To soothe your aching hearts...

this too shall pass

Built-in Glitches

life is crazy.
if you don't believe me, try living it just a bit more fully.
it doesn't matter what you plan for, what path you're on, there's always a little wild hair/hare (whatever image you relate to) waiting around the next bend to throw a wrench into things. now, this is not in contrast to the before mentioned aura of peace i recently realized in ever-present existence. no, it's all in one with it.
a great line from Eat, Pray, Love: the author is in Rome and pondering an old building thats lived through many lives and she writes: even in the eternal city, one must always be prepared for riotous and endless waves of transformation. A sentence more applicable to life i have yet to read.
life has some major setbacks. all of us, life's characters, can be really disappointing. life is good news and life is bad news. it keeps moving like on a great sea of waves. it never, ever, ever, never, ever, never, ever stays the same.
depending on how you feel about that will probably decide whether you're gonna sink or swim in each situation you're faced with.

watched a dichotomous/strange/perfect film tonight. its his final speech that actually convinced me. talk about life being crazy.

It's a full, full moon

A full moon. A full, harvest moon, ladies and gentlemen. It doesn't get much better than this. The only thing that might have taken the amazing feelings I had while admiring tonight's full moon to a higher level, is to have done it side by side with RK. He loves them full, harvest moons, too. But he's watching this miracle from LA and I'm watching it from Dolores Park in SF.
Maybe it's the warm weather, or maybe it really is the book I'm reading currently (previous post), but my life seems to be heading into this really peaceful place. No, that's not what I mean exactly. I feel more aware, on a bigger-picture level. And it's not that I'm hoping it'll last...it's that I've realized this IS the space I exist in all the time. I just need to open my mind, and my heart and acknowledge the universe and all it's miracles.

thank you universe.

Reading is good for you

I'm reading such a good book right now!
Christina lent it to me and she swore by it. It's not that I don't take recommendations, because the last few great books I've read were recommended to me (this one, this one and this one definitely count--all recommended to me by RK) and I ate them up.

It's always good to have a good book thou. Before Christina lent it to me she said, "do you have time to read a good book?" And she's right to ask. 'Cuz, let's face it, if someone lends you a book and it just sits on your shelf and you never get around to reading it and then you move to another city and put it on a new shelf and realize one day while you're cleaning off your shelves that you've never read that book that someone once lent you and you're about to move again and you decide to drop that book at the thrift store on your way out of town...well...let's just say, it was a wasted lend for sure. I'm of the ilk of reading a good book and lending it to the next friend, in the hopes that they'll lend it to the next friend. And so and so on and so on... Mind you, I've had the conversation with many a soul who knows exactly which book is on their shelf that they did the above scenario with. And they can still feel the sting.

So, I'm only about 70 pages into the book and, already, I'm composing a letter in my head to Miss Gilbert. Telling her how much I love the book, how much I relate to the stories, the feelings, all of it...
And, thinking about writing to her reminds me of a few other authors I've fallen for while reading their book (Brenda Ueland and Jean-Dominique Bauby, to be exact). I had the letters composed and ready to mail when I re-read the backs of the books again and realized that they'd never get my spectacularly composed words praising their genius...because they'd already passed through this life.

I've written to a lot of authors over the years. Starting when I was about ten, I think. And they've all written back to me except for one: Stephen King. And my reaction to that was not cool: I'd written him a letter telling him how I'd read all his books (sometimes more than once) and I just thought he was amazing (I was about 12 or 13 when I did this...but I think I can still be held accountable). Well, he didn't drop even a postcard to me and I guess I got a little peeved and I'd just finished reading Misery, so I sent him a postcard that said, "im your biggest fan." Jeeez, that is hella creepy. I think I'd read one too many of his novels as a kid.
(and if you haven't read his stuff, well, then you're not gonna understand why that was creepy at all!)

But that brings me to an author that did write back, William Wharton. And not only did he write back to my initial letter when I was a teenager and had just gobbled up reading Birdy and Dad, but our correspondence continued for about seven years, thru my college days (at one point he tried to set me up with his very shy son). I even visited him, his wife and said son, on Long Island one summer. It feels like a dream now and I often wonder how they all are. Maybe I'll drop him a letter tomorrow....or, as soon as I finish reading my new book!

Away we go...

It's also strangely difficult to write a post after writing about September 11th, 2001. It's strange to realize that each year you get over it a little quicker or you talk about it less or that it's just another day in 2007 now and you get back to "normal" as quickly as any other day in your present. But you've got to live pushing forward. You can't be stuck in one time. You want to live to the fullest while you're here. So, with the strangeness acknowledged and the desire to feel "normal", I resume with current events (but not without that feeling of a reporter reporting how many people died in Iraq today and then "reporting" on a litter of adorable cats born to an infertile couple in oakland...if you know what I mean)

“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!”--Jack Kerouac
I've been in the studio a lot lately and it feels SO good. I'm finally getting used to it as the space I go to to create. It's just taken a while to get over the home-studio concept and treat this outside address as a space I can go to anytime. So, I was there most of the day today (T was hanging out, too, and made some cool new pieces) and then late tonight and plan on being there as much as I can for the next few days straight. I'm currently making a book for a show I'm in that takes place in Madison, WI next month. And I'm la la loving how the book is coming out.

