Tag: muses

Tiny Tuesday!


Not long after we moved into Houndstooth Hall, I spotted this Hot Wheels car next to our driveway. I’d hoped it was a Cobra (reason will soon be evident), but it’s a ’97 Mazda RX-7. Maybe my favorite part is the sticker with the 55 crossed out (hey, Sammy Hagar!).

If you’re familiar with the Beach Boys’ 1960s music, then you know they began with surf and moved to cars. A band of teenagers suddenly rolling in money and pulling in girls naturally bought the coolest cars, but Dennis, always a daredevil, liked to race his. His car exploits are part of the legend.

Dennis’s cars included: ’63 Corvette Stingray, Jaguar XKE, a yellow Cobra, Ferrari Lusso (former car of the late Sam Cooke), Rolls Royce, Ferrari 275 GTB long-nose, VW camper, 1955 Thunderbird, 1934 Ford… and who knows how many others.

All of that is why I chose the sporty photo I did for today’s 30 Days Idol Challenge.


September 7 — With a hat ©Ed Roach

Who said it was easy
Driver drive on
Let the wind carry your blues away

Lyric from “Dreamer,” by Dennis Wilson, 1977

Labor Day and Mood: Monday


Today’s mood is gratitude to everyone who works or who has worked to keep things going for all of us through the years, especially in 2020 and 2021. For those looking for work, I hope you find it. For those retired or unable to work, you contribute in more ways than you may realize. For those whose labor is unpaid or disrespected, I hope you know people who recognize your value. I’ve been in all of those categories at one time or another; I know it’s hard sometimes to keep on keeping on, yet you do it. Salute!

Continuing the 30 Days Idol Challenge.


September 6 — With kids ©Estate of Dennis Wilson
With his daughter and three sons in September 1983.

My brain

Revisiting the 30 Days Idol Challenge, when I looked over the list and thought of possible photos, I remembered a photo (maybe two photos) that I thought I bought at a record show in Austin probably in the early 1990s. I knew what bin I’d likely find it in, but I thought it was pointless to look for it, because I had no idea how to credit the photographer. At record shows, there are albums and folders full of concert and celebrity photos, and the seller may not be the original photographer. It’s a free-for-all (but NOT free).

Then my brain–the brain that can’t remember if I took my medicine, can’t remember exactly how old my dogs are without looking up their records, can’t remember what I had for dinner last night or what Tom said he had to do the next day–yes, THAT brain, said, The photographer was an amateur named Dorian Boese. And I was all, “For real, brain? After maybe thirty years, you expect me to believe that factoid? Did you just pull that name out of thin air? WTF?”

Whatever; the brain was right. I dug through the bin, found the photo, and it was stamped on the back with the photographer’s name and address. This is why I tell people not to lie to me, because I remember VERY STRANGE shit and can catch someone when what s/he says contradicts what s/he said even decades ago. I could better manage my daily life if only another person would narrate what I’ve eaten, read, and watched, or why I walked into the kitchen. I’d probably remember if it was something I’d heard. (I shouldn’t joke about this. As a female in Texas, I could be assigned someone to monitor me anytime to report me and collect a bounty if the state and its snitch don’t approve of my choices.)

I have no idea why I remembered this photographer’s name. But here’s brother Carl giving bunny ears to Dennis in red.


September 3 — In red ©Dorian Boese

P.S. Dear Gov Abbott and spies: No need to worry about monitoring my meds. I have a system.

come up with your own

I’m going to advise you to find your own quote about laughter. There are about a million of them encouraging you to do it for your good health and state of mind, and these are times when laughing is hard. I was glad for today’s idol challenge:

Because an Instagram friend recently posted this photo:


September 2 — Laughing cropped photo ©Ed Roach

Thinking about the effects of climate change courtesy of Hurricane Ida on the country, and the effects of yet another Texas law stripping rights from women and the poor, does not keep me from thinking about COVID. I haven’t verified the numbers in the below captures, but they are thought provoking and also nothing to laugh about.

I guess today’s household task to keep me too busy to freak out will be making Tom’s bathroom clean like mine. And I have one disk left in the Feel Flows collection to listen to.

Thirty days hath September…

Thirty days hath September, April, June, and November
All the rest have thirty-one
Excepting February alone
And that has twenty-eight days clear
And twenty-nine in each leap year

I can never remember any line but the first one of that little poem that was meant to teach the number of days in each calendar month. I’d rather cut out a day of August and give it to September, especially this year, but nobody asked me. So I’ll celebrate the thirty days of September in my own way.

I have four newly revised, full novels in the saga and 140ish pages of the next one. I’m thinking of slashing a bunch from those 140 pages and revising/rewriting. With that in mind, I decided to take a brief writing break, because August writing was intense and challenging.

