creativity update

It's really striking how much difference fifteen minutes a day makes toward making me feel like a musician again. Even just this little bit is really limbering me up on all my instruments. (Of course I sometimes play longer, if I want to.) I don't know what else to say about this. I don't want to push it. I'll keep up this practice and see what happens (with songwriting, for instance). But just to, you know, prime the pump, I really recommend this little-bit-daily approach to anyone who feels blocked or overwhelmed; I bet it can be adapted to any medium at all. (Kara's daily practice with clay, which helped to inspire me in the first place, is the best example of the wide applicability of daily practice across mediums, I think.)

The Sunday Scribblings have been helpful in getting me to produce something every week. I don't consider myself a writer, but I love to write, and I'm willing to pursue any available avenue to creative expression that even slightly appeals to me at the moment. And goodness gracious - reading the other writers' scribbles is so inspiring! I'm a bit restricted financially just now, so I dare not even look at listings of painting classes and such. I guess Sunday Scribblings is like attending a free writing group, or something. One that tolerates any level of ability, effort and commitment. What a treat!

I used this week's S.S. prompt to take advantage of Kat's Contagious Creativity suggestion (from last week) to give myself permission to create crap. I hope to go with that approach every Sunday if I can, even if I end up doing something I'm proud of sometimes. I don't want to lose the sense of freedom I've been granting myself to just do something, without regard for quality. It's helping. A lot.

Yesterday I thumbed through a book I picked up a few years ago and have ignored since, an encyclopedia of craft projects that can be completed in a day. Most of the patterns and such in the book are really corny, but I think I could make some very cool stuff using the instructions. I've got a few wedding gift situations to deal with this summer and not a lot of disposable cash, so I'm particularly excited to try some things: glass painting, pottery painting, mosaics (good for picture frames or mirrors)... the raw materials are fairly affordable, and I LOVE to make things. In fact, it occured to me that I could customize myself a whole set of dishes this way, if I can find dishwasher- and food-safe paints. We've never bothered to buy a nice set of dishes. I'm not crazy about matching sets of things. But with a cheap set of plain glass or ceramic pieces, I could go nuts making something really special - a set of dishes that match each other in their basic construction but that are also unique and individual, different from each other and from any other set of dishes anywhere. I love folk art and simple designs. So why pay more for somebody else's creations? I seriously can't wait to get started.

So tomorrow, I have an artist date planned. I'm heading over to a Michael's craft store. I'm actually giddy about all this!

never tell me the odds

I turn 42 this weekend. It was almost two years ago now that my husband and I realized that, despite what we'd been telling ourselves since not long after we got married, we did in fact want to have a child. That was quite the epiphany, I must say. The thing is, we got the opportunity to come to this realization when I missed a period. [We were both really sad when the pee stick said, "Nope," and then it was like, Wait a second...] And as I would soon learn, that happened because I had a little thyroid problem called Grave's Disease, which, in addition to making me more hyper, more sensitive, hungrier, and sweatier than usual, was tweaking my body's hormone soup in ways which would have made it nigh on impossible and even dangerous for me to try to concieve before clearing it up.

It took about a year from then to take care of that problem. And somehow I've whiled away the year since the clean bill of health, sort of trying to concieve but sort of not trying all that hard and not really worrying about it. My doctors both told me that that was the best approach, which was refreshing.

But it hasn't happened yet. And I just made the mistake of doing a little internet research on fertility after forty. Stupid, stupid. Let's just say the odds may not be in my favor. I mean, I knew this, but I didn't really break it down because I believe that if I truly intend something, if it's meant to happen the odds don't mean doodly. I suppose I could have paid more attention sooner to boosting my odds, but I really didn't want to mess with my easy-going attitude about the whole thing - my secret weapon.

So why did I look at this information? Well for starters, the number 42 sounds inordinately larger than the number 41, somehow. And I have an appointment with an Ob this Friday; I guess I wanted to be passably familiar with the standard M.O. for women like me. All I can say is that I hope the doctor I'll be seeing is extremely cool, and sensitive to the importance of optimism and fierce, faithful belief in situations like mine. I get that it's possible I won't get what I want. I do. But that's always possible, isn't it? I am not about to dwell on that aspect of things out of some misguided idea about what's "good for me." I think what's good for me is to stay as open as I can possibly be to my true dreams and wishes and intentions, and then to pursue them with all my power in the way that feels most right and least fearful (fear-full). The path that opens up that way can certainly lead to unexpected outcomes, but it doesn't lead to undesired ones. Something this important can only be in God's hands. I trust that the right thing, the best thing, will happen. I'm doing my very best to both do my part and stay out of the way. I know that one way or another I will be a mother.

