Home on the Roam

Artist Studio: Daniel Bernard Gray

2012-02-05T15:02:00.002-06:00

Another weekend. Another opportunity to bug Daniel while he works outside. With my camera in hand. So here's a little video of Daniel at work in our backyard, his preferred studio (even though he has an actual studio inside the house).

Daniel is currently creating a series of smallish paintings for his senior thesis — he will graduate from Texas State University in May. His process involves first pouring house paint into plastic beds, where the paint dries into thick, textured skins. Then he cuts the skins to fit on custom-built wood panels, glues them in place, and continues to build up the texture with more paint, dirt, found objects and other debris, until he creates something that's actually quite beautiful. Like this:

He's rather prolific. I believe he's completed 30-40 paintings in the past year. He just goes out everyday and works, in addition to going to school and to his on-campus job. He is very focused and driven. It's inspiring. I'm confident he will make it in this profession.

To see more of Daniel's artwork, visit his blog. If you have thoughts about anything he's made, leave him some comments, which he really appreciates.

danielbernardgray.blogspot.com

Birthday Song

2012-01-31T22:55:00.001-06:00

My uncle gave me a song for my birthday. I paired it with some Spanish moss, ants, aquatic plants and poetry. I don't actually have too much time on my hands, despite the impression this gives.

(If you're curious, I shot all these images last weekend at Palmetto State Park in Gonzales, Texas, using my trusty Nikon D5000, the little camera that can, with a 35mm prime lens and a stack of old close-up filters. If you're really curious, read on to see how I connect this to Karl Marx.)

One thing that really makes my week go better is making stuff. Any kind of stuff. Stories, poems, photographs, scarves, clothes, letters to special people, baked goodies, rock cairns around the edge of the garden..."stuff" is a beautifully inclusive word. So this is my stuff-making for the day.

I think creating things is something innately satisfying for people. I won't claim to be a Marxist or to fully understand his ideas, but Karl Marx highlights something I think is true when he describes what creating things means to mankind:

In creating a world of objects by his personal activity, in his work upon inorganic nature, man proves himself a conscious species-being, i.e., as a being that treats the species as his own essential being, or that treats itself as a species-being. Admittedly animals also produce. They build themselves nests, dwellings, like the bees, beavers, ants, etc. But an animal only produces what it immediately needs for itself or its young. It produces one-sidedly, whilst man produces universally. It produces only under the dominion of immediate physical need, whilst man produces even when he is free from physical need and only truly produces in freedom therefrom. An animal produces only itself, whilst man reproduces the whole of nature. An animal’s product belongs immediately to its physical body, whilst man freely confronts his product. An animal forms only in accordance with the standard and the need of the species to which it belongs, whilst man knows how to produce in accordance with the standard of every species, and knows how to apply everywhere the inherent standard to the object. Man therefore also forms objects in accordance with the laws of beauty.

It is just in his work upon the objective world, therefore, that man really proves himself to be a species-being. This production is his active species-life. Through this production, nature appears as his work and his reality. The object of labor is, therefore, the objectification of man’s species-life: for he duplicates himself not only, as in consciousness, intellectually, but also actively, in reality, and therefore he sees himself in a world that he has created. In tearing away from man the object of his production, therefore, estranged labor tears from him his species-life, his real objectivity as a member of the species and transforms his advantage over animals into the disadvantage that his inorganic body, nature, is taken from him.*

When we see ourselves, or maybe when we see what we like about ourselves, in the things we create, it's satisfying. (This would explain dissatisfaction at work when you are doing something that you aren't proud of, something that doesn't, in your mind, reflect yourself back to you.) When we see our "work upon the objective world" and can enjoy the "world that [we have] created," it fulfills something innately human, about how our immaterial minds (souls if you prefer) connect to the material world we inhabit. The world is more than a place to feed us and shelter us. It is full of beauty and potential beauty, and when we put our hands to that and unite ourselves with it through our work, it feels good.

*This is an excerpt from Note XXIV of the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 — worth reading. Emphasis mine.

The Trails Were Closed

2012-01-29T22:05:00.000-06:00

My brother, sister-in-law, their dog, my husband and I got all sussed up for a fun hiking trip this morning. When we arrived at Palmetto State Park, the ranger informed us that ALL the hiking trails were closed, due to recent flooding. We laughed and just walked around the campgrounds, enjoying the day regardless.

Emblem of Texians in the Battle of Gonzales

Palmetto State Park is unique for this part of Texas. In the shade of its live oaks and hackberry trees, tropical Dwarf Palmetto plants cover the ground. They give the park an exotic feeling — we're used to seeing cacti, not fronded greenery, growing under the scrubby trees of Central Texas. Also unique: the first shot of the Texas Revolution was fired in the nearby town of Gonzales in 1835.

The trip was also creative for me. I'm trying to get re-excited about photography, so it was fortunate that the trails were closed because it gave me a chance to linger over beautiful things.

And I made a little mocutrailer from the day's video clips, with the help of an iMovie template. (I have no video skills, so just laugh along with the rest of us.)

Inspiring Friends

2012-01-27T21:32:00.000-06:00

I am a junkie for inspiration. I look to get a fix every day from the people I know and the world around me. So today's inspiration — many other days as well — comes from my friend Sarah Culver. She is a photographer in Maryland, and she just posted her Best Portraits of 2011. Here's a glimpse:

Sarah is extraordinarily talented and when it comes to photography, she's self-taught. She found something she loved to do and she poured herself into it. In 2011, she was able to quit her office job and go into photography full-time. I cannot even put into words how impressed I am by Sarah and how hard she's worked to make this happen. What makes me happiest about telling her story is that it shows how much beauty comes into the world when someone does what they love.

2011 Holiday Gossip Rag

2012-01-01T19:35:00.000-06:00

Dear friends, familians and cyber stalkers,

We hope 2011 was a great year for you all. Here in London-Gray-ville, things were interesting. So interesting, in fact, that we are going to give you a truthful account of our recent activities — instead of the usual hogwash and balderdash.

Atop Jay Peak in Vermont, 2009

Our last Holiday Gossip Rag recounted the momentous year 2008, wherein I finished grad school; we hiked part of the AT; we moved back to Dallas; Daniel tackled his core classes at a community college; I wrote for a wig and costume company; and we both worked at Starbucks. Our 2009 adventures, lacking the involvement of the U.S. Postal Service, were shared via the 12 Days of Christmas Letters on my blog, wherein our fake and real misadventures were recounted, including quitting Dallas, road tripping to Quebec and back, and test-driving the bohemian life in Marfa, Texas. (That’s not just a euphemism for unemployment: Daniel painted and I wrote. Thank
you, Chase and Rachel!)

Daniel on the Pont des Arts in Paris, 2010

Which brings us to the current decade: In January 2010 we pragmatically decided Daniel should finish a bachelor’s degree. But first we took a trip to Europe, visiting cousins in Finland and London, and spending Chinese New Year and Valentine’s Day in Paris. When we got back, we moved to Austin. We did odd jobs — sports photography, wig copywriting, nannying, manual labor and temping at the IRS — until I got a job working for a photographer, while Daniel returned to Dallas for the summer to take a couple more classes. And here’s where it gets really interesting.

In August 2010, as Daniel was transferring to Texas State University to complete his BFA, I got a writing job there. Equipped, for the first time in our marriage, with a qualifying job and a multi-year commitment to one location (San Marcos), WE BOUGHT A HOUSE! We’re a mile from the
university, so we can walk and bike everywhere. And last month we converted our living room into an art gallery — the Zosima Gallery — with the first show opening on Dec. 3. Follow this blog or Daniel's blog for updates.

Stephansdom in Vienna, 2010

Rest assured, becoming landed gentry has not quelled our wanderlust. We went with Daniel’s family to Vienna for Christmas in 2010; we spent a week in March hiking in Big Bend; and we traveled coast to coast for summer weddings. I even officiated at one ceremony. (I’m ordained by themonastery.org.)

As for 2012, we’ve got an outline. In addition to my regular job, I’ll begin teaching at Texas State, starting with an internship in the spring and my first course as the teacher-of-record in the fall. And I’ll continue my off-hours photography and creative writing. Daniel will graduate in May with a BFA in painting, after which he will continue his art, hunt for a job and apply to grad school. He’s blessed with Finnish citizenship, so his goal is to get into the MFA program at the Finnish Academy of Fine Art in Helsinki.

Please come visit us in San Marcos — the guest room is ready — and enjoy the coming year with gusto!

Peace, love and positive vibes for the world to continue into 2013,
Billi and Daniel

Oregon in 2011, by my friend Sarah Culver.

Zosima Gallery

2011-12-08T02:06:00.001-06:00

I've been away from Home on the Roam for a bit...roaming, of course. But I've got news!

My husband and I have converted our living room into an art gallery, which we call the Zosima Gallery. It's open to the public, on occasion, like tonight, for example. We have hosted one opening and will be hosting a happy hour show tonight (after we get home from work/school). We hope to grow this into a sort of humanities community center, with art exhibitions, film screenings, lectures, readings, discussions and other sorts of creative sharing.

Our first show is up right now, featuring works by Daniel Bernard Gray, which are viewable here.

Our purpose statement is:

The Zosima Gallery nurtures and promotes creative work that addresses the human experience. Through exhibiting visual art and hosting events — artist receptions, readings, lectures, film screenings, performances and discussions — the gallery promotes not only the work of local artists and writers but also the consideration of their ideas by a wider community. It is a place where people come together to look, think, learn and grow.

If you or someone you know is interested in sharing work that would contribute to this kind of dialogue, please email us at zosimagallery@gmail.com. I'll be blogging about the process of coming up with this idea and the steps we took to create the gallery, including costs, successes and failures, and advice from other house-gallery owners.

Here's Daniel giving a little tour of the exhibition space:

Portland Buskers

2011-10-25T21:42:00.000-05:00

One of these days I'll put a life update of sorts on here, to what I've been doing in lieu of blogging for most of 2011...but not today. Today, I wanted to share a short clip from one of our summer trips. Don't judge this on video or sound quality; just enjoy these cutie-pie Portland buskers. (And yes, I did ask permission and contribute generously to their accordion case before recording them.)

Portland Buskers from Billi London-Gray on Vimeo.

Abecedarius

2011-09-03T14:54:00.001-05:00

It's Saturday, and on this anomalous one, I got to sleep in until 7:30, drink my coffee while listening to Weekend Edition, and proceed to read/write/wander around my house in unrushed bliss.

I love when I get a day that gives me time to follow a rabbit trail. I started by reading, where I came upon a footnote that included a term I didn't recognize. I got another book to lookup the term (and avoid getting tangled in the Interwebs). But before I got to the term I was looking up, I flipped to a page where I had highlighted the entry for "abecedarius." Wondering if this could be used as a name for a child or a pet, I read the entry. Then I set aside my reading and looking up and decided to write instead.

An abecedarius is an acrostic poem, each word or line or stanza starting with successive letters of the alphabet. (More familiar with these as alphabet books? Me too. My favorite of which is Neil Gaiman and Gris Grimly's The Dangerous Alphabet.) So my rabbit trail ultimately resulted in writing an abecedarius. I had to start with "A is for apple."

Appetizing apples,
Beautiful to bite,
Crispy to crunch,
Delightfully devoured --
Ere long they're gone.
Fall comes and the farmers
Gather golden groundlings,
Hot with sun, for hungry hogs.
Irrigation implements in place
Justify the job that Johnny,
Knapsack knotted o'er his staff,
Left laid in earth as legacy
Many moons ago in myth.
Now, nearing noontime,
Orchards ooze the ripe
Perfume of harvest; pickers
Query, count their quantities,
Report their fragrant bushells
So the shippers, satisfied the stock
Tares true, transport on trucks
Upland to upsell
Vast volumes and varieties of fruit.
Where do they wheel? When will the
X-quisite bounty come to satisfy my
Yearning for another yummy
Zealous bite of that sweet flesh?

(Oh, X, what should we do with you? You make me a cheater. Of course, even Chaucer had to rely on innovative spelling to make you work.)

2011-08-31T23:10:00.001-05:00

My inspiration for
a wedding homily.

A few weeks ago, I had the honor of presiding at the wedding of two friends, Johnny and Leslie. They asked me to write a homily "in the spirit of commitment" for the ceremony as well. Aside from being one of the greatest honors of my whole life, it also got me to thinking about the marriage contract.

Here's most of the homily:

Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote a book called The Social Contract. In it, he looks for the principle for a society “taking men as they are,” he says -- not as they should be. His conclusion – the only principle he believes will both work with self-interested people and result in a just society – is the social contract: the idea that free people benefit by making a mutual commitment to their common good.

This basic idea, that we – flawed, self-interested individuals – can make mutually beneficial commitments to each other, is simple but also profound. Much like a marriage.

On the one hand, a marriage is a simple contract: it binds two people, each expecting that life will be better because of that bond. But a marriage is a profound contract: the love and companionship that drew the two people together is now protected, by mutual commitment, for a lifetime.

But that commitment involves agreeing to permanent trade-offs. To paraphrase Rousseau: "Like it or not, whatever you do stick with it."

As Leslie, Johnny and I were discussing marriage commitment and what defines it, I quoted a friend who told me, “The best way to stay married is to stay married.” You must continue to believe that the reward is worth the cost -- the compromising, the struggle, the personal opportunities you let go, and the things you do to support your spouse. And you must continue to make choices with the expectation that “my marriage is worth it.”

Now, what marriage commitment does NOT mean is agreeing to give yourself away as an individual for the sake of the whole.

Johnny and Leslie have a very firm grasp of this. They said, “We agree with the necessity to compromise, but we are still separate people.” Striking this balance -- between compromising for the sake of unity and maintaining individuality -- is the hardest part of marriage.

Johnny added, “Marriage is striving. The promise we make is really that whatever stuff we grapple with inside ourselves, we won’t allow it to take us to the levels of...well, of breaking our vows. Of neglecting or abandoning each other.”

Marriage is a choice, and a good marriage is built upon a succession of free choices. Choices made willingly, with consent, with agreement -- acknowledging the partnership of two independent people.

Rousseau writes, “To renounce freedom is to renounce one's humanity, one's rights and equally one's duties.”

Giving up your freedom as an individual is not the cost of marriage, or of any commitment. A commitment is only a good as the freedom that sustains it. Commitment is an act of free will.

It’s saying you’ll do something, and doing it. It’s communicating openly, and banishing the thought that you should always agree. It’s expecting to make trade-offs, compromises and accommodations.

Commitment means not making excuses and not giving up. Commitment means having resilience against life circumstances. Commitment means expecting things to change and not bailing out when they do. Commitment means not knowing what you're getting into, realizing that, and getting into it anyways.

NB: Avid readers of Rousseau, please forgive the fact that I landed at a different conclusion from The Social Contract, namely by saying that commitment is NOT giving away yourself for the sake of the whole. (Rousseau writes that the whole, the society, is more important than its individual members and their freedoms.) I generally frown upon hijacking part of a work to support a conclusion not drawn by that writer, but you now have my confession: I did it.

Hipsters are roaming the campus

2011-08-25T07:01:00.003-05:00

In honor of the start of the fall semester at universities around the country, including the one I work at, here's one of my best-ever YouTube finds:

Have a great semester!

Artist's Home Tour

2011-07-31T22:37:00.000-05:00

At work last Friday, I got to visit the studio of Randall Reid, an art professor at the university. After giving us -- me, a co-worker and Daniel (he asked to tag along since he's an art student there) -- a full tour of his studio, he took us to his home.

His house was amazing, full of his work set among a delightful hodge-podge of antique toys, rulers and furniture. He and his wife had intentionally arranged their home to serve as a private gallery when he needed to show his work to clients or gallery owners.

My favorite part was this:

He likes airplanes, he said, because of their shape. The pencils, however, had a different back story, and it's one of the sweetest rituals I've ever heard about. On school-day afternoons, while he and his younger son wait outside for his older son to be dismissed from school, they look for and collect pencils that have fallen victim to parking lot tires. Smashed, splintered and ground, they bring the artifacts home and add them to the collection shown here -- on a table top right next to the front door for every visitor to admire.

Stickwork

2011-07-24T23:12:00.004-05:00

Once upon a time, Daniel discovered crazy, whimsical sculptural installations made of saplings on some random blog. We looked, oohed and ahhed, and neglected to bookmark/blog/remember anything else about the artwork.

Then last fall I found a New York Times feature about Dougherty and his hand-built home in North Carolina. I shared it with Daniel, he glued it into his sketchbook, and again, it fell out of our heads for a while.

Then today we were kicking tires at Anthropologie when we found this book, Stickwork, Patrick Dougherty's monograph. Needless to say, we bought it and have spent the evening together devouring the photographs and Dougherty's reflections.

"I love to make things," he writes in the preface. And really, that covers it.

I am now on a mission to see if there's a way we can commission one of his works at Texas State University (my employer). I'll squirrel away my vacation days to be one of his helpers. For me, the closest one of his amazing creations is in Waco, a work called "River Vessels" located in the Pecan Bottoms area of Cameron Park. I will be visiting it the next time I drive up to Big D to visit my family.

Here's a couple videos of his work going up in other places.

(NB: I do not endorse the soundtrack in the following one.)

Jennifer and Stephen

2011-07-14T21:03:00.002-05:00

I spent this past weekend in Gulfport, Ms., enjoying the company and photographing the wedding of my friends Jennifer and Stephen. They got married in Stephen's grandparents' yard, in view of the beach. It was just lovely.

I think my favorite part was...well, all of it. Here's a few shots from their big day.

Playing with off-camera flash

2011-07-05T23:47:00.000-05:00

Put the boy in front of a camera, and he gets dramatic. Nothing to do but shoot him.

Rooftop Wedding

2011-07-04T18:19:00.001-05:00

I don't know these people, but this is a pretty wonderful little picture story.

Nessa + Josh Fo Eva! from Ben Godkin on Vimeo.

Gram v. Donkey and other celebrations

2011-05-31T21:42:00.003-05:00

Last Thursday, my maternal grandmother turned 80 and my first nephew was born. We drove to Dallas for the celebrations, which ranged from holding and stroking the sweetest, softest baby on earth to laughing riotously as a piñata got what was coming to it.

