From the Archives



It's been a long week. This week it seems all I did was stay in perpetual motion, helping Rach stay on track with her homework, shopping for homecoming, physical therapy, doctor check-ups, flu-shots and end of fiscal year at work. In June Rach asked me to buy her tickets to a Blink 182/Fall Out Boy/All American Rejects concerts for her birthday, I did without checking to see if that date in September was a school night, it was. Wednesday night we went to a concert and crawled in around 1:00 am. I made myself a mental date to look at a calendar before I purchase concert tickets. The concert was great, more so because my friend Liana came in from Greenville (my home-town) with her son, I gave up my pit ticket to her son and she and I sat on the lawn, talked, played catch-up and let the music drift in and out of us. Thursday the building I work on made the 6 o'clock news when a terrorist was caught trying to start a fake bomb in the parking garage under our building, needless to say Friday was a bit strange at my office with the news crews hanging out at our front door. This week I lost 2 lbs and Rach 1.2 lbs--a good first week for both of us. Saturday my sister called to let me know they rushed my Momma to the emergency room, she has pnuemonia. My sister said she had been weak and unable to eat for several days, and that she became too weak to walk. She suffers from COPD, and even when she is well weighs no more than 100 pounds, she weighed less than 90 pounds when she went to the hospital. I talked to her on the phone, she sounded tired but her sense of humor was in place, a good sign. Im asking for prayers and well wishes for my Momma.

Change of Scenery




Photo of Seward Harbor, August 2009.

MyPyramid.gov



Well day 4 of the diet and I have already learned several things about myself and my daughter, first counting calories works great for me and Rach loathes the thought of it. Less than 1200 calories a day is almost impossible for me to maintain on a consistent basis, but I can easily stay within 1400 calories. Rach does not want to be introduced to leafy green vegetables. On Sunday we regrouped our strategy and went to the FDA website mypyramid.gov and fed in our profiles and customized food pyramids for the entire family. What we learned, is that according to the USDA I can lose weight and consume the recommended daily allowance of the basic food groups, grains, fruits, vegetables, milk and protein on 1600 calories, Rach on 2000, and Michael needs to double his food intake. The website has lots of calculators that allows you to calculate exchanges for common prepared items like frozen pizza, herb roasted potatoes, etc. It also lets you put in what you had and creates an bar graph of how you did each day. After four days of tracking what I eat, I learned a few interesting facts about my diet, I don't eat enough grain or milk. I eat double the daily recommended allowance of vegetables, nearly 5 cups in a day. almost all of the carbs in my diet are fresh fruits. The low grain is likely due to years of cutting carbs because of my diabetes, but I think I need to find a few complex grains and cut back on the fruits and if I can choke it down drink 8 ounces of skim milk with at least one of meals. I am hoping by sticking to nutritional needs instead of diet, my entire family will benefit from better nutrition. Its Monday, and surprisingly I am feeling groovy despite myself.

Me and Rach


Once again I am going to try to lose weight.  I have spent the last year bringing my blood sugar under control, trying to learn to exercise and focus on following the example of good health that my husband Michael has adopted. Michael after 25 years of smoking, has quit smoking, lost 70 lbs, and adopted exercise and healthy eating regime.  I am far from there yet, I still am at least 50 pounds overweight, and I am being generous with myself.  I have managed to bring my blood sugars under control and for the last 3 consecutive A1C have been in the optimum blood sugar control range, and the last A1C in the normal range, resulting in the lowering of two of my diabetes meds and one cholesterol medicine.  Still with all of this I can not manage to lose weight.  I started a new health regime with my daughter, we both are trying to lose 20 pounds by Christmas which if you do the math is 1.4 pounds a week, which means between exercise and food choices we need to reduce/burn 4900 calories a week or 700 calories a day.  I have asked Rach to contribute her thoughts on weight loss here, not sure she will, but we will see.   I am one of those diet statistics, that women who has tried every diet combination known to man, who loses/gains, gains/loses and about 10 years ago gave up on dieting as a matter of principle and instead focused on healthy eating and managing my blood sugars. I truly believe that a woman's self worth is not dependent on how she looks, but how she feels inside, and I have tried to not limit myself by being overweight, to still maintain a healthy image.  To keep healthy to keep active in both mind and body.  Why weight loss now?  I realized as my daughter struggles with the same genetics that I have, that she is at greater risk for diabetes and if I can help her and myself by studying healthy choices, having an open dialogue about weight issues, I can help her build a positive self image.  So we are loosely going to follow a 1200-1400 calorie a day diet, and try to exercise at least 3 times a week.  My total weight loss goal is 60 pounds, Rachaels is 25 pounds.  We will see how we do.

