Had a most pleasant DIY car inspection experience today, just like days of yore when Yours Truly drove questionable vehicles and would arrive on the scene at an equally questionable car repair shop where you'd be asked It's a good car - to which the reply would/should be Ohh, yes, it's a great car and then there'd be an exchange of some cash for a sticker, which would be affixed not by said inspector but by the faux-inspectee.
So I arrived as scheduled and there was a look-over and, with a mere 16K on the odometer, I was put in charge of filling in all the numbers and such on the computer which apparently is linked to some wired NYS office of inspectional matters.
No pesky car on lift, no removal of any car tires for brake look-see. With socializing the visit was about 45 minutes, far more efficient than the hour+ a down&dirty inspection would be.
Onwards.
Today was a day of official business accomplished and to celebrate YT purchased her first-ever (and probably only-ever eyelash curler).
After all that motorheading about I think subconsciously I needed a good girlie fix.

Motorhead/Girlie Love.

NB:
If anyone has found my art impetus please tell it to come back to Yours Truly. Like now.
Events as of late have conspired to keep general creative endeavors from being within reach. But, in prep-mode, things are organized, the car is clean (outside), the sketch books are full, art supplies are at the ready.
Suddenly realized in a panic today that I have forgotten to register for the NC-based HGTV dream house, and I promised Loomis I'd be diligently doing so. I informed Lauren over coffee at SPoT last week that I will possibly be hanging out in the NC mountains until the utilities get shut off as I'm sure HGTV is not footing all the future bills and who in hell can heat a 1,200,000 s/f home.
Now, suddenly, the slogan The road to hell is paved with good intentions simmers in my mind like that Coldplay song was much earlier this fine springy day (and who can truly enjoy fifty degree dead-of-winter days, warmest in over a century, and not ponder how we are roasting away the atmosphere with CFCs, SUVs, BYOBs, and that NYT story detailed how an environmental whistle blower/freaker-outer has been quieted by Bush et al). And, speaking of perfect homes, home improvements, paving jobs, somewhere, I imagine, someone has fabricated paving stones that read 'good' and 'intentions' for some alternatingly, hilarious garden times.
As I waited to speak to Lawyer Tom today to wrap up smatters I caught up on the fandom vortex, the weekly journal of amnesiac fun fact: People mag.
YT is both an inhaler of pop culture and mag addict yet somehow the whole Eminem/Kim story fell through the cerebral cracks. The reconciliation that tops all somehow slid right by my astuteness. I think I might be the only person I know who saw Eight Mile, in the Shiney Apple, and dug it, and (super-bonus points)photographed him as he was ascending.
So how did I just not know.

Love, sometimes you just do not ever know.

Yours Truly is planning to post this day's blogpost as parts A & B.
Post A will be the before, so to speak, and B later in this day.
What is this day, You might wander as you wonder.
A:
Today is the day that X finally - finally - not only picks up his flotsam and jetsom that have been hunkering in the far reaches of my home, but signs off on the deed. As well as the MIA third party who was still on the deed despite the fauxfact that X told me that this thirdly person was off the deed years ago. So for the last how long (Deb and Kennedy would probably know better than Yours Truly who does not want to succumb to the reality that this has been dragging along for two years, and this final stage for three months) an orchestration of concerns, emails, lawyerly conversations, moola, times, movings, groovings.
An interesting cast of characters will be on the scene (including my lawyer, Intrepid Tom) planned for early afternoon: several have referred to all this as having the potential of being a Jerry Springerlike event.
Hope it's more Here's your hat what's your hurry than A flurry of fury, and tossed items.
As I hand off the (extortion) money to X I would like to say
Here you go. . . now please go away.
Cheryl advised more snark, (I did invite her to come and videotape this moment, thinking it'd be a grand project).

Legal extricational love.


B:
Things are wrapped up. MIA and X showed up, as did Lawyer Tom, Kennedy, and Steve the Bouncer. Things did wrap up after things seemed heated for a moment. Then there was a flurry of signing (not singing, repeat, not singing) and then the removal of objets under vigilance.
It is done.

