What am I doing here?
This is one of those days where I question what in the world am I doing? I've been painting and writing and painting and writing which I love and it feels wonderful most of the time. But then I hit days where I question whether the world really needs more "stuff" and more "words". And closer in does my world need more "STUFF" or more "WORDS?" Is it enough to just like creating all this? Chances are it ain't gonna sell...poetry rarely sells (I take it back...I just sold 3 poems for $5 each). Most of the time the poet has to pay someone to even read their stuff, much less pay for it. So what am I doing here? And what would make it seem like enough? Affirmations help, for sure. What else? Most success seems to be measured by money so that would be nice. But since that ain't happening, what keeps me keeping on? What keeps any artist keeping on? Is it egocentric of us to blog and hope that someone will read it or do we do it just to keep track of our thoughts and lives? For me, mostly the latter but I do love it when someone comments. Like, wow! Someone noticed me. Maybe for the same reason I read other blogs...to find the common ground and relish our shared humanity.

What a sky! Can you see the hint of a sun dog? It was much more colorful through my dark glasses but I had to stop the car between LaGrange and Columbus to soak up this glorious sight. We were on the way back from Austin and my annual reunion with friends I have known since grade school. We went all the way through UT together and one was a sorority sister. I packed my giggle box and it got good use. It always feels like going home for all three of us even though none of us has lived in Austin for over 50 years.

The first night we stayed at the Barton Creek Resort...not a great experience. Beautiful setting, crappy room, unhelpful staff...won't go back. It has a gorgeous view of the hill country but they could improve their management. All we wanted to do was visit anyway and we are all pretty laid back and didn't let anything bother our laughter and sharing memories.

One I had forgotten happened in high school at a slumber party we all attended at another friend's home. Our dates for the night were invited in and we played some card game or spoons until it was time to say goodnight. Dates were invited back for breakfast the next morning. We all trooped upstairs to don our baby doll pjs to sleep in a row in a big room upstairs. After a late night of gossip we all shut our eyes and slept until time for breakfast. Our dates returned and at breakfast our friend's little brother played a tape of all the things we had said about our dates the night before. He had hidden a recorder in the light fixture. Oh geez...we could have killed him, of course. Her parents thought it hilarious but we didn't and ask ourselves now as parents would we have let one of ours do that to a sibling and her friends? I don't know.

Wooohooo! I'm gonna be a groupie!

I'm gonna be a groupie for Jerry Jeff Walker when I grow up. His concert last night at the Galveston Opera House was once again such fun with a combination of old stand-bys like LA Freeway and Back to the Armadillo with some beautiful new love songs. And he's sober or at least appeared to be. He had a great back-up band with an awesome lead guitarist. What a guy! We saw him a gillion years ago in Kerrville at the first Kerrville Folk Festival. It was held in the Kerrville City Auditorium before the Festival moved out to Quiet Valley Ranch. He was on with Willie Nelson. Wow!

And the Opera House celebrated its reopening after Hurricane Ike when flood waters ravaged the place. It looks great. Still work to be done but they got it open for the first time for this concert. Walker has played the Opera House the first Saturday in Jan for the last 15 years and his foundation presented the Opera House with $7500 toward repairs. Really sweet!

Anyway I sang along and danced in my seat and reminisced about previous times with Jerry Jeff. What fun! And so grateful I was well enough to go! He's just so damn cute!