, we both go to Reading** on a regular basis, and we both experienced an embarrassment of riches by receiving two awards more or less simultaneously.

Fantastic Forrest gave me this

AND

The lovely Peggy gave me this

The "problem" is this: I am supposed to pass these awards forward so there will be self-perpetuating linkage and positive feedback. I realize this problem is somewhat akin to getting a bonus and not knowing how to invest it, or embarrassing yourself with your acceptance speech (yes, I'm thinking of you, Kate), but I can't help it: I am suffering from all sorts of angsty anxiety. Trying to choose between blogs is like trying to decide whether I prefer purple irises or yellow roses (and I really like both). Also, some of the blogs I like best are already highly decorated, while others are squeamish about awards. I don't want to be ungracious, and nor do I want to hurt feelings . . . oh dear, a blogging dilemma.

Since it is movie award season, I thought that I might just make up my own categories . . . Academy Award style. This proved to be difficult, too, and try as I might some of my beloved blogs didn't fit easily into any category, while others seemed to fit into every category. There is definitely a blog for every mood and interest, and some blogs are particularly simpatico to me -- for whatever reason. Chemistry in blog-ship is just as mysterious as chemistry in friendship!

Best All-Around Blogs (writing, photography, ideas, voice, generosity -- these blogs have got it all!)

• The Gold Puppy
• Box Elder
• About New York
• Life at Willow Manor
• Just a Plane Ride Away
• New England Living
• Lost and Found in India
• Sarah Laurence Blog

Blogs which make me laugh

• Mom Sequiter
• About New York
• The Accidental Housewife
• Whittering On
• That's Why
• None of Your Beeswax

Blogs which make me want to write poetry and think deeper thoughts

• Pics and Poems
• The Writing Mechanic
• Dick Jones' Patteran Pages
• The Gold Puppy
• Life at Willow Manor
• Box Elder

Blogs with VOICE

• Multitude
• New England Living
• Nimble Pundit
• Prepare to Meet Your Bakerina
• That's Why
• Lost and Found in India
• Whittering On

Bloggers who I wish would write more frequently

• Chez La Vie
• Tales of Brave Sir Robin
• Bitty's Back Porch
• Beyond Ramen
• Mom Sequiter
• Anapestic

Best blogging feedback

• Tales of Brave Sir Robin
• New England Living
• Beyond Ramen
• Box Elder
• About New York
• Whittering On

Blogs which are a hand across the world

• Accept all Offerings
• Couch Trip
• Bon Bon
• Authorblog
• BooksEtc
• Barrie Summy

Best new discoveries

• Johnstone Journal
• Moments of Perfect Clarity
• Traveling through Time and Space
• That's Why
• Pigtown Design
• Irregularly Periodic Ruminations

As Kate Winslet said at the Screen Actors Guild Awards:

"It's really an honour to be included in what I think is such a remarkable year," Winslet said. "I really feel like everybody should be given a medal."

So please, help yourself!

(and I apologize for not following the rules, and for running out of linkage steam, but you can find all of these blogs on my sidebar.)

**Reading (to be pronounced Red-ing) trivia about Kate and me. She was born in the Royal Berkshire Hospital and I had a baby in the Royal Berkshire Hospital. Also, a very lovely carpenter and general handyman has done work for me AND for Kate's family. They are artsy types who aren't very good at house maintenance. We just needed some new bookshelves!

Who me? A Blogger??

Life is, as we all know, unpredictable.

One short month ago, I was ignorant of the ways of blogging -- and not just ignorant, but oblivious and indifferent, too. I pretty much associated the whole phenomenon of blogging with a geeky person (probably a boy, in my mind's eye) who was attached to his hand-held device and had intimacy issues to boot! In the sake of full disclosure, I am a sad Luddite -- too pathetic to even want to change -- who still needs her 13 yr old daughter to load her IPod.

