When Christopher Columbus decided to sail across the sea, thus proving the earth was not flat and he and the crew of his three-ship armada was not going to fall off the edge of some giant pie plate into the gaping maw of the gargantuan magical turtle that supposedly held up the world, he did not have a plan B.

What would that have been, anyway?

"Attention crew. The water's looking a bit too 'wavey' ahead of us. So it's on to Plan B where we return to port and convert the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria into theme restaurants. Don't worry, you'll still be able to keep your sailor shirts and sing your sea shanties, the customers are going to love that and the queen is simply going to go wild over the meatball special. I hear she's a pretty good tipper, too."

No, he didn't. As we all know Columbus stayed on course and is now world famous for inventing America.

Do you think the first person to scale Mount Everest decided he was chilly and the sherpa seemed to be giving him dirty looks and cracking sherpa jokes behind his back so he bagged it and started a mountaineer clothing cataloge instead?

Say it with me.

NO!

Where would we be if astronouts hadn't made it to the moon or penicillin hadn't been developed or if Luke Skywalker hadn't decided at the very last minute to use the force to destroy the Death Star?

We would be in a heap of trouble, mister.

Luke Skywalker and I are so like twins. Neither one of us has a Plan B. We started out with our Plan A's - his was to save the princess who he had a crush on but who turned out to be his sisiter, yuck, and then ultimately rescue the rebellion. Mine was hey, I'm going to write stuff and color things. But unlike Luke I didn't have the help of robots and spaceships and some force. I have had to rely on pure delusion and a healthy dose of self deception to stick it out.

There are some negative Nellies out there that warn you must have a backup plan. They wag their annoying fingers under your nose and tell you in no uncertain terms not to put all your eggs in one basket.

Okay. But what if that basket has super soft padding inside and is in a top-secret undisclosed location and is made out of kryptonite?

And has a force field.

That sure shoots some holes in the naysayers' arguments, doesn't it? But they won't listen. They'll continue to sit all safe and cozy in their little Plan B world while the smart ones like us will stay courageously financially insecure, shivering while our butt is flying in the wind.

But at least we've stayed true to ourselves. Our dream is our guide and no amount of psychiatric medication is going to change that. So stay rigid. Remain inflexible. Blinders make a fantastic fashion accessory don't they?

On the other hand, if I really think about it, writing stuff and coloring things might not be all of my Plan A.

And a meatball special does sound pretty tasty.

Anyone up for a Plan C?

So one day I get a call from a friend. Her voice breathless, all brimming with enthusiasm, she blurts out, "Hey, do you want to go skydiving? You're the only person I know that would go with me."

This was my reply to that little invite.

"Letmethinkaboutthatno."

My friend Kelly does things like skydiving. She can pull a car's engine, reroof a house, and haul fifty pound bags of feed. She is also a little bitty thing with these teeny tiny feet. Really small feet - the 'I need to go to the kid's shoe section of the store and I hope to god they have more than those stupid sneakers with the light in the heel that flashes every time you take a step' kind of small feet.

But the first thing you notice about Kelly is that she doesn't seem like the dare-devil rough and tumble type.

She seems nice.

In fact, the phrase that would most likely spring into your mind is -

"Why, she's nice as pie."

Okay, I have to stop here for a moment and wonder just where does that saying come from? I can understand someone being described 'as nice as a selfless nun who works with amputee kittens' or 'nice as a billionaire that just gave me a wheelbarrow of cash for no reason what- so- ever'. But nice as pie?

Whatever.

Sure. Kelly seems all nice and all and you'd never dream that she'd be the type to leap out of airplanes or get grease under her fingernails. You'd also never ever guess that Kelly is also -

a stone cold killer.

A duck and chicken killer to be precise.

When she told me that she was raising her own meat I had to ask exactly how do her feathered friends go from their fowl lives to being dinner. Kelly ducks her head (sorry) and grinds the toe of her itsy bitsy shoe into the ground. "Oh, well, you see...."

