There Are Days and Then There Are Days . . .

Is it diurnal or nocturnal?
It is nocturnal. You can see it creeping under the light of the full moon, seeking enemies to vanquish and friends to drain.

What illness does it call to mind?
Sarcidosis of the ankles and spleen.

In what city does it live?
Sedgwick, Kansas. Its home is a split-level three bedroom ranch house with a tidy front yard and a back plot that has been overrun by weeds. A sagging hammock hangs from a rusting swing stand. The picket fence is in dire need of new paint. The windows have gone cloudy from age.

Is it happy or unhappy?
It suffers terribly from melancholy. It can be heard endlessly questioning its purpose for being, its desire to continue, and murmuring restlessly about a wish to go home, wherever that may be.

What might its profession be?
It works a straight 9 to 5 clerical job, and volunteers in the morgue on weekends.

Is it capable of metamorphosis?
Yes, but it will only do so after having drunk too much at a party. It's too shy to resort to peeling off its clothing.

How does it get around?
On a rocket-powered Segway.

With what historical figure can it be associated?
Elvis Presley.

How would you kill it?
Offer it a cup of strong coffee. It will proceed to drink coffee until its stomach ruptures. Coffee is its one fatal weakness.

What scent goes with it?
New-mown grass and lemons; cherries and gasoline; pencil shavings and artificial grape flavor, such as grape bubble gum.

Is it favourable to love?
It finds love abhorrent. "Love is weakness" is tattooed on its heart.

What is its favourite song?
King of the Bongo, by Los Tequila Sharks. It hums this all the time, even when it sleeps.

Thanks to The Book of Surrealist Games for keeping me from having to take a quiz and post the results on a day where there's nothing to talk about.

1,000 Words and Then Some

Today tastes like paper, sawdust, and dirt. Pleh.

Not even spotting random wildlife in the city could improve things.



Pleh.

My Feet Hurt . . .

Today tastes like fake cherry, pseudo-grape, and paste. I have zero motivation. Everything is in the long drawn-out middle doldrums, past the thrill of the beginning, but before the excitement of the final push.

But then I think about it, and it sounds a lot like this . . .



Yup, my feet hurt. But I'm getting out there and play some ball nonetheless.

And it looks like this:

Groundhog’s Day Resolutions

Today tastes like lamb, green chile, and refried beans on fry bread. With a fry bread disc waiting in the wings with chocolate and butter. Circulation is overrated, right?

I’ve talked before about waiting to make resolutions until February 2, because the three-month holiday at the end of the year is like a busman’s holiday–we go to work, we do our thing BUT there’s a party at the end of each month. Halloween and the extra candy we buy for the trick-or-treaters (funny how it’s always a bag of our faves, isn’t it?) Thanksgiving and the groaning board feast (and the three weeks of leftovers; anything is better with butter and cream sauces). Then Christmas, with the cookie exchanges, the fruit and cookie baskets from associates who want to be remembered, the special celebratory goodies (ain’t Christmas without Julie’s fruitcake and Sam’s candied nuts). By January 1, we’re feeling bloated and hungover, not just from the champagne, but from the vacation from reality we’ve had.

So we’re ready to make resolutions. Lots of resolutions. All of them involving hair shirts, because we’ve partied so hard for the past ninety days. No fat, no sugar, no salt! Exercise three hours every day! More family time, more me time, more work time, fix the house up into a palatial mansion!

And then we drop them, and beat ourselves up for dropping an unrealistic expectation.

David Seah has a system for making resolutions on February 2–Groundhog Day– and then reviewing your progress each successive month, on March 3, April 4, May 5 and so on. The idea is to keep you cognizant of your expressed desires and goals, and to give yourself a reality check. You wanted to lose fifty pounds this year? How’s that going? Have you started an exercise program? Have you given up Doritos? More importantly, has your goal changed? Because goals DO change, and it’s important to honor that.

And at the same time, if you aren’t tracking your progress, how do you know what’s holding you back? How do you know where you need to set your feet and push, versus where you’re rolling like Sisyphus’s boulder downhill?

I’m limiting myself to three resolutions. I’m a listmaker by nature, and once I get started I can make lists that go on for miles. Problem is, that then I wind up not getting everything on that ginormous list done, and then I use it like a tool of Alecto, rather than an instrument of Calliope.

So:

1. I will not beat myself up for falling short of perfection with respect to this list. Progress is progress is progress, with apologies to Gertrude Stein.

2. I will complete 9 knitted projects this year. That should be doable–I knit during lunch and on the way home, so I get about an hour and a half each day built into my schedule.

3. I will complete three spreads per month in the art journal. That’s one per week, with a week off to knit. Again, doable. I may have to work a bit on some that are more challenging (like this week’s entry, which involves some drawing. Eeeesh. I hate my drawing. I don’t know why, I see others who draw in a similar style and LIKE their work. I suspect I just need to do more . . .)

Funny--as I was writing this list, I intended to add "work out 5-6 times per week" and "complete 1,000 inches of art this year" to the list, but I didn't. I realized that I've got a pretty good grip on my exercise schedule--I DO work out 5-6 times per week, and notice when I skip days. I'll often make up for a missed day. And if I adhere to the three spreads per month, I'll easily get 1,000 inches in, regardless of how many ATC's I make this year. Further, I thought about adding a writing resolution--but I've gotten in the habit of these weekly missives, and I've been putting out 55 word stories every day since the first of the year. These have become habits and routines. Forgetting to do them is like forgetting to put on my socks. It takes a conscious choice at a specific moment to make it NOT happen.

Not too shabby.

Jake's Pet

Today tastes like salt. Grey mineral-laden salt, earthy underneath the salinity. And pink peppercorns. It's a basic day, with a twist.

Hence, time for some fiction. Presenting: Jake's Pet.

