Daffy

Daffy
Originally uploaded by jhhymas

It won't be long now! Thinga are so early in sunny California. This is a shot of one of last year's daffodils, but the green spikes in the back yard are already at half height. And then will come butterflies and then fall and winter again. . .
There are so many fabulous blogs and so many fine artists posting stuff that I could spend all night just looking.
Today I entered a bookcase full of biographies, essays, letters, diaries and fiction into Librarything. And spent a lot of time rating the things I had read and putting subject tags on them. I love doing this, but the sad truth is that I am finding many books I haven't read and some I would like to reread. And quite a few with (sigh) a bookmark about a third of the way through the book. And I really am out of space, but working with my books usually reminds me of some other volume I always meant to read, or that there is something new by a favorite author. And many times, these books are available used for a dollar or two, plus about $4 for shipping. Which makes them subject to impulse purchase,
I found my (intact) copy, which was remaindered, of Andy Warhol's diaries which he kept pretty obsessively the last nine years of his cut-short life. Which reminded me of my Mom's copy, gone who knows where, but most probably to the dump. My mother bought this book when it was fairly new. She was fascinated with art, celebrity and popular culture (she pretty much participated in the Summer of Love at age 60)--which made this book a perfect fit for her. Often she had insomnia, but these illustrated diaries are so heavy she couldn't hold the book up to read in bed. Her solution? She razored it into sections, and read abotu 3/4 inch worth at a time, She talked about it a lot when she was reading it. She was also a gestalt therapist, so I imagine the psychological implications may have interested her, too. After she was finished, she duct-taped (honest!) the book back together along the spine which sort of worked, so it could be shelved. This duct-taped book graced one of her bookcases for the rest of her life, showing that books are really not that precious. I was shocked then (I don't even dogear pages!), but now I sort of get it.
Sleep well, and dream of yellow flowers, maybe large, silk-screened ones!