Go Read a Book

This is a shameless plug for a wonderful event. The Northern Arizona Book Festival is coming to Flagstaff and it is gonna rock. We have some very cool writers who will be reading their work. We have a dance troupe (what a strange word, troupe. It's one of those words that when written down, just looks weird, misspelled, not quite right, but in your head it makes perfect sense), art, and interesting panels (yes, another. It's panels as in people sitting at long tables talking about stuff, not sections of walls). I'm having a little bit of word wonderment today. Ahem, moving on. If you can't make it to Flagstaff (for all my readers in Madagascar), please check out the authors and just read the books in whatever place you live. Dorothy Allison is wonderful (read Bastard Out of Carolina), and Tim Seibles is an awesome poet. (I'm also having a parentheses obsession) Finally, I have been trying for half an hour to get a picture of the poster on this blog and I have failed...so, go to this link and check it out. Oh, I'm reading too. For the Bookfest. At night. In a large auditorium.

And since I can't seem to get a picture of the poster up, I'm just going to put up this one I took of my front yard.

Oh, I'm just kidding (but if you were going to have pink flamingos in your yard, wouldn't you want it to look like THIS?)

Oh, I Get It

A friend sent me a correction on the origin of the zen quote I posted yesterday........

"Leap and the net will appear."
--from note pinned to saffron robe found floating in San Francisco Bay below Golden Gate Bridge.

I thought, what a beautiful image. I did not even get the joke
for an hour.
But when I did, boy, did I laugh.

Quotes of the Day(s)

Two quotes I saw today...

"Leap
and the net
will appear"
-- zen quote (of course)

"Never make someone a priority who considers you an option"
--anon website quote (but I like it)

And then here are a few more random ones that I've had for a while....

"You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the
concert and the opera, and grace before the play and pantomime, and grace
before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, swimming,
fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing, and grace before I dip the
pen in the ink."
G.K. Chesterton

"If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be
happy, practice compassion."
The Dalai Lama
From Chapter 9, Truthfulness

"Like the moon, come out from behind the clouds! Shine.
--The Buddha

I think quotes serve as little reminders of who we are
and what our direction is.


















And also, a picture I took
because, someday, in another life, I might want to
become a photographer.

Say Cheese

I put my picture on my profile. I've been sitting here for a flipping hour deciding which one, if any, to put on. The reason this one won out was mainly because I liked that I'm a little "left of center" in it and I AM. A little left of center. Plus it's the one in the back of my book. My son took it. I can look better, I can look worse, but it looks like how I FEEL. And now I feel like a total arrogant dork for WRITING about my picture. This all started earlier today. I was thinking how, when I read other people's blogs, I really like seeing who they are physically. Or at least how they would like to be seen physically. Some people have these great artistic photos, where they aren't quite smiling but they look very intriguing and cool. I didn't have one of those. Haha. And then some people have pictures of themselves brushing their teeth or standing there with their mouth open so wide you could land a plane in there, and THEY'RE so cool they don't even care. That ain't me either. When I started my blog last July, I decided I was never going to have my face on there, you know, maybe a picture of me riding a bike but I'm riding away instead of towards the camera. STUPID. And then I also remembered how, as a kid, I read all those Laura Ingalls Wilder books like Little House on the Prairie. And then when it became a show, none of those people looked like how I thought they were gonna look and it kind of pissed me off. So, considering the plethora of folks that entertain me with their pictures, I decided to join in.

(Five minutes pass while I try to figure how to redeem myself for WRITING about my picture. I see Li-Young Lee's book of poems on my table and turn it over to look at his picture. He has that cool and intriguing thing going. Damn. I thumb through the book looking for a poem on photos or self or perception but nothing fits. THEN, I find a poem I love, even though it doesn't fit with this post.)

And the moral of this story is....if writing about my own goofy picture ends with a poem by Li-Young Lee, I'm okay with that :)

One Heart
Look at the birds. Even flying
is born
out of nothing. The first sky
is inside you, open
at either end of day.
The work of wings
was always freedom, fastening
one heart to every falling thing.

Building Furniture

I have finished the top of my table. I still have some touch-up work and some shellacking to do. But essentially I'm now able to cart it around in the back of my car and make my friends look at it. I pull up in the parking lot of Target (did you realize that the symbol on the Target sign is an actual "target"?) or Starbucks and whip my table right out and say, *hey, look at this table I made.*

(If you click on the picture you should be able to read the quote)

Did I mention how much I love making furniture? Did I also mention that I realize not only will no one pay me to make furniture, but it does not come with health insurance benefits either? Maybe mental health insurance. The large circles were made with the bottom of a Coke can and the small circles were made with one of those plastic medicine cups for kids Motrin. When I'm painting or sanding or screwing the legs on, I just talk to myself like nobody's business. I get so flipping happy making furniture. It's never perfect. Thank god I'm not a perfectionist. The one thing I demand of myself is no drips. NO DRIPS. I'm very vigilant about that. But there are flaws...a teeny fleck of black on a green part, the top slightly skewed on the legs. I could never create something perfectly because it's just not possible for me. I'm absolutely someone who can never really wear white. Ten minutes in a white shirt, BAM, there is something marring up the whiteness. Fifteen minutes in white pants and I will have already sat on bubblegum. I'm just not programmed to do things meticulously.