Even in our eccentric little group, Jake had a bit of a reputation. See, we all have our areas of expertise–Mary can recite the jingle of every toy of the year going back to the Cabbage Patch Kids. Roy is the sea lawyer of Dungeons and Dragons–no, the classic edition, pamphlet bound in paper. Tom has been on a mystery walk since he was nine, and he’s picked up more than the Nag Thomas in that time. But Jake–Jake is kinda weird, and I don’t mind who hears me say so. Even though he’s my best friend.

See, Jake is into aquatic life. He’s fascinated by fish. And not bony fish, the squoogy kind. Slugs and anemones, cucumbers and jellyfish. And octopuses . . . octopi??? Jake would know for sure what the plural is, and it’s probably some bizarre Greek declension. Octopodes, maybe.

Jake never wanted a cat or dog, so far as I know. Or a horse, or other fantasy pet when you live in the city. He agitated for an aquarium when he was four, he bragged. A saltwater aquarium that he could fill with the strange floral animals of the sea. His folks bought him a goldfish bowl, telling him that if he took good care of it, he could have a bigger, better set up next year.

I don’t know what they were thinking – well, actually, I do. They were thinking that this desire would burn hot and flash over shortly, like kids’ whims often do. Jake would realize fish weren’t like dogs or cats; you couldn’t pick them up and give them a hug, they couldn’t sleep on the foot of your bed, they wouldn’t play with you.

Except, well, Jake had the touch when it came to fish. That goldfish not only made it through Christmas and past the Fourth of July, this fish grew to the size of a carp and lived a long life–years!–until it finally died. Jake trained it to leap out of its bowl and turn a somersault like a little orange dolphin when he waved his hand over the bowl. I’ve seen the pictures with a tiny cowlicked Jake in overalls, grinning with oversized teeth flanked by gaps, and a goldfish tumbling through the air behind his outstretched hand.

He did it for me once, live, when I said that it was photoshopped, or that he tossed the fish somehow. Theodore Sturgeon, the goldfish, rose slowly to the top of the tank when Jake waved his hand over the still surface of the water. I swear the fish heaved a sigh when Jake waved more insistently. “He’s old,” Jake said, apologetically. “I haven’t asked him to do this in years.” Ted sank back down a little, then exploded out of the water, shining scales gleaming, heavy head lowering till his barbels touched the water, tail waving as it arced up over his head in a flip, then creamy belly down and headfirst back to the bottom of the tank to doze. I’ll never forget that moment.

My folks didn’t care much for Jake. Too quiet, they said. But I overheard Mum talking to dad one night about him after Jake had spent the weekend with us. “His hands are always clammy,” Mum whispered. “And his eyes are too far apart.” Dad muttered something about prejudice and superstition half into his pillow, but Mum continued, “His mouth–have you ever looked at his mouth? He has too many teeth.” I was glad she’d never met Jake’s mother. He looked a lot like her, sharp white teeth in a little bee-stung mouth, small ears flat to her head, eyes wide-set with a broad nose between them. Her skin was a deep olive, even slightly blue, and her hair was pure white. Long and flowing, and somehow always in motion around her head as if she were swimming. Jake was paler, with short black hair that always looked wet. Like a seal’s, short and shiny. He took after his dad that way.

So, anyway, that was Jake then. And he really hasn’t changed since then. It’s like he was born an adult, just a small one, and now he’s just become bigger and stronger. Like one of his beloved invertebrates. But then he got religion, and things really became strange.

Oh, I know what you’re thinking. Animal sacrifice on the beaches at the turning points of the year, leather-bound books that moan and whimper in the night, fetishistic jewelry. Ok, you got me on that last one. Jake took up Eastern Orthodox Christianity, and started wearing a crucifix.

He asked me and Tom to help support him in his new beliefs. Just as witnesses, you might say. Jake’s family, hard-boiled agnostics all, took a dim view of his retreat to superstition, as they referred to it. They celebrated Christmas in the grand old pagan style–any excuse for a party, especially ones that featured gifts and food. But as far as setting foot in a church? Never. Not even for Easter and Christmas. Jake attended every Mass, and soon knew the calendar of holidays.

I went with him one October for the Blessing of the Animals. Pretty much ever family had a little yappy furball on a leash, a cat in a carrier, a bird in a cage. I saw some big dogs sitting in the pews, and even a turtle in an aquarium. Jake, of course, had a bucket of seawater and tentacles.

When he took his animal up for blessing, the priest looked into the bucket. I can only imagine what he thought when he saw those slit-pupiled eyes looking back at him. The father was a trouper, though, laying his hands on the bucket to bless the creature inside. He didn’t scream when an arm reached out of the bucket to reverently touch his hand, but I saw him leave the nave shortly after Jake turned to go, beaming.

This last Christmas was one for the books, though. Jake had read about how animals were supposed to be able to speak at the stroke of midnight on Christmas Eve. He wanted to hear for himself, but see, Jake is solar-powered. Seriously; as soon as the sun goes down, so does he. So he asked me to help him stay up till midnight, watching by the light of the aquarium so he wouldn’t miss it.

Well, Jake’s mom makes the best eggnog and fruitcake in Christendom, so I had nothing to lose by spending the night with my friend. If the beasts actually spoke up, I’d have a story to go drinking on for months. Maybe years. If nothing else, I could stuff my face with seasonal goodies and claim that the sugar would help keep me awake. Win-win, right?

So there we were, on the floor of the aquarium room–really. The little tank slowly grew to eat up a whole wall of the house, but only one animal lived there. An octopus nearly the size of a footstool, cruising slowly on the bottom, hauling itself along by its arms as thick as mine.

Jake never named his animals. “They have their own names,” he said, looking me in the eyes. He made eye contact only sparingly, only when it was really important that he be heard, that he communicate. “They have their own names, but I can’t understand them. It would be rude to call them by the wrong name, so until I understand their names, I won’t call them anything.” Maybe this year, I’d get to know this one’s name.