And she goes on to tell me that she waits until one of her flock totally pisses her off. The offending bird could be pecking on a weaker one or simply have an attitude that leaves something to be desired. It has now become quite a different day from the happy, sunny morning on the farm.

It has become a day of death.

Kelly lays low, her assassin's tool hidden behind her back. Slowly, with stealth and cunning she creeps up behind her prey. All sound stops.

And then she cuts off their head with a pair of garden loppers.

Geez lou-eez, I prune my camillias with garden loppers. You can buy them in the home and garden department along with slug bait and those horrible satanic- faced yard gnomes. What would cause a person to look at a pair of loppers and think, 'ya know, I bet these would do a jim-dandy job of separating an animal's head from their body'?

But that's Kelly for you. She's not afraid of a couple thousand feet of clear blue sky between her and the ground or a headless future meal running around her lawn.

Because - she is a dare-devil.

As far as how I live my life, I will never jump out of an airplane that is still operating. I am not mechanical one bit and can't bring myself to squish a spider. But I am a dare-devil.

I'm an artist. I'm a writer. I don't have a 'real job' to fall back on. This is it, baby. When bills are due and assignments are scarce this is what working without a net is really about.

But without the death and blood part.

So kudos to you, Kelly my wild friend.

And kudos to me as I attempt to navigate that razor's edge one more day.

I was a wierd little kid. For one thing, I didn't like other kids. They just seemed so - well -

child-like.

What I did like were books. And I would definitely go through phases as to their subject matter. There was the horse book phase, the girl detective phase and - ah, yes - the Grimm's Fairy Tale phase. Those were such gruesomely delicious fare. My absolute fave was the one about the goose girl who was really a princess but an imposter stole her identity and killed her horse but the princess goose girl saved some drops of her dead horse's blood and the blood drops talked to her and helped her expose the bad imposter person who was then stripped of all her clothes and thrown in a barrel studded with nails and dragged through the streets of the village until she was dead.

That's GREAT!

My book of Aesop's fables was tamer stuff. Here I could learn valuable life lessons with consequences that didn't include dragging a naked person around in a nail-y barrel until they were all nail- ified. But the story of the Ant and the Grasshopper really bugged me.

So to speak.

It was a simple story. The Ant worked real hard and saved up food and was secure in his future. He had no time for fun or anything like that but that wasn't the point. He was secure. The Grasshopper on the other hand didn't work at all. He farted away all his time, saved no food and starved. In other words, he wasn't secure.

I really couldn't relate to that boring ant guy. I knew I was supposed to. I was supposed to grow up to be a good ant citizen, work hard, save and be secure and then I could die. The Grasshopper skipped the whole toiling part. Sure he died but hey - the dude could party.

There should have been a third character in that fable. Someone to create a little balance. Like, I don't know - a potato bug maybe. Yeah, it would be a potato bug that worked hard enough to keep him in potatoes, put some away in a little potato safe and then score some down-time. Yeah, that's the ticket.

Why am I going on about all this? I'm venting. I have spent the last few days in full on Ant mode. I did not become an artist and writer and to successfully avoid a real job for a couple of decades to be that Ant guy. But sometimes I have to. And that's because I spend way too much time being the Grasshopper - coloring my little pictures, writing my little stories, you know, farting away the time.

I guess I could attempt some balance in my life to avoid cramming all my boring business work into a hell week because I put it off until the absolute last minute by being the potato bug. It would be make sense, really - but - you know, potato bugs are not glamorous or exciting and grasshoppers have the fun thing down pat. I can't help it. I know what my role in that story would be.

So ants can stuff it. Potato bugs can take a flying leap except they really can't because they have teeny short legs and body like a miniature Air Stream travel trailer but they know what I mean.
I mean Grasshoppers rule!

Go grasshoppers!

Party!

Party!

I don't think I'm easily intimidated. Usually I walk around as if I'm about eight inches taller and fifity pounds heavier with arms that have a greater circumference than dry twigs.
(I do have wrists that seem to extend from my hands to my shoulders and that's just something I've had to come to terms with)

But when someone asks me for my card I get all sweaty-fied.

I don't have a card.

