more pictures from HEATHER

still in utah - there is too much cuteness around me to not share. so here you go:

half-allman

Hehheh. Likely, nobody will get this. But I'll write it anyhow.

Heh. Hi. Hello. Howdy.
I'm back. Little Beatty, miguelito, rough and refined, the short giant, the wild reserver, the snapdragon pillow feather, up and right I'm back. Again. Refreshed. Respoke. Reverberating his Return.

Away, away! Away! Away with those needs! They are not needs, but wants. Desires. Flighty ambitions. Uncertain freedoms. Behemoths of Glee, nothing less than quick. What's the biggest sin in desire? The body's fickle fright, the tasted sweet gone sour too quickly, the ugly up pretty in glamour's fair mask, the frontiers' mystical revealing glass, of windows and worlds and of touristy trials, so that my sharp set path gets a blast with denials,

but NO! I cry NO! I cry NO! wha' t'ya
GO! I cry GO! and go FLY! I cry FLY!!

So sitting in red, my white screen is a-glowin',
perusing the world wide of limitless knowin',
In future uncertain, lie dustbowls a-blowin',
I stand, center-drought, all my golden toes showin'
With one upward swift fist I stop all this nonsense
unclosing my right hand exposing my palmskin
and sucking up sun across clouds and horizons
the coughy dirt dustbowlies twirling in whirlwinds

then shwi and a shp! tiny drops, is this rain?
The sun done unlit, comes one dark lump, in a cloud?
winds of moisture that twinkle electric but proudly blow
chilled air, wet-filled air, thick-dew air, blow-through air

then

tink drop plink drop tink tink drop drop

plink tink plink plink drop tink drop plink

puh puh puhhlink puh puhhlink plink

puhlinktinktink puhlinktinktink
plink tink plink tink tink plink tink tink

tinkitty plinkitty tink tink plink plink
plink tink plink tink plink tink plink tink
plinktinkplinktinkplinktinkplinktink
plinktinkplinktinkplinktinkplinktink
plinkplinktplinkplinkplinkplinkplinkplink
tinktinktinktinktinktinktinktink
chhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhrrrrRRRRAINNN!!!!!!!

WAHOO!!!! shouts the Mikie
eyes squinty upraised
soaking eyelids, his high fist
the Rains of his Change!!
Yes YOU!! shouts the Mikie
I'm Back and I'm Mighty!
half-rainman
half-sunman
half-wakeman
and sleepman
half-liveman
and loveman
this half-strong
half-weakman
new half-allman seizing
old dry digger wheezing
now wet will finding bleeding
in veins of his futures
the gold of his Fortune
by flooding the sutures!

Crikey!

Those pictures of a tiny family are making my insides get all crunchy as I grit my teeth....HARD! What can you do when their faces are the effing cutest things in the whole wide wide world. I have decided to have one of my own about one year sooner than I was planning, meaning prego by 2009. (if all works out) That's very very scary for me to even say that soon, but ya know I have always been a terrific procrastinator. Plus by 2009 Art will be 26 and that may work out better for him than any sooner would. In the meantime,

MUSIC
DANIEL JOHNSTON TYPE ENDEARMENT OF LIFE AND PEOPLE
UNCONDITIONAL LOVE
GIVING WITHOUT BITTERNESS
NEW JOB













Traveling to meet H and D with Phose. Matt and Amy, I will be trekking out your way too- soon. Once I get my hands on about 200$ extra random dollars. Oh I can't wait to see you adorables.
Heather and Darin- everyone is depressed without you, as the saying goes "you are the light of our lives" and the sad part is, it's pretty true. You walk in the room, Mel's lights up. Nothin is the same without you. But luckily I didn't see you as much lately so I am doing good. Just hoping traveling letters arrive. I am sending a letter to Daniel Dale as he has helped me through a difficult month and I can't get him off my mind. He is quite a doll, those "funeral forever haunted dream girl" lyrics of his. Love that guy, and music to death. Heather how's the geetar learning going?

I am so excited to have next week off! My own spring break, except for one day! Problem is, I am totally broke but I will do my best to get around that.

Love love to you all
adie

matt has babies...

mikie gets STRAIGHT A's!!