Happy 16th

My Beautiful Baby Girl!!

All Along the Watchtower

Photos from Lake Texoma, most taken from an observation tower overlooking the lake. A good but wet weekend at the lake, the horse back riding trails were washed out, so no horseback riding, but the girls still had a wonderful weekend, and I love just being nestled in the woods, near water, and away from the noise of the city. It's Monday, and no matter how hard I have petitioned the powers that be, Monday comes once every seventh day.

Read Any Good Books Lately?

I wrote six poems in 8 days, well actually 5 poems and one Loose Thought before I quit.  It's okay, it was a test to see if I was ready, I am not.  I missed the words, perhaps why I am still in hiatus, I will start working through old poems, revising and submitting.   I will do what I normally do when this happens, I will read.  I will photograph.  I will doodle.  I will post my thoughts on the books I read.  Let me know if you have read any good books lately? 

Doodle Art and New Pens

I love coupons, sales, gimmicks that store keepers use to bring me to their doors, in the hopes that I will buy more than the advertised special. I generally am pretty good at keeping to the sale items (not always). This weekend I went to Michael's with my 50% off coupon and purchased a set of calligraphy pens. I spent a bit of time Saturday night learning how the pens move, getting used to the weight of the pen, the amount of pressure needed to make lines of varying width and depth. I have been experimenting with my doodling tools, I have been doodling a long time ( most of my life), generally with bic pens and whatever paper is available, the last couple of years I have began to keep the best of these doodles, and the last six months I have began to explore tools of the trade, graduating from steno pads to sketch pads, and trying out a variety of pens and pencils, I have purchased graphite artists pencils, gel pens, roller-ball pens, fine and extra-fine sharpie markers , and lastly manga and calligraphy pens. So far I like the gel pens and the calligraphy pens the best, they seem to give crisp lines and sharp curves as well as the ability to vary the depth and boldness of black. Still I think them as doodles and not drawings, most evolve on their own, perhaps only hinting at the concrete. I find doing them relaxing and reassuring, a comforting abstraction.

Writing Again

I jumped into a 30 day challenge this week, lasted two days before my daughter became sick, but that's okay, I wrote 3 poems this week.  The first in a very long dry spell.  I am not sure of the new work,  I will have to see how it evolves, generally there is a shift, a subtle change of hue in my work between periods of hibernation.  The more I write poetry, the more convinced that I am not a modern poet, that by virtue of history, my work might belong in another time period, frankly I am okay with that.  I am finding that I become more and more protective of my work, I let the poems speak to me, tell me which ones to submit, which ones to sit and settle for awhile.  I am likely gaining the reputation of one who does not care to put their work out in the open, it's not true.  It is not that I mind rejection, frankly I anticipate most of my work will be rejected, it is more likely a matter of ineffective time management on my part. Ask my husband, I start more things than I finish, I constantly want to learn new things, this week two old friends of mine  were telling me about classes in paper making and hand dyeing, before I could stop myself, I asked them to send me the link to the classes.  Then I looked up and said, no don't I already have more hobbies than time.   I have the equivalent to creative ADD,  I love the process of creating--whether it be words, photos, flowers, art or even food. I am a creative junkie.  I can't help myself.   It feels good to be writing.

