a cracked heel, katie says, is a squashed tomato. katie's life, i imagine, is rife with tomato lessons, allegories, symbols, metaphors, even perhaps mythology. that's what can happen when you are tied to a vegetable (in reality fruit), with such intensity for so long. she see's the world through tomato eyes.

that paragraph began in my head on the way home from work. i was also thinking about stimulation. in the morning, i'm ususally eager for environmental stimuli. nothing is better, for example than driving to work with the windows down, the music blaring and singing along. it's enjoyable. i'm fresh (somewhat), i'm ready, i've had some rest. on the way home from work, however is a different story. music that was fun and peppy on the way to work, is garish. it's the time in the day that i have the lowest tolerance for radio commercials. depending on how much sugar i've had, i have strong urges to close my eyes at the miller road intersection. just to rest them. i usually turn off the radio/stereo, or listen to the news. i barely ever sing along. i look forward to getting home and having some alone time.

i am still fighting the ruts but i think that i am making progress at home and at work. today me and tanya and lisa m. had a great talk about some improvements and goals we'd like to work on. it really made me realize what a rut i've been in at work too. it felt so good to talk about the things we'd like to do better. i think it would help me feel like i'm making a difference again. it's also good to know that i'm not the only one.

tuesday night i went to the art gallery and finally saw monet to dali with heather and shauna. our plan was to meet there at five and find each other somewhere in the line-up. i took the bus and read harry potter in bliss. one great thing about taking the bus is that you can read while you travel. i got there at around five oh five and saw heather waiting at the entrance. she pointed out the line to me. it wrapped around the building. i don't know if it's always that busy, but it was the last week of the show and the last 'pay by donation' night at that. i stood behind some friendly matronly types. they were all asking each other questions and discussing whether tuesday was cheap night or if it was thursday, and no, it was thursday but it changed to tuesday... etc. meanwhile heather walked up and down the lines in search of shauna. the plus of searching for shauna in a crowd is that she has red hair. finally heather found her way at the front of the line. she'd gotten there early. a lady was huffy about me and heather joining the line, so we just gave shauna money to pay for us.

i was the slowest of us all. i had to read each plaque. that is until i got to picasso and the cubalism and all that. i wasn't that interested in the abstract art. although picasso did have some interesting pieces. there were so many people there, we were sent in in timed groups. still, some paintings were thick with surrounding people and you had to be patient to get your chance at a good view. at one point i was getting more irritable and this one lady kept leaning across me or poking in front of me and so on. she was bugging me but i tried to let it go. can't let the peeps ruin your experience. one of the ones by monet that i liked was called the red kerchief: a portrait of camille monet. and this is what the plaque said:

"In its early stages, this composition contained two figures seated inside the room on either side of the window. Monet radically altered the composition by painting over the figures. They were replaced by an image of the artist's favorite model---his wife Camille, who passes outside the window in a red cape. Intense light---reflected from the snow-covered landscape---floods the room, obliterating details along the walls and floor. The off-center window frame and the blurriness achieved through sketchy brushstrokes suggest the scanning movement of the artist's eye as he viewed this scene. Contrasted with cold blues and silver whites, Camille's red cape draws the viewer's attention through the glass and into a swift exchange of glances, registering a brief moment in time. This painting evidently held special meaning for Monet, for he kept it with him until his death in 1926."

here is another i liked by one of the only women, Berthe Morisot

"The fasionable woman seated in the foreground is the artist's sister, Edma. However, the painting is not a portrait. Morisot's principal concern was to render a figure in a natural, outdoor environment. Edma's white dress-the prime vehicle for Morisot's study of reflected light-is saturated with delicate lavender, blue, yellow, and rose tonalitites. Deftly executed with quick brushstrokes, the painting resounds with a feeling of freshness, vibrancy and delicate charm. "Every day I pray that the Good Lord will make me like a child," Morisot wrote, "That is to say, that He will make me see nature and render it the way a child would, without preconceptions.""


these were two of the van goghs that i especially liked. starry night wasn't there or anything. of course it's the trees that i like in this one and the other one is for the sky.


























archie is sleeping on my desk like he used to. he breaths on my wrist when i'm using the mouse. i'm going to go read.