mini british invasion

man oh man. post man brought me a musical jackpot this afternoon, via edinburgh. hugely huge thanks and shouts out to mr. bradley for the tunes. and they run all over the board: standards to brit pop to rlj (i love her i love her) to rufus wainright to aqualung to a myriad of bands i haven't heard of yet. it's like christmas, eleven months early. the ipod is squealing.

come sale away

i'm not really the yard-sale type of girl, or the swap meet mama, so to speak, but both have come into my life osmosifantastically through dan, el shmoop. to know him, to love him, is to embrace the weekly front-yard scavenger hunts that we call the yard sale. and i do know him and love him, and so i yardsale (and create new verbs out of compound nouns).

so what can be found at the 'sale?

1.) a girlfriend for dan. well. he has to ask her out first, which might take some notsogentle prodding to get him to do, but i swear she is perfect for him. a date is in order. he better ask her out. today. hello: dan, if you are reading this, shut down your computer and go back over there right now.

2.) old friends. lorraine and becky. a fun catch up. becky just bought 200+ acres in pozo, ohmigod. so she's moving eastward into a great grassland of vastness. lorraine is the kickass girl everyone should know. but as she knows everybody, you probably already know her. know what i mean? she's the queen of networking.

3.) a rental. the cutest place for the best price. if you are looking for a rental in a great neighborhood with a lot of character, send me an email and i'll see if i can hook you up. $1200 for 2BR + 1Bath plus fun little downstairs party room with bar in large-ish sprawling older type of house. if i didn't have the Cutest Apartment Ever in the Entire World Living Next Door to One of My Best Friends (aka, CAEEWLNDOMBF) i would be looking at this house myself. (if you know slo, you've driven by this house a minimum of a hundred thousand times.)

4.) potential jammation. ran into larry whom i know from the laramie project last year. i really like larry a lot — he's got a couple of years on me, but i think he is a kindred spirit. today we talked ukeleles and jamming.

5.) proof that americans have Too Much Crap. need to curb your spending habit? go to a yard sale. you'll see all the same crap you saw in the stores two years (or six months) ago selling for 1/100th of the price.

6.) the real price of things. (see number five).

the daily distraction



tapestry. seen on boingboing.net, this is the nose of a titan missile. or is it a wall hanging in a gallery? an intricate weave of color and light? or a life-destroying death bringer? or a folk-art keepsake? or a human-eraser? or an intricate crafty expression of homemade beauty? or is it just a titan missile head?

» tapestretetic bomb squad... for your wall

optical illusions. yowza. if you feel dizzy or sick, close thy browser. if you don't, let your eyes trip out.

» now you see it, now you see it move

recent links on my list serv

1.) sperm whale explodes in taiwan
2.) earthbag building
3.) lists of fives
4.) moab car fest
5.) ctr-alt-del guy restarts life

the daily distraction

welcome to my family's houses. it's a little thing that warms my heart: go into the house of my father, my grandparents, my uncle, my aunt, my cousins, and what do you see? mana pottery. distinctly southwest, the images on the pottery is swirly, dotty, ritualistic, simplistic, dreamlike.

» see some of the pottery

the daily distraction

law and order: artistic intent. well the show that me and my friends simply call "dun dun" has become its own artistic genre. sit back and relax as you take a stroll through the law and order artistic intent gallery. pay special attention to 1.) the pre-Mr. Big (so cute! so young!); 2.) the film "tough day at the office"; and 3.) the law and order coloring book.