Oh sure, I have a whole load of other people's cards. They range from dentists to veterinarians to contractors to caterers to insurance saleswomen to florists to -

and the list goes on.

Their cards are spot on - to the point. They include the usual helpful info like name, address, telephone number, email (love the email because it gives me one more way to avoid direct human contact) and most importantly WHAT they do.

That last part is my problem and why I don't have a card. As a working artisit and writer sometimes I do lots of different things and sometimes I do nothing observable at all. It occurs to me that I could have many cards made up. If I had unlimited funds and storage space weren't an issue that's not such a bad idea.

Here's a few that I might consider.

Nancy Coffelt - Artist - master at choosing the perfect yellow for the polkadots on the elephant's tutu

Nancy Coffelt - Artist - desperately trying to figure out what an art director means by her "per your usual style" remark when it seems as though what she wants isn't my usual style at all but is afraid to ask another stupid question.

Nancy Coffelt - Artist - reluctant badgerer of galleries as to whether anything has sold lately or just where is my check anyway?

Or these:

Nancy Coffelt - Writer - Professional starer at empty monitor screen

Nancy Coffelt - Writer - Caller of friends to read latest work to them and then ask, "Does this suck?" And then before they answer say, "It does suck, doesn't it?"

Nancy Coffelt - Writer - Seasoned wait-er specializing in gathering cobwebs while an editor is considering a book and when that becomes unbearable contacting them to "check in" when it is really a pathetic attempt to get them to say, "Wow! This is fantastic! You will be rich and famous beyond your wildest dreams!"

Or:

Nancy Coffelt - Self-employed person which is really another way of saying 'does not play well with others'.

Nancy Coffelt - Self-employed person proficient at missing section D clause G lines a and b on a contract and later realizing with a horrible sick feeling how screwed I really am.

Nancy Coffelt - Self-employed person skilled at putting off tax stuff until the last minute . Where are my receipts? Where are my RECEIPTS? WHERE ARE MY @#$%& RECEIPTS!!!!

That's nine cards so far and they describe a good week.

Really, they could say anything - from color-er to daydreamer to frequent snacker to goofer-offer to pulling an all-nighter to meet an impossible deadliner.

It could be worse. There could be 'serial killer' after my name. That's pretty bad.

Or cannibal.

So don't be asking me for any business cards. There's none to be found here - unless - you want a card for a good dentist or veterinarian or contractor or caterer or insurance saleswoman or florist - hey, I've got lots of those.

I'm not big on St. Patrick's day. Green is not my favorite color and I think beer smells like bile and what's so bad about snakes anyway? Don't you think that a better thing the guy could have banished from Ireland would be disease or famine or even bad breath for that matter?

Snakes. Hmmph.

I guess the only thing I don't mind about the holiday is seeing leprechauns. (no, not actually seeing leprechauns - seeing pictures of them) Don't get me wrong. Leprechauns are creepy, scary things, all orange hair and smiling when their eyes aren't smiling and that whole shilelagh business.

Those dudes could lay you out if they wanted.

But seeing leprechauns brings back good memories. They are one of the reasons I became an artist.

My sister used to eat Lucky Charms every morning. Lucky Charms are nasty. Let's see, you have both dry, tasteless, bleached out rodent pellets and colored chalk bits all in the same box?

Score!

There are several breakfast foods that are far superior to Lucky Charms. Such as -

• Captain Crunch
• Frankenberry
• Quisp (and Quake, they're the same thing so who do they think they're kidding?)
• Fruit Loops
• Count Chocula
  
• Rice Crispies with about a cup of sugar dumped over them so you're left with the bonus suger sludge at the bottom after they're gone
• Pop Tarts
• Tang

Even though I hated Lucky Charms the cereal I loved the Lucky Charms box. I loved to trace and then later copy that Leprechaun guy and the hapless children that graced its cardboard exterior. It was serious business. Did I get his hat right? How about his alarmingly arched eyebrows? The scarf would sometimes take a few tries, erasing almost through the paper to capture its impish flutter.

