What a glorious night!

AND THE CD's HAVE ARRIVED! With the celebration of the summer! It was so wonderful last night playing in Jen's backyard. And now i'll be taking CDs wherever I go! Here is a beautiful picture taken by Jen's sister Kristen. (more pics on the way)





Thanks to daniel lee! He rocked, check him out at www.danielleemusic.com.


Guess it's time to work on the next CD.... haha, the writing continues! I'd like to get some shows before I leave for Portland. Enjoy your week,


Jodi

better than i know myself

you know how people say that... "he knows me better than i know myself." It's a comforting thought, I think, to say someone else knows you-- "better" than you know yourself. It's like saying someone knows all of you, and then exaggerating that point even further... though when you think about it, that can't REALLY be true. for someone else to know you better than you even know yourself is basically commiting yourself to someone elses opinion of you, or standard of you... really leaving the thinking up to them, and kicking back. (i know the phrase is just meant to say, wow this person KNOWS me)

but yeah, it's kind of a comforting thought, i mean, to have someone that just knows. for some people i think the person or entity that knows them better than they know themselves is God. He knows more than they could ever know about themselves... therefore when they just don't know about themselves, they pray, or read the bible, and then some all-knowingness is hoped to pierce through the clouds or the book and jump inside of their minds.

but what is all this giving up our power to know ourselves doing? we're less contemplative, more dependent, and in a sense, finding a way to live with our lack of understanding of ourselves.

i can say, there's a lot about myself i don't understand. i don't know why i act certain ways around certain people, or why i get in bad moods sometimes, or why i feel the need to be alone, why i then feel lonely. i understand that i'm different, so i almost don't understand why my life seems the same as any other college-bound high school graduate. so i just kind of can daydream about how nice it would be for someone to know me better than i know myself.

but its been through experiencing other people, with thoughts and actions different from my own, and from reading great books, and from driving with the windows down, and from going to that ani difranco concert, that i pick up more of an understanding of myself... it's almost like i have to see part of me in something else to know that part of me exists. but really... it exists before i see it someplace else, and its too strange/difficult to decipher before it's been discovered through my observation of my surroundings.

so this is sort of borderline philosophy blog today. there are parts of me that exist that i do not yet "know" and i'm not convinced that some one knows me better, or that i should stop at that reality if it were true, because really, i'd like to know myself better. and that's something i'm going to be learning to do as i pick up and go to a place where people won't even know me, let alone any better than i know myself.

peace,

Jo

inspiring words

Last minute Jen and I bought tickets to see Ani tonight! It was wonderful, wolftrap is an awesome place, the lawn was one big hippy fest with blankets and wine and lesbians and all sorts of people. I loved hearing a bunch of new songs... here's some greeeat lyrics to one of them:


i had to leave the house of privilege
spend christmas homeless and feeling bad
to learn privilege is a headache
that you don't know that you don't have
i had to leave the house of television
to start noticing the clouds
it's amazing the stuff you see when
you finally shed that shroud

i had leave the house of conformity
in order to make art
i had to be more and less true
to learn to tell the two apart
i had to leave the house of fear
just about as soon as i could crawl
ignore my face on a wanted poster
stuck to the post office wall

i had leave the house of self-importance
to doodle my first tattoo
to realize a tattoo is no more permanent
than i am, and who
ever said that life is suffering
i think they had their finger on the pulse of joy
and the power of transcendence
made its grace a practice we can employ.





tell me that's not awesome! there were other songs i can't find the lyrics to that i absolutely loved as well. something about... not being in the best shape, and i'm going somewhere and it's not where i've been. something like that, it was beautiful, really, and i kept getting teary eyed. but it has been an emotional week or so for me. i'm near the CD making end. halelujah! spread the word about the party-- www.jodimclaren.com. it's gonna rock, basically. so be there.


