*&&*&&%(*(%%$YUGDAD(*^()(&D*##@!!!! I’m cussing out Florida Power and Light as I was blogging along at a nano second, spewing through mind zones at warp speed and FLASH, the power blew out for about a minute – into a blind zone went all cohesive thought on type! HATE when that happens!  It’s so aggravating when you don’t save and somehow only the title was salvaged,  now I’m ready to change that title to ‘Hell And The Internet’!
But actually, I digress, (as is usual in Abbe’s ass backward pattern.  Back to pre-loss of electric, back to thinking of what to write for a blog and finding it and finally, back to high school, a rather large defragmentation of mind space.
I must say the internet and Facebook are truly great tools, I find I save time by looking for things I need like appliances prices, charting cheaper gas prices, restaurant coupons, local exhibits. It saves gas and time in that way, BUT,  talk about wasting time, WHOA, I am spending way too much quality time chatting on Facebook and doing email ‘forwards’ and watching youtube videos, but of course I am not blaming any of this on myself, haha.  It’s just… well look at me, sitting here blogging on one of my bazillion blogs – still in pj’s at 10:46am listening to the air conditioner rob me of dollars, (thanks again to FPL) on this 90degree day and here goes a couple hours brain storming on a blog, but the wildlife view out my window is calming,

the squirrels stare right back, (whoops have not been sharpening photos as the task master blog instructor told us)

Love Grackles gone wild…

One thing that is truly fun is finding people from high school from over 40 years ago! It’s so much easier to connect now and getting to know many that you did not know well back then, but now you have “friended” them and you have the time to unfurl that map and go back and explore.
You find you now have more in common than that that socially immature, competitive, “Peggy Lou Got Married” scene.  I was no “in-crowder”, I was quiet, tall, a hugger of shadows, skinny, (but still wore the shortest dresses and skirts, for which I was repeatedly asked to go home and change. I  did paint small flowers on my cheek every once in a while with my Mary Quaint makeup that came in paintbox with a brush, sounds like something Owsley Stanley would have manufactured with a special make up ingredient to make that flower come alive if he thought about it. Oh never mind me…
Our school was ‘clicky’ – I never felt like I fit it’s mold. A few of us had come to high school from a different zoned middle school.  We entered a new modern era in attending Firestone.  It was a beautiful school with Natatorium, planetarium all the modern equipment of the day, and wow, think about this, that high school is over 50 –hard to grasp! A chunk of time pushed into a collective timespan sinkhole!
My best friend Jackie K. from high school and  I still stay in contact.  For me high school was just there, not fun really.  So many kids who I never reached out to, nor did they reach out to me, it was an awkward time those 60’s, a lot pulling all of us into strange wormholes. But now the years have peeled away that veneer of youth and immaturity and it’s easy to ‘friend’ people you hardly knew and now we can all chat and enjoy the similarities and differences we possess and respect them.
It’s been so much fun finding my long lost friends like Suzy V. a friend from my early years  and even earlier, George S. who was one of my first friends from  pre-kindergarden, he’s living way out in California and volunteers his time at an Planetarium. It’s wonderful keeping track about our families, grand children and phases we have gone through to justify 60 years of living.
It works that way I suppose. There are people I have ‘friended’ that I now wish I had known well in high school, Pat H. with her love of cardinals, Kathi D. with her passion for horses and she is a terrific organizer!  Shelley S. was a DJ and hanging out with famous bands, she’s still cool. Joan could have taught me fashion sense and Scroggy, wish I had known you back then too. Pam M, you were always so sweet, wish I had spent time with you too!
Back then I was painting my room three different colors and doing acrylic paintings  of eyes, mostly animals. I loved Pop Art , made that faux Life Cover in 1970  and of course idolized Peter Maxx and Jim Morrison, Yeats and Dylan, (Bob that is)
Funny thing is, I still focus on animal’s eyes today  as the thing that inspired my photography was my taking a picture where I ended up in the cranes pupil, still use it as one of my business cards.
I was also writing short stories and so was Cheryl Snell who IS a published author of a novel and award winning poetry,  http://cherylsnell.weebly.com/ — wish I had been exchanging ideas with her back in the day.  You can probably tell  I am not an achiever like that, (or maybe should have been dosing on Ritalin to harness and organize my multi faceted thoughts taking me from one subject to another and one project to another all with great anxiety and never a sense of completion…)  I am envious of those who put together their lives years ago and accomplished their goals, I am still clearly still rummaging along a jagged path, stopping and looking inside the rabbit holes for Alice and opportunity along the way.
Look at Chrissie Hynde who was a year behind me, she left Akron for England and made a big name for herself with The Pretenders, she is one of the original women of rock to shape the genre. She was in one of my art classes,  but doubt I ever spoke to her, (we did share the same bangs, still have those today!) Abbe in glasses about 6 months ago
Chrissie in 90’s   

As for dating, maybe less than a handful of the guys in my high school, I hung out with friends from a competing high school which baffles me now because we had so little in common, but there were two guys I connected with that I thought were very ‘together’ in knowing themselves. One was my buddy Rick W. who painted and made gorgeous Raku pottery. He now designs kitchens and other architecture and the other was David Ulrich. David had a camera and had the ‘eye’ too.   I remember we “rapped” about poetry and photography,  I told him  how amazing that he can say things with his photos that just don’t come through with writing and he said the opposite about words creating vivid, mind pictures. He was a great, calm, measured in thought, intellectual and kind young guy,  a young man with an amazing sense of the surroundings and of self at such a young age. I was fortunate to know him. But, as are the phases of life,  after high school and college, things change and move in twists and turns and people drift away and don’t remain in contact and that’s how it was until the age of messing with computers and Google and a few words tossed in here and there.
Yesterday while talking to my buddy Jackie and we mentioned David’s name. So I did what people do, Googled and found that he is one Hell of a photographer, book writer, distinguished professor, juror for photography events and from his email, still the same exact humble guy from the 60’s!   Please go to his site and fall in love with very professional nature photography,   http://creativeguide.com/aboutheauthor.html
Look at the vast body of work and books,  go straight to the gallery of images and feast upon them, you will be as impressed as I am, though,  totally not surprised by it at all. He personifies the idealist life of someone who in high school, had a goal and laid down track to get there and off he went with no hesitation, okay maybe I romanticize a bit, but that’s how it seems.
The Sierra Club uses Davids images, his photography hangs in The Smithsonian. Look at the beauty of knowing aperture and shutter speed, he teaches workshops, I should be taking one. Read some of the samples from  his collective work and get to know the pure soul of the person I was privileged to have known him back in the day!
WOW, so much for ‘connectiveness’ – I’m out of time –1:09pm –must check FB — get caulk and bird food –not to be used or fused together — morning blown, things to do — do birds go to the bathroom more if I feed them double fiber bread- – check emails –just saw a muscovy duck waddling so fast behind one of the Band of Brother mallards as if the mad hatter was feathered and very late for tea — did it wear a hat? I don’t know, I asked Sasha our new cat but she just kept staring…  

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