That's right folks, in his last term at UC Santa Cruz, Mikie Beatty once again lands a solid row of gleaming Straight A's on his report card! Take That, college education! Just thought i'd letcha know. Bye.

we made it to provo

drove through the snowy mountains up from moab to provo; we wanted to turn back or stop at times, it was that frightening. big-rigs passing us on the squirrely drive down the mountain, spraying misty snow all over our already-filthy red clay caked van. we drove about 40 when everyone else was driving 65-70. yep we are all about being old fogies on the road and enjoying the view. anyway, you all know it was worth it once we arrived and got to see this sweet family!!! here are some pictures i've taken. the kids ripped into their presents right away, addie, and bella modeled her scarf and jarom is very excited to play with his kite once it gets sunny. plus, the see's candy is almost gone already. i will post again and put some road trip photos. i miss you all and love you.

get cold, listen outside

and a what wide world it weally is.

Have you ever been camping? Or, at least sat on a fertile spot of ground surrounded by trees or a river, maybe even sand, and built a fire from the sticks up? It's ok to use matches or a lighter, fine. I don't even mind a bit of igniter fluid to start the thing - because once it finally flooms into flame, that's when something really happens: a frantic little twist of wide-awake, like your eyes open up clean and clear as you're sitting very close to your newly-made, very real fire. It licks upwards, and you're staring back at it with two orange spots on your eyeballs - Placerville.

I drove into town about 4 1/2 days ago. The first couple of days I spent getting my feet heavy and walking around the dirty-busy streets of this little place. It doesn't take long to see every body that makes up the downtown and social places of Placerville - but in that time you've barely gotten to scratch the surface of this place. Even the weeds behind that one obscure beige house on Clay street are interesting; something, some secret thing buried beneath those yellow grasses, and then Dad sitting here behind me watching some basic AMC flick with Robert Deniro.

After those two days, this inevitable 'slowdown' muscles up such a flippant anxiety in my soul, I can't even tell you - worst is, its incurable except by patience; time and a couple loose conversations promise to rise you up and away from the muckymuck of strange uncertainty that you're tossed blindly into by digging your heels into Placerville for any length of time. Except I've gotten it down to a science: get READY for it. College makes your mind busy, and foreignness (no matter how long you live in Santa Cruz) keeps your thoughts occupied with curiosity. So, coming back to a place from where most of your creative drive finds its roots and history, no matter how wide your worldview becomes, the familiar routines will sneeeak back into your mind like worms.

Except then something's different, you're different. Try as they might, those worms just can't slither past your logic that has shown you new answers and asked new questions - and as gradual as it might be, you will pick out those worms one by one and nicely bury them back into the dirt they poked out from. Two whole days, and your mind is clean again. Clean and healthy, and ready to be filled with a new way to live old truths that are instead stuck inbetween, truths stuck in a timeless reality that will never change up or down, but be level and real for always.

When the fire first feels the air with its red and yellow fingers, and you are forced to slightly retreat in that little moment of power, that's when Placerville becomes real again. And your eyes shine, your fingers tingle with this new thing of warm wind that you've suddenly found. That's the Placerville I know and love and feel the promise of even right now.
Tomorrow I drive back to my gusty city by the beach, and the same timelessness will follow me. Half of it comes from being done with something I've spent every ounce of my being working on completing for the last x years of my life. And the fingers of a new flame, any flame, are warmth enough to let me sleep happy tonight.

As for tomorrow, I won't abandon adventure for comfort.

Sorry laziness-

and now stride I, armed with my bat and an arrow,

a steed of a wagon and little dinero!

Pizza My Tatts

so,

I've been toying lately with the idea of getting a tattoo somewhere near where my right shoulder connects to my arm. I've gone through a few universal designs, trying to discover something ambiguous enough to not really mean anything, attractive enough so people would like looking at it, simple enough so that I would never regret getting it, and personal enough so that I know all the things it might signify to me and how getting it helps to anchor and spark my creativities as I venture through the rest of my life.
That said,

I realized today I already have some tattoos on my body! They're inconspicuously planted on the inner-sides of both my forearms, and I forgot I had gotten all of them in Santa Cruz over the past 3 years. (One particularly recent one too, from the Theater). What are these tattoos of, you might ask??

