Photos from the 9th Annual Martin Bonfire in Indianapolis

More pictures on Flickr.

What a wonderful world- Hand puppetry

My cousin Sherry sent me this. Amazing!

Bonding with my Cousi-Step-Brother Through Tequila

It went downhill from here...

Babysitting Dylan Ethan

How CUTE is this baby?!?!

Dillon is Cousi-mom's great-nephew, which makes him my 5th-cousin/step-2nd cousin. (Again, for those who need a refresher: my 3rd cousin is also my step-mother. The family tree looks more like a banyon tree than a traditional tidy geneological graphic.

Hearts on Vacation

Heart at home

Indianapolis for R & R

'The Circle' in Indy

Taking a week of R & R in Indianapolis. Visiting Family, laying on the couch, drinking wine in teh hot tub. Doing a LOT of nothing!

Dancing with the Stars 2nd Week - Helio Castroneves

My new official pick to go all the way and win it!

And a Silver Heart

Two particularly beautiful ones the same day.

A Ruby Heart

Here Comes Rosie!

All the media garbage about Rosie's new book is making me crazy. They are taking soundbites and passages out of context and portraying this book as a mudslinging free-for-all. The point of the book is to share how fame becomes like a drug withdrawing from the spotlight can be like trying to overcome any addiction. Rosie shares her experience of leaving her show and then coming back after several years "off."

There are several cartons of the book in the back room at Barnes and Noble (with the incorrect release date-- there was a problem with the text on the dust cover that had to be re-done, so the new release date is 10/9 insead of 10/2).

Does a Heart Lay in the Woods?

In the woods near my house, found while out for a walk after work.

Exotic Feline Rescue Center

Please visit the website for The Exotic Feline Rescue Center to find out about this amazing sanctuary for abused, abandoned or otherwise displaced "big cats." My Dad went to college with Joe Taft, the man who founded the Center in the early nineties. It's located about an hour outside Indianapolis, and provides up close and personal views of some of the most amazing animals on the planet.

"Marie Osmond is about to Foxtrot"

I was watching the season premier of "Dancing with the Stars" last night (one of my many guilty pleasures) and got downright giddy when Sabrina Bryan-- I'd never heard of her either-- did her hip-hip influenced cha-cha-cha. As soon as she hit the final pose, I literally jumped from my couch applauding. It was SO MUCH FUN TO WATCH! I grabbed my cell phone, desperate to speak to someone that I could share the moment with.

I dialed my great friend Darla. The conversation went something like this:

[ring-ring-ring]

Darla: Hello?
Jonathan: Please, please tell me you have given up your "I don't watch those shows" attitude and are watching Dancing with the Stars right now!
Darla: Sweetie, I'm not watching. I don't watch those shows.
Jonathan: Please watch it. I need to talk to someone abotu it, and I KNOW you'd like it.
Darla: I'm sorry... I---
Jonathan: But Marie Osmond is about to do the Foxtrot! How can you to miss that?!
Darla: And you wonder WHY I don't watch those shows...
Jonathan: [sigh] fine, goodbye.
Darla: Goodbye.

I'm not sure, but I think I have humiliated myself. LOL

I LOVE this show. I admit it. I was a snob the first few years and scoffed at it, but I discovered it the night of the great Emmet Smith v. Mario Lopez finale, and never missed it last season.

I cast my votes for Jenny, Marie, and Sabrina.

My prediction for the season (having only seen the women-- the men are on tonight, including Wayne Newton) is Sabrina to WIN!

Come on people -- Wayne NEWTON! This is good television!

Yikes. One of MY friends did THIS?!

I noticed Stephan's shoe-sock combo while chatting over a coffee. He said,"Yeah, it's PIMP FLY, dontcha think?"

I MUST be getting old...

Keith Olbermann NAILS IT!

Olbermann to Bush: ‘Your hypocrisy is so vast’
A reaction to Thursday’s press conference: the president was the one who interjected Gen. Petraeus into the political dialogue in the first place
SPECIAL COMMENT
By Keith Olbermann
Anchor, 'Countdown'
Updated: 9:59 p.m. ET Sept 20, 2007

So the President, behaving a little bit more than usual, like we would all
interrupt him while he was watching his favorite cartoons on the DVR, stepped
before the press conference microphone and after side-stepping most of the
substantive issues like the Israeli raid on Syria, in condescending and
infuriating fashion, produced a big political finish that indicates, certainly,
that if it wasn’t already – the annual Republican witch-hunting season is
underway.

