Nerdy Girl's Guide to Living a Less Ordinary Life

Good-bye, Old Friend

2012-03-02T11:53:00.000-08:00

I woke this morning to discover that my ancient cat, Stinky, was no longer able to support himself on his back legs. This condition came as no surprise. In fact, I've been expecting it for several months since an x-ray revealed that his hips were overwhelmingly deteriorated by advanced arthritis.
In those months, my husband and I have accommodated Stinky's increasing decrepitude by limiting the scope of his domain. We put his food dish, heated cat bed, and litter box all on the same level of the house where we sleep and where I keep my art studio.
For some time now I've been quietly hoping that my sweet old cat would simply lie down in his heated little bed beneath my studio desk and take a nice long nap into forever. I simply did not want to see him suffer at all and, like most people, I really didn't want to have to make a choice, no matter humane, about ending his life.
Sadly, this morning I had to make that choice.
The hardest part, I think, was waiting two hours for the vet's office to open after I woke up and discovered the poor dear struggling to use his litter box. I helped him as best I could, lifting him into the box, waiting while he urinated, and then lifting him out again when he was done. I was sobbing all the while, I assure you. Then I carried him to bed and curled him up beside me so I could pet him and coo at him and reassure him that I would not allow him to suffer any further indignities. When the clock said it was 8 a.m., I called the vet's office and made an appointment to take him in at 11 a.m.
Three more hours.
Just enough time to make damned sure he was petted and scritched and comforted sufficiently so that I would know that he knew he was loved. After two decades of lap time, nap time and play time, I wanted to make certain he felt all that love before he had to say good-bye.
And now that time has passed. He's out of any pain or discomfort, and I am without a cat for the first time in more than 30 years.
Not today, nor tomorrow, not for a while, but soon enough we will find a shelter cat to bring into our home and into our hearts. Because no matter how awful I feel right now, all those years of soft fur and gentle purring were totally worth it.
Good-bye, old friend. Thank you for giving me all that unconditional love. It really made a difference in my life.

Week as Art Featured on Create Mixed Media

2012-02-05T06:00:00.000-08:00

When I saw that Tonia Davenport, Acquistions Editor at North Light Craft Books and Create Mixed Media, was looking for artists to feature in The Week aa Art, I almost did a backflip.

I love letters and numbers, especially numbers, and I'm always incorporating them into my work. I dropped her an email with a "sample" number and hoped she'd invite me to submit a week's worth of mixed media digits. She responded quickly, asking me to provide numbers for this week, February 5-11.

I decided to start by making "serendipity squares" for my backgrounds. Here's how I made them. Click on the images to view them at a larger size.

First, I drew a grid for the squares on a piece of Bristol board, then laid down a few diagonal lines of old book text torn into random shapes and distressed around the edges with some Color Box inks.

I tried to vary the sizes and shapes of the text scraps enough that they wouldn't look too uniform but would provide a nice structure for the squares.

Next, I tore up an fabulously pigment-stained paper towel I'd been saving since I used it for clean-up on another project a few weeks ago and laid in another set of diagonals.

Truth is, It nearly broke my hear to tear it up. That's why I took a picture of it before I let her rip.

Then I added scraps of bright yellow construction paper and let the background sheet dry.

Looks like a bit of a mess, no?

I'm always amazed how bad things can look just before they take that turn toward completion. In this case, I just hoped my squares would be colorful but not overpowering for the stars of the show: my numbers.

I cut the sheet into 9 3-inch squares and got out by favorite vintage oilboard stencils to make the numbers.

I love oilboard stencils. I have them in four sizes from 1" to 6". They came from the leftover stock of an old art supply store some friends bought in my hometown several years ago. I love the way they smell and the way they feel in my hand. They are so much cooler than plastic stencils.

I stenciled each number first using white acrylic paint and allowed that layer to dry.

Then I offset the stencil over the first layer and stenciled the number in black acrylic paint to create a little more dimension.

I dragged the edges of the squares with a contrasting stamp pad to give them a finished look.

You can see the whole week of finished numbers at Create Mixed Media.

Snowpocalypse Now

2012-01-19T09:51:00.000-08:00

During the Great Seattle Snowpocalypse of 2012, #snOMG2012 for short, much sport has been made of the following three supposed facts:

1. Seattle drivers can't drive in the snow. (Except that one person from somewhere where it "really" snows.)
2. It doesn't "really" snow in Seattle.
3. We all overreact like a bunch of babies when the first flakes start to fall.

I'd like to take a moment or two to explore these so-called facts and add a few of my own to the conversation.

First, I will not dispute that Seattle drivers cannot drive in snow. They also can't drive in rain or bright sunshine, but that's another thing to bitch about on another day. To their credit, I will allow as how most Seattleites know they can't drive in snow and they stay out of their hybrid four-wheel drive sport utility vehicles when the strange, solid rain falls from the sky. The fact is, it doesn't snow here often enough for Seattle drivers to get used to driving in snow, so they never get good at it. They never learn some of the fundamental techniques someone from the Midwest or Northeast would have mastered before graduating from high school such as "gun the motherfucker up the hill, stopping for nothing, and pray a stalled school bus isn't lying in wait for you to slam into just over the crest." (True story, happened to a college friend of mine. No one was hurt, but it's not atypical of southwestern Pennsylvania winter driving conditions.)

Which leads me to the second of these "facts" in evidence: It doesn't "really" snow in Seattle. Well, yes and no. It doesn't snow often in Seattle and the snow that falls here is seldom deep enough to qualify as a school-canceling occasion in other parts of the country where it "really" snows, but the type of snow we get in Seattle is wet and weird and exactly the sort of slushy mess that would leave most people, even hard-ass four-wheelers from Wheeling, steering into the skid. We are close to sea level here, which keeps the snow away most of the time, but when it does get cold enough at sea level for snow to fall, the humidity is high and the conditions are treacherous. Made doubly dangerous by the manner in which Seattle (and surrounding areas) deal with the snow on the roads, which is to say, laughably.

During my first Seattle snowstorm, dubbed Winter Blast 1996 by the local media (which included a much younger, but still weather-beaten "Danger" Jim Forman), I learned that when lots of snow falls here in a short period of time, the city just shuts down. At that time, the city had just eleven snow ploughs total and WSDOT didn't seem to have many more. Additionally, I learned that they do not (or did not at the time) apply any sort of deicer to the roads before or after scraping them. Some things have improved over the years, there are more ploughs and they now use a chemical deicer that's supposed to work as well as salt without doing much damage to the environment, but problems persist. For example, snow ploughs only work when they are lowered far enough to scrape the snow and ice off the road surface. They don't lower the blades far enough here, so all they manage to accomplish is creating a nice, slick ribbon of ice where the traction-giving snow used to be. Observe any Seattle-area street or highway immediately after the snow plough has been through, and you'll discover a road surface that could easily be mistaken for a skating rink. It's also important to note at this point that only main streets and highways will get even this much attention. Secondary roads and side streets are left untouched by even these puny municipal snow removal techniques, so you're likely to find them impassable because they are littered with abandoned vehicles that were close enough to the curb to count as parking.

It is easy to criticize Seattle, its drivers and citizens, for over-reacting to winter weather. We do go a little crazy at the sight of a few flakes and we obsess over Cliff Mass’s weather blog and the highly dramatized weather coverage presented pretty much 24/7 on every local news channel. We post photos and comments on Facebook and Twitter. We watch YouTube videos of unfortunate cars and busses sliding and slamming around our city streets. We overshare our anxiety and wonder over the frozen crystals from the sky.

But we do so relatively secure in the knowledge that in a day or two, after all the panic and pandemonium, the temperatures will rise and the rain will come to melt the snow and flood our storm drains and basements.

This morning, large ice pellets are falling from the sky, clicking and clattering off the frozen crust of ice that lays on the six or so inches of snow in my back yard. Friends in Ballard or Greenwood may have seen less than an inch of accumulation. That’s snow in Seattle. And we really do love it.

Book Review: Graveminder by Melissa Marr

2012-01-11T17:48:00.000-08:00

Graveminder by Melissa Marr

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I found Melissa Marr's Graveminder a compelling read.

Well paced and plotted, Graveminder tells the story of a contemporary small town that is both protected and threatened by a metaphysical pact made by town residents hundreds of years before. Like some of the best fiction of this type (think Stephen King, Ray Bradbury and Shirley Jackson), Graveminder captures the reader's sympathy with the comfortably common details of small town life and grabs the reader’s attention with chilling perversions of the same.

Populated with characters both believable and sympathetic, Graveminder explores familiar territory with fresh eyes, examining the interplay of fate and free will, the nature of love and duty, and the essence of family ties, both in blood and in choice.

While Graveminder works perfectly well as a stand-alone novel, Marr has created in it a rich well of material from which she could draw numerous sequels. And I would be happy to read them.

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2011 Year in Review

2011-12-31T17:11:00.000-08:00

So, a lot of folks are eager to kick 2011 to the curb, and some of them have good reason to feel that way, but this was a pretty good year for me.

It started off with a trip to Kauai with my wonderful husband, pictured here. We stayed in Princeville, had a marvelous time just being lazy and happy and warm. Good thing, too, because almost as soon as we arrived there he got a call from a recruiter asking if he could start a new job the following week. Yeah, that made it so much easier to relax and enjoy the pool. the ocean, the food and each other. It also made coming home just a little bit easier as well.

Just before we left on vacation (Christmas day of 2010), I learned that a photo of one of my art journals was going to be published in a major art magazine, Cloth Paper Scissors. After we got back, I got busy making art for my first-ever one-woman show at Cafe Luna on Vashon Island. I also hosted a travelling exhibit, Leaving Dakota, a collection of photographs by Kyle Cassidy, and started an exhibit of my own, Art on My Door, which now stands at 175 pieces of art, each displayed on my office door for a working day during the past year. You can see all of those pieces on Flickr.
The Cafe Luna show kept me busy throughout the spring and was successful enough to encourage me to try showing my work more. At the end of May, one of my pieces was shown in the Seattle Erotic Art Festival. In June, I participated in 30 Days of Creativity, a wild ride of art-making that had me trying new things and really having a great time in my studio. Around this time, I noticed that there was no art hanging at our local coffee shop, Cafe Ladro and asked if they were looking for artists to exhibit. As it turns out, they were, and they asked me to hang a show in September.
The Seattle summer was mostly "meh," so I had plenty of time to work on pieces for the September show. We did manage to have some fun and go camping with friends. I also walked in the Komen 5K with some of the best people I know, among them my dear friend Allena who was undergoing chemo at the time and is now, I am happy to say, cancer-free.
The last few months have been busy and blurry and mostly filled with all the ordinary stuff that makes life good. Highlights included a week in November when we saw Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer in concert together at the Moore Theatre on a Wednesday night and then went back to see the amazing and wonderful Jason Webley in the most magical and strange concert I have ever seen on 11/11/11.
We are warm and safe and generally happy. We have love and chocolate and art and music. That's usually more than enough.
I hope 2012 is every bit as good for me as 2011 has been. If you're one of the folks whom 2011 treated poorly, I hope the New Year will give you some special treats to make up for it.
Happy New Year.

