emlocke

Category: Photos

  • Dear Dixie

    1468800_843481833585_1243191480_nOne year since you, Dix. Dixie Chick of Shadowland White. Dixalicious. Chunk with the Junk in Her Trunk. My Snuggleupagus.

    I still miss you every every every day, especially when I’m walking home after work. I used to get home and launch into a frustrated rant about work or slow walkers or silent filibusters. You’d sit at my feet, shifting back and forth, if necessary, as I paced, twitching the very tip of your tail hopefully, like you always did. When you got impatient, you’d put your paw up on my knee, like, “excuse me, down here, hi, hi, hello!” I’d finally get the message, and I’d kneel down to greet you and instantly forget all my troubles.

    When I scratched your ears, rubbed your belly, or snuggled your scruff, your comfort and happiness comforted me and made me happy. I believe you knew that, and that you felt the same way.

    I loved knowing—usually—what you needed from me, and that I could provide it. And you could always give back what I needed most from you. Could you read my mind and know what I was feeling? I’m not entirely sure about that. I think it just worked out that what was best for you was best for me; that’s enough for me to know that our bond was special—honest, generous, affectionate, and loyal.IMG_4797

    I’ve faced some tough times in the last year. When I’m sad, sick, or tired, I miss you terribly. When I can’t sleep or concentrate, I remember your thunderous snoring and the insistent, reassuring press of your forehead, chin, or rump against me. When I feel weak or hopeless, I remember your steady gait and your patient gaze. But I also miss you when I’m happiest, because feeling safe, peaceful, or loved always reminds me of you.

    A few fantastic things have come my way this year, too—four of them are other Shadowland labs, including your granddaughter, Birdie Balderdash!

    Ida Run-A-Muck & Birdie “The Bird” Balderdash of Shadowland, November 2015

    Your wonderful pawrents Karen and Craig have sent Birdie, along with young ladies named Ida, Sally, and Shirley, to visit me, and Mom and Dad, for sleepover weekends when we’ve needed some labrador love in the house.

    12742131_10100210970829665_4083055946047667566_nSisters (yes, littermates!) Sally and Shirley of Shadowland, February 2016

    Shadowland is in very good paws with those girls! We feel so lucky to be part of the extended Shadowland family, thanks to you. Karen and Craig adored you; I’m so grateful that they shared you with me.

    Right after you died, I worried a lot about where you might be and if you were okay there. It tore up my heart to think about you being somewhere unfamiliar, not sure what to do, lonely, waiting for me, and wondering why I didn’t come. On bad days, I felt so guilty, angry, helpless, and sad that I looked forward to the “good” days when just the sadness, on its own, felt tolerable. A year later, I think I’ve finally come to believe that wherever you are, you’re safe and content, and comfortable enough to roll belly-up when you’re dreaming. Now, I’m just hoping I get to be with you again someday, there, wherever there is. I know you’ll wait for me.

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    It’s been a very warm March week, the kind of days you would have liked to spending lying on the deck, baking in the sun. Even before it registered that this anniversary was approaching so quickly, I’d found myself thinking about how much you loved to do that and wishing you were here to enjoy this weather. Making you happy was not only a delight, but a point of pride! I hadn’t grasped that facet of love so thoroughly until I loved you; you probably understood it all along.

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    So, wherever you are, know that I’m thinking about you, which is kind of like petting you with my mind. Thank you for being my best friend. I promise that I’m okay and I’m ready to love another dog full-time, just as soon as I’m allowed to bring one home! I’m so proud of you for overcoming your fear of cutlery and for becoming the Dog of the House after Maggie was gone. You did a great job looking after Mom and Dad. Please say ‘hi’ to Maggie for me. You’re a good, good girl. I love you, Dix.

    Always,

    Your Girl, Emily

  • How to Clean Your Stainless Steel Flask

    . . . That You Really Love Because You Got it in New Zealand

    1. Text your friend, Lil’ Jay, with whom you have been discussing flasks: My flask smells revolting. How do you clean a flask?

    2. Wait for her reply: [My fiance] says, “What do you mean ‘how do you clean a flask?’ You Google ‘how to clean a flask!”

    3. Wait for the addendum: He Googled it for you.  Salt water or a little bleach in water.

    4. Leave putrid flask out on the kitchen counter for one week, or until your roommate asks if there is any particular reason that your putrid flask is out on the kitchen counter.

