Watermark

Lila Faylor statue ~ Icarus

My 30 Day Photo Challenge Flickr Set

march flowers

My 30 Day Photo Challenge Flickr Set

Kitty Communities

Spike and Boo have finally joined catster [click the images to go to their pages]:

In no time at all, we've had several friendship overtures. Very friendly creatures, cats.

The cats have also insisted that I join the Cat Lover's Community; put themselves on the Cat Blogger's Frappr Map; and sent their photos in to be added to the Carnival of the Cats banner. Clearly, they feel they are not getting enough attention.

Of course, I have been promising to get around to all this for several months now. I believe that if one is going to procrastinate, one should do so for a long time.

More critter communities:

Friday Ark
I and the Bird
Carnival of the Cats
Carnival of the Dogs
Circus of the Spineless
Weekend Cat Blogging

spring flowerbed

My 30 Day Photo Challenge Flickr Set

Blogger Code

Via Radio Free Blogistan:

B7 D++ T- K+ S+ F+ I++ O++ X E L+ C-- Y4 R+ W- P++ M4 N H

This questionnaire is a kick! They offer three versions of the code; this is The Bling Badge, which, as the winner of The Writer's Edge Blog Bling Award (see sidebar) is the obvious choice for me. Sadly, this one is too wide for the sidebar.

Yes, I know, if I were a real geek, I'd know how to fix that. But I'm not. I only play one on the internets.

Wednesday Afternoon

My 30 Day Photo Challenge Flickr Set

Snapshot 22 March 02006

MP3 File

We are between the Chaste
and the Seed Moons, between
Sap and Grass. Winter lingers

on the dark side of the road,
high in the mountains; but here
in the valley, spring touches

the liquid face of the pond, buds
on the birches. Long friends
share stories like knitted scarves,

unravelled, rewoven; nothing
lost or forgotten, nothing unused.
Bamboo needles, silver hairpins,

a hospital balcony, a death bed.
Brutal family holidays, road trips
in deep snow. We pass back

and forth between us, gold ear-
rings; apricots and grapes; what
we know and what we don't.

black locust

My 30 Day Photo Challenge Flickr Set

Black & White Boo

My 30 Day Photo Challenge Flickr Set

The Artist's Way ~ Week 10: Recovering a Sense of Self-Protection

In this chapter, Cameron talks about blocks -- the whats, whys and hows. She talks about the usuals -- food, work, and sex -- and the less recognized:

For others, an obsession with painful love places creative choice outside their hands. Reaching for the painful thought, they become instant victims rather than feel their own considerable power.

I've been in that place. Though I must observe -- it provides lots of material. This is a justified complaint of those who are not writers against those of us who are: everything is material.

. . . note carefully that food, work, and sex are all good in themselves. It is the abuse of them that makes them creativity issues.

Interestingly, to me, she doesn't mention shopping in this chapter. Or cigarettes, though I suppose they fall into the drug category. When I was working and had disposable income, nothing would soothe me better than a cruise through the antique shops, followed by a nice smoke and a lazy -- one might almost say creative -- process of deciding where to place the new treasure(s). Oh, for the good old days...

As we become aware of our blocking devices -- food, busyness, alcohol, sex, other drugs -- we can feel our U-turns as we make them. The blocks will no longer work effectively. Over time, we will try -- perhaps slowly at first and erratically -- to ride out the anxiety and see where we emerge. Anxiety is fuel. We can use it to write with, paint with, work with. [emphasis mine]

Oh, yes. Sit with it. So easily said; done with such difficulty.