The Fridays

Why am I so tired today, was my question until about 3 minutes ago. I can't seem to get a momentum going, so I've done things like answer loads of backed up email and go to the gym at a very slow pace, and then I took a nap. Then I realized I saw 4 nights of live music this week out of a possible 5, and the other night I was working and then playing it myself. And I was very good about not sleeping in and getting up at a consistent time each day. They say that's good for you, I'm kind of wondering about that right now! So...I will proceed to Target at a snail's pace but might pick up some caffeine on the way home. Who says productivity doesn't start at 3 PM on a Friday afternoon? Rock and roll. Also this post will be just text, to demonstrate my laziness, haha.

The Year That Was.

Oh everybody's doing it, so I guess I will, too. All the blogs I read are doing their "best of" posts of 2007, and I have officially, as of January 1st (TOMORROW!) been blogging for a year, so I have a whole 12 months to pick from. What a year it's been. I guess it'll also serve as a little "2007 Year in Review" because life looks considerably different now except the whole point hasn't really changed at all. Let's make that make sense: January: My first post was...well, a first post. Then I saw Patty Griffin at Gruene Hall and it was a good sign of the fun year ahead. February: I launched the re-design of jpo.com which is what you're looking at now. Yes, before there was NO BLOG ON THE FRONT PAGE! Gasp! Now it would seem weird to have anything different. Still a little slow at blogging. March: Jana Susana Banana Rama happened, and it was my first time playing with Susan Gibson and it was SO COOL. Plus, I got to meet Jana Losey and Melanie Peters (who of course, added the Jana and the Rama to the Susana and the...I guess that makes me the Banana. Hrm.) Jana L. is releasing a new album called "Blocks" and you should probably own it. Rama. Susana. Jana. Banana? My first SXSW left me in a dizzying realization that Austin pretty much rocks. I saw a bunch of killer music, and interestingly enough a little band I like to call porterdavis (well, actually...that's what they like to call themselves) with some dude named Dan in it who I had never met before. And I didn't meet him then, either, haha. Shy Jana. April: I played at the Austin Women's Film, Music, and Literary Festival -- met a LOT of cool people and gigged a bunch in one weekend. Great times. May: My blog exploded thanks to a week of touring around New Mexico with Susan and hanging out with business partner Josh, who logged and filmed and took notes the whole time. The video blog (vlog) became a fixture. I like having business partners who know things. Well, just one, because he knows it all. Getting to NM Susan is a trooper Late Nite Radio Santa Fe Gig Filmed for TribVid at the ABQ Tribune Got Paid in Potatoes? The curse of the Czech name Hanging out at the Very Large Array My One Year Anniversary Phew. June: I was very coy about starting to study at Red Leaf School of Music because I didn't know how things would work out with this aforementioned Dan guy from porterdavis, so I just said "things are happening." I'm a little silly sometimes. July: My Independence Day was spent waxing poetic about the influence Mary Chapin Carpenter has had on me. FINALLY I speak about Folk Music Grad School. And FINALLY I introduced you to Business Partner Josh, even though he was still The Mysterious J at the time. August: My little opus about Terri Hendrix is one of my favorite posts. Dan and I started our Hemingway Book Club. We're on our 5th book now, I think. Oh, and Dan and I decided to make a record. September: The Artist Market, which I have been playing with for over a year now, got a little rained on at the Pecan Street Festival. So did my pants. I got a flat tire. October: Three Words: Life's A Song. Day One Day Two November: The 2nd Annual JP Project went off without a hitch. More shows in New Mexico with Susan Gibson. Lovely. Now it's December and you're reading this post. Are you exhausted yet? I'm not. My point is...I did not have a clue most of this stuff was going to happen. In January I knew I was taking steps to build a business with Josh and start working toward the path of being a self-supporting singer/songwriter/entrepreneur/freelancer. That happened...but 2 tours to New Mexico with one of my very favorite songwriters ever, folk music grad school, a producer for my EP, and lots of new people and mentors in my life were pretty much all...surprises. All I can say is, chart your path with purpose and then let your chart get re-written as you go, but keep the purpose. That makes things go smoothly, I think. 2008 is going to be fun. Thanks for hanging in there! Have a SAFE and HAPPY New Year, kids!

