counterpoised

Sandcastles

2012-01-30T14:23:00.001-08:00

A few months ago I meant to post about sandcastles, but didn't.

Here it is.

When we were kids each year we'd take a trip to the shore, no small task for a family with three or four small children to venture out of the depths of Southwest PA.

After a few days on the beach, my dad would tell us that it was time to make the sandcastle. My dad's a funny guy. He is -- in and out -- a bit of a protocol junkie. He ran the house on a pretty tight schedule, tight discipline, tight restrictions, etc. etc. It's actually something he's devoted much of his career to exploring. He actually writes protocol manuals for hospitals, which other people follow.

The beach wasn't much of an exception. His vacation days had as much structure as his everyday life. (And I am not saying this from a critical or judgmental standpoint -- I just want to create some context for those of you who do not know my father.) It's just how he functions, and somehow you learn to just go along with it (or, in my case, just agree to disagree).

The sandcastles were similar in a way. We all knew it was coming, expected it. (I was usually more willing than my brothers because there was some artistic aspect which I found more pleasing than diving in the potentially lobster-infested waters). Yet -- when we all assembled to work on it together, my dad kind of softened as he became more absorbed in the process of building the castle. He got quiet and pensive and would offer suggestions here or there, but would never impose any overarching architectural concept on the project. He kind of let us do our thing, and in that way kept our attention for as long as it was going to last.

I was always very focused. I loved creating turrets with spiral staircases winding up the structure. The staircases were the best part, chiseling elegant little stairs so that very small people could ascend to the tallest room of the tallest tower. I would often get very frustrated when part of it would collapse, or when one stair was disproportionate to the others. Or when a brother dumped wet sand on something, or stuck what he thought was a rather elegant seaweed-and-detritus topper to the turret.

And my dad would say, "Just remember, there's no mistakes in sandcastles."

This helped relieve me a bit, despite the fact that I kept attempting to perfect those staircases. I knew at the end of the day, the tide would have its way, and the whole endeavor would be smoothed over, at least until next year. I know my dad probably couldn't have predicted it, but this idea has really seeped into my worldview. In the past four years or so, every job, relationship, living situation -- has unfolded in such unexpected ways. I've set out to construct my staircase, and, well, haven't made it past the first story. I'm ok with that, and I have to trust in this process, forgive myself of my intended outcomes. The human imagination is hardly infinite. Sometimes mistakes and snares can cast wide potential.

I look at my dad now. He's really struggling because for the first time of his life, the structure he has built for himself is failing. I see him, and he is really grasping for what to do. I am very proud of what he has accomplished, but I also see this moment for him as a big opportunity. And I just want to tell him that maybe there's another way, that maybe you can't always stop tides or little brothers from getting in your way, and maybe there's a better castle lying in a million pieces on the shoreline, just waiting to be built, destroyed, changed, rebuilt. He has to see that it all was not in vain...

I imagine it must be hard, spending your entire life building one castle, and then realizing that there is nothing you can do but let go. I hope at some point he can take to heart what he taught me, and realize that it was a lesson that extends far beyond an isolated few hours of my childhood and into our lives.

Thoughts on Fairies.

2012-01-26T09:55:00.001-08:00

No, this is not a post about homosexuals.

My brother said to me the other day, "You know -- you really can only have one emotion at a time." We were talking about how I'd been feeling sad a lot, but how certain small things made me happy in a big way all the time. He said, "It's like that line in Peter Pan -- that Fairies are really little, but they have big feelings, and so they can only have one emotion at a time. You're like a fairy! Biiig big emotions ... one at a time." I took this as a huge compliment. Not only do I love Fairies, I love the idea of really committing to something 100% and then moving on to the next big something. It is both a strength and a weakness of mine.

When I was little I really believed in Fairies. The nature-y kind. I once discovered a little patch of daffodils in a neighbor's abandoned lot. I cleared a little bit of earth for them to grow and would lie on my belly and talk to them for some time. I was delighted to see them come back year after year. I knew there was something magic going on, and was content to carry on with the magic in my own little spot, feeling very much like I was complicit in their inexplicable being. I knew that "real" Fairies didn't exist, the ones with wings and wands that Disney tried to sell. But I also knew that if Fairies did exist, they probably wouldn't show themselves to me right out. Maybe they were just little balls of light. I could be patient. I wanted them to know that I was there, and cool with whatever they were up to. You know, just in case.

Likewise I remember sitting in a warm spot on the living room floor, gazing at the dust as it caught the light on a Sunday morning. Thinking to myself that there was something wonderful going on. Wondering if the specks of dust had thoughts and feelings. Creating stories for them in my head. Exhaling and watching them go crazy. (I certainly did know how to entertain myself...). These particles were not fairies but I was certain that they had some kind of magic, and perhaps Fairies would be close by ...

Starting from a very young age I've dreamt about flying. Just ... feeling a slight updraft and lifting my foot, floating off the ground. One of my first words was "higher!" [said on a swing], my very earliest memory was being carried -- feeling like I was floating above the ground without explanation. So much of me was content to bask in this feeling of floating, of sort of drifting above people, observing them and not really engaging.

I know that a few years ago I posted on this blog about a little girl that I met while couchsurfing in Finland. Ronja, named after the girl pirate from Finnish storybooks. Their house was full of magic, and I was so inspired by their lives and all that I saw. Tented hallways, bead curtains. The best and most well-trained dog I'd ever met. Plants with butterflies in them and crystals that cast rainbows everywhere on the floor and walls. I took mental notes for my own magic little place.

When I finally did get to move into my own house, I moved in with a friend. Prior to moving in, she was already obsessing about household rules and how it just had to be for her to tolerate living in any situation. She was going on about how we had to have rotating cleaning schedules or paper towels or something, an I thought in absolute seriousness about my cohabitation prerequisites and blurted out, "Yeah! And we have to have crystals in the windows to invite the Fairies in!" At which point she was like -- "Ok?"

But it's true. Having rainbows dance on the floor is an invitation for daily magic which you have to make at least a small effort to bring into your life. At my work there are dried flowers at the desk, and of course Mr. Stink, my little stinkbug friend. In my room, stars and garlands hang from the ceiling. Little attempts at my own Fairy bower...

So ... these are my thoughts. My wish in life is to live more like a Fairy. A little ball of light that comes when it is invited or feels safe, or simply when it wants to cause some trouble, makes the world a little more delightful and takes on more than it can handle most of the time. Biig big emotions, one at a time.

Give and Take

2012-01-25T10:54:00.000-08:00

I just got a note in the mail from a friend. Closing line: "You have a lot to give." A tragically loaded statement as far as I'm concerned.

A couple years ago I broke up with my boyfriend of 3.5 years. ("Lizzy, WE KNOW") Many of you were there, and I do believe that there is a series of really intense posts around that time. I was devastated, heartbroken.

Heartbreak, yes, in spite of the fact that I knew it was coming to an end. In retrospect, about six months into the relationship I knew -- in my heart of hearts -- that something wasn't quite right. But for one reason or other I really clung to the relationship. In part, I guess it was because it was the only love I had ever known, and it is to this day the only relationship I'd ever had. A big part of me was totally convinced that our love would trump all -- that all of the bad parts of our relationship were circumstantial. This of course may have been a self-preservation tactic on my part. I was insecure, in part convinced that if this didn't work out, probably nothing would.

I'm getting away from my point. I guess in the decline of our relationship I really made a hell of an effort to cling to it. I moved closer to him (at least in part) to see where the relationship would go. As he was drifting away from me in what ended up being an incredibly painful transition year, I kept coming to him (literally making myself close to him). I remember one night he was very busy with school work, and I was tired because I'd spent an entire day at the office. I went to bed early, and he came in and started fussing over some papers, and I complained because he woke me up. He said, "Why are you even here." I wrote it off as him being stressed and fell back asleep. I kept coming to him, even though I felt increasingly unwelcome in his space. I'm sure he'd long since decided that it was over, but was going through a lot of what I was going through. Eventually I broke my foot and for at least two or three weeks the crutches, my lack of a car and characteristically shitty weather prevented me from going anywhere. He didn't come to visit or see how I was, until I asked him to. He came once and then not again.

The relationship kept fumbling painfully forward for another seven months after these things even happened. And I kept trying to do more and give more, at least give what I could. I was miserable at work, had no studio and wasn't making much art outside of commissions and invites. Which meant I was triple miserable. And my major emotional support structure (boyfriend) was not doing much to help things.

What I'm getting at is this: my impulse is always to give more. To forgive before I understand, and try to see the good in things. For a long time growing up I was pretty stingy. I had siblings, and knew when the good fruit snacks came, they would be snatched up by mangy brothers and I had to get mine first and stash them away.

My parents were also kind of funny about giving. They say that in most family structures one parent is the "security" parent and the other one is the "nurture" parent -- and usually these fall along gender lines. My parents love me and my siblings very much, but when we were kids they were kind of obsessed with the idea of creating a security for their family, which meant in part that there wasn't much leeway in the structure that they created for themselves and for us. I really think that (although there is always grey area here) that my folks "security" parent genes were dominant over the "nurture" genes. Everything was "fair" and "even," and anything that was deemed superfluous (e.g. not fulfilling basic needs and education) was brushed aside. In other words, unless it was "earned" nothing was really given. (I am not only talking about objects here, although that was a big part of it.)

In this sense, whenever I was given anything, I felt guilty about it, and in some way indebted because I had not earned it. And that which I was given and had earned, I felt justified about. Looking back it feels pretty unhealthy way of looking at the world.

It wasn't until later that I started to learn about giving, in little bits. About being in relationships based on trust and generosity and understanding that some days are worse than others, and so you give more or you take more depending on the circumstances. I learned this from friends, from my second family. People who, time and time again, just kept giving and for no reason. It became too burdensome to feel guilty about it, and the only thing left to do was to give. And I'm not just talking about giving things. Because that's a really minute notion of what it means to give. But time, and energy and love.

I admit that when I fell in love for the first time I may have gone off the deep end, but I do not regret anything. And it was reciprocal -- we both gave a lot into that relationship, for better or for worse. But I think at a certain point I did kind of lose myself in the relationship, which is why I think that the break up really threw me for a loop. In the six months of severe insomnia that followed, I woke up every night between 3 and 4 am, unable to get back to sleep. In my sleepless internet browsing, I researched causes of insomnia. In Traditional Chinese Medicine, each hour of the day is part of a Qi cycle. Each stage of the cycle has a body part with which it is associated. If there is an imbalance in that part of the body, problems emerge. Between 3 and 5 am is the stage of the "lung," which, not surprisingly, is associated with the act of giving and taking, and the emotion of "grief and sadness." I thought that it was telling that almost every night, I was brought back into consciousness during the hour of the lung. That there was an imbalance; perhaps too much giving -- to little taking? I was also working three different jobs, none of which made me happy.

The insomnia didn't get better. Not with 10 mg of Ambien every night. Not with melatonin and massage and yoga and exercise and reading and breathing exercises. The house was never so clean. I was never so well-read. But in the daytime, I was like a zombie, always awake, but always only partly functional.

Things were kind of reaching a breaking point for me. I applied for a credit card. One morning in my room I went onto a travel website, and used my new credit card to purchase a ticket to Paris for two weeks and four days. I told my boss at one job that I needed to quit because I had to go to Paris. I told my boss at my other job that I needed to go to Paris, and understood that it might mean I was fired.

Then I went to Paris, and for two weeks, I didn't have a cell phone, alarm clock, or the internet. I went around, read books, ate chocolate, drank wine, talked to strangers, went thrift shopping. If I wanted to eat a chocolate croissant for breakfast, lunch and dinner, I did. If I wanted to eat a kinder bueno bar at 11 pm at a bar with a pint of beer, I did. I took. I took and took and took. People were really willing to give. I relied on the kindness of strangers, and my shiny new credit card, and neither did me wrong.

My insomnia persisted throughout the trip. It was great, in a way, because I was always sort of at the ready. Early morning, late night. I was my own perfect travel companion.

And when I came home, I started sleeping again. For a year plus I had given all of myself into a dead-end relationship and dead-end jobs. And then I packed all of my selfish me time into two awesome weeks in Paris. Poof. My Qi was kind of back in balance, and didn't get off-kilter again until my roommate situation got screwy (approx. 5 months).

As I've grown older and gained in experience, I am finding that generosity is a major component in any relationship for me. It has, in a sense, been a breaking point in many of my relationships, and often becomes a barrier between sort of regular social acquaintances and friends.

I find that it is still often easier for me to give than to receive, but I have made a big effort to be comfortable in my Need. I am no rock, no island. There have been times where I have really needed help, and I'm glad that I am able to ask for it. That I feel like I can.

Recently, I hosted a couple guys from Philadelphia who I only peripherally knew. There was no question in my mind that they would stay with me and I would feed them, etc. Not only because so many friends and complete strangers have done the same for me so many times in my life. But because they were there and they needed a place to stay and I liked them. One of them came up to me after the first of two night they stayed with me and gave me this whole monologue about how he was really messed up because of his overbearing father and too-giving mother, and how he is comfortable in his need, in particular around generous, solicitous women. I thought this was generally odd, and was in part annoyed because it made me think twice about what I was doing, and whether I was being stupid. I wrote it off. I felt bad that he had this big hangup and figured that if that was a role that felt comfortable for him, and for me, then why think much about it anyway?

Ugh in any case. This note that I just got, "You have a lot to give." This whole time I'm just trying to qualify why it irks me so supremely. In part it's because of what it isn't saying. It is acknowledging potential to be rather than being. And also this idea of one-sidedness. I don't want to over think every contribution I make to the lives of others ... and I don't want to curtail it either. I'm neither Mother Theresa nor Paris Hilton ... Most likely it was written because the writer didn't know what else to say, which makes me wonder why anything was written on the note in the first place.

This is way too long, and I know I'm being difficult, and this probably wasn't the ending you'd hoped for after such a wildly peripatetic entry. But there's plenty of food for thought here, and THIS is why I write blog entries and not essays or books or whatever and nooooow I'm gonna stop. Oof.

A nothing post

2012-01-20T09:50:00.000-08:00

I'm getting new eyeglasses today! They are big, tortoise-shell, and SOOO eighties. I am making a hard turn to the eighties much to the chagrin of people close to me who actually lived through the eighties (and not as a baby, like I did). Blouses with shoulder pads, high-wasted jeans. Big hair. Jumpsuits. Anyway I like the glasses because they're a little softer, a little more fem than my current R.Crumb/Malcolm-X horn-rims.

That's actually not what I want to write about.

It's Friday night, and instead of hiding like I want to, I'm going to the house party of a dear friend. "Forgive me Father, it has been 20 days since my last social engagement." For a 25-year-old, that's like forty years. I figure that rather than condemning myself to social purgatory, a minor effort once a month wouldn't hurt. And so to hype myself up I'm listening to this awesome song and wondering whose outfit and dancing style I wish to emanate.

Confessions of small cruelties

2012-01-17T08:40:00.000-08:00

Yesterday at my gym (yes I have a gym), I saw a woman who is a friend of a friend. We'd gone out a couple times. I'd all but forgotten that she'd existed. She was in the locker room and we both looked at each other with vague recognition but neither of us said hi.

I'd met her about a year ago. She was in my friend's apartment, they'd just gone to a party together, and were both already a bit tipsy. She was sitting, slunk back on the futon in my friend's cozy living room, her winter coat and hat and gloves were all on. She didn't get up when I came in. Already a small person, bundled up and ready to go, and sitting in such a deflated but expectant manner, she had the look of a petulant child. I couldn't decide how old she was but then she took off her gloves to accept a glass of wine and I saw that her hands revealed their bones and veins, their youthful fat sucked away. I decided that she must be in her late 30's at least. Within seconds of her first sip of Pinot Noir, she revealed an attitude of a petulant child, "I want to go out. I want to go dancing. I have one night out without my kids and my husband and I want to go out." A few more sips of wine and she'd already revealed to me some incredibly intimate details of her personal life -- petulant no longer quite cutting it as a descriptive -- including that she'd been repeatedly unfaithful to her husband, that she disliked her children, etc. etc. As a side note, I wonder why this happens to me relatively often, or whether it's just a common thing that I have never gotten used to. People tend to reveal certain stunning details of their lives immediately after we've met, as if they wish to either dazzle or shock me with their eccentricities. Little do they know that I could honestly care less, and would much prefer to engage in a conversation where stories are starting points and not giant, random paintballs of information pelted at my head. And so very often I'll try my best to be utterly non-reactionary, an attempt to diffuse the situation and get down to it.

In this situation there was really no hope for that. She would have her way, we would know her discontent, we would know how daring she was.

More Pinot Noir for everyone. My friend, I'd already concluded by then, was an alcoholic, or a burgeoning one. I decided that I needed the wine at that moment more than I needed any sort of discretion on his behalf.

So, onward. She'd gone to Mexico for a yoga retreat, to get her certification. Instead she dropped out after about two days and had had, "the most amazing fuck" with a man on a Mexico beach. He had long hair. He was either French or Mexican, I forget. I kept imagining Fabio even though I don't find him attractive and he doesn't look Mexican or French in the least. This little woman with a Czech accent fucking Fabio on a Mexican shore, as her brand new yoga pants, strewn carelessly into the sand several meters away, were massaged into submission by the tide. "It couldn't," she gasped, as she ran her fingers through French-Mexican Fabio's hair, "be butter..."

She laughed as she mentioned how she tried to explain to her rich doctor husband why she hadn't received her certification. "But I want to go out, I want to dance!" We'd finished the bottle of wine.

We got into her car. She put one of the two baby seats into the trunk, so that I could sit in the back seat. At this point, I'd finished feeling sad for her, I was mostly just fascinated. As I got in, I thought to myself that the safest seat in the car in case of an accident is the seat directly behind the driver. I'm stupid, shouldn't have gotten in.

We went to one bar with "dancing." I have to say, dancing in Pittsburgh in January is never going to be the Saturday Night Fever of one's dreams. I didn't have anything better to do, and at this point, I was already curious to observe her behavior. We went and stood while others danced, and then meandered to a different section of the club where there was some world music playing. There was a coalition of black foreigners there -- some were from Senegal, others from Côte D'Ivoire. We all danced, and I had some fun after all. In that environment, she looked so small, sad, opportunistic. She stepped in several times when I was dancing with my friend, and otherwise leaned against the wall, her arms crossed, downing a hard drink.

A man asked for my number and I told him no. We all finally decided it was time to go, got back into her car. I stayed at my friend's house overnight, but not because I wanted to. I did it to be cruel. I am cruel sometimes, and I wish it weren't an impulse of mine. I wanted to show to her that I was actually free to do whatever I wanted, whereas she had to reinstall her baby seat in the back. And live with herself ...

A few months later my friend and I went out dancing again, just us. She was there, with an older man. I asked whether that was her husband, and he said, "No, they're having an affair."

I wondered to myself how people in Pittsburgh could ever have affairs, seeing as it's impossible to walk outside without seeing forty eight thousand people you already know. As I watched them dance, I felt another cruelty brewing inside me. They were at least 15 years older than anybody else there. Who did they think they were? Granted if I didn't know the circumstances of their relationships, I might have been more forgiving, thinking, "Wow they look like they're having fun," or something nice like that.

When I go out dancing, I rarely dance with anybody else, unless I'm with my brother or a few choice girlfriends. I like to just dance, and that way it becomes about bodies and music and moving rather than crude courtship and sex.

Well. I instantly perceived their self-consciousness, and did nothing to abate their apparent discomfort. They were glued to each other at the crotch-butt, until eventually they made gestures to dance with me or my friend which I blithely denied, feigning a carefree attitude despite my sobriety and complete consciousness of their malaise. Instead, I wished its increase, wished every clumsiness and out-of-place-and-out-of-time-ness upon them. And eventually they stopped dancing. Later the man offered, "I really like how you dance, it was great just to be able to watch you." Half-disgusted, I offered in my best attempt at off-handedness, "Do you not go dancing often?"