However, life (as mentioned) is unpredictable . . . and I certainly never imagined that I would be living out some of my finer years in the English countryside! I like margaritas, Tex-Mex, good hamburgers, Shipley's doughnuts, movies, buttered popcorn, Coke icees, bookstores, outdoor tennis courts, and blue skies . . . none of which (well, almost none) can be found in West Berkshire. I do NOT like mud, drizzle, the color gray, dogs, horses, hunting, shooting, did I mention mud? Of these, the countryside has plenty. Indeed, I went to a dinner party not so long ago and almost the entire conversation revolved around shooting, English country-style. You might think that a Texan would be entirely at home in a conversation about shooting, but nay -- as a small child I couldn't stand the sight of the bloodied dove my brother laid so casually on the kitchen counter, and I haven't altered in this opinion.

I already did my time in a small town -- Temple, Texas (for the record) -- and I am like an escaped prisoner who can still feel the phantom chains and never, never wants to go back. Some of you may remember the classic Talking Heads song Once In A Lifetime. If you went to high school in the 80s you will undoubtedly remember the accompanying video in which lead singer David Byrne repeatedly slapped his forehead open-palm style, wildly rolled his eyes, and questioned: Well . . . How did I get here? When I was a high school senior, my late great friend Andrea Jarma and I used to go around imitating David Byrne and feeling rather clever and certainly to-the-point. It is a phrase that has resounded through my mind more than once this last eighteen months.

So, you may think high school reminiscences (from a time when MTV was the new thing and we were all making cassette tapes for our boom boxes) are a tad digressive from the subject of blogging . . . but let me assure you, it will all come together. The truth is: I can live without a good margarita, even though I may not like it and will certainly feel my life to be impoverished by that lack. HOWEVER . . . what I cannot live without are the good conversations/lively banter/sympathetic ear/enjoyable bitch-sessions which accompanied the margaritas. And this is what I've really been feeling short of these days. I have lovely, lovely friends in England . . . but they aren't doorstep friends. They aren't "let's meet at the Taqueria" friends, or let's catch a movie friends.

I've always had good luck meeting like-minded people . . . maybe not LOADS of them, but always enough to satisfy. For some reason, my luck seems to run out; I just haven't been to convert any of my new acquaintances -- some of whom are perfectly pleasant -- into true friends. Although my husband "Sigmund" is a good sort with many fine qualities -- let's face it, he's a fairly taciturn fellow who will never be able to meet my chatting needs. My two daughters are wonderful chatters -- but conversationally, it's still a one-way street down a cul-de-sac with them. They have their own tribes, and that is how it should be.

So, loneliness established: One frigid morning in late January, I decided to google Laurie Colwin, one of my favorite authors . . . and I ended up reading this essay. I felt such kinship with the author of the essay, that I ended up reading her blog . . . and then writing her a fan letter. This lead to other blogs, which lead to emails, which lead to blog-posting, and on and on. I remembered that my friend Jenni had give me Julie & Julia (about a Texan living in NYC, who starts a blog and changes her life) and thus discovered another kindred spirit. Suddenly I had friends in New York City! Well, perhaps I exaggerate . . . but still! It was empowering; I realized that I could just go into cyberspace and FIND those like-minded friends! There actually are people who want to talk about Laurie Colwin or gingerbread or how to make a good biscuit or Marion Cotillard as Edith Piaf. Maybe not in Berkshire . . . but somewhere! I needn't be limited by what chatting at the school gates threw my way. It was an exciting process because it reminded me of the buzz I've always gotten from making friendship discoveries; it also reminded me of the joy that I used to get from writing. I've always been good at enthusiasm with that little frisson of euphoria . . . feeling it again made me realize anew how much it had been missing in my life.

It is difficult to keep in touch. I send this out to old friends with the hope that it will be a way of keeping a fresh conversation open. I also send it out (with a fervent belief in serendipity) to the Great Internet . . . in the hope that it may bring a new friend or two into my life.

Please feel free to comment!

Last thought: Please check out some of the blogs I have listed. They are my first favorites, but I'm sure -- now that I've become addicted -- I will be finding new ones, too. All of you Texans MUST check out Homesick Texan. It is a treasure-trove of recipes -- whether or not you live in a place without Rotel.