Book Review: Personal Geographies

2011-12-31T10:59:00.000-08:00

Personal Geographies: Explorations in Mixed-Media Mapmaking by Jill K. Berry

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Berry's approach to maps and mapmaking as both art and spiritual exploration devices is full of enthusiasm and the genuine excitement of discovery. The book is well-written, richly illustrated, and includes ideas and projects that are inspirational for artists and explorers at any level. I read this book on my Kindle Fire and found that format perfectly suited to this sort of book.

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Speak Out With Your Geek Out: Origins

2011-09-12T14:49:00.000-07:00

As a self-described nerd, it's sometimes necessary to point out that I am also a geek, a wonk, and -- on occasion-- a squint. Yes, I'm a word-nerd. A definer, a refiner, a picker of nits. It should come as no surprise that I write both poetry and prose, that I taught English grammar and composition (and enjoyed it), that I delight in a well-tempered sentence and thrill at an apt metaphor.

I started out on this path to nerdliness innocently enough as a child, learning to read long before I went to school, simply by hanging out with adults and paying scrupulous attention while they read to me. Once I'd mastered the art of adding letters up into words and words into sentences, I developed an insatiable appetite for the printed word.

Stories, poems, comic books, magazines, cereal boxes, you name it, I was reading it.

Somewhere along the line (before I got my first pair of glasses in third grade) I picked up on the fact that these cool sets of books in my grandparents' den contained a little bit of information on just about every topic in the known universe, arranged alphabetically by topic to ensure a thorough and well-organized coverage of all that knowledge. I was all over it. Funk and Wagnall became my new best friends.

Fortunately for me, my grandparents lived next door, so my mother took little notice of my frequent disappearances when I started sneaking off to read my way through the collected knowledge of human experience. On Saturday afternoons and weeknight evenings after dinner, I'd grab my tablet and pencil, mumble something about homework (both my grandparents were teachers, and could always be counted on for first rate homework supervision and advice), and head off to climb the dark staircase that ascended into the realm of the formal living room, fancy dining room and den that comprised the upper floor of my grandparents' home.

Once there, I would pull my current volume from the shelf, locate my carefully placed bookmark, and continue my orderly quest for enlightenment, sitting or (more often) lying on the not-entirely comfortable hide-a-bed sofa that ran the length of one wall in the den. On days or evenings when the complexity of the subject matter commanded greater attention, I would slink off to recline in my very first carel, the softly blanketed bottom of the guest-room closet. It was there --half-way through Volume 4, Berli to Bugle-- that my grandfather discovered me one Saturday, concluding with laughter a frantic search for me throughout the neighborhood after I'd failed to respond to my mother's summons home to dinner.

Almost as soon as my practice of reading through the encyclopedia became common knowledge in the family, it also became something of a joke. When friends or strangers remarked on my extensive vocabulary or unusually detailed knowledge of "earwigs," say, or "maple trees," my sister and brother would nod and explain, "Oh, she's just been reading the encyclopedia."

Years later, my mother told me that she was amused by the alphabetic progression of my topics of conversation. She confessed as well a sense of relief when I started talking about wombats; she expected I'd soon finish the set and move on to some other strange way to pass my time.

And I did soon after finish the last volume of the Funk & Wagnall's set.

Then I dived right in to the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Ten Years After

2011-09-10T19:26:00.000-07:00

As the anniversary of that day approaches, I struggle to find the right words to express the complex jumble of thoughts and emotions I now associate with the events of 9/11/2001.
Last year, I wrote simply and honestly about what I remember. And, yes, in doing so I was making a characteristically sardonic observation on the miserable state of un-civil discourse that paints much of American politics and the so-called news.
This year, I want to be more direct.
I want to be less cynical and, perhaps, a bit more radical.
I want to ask everyone I know to dig deep into your memories of that day and the weeks that followed and remember just exactly how you felt about other Americans, regardless of their race, religion, or politics.
Can you do that?
When I think back to that day and to the days that followed, one image rises in my consciousness more than any other. Not the moment of impact. Not the plumes of smoke filling the sky. Not even the mangled steel and rubble. It is the sky above us all, blue and cloudless. Limitless, endless blue sky, unmarked by clouds or contrails, a powerful symbol of hope and possibility.
For a while, under that sky, we Americans showed the world and ourselves that we were made of better stuff. We came together as a nation to repair and to comfort, to salvage and to rebuild. Those weeks following 9/11/2001 may well have been our finest hours, the best America we could ever be, if only because we stopped fighting amongst ourselves over petty, political differences and focused our attention on getting the right things done.
Can you remember that?
If you need a reminder, take a moment to watch President Obama's Weekly Address "Coming Together a One Nation to Remember."
Now, can we come together as one nation again to get the right things done? Isn't that really the best thing we can do to honor those who died and those who served?

Ready to Show

2011-09-01T23:09:00.001-07:00

I got my art on tonight by hanging 30 pieces of mixed media art at the local coffee shop, Cafe Ladro. Thoroughly exhausted, but also excited to see my work on the walls. Really looking forward to seeing some friends tomorrow night at the "opening."

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

2011-09-01T12:20:00.000-07:00

So, I've decided the best way to save a few bucks and lose a few pounds is to increase my activity level and to be more deliberate about making healthful food choices. I'll be packing my lunch every weekday in September as part of the Food Network's Healthy Eats Brown-bag Challenge.

I'll be tweeting my lunch updates (How's that for compelling user-generated content?) and logging my activity (if my fitbit ever arrives).

Want to join in, check out the links below.

We’re teaming up with fellow food bloggers to host a Brown-Bag Challenge, a month-long initiative to eat consciously and save money by packing a lunch each weekday instead of eating out. Join us here and share what you're eating on Facebook and Twitter with the hashtag #brownbag.

Assemblage in progress

2011-07-05T21:57:00.001-07:00

Assemblage in progress, a photo by LA Smith on Flickr.

All I managed to do for 30 Days of Get Your Art On today was paint the background inside the box for the assemblage I'm working on.

I'm hoping to make some better progress with this piece if I leave it on my work table instead of shuffling it off to a side shelf. Tomorrow, I plan to work on the "set" pieces: the next of twigs and bones and the cracked egg shells.

Then I'll be able to work on the central figure, the little baby harpy, and finish the outside of the piece with legs, a pediment, and some other decorations.

Chicken of the Sea: finished piece

2011-07-04T20:50:00.001-07:00

Chicken of the Sea: finished piece, a photo by LA Smith on Flickr.

For 30 Days of Get Your Art On, I finished a piece I created last month during the 30 Days of Creativity challenge.

The Altoids tin washed in a lovely faux deep-sea tone contains my "Chicken of the Sea" plastic animal mashup of a chicken head and a whale's tail. I gave her a little nest of sparkling green algae and a brood of little pearlescent eggs.

Today, I mounted the piece "properly" in this swanky frame I found at St. Vincent de Paul and gave her a label with her name in both English and Latin.

GYAO Day #3: Art Journal Page

2011-07-03T22:00:00.001-07:00

GYAO Day #3: Art Journal Page, a photo by LA Smith on Flickr.

I spent a lot of my creative energy today making an awesome dinner of brown-sugar and balsamic vinegar glazed salmon on the grill and then having dinner and excellent conversation with my husband, Damon, and our friend Claire (who is one of my favorite artists).

Still, I managed to get another of the "mini flap" pages in my art journal done.

The page is about strength. I wonder sometimes, what it really means to be strong and how we can tell the difference between being strong and being stubborn. Not that I have a problem with that. Heh-heh.

GYAO Day #2: Assemblage in progress

2011-07-03T11:49:00.001-07:00

Assemblage in progress, a photo by LA Smith on Flickr.

I don't usually post process shots, but since I'll be working on this project for a couple of days, I figured I might as well post some images to document the work during Traci Bunkers' 30 Days of Get Your Art On challenge.

Just before Easter, a friend and fellow artist, Randy Widmer, sent me a box of fun that included some ridiculously cute doll heads mounted atop some very stiff wire. Almost immediately, I dipped my hand into the jar of plastic animals and extracted a rubber bat. I just knew that little dolly was going to sprout wings and become a sweet little baby harpy.

The rest is the future, at least the next day or so, as I paint and assemble the pieces.

Good fun, huh?

Art Journal Page

2011-07-01T22:06:00.001-07:00

Got off to a good start on Traci Bunkers' 30 Days of Get Your Art On challenge with this little "flap" page in the 16-page "Teesha Moore-style" art journal I made last winter.

My rules for this challenge are pretty simple:
1. I will work on art in my studio at least 30 minutes each day
2. The little pieces I make for my Art On My Door Project don't count
3. I will post photos and some blah-blah-blahgging about each day's effort here.

I've been tossing this journal in my bag from time to time, but never really getting to into it, mainly because the style hasn't really felt like it was mine. One of my challenges this month will be to finish the pages of this journal, reclaiming the book and making it mine-all-mine, even if I end up covering every page with a fresh coat of Gesso and starting over from scratch.

This page started with a pair of lips I'd cut from a magazine ad ages ago and a collection of exotic frogs featured on some of my favorite gift wrap. When I saw them, all I could think of was that old French fairytale about the two sisters who meet up with the fairy at the well. The one who is mean to the fairy gets cursed with snakes and toads leaping out of her mouth every time she speaks. The one who is nice drops pearls and gems from her lips when she talks. Not really sure if the latter is a blessing or a curse. Anyway, I like this page enough to call this challenge well-begun.

30 Days of Creativity

2011-06-30T20:56:00.000-07:00

Well, I completed the 30 Days of Creativity Challenge and, boy, is my brain tired!

Actually, I'm feeling excited and stimulated and ready to keep on rolling with another 30-day challenge tomorrow. But more about that later.

Right now, I'm just very happy that I (mostly) kept up the pace, flagging a little at the end of the month as the dual challenges of 30 Days and my Art On My Door Project got a little too much to handle. Originally, I hadn't wanted to let my AOMD projects count, but I realized that creativity is what counted.

Only With The Heart

2011-06-04T15:19:00.001-07:00

Only With The Heart, a photo by LA Smith on Flickr.

Today's effort for the 30 Days of Creativity challenge. It turned out rather nicely, I think. The quote is from The Little Prince.

Art journal page

2011-06-03T23:17:00.001-07:00

Art journal page, a photo by LA Smith on Flickr.

I worked on several projects for the 30 Days of Creativity challenge today, but this is the one I finished, an art journal page that expresses one of my fondest wishes.

Maid of Orleans

2011-06-01T22:59:00.001-07:00

Maid of Orleans, a photo by LA Smith on Flickr.

I've decided to take on the 30 Days of Creativity Challenge this month. Here is tonight's effort, a 7"x7" mixed media collage.

Birthday Thoughts

2011-05-15T06:50:00.000-07:00

This is an ancestor nicho I made a while back. It features my mother's high school graduation photo from 1939. She was born on 5/15/1922 and gave birth to me 38 years later on 5/15/1960.

