on the radio years ago i heard an interview of an indian who was involved in wounded knee years before - i forget his name - who lived by himself in a trailer on the reservation. the interviewer asked him how he spent his time. he replied that he spent much of the time sitting and staring at the wall. there was a pause, and then he added something to the effect that he was comfortable doing this and it could be much worse.

staring at the wall

i am coming to the realization that this is something we could all benefit from. so from time to time i will be sitting quietly.

after, of course, i kleen the house, paint a picture, read parts of several books, and work on my ever evolving list of things to do.

well i'm back in the saddle again. it takes me much longer to regroup after a trip than it used to. if i can kleen the house and get to the grocery store i'll feel like a citizen.

i'm taking online course which should prove interesting if i can keep up with it. (i can, question is will i?)

highly recommend you check this out. personally i think it would do well as zuperbowl ad:

Thanks for the Memories

finally made it back to aville, got snowed out yesterday. it was good to see everyone down the mountain. harry if that was you sent me a zipped file do it again i deleted it. i can receive mail but it takes cartwheels to reply or send so bear with me, i'll dive into it tomorrow.

sunday nnon. snow ice and sleet. heading for asheville in a moment. hope to land on the other side between storms. see ya.

[later:] nope, not today.

made it to george aka ray o'hanlon's sendoff at karma's. travis, ludie, ray aka rock, mike, demian and others of a bygone era present, good to see everyone.

a lot of ray's family were present, fun to see how much they respected him, probably for the same reasons that gave them problems years ago.

met harry, who went to grade school with ray. harry, email me, i'd like to chat.

and i hope mike and i might begin a harmless easy excercise to "see what happens".

snowing outside, ice and sleet on the way. slept in my rolling yurt the last two nights, very comfortable, no problem. i'm ready, already all ready, ready for to fade, maybe spend time in camper under snow reading radience of being by dr. allen combs, highly recommended.

leaving at noon today for chapel hill. i'll spend tonight and maybe tomorrow night with my son eli, melissa, and lily. sunday night with daughter nicole, doug, and corbin.

i will be attending george o'hanlon's memorial service in raleigh sat. afternoon.

back monday afternoon.

thursday AM, good nite's sleep last night. i have decided to go to george's memorial service in raleigh sat, so i will be driving to chapel hill friday afternoon and be back here monday afternoon. i am on DSL now, so far so good, today i will fool with outlook xpress (on a mac) to send/receive email without hassel.

my dad's 85th bday was yesterday, happy bday dad. i sent him retouched ancient photos, one of which i'll post here if i get the time. [later: i got the time.] this is photo of my dad, me, and a ghost dog, probably taken in san antonio, i would say 42 or 43.

started dreamweaver online course, looks like fun.

and while all this was happening i kept hearing a bush-like voice in the distance, babbling slowly and nonstop. like chinese water drop torture.

tuzday evening. seems like i got a little done this morning --- now i remember: book club discussion. very nice to be accepted as myself into a small group of thoughtful and curious folks.

then i lost it, rushing to couseling for nonexisting appoinment, then coming back to a strange egg experience.

which was this: i have been adding a little egg yolk to watercolors to see what happens. but i have trouble separating the yolk. so i went into hyperfocus (i thought) and many eggs later had perfect yolk in container. i immediately grabbed jar of clorox bleach and filled the container up with it.

when what i set out to do was add a drop of vinegar.

this initiated a long series of thoughts and images on my part, the upshot of which is that i need to pay more attention to my friends. how i got there i do not know, but i did get there.

dreary sunday morning. spent yesterday alone, puttering, brooding, but lots of friendly phone calls. very sleepless night.

but oh boy, i'm ready to do it again today. already all ready.

finished a "failed" painting. i'll put it up later today. (see below). i aim to finish an oil today. then 3 more that have been laying around. after that i'll have a clean slate and start again, stumbling beyond the beginner's stage.

installed DSL, quite an improvement, but a lot of tweaking left.

or maybe i'll just stay in bed.

yesterday i got the news of two deaths.

brenner mehl, a longtime Baba lover and lately a member of the community in asheville died. there were many of us here in town who looked forward to getting to know him a little better.

george o'hanlon died recently in an altercation with a moving vehicle in fayeteville. george was brilliant, mecurial, and could be a handful. he was a member of a small circle of friends that went through many changes in our youth.

a prayer for both: rest in the peace that passes understanding.

on a lighter note, another of that small circle above has a new book out: go to Art Lester

way to go art, there is a few twitches left in those of us who are left.

more stuff & nonsense.::
Salon.com News | AP: Gov't to overhaul employee drug tests

meanwhile i think i'm hooked up to DSL, but it may not be quite ... right yet.

today's glyph

yesterday was a beautiful sunny winter day, altho my diasynchronic meta-rhythms were a little off. had pleasant break for lunch with richard, the delimma of political activity on the part of us american humans came up (see below).

in the afternoon i was in the sway of magnetic fatigue, nap was right around the corner, when everything flipped and jill and i drove to old fort to visit sam. most pleasant interlude. by nine or ten i was wide awake. felt like a delayed full moon jerking me around, finally got some sleep around four.

the question of acting politically for me and i assume not a few others seems to go like this: i want to contribute to the effort of reversing the invisible coup-d'etat that we are living through, but am strangely resistant to engaging with it. why?

i think it is a varient of the mood that i was encoutering even before 9.11: it's too big, massive, and untouchable to be effected by those of us in the machine.

example: the hoo-ha over WMD. in my opinion it does not matter if they are found or not. because the common censensus has been all along that of course it was a set up. ditto with the new book by ex-treasury dept head revealing planning for the war begun way before 9.11. we all figured as much. (see Plastic: O'Neill Claims Bush Disengaged, Administration Planned Iraq Invasion Early.)

so as far as the culpability of bush and friends kidnapping our government, i do not think any fact exposed in the future concerning, for example, no-bid contracts, the corporate tax structure, various mistruths used along the way, etc. will matter.

the public already knows.

so the trick will be for somebody, anybody, to articulate thru the closed circuit of the media, not what this bunch is doing, but why it matters that they be stopped. how to do this with the media is under lock and key is the task.

remember that slow, languishing song by john lennon, i'm so tired? i do and am.

found this gem wrapped up in a daedalus catalog that arrived today:

talent discarded
wisdom wiped away
you return to foolishness
no desire to leave traces of bungling
to a world of dust
from
a quiet room
the poetry of zen master jakushitsu

veeeerrrryyyy slow. the cold, the winter light. snowed last night. suspended animation. like the eye of a hurricane. silence. no movement.

i love january. hibernation equals regrouping. bears know.

ok ok in an attempt to keep up with this thing i will post more often. otherwise this blog seems to be heading south, i mean going stale. it fact it probably will anyway.

so it�s time to revamp modern peasant. not so much to keep up with the movement of things, as to be comfortable with keeping up with nothing.

today i heard someone interviewed on �fresh air�, a tax expert. he was talking about how the system works today. and it explained why we all should vote against bush.

as far as the question below, some possibilities have occurred to me:

forlorn
forget
forfit
fortune
forbidden
for keeps
for fun
for sooth