But the final product would be worth it. Yet another leprechaun drawing for my portfolio. And I didn't stop there. The "are you an artist?" ads in the back of the tv guide and on matchbook covers were a source of wonder. Would it be the pirate they wanted me to draw this week? Or Bambi? Or maybe, just maybe it would be the pretty lady in three quarter profile with the upswept hair. I loved her.

I loved something else more and some people had a problem with that.

Mad magazine.

I wasn't allowed to have them but the girl who lived across the street's big brother was. I would pretend to want to play with her just to get at that stack of contraband. Before long I was in a corner rendering a fair copy of Spy vs. Spy. I then moved on to Al Jaffee's twistedness and Don Martin's pop-eyed, long chinned and extremely large breasted cartoons.

It was when I was busy making sure I got those extremely large breasts just perfect on the drawing I working on rather than my spelling that I got my first adult audience.

My third grade teacher.

Her hand snaked out. Where was St. Patrick then? She grabbed my drawing and held it an arm's length from her face. Her questions flew at me. What had possessed me to draw such a thing? Had I seen something like this? Who had shown it to me? Was I happy at home? Our class had visited a farm earlier in the week. Couldn't I have drawn some cows? Or chickens? Something more appropriate?

But there weren't any pictures of cows or chickens on the cereal boxes at our house. There weren't any on the "are you an artist?" ads either. I couldn't say for sure if there were any in the Mad magazines but I could find out.

I was going over to my neighbor's later to "play".

No - to become an artist

I went shopping yesterday. I am aware that some people enjoy a day of buying stuff but not me.
Spending money makes me anxious. My stomache gets all ooky and my palms sweat. That's because I'm cheap. I'm a miser.

A skinflint.

I had a dream last night that I found a stash of gold coins and mounds of black pebbles that I somehow knew where industrial grade diamonds. I filled the front pockets of my Levi 501's until they were overflowing with loot and then waddled off to sort it all and seal it in zip-lock bags.

Now that was a good dream.

A much better dream than the one I had once about Witchy-Poo and her two henchmen, you know, the furry one with all the arms and those freaky faceted eyes and the other one that looked like a man-sized hunched over vulture that walks and never flies. The henchmen would kidnap people and tie strings around their necks. Then the witch would come around and chop off the the people's heads and make apple pie out of them.

But I was talking about shopping.

My first stop was the tennis store. My sister and my son waited out in the car because to them, tennis store = boring.

I needed some grip tape for my racquet and this cool hand lotion that keeps your hands from turning into slimey disgusting amphibian hands so your raquet keeps flying from your grasp and hitting the court with a really loud noise and then you have to say, "Whoa, sorry. I'm a salamander."

"I need Dry-Grip lotion." I tell the guy behind the counter.

"We don't carry that." He said.

"I bought some here a couple of months ago." I say.

"No you didn't." His eyes narrow.

My mind raced. The atmosphere in the store became heavy as if storm clouds were threatening.

"Yes I did."

"No you didn't."

"Did."

"Didn't."

Cleary this was a worthy opponent. I handed over my $4.80 for the grip tape and backed toward the door.

"Did!" I yelled as I ran out. I may have lost the battle of the Dry-Grip but won the war of the last words.

The next stop was a small specialty shop that adds to the unique flavor that is Portland, Oregon.

Cuffs-n-Stuff.

They sell handcuffs - and bullets - and bullet proof vests (there was a baby sized bullet proof vest in the corner but I didn't want to ask) - and tasers. You can get your own taser for only $999.00.

Maybe I'll ask Santa.

I was there for the pepper spray. There is a pitbull on my street with a mighty hunger for wienerdogs and the people attached to their leashes and I wanted to make sure the next time we got together he would remember me for a long time.

But what kind should I buy? The florescent fashion model? The one disguised as a Sharpie pen?
To deal with that brindle bundle of bad breath I settled on a red metal number that doubled as some sort of weapon that when applied to pressure points on an attacker's body caused extreme pain. The sweet little blonde girl that worked there explained this last part with a Shirley Temple grin.

Unsettling.