BURNS! Fat, long, thinny, dark, faded, multiple burns adorning my half-white forearm skin. And there they are! All this talk about "permanent body markings" and I'd forgotten the burns I've been getting from my shortness and the ovens at Pizza My Heart over the past couple seasons - and likely a few more to come since I'm going back to work there next week for a couple months.

Oh well, the tattoo on my upper-shoulder is still in the works though. I have a few ideas for it, and thought maybe you guys would have some suggestions as well!

On a different note, I've been walking around the hot sun of Placerville all day, and I have a newfound insatiable love for seeing parts of places here I've never seen before. Placerville is just like the rest of the natural world: foreign, mysterious, abused, powerful and always new and growing. Hooray for natural prospects, and God bless the one eternal reality in which I fluxuate a discover day by day. Ciao mi familia!
*mig

Speaking youngsters

Today, I traveled half an hour away (with 11 other talented individuals) to perform our white and short version of The Tempest to a bunch of middleschoolers. It was a swell morning, and since I'm the driver for one of our two company vehicles, things were even more funfilled and funfilled. It was adventure enough just to wake up at 5:45am for it, and seeing as we have 48 more performances left, before June 13th, the true adventure has hardly begun!

I can say that making-out ferociously onstage in a fit of raged lust before murdering the King is a little awkward when 10-year-olds are watching. But they loved it all, and so did we. A good morning, and a long day to follow. I have a paper needs writing (which I'm clealy not doing) after which Big Life is calling my name. Epicly.

For dark in the hollows below an below
with cheers of my glory I cry "en A, Ho!"
"the craft that illuminates
white dots on fish,
will swallow the bounty
the hollows forgo"
A fine length of steel hold I, raised and clean,
ahead lay a country of clay and machine,
and smothered beneath what I'll make to be seen
are the petrified glories, sweet chocolate and green
to whetten our spirits, awaken the demons
intoxicate, vibrant with coloured vehemence,
and booming bright sunshine we'll fill down the hollows
to fall in and fight, light the nights with tomorrows!

A, ho! en A, ho! en A, ho! en, A, hay!
A, Hall an a Hail in th' fall of a Day!

Little Onion

I had a baby too. His name is Onion. He is 2 years old, he has fair hair, he has one red eye and one white eye, he is very pretty and his name is Onion, dear lady.

Yesterday was possibly one of the last in a grand sequence of last days. The past week has been something wonderful, terrific and awesome. I am suddenly living out my final week of High School, only without the yearbooks and in a much more expensive setting. How funny that smack dab in the middle of this Big time, Matt and Amy have a baby.

On this notion of final days of high school, yesterday could have been labeled Senior Ditch Day (regardless that it was Saturday and St. Patrick's day to boot). A collection of my dearest buds all got together in town, we played football on the street, then packed a cooler and headed off up North to discover one of the hugest beautiful, secluded beaches your heads could imagine. We hiked down in the windy sun and cliffs to find the thing, and then set up a post from where we climbed, played beach football, ran thru the monsterwaves, built a sandcastle, and loved every bleeding second of this conscious world.

Topping it off, I threw a barbecue at my house in the evening, and what a success it truly was! Kai baked us up some manly burgers (mine being the Boca variety), we laid out the fixings and devoured the spread so our beach-empty bellies could feel young again. Then we played some video games, bombed some irish cars (ahem), and finally the fellas left Daniel and I. But that didn't stop us! We then walked downtown, and I stood frozen in a wild position up on some crates, in front of a line of barhoppers- and Daniel announced my act to the drunken spectators.

"He comes here every Saturday, and he only talks to girls."

People were trying to break my frozenness, up on the two crates, and eventually some hippies came by and played harmonicas to my little frozen act. 10 minutes into it I was satisfied when a pretty little drunk girl came up to me to solicit my company in joining her inside the dance bar, and offering me a smoke of her cigarrette. This fixed my heart happily, and my desire to be frozen melted. I hopped off the crates after she left, and went to find my ringmaster. I didn't go in the bar, but instead Daniel and I trekked back up Beach Hill to our happy wallpapery abode above the beach.

