Hello from the South Portland suburbs. It’s raining. Fruit trees are blooming. Yesterday I got caught in an epic hail storm and saw a rainbow.
Also Yesterday
After a shitty night of sleep, one in a string of them, I opened my eyes in my Astoria bed and saw this:
Can you see it?
I took this photo and went back to sleep. I remembered it later in the day, checked my phone to see if it was a real and, sure enough, there was a grainy picture of a woman’s haunting silhouette in my dirty laundry pile.
In Other News
My latest picture book sketches have been approved by my editor and AD and I’m starting on the final art. It’s spring break over here (this week and next) so I am working sporadically. Hank and I spent the beginning of this week in Astoria and Milo and I will be in NYC next week. This is a quick and kind of spontaneous trip - Milo’s first visit to New York - rescheduled at the last minute from one we were supposed to take in May. If you have hot tips about things you think we shouldn’t miss, I’m all ears. A friend told me about an exhibition of Klimt landscapes at Neue Galerie that looks amazing. I’d like to make my once-per-decade pilgrimage to the American Folk Art Museum too. And we have plans to visit the Met with some other vacationing PNW friends. But really, how many art museums can I reasonably visit with an eleven-year-old on his first short trip to New York City?
Here’s our to do list:
Pizza
Times Square (I know, I know)
The Highline
The Met
The Empire State Building
Chinatown
Ride a horse and buggy through Central Park because I have wanted to do this since I was like seven years old.
Bagels
Arts & Entertainment
Some recommendations for you:
I thought Anatomy of a Fall was brilliant.
I’m reading Catherine, Called Birdy by Karen Cushman on-and-off. Okay, I’m listening to it. Despite my love of all things medieval, despite the fact that I work in kid’s literature, and despite the amount of times this book has been recommended to me, I’m just getting to it now. It’s very good. If you love furious, trouble-making, unrepentant girl protagonists you’ll probably love this book too. It’s in the grand middle grade tradition of Harriet the Spy; a book of complicated ethics and genuine child experience that is also really funny. The reader of my audiobook is Jenny Sterlin and she’s great.
I’m currently obsessed with this Little Simz song. It’s a couple of years old but finally reached my forty-eight-year-old ears via a reel on instagram.
That’s all for now! I hope spring is stirring in your inner and outer landscapes.
Love,
Carson
We had some really surprising hail last week and then thunder and lightning (so, seeing as I live in SoCal it was surprising)! It seemed like it was very close to our house. Only two of us were home, so my mom went up and sat in her pretty big (for our size of house) closet. I left the computer and went to sit on my bed upstairs. It's finally seeming like it's maybe (?) getting spring-like here. C'mon, weather, it's almost April! XD;
Cloisters. It might take a bit to get up there, but it's damn fine.