The minutes ticked by. I felt the same sense of anticipation you get when you finally get to stay up past midnight on New Year’s Eve–before you realize that there’s nothing magic about that moment, about the first few seconds of a new year. There’s no threshold to cross, nothing really changes. The champagne tastes the same. But that first time, why, anything could happen!

And in a way, it did. At midnight, the octopus surfaced, pulling itself head and two legs up out of the tank, leaving its body and six legs dangling in the water. It smiled. It had human lips and teeth on its underside, whereas I thought they had some beaky thing.

It smiled and it spoke to us, although I didn’t see its lips move, I heard it clearly. It said something about the forthcoming aeon of the Great Old Ones, then slid back into the water. Funny how I don’t really remember the words it said, just the sense of it. Just the feeling of the hair on my neck standing up, just the feeling of foreboding, like right after you wake from a nightmare.

And this morning I read that the elected Palestinian president has been assassinated, and troop withdrawal has been postponed again. And I remember what the octopus said, about the aeon of the Great Old Ones, and I wonder just what it meant by that.

I’ll have to ask Jake.

I Have No Excuses

Today tastes like chicharron (the good hard crunchy kind, solid and dense, not the little puffs of nothing), refried beans, and cheese. All I need is a warm tortilla and life would be excellent.

Last year at about this time, I was writing 55 word stories (henceforth "NanoFiction"). A story a day.

Last year at about this time I stopped writing NanoFiction. I meant to take the month of February off, then start again, but I just never really started.

I told myself it took too long, that I was tired, that . . . uhm . . . well, I'm sure I have a good reason. I must have left it in my other pants.

Truth is, I got scared. The tame little pony I'd climbed up on became a stallion underneath me, and I was scared. Of what, Ralph the Cat God only knows. (When the cats look up at the ceiling in the middle of the night and wail, "Rrrrralph! Rrrralph! Rrrralph!" they're praying to the Cat God. Like little furry muezzin chanting the azan.)

Scared perhaps, of producing a body of work? Scared of achieving some form of success? Scared of following through on a personal commitment? It's easier somehow, when you commit to an external thing, where your work needs to go to someone else by a certain date. You can push through a block by saying "But Sally will be soooooooo disappointed if I don't get up and get going on the Project. So I'll put down the Ben & Jerry's and go make some art." It's harder to get motivated when it's your own disappointment you have to live with.

So last year, I committed to posting once a week here, and so far, I've kept that. And this year, I've jumped back up on the NanoFiction Stallion. Rather than riding the horse and worrying about control, I'm going to let it animal around with me. Wherever we go is where I'll be.

Wherever we go, I will be somewhere in the world.

The Circus Is Leaving Town . . .

Today tastes like stale carmel corn, deep fried everything when the oil needs changing, and hot dogs of dubious origin. The Embellished Circus is folding its tents and closing down.

What is/was the Embellished Circus, Spike? A really great Yahoo Group devoted to mixed-media in all its sparkly gluey glory. This was the first group I ever sucked it up and juried into. They had a group blog for showing your latest work. I loved the swaps because the subjects were always novel and challenging. But the moderators realized that the time devoted to the Circus was eating into art time, so they're cutting loose and moving on.

I totally understand their decision. There's only so many hours in the day, and while I can always make more money, I can't make more time. Thus I refute the "time is money" argument. They aren't equal.

And that's why I'm not jumping into the air waving my arms screaming that I'll take it over and keep the clowns in line. I have creative projects of my own that need tending to, as well as group efforts that I need to play my part in to fulfil, and by the way, I need to work to earn the money to support all this.

So as the barkers tuck their slum away, the calliope groans to a halt, and the lights of the Ferris Wheel go out, I'll be slinking back to my trailer, wiping off the greasepaint, and removing my rubber limbs.

A good gig while it lasted.

The Gauntlet has Been Thrown

Today tastes like chicharone burritos--flour tortillas full of refried beans, cheese, and pork cracklin's. It's the flavor of sentiment, of homesickness, of nostalgia.

I'm missing the land and the people I grew up with. It's not that I would trade what I have here in the Salt River Valley for a trip back to the Rio Grande basin. I miss the specific TIME that I was there as much as I miss the SPACE. The space has changed, the time is past, and there are new things now in both places. But while talking with Li'l Brah this weekend, I was reminded of how we heterodyne with each other and feed off the other's cool projects. We don't get that so much anymore, and I miss it.

So--

Li'l Brah talks about NaNoWriMo and limited time and his solution to both here. Essentially, he has more on his plate than will allow him to do what he wants with NaNoWriMo (a Lovecraftian horror-fest with a final italicized ending that blows the roof off the top of your head), and perhaps more importantly, he doesn't want the whole 50,000 word sundae. He just wants the last three paragraph cherry on the top.

So he wrote his ending. Boom! And then he challenged anyone who was up to the task to do the same--the last paragraphs of a Lovecraftian story featuring shambling horrors that surpass description, the final sight that precipitates the meltdown of our hero which takes place off the page, and Things Man Was Not Meant to Know.

I mean, how can one resist such bait?

So, here's mine.

Walking along our beach once again, I thought of Silvie. A year and a month, it's been, since that awful night. We would walk here, watching the fog roll in. We made love at the edge of the tides on our honeymoon, and each summer after that. Our own midsummer ritual, under the stars.

"Like salmon," I'd said once. "Or turtles, coming back to the hatching beaches every year to spawn." She'd smiled that thin-lipped smile, and laid her long graceful fingers on my lips. Her hands would have been pretty save for the depth of the webbing that nearly bound her fingers together.

One night, I'd woken and she wasn't there beside me. I went through the house, calling her name. I'd gone outside to look for her, turned on the lights by the pool. Nothing. Silvie was gone.