So there it is, another day. Sorry guys. Happy Fire-hunting!
*Mig

significance, full forward, feet and flowers

I really wanna post, but I feel like everything I say would be inadequate next to my brother having a baby.

But who cares, I'm here and this is this anyhow.

I walked many miles today, for about 6 hours. I left my house and walked downtown. Then I half-decided to begin walking up the road towards campus. I stopped at Daniel's work to write and say hello, and 2 hours later I was standing up 1000feet above where I had come, looking back down onto the bay with the tiniest pinprick of a point on my landscape where I could see from whence I'd come - then I kept going up and up into the sunniness until I found the Art Department Open Studios, where I spent the next hour and a half looking at the senior art projects for the Art majors here on campus. It was here that I realized something pretty astounding: our Dad is a professional artist! How d'you like that?!? Dad, our one and only, into professional art. And I kid you not. I say this because at the art department on-campus there's a "printing room." I was walking through the open studios and I smelt something familiar, like the paint thinner smell of Dad's old work. Lo and behold, it was coming from the printing studio. I go inside, and there are big printer machines everywhere, just like Dad's work, and a bunch of art majors using them, just like Dad. And just then I made the impossible connection: DAD is just like an Art Major! In other words, Dad is an Artist! A craftsman! A professional! And a skilled one at that, I mean he does this every day, sometimes 6 days a week! He's no different than the rest of us, and I would have never guessed I'd come to this realization. It's like the old saying goes, if you can't beat em join em. I fight against Dad's work my whole life, for some reason, and then one day like today I finally wake up and realize the upmost legitimacy, if not downright respectable creativity, of Dad's craft!!!!

Well Dad, I apologize for treating you so unpleasantly before about your work- I think I finally understand.

Anyway, the rest of the day consisted of a final meeting with my professor Peter Mostkoff, an interesting hitched ride back down from campus, and climbing up on the roof of a friend's house to take pictures and talk into the fog before nightfall. That was my day, a first full day off in months, if not years. It's nice and sad to be back, er, forward I guess you might say. It just means another significant shift.

So ciao guys. There's my journal entry. Lates yo.
Love Mikie

Orion Lowell Smith Beatty

Okay sorry for taking so long but when do I ever post on here anyway? (that will all change so soon).

The rumors are true, we have another. Came late night 13th March 2007. Fought the good fight but nature prevailed and he came out in a tub of semi-warm water, purple and wet with his eyes clenched shut and his nose a little bruised. Twentyone inches long and eight pounds solid. A good baby. Here are some starter pictures; I'll post more later, especially maybe some closer-up views.

As soon as humanly possible

Buy the Neon Bible album
and
post
a

photo of our new addition to the fam!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

O'rion!
Orion?
How do you spell?

What is his middle name? Pic and all stats, please!

We split! We split!

Tonight was our performance of The Tempest in front of a public audience. We all donned our white costumes (mine of white tux slacks, white shoes, white socks, a white button-up shirt [sleeves rolled up] a white tie, white suspenders and a daper hairdo) and in the cool fog of a warm Santa Cruz evening we told the short story of Shakespeare's Tempest t0 100-someodd Santa Cruzien residents. Twas ah-magical. I loved it.

That said, all day long since the bright easterly sun shined directly into my eyes at 8 o'clock this morning, I have been thinking about what job I need to get for the next 3 months. I know that every monday/wednesday/friday morning till 1 o'clock I will be performing endless Tempests to high school and junior high kids in the tri-counties surrounding Santa Cruz, but other than that I absolutely need some other kind of work. I could go back to Pizza Delivery temporarily, but I'm worried that might leave me horribly unsatisfied. I could try to get a server job, but alas there are slim-to-none to be had. I could land a job at Costco or Nob Hill (Raley's) or some other corporate grocery store, but for some reason I shun such ideas. I could work locally at a coffee/bakery shop like Daniel does, make minimal tips but have easy fun work and barely pay rent. What should I do!? Any suggestions from the family? I don't really have anything else to do now but get a job, so this is a pretty big decision.

ALSO: I am getting a laptop by the end of the summer to replace my beautiful education-machine that was this little faithful Dell.

So there's my update - Living on the brink again. The ship is wrecking, the island is landing, the storm is finishing, and I'm standing trying to make something of all of it, again. Dagnabbit.

