Blogging Without Obligation

Yes, Blogging Without Obligation. That's exactly what I need. Now that I am back in the "swing of things", I hate missing even one day but find that once a week is evidently pretty good from all accounts! But one must refuse to feel obligated about the fun stuff... especially when it comes at, not exactly a price, but a readjustment. A tipping point, maybe. Work is a very very hectic thing for Me, esp during the dreaded "earnings season".

Basically, half the year, my life -- or the time in it -- is not thoroughly my own. The dough is good but I remind myself, "this is not who I am. It helps me be what I am." Someone asked me a couple of years ago during a meeting at a unitarian church, "What do you do?" I said, "I read and make art and go to movies." Everyone really liked that answer. You have to admit, it was a pretty good one. I knew she expected to be told how I get money, she meant my job.

But that is not what I do, what I am. It's a part of it, of course. And the blogging is part of the journal of my life, too.

More later!

TGIF Fer Sure

That's us again, in San Juan. T on the left, hiding behind Hermanos and Self on the right, hanging onto "Hermanos" near the Modern Museum in San Juan, PR. Then at the end of the next to last day... life is good, sing polly wolly doodle all the day. Sorry you can't see us, really. Adds to the alleged mystique of Les Artistes! Bahahaha....

But today, TODAY, in Athens GA., after a higgledy piggledy day, I am up and out, meeting Tony and Faye at the Globe, one of Athens' premier bars (more like a pub with pub food, trust me!). They even have fish and chips. lol... Miss T was ecstatic.

A sweeping, stormy storm while we all sit inside, watching it from our cosy chairs in the wood and brick Bar. Carlton and then his partner, Donald -- whom I know, the world is *small*! -- Cindy and Loretta. Tony and I drink and discuss work, stories, Miss Jeanne's London Life and MySpace, while Tia gets to know the "Boys". Donald and I have a special passcode. It's "Diana Vreeland"!!! LOL. AKA, "Pink is the navy blue of India", another astute observation by Her Highness. And that Tony... such a softy about little Bella! Well, I am the same way about Molly Brown and Bess.

We just had a lovely, lovely time and you can TOO have a Bloody Mary without ice. So there.

Tonight, packing up boxes and putting them in the basement as Stanley Steemer comes by tomorrow. Watching "Numbers" as I drink coffee and relax for a bit, Tia studying for her big papers. She SOOO helped me with my tax return. And I actually am getting a tax return.

Claud stopped by today during lunch for about an hour. We had coffee and a bit of a gossip. She looked positively luminous with that white, white skin and those snapping blue eyes. The red hair sets it all off, seriously. It's like seeing the Archetypal Faerie Queen up close and personal.

Starbucks at 11AM Saturday and then home to actually do some WORK. Artwise, that is... look for photos of that and not just vacation pix.

Later!

Hello Again.

Well, it's that odd time of year when I start stretching out again and trying and doing and wishing and dreaming new stuff. Yes, Spring has indeed sprung altho we've had oddball weather in the Sunny South. And whoever coined THAT term needs his bottom kicked about! Very warm and sunny and then cold and dreary.

It makes me a little weepy sometimes, these ups and downs, worrying about my art and/or writing and its myriad fits and starts. Seeing or not seeing the parent(s), seeing the niece grown and watching her own daughter readying for marriage, seeing a sibling hale and hearty not so hale and hearty, being in the presence of an in-law that is sheer happiness for the innate serenity and kindness that abounds. And missing a good good friend, but then giggling over her MySpace...

I found this once before and now, lo! it is on Nina Bagley's website.

For Loneliness

When the light lessens,

Causing colors to lose their courage,

And your eyes fix on the empty distance

That can open on either side

Of the sunset line

To make all that is
Familiar and near

Seem suddenly foreign,

When the music of talk

Breaks apart the noise

and you hear your heart louden
while the voices around you

slow down to leaden echoes

turning the silence

into something stony and cold,

When the old ghosts come back

to feed on everywhere you felt sure,

do not strengthen their hunger

by choosing to fear;

Rather, decide to call on your heart

that it may grow clear and free

to welcome home your emptiness

that it may cleanse you

like the clearest air

you could ever breathe.

Allow all your loneliness time

to dissolve the shell of dross

that had closed around you;

choose in this severe silence

to hear the one true voice

your rushed life fears;

cradle yourself like a child

learning to trust what emerges,

so that gradually

you may come to know

that deep in that black hole

you will find that blue flower

that holds the mystical light

which will illuminate in you

the glimmer of springtime.

