Moments, Musings

Friends are a good thing.

2007-09-05T22:06:00.000-07:00

This past weekend, we flew to Denver and spent the weekend with friends from college (members of a club my husband and I were both in), and some people from the same group that we did not know. It felt like coming back to family and dear friends, even the strangers. It was excellent recharging time, and - forgive me, Mom and Dad - not associated with memories of my parents. I treasure those memories, but in this space I wasn't thinking about what I have lost, but about what I still have.

I have been blessed so many ways. And I still am, in many of those same ways.

That includes some of you, who read and who think of me, and who leave a comment here.

Some days, I could just cry.

2007-08-28T20:49:00.000-07:00

And these are them. There is too much going on. I have made three trips this summer, and make three more in the next two months (though only two, both over, were longer than 4 days, and only one of those was over a week). Work has been busy - in a good way, but busy.

A year ago this week, my mother went into the hospital with what they thought at first was just malnutrition and weakness. It would take them months to diagnose terminal lung cancer, it would be almost four months before she was dead. Not long enough. Not nearly long enough. And I wish she had lasted a week longer, because then the road would not have been icy when Dad drove to the lawyer. (Oh, let's be honest: I wish she would have never gotten ill, and lived to be in her nineties. But that doesn't somehow seem as realistic as wishing for an extra week. Silly realism. Not like any of it is realistic now knowing what I know today, namely, what did happen.)

A year ago this week. My emotions have been on a rollercoaster. To add to that, I got the letter today; the estate is closed out. I write two more checks and the whole proceedings are completed - legally. I still have a lot of stuff to sort through, dispose of (sell, donate, etc.), and so on. What's neat on paper is not necessarily neat and tidy in any other way.

I do not expect the months between now and January to be easy. And this coming weekend is another of my trips, to get together with college buddies from ten years ago and hang out and play games (myself and my husband both). And it seems strange to ping pong like this between the trivial but sweet and the other.

We had to have Basta put down. (Heart disease caught up with her, despite attempts to treat her. She would have died that day, it was just a question of whether it would be quick and peaceful or not.) But we still have Babe, and she regularly puts holes in my leg climbing into my lap. I still remember her jumping to Dad's lap, when he sat on the little computer chair by the foot of Mom's hospital bed. Even with his heavy jeans on, he would quickly grab for her and look pained - a heavy, clumsy cat with a lot of pointy pieces. She still is. And I understand why they loved her so. She is a charming sweetheart with those she knows and trusts. A cuddly little sweetheart with a joy for life that is so touching.

And sometimes, rather soggy fur. She's fairly patient with me all things considered.

I wish she were home - home with my parents, home where she was born, with them still taking care of her. I'd never know this side of her, for I was Stranger then and she was cautious with me. But I'd have my parents. On the other hand, since I don't have my parents, I'm rather glad to have her to cuddle.

I want to go back five years, ten years, and do all this again, treasure my parents and our time together more dearly, ask the questions I wonder about now when they can still be answered. (For example, where did my sister's baby book end up? I want it, but I cannot find it. I don't know why I care - she was born and died eight years before I came along - and I have baby photos of her. Just not the book. But I do care.)

If I could go back, of course, the first thing I would do is try to change things, not get those answers I get maudlin about now.

Perhaps we're lucky humanity hasn't got a time machine. What a horrible temptation it would be - or, if nothing could be changed, what a torture.

I'm going to have enough on my plate, just living through these next four months, I think.

Meh.

2007-07-02T22:28:00.000-07:00

Truth be told I am not feeling very creative. I am feeling tired and whiny and overwhelmed. The vacation was excellent and I had a great time. But I came home to a huge to-do list that seems to grow longer by the day. Argh! I'm getting my to-do list shorter at work but that's it. :(

On the other hand, my father-in-law gave me the most basic bread machine recipe I've ever met, and it actually works right, which is more than I can say for some of the box mixes I've met. I could learn to like the bread machine. Especially since my husband will clean it after it's run.

Neither of us likes to do dishes much, so not nearly as much gets cooked here as it might. There's so much TIME in food preparation and cleanup. Ugh!

Home again, home again. Or, long time no post.

2007-06-30T07:07:00.000-07:00

And this is not much of a post. I am back (okay, have been back a couple days) from a two-week vacation spent visiting my relatives. Mom's side of the family, and also my husband's family. They are all out in the Midwest. I wonder what I would have been like if my parents had lived near enough that I was raised with the constant interconnectedness to family that they were? As it is, it's a sweet but foreign land to me. But the visit was lovely.

I don't really have much to say. I had a blast - and now I am home - and I am missing my parents starkly and wishing I could share some of the things I saw and heard and did with them. And I am running in circles catching up on all the things that lagged while I was gone. Ack!

I have photos, but they are not up yet.

Miscellany

2007-06-03T20:04:00.000-07:00

I am working on gathering paperwork for the estate receipts/disbursements stuff to take to the lawyer, per his request. It is amazing how panicked this makes me feel. I have been wailing again that I want my parents back, when I had been going along with more okay moments than upset moments for so long. Of course, one item is not yet anywhere I've searched, which is also upsetting me but in a different way. (Not too bad - I can call the bank and get the info from them, I am just annoyed that I can't find it, but it may be in the one area I still need to go through.)

My to-do list has just kept getting larger and more frantic since December, and I'm ready to cry and scream. Unfortunately at the moment I don't have a whole lot of leeway time to do so.

On a brighter note, I am enjoying swapping with people on swap-bot for the most part. It is interesting to see what you get although sometimes I am a bit bemused. (So far, the winner is the person who sent me a postcard with a quote on it. I'm in, like, three or four swaps for postcards. This is a handmade postcard - it is gorgeous. And nowhere on it did the person identify either themselves, or which swap it is for.)

Also on the positive side, an old friend from high school told me that my mother had given her mother some of the pinks I loved as a child. And they still survive at their house! So I can find out what my pinks are after all and, even better, they are going to divide them and give me some. Since they spread by root and division, this really feels like getting some of the pinks from my parents' house back after all.

Sunday Scribblings: Simple

2007-05-27T13:33:00.001-07:00

But nothing ever is simple, is it? Even death is, one way or another, not simple. Certainly life, and the questions of life, are not.

Art at its best is anything but simple - and yet it may look deceivingly simple once done. It may feel deceivingly simple in the process, if the steps of that process have been learned until they are bone-deep intuition. But if you try to break it down and explain, not merely the technical parts, but how you select each element...it starts to look very, very complex.

I sometimes say I want my life to be simpler. But I don't, not really. I treasure the daily complexity that surrounds me, the machinery, the intricacies of a picture, the interplay of people, the sometimes-fickle attentions of my cats. None of these things are particularly simple.

And to simplify them would be to take the heart out of them. I don't want my life to be simpler. I guess I want it to be easier, but even that, not at the price of losing the precious details.

2007-05-25T09:06:00.000-07:00

I have borrowed this meme from GreenishLady.

Bold the books I've read. Italicize the ones I want to read. Cross out the ones I wouldn't touch with a 10-foot pole. Put a cross (+) by the ones on my bookshelf.Put an asterisk (*) by the ones I've never heard of. (The ones with a + may be short of the true count, as I'm going off memory. My bookshelves are a mess.)

I feel obliged to note on #5-7 that I find the story quite fascinating. I simply cannot read the man's writing; I acquire a headache, and fail to figure out what is going on, because the sentences and paragraphs are too long to hold in my head!

1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
*9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon )
*10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
*12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
*14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Rowling)
*17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
~~18. The Stand (Stephen King)~~
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
~~21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)~~
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold) (And I hated it, thank you very much. Nasty, and pointless.)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
+26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
+28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
*30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
+31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
*32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
~~33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)~~
34. 1984 (George Orwell) (Hated this one, too. Not pointless but quite unpleasant.)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
*36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
*37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
*38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
*39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
*40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
+41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
*42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
*43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
*44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
+45. Bible
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
*50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
*51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
*56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
*58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
~~62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)~~
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
~~64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)~~
*65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davies)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
*77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
*81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
*83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down (Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
*88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
*89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
*90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
*91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
*94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
*96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
*97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
*98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)

Guess I have a few to check out, although the list is so hit-and-miss I'm not sure whether I will. A lot of the ones I am familiar with but have not read, I am just disinterested in.

Sputter, Sputter.

2007-05-19T11:05:00.000-07:00

Or, false starts. I'm back off the morning pages. What I found was that they unearthed where I was stuck...and then got in the way of getting unstuck by using up time while just repeating the same thing. I quickly grew frustrated with the time it takes to write them, which is actually a very common reaction to the MPs for me. I did them diligently throughout the AW back when, and sometimes they helped and often they didn't. So now I am more of the mind to do them when I am feeling stuck or caught, then let them go for a while. Maybe I am rationalizing (okay, I am rationalizing; maybe I am also right, maybe I am not), but I think this is what I need to do. ADs are another matter. I'm trying to figure out what mine should be this week - a little late there, aren't I? Maybe I will go up to the Gardens today except I am not really in the mood. Oops.

I am doing okay. And dealing with my grief, I think. I'm not sure quite what brought that poem to the surface in April (or the dream that led to it). I know this - I know I welcome dreams of my parents, though I'd rather connect with them, not see them sitting there tired and fading.

I have been doing some swaps at http://www.swap-bot.com/ - just sent a few items in the first ones, waiting to get my items. So we'll see how that goes. But it's interesting, and it's another way of connecting to people.

Slowly starting back. And a poem.

2007-05-11T09:14:00.000-07:00

I am beginning my morning pages again, and today I go on an artist's date. Not doing The Artist's Way, but doing Vein Of Gold. Or rather, I will be, maybe, probably. Right now I am just trying to get back into the basic tools, nothing more. I haven't started the walks yet.

And on a totally unrelated note, this is a poem that I wrote back in April. I've let it sit, and edited a bit. I'm not wholly satisfied but I'm not sure whether that is justified or just fussing for fussing's sake.

Waking

I had a dream this morning. Not like how it really happened.
In the dream, my mother outlived my father. She was sitting
in the cream brocade chair she reupholstered twice.
She wasn't healthy; her face was grey and her breath was short
and she didn't speak at all. Not that I remember, and I hope
I'd remember every word if she did. Even the ones she never said.

There were children, looking at something, on a trip -
she had invited them, I think, but I no longer recall
why they came. They were unconcerned with the woman
dying in their midst. As full of life as she was empty of it.

This is not so far from the truth, even if almost all of it
never happened anywhere but after dawn, in the hours
when sleep comes and goes, and dreams hover close enough
to waking to be remembered, to pretend they might
have happened somehow, somewhere that is not here.

Grieving. And living. All of a piece.

2007-04-13T22:39:00.000-07:00

I have started listening to audiobooks - it helps feed my desire to read, without taking as much time. (Not that I don't still read regular books, but some of what I would have read now gets read as I drive, which is nice.) One of the ones I picked up at the library on a whim was Anna Quindlen, reading her book Loud and Clear. I was very touched by it and very much liked it, but the last section, section 5, "Soul", had some essays / columns / whatevers in it that struck me to the core - about loss, and grieving, and the death of parents. Struck me in a good way. I need to read them again, and take notes; and so I bought a paperback copy to go through. (It was interesting to find: for some reason, a book containing a series of journalistic columns, many of which have to do with politics or 9/11 or other things, had gotten shelved in 'self-help'. Thank heavens for the store's computers that helped me find it!)

I began searching the web for information on memory quilts this week. I am debating making one for my parents, but I'm not a quilter and I don't use quilts, so this is an idea that is very likely to fade away all on its own. However...in the process of searching, I came across references to tote bags done in a similar style. Which reminded me that I both need reusable fabric shopping bags and have fabric that I have not yet found a use for. So now I have been hunting up and storing sites on making tote bags, with the intent of actually perhaps some day maybe doing something with it. It might end up on the shelf of "what if" projects, the kind that never actually happen; I don't know.

I'm posting still more often over at my LiveJournal, but ... this post seemed most appropriate here.

A calendar!

2007-02-27T07:06:00.000-08:00

I am mostly still posting over at my LiveJournal. However, I figured the most recent post was worth mentioning here if anyone is still watching this space. Namely, four of my photos will be used in a calendar by the Portland Japanese Garden that I love so much! I don't know yet which four - I am looking forward to finding out. I am so excited!

And up at Flickr, I slowly continue to put up photographs from family history - so far from the 80s, mostly. Me as a kid, my parents when I was younger, places we went and things we did.

Still alive, mostly posting elsewhere.

2007-01-27T21:03:00.000-08:00

I'm mostly just posting at my LiveJournal, not here. I am not doing a lot of creative exploration, which is what this blog was originally intended for. I put bits of my life up here because you are friends also! But my main journal is at LiveJournal. Please come visit me there if you wish - I am posting there much more often and you are very welcome. I have been trying to take a photo a day - that has been my main, maybe only, creative endeavor. There are too many other things that need doing right now, as far as my parents' estate and my own grieving.

Come visit me, please. You can comment on my posts anonymous if you don't have an LJ account - though it would be nice if you added something to the text to tell me who it is, of course. :)

http://kyrielle.livejournal.com/

General update

2007-01-03T22:51:00.000-08:00

Sergeant no-words, etc.

I'm around. Check out my Livejournal if you want updates - most posts are public at the moment - I have little energy to spare here, I fear.

Thank you all SO MUCH for your support, it means a LOT. I apologize for not replying individually or dropping by your blogs to say hello, but I suspect you understand - I hope you do - one more task is not something I need, however neat the people involved.

I also have photos up on Flickr, some mine, some taken by my parents over the years.

Thank you. And a few notes.

2006-12-23T23:13:00.000-08:00

Thank you. Thank you so much.

I did a write-up for Dad like his for Mom, sort of. I think the one he wrote for her was more eloquent... in any case, mine is here: http://kyrielle.livejournal.com/1144612.html?mode=reply

In addition, I have been posting some memories of him and inviting others to do so. That's here: http://pheon.livejournal.com/451031.html - I'll be adding more. My main personal journal is http://kyrielle.livejournal.com/ - this was more a creativity space. Repeating everything twice is painful, so I am mostly going to update there, not here, about this now - details, day-to-day, etc.

And for now it is bed-time. Okay, it's past bed-time.

Good night, Father.

2006-12-21T22:18:00.000-08:00

I didn't think I'd have cause to write a post like this so soon after my last one. Dad lost control of his truck on an icy road this morning, and was killed in the accident.

I will try to write something for him like he wrote for Mother - he deserves it, he was an incredible man (still is, somewhere nice but not here, if the Universe has any sense of kindness or right...). But I do not have the words now. I only found out six hours ago (it took them some time to find me as next of kin) and I am shaky.

For now: Oh, Daddy. I miss you so much already. And I love you. And I hope there's a happy after where you and Mom are even now together.

And to those of you reading this who are still where you can type on the keyboard...I could use some hugs, even virtual ones.

And perhaps some prayers, or good thoughts, or candles lit - whatever you prefer among those.

Good night, Mother.

2006-12-13T08:39:00.000-08:00

My mother passed away last night. Part of me is glad and mostly I am very sad - the glad is that she did not last long after she could no longer communicate, and the pain began to be too much. (Of course, it was being treated, but still....)

My Dad's description of her, when he wrote of her death, says it beautifully, I think.

Julie, my wife of 40 years, died today. She had been ill for a couple of years, but it wasn't until last month that she was diagnosed with untreatable lung cancer. Thanks to hospice support, she died comfortably in our home. She was 61.
Julie was joyously cynical, mildly paranoid, a superb cook, stubborn as a mule, a good mother, a supportive and loving wife and a hell of a bridge player. She loved games of all sorts, and was a voracious reader, a sharp debater, a WordPerfect fanatic.
On LiveJournal, she was pheontoo, though she rarely posted, using the account to read friends-only posts. Julie is survived by me pheon, our daughter kyrielle, our son-in-law terram, her cousin Beth, a number of sisters, nieces, nephews, grand-nieces, and grand-nephews, all back in Ohio.

I'll miss you, Mommy. And remember you. And I love you, always.

Photos

2006-12-10T22:57:00.000-08:00

Photos up at Flickr.

It's hard, right now. I don't know what to hope for, these days.

More words another time.

Voices

2006-12-08T18:42:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure this isn't a silly idea, but...if so it at least was interesting to me.

Get Your Own Voice Player

Manage

Memories

2006-12-07T21:24:00.000-08:00

These are mostly memories of me, not my mother - or my mother in the context of me. I am trying to write up some others, but of course our views of those in our lives so often center around their interactions with us. In this case I was actually writing up memories of myself, but they also touch on her. I link to where I wrote them up in my LiveJournal, years back:

When I was little and other stories.

I'll add a couple more that are not there, more Mother-centric or at least parents-centric:

1) When I was young, we had a dog named Meyer. Meyer was a Doberman-Great Dane cross. As you might imagine, he was a huge and very leggy dog.

Meyer slept on my parents' bed. My parents, very logically, had a king-size bed at the time, as otherwise it would not have been possible to fit two adults and a dog on that thing! Meyer tended to crawl up into the middle. And then streeeeeeetch. A dog that size can, in fact, occupy most of a king-size bed if he wants to. My mother, with the same slender light build I have, never budged. My father, probably half again her weight and sturdy, sometimes got shoved out of the bed, however. (Mother has generally been a light sleeper - I suspect she was half-waking and bracing without remembering it, but no idea if this is actually the case.)

2) Sweety. The first cat that was 'mine' growing up was a tomcat (fixed) that I named Sweety. (Mom thought I was crazy when I gave him that name as a kitten - he was a tomcat, and she tried to explain to me he wasn't likely to live up to it. I insisted. He lived up to it. In later years, among other things, I found him baby-sitting two litters of kittens that their mothers had left with him while they went to hunt. And letting the kittens try to suckle on him, without protest. Not that it was doing them any good, of course!)

Mom, when I was younger, curled her hair. (Not sure if it was sometimes or always.) I don't remember Mom with her hair curled. I remember the curlers, the old kind with the spiky points, rolled in wet hair and left in overnight. The sort to make you want to sleep on your face so they wouldn't press in so much. And I remember that Sweety caused my parents' bedroom door to be closed when the curlers were in (and ultimately, I think, led to Mom switching how she did her hair - not 100% sure as my childhood memories are weakish)...because he liked to sleep on her pillow. Above her head, which he slid down into. All 14 or 16 pounds of him (he was a heavy cat).

...that hurts just to think about, actually.

3) I don't remember this one at all, but Mother has told me this. I forgot the dog's name but I believe they said today that it was Twitch. Mom remembers this dog "chasing" a naked baby me around a coffee table...at a slow walking pace...and whenever I would lag, he would stick his cold wet nose on my backside, spurring me on! Apparently we were quite amusing.

Things I am grateful for today.

2006-12-03T22:37:00.000-08:00

Cool weather.
Rain.
A full moon above evergreen trees at the top of a hill.
Remembering the route to drive after almost a decade.
The fact that the landscape was so little changed.
Silly goats that dash away from the fence as I approach, then run back to it making noises of eager, hopeful 'feed-me'-ness as I walk away. Sillies!
Cats, affectionate and sweetly selfish.
My mother is still herself, still mostly not in pain, still well enough to take part in conversations even if she speaks less. Still able to feed herself.
Music. Oh, music.
The fact that there was no ice on the roads, even if there was left-over snow on the side of the road, on Bald Peak.
Sales on miniature Christmas trees, even if the trees are gone when I get there, that lead me to the crafts store.
Sepia-ink pens. With which I haven't, of course, played. But I have them.
Books.
Junk food. Fast food. Every so often, these are happy things. (I'm sure they would not be happy if I ate them often.)
Mom's fudge recipe (which I also shouldn't eat often, assuming I can manage to follow it and produce the fudge - I definitely shouldn't eat the recipe itself, of course! :).
Narbonic. Because it is funny and cool and a wonderful story. (Warning: webcomic about mad science with huge archives. Can eat large portions of day....)
Friends. Kind words. Notes of support.
My wonderful husband. And my in-laws, who were so kind and patient about seeing so little of me when they visited this weekend.
Modern medicine. My allergies are soooo much better now!
Warm blankets fresh from the dryer. I think it's bedtime for me when I am being grateful for those.... :)

Photography. Non-update.

2006-11-25T23:06:00.000-08:00

Still very focussed on mother; I won't be posting much about that. Still not doing much art - I keep getting impulses, but the energy to follow through is going to other things right now. I'm making notes, so perhaps something will come of it.

I have been taking photographs, though mostly very snapshot-ish. A hawk close up, in silhouette, perched. Horses. Cats (one of them looking very silly). A Christmas tree. Little things. Daily things. They're at Flickr if you want to check them out. More will likely join them later.

Happy anniversary to us.

2006-11-19T18:52:00.000-08:00

You know, my wedding was a day or two after a coworker died. Now my first anniversary is the day after the doctors tell us my mother has lung cancer. So far, my anniversary luck stinks - except, of course, for the guy I married and the wonderful well-wishes. I wish I could say my anniversary was a day of pure happiness, but I think we all know I'd be lying. It was remarkably happy for the circumstances, though, and I'm so blessed to be married to this man.

My parents had ordered a cake - a replica of our wedding cake, with different decorations - for us, and Dad dropped it off. It was so pretty I had to photograph it before I could bear to cut it! (Scott and I have both had a piece from 'happy' now. It seemed appropriate.)

My mother....

