Bird Sounds

One of the things I like the most about Vermont is listening to the birds.  I get particularly excited about the owls and the ravens.  Yeah, they don't make the prettiest sounds.  I just think it's so cool that we have owls and ravens to listen to.  

The owls were active last night and we've been hearing (and seeing) ravens almost every day for the last several months. 

The chickadees are always entertaining.  I also love to hear the phoebes.  In case you don't know, phoebes actually chirp out fee-bee!  It's very charming.

Today's Cute Picture

Cute and a little sad.  The story has a happy ending though.  This fire-injured koala was rescued by firefighter David Tree.  Pretty good name for a firefighter.

In Vermont Today

It was sunny in Vermont today.  At least it was in my lower-right-hand corner of Vermont.  The only human I saw today was the FedEx man who came to pick up a defective piece of gear that Pete's reviewing for Tape Op magazine (only he'll need a working example if he's going to be able to review the thing.  Ahh, Tape Op - I love those folks.  Very good people.  The defective gear has nothing to do with them)

I spent the morning in my studio and the afternoon at the house working on various projects.  I get more done in the studio.  When I'm in the house Fay pesters me almost constantly for food.  Oink!  She's so cute I can't complain much but it is an interruption.  Also I keep checking twitter and e-mail.  Bad news!  Some people have a serious case of tweetterrhea.  I am not referring to you, Marilyn.

As usual I have too many ideas for things to make.  Today went well though because I'd just work on something until I got to a stopping point and then move on to something else.  In theory this means progress on a number of projects which means that I might be able to finish a few of them someday.  I have high hopes.

Today I also finished that damned 25 Random Things list that's going around.  Facebook, you are a diabolical time suck!  Number 23 was a list of things I want to learn and the observation that when you're a kid a list that long is possible to tackle.  On further consideration kids take years to learn the things they learn.  In school you take French for an hour then computer for an hour then you have gym then you have lunch then maybe you have your violin lesson, etc.  You do this every week over four to six years.  Why can't I do that?  Oh yeah, adult responsibilities.  I think I can still do that only it might take longer.   

Also I have proven to be kind of bad at honoring the schedules I set for myself.  I keep trying though.  Just like I keep showing up for Maya, my XBox personal trainer.  It took four years but I can do five man push-ups.  That counts for something.  Forty-three years old and can do man push ups for the first time ever.

So now I'm going to go take a quick peek at the moon because Michaela told me to and then I'm getting back to work.  And it will be fun!

My Pal, The Void

I sent Pete to San Francisco this morning.  The dude seriously needed a vacation.  I hope he takes one - vacation requires a certain state of mind.  He'll be back Tuesday and I'm hoping he'll bring some healthy new perspective with him.  At least I hope he'll take a break from thinking about all the things that are stressing him out.

As for me I have work to do.  Life is distracting me though.  There are lots of extremely unusual things going on in our lives and that can be a little disconcerting.  None of it's bad.

For example we're making new friends and meeting new people.  It's something I want to do but don't usually know how to do.  I find it very easy to stay in and work on my own things and think my own thoughts.  It's harder for me to come out and engage with other people.  It takes extra effort that I'm not used to expending.  As my old pal Alex would say though, it's good for me.

We're also thinking about finally selling the Brookline house were we've lived since 1991 and moving into a closet in a totally different neighborhood.  We're very excited by this idea.  We'd have no tenants, no snow removal and a lot less stuff.  Hopefully we'd also have more money.

Things are moving forward in my art career.  In addition, I'm setting up an Etsy shop.  These two facts are making me rethink the things I'm making and the way I make them.  

At the same time I'm going through the normal processes that artists go through as their work changes.  Things in the studio become even more unpredictable than usual at times like this.  You can't be sure if the hours you spent working were productive or not and you may not find out for months.  Sometimes it takes years for certain ideas you start to become fruitful.  Of course you could also be skipping down a blind alley.

All of this can be a little uncomfortable but I'm really getting a kick out of it.  At least I am now while I'm writing this post.  It's a bit of a wild ride if you want to look at it that way.  Which way is up?  Which way is forward?  Who can say?  

I wonder if this Void has a taco stand?  I'm hungry.

