My life has been going through a process of unraveling. I won't go into the gory details, but I am currently trying to find a new home, a new car, a new job, and even a new restructuring of my family.

I know a lot of other people are likewise plunged into the muck and murk of challenges they couldn't have perceived a week ago, let alone a year ago. All around me, I keep hearing people saying the same thing:

"I can't wait for this year to be over."

I understand this wanting to look forward to a better year ahead.* It's as though on the sun will rise on New Year's Day and the sky will burst into yellows, oranges, reds, pinks, and purples so bright and beautiful that the worries of the year before could not possibly cross over.

I find myself saying the same thing, waiting for a future that will be better than the one I'm living. I forget sometimes that the sun rises everyday. Every morning offers opportunity to change, to live, to be.

There is no future day in which things are all going to be better. You can't hop on a train to a better life. Life is the journey. There is nothing to wait for. There is only right now. This moment.

This moment is where Joy lives.



I through this picture together at the last minute this morning. It was made by tearing strips of paper, painting them individually with watercolor, and then assembling and pasting them together.

*Just a reminder. The new year for the lunar calendar does not actually begin until February. So those looking to the new year may have to wait a little longer.

[This is my week 6 post for therealljidol .]

My friend created a blog/webpage for an ongoing creative project called the 20 Dollar Robot. The challenge to the universe is to make a robot, a sculpture, a painting, a costume, a hyper intelligent man-servant, bu whatever you create, it must cost no more than $20 to make. The site will post photos, receipts, stories, tips, tricks, videos, and any other documentation that is provided.

I'm already trying to plan out some ideas for what I might do for this site. Don't know what that is yet, but I'm working on it.

Anyway, I also wanted to invite anyone else in the universe out there to participate as well. Go at it, have fun, make robots.

'04 dayplanner (front)

I love to do collage, it's one of my favorite hobbies.

I have stacks of magazines that I won't get rid of, because there might be an image or phrase in there I could use. I've also been known to commit sacrilege and cut up old National Geographic s for this purpose (my grandmother yelled at me once about it). Drawing together different phrases and images to create something new and a specific feeling--it's just so much fun.

There's also a distinct pleasure for me in sifting through the piles of paper to find the perfect image to tear or cut out.

I guess that's why I like to print out my drafts when I'm doing an edit on a poem or story (I hate to do edits, especially big edits, directly into the computer). I need to hold the paper, lay it out on the bed or floor, scribble out the new sentence/phrase/word into the margins as it comes to me. Hearing the paper as I shuffle through it, feeling it between my fingers, smelling it--it all relaxes me, helps me get through the stress of facing down my crappy writing and then polishing it up to a high glossy shine. I don't think I could do it if I had to edit solely on the computer.

Well, I could do it, but I just wouldn't want to.