Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde & King Tut walk into a bar...

Self Portrait as Sailboat & Sky

Yes, the above image means the camera is still AWOL. Oh well.

I just had a treatment from my acupuncturist--I was her first client after her return from a shamanic retreat in Peru. I'm sure I got some extra-great energy because of that. Now she's got the nervous system tuned up to the level that it will help the massages be even more effective. One more massage & a haircut & then it's off to the north.

I'm mostly packed. How long does it take if you're just taking a backpack & a toiletries bag? Well, as Mark Twain or Oscar Wilde or King Tut--I think it was one of those guys--put it. "I'd have written a shorter letter but I didn't have time." When you're packing that lightly, everything must be carefully chosen.

Today we have rain. Yay. A gentle soaker. Sounds fabulous, falling on the roofs & trees & streets. Punches up the colors. Feels soft & cleansing on the skin & hair. (Yes, that means I didn't have an umbrella in the car when I went to get my mail & have lunch downtown after acupuncture. Also it means that I didn't have any change & had to park several blocks away from the restaurant where there was a space without a meter. Which was great, because it was a gentle rain & I'm not QUITE sweet enough to melt. Grin.)

Okay, so time to finish packing & straighten things up & maybe paint some more & order a course or two from The Teaching Company. (I'm thinking My Favorite Universe & Consciousness & Its Implications. The ancient Egypt one is REALLY long & I'm not quite desiring that level of detail at this point. (48 lectures!))

So, if you are among those whom I will see in Minnesota & Montana, see you soon. If not, well, um, Bye.

Blog alternative:
141. The universe is 13.7 billion years old, according to the current best estimate. I like to think of it--let's say her, just to personalize things a bit (& make the end of this sentence less awkward)--as a teenager, so close to 14 she fudges a little. So think about the universe as a young teenager. Think how well she's doing, how much she's learning, how much lovely life is ahead of her, how glad you are that she exists, pimples & gawk & all.

Fonting at the mouth--we think she's rabid!

House in Order

I was going to give you a photograph of a painting, but I can't find my camera. Let's hope it's temporary. Not that I don't need a new camera, but the old Olympus would be a great back-up, & it has a big ole memory card in it... Hence, another little quick paint program drawing for you.

So, yes, I have been painting, which is great fun. Can't show you unless you happen to be in Asheville, or I find my camera. (If you're psychic & you see where it is, could you email me & let me know?)

On the mental front--& yes, I know, Cathy, you think 24 lectures on quantum cosmology qualifies as mental--I finished the dark matter, dark energy lectures. (Have already written a poem about string theory as somewhat of a slut.)

Plus lots of other stuff, most notably

"Going Back in Time"

(you'll have to imagine the purple part crossed out
(overstricken?) leaving only "in")

has been published!

Check out the Oct/Nov All-Star Anniversary Issue! of

Fantasy & Science Fiction

I know, fonting at the mouth, but this is exciting. I've already received fan (e)mail. (Hi, Jeremiah.) I love quantum physics. (In a dreamy-eyed groupie sort of way, rather than a fervent, in-the-trenches, do-the-math sort of way.)

Oh, & my massage therapist surprised me last week by saying, "Well, I think I've got you finished off in an hour & a half. You're so much better." This week he dug deeper in other tissues, but all the while complimenting me & my musckles on our progress. I am SO much better. Still more flexibility on its way. I have one more massage before I take off for a couple weeks in Montana. Will my relatives recognize me as a puddle of goo? More important is the fact that I am indeed beginning to recognize myself that way.

I'm not taking my computer to Montana. You should see how I'm planning to pack: 1 backpack (of the sort that students haul books around in, not the sort that will take you into the wilderness with pouches of dehydrated food & a sleeping bag) & 1 toiletries bag that is big enough to hold a journal in its largest pouch. That's for 2 weeks! I'll always be places I can do laundry & should I need a winter jacket--not likely but still not out of the question for Montana at the end of August--I have plenty of relatives who would lend me one. Anyway, I may or may not (with an accent on may not) post much while I'm out there. (& you ask me politely why I am telling you this, since I've been not posting much here. Grin. Guilty. The numbers don't lie. Just think how much fun I've been having while I've not been writing about it!)

Blog alternative:
140. Consider time travel. When would you go back to & why? Think about how it might make now different. Would you still go? What if you could just go back & observe something, invisibly?

