I just bought my first Dylan song

"Thunder on the Mountain" from his new album, Modern Times. I like the rolling piano and round feeling to the song, and I'll concede that the weight of history is probably right to bestow on him the title "rock's greatest poet." But I don't connect with his words as much as his rhythm (in latter years). I still maintain Paul Simon's lyrics are more picturesque. My favorite is "The Mississippi delta was shining like a national guitar." I think Dylan's voice has gotten better with age, so at long last, I bought a Dylan tune.

So that's it!

"The key for me is to keep expectations low."
So that's how to lead a country. Huh.

Wait, there's more! Asked what he's read lately, Bush exclaimed:

"I read three Shakespeares!"

YouTube, George Bush, to Brian Williams, interview August 31, 2006.

Midnight musings

I woke last night at midnight to owl hooting. Which was weird because the windows were shut and they're triple pane. But I heard him anyway. He was a Great Horned Owl, whose hoots are softer and go like this: whoo whoo-whoo whoo whoo.

The Native Americans believe that birds carry messages from the spiritual plane to the physical plane, and revere the Eagle most of all because that bird flies the highest, closest to the Creator. Owls have always been revered also as birds of wisdom. In Greek mythology an Owl was sacred to Pallas Athene, the Goddess of wisdom. They are also associated with death and rebirth, real death and the metaphysical.

"Owl knows that all apparent manner of death is in fact a liberation into a new life. Something must first be cleared away for anything new to be born. When a person moves, leaves a job or relationship, has a baby, adopts a new animal friend, something in the old way of life had to die for the new to be created."

As I lay there listening to the hoots, I liked to think that the above is true. Deciding to move 1100 miles away to an unknown place and re-shaping my life into new challenges and adventures means that the old needs to be burned away to make room for the new. Necessary, but not an easy process.

Hearing the natural world at night is also a reminder that it exists. I know, we know it exists, but we forget. There's road construction going on in front of my apartment, and there are trucks, paving crews, and since I live a 1/4 mile from the fire barn, there's ambulance sounds, sirens...a lot of noise that drowns out the natural. It's nice to lie there in the night and be reminded of the other creatures that inhabit our world with us.

I found the perfect apartment

When I sold The Monument Newspaper and voluntarily left my post as Editor, (a great job...but I am ready to do something different) I decided to move south. I want to be warm in January! I had a list of criteria that I was looking for an apartment.

--private, with lots of land
--new
--quiet, no highway noise
--reasonably priced
--near a nice city but located in a rural town
--DSL and cable available

My friends told me I was crazy, that my criteria was too restrictive. I thought, heck, all I need is one.

Well, I found it. It's a brand new two room studio with high ceilings and hardwood floors. It's got new furniture, including an oversize leather recliner and a massive bed. Huge windows with lots of light, and did I mention it's on a horse farm with 40 pristine acres of rural loveliness? And a pond? With a heron? And a pool? Garage? Includes satellite TV?

It's 3 and a 1/2 miles from an up and coming artist town and 14 miles from the city. So I get all the quietude I want but if I crave a cappuccino and a foreign film or a great bookstore, Indian restaurant, or art shops, that stuff is only 20 minutes away. I'm really, really happy.

Below: Road leading to my new place











Driveway. You turn in right next to a pretty brick church and
the driveway is a 1/4 mile long. Set way back from the road.













The shy horse always looks but doesn't approach.













Main Street of my new town! Cute, isn't it?

A day in the life

I am making huge progress on my “Month of Me”, the time I am deliberately taking between one career and the next. For example, yesterday, I bought a futon cover. This is more complicated than it seems. First, I had to get dressed. Not like I lie around in my pj's (all that much) but I had to put on 'outside clothes' that were non-stained, constrictive to my body, and all in one piece with no rips. That no one would run screaming from should I encounter any sentient humans on my odyssey. Phew. I needed a rest.

Then, I had to get up. Yes, launch myself from the antique swivel oak editor's chair in front of my beloved computer, my computer that brings me the world, so why do I need to go out into it? and extend my legs to their full and locked position. Ouch. I prefer sitting.

Most dauntingly, I had to use my car. A jalopy in sleek professional guise, it is literally falling apart. It sounds like its rear wheel is going to fall off, and I have long since given up allowing people to sit in the back over said offending wheel. They get nervous. Lucky front seat passengers started taking take bets on how long will it be until we hear a plaintive voice from the back seat asking, “Er, do you hear that noise?"