That makes me 51 today, and my mom would have been 89. She passed away on December 17, 2003.

Every year on our birthday, the first thing either of us thought to do was wish the other a happy birthday.

"Happy birthday, Mom," I would say to her.

"Happy birthday, Baby," she would reply.

I miss you, Mom. Happy birthday.

Art on My Door

2011-04-22T12:29:00.001-07:00

Art on My Door, a set on Flickr.

I haven't posted anything lately because life has been busy and crazy and little too stressful, but I did want to take a moment to say how amazed I am when I look at the whole set of Art on My Door on Flickr. It makes me ridiculously happy to know that I've made all these little piece of art and that sharing them with others makes them happy sometimes, too. Click the link to see all of them, and feel free to leave comments. I love getting feedback.

Book Review: Altered Curiosities

2011-04-11T12:35:00.000-07:00

Altered Curiosities: Assemblage Techniques & Projects by Jane Ann Wynn

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Author and artist Jane Ann Wynn offers inspiration, insight, and step-by-step instructions for turning common objects into uncommon artifacts. Even more importantly, she provides advice and lessons for artists looking to find their own voices, their own styles, and personal mythologies from which they can derive endless opportunities for interpretation and storytelling in their art.

This book is almost as good as taking a class with Jane (which is an experience I am happy to have under my belt and one I look forward to repeating some day).

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Constructive Criticism

2011-04-07T14:36:00.000-07:00

I don't usually feel the need to accompany my poems with photographs or illustrations, but I wanted to share this shot, taken from my office window, of one of the more offensive sounding machines associated with the new construction taking place nearby.

I've had a relentless headache for a couple of days, and my massage therapist has his work cut out for him getting the effects of the noise this beast generates out of my shoulders and upper back.

And now, today's poem:

Constructive Criticism
All day it droned and chirped
beneath my window, producing
from time to time a shrill,
metallic grinding and sharp
reports like cracking bones
destined to become some giant's bread.

Bad Hair Day

2011-04-06T20:57:00.000-07:00

Some days are better than others. Today was not really one of them.

Bad Hair Day
Starting early,
somewhere east of the snap-crackle-pop
of dawn, I rose
to an aching head, itchy eyes,
and the dry scratch
of something sick
just a little deeper
than I wanted to dive
before I choked
on the smell of snow
and forced myself
to care enough to catch
the bus, man
my desk, and make
the work that makes
me feel like I make
a difference
most days.
But not today.
Not when rain, hail, and snow
all fell in equal measure
along with tender cherry blossoms
and my spirit,
drifted to the the cold, wet
ground, and I didn't even bother
to reach down
to pick it up.

Sad Haiku

2011-04-05T19:05:00.001-07:00

Okay, maybe more silly than sad, but it's been a long, tough day for us both, and we seem to be having little luck getting what should be easy comfort at the local cafe. I even had to turn to my writing prompt app to inspire me today.

Sad Haiku
Some things should never
disappoint at day's demise:
like bad diner pie.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

African Violets

2011-04-04T13:52:00.000-07:00

Ironically, the orchid our friends Jeff and Ron gave us for our wedding last year has actually started to send out new shoots. It gives me hope, despite the tone and subject matter of today's poem.

African Violets
My mothers' windows bloomed
purple, pink, and white,
explosions of color nestled
in dense mats of soft, succulent
green leaves.

I try to do her proud,
time and again, hopeful and hapless
and never intending things to end
the way they inevitably do.

How long does the terra cotta
pot of dirt sit dormant
on the sill before I admit
the uncomfortable truth
about the color
of my thumbs?

Pushing It

2011-04-03T18:04:00.000-07:00

My husband, Damon, and I went for a walk on the beach today down at Golden Gardens Park in Ballard. Despite the chill, dozens of hearty Seattlites were out enjoying a mostly dry day, walking dogs, flying kites, even grilling and picnicking at the beach. You might say we're hungry for spring.

Pushing It
Stumbling over tumbled
stones, gasping
into a chill wind,
we persevere, cheered
by the soft crush
of waves beating
rhythms on the shore,
whispering encouragement
and flimsy promises
of a spring that never comes
soon enough.

Discovering Florida

2011-04-02T10:37:00.000-07:00

Ponce de Leon "discovered" Florida on April 2, 1513, looking for the fountain of youth. Florida's current population of people over 65 years of age is more than 4% higher than the national average.

Discovering Florida
He set foot on tropical sand,
so sure he'd find the fountain,
the elusive elixir of immortality.

Instead, he got a mortal wound,
a painful death in a place very far
from home.

Now his fountain feeds the Rat King's realm,
entices wrinkled, shivering refugees
who grow no closer to youth
than Botox® will allow.

Out of Practice

2011-04-01T07:34:00.001-07:00

Kicking off National Poetry Month 2011 this morning with a new poem on an old theme. Ironically, I was just going to write one line, but once the image took me, I couldn't stop. Now, gotta get to work!

Out of Practice

The door creaks
on rusty hinges.
Flimsy webs flicker
at my cheek, ghost
kisses shivering me
in the cold
April half-light.
I reach for the cord,
and pull, illuminating
dust. (My lord, so much
of it. Where does it come from?)
Beneath the dull mantle
of disuse, I spy (perhaps)
a familiar tool
or two.
I clumsy up my fingers
in gloves stiffened with mud and time.
Grab a spade, a rake, a set of shears.
Knock it off.
Shake it out.
Shine it up.
It's time.
Things need to grow.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Art Journal Page: Trust Your Own Instinct

2011-03-26T16:16:00.001-07:00

Art Journal Page: Trust Your Own Instinct,
originally uploaded by LA Smith.

I finally got around to starting work in the fabulous Coptic bound journal I made last year.

I decided to begin with a reminder to myself that in times of great uncertainty, it's always best to trust my instincts. I will not let myself be motivated by the fears or doubts or others or even by my own healthy skepticism.

Instead, I will trust myself to make the best choices by listening to my inner voices, the ones that have delivered me into this life of joy and wonder that I live today.

Old Not-so-glorious

2011-03-20T17:49:00.000-07:00

Just a quick post here to vent about one of my pet peeves: miserable, tattered old flags suffering indignities while attached to motor vehicles.

It may surprise some to learn that I am actually quite patriotic in my way, and I have a special love for the American flag, possibly because I spent most of my childhood years helping my mom, a US postmaster, raise and lower the flag that flew over her office every day.

Because I do so love the flag, I shudder when I see things like the poor Old Glory pictured here. Ragged, tattered, weathered, and just plain old worn out, this little flag deserves a decent retirement, a respectful cremation to end its days of service.

I totally get the irony here that the owner of this car thinks he or she is being patriotic by flying the flag (not entirely in accordance with Flag Code) from his or her vehicle. Sadly, this person, and thousands more just like him fail to grasp that allowing American flags, even cheap little ones, to fall into such pathetic shape violates Flag Code and disrespects the flag.

The Flag Code reads: "The flag, when it is in such condition that it is no longer a fitting emblem for display, should be destroyed in a dignified way, preferably by burning." Don't feel right burning the flag yourself, contact your local American Legion, Boy Scouts Council or Girl Scouts Council. They will dispose of a tattered flag properly.

Additionally, if you see a flag in poor condition being flown, you can report it to FlagKeepers.org and they will contact the individual or business to recommend their flag should be replaced.

Technique Tuesday: Plastic Wrap Backgrounds

2011-03-15T19:00:00.000-07:00

Nothing makes me happier than having a fellow artist or crafter ask me, "How did you do that?" I'm always more than happy to explain or illustrate the techniques I use to make my art. That said, I'm going to try to build a few step-by-step tutorials for some of my favorite techniques. I'm starting today with a fairly simple process for creating backgrounds using acrylic paints and plastic wrap.

What you'll need

Materials:

background material (I used watercolor paper, but any dry surface that will take paint will work.)
liquid acrylic paints in two contrasting colors
water
paintbrush
plastic wrap (I used blue wrap here to get better contrast in my photos)

I started by applying a coat of Gesso to the watercolor paper to give it more tooth and let that dry completely. Then, using a wet brush, I covered the paper in the lighter color of contrasting paint (yellow). Allow that layer to dry completely. If you're impatient (as I am), you can use a blow dryer on low to speed the drying.
Once your background material is dry, use the same very wet brush to apply a layer of the darker shade of paint (red). It's important that you make the layer very wet because you're going to want to move some of that color around in the next step.

Working quickly, before the red starts to dry and turn your background solid orange, tear a sheet of plastic wrap about twice the size of your background and lay it on top of the wet paint. Now, use your fingers to push the plastic wrap around, forcing the darker paint to move into the folds and creases of the plastic.
Let the plastic wrap sit on top of the paint for a minute or so, then carefully peel it back. If you like the result you got, toss the plastic and let your background dry.

If you want to add more texture, simply drop the plastic wrap back onto the background material and push it around a little more. Feel free to bunch it up in places and flatten it out in others until you are happy with the patterns you see developing on the surface. You have about 5 minutes to move the paint around before the darker color starts to dry.

You can be as subtle or as bold as you like with this technique, making soft, swooping shapes or tight, angular spikes of color.

I use this technique often when I'm preparing papers to use in my visual journals. I hope you'll give it a try and let me know if this little tutorial was any help.

Happy Pi Day

2011-03-14T00:01:00.000-07:00

"Love is like pi -- natural, irrational, and very important." --Lisa Hoffman

If you don't know much about Pi and can't fathom why people get all excited and passionate about it, check out Pi Across America.

A few days ago, a friend sent me a link to a video of some kid playing a song he'd composed by using the digits of Pi. I countered with this one, which I find hauntingly beautiful:

Enjoy the day, and don't forget to celebrate appropriately by having a piece of pie.

Art on My Door: Day #32

2011-03-11T12:30:00.001-08:00

Art on My Door: Day #32,
originally uploaded by LA Smith.

I'm loving the daily commitment to make art for my office door. To be fair, I have skipped a few work days because I was sick or working from home, but for six weeks now I've slipped a new piece of art into that little frame.

What I love almost as much as making the art are the connections the art is facilitating with some of my co-workers. People stop by every day to see what's new. Sometimes the art leads to conversations about art, creativity, current events, things that connect us in way that work cannot.

Book Review: Print & Stamp Lab by Traci Bunkers

2011-03-10T17:31:00.000-08:00

Print and Stamp Lab by Traci Bunkers

My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I reviewed this excellent book a while back on Amazon.com & decided to share my thoughts here as well.

"One of my superpowers is that I can turn just about anything into an interesting stamp, printing block, or tool," writes Traci Bunkers, author of this thoroughly enjoyable and highly creative how-to manual that lays out cool printmaking projects for every week in the year. Each project comes with clear instructions, detailed materials lists, well photographed examples, and expert tips. Perhaps the most important thing that Traci brings to this book is a spirit of adventure, an artistic license that offers the reader permission to have fun and get funky with colors, textures, and patterns.

