Happy Birthday Torben Doose!

I received a beautiful card from Torben today - thanking me for the Sans Issue piece I had sent him. He said the way it was wrapped made it feel like his first bithday present (which his card noted is today, Nov 2).

When I made that piece last week, which uses photos I had taken while in France (Paris and Loire Valley) in 2003, I didn't know where it was going but decided to send it to Torben after receiving a card from him. After all it was France, and he was in France and honestly, I just really like his name. It's one of those names that rolls out of your mouth just the right way. Torben sounds solid and capable; Doose sounds a little whimsical. Great name. There are a lot folks with good names in my network of artists and friends but something about his just sticks. Maybe I'm partial to three syllables. So Happy Birthday Torben Doose!

Thanks to everyone for all the great art I've received. Dan Waber's "Flock Of Wild Commas" lit me up and one of Laura Barletta's beautiful collages is sitting on a shelf in my newly renovated bathroom.

I've received tons of great mail art and stamps in the last weeks and will get some posted as soon as I can. I still need to finish up my stamps for the AML swaps I'd signed up for and hope I am correct in the belief that the earth will not tilt off its axis becuase I'm late on these. Life happens. Lately it's happening in large, demanding ways. Some good. Some not. But life is always a work in progress, so when I try to gauge its success or how well it might be going I borrow a method from the financial markets: I use a 200-day moving average. Luckily, using this measurement my life balances out to pretty damn good.