Google world takeover?

We know Google remembers our searches, our addresses, and everyone we've ever contacted. Of course it's creepy. Of course it makes us want to run to a tree, read poetry all alone and then grow basil in our windowsills.

So we can feel free from it all or something.

When we're done thinking we can rid ourselves of the computer, we can at least have a little fun with it. HuffPo published a list of some of the strangest Google maps sightings.

Freshman year, my friend Emma and I were actually caught on the Google van cameras as well. I've got on shorts and white tennis shoes:

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Grateful for, excited for

Grateful for:

The creativity of my friend Allie.
Wine made to pair with venison.
Curious people who write.

Excited for:

Grapefruit. I'm really starting to like this fruit more. A lot more. I eat it like an orange in the morning or broiled with honey (the way my mom makes it every Christmas morning). I like where this Vitamin-C relationship is going.

Fourth of July in Ithaca! A small town parade, World Cup, watermelon, and my best friend.

Treating the senses

This is what happens with the moon, a slow shutter speed, and a twirling hand.

Friday, I climbed on a bus, rolled out of the city, and drank in the rural life at a community-supported farm in Maryland. It was sensory overload:

Taste

Homemade gumbo with big shrimp and an herb called lovage. Yeah, LOVE-AGE.

Touch

Juicy figs at the farmers market.

Counting sales of fresh snap peas and radishes.


Smell

Home-brewing beer took us late into the night. The sour smell of hops kept us going.

Sight

Nathan took this one. Sunset over the barn.

Sound

The happiest pup in the world, Bear was huffing and smiling at the market.

A lesson in hunting.

picture not by me.

Pronghorns are not actually antelope. They aren't closely related to any animals on earth. Their speed whoops up on the American cheetah. American cheetahs don't exist. Pronghorns outrun their extinct ancestors. Whoa.

Shameless self promotion. Want to win a hunting knife? Want to see photos from the Field & Stream archive that I selected and scanned so that you can write ridiculous captions? Click this.

Only lightning bugs smell like that.

I am searching for a visual metaphor to describe how many lightning bugs were in Union Square Park tonight.


I remembered this picture, of shells so numerous at first I thought they were sand. Until I looked close, under the nets of fishermen who cast when the sun rises in Gonaives, Haiti. Little shells in piles and piles. Hands and jars and bugs and shells.

And, in both places, mosquitoes to outnumber them all.

Catfish and Zaboka

The oven in my apartment is fixed. To celebrate, I baked catfish. My inspiration is the much cooler and much more legit blog, The Wild Chef (Ok, I'm biased).

The lovely Lilah chopped maters and avocados and we had a meal like real people. But we still lounge and laugh on counter tops.

Build a hunting vocabulary

GFade: A type of camouflage. Also my huntress rapper name.

Mermaids on parade

Coney Island is Americana at its most sugar-bittersweet. It's falling apart but gaudy. Not in a plastic way, but in a painted rusty metal way. It's everything you would expect. Creepy. Fantastical.

I spent a happy Saturday with a friend, playing my camera on the mermaids and whimsy.

Ode to innuendo

Fruit in the city.

The best game to play

Grateful for, excited for.
Grateful for:
The books I'm reading

A joyous potluck

Friends
(and much-loved month-late birthday cards)

My boy
And his talents
http://manowakv.wordpress.com/

Excited for:
Coney Island
Ice cream
Pickled squash
(not my picture but you get the point)

What are you grateful for? Excited for?

What I look at in the morning

Nytimes, the Bible, Esquire.com, and
The Pioneer Woman

Thank you, IU text messages

For telling me to get to the basement. Twister's comin.

I need to find a better way...

...to identify Haitians. Right now, I get real close and hum a Haitian folk song, Choukoun.

Missing out? Narrow in.

Make a city digestible: pick a few spots. Remember what you love. For me, people, pictures, eggs benedict, found notes and papers:



Fun while the sun set over Manhattan.


All of these found in $1 book bins on the curb:

Notes on intimidation.

I am humbled. I am humbled by big streets and fast people and subway transfers and creative musicians and better cooks than I'll be.

In other news: I love this girl and this window seat (one is my brother's love and one is mine):

Subway feet

Balance and style.

A few lessons in hunting

Piti piti (little by little) I am learning about guns, deer, and turkey mating calls.

Lesson #1
Hunters are serious about words. Don't say "bag" a deer. You killed it.

Lesson #2
Hunters are naturalists. Some of the most beautiful writing comes from those in the field who observe the way the grass feels, the way the sun moves, the way a leaf crackles.

Back to summer blogging

"Li béf mwen."

Summer. I won't make any grand statements about what it signifies (flowers and Brown Eyed Girl and basil and joy), but I will say I'm happy it's here.

I spent two weeks in Haiti, planting trees, practicing kreyol, and visiting friends. The Haitian newspaper Le Matin was still functioning, although they publish weekly now. Prestige beer is back to brewing its lovely signature beer and Guinness. The factory was fascinating, as it employs hundreds of Haitians and sends its beverages throughout Haiti, despite crumbled roads.

Sweet boy who called me "blan." I said, "M pa rele blan, m rele Carol." (My name is not whitey, my name is Carol).

Morning fishers.

Between Port-au-Prince and New York, a very special picnic:


Now, I'm in New York, working for a magazine and learning about Haitian media. I'm hoping to eat delicious food, meet people, and hear their stories. Life is full when it's full of stories.