Building the Scaffold: Nerd Post

I got up at 4:30 AM this morning to take my friends to the airport. They were very apologetic, but I told them the timing was great because Dan and I have been locked in an ongoing discussion about how to up our productivity. Turns out he's as nerdy as Josh and I are about lifehacks and GTD and all of that good stuff. Personal development is not for pansies, folks. There's lots of good info out there but the challenge is to wade through it all and come out the other side with a toolkit useful to your own needs and goals. One of those needs and goals for both Dan and I is getting up earlier. We can't really cram much more into our days on the tail end...I work a full time job and then spend a bunch of time at Red Leaf, or I practice, or write, or go grocery shopping. I'd like MORE time to practice and write, and the golden hour for that is the morning. Steve Pavilina, a very interesting dude to say the least and someone who Josh and I discovered a couple of years ago when we were still interning, has several articles about getting up early and accomplishing more by 9 AM than many people get done in an 8 hour workday. It sounds swell. I was doing it for a while, writing every morning, and then fell off the wagon. Time to get back on. (Well, after Christmas vacation, hm?) What do you DO when you're up that early? Other than writing blog posts like this one...we think scaffolding is essential to maintaining our individual visions and framing our day. Pavlina has a whole article explaining it in detail, but the jist is spending some time focusing on long term goals. "Why am I here? Why am I up at 5 AM? Why am I spending all this time playing the Em pentatonic scale?" Little things are just that...little things that can bog you down and close off your Big Picture Vision if you let them. "I'm totally skipping G major scales today. They're just scales." Not cool. The better frame for that, achieved when you have the big picture in mind, is "The more I increase my knowledge of music theory, the more tools I have at my disposal as a musician, which will make me a better songwriter." It's great. So, I've had my coffee (Pavlina would be unhappy about that...caffeine is on the list to deal with later)...and I'm typing, and I'm feeling a little groggy but I think I can ramp up my energy level once I get used to this. On through the grog! pavlina sleep productivity lifehack musician

Things to Chew On

Yes, that's me as a wee one. Thank goodness my hair grew in. I was bald for a long time as a small child. It added to my cuteness...or something. It's been a bit since my last blog! I spent Monday organizing my living space. Well, I started to, and I got a lot done, but my living space requires 2 days of organization, I think. Hence my CDs are still piled in stacks that mean nothing. They were in a meaningful order at some point...like maybe my sophomore year of college. There were the Texas artists and the Boston artists and the Nashville artists and the lame pop CDs I won't admit to owning and the Mary Chapin shelf (yes, I have a whole shelf of Chapin). Then I moved a few more times and bought a lot more CDs and...they're in piles. My favorite quote from the movie High Fidelity is this one: Dick: I guess it looks as if you're reorganizing your records. What is this though? Chronological? Rob: No... Dick: Not alphabetical... Rob: Nope... Dick: What? Rob: Autobiographical. Dick: No way. For about a week I thought that every album I ever buy from here on out should just be downloaded, so that when I move I won't have to deal with cases and scratched discs. Except I LOVE a shelf full of musical possibilities in various colors and fonts in front of me. The aural library, as it were. You don't get that happy vibe clicking file names in iTunes. So this week, new to the collection..."Raising Sand" by Alison Krauss and Robert Plant and "Mothership" - the new Zeppelin compilation. If those guys do decide to tour again, I am so dropping a chunk of change for that show. Totally worth it. In the meantime...back to chewing on my mad organization skillz.

Albuquerque: My Hometown

In only two weeks I fly to Albuquerque to play some gigs. Well, the gigs are all over New Mexico, but Albuquerque is a nice place to land, always. I miss it all the time, but especially in the fall when the scent of roasting green chile and burning cedar fills the air. And then there are the balloons...taking over the skyline for a few weeks in October and adding color to an already vibrant sky. It's not really explainable...y'all might think a few hot air balloons in the air is not so much a big whoop. Except there are HUNDREDS, all at once. It's awesome. There are years that the wind triumphs and some of the events are cancelled, but the last time I attended the Balloon Fiesta in 2005, it was perfect flying weather. Here's a little bit of Albuquerque in October: The Mass Ascension in the morning. Right now my mom is freaking out because her photo is now on my blog. Hehhehheh. She's a cute mom. Special shapes rock, too. They're huge. Inflating for the Balloon Glow at dusk... 3...2...1...GLOW! There are a few more photos in my Flickr Pool if you are interested...