2006-11-17T19:17:00.000-08:00

I don't know any good way to say news like this. My mother, whose health has been failing for some time, was diagnosed with lung cancer today, after tests started on Wednesday. It has already spread; and she is not a candidate for any aggressive treatment (she can't afford to lose the healthy cells that are left, and she is not strong and her weight is low; and chemo doesn't work well with this cancer). Weeks, months, maybe a year.

They will be working on setting up hospice care, and my father has been taking care of her and will continue. I will probably be very scarce. If I make time for art, I will post it, but my attempts to stay semi-committed to AEM are at an end here. I know myself: if I don't formally say I quit, I will guilt trip myself if I miss too much. And I have a feeling I will be doing relatively little that I view as art to be posted, if I do any art at all.

Here, alive, just not arting.

2006-11-12T21:48:00.000-08:00

Is that a verb? Probably not - it is now. I did go to the Gardens today and took a couple photos, but not many - I was cold and my heart wasn't in it, and they aren't awful but they aren't great. I came home and I got new curtains up in the bedroom - I am so much happier with the look in there now. I made clam chowder from a recipe and I can only conclude the person writing it was insane, it came out awful and too onion-y in spite of my using half the onion suggested. Go figure....

I'm in Oregon. It's raining again tonight and the wind is fierce - we're under a severe weather alert for the wind, which is supposed to reach 40 mph with gusts to 60 tonight. I am not too worried for us here - even if the trees come down, I don't think any can hit the house. Our neighbor's place maybe - I hope they don't. But we are basically safe here. Power outages are another matter - already had one and lights have flickered. The UPSs kept everything safe, though (one overloaded, so I'll sort that out in the coming week - for now the desktop using it is off).

Tomorrow is trash pickup day. A decent percentage of my neighbors have put their trash out tonight. I really don't want to think about that and the wind too hard at once....

I've been stressed and down, for reasons I don't want to go into on a public blog, and that really got to me this weekend, making little frustrations like the soup into big things, at least briefly. On the other hand, my trash can is in the garage, and will go out tomorrow (in theory the wind should subside by morning--). So at least I don't have to find my trash strewn all down the street in the morning. And I have an alarm clock with battery backup, so I'll actually get up tomorrow.

I caved this weekend and bought cell phones for myself and my husband. Waiting now to see how much we use them; I hope the plan doesn't need adjusting but it might. But it's already come in handy since tonight he let me know he'd be late - in the storm, I'd have worried, but he's just staying late at our friend's house.

I don't feel like making art, but I have been thinking about ideas. Gathering a few materials. Finding the time and energy to apply them has been harder. I need to work on that.

For now, I'm trying Blogger Beta. If this whole space suddenly vanishes into a black hole, I probably hit a wrong button somewhere. ;) But not tonight. I'll play with the appearance of the site and updating it a little some other time. Right now, I think if I shut everything down and get some sleep, that would be the sanest plan.

Poem-babble

2006-11-09T17:20:00.000-08:00

I think this is actually bits of two or three poems, crammed into one and missing other pieces, but this is approximately how it occurred to me and I can always work on it from there. (Approximately because it showed up in rush hour traffic on the freeway, and I thus had to remember it for a while before writing it down. I'm sure that mutated it further.)

Two days after the election, I step out
into an afternoon of sunlight on pale clouds,
brilliant, bewitching. As if change were
a god smiling down on all of us, and
the 'we' who won and 'them' who lost
were not equally nebulous, indistinct
as droplets in a storm cloud. As if
I wasn't still blind to the future,
the far-off possible indistinct. Thinking
we know which clouds bring too little rain,
which too much, until the ground is
buried under a torrent. And then do we ask
who brought this bucket-full and added it,
who brought that bucket-full? Or do we simply
wait out the worst of the water, and begin
shoveling mud from the porch, the living room,
again? Trying to make everything exactly
the way it was. The distance between that
and what can be done is as wide as an hour
of the past, and as uncrossable.

Photography and tweaks

2006-11-08T17:11:00.000-08:00

Two photographs, altered slightly in PS Elements to bring out the look, then altered more heavily for fun. First, fall leaves at an office building, as a photo and as a "pastel sketch" (no actual pastels or even paper involved, I fear). And then a photo of a stormy, cloudy sky...turned into a pool of water. Kind of. It was fun, anyway, if fairly simple.

Sunset photos.

2006-11-07T22:29:00.000-08:00

Well, kind of after-sunset photos, really, in the period between sunset and full dark. I snapped these tonight on my way out of the office. (Also some sunset pics while in the office but the only one that came out really well, has too much reflection in it that I'd have to edit at least to obscure, so I can't post that. Oh well - win some, lose some.)

Of course, a lot of the artistry here is Mother Nature's, but I did get the photos. :)

At least this time I had a reason....

2006-11-07T06:21:00.000-08:00

I felt pretty lousy yesterday, and went to bed almost three hours earlier than usual. Feeling much better today, at least. I'll try to have something besides excuses up tonight....

Sorry--

2006-11-05T18:32:00.000-08:00

Got distracted and blah, and played games and read books (reread the entirety of David Eddings' The Mallorean, a 5-book series...). Then I also needed to vote (Oregon does vote-by-mail, although this late, I'll need to take it to the drop box instead). When I realized I had a choice between voting, art, and sufficient sleep, with only two being reasonably do-able...well. Oops for getting into that spot, but the art does lose in that case.

Honestly feeling blah about my ideas for art, which is probably why the procrastination; and I had no quick and artful words to gloss over with. I will be trying to do something again Monday, however!

Short one--

2006-11-03T21:31:00.000-08:00

What is the hidden name we are given at birth?
In the hills above the clouds, the syllables sound
the same as anything forgotten. No echoes.

Poem: Photographic Memory

2006-11-02T21:43:00.000-08:00

(Yes, the art I'm doing is mostly word-art so far. There may be photography or other stuff later - I don't know. I went for a broad definition, as it increases the odds I'll keep doing this.... :)

(I hope this is decent. I make no promises: I just rattled it off tonight as, due to various unrelated complications, most of my evening got eaten up.)

Photographic memory

There's a blackberry where the flower bed used to be.
It is mounded, a weed, a menace, its thorns
waiting for the unwary to pass it. Somewhere beneath
there were the brilliant, sturdy pink blooms
of my childhood. Beside them the delicate necks
of columbines, trumpets waiting for the sky
to sip them. The old stump of the tree we never saw,
already cut down when my parents bought the place.
The stump was destroyed and hauled away.
The columbines died. Eventaully even the pinks died,
choked out by the blackberries. My parents still live
in that house, by that blackberry, the rosebush sprawling
and huge, the silver lace vine climbing in a wild tangle
up and along its trellis - as if in their later years
they have given into the impulse of teenagers,
to run wild, to let the world run wild again.
Somewhere, somewhere I remember a neatness
and an order, straight lines and log fences. Clean.
Deceptive: there was always something wild there,
the feral cats, the thorns, the fields gone to seed.
How easily the memory makes such things turn to
ordered rows, pretty flowers. How easily the parts
that didn't fit are cut from the photographs.

Musing: Autumn evening

2006-11-01T21:32:00.000-08:00

It seems oddly appropriate to start my attempt at following along on Art Everyday Month with a musing, what I originally intended to use this space for before I discovered that it didn't sustain well by itself. I didn't set out with this planned as a start, it simply happened out of the moment, and that is the best thing of all, I think.

Stepping out the door at work this evening, I found it just barely beginning to rain: the sidewalk was still gray, dappled with the darker patches left by fat, slow drops of rain. The steady grace of water tapping the top of my head, cool and comforting. The leaves on the lawn were crisp and brown and still dry, sounding out a drumming rustle (or perhaps a rustling beat) under the rainfall. And all around, just rising, that inimitable and almost unnameable smell of city rain: asphalt first touched by water after a dry spell, the rising bitter-not-bitter scent, indescribable in any words I know, unmistakable. The water sliding down my face as I lifted it to the sky, breathing in that scent, the raindrops like tears of joy - proxy, someone else's, reminding me along with the scent that life is to be lived and not merely coasted through....

And I think, without meaning to, of a song I've been listening to a lot lately: Unwritten, by Natsha Bedingfield.

Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open

tap tap tink This thing on?

2006-10-31T17:42:00.000-08:00

Apparently so. At least, if you can read this; if the imps eat it and it vanishes before appearing, no one but I will necessarily know, right? :)

I've been away for quite a while, I know. I was using this blog for The Artist's Way, and suddenly all that structuredness went away, and all my plans to put something in its place went foof, and unstructured stuff goes in my other blog (much of it filtered so only specific groups of people can see it, even), and....

...and darnit, after you have not-posted for that long, it's embarrassing. I mean, here I am, I just vanished off the face of the earth. For the most part I haven't kept up with everyone else's blogs the way I meant to either. Ack!

Anyway. I'm here. I'm still not reading most of the blogs I wasn't reading but I have them all in my list for some day. I obviously first need to let go of the idea of catching up on every missed post since many of you have made over 100 posts while I was away.... Reading them all would be lovely, but realistically, I won't manage it.

For now, I'm just going to start trying to be active here again. By jumping into the deep end and trying a run at Art Everyday Month. Because overkill is your friend. Or something.

I will try for art every day. If I miss a day, I will come back and try again the next day. Maybe that will at least keep me from creeping off at the first 'failure to be here' and vanishing for a long while again....

Meanwhile, I have uploaded a bunch of photos over on Flickr since the last time I updated, at least....

Still alive, too hot.

2006-07-22T21:01:00.000-07:00

This is not the most inspired post ever - I wish it were - I feel like I am in a dead (or is that dead tired?) time. But I am still alive and around and reading (I even occasionally leave comments).

It is very hot here lately - I am in Oregon and we're breaking records - though as far as I can tell it is very hot everywhere lately. I have seen people scoffing that these temperatures happen and it doesn't mean anything, but they are unusual for this time of year and of course I think of global warming.

I wonder when we will wake up to the damage we do - but I am as bad as any, me with my computers and my air conditioner and my car which I use all too often. (Of course, I can argue that I have no choice - the public transportation options from where I live to my job are lousy - but if I moved, there are several places that would offer good transportation options. Of course, then my husband would have lousy options, so....)

I worry. I am very good at worrying. This is not the most useful skill I can think of, to put it mildly. If only I were as good at solutions - or at giving up my luxuries - as I am at worrying....

This isn't the best poem....

2006-07-02T07:33:00.000-07:00

...but every attempt I've made to redraft it hasn't worked, and I want to get the sense of it out there even if I'm not happy in the least with the phrasing and order. So, I'll be scattered. That's part of life too!

Funny Thing, This Summer

I've remembered the heat's not an enemy,
I've remembered lazy summer days
at the park, sprawled on the grass.
I've begun to wear perfume again.
To write. To remember how many things
I have loved, until in fear
I pretended to forget I
ever wanted. To live again,
fear and hope. To bend my head
to my wrist and smell sweet spice,
to speak even if no one is listening.

-Laura

Scarce, but still here--

2006-06-20T21:41:00.000-07:00

I'm busy for a couple weeks and will post sparsely if at all, but I am intending to actually be present and I am still trying to keep up on reading. This is not me falling off the face of the earth indefinitely again, it's just that other aspects of my life are veryvery busy. (Actually some of them creative, but creative at work so I'm not likely to say much about those here.)

Meanwhile, I uploaded two more photos to Flickr. One is a photo of a road near my parents' house - no wonder I'm allergic to the area, right? The other is a photo of Scott at my parents' house with their cat Babe. Babe looks psychotic; Scott's being cute. If it's a cute photo with a cat in it, does it count as a cute cat photo? :D

I do still exist....

2006-06-11T17:15:00.000-07:00

...though you wouldn't know it from my presence here lately. Sorry about that. And thanks to Kara for her comment, which sort of "woke me up" again. I have been reading comments, hence the May changeover to deal with the brief bout of spam. (Don't people have anything better to do?)

Not sure yet, where I go from here, but somewhere, perhaps. Hopefully.

Why did I vanish? Er...well, I got busy and then I got uninspired and then I didn't do things so I was busy and uninspired. And I got way, way behind on reading other people's blogs so that I felt guilty, then depressed at the "workload" awaiting me. Yes, I can be silly. Sorry 'bout that. I hope I am back now but the proof will be in whether I keep posting and reading, I suppose....

Since I haven't posted for over a month, and even that post wasn't meaningful, how 'bout some updates? (If you don't want updates but you do want vacation pictures, scroll down 'til you see 'em start. :)

Morning Pages and all other vestiges of the Artist's Way...yeah right. Vanished. Perhaps I should work on picking up the Artist's Dates again, and some variation of daily journalling. Something. One step at a time, though: for now I am picking up this blog again. If I do too many things at once, I will simply overwhelm myself right back away. That's not even amusing, let alone useful....
Allergies. My shots have been in maintenance since the round that sent me to the ER in January. The intent is to keep them there at least through the end of summer, then evaluate. However, I've had two dosages drop (one because that happens whenever you hit a new bottle, one due to a reaction), so I'm presently trying to go in frequently enough to step up. It's amazing how reactions that would have just caused me to shrug before make me worry now. Not very surprising, I suppose, but I am anxious each time I go for shots. The next is Monday. I'd like to get back up to maintenance on those two, but....
Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab. This follows naturally from allergies since the oils include some things I am allergic to. I don't use them for a week before I go in for shots, but they seem to be just fine in general. They might even be fine with the shots but I simply do not want to chance it. I have an order in with the lab for a lot of other samples of scents to try, and for bottles for two of my favorites - Wicked, which is very nice, and Dragon's Eye which is melt-me-down lovely, a piercing lilac scent that means joy to me. The lab very nicely responded to my question about which one have tree-nut oils in, which are the only ones I'm avoiding altogether.
The mask. Um. I've added one thing to it. I can't find anything else in my supplies that belongs, and yet, it doesn't feel finished either. Apparently I have no idea what to do with it, other than ignore it.
Poetry. I submitted to one place. They form-rejected it. I haven't submitted again. This is partly discouragement and partly fear and partly lack of time and partly I need to find more places to submit. I have one, but they publish only once a year and that won't be for over 6 months. And it'd be nice to have some credit first because they get a lot of submissions, publish few. But the other options I have identified so far...I don't want to be published in. Needless to say I am not gonna submit to them.
Other art/creativity. In a nutshell: yeah, right. I haven't made time for much but scrambling place to place with the exception of a bit of photography on our vacation.

This is not to say there haven't been good things also during the downtime, even if I am feeling busy and scattered and distracted. I got my copy of a friend's live CD (from her concert at the OVFF filk convention), Pretty Little Dead Girl, and I really really enjoy the music (check it out if you are curious, it can be ordered online at the moment but I'm not sure how long she plans to keep that up - I think just 'til the filk dealers have it in stock - there are samples and even a full-length song available from the site).

And Scott and I went to the beach for several days and had a lovely time. My photos for that are up on Flickr, and I've included the thumbnails below.

Comments....

2006-05-08T06:14:00.000-07:00

Not that I've posted recently enough for it to make a difference (sorry!), but I've turned on the little word-verification images for comments, since apparently the spammers have finally found this blog. Hopefully that will help.

Mostly about perfume oils.

2006-04-29T10:38:00.000-07:00

I didn't get much done this week. Including, as of yet, the mask. Oops.

I got my order from Black Phoenix Alchemy Labs, though. And have been playing with scents. Since I mentioned it before, I figured I would follow up with my impressions and some notes. A lot of people rave about these scents. They neglect to mention the downsides. I understand why: the oils are great (though not all work with everyone's skin chemistry - Morocco and I, for example, do not get along - if I wanted to smell like a department store perfume counter, I could do that a lot more easily...). The two big drawbacks I see are shipping (which is fairly clear on the site - they give times in business days on one of the pages - it took 3-4 weeks for me to get my oils) and opening the imp's ears (which almost no one talks about).

Opening a new-from-the-lab imp ear is an experience. It's hard if you're just guessing how to do it, and it's likely to get you coated in perfume oil (waaaay more than you need, trust me) if you lose patience or if you are just unlucky. It can be done and, in fact, once you find a method that works for you it isn't even that hard. I was advised to rotate the cap or to rock it back and forth. The latter worked for me; the former didn't; but for others the reverse is true. What I found works really well: use a thin cloth (or a bit of kleenex, in a pinch) to wrap the bottle and cap - no more than one layer on the cap. Use your dominant hand to rock the cap back and forth while your other hand holds the bottle gently. Eventually the cap will start to actually life a little with the rocking. Do NOT pull, even when it does this. Rock it some more until, when one side rises, you can leave it there if you take your hand off. At this point, lift very slightly as you rock it back the other way and it should open.

It will almost invariably spatter at least a few drops, sometimes more. That's what the light cloth is for: so that you don't wind up wearing too much oil if it spatters. If it spatters at all, some will soak through the cloth and get on your fingers, though.

Seriously, seriously impressed by these blends, however. Very glad I did order. Just...don't want to enthuse at people without warning about opening the samples as it is a bit too exciting when one explodes all over you....

Also, the unofficial but affiliated forums have a lot of good commentary, reviews of scents, etc. (They're not maintained by the lab, but the reviews are linked from the names of the oils on the search page, so....) You can't see everything that's in there by a long shot unless you sign up, but you can see the reviews.

A current project....

2006-04-23T21:53:00.000-07:00

I got out the remaining full-face mask form I had and started working on it this past week. Which is to say, I got it to stage one and then couldn't figure out what to do with it next. At Contagious Creativity, one of the optional tasks for this week is: "Make a piece of art in the moment. Make art with no plans, without an idea or sketch. Sit down surrounded by art supplies and create. See what colors, shapes, images are calling for you, use them. When you stop, check in with yourself, what do you want to do now? Play and see what comes forth."

So I plan to, sometime this week (probably not tomorrow because it is going to be busy) do just that, with this as the base, and see what it becomes.

Still alive, honest! General update / weekly memes

2006-04-23T08:08:00.000-07:00

Sorry, I fell off the face of the 'net this week, didn't I? It's been a pretty stressful week. Being on call for work has not been awful as far as call volume, but the calls I have been getting have been coming in at hours when I'm asleep, more often than not. Shooting my sleep schedule is a very very fast way to make the rest of my day go on the fritz, but, such is life. We went to our aunt and uncle's for Easter dinner and they have pets - who are often not in the house during such moments but were this time, because this one was just their family and us. I like their pets. But, I think they contributed to my allergies being in high flare most of the week. On Friday they got better, but I wasn't feeling well for stress/sleep reasons. Besides being uncomfortable, the allergy flare and then Friday meant that I did not get my allergy shots and I should have done that this week. I'm planning to do it Monday if I feel good then.... So far, the weekend is promising. I'm almost human again. I think.

Books I've read in the past two weeks, mostly in the past week: Jennifer Fallon's Medalon (high fantasy, has a dash of humor but is a basically serious story, first in trilogy and the rest are out, I like it a loooot), Trudy Canavan's Priestess of the White (high fantasy, first in trilogy and the next one comes out in May, I liked this one at least as much as Medalon, maybe a bit more), Anchee Min's Empress Orchid (historical fiction based on fact, and really, I found it to be more uneasy than pleasant reading and often skipped sections), and David Kline and Dan Burstein's blog! (which I am still reading and is interesting).

Yes, I've been burying myself in books. Self-care, right? Goodness knows I've needed that this week! Now, to catch up because I have not been reading stuff online as much...yargh. First, a spattering of memes, then I'm off to catch up with all of you! Oh, that and I'm going to try adding tags, though they'll link to technorati since Blogger doesn't support them natively. So I'll try to make them look as little like links as possible.... Not in this post, though. In a day or two.

List Friday: List the reasons you love to live where you live.

The Japanese Garden! It's not in my backyard (alas - that would be a lovely back yard - hehe), but it's close enough that I can go after work in the summer (in the winter it closes too early) or on a weekend - on a whim. (If I'm not on call, at least....) And it's gorgeous. And soothing when not full of chattery people. (And I'm learning to stay calm and soothed even if it is full of chattery people - sometimes.)
Our lovely library system. Every book I mentioned above except Priestess of the White came from that library system. As have a number of other, less-worthy-of-mention books. The other two main metro counties also have wonderful library systems.
Powell's! Gotta list the book addict's dream place, after all. (I link to the info for the Burnside store because it's the biggest, neatest one. I actually usually go to Beaverton - sometimes I go to Burnside, sometimes I call and have the books I want transferred to wait for me at Beaverton....)
So much green and nature and beauty and joy. The Columbia River Gorge, for example. Where I mostly love the waterfalls and the water.
Two hours to the ocean.
My family is here - not just my husband, but my parents, my husband's aunt and uncle...not all our family certainly, but enough that we are blessed with being able to see our relatives regularly.
The social climate in the Portland area is very liberal in general - which matches well to my sensibilities on those issues. (The whole state isn't, but...can't have everything.)
The weather. Probably 80-90% of the time, the weather here is something I like. (I like rain, yes.) I don't care for lots of weather-type heat because I can't go out as freely (I get ill from heat easily), but we don't have weather that hot that often.
The ocean. It's two hours away, but that's still close enough for a day trip if you don't mind a lot of driving. We don't take advantage of that often, but it is nice that we can if we want to.
The variety of places to shop that are available to me - I don't think I'd enjoy living in a small town with few shops any more (I kind of did, in college).

