happy new year Xman!

fotobooth w/Xman 2008-09
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Thank you ~J~ for your shout out to Xman in your post yesterday! Today, May 22, 2010, my lil' bro is 12 years alive! And it's been 12 years since I drew his baby face and the date of his birth on this page.  One month before this day was our first May 16th, 12 years ago.  And one month after this, was my graduation -commencement- from UCSB, 12 years ago.  So there was a commencement for both of us!  Happy new year Xman, your day of birth is a beautiful marker in our lives, and a day of IMMENSE joy and gratitude for me... I have a brother!  And a wOnderful friend. 

Thank you Xavier for ALL you teach me, for your fun & creativity & music(!), and for your kindness and warm heart.  You are a very special little man.

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Xman & me on his 9th Bday, 2007

your sister and homie 4ever

∞ cec

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Continued Noticias/ Noticias Continued

Here I am!  Today is Friday, May 21, 2010!!!  What a beautiful week of digging soil - seed preparations and nurturing - internally through external actions.  Today is full of Altadena, this whole coming weekend in fact.  In a few moments, I'm off to a hike with my beautiful daughter's 2nd grade class to Sturtevant Falls.  It's cloudy and chill in the air and I'm expecting water crossings to be a large part of the day.  I've got my balance on to help the kids do their best to keep dry... teachers orders.  I must be departing the hike early because I'm coaching circus arts to the middle schoolers at PWS later this afternoon.  We'll be juggling and unicycling, playing with diablos and river sticks... I think we'll have a laughter filled show of tricks to cap it off.

Saturday the 22nd will be a zoo morning, as we're off to a botanical tour in the am and then date night with hubby to the Spring Gala at the top of Lake in Altadena.  He'll be wearing a top hat and I know not what I'll be wearing yet, perhaps feathers - or actually, the theme is weaving a golden thread, so I think I have some cleopatra props around somewhere. 

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Have a great weekend, I hope yall get some fresh air.  Today I saw a huge cactus in full bloom, if I have a chance, I'll post a picture soon.   Spring is showing her colors, and releasing her magic into the ecosphere - get out there and suck it in!

Finally, shout out to Xavier... Happy Birthday!!
May is so full of birthdays and anniversarys and so much celebration - it must be a perfect month!   Thank you Zbook for continuing to open space for sharing these expressions of place and time... what a delight!
-Jennifer

Entwined

Notice This - when you write an announcement of some special moment, you are marking time in your soul. 

This spread of "noticias"  is fun to scroll around because some of the entries are simply check-ins in time and place, and others are notices of monumental happenings in our lives.  Births in particular are called out here with a reverant exclamation of their moment  in time.  Landings in places are also exploititive here!  The thing I know, about these entries on the page we this week gave tital to - often, they are meant to ellicit imaginations of setting.

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Dates and maps, maps and dates; both tools for organizing and planning travel through time and space.  In many ways, this spread of "noticias" is a map of dates.  It would be fun to make notes on a map to go along with this page and make a connect the dates image.  Let's Do it!

Have you ever shared a journal with someone else?  How about pages of drawing - like our friend Ben who is an avid creator of pictures with others.  Feel Free to share gratitude here - in 'comments' - to the person or the universe for the person(s) whom you love to collaborate with - Shout it out!

Thank you Ceci for reflecting and being reflected in these pages we continue to work in together - magic!  As the center image - of zbook - shows, we are knitted together through intense and long haired seeing of each other and ourselves via the other.  Thank you for your friendship and collaboration - we are entwined in these noticias of one anothers lives. - blessings and visions to you and me and our work eternal.-J.

week five>> "noticias"

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This just in: it's week five of ZBOOK 4EVER!  And here is this week's page~spread, we call it "noticias" which in spanish means "the news."  While documentation can be found all throughout ZBOOK, this page became a main haven for sharing some of our pinnacle moments throughout the years, and a few just in passing too.   A great sense of travel is felt here, as if each stop on this page was a conscious breath taken in the midst of great movement; an honorable and festive moment to acknowledgment the doorways that shaped our lives.  

There are so many reflections to explore here, and we will this week.  One right off the bat is the bottom left corner "happy May 16th" dated 1998.  This was our first May 16th, the one that practically proclaimed itself OUR day, which I just storied about in yesterday's post, yesterday May 16th, 2010.  Catch up on it there, and look for further stories about this special date as Zblog grows on.  We are celebrating May 16th all week!  

∞ ceci

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Happy May 16th !

This is the day ZBOOK was made.  Well... that's how the myth will likely go down in history that is.  :)  ZBOOK was of course made over a 5,110 day period and was actually birthed in the month of November... However, it is May 16th that has become the day of hemphill and cec, aka Jennifer and Ceci, our day of celebration and gratitude for our creative partnership, our mayhem, and our kinship.  It's our "holiday" and very much like a "birthday" for us and, since ZBOOK is a direct expression of all that is ~J~ and ~C~, figuratively it could be said that if ZBOOK had a "day" it would also be May 16th.

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In the late spring of 1998, ~J~ and I had an especially amAzing special weekend.  ~J was visiting me at UCSB.  She had recently come back from traveling for months solo around the globe (badass) and I was finishing my last year of school.  My honors art studio was at Harder Stadium and we were hangin' there quite a bit.  That weekend happened to be SB's annual "Estravaganza" festival which takes place at the stadium.  In fact, I just looked it up and today is the 30th anniversary of Estravaganza! Nice. Well, we found ourselves with all this music and color and lively people all around and seamlessly flowed right in there, making the field our own dance floor, every person we encountered a fellow reveler, and every sight, sound and flavor a lucid experience of reverence.  The festival, a ton load of frisbee disc huckin', and other Isla Vista antics made for one spectacular time that we knew we'd never forget. We decided right there and then that May 16th was our day, for Life.

Happy May 16th hemphill! I love u lady.
∞ ceci
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