Jodi

this friday

cd-release-eve

Dinner, Salsa, Assembling CDs.... happy times. lets organize a bit with a house and some food options. 99.1 should supply salsa music just fine.


right on

(all about putting together fun things this summer, atleast once a week, if not everyday)

the act of forgetting

when i was getting my cd mastered the other day the song "don't forget me" was playing, and i told bill wolf (master man) about how i wrote it as sort of a graduation song. and the line "don't forget me.." plays a bunch of times, and he says "yes, but people do..." and i reply with an acting-like-i-know-the-ways-of-life-more-than-i-really-do answer of, "yeah.. I know.."


it's one thing for other people to move on and forget about eachother, it's something else entirely to forget who you once were... or to remember and feel very disillusioned in the contrast between past and present.

today i remembered the day i sat on my living room and cried for my friends in africa. i remembered wanting so badly to do something, and i did through the means of... getting my parents to contribute, and by sending 100 bucks to african liaison.

still where is that drive now? that drive to do something good that one feels compelled to do? am i freaking numb to my surroundings from this self centered act of creating my own CD?

the root of all this comes down to who i am, and what separates my natural inclinations from my actual actions... what separates who i am from who i portray myself to be.

i woke up with a weight, i couldn't fall back asleep, but i kept trying to, because i knew if i got up i'd have nothing to do to alieviate stresses. i want to be assured that this party will run smoothly with actual CDs to release that should get mailed this week. i kept trying to go back to sleep, but it just made me sad because i couldn't sleep... there's some push inside me to discover something new, to get somewhere, to keep going, so much that its hard to just sleep, and yet i don't have much means of assuring that i do get places, because some things are out of my control.

i don't know if i'm nailing the source of this pain on the head yet, or if there's something else. i broke down crying in the shower this morning... and i kept feeling like i had nothing firm to my personality. like i'm living in another time and place other than now and people aren't on board with me, because how could they be? and people's desire to fix whatever this sadness is in a phrase or a word of advice seems to make me more sad... like it's undermining whatever is existing in me right now. though i do acknowledge needing to progress towards something.

when the question arose in my head: what am i about? what am i doing? what is it i believe? what do i know?

the only word that came to mind was "love." and that's the only thing i know exists right now. and i believe in it. and i'm here to love. i don't even know how to love all the time though, because i can be such a bitter person... and i can be so quick to judge, yet i never trust my judgments... cause it all seems so shallow. i miss wanting to change the world. i miss chasing big things. i miss relating to some one, even in sadness. and yes, there's a positive side to all of this and i'm growing... but it's hard to know whats real.


i'll leave with some ani words i enjoy about what's real from the song/poem "the true story of what was":

real is real regardless of what you try to say or say away
real is real relentless
while words distract and dismay
words that change their tune, though the story remains the same
words that fill me quickly and then are slow to drain
dilogues that dither down remniscent of the way it likes to rain
every scream, a smoke screen, oh to dream
just for a moment
the picture
outside the frame.

Then in a flash
The light blue horizon
Spanning a sudden black
Is sucked into the vanishing point
And quiet rushes back
To search for the downbeat
In a tabla symphony
To search in the darkness
For someone who looks like me

(Though I'm not really who I said I was
Or who I thought I'd be)

Just a collection of recollections
Conversations consisting
Of the kind of marks we make
When we're trying to make a pen mark again

A lifetime of them!

I say to me
Now here listening
I say to the locusts
That sing and sing to me sitting
Now here on the front porch swing of my eyes...
I hereby amend
Whatever I've ever said
With this sigh




peace-- in whatever form you can attain it or pass it on.

music high, music low

come join us this saturday, July 30th, for the CD Release of my new CD "believe me" featuring Daniel Lee! 5pm in Silver Spring. visit my website for more info: www.jodimclaren.com.

thats my music high.



the low i was just thinking about is in regards to music from other people. i've been a little wrapped up in recording and such and feel i've been missing out on some type of music scene, different from my previous discoveries. Now is a time in my life I'd appreciate mix CDs or recommendations of people to listen to. This is open to anyone out there. Recommendations may be left on the comments or sent to my email: settle4more@gmail.com



share the love.

teach myself to be new in an instant like the truth

ani difranco is the woman.

teaching yourself things can be hard. "an instant like the truth" is happening all over the place, and changing every instant, and it's hard to keep feeling new. its easy to feel old, to feel like the person you were, to feel inadaquate, to feel out of place...

yash and trev always talking about "tricking your brain" and how its what you have to do to actually take an interest in something, you have to make yourself believe its true, tricking your brain is what makes history books come alive, scary movies make you jump.. basically allows you to believe what you see is real.