Sunday Scribblings: Week 4, Chocolate

Ah, chocolate. Sweet, sweet chocolate. The candy bars so common on American shelves are nice - but so full of fat, and I need to avoid that. But certain cookies, certain chocolates, are much lower in fat and so very yummy. I'm not a chocolate addict, but I do love a good chocolate - the rich taste - as a child I was much fonder of chocolate candy than I am now but I still like it. Now, give me a good maple sugar candy, that's a whole other matter...that I can't resist....

I've ordered some imps ears (samples) from Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab. I haven't ordered Bliss or Vice (both chocolate scents) yet, but I think I probably will be trying them out. The perfumes at that site sound just wonderful - I only hope that I can actually use even a fraction of the ones I'm interested in without setting my allergies off, and that the fraction I can use overlaps with what smells good on me.... (I can always move to a scent locket if it just upsets my skin, but not if it triggers my allergies just to smell it, obviously.)

CC: Self-care

2006-04-16T20:07:00.000-07:00

This week for Contagious Creativity, we are asked to focus on self-care. What an interesting focus considering I am on call this week (which is always one of the more strsesful parts of my job for me).

So, some questions/ideas of my own to add to those Kat posted; feel free to reply, not reply, think about these, or ignore 'em. I'll post the questions first, then my answers.

Name some of your favorite ways to pamper yourself.
What have you wanted to do to pamper yourself, but haven't?
If you won a free, weeklong vacation and it really made your eyes light up - where would it be? What would you be doing? Why did it make your eyes light up?
What can you do for yourself to echo part of that?

And, my answers:

Reading a good book. (Which I spent this weekend doing.) Napping. Long hot showers. Finding "treat" foods that are within my diet, but still tasty.
I've wanted more perfumey things. But my allergies make that hard. I've ordered some samples, though, and when they get here - well, hopefully I will eventually find a few more that I like and can use....
A whole week sprawling on the beach beside brightly sparkling ocean, soaking up the sun. Water. Peace. Nothing to do that I don't want to do at that moment - total laziness - no responsibilities. The sun is a negative, in many ways, but the heat is a positive if I can go cool off when I want to. Soft surfaces. And, I think, it's a "traditional" vacation.
Continue my search for a place I can go to swim. And lie in bed (almost as good as the beach, maybe better some ways) with the heater on when I want the temperature higher.

The funny thing about #3 is that I almost never do enjoy beaches. I've too many skin issues to just sprawl in the sun and I'm too restless to lay about lazily in new/strange environs - there's too much to do! But we will be going to the beach (just for a few days) in early June so perhaps I'll enjoy that more than I give it credit for. :)

Photos and Poetry

2006-04-10T20:45:00.000-07:00

I went to the Japanese Gardens this weekend, and today I uploaded photos, which can be seen here.

I also took a photo of the painted ivy jar sitting on the windowsill in the sun. I've never taken it to work; I find I don't want to; but I do like it here.

And poetry. Taking inspiration from this week's Contagious Creativity post, I offer these (both are first-draft, as written, without intense editing - please forgive any typos or sillinesses that crept in that I have not noticed):

1.

You have given me your whispered
careful words spaced breath by breath
beneath a blue sky, no mist
and no questions, this impression
that the world believes, this escape
into the silences between words,
into breath, a leaf floating down
between us. And I, wordless, trust.

2.

It is night. A single leaf scrapes
along the sidewalk; a cat yowls
some proposition unthinkable
in the distance, to fight or to

something more. The mist
comes slowly up from the creek,
careful as it pulls itself over dirt
and onto pavement, this gift

in the silence and the dark,
this offering, this moment
of plausible escape, as I
bite the cold air. Alive.

Sunday Scribblings: Real Life

2006-04-08T10:15:00.000-07:00

This week's topic at Sunday Scribblings is Real Life.

Is real life the real world, driving to work traffic jams working fingers numb from typing too much nose cold from the wind sneezing the sun setting watching the bills?

Or is it real life to see what is around you? To listen to songs that lift and teach? To watch how the trees slowly bud into spring, to feel the breeze along the cheek, to listen to the pattern of the rain on the roof, to smell the heady scent of the first sweet blossoms? (Even if it does mean a sneeze....) The press of the ground beneath your feet. The heady scent of warm pavement struck by rain. The crunch of gravel. The calls of the birds, greeting this land after the winter. The brilliance of sunlight on glass and flower alike. The tall, drawn-up dignity of trees just beginning to pull on their lightest green coats. The wistful drifting of the clouds. The words that flow between us and within us....

Sunday Scribblings: What would you attempt....

2006-04-08T10:10:00.000-07:00

Yes, I am very late on this - considering it is for last Sunday - but I am doing it! This is last week's question at Sunday Scribblings. Maybe I will do this week's before next Saturday.... :)

What would you attempt if you knew you would not fail?

I would try to live a healthy, complete life without a formal full-time job. I would want to spend more time writing, more time playing, more time keeping the house, more time volunteering with the hours I got back that way. And I would probably still work (even at my current job!) but not full-time. And my life would be complete, and I would be healthy, and I would have everything I need. I could, of course, cut my hours back at work, but these niggling little things like money and health insurance and so on (not to mention the fact that I'm not sure my company needs someone part-time in my role) make that very not-comfortable for me at this stage of my life. Maybe some day, but not now.

Gratitudes....

2006-04-04T20:47:00.000-07:00

I am grateful for....

The wonderful creative community that began with The Artist's Way and continues with Contagious Creativity
The abundance in my daily life
My wonderful husband
Spring - even if my allergies are on the rise, so too is the temperature (and not yet to uncomfortable levels) and the sweet sound of birdsong
Libraries: a wealth of books for no additional fee when you want to look for them. We are able to have so much more collectively than we could individually.

AW: Week 12 Check-In

2006-04-01T08:12:00.000-08:00

End of the road....

1. Morning pages?

Every day. I'm going to keep them - they seem to help - but modified. Three pages neatly written is too much sometimes. Three pages sloppily written bugs me. So I will keep them as 1-3 or 2-6 pages (depending on the size of the journal), where how much I write depends on the morning and whether I think I need to keep going. I did that for the first time this morning and it felt so good - and I wrote smaller and wrote more and raced less.

2. Artist date?

Hmm. Unless you count hauling the shelves around, not so much so. I'd just come out of a whole long vacation week where I enjoyed myself at whatever. I did the shelves on Sunday - then I was back at work, and on call, which restricts what I can do a fair bit. I did spend part of each evening for several days reading in bed, though, if that counts. I don't think it really does....

I do intend to continue to do AD's, maybe weekly, maybe only every other week or once a month, but not less than 0once a month. What I really want to do more than formal ADs is I want to learn to live with more care for myself, so that there is that underlying element of taking care of myself always.

3. Synchronicity?

Yes. I had something happen that made me think "I have to write about that in my check-in, how perfect!" I've forgotten what it was.... Sigh.

4. Other issues?

The shellllves are up!

And, honestly, I'm gleeful the AW is over. It was probably good to finish it out but the process had become quite stifling. I'm very glad I did it - the early parts were very useful and the later parts weren't a loss - but I'm glad to be clear of so much Process too. And I'm deeply, profoundly grateful to have found all the wonderful bloggers that I have - I sincerely hope we find some way, such as Kat's proposed creativity work or some other approach, to have some common/connected ground. I also hope we stay in touch, whether or not there's a specific link. :)

Now to take notes on the exercises I didn't do throughout the process, but might want to do at some point....

The desk is out, the shelves are in.

2006-03-26T19:17:00.000-08:00

The DH and I removed the desk (he did most of the work) and then I put up the bookshelves (all by myself). Well, they're not quite totally up - I need another shelf kit to finish what I want to do - but I can get that after work tomorrow and it will be about five minutes' work to finish the deed then.

VERY pleased with how it looks. And now I can measure the space and work out what kind of table/shelves will fit between the bookcase and the desk, too. If I'm very lucky I might get that on the way home tomorrow also. But I'm not counting on it. Just the shelf set, as I know where to get it and so on.

And boy can I feel the desk and bookcase in my shoulders and arms. Still, just looking at it pleases me.

AW: Week 11 Check-In

2006-03-25T14:21:00.000-08:00

1. Morning Pages?

4 out of 7. After Tuesday I just...stopped doing them. No idea why; I had time. I think I was avoiding facing the fact that I was not getting as much done as I'd have liked, avoiding the "shoulds" which ambush me in the MPs every time if I'm not meeting them. It turns into to-do-list-ville. I'm not sure, though. Picked them up this morning just fine - and I had started back in on both the big shoulds. Huh. :P

No, I don't recommend them to anyone else. People around me (hi, all!) are doing them and frankly, I'm still not convinced they are in fact beneficial overall. Some days, they are, but I'm not sure if they daily writing of 3 pages is beneficial for anything other than doctors who specialize in repetetive stress injury. (Joking - I'm sure, if nothing else, the RSI specialists will see me sooner due to my use of computers than to writing anything out longhand!)

2. Artist's Date?

I had a whole week off this week! I did some things for my poetry, I read stuff online, I vegged around, I played World of Warcraft...I had a blast. And I got up to the Japanese Gardens for the first time this spring. That wasn't so stellar because there was a big ol' school tour there which kind of damages the calm a bit, but I was able to mostly dodge it.

3. Synchronicity?

...not that I can really think of, no.

4. Other stuff?

I have submitted three poems to a magazine. Now the waiting begins - no idea how long it takes at this magazine but let's just say this could be a slow process. :) I have sent a letter to another asking for their submission guidelines; they don't have a website but based on the sample issue, I would very much like to submit. I have some poems picked out but I want to read the guidelines first, obviously! (I don't know if they will have a lot more info than what is in Poet's Market or not...but they do say in there you can write to get them, so....)

Now, to not lose momentum working on producing new poetry! That should not be too hard, these are basically in limbo post-production, after all. (And to not lose momentum in finding a few more places I'd like to be published, also. So that I'll have other places to submit poems that don't make it into the first market I send them to.)

Later today, I'll do some more with the fake water. I'm not buying any more of it, but, I still have some left over so I might as well do what I can. It's neat, but it's not really fun any more, especially since so often it doesn't turn out that great. It's primarly useful for its original purpose - straightforward arrangements in vases - and frankly those get old. (For me, anyway.)

Some of my favorites, from Flickr....

2006-03-24T12:07:00.000-08:00

(Thumbnails are links to larger photos on the Flickr website.)

List Friday: Ten Things

2006-03-24T10:15:00.000-08:00

List Friday

This one you can interpret any way you want: What are ten things you need to get rid of and ten things you need to get to bring yourself to personal fruition? What does that mean? You decide.

A. Ten Things to Get Rid Of:

The desk in the computer room. Yes, it's STILL there! But it's cleaner - I think this weekend or next we'll actually be able to remove it. Sigh.
The old clothes I don't wear. I'll make exceptions for a couple really sentimental pieces, as keepsakes, but only a couple. (I still wish I could get back a couple shirts I got rid of a few years back, when under the influence of an 'if you don't use it, declutter it' binge, because I miss them. I still would not wear them, but they said 'parents' and 'love' to me. Luckily, I have other things that also do, but I won't make that mistake again.)
The overabundance of empty boxes. With a few exceptions (computer boxes), it's easy enough to get more when you need to move, and we're not planning to move or anything, so....
The clutter in my craft room (where nothing, including crafting, can be done due to the abundance of stuff). This includes any craft supplies I don't use, and don't think I will use within a few years, unless they happen to have sentimental value (only the fabric from my mother's trips to Mexico comes to mind, and I think I may use that anyway...).
The battered recliner in the library. Yes, it is still usable. But we have a perfectly nice bean-bag chair we prefer, which needs the same amount of space and would go wonderfully in there.
My constant watching of others' opinions (or seeming opinions) of me. It is one thing to acknowledge that, no, I don't want to be known as the biggest jerk of the 'net, and yes, my boss does need to like my work. It is another to fret and freak every time it seems like a friend (or worse, an acquaintance) might not think I am All That. Why should they? I'm not All That. I like to think I'm a neat person, I have gifts to give the world, I have things I am good at, but last I checked I don't have magic powers or sainthood or anything. I want to stop wanting to be All That.
New hobbies. Seriously. I need to play with the ones I have and any of those that don't resonate need to be discarded too. The sheer amount of time I spend on these things....
My allergies. Please, please let the allergy shots work and my allergies go away. (At least enough that the antihistamines can actually handle the rest of it. If I have to take the claratin every day for the rest of my life, that's fine, if it's all I need.) Yes, this is a long-term thing, but I would so so like it.
Some of the (refined) sugar in my diet. Not all. But some. I need to be eating less of that stuff. (I know some people would say I need to be eating none of it. At this point, I'm not sure that's a plausible goal.)
The fake water. It was fun, but I don't think the results are neat enough or the fun fun enough to justify the cost. I'll finish out the current batch, and that's it.

B. Ten Things To Get:

The bookshelf, into the computer room, where the desk is!
Some form of exercise that I enjoy. Or at least tolerate better than the current options. The only type of exercise I have so far found that is not amazingly boring is walking, but it becomes boring when I get used to the route, and for bonus points, I can't do it through a large chunk of the summer (I do not handle heat well) or a small part of the winter (those rare days with ice, as I don't like slipping), and it's not what I'd call fun in several other possible weathers.... (Don't suggest some trainer thing in front of the TV, please. Tried that. Dislike TV. Does not work well.)
A stronger sense of self and what I want to do - and what I don't want to do.
The ability to think better under pressure; particularly the ability to think and express myself well when talking to someone in person (much harder than a post, which I can think over, edit, proof, etc.!).
Poems published! :)
More poems written. I'd like to have a chapbook's worth of new poems that I think are good by the end of the year, if possible. (Whether or not I compile them into a chapbook is irrelevant to this goal; they may or may not be suited to all be placed side-by-side, after all.)
Better sheets for the bed. What we got will do for now, but I'd rather have something in tan or brown.
Blueberry muffins. I think I'll work on that later today.
Poetry journal subscriptions. Reading these has fed my soul, heart, and mind. (Well, some of them have. A couple have simply been removed from my list of places to submit, with a wince in one case.)
The mortgage paid off. (I wouldn't have listed this - it will be on every list of this sort for years - but I ran out of other things, so....)

AW: Week 10 Check-In

2006-03-18T17:23:00.000-08:00

1. Morning pages?

All seven days. Finally back on this! Julia needs to modify that 3 page requirement somehow. Because it's not the same requirement for everyone. I discovered that when I switched to the unlined pages, I think I wrote maybe 1/3 as much in the same space. My handwriting grew large and sloppy, and suddenly the pages were fast. I can't do that on lined - it feels icky, out of pace, ugly, wrong to cross the lines. And I like the neat tidy lines, but they do lead to a lot more writing and that takes longer. I hesitate to think how long these three pages would take someone I know (vaguely) whose handwriting is neat, tidy, totally readable...and so small you could fit two lines in one line of college-ruled paper. She'd be doing those morning pages all morning, I think!

Reading them hasn't really affected my writing. Then again, I got bored and haven't read much even yet. Oh, well. I'll get there, over time. Tooooo many pages / too much stuff built up before we were told to read, I'm still irked about that.

2. Artist Date?

I went to Michael's on Monday and got myself Nifty Stuff. Officially I was there to get cheap glass thingies to do more fake water projects with. Obligingly, they had the $1 candle-holders I was thinking of on sale for 50 cents! (I have a few more than I thought I'd bother with...hee.) Also hit the $1 bins and got some pads of paper and stickies that pleased me. Right on my desk here I have a sticky pad that says "Dream" and a note pad that has a quote I've heard before and liked then: "Why not go out on a limb? That's where the fruit is."

Then on Tuesday night I went to Powell's downtown. Driving in was easier than expected (rush hour on I-5 north wasn't too bad) until I got downtown, when it was about the nightmare I'd expected. Turns out my expectations were overblown - if there had not been construction in my way it probably would've been a nice drive! Got there, got a bunch of literary/poetry journals (and poked through more things that I didn't get) and a couple of blank books that were on sale (they didn't have anything I really loved on sight, alas, only ones I liked - I think I'd better find a way to decorate spiral-bound notebooks to my satisfaction so I can just buy those...).

3. Synchronicity?

See the candle-holders being on sale under the AD. Otherwise, probably, but not that I remember.

4. Other issues?

Well, the computer room cleaning has finally really begun. I moved out three boxes of stuff (that will almost all come back when the new bookshelf is in - it does belong in here, there just isn't room) and a bag of trash, clearing the whole floor in front of the desk. Scott then vacuumed it. It looks so much better. Now to clear off the desk so that we can actually remove it, and all the stuff between it and the door...but then again, that's no bigger a task than the job that I did this morning, and that part did not take me very long. I think in 1-2 more sessions, it'll be ready for the desk removal. Then removing the desk is a session, then putting the bookcase together and up. Then I can bring the boxes back in and start loading the bookshelves properly in here. Fortunately, that might happen this week - we took it off as a vacation week, just to do whatever. We haven't thought of any whatever, so we're just hanging out and doing household stuff and so on. I count this a fairly decent-sized "oops" on our part and on the next one I hope we'll plan to do something, but it's actually useful this time and I'm very glad of the time to play catchup.

I've read through several journals, dismissed two because I wouldn't want my work to appear in their pages alongside what they do publish (nor do I think one, seemingly focussed on the gloomy and surreal, would accept my work; the other might, but, well, they seem to accept rather a lot of things I wouldn't consider publishable...). I've worked on some of my poetry. I hope to send some out, sometime this week. (Then it's back to writing, so I can send more out; response times being what they are, it'll be a while before I next hear on those first submissions.)

I didn't do the tasks. I'll try to do them some other time, but for now, when I am running short on time, I figure the creating is more important than the process that's supposed to get me creating.... :)

Good things and sweet moments.

2006-03-15T20:01:00.000-08:00

Last night I went to Powell's, as planned, and got the journals. And my Amazon order arrived. (I paid for that order largely with the company gift certificate; and when I'm on call for work I get paid extra, which was nice for covering the Powell's trip....) So now I am well-buried in poetry (yay!) and have a couple new journals with blank pages (these are way a pain to find ones I like, drat it, and these are not the type I wanted so I'm not sure if they will work - I could get sketchbooks but the covers of the spiral-bound are hard to modify and they're soooo ugly and the non-spiral-bound are not great to use!).... Wow that was a digression.

Anyway, despite the whininess, it was a blast. I've started the process of reading through these to figure out where I want to submit, as well as simultaneously checking (and polishing, in some cases) the poems I think are ready to be sent out. Now to determine the first place(s) to submit, and the poems to submit. *deep breath* Nervy! But happy.

Next week will be good. I have the week off and can spend time catching up on this, household chores, the AW, etc. Hopefully I even will spend the time that way. Not all of it. Some will be for relaxing, having fun, doing nothing at all but simply being. But, I'd like to invest some of the extra time in cleaning, AW, and poetry.

I also stopped at Michael's and picked up a few little things for $1 each or less, notepads and stickypads and such, to brighten both my desk at work and the one at home.

Contentment.

2006-03-12T22:11:00.000-08:00

Overall, this weekend has been a good one. I wrote a first-draft poem. I've started re-reading my morning pages (yes, a week late, but this is when I had time...and boy does it take for-EVER). I think the first ivy bowl is finalized. It's not how I thought - but then, I can't find a light for how I thought it would be, either. I am going to try taking it to work anyway, and setting it on the windowsill where it will catch the sunlight. If that doesn't look good, I'll bring it home and try something else, but I think it will. Maybe in time I can find something to put in it (not any part of what I originally envisioned, since there was going to be a light in there - but this is more transparent than I'd thought, and I like that - plus there haven't been any lights I've found that seem reasonable - those fake tea lights, even assuming the battery lasts as long as they claim on the package, eat batteries way too quick!).

I finished my big fake-water project. It's just a matter of waiting for it to dry and all now. It did not turn out how I envisioned either. I am not sure yet if it turned out well enough that I will keep it. I made a mistake that definitely marred it - but I think it may look okay from one side, in which case, I can just turn it, after all. I'll figure that out tomorrow evening, I guess, when it's had more time to set.

I have a list of poetry journals to check out, as noted in an earlier entry. I tentatively plan to go to Powell's downtown, Tuesday night after work, where they have some issues of two of these journals. Two more, I will have to send away for sample copies or subscriptions to see them.

Today I played a bit of World of Warcarft, without letting it consume my weekend. Then I caught up on all the Artist's Way bloggers who have RSS/atom feeds (that I found when perusing your sites, anyway). At some point I made banana muffins. They're good. They're "don't leave me alone with the muffins" good. A quick warm shower, then got the bills paid and wrote quick notes (snail-mail notes - which I value but don't write as often as I could wish!) to three of my friends. I used cards from Tree-Free Cards (they don't sell directly, but a search on tree-free cards will turn up all sorts of sites that do sell them), which I simply adore. Not just because they're tree-free (not even mostly so, to be honest), but because they are absolutely gorgeous - and so are the envelopes. I can find equally-gorgeous cards lots of places, but the envelopes are harder to match. They're incredible!

Word cloud

2006-03-11T20:42:00.000-08:00

This is my word cloud for this blog. You can go here to generate a word cloud for your blog.

Ahhh, progress.

2006-03-11T14:32:00.000-08:00

The week has, as noted, been hectic with work. How ironic, then, to run into workaholism in this week! While my life has some aspects of that - I take on too many projects - my day-job work is not normally one of them. I'd just as soon not be on call but it is a necessary part of a job I love. And I don't mind the on-call work. I mind the on-call timing. It can eat up a good chunk of the evening, distract, or (as happened both Thursday and Friday morning) wake me up an hour before the alarm goes off, disrupting my sleep (and, since I need to urgently fix something, replacing 'sleep' with 'stress' which is even worse, although often it is not major stress at least). Most weeks it is not like that! This one has been unusually bad for the recent weeks (I know it could be worse - it can always be worse).