Grey Is A Color

Not much blogging going on these days, at least not on the blogs I follow.  Me neither.  I don't know about anybody else but I've got too much going on in my head to stop and write anything down.  I'm going to write something now though in case others, like me, want some content damn-it!

I grew out my dye job.  I do that every few years because I want to know what my hair is really doing.  I'll have to get Pete to take a picture so you can see it.  I kind of like it and I think I'll leave it a while.  Over the last few weeks I've been catching myself in the mirror and feeling kind of satisfied.  My hair is short with a little grey streak in the front and a little more grey peppered through the sides and back.  The rest of it is chestnutty auburn, I guess.

In my travels I've been seeing friends of mine with similar hair - short and uncolored (they're all guys) - and feeling like I'm in good company.  Finally the other day I realized the real reason I like what my hair looks like now:  I look kind of like Jon Stewart.  I don't have time right now to make a hilarious yet disturbing composite photo.  Maybe later.

The grey doesn't bother me.  I'm so glad to be as old as I am.  The things I have learned over the years are so worth the grey hair and saggy skin.  For example, back in '89 I worked for an animation company.  It was a fun job but stressful.  I liked every single one of my co-workers but some of them could be really moody.  I was 23 years old and I didn't realize that their moodiness had nothing to do with me.  I thought that some days they liked me and some days they didn't.  Probably accurate but that was their fault and not mine.  Sure, some 23 year olds already know better than that but I didn't.  Thank God I do now.

Chances are good that I will dye again.  Spring usually has me feeling dismal so I may need to perk myself up with some color.  We'll see.

Now I'm going to unhitch Fay from her wheelchair and head over to my studio to make a painting based on a Japanese sticker of a cute sandwich with a face.

Okay, it's later:

For Those Of You Who Put Up With Ryan Seacrest For So Long

Is that better?

Negativity Is Counterproductive

Instead of worrying about what someone else might be doing concentrate on your own stuff.  That way what you want to do is more likely to get done.

Being informed is helpful.  Being misinformed is dangerous and unnecessary.  Especially when there are easy sources of good information:  snopes.com and wikipedia.  It has never been easier to see if something is worth worrying about or not.

What you look for in this world is what you find.  I suggest looking for something good.

Cooking!

I can't seem to stop cooking.

I keep looking at the list of things I want to do and I know it's too long.  I can't get all that stuff done.  So I thought I'd try to cut back on my cooking.  You know, cook once or twice a week - enough stuff so that the rest of the week I could just grab something and heat/eat it?

It's not happening.  For example today I made yama imo salad.  Only now that I googled yama imos (a kind of Japanese yam) I find that I made satsuma imo salad.  Not traditional but still very tasty.  The salad involves cutting a raw yam into julienne strips, soaking the strips in a vinegar and sake marinade then draining them and serving them in a different vinegar, sake and sugar marinade and garnishing with slivers of lime zest.  Did I get out my mandoline to cut the potato up?  Hell no!  I did it by hand.  It took a while.  I enjoyed it too!

I found the yams at Whole Foods.  The sign said "Japanese Yams."  There are a lot of different Japanese yams.  The sign could have been more informative.

I'm starting to go off on a tangent about Japanese yams.  I should stop.

The point is I like fresh food and I like cooking.  Plus cooking gives you a quick payoff.  You get the satisfaction of using your hands and your head to make something good and then you get to eat it.  Often the rewards arrive in under an hour.  Much more immediate than when making art.  Also more ephemeral.

So I'm finding it hard to save myself time by cooking less.  Maybe I don't value time as much as I value doing whatever I damn well please?  I'm having a bit of trouble pinpointing exactly what it is that I value over time. 

Maybe it's not so much that I don't value time but that I'm using it to do things that might be less important to me in the long run than other things I could be doing.

Who can say?  Some people believe that we should "live in the now."  The me in the "now" then wanted to find out about this potato and the salad it would make.  Burning with curiosity about a yam.  That's so weird that it's got to be worth something.

My Brain Today: Haphazard

Am I supposed to be impressed by this guy?  What the hell is that expression on his face?  Fake what?  Fake with energy.  Lots of energy there.  "This really sucks!  Yeah!  Awesome.  Heh heh heh."

