JOURNAL REVOLUTION

better than ever

It is a little after 1 AM. My camera is full of photos and my brain is full of thoughts. There are things I want to write about but I am not done thinking about them.Tomorrow, I'll have time on the airplane for thinking.
Before the True Colors concert tonight, I photographed Rosie O'Donnell for a new book we are working on. I'll be photographing many women over the next few months, some who are very familiar to you and some you have never heard of.  It was great to see Rosie again and get some much needed advice.
It was also great to photograph a concert without the camera police stopping me every 5 seconds! There does not seem to be a camera cop in Minneapolis. Nobody has stopped me here, not even in Starbucks. In fact, people have been posing for me and going out of their way to accommodate me. Am I still alive?
This not really a rock star but kind of a rock star lifestyle is catching up to me. I need sleep. I will post more photos from the concert when I get back to Los Angeles. If True Colors is coming to a city near you, see it. Cyndi Lauper is better than ever.

* This is one of my fave pics of Rosie and Cyndi from tonight. I love how the crew people are watching them.

no passion tea

Oh my Buddha. I finally made it to Minneapolis. It has been non-stop laughter since the plane landed. Actually, I was laughing when they told me my flight was canceled, too. I am ME, after all.
Last night Jane and I found really good meatloaf that wasn't dry or licorice-y tasting, juicy good carrot cake, and the only Starbucks that was open but had no passion tea. I also found out that I do not want a navigation system that speaks to me in meters. What a great night! Though, I am left to wonder how people live in a place where everything closes at 5:00 on a Sunday.
The sun is out today and we are off to explore the city before the True Colors concert tonight.

we need a number

We love the fine folks at Borders. They always get our names right and they always make two signs for us to steal when our event is over! We never have to have the you can have the sign in winter and I'll have it in spring chat on the way home from an event with Borders.

On Saturday night, Tod called to tell us that it was unbearably hot at the Festival of Books and if  people weren't going to be looking at him,  he'd just wear shorts and a t-shirt. Really fucking hot, he said. He told me that even though people will be looking at us, we should just wear  t-shirts but for the love of God, man, don't wear BLACK! It's hot, wear WHITE! That is easy for a man to say. I am an artist, I can't wear white! I must wear black, it is the law. Also, I have a big chest and I am at the roly poly age, so yeah. Must wear black. Karen could wear white because she is thin, but she doesn't look good in white, either. Searching for the perfect not white shirt to wear made us wonder...
How many degrees hotter does wearing a black shirt make you? Really, we need a number.

All the people in sweaty white shirts looked really hot, too. The white shirt people looked as hot as the dark colored tee wearing people, so there.

Moments from the FOB:
*We were in the green room and hallway with Aimee Mann. OMG.
* During our signing, Karen saved my life. A giant bug was about to kill me
*When I noticed how odd it was that I'd been at the festival for 3 hours and nobody had given me a free tote bag yet, Lee whipped one out of his bag for me! I love free tote bags!
* Dumb asses lined up at the Borders booth where we were doing a book signing then asked us for directions to the LA Times tent. It should be no surprise that the dumb asses were all men.
* There was really good cake in the green room (also known as the super secret air conditioned room full of food and water for the authors)
*Male writers are still too hairy. I know we often come away from these literary events with this observation but it is still true. Men, you need to shave. You need to get haircuts. You need to stop living only in your dark room lit by the light of your computer screen. Get out of the house and into a salon! You'd have way more sex if you looked better. And, judging by most of the conversations we heard, sex is all these male writers want or want to talk about. Well, duh, it is all all men want. Well, actually, it's all they want TOD to talk about when he moderates panels. Odd, that.
*Just as we were about to hang with Julie Andrews that thing that I was waiting for that should've been here 15 days ago decided to arrive. Of course it did, I am me! Luckily, I was not wearing white because it was not easy to get to the super secret author bathroom way the hell far away from where we were and through the masses of people in the hot, hot, hot sun. By the time we got through all the people and out of the bathroom, Julie vanished in a poof of air! WTF? Good thing we have already seen her a few times before.