Rarity to follow.
I admit that at this juncture I was so not minding my own business and this ref goes back to April when I was participating/performing for Urban Epiphany, I think the fourth annual, and RD Pohl was amongst those in attendance. So I read some new pomes pennyeach (by YT of course) and each writer is given a slot of two minutes and, like in the digvid world, You say two minutes all the time, two minutes is like the amount of time it took for coffee from the barista, the time at a red traffic light and other, urbane situs.
So I read two minutes and I recall that I had blustered into the auditorium, overly-caffeinated and in a general state of grad student flux and freak-out. Afterwards, RD Pohl, who edits poetry for the Middling City Snooze, amongst others, came up to say in a nutshell Hey, dug them words, &C. Pohl said to send him some fine specimens and I, in my usual people-pleasing fashion, said something to the effect of Abso-freakin-lutely.
Months strolled by. I was not a grad student in a state of flux any longer but had moved on to newer types of flux and freak-outs of a generalized grownup sort.
So last week I decide I should email two to Editor Pohl. Two - Valentine. and Believe.
Upon receiving them EP calls excitedly to do various things:
-tell me that the poems are great
-tell me that both are going to be published
-tell me that the MCNews pays for publication of pomework
-tell me that above has never printed two by one in two consecutive months but one is timely for V-Day, one timely for the year anniversary of tragic death of Creeley
-tell me that he can't believe I was holding out on him for decades.
I returned his call and did not tell him that I was once a rabid public pomereader, an organizer of poetry readings at UB and via my Writers Cramp Series that I ran with Paul T. Hogan.
So words are coming forth on a printed page and although I have imbued myself in online work, reading, blogging since It happened, there is still beauty in/on printed pages.

Love, beautiful in both online and printed versions.

In the midst of what I now refer to as Asphalt Planet, the suburbs outside Middling City, where driving is de rigeur and the landscape is all about shopping, trees in smatters.
En route to the morning gig saw what appeared to be a highly disgruntled hired hand for Liberty Tax Services, in full Lady Liberty neoprene regalia, heading away from her/his post at the busy corner a stone's throw from the expressway, heading down an embankment, torch low.
I feigned enthusing, beeping my horn madly, so Lady Liberty would cheer up. And she did, turning and raising the torch at me in a commuter-worthy salute. Bartholdi shone down upon the moment.
Listening to Canadian radio the young announcer announced that yesterday, the country's national election day, was the saddest in a very long time – much like the aghast feeling when the current president of the US (you know, the one mucking up all foreign relations save a few, the overnetworked rube) allegedly won here in the lower 48 +2 – as now their gov is the big C.
Kennedy and I saw that new Pocahontas movie and I forgot to sing Neil's (as in second-fav Neil love, Young) song of same name. Actually, this movie has the forgettable title The New World and I imagine that its Euro title will have more poesie about it. Jewel's cousin, the femme of same last name (Kircher) and complicated first name beginning with Q, did a fine job of being beautiful in deerskin. Not so much later in gingham and such. I would not know Colin Farrell if he literally bit Yours Truly on mine arse and I found myself cringing at his mutant eyebrows and could not get the horrific thought of Scott Stapp formerly of Creed out of my mind. He also did a fine job of reminding YT of her college pal David Coleman, another introspector.
Time to burn a cd of primo images and drop and dash and more business as usual.

Love, usually.

Generosity flows in abundance within Yours Truly. You know this.
*sidebar:
As I'm thinking of flowing, i.e. coursing blood and guts, I am transported back to yesterday's photo shoot with yet another mad scientist dealing in RNA. Being an M.S. he would take my 101 questions and run with them charmingly, breathlessly, at one point trotting me across the hallway to see a special reusable plate, its viewing light table of sorts, and the scanner upon which the molecular info on the plate is recorded and printed out after I think I may have queried about some shadowy shapes pasted into his notebook. After spotting it, I was going to comment upon his very Euro and artful-looking handwriting but thought he'd suss me out as a hyper-curious chronicler interested in most things and a follower of scientific developments - to a serious novice point.
Cryptology, I am certain, would not have been among his mad scientific interests.
*sidebar complete.
To prove this point Perfectly go here, enter, and if You do win and YT does not (nor Loomis, who turned me on to this dream thing), I get a key to the joint and the op to drop in any time. I will also demand that a Japanese tea house be constructed in the garden, I have one in mind. And within the house there will be a studio for YT. I mean really, I told you about this stinkin' contest.