Ryan Seacrest.  I've heard of him but I don't know what he does.  I could wikipedia him but I don't really care.  Some T.V. thing.

He turned up on the Washington Post homepage a second ago when I started up safari to check the weather.  I will give him that his expression is arresting.  I blogged about it after all.

Moving on, Fay has a stomach ulcer.  Her general condition has also declined a bit and she's had a UTI for two months that her antibiotics haven't seemed to help.  We've changed the antibiotics and we're hoping that that and treating her ulcer will make her feel better.  If she feels better she might move better.  We're hoping because we can't up her prednisone dose due to the ulcer.  So she's on six different pills now but I don't think I'll be giving her any shots this month.  Maybe?

Here is the new website I'm not allowed to go to anymore because I can't go there without buying something:  Momiji!  So cute!  Cheaper than shoes too.  Here's a prettier picture (than R.S., above) from the Momiji site:

Someone there gets paid to make these adorable Flash animations.  I'm jealous!

In other news I read Bono's Op Ed piece in the New York Times today.  He was reminiscing about Frank Sinatra.  He quoted Sinatra as saying, "Being modern’s not about the future, it’s about the present.”  I thought that was really interesting and true.  As I've said before, my present is usually really great but for some reason I often try to avoid it.  I seem to prefer some crazyland that my head's dreamed up.  Like one of those Momiji flash animations.

According to Bono, Sinatra had the guts to live in the present and constantly confront reality.  I guess he might have done that as much as any famous person can.  I can admire that.  I wish I was better at it myself.  However I'm glad I'm not as hard as Sinatra appeared to be.  

I also read the article on Calvinist hipster preacher (huh?) Mark Driscoll, entitled "Who Would Jesus Smack Down?"  Calvinism.  Lots to think about there.  If you want to bother.  Maybe you'd rather wikipedia Ryan Seacrest?  Maybe you already know who he is and don't need to.  Anyway, The Driscoll article was pretty interesting.  People are...weird.  "God says I'm better than you and nothing that you or I can do will change that.  You're going to Hell and I'm going to Heaven.  No matter what!  HA HA HA HA!  SUCKER!!!!!"  It made me think about some of the jerks from high school who I know to still be jerky.  Come to think of it maybe you don't want to read that article.  Why think about jerks if you don't have to?  

My present contains no jerks.  I'm going to be like Frank and enjoy my present.  At least for the next few minutes while I can keep myself from drifting off into some candy-crammed fantasy land.

Check Out My Birthday Cake

Not the most flattering shot of me but the cake looks good.  It's every bit as big as it looks.  I got that nice, loud sweater I'm wearing for Christmas.

Two Party Photos

Thanks Jamie for taking these photos of our Holiday party with your cellphone.  I did go to a little bit of trouble to match my wig to our Christmas tree so it's nice that I have at least something to show for it.  Next year maybe I'll light my wig too.  It would show up better in cellphone photos that way.  I'm not putting in ornaments though.  That would be too distracting while serving hors d' oeuvres.

The dude in the photo is our friend Steve.  We were having a very serious conversation about suppressed rage.

The Color In My Head Today Is Red

Alrighty!

I ought to be unpacking but I'm lollygagging instead.  

Pete, Fay and I caught a red-eye back from San Diego last night.  Pete's been very practical and productive, unpacking and making sure that the snow that fell in our absence is properly removed.  He really hit the ground running.  He even got himself a new pair of eyeglasses to replace his famous "Pano" frames which he lost on Thursday.  You can see them in the photo at right (on the main blog page)

Me, I'm zombiefied.   I could blame jet lag but really I'm just indulging in my usual inability to deal with logistics.  Today I'm just not trying.  This could cause me big problems later in the week.  I guess I'll just have to look forward to cursing myself in a few days.

I'm just so easily distracted by pretty things.  Because I like to be distracted.

It was my birthday on Thursday.  I got a lot of great presents for my birthday and for Christmas, including some gift cards which I'm thinking about how to SPEND.  Will I cool it and save them for later when I really need something or will I go off half-cocked in a giddy spending spree?  Time will tell.  Place your bets.

So today I can't get enough of the color red.  I think I'll put on some red lip gloss and go unpack my behemoth suitcase.