so i've been trying to "trick my brain" to start taking an interest in becoming a little more positive about all this... and i'm getting somewhere, or so i think, and thats better that the cycle of "this sucks." bad news can be so upsetting, so theres some types of religions that tell you not to get your hopes up, just to be complacent and at peace (buddhism..) and not take part in all the craziness around you. but i'm not so much about that because it seems like you're cutting out the lows and the highs, and that we should be able to endure the lows to feel the highs.. and i guess ultimately we balance out or something, but here's the complacent, consistently balanced out approach.

what i want to do is trick my brain into being more positive, so i can possibly experience a more positive outlook, just because in my head i know that it's important to be more positive, even though righ now i have not naturally been very positive. love is hard. the less tangible journey continues.

my next 4 days are going to kick ass, with our without asheville, because i want them to. and i already have off work, and it's okay that the road trip fell through.


goodnight for now

things that make me cry

i've had a headache ever since i went out to my car which was parked on the street and had to bend over to get under the tree branches... at which point i opened the door right into my face! the corner of the door hit near my eye.. and i just sat in the thickness of the hot day trying not to cry.

i went to rachael's tonight with a huge bag from ikea that was filled with wooden framed mirrors and picture frames awaiting paint jobs. i opened the door to someone yelling at somebody, and made my way up to her room. rach was in a bad mood, with many justifiable reasons to be. i can never think of what to say when bad situations are at hand, so i sometimes awkwardly laugh, or sometimes i say the first cliche that pops into my head, sometimes i just listen... the truth is, i feel the pain of my closest friends, and i just want to cry. (yet something in me knows that crying wouldn't solve anything, and really, it'd take attention of the person who "needs it"... unless the person just needs to cry too, i'm getting ahead of myself).

we were sitting on rachael's bed (kathleen and i), and mike was on the floor and rachael was standing up, and josh was on the couch, and 6 mirrors are painted on the floor... and kathleen asks if anyone heard what happened with amanda quigg's dad... then came news that he died almost a week ago. "SHIT!" were my honest first words blurted out. then a really upset face, and, "oh my god." I haven't seen amanda quigg in a long time, and i haven't hung out with her in an even longer time, but we were really close in 10th grade and i've learned so much from her in that amount of time we spent together. she's the strongest person i know. it's sad to think of her having another person die in her life, but there's more to the story than that, her dad has been sick for a long time, her mom has always taken care of him, he may have been headed for a nursing home of some sort... this is a phase that the family has awaited. still, i just feel like quigg's loss is my loss too, because i love quigg so much. (i know these other details because i talked to quigg since i've gotten home.. just had to IM her, she's such an amazing person and i love her!)

i called joey while at rachael's to see if he knew more than i did about quigg's dad, and he didn't know much more. then came that phrase spoken way too much for action to feel comfortable about.. the "let's hang out." i really will hang out with joey, like something meaningful and good before summer ends.

summer is ending.


i went back to rachael's room, everyone is talking, but i can't really focus on what they're saying, i lay back on the bed and look up at the ceiling (the one part of rachael's room that is plain and simple and blank, aside from the draped yellow sheet), and this sadness just kept coming with thoughts of people i love but haven't talked to or told i love (quigg was the first in mind). and then i look back down shaking the tears back and reconnecting to the conversation.

the conversation has shifted to the road trip rach and i have been planning for the past 2 weeks. it's the best thing we've ever planned and decided to do. it has changed our gloomy mood and transformed it into beautiful picture frames and to-be-greeting-cards (to be sold on the road), it has led us to discover the online version of asheville NC and hostels and open mic nights, it's given us something to look forward to. rachael's dad does NOT want her to go, it's come to the point that he will not let her go. we talk about how we really want to go, and if mike and kathleen can come than maybe we can go (its safer with 4 ppl). i start to think about the fact that it might not actually happen, tears swell again.

"this could be the last big thing we all do together"... "what day are you guys going to college?" ... a week before me. more tears swell. this time i'm not staring at the ceiling. "what's wrong? are you thinking about quigg's dad? are you going to miss us?"

yes. "it's okay to cry" ... i look at josh considering the awkwardness he's feeling, but can't really hold back, there aren't words really, so mike just gave me a hug, and i cried on his long sleeved shirt on rachael's bed.

i felt okay, comforted, accepted, just what i needed.

