Friday, March 30, 2012

{salty eyes}



i'd apologize for the lack of words on the blog this week, but i don't think that's all that necessary. sometimes you have words, and sometimes you don't.

so.
there's that.

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

{also, this}

i just came across this picture again...and every time i come across it i want to show it to somebody. so. here you go.

{the district sleeps alone tonight}

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

{}

i've got nothing to say today.
is that alright?

Monday, March 26, 2012

{part 19}

Where Is My Mind by Maxence Cyrin on Grooveshark
{parts 12345678, 9 10,  1112 1314, 15161718}

"'ALF A CROWN FOR THE CHILDREN, SIR, JUST 'ALF A CROWN!"

she was old and crazy and her black-grey hair was wild; her back bent, her face and neck stretched and squished and lined, her voice screeching and cracking, loud but frail. she was standing in the shadow of big ben, holding a mess of twisted wire and felt flowers, frantically offering them to people who pushed her away and hurried on.

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"'ALF A CROWN! 'ALF A CROWN!"

barclay didn't see her until she was latched onto his arm, prying open his fingers to plant a felt flower there. the crowd pushed past, a young man in a business suit bumped the woman as he tried to step around her, sending her flowers to the ground. she spun and grabbed him around the waist.

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"YOU, SIR! ONLY 'ALF A CROWN FOR A FLOWER! IT'S ONLY 'ALF A CROWN! IT'S TO FEED THE CHILDREN!"

the flower that she'd been trying to give to barclay had been taken back and was now being shoved down the front of the business man's button-up shirt. she pulled herself up by his shoulders and screeched into his face.

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"NOW YOU GIVE ME 'ALF A CROWN OR I'LL TAKE IT BACK!"

his face turned red and a vein bulged beside his eye.

"get off me! i don't have any money."

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it sent her into a rage and she started trying to rip open his shirt with her knobby, gnarled fingers to get her felt flower back, unaware of the rest of her wares being trampled beneath the feet of the crowd.

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"GIVE ME BACK MY FLOWER! GIVE IT BACK! THIEF!"

as he staggered back and pushed her away, screaming and cussing and matching her flail for flail, for whatever reason i pictured her as a 24 year-old woman, looking up at big ben in wonder, maybe holding someone's hand or leaning over the bridge or unfolding a city map or staring through the lens of a film camera.

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and i looked back up at ben through my own camera lens and felt sad about how life is sometimes.

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Friday, March 23, 2012

{how to be a good library patron}

when i was three, i wanted to be a gardener when i grew up. more specifically, i wanted to be my mom's gardener and i wanted to live at home forever and just garden all the time--mostly because i liked the taste of dirt on carrots so much, and shucking corn with the radio blaring was, i thought, a great way to spend an afternoon.

when i turned five and went to kindergarten, my affections fled the garden and made their home in the school library. so much so, in fact, that i told my mom that i wanted to take my bed to school, and that i was actually going to be a librarian when i grew up {because i thought the librarian's job was to read ALL THE BOOKS}. {so much for living at home forever.}

much to your surprise, my point is not that i'm a big geek; my point is that it's almost 20 years later and i still love the library almost enough to bring my bed there. oh wait. maybe my point is that i'm a big geek then.

so.

i'm not a librarian. my passions changed again in grade 3 when i realized that as much as i loved reading, i maybe loved writing even a little more, and i decided that i wanted to be an author. and when people questioned me on the impracticality of writing for a living, i just answered that i'd be a librarian on the side. so, author/librarian. life goal. done. and all my friends wanted to be veterinarians.

anyway, i'm not either of those things: i'm a piano teacher. which is also good. but! i have a good friend who is a librarian, so i'm living that longtime dream vicariously through her. and today, to make a long ramble short, she is here with some tips on how to be a good library patron {as stated above}.