It was the good stuff of life. Happy Birthday, Gram and Johannes.

Economanomaly

2011-05-19T23:32:00.003-05:00

Click image to enlarge.

I read a news article this morning about the outlook for college graduates entering the job market. The story was familiar:

The individual stories are familiar. The chemistry major tending bar. The classics major answering phones. The Italian studies major sweeping aisles at Wal-Mart.

The median starting salary for students graduating from four-year colleges in 2009 and 2010 was $27,000, down from $30,000 for those who entered the work force in 2006 to 2008, according to a study released on Wednesday by the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University. That is a decline of 10 percent, even before taking inflation into account.

Among the members of the class of 2010, just 56 percent had held at least one job by this spring, when the survey was conducted. That compares with 90 percent of graduates from the classes of 2006 and 2007.

Even these figures understate the damage done to these workers’ careers. Many have taken jobs that do not make use of their skills; about only half of recent college graduates said that their first job required a college degree.

The choice of major is quite important ... humanities majors were least likely to
find a job requiring a college degree.

I got a Bachelor of Arts in Biblical Studies in 2004, after which I was a nanny, preschool teacher, freelance writer, newspaper reporter and photographer, and an unemployed traveler. Then I graduated with a Master of Arts in Liberal Arts in May 2008. Since then, I've worked as a Starbucks barista, a copywriter, a freelance photographer, a freelance writer, an IRS temp, a nanny, and an office manager, plus I spent about 9 months totally unemployed. Finally, after filling out my 180th-ish job application, I attained a good and steady job as a writer at a university in August 2010.

As far as economic ramifications of education go, my long, hard, recession-era job hunt seems pretty typical, according to that news article. Somehow that's reassuring. What hurts is seeing how skills that seem so vitally important - thinking, critiquing, analyzing, learning, communicating, being honest and open about not understanding or about having questions - are not the vital things that get you qualified for a job these days.

To Kill A Mockingbird

2011-05-17T20:47:00.000-05:00

Am I a misanthrope? No. But sometimes I wonder...

Today I went to a cozy little coffee shop on my break from work. It's a cute, atomic-age-meets-skate-culture place just across from campus. I got a cup of coffee and took the only open seat, on the end of a couch. I pulled To Kill A Mockingbird out of my bag and started reading. So I could make out the letters in my pulpy-brown 20-year-old paperback, I held the book straight up-and-down in front of my face, where the title was visible to all around me.

A woman walked over and flopped onto the cushion beside me. She was 50-ish with long hippy hair dyed burgundy. She was wearing some sort of caftan over floppy elastic-waisted pants. She slumped down and sighed. I lowered my book, now self-conscious of showing a well-known, commonly read title to the world. I hadn't brought it as a conversation piece, but this woman took it that way.

"Good book. You read it before?"

"Yes. I think this is the, uh, fourth time, I think."

"Yeah, I've read it about four times, too. It's been a while, though. But, wow, what a great story."

"Oh, yeah, it's just beautiful. I love re-reading it." I looked back down at my book. I expected that to be the end of it. I read a couple sentences.

"Now, Hollywood has never cast any role so perfectly as they did in that movie with Gregory Peck."

I made brief eye contact as I realized my situation. "I ... I've seen parts of it, but I'm not sure that I've ever seen the whole film." (An honest statement, not a put-off.) "But he was certainly good as Atticus." I glanced at the book.

"Boy, I'll tell you. Now, the girl, I remember - I saw it the first time as a child - I remember being upset about something. Like the color of her hair wasn't right, you know? Some detail. You remember?"

Again, brief eye contact. "Oh, I ... I don't think I remember that very well." I thought it was in black and white. I re-read a couple sentences.

"Yeah, some details were off, and I remember being bothered by it. Now who was the actress again that played the girl?"

Eye-dart. "Um, I'm not sure. You know I can't even really remember what any of the actors looked like. I guess I just have my own images in my head when I read the story. I don't remember the actress."

"Uh-huh... But that's good, because that's how it should be a with a good book. Your own thoughts about it. How you imagine it."

If only that were the case right now, I thought. "Yeah, I guess so." Smile. Eyes back on book.

"Yeah, I wish I could remember the name of that young actress. Of course I was just a child when I saw it first."

No response from me. I acted like I was engrossed again and like her last sentence had been directed at herself.

She looked at me and sighed. I turned a page, unsure whether I'd read the whole thing or not. I only had 30 minutes of my break left before I had to leave. I didn't want to spend it getting caught up in a conversation about a film I couldn't remember seeing with a person I didn't know.

She flipped through a magazine for a couple minutes until she saw a familiar face walk into the shop. She struck up another conversation. I finished Chapter 4 and went on to Chapter 5. She got up and moved around the coffee shop shooting the breeze for a few more minutes. As she walked out I looked up and said, "Nice talking to you."

She laughed. Did she roll her eyes as well? I wasn't sure.

"Thanks. You too."

I finished my coffee. I finished Chapter 5 and went back to my office thinking about walking around in someone else's skin. Maybe hers. She was just trying to be friendly. I probably came off as an ice queen and a self-important jerk. At best, at neutral, perhaps she just figured me for shy.

I thought of my priorities in that situation. I wanted to enjoy my break as I had planned, quietly reading while other people hummed. I wanted an environment decorated with people but I didn't want to owe them my attention. My solitary pursuit was more important to me than engaging with a stranger. More important to me than being generous with my time and conversation.

I wonder how often I do this - shutting out hospitable Chance so I can stick to my life schedule.

For Mom

2011-05-08T11:12:00.005-05:00

It all began with her --
   the first line in my book,
   the first beat in my heart,
   the first cry from my lungs,
   the first word in my thoughts,
   the first light in my eyes.
It all began with her --
   the mother of my breath,
   whose blood flows in my veins,
   whose lessons fill my mind,
   whose spirit fills my heart,
   whose guidance formed my path.
And she, a river, flows
   through me, through them, through us --
   a source of love and strength,
   a rock, a confidant,
   a wind of bravery,
   a road to wider worlds.
It all moves on with her --
   my life, their lives, our lives,
   all brightened by her work,
   her acts of living well,
   of sharing, teaching love,
   and showing us all how to do the same.

Happy Mother's Day, Mom. I love you.

The apple hasn't fallen far from the tree.

The Meanwhile

2011-04-30T23:55:00.003-05:00

Welcome to 2011 (yes, I realize it's been 2011 for four months, but they've been fast). This is the year of trying new things and pausing some other things, if you're me. I'm trying to write more fiction - finish stories and submit them to journals and magazines - which is causing necessary pauses in things like blogging. There's just not enough time for everything.

What's ironic here - or maybe not - is that I blog and manage social media for a university during the week. Since I started that job last August, I have almost-but-not-quite abandoned those same activities in my off-hours. Home on the Roam has been idling for a few months, along with a few other things.

Blog buddies, I'll be back commenting on your fun-filled and inspiring posts one day. In the meanwhile, if you're on Twitter, follow me (@billilg) and I'll follow you back to keep up with your doings.

I also keep a scroll of daily Interworld discoveries on Tumblr: london-gray.tumblr.com.

Stymied

2011-03-07T22:36:00.002-06:00

Alright, my fellow stymied creatives: What is it that you want to do? And why are you still wanting and not doing?

Is it because you're wiped out by the time you get a breather? Walloped with home responsibilities that siphon your remaining time and energy? Is it because you do a commercial version of your craft full-time, and are burned out on your own time? Is it because you are a freelance junkie who doesn't say no? Is it because you don't think you have any ideas worth executing? Is it because of Hulu and Netflix? I claim all these excuses, depending on the day. But the bottom line is this: I don't want excuses, I want to make stuff.

I'm trying to find ways to motivate myself day-by-day to stop wanting to do things that are important to me and start DOING them. My husband, an artist, is incredibly self-motivated and incredibly productive. I, however, am extraordinarily adept at frittering my time away and going to bed wishing I would've spent my day differently.

750 Words - NOT pointless

I recently (as in tonight) discovered 750 Words, a project operated by technopreneur Buster Benson. It's no different, in setup, from creating a private blog to use as an online journal. EXCEPT it tracks your word count and gives you points and other flare for writing regularly, offering a carrot of motivation for a stymied writer like myself to reinstate long-lost productivity habits.

Wish me self-discipline. And tell me how you motivate yourself, cull ideas and maintain creative momentum.

Once Upon A Saturday Night

2011-02-06T00:48:00.003-06:00

Now, despite what you may have guessed, there are many ways to have fun at home on a Saturday night. We do it all the time. You don't need to go out. You don't even need to own a pony. All it takes is a little imagination, free online music streaming, and an "I'm not really missing out on anything" attitude.

SEO copywriting = woohoo!

Grooveshark = everlasting jukebox

Homework: the next frontier

A party hat always helps.

Don't forget to grab a snack, just not cadmium yellow. It's carcinogenic.

Have freelance writing to do? No problem! Make it an exciting 8-hour-long word game. Homework for your painting class hanging around your neck? With enough open jars of paint thinner, it sounds like a one-man loft party. Just look at your to-do list and carefully turn it into a fun-filled Saturday night extravaganza. You'll be a weekend warrior in no time!

(I know what you're thinking: "How do they come up with such adventures? Billi and Daniel are always up to something crazy!" Well, all I can say is...practice makes perfect.)

Tilt Shifting Over the Rainbow

2011-01-27T21:45:00.003-06:00

Today my coworkers and I were treated to a new discovery while interviewing a job candidate: a time-lapse video that had been Photoshop-actioned-up to look like tilt-shift photography.

I thought to myself, "Duh! That's an awesome idea! How come I never thought of that before?"

Probably because I'm not Australian and I'm not Awesomelian, like the filmmaker who invented (or at least called first dibs on) this.

Small Worlds Project: Tilt Shift Video by Keith Loutit | Twitter | Facebook

Since my first glimpse of David Burnett photos in the National Geographics of my youth, I have been fascinated with the Lilliputianization of the world in tilt-shift images. I have not dabbled in tilt-shift photography myself, but I'm inspired by this.

Adventrepreneur

2011-01-08T23:14:00.003-06:00

I recently joined CouchSurfing, because now I have a place to host CouchSurfers. As I was checking out the CouchSurfing news feed tonight after responding to a couch request, I saw this:

I don't know what an adventrepreneur is, but I want to be one. Even if it means filling my house with crazy, tea-sipping vagabonds.

Oh yes, and HAPPY NEW YEAR!

And HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ELVIS!

Pride and Joy

2010-12-08T20:34:00.003-06:00

Daniel is finishing his first semester as a studio art major at Texas State University. He has worked hard enough to make me envious of the QT his paintbrushes get, but seeing his final pieces makes me SO PROUD of him.

This triptych deals with the genocide of Native American peoples by the United States government. I don't know if he's titled this yet. These works are oil, sand, lacquer, glue, masonite and iron on wood, measuring 4x3 or 4x4 feet. (FYI: The text in the first piece reads, "They told me that evil spirits had closed the mouth of the cave and the buffalo could not get out." Sorry for the glare. I shot these in a hall outside the painting studio.)

If you are familiar with the work of Anselm Kiefer, you can tell that Daniel is heavily influenced by him. Like Kiefer, Daniel is working on developing his own visual vocabulary, drawing from historic images, like Wounded Bison Attacking a Man (a 15,000-year-old cave painting in Lascaux, France). So the beast, the intestinal outline, the railroad spike, the dead man's silhouette, the railroad, the eagles, the colors, all carry individual meanings he has assigned to them (but I, of course, haven't been told what those meanings are).

I think Daniel's work is a testament to, well, a lot of things, but specifically to the benefits of waiting to go to school until you have a purpose in mind. Daniel is brilliant, but he was never a high-performing student. After high school, he had no interest in college beyond a few painting and photography classes. He traveled. We got married. I was in school. He worked. We traveled. College was not on his radar. But after experiencing the tribe of kindred spirits I found at my esoteric and delightful grad school, he decided he was ready for his own academic experience. And he has excelled all the way through. With purpose, everything you do is rich.

To see more of Daniel's work, check out his blog.

Time Tumbling

2010-11-24T19:36:00.000-06:00

My beloved blog has been pretty inactive lately, because I have been a bit overbooked in life. But I do post on my cutey-little-mini-shorty microblog, london-gray.tumblr.com, pretty regularly. If you're curious or bored, that's where I pass along good interfinds and amusing/thoughtful/puzzling links passed along by my brilliant friends.

london-gray.tumblr.com

Also, I am debating which photos (from my website) to submit to a gallery show, so if you are inclined to share opinions (and if you have an eye for contemporary gallery fare), leave a comment or two on the photos you would pick for a gallery submission over at billilondongray.com.

billilondongray.com

Happy Thanksgiving!

The Pruner

2010-11-13T10:19:00.004-06:00

Daniel, my esteemed partner in crime, is quirky and charming. One of his idiosyncrasies is that he LOVES plants.

Three times over the past eight years, Daniel worked at nurseries where he would routinely dumpster dive for discarded plants. Our small living spaces have always felt botanical. When we decided to get a house, he started fantasizing about gardens and greenhouses. And pruning every tree on the property.

We moved into our house on a Saturday four weeks ago. My parents came down to help and brought Daniel a gift: lopping shears. We went to bed around 1 a.m., totally exhausted. But Daniel "leapt" (in his own words) out of bed at 7:45 a.m. Sunday morning and said this to me:

"Oh! I have lopping shears and a grapefruit tree!"

By the time I got outside with my camera at 8:05 a.m., he already had a large pile of thorny prunings in the front yard. For the record, we have one grapefruit on the tree, but Daniel is researching citrus cultivation so he can increase the yield to two or three next year. Pretty cute.

Thanks, movers! (We missed you, J.)
Mom, Ingrid, Bo, Stephanie, Dad, me and Danno

Fall Fashion Week - Day Only

2010-10-31T14:13:00.000-05:00

Well, I totally missed the Fashion Boat this time, thanks to a boatload of busyness. Since those long lost days of summer fashion, I've changed jobs, upped the freelancing, started a photography website, helped coordinate my high school reunion, purchased my first house and moved to a new city. But I can eke out one post for the last day of Fall Fashion Week. I don't want to miss out completely.

Cami - Sam's (as in the wholesale club)

High-waisted shorts - Mom's college box in her attic

Belt - Daniel's tie, stolen from his drawer

Shawl - Anthro (Thanks, Mom!)

Tights - Look of London

Airwalks - Payless

Amber earrings and ring - Lapidary Arts

Other jewelry - Here there and everywhere

Thanks for hosting this fun week, Emery Jo.

And have a happy Halloween, everyone!

Satellite Rocker

2010-10-28T21:48:00.000-05:00

Daniel discovered this vintage video on his phone recently. It's me, rockin' out in a satellite dish, behind our friends' house in Marfa, Texas. Enjoy.

Sophistipirate

2010-10-18T23:21:00.001-05:00

My 10-year high school reunion was last weekend. I set up a photo booth and brought some costumery, feather boas and the like. But my friend Anna pulled some strings and got the mascot uniform from our high school. (Way better!) Here's my husband - dressed to impress. I'm sure he left the impression that he has really grown up in the past 10 years.

billilondongray.com/whs2000

Just Danno

2010-10-12T22:01:00.002-05:00

I'm having a string of weeks that are absolutely stuffed. I will get a break around, mmm, Thanksgiving. The husband is used to my overcommitment shenanigans by now - not that he approves - and I hope the great wheel brings good things back around to him for all that he supportively endures.

So, here's to Daniel:

Thanks for putting up with me. And thanks for letting me tyrannically monopolize the camera and stick it in your face every day. And thanks for washing dishes. And being nice. And being generous. And liking tofu. And having adventures with me. And getting my coffee mug out of the car. And for being cool. You rock.

And here's to all the rest of you overcommitters - may we learn to say no and sleep one day. :o)

Keslabia

2010-10-02T18:07:00.004-05:00

I'm currently in the throes of high school reunion organizing. The reunion is in two weeks. It's making me reflect on my teenagerhood. As I was going through a box of keepsakes, looking for photos to upload to the reunion website, I found some artifacts from junior high that made me smile.

Shelley, Brittany, Theresa, Bailey, Jamie, me...and our middle school basketball team.

Most people I know absolutely hated middle school. Everything was awkward. They never felt right. They couldn't wait for it to be over. But I had a good time, because I had a wonderful inner circle of friends. I don't want to take credit away from my parents for being supportive and loving, but these girls were the reason I was a confident, happy kid.

A few days ago, one of these friends sent the following message:

I had a dream and I woke up laughing: we were having a Keslabia meeting at David and Cheryl's new house (which I have not been inside). It was a serious meeting of course, and I'm sure there were Warheads and sodas. Anyways, the police had been tracking us for years and finally connected us to the Russian mafia. I'm sorry, but Jamie and I were arrested! I woke up as they were hauling Jamie and me off!

Keslabia. That's the kicker that makes us all laugh. Even now. Keslabia was a country we - these five friends and I - invented in 6th grade. One day we just decided we should have our own country. It was a great collaboration. We had green cards, a map of the island, namesake rivers, a constitution and occasional legislative sessions.

Now, before you get all judgey-judge about the dorkiness of inventing an imaginary country (and ruling it together) in sixth grade, please consider the symbolism of the effort: we had a place where we belonged.

So to Shelley, Brittany, Theresa, Bailey and Jamie - thanks for making life a pleasure. And forgive me for posting all the Keslabia evidence. But seriously, it's something I treasure. :o)

Charmed by the Charmer

2010-09-25T23:05:00.011-05:00

Sometimes people hesitate to disclose good news when there's still a horizon of uncertainty. We fall into that category. But now, it's a pretty sure bet. We're going to buy the Charmer! Here's a little tour of the place.

Yes, the goal is nailed onto a tree trunk.

We've still got a few weeks and lots of paperwork to go before it's a done deal. We'll close the third week of October, right after our 10-year high school reunion. October is going to be crazy, but by November, we will be ready to roll out the red carpet for visitors. Start making your travel plans.

mnmlme

2010-09-19T22:26:00.000-05:00

I did it. I went clean and monochrome. I'm wondering, does bxw reflect me in some way?