A watched scarf never doubleboils

Heart Flower

Happy August 11th.

I've been doing fun things like watching Dark Matter, Dark Energy: The Dark Side of the Universe. Much more intense & brain-stretching than the The Joy of Thinking: The Beauty & Power of Classical Mathematical Ideas. (Which I also really enjoyed.) I'm getting up to speed, kinda sorta, on current cosmology. Very interesting. I haven't broken out the Greek mythology one yet--6 more physics lectures to go first--& I'm already planning to order one on ancient Egypt. So, let this be a warning to you. The Teaching Company is delightfully dangerous!

I also did some silk painting, a little 11x11 scarf, with my new scroll frame & the black gutta (that's the stuff that keeps the dye contained in the area you choose it to be contained in--providing you've put it on correctly. Sadly, it is all too easy to let pink bleed into yellow & blue, as I discovered on the scarf. I'm sure I'll get better.) So, I have a big pot of scarves cooking on the stove right now in the double boiler. Not only hadn't I done any more silk painting since my class, but I hadn't "cured" the ones I did then. I hope this works well.

My plans for Montana are set. I'm going to fly to Minneapolis, visit with friends there (gotta arrange that--if you are a Twin Cities friend & you are reading this, get ahold of me, pretty please) & have Zach pick me up in his racy car & drive to Montana with him. He tells me I won't like it, since it's loud & uncomfortable, but I'm willing to put up with that for some concerted hours with my car boy. Then, after my parents' 50th (happy!) anniversary & my dad's birthday, I'll fly back to Asheville from Billings. & all on frequent flier miles. Yay me. Plus Nick & his girlfriend are going to fly out there as well. Should be a fabulific time.

We've had some hot days here, but we're in the middle of a beautiful spate of cooler ones. Hark, doth Autumn approach?

I've talked about the weather now, so all I need now are religion, politics & sports. Oh, & my health--which is better than everbefore, I believe. Okay, politics: I'm excited about the upcoming election. I have my preferences, but I truly believe all is well & what we've just been through & continue to go through are setting the stage for a powerful new reality. Spirituality: I am more purely-centered than I've ever been. Sports--okay, you've got me there. Hmmm. Sports. Sports. Oh, yeah, Tiger Woods won something or other, didn't he? If walking is a sport, I had a nice one the other day in Flat Rock, where Carl Sandburg lived.

Blog alternative:
139. Look at some partially-finished artsy project. Do you want to finish it? Go ahead. Or at least set it up to finish. Assemble the tools/ingredients & make a list of the next steps. Do you NOT want to finish it? Give it to someone who might. Or set it out on your step or on a park bench for a random stranger to find. Or throw it away.

Woman adopts abandoned bunk bed ladder

I have been thinking of you. & of blogging. I mentally blog quite a bit, thinking of topics & bits & phrases. Most of the time, I then go happily on, doing the thing I'd thought of telling you about, or its pleasant equivalent, as the ether remains unscathed (or unrewarded, if you prefer) by my telling.

Why?

Part of it is about flow. There's a certain amount of stoppingness & startingness in firing up the computer & popping out of the here-osphere (or there-osphere) & into the blogosphere. Part of it is that I've gotten into more & more pleasure with just being & doing--meditating, drawing or painting, umm--you're way ahead of me--"Well, isn't writing a form of doing? How about drawing a little picture on your tablet pc or taking a photo of one of your journal pages? That's a form of doing."

Ooops. Trueness. Hmmm. Might have to think about this for awhile. (Yet another form of doing. Grin.)

So I don't necessarily promise to blog more often, but I might.

Here are a few of the bits that made it into the imaginary blog.

New furniture & wealth of Gigi's:

Dear Gigi,

I just unearthed your book from a pile that had eaten it & read it Tuesday night. (with extreme pleasure, btw. god, what a voice!)

[btw, should you be interested in reading Gigi Amateau's novel, it is called Claiming Georgia Tate.]

