Surgical Words

Pulling the orange cord through my fingers and looping it systematically, I withstood the heat rising from the scorched concrete.

The heat and sun felt strange to me, having just driven back home from the city, where fat droplets had made it difficult to even cross the street to get to my car.  I had hurriedly throwing my tools and extension cord in the trunk, fiddled with my wipers, and left.

I managed to become a little lost.  The redeeming feature of city blocks is that they tend to form right angles, and I eventually found the main road.

My wipers fought the rain as I made it to the highway, my mind concentrating more on the stained water running off the road than on driving.  Two months, I think it’s been.  Dry, emaciated foliage leaned and drooped everywhere.

A mile out of the city, the pale blue sky hit, slick asphalt traded for dry.  The hills in the distance stood relief in sunlight, the same hot breath they’d felt for weeks.

I left the rain behind.

I could see the dark gray off to the west, forming and toiling, but these clouds gave their gift selectively.

When I reached home, I unloaded the hastily coiled cord from my trunk and began to form it into large loops.  Ants scurried away from my feet in a way that almost scared me, as though I were something to fear.

Almost on a whim, I glanced up to see if maybe, just possibly, the clouds were coming towards me.  Above the roof line, the sun backlit a high-altitude cloud, streams of light pinpricking the haze from around the curled formation.

I added each loop, twisting the cord between my fingers to make it settle.

I began to wonder how long I could keep it up — how long could I push until I, too, succumbed?  Unlike the plants, water couldn’t save me.  I needed the storm.

All your base.rbelong to us:

zig = Base::ZIG.new(:every)
zig.move(:justice => 'great')
zig.take_off!


I wear a pretty serious collection of bracelets on my left wrist. I have two hair ties, linked into each other, a 3mm spring, a glow-in-the-dark gel bracelet, and a new one: a hair tie and a purple piece of nylon.

Let me take this opportunity to note that although my hair is, as many put it, “shaggy,” I don’t use the hair ties myself. I find that having a hair tie for a friend-who-is-a-girl tends to get you into their good graces, and the ties are cheap and colorful, too.

I wound the spring myself with a pair of spring-winding pliers. It joins itself with two little jewelry-style loops with the ends tucked back inside the spring so they don’t poke. I used a pliers to get it on, and could pull it off forcefully in an emergency, but other than that it’s on indefinitely.

The glow-in-the-dark bracelet is pretty cool at night and in movie theaters, but these things are incredibly brittle, and I’ve repaired this one twice. I’ll post pictures of the repair at some point, but basically you make a spring tube slightly larger than the diameter of the bracelet, stick it over the two ends, and get someone to crimp it with a pair of pliers. This, again, allows you to rip it in an emergency.

I made the most recent bracelet today. My mom brought home two baskets of blackberries she picked at a local farm. They were tasty, and I noticed they also stained my fingers while I ate them. I had a piece of nylon rope (about 2mm in diameter), so I looked up how to dye using natural coloring. Here are the steps I used:

1. Soak the nylon rope in white vinegar for a few minutes, and then wring out the excess.
2. Squish a few blackberries, and then coil the rope inside the container, evenly coating it with the juice. It will appear very red at this point, but it will end up being light purple after completion. Wipe off any seeds that are stuck to the rope.
3. Put the rope in something where it will be exposed to steam, but will not be soaking in water. I built a little steamer out of some tin cans and some candles, but some of the links below give instructions for microwaving. Let it steam for about 10 minutes, but don’t allow it to get so hot that it burns or melts.
4. Wash until all the excess dye is gone and wiping a paper towel along the rope comes off clean.
5. Repeat steps 2-4 until you are satisfied with the color and fixedness.
6. Melt the ends of the rope with a lighter, if desired.
7. Measure to your wrist, leaving about 4cm extra for a double knot, and tie.

I left the ends unfinished so they would fray, but many nylon ropes have a mesh core that will not accept the acid dye. You may need to cut this out of the ends, allowing the fray to travel up to the knot. Instead of having someone tie this on to my wrist, I linked it (ask a girl to do it if you don’t know how) with a stretchy green hair tie so that I could fit the whole unit over my hand. It looks nice with the light purple from the blackberries.

Helpful sites:

• http://www.pburch.net/dyeing/FAQ/nylon.shtml
• http://www.tahlia.org/blogger/postpics/dye/blackberrydye.htm