But today has been much better. I have not had a call all day from work. I am rested, relaxed, even getting things done (gasp!). I have pained some more on the ivy bowl and I think I will stop and try it with a light now and see how it does. I may or may not be done with that. I have tried more with the fake water...I think my big, ambitious project did not work, but I will wait and see when it hardens. I will not attempt it again if it didn't work - because it's just too expensive and because I've learned what I wanted to - but I think I will (whether it works or not!) borrow a couple of the ideas/components for other, much smaller projects.

Of the six magazines I noted down, I had web sites for five and checked them out. (The sixth says submission guidelines are on the web site, but I don't have a web site. I suspect I forgot to write it down. I'll look it up in Poet's Market when that gets here, and figure it out.) I'm disregarding one for the moment - each issue is themed (which is fine) and the themes are published on the web (yay!), but they're published as pictures and not text, and the image links are broken (oops). Not only does this make it really hard to figure out whether there's an upcoming issue I might submit to, it's a bit wince-worthy in its own right. (Although all six are paper publications, so lack of competence on the web page is not an automatic 'no way' the way it would be for a web publication! *grins*)

I've used a web form to get samples of one, I have a snail-mail address for another, and the other two remaining ones of the four have copies of current (and sometimes back) issues at Powell's downtown. Since I also wanted to go there to look for blank-unlined journals, and just to enjoy going there, I think I have a trip to Powell's ahead of me. That's not doable this weekend (since I'm on call) or Monday (ditto). But after Monday I'm not on call and I could go in. I'm thinking of heading over on Tuesday evening although the traffic will make that interesting, and I don't know how much of a pain it would be to find parking. I usually go downtown on weekends. I think I'll try on Tuesday, though - and maybe I'll find a few 'zines I wasn't aware of, too. Who knows?

Now, to get at least some of my backlog of morning pages read and a few exercises done, so I feel like I'm doing the Artist's Way as well as the art (though if I have to pick between those two the art will win, I'd like to do both until I've finished the AW...).

AW: Week 9 Check-In

2006-03-11T08:24:00.000-08:00

1. Morning Pages?

I did morning pages 3/7 this week. I've been on call for work and that plays merry havoc with my schedule. Frankly, sleep is more important and I've had little brain left to do "daily pages" in the evening - nor inspiration to. I've been very down on the whole occurrence. I did finish out the journal I was using for MPs.

I decided to switch to unlined because writing larger/more freely makes the pages go faster, but it also feels wrong on lined pages. Words scrawled through lines look ugly and wrong to me. Thus, bye-bye lines. Unfortunately, I don't have many unlined books handy (and being on call I couldn't just go buy something easily - I tried the stores I could get to and still get home in time, but they had more lined crap). I did have one, so I switched to it, but I'm not very fond of the paper. Or the journal. I bought this a decade ago and what was I thinking? But I can fix the not liking the look part, and I've already started on embellishing it to that end. It won't fix the paper but maybe I'll get used to it. If not, I'll re-purpose it for something else - after I manage to get a replacement journal.

As far as U-turns, I haven't addressed them, in my MPs or anywhere else. Since I'm still working on finding places to send my poetry, and I'm even working on the crafty stuff - both slowly due to the dearth of time this week, I confess - I don't feel like I'm in a U-turn or worrying about one just now. Whether I should pay attention to it or not, I haven't been. (And I find the term "u-turn" to be absurd, since I have always thought of a u-turn as what you do when you realize you're going 100% the wrong direction and you're now trying to get back on course, whereas Julia treats it as what you do when you're scared of the direction you're going and want to go the wrong direction. I find that interpretation hard to use, and the term therefore grates on me.)

2. Artist date?

No. See 'on call for work' which has been hectic. (Unless coming home early so I can rest a bit before the on-call period counts, which I don't think it does. Or modifying my journal, but that was being creative, not feeding my creativity.)

3. Synchronicity?

In February, we were going to get snow one day. I wanted snow so bad. I was quite disappointed when it didn't show up, even though snow in mid-to-late February is unusual here. And then, this week, in March for crying out loud, we got snow! And it was gone in time for me to go into work as normal, but there for me to enjoy, too. See earlier post. There were a few other bits of synchronicity too, but this was the big one.

4. Other significant issues?

Complete lack of time due to work? Not getting a single exercise done? Also, Cameron's nuts. Don't read your MPs for 8 weeks, then read them? If you've been doing them diligently, that's 168 pages. Even if you haven't, it's probably over 100. That's a lot of reading. (Actually, it wouldn't be that much reading for me in a week that wasn't this chaotic - I read whole books in an evening, and they've got a lot more words. But it's a lot of reading when I'm busy, and I also know that lots of people don't read as fast as I do.) Also, highlighting is the ugly and I never like to read anything that's been highlighted again because it forces its attention-focus onto the reader. So, when I do get around to rereading (maybe this weekend?), I'll take notes of interesting items, thankyouverymuch.

The next paragraph should be skipped by those who are tired of my rants about the tone of the book. *wry* I guess it's time for another one, since one came out, and this being a stressy week for me outside of AW no doubt contributed substantially to it.

I'm very disenchanted with the whole process these past two weeks, to be honest. I can't tell if it's resistance or just the buildup of all my objections to it along the way. Cameron presents things as "you must do it THIS way" (even if she does say 'use it creatively' in the intro somewhere, that is NOT the tone of the text), and I have a real hard time with deviating from 'orders' without rejecting whatever I'm deviating from, so every time she's been 'wrong' for what I should do, I've either wanted to reject the whole process or ended up doing something not right for me. It makes me very snarly. My MPs today were very grouchy about this, very rejecting, but as I said in them - it's three more weeks and I'm going to do it. If only so that I won't be tempted to reattempt it a third time in another decade. I will be glad when we get through it and go on to other creativity groupings and approaches that don't have a single central One Text To Rule Them All sort of feel....

I also got some scrapbooking papers with quotes/affirmations on them, cut them into the component pieces, and dropped them in an envelope. I'm planning to pull one out and affix it to the page, then write on about it, when I get stuck. It beats the heck out of "I'm tired where's the end of this page I don't have anything more to say come on I just want to go to work now will this stupid page ever end". Which doesn't happen often, but which I hate when it does. At the same time I found a lovely "postcard" scrapbook thingy, which I had no use for whatsoever but loved. So I got it - and then affixed it to my desk. No doubt it will eventually tear and have to be removed (and yes, the way I put it on, I can remove it when I want or need to), but for the moment I think it looks quite nice. I tried to get a photo to share but I did not like how they came out. I may try again but I have a lot of other things to do first - look up the places I may submit my poetry, more fake water (same projects still, but this may be the last application for both of them, whew), maybe the zen sand gardens I've been thinking about for a month or two now.

Speaking of which, my company gave us small gift certificates to Amazon.com as a Christmas gift. I hadn't used mine yet. So I did - I will be getting a book called The Practice of Poetry (I have a copy out from the library now; it's full of wonderful, inspirational exercises) and I will also be getting the 2006 Poet's Market - no more drives to a library in another city to use it in the reference section!! :)

Snow! We got snowed on!

2006-03-09T18:25:00.000-08:00

I live in Oregon. South of Portland, on the valley floor, ie, virtually no elevation to speak of. We do not get snow after February. We're lucky to get snow in February, for that matter.

We. Got. Snow! When I went out this morning, there was snow over everything. The radio said the freeway was a mess, so I worked from home. By 8 the main roads were all just wet pavement and were fine (it was already above freezing even by 7, and things were pretty passable then). So it did not last long, but it was gorgeous.

I have snow photos up on Flickr.. Like this one:

Coming around again....

2006-03-05T11:36:00.000-08:00

I gave only one side of the story, in focusing on the negative. It was the side I was seeing and living at the time, of course, but it's still only one side. Today I feel so much better - as if I have come out of a long dark tunnel of a week. It's been very stressful, but last night I slept on our new bed. I can't say I'm thrilled - the DH agrees, the mattress is firmer than the one we tried at the store, which is the same kind - so we are hoping it softens over time and hopefully not too much! If not I'll put a topper on it, as it's definitely uncomfy. But I think our new bed is beautiful, and the room is clean - I'm not thinking about the library across the hall where everything went to get it that way, though!

I felt horrid. My allergies were in full swing, my eye was so watery and vile I wondered if I had something worse than allergies. So I washed my face and my eye, and then I took a morning shower. (I never take morning showers. My hair takes forever to dry. For-freaking-ever. Something about it being long enough I can almost sit on it...I love my hair but it does not dry fast.) Used a hair dryer, which I almost never do, until it was mostly only damp, then simply let it air dry as I prefer not to blast my hair (and that, too, takes a while and gets boring anyway). Then brushed it. My allergies have settled so I must have cleaned off something that didn't belong (and I doubt it's the bed; I've lounged on it for a bit since and am still fine). And I feel so good with my hair flowing all silky over my shoulders and arms. I love my hair.

Today I will go to the grocery store and the library, in another couple hours. I mostly need to return books to the library, but I do also need to pick one hold up, which I figure will be much easier to do if I wait until they are open. :) Hehe.

I've been catching up on reading the AW blogs - still not fully caught up, but getting there! I am feeling back in control. And in a bit, once I post this, I'm going to take the next step in one, maybe two of my artificial-water projects. (Does anyone know where I can find clear easter eggs, or clear plastic globes that can be opened and shut, not Christmas ornaments though? I could really really use these. And I cannot seem to find them just searching around!)

Last week I did make two pieces of progress I think are really important. I listed out poetry publications to consider submitting to (and perhaps I was partly avoiding this as my week went all chaotic? It is the big step for something I've wanted to do, after all--though I doubt the bed arriving three weeks early can be blamed purely on avoidance! *laughs*). And I also went through two community colleges that have classes near where I live and/or work, and the one arts college in the area, and circled everything that appealed. Then I went back through and crossed off the ones that didn't sound worth my time (they may appeal, but I don't actually want to do them enough to do them if that makes sense!), and the ones I couldn't do because I don't have those dates free.

I haven't yet gone back through and signed up for any. They start in April, so I have some time, but I plan to do that this week. The local arts college has an open life drawing studio! I am trying to decide if I want to go. Drawing is not one of my big passions - not the way that language is, or photography. But I do occasionally draw - and almost invariably it is people I want to draw. So life drawing could be good - plus, I can just go on the days I want to, so the fact that I wouldn't go when I was on call for work would be a complete non-issue. (That doesn't start until May; it runs through the summer. Still time to think about it, but I will probably go at least once, to see if it's something I want to do.)

I wanted something a little less whiny than my checkin up. Something that seemed to carry in it the possibilities that are pulsing beneath today, something that matches with the inspirations I was posting (and writing those was one of the bigger creative things I did last week - I had fun with them!). Yes, the AW itself as a program is not fitting perfectly right now; but it's not failing either, and I've survived the Early Bed and am still alive, still breathing and laughing, still making and thinking and doing.

Speaking of which, I'm going to go do some more with fake water. I'm working on what's ultimately going to be a floating rose in an ivy bowl, if I get it right. (If I don't, I'm not trying again. This uses a bit too much water to be worth it. Unless I were selling it - I've seen the prices for what's made with this stuff, it would be worth the cost and time - but I don't want to make more than one that works, I just want one for me!)

AW: Week 8 Check-In

2006-03-04T17:41:00.000-08:00

Summary: Errrr. What AW week? ^^;

1. Morning pages?

Three days in the morning when I first got up. One day in the late morning (11:45 am) during a break at work. One day in the early evening when I got home. Thursday, Friday, and so far today, missed.

2. Artist Date?

Er. I don't think I managed one. Unless playing lots and lots of World of Warcraft and having a blast counts.

3. Synchronicity?

Not really. Unless you count the bed arriving in one week instead of 4-6, but frankly I was anything but blessed by that.

4. Other issues?

On Sunday, I went to the appropriate library and worked on picking out possible poetry publications to submit to! Just an initial list of a few to check the submissions guidelines for them. But I did it! :)

I couldn't pick a topic to write about this week, as far as what was inspirational to me. As you could probably tell. So I decided to see if I could do a post-a-day. I had fun with these - mostly I wrote them ahead of time as drafts, then posted them, though Monday morning's was a miss on that account. I'd like to think these were little creative endeavors with words; doing it this way rather than skimping on one of the topics, made me quite happy.

Unfortunately, the week just got too stressy after Wednesday and I missed. On the plus side, our bed is here now, but it was not exactly the fun peaceful endeavor I was hoping for, since I thought we had time to clean, acquire sheets, etc. We didn't. The DH did the cleaning, we had to get the other stuff this morning and I was nearly in tears from frustration by the end of it. But we have it. The bed is beautiful; the timing of its arrival, perhaps not so much so. The men who delivered it were very efficient and polite and great to work with, so at least the actual delivery of the bed was totally non-traumatic.

I did no exercises this week, other than the teacher one. I think the "time" theme matters a lot to me, but...tough. I'll go back to them if I'm bored and looking for something to do, or after the AW, but otherwise, trying to re-capture them will only cause me to fall behind and get discouraged, I think.

WHEW!

2006-03-02T19:45:00.000-08:00

Update: not sure yet when we'll take delivery of the bed, but the DH cleaned the entire floor of the bedroom and the master bath (the latter was not necessary, but I'm not complaining!), and vacuumed. The DH rocks. He said he liked doing things to cheer me up. I pointed out that "cheering up" is a poor cousin of the actual reality which was "boneless with relief!" The bed is not (yet) generating any feelings of abundance for me. The cleaning all done when I thought I was going to have to go join in and work on it until bedtime? THAT is abundance.

This post used to be titled "Argh!" and read:

First, I apologize for no inspiration today. I got sucked in by an old familiar friend of a book last night and instead of pre-writing today's, I read. Until I was up an hour after my bedtime. Then I went to sleep. This morning, I slept in. In truth, I wasn't sure what to write about next anyway, so perhaps it is just as well.

Second, sometimes seeming abundance is not. The DH and I recently bought and paid for a bed. Because the frame had to be ordered, we were told it would be 4-6 weeks before we got it.

They called today. It's in. It hasn't even been two weeks (it has been a week, and two days, specifically). I'm not feeling blessed, I'm feeling misled and yanked around. There's a lot of cleaning needed before the new bed can be delivered (it's larger than the existing one, and the bedroom has needed a cleaning for a while anyway). But I'd thought the bed would arrive in late March, and I'm on call for work next week, so I was deferring that to next week.

ARGH!

This is inconvenient and stressing me out, not blissful and good. Having it arrive week-after-next would have been perfect. Now is NOT. Of course, I don't feel I can tell them to sit on the bed for two weeks. In the first place I'm not sure they would without charging a storage fee (but I could ask). In the second place, I and the DH really want a new bed and I would be depriving us of that until we took delivery. But if they'd not said it would be 4-6 weeks, I might have prioritized differently, and I'm definitely feeling rushed and like someone is messing around with me!

This week has been stressful and I HAVE HAD NO BLOODY TIME. Yes, I'm aware of the irony. I'm also just about ready to scream. (I wasn't, until this happened. I was feeling the time pressure but juggling okay. This is a very large, heavy straw, but it's still the straw that broke the camel's back.)

Excuse me. Off to get back to paying the bills, then to help the DH clean the bedroom, and try not to cry from sheer frustration. (This isn't how it should be. Useless words. This is how it is, and I know it. But ARGH!)

Inspiration: Blogs

2006-03-01T06:48:00.000-08:00

That's right, all of you! I'm not going to try to point you at inspiring bloggers - if you need some, follow the link on my sidebar and check out other AW participants listed at Kat's blog! But, that said, here is what I love about reading blogs and journals: the connection and the learning, the encouragement and reinforcement.

I learn new things all the time out here - things I would never have been exposed to if it were not for this loosely-knit (but knit!) online community we call the web. I see points of view I would never have known existed without this kind of exposure. I see crafts I wouldn't have considered - and I share mine. (And to be honest, I have a slight tendency toward drama, so I come up with more ideas just so I can show them off. Anything that brings ideas out!) I see crafts I wouldn't want to do - but to admire the end result of, yes.

Make no mistake, perhaps the most inspiring thing in my life right now is the sheer creative power of those I read, both doing this journey and not. Even the non-creative posts are fodder for thinking: they expose me to other lives, other perspectives, other dreams, other passions. And sometimes I discover I am interested in those same things, that would never have occurred to me without it. Even when I don't, it broadens my world - and that gives me more scope to create from, more awareness.

So - a mid-week thank you to all of you who are reading this, and those who are not but whom I read also!

A few memes for the day....

2006-02-28T20:39:00.000-08:00

Ten on Tuesday: 10 Things You Want, but Don't Need

A winning lottery ticket.
A hot tub (which I doubt I'd use very often if at all, I just want it because it sounds neat; and how pathetic is that?)
A maid service (for one thing, most of what needs done is tidying, and I wouldn't let them touch it anyway - if they could magically do what I wish I were doing...)
A personal chef
A year, all expenses paid, month-long retreats in various exotic locations (Ireland, something in Spain, Italy, maybe something near the Grand Canyon....) alternating with months at home. And my job still waiting for me after, please.
A pound of maple sugar. (I really don't need this one. I'd be embarrassed to admit how fast I'd eat it all!)
A steady, infinite supply of the fake water I'm playing with. I'm having such a blast. (I am getting myself some - I think I need some - but it's too expensive to do everything I think of. Alas! And I probably don't need to do all of that, either, it just sounds fun.)
A hybrid car. (Though that will be on the consideration list if we need to replace one, but I don't need to get one before that point - and maybe not then.)
Someone else to assemble and place the bookshelves.
Teleportation as a viable form of travel for vacations and commutes.

It's hard thinking of things because, mostly, if it's something that's worth wanting I get it and if it's not it fades. So if the items seem improbable (or, in the case of #10, possibly impossible), well...oh well! :)

Question of the Day: What if tomorrow, instead of being March 1st, was actually a special type of leap year day. It was one that wouldn't be documented anywhere in time, and you can do whatever you want on this day (anything legal), what would you do?

I'd sleep in. And then I'd pay the bills, do some laundry, work on the AW exercises, play with the fake water project I have going now, paint the ivy bowl a bit more, and otherwise vegetate, read, and play World of Warcraft. I might write some poetry; I might not; but it would be a day for play and rest.

I suppose I "should" say I'd clean the computer room, but - I wouldn't. I'll do that again at some point (I am making progress) but right now I'd love a day off and it wouldn't involve any cleaning (unless the urge struck unexpectedly, anyway).

Inspiration: Music

2006-02-28T07:35:00.000-08:00

I have so little mentioned it, one could conclude that music isn't that important to me. In truth, it is very important to me. I treasure music; I enjoy singing, though I'm not sure I'll ever put in the effort I'd need to perform. (Loving singing, and loving it enough to go over and over and over a song until it is performance-worthy, are two very different things. I had rather enjoy it than seek to perfect it; I don't wish to spend that much time on it.)

And I love to listen to music. My tastes run largely to pop-rock and folk-rock, but with diversions here and there. Among the artists I especially enjoy are Billy Joel and Suzanne Vega, both large enough names most people have heard of them (though how many reading this have heard Vega's songs "Rosemary" and "Gypsy"?). I also quite like Loreena McKennitt (the Book of Secrets album in particular, and The Visit), Great Big Sea, the Kingston Trio, Judy Collins...you get the idea. (Or, if you don't and you're intrigued, perhaps you'll check them out!)

Some songs I especially like:

Anna Nalick's "Breathe" (So cradle your head in your hands / and breathe, just breathe)
Billy Joel's "The Stranger" (Well we all have a face / that we hide away forever / and we take it out and show ourselves / when everyone has gone)
Crosby, Stills & Nash, "Southern Cross" (When you see the southern cross for the first time / you understand now why you came this way / 'cause the truth you might be running from is so small / but it's as big as the promise, the promise of the coming day....)
Dan Fogelberg's "Leader of the Band" (A lonely child alone and wild / a cabinet-maker's son / his hands were meant for different work / and his heart was known to none....) For that matter, most of the songs on The Innocent Age, a two-CD set that includes this lovely song (unfortunately on the same track with the Washington Post March, which is nice, but sometimes you just want one of the two).
Duran Duran, "Rio"
Eagles, "Hotel California"
Echo's Children, "Wings" and "They Spoke With Their Hands"
Electric Light Orchestra, the album Time, which is effectively a story of time travel told in music. "Twilight" for example. (The visions dancing in my mind / the early dawn, the shades of time / twilight crawling through my windowpane....)
Great Big Sea, "French Perfume" and "Boston and St. John's" (neither of which is easy to pull pieces out meaningfully).
Irene Cara, "Fame" (from the soundtrack for the show).
Jewel, "Enter From the East". Of course, classic would be "Hands" which is also lovely, but "Enter From the East" is a gem I seldom hear recognized. (A strange fruit fell / and struck me to the core / my heart became a single flame / it wanted nothing more.)
Jill Sobule, "Karen By Night" and "Good Person Inside"
Josh Groban, "You Raise Me Up"
Judy Collins' performance of any number of songs, including "Suzanne" and "The City of New Orleans". (I adore her album Forever. Yes, I'm a sucker for best-of collections. They exist for a reason, usually.)
Sinéad Lohan, "No Mermaid" (I was dancing in the middle of the desert / you said we'll burn under the hot sun / I said I'd rather be the color of pleasure / than watch like you from under the thumb.)