» dun dun

overheard

steve: and to make it worse, he takes baths. guys don't take baths.
marya: i know a lot of guys who take baths.
steve: well, yeah, in the bay area.

the daily distraction (number 5 version)

if you know me you know i love the number five. i can't remember a time in my life when i didn't know that five is my lucky number. so god love 5ives.com, a snorting-coffee-out-of-your-nose site listing the author's top-five for the most random of things.

five reasons to bookmark 5ives.com
1. Five ill-advised giveaway nights at the ballpark
2. Five observations from my first 25 minutes of yoga
3. Five things I'd like to teach the world this Christmas
4. Five great reasons to buy a Hummer
5. Five resolutions for the new year

» get your 5ives on



emdot's list of fives

five things i tend to call cats i like
1. little kitty bad girl
2. mamacitabonita
3. kittencaboodle
4. puss
5. shoogiebooglovebug

five things i don't miss from seventh grade (circa 1979)
1. the i hate [any girl's name] club
2. living across the street from the school in the very crappy house
3. still being a little girl surrounded by eighth grade women
4. still loving disco
5. buying my clothes at j.c. penney's

five ways to get someone to stop listening to you
1. interrupt so you can watch a commercial
2. site right-wing fringe blog as your resource
3. call yourself middle-of-the-road when you are the most liberal person i've ever met
4. reference event or band from 1982 as cool nearly every single day
5. preface your rebuttal with "shut the fuck up"

creepy coyotes

first of all, how do you spell coyote? shouldn't there be an a in there somewhere?

the creepiest thing about being back in cali and in the comfycozy plush-covered comforts of my father's home are the friggin' coyotes. i live in a town of 45,000 with farmland everyfuckingwhere and wild animals and no traffic and few housing tracts and i tell you i never hear the freakycreepy chill-you-to-the-bone yelps and choirs of the coyote. i drive four hours south into the heart of suburban hell, into a city of over 100,000 that is surrounded by countless other suburban hells of 100,000 and what do i hear? the freakycreepy chill-you-to-the-bone yelps and choirs of the coyote.

it must be the shopping. oh damn. no. no. i know what it is. werecayotes! you've heard of werewolves. they are so two centuries ago. today's werecayotes are nordies-shopping by day in their cute capris, driving their cute behemoth su-mega-vs, waving their cute platinum-foiled amex cards... and then by night they are ripping the heads off of family kitties that forgot to come in for the evening, howling in fifteen-part semi-harmony.

i swear to god they are going to make all the hair on my neck stand up on end permanently.

i knew i shoulda paid more attention in philosophy....

so, do you think you are more like plato or aristotle? descartes or sartre? does this question keep you up at night, tossing and turning? this just in: online ethics test now available. i wish i knew more about these philosophers to know if i am embarrassing myself by publishing my results....

1.  Spinoza   (100%)
2.  Kant   (98%)
3.  Jean-Paul Sartre   (82%) 
4.  Nietzsche   (80%) 
5.  Aquinas   (79%) 
6.  Stoics   (79%)
19.  Plato   (29%) 

» git yer ethics on

snippets from safford

yesterday we went to watch my cousin solomon play basketball.

solomon is eleven. his team is a bunch of fifth and sixth graders; i think they broke my heart. so damn cute. the tall skinny lanky gangly ones. the short little sprouts. the thick and burly ones who can't help but tackle those they are guarding. by the end of the game i'd nicknamed three of them: scrappy (the shortest guy with the quickest hustle), scrappy two (knocking people down, knocking himself down, bouncing up and running back to the ball so cute), and fancy pants. i'm sure fancy pants would love to know that he is called fancy pants. someone should write that on his locker.

it would be great to see these kids playing their senior year of high school and think back to their earnestness and latent talent of 2004. the team lost in the last minute and a half to the free throw line. and that sucks, but also tells me that they were trying that much harder to stop the opposing team. enthusiastic fouling. fouling with the best intentions.

note to bmac: i'm in arizona. who did you hire and for what? we gotta talk. how annoying are internet messages for blog readers? ;) i'm back in cali sometime midweek.

the daily distraction

i have a scream. just in case you weren't forwarded this a hundred times already this week.

» scream roller blues

and happy chinese new year. all hail the year of the green wood monkey — it's the return of my dad's birth year.