“I thought the ad was disgusting. I felt like the ad was an
attack not only on General Petraeus, but on the U.S. Military.”

“And I
was disappointed that not more leaders in the Democrat party spoke out strongly
against that kind of ad.

“And that leads me to come to this conclusion:
that most Democrats are afraid of irritating a left-wing group like Moveon.org
or more afraid of irritating them, than they are of irritating the United States
military.”

“That was a sorry deal.”

First off, it’s
“Democrat-ic” party.

You keep pretending you’re not a politician, so
stop using words your party made up. Show a little respect.

Secondly,
you could say this seriously after the advertising/mugging of Senator Max
Cleland? After the swift-boating of John Kerry?

But most importantly,
making that the last question?

So that there was no chance at a
follow-up?

So nobody could point out, as Chris Matthews so incisively
did, a week ago tonight, that you were the one who inappropriately interjected
General Petraeus into the political dialogue of this nation in the first place!

Deliberately, premeditatedly, and virtually without precedent, you
shanghaied a military man as your personal spokesman and now you’re complaining
about the outcome, and then running away from the microphone?

Eleven
months ago the President’s own party, the Republican National Committee,
introduced this very different kind of advertisement, just nineteen days before
the mid-term elections.

Bin Laden.

Al-Zawahiri’s rumored quote
of six years ago about having bought “suitcase bombs.”



All set
against a ticking clock, and finally a blinding explosion and the dire
announcement:

“These are the stakes - vote, November 7th.”

That
one was ok, Mr. Bush?

Terrorizing your own people in hopes of getting
them to vote for your own party has never brought as much as a public comment
from you?

The Republican Hamstringing of Captain Max Cleland and lying
about Lieutenant John Kerry met with your approval?

But a shot at
General Petraeus, about whom you conveniently ignore it, was you who reduced him
from four-star hero to a political hack, merits this pissy juvenile blast at the
Democrats on national television?

Your hypocrisy is so vast that if we
could somehow use it to fill the ranks in Iraq you could realize your dream and
keep us fighting there until the year 3000.

The line between the
military and the civilian government is not to be crossed.


When
Douglas MacArthur attempted to make policy for the United States in Korea half a
century ago, President Truman moved quickly to fire him, even though Truman knew
it meant his own political suicide, and the deification of a General who history
suggests had begun to lose his mind.

When George McClellan tried to make
policy for the Union in the Civil War, President Lincoln finally fired his chief
General, even though he knew McClellan could galvanize political opposition
which he did when McClellan ran as Lincoln’s presidential opponent in 1864,
nearly defeating our greatest president.

Even when the conduit flowed
the other way and Senator Joseph McCarthy tried to smear the Army because it
wouldn’t defer the service of one of McCarthy’s staff aides, the entire civilian
and Defense Department structures, after four years of fearful servitude, rose
up against McCarthy and said “enough” and buried him.

The list is not
endless but it is instructive.

Air Force General LeMay—who broke with
Kennedy over the Cuban Missile Crisis and was retired.

Army General
Edwin Anderson Walker—who started passing out John Birch Society leaflets to his
soldiers.

Marine General Smedley Butler—who revealed to Congress the
makings of a plot to remove FDR as President and for merely being approached by
the plotters, was phased out of the military hierarchy.

These careers
were ended because the line between the military and the civilian is not to be
crossed!

Mr. Bush, you had no right to order General Petraeus to become
your front man.

And he obviously should have refused that order and
resigned rather than ruin his military career.

The upshot is and
contrary it is, to the MoveOn advertisement he betrayed himself more than he did
us.


But there has been in his actions a sort of reflexive courage,
some twisted vision of duty at a time of crisis. That the man doesn’t understand
that serving officers cannot double as serving political ops, is not so much his
fault as it is your good, exploitable, fortune.

But Mr. Bush, you have
hidden behind the General’s skirts, and today you have hidden behind the skirts
of ‘the planted last question’ at a news conference, to indicate once again that
your presidency has been about the tilted playing field, about no rules for your
party in terms of character assassination and changing the fabric of our nation,
and no right for your opponents or critics to as much as respond.

That
is not only un-American but it is dictatorial.

And in pimping General
David Petraeus and in the violation of everything this country has been
assiduously and vigilantly against for 220 years, you have tried to blur the
gleaming radioactive demarcation between the military and the political, and to
portray your party as the one associated with the military, and your opponents
as the ones somehow antithetical to it.

You did it again today and you
need to know how history will judge the line you just crossed.

It is a
line thankfully only the first of a series that makes the military political,
and the political, military.