Thursday, March 22, 2012

{the great internet self-esteem crisis of '12}

i like to look at my stats.

i like to see where people are visiting from and how many of them are around. not in a competitive i-want-to-win-the-internet kind of way {i've taken my google friend connect thing off the blog because lately, i just don't care how many people are "subscribed"; i just like that people comment and that there's anyone at all reading}, but in a curious how-are-people-finding-me kind of way.

today, the results were less than savoury, and i'm going to share them because self-pity is a dish best eaten with the mouth wide open for everyone to see.

these are the words that people have typed into google search that have led them here to suzykrauseandtheskyscrapers.blogspot.com:


dumbo ears extreme... 8 people found me by searching for dumbo ears extreme?
katy perry mouth?
ballet and dog cakes?
BOY FACIAL HAIR?

ow, my pride...

quick, everyone say something nice about my face!!! it doesn't even have to be true!!!

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

{lately, i've been...}

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1 & 2} hanging out with friends at coffee shops
3} doing laundry like a crazy woman
4} going to lots of shows in sweet venues
5} enjoying the sun rising earlier in the morning
6} getting ready for a baby shower
7} sitting by the window
8} rediscovering my love for toaster strudels
9} sticking lyrics on the windows
10} eating apples to balance out the toaster strudels
11} enjoying flowers from my mum-in-law
12} being sick in bed a little
13} discovering sweet new blogs
14} working on some music stuff with barclay
15} visiting the art gallery
16} hanging with my niece {and anticipating the arrival of three more nieces/nephews}
17} playing around on my training wheels camera a bunch
18} hitting up the self-serve frozen yogurt shop in the next town over
19} going on road trips
20} being sad about my dead flowers. everything dies, did you know that?

{all the pictures are from my instagram, @ suzykrause}

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

{i have something to say to starbucks}

i came across this just now:
can you find the spelling error?
{click on the picture for the answer, if it doesn't leap out at you right away.}

it makes sense, actually. whenever i go to starbucks, i always get some college-aged barista who snaps her gum while she's taking my order, looking annoyed that i'm there at all, rolling her eyes when i forget to specify "tall" or "grande". in fact, the other day while i was waiting for my drink, the girls behind the counter were loudly lamenting all the "stupid" customers they have to deal with in a day. when i said a quick 'thanks' for my drink, i only got one of those looks that said, "beat it." and not in a catchy michael jackson way. 

i always sort of get the feeling that starbucks is that girl.
the one who grew up in a small town and was the hottest in her class for 12 years straight, so she's gotten used to not having to be nice to anyone because she has nice hair instead. 

well guess what, starbucks? when you graduate and go off to college, no one's going to know your name and there's going to be plenty of girls prettier than you, and you're going to realize that you should've been paying attention in english class instead of passing gossipy notes to all the other girls because you're going to spell "vegetables" wrong in front of a lot of people and they're all going to know that you're dumb and then you're going to have to learn how to be nice because you're going to get old and out of style and people are going to start going to locally-owned coffee shops instead. 

SO THERE.

Monday, March 19, 2012

{part 18}

The Outer Banks by The Album Leaf on Grooveshark
{parts 12345678, 9 10,  1112 1314, 151617}

the train pulled into london at about 10 am and, because we didn't know where we were going, we followed the crowd out of the station and down into the london underground. we'd borrowed some oyster cards from brian and anne, which we used to ride the tubes to oxford circus. we came up about 15 minutes later, kind of dizzily, into the bright sun and began winding our way along the streets, ducking into humungous toy stores and stopping to watch the street performers.
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people will warn you when you travel without a plan that you "don't just go to london and hop off the train and end up at big ben." they will, in a very matter-of-fact way, inform you of the bigness of london and the busyness of london and the costliness of transportation and so on and so forth. and if you're me, you will nod and say agreeable things about how you know it's probably just a silly idea, but keep your fingers crossed beneath the table for an afternoon sitting on the bridge over the river thames and under the shade of that ridiculously huge clock.
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because hoping is fine. hoping won't hurt anyone, as long as your hope isn't like a noose around your neck that will pull tight the second you don't get the thing you're wishing for; as long as your hope is more like a very large dog on the end of a leash that pulls you toward that thing and won't let you sit down until either you're there or you for sure can't be there.
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this is true of many things in life, but for me on this one day, it was all about finding big ben. so you can imagine my excitement when i took my camera down from my face after taking this picture and noticed a ridiculously large clock peeking back at me through the buildings.
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so, anyway, you know, i guess the moral of this story is that you can go to london, hop off the train, and end up at big ben--though you might meet some interesting people along the way {but more on that later}.
oh, and the other moral of the story is that hope is good. and follow your dreams and stuff. and big ben actually should be called massive ben.