» get your monkey on

speedin' on down the 405

there's a little story my parents love to tell about me packing to spend a summer with my grandparents in arizona. i don't know what my mom was thinking when she let me do all the packing by myself (cuz i was five)(mom, is this story true?), but lore has it that when i arrived in Hot & Arid, that all i had was a suitcase full of books. (i'm pretty sure this story is true).

to this day i still do it. and when i say to this day, i do indeed mean this day. i'm writing from southern california, having zipped on down the coast just a few hours ago. starting tomorrow my dad and i are heading east east east for a quick five- or six-day trip into the great land of amazing shades of tan and olive. and i just unpacked a few things, getting ready for bed and all and i thought, good lord what in the world is making this side of the bag so dang darn heavy?!

five books and two journals.

(and i only packed six hours ago, so you'd think i would remember.).

and i'm thinking about getting a sixth because (this is where i lose all credibility, you roll your eyes and move on to the next blog on your list of clicks) oprah (yeah, i know, i told you) named one hundred years of solitude (oh shoot, or was it love in the time of cholera) as the book of the month. and i've tried. lord knows i have tried to get through a marquez book and i have failed. failed like a lame-ass, good-for-nothing, no-reading, trash-talking, trailer-parkin', montel-watching, republican-voting, english-minor wannabe. but, i'm ready to give it another go and jump in and make myself read it. and i will like it.

but back to packing. i'm going to tell you why i am a lousy packer and it is not the obvious answer of "because you pack at the last minute." yeah, i do pack at the last minute, but after living with and/or near my family for well over 30 years now, i've noticed that they do it too and have decided it's just genetics doing its thing.

but, how i suck is, i seem to only pack for the weather i am currently experiencing ("weather" can also include current inside temperature.). i knew it was supposed to rain in arizona. i got on the internet. i checked it out (mid 50s and wet). yet, i could not bring myself to pack a sweater or even a long sleeved shirt. okay. at the last minute i threw a long-sleeved shirt in, but only because i thought i needed an extra clothing option. it was a beautiful day today. and warm. and lovely. and i just couldn't get in the winter mood.

okay. now you can roll your eyes and click on to the next blog. good grief. long drives leave me chatty. carry on.

the daily distraction
part dooce

damn damn damn that dooce. latest equals how to induce labor once one is overdue. one being herself. do not read this with any liquid in your mouth. says she:

"I can hardly imagine doing anything for three whole hours. I did see that three-hour plus movie about the hobbit people, and I must admit that Gollum was just so cute that I wanted to take him home, slap a diaper on his butt, and dress him in itty-bitty pink onesies, but I wouldn’t describe that experience as watching a movie for three hours. I’d describe it as more of a three-hour countdown until I could pee again."

» strategies for indoocement

the daily distraction
aka mark morford, how i love thee (part five)

god damn morford cracks me up. when you read him online you only get the column. when you subscribe to his mailing list you get his little latest-news-item run-on rants which are much more like newsblurb scatting or beat poetry ping pong or little snippets of stream of conscious yes yes yes. i think he's illegal in 29 states and shooting for 30. just a partial from today:

Schick is reportedly fast tracking the development of a new razor made from the petrified testicles of sacred Alaskan elk. The razor will sport not two, not three, not even four, but fully 147 gold-tipped titanium-honed blades clustered together in a massive head that lights up and spins and sings show tunes and is made in small climate-controlled batches by Tibetan eunuch monks.

Gillette, undeterred, has been long rumored to be developing a secret multiblade razor code named "Hot Bunny Doom" that will shave your cat and parallel park the SUV and translate what the hell your wife is blabbering on about into comprehensible English, all while programming the TiVo to tape only sports shows featuring guys with no necks who like to crush stuff with their foreheads.