John O'Donohue

Amen, Sisters and Brothers!

Bringing the flowers that bloom in May

The happy couple to your right, there. My nephew, Jonathan, and his blushing fiancee, Brooke. The happy event will happen Memorial Day weekend in Edisto Island, SC. Can't wait to take that road trip! A five hour drive but worth it. I was able to spend some real face-time with Brooke and J this past weekend... oh yes, we were stuck at Red Lobster for TWO hours. Just our luck that there's an unruly, inebriated diner in our section. Whew! We decided to do Olive Garden from now on.

They have bought a 1913 house in an area that is just now being up-and-comingly renovated/gentrified. Nice! Maybe photos of that in the future as well.

As well as photos of the artwork!

More intense jaw pain today. Nothing seemed to help and I really can't take any painkillers right now. Well, it helps me focus on the artwork, if that makes sense. It's almost like drawing rows of flowers and bees and spirally green ferny things takes me away and out of the pain... oh, that and a couple of slugs of 110 proof whatsis. (I wish!)

Saw Joe and Teresa today at Fourbucks (aka Starbucks). They're looking well and the conversation was as subreferenced as ever. I keep promising them to give them a "tour" of my art. They've read a short story I did some time back for HardluckStories, entitled "Nice Tie". Joe writes also and it's great talking with him about this other creative discipline I hurl myself into on a fairly regular basis.

Have to go read Judy and the rest of my artklatsch blogs. Later.

April Fools

-- are everywhere. Well, it's finally happened. My company has swallowed up Reuters like the dragon swallowing the sun. Or the snake that swallows up its own tail... and that's no April Fool Day, either.

Had an interesting weekend in every sense of the Chinese curse. It was good to see all but also good to come back. My niece Diana, as always, was lovely to be with, too. Getting to see her plus Jon and BC was simply the icing on the cake as someone said. Jon's new house looks great. It's an OLD 1913 house with all the original everything -- like the wooden floors -- and is really quite gorgeous. I will try to post a photo here very soon.

If I'd seen Leon, it would've been a perfect weekend in Palmettoland. And if Sophie (the darling in the photo) had been in with her humans instead of San Juan, PR, it would have been really perfect. This dog is more well travelled than most of the people I know exc for her humans (read: my brother and s-i-l). She's 12 now and is slowing down. Everyone I know is crazy about her. She's why people love dogs.

Am reading "A History of the End of the World." Raised in an extraordinarily millennialism evangelical fundamental household, The Apocalypse was a very, very, unimaginably very real thing to me. As Sarah Vowell said, "I needed more Seven Dwarves and less Seven Seals."

However, it has given me an idea for a series of little paintings, etc. So, it can't be all bad, can it?

Later!

We Gather Together -- For Now

Okay, this is not a just done photo. As a matter of fact, it was the day before I bought those red gloves at Coldwater -- back in February!

This is at five & ten in Athens, a wonderful place with great food and a pleasant staff. But Michelle and I decided we still prefer The Last Resort. Yowsa... Michelle and Chris (Extreme Left -- and I mean that in the nicest way) are such wonderful people and friends; Chris makes me scream out loud laughing sometimes -- and then there is April in the middle, Michelle's friend and former college roommate (think that's right), as visiting from Phoenix. We badgered our waiter to take the photo and fortunately, Miss Tia had arrived by then, so she's in the shot too at the far right (nothing could be further from the truth).

Her new black and white scarf is bunched around her neck. Like I said, it was COLD. But the company and the food was just great!

I look simply thrilled to be alive, don't I? Despite the fact that I wrap myself in swaddling clothes of my ubiquitous black, there is so much to be grateful about. Now if Miss Jeanne had been in the photo, even better... she has no idea how much she is missed and not just by my own self.

The Unsinkable Molly Brown aka The Couch Potato

Here she is in all her newfound glory. Six years old, ex-racing champ, and finally relaxed enough to enjoy her new life only 18 months after the fact! Go figure. (She must have been treated really not so great.)

So yeah, I am hanging on to her. She is a truly great dog, idiosyncratic like any living creature is, but those soulful eyes! To die for.

So hope this photo turns out. If it works, really works, THIS TIME, I will know I have finally done something rightski.