You know, there really are no songs about Thursday are there? And there should be because it's a very good day of the week. It's an easy-street sort of day. Extra coffee break sort of day. Watch a few extra you-tube videos of Tina Marie sort of day. The quality of the light is different, and especially lovely in the late afternoon. And then there's Thursday nights, with it's potential for $6.50 movies at the Cobble Hill cinema, or pizza and a bottle of wine.
And then maybe there will be flowers the next day; Friday... delivered right to your cubicle. A lovely coda inserted after your lunch break. Co-workers green with envy. You won't be able to concentrate for the rest of the day, not with that anemone staring at you. Good thing it's almost the weekend.

Comment to win the drawing and good luck.

[An Hoang New Territory, 2010 oil on canvas 11x14 inches]

I love my friend An's new work (and new blog). The painting above inspires me to make a coral and lavender floral piece. And I will use these incredible Japanese pincushion flowers...

for lloyd

...whose yard I snapped this twig out of 2 weeks ago. i'll come clean for you, it wasn't the first time i shoplifted from another's garden. because i'm so street

now this twig is full bloom in my kitchen; a january miracle.
now is the time to force your forsythia lloyd
i can teach you.

Made this arrangement yesterday for an artist celebrating his exhibition closing and his 30th birthday. Sounds fun, doesn't it?

I was an artist once. I had a show in college. It was really --- how should I put this...emotionally charged. I don't think I even have the slides of my work anymore. I bought a yellow leather jacket to wear.

__
Katie lucky number 44 won the flowers yesterday.

giving you something you can feel (FFF)

Maybe you know the drill of free flower friday by now? Comment to win flowers delivered tomorrow. I made this arrangement yesterday morning for a delivery, and fell hard for this color combination of burnt orange and lavender. Gonna do the same but better for you if you win...



So much going on here. Most exciting is that yesterday I got to meet the Studio Choo girls; Jill and Alethea. We spent the day eating, comparing notes and trucking around Brooklyn. They are kindered spirits and I feel like I have new friends which is nice...



Also very rad: Nicolette and I are collaborating with the New York Botanical Gardens on some spring classes which I really shouldn't say details about but am just giddy for because they are going to be garden oriented (some of them) and...ok I have to zip that for now....



Eric and I are heading to Canada on Monday to see my Mummo and camp out at the cottage for a few days. Take a sauna everyday and make long trails with Nea. I have a lot of feelings lately, and I guess I am needing some time away to consider some things that have been on my mind...

LOTS OF TIMES I'D LIKE TO SAY WHAT I FEEL OUT LOUD

But right now I'm pretty happy looking at these pictures from yesterday. Why haven't you commented yet? I'll quit rambling so you can get to it...good luck...

excerpt

The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields... a book I've been looking all over the apartment for...weeks now. Eric finally found it last night of course right in the middle of a crammed bookshelf. I read this passage to him, loosing all semblance of composure at the last few lines. Perhaps I needed a good cry, it had been a while.


Ottawa, April 6, 1955

My dear,

Time is short. Dr. Shortcilffe says it will be a matter of days, doesn't he? This is not, of course, what he tells me, but what I overheard him saying to you last night, whispering in the corridor, after I was moved to the General. My hearing has remained oddly acute. My mind, while less acute, is at ease about financial resources for you and for the children. The house, of course is secured - for I feel sure you would be reluctant to leave familiar surroundings, particularly your garden - and there are sufficient funds as you know for the children's education.

But you will want money for travel - why is it we have not traveled, you and I? - and for small luxuries, and it has occurred to me that you might wish to offer for sale my lady's-slipper collection. I am certain it will bring a good price. I suggest you contact Dr. Leonard Lemay of Boston University whose address is in my pocket diary. I expect you will sigh as you read this suggestion, since I know well that Cypripedium is not a genus you admire, particularly the species reginade and acaule. You will remember how we quarreled - our only quarrel, as far as I can recall - over the repugnance you felt for the lady's-slipper's morphology, its long, gloomy (as you claimed) stem and pouch-shaped lip which you declared to be grotesque. I pointed out, not that I needed to, the lip's functional cunning, that an insect might enter therein easily but escape only with difficulty. Well, so our discussions have run over these many years, my pedagogical voice pressing heavily on all that was light and fanciful. I sigh, myself, setting these words down, mourning the waste of words that passed between us, and the thought of what we might have addressed had we been more forthright - did you ever feel this, my love, our marginal discourse and what it must have displaced?

The memory of our "lady's slippers" discussion has, of course, led me into wondering whether you perhaps viewed our marriage in a similar way, as a trap from which there was no easy exit. I have sometimes wondered whether is was the disparity of our ages that made the word seem foolish or else something stiff and shy in our natures that forbade its utterance. This I regret. I would like to think that our children will use the word extravagantly and moreover that they will be open to its forces...

Do you remember that day last October when I experienced my first terrible headache? I found you in the kitchen wearing one of those new and dreadful plastic aprons. You put your arms around me at once and reached up to smooth my temples. I loved you terribly at that moment. The crackling of your apron against my body seemed like an operatic response to the longings which even then I felt. It was like something whispering at us to hurry, to stop wasting time, and I would like to have danced with you through the back door, out into the garden, down the street, over the line of the horizon. Oh, my dear. I thought we would have more time.

Your loving
Barker

portrait of peach and nea contemplating the meaning of existence