I wish I could be somebody who did not judge. I keep listening to this song by the Roches (yeah, yeah, I know: I can't stop about the Roches -- they're great!). It's called "Everyone is Good." I was listening to it and listening to it on repeat for a while when I really needed a dose of goodness. I do honestly believe that everybody is good. But that doesn't mean that I think that everything that everyone does is ok. I try and try not to judge. I've met people who are insightful and sweet and not judgmental. And in comparison I feel like a caveman to their enlightened elvishness. I know there is great complexity to people, and that's what makes them people and that's what makes the world wonderful and frightening and interesting. But I judge anyway. And I try not to hack at my own crude sense of justice ... because I know that's wrong too. If everybody did that ... then things would be crazy fucked-up. And I mean ... I'm still young. Mother Theresa wasn't born a Mother. I know, excuses, excuses.

But sometimes I allow myself some small (intentional) cruelties, and they don't make me proud at all, but. Nobody's perfect.

So yeah, I saw her and I didn't say hi, and I figured that was a small decency to allow for the previous small cruelties. When I walked out of the dressing room, her lover was waiting for her. And I'm sure neither of them noticed any part of the internal drama which I just recounted, so ... who is actually the victim of cruelty here? Sigh. And so I blog.

Hiding

2012-01-15T10:55:00.003-08:00

I'm at this point where I really don't want to engage with people very much. It happens every now and again, and the last time I really remember it happening was when I was living in New York. I would leave my cellphone at home, not check my email, go on long walks and bike rides, not tell anybody. In a smaller city it's more difficult to remain anonymous. When I was really struggling to get over my heartbreak a few years ago, it required about four trips to New York, a trip to Amsterdam, and one completely solitary trip to France to recover. The trials of the last year or so were more varied in both nature and duration. It would of course follow that the recovery process has been varied and more nebulous. I'm still trying to wrap my mind around it. There's less of the somebody-heal-this-broken-bone feeling that I had with the breakup, more, like, what-the-fuck-was-that.

But again, I need to hide a little. There are about a handful of people whose presence I welcome. I'd been feeling a little bit guilty about this, but I got over it. I don't care to offer up excuses for my behavior, and while I appreciate that people enjoy being around me, I often feel very burdened by social interactions where people expect me to kind of carry them. When I'm ready to dance I will dance anybody into the ground, but I just have to be in the right place. What most of them don't know is if I have no desire or motivation to be part of a situation, I lack many of the social reverences that compel others to continue to engage with it on any level. I do have the social wherewithal to take a time out when that side of me is present. A few weeks ago at a party at my own house, I extricated myself for an hour and a half without explanation. I just went to my room, shut the door, and sat in the dark for a bit. When I was ready to come back down, my friends were still alive and seemed a bit surprised but then things kept rolling merrily along.

I needed to get back down to basics, hard and fast. Last year was tough, man. And the year before. Everything I thought I'd wanted, really, thrown myself towards -- from college to boyfriend to jobs to galleries -- haven't worked out. It's ok. I learned a lot. LOTS of really great "learning experiences." I'm almost afraid to say it, but I just want something to pull through for me. At this point, I'm wary, nearly cynical, but really trying my best to fight that impulse. Cynicism, people tend to forget, is so easy in a world like ours.

In the process of learning so many "valuable life lessons," I remember that a handful of people did pull through for me in a big way.

So. I don't know. I am with the people who really matter to me, and just turning down the volume everywhere else. And I think now that my grad school applications are all-but-finished, I'm gearing up to throw myself at the next great beyond. So I am taking the liberty of giving myself a time out. It's not that I don't love the others, or care about them, I just need a volume decrease.

New

2012-01-02T11:39:00.000-08:00

Sorry about the last post. Something about new year's eve and my birthday always kind of gets me down.

I've just -- been feeling removed lately. We had a small get together at the house on New Year's day and I needed to hide for a bit. When I was really sick I longed for social interaction, but then when somebody close to me got very sick, I shunned it almost completely. A few strangers who came into town helped me feel like I could be somebody else, a happier, lighter version of my 2011 self.

Social situations at times make me feel much more lonely and isolated than when I am completely alone. Funny how that is.

"So I only read --"

2011-12-31T12:31:00.000-08:00

What a crazy mix of emotions at the close of this crazy year.

Trying to ride the wave, I am overwhelmed.

Overwhelmed with gratitude that -- in spite of everything, much has been spared; it could always be "worse." Whatever that means. It is a wary sort of thanks, a cautious one. I see in so many ways that there is good, that there is light, that there is so much light around me. The gratitude is also selfish, greedy. Justified. Perhaps dangerous in this sense, I don't know.

There is a burning lust for change. For perhaps to be is.

And there is an acute awareness -- a pain -- that I cannot suck the poison from another's arm, although I may see it plainly. I want it to be gone, better. Everything can always be better.

Perhaps more than ever I feel counterpoised to my self. A passive onlooker who would prefer to go unnoticed, letting it all just unfold clumsily away. I feel very small, estranged. And husk-like. And calm.

The next time I write it will be a new year. Again, whatever that means.

I'll leave you with someone else's words, as even the words that I am writing now do not feel as though they belong to me.

Company

2011-12-12T14:12:00.000-08:00

I feel like I walk in the company of other artists, some dead, some alive. I want to tell you some stories about the company I keep.

I recently had this conversation with a friend -- that I really feel like my "artistic parents," are Marina Abramovic and Richard Serra. This is not because I have chosen them, but, more like actual parents, my artistic parents are the ones I just somehow ended up with. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, and I feel compelled to react to them, live up to them, rebel against them, piss them off, let them drive me totally up the wall and, incomprehensibly, love them anyway.

My chosen artistic parents would be R. Crumb and Patti Smith. Hands down. But they're like the big kids at school, who are kind to me even though I'm considerably younger than much-much-much too shy to even make eye contact. They'll smile and do nice things for me. They'll help build my confidence. They'll look out for me in the halls. They'll show me a really cool new cassette tape or album, or book, and whatever it is, I'll have it memorized in a few hours. I'll unconditionally adore them. And even if we lose touch, I'll feel the loss of them very acutely, should it happen.

Then there's Bouguereau. My erudite uncle who died of old age when I was a high school sophomore. He taught me about the value of craft, finesse and beauty. Taught me that I wanted very badly to make beautiful things, but that the finesse part would have to come over time. Mary Engelbreit. My goofy, overweight aunt, who stuffed me silly with thumbprint cookies as a child, and taught me that you could be sweet and witty, and that Prismacolor pencils and markers were so absolutely the shit.

Modigliani: my first love. Clumsy, irrational, obsessive, my first real physical experience--tentative, overwhelming. Moments of tenderness that can't be repeated. Slight, unintentional manipulation. And although I've moved on, I'll always love him.

Kiki Smith, the cool girl in my freshman class in college that I half-hated, half-admired. Wishing I could be flaky and carefree and that I could let my hair grow long, and goof off and get all of the boys, but then remembering who my parents were ... and that part of me actually understood the value of a little structure.

Kevin Huizenga, whopping college crush. Probably a T.A. in a philosophy course, tragically engaged. Felix Gonzalez-Torres, indelibly cool college professor who could walk that high-line between paralyzing trendiness and limpid sincerity. I might house sit for him. Water his plants, talk to them, look through his sock drawers, sip his Yerba Mate. He'd always have candy, so I'd know he was a good egg.

Jean Toomer, the guy I met on a bus, with whom I had the most amazing conversation, and skipped my stop so I could hear him out. Marilynne Robinson, a neighbor who would occasionally accept me for tea on a Sunday afternoon. The lights would be off and we'd look out at her yard, and not say a word. I'd stir, and she'd reach for my hand.

Oh ... there are just so many ... how can I even begin to end? I don't have to. This is my history, my company. I walk with them, and they vibrate and flow around me, through me.

Actually

2011-12-09T09:07:00.000-08:00

I'm an "actually" person.

I work my way into the lives of others, sometimes briefly, sometimes not. And (and this is not meant to be self-effacing or anything, but I think it's true) and I do a lot for the others.

It's like -- at least this is how I've been imagining it lately -- the world is like this antique shop or a really old house with all of this crap in it, piled up to the ceiling. There's furniture, and lamps, and some things are bigger than others. And then there are people kind of vibrating in between these things, but they don't see that there are things around them -- preventing them from moving freely, or ready to topple over onto their heads. And I see! I see, oh, if I moved that vase, or that lamp, or that divan, or that chair, then it would be better, it would be easier for you. So then I do, and I'll move it, and then the people will just keep on vibrating and moving around, and they might move a little more easily and a little more freely, and this makes me happy.

I know that there are others like me. I am friends with some people like this. People who, when you're with them, it just feels natural, easy. It's because they put themselves in front of the lamp that's about to topple onto your head, while you're moving the ottoman that they're about to trip over.

And then there are the others, who go on vibrating and moving around, because that's what they know best to do. And, that's all good! I wish we could all be that way, just, blithely bopping around, free from worry that there are these things all around us that may slow us down. It's groovy.

I know that they can't always see all that I do. But, it's always kind of funny. I don't think of what I'm doing as being totally invisible.

So here's the thing. It's always like this: I'm moving and lifting, and delicately preventing things from tipping and toppling. And then I have to go away, or move on, or be absent for a little while. And -- somehow -- it's in my absence that people realize. They say, "You were actually really nice to me when I was living in Pittsburgh," or "You actually helped us a lot this Spring." Sometimes it's also personality stuff. "You're actually pretty funny!" and "I actually really enjoyed our morning conversations." Professors in college, "You don't say much, but when you do, it's actually well-considered and very much to the point." Then there's all of this stuff about my physical appearance: "You're actually quite pretty!" and even more shockingly "You're actually really tall!" How can my six feet go unremarked?

Am I just so enmeshed with the background, so still that their vibrating selves can't see me until I'm gone? It's just funny. I am pretty aware of my presence, and I feel like for those who know me, my presence, or non-presence is pretty palpable. But it seems like for the gross majority of people, they brush me off, and make some automatic assumptions about me, which then, only when I am absent, are disproved. Actually embodies this notion that there was a sort of revelation involved -- that they had not thought something to be the case, where actually it was. I am thinking of this because I am tired of being an actually girl. I want people to look at me and know that I am (not actually) am a great person. And not have to wait until I'm gone to call me up and inform me that they actually hadn't even noticed me before. Informing me seems like a form of rude altruism, as though they wondered if I actually knew who I was, or what I was doing in the first place. Gee, thanks. I had no idea that I was smart, tall, and kind to others. I was just kind of mindlessly bopping around, when there you were to stage this grand awakening.

For the record: I am very aware, and waiting for the rest of the world to wake up. And I'm not actually, I am.

I can wait.

2011-12-09T09:04:00.000-08:00

I am patient.

But wouldn't it be nice if I didn't have to? I understand that it's just how things are right now. So rather than thinking of how it could be were circumstances different, I'll just wait.

I'm happy to, just, see where the wind takes me. See how things unfold.

And it's exciting being here, even though there is always a possibility. A sky-blue cat perched on my shoulder.

My Grandfather, the Prophet: An Introduction

2011-12-05T14:29:00.000-08:00

This is the second attempt at an entry about my father's father. I decided after a year of delaying and stewing on the subject that it didn't have to be just one post. Thus the beauty of having a nice old-fashioned blog like I do. So. This will be an introduction.

Last August I took a trip to Bangor, Maine to do something that nobody in my family had done before: visit my father's father. I called a couple weeks in advance, having not spoken in years, and asked whether it would be alright. I was interested in learning more about his faith, I told him, which was true.

The drive up was pretty epic. I listened to a Roches compilation CD about forty times in a row, listened to about a million Radio Lab episodes. It was the longest drive I'd ever taken anywhere, alone or with somebody. In brief: I had a lot of time to think.

About thirty years before, my grandfather had made the same drive (shorter, actually; he didn't have to come from Southwest Pennsylvania!). But he was running. Running from a family and a life that he had built, that he had destroyed. Father to seven children and one foster child in suburban New Jersey, he was also a successful OB/GYN with a private practice, ready to retire at forty-five years old. Although stories differ on timing, one thing led to another and he started sleeping with a local woman, who he described to me as a "grown-up child" when they'd met.

According to him, it was through her that he found faith. Started witnessing miracles. Again, timing differs depending on who I talk to, but the miracles started appearing around the same time that he was being dragged through some serious legal mud by my grandmother. The collapse of their marriage was then and would remain the major event of her life, and she would not be had. They took their divorce trial to the supreme court of New Jersey, ultimately changing state custody laws (I checked and it's still on the state's Divorce Law website). This, of course, cost them what would today be millions of dollars in legal expenses, and it nearly ruined them both. It certainly prevented them from becoming very rich.

He ultimately moved when his house, one night, burned to the ground. According to him, he called upon God for a sign. He was depressed, financially wounded. His family had largely turned away from him. So he prayed. That night, an electric surge ran through the house--over 200,000 volts of electricity--and every light bulb in every socket burst, and every electrical outlet in the house started streaming sparks. He and his new wife Diane fled from the house, and across a dewy lawn strewn with live electrical wires that had fallen.

He had witnessed the miracle of his life, and took it as a sign. Diane and he had been discussing the possibility of their moving to their summer home on a lake in Maine. In no time, they were headed up there with Diane's two kids, and they never came back.

The years that followed were full of pain and confusion for the whole family. He and Diane squandered his remaining money, and according to him, his accountant made away with the rest in a scheme of some sort. Some of my father's brothers were very young, as young as five years old, and it was confusing for them. My grandmother established her own practice and started working again. He refused to attend my father and mother's wedding on account of the fact that they failed to invite Diane's children (a major event in my parent's relationship with him). The rest of the details aren't particularly clear -- I'm assuming it's because everybody is telling self-truths. Eventually he started treating, they became missionaries and traveled the world preaching to poor people in faraway places.

And then, God again spoke to him. And -- he learned that he had the potential to heal with his hands, with his mind. There is a passage in the Bible about this -- about how it is possible. And he became a Prophet of God.

This, it seems, is his truth, and I'm really ok with that. As I drove up, I was not thinking, like I had about my other grandfather -- the alcoholic, philandering, truck-company owner -- that I had to be prepared to not like him. A big part of me felt some sort of affinity to his calling. I feel like my creative calling is somewhat supernatural. I'm not sure where it comes from, but it's like -- this energy that I can access if I give it the space to just flow through me. I assumed that he, like me, used his reputedly awesome intellectual capacity (after all, he was a doctor, had attended Georgetown, had made numerous contributions to his field prior to his shift) to harbor something unexplainable. That I could relate to -- actually wanted to relate to. And also, I have a propensity to be skeptical of my parents and I was rightly convinced that what they had to say about him was sullied by their hurt. And for that I could not blame them. He missed most of the lives of all of his children, the births and subsequent nascent existences of over twenty-five grand children. But then, he had done nothing to me, so I could enter into the picture a cool observer. Old enough to sort of decide for myself. But still young enough that I allowed myself to really hope that I might find something truly extraordinary in Bangor, Maine.

What neither he nor I could have sort of predicted was this. In his life as healer and prophet, he missed most of the lives of all of his children, the births and existences of over twenty-five grand children. For this Purpose. I was the second oldest, a sort-of-woman, articulate, intelligent. The first, though, of anyone to visit. And I didn't mean to become part of his Hurt, but I did. And though I entered his life clean of hurt, with open and flexible intentions, without a need to forgive, I think he started to be assumed into my Sadness.

And so. That's an introduction ... More to come.

I'm so over people and their gaddam hangups.

2011-11-29T20:59:00.000-08:00

Get ye to a shrink, get ye to yoga, whatever it takes. But

BE NICE.

And stop taking all of yer shit out on me!

Thanks,
The Mgmt

I (,) Object

2011-11-27T18:59:00.000-08:00

This picture makes me feel stupid, ashamed, then really angry. And yet, at the time, I felt as though it was something I "had to" do. I felt uncomfortable but I did not really voice my discomfort. It's clearly visible in my body language, my gaze is forced downwards, my arms outstretched... I feel sad for the girl in the picture.

I am really conflicted

about how my appearance affects other people's perceptions of me. It is so exhausting to have to constantly decide whether people are really absorbed in what I'm saying because I have a pleasing sort of look to me. I'm not gorgeous. But -- hell -- I'm 25, my tits are perky, and I don't have a third eye and a hunch back. I can clean up, and this is highly pleasing to me. But, I have to say that it spoils everything when, for instance, you want a newspaper article to be about your art ... and you're in more than one picture. Or when you really just want to talk about your art with another artist over coffee ... and they reach across the table and tell you how they regret getting married so young.

I don't want to have saggy tits or a hunch back ... even though it will eventually be the case. But I just ... really wish sometimes that I didn't have to deal with all of this shit. With help from my Other Dad, I'm learning to assert my boundaries much more carefully, "exuding" unavailability and slithering in a handshake where an inappropriate hug may have been attempted, not drinking at art-related functions, which are work functions, at least for me.

But this, my friends, is a double-edged sword.

I'm tall and smart and pretty and confident and ... so obviously I can't get a date. Not even a nip from some guppies here or there, let alone an actual fish. I'm not one to complain about these things. I go to bed and wake up happy every day. Seriously. But heck, how can I go from one extreme to another -- being objectified every time I walk out of the house to not being able to easily, sort of, date around, or whatever people do.

Ugh. I (,) object.

Trivia

2011-11-20T09:14:00.000-08:00

So far today I have

Regretted the fact that I'm a girl.

Finished cleaning and re-shelving my collection of 18 used coffee mugs which I'd arranged in my room in a beautiful, multi-colori semi-circle.

Made coffee.

Listened to Christmas songs on the radio, sang to John & Yoko as poorly as I could, danced to jingle bell rock.

Listened to a radio show about Soviet Socialist Realism, remembering that I'd once intended to be the authority on Socialist Realist art, with noble plans for a dissertation and a life's work focusing on Aleksandr Deineka.

Pooped.

Pinned my hair using three bobby pins.

Felt really proud for having such nice hair today.

Called my dad to tell him that my car man was ripping us off, after some late-night peripheral research. Was thrilled when he told me that I did good work.

Felt annoyed at being thrilled, still felt proud.

Took an iron supplement and two ibuprofen.

Told my roomate that there would be scones of the blueberry variety, as he made faces at me while brushing his teeth.

Got some more coffee cups out of my room.

Turned on my computer.

Talked to my roomie about my method of not losing eyeglasses (buy new eyeglasses and put them in all of the places where I might need eyeglasses and not have them - purse, computer, bedside)

Did not turn off the radio when Wait, wait! Don't tell me! came on

Butchered some blueberry scones because I'm out of the habit of making them.

Ate two butchered scones.

Set out cans of pumpkin and sweetened condensed milk, brushed the flour on the counter on to the floor which I cleaned yesterday.

Learned some new words.

Turned off the radio which was talking about protests in Egypt and at UC Davis because it made me cry.

Cried.

Reheated a second cup of coffee, added honey and more cream.

Debated whether I should put my slippers back on.

Checked my email.

Checked my facebook.

Debated whether I should post a picture of pizza and write, "Ceci n'est pas un vegetable, folks," but decided against it when there were no good pictures of pizza and the url's were too long.

Checked out this girl I made out with once on the Facebook, realizing that I would be happy to be a lesbian if it didn't mean that I had to be in a relationship with a girl. Also wondered to myself why so many girls in Pittsburgh like knitting and cats.

Decided that I had no desire to participate this morning, and wondered if what I was feeling was loneliness, despite the fact that I don't feel unpleasant or that I need anything at all, aside from my coffee and cream. And then wondered whether if I wasn't lonely, whether or not I'd grow to be so, and if I am lonely, whether it would eventually become unpleasant and whether I was capable of growing to be bitter in my diagnosed or undiagnosed loneliness as I suspect people do. I have two grandmothers who have lived alone for a quarter century, have only had sex with one other human being ever, and both of them seem to be very well-occupied and generally healthy in the head.

