Fact: the Office is perhaps the most hilarious and brilliant TV shows to EVER have come out.

Fact: Obviously I have been watching it way too much.

Wrong: When something is deemed good, there is no such thing as excess.

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More Photoshop color experiments. This girl looks like the oldest teenage daughter of a large family who is daydreaming and very bored on some vacation...

Here's a goofy kid's illustration. Still exploring photoshop coloration...

Memory is an interesting thing. It can be wonderful, idyllic, golden; or it can be cold, sad and isolating. To lose or deny it would be a tragic thing, but to become obsessed is equally terrible. I have noticed that it [memory] plays an integral role in most Anime series' I have seen, and there seems to always be a juxtaposition between the unbearable ones and the ones that keep the characters happy and hopeful. Though I am talking about cartoons, there is a truth here I think, though more often than not the purpose of it in these stories seems confused; sometimes nothing more than an excuse for a pretty scene. Without memory however, we could not learn and grow or properly come to understand anything that happens to us in life. I am going to embarrass myself in my musings by showing that I don't really remember Augustine's chapters on memory from the Confessions, but I plan to reread them sometime and relearn some his wisdom; the concepts of time and memory are entwined so deeply into our lives and consciousness. Well, an Anime series started all this thoughtfulness, and I must be open and say that I like Anime a lot, but despite this I am very aware that it is usually philosophically, theologically and even experientially fatally flawed. It is as if there is an unlimited well of creativeness and perception in the mind of the animators, but somehow they miss the real point and get hung up on immature reactions and childish emotions, like obsessive attachment to certain memories. The lives of so many of the characters in these different shows revolve around a single occurrence, and they either eternally live in the past or can only bear to live in the present. Even worse, they often have a huge identity crisis as well. It makes me wonder: I feel like Japan itself has an identity crisis, as a whole people. That, coupled with a national lack of Christianity, odd customs, and a dark past that was confused and all but stricken from the minds of the Japanese citizens by the American occupation after WWII has left..what? Perhaps there is some account for the role of memory in their stories characters right there; a struggle to understand who they are and what has become of their heritage. This is all simply a speculation of course, but there is some real power here: Japanese culture (do they have one?) has more or less swept the world and captivated more of it than one might think with its sadness, sexiness, its depth and madness. However all that may be, I have recently been thoughtful about my own past. Some things I swore as a child or young adult I would never forget, have over the years become more distant or even unimportant. Maybe I just lost track of them, and at some moment or other in the future they will jump out, one by one and beg to be meaningful once again---or maybe I have just matured and grown up and have a better understanding now of how and why I was moved and affected. Obviously some lessons are learned or actions are understood years later...and, I suppose in the end if they really are important they are never truly forgotten.

I have been trying to get a handle on coloring in Photoshop for a long time now, and with the advice of some friends and many attempts and experiments I think it is finally beginning to work out. Well, you can decide for yourselves, but here is the first piece I am actually somewhat satisfied with.

We have watched a couple of foreign films lately, the Lives of Others and part of the Decalogue. Pretty amazing stuff; the former was a sad but incredible film. Other than that, nothing too exciting is going on...but that's okay. Really.

It is a wet, misty day; and that makes me happy.

I find it rather amazing that we can, at random, completely change our environment, surroundings, our whole world in fact, for just a few brief moments---a day or two---then go back to the same old habits and haunts that make up the familiar things of *normal* life. This last weekend we rode over 1000 miles on motorcycles, toured HWY 1, cruised through San Francisco, relaxed in [MY] park on a hill that looked every direction at once, and watched the sunrise from the Golden Gate. Not to mention the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival or drinking and singing at M. M.'s wonderful house. For a fleeting weekend we were nomads on two wheels, poking around the famous and historic Bay Area, breathing in the people and the sights of a place we will never live. At one point during the music festival a girl with tears streaming down her face asked me for a cigarette; (her lady lover had left her alone in the crowd, to cry over Gillian Welch it would seem); while I lit her a smoke she asked me if I would marry G. Welch, and I said perhaps I would if I didn't already have a wife; (I was trying to be sympathetic). "I would," she choked out, "I WOULD!" Later on, the announcer unabashedly stated that we couldn't smoke cigarettes, but if we wanted to smoke *other things* we were to keep in mind the comfort of others. Nice. I was certain I would be second-hand-high by the the time we left, but maybe the music was too good and I didn't notice. And was it ever good. Doc Watson and Gillian Welch took my soul, as they have before, and the hipsters, freaks, folkies, lesbians, tattoos, ragged clothing, wild hair and single speed bikes all mixed together with the music to form a sort of sad dirty lovable collage. After a long night at M.'s house with lots more beer and more music, (a little clumsier than at the park, I'll admit), we headed out, 80mph down the 101 for hours into the fading evening until at last with rattled bones and sore muscles we staggered through our own door and all was back the way it had been, as if it all were merely a misty dream.

This could be us on a blurry day
Or maybe just a dream of a place
Either way, I love it when you walk with me
Floating and close;
If we don't really look that good
No one will notice,
We are half erased anyway
Hold onto my hand in the graphite breeze
And don't let go my dear, for
You know our love can't be scrubbed away

Why are some folks night owls? It doesn't make sense when the sun is going and all the world creeps into its various hiding places that one would be filled with the desire to be up and doing. An anticipation perhaps. Or something darker...? But I am one. And the mood of the night calls, pleads with me not leave it for my bed, not to be wrapped in the warmth of that great quilted comforter; no, to come away under the moon, slide silently beneath the trees and frowning windows while others snooze. Is there really adventure here, in the chill, or does the pretty frail moon lie to me...?