it's 130 degrees outside

...so I spent it in here, doodling and thinking it was Saturday. Turk and I went out last night and made rather too merry at the neighborhood Italian bistro, and since no one should be this hungover on a Friday I just naturally assumed it was already the weekend. Shame on me. Again.


In honor of this monumental hangover and my current guru Danny Gregory, and in place of going to the gym, which is of course what I would have done if I wasn't such a sad derelict, I drew my new running shoe. Fair comp. While the intertwined laces and staggering number of swooshes pointlessly applied to the surface of the shoes confused my bleary brain, I do believe I burned 7 whole calories in the process. Good for me.


On Wednesday I spent the better part of an hour getting weighed, measured, foot-stamped, generally evaluated and no doubt judged by a handsome but bored young man while I sweated through my running pants and wished I'd had a pedicure. Ever. My feet are such a mess from centuries of standing and walking around and everything that running has become painful, and I was desperate for a solution. In the end, I bought these shoes for $110 plus tax and the standard measured-by-a-handsome-but-bored-young-man humiliation surcharge. Then I went to the gym and covered a total of 9.27 miles between the elliptical machine and the treadmill.

And my feet are killing me.

of mush and mojo

I've spent a beautiful and breezy California weekend trying to get my painting mojo back after months of ineffectual doodling. I've been trying to work on portraiture, which as I've mentioned before is not a strong point but something I love. The problem is that I tend to fixate unhappily on a desire to reproduce a precise likeness of the individual, unable to balance that with the more encompassing and interesting emotional aspects of the subject. I need to loosen up. The best artists manage to combine elements of both the objective visual and subjective emotional to create a work that embodies an overarching truth. Today, I achieved neither. Today, I achieved mush.

In searching for inspiration, I came across a portrait I did awhile back of mixed-media artist Betye Saar, based on a picture in an old LA Times magazine. I was drawn to the textures and colors, and the way the then 74 year old grandmother stood out against the background even as her clothing blended in to it. I loved her strong features and regal presence; the substance implied by the weight of her jewelry, the bravura touch of purple in her hair.

I didn't capture it all; I keep using too much water, the whole thing is at once too tightly controlled and overworked; it's evident that I had quite a bit of trouble with the jawline. And yet despite its flaws it's a picture that makes me smile, in large part because the photo was accompanied by a pithy quote by Ms. Saar; one which I admire for it's brave truthfulness, even as I ignore it's wisdom daily:

"There's a freshness about youth..and it's sort of pitiful when you see older women trying to grab on to that instead of holding on to the grace that comes with fading beauty."


It takes a great deal of strength to, in that lovely turn of phrase, 'hold on to the grace that comes with fading beauty.' I am not that woman. I am Woman, Hear me Mush.

tell me about the rabbits, George

Bunnies. We've got bunnies. We've got lots and lots of bunnies. From darling little fur balls no bigger than a powderpuff, all the way up to that mangy old jackrabbit who stands 4 feet tall and spits tobacco juice in the neighbor's pit bull's eye, bunnies by the hundreds reside here on our bucolic little rabbit farm high in the hills of suburban California.

At last count we were host to at least 4, possibly as many as 12 generations of free-range rabbits, all happily residing deep within the hedges, down under the deck, high up in the flower pots and soon, under the bed. In fact, the other evening I counted no less than 97 bunnies of every shape, size, religion and political persuasion devouring the remains of our tiny postage stamp of what was once a lawn. At least I'm pretty sure that was the number of bunnies; we were kicking back with a couple of cold ones at the time and that number may be slightly skewed in direct relation to the number of cold ones consumed. There is probably a precise mathematical formula by which one might compute an actual Rabbits-to-Dos Equis ratio, but that is beyond my range of expertise and really not the point. I don't even know why you brought it up.

The point is, there are a lot of bunnies.

And so, with the music of Tiny Bubbles playing in my brain (in every sense of the term) I wrote them a little ditty, called Tiny Bunnies.

They're just lucky they're so damn cute.

passport imperfect

It was a good news/bad news kind of thing.

The good news is that less than a month after filling out the forms, Turk and I had our renewed passports in our hot little hands. We were now free to take off and follow our dreams to exotic ports and distant lands at a moment's notice, limited only by our wildest imaginings and the contents of our Washington Mutual bank account, which as it turns out is fairly limiting indeed. But that is not the bad news.

The bad news is the passport photo. Specifically, my passport photo, or as I have come to think of it, Exhibit One; irrefutable proof that I am, well frankly, just not that young anymore.

Yes, I know, I know. No one is, least of all me. And I had it coming, after all ~ I have not exactly been a paragon of virtue; long nights and dry martinis do not a youthful complexion maintain. Still, 10 years is a long time between photos, but not that long. It's no Ice Age. So how is it, then, that my face seems suddenly to be sliding, glacier-like, off of my skull and in the general direction of my shoulders? Or breastbone, as the case may be, which should work out just fine as soon there will be nothing there to break its fall. My knees are still in the same place as far as I can tell, although somewhat more dimpled than I remember. Gravity and gravy are having their way with me.

