you're who?

do you ever awake wondering who you are? what you are doing in your body? which thoughts are yours, others? this happened to me this morning. i reminded myself of those fuzzy parts of old new york city apartments, moldings, plaster medalions, anything that once had detail but which over the years had been obscured and blurred by layer upon layer of paint. who painted me? did i paint myself? a lot of questions this morning. even my breakfast check seemed to ask. who is the "you're" that they're so glad is here? who does that check see? sitting on the toilet, i cracked open a magazine and the first sentence i noticed proclaimed, "the foundation of all lasting relationships is deep self-understanding." it's not as if this question of identity hasn't bothered me before. since i can remember i've noticed it hovering about me like a fly about a light bulb, buzzing me, irritating. my habit has been to simply turn out the light or run to a different place. perhaps the only way to find out what's chasing me is to stop, let it come, to sit still, let it approach me, join me, catch me, delight me, torture me—whatever it may do, i need to accept it.

power

i spent the morning taping talk shows of powerful people at michelle and michelle's. sal, their cat, with whom i have a challenged relationship, and i got along really well even as i sat on the floor in his territory. i realized sal is a top and that i simply had to let him make all the moves. i have no problem being submissive. it can work wonders. after a couple hours i gave up on the video taping. i was looking for a short clip of karl rove but he wasn't news. i need a new scandal! i got a few clips of about everyone else in washington, including henry kissinger.

in the afternoon, i drove up to roger and danny's new place in plainfield, vermont, a house they moved into last week that they share with a nice guy named matthew. it's high up on a hill with beautiful somewhat open land all around. their bedroom is nearly all windows on two sides with views off to the distant hills. it's beautiful. it made me want to have a bedroom like that. i love waking up to morning sun shining in on me. on the drive up i listened to the witch, the lion and the wardrobe by c. s. lewis, which i'd not read since i was a kid. lately i've re-read books from my childhood and have been surprised by how they not only bring back memories, textures, smells and experiences but also by how rich these books are to me still. i find that things i read now don't make as much of an impression, that somehow the books i read when younger affected me more profoundly and continue to do so even today. they feel like keys to brighter and more intense energies within me.

roger, danny and i sat near their woodstove and shared a delicious lunch, news and experiences. roger's just come back from kripalu, the yoga center, where he assisted a teacher training and to where he'll be returning to assist further programs. danny may assist a teacher training program too. i was happy to hear that kripalu is moving toward a more spiritual focus. the spiritual aspect of yoga is, for me, the strongest part—what keeps me returning to it and what draws me to teach it.

if anyone knows of a harmonium doctor let me know. i'll pass the name off to danny who needs his harmonium fixed!

i ate meat

turkey day—the one day a year that i agree to eat meat. and it was not just any old meat. this meat i ate was free range organic turkey from vermont prepared by the skilled mary ford of lincoln, massachussetts, mother to david ford of the main street musuem as well as warren (slugo) ford. libation, cheese, crackers, white fish pate and gluten free twists preceded the meal of the organic turkey, onions in cream, mashed potatoes, beans, and a plate of relishes plus cranberry sauce. this was all followed by three pies: pumpkin, mincemeat and a chocolate walnut with ice and whipped cream.

after dinner several of us simply lay on our backs while daisy, the dog, trampled about us licking fingers and faces. david and i spent the night at slugo and denise's beautifully renovated home in newton where rosco, their dog, entertained us with his winsome glances. this morning we arose at six and headed north to vermont, where i sit this moment.

the boss

a very old boring machine, known as "the boss", arrived today parcel post. at first i thought it was an ebay disaster. it would hardly turn, it appeared broken and my heart sunk. but some investigation and careful twiddling and a healthy dose of wd-40 brought it to near perfect operation. i could tell it was happy to be lubricated again. it cried rusty stains from all its joints kind of like the tin man after the rain storm. a boring machine is a turn of the century device to bore holes in timbers. they were commonplace years back but today they're rare. i noticed one sell for $700 on ebay today. a boring machine is primarily used to prepare mortises. you place it on a beam, sit on a paddle that's connected to it, align the auger bit over where a mortise will be cut, drop the mechanism so the bit bites into the timber and rotate the handles. after several turns you'll have a nice vertical hole in your timber and you can move on to drilling another one very nearby until you removed most of the wood that occupies the mortise. the remainder wood, the small sections between holes, is removed with a chisel. with this delivery i'm pretty well tooled up to timberframe. i have three chisels, an axe, two drawknives, a boring machine, two bit and braces, two planes, a couple squares, lots of pencils and a broad axe. i picked up sharpening stones and a strop as well to keep all these razor sharp. i still need a fro. i'm going to be setting up a studio in the mill as a shop for producing the frames for faerie camp destiny. i can't wait to get started!

