all that's past is prologue...

I love it when my worlds collide, and it's been happening a lot this week. Tonight I was able to finally experience live the photography of Deb Sussex , who I first met in a winter camping week at Widji 31 years ago. I can't believe how great it was to see her agin, having lost touch so many years ago, and to see her beautiful work glowing on the Open Eye gallery wall was amazing (do see it, if you can, it's up all weekend and selling fast!) I was able to talk to my beautiful artist friends Nance and Mary, who I have also not seen in a long time, and learn about exciting adventures in their lives and their families. Best of all, I was able to hug and laugh with and talk with my amazing friend Nine, and her stunningly impressive daughter Hannah. Nine has held the title of "best friend" since I first met her that same week at Widji. Over the years we've walked in the snow, written long letters, seen each other when we can, and though we don't communicate nea...

For as long as I can remember, reading has been an integral part of my life. My mother swore I was reading by age 2, and I honestly can't remember a time that I didn't have at least one book going. To this day, I have a bad habit of trying to hurry through things so I have more time to read. I've tried hard not to let the importance of reading in my life unduly influence Beatrix. Though there is nothing that I would like more than for her to love reading as much as I do, and though we've tried to make books important by having lots of them around, by taking her to bookstores and libraries, and by reading to her, I've tried not to push it too hard. She has a lot of other experiences in her life (like music and circus) that I did not have, and it's important to me that she finds her own interest and passions. Recently, though, she's seemed to have a real interest in books. She's been very interested in having me read them to her, and in "reading"...

Some little known things about me and my complicated relationship to our two houses: 1358 Summit - Is the house I grew up in. My parents bought it in the mid-1960s (1965?) from a man named Jesse Brown, who was an early flipper. When they bought it — for $20,000! — he had "improved" everything with coats of viscous green paint. - It was built in 1916 for a couple to retire in, thus is less extravagant than you would expect it to be. - My room for much of my childhood was the maid's room, done in psychedelic pink and orange with a mirrored wall. It was so small I had to have an extra short bed, and beads instead of a door to my closet. It's why I'm so short. - My mother took off all the doorknobs to paint the doors when I was around 4. Over the years they never got put on (nor did the doors really get painted), and to this day you have to wander around with a doorknob on a shank to get in and out of rooms. - The addition was put on when I was in high school, an...

Nothing like working all night on a curriculum for a social media class to remind me that I have not updated my blog in awhile... If you would like to come and experience Kelly Schaub and myself on the modest topic of "Mastering Social Media" on Wednesday at 4pm, check out Play by Play Books' event page here . In the meantime, here's what I've been up to over the weekend (all of these, of course, involve Duchess Beatrix): 2 nights in a row at Ikea. We're trying to sort out our new front bedroom, and especially my wardrobes. We also got a great chair for the room (hopefully one of two), and so with their promotion tonight, got dinner free! Beatrix enjoys it, but keeps on stretching up to try to be tall enough to get into "Smaland"... Good family time — a visit to my dad and breakfast with my mother-in-law at Good Day Cafe. Ok, the world's longest wait at Good Day and they lost our order twice, but the company was nice. A visit to Shoe Zoo with a ...

Ok, you have no excuse to sit at home this weekend. There's SO much going on, and your taxes can wait another week, really... Open Eye's Toy Theatre After Dark runs this weekend and next; it's always a great event, but this year is especially good, with an all ages program, a more adult-oriented program, a late night cabaret, classes, and a panel. I can't recommend it highly enough, but it's very popular and the space is small, so buy now! If comedy is more your thing, Play by Play Books is presenting Sparky Johnson in Back to Borneo tomorrow and Saturday, plus workshops on Saturday. It looks really great, and if you tell Kelly I sent you it's Pay-What-You-Can. I've heard great things about LIve Action Set's Seven Shot Symphony and hope to see it this weekend. Frank Theatre is doing what sounds like an amazing production of Cabaret — if you want 2-for-1 tickets for Friday's show, let me know by noon on Friday and I'll show you the secret hand...

I got a great "backstage tour" of the Sibley Bike Depot today, thanks to one of their board members, Julia Wells. Now remember, I don't have the foggiest notion of how to actually ride a bike, so the fact that I was as impressed as I was speaks volumes about what they do. Though the Depot's mission is to "be an open, accessible space to educate and empower people to use bicycles as transportation, helping to build a sustainable environment and community," what that really means to me is "Changing the world, one bike at a time." Seriously, check out their programs: - a bike library that loans bikes to low-income community members - an "earn-a-bike" program that allows people to allow people who can't afford bikes to get their own (and take care of it) - a (FREE!) fully-equipped shop where people can work on their bikes (including special women and transgender nights) - youth and adult rides - a plethora of classes of all kinds - ...

Everyone's had something to say about the weather this winter. It's been dismally cold, and icy, and let's not even talk about the snow. I don't remember this much snow in one winter since I was a small child, and I almost burst into tears tonight when the MPR weatherman predicted more coming up. The facts is, I just can't handle much more winter. The snow is hard enough, but the cold is really getting to me. I'm cold to the bone — I just can't seem to warm up, ever. By 11 or so at night I'm too cold to get anything done — I shake and my brain turns off and I crawl into bed, where I am too cold to sleep. We thought about going somewhere warm for a vacation, but that fell through. It's all freezing and hopeless and horrible. Basically, it's a life-sucking, bone-chilling, eviscerating, soulless cold. I know this isn't really any different than anyone else here feels right now. But it's awfully overwhelming.