Perhaps that's why the broad-beamed smile of the earlier shot has given way to a rather more cynical smirk in the later. It could be that wisdom and experience simply do not sit well upon this mildewed brow. Or maybe my mother was right all along, and I kept making that face until it finally froze that way.

Whatever the cause, none of this seems to have remotely affected my husband; Turk's pictures look for all the world like they may have been taken on the very same day. I'm pretty sure it's the same golf shirt. His very expression is identical from decade to decade, although his eyesight may be becoming questionable. When I showed him the offending photograph he, oblivious to my horror, smiled and exclaimed, "That's my pretty baby!" It's a blatant lie, of course. I'm old enough to know better. But I'm also old enough to know it'll have to do. In fact, it'll do quite nicely.

And wipe that smirk off your face before it freezes like that. You've been warned.

sunday bloody sunday

I was playing in Photoshop and wanted to see if I could upload a .tga file in here in order to create an irregularly shaped image. The answer is no, I cannot. I did, however, waste an awful lot of time in my graphics files, which always annoys me because I should have been doing...well something anyway. And then my computer suddenly and for no reason at all except that it is what it is quit interfacing with my graphics pen tablet and well...I am just irritated, is all.

But I'd been rummaging around in my dresser drawers earlier and came across these old sketchbooks with a couple of watercolor portraits. I love doing portraits although I'm not impressively adept. But I practice, baby, practice. Which is precisely what I was trying to do when my pen quit on me (she whines unpleasantly, silly spoiled spawn of the 21st century.) Oh, woe is me ~ what would Degas have done? Or Van Gogh? Cut off another appendage and drawn in blood, no doubt. It's nothing a little absinthe wouldn't cure. So what the hell is wrong with me?

I'm sure I've got a pencil somewhere. A pencil with an eraser. Now if I could only locate a sharpener and some absinthe....

vengence is mine

My pal Trish is mad at me. A lovely and talented musician, Trish recently played a little game on her blog, the prize for which was that she would record and post a video rendition of the lucky winner's favorite song. It seems I may have made a few possibly unwelcome suggestions ~ Debbie Boone's You Light Up My Life is someone's favorite song, surely ~ and she has taken her revenge by tagging me for one these.

So here are the rules:

1. Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog
2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog - some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.
4. Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

here are my 7 random and/or weird things:

1. I have a serious online gaming addiction. Stop me before my avatar kills again.

2. As a teenager, it took me 5 tries to pass my driver's license test. In all fairness to me, each try was in a different car, one of which was my boyfriend's '74 Mustang Mach I complete with side pipes and racing stripes. When I peeled away from the curb, tires spinning and engine roaring the inspector conducting the test actually made a grab for the dashboard, which is hardly ever a good sign. I finally passed in my mother's Toyota. Which she promptly gave to my brother.

3. My nickname in high school was 'Pathfinder' because I was always getting lost.

4. I gave myself that nickname.

5. I outsource all my blogging. The work is currently being performed by a clever but opinionated Shirley Temple doll in Bangladesh, who for some reason goes by the name of 'Tammy'.

6. I am very concerned about Trish's pathological fear of balloons.

7. I do not know 7 people who read this blog and am therefore unable to tag. Also, I am not mad at anybody, although this could change at any given moment. It all depends on Tammy.


*blogger surrogate/technician Tammy at home in Bangladesh

snapshot laguna

Some days you just need to get away. One of the things I love about living in southern California is the fact that a head full of salt air, an eyeful of color and a heart overflowing with poetry (very bad poetry to be sure, but poetry nevertheless) are only about a 20 minute ride away in pretty much any direction. Far and away my favorite play day-runaway destination is Laguna Beach, an enchanted isle of a place so cool it once had it's very own TV show.

Unfortunately for Laguna, the show was populated by some stunningly uncool airheads so tedious in their narcissism, so crashingly dull in their entitled stupidity that no one could stand their company for more than 10 minutes at a time, with commercials. The series was mercifully cancelled and, I believe, all the offending parties properly euthanized. The city, it seems was not ready for it's closeup.

But it has always gloried in the long shot, it's sun-drenched beauty a heady magnet for artists and dreamers for the past hundred or so years. On Thursday, Turk and I headed for the coast with some grand ideas about playing a round of golf at Aliso Creek, one of the loveliest little executive (read short and easy) courses I've ever seen. The first time I ever played there, I looked up into the early morning mist and beheld a deer poised high on a hill, staring off into the distance, watching my ball. It was positively magical, although I did lose that ball.

Our hopes of repeating the experience were dashed in the pro shop, where we were told there would be no tee times available until after 5:00 pm. We retired to the bar for a bite and a beer on the odd chance something would open up. It didn't. Disappointed, we were forced to head for the beach.