I don't think I'm lonely. I'm certainly never bored. The world is such a mess. I'll have to get cranberries and do more scones soon. My coffee is lukewarm.

My latest artist crush...crushes.

2011-11-17T17:48:00.000-08:00

I can't believe that I failed to get this guy's name...the piece on the far wall is called "Remember me at sunset" and I seriously died when I saw it....LOVE it. But that's life, easy come, easy go ; )

I like this guy, but I mostly just like his piece...of art!! What were you thinking? This is the one.

I also recently got a bit of a crush on this guy. But I really only like that one piece, and the title, and everything about it. His other pieces I am not wild over. Love him, but he's nothing new. I've just been stalking him a bit on the internet as I do. Hm...wondering if I can find an art crush who I like EVERYTHING about...oh, yeah!!! My art husband, sigh. Of course there are others, but my husband allows it, and that's why we have such a great relationship...

I've been poring over pages of art on the internet -- on this site VVORK -- which is so awesome, if only because it has helped me understand that there is a big world out there, that just wants more art, more art, more, more, more. MORE. MORE! No limits. Wonderful.

Sometimes in Pittsburgh I forget that and then I remember about the internet. I've been trying to be diligent about it...every day...seeing new art...on the internet. It's great. Thank you, internet. The internet is like my guilty pleasure the hot guy at the grocery store checkout...The one I don't want to check out, but sometimes you just can't help it!

Anyway...those are art crushes (well except for the internet). Purely intellectual/aesthetic.

I also have a real crush. On a real boy, which never happens for me. (Like, I could count on one hand the number of real crushes I've had my whole life). And nothing happened between us or will in any kind of foreseeable future. But the feeling was enough to kind of cup in my hands before I let it go again. Oop.

It was a reminder that such a thing could be had, cupped, had.

I've been doing a bit of unraveling lately, and it feels good. The good kind of unraveling, you know? It's hard for me. Working on it some more.

The truth is

2011-11-13T18:37:00.001-08:00

I've spent a lot of time shying away from political stuff. I'm not particularly compelled to follow it. Which is not to say that I am not interested in "the world" and "what's going on," but it all just feels so burdensome at times.

I tend to also feel very stupid in political conversations. I never quite know "the issues," but rather rely on pretty intense feelings one way or the other, regardless of how much or how little I actually know. Perhaps I am lazy. Perhaps I just don't prefer the media in which various issues are housed. Perhaps I just get absorbed in the details of everyday life; the little trials and triumphs of miniature interactions, and that experience is what helps me feel as though I already understand everything else that is going on -- enough, enough. There is just a lot of pain. That a very dear person to me had for weeks been fighting for his life in the hospital blighted out much else of my needs and interests, or the worlds' needs and interests...But that was because I think we all have a threshold for what we can endure either intellectually or emotionally at any given time...

I'm getting away from myself.

In any case, I always have opinions, and when I feel as though I am in a situation where they will be nurtured, further informed or respected, I share them. I guess that's why this blog exists, and why it's still semi-secret to most of the world.

I think this post may be counted as some kind of addendum to the one about the Occupy movement, of which I was relatively critical....maybe it's a separate idea. In any case...I clearly haven't fully formulated my opinions and am blabbering on and on attempting to forgive myself in advance for saying something that may sound awfully naive or dull... So -- forgive the recitative, I'll get to it.

I just watched a commercial for Chase Bank, which has recently launched what they're calling a 100,000 jobs mission, to employ veterans of our epic wars. Wars that they probably helped fund in many different ways. Wars that we have been fighting for close to half of my worldly existence. Oh why, oh why, oh why, oh why, oh why.

It just felt so utterly insulting -- that a WAR whose real costs we cannot even begin to imagine might be reduced to some marketing ploy for a big bank. The veteran in the commercial ties his shiny black shoes. He smiles. His teeth are white. His shirt is blue. We'll all eventually do the same, clean up, move on. Erect some structure in ten years that will help us all to Never Forget. That's the benefit of having our wars overseas. They can be profitable and compelling, but remain relatively unobtrusive. We can call ourselves civilized, and pity the others.

We have food in our supermarkets. We have our little homes to go to at night.

I was mostly shocked and ashamed that I am a product of this massive dupe. I may call myself liberal or educated or informed. And, yeah, power to the people, sure. But I have allowed myself to think of this whole conflict as headlines to avoid or not avoid. I am completely unable to engage with the reality of this situation and I am so, so ashamed.

On our way to the hospital, I was talking to my Other Dad about war -- how -- for all of our lives pretty much, our country has been in a perpetual state of war. How -- when my roommates play their war video games it takes thirty seconds to "respawn" as a penalty for being "killed." Meanwhile in real wars, real people are dying, and millions are being displaced. MILLIONS.

I talked about this video game habit as though it was distant from my own behavior, distasteful, reprehensible. But I doubt that what I have been doing is any better. Am I to blame, or am I just being massaged into complacency like everybody else...

It's just that this is so big, beyond our country, beyond politics, beyond oil. For me, it seems like this is what humans feel compelled to do. Is war a human need? Where does it come from? How does it get to be like this?

It's something that I've been thinking about -- will continue to think about. Don't know what I think about -- much.

What I do know is this: my heart aches. It aches for this country, it aches for the world and all of the little animals called humans that are clawing their way through it. I guess that aching sensation is all that I'm capable of, at least for now.

I'm critical of these movements, but most of all I'm just critical of the massive abstraction that we're all sort of invested in ... abstractions called freedom and country and will and ... They strike me as little stories that we tell ourselves to make the day day and the night night.

Ugh. I don't know. I just wanted to say that my heart just aches sometimes. As I sort of breathe in, and hold my breath, suddenly overwhelmed by all of it. It'll go away tomorrow. I'll want coffee, I'll have to edit my CV, there will be an email.

Pre-occupied

2011-10-10T17:09:00.000-07:00

I've been occupied this week. Busy. I've also been preoccupied with a family health crisis that has been one hell of a roller coaster ride.

Tonight is my first night back at my house in a little while, and everybody on the internet is in a tizzy about this Occupy Wall Street thing. After following a few links, I was led to a page that read "Join Us to Protest Corporate Greed." Big effing whoop.

It's hard when you've been dealing with cold, hard life-and-death realities to give a shit about this abstract stuff. What is meant by protesting Greed with a capital G?

I get it. We're rubbing up against the 10th anniversary of our Great war on Terrorism. We fight Terrorism because we believe in Freedom. And Democracy. And yet, we are still able to audaciously Hope for something better. Because, Yes We Can. So now we protest Greed.

The nebulousness of that all-encompassing term has a frighteningly familiar ring to it. That die-hard self-righteousness. It's that nasty taste in my mouth that's been around for the past 1o years or so...longer.

I'm fed up with this stance. The big sexy ideal stance. We hash tag the hell out of these #GrandIdeals that were fed to us by whom???? We're using a given to spell out the revolution because we have lost any semblance that political acts can exist free of America's moralist culture. It makes us feel better to protest Greed and to Hope and to Fight Terror, because who the hell can dispute any of it? That's so scary; the mere moral indisputability of whatever we're pitted against. I really think that whenever we're ready for change, we need to come back down to earth, and be willing to relinquish a little sex appeal. But, heck, who am I to say.

So we go out, and we Fight The Good Fight against The Big Evil.

Then we go back to our warm homes, crack a beer and congratulate ourselves, and oh did you get the t-shirt? Don't worry, I have an extra.

This self-congratulatory attitude also worries me. Pisses me off, actually. When will people wake up? That even in our protesting habits, we're trapped in this bought-and-sold mentality. We keep gravitating towards these big ideals, that are suffocatingly monolithic, -- but both sides are using them, and soon enough Target will be marketing the Arab Spring Collection and McDonalds the OccuPie.

I really think that one of the most remarkable things about the Egyptian revolution in particular was the notable absence of much of that language. It was green. Yes. From that time (which now feels like ages ago, but we're just talking months here), I mostly remember that wash of green, everybody was wearing green, green scarves, dresses, pins. There was a refreshing lack of ideological impositions. Sure there were the "We Want Democracy!" signs -- oh, but wait, might we go as far to ask ourselves why were they written in English?

Slavoj Zizek gave a speech at Occupy Wall Street today, which is mostly transcribed here. It should be said that I'm a huge fan of Zizek. I like that he's funny, smart as hell, and I really think that he believes that he can make the world a better place with his writing. What more can you ask for from a philosopher? Seeing him talk on the video was great - and his speech was very good. I had been getting more and more fired up about this thing, and his words kind of struck a chord with me, and I realized that my issue wasn't so much with the problem, which is obviously really fucked up, but the packaging, which is, in my opinion, so much more a symptom of the problem as it manifests itself in our day to day lives. Poor Zizek, though. He wants this so bad, if you watch the video, his body moves erratically -- it looks like he's about to take off, or vomit, or collapse, or explode at any minute. He is really f what I'm relatively sure the audience that films him, repeats his every word, cannot feel. He also strikes me as visibly exhausted. I would be too if I were Slavoj Zizek in this world. Perhaps this is why he is also wary -- he cautions against the kind of insidious self-gratification that can come with being Part of Something. He says, "The only thing I’m afraid of is that we will someday just go home and then we will meet once a year, drinking beer, and nostalgically remembering what a nice time we had here. Promise ourselves that this will not be the case."

Too late, my friend, can't you see? We've been bought and sold. He closes by saying, "We know that people often desire something but do not really want it. Don’t be afraid to really want what you desire." We don't know how to do that, that is, until it's branded and stamped onto something with a catchy, bold type face. Or given a sexy name. Yeah we all want something: to want something. It is all we know how to do. Want, buy. We are nowhere close to really understanding what want is, at least not this American Fall.

Sure we may be using the same social networking tools as the Arab Spring, but we've failed to secure a major piece of the puzzle. The really wanting it part. That je-ne-sais-quoi that really puts the animal fire into our Puritan Notions. Mute Zizek's speech, and you'll see what I'm talking about. That's it. We can tweet the bejeezis of a problem -- hell, we invented both Freedom and Twitter, let's use 'em! -- but we forget that the medium is not always the message. Sometimes the message is the message, and the medium is an occasional side effect, borne out of necessity rather than aesthetic preference. What made the Arab Spring special was its umami-ness. The world is starving for the unmistakable, meaty thirst for real justice.

And until we want it [whatever It is], real, ugly animal want, there is no revolution, at least so far as I'm concerned. Revolutions happen all the time, when two people love each other, or when somebody plants a garden on a rooftop, or when somebody feeds another person who is hungry. If we're relying on trends to carry our revolution, where will we be when the trend dies? Gosh. And where the hell would we be if we were in actual crisis as a country. Our lives are pretty good here. We don't have dictators murdering our people, we are not starving to death. We object on Principle, because we are not trained to understand anything else.

We have to want this as if there is no tomorrow, but keep wanting it and wanting it for a hundred thousand tomorrows. It's gotta hurt, because anything that actually comes from the heart tugs, hurts, at least a little bit. It can't be pleasant. Or clever! We have to want it, and not think of the domain name, and not think of the Potential. Dolling it up with our Adobe software and calling it movement. Right now, ugh, this all feels static as hell.

So, do us all a favor, and prove me wrong.

Original Sin

2011-10-10T07:29:00.000-07:00

I try to sin as early as possible in any given day, so as to have the maximum time left for redemption. I take LOTS of half and half with honey in my coffee. Or I'll press snooze even though I have to be at work in fifteen minutes.

Then again, there are plenty of sins to be committed midday, afternoon, evening and night. There are my roommate's cookies sitting innocently on the counter. Phone calls to ignore. Splats of tomato sauce on the floor not to wipe up. Shoes to purchase on the internet. But I know that the night will give way to dawn, and I'll have a brand new day.

A progressive drawing, frozen in a stage that I played with for a bit.

2011-09-19T20:31:00.000-07:00

It Right Now

2011-09-19T18:51:00.000-07:00

I don't know what It is, but I'm going through It right now. That's what my brother says at least. As far as little brothers go, he has his moments.

I guess it's good in a way. Because going through It is just one of many steps required to get through It.

It is ok. It is getting better. I have a doctor for a bit of whatever It is now. But sometimes I feel like this. Jagged, and slightly more off than usual.

Google Me Softly

2011-08-25T10:17:00.000-07:00

Two days ago, shortly before I walked out of work 5 hours before quitting time, I googled two things: "nervous break down" and "chronic fatigue syndrome." I had a buzzing in my head that would not go away, a swelling of the brain that made it hard to do anything but put my head on my keypad. I was just really tired.

Having confirmed that said head-buzzing was not a nervous breakdown (I still have affect, joy!), I nearly keeled over when I realized that I had a handful of symptoms for CFS. Despite the prudent advice at the bottom of the page, "Do not self diagnose!" I still slid headlong into pungent, self-indulgent visions of going on disability and sloughing through the rest of my life as I have for the past six months...Eat? Too tired. Dating? Fugheddaboudit. I would just, waaaade on through, napping and napping forever until one day I just didn't wake up. "Whatever happened to Lizzy?" they'd all ask. "Oooooh we don't know, it's too bad, toooooo baaaad."

After two days of serious, non-stop napping, and some revitalizing treatment of Almodovar's Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown accompanied by good friends and oatmeal cookies, I've made some small improvements.

Yes. I've been google-ing more sensible things like, "Mercury Retrograde Dates."

Well, I'll g'on and call it progress, starting to blame my unfortunate condition on more global, nay, cosmic circumstances, rather than feeling totally helpless and personally responsible. Turns out, for the entire extent of my solo show (March 30 - April 24th), Mercury was in retrograde! No wonder it was such a dark time. Likewise for most of August it's been the same. I've had a few relapses to mono-city, I got fired for the first time from a design job that I didn't very much want anyway ... and now I feel like total shit. But then the unexplainable, completely-and-utterly sucky in-between months where Mercury was where it needs to be to make things nice and good, and things really weren't ...

I once again turned to Google for the answer. "Why," I asked the Google gods, "does 2011 suck?"

And the Google gods answered:

"Does 2011 Suck for Gamers?"

"Why does this site suck balls so bad now?"

"Why does graduating from college suck so hard?"

"Why does Netflix Canada's selection suck?"

And

"New Zealander Sucked into Plane Engine and Killed"

Thanks again, Google, for taking me on a ride, and then setting me straight. At least I'm not a recent college graduate trying to play games and watch movies in Canada. And however bad it is for me now, there's a New Zealander out there who really had it way worse.

Funk

2011-08-17T08:54:00.000-07:00

Ok, I admit it, I'm in a real funk. Not the good kind, the shake-your-bootie kind.

The bad kind. Like what happens underneath your toenails. Except this one is in my head.

I don't think I've felt this low since sophomore year of college.* While I understand the contributing factors to this funk, and can rationalize my situation, I'm still unable to escape this kind of all-encompassing feeling of heaviness that has descended.

In fact, I expected it. What I'm realizing, however, is that there is really nothing quite as stealthy as fulfilled expectations. People asked me after my show had ended whether I felt a kind of "let down." And I didn't really -- it was something more like relief. But the relief came after months of really extreme stress, and though marked by an above-normal functionality on my part, I hadn't the strength to allow myself to be vulnerable. Well, my body went on strike, and plunged me headlong into uber-vulnerability. I literally did not have the strength to think for eight straight weeks. I was really too tired to eat or do much of anything. And still, somehow, I pushed through three art shows, two web design projects, a major illustration project, and a trip to India.

At a certain point everything just came to a grinding halt. If my roommates hadn't bought and cooked food for me, I wouldn't have eaten. I drove to work, drove home, slept. I lost about 25 pounds. Everything stopped.

My body has now allowed me what seems to be a trial probation. I'm trying my best to be respectful, but it's been really frustrating. And while I am starting to feel much better, the events of the past year have really taken a toll on me psychologically. I feel closer to normal than I have in the past few months, and I've lowered the armor of my hyper-functionality.

And now there is a funk.

I understand that my mind is sort of functioning the same way as my body did. My weakened immune system ushered in a painful, though probably necessary halt in activity. My defenses down, I had to re-learn how to kind of take care of myself properly. This required a psychological adjustment, which meant that I had to start feeling things again. My guard down, the good and the bad flooded in. Small feelings of uneasiness quickly deepened to dissatisfaction, anger, disappointment, fear, and worst of all, cynicism. Take that, Yoda.

Going through the motions of taking care of myself physically was way easier than coming to terms with the psychological reverb. If I would push a little harder one day, just to test the waters, my body would shut down for two. Understanding to some degree physical impotence weighed heavily on me psychologically. Some say that strength comes from within, but what I've found is that I tend to seek strength through doing. When I think about it, the world feels chaotic to me. I am not very diligent about keeping up with news or trends aside from what I hear from other people. Working on things that I care about, really working my ass off, has proven itself as a method to feel grounded. So when even that is gone, chaos descends, and rather than standing up to it somehow, I stumble into a funk.

It started slowly. Initially, I just felt overwhelmed ("Stop!!!"). But then I started to feel disinterested ("I just don't feel like it."). And then sad. Just -- really -- kind of sad ("I don't want to."). And then I realize that things that had at one point made me feel good don't anymore, or only seem to be distractions from a hulking mass which I can't describe short of how it makes me feel, which is...kind of suffocated. I'm afraid of this Hulk.

And then there are these questions which kind of glug up to the surface, in between bouts of functionality, but never around the Hulk.

I wonder whether I'm a good artist, what that means, if it matters. I wonder if I'll always be defined by my environment, or whether I can create my own context, or whether that's just an escapist mentality. I wonder whether I am best suited to make art if nobody likes it or gets it, or gets me. How can I put so much energy into shit that people chew up and spit out... I wonder if anybody ever will actually be able to see me for what I am -- flawed, but with generally good intentions -- and be ok with that.

I've tried to free myself from the need for external validation. I doubt I'm close. However I realize that while I care about what people think of me, it is only to a certain extent. A search for achievement and praise doesn't rule me the way I see it rule some other people I know. But I seem to have created my own more insidious form of external validation, which is doing things that are productive.

I went to a shrink for a couple sessions recently, and she called me a perfectionist. I knew she was wrong right away. Then after some thought I came to a scary realization. I am a productivist, not a perfectionist. I make the mirror, rather than rely on the image it produces.

So, obviously, I'm focusing again on a few projects. Forcing myself to do things again. Working on applications to graduate school. Like WWII, work and focus seem to pull me out of a depression. What scares me is that work kind of put me into this in the first place. So I wonder. Am I capable of not doing anything [productive] and not feel sad? Or is my life, and my work actually an active avoidance of an inevitable state of mind? A scary thought ...

* Of my lifelong galumphing through periods of depression we have the following all-time-lowest-of-the-lows from least most severe: Third Grade, Sophomore Year of College, First year-post-college, Post-break-up last year, Junior Year of High School. Primary symptoms include: not seeing a point, just not seeing a point.

What I've been up to.

