Fly my pretties, fly!





( doves, black swans, corellas in flight and glen's goose )

What is it with ravens eluding my damned camera! I hear them, I see them, I see amazing shots to take of them, but when it comes to pointing and clicking, where are they???

You'll have to content yourself with these instead.





( part one - lorikeets mostly. in the next batch i have some flight shots i'm really happy with. )

Somehow, if I am ever stuck in a song, a writer's block if you will of music, I can work through it by singing in the shower. I don't start out soaping up with the intent of working through a song. It's just as soon as I step into the tub, notes of music start running through my head.

I turn on the water, and I can usually get through two or three songs in a shower. Sometimes they are other people's songs, but more frequently I prefer to sing my own. I guess that's when, in a house lacking in full-on privacy, that's when I give myself permission to block any distractions out and just sing.

If anyone else is home, and I sit down with my guitar to play through songs, I am guaranteed to get interrupted. It doesn't matter if there has been zero activity going on for hours, if this is "prime time" for no interruptions, somehow, some way, I will always get interrupted. The phone rings. The doorbell sounds because the mailman has a package that can't go in the mailbox. The fire alarm will go off because someone's toast is burning.

My dad has a lovely radar for bugging me at precisely the moment I absolutely don't want to be bugged. Just like when you need to really pay attention and listen to something, that's exactly when he'll come right next to you and start talking in his loudest voice and totally ignore the fact that you're doing something else. But enough about my dad.

My cat Alexei also has a keen knack for growing attentive when I least want him to. He'll seem like he's down for the count in a nap, like nothing is going to wake him at all. Or sometimes he'll stir, his tail will speed up *whomp*whomp*whomp*, but I'll seem to serenade him with my melodies. I will slow down the tune, change the tone of my voice, start inserting his name, and his eyes will close peacefully. But midst-song, his ears twitch, his whiskers sense that Mom is really going to be out-of-bounds and that's precisely when he'll jump up, leap to the piano and attempt to knock a glass figurine to the floor.

But the bathroom is my refuge. Once the shower is going, Alexei leaves me alone. Dad disappears. I can ignore the phone unless it's "urgent".

I slip into my songs like a favorite pair of pajamas. I close my eyes and I got lost in the me of the song, the lover who was wronged, the peacekeeper, the spreader of sunshine, the carefree girl at age 10...

I remember the sheer thrill I felt first writing the song. It all comes to life for me again even if it's been years since I last thought of the song, let alone sung it. And then when I bump up against those rough edges, those random bits and pieces that never quite strung together like I wanted them to, something magical happens. As the water pouring down over my body, I allow my soul to play.

During the course of a shower, I've discovered choruses to seemingly endless streams of verses. I've reinvigorated one of my earliest completed songs by splitting a chorus and moving the resulting bridge to after the second chorus instead. Tonight, I breathed life back into one of my darkest songs, an older one, by (finally) creating a transition from the bridge back to the verse.

Water does wonders for working through the blocks in my creative mind. A bath can be just as invigorating for my stories. Music is often too much distraction, too much noise for the mind, maybe because I am a songwriter as well. Water seems to sweep with the natural ebbs and flows my random little mind loves to take. Ah, I've missed this rush of making music!

This:

http://toeknuckles.deviantart.com/art/Marine-Mammal-84603297

Arrived safely in the mail today! By the incredibly talented and awesome toeknuckles.
Check out her website here:


http://www.toeknuckles.com/


Yay! It is as awesome as I thought it would be, and as inspiring.
It is beautiful in person, and sitting where I can see it right now. :D

Hello Seattle...
I know it's a long shot but I need a new panel for part of my scooter that broke when some jerk knocked it down.

The panel I need is highlighted in red on the photo. I need it in red. I'd consider black but would prefer red.

Fanks.

19:24 suddenly craving orange scones with raspberry jam, wth... #

20:43 about to have a tv dinner and watch brothers and sisters. woot ! #

12:01 weird mucusy unpleasant cough. hmm. also, weather, can we cut it out with the gray and cold ? #

12:02 new hair everyone !www.flickr.com/photos/imtboo/2474494925/ #

12:40 it is so humid today. it's inside my bones. #

13:10 on call for ea. waiting to hear that everyone has arrived so i can get on with my day. #

13:29 i am totally going to make cranberry orange scones this afternoon, because the craving is not going away ! #