Music is so very easy to follow, and the right music can lead to the right frame of mind so quickly and easily - it's a joy. The right music, of course, depends on the moment.

What are some artists and songs that you like?

Inspiration (Aspiration?): Mindfulness.

2006-02-27T06:36:00.000-08:00

My typical morning involves a bit of sleeping in as I dislike to get up, but once I do get up I rocket around like a madcap thing, especially on weekdays. And in the process, I miss a lot. I know this. This morning I got up, intending to write my morning pages for 20-30 minutes. However, by the time I had my contacts in it was 6:10. Then I realized the trash was not out so I did that and prepared my breakfast. Now it was 6:20. I still needed to brush my hair and prepare most of my lunch - and write this post. And I was sure I could get all of that done, except the morning pages. If I did those I might leave later than 7:00, and might be later to work than I wanted to be. This kind of cramming stuff into a narrow span of time is sadly normal for my life.

(Why'd I pick this post? Simple. If I leave by 7, the traffic is much better, so I really don't want to leave later. The post is more adjustable in length - and I can write the pages at work on a break, but I don't access this site from there.)

Mindfulness means to live in the moment. I'm usually living the future or the past - guilt, or thinking ahead. More and more it's thinking ahead, but I'm still often not in the now (except when doing 'thinking' activities - reading blogs is 'now' - but not physically 'here'). This morning I tried to slow down and appreciate things. Or at least, slow down my mind. I wasn't moving any slower. I was thinking slower - trying not to anticipate ahead to breakfast, whether to write morning pages or this post, running late, etc. I listened to the birds call "come out come out" in the black pre-dawn air. I watched light tremble in individual raindrops - left from an earlier rain, it was not falling when I went out - that clung to the bare branches of the maple tree, which stands near the street-light. I looked up and down the street, recognized the stillness, the quiet resting of the morning.

It was lovely.

Sometimes all we need is the reminder to think about what we are doing right now, as we do it. Not what we will be doing. (This doesn't mean don't write down ideas for it; but to not have done it five times in your head before you ever even do it...anyone else done that?)

There's a movement trying to slow down the frenetic pace of modern living, called the Slow Living movement (actually there are several related ones, but Slow Living will turn up a fair amount of stuff when searched). But I'm not sure I'm ready for that since it implies I have to cut things out of my life and I rather like my life! Mindfulness is another matter....

And just now, I need to go make my lunch. Which I'd better do, since shredding lettuce in my head really doesn't get much done. :)

Inspiration: Photography

2006-02-26T07:43:00.000-08:00

I love photography. I love trying to capture the beauty of the moment in a picture; I love sharing what I have seen; I love finding the art in the everyday moment. And I love watching others do this also.

I therefore absolutely adore the advent of photo-sharing online, which allows me to see other people's images on a daily basis. They fill me with joy, and they inspire me - not just in my photography, but in the occasional drawing I do (I don't draw often, but I dabble), in the poetry I write, in my blog posts, in what I look for and look at when I walk away from the computer and look at the things around me.

I use Flickr, which I particularly love because it makes following and discovering others easy. It's far from the only one and I'm happy to watch other photo sites also, but since I use Flickr, I tend to find other people on Flickr.

I offer you a link to my favorite photos (by others) as listed on Flickr (click any one to see the photo larger; the thumbnails are quite small). As you can see, I went on a rash of sunrise/sunset/sky photos recently. I seem to be very much enjoying vivid colors also (which I've also noticed in my desire to brighten my desk at work and some of my other artistic play: I want more rich, less bland, in the visuals around me now).

I also offer a link to Flickr's interesting photos in the last seven days page, which shows photos that are particularly "interesting" (based on being listed as favorites, how often and from where it is viewed, tags, comments, notes...not sure of the exact math). This page shows different photos each time you refresh it - something intriguing is bound to show up if you keep looking at it. (It is, of course, also an incredibly good way to waste a lot of time if you aren't careful, provided you like looking at photos.)

Another, very different, photography site is DPChallenge, which is what it sounds like - a challenge, a contest. I'm not that fond any more of the contest aspect itself - it sometimes seems the results are quite arbitrary and also I know that my photography doesn't go in the same direction the challenge does. I'd like to achieve technical perfection and beauty, yes, but I've no desire to spend hours setting up a super-fake shot just so I can be sure I get both, either. I want to capture the world-as-it-is and that is not relevant for this site. However, I still find the site inspiring - I just don't enter the challenges any more! The challenges give me focus and topics at time. And the winning pictures are often gorgeous, interesting, or both - thus, more inspiration.

Inspiration: Poetry / Marvin Bell

2006-02-25T09:40:00.000-08:00

As a poet and a lover of poetry, of course poetry and other poets are one of my sources of inspiration, a very important one.

Among my favorite poets is Marvin Bell. I first encountered his work in college, when I had a professor who gave us some of his poems to read and had Marvin in to speak to us for about an hour one day. After that I read his poetry as much as I could, but had no further exposure to the man himself - until last year. Last year, he taught a poetry workshop as part of the Haystack program at PSU, a summer arts-at-the-beach program. I had never heard of the program before in my life, but one day at the library I found a flier for it and Marvin Bell was doing a poetry workshop. It was only months away at that time - the lead-up was very short and I felt I needed to make a decision right away lest I miss my window.

I went, of course. And I had an absolute blast. Marvin is, besides being a wonderful poet, witty and wise and very down-to-earth. The other participants in the workshop were wonderful writers and fun people - we were a very very mixed group - it was great!

Anyway, I can't share the workshop - I wish I could somehow share that experience beyond describing it, but it wouldn't be the same. But I can share some poetry and statements about poetry that inspire me. And I mention so much about Marvin Bell because I'd like to start with some of his.

First, his poem "To Dorothy" which is written to his wife. I remember a statement he made back when I was in college, I believe, roughly to the effect that he had not wanted to descend into trite sentiment, and so he started with that first line he uses because he knew that from there he would have to be very creative if he wanted the poem to be appreciated by Dorothy!

Also, the poem "He Had A Good Year" which I include here, rather than linking to, as the only copy I can find already online is embedded in a large page with a number of Marvin's poems. You might enjoy reading them but I did particularly want to recommend this one and with no way to direct link, I'd rather post it.

He Had a Good Year

while he was going blind. Autumnal light
gave to ordinary things the turning
beauty of leaves, rich with their losing.
A shade of yellow, that once stood opaque
in the rainbow of each glitzy morning,
now became translucent, as if the sun
broke against his own window. As for white,
it was now too much of everything,
as the flat deprivations of the color black
moved farther away: echoes of a surface
unseen and misremembered. I must tell you
how he managed as the lights went slowly out
to look inside the top glow of each object
and make in his mind a spectrum of inner
texture, of an essence isolate from the
nervous trembling of things struck by light.
"Ah, if God were only half the man he is,"
he said, "he would see things this way."

If you ever want a book of Marvin Bell's works, I recommend A Marvin Bell Reader or Nightworks, both collections from his previous books - Nightworks is the newer and probably better choice, but the Reader might be available used for less.

While I cannot upload the workshop he gave us (alas!), I can link to some advice he gives - intended for poets, but much either applicable or adaptable to other arts, I think - that is posted on the Copper Canyon Press website. (Copper Canyon is, by the way, an absolutely lovely little northwest poetry press, and I am always intrigued by books that come out under their imprint or poets whose previous books have done so - I don't always like the books, but the mere presence of the imprint is enough to intrigue me and make me want to see if I will like it!)

There are other poets I like - of course! - and I may well post more about others later this week. I feel like this post is already long enough and, truly, this man deserves his own writeup.

AW: Week 7 Check-In

2006-02-25T09:21:00.000-08:00

1. Morning pages?

This week I fell off the morning pages wagon, then climbed back in. I think I got hay up the back of my shirt, too...wait, never mind, that itching is just my usual allergy fun. :) Anyway, I didn't get all days - Sunday/Monday (as well as Saturday of week 6) I did not write at all. Tuesday I wrote two pages, Wednesday I wrote a half-page (I was home sick, and literally fell asleep during it, and when I woke up several hours later I just decided that enough was enough and went back to taking care of myself). Thursday, Friday, and today I did the full three pages. One thing I noticed was I tend to "save" the "best" pens from the set I have now for last, but that this had turned into refusing myself the pen I wanted. Ack! So I did reverse that and the purple glitter and golden-yellow-glitter came out in the past three days. :)

Creative risks and childhood loves, no. Frankly, I seldom remember Julia's exhortations of what we're supposed to write in the MPs. I don't even try. First she tells us stream-of-consciousness, then she gives us tasks to do in them. I can do one or the other but I cannot do both. I find this re-purposing of them into something else aggravating. Especially since it relies on my memory when I'm tired in the morning. NOT a kind thing to do. So, whatever. Not trying for that part of the MPs.

2. Artist's Date? Risks?

Sort of and no. I did not plan an AD this week as I've found that too often the planned ones do not feel good - they feel obligation-like or tedious. I wanted to see what happened if I just tried to enjoy the week and see what came. I did have a planned event, but not an AD as it was going bowling with several people (or at least going to a bowling alley; I don't bowl, nor do I want to). That was fun, but not an AD. On the other hand, that same evening as I posed in an earlier entry, I got to enjoy just sitting in my car eating dinner and watching flakes of snow float down and melt. That was wonderful and magical - and I'm not sure if it counts or not. I loved it, though. I also went to Powell's Beaverton yesterday after work because I wanted a book of poetry they had, and I browsed the poetry aisle for a while (maybe 15-30 minutes) after getting the book, before I left.

3. Synchronicity?

The snow! Also thinking of a poem that sticks in my head and which is hard to find, searching, and finding that since the last time I tried the poet (Tess Gallagher) published a collected-works that includes it, and there were four copies at Powell's Beaverton - used, no less. (I'm half-wondering if there was a course that used the book locally, because there's still another one at the downtown Powell's....)

4. Other issues?

I still haven't done much on the poetry or cleaning fronts. I plan to tackle both this week but in small doses, so as not to commit to more than I can manage.

I did do several of the other items on my list, though. The two flowers from the earlier post now sit on my desk at work, looking lovely. I rearranged the desk at work in general and it feels much more pleasant, though I think more is still needed. I need more bright colors right now, for some reason, and I don't yet have them in place sufficiently. I'm also working on the painted-ivy-bowl idea, but so far the problem is finding a light for it. I'd rather not use the fake tea lights as they turn out to be fairly expensive for how long they claim to last - so I'm hunting for mini-lamps and other things (night lights are not bright enough, alas). I may not get to actually use the bowl after I paint it at this rate. (At $1 per at Michael's or Jo-Ann's, by the way, these ivy bowls are a great way to play with ideas! I've gotten another one to try something else with the fake water in.....)

And as you can see, I've tackled the site redesign. I haven't added a banner with one of my images yet. I'd like to do that, but for now I am happy with the progress that when I read this on my desktop screen I don't have two or three inches of white space either side of the text, which was really irritating me. And when I shrink the window it is still readable too. I switched to black-on-white because I was reminded by a post in another blog that I read (who doesn't read this one) that light-on-dark is hard for some people to read. I like the dark blue background but I would prefer that my words not be hard to read, since the words are kinda the point of most posts. :)

2006-02-22T21:44:00.000-08:00

This is my morning pages journal. I bought this years ago and never used it as it was an inconvenient size - a full 8.5x11! So it was perfect for MPs. (Undecorated plain notebooks leave me feeling like I don't value myself. I have no problem with "wasting" pretty books on MPs, I got pretty books to "waste" them on whatever I feel like and to enjoy looking at them while I do it!) I think after this one I may (gasp!) use one smaller than she recommends. I'll adjust page-count so I'm writing as much, if so. See my comment about the inconvenient size - it is hard to find pretty journals in this size, but it's also a pain to carry it around, etc. I am not sorry I've been using it but I do not want to feel bound to go pick up more books (trust me, I have plenty, they're just not the "regulation" size).

How blogger handles images DRIVES ME NUTS. I want the image to float to the right of the paragraph above and nothing else, but I can't get it to do that. It floats to the right of whatever ends up left of it which will depend on your screen size. When the image is part of the paragraph, why?? I hate this crap.

Anyway, hopefully I've left enough space that this isn't next to the stupid picture of my stupid journal on this stupid web page. (Sorry, being a petty child there for a bit!)

Another meme, unrelated to the first, now - twenty things about myself:

I'm a poet. I've been published twice, once in a little local 'zine (years ago: I suspect it's long gone) and once in the college 'zine. I might get published more if I were sending my poetry out.
I'm a computer programmer.
I'm a bit of a packrat and clutter-keeper. I'm working on this - controlling the stuff I want to keep, and choosing it better.
I'm married, and have been married for less than a year (although we've been together a decade).
I like pop rock and folk rock. If I can't understand the words, though, I probably don't like it.
I don't understand most "funny" commercials these days. If the company's customers are really that dumb, why would I want to identify myself with them by buying that company's product?
I have allergies. They're not life-threatening but they certainly are miserable at times, even with my taking medicine for them and getting other treatments.
I'm very talkative and social, but I'm actually an introvert: time spent by myself recharges me (so I can go enjoy time with other people again too!).
I don't mind doing the laundry but I hate folding it. (The DH doesn't mind folding, and dislikes doing laundry. I think we're very lucky....)
I like to dress for comfort. I don't wear worn clothes - I don't like looking as if I am a rag-bag - but if it isn't comfortable, I'm not going to wear it. There's no point in looking like a million bucks and feeling like I'd gladly SPEND a million bucks if I could only breathe (finish my meal, etc.). :P
I live in Oregon, on the west coast of the United States. I grew up here; I think it is lovely and green. It rains a lot, and I adore the rain too. I am HOME here and so glad of it.
I drive everywhere, often by myself. I know that we "should" use public transit more, but this would be easier if the local public transit were useful. (My commute to work is 15-20 minutes. By public transit it would be 1-1.5 hours. EACH WAY. I don't have a spare 2 hours a day, folks. And that's assuming I go point-to-point rather than, as really happens, stopping to shop on the way home, etc. which is not even necessarily possible on the public transit which doesn't go to/near all those stores....)
I love candles. For a long time I owned them but did not burn them, but in the past six months I have been fixing this and actually burning them again. I have a gorgeous dark chocolate one in here now, as well as vanilla tea lights. I kind of regret the vanilla tea lights, I like the smell but they make me sneeze!
In college, I double-majored in computer science and Spanish. I no longer speak or read Spanish on a regular basis and I've no doubt lost a lot of it.
I have trouble bringing myself to sign up for classes. Workshops are fine. I am on call for work two weeks in seven and I would have to trade with coworkers or not be able to go to class those weeks. I don't like the idea of taking a class and then missing some of it so I get confused and behind!
I used to roleplay. I don't seem to make time for this any more, except at a gaming convention once a year. I'm trying to decide if this is a bad thing, or just a change. I like roleplaying but it may be that I just don't like it as much as other things - which I think is the case. Not sure yet.
I don't play very many computer games. The exception is World of Warcraft. I stink at most such games and thus find them boring pretty quickly. WoW was made to be easier/more accessible and, at least for my abilities, they succeeded and I find it quite fun. Maybe too fun, I have to be careful not to let it eat my free time sometimes!
I'm going to the furniture store tomorrow with the DH to pick out a new bed! Right now we're using a futon bed and I'll be glad to see the last of it.
I don't exercise enough. Heck, if you don't count the stairs at home and work, and walking around a BIT to get places, I don't really exercise at all. I want to do something about that at some point in the near future.
I don't get the newspaper but I do read the news online. Sometimes, I wonder why, as it's rather disheartening most days!

Good things. Yay, good things!

2006-02-21T21:28:00.000-08:00

I actually did my daily pages today. First time since I said I would start doing them again. Oops. But, several good things so far this week. First, I wrote this on Monday morning as a note to myself:

Of course today is the day that I do not have my camera since we are going bowling tonight and I didn't want to have to haul it along.

Went out this morning to find it was 22 degrees and the car windows (and body!) were covered, not in a solid frost except for the back window, but in little frost flowers, the fine delicate lines spreading out and blooming. They were so beautiful I hated to remove them but it's very hard to drive without being able to see so I had to!

Then, driving in, as I came up the hill on Elligsen, the sunrise behind me was a glory of pink-peach-shading-to-orange, not eye-burning bright but glowing, alive, glowing from within, beautiful, beautiful. As I drove the last bit to work, later, it had gone brassy orange,
and then from brassy faded to a gentle orange that tinged the clouds now creamy, just barely shading them, behind the silhouette elegance of winter-bare trees...beautiful, so beautiful.

Second, that same evening I went out to go bowling. First I stopped to get dinner - and I ate my sandwich sitting in the car because it was snowing. Beautiful, delicate little snowflakes - in 40 degree weather! Floating down and melting off, so ethereal and impermanent and magical. Just a perfect moment as I had been very disappointed, we had a week of freezing temps and no snow - here it was not freezing and here was my snow - and in 40 degree weather. Delicate, fleeting, magical!

Third, I've actually done some of those projects! I tried the shadow photos. I couldn't work out what to put in mine so I've tabled that for the moment. Meanwhile I did the fake water. I really want to brighten my desk up at work, fake flowers are part of that. (Real ones, I'm pretty bad at keeping alive, I fear.) Thus I've produced this:

Then too, I did an experiment. I knew I would not want to use the result as I did not have the proper container to make it with but it let me test a theory. What I want is a smaller, rounded container, that I can peel off the end result when it's hard. Then I can cut the stem (if I use flowers - there are other options too!). But this is the test case (getting this cup off may be hard or impossible, and of course, it wouldn't be that pretty even if I did):

Possible projects and next steps.

2006-02-19T12:43:00.000-08:00

Okay, so now that I've de-foolished myself (at least for the moment, and on this topic), I'm still not sure what it is I will do next, but I have narrowed it down at least! I've ruled out both Art Escapes and Celebrate Your Creative Self, which didn't seem to suit me that well. I'm not primarily a drawer/painter and I just wasn't interested in what they had to offer. (Who knows, that might change in the future; but right now it's the case.) Art Escapes also makes me boggle at Northlight books; those binder bindings look really cheap to me, a lot worse than a simple spiral bind without the binder would, I think.

Anyway, I'm still considering the other two books (and the magazine, though it won't last long, of course, having fewer items). Whatever I do, I am going to revel in my ability to ignore entire sections if I don't want to do them, just because I feel a bit straight-jacketed by the AW. Maybe that's bringing me into sanity and maybe it's not, but either way it's confining!

Other projects I have that may or may not get done and may or may not occur along with the AW:

Take the ivy bowl and jar, and paint them brightly. See how they look with a light inside. This may be the solution to the fake tea lights, which could quite possibly look lovely if I couldn't actually see them.
Get fake flowers in their vase with fake water, and see how that looks - again for the desk-brightening
Use fake water to contain things in interesting shapes (must first get a container I can reasonably hope to remove from the water after it's solidified). I want to see if I can get a nifty paperweight or conversation piece. Worst case scenario it doesn't work, but it seems worth a try.
Zen sand gardens. I got a kit for a coworker, but looking at what goes into it, I can make these at home for less than that. I've never wanted one for myself because of my fear I'd get sand in things (probably a realistic fear). But if I make it at home, I can make it with the sand stuck permanently in the shape I pick. If it works, I can make several with different layouts, and rocks that I can set on them to finish it (can even change the rocks to adjust the mood). I have no idea if this will work. It seems worth a shot, though. My current theory is to use cardboard jewelry boxes as holders, they are shallow/flat and available in the right size/shape, and I can use paint to turn them traditional-looking shades like black or brown, or I could get real creative and make them bright and gawdy.
Throw pillows. I have some old clothes that are no longer suitable for wearing, but that I still love. They have enough solid fabric to make patchwork throw pillows out of, which I would rather do than entirely throw them away.
Work on my poetry. I have several inspired seeds that just need me to come to the table and start writing from them to finish them. Others need editing - mindful editing, not critic editing.
Send my poetry out. I want to find, in the next three months, at least three publications I'd be comfortable seeing my work in - then submit to them. (This limits the search to publications that accept unsolicited submissions, obviously; I'll do the first line of hunting from Poet's Market so I know which those are.) This is somewhat bounded by the fact that I must either buy Poet's Market, or drive to a library not in my hometown (it's a reference book, so I can't put a hold on it; and my library has the ever-so-recent 2001 copy - not so very useful).
Not so artistic but badly needed: clean the computer room so that the old desk can be removed and the bookshelves and table put in.
Find table to put in. After the bookshelves are in so that I can measure and be sure it will fit. Possibly get an old table and redo the top myself - that might be fun.
Fix the tabletop fountain the DH's husband gave us. Or, rather, steal pieces from it; the pump's burned out, but I have another pump. Will need to move it to another bowl for that also, but the piece that goes over the pump is nice and worth saving.
Possibly make other tabletop fountains since I do have the supplies.
Finish decorating the journal I put together, and see if I like it. (I'm dubious, right now.)
Consider playing with bookbinding (in what spare time??).
(added later) Figure out enough about Blogger templates to redo this blog without the fixed-width stuff that leaves so much screen space blank on my (relatively small!) screen. Maybe add an image - maybe one of mine, even - to the banner at the top.
(added later) Shadow art. I'm not sure if I'm gonna do this or not but I was thinking it'd be neat to take a photo of your shadow and write/draw/whatever the things you hide from yourselves and others (but want to admit in a picture, I guess!) in the shadow-space. (Thanks to Kara, whose post spawned this idea.)