Friday, March 16, 2012

{crayons and babies}

i'm having a quiet, yet colourful, couple of days. sitting in the sunlight working away on a baby shower for this girl. i wish i could invite you all over to sit with me while i peel crayons and email invites and arrange arrangements and brainstorm ideas...but i can't because it looks like i ate the craft section of walmart and threw up all over our house. i don't want you to see it like this.
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so have a sip of coffee in my honour and email me good party links if you have any. this baby's not going to know what hit her.

wait...that might not be a very good thing to say about a baby.
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Thursday, March 15, 2012

{something i want to remember}

the other day i was kidnapped right out of my bed and taken to a diner on the other side of town, where i was interrogated for two hours and forced to eat french toast.
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so that was nice. 
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we talked about charles dickens and the three musketeers and charlotte bronte and e.m. bounds and i took pictures of him when he thought my camera was off. those kinds of pictures are the best kinds of pictures. 
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and those kinds of mornings are the best kinds of mornings.
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Wednesday, March 14, 2012

{the yellers}

i'm a big fan of music. 
{obviously.}
my mom used to bring me to rock concerts in my car seat as a baby, so i guess my love of loud stems from that.

the blogosphere seems to be all about the mellowest kinds of songs; 
artists who whisper their lyrics and plunk along on xylophones and ukeleles. 

and you know that i think that's great, but i'm all about balance. 

i like the whisperers, the ukelelists, the girls in their dresses and the boys in their suspenders.
but i will always hold that the funnest shows are the ones where the artists on the stage are absolutely wrecked by the end of their set. gasping for the breath to scream the next lyric, leaning over the crowd of worked-up, screaming kids, running around like their hair is on fire.

my roommate in college hated my cd collection. she'd cover her ears and make a sour face at me until i turned it off, but i had a small group of guy friends who'd quickly pack a car and drive off to any show within a six-hour radius on a moment's notice. the next morning we'd all show up to our respective classes, ears ringing and eyes bleary, incredibly happy and maybe wearing a new band t-shirt. the buzz from a show could last me a week. 

because that kind of music you can drive to in the country where no one can see you, yelling along as loud as your little voice can go. the whisperers sing into your ears and make you cry, the yellers sing into your spine and make you move. 

this morning, i'm listening to a slightly toned-down playlist of the bands i loved back then but haven't listened to in a while {why, i have no idea}, and a couple bands that i've never stopped listening to and hopefully never will. he is legend and brand new and thrice and mewithoutyou and stuff. i wanted to share--it's not for everyone, but you have to admit: they sound like they mean what they're saying. which is, at the very least, loveable. 

for spring by suzy krause on Grooveshark
{click through for the playlist if you're reading in a reader or email!}

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

{part 17}

Glockenspiel Duet Recorded On A Campsite In Rhinebeck, N.Y by Godspeed You! Black Emporer on Grooveshark

{parts 12345678, 9 10,  1112 1314, 15, & 16}

day 10

on the train to london
half five in the morning
slowly surely coming
on the train to london

across the car, some women
going to the city
talking much too loudly
on the train to london

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the sun is slowly rising
we did that already
you have to get up early
to get on the train to london

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speeding through newcastle
with a screech and whistle
waking up the town to see us off

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{listen! this is what england sounds like}

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our fingers trace the train route
all the way through england
you drift off to sleep and
london keeps on coming

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