I’ve made some daily goals to give me structure until I write again:

  • Do at least one housekeeping task per day.
  • Listen to music, not as background, but for the music alone.
  • Do one of the things that allows my brain the freedom to think about my fiction writing (coloring, sewing, petting a dog or four, creating art, contemplating, or writing poetry/lyrics).

Today, I cleaned my bathroom. That’s some exciting material right there, I know. Thank your lucky stars I’m not giving you details about last night’s palmetto bug adventure.


I’m still listening to the Feel Flows CD box set. I did that while coloring today, and I was moved to tears by 4:47 minutes of an alternate version of a song I already love. I guess I must be a multitasker, because music + coloring = a breakthrough idea on that fifth book. SCORE!

Sometimes when I post about the Beach Boys, whether it’s their music, their history, or their drummer, I feel like I need to issue a disclaimer. I’ll put one at the bottom of this post to amuse myself.

Someone I know only via a social media site who’s a big Eddie Van Halen fan is doing a “30 Days Idol Challenge” in EVH’s honor. I don’t know if I can find a photo for all of these categories for my muse Dennis Wilson, but I can enjoy the heck out of trying. If I know the photographer, I’ll give credit. If you are the photographer, please tell me so I can credit you!


September 1 — In sunglasses cropped photo ©Ed Roach, 1980

Disclaimer: Unless you are a member of the Beach Boys, or have traveled or recorded with the band, or personally know members of the band, or are related to a member of the band, or you are married to me, or you are my lifelong friend since the age of twelve, or you are a sibling or cousin who handed over your Beach Boys records to my care, carefully consider what you might say to me. Do not tell me “facts” about the band. I’m likely aware of them, true and false. Do not talk about the bad things connected to the band, e.g., mental illness, addiction, untimely death, a fraudulent therapist, or a certain psychopathic cult leader. I’m fully educated about how these impacted the lives of band members, and they aren’t fun for me to talk about though you’re certainly entitled to find them tantalizing on your own time. Do not tell me what years of their music are superior to other years unless you are a music critic with a by-line in a reputable publication or you did several years of research to write an authorized book about one of the band members. Do not perpetuate the contrived myth that the Beach Boys and the Beatles resented or competed with each other. That applies to some of their fans, not their musicians (a single Beach Boys member’s rambling speech at a recognition ceremony notwithstanding). There are two current versions of the Beach Boys: the band that tours under the name, and the band that Brian Wilson and Al Jardine, among others, work and perform with. If you don’t know which of these two bands has my loyalty and owns my heart, do you even know me?

Tiny Tuesday!

Now I can share this painting because it has been received by the person whose gift it is.

“Muse Garden No. 1: Need You Tonight” is mixed media on an 8×10 canvas. The painting’s inspiration came from the lyrics of “Need You Tonight” by INXS. Lines and words from the song are printed on the stems and leaves of the flowers. After I painted the canvas, each flower was individually hand-colored by me and applied.

The recipient has great affection for the late Michael Hutchence, Australian musician, singer-songwriter, actor, and co-founder of INXS. The center of the sun is a bottle cap from manufacturer Carlton & United/Carlton’s Crown Lager and says, “Australia’s Finest,” an apt description of Hutchence.

I was inspired by art I found on the Internet that used Spirograph drawings. I found them when doing research for this excerpt from the Neverending Saga.

She browsed the shelves and tables until a notebook caught her eye. The colorful flowers on its cover reminded her of ones she and her best friend used to draw. They’d start with her Spirograph, color the shapes and patterns with markers and pencils, then cut them out and glue them on things like the covers they made for their school books, her 45 records boxes, and notes they wrote to each other. They gave the shapes stems and leaves so they became flowers.

To create both a painting and fiction inspired by someone’s art and someone else’s music is extremely gratifying to me.

Tiny Tuesday!

Back in August of 2010 (on Marika’s birthday, in fact), I wrote a post inspired by Toy Story as well as a dream I had. Those two things led to my purchase of a couple of vintage Arco Gasoline Dolls of the World to replace those I’d been given as a child: Spain and England. I had six in all, and I’m not sure when they left my life, but dreaming about them left me feeling nostalgic.

During the apparently unending (thanks to misguided, willfully ignorant, dishonest, cynical, or callous humans–don’t get me started) pandemic, I decided to replace the other four dolls I’d once owned.

