mr deltadiva: my lucky seven

7 things I want to do before I die:
1. Publish a novel
2. Leave my current employer for a better position in the world.
3. spend time in Istanbul with deltadiva
4. write a script that becomes a film
5. digitize my journals, begun at the age of 13 and organize my desk
6. Visit the Grand Canyon and the rest of the wild west with dd
7. make an enduring contribution to my community

7 things I cannot do:
1. skydive
2. neglect the needs of our Siamese cat, Miro
3. be twenty again
4. eat whatever I want
5. read a Patricia Cornwell novel
6. give up on the importance of art
7. play the guitar

7 things that attract me to the opposite sex:
1. dimples
2. clear, bright eyes
3. floral dresses
4. the way she moves in cut-off shorts and a t-shirt
5. sun in her hair
6. her mispronounciation of certain words
7. shapely legs

7 things that I say most often:
1. Where is my _____?
2. Miro, Stop!
3. Welcome to the Firehouse.
4. Greetings
5. I need coffee.
6. Sweetheart....
7. Have you eaten?

7 celebrity crushes:
1. Louise Brooks
2. Gillian Anderson
3. Renee Russo
4. Kirsten Scott Thomas
5. Nicole Kidman
6. Cheryl Crow
7. Mimi Rogers/Ellen Barkin

7 people I want to do this:
1. delicate monster
2. swodd tofferd
3. ash
4. andre
5. liz
7. noel

The Political Life of Cats

A very precocious daughter of a friend and part of the local intelligencia confer on the political life of cats. If any of you out there wish to adopt a cat lost in the Mississippi mud after Katrina hit the coast please let me know. A colleague of mine runs a shelter here and she is currently negotiating the transfer of these felines to the Mid-Atlantic region.

seven is my lucky number

7 things I want to do before I die:
1. Create a painting or other work of art that will stand the test of time
2. Become fluent in French.
3. Be understood.
4. Read all the books in our collective library (my husband is a writer...)
5. Organize my life in a way where I don't waste time looking for things
6. Find someone who will appreciate the things we have to give them (we don't have kids)
7. Develop a morning routine

7 things I cannot do:
1. sit in pointless meetings.
2. give up on passion and love.
3. trust anyone completely.
4. put up a good front during irrelevant social occassions.
5. understand how good, otherwise decent people call themselves Republicans and voted for Bush BOTH times.
6. give up on art.
7. throw away things that may be of value to someone else

7 things that attract me to the opposite sex:
1. a generous heart
2. intelligence
3. talent
4. honor
5. loyalty
6. physical dexterity
7. attraction to me

7 things that I say most often:
1. what a bonehead
2. what an asshole
3. Flannery, NO! (our 4 month old kitten from the family farm)
4. No, Mr So and So isn't home. No, I am not Mrs. So and So. May I take a message?
5. When asked for something beyond what has been promised instead of saying yes or no immediately an important advisor in my life taught me to say "I'll see what I can do... "
6. Honey, do you remember who the so and so was the (film, book, article, etc)
7. Miro! (our 10 year old Siamese cat as she tries to whip our new kitten's furr into a new kind of cat food)

7 celebrity crushes:
1. George Clooney
2. Denzel Washington
3. Bruuuuce!
4. Jude Law (he looks a lot like a college friend I adore)
5. Martin Sheen (pre-West Wing)
6. Marlon Brando (pre-Apocalypse Now)
7. Johnny Depp

7 people I want to do this:
1. schaumi
2. anyresemblance
3. foilwoman
4. ash
5. the fozzy bear
7. DM

the real story

I have always loved Sylvia Plath and have always found her husband the poet Ted Hughes to be suspect.

Now I learn that his second wife, the woman he was sleeping with when married to Sylvia, also committed suicide. I have come to the conclusion, based on this, that he would not have a career if he hadn't driven these sensitive women to their end. What a sham.

I'd love to see this exhibition. Perhaps it would give me more empathy. Probably not.

State of the world

This image is a detail from a friend's painting. He is a good painter, a respected painter and one who has sold hundreds more works than anyone I know.

I just learned that he sold his house to pay for his son's college tuition and that he is now living in his studio which he rents for a substantial amount of money. I guess he took the president seriously when he heard no child should be left behind... I wonder how many other good Americans sell their homes to insure their children get the best education possible?

survival strategies

Tuesday morning I will be meeting a friend/colleague for coffee. I am not looking forward to this rendevous. This is a person who has a great deal of power in the small world I live in. Something has come between us and I am at a loss as to what to do about it.

