When you leave Galveston headed south
the Gulf transforms beneath you.
Dark water takes on light,
drinks the sapphire sky
and as you pass The Abacos
you glimpse the glittered seabed
powder-white and pure,
sprinkled with fishes and anemones.
At Hope Town the lighthouse
waves you on with spokes of golden firelight
and sends you safely southward
to warmer waters still.
At night, the perfect dome above
is a black sea unto itself,
speckled with islands of sparkling light,
scattered like skipping stones.
Beneath your feet, below the teak,
the ancient waters pull and flow
with magic and strength
far beyond the influence of any man’s hand.
Shut your eyes and time falls away
in the caress of salt wind
and the descant of the deep.
There is no dearer harbor,
no more treasured cove.
This sweet sea, bearer of dreams,
claims the hearts of some.
Consider yourself blessed
if you are one.

I love a monkey on a bike.

77 degrees today! Birds chirping!!~~~~~~~~~~
S U N S H I N E!! In the 80s tomorrow~that's the way I like it! It's not really winter, is it? MIL sent me a stack-o-books. I feel rich! Also, the brass charms I ordered arrived. They are perfect for making smaller pendants and earrings. Oh, delight!!!

enjoy the ride

fly to...

if you don't have Google Earth, get it. If you have a crappy computer, get a new one so you can get Google Earth. I mean it. Get it. http://earth.google.com/

AOL polls

Which way is Bush headed?
Down, he's a lame duck
77%
Up, he can still accomplish his goals
23%
Total Votes: 91,310


What rating would you give him overall?
Poor
67%
Good
12%
Fair
10%
Excellent
10%
Total Votes: 96,057

mini book chat~or see you at the Horn of Zeese

The Horn of Zeese... I shit you not!
Little tiny books... how cute, but not our topic for today. Just wanted to make a quick mention of Prep ~Curtis Sittenfeld~ which I finished a while back. I think this book is nearly brilliant. Slipped into this coming-of-age-tale are some moments of jarring, resounding insight. Sittenfeld deftly captures the feeling of apartness that her main character cannot escape. Honestly I can't even recall the ending, but there are paragraphs from this surprising book that will be with me for a long, long time. ~a single glistening bubble for this fine work... on the standard scale it would get a 5, but the solitary bubble drifting towards the clouds is more apropos IMHO.
I finished Anne Lamott's Blue Shoe which was a big ole dud. I know Lamott is a recovering alcoholic, Christian, etc, but her rather random Jesusy-ness was just plain weird to me. The book gulped up huge chunks of time in a paragraph and then went on the describe the seasons in great detail... mostly autumn, which the author seems to have a fascination with, but events like Christmas (in a home with two young children) were barely mentioned. The big romance of the main character seemed cool and exhausting. No fire, no fun... ugh. And the title... that little blue shoe drove me nuts. Someone always has it shoved in a pocket and I'm thinking it's a baby shoe. Only near the end do we find out that it is a crackerjack toy. Shit! I was always wondering how the hell this 3 inch shoe fit where it did. Someone should have fixedthat in the eding process. So, can you tell I wasn't fond of this ramble? 1 small bubble for some rare passages that unfortunately served to make the rest of the book seem even more disjointed (much like this review minus the good stuff... sigh).
Currently I'm reading Boonville by Robert Mailer Anderson. Oh my! I like this book! It has it's own dialect. I'm about 45 pages in and it is proving to be a real treat. Anderson is clever, irreverent and funny as hell. And Boonville... my God! I think this might be a real place and that scares the crap out of me! More later... but I'm thinking this might be a tub-filler!

non-standard love song...

http://hype.non-standard.net/track/51815

screw you, winter!

Monday: Mainly cloudy. Not as cold. High 51F. Winds SE at 5 to 10 mph.
Monday night: Cloudy with drizzle developing overnight. Low 42F. Winds SE at 5 to 10 mph.
Tuesday: A few showers early with overcast skies later in the day. High 59F. Winds SSE at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 30%.Tuesday night: Mainly cloudy.. Low 48F. Winds ENE at 5 to 10 mph.
Wednesday (24 hours): Occasional showers possible. Highs in the mid 50s and lows in the mid 30s.Thursday (24 hours): More sun than clouds. Highs in the mid 60s and lows in the upper 30s.
Friday (24 hours): Mix of sun and clouds. Highs in the upper 60s and lows in the mid 40s.

Save your magic.
Hush your incantations.
Spend your money somewhere else.
Bring only the currency of flesh and bone,
a skeleton key, a glass of water.
Shut your eyes now and remember-
I am easily amazed.

28 degrees...

Buffett's swing... Cane Garden Bay, Tortola, BVI

my swing... Virgin Gorda, Tortola, BVI

my brain is such a nut!

Okay... The Dallas Morning News has an article today about the fabled city of Timbuktu... a real place in Africa that has spawned many legends and myths, and some amazing true stories. Dallas based author Frank Kryza has written a book about Timbuktu, thus the article. Soooo... as I'm reading this I think of Tippacanoe and Tyler, too. Well, who wouldn't? From there it is only natural to think of Linda Ronstadt belting out "I've been from Tucson to Tucumcari, Tehachapi to Tonopah..." and so now the lyrics to "Willin'" (a song thatwas on the 8-track I used to listen to driving from Durham to Danville... over & over & over) is STUCK IN MY HEAD! It was not particularly a song I adored, but it seems I know every damn word of it. What is with my brain? There is so much I need to know, want to know... but this is what I keep..."Driven every kind of rig that's ever been made, driven the backroads so I wouldn't get weighed, and if you give me weed, whites and wine and you show me a sign, I'll be willin' to be movin". Now, isn't that useful?

photo for a winter day

The Baths at Virgin Gorda... Tortola, BVI

I was there... I came home...why??