Love, a good contest.

Explosions of good vibes out to boypals Last Conservative, opening for (wretch, small one) Bon Jovi of gigantic teeth and tight leather-wrapped arse fame.
As MikeZ is no longer in LC I am so not all over shooting this gig and heard this week from his cousin James that MikeZ is going to be re-emerging with his brother, and other familial ensemble in a rollicking blues band. Apparently they've had a gig and people were essentially throwing veritable undies and the like in glee.
Last night's Soup Night like totally rocked, with Yours Truly preparing a newbie - roasted carrot and parsnip with ginger and it really was fab - as were Blair's two soupy constructions.
Good people and then met Hilary notClinton out and that was high times, a few misdemeanours, especially some really bad art that persists in this venue. The bad art in question involves a lightbulb and I sort of mentioned I would buy it for Hilary and her fiancé Matthew for a wedding gift as they'd never be short a lightbulb. Unless, of course, they did not replenish that upon the bad art.
Yesterday dropped an art piece at Trinity for Colleen's art bennie tonight that I will breeze into and today dropped two portraits of the Foster kids for a show of sorts opening early next month.
A dose of Mercury Rev before rejoining the public of this unseasonally warm Middling City with eveningdreams of hightailing it to the Shiney Apple as homesickness is raging and Dorota et al beckon.

Love is a beckon.

In this crazy online world one can find virtually everything for sale, including ponderous and zany Evangelware such as this tshirt above.
The designer of it has another few gems for kids, too, like shirts emblazoned with cryptic messages about cleanliness.

No love for ill-hitting irony.

Had an unfortunate run-in with the talents and scissors of one Middling City hair stylist who swore he was adept at all things Bumble and Bumble. His interpretation of the haircut I had had was to send me out into the world with an oddball suburban 'do, slathered in product - as they love to say. I washed out said product and took some nice sharp little scissors I bought to cut Kennedy's hair to the bangs that I did so like and which were a disastrous heap. To more interesting result. As I like to say, It's only hair. In months and months it'll look, it'll be ready to take another stab at trust and cut.
On a less hairy note, I photographed the bald new Chancellor of SUNY system twice today - on his special tour of the earthquake center where all of us watched a 3 on the Richter scale faux quake, and later at a speecherific thing. He is John Ryan, very humble, referred to himself as Your bald Chancellor.
After the second gig and the furious burn of cd's for my editrix I saw the just-completed catastrophe of a two-car crash via one driver having sped through a red light.
Nobody was able to get out of their respective cars and three firetrucks were on the scene.
Do not, repeat, do not run red lights.
Oh, on a very light light note I laptopped at a very mediocre lunch joint near a puppy salon so, of course, I had to rush in and play with a few pups. Later, at the second portion of Chancellor Love, while talking to a few others, I realized I was covered in delicious puppy stank.

Puppy Stank Love.

Today the Native-financed wrecking ball was raised and lowered, raised and lowered, raised and lowered on the brick portion of HO Oats. The duet of Empire Dismantling apparently not taking a federal-style MLK, Jr. Holiday. No matter when I stray over to the site there seems to be several on foot or in cars stopping to watch the destruction and, as a matter of Perfect fact, saw Liz & Alan in the shadow of HOO yesterday afternoon.
Above, for your edification and plaisir, are two images from yesterday's foray: if, for whatever reason, You find yourself not understanding why these constructions deserve to live I will link you for a quick - and mind-altering - lesson in most matters grain elevatorial.
Did the post-Druidical people of the Land o' Windsors, windsor ties, curries and such rush to wreck freakin' Stonehenge fercrissakes.
I rest my grain elevator-adorationializing case.
Super BONUS:
A fine fab link to a smattering of work made by my pal Mark Maio of the constructions in question.
The Middling City does not have many things but one thing it does have is a fine assembly of its complicated industrial past.

Love is oso complicated.

