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Because of cyclical lunar dating, the first day of the year can fall anywhere between late January and the middle of February. On the Chinese calendar, 2011 is Lunar Year 4709.

On the Western calendar, the start of the New Year falls on Thursday, February 3, 2011 — The Year of the Rabbit.

If you were born in 1915, 1927, 1939, 1951, 1963, 1975, 1987, 1999, or 2011 - you were born under the sign of the rabbit.

Like the rabbit, you are one of cuddliest & sweetest creatures in the Chinese zodiac.

Although considered somewhat timid by more dynamic signs, you are wise and cautious, and know better than to jump into any situation without thinking!

Tactful, considerate, and popular with a wide circle of friends and family, luck just seems to come to you unbidden.

For the rabbit in 2011, any recent setbacks or obstacles can be overcome, so look forward to a year in which to really shine, either personally or professionally.

Famous people born under the Sign of the Rabbit? They include Albert Einstein, Frank Sinatra, Pope Benedict XVI, Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Johnny Depp, and David Beckham, & Amy 'Truck' Carr.

I'm experimenting with Tumblr but so far I am not convinced that it can do anything more than my own website can. I do know that I have had my own website since 1/14/06 and I have no interest in getting rid of it ever. In fact, I have been a little too negligent with it lately and am looking forward to adding new art and words. I know it isn’t exactly a social forum like ‘MyFace’ but I am not interested in chasing that concept anymore. After a long time hold out, I had finally caved and gotten on Facebook to stay in touch with Production folks but then all my real world friends were there and one thing became another. I miss being anti-social anyway. Actually, what I really miss is having more depth & creativity in my relationships. We are not ever going to achieve that via Facebook, or any online “community”. [For those of you that have remained diehard anti-FB, I can hear you saying, "Duh!" and laughing at me. Well good for you!]

I have a monthly newsletter here and I hope you will join my guestlist. I am super excited about my new project and will hopefully have some of my upcoming FrankenLamps here soon! 

Love, Lollipops, & Unicorns!

.amy.truck.logica.

     I still have several days to kill before I get any work in San Francisco. I'm running out of money, bored with myself, and spending an exuberant amount of time in coffee houses expecting to be fulfilled and surprised like I was when I was graduating my teen years at The Last Drop in Philly. The next thing to do was always found at that vortex of 13th & Pine, even if it meant just sitting on the stoop at 13th & Pine. You could get drunk, get drugs, get a boyfriend, get dumped, get coffee, get inspiration, get philosophy. You could link up, meet up, hook up, grow up, grow dreads, shave your head. The world was completely available and if it wasn't cheap, it was free.

    These days I don't tend to expect much more than a good cup of caffeine. Some tasty grub helps the experience and good music certainly does not hurt. I suppose that was what I was expecting when my friend recommended Muddy Waters on Valencia. To be fair, he hadn't been here in a decade and said he couldn't really vouch for the current operation, but the last time he was here they made some damn good coffee. That is true. The brew is so thick I had to double my creamer. 

     Since even the suckiest places in San Francisco have delicious food, I wasn't expecting my egg & cheese bagel to form in less than a minute with the egg shaped like it popped out of a plastic mold and the orange slice of Velveeta shockingly unmelted. I thought Velveeta was born melted.  I guess that is my penance for attempting to eat a bagel off the east coast.

     Judging by the butch in the Anti-Racist Action shirt sitting next to me and the fact that one of the baristas looks like a Palestinian Freedom Fighter and the other looks like a quintessential seventies feminist at a jazz lounge, young punks and anarchists surely adore this place. The walls haven't been painted in at least twelve years and they only take cash, which means they are really stickin' it to the man. One side of the room is plastered with flyers shouting 9/11 Truth, Gay Pride, and displaying an amalgam of indie musicians pleading for attention. On the other are paintings that have rage and potential but they are lazy and unfinished, which does not stop them from being overpriced. Most of the time there is not an ounce of sound outside of the boisterous table near the window but every once in a while the barista gets bored and starts watching youtube on her iPhone which is connected to some five-and-dime speakers behind the counter. It is a dim and distant sound and within nanoseconds the phone rings, or a customer comes in, and she turns it off, keeping her dine-in audience feeling distraught and discombobulated, a perfect emotional stratum for a protest on the square.

     Muddy Waters. Recommended for anyone with an abundance of angst or a simple taste for coffee To Go.

SWAK,
Truck

Greetings!

I've had many adventures since I left Austin, so many that it feels I've been gone for weeks. The train ride was awesome; I made a couple of buddies along the way that were handy in keeping things interesting, especially as cabin fever set in. The ride itself was much faster & more comfortable than I anticipated. I was  accidentally directed to a lower cabin car which has wider seats, more leg room, & only 12 seats. This cabin had 5 riders besides myself so I had two fat seats, with more leg room than I have legs, all to myself, making a generally pleasant ride with the exception of "The Queen of The Train": a woman in her 50s who rides the rails often and ruled our car with her giant vocal chords which were active most of the time and usually had nothing interesting to broadcast.