timberframe!

i'm back from yestermorrow, the design build school in waitsfield, vermont. pictured is the frame we built and erected at the knoll farm, also in waitsfield. i came away from the class feeling awe and appreciation for the power of working by hand. eleven of us, novices, cut the frame in five days with the help of two excellent instructors, josh jackson and skip dewhirst. it tooks us just a couple hours to erect it on the site and despite all our little mistakes it went together beautifully. i've put more pictures and an expanded description of the course on another blog that i keep here.

yestermorrow

sorry, no picture. no cell phone access here in the mountains of vermont near waitsfield where i'm learning how to timberframe with 10 other people and two very talented instructors. tomorrow we raise a small building that we've hand-sawn, chiseled, planed, mortised, drilled, and contemplated all week. i've got lots of pictures that i'll post when i get back next week.

yestermorrow is a building school with a focus on sustainable construction techniques. there are lots of great courses to take here and i highly recommend checking it out if you're interested in construction or alternative ways of living. yestermorrow.org.

honing

tomorrow i take off for the north and will be away a week. today i prepared some of my tools for the journey: i honed my two planes. my instructional video to the right shows you my superb technique!

when i first got the planes i naturally tried them out. they worked—to a degree. not easily. then i took them apart and looked at their blades. they had nicks, weren't square and looked like they'd been filed. i googled "plane sharpening," found lots of opinions and learned that sharpening a blade is called honing. i like learning these kinds of things. the japanese method calls for a completely flat bevel on the blade. another method calls for two bevels, one at 30 degrees and a smaller cutting edge at about 25 degrees. i chose to try the compound. to hone you can use stones, wheels, or simply sandpaper. you progress from rough to smooth. one site suggested gluing sandpaper to a sheet of glass for a very flat grind. this works great, i can say now with experience. i honed first with 80 grit (very rough) to take out the gross errors and progressed to 320 to create a nice shiny flat bevel at about 30 degrees. this took time and some practice. i discovered that if i moved my whole body my hands could remain fixed holding the blade at a single angle that produced a very flat and even grind. then i worked the second bevel with 600 and 800 papers which create a near mirror-like surface.

i placed the blades back in the planes and gave them a try. wow. beautiful paper-thin shavings and almost no force required.

i'm excited about this timber framing course. one of the instructors called me today. we chatted for a few minutes about what i wanted to get out of the course. he told me we'll be building a 10 x 16 foot pavilion for an earthen stove. i can't wait to put the planes to real use.

therapy

four months ago gabriel and i decided to separate so that our energies could settle, so that we'd each have space to figure out what to do next with our lives. we agreed come november we'd check back in to see what had happened with each other. last week we decided to hire a psychotherapist to help. friday, we met with a therapist. it went well, no great revelation, but we're going to continue with it for a few sessions. neither of us know where this will lead us and both of us seem excited about exploring, throwing caution to the wind. the sense of determination we had about our relationship we had four months ago depressed me, consumed all my energy. gabriel looks a lot better now. people say i do too. giving into the universe is so much more relaxing than desperate attachment. why is it that so many of us cling to relationships that aren't going well? do we get to a point after being in relationship where we fear ourselves more than the pain of an unsupportive relationship, where the relationship can replace a healthy sense of self? when we can't face ourselves our our partners, do we then have so much diversion in work, consumerism, entertainment and sex (at least in the gay world) that we're completely alien to ourselves? maybe so. i feel as if i've re-met myself.

tooling

i spent the afternoon tooling around west lebanon. i bought an aluminum framing square, a twelve pack of pencils, a combo square, a few blades for my utility knife, a book on hand tools and a chai latte. the yestermorrow timber framing class starts sunday. i'm geared up. i sometimes wonder where i am going with all this? diesel fuel is expensive at the moment.