This day's blogpost could begin much like the former.
But premierly, a word about dumplings or what Yours Truly is now dubbing puffballs.
Last night I made old-fangled beef stew and decided to, following culinary guidelines, mix up dumplings for the first time. One thing to dig about cooking is gathering some know-how, riffs of sorts, favs, standbys, tricks, avoidances: but the first time with a recipe means following along, usually. So, not ever having made dumplings/puffballs Yours Truly (as is so not my wont) followed rules. And when I got to the part about adding in baking powder YT did some measuring of sorts and then actually became a bit alarmed as the baking powder hit the wet ingredients with the now fizzing concoction resembling the neat baking soda/vinegar science experiment of yore, emulating volcanos. But, adding in some flour, disaster was assuaged. Then the delightful plopping of dough into the magma stew, covering the pot, and then the voilà moment – dumped-up dumplings.
At the Hallwalls opening last night I talked cooking with a few pals who had already discovered the joys, the scientific mystery, of dumplings.
Artist Suzy Lake strolled about, as did about 700 others, down corridors until it was time to gather up the entourage and move along to Prespa for some background techno music, some more hijinx and then onwards into the icy Middling City night.

Onwards, Love.

Last night was the grand hoopla of The Church, the Limelightlike former congregation centre turned into a concert/revelling venue. Ani was there and had her tresses dyed darker than I've ever seen them before and we exchanged a nice embrace and a few words before Scot whisked her away, so she could stand at attention whilst some requisite speeches were proffered up. People paid attention until they did the B.S. (that'd be the Bored Shuffle, the weight-shift from left to right). Saw a myriad of good people and had a pleasant social onslaught.
Courtney Grimm and I walked arm-in-arm to the snack table (some sooth - poor aesthetics and an unappetizing mound of wraps... we sampled greasy crab cakes and moved along) until I became much more interested in introducing myself and her to the most interesting-looking man in the room. His name - Junior. He, as all Juniors and Tinies are, is huge, maybe 6'something" and he weighed in at about 300lbs. There was a woman hovering nearby and I asked if she was in Junior's entourage. That's my wife, Junior said.
Deb said she was there and I did not, sadly, see her. Dr. John, for whatever reason was there, I did see him and his spindly date.
The space: what was the big-assed church is now painted well in greens and gold (as in color, not leafing), is lit better, has no more pigeons, and is going to be the big-assed rock & roll venue.
That is impressive. The Hallwalls spaces I found less so - the gallery has a nice basswood floor and much has been made of its malleable wall formations. I thought their basement screening/rumpus room was disappointingly small. I imagined the org having to turn away scads of would-be viewers as the room's capacity is a mere 65. Think big. Think bigger.
Glad to see Hallwalls finally in their new home and it is impressive what's transpired under the renovated spires. Good for the Middling City.
Today it is a smattering of snow, a day to work and work and work before play and play and play.

Love to play.

Well. Well well well.
Very well, indeed.
Yours Truly has been, off and on and mostly on, imbued in the oeuvre and it has been a Pleasure, wallowing in this huge collection of art, publication samples, words, even old posters from the feted and fated Writers Cramp Series that Paul Hogan and I ran for aeons.
Found some surprises, like old coins from dead Uncle Richard, personal and historical photographs, a stash of forgotten ca$h. But not even what I am searching for - yet. When and if this objet is found I will then say what it is.
Delivered some super-fine images I shot for a campaign for a Middling City org to an MC ad agency and while going up I nearly lost my foot in the steel doors for one who came a-runnin'. The proverbial voice of Holdit. And what a one he was, a visual surprise, a Shiney Apple-like man that one does not usually see on this edge of things. As we noted that YT nearly lost a foot he got off on 8, wishing me a fine weekend. Manners to boot.
Tonight Kennedy and I are attending the righteous Hallwalls/Righteous Babe Records grand hoopla, the one that shows off what is nearly done. Tomorrow night is the Hallwalls-only opening of a show of work by unimpressive Suzy Lake. This event is to trumpet a grand addition to the MC art scene. I discussed this with Bruce who asked What art scene.
My pal Pam is catering tomorrow's affair and she told me she's donated all the food, roughly to the tune of $1K. Absolutely one of the most generous people ever.
Amongst stops and sojourns last evening stopped into Charlie Quill's b-day fiesta at Nietzsche's and was happy to see Kelly et al and then on to the usual spot to see Shana and Jeremy and the music was surprisingly quite compelling.

