Buckminster Fuller vs. the Dragonfly

After the Buckminster Fuller conference (actual title: ReViewing 4:Looking Forward at Buckminster Fuller's Legacy) at UNCA, I arranged a rendezvous, walked the maze, drove home, made Hamburger Helper, watched some Texas Hold'em (Poker Superstars Invitational, disc 1) & now am writing this to you.

I am willing to bet I am the only one from Buckyville who consumed Ultimate Cheeseburger Macaroni following the seminars on tensegrity & synergy & such. But it worked for me...

I have my eye on a camera, a Lumix. I'm going to decide by the end of next week or so, because I have an extra $5 (yay!) coupon from Best Buy. (Wow, does this post feel like product placement central. Don't you wonder who is paying me? Could it be Best Buy? Hamburger Helper? But no, it is the ghost of Buckminster Fuller. He is paying me in jitterbug polyhedrons, in translational rotational transformation.)

Or perhaps I am sponsored by this dragonfly...

September has been an amazing month. Organization. Creation. Great weather. Investment success. Cosmic visions. Sweet walks. & now, Bucky's buddies. What will October hold? Enough & a feast.

Blog alternative:
238. Pick a sponsor, corporate or otherwise. You can even make it a reverse sponsorship, where you sponsor a business or a tree or send a positive psychic message to someone else's baby. (How do you sponsor a tree? Give it a glass of water or tie a ribbon around a branch or the ever-popular hug.)

Queen Faraday's new daughter, Princess Whatchamacaller

Adieu, sweet princess glasses

Yesterday was the Tangerine Ball, a benefit for the Arts Council, which provides funding for art in the schools. I wore a dress that has splashes of tangerine & fuschia, with a couple scarves & a peach sari liner that Susan Paul bought me in India. Then, the piece de resistance, my Cracker Barrel tiara glasses that proclaim "Queen for a Day." You may recall that these very glasses inspired my alter ego, Queen Faraday. I even read a biography of Michael Faraday, who instantly became my new hero.

Last night, at Aloft, a new hotel downtown that used to have a fabulous martini (what were you thinking, Aloft, to take the muddled cucumber & sour apple martini off your menu?) a young woman (possibly named Melanie? Melody?) asked to buy them off my face. She was willing to give me $20 but I told her $10 was sufficient.

How could I sell those pivotal glasses, you ask? I am Queen Faraday. I need no glasses to prove it.

We were at Aloft--even though we already knew they had abandoned the beloved martini--because the Tangerine Ball had no seating. Zip. (Unless you were wearing glitter & lingerie & doing burlesque poses.) Derrick helped build the set--a very fine set--so he had a free ticket. Mine was essentially free, because--along with $10 from the new princess--I found $40 in the little seafoam green purse I chose to carry my accoutrements in. Woo hoo!

Anyway, a fun time was had. Princess glasses were sent on their new quest.

Blog alternative:
238. Give away some meaningful possession. Know that you still possess the meaning.

Blue Moon

Tonight is a blue moon, the second full moon in a month, a rare occasion. It is also my parents' 54th anniversary. They went out to Carter's Camp, Nye's only eating/drinking establishment. I wish them many more good years.

I'm taking (slight) advantage of my last opportunity to post in August. A lovely month it has been, full of creativity & growth.

So many things I've done & so many things I haven't. Grin. Isn't that the way of it? (Don't ask my son, Nick, that question. You will get an answer of things chosen & done, with a book written about the doing to boot.

Blog alternative:
237. What would you do, once in a blue moon? Come up with an idea or two. Maybe even do it.

Emperor of your own life

It is August twenty-oneth. Oops.

I mean, "Hi everybody--hope your August has been going well. Hope you're doing a good job being the emperor of your life." (More of a Vespasian or a Trajan than a Caligula.)

I'm writing an essay for Real Simple magazine's fifth annual Life Lessons Essay Contest. Having a great deal of fun, although the theme is "If you could change one decision that you made in the past, what would it be?" I'm not a big regretter, but I have come up with a cool spin on the topic that gives me juice.

I'm heading for poker soon, so I won't make this a long post, but I did want to mention a lovely artist encounter with a woman named Brit J. Oie. We were speaking about the mountains in her art, something I appreciate, having grown up at Nye. She said they were inspired by the mountains in Norway, where she was born & raised. "Oh!" I said. "I'm five eighths Norwegian and there's a little town in Norway that has my family name." She looked it up on her iPad & found out that she grew up less than 2 hours away from Hjelvik, Norway. How cool is that?

I'm tired of not having pictures, even though my camera has broked & I haven't figured out how to get the photos that I have taken into my new computer, so here's an older one of this cool stand I bought at a place that was going out of business for about 6 months or so. The owner kept claiming that this was perhaps the last day. It's the same place I bought the trumpet...

Anyway, I was carrying the stand home & got tired of it, so I called Derrick up & found that he & his pickup were not far away. I parked the stand & hung the top sideways so I could look through it to the construction on the jail.

