lemony

it's zachtastic!

On Wednesday September 27th we were sooooo thrilled to have Zach Canfield from Goodby, Silverstein and Partners. Zach's presentation of the tv and interactive reels, along with recent interactive case studies (Comcast, The Fluid Milk Processing Board, and his own personal crazy fun project) were amazing and exciting. Watching the entire reel back to back it was clear why the agency is consistently at the top of the creative heap. But even better was hearing Zach's life story (or part of it) and his positive and optimistic personal beliefs: that you can meet any goal you set, but that goals are actually limiting, because focusing on the goal makes you blind to all the other experiences available (I'm paraphrasing): that constantly pushing your personal boundaries and creating for yourself is crucial to living a creative life (paraphrasing here too). And I think it's safe to say if things don't work out with Lady Sovereign, Zach, there are about a thirty cute art directors whose numbers I could get you.
Lastly, a good reminder to students: if you're lucky, Rich Silverstein WILL stand over your shoulder and make you kern type, and you WILL forget what an ampersand is when you're doing it.

new pastures

boy, advertising sure is fun when you're not in it.
Seriously: long time no see. Lotsa changes.
In august I gave notice to mcgarrybowen to sort of free up some time and energy to teach again at the VC program at Delaware. Finished up a couple of Crayola commercials and was out the door.
Oh yeah, thanks for the going-away party guys! It only cost me a $200 speeding ticket to get up there. But I had at least $250 worth of fun.
So, we're about four weeks into the semester. I'm teaching 4th year advertising design (portfolio preparation) and 3rd year advertising design. It's a big change at Delaware without our fearless leader, Ray Nichols, but there is a lot of new blood and who knows? it's all good. And wow - it's kinda cool to have dinner with my kid every single night of the week. And sleep in my own bed.

Ray shocker

Gasp. Ray Nichols suddenly decided to retire. What will the program become? What will happen to the VCGrads endowment? Who will teach in the fall (ok, probably me.) All kinds of feelings about it. If we hadn't just given him a big darn party, we'd throw a party. holey moley. What will he do next? Is he going to be depressed? Is he going to be okay financially? How can we repay his years of service?
Yikes.

summmmmer

Spring was such a whirlwind it bout kilt me. I felt like I was hanging on by a thread - kid acting up in school, husband badgering me about the farm store opening, alpaca babies popping out left and right, and shoots on top of shoots for work with all kinds of drama and jetting about. Plus I had no idea how much mental hard-drive space would be occupied by teaching, and I had a mere four students. But, time marched on, as it always does, and students made portfolios and got them reviewed and graduated and were given grades (which was an emotional experience in itself - the grading!!!) and shoots happened and were edited and illustrations were drawn and babies were born and yarn got price tags and Amos survived and passed the first grade. And now its sum sum sum sum summertime and the livin' is easier.

fun tip: have a last-day-of-school party, pray for sun, and pass out water guns. Get extra insurance because the slip 'n slide looks actually quite death-defying.

Trip to Vancouver was kinda great. What a stunning city. Fun tip 2: go to the earliest morning AA meeting you can find in any city you go to. That's where the "best" drunks are. Thanks Maura!

Amos and I made a quick getaway to Bloomington Indiana last weekend to see my mom. Amos was the goodest grandson you could wish for. He played quite contentedly at Gran's for almost 2 days, conversing and cracking us all up. We sort of taught Gran how to play Uno (actually I think she caught on much quicker than she pretended to.) We picked some excellent cherries from Sara's cherry tree in the backyard and managed to transport them all the way home in their quartsized tupperware without a spill. Isaac is moving East for his new ***Federal*** job and I think stopped by Mohnton last night. Cousins are coming for the weekend. I'm going to Amsterdam mext week. I seem to be weirdly popular at work and keep getting more assignments - okay.

Trying to hang on to some summer high points, like the Jim Thorpe camping trip and the beach and huntin' camp.

Jackie and I had a WONDERFUL time at the Delaware- Maryland Alanon conference. Best quote:

"DROP THE STICK AND STEP AWAY FROM THE DEAD HORSE!!"

sunset, barfing

Who wants to read this? Apparently nobody. Oh well. It's still a journal for my own little horrible self.
tiny and unimportant, and a terrible, terrible mother to boot. I'm feeling (what's new?) totally overwhelmed by my own life. Worried about my students. Do all teachers feel like this? I feel like THEY MUST SUCCEED ... OR I HAVE FAILED. Maybe, after all my blathering and bragging and self-confidence... I am actually MAKING THINGS WORSE for them due not to my inherent inability to perform the job, but, like on every other front, to the fact that I made a committment to them.. and then... just sort of... faded away... well, not really, but it is hard on them only having class once a week. So I think I just said "yes" to having class TWO TIMES A WEEK! Now how am I going to swing that? Plus, the Alpaca Show Season (don't laugh) is upon us (again)_ and like always, I'm unprepared, our signs aren't made, our farm literature is out of date, our business cards need to be reprinted, etc. etc. etc. And it's a particularly busy time at mcgarrybowen. And, oh yeah, my kid MISSES ME. Which is the most imprtant thing. Or so I say. When I'm not busy trying to make myself look important. In my own eyes. I guess. And oh yeah - my mom is kind of like, dying. So, gotta run.