Even on a Cloudy Day





Photo taken from the plane as we were leaving Anchorage, I am still buried in photos trying to go through the ones I like and optimize them, finding the right balance of light, color and perspective. I am still very much the amateur and often find myself struggling between what I want to do and what i have the skill to actually do. My husband gave me Aperture 2 for my birthday, and I am waiting to the long weekend to install it and see what it and I can do. I am excited, this weekend I am going to take my camera and go out and photograph bridges, I find myself wanting to stop and photograph the little creeks and waterways that filter through our neighborhood, I have been mentally making a list of the ones I like, and this weekend I am going to ask Rachael if she wants to practice driving, and I am going to take my camera. Killing two birds with one stone. I wrote a poem yesterday, not really a good poem, but a poem, the first in nearly 3 months, and it felt right, like it was time to return to the words. I also sent in 3 poems to the Rattle Poetry Prize competition, my first submission since April, perhaps I am coming out of poetic hibernation. My chapbook An Insatiable Desire for Deja'Vu (special thanks to my husband for giving me the title) has been accepted by Flutter Press, and hopefully will be out in late 2009 or early 2010, it will be my first chapbook, and I am really excited. Thank-you Sandy.

10 Things

Its my birthday today, I am 46. I am happy, blessed and content on the morn of my 46th year. This week my husband and my daughter have asked me repeatedly what I wanted for my birthday, and I have told them everything from a winning lottery ticket, a cabin in Alaska to a visit from the house fairy. The house fairy comes while you are sleeping and takes care of all of those troublesome house details, paint, new floors, furniture...a instant home renovation, like those on HGTV but it all happens when you are comfortable spooned in the arms of your husband, snoring.

Here is my birthay wish list, the first item is what my Mom has asked for her entire life, and as a kid it drove me crazy. Here in middle age, I no longer shudder when I exhibit some of my mothers behaviors--I celebrate them, my Mom rocks.

1) Peace on Earth-Good will toward man

2) Continued good health, so I can spend more time with those two I love most. Mike and Rach.

3) My own cabin in Alaska or one I share with my sisters

4) To see my extended family more often, my mom, my dad, barbara, my fab four, my Granny Nixon and Pa Wilson, my sisters, my nieces, my nephews, my grand nieces and nephews, my cousins, aunts and uncles

5) A six month vacation

6) A visit from the house fairy (I did not get a Martha Stewart gene)

7) Quilting lessons from my Granny Nixon

8) Time to take a professional photography class

9) Time to earn the Texas Gardener certification ( 11 Mondays off and 200 volunteer hours)

10) To attend a writers retreat where either Mark Doty or Jack Gilbert are teaching.

It's a big wish list, just to hedge my bets, I also asked for new photo software, sound canceling head phones and a stand to ride my bike inside. I am groovy and happy and love life. I really don't need a thing. I am damn lucky. Thank-you God.

Sepia Postcards

I am  blessed , sometimes when you least expect it joy sneaks up on you and every now and then you get lucky and are aware of it.  There is an acknowledgement and peace of the preciousness of time, of being in the moment with those that you love, a perception of being fluid.  I am still processing photos, I am doing a series on Exit Glacier, how it has receded over time, I chose the sepia images to bring a sense of melancholy to the images, an awareness of the transitory nature of these glaciers.  My uncle took some photos 8 years ago of this glacier. He is going to send them to me, I want to compare the images, I am hoping he sends them electronically.  I am thinking I might write a piece on the glaciers, an essay I suspect.  As I stood on the edge of the ice field I was filled with such an incredible sense of awe, awareness and loss.  With God's grace I am feeling groovy.

