dad is on his way to prescott, fred is helping neice anne find a cat, i'm struggling with windoze. going to try a kwik watercolor to give to kendra, nephew jon's new wife, for her birthday tommorow.

everyone but me went to see borat yesterday. universal thumbs down. i stayed here and took fotos in the dark.

plan: fly to nc monday and take a deep breathe.

yesterday was pleasant holiday for me, stuck close to sister jane's, traditional holiday fare, struggled all day with elevated blood sugar, finally changed out everything on pump and got straight about bed time (9 pm for this old soul i mean man).

for the first time in my life i am maybe appreciatting the weather in phoenix. beautiful skies. before, when i would be here in the cool months it always felt tepid, i missed the snap of cold weather.

funny thing: since i have been here i have begun dreaming again. i have not experienced any dreams for fifteen years or so, don't know why, maybe meds, but i kind of miss them. i was a great dreamer in my youth and still remember some of the big dreams i had.

in prescott last week i slowly realized i was dreaming - at night - again. last night i dreamed my daughter nicole had become a rock and roll diva and i was in and out of strange subcultural crowds looking for her.

how nice to have a surprise cruise thru the kosmos each night.

going for hike in an hour, lasts an hour and a half, never sure how i'll do on these outings, but one thing for sure: i'll keep walking until i stop.

it's thxgiving day in arizona and i'm pecking away on my sister's pc. spent a week or so with my dad in prescott which is a mile high in the mountains and enjoyed it. for some reason i found it much easier to take daily 30 - 60 minute walk there than aville which is a great town to stroll in but one in which for some strange reason i feel hemmed in by the houses. maybe a little of the desert rat in me emerging.

i read the arizona weekly tabloid last night, equivaent to mountain xpress in aville. but very different. new times. i had a friend once long ago when i was exiled to phoenix who was the art editor. anyway reading it from my present perspective as curmudgeon hick, it was so trashy i couldn't stand it. every page either woman with few clothes or scads of electronic gee-gaws for sale or both.

it got me to thinking: during my so called adult life i've lived a lot of places, and only two were cities that i appreciatted: athens greece (but not in the summer) and denver colorado (but not today). maybe throw in boulder in the 60's.

now that there are so few places left that are not cities of one sort or another, what to do?

when i figure it out i won't let you know. but don't worry: i won't figure it or anything else out.

got one watercolor done last week and a bunch of photos. finally read the manual and discovered some capabilities that i was unaware of.

so iv'e got 4 days left in phoenix before i fly home monday. might paint, like to take some hikes i never took when i lived here, maybe upload a picture or two. thinking about my annual xmas card which i will not have long to do when i get back. there is a piano here so i'll squeeze in some playing, i've been pretty good about 30 - 60 minutes practice the last year.

what a relief to blog again. i guess i'm addicted.

more later.

i guess my post of a couple of days ago took. it's friday, i'm getting a few things organized, painting a picture and taking lots of digital photos. i brought along some manuals i have never had the time or energy to read, one for camera, one for insulin pump, and one for emergency cell fone i bought after truck stranded me outside of aville a couple of months ago. going to wonder down to whisky row in a few minutes to look at a gallery eric and i missed the other day. otherwise just sort of... slowing up - or down - which is a good thing. a rock for t is looking for me but it hasn't found me yet. i'll be leaving for phoenix wednesday, turkey day at mi hermosa, maybe a trip to tuscon to see aunt rosemary, maybe a trip to imax theatre. oh, and i'm reading absolute friends by john la carre, published in 2005. not his best work, in fact it's pretty weird. course i'm only halfway through it. later.

in prescott az at the library. the rehersal dinner for wedding was friday evening at a place called hermosa inn - or something similar - an adobe ranch in paradise vally which really felt very far away from the megalopolis called phoenix. paradise valley is an up up upscale area and known for very few lights, so it has the dark night air i appreciate so much.

the wedding of my nephew jon and kendra was sat. at the phoenix country club, another old institution, exclusive etc. outdoor ceremony. the reception followed, maybe 200 folks, very pleasant and fun, talked to a lot of folks some i knew, some knew me, and all were painless. old and young.

i especially was surprised and pleased to find so many of the folks were differant, diverse, many different points of view but no ideologues; underneath ran a strong currant of tolerence for the "other".

daughter nicole flew out early sunday morning. her twin brother eric, myself and my dad then drove to prescott. eric's old friend - and mine - john ate lunch with us and we hung out in general. eric drove to the airport tuesday, my dad rode with him - he had an appt with the VA for hearing aid tweak, rode shuttle back.

i had a very fatiguing day yesterday, doing nothing much, travel etc caught up w/ me.

came to library to check email but can't remember login for webmail so i'll try again tomorrow.

meanwhile taking photos and think i'll begin a watercolor today.;

in phx, will leave in an hour for rehersal dinner. haven't even begun to figure out election results but jd hayworth - ex asheville sportscaster and blowhard - is hanging on for recount or some difficult mathematical activity.

i remain convinced that the real struggle for a political governance that includes human/soul value begins now. pay attention.

i'll post when i can while away. i'll start trip on election day, highway 40 here i come and there i go.

i've got until 2 tomorrow to get "it" together for an extended trip west. the miraculous will occur and i'll be ready to go by then. or not. whatever, i will go.

mose allison has an open rehearsal today at 4, i'm going to make a point to drift down to the diana wortham theatre, lean back, and take a time out. i guess mose is mostly unknown in the millenial world. i first saw him somewhere in washington dc during late 50's early 60's. i think he was playing grand piano solo at that time.