And then we were off to the lawn mower store. We just moved after being in our last house for almost eighteen years. In all those years I had used a push mower but now people were telling me I needed a power mower. The new yard is bigger, they would say. You're getting older.

Hey. I had a neighbor on my old street that push mowed her lawn until she was eighty-six years old. I would see her out there and get all mad because then I would have to go out and mow my lawn even though I really didn't feel like it and was hoping to put it off for another day or two.

The row of power mowers was daunting - the sales guy more so.

"Here's the baby you want." He patted its black handle like it was the fender of a sketchy used car.

I looked at the price tag. $379.oo.

I used my best trick. I lowered a head and scuffed my toe and pitched my voice a bit higher to give the impression my IQ was thirty points lower.

"I dunno, I'll have to ask my husband."

Makes for a perfect getaway every time.

Al's mower shop is where I've gotten my last two mowers. We walked past the row of grimy vintage models and the old Russian woman carrying the Forever Twenty-One shopping bag and entered the world of gasoline fumes that makes Al's a huffer's heaven.

Inside it's all plaid shirts and work boots and old guys 'splaining the merits of six blades versus five complete with a incongrous blast of Destiny's Child from the tattered speakers. I found a mower.

A push mower.

When I got home, I made a half-hearted attempt to work in my studio, but I was creativly used up. Shopping is draining. Instead I grabbed my pepper spray and went out to take my new mower for a spin.

And wait for the pit bull to show up.

I have been making a "living" as an artist and a writer since 1984. Some of those years my tax preparer peers over my paperwork and marvels how someone can actually pull off a decent income "drawing pictures." Other years, well, he earnestly advises me to seek other employment.

Other employment ??????

I wasn't aware that what I did was employment. Because if I was I would have run screaming the other way a long time ago.

I've had jobs. I picked strawberries when I was a kid. A lot of us in my neighborhood did. Don't get me wrong, I did not live in some sort of Grapes of Wrath kind of situation. No, we all lived in a neat as a pin planned suburban grid full of ranches and split-levels and bridge clubs and station wagons. Picking strawberries wasn't a desperate attempt to pull the family out of financial ruin. No, it was a way for all the moms to get free babysitting for a few weeks.

They'd load us on some school bus that was retired from use because of obvious safety violations at 6:00 AM for a fun-filled day of scorching sun, marauding yellow jackets and sadistic berry bosses while the moms would spend their days - I don't know - drinking.

Then came the babysitting jobs which only fueled my hatred of all things children. It wasn't until I got a job in junior high answering phones at a men's hair salon that I actually got a paycheck. But here's the thing. The name of the place was "Gentleman's Choice". When a call would come in I would have to purr - that's right - that's what the owner (a woman) required of me -I would have to purr,

"Hello, Gentleman's Choice. How may I help you?"

Now, that's messed up.

It's a horrible thing when jobs make you say things that you would never, ever say in real-life. My high school job was at a pizza parlor - Pizza Caboose, that is. It wasn't in a caboose but had a picture of a caboose on its sign just in case you were confused by the reference.

Genius.

They had uniforms there and I had to wear this stupid engineer's cap with all my hair tucked up inside which served only to point out the fact my left ear sticks out. I might as well have been walking around with a red arrow over my head with a neon light flashing, "Hey, check out that ear!"

Does wonders for adolescent self-esteem, I must tell you.

But the worst thing there was how we had to call out the pizza orders. We were't wearing engineer caps for nothing. We were pizza engineers.

"All aboard! Pizza number 47! Pizza number 47!"

That's what I had to say.

When the manager was gone I would try to save some shred of dignity by downplaying the "all aboard" humiliation.

"allaboardpizzanumberfortysevenpizzanumberfortyseven."

But there was always some narc on duty that would tell the boss.

Oooh, I hate narcs.

Aside from a two-year soul killing stint at in an insurance processing center that has been the extent of my 'real jobs'.

Because one day I woke up.

I became an artist. And you know, I have worked my butt off for years to become that and stay that way. Some artists or writers when asked why they do what they do will go on and on about their 'need' to create.

That's fine.