» get your morford on

the daily distraction

talk about your underground architecture movements. i get lots of my dd's from witold riedel. i'm feeling like i have to say it here, cuz i keep putting them on my site without the polite shout out. ;) this is another from mr. riedel: matthew borrett. matthew borrett's drawings are like modern day cappadocia. intricate. beautiful. a little hidden. other drawings are wide-eyed and angsty. still others are space-age delicious.

writing english good. read the email correspondence between coca cola marketeers and a well-meaninged keeper of our language. only takes a minute and is worthy of its own distracting day.

today is the birthday of fellini and david lynch. highlighted here in honor of my brother who turned a year older himself this month. only 17 he is swimming with new thoughts of fellini and my hunch is that he likes lynch too. evan makes 17 seem doable, rather than my own approach to 17 which was embarrassing and attention-seeking. maybe that is the difference between genders. maybe it is the difference of being canadian or american. and while ev can carry both passports, he's rooted in nova scotia. and so it goes.

i found out about those birthdays by listening to the writer's almanac, a reason in and of itself to pledge to public radio. check out the site and bookmark it. go to it daily for a little literary history lesson. plus, garrison kiellor is a master at reading poems.

i wish i could read poems outloud for a living. in college i always volunteered. i know this makes me sound like a geek. but maybe it's not geeky if you can make the poems sound beautiful or resonate with the listener.

» the artwork of matthew borrett
» the coca cola letters
» the writer's almanac

the daily distraction




industrial light and magic. boingboing.net says, "These photos of human-made toxic disasters — mining tailings, tire-piles, oil refineries, etc — capture the beauty of industrial horror."

»swirly swirly neon bright

the weekend

the weekend was more than just mardi gras. friday night was an early shane celebration and johnny b. art show. dan and shane (or "dane" as kb calls them collectively) made dinner, we zoomed down for johnny's art show (the big jb is moving to bend anydaynow) and then off to sycamore for a little birthday soak. saturday equaled a fruitful morning garage sale. for less than $5 i got a new coffeemaker, three hermetically sealed jars, a basket, and two hardback books. sunday was breakfast at dan's, mardi gras costume making and then the guy davis concert. guy davis, i'm a fan. i asked him to play the super sexy layla, layla song, but he said it required two people (how appropriate). damn. but mar was in the SuperGrouchyMeow mood. no matter what i tried to do, i was stuck in it. and you know what? that ain't fun for nobody.

king cake party good

mardi gras krewes know how to party. lemme just say: really fabulous costumes and sweaty groovy dancing. i love seeing how certain personalities just get switched on in the right atmosphere. electric. spicy.

here's a thought. i live in a town with very little night life. the night that does live seems to cater to a younger, college-aged crowd. so my theory is, those over thirty-five or approaching some proximity of this, who love to cut loose and shake their proverbial groove thangs, kinda find each other, like magnets and bits of iron in a shoe box. and they put the conventional nightlife to shame. these people can go. and thank god for them. it's grass roots party style.

garden of hedon

tonight is my krew's king cake party. my first king cake party. i think finding the plastic baby is only a fraction of what to expect. the big question: will my outfit be risque enough?

the good afternoon

amazing afternoon with dyane and carolyn. i love those women. we have a nice shared vocabulary and our talks tend to meander between the this and the that and then wham something deep and pithy.

i miss having sangha. i think my practice would be a lot stronger — er, i mean existant — if i had sangha close by.

i brought up my ny's ressie with dyane (former medical dr.) and carolyn (who is a clinical psychologist). i wanted to know, what does my procrastination mean/stem from... wondering if they had any magic potions for me to cut through my own bullshit.

all comments were good and meaty and food for thought. dyane mentioned hearing our teacher once say that people say they don't meditate because they don't have time. however, he notices that when he meditates an hour a day he naturally begins to use his time more wisely and finds he has a lot more time to do other things. and that when he meditates three hours a day he becomes even more efficient. naturally. not in order to get things down. it just naturally happens.