Now, I walk our beach along in the dark, playing on the pennywhistle she'd loved, its silly tuneless piping an insane bird's twitter under my untutored fingers. "Anyone can whistle," she'd said, often. "I'm not just anyone," I'd reply.

I look out into the surf, watching the tide retreating slowly. A patch of moonlight--no, phosphorescence--glimmers in the deeps where the waves are born. I continue my duet with the ocean.

It's coming closer. I can see her. Silvie!!

File This Under Moments of Unbearable Sweetness

Today tastes like my deviled eggs, with mustard, hot sauce, garlic, and bacon. Mayonnaise is for sissies.

Earlier this week, I made tags for the Xmas gifts--photos are in the Embellished Circus blog. I've done this for a couple of years now. Last year, the Dowager Empress Odie-Bird swiped each and every tag, then recycled bits and pieces into ATC's.

But that's neither here nor there.

Rodentia, whom you may remember from this post, has taken to sleeping on our pillows at night. Gareth believes it's because she has discovered our heads are warm. I can hear her mutter about "spicy brains" sometimes late at night. Have I mentioned how she's mellowed as she's aged?

She has, though. She'll actually cuddle through the night, not getting up for anything save her own feline comforts. It used to be that when I got into bed to lay my head on my pillow she'd hop up and run away, stealing back later to lie next to my arm, the tips of her fur just b-a-r-e-l-y touching my skin.

Now she lies on the pillow, benevolently watching her monkeys pile together like a stack of overlarge kittens, curling around the warm furry heads, purring all the while.

Last night I woke with her whiskers tickling my cheek. I started to turn my head, and felt a tiny hard weight on my shoulder. Rodentia was dozing with her head on my right trapezius, wrapped around my deltoid, sleeping on my shoulder.

Every monkey in da house say "Awwwwwww."

You Say You Want a Resolution? Well, You Know . .

Today tastes like too much icing, too much roast, too much ribbon candy. Can I just sleep in till Valentine's Day?

It's that wonderful time of the year when we set down the eggnog cups and back away from the fruitcake, and make our New Year's Resolutions. Being a good little lemming, so am I. However, I decided to steal a page from David Seah and do Groundhog Resolution Days ("GRD") this year.

The theory behind GRD is that we are hungover and overloaded on January 1, so we're not really thinking clearly. We've had a three month holiday from life, and consequently believe we can do ANYTHING.

So we resolve to get back into those jeans that we wore at 14, to create a finished canvas everyday (never mind we don't paint), to become an Enlightened Being, and to bake more cookies. Low fat, sugar-free cookies chock full of fiber and nutrition. (Never mind that we hate baking.)

Instead, GRD poposes that we get back into our lives again, get back to our everday routines, and then decide what we want to do this year. On February 2, Groundhog Day.

Then, just like the movie, we check in once a month. March 3, April 4, May 5--see the pattern? All the way through December 12, we ask if we are making progress on our goals, and if not, why not? Is this a goal with measurable results? Is the goal realistic, geven that we have other things to handle? Do we really want what we're chasing, or is it something we feel we "should" want?

I'm just now stepping off the whirlwind roller-coaster of Hallowthankfestivusmaskwaanza. I'm pondering options and alternatives for what I want to do with 2008. I have a huge list--highlights being making more for me, making more for my pet charity, doing more art for me, doing more art in swaps, getting back into the Xfit groove (dropped out during the first week of December. NOT because I broke my hand, but because I've had a cold, then bronchitis, and possibly walking pneumonia. Lovely.) picking up my broken yoga practice, keeping art journals (an actual gonna be bound journal, and a little practice deco with pockets and stuff to put in the pockets), investigating intermittent fasting (to change my relationship with food), and learning how to use Photoshop.

Riiiiight, Spike. Just seeing it all laid out before me like this is a great reality check. (Oh, and I want to write a 55 word story a day, too.)

Perhaps I should resolve to set aside the part of me that is driven. Driven as in suffering because my desires to do more, be more, have more (cupcakes! I want to bake cupcakes once a month for the office!) are in conflict with some basic human needs, such as sleep. Such as play. (When can I play if I am producing? A part of play is to investigate alternatives, even when they lead to dead ends. When producing, a dead end is a waste of time and material.)

Maybe not set aside, but to embrace gently and explain that right now (RIGHT NOW) we need sleep. We are deserving of a nap, of art time without a product at the end of it all, of time to stretch and meditate, of time to move chunks of iron for the pure animal pleasure of exhausting the body, of time to appreciate hunger without satisfying it.

Is that it? Reframing resolutions in terms of deserved play? To remember that I know what is good and best for me, and that I will take those actions as I am able? That I don't need to stand over me with a whip to ensure that art gets made and words get written and to deprive myself of the things I need in the name of the things I want?

Good thing I have a month to think it over and find a way to quantify this.

Or not.

What Will You Do?

Today tastes like cough drops, ginger ale, and Kleenex ^(TM). I've had this verdammit cold for almost two weeks. I'm ready to be done. Since you can't get better until you've passed it along, I am posting this thing on eBay under "Readymade Excuse for Time Off During the Holidays."

Back before the distractions of breaking parts of me, I was doing a systematic appraisal of a point of stuckitude. The final query: What will you do? My answers now are a little different then they would have been before physical difficulties entered the scene.

Which is good in a way. I've said before (maybe even here) that this has been a valuable lesson in asking for help, in vulnerability, in patience. The lessons will appear, one way or another, until they are learned. While this has not been the way I would have chosen to learn these lessons, at the same time, it's manageable. Perhaps I'll actually get them down this time without the forces that may be having to gear up again to hit me over the head with the inevitable stuff that happens.