175th.

This is my 175th blog post. I started in January. I thought that was interesting. Dallas was very fun. I got to hang with my buddy Katie who knows the city like I know the caffeine aisle at the grocery store (they have those, I promise). We also basically held out for stoppage on the way home until West, TX where The Czech Stop lives. I encountered it first in May when I was driving back to Austin from Albuquerque/Amarillo in some bizarre 15 hour mararthon. I was tired; it was 3 AM. Then there was a sign advertising my people. My Bohemian roots on a billboard. So I pulled over and had the best poppyseed kolache ever. I hated them as a kid when my mom made them because kids don't eat little black pieces of opium. Now I embrace them. YES I just said I embrace little black pieces of opium. Oh so anyway, um. I'm kinda tired and over-exerted but that means there's some breakthrough to be had shortly. I tell myself that. I'm around Austin for a couple of weeks and then it's off to Houston and Albuquerque for some shows. Very excited for a New Mexico autumn. I'm learning chord theory in a way that is finally making sense. Hallelujah. After that little stint in ABQ and my Birthday Show at the Irie Bean (November 15th, y'all should come)...it's REST time. Meaning, I'll stay home more and record and write and learn. I am looking forward to this a lot. A big Happy Birthday to my big sister Tracy! :) The card's in the mail. Well it will be. Maybe with your Christmas present. Right now I am mesmerized by this Feist video. It makes me happy! I was introduced to it by Heather and her fab Lyrical Venus blog. Check it out. Enjoy Feist whilst I enjoy the quiet misty Austin evening.

Sameness.

I read this in a NYT interview with Arthur Frommer, the dude who does all those travel guides that are oh so handy for going somewhere. Q: What has been your greatest discovery while traveling? A: The sameness of all people, all over the world. From the mother of a Masai family in Kenya to a young couple in Japan to an Egyptian teacher living on a houseboat, all people have the same basic concerns and deal with the same human problems that we do. I think that's why songwriters are necessary. They point out how we're all the same.

Life.

Out the door to work for 9 hours at 7 AM, straight to San Antonio for a gig, played for 2.5 hours...drove back, home at midnight. Makes for one tired little songwriter. :)

Jana's Writer's Room

Ok, it's a corner. A Writer's Corner in a room because I only have one room, dangit. Inspired by the Guardian UK's photo-essay on famous authors and their rooms of choice, here we go. A short tour, if I may. Excuse the dust. An ubiquitous guitar case on the floor for easy access. I picked up the chair at a thrift store for 6 bucks. It swivels and it has no arms, good for proper guitar holding. The desk on the right is also a thrift store purchase. I hauled it up 2 flights of stairs myself until a nice neighbor saw me and helped with the last flight. Phew. That's for the pure writing end of things. Pen, paper, guitar. The other desk is for recording things on the laptop. Photos! Everywhere! People I like, musicians I've met, an MCC autograph. Two maps (one US and one World) to remind me of the places I get to see. A couple of my own gig posters (embarrassed!) that were really awesome gigs and make me happy to remember them. The bookcase holds a bunch of poetry (Whitman, Eliot, Sandberg, Dickinson, Rilke, Moore, and Parker to name a few) and a bunch of modern American history (Vietnam, environmental rights movement, women's lib, civil rights, the counterculture). There's a little Civil War and some 18th century America tucked away in there, too. Then up above is the CD collection. I really need to get a giant iPod and rip all of that, because you just can't tour with a bookcase.