2011-06-13T09:16:00.000-07:00

Hello.
I haven't posted because I've been busy. Like REALLY busy. And I got mono. Because I was really busy. like REALLY busy. and stressed REALLY stressed. In seven months I:

- Moved to a new house
- Traveled to San Francisco!
- C0-curated a show of Haitian artwork at the Warhol Museum
- Completed a body of work to fill a 2,500 foot space
- Cleaned, prepared, curated, installed and promoted that show
- Raised over $6,000 to pay for that show, including two grant awards
- Applied for one fellowship, one residency, one award, and three grants (and was only declined from exactly 50% of these, which was great!)
- Built a website for myself, and three other businesses
- Established myself as a business!
- Applied for, was a finalist for, and did not win a Data & Technology Award -- but still had to provide an installation of my work (10 TVs, baby!) for the awards ceremony....and take it down in one day (all while wearing an unspeakably adorable strapless dress -- $9.99 c/o Gabriel Bros and totally strange but oh-so-cool black plastic four-inch heels that I also managed to get the same day and ON SALE for $20!!!!!!) (Have you ever over the course of six hours installed and de-installed 10 monitors in godlessly inexpensive and friggen' adorable and utterly impractical clothing? Dare I say, I think not!?!!)
[I digress for the shameless love of the deal and cute clothing! I also:]
- Moved my parents out of their house, and re-appropriated a house full of unwanted furniture to four different homes, one storage unit, and two Goodwill venues...
- Got laid?
- Created and personally installed a new, 9' x 14' installation at a major art fair in New York
- Carted over 40 prints to that same fair.
- Installed another group show in New York, providing technical assistance for other artists
- Came down with an evil virus that has literally been plaguing my life for two of those seven months...
- Turned 25!
- Created over 50 individual digital illustrations for a medical instruction booklet for non-reading parents of children with congenital heart disease. Then laid out that booklet --

All while maintaining a part-to-full time job.

Yep. I feel good about these things. I'm proud of my work, I worked really hard.

Granted. While I've done these things, it hasn't been without some cost to my health and sanity. I did freak out at my new housemates and throw some hand towels on the floor in a writhing fit of put-outed-ness. I haven't been spending as much time with my friends. I also got mono (part deux!) which has profoundly sucked. Nor did I do it all alone (more on that later).

On the phone with a dear friend the other day, she mentioned something that I'd also kind of noticed, but never dared to really think or express. Which was, really, since I graduated college and broke up with my boyfriend of three years, shit's been raining down on me almost non-stop and hasn't seemed to quiet down.

If it wasn't the job, it was the home situation, if it wasn't the home situation, it was the relationship...some minor health crisis....money...then the housing situation...then work....then...then...

The thing is, I haven't really ever looked at it like a long trajectory of what-the-fuck-now-ness. It's just kind of been like, "Oh, my foot's broken." and then "I need a crown." And then, "I can't afford groceries." And then, "My male alcoholic boss scares me." And then, "My alcoholic housemate tried to break into my room." And then... etc. Which, I think is the best way to experience these things. In the moment. Because, really, the notion that the world works in patterns or even that things happen "for a reason," both represent manners of thinking that strike me as awfully trite.

Yet, I haven't felt like things were generally going badly. There was a whole lot of good stuff peppered in, and as a whole, I've been able to kind of do my own thing which has been really amazing. When I look back on it, I see these couple of years as generally great.

I've determined, for one, that this is because I have amazing friends. Who, for instance, drop off Christmas wreaths on my front door in the dead of night when I couldn't afford a tree. Or, say, call me from Greece once a week. Or, say, work for weeks wiring countless touch lights for some idiotic art project I've conjured up. How am I so lucky that people will, like, I dunno -- really help me out, a LOT!

And I think this is also because I've felt like I've really gained some traction with my work. I've been working steadily, but it has at times felt like I was on a stationary bicycle. I just finished my first major body of work (and it was a LOT of work). And it feels fucking amazing. I know more about who I am as a person, as an artist -- and although I did have to trudge through a lot of shit to get here and don't have a lot of external validations to show for it (-- "So, did you sell anything?" -- "Nope!"), what I gained was way more valuable than a few bucks.

I feel so lucky, beyond lucky to have the privilege to be able to work on what makes my heart sing. I feel super-double-lucky to have other people give that stuff the time of day. I feel ooper-triple-duper-lucky to have friends who are willing and able to carry my sorry ass through the mire, and stand with me when I can manage to stand on my own.

I feel like I've learned more in the past couple of years than I learned during four years of college. Without a doubt. I feel more capable than ever after the recent onslaught of shit. ("Well, now that I'm off of narcotics for severe abdominal pain and the two-week-long bout of fevers and sore throats have subsided, all I have to deal with is perpetual fatigue!")

I really couldn't have done any of it without the solid support of my friends and family. Nor could I manage to maintain this outlook. Ok. Well...more blog posts to come!

oof

2011-05-10T09:04:00.001-07:00

This month has been really intense ... hoping to make a transition into a quieter time, at least for now. And so glad that it's over. Here's a song that expresses my feelings, which I listened to in high school. 'Nuff said.

A bad day, lately

2011-04-22T08:56:00.001-07:00

When you're having a bad day, it just seems like everything is bad, and has been for a long time. And sometimes it feels like it would be impossible for it to be better.

I've been working really hard lately, and I've been under a lot of stress. I miss the other me, the one who could think clearly and was able to take more time.

And I'm just having a really bad day, lately.

Sandcastles

2011-04-15T13:08:00.000-07:00

For the past five or six years I've been asking people to describe a "picture of how they think." Like they'd describe a place I'd never visit. The answers have been all so different and all of them are really wonderful. And I find myself thinking about these cognitive process landscapes more and more, referencing them personally and psychologically like I would think, "Oh, that's like Thailand." A place I know exists but haven't seen with my own eyes. Well, in writing this little bit, my father's mother's CPL (cognitive process landscape) came to mind. Hers was so typical of her, and one of the funnier responses ever to that question. She goes: "Black and white." Yep, that was it.

That's just the preface, today's issue is about sandcastles.

You know, I complain about my folks all the time, and to pretty much everybody. They totally drive me crazy, in a way that nobody else ever can or will. It's really a special thing. And, I really love them.

A lot of people have some difficulty understanding how the previous sentence might begin with an "And" rather than a "But." But it is And, because that is how it is.

For some things, I do think a little like my grandmother. Black and white. That part of me tends to be the part belonging to proper noun concepts like Duty and It's Lunchtime. Though, whether or not I always act on my "black and white" instincts in certain regards is a whole 'nother can of worms. Ok, well: relationships, the words and actions of others...never black and white. And that goes just as much for my relationship with my parents. I love them and they drive me teeth-gnashingly crazy; they drive me teeth-gnashingly crazy and I love them. Nobody has to get it, or understand (myself included). It just is what it is.

The weekend of my opening I was definitely feeling both, which is pretty consistently how it happens when I engage with my parents. They've been really supportive of my solo show, even though they, self-admittedly, "don't understand any of it." But because they sensed that it was important to me, it became important to them. This doesn't always happen, mind you. I find plenty of things important that they've disagreed with or pontificated against, causing much ado and gnashing of teeth on both ends. Case-in-point: turning down multiple "good" jobs to "work on art" that "nobody's gonna buy." But, when I ignored them took the plunge anyway, they 1) recognized it and 2) supported me anyway. I can only hope to do the same in like situations.

Again, I digress. So they were supportive, and came down for the weekend, and it was really nice for them to see it, for everybody to see it, who could. Well then, being the super-annoying ultra-duper efficient human specimens they tend to be, they ALSO decided to have a going away party for themselves at their house (which they've sold) the night after my opening, followed shortly thereafter by cleaning and packing the ENTIRE house and moving out the day after THAT. Obviously. They were there anyway. It was "just easier." Oy ... let us say, there was much epic gnashing of teeth, literally and figuratively. I ground right through my night guard ...

Well. After hours of packing and my dad weeping every other minute ( El Padre Doloroso Muy Largo y Obnoxioso ), we kind of took a break and he stopped running around in a tizzy and the two of us watched the end of Shawshank Redemption on TV. My dad and I watched Tim Robbins crawl through miles of shit and were just quiet and still.

Again, not the point. The point was that it [all] got me thinking about this strange and messy and complicated and maddening and wonderful and very rarely quiet relationship I have with my parents.

It is what it is.

What about the sandcastles, you ask?

I determined it'd be best in a separate entry. Aren't I funny? Trust me, it'll be better that way. Stay tuned.

Hm. I'm really stressed out and totally sleep-deprived due to anxiety but somehow...my hair looks GREAT today, and I got some chocolate from TJ's mmmm

2011-03-04T12:35:00.000-08:00

Dreams of Von Bruenchenhein on a Friday morning

2011-02-25T08:40:00.001-08:00

I'm slightly hung over from last night's sleep aid cocktail, but happily I am better rested than I have been lately (it's been a few months since I started having regular sleeplessness again, and it revved up to the next notch of intensity about two weeks ago).

Well. As I sit here at work, I started thinking about Eugene Von Bruenchenhein, an artist whose work I saw at the Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore several moths ago.

So, this guy, Eugene. Too short to join the ranks of the army in World War II. Instead, he helped out at home, he instead took a vested interest in botany. He was just a guy living in the midwest: card-holding member of the Milwaukee Cactus Club, self-professed horticuluralist, baker by trade. When he was 29 he met and married a 19 year old girl named Marie, who would be the great love of his life. Towards the end of his life, he and Marie were living off of his $220 monthly social security checks. He died in 1983 at the age of 72, broke.

What most people didn't know about Eugene until after he died (like many visionary artists) was that he had spent much of his life painting thousands, literally, thousands of dreamscapes--rhythmic, fantastical musings. His house was filled to the brim with artwork -- paintings and photographs. Now he's super-famous.

The first time I saw his work, I pretty much thought that it was crap. It struck me as the kind of artwork that you can purchase from an art school in China on a TV infomercial or a glossy paper brochure you get in the mail advertising "real art by real artists!" -- or something. However, the sheer quantity (there were scores of these paintings in a room in the museum) was so striking, that it led me to read the blurb about his life. Which was when I saw his photographs. His photographs were nothing like his paintings, but they clearly had the same soul -- or perhaps a deeper, truer soul. Von Bruenchenhein took hundreds of pictures of his wife, nude, or wearing exotic costumes, which he'd fashion for her out of junk. My favorite by far was one which shows her wearing a fantastic crown, which he'd fashioned for her out of an old coffee tin. This is the one.

The photo literally took my breath away, still does, even as I try to find a digital version for this post. His love for her, really his adoration of her is so palpable, and you can almost taste hers for him. Really, the vivid, yet whimsical images reveal the staggering beauty his dream world, their dream life. Looking at her, you can see how immersed, complicit she is in his vision; or really how his dream had so become their dream. She sees the magic too, he makes it real for her, she makes it real for him.

A crown out of a coffee tin -- it just takes my breath away.

I can just see them sitting at the kitchen table. "We're out of coffee, how did it go so fast?" she might say. He'd take it and rinse it out, and sit back down with some scissors and perhaps a pair of pliers. She'd cross her arms and rest her heads on them, pushing out her chair and cocking her heels. He'd squint and hold it up to her head, tink a bit, hold it up again, the mid-morning-turned afternoon sun catching the dust in the air.

ok -- I confess I thought the one above was the best fit for this post, and you know I have minimalist inclinations, despite myself. But this is absolutely my favorite image of her by far -- and I couldn't resist putting it...what the heck! what is a blog for anyway but a mechanism for methodical oversharing, anyway? Here it is, it honestly just slays me::::

Oh Sleeplessness

2011-02-23T06:03:00.000-08:00

I thought I was tired enough last night to go without a pill.

Nope, wasn't.

Wish that I had...

PITY ME AND GIVE ME KISSES AND HUGS.

please? aren't I pitiful? tell me that I'm pitiful!

Boundaries

2011-02-22T12:46:00.000-08:00

When people talk about "boundaries," or, worse yet, "boundary issues," it all just seems weirdly abstract, almost as though they're talking about something that was really ordinary to a lot of people, but that happened so far in the past that you can't even imagine it, like—churning butter, or having smallpox.

A hypothetical conversation about boundaries might go as follows:

"You've crossed some boundaries." They say.

"Hm?" I ask earnestly, squinting my eyes to help me recall, "Boundaries, yes I'm familiar with the concept, but the logistical reality isn't wholly evident. Could you clarify?"

“Look," they say, "Do see where the sea meets the beach sand? It's right there, that line. That’s the boundary.”

But, I think to myself, feeling slightly embarrassed, because no, I don’t see the line, What about the tide?

Recently a friend of mine took her daughter to see Niagara Falls, and they walked on the "Peace Bridge,” which spans the stretch of air over the water between the US and Canada. They approached the Canadian border, and crossed over, sans passport, only to be met by a border guard who told them that they had most certainly almost just caused an international “incident.” And, just as the sky was about to turn black in preparation for an inevitable apocalypse, my friend looked at the guard with her big, sad, confused mommy eyes, and said, “Oh we had no idea, officer! We didn’t mean to cause any trouble.” And he furrowed his brows and responded with something like, "Well, just be more careful next time, ma'am." So, just like that they were shoo-shooed away, international incident averted!

For me, incidents, international or otherwise, occur quite regularly, I’m sure. Intentional and inadvertent transgressions against arbitrary, unwritten and unspoken rules. “Is there a problem here, Mr. Officer?” Unfortunately for me, there’s not always a Canadian man there to tell me I've done something wrong.

And while I admit that I do have some boundaries of my own, they are often as unclear to me as those of others. They too change like the tides, depending on the person, the moment, the mood, the time, how I feel.

What did we do before we had our accurate maps? There were other maps, that weren’t as accurate, but just as true. The world was flat; our here was not even there. And now we laugh, Ha Ha!, saying how on earth could that have ever been true!?

I like to think of what people thought when they found out something like, America went on and on past Virginia, or the Mississippi River. Like, in their minds, did the land just bubble up and invent itself into being? Was it like a tumor, unwanted, rapidly and erratically billowing forth into the realm of the no longer deniable?

Or were there, perhaps, others like me who hadn’t much thought of things like that in the first place? You know, the ones who picked up newspapers with the headlines, “NEW WORLD DISCOVERED!” and nonchalantly flipped to the movie showtimes.

I wish I could be neat.

2011-02-20T18:20:00.000-08:00

I always say that I could be messy doing origami.

And it's true -- I could. Honestly, I could make a mess out of anything. Go on, try me!

I guess that's why I'm totally fascinated with the medium of print, specifically etching. The fact that to be a "good" print, it has to look spotless, smudgeless, precisely aligned, precisely inked and that with tools and various chemical components you might control the mess, making lines thicker in certain places with acid rather than with your clumsy, disgraceful, ink-covered hands.

To print an etching, you must wipe the oil-based ink off of the smooth metal surface, so that it only stays where you want it to (in the lines which are incised within the plate). This was where a few truly skilled printmakers had (have) me really jealous. These were the select, anointed few who could kind of "keep tidy," somehow, really miraculously, fully wiping their plates with perhaps the slightest little smudge on their lower palm, which they'd nonchalantly brush off on their aprons. I would stare lustfully at them as they whisked their spotless prints through the press, peeling them off with clean, dry hands. Complain maybe about a lack of thickness in this line, too much pressure on the press, or not enough blue mixed in here, not enough green there.

Across the room, mouth agape, I was a hot mess. The de-inking process was might have in my case been called a me-inking process (ha-ha), and when I was working there almost every night, I'd often trudge out of the print studio, without knowing that I'd ruined (yet another) pair of half-decent pants, and that I looked like the Bearded Woman, just getting off of her shift at the sideshow, hair-afrizz, and ready for her night cap.

And, sigh! I ruined so many prints with a fat black thumbprint here, or an ink blotch where it shouldn't have ever appeared, so than finding ways to "curate," (or de-thumb-print-ify) an otherwise perfect print became a mild-to-moderate obsession of mine (which, like most of my most unhealthy preoccupations, I primarily attribute to my Catholic upbringing, in this case, I'm specifically referring to the notion that the sinner can always find redemption -- out damned spot!).

Even then, when I had no thumb prints, and a perfect print, I'd inevitably tear the print slightly off-kilter when I went to re-size it, or find some other new and shockingly stupid way to ruin hours and hours of hard work.

And yet, I kept going, kept hacking at it, kept being too messy for the task, being clumsy, royally fucking up again and again. Because, occasionally, when the stars were aligned I somehow would manage to bring forth into the world a beautiful, perfect, good, clean print. And I was enamored of it because I thought that I had actually produced something that in many ways was better than I could ever see myself being. A good, clean print. When this occurred, the sensation was electric. I felt wonderful, powerful, and yet humbled, knowing that I could never quite measure up to what I'd just made.

And so now, thinking on it as I write this entry, most of my work now is aesthetically speaking a bit cold, a bit controlled, incredibly exacting, precise. The fact that I'm so drawn to this aesthetic kind of frightens me, and yet I'm drawn to it like a moth to a flame. And I suppose this is the case because I must be trying to compensate for some huge disappointment in myself, in my life -- a lack of tidiness in my own comport.

Because no matter how hard I try, I inevitably just lose track of the laundry, of that email, of my coffee mugs or used saucers. Trip over my high heels and bruise my shin or get a splinter, or or twist something or other. I lose my house keys. I get too drunk (steal sherry!). Or I smile too much, or too little. I blindly tumble into this situation or that one, because my the Ouija board of my curiosity won't let up. I do the wrong thing, show up at the wrong time. Or I say the wrong thing. Hurt feelings. Lie. Say too much; or not enough. Fall in with the wrong crowd. Fall in and out of love with the wrong people.

And there's no protecting myself from it because I'm a bit of a will o' the wisp:

I just landed here, here is agreeable? Here is my new here. Here I am!

All of this said, and returning back to talking about my artwork now; I don't think I'd be able to make my work if it was just the infatuation factor at stake. My art does have a good deal of the untidy me in it, too. And this is the part that goes beyond the fascination, really infatuation with what I can't be. This is the part that is really the essence of why I keep creating -- in a way it's me speaking things that I can't always understand right away. Things that I need to say, but don't always know how to iterate. (It's like how your mind speaks to you in a dream, and although you forget the details the same instant that your eyelids pull themselves apart in the morning, you're still left with a strong feeling that you can't quite explain, and you're waking up differently because of it. That's kind of what I feel when I feel compelled to make something.)

Most of my work, though ultimately presented in a sort of sleek way, was born out of a mistake of some kind, but one that strikes me so that I have no choice but to keep it. And part of the real, deep-set joy I find in creating is that I can actually make my mistakes into something that has some beauty.

I've tumbled in and out of a lot of seemingly sticky situations in my limited time on this earth, each one seeming like the worst possible in all of human experience. How in GOD's name am I EVER going to clean this mess up?!! And yet, the weird world rolls on. I keep breathing. And blindly tumbling along. And with time, ohh time, I learn that much of the beauty I see is because of some happy accidents, because serendipity and experience and intention and knowledge are all, for lack of better analogies, little hippie bedfellows. Mistakes help me to grow, and learn, and make cooler things, find better situations, and introduce newer aspects to my existence that my mind is incapable of conceiving without them. Because, while my mind has limits, my ability to get messy is truly infinite!

Boy, at times I really wish I could be neat. With my artwork, it would really be wonderful to be like Brancusi: smart, sexy and concise. In my life, I sometimes wish I could be like Ann Elliot in Persuasion, who knows just what to say, when to stay in, when to hold back. And shit seems to really work out for her...

[As a hefty aside: In reality, though, I could never be like them. And I don't really want to, either. I'd rather throw myself in the general direction of Amadeo Modigliani, who said as Picasso was buying his paintings to use them as canvas for his work, "Fuck your cubism, I'm making nudes with hairy armpits and haunting eyes," painting image after image of Jeanne Heberterne, because she was the wrong one (too young, too vulnerable), and he allowed himself to love her (albeit in an abusive, volatile way...) more than he loved cubism. Or, sigh! I could (and do!) happily fling myself in the fantastic wake of Felix Gonzalez-Torres, whose messy candy wrappers, sheer blue curtains and unmade beds photographs on billboards spoke of his love for his partner, who was dying of AIDS, the same disease that would eventually take his own life. The work of both of these men, when witnessing it for the first time, brought me to tears. Let me be Agnes Varda, or Diane Arbus, or R. Crumb, or Vincent van Gogh! I'll take Delacroix's Paganini over Ingres' any day.