Ask me and I'll tell you a different story. I do what I do because of a powerful fear.

A fear of employment.

Hey, it's hard work not having a job.

But it's great work if you can get it.

I tend to be easily distracted. I would like to say that is because my brain is such an awesome power that evolution hasn't yet allowed for its rapid fire rate of - of - um - awesomeness. But the real story is I'm easily distracted.

I believe the technical term is "ants in the pants".

It doesn't help that the world is full of so much stuff - so much to notice, so much to think about, ponder, muse, dwell upon, fret and obsess over.

The good news is I'm never bored. There's a party going on in my head pretty much non-stop. A lot of the time it's a managable get together of civilized revelers in quiet conversation. Soft jazz plays in the background punctuated by the clinking of glasses and an occasional titter.

The bad news is sometimes the party gets crashed. Bikers roar in and the terrified jazz trio is chased out. A keg is tossed into the middle of it all while AC/DC blares "Back in Black".

Actually these guys are fun but they are distracting.

Did I remember to buy milk?

And I don't really appreciate them showing up while I'm in the middle of a tennis match. They have horrible timing. I bounce the ball. "Yellow ball, yellow ball, you are my world." That drowns it out for a minute or two until a guitar riff of some song I just can't seem to remember the name of makes me miss a passing shot that I should have gotten - I mean, really.

I think my car's due for an oil change. I better check.

But the worst place they can invade is my studio. It doesn't help that I've littered my work space with open invitations. My drawing table sits right under a window.

Look. A bird.

And there is a t.v., complete with seventy-one channels of crap, which is bad enough except I don't really watch anything for longer than a few minutes at a time because, "Hey, seventy-one channels. I might miss something important."

Shoot, I forgot to take the sheets out of the dryer.

The stereo beneath the television is for talk radio. Lord knows that's not distracting. No, rude people interupting each other is the ideal work environment. I know, it's a sickness. I'll seek help.

Does the dog need out? And school financing is a big problem.

The computer stares at me not two feet from my drawing table. You would think it was the internet that posed the biggest challenge to my concentration but no, there is an evil that lurks there that is much, much more dangerous-like.

The solitaire game.

Excuse me. I'll be right back.

So with all these things battling for my attention, creating can be difficult. When bent over a oil pastel drawing I repeat my mantra - "Purple poodle, purple poodle, you are my world."

(This is not just random. I really was coloring a purple poodle earlier)

And that'll work until - they're baaaaack.

Back in Black that is.

Don't you hate it when after you've spilled your guts to someone - I mean really let go, spewed, wallowed, ranted, flailed, gnashed - pretty much did everything but fall to the ground and kick your little feet and all the other person does is come back at you with a saying ?

I hate sayings. My dad used to have one, just one. He used it all the time.

"Such is life in the great far west".

What does that mean ?

It did have the effect of stopping me midtantrum while I cocked my head like a inbred Springer Spaniel while the red 'does not compute' button flashed in my brain. But everytime I actually thought it out I came to the same conclusion. It didn't mean anything. And while I was standing there with my tilt sign blinking my dad used that opportunity to make a quick getaway.

Not such a bad trick, really.

But it's the sayings that have to do with patience that I totally can't stand. I'll let you in on a little secret that absolutely no one knows about me. I have a little trouble with being patient. Well, some people might have an idea. Okay. Everyone knows it. Jeez. Get off my back.

Here's one: "Strike while the iron's hot". Sounds a little violent if you ask me and I haven't seen my iron since I moved. But it seems to me that what they're saying is to go for it - like now.
Fair enough.

But consider this one: "Look before you leap". Yes, I can see where this makes sense if you are the coyote chasing after the roadrunner and he stops right at the cliff's edge and watches you run past and then run in the air for a couple of seconds then plummet to the gorge floor below and then make a little dust puff when you hit bottom. But that probably won't be happening on a regular basis so what happened to the whole going for it concept?

Here's another: "The early bird gets the worm". Gross. Not a great visual. Now I do get up early but I like to hang out in my pajamas for hours giving the impression that I possess the ability to sleep in. That makes it hard to get somewhere ahead of the crowd. Am I missing something here?