Happy Valentine's Day

Holidays have no pity. ~Montale

http://ladynwavs.com/mystic.html
ahhh... well... there you go.

winter storm watch

Winter, that sly bitch, is indeed planning a visit to north Texas. That predictable slut and her trashy entourage are due in this weekend. I say, "Come on, you blustery whore! Get it over with! We've saved February for you." I honestly wouldn't mind a Dr. Zhivago winter... featuring the young Omar Sharif writing poems with frozen fingers, iced chandeliers, a lush soundtrack. I'd leave the kid with a sitter though. But that's just me. So, the show-off trees that started budding and all the folks who wear shorts in the winter are about to get a frigid ass-kicking. And that is today's weather report.
In other news... Judy might eliminate Mark... blah, blah, blah. I might be persuaded to help or at least create a disturbance to distract possible witnesses. Stay tuned...
Katherine and I have to get our shit together for the banquet which is tomorrow night. Just details... I look forward to hearing more chapters of the Vegas adventure. What a madcap kid! Hilarity nips at her heels. She should do stand-up, I shit you not.
So, today we are off to gather supplies, etc. I will be delighted to put this project to bed. It always seems like a bit of battle.
Let's see... what else? Oh, yeah, I've been wondering about God and mankind and why I'm so screwed up or maybe I'm not, just a little out of sync and would I want to be different because I feel so damn blessed to look at the world through this weird lens that fills me with such hope and wonder... or somesuch bullshit. Just another day with my silly old heart unfurled.

I want an hourglass... like in the the Wizard of Oz. Life in manageable increments... pretty and I really like sand.

why I drink

Insomnia.
Rainy days.
Excessive heat.
Extreme cold.
The right.
The unutterable
that rides constant shotgun,
saying more in silence than
fifty angry prosecutors.
The opening argument
goes on forever.
Finally a recess
when I say
“why, yes…don’t mind if I do.”

what are these things at the ends of my arms?

Do your own hands ever look unfamiliar? You feel them. You know they're yours, still... Maybe it's only me, but that would make me unique and that is beyond absurd. So, okay, let's assume you do fail to recognize your hands at times. Do you ever wonder how those alien fingers found themselves in so many pies?
Ah, lick 'em off and forget about it. Just try.

from "Fatty's Girl"....
Did you ever want something so badly that the wanting became the thing, the very thing, that you had to have? As a child my imagination was legendary. I drew places that I'd never been to, never seen, with astonishing accuracy. I told stories to my little cousins that had them spellbound. I always left them with a cliffhanger and the next time we were together, usually at our grandparents' house, Jesse, Lisa and Bev swarmed me, demanding the next installment.
In early November, when I sat in my room and seriously began my perusal of the Sears Wish Book, there was always an object that captured my desire. The year I was ten my obsession was a round train case with fake travel stickers scattered on the front. As I looked at it in the catalog, it was easy to imagine my hand slipping into the looped handle. I felt the weight of the case, filled with 45 records, a hairbrush, pink nail polish, a chiffon scarf pilfered from my mother's top drawer. I thought of Donna and I sitting under the willow with our cases open, wearing our movie star sunglasses. We'd laugh our Hollywood laughs and toss our hair. For the six weeks between the arrival of the catalog and Christmas morning, the red vinyl case was with me, the wanting of it so sweet and secret. Yes, it was at the top of my wish list and I was certain it would be there, under the tree, but after it was mine, a real thing in my possession, the wanting, the delicious fantasy, would give way to the shared reality. The case would be mine for all to see, but the dream would be irretrievably lost. Knowing how it would play out made my stomach clutch, filled me with a illogical sense of loss. Why on earth, did I want the wanting?
Only when Dewey died, did I realize the true folly of dreams, the danger of wanting. I lost my powers and the economy of emotion was all I really craved. Time and time it slipped through my fingers as I tried to conjure Dewey's face, his presence, for an instant. I knew what was true, that he was no longer ours, that we were a family with an ugly shadow of loss that darkened every place we entered. Still, I tried to capture it, the heavy, false burden of wanting, but even my infamous imagination could not give me even a feather's weight of Dewey.

It's like this...

feels like spring, looks like spring~ but it's not. I don't know why this bothers me so much. We live behind the veil of illusion, and this is only buds and leaves we're talking about. I hate winter. I should be delighted, dancing in the street. But I fear a cold snap, a killing frost. Somebody slap me.
Or not... instead you might lose a few hours (or days) here... http://goldennumber.net/

Vengeance is mine sayeth...

I bragged about my moonroof and now I've got a wacky light problem with my car. That's about right. I tried to repair it with my mind, but my mojo is so weak it is pathetic. So... I turned the damn thing off. I predict another trip to Frisco for repairs. Maybe I'll get to drive that orange Element again. Who thought of that car? It looks like Hitler's car. I doubt Mr. Bean would drive it. I must admit the acoustics are pretty awesome though. Maybe if they provided you with a mask to wear when you drive. I don't know...
I did not watch the State of the Union address last night. Well, that's a lie. I went to the gym and it was on like probably 7 of the 8 tvs... so I SAW some of it, but did not plug in the earphones and LISTEN. The 8th tv was ESPN and people were skiing in a sort of snow/ice covered halfpipe. I am constantly amazed at the things people dream up to risk life and limb. I didn't get that "I-wanna'-do-something-very-physically-dangerous-just-to-prove-I can" gene. Sometimes I'm afraid to cross the street... So, I didn't watch the rah-rah speech and I slept just fine.