so i have pledged to them to sit for one hour a day (broken up into two half hour sessions) for the next 30 days. i am holding myself accountable to them. and now to you, too.

little slice of life truth

i love this bit from witold... something that i'm sure we've all clumsily experienced.

dyane and carolyn are coming to visit. these are two of my dharma sisters. i met carolyn in shambhala training in ojai. i met dyane at a ten day retreat at pullahari. they both live in ojai, so i don't get to see them often. i can't wait to show them my new home and then to slowly meander around slo town. they'll only be here for a few hours and then they are heading to pullahari for another ten-day-er. i'm a little envious. but there is too much stuff happening in my life right now to go on retreat. how ironic is that? i leave a job that eats up all my time so that i can rarely go on retreat and i miss two immediately. drats. but i'm okay with it.

i've had enough of the michael jackson coverage. how about you? living 30 miles from the court house means that our podunk news team breaks in during regular programming to show us mj entering the courtroom. puh-lease. gimme a break. this is ridiculous.

i said that the resolution would not be televised. but i'm changing my mind. my resolution is to confront my procrastination once and for all. i have a feeling that if i tackled and conquered this that my entire life would change drastically. beautifully. unfold into something richer than i ever could imagine. and so with that, i stop typing for the morning.

overheard

we were going to dinner at giuseppe's. ts promised an ice cold beer and "gastronomic delights."

i sent him the catherine jamieson links, telling him specifically to check out the macros of the insects...

ts: very cool. i wonder how she got all those insects to sit still....
mar: promises of gastronomic delights and cold beer?

the daily distraction

the galleries of catherine jamieson. yesterday i got hooked on the close up of the grasshopper. my current desktop features the lanterns. my previous passion consisted of clotheslines.

an aside: how do clothes get dry hanging in canada? dan hung out his clothes this week and they didn't get dry due to the fog (or dew to the fog?).... is that why cali has fewer people hanging clothes? is hanging clothes to dry cultural?

» the galleries of catherine jamieson

the daily distraction

local boy makes good. eric meyer is from the central coast. i went to high school with him, but didn't know him (i don't think). i don't know when he moved to santa barbara, but he did and made it big with simple shoes.

now he seems to be on to bigger and better. medium footwear appears to be a footopia for shoe designers. keep your eyes peeled for opportunites to buy and wear. and remember to support your central coast homegrowns.

» please yer feets

the daily distraction

» funnybinkin i love j. otto.

moleskin blurbage

today i re-opened my moleskin with the intent of doing a witold drawing (a drawing inspired by the drawings of witold.). which i did. which was fun and interesting to see where my pen would choose to go next.

and then i flipped through back pages and chuckled at weird random blurbs that decorate my notebook (most written during buddhist retreats):

"heroin dieting strategy"

"true spiritual practice is manual labor -- ctr"

"pain is given; suffering is optional"

"and he immediately said, "this fucker!" cuz he's got the verbal advantage, you know."

"shani sleeps with her eyes shut and her ears open."

"company store / corporate whore"

"exploratory land of adventure kissing" (hey, that one's not bad)

"mar: she's as sweet as can be.
noreen: she needs to grow up and get angry!"

"willingness to become real . unshakable experience of open reality"

the daily distraction

graffiti archeology. maybe this is more of a test of watching graffiti being wiped out... the graffiti tries to come back, but is never as glorious as its first incarnation.

just like people. you flourish gorgeously until you get your first strike. and then either you try again with some hesitation or you take that as a challenge to be bigger and better than you ever were before. or you spend the rest of your life nursing wounds and watching game shows.

wait wait. this post is about graffiti.