Here's my thinking: I'm trying to be very focused and intentional with my limited resources in life. There are lots of things I want to do, but I can't do them all, of course. (I say, "of course," but, of course, I don't remember that I can't physically do everything when I'm feeling like a loser for not doing everything I intend to do.) The fact is, I have trouble maintaining focus on my creative goals when the competing priorities of life start playing tug-o-war with my time.

Lots of my time and energy is, by necessity, spent on things like my full-time job, my freelance jobs, driving all over Hays County, preparing food, cleaning and running errands. I'm trying to focus my creative ambitions within my precious moments of open time, but it's hard. Creating - photography, writing, art, music and sewing, for me - and seeking creative fodder through new experiences are squeezed out of my schedule by daily urgencies.

Simplicity represents focus to me, a lack of clutter and distraction. So as I try to implement simplicity in other ways, why not on my blog as well?

mnmlist

2010-09-14T22:07:00.002-05:00

I just stumbled across this. I am impressed. It's a blog called:

mnmlist

Yeah ... I've been thinking about taking it down to white, too.

Enjoy.

The Hunts

2010-08-29T00:38:00.008-05:00

BIG NEWS!!!!!

No, I'm not pregnant. I GOT A NEW JOB and WE'RE BUYING A HOUSE!

As many of you know, I've been job hunting since I finished grad school in 2008. I finally found a permanent full-time job in June working for a stock photographer and writer named Laurence Parent. It has been a wonderful job, as you can hopefully tell by the way I've been encouraging people to read his new book and review it online for a $20 giveaway. But before I started working for Laurence, I had applied for a super duper writing job at Texas State University. Two weeks ago (yes, state job hiring processes are that long) I was offered that job. Starting Monday, I will be a writer on the publications staff at the university.

I am excited about this job for many reasons -- namely writing and working in higher education, but also state job benefits and tuition discounts for Daniel (who is a student there) -- and...(drumroll)...my salary qualifies us to BUY A HOUSE!

We've been looking at houses for the past 10 days, all within 3 miles of the university. We have narrowed it down to four contenders at this point. (Click on an image to view it full size.)

The Fixer Upper

This house is the cheapest, so we'll call this price "base" and use it as the starting point. It is 3/2 with a garage (important, because Danno needs a place to make creative messes) on about a sixth of an acre in a nice neighborhood. It has been rented by college students for who knows how long, and the inside is UGLY but our realtor says, "The bones are good." It needs roughly $10,000 to $15,000 worth of updating/surface replacing inside. But once that's done, it will be cute like a dollhouse.

3/2/2 @ 1235 sf = $base

PROS: price, cozy layout, fireplace, lots of storage, big garage and cute front porch
CONS: little kitchen, needs work, must wait to move in while remodeling is completed

The Burb House

This house is the most expensive, but also the largest, the newest, the most energy efficient, and the easiest to resell later. It's a 3/2.5 with a garage on a fifth of an acre in a nice neighborhood. It would serve all our needs without spending a dime over the purchase price. I want to be excited about this house, but its interior burb-ness is a wet blanket.

3/2/2 @ 1489 sf = $base + $24,000

PROS: resale ease, rental ease, garage, space, lots of trees, includes fridge and stacked washer/dryer set, very low maintenance, ready to move into with no further changes
CONS: furthest from the university, most expensive, least, um, cute. It just feels like a big suburban house inside.

The Land Lubber

This house is a remodel. We don't know how old it is, but everything inside of it is new. Except the appliances, which are absent. It's a 3/2 on a whopping double lot -- over a third acre -- with a HUGE open living/kitchen area, lots of trees, and big bright bedrooms. The front porch is gloriously shaded. It has no garage, BUT it has a cement pad with wall base from a previous carport that could be turned into a garage/studio for the hubs. Oh, and it has three mature prickly pear cacti. (This one is Daniel's favorite.)

3/2 @ 1360 sf = $base + $10,000

Daniel, measuring his studio

PROS: cute, new everything, lots of yard, quiet neighborhood, great porch, big open kitchen, best bike route to the university
CONS: remodel materials are a bit cheap looking so I wonder how they will wear, no garage, no appliances, needs landscaping work

The Charmer

This house takes the cake for cuteness. It's another total remodel. The highlights include cute-cute-cute bedrooms with well-designed closets, synthetic fiber floors (I totally thought they were reclaimed oak floors), and an amazing kitchen with granite countertops and stainless everything. It's a 4/2 on a fifth acre, and it's about as charming as a non-historic house could be. The garage became the fourth bedroom once upon a time, but with four rooms, Daniel could settle for having his studio in the house.

The drawback is the location. It seems to be the first total remodel in an otherwise aging neighborhood of mid-century bungalows. In Austin, this neighborhood would be ripe for a hipster-cum-yuppy invasion. There are lots of student renters (according to the student neighbors we spoke with). There's a busy railroad track beside the neighborhood, and the streets are all dirt right now, due to utilities work. And the back fence abutts a business: Bum's Billards. (Read this review.) But, of course, the location makes the price very nice.

4/2 @ 1450 sf = $base + $5,000

View through the fence to Bum's Billiards

PROS: price, CUTE!, supernice kitchen, open floorplan, beautiful floor, easiest commute (by free bus) to the university, closest to university
CONS: no garage, trains, roads are torn up for duration of utilities work, abutts a billiards bar, needs a new fence and a shed for bike storage

I'm pretty excited to be back on the house hunt and at the end of a long job hunt. Tell me what you think. Give house hunting advice to Daniel and me. We have never considered spending so much money on anything, not even on education, so we'd appreciate outside input. And pardon my egregious overuse of the word cute.

Book Review and GIVEAWAY: Death in Big Bend

2010-08-19T14:14:00.008-05:00

So, my interesting writer-photographer boss has written a book that I suggest you all read. What's more, he's having a GIVEAWAY on his blog. Click here to find out how you can win - the prize is $20.

Because I am asking other people to review his book, I have written this review to get the ball rolling.

* * * * *

Real life is more incredible than fiction.

Death in Big Bend by Laurence Parent is a fascinating read. With journalistic precision, the author retells 17 gripping true stories about people who died or were rescued in Big Bend National Park.

Set in the mountainous northern Chihuahuan Desert in far West Texas, these stories invoke a harrowing sense of how vulnerable we are as humans. For those with a morbid curiosity about survivalism, these accounts will provide a satisfactory buffet of grim entrées. From lightning strikes to heat stroke to hypothermia to homicidal bandits, Death in Big Bend examines the danger of underestimating the changing conditions of the desert while proving that real life is more incredible than any fictional adventure.

Death in Big Bend’s most intense story is that of Bryan Brock, a climber who got stranded mid-air in an uncharted canyon when his rappelling gear got stuck on a knot in his rope. Without the proper tools to get around the knot and without the strength to go back up, Brock was left dangling with the onset of a freezing winter night only a few hours away. His climbing companion performed superhuman feats of cross-country navigation and endurance to get back to the park headquarters and request a rescue team. Brock’s rescue story is told at an adrenaline-pumping pace as you wonder, “Will they make it in time?”

The chapter about the death of Shannon Roberts is the most bizarre in the book, as if it's the brainchild of Yukio Mishima and Truman Capote. While chasing a drug smuggler on foot, a ranger discovered partially buried human remains, the exposed parts shielded by a dome of chicken wire. Tent stakes and duct tape were found near the body. The victim, Shannon Roberts, emerged as a suicidal 43-year-old man with an unrequited crush on a young male friend. Following suggestions that the death was an assisted suicide, investigators tracked down a naïve criminal who offered a grisly confession.

Laurence Parent’s extensive research and multitudinous interviews with park officials provide an insider’s rendering of these tragic events. His descriptions are unembellished and thorough, warmed by personal reflections from the family members of victims and punctuated by exact details from law enforcement reports. His characters are real people – inexperienced hikers, unlucky outdoorsmen, and stalwart park rangers and volunteers – whose lives intersected suddenly in life-or-death situations.

Some of these stories will make you grimace. A couple will make you downright paranoid. But every story in Death in Big Bend will make you reflect upon the rapidity with which life’s certainties can evaporate. This is a recommended read for backcountry trekkers, adventure junkies, and fans of the true crime genre.

Meatless Mondays

2010-08-11T00:32:00.011-05:00

One day a week cut out meat.

An ex-ad man from New York and some folks from Johns Hopkins University have teamed up to re-inaugurate Meatless Mondays in American households. Their motives? Improving health and conserving resources.

Meat is a high-calorie food and a big source of saturated fat. It takes far more water and fossil fuels to raise and transport a pound of meat than to grow and transport a pound of beans. To say nothing of the greenhouse gases produced by corn-fed cattle.

Read the top reasons for promoting Meatless Mondays. I would add that not only will reducing your meat consumption improve your health (if you replace meat with healthy food) and reduce your carbon footprint, it will also reduce your grocery bill.

I have been a vegetarian for 12 years.* I do it for my own well-being. But even if I could eat meat without discomfort, I wouldn't. Because it costs so much more than other protein sources.

If you have perused my Barista Budget Plan, you know that vegetarianism is part of my frugality. Consider the dinner I had tonight with my brother - a humble, gluten-free vegetarian spaghetti:

1 squash @ .88/lb = .45
8 oz. tofu @ $1.49/lb = .75
1/2 package rice thread @ $1.99/ea = $1.00
1/2 jar of Newman's Own sauce @ $2.50/ea = $1.25
3 carrots @ .79/lb = .20
1/2 onion @ $1.22/lb = .60
Total for dinner for two adults = $4.25

If I had replaced the tofu with lean ground beef (which H-E-B advertised at $3.47 per pound this week), our meal would have cost $5.24 instead of $4.25. Not a big difference on this one meal, but I eat at least 1,095 meals each year. It adds up.

Try taking the meat out of your meal every once in a while. With the tiniest bit of effort at home cooking, you won't miss it at all. Dishes like sandwiches, salads and curries can be stuffed with other flavorful filling foods, like nuts, beans and veggies. Yogurt and cottage cheese are also cheap, lean protein sources that can be integrated into dips and toppings.

If you are clueless about how to begin a meatless meal, read my favorite cookbook, The Clueless Vegetarian by Evelyn Raab. (Look, I even made you an easy-cheesy Amazon button.) She explains how to avoid a nutrient-poor vegetarian diet and lists the benefits of various protein sources. Unlike other vegetarian cookbooks that require you to gather ingredients from other hemispheres in order to prepare the recipes, Raab's book is based on cooking with staples and allowing for multiple ingredient substitutions.

Good luck. If my brother Bo can do it, you can do it.

*I am not a militant ideologue. I eat the turkey my grandmother lovingly prepares at Thanksgiving. I don't make a fuss if my dinner host has put chicken broth in the rice pilaf. I turned to a vegetarian diet because I had stomach problems as a teenager. After trying prescription antacids and other medications without success, my naturopathically-leaning doctor suggested removing meat from my diet. While she could not say with certainty that my symptoms were diet related, she urged me to try diet changes before doing invasive scoping. A meatless diet was at the top of her list. I tried it, and the symptoms went away. I've eaten meat occasionally in the past 12 years - sometimes politesse trumps preference - but never without stomach trouble.

More Small Dreams

2010-08-03T19:20:00.001-05:00

I had to look at some more tiny houses. Here's a few images from my search. Check out the Small Houses thread at busyboo.com.

Small Dreams

2010-08-02T22:36:00.001-05:00

I am house hunting. Or rather home hunting. I am not set on a house, since price is more important to me than space. Today my brother and I toured a couple townhouses in San Marcos, Texas. I was underwhelmed with the options that exist within my desired price range.

Daniel and I often daydream about what we want to live in. Sometimes it's a warehouse. Sometimes a shipping container. Sometimes a school bus. Sometimes an old wood church. Sometimes a brightly trimmed Craftsman with a large porch. Sometimes a yurt. Never a condo or suburban house, yet that is what we can conceivably afford. Unless we downsized to one of these cuties:

A Kanga Room cabin, from their website

Kanga Rooms, like the one pictured, are little prefab dollhouse-ish cabins. I pass a Kanga Room sales lot as I drive along I-35 making my love trips to Dallas. I could totally live in a tiny space like this.

I also adore the tiny house plans from Tumbleweed. These little guys are designed to be easy-to-build and, in many cases, to fit on a trailer so you can roam with them. (You KNOW that appeals to me.)

The Harbinger, from Tumbleweed

Living in a tiny house would simplify life because it would force us to eliminate every unimportant, cluttering triviality, physically, which would have a corresponding effect mentally, I think. It would be peaceful and calming, like backpacking. Not to mention far greener than living in a conventional house.

The issue is, of course, that we own more stuff than will fit in a tiny house. Getting rid of the musical instruments, the furniture, the dishes, the books (oh! my books!), the camping gear, the art supplies and the bike equipment would be tough. Impractical. So I doubt we will live in a tiny house anytime soon. But here's to dreaming about it.

Homicide Blog

2010-07-25T19:50:00.002-05:00

This is pretty interesting. I heard it on the radio today. It's about a homicide blog. Interested? Click here to listen to and read the NPR story.

Back in 2007, a reporter at the Los Angeles Times named Jill Leovy created a blog, aptly called The Homicide Report, which lists the name, age, gender and ethnicity of each Los Angeles County homicide victim, as well as the time, place and manner of each victim's death. As available, candid personal photos of victims are also posted.

According to the paper, Leovy "launched the report as a way to balance the crime coverage of the Los Angeles Times." She found that the homicides that made it into print were sensational, anomalous murders, rather than murders that represented the statistical norm. (Click here to read a 2006 Salon.com post by Leovy regarding homicide.) Here's how the homicide blog is described by the Times:

The Homicide Report is a listing of all homicide victims reported by the Los Angeles County coroner. Any person who dies at the hand of another in Los Angeles County, and whose death is recorded by the coroner, is included in the report, which is updated weekly.

The report strives to augment those basic facts with additional reporting about those cases, as well as other subjects relevant to homicides.

It is our goal to give readers a complete picture of who dies in homicides, where, and why -- thus conveying both the personal story and the statistical story with greater accuracy and providing a forum for readers to remember victims and discuss violence.

Additionally, in defending the inclusion of racial information, the paper writes:

Race and ethnicity, like age and gender, are stark predictors of homicide risk. Blacks are much more likely to die from homicide than whites, and Latinos somewhat more likely. Black men, in particular, are extraordinarily vulnerable: They are less than 9% of the county's population, but they represented nearly a third of homicide victims over the three years of data in the Homicide Report. That means one in a 1,000 blacks became homicide victims over those three years, more than 10 times the rate for whites and nearly four times the rate for Latinos.

In her radio interview with NPR, Leovy made a more explicit statement:

"The truth about homicide," she says, "is that it is black men in their 20s, in their 30s, in their 40s. The way we guide money and policy in this country, we do not care about those people. It's not described as what's central to our homicide problem, and I wanted people to see that. I wanted people to see those lives and to see that that's our real homicide problem in America.

"The money needs to go to black male argument violence," she continues. "Anything else … you're dealing with the margins of the problem, statistically, and it's not right."

Nationwide, there are many people who present the fact that homicide is a crime centralized on young black men. (Click here, here, here and here to view such reports.) What are law enforcement groups doing with that information? Do you know?

I am impressed by Leovy's use of this blog to present a full set of statistics to her audience in a very personal manner. I say, HOORAY! for a reporter using the internet to overcome imbalanced reporting. And BOO! to online hucksters (like Andrew Breitbart at biggovernment.com, initiator of the Shirley Sherrod flap) for recklessly using select information to manipulate their audience.

Trite, and also Surreal

2010-07-23T23:09:00.005-05:00

I don't even know what to say about this.

Except, "EEEEEEEUUUWWWWWW!"

This is for real, says the Today Show.

I hope this is a practical joke. But I think it's just from Utah.

Blogging for the Man

2010-07-20T19:54:00.006-05:00

Attention, readers! There is a new blog on my blog roll:

Laurence Parent

I am going to tout this blog to you because:

I set it up, and I write for it.
It is a blog for my boss, Laurence Parent, and I have sort of a vested interest in directing people to his work.
My boss is an AMAZING landscape photographer, one of the best in the country. If you like looking at beautiful places, he can hook you up with some eye candy.
And he is also an accomplished writer, which you might find intriguing alongside his photography. He's written lots of trail guides and travel books. He just published a very interesting book called Death In Big Bend, which I am promoting, and which is touted, in turn, on Laurence's blog. The book comprises 17 mostly tragic true stories about hikers and travelers caught by dire circumstances in Big Bend National Park. (That is a REAL human skull in the photo on the cover. He borrowed it from an anthropologist.)

This is shameless quasi-self-promotion, I know, but please check out his blog, peruse his online gallery, "like" his Facebook business page, watch his YouTube video about painting with light, and otherwise train those Google spiders to find him. And if you happen to know anyone with a million-dollar ranch who needs a photographer to make it look extra-gorgeous, direct them to Laurence as well. Thanks!

Summer Fashion Week - Day 7 - A Bicycle Built for Two

2010-07-18T18:28:00.007-05:00

Sadly, it is the last day of Summer Fashion Week. But the visit with Daniel and Mom was FUNTASTIC! Aside from the wonderfulness of seeing the long lost husband, I had a blast hanging out with my family. We ate "swordfish" (which my brother was very disappointed to find out was actually shark) and rode around Pleasantville on the tandem bicycle. My family knows how to have a good time! But rest assured - Dad, Jack and Stephanie - you guys and the Scrabble board were missed.

Billi and Daniel

Mom and Bo

Bo and Ingrid

A note on the tandem:

My brother Bo rebuilt this bike to be the getaway vehicle from his wedding. It spent several preceding decades in my uncle's garage, I believe, awaiting some TLC. Bo and Ingrid looked super cute leaving their beach reception on this cruiser.

Bo is a cycling apostle. One way he spreads the bike gospel is by making his guests ride around on the tandem. One time our brother Jack got dropped off by his friends at a store in town, and Bo picked him up on this. Bo and I made a booze run on the tandem this spring. Another time Bo and Daniel rode home from a restaurant on the tandem, and a guy watching them from his porch laughed so hard he fell out of his chair. This bike is the source and symbol of much happiness. Not to mention the fact that it makes an even better fashion accessory than a fixie.

