Saturday 2/4

Back to L.A. where it's 75 degrees today. It's warm in Johnson, too - 25 degrees.

I have to say that this month flew past. I was lucky enough to have the summer off from teaching and I went to England for 5 weeks. That seemed a lot longer.

The river and the snow and ice taught me to look more carefully. My laryngitis taught me to listen. Everything eventually lead to my nascent shape poem project.

I ate far more chocolate and drank more champagne in Johnson than I have for the past year -- also terrific experiences.

Writing often changes its voice, depending on what I'm writing. Sometimes it's a bright or colorful voice. Sometimes the voice is quieter/paler and the language comes more slowly, chewily, which is what is happening currently.

I'm back into the swing of things. Grocery shopping, photocopying, lesson plan preparation, cooking and tidying up receipts.

Rolling up my sleeves for 2012!

Thursday 2/2

A frisson of excitement. Last night, at some late night party, someone threw up in the dining hall men's bathroom. They threw newspaper over the evidence, perhaps hoping that it would somehow disappear. Or maybe it was a post-modern art attempt ...

Todd, our maintenance person, is furious. We, the elderly, are unable to stay up late enough to get that drunk. Over breakfast, we had a marvelous time tutting over the incident and congratulating ourselves on being innocently tucked up at 10:15pm.

This melting icicle is outside the elementary school but safely out of the way of the littlies.

Lisa has been making these alphabet letters as going away gifts for us. She's even providing packing

materials so we can get them home safely. My first experience in taking baby art on the plane.

The amazing Hwan's work. We had open studio visits last night.

The one in the box frame costs $2000. None of us had enough spare cash.

Today, I'm doing a couple of short pieces before my last work stint in the kitchen. It's now snowing gently - the real version of Hollywood snow that's made of tiny pieces of plastic.

And one last ice-sculpture pic before I wrap this blog up. I'll be packing my studio this afternoon.

Tuesday 1/31

The left-hand pic is of some kind of mushroom/toadstool item in the forest.

Finally some snow! It was quite warm, though, so I think we'll have more slush and ice tomorrow. Anyway, it was wonderful to go walking along the river this afternoon.

We had the last of the resident reading series last night and I read from the new short.

One of the artists dedicated her month to a project about everyone and produced these wonderful little paint snapshots.

The one on the left was written for me. I've been going around in my pink coat and orange hat all month!