the adventures of birdie

experiments in flight

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as is

perfect "It's perfect!" I shout to the barista. My mouth puckers a little as I turn away - the espresso in my drink is a touch overextracted, and the acid pulls

  • Birdie Baird
    Birdie Baird
1 min read

just a song at twilight

It was a month or so ago, now. I had just finished up with work and begun the drive home, forgoing the short route in favor of the one that meanders through pine

  • Birdie Baird
    Birdie Baird
3 min read

autumn wind rises

The sun is starting to change its quality. It's just over a week after the autumnal equinox, so still practically summer, especially here—but the light pouring around the treetops and through the

  • Birdie Baird
    Birdie Baird
1 min read

pacified

I have so many stories to tell. I could tell you about midsummer—the way that time ran different, and how the ghosts of the old gods watched from behind the trees as

  • Birdie Baird
    Birdie Baird
3 min read

road blues

This is the post I didn't want to write. These are the thoughts that make me feel guilty. These are the wrenching feelings that bash right up against the wall of shoulds and

  • Birdie Baird
    Birdie Baird
4 min read

those old cold summer blues

The apartment where I am staying is bright and clean. The corners of the room are as crisp as hospital beds, and the light—still everpresent—is a little more amenable to normal

  • Birdie Baird
    Birdie Baird
4 min read
serendipitous

serendipitous

In previous travels, I've had the tendency to plan everything out ahead of time—staying in X hostel for Y days, then taking Z train to this that and the other, etc etc.

  • Birdie Baird
    Birdie Baird
4 min read
i don't fall in love

i don't fall in love

There was a time when I didn't fall in love. I wasn't a complete robot - I understood the concept well enough. More than that, I'd been right in the terrible roiling thick

  • Birdie Baird
    Birdie Baird
3 min read

project thing-a-day is on hiatus now because i like the number eight.

I started taking ballet classes when I was six years old, and continued until I was 14. I can't do full splits now (although I'm close to regaining them), but a few other

  • Birdie Baird
    Birdie Baird
1 min read

project thing-a-day: 8. cake

I think it's been three days now since I started meditating again for the first time in about two months, and boy is my brain tired. Last year I bit the bullet and

  • Birdie Baird
    Birdie Baird
3 min read

project thing-a-day: 7. slice of life

Yesterday I wrote about two sentences, and didn't post them. Obviously. On Sunday I didn't write a single goddamn word. About 40% of my brain would like to use this as the excuse

  • Birdie Baird
    Birdie Baird
2 min read

project thing-a-day: 6. some six-word stories

I remembered that a thing is just a thing and it doesn't have to be a cohesive story every time, just as sporadic and speckled a collection of words and/or images as

  • Birdie Baird
    Birdie Baird
1 min read

project thing-a-day: 5. it's still my face goddamnit

Whenever I tell people what I'm about to tell you, dear figmentary Reader, they almost invariably have the same few emotions flicker across their face in the same order before they catch themselves

  • Birdie Baird
    Birdie Baird
3 min read

project thing-a-day: 4. the possible difference

The gates are still stuck. I'm exhausted. Every night I'm waking up every hour or less, peering blearily at the clock, then slipping immediately back into fitful dreams, mostly dealing with the untold

  • Birdie Baird
    Birdie Baird
2 min read

project thing-a-day: 3. the gates

"...[W]riting every day is easy enough." Except when it's not. "...[A]ll you need to do is open the floodgates and pour words on the page..." Except when

  • Birdie Baird
    Birdie Baird
1 min read

project thing-a-day: 2. the spilled coffee

It's happened a half-dozen times this week alone. I'll be making a cup of pourover coffee in the cute little cherry-red apparatus you see pictured above. It's the same routine I've had since

  • Birdie Baird
    Birdie Baird
3 min read

project thing-a-day: 1. the pig

I could see that he was tense. Years of martial arts training have taught my eye and attention to hone in on tight muscles and torqued limbs, and the knotted band that ran

  • Birdie Baird
    Birdie Baird
4 min read

project thing-a-day: 0

I've wasted a lot of time "trying" to start writing regularly in this blog. I'll have an idea for a post and sit down with a halo of the most shining

  • Birdie Baird
    Birdie Baird
3 min read

turn your radio on

After you read what I'm about to tell you, please don't think I'm crazy. (that'll make one of us) Sometimes I think the radio is talking to me. It started years ago—good

  • Birdie Baird
    Birdie Baird
3 min read

feelings

I buried my face in my hands and shook with the effort of not bursting into noisy tears. Biff had just shown me an enormous Christmas Eve Eve surprise present: he'd written to

  • Birdie Baird
    Birdie Baird
2 min read
this old mountaintop town

this old mountaintop town

Missoula snuck up on me. I was strolling along, minding my own business, focused on the adventure, thoroughly enjoying the company of friends but also half-longing for the diamonds-and-silver air of early morning

  • Birdie Baird
    Birdie Baird
3 min read

final countdown

Eighteen days to go. Last month I gave the requisite 45 days' notice to our landlord. It seems like an age ago and just yesterday -- time is being strange, like cold honey

  • Birdie Baird
    Birdie Baird
2 min read

adventures

That's what this blog is supposed to be all about, right? Of course right. The difficulty begins, however, in one's particular definition of that word. When I have been staying in one place

  • Birdie Baird
    Birdie Baird
2 min read

please come to denver (3)

It's an interesting semi-trend (if you can call two similar-ish occurrences a trend) that the girls in my family seem to be following: get into a solid long-term relationship and move to Denver

  • Birdie Baird
    Birdie Baird
3 min read
please come to denver (2)

please come to denver (2)

Let me preface this next sentiment by saying that overall, I think I prefer a mountain experience similar to the one you'll find in North Carolina or New York: when you are close

  • Birdie Baird
    Birdie Baird
3 min read
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