Everywhere we looked were photographers and models. A family of six hammed it up for a laughing shooter on the beach, capturing a day well-spent basking in the sun. Not far away a stunning brunette posed languidly in a red bikini at surf's edge, reclining for her cameraman in the last thin line of liquid orange light. Further down the beach a golden couple, lean and tanned and dressed in matching white, romped down the beach, spontaneously jumping into a playful piggyback ride. Take after take after take.

"Wedding photos," I informed Turk, who smiled, ever the romantic.

"That'll be nice," he said.


The romantic in me sighed, a sad but sweet little sigh, thinking they'll cherish those pictures forever.

The cynic in me chided, they'll cost more than their first mortgage and will be burned in the divorce.

They duked it out for a moment, the Romantic and the Cynic, against the glory of the setting sun. Given the circumstances the Romantic inevitably won, but then the contest had clearly been rigged. I took a picture.

A little guy who, up until that moment had been lost in the wonder of a yellow butterfly kite, came running over shouting, "Cheeeese! CHEEEEESE!"

"Alex, she's not taking your picture!" his mother admonished.

But I'm flexible. "I think I have to now, since he's being so obliging," I laughed.

"Cheese!" smiled Alex.

Alex is ready for his close-up.

call me Ishma...oh, never mind

I don't know why I haven't felt like writing lately, except to say that I haven't been doing much creatively at all. Things have been busy, it's true, but not all that busy. I could have dropped a note, a letter, a phone call; some tiny proof of life. A whisper, a shout, a sigh. But each time I even thought about writing something, whatever vague, uninspired little notions floating around my head fizzled, fell flat and fluttered away. I seem to be the victim of a serious malaise, and until I work my way through it I've simply run out of things to say.

It isn't as though I've been sitting moping around the house. Just a couple of weeks ago, Robbie and I spent a bright, blustery day out on the sea, searching for whales on the third round of what has become an annual event. Our sail was accompanied by the non-stop narration of an adorable little towhead whose name escapes me now but whom I have come to think of as Charlie, as no other name could suit him so well; a blond, blue-eyed all-American toddler of a boy if ever there was one. Charlie perched next to me and sat, tiny legs stretched straight out in front of him, earnestly calling out sightings at every opportunity.

"Get outta the way, Mommy! Mommy, get outta the WAY!" he cried once, as his mother blocked his view of the vast, empty waters.

Her eyes widened. "We say excuse me," she admonished. "We do NOT say get outta the way."

"Excuse me, Mommy." he replied. She smiled and moved away.

"Those are just rocks," his father told him.

"I'm sorry. I thought they were whales," Charlie said sincerely. Well, they looked like whales to me too. I gave Charlie a broad grin and a wink. I loved Charlie.

Charlie's pint-sized traveling companion was every bit as cute as he was, a dainty brunette with elfin eyes who never stopped smiling out from under her red knit hat even as the winds grew cold and the day long. The captain came on the loudspeaker to inform us that we were in pursuit of a giant blue whale spotted on an earlier cruise just a few miles away. We've been down this road before. Robbie laughed.

"That's what they all say," she said. "It's just like those ghosts on the Queen Mary; oh, man, you should have been here on the last tour..."



In the end, we didn't see any whales, which was OK with us. As always, the captain lingered around the buoy-cum-flophouse of the local seal slackers, who regarded us with their usual disdain. For all I know, they're the same group that have been ignoring us for the past three years running. It's good to know the locals. As we disembarked, we collected our ticket for another free sail and counted ourselves lucky. Watching as Charlie and Little Red Whaling Hat headed off into the chill, content in the warmth of their mothers' arms, we put up our collars and headed off in search of a little warmth of our own. The balcony of a nearby tavern beckoned with promises of hot toddies and sunsets. Happy hunting.

I have always been noble...

thanks to Miz Shoes, I have my title at last...

My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is: Her Most Serene Highness Lady Lotus the Recumbent of Goosnargh on the Carpet Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title

Serene, high and recumbent. You may kiss my ring.

has it been this long already?

A thousand apologies to anyone who's been checking this site recently for proof of life and finding none. In lieu of said, I offer this photo, taken in LA where Robbie and I recently attended a Chinese New Year pageant/Falun Gong recruitment effort, and which I meant to blog. But, you know, didn't get around to it.

I just got back from New York where I was working another tech show with my lovely and talented sis-in-law Kim, and which I too will blog, if ever I gather my wits about me long enough to remember any details beyond a blur of aching feet, a truly hideous hotel, way too much inappropriate laughter and one particularly hilarious night spent in a Greenwich Village tavern, listening to a friend's band and occasionally being hit upon by what appeared to be 8th grade boys.

Apres New York I blew through Houston to say hey to my nephew and my brother, staying just long enough to sit in on one of his gigs and run some errands on the motorcycle before turning around and heading for home. It all went so fast I feel as though I hadn't really been gone. And now I have work to do and promises to fulfill and will probably not get around to writing again for another month. Unless, of course, I decide to play hooky. As is my wont.