We arrived in Los Angeles at about 7am on Friday, June 6th. Considering I hadn't had coffee yet and no food since the night before, it seemed like an eternity for me to get my bike out of train storage. The brand new box I put my bike in in Austin was beat to shit and burried under 30 giant boxes belonging to a family of 5 that were moving to California from the East Coast. I twitched in anticipation of getting my sweetheart out from under that heap. Finally, after a gazillion years, I ripped through the little pieces of cardboard that barely remained on my bike and swiftly straightened my handlebars and put my pedals back on. Passengers aren't usually allowed in the receiving area but that didn't stop me from test riding my bike in giant figure eights in the belly of L.A.'s Amtrak station. Now that my bike was working I was ready to go get lost, which I did swiftly!

I wanted to ride my bike the 13 miles to the hotel in Westwood but now it was 8:30am and I still hadn't had coffee and, upon lifting my bags, realized that somehow they were heavier than I planned for them to be. Some gremlin must've stuffed some extra tools in there while I wasn't looking. So I asked around about a bus only to learn that the folks in LA are either confused or confusing when it comes to describing their bus system. After 3 failed attempts at understanding the bus in my caffeine free state, I tied my luggage onto my bike rack with bungee cords, did some strange maneuvering of my limbs, and managed to get on my bike. I then used nothing but will power to make it go, without falling over, through downtown traffic, during rush hour, all the while kicking myself that I didn't shell out the dough for some paniers to balance my heavy load. My GPS picked this moment to go apeshit and kept telling me I was in the middle of a dirt field in Indiana and other blatent lies. Again I had to rely on the vague descriptions of the people of Los Angeles. OK Go straight. Turn left on 7th street. Got it.

After 9 wavy uphill miles of 7th street where I crossed 3 freeways and hit a dead end before finding the street I was supposed to turn on from there, I had to practice my broken portunol (a rare mix of portuguese and spanish) with an old Mexican man walking his granddaughter to school. He told me I was ass backwards. I turned around and went a few blocks while questioning my language skills. A lady was watering her roses and spoke some English. She told me I was ass backwards too and gave me a bottle of water for my crazy/stupid bike ride. She didn't exactly say that, but her face said it. Somehow the 9 mile return was also a steep uphill. I mean STEEP - like really really hard without a load & impossible with 60 pounds on your back. It was too early for this, I didn't have enough water, and my bags weren't packed right so any further description of this segment would just result in a lot of cursing.

I finally found myself downtown again and GPS was toying with me as to which bus to take. I was a couple of blocks from where my droid was telling me to go and standing directly beneath a bus sign that said Westwood. I decided to listen to the sign. The fascinating adventure of bussing in LA shortly ensued. Lifting my monstrously heavy bike with the bulk of my belongings strapped onto it onto a bus where the driver is too pissed off at her lot in life to lower the bus was only the beginning. Yay, more pre-coffee oddly shaped exercise for me. Huff. I get on. She immediately starts yelling at me that I put my bike on wrong and it's going to fall off. So I stand there, helplessly watching it wobble and waiver while waiting for her to stop driving like a maniac so I can go fix it before the bus rolls over it. "Get behind the yellow line!!", she screams as she continues to torture me for three jerky, stop & go, city blocks before stopping to watch me lift, twist, & lift my heavy life properly onto the bike rack. I finally get to squeeze me & my other bag through the sardine can to ensure my place among many indescribable smells & sounds. I try not to look completely overwhelmed but my eyes are bulging and I spastically keep leaning forward to see the names of the upcoming streets, hoping & promising to turn my back on atheism if my stop comes soon. I think I picked the busiest bus with the longest route in LA, and for all the whining I've done about how Austin lacks diversity, let me just say, I found it all on that bus. That delectable intimacy lasted about 45 minutes.

I get off the bus and it wasn't soon enough so I continue to turn my back on god. The hotel is a mere block and a half away and I begin to feel relief but it is snatched out of my heart when the grumpy old imbecile behind the counter tells me my room isn't ready and he doesn't know when it will be as he practices facial twitches which indicate that I am the bain of his existence. He was almost as much of a brat as the bus driver but I have yet to get coffee and all those smells on the bus have made me testy and impatient. I proceed to put him in his place. He backs down and helps me put my belongings into a storage closet. Me & my empty bike go out for coffee. Finally.

After two hours of ambling through the UCLA area my room is ready. I unload, catch up on some breathing, and soon I'm driving with my long lost cousin and her precious offspring. I spend the next two days getting to know my young, thrice removed cousins and biking the area. My favorite ride was to Santa Monica Pier and all along the beach down to Venice. The bike path is just the right distance from the actual scene that you're close enough to laugh at it without actually having to touch it. On the way back to the hotel I stopped for Persian Ice Cream which is potentially the most divine flavor I've ever tasted. Then, ZAP!, I'm off to the jobby job in Thousand Oaks. I'll have to tell you about that later though because I have to go calculate some loads now. I miss you all a ton!

SWAK!

Just experimenting with some travel code. Hope you're happy & laughing.

swak,
ºº{{^_^}}ºº

Hooray! Hoorah! Its An Art Show! Huzzah! Come check out my latest trash to treasure artworks and say goodbye before I escape the Texas heat! (I'm a Yankee, whadya expect?!) This Wednesday May 5th, 7-11pm at the fabuloso East Side Showroom. 1100 e. 6th street.
SWAK,
Logica