All of these people kind of walked to the uneven, messy beat of their own drums. And by comparison, they make my life look tidy as all hell. Shit was really, really messy for them! And look how cool they were! They help me along ... ]

But I can only be me, feel what I feel, and say what I need to say, even if it's not always what people care to hear, or should hear for that matter. And I have to follow my heart to whatever strange and mysterious and unspeakable paths it leads me. Indeed, glorified mistakes are, despite my best efforts otherwise, my ultimate medium -- in my thoughts, actions, and profession. Indeed, in finding and creating messiness I am the truest virtuoso.

So -- ok. One more situation to add to the list. One more day introducing a million new moments and experiences and sensations that turn my world in that moment totally on its head. Why try to stave them off?

Let's get messy. I'm ready for the next one! Bring it on.

Letter to Myself, from Myself

2011-02-18T16:50:00.000-08:00

Dear Lizzy,
I know this is a really hard time for you for a number of reasons, but do take heart. You've just tried eighteen different color and contrast adjustments on a print on some fancy paper you can't even afford and they have all failed. It's 8:00 on a Friday night, you're 24 years old, confused and confused, and sitting alone in a dark room printing while all of the other kids are out having a fun time and making out with one another. How is it that the world in your head, and on the computer screen, have such a difficult time manifesting themselves in the world that belongs to the Others?

Well, dear Lizzy, that's just the way it is. What can I say? You have beautiful visions, and even more beautifully you want to share them, come hell or high water, with the rest of the world. They may be stupid. They may be shallow. They may be ugly. They may be derivative. They may be uninformed. They may be cheap. They may be easy. But They are Yours, and You are here to make them Be.

That is your job right now, so why don't you take another swig of beer, and keep on trying.

I love you very much, and I believe in you,
Lizzy

2011-02-18T13:07:00.000-08:00

Sketch by Randall C. / how I feel.

Kodachrome

2011-02-11T07:09:00.001-08:00

I'm a bit rusty now on the blog post front, so you'll have to forgive me in advance; I don't plan to edit the following text (I usually don't when it comes to my entries) but in this case, I'm both out of practice and actually not at all planning to revise or condense in any way. I just want to write a post!

So, that said:

I've been thinking about labels. Noticing how others use them. How they can impede us in our goals. Talking to people about it.

Arguments, non-arguments...but mostly thoughts.

This isn't anything new for me. I've always been sensitive to the idea of labels. I'd say I almost militantly resisted them. Sometime in high school, I resisted considering myself as a feminist. That label--particularly at an all-girls school where we constantly walked the line between sleepover party intimacy and prom-court-style hostility--was a no-no, and if adopted, would have surely meant I'd never have a boyfriend. When I first stopped eating meat five years ago, I refused to call myself a vegetarian. I just was a person who chose not to eat meat. I hated the stigmas that, before anybody even knew my choice, were already descending upon me.

Likewise, when I was being interviewed by a newspaper reporter about my artwork, I made the mistake of saying that I didn't want to be called an artist. At this point, and because newspaper interviews can be skewed, I totally forget the context, but when drawn out in the final piece, it made me look pretty bad, as though I didn't know what I wanted to do. But in my mind that had been clear all along; I wanted to make art, but art has many forms.

More and more, I'm finding that my world view is full of vast spectrums of being. (I do think I have a slight twinge of synesthesia to which we might attribute the nuanced worldview. Certain spoons have subtly different personalities than others, 4 is a different person than 9. So when it comes to actual people, to myself, shit can be pretty confusing!). There are so many spaces in between being a man, being a woman, gay, straight, rich, poor, black, white, artist, banker. Why massacre the rainbow with a word? It just seems a bit brutal, honestly. And maybe I like using lots of words to describe things a little too much...maybe that's my problem. Or maybe it's just how I understand. Things.

Eventually, I figured out that labels, when used appropriately can be very powerful in terms of communicating a point to the rest of the world. So, if people ask, I am a vegetarian, feminist, artist. Primarily because all three are causes I'm invested in from a marketing, soap-box standpoint. And to get a message across at times you need to simplify your argument to a stance, which though complex and nuanced is still a stance that is slightly more powerful because it is shared by others. In reality, I'm not 100% anything. And, when it comes to issues of politics, religion, sexuality and gender, shit gets a little muddled, and I have a way harder time answering.

That's it.

Yeah, sorry I haven't been writing...again...shit's been busy!

2011-01-26T16:02:00.001-08:00

It's easy when things are easy

2010-12-30T22:58:00.000-08:00

I didn't realize how much my living situation was really stressing me out until now, about one month out of it, I thought to myself, "Gee, I haven't thought about such and such."

For almost two years since I moved out of my dear friends' house (which was the best and easiest living situation I had ever had) I've been struggling with living situations that really got me down.

What started as an effort to build a small community, or unit, morphed into a nightmare. I grew to dread almost every normal interaction, and ultimately gave up on the idea that the house where I lived could ever really feel like a home. I had initially put a good deal of effort into my "first" home on my own in the real world.. And in exchange I was met at best with a lack of compatibility--consideration--and at worst with violent hostility.

The last few months living in that house, I stopped eating dinner altogether. I just couldn't bear seeing anyone. I'd get home, perhaps take a plate of crackers up to my room, clean, read, fall asleep.

It took a very frightening wake up call to get the heck out, and while it was scary, traumatic, disruptive, I'm really glad that it happened. I feel safe now. I come home and think about what I will cook and whether anybody else will be there to share it with. I am here, and here I can mostly just be me, still mindful of basic considerations, but not so mindful as to fuck up every now and then (cough, drunken sleep walking?) and get away with a crimson face and a good laugh.

Bottom line: I hate it when people say that some hardship will toughen my hide, or for one reason or another I actually need things to be difficult. That's bullshit. It's easy when things are easy, and I'm not in any way wishing things were different.

holy jesus fuck and a half....

2010-12-30T07:05:00.000-08:00

I got a little too drunk last night....not sure how it happened so quickly......

Woke up in my bed, not sure where my cellphone was or how I even got there....

aaaaand.

When I skyped my cellphone and finally found it, there was a text from my house mate asking whether I thought HIS room was my room..............

I was like. WHAT DID I DO. I DO NOT DO THINGS LIKE THAT.....WHAT.....

Scary thought to have...apparently I just got confused and walked in, and walked to his closet as though it was mine?

Remember when I said I thought my life was just a long line of highly mortifying experiences strung all together for the world to laugh at....

Well, furies, add this one to the list.

Hi

2010-12-13T09:52:00.000-08:00

Missed you guys, and my little thinking room on the internet.

Haven't had much room for thought recently.

As most of you know, November fucking sucked.

But now I'm better. New house, new (and old) friends, new dress. GREAT new blouse, for that matter.

Fresh, happy, decorated. Put up paper chains and the little silver tree. All is well.

I have some good blog entries thought up in my little head, so stay tuned, kay?

xoxoxoxoL

Oh boy

2010-11-08T11:55:00.000-08:00

I just read this article in Psychology Today and learned some harrowing facts about my procrastination habits.

Well, at least I'm trying to get over the whole process of self-deception, and to start self-regulating just a little bit better. It did actually really freak me out.

A Picture of Dorian Grossies

2010-10-27T08:03:00.000-07:00

Turns out my post about old underwear has put my blog on the international bloggomap. People from Japan, Russia, Ukraine, Indonesia, Canada, Germany, Sweden, Italy, Egypt, India and Slovakia are looking at my dingy old underwear! And there are new ones each day... Gosh, international attention has never felt so....skeezy.

Now I know what to put in the meta tags for my website!

I'd always choose flight over invisibility.

2010-10-26T13:53:00.000-07:00

Flight, always flight.

If you could have a superpower, what would it be?

Still flight.

Why?

If you had to choose between flight and invisibility, which would you choose and why?

Icing sur le cake

2010-10-19T21:22:00.001-07:00

Thursday!

Parking Ticket

Friday!

I was hit on by the son of this woman who was hosting a party that I had to go to for work.

So get this. Instead of introducing himself to me, this 29-year-old guy, red chest hair peeping prominently through his barely-buttoned oxford, and red wine in hand at 3:00 pm, said: "I have to show you my bedroom."

Well, seeing no other choice in the matter, as my delicate social being was paralyzed with shock and horror, I followed the 29-year-old bare-chested, wine-bearing man into the depths of his rich parents' apartment (where, mind you, he STILL LIVED!) so that he could show me his bedroom. As I slunk farther away from civilized humanity, I heard one of the hostess's friends mutter under her breath, "Well, that's a tactic I've never heard before!"

That made two of us...

Well, he showed me his room which had...are you ready for this....LEOPARD PRINT CARPET, which, according to him warranted my witnessing its existence (since I happened to be wearing blue, totally different, cute and conversely rather tasteful leopard print stockings ;-) ). But, the show didn't end there--what I saw will haunt me for the rest of my days... On top of the leopard print carpet sat a twin-sized bed, dressed with a brown paisley patterned duvet cover, a brown paisley which had somehow been cloned against its will and reborn as wallpaper, which covered every non-leopard surface in the tiny bedroom. Before I blanked out, I think I did see a couple board games and a desktop PC....

Well--in any case, my quick observations just outside the threshold of this chamber came of course as some relief to me and my instincts for basic survival for three reasons. Firstly, as the bed was a twin, then certainly the worst of what he might have possibly been advertising could somewhat easily have been avoided through some simple clumsiness of the elbow or knee. Secondly I'm sure if I ran in one direction or another, he'd hardly be able to find me as my leopard stockings might have a zebra-herd effect on him. And thirdly that should I have actually stepped foot into the room itself, I am certain that I might have gone into a severe state of sensory overload and subsequent paraplectic shock, leading most likely to a swift loss of consciousness and hopefully some decreased memory of the whole fiasco which might then have allowed me to sleep peacefully.

Fortunately, I told him his little room was nice and bolted in the opposite direction.

Later the same night I was also hit on by a French black man named Prince who made me blush. And I ate some cookies.

Saturday!

Went on with little strain or injury, most likely in order to prepare me for the next happy set of occurrences! (Shucks, don't you hate it when that happens?)

Sunday!!!!

I got into a car accident when some idiotic, probably drunk, jerk nearly t-boned my dad's fancy prius while I was driving a friend and my sister to tea. Yay car crashes!

Then I got a fever and felt pretty dizzy and had chills. Yay fever illness!

Then I was berated by another (yes, different) diva-man artist. And this time I DID start crying (after I hung up). Yay egotistical assholes!

Then I fell asleep for about 24 hours and now I feel much better, but what the hell!?!

Slept through all of Monday and find myself here, on Tuesday, still reeling.

Hey, maybe this is the price I need to pay for next week, when I'll undoubtedly get laid.

* * *

Great news, however, on the flipside: I figured out why all these people in the Ukraine, Germany and Indonesia have been reading my blog! They all searched google for the term "panties" or "kiddy panties" and found my post about the Dorian Panties! Too bad they found a shriveled, scanned version of what they were looking for...

...Um, gross?

Pride & Prejudice

2010-10-15T08:30:00.001-07:00

Well, this week sucked.

I was verbally abused for forty-five minutes by this woman that I'm doing a graphic design job for, my parents left the country and left me with a house for sale, two children and a dog, my roommates are in a tiff, and the cat box has not been changed for weeks [so I changed it], and on top of all of that I've been doing a TON of free work for my gallerist for somebody else's exhibition--we're talking everything from ten hours worth of layout and design work, four hours worth of video editing and tech troubleshooting, not to mention passing hors d'oeuvres and serving beverages at not one, but TWO epic five-hour art openings one day apart (we're talking napkin-collecting, dishwashing, that kind of stuff, all AFTER I finished the day at my other two jobs!!!).

What the hell. I'm feeling exhausted, exploited, and generally trod upon.

On top of it, one of the big famous artists that I was busting my ass for these past days managed to dish out a particularly nasty insult in my direction last night, after it was all over.

When the opening was over last night, I took a seat for the first time--my feet were killing me and I was reaching new depths of full mental and physical exhaustion. I sat down next to one of the artists from the exhibition, who is quite established and has work at the Smithsonian and the like. He's a glass artist.

The first time I met him, it was during an artists dinner at the gallery, where we all went around and presented a new work to the other artists. Mine was of course first, and I showed a video piece. I had a really positive response from a lot of the other artists, including his wife, and generally went from feeling really nervous and intimidated to feeling quite pleased with myself.

Well his presentation went right after mine, and he said, looking straight at me: "There's no big concept to my work, and no fancy tech presentation needed. I work in glass and ceramics; there is value in working with your hands."

That burning red-faced feeling and butterflies in my stomach came straight back.

And then after I got pretty ticked off, but only after, once the shock of it all had worn off.

Anyway, I thought that was all behind us, especially as I made sure not one but three informational videos about his and his wife's work were properly put on display, and edited to be palatable to a gallery audience. I also made some really nice signage for their opening, which otherwise would have no text AND worked late making it right and making any number of revisions in accordance with their whims. To boot, I'm not a server, and I had to run around giving people filet mignon and horseradish (gross/super-degrading), and wash dishes, as there was no dishwasher (human or machine). I mean -- if that doesn't say I'm humble, a hard worker and know how to use my hands, what does?

But I soon realized it wasn't about that. Flash forward to the end of the second five-hour exhibition preview, and I'm sitting in front of one of the videos at a table with the artist himself.

I muster a, "Were you pleased with everything? I think it went formidably well!"

We both agreed, and given this encouragement I continued, more enthusiastically this time, "I'm so glad that your videos worked. It was exciting to see people watching the videos so attentively!" (I was implying, but not directly mentioning that videos and peoples' reactions to videos interest me, in general.)

And, leaning back in his chair, one arm on the table he smiles and says, "Well that's because they were informational videos. If they were art videos, they probably would have walked away."

And with that I tumbled down to a meager, "Ha ha, I guess so..." And got up and walked away.

In my mind, it takes way more energy to be a jerk than it does to be supportive, but I guess for some people it feels like the opposite. But, honestly....

Place

2010-10-13T11:42:00.000-07:00

Well, that's it, it's on the market (click the image to see the creepy Howard Hanna profile). If you didn't know already, my parents are moving out of the state, and selling the house I grew up in. And although I'm pretty ticked off that my parents went off to Greece, expecting me to deal with workmen, realty agents, neighbors, dog and their children, I still have enough energy left over to feel a little sad about having to let go of my childhood home, for good.

Most of it has been gone for a long time. The neighborhood I knew growing up is mostly gone, people have moved out of town. My parents have made so many changes to the house over the years, that it's already really different than the way I remember it being. They also made me get all of my stuff out of the place about a year ago, so I don't really have a room of my own there anymore. My brothers' rooms have been converted to sitting rooms and studies.

I honestly didn't expect to feel the pangs of nostalgia, but this weekend when I was there, heartily cursing my parents for leaving me alone and overridden with their life sh#!, I took a moment to look around and think about how nice it was to grow up in one place, one house, for all those years.

My parents and I don't often see eye to eye. They have built their lives around achieving stability--in particular financial and marital stability--above all things. Things like personal happiness, emotional stability, etc. I realize now that in many ways, the things that they valued and worked for in life were a direct response to things they lacked while they were growing up.

Both of their parents went through nasty divorces, just as my parents were leaving home for college. My mom's father didn't believe that women deserved to be educated, and didn't offer a dime for her education. My dad's parents' divorce trial made it to the New Jersey supreme court, and he, his six siblings, and their foster brother were caught in between some serious animosity. In brief, alcoholism, extra-marital affairs, emotional and physical abuse, endless petty court battles, suicide and chronic depression defined a good part of their young lives. And so, I'm sure at one point they made a resolution, both separately and together, that 1) their marriage would never end in divorce (this, is more my dad's big thing) and 2) they would achieve the kind of financial stability that would allow them to support a house, the full education of four children, etc. (my mom's particular leaning).

Perhaps because this is what they offered me growing up, and perhaps because it is all I know, I of course found flaws in their methodologies, as children of parents often do. Both of my parents, for instance, had difficulty controlling their tempers, and corporal punishment was not out of the question when I was growing up as it was for, say, my youngest sibling. And, while they saw me through my "necessary" education and day to day needs with an admirable, even enviable, steadfastness, other reasonable, but superfluous expenses or needs were deemed unworthy, and largely overlooked.

Looking back on it, I realize how young they were, and how fresh their family traumas must have been even after they had me and my brothers. How they were learning to be parents, as I was learning to be. And--part of me understands the decision-making there, however muddled with anger and insecurity, through that assumption of their vulnerability. I honestly believe that they were trying to make the world a better place in their own little way, and coming to terms with a lot of serious baggage in the meantime.

But, seeing the house as it is now, and remembering how it was, I can also see a big, beautiful part of what they were able to give me: a sense of place.

I mean a sense of place in more ways than one. Literally in that they gave me that house for twenty-odd years, and that childhood, which for the most part was pretty--stable. And I also got a sense of place in a different sense--more emotional and intellectual. An internal sense of place, which will be with me a long time after the house, and even the parents are gone. Confidence can come from any number of avenues and byways, but I attribute a good deal of my internal stability to my education and having had people--parents, friends--who did not always understand me, but who did offer support in the best way they knew how. You can't go off beating your own drum, so to speak, without a couple of decent mallots.

And so, thanks house, and thanks parents for doing all that you did.

zees and zat

2010-10-12T10:09:00.000-07:00

A little tired today, been seriously lacking sleep due to a royal pile on of family sh*t, work sh*t, and just sh*t in general. Here are two videos that are too cute, and even though they're kind of dark, I think it's dark in a good way. They cheered me up. Plus the French make melancholy look like a deliciously worn old sweater...Good lord, I'm such a francophart. The song is really good too...j'm holden!

Dear Diary...

2010-10-09T11:17:00.001-07:00

Hello readers,
It has occurred to me that the way I've formatted this blog is like a public diary. I never have had much luck with diaries in the past--usually my hand would get tired before I'd fully finished a thought, or I'd only pick it up when I was angry or upset, and so looking back on it it would all seem utterly trivial and I came off completely wrong. So I have all of these books with about three to five journal entries in them, and then tons of [really shitty] drawings, which at the time I thought were totally avant-garde. Even so, I was always pretty fascinated with the idea of the habit of keeping a diary. I immersed myself in the diaries of various other little girls, Anne Frank, of course, Zlata (who was a little girl living in Sarajevo in the 90's), Robert E. Lee's daughter. Any time that I would try to do any creative writing, it would often be in the first person, in journal-entry form. I was convinced that I wanted to go to Columbia University to study journalism, because there I might learn how to effectively write a journal of my own.

As an aside, the benefit of this forum is that I am "composing" my innermost thoughts and secrets for a group of hopefully open and understanding people to read--and so there is (believe it or not) some minor censorship/editing involved. (In reality, I'm super petty and get frequent hand cramps--ha). Frankly, I'm surprised I've made it over a year now with not infrequent posting habits.

Well, getting more to my point here, as my parents are moving out of their house, little dust particles of my childhood are bursting forth in plumes--both good memories and bad. I did, however, have the pleasure of re-reading the various diary entries of a precocious and somewhat lonely little girl, and so I thought I'd share some of them with you. (They are only slightly embarrassing, but mostly pretty funny and, like I said, utterly trivial--e.g. awesome!).

Here is a transcription of the full contents of my 1997 Diary. I was 10, going on 11.

Private
Keep Out!!!
Go Away

January
I've found you in the pile of books by my bed. Oh what a treat it is to have some one to talk to. I'll call you Herry, and I hope we will have good times.

[It should be mentioned that Herry was the name of my favorite stuffed animal, a pink beagle, who has been a good bedfellow to me now for twenty-four years.]

January 24, 1997
Dear Herry,
Today was great. In the morning I was cheerful, as well as in the afternoon. I talked with Sara a bit at recess. At home I don't have to wear my orthodics.

Saturday the 25
Dear Herry,
Today I got squeak, the hamster. Zolin is here to babysit. Chris's pinewood derby was today, tomorrow is Superbowl Sunday.

