The crow funeral

Last night I got home, grabbed my book and the dog, and hotfooted it outside to the Adirondack chairs to relax a little before making dinner. But before long, I started to hear cawing - a lot of cawing. I looked up and saw at least 20 crows circling to the west, a couple houses over.

So I walked out to the street and down a little, and there were no fewer than 50 crows, all flying around these two enormous cedar trees, jockeying for position and making a racket. One of my neighbors came walking down to see what the ruckus was, and he told me the only other time he'd seen crows behave like that, there were 100 of them, all sitting along the wires from the power poles, and there was one dead crow.

"So it's a crow funeral," I said, transfixed. It made my day, knowing that the crows mourn their loved ones, even if they're loud and harsh. They are a brutal bird but they have such huge character.

He didn't seem to take it in the same spirit I did. He walked toward the trees, clapping and yelling until the birds went away.

More new paintings

Fooling around with image transfer. These two are called Block: Year of the Black Dog.

New paintings

Heather is clearly good for me. We got together for coffee yesterday and then headed back to my place, where I sat her down in a chair and said LOOK AT THIS! NO THIS! NO THIS! like we were in the first grade and I was holding court at Show and Tell.

She put up with it incredibly graciously and then slipped out when I wasn't looking.

But I digress. After she left, I channeled all that nutso girl energy into these two paintings.

Happy scooter day

Scooters make people happy.


This is Lang; she's the gorgeous blonde. Isn't she pretty? Shouldn't she have a scooter?

Not to mention a bitchin' armored scooter jacket. Because who doesn't need a little armor now and again?

What do I do when I've lose my verve?

Drag-ass around until a brand new scooter appears, as if by magic, in my driveway.

C? Is the best husband ever. No, no, I'm sorry, he's mine. You can't have him.

We are the Web

This fantastic video brought to you by anthropology professor Michael Wesch.

Days like this

Some days I feel like not saying anything. For Clarence Thomas, this has become a way of life. See McClatchy for more detail.

Also, the New Blogger may now save my drafts automatically, but when I click Publish Post, nothing much happens. WTF, New Blogger? I'm going to start calling you New Coke.

Pixelated

It's not that things aren't happening; it's that I'm not writing about them. I'm not writing about much these days, although Sunday morning I woke up with the start of a story in my head, and wrote 5000 words that morning.

Nothing since, of course. There's no discipline these days, no getting up an hour early to get in some writing before work. For a little while (2, 3 days?), I was writing for half an hour a day to get into the swing. Then I got sick, and then I had an early morning concall, etc etc.

Sounds like my progress with running. Somewhere my treadmill is laughing, both at the sheer effrontery of calling my shambling along "running," but also the very idea that I have such a thing as "my running," which I don't. Maybe twice a month I'll climb on that thing.

Ugh! So I am very down on me lately. I don't know what my problem is. And bless you, Internets, I don't think you do either, so I'm turning off comments for this post. And trying to turn on the self-acceptance, although frankly, giving myself a break is how I got into this mess. I know there's a balance between getting things done and beating myself up. I just need to find it.

But I know you're out there, you kind followers of my blog. Hello! How are you? I hope you're well. I send you virtual chocolate muffins and lots of love.

EDITED TO ADD: WTF? Sometimes this post shows up; sometimes it doesn't. This pisses me off.