I still think it will happen the old-fashioned way, actually. Why not? Besides, no one ever thinks I'm as old as I am. That can't hurt. People in doctors offices and such are forever confirming my birth year, thinking it's a typo or something, and when co-workers and such find out my age they often seem downright stunned. This used to happen even when I got sick of coloring my hair and let my copious grey grow in. I got lots of comments then about what an interesting dye-job I had. I guess I have a youthful presentation! I do have good genes and all in this regard, but I figure it must be at least partly due to my spry spirit. And I imagine that sort of thing helps.

Anyway... don't want to start protesteth-ing too much. Just please do me a small favor if you're so inclined, and picture me with a nursing infant from time to time. I could use some support as I work on my ultimate creative project. Thanks, friends.

sunday scribblings - chocolate

The two girls sat on the picnic table with their feet on the bench and their pigtailed heads bowed conspiratorialy.

"They're left over from my party," Amy explained as Lori studied the fistful of Tootsie Pops she was holding. I'm having the purple one first. Which one do you want?"

"You always take the purple ones!"

"Well, they're from MY party, and I AM sharing them with you. Do you want one or not?"

"Okay. I'll have a red one." Amy began to pull one of the buds from the little wax paper bouquet. "No, not the pink-red one. A red-red one." Correction made, two wrappers were twirled off and two pops clacked against two sets of insurgent incoming teeth.

Amy smoothed the purple wrapper over her knee with her free hand. "I'm having the other red-red one after this. Those are so much better than the pink-red ones. The pink-red ones are kind of gross."

"They're better than the orange ones." Lori pursed her lips and spun her pop on its stick in front of her brand new incisors, feeling the rough edges of the raised band smoothing over.

"Yeah. Well... a little. I don't know. " Amy, holding her stick at eye level and out of her own shadow for closer inspection, spotted an extra dark spot on the side of the dark purple pop, the brown center showing through. She stuck it back in her mouth and crunched down hard. Pulling the other cherry pop out of the little pile on the table next to her and putting it in her lap, just to be safe, she grabbed the bunch and held it out to Lori.

"Wehish on de ye wan nest?"

Lori spun her stick pensively as she considered her options. "I'll have a chocolate one."

Amy pulled her head back and squared her shoulders, her face a riot of confusion and utter disdain. "WHA?" She chewed for another moment and swallowed the remains of pop number one, studying first her now nervous friend and then the bunch of heavy-headed sticks. "Do you mean a BROWN one?"

"Yeah! Duh."

"That is so not chocolate."

"It is too! What flavor do you think brown is?"

"I don't know... Tootsie Roll flavor."

"Well Tootsie Rolls are chocolate."

"Oh my god! They ARE NOT!"

"Well then what are they?"

"They're Tootsie Roll flavor! You can't have chocolate that's not... chocolate! That's like trying to make chocolate milk with water. It doesn't even count. It is sooo gross."

"Well it may not be as good as real chocolate stuff, but they are so trying to make it taste like chocolate." Lori unwrapped her brown pop. "Look! It even says so."

Amy grabbed the wax paper square and examined it in disbelief. "EEWWW!"

The sound of Lori's big sister singing along with her cd player drifted down from a window as the girls licked and pondered. "AND IIIIIIIIII-EEIIII - will always - love you-OOOOOO-oo-oo-oo!" They looked at each other and rolled their eyes in unison. Lori jumped off the picnic table and held her pop like a microphone, mouthing extreme earnestness, raising her eyebrows as high as they'd go, sticking her chest out and wiggling her butt. Amy rolled onto her side, screaming with laughter.

"Hey! Knock it off you little turdballs!" The Melanie the Meanie scowled fiercly as she leaned into the screen in the window above.

Lori looked up over her shoulder then back at Amy. "Wanna go make some chocolate milk?"

Amy jumped off the table. "Do you have any Oreos?"

The girls headed for the back door. "I don't think so," Lori said. "And anyway, those aren't chocolate." They both giggled and broke into a run.

**********************************
Hey, this is kind of fun. I haven't tried writing a story (or a bit of dialogue, or whatever this is) since I was in high school. I hated this prompt (though yes of course I love chocolate; I'm not made of wood). Maybe it's especially good to work with the less appealing ones, to get out of the comfort zone.

