I'm a former English-tutoring, inclusive Bible–editing, alligator-tagging, antichoice protestor–licking, set-making designer and typesetter, and a current rabble-rousing, guitar-playing, novel-writing, soul-searching, art-producing, choral-singing, Sun magazine–reading, clay-sculpting, rollercoaster–loving, wacko sock–wearing, nature-loving, grad. student–teaching, sea-seeking, wild-haired academic publisher and poet who is thoroughly impatient, sometimes arrogant, occasionally insecure and who, up until 5 minutes ago, was trying hard to remember how to play Rachmaninoff’s “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini” on my newly purchased piano. I worship visionaries who manage to keep their hearts open to possibility despite this sometimes ugly world, glimpses of the divine, and poetryl. I don’t sleep nearly enough. If I prayed -- and I don't -- it would be for clarity, a local restaurant that serves sweet tea just like my grandmother’s, the patience required to write a decent sonnet sequence, a lover who gives amazing backrubs, flashes of brilliance to punctuate the mundane, brilliant friends who thrive on conversation, the courage to stick to my convictions even when I can lose a lot by sticking to them, lobster.

I post most of my images at www.flickr.com/photos/bella_as_bug/

but wanted to focus on some new themes here.