I put a few of our photos from the day in my flickr.

in transit

We are on our way to San francisco and had to make a little stop on the way. Finally a few moments just to sit. I do not have my laptop so I am seeing how good I am at blogging with the iPhone. The fine folks of salinas welcomed me with open arms yesterday and I am so glad I had the chance to connect with everyone. There will be many photos to come. It is hard to be here without Karen! So, I am eating extra for her. Salinas looked like a cute place and I will have to come back when there is more time.
and off I go again.

my lucky things

I should be packed and ready to hit the road tomorrow but I am not. I haven't even made my mix tape yet. Hell, I haven't even gotten dressed yet today (it is 1:20 PM). This week ended up being the busiest EVER. I don't know how it happened other than things with us always have a way of happening really fast and with great force when my thoughts become more than thoughts. Karen and are thankful that we have some amazing friends who help (with great excitement) when we ask. That feels fantastic. We are also thankful for dearest Maria who has handled every detail of the book signing on Saturday so that I will not have to worry about a thing. I am not worried at all. This is a first!
Maria is not in charge of the four hour car ride so just to be safe I am packing my lucky suitcase, my lucky shoes, and my lucky jacket. I need all my lucky things. I think I also need a triple does of my lucky anti-migraine medication and since there is travel involved, things with wings. So, yeah. I better bring extra chocolate. You've gotta love being a woman in times of travel.

The book signing is saturday (be there!) and then Sunday I am heading to San Francisco for some fun and some work on the thought that became a thing. I'm heading back on Monday and will blog from the road.
Well, not really the road road because I am not that coordinated but from my laptop at Maria's house.

hearing the ring

moments from our day~

hearing the ring
blue sky and sunshine
laughter
laughter
laughter
a purse full of M&Ms
new music for our ears and souls
roots and lipstick and clicking cameras
a father's nose and dots on eyes
George's pants
a glowy magical photo
perfect in every way

Lain + me + Maria. Aren't Maria and Lain the cutest ever? I love them! I miss them already- as does my husband who is in-love with all the attention he got today. I can't wait for the next time we see each other. Be prepared for me to spend the next week (at least)  gushing over Maria and Lain and sharing photos from our adventure. I made lots of little movies this weekend so my husband will have something to do/edit next week!

We're calling it an early night and getting up early to make our way back home before traffic is bad. I wish I could say there are signed copies of Journal Revolution at the Borders in Union Square. I wish I could even say there are copies of Journal Revolution at the Borders in Union Square. Hmmmmm. Letting it go...letting it go...let it go.

boss of the camera

Last year when we were here I was grossed out by so many people spitting in the street. This year I am having a hard time caring about anything because there is so much pot being smoked on the street that you just get very mellow walking to China Town. What the heck is going on here? It's like being in Amsterdam all of a sudden! I do not like the smell of pot or beer so I have spent a lot of time with my Amy Tangerine scarf wrapped around my face. It's a really cute scarf!
It was another beautiful and sunny day here in the city by the full of sail boats bay. We visited SFMOMA and saw the Cornell exhibit. I was more happy to see a Rauschenberg on the wall and the photography exhibit. The Cornell art is interesting but I wouldn't go back and see it again. I loved his scrapbook pages more than his assemblages. His art is a great example of seeing art by an artist who knows when his piece of artist complete. If you've got nothing left to say, it is done.
We ate the best cream puffs of our lives today, sat on a bench in the sun and just BEd, and walked and walked and walked. San Francisco should come with a chiropractor. And TAB Energy drink.
Tomorrow is our date with Lain and Maria. I can't wait! I didn't tell them that we attract really slow restaurant service. We'll just let them discover that little bit of Woods Magic on their own. Oh and in a show of the deepest love ever, when  the battery in my husband's camera died, I just gave him the one from my camera and spent 4 hours camera-less.  I  did this without pointing out life rule number 3a: YOU ARE THE BOSS OF YOUR CAMERA. CHECK YOUR BATTERY EVERY 3 SECONDS. He got the last bite of the best ever cream puff and the camera battery. It's like he won the love lottery!!!

no flip flops

We drove for 5 hours then walked up and down the empty hilly streets of San Francisco for 4 hours. Life is so good! The sky was blue and the sun was out and I'd show you some photographic proof of that but technology is not on my side at the moment. For some reason my laptop is not getting along with my usb cable. My observations of how people in San Francisco are different from people in LA have not changed. People here don't wear thongs when it is 36 degrees out. And by thongs, I mean the kind you wear on your feet that for some reason too many people over the age of six call Flip-Flops. So far, I have not seen anyone wearing a mini-skirt with Uggs. I am also still noticing that in America, purses wear people and people from Europe wear purses. The combination of good shoes and purses not larger than the people carrying them excites me!