As an experienced printmaker, I was a bit skeptical whether this book was right for me, but I find Traci's projects engaging, her instructions clear and precise, and there's a little something on every page to inspire me to kick it up a notch and have some fun. She offers practical tips about foraging for materials in every unlikely "art supply" store you can imagine --from Home Depot to the Dollar Store-- and provides excellent suggestions for upcycling tired, old items into beloved art pieces.

View all my reviews

Art Ninjas and Other News

2011-03-09T16:16:00.000-08:00

So, I didn't manage to blog much while I was getting ready for my show at Cafe Luna, but I sure had a great time making the art. I also had fun at the opening, watching people leaning in close, almost aching to touch the pieces. That's precisely the effect I was aiming for.

"Just My Type" from the Cafe Luna show

Anyway, I found the experience delightful and intoxicating. I can't wait to do it again, so I'm marketing myself to all the cafes and galleries I think would be a good fit for my work. If you know of any venues in the Seattle area looking for artists to show their work, please let me know.

In other big news, I've had a piece of sculpture accepted into this year's Seattle Erotic Art Festival. I can't even begin to describe how surprised and honored I am to have a piece in this show.

I've been inspired lately by a couple of people I think of as "Art Ninjas," artists whose work and worldview I greatly admire.

First among these is Traci Bunkers, whose 30 Days of Carving blog adventure and excellent book, Print & Stamp Lab, have really put me back in touch with everything I love about carving, printmaking, and working in my visual journal.

The second Art Ninja inspiring me lately is Mark Montano whose latest book, Pulp Fiction: Perfect Paper Projects, is providing me with inspiration for a much-needed break from the world of metal tape and ink.

Upcoming Exhibit: Cafe Luna, Vashon Island

2011-02-23T13:54:00.000-08:00

I have a show coming up soon, and I'm working like mad to get pieces finished and framed.

"Shiny Things: works in metal, ink, and magic" will open Friday, March 4, 2011, at Café Luna on Vashon Island, WA. I'll be at the opening reception on Friday, March 4 from 6 to 9 p.m. The exhibit runs through March 30.

I hope you can make it to the opening or swing by Café Luna for some great coffee and see the show sometime in March.

If you're in the mood for a ferry ride sooner than that, my very talented husband, composer and guitarist Damon Buxton will be playing a concert at Café Luna on Saturday, February 26, from 7 to 9 p.m.

The Art on My Door Project

2011-01-22T12:06:00.000-08:00

I moved into a new office in a different building this week, and upon arrival, I noticed this little card frame on the door:

Intended originally to hold cards posting faculty office hours, these little frames hold little value to non-faculty such as myself. Or do they?
I felt inspired by the tiny frame to kick off a new art project.
I'm aiming to create a new tiny artwork measuring just 3"x2" each workday to slip into the little frame on my door.
So far, I've created two new pieces, and I have to say that I am having fun with this project. I am finding that making the art helps me separate myself from the stress of work at the end of the day by creating something fun and whimsical. Additionally, the new art increases my enthusiasm for going to work because I have something new to share.
Below are the first two works in this project:

Day #1: Still needed to work out the dimensions of the frame

Day #2: Got the dimensions right. I love this striped mermaid.

Leaving Dakota Exhibit Comes to My Office at UW

2011-01-21T21:52:00.000-08:00

This week, I was honored to host photographer Kyle Cassidy's moveable feast of an exhibit, "Leaving Dakota" in my office at UW. More than 30 folks made their way to my office throughout the day to see the show and marvel at Cassidy's evocative and cinematic images.

Trying the 365 Thing Again

2011-01-03T14:55:00.001-08:00

2/365 2011,
originally uploaded by LA Smith.

I'm going to try this one more time: 365 self-portraits. This is Day #2, me freezing in my office at UW.
Tomorrow's offering will most likely be taken on a plane or a tropical beach in Kauai.

2011 Art Journal #1 Cover

2011-01-02T11:08:00.001-08:00

2011 Art Journal #1 Cover,
originally uploaded by LA Smith.

Got the New Year started off by breaking out an art journal I'd been working on and actually wrote in it! This year, I'm not really making any resolutions, but I'm dedicating myself to being more creative and making time for my creative activities. This journal cover says it all.

Happy New Year!

Published!

2010-12-25T21:00:00.000-08:00

My small art journal "Book of Night" was included in the "Mini-Book Challenge" feature in the January/February 2011 issue of Cloth Paper Scissors, the premier magazine of collage and mixed media arts.
What an excellent Christmas present!

A Nocturnal Upon St. Lucy's Day - My Annual Ritual

2010-12-09T20:28:00.000-08:00

A long time ago in a place I used to call my home, I spent most of my time with other wonkish English major/writer types. We liked drinking beer, arguing about movies, listening to 80s New Wave music and reading or reciting poetry to the delight or horror of our assembled company.

I remember well the time my friend Alan Natali recited this one. It was December 13, a cold and dark day at the end of a particularly long semester. He gave it to me as a Christmas gift, a present to carry with me as I made my way away from that place and those people whom I still hold so dear.

Over the years, I've shared it with new friends. Tortured them with it, I should say, reading it aloud to anyone who would listen on December 13, the feast of Saint Lucy.

Now, through the wonders of the InterTubez, I can share it with you.

Please, forgive the occasional trip of the tongue; I wasn't nearly drunk enough when I recorded the voiceover. The images are mostly mine, but some I've stolen heartlessly from the Web. And you should know, if you don't already, that Lucy's name, ironically enough, means "light" and she is one of the so-called "plate saints" who met with a particularly grisly martyrdom. Enjoy!

The cure for December

2010-12-08T20:53:00.001-08:00

The darkness at this time of year oppresses me. In Seattle, we lose more than a minute of daylight every day as we approach the Winter solstice. I needed something to help me through it, something to hope for. We booked a trip back to Kauai in January. I am relieved.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Amusing Coincidence

2010-11-30T17:14:00.000-08:00

I use Gmail for nearly all my email needs, so I don't really have much of a spam problem. I check the spam folder from time to time to make sure nothing good got caught in Gmail's mighty filters, and delete all with a single stroke. Some days, spam and email subscriptions collide to amuse me, as they did this morning when I found this in my spam folder:

And this in the folder that contains my newsletters from the Daily OM:

I won't even bother apologizing for giggling like a twelve-year-old.

Counting Pennies -- A gem from the past

2010-11-13T12:50:00.000-08:00

Naked trees at Shilshole Bay

Back in 1999, I wrote this letter to my friend Jason, in part to encourage him to come to Seattle for a visit over the holidays. With his permission, I shared the letter with the nice folks who run rivertrout.com, a strange little website devoted to epistolary literature. Because their site is built in a strange way, I've never been able to link directly to the piece, so I've decided to republish it here because I like it and because its message holds true not just for Jason, but also for so many friends and loved ones near and far.

Seattle, WA
September 15, 1999

Dearest Jason,

Autumn lurks around the corners of the Olympics and the Cascades, creeping in disguised as marine fog in the night, and lying thick about the land well through the day.

Fall comes so slowly here, not like in Pennsylvania, where one hard frost paints the hills all gold and crimson in a day or two. It takes its time both coming and going, as if it likes the Northwest best of all, so it arrives early, hands summer its hat, and sticks around to make sure winter is settled in before it goes away again.

The change in weather prompted me to stay home yesterday, as if in reverence to the upcoming season. I took the chance to clean the kitchen, and nearly broke my wrist lifting the Mason jar I keep on the counter for spare change.

The weight of it surprised me, and it made me laugh when I imagined what a fortune we would have found it in the old days.

It is a strange new feeling having some money: My new job is more rewarding financially than I've even had a chance to comprehend. It's odd to know for the first time in my life that I'm not perched on the brink of economic disaster, not rolling coin to make the rent, the way we used to do back home.

I took the jar to the grocery store and dropped the contents into one of those machines that counts your coin and spits out a receipt you can take to the cashier for paper money. According to the machine, I had $63.48 in change. I made it a gift to charity.

The process got me thinking about days even older than ours, days when I spent so much time with my grandfather learning most of the stuff that gets me through my life. I remembered rainy afternoons when he would sense my boredom a moment before it arrived and reached up onto the high shelf in the living room for the metal canister where he kept the pennies.

It was always full, I swear.

In childhood, I thought my grandfather was among the richest men in the world because he always had that can full of pennies. He would spread them out in the middle of his desk, and we would go to work counting them up, two by two: my index and middle fingers trapping a penny each, then gliding them to the edge of the desk and dropping them in my catching hand.

We would count them thus, five strokes to a dime and fifty to a dollar, stack them up in rows, ten high and five deep, and Pap would shimmy them into those dull red paper wrappers, fold up the ends, and stack the finished product like firewood on the corner of the desk.

That was the work of it, what we did with the preponderance of 1955 to 1965 Lincoln heads, but the fun was in the ones we didn't roll. He taught me to look for the ones with wheat on their backs, for Canadian ones with the face of the young queen or, better still, her father. He told me legends about ones that had an Indian's head on them, but I never found one of those.

Still, those unconventional pennies were precious to me, and the thrill of finding them was not at all unlike the wonder I figured I'd experience if I found a dinosaur bone in my back yard.

When we were finished counting, I'd have a little pile, at most a dime's worth of minted excitement. I'd scoop them into my hand and close my fingers around them tightly until I gotten them back to my room, where I kept the velvet box.

Pap had given me that, too: a long, slender jewelry box covered in dark blue velvet, hinged with shiny brass, and lined with silk the color of cream. I'd pry open the lid, and slip the pennies inside to join the others I'd collected over time.

That box got pretty heavy over the years, and by the time I was past counting pennies for entertainment, I couldn't open the lid without some spilling out. It shouldn't surprise you to know that I still have that box.

I'm not counting pennies any more, but I do still count my oddities as treasures.

Consider yourself counted.

With love,

L.A.

It's NaNo Time Again

2010-11-02T20:04:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, I was lost without a single good idea swimming in my head and looking forward to a blissfully lazy November with no word metrics, no plotting, no character-birthing. I was simply going to sit in my comfy chair reading books that other people had written and getting caught up on my knitting.

Then I started thinking about Steampunk Angels. And I couldn't think of anything else.

I was sunk.

If you want to know more, you'll just have to wait for the finished book, but if you'd like to show your support for my writing habit and help the good folks at NaNoWriMo continue to sponsor free creative writing programs for kids and adults, please consider making a donation on my fundraising page.

That's really about all I have time to write. I have a little wordcount widget over there to the right that says I'm on track, but I'd like to keep my wordcount high at the beginning of the month just in case I slack off a bit over Thanksgiving.

What I remember

2010-09-11T16:35:00.000-07:00

I remember being not awake enough to fully grasp what I was seeing, what Matt Lauer was talking about on the Today Show as I poured my first cup of coffee.

I remember sinking onto the couch as the reality sunk in.

I remember worrying about friends in New York City on business and feeling utterly despondent over the unfathomable loss.

I remember the next few days under a pristine blue sky, unmarred by contrails.

