Hallowthankmass

Today tastes like cheap chocolate--the greasy kind that always seems to be on the verge of melting, oversweetened, highly decorated; flat minty candy canes that are more about sugar and bright red stripes than about mint; and mistletoe, bitter, green, and splintered.

Is it over yet? Has the fat man seen his shadow; can I stop drinking odd-colored alchoholic liquids; has the turkey dropped a gaudily colored rabbit?

Hallowthankmass always looks so good from the heat of August--cool and lovely and soft grey or hard edged light, not the crushing haze on the Anvil of Ghod. Winter festivals, harvests, a time to knit when you're not huddled around the air conditioner vent in a thong bikini while you pore over a lapful of wool. Or knitting socks socks socks and making them as technically interesting as possible while you yearn for a project you could be married to for weeks on end; a project that spills off your lap and rolls onto the floor, that blocks to three (or four, or five) feet square and comes with its own little herald.

You forget you can't breathe properly 'cos the air is so dry and filled with smoke from fireplaces (because after all, it's below sixty!) You forget about the tail end of the cold that turns into bronchitis that has you coughing until your ribs and belly muscles hurt. You forget about the orgies of food food food and stuff stuff stuff that are waved before your wondering eyes until you are dazzled and overwhelmed with glittering trinkets and bulging with sugary goo.

The habits of nine months drop to the wayside, 'cos it's hard to get up in the dark, hard to stretch cold muscles that would rather be sleeping, hard to turn down a bite of cake, and just one cookie (well, okay, one of each KIND of cookie) and a smidgen off the cheese tray, and a sip of that over there . . .

And the wanting. The more you want, the more you acquire, and then the more you want. I do some paper arts stuff,a little bookbinding, and thought it could be cool to make hang tags this year--you know, the "TO: Snookieookums Wonderpuss FROM: Toastwaist" tags that go on gifties so we know who to fuss over and send a thank-you note to. So I wanted to get acrylic blocks for my unmounted stamps so I could finally use them.

Oh, but look at the other cool alphabet set that goes with these blocks! There's a solution to the lettering of the poem for the star book for First Consort Gareth! (click click)

And then working with paper and paint, found a couple of really fun techniques that require long flat stretched drying time. So I could only make one sheet at a time, unless I get a tool to help me out there . . . and I need some water soluble varathane . . . and they have sets of foam brushes like I like for not too much . . . (swish swish)

And acrylics are on sale, including the metallics (which I often have to argue over to get the sale prices) so I'd better stock up on those . . . (swish swish)

And while shopping for others I found books I wanted but had not told anyone about, because they're not" special" books; books that I will turn to often and remember the giver. Just esoteric little books, available at good prices from the sites where I was ordering books and videos for the ones I buy for . . . (click click)

Now I find my little monkey mind insisting that we need to replace the favorite colors of acrylic 'cos we're running low, and we need COLORED cardstock cos the manila won't be as "kewl". Really, it's not that I can't afford the supplies; and it's not that I'm over budget for Xmas; and it's not a case of actual NEED--I can make what I want to have happen by Christmas happen with what I have. I can gift Gareth with the bitty book at Adverb (and it will probably go over better there) (moral of the story: Never give pieces of your heart to or in front of people who don't understand the gift.) and can charge the supplies I WANT in order to make it happen smooth and easy to January's budget. No biggie.

But I want. And wanting is itching in places too delicate to scratch without drawing blood.