It is a line which history shows is always
the first one crossed when a democratic government in some other country has
started down the long, slippery, suicidal slope towards a Military Junta.

Get back behind that line, Mr. Bush, before some of your supporters
mistake your dangerous transgression, for a call to further politicize our
military.

© 2007 MSNBC Interactive
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20896378/

It's the little things...

I went from this...
To this...

All by myself... I even used tools.

(Note the rotted out pieces of the pipe in the top photo that were leading to a profuse leak in ym bathroom sink. After attempting to plug the leak with chewing gum (kidding) and silicone sealant (NOT kidding) I gave in and journeyed to Home Depot. It took two trips and a spat with the Depot Dude that wouldn't help when I told him my pipe was too big and needed help making it smaller, but in the end I was sucessful in the do-it-yourself home repair arena. :)

Little things can make your weekend.

Peeking Hearts

Random discovery at my BN counter. It is an item we sell, but clearly out of place at my work-station. It still made me smile, so I'm "counting" it. :)

Hearts are Falling From the Sky

This one was kind of interesting... I passing by a pile of empty boxes and this one fell from the top and landed i front of me...

9/11 Anniversary

Cartoon by Jeff Parker, Florida Today

On September 11, 2001, I left my apartment in Brooklyn at the usual time of about 8:00am to start my daily commute to work in Port Washington (Long Island). My route put me on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway directly across from the southern tip of Manhattan, with the World Trade Center prominent in my sightline, and then north, driving parallel to the NYC skyline to the Long island Expressway. Even after having done the commute to Long Island for well over a year, the City-view with the early morning sunlight ALWAYS made me take note. That particular morning was perfectly clear-- no clouds at all.

For some reason I was listening to a CD that morning instead of my usual ritual of NPR. About 45 minutes later, I arrived to a state of confusion at the office as people were trying to make sense of the jumbled news reports that there was an explosion at the World Trade Center. I had just passed by there on my way in, but clearly had just missed it. We had no television, and the portable radio was inadequate, so I called Dad to see if he was watching the Today Show and could tell me what was going on. I relayed the information from him to my co-workers that there were rumors that a small plane had crashed downtown. Then the confusion was compounded when dad said "A plane just hit the the World Trade Center." I said that we had already heard that, and he said, "No-- another plane just hit the second tower!"

Now, it is certainly a testament to just how naive I was that my first reaction was that something was somehow malfunctioning with the airplanes and air traffic navigation systems at the NYC airports causing planes to crash. I truly believed that for a brief moment, until Dad said, "No-- this is terrorism." In unison with the rest of the civilized world, as has been proclaimed ad nauseum in the media since tht day, I/we lost our collective innocence on that day. We were suddenly living in the "after" version of our world, and we hadn't even begun to realize how deeply it had just been rocked.

The confusion became utter disorientation when I looked out the window of my office looking over Manhasset Bay and the Long Island Sound and could see two distinct billowing streams of dark smoke rising up from behind the hills off in the distance. I knew intellectually that I was seeing the smoke from the WTC. However, until that moment, I had always thought that the window of my office faced north. I tried to rationalize that the smoke must be from something else since (in my skewed geographical view of the world) my window faced north. When I managed to "get rational" again about the directions, I was shocked by the distance. All those hours and hours of sitting in my car driving back and forth to Long Island, and I was just over the hill from the City, and I was actually watching the smoke from the WTC rise into the sky in front of me-- not on television, but right before my eyes. When I thought back on that later, it was mind boggling how fixated I had become on the direction and distance to Manhattan.

Everyone has their own story of where they were and what they were doing that day, and it really seems to me that, at least among New Yorkers, we all share a deep understanding of the craziness we all experienced that day as we waited to hear news of unaccounted for friends and colleagues. The hastily crafted "Missing" flyers that appeared on lamp posts and blanketed the sides of buildings by the thousands became their own lasting reminder of the frantic desperation that so many felt. I can remember passing one of the walls and realizing that people were actually stopping and reading them in detail. I saw one face that seemed strangely familiar, although I couldn't place where I knew her. I finally realized that I had seen her sister holding up a copy of the flyer for a news camera and pleading for anyone with any information to call her.

For hours, even days, we watched the television, waiting for the talking heads to add something new from their last live report, but instead seeing more and more people with their printed flyers as hope gradually began to fade. The image of these "Missing" flyers has cemented itself in the American psyche.

This cartoon is brilliant. The message is conveys is disturbing.

On the Streets of NYC

Look Closley...

