Christopher Johnson, Providence Poet

Jess Manning, my poetry pal, picked me up today so we could catch up, (she's been in Egypt for a while this winter) have a warm beverage and catch the latest Spoken Word Nantucket at the African Meeting House. It was the first time I've ever been in the meeting house... crazy since I walk by it almost everyday. It's a beautiful building. I especially love the ceiling.

The guest poet, Christopher Johnson, is intensely brilliant! He jumped right into a poem... no paper, not reading, but recited by memory and spoke in something that resembled rap music. I deduced that it's called hip hop poetry. I've never heard anything like it before... a new love. Johnson took my enjoyment of poetry to a whole new level.

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Valentine Resurrected

Finally! I'm back and I'm packing pictures. I'd actually left my camera at Bookworks so it took longer for me to get my hands on it than I planned. So, a week later, here are Simon and my valentines for each other. Simon made a cute woody token of his affection. Ha. My favorite is that he carried the thing into our room, doubled back into the kitchen for a hammer and was pounding away for five minutes... I had no idea what was going on. The furniture nails, obviously. His attention to detail goes unrivaled. :)

His friend has a huge CNC (computer numerically controlled) router that cuts all this out after you program the design in. Pretty spiffy, huh?

And this is Simon's new day planner. I had originally made him a sketch book, but since he never used that, I stole the pages to make sketchbooks for River and Zeb Bennett.

I couldn't just leave the little book with nothing between the covers so I gave a day planner a go. It's a lot more time consuming than I expected and I did mess up... counting and going thru the days of the week over and over is apparently more difficult than it sounds.

Forgetful Valentine

I'm actually sitting at the Muse, the bar across the street from my apartment right now because my internet is down. It's not that bad ... I am only across the street and at a bar. I wanted to share the cute valentine Simon made me but I seem to have left my picture card in the camera, and the camera on the table... the table in my apartment. oh well. I can share some other pics and stories.

Last night was a great Mardi Gras party at Carmen's. She got the King Cake baby at my party last year so she had the party this year. I sported the Iowa mask I made last year, which never goes out of style and my rocking RAGBRAI (annual bicycle ride across Iowa)beads, also representing my home state. Here's some pics from last year... wish Jess was still around, but I'm glad she's living it up on the West Coast.

Our baby in the birdcage shrine.

Sweet picture Jess took. She held one of the "firework" view finders up to the camera lens... nothing short of brilliant!

Carmen came over last week before V-Day to work on her present for her fiance, Chris. She had this frame and decided to cover it with corks. ( I had asked her to gather corks for the craft project we were doing last friday at the bookstore) Since we had so many we should put them to good use.... and she did. She put a picture of the two of them together in it and then painted over the corks with watercolors that Chris got her for V-Day. How cute, right?

I really wish I had my pics because I guess I really don't have as many stories as I though

My buddy, Jeanne, gave Carmen and I some tickets to The Cape and Islands Wedding Affair. She is advertising in Well Wed magazine and donated one of her fabulous cake toppers to the Wedding Affair auction. click here to check out her blogpost about it.

Jeanne and Jeffrey are on their way to NYC and she sent me an email about this sweet restaurant she wanted to go to. She said it's not open right now. With a name like "Dani" is has to be amazing. :) I'll have to check it out the next time I make it to the city.

I guess that's all for now since I don't have my Valentine Pics. I also have some great pics of the kid's costume design class I taught. The girls I had are so bright and creative, I want to share some of their work. Just have to wait til next time.

Carmen, corkstamps, and a card

Carmen and I have been meeting every week to craft it up and last week I was telling her about the costume design class I'm teaching and how hard it is to teach watercolor to ten year-olds in one class period. The kids did a pretty good job, but it's not an easy medium to grasp the first time. Anyway, I had an extra watercolor pad and beginner watercolor set that I gave Carmen and she's the best student ever. She came back with 3 finished paintings and called me this weekend because she was doing her self portrait! I'll have to get some pics of her work to put on here. She did a really nice one of a horse.

Carmen also brought over a grocery bag full of corks... I asked if she could collect some for me... and she did! Wendy Hudson, my boss at Bookworks, has started up Friday Crafternoons again and I needed to have a craft to teach the kids who showed up. I found this blog and this super sweet blog. I really liked the idea... it's fun, it can be used for valentines and it's recycling. The only thing I wasn't stoked about was having kids using exacto knives. Aside from kid slicing off their digits, it would be a big corky mess that I'd have to clean up. So... I was elated to see this. I have a bunch of foam creatures and letters that my mom sent me a while back and to make it even better, they all are self-adhesive. Most of them are too big to fit on the end of the cork but by rolling them and using thumb tacs as little grips they work like a charm!

Speaking of things my mom sends me... here's a cute pic of the littlest donkey she has. This arrived amid my tax papers and other mail that was sent to her house. I got the mail while I was on my way to work so I left him in the store for Suzanne to see. That same day, this book with a donkey on the cover came in... how serendipitous! Now they hang out together between the cash registers.

As for things that I've been making... I have to admit, it's not much. But my buddy, Billy, called the other day and asked if I had any v-day cards. Of course I do, but he didn't want the ones that were in the store. He wanted his own special one. So here it is. I hope I didn't make it too girly. :)

Happy Birthday Alice Cooper

Wayne's World 2 is on tv right now so I felt this was more than appropriate.

My mom emailed me today to remind me about the birth of her favorite person.... well perhaps it's a toss up between her kids and Alice. She's a pretty big fan. We used to clean the house to Alice Trashed the world before the family would come over on Thanksgiving. Her office at work is filled with Alice memorabilia... Alice light switch plate, Alice jack-in-the-box, Alice concert tickets (framed with a picture of Alice), Alice figurines, this is a collaged poster I made for her on mother's day a few years ago. It had a prominent wall in the office.

meet her dog... Cooper. Pretty cute, huh? I can't find the great pics of both of us outside Alice Coopertown in Arizona. We drove something like eight hours out of the way to get there... and it was worth every minute. The waiters and waitresses all have Alice makeup and they give away tickets to Arizona sporting events. The food was good, and if i recall so was the margarita.

And lastly, just for fun, here's my own personal tribute to Alice. Halloween '05... if only I had a snake around my neck, could have been perfect.

So here's to you Alice. Happy Birthday!