Dear Ether,

I had a pet spider. When people saw it for the last couple months I would say, that’s my pet orange spider, Escher. Or Geronimo. I couldn’t ever decide. It was small and orange and he lived in the living room lamp.  I fed him a couple ants and watched him spin like a mad wizard blue flashing thread. At one point his web got messy and he’d remade the entire thing over night. It sparkled in symmetry, undulated slightly with my breath as I bent in to examine it. And then as time went he let it go and it got quite dirty with fuzz and cat hair – leaving carcai, dotted along its landscape,  everywhere, and then one day I saw him dangling a bit out of orbit and then he was gone. And he never came back. And as much as the lamp needs a good vacuuming and the web just reminds me that Tula the small orange spider isn’t there… there is a tunnel spider in the crook of 2 panes in the backdoor… but I cannot say it is quite the same.

I turn from that loss scratching my head and gazing at it occasionally, as if over an hour or two of Blades of Glory- a triumph for figure skating, Tula will reappear and everything will go on as it was. As it is, A Christmas Carol is playing and the web is desolate just like doorways of my house of a certain prescient cat or my tearing up over the sight of tomatoes.  Advent is all about waiting, and loss and sorrow, and more waiting upon deliverance, and expectancy, I could say, but I do not know if mine must be so entirely literal, or Christmas Carole still horrifically timeless. But there it is.

What else besides. Cancelling cable. Learning how to use a kilsaw. Cleaning out Marge’s garage...

This post was interrupted by ill-internet connections....  and of course the Hallmark Channel- deserves a post all its own- what I've learned as it was the only thing for days to watch- compromise, good cheer, perseverance- you always find love, come out ahead... together.

And now The new year is upon us. I was reminded to say we cannot know people through status updates. Especially infrequent ones – dispositions, moods, new haircuts, bit swaths of life- but not the details. Param died- I didn’t post. I didn’t feel I could compound FB with more suffering and loss within my orbit as it was. Poor Kevin. Poor Rachel his wife. That horror unfolding all through FB but via a blog was where the in betweens were all kept. And who is marge? And why am I cancelling cable? And why on earth am I telling trader joe’s people that I learned how to use a kilsaw? And that I felt very clever to use my fake eyeglasses and my kneepads from rollerblading and protective devices. Woeful I didn't get a photo. The great trench work of 2013 completed! Did you know we're banning plastic bags forever and charging people for paper ones in LA? And though tequila makes everything merry and bright photos still lie when I would call the gatherings soulless, even if mother and I are not. Though,

My rosebush Lagerfeld came back to life in very Christmastide like fashion. That’s something too. A sort of Christmas miracle. There’s still time for those- till the 6^th. I was very close to ripping it out of the ground as months have past and it seemed to just be dying or already dead- the greenish limbs a mocking illusion. But no just a couple days ago and poof- little bits of green hope all over it. And a surprise package from one AMRF with delicious lotions and a felty Jesus- spoke also of something distant and lost, and Spring. And just today my dad spent 5 hours trying to fix my internet, poor man. An oft not seen tenacity on my behalf- or technology. And my mom, with me and father, as an anchor of moral support... weeding and patching holes in the ceiling. Another great good gift. Oh and coffee. Taking her to all the lovely places.

I had more to say about subtext too and how my parents trained me for it, modeling silence and the unspoken- and here I thought it was my education- and feeling like we should quit the blog. Of a strain. Of the unsustainable. Unrelated to subtext, and would say it all except I'm watching Great Expectations. It is perhaps because I am tired.

Goodnight.

m.