I remember the strange silence under that sky.

I remember a few days after, walking to the convenience store/deli on the corner not far from work and telling the Middle Eastern owner and his wife how sorry I was that people had come into their business and called them horrible names.

I remember watching as liberals and conservatives, Republicans and Democrats, folks of all stripe and order, came together as Americans. We reached out to each other in charity and fellowship. We gave what we had to give, and sometimes a little more. We helped out. We practiced random acts of kindness. We set aside, for the most part, our petty differences.

Yeah, I remember that.

My grandmother's girl

2010-06-26T20:35:00.000-07:00

Back when my father was alive, he and I would frequently get into discussions in which I was obviously the person playing the role of the responsible adult. His favorite insult to throw at me at such times was, "You sound just like my mother."
Though I never said it aloud, I often thought, "Thank you. That's the nicest thing you could possibly have said."
True, my grandmother was not an easy woman to live with. Strong willed, highly opinionated, powerfully intelligent and prone to meddling, she was ahead her time by at least a half century. Educated, professional, enlightened well beyond the immigrant middle class constraints of her birth and upbringing, she lived a life of her own choosing, even when her choices -- like divorcing the father of her young son at a time when decent women did no such thing or getting herself a college education and later marrying a man 13 years her junior -- made her the talk of our little town.
I adored her and I grieve the loss of her still after nearly 40 years.
There is no denying that I am hers. Whenever I look at my hands, I wonder why they cannot simply pick up knitting needles and manifest sweaters, scarves, afghans, and all manner of wonders the ways hers did. Some days, I catch my reflection in the mirror or a storefront, and my breath catches in my throat. I look more like her every day. Today, a little more than usual, I think:

This is my self portrait for today. I'm doing one a day this year to document myself at 50. I think she would have liked this one. My hair is out of my eyes.

Unintentional Domesticity

2010-06-12T18:46:00.000-07:00

So, my husband, Damon, played his guitar for a few hours today at the Magnoloia Farmer's Market. I went along in my traditional role of Swiss Army Wife, prepared to help carry his gear, sell a few CDs, and smile at the nice folks who stop for a few minutes to listen while he plays,

After he got set up and started playing, I strolled the booths, discovering local honey, some beautiful beets and baby carrots, kale, and leeks. I also picked up 6 pints of strawberries and two very sexy tomatoes. I was all set to come home, take a nap, and whip up something tasty for dinner.

Damon played well. I sold a couple of CDs, and the transient audience made mostly of people stopping to sit while they ate their really yummy looking veggie & cheese quesadillas was generous with their tips.We also swapped a CD for some delicious garlic-dill Cheddar curd from Appel Farms.

After he finished playing, one of the sweet ladies who works at the market came by and dropped a bag of carrots and chard on the table. She told Damon to hang out a bit, then returned to our table three more times, each time carrying more fresh, lovely (mostly organic) produce: more baby carrots, arugula, sorrel, asparagus, green onions and leeks. It seems that far from being a gig for sales & tips, the market pays its performers in produce.

When we got home, I went to work in the kitchen, cleaning the beets and carrots first, tossing them in olive oil, salt & pepper, and popping them into a hot oven to roast while I cleaned and bagged the greens. When the beets and carrots came out of the oven, I turned it down to 175 degrees and popped a couple of canning jars in to sterilize. Then I went to work on two pints of the strawberries (I gave two pints to our neighbors when we got home), cleaning and cutting them into pieces just the right size to dissolve slowly into jam.

The jam is done and cooling. While I was making it, I kept thinking about baking biscuits or scones or making Monte Cristo sandwiches. Sounds like I may know what we're having for breakfast and lunch tomorrow. I also want to incorporate some of the leeks and the asparagus into a nice risotto.

I still have two pints of naked strawberries waiting to be eaten or turned into a pie.

It's almost time for dinner. I think we'll eat the carrots and beets with salmon or tuna.

I never did get that nap.

Memento Mori

2010-05-25T18:10:00.000-07:00

Some events refuse to fade from our consciousness. They linger in our memories, insinuate themselves into our value systems, shape the way we think about basic concepts such as home, love, innocence, and security. Moments that are either too wonderful or too awful to forget stay with us, to comfort or confound us as their context demands.

One such event from my youth was the murder of a school mate more than 30 years ago. She was a nice girl who dated a not-so-nice boy. She had a sweet smile and a soft voice. I will remember her forever with feathered bangs and the striped shirt that she wore in her 1977 school picture. The picture that her parents and police provided to the media during the brief search that ended with the chilling news that her body had been found.

It is that moment, six days after she went missing when we learned that she was dead, that haunts me. Death had come knocking before in the guise of old age, accident, even suicide. It wasn't death that left its mark, but something darker, stranger, far more terrifying. A girl who went to my school, walked the same hallways that I walked, sat in the same molded plastic desks, ate lunch in the same cafeteria, had been murdered. Brutalized, raped, and murdered. Until then, I had no idea that such things could really happen outside the pages of books or the dark, blighted alleys of the inner city.

Mary Irene Gency's murder changed the way we all thought about our town, our friends, the people down the street. Fear came to stay after that. I don't know if I ever felt really safe again. Especially since no one was ever charged, tried, or convicted of the crime.

But that may change. It seems that forensic evidence has provided police with a break in the case after 33 years. The men accused of committing this heinous crime, it turns out, are the two boys suspected at the time: her boyfriend, who lived down the street from me, and his best friend, who had dated one of my friends.

Time will tell whether they actually committed the crime. Justice may or may not be done. Regardless of what happens, one thing will never change: Mary died a horrible death, she was robbed of her innocence her life and whatever future she may have dreamed.

The news comes in part as a glimmer of hope that her family may find some peace and closure and in part as a new chilling reminder to embrace every minute as if were your last.

Mary, I do hope you're able to rest in peace.

Turning 50

2010-05-14T16:47:00.000-07:00

I'm turning 50 tomorrow. If you know me, you know how unlike me that is.

Anyway, to celebrate this milestone, I've decided to rededicate myself to taking a year's worth of self portraits. Here's the opening bonus shot of me being 49 for the last time.

You really can go home again if you want to badly enough

2010-04-23T08:27:00.000-07:00

One of the nice things about moving away from the place where you grew up is getting a chance, every now and then, to travel back there for a visit. For a number of reasons, a week spent with family and old friends can do a world of good for your spirit.
First, unless you are some kind of sociopath or just one of the world's biggest assholes, everyone "back home" is happy to see you. You get warm smiles, rib-cracking hugs, and plenty of "Gee, it's great to see you," moments everywhere you go. If you're lucky, you get to spend some time with people you have known and loved --and who have known and loved you-- catching up on the good stuff in your lives. Having just had lunch yesterday with one such friend (who is turning 40 today, and I wish him well), I can confirm that Facebook is a pale substitute for face time with old friends. Nothing quite compares to lift you experience when you see your best self reflected in the teary eyes of a sibling or when an old friend reminds you that you that despite the years, you really haven't changed a bit, not where it counts, anyway. Sadly, most of us aren't as forthcoming with heartfelt appreciation and affirmation of the folks we see day-in and day-out. Maybe we should try that out more often.
The second big benefit to a hometown visit is getting to eat food you just can't get in the place you live now. Even in the day of Internet commerce and same-day shipping, you can't really experience the joy of a freshly baked pizza or Italian hoagie in Seattle, say, or Omaha. And no matter how good the chicken parmigiana is at your local Italian joint, it will never compare to the landmark feast of saucy, cheesy goodness served up by your family's "celebration" restaurant. I've already managed to savor those goodies, and I still have a few more "must-haves" on my list before we leave town. There will be plenty of time for restraint and salad next week; today is about proper fish sandwiches and pierogies.
Another fun bit is roaming the streets and back roads of your childhood stomping grounds, seeing what has changed and, more likely in certain parts of the world, what has not. Here on "Planet Yinz," as my old pal Craig Whyel calls it, most of the change is brought about by Mother Nature in the way of encroaching vines and rust. But there's a beauty in this decay, like the deep furrows of a life well-lived on an old Eastern European woman's face or the intricate tatters of sunlight through ancient cotton lace curtains. Other changes, the ebb and flow of business, industry, commerce, offer alternating stings from both boarded storefronts and sprawling shopping centers.It's always hard to tell whether the place is declining or recovering, but it is most certainly still here.
Today we'll do some more wandering, some more eating, and spend the evening laughing and drinking and talking with some of the best people I have ever known. At the end of the night, my heart will swell with the desire to take them all back home with me when I go.
Back home.
To Seattle.
Not here.

Ada Lovelace Day: Celebrating Women in Technology

2010-03-24T19:55:00.000-07:00

When I started thinking about subjects for Ada Lovelace Day this year, I ran through a list of obvious choices, luminaries and inventors, brilliant scientists and savvy entrepreneurs.
Then I stopped in my tracks and realized I had the perfect subject for an entry celebrating women in technology: me.
No, I haven't shattered any long-held assumptions or shifted anybody's paradigm, but I have spent the better part of the last thirteen years working at some of the most innovative companies in the world. One could argue that I had a hand in developing the original social networking site and have, indeed, lent my 17-year-old image to one of the most successful online advertising campaigns of all time.
More importantly, though, I have spent the last dozen years or so learning new things every day and passing that knowledge on to others, men and women, so that they can better understand and leverage the power of information and technology.
That's about it, really. So I can only leave you with a reprise of last year's entry about the amazing Janet Galore and a poem I wrote a few years ago that refers to Ada Lovelace, whom I greatly admire.

Book Review: Chalice

2010-03-16T19:50:00.003-07:00

Chalice by Robin McKinley

My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I may be something of a freak among Robin McKinley's readers, but I actually loved both Chalice and Sunshine. The books both feature a young, innately talented heroine coming into awareness of her true power and purpose. Though each book explores that premise quite differently, each delivers a satisfying story with well-written characters, nicely paced plots, and enough world-building to keep things truly interesting.

In Chalice, I particularly enjoyed McKinley's lush and evocative exploration of bees and beekeeping, her examinations of the medicinal and magical properties of honey.

Chalice is an altogether enjoyable read.

View all my reviews >>

Book Review: Sunshine

2010-03-04T19:59:00.001-08:00

Sunshine by Robin McKinley

My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I picked this book up for a number of reasons: its compelling cover, good things I had heard about Robin McKinley's writing, a desire to read some vampire fiction that had a little more substance than, well, most of the stuff in that genre.I'm happy to say, I was pleasantly surprised.The plot was a little slow and honestly didn't come to a truly satisfying resolution, but the book worked for me. The characters are both interesting and original.In fact, I wouldn't mind reading more about them.

View all my reviews >>

Book Review: The Time Traveler's Wife

2010-03-04T19:49:00.000-08:00

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

I can't begin to describe how disappointing I found this book. After tons of hype and many friends insisting that I read it. Insisting that I would love it. I really had to take a few steps back and evaluate whether those friends know me very well at all. I found the premise dull, the characters annoying, and the prose, quite frankly, as dull as a pair of grade-school scissors.
Blah.
Meh.
And a whole lot of other monosyllables that I can think of that are synonymous with "crap."