Another Moleskine for the Collection

They're so dang handy, and I love a quality writing/notetaking tool, as you know. I'm almost through my 2nd Moleskine to-do/notes/reference blank book of the year, but I decided I needed a more permanent address book. As fun as it is to email my mom every time I need someone's info (thanks, mom), and as handy as a Gmail contact list is...sometimes, you're just not on the internet. Even me. Yes, there I said it: SOMETIMES I'M NOT ON THE INTERNET. Enter pure and simple Moleskine joy. There are no pre-made forms to fill in. Every page is as blank as my head on writer's block, and I can put as much or as little as I want for each contact. Plus I'll always know my alphabet. moleskine notebook writing journal book organization

Meet the Producer: Pike Place Market

No, not the album producer, haha. Pike Place Market in Seattle turns 100 this week! Since it's one of my most favorite places on the planet, a Birthday post is in order. I go there every time I'm in Seattle where my sister and her family live, sometimes multiple times just to hang out and take in the scenery. There are the famous fish flingers... the freshest peaches and berries and every kind of vegetable you could think of trying... rows and rows of fresh flowers, local blackberry honey for the tasting, dried apricots by the bag, and a tea store tucked in with the stalls housing every type of plant you can steep in hot water imagineable. Street musicians and performers dot the sidewalks and add color to the grey street on grey sky motif... Across the street from the market is a bakery that sells pumpkin cookies as big as my head (and my head is pretty big, kids)...and down the way is the first Starbucks ever. The flagship store. The little coffeehouse that people hung out in after buying their strawberries and apples and bing cherries. One of my favorite moments ever was outside of that Starbucks. I had just bought a latte and was about to head over to the flower stalls for a look, and a big man was preaching on the sidewalk with a booming voice. He had a kindness about him and clearly a joy radiated from him because he loved telling people about God. I told him to have a good day because he made me happy, and he stops me. He asks me my name, and he says, "Jana...God is talking to me right now. God says this year is your year. I don't know what he has in store for you, but he is going to bless you beyond your wildest imagination." It was like busting open a fortune cookie on the sidewalk, I swear. That was last year, and 2006 turned out to be a pretty good one. Not a cakewalk, by any means...but a good one. So has 2007. I'd like to think if I ran into him again, in any year, that preacher on the sidewalk would tell me the same thing. That's kind of nice. Happy Birthday, Pike Place! Here's to 100 More.

Lori McKenna: Singer, Songwriter, Wife, Mother

I've known about Lori McKenna for a long time...she's a great songwriter, and she's had some excellent singers cover her material. Faith Hill is a fan. Sara Evans and Mandy Moore have cut some Lori tracks, too. Lots of people have. Her new CD, "Unglamorous," is available for download this week, and this video shows...just what a cool PERSON Lori is! Five kids, a house in Massachusetts, and worrying about who will pick the kids up from school when Faith Hill asks her to be on Oprah. That's my kind of folk.

j.Po Thots: Stuff vs. Experience

Two heads are better than one. Paul Graham wrote an awesome essay about Stuff. It kind of pertains to my thoughts about living in a small space...actually it sums up a lot of what I have been thinking lately. I am a Stuff Acquirer. Less so now than I used to be, but I still have my quirks. One day there was a giant corkboard outside by the dumpster fence...you know, in that place that people who are moving out put things because they don't want to throw them away. It's huge. It was blank. I like blank things, because it means I can cover them with stuff. I hauled it upstairs. That was in June. It's still sitting there in my apartment...bare. Mostly because there's no good place to hang it. It's that big. I'd have to rearrange my artfully placed photos and Mary Chapin Carpenter tour poster, haha. So...I'll probably haul it back down to the dumpster one day, and someone else with big dreams and a year to plan can pick it up. Silliness, huh? I've got shirts I bought at the thrift store that I never really wear. I've got books I don't read. Pots and pans I don't cook with. Humans are full of that "One Day..." syndrome. One day I might need this, one day someone might need to borrow that. In the meantime my studio starts to look like a museum and the number of items I actually TOUCH in it...as in...use on a weekly basis...is low. The most horrifying quote in Graham's essay to me is this one: "I know of one couple who couldn't retire to the town they preferred because they couldn't afford a place there big enough for all their stuff. Their house isn't theirs; it's their stuff's." Whoa. That's my idea of a nightmare. "Man, I'd really like to go live in Seattle now but I can't afford to move this china hutch and my collection of Peter, Paul, and Mary records that I will totally listen to once I get a record player." should never hold you back from experience. Experience builds you up as a person, stuff does not. And there's an article on Wise Bread about uncluttering that makes the excellent point that less stuff = clearer head. I feel great when I can see my floor. Wise Bread also makes the point that once you clear out some of the things you don't need, the next challenge is to...NOT BUY MORE. Oh, crap. What's better than spending a Saturday afternoon buying a CD or two at Waterloo (guilty: just bought The Weepies disc), heading over to Book People "just to browse," (guilty: new Hemingway tome), and winding it all up with a quick browse through Whole Foods? Curse you, 6th and Lamar in Downtown Austin and your pleasantly walkable shopping district! It's all about the experience, I guess. But who's to say I can't go listen to a whole CD at Waterloo without buying -- they let you do that -- then go page through a book or a magazine at Book People -- they let you do that, too, in a comfy chair! -- and then people watch on the Whole Foods patio with oh, a grapefruit? (Still on that grapefruit kick, kids). That would cost me $0.59 total instead of...well, like $50.00. Brilliant. And then there's nothing to store in my already clogged apartment, either. Baby steps, people. Baby steps. This is all part of a Larger Plan...that is still being, well...planned. But you can bet it'll get blogged about. In the meantime, we're just pondering. Ponder with me. Technorati Tags: songwriter, wisebread, clutter, essay, declutter, personaldeveloment, minimalism