I <3 Brad Renfro [scribble crossed out J.T.T.] and D.C. [all triple-underlined]

January 26
GreenBay Wow!!! [double underlined]

January 28, 1997
In a baby picture of Sara she is wearing a bicinni [bikini] that is Pink with lips on it! [There is an illustration included, obviously I thought that this was scandalous. I was, and still am a one-piece girl, with a brief hiatus during highschool and college.]

February 1st, My Worst Day.
I'm not selfish. Chris is such a jerk, so are all of them, I don't want to move. I love this house. I did touch it within three years! It's not His at all. Jerk, Jerk, Jerk! They think I'm having a dandy time, But I'm not. Chris hides his devilish deeds behind my parents. I'm so angry. A whole bunch of jerks!

[I'm assuming this is about my dad giving away something to Chris that he assumed I "hadn't touched in three years." A not atypical occurrence. Somebody must have called me selfish. I also am realizing that I loved writing in cursive, and used a lot of Big Fancy Capital Letters]

Feb. 3
Dear Herry,
Mom is going to have a baby! We're not moving after all.

Thoughts for March
It hasn't become March yet, but I feel since I didn't choose to do much of February I wanted to get a head start on March. I just discovered that I can't sketch as well as I can draw. The boys went outside so they can't bug me. I wrote the winning speech for Caitlin.

[Caitlin, like Sara, was one of my best friends in the fourth grade. I wrote her speech for class president elections because I was too nervous to run myself, and besides, I had little interest in politics. Not sure what I meant about sketching versus drawing. I'm assuming that sketching meant drawing from life, and if that is the case it's still true. I can't draw very well from life, but I can draw from my imagination pretty well.]

March 7, 1997
Oh, I'm so sorry I haven't even written to you since February. I'm going to conquer Les Miserables.

Sara's A.g. [American Girl] party is on the 15th the day after her B-day. It is her first sleepover B-day party--I can't wait!

Aaaaaaaand that's it for 1997! In the back are the telephone numbers, sans-area codes for my three best friends: Sara, Caitlin and Meghan. Some practice drawings of horses. Guess sleepovers and Hugo must have hijacked my life. Annie was born in September, and all of a sudden I was the babysitter. Ch-ch-ch-changes!

Dazed and confused or (Anxiety is my middle name)

2010-09-20T20:05:00.000-07:00

It's 11:06 on a Monday night, and I am pretty exhausted, so forgive me.

All of a sudden it feels like there are so many things that I have to remember, and they all just tsunami in on me...

To boot, being an artist, or at least trying to be one is not by any means easy. A massive glacier of potential decisions and deadlines threatens to plow over me...slowly, painfully. Missteps on or around glaciers of any kind, however metaphorical, are also potentially lethal.

Sigh.

I feel pulled in a million directions right now...to places and people I love...Every relationship I have all of a sudden feels brittle, fragile, finite.

Like, I really feel like if I don't keep the people I love very close to me (in proximity) that they will be gone or forget how much we love each other, or that kind of thing. I'm increasingly obsessed with collecting artifacts of my ongoing relationships, everything from voicemail messages to kitchen notes written on the backs of receipts.

And. The potential trajectory of my life all of as sudden feels quite stunted. Like any decision that I make might, like, change or be everything.

I don't know what to do, or who to be, or what to make or where to go or why any of it matters anyway.

With that, le bed.

A Picture of Dorian P*nties

2010-09-15T12:59:00.000-07:00

A few days ago I was putting on my underwear, these bikini-style blue ones with pink edging and little image of a watermelon rind, quarter, half and full on the crotch, and I thought to myself, god, when are these from?

I've been wearing this particular pair of underwear now it seems for years--and yet, they are blessedly stain and skidmark free, they are un-torn and un-holey, and remarkably un-faded. In fact, the little watermelon image is not at all cracked or worn. To boot, my bootie has grown, and shrunk, and grown again and they always seem to fit.

I looked at the tag, and they are by a brand called HUE, which is sold at department stores. I determined that I must have gotten these with my mother, and the last time I went underwear shopping with my mother was when I bought my first bra. It was a totally boring, white Calvin Klein AA stretchy cup (whoo-ey was that back in the day!) and I think I got another one, also CK with rainbow stripes on it, which I fondly nicknamed "retrobra."

INSTANT FLASHBACK ~ I started to remember it well: yes, both bra and panties were acquired on this Mom-instigated shopping trip, a bonafide journey into pre-teen hell, which started at the Pussycat (a bra boutique, in Pittsburgh's Squirrel Hill neighborhood, whose name was enough for me to look stealthily around before I entered, just to make sure that nobody I knew was nearby) and ended at Kaufmann's (a now closed Pittsburgh-based department store, full of floor saleswomen who were dying to give me a buy-two-get-one free panties deal). I could not lift my eyes out of embarrassment the whole time. After some small dispute ("But I don't need any underwear...[sulk]") I gave in, sold out, and bought the panties.

TWELVE YEARS AND FOUR* CUP SIZES LATER, out of school, on my own, and I'm still wearing those panties!

Indeed, I must have bought more than just panties that day at Kaufmann's. More than an arse covering with appealing colors and images. More than my mother's instant appeasement and self-satisfaction.

These panties are made of something different, unearthly. The fibers must be some combination of kryptonite, cotton candy, and ozone...but there is an added aspect written in the very seams, which never have shown wear, something supernatural--dark, even.

As I continue to age, the panties, they stay young, new (ish), always fitting to my ass, despite it's haphazard fluctuation in volume...staring back at me in the full-length mirror, and prodding at the still-open wound of pre-teen awkwardness and mom bra-shopping dates for your then-non-existent titties. PTSD, anyone?! Shudder...

Ah, well, it's one less thing I have to worry about in the unrelenting desert void of adulthood. And yet, one has to wonder, does a girl have to sell herself to the devil to get a decent pair of panties these days?! They just don't make 'em (awkward memories, and panties) like they used to.

BEHOLD! (<--interactive link)

(BTW, they are definitely not this wrinkled when they go on, if you were wondering--it's the scanner, and I think it adds to the effect...)

* Minus one when I went off of birth control

Annie Grows Up

2010-09-15T10:57:00.000-07:00

When my friends and I arrived at the beach in early August, my dad and little sister picked us up and my sister, aged 12, exclaimed, "Yay! Finally I have people to play with!"

She's at that funny age right now, where she isn't quite a teenager, but is very aware of how she dresses and acts in public. And yet the little girl part still manages to shine through at odd, dazzlingly un-self-conscious moments on her part. Sure, we twenty-somethings would love to play with you--after all, isn't that what people do when they get together?

She text-messages constantly, and at the beach she wore Ray-bans and a string bikini and looked very grown up, despite her braces. But she still wants people to play with, and I'm sure she still talks to her stuffed animals in private.

I remember when I was this age--every part of me clung to, lusted for the last little joys of childhood. I never wanted to leave my dolls, little animals, and my picture books, all of which I adored. I played with them in secret long after I'd ever admit to doing such a thing. I wasn't at all interested in boys or dances or things like that. Even into my late tweens, nothing was more exciting than the prospect of getting a new doll. However, I'd swear my interest in dolls was a higher, perhaps even meta-interest; that of a doll connoisseur, a collector, rather than a child. Around the age of eleven, I started to read "big" adult-y books by Hugo, Dostoyevsky, first-person accounts of the civil war, which backed my street cred as a mature being. What, play with dolls? Nonsense, let me get back to Les Miserables, I am, after all, three-hundred pages in! No time for dolls. Behind closed doors it was a different story.

Even to this day I still feel pangs of love for my dolls; as I was cleaning my room in my parent's house, I really couldn't bear to part with a few old friends.

Those tween years were a sad time for me, because I was just so painfully conscious that it would all very soon be lost. I wonder if she, too is sad, or whether, blessedly, she feels more ready for the onslought of hormones and high school girl-politics than I was. I hope she is.

On the way home we stopped overnight in New York, and her sole request in all of Manhattan was to go see F.A.O. Schwartz to play on the big piano. When we did get around to mid-town and I showed her the store, she did all but jump up and down. Annie is already pretty tall for her age, and it was immediately clear that she was one of the rare few tweens onsight. So she looked, did not touch. Admired, but did not express any want. She wished to see the big piano, which was shown in the Tom Hanks movie BIG, which she'd seen once on TV. When I saw her wait on line to go on the piano, she seemed pretty sad. I told her that I didn't want to take off my shoes, so she'd have to go alone (and besides, I had to get it on film!). She must have felt a bit like Tom Hanks did in that film, torn between the person her impulses say she is, and the person she is inevitably becoming. I hope she takes her time.

Here's the movie of her on the piano, taken with my new camera that adds a beautiful vintage-y haze to all the pictures and videos it takes. It's actually really difficult for me to watch how she hesitates, teeters between really wanting to just play, and being aware that she's taller, older, too "big" for this (and also in front of a camera).

Beach Daze

2010-09-15T10:53:00.001-07:00

To catch up a bit, I suppose I ought to start at the beginning of where we left off (mind you I've also posted not one but TWO other posts today, all for your reading pleasure!).

This summer was pretty busy. I was working pretty hard, and then I took a couple weeks off to go to the beach with my family, see my two best friends from college, help one of those best friends get to her deceased grandmother's house to settle the estate, and to go to Maine to interview my father's father, a born-again Christian faith healer who is all but estranged from his seven children and twenty-five grandchildren.

More on all of that later.

But first, we have a weekend at the beach with the girls. It was so nice to see them again, and just be our goofy selves. We all knew the time together was very precious. Miranda was moving to Buenos Aires in September (she's there now) and Phoebe, on her way back to Greece after working things out with her family.

I had my new camera with me, and a voice recorder...

Pictures're worth a thousand words. :)

Home Movie Friends at Beach 2010 from Lizzy De Vita on Vimeo.

What light!

2010-09-13T07:08:00.000-07:00

My dear, poor lost sheep. Apologies for being such a neglectful blog composatrice--what on earth have you been doing these weeks since last I posted?

Fear not--these weeks that I have been "working," indeed have been but a ruse for the non-blog-reading public. Let them think that I have other preoccupations but my online persona! Let them say, "Ah, Lizzy, she works so hard at her job!" Job is a word that is foreign to me--my true vocations are what keep me awake at night, lusting after blog readers and comment streams...potential laughs to be had, insights to be insought.

Soon, dear children, soon. I have forsaken you long enough, but I have not forgotten you. Your needs are higher than my own.

Manifestation Contre Réforme de la Retraite - Juin 2010 - Métro, Boulot, Tombeau

2010-07-18T16:24:00.001-07:00

Manifestation Contre Réforme de la Retraite - Juin 2010 - Métro, Boulot, Tombeau
Originally uploaded by decembre

People work too much and for too long in offices. I'm going on vacation at the end of the week, and even as a part-timer, I TOTALLY sympathize with this girl. For non-frenchies, there's a phrase in French that goes "Metro, Boulot, Dodo" (meaning "metro, work, sleep") but obviously this girl has taken it to the next step with the rhyme scheme "metro, work, tomb."

Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Void

2010-07-17T14:30:00.000-07:00

So, it's been a while since I've talked much about my love life, but on the almost-first anniversary of my first broken heart I thought my faithful blog readers might be deserving of a little follow up.

I've been reading more and more lately, including a great deal of "destination" literature. Somewhat recently, upon the recommendation of a friend, I picked up an essay called "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Void," which gives the perspectives of thirteen different people that the author encounters while crossing the bleakest part of the Sahara Desert, otherwise known as the Void. What does the Void mean to you?

Hm, well, for those of you who can't make the connection between tons of reading, the Sahara desert & my love life, let me lay it out there for you: it's been a hell of a dry season!

I can't say I'm sorry that this is the case. If there's one thing being in a romantic relationship for 3.5 years taught me, it's that relationships take a lot of work. And I'm ok being on hiatus.

That said, I nearly fainted when on a semi-inadvertent date a couple weeks ago, el bachelor touched my elbow.

Most times, however, I'm happy to go out where I want to when I want to and not have to give much thought to the interests, attitudes, or feelings of a significant other. This has not universally been the case, and for this, I give you the Fourteenth Way of Looking at a Void, in the following blog entry.

The Fourteenth Way of Looking at a Void, or RELEVANT Inventory of L's Lovelife Over the Past Year Described Objectively in List Format For Your Benefit:

Official Dates: 3
Inadvertent Dates: 1
Cumulative Encounters of a Third Kind*: 2.2
Un-romantic Encounters That Left Me Wistful and Contemplative: 2
Total Encounters That Brought Joy and Did Not Send Me Running: 2.8
Eligible Bachelors: 3
Eligible Bachelorettes: 1.3
Ineligible Bachelors: 2
Unfortunate Accidental Encounters of Fourth Kind with Gay Male Friend, who was not included in the Ineligible Bachelors Section, for Your Information: 1

Relevant Profiles of Bachelor(ette)s:

Eligible Bachelor # 1:
Codename: Chainsaw Man
Occupation: Architect/Sculptor
Age: 33
Provenance: Mid-west, probably Missouri
Beard: Yes
Presumed Sexuality: Straight
Type: Boring
Height: 5" above eye level
Official Date: Yes
Total Number of Dates (Official and Non): 2
Location(s): Quiet Bar / Regent Square Apartment
Met: At a hipster bar
Digits given: Yes
Days until digits were utilized: 1.5
Initial Conversations: Promising, centered primarily around architecture
Later Conversation: Non-existant, despite best attempts
Average Subject of Conversation on First Official Date: Nazi Zombie video games, followed closely behind by marriage and children
Hours played watching said Chainsaw Man and nameless male accomplice in furniture-less dark room play Nazi Zombie killing video game on second date: 4
Calls exchanged after said horrific experience: 0
Gods thanked: 1

Eligible Bachelor #2:
Codename: N.A.
Official Date: Not quite
Location: Concert, Bar
Presumed Sexuality: STRAIGHT
Type: Smooth Operator
Occupation: Engineer
Beard: No
Encounter of a Third Kind: .4
Elbows Touched: 1
Height above eye level: -5"
Alcohol consumed on semi-date: Too much

Eligible Bachelorette #1:
Codename: N.A.
Occupation: Unspecified
Official Date: No
Encounter of a Third Kind: .8
Location: Squirrel Hill Apartment
Height above eye level: 2"
Beard: No
Presumed Sexuality: Bi
Type: Coquette
Compliments: Yes, 1
Subject of compliments: Ears
Line: "You have nice ears"
Threesomes proposed: 1
Threesomes indulged: 0
Primary Reasoning for Lack of Indulgence of Said Threesome: Too late, too hot outside.
Awkward near-encounters after: 1

Ineligible Bachelor #1:
Codename: BRECHT EVENS
Encounter of a Third Kind: 1
Location: Random hotel, FRANCE
Presumed Sexuality: Gay
Age: I'd say 32, though it's unspecified.
Occupation: Comic Book Artist
Type: Party Boy
Height Above Eye Level: 7"
Beard: No
Hair: Yes
Practiced Way of Placing Said Hair out of Face with Affected Delicacy That Led One To Believe He Was Gay Even Though It Turned Out He Had a Belgian Girlfriend: Yes
Nuff Said: I'll say!

Ineligible Bachelor #2:
Codename: Swiss Cheese
Age: 35, Unspec.
Type: Sensitive, Knowing
Presumed Availability: Single
Engaged: Yes
Hours of Professions of Love: 6
Gross: Totally

Person Who Left Me Wistful and Contemplative #1:
Codename: Undesignated
Type: Perceptive, introspective
Presumed Availability: Not
Occupation: Artist
Serendipitous Personal Encounters: 6-8
Emails Exchanged Since: 6-8

Eligible Bachelor #2:
Code Name: casbahboyfriend
Presumed Sexuality: Straight
Presumed Availability: Not
Beard: No
Acceptable 5:00 Shadow: Yes!
Height Above Eye Level: 6"
Met: At Art Opening
Occupation: Artist/Sculptor
Digits Given: By way of self-printed old-fashioned calling card
Digits Used: 0
Email/Facebooks Used: Yes, both.
Serendipitous Physical Encounters in Between Digital Ones: 3
Whole-hearted Giddy Joy At Reception of Official Date Text Message Despite the Tired Format: Yes
Official Dates: 1
Location: Bar
Persons Offended by L on Official Date: 1
Great Episodes of Tear-Inducing Laughter At the Expense of Datee When Datee Was Trying to Be Serious About a Totally Absurd Subject After a Long Night of Dull Conversation: 3.7
Long Walk Home Alone (Again): Yes
Worth It: YES

Hehehehehe...well here's all the relevant information--any additional questions or clarifying statements can be directed to the author of this blog on the comments page.

* Includes, but is not limited to Almost Threesomes, Dance Moments, Knowing Glances, Professions of Love, and Elbow Touches.

"Wanna be friends?" "Ok!"

2010-06-21T11:16:00.001-07:00

I remember the first day of first grade, riding the bus to school. A few stops down from mine, Tess G., a sprightly first-grader, with dark red hair got on the bus. Without hesitating I asked her to sit next to me, even though I'd never met her before and there were plenty of other places to sit.

She plopped down next to me and since none of our legs were able to touch the ground, we started swinging them with growing giddiness, our little hearts fluttering from the thrill of it all.

"Do you want to be best friends?" I asked, grinning.
"Ok!" She replied instantly. And so, from that day on, we were best friends. She later moved away and we lost touch. But at that moment on the bus, nothing else but her newness and proximity were in consideration.

This was before I got really cranky at seven o'clock in the morning, before making friends and sharing seats got way more complicated. Some of my friends, like Tess, have had their run in my life. Some are on layaway, some on pause, while others have remained steady for years. I have enjoyed seeing my friendships grow and deepen, while I've mourned others that I've lost.

Still, I really miss this time, when making friends was just so simple. In a lot of ways programs like Facebook impart on me that same leg-swinging giddiness. "Wanna be friends?" "I ACCEPT!!!" Instant, un-complicated.* But then that feeling fades (as that initial, love-at-first-sight electricity often does in relationships, making the relationship turn into something deeper and more interesting, or alternately more superficial and intermittent.). Maybe occasionally I'll drop a comment on their wall, or poke them or whatever, and that'll be that.

That said, even Facebook's drop-down menus have a subtext, and making new friends is pretty daunting to a sensitive little flower like myself. I find myself thinking back to that first day of school, before my feet could touch the ground.

*As an aside, this French comedian, Gad Elmaleh has this great skit where he actually acts out this scenario ("Can you imagine if we spoke in real life the way we speak via MSN chat, texting or Facebook? Can you imagine? A guy walks into a bar directly to another guy and asks, 'Will you be my friend?' and the other guy answers, 'No, I ignore you.' Or you walk up to a pretty girl and plead, 'Add me...' It's absurd!") I still like it, though.

Oh Em Gee...

2010-06-18T11:49:00.001-07:00

I TOTALLY relate to this article and the accompanying chart, as I just went to the bank for the first time in....four months? Maybe got the number for a doctor to schedule my first checkup since...I was 17. "What AM I, some kind of Wizard???"

Thought you guys'd appreciate.

Holy Cannoli

2010-06-17T06:51:00.000-07:00

I spoke to a city worker about my (2009) taxes today who was SO nice.

I forgot to fill out a form, and something scary came in the mail that said I might need to be audited, potentially FINED. There was apparently a glitch in processing one of the (many) checks I sent out this year for my crazy artist free-lance taxes. They just didn't get to it, so I was kind of powerless in the matter anyway.

But then I called the number on the letter and I was immediately connected with a human being who was actually in charge of the whole thing. And he was like "Don't lose sleep over this, it's no big thing."

So, I won't. Thanks, man, you made my day!

Your Nose is Growing

2010-06-15T10:41:00.000-07:00

My landlord lied to me today, with a grotesque blatancy that nearly sent me off the edge. He said that he did not own my house, and therefore was not in a position to properly repair the roof, which leaks and has caused some mold damage to the interior. The matter was out of his hands. If I'm lucky, and keep on prodding him to do something, he'll patch it, but that's the best I can expect until the next round of damage occurs. My discounted rent, he said, was to make up for all of the sh*t I "have to put up with."