I did not use the dremel on this table like I had planned. Actually, my initial vision was not at all the end result. That's another thing I like about it; in a weird way it's like writing a poem. I start with an idea, and then begin. The poem/table/chair takes off from there and kind of builds itself. I'm always surprised by what I have at the end.

Free Rice

I really love words. Some of my favorite words are pebble and marigold, for how they sound, hope and gratitude, for what they mean, and zigzag and zenith because they start with z. How come xerox sounds like it starts with a z? It should be zerox. BUT, the purpose for this post is to teach new words while also giving rice to hungry people. Check this out, free rice, and learn new words to spout around so folks will think you're a word zealot.

Glimpses

I think I talked to my dad on the phone yesterday.

For a week or so, I had been mulling over a post where I talked about the strange things we miss when people die. About how I've been missing having someone call me "hon". My dad used to call me that. He also called me sis and lovebug. I really miss those names but they're not really my name anymore.

So, anyway, I'd gotten a new laptop; a Macbook, and I really love it. I figured I'd need one for going to Kansas and I also like that it's on the kitchen breakfast bar for Jay. I'm a firm believer in supervised Internet action for kids. But, I had installed all kinds of stuff on it and it was soooo slow. I've had the darn thing for three months and already gunked it up. Augh! So I called Applecare and I got this very nice older man. It was so weird...not only did he speak my language, he even sounded like he was from Kansas! He was very patient and kind and helpful. He walked me through all this "hold down the C and push the power button... now, when the blue screen comes on, ......" computer speak. Finally, my computer was back to "fast" and I said thank you. He responded the usual " here's the case number if it happens again..." and then, as I was about to hang up, he said, "Take care, hon." and hung up. I immediately thought, Oh my gosh, I was just talking to my dad." It was wonderful, and true or not, made me feel so good.
I've been waiting four years for him to call me and he finally did :)

Frozen

There's this group of random people and they meet or connect cell phones, get instructions, and then do something weird. I read about it and then a friend (thanks Kate) sent me this video yesterday. That sounds like so much fun to me :) Here they are at Grand Central Station......

frozen

And yes, I do think this is art. Weird, senseless performance art

Veggies & Art

So, I joined the Flagstaff CSA (Community Supported Agriculture). Every Thursday afternoon I get to go pick up a couple bags of vegetables and fruit, grown in Arizona. Cool. It's not too expensive and it assures that I'll have healthy food in my house. This last Thursday we got spinach, green onions, beets, golden swiss chard, fennel, tat soi, oranges, and purple carrots. The carrots were yummy and tasted like regular carrots. The golden chard was beautiful but yucky. I fixed it up using a recipe that I got at the veggie pick-up area called Swiss Chard Tian. It had eggs and chard and onions and it was horrible. I guess some people like swiss chard. I'm not one of those people. Although the beauty of that chard, all brilliant yellow and green, was enough. All the food is grown pesticide free and local.

My table is coming along. I made permanent bookends on the bottom shelf with some of Jay's old wooden blocks that I painted. I bought a set of drill bits for the Dremel and they work like a charm. I learned that I drilled the pilot holes too short in the blocks so I'll know better next project (as now two of the screws stick out about a half inch underneath the table).
The blocks are attached to the bottom shelf by screws, with a dab of wood glue for insurance. I've changed plans on this table probably four times. At first I was going to carve things in the wood but decided not too. Now, where as I was going to shallac fortunes onto the top, I'm going to stamp out a quote instead. We'll see what happens. I've been reading all kinds of quotes but can't find the right one. Here's a picture of the table now, with Archie's furry butt off to the side.


I found this quote that I think sums it up for me.....

"Question:
What do you see yourself doing five years from now?
Answer:
I have no idea. I've never had a career plan and never will. I just
always make sure that I'm doing something I love at the moment, and I find
out where it takes me. I float downriver, then I wake up and say, 'Oh,
here I am. I've had a swell float.'"
Diane Sawyer, interviewed in US Magazine, September 1997

However, I think this theory works best if you have a ton of cash. Diane Sawyer has a shitload of money and I don't. Darn.