Anyway, the point I was stuck on was my art. Not just getting my behind into the studio and creating and moving stuff along that had gotten bogged down, but in determining what was on my gotta list, as differentiated from my wanna list, as opposed to my someday list.

Just sorting those out has helped. I've determined some of the things I used to love have less or no relevance to me now, and so I've weeded out that which does not nourish me. I've cleared the decks of my gotta list--even going so far as to remove myself from active participation for several months while I hunkered down and cleared the decks. No one died, went to jail, or lost their kids.

I'm actually doing things on my someday list. I have limits right now, with my hand in a splint, and I will have limits after I get out and can use all my fingers all the time. (See, Universe? I get it. No more lessons needed, 'k? Thxbai.) However, I am doing them. Maybe not the way I keep thinking they ought to be done, maybe without eternal significance and awe-inspiring perfection, but doing them.

If it ain't a YES, then it's a no. And I can list all the things I've said "no" very softly to; said "no" with a weight on my heart; said "no" reluctantly to. And I can go back to that list any time I want and see if they've turned into "yes" while I wasn't looking.

I've found some new tools. Or perhaps, not new so much as buried under a pile of greasy rags and those newspapers I've been meaning to toss. I need to continue to harness the power of the lists, to keep my "To-Do" short and sweet, and to ignore the voices of guilt about the length of the "Wanna-Do" and "Someday" lists. If I keep moving the last two onto the first, and striking out desires that have fallen away, I should be able to avoid getting mired down in this particular bog again.

Busted . . .

Today tastes like everclear and Band-Aids, like iodine and phisoDerm. Like aspirin and plastic.

I broke my hand.

Ok, not the whole hand, just one bone. The fifth metacarpal, proximal to the phlange. In geek terms, I failed my wisdom roll at the gym, then missed my strength roll and bliffed my save vs. dexterity.

I loaded a barbell heavy for a first attempt, could not rise up out of the squat, and didn't dump the bar in time. I fell over backwards in the cage, hit my hand on the lower rack on my way down. Then, the barbell rolling backwards hit my hand, trapping it between the vertical support and the barbell. Then I landed on the barbell, hitting it with the back of my neck on my way to the floor.

As I got up, I had a huge goose egg on the back of my hand. On the palm, I had a bruise the size (and color!!) of a grape, and a blood blister on the side of may hand that I honestly thought was a cut when I first looked.

Sometimes you don't need to go to the doctor to know you're hurt.

So we spent the rest of the evening in the ER, and when I left, I had a huge splint on my right hand. Yup. The hand I use for everything.

Did I mention that this year I'm knitting Gareth socks for his birthday? That's not unusual, but these socks are. They're gourgemous. Only the fact that I can make them refootable (and have yarn to make a pair for MEEEEEEEE) is letting me part with them for the man I love.

Uhm, except now I have about four weeks where I can't work on them at all.

I just got a new, smaller splint on my hand. Look ma, I have fingers again!! I can type, and drive, and dress myself once more. No more elastic waisted pants, I can operate a zipper now! I can put on crew-length socks again! The new splint is removable, so I can WASH MY HANDS.

This has been a real lesson in patience, vulnerability, and asking for help. Gareth joked the morning after the accident that he'd probably come home to find me gibbering in the corner, unable to write, knit, or art. I told him he might want to cut to the chase and find a sanitarium to keep me in until my hand healed.

I had just started another shawl for myself, in fine wool and silk. I've been mooning for years over this project. It's totally within my skill set, I just hadn't settled down and got going on it yet. Why? Dunno. Just hadn't is all.

So I finally wanted something simple, but not crazy-making simple, the way the current Linus binkie is crazy-making simple. And something not too complex, like Gareth's socks are very nearly too complex. I'm welded to the charts for these, and doing them both at once on two circs means a lot of fiddling to fix mistakes.

The shawl was coming along splendidly, a nice marriage of yarn and pattern. And yup, something else that will have to wait until I get my hand back.

I followed up with the doctor today. He's satisfied that the bone isn't going anywhere, and believes that I'll have good healing. He's approved of the little PT I do each morning and evening in the shower so I won't have a long recuperating process (knocks wood with the good hand). The more you sweat in peace, and all that good stuff.

I'm going to be patient, I keep telling myself. I can knit continental, I can play with retensioning the yarn in my right hand, I can make this work. I can do part of the warm-up, I can modify the workouts so that they're possible. Some of them, the onew where you run and run and run don't even need modification.

I can write. I can art. I can knit. It could be worse.

Temporary Hiatus

Today tastes like sand. You really don't want to know what last week tastes like.

Just dropping a line to let you Tonstant Weaders know I haven't gotten trampled in an Xcessmas rush for the newest sparkliest Furbyformer Patch Tickle Me Doll.

What Do You Know?

Today tastes like tart tatin, like truffled honey, like fois gras. What a nice day! Lush and sweet and earthy all at the same time.

Looking forward to the four day weekend. Planning to spend all the available time in my paper studio, winding up projects. When I cleaned this last time, I boxed most everything up and then labelled the boxes so I could make my to-do list simpler. I have a box for collabarative art projects ("Other People's Art AKA the Guilt Box"), a box for my personal stuff ("My Next Big Thing"), and a box of collabarative ATC backgrounds ("Jam Stock").

So far, I have nearly emptied the Guilt Box. I did decos last weekend, which cleared an enormous logjam for me. I stopped doing decos this summer. The game just wasn't worth the candle. But, of course, there were some projects I'd agreed to take, and there they were, glaring up at me everytime I walked past my workbench.

And now, they fly free.

So--what do I know?

In this context, I have learned that my listmaking tendencies slow me down. See, I start a list of stuff to do, and before I know it, I have scheduled every single minute of my weekend with stuff to do. Which is fine when everything goes as expected.

Uh-huh.


So I wind up with no more than half my list done, and then there's stuff that pops us that needs to get done, and oh, there's the things I wannado . . . and, and, and.