15:09 Loving my new hair. Forgot what it is like to get noticed. :-) #

16:15 gah. flock still not aggregating twitter properly. #

16:22 laundry. organizing. la di dum. #

16:48 trying to register for classes online. *EEP* #

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Day 1, yesterday, got me to the airport where I gave a duffle bag full of presents (sheets and towels) to Lu. Thank goodness she was there as money does not want to come out of the wall for me. Apparently it has been a big problem. She pulled out some reals for me so I have been able to eat and pay for taxis. Someone gave me a lunch ticket so I was able to enjoy the buffet with colleagues. Dinner was from the truck stop restaurant near our hotel. Coxinha and citrus soda-- completely perfect. I did my prostrations and got 8 hours of sleep. Unfortunately, it was still almost impossible to stay awake during the first talk, since my body new that this is when it should be asleep. I totally missed connecting with Murilo, my native informant, because the hotel phone costs R$3/minute and I am too cheap and a French lady yelled at me when I tried to use the conference phone. She was waiting for a call from France and, even though she hadn't been in the room for ten minutes and the person helping me thought she was done, she apparently wasn't. So. A missed opportunity to hear Brazilian music.

We managed to connect this morning and made a plan for lunch. Murilo and I finally made it to a movie together after almost a year. It wasn't really planned but it worked out easily. I took a taxi from the conference hotel to a mall that was between the hotel and his home. We met at Saraiva, a Barnes & Noble-like bookstore that had quite a few books in English. I bought a novel in Portuguese to read as well as a juvenile version of the history of Brazil's separation from Portugal. It has pictures and is about 1/4 the size of the adult version. My plan is to work my way through them with a dictionary. It should expand my vocabulary and improve my grammar. I will have the problem I had learning English-- my pronunciation will lag. But that is the point of trying to live here for a year.

I've been eating a lot of pao de queijo. It is ubiquitous-- at the hotel breakfast and as the centerpiece in the coffee breaks. Even though the plan was to eat lunch, I wasn't hungry. But just beyond the food court, was a movie theater. And, in 10 minutes, Homem de Ferro was showing. With subtitles. And, most importantly, not sold out. We walked a bit more and then returned, bought tickets and pipoca and orange fanta (sem gelo for the americana) and watched the movie. I'm not really going to give anything away but I have to say that the single most unbelievable point in the movie was when Miss Pepper Potts was running away from an impending explosion on an iron grate floor in stiletto heels. No. Way.

After we got out, Murilo offered me a ride back to the hotel. Ah... that is what the second helmet was for. I explain that I will be afraid. I explain that he might have to stop and get me a taxi. We get out to the motobike park and I pull the helmet on. It fits, to my surprise. He starts the bike and I ask if there is anything I need to know... don't do this he says, waving his body back and forth. Okay. I am going to hold on to you. Okay. I climb on. I ride. With a big fat grin on my face. The entire way back to the hotel, on highways and pretty boulevards. I am very impressed as I see a rider on the back of another bike with his arms folded in front of him. I'm not ready for that but it was definitely a comfortable ride. Except that my legs were tired from the tension when the ride ended.

I think I will buy a scooter when I get home. I think I will name it Min to contrast imtboo's Max.

So, I have actually been *happy* for a couple of days now. Maybe not the super bouncy skippy happy of my twenties when all was full of promise and the body worked as it should and so forth, but still. I want to record it. Because it's the first time in a longish while and I'd been falling into some rather hopeless places. As some of you know, I've been really struggling with body woes for nearly six months now. They are of a somewhat personal nature, so I don't really want to share too much detail here, but suffice to say I'm in mild pain most of the time and have recently been diagnosed with a condition which is partly neurological but also to a large extent stress-related and linked to emotional factors. So, on the negative side, there's not much known about cures or treatments and I can fall into a lot of fear about whether it will get better; on the positive side, I feel it's really just energy which is blocked and which I have the power to unblock if I can find the way to do so.

Anyway. The long and the short of it is that much of the past six months have been consumed by my journey in dealing with and coming to terms with the presence of these symptoms. It's been a real struggle of fighting against the reality of what's happening, feeling betrayed, like it's just so unfair, that I'm supposed to be so happy right now as I scamper off into the sunset of my glorious new life with blackwingedboy.