I am currently unpacking and nursing (surprise, surprise!) a bit of a head cold. It is no more than I deserve. Like the man said, if you dance to the music, don't ya know, you gotta pay the piper. Given the opportunity, I'll choose the dance everytime.

tech therapy

For the past couple of weeks I have been having an affair. It is intense, emotional, obsessive and fraught.

I know what you're thinking: 1) at last, she's going to write something interesting and b) poor Turk is going to be devastated.

Wrong on both counts. The first point is self-evident and as to the second, Turk is completely acquiescent.

"I'm expecting another call from Trevor," I tell him.

"Didn't you just talk to him for a couple of hours yesterday?" he inquires.

"Yes," I say defensively. "But we haven't dealt with all of our issues yet."

"OK," he says.

"Couldn't you be even a little bit jealous?" I ask. I mean, after all.

"Hey ~ you gotta do what you gotta do," he shrugs, not glancing up from the crossword puzzle. Too true. The heart wants what it wants. And mine wants a functioning computer.

Trevor (name changed to protect the innocent) is a true knight in shining armor over at HP, whose customer service is utterly beyond reproach. In fact, I would recommend their product to anyone wholeheartedly just so that they too could deal with the likes of Trevor if it were not for, well, you know; The Operating System That Shall Not Be Named. And in this we are all in agreement at last ~ the good folks at Epson, Abobe, Corel, HP, NAACP, the AFL CIO etc. etc ~ that said system is at fault. And it is making me very sad.

But not Trevor. Trevor calls me at scheduled days and times to see how changes we made together are affecting performance. When they do not work, as they invariably do not, he holds my hand and reassures me as I log on, log off, boot, reboot, go into the registry, toggle settings and generally just beg the OSTSNBN to behave. We have developed a relationship, Trevor and I. We share a sense of humor, and a certain net-based paranoia. He, like me, was an art history major in college, in his case with an eye toward a career in architecture. He went on to understand and embrace the beauty and wonder that is computer technology. I took an oath to embrace my inner Amish.

No matter. We are friends. We trust each other. If he lived closer and not in Oregon I envision he and his girlfriend, Tracey, and Turk and I enjoying many a backyard bbq, drinking wine and discussing the merits of Gaudi and Neutra, PC and Mac. How we'd laugh...

The day before yesterday, all else having failed, we decided it was time to do a system recovery in the hopes of turning back the clock to a time when my lovely HP Desktop was as pure and virginal as the day it was born; a mere twinkle in Bill Gates' eye.

"Don't forget to back up your files," warned Trevor, again and again. "You've got all your graphic files. You do not want to lose them."

"I won't," I assured him.

And I didn't. Except that I did.

I was sure I had burned the document and picture files to CD. I have done it successfully often enough in the past. As it turns out, however, I had somehow managed to burn the path to the files, and not the files themselves. This is my fault, and mine alone. I cannot even blame TOSTSNBN for this one, as much as I'd like to. I am just a moron. And now, a moron without pictures. Every photo, every video, every project in progress; every graphic image ever taken, stored or created by me since April is gone, with the rare exception of the few posted here. Untold hours of work and energy and love and tears evaporated with a stroke of the keyboard. I was inconsolable.

When Trevor called yesterday, as per arrangement, my voice shook as I told him the news. "Oh, NO!" he cried, sounding quite as shocked and devastated as I felt, even as he proceeded to talk me down from the ledge.

I bought another gig of memory, and it's due to arrive this week. Trevor is going to call me Saturday to talk me through the installation. So it looks like I won't be able to make the show after all, Robbie.* I'm sorry, but the heart wants what it wants.


Oh! Darling, if you leave me
I'll never make it alone
Believe me when I beg you
Don't ever leave me alone

Oh! Darling, if you leave me
I'll never make it alone
Believe me when I tell you
I'll never do you no harm

Oh! Darling,please believe me
I'll never let you down
Believe me when I tell you
I'll never do you no harm

~ the Beatles






*just kidding!

I used to be an Existentialist...

now I'm just irresolute.

Pearls Before Swine

I awoke upon yesterday's bright and sunny New Year's morn, chillingly sober and frighteningly clear of eye, finding myself wanting to post but having nothing to say. Not that that's ever stopped me before.

But I don't make New Year's resolutions, believing change happens throughout the course of a year in accordance with each individual's needs and desires. Also, I never keep them anyway. I may be vowing to spend less time on the computer, (or at least arguing with it) but I can't seem to pull myself away from the keyboard long enough to frame the thought. It's a conundrum.

And not for me the ubiquitous Year-In-Retrospective-Blog. I find reading my own Pearls of Wisdom Past tedious in the extreme, and also slightly embarrassing, what with them being neither, you know, pearly nor wise. Merely past.

