Forced Migration

this is a video I made for an group art exhibit last year. (no audio).

Hiking the Smokies

Although I'm not sick of winter (it's been eerily mild so far)
I am in need of a road trip. I wish I were hiking the smokies again.

Winter garden care

My neighbor finally gave up and let go of summer and admitted it was winter, by covering his prized fig tree.

How do you become a non-smoker?

The following is not your typical post, but one that I must post...

I've been wanting to quit smoking for years. For cost reasons, for health reasons, for many reasons. But I've never had success.
I know people weaker than me who have quit cold-turkey, didn't work for me.
I know people who quit slowly, I tried that, but always returned to a pack-a-day.
I know people who have quit with the patch, I smoked while wearing it.
I know people who quit with the gum, it tasted nasty so I spit it out and lit up.
I know people who quit with hypnosis, that's a joke, would never work for me.
I know people who quit through exersize, that for me just gets the nicotine circulating through my blood and makes me want to smoke again.
But I also have known many people to die from smoking and I must quit. I just need to find what works for me. I'm already two weeks past my new year's resolution and still smoking. Maybe the problem is that I like smoking.

Anyone have suggestions? Does anyone want to quit as well? How about a blogger-ex-smoker support group?

My last cigarette was Tuesday January 16th @ 10:30am.

Critical Mistakes

So to fix it 21,500 more troops will be sent (for now, I'm sure there will be more later) and Billions more dollars spent. (must equal more death and destruction).

So, how does it end?

Riddled with Riddles

photo by transient

So farewell. Farewell mindless misery.

Another year has ended.
This one has taken its toll more than most for me.
So to bid farewell to the year is not sorrowful.
A year full of tragedy and death.

The summer began with the death of my younger brother.
It took me a couple of months to learn how to breath again, but not well enough to talk about it.

Then the War on Lebanon, more death. It made me start blogging, (I wanted to blog about my brother as a memorial and for therapy, but couldn't type the words. I may later)

Thankfully the War part is over even if other tragedies continued with fall out, spoils and ordanances left as explosive reminders.

So i'm happy to leave 2006 behind, I'll never forget it, but I'm glad to leave it.

so what will '07 bring? Will we finally know some peace? Will '06 look good in comparison?

I am the purple eggplant char
Hovering over your orange sunset swirl
Storming the night’s long anxious nag
Tainting your idyllic rhythmic dreams
Fleshing your boundaries raised and angry
I am the he, the hue of terror
Two shades darker painted as my beard grows longer, coarser
A wide and wooly, black and grey chaos to my heel
I am the waking flesh splitting winter dry
Seeping to chill your warm soul

I am the stomp of well-knit limbs
Snuffing your innocent Western mind
Mammoth and timberous strokes of ignorance
Blanketing your blissful intellectic seek
Marking you path exhausted and raw
I am the common, the shadow of truth
Languishly deficient as my wrap twists tighter, darker
A thin and linen, white and bloody noose to my chest
I am the satanic drip off your idle fingers
Draining the veins till body’s rest.

Merry Christmas

For these holidays I wish for you a return
to your homes
to normalcy
to peace
to freedom
to school
to clean water
to work
to a human existance with no tank gunner pushing your every move

A first short film

A Wake