The boy doll in the photo below represents one of my characters in my work in progress. He’s currently spending time with me as my muse while I write two new chapters featuring him that are necessary because I’ve changed how the books are divided (three books now becoming what I think will be four? I’m not sure at this point) before I continue the saga that will be ongoing (but in a more positive and creative way) even longer than COVID. I’m eager to know how many books will actually come from the original book I wrote first in 1979-’80 (from stories that started in 1970 or ’71), then rewrote in 1988-’89, and now again in 2019-’20-’21-?. When I look at all those numbers, I get dizzy. When I think of all those words, I get fatigued in a giddy way.


From left to right, the dolls represent Colonial America, Sweden, Spain, MY LIFE’S WORK, Scotland, Holland, and England. There were more Arco dolls, and who knows, I may one day purchase France and Ireland even though I didn’t have them as a kid because they are relevant to characters in the Neverending Saga.

I hope you have a spark of creativity or a tiny bit of whimsy in every one of your days.

Whatever Wednesday

Haven’t been feeling so great the last few days, but this morning I was up and had paid some bills, done a little housekeeping, and showered, shampooed, etc. and was out the door by 8:30.

I almost never hear my iTunes catalog because I play different music at home. Let’s acknowledge it; for 14 months, it’s been a lot of home for me. So it’s fun to see what will come up as I’m driving. Looking at my display as I drove, I decided my music makes me seem like I’m living in the past, but there are SO MANY pasts represented.

Here you go. Don’t mind the dust. The car has been collecting that shit for the same 14 months.


79. “Jessica” by the Allman Brothers Band. I have three sisters in a planned novel who are named for ABB songs by their father. I went a while without wanting to hear ABB but I rediscovered them along about 2016 and now they stay in regular rotation.

80. “Easy to Be Hard” by Three Dog Night. Oh, the stories I could tell. In my memoirs…

81. “More Than This.” The boyfriend who introduced me to Roxy Music is decades gone. The music remains. That worked out for the best.

82. “Dancin’ Across the USA” by Lindsey Buckingham. Between his guitar, his voice, and his lyrics/music, there’s nothing of his I don’t enjoy hearing. I think this might have been the flip side to “Holiday Road” from National Lampoon’s 1983 film Vacation.

83. “Where Were You When I Needed You” by the Grass Roots. Another chapter for the memoirs.

84. The Grass Roots again with “Lovin’ Things.”

85. WHAT WAS IT? If I think about it, I may remember. Because I know something split up this rash of Grass Roots songs.

86. Back with the Grass Roots’ “Walkin’ Through the Country.” The stories Lynne could tell about Dennis Provisor and his… voice. =)

87. Mr. Bruce Springsteen with “Human Touch.” There are no bad Bruce Springsteen songs. I’d go all meme on you and say “Change my mind,” but you can’t.

88. “Scarborough Fair/Canticle” by Simon and Garfunkel. I wish I knew all the words to the descant.

89. “Little Bird” is a Dennis Wilson song recorded by the Beach Boys. Dennis Wilson is my forever muse.

90. The Grass Roots are being so pushy today! And reminding us “Let’s Live For Today,” and how I love to hear Warren Entner counting 1-2-3-4 and the lines he gets while (the late) Rob Grill sings lead. Teenage soundtrack.

91. “Give It Away,” a lesson about generosity from the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Always loved this band. Recently, I’ve been checking out some of Flea’s posts on Instagram. Liking him.

92. “Ain’t No Sunshine” is a great Bill Withers classic. My version here is by the Neville Brothers. Outstanding.

93. Supertramp’s “Breakfast in America.” A band I listened to a lot with a different boyfriend from the one referenced in 81. Keeping the band and losing the guy was me dodging a bullet. Could have ended up meaning that literally.

94. This is George Harrison’s version of the Bob Dylan song “If Not For You.” There is NO DAY that won’t be better for me if it involves music from either one of these artists. Coincidentally, one of my characters feels the same way.

95. “Running On Empty” by one of my favorite singer/songwriters Jackson Browne. The guy who introduced me to Jackson Browne for the first time still shows up in my blog comments occasionally. Whatever else transpired between us in our long, strange trip of a friendship, I’ll always be grateful about the Jackson Browne thing.

I’m thinking the missing No. 85 was George Harrison’s “My Sweet Lord,” because I know that was playing while I was watching train cars roll by. Why is it when you’re in a hurry, a train is THE WORST, but when you’re running errands and loving your music, a train and its graffiti are a little bit amazing?

I am here for the everywhere-ness of art.

ETA: I AM WRONG. “My Sweet Lord” played while I was watching the train, but that was later. The song at No. 85 was Collective Soul’s “The World I Know.” Saw them in concert with Tom and Lynne in 1994 at the Summit when they opened for Aerosmith. My memory has served me well today. Now I’m going to write.