But Christmas is over; I have been dazzled by diamonds, and a trail of French perfume follows me wherever I go. (Truth be told, it also precedes me ~ I really love perfume.) Now it seems there is nothing left to do but to take down that sprig of rosemary I draped with lights and bells and called a tree (it's a Christmas miracle, Charlie Brown!) and eagerly anticipate the appearance of one more bouncing bauble ~ a new Wacom Bamboo Fun Graphics Tablet in Silver, Size Medium, Tracking number 11175872331!* Now, I realize that not everyone gets a Tracking Number for Christmas, but I do. It seems that Santa Turk, bless his great big Luddite heart, actually braved the joyful throngs at Best Buy to find what he says sounds like a Chinese, lead-filled toy for toddlers, but couldn't get the right size. So I now happily await the delivery of tons of Bamboo Fun.

And so help me Bill Gates, if the (Operating System That Shall Not Be Named) cannot handle all my Bamboo Fun, I will not be responsible for the consequences. And that's a resolution.

Happy New Year!


*may not be actual tracking number, actual tracking number having already been misplaced.

buttons and blogs

There's a button on my kitchen counter that is driving me mad. It is an unremarkable button in every respect. Small, mottled brown and white, it appears intended for a shirt collar or pocket, about which I have no direct knowledge. I've no idea where it came from other than it has never been attached to any garment that I've ever owned, although no doubt it was helpfully provided by the Chinese manufacturer in a quaint nod to tradition; to the old days when a lost button would be replaced and hand sewn by it's owner to great personal satisfaction. I have sewn many a button to shirt and skirt over the years, but none in recent memory. Come to think about it, I buy a lot of fastening-less garments these days ~ sweaters, tees, scarves. Shoes. The only thing that requires structured enclosures are jeans, and those are more like industrial grade metal rivets than buttons. And when one of those things comes off your pants, well, let's face it; out they go, and off you go. To Jenny Craig or Trimspa, or Elaine's Everlasting Elastic Emporium.


But there it sits , day after day, unobtrusively insistent against the shiny white porcelain tile. Dutifully, I wipe around it every night, shifting it's place; today next to my purse, the one with the graffiti-patterned fabric; tomorrow, alongside the unpaid bills and errant parking tokens; the next, letting it slip unceremoniously under the myriad newspaper clippings about art shows and travel deals long since passed. But which I might find useful. Someday.


When I was a kid my mother had a round tin full of buttons of every shape, size and color. I used to love to plunge my hand into the middle of the tin; to hear the crisp clickety-clack of impact and feel the cool polished smoothness of the individual disks as they tumbled through my fingers. It was like plunging your hand into a bottomless well of M&M candies, and just as pleasurable. Almost as pleasurable. Sort of pleasurable. I wonder whatever happened to that tin. I must look for Mom's button tin.


It would be a simple enough matter, of course, just to pick up my current lost button and put it in it's place, which is a shoe box in the top drawer of the guest room dresser. Surely it would be happy there with it's dozens of orphaned kin, awaiting eventual placement or my demise, whichever should come first, and I think we all know which one that will be. Or I could simply throw it away, which is what it warrants and of course what any reasonable person would do.


I do not. For I know, as you cannot, that no sooner will the garbage truck pull away from the curb than the phone will ring with a friend inviting us to dine at a marvelous restaurant that is serving goose for the holidays but requires a proper jacket for men, and my husband will holler that he can't, nay, won't go because his favorite shirt for his best jacket is missing the third button from the top and nothing else is clean and really, who needs to go out for goose for the holidays anyway? We'll catch our friend next time. And I will be disconsolate, because of course I need to go out for goose for the holidays and all.


Or I will be listening to the news and there will be a big story about how a local woman found the last small mottled brown and white button in existence and it was discovered to be the actual missing button from King Tutankhamen's' very own 501s, and today it sold at auction for 11 billion dollars and 14 cents. And she is going to use the money to buy an RV and an Xbox for her grandkids, and maybe feed a couple of homeless. And I will die knowing that that should have been me. Feeding the homeless and all.


My blog shares much in common with my button these days. It sits here gathering dust, it's origin but dimly recalled. With nowhere to go and no promises to keep it is content to languish, awaiting my command. I should file it or toss it, but of course I won't. For I know, as you cannot, that no sooner will I hit delete than the phone will ring and events will transpire that I will want to write about. Or nothing will happen and I will simply feel like sitting here, listening to a KJzz tribute to Oscar Peterson on my low tech little Craig, chattering on aimlessly about buttons and M&Ms and why don't I ever sew anything anymore? So I guess that for now I'll just wipe around it, shift it in it's place, and let it await my leisure.

