interesting science

my friend sally has a special program for taking a photo of a person, cutting it in half and sewing like sides together (left with left and right with right).

it is a personality illustration of sorts and supposedly, some faces change dramaticaly under the switcheroo. 

mine look kind of funny but thankfully I don't seem to be too lopsided

which i think bodes well for my personality as a whole...

apparently, there are people who can look at a face and read a whole lifetime. what side we sleep on, what we worry about, where we are generous... 

interesting science.

HEARTS FOR LINDSEY

                                                                               The first "frozen heart" came to me today via email from my friend Kerry (she took the pic.). The Broken heart I really saw, just like that, nearly buried way in the hills of Scotland & the third is a photo Jono took in Rio En Medio on a walk one day.  I love the shape of the heart. A circle that's willing to compromise. 

Buttons...

Icollect buttons. Old buttons. They used to be made so carefully, out of glass & wood & metal and delectable plastics.

Buttons were more ornamental, not just utilitarian. They were actually designed and carefully considered unlike today's uniform plastic after-thoughts with an extra attached in a small plastic bag. I save those too of course because one day maybe the plastic will break down and become more interesting or maybe I will find a use for them I've not yet imagined. Maybe just because I don't know what else to do with them... But the old ones, with their visual  and tactile ghosts and omens do inspire me to no end. I sort them and organize them and make messes of them all over again when searching for that one or that set that I know I have somewhere and need in a hurry... There are some buttons that tell stories of wear. There are some that only suggest their histories and leave the door wide open for me to make up my own settings and situations... Old buttons embellish so well as was their original purpose.

There's also the therapeutic aspect of sorting by color or by material or by size or by subject.... It's like completing a crossword puzzle or writing and then checking thing things off a list. Making order of chaos no matter how small the upheaval feels good and is grounding and is reassuring somehow. 

Maybe that's why so many of us collect things. Because collecting implies intentional gathering and requires some kind of acknowledgement of like similar and dissimilar objects which implies order, even if collections are not kept in any kind of specific order at all.

Anyway, I like buttons and I have a lot of them and I use them frequently for all kinds of things...

What do you collect?

three years later 

and i wanted to show

how i love you with my new banjo

peeper, you're a keeper this i know!

happy anniversary!

A Scrap of Paper

I received another envelope yesterday. It looked like this on this on the outside which was nice to begin with.(look to right).

When I opened it I found that someone had written my biography in 1889.

It looks like this (look to left).

It is a play and you're all in it! I'll be having open auditions on Friday at the Cowgirl between 9:00 and 2:00 and you're all invited! 

PG-13

I have a friend who is a documentary film maker. A few years ago, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She decided to document her entire process and has wound up with a lot of material. She's gotten to the point where she needs help with funding to be able to move forward with the project and came up with the beginnings of an idea to help make it happen. Phase 1: A group of woman got together to make breast prints which will be used for various fundraising projects... 

Phase 2: I come up with an idea for project number one...

There is no  specific phase 3 at this point, but it's a thought process well under way!

I may add more info. at a later date and call for ideas, input, contributions etc. but my friend felt like we aren't quite ready for that yet.

Lots to think about!

going away letters

When I moved back to New Mexico in 2005 I was leaving behind everything that had taken over ten years to become familiar. I left a marriage and a career and all my friends to come to a place where the only two people I knew were moving. I was excited and ready to make the move but also terrified! Before I left I had a "going away" party and asked my friends to bring sealed letters which I would open on an as needed basis should I feel sad or lonely in my new life. I opened a few of the letters shortly after I arrived but for some reason resisted them because even when I sometimes felt sad or lonely I was sure that there would be a time when I would feel more sad and more lonely and I wanted to have the letter when that day came. 

But then time started passing and I forgot about the letters until recently when a friend asked if I had opened all of them.

I found the large manilla envelope that I kept them in and decided to open them all at once. They made me feel very happy and a little nostalgic but even more than that, they made me recognize a pattern in my ways.

I have been known to buy the most beautiful, exotic, expensive piece of fruit, bring it home, display it on my table or counter in a pretty bowl or  a perfect plate and then proceed to watch it rot because I don't want to eat it because I don't want it to be gone. Or sometimes I might save my most delicious smelling bubble bath for so many years that eventually it loses it's sweet smell and turns funny, like old vegetable oil. Or similarly, I have a thing about being stocked up on toilet paper (to the tune of like, a minimum of 8 rolls) at any given time because I don't want to ever not have toilet paper when I need it....

I could go on and on with these neurosis. But I think it's pretty clear already.

So  after reading all the letters I realized that they would always be there for me to read should I ever feel sad or lonely so it was silly to have waited for so long to look at them. And then I thought about the fruit and the bath bubbles and the toilet paper and that whole absurd way of thinking about the good stuff and I decided life is just too short and that life is also so generous

with beauty that I don't need to worry about running out...