flash forward 40 years. he played in some small semi-upscale restaurant in tempe az. a co-worker of mine, older than myself, took learning how to play the electric bass seriously, and was taking lessons from a local musician. at this time mose was trucking around some portable digital keyboard and, like chuck berry, played with a local pickup group where ever he went, and the local bass player was always his pick when he came to town. it was great. mose played up a storm and played a lot of his new stuff, which was very ironic in tone, the words sung were very wry. the bass player said he was really difficult to follow, no set list, arrows and scribbles on a napkin was all he had to go by. mose himself looked and played great. he had quit all bad habits and was down to one glass of wine a day, no smoking, and took a mile run on the beach every day.

old and in the way? no way. i hope to see him at the rehearsal. good karma.

last night. shot of the moon taken from t's deck. i was fooling around w/ "nightframing - night shot" feature of sony dscv3. calls for long exposure and i didn't use tripod. weird stuff.

i'm hanging in there tho have had better days.

i looked at this site the other day on someone's pc and saw slippage in tbales, misalignment and other signs of amatuer coding. i may simlplify and re group when and if i get time in december. another thing that has been bugging me is that the imagr archive is full of pictures that i used in past posts. so they are small in size. i'll have to rescan, relive, and otherwise refool around with them so when you click on the thumbnail you get a decent sized image.

anything else i'd like to say? go democrats, throw the rascals out, get involved with the political process as it strands itself on a very small island, transend and include the process. the solution to the problem of the broken institution of politics lies outside that domain, but attention must be paid to play, as well as it's source, the dream of reality.

(to be continued.)

water lilies it ain't. my compulsory fooling around this morning, even tho i am very pushed to do too many things and get on may way west. this is from failed experiment yesterday for wedding gift, i figured out a whole new way of looking and that activity is done.

last night i checked in with asheville drinking liberally and then went to a grass root's progressive organization which took place in year old indian restraint here in aville, mela's, great stuff, good food, 3 local candidates on the bill, nice folks. it's enough to make you feel good about the bad. grass roots is the only way i see that the terrible will not happen, because it is essentially outside political hopeless domain. not an institution but people.

of course any affinity group, where personal knowledge is the key, is pulled towards the institutional by societal forces today - not to mention the necessity of dealing with institutions - but these folks (us) must somehow keep the inner core personal if anything is to change for the better.

Revealed: U.S. Soldier Killed Herself After Objecting to Interrogation Techniques
"The true stories of how American troops, killed in Iraq, actually died keep spilling out this week. Now we learn, thanks to a reporter's FOIA request, that one of the first women to die in Iraq shot and killed herself after objecting to harsh 'interrogation techniques.' "

the thing about this photo is that i took it on a twilight walk up sunset mountain. the light had faded into a low glow and i played around with sony "nightframing" and "nightshot". i'm amazed i got anything. a little artifact-y and i probably unsharp masked a bit more than was necessary.

so what else is new? everything, of course. otherwise it would still be yesterday. of course, if it were, everything would still be new.

woke up at 5 and realized the wedding gift i had been working on for my nephew and fiance wasn't working. so i spent until 1:30 working on another, interrupted by doctor appointment. i'll know tomorrow if new present is presentable.

meanwhile i'm in the middle of packing for a long trip and the old attention condition has got me dithering in a thousand directions it's quite amazing that it will all come together in time if i don't get in the way of the process.

got truck back if i didn't already mention it, $175 worth, runs like a top.

i had some art supplies due and finally phoned them, glad i did, they had somehow dropped a stitch. so thy are being sent to my dad's house. i had no choice.

gotta go, clean and pack for the rest of the day, check in with communists at drinking liberally at 7.

as they say around these parts, "baaa..." (bye for now).

photo i took last evening in front of domicile.

very busy next few days preparing for departure. got my truck back from jason yesterday, runs 100% better. i am a little skeptical about burning off the carbon topside which he did with some sort of additive, cleaned valves, valve cover etc. i've always avoided additives. so i have a little more time to investigate purchasing new wheels. i've decided on a hummer. i know the gas mileage is low, but it might come in handy when the roads disappear.

thinking seriously of installing OS X on my g3 running 500 megahertz g4 zif chip. if you are my friend please stop me.

packing for weeks away is tricky for me, i really resist the whole thing. i take lots of meds, whole back up for insulin pump, and now stuff for false teeth. check and double check all this stuff because without it i can run into real unpleasantness. kit includes manuals, replacement parts. i just got replacement for blood glucose meter yesterday, working fine, have to send old meter back today, along with pictures i owe folks.

i'm assembling small portable watercolor bundle also because 3 weeks is a long time to go without splashing around pigments.

after i dropped off truck i walked 2 miles back to home, very pleasant, no problem. Instituting daily 30 minute walk right now. i walk and talk better when the weather is cool, cold, or frozen.

when the election occurs i'll be in arizona, a very different neck of the woods. i already voted, straight democratic ticket. not because they will save the country, the past 6 years they have blown it for the same reasons bush has blown it: too isolated, too rich, too greedy. members of the oligarchy which wouldn't be so bad if the oligarchy was allowed to wonder around in the world most of us inhabit, but they are not allowed to do this. somehow it contaminates them and their fellow oligarchics can smell it.

i voted the way i did because it might serve as a small bump on the road the corporate owners of our world are traveling. a small delay. which can then with luck be used to derail the whole anachronistic bubble. so if the dems win - and there are no republikan tricks - take a deep breath and get ready to engage, be involved, transcend and include, put yourself on the line, you have been robbed of your birthright, your time, and most likely your soul is in hiding, hunkering down. and as adverse to confrontation as i am, living on an earth owned by greedheads is non-optional for me and you too i bet whether you know it or not.