Happy Holidays!

your call is important to us

***** Sylvia by Nicole Hollander


As we speak, I am sitting on hold with the good people of Adobe Photoshop Elements 5.0, or rather with their on-hold musical selections, which today consist of an easy listening jazz trumpet and canned percussion accompaniment, which is really just jazz without the, you know, jazz. It is relatively inoffensive, however, which is a very good thing, as I have been on hold now for 19 minutes. It is quite an improvement, in fact, over yesterday's 29 minute-long veritable concert, not counting brief intermissions wherein I spoke to a technician before being sent back to said concert, which appeared to be some sort of Austrian marching band recital....

And I can't believe it I just got fucking cut off!

Pardon me while I redial. Ah, there's my music. ~~Tall and tan and young and lovely, dit doo di dodo dit dada nana...

Where were we? Oh yes. Adobe Photoshop ~ the company, the customer service, the cliche'. To paraphrase Kanye, Adobe Systems does not care about people.

Now, I am a patient woman, truly I am. I understand that things go wrong and when they do it takes time to fix them. I will sit glued to this chair, staring into this computer screen for hours, days even, working on projects that interest me. And even some that kinda don't but I need to finish them anyway, just because I'm obsessive that way. The point is, I'm patient. I'm cool. I'm Zen.

I'm pissed.

Let the record show that I started writing this post at 2:00pm, after I'd already been on hold for 19 minutes, and before I was cut off. It is 2:29. There is simply no excuse for this level of customer contempt. ....

Phone answered! Issues discussed. John the Technician Guy is flummoxed. After a rocky start (my fault entirely) we are bonding, and I can tell he is impressed by the complexity and seriousness of my problem. He has gone off to research. I am on hold. It is 2:42pm. I think I will upload a picture.

~~ Do di doo dit doo di doo....

3:25pm. John has done all that he can do. The problem, he has concluded and I am forced to concur, is with my operating system; the OS that Shall Not Be Named. I will suffer no gloating on the subject from those not similarly afflicted. Tomorrow, I look forward to hearing the musical styling preferences of the good people at HP, Windows and possibly Fry's electronics.

Now, I am finally off to the gym, where I will no doubt want to take issue with the Cell Phone People. Blood may be shed. Namaste.

~~ Do dit doo dit doo shah nah na ...

con qué soñaste anoche'?

God, I hope that's Spanish.

I've written a few times in the past about how much I enjoy Mexico's Dia de los Muertos festivities; that wondrous time when the veil is lifted, the dead travel freely, families welcome their departed loved ones back into their homes and visit the graves of their missing kin with offerings of love and celebration. Everyone gets to see dead people, or at least assume their presence, and a fine time is had by all. I'd been toying with the idea of building an altar of my own all year long; part art project, part spirit quest; very much about recycling that cabinet that's been sitting around my garage for ages. You know, the red one; the one with 'spirit altar' written all over it. And then I had a dream last night about hanging pictures.

Specifically, it was about hanging a particular picture, one which has been sitting on my dresser since the furniture from my mother's apartment arrived, along with several boxes of her belongings. I propped it up over her jewelry cabinet, thinking it would be nice to keep them together in my bedroom. But I didn't hang it. For some reason it seemed important that I get it's exact placement right, and I'd put off making this relatively benign decision until, apparently, last night.

As my mother tells it, when my father came home from the war he was not the same man who had left. The handsome, gay charmer with the twinkling blue eyes and easy smile who had sent home handmade gifts and cheerful love letters returned a silent and morose stranger; one who sat staring grimly out the living room window for hours on end, immobilized by visions and memories he would not or could not share. Not knowing what to do but desperate to bring him out of himself, she came home one day and handed him some tubes of oil paint and a few brushes. He'd never painted before in his life, although he'd always been clever with a pencil. And he painted a picture.



On the back of the canvas he wrote "Life's Sunset," adding, 'my first painting'. Mom cherished that picture, claiming that the little old woman in the ancient wood was her, and that Dad was painting the future. I suppose in a way he was. The picture hung in the entryway of every house they ever lived in together, and then in the one she lived alone.




I don't know what took me so long to figure it out. So when I woke up this morning I got a hammer and a nail (and a pencil and a ruler, because that's just how I roll) and hung the painting where it belongs. By the front door, where the little old lady of the wood can meet and greet all who cross the threshold. As it should be. Dulces sueños. Sweet dreams.

do not go gentle into that AARP night

They just won't leave me alone, that American Association of Retired Persons.

I, who only yesterday was proudly proffering my driver's license to incredulous teenagers in order to prove my eligibility to buy beer down at the local market, am now being hounded to join an organization that wants to save me money on car insurance and burial plots. Why, I ask you? It's not like I'm getting any better at driving. Just last week I tried to pull away from the pump with the hose still attached, something I've never done before in my life. And I'm not even blond. If anything, I'm getting worse with age. That's me, DWL; Driving While Lame, all over the place.

And now that I think about it, maybe it really was yesterday that I got carded at the market. But that the cashier was actually an elderly, somewhat surprised Korean lady. And that I was buying sake, not beer, for reasons that escape us all at the moment. And that have absolutely no connection to the aforementioned hose-theft incident, I can assure you.