Then, on Wednesday, my friend (& executive assistant) Elizabeth & I went out for lunch. She wanted Thai food, so after eating I suggested we stop in at this furniture place going out of business in the same complex as the restaurant. Greatfinds! She bought a sofa & I bought a little storage ottoman & something (possibly a TV stand?) that will hold a billion art supplies/drawings/etc. that I can set another little art supply holder on top of. Very cool. Very inexpensive. Then the tough furniture guys loaded my things into Elizabeth's short-bed truck & we drove them to my apartment. She was all ready to help me carry them up the stairs, but I took an experimental heft of the art thingy (that's a technicalterm) & decided it was beyond my muscular capabilities at the moment. As we were contemplating the large white heavy thing, a nicely-dressed (blouse & skirt) youngish woman (older than Elizabeth, younger than me) was walking past & Elizabeth asked if she could help us carry this up the stairs. She hesitated briefly & agreed. Then she & Elizabeth, without my assistance, got it out of the truck, up a bunch of outside stairs & up the flight & a bit (with a right angle turn!) stairs into my apartment & set it down in the art studio. I helped set it down, all the while thanking them profusely. She introduced herself as Gigi! Okay, I thought, this definitely means I need to get ahold of Gigi, posthaste! The other Gigi took off & I ran after her & gave her a yellow rose & a peach & then Elizabeth & I completely revamped my apartment, in 3 hours, & I took a bath & --

Enough of my letter to Gigi. I love my new furniture. Went back & bought 2 dresser-type mirrors (originally $98 & $88) for a total of $38. (I set one of the mirrors on my drafting table so I can do self portraits.) Oh, & I also purchased a bunk bed ladder.

What? I heare you asking. (That's not a typo, I have combined hear & here to indicate that I am imagining that you are here, & I am hearing you.) A bunk bed ladder? Has she lost her mind?

But it was so cute & so lonely, with no bunk beds in sight & I couldn't just leave it there. Surely I could do something with it! & indeed I have: I leaned it up against the ends of the bookshelves that Elizabeth & I back-to-backed in the living room (which made a very nice little nook for the hunter green damask chaise lounge from Home Decorator's Collection that I assembled myself) & I let it hold books & magazines for me, so I don't lose my page. Some of you may think a piece of paper would do the job (hmm, perhaps I shall invent a special piece of paper for that, call it a hmm, yes, a bookmark--no, that would put my baby bunk bed ladder out of a job) but I disagree. (Please ignore the previous parenthetical!)

I am newly returned from another store that is going out of business, having carried back with me a little bin thingy & a twirly deal (more technicalterms) that will hold greeting cards & a couple packets of (wholesale-priced) blank greeting cards, with envelopes. Oh, & also a needlework scroll frame.

Hastily, before Cathy & others who know me well call the guys with straitjackets to haul me away (I'm pretty much allergic to even sewing on a button & the idea of cross-stitch is less appealing than cilantro) I will say that it is for silk painting! Not sure how well it will work to do a scarf in bits & pieces, as I let it dry & then roll the next section into the working space, but I am willing to give it a try. I haven't painted a single piece of silk since my class last whenever & I might be more likely to if it didn't involve taking up a giant table with a large wooden frame.

Okay, so that's the (bloated) blog for the day. Now, what you've been waiting for, the

Blog alternative:

138. Adopt a bunk bed ladder. Or at least adapt some something-or-other to a new use.

Overplanner's Anonymouse (Quick, get a trap!)

She had a nose for roses,
& a knack for good weather
inside & out.

Fortunately, the dryer wasn't working too efficiently, so I took a walk around a couple blocks & called my sons & drew the above picture & started this blog. Lucky me. (I am hoping the dryer--on another setting--gets its act together.)

I had me another massage today--goodness, can that guy find the spots that need finding. Yikes! Very therapeutic. Grin. (Back when I was in massage school, we used to call the superficial, feels-good-but-isn't-really-doing-anything sort of massage a fluff n' buff. This was not a fluff n' buff.)

I am looking forward to the day when Brett says, "Wow, you're really relaxed all over. Come back next month." In preparation for this, I have scheduled another therapeutic massage next week, am planning on some more daily stretching &--perhaps most importantly--I had the revelation that one of the the sources of my muscular rigidity was based on an old thought habit. Increasingly, I've been letting go of it, without knowing exactly what I was doing. Now I've figured it out--aha!--& I can be even more effective.

So, you want to know what"it" is, do you? Of course you do. (& if you don't, just skip down to the bottom for the Blog alternative.)

It: I have been, for as long as I can remember, one of those people who has lots of rules or programs or plans for how things do--or should--or will--work. Like planning out a conversation in advance: I'll tell her this & then that & she'll probably be like this & then, blah blah blah. That sort of thing. For someone who will set off into the wild blue of a novel based on a sentence or an image, having an outline for a future conversation is rather preposterous, but there it is, or rather, WAS.