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formspring.me

2010-02-28T16:30:00.001-08:00

Ask me anything http://formspring.me/smithla8

Cats and their people

2010-01-23T15:01:00.000-08:00

While the news has bled misery and tumult on a grand scale, the much more intimate woes afflicting a small cat and her beloved people have turned me introspective and a bit weepy this week.

They've also got me thinking about cats and their people.

On Wednesday, author Neil Gaiman tweeted that his blind cat, Zoe, was ill and at the vet's for an x-ray and endoscopy. By Thursday, the bad news returned that Zoe had an inoperable tumor.
Gaiman blogged about Zoe, as did photographer Kyle Cassady whose shots of Zoe reveal not only how beautiful she is, but what a sweet and gentle loving nature she has. Other members of Gaiman's extended family of artists, musicians, and magic-makers shared their memories of the cat in blogs and tweets. The much larger realm of Gaiman fans and followers (of which I am obviously one), expressed their condolences and spilled their grief as I am doing now.

"I'm wondering what it is about this small blind cat that inspires such behaviour," Gaiman writes. "I think it may be the love. Hers, once given, was yours, unconditionally and utterly."

I think there may be something to it, that notion about unconditional love in certain cats that transcend the role of pet or companion animal to become, well and truly, our familiars. As someone who has been lucky enough to have kept a few such cats (for keeping them is what we do; we never own them or master them), I marvel that some people never come to know such a cat at all. And I have been, at least once, lucky enough to have had the same cat (well, sort of the same cat) come to me twice.

In the late 1980s when I was teaching at a public university in Pennsylvania, I accepted a couple of cats from a student of mine whose landlord was averse to pets. One of the cats was a small, slender tortoise shell who bore much greater resemblance to a space alien than to a cat. She was eager and energetic and full of surprise. We called her Babette.

Her companion cat was a round and robust black shorthair with emerald eyes and the demeanor of a foreign potentate, the benevolent demi-goddess of some imagined island people who lived on milk and honey and prayed by imitating the sound of her low, gentle purr. She came to me with the unlikely name of Pumpkin, and almost immediatley communicated to me in that way cats do that her "deep and inscrutable singular Name" was Joss. Much better.

I wasn't lucky enough to keep Joss for very long, but the time I had with her was remarkable. She was the sort of cat you could have a conversation with, confess your troubles to, ask for advice. And she delivered. I swear, as will my then roommate, Jeff, that the cat could stare sense into us when we were spinning out of control. She had command. She had presence. She had gravitas.

Since she came to me as an adult, I had no way of knowing how long she would be in our lives. Sadly, it was only a couple of years before she quietly breathed her last on a soft, rag rug and we laid her to rest in the back yard behind the garage where cat bones have rested for many, many years.

I grieved her something awful, even with a handful of other cats around, including Babette, to nuzzle my chin and warm my lap.

Some 20 years later, moved to Seattle, I lost yet another great cat (Salieri, about whom much can be written). His companion cat, Stinky (who lives with me still, slowed a bit now at 19 years), keened the loss so terribly that I felt compelled to find him a new companion with all due haste.

I left work a bit early and stopped by the PAWS cat adoption center to see if they had a kitten who might make a good friend for Stinky. I checked out the dozen or so kittens and young adult cats they had on hand, but none of them seemed to want to come home with me. I was about to give up when I noticed a plump, lush black shorthair lounging on the chair behind the reception desk, acting for all the world like she was waiting for her administrative assistant to bring her a cup of coffee.

I asked Dawn, the PAWS adoption services lady, if I could walk behind the counter and say hello.

"Sure," she said. "She's a real sweetie. I'd actually be sad to see her go."

I walked around the desk and kneeled down to look into her dazzling emerald eyes. She licked my nose.

"I'll start the paperwork," Dawn said.

So, it wasn't just that she so readily and immediately accepted me as a bigger cat, a someone-to-be-groomed, that made it impossible for me to leave PAWS without her that day. It was a sense that we had already known each other for a good long time. She was truly my familiar.

And so Toots (whose name at the time was Hera) came home with me that day. She and Stinky took a whole 48 hours to get used to each other. By the end of week, they were curled up on eachother making what looked like a two-headed black cat. Here is photographic evidence of that phenomenon.

For nearly 8 years, Toots sat in my lap, slept on my head, and kept me most excellent company.

When Jeff met her, he, too, felt that sense of familiarity. We both felt lucky simply to have such a cat in our lives again.

When I started dating Damon, Toots let me know what she thought of him by climbing up behind him on the couch and licking his head. To his credit, he let her do it. I knew in that instant that I would surely love him for a good long time.

Sadly, Toots was diagnosed with kidney disease early in 2004. We fed her a special diet, hydrated her subcutaneously, and loved her as much as we possibly could for the next three years. On April 21, 2007, she breathed her last. I still mist up when I think about her.

Some cats are, indeed, like that.

Right now, Gaiman's blind cat Zoe is at the center of a widening circle of people all focused on the wonder of her love.

Right now, I'm grateful for every day that I wake up with Stinky on my head or behind my knees.

Right now, my friend Claire is sad and grateful for her cat, Spiff, who is nearing the end of his days but continues to climb onto her lap to be loved.

These cats are more than pets, more than friends, even. They get to us, they touch our softest, most human centers and remind us that love can be unconditional and healing and strong. And even though we don't get to share that love with them in this world forever, we never lose it really. We just hang on to it and pass it along.

These cats teach us that love can stay.

In other news: World Endures Longest January on Record

2010-01-22T21:29:00.000-08:00

So, what started as a snarky little status update on Twitter/Facebook is swiftly becoming the battle cry that I hope will propel me through the remaining week of January 2010.
The month started off well enough. My love and I were on Kauai, enjoying balmy weather and white sand beaches. He proposed. I accepted. We vowed to bring the "aloha" back home with us.
And, to our credit, we have, despite the world's efforts to beat it out of us with every kind of bad news and sad news you can imagine.
I won't ramble on about the details. You can read the news for yourself and probably just take a quick informal poll of your family, friends, and followers to discover that they, too, have been having a terrifically crappy January.
Can there really still be 9 days left?

Comfort Books

2009-10-02T17:59:00.001-07:00

I've been itching to write, but lacking focus, a top(ic)less dancer of sorts, whirling round the pole of my imagination, unable to pick up a rhythm, a beat I could really groove to.
Then, someone tweeted today to author Neil Gaiman, who has himself been tweeting about feeling ill this week:
RT @SOCMusic: I always re-read "Good Omens" when I'm sick. It always makes me feel better. Good chance that won't work for you, though.
I count Good Omens, which Gaiman co-wrote with Terry Pratchett, among my favorite books, and I, too, often turn to it for comfort when I'm feeling unwell or a bit too weary. That charming tale of an impending apocalypse never fails to draw me in and cheer me up.
Gaiman then tweeted about his own comfort books:
At different times of my life, my 'Comfort Book' has been Narnia, LOTR, Glory Road, Cold Comfort Farm, Psmith Journalist, Father Brown.
This simple remark spawned a cascade of tweets that is still falling as I write this post. People everywhere, well at least everywhere on Twitter, have been sharing the titles of the books they turn to when they need to feel better. The titles, not surprisingly, have included a hefty number of Gaiman's books, a load of science fiction and fantasy standards including LOTR/Hobbit, Narnia, Screwtape (for heaven's sake!) among countless others. The Harry Potter books have figured prominently, as have the Twilight novels. I've also seen a few unexpected favorites like Silence of the Lambs.
In a later tweet, Gaiman mused
Lots of people sending in their #comfortbooks. I wonder what makes a particular book a place to go when under stress.
I wonder, too.
Some of Gaiman's other followers allowed as how a "comfort book" might be a portal of sorts, a gateway to a more innocent time of childlike wonder or a sense of hopefulness that we often find sadly lackling in our day-to-day.
I think that may be part of it, but that explanation is a bit too simple. Some comfort books are less about idealism and more about the elemental pleasure of letting ourselves go, of submerging ourselves into worlds not of our own making, surrounding ourselves with friends unlike any we're likley to meet.
Like Gaiman, my comfort books have changed up over the years. As a child, I treasured the Big Little Golden Books edition of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court so much that reading it got me tossed out of reading class in the first grade. I followed that up with (first) the Disney version of The Jungle Book and then the original, which I liked a great deal more. A few years later, I read Elizabeth George Speare's The Witch of Blackbird Pond at least a dozen times and To Kill a Mockingbird a dozen times more. And there was The Hobbit, LOTR, and anything by Roald Dahl.
All that prepared me, I suppose for high school and college and graduate school, a 10-year expedition of discovery that led me to major in English and devour books at the alarming clip of five a week. I read fast, but I read deep. I read on my walk to class. I read at meals. I read in the bar. I even read at parties, beer in hand, book in the other.
Though my reading life was eclectic, I did light on favorite themes and authors. Tom Robbins enchanted me with Still Life with Woodpecker, and I still credit him with teaching me how to make love stay, even in the 21st Century. I return, from time to time, to 28 Barbary Lane to visit with Armistead Maupin's eccentric characters from Tales of the City. And my bored and lazy hand will almost always travel to the spot on the shelf where Vanity Fair waits to entertain and amuse me.
I've been alive too long, I think, to make even an attempt at a comprehensive list of my comfort books. And I hope to live a good while longer and to find new ones along the way.
Suffice it to say that the first book I bought for my sexy new Kindle was Gaiman's Neverwhere, a book he adapted from the 1996 BBC television series he developed with Lenny Henry. This ramble started with him, and I suppose it should end in the same place. I don't know what his next book will be, but I suspect I will want to read it more than once. That troubles me, of course, because there are just so many books and so little time.

National Poetry Month: Day #30

2009-04-30T07:59:00.000-07:00

Today is American writer Annie Dillard's birthday. If you haven't already done so, please find yourself a copy of her most excellent book, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, and read it so you, too, can know what it means to see in a way that is not seeing.

Pilgrims

"I'm a wanderer with a background in theology and a penchant for quirky facts." —Annie Dillard

I thought a lot about what things mean,
what hidden messages come in the intricate veins
of a maple leaf or the spots on the back of a beetle.
I suffered myself to search for the complex
algorithms left by whatever passed for gods
before people who thought a lot came to be.

Then I followed you down
past the tree with the lights in it,
past the row of Lombardy poplars
that grew outside your bedroom window,
beneath the moon you reached for
(I reached for it, too.)
believing enlightenment
could be so easily grasped,
down the winding path,
through the meadows and woods to the creek
where you rolled up your eyes to see
in a way that was not seeing
and I just took my glasses off
and saw the same
as you.

National Poetry Month: Day #29

2009-04-29T06:02:00.000-07:00

As we near the end of National Poetry Month, I realize I haven't yet featured a poem specifically about the frustrations of writing poems. Here's one of my favorites:

Ambiguous Undulations

Reluctantly, they gather
when I call
my thoughts to order.
My agenda meets
with anguish and resentment.