There's a heart in the middle of the pattern on this small band-aid... It actually jumped out at me from the ground...

Home is Where the Heart is...

I found these two hearts in the driveway right outside my apartment... I didn't have my cellphone with me, so I couldn't take the photo of them where I found them as I have been doing, but I'll forgive myself and my obsessive-compulsive nature just this one time. Something didn't feel right about going back out and "re-staging the scene" of the heart finding incident, and I didn't want to risk not finding them amongst the gravel of the driveway if I went to get the camera...

I heard today that Kelly has been noticing hearts now, too. She's not the first person that has told me that after hearing the story of Mom's hearts they have started finding them as well. I'm thrilled that Mom's energy/love/Force/spirit (whatever you want to call it) is still being spread around in this special way. It's the only thing that makes the horrible emptiness of missing her in any way bearable.

Back when I was in college, one of my ex's (Paul) ended up coincidentally being cast in a play with Mom, Dad, and Matt a few years after our relationship had ended. At the time, the irony and awkwardness added just the right amount of silly drama in my own little world, since this was my first "real" relationship and, as they often do, it ended with heartbreak. We had stayed in touch a little, but until I went to see the play (which, by the way, featured a scene in which Paul and my Dad's characters had a drunken slow-dance together) we hadn't really been close since it ended. Mom, Paul and I spent a lot of time together over the few weekends of the show (including a secretive late-night post-castparty drive that I won't commit to the permanency of the written word, but suffice to say we laughed a lot and had a major case of the munchies when we got home). Ever since then, Paul and I have stayed in touch.

So you may be asking what does this have to do with the cost of tea in China...

Well, Paul once told me that he loved Mom from the first time they met. (It was ironic, because we spent the duration of our relationship sneaking around to avoid having to explain who/what he was to me-- had the timing been different, he would have LOVED the in-laws.) He said that he found her easy to talk to and referred to her as "an old spirit" whose presence has obviously been in the world much longer than her physical body. It profoundly impacted the way I looked at my relationship with my mother, allowing me to see her, perhaps for the first time consciously, as someone other than "mom." She didn't let people in easily, but when she did she was fully engaged in that relationship. She had tons of acquaintance-friends, but relatively few deeply close friendships. I'm very much the same way. But Paul was so right about her-- she IS an old spirit, and I know that me finding the hearts is how the universe keeps me connected to her. And I know that the fact that some people that are important to me tell me that they find them now too is just the ripple effect of that love.

Water Taxi

Rachel, Tobey and I spent the day on Sunday out at Fire Island. We walked from The Pines to Cherry Grove (adjacent island communities predominantly inhabited by the LBGTQ) and took the water taxi back to The Pines. It was a great day of mellow strolls with good friends along the boardwalks of a little beach town. It made me miss having a share out there. I need to try to figure out a way to budget that in for next summer.

Look Close...

Tiny little heart on the carpet. I cant' believe I actually SEE these as I pass over them.

CURTAINS Stage door

I love the stage door! This is a (not so good) photo of Debra Monk, who was amazing. David Hyde Pierce was adorable as the detective who would rather be on stage with the cast than interrogating them under suspicion of murdering the atrocious, no-talent diva killed while on-stage in an out-of-town preview. Photos of me with him at the stage door to follow... I asked him for his phone number, but he just let out a nervous chuckle and signed my program. Oh well...

Giving in...

I miss my washer and dryer!

I finally gave in and schlepped to the laundromat. I had to find one fo those gi-normous laundry emporiums that can accomodate some schmuck like me that hogs 8 triple-load machines at once... Most of the places near me onle have 10 machines to begin with...

I miss the days of being able to toss a load of undies in before I left for work and transfer to the drier when I get home. Taking an entire evening out of my life (and missing re-runs of "Law and Order: Special Vicitms Unit"-- sigh) really annoys me.

Enough Said...

OMG, I sat with Newt!

Newt Gingrich was the keynote speaker for the Genetic Alliance. I'll add more about some of what he said later, but I must share the way we met. One of the staffers was teaching people to knit as a way of communing with others and relaxing at breaks. I was learnign how to cast on and knit my first row, when I looked up and Newt was standing there watching. I was laughing inside. He commented that he had heard that it was known to lower the blood pressure, and I noted that mine seemed to be going up a little (it was partly because I really don't have a history of liking this man, and partly because I was concentrating on the needles so hard). He said I would probably feel the benefit once I got better. Does Newt Knit??? I doubt it. But it's kinda fun to be able to say that when brought face to face with one of the most visible faces of the Republican Party, we talked about knitting, not politics!

