where fish go in winter and other great mysteries

i'd never peeled or chopped an onion before last night. really.

well, my dears, onions are beautiful.
don't you think?
they have the loveliest glossy sheen once you've peeled them.

i was quite disappointed that the onion i chopped didn't make me cry; in fact, i dearly wanted it to make me cry--mostly due to an intriguingly wonderful illustration in this book that i used read all the time when i was little, in which two people with lovely eyes are crying beautifully over an onion they've cut. it's haunted me (in a good way) since the age of four.

well, i don't know about you, but i've found that i personally cannot chop an onion without stopping five times throughout the process to take pictures of that gorgeous bulb that came out of the dirt.

(isn't it funny to think that underneath your house is dirt, and in that dirt maybe some onions grew hundreds and hundreds of years ago? thousands of years ago? maybe even some apple trees or grape vines or potatoes or venus flytraps. you never know. isn't it funny to think that dirt in general is where things grow? i think dirt is pretty magical. i wish i had listened better in that dirt conference we had back in sixth grade.)