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Sandeha,I too, when trying to remember what is really important, remember everything is made of atoms. It's one of the more beautiful thoughts left hanging around.

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Lee, thank you for reminding me of the end of the movie...it does turn things around quite a bit...retreat to the center of madness...to stay by myself seems to be survival in this neighborhood. I left home at eighteen, and lived in Metropolitan areas-Washington, D.C., Miami, and New York -where I had an active life with artists.

<P>I am slow to catch on-sometimes comically so

<blockquote>(the other day I reached for the telephone and put it down in front of me, closer to my work as I was about to make some calls. Something outside the window caught my attention for a second, and when I turned to reach for the phone-in it's usual place-it wasn't there! My mother and sister are always "putting things back where they belong." My sister will reach for my plate to wash it before I can lay my fork on the plate. To me, these are abuses of life. Okay, back to the hazy point of all this..)I could only think, "Where did they put the phone now! It's always been in this one spot-why would they move it!" <P>

But I'm used to little things like that, and have lived with them a good while....I used to have a webtv, and sometimes instead of putting a web page in favorites I would e-mail it to myself so as to be sure and remember the page. Almost without fail, I hit the send button, and move on to the next web page. Seconds later there is a "ding" announcing new mail, and I jump, startled, thinking someone has just written me and I check the mail.</blockquote>

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Now, a lifestyle like that does not allow idiotic conversation to come at you too quickly. I'm miles behind trying to make sense of it all. And some of those questions to me were, literally,on the same level as "Why do birds build nests?" "Why are there only three primary colors?" I am just not fast enough to say, "Why are there that many? I could do with one." just to keep the conversation even. Instead, stupidly, I try to answer them. Les gens, les gens.

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If you can imagine me, in one of those old medieval battle scenes,crawing down the hill pretending to be a tree, forgetting,I began to believe I was a tree!

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I have chided myself to death practically, for falling for such stunts. It doesn't feel good to chide myself either-and blame some falty genetic thread for being so stupid....in stupid matters. You see, I become the tree.

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Gee, I need a vacation! I need to move!

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Lee, whatever you do at that mental hospital, rake leaves, analyse patients, mop the floors, prescribe medicines....you are my new best friend. Did you even meet a mental hospital groupie before? Sometimes, I think of them as heaven. My son used to take a vacation there every so often. We laughed about it. It is crazy here on either side of the gate, and usually, he could make better friends inside than out, and he made some very nice friends there.

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Well, I'm <b><I>certainly</i></b> straying...it all comes down to atoms, gloriously and wonderfully.

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I look at conversations with photographers, as part of the making, as part of any artist's...or any scientist's making. I think of this forum in some ways as the "lounge" and a place to do that. A place where all the wonderful photographs can churn and bring words to life. Words are important too....even though their atomic make-up might be questionable!

This one has been answered before albeit by an artist in a different category -- science!

99% perspiration

1% inspiration