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Making a Splash

colorsplash2
Mood: Steady as she goes
Drinking: Watery tea

I’m on TV.

I’m small, I’m sideways, and I’m in black and white, but I’m on TV nonetheless.

My friend Kathy, she of The Secrets of Falling design fame, alerted me to my TV appearance last week.

There’s a bit of backstory required: Kathy went to art/design school with David Bromstad (he of HGTV’s Color Splash and Design Star fame).

They’re good friends from way back, which is why David came to our book release party in San Francisco last May. (Yes, he is even more adorable in person!)

David left our party with several pieces of art in tow — 7 of them, to be exact. He chose his favorite photographic art prints from our book, and ended up hanging them on a wall behind the couch where he is often filmed sketching his brilliant design ideas on Color Splash.

So nearly every week on HGTV, I’m hanging there on the wall behind David’s head. Granted, nobody but me and Kathy actually know that it’s me. Well, you know too, now. But it’s a sweet little thrill to see my poetry and Kathy’s design (as well as the fine photography of Boy and my friend Patti) up on the screen.

Oh, and that repeating photo of the grafittied brick wall that the camera loves to linger on as David sketches away? I took that photo from a scooter on our first trip to Rome! …There’s some useless trivia for you.

By the way, if you’d like to have a print just like David, you can find two of the prints that he has, So Make Believe It and Invincible at our Etsy store. There are a lot of other cool prints up for sale there, too!

So. Yay us, yay David, and HGTV better give Color Splash another season! (Boy and I are now addicted and have gotten ourselves a season pass on TiVo.)

-Lo, who is sometimes sideways in real life, too.

Upside Down

zandersMood: Heavy
Drinking: Not

This week brought some heavy news, and for days now I have been weighed down with the kind of sadness that leeches color from the sky.

A very dear friend of mine, Dieter Zander (pictured here at my book release party last May with me and his wife Val) suffered a large stroke earlier this week and is still in the hospital, his prognosis uncertain.

Dieter and Val have been a special part of my life since I met them in Chicago back in 1996. Safe to say I would not be the artist — or the person — I am today if I had not met them.

Dieter saw something in me the first time he met me, and he didn’t just say “I believe in you” — he gave me a stage, a place in the real world to use my voice — and in doing so, he changed my life. And Val, with her grace and steady strength, befriended me and in our lengthy heart-to-heart conversations, gave me a safe place to dream as she imagined with me the woman I could become.

Over the years, I’ve shared many meals with the Zanders and their three sons. They moved to San Francisco two years before Boy and I did, and were here to help us settle in and make a home. Dieter officiated at our wedding, and Val helped me choose the poems for my first book.

The Zanders have been to me mentors and friends, big brother and sister, inspiration and sounding board. I have just taken for granted the fact that they are and always will be part of my life.

So I have been shocked, I have been shaken to the soul by the news this week of Dieter’s stroke, and I feel ultimately helpless in my ability to make any of this better or less difficult for the family I love so much.

Many of you who read this blog know the Zanders, or at least have heard of them. I know you’ll want more information and updates about Dieter’s condition as the days go by, so please bookmark this website: http://zanderupdate.wordpress.com/

Whether you believe in prayer or good karma or healing thoughts, please take a moment today to send one skyward for my friend Dieter, his wife Val and their sons Kyle, Conrad, and Christopher.

I pray that his voice does not stay silent for very long…

-Lo, who has a hundred things she should have said.

Two for One

gary
Mood: Sickly
Drinking: Green Tea

It’s very last minute, but that doesn’t make it any less fabulous…

I’m sharing a feature spot with my poetry pal Gary (pictured) this Thursday, February 7, at Bird & Beckett Bookstore in Glen Park.

The festivities start at 7 p.m. and are followed by an open mic. So if you’re around, head on over to 653 Chenery, grab a seat, and maybe even bring a few of your own rhymes to read.

In the meantime, I will be trying to ditch this scratchy sore throat that I brought home from New York so I can read without sounding like a frog. (I aim high.)

See you on Thursday!

-Lo, who believes in the healing properties of tea.