But I didn't sit down to write about all that side of the story. I wanted to record the slow opening of my heart that has taken place over the last day or two. The gorgeous hot sun has helped a lot, the wide open windows and the sounds of happy voices floating in. Yesterday afternoon I lay in the corner of my living room just watching the trees waving in the breeze, their brand new green shoots delicious in their freshness. I glanced over at my laptop to see writeanya and blackwingedboy laughing with one another on cam and felt so blessed by all the good people I know. I read some Jack Kornfield and marvelled at how much better he makes me feel about everything. I felt my heart glowing with love for my friends and my astonishingly wonderful partner. I realised that the pain had not gone away but that I could allow it to co-exist with the rest of my life. I hope that when the time is right it will shift and depart but for the time being it is my companion and I feel some hope that I can find an appropriate place and volume for it where it doesn't overwhelm everything else I'm experiencing. I tend to struggle a lot with believing things are either completely one way or completely the other. So either my life is perfect or it's ruined. No matter what joyful things may be coming up, they will all be pointless if there's something *wrong* with me. I've wrestled with some dark places in this respect lately, really feeling at times like I'll never be happy again. So that's why I'm so relieved to be genuinely experiencing joy once again. To be finding a kind of joy which is quieter, maybe, than its more youthful cousins, but is more real. A joy which takes in the full spectrum of life and its pleasures and pains, which is not dependent on everything working out just right. It's easy to look around at people whose bodies appear to be working properly and feel envious, even slightly hateful. Easy to make bargains in my head. But today I feel that I have precious things within me that I wouldn't trade for a perfect body, places of peace and beauty I can touch which don't depend on the physical.

So next time I'm sinking into hopelessness, I shall direct myself back here. I shall remind myself that joy is always possible, that happiness depends more on an open, tender heart than it does on the vagaries of circumstance. I shall remind myself of hummingbird medicine which invites me to look at the beauty and abundance of what is in front of me rather than dwelling on the perpetual presence of that which is unwanted. I shall remember writeanya's practice of telling herself "THIS is my path" - not the other path I think I *should* be on, *this* one.." I shall remember the Ryokan poem which came my way this evening, which encapsulates it all perfectly:

"Left behind by the thief
The moon at the window"

I am now too old and frail to stay up until 2 am for three nights during the same week. Even when the boys let me sleep in until 10am, it's NOT the same...

Yes, I know. It says something about my definition of "frail".

And, sadly, yes, I breathe better after I've had a good night's sleep. So I have to fix this creeping habit.

I was woken by crows this morning, loud insistent crows, cawing madly out back. Then I dozed off again and had one of my lovely Patti Smith dreams. This one was unusually lengthy and just lovely. She was staying somewhere in England and I turned up at her door but it was as if we'd kinda been around each other recently and she knew me a little. She was pleased to see me. It was her last day here before flying to Paris and she wanted advice about how to spend it. I asked if she wanted quiet solitary time and suggested some quiet rural places nearby. She said "Excellent. Would you like to come with me?" She was so full of life and joy, friendly and a playful. I said I'd love to but I'd have to go and put my wellies on first. She laughed and teased me for not wanting to get messy. I said she and I together reminded me of my (tidy) mum and her (messy, chaotic) sister. There was also a part, in her bedroom, where she cautioned me not to tread on a grasshopper she was in the process of rescuing. I was a bit wary of it after my grasshopper experiences a couple of summers ago, but she treated it very lovingly and gently. It was such a lovely dream: warm and encouraging and a hopeful start to another hot Springy day.

18:18 lots of strong emotions today. goes to wisdom social but really just wants to drop out of it all. #

00:07 wow. dark xkcd. in every way. hey william ! go to bed . #

11:09 hmmm flock's twitter aggregation isn't really working all that well. #

11:11 getting my hair done in a few hours ! woot ! can't wait ! #

11:11 getting my hair done in a few hours ! woot ! can't wait ! #

13:05 printing hair cut and color pics to take to heidi. #

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Okay kids. Nothing fancy here, just simple vinaigrette dressings. Dirt simple. 3 parts oil, 1 part vinegar, dried herbs ( basil and oregano for example). Mix herbs and vinegar, then slowly add in the oil while beating until it emulsifies.  Salt and pepper to taste. Pour over mixed salad greens and enjoy. Like I said, simple.

Ah, but why stop there? Get closer kids, because this is when the fun starts. Oil and vinegar is really just oil and some acidic liquid. Olive oil and Orange juice. Peanut oil and Lime ( great with Thai food). The ratio of oil to acid may change based on the sweetness levels, just experiment as you go. What's important to remember is to taste as you go. Don't worry if the vinaigrette breaks ( breaking here means that the emulsion separates back into oil and liquid) at this point. If you have the ratio you like but the vinaigrette keeps breaking, add just a touch of mustard, it helps hold the emulsification without destroying the flavor.