To business:

HAVE A GOOD ONE T-shirt - Ross

Pleated & Pocketed Plaid Skirt - Anthropologie

Loud Daisy Earrings - some cheap import store

Rolled Paper, Shellac & Shell Necklace - gift,

purchased for me in Turkey by Daniel's cousin

Charm Bracelet - gift from my friend Aurora,

purchased in Israel by her husband

Kids Keen Sandals - Dick's Sporting Goods

(I recommend having your jewelry imported directly and

shopping in the kids department to save money. :o)

Daniel's Blue Steel

Arlo was definitely thrifted.

My favorite: felted graphics!

Ladies (and gentlemen) of Fashion Week, thank you SO MUCH for such a fun week of sharing ideas and sharing compliments. I echo Emery Jo's comments about making a regular habit of giving out positive strokes. I don't know any of you in person this time around, so your words are in the category of "the kindness of strangers"; yet I've read your written thoughts and received kindness from you through this oddly personal medium - blogging - and feel like I'm part of an ephemeral community of encouragers. Thanks.

Please check out the Fashion Finale at Moms Are For Everyone. And please come back to Home on the Roam. My blog is pretty eclectic, as you can read from the label cloud above, so outside input is always welcome. Also, if you haven't done so yet, please check out my photography website and my husband's art blog - we'd love to hear what you think about the sites, especially if you have suggestions to share.

Thank you for the great week!

Summer Fashion Week - Day 6 - Cape Cacti

2010-07-17T11:33:00.000-05:00

Today my husband and my mom are driving down to visit!

Yippee! I'll jump out of these stripes, I'm so happy!

And Daniel will be happy that I haven't killed his cacti yet.

(Yes, I am capable of killing plants that don't need water.)

Gum Stripe Dress - hand-me-down J.Crew from my SIL

Sun Hat - same as yesterday, Academy

Silver Swizzle Earrings - Gift from Mom

(She got matching ones for her, me and Gram.)

Chiasmus Glass Ring - Pier 1

Silver Sandals - Gift from Mom as well

Check out the bevy of beauties over at Emory Jo's blog.

And don't forget...today is the last day to enter the

MONOTYPE GIVEAWAY

by becoming a follower of Daniel's art blog.

Thanks! See you tomorrow!

Summer Fashion Week - Day 5 - Golden Girl

2010-07-16T22:42:00.003-05:00

Today was a totally beautiful day.

I was well rested. The sun was shining.

The fashionistas were blogging.

And to top it all off, IT'S FRIDAY!

Sunflower Batik Dress - Whoa...made from a bedspread

in 1968ish by my mom's best friend Connie,

then stuck in a trunk and put in the attic,

and left in hiding for me to discover in 1999,

and continue to enjoy to this day!

Sun Hat - Academy Sports

Earrings - Dillards, probably

Fauxtishell Sunglasses - same ones, from Goodwill

Moth Necklace - Gift from a student in China

Ruddy Necklace - Snagged from Daniel

Creamy Cami - xmas stocking gift

Bronze Sandals - Rack Room Shoes again ($4!)

Check out Fashion HQ at Moms Are For Everyone.

And if you haven't done so yet, check out my husband's

MONOTYPE GIVEAWAY.

The last day to follow and enter is Saturday, July 17.

Summer Fashion Week - Day 4 - Floored

2010-07-15T21:07:00.002-05:00

So...I was pretty tired when I got home from work today. I think I've slept five whole hours since I got up Tuesday morning, which explains the litter of shoes and bags strewn about my floor. (If you want to read some of what I was doing instead of sleeping, click here.) I never put stuff away when I have a string of overstuffed days. I mustered just enough energy for a Fashion Week post. By the time you read this, I will have become one with my pillow. Zzzzzzzzz...

Black Tee - Target

Embroidered Skirt - Import shop in Amsterdam

Leafy Earrings - Charlotte Russe clearance ($2!)

Flip Flops - Rack Room Shoes clearance (also $2!)

Tomorrow I will check out the whopping plethora of today's links at Moms Are For Everyone. Til then, I will be unconscious. Bonne nuit, tout le monde.

Summer Fashion Week - Day 3 - Evening Sun

2010-07-14T20:44:00.002-05:00

Evening sun today. Very nice.

I like that my landlord doesn't believe in mowing.

Or in taking down the Christmas lights.

Revolver T-shirt - Don't remember

Cloud-n-paisley Skirt - Made by me

Silver Dragon Earrings - Pandemonium (in Dallas)

Fauxtishell Glasses - Goodwill

Polished Pendant Necklace - from Mom's college keepsakes

Jade Ring Necklace - Gift received in China

Beady Daisy Bracelet - Flea market in China

Silver Toe Ring - Gift from my pinky finger,

because it felt sorry for the short little piggy

Check out the rest of the fun at Emery Jo's.

(Considering my lateness, you probably have.)

See you tomorrow!

Summer Fashion Week - Day 2 - It All Adze Up

2010-07-13T08:19:00.004-05:00

Well, it took me a while, but I finally got my pictures up for today.

I really needed that coffee this morning.

Blue Carrot Blouse - Hmmm...probably Target

Dark Wide-leg Jeans - Express hand-me-downs from SIL

Knobby Silver Pendant - Bead store in Asheville, NC

Two-tone Satin Ribbon - Snagged from other SIL's guitar case

My husband (who is living 250 miles away from me right now to take a class) was once again enthusiastic about Fashion Week, and he decided to send me his photos to share with you. That's right: without me even there, he took Fashion Week Parody pics and sent them to me. So here's Daniel. Please forgive me for posting a close-up of his toes, but the nail polish is a nice touch to his manly ensemble.

On Daniel (per his descriptions):

Michaelangelo T-shirt - Free from El Centro College

Sweat Patinaed Shorts - Don't Know

Bandana - Hobby Lobby (25 cents)

Glasses - Dr. Black's Office

Flip Flops - Gift from Billi's Mom

Nailpolish - By Billi

Adze - Traditional Woodworker

Don't forget to check out all the other ladies via Emory Jo's blog!

Summer Fashion Week - Day 1 - Wide Eyed

2010-07-12T07:13:00.005-05:00

Is it Monday?

Yeah it is.

Welcome to Summer Fashion Week!

Ruffled Blouse - Target

Stripey Skirt - Old Navy Kids

Turquoise Earrings - Dillards

Watch - Major Award from my barista days

Monkey Face - Inherited from my dear dad

Check out the rest of the Monday styles at the blog of our fair Fashion Week hostess, Emery Jo. And feel free to join in the fun by posting your own photos and adding your links to Emery Jo's master list. (Ahem, Daniel and Bo -- you gotta represent.)

And, speaking of Daniel, it's not too late to sign up for the MONOTYPE GIVEAWAY by becoming a follower of his new art blog.

The Hubs Giveaway

2010-07-10T20:52:00.004-05:00

As many of you may know, my husband Daniel is an artist. He is also now a blogger. He wants followers for his art blog, so he is having a giveaway to lure you to his site. If you become one of his followers by next Saturday, July 17, you will be entered in a drawing to win one of his monotypes. He normally sells them for $75 and up. His monotypes look something like this:

danielbernardgray.blogspot.com

Become a follower. He's pretty cool. Thanks.

The Next Step

2010-07-08T22:41:00.006-05:00

I did it. Well, I started it, at least.

billilondongray.zenfolio.com

This is a work in progress.

And by that I mean this is a LOT of work in progress.

Family, I love your faces. Thanks.

Sarah, your referral is coming soon.

On Art and Life

2010-06-23T22:19:00.001-05:00

It's summer, the season for indulging in escapist fiction. But my summer standbys, Treasure Island and The Hobbit, are packed in a cardboard box somewhere, so I have been reading a piquant little volume by a dead Englishman about naturalism in art. On Art and Life, a pairing of critical essays written by John Ruskin in the 1850s, starts with praise for rough Gothic architecture and moves on to argue that true human craftsmanship MUST be flawed. If not, the work is that of a slave; the work of a fully engaged human being is governed by intellect, not mechanical accuracy, and should be unique rather than exact.

You must either make a tool of the creature, or a man of him. You cannot make him both. Men were not intended to work with the accuracy of tools, to be precise and perfect in all their actions. If you will have that precision out of them, and make their fingers measure degrees like a cog-wheels, and their arms strike curves like compasses, you must unhumanize them. All the energy of their spirits must be given to make cogs and compasses of themselves. All their attention and strength must go to the accomplishment of the mean act. The eye of the soul must be bent upon the finger-point, and the soul's force must fill all the invisible nerves that guide it, ten hours a day, that it may not err from its steely precision, and so soul and sight be worn away, and the whole human being be lost at last -- a heap of sawdust, so far as his intellectual work in this world is concerned.

Ruskin goes on to argue that the demand for perfect precision in architecture or manufacturing or any human production "enslaves" workers because they are not using their intellects to accomplish their work. He goes so far as to say that workers engaged in such mechanistic labor have lost their freedom of thought, been degraded as men, and been duped into thinking that wealth -- not better work -- is the key to pleasure in life.

It is verily this degradation of the operative into a machine, which, more than any other evil of the times, is leading the mass of the nations everywhere into vain, incoherent, destructive struggling for a freedom of which they cannot explain the nature to themselves...It is not that men are ill fed, but that they have no pleasure in the work by which they make their bread, and therefore look to wealth as the only means of pleasure. It is not that men are pained by the scorn of the upper classes, but they cannot endure their own; for they feel that the kind of labour to which they are condemned is verily a degrading one, and makes them less than men.

Remember my personal tirade against being turned into a banana-peeling machine last summer? Demanding that rote work (and especially trivial work) be done without deviation or innovation is degrading when you're that worker. No one wants to be told how to peel a banana. It's hard to feel like a valued person when your work rejects your input and threatens you for trying to figure things out for yourself. However, I certainly do not think that industrialized work is a great evil. War, despotism, famine, actual enslavement, disease and ignorance are much higher on the totem pole of Afflicters of Humanity.

But even in the relative luxury of a life without struggle for survival and freedom, the work of industry can be dehumanizing. Even when that industry houses you in air-conditioned buildings and gives you paid breaks and vacation accrual. I know many of you are in this boat: you have a job, you are grateful to have it, but your work wears you down because it demands that you perform like a machine instead of like a whole person whose mind, talents and general well-being are important to your work. You feel like your employer or your customers wouldn't care if a robot started filling in for you, as long as that robot was efficient.

We are all creative beings; it makes sense that the denial of creative empowerment makes us feel less human. My chief struggle in life is finding meaningful, satisfying work. It burdens me. It overwhelms me with stress some days. Even though my physical needs are met, I feel stymied and frustrated and hungry for satisfying work. It's not that I'm sitting around waiting for some genie to come give me happiness. I know happiness is a choice, and I make that choice everyday. But in keeping with the odds, I only expect to live once. I don't want to settle for unsatisfying work, since work will consume the majority of my waking hours in life. I don't want to convince myself to give up the search for the sweet spot, just so I can be tolerably content with 40 hours of robothood every week.

IRS Salad

2010-06-16T12:08:00.005-05:00

I don't usually post recipes, because I don't usually use them. In fact, this is the only recipe on my blog. However, I made a delicious salad for a potluck with my IRS coworkers, and I think at least one of you, dear readers, will enjoy it.

IRS SALAD:

1/2 cup dry quinoa

1 cup water

1 tsp cumin

1/2 cup corn

2 carrots

1 green pepper

1 tart apple

1 cup chickpeas

1 cup butternut squash soup

1 tsp lemon juice

1/4 cup vinaigrette dressing

1 tsp Sriracha (Thai hot sauce)

Cook 1/2 cup quinoa in 1 cup water. When quinoa is cooked (takes about 5 minutes), mix in cumin and set aside to cool. Chop up carrots, green pepper and apple and dump into a large bowl with corn and chickpeas. In a small bowl, combine cold soup (I like the Pacific Natural Foods soup - it comes in a box, not a can, if you go looking for it), lemon juice, vinaigrette and Sriracha. Once the quinoa has cooled, mix everything together in the big bowl. Voila! It's healthy, delicious and gluten-free.

Emerging Artist: Hannah Elliott

2010-05-26T03:33:00.004-05:00

ATTENTION DALLAS FRIENDS:

YOU WILL BE BUSY TOMORROW NIGHT.

You will be attending an art opening for the emerging artist Hannah Elliott. You will be very glad you went. Here are a few examples of the delights you will experience at this show:

I especially love the diptych in the middle.

The opening (ahem, free-food-and-meet-the-artist party) is Thursday, May 27, from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. at 1819 Clarence, Dallas, Texas 75215. It's a loft in south Dallas, between Ervay and Harwood, north of Grand Avenue. The artwork will be up through the weekend. If you haven't seen it by midnight Saturday, you will turn into a pumpkin.

Did I mention the artist is my cousin? Did I mention she is completely awesome? You'll figure it out when you go. And don't be shy or recession-minded -- you're welcome to purchase Hannah's work.

Philosophical Lexicon

2010-05-24T08:39:00.016-05:00

Check out the Philosophical Lexicon. My belle-soeur brought this little internet gem to my attention. And, if you enjoy such wordsmithery, I also recommend The Deeper Meaning of Liff: A Dictionary of Things There Aren't Any Words for Yet--But There Ought to Be by Douglas Adams (of Hitchhiker's Guide fame). AND...if you do want to buy these reads from Amazon, click through from this page and I will get a tiny kickback, which I will gladly share with you in the form of wine and cheese when you come over to my place for a salon sometime.

Here's a teaser for undercurious non-click-thru-ers:

A. Priori, n. A species of undeniable truth first discovered in New Zealand.

a rortiori, adj. For even more obscure and fashionable Continental reasons.

hughmellorate, v. To humiliate at a seminar.

hume, pron. (1) Indefinite personal and relative pronoun, presupposing no referent. Useful esp. in writing solipsistic treatises, sc. "to hume it may concern." v. (2) To commit to the flames, bury, or otherwise destroy a philosophical position, as in "That theory was humed in the 1920s." Hence, exhume, v. to revive a position generally believed to be humed.

lacanthropy, n. The transformation, under the influence of the full moon, of a dubious psychological theory into a dubious social theory via a dubious linguistic theory.

nicknack, n. An interesting oddity of no real importance. "He devoted his time to such nicknacks as the Cartesian Circle, the Naturalistic Fallacy, and the Ontological Argument." Hence, nicknackian, n. One preoccupied with nicknacks, and nacknickian, a merleau-ponty nicknackian.

owen, v. To be indebted to the entire Greek corpus for one's view. "I owened winning the argument to 1094b 12-14."

quintify, v. To give a popular and oversimplifying account of a philosophical problem. (a) quintifying in opaque contexts: writing an article on Wittgenstein for the Sunday papers; (b) existential quintifier: Walter Kaufmann; (c) universal quintifier: Mortimer Adler.

roderick, n. The art of writing purely decorative scholarly footnotes. "The first principle of roderick is to quote authors whose names are known widely but whose works are read seldom." - John Venn. (The trivium, or lower division of the seven liberal arts, consists of transformational grammar, modal logic, and roderick.)

sart, adj. Smart, but with something important missing. Generally, smart only inasmuch as not-smart, and apparently smart to those with severe vision problems. Hence the comparative "sartre" (Brit. sp.) meaning "more sart," i.e. more intelligible to exactly the extent that a thing is less intelligible.

scrive, v. To write in tongues, the orthographic equivalent of glossolalia.† "What can't be said, can't be said, and it can't be whistled either - but it can be scriven." - attributed to F. P. Ramsey.

winograd, n. The degree of intoxication occasioned by moving to the West Coast.‡

wisdom, n. A state of clarity and understanding so complete and exhaustive, yet also so detailed and complex, as to be totally incommunicable.

_____________________________________________

†Just as a survey question, how many of you, dear readers, have used the term glossolalia in an essay, article, lecture, open mic performance, or winning round of Balderdash? (C, the Oxford comma was for you.)

‡I think a causality argument could be made for the relationship between the winograd scale on the West Coast and the East Coast phenomenon of culverization: from culver, v. to train one's friends to consume a minimum of half a bottle of wine per person during any evening gathering on the East Coast; also, culvered, adj. the condition of having been trained by one's friends to drink a minimum of half a bottle of wine (but better to budget 3/4) during any evening gathering. "We got culvered while we lived in Annapolis and, therefore, no longer use our decanter."

Mr. and Mrs. Jack London

2010-05-16T01:59:00.002-05:00

Just a few unedited photos from my brother's wedding celebration: May 14-15, 2010 in Wylie, Texas.

Congratulations, Jack and Stephanie!

Unscrew America

2010-05-12T12:08:00.006-05:00

I don't care what you're doing right now. (Well, I do, but...) Stop doing it. Go check out this site: UnscrewAmerica.org.

Explore. It's great. In particular, I recommend watching the kangaroo video and the zombie video. (These links go to YouTube, but the videos can be discovered through the "videos" tab under the LED cloud on the site as well. It's just to the left of the ferris wheel and fireworks. Have fun!)

Switching to LED lighting is kind of expensive, but LEDs use a microscopic amount of energy, so eventually you get the investment back through energy savings. I've seen LED screw-in units for $20 to $35 in stores, but I found this "bulb" on Amazon for less than $7: Westinghouse 03466 Nanolux 3-Watt G19 LED Bulb, White. More importantly, however, LEDs don't use poisonous chemicals and they barely sip watts from the grid (or the generator, for you homesteaders in Alaska, Canada and Lapland).

Plug

2010-05-03T15:14:00.005-05:00

I've been MIA for a few weeks. Roaming? Only to and from a federal building in Austin where I stamp tax returns with a numbering machine for 8 to 12 hours at a time. I am a temporary numberer.

Here's one of the other things I've done in the meantime: my story about bicycle commuting for GreenRightNow.com.

Start pedaling, my friends!

(By the way, that's a Columbia Tourist, which is what I have, although my bike is prettier than the one I photographed in New York. Also, mine doesn't have to be locked up with a motorcycle chain.)