Love is compelling.

The theme du jour is rubbernecking.
Good, old-fashioned swivel-heading, as Yours Truly prefers to call this phenom that swims deep within our human genome, to witness with our own eyes, via reality or other, handy media, the turmoil of others.
En route to a gig this fine and magical AM with the Middling City air teeming with the vibes of spring, I nearly landed in the midst of a parking lot freeway situ but exited promptly on one of those handy north-south streets that one discovers only from having a freelance career involving deadlines, and loads of driving to the sub and ex urbs.
When I arrived at my gig I was informed that this traffic miasma was due to a truck lying on its side, an accident that happened yesterday.
En route back from the gig I could see the truck, still ominously occupying the left shoulder and the backed-up traffic behind it so everyone could get a good gander and a half.
While at the gig YT photographed various people who use the facilities in which I had set up my temp studio and then made secondary images of said facilities. While wending through the sweat-infused gymnasium and weight room and rooms full of those silly machines, there in front of us was one MC newscaster femme fatale. Attempting to avoid rubbernecking, she had outfitted herself with very dark sunglasses. The sporty portion of this joint is not bright. The newscaster f.f. was just looking to not be noticed. I was fantasizing about rushing her with a Sharpie, asking that she sign... something, anything.
And I culled from the Memory Centre how once, perhaps a decade and a half ago how YT was in a fashion show at a television studio, produced by a couture collector. If you can imagine some such thing in the MC. While readying ourselves for our face time, I'll use that phrase as it's so... now, so industry-savvy, we were bombarded by the very same femme newscaster who burst into the dressing room where about five of us were getting made up. She blustered in, bitching fiercely about her blow dryer. Now, not ever having been much of a television afficianado, I asked one of my fellow models, as the blustery newscaster f.f. was, I thought, just out of earshot Who the HELL was that bitch.
As You may have guessed. Yes.
We have necks, we use them. We have insights, we use them.

Rubbernecked Love.

As is my wont, I was minding my own business and found myself looking at a large display of seeds, following a business meeting. I first looked at the oversized packages of vegetable seeds and then moved around to the flowers, thinking all the while just what and where and how.
Then I followed along the quite remarkably gigantic half-aisle of bird feeders (oh, did I tell You that I recently bought the absolute Cadillac Escalade of squirrel-proof bird feeders) to the shelves of confused houseplants and found myself then shoving three of these sad little orphans into the cart. And then moved on to the nearly-free racks of narcissi, buying two. It is not too late in the season to force bulbs as, in this Perfect world, bulbs can be forced until it's the season of deep-fried skin and popsicles. I rest my flower-luvvin' case.
Speaking of case(s), what needs to happen to keep that forgetful racist Alito out of the Supreme Court, short of driving down to Warshington to protest. NPR did a wacky thing today, calling one Al Ito to ask him some trivial questions.
Blogs do rule and they may just become the sole way to keep up up and away with the news.
Lest you have missed this grand blog, go here now.

Memory of shooting FBI-issued firearms love.

This just in, from a loyal epinw peruser.
Yours Truly awaiting rock & roll action. I look very unpsyched, must've been Bon Jovi or some such nonsense.
Misty water-coloured memories...

Misty Love.

The Shiney Happy Mag piece is done. The jubilation which follows the hand-in/the email-in is incomparable. Really. I mean, really, would Yours Truly lie to You.
A scintillating piece of hard-hittingness about where in Blazes to purchase excellent crap and the like for your joint. To make it, shall we say, sophisticated.
Here is a shining example of my flavour:

Décor, like a wardrobe, is a personal collection ever in a state of flux – assuming, of course, that one is not clinging stubbornly (or ironically) to tired, decades-old articles. In both matters home and sartorial, pieces illustrating personality are amassed in the same ways, on jaunts of all sorts, and as gifts. And both may suddenly fall out of favor and be taken out of circulation in a jiffy.