If I am the marvelous being that I know I am, made of light & love & all that, well, that ought to be good enough to handle pretty much any situation, without advance planning. So, when I find myself doing that sort of thing, I just breathe & relax & let it go. I'm doing fairly well. Not perfect, but 40 years or so of a habit (I know I started this sometime in grade school) doesn't have to exit all spit spot spiffy. At least I've given it notice.

More to tell you, but I'd better check on the clothes.

Blog alternative:
137. Ask yourself if you overplan. Plan to do less of it. (Grin.)

Palermo Ashiatsu & other unlikely wordpairs

Self Portrait as Peace Leaf

Palermo.

How many times a day do you use (or even think of) that word?

If you are like me, not many.

However, today, here at the coffee shop, I ordered a grilled panini sandwich by the name of Palermo & then--as coolness would have it--I opened up wikipedia (the source of all (or nearly anyway) things cool, according to the gospel of (my son) Nick) & discovered

July 15: Festino of Saint Rosalia in Palermo, Italy

Well, I think it's cool! (& it's my blog so I declare it so. Nyaa, nyaa, nyaa.)

I had a massage again (from Brett Rodgers, vitalitymassage.net/ iffen you live in or around Asheville or plan to visit here) & it was amazing. My first experience with Ashiatsu (massage using the feet) but NOT my last. In fact, I realize I neglected to make my next appointment, which I shall remedy soon.

I'm going to go home & get some stuff done. Hope your day is all spiffykeenarino, even if you didn't get a truly marvelous massage.

Blog alternative:
136. Get a massage. Really. Or at least schedule one. Or at least daydream about one. (& then schedule it!)

Happy Birthing Day

somebody's pick-up with birthday balloons

The above image is because today is my ex-husband's birthday, so I will dedicate this blog post to him & wish him a happy day. I'm sure his sweetie is helping him celebrate in fine fashion. Greetings to both of you.

&, for the rest of you, who aren't having birthdays today, I wish you something even better:

Happy Birthing Day!

What are you creating in your life this moment? If it thrills & chills you, hallelujah. Keep at it. If it bores & snores you, hallelujah--you've got a clue that there's something else better wishing to be born. If it's smacking you upside the head--well, move. Grin.

The idea that boredom can be a powerful creative tool is something I just read (& now am re-reading) in a GREAT book I bought at Page After Page in Elizabeth City. Your Highest Potential: The New Psychology of Understanding and Working with Self, by Annette Colby, Ph.D. This is an omigosh! book. I read it--underlining all the way--& then I started in at the beginning again. Very useful. Thank you, dear Dr. Colby. Happy Birthing Day to you, too.

Back to the thoughts I was rustling around last post, about the way television shows get stuck in your (or at least MY) mind.

Think of it this way. You get your first house/apartment. You have no furniture, or not much, & people give you all sorts of crap--I mean wonderful things--they no longer want in their spaces. You're grateful, but after a while you decide the pink-striped puffy chair & Grandpa's old plaid recliner with the broken recliny-handle-thingy & the X & the Z & perhaps even the Y are not things you would actually choose for yourself. So you set them out on the street corner or take them to Goodwill or foist them off on--I mean gift them to--someone with more floor space than bank account. & then you furnish your home according to your own desires.

I am attempting to do that with my mind, choosing the furniture, rather than sticking with everything everyone ever gave me--with all the commercials thrown in for (yeah, right) free. I want my mind to be a place I love to hang around in, a place that feels like a well-designed (or at least a ME-designed) home. So, if anyone wants a very-slightly-used (nearly-new, really) set of Californicators, or even some old, moldy Brady Bunchers, feel free. I'm setting them out on some street corner--& trying not to imagine what they'll do to each other. Grin.

Time for me to go now. I had a really super great massage today, with lots of stretching movements & I'm going to try to capitalize on the flexibility factor by doing some stretching myself.

Blog alternative:
135. Redecorate your mind. Or at least decide if you want to. (It could be as simple as freshening up the paint, maybe adding a skylight. Or you might need to take out some walls & haul away a few truckloads of old beliefs you didn't even remember you still had.) (But you might want to read Annette Colby's book first; she's got lots of good ideas for the process.) (& tell her I sent you!)