Oh yeah - the title. Spent last week at the Sunset Marquis - nice. and then the weekend with Cub Scout Pack 264, camping out at Hawk Mountain Scout Reservation, and then, throwing up in the bushes on Saturday night, and then, sleeping in my car next to the bathroom, and then, driving home feeling really really shaky, and also, like all the other mothers (and even more so, fathers) think I'm really weird and kind of strange, what with the dreadlocks, and the barfing, and the references to "jet lag" and "Fred Segal", and all.

But we got ourselves a nice little Crayola spot - I think - despite the fact that we CHANGED THE PRODUCT WE WERE ADVERTISING (small detail) the night before the shoot. Who do we love? Larry Frey, that's who.

slowdown

Apparently if I'm not alone in a hotel room I'm less likely to blog. Living my life as I usually do in a furious rush to not screw up a deadline or have overdue library books or have someone run out of clean underwear (and usually failing in at least one direction). Sometimes there are so many simultaneous lists happening I have to make a list of the lists. Today I am having a leisurely morning on the couch, Amos is at a sleepover, Dane went to buy gold clubs, and I'm looking at a DVD of casting, 6 to 9 year olds. Always a heartbreaking process. Some of them have the most luminous eyes - what is that? Lack of fear? Or fear? That makes the pupils dilate to planet-sized proportions?

Last night we met friends from NYC at The Shady Maple Smorgasbord. BUSLOADS of people were lined up outside. It's a Las-Vegas-hotel sized building smack in the middle of manure-smelling Lancaster county farm country, buggies lined up at the side, and vast steaming buffets lined up inside. All the "shleck" you can pile on your plate. Very few anorexic-looking people there. Overheard a conversation about how hard it is to find a job when you have a record. "Half the people in the country have a record. How can you get reformed if no one will hire you?" the guy (neck tattoos) asked. Well, I can think of one suggestion...

That was after a funfilled afternoon at Orion's birthday party where Autumn and Rory had the brilliant idea of hiring (well, borrowing from Rory's work) a white, stretch LIMO to pick up all the seven-year-olds and cruise them back to the party. I got elected to be the backseat chaperone. It was like being caught inside a squirrel cage. But louder. They loved it. So did I actually. And thankfully no one got carsick. And Orion had an EXCELLENT "O"val- racetrack-shaped bday cake. And his mom and dad even had enough energy left over to have Amos overnight????

Yesterday got the sad news our friend Eileen died. HIV positive and HepC, her liver gave out. She was in her 40s. Two of the last things she did: gave Vikki twenty bucks from her wallet ("I'm not gonna need it, and it costs gas to get here...") and made Vikki find Betty's phone number she had written down, so that she could remind Liz to use it and call her sponsor. She was (at this point in her life) really the essence of love and recovery. The girls at Rosie's are going to miss her. So are we all. She used to bring the girls over here periodically to bounce on the trampoline... we'll bounce for ya, Eileen.

Off to LA tonight: Sunset Marquis. Charging up the phone, camea and 'puter. Oh boy. And then back for alpaca baby season and show season, and end of Delaware school year.

reader in the house

I had this file open on my computer and Amos wandered over and READ IT. Brings new meaning to the phrase "home security."

Back home on the farm assorted TED information is slowly assimilating into my brain as I process it.

I woke up this morning with the sun dully showing its glowing outline behind a veil of clouds as a small snow flurry swept in front of the bare trees. Now I can no longer look at weather as backgound, or even as part of nature. The simple beauty of clouds, sky, rain noises on the roof, the silence of snowdrifts – all are tainted with the lurking menace of global warning. The days routine of coffee, breakfast, cartoons – all seem off. Fiddling while Rome burns, etc.

It all makes me want to flee to some other hemisphere (as if there is a place you can go on Earth to escape the horror) or at least to a beach or a mountain or some other kind of wilderness. But then fleeing is what I do best. Right now I’m fleeing into cyberspace.

So, what next?

Researching Fair Trade and Organic and locally-grown goods for the store.
Researching for Fair-Trade and organic alpaca items
Considering every object. Is there such a thing as organic shaving cream?
Looking into Volunteer Vacations.
Reading like a mo-fo.

attention Lemons

Not to keep berating my siblings, but here's some of the things that reminded me of you at TED:

Jim: Amazing game designer David Perry talking about the future of gaming... the artwork... the need for programmers and artists... Cllifford Stoll demonstrating how to calculate the speed of light with an oscilloscope and a slide rule (showing us on an overhead projector)... the moving talk by Burt Rhutan about the cycles of inspiration in the aerospace, and how the private sector's rapid expansion is going to boost the curiosity of kids now to create a new generation of scientists and explorers...

Alice: The incredible photographs and stories of Phil Borges (see www.bridgesweb.org) he has been collecting in Tibet and Dharmsala for his bridges project.... Jehane Noujaim's wish for the creation of a global "Pangea Cinema Day"... the haunting music of Vishal Vaid... astonishing information about global health from Larry Brilliant and others...

Sara: The mindbogglingly beautiful design story of how Joshhua Prince-Ramos and the architects of Rem Koolhaus created the Seattle Public Library, evolving directly from usage data... the intensity of Amy Smith and her work with low-tech inventions in developing countries... Helen Fisher's fascinating data about love, attraction, and gender... the amazing graphics of Hans Rosling... the passion of the Gore.

and Mom... can't wait to send you the DVD so you can replay it all and have a little mini-university!