Behind the Mule

2010-04-28T10:59:00.000-05:00

Isn't it amazing how you can go from, "I wish I had enough work, " to "I wish had enough sleep," in the course of a couple weeks? (Let me not forget, "I wish I had enough time to write.") And it will be just as amazing when the condition switches back again in a couple weeks.

By the way, also coming in a couple weeks, on May 15 to be exact, my little brother Jack is getting married to his fiancee Stephanie! If you hadn't heard this from me yet, it is very exciting.

See you sooner or later, blogosphere. In the meantime, I've got tax returns to stamp-stamp-stamp with numbers.

Daniel the Egyptian

2010-04-11T22:22:00.004-05:00

As you may have seen during Spring Fashion Week, my husband - despite his Scandinavian blood - has a visible-above-his-collar amount of chest hair. It got a comment or two on this blog. It has gotten many more comments in real life.

After Spring Fashion Week, Daniel was feeling a bit self-conscious about his chest hairiness. Having sworn off shaving the area in the Velcro-y aftermath of a previous experience, he decided to find another method of chest hair removal. Rather than consulting me, he waited for me to leave for a day of photographing little leaguers in South Austin, then went to his good friend Google for advice.

Google gave Daniel the low-down about waxing versus sugaring versus shaving versus Nair. Daniel is a die hard do-it-yourselfer, so he didn't want to buy anything. Besides, I had the car so he was limited to what he could obtain by bicycle from Dollar General, the Shell Station or Sonic. With these considerations in mind, Google gave him a recipe for sugaring which called for sugar, lemon juice and water.

"Well, if the Egyptians do it, I can, too," my husband thought.

So he got on his bike and rode down to Dollar General where he bought a four-pound bag of sugar. However, Dollar General had no lemons, nor lemon juice. But my husband is a resourceful man. So he pedaled over to Sonic and buzzed on the order button.

"Hey, do you guys sell lemons?"

"Uh...I don't know, lemme ask my manager...OK, he says if you want three lemons there's a charge, but if you only want two, it's free."

"Great. I'll take two lemons, please."

That's right. Four pounds of sugar and two free lemons. He pedaled the four miles home in high spirits, cooked up his sugar paste, waxed his chest, cleaned up the mess he had made all over the kitchen and bathroom, hid the leftover sugar so I wouldn't see it and become suspicious, and staged the house to make it look like he had been working on paintings all day.

I got home from my day of shooting baseball players physically exhausted. Daniel told me he went on a bike ride and painted all day while I was gone. Then, being the gracious man that he is, Daniel watched both Miss Congeniality movies with me over dinner and a bottle of wine. I suspected nothing.

Then tonight, as I was sitting at the computer writing, I hear a text message ping into my phone. It's from Daniel. It says (sic):

Hey Billi. Look at you me.

I walk into the living room, where Daniel is sitting shirtless reading a book. He has no hair on his chest. I snigger and text back:

Should I get you some cream for that razor burn?

Haven't we discussed that you were never to do this ever again?

Then he replies, also by text:

Oh thats not razor burn

At which point he bursts into laughter, and tells me that he sugared himself. At which point, I post his words on Twitter, because if ever there was a quotable phrase, it was that one. Followed by these, from tonight:

"And I thought the nipples might hurt a lot, but there was only a moderate amount of pain."

"I'll parade around shirtless for a little while, just so I can be inspiring."

"You didn't know that you married a metrosexual, did ya?"

"I'm just trying to be your muse, Baby."

Well, Daniel, consider yourself a great success, my dear.

From The Idiot

2010-04-08T21:07:00.001-05:00

I am (slowly) reading The Idiot. I have never come across a Russian writer I haven't liked (which probably goes to show my shallow experience in the genre). But above all I love Dostoevsky.

Today's scene: a tension-building conversation between a somewhat ambitious career man named Ganya and the enigmatically candid protagonist Prince Myshkin. Ganya, in explaining why he wants to marry a rich woman whom he doesn't love, tells the prince:

I want money. Having made money, be it known to you -- I'll become an original man in the highest degree. The meanest and most hateful thing about money is that it even gives one talent. And so it will be till the world ends.

Reading this declaration from Ganya got me to thinking: What does money get you? It certainly gets you opportunity, because if you have money, you don't have to spend your time earning money to meet your needs. You can spend your time pursuing your own interests. But does money get you originality or talent? Can a person essentially buy those qualities by buying open-ended opportunity?

I don't believe the story validates the "money gets you talent" position. The prince has 25 roubles, which he gives to a drunkard, and one small bundle in the entire world, and he seems to be the paragon of originality. But I'm wondering:

What's original about originality?
What's the value of a latent talent? (I love that anagram, by the way.)
Does money tilt the talent playing field that much?
Or, moreover, what does talent matter if you don't have the opportunity to use it?

Discuss.

Spring Fashion Week: Daniel Bonus

2010-04-05T12:19:00.000-05:00

Daniel, goaded by Sarah's comments and his own enthusiasm for fashion, really wanted to have an opportunity to show off his personal style, beyond hand-me-down board shorts and screen print T-shirts. He certainly didn't want the viewers of Spring Fashion Week to think of him as some sort of a lout.

So...Thursday night I was working. At about 9 p.m. I got up to get a sweater. As I walked to the bedroom, I discovered my husband all dressed up and pivoting in front of the full-length mirror in the hallway.

Quoth the Daniel: "Hey, do you have time to take my picture now?"

Me: "Hmmm...let me think...OF COURSE I DO!"

And of course I had to follow his theme with a matching outfit later. So here is the Spring Fashion Week Bonus from the London-Gray household.

On Daniel...

Silk shirt: gift from me, bought in Hong Kong

Slacks: TJMaxx (again)

Penguin shoes: DSW clearance - $20!

Glasses: actually NOT Zenni Optical, from the eye doc

Wedding ring: (his 3rd from me) Deep Ellum Arts Festival

On me...

Brocade blouse: hand-me-down from Mom

(I think the story is that it was purchased by her brother in

San Francisco's Chinatown and given to her as a gift in 1973ish.)

Polka dot skirt: Target (again)

Shoes: gift from Mom

Amber earrings: Lapidary Arts, Plano, Texas

Spring Fashion Week: Feaster!

2010-04-04T15:59:00.007-05:00

Easter Day is a day of feasting in my family. It is essential to wear something that will accommodate filling my stomach with two large meals, one with my family and one with Daniel's family. So today I put on my softest, floatiest, girliest dress and chowed down. Twice!

Seersucker stenciled eyelet dress: TJMaxx
Sweater: I dunno, maybe Target
Glass earrings: outlet mall $1 rack
Scarf: from my childhood dress-ups
Tights: no idea, TJMaxx or Target is a good bet
Shoes: OOH! a recent gift from my father-in-law

I love love love these shoes. My father-in-law, Paul, called me once last month while he was in China on a month-long business trip. The conversation went like this:

Me: Paul! Hi!
Paul: Hey Billi. What size shoe do you wear?
Me: Uh...7 or 7 1/2.
Paul: Well, what size shoe do you wear in Europe?
Me: I'm not sure. I can go find a shoe and check the tag.
Paul: Nah. 7 1/2 or 7? That'll work. I gotta go.
Me: You called me from China to ask my shoe size?
Paul: Yep. But I gotta go now. Talk to you later.
Me: OK. Hope you get to come home soon.
Paul: Yeah, me too. Bye.
Me: Bye.

That was it. I would like to point out that, in addition to having a father-in-law who buys me cute shoes, I married into a great family.

Come back tomorrow to check out my Fashion Week Bonus - requested by my husband Daniel so he can prove that he is a fashionable fella. And don't forget to peruse the other Spring Fashion Week finales at Emery Jo's blog. Thanks a bunch! This has been great fun!

Spring Fashion Week: Day 6

2010-04-03T13:13:00.005-05:00

I had brunch with my mother and my grandmother this morning. Gram and I both wore polka dots, so OF COURSE this coincidence has to be included in Spring Fashion Week. These photos were taken in her beautiful log cabin. The secretary and hutch behind us are heirlooms. By the way, she has NEVER colored her hair, so all that lovely brown hair you see on her head absolutely natural. (Thanks for the genes, Gram!)

On Gram:

Clothes: probably TJMaxx or Dillard's

Shoes: no idea

Silver necklace: I'll guess Taos, NM

Earrings: picked up by me on a trip

On me:

Dress: Target

Tights: Macy's

Pearls: borrowed from Mom

Shoes: gift from Mom

Thanks again, ladies, for sharing all your great fashion ideas through your photos. Hit up Emery Jo's blog for more looks and links to the rest of Spring Fashion Week Saturday.

Spring Fashion Week: Day 5

2010-04-03T12:52:00.008-05:00

Welcome to another (retro-posted) day of Spring Fashion Week at Home on the Roam! We spent Friday roaming between Austin and Dallas, so I did not get to post these photos until Saturday morning. However, these looks are from Friday.

I figure I should start with the best, so here it is. Behold, my little friend K. She is always a fashion plate! I especially love her choice of mittens on a 78-degree day in Dallas. I would also like to note that she has a princess crown under her hat, just in case she needs to show her royal credentials to someone.

As for Daniel and myself, we (ahem, I) coordinated our looks based on our boots. Can you tell that Daniel is REALLY into this fashion exhibition? (Thanks, Angela, for the great photo!)

Billi's look:

Vintage dress: thrifted

Cowgirl boots: hand-me-down from Mom

Earrings: Charlotte Russe clearance

Daniel's look:

Vintage flour sack shirt: hand-me-down from Aunt Willa

Curduroy jeans: thrifted

Cowboy boots: hand-me-down from my dad

Necklace: borrowed from Angela

Glasses: Zenni Optical

Thanks for visiting! Check out the rest of the girls' Friday looks from Emery Jo's blog.

Spring Fashion Week: Day 4

2010-04-01T19:53:00.012-05:00

Today's inspiration: Katharine Hepburn!

(And it's well after 5 p.m., so the snifter is doubly apropos.)

Purple silk secretary blouse: TJMaxx, maybe?

Black cami: Sam's Club

Black high waisted pants: thrifted

Jitterbug heels: Gianni Bini

Victorian earrings: Daniel (Good job, Sweets!)

And those are Daniel's monotypes on the wall.

"Holla like you gnome me" T-shirt: gift

Board shorts: still a hand-me-down from Bo

Make-believe snifter: his own imagination

(All he has changed since yesterday is his shirt. But thank goodness for that, at least.)

I am totally having fun doing Spring Fashion Week. (Thanks for the lead, Sarah!) To participate (and maybe win some ModCloth money) and to check out more fashion fun, visit Emery Jo's blog. Hasta manana!

Spring Fashion Week: Day 3

2010-03-31T15:35:00.013-05:00

Spring Fashion Week continues! Check out the rest of the girls at Emery Jo's blog. I just joined in the fun yesterday, so it's not too late for you to put your pics in.

Today is sunny and beautiful in Central Texas, but I love tights, so I will wear them until it is too hot to continue. Which will probably take another, oh, ten minutes.

Ecru blouse: TJMaxx or Marshall's, 5 years ago

Vintage back-pleated skirt: my mom's college keepsakes

Rose tights: Christmas gift

Tango heels: Söfft at Dillard's

Polished stone necklace: gift, from Tajikistan

Plastic pearlies: kids dress ups in $1 bin at Target

Wedding ring: outer bands from mall jeweler;

inner band was my mom's (my dad got her a fancier one later);

diamond from my husband for our 6-monthiversary;

rebuilt and mounted by Howdy Jones at Jewelry Limited in Richardson, Texas.

* * * * *

And because he had to help with shooting the shoes, and because he is oh-so-handsome, Daniel wants to be included as well. He has been waiting for a week like this to show off his fashion sense.

Shirt: hand-me-down "Everything is GIANT in Marfa" T-shirt from Rachel Lindley

Shorts: hand-me-down from Bo

Glasses: Sam's Club

("Where only exclusive gentlemen like myself shop," he says)

Quizzical philosopher face: inherited from Dad

Spring Fashion Week: Day 2

2010-03-30T12:25:00.010-05:00

My friend Sarah-the-super-inspirer is participating in Spring Fashion Week by posting her outfits each day this week. This blog fashion frenzy is being coordinated by Emery Jo, another super-inspirer of femme blogdom. I want to play, too. So here's my outfit for today:

Green dress: Target

Silver sandals: my momma

Kousa Berry bag: Anthropologie

Leaf earrings: art festival in DC

Silver cornflower ring: thrifted

Silver filigree ring: my grammy

Jade necklace: gift from a Chinese student

If you want to join in, post your pics and check out Emery Jo's blog to be included with her links to everyone who is participating.

Healthcare Reform is for Socialists and Communists and Betsy DeMik and Me

2010-03-24T20:52:00.009-05:00

I have not written about healthcare reform. Until now.

Betsy wrote about healthcare this week. She says, "Healthcare reform is not communism."

Last summer my grandmother called me a "socialist" for espousing the need for healthcare reform. I'm actually not even a borderline socialist, but what does that matter?

Healthcare is a social need, and meeting this social need should be part of our system because it is in the best interests of our national stability and prosperity. If people can be assured of healthcare, they can spend their money on economy-growing things. And if people can't go bankrupt from medical bills, again, they can spend their money on things like, I dunno, paying their mortgages so their banks have sufficient capital to stay open.

I have been VERY lucky to have spent most of my adult life uninsured WITHOUT a major health issue for me or my spouse. I've NEVER had an employer who provided coverage outright. With the only paycheck-deducted plan I've had, the deductibles were high, and to cover myself and Daniel would have taken over half my paycheck. I could never predict what a visit to a doctor would cost due to the "covered fees" code, and I got an additional bill in the mail after EVERY visit, except one. (Thank you, Dr. Black.)

Most of the time I could afford to pay for an independent plan, but I would have zero savings. Just like if I went out to eat every weekend I would have zero savings. I treat healthcare as a luxury good. So I don't buy a plan, and I pay cash when I need to, and so far I've come out ahead (with retirement savings instead of unused health coverage). So then the question becomes, which is the luxury, healthcare or retirement?

Making insurance compulsory puts retirement in the luxury category. But Social Security won't be helping me in 50 years, so how does it help me to be forced to spend money on insurance I don't need now instead of saving for the future when I WILL need that money? I just want the cost of healthcare to be reasonable in the first place.

But that won't happen until costs don't get inflated to account for all the people who can't pay for services rendered. And that won't happen until every person is covered by insurance. Which is why, I suppose, affordable healthcare means mandatory affordable health insurance in the healthcare bill.

Congress should just legislate the demolition of the insurance industry and fix prices for services. Wait - that would be...

Sorry. That would be a rant.

Cool Like Tobias

2010-03-23T10:34:00.000-05:00

We are about to go on a bike ride. I asked Daniel to take a picture of my outfit, because it is exactly like what I wore in the second grade, minus a side ponytail. I wish I had hot pink scrunched socks and an NKOTB t-shirt. Yes, I did make the cutoffs 15 minutes ago so I could wear them on this morning's bike ride.

I encourage all of you to make yourself a pair of denim cutoffs today. We will call it Tobias Day, a day to celebrate green fashion initiatives and Nevernude awareness.

Paperwork Reduction Act in Action

2010-03-19T13:52:00.008-05:00

Daniel and I are currently pursuing jobs with a certain government agency. We will be having our fingerprints checked by the FBI on Monday. As a prerequisite for the fingerprint check, we have to print, fill out, and turn in 12 forms attesting to various conditions (13 for Daniel since he has to prove that he registered with the Selective Service when he was 18).

I am really amused by the inclusion of "Paperwork Reduction Act" and "Public Burden" notices on 6 of these 13 forms. It makes me wonder if Estonia has it right with a "paperless government." On the one hand, do I really want for my government to have all my information in one place? Every form I ever fill out being accessible through the web? I don't know.

On the other hand, maybe life would be very simplified if every baby had a Google chip implanted in the back of its neck at birth, and that person would never need a paper document EVER, because all his or her personal information and records were right there in his or her neck. The FBI could just hook up a reader to your neck plug and know everything about you. Forget electronic medical records - this is way better.

Maybe, after a generation of chip babies, I could remake The Net to give us all paranoia about how the FBI and our Google overlords could get hacked or delete our e-existence and make us stateless phantoms. Daniel and I were talking about how IF Google is the New World Order/Antichrist, then China is the chosen nation. Right?

So I'm going to start filling out those forms now. And hope that blogging doesn't disqualify me for government employment.

Rock Quarry Query

2010-03-17T23:03:00.003-05:00

We have now officially taken up residence in the hill country. We found a BEAUTIFUL little garage apartment attached to the home of a very friendly family in a spacious neighborhood. And it is well worth the 15-mile drive to Austin, folks. This is the place, as viewed by my phone:

Aside from the many perks of living in the country (you know: starry nights, the dawn chorus, peace and tranquility, space, privacy), one of the particular perks of this property is that it is located near an abandoned rock quarry. This, of course, can be said of many places in the hill country, but since I come from the Blackland Prairie, it is a particular perk to me.

As soon as Daniel and I heard about this abandoned quarry, and the possibility of enjoying its spring-fed swimming hole, we couldn't wait to check it out. So today, we and one of our friends decided to hike there and find out what kind of oasis could exist in the remnants of a strip mining operation. We were pleasantly surprised.

The water was turquoise and clear to the bottom. We threw stones into the middle and watched them sink to the floor. We watched the fish swimming around, which gave Daniel fishinglust. Even the buzzards, though creepy, were cool. We hope this is alluring to you as well, friends. Please come visit!

Get Serious

2010-03-10T23:47:00.008-06:00

Sometimes I take life very seriously. I get into long discussions - you might even call them debates - about conundrums I've been mulling over, engaging my family members in conversational downward spirals. I started one of these this evening on my brother's front porch. (Sorry, Bo and Ingrid.) I'm sure the neighbors were relieved when we got chilly and went inside.

Daniel, on the other hand, is very chillaxed. Unflappable. It's not that he doesn't take life seriously, and it's not like he's apathetic. If everyone thought through their opinions as well as he does, democracy would be foolproof. But he never heats up a discussion. And he never loses his composed group discussion voice. He just doesn't get worked up about anything. I admire (and need) that about him.

