words + goats + love

I don't remember how I found the All Things Linguistic tumblr blog, but I love it. usually it points to and comments on other interesting pieces about language and usage around the internet. for example, this bit about how we use "waslike" as a verb to recount approximate or paraphrased speech/attitude/reaction-of-whatever-kind. I was like "hey wait a second," and she was like "oh what is it now?" and then he was like "leave me out of it please."

other posts I loved were this one on lexical gaps in English and this one about pronunciation and singing.

and speaking of singing, I must run to choir rehearsal this evening.

p.s. I also discovered this goat-themed twitter account recently (thanks friend Dan for somehow leaving digital breadcrumbs back to it for me) and it is delightful in all ways.

adorable ungulates

today, friend Lena and I plan to visit the Columbian Park Zoo in town.

I visited our tiny local zoo several weekends ago with other friends, back when it was still very sunny, hot, and humid.

yes, the only section of this zoo which made it onto my camera was the section with goats in it. wallabies are cute too, but I have this thing for goats.

if you want to see any other zoo animals today, you'll have to come with us this evening or go find your own zoo.

{postscript: we did not end up going to the zoo last Thursday. plans! they change. we'll go next year.}

The Adventures of William Neil Phaleenkanos (excerpt 1)

The stray goat had come one afternoon when Willy had been quite young. It had knocked over the tin wash tubs, trampled most of the garden, dragged the washing through the mud, torn Willy’s best trousers, chewed open two sacks of sugar, and had stood placidly licking at it until Willy’s mother came home. She had shouted and chased and pushed and pulled, but neither her nor her son nor the neighbors had been able to get rid of the four-legged menace. In the ten years since that day, many sacks of sugar, not to mention quite a few lines of clean washing, have been altogether ruined by that goat. He never seems to be far away.

Willy’s mother turns to her son. Today is his eighteenth birthday. He waits, not looking at her or at the goat. “William,” his mother says. “Some sandwiches. And this is for you. From—”

The goat bleats loudly, and for the first time in ten years, Willy’s mother does not scowl or shout or throw anything at the creature in response. Willy takes the small, heavy case from her and puts it and the sandwiches in his rucksack. The goat bleats again and stamps his hooves on the dirt floor.

“Take that goat.” Willy nods, letting his glance fall briefly on the goat, who looks just the same as always: brown, hairy, and smug. “Go on,” Willy’s mother urges, grabbing a cloth from the sink to wipe sandwich crumbs from the table. She doesn’t look at her son.

Willy lets the door slam behind him. A few yards along the pebbled road Willy names the goat Confetti. When the pair get to the top of the road the boy turns and fixes the little thatched roof, the little crooked chimney, the little wooden fence around the little muddy garden, and the surrounding vine-covered trees where he loves to climb, in his memory. The eighteen years he spent growing up are over now, and by the time Willy and the goat reach the river, the view from the hill has already been forgotten. Willy now has to think about what he is going to do when it gets dark. His mother will not be expecting him back.

Willy walks close to the river. This is still territory he knows, filled with familiar boats, rafts, and children playing in the river’s wide, shallow, sandy curves. Sitting alone on a pier Willy eats one of his sandwiches. He takes out the case his mother has given him and undoes the clasps. The goat nibbles on Willy’s shirt as the boy pulls out a smooth wooden telescope, which sits in Willy’s hands and reads

-William Neil Phaleenkanos 1709 –

in small silver letters. The boy stars at it. After a while he puts it a way without looking through it and eats another sandwich. Then, with one last look across the river, back at the clearing and the town and the hill over which he has come, the boy begins his way into the jungle.

When he was young Willy had been afraid of the deep jungle. The shadows are thick and humid, and the breeze through the canopy is restless. He steps carefully and shushes his goat. Confetti tears at the fronds of a fern with his surprisingly clean set of vegetarian teeth. Willy takes a moment to wonder how big the jungle is before he pushes past the heaviest undergrowth and loses sight of the sky. An afternoon passes with the scenery. Willy leaves behind nothing but footprints and sandwich crumbs in the mud.

The boy watches sunset from high in a tree. From this height the river shines a broken orange between the dark shadows of tangled vines and branches. The telescope remains in his rucksack on the ground. Willy is thinking; he does not notice the mosquitoes or the gnats. He does not know how far he has walked today. Stars appear and Willy is still thinking. He will run out of sandwiches tomorrow.

