Music is your own experience, your own thoughts, your wisdom. If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn. They teach you there's a boundary line to music. But, man, there's no boundary line to art. - Charlie Parker


Artist books � Kathleen Rossi-Howell

Two of my secret dream jobs would be to either arrange music scores for film or to run an indie free-form radio show.

As a teenager, I used to sit on my bedroom floor for hours going through my collection of albums to create mixed tapes for myself and friends. This habit continued throughout many insomniac nights in my university years..thru now. Buying a cd burner a few years ago was so liberating, it streamlined the whole process of arranging music...and dissolved the need to patiently wait at the stereo to hit the pause button.

Because I'm a total music junkie, whenever I discover a new innovation in technology related to the art of the mix, I get pretty excited.

The newest version of Itunes (4.5 for both mac & windows) has a wonderful new feature that automatically arranges the cd cover art (as a mosaic of the different covers from the albums your mixing), and song names to print out for a jewel case.

It also now lets users upload their playlists to itunes, for other users to buy/sample from their mixes...I am loving it! I was messing around with that feature last night, and uploaded my "ethereal" mix .

A word of warning though: It's terribly addicting!

When I was 12, I used to think I was a genius and nobody had noticed. If there such a thing as a genius, I am one, and if there isn't, then I don't care. - John Lennon

The dream was always running ahead of me. To catch up, to live for a moment in unison with it, that was the miracle. ~ Anais Nin


Romy & Michelle's highschool reunion was on television this weekend...a sort of cosmic reminder that my own highschool reunion is happening this August. I have the thick packet they mailed to me a few weeks ago, shoved into one of my bill sorters slots...totally unloved, and only quickly scanned for the most pertinent details. I'm weighing it out...

reunion pros:
� it'll take place aboard a haunted ship
� reconnecting with old friends
� seeing my husband looking dapper in a suit

reunion cons:
� having to wear a name tag with my senior photo on it (oh no!)
� not recognizing anyone
� tickets are $85 *cough* each.
� most probably spending way too much money at the bar

I wonder how many of my fellow alumni will boast that they invented something big, like post-its. (Today I was trying to remember with a friend the secret formula for glue.)

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Recently Added:
� Listen to music! (look on the left under "listening to")...I'll change the music links frequently.
� Explore page has also been recently updated.

I want to have children, but my friends scare me. One of my friends told me she was in labor for 36 hours. I don't even want to do anything that feels good for 36 hours. - Rita Rudner



Our front porch. April, 2004

My horoscope today read: " According to the New York Daily News, Leo novelist Danielle Steel had a tailor embroider the word "bitch" on 16 pairs of her socks. I suggest you do the same. If that's too extreme or time-consuming, write "hard core" on your ankle with a felt-tip marker. If that would sully your dignity, at least imagine that you have a tattoo on the sole of your foot that says "wise-guy" or "riot grrrl." The point is not to send a tough message to the general public, but to make a secret pact with yourself. No one else but you needs to know that you're planning to become better grounded and more fiercely assertive."

Now, as we all know I don't have 16 pairs of matching socks to embroider on to begin with.

But that's beside the point, of course.

Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. THAT'S relativity. - Albert Einstein


In Memory: Old picture of our bunny Chloe rummaging through the hay.

There were bunny footprints left in chalk down the sidewalk and leading up to our front gate this morning...the yearly tradition of our town's Historic Preservation Association as a gesture of appreciation to certain people in the community. Nice!

Last year there was an auspicious man dressed in a rabbit suit pacing in the front, outside our gate. Very strange...Easter is always a day full of surprises. Last year my mom color coded plastic eggs, and had us hunt for them in her yard. Funny! This year she said to heck with Easter Ham...and instead is making stuffed shrimp on the bar-b-que.

Yesterday, we visited Mystic Gardens in San Juan Capistrano. We go there once a year to buy exotic plants, and muster up new ideas about landscaping projects we want to incorporate at home. It's a place filled with hundreds of tall fountains (all trickling water...you immediately want to run for the nearest bathroom!), Tall artistic birdcages filled with different varieties of parakeets, canaries, finches...for atmosphere. There are also trails that lead you through different areas of the garden and to hidden delights like rabbit hutches filled with newly born bunnies snuggling in the hay. Classical guitar streams through the hillside, while you walk on bridges over scattered koi ponds filled with life. It feels like a piece of heaven on earth.

Later, we took a drive up Ortega Highway, and ended up going past an equestrian field competition filled with riders and jumping horses...my kind of day.

Speaking of lovely things, I came way by the paper source last week...and am in love with all of their hand-printed papers. I especially like their mantra: Do Something Creative Every Day .

April is the cruelest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain. ~ T.S. Eliot



This picture is a reminder to me, that you can artfully re-use broken up concrete. (Who would of thought?!) Here they used it, to build a raised planter...while at home (being that our backyard was originally 60% covered in concrete ), it's being re-used to create a cottagey stepping stone path thanks to the ingenuity & man-labour of my husband. It's funny to see how many incarnations this house has had just in the last two years, it just keeps on changing.


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P.S. The Modern Contemporary Design Archives...is filled with many interesting links.