Tonight, after the porch discussion, I came inside to write about something serious, but I ended up looking through some photos and found this one:

Daniel's serious face - as if the apocalypse is approaching or he just saw Tom Cruise convert someone to Scientology with lightning bolts from his teeth - pretty much cracks me up. Especially because he is actually looking at a wagon full of cheery pumpkins in Vermont.

Job Hunting

2010-03-06T09:47:00.004-06:00

Our lives have a short check-list right now:

Come to Austin ✔
Find a place to live ✔
Find jobs ☜

We've come to Austin. We've found a place to live. The job finding remains.

I've applied to a tutoring agency, a university advancement office, a couple state offices, and classified ads (one of which was a scam to get people to pay for an online IQ test, which in turn convinced me to resist the temptation of responding to classified ads). Today I will complete applications for jobs at Texas State University and Austin Community College.

FYI: I didn't take the so-called online IQ test. That could be an IQ test in itself. As you will notice by clicking the link, the site no longer exists.

Daniel wants something outdoorsy and close to home, which is to say horticultural. For him, the main requirement for a job to be good is minimal computer use, since he got carpal tunnel syndrome from his one and only desk job. Inspired by Sarah, Daniel wants me to focus on using photography for income. And he, of course, wouldn't mind selling some prints of his own. But these are secondary income options.

We know we are only at the beginning of our search. Daniel's 2008 job hunt passed through a string of sub-minimum wage restaurant jobs before he finally ended up slinging cappuccinos. My 2008 job hunt - this would be one directly following the completion of my master's degree - included 80 job applications and sent résumés. As many of you know, that hunt resulted in one job interview, which resulted in one low-paying writing job and the continuation of my own cappuccino slinging, which resulted in a sort of Dallas-induced cabin fever, which resulted in us taking off for six months to travel.

Needless to say (yet I'm saying it), job hunting is arduous. I feel like the old woman searching for the lost coin in Jesus' parable, or at least as I imagine her: urgently looking in every obvious place, combing her thoughts for every possible solution, trying to stay optimistic, but aware that she could be searching long and hard before she finds what she is looking for. All she knows is that it has to be somewhere nearby - hopefully not on the dispensing side of an espresso machine, but if all else fails she'll look there too.

I am not a natural networker, and I have no idea how to get an inside track to a good job here in Austin. And even though my husband thinks that reminding me of the recession should console me, it does not override the insecure feeling I get from being an MALA in an MBA world.

In conclusion, dear friends, I would love suggestions from you: types of jobs you think I would do well, employers in Austin, or people you know who I could contact for job leads. If you simply have misery-loves-company anecdotes to share, I'll take those too. But job ideas would be better. Here's my online résumé.

The Times They Are a-Changin'

2010-02-28T23:45:00.003-06:00

Well, we have been rambling around for about six months now. The last time either of us reported for a scheduled day-job-type-shift was in August. We have road-tripped, day-tripped, rolled, flown, floated and tramped through eight time zones (more on the adventure later)...and, alas, it is time to get back to the real world. (You know, that world where people have bosses and schedules and responsibilities.) Like, tomorrow.

Fortunately, our transition will not be as violent as the change from peace-loving cyclist to bike zombie that someone close to me recently experienced. Daniel and I have "merely" to find jobs and a place to call home. Until the home part is settled, we will be staying with my gracious (aforementioned and presumably dezombified) brother and sister-in-law. This transition part is actually not anything new for us, since this is the fourth time (Right, Daniel?) we have exited and re-entered the real world. However, this time is different. This time we are considering a much longer stay.

We are going to buy a house. GASP!

You're probably worried: First they trade in their Zack Morris cell phones - the Grays not only texting but hopped up on Crackberries! - and now they're talking about buying a house? Were Billi and Daniel body-snatched? Don't they realize that a home purchase means at least THREE years in the SAME place?

Yes. We are actually planning on staying in Austin for a handful of years. It's very weird to me, because in the past we have always gone back into Stabilization Mode with a sigh. We comforted ourselves with the promise that it would only last for a year before we would take off again. But this time I'm almost joyful about the idea of staying in one place through the remainder of a presidential term. And tomorrow we will drive down to Austin to start it all off. I really feel like I'm getting up tomorrow for the first day of a new, great chunk of my life.

Computerless Travel

2010-02-02T08:25:00.001-06:00

So I'm traveling. I am in an apartment in Pori, Finland. The keyboard I'm using has symbols like this on it:

ö ä µ å € £ ¤ §

Maybe I'll get a post in before March starts.

Compare and Contrast

2010-01-20T11:04:00.005-06:00

I am currently packing for a month-long trip to Europe. I'm making sure I have all my 100 mL toiletries purchased, my new raincoat rolled up into its little carrying pouch, my shoes shined, and my boarding passes printed. I'm thinking about drinking coffee in Finland and combating keystoning in Tallinn. I've got my little pop-up maps of London and Paris tucked into a folder with photocopies of our passports. Daniel is looking for a hotel in the Latin Quarter. Visions of beefeaters, bleu cheese and berets are dancing in my head. By this time tomorrow I will be sitting in Atlanta waiting to board a 777 to Gatwick.

Meanwhile, millions of people in Haiti can't get food or water or fuel. The president of the country has been sleeping in his car. Bodies are being heaped up with the rubble or dumped into mass graves. They will be forevermore as anonymous as the dirt that surrounds them. My Eurovision has just been replaced by the image of American soldiers passing out granola bars to a downtrodden mob camped out on a golf course. Thousands get in line for handouts. Then the soldiers take ten steps back and sit down in a row on the grass to signify that they are out of food. The mob understands and slowly walks back to their makeshift camps. By this time tomorrow they will still be waiting for hope.

Windmill Pool

2010-01-16T15:40:00.005-06:00

Ever wonder what fabulously wealthy (and slightly eccentric) people do when they buy 16,000 acres in the middle of nowhere (a.k.a. Marfa, Texas)?

You guessed it. They say, "Hm, Thurston, I'd like to go for a swim." And then, "Well, Muffin, I'll just turn that old windmill on the hill into a pool for you. It'll have a fahbulous view, dahling."

So this is the windmill pool at the HIP-O Ranch. Our friend works at the ranch, which also is a wildlife preserve of sorts, which also has been owned by some delightfully creative people at some point in the past. And although I have never met the person who decided this would be a cool repurposing of a windmill and a water tank, I assume she must have been an absolute visionary.

We drove out to see this wonderful creation as the sun was setting earlier this week. I can't even say how wonderful this was. No other buildings in sight. Totally isolated. Totally perfect. Just miles of desert vistas in every direction. I am just pleased as punch to know that someone out there in the world came up with this idea AND made it happen.

The transformation involved restoring the original water tank and pouring the pool inside of it, creating a new pump system that would fill the pool from the well under the mill, and installing a power source (solar panels) to keep it all going. Wow.

Daniel said, "If ONLY we had millions of dollars and a ranch of our own...Then everything would be perfect because we, too, would have a windmill pool." He was joking, of course, since we have paradise for a song without the millions, the ranch and the pool.

But, rest assured, if some genie (you may know this genie by the name Career) gave us land, an old windmill, and discretionary spending powers, we would indeed have our very own windmill pool.

Getting Political about Proposition 8

2010-01-14T13:13:00.004-06:00

Forgive me for this: I am about to rant. If you don't want to read my ranting, don't read this post.

Yesterday I read a BBC News story about a U.S. Federal Court trial regarding Proposition 8, the California constitutional amendment which bans gay marriage by restricting marriage to heterosexual couples only. Proposition 8 is currently being appealed in Federal Court by the American Foundation for Equal Rights. The case of Perry v. Schwarzenegger is expected to be appealed all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. And reading about this case, aside from arousing my sense of righteous indignation, reminded me of two things:

how important it is to vote if you give a rat's ass about your country; and
how long it takes for change to happen through our legal system.

Just to make my stance clear up front, I am in favor of legalizing gay marriage. I think it is tyrannically unjust to deny unrelated monogamous adults the right to get married. Furthermore, I think it is ridiculous that anyone could think they have the right to tell someone else, You may not use the words "marriage" or "husband" or "wife" to define your union with the person you love. Because that person is the same sex as you.

It is discrimination. It is a violation of civil rights. It is wrong for any government to tell homosexual adults that they may not obtain the same status for their unions as heterosexual adults may obtain from the same government for their unions. Consider this argument, cited in the above article, about why it is NOT discriminatory to ban gay marriage:

Supporters of Proposition 8 will argue California does not discriminate against the gay community, as the current law allows them to get married - as long as they wed a partner of the opposite sex.

It's a farce of reason. How is this different from saying, Supporters of segregation argue that Alabama does not discriminate against the black community, since the current law allows them to attend schools and drink from public water fountains - as long as they use facilities designated for blacks. Or if they make themselves look white...? I don't mean to suggest that racial segregation and the ban on gay marriage are injustices of the same magnitude. (They are not.) But I imagine that to a gay couple who want to wed in a state that denies them the right to do so, the injustice feels equally outrageous.

A law that tells someone that they are receiving equal treatment provided they change their identity by getting a different body proves itself unjust. It is obvious to me that, in a society that declares universal equality under the law, homosexual couples should have all the same legal entitlements (including marriage vocabulary) as heterosexual couples - in every state, in every country on earth. I find it disturbing that some people who enjoy their own legal rights are so determined to prevent others from doing the same.

So, back to the two points I started with: 1) the importance of voting and 2) the slowness of change in the U.S. legal system.

In the November 2008 election, 78 percent of California voters went to the polls. Of that 78 percent, 52 percent voted in favor of Proposition 8, and 48 percent voted against it. Which means a heartbreaking 4 percent of the people who voted that day - 600,000 votes out of 13.4 million votes cast - made all the difference. While I don't think gay marriage should be put to a vote (since I believe it should be identified as a civil right), I think this election exemplifies the impact of voting upon our lives and upon the lives of everyone governed according to our votes.

And if you need further proof of the importance of voting, consider the 2000 U.S. presidential election. As you may recall, the official results of that election weren't announced until December 2000, because of a margin of 537 votes between the candidates in Florida. Those votes determined that Florida's electoral votes should go to George W. Bush, which gave him the victory over Al Gore. Think about that, people: 537 Floridian voters gave all of us (and the world) President George W. Bush.

To you, my friends, who are citizens of this country and don't register to vote, go register. Then vote. You can register to vote when you renew your driver's license. You can register to vote online at many sites, including Rock the Vote, CanIVote.org and Congress.org. You can register to vote by mail, by printing out a form or picking one up at a U.S. Post Office. And if you don't register to vote because you fear a jury/Selective Service summons, all I have to say is: really? You'd give up your say so you don't have to show up for jury duty? Or, much MUCH less likely and only if you are younger than 26, get drafted?

To you, my friends, who are citizens of this country and registered voters, but you don't vote, or you only vote every fourth November, PLEASE VOTE. You guys are the ideal voters for a healthy democracy - educated, engaged, hard-working, tax-paying (most of you), intelligent, creative adults.

If you don't know when elections are happening and don't know what the issues are, it is easy to inform yourself. The League of Women Voters is a very reliable source of information regarding elections, candidate platforms and ballot items. Local election commissions are also wonderful sources of election information. Here's a few, by county, for my regulars:

Collin County Elections
Dallas County Elections
Hays County Elections
Travis County Elections
Anne Arundel County Elections

Be an educated voter. Know what you're voting for and why. If you think it's fine to skip out on voting, apply that to everyone: is it fine for everyone to skip out on voting? No. So go vote. You'll have local elections in May. You have four months to get ready.

Now, regarding the length of time it takes for change to happen through our legal system: IT TAKES FOREVER. Years. And years. Partly, this is good. As the wise and wonderful David Townsend once told me, "You don't want a super-efficient government. Because it'll make bad decisions that much faster." Even bureaucratic inefficiency has its silver lining.

But then again, an inefficient checked-and-balanced government also requires that much more time to undo a bad government act. Like Proposition 8. In the best case scenario, according to another article I read, Perry v. Schwarzenegger could exhaust the appeals process, be accepted by the U.S. Supreme Court and heard by the Court sometime in 2012. But this is just one case for gay marriage, and even if the Court accepts it, it doesn't mean the Court will find that the state ban against gay marriage is unconstitutional. Which is to say, constitutional protection for gay marriage is years and years from being legally recognized. At best.

That's the conclusion of my rant. For now.

Photoetry by u/b

2010-01-11T09:33:00.003-06:00

Someone heeded my call for submissions! Here is some photoetry by my tio, whose name I will cryptically anagramize as Irnab, who also goes by the alias, "u/b."

Peace Is Your Happy Torch

(made from a postcard he received)

Timeline Art Dog

(from a poster, pictured, at the high school one of his daughters attended)

So, you see, photoetry is fun and the resources to do it are all around you. In the mail, on the wall, along the trail, beside the road...if you make a photoem, please, please, please share it with me.

And thanks, Tio Irnab. Well done!

Barry Scobee Mountain Poem

2010-01-06T05:00:00.002-06:00

This poem is from a sign on the side of Highway 17 in Fort Davis, Texas. This goes with the other photoetry posts: The New Photography Game of Sign Poetry and More Photoetry.

I again encourage other folks to compose and share some photoetry. My uncle made one and it was splendid. He used the writing on the back of a postcard.

Happy New Year - From the Horse's Mouth

2010-01-04T17:05:00.000-06:00

Happy New Year! I hope your holiday celebrations were delightful. Now that I'm done writing fictional Christmas Letters and visiting family and driving 1100 miles to and fro across the Republic, it is time to write about 2010. But first, an anecdote.

This is a horse I met yesterday on our way back from Dallas to Marfa. Let's call him Swiftwind. He lives in Fort Davis. He's very mellow. He let me stroke his face and rub his velvety nose and take his picture. He put his lips together and said, "Ppbbphrrr." And he reminded me of something important.

SIMPLICITY. Swiftwind has a simple life. He eats weeds and oats. He nuzzles passersby. He looks at the Davis Mountains. He sunbathes. He romps in the mud, when there is mud. He carries people around occasionally. He has a butt-cut and he doesn't even care that it's unfashionable. Swiftwind, in his anthropomorphic way (and thanks to his responsible owners), enjoys his life and has peace.

It's easy for a horse to have peace and simplicity. Horses can't do geometry or read Aristotle or worry about what their parents think. Horses don't experience ethical quandaries. Horses don't feel pressure to commit and achieve. Horses don't plan for the future. Horses don't get married and involve a life-long lover in all their decisions. Horses don't worry about reconciliation with offended friends or not having health insurance or paying for college or chasing dreams. Horses don't have the ability to complicate or worry about their lives.

I, unlike Swiftwind, am marvelously adept at complicating my life. I say I want a simple, slow life, but I would really be squandering my considerable talents of complication if I ever got to simplicity. I mean, don't I owe it to myself to continue my pursuit of anxiety, over-commitment, and over-analysis of every situation? With my high-strung giftedness I could seriously be one of the world's foremost high-functioning paranoiacs.

I am so gifted at complicating my life in my own mind that I can stress out even in a near-perfect situation. Even now. Even when: I don't have a boss; I don't have a schedule; I don't have an alarm clock; I don't have a lease; I don't have a mortgage; I don't have a bad romantic relationship; I don't have any health problems; I don't have any large debts; I don't have an oppressive government; I'm not impoverished; I'm not threatened; I'm not lonely; and - shoot - I just got a Blackberry with an unlimited data plan. I have no concrete reasons to stress out. But I do it continually. It's like I invent things to worry about. I seek them out in the crevices between my thoughts, my memories and my desires.

But I want to turn over a new leaf in the New Year. Since I have found myself envying the simple life of a horse, and since the New Year is a good time to try and talk yourself out of self-destructive habits, and since talking yourself out of something involves a lot of repetition, I wrote a note to myself for 2010 and put it on this blog, where it will always be readable via my new smartphone:

Dear Self,

This year is the year for you to CHILL OUT! You live in the wealthiest and one of the most stable countries on the face of the earth. Ever. You're healthy. Your spouse is amazing and generous and understanding beyond his own best interests. Unlike a horse, and unlike many people who have concrete reasons to stress out, you can roam and pursue whatever you like. You can have simplicity. Or you can have breathless activity. You can save up money and retire and write and make art and go to Europe and come back and buy a house in a new city or ramble around in a pop-up camper until you have children or go to grad school again or just work and save up for a guided trip in Patagonia. You are not in need and you are not in peril. STOP WORRYING ABOUT EVERYTHING, SELF! You have a great life! And until you are beset by a series of tragedies that are worthy of anxiety, please, please, PLEASE just enjoy your life and the peaceful bounty of opportunities available to you everyday.

And, by the way, please stop thinking about the fact that 2010 means you've been out of high school for ten years. And stop accusing yourself of not living up to your potential. If you were bored and stuck in a quagmire of your own making, this would be a valid criticism. But since you are, in reality, living your dream life (almost - since you lack owning a parking garage in Tokyo) of happy-go-lucky rambling with Daniel, get over yourself. Stop fretting that, should you encounter a group of high school acquaintances, you will need to shamefacedly burn your "Most Likely to Succeed" photo from your senior yearbook while they mockingly snicker at your resume. Remember, you are actually quite happy with your life. Isn't that what matters? (Yes, it is, in case you are confused.)

Yours truly,

Yours Truly

Well, there you have it. Straight from the horse's mouth. And "you" in this case is Daniel, since he is the one who will inevitably pull this page up for me to read when I am crying with anxiety over the blown-out-of-proportion complexities of my life at some point(s) in the future.

On the Twelfth Day of Christmas...a Gen-Y Christmas Carol

2009-12-25T05:00:00.008-06:00

Issue 12 of 12 - The Twelve Days of Christmas Letters

Dear friends,

This year we wrote you all a story.

Peace,

Billi and Daniel

A Gen-Y Christmas Carol

Once upon a time a boy and girl were walking down an alley. They saw a rose sitting atop a water meter. The boy picked up the rose. The girl, thinking it was a memorial for a skateboarding child who ran into the water meter and died, told him to put it back and avoid bad juju, but the boy would not. Instead the boy untied a small ring that was fastened to the stem of the rose. The girl thought he was trying to break the rose because he was angry at the now-dead skateboarder for something. Then the boy dropped down on two knees and asked the girl to marry him. Understanding the situation at last, she hopped around in a gleeful circle and said yesyesyesyesyesyesyes. That was the 10th of July, 2002.

