My Real Front Porch is a wide gallery, across which two swings, handcrafted from Wimberley cypress, face one another like mobile loveseats. I use them for watching Hill Country sunsets through the live oaks, singing to God, reading snail mail, or just for swinging.

When my daughter and son were small, they got 5-minute timeouts on these swings for using overly colorful language. (Once I had announced the rule, of course, I ended up doing more time than the children.) Eventually, on reaching adolescence, they discovered a more traditional use for porch swings....and their parents discovered "waiting up."

Moving past the swings, one arrives at the Front Door. Here a graceful Art Nouveau lily crafted in beveled glass stands guard to capture the late afternoon sun and splay it as glorious rainbows across the walls within. Before the door, flanked by clay pots bursting with pink Impatiens, lies a threadbare hemp mat--long Real as the Velveteen Rabbit from the passage of countless happy feet.

My Virtual Front Porch is a place for news and announcements. Our daily newspaper, the Austin American-Statesman, is now available online at http://www.statesman.com. While I read the hard copy every single morning with toast and coffee--especially For Better or for Worse, Cathy, and Dilbert, I confess the action is in Thursdays' more progressive (aggressive?) Austin Chronicle, which contains all the news that's unfit to print in the other. News of the Weird, however, has crept into the daily; and the old Weekend bulletin is now XL and sports a post-slacker air. (This is surely more a case of marketing than flattery by imitation.)

I would like to invite other Austinites to visit the Austin Community Group of the Institute of Noetic Sciences. This is an organization of thoughtful people interested in the relationship between science and spirituality. For info, emailnous@texas.net.

Virtually and really, welcome to my pages. Please come in!