Home Again and it Feels Good



I slept in my own bed last night and it felt good, real good. I have missed my husband and my home. Rach and I got in last night from Anchorage after a day that was much like a cross between Planes, Trains and Automobiles and a classic episode of The Twilight Zone. I spend nearly 5 hours in the transportation hell of "stand-by" passenger after the Anchorage Airport closed all but one of the security lines and myself and about 20 others missed the 7:30 am departure to Seattle. The photo of Exit Glacier, still processing photos and unwinding, mostly groovy.

On Vacation

Rach and I leave today for Anchorage, we will be gone 9 days, a little bit of a shorter trip than normal, but given the last year of illnesses for both of us, the most leave I could scrap together for a visit. I talked to my niece Maddie, and she is planning our visit agenda, so far I know we will be going Horseback riding, Dads cabin and perhaps Seward. I am looking forward to just ambling around with my Dad, spoiling my nieces and driving everyone crazy with my camera. The doodle one I did last week during a meeting, I generally produce one or two more elaborate doodles during long meetings. In an odd way it keeps me focused on the meeting, as it acts as a siphon for my nervous energy, allowing me to concentrate. I am one of those people who always has something in motion, a taping foot, fingers that strum, a hand clicking a pen or a bouncing chair. As a child I would cut piles of paper, a habit that drew attention from my kindergarten teacher, who wrote Brenda likes to cut paper--as if it was a habit that I needed to curtail. I learned to doodle pretty quickly after the paper outlet was taken off the tableau of acceptable child behaviors. I used to scribble in the abstract. You take a crayon and scribble a random outline, and then color each intersecting area with a different color. As I grew up, I graduated to pencils and pens as a more socially acceptable form of the abstract. I imagine my professional credibility would take a hit, if I sat in a meeting with a box of 96 crayons. I might be asked to put my toys away. I am ready for vacation, I had hoped I could talk that handsome man I married into coming with us to Anchorage, but he is staying home. I really missed him with all of my travels this summer, and there is a big part of me that needs a week off with him, and just being big home bodies. Perhaps after school starts he and I can play hooky a few days. I am taking both cameras, 5 books, my chapbook draft, my Macbook and a box of 96 crayons.

City by the Bay

Breath on Glass


This week I received sad news, a friend and peer of mine, Marshall died this week suddenly. He was only 42 years old. We worked together on many projects over the last decade, and I found myself thinking much about the day I first met him. How a simple phrase he said to me, made me like him instantly, and perhaps in that phrase I caught and understood something about him, something that in many ways exemplified the way he lived his life. That day all of those years ago, we were both "pretending" to be grown-ups in our suits and dress clothes for a business meeting, where he was presenting information about a site, that he felt strongly needed to be cleaned up and I was effectively one of the clients. He was in-front of me as we filed into the conference room, full of managers and decision makers, and I remember asking him who all of these people, and he said nothing but JAFOs-and I whispered whats a JAFO, and he said I will tell you later. After the meeting he explained to me that a JAFO, was just another fucking observer. I liked him instantly and had the wonderful experience of working with him for many years. In all of the years that I knew him, he had a slightly off-beat left-of-center way of looking at things and approached his life with gusto, whether in work or play. Every time I came to Austin, he took me out to lunch to eat at Ross's, where the food was good and plentiful (he loved good food), and invariably the conservation went from work to home, to his cats and his wife Cecily who lit his world. I saw him last in Chicago where we both spoke on the same panel, and where once again we were "pretending" to be adults. What image I will hold in my mind of him, is him in jeans, a Hawaiian shirt, and sandals, his arm around his wife, at dinner in the midst of a great story. Marshall was never once a JAFO.

To Ward Off Unkind Spirits

and with string, broken glass and empty vessels man lays runes to ward off unkind spirits from the hills of their ancestors. The hills above this makeshift shrine are adorned with the art of another time, symbols that marked the terittory of a simpler people. The wind as it rolls off the mesa stirs, and the tinkling of glass, tin, aluminum and iron oxides fill the canyon and this talisman becomes a chime. In that moment all was fluid.