So one of the best tips I've found is to write no more than three things on your to-do list. And then do those three, pause for a modest celebration of your accomplishments, then write three more. Or take the day off and do what you wannaddo, because, after all, you DID the things on your to-do list.

Example--last weekend, I had three things I wanted to have done before Monday morning rolled around. I wanted to have completed the knitting on one Linus binkie (two looooooong garter stitch borders to be picked up and done), I wanted to have the decos in the Guilt Box ready to fly, and I wanted to finish a set of ATC's and charms for swappage. I put them on my list, posted the list on the calendar (what DID we do before Post-It notes?) and went to town.

It doesn't sound like much. Three things in a sea of thousands, right? But I got all three done in plenty of time to read and go out for brunch and loll around. And now I have a list of three more that I'm chewing through. (The ATC's in the guilt box need to be finished, the Linus binkie needs to be made ready to present, and I have a book form I want to experiment with. Do you have any idea HOW LONG I've been putting these off? Three things at a time may be small progress--but it IS progress.)

So--I know that lists are a valuable tool for me. I know that I can get a lot done in small bites. I know that I need to keep my focus on those small bites, because otherwise, I get overwhelmed easily.

And I know that when I'm overwhelmed, I wind up spinning like a Sufi dancer. And nothing gets done.

What's Possible?

Today tastes like liverwurst and truffles . . . oh wait, that was this morning's breakfast and last night's dinner. But at the same time, metaphorically apt--meaty, earthy, organic and satisfying.

One of our favorite restaurants held a paired tasting menu last night, featuring truffles. It was almost like finally eating with the Chairman on Iron Chef--two well-known chefs about town each presenting their vision of an item with common ingredients, centered around truffles because it's truffle season. White Alba truffles, that is. I was really looking forward to last night because I could finally decide which I preferred--black or white? Decisions, decisions, I know. (And the answer is . . . black. The flavor's more intense.)

But it was a glorious meal, nontheless. Even though we did not get to bed until almost midnight (on a SCHOOL NIGHT!!) and I packed breakfast to take to work with me, it was a wonderful evening. We swapped foodie stories and restaurant reviews with a couple at our table, and wound up exchanging e-dresses and a vague promise of dinner together someplace after the confetti settles from the new year.

And I think of our conversation, just Gareth and I, out on the patio in the balmy November air. Where we talked about priorities and Christmas lists, and I realized that more and more, I want experiences rather than stuff. I want stuff to make stuff with; I want the experience of having made the thing. I don't necessarily want the thing itself.

And I think about that, and I think about the fabulous dinner we had (and we're going back for New Year's Eve, to that same restaurant. I made reservations last night, just to be sure we'd have a seat.)

And I re-read the query of today's post above, and the only answer I find is: just about anything. In the immortal words of Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley, "You just gotta decide, girl, and then you let me know."

Cue the riff.

Where are you stuck?

Today tastes like essence of celery seed, wormwood, and cinnamon oil, served on a bed of raw garlic. Total meltdown.

It's been an era in and of itself (Meltdown Man??? Carrying a cellphone, an iPod, and a quadruple shot espresso?) this past weekend. Got done with a roller coaster week at work (busy. Getting demand packages out and out and out, telling stories, kicking ass, and chewing gum. And they make me spit out the gum when I walk through the doors, so that only leaves two things to do . . .) and looking forward to dinner with friends on Friday night. Unwind. Relax. Watch some movies, do some knitting and think about cleaning the paper studio so I can do some work this winter while it's nice and cool.

Then we pop by the house to put some wine for dinner in the fridge (hurrah for restaurants without liquor licenses and no corkage fees!!!) and there's a message on our answering machine. Or rather, half a message. The first half of a collect call.

Gareth and I look at each other. If it was an emergency, wouldn't they call our cell phones? Even if they had to call collect for some unknown reason, most anyone who knows us has our cell digits, and knows that's the fastest way to get hold of us . . . say, the jails out here only let you call collect. And right about then, the phone rang again.

Crisis number one: a friend of ours had been arrested for something we thought was over. Note bene: check all the statutes before running a business, and get at least three opinions from legal experts. Loopholes can turn into hangman's nooses.

So . . . her husband currently does not have a land line, and you cannot call a cell phone number from inside the jails. Ours was the only land line number she knew cold, because of course, she doesn't have access to her cell phone. Or a charger, even if she did. We spent a bunch of our weekend playing operator so she and husband could communicate (long story short, he's not able to visit her as he's a co-defendant in the matter we thought was more or less settled and waiting for grand jury.)

Crisis number two: We got to dinner Friday, and another friend had a sudden death in her close-knit family. She needed a shoulder to cry on, so we spent a large part of the remainder of Friday holding her hand and patting her head.

Crisis number three: Remember when the truck broke down twenty miles outside of Globe? Well, the garage was able to fix the truck, but had no one available to drive it any closer to town. So we got up at o'work thirty on a Saturday, and drove over to Globe (ninety minutes one way) to fetch our errant vehicle back. Not so much of a crisis, but that is one boring drive. And it eats up most of the morning, even when you get up early and hit the road right away.

Where am I feeling stuck after this weekend? I'm feeling stuck because every time I walk through the paper studio where I park my car, I'm reminded that I need to get the place in order for me to work there. I'm not avoiding making art by wanting to clean, I'm wanting to make some flat clear physical space the size of my glueboard in order to have a place to make art. I'm feeling stuck because I think of it on my way to and from work, and while I'm at work. In other words, I contemplate this activity when I'm safely time- or space-bound from actually STARTING this project.

Clever me.