I can't write a poem

smooth and cool as a rock
worn down from a boulder
by the relentless sea

crisp and clean as a leaf
golden green at birth
on a black limb

sleek and fluid as a tiger
lethal by nature
obscure by design.

A quiet kind of treachery
haunts Sunday mornings,
rustling like feathers
in the nest at dawn presuming
they anticipate the will
of the goddess of sleeping cats.

National Poetry Month: Day #28

2009-04-28T07:59:00.000-07:00

Some days it's easier to imagine a simple, more satisfying life of objecthood:

I Would Be

the tuft of moss
near the roots of a white cedar,
cool and damp

the subtle twitch of feather,
a momentary adjustment of wing tip
that takes the hawk nearer to the sun

the irregular arc
of egg shell, smooth
and sturdy, speckled brown and gray

National Poetry Month: Day #27

2009-04-27T07:59:00.000-07:00

Few things in this world better represent mankind's tenacity than the subject of this poem:

The Tower

From the first ring of stones
set in the sand and shells
of the field of miracles,
the widow's tower, begun
by sixty coins in remembrance
of the Holy Virgin,
leaned,
its twin at flawed conception
a thousand years of engineering
hope.

From their first misguided corrections
men have struggled to put right
or to preserve,
to hold off, if only for the moment
of their lifetimes,
the inevitable surrender
to gravity.

National Poetry Month: Day #26

2009-04-26T06:50:00.000-07:00

Sometimes a clichè is just a clichè. Others, it's a metaphor that rings in your head, the best advice your mother ever gave you:

By the Horns

Is there a better way, I wonder,
grappling as I do with antique, agrarian clichés,
to take a bull?
They seem the obvious choice for reasons
of convenience, ergonomics, and optimism.
And it's better by far to face the thing
that frightens or threatens you
head on — snorting, struggling,
studying you with eyes full of blood —
than to meet your fate
at the other end
of the bull.

National Poetry Month: Day #25

2009-04-25T10:42:00.000-07:00

Yesterday afternoon, we went north to LaConner to look at tulips. It's an annual event, a pilgrimage of sorts that reminds us, when we are weariest of winter and gray walls of rain, that life is about change and color and sunlight and laughter. The year after my mother died, I wrote this poem on the day of that pilgrimage:

In Tulips

Today, beneath a plane
of sheer, unbroken blue,
while Baker's snowy shoulders shimmered
pink and gold in the distance, I caught
a glimpse of her
among the sun-drenched cups
of fairy porcelain
quivering in the breeze,
her cheeks as pale and soft as petals,
that wry smile and arched brow,
emerald eyes glistening
with a thousand hours
of laughter, dancing
with her sisters:
the flapper, the philosopher,
and the long-suffering saint.

Just then a giggling child,
his round face like an ochre moon,
set with eyes of glittering obsidian,
stumbled into me and gasped
surprised, I think, by my cool
touch on his chubby arm.
He turned and ran, clumsy as a puppy,
to grasp his mother's dangling hand.

I looked again into the endless
stripes of color, but they were gone.

Only tulips danced like swaying gypsies
on the wind.

National Poetry Month: Day #24

2009-04-24T08:06:00.000-07:00

A few years back, the trend in spam was strangely poetic word groupings. One such inspired this poem:

E-nigmas

The random text arrives:
"chemise similitude oligarchic meadow
suggestible bile wherewith clubroom frizzle."

The poet trapped
in some vile computer bug,
a victim, I'm certain,
of nefarious mathematicians,
sends me hidden messages, accidental
odes to unforeseen
circumstances and unwelcome
enticements, abstract pastiches,
beautiful, beguiling
in their incongruity.

National Poetry Month: Day #23

2009-04-23T00:01:00.000-07:00

It's William Shakespeare's birthday. It's also the 12th anniversary of my arrival in Seattle. Today, a bonus, two sonnets:

Days of Glory

"Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man."
—Wm. Shakespeare, King John (III, iv.)

This day's as good as any, I suppose,
to ponder loss and wonder what is left
when water comes only from a fire hose,
and he who thirsts is still as much bereft
as one who wanders in the desert sand
beneath the sun's most relentless gazes,
confounded by the emptiness of hand
after grasping for the sweet oasis.
What willow will not break if bent too low
by buckets, torrents of tenacious rain
and slide into the slurry, just let go,
dissolve to sticks with minimum of pain?

For us who are made of flexible stuff,
sometimes too much is worse than not enough.

Will & Grace

"In all external grace you have some part..."
—Wm. Shakespeare, Sonnet 53

What elemental, eloquent design
lies underneath your public artifice,
that countenance so perfectly sublime
that jealous angels rival for your kiss
and hosts of lovers fawn to touch your skin?
What architect of heaven made your shell,
braving for glory's sake a deadly sin
that worldly thoughts of beauty would dispel
and leave instead an aching sense of loss,
a vacancy forever unfulfilled,
a palate bored by meat without the sauce,
an eye blind to the lily without gild.

Fair to wonder what good your maker meant
when the fruit of his work is discontent.

National Poetry Month: Day #22

2009-04-22T05:52:00.000-07:00

Another Neil Gaiman-inspired poem, this one tips its hat to Neverwhere:

My Life as a Door

Most days ajar, inviting
with a narrow glimpse
inside where sunlight diffuses
through soft, green curtains
and the crisp, dark perfume
of hot coffee lingers
on the still kitchen air,

others transparent, sliding
out of the way on instinct
triggered by proximity
and aggression

and sometimes locked,
no light on the porch
or welcome mat to lie
at my feet
about my inclinations.

National Poetry Month: Day #21

2009-04-21T06:01:00.000-07:00

Today's poem is for my friend Tea, who deserves all the bright blessings this world can offer:

The Secret of Flight

In darker times,
when science was magic
and the devil, not God, dwelled
in the details,
any woman ripe
for burning knew what to pick
from the hillside greens
to make herself
transcendent:
moonkshood, henbane, deadly
nightshade, mandrake, hemlock,
nothing safe or pretty
as the garden rose,
she picked and dried and ground
into oil and spread it thin
across her skin
and spread herself
across the sky, floating
like an angel
toward the moon.

National Poetry Month: Day #20

2009-04-20T06:09:00.000-07:00

Oh, how I wish I had another Sunday, a day of rest ...

This Longing

"Take this longing from my tongue..." — Leonard Cohen

No cup of coffee does
when sweet tea, blond with cream,
brews in the brain
as the cure
for the hollow,
the drop through the floor,
the feeling like someone pulled
the plugs and squeezed
to rush the soul right out of you
like stale air escaping, sending bubbles
to the surface like a letter
written in a language
the receiver cannot read.

National Poetry Month: Day #19

2009-04-19T20:06:00.000-07:00

For my love, who has spent an entire weekend doing yard work and household maintenance:

Giornata

Like a Florentine painter,
brown from the Tuscan sun,
I work in the wet, fingers
racing pigment into plaster,
capturing character in color
and line, catching gestures
subtle as shadows at noon
in quickening marble ash.

This day's work
is finally
done.

National Poetry Month: Day #18

2009-04-18T09:58:00.000-07:00

Twelve years ago this month, I pulled up stakes in Pennsylvania and set off across the country to Seattle. Many things have changed in my life since then, but one of the things that has remained constant and comforting is my friendship with the subject of this poem:

Clara

When my world reduced
itself to boxes traveling west,
decisions about the fates
of cats and roads to skirt
just south of flooding farms,
you were there.

You broke the bottle
across the bow
of my new life,
waving from the dock
as I embarked.

Now that anniversary approaches,
and you are still there,
between winter and better,
warming that mountain town
with your ready smile,

and still here
as blossoms flutter like confetti
through the twilight.

National Poetry Month: Day #17

2009-04-17T21:17:00.000-07:00

Like the title of this poem, today's offering is a little late arriving. It's been a brutally busy week. I'm glad it's over.

Spring Late Arriving

Why such reluctance
when every limb
bored with black angularity
strains to soften
in chartreuse the sight
of sky?

National Poetry Month: Day #16

2009-04-16T08:07:00.000-07:00

For friends going through much worse than they deserve:

In Such Times

(for Theodore Roethke)

When a cold wind comes over stones,
I pull my collar up and tuck
my fingers into pockets.

Glove-clumsy, I patch
the cracks in the foundation
and brew strong coffee
to drink while it dries.

When the wind of love's
worst ugly day plays the blues
down the chimney,
I whistle a counterpoint
in harmony.

When the garden looks more like a grave,
I sprinkle crumbs and seed
to keep small things
alive.

When the spirit moves not upward,
I stoop
to pick it up.

National Poetry Month: Day #15

2009-04-15T00:01:00.000-07:00

Go ahead. Close your eyes. Imagine something wonderful. Then make a wish.

Wishes

The first is lost to memory,
that earnest, eyes-closed whisper
chanted as my fist gave way
to fingers, flung the treasure
to the unseen, hungry sprites
of hope.

Other silent secrets, one
for every candled cake
and more for shimmering
cosmic cataclysms
I forgot almost as soon
as I didn't get them.

Still, somewhere between
a penny and a meteor must
be a price
for days of honey
yellow light and warm
breezes, soft edges
and softer centers,
no less than you deserve.

National Poetry Month: Day #14

2009-04-14T08:28:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, a cup of tea is all you need to make a poem:

Susceptible to Metaphor

"The whole world is less susceptible to metaphor than a teacup is." —Wallace Stevens

Van Morrison rails incantations,
valedictions to John Donne, while I step
into the kitchen to perform
the minor miracle
of turning water into
tea.

I reach into the cupboard, take
a cup and then a moment
to regard its mute companions inverted
like hollow men, their handle arms akimbo,
poised expectantly on their nonexistent
hips.

White as bones beyond
the supplications of flesh,
these shallow, patient bowls
unnerve me with their arrogance,
their assurance they will be
filled.

Such purpose disturbs me,
and I think of Pascal
railing against his mistress
of the world, imagination.
Then I remember they are just
cups.

I close the cupboard door, pour myself
some tea and go back
to Morrison's soul in wonder,
a pleasant irony to lull me
while I write this
poem.

National Poetry Month: Day #13

2009-04-13T07:56:00.000-07:00

For all my bibliophile friends out there, a poem from April 11, 2002:

Used Books

It isn't that I can't afford
or don't relish the crackling
of fresh pages between stiff
boards.

It's more about salvation:
loving the loveless
tending stray cats
imagining the choices
that brought them
to abandonment,
wondering if underlined
phrases cross the lips
of my predecessors
like the names of lovers
lost in youth.

National Poetry Month: Day #12

2009-04-12T00:01:00.000-07:00

Happy Easter, everyone of the Christian persuasion.

Easter

After sacrifice comes much rejoicing.
That's the message I remember most,
but my childhood mind struggled
to reconcile the myth
of the rabbit
and the carpenter's tale.

Both steeped in unlikely generosity,
mysterious concealment,
and jubilant discovery,
the stories overlapped
like the particolored reeds
that made my basket.