I told my friend while standing in the vom of Mainstage this morning, "I figured out that it's much less where you are and what you're doing that really makes you happy, than who's there doing it with you."

Oh, and Joey: you don't know the heaven you've brought into our home by transporting that SuperNintendo here when you came. Thank, you, thank, you, Nyet nyet nyet.

rhapsody

the days and evenings are so balmy it feels like june. i am in love with the spring time.

right now every day is so busy i have to have long to-do lists to keep track of everything i need to accomplish. today's included: bank, dmv, yard sale flyers, clean bathrooms, hang laundry, use coinstar to cash out all my change, post new stuff on ebay, clean out car, get stuff ready for yard sale. it has been a full day and the sun is shining and i've been running around in my big rainbow colored sundress that people stare at, and i have my big diet coke cup from del taco and it keeps my engine running. the night is so warm right now that all my windows are open.

daffodils are in bloom all over my yard. everything is green and yellow and white blossoms drifting down from the trees. march is a magical month. everything is coming up, and every day is beautiful.

if only i could keep from those over-stressed moments. last night we went to the movies to see "history boys." mom, joey and i met at the theater. darin was working and i had to bring him a raley's sandwich. i was so frazzled when i got there, my blood was still racing from all the things i'd had to do, the lists i was making, the thoughts racing in my head.

after today (a day off work) i feel better. i have a completely legal and registered 1988 ford econoline van which is almost trip-ready. i have lots of great albums downloaded to my ipod. i have $320 in cash that came from all the coins i've saved for the past eight or nine months. little things like this ease my mind. my bathrooms are relatively clean and my car is tidy. nothing is perfect, but as mom says, "messy is the new neat." so i'm trying to just relax and enjoy being alive in the springtime.

by the way, our weekend in santa cruz and modesto was amazing. i look at the beach pictures we took and i just want to cry with joy. being at the ocean is the best feeling on earth. the sand was warm and everything was gritty and golden and so alive around us. the sand crab in my hand felt like a connection to every bit of life that has ever existed on this marvelous earth. seeing 95-year old grandma georgie the next day and all that family, and knowing that we have relatives down in honduras who have a huge "garcia" family reunion in august just adds to this connectivity.

my goal every day, in every way, is to be more connected to this earth and the human experience, which is an animal experience, which is also a flower and cloud and drum and echo and mountain and stone, brother and sister experience. i am so grateful eternally to be a part of this.

Addie and Art

Forget to include Addie and Art at the party for Grandma. Addie loves those types of family get togethers. They came to Modesto from Grass Valley. It was terrific to have them there. Above is a picture of Grandma after everyone sang happy birthday to her.

Dad

Fun Weekend in SC

Hey, I wanted to show a couple of pictures I took this weekend in Santa Cruz. The bottom one turned out really cute even though we don't see Stan and Joey isn't posing(that's Darin kissing Heather, duh). Mikie took his mom's hand to lead her from the stairs down to the beach sand in the upper picture. She wasn't going to come down because she didn't have the proper footware. Well, she softened and walked down to the beach where we all watched Heather capture a sand crab. I can still see her (and Addie) doing that many years ago everytime we went to the beach. Anyway, we had a swell time. While down there I called Grandma Georgie and told her where we all were. She wished she could be there so much. She reminded me again how my Dad, Mom and Steve and I used to go to Santa Cruz many summers for a weekend and stay with grandpa & grandma Baker. Grandpa Baker rented a little cottage (really just a little one room structure that was connected to a bunch of others, kind of like a motel, just a block away from the beach/boardwalk) for a month. He loved it there. Then Grandma Baker would come over for part of the time. Mom told me dad really didn't like the beach that much. He didn't like the sand!! Actually talking to her was kind of sad because I figured that unless some special effort was made (which I suppose is a possibility), she probably wouldn't be able to be there again during her life on this earth.

So we had fun seeing the production at the Barn. Interesting, a little baffling at times (is baffling a good word?), but fun. Mikie starred in all the segments (3 or 4 in all) They all did a great acting job.