No more. Starting tonight, I'm going to FlyLady my studio. Fifteen minutes a night, finding places for all the ephemera and stuff I've collected over the summer, sorting through things that have been sitting ragged and fallow for months uhm, years, tossing dried paints and glues and re-arranging whatever needs to be looked after. I have deadlines at the end of the month for charms and ATC's, I have jam ATC's that have been held up for far far too long, I have communal projects I said I'd do that need to be moved NOW.

So--stuck point identified (for now) and plan of action prepared. Off to implement!

What DO you want?

Today tastes like Tootsie Pops and gumdrops and those awful peanut butter taffy things that come wrapped in orange and black waxed paper. How can they be so greasy and so sweet at the same time? You'd think one would eliminate the other.

As threatened discussed earlier, we're back to the introspective thing before Excessmas kicks in and the Adverbial Celebration is swiftly upon us. I think of the turn between Samhain and Yule as a gathering in, lying fallow, winding up time. A time to see what you have reaped, and decide what you will sow in order to get more of what you want the next time 'round.

So.

What DO you want?

Once the easy answers are out (a million dollars, a Barbie body, a dream life) and the answers your mother would want to hear are out (peace on earth, to heal the sick and injured, to be a stellar yet humble example of all that is best in humanity) then what's left? What do you want?

I want to get clear with my desires. I want to know that what I want is truly what I want--not what I should want or what someone else wants me to want, but an intrinsic desire. I want to know what I want, and how much it will cost, and to be okay with that cost. The cost of losing weight is exercising and skipping dessert more often than not, is changing what I eat and how much I eat and watching how I plate the healthy "good food." It's a cost measured in time spent and conscious, thoughtful choices made, rather than grabbing the fun stuff right now.

The hard part for me has always been being okay with the costs. It costs X dollars, Y hours, Z effort to achieve the desired result. I'll spend it, and get the result, but then spend time fretting about the time/money/effort expended. I'll eat the cream puff, and then castigate myself for the excess sugar and fat consumed.

Right now, I'm thinking about a fiber festival in Washington this spring. I'll have the time off, no problem, I can certainly ask for this as my big Excessmas gift from Gareth (assuming I can get the classes I want to take) and if I get my choices when registration opens, this will expand my repetiore and feed what I do. Soul food, as it were. Experiences don't require dusting.

And yet and yet and yet . . . there's airfare, and hotel room, and food, and the costs of the classes. And there's other things that need to get done that will take money, and there's other things that we want to get done that will take time.

I want to be rid of this ambivalence. To be rid of second-guessing myself. I want to own my decisions wholeheartedly.

What I Did With My Weekend . . .

Today tastes like raw chocolate-covered garlic. With bean sprouts. Crunchy, but ultimately disappointing and harsh.

Sheesh. It should have been a good weekend--Friday off work, a trip up to Aspendell in Greer, prepare the place for the semiannual Christmas party. Two of the tasks: Check the heating systems in the large and small cabin. No more arriving two days early in order to get the temp inside up above freezing! No more carrying water in 20 gallon jugs for drinking and washing dishes!! No more HOISTING 20 gallon jugs to flush the toilets twice a day whether they need it or not!!! Just flip a switch and start the fire for atmosphere. Ahhhh . . .

But no. Friday around lunch, my cell phone rang. My boss Hopalong was on the line, frantic. Where the hell was I?

Uhm . . . about four hours out of the city. Why?

Why didn't I TELL him I was gonna be gone?

But I did. Like two weeks ago, I told him I'd be out today. In fact, two weeks ago LAST MONDAY.

Nope, never happened. We'll talk about this Monday morning. Click.

Well, shit. I know I spoke to him, and my other two bosses (Atticus and Boo) and I could swear I talked to the other folks in the office because one of our buddies who was along to help prep the cabin had left his car in our parking lot. This should be no big deal--we're not big enough to be fussy about a car taking up a space, and he'd be taking up the same space my car would, so no problem, right?

So now, I'm concerned about the crucial conversation Hopalong and I are going to have come Monday, and I'm worried that no one else remembers my saying Shadowstalker is going to borrow my space for the weekend and thus, they'll have his car towed. So when he gets back to town on Sunday, he'll have no ride waiting for him, and no way to get to work Monday, and WTF???

Ick. Ick ick ick. Good thing there were plenty of seasoned rounds waiting outside to be split. I should take a photo of Hopalong some day, print out wallet-sized copies, and bring them to Aspendell for when I need a little more incentive to get out the axe and get going.

But it was lovely up in Greer, albeit somewhat breezy. The people we were for sure expecting all showed up in good time, and we got everything on the list done except for sharpening the kitchen knives. (Maybe an 8.5 x 11 headshot of Hopalong? Perhaps a picture of his shoulderblades?)

Then some folks we weren't expecting showed up. Gareth's cousin once removed and her husband showed up late Friday night. This isn't a bad thing, necessarily--they're easy to get along with, and hard workers to boot. The husband immediately set to work re-finishing the decks, and when we left on Sunday, he was replacing the downstairs toilet.

But I know a few of you will understand exactly what I mean when I say that it was just too many people. Neither Gareth nor I could unwind at all in the cabin.

So I took a walk.




This shrine is the place where we scattered Howard and David's ashes, and I understand there's a few other people memorialized here. I love this stump with its fan of roots around the saint. I think it's a perfect blend of pagan and Christian; an excellent marker for this family.

Sunday morning was uneventful; we were all leaving early save for Gareth's cousin and her family. And I'm glad they had some cabin time for themselves, since we had all of Friday. However, it has now become very clear that we need to shift the responsibility for the cabin calendar out of Most Excellent's hands; this is not the first time she's double-booked the cabin. It's a problem only because we call and check to see if there'll be company up there before making plans. It's a bit awkward to arrive and find others there, or be walked in on when you weren't expecting people.

So Sunday morning, we paked up and went off down through Whiteriver as we often do. It shaves about half an hour off the trip and doesn't send us through Phoenix and all the traffic to get to our home. Besides, the Salt River Canyon is really pretty as you wind your way down and down then back up and up.