Regarding Contagious Creativity, I wish I'd run a little more with last week's theme of self-care, but I didn't. Though come to think of it, I have been loading up on the fresh produce lately, which really seems to make me feel great. Must get back to taking Artist Dates, though. I didn't feel I got as much out of them as I could have during the AW, but I haven't taken any since that wrapped up, and I really notice a difference.

More Sunday Scribblings here!

underpants inventory plus update

Well. I learned today that because I was stupid enough to include the name of the type of social singing I do in a couple of posts (and my profile) and ignorant enough with regard to both the basics of blog searching and the level of personal ethics generally regarded as acceptable online (hint: it's not very high), several people I know and that I have considered among my friends have been to this blog. And not let me know that they found it despite its obviously personal nature and its lack of relation to anything that could be construed as their business. And shared the link with each other.

I'm not one to keep secrets. I'm a lay-it-all-out-on-the-line kind of a girl. Just about anybody could and would get just about anything out of me in a conversation if they asked or if the talk just went that way. I share. But if I was in, say, an Al Anon meeting, which is of course public and technically open to anyone including observers, nonparticipants and supportive others, I'd probably want to know if a friend of mine who was not even in the group was lurking in the back as I shared personal and sensitive information. I definitely would not expect that friend to tell another person to come and check it out the following week and not even let ME know that they had been there as I spilled my guts.

I have been disabused of my illusions of relative privacy and safety here on my inconspicuous little artist's way blog. I don't know how this will change my blogging habits. I suppose it will change some things about what I choose to share and how I write about it. I don't know. In any case, of course it's good to be aware - duh, I know - that people search for things and that the expectation of privacy is so low here that even though I'm POSITIVE that the people in question would have KNOWN that I would feel uncomfortable if I knew they were reading, they not only didn't feel an ethical pang sufficient to move them to stop reading, let alone let me know they found it, they also spread the word. Next time I notice their skirt tucked into the back of their pantyhose, I'll be sure to tell three friends but not them. And the sad thing is, even though this feels very icky to me, a) I accept responsibility since it's true that I was really ignorant about blogging, and b) to not tell anyone something like that would be IMPOSSIBLE for me. That would be like returning a lost wallet but keeping the cash. I just ain't put together that way.

Anyway, in honor of ALL of my readers and visitors, because I'm such hot shit and I have no secrets, I thought I'd share the following: I have an entire lingerie chest plus two dresser drawers full of underwear. I own something like forty bras. I mostly wear string bikinis and thongs, but I do own a few pairs of granny panties for those times when I need a smoother line and anything else would make me sweaty. I have several contraptions involving garters, but I buy them mostly to wear with tights I've turned into stockings because the proportions of my lusciously curvy, amazonian body do not tend to fall within the shaded areas of the sizing chart. Lycra is a very good friend of mine. I love to wear the stuff that makes me feel like a scuba diver under my form-fitting dresses. What else... oh yeah, 36 or 38A. Which is funny. 'Cause A is small. And I am large. Lucky for me, my voluptuous hips are balanced nicely by my broad strong shoulders. And relatively prominent collar bones. Muy caliente!

As for all the other sensitive material here, well, that's just more indication of my fabulousness. I am real. It's all true. I haven't written a single word of it to impress anybody - until this post, that is. And this post is all you'll ever get from me along those lines.



Thursday, April 20th

UPDATE

It turns out that while a couple people were aware that I was unlikely to know my blog was so findable or that it was being read by people I know (and one of them stopped reading, and the other got her courage up about the inevitably uncomfortable exchange and let me know, which is cool), two out of three of the people whom I hadn't spoken to before posting but was so sure were aware I'd feel uncomfortable if I knew they were reading told me that they actually never considered that possibility, since the internet is public and since I am generally so frank and out there anyway. It was hard to see at first, but I have no reason not to believe them.

So. I don't know who else might be out there reading or having read , and I don't know what their thoughts or motivations may be. (And I'm already past caring.) But if this sampling is at all representative, my lessons are as follows: 1) the obvious one about the technically public nature and searchability of blogs, 2) the matter-of-fact lack of any sense of the idea that something might be "personal" or "private" (as in, oops, I wasn't meant to see this) that many blog readers and searchers apparently operate from as part of their understanding of the medium, even with writers they may know personally, and 3) I could be more careful about not making assumptions or jumping to conclusions about others' thoughts or motivations, no matter how things look. (I hate it when people do that to me! I definitely don't want to do that.)