The point is that they're persistent, these old people, wanting to jump me into their pernicious little gang whether I'm inclined to the lifestyle or not. I'm certain that some night, when I least expect it, they'll surround me in their walkers and threaten me with canes. They'll take me out to an Early Bird Special somewhere, get me drunk on a potent yet mysteriously drinkable cocktail of Metamucil, Celebrex, Grey Goose and stool softeners and the next thing I know, I'll be waking up at 6 am to check out a sale on polyester pants down at the WalMart and eagerly waiting for Matlock to come back into rotation on TV Land. I'll eat hard candy and donuts and slowly grow soft and amiable. This vision of my future scares me a lot. Especially the amiable part.

In the September Issue of Harper's Bazaar, Rita Wilson (A Size 8 in a Size 0 World) refers to the "creeping obesity" that befalls many women in middle age.

"Ah, yes, my precious. This is what happens naturally as we age. First it's a gain of one pound one year, then another next year, and before you know it, you have put on 10 pounds."

Rita goes on to conclude that she is happy with who and what she is, and if I were Rita I would be too. Rita Wilson is wealthy and beautiful and wise. I am not Rita. I am middle class, plain and frankly not very bright. I have put on 14 pounds in 2 years, my eyelids are drooping ferociously in their mutual race to the ground and my jowls seem to have developed ~ okay, wait a minute, when the hell did I develop jowls? Jowls now? Really? Oh, for the love of...

The point is, is self-acceptance does not work for me. It plays too much into my natural tendency toward laziness and sloth. In fact, I've been indulging in way too much self-acceptance lately. Don't feel like reading that lengthy article on Myanmar? Don't bother; nobody cares what you think, and what're you gonna do about it anyway? Looky ~ here's a piece on Britney's New Lips! Let's read that.

Getting fat? Oh, so what; you're old! Enjoy that bag of Trader Joe's Hawaiian chips, parked there on the couch watching reruns of America's Next Top Model. Can't be bothered to put on makeup in the morning because it keeps seeping into those giant cracks? Easy; stop looking in the mirror. Nobody cares what you look like. They never did. Give it up. Grow up. Have a cookie.

Fear works for me. Fear of being judged unattractive, unappealing, unlovable. Fear of being marginalized in a world that values women more for beauty than brains. Fear of growing old in a society that worships youth above all and relegates those that succumb to it's inevitability with grace to second class status. Fear is what gets me to the gym and keeps me from indulging my every gastronomical desire. Fear is my only self-discipline. It is what keeps me from staggering over the line into a state of total personal anarchy.

The papers are full of studies indicating that, as long as they maintain their health, people actually seem to get happier as they grow older. It seems they become less anxious, more accepting of themselves and others. They mellow. And this, I would argue, is how I know that I am not yet old enough to join the good people of AARP. I lack the requisite mellow. As Woody Allen once said, if I get too mellow, I ripen and then I rot. And nobody needs to see that.

So while I appreciate the interest AARPies, I am not yet ready to join your happy little gang. But keep those cards and letters coming. Maybe if we could just get some really cool tattoos...

they call the winds Santa Ana

The 16 firestorms that have been sweeping California are for the most part under control, and we were extremely fortunate in that we were never in any danger. Today the skies maintain an eerie orange cast and the air has the acrid stench of smoldering destruction. This quickie video was taken with my trusty little Canon Elph over the back patio three days ago, when the hot, dry winds were blowing 50 to 80 miles an hour through the canyons, ripping a heavy canvas off the (closed) umbrella, knocking down potted plants and trees and generally rocking the walls of the house.

To his endless credit, Hootie the Plastic Guard Owl (who ain't never caught a rabbit but is still a friend of mine) never left his post. He remains there to this day, intimidating not even the most skittish of bunnies and reptiles.

Later things got really hairy.

still life sewing table

October has always been my favorite month of the year. No matter where I've lived across the country, I've always managed to experience it as a golden time ~ amber and ruby-splashed trees, vibrant against sparkling cobalt skies; the air ever crisp with the scent of burning leaves and coming winter chill. That beauty will forever be tinted by sadness now, as maybe it always was, for it was a year ago today that we lost my sweet mother. I was therefore not unhappy to awaken to find that gray skies and a light drizzle had replaced the ubiquitous California sunshine ~ I prefer it when my internal and external landscapes combine to form a unified whole , and I always enjoy the company of ghosts in the rain. I spent the hours peacefully, painting on my little patio, protected from the damp.


I ran into a lot of trouble though, mostly having to do with color. I couldn't find the shade of pink I wanted for the floral highlights, nor the desired tone for the table's shadowed areas. I struggled with the essence of the Happy Buddha, casting a possibly fatal shadow upon his continuing joy. Muddy the pigment, spoil the mood. Somehow, I just couldn't find it.