And then it happened. 20 miles north of Globe, the engine revs went through the ceiling-vreeeeEEEEEE! Like when you have it in neutral and unthinkingly step on the gas. Except the truck was in gear. Uh-oh.

Took it out of gear, put it back in gear, step on the gas. VrrrrreeeeeeEEEEEEEE! Crap. At least we're headed downhill, let's milk this for a few more miles. So we coasted down the hill tapping the brakes, watching for a place to pull off the road before we start back up the hill on the way to Globe.

We were lucky, we found a pull-out that we could safely get to on the northbound side of the road, out of traffic. We were able to put the truck on a lovely level patch of utterly clear caliche to make life simpler for the tow truck driver. We had all our AAA info with us, no problem. Gareth's cell had just been pulled off the charger before we left the cabin, so he had power to spare.

Except we had no signal. None at all. Poot. Well, we're young and healthy, and it isn't summer, so we're not likely to die of dehydration before we can either walk 20 miles or get a ride. Off we go. (Yes, I could have claimed to be the frailer sex, and sat in the truck to wait for Gareth, but frankly, if it took him more then twenty minutes he would have returned to a bloody and frantic quivering heap of worry. Much simpler to walk and be there for whatever happened than to wait and imagine.)

So down the road we went, checking about every half-mile for signal, and high-fiving each other at every mile marker. Might as well celebrate, right? A little more than two miles along, a guy pulls off the road and asks if we'd like a ride to Globe.

Yes, please! we reply, and hop in. He explains he was visiting his brother on the San Carlos Rez, just east of Globe, and he lives up on the White Mountain Rez, which is up by Show Low. He was heading home, he saw us walking and thought we were taking pictures, but then he saw our truck. That's an awful long walk to take pictures, he thought, and turned around to see if we needed a hand. He told us the other week, he was making this drive and came across a fella walking with two kids, one 8 and one 12. The fella'd had two flat tires--one on the car AND the spare, so he'd given the guy a lift to get the spare fixed in Globe.

So once we'd been dropped off in Globe, we had signal, so we called AAA. We were thinking about getting a rental so we could take our stuff home, but the company we were connected to wasn't in the mood to try harder, despite their advertising. We were offered a car at the Phoenix airport. Gareth has more patience than I; he politely explained that if we could get to the airport, we would be able to get to our other car, and hence, would not need their services. The representative tried again, and offered us a car in Mesa. Gareth explained that this location was still about 120 miles from our current location. We needed someplace in Globe. Where we were. When she came back from putting him on hold for another fifteen minutes, he explained gently that we'd figure something else out, thank you, buh-bye.

This left us with some mighty unappealing options. We could call a friend to come and get us--120 miles out of town, one-way. We could call Gareth's mother and never hear the end of it. We could spend at least one night in Globe and call our respective employers to explain we were stuck and would be in as soon as possible, given that the truck was being worked on. Ewwww.

So we called one of the folks who had been with us on the trip and explained what was going on. We set up a provisional meeting place--the one McDonald's in Globe, which was just down the road from where the tow truck was supposed to be meeting us. Hey, it was gonna take her at least an hour and a half to get to Globe, might as well have a place to meet established. If she arrived and we weren't there, she was to call us. If we didn't answer, assume we were with the tow and would call as soon as we had signal to let her know where to go. Otherwise, we'd call when we returned with the truck and guide her to us.

Well, we got back to town with the truck before she arrived. We called, and sent her directions to the saloon nearest the Ford dealership because that was the nearest place where we could sit and wait. The dealership closes at 1:00 on Sundays; it was now almost 2:00.

So we went to have a beer. If the blue laws say we may, then who are we to argue? It was like being a kid again and tagging along to the pool halls with my father and grandfather. Check it out:



A pressed tin ceiling wayyyy up there, pool tables on the floor, and paintings of nekkid and semi-nekkid ladies on the walls. Too much fun. Established in 1902 and the only real changes have been the additions of two television sets.

So Mischief came and fetched us home again, and now we're dealing with the aftermath. Calling the towing company to get our keys over to the garage so they can get into the truck to fix the problem, and then next weekend we'll be back on the road for three hours fetching the truck back home from Globe (siiiiiigh). I have a blanket bee on Saturday that I've been anticipating since February, so that's not negotiable. That means Sunday will be eaten getting up and fetching the truck, so Saturday night's party will either be a quick show up, walk around once, then go home and to bed--or a no-go entirely.

After this weekend, I'm thinking the latter.

Blogiversary--Three Years and Counting

Today tastes like roasted garlic on crusty bread, like milk chocolate covered raspberry jelly sticks, like Pigma Micron pens, pencils, and heavy luscious watercolor paper. Like things that are simply meant to come together, like auspicious confluences.

Three years. 250 posts. Awareness of the moment. All together now.

Passionfruit Fall

Today tastes of chile verde, pork, fresh pumpkin, and woodsmoke. We're back to the wonderful paradisical sheerly amazing weather we get in fall and spring. Both seasons are bittersweet--spring because you know that the valley will soon become Ye Anvil of Ghod, fall because the light is fading and dying.

Enjoy it while you can.

Soon enough you'll be getting up in the dark, working under fluorescent lights that make everyone look half-dead, and going home in the dark with only the memories of summer to hold on to until fickle spring returns once more.

So seize the now to take pictures of pretty FO's during the magic hours, because so very very soon you won't see the sun again for days at a time.



I never before really appreciated/apprehended just how hard it is to get good pictures of lace. You can get the colors and the general shape of the piece and some of its surround pretty well--



. . . or you can get a great shot of its structure. I love the light on the shawl, this one ray peeking through the vegetation to linger on the lace, caress its cheek before receeding into the west with its fellows.