    5. Poke around in the cabinets, trying to remember what Lil’ Jay’s fiance’s Google search results suggested, until you find some white vinegar and baking soda and think, “Oh, yeah, that might have been it.”

    7. Dribble some vinegar and a little bit of warm water into the flask.

    8. Use the heart-shaped teaspoon your grandmother gave you for Valentine’s Day to scoop 1 tsp. baking soda into the flask.

    9. Screw the cap closed and shake vigorously.

    10. Listen to the fizzing.

    11. Shake vigorouslier.

    12. Listen to more fizzing.

    13. Empty the flask. Rinse thoroughly with warm water.

    14. Check old text messages and see that Lil’ Jay’s fiance actually suggested salt water and bleach, not vinegar or baking soda.

    15. Google it yourself and find these great instructions for cleaning a stainless steel travel coffee mug (almost the same thing, yes?) with baking soda, boiling water, and white or cider vinegar on Good Housekeeping‘s website.

    I bet Lil’ Jay’s fiance hasn’t even heard of Heloise and her hints, hmpfh!

    flaskpjpocket

    16. Take a picture to show how well your sparkling and squeaky clean flask fits in the pocket of your pajama pants!

    17. Feel silly.

    18. Post it on the internet anyway.

  • You wanted me to write something

    So, I wrote down (and photographed) the contents of my bag!

    inmybag

    Last week’s New Yorker
    Violet sunglasses
    A few Equal packets
    LG Plum cell phone
    Card case for business cards and coupons
    Make-up bag (its contents could be a-whole-nother photo)
    iPod Classic
    Notebook, two pens, Chapstick, and C.G. Bigelow Menthe Lip Shine
    Sephora by OPI nail polish in Caffeine Fix
    Purple wallet
    Inside a royal blue hobo

    Happy now?

  • (I can’t get no)

    My theory is, the same way my body craves proteins and vitamins when they’re lacking, I get cravings when there is an emotional or intellectual deficiency of some kind. I go through phases of fixation on one particular element of my life.

    Material cravings have me browsing online and mail order catalogs like it’s my job.  Next, I’ll spend every free moment working out or planning a workout, my refrigerator is stocked with fresh, lean organics, and I get my hair cut and revamp my skincare regime.  Then I’ll read three books in two weeks and entertain the notion of going back to school for an advanced degree.  And when that passes, I sprout social butterfly wings and make a point to catch up with everyone I know before retreating into a domestic phase.  That usually involves a comprehensive scrub-down of the entire apartment and the rearrangement of furniture and decorative accessories.

    Sometimes it leads to attempts at creating decorative accessories myself.  That’s a warning sign for a creative spell.  The creativity cravings are the most difficult to satisfy.  It’s like craving something, but not knowing what it is.  Because what I want, what I crave, is somewhere within me, unseen, and if it gets stuck, simply wanting it to emerge isn’t enough to make it happen.  Sometimes I feel just desperate to conceive something of words or colors and when I can’t draw it out, it’s like I’m imploding and exploding at the same time.

    What’s unsettling is, lately, I haven’t craved much of anything.  It’s like I’m caught in the trough of a wave, just riding it out.  It’s odd, though, this absence of want.  It’s like a deficiency of deficiencies, but that doesn’t mean I’m thoroughly satisfied.

    {P.S. What are you non-gastronomical cravings? Material? Physical? Intellectual?  Social? Domestic? Creative? Or otherwise?}

  • Obeying weather patterns

    Sometimes it snows in March

    Last week, I was tromping around in the snow on the roof of my office building.  It was so windy that my pupils couldn’t focus properly, like I had a layer of slush coating my eyes instead of tears.  My hands were slow and stiff in the cold, but I managed to take the token self-portrait above.  For posterity.  Because I hadn’t expected to hear the voluminous hush of snow again in Winter 2009, and then I got this one last chance.  And you never know where I’ll be for Winter 2010.

    Over the weekend, positively balmy temperatures drained away every remnant of that last chance snow storm.  I went out in a cotton tank and a light wool cardigan.  Wearing sporty silver flats.  My bare ankles were exposed and they were like, “hello world!”  We opened all the windows on Saturday morning and when I got home early, early Sunday morning, the smell of warm, damp bricks still swished around the perimeter of the apartment.