more people came over, i had to go home, i get into my car, turn around, turn right out of rachael's street, as i've done so many times, and the road gets blurry, and the windshield wipers aren't to blame. i'm sobbing... and thinking how do people really "deal" with things? is crying about it dealing with it? it doesn't feel like crying about it is really doing anything at all. this is hard. i can't imagine what quigg is going through, i just want to do something positive for her, i'll give her a CD, how do we DEAL with things? none of this will exist how it does right now. i love joey, i love quigg, i never see them.. i won't have excuses to see them, especially not in portland. so much is changing. i can't stop crying. thank god no one has to see/hear me, because i sound like the 4 year old child i heard crying/screaming in ikea the other day that just gave everyone in the store a headache. i don't feel sorry for myself, i feel compelled, at a loss, sad, when it came to the road trip i kept thinking of that phrase on the back of football t-shirts at reservoir, WINN (When If Not Now?). and i just want to be able to live now, and go down south, and live.

i make it to my bed sobbing again, wondering how i'm going to do anything positive if i can't even stop myself from crying so much. i open my computer and sort of hypnotically open IM, knowing quigg is on instinctively, so i IMed her... because i just needed to, and i tried to offer support, but more importantly, just spoke of how highly i think of her and how much i feel the need to be there for her... and just asked how she's doing and she's okay. we must all be here to support eachother though, especailly when such drastic things are happening, but even when the drastic things are not happening, theres other smaller things going on. always going on. and my head hurts thinking about it. and i don't know if my car door is to blame or if my inability to really understand the world in a fully context is to blame, or if the fact that i'm moving 3,000 miles away is to blame. i feel better, atleast better enough to not be sobbing. i'm going to finish my CD tomorrow, really. life's there when you work towards making it better. it's there all the time i guess.. until it's not, and someone dies, and life is no longer there with them. then this whole idea of working towards things seems silly and weird and depressing.

dealing with things is so ellusive, is there really some specific way? road signs were of no help to my questions tonight. all they did were reinforce what's already known to be necessary "yield, stop, go, merge, slow down" my feet know how to cooperate with these instructions. yet juxtaposed is my brain and personality, at a complete breaking point, instructionless and sad, the world doesn't make sense, death doesn't make sense, being connected to people and feeling their pain doesn't make sense.

road trips don't make sense to parents.


i'd love to go to asheville, i haven't given up yet. the next 2 days i'll be in desperate need of that second wind that keeps people energized to get through the next leg of responsibilities. i can do it.

us human beings, as jack johnson put it, are "better together."


Jodi

community affair

i was at pepperjack's talking to andrew about my church the other day.. don't remember how it came up in conversation, i believe it was because we were talking about my sisters wedding. in any case... he was asking if the church belonged to my dad, like if my dad could call the shots on what went on there. and i was like... well not really because this building was really purchased by so many different people's donation in the community of the church, and theres a team of ppl thats made rules and things like that.

that church cost like... 2 million dollars to buy and build, at least... considering the 63 acres of land and all that. and the money was raised by a whole bunch of people willing to support the fund. pretty amazing.

now.. the forever discussed topic on my blog, my CD is basically hours away from being complete. and as much as this is "my" accomplishment... it's really not just mine, and i'd like to establish that mindset before it even "comes out"... because i've asked for so many people's pre-purchases, and had supportive people carry around those blue cards to pass out to friends of friends of friends (or just random people on the boardwalk), and have been given generous donations, tip jar money, not to mention the boosting encouragement that gets me through every rut in the CD making process, and hours spent in the studio with Nuc, my dad, and rach (who also spent 3 hours, 12am-3am, figuring out harmonies before our 11am-4pm studio session... that's commitment!). SO MANY PEOPLE, and I really feel that this CD is not just MY lovely accomplishment. It's our accomplishment.

This is why I'm having a CD release party! To include you in our accomplishment and celebrate with a wonderful concert in Jen's back yard, together. I have to make one more big decision about whether or not to master the CD which will cost roughly 450-500 bucks (about as much as recording it costs!). Regardless, it will all be complete and pretty and available at the CD release party July 30th in Silver Spring! Mark your calender, if you own one... and if you don't, write it down:

Jodi McLaren CD Release July 30th (must go especially to see Daniel Lee and The Making)


got that written down? Good. can't wait to celebrate our accomplishment.

