Kendra graduated today. This gave me a chance to use the new gizmo I bought with a sudden windfall of cash (it takes pictures, you see.) She and John had her family and friends over to celebrate the tadoo (that's her sister blurring it up in the background). It was all good. I gave her a supersoaker and a bottle of champagne (to be used in tandem.) Kim made sushi. Go congratulate Kendra if you please. As usual when Kim comes over it was a mini-blog meetup--with Caroline, Kendra's other sister, and John's sister thrown in for good measure. No mention was made of blogging, however, as is our custom.

Well now I can wander willy nilly and access the Internet. I've already found a couple of hotspots in my neighborhood besides my own little bit of 802.11b heaven..

There's a bag lady who sits over on State Street dressed like a pioneer. She wears a pink crocheted cap and was wrapped tight in a fur blanket on the hottest day of the year....

* * *

Maybe I can get beyond song 3 today....

* * *

He agonizes over whether the bus has the correct route displayed or if the driver has forgotten to change the marquee again....

* * *

The brass family on the east side of the ZCMI center continually plays in pigeon shit....

* * *

I don't know if it is ironic, sad, or fitting, but the old guys from the Lions club were out in front of the liquor store again today giving out mints in exchange for donations in support of "White Cane Day"....

* * *

Get your warm and cuddly opening lines here! Guaranteed to be house trained and somewhat obedient! Free certificate for spaying or neutering with each adoption!

I've always liked the effect that PhotoShop's cutout filter has. I don't really have any ability to draw or paint or anything like that, but luckily I can take a mean photo when I put my mind to it, or at least I think I can. The cutouts emphasize forms and color, I think, and I like that.

P1010011.JPG	P1010019.JPG	P1010035.JPG	PIC00001.JPG
PIC00002.JPG	PIC00003.JPG	PIC00004.JPG	PIC00007.JPG
PIC00009.JPG	PIC00010.JPG	PIC00023.JPG	PIC00026.JPG

I had a dream last night that my neighborhood had flooded. This was your regulation Mississippi kind of flood: the kind where houses float by. In the dream I was calculating the incongruity of all this as my neighborhood is on a hill and there is no real water in the whole region save for the Great Salt Lake itself. I've been unsettled all day because of the dream. I feel the urge to check my basement for flooding.

Joyce Carol Oates wrote "The runner who's a writer is running through the land and cityscapes of her fiction, like a ghost in a real setting." Now while I would like to run, my sketchy knees make that somewhat improbable. (The last time I avidly ran I did my knee in for weeks.) I prefer to walk

Since I've given up driving to work on a regular basis, I put in a lot of shoe leather time. I think one experiences more outside of the steel coffin of the car. One feels the wind against the skin and smells the air. You hear the birds, and thoughts and ideas grow in one's mind without the pressure of traveling 70 miles per hour.

Somehow in reading the above I see its artificiality--as if I am making excuse for my choice of movement. I suppose I am, really, since the car is so integral to the American experience, and I choose to forgo it most of the time, and that makes me a weirdo to the car bound. I do dislike driving everywhere for the sake of getting "there" or for convenience. I do dislike the pollution that cars put out. I want to see the mountains 20 years from now. I like what walking has given me and gives all people. I'm lucky to live in a place that is walkable and has places I like to go within walking distance.

I think walking gives one a real presence in the world--unlike Oates' ghosts. Each morning I see lots of ghosts driving alone in their cars. Those drivers have a distracted look, you see; like they are in some other place and time. (All right that was an naive, asinine generalization there that shouldn't even be entertained until the third Martini.) One make connections while walking that one just doesn't get in the car.

Where the hell is everyone going in such a hurry anyway?