I'm feeling just fine. I made the choice to be somewhat identifiable (first name, photo, name of singing) with you guys, and I'm living with the consequences of that choice, as well as with the consequences of my innocent technological ignorance. I'm grateful for the support and kindness I've received since revealing that I felt betrayed. I feel good about my own behavior and my handling of this unpleasantness. I am certainly not embarrassed about anything contained here in my blog, though it's sad and bothersome to me that some humans may tend to seek out perceived weaknesses in others in order to exploit them or to make themselves feel somehow cooler or better. I don't know how mean or judgemental could ever equal cool or better. But I guess that's how I do judgemental. Anyway, lessons learned. Onward.

when we were wee - sunday scribblings

I don't remember feeling small. Looking around at the other kids piled in the nursery school hallway putting their coats on, it was as though I was standing on a box - the top of every other head would only have reached my nose, my chin, my broad little shoulders. And I remember the feeling of melancholy when I saw you through the window coming up the walk to collect me... the songs they sang there were sort of dumb, but at least no one was angry with me. The busy ladies didn't seem to realize what a bad little girl I was. Of course, I knew how to be big girl, so they didn't have to pay very close attention. I wished I had someplace else to go after it was time to put coats on. But there you were.

And then later when you wanted to walk me to school on my first day of kindergarten. Gawd! So embarrassing. Here it was, my first day of big girl school. I knew where it was. I knew how to get there. Why were you insisting on treating me like a baby? Then when we got there, Victor from next door was wrapped around his mommy's legs, crying hard and refusing to let go. I pondered the notion of not wanting to leave one's mommy, and determined I must just have been different from other kids. But as I watched them on the sidewalk I couldn't shake the feeling that maybe I was missing out on something.

The next year when I went to visit the new prospective friend who also had the lunch box with the pretty lady in the fluffy pink and white fancy dress, we didn't end up having much to talk about. Her house smelled like cooking, a lot. When it was time to go wait for you to get me, I helped myself to a lime sour ball from the bowl in the hallway I had noticed on the way in. In some dark moment that felt wrong, like it was not supposed to happen, the candy was suddenly blocking my throat. My eyes got very wide and I waved my hands at my quiet new friend. She ran to get her mommy, who came storming in with her apron on looking like a lunch lady and saying interesting-sounding words I didn't understand. She smacked me on the back really hard and my lime ball popped out onto the floor. Guess I wouldn't be finishing it. It was really nice to be breathing again. The other mommy was yelling now in her mysterious language. Her face was red and sort of wet as she bent over me, took my face in her hand, turned my head from side to side. It seemed like maybe she was telling me not to do that again, but she seemed scared. This yelling was different from yours. I understood that this mommy wanted me to be okay. I wanted to take my coat off and stay there, have a bit of whatever was cooking. But there you were, and the car was running.

I wanted my second grade teacher to be my mother, too, even though her voice was so loud and flat. She let me play the piano after school. She told me I was a good singer. She didn't give me extra attention in front of the other kids, but I knew she secretly thought I was special. There was also a lunch lady, whose house I visited once uninvited on my way home from school. She had always seemed happy to see me. She gave me an extra cookie sometimes. She wasn't as nice when I knocked on her door, though. She seemed a little confused. And I did know better. I was a big girl. Taller than my gym teacher (but she was REALLY short). And anyway, all that stuff about wanting a nice mommy was babyish. It was like playing at pretending to be little, except even that game was too babyish for me.

And anyway, I only wanted to be left alone. Isn't that what I always yelled back at you? Why can't you just leave me alone?

The first time I rode my bike far away from the house, it was thrilling at first - an adventure. I could go anywhere. But then I started to feel a little sad, because no one knew where I was, and no one had told me not to ride there. And I knew I'd go back home before anyone noticed I was gone. That was our arrangment: If I behaved like an adult, you would treat me like one. So I followed the few rules there were. I could ride my bike way out here because I knew what I was doing. Where's the thrill in that? Just lonely. Lonely.