We, Heather, Darin, Joey and myself went from there Sat. morn to Modesto to take part in the get together for Grandma Georgies party. It was very nice and great food. Heather made a yummy corny/bean salad. Thanks to Darin and Joey for doing some of the driving.

ya know, I only can think of one thing on my exciting to do list at this time and that is:

Getting Heto to say "Ricky/Bobby" We're working on it.

(really there are many others which I will list sometime maybe)

So there you have it. Love from Dad

more meat than meets the eye's meat

Hey.
It's a beautiful night. I'd be better off writing in my journal, but I'm already here and my hands aren't in the mood to scratch a pen on paper, really.

I finished the last night of my play tonight. The Bald Soprano/ David Ives. It's funny, about a year ago I was sitting in a class waiting for 60B to start, reading that Twicknam Vicorage play with Jimmy and Kai out of Jimmy's David Ives book of plays... and we all said, "hey! How cool would it be to put on a 'Night of David Ives' in the barn!" Now, a full year hence, that exact thing has come to a finish. Suprisingly, I learned the most from doing The Bald Soprano, a play I never even signed up to do in the first place but was kinda finnagled into doing if I wanted to be in Kai's David Ives play.

Anyhow, something really was triggered tonight. Something clicked. Some snap. Something.

See, I can't turn around. It hurts a little, too - and what a wonderful pain it is.
The family came a couple days ago, and that stupid heart string that gets tugged got tugged. But a day later I'm 10 times more ready to explore away again, into something new again and reconfigure my meanings of life again because of it, because I can. I love to have the family visit, and I hate it. Because it reminds me how close I really am from my home, and how fragile a thing it is to displace yourself so closely away from home. Because the "going back" becomes so easy, so convenient, and altogether ordinary. I cannot can NOT get to even have it anymore. I need to be forced fully, weened renundantly away, completely and utterly snapped off from the lifeline. I NEED to survive, like me and only only me. And survival has become something far too easy to accomplish. Yes, indeed I certainly have moved from one part of life to another. But now I need to continue further still. I need to lengthen that gap between, and fill the void with a new desire to proceed. I need to survive harder. Can I do it? Of course I believe I can. I have realized how possible it could be if I just suck up the guts and do my beautiful work; no gap can ever be wide enough nor any survival satiable enough for my ravenous lust for wishful fulfillment. Give it to me now, serve it up sweet and salty, harness my back to the lift and sling me to shatter the sky with my penetrating harrrahs!!
Then cut me loose, fall I shall, and fly I promise I will I will.
And fly I promise I will.

So that's where it stands tonight. This starry-eyed night sky over Santa Cruz, black and white waves breathing into our dark air with possibility and a sparkle of electric current glinting between the seconds. I cannot wait to see what's next. Jimmy knows, Kai knows, Ellie knows, Matt knows, Max knows, Patrick knows, Susannah knows, Jill knows, Daniel knows, Lee knows, Craig knows, Nikki knows, Alex certainly knows, like Justin knows and Allegra knows, Alanna knows, Joey knows, I know, we all know. Where it stands tonight, suspended tonight, asleep for just a moment tonight, we all know.
And fly we shall!

It's that time again

Oh boy I'm really in for some trouble guys.

So, today I had a partial day off - which means sleep in and do whatever I fancy until about 5pm. That said, I spent every waking minute cleaning my house furiously, throwing away as much junk in my room as possible and trying to minimalize my packrat existence. It worked pretty swell too, I do believe.

BUT -

It then occurred to me as I sat down restlessly at my computer to peruse the worthless internet that in two weeks from now I have really got to REALLY get something big to do. And I mean big. Because at this point I have spent the past 8+ months working 12-15 hour days between rehearsals, jobs and school. And frighteningly, that will all screech YAAAAAAAWWWKKK!! HALT! in two weeks. Yow. Ahikes. I'm in trouble.