And no, for the record, I am not expecting to get all of these done in a short period of time, or even necessarily to get all of them done. The computer room and the poetry are the two most important ones. None of these require supplies I don't have, so.... (The possible exception being the throw pillows - I may have fabric for more than I have stuffing for - but that would be after I made a couple, so.)

Things I am grateful for today....

2006-02-19T10:50:00.000-08:00

1) That days like yesterday are relatively rare.

2) I have an Anais Garden candle - bittersweet chocolate. A big pillar. And it smells like what it says it smells like. The room is filled with the scent of chocolate.

3) I don't have to go to the laundromat today for the rest of the bedding. I probably should, but we can get by without it for a day or two if we must. (I'm trying to decide whether to do it today, when it adds 30 minutes of driving time to my day, or on a work day, when it's less than 2 minutes extra driving as it's on the way home. On the other hand, would I rather lose a couple hours sitting around in a laundromat on a Sunday afternoon, or a work evening already crowded?)

4) I am home and safe and warm and comfy, and I can choose whether to change any of those.

5) My DH was very understanding and calm about yesterday's laundry snafu, as he is about most things.

And now, I try to decide what to do with my day next. Maybe something for my desk. Maybe something else. Just need to figure out what I want to do.

Just because I want something else up here....

2006-02-18T22:53:00.000-08:00

...I am posting. Truly, I am just in a bad mood this week, and it sort of...permeated everything. Which is why I've been quiet, but now it's out there.

I was going to upload some of the photos I took this week, to share! But, none of them turned out well - at least not in ways I intended; there may be something to do with them art-wise in time, but nothing that jumps right out at me when viewing. There are a couple exceptions but they are in-jokes and family things, things that are precious to me but not easily explained beyond myself and the DH. (On the other hand, I'm deeply grateful that the photos of the Valentine's balloon heart came out, even if they're not photos that I really deem worth posting. It was a funny gift to give him - for reasons that are hard to explain and even harder to make sound sane - and now I have a record of it.)

The misbehaving washing machine mostly won, but not entirely. I had to throw out two pillows. (Let me rephrase that: they could have been saved. Frankly, I'd rather buy two new pillows than wring out two thoroughly-sodden pillows by hand, because the washer has decided it can't handle them on spin cycle, when it used to just fine.) So, I went and got two new pillows. There are two more waiting to be washed; I will take them and the comforter to the laundromat tomorrow. Unless I don't want to, in which case Tuesday. (Monday I have a commitment and it will probably run too late to do that.) I have just now looked up where the nearest laundromat is, which I did not know until now. Pity I need to!

On the plus side, the two new pillows I got are hypo-allergenic, and I got sleeves for them and the remaining pillows to help with keeping dust and dust mites out (in addition to the usual cases; these sleeves zip shut). And I got a couple socks. And a pair of amazingly soft, pettable, cuddly socks. Even the soles are soft. I have the feeling I will break my neck in these socks one day, sliding across the kitchen floor, but they were so soft, how could I resist? Also got two soft cute purple valentine's heart pillows (purple is an in-joke for us) on sale for 50 cents each. Yes, Valentine's Day is over, but "true love" and "forever" are topical any time. And besides, they're soft and pettable too!

I need forks. Why is it that the options (even if I look at sets, which I neither want nor need an entire silverware set) range from 'ugly' to 'blah'? There is nothing I like. I like our current ones just fine, except that some have gone missing and I'd like to have enough to get through the week without sometimes having to devolve to plastic forks. But the pattern we have, I cannot find (no real surprise, I suppose) and the ones that are out there are unpleasant to me. I've tried several places - malls, outlet malls, the local Target...so not impressed. Hopefully I will find something. If not, well, we have plastic forks. We can hold out a while, especially considering we only need to dip into them occasionally.

I had a good time today on World of Warcraft, at least. The rest of my life was dominated by the washing machine battle, but on WoW it went really well. Tomorrow I will hopefully have some more good in the rest of my life.

Moving on to week seven....

2006-02-18T18:59:00.000-08:00

...irritably, unfortunately. Go ahead and skip this if you want. I'm still grumpy and whining, apparently. Perhaps because I'm praying I'll have enough bedding not to freeze my posterior off tonight because, thanks to the washing machine's glitch earlier, I'm actually a couple hours behind where I meant to be in getting it washed - and it's all been on the floor. ARGH!

I thought with some eagerness, ooo, this week would apply more! And it does. I mean, right there is my perfectionism bug. Unfortunately it's accompanied by jealousy as a topic, and I can think of only a single person I'm jealous of. Not because she's good at any one thing, but because she's good at everything, from drawing to writing poetry and fiction and songs to singing to having friends (who adore her) and.... I like her, but I'm jealous. It's not "she can write fiction" or "she can sing" or "she can write poetry" though - it's that she's all that, all at once. (While, I might add, holding down a day job.)

Other than that, I'm failing to think of anything that makes me jealous, really. It might exist but I haven't run into it lately. Or else my truly horrid memory is not providing it if it should be. Then on the complete-these-phrases thing, a lot of my answers didn't work or I didn't have answers. I didn't lack for much as a kid, though I found a couple things. Of the things I did lack for, with a couple exceptions, I've tried those things since then - and discovered I don't really care for them after all. I only missed the opportunity to find that out when younger, but it's since been done. (There are, again, an exception or two that I'm making note of - and they're particularly important ones - but most of those 10 sentences were dead ends.) Then, a couple of the "take positive inventory" sentences had no positive answers for me. Negative ones, yes. Positive, not so very much so. I had to scramble on what the morning pages have shown me, because I don't really remember what's in them, so I finally settled on "I can get up when the alarm first goes off" for pity's sake! Lying in bed that extra 15-30 minutes used to be one of my luxuries and here I am celebrating that I no longer do? Gah! That's still better than some of the others, though.

Also, for the record, I am sick of these tasks involving collage. I know Julia loves it. I hate it. It's sticky, annoying, takes too long, and invariably the results are at best blah. I have done collage. I have done it to see if it was fun, for artistic reasons, because our illustrious author said I should, because I needed something really fast, and to preserve images I like. And I don't like it. I know we're supposed to do the tasks we resist, but I flat dislike making collages. It is sticky and tedious. I'm tired of tasks that ask me to do something I dislike so much. May I please photocopy these tasks and glue them to Julia, if I must collage something? :P

Honestly. Apparently I'm going through one of those negative phases - or perhaps Julia's not God (although she seems to think she is) and this part of the book just sucks for relevance for me. I really wouldn't mind so much if her tone were more like Kat's supportive tone, if it were more "take what you can, try this, leave the rest" instead of acting like it's all gospel truth for everyone - which makes me feel like a failure when I don't have her damned issues!

Grrr. I may do some or most of the exercises, but not the collage-related ones (or, if there's more to them than that, not the collage part), and not #6 unless I can think of something I need or want. I don't need clutter, even if it is wonderful clutter. If I can think of something that would be wonderful not-clutter, then I'll get it. If I can find one I like.

Grrr. Apparently I am more snarly than musing. I'm sure you figured that out way before reading this sentence, though. My apologies to anyone who actually read this rant through this far! (Unless you feel the same way and it was validating, in which case I suppose apologizing would be silly!)

AW Week 6 Check-In

2006-02-18T16:52:00.000-08:00

Let me start this off by saying this week stank, health-wise. I have ongoing allergy issues; they all cropped up and bit me at once, to the point of interfering with my sleep and also leaving me itchy. Being itchy (in between anti-itch cream applications, anyway) and short on sleep makes me really really irritable. (I seem to have them somewhat under control today, but I'm still slightly irritable. At least I could sleep in and I am not as itchy, so progress is being made! And how come it's better today, one day after I get the allergy shots that should make them worse in the short term??)

Anyway, as a consequence I suspect my check-in is going to have overtones of the irritation. For bonus points, my washer decided to screw up and flood this morning. Fortunately I heard it botching the imbalance handling and got to it before it caused much havoc. My already-frayed mood was the biggest victim, and I'm mostly over that. (The next load waiting to go in was towels. Handy, that: I used a couple to mop up the mess. Sigh.)

1. Morning pages. Um. 4/7. 6/7 if I stretch. Thursday I got 2 pages done and then something came up (I think my patience, hitting its limit, but I don't remember). Friday I got less than one page done. Today I was out of sorts and wanted fun time, so I played World of Warcraft. I could still do them but to be honest, I do not feel like it. I'm just very irritated at the AW (and the world!) right now and I don't want to spend the time on it. I know I probably should, but while I've benefitted from MPs, I haven't seen enough benefit to think them completely indispensible, and it feels like forcing myself to do something "for your own good" like a kindly, well-meaning, but stupidly misguided parent. So I'm ignoring them today. Will try to resume tomorrow, hopefully more in the mood. I did poke a bit at the idea of abundance this week but, to be honest, I didn't really feel this chapter or topic applied much...well, I'll hit that on a later question.

2. Artist Date. I did not pre-plan and execute one. But I did go to two craft stores after work on Thursday, looking for things to use in making things to brighten up my office a bit. I found some! :) Plus I finally gave in and bought some fake water, which I've wanted to play with for a while anyway, for both its intended use and a couple others. Haven't used it yet - hopefully sometime this weekend (but maybe not - I have a couple other projects I'd like to try, so it's sort of a question of which one wins the battle of the temptation first).

3. Synchronicity. Not a ton - but in the week on money/abundance, I wished I'd win the lottery (yeah, I know...still, I can wish!). I did not. But I did get a bonus at work - a small one but a real one, for all my hard work on the current tasks! (Bonuses at work, other than a token Christmas gift, are about as rare as lottery wins, actually. It's not worth nearly as much as the Powerball jackpot, but it's still money and - even better - it's money that has recognition/appreciation attached, which is always nice!)

4. Other issues. Two sets:

First, really, this chapter is hard for me to apply to myself. She presents it as though everyone has money/abundance problems...I really don't. I mean, there are things I'd love to do if I had more money, but they're in the "I'll get there eventually" category anyway. (I'd love to pay the mortgage off this year! Without a huge windfall, not happening - but we will pay it off at some point, and I know this.) I used to have abundance problems - buying too much and all the wrong stuff for me - but I trounced those a couple years ago. (Ironically, by putting myself on a budget. Because it made me think about where I was spending my money and what I really wanted.)

That's not to say I can't improve. I spent some time casting around and came up with a couple things to try. Just saying it's not a huge issue - there's a lot of abundance in my life already, and I know this. Of the exercises - thanks, used to collect rocks as a child, still have them, have more rocks than I know what to do with. May need to purge some. After I find them again, as they're buried in with all the other clutter. Flowers? In this weather? I think not! Though I did get some fake flowers for my work-brightening decoration project.... Baked apple muffins. Been baking for weeks. The muffins weren't that great so I made blueberry later in the week. Those were better. Etc. Nothing really horrid, nothing really great, for any of the exercises. More a "whatever".

The other issue, ironically, was my health making me see things badly. I read the two comments on my last post as being very harsh - and of course they were supportive. Where the heck did I get that turnaround? Simple, I was itchy and snarly when I read them and so I read them horribly wrong. Fortunately I know I do this, so instead of ranting about the unsupportive comments (that were quite supportive!), I just wandered off and then reread them later. I took them as criticisms for looking too far ahead or trying to shape others (maybe because I was afraid that was how it would be taken? - though I don't think I was, really), and they were really just supportive comments. Boy did I feel silly (and then grateful!) when I reread them later on, properly!

So I hope that Kara and GreenishLady will forgive me for taking their words all wrong, even if they didn't know I had until now. :)

What now, and what next?

2006-02-12T19:48:00.000-08:00

Two focuses in this post - what am I doing now/short-term, and - because others have asked and because I've mentioned it - what will I do after the Artist's Way to keep the momentum going. (Yes, we're not-quite halfway through. I like planning even if the plans have to be abandoned, however.)

1) What now?

Today I made apple muffins. I won't use the mix again; it was okay, but that's all it was. The blueberry ones are much much better. But the apple ones are okay, and now I know. Yesterday the DH made spaghetti and garlic bread - his technique for the latter surprised me and was quite nummy (the same minced garlic I'd used for the garlic chicken...). Today I started columbines in peat pots. Growing up I loved the flowers at our house, but especially the lilac and the columbines. I haven't any here and now I want them. So this is my attempt at starting that. (I don't want a full-size lilac, and I don't know if even the dwarf ones are small enough. I need to look into that. But columbines should be a good start, and easier.)

I got most of the AW blogs into a single RSS/atom feed syndication tool, although some did not have feeds that I could find so they are not on the list - just a few, though! The way I was reading before it was too easy to miss things - now even if I do not have time to read everything, I can come back and the things I have not read will still be marked as such. This is good. Plus it means I can actually follow everyone, before if I had done that I would never have finished reading anything - too disorganized the way it was falling together with my other LiveJournal syndicated feeds. Good idea in principle, less effective than having them elsewhere for this.

Tomorrow is going to be insanely hectic with the being-adult "musts" alas. I have a dentist appointment, then errands to run that will take (literally) hours. I do not foresee getting much done tomorrow in the way of art, other than the creativity at my job itself, so hopefully I will manage to enjoy that!

So tonight I am going to treat myself to a bubble bath and a bit of time with the Artist's Way. (Then I really have to pay bills, alas, but most of today has been play, so....)

2. What next?

I haven't decided what I'll do after this, but I have picked out a few likely items. I may work through some of the items in the February issue of Artist's Sketchbook magazine (I'm going to check out the next one; if it is as good as this one I will probably subscribe!). I might move to a book; the candidates for that are 52 Projects (Random Acts of Everyday Creativity), The Creativity Book, Art Escapes, and Celebrate Your Creative Self. I own the first two; the last two I am getting from my library for now. If I like them I can buy them, but I'm not sure yet (and of course the library had copies, which is always a bonus - very hard to check things out when they do not have them!).

So, since those are what I'm considering - what about you? Have you read and/or done any of these? Would you like to read or do any of them? What did you think of them, if you did or read them?

AW Week 5 Check-In

2006-02-11T16:46:00.000-08:00

1. Morning pages. I did morning pages every day this week except today. Today they are going to be evening pages apparently. I finished them all but one day (when work interrupted about an inch from the bottom of the third page, I just left it that way). I'm still mostly okay with them and they help organize my day. (Today's moving of them back to the Daily Pages I said I'd be content with if that was what I did, I think is selfishness in another area rather than a tantrum. I just doubled the memory in my gaming computer and added a new video card and I played World of Warcraft for hours. Not the most productive use of my time but very very fun.)

2. Artist Date. I did. I told myself I'd go to the Japanese Gardens and I did. It was cold but pretty - pretty in ways I could not capture on film, so I took no pictures. Pretty like the cold wind against your cheek, pretty like the smell after rain, pretty like birdsong when you cannot see a bird, pretty like the spatter of rain against tile, pretty like a leaf fluttering farewell, pretty like seeing only fog where you know a whole city huddles underneath. It felt a bit like an obligation and yet I enjoyed it too; and on the way home I stopped at Powell's and I browsed. I admit I stopped to get a gift for a coworker, but I stopped and gave myself the luxury of browsing also for a bit.

This week she asks if we've taken an artist's date that felt really adventurous. Yes, but not in a good way; that one up Multnomah Gorge was an adventure but it didn't really go well. Honestly, I like doing things I like. Trying something new...I've considered at least one but I can't do that until April (I do not want to cope with possibly needing chains to drive. I simply do not.)

3. Synchronicity. I may have? At this moment I do not remember if so. I am drawing such a blank.

4. Other issues.

Poetry is flowing again, pictures are being taken. A week or two ago I bought a little candle holder for tealights that looks like a sort of asian-inspired meditating person over the holder and feels right in ways I cannot define. I have been burning vanilla-scented tealights in it because they sounded nicer than plain. They are, and they burn clear and smokeless, but sooner or later the smell (which I love!) causes me to want to sneeze. Oops. Up until then (and sometimes after) it's gorgeous, though.

And, Kara and GreenishLady have recommended salt lamps to me. I did some web searches and they look gorgeous! But expensive, with shipping. I've no idea where I might get one locally. (I gather from Kara's comment that they may be just as expensive locally - shipping presumably being why.) Still, I'm going to see if I can find them locally so I can see one to be sure I'd like it. They just may be my answer (or part of it) for work.

I'm also thinking of maybe decorating a jar or something so that you can't really see what's inside and dropping one of the silly fake tealights in there. Maybe it would look okay. But frankly I'm dubious about that. Still - I know where I want to go to check for some stuff. No idea where to look for the salt lamps and I quite want to find one now! But step by step. I'd never even known those existed until now so I am definitely more likely to find one since I am looking! (Hey, universe? I'd realllly like the chance to see a salt lamp - and be able buy it if I like it in person. Very much.)

When did I start cooking? I made garlic chicken this week too! It didn't turn out as well as the lemon chicken but that's okay, I have some ideas for next time. Tonight or tomorrow I will probably bake muffins, as the temptation to do so begins to overcome my inertia. :)

The Yummy and the Pretty

2006-02-09T20:16:00.000-08:00

Tonight, I made lemon chicken. My mother could not remember how she used to make it exactly, she just used to throw it together, but she told me roughly what went in. I adjusted because I'm lazy, and it worked. I think I want just a bit less lemon juice next time, but it was pretty good as-is. And I have enough left over for my lunch at work tomorrow also!

For the curious: preheat oven to 375. Take two boneless skinless chicken breasts, put in pan such that they don't touch each other or the sides. I poured 1/4 cup lemon juice over - I think I'd use maybe a bit less, but not down to 1/8 or anything. Pour another 1/4 cup water over. Sprinkle thyme over the chicken lightly - not going for the encrusted look - and ditto salt. Bake them for about 25 minutes, until when they're stabbed the juice runs clear. (Or use a meat thermometer; mine doesn't care for anything smaller than roasts, though.) Thin the juices with equal parts water and they make a great sauce over rice.

All assuming you like lemon and chicken, of course. Definitely not the dish for those who don't!

And, for the pretty part of this post, a coworker pointed me to this fellow named Julian Beever who does sidewalk art... 3D sidewalk art. It's incredible. A search on that name will find you several sites but this is the one that I found - check it out. Sidewalk art! I'm in awe. (I don't aspire to do anything like that. It sounds tedious to do. But to admire it, to see it, YES. And I assume that to do it at all he really enjoys it - that's the key.)

AW: Tagged!

2006-02-09T19:50:00.000-08:00

I have been tagged with a meme by GreenishLady! This meme is AW-themed, as you can see:

4 Wishes, Dreams, Desires

I wish I had more time to explore all the things I want to do.
I wish I were more courageous about strange things, new things, things that are "too different" from what I do normally. (Travelling abroad, say.)
I want my allergies controlled. I want to be able to spend more time with animals.
I wish were better at being content with the moment, whether I am trying to change the future or not.

4 Imaginary Lives

Full-time poet.
Homemaker (no children).
...drawing a blank here, now. Darnit, am I not allowed to like my life as it is?

4 Things I should Change

Exercise - I need to find some form of it I like, and do it more often.
This house is a welter of mess, but it seems I complain about it more than I clean it up (but I am working on one of those areas this month!).
My attitude toward time. So many things I do are done briskly, to make sure I have the maximum amount of time for other things. I wonder how many of these things I race through are less-complete than they would be otherwise.
My space at work. It has some aspects that please me and make me smile but I think it needs more. Unfortunately what I'd love to add (a candle) isn't allowed. Well, it is, but I could not light it, and I really would want it lit. I would get one of those electric "tealights" they sell, except really they don't look at all believable unless you put them inside something else and I like the look of flame itself. Bah! But I will have to think on other ways to brighten up my workspace. (Without driving my office-mate batty, of course.)

4 People I admire

Marvin Bell. He is an incredible poet; I've taken a workshop from him and he's also a nice guy, a good teacher, and has a great sense of humor. He's just a wonderful human being and a blast to read and to learn from. (Learn with? Both?)
My husband. He is so very good at keeping his cool and keeping calm - not ignoring his own wants, but just staying calm while addressing what he needs. Very laid-back without doing a carpet imitation. I admire that greatly.
My friend R. He is one of the most brilliantly focussed programmers I personally know. I would not want to share his focus on that to that degree, but I admire it. He loves what he does and he's correspondingly very dedicated and very very good at it.
My parents (okay, that's two people, but tough). They weren't perfect, no, but they loved me and raised me well and encouraged me to do what I wanted and to explore. I think I came out of childhood pretty well aimed for the world - and still trusting my artistic self, as they encouraged that side of me without forcing anything. And somehow they kept their sanity despite having a very active, somewhat bizarre child about! :)

4 Things I like about the Artist's Way

The group. Yes, that's not intrinsically part of the path, but it is part of it this time. The sense of community and helping. (And the wonderful people and getting to know you!)
The morning pages. They not only form a brain-drain, they seem to get me much more organized. (One reason my "daily pages" usually are morning pages even though I didn't promise they would be - that organization is very useful to me but only if it comes before whatever it's organizing!)
Artist's Dates. I tend to spend time on myself anyway but look, now I'm supposed to do this even! Plus, it encourages me to think outside the box and try new things, not just the same old same old me-things.
The reminder it makes to focus on my creativity. The encouragement to do so. (After this is done, I think I will try another book or set of exercises, less for recovery and more for ongoing, as I quite like to be reminded regularly. It works well and keeps me in the right frame of mind.)