Virtual Me

My friend and fellow poet Arlene Ang designed these SIMs 3 characters as a virtual me, I asked for a short fat blond Avatar, the only pictures she had are the few of myself on my facebook page. The bottom photo is of me and my beautiful daughter Rachael. I love being virtual, I believe Arlene made me both prettier and blonder than I actually am, but I am okay with that, I especially love the animal print jogging-suit she dressed me in. Makes me want to buy SIMs 3 for my daughter, but it has been our experience that every time SIMs comes out with a new game version, it requires a bigger, better, faster computer, and frankly Rach wants a car for her 16th birthday, so there will be no SIMs upgrade at the house of Cook. I have been busy and still a bit in seclusion as far as poetry goes, my muse is still frozen, and I have absolutely no desire to unfreeze her, so far I am not worried, which perhaps should give me some pause, but so far I am okay with the status quo. I am however not even submitting, which is something I normally do when I hit a dry spell, but I can not even seem to whoop up some poetic ambition for that, not even my chapbook, which is done and I am mostly happy with. Not sure why, but for now I am gardening, photographing and spending time with my family and friends, perhaps it is just time to charge up my depleted batteries. With God's grace I am feeling groovy.

Artist in the Park

A photo of a artist in the park in Santa Fe, I am not happy with the photos, but I was intrigued with the artist, he was in front of me on the green as children were performing at the pavilion and as I listened to the music, I watched him completely absorbed in his own work. Pencils and brushes in one hand the canvas on the ground next to him, from where I was standing I could not see the painting. As I got up to leave, I turned around and got a glimpse of his work from the sidewalk. I used to dabble a bit with watercolors (poorly, awfully, badly) and oil pastels ( still poorly, badly, awfully but not quite as bad as the watercolors) and sometimes I wish I could transform the photos I take into paintings. I am home now for a few weeks and hope to catch up on posts, and emails and the weeding of my garden. I am feeling the desire to nest and wish at times I could reschedule my trip to Alaska to Thanksgiving, and simply stay home with Michael and Rachael and work on some home projects, Michael and Rachael are both redesigning their rooms Michael is redoing our joint office ( it looks great) and Rachael is voluntarily clearing out her room and her Daddy has agreed to help her draw out a new plan once the purging is complete. She is excited and is full of plans for a grown-up room. I would like to tackle the two living areas, new paint and new furniture for the front room and recycling the best of the front room for the back living room. I am feeling blessed with my family and mostly groovy.

Chicago Blooms

I like insects and flowers. I am not sure why. Perhaps it is because their own roles in life are well defined and simple, yet the service they provide is essential to all life. I find them fascinating, but I have an odd and random brain, and can spend hours watching them do their work. Chicago was wonderful and busy, with not enough play time to explore with my camera. I was able to go to the Art Institute of Chicago on Thursday night and the Fields Museum and I hope to be able to return to that wonderful city to spend more time in its museums and along the water's edge. In Chicago I took pictures of flowers and bugs ( of-course) and trains and boats. I can say I know a city by its blooms, they had holly-hocks, which do not grow well here, and their blooming season follows ours by 4-6 weeks. By the color of the hydrangea blooms, they have slightly acidic soils, and they get more rainfall than we do here in Texas. I digress, I spent the weekend catching up with one of my oldest friends ( I love you Bonnie-Jean) and enjoying my family. I am behind in weeding my garden and the birds ate my beautiful tomatoes while I was away. My garden is suffering in 103 weather and I am not sure it can survive much longer in this brutal heat. Yesterday at church the sermon was based on the music and lyrics of Bob Dylan and the movie Jerry Macguire, and I am still thinking about the heart of the sermon, which was inspiration, what inspires us, what is it that drives us and motivates us to the more. I am still recharging my batteries, and with Gods grace mostly groovy.