But Catty was pretty cool. He was a friend of mine, a cat who walked upright, wore glasses and smoked a pipe. His voice was like Sean Connery's or Gregory Peck's (though I don't think I knew that then). Taller than me. Nice fur - sort of brownish reddish tabby. He lived in a magical room in another dimension in the basement. A library, really, with a big leather wingback chair. Catty was really smart. He knew how to have fun, though. Once he took me to a land where a giant animated fork and spoon invited us to play in their playpen with them on the front lawn of their house. To get to this place, Catty showed me how to hang by my knees from a tree branch near our driveway, and then to just Let Go. He showed me that part of the ground under the tree was actually foam. When I landed on it, I fell through. It was quite comfortable.

Then there was the time in the summer, when bedtime came while it was still sort of light out, when as I lied there trying to fall asleep, a parade of small bright beautiful cartoon flowers and ribbons and a happy little alligator wearing a hat came marching through the air from the other side of my room, right past my eyes. I was clean in my fresh PJs, my hair still slightly damp from bath time. The sheets were cool and smooth. The metal box fan whirred softly in the window, gently blowing the smell of evening summer trees inside . There was circus-y music playing, accompanying the parade. And that alligator tipped his hat, jiggled his eyebrows and smiled right at me.

real life

It's long past Sunday, but all the Sunday Scriblings posts have inspired me to get on board. So here we go. (Disclaimer: I am not a poet.)

Real Life

Lift me out of this pale routine.
My comfort is slow-acting poison now.
Pull me outside.
Let beauty smack my sleepy face
Like a worried parent.
Wake me up.

Surprise me.
I may think I know you, so
Tell me what you really want now.
And don't make me happy.

Hear the call, the boredom
Seeping in contentment's basement.
The squirm, the snap,
The flash of anger:

This is not enough.

We drape the light with darkness dressed
As form
Familiar.
We pack the open wound, forgetting
It
Bleeds
Life.

refrigerator poem

Here's a vacuous little ditty using some words left by kat and lynn for the purpose of composing a poem. Lynn did a good job writing something of substance this way. As for me, doing this really reminds me of making a cut and paste poem with the magnetic poetry kit - which can be fun. Well, I need a random and easy creative excercise tonight, so here we go:

Careful! Never Trust a Wooden Cat

Jerk and twist the
Lisp from that cursed pursed lip.
Bland my questioned brow.
Hands that flounce and float
Hold empty treasure.

As near as I can tell, it's about a silly pretty girl and the boy who hates to love and loves to hate her, who wishes he knew how to quit her. (Is it bad when a poet feels compelled to explain?) In any case, I hate it (grin), though putting it together did sound a faint echo of the call to creativity. It's a good excercise.

And it reminds me of my favorite magnetic poetry work ever. One night a bunch of friends and I were hanging out making a party game of magnetic poem composition. We used the lids to two cookie tins and a game timer, and we took turns competing, though our "scores" - the somewhat drunken accolades of the group at large - were not recorded or counted. We had a blast. It took almost no time for the compositions to become consistently laden with the sort of sexual innuendo one can only intimate through the inclusion of the word, "sausage." Hilarious at first, but... we soon agreed that it might be even more fun to mix it up a little. I tried. I wrote, "Dream the delirious winter garden. Blow me."

putting it out there

Okay. I've been percolating a bit on the topic of playing music, and rereading the comments I received on my post about resistance to ambition resulting in resistance to playing. Here is what I have come to: In order to keep myself feeling at least somewhat anchored with regard to my musicianship, I need to incorporate a daily practice. Applying myself and keeping the discipline to play something every day will retrain my thoughts back from "It's lost, it's gone, I screwed it up, I let it go," etc.

However. I have to make this approachable, easy, and as fun as possible, since regimented and compulsory practice might only make my spirit rebel. The last thing I need is a new reason to resist playing. In fact, I've told myself a couple of times over the course of the AW that I need to play every day, but I haven't. I think have to accept that I set the time bar too demandingly high. So first of all, I'm going to start with fifteen minutes a day, and keep to that as long as I need to - maybe forever. Maybe fifteen minutes a day is enough. (Of course, I can play longer any time I want to.) Secondly, I can choose whatever instrument calls to me each day, even if that means neglecting one or two indefinitely. As long as I'm making a little music evey day, which will be a huge improvement over the last several years, it's enough. And third, I can play whatever I want. I can improvise, play a commercial jingle by ear, get out my old classical piano music books, play scales, bang on strings and grunt, whatever. Anything goes.