So, if anybody has any really fantastic directions for me to future take, give em to me:

(for example, getting a keyboard and making music. Or, part time job ideas. Etc)

I hope all yours' Saturdays are as revelatory as mine! Chow!
*Mikie

Spring Bliss

I was trying to post a particular picture with my last posting and it didn't come out, so here goes another attempt. By the way Nettie is chattering away right now at all the birdies as she sits on the round table by the window and gazes at them with longing...Isn't this picture just the cutest. What a lovely dream of a Spring day...Spring is not far off you know, and this Saturday we Spring Ahead an hour to add another hour of beautiful sunlight to our day. This year we will add little Orion to our sandbox bliss. Love you all, Mom - Nana

Rainy nights and Sunny mornings

I have a cute little squirrel who loves to come to my front porch and nibble up all the bird seed I leave out. I have a regular menagerie on my front porch. Every morning when the sun comes up I can hear the brilliant birdsong and open the curtains to a flutter of all types of birds from finches to scrubjays. There are also the LBJ's or Little Brown Jobs as Suzanne calls them. They are little fat round birds with striped heads and wings that are so cute. They are ground birds who peck up the seed on the porch railing (when the squirrel isn't there) and porch floor and out by the tree where I have placed a pie dish of water for them to bathe in. What a way to start the day. Now that the sun is up early it is alot easier to get going in the morning without that slow dark dragging down of sadness. This little house is cute and when the sunshine is flowing in it is bright and cheery. I just need some darling little grandchildren running about inside to make it sing.

Tomorrow we will go to Santa Cruz to see Mikie in his plays. I am looking forward to a day of driving, bookstore browsing, Mexican food eating, Bunny shop sleuthing, beachfront strolling, water bright gazing, and laughing out loud at the wonderfully creative, bright costumy, eye-rolling silliness of Mikie's new comedys.

Have a lovely, bright, sunshiny Thursday all my precious ones. Never fail to smile at others, say Hi to everyone you meet and bring a ray of sunshine into anyone you see or meet. You never know what is going on in there life and how that one bright ray may change their life.

Love, you know who

Lame-o's!

Nobody ever posts anymore! Except Heather, who argued this same point!!! Come on you guys, git your lazy acts together and post something whydontchall?! Or I may be forced to post yet another recount of one of my adventurous days!! (which would be fun to do)

So post something, anything - nobody's judging. Matt, let's have a posty or two about Zelda.

The Bald David

For those of you who can't be there, here's a little taste of what's in store.
And some lines:

"Cat's lick and pot's luck"
"Whiskey soda, Mona?"
"So priapic!"
"Doesn't the sign say Butcher?"
"The bullets seem to have ventilated but not violated my ventricles"
"let's go and slap Ulysses!"
"Oh dear, I seem to have been shot"

See y'all this weekend!
-Mikie

Elkhorn Slough

Wouldn't it be awesome if the whole fam went? I found this pic on the El Dorado Center Website for Mr. Denega's class. Heather it was so beautiful we should do it again! Check out the courses here for this year still. I love ya all.