The boy climbs down and finds a bit of soft ground. Confetti has wandered away somewhere into the warm dusk. Willy tries, but cannot remember a time when the goat had not been around getting shouted at by Willy’s mother for whatever had just gotten knocked over or chewed on or dragged through the mud. Willy doesn’t know about the time his mother took the goat to the river and tied it tightly to the dock. His mother had wired the front gate shut and even mended the few loose boards in the fence, but in the morning the goat had been there in the garden, chewing on the radish tops.

Tonight Willy’s last conscious thought is a tentative hope that maybe the goat won’t come back in the morning, but Confetti’s left horn digs gently into his left shoulder and wakes Willy from a dream about some nameless girl. “Blasted goat,” he mutters, violently pushing the goat away. While Willy yawns and stretches, Confetti chews on the straps of the boy’s rucksack. The few sandwiches left within it are slightly soggy. His father’s telescope is shut in its case. There are bits of card, string, and a rusted corkscrew cluttering the bottom as well. Willy shoos Confetti away, eats two sandwiches, and tries to ignore the way his goat is looking at him.

...

Confetti appears to have a knack for wandering into the middle of lonely villages. Idle children feel urged to throw sticks and pebbles at the goat. None of them ever succeed in hitting him. Willy walks quickly, ignoring them all; his stride is long and he only slows once to nick the biggest papaya from the corner market stall. He leaves the village and climbs a tree to eat his last sandwich and the fruit. Later he will watch the goat wandering past beneath him and the children playing hide and seek in the ferns and vinery. A frog makes a few small, sticky hops along a tree branch. Willy puts his sandals back on at the base of the tree and walks back through the village, stealing two small coconuts and a handful of berries on his way.

The goat is never far behind. When Willy reclines against a boulder to enjoy his stolen fruit, Confetti breathes into his ear and bits clumsily at his lank hair. Willy pushes the goat’s hairy nose away. Confetti bleats loudly, contemptuously, and spends the rest of the afternoon chomping on various plants. Willy ignores him and licks his fingers, staring sleepily into the green blur of the jungle around him.

...

(to be continued on an unexpected weekday, next week.)

nothing is known of Saint Valentine

I've just been playing around with this little doodle, originally posted way back in July.

there are no love-related holidays in July, are there?

not that I can think of. there are tuesdays though. I love tuesdays.

love is an irrational thing, you know. I have no reason to love tuesdays, but I do anyway. even though they're not always the greatest. not always the most fun.

at least my irrational love of tuesdays is completely unconditional.

as is my love for ice cream (chocolate ice cream, of course).

and my love for plaid. goats. typography. sunrises.

unconditional, irrational love. today is all about celebrating that.

and, underneath all the sugary pink and candy-coated chocolate-ness, also about the real stuff, which can perhaps be just as irrational, but is nevertheless far more intense and profound and committed and transforming than a love of tuesdays (however genuine) ever could be. loving people is better. let's do more of that, shall we?

sort of love. sort of forever.

maybe you've noticed the tweaking of the blog design. I'm still working on it though. any suggestions for me? that right-hand column may not fit properly on all screens, I'm thinking. we'll see what we can do with it.

by freak coincidence, radiolab put up their newly redesigned website today also. it has a goat.

what's so cool about goats? I just think they're adorable. just look at this. and they can eat practically anything. I totally identify with that sort of behavior.

however, the fact that a website has a goat doesn't mean it automatically qualifies as an awesomely-put-together website. I'm not quite sure how I like this renovated radiolab.org, actually. but as long as they keep making wonderful radio, I might be persuaded not to care about their code.

speaking of radiolab, their latest and newest podcast is all about words. words making things better. or a lack of words making things better? I don't know if I would know how to handle experiencing the world without language, but Jill Taylor says it's pretty amazing.

now that I'm blogging about this, I seem to remember my mum talking about that woman's book. so many books I haven't read...

on sunday my former roommate's sister was mentioning a book called Stiff, by some woman who writes about crazy topics. for example: dead bodies. or what life is really like in zero gravity. the next morning Mary Roach was on the radio, talking about her new book and all the fun things she got to do as research for it.

and then another friend mentioned he had been reading Born to Run. a book with a title like that just doesn't strike me as one I'd ever be very interested in. but then I heard its author on the radio telling these intriguing stories about barefoot children in Africa. really, I should be long past categorizing any book as one I wouldn't be interested in. I have read many, many odd books. some of them for undeniably odd reasons.

anyway... wish me luck with the following upcoming events: a haircut, a yoga class, a bit of stargazing, and writing the next twenty pages of my little alien girl novel. all things I anticipate loving quite a lot.

and please, can I have one of these shirts?