I envy Kara her daily lumps. What could provide more tangible evidence of accomplishment than a lump of lovingly manipulated clay? What a great metaphor - making something out of nothing, manifesting the form of spirit from a lump of earth. Part of me is tempted to try recording what I do each day to approximate this tangibility, but music and recordings are really two different things. I appreciate recordings as art forms and I very much enjoy making them, but to me music is raw, real, live, imperfect, and only to be truly, fully experienced in the spine-chill of the present moment. Awake and alive. I know that that experience is more what I need to get back to, rather than trying to skip ahead to capturing (or contriving) something that's not yet there.

This calls to mind one of my favorite musical experinces ever: Some friends of ours have a cabin in the woods. And somehow, among other fascinating junk, the still-strung sounding board of a demolished grand piano ended up on the property, leaning against a shed. Discovering it one afternoon, I began to hit the tuneless strings with a stick. The sound was riveting, encompassing, like the seemingly eternal ring echoing through a struck metal tank full of water - loud and pervasive, ringing madly at too many different frequencies at once. Disorienting. When I hit it hard, my body was completely absorbed in the volume. Hit the high stings, and it was haunting and eerie. Pound the lower ones, and oceanic power and darkness bellowed forth. The sound just rang and rang, so every stroke just added a layer on top of everything else that was still sounding slowly out.

What an experience. I have no idea how long I crouched there; I was completely engaged in the sound and the sensation--unearthly. I forgot that anyone might be listening. I think because on some level I was just pounding on a noisy piece of junk with a couple of sticks, I was totally free of the constraints of having to make music. And the music I ended up making was some of the most inspired of my career.

I'd love to sneak back through that door again. There must be a way to find that level of freedom, and to set it loose on, for instance, the piano sounding board that happens to be inside my structurally sound and functional piano. Play. Consider the possibilities fifteen minutes a day could open to me...



infinite.

what you wish for

I'm still here. Still doing pages. I'm trying to ramp up my spiritual practice. To that end, I'm focusing on kicking the self-harm. Trying to kick has tended to make it worse, but I'm sticking to the effort and refusing to halt progress by beating myself up for slips. No action on the creative/musical front, but I got some GREAT support in response to my last post, and I am taking it to heart. Thank you. Actually, for the last few days I've been mostly sitting at the computer solving Sudoku puzzles for hours at a time. Escape!

Well. To get to the point: There's a hilarious little synchronicity going on in my life right now that I had to share. First, a little background. I don't pay much attention to popular culture except when I happen to take interest in something that's popular (which doesn't seem to happen very often), and I don't get excited about celebrities. When I sang at the Academy Awards a couple of years ago, I cringed a little to see other members of my group getting autographs and pictures from famous folks who were also involved in our segment. It's just not my thing. They're just people, right? I'm inclined to leave them alone. I sure wouldn't want to be asked to grin for photos with strangers every twenty minutes. And don't get me started on the famous-for-being-famous thing. Ew!

So, yeah - celebrities schmelebrities. However. There is one famous actor, someone you all know, who I like. I like him... a lot. I love all his work. He chooses excellent and interesting projects, and he always steals the show - never the same character twice. (Some of you might know who I'm talking about. I'm not including his name because I don't want it to get googled here.) I'm a bit embarrassed to admit it, but I've gone through phases where I have chosen to kill way too much time reading about this actor on the internet, and he even seems like a nice guy. Oh and yeah he's unbelievably attractive.

Him I had my eyes peeled for that weekend in L.A. He was staying at the same hotel - someone else in my group rode the elevator with him and a couple of his handlers - but I missed seeing him. He wasn't even in the audience when we were singing; he was cued up backstage, getting ready to present next or something. Ah, well. Probably better not even to have had the opportunity to risk making an ass of myself and abandoning my no-paw celebrity rule.

Well guess what. He seems to have bought a home fifteen minutes from here. This story is still unconfirmed, though of course I know someone who knows someone who knows a FedEx driver who delivered a package. I just also know better than to believe it all the way at this stage. Still... it's possible.

I find this hilarious and synchronicitous because it's just another call to step up, to be my best self, to emerge from the cave. I can have whatever I want, whatever I ask for in earnest. Nothing is out of reach. Anything I turn my attention to will end up in my field of experience eventually. No, I don't expect to become his pal or even to meet him. But who cares! Isn't it just interesting to think about how possible things can be? I mean, I live in Nowheresville, New England. What are the odds? Even if it's just a rumor, there is a message for me in this.
("Never tell me the odds!" --Harrison Ford as Han Solo)