» graffiti: evolution devolution

overheard

poker between reality tv (ohmigod, what have i become). this equals a couple extra glasses of wine (cuz i was LOSING) and rants at the tv while we watched which guys the average biatch was sending h-o-m-e.

mar: i lost AGAIN.
bret: you have a pair of aces!
mar: OH!

bret: read 'em and weep (shows a straight).
kristin: i don't know what i've got... (shows flush).

welcome to the way we islay street girlies play poker.

mar: he looks like avril lavigne. hey, he's avril joe!

ave. joe minus five (who was very heavy): either i need to find someone who likes me for the way i am, or i need to lose some weight.
mar: why not both?

kristin: you don't want to call me KB, Dan?
dan: yer not my KB.

(that's an inside joke, yet i put in it anyway).

the daily distraction
part two

» one ipod tshirt to rule them all?

the daily distraction

"if you can do it perfectly, it's boring...."

interesting reading people's bio's/about pages. mine, i hold from me with a yard stick. dunno why. but mostly i enjoy reading other people's about pages. danny gregory's name's been popping up in a few blogs i read. full of sketches and caught moments, it inspires the moleskin/illustrator contingency. actually, i think it would inspire all contingencies. but read the about page, too. interesting.

» how danny gregory journals...

the daily distraction
part one

scribbler. how i love thee.

number one, as stated in previous emdot annals, doodling is a sign of the highest intelligence and compassion. to doodle is to connect with what is great and powerful.

i have proof as it has gotten me through more than 1,000 brain-numbing and eternally eye-crossed meetings. that, my friends, is power. and then there is my astounding intelligence and compassion. which go without saying.

so when zefrank creates a doodle machine that then interprets your masterpiece into lines of unmeasurable beauty, well you sit up a little taller, don't you? and you bookmark the page. and you visit it regularly (may i suggest bookmarking it on your laptop so when you take you computer in to the meeting you can keep a fingernail's grip your sanity?)

» the scribbler
» gallery

the daily distraction
part dooce

» humping dogs and snorting neighbors
not for the weak or meek

overheard

timo: well that's the kiss of death.
mar: i can't tell if you are being facetious or sarcastic.
timo: yes.

the daily distraction

Coolest blog on the block? Might be dooce.com. She seems to be a web designer by day, but she obviously is ignoring her real calling of stand-up comedian / international party person. Learn how to charm her, how to annoy her, or just what she's thinking about. Daily posts: good. Photos: good. But a good way to get your toe wet on this site is through the guilt...

» What's dooce all guilty about?

mac attack

on christmas i killed my ibook. well, killed may be a strong word with negative connotations. there was an accident and it went into a coma. luckily i had the new pc waiting in the wings, so i could pull a mar-style and leave the ibook in it's cute little glove til "later."

i love later.

it's so elusive.

later turned out to be today. my mom had a Mac Guy come to her house to help her set up her home office (and bill's home office). she called me all urgent like: git yer butt over here and bring your computer; when can you ge---"

i couldn't hear the rest cuz i was out the door, cute iBook glove in hand.

so here's the scoop: on christmas i put panther on my 2yo iBook (not the top of its class, but more than wonderfully perfect). was running 9.2 and 10.0. i met all of panther's requirements with nothing to spare. not a megabyte, not a minibyte, not a nibble, not a nothin'. loaded panther. prrrfect (hence the name, panther). reboot.

and that's when comatose became the word of the day.

it would technically reboot as there was a chime and there was a happy mac face smiling up at me... and then zhjooom. down. shut down. good night. bye bye. gonzo.

turns out it was because i only had 30% battery charge.

i let my little mac sweetheart sleep in the glove for almost two weeks because it wasn't plugged in.

good lord. i suck.

meanwhile, Mac Guy says "don't put panther on til you get more RAM." so i'm gonna.

meanwhile, i'm still cheating on the ibook with the pavilion. thing is, the pavilion is pretty awesome. and though not the coolest machine on the block (apologies to hp friends) a whole lot faster than the 2yo iBook.

the daily distraction
part three

do not miss this blog: more than donuts. this girl's a classic.

