Plein air paintings, studio art and lessons
The other night, on our way down the bike trail, a ladybug landed on my arm and it hitched the whole 9 miles to the brewery. I made sure it stayed safe because there’s no insect cuter and I’m all for public transit.
With it in mind, I got to work last night at my desk. It’s a great group; I love this nature journal exchange we’ve got going on at Moly_x_9.
I’m mailing Scoach’s Moleskine journal tomorrow an it’s headed for Hawaii.
I’m messing around with a online tool for mapping running routes. I missed my regional long run this morning because, ahem, I overslept. On the MapMyRun website there’s a growing database of routes from which to choose–or to which you may add your own. Helpful enough, for when one grows tired of the same old roads. It would be even better, however, if you could map trail runs as well…I thought maybe one of you readers might find this useful.
(enjoy!)
He’ll call me around 6 from Streetlight Records in San Jose, telling me he’s found the vinyl he was looking for. The night is young and it’s ours, only us, but I run through the house in a delightful frenzy kissing the boys in one room, only to meet them across the house seconds later to kiss them again there. I always worry they will fall asleep without brushing their teeth. Or fall into the bathtub. Or involuntarily kill each other…those last minutes are restless. But once I’m on the road, it’s all good.
In fifteen minutes I’ve woven a peaceful thread around pedestrian traffic along the creek trail. My muscles are warm and loose and my soul is finally free. I sit at an outdoor table and order a pint of ale under palm trees and tall buildings. A crow flies directly across the peach evening sky. The smoke lingers, still without a smell; affecting no one, it exhumes the sun, a giant apricot, into its velvet folds and I sit there squinting in my chair with a foam moustache. Damon rides up alongside the table, golden with sweat and grinning. All eyes are upon him as he leans his bike next to mine against that palm tree. It’s hard not to swell with affection for this man.
We stay for another round, then bolt through traffic on into San Jose, where we stay a while eating red beans and rice, cajun shrimp and Turbodog to the beat of a blues trio. And then another round.
The trail, at night, is dark as pitch and it’s easy to spill over a catfight. So we slip out of the void and back onto the street, where we glide past rows of underlit palms and pawn shops and good folk waving us on. It’s a righteous pass through the soul of any city, un-tucked for the night but singing itself to sleep. There are no pretenses, just us laughing down the street half-drunk and whizzing off and on curbs because we can and because we should.