Last week was spent running amok in Colorado, from the tidy metropolis of Denver to the tightly knit town of Carbondale. My dad's milestone birthday was occasion to unite my far flung family in the central-enough location of Denver, drawing together our eight person inner circle fam for a great reunion. Not to be boastful, but my clan is gaga in love with each other. Perhaps because of our great geographical separation but certainly in spite of it, we spend vacation times together almost entirely wrapped up in a single room for days on end. Mirroring a herd of desert cats or Wes Anderson's family of Tenenbaums, we seek sunshine as a unit, indecisively manage meals as a unit and, most importa

As I scan the rows of paint tubes during my latest trip to the art store, my eyes fall in love upon an innocuous pair of bottles reading "GAC-800 | Reduces Crazing." C-r-a-z-ing. Amazing. Researching the word later, I am delighted to find two satisfying and somehow related definitions: 1. wildly insane or excited. "a crazed killer" synonyms:mad, insane, psychotic, out of one's mind, deranged, demented,certifiable, psychopathic, lunatic; More 2. produce a network of fine cracks on (a surface). "the lake was frozen over but crazed with cracks" Cracks on the surface / produced by an uncontainable energy. How many times have I experienced this? How often have I yearned for a word to explain the

The Talking Heads have influenced my life in multiple periods: from the cover band Houses In Motion that the coolest guys at my high school formed in the late 90s to the time my best friend screamed at me during an epic bar dance party "I WANT THIS SONG TO PLAY AT MY WEDDING!" (the song: "This Must Be The Place", the bar: Danny's, the dream: played at her wedding four years later) to recent weeks, when again, the synth-meets-afro-groove beats held my hand and reminded me that life is cool, no need to freak out. The last couple of months have had my heart feeling like a volleyball- up and down and out of my control. Control falling in and out of my grasp from day to day. Little beknownst to m