Jodi

and the research continues from an inside source (myself)

my senior year i participated in the mentor program and wrote a 14 page paper after lots and lots of research on how artists can genuinely be themselves in this commercial marketing lifestyle and still be successful.... or what makes people successful without sacraficing that voice of theirs?

so i studied ani difranco and joni mitchell.. two amazing women... different but ultimately in control of what they were creating in the studio and in performances. both with incredible messages in their music.

i'm going into the studio tomorrow without my dad or nuc... because they are out of town. now this was freaking me out for a little while... like who's gonna tell me what sounds best, who's going to request that the EQ gets shifted a certain particular way.. who's going to listen to these harmonies and see whether or not they add to the songs?

well to answer the question literally... rachael is going to be there, my life friend (okay i've only known rach for 4 years, but my LIFE would be so different without her). and i'm very very thankful for this.

so, who's going to make all those decisions?

I AM. because i've come so far this whole year trying to figure out how an artist can BE and BECOME and come into their own and not be controlled, yet I almost forgot about all that and wanted the comfort of someone elses higher understanding to come explain to me "what works" and what doesn't... for fear that i'd put a CD out with "mistakes" on it that people would noticed.

granted... i've worked my BUTT off to have all my songs in time, and sang my heart out at the last session... but this is the end the time when i have to conclude this part of the journey of making a CD. so today is my day to prepare for the last 2 days of recording... to know in my heart that i CAN do this and that i do know harmonies to sing with my music because the second i listen to what i have now i'm hearing all these other parts in my head to go along. and i know i want a raw dynamic sound that has some depth to it on the vocals. so its time to step up to the plate and take control and own this CD.

and i mean.. really.. any one who stands up and takes a leadership role or a place that draws attention is going to draw the opinions in of many many other people. but i can't let that scare me! sure i'm open to hearing how to make my music better, but it's hard when you're trying to make something that's not going to change. if anything i need to be proud of myself but instead i'm starting to get ahead of myself. i don't need to apologize for anything on this CD because it's amazing how far i've come. and i need to hear more things like this (i'm drawing much off of the conversation i had with rach last night).

so if you've got encouraging words for the seriously... last 3 days of making what goes into this CD, to help me push through with my utmost genuine portrayal of self and all the greatness and difficulty that that entails (making myself open for criticism that may come) please click the comment button and type away or send me an email:

settle4more@gmail.com

or i mean... if you haven't already, go buy the CD to be a part of my whole process and take from it what you can, because that's really what this CD is for, to share with people what i've learned/experienced/thought about the past 4 years. you can buy it at www.jodimclaren.com or whenever you see me.

july 30th- best CD release party ever at Jen's house in silver spring. featuring daniel lee and the making (and me of course). and to continue on with that idea of sharing... we could make this a sort of pot-luck, so we can all share food and come together. i'll update on this for sure. now to start the day with confidence!



Jodi

do what you need to do

Activities that have proved to be fulfilling recently:

riding bikes
climbing trees
reading
driving with the windows down
(with no car radio/stereo on)
going to barnes and noble.. not finding a book i went there to buy, then deciding to sit and read "zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance" instead, even when it meant going to the car to get my guitar out so it didn't melt in the heat... and bringing it inside. (at first I didn't want to do this because it draws attention to be carrying a guitar around on your back... but when i sat down to read it was as if i was invisible and people conversed around me as if i couldn't hear them)

i liked reading at barnes and noble... because it's almost making a statement. i can read a book in my room all i want, but if i can go to some public place and sit down and read in the eyes of whoever happens to be around, its a way of accepting my nature of wanting to read alone in the first place. when people don't acknowledge me it's exactly what i want. sitting there reading is almost like screaming "i'm an introvert!" or "i like to be by myself sometimes!"

in any case, i had the choice of being stressed out about whatever i want to think about/busy myself with... and then there was the choice to say... i can't finish my CD here and now, my guitar is fixed, i have one load of laundry going that i'll move through when i get back home, i have a few hours til i HAVE to be somewhere, and so why not sit down and read? and i didn't even have to buy a drink, someone brought out free decent-sized samples of mocha frappaccionos, my favorite.

for some people i'm sure this is all no big deal! sitting down and reading at a book store, WOW! but i'd never really done that before, i'd been too preoccupied and self conscious to do that in the past. so my morning/afternoon has been relaxing. i'm learning to do what i have to do.

