Tuesday, March 17, 2009

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SIX GREEN DISCARDED OBJECTS I SAW BESIDE THE ROAD
.. walking the walk on this lovely St. Patrick's Day.


1. Green plastic spoon.


2. Green beer bottle.

3. Well-licked green candy heart.

4. Neatly folded green paper trash.

(Curiosity got the best of me...I had to pick it up.)






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5. Green lighter. (Uh...wait a minute--a lighter? Inside a drain pipe? Can you believe it? Well, cross my heart--right there it was as I walked by!)



6. UGO (unidentified green object)



SIX MORE GREEN THINGS (non-discarded)...

1. Green metal post.

2. Green house number.



3. and 4. Green door and gate.



5. Green wooden post.


6. Green grave marker.




Despite its unpleasant connotation, "seeing green" wasn't all that bad!

Happy St. Paddy's Day...Luck 'o the Irish to ye~!


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Sunday, March 15, 2009

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THE IDES OF MARCH

It's gray and gloomy. I'm bewaring...taking care...lying low.

Just in case doom awaits, I attended church this morning*; ate Chinese food with friends**; savored a very large portion of 72% dark chocolate***; listened to Garrison Keillor tell jokes****; read the comics*****; worked two crossword puzzles******; lay on the floor an inordinate amount of time and listened to Leonard Cohen's golden voice coming from the CD player*******.


*Asked the Lord for mercy.

**"Feeding a cow with roses does not get extra appreciation," said my fortune cookie.

***Superbly flavored with spicy chili pepper, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg and almonds.

****Did you hear about the paranoid dyslexic?...He was always convinced he was following someone.

*****Dilbert, Frank & Ernest up to their usual antics and clever word play.

******"will shortz's (sic) The New York Times little black (and white) book of crosswords"

*******I think he sings pictures the way Marc Chagall painted them...each of the two a favorite artist of mine.



Everything's gone quite well thus far. Doom does not appear to loom. With a few more hours to go, however, I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

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Wednesday, March 11, 2009

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AS IF THE POTTER'S WHEEL I use each Monday and Friday were not enough to keep me more than busy, I've recently signed up for the use of yet another type of apparatus. While the former has me throwing, this equipment has me pumping, pressing, curling and extending. These activities, I'd have to admit, don't excite me as much as the creativity of building pots, but they should serve to advance my goal of building up a structure of another sort, namely, this bony body rack of mine. While I rue each cave-in of a pottery project, I truly shudder when I contemplate the framework on which I'm hung collapsing from neglect.

Several years ago I had a dream one night which I shall never forget for the creepiness of it. Lounging on a beach at dusk, I looked up to see a figure approaching. To my horror, it turned out to be a gangly, dangly skeleton loping its way in my direction. Its finger bones rattled together and its knee bones clicked; all thirty-two of its big white teeth shone in the semi-darkness, but it said not a word for want of a tongue. My own flesh crawled at this figure's lack of it, and I shrank back into sweating, heart-pounding wakefulness.

Now, I am currently reading a book, a true story, in which a linguist lives for years with a small tribe of Amazonian Indians in central Brazil. This group classifies their dreams as real, non-fictional experiences. They believe that you see your waking and sleeping realities in two different ways, but they are both authentic.

I'm thinking, there's a belief I could put to good use! As I begin my bone-building endeavor, I would be delighted to have some pertinent advice from a bona fide skeleton. Surely he or she would have some helpful tips to relay to me. On the slim chance that I'd ever encounter one again, I'm hoping to stifle my aversion and extend a friendly greeting to him or her (I could very well be embarrassed by my inability to distinguish which)  and ultimately gain some wise council. Hmm, perhaps I'd best be working out some sort of Helen Keller mode of communication in advance.


In the meantime, I hope I don't have to walk into the gym too many more times and wonder what the heck I'm supposed to do with this cornucopia of machinery.

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Monday, March 9, 2009

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NOW WE HAVE CHANGED the clocks, we have sprung forward, and apparently that bouncy step has catapulted us right into springtime. If this weather had a face, it'd be grinning from ear to ear!

I tried to figure out precisely which of those puffy whites was Cloud Nine as I headed for the pottery studio where I am learning to throw pots and make other earthenware constructions. Or maybe you could say I am re-learning--six years ago I took the same two-month class, and have an array of amateurish pieces to show for it.


At the time, I had to ask myself exactly what I intended to do with all the items I was painstakingly bringing into being. A few of them I could put to use, but the majority were headed for some sort of limbo--not worthy of crowding out everything else on my shelves and cupboard-tops and too clumsily made for gift-giving--but certainly not bound for the trash heap (gasp...my creations, after all!)





However, here's the thing...when the lump of clay is well-behaved on the wheel, and one's very own hands coax it into a comely shape (rather than aiding it's unsightly collapse), it can make a potter feel so marvelous she's propelled well nigh onto that Cloud Nine, wherever in the sky it happens to float.


So I step once again into the studio...ready to aim for that high.

Recurring reports are sure to follow.



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Monday, March 2, 2009

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MARCH CAME GROWLING in. No dainty breezes and delicate sunshine. Nope. We got snow.
That's right. Last night the wind roared around the house and the falling snow lasted into the afternoon hours. So spring seemed to slip from its position right around the corner and suddenly appear far away. March put on a December disguise.


Even so, I must confess, finding a Christmas card in the mail today was quite surprising!
It appears as though a cousin of mine could be vying for the title of "Procrastinator of the Year."
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