For about a month Tom’s been having pain in his right hand. Lately it’s gotten worse and affected his ability to do physical therapy with his hand. It limits his range of motion. Even wakes him up at night. It’s a crampy pain, “like there’s too much blood in my hand,” he says. And his … read more Regaining pain
Author: Lisa
Coiled and trapped
The rattlesnake was coiled in a large Ziploc bag, the kind that you can pump the air out of. Someone had stuffed a gray sock into its mouth. It was barely alive. I didn’t want to kill the snake. It was fairly small, and I felt it was best to take it to a place away from me … read more Coiled and trapped
Immersion
The best way to learn a new language is to immerse in it – go to the country where it’s spoken and do not speak your native tongue. Art is like that too. I’m just wrapping up three solid days of immersion in art. The vocabulary is starting to come into my fingers. In the … read more Immersion
Rabbit tobacco
When I was studying herbs five years ago, I learned that a common weed was used by the Cherokee to treat people who had a particular psychological malady: being haunted by a ghost that caused them to want to run away. I’ve been having that ailment lately. Some days I just want to be somewhere else. … read more Rabbit tobacco
I’ve just seen a face
Who’s that? Picasa knows – even after one glance. Facial recognition has been built into Google’s free photo editing software, Picasa, since 2009. It’s remarkably good. You type in a name on one picture of a person, and it instantly identifies and labels all your photos of that person. If Picasa isn’t certain who the person is in a particular photo, it … read more I’ve just seen a face
Making room for art
About a year ago, I took a few drawing classes that made me very unhappy. The teachers offered little in the way of actual instruction. There were no learning objectives set out, no clear progression of skills outlined for us. We drew the model and the instructor made random comments and remarks that were intended … read more Making room for art
Denim wrap-around
Wonder where your old jeans got to? They might be wrapping my dinner. We’ve been testing out services for delivery of ingredients and meals. A new one, Freshly, offers freshly cooked meals that just need to be warmed up. All their meals are gluten-free, no processed sugars, high protein, low carb. And they do really taste … read more Denim wrap-around
echo echo echo
I wake up in the middle of the night wondering where my jewelry is, or a certain shirt. I have had nightmares like this. Wandering around, looking for things that I owned. Now it’s just my life. Stuff in the packout company’s storage, stuff at the house waiting to go into a dumpster, stuff at … read more echo echo echo
On shaky ground
Friday’s visit to the house was the first time I’d walked out on the lower deck since the tree was removed and broke through it. I thought my feeling of vertigo was strictly emotional. That my sense of the deck as extremely unsafe arose because my own personal foundations had been rocked. It turns out that my intuition … read more On shaky ground
Hot notes
He threw a note out, and I caught it and rode it. I was up the hill where it was hot and sunny but close enough so those cats could chill me. The green flowed all the way down to the stage, I was high enough to surf the rhythm. The crowd was spread out like … read more Hot notes