There's a mirror in our bathroom that magnifies things a trillion times. I'm going to go read my Lewis and Clark book by the warm fire in the beautiful hotel lobby or by tomorrow I'll have no eyebrows left. But first I am gonna email Karen and ask her why she never told me I need one of those pore reducing masks.
OH MY BUDDHA! I  forgot to announce the biggest news EVER: Karen made her hair not blond! She now has shoulder length caramel colored hair..and we still look nothing alike. Hmmmmm. I can't wait to go meet her at Starbucks then not recognize her!

Happy Thanksgiving!

we need an escape from our escape

On Friday, we ran away from life and hopped on a train bound for San Juan Capistrano with Emily, Karen's 12 year old daughter, and Caelin, Emily's best friend. We had big plans to have tea and lunch at the Los Rios Tea House, visit the mission, do a little shopping, eat a little more, then take the train back to reality. The only thing that actually happened was the longest, funniest lunch ever. And I got yelled at by the train conductors for taking photos on the train to San Juan Cap. I am always the one who gets in trouble. They even called my picture taking suspicious! When I  tried to defend myself by explaining that I am an artist, things just got worse. It's odd because my LAWYER was with me and I don't recall her saying a word. Though, I think had the doors not opened right then, she'd have whipped out a copy of our book and yelled, "SEE!!!!" Four giggling girls armed with cameras on a train sure can be  a frightening thing, right?
We starving and silly girls arrived at the too cute for words tea house at 11:30. We were seated immediately and Emily and Caelin  found some hats to go with their outfits. We ordered at around 11:45.

If you look closely, you'll see their cups are empty. It took an HOUR AND TWENTY MINUTES for them to bring the tea to our table.  TWENTY FIVE minutes after bringing the tea, they brought us each a scone. The scones were heart shaped and looked really cute on the plate. However, we could tell by looking at them they were not really the "traditional" scones we were used to, the type we ate all day long in the Mother Country. Though, these scones were very good and tasted like Barnum's Animal Crackers. We were kind of hoping for the white fluffy kind they serve at Leeds Castle.

We all ate our scones and laughed and talked and laughed and talked more and waited and waited and about THIRTY FIVE minutes later, lunch was served. FORTY minutes after lunch was served, dessert arrived. We each ordered the Mamboche (I think they made this word up), which was served in wine glasses.

See how they put that little flower on top of the whipped cream? Emily took the flower off before digging in but somehow the green stem part remained hidden in the whipped cream and was making it's way down her throat when she realized it. She immediately tried to drink some water to get it down faster but then we all started laughing and she laughed and then you know what happens when you are laughing and drinking water...somebody was bound to throw up. True to form, it was Emily who did.  And true to form, she spewed in my direction, covering my camera with a regurgitated combo of  berry tea, cucumber and cream cheese sandwich, and as she said, lawn mower clippings.

We left the tea house and spent our last remaining hour and a half in San Juan Capistano walking around, bursting into spontaneous laughter as Emily kept reminding us: somebody tried to kill me!

The train ride home was another adventure all together. There were no seats left and we had to sit in the luggage compartment.

There is never EVER a dull moment with us.

we're outta here

Our bags are packed full of Red Vines and Chocolate Covered Nutter Butters, our camera batteries are charged, and we are hopping on the first train out of here tomorrow. We suddenly got very busy and we work better and faster writing (and making plans) when we are together. The 2.5 hours each way to and from San Juan Capistrano should give us plenty of uninterrupted time together. We're taking Karen's daughter and her best friend and we're having tea and scones at the cutest tea house ever. We'll revisit the mission, Starbucks and Chico's (a Chico's right near the mission, IMAGINE!!!), have dinner here (really good chicken salad),  then make out way back. A total girlie girl day. The last time we took the train to SJC and visited the mission, we were with Karen's 10 year old son and like most boys his age, hanging out at the mission eating cookies in the garden and visiting a tea house didn't really sound that exciting to him. We're so excited about our spur of the moment work trip! And, to make things better, Karen finally caught up to this decade and got a new digital camera! WOOHOO! Pictures o' plenty to come.