Photoessay No. 2: Carlsbad, NM

Friday: a quick 7 hour trip to Carlsbad, New Mexico to camp with the Friends. You know you're in New Mexico when the sunsets are unbearably lovely. Gas=Go. Saturday we went 750 feet underground and explored Carlsbad Cavern. Note: Always check to see that the sprinklers are turned off at your KOA camp site. Sunday's peaceful drive home through the Hill Country. Technorati Tags: carlsbad, newmexico, photos Powered by ScribeFire.

Friday Feature: Tiny House

I first became enamored with tiny houses after reading this San Francisco Gate article. It seems that this is a trend that might be growing a bit, and actually encompasses a lot of issues confronting us socially and politically. Oddly, the trend might be boosted from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the popularity of (probably ill-named) Katrina Cottages, as blogged about over on Consumerist. Sometimes necessity in crisis brings about a shift in thinking. First thought upon seeing the photos of these tiny habitats was..."Yeah I could never do that." Then I got to thinking...I lived through 4.5 years of college in various dorm rooms of differing sizes. My sophomore year, I lived in the smallest room in a collective apartment...the room which my roommates affectionately termed "The Closet." (And here I always wondered why people were trying to hang their coats on my stuff.) I am currently living in a studio apartment, which is more than enough room for me and my collection of things. In fact I've recently taken to mentally paring down my belongings even more. While I do keep quite a bit of memorabilia like photos and mementos of cool things I've done, I absolutely abhor knickknacks and touristy crap that people buy just to prove they've stood on a beach in Hawaii. (Or maybe they didn't, and they just bought it at a thrift store because someone ELSE stood on a beach in Hawaii, bought the thing, flew it back home, and decided that instead of being a marker of ultimate culture and coolness, it was dust magnet. But I digress and maybe I am a curmudgeon). I do realize that choosing a lifestyle such as that of a touring artist means...I will be living in a cramped space for a while. I have also decided that there is really no need to acquire a lot of stuff, like perhaps an armoire or an entertainment center, if I will be spending more time in a vehicle than in a house for a few years. Maybe deep down I hope I'll just adapt to the Life of Less and be able to graduate to a more permanent Tiny House. How cool would that be? They're aesthetically gorgeous, they're cheap ($5 a month for utilities? No way. Yes way. Dude.), and they're still mobile. You basically park your house. If you feel like living in Montana one summer and Santa Fe in the winter, you just pack your house. Brilliant. Who knows where I will be living in 9 months and 9 months after that (maybe on your couch...yes, YOU)...but it's always nice to have several plans in place, eh? In the meantime...check out how Dee does it in this cool little vid: Technorati Tags: tinyhouse, sustainability, consumerist, katrina, living, noimpact, songwriter Powered by ScribeFire.

No TV Project: I'm Not Alone?