The language of it, too, confounded:
One dyed eggs and hid
them in the bushes;
the other died
for my still unimagined sins.

National Poetry Month: Day #11

2009-04-11T00:01:00.000-07:00

A few years ago, one of my dearest friends, Elaine, became gravely ill. So ill, in fact, she died for a few minutes before doctors were able to revive her. Since then, she has made an astonishing recovery. She's had a second child. She has come back to being one of very few humans I know who lives largely in the present tense. I wrote this poem for her while she was recovering from that illness on April 4, 2003:

Back in Time

for Elaine

Under certain circumstances
it's easy to remember
your jangling, angling way
of talking, building
clause on clause the way life
is, so much a string
of dependencies.

It's easy, too, to recall
your laugh, that crisp
eruption of mirth
that follows the best
bitter ironies and least
appropriate jokes.

Remembering now how we sat
talking with no lights
on as summer stretched day
long into the night,
I pause to imagine
after coming so close
to nothing
but remembering
the next time we'll chatter
after you're back.
In time.

National Poetry Month: Day #10

2009-04-10T00:01:00.000-07:00

At Easter, I always think about my late mother. I try, sometimes, to approximate her holiday cooking, but I always fall short. I think I do better at writing poems, like this one from April 8, 2001:

Palm Sunday

Each year she made us walk
to the white clapboard church
at the end of our street,
freezing or frying
depending on the whim
of weather and the way the moon
struck the calendar.

I wore my school clothes:
scratchy wool jumpers and scuffed
brown shoes with frayed
laces to remind me I wasn't as good
as God expected me to be.

My sister was always pulled
together better: a crisp blouse
and maybe even slacks
if it was cold enough.

We sat on either side
of her on the polished wood, aching
for hymns to break
the boredom and digging
for tissues in her purse.

We thought a lot about next Sunday:
crisp dresses and glimmering
shoes, hats and baskets, perfect
pictures on the patio.

After, we'd spend
our energy scampering back
the way we came while she
followed, cradling another year
of protection in her hands.

National Poetry Month: Day #9

2009-04-09T00:01:00.000-07:00

What is it about ancient things, worn and crusty, that so appeals to us? Why do we scour antique shops and garage sales for other people's junk? I can't remember what doo-dad or thingamajig inspired this poem back on April 6, 2005, but I'm sure it was a treasure:

Patina

It starts with the smudge,
a careless caress,
an accidental embrace, trace
evidence of something between magic
and magnetism.

Then comes the darkness, the memory
of breath like tropic winds
painting swirls and smoke
along the delicate curvature
of that which is exposed.

Then the tick-tock, tick-tock time
of no reply, no sign,
no dancing lights from beach
to bower to bed.

Now rediscovery, a gentle nudge,
the polish of thumb on brass,
the breathless agony
of unlocking the genie
and knowing these wishes
must be good.

National Poetry Month: Day #8

2009-04-08T07:59:00.000-07:00

Because there are differences between documenting events and remembering them, I offer this poem originally published on April 19, 2000:

Memento

Some people remember like cameras,
capturing every detail
in a glance, recalling
flawlessly the shade
of blue the sky became
beyond the trees, the height
of the grass, and the number
of squirrels scampering
for popcorn by the lake.

I remember like a painter,
taking liberties with time,
and space, inviting the dead
or merely disappeared
to join the party under a purple
sky full of dragon
flies on this rolling patchwork
green where all manner
of creatures compete
for your attention.

National Poetry Month: Day #7

2009-04-07T08:06:00.000-07:00

The only certain thing, some times, is uncertainty. Then as now, no matter how hard we try to anticipate it, the element of surprise will always surprise us. Thus, this offering, originally published on April 16, 2003:

Graceful Tumble

for Elizabeth

Practically from birth
we train
like cynical thoroughbreds
to seek surprise, dispel
astonishment before it crashes
us into fences or others staggered
by the unforeseen mouse
or sudden stinging insect.
We practice patience, vigilance
and balance, keep eyes
ahead and feet
below
until
the rug furls
like a flag,
a standard of futility,
topples us
without ceremony
leaves us only
with the graceful
way we fall.

National Poetry Month: Day #6

2009-04-06T06:00:00.000-07:00

In a poem called "Introduction to Poetry," former US Poet Laureate Billy Collins writes, "I say drop a mouse into a poem / and watch him probe his way out."
I took his advice and came up with this poem on April 1, 2003:

The Mouse Inside This Poem

The mouse inside this poem
is blind,
sad, suffering bastard,
tailless wonder
wandering
wondering
what cataclysm
brought him here
without his kin
who must be puzzling his absence
between them.

I'd reassure them
if I could
some how
some way
some day
they'll find themselves
together in some nursery
or Kindergarten,
but I don't think they'd understand
the complex, self-referential
paradigm.

So for now at least
they'll suffer uncertainty
like the rest
of us,
those other two and
the mouse inside this poem

National Poetry Month: Day #5

2009-04-05T10:26:00.001-07:00

I recall that I'd been reading Neil Gaiman a lot back when I started writing these poems. I'm not certain what effect that had on my own writing, but I do remember that this poem came straight from a dream I had after reading the story "Baywolf" in his collection Smoke and Mirrors. It's the very first one from April 1, 2000:

Familiars

We've been here before,
you and I, but then
we didn't look like this,
bottled up in sacks of pale
pink flesh
like a couple of tender
underbellies ready to be torn
apart.

I've smelled this air before,
this crisp and prickling
scent of something
frightened, vulnerable,
and delicious
cowering low
just out of sight.

You caught it too,
and pricked your ears
then twitched your bushy
tail a time or two
so I would know
your appetite.

In unison then
like currents deviating
in a stream
you swept in left on silent
paws while I, so quick,
so ravenous, descended
from the right
to seize
the prize.

After, we lay
sated and savoring success
still on our muzzles
as moonlight bathed us
blue and breezes
sang our remorseless lullaby
through the trees.

National Poetry Month: Day #4

2009-04-04T00:01:00.000-07:00

Because it seems this year that spring is taking forever to get here, a poem from April 10, 2004:

Eventual Spring

That day you dreamed
when January's hollow heart
pounded all around you,
hoplessness mingled with cruel,
capricious flurries and a bite
of darkness long before cocktails
could be gracefully excused,
arrived today wrapped in gleaming
yellow light and soft wind,
warm as shallow breaths
on cotton pillows.

National Poetry Month: Day #3

2009-04-03T00:01:00.000-07:00

Here's a poem from April 12, 2003:

Self Help

Do it gently
down to darkness
quiet among the low
gray light of a stormy afternoon.

Distill notes from nature's symphony
into your theme.

Flatten mistakes
like pressed flowers
into your belly.

Slide unintended consequences
and uncomfortable silences into brown
paper envelopes and seal
them with your kisses.

Drop your anchor
and defenses long enough to know
that intimacy
is when other people are close
enough.

National Poetry Month: Day #2

2009-04-02T00:01:00.000-07:00

Here's a poem originally published on April 20, 2000:

Simple

In simple moments, understanding comes
like a stray cat pawing
at the kitchen door
or a phrase of music escaping
from a passing car
to catch you
off balance, in the act,
shame-faced a moment before
you shove your hands
into your pockets and rock
on the balls of your feet,
staring at the ground
whistling a tune
to clear your head
of the one thought
that takes your breath
away with all the subtlety
of a Louisville Slugger.

National Poetry Month Begins

2009-04-01T08:13:00.000-07:00

In 2000, before "blogging" was a verb, I began to celebrate National Poetry Month by writing a poem a day and posting those poems to my erstwhile Web site, cryingcoyote.com. These poems were, for the most part, drafted in one of my many notebooks, then crafted online very early in the morning before I set off to work. Pressed for time, and hoping to get a wider audience for some of these poems, I'm going to re-publish 30 of them on this blog, one each day during April.

Here's today's offering, originally published on April 3, 2000:

Mrs. William Carlos Williams

Was it enough,
his simple note?

Did those 28 words
undo the damage,
of his selfishness?

Or did she pout,
hungry and left with nothing
but tea and toast
for breakfast?

Did she turn her cheek
to meet his lips
as he set out on his morning
walk to the hospital?

Did she brood all day,
regretting her decision
to marry him?

Did she serve him dinner
silently with his pathetic confession
still propped against the sugar
bowl on the table?

Did she wrap her curves in flannel
thinking, "If you liked how cold
those plums were, wait
until you climb into bed
with me tonight."

Ada Lovelace Day: Celebrating Women in Technology

2009-03-24T00:01:00.000-07:00

I can think of no more auspicious occasion to kick off my new blog than Ada Lovelace Day, a celebration of women in technology. A few weeks back, I made the following pledge: "I will publish a blog post on Tuesday 24th March about a woman in technology whom I admire but only if 1,000 other people will do the same," and today I'm keeping my promise.

I've chosen for the subject of this post my colleague and friend, Janet Galore.

In nearly all respects, Janet leads a less-than-ordinary life. Degreed and well-studied in pure and applied mathematics, Janet is an artist, illustrator, and author. She is also an adventurer, a collaborator and conspirator, an excellent co-worker, supervisor, and friend.

According to her own bio, Janet "currently works as a Program Manager on the Strategic Prototyping Team under Craig Mundie at Microsoft. The team develops prototypes and demos to tell credible stories about the future."

There's no one I'd rather have envisioning and shaping the future than Janet. In her hands, it will not only be better, it will also be more interesting.

Preparing for Ada Lovelace Day

2009-03-23T17:54:00.000-07:00

A few years back, I wrote the following poem on April 19, the anniversary of the death of Lord Byron, the father of Ada Lovelace, whom I will honor with a post tomorrow. I just felt a little bit like warming up.

Byron and the Romance of Computer Programming

I think of him dying
all those years ago in Missolonghi,
patriot of a nation
not his own.
Today, he'd be a pop
star, pursued by paparazzi
(like another one from another
Aberdeen)
through England to Geneva
and the sparkling white
islands of his demise.
He gave the world
much more than a name
for brooding arrogance,
a cynicism so eternal
it's still post-modern
after all this time.
I think of little Ada,
barely eight and already
eerily attuned to the complex
elegance of numbers,
fatherless and hungry for the metaphors
that make a poetry of science.

First things first

2009-03-23T15:00:00.000-07:00

Yep, that's me: Nerdy Girl from the Classmates.com banner ads.

Don't believe me, here's a news article from the Seattle Times that will give you the back story.

Now that we've settled that, you're probably still wondering what, if any, right such a well-known nerd has offering any kind of guidance to the rest of the world. Well, I can only say that I've had a couple of successful "careers" so far this lifetime (journalist, teacher, editor, online marketing persona), and for most of my life, people have come to me asking for advice on everything from education to romance to the best slow cooker recipe for lentil soup.

I have also been told from time to time that I have a wicked wit that doesn't turn to bitterness even when I'm asked to suffer the worst of fools.

Welcome to my blog. I hope you'll come back often.