2012 Affirmation # 5 - if you can't be a good example ... at least be a warning.

"learn to dance or the angels won't know what to do with you" ... saint augustine

I have been around the block a time or two.

(not in a bad way if you know what I mean and not in any way that involves running shoes and a water bottle - in fact if you see me running these days, it is pretty much guaranteed there is a large dog behind me or a small dog in front of me, but one way or the other it is pretty certain that a dog is involved somehow)

I have worked jobs with very long, stressful hours with alot of responsibility and headaches. I have had businesses that went places and some that went no place and all the work and craziness that was involved with all of that. But I was always able to separate my job title or business adventure from myself.

I was never really in it all the way.

And now I am.

In it all the way.

In a what you see is what you get, this gets so personal we know each other's underwear colors

(and styles - why do so many of us wear boyshorts?)

kind of way that is so terribly amazing and terribly rewarding and terribly exhausting.

So, I affirm we all give ourselves a break in 2012, take a little bit better care of ourselves (some of us alot better care of ourselves), dance a little more, work a little less and if we can't be a good example of what to do at least we can be a good example of what not to do

(this has always worked very well for me actually)

and maybe coax a few other makers to join us ....

* dance print by wallfry

** what I have learned this week about schizophrenia - alot - way too much to write about, but a very important thing is that schizophrenia often involves anosognosia which is a long scary word (doesn't it just look like a word you don't want to get to know, like the word chocolate, that one has always been trouble for me, too) for a person's inability to recognize or understand the nature of his illness, like with alzheimer's disease - it's not about denial - so interventions don't work, normal reasoning doesn't work and this little twist called "lack of insight" is like having the Himalayas between David and wellness.

the girl next door or you make a better door than you do a window or ... any song by Jim Morrison

I read that people with white doors (front doors) are most likely to have a tidy house, abhor mesess and like a clean and clinical, modern decor whereas people with green doors tend toward the exact opposite aesthetic and even have a tendency to be hoarders.

(yes, I have a green front door but I only hoard the really important stuff like magazines from the year everyone in my family was born - yes, I mean everyone, unused 35mm film - you never know - used Mallomar boxes - I find they reseal very nicely, make handy little containers and seeing them makes me happy during the summer months when the cookies are gone from the grocery store shelves - it's the little things, folks)


I want you to be concerned about your next door neighbor. Do you know your next door neighbor? ... Mother Teresa

Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door ... Ralph Waldo Emerson

When one door is closed, don't you know, another is open ... Bob Marley

Ten men waiting for me at the door?
Send one of them home, I'm tired ... Mae West


* for some reason the homegrown chaos has me obsessing over doors this week - the top picture is a door from an old hotel in Cape May that I snatched up to divide off my dining room (which is more of a dining nook actually) - the picture above is an old door, painted with an old bicycle shop logo that I have attached to an old white dresser (you might notice a few mistakes with the bicycle drawing - ack!)

xo =^..^=