Here's one to get you started. I came up with this one night when I couldn't find any good looking raspberries at the market. You will notice that most of my recipes are really more like guidelines. Use them as a base to start from, and have fun with it!

Roasted Strawberry Vinaigrette:

Take some nice strawberries, 20 or so, de-stem, then cut in half. Arrange them in a baking dish, and drizzle walnut oil over top. You'll want to use about a 1/2 cup of walnut oil. If you want to save money, use 1/4 canola and 1/4 walnut. Roast the berries at 350 f, until they get nice and soft and the house smells like a scented candle. Remove from the oven and let cool completely. After it's cooled, place the berries in a food processor and set the oil aside. To the berries add about 1/8th of a cup of rice wine vinegar. You want a very light, almost sweet vinegar. I've tried Balsamic, and while the taste is the bomb, the color is way off. Start the processor and once the berries and vinegar are all mixed, start drizzling in the oil. Don't worry about adding it all, just add it until the vinaigrette emulsifies and gets nice and creamy looking. Taste at this point and add salt if needed. Pour into a jar and place in the fridge until ready to use.

The Salad:

Take some raw walnut halves, dust with cinnamon sugar and roast for about 15 minutes in a 350 oven. Keep an eye on them so they don't burn. Make a light green salad with whatever greens look fresh in the market. You want light greens though, stay away from bitter radicchio for example. Add into the greens some dried cranberries, diced seedless cukes, and grape tomatoes. Add the dressing, don't drown things here, and toss. Place a nice pile on a chilled plate, toss some roasted walnuts on top, a crack of fresh pepper, and viola.

 

Remember, these are just guidelines. Experiment people!! Most of all though, enjoy.

Cheers.

I'd like to do a detox this Spring, and wonder if any of you can recommend a particular programme? I'm particularly interested in trying to do one which aligns with my Ayurvedic type (Vata) - I'm pretty sure that serious fasting would *not* suit me, as I need regular fuel in order not to fall over. I guess I could just invent my own - fresh fruit and veggies with some detox tea, loads of water and cutting out sugar, yeast, dairy, etc. but in some ways I'd like a proper regime to follow. Any ideas?

she smells sweet
like those strawberries,
my sticky little miss.
paws upon me warm,
and browned
rosebud mouth ripe
to be kissed.

Jet's doing his reading homework. He gets to pick any book that's "Just Right" and read it to us. He's reading Why Are You So Grumpy?, a book we got together when I was pretty cranky, and he reads it to me when I'm cranky... which I'm not this morning, as it's a late start morning and it's been fun being with him.

But in the middle of it, there's a bit about getting underwear for Christmas, and the kid in the book says, "Oh, poop!" at the present. And Jet and I giggled for five minutes straight at him reading, "Oh, poop!" like twenty times. I love little boy humor. *falls over giggling*

It's also helped that, for whatever reason, my flow count has started going back up. There must have been a flood of pollen or my shots yesterday or the Allegra I added on top of the Advair, but my breathing has gotten better today. I'm grateful.

Cat - Personal Power

Keywords:

Looking after yourself. Relax. Meditate. The hunting instinct. Getting what you want. Accomplishment. Self-love, worth and protection. Standing up for yourself. Taking time out. Gentle exercise. All forms of therapy. Independence. Intuition. Personal power. Magic.





( full essay within )

14 to go...

(and this with emu are probably two of my fave illustrations to date.)

jorge and i have talked a lot about painting (he paints, too). and last night we had a long talk about my idea and he loves it and is fully supportive of it. yay! (he also comes from a culture that places a much higher value on arts and culture.)

that said, he doesn't have the context to understand fully the challenges it would mean for us economically. but he was planning on working full-time and going to school part-time anyway. now, we'd focus on trying to get him the highest paying job possible, and one with insurance for the both of us. with his experience working in the sweatshop, he's got a good edge on factory work now, and it never ceases to amaze me to hear him talk positively about the aspects of the job he likes. tulsa's got quite a bit of manufacturing work, and some for companies that pay well. (union wages? i don't know. the_macnab, how could we find this out?) it will take a while before i'd start seeing income from painting, and so the timing works well, if i don't delay. because during this time, jorge would be working full-time... and if down the road, he decides he wants to go to school full-time instead, hopefully by that point i'd have more income coming in.

again, i know all of this is a long shot, but still. it's exciting.