Hi again, in the same week, sorta!

View of the Nice Bridge spanning the Potomac River

One of these days, I will be a computer geekstress to match my other geekiness factors. Right now, I do a dang good Yosemite Sam impersonation. Frequently. I'll leave it at that.

I must now go contact a computer guru to help me with the old, but still working, Mac. I have issues. As in, the issues are user error issues not laptop issues. Well, that's a sorta, kinda maybe true statement.

Dang (To quote my favorite soldier)

I meant to be better about writing this dang blog. [Sigh]

Maybe I'll even figure out how to post a picture on this thing. I am soooo not techno-savvy.

Short post today. Just gonna bitch about being self-employed. Ready or not, here it comes.

My 10 am apt forgot about me, so I had to run errands for a half hour. My noon apt cancelled at 10. My last apt is gonna confirm sometime today that he will be able to make his 5 pm time slot. I am driving to him and schlepping my stuff as well, which means my 1 hour apt will more than likely take close to 2 hours, minimum. (Sigh) At least I figured out how to use my phone credit card reader with a regular client who doesn't mind me making an ass of myself as I muddled through the program.  : )

I am in week 8 of an 8 week online poetry class. I am behind because I was running around like a muppet (Grover, of course) for 5 days. And my body betrayed me by succumbing to another effing sinus infection.  Damn auto-immune crap.

And so, I have 5 critiques to make up, need to write my last poem and have 5 more critiques to look forward to in the next week. I can do it!

Now, what lovely photo am I gonna upload now?

It's a iPhone closeup of a tree I turned around in order to photo, then realized I had left my Nikon at home.  Again.  So, it's not the greatest...

Crap, has it been that long?

I so suck at this blogging thing.  And the other social media stuff.  Maybe I'm just being pulled in too many ways and need to cut back on my obligations.  Especially with my "mundane" job picking up steam and my Mom's health deteriorating like it has been in the past month.  She's about 7 hours away, if I speed and don't stop to pee.  So, a weekend trip isn't fun if I have just 4 days to make the trip. 

I have a college friend who recently contacted me and wants me to see her in the Durham/Chapel Hill area of NC, which is on the way.  If I make the trip next weekend, I plan on lunching or having dinner with her on the drive, either coming or going.  I haven't seen her since the year after graduation, in 1994.  Damn, that admission makes me feel old.

I was in San Francisco Bay area a week ago, at my Aunt's house about an hour north of the city.  I hadn't seen her in about a decade, since the last time she and my Dad had flown in from California to visit a great-aunt and attend a family gathering.  At least my Dad's side, anyway.  Since my parent's divorce, we kids have felt a bit like the black sheep of that side of the family.  Everyone loses something in a divorce.  And since we weren't especially close to any of the extended cousins -- how could we when we grew up in Alaska, the entire North American continent away from them? -- it was easy for us to just fade away. 

I attended a poetry workshop for 3.5 days of my 6 day trip to SF.  I learned a lot, got to see the SF symphony perform a lot of Latin songs from West Side Story, Rodeo, cha-cha-cha & mambo medleys where the crowd started dancing at their free concert in Delores Park.  I think I took a gazillion photos of the dancing -- from toddlers in the crow to practiced couples who looked ready for competition.  Gotta download some of those photos for the participants of the workshop.  And get my poems revised and sent back out to everyone else. 

If you get a chance to participate in an on-line workshop with Diane Frank, do it.  Or her annual workshop in her home in San Francisco.  It's a great experience.  Multi-cultural, no, not the word I'm looking for -- multi-disciplined, with the music and the sight-seeing and the poetry. 

Just ran out of time for this blog.  Gotta go work out now. 

Go West, young woman

So, I fly to the west coast tomorrow. I still have to shove my clothes in my bag, confirm my flight, decide how I'm getting to the airport and if I'm gonna call in a favor to get there. Or if I'll leave my car in long-term parking & pay the fee.

But my car needs to be seen by the body-work guys who worked on it last year, to see if they can find the intermittent leak which occurs when it's raining like hell or when I go through the car wash. And it would be nice not to have it looked at while I actually need it to run around in. 

Anyway. I'm going to a poetry workshop offered by Diane Frank of Blue Light Press in San Francisco. And I'm visiting an Aunt for two days. I haven't seen her in about 10 years, since the last time she came out to visit her Aunt with my Dad, who was living with her then. I think. Then I'm sharing a hotel room with a view of the Pacific Ocean with two other poets in the workshop from Friday night til Monday. I'm not sure if I'm going back to my Aunt's house or not after that. I may try to extend my trip for a day or two, since I was an idiot and booked a red-eye for myself on the way back Tuesday night. That way I'll be sure to catch up with an acquaintance I know from Greensboro. Since it took me three days to recover from the last red-eye I flew on, last fall, that might be the smart thing to do. Oh, how soon we forget what a pain in the butt red-eyes can be. 

I need to run off some more poems, like pretty much all of a chapbook I've been writing on for the last year. It may be book length by the time I'm finished with the series. She said to bring poems of a project we've been working on. And that is a long-term project I have been working on.

I'll keep you updated!

Hmm, I seem to be neglecting myself

It's been a busy three or so weeks.  Sorry for the silence on my end.  I'm not sure why I keep ignoring my blog.  It's not made itself into a bi-or tri-weekly habit yet, I guess. 

And I've been juggling a lot of things, primarily traveling this last month:  Balticon46 over Memorial Day weekend (more on that to come, I promise!).  Then I drove to a karate/grappling seminar in my old dojo in Greensboro, NC (more on that, too!) with an extension to my Mom's house for a quick and dirty, but uneventful, girl's weekend with my sister's and my Mom (also a four day trip -- Thur through Sun).  Then my older sister & B-I-L came up the next Thurs so we could go see the Hokusai print exhibit before it left the Sackler Gallery in D.C..  And this weekend, the S.O. and I are in Williamsburg at the annual Virginia Dental Meeting.  Four weekends of travel, strange beds &/or guests (sorry Lisa & John, but y'all are strange :)

The Hokusai exhibit is almost indescribable.  These are woodcut prints are from the1830s and are frelling beautiful.  Especially the ones printed all in blue ink.  If it comes to a gallery anywhere near your city, do not hesitate to go, & go more than once if you can.  It's definitely worth the price of admission. 

The Japanese Mezzotints exhibit is worth a peek, too, especially the lone copper plate showing the etching.  It's warm copper tone blew the black and with print away, in my humble opinion.  And my sister made sure I saw it.  She knows what I tend to be drawn to, as she's seen enough of my photography and stolen, er, appropriated enough of her art/sculpture over the years.  (I still want my turn with the Jhierry totems.  Where the heck are they, BTW?)

More later, when I'm not getting ready for a dental CEU which prolly won't carry over to my massage therapy credits, not that I need anything but an ethics class to renew this year.  August will surprise the heck out of me, so I'd better get to reading that ethics book I borrowed from Kristen. 

Still Catching up

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