Now that's writing. A dash of irony, some handfuls of fact, some Perfect personality all melded together in one informative, cohesive stream.
I began the finishing across the table from Laura (who was knee-deep in homework) and now I am across the table (kittie-korner) from a stranger named Gina. A teacher. A person who sings to herself. If she had kept that little habit up I would have dashed the rest of my venti coffee du jour at her. She stopped. I sipped. I split.

Love's split.

Yours Truly began this fine, sunny Middling City day at the gravesite of a dead president of the United States of America. Today, lest you don't have this inked into your Day-Timer, is the birthday of one Millard Fillmore, also a founder of the MCClub and MCU medical school. What happens at the event is the laying of wreaths, some speeching, some singing and/or bugle reditions of tunes, all under the ever-watchful gazes of two members of the Knights of Columbus, in capes and feathered hats. As is custom, it was a freezing cold morn and after the last notes are still hanging over the tombstones, all in attendance split to their cars lining the cemetery roadway.
Onwards then to search out a few more joints to include in the Shiney Happy Mag piece.
As I motored back to the home office hovel I spotted a woman maniacally talking in her automobile and wondered a very modern thought:
In this day and age does one suspect another of insanity when said other is speaking to apparently no one in the auto - or, more tech-centrically, does one assume one is speaking to another, distant other via a cellphone set to speaker mode.
I ask you.

Asking Love.

As a guilty pleasure, namely Norah Jones (that track #5) warbles in the background and every record store geekboy I know and have ever known I hear cackling & moaning & groaning now suddenly so heartily I can barely hear her singing about that yellow or whatever grass all high and shit any more. Thanks, guys.
Because I can I am deciding I must paint my nails Red, Red Rhine. You know, I must have selected this colour as I do all of them, by name, and as We all do know Yours Truly loves Neil Diamond more than most people, etc. and Neil did pen that song Red Red Wine. See, all things in sooth can be Perfect if We just freakin' look hard enough.
Yours Truly has just been tweaking, if I can deign to call it that, a hand-crafted website using some allegedly simple software, Freeway. I have been communicating today with websitegeekboys, none of whom were able to offer up any super-helpful hints and there were no offers of an onsite rescue effort.
So Imagine:
YT sipping a coffee, nervously following along with the pamphlet that came with Freeway, all stressed out as I am having flashbacks to art school and that godawful and binge drink-inspiring weekly seminar called god only knows what... the one in which YT struggled not only with the diabolical DreamWeaver (amusing myself, and classmates, as you loyal epinw'ers know, by singing, fingers up in my rock gesture, the song DreamWeaver) but to hear the instructress's pianissima voce over the whirr of the Parsons School of Diabolical Seminars's a/c system, set to Arctic.
DreamWeaver, Freeway, Passports to Hell.
Well, I did follow along paranoically and did build myself a slammin' 1-pager and finished and thought Cheesh, I wanted a mega-page site. Now I'm trying to retrofit some more intermediate info onto the rickety and rinky-dink 1-page wonder to not-quite great effect. So I just randomly began toggling about like I knew what I was doing. I did and still do not.
As an artist I do resent having to follow directions and I think directions sometimes are for followers, the weak-minded. But it appears I'll have to follow a bit closer to get pages 2, 3 and beyond flowing like a DreamWeaver towards the morning light.

Always. DreamWeaver. Love.

Richard Wicka has been kindly sending me along commentary about my Five Minute Video Series contribution and, surprisingly, there have been a smattering from far and wide - not just emanating from the Middling City. One person from MC, however, did review my tale and ended by referring to me as a Snuggle bunny. Yipes. I gave a hard-hitting account of an event, presented it in a gripping style veering into comedic interludes. I would hardly classify this narrative style or presentation as being that of a . . . Snuggle bunny.
So another holiday slew of mayhemic events has passed and it's back to beeswax, so to speak, getting the last of the wrapping paper jetsom into la poubelle.
Wrapping up a little piece for the Shiney Happy Mag, a Pulitzer-worthy assessing of joints to get home accessories and the like. I walked into one place in the midst of an MC storm looking quite like a girl version of the Unibomber before I defrocked and let the proprietess know I meant her no harm, just free publicity, some glorious ink.
Time to sort through matters, snip off loose ends, correspond and more.

Corresponding Love.