Things rolled merrily along. The boy and the girl got married. They honeymooned in enchanting Missouri. They went on a few long zen trips. They had a rare species of moth - L. bildanicus - named after them by a friend. They learned about the business side of the wig industry. They learned to make latte art. They won a trip to Las Vegas that they couldn't take because they were underage and underincome. They went rolling naked in the snow. One of them - won't say which one - read "Twilight" three times in a row in one week. And the girl changed her name a couple of times, unable to decide whether she liked the hyphen. (She did in the end.) The boy and the girl also made a lot of wonderful friends. Like Manifest Destiny, the special people in their lives spread from one coast to the other promising bounteous goodness for a long time to come.

Oh, their adventures were grand and varied. They were never without a joyful sun on the horizon and bright path before them. As part-time bohemians, they were immensely successful (meaning they could keep returning to it part of the time). But on Christmas Eve 2009, they found themselves on a precipice of decision. The ledge before them presented a risky but exhilarating bohemian flight of fancy, a flight to an enchanted elfish land. The long slope leading away from the ledge was steady and financially prudent, probably the route most people would chose. They deliberated long and hard about their next move. Should they jump? (That would mean not buying Christmas presents but going to the Land of the Elves.) Or should they take the safe way down? (Which would leave funds for Christmas shopping and becoming landed gentry, but cancel the frozen transect.)

As they stood at the ledge deliberating, they heard an accordion wheezing nearby. Suddenly a giant, long-faced man - certainly a Son of Lee Marvin - was standing beside them. "You gotta get behind the mule," he rasped, "in the morning and plow." As he spoke, they were transported back in time to May 2009, to their old loft apartment. They watched a scene unfold as the Son put a long-fingernailed hand on each of their shoulders. It was well past midnight. The girl was sitting on the floor, organizing bills, agonizing over piles of receipts, looking with longing at the Let's Go: Europe volume sitting on her bookshelf, then stifling a yawn. The boy was hunched over the keyboard, pecking away at a term paper. He rubbed his red eyes and shook his head to clear the drowse. Neither of them would go to sleep that night, for both had deadlines to meet and both had to be on their way to work at 4:30 a.m. "Take my drink with a little drop of poison," said the Son of Lee Marvin, at which point they were suddenly back at the precipice, alone. The boy and the girl, remembering the sleepless scene in the loft, shuddered at the thought of getting back behind that mule.

They were not alone for long, however, before a train of Marfans, led by a grizzled "Screw You!"-ing conductor, materialized and sauntered jovially onto the ledge. "We're from Texas," said the weathered captain. The Marfans all shrugged as casually as indie darlings, some lifting a friendly wave, some just bobbing their chins slightly. And in a blink the entire party was leaning on the rail at Padre's. The music was loud. The girl and the boy discovered fresh margaritas in their mits. They basked in the pleasant room with its colorful lights and smiling faces. "Just trying to get home?" asked a friendly Marfan in blue straw cowboy hat. "Well they ain't in jail!" the captain answered for them, now striding the stage. The boy and the girl looked at each other. The boy replied, "Not yet. It just sounds nasty." The girl didn't know if he meant home or jail. The captain cackled on the stage. And as quick as before, the boy and the girl were alone on the precipice.

The girl looked at the boy with confused eyes. He looked ready to sail into the air. "But wait," she whispered, "I'm not sure." Just then, a small impish woman with a coy grin giggled from her perch in a nearby tree. She was dressed as a swan. "Human behavior, " she laughed to herself, shaking her head. She sprang from the tree and transformed mid-fall into an actual swan. She grabbed the boy in one swan-talon and the girl in the other. She flew them over subdivisions, where every house looked the same and every backyard was occupied by an abandoned dog and a rusted swing set. She flew them past office towers, where tired executives stayed late alone for overseas conference calls. She flew them over a cold dark ocean, where fishing boats bobbed and tankers created islands of light. As they flew past the captain's window of one tanker, they saw a man holding a photograph of his long-missed family. Finally they flew over a blue-white drift of evergreens. They landed gently beside a glowing castle made of snow. They could hear their own voices laughing inside the frozen walls. "Declare independence," said the swan maiden. And once again, the boy and the girl were left alone on the ledge by the precipice.

They looked around. They were indeed alone this time. Before them lay the thrilling drop. To the side, the gradual slope. Then the boy turned his shoulders square to the ledge and stood up straight. An amused grin warmed his face. The girl turned that way too, but kept her eyes on him. He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. Then he pointed to the gradual slope.

"Have we ever gone that way?" he asked. The girl's eyebrows crinkled together in response. "I guess not," she said. He smiled at her and grabbed her hand. She smiled back. "Merry Christmas," she whispered. Holding hands all the while, they took a running start and flung themselves off the precipice.

THE END

On the Eleventh Day of Christmas...Guns. Lots of Guns.

2009-12-24T23:01:00.006-06:00

Issue 11 of 12 - The Twelve Days of Christmas Letters

Dearest friends,

This year we have watched a lot of Bruce Willis movies and listened to a lot of Tom Waits music. In homage to these treasured pasttimes, we decided to send out a cheery little Christmas poem to help spread the holiday spirit. And thank you, Clement C. Moore, for the great template. And if you think that writing/posting this was a horrible idea, please say so and I will deflect blame/pass the comments along to my Waitsian advisor/husband, who laughed out loud and thereby encouraged me to do this.

Peace, love and self-defense,

Billi and Daniel

A Visit from St. Nickel Ass

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
The Grays were imbibing with reruns of House.
The socklings we wore were soaked through with champagne
In hopes that our soggy steps would pull up the stains.

No children were there, just our five adult selves,
Some dressed as sugar-plums, some dressed as elves.
And D in his sweater, and I in my baret,
Had just popped the cork on a fine cabernet.

When out on the lawn there arose such a stink,
We sprang from the fainting couch unsure what to think.
We flipped on the lights and queued up 9-1-1
As we set down our drinks and thought, “What’s to be done?”

The moon wasn’t out, but a lurid red glow
Fleckled and melted the new fallen snow.
What we saw in the yard was a bonfire pit
That threw off a brown smoke that stank like shit.

A little old hobo with a beard full of trash
Was kicking and cackling at the stench-making ash.
His comerades were reindeer, all pierced and tattooed,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called to his brood:

"Now Dingbat! Now, Dangle! Now, Pricker and Vixen!
On, Sniffy! On, Gary! On D-Wight and Shixen!
To the end of the walk! To the satellite dish!
Since it's freezing tonight, we’ll glaze everything with piss!"

As fishes, they say, the eight deer and the drifter,
Gulped brackish drafts down, each from his own snifter.
Then up to the house-top his posse they flew,
While the bearded fat troll danced in the smoking poo.

And then, from the roof, I heard a faint trickling
As, prancing and pawing, the deer went to tinkling.
As I drew in my head and was turning in terror,
Through the doorway St Nickel Ass came like a nightmare.

He was dressed all in rags, from his head to his feetsies,
And his clothes were all tarnished with urine and feces.
A herd of black roaches were clutched to his back,
And his smile was littered with slimy strings of black .

His eyes, how they glared! His fangs, how pointed!
His nails were like talons, all blood-red anointed!
His brown-spittle mouth was stretched out in a grin,
That leaked greasy icicles all down his chin.

The stump of a crack pipe he held in his tooth,
And in puerile tones he asked, “Got a photo booth?”
He shot me a dark Dostoevskian smile,
Then scratched himself roughly and hacked up some bile.

He was scrawny and bent, veins like roots on his arms;
Bruises, gashes and stab wounds completed his charms.
A wink of his eye and a lick of his lips
Undid me. So I pumped him full of two clips.

He spoke not a word, but went straight to the ground,
And the foyer was filled with his sewagey blood.
My guests were amazed at my reflexive speed,
And taking my cue, they gunned up for the steeds.

We sprang to the lawn, to his gang gave a yell,
And when the thugs staggered toward us, we gave them hell.
And they heard us exclaim, as they fell one by one,
"Hey, Rudolph! Ho-Ho-Ho! Now I have a machine gun!"

On the Tenth Day of Christmas...Spelunking

2009-12-23T11:39:00.001-06:00

Issue 10 of 12 - The Twelve Days of Christmas Letter

Dear Friends,

We'd like to take the opportunity in this Christmas season to introduce you all to a wonderful new-to-you sport: spelunking. You may also know this sport by the name "cave diving."

Daniel and I now hold elected positions in the Spelunking Club of America. (That's the cave where we were inaugurated in October.) So let me tell you about spelunking. It is dirty and sometimes very smelly and often a bit scary, but you discover all sorts of interesting things. Cave art. Fossils. Old moccasins and arrowheads. Guano. You get to dangle by a rope into a dark hole. You get to be in an environment that lacks weather. Really it's perfect for hermits like us.

We found this painting on a spelunking trip in Kentucky. It's at least 2,000 years old, and it's in way better shape than the Isaiah Scroll. Anyhow, because of our natural knack for fitting into small, dark, dank spaces without freaking out, we were elected secretary and junior color guard of the SCA. I know what you're thinking: "Didn't Daniel make Billi promise that she would NEVER get them into an elected volunteer position, EVER AGAIN, after the Grad Council?" Truth is, folks, that Daniel wanted to be the secretary. He felt it might improve his penmanship. Anyhow, we can take you cave diving anywhere now. We're certified. Just don't wear nice clothes. And don't yell, or you'll cause a cave-in, like this one we caused in France in 2005.

Other news: Bo got married to Ingrid. They bought a ranch in Venezuela, but it has since been redistributed to "the people," so they are in Austin trying to organize a plot to blackmail Chavez into giving it back. Jack, in one of his less entrepreneurial moves, is working as a manager at a golf course. They make him cut the greens with scissors and ruler. But he gets to play for free, so he likes it. And his arms dealing business isn't suffering too much. Mom and Dad have started dressing like Dr. Seuss characters every day. (Ahem, see below.) I think they need to retire. And Daniel's folks are starting a line-dancing club in East Texas. Daniel's dad says that people need more entertainment out there, since all they do - the people he works with in East Texas - is get drunk and beat each other up on Friday nights.

Anyhow, things are good with us. Leave us a note to let us know how you're doing. We'll be on the roam for a couple months more, then we'll settle down someplace prettier while Daniel finishes school. (And someplace closer to some good caves.)

Peace, love and sonar,

Billi and Daniel

On the Ninth Day of Christmas...Pinatas

2009-12-22T02:37:00.000-06:00

Issue 9 of 12 - The Twelve Days of Christmas Letters

Dear friends, family and interworld strangers,

Christmas is only a few days away now. Daniel and I rolled into Dallas last night, full of thoughts about visiting loved one and eating good food. We're at my in-laws' house, a fabulous place to come home to, and it's given us the opportunity to reflect on the past year. Let me tell you what - it's been incredible!

It all started in January, of course. On the morning of January 5, as I was leaving for work in my shiny new Christmas loot - Anthropologie pants and cute blue t-straps - a bum approached me. He said he would predict my future for a quarter. Since that's cheaper than a Zoltar machine, I coughed up a quarter. He said to me, "The pearl is in the pond." Then he walked away. This meant bubkus to me. So I got in my car and drove off to my office in Uptown, musing about fantastic interpretations, but not concerned. I spent the day writing about Jessica Simpson hairstyles.

Well, two weeks later, his prediction came true, and it changed the course of our lives forever. I think.

There used to be a jazz club downtown called Pearl. Live music every night. Mellow. Daniel and I went past it almost every day in transit to work or school. Well, January 19, it caught fire. DFD drowned the place in water and foam. Bad for Pearl. Good for us. Because January 20, a friend of ours - who was a partner in Pearl - offered to bankroll any project we could come up with. So we decided to build an art community center in downtown Dallas.

We bought the old Dallas High School (well, our friend did) and have been in the process of converting it into a creative community space - workshops, studios, apartments, performance spaces, classrooms and a cafe, all in one building. (The cafe we decided to call The Pond, "Where all the fish come to drink.") The site is perfect, because it's right downtown and, better yet, right next to a DART station. It's a huge project, but it's going to be amazing. We spent the fall driving around the country visiting with people about what works and what doesn't work in other art community centers. And the only common denominator with every successful place was:

PINATAS.

As we've been renovating, we're trying to keep pinatas in mind. We think about whacking papier mache as we whack asbestos out of the walls. We've even had a few gatherings to see how people were creatively influenced after busting pinatas. The results have convinced us that pinatas are necessary for a creative environment. For example, this is a JPMorgan Chase accountant under the influence of a pinata:

For the past few months we've been living in Marfa, trying to recruit creative types to come out and be part of the community. We've had a few commitments, but we need a few more. The place won't be up and running until next summer - just in time to host my 10-year high school reunion. I was Sr. Class President, and it'll be nice to have something cool to show off to my classmates.

Anyhow, we'd love it if you would consider joining the community, even though it's in Dallas. Let us know if you want to join, or if you just want to come to (or organize) the Wylie High School Class of 2000 Ten Year Reunion. It'll be a potluck if it's left up to me.

Merry Christmas to all!

Billi and Daniel

On the Eighth Day of Christmas...Tumbleweeds

2009-12-21T05:00:00.004-06:00

Issue 8 of 12 - The Twelve Days of Christmas Letters

Feliz Navidad, Amigos!

So, how was 2009? Good? Spectacular? Stressful? Breezy? Our year has been GREAT! Not only have we come out ahead because of the recession, but we've also learned some valuable life lessons. Let me share some of this cornucopia of beatific living with you.

Life Lesson Uno: In hard times, even guinea pigs can't find work.

January was a bump. I left my job at the wig factory to concentrate on my latte art skills, which was satisfying but not necessarily financially prudent. Then Daniel who had been job hunting for months - bless his soul - got rejected from his dream job. He had applied, with high hopes, to work on a bone density study for NASA. The job consisted of lying on a table, tilted 3 degrees so that the subject's head was at the lower elevation, 24 hours a day for 4 months. The study would simulate the effects of a zero gravity environment on bone density. The drawback was, of course, permanent loss of bone mass. But the benefit was a 4-month-long all-expenses-paid vacation in an astronaut lab. PLUS $18,000. PLUS all-you-can-surf Internet access and a free laptop for the duration of the tilt table adventure. Daniel was the perfect candidate: an online college student, a Finnish-American citizen, a healthy male between the ages of 18 and 35...but, alas, not perfect enough. He was beat out by a prof from Yale who was going to use the time to write a book about Jim Lovell's contributions to the American psyche. (Suck-up.) And - just like it happened to Lance Bass - poof went Daniel's space program dreams.

Life Lesson Dos: There's always money in the Banana Stand.

So we eked out our spring working at caffeine distributariums. Daniel, additionally, worked as a "statue man" near the Kennedy Memorial on the weekends. And I had the good fortune of finding a litter of Yorkies in a cardboard box on our stoop, which I sold on eBay for $5,000. We briefly deliberated, "Do we put it away for a rainy day or invest it in our dream?" Dreams, duh. So we bought a food cart, decked it out to make banana splits and dipped bananas, rolled it down Main Street, and (along with the lone hot dog vendor in downtown Dallas) irked the high brow ristorantes while raking in the bucks! The success of Mellow Yellow Dippers allowed us to quit our coffee jobs. And by the end of the summer, it was doing so well we hired some homeschoolers to run the show while we went on a road trip.

Life Lesson Tres: Don't leave homeschoolers in charge of your dreams.

They lack normal social skills and have been taught questionable forms of arithmetic. One of our homeschoolers had Tourette's. The other only had 7 fingers, and therefore could only count to 7 while wearing shoes, and therefore short-changed customers who needed more than $7.07 in change, and only put 7 peanut pieces on sundaes, and left work after 7 hours. It sounds bad, I know, and IT WAS. Worse yet, when we got back to town in late October, they had BURNED THE BANANA STAND TO THE GROUND! It was nothing but 7 charred ladles in a 7-foot wide pool of chocolatey tar on the sidewalk. Fortunately, we had $5,000 leftover from the insurance settlement after we settled with the Dallas Fire Department for their services and replaced a few charred awnings on Hotel Indigo.

Life Lesson Cuatro: You can always count on good friends.

Some friends of ours, hearing about our scorched dreams, made us an offer we couldn't refuse - a share in their tumbleweed interior design/mail-order business (Tumblemail.com). They're good people, so we went in with our $5,000. Now we're living a modest-but-delightful life out in Tumbleland. We harvest about 15 tumbleweeds per week and create installations in homes and businesses throughout the state. Tumblemail doesn't net nearly as many orders as the design biz, but we've sent out a few this month. Folks giving tumbleweeds for Christmas. Folks sending tumbleweeds as romantic tokens. Folks ordering tumbleweeds for voodoo ceremonies. Folks using tumbleweeds for Old West theme parties. Our work involves a lot of travel, but we're used to that. Plus, our business partner friends are really the cream of the crop. They even have a pet badger. Tamed it themselves.

So, as you can see, we've definitely finished the year better than we started it. Things are tumbling along at a happy hum. Hope your life is peaches and cream!

Buen suerte,

Billi and Daniel

On the Seventh Day of Christmas...the Russian Mafia

2009-12-20T05:00:00.004-06:00

Issue 7 of 12 - The Twelve Days of Christmas Letters

Howdy friends! Merry Christmas!

Sorry - this is gonna be a short update - we're on the run from the Russian mafia.

1. We're alive.

2. We no longer live in Dallas.

3. Daniel almost lost his lower lip. And he did lose his plaid wool hat.

4. I lost the pinky toe on my left foot. And my red suede gloves. Sadness.

5. We met Abraham Lincoln. Seriously. The man is tall and monkey-faced.

6. We also met an insomniac who draws pictures of Abraham Lincoln and carves tiny armchairs out of soft stone when he can't sleep. When he hasn't slept in a long time, he draws bullet holes in Lincoln's head.