4 things I still Hope to get out of the Artist's Way

I'm not sure what to put here, honestly. Our illustrious author doesn't have my entire trust, and I'm not 100% sure what it may or may not offer or give me. I'd like to continue expanding my creativity and keeping its place in my life strong; I'd like to start sending poetry out for publication again. But I don't care if I get those from the AW or not.

Tagging: At this point I should tag four people. But I am not sure who would want to be tagged or not. So instead I say - if you want to do this, feel free to snag it. :)

Perfectionism.

2006-02-08T20:53:00.000-08:00

This is a rambling post, and for bonus (?) points, I am using words from a religion not my own, which seems somewhat awkward and yet they are right to what I want to say, I think.

If it has to be perfect, it so often does not get done.

God made the world, and he looked at it and said it was good. Not perfect. Just good.

It strikes me that He was very wise, for how could we His creations then have any room for improvement or freedom if the world had been perfect? It was good: and that was enough. For if everything were perfect, only two types of choice or change would be possible: to swap one perfect thing for another equally-perfect thing (is such possible?), or to become worse.

In not choosing to make the world perfect, He left us the ability to improve ourselves. And to create. If we cannot make things that are perfect, should we not be grateful? Today I may write a good poem. Tomorrow I may write a better poem. (Or a worse one. Or one of each.) If I have once written a perfect poem - I might match that achievement but never exceed it. It is always hard to aim for something you have achieved before, and to miss it; but how much worse to know you could never surpass it, never hope for that moment when you outdid yourself?

I am a perfectionist, of course, and have been since I was quite young. I remind myself I should not be, and this post is another reminder of that. Or rather, it is the fruit of such a reminder that I delivered to myself more in private recently, and that bled into the thoughts above.

Image: early morning with fog

2006-02-07T06:54:00.000-08:00

Outside the light is slowly coming up. The world is muffled in a soft grey not-wall, the things beyond it ghost-shadows of shapes that might be known if they were wholly there. The mossy fingers of the bare tree rest splayed against the shadowy cotton of morning, and the bushes bristle warily close to the house. The world is waking, slowly. Not ready to throw the blanket off. And we, we are up before the world, waiting patiently for it to stir, to see what gifts it brings today.

Ah, sweet weekend. And...no reading yet?

2006-02-05T14:10:00.000-08:00

It amuses me. After all the horrid bits of not-reading this past week and finally just breaking it entirely for blogs/journals (and abruptly balancing a lot better), what happened this morning when I could read anything again, including the half-finished novel I stopped in the middle of last Saturday?

I moved the last bits of hardware onto my new desk, took a photo, posted it, did my AW check-in, went up to the Japanese Gardens and listened to the water-song and bird-song, stopped at Powell's and bought a couple books and a gift for a co-worker, got the supplies to hopefully grow some columbines (I love columbines!), and did the grocery shopping. It's 2:15 in the afternoon...and I have not read, yet, other than the blogs/journals. I haven't even read the AW chapter!

Of course, now I am home and out of "ooo must do this!" things, so after I eat a late lunch I likely will read some. But I did not go on a whole-hearted binge, nor did I even want to, which I take as a Good Thing.

Speaking of which, here is my new desk setup (as uploaded to Flickr - here is my whole photostream, which you can also reach from the links on that photo).

AW: Week 4 Check-In

2006-02-05T10:36:00.000-08:00

1) Morning pages. Every day. Lots of whining about the reading restriction, otherwise about normal - maybe a bit more focussed on organizing the work-a-day stuff. I've started, the past couple weeks, getting impatient to get on with my day half-way down page 3, which means the bottom of page 3 almost invariably has a "Done!" exclamation as I hit the last line. ;)

2) Artist's Date. That trip up the Gorge on Sunday, intended originally to be a poetry time. It didn't work out as what I planned but it still was pretty good, the falls were just incredible with as much rain as we'd been getting.

3) Synchronicities. One minor one and one irritating one. The minor is that I've wanted a new front-door mat for a while and Thursday I got a coupon book that had them on sale, so I got one. The irritating was, I've also wanted a new video card for a while and there was a good one on sale...but it turned out not to be compatible with my computer, and I had to return it!

4) Other issues:

Reading deprivation bit. What I've learned is that I was an idiot to do this and I won't do it again. Sunday I was depressed and sick (hard to tell which came first, but I'm sure the cold weather in the Gorge did not help the cold). Monday I was feeling better but still depressed. Tuesday, I felt yucky. Wednesday I was partway through the half-hour of blog reading I'd allowed myself, racing as usual, when I came across the first of several posts from my old college friends remembering C, a friend of ours who died that date years ago in a car accident. I don't normally remember dates, so I hadn't attached special significance to that one until I encountered that entry. I was almost out of blog-reading time and I had already felt out-of-sorts and bitchy all week and wanted to take back my word about the blog time, having not done so only out of guilt and shame (which Cameron is good at setting up, even as she preaches against it!). I tossed it to the four winds, said screw it, and removed the restriction time on blogs altogether.

Thursday, Friday, and yesterday were all much better than the earlier part of the week. I felt more together, less scattered, less lonely, less depressed, less desperate. During the earlier part of the week my poetry output had sagged slightly and my interest in photography had just about gone to zero (except for the shots of Multnomah Falls, which was incredible and I knew I would want to try for some - but it was too cold to linger long). I haven't recovered the poetry output but I think I will, and the photography - well, I took a ton of pictures Saturday. :) Some of them even came out! :)

Basically what I found was, until I tossed off the restrictions, my week had been reduced only to shoulds. I should pay the bills, I should clean this, I should do that. Not because all my wants center around reading - but a lot do, and frankly I got so depressed with the feeling of having to rush through my friends' posts rather than savor their comments, I didn't want to do much! I didn't do the life pie exercise this week. I'm pretty sure it would be balanced in "suck" though - except for work, where I was able to continue on as normal. (And where, thank you very much oh high-and-mighty Cameron, every major task I had this week required reading.)

I feel alive again. Thursday and Friday I cleaned the computer room because I wanted to, bought, and set up the new desk I'd wanted, searched for, measured, found, and selected - and had meant to be working on all week but didn't really want to until then. It's really nice. (It's not any better than my old one - but it is narrower - which means I can put some shelves in now. I need those shelves. I'll be even happier when I get those but that is dependent on other people - I hope. If none of our friends with a truck is willing to help out, I'll have to rent one just to get them home, which will be annoying. Affordable, but annoying.)

I learned most of all this week to trust my inner voice, which said that no matter how much Cameron hammered it home and finger-wagged in her text, this was a bad idea. I said I'd do this and so I tried to - and kept trying, even when it felt wrong, for fear of shaming by you guys (and by myself!). (And why would I fear that? There has never been any sign you would shame someone for doing only what they can. Why? Because Cameron hammered it home so hard it seemed like a shameful thing! Stupid of me to project the author's attitude on the other people doing this when I know very well I'm one of us and I don't agree with her, and it's been very much a "take what you can" manner from everyone. But I wasn't exactly in a mind-space to be smart, I guess. Sigh.)

I did keep from reading books or magazines, and most news, though that was also the source of some irritation. I found a copy of Artist's Sketchbook early in the week with a lead article of "Launch a Year of Creativity". No reading!!! Augh! But I bought it and I stuck it by my desk and I have not read it yet but I do have it there to do so. And I wanted to play with some bookbinding stuff, maybe, to see what it was like, but I never have done that. I have a book on it but I could not read it. (Now I'm not in the mood for it any more. I'm not sure if that's sour grapes, missing the timing, or if I just wanted to play with bookbinding because I wanted an excuse to read the book....)

I am still irked with Cameron, though. She ladeled the shame and guilt phrasing and stories on really heavily. The exercise #10 that described lapsing into reading as having a "tantrum" I read on Tuesday and it reinforced my intent to force myself to keep doing this in spite of being sure that it was damaging me (what if I was imagining it just because I wanted to read? What if my depression was a tantrum?). AUGH! I'm kind of glad for Wednesday's wake-up call, at least I only endured half a week of that. I almost had abandoned it Tuesday if I had not read the exercises. Sigh.

Frankly I think our charming author has a God complex, is incapable of imagining lives unlike her own, and is more than a bit hypocritical in telling us to set aside shame, then shaming us. But that's just me. I had a lot of anti-Julia-Cameron rants in my morning pages this week, though. (As early as Sunday, I was having daydreams about what I'd have said to her face at the next meeting if I were in one of her workshops instead of doing this on the 'net. I'd probably have thrown a huge fit and quit.)

I'm not quitting. But I am going to try to fight my conformist nature a bit more and be willing to reject outright things that seem to be doing damage when I try them.

Morning Pages: Tool or Crutch?

2006-01-31T19:03:00.000-08:00

A while back I read someone's post where they commented about the morning pages and referred to them as a crutch. I no longer recall the context and honestly it doesn't matter for this post - what stuck with me was my reaction to that term.

I was immediately upset and wanted to say they are tools, not crutches. And it did not take more than five seconds for me to realize that's silly. Crutches are tools, too.

What's the job of a crutch? It is to keep someone upright when they otherwise might hurt themselves staying that way or not be able to stay that way at all. To protect an injury or a limb that never grew straight, or to support someone when their own limb cannot do the job. Why on earth do I read "crutch" as a negative term, when in fact crutches are very valuable to the mobility (and probably sanity!) of people who need them? Certainly using crutches incessantly when you don't (or no longer) need them is probably bad for the body and might let things atrophy that could be saved - but when they are needed, using crutches is a valuable and positive action.

That said, I still don't think the MP's as Cameron presents them are crutches. (On the other hand, perhaps for some people they are and work better that way.) Because she suggests you keep doing them forever, whereas most crutches are used for injuries and are set aside once the healing is complete (or to the point where the crutches aren't needed any more, at least). That may be how some use morning pages, but it isn't how they're presented, whether one agrees with that or not. Of course, some people must always use crutches, but I don't see even blocked creativity as a permanent injury - the Artist's Way is short-term and might be likened to a crutch, but surely the morning pages aren't.

All of which is likely totally irrelevant to the original point of the post I read. But it was triggered by it. It's been percolating in the back of my brain but was never important enough to write up. (I'm still not sure it is, but hey, I have nothing else to do tonight that hasn't already been done. Pfeh.)

Scattering of notes

2006-01-29T18:14:00.000-08:00

Since I'm supposed to reduce my reading (and I've already used up my allotted "cheat time" for reading blogs and email), I figure I'll post some of the thoughts rattling around in my brain, since she sure didn't say we could not write.

First off: I really don't like this. In order to keep to the time I limited myself to, I was racing through blogs/journals - but until I did that this evening, I felt very disconnected and cut off from my friends and support network. Neither is good. I ran a tiny bit over time today, but less than 10 minutes, and I think I can avoid that the rest of the week (Sunday is actually a very busy posting day, I've found - end of the weekend stuff). Now to see if I'm right. If not, in the future, I'll just cut myself off at 30 minutes and pick it up the next day, even if I will fall slightly behind that way.

I went out to the Gorge for my Artist's Date today. I meant to check out a hotel/resort/whatever that allows day use, and which sounded like it might be a great spot to do a sort of one-person "poetry retreat" with a chance to walk the grounds, sit inside and write, a restaurant on-site, etc. I left immediately. Just driving around the grounds, they were ugly, dreary, and uninspiring. So I went on to the outlet mall where I picked up some pears and a whisk of a type I have been looking for for a year and failing to find (and which I really regretted not having when doing some of the baking recently). The springy sort, you know? That bounce up and down? I'm not sure it's really a whisk versus something else, but it's bleeding useful, is what it is.

Then I continued up to Multnomah Falls. It was rainy and foggy and unscenic today and I would never have set out to see the Gorge or Falls in this weather if I hadn't promised myself the trip as an AD. And I did not stay long because it was cold cold cold. But it was beautiful and wild and roaring - there's been a lot of rain recently, tonight and tomorrow is another flood warning - and it was just incredible to see and hear even if I did not stay for very long.

Then I came home and I was a little tired so I figured I would nap for an hour or two. Four hours later I got up. Some of that was sleeping and some was just vegging, staring at the light from the skylight in the master bath and feeling depressed and like I had nothing to do. I found myself wondering, what effect would a week without reading have on someone who was very prone to depression, if that were their coping and/or socialization mechanism? And then I realized that if I pushed it toward feeling bad, of course I would.

So I got up and did some stuff I'd planned to with regards to re-doing the computer room. I found out my intended piece of furniture won't work - good news is I found it out with a measuring tape, before carrying the beast (which we already own) up the stairs or anything. My DH will appreciate not having to bring it up only to find out it won't work, too, I'm sure.

Went and did grocery shopping. Wonder of wonders, they had Vanilla Coke (which I love, and which is just about unfindable at my local stores now - they still carry the diet, but not the regular). Bigger wonder of wonders, they had roasted lemon pepper chicken. Now, finding lemon chicken and eating it - that was the favorite childhood food I was going to try for last week (since the blueberry muffins were sort of by accident), but I didn't want to make it and no one had it. And here it was, so I got it!

I knew it wouldn't be like Mom's, and it wasn't. But it was very similar and good. (Mom's had/has more lemon to it - enough so that the juice, drained off, could be thinned a bit with water and drizzled over rice as a sort of citrussy-chickeny sauce, rather than thickening it for gravy. It is delicious! I should get the recipe except I hate to cook meat, seeing it raw spoils my appetite. I don't have a problem knowing I am eating an animal, it just looks gross before you cook it.)

And, this week's Unconscious Mutterings:

Long distance:: Phone
Meant to be:: Is that what life's meant to be (song line)
Here:: There
Endless:: Neil Gaiman
Resentment:: No Reading
Insipid:: Thoughts
Bunny:: Rabbit
Slogan:: Marketing
Naked:: Eek!
Sarcasm:: Grrr

No idea where "Grrr" came from. I blanked and so it may just have been my general twitchy mood. :)

AW: Week four planning

2006-01-28T17:09:00.000-08:00

I will not do week four as total reading deprivation. Yes, I know she says we should, especially if we don't want to. However, her snide tone and cutting-down comments aside, my job requires me to read and write every workday. I like my job, so getting fired from it or on report or yelled at would not be a good thing. And I just reread the chapter four injunction not to read and her tone (quite as snide as she accuses the defensive readers of being, to my eyes - and yes, I am a defensive reader) makes me want to slap her. Or just quit, rather than follow the guidance of an insufferable ***** who likes to be snide and rude and put-down-y in her tone.

Yes, some of this is resistance to the reading thing. Except...I'd resigned myself to that back here, and was planning to keep to that regime or even less time on the 'net. So I'd say most of this is reaction to how she presents it. I wonder how much resistance she CREATES to the no-reading through her manner? Probably quite a bit. I don't want to work with her AT ALL right now.

Nonetheless, I signed up and I will hopefully stop being so irate once I've got some distance from having read her words (guess I should have not-re-read that section to start the week, since I knew what it would tell me anyway!) and have survived the limited reading I'm imposing on myself this week.

In addition to the decisions I made before, I am going to try to limit my IM time to the time allotted for web-browsing also, and I'm going to try to use less than my limit for that (but the stated limit stands).

Honestly, and simply, I could give up the 'net for the week. My job would not suffer. But since it is my primary contact for all my friends, and in many cases my only contact, as well as being a primary contact for my parents, I'm not willing to give it up to that degree. Or even to have to explain to all my friends/family where I've gone.

That said, tomorrow I've got plans; I have tentative plans for next Saturday; I intend to keep busy and, except for touch-base stuff, largely away from reading. I don't intend to use the radio except for traffic reports, or the TV at all (which is no change from the everyday), or to read the news, or anything like that. Which is a huge changefrom how I normally live my life, so perhaps it will be enough to make a difference, even if Ms. Cameron has made it eminently clear that she would disapprove of me utterly.

If not - I can live with that, I guess.

AW Week Three checkin

2006-01-28T17:01:00.000-08:00

I did the morning pages each day this week, sometimes with resistance, sometimes not. I don't remember much of what went into them but I do remember that sometimes I had ideas for dealing with things that helped me through that particular day. I also remember writing out long lists of memories - not the details, just the key phrase - a couple mornings, because they were just coming to me.

I kind of did and kind of did not do an artist's date. I did not plan one out, set aside time, etc. But, I made the blueberry muffins, I did the photo walk, I wandered a thrift store and then again later I went through Rite-Aid which I normally wouldn't count except I was browsing the sale/$1/cheap items and had a blast (and got four journals for $1 each, plus a little $2.50 holder for tealight candles that I really like). So...I kind of did, but not by planning it.

Synchronicities - lots of little ones this week, and one big one: a friend I have not seen in over a decade, since not long after high school, emailed me. She turned out to be in the area and working maybe 5 minutes' drive from where I work, so Tuesday evening we got together and hung out - just talking and having a great time. (It's not all that unlikely that we would be nearby: we went to high school together in the same general metro area that we're both now living in. But that we'd be that nearby...that was cool.)

I've been writing little snatches of poetry. Getting the urge to try an altered book, although what I'd want or do with one beyond making it I'm not sure. Maybe making it would be the whole point, anyway.

Progress! Two steps forward. Or at least one and a half.

2006-01-23T21:22:00.000-08:00

No step back yet but I suspect it will come - I'll settle for progress. Over the weekend I sat down for a half hour - I think it was Sunday - and wrote poetry. Tonight I had ideas on the way home and sketched them out in my notebook. That took only a few minutes. I need to set aside a certain amount of time for writing. I need first to figure out the right amount of time (roughly, I can always refine it) and time to do it, to minimize the tendency to avoid. I think I'll need to deny myself the computer until I've done it if I can (or just set a time to get away from the computer). Not just yet, but soon, I'll sort this out. I want to savor the fact I'm doing it at all, first.

More photographs today. I managed to stop in Tualatin and get pictures of the building that may soon be gone. Only from one angle. Two more are not very interesting and the fourth cannot be easily shot unless I wanted to stand in traffic (rush-hour traffic on a busy street): no sidewalk there, and very little verge of the road. I took a pass on that and photographed it from the one side I could. No idea if those photos came out. I need to find that out. But if they did not, I do not have time to reattempt until at least Thursday. I don't know what the schedule is on the builing: in the parking lot on one of the sides I did not photograph, was various heavy equipment stuff, which had apparently been used to dig up the parking lot. No idea if that is a related project or not....

It is a beautiful old building, brick, perhaps not as well-cared-for as it could be but still lovely. I hope someone buys it. I would hate to know it was destroyed. And I really hope my photos come out. The entire area that used to be so fascinating and beautiful has become more and more cookie-cutter suburban. I see nothing wrong with suburbia personally but I am so sorry to see it edging out so much character of place as in this case.

Then I went to Haggen foods to do my grocery shopping - a store I almost never stop at because it is not directly on my normal route home - and I had a blast. They had a brand of chips I love but nowhere else I shop seems to carry any more, so I got those, as well as some other stuff I might not have. Including some wonderful pumpkin bread (which uses pumpkin-pie spices but isn't very pumpkinny - fine by me, whether that's a word or not, it's the spices I love). Total impulse buy, but I'm in heaven.

I realized as I was shopping that what I loved as a child is deceptive. On that list of foods is a sub-set I don't love any more and a sub-set I can't have, and a lot of the ones that I love and can have, I should have at least somewhat in moderation. Or I do already have them at least somewhat regularly, so that they are not out-of-the-ordinary.

Shrimp, say. I got them this holiday season, remembering treats of my childhood. And frankly, they were boring. Not bad, just boring. Hazelnuts? Thanks, I'm allergic to them. I can remember the nutty taste, I loved them. I don't love them enough to have my mouth (or worse, my throat, though I never was that unlucky) swell up. It just seems highly unwise. German chocolate cake? I still love chocolate, but that cake is too rich for me and upsets my stomach, and is overwhelming taste-wise. I'll settle for plainer brownies or ice cream, now. Asparagus? I detest it now. Lima beans? I can eat them...if I must.

There are things I loved then and still do. Peaches - I eat them a lot. Pears - I like the juice more, so I drink pear juice now. Blueberry muffins, I think everyone who read my earlier post knows I still like those. :) Some other things. But just going off what I loved as a child doesn't work by itself.

I want lemon chicken. I will probably have to make it if I want it, though, and that's more cooking than I want to do.

Tomorrow I meet up with a friend I have not seen in nearly a decade, and we hang out, catch up, and have dinner (we work within a few minutes' drive of each other, as it turns out). I am looking forward to that, and to seeing what else this week brings!

Photography

2006-01-22T19:42:00.000-08:00

I've started taking photographs again, as I said, something I've not done in almost a month in any serious way until this past week. I think the holiday photos, while fun, burned me out a bit. And of course they were mostly not very serious/artsy so they also moved me away from that to more casual snapshots. I love those too, but - sometimes it's nice to play around.

For example, the shot below. One morning when I got to work, it was just sunrise and the trees (and parking-lot lights) were silhouetted against a neighboring building that is cream and made a very striking canvas. It was gorgeous, so I took a couple shots. Then I ran the best one through Photoshop Elements. When auto-levels removed all the golden/orange hues of sunrise, I cried foul and undid it. Then I put it back and really looked at it...and decided I liked the result even better than my original intention. It lacks the warmth, yes, but I think the shadow works better and is more striking without those warm colors.

Odd moments of humor. Or moments of odd humor.