Check out this little factoid: 2.5 million LESS people are tuning in to the major networks this year compared to last year. Now, I'd like to say that act of putting my TV in the closet a month ago accounted for a nice chunk of that statistic, but really it wasn't that bad. I am enjoying the choice, though. It was a little weird at first. I was used to eating meals with Diane Sawyer or Charlie Gibson, getting my daily dose of catastrophe news and troop casualty counting in with my morning fiber twigs. Then I'd flip the tube on when I was just home, and inevitably get sucked into the latest episode of Trading Spouses which...come on, we all know they're completely freakishly opposite families maybe with a couple of jerky, lazy family members who see the light and everyone leaves understanding a little more about the world but really happy their mom is their mom. And that's cute, but if you need to go live with an Amish family to realize that, you've got bigger issues than I care to see on screen. I digress. My point was, I was used to the noise. I figured I would supplement my lack of TV noise with increased amounts of music...but that's not even the case. These days I wake up, I do my Morning Pages, and I eat breakfast...in silence. I can hear the birds chirping outside, the cars going by. I CAN HEAR MY OWN THOUGHTS. Creepy, huh? It's kind of ok. Plus, if I want to take a walk, the Simpsons re-run isn't going to distract me. (Ok, I do miss the Simpsons, but they exist on DVD without commercials anyway so it's not a huge deal either). I have gotten a Netflix membership, because one can't deprive oneself of the form of visual art entirely. I just like to think I've narrowed it down to watching actual art as opposed to...complete schlock. Sorry, network TV...you're not even missed.

Odd Jobs/Good Lessons

So...I like to say I've got a "varied" work experience, which basically translates into...I took what came along. Luckily, for the most part, I've fallen into some really good things. Talking to our host while filming..."oh. my. gawd. Did you SEE what he was wearing? I know. Oh there's a sale at GAP? Let's go after we're done taping." As I've mentioned, I was an intern and eventually associate producer at KNME-TV in Albuquerque for a year. I also taught political science labs to intro poli sci students, gave study strategies workshops, and tutored writing at UNM at a little place I like to call The Center for Academic Program Support. Actually, I like to call it CAPS because I'm lazy. I even wrote a song about CAPS once. I call it "The CAPS Song." If you get hired there, they'll play it for you. Don't all rush the application process at once. I learned a lot at CAPS, and took a lot of learning style/personality tests. I am an INT...something on the Myers Briggs test, a "4" on some other (ask me about it and I'll tell you what a 4 does), and neither left nor right brained. (It's not called whole-brained, sadly. More like..."Confused"). I ate a lot of muffins and bagels at CAPS, too. The coolest photo I have ever taken...and it's of a MUFFIN??? I sold pizza for a summer, and never really got the hang of explaining to people what pesto was, and I never got over the copious amount of pronunciations people have for marinara. (My favorite was "maryann.") I have a good appreciation for a nice crust and every slice of pie tastes better with green chile on it, I promise. When I moved to Texas and was, well...bumming for 4 months, I had a one-day stint picking cucumbers and zucchini on an organic farm outside of town. I accepted the job with a doe-eyed wonderment, thinking, "YES. My family comes from a long line of Midwestern farmers. My uncles farm. My parents grew up on farms. It's in my BLOOD. I will be so artist-like in my Bohemian pursuits of the land and put true meaning in my life." Well yeah. One day of hacking cukes off vines and "watching out for rattlers" and I really just...well, I didn't return. I felt like a wimp, but I couldn't physically move without intense pain for 5 days after. I know I would have worked through the soreness eventually, but...as a kid raised in a not-big-but-big-enough sized city...I decided to save my tanning efforts for outdoor gigs only. Your ashamed folkie has faults, ladies and gentlemen. "Um. Maybe even zucchini won't grow here, huh?" I did ultimately enjoy the farm and the thought of eating something I knew I had picked hours earlier...and that it was grown without chemicals and pesticides seeping into its little cuke-y pores...well I like that. So I guess the lesson learned from that...one day I'll have a big garden and you all can come over and eat zucchini bread. Stacks of it. Just watch out for rattlers.