7. We hung out at the haunted home of the first prime minister of Canada. The man fancied he could commune with the spirits of lost loved ones, like his mother. He also bought up pieces of ruins, such as the one below, to decorate his estate. Or to invite more ghosts - who knows.

8. We bought a new camera. Unfortunately, we took photos of a mob hit with it, and for this we are being pursued.

9. We are hiding out with an NPR host and a guy who wants to make slippers out of javelina skins at a place called the Goat Head. That is all we can tell you right now.

10. We learned to play shuffle board.

11. We learned to speak Swahili. Yes, fluently. We had some time to kill.

12. We learned to say, "I'm innocent!" and "Let me go!" and "I know nothing!" and "It was an accident!" and "We deleted all the pictures!" and "Mercy!" and "Uncle!" in Russian.

13. We learned how to buy fake passports and use them.

14. We worked on some poetry.

15. We had gluten-free pizza in rural Maine.

16. We discovered that you cannot sleep overnight in rest stops in Vermont. They even lock up the bathrooms.

17. We got beat up by Sean Hannity. He works for the Russian mafia. Plus, he was upset that we were associates of an NPR person.

18. We do NOT know why Guy Ritchie movies are so true to life.

19. Miles Davis was my great uncle.

20. Daniel's great uncle - Fay the Kid Gambler - was in Clyde Barrow's gang.

OK. Please help us if we come to you, and especially if we are panting and/or bleeding. Enjoy the holidays!

Later, we hope,

Billi and Daniel

On the Sixth Day of Christmas...an Irish Poet

2009-12-19T05:00:00.025-06:00

Issue 6 of 12 - The Twelve Days of Christmas Letters

Dearest Friends, Acquaintances and Relations,

Festive greetings to you all! We just wanted to drop a line to let you all know, if in all your self-absorption you care, that we are well. That legal problem has been taken care of, as well as that hush-hush mysterious rash. Although my husband still walks around with a bodkin in his vest, just in case anything should arise. I warn you, don't startle him in the dark.

Additionally, he has become an Irish poet/moody model. I just finished my career move to celebritante-dom. We bought a pink mansion - isn't it charming? - on Swiss Avenue, which is regularly featured in a reality TV show. We see to that. We also got an orphan. Her name is Priscilla the Orphan, and she is a little ugly, but she seems to have a good heart. At the very least, she is able to keep up with the landscaping and chamber pots. And - thank heavens - no one has assumed she was our own flesh and blood.

Most other things are still, you know, the same old same old. We don't go to movies. We don't eat much wheat. We don't use deodorant. We ride our posh little Vespas down to the Whole Foods Market and binge on expensive cheese (sampled for free, of course). We have a friend in the cheese and wine department named Spuds. He is happy to let us mooch - he knows we have wantonly extravagant parties to throw every weekend, and he knows we will invite him if he filches some Old Amsterdam and Dom for the event.

Hm. Let's see...ah, yes. We dismantled and sold that old "Crystal Palace" we bought. You know the one, from that shabby park in Madrid, built back in...whenever, the 19th century-ish, you know, whenever those sorts of things were popular. The one in which we had that amazing/unspeakable party four years ago, with the camels and the giant Venus fly traps. Well, we put it up on Craigslist. Helena Bonham Carter bought it as a Christmas gift for her dark-souled hubby. Charming woman. Very odd. Left us with a ration of "Eye of Newt" jam. One of you will be getting that in a White Elephant exchange, rest assured. Or rest creeped out, as the case may be.

Do pop in sometime. Our conversation is as bubbly as our champagne. And we promise not to bring up the fact that we are wildly wealthy and you are as poor as our little Priscilla the Orphan.

Ta-ta!

Angelica and Hermann Cornelius VonGray, Esq.

On the Fifth Day of Christmas...Vampires

2009-12-18T05:15:00.017-06:00

Issue 5 of 12 - The Twelve Days of Christmas Letters

Howdy folks!

Well, Merry Christmas! Happy Hanukkah! Feliz Navidad! We hope everyone is rounding out 2009 in high spirits, like we are. You all know I'm not real skilled at keeping in touch frequently, but I do want to share with you what's going on in our lives. You're all important to us and I hope my lax contact hasn't given you the wrong impression. Anyhow, we put together a month-by-month highlight reel for the year. Some of it is a little boring, but, you know, c'est la vie. So...

JANUARY: We redecorated our loft with a jungle theme. I quit my full-time job in order to devote myself to the task and tend to the monkeys. Daniel wore his Tarzan loin cloth (given to him by Bo) for the entire month. Well, not to work, since he's a bike commuter. But as soon as he got home, the loin cloth went on. The monkeys loved it. I think it made them feel really welcome.

FEBRUARY: The monkeys escaped through an open window. We were OK with it. They threw their feces. Our place was starting to stink. Luckily we had never paid the pet deposit on them.

MARCH: I tried to book a trip to London and Florence. My cousin Grace was "studying" (see photo) in Florence. And Daniel's cousin Gabby lives in London. But transatlantic communication didn't work out in time. In the end, I stayed home and listened to Ween albums during the entire 10 days that I'd taken off for the trip.

APRIL: Daniel was informed he would be getting a promotion at work to Lead Juggler as soon as the then-Lead Juggler transferred out. We did our taxes and were excited to discover that we were, in fact, above the poverty line in 2008.

MAY: I was attacked by the Coffee Table Bandit. He was prowling in Deep Ellum and Lakewood at that time. You may have read about it in the paper. He clocked me with a mid-century side table while I was riding my bike downtown one day. I have a scar on my right arm, but fortunately all he got from me was the pom-pom off of my sock.

JUNE: Daniel started working as Lead Juggler at the Fairmont. He only chipped one tooth. (I was really proud of him for that.) We also got a pet python. We named him Fred. He matched the jungle theme, we thought. Fred liked to snuggle.

JULY: We watched fireworks on the roof. On July 8th, Fred drowned in the toilet. We found him there when we came home from a show at All Good Cafe. At this point we decided that jungle theme pets were not the right pets for us. We went out that night and got memorial tattoos of Fred on our thighs. (That's Daniel's.)

AUGUST: Since our lease was up at the end of the month, and since we couldn't stand to be in the bathroom with the ghost of Fred the Python, we decided to move out of our loft. We considered buying a single-wide in Austin until I got a staph infection from hanging out at Double Wide. It was a bad omen. Then we thought, if we were going to the trouble of moving out, we might as well quit our jobs and go traveling, too.

SEPTEMBER: We drove up the east coast. I bought an Uncle Sam costume.

OCTOBER: We went to Laura's wedding in Vermont. (Isn't she a movie star?) Neil Young was playing at her reception. He thought it was Farm Aid, since it was a fun party in a big tent on a farm. We also drove to Canada. We met Dana Carvey at a cafe in Quebec. (Daniel's double - what are the chances?) I was wearing my Uncle Sam costume just to rankle the Quebecois, and Dana appreciated that. Then we drove back to Dallas.

NOVEMBER: We drove to West Texas. We met these people with a spare room, and they offered it to us in exchange for blood. We agreed. It sounded like an adventure. Turns out they believed they were vampires. But they only wanted a pint per week per person, so we could accommodate them.

DECEMBER: We've been taking iron supplements to make up for all the blood-letting, but it seems we are becoming highly magnetized. I get very nervous about holding knives. Daniel has a shed that he paints in all day. We removed most of the sharp projectiles from it. We suspect that the vamps sorta hope we get cut, but they are altogether cordial. We'll stay with them until the end of January.

So that's been our year, in a large nutshell. We'll be back in Dallas for Christmas. We look a little pale, so if you see us be prepared for that. But really, everything is great. Good as can be. We miss you all! Happy Holidays!

Peace,

Billi and Daniel

On the Fourth Day of Christmas...Tim Allen

2009-12-17T05:15:00.008-06:00

Issue 4 of 12 - The Twelve Days of Christmas Letters

Aloha amigos!

Daniel has "Christmas Island" stuck in his head right now. But hey - it's better than a nail! (Long story...happened in February.)

Well, our Annual Holiday Gossip Rag may not be as upbeat this year as it usually is. We've had some trouble. I'd blame the economy, but really it's just dumb luck. See, Daniel went to prison in March and I've been working as a charwoman in Huntsville since May. I'm at the prison right now so we can write the Gossip Rag together. I know that most Christmas letter writers would come up with a pleasant euphemism to cover up this unfortunate fact, like, "My husband will be, um, traveling for business until next year and oh! his career is really taking off!" But I'm not one of those women. I just lay it on the line. No secrets between friends. That's my motto.

Daniel wants to explain his circumstances: "It was a simple case of mistaken identity. Daniel Gray is a common name, and apparently it's also common for Daniel Grays to have bushy sideburns. So some Daniel Gray with bushy sideburns was wanted for racketeering and kidnapping. I accidentally set off the alarms at Sam's Club because I had forgotten about a Tim Allen DVD I'd put in my pocket. They called the popo without letting me just apologize and pay for it. Billi's cousin Storee works at that Sam's, and she couldn't even help me. And there was some other Daniel Gray with this racketeering/kidnapping warrant. I was sunk. The State of Texas used to require a 10-point ID match for suspects, but Rick Perry and Greg Abbott have cut it back to a 2-point ID match to save some money, so since I matched on 1) name and 2) sideburns, I'm in the clink. But for the record: I am innocent and SO ARE MY SIDEBURNS, BILLI!"

Luckily, Daniel has a tough guy tattoo and a physique that says, "This fella can do some damage." My friend Todd confirmed this fact. Plus he's finishing his associate's degree behind bars. So he's doing alright in prison. He's handling it with enterprise and humor, just like his role model, Tim Allen. The Innocence Project is reviewing his case, so hopefully it won't be too much longer.

Let's see...so for some good news for the year? We got a Mac. It's divine. It was a gift from some friends. I figured out that I'm probably allergic to wheat, and that consuming it has been the cause of most of my skin problems in adulthood. So my skin is doing much better now that I'm on a wheat-free diet. And we got to meet the former Prime Minister of Canada, Joe Clark. He's taken an interest in Daniel's case. He's a real nice guy. He even brought Danno a bottle of maple syrup for his prison coffee. Oh, and Bo - my brother who designs comic books and fart toys - got married. His wife, Ingrid, is a marathon runner. She's wonderful.

So that's the news from here. Drop me a line and let me know how you're doing. If you want to write to Daniel, his address is: HV Unit #1954186-GR, Gray, Daniel B., 815 12th Street, Huntsville, Texas 77342.

Peace,

Billi and Daniel

On the Third Day of Christmas...Rusty Nails

2009-12-16T05:15:00.009-06:00

Issue 3 of 12 - The Twelve Days of Christmas Letters

Seasons Greetings!

Well, it's that time of year again, when we all think about elves and give change to the Salvation Army bell ringers and wear cheesy sweaters and eat ubiquitous sweets. And that means, of course, that it's time for Billi and Daniel's Annual Holiday Gossip Rag. And we've got some good gossip for you this year.

But before we get to that, whatever rumors you've heard, I am not pregnant. And I am not a pregnant alcoholic. I was just going around with a pillow under my shirt because Jennifer Phillips dared me to. And because she thought it would be funny to see the reactions when I ordered five Rusty Nails in a row while were hanging out at Barcadia. As a matter of fact, we won't try to have kids until we each have a terminal degree. And a bit more stability in our lifestyle.

OK. On to the gossip. In 2008 I started writing for Wigs.com, HairExtensions.com, HairTools.com and CostumeStore.com. But, as you may know, I quit that job in January 2009 to work on a murder mystery novel, loosely based on my own family. Well, that went along swimmingly for a couple months, until I started receiving anonymous threats from someone with a German accent. I won't repeat what he said, but he convinced me to "vatch vhat heets dze page" lest some misfortune befall me or my loved ones. My family is several generations removed from Germany. But mark my words: I PROMISE THE NOVEL IS KAPUT! I PROMISE! STOP POURING BLOODY SAUERKRAUT ON MY MOTHER'S ORNAMENTAL ROCKS!

So, we no longer live in Dallas, but our stuff is there. We've moved to New York City. We've got a 320 sq. ft. efficiency in Chelsea, so we only have room for clothes, a few dishes and an air mattress. We can see the Hudson from our window - note the view of our building from High Line Park. Daniel has been working real hard on his artwork. He spends every weekend standing outside of Penn Station selling small works on paper. It's a start.

As for me, I'm ghostwriting for a conservative pundit. (Emily, please don't disown me - I needed the work and they went into a state of rapture because of my Criswell background.) It's not really honest honest work, but at least I get to mock Glenn Beck since he is my guy's chief competition for ratings.

If you ever need a place to stay in New York, send us a note and we'll roll out our best sleeping bag for you. We'll be here for a while. I PROMISE! NOT IN AUSTIN! NOT IN THE FREAKING BAVARIAN HILL COUNTRY!

Peace folks - AND GIVE US PEACE! IT'S KAPUT!

Billi and Daniel

On the Second Day of Christmas...Ralph Nader

2009-12-15T05:15:00.001-06:00

Issue 2 of 12 - The Twelve Days of Christmas Letters

Greetings Friends and Family!

Well, we hope you've had a great 2009. We have had a pretty great year overall. I know what you're thinking: "How could they have had a great year? What with the economy and swine flu and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the canceling of Pushing Daisies?" But folks, it's true. The year's been great! Let me explain.

First of all, Pushing Daisies is consolingly available on DVD. Second, neither of us have embarked on proper careers yet, so our economic situation didn't really change with the recession. (With or without a recession, our M.O. is working disposable jobs until we've saved up enough to NOT work for a while.) Third, neither of us got swine flu or sent off to war - we just got facial MRSA infections, which only resulted in scarring and a slight loss of immunity. And fourth, we've checked a few dreams off of our life to-do list.

Dream No. 1: Billi wrote a novel.
You may have heard of it. It's called Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us! by Ralph Nader. He, of course, gets all the credit. But it's my own damn fault. I started working on it as soon as Lehman Brothers went under. I even quit my day job in January, I was so confident of the book's success. In February I was sitting at a Starbucks with my manuscript waiting to meet with a publishing agent. He showed up - he had a crooked handlebar mustache, which should have tipped me off - and after he'd laid out the process, I excused myself to use the restroom, since I'd been drinking coffee for an hour. Well, when I came back, he was gone, the manuscript was gone, and all I got for it was his fake mustache stuck on the lid of my latte. I wonder if that's how it went down with Harper Lee's second novel. At least I have the satisfaction of knowing that it's doing well for Nader.

Dream No. 2: Daniel sold a piece of artwork for over $1,000.
This is going to be a little gross, so if you're squeamish, skip this graf. Daniel, as many of you know, loves art. He would love to subsist on selling art. This was a one-time-only kind of sale, but he was still pretty excited about it. So here's what happened. We're walking around in New York City (we went there in September before Laura's wedding) and this sharp-dressed man comes up to us just transfixed by Daniel's legs. (He has very shapely legs and was wearing shorts.) Turns out, he's a doctor. He's also a collector of human leather. He sees Daniel's whistle tattoo on his right calf, and he wants it. Not like he wants a tattoo like Daniel's. No, he wants to cut off the flesh with the tattoo and add it to his collection. He offers a thousand bucks and hands us his business card. Says to think about it and call him with an answer. Then he walks off. Daniel decides, "The tattoo only cost $120 and this will make a great story. Plus, he's a doctor. What could go wrong?" So we go to his office that night and he cuts off the tattoo. In the end he gave Daniel $1,500 just for being so cool about it. And it healed up perfectly.

Dream No. 3: We moved to the desert.
Ever since we discovered the high desert of the Big Bend area of Texas, we've wanted to live there. It is beautiful, one of the most splendid places on the face of the earth. Well, we have friends in Marfa who have been very supportive of our desire to move out there. And they found out about this new government program that provides free room and board and weapons training to qualified volunteers. So they told us about it. And since we were planning on having a long break and doing some weapons training anyways, it sounded right up our alley. So we applied, were accepted and are now part of Operation Saint Anthony. It's great - we each get our own tower out along the border, as many weapons and rounds as we can carry, high-powered binoculars, and all the Lone Star beer and tater tots we can consume. Plus, that vast blue sky. It's pretty perfect.

So, like I said, we've had a pretty great year. Let us know how you're doing. We can't come down from our towers until May 2010, but let us know if you want to rendezvous in Alpine or something in June. We can probably sneak out a cool gun for you.

Peace, love and bullets,

Billi and Daniel

On the First Day of Christmas...a Snuggie Cult

2009-12-14T11:55:00.004-06:00

Issue 1 of 12 - The Twelve Days of Christmas Letters

Greetings Friends and Family!

It's that time of year again - holiday newsletter time. And once again, Daniel and I have had a very exciting year. Well, to be honest, it didn't really start exciting but it got that way eventually. In January we undertook the publishing of a murder mystery involving all of the first pets - from George Washington's dragon Thor to the currently reigning first pet, Bobama. Sadly, we are two of only seven people interested in such a series. We have 993 extra copies if you need one for leveling a table or something. Let us know.

Anyhow, with that flop behind us, we decided to play it safe for a little while and just work at Starbucks. Both of us. At different stores. That worked until, coincidentally, we both had severe reactions to caffeine on the same day in August and had to quit. We can't even breath in the delightful scent of coffee anymore without going into anaphylactic shock.

As you might have heard, a global financial crisis started back in 2008. This made it difficult for either of us to find any decaffeinated jobs to replace Starbucksing. So, unable to find employment, we decided that the most pragmatic way to keep ourselves fed and sheltered was to join a cult. So we did.

We now live in Marfa, Texas, at the Penny Farm, home to the world's second Cooperative Compound for Snuggie Enthusiasts. (The first is, as you would expect, in Newark. Not to be confused with the Slanket Center in Hoboken.) The cult is nice. We share meals and take turns playing with the dogs and washing the Snuggies for the evening offering. And our cultmates are the nicest people anyone could ask for. They even host couch surfers in the Masters' House.

For us, 2010 looks to be a great year. Please come visit us anytime. You only have to wear a Snuggie for an hour everyday if you're a visitor. The Penny Farm is 3 miles west of town on Highway 90. Oh, and when you get here, ask for Snugilli and Snuganiel, not Billi and Daniel.

Peace to all of you,

S & S