Fatale Abstraction

I'm grateful for too many things to name them all. I hope everyone has a nice time with loved ones, good food and glorious daytime napping. Heaven!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

8:30 AM addendum:
You know, I typed this post before I went to bed a little before 1 AM, but I want to add something.

I'm very grateful for the community we have here in blog. Of course I have my friends and work and creative imperative and family that keep my days full, but blog really is the amusement I treasure that keeps me tethered to an idea of community that knows no boundaries. I started my blog in 2002 and only posted sporadically as inspiration would strike, but more than a year ago I worried that I was languishing creatively and I committed to myself to blog daily to have something creative to show for each day. Now, though, this is not simply me tapping the old plastic in my fuzzy slippers and tossing it out into the ether never to be seen again--you wonderful people respond and when necessary commiserate and indeed make this a community. I love the conversational aspects of the comment section, and I appreciate all of you who participate in that forum.

Through this I've conversed with people who share my passions for music and glass bead making and fiber arts and books and popular culture, and I've discovered much life-enriching stuff through many of you, so thanks for the recommended publications and music and creative references. Thanks for the encouragement. Thanks for the information. Thanks for being here. Thank you for your blogs - they amuse me and I often tell you so.

Not so terribly long ago, people in my family would travel from Arkansas at harvest time out to California to fruit tramp. They would pick fruit all summer, following the harvest up or down the coast, and then head back home. Sort of Grapes-of-Wrath-ish, only maybe not so classy. As a result, flotsam-esque bits of the family branched off and stayed in California and Washington, and I now have some relatives out there. So the trips to California morphed over time from an economic imperative into a familial custom.

There was an old joke that said if you see a car heading toward California with a mattress strapped to the roof, it's an Okie (Oklahoman). However, if there's a mattress on the roof and bare feet sticking out one or more of the windows, it's an Arkie. Yeah, that's how we roll.

Anyway, a great-aunt of mine was named Inez, and she was a bit of a fruit-bat, and would ride back and forth on the California trip with whomever was heading out that way. Nezzie, as she was called, had a strange compulsion. When the group would stop to eat along the way, she would ignore the people at her own table and sit, raptly focusing on the conversation in the booth or table behind hers. She was so obsessive that she would neglect to eat her own food. When they'd get back out on the road, Nezzie would proceed to regale the family with the gossip she'd heard about these random strangers. Invariably she'd cry because she was famished and no one felt sorry for her.

Anyway, for all of you who come here daily and don't comment, I think of you as my Nezzies. Whether you're enjoying the onlooker slow-down aspects of my crash-in-slow-motion life, or if you chuckle wryly, nod appreciatively and think you simply don't have anything to add to the discourse, thanks for stopping by and thanks for reading my blog, and remember to eat something or you'll be hungry later on, and we're not stopping again!