And yet one more: "Haste makes waste". This saying kind of validates my feelings about the whole worm thing. And it also sounds like it's giving you permission to sit on your butt all day eating chips, watching t.v., scratching - otherwise known as working on your 'creative process'.

And as much as I think these sayings are vapid, banal and stoopid, stoopid, stoopid, they can make sense in your creative process if you just put them in order.

Think hot irons and worms at your idea stage. Have an inspiration? Write it down. Don't judge it, overthink it or just plain forget it. If you are organized, keep a snazzy notebook or diary. If you are like me, write things down on the back of the phone bill envelope. And then lose it and then three weeks later find it again. The important thing here is to begin the steps of tranferring thought into action.

Save the leaping and wasting for your work stage. Have a willy-nilly old time of it on your first draft or rough drawing. But then stand back. Give it a good long look. Put in in a drawer for a day or two and then look at it again. Is there anything you would want to change? What parts of it are you gaga over?

It is this second very important but decidedly less glamorous stage that I have the most trouble with and I still cringe over projects that were rejected because I rushed them.

Rats.

Such is life in the great far west.

Lying is a sin. It is a bad, bad, bad thing to do. If you lie your nose will grow, your tongue will turn black and fall out and you'll grow hair on your palms.

Wait. No that last one was about something else entirely.

Sorry.

To be brutally honest, I have to tell you that not ever lying is NOT the best way to live your life. Do you actually want to be truthful when someone asks you if their rear end looks fat in these pants? Is your honest opinion truly needed when asked about someone's hideous haircut, an inedible meal made with love or whether a cousin's new baby is just gorgeous? (even though it's not, resembling instead a peeved Winston Churchill or maybe Jabba the Hut)

See?

I believe there are many worse things you can do than skew the truth a bit.

• Like cutting me off on the freeway while you are yammering on your cel phone and pounding down a Venti Starbucks
• Like commenting on every stupid thing that pops into your head while you're at the movie theater while the movie is playing
• Like double dipping your chip when maybe I wanted some of that dip too but now I definitely don't
• Like having more than 10 items in the express grocery store line and using coupons and needing a price check
• Like not picking up after your dog
  
• Like wearing pants so low your butt crack shows

No one wants to see your sideways smile, honey.

Honesty is necessary to have a successful society. You can't just go around lying about how fast you were driving, whether you paid your taxes or your true pick for American idol. But it isn't necessary when it comes to your art. In real life not telling the truth is considered lying and remember - lying is bad, bad, bad.

But when it comes to art it doesn't have to be bad. It doesn't have to be labeled as 'lying' either. Making things up can now be celebrated as being creative, as using your imagination. You clever thing! You just conjoured up some falsehoods, wrapped them up in fantasy and painted a pretty picture or penned a cheery goth poem or created a moody driftwood sculpture. Genius!

Remember - your creative life is all yours. You get to make up the rules. As a matter of fact, you get to make up anything you want.

I live in Portland, Oregon and we are used to rain here. We get a lot of rain. But not as much as Seattle.

Ha! Take that Seattle! In your face!

But what we don't get, aside from several days of sunshine in a row, is snow. Now is seems like back in the olden days when I was a kid and horseless carriages were still a sweet, sweet dream, it did snow here most winters. Otherwise my memories of a waking up to a sparkling winter wonderland or sliding down the steep hill at the park on flattened cardboard boxes with all the other happy neighborhood children or shoving my sister's face into a snow drift are nothing more than nostalgic fantasy - or delusions - or acid flashbacks.

Hmm.

It did snow here a couple of days ago which really doesn't merit much attention except - the weather people didn't call it. Which means that for hours before we ever saw a measly flake we weren't bombarded by shiny eyed talking heads on the telly taking over a certain person's soap opera to scream,

"Watch out for the snow!!!!"

Only they probably wouldn't be calling it just snow though. The 'event' would have a name like Spring Snow Showdown 2006 or Gigantic White Peril Swooping From the Sky to Kill You and Everyone Else You Know Plus Your Cat.