Jodi

this isn't final

sometimes i think much of peoples focus is on finding some concrete set of beliefs that will define who we are that do not change and that give us strength to stand on. it's just sucky because... anything i think or realize or come to find and think i'm about... eventually changes. so people might see one decision or one blog or one glance on the street, or one clip of a song, or whatever and think i'm a certain type of person. the thing is, whether i am a certain type of person in that instant or not doesn't even matter because tomorrow, i'm something else, i've lived another day, my outlook changes from something... i don't mean literally TOMORROW, i just mean in the future.

then i have this strange drive within me... to become something, and i don't know the details of what i'm becoming, but i completely know within myself that i was born to do something great, something great i haven't done yet, to go places, to experience some type of journey, to not be comfortable, to try, to think, to expand from where i am right now... so somewhere is this idea of "who i am" which not only includes my past, but includes my uncertain future that i perceive to be mind-boggling, incredible, insightful, hard, terrific, challenging.

"i come from one tentative conclusion to the next, the only thing i know for sure is that I am confused" --hugh prather, "thoughts to myself"


it's kind of like that. except we get so freaking scared of being perceived as something based on one little snippet that we're scared to share that snippit; we're scared to take the journey, to be who we are, to be who we want to become. i just want to discover who other people are, because being exposed to another persons past/dreams/struggles/present moment provides so much strength just to know that we can be who we are and be understood by somebody and keep going on. and that's just incredible. that's the essence of a relationship. of being open and facing who we are through encountering ourselves in real life situations with other ppl/in the eyes of other ppl.

i've had the song "i'm not angry anymore" by ani difranco stuck in my head... it's not even the song really, its just that phrase. it's the most calming phrase i can contemplate right now... not being angry anymore. not being hostile, not being insecure (or being honest about insecurity.. not having to hide it). us ppl have so much to live for and say and think and do. let's start talking, opening up, asking questions, i want to know whats really up.

do not be intimidated by who you are.

This phrase is what has stirred itself up in me ever since watching the documentary "The Journey," over at Rach's a couple nights ago. It was about a guy taking his friends on a hippy bus across the country not sure what he was going to do, but ended up setting up interviews with influential people and asked them questions and video taped it all. He asked questions like, what advice do you have for young people.. and "what are you struggling with today" and for the people who opened up, it was just so interesting.

A big message in the movie is to do what your instincts drive you to do... to actually try to do something great, and then if you don't do it, it will still be so worthwhile, you can't regret something you tried to do that was good, because the whole process is so important, of actually doing things we believe in.


i was thinking while listening to a CD of what our songwriters group recorded (each person in this highschool songwriters group recorded songs on their own, sent them in, and we made a little compilation CD). Well when i'm driving my mind sometimes thinks up conversations with people, in which i think up responses and keep going. so i heard the vocals to a song and thought, the EQ could be changed here... even if you're going for a natural sound that isn't processed digitally, what you have has already been processed according to the mic, and so you choosing not to change it doesn't change the fact that it's already changed! Okay... I know not everyone thinks about microphones, but to draw that example to a larger setting... who we are has already been constructed to an extent. The life we know (sticking with the metaphor) is heard through the sound system of our familes and our upbringings. Now is when we choose the hard stuff... we can either continue going with the key elements that make up our sound/our essence... or we can take the damn thing apart and make it better. The weird thought is, we don't gain everything from our family. We gain so much from so many different places.. I mean there's school/college, work, sports, music, coffee houses, books, friends, mean people... the list goes on.


I guess what i'm saying in the title of my blog is that we learn from our experiences, and those are not limited to where we've been in the past.

it's really intimidating to look at this future PACKED with action and things that I've never done before, and to not be there yet, and to have a choice to go. And i'm choosing to go, but it's still so complicated. I'm not sure if there's any sort of prep-work before the challenge, or if it's just something to get thrown into. Right now I'm about to get thrown into exactly where I need to be (portland, OR) and it's going to be different than anywhere I've been before. Sink or Swim. And if you swim, its a big old ocean. This will be hard! It will be great also, but it will be hard. sheesh. What to do in the meantime? making art is nice... take a look at what came out of "art day" (me and rach making art on her back deck):







Above we have... the set up, Rach painting her beautiful glass vase, and my painted/collaged wooden piece.. sorry bout the glare. it's nice to be able to make art... not to impress, but to express. especially when its so hard to put my finger on some words.. hence the words on the wooden painted board- "when words alone fail" and the black hole of mystery/fear behind it, and the colors of hope around it. it's something i can look at. or create.

I feel like reading a book. Not sure which one yet. suggestions are welcome.

Jodi