» more than donuts

slowly, slowly, slowly

i take back what i said about my new way to handle new year's. i'm going back to my old way. my familiar way. clean it up, clear it out. breakfast with dooly — always nice to see old friends (and you gotta love a woman whom people call by her last name). and towards the end of the breakfast she said, my necklace is my new year's resolution.

it is a beautiful necklace: very delicate silver chain with a little silver charm that says fearlessness.

i can't think of a better resolution.

meanwhile, i still think i need more sleep. i was accused of lecturing a friend today. not sure if that means that i was, or if he was just defensive, or a little bit of both. all i know is, if you aren't in college, lectures don't mean a whole lot. ever. so. whatareyagonnado? dunno. but i was still right and my points were good ones.

really.

the daily distraction
part two

bean links to this too, but i still want to point you to the morning news' interview yesterday of witold riedel and the gallery they have posted of his wonderful moleskin sketchbook. witold's is one of my most favorite places to visit online — it's been about a year since we found the sock puppy-witold picture and hence found witold's site. his site is filled. i started to say "with great things," but that is obvious. there is so much to look at.

» witold interview
» witold's moleskin

the daily distraction

is it cheating to offer a well-known site as a daily distraction? have you seen NASA's "M2K4" site? no? well, get yer little heiny on over there and check it out pronto.

» get thee to mars

new bean resolution

this should just be in an email to bean, but i gotta say, i like her ny's ressies, and i especially like the two-hour time strategy. i'm going to try that myself. startin' today.

In order to discipline the mind, it is essential to devote part of one's life to the practice of meditation...[However,] disciplines are stepping stones, but they are not a way of solving problems. The mind's cunning tricks are endless; therefore one should develop one's own way of freeing oneself from frivolousness. Meditation provides an immediate opportunity to bring one's neuroses to the surface, examine them, work with them and recognize them as materials of the path rather than villains. — Chogyam Trungpa

12th night

and so begins mardi gras. we gathered at the town clock. the king and queen made their declarations. we paraded through downtown, gracing those we passed with beads. got to pete's for 12th night party. cool clothes, fun music, good food. so the night was fun but today was hard hard hard hard hard. i seriously need 8 hours of sleep and i've been working on only a fraction. this makes me near tears. it's just exhaustion. yet, pulled through for the merriment. keep your eyes peeled for us on the 11:00 news tonight.

the daily distraction



moveon.org's "bush in 30 seconds" ads are up. this was a video contest: create a tv commercial, done in political commericial style, about some of the "accomplishments" of the bush administrations. these are really well done. do they get their point across? that is for you to decide.

» 4, 3, 2, 1, go

hmm...

If you keep a sense of humour and maintain a sense of mistrust towards the rules set down around you, then you will have success. — Trungpa Rinpoche

(a little cynical for me, but probably very true).
(i am a cockeyed optimist).
(there should be corrective lenses for that).

the daily distraction

this is a participation daily distraction (coming in too late to distract you?). picture in your head the following brands and sketch them on a little piece of paper. doesn't have to be a big deal. just pencil 'em in really quick: addidas, apple, coke, and toyota.

could you do it? did you do it? was it harder or easier than you expected?


monochrome (an art-technology-philosophy group of basket weaving enthusiasts and theory do-it-yourselfers based in austria) decided to do a little study on how well brands work. so they got 25 people and asked them to sketch out brands from memory. they put their results on line.