The drive to the city of Portland consumes more gas than I am willing to put into said crappy jalopy, but in order to have the car propel itself for that distance in its entirety, it must be done. Sigh. Gas station arrived at and large amounts of dollars are exchanged.

However, things perked up after victoriously parking in a spot right in front of the destination establishment while studiously ignoring the “Bus stop” sign. I entered and went straight to the sale covers. The sale was what had drawn me, after all, I have a futon that will now need to become my couch. The previous cover was torn asunder leaving mattress exposed and nakedly white under paws and claws of cavorting dogs and cats. It now looks like a hospital ward mattress.

Eschewing the mythical $22 sale covers which had drawn me there, I found a wonderful microfiber soft suede plush cover in teal. It was the most expensive of the sale covers, which sort of defeated my purpose in going to this particular store on sale with the intent of being frugal. But who could resist the soft velvet material brushing against bare skin? Who can blame me for feasting my eyes on soft colors and tushy-cushy-plushy? I cannot. It would take a much stronger woman than I. Heck, it even came with two pillows. It had me at hello.

The ride home resulted in a long diatribe against my wallet, which had the audacity to open itself enticingly to the store clerk. And the drive also included a rationalization that my futon, a poor and used cousin to the gloriously new furniture ensconced inside my new hardwood flooring adorned apartment needed to look like it belonged. “We beeeelonnnng!” sings my apartment chorus. Click here to get your own apartment chorus.

The cover is so beautiful and so soft I may never get up again.

Express yourself!

After having expressed myself and made sense of the world through writing, all my life, I decided a couple of years ago to try visual expression. I've been experimenting with collage, watercolor painting, altered books, bookmaking, and photography. I don't think I'm that good. I'm not being disingenuous here, I am an excellent writer but making my hands produce a pleasant looking 3-dimensional object that had formerly been in my brain is harder than constructing pleasant sounding sentences that say what you want them to say. At least for me it is.

But some friends with whom I have shared my art say it looks good. I won an award for a photograph I submitted to a statewide contest. One of my hard cover books sold at auction for $25. So with their encouragement I stepped into the semi-professional world of art by joining the International Society of Altered Book Artists and I joined The Art List, which offers the most extensive listing of art contests, art competitions, art opportunities and juried art shows available. I also bought a website domain and I'm in the process of designing a web page to show my work. And I inquired about studio rentals too. In for a penny...

Altered books are, according to the ISABA, any book, old or new that has been recycled by creative means into a work of art. They can be ... rebound, painted, cut, burned, folded, added to, collaged in, gold-leafed, rubber stamped, drilled or otherwise adorned. I like painting over the page but leaving certain words exposed that tell a different story than the one that's originally there. And then decorating to match.

Here's four pieces of recent work. Three are pages from the altered book I am working on, which are not done but give you an idea. The fourth is a page from my art journal, a collage.

Collage: Human Spirit Gone Awry


















"Spirit conversion by intense labors and struggles"














"This brighter age supported wisdom"













"Ruinous distress crushed in an instant"

Conversation with self

Internet radio is great. I experimented this weekend by searching for and adding another streaming radio station to my iTunes list. Accompanying Native Radio and Radio Margaritaville is now Hawaiian Rainbow, featuring Hawaiian music from all the islands.

After three days over the long weekend of potting around at home and listening as I make my art and write and clean, I had the following conversation in my head:

Self: Gee, this Hawaiian music is irrepressibly happy
Self: Well, if you lived in Hawaii, wouldn't you be irrepressibly happy?
Self: You've got a point.

'Crocodile Hunter' Steve Irwin Killed

'Crocodile Hunter' Steve Irwin Killed by Stingray on Great Barrier Reef
Monday, September 04, 2006

CAIRNS, Australia — Steve Irwin, the hugely popular Australian television personality and conservationist known as the "Crocodile Hunter," was killed Monday by a stingray while filming off the Great Barrier Reef. He was 44.

Click the headline for more. Bummer.

File this under blogging banal

Sorry, I just think it's wicked cute when my cat sits in an empty box.

Rumor and its impact discussion on my other blog

For those of you who were interested in the rumor discussion, I've begun it on www.monumentnews.blogspot.com. The first post was yesterday.

Thanks for your interest!