I spent the first afternoon of my 42nd year on earth taking a walk -- a long walk down Smith Street here in Brooklyn, just wandering into and out of shops and restaurants and stuff. Just sort of giving myself over to total impulsiveness and whim -- if I saw something in a store I wanted, I got it, if I didn't see anything I liked I shrugged and ( Read more... )

Happy Birthday to us, George, whereever you are. Hare Krishna.

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Back in 2009, my birthday fell on Mardi Gras (well, actually it was on Ash Wednesday, but I figured "close enough") and I took myself there. Back then, I wrote a series of open thank-you notes to the trip; I'm rerunning them here. Y'all can read them while I dig out my copy of Dr. John's cover of "Iko Iko ( Read more... )

In my last post I talked about something atrophying - and speaking of that....

I am nearly done with Das Boot. I had my 6-week checkup with the orthopedist yesterday -- which took all of five minutes, seriously -- and it seems that the bone is pretty much okay.

The muscles,, however, are another matter. I honestly had no idea how many muscles ( Read more... )

Deep in my heart of hearts, I've always thought (or at least told myself) that one of the things that makes me me is a more-adventuresome-than-usual streak of wanderlust. I once got into a bit of trouble at my daycare center when I was four after the teacher read us a story about a little boy who liked to play "explorer" - he made paper flags to " ( Read more... )

I've tried other tricks in the past couple years to get back on the writing horse. I joined the LJ Idol contest, I tried setting up a weekly appointment with myself, I tried roping a friend into being a mentor, I tried a few other things to very little result ( Read more... )

I got hit with one of those tiny groundbreaking personal epiphanies this morning ( Read more... )

So I was just invited to be on the jury pool for another art organization for the month of March. They got my details, I'm sure, from my running Reverie's contest for the past several years.

Wow. This means that I've got an actual reputation.

I should know by now that I am utterly useless in January when it comes to art and creativity. I'm exhausted, and it's cold and dark, and my brain goes into lizard-brain-hibernation-shutdown mode. I do get up and drag myself to work and home, but that's about it ( Read more... )

So the weather this weekend is: first snow, about three inches. Then rain, which will wash some of the snow away. Then falling temperatures, which will turn the puddles from snow and rain to ice. All three of which are daunting to someone in an open-toed walking boot cast.

And thus I am facing yet another weekend of not being able to leave my ( Read more... )