snow. discipline. chickpeas.

hi. both of you. it snowed like hell in ny yesterday — it was a dream. literally, i felt like i was in a dream, walking through the park while it blizzarded. there's something about snowstorms that make me feel like i'm 8. maybe it's the oversized clothing, the massive mittens/unusable hands, the impermeability/flop-on-down-ability. i dunno, but i like it.  i felt like i was in a painting, or in the best scene from the best, most hopeful, subtle movie ever. yeah - there's something weirdly hopeful for me about when it snows, how it changes the landscape you know and take for granted, how everything suddenly falls into shades of white, grey, and brown - sometimes a little orange; how the world you are so familiar with suddenly surprises you and feels like WHO KNEW we could have THIS EXPERIENCE here? i was walking through silent WOODS (in brooklyn!) where the snow stacked up on all the branches, leaving the undersides dark brown, and one side of every trunk was puffed with 6" of snow or so.  the lake in the park had frozen almost entirely and was green-grey, in contrast to all this white/brownness. this doesn't make for a very interesting story, methinks. but i was so crazily MOVED by this long walk i took in the snow. it was so QUIET. so thought-provoking. i was elated. i notice i feel similarly when it rains / pours. [do you guys experience this love-of-precipitation?] i like how a natural phenomenon just stops everyone in their tracks and brings us all to the same wide-eyed experience.  cool.  [wow - and incidentally, Loudon Wainright just sang a song on FressshhhAiirrrr with Terri Gross called "Grey in LA" - which is all about how the best days in california are grey, cuz there's just too much damn sun there -- WHICH echoes my main complaint about that state / and my main love affair with this one: seasons and the moody awesomeness of a landscape and sky that has more than one happy-go-lucky mood.] rant!

in other news. i've been thinking a lot about writing lately. i've been writing since i was 7 or something, keeping dumb journals (not unlike this one!) and i just remembered, i used to write POEMS in elementary school and even "performed" one (lengthily!) on-stage when i was 11. i thought rhyming was the coolest. anyway - i got to asking myself questions like What is the point of writing? Why write? What do i have to say? and while i (clearly!) don't know what i have to say, i realized the urge to write is really at the crux of things -- like, you could ask any painter, photographer, sculptor, musician "Why do your thing?" and i think the answer would be something along the lines of "i just feel like i want to" or "i can't help it." and then the message or experience for the end-user is secondary? i always struggle with this question of what-to-say, and i asked a writer-friend (a pro) how she knows what to write about, and she said "it's not a question of knowing what to write about. it's about writing everyday, and following what is going in an interesting direction." i felt so dumb after she said it. like i had just learned the alphabet yesterday and been given my first pencil. so obvious. any artist i've ever talked to says discipline - a daily ritual - is the place where inspiration is born. i tend to get a lot of inspiration and never apply any discipline to it, and i think i've been going about things backward. in any case.

i just ate chickpeas (cooked with fennel seed!), mixed with garlic-mayo and hot-peppers-in-oil. so damn good. it's always good eating around here when i can't seem to get to the store for any fresh stuff and i have to start getting creative with the LEGUMES that sleep in the cupboard for months on end.

bye!