But they didn't get to do that and instead we got to wake up in the morning and go, "Hey, it snowed."

Imagine that.

So even though the weather girls and guys had all their fancy schmancy high-tech computer models and super-duper doppler radar machines all we really had to do in this situation was to look out the window.

You've sat in front of your television screen watching the weather report as if it were the gospel truth without the thought of just going outside to see for yourself ever crossing your mind.
You have. I know you have.

And that's not such a big deal when it concerns a seven-day forecast but when you let others tell you the reality when it comes to your creativity, well, then, that's bad.

A healthy creative life depends on self-reliance. You need to trust your your own sense of which way the wind is blowing to even begin to think about expressing your thoughts, dreams, inspirations and grand schemes. You are the expert when it comes all these things. Have that glorious faith that you do know your true creative self. So don't you be listening to others who would attempt to convince you otherwise.

Tell them they know what they can do with their super-duper doppler radar.

My tennis team had a match yesterday. My partner and I won our doubles match and so did every other doubles team and our singles player to boot. Whoo - hoo. A clean sweep. After the bloodbath the team was all set to go out and celebrate by snagging some brewskis.

Middle aged girls gone wild.

But not me. I had set my sights higher than swilling sour liqiuid and eating pretzels smothered in enough salt to kill most of the slug population of the Pacific Northwest.

I was going to Pet Mart to buy new dog dishes. Not just any dishes, mind you. No, I was after the twin chrome babies in the black metal stand with the matching water bowl. High end. The real deal.

A lot of other people and dogs seemed to have the same idea. The place was packed wth happy shoppers.

"Muffy, Do you want the cow or the elephant?" One elderly man asked a cocker spaniel-ish dog.
Muffy chose the elephant squeaky toy. Smart move, Muffy. The cow was a little lame.

But it was the area all the way in the back of the store that made even my earlier victory fade from my memory.

Doggie Camp.

Dogs were everywhere, running, jumping, chewing, wrestling - talk about celebrating. Behind the floor to ceiling plate glass windows I was witnessing uninhibited joy - a party bigger than New Year Year's Eve, Mardi Gras and Spring Break combined.

Dogs gone wild.

They all looked like happy artists experiencing the kind of exhilaration you get when you get that great idea or when you just know that painting is going to work out or the thousand words you wrote this morning said just what you wanted them to say. Those dogs get it, no problem. For the rest of us - well - remembering joy, especially when it comes to creativity seems more elusive. But it's worth trying. It really is.

Go to a Doggie Camp if you don't believe me.

Here are a few things that anyone who knows me knows about me:

• I draw (and color) pictures
• I like to play tennis - a lot
• I buy outfits for my wienerdog
• I have a fear and loathing of peanut butter

But here is one thing they probably wouldn't guess.

I am a closet Waltons watcher. I love the Waltons. Don't get me wrong. I don't love them as actual people. If I was really in that family I would pick fights with Erin, be super mean to Jim-Bob, borrow Mary Ellen's clothes without asking and yell at John-Boy, "You are not the boss of me!"

No, I love the Waltons as a concept. At Walton's Mountain you are safe no matter what happens. A stranger comes to town? Now that's going to shake things up. One of the Baldwin sisters receives a dog for her birthday rather than her hoped for canary? Hoo-boy, that'll throw a monkey wrench into the works. But does everything always work out in the end?

Why, yes. Yes it does.

I love that.

I think of my studio as my own private Walton's Mountain. When I'm sitting in my space confronting a terrifyingly blank sheet of paper or knocking my head against wall over a project from hell, I take comfort in being surrounded by the warmth and love of all my stuff.

Let's see, my straight-edge is Mr. Godsey and my favorite eraser is Ben. Mama is my drawer of paper and Ben and Jason are all the pencils and pastels littering my drawing board. My chair is Grandpa but Elizabeth isn't anything. I'm not all that fond of Elizabeth. So you see with all of this family support I can have faith that even with the bumps and glitches that come with a creative life, it will always work out.

The Waltons tell me so.