But I'd taken a photograph of this grouping a few weeks ago because I loved the way the late afternoon sun playing through the lace curtains scattered long, eggy ovals of yellow and gold across my mother's sewing table. And I wanted to capture the way light seemed to come from within the vase itself to dissolve it's material boundaries.

I didn't quite hit my marks. I tend to overwork things and I'm trying to let that go. But there'll be other dancing, eggy-yellow globes and glowing turquoise vases after all, and the more you try the better you get. Or so I'm told. In the meantime, I enjoyed a wistful, rainy day custom made for music and melancholy, and for just a few hours material boundaries were, perhaps, transcended.

geek like me

I have just spent the last 2 or 3 hours of the last 2 or 4 days, of the last 3 or 5 weeks of the past 6 or 7 months online with tech support. I do mean every flavor of tech support: Microsoft, Dell, hp customer service; AT&T sbc. The Af of L CIO; SPCA, PETA, FICA, Fema, Picked a Peck of Pickled Peppers. As you can see, I am giddy with enlightenment.

So here, in the last 5 minutes of the total 15 minutes of online time that I have managed today I offer everything that I have learned in this, my 8 month, give or take, long tutorial.

There was nothing all that much wrong with my old computer, except perhaps that it was a little slow and old. Now, after a clean reinstall it's running well enough to service all the web browsing, intel needs of Homeland Security. And probably every bit as secure.

There is nothing wrong with my new Hewlett Packard computer. Nor the new Vista program with which it came burdened, I mean bundled. There is, of course, something very wrong with me. I too am a little slow, a little old. And came bundled with a pointlessly enigmatic operating system.

There is nothing wrong with my AT&T dsl service. No one really knows why I cannot get or stay connected on a consistent basis. It's inexplicable, like Paris Hilton or gay Republicans. Whatever the problem is, it is nothing that constantly 'refreshing' the setting and turning on and off the modem and security programs will not cure. I am told.

Most of all, I have learned that the good people of Upper Supportekiztahn are an uncommonly hardworking and almost pathologically polite bunch; so much so that I fear armed guards are standing by ready to pistol whip the first person who fails to assure me that none of this is my fault. Truly, their patience in the face of some staggering technical ignorance is nothing short of heroic, and I will hear nothing against them. As I learned from my good friend Joseph at...well, I'm not really sure which support service anymore; to be frank, by now I'm pretty much dialing random numbers and asking for help. The fire department was nice, although Mrs. McNulty got decidely testy.

Anyway, I discovered I was calling Joseph at 2:00am his time, which was close to the end of his shift. From his (undisclosed) office location he was planning to take the company transport for the 1 1/2 hour ride home.

At around 10:00 am he would leave for the university, where he is studying for a degree in something called 'commerce'. Afterwards, he would make the 1 1/2 hour journey back to work, there to spend long hours on the phone telling people like me to turn off their modems; click on 'run'; open Control Panel and reset the winsock; input number 192.247.01.1.7239...

Honestly, in this day and age I feel I should be able to get online just by clicking my heels three times and saying "there's no place like home." I'm willing to do a little chanting. That's it.

Waiting for my computer to reboot, Joseph and I discuss my desire to visit the Taj Majal, which he encourages, although he seems mystified by my interest in the River Ganges. I hope, even as I say it, that the Ganges is actually in India. Suddenly, I feel so American.

The next day I learned from my friend Guarven that August 15th is India's Independence day ~ I could hear the party in the background. Last Tuesday I learned from Dawn that yes, the Ganges is in fact in India, and that no one in tech support is ever allowed to reveal the exact location of their offices. How very Cheneyesque, I thought, although I did not mention this to Dawn. I think Joseph would have gotten it, though ~ oh, how we would have laughed! I find myself missing Joseph. I wonder what his number is.

Sorry ~ didn't mean to ramble on so, although of course it's not my fault. (*Note to self; call tech support for rewrite.) I think the problem's fixed now. Thank god summer's over. Time for this geek to go outside and play.

just a cock-eyed, slightly depressed optimist

Found the quiz at Cynthia's. To the surprise of no one, my world view is based on a philosophy best contemplated whilst smoking cigarettes and drinking absinthe-laced coffee in the dimly lit interiors of Parisian cafes.

You scored as Existentialist. Existentialism emphasizes human capability. There is no greater power interfering with life and thus it is up to us to make things happen. Sometimes considered a negative and depressing world view, your optimism towards human accomplishment is immense. Mankind is condemned to be free and must accept the responsibility.

Existentialist		94%
Modernist		75%
Postmodernist		75%
Idealist		75%
Materialist		69%
Cultural Creative		63%
Romanticist		31%
Fundamentalist		25%

Fair enough, although I believe the phrase "...your optimism towards human accomplishment is immense" should be changed to "...your optimism towards human accomplishment is confused." I'm pretty sure one can't be a cheerful existentialist. At least not sober.

Once again, I am unclear on the concept.

What is Your World View?

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