The puzzle comes together TONIGHT.
For anyone who knows about the Whittaker puzzle project, tonight is the night that it all comes together. This is the last Friday art walk and the puzzle will be displayed on 2nd Ave near Monroe st with celebration music by The Simple Men.
I've got my own little piece in the action.

memories of memories.
I am remembering a time when I was remembering a time.
This street corner is piled high with memories and as I turn the corner I remember not just the memory, but I remember other times that I have had the memory.
memories of memories.
But I remember my emotion being different in the memory of the memory. The emotion changes. The street corner does not. The memory does not.
Emotion becomes time, where the memory becomes a stagnant fixture, a piece of art in my mind, that I return to from time to time. Emotion to emotion. Observation changing. Effect different.

Two fourteen year old female musicians called me up and planned to come over this morning to talk shop... hear about what it's like to be a grown up musician in a real band...
y'know how you get down on your life and your achievments or lack there of, but then you see your self through children's... or in this case, teenagers', eyes and you realize you're really not doing so bad.
I pulled out all the papers with Ovulators press, and all the photos and all the flyers, and my own solo EP and suddenly, I felt rather achieved.
It's good to get perspective.

The tougher perspective is drug-related. The kids that I work with at my job are exposed to so many drugs. I listen to their stories, but know that there is a lack of education. When six state troupers showed up, arrested a household and spent over an hour searching the house, I made my own deductions of what was happening, but the children know it simply as "drugs"... they were making drugs in there... turns out to be growing. A six year old tells me that she saw someone smoking crack and weed in the park. I wonder if they were really smoking both, and how a six year old would know this. To them, there's not a big difference between smoking crack and smoking pot. It all simply falls under the title of "drugs", and its clear that nearly everyone in the neighborhood is on them, including a majority of their parents.

I'm at the House of Random. logged on to myspace.

Wow.
It was a crazy day today at the park where I work.
It was the first time that I really got a first hand experience of the neighborhood. Two arrests in seperate times of the day and a hand full of meth heads milling around. All this time, they've kept undercover, and then today, they all pop out.
Maybe the heat drove them out.
I set up a plastic kid water sprinkler for the kids and they told me it sucked.
Then, a couple of kids were picked up from the park because their mother had just been taken to the hospital because of an overdose.
Still, our day went on in the hundred and something degrees weather. I served lemonade in dixie cups and there were quarrels over Clue Jr.

I've been watching the sun all day. I woke up early and pulled up all the dying daisies while the flower bed was in the shade. I bought new starts to fill up empty spots. I watched as the sun moved and plotted my planting strategy. I played lots of guitar in between.
My room is hot hot hot and I don't think I can sleep here. Time to put my new air mattress to good use...

Tonight!! It's The Ovulators LIVE with a female duo from ROME... MotorAmA... happening at Luckey's!!! YEA!!

My job challenges me. I don't get paid much, but my brain gets a work over. I work with kids. During the school year I work in a classroom that is kindergarden through 2nd grade... it is called a "Life Skills" classroom, which means that we are trying to fit disabled children into our set up style of society. I deal mostly with autism and down syndrome. During the summer I work with "normally developing" kids, ages ranging from 5, mostly up to 12, but a few older kids now and then. I am learning a whole new appreciation for the biting, kicking, screaming and other behaviors that I have to handle during the school year. To have these "normally developing" children bite me is comical. I realize that it is suppose to hold some shock value, but I'm used to being bit, it's no big deal, and these kids only do it to test a boundry, they don't latch onto you, the way an autistic child does, in desperate desire of escaping confusion. But still, I have more compassion toward the child that bites and kicks as some form of survival technique than these kids who are trying to find my boundry lines. I guess its still all the same in some underlying way. All survival. All testing.

I forgot to mention the best part of the Fair...

no mosquitos

amazing.

The Country Fair has become part of my psyche. On Thursday night, when I still didn't have a pass, I started to think that I wasn't going (really, I should have been packing), there was this feeling, like the fair was effecting me, even though I wasn't there.
But, then at noon on Friday, the phone call came and off I went to experience my shortest Fair ever. I camped with the fire dancers, and took the whole weekend easy, although I walked that large infinity sign over and over through the three days, ate my favorite food and drank in my favorite people.
I returned to my new summer job monday and found a group of kids who missed me the one day that I was gone. I've only spent eight days with these kids and a bond has built. Believe it or not, the kids told me that they like having me there because I instill rules and boundries and they feel safe that I would break up a fight...
who woulda thunk

I'm waiting on my pass into The Faire...ticktock ticktock... I know its coming...I just don't know how or from where...

I've been really impressed with Nolan's blog lately. I always want to speak as candidlly about my emotional self, but am not so bold. Way to go NV.

the Big Orange Boy Cat is finally doing his spring fast when he drops his winter weight. He spent at least 24 hours in the bush out front sleeping. Now he's inside and trying to make up for attention lost during that time by crawwling all over the computer.

I've got internet access again, again thanks to my roommate. Not only did he clean up my computer, but he linked it up to his computer as well so I can view movies from his library. He even has the latest Star Wars.

I've got a summer job that is spent in the park playing games and doing crafts with kids. It's pretty mellow. A good way to get paid through the summer. I'm planning Rock Star day and Superhero day. The theme for the summer is "around the world", but I think those days could pass as being cross cultural.

what have I done? I forget all about the staff meeting at nine AM as I pile whiskey upon beer upon gin and tonics, and I think its all some how OK, because its summer and I'm only a few blocks from home and my heart is aching, but it turns out, that I'm still a responsible adult and have to be presentable and in action in just a few minutes...

ok i PRomised; even though its later thanlate...
hello blog...
do i tell you where I've been.. or maybe that yes, I'v e got internet acess back, but sleep wants me most... at least, more than you do. see you tomarrow.