turkeys on nylon squares

i received carpet samples from interface, the carpet company i mentioned a few posts ago. after choosing the carpet i want i found this use for them: turkey miniature bases. the turkeys prefer hard surfaces, though, and because my place is old and wobbly they fall over a lot. but if you get their feet enmeshed in the weave of the carpet they will stay upright. gobble gobble.

mill kitty #1

our household cat, named f***head, affectionately, and known as "frannie" or "fh" at the vet's to avoid an inquiry by the pc receptionist, is here seen skulking across the floor at the mill. it is difficult having a pet whose name you can't reveal to everyone. we love him and he is lovely.

along cat lines, rip bernie, the other main street museum cat who sometime last weekend took the road as his bed and some car as his grim reaper. the museum, it seems, is not the best place for fearless animals.

my new camera

after seeing art bell's movie, ride, made with an earlier version of this camera i succumbed to impulse and bought one. i can record about 16 minutes at full video resolution with it. i love the way its video looks. i can carry it everywhere. how many times have i been somewhere an wished i had my video camera. so, i add yet another object to my collection and to the mess on my desk. there are actually two cameras in the image, just one cowboy.

solar

if you've been thinking about installing either solar electric panels or solar hot water heaters now might be the time to do it, especially if you live in vermont. my farmer friend, chuck wooster, of the sunrise organic farm, wrote to his subscribers today and let us know that new federal and restored vermont incentives can cut your cost substantially. i'm definitely going to think about it for the tip top and my other building.

here's what chuck wrote: The Feds have a 30% tax credit (up to $2,000) for PV or H2O systems installed in 2006 and 2007. (This was part of the recent energy bill, the main feature of which was giving production tax incentives to the oil companies that are currently enjoying the greatest profits that the world has ever seen. But I digress.) VT is also back in the game, offering the same 30% capital cost share that led us to electrify Sunrise in '04. This time, there's $800K in the matching pool, meaning it will probably last until summer, at the latest. In general, new H20 systems cost $6K. After using both credits, your cost would be $2K. New grid-connected PV will run you $22K or so. After credits, you're at $13K.

feet movie

i find looking down a textural delight. there's so much on the ground that's beautiful and worn. this little film is a stroll from the tip top building to the polka dot restaurant.

p.s. let me know if it doesn't play for you.

our own little film fest

last weekend we had our second white river junction film festival. turnout was good with most shows filling at least halfway and three sellouts, even a line down the street the first night. two films inspired me: milk of many years by a very young filmmaker, billy sharff, and ride by art bell, which you can see online at dreamlikepictures.com. art shot ride with a $300 cannon still camera in movie mode. it inspired me so much that i went out and bought one myself, ironically, during a film about walmart's predatory practices—i didn't buy it at walmart, but nearly: best buy. our local camera shop closed a few months ago. billy sharff's films are beautifully shot and beautifully colored. he uses pattern, form, motion and lighting to produce deep emotional resonances and connections. he's just finishing high school, i believe, but keep an eye out for this very talented young filmmaker.

strip mall

i spent a good part of the day on our local expanding strip mall, a piece of the universe that's definitely contributing to entropy. here i am at a light behind a support-our-troops flag adorned american car. it has lots of spirit and a burnt out tail light. seems emblematic. i picked up some posters i designed for our film festival from the printers, had a sandwich at panera (with chai latte), hung out at borders for a half hour, found a cool book on proportions, noticed how run down the place is starting to look and drank the borders version of chai latte (made-from-powder—you have to continually swirl the liquid to keep the powder from settling). got a call from a composer in new york who wants to use video that roger and i shot a couple summers ago in his most recent opera. he found the films on my website, unwatchable films. see for yourself! taught yoga at the health club. ate dinner with david in hanover. saw the tiger lillies, an irreverant uk band at dartmouth at 10pm. they sang a song about crucifying jesus titled pounding in the nails. lots of folks walked out but they missed the climax that followed in which the drummer pulls out jumbo plastic hammers and proceeds to pound his drum kit off the stage and into the audience who, very politely, handed pieces of it back up to him when he needed a few cymbals for the encore. thumbs up!