Blog alternative:
236. Think about a decision you made in your past that might not have been one you'd make today--or even would have made then, if you weren't drunk or hormonal or peer pressured or somesuch. Go to realsimple.com/lifelessonscontest & see if you want to write it up & give me some competition. The deadline is September 13th.

Mica harvest season

So, back to some old tricks of not blogging until the wee hours (wee days?) of the month. I have been doing stuff: walking, sudokuing, movie watching, pokering, reading, meditating, poeting, festivaling (Bele Chere was this weekend; I saw a tiny bit of it), cleaning & organizing, inventing, prototyping (in the wee scale), arting, etcetera-ing. (This program is weird--it thinks I'm not typing real words. grin.)

I know this doesn't count as a real blog post. (But perhaps we can average the word count with my last massive missive & call it a wash.)

My camera died--the day AFTER its service contract expired. No lie. I'll get a new, different camera in a month or 2. I liked many things about my Nikon Coolpix; however, the time (just short of forever) before you could take another picture was not one of them.

I may speak to you before July has taken off her lovely green costume, scattered with thunderstorms.

Blog alternative:
235. Make a list of what you've been doing. Celebrate. (Make sure you count things like naps & walks & appreciating--oh! I harvested a bunch of mica on my walk today. That should definitely make the list.)

The Jury Duty Shuffle

On Monday I had my first experience with jury duty.

Actually, it was more like my second experience, or first experience deferred. I'd received a summons directing me to show up in the midst of my planned road trip time, with the date to be potentially recused by the judge 2 days after I was due to leave.

I wrote up a plea, saying I wasn't trying to get out of this, since as a writer I craved new experiences, complete with a dated google map route showing where I would be (I was wrong) on my jury duty date & took a copy to that local, so-exclusive hotspot, "The Jury Lounge." (Jurors Only) Would I even be admitted, as I was not yet a juror?

Heart pounding, I entered the sanctum & presented my case to the woman at the desk. "No problem," she said, as I began to present my case. "We'll just reschedule you."

"You don't need this?" I asked, indicating my carefully-crafted letter with all my reasons why I needed to be where I was going to be when I was going to be there & my clever map.

"No," she said.

I was disappointed. "At least look at my map," I said.

She dutifully looked at my map, agreed it was very clever, & rescheduled me for the ninth of July.

Monday. I showed up, as directed, at 8:45 a.m. Who am I kidding -- I was there by 8:30.

I wore layers, brought knee socks in case it was cooler than bare ankles preferred, brought a magazine & a bottle of water & some roasted almonds. I brought along my library books & movies to return, in case I got excused early.

Eventually the jury lounge filled up, every seat. I watched some home makeover shows on HGTV & read a few magazines from the massive pile. The woman in charge -- "just Beverly" -- (which was kind of cool, now that I think of it, in terms her leading us into the service of justice) showed us a video & administered an oath. There were tons of people & not that many Bibles so I held my left hand on my heart (my true Bible) as I raised my right hand & swore to uphold justice.

Then there was more waiting, more HGTV. We were instructed that we couldn't take food, water, books or magazines into the courtrooms, so I piled all of that under my chair. There were 2 trials needing jurors, a criminal case & a civil case. When they called the names of the potential jurors for the criminal case, mine was not among them. (Non-alphabetical, so you didn't know if you were going to be called until the last name was announced.) More waiting. Then the civil case. Name after name & then "Laurel Winter." I gave my verbal affirmation (you'd be amazed how many people forgot to do that, even though she repeated the name until you acknowledged your assignment) & joined the scramble to line up at the door.

She led us to a big elevator -- even so, there were 2 batches of us -- & we went to the 7th floor, where we were seated in the back of a large courtroom with lovely furnishings & bad acoustics & were introduced to the members of the court. The judge -- who looked a lot like a cardiologist friend of mine back in Minnesota -- told us some stuff, including that we were NOT to talk to the lawyers or plaintiff or defendant or indeed anyone but the bailiff & then they called off 12 names, mine not included. The judge told all of us still sitting in the chilly seats at the back (I put my knee socks on, & my long-sleeved shirt) to pay attention to what was said, because we could be called up in the event that some of those jurors were cut. The plaintiff's lawyer then instructed those in the box & questioned them. It was fun to hear how even in the questions & instructions he had begun to try the case. 5 jurors got sent away & 5 new names called. Not mine. A couple more of those were weeded out & then the defense attorney got to have his turn. He spoke up much more clearly than plaintiff's lawyer had, which I'm sure made a good impression. He spoke to every juror, at some length, but didn't get rid of any.

Then it was lunch time. We were told to be back by 5 minutes to 2. I went back to the jury lounge for my books & movies. The jurors who hadn't been called were lined up at the desk getting their "excuses from the court" slips for missing a morning's work. "Do you have to go back?" one of them asked me.

"I get to go back," I said.

Took the stuff back to library & went to the Jackson Underground Cafe, with every step down (for they are indeed underground) thinking "please let it be gazpacho" because I so love it (theirs is cilantro-free, because the proprietress feels the same way I do about cilantro) & it was!