However, I was informed by one of the (many) maintenance men I've met in this year-long journey that they are just sitting on the property to tear it down and construct an $800,000 replacement on the prime real estate, and that they're waiting for the people next door to sell the lot. The matter is well within his grip, he just doesn't want to put any money into the house.

I've been on this guy's tail since April when I detected the (first) leak, and they've been "calling roofers" and "fixing other units." They'd get there as soon as they could, and thanks for letting them know.

Then the bathroom started, and water was coming in through the air vent. They didn't pick up their phone because they were "busy serving other units," their voicemail box was full because the child of an immigrant woman who doesn't speak English "keeps calling and filling up the box."

Then water started coming in through the electric socket in the bathroom, and mold erupted on the ceiling. "It isn't for lack of trying," they plead when I sent them a written request via fax last week (the first week of JUNE). "This winter was bad, and there was a lot of ice damage in all of our units."

And I accepted what they said because, you know, maybe it was all true. (Those immigrant children can be burdensome!) But it doesn't add up, and I'm sick of being trod on because I'm a relatively open, trusting individual. My grandmother recently called me "an injustice collector," and I'm starting to think it's true, and, even worse, that it might be my own doing (like, for not standing up for myself due to chronic insecurity and self-devaluing, etc.).

So I'm not sure quite what to do. If I were acting solely on principle, then I'd move out tomorrow, but as a sentient being, there are other factors to consider. But wait, isn't that what got me into this in the first place?? Bugger.

Unwinding

2010-06-11T07:48:00.000-07:00

Lately, I've been giving some thought to the way I manage stress. I'm pretty sure I'm not super-healthy about stress. I am generally open about things, and I wear my mind on my sleeve (and yes, in case you were wondering, sometimes I do go sleeveless). But at the same time, I obsess over problem situations, and I get aggravated when I find myself dwelling on things that my logical self knows aren't worth the effort! Chronic back problems abound, (wait, hold on, I have a body to worry about too?!?) I am confident that I need to find more constructive ways to recognize stress and figure it out. Now wouldn't that be the mature adult thing to do?

The first step is identifying the problem. What better diagnostic tool than one's blog? So, now I am going to delve into a bit of self-analysis. Whether or not y'all wish to come along for the ride is up to you.

When people go on vacation, or come home from work they say they "need to unwind." What exactly are they unwinding? What part of them is wound? With what, and how does it get that way? Thinking about this word in its affirmative form has allowed me to see a kind of vision of how I get stressed, how I become needy of unwinding.

Faced with stress, I am a definite wind-er. I do not really act out much, in fact, most of the time when I'm feeling stress, I wouldn't necessarily say "I'm stressed!!!!" especially when there's no tangible end in sight. I'm more likely to accept things and feel "normal" until some benevolent person in my life says, "This isn't normal."

But I am [stressed]. And the situation usually isn't "normal," whatever that is.

In reality, when I'm not "feeling" anything, I'm actually winding myself around and around an issue. Defense mechanism, anyone?! I've mentioned before in this blog that I feel like there's a maximum threshold for the comprehension of psychological and physical pain before the brain just shuts down. I'm relatively sure the same thing goes for stress.

I diffuse tangible stress by talking about it--and even my speech patterns are circular. A little thread of logical thought and analysis, starts to accumulate inside me, coiling around the amorphous form of my stress. This is a long process--like mummification? For instance, I might "vent" about something for five to ten to twenty minutes straight, feel like I've "gotten it out," but then half an hour later I've circled back to the same issue over again, and it feels just as urgent as the first twenty-five times I've talked about it. My mind becomes a satellite, bound by forces beyond its control into orbit. Endless, increasingly abstracted understanding of a topic.* And of course stress factors change--they expand and contract, their presence is not constant or controlled, and so sometimes a bit bursts out here or there, and the coil needs to be reworked. Eventually, once I've done it enough I am able to (kind of) move on. But the bugger's still there. Intact, but wound up.

Those of you who know me well know that I have a seriously one-track mind (see Fig. 1 below). What I don't realize at the time is, especially with endemic stresses, that this talking is slowly winding me up inside in such a way that I can start to tolerate that stress at a higher level. The way I've begun to think about it now is I am building a little cocoon around each stressor, and for the big ones, there's a lot of thread that goes into it.

Well when there is a clear end in sight, when the stressor breaks itself free from my life, I'm left with a lot of that winding, binding material, and it's awful. Because then, and only then, do I realize just how stressed I was the whole time. The meters, sometimes miles of winding thread gradually falls away, and, just as actively and painstakingly as before, I have to retract, unwind, and let the negative bits of whatever (or whomever) was stressing me out just seep slowly out of my pores, and away from me. Yet, I'm left with heaps of this stuff, this spent effort containing and managing in a knotted confused mess in my interior. (Illustrations to follow). Frankly, unwinding is way harder for me than winding, because it involves becoming a little vulnerable again, having to undo my fiction of control to return to some, slightly less stressful way of life.

Anyway, I hope those of you who bothered to read this aren't totally freaked out right now. I could actually be wrong, but I just felt a sproing in my back...yoga needs to happen asap.

Fig. 1: Distraction Test

Take it yourself here.

* My artwork also functions in this more obsessive fashion; I will examine something and "get into it" until it's hardly recognizable, representational, but abstracted through the intensity of a single, patient unrelenting perspective.

Are the kids asleep?

2010-06-03T07:43:00.000-07:00

Today I made a bunch of calls that I've been putting off:
1) to the tax man (re: missing/unprocessed checks)
2) to the orthodontist (re: braces)
3) to the landlord (re: roof leaks)

I called my gallery director to set up an appointment, I paid my AmEx bill (YIPE!) and my rent bill, I answered my work email, and responded to three text messages. My room is messy, but it can wait.

I made sure that this pro-bono graphic design stint I've been working on was finished before the team took the booklet I created for them to India. I called in some birthday thank you's. I took some frames to be repaired for my show at the end of June. And I'm posting to my blog.

And then I turned on my AC unit in my studio (the only one in my house) and looked at the mess before me. Beneath the detritus of my everyday efficiencies, my partner, creative Lizzy, has been waiting here patiently all along, all hot and bothered, waiting for me to put the kids to bed. Efficient, bring-home-the-bacon Lizzy has been on a role, but she's been awfully lonely these days.

Well, the kids are finally in bed, and I'm ready to jump in and make some magic happen! She's fallen asleep, but I'll wake her gently, and maybe we can work something out.

You're 24

2010-06-01T17:59:00.001-07:00

A new year, joy of joys!

Last year was hard, and I admit, I was ready to leave it be-hind. It felt kind of like this at times. Like this other times. This year, at least, will be a different year. It should be said that each year that goes by, I feel like I am learning a ton, and I really couldn't do it without my friends, who, each in their own way, really help me, like, not evaporate.

And I'm trying to learn from my mistakes, have a brighter perspective, and be better about my weaknesses (most shockingly, I have joined a gym--WHAT?!).

I wanted to share an awesome, grin-inducing song with you called "You're 24" by First Floor Power, this Swedish band that I've been bopping to for a while now. I have been dying to turn 24 JUST so I can hear it in a new light, but, I can't figure out how to work this internet thing to upload the mp3 onto this blog, and I can't find a link to it online.......Any help would be appreciated, ye internet buffs :)

If not, here's your homework: download it illegally online, on your own time, and report back here.

xoxoxo

2010-06-01T17:59:00.000-07:00

The Bloomfield Shur-Save 5.23.10 (Or I hate being the only mature one in this conversation)

2010-05-26T11:33:00.000-07:00

I'm lacking regularity...feeling a little sluggish...

2010-05-18T18:19:00.000-07:00

I wish there was Artactivia. Something kind of creamy, pretty tasty that I could eat with a spoon once or twice a day to help "move" things along, you know, make me more regular. And who could we get as the spokesperson...Suggestions?

The truth is, I need to put my head to the grindstone and WORK. Harder, more frequently, and in a more focused way on my artwork. I'm trying, lord knows, but just not hard enough...I get lazy, I want to be 23 and run around and go away, go to parties, vegg out in front of some baaad TV (all important for my development, I assure you). And then I lose what little balance I have...

I think that most of my anxiety here is related to a total impatience with myself, and I'm trying to be more permissive of what I "need" in my life...but sometimes it's hard to tell.

People doing fun things in the world - Life Dreams Part 2

2010-05-05T09:58:00.000-07:00

Most of this is thanks to friends, but gosh, there's just a lot of stuff that makes me go YES, THAT IS IT! here's some...

____

Everybody in the world should have a Hi, or go to Barcelona. The future is human(e).

____

I want to live in a house like this. Big windows, green, lots of sun, 100% modern, 100% windows.

more pictures

Prefab weeHouse home

____

Cool art, inspiring me:

Article in NY Times Science

(Or, pictures!)

Other cool organic art...

____

And...

Design for the little japanese girl in my soul.

I like this one...evaporating chairs on ghost floors...

Are japanese babies just super tiny?

____

More to come. Lots of good ideas to inspire and drool over...

And because I love you, a fiction piece

2010-04-21T22:53:00.000-07:00

I'm not totally happy with this/the color. But I thought I'd put it up for some feedback anyway. Look at that two posts back to back!

Memory Comic Preview

2010-04-21T20:58:00.000-07:00

This strip is part of a small zine I'm hoping to print myself in the next few weeks. This will be the interior of a gate fold book. And yes, it's more to do with relationships...one in particular. Some of the images are not self-explanatory, but I'm going to work that into the pages before, so don't worry.

Sorry I've Been Boring Lately. I Guess I Need a Little Dose of DRAMA!!!!

2010-04-14T21:40:00.000-07:00

(As if!!!)

Well anyhow, I'm going to New York this weekend to visit la bella Nonna and see Tosca at the Met, in what has become our yearly tradition (this is our third year). Tosca is my grandmother's favorite opera, and I'm interested as ever to see what happens, and how this love story won't work out and how all of these characters will die miserable, inevitable, poetic deaths. I mean, I've been through every last hacking cough of La Boheme, and the live entombment of Aida, along with countless others, but Tosca, Tosca seems like drama-rama. I need some serious power lipstick, hello Nars, shade AMAZON!

I also found this creepy and kind of cool animation to "E Lucevan Le Stelle" (the smash-hit from the score--I've been jamming to it on my iPod as part of the Ultimate Puccini collection I downloaded). I'm basically super-excited. [And I know not everybody feels this way about the opera, but just try to think about some really big treat you like, and, well that's how I feel right now.] In any case, and even if you have to press mute, I hope in some way you like this video. Enjoy!

Things that I always have trouble with

2010-04-05T20:56:00.001-07:00

- Buying new, aluminum free natural deodorant
- Buying new, natural, sensitivity toothpaste that actually tastes good, foams satisfactorily, and doesn't cost $7

It happens very infrequently (hm, about every 40 - 80 days, depending), but when it does, it gives me trouble.

Space Filler

2010-04-04T19:39:00.001-07:00

Slow writing today, a lot going through my head. Read between the lines.

*

I understand that sometimes people need another person to fill some kind of lack.

Well it isn't always fun when you are the space filler,
that person,
who is only needed, wanted in

the interim.

I usually know when this is happening, and I let it happen because I like being around people who need a lean-to. But it's always with this

wholly benevolent, ultimately melancholy
understanding
that I am just what is needed rather than one who's needed.

*

Yesterday I posted a comment on facebook that I wished I was fifty.

I don't wish I were fifty.

But sometimes I get frustrated with all of the politics of figuring shit out when you're young. Tedious.

Or being the casualty of somebody else's process of figuring things out for themselves. Brutal.

I am happy to be young, eating peeps for breakfast, going out at night, wearing mini-skirts and sneakers, complaining about things like leg hair. And the newness of everything; the endless possibility.

But, you know, I've never felt like I fit in much with people my age. Either that or I have a natural propensity to feel lonely, even when there're people around me who are present, who care, whose insight I trust, need.

Despite this, how lucky I must be. I'm the girl at the other end of the lunch table, eating alone, thinking, doodling, daydreaming. Wondering if or when home will be.

On Finishing Things

2010-03-31T19:31:00.000-07:00

Last week a very close friend of mine moved away from me forever.

I've dealt with separation anxiety in some way shape or form for most of my life. I like people (as previous posts have mentioned) and I get awfully attached to them, to the point where I just can't let go, most often to my own detriment. Once a man started talking to me at a subway station on 176th street, and I rode all the way down to 14th Street with him as he went on about his life. He left and I never saw him again. Then I turned and rode back up to 120th where I was living at the time, but on the way I met up with a woman who started talking to me about her life story, and I rode all the way to 146th Street with her until I finally took the downtown train back to my apartment.

That said, it takes a while for me to make friends. Like, real friends. And more often than not, my "real" friends disappoint me and perhaps even participate in activities which inevitably lead to heartbreak. (Aren't I just a China doll...) In the past, when I am the one leaving, or when I know friend or family is about to leave I resort to desperate tactics, of which my favorite tendency has been fight-picking ('cause when you're fighting, it's always easier to be apart, and there are so many fights to pick!). Oh I've put a lot of relationships through fight-picking hell because I can't stand saying goodbye.

I've had the pleasure of being Real Friends with this particular individual for only about three months, truth be told. It was very nice, easy. He reminded me that there were relationships to be had outside of boyfriends, girlfriends. That even in a town where you grew up, where you thought you knew everyone and everything, there was still more to learn and know and meet and see. And there was a nice sense of humor about it and there was a genuine mutual interest in each others problems, however serious or absurd. Nice, right? And then he left because he had to, and I was pretty shook up about it. I saw it coming though, even as it began. For a long time I was disinterested in friendship with him because I knew this was coming. What was the point? But then, one way or another, the ease took over and tumbled into an inevitability which I tried on, at first with some eye-rolling, later with some reticence. And then, before I could convince myself otherwise It became comfortable and stretched out into a favorite shirt.

A favorite shirt that moved out of the country to find a clarity and a purpose that he couldn't do here. I knew, know it was necessary, blah blah. But, hey! I wasn't READY to say goodbye yet! Couldn't he've waited until, like, I dunno, I was ready, found new, other friends to ease the transition!? Or, like, I dunno, got my life completely in order?!!? Apparently not.

I did have some warning, which I'm grateful for, I guess. Indeed, with a month or two to go before the execution date I thought, well this time I can see this problem coming from a mile away. So I'll try to be a grown-up about it and I'm not going to pick a fight, I'll be good about it. Supportive.

Ok, folks. I don't try to repress things, I SUBLIMATE. I try to work through them or redirect them but then I fail at that and just end up repressing them, and then it all blows up in my face in some radical, messy explosion. So, well. Two days before we had to say goodbye, I dreamt we had a horrible fight and I woke up in a vile mood, still angry over the subconscious dispute over what I can't possibly remember (no matter!), and utterly sick to my stomach (and to boot I was feeling pretty out of it because I was under the weather as it was). And then the cat sneezed and it sounded a lot like, "REPRESSION, YOU FOOL!"

The next couple days I lazed around piteously, cried indulgently, declared that I was in a state of crisis, opted to move away forever and sell all my worldly possessions, and forged through with the defeatist resolve to eat wine and cake in the middle of the day.

Way to go, Liz.

With that, as usual, I plunged into the infinite caverns of self-reflection, whose intricate depths are occasionally illuminated by this measly rummage pile of diary-like blah-blah blog entries. Long story short, I thought about why the hell I do this to myself.

Turns out (after some thought), this clingyness extends waaay beyond my personal relationships with people, friends, Real Friends. It happens with things, projects, imaginary people. For instance, I realized I hadn't finished a book in two years (with one or two small exceptions), not because I couldn't find a book that I liked. Precisely the opposite: when I started really liking a book (and I've at this point compiled a list of all the books I've started and not finished), I compulsively put it down because some part of me is unable to deal with the fact that it will all come to an end--sometimes in a mere one to two hundred pages. I've been reading A Little Princess since 1993, Jane Eyre since god knows when. As a kid, I'd pick up the biggest books I could find. Starting in fourth grade, for a solid year and a half to two years I read all of Les Miserables, not because I was so invested in Hugo's writing style, but because I could sit and watch little Cosette's entire life happen, it wouldn't just, you know, cut off. What's more, the level of diffuculty was such that I knew it would be a long time before it all had to come to an end. I was riding off my inability to understand certain vocabulary, not as a gesture towards self-betterment, but as a protective mechanism.

Yes, I'm convinced of this. I developed a fervent, successive line of crushes on all four brothers Karamazov one summer, and had my heart broken four times over in the final pages of that wretched translation. Likewise, I simultaneously rejoiced and lamented on the day when Elizabeth finally got to go off with Darcy...it just got to be too much when I got to the Secret Garden, Mrs. Dalloway, etc, etc...I just started shutting them before the first pangs of heartbreak would sink in. PSYCHOSIS ANYONE?!?! I mean, these are like fake people!

So, yeah. Projects, the same. So many projects, papers started, in stages, drafts, nothing final. I'm working on this, this I'm at this stage, but I want to do eight more things. Once in college I took an A+ paper to my professor to ask how best to start editing it. She was utterly flabberghasted. Frankly, who the hell did I think I was. I mean--honestly!?

And this blog (while I seem to be on a role of pathologizing every element of my life). It's always going, completely un-finish-able. Even if I abandon it for months on end, it will still be here. Unfinished. Just a pile of thoughts that I can excuse away as personal or informal.

Ultimately it's not about saying good-bye, separation. It's about a problem with the notion of finality.

You know what Mr. Real Friend said to me before he left? Essentially: Do some work. Finish it. Send it to some publishers, outside of Pittsburgh. Your stuff is good and more people need to see it.

The simplicity of this statement blew me away, and I realized why I was glad that we had what we did, even though we were saying goodbye. And I think I'm ready to believe this.

The proof? I said good-bye to him on Monday. By Thursday I'd finished reading one book (Coehlo's The Alchemist, a fable). By the following Monday I'd finished another (Robinson's Home, a novel--Robinson is my favorite author, very, very hard to finish when each sentence is just that good.). It's ok. I lived. They'll be there when I need them again, if I need them again. I'm sure I will. And you never know--who wouldn't want to know how Jane Eyre ends up? She's safe where she is, but she's better off getting to know me, and me her. And there's so much, so much out there--why let a little thing like an all-consuming lifelong psychological affliction get in my way?

In many ways books are like friendships. They never really end, because your relationship still evolves, even after one chapter, or one volume is finished. They change because you change; you see them differently as time passes, and you need them for different reasons at different times. As a wise friend said, they're still there. They stay with you forever--even if you can't see them.

Word to the wise...

2010-03-22T08:17:00.001-07:00

Yesterday and the day before I felt like total crap, was sleeping a lot, couldn't accomplish anything. Finally yesterday I broke down while I was laying on the couch in my living room, arms and body heavy, 4:00 pm and still in my pyjamas.

My roommate J was the only one at home. I crawled upstairs in tears, (aren't I utterly pitiful) and started railing on the one thing that I could conclude was absolutely wrong--"I need to get out of this city! I don't know where to go! I have no reason to BE here."

At this point he was already half way up the stairs to his room on the third floor. He slowly backed down, probably wondering why he agreed to live with two basket-case women, wondering also what was for lunch. He goes, "You know what I learned? Don't make important life decisions when you feel like shit."

He took me on a walk and then I got some wine and cake which seemed appealing after a day of non-eating and non-being. It didn't help my grim perspective on anything. I couldn't imagine not feeling exhausted and useless ever again, and this lack of potential energy had seeped its way into my perspective on life, friends, love, existence in general. My life, everything I did, everyone I knew, seemed as flimsy and impotent as I felt.

