June in purple, blue and green 

Doe-Eyed Children of Satan.

It wasn't that long a trip. Just from Boston to the Berserkshires. But I always have an enormously absurd time on the road with my favorite driving companion. He is a Sparkmonkey, too. Maybe moreso than me, onaccounta he is also part Magpie, which means not only is he wired to process at warp speed in many directions at once, but he is also apparently adventure oriented and pushes boundaries like no one elses business, but I digress...he finds cool things to do, or say, or be.

"So, did I *ever* tell you about what I used to do with hotdogs when I was a kid?"

Now, that, my friends, coming from him, is, well, it is a frightening thing.

Mind in the gutter I shuddered to think aloud what glorious gifts to the Altar of Hotdog were given. And, knowing him as I do, my snicker wiggled out of my tightly pursed-for-safety-sake lips.

"Do I want to hear the answer to that question?" my response snickered at me from behind a huge smile. He was driving and couldn't really see how funny this really was. I mean, for me it is nearley juice-snorting-out-yer-nose silly.

"See, my family wasn't a chip family. No. They were a Stick family, so I took the potato stix and shoved them into the hot dog and then ate em."

Okay, so I am thinking...Ow..catheter thoughts are careening through my mind while at the same time laughter was pulling through my chest and rolling out my mouth. Sick funny things are like that, sometimes. Sorta like graveside laughter.

Then, I gots to thinking:

So did he stick em on the outside, too? You know, so it looked like a porcupine? I asked.

He answered, and I do not remember what he said, cause a beautiful deer crossed the road in front of us, bounding away into everpresent greenery on the bumpy back road to Camp High Rock.

"Damned Doe Eyed Children of Satan!!! How dare they cross the road in front of us!!!"

But it really was cute.

No. Really it was.

In Two Short Hours

My life is going to change. School will be out for the summer. I remember the way this day used to feel, as a child. It felt like the Mother of All Fridays. Endless possibility burgeoning at the outlines of capability. Pools. Ponds. Beaches. Naps. Graham crackers. Fluffnutters. Older, then...Gin and Tonics on the porch with dad, playing backgammon...tanning by Buzzards Bay.

Now, it means the end of my alone time. I am the cruise director for the summer. And the therapist, cook, maid, bank, taxi and tutor. Yipes. That sucks baby wipes. Okay, not all of it. But it *is* daunting. Especially with little money. Perhaps we should play Little House on the Prairie for the summer. Wear gingham dresses and play with gourds and corn husk dolls. Oh. That would work ever-so-well with the teenager. Ah. No. Unless said corn husk doll listens to hip-hop and can help the teeny straighten the back of her hair. And go to the store and buy her some new razors, you know the kind-with-the-soap already attached? (Fuck Jewel, it was a stupid song anyway. Intuition, my ass!)

I have spent the past few days in a flurry of creative efforts. Making wonderful cards for Pan and Skydancer, doing Paintshop Pro work, photography and a sortza other things. I felt the rotating door starting to make smaller the window of opportunity for such luxuries.

Still, I intend to set apart time each day for myself, a little anyway. And the girls have reading time, every. day. So. Help. Me. Gawd.

9:47...now less than 120 minutes away.

The heart quickens, the breath comes faster. The End Is Near.

That's Just The Way It Is...Some Things Will Never Change.

This is the way it is today:

I am wearing some really old and baggy cargo shorts I found last summer. They are soft and big and wey-cool. And my Woolrich socks, green, with hiking shoes. And I am jazzed on some really good MochaLatte which bathes this New England Early Summer day in a brilliant zig zaggy light.

And I am glad to be me. Today. There is a vibrancy to the world outside, a certain just-behind-the-visual buzzing. The sky is cerulean and the wind caresses just-right, also just-behind-the-visual. The muses of creativity are pawing at my inner artiste, meowling for attention. Feed Me. Pet Me. Play with me. It is a constant tinitus of the soul.

Ring On.

This woman says she is Aunt Myrna...She is Whack. She reeks of Shalimar and her gold rings jingle when she tells me about her trip to Athens 

Stumbled I upon a Beauty Rare... 

Super Silly Us...

My teen daughter came out of the kitchen this morning holding teaspoons under her eyes. It looked really funny. I asked what she was doing and she told me that "..it helps the sleepybags under yer eyes".

