This is exactly how I have felt for the past 3 years...


However,
I have always managed to squeeze my life's immediate and necessary
details into my brain,
you know, tucking them down the sides,
taping them to the front,
or cramming them in, then closing the lid really fast......
that is, up until about a month ago.

Then, abruptly, my brain reached its absolute FULL saturation point
and some things just stopped going in.

Suddenly, I was hurting myself on all the unabsorbed details....
I stubbed my toe on a gig I had not recorded and then booked two other gigs for the same night,
I slammed my hip into some appointments I missed,
and then really gashed my head against the 3 different commission pieces I had
for 3 women all named Shannon.

My brain was TOO full.


A couple weeks ago I spent the entire day spontaneously painting for myself,

and at the end of the day I chatted briefly with a very close artist friend.
I mentioned how I had sort of got caught up painting
but really should have been doing all the things on that long list of things
I SHOULD have been doing....
and this was Mike's response:

"There is never anything you should have done
instead of painting, what a fallacy!
Now, the list of things that I should have done
instead of sitting in front of this desk all day,
well, that list is friggin endless."

He is right.
So...I am going to make some big changes in 2011
because my brain is TOO full
and I need to excuse myself, Mr Osborne
so that I can paint.

"She shut her eyes:
the sweet word "promiscuity" came to her mind
and suffused her;
she enunciated silently to herself:
"promiscuity of ideas."
How could such contradictory attitudes
follow after one another
in a single head like two mistresses in the same bed?
In the past that nearly infuriated her,
but today it entrances her.
Because one idea is as good as another.
Because all statements and positions carry the same value,
can rub against one another,
nestle,
snuggle,
fondle,
mingle,
diddle,
cuddle,
couple."

— Milan Kundera

Homage to a Poinsettia

Every December 1st my brother Weston sends Mark and I,
and my parents (who were also married on Dec.1),
a beautiful, full, lush poinsettia for our anniversaries...and every year,
ours is wilted or leafless or dead before Christmas day.

I don't mean to harm it.
Honestly.
But you know how some things just don't register on life's "priority" radar?
Its just one of THOSE things.
When I look at it, unfortunately I'm NEVER thinking
"Hmmm... I wonder if it needs water"

Usually, I am thinking something like...
"This thing is so huge, where the hell am I going to put it while we eat dinner"?
(because we keep it on the kitchen table)

...and then it dies from neglect.

And believe it or not, I thought maybe this year would be different.
You know, becasue I have so much more personal mental space
now that all my kids are in school.

Then, at 10:30 pm tonight, the phone rang.
It was Weston asking if the poinsettia got delivered
and it was at THAT moment, I knew,
nothing would be different this year.

I had already completely forgotten about it.

Suddenly the radar turned on and there the poinsettia was,
sitting 4 feet from me, in the middle of the living room floor,
still wrapped tight against the winter cold,
from its delivery 5 hours earlier.
As I unwrapped it, while talking to my brother
I was afraid that I had killed it already.
But I hadn't...

and its LOVELY.
And I just really wanted IT to know that,
before it dies.

"True partnership is only achieved by
separate and whole beings
who retain their uniqueness
even as they unite"
London, England, December 1, 1993.

Happy Anniversary
to the most extraordinary man I have ever known
...my husband Mark.

Thank you honey,
for the fantastic life adventure we've had so far...

from our 'almost' completely secret "backpack style" wedding in London,
with 2 witnesses we barely knew, our $25 wedding rings that we still wear,
and all the photos we took ourselves...

to our great life here....
17 years later,
with these three incredible people we now have in our lives...

Ryllan, Piper and Kieran

The luckiest thing Mark,
I have had happen to me in my life...
was finding you.