» check yer brand brain

overheard

mar: you are very new-agey.
tom s.: (nods) but i try to be practical about it.

go read ezpei

i haven't met him yet, but have seen his pictures and he happens to be married to one of my friends. and this one particular friend has not posted to her blog in days (days i tell you!) so decided to peek in on her whereabouts which includes visits to sherry (painting loftmate with creative spelling habits -- yet, there is never a problem reading sherry's blog, which just goes to prove that good spelling is overrated; let your mind free to read as it sees fit) and ezpei (said husband). damn. every time i go there i love it. so you should bookmark this and begin to read it as well. i LOVE the thought on the zero degrees of separation party and the principles behind it. (i'm such an introvert. i'm a loud, conversation-dominating, lookatme lookatme introvert.)

meanwhile, please read freeform ranting, aka chez ezpei.

idle chatter

i'm teaching myself dreamweaver and stylesheets. finally. been coding by hand for far too long. and never seemed to have the time to sit down and learn them. funny, following tutorials gives me anxiety. why?

there is no "food" in my house. meaning, no easily sliceable/heatable/toastable edibles. so was just now forced to cook. must go to store and fill up on the sliceable/heatable/toastable varietals.

has anyone seen cold mountain? you can try to resist renee zellweger, but she is a really good actress. or is that scene stealer? and i want everyone to know my feet are still firmly planted in my fourteenth year, as i would quite willingly watch any movie with jude law. can i get an adolescent sigh?

meanwhile, the cd is really good. jack white (of white stripes) is both in the movie and all over the soundtrack. if you loved O Brother and/or Songcatcher, this is a cd for you.

and speekina trads... when are songs trad and when are they standards? do standards ever become trad?

jeanne asked what we're listening to (is that right? jeanne?) and lately i've been ensconsed in 30s-40s-50s standards. heard a fresh air show featuring johnny mercer's biographer, so have been listening to a lot of johnny mercer (one for my baby and one more for the road). not sure how long this will hold up, but i did get the chords to "king of the road" (not johnny mercer... roger miller) so played that on my geetar five or eleven times this morning.

np: wings over america. i heart mccartney. also. realized i lost my best of elo cd. must rebuy. i have one foot in trad/standards, one foot in cheesy 70s softrock. this is not a good omen for two thousand and four. neither is my lack of editing on this blog.

big question: when am i getting my kittens?!

the daily distraction



"One day I woke up and decided I needed a big change in my life. Something deeper and with more far ranging consequences than say, a new pair of boots. After a difficult and awkward period of self-examination, it seemed almost obvious. I could teach my drawings to breathe in and out. This is an experiment. The movements are still being worked on. But make no mistake. Once you turn a corner like this, there is no turning back." — Craig Frazier

» watch the pig tales

hello 2004

the virgo in me likes to start 2004 pure and productive. don't ask me why. but it's been that way for the last decade at least. i like to start things out with a clean house, clear head, and shootin' outta the starting blocks.

cough cough. that was then. this is now.

now i'm thinking that a great way to start the new year is in bed. like all-day-if-you-want in bed. it helps when it's rainy and cold. it helps when you were up til 3:00 in the morning playing poker.

it was a fun new year's. my friend jeremy, who is really one of my most favorite people in the world, lives in seattle, is interesting and funny and sweet and all things great, was in town and i joined his family for dinner. soup and wine and long conversations of which i seemed to dominate them all. and then off to kb's for gin and poker.

at midnight a group of us tried to hustle our butts to the bridge that goes over the railroad. why a bridge, i dunno. but it is a good bridge. and it's good to toast in unexpected places i think. but with only 45 seconds to spare and a block and a half still to go, we made a last minute detour to the stab to bang pots and pans and shake our groove thangs and shout in a new year.

thing is, the stab was in a super mellow, straight-ahead jazz, deeply philosophical rumination mood (the whole building) (funny; last year they were whooping it up til the wee morning light). so we exploded like chinese fire crackers on a sleepy bunch and tried to leave as quickly as possible, too (like campers keeping their site free of human trace) (a.k.a. empaque su basura). returning the cd player back to miles davis as quickly as possible.

today. rain. breakie at dan's. following the boys to home depot (aka snoozeville; why do people love that place?). and then s&tc mini-marathon with kb. in between lollygagging nap time.

and that, my friends, can be a new way to meander out of the starting blocks. hurrah '04.

new year's day

THE RESOLUTION WILL NOT BE TELEVISED.