    One year, my high school closed for a day in the middle of May because all the school buses had been vandalized.  Usually it takes a snow storm to cancel school, but they couldn’t transport students in buses with blacked out windows.  The weather was warming up, but that day, the air just happened to be saturated with the scents of sun and grass.  It was so, so hard to go back to school the next day, having had that taste of summer, and knowing that our long vacation was so close.

    Now that there’s no real summer vacation to anticipate, the weather taunts me with just the coming of a different season.  Me and my ankles.

  • I’m so happy with my new camera

    My parents got me a Canon Powershot SD880IS for Christmas.  (I had to read the model number off the front of it, and don’t ask me to repeat it from memory.)

    empirestatefoggy

    In the time it took to cross the street to the promenade on 23rd street, I spun the scene mode dial to the night settings, zoomed in, and caught the great ball of fog hovering around the top of the Empire State Building.

  • Right there, under the rainbow

    I was born in San Antonio, Texas in 1984.  A few months before my parents moved to Connecticut in 1986, my pediatrician relocated to a new office.  It featured a rainbow sculpture that arched across the sidewalk leading up to the front door.

    The rainbow is my earliest memory; the first image imprinted permanently on my brain.  For literally as long as I’ve possessed the ability to remember, I’ve had the image of this rainbow in my head, a little hazy around the edges.  It’s what I’ve always contributed to conversations about San Antonio: “I remember a building with a rainbow in front of it . . . ”

    But it was the one thing that we didn’t have a photograph to look at.

    My coworkers, bless their hearts, brought me to the rainbow on the way to the airport after our conference in San Antonio last week.

    My parents had sent me the addresses of the hospital where I was born and of my first home, the names of a park where I split my little chin open and of a few Texan landmarks that we visited as a family, but all I really wanted to see was the rainbow.

    I wanted to confirm that fading mental image with my own eyes.  It’s the one memory of my infancy that hasn’t been influenced by my parents’ memories, like the chin accident in the park, or reinforced throughout my childhood, like the rooms in my grandmother’s house, which is where the three of us lived when we first left Texas for Connecticut.

    I felt a little homesick in San Antonio.  Without many concrete memories to represent it in my mind, I think of it as a place that I’ll always share with my mom and dad.  Before my brother or my dog or pre-school, it was just the three of us among the bluebells.

  • Do you know what pride looks like?

    Today, I took responsibility.  Today, I stood up for myself.

    Today, I was inspired by a candidate and by my country.

    Tonight, hope has new meaning.  Tonight, tomorrow holds new promise.

  • Highly Notable Events in October 2008

    • voted Barack Obama for President via absentee ballot
    • decided not to get an iPhone
    • lost my pink cell phone; replaced it with a purple one
    • resolved, with moderate success, to get to work earlier
    • saw Christopher Meloni and Ice-T filming an episode of SVU a block away from my office

    “That’s Ice-T, man.  That’s Ice TEE.”

  • E is for nesting

    The IKEA HELMER ($40 in white, red, or silver) was my project for the weekend.  I got it to replace a set of three plastic drawers on rubberized wheels—the kind that furnish dorm rooms and pantries but are better off hidden under a bunkbed or behind a closet door.

    This is so-o-o-o much classier.

    Since it’s the IKEA version of steel drafting drawers, the casters only roll forward and backward and the drawers do not have sliders or stops.  This makes it a little awkward to store heavy items.  I did put my blow dryer in, but if I open that drawer and let go of the handle, the blow dryer tips the drawer clumsily down and forward.  That’s not a problem that outweighs having an easy-access spot to hide an unsightly object out of sight.

    On the other hand, these drawers are perfect for: hair accessories, a half-empty box of Q-tips, a collection of Sharpie markers, miscellaneous gadget cords, a sewing kit, a sticky lint remover roller, five pairs of pattern-cutting scissors, stationary and stamps, and a calculator that I haven’t used in two or three years.

    One other thing that I want to show off in this picture: see my laptop bag hanging from the side of the desk?  I thought I was brilliant when I hammered a nail into the desk, specifically to hook the bag there.  Any improvisational solution that will get something, just one item, off the floor of my bedroom is ingenious enough for me.

    Also picture: two FÄRM vases from IKEA ($2) and a fifteen-minute glass from cb2 ($10 in green or red).