2006-01-22T18:47:00.000-08:00

Partway through this past week, I started copying the basic principles into my morning pages each morning - because it didn't seem as if I paid attention while doing my daily reading of the dratted things otherwise!

I quickly came to have a pattern. I would finish the last principle: "...we move toward our divinity." And the very next line in my MPs would read, "Mmmm, Divinity!" I was alternately deeply amused and somewhat mortified that, once the joke had popped into my head, it stuck. For days. (Although sticking is fairly appropriate for that candy, I suppose.)

Growing up, my mother made fudge and divinity each Christmas. I liked the fudge more, but I liked the divinity also. The divinity, however, was somewhat her despair. It was always just for the family, never right. Never light and fluffy enough. But I liked it and I reassured her it was great. Then once, she either made it right or (I think) actually bought some divinity.

I hated it. It wasn't "right" - it wasn't divinity - it was all fluffy and had no substance! Go figure...I don't remember mom's reaction. Perhaps it was validating, to have me react that way. Perhaps it was aggravating or amusing. Given how random and fussy I was about food then (I still am, but in different ways), perhaps it was just life.

But I sincerely hope I can one day again read the basic principles without adding "Mmm, divinity" at the end. Particularly considering I haven't had divinity of any sort in years and don't even really want to. (The fudge, now.... I'll need to "settle" for the brownies instead, though. I'll manage somehow, I'm sure....)

Synchronicity with berries in.

2006-01-21T16:45:00.000-08:00

Giggling now. Earlier in the week, I bought the blueberry muffin mix, as well as banana muffin mix and brownie mix. All are fat-free, thus I can have them without guilt as I try to keep my cholesterol under control. (Fat's fine, if it is the right kind of fat. None is fine, too, as long as I get some somewhere in my diet.) This morning I made them, because I was in the mood, and it heavily evoked my childhood. In part because off all the elements going at once, the domestic-ness of it. In part because blueberry muffins were one of my favorite childhood treats - and mom made them from a mix (though not this mix, the taste was very similar).

I hadn't read the exercises yet. Does that count as having done exercise 3? *laughing* Maybe it was somewhere in the back of my mind, but it seems impressive if so - the last time I tried to do AW, I did make it past this chapter, but that was maybe a decade ago.

The blueberry muffins are still delicious. Last week's lemon bars, after the "I made it!" glee wore off,weren't. And they're not as good for me as the muffins. So I think the muffins win, thus far.

I want poppyseed muffins sometime, too. But the only mix I can find is almond poppyseed. Can't have those: allergies. I wonder what happens if I put poppyseeds in angel food cake mix? The cake mix can be made to muffins, I know that....

The Artist's Way: Check-in for Week 2

2006-01-21T12:16:00.000-08:00

1. Morning pages.

Morning pages were...done every day this week, but nonetheless something of a saga, to my annoyance. On Tuesday morning (first work day), I once again got up at 7 and had to race into work and do the MP's at work, where I was interrupted repeatedly. The alarm goes off at 6. It gets snoozed a lot. The DH and I spoke and he tried not to snooze it quite so quickly in the future (I don't even REGISTER it before it's gone - or at least I don't remember hearing it when I do wake!). And I got out the travel alarm and set it for 6:05, right next to me. He can't reach that easily, I have to snooze it.

Wednesday I got up on time, started the MPs, and got a work call in the middle of the third page. (I'm on call for work this week.) Sigh. So I had to work on that. Then I came back and filled the rest of the third page with grumbles about bad timing. Thursday I got up at 6:20 and the power went out at 6:25 (and stayed out: a car into a pole had taken out a large feeder line and basically almost our whole city was out of power - not that we knew it then), so I had to take the morning pages into work again. This time I tried doing them in a seating area that is in our building but not in our office. It was more public than I liked but placed so people weren't walking behind me, and I had no interruptions, as I'd expected. The people walking through were distracting, but not as distracting as someone tryingto have a conversation about work with me is!

Fortunately the other days have been less eventful than that.

2. Artist Date

My official Artist's Date was going to Powell's. I won't do that as an AD again: it is something I do regularly enough that I fell into my usual habits and I don't think it worked that well. It was decent! It was enjoyable. But it didn't really seem like a proper date if that makes sense. On the other hand, I wasn't planning for this morning's activity to be an AD but it kind of turned into one. This morning I started the laundry, baked blueberry muffins (from a mix), and started the dishwasher. And when the dryer was running, the dishwasher churning, the whole kitchen smelled of fresh-baked blueberry muffins, and I closed the just-turned-off oven to a wave of hot air that washed over my upper body and face.... It was glorious. Like being a little kid again on a weekend morning or afternoon, as my mother did the household chores and I simply enjoyed the results. I felt like someone was caring for me again - and if it's partly me, all the better. (I wasn't planning this morning and did not know how it would touch me - so I think there was more than just me involved in caring for me just then, even if only to give me the impetus to do this.)

After the five-minute delay while they were in the muffin pan, I transfered the paper-cupped muffins to plates to cool (I don't have a wire rack to let the air flow around - I may have to get one, I kinda like baked goods). And then I ate two of them before theycould cool, still hot and clinging strongly to the paper, the blueberries like molten sweet, not hot enough to burn but hotter than the muffin around them. It was glorious! And it was at almost noon and I ruined my appetite for lunch too - that is very like my childhood. I will have lunch later. I am so very contented right now.

2. Other issues.

I didn't get all the exercises done. Most, but not all. I didn't return to any of the things I like but haven't done recently. To be fair, a lot of my list of "things I like" I had done recently. And some of the ones I hadn't require getting out of the house - not so much an option until Monday again. But I'd found three that fit the bill. I did none of them.

I did not pick up my poetry again. But I'm not too worried about that. It will come. The well needs to fill first - and I have done poetry more than most things, so it may be a bit more time. I have done more creative stuff, though! A couple or three weeks before AW started, I bought the materials to make a snow jar (because getting a snow-globe can be done,but it's expensive to get the globe and base - jars are cheaper). I wanted to see if I liked the process enough to try a globe. Then I never tried. Until this week! This week I made the jar. I didn't like it. The jar is okay. I don't enjoy the process. And finding appropriate figures is a pain, too. It's not just challenging, though. It's boring and messy and a nuisance. I'll buy snow globes in the future, when I want them. :)

I've also started my photography up more again. I'm a hobbyist photographer and that's exactly the sort I want to see - shooting what touches me, what I find pretty or interesting, sharing it and hoping others also find interest. I have not yet looked through the photographs I took but I did take them. Many were snatched "on the run" due to being on call. I am hoping to do a more thoughtful, slow photography session this week, walking around somewhere - probably in Tualatin where a historic building I love the look of is apparently on the list to potentially be demolished. :( I want photos of it if that happens, and I've never gotten good ones because I've never gone and walked around.

I'm trying another project involving decorative painting and some other stuff, but I don't know yet how it's going to work out. I do know that, unlike the snow jar, I have been having fun with this project. So no matter what I think of the result it has been worth something...and I think, I hope, the result may be good also.

PINK!

2006-01-17T20:41:00.000-08:00

Hah! This morning, looking at the gel pens I already had out and in use, I did not feel like using any of them for the morning pages. And so I grabbed another because it looked fun. Electric bubblegum pink is such an interesting shade on a pen. (My name, not theirs: I don't see any sign of color names on these pens.) I had a great deal of fun. Although the MP's are not meant to be shared, I share a snippet of mine - I have tried to get the color as true as I could to how it looks on the page. It's still not quite right, though, the color is brighter and pinker in reality. I figured the section babbling about the color would be the best to share - quite innocuous, after all, I'm babbling about it here anyway.

The pen didn't quite last to the end of page 3, though. The others have seemed to have more staying power so far, but we'll see. It's still a good deal if some of them only make it that far and I really like having the wide variety of colors.

I also used a red-pink glitter pen to write out the Basic Principles. I did this because if I am to read them regularly, I want to rephrase a couple (for religious preferences); doing it on the fly is distracting. I also did it for the "pretty" factor and not having to keep track of that page. But...having done it, I thought I'd mention it here for the unintended effect - I read them much more closely and deeply than I do when simply "reading" them. The act of "writing" them made me think that much more about what I was putting down, and focussed me on the wording rather than the general sentiment. If you learn more by doing or writing, or if you're curious, perhaps this would be something to try doing - simply copying them. Gel pen and color both optional, of course. They are fun, though!

Glee!

2006-01-16T14:58:00.000-08:00

Today has been really good so far. I got up and lit candles in the computer room, so that it smelled like sugar ("toffee" candles but they mostly smell sweet, not like toffee or anything) and then later like pine ("mistletoe" scent from Yankee, picked up at Christmastime). I played around online. I did the exercises. And then I walked away from the computer and books to bake lemon bars (out of a box: I am not a real enthusiastic cook unless it's made quite easy for me, and somewhat not then). While things were actually baking, I was paying bills for the week and then writing thank-you notes to people. I still need to write actual letters to a couple other folks, but the thank-you notes were done and I'm pleased with myself.

I'm also pleased with my new gel pens. I did give in and buy the ones that were on sale (it was a good price, now hopefully they all last until I can use them - 100 gel pens, what was I thinking?). But oh, I'm so glad I did even if it was impulsive and perhaps silly. They're gorgeous! At least the two I have tried so far are. Among the colors is a lovely black that when the light hits it right looks just like a normal black ballpoint, or perhaps a bit broader stroke - but at another angle it glitters like there was mica all through it. I'm thrilled with it! And a green that does similar except it's such a bright green that even when it's not glittering it looks quite vivid and unusual. I am so so happy. I love happy bright colors. I love pretty papers to write on. I'd allowed myself to fall out of the habit of correspondence, but I don't enjoy the papers/cards half as much if they're just sitting there. They need to be used! (The pens were never such a problem - I was using them for journalling even when not writing letters. But the paper..it deserves to be used.)

I also found this site, which is a list of things to do when you can't think of things to do. Some of them struck me as potentially being very good candidates for Artist's Dates, so I thought I'd share the link! And I've gone to Flickr and been looking at photographs of hot air balloons, which I love watching as they take off. (I'm not at all sure I'd want to be in one - I feel no temptation, only dread, at that idea - but to watch them from the ground? Oh, glorious!)

Now I take a break, maybe go for a walk (I'm still trying to decide), and play some games online while my lemon bars cool. And then, perhaps, I may do up the principles and so on and my affirmations in glittery colors on pretty stationary. Because it sounds neat.

Week two, thus far.

2006-01-16T12:49:00.000-08:00

Just to prove I can still exist in the present moment and not skipping ahead to week four.... Heh. Seriously, I've gotten a lot of the exercises done. This is good since the odds of my having a free moment to think this week are low; I will be on call for work starting tomorrow. I guess this week, and especially this coming weekend I'll find out how hard it is to handle this while on call!

My Artist's Date is done, because really, even in-house ADs are hard while on call (as I must be interruptible at all times - not so cool with the ADs!). I went to Powell's (a local bookstore; I went to Beaverton, not downtown, for those who know them) and browsed around. Then I came home, checked what the library had, and went back and got three books. Two on creativity, one novel by an author whose work I'd liked before. (I have a partly-used gift card that I used to get these, so it didn't cost me any of my own money except for the gas, which made it a bigger treat.) I also did a lot of photography on the drive there and back, just playing around with the camera. Most of it was while the car was moving so it may not be the best. I want to try and get out for a photography walk; if that doesn't happen today, it won't happen for at least a week.

Listing twenty unique things I enjoy doing was hard. My mind kept blanking, like, "there's supposed to be more?" Of course I thought of a couple more as soon as I hit #20. I have done many of them recently, but others I haven't, and at least one I only did recently because of pure coincidence! I really like hanging out with my friends in person, and yet most of them are now in other states. But one of them decided to do a road trip up the west coast and while she was here, on Saturday, we hung out for a couple hours. It was great! And another friend and I will get together not this coming week but the week after, hopefully (still sorting out plans). So I think the universe was already reminding me of this one, which I might not have thought of without Saturday's visit, it's been so bloody long.

I used to like to write letters, too, and only in the past month or two have I gotten back into the habit of snail-mail correspondence. To be fair, blogging/journalling is a partial substitute for that. But only a partial one.

I've picked out three that I haven't done for a while, all of which I can do at home while on call, and stated I'll do two of the three this week. I'll pick which two depending on the mood I'm in.

And on my ten tiny changes list, I was surprised to have one pop up - "Have a weekend retreat by myself, and no 'net". It was the last three words that shocked me. I'm highly attached to my internet because it's how I access everyone, and yet here I am saying I wish it would go away! But what would people think if I vanished for two whole days? What would I think?

Maybe I should try it. Maybe I should try it as part of week four, when I'm supposed to be cutting my reading anyway.... It's a slightly scary thought, but exhilerating. Of course, where I'd go I'm not sure - inherent in this thought is not wanting to be at home for it, too many things-to-be-done and distractions here. But I have some ideas, there are a couple possibilities that are within a reasonable driving distance. Hmmm.

Edited to add: Hmmm indeed. Not as easy as I thought. The place I was most strongly thinking of - which would be in many ways ideal - to get to it requires traction devices (by law) until April. Granted I have chains, but I do not want to go where I may need them. Though I may just try that one after chains won't be needed. The rates are reasonable and include food, and the location's ideal.

It's too early in the year to camp out, so meanwhile, my second choice is a little more spendy than I'd like. I may not be able to do this just yet, though I'm still hunting alternatives. (I could do a retreat weekend where I came home to sleep, provided I found somewhere close enough for driving. I'd rather stay overnight Saturday, but that would be an alternative if cost is an issue.)

Planning for Week 4.

2006-01-15T09:52:00.000-08:00

I think I've figured out a good balance between the goal of the reading ban in week four and the needs of my own life. I'm posting it here now both so I don't weasel more room later, and to get a reality-check in case I'm being too lenient on myself. Because, let's be honest, I do live in other people's writing - a lot - way too much. This week is targeted at people like me. So, here are my thoughts - what do you think, am I weaseling or striking a balance?

First, I will start the reading ban Sunday morning and continue it until I get up the following Sunday morning.

Things I may read during the ban:

Anything required for work, based on the priorities of the tasks my boss gives me. Long-term reading items (like "learn this info by summer") may not be read this week, but if it needs to be read this week, it gets read.
Letters from friends.
I may spend a half-hour a day, no more, reading email, blogs and journals, and online comics that I normally read. External links may be bookmarked for after the week but not followed (this is not the week to start exploring new blogs!). Honestly, at this level of reading, I will have to skip or fall behind on some blogs, but not many.
I may spend four hours total throughout the week playing on mushes (which involves reading, but also writing and creativity). That is, actually playing and writing my character as part of what I do, so there's a creative element.
I'll probably still be on IM, since that's more conversation than reading, but I probably won't be on it as much. Still deciding on this.
Obviously, I may read the AW exercises - but I should read chapter 4 the Saturday before and Chapter 5 the Sunday after the ban.

Things I explicitly may not read:

Books, unless somehow mandatory for work (very unlikely), or the bits of the AW that I need to read.
Magazines and newspapers, online or physical (again, unless for work, which isn't likely).
Random browsing of the web / exploration of sites / online stories / etc.

Other things I'm banning are most online games. There is very little reading in World of Warcraft, but it's still an incredible time-sink and unlike mushing there is no real creative component, in my experience. (I also won't be watching TV, but since I almost never watch TV, that's not really impressive.) I'm also going to try not to use the radio in the car except when listening for the afternoon traffic reports on my way home from work. (The radio in the car is a great way to turn my brain off, I've found if the radio is off I do a lot more thinking. So.)

I may choose to take a day or two (maybe Tuesday and Wednesday) and even skip the 'net on those days, but if I do I'm going to "gift" their half-hour to the next day just to keep up. Yipe.

Yes, that's more than she said we had to give up, but I'm keeping a bit of reading so it seems fair to me - plus it's in the same spirit. Besides, I don't think World of Warcraft-type games were even on the radar when she wrote this book! :)

Unconscious Mutterings

2006-01-14T22:37:00.000-08:00

Unconscious Mutterings Week 154.

I say ... and you think ... ?

Paralyzed:: Voice
Bossy:: Bitch
Worth:: Self
Breathing:: Catch
Uneventful:: Joy
Return:: Gifts
Splint:: Finger
Notice:: Attention
Hero:: Heroine
Vulnerable:: Safe

On holding back....

2006-01-14T20:27:00.000-08:00

I read this post at Creative Pilgrimage, where Marilyn links in turn to this post by Kara.

And oh yes, this resonates. I am not sure of all the whys and wherefores but I know that when I was growing up there were times people turned away from me or seemed to and I didn't know why - and it was deeply unnerving. There still are and it still is. Online is easier and so few of my friendships are face-to-face these days.

Does that play into my work? Maybe. I write poetry and I don't put it out there - what if someone hates it and hates me for it? What if they (as that college teacher did) LIKE it, but turn it into something abhorrent to me and tell me? What if they tell me IN FRONT OF others and those others come to think I'm bad? That was the deepest horror to me of what he did - it was in front of all my classmates in that class, and when I tried to protest it wasn't my point, I was told to shut up and let him go on basically. That I had no right to want to state my point and try to 'steer' my work that way.

I realize that once I let a work go out where others can read it, it may be read in ways I didn't intend. Even read as I intend, it might offend someone. That being the case - and DOUBLY so since I do want to write about some controversial topics - I am scared to give too much voice to my voice, to risk sending these things out into the world where someone might dislike them. Might dislike me. Might even be someone I know....

AW: Checkin

2006-01-14T09:33:00.000-08:00

I originally titled this "brief notes" but as they were not very brief when I was done, it seemed best to change it.

On the check-in...I did daily pages each day. One day I did them right before bed. They didn't really do much for me that day, I just filled them in and went to bed. I will try to avoid doing that again. (Then again, I was already trying to avoid doing it, so obviously I'm not doing so well.) The other days I did them either right after getting up, or sometime during the morning at work (about 50/50). I meant to avoid the morning-at-work after the first, but it didn't work that well (pardon the pun). So far I have not been interrupted as much the other times, but if it becomes an issue, I'll just take the journal and go to a lounge that is part of the building's common area, not part of our office, and do them there. People generally only try to track you within the office.

The Artist Date I took last Saturday felt like a flop. I think it was plagued by a "should" - Brokeback Mountain had won all these awards and I was horribly curious. But that curiosity was a "should" in disguise - I "should" like it because "everyone" does. On the plus side, I ditched the should and walked out. I'm not sure how much of that is not liking it (I didn't dislike it, so much as lack any real strong liking/interest - the scenery was gorgeous, and I liked watching the sheep in the first part?) and how much is just that I DID NOT want to see where I knew the plot was going. I simply did not want to watch it. At all. (I did not know about the ending, although I do now - that would have upset me even more - but where the plot had to go after the one guy was married was sufficient that I did NOT want to watch it go there.)

But at the same time, I went to the dollar store that same day, NOT for an AD but to look for something I wanted for a project (and didn't find), and I had a BLAST. I came home and watched portions of the Lion King II and had a blast at that. So I kind of did have a good AD as well, just not the planned one. Maybe there's a lesson in that - I'm not good at being spontaneous and maybe I need to learn to be a little better at it. Preferably without being out quite as much as walking out on even a matinee movie costs these days, of course.

I have already seen a couple people say they need to push more, they're not pushing hard enough. I wonder if that's not true for me also. I'm not seeing much progress - activity, yes, but not progress - on my part. At the same time I know that pushing myself usually leads to criticizing myself hard when I don't do well enough - don't spend the time I said I would, don't whatever. And then I am frustrated and guilty which is not a good recipe. I need to find some way to lure myself into trying more art/writing/crafts/something, though. The trick is in the luring, rather than pushing. I'll have to think on that one. Maybe I should just push myself, except that I know that at the first sign of failure I'll start a circle that just makes it harder to do, and really, I'm not perfect, so sooner or later that would happen. Probably not useful. :)

I read the whole chapter through. I did blurts and affirmations, but they didn't really turn up much - the tricks she uses to draw the blurts out just didn't get them for me. I had more luck finding negative spots by just nattering on generally and sometimes they'd wander out. I did part or all of each exercize except the walk, but I'll be honest, I did most of them briefly and sketchily. I didn't bother cartooning my monster but I did write it up (well, you saw!), and I didn't do a walk unless you count going through the mall before I even read the exercise, which seems to be stretching it. (I leave for work when it's dark and get back when it's dark, this time of year. It's been raining all week. I love the rain, but after a 20-minute walk in it I'd be very thoroughly soaked - not real good in the middle of the workday, plus the area around work is quite traffic-busy.)

And now on to chapter two. And I may need gel pens soon. I haven't used mine this frequently in a while and I'm running them out of ink and finding some dry ones (ack!). I have a good set of six right now and some more after, but doing morning pages will run them out of ink in a week or two at the most. I'll get more when I'm down to 2-3 working ones, I think. I can use normal pens if I have to - I have plenty of those - I just like glittery/metallic things that are brightly colored!

Image: Dusk.

2006-01-12T21:42:00.000-08:00

Dusk. The sky is filled with clouds, slate-blue, rolling into darkened grey shadows at the far horizon. The trees are a mix of withdrawn evergreens, fading into darkness already, and the barren grasping branches of the deciduous trees, reaching for the sky and the rain even in the sleep of winter. Rain. Water. Fat droplets tumbling down and splashing against your face, cheeks, lips. The wind whipping up, pulling hair back and wild, flying tangles as if the whole world will carry you away--