Back well before 2 but then was told we were not going to be in the same courtroom, but rather on the 9th floor. Dilemma, because our nice big elevators only went up to 8. Milled around a little. Saw the lawyers & their charges & remember NOT to ask them where we were supposed to go. Went back down to the jury lounge. Eventually all of us got there, well after 2. Turns out the judge had told the bailiff that the jurors should go to the jury room on the 9th floor since the 7th floor jury room was being used by the grand jury, but he didn't mean for the entire trial to be moved, so he had to go back down to the 7th floor & collect his stuff. Then the lawyers approached the bench & the judge instructed all of us that if the lawyers appeared abrupt in not responding to "hey, do you know where we're supposed to go?" questions that they were just doing what they were supposed to do, which was not to talk to jurors.

One alternate's name was called. Guess who it wasn't. That's right. Me. So I got to go back to the jury lounge & get my magazine & my water & my almonds & find out that my check for $12 will be mailed to me. A good day's work. I considered having just Beverly write me a slip excusing me from working for myself that morning, but I knew I'd get at least a poem (& a really long blog post) out of it, so claiming to have not been working would have been a lie. Wouldn't want to perjure myself.

So, that's my dance. The jury duty shuffle.

Blog alternative:
235. Imagine being a juror, perhaps on a famous trial. (O.J. anyone? Or a glass of Watergate?) I suggest you bring your knee socks. But no hat. Hats are not allowed. Neither, I imagine, are hoodies.

She's got legs--& knows when to walk away...

Hi from Babb's Coffee House in Jamestown, North Dakota.

Hi from my (first ever!) Mac.

I've happily owned a PC since November of 1981. That's a very long time. My little Thinkpad, which I've had for 6 years or so, maybe more, was feeling a little slow & the 80 gig hard drive was a little crunched by the number of photos. Still, it worked--

--then I dropped it out of my backpack onto Zach's driveway & crunched the corner of the housing. Pretty badly. So, new computer on my horizon & I decided, after thinking about it & talking to various people, to buy a MacBook Pro at the BestBuy in Billings, Montana.

("Montana?" you say. "I thought you were just going to hang in Minnesota?" Well, more about that later. Meanwhile, back to the computer.)

Of all the people I talked to, my favorite conversation was with my son Nick, who said, "You should get a Mac because you don't know how to use it." Or words to that effect. Essentially--hurray for the learning curve. Hurray for brain plasticity. Hurray for the adventure, the uncharted territory, the new you in all its fumbling discovering glory.

So, now, here I am, with a bigger screen than I've ever had in all my laptop life. 15.4 inches, or something like that. All these cute little symbols across the bottom. There is a little bit of learning curviness going on, as I can't quite figure out how to get my photo booth shot of me in front of the Babb's replica Eiffel Tower into this post, but there you go. Adventure for the next post.

I was going to just hang in Minnesota, visiting friends & working on my novel (I have a rewrite request!) but I found myself, after the science fiction convention & the wedding & all the visiting, mostly sitting in the Winter house after Zach & Tiffany left for their honeymoon, playing hearts on Zach's computer & checking to see if there was yet another episode of Law & Order on the television.

I even decided not to go to my science fiction poetry meeting, with dear friends. Talked to my friend Debbie over a burger at Newt's (the new Newt's, up near the the Winter house) about my case of the inertias & said, "Maybe I should go to Montana." We both lit up with a zing. Yes. Montana. That was it.

I threw stuff at the car, except for my computer, which I first threw at the driveway & left for Montana, round about 5 pm. Now I've had experiences of summer trips across the Dakotas, trying to get a motel room after dark. Not a great experience. So, when I saw the sign for the Home Motel in Salem, South Dakota, I decided to go for it. Am I glad I did!! (That was accidentally 2 exclamation points, but it was worth it, so I shall not delete.) Hit it off with the proprietress instantly: Susie Buck, Inner Light Engineering. Omigoddess. I gave her son Dakota a copy of Growing Wings & Susie & I danced around in the parking lot & she came over to my room at 7 am with coffee & we talked & did readings for each other for an hour & a half.

On the way back from Montana, I stopped for gas & a windshield wash in New Salem, North Dakota, & then stayed at the Tops Motel in Sterling. Not quite as cool as the Home Motel, but still more fun than just staying at a chain. Plus I got the craziest compliment from an extremely drunk 40 year old biker at the bar next to the motel when I popped over for a beer: "You have great legs for an old lady." (He'd already asked my age & expressed disbelief.) I thanked him for the compliment, drank down my beer & politely declined when he offered to buy me another.

Much fun was had in Montana, but this post is already WAAAAY long, so I shall defer the details, except to say that I bought my dad the cutest picture book for father's day: Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site. If you want to give yourself a treat, at least go peruse this in a bookstore.

Blog alternative:

234. Stop & think about something you're planning to do. Does it give you a zing of hell yes? If not, search for some other alternatives & test them out in your heart. You might find yourself heading for Montana, or the library. You might write a card to an old friend.