As we were watching TV this morning, all about Reagan's farwellpalooza, I mentioned that this was a man who sold arms to Sadaam Hussein. Her, serious, reply:

"HUMAN arms??!!!" I explained to her that arms meant weapons...

And then, when the announcer mentioned something about Ronald Reagan's period at the White House, she said:

"His PERIOD????????WTF?"

Not so silly:

Billy Bumperfixer says my Toyota ain't worth fixin. Boo. Hiss. So I am buying Skydancers Mazda for 600.00 on Tuesday just before they leave for California. I could not rent a car for the summer for that much, and I know it will get me through until Fall, at the least. By then I will have a better handle on what my financial status will be, what with school and all.

Getting ready, joyously!, for Earth Drum Council Weekend. My air mattress met with a kitty claw this winter and I am now trying (somewhat in vain) to patch. Grrmmm. If I had a car I would go get another mattress, but, alas, the burro she is rigid in death.

I am thinking of showing my portfolio:(http://hometown.aol.com/firespiral/myhomepage/artgallery.html)to the the Starbux in Andover. They have a rotating gallery there, and I think it would be WheyKewl to have my work up on a wall somewhere so the java-zippy uppercrusties can peruse my pixels, and maybe even find their wallet itching a little.

Who knows? The Shadow knows!

B-B-B-Benny and the Jets: Anxiety meds and coffee.

It was the longest three seconds I have lived through in many years. Rain-slicked road. Cars stopping short. Me, wheels locked in brake, sliding, slowly...one...two...three...BAM!

As you can see from the last photoblog, my Toyota needs some dental work. Lots of it. Maybe too much of it, I dunno. Billy Bumperfixer shall take a gander at it next week.

This morning I woke up in a mild to moderate panic, anxiety attack on the horizon (not unusual for me sometimes) and yet tired at the same time. I thought about that steaming cup-o-joe that was waiting for my Benevolent Maker Ability. And I thought about that Buspar (anxiolytic) tablet, waiting for me patiently in the yellow bottle in my cabinet.

Then I thought about uppers and downers.

Then I thought about Benny and the Jets. Onaccounta Benny sounds like benzodiazapines, and Jets, well, coffee, d'oh. Made me giggle.

I am poor, but I am alive. Coffee is a good thing. And Buspar rox the igloo as far as I am concerned.

Note to self: It is gonna be okay, No. Really, it is.

See Sparkmonkey's car. 

Early Morning Spatial Reality:Sometimes I want an SUV Life.

I wonder sometimes, in awe, at the contra-dance that is the morning drop-off line of cars at the Middle School. Three grades drop off at three different entrances in the back of the school. Two lanes, one rotary, many cars,kids with poster boards, back packs, girls in short skirts in the rain, and moms and dads some just-barely-awake.

People seem to grok the pace and policy most mornings, and it is an intricate web of "You go...no, YOU go's". People are *actually* polite. Go Figure. Now, in Pittsburgh, this would not be an amazing thing. Boston, um, it should be written in the front pages of the Globe:

"North Andover Residents found to be Polite in Early Morning Shuffle."

This morning, as I was do-si-do'ing with an SUV I caught glimpse of a dad-hand holding a commuter mug of coffee, wedding ring glinting in the non-existent morning sun. Wipers swishing back and forth, I found myself in midst of a poignant moment.

Some days I want an SUV life. With a "nice" man, who wears a wedding ring and holds his coffee mug on the way to dropping the kids off at school. He probably made me some coffee and brought it to me before he left in the herd of backpacks and squealing, whining preteens.

My rattling 1989 Toyota Camery bumbles into the lot bearing the bumper stickers that read:

"Well Behaved Women Rarely Make History" and "Carefully disguised as a Responsible Adult"

If it were not for the Hip-Hop station blaring on the radio I doubt my teenager would even allow me to enter the four-block radius. She hates my post-hippy-yet-well-educated-massage-therapist-to-be life. She wants a life more like Dad's, resplendent with grand pianos, fancy cars, trips to Tuscany.

I really don't want the SUV. Just the guy with the coffee cup, someone who is willing to invest in the love of his life as much and as deeply as this man is willing to invest in debt...someone to drive my kids to school, make me coffee.

Maybe the fact that I only have 500 bux in the bank after paying my $1,400 rent is getting to me.

Damn ambition.

Damn it to hell.

Stamens and Pistils and Rocks, Oh My!