I (heart) Moleskine

A peek. Just a peek. I'm kind of a nerd. I have a thing for paper and pens, in a way that is probably unhealthy. I will browse the aisles of Borders, Barnes and Noble, Book People, and wherever else I need to be to find just the right songwriting notebook. No ruled paper, please. Spiral bound for easy flexibility. A nice, stiffish paper that takes ink well. Preferably free of anything on the cover or title page that would imply anyone had any ideas for what the notebook should be before I opened it. I've transferred this love over to my To Do system, as I am a great believer in productivity via what are called "lifehacks" -- which are simply smart ways of doing things so that I have more time to focus on important things like writing and locating the nearest retailer of Red Velvet Bingles. While I love the internet and use it for just about everything, I can't give up my pen and paper. Carrying my lists with me makes me feel put together. When I found the Moleskine brand of pocket notebooks, I was skeptical of their magical powers. "The legendary notebook of Hemingway, Picasso, Chatwin," they say. Oh, really. But you crack one of these leather-bound babies and you are unstoppable. They are the perfect size to carry anywhere, they handle a nice inky pen well, they have a fabulous elastic band around them for safe-keeping...everything is perfection. I get the "Squared Notebook" which is good for note-taking as well as sketching out diagrams or charts. A good half of my Moleskine is used for my daily To Do list, but I tab it off into other sections (see those colorful little dealies in the photo) for phone numbers, song lines that come to me in the grocery store, what have you. Moleskines are quite popular and there's even a Moleskinerie blog dedicated to their uses. It's lovely to see how people implement such a simple thing in so many ways. Just a tool of the trade...

j.Po Thots: Get in Line

Yep, this is still the Official j.Po Thots photo. Deal. Tonight I walked up the stairs to my apartment and noticed there's some interesting arrangement of planet-moon-star-star in the sky -- all in one perfect line. I literally slept through astronomy in college (I know, I know...it's interesting, cool stuff...but the last class of the day coupled with a dark room and cushy chairs...I was zonked the whole semester and still got an A). Hence, I have no clue what the planet is or if the stars are really just more planets...but I'm pretty sure the sickle shaped thing is the moon. Pretty sure I got that much out of class. It references how a lot of things in life align, even when you're not trying. Those stars and planets weren't coasting around space thinking, "Man! If we could just line up with the moon right now!" It just happened, if only from our vantage point on Earth at the moment. The point? Keep making connections and going places, because you will be amazed at what aligns from those seemingly random connections down the line. I'm proof. Ask me about it some day.

90 Days

I like time frames. I will talk endlessly about one year plans and five year plans and my To Do list for the day outlines nicely in my Moleskine notebook, complete with checkboxes waiting to be X’ed through with quiet satisfaction from an inky Pilot pen. This, of course, is dependent upon me actually looking at my list and then feeling motivated enough to do the things on it. Some days are better than others, is all I’ll say. However, in the world of scheming, I’ve found a most invaluable tool is the 90 day time frame. It’s not too short to be irrelevant, and it’s not too long that my brain shuts it out. I’ve embarked on a few projects using this 90 day reference, one of them being a 90 Day Vegan. My buddy Jamie and I grew up omnivores, but curious ones. Jamie announced over Christmas vacation last year that she was going to be a vegan for 90 days. I am such a tag-along that I begged in on the deal, and we did it. We made it, too. There were some harrowing times. I hang out in coffeehouses, where there are giant cases full of baked goods ripe for the picking. Jamie went to Oklahoma and lived on vegan road food for a week. Vegan road food, as you will discover if you try it, does not really exist. I think Jamie lived on air and told herself it was salad. Mmm. Anyway, we survived and I did a crappy job of it while touring around New Mexico, but I still eat (mostly) vegan. The 90 days allowed me to go through the initial “This is neato! I’m a vegan!” phase, the “Uh oh...what did I do?” phase, the “I CAN’T EVEN GROCERY SHOP I QUIT” phase, and then the last month and a half...blissful flow and acceptance. I felt good as a vegan. Things operated correctly in the J-Po digestive track. Vegetables are great. So are french fries. What more does one need? Now I look back and 3 months seems like a long time, but it went quickly. My new project is...TV in the closet for 90 days. It’s been so easy because I’ve been so busy I lost count of the days. I suspect this might just be a permanent arrangement. Does anyone want to buy a year-old television? Rarely used except for Seinfeld re-runs. Email me. I don’t deliver, unless you live a 90-day’s walk away. Then I just might try it.