Not What You'd Expect

Francis Collins, MD, PhD is the Director of the National Human Genome Research Institute. He and his team are responsible for mapping the human genome. He's on eof the most brilliant men I've ever met, but the things that is so interesting about him is how he connects with people. He travels the country attending conferfences and speakign on issues of genetics and genetic conditions, and always ends by picking up his guitar and leading the group in song-- songs of inspiration and hope for a better tomorrow. He sucessfully integrates his passion for science and genetics with his faith and beliefe that God does have a place in science. He is the kind of guy that hangs out with the crowd after hours, and leads the sing-along. Last night we drank beers and sang John Denver and Beatles songs. What an informative and inspiring evening!

Riding Harry Potter's Celebrity Coat-Tail.

Check out this link. I dressed up to work at the Harry Potter Midnight Magic Party for the release of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" last friday night. A photographer from Reuter's was there and took a bunch of shots of me as the "Trivia Wizard." I circulated the store (when I could move-- I was mobbed most of the night) asking tough questions from all 6 books. I was amazed at how much detail the kids knew! Anyway, just before midnight, I became a bagger on the cashier line. It was surprisingly fun. As you can see from the link (if you look close at the first picture and caption) the Reuter's guy found me again. I made international news! :)

I also found the link on Yahoo News, where the photo is a little more clear...

Dr. Bush knows best...

The Final Frontier...

Rachel's fab boobs! We were out for a night of Tequila and beer. This is what happens... I'm reduced to the Hooters Lifestyle.

Ralaxing with Harry Potter

The view on a perfect summer evening as I sit at home reading the new 'Harry Potter.'

A Wonderful Evening with a Good Friend

Leslie is my dear friend Judy's sister, and also a friend. Here she is picking me up for a relaxing evening of wine in the garden and a fabulous dinner at a local Mexican restaurant in Walnut Creek. The car suits her festive personality.

Obedience

BART in San Francisco is so civilized compared to NYC subways. People actually obey the signs and line up in such a way as to allow people to exit the train before crowding on. It would NEVER work in New York.

Temptation #3

And again! And I STILL resisted. Nobody knows the trouble I've found. Nobody knows my sorrow!

Temptation #2

...twice! Is it a conspiracy?

Temptation in San Francisco

I resisted...

With Friends at the Marfan Conference

NMF Annual Conference in Palo Alto kicked off with a wonderful BBQ event for almost 400 people. Here with some of my good friends I met through work!

Spreadin' the love of God?

Hate everywhere!

Passed by a small team of God's Flock, spreading his message of love on the streets of Palo Alto, CA.... Poor, poor, clueless people!

Mom's Birthday

Today is Mom's birthday. It was the first thought I had when I woke up, and the last thought as I fell asleep. People who say that it gets better with time don't know what they are talking about... you just learn to deal with it better.

I do dream about her more than I did, which I am grateful for, but the dreams never make sense, and I can never really put all the pieces together when I wake up. I usually have fleeting memories of the dreams sometime the next day, out of nowhere. Today I have vague recollections from a dream last night of us flying, as if on a kite or something-- not on a plane. But there was a sense of conflict, or something very wrong. Grandma B was there too. And Dad. They weren't flying with us, but we were trying to get back to them when we crashed on a beach. And we had to avoid someone, for some reason. Craziness in my dreams...

I was happy to find this heart on her birthday. I kept seeing it on the floor across the room, but never looked closely. I kept catching it out of the corner of my eye, and each time I felt like I needed to look more closely. When I finally did, I saw that the glasses are covered with hearts... :)

Sad news...

Last December I posted that I found out my friend and college roommate David was diagnosed with melanoma that has spread to his brain. His mother emailed me today that he passed away. I'm stunned.

Here is a photo of us a few years ago when I visited him in San Diego. He was one of those truly friendly people was SO EASY to like. Great sense of humor, grounded, giving.

Craziness going through my head...

Laugh-in Legend

Jo Anne Worley and me at the stage door of "The Drowsy Chaperone."

Who says there are no jobs...

Playing tourist in my own town...
I can always grab a guitar, don my skivies, and stand "naked" on the streets of Times Square and take dollars for pics with tourists...

Goofy Photo Op at the Opryland Hotel in Nashville

Interesting Name for a Restaurant

(It was Grandma's choice, actually..... Hmmmmm.....)

Heart-y Lunch

Outside Subway at lunch...

Awwwwwwwww......

Bunnies in the driveway...