song of the day: Because The Night / Patti Smith
word of the day: shilpit / of a person, pale or sickly looking, feeble, puny 2., of liquor: insipid, weak, thin (origin of this word unknown-COOL!)

so, from madison, Vid and i went over to Mankato, then Duluth, then two nights in Ames, then one night in Minneapolis. but that's not what i want to blog about today. by the way, someone was kind enough to point out to me that a 'blog' is the entire collection of entries, and not each entry itself. just like a diary, or journal, you dont' write a diary each day, or a journal each day, but you write a diary entry, or a journal entry. but you can say you journal, so i'm guessing you can say you blog too. which i also learned is a contraction for 'web log'. whuh-evuh, as they say in london. my daughter is now speaking. in the last week it's as though she ignited a developmental booster rocket, now she's like this 17 pound genius, walking around (sort of, she holds on to things and kind of makes her way around like she's on a ledge of a building) and says "ma-ma" and "da-da" and "hi". she is sleeping in her crib suddenly, and is now hanging out with me for hours without freaking out for mom at all. the biggest difference is how much more independent, engaged, and mobile she is. she crawls like a Zebra lizard, and you really have to watch her every second now, cuz she's putting everything in her mouth, and loves to mangle and destroy anything she can reach. most notable is her electric charisma. we are doomed. she turns it on, and bam- a thousand watts of charming magnetism. it's insane how beautiful she is... just like mom. there's a picture of her up on the new ken wilber site / www.kenwilber.com

so, our house is pretty much done, and all told we spent about $20,000. of course, as an acoustic folk artist, that kind of money doesn't phase me one bit. i've lost three times that much in the course of my career HA HA HA!! actually i feel very fortunate indeed, our family has a house, our health, food to eat, we have good careers with work that is meaningful and passionate, and we are so very grateful. we do indeed acknowledge that each day at dinner, and bow in gratitude. let's be real, we are in a position that 99% of the World would love to be, most people on Earth are busting ass just to get some shelter, food, and Love, of course.

next week i fly off to chicago to do shows in rockford, chicago, des moines and iowa city. very much looking forward to that, and seeing my friend Brother Wayne Teasdale, who's been going through some serious challenges with his cancer treatment. oral cancer, and it's been really tough. his book Mystic Heart has meant a great deal to marci and i, and i was lucky enough to be able to hang with him in person on several occasions. truly one of the most beautiful souls i've ever known, and a great inspiration to me. i think i'll bring my lap top with me and do some work on the audio book which is beginning to make its way back into my consciousness (writing one, that is). i'm about 100 pages into it, and it dropped off my radar for a while as many things shifted in my life, but it's coming back now. probably and audio book and a printed book too? don't know...