I will be asked "How are you?"
I could answer: Well, pretty lousy, really...and if I shared why it wouldn't change anything. I would be told something other than what was is exactly true. I woud be told what is believed would be best for me to hear rather than what is real and that will only worsen what is becoming a very fractured friendship.

Its hard, sometimes, having friends who are older, in the same field of endeavor. There is an invisible competetive wall that impairs sincere empathy, joy, etc. I hate it.

All in all, I am coming to the conclusion that artists can be tiresome and I am having a very difficult time. If not a real colleague/friend, then I would love to find a true mentor that I could devote myself to and learn from. Even an agent! Anyone that still has genuine faith in their work and even the work I am doing would suffice. I seem to have lost my art mojo and the genuine support of my friends and peer group. Its a crisis I have witnessed and counseled many friends through but I don't seem to know anyone that can help me get through this. Some of the ones who could have moved on to other worlds, put art on the back burner while they raise children or are too young to have the tools to really get it. Ah, innocence is bliss!

Its a strange place...disillusionment. Sometimes tangible goals can help. It seems a good time to make a list of things that will make me feel better... at least temporarily.

1, Quality Sex!
2. Rental Income from a sane, responsible tennant
3. success in the studio
4. possibilities (opportunities)
5. Trimming off the loose ends
6. Seeing my family
7, Organizing my office
8. Relandscaping my rear garden
9. Painting the planned mural in our powder room
10. Winterizing/cleaning the house and and garden before the end of Sepetember
11.Christmas planning/shopping
12. Automobile maintennance
13. Get a haircut
14. Spend more time with my Beloved
15. Purchace airline tickets and make travel plans for the fall
16. Art fair arrangements

I went to a wedding shower last night for a facinating woman. She has photographed the world and has chosen to settle here. Her presence reminds me that this can be a worthwhile place to hang my hat.

Waiting for the Storm

I've used this title in a number of paintings over the years. It describes a situation that isn't always about weather. When I was a kid it was about waiting for my father to come home and knowing he would find something to yell about. Sometimes it is the knowledge that something is wrong in a relationship though everyone is pretending otherwise. When I was young I would tell myself that I was being a pessmist and that I shouldn't assume things. When my intuition would prove to be correct I was always very, very hard on myself for not listening.

As I've, uh, matured... experience is my most reliable friend when I anticipate a storm on the horizon. Still, it is frustrating to see something coming and not be able to prevent it - especially when the thunder, lightening or flood of tears caused by a misunderstanding between two friends (or more!). The storm is even more frightful when one's livelihood is on the line. Its a mess. Nothing compared to the scene in New Orleans or the Gulf region, but enough to make me want to go away. I don't think there is anything to fix. Weather patterns are what they are and the gulf stream is getter warmer.

Yesterday my beloved and I drove two hours to the Beach. It was a perfect rendevous. He read to me from a laptop; a novel he is working on: in the car on the way home. It was divine.

Still, though. There is that storm. Better fasten the shutters.

way back when

I received an email from someone I thought I'd lost touch with. We've known each other since graduate school and managed to catch up with each other passing through each others' cities every few years. Now we live in different hemispheres and our lives are about different things... and not. She sent me the address for her blog, linked above, and it warms my heart to read it. (I had forgotten she was such a fine writer.)

Fine writing is something I must persist in taking pleasure in since I can't live in Paris in the 20's and run into Hem and the gang at the Closerie du Lilas. Tonite my beloved reminded me of the Hemingway special on PBS...and it was better than expected. During my youth I spent more time reading about Hemingway than reading his works...and now that I've read so much of his work I especially appreciate authentic footage of this great American writer, with interviews, etc.

What would Hem think of blogs? Since he didn't seem to have a lot of patience for living writers (he hated Falkner and Dos Passos) he would probably dis them but secretly post to one. Maybe it would have helped him deal with his depression... unlikely, I know.

Survivor - LIVE

At 3:10pm Sunday, September 4 my mother finally got word that my sister is ok and that she had tried to call her many times but couldn't get through. It has been a week of hell for us and so many, many others. My family and her children are grateful to know that she is a true survivor. Amen.

Everyone that wrote expressing concern....thanks.

Live blog from the Crescent City

The link below will take you to a live journal maintained by an internet service provider holed up on the 10th story of an office building the CBD of what's left of NOLA. Its unfiltered news coming from servers run by a diesel generator. They've nearly gone off line a few times when they missed their diesel delivery which must them be schlepped to the 10th FL. If I were still living in NOLA it is likely I would have stayed... I can relate to these guys.

http://www.livejournal.com/users/interdictor/