Tomorrow I will mail my poems Air Hole, Where We Are, and Two Beds to the Cimarron Review.

Added Leslie Sitting to Watercolor section.

Received a rejection letter today from Tin House for my three poems Air Hole, Where We Are, and Two Beds.

Thanks to Amazon.com, I had a belated Christmas today, as various books and CDs I ordered arrived. Among my purchases was Jason Mraz's major label debut. He's one of my favorite local artists and was recently signed to Elektra. Another purchase was the soundtrack to High Fidelity. When I first saw the movie, I wasn't that taken with it, but the more I watch it, the more I notice wonderful subtleties and nuances that create resonance, and it's now among my favorite movies. Also included in my order were several books including two art books and three travel guides. I first saw the book, Reclining Nude, at a bookstore in Los Angeles. It's a great book, and shows how different artists have painted the female nude reclining. It's interesting to see different artists' interpretation of the figure rendered in their own style. It also introduced me to two artists that I wasn't familiar with (F. Scott Hess and Stanley Spencer). Three of my favorite artists are Gustav Klimt, Alphonse Mucha, and Egon Schiele. It is difficult to see any of their work in U.S. art museums, as much of it is owned by museums located in their respective birth countries. As a result, I planned on visiting Europe and making special stops at these museums located in Prague and Vienna, and thus the travel guides I bought were for these cities.

Went to the post office in Pacific Beach and mailed my short story, Naive Ants, to the Denver Quarterly.

Before me, I held a list of short story magazine publishers, and I spent tonight researching them, trying to find a welcome home for my unpublished short story, Naive Ants. Going through their websites, it can be difficult to ascertain differences between them, or those that are receptive to the type of story I wrote. Sometimes, it's the funniest thing that makes me write one address on my submission envelope over another. In the case of the Denver Quarterly, I went to their website and saw on the cover of their last published issue, a painting by Philip Pearlstein, one of my favorite artists. That's all it took. I placed my short story into the envelope and affixed the Denver Quarterly address stamp onto the front. Tomorrow morning I'll mail it off with best wishes.

This afternoon I visited the Star of India restaurant for their lunch-time buffet. I followed this with a desperately needed walk along the beach. The wind blew strongly, and unusually, from the East. Feeling adventurous, I got into the car, drove across the Coronado Bridge, and headed down the isthmus to reach Imperial Beach for my first visit. Imperial Beach sits on the edge of the United States/Mexico border. Across a narrow marsh, Tijuana hovers restlessly. The invisible border is observed due to the continous cycling of military helicopters that rotate along a set path. Three are continuously in the air and make a set loop, and with orchestrated symmetry, when one lands, another rises. IB is an interesting beach. It lacks charisma and personality, but you give it credit for effort. You want to root for it. Cheer it on. It's trying.

Met with a friend of mine, Tracy, to critique each other's work. I've known her since we took a creative writing class together a year ago. We reviewed my poem, Two Beds, and I received solid feedback on it. Feeling nostalgic for London, I followed the writer's workshop by proceeding down India Street a block and visited Shakespeare's Pub. Ordered a fish and chips, drank a Newcastle Brown Ale beer, and watched sadly as the Cleveland Browns lost the football game in the final minutes.

It's been a good San Diego art week. This past Thursday, I went to the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego to view Christo's exhibit before it closed this Sunday. On Friday, I visited the San Diego Museum of Art to view a great watercolor exhibit that closes at the end of the month. Museums rarely feature watercolors, so to see artwork by Andrew Wyeth and Winslow Homer was a treat.

Updated painting Why We Broke Up in Oil and Acrylics section.

Happy New Year!

Added Woman With Yellow Background to my Oil and Acrylics section.