I made these luggage tags recently and am thinking about making more. I still need to make one for the dog & cat carrier.


And I've been on this trip lately of exposing ...exposing deep beliefs, or misconceptions. Trying to show the behind-the-thing-you-think-it-is. You know, sometimes things are they way we think they are and sometimes they're not. This piece is called "That's just because you compare yourself to me"

And, another recent piece.
and away we go!

It's hard to know what to say today. I hadn't planned on writing anything particularly memorable because of the date. But, last month, when I read what my friend, Megan, had written, it did occur to me that we're all still memorializing this date. Subconsciously or not. And then, today, I read Trey's post and I believe he said it perfectly.
I spent the early part of this morning with a friend, lamenting the state of the world and the doofus that is "running" it currently. But, I don't want to go political today, it's not at all what it's about...
what it is about for me is the memory of what started out as one strangely beautiful day in September six years ago: and by 9:03am, how everything would change forever. Of course, I can remember exactly where I was (standing in my kitchen with the refrigerator repair man--commenting on the excessive amount of fire trucks, cops and ambulances speeding down 7th avenue, right outside my window) and what I did (picked up the ringing phone, and heard my sister Kaari telling me to look out the window because a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. I dropped the phone as I saw the second tower explode on impact and ran to each of my neighbors doors, pounding loudly, 'come out! come out!') It's about this vivid memory (that plays over and over sometimes like a nightmare), and the reality that many of my friends survived that day intact and I'm grateful for it. And, I'm more than sorry that so many innocent people of Iraq, today, lo these six years later, are paying for it.

To yu and yu and yu

flickr is a funny little world...not very different from the blog world (which probably isn't that different from facebook, or my space, or friendster...not that I'm really that sure what those are about...who knows thou? someday, perhaps--but i doubt it, cuz my time is pretty well consumed by blogger, with the little bits and crevices of "left over" time filled in by flickr). ANYWAY, as I slowly get into flickr, I'm always kind of shocked to see that someone has viewed my photos, on their own random time, and some have even posted comments. It's the same way on blogger. When someone I don't know posts a comment or writes a post about one of my cards. Yesterday, I logged on to my flickr account and had a message that this fellow flickr-er had included me as one of her "contacts." I immediately jumped to her flickr account and fell in love with her sketchbook sized drawings of outdoor markets and life in a home (and happily used another one of her drawings above from her really fun blog, the title of which I love: Learning Daily) And then I love how reading this person's blog or checking out their flickr info leads you to more and more and more and more and more in this big wide world of the information super highway!

I don't know why I think I'm the only one out there lurking/looking in at everyone else's work and ideas and reading their blogs and admiring their artwork...but sometime it feels like that and, I must admit, I'm so happily surprised when somebody looks back! It feels like an ever growing community of (say it with me) the strangers who are just friends you haven't met yet.

everythings coming up roses

I had some great pick-me-ups this week:
First, my sister sent me a link to a very cool blog that wrote about my cards! I've been spending some serious time on his blog because he's turned me on to so many artists with so much talent...people and ideas you don't see very often.
So, that was very exciting and uplifting.... and then, my friend, Yasmine, called me yesterday: She was in PaperSource looking at cards and she kept lookin' and lookin', and lookin' and lookin' and finally picked up "the only one" she liked and boom! It was one of mine! She gave a little inside cheer and then called to tell me. The news made my heart soar...exactly what I needed, as I head into this month of September with a million things to do for the card bizness.

I also woke up this morning and strapped my ever growing experiement-hair into two above-ear pigtails (i've had extremely short hair since college and, while it may not be considered long to some, for me, this is looooong hair) and giggled to RK that I look just like Penny!


Nothing like a good ole giggle to end your weekend with and start a Monday on, eh?

i slept and dreamed that life was beautiful

I'm not sure it gets much more beautiful than Robert Ryan's work (be sure to click on the images to see them larger).
My sister sent me the link to his website,
which shocked me because I was just about to send it to her!
Turns out, we both saw it on here, another one of our favorite blogs.
Like-minded genius-ocity?
I think so.

You Knew Me When

I can see, as you get older, why the people that have known you longer than others become more and more important. You've done the work--you've revealed a shitload. Can a "new person" really understand all that makes up you? It's less about conceit, as this may begin to sound, but more about self-awareness. How much more you can take.

This very thought occurred to me as a friend mentioned going to therapy and then having her therapist take two months off for the summer. Yeah, that sucks--but it's not a reason to get a new therapist--no way. That sucks, sure, but not as much as it would suck to have to reveal yourself, expose your neuroses from the beginning to a "new person"!

I totally get it. Old friends are really, really important. They allow you to be yourself without any ifs, ands, or butts. They can shelter you from the storm or throw you out to soak up some of the rain and thunder 'cuz they know it's the best thing for you. Or they don't purport to know what's best for you, and sometimes that's whats best. And your criteria for what is an "old friend" may differ from mine. I feel lucky to be able to stretch the definition of "old friend" to just a few years ago, but a connection that expands beyond our calender.

Sounds a bit new-agey, I suppose.



Both images (as well as an entire website full of her amazing art) from this incredible artist Eveline Tarunadjaja.