http://wserver.flc.losrios.edu/~denega/about.htm

http://wserver.flc.losrios.edu/~denega/current.htm

hello moon

I woke up this morning around 8 and couldn't fall back asleep. So I sat up in bed and pulled open the window to let in some of that morning fresh beach that softly knocks all night long. Then I crawled my massiveness off the mattress and toddled down my stairs to the front door. I was getting my laundry out of the car, but for some reason I just stood there outside the door in the morning sun for a few minutes, soaking it all up like a crusty sponge. Alex frolics out the door behind me, slinky and spry, "Yeeeah Mike-Man" he hollars, tosses down his skateboard and zwinged around the corner. So I go inside and take my shower. An hour later I'm down into the little slow city, standing in a Starbucks, wishing the counter girl didn't know me by name. (this is a day, by the way) When I get up to campus there isn't a parking spot to be had in all of the West and North remotes, so I swing my wagon down into the East lot (miles from my noontime destination) and prepare for yet another morning jaunt. This was 11 already, and the fresh hilly air smiled at how good I felt.
When I crested over that path that overlooks the bay, I stopped to suck it up with insatiable awe. Dangit, it looks so good. There's so little clouds masking the bay this morning, so I can just watch it all shimmer. I took a moment to pinpoint exactly where my house was, just off the wharf a good 5 miles away, little pricks of color against a huge vast greyness of gleaming ocean light.
I got to the bookstore, and my book wasn't there. So off again I was, alone with my shifting backpack talking to me with every step. I love that thing, it clings to my shoulders like a suckling pet, and I show it some good ol times. Through the trees I walked, looking up and up - trees are funny because you can never see the tops. I eventually got to the cafe tp eat hardboiled eggs and toast and yoghurt, then back to Theatre Arts for our Shakes-to-Go runthrough for Paul Whitworth. It went splendidly, and I am in glee. Afterwards I set off again, back down through the southward campus meadows to get back to my car so I can move it closer. It was midafternoon now, and on this path the air is always warm and promising. I tried to call Dad a couple times to tell him about it, and finally my phone cuts through to his voicemail. He gets a dollup of my enthusiasm, and then it's back to me eyeing at a brisk stroll with arms a-trucking and head up. I jackrabbit dashes off the path in front of me, but stops close enough so I can get a good look. I decided he wasn't scared of me, so I proved him right and kept on strolling. Further down the rolling meadows I see squirrels popping in and out of their holes, little spurts of movements all around me. I thought for a second how interesting their lives must be, and how huge and endless these meadows seem to them. The tall grey grasses are their forests, and we the Wild Beasts who walk by on our path. I was really cuttin' along as I turned down and headed through the Village buildings. Hillary hates the Village, but I loved living there. In my experience, these little portable buildings of various colors are some of the most mature quarters to stay in the whole city of Santa Cruz. The people are respectable and clean, and everybody is happy to me. Well since I'm not living there now, I just walked on through and made up my way up the stairs of Mordor recently built into the Village's backside. This steep wall-well of steps takes up quickly up to the road and over again to East remote parking lot. And there I was, full-circled, with barely half the day over.
After an hour of class, I come out to my 20-minute spot to discover a funny yellow ticket sticking out from under my windshield wiper. Silly TAPS office, some terrorist organisation will murder them all someday, and good riddance too I say. SO I reward my irresponsibity with a good old dinner from Mikie's Del Taco In Santa Cruz, AKA, Planet Fresh Burritos. Mmm I'll miss that place.
After a fine evening chat with Dad, the vanilla sky called me back to the big brown Barn at the entrance to campus where I'd spend the next 5 1/2 hours of my night wearing a variety of colors, dorning various accents, wearing glasses, making people laugh, speaking someone else words, being physical and ending a long night. It was our first dress-rehearsal runthrough for our play, and a grueling one at that. But now it's done, I'm finally home, belly full of tofu and beans and stuff, and still trying to think of something interesting to respond to Heather with about an update to my life.

Oh, and the white moon glitters through my bamboo blinds at me, sliced up between the slits but happy white all the same. Hello moon.

daffodillyo

hi guys, okay, no one is posting and it's MAKING ME REALLY MAD!!! where are you all? too busy to let your poor old family know what's going on??!! mikie, i do appreciate the last post, but where's the update, where's your new outlook, where's the choices, the ideas, the excitement, the energy? matt and amy, we need more stories!!! we need tiny seemingly mundane details about your life with the kids in provo because we miss you desparately and we hunger over these details like tiny finches pecking seeds! momma, where are you sentimental journeys and addie where are your rhapsodies? dad, where are your dreamy speculations and joey where is your sarcasm and creativity and enthusiasm? darin and art, where are you, period?

as for myself, i am here, checking in every day and not wanting to be the only lame-o writing. especially since here is the extent of my information: i worked at mel's yesterday. it was a long day and pretty busy. i worked until 9:30 at night. then i dreamt about mel's all night, nightmarish sagas that consisted of me frantically and ineffectually waiting on tables...then i returned to mel's at 5:30 in the morning and the whole nightmarish scene begins again but in reality!

no - it's not that bad. i make money and there are quiet moments and i get free diet coke and i read the paper and i talk to crazy people like don-the-drunk-who-is-no-longer-a-drunk. and my friend from work who was due two days before amy HAD HER BABY EARLY, on the 3rd of march! his name is graydyn and he was six pounds twelve ounces and she is tiny but very brave and did a really good job pushing him out, or so i hear.

darin and i are cleaning up our yard in preparation for leaving on our road trip and then coming back and getting married in the backyard. we have lots and lots to do in the next two weeks to get ready, and luckily we are feeling feisty and lively and energetic on these warm march days with unexpected daffodils popping up and frogs singing in the ponds!