Well, today I feel better (virus?). I had a hearty breakfast of pasta and chocolate chips and coffee, and I listened to a radio show about the comics festival in Angouleme, which really made me feel better. (The guys put MY interview before Crumb's interview, so it's almost like we're sitting next to each other in some kind of audio-cyberspace, for ALWAYS!!!!!!!!.....siiiigh...I love my little English friends). And I don't think such bleak thoughts anymore. And I don't feel like crawling around weeping anymore that matter. But I'm going to remember J's advice, because everything really is different today and it ain't that bad.

Muscle Memory

2010-03-11T11:22:00.000-08:00

Last week, my yoga teacher quit unexpectedly. She was less than six months pregnant, but in less than two weeks she'd ballooned out and she was physically unable to do most of the poses for basic yoga. She informed us after the class that she'd expected to make it to eight months, as she'd done with her first child, but this one was a different story.

I overheard her speaking to one of my fellow yoga-goers after class, and she was saying that she'd asked her doctor why she'd swollen so much during the second pregnancy, how she got just so big so fast. The explanation? "Muscle memory." Her body remembered what it was like to be pregnant, so it just went to that place where it had remembered being, before her mind could adjust.

Really, it was her mind, having trained her muscles to stretch and accommodate, to move and react in a certain way that was calling physical manifestations into actuality--but her conscious mind was still telling her that she'd be able to do yoga, just as before. All this stuff was happening in her head and body, and she wasn't ready to admit it until it all was just like, "Oh no you don't do those twists no more! You're having a BABY, remember NOW?!"

Muscles and subconscious jumped the gun, and now I'm out a yoga teacher.

I was thinking about this idea. About how our bodies can remember things, and can force us to action long before our conscious selves catch up.

Something triggered a reaction in me, so that the last six months, I've gotten by on about two to four hours of sleep per night, waking up each day, hardly groggy, full of energy, will power to clean, dance, do, watch, etc, etc, etc. I think my body was automatically over-compensating based on what my past mind had experienced. It was powering me through some kind of secondary experience of trauma, but it totally jumped the gun. Too much. I think that time is over now. My mind has quieted, I am finding more clarity, and with it, unexplainable, uninterrupted sleep.

Last weekend I met up with my ex-boyfriend. He'd moved back to the city, and seeing as it is a very small city, there was no point practicing some wholly contrived avoidance (avoid-dance). I had a picture of us rotating around each other for months like one of those science project solar systems. There's a whole universe around us, and our orbits are totally dinky, spit out with some help the night before. Why not have coffee or something? The worst is over.

Except then, muscle memory. Open door, put water on, pour tea, drink, laugh. We were sitting and talking and it all felt so normal, until my mind caught up (this time way faster than before) and said--hey, this isn't normal, you don't know what to feel about this! But it was ok. I wasn't sure what to feel about it, and I was ok with that. I knew I didn't need closure, need to see him, need to "get something off my chest." It was just, like, ok, I'm going with this. You hurt me, we know that, there's no point in avoiding it or dwelling on it for that matter. I'm not bitter, and I don't think you're a bad person. This is just a Saturday in my living room, talking to you, whomever you are now.

Hug, hug again. Door open, door shut, door lock. Rinse out some mugs, answer the phone. Talk. Lay.

My mind will catch up eventually, or maybe it's already there.

Screen Door

2010-03-11T11:03:00.000-08:00

This is an image I took with *gasp* real film several years ago. This is my Aunt behind her screen door. The image was taken only months after she divorced her husband of 20 years. I found it in a box in my studio.

Le Franche Leep (Panel 1)

2010-03-10T17:13:00.001-08:00

This is the first of two panels of the French Lip comic I made FIVE YEARS AGO (yikes!). I just resurrected it from an old sketchbook and colored it in for your enjoyment!

Le Franche Leep (Panel 2)

2010-03-10T17:12:00.001-08:00

I am slowly coming to understand that my life will essentially be a long line of mortifying scenarios, which I will probably endure with horror

2010-03-06T15:44:00.000-08:00

That is, until I accept that I have no control over anything anyway, and that people will think what they will and so screw it! Yeah, I DID just pick a wedgie, Mr. Dalai Lama, sir! Don't YOU ever do that?! Fuck off!

Well, last night, a real hang-banger. Totally tried to make out with my gay friend when we were dancing. I was having fun, but I pity the poor soul, and frankly thank god that he's the sweet, understanding, gentlemanly guy he is. In gayspeak, I am just an uncontrollable breeder, and I have shamed post-high-school-aged fruit flies like myself. I'm sorry if I am an under-evolved sex-crazed drunken maniac...I can't help it! Maybe?

I am, needless to say, deeply embarrassed by the whole affair.

Really, it's not so much this event which disturbs me, but rather the bigger issue: I just wish I would stop finding new and creative ways to make a total fool of myself in public.

Stop stealing sherry from fancy people's parties! Stop trying to make out with your male homosexual friends! Stop eating oreos before the school picture!* And for godssake, CHECK before you leave the bathroom to make sure you don't have toilet paper sticking out of your pants!

What'll it be next week? Hmmmmm.....I'll leave it up to--myself.

*That one actually didn't happen, but it would, wouldn't it??!

I've been rocking the urban fem-dyke aesthetic for a while now, and it's been working for me

2010-02-24T15:11:00.000-08:00

Last week, on a whim, I got my hair cut. It didn't need to be cut, in fact it looked rather nice. But I'd just returned from Paris, and I was feeling like I needed to ease the transition with a little hairdresser hotness booster shot.

I have a very special relationship with my hairdresser. He's tall, black, straight, wears pants that fit ~just so~ and a smile that could convert a convent in seconds.

He allows me to pay him to cut my hair, and to gaze at him for an hour or so. Plus he does a great job--usually.

I wanted something short, flirty, fun. He cut it perfectly, asked me if I liked it, and when I confirmed that I indeed did, he took a phone call on his iPhone and hacked off another inch and a half.

Of course, this is what I get for going to a straight hairdresser! Oh snap. I'm staring at my little brother in the mirror.

Here's your $45. Great, at least I got to look at an attractive man's reflection for an hour--it'll be the last one for a while (well, with the exception of my own...).

One day passes. I see the ex-boyfriend at a bar after five months of nada. I adopt a clever Michelle-Shocked-style hat the next day. On Monday, nobody commented AT ALL at work. And you know how middle-aged women are; the more they are shocked by something the less they say above a certain decibel level. Even the copy machine was hush-hush.

Then my skin decided to give a breakout performance of "Revolt Against the Face." Zit mania. And my stomach has been compensating for all of the lost time pre-France. I've been wolfing down bread and chocolate all week, as if I needed to remind myself that it was still there (the bread, the chocolate) even though I was no longer...I'm just getting hotter and more available by the minute.

The long and short: I've lost all self control and I look like a pubescent boy with an unfortunate gland problem in his chest.

I was relaying all this via cellphone to a friend in New York as I walked down a long avenue here in Pittsburgh. She made an attempt to comfort me saying that I was much prettier than my brothers and that I could pull it off and anyway it would grow. Maybe there was hope after all--gee, friends are the best!

At that precise moment, a van was driving by and a man yelled out his window "HEY BABYYY!"

Yesss, oh divine presence!!!! I think I just got a cat call, and for once I was thrilled! Sexy street me on the prowl with a sassy new haircut. Yeah, I can totally pull this off! I turned to see who it was, just as the van passed me, and the man hanging out the window (the caller of the cat) drops his jaw and turns to his friend in the drivers seat, clapping, laughing and shouting to his friend in disbelief: "Oh SHIT!!!!! DUUUUDE THAT WAS A MAN!!!!"

* * * * *

Peeling myself off the pavement (I did actually have a great laugh, if only to properly acknowledge the impeccable timing), I said goodbye to friend before cellphone died, walked to Whole Foods, bought some applesauce and a toothbrush, went home and ate five chocolate truffle hearts in a row and watched a girl fall on her ass on the Olympics.

I feel ya.

I've been finding white hairs growing on my head.

2010-02-22T08:52:00.000-08:00

I always wanted to dye my hair, but never could because it is so dark. The other girls can change their hair, and I'm stuck with this dark brown mess! And so, being who I am I came to a psychological resolution which has appeased me for a long while. I thought: well, if I go white then I'll dye it pink or red or blonde or something fun like that. Oh I can't wait til my hair loses its color naturally! (How refreshingly liberated I am!).

However, happily ensconced in this self-placation, what I failed to realize was that my "liberation" required as a prerequisite a wholehearted acceptance of the dark-as-night hair on my head, an acceptance which may have developed, like many things we accept do, into love. Like an arranged marriage. I didn't choose it, but after living with it for a while I have come to love it. I love my dark, dark hair.

And so, as life tends to do just when you get into a certain rhythm that you find pleasant enough, that rhythm changes. Little white bits are now emerging from my right temple and it's only really a matter of time before my hairs are all wiry and I am like Cher in Moonstruck, with the barber shop ladies begging me to let them take away those "nasty grays" (roll the r, they're Italian). I mean, once again we are encountered with that prolific question: What the hell I was thinking anyway??? Who wants to dye their hair pink!?! Or at all--what a hassle, what chains with which we bind ourselves! Ohhhh vanitas...

I can tell you what I'm thinking, how do I only inherit the bad genes from the family (mom started to go white in high school, I'm too young for this!). Yeah, blame the family.

Sigh. Oh well--easy come, easy go. I might as well just start eating jelly donuts all day if we're all going to the same place anyway. Right?

Happy to be back...no, really...

2010-02-16T09:42:00.000-08:00

Inventory: France Trip

2010-02-14T12:53:00.000-08:00

So, my writing's been kind of crappy lately--thanks for sticking with me. I thought I'd try to simplify things, in a pleasant sort of way.

The Breakdown:

Total Seats to Myself on Direct Flights To/From Paris CDG: 5
Number of Shooting Stars Seen on Flight To Paris CDG: 8
Boys I Ran Into In Paris That Were On Both Flights To/From Paris Who Also Chose To Sit In My Row: 1
Plastic Cups of Free Boxed Red Wine Consumed on Flights, Am I Really That Girl? Yes: 7
Suitcases Brought: 1
Suitcases Brought Back: 2.5

Days in France: 16.41667
Patisseries Visited: 11
Patisseries Visited on Multiple Occasions: 5
Total Patisseries (Pastries) Consumed: 36

Crumb: 1

Price in Euro of Most Expensive Mille Feuille on Earth: 10
Price in Dollars of Most Expensive Mille Feuille on Earth: 976,000

Kinder Products Consumed: 5
Toys: 3
Kinder Toys: 1

Crêperies Visited: 4
Crêpes Consumed: 11

Camembert: 1
Chevre: 2
Blanc: 5
Nameless, Faceless Cheeses That Stole My Heart: 7

Ducks: 1

Floating Islands: 1
Macaroons: 9
Sangrias: 7
Champagnes: 5
Cidres: 7
Beers: ...

Arondissments Walked: 17
Gothic Cathedrals Visited: 0 (Sadly)
Total works of art in Louvre: 35,000
Total works of art owned by Khalili: 25,000
Visits to Louvre: 5
Visits to Khalili: 1
Attempts of Reflective Self-Portrait taken at Louvre: 12
Total Exhibitions Visited: 14
Films: 5
Marionette Shows: 1
Ice Skating Outings: 1/8

Excellent Dresses Purchased: 5
Excellent Bargains: 4
Excellent Rainbow Dresses Purchased: 1
Number of Colors in Excellent Rainbow Dress: 6
Excellent Rainbow Dresses Broken: 1
Excellent Umbrellas Purchased: 1
Excellent Umbrellas Broken: 1

Comics Obtained in Four Days in Angoulême: 22
Drinks Consumed in Four Days in Angoulême: 31
Drinks Purchased in Angoulême: 2
(Number of Drinks it Takes for Me to Feel Tipsy: 2)
Hours Slept in Four Days in Angouleme: 16
People From Pittsburgh Met in Angouleme Who Weren't Me: 1

Englishmen: 4
Frenchmen: 3
Swiss: 1
Crêpemakers (International Citizens of My Heart): 1
Digits Obtained: 2
Number of Parisian Pimps Whose Digits I Did Not Make Use of Once Obtained: 1
Number of Parisian Fashion Designers' Digits I Regretted Using Once Obtained: 1
Number of Belgians Who Saw Me Naked: 1 and 3/8
Total Propositions of Love Given by Drunken Swissmen: 1
Duration of Proposition (in Hours): 3
Total Swissmen Who Loved Me Enough to Walk me Home at 5 am: 0

(Happily) Neutral Parties: 1

Instances of Internet Use: 2
Instances of French-English Dictionary Use: 0
Instances of Acceptance of American Express Card: 3
Instances of Verbal Confirmation That I Was Being Mistaken for an Uncharacteristically Tall and Meaty French Girl: 1
Instances of Surprise Appearance of Greek Best Friend: 1
Instances of Tears (Joy): 1
Instances of Tears (Other): 0

1: Great Trip.

Get away from me

2010-02-09T17:00:00.000-08:00

I'm tired and cranky.

And not in Paris anymore. And there's two feet of snow.

I'll be back to my normal self in about fourteen hours, after a cup of coffee and perhaps a warm scone. Should I come across one. And I WON'T because nothing's open. cause of the GODDAM snow and slush in luxurious PITTSBURGH, P effing A! and I DON'T have any heavy cream even to make my OWN scones! Grrrr. Shhhh, you're just jetlagged and you've been catapulted back into your non-fantasy world, you know, the one where everyone else lives?

When I get cranky like this, it's a rapid downwards spiral into a near comedic level of me-oh-centrism and of course inevitable self-loathing. [I'm tired. And cranky. And not in Paris anymore. And there's two feet of snow. I can't sleep. I can never sleep! Why am I not in PARIS!? Well, Paris is expensive and Parisian people are snotty! Why can't I wish I were someplace inexpensive and warm! Why can't I just be someplace inexpensive and warm! Gnashing of teeth. I have to go to work tomorrow. I don't want to go to work. I want to stay home and draw. Ugh. My drawings suck. My art sucks! I'll never be a good artist! My blog drawing sucks! Nobody even reads this crappy blog! I have no decent thoughts! Nothing about me is remotely original!! Screw it! Screw you! Nobody likes me. I don't even like me. No, I don't want to talk to you, leave me alone! Get away from me! Expletive, bleepedy-bleep! Huff, huff, turn, sigh. Gnash teeth.]

Coffee, scones, fourteen hours.

It's hard sometimes to be so damned easy. It makes things so hard....

A little, hastily/crankily drawn illustration to augment.

As the bus turns...

2010-01-31T14:50:00.000-08:00

I'm travelling on my own, on a self-initiated psychological intervention, just lollying around the pointy, aesthetically conscious world of the French, eating chocolate and bread and butter every hour of the day. It's great. I see something that interests me, and I walk there. I totally don't care if I speak French like a four year old, or if I am late to a movie, or if I skip a meal and have a kinder bueno instead.

Basically travelling alone is the best thing ever. Grave. [eg, "seriously" in French slang :P]

Having said this, I will admit that I am head-over-heels in love with the human race. (Admittedly epic statement, but life is better with a little descriptive latitude. Get ready for a stream of consiousness/lovefest:)

I love people! I can't get enough of them. Even if they are evil, or frighten me, or elude me, or love me, hate me, ignore me, bore me...They endlessly fascinate me, and I could watch them or talk to them or just listen to them all day. I love seeing them, watching them. Talking to them, listening to them.

Loving or hating them. Or feeling indifferent but just being near them. Lingering even if it might have been better, proper, expected to leave sooner*.

Or even touching them. I like it when the bus turns and somebody leans back onto you, or when there is a fat person next to you on the subway and your bodies press together a little bit. I experience such delight in these utterly unexpected, perfectly accidental intimacies with other human beings, however fleeting.

As a minor aside, one of the best parts about having a higher level of comprehension in French than speaking is that I can just listen for a long time and people don't really expect you to contribute a whole lot to the conversation. And this is great because once people get talking, and aren' t wholly sure to what extent you understand them, they start saying all sorts of amazing things. Or maybe people trust these big brown eyes...who knows.

Festivals tend to come with a lot of people. And so I must say that the comics festival in France was lovely for the most part because of the people I met (and because of the fucking amazing artwork. I know it's kind of off topic a little bit, but it's my blog and I can write badly if I want to! Soooo I went into a minor art-induced coma the first day--an art-attack, as I will say--and then, with a few ups and downs I slowly regained some level of functionality, though I was numb to things like rapid cash burning syndrome. Boy; some stuff blew my mind, but mainly the scope and range was what overwhelmed me. All that said I wanted to eat ten copies of certain comics; I have an utterly carnal reaction to art I like if you didn't already know.)(yes, yes, and yes!)

But the people I met, well, they were great. I can't say I liked everyone I met, but I liked meeting everyone. And when there are a lot of people imported into a very small town, with small exhibition spaces and small bars, you achieve what is at times a surreal level of intimacy with perfect strangers. You brush up against people, talk to them for a few minutes or for several hours...And then you're left with this pocket full of interactions, which you can take out and toss around a couple times when you think to. Or others, which you will certainly forget, but regardless still happened. Little crumbly bits of truth and goodness. It happens all the time, but the festival was a little more of course, because all these little, new, unexpected interactions were packed into four days.

La, la lovely.

Footnotes:
*Yep, sorry I totally lack the sense of the right time to go. Noticing it more and more but not sure whether I should start trying to care/notice sooner. I hate goodbyes and I never want to go usually. Sometimes, after the fact, I think hm maybe I should have not stayed to watch that movie all the way through, left with the others, gone home at a reasonable hour. That feeling never comes before, to any number of ends. But somehow I edge on by without any major social offenses.

Endnotes:
And because I'm predicting some questions in advance, in the same vein:

I did touch Crumb on the shoulder when he passed me on the stairs (nobody knew it was him except for me, and his wife who was behind him). We didn't talk but then the moment wasn't right. Nonetheless, electric.

What do you do?

2010-01-15T08:26:00.000-08:00

I work for an organization that raises money for a hospital in Haiti. It hasn't been easy all the time working for them, but I feel like that's how it is with any non-profit.

My primary issues with the organization was based what it means to be on this end of a fund raising organization. For a long time it was really hard for me to be OK with fund raising tactics, this idea of throwing a big party with fancy people and dresses and food to help the poor, hungry people miles and miles away. It would make me very uncomfortable to talk about how the invitations would look, and paper preferences and which festive stamps to put on the envelopes, when I'd seen malnourished infants, whose swollen bellies were being caressed by their mothers, mothers who sang prayers for their children to be "Kapab manje" (able to eat again), kapab manje the food that these mothers knew they would not always be able to give. These babies were so hungry that they simply refused to eat; they had resigned themselves, their little infant bodies, to starvation.

No, I don't care which stamps you use, and the debate needs to be over now. I complained quite a bit about this whole setup, mostly because of the inconsistencies I saw in these efforts. Why don't these people just give? All the time? I knew they could.

And now here we are--

Having seen this world, I can't imagine what it looks like now, now that the sky went and fell on their already heavily-burdened heads. Come on, why Haiti?

First thing is first, and I'm not ashamed to say this: I'm so glad that everyone I know down there is ok. That my ex-boyfriend, one and the same who broke my heart, is alive and well. Thank god--

We create these structures, these arbitrary narratives that we point to saying, "This is my truth, this is the sacred architecture of my reality." And then the real world comes and taps you on the shoulder. With a perfectly-formed flower by your desk. Or an earthquake hundreds of miles away.

The nice thing about this sort of reality check* is that it lends you a certain clarity, even if you can't logicize it.

And also, if you're lucky, with the clarity comes a thing called hope.

There will be no party. And they are already just giving. Giving so much, that we are totally inundated with their good will. That people, who can't pay online, are coming in and delivering checks by hand. For $15, or $15,000. People are giving what they can, because they can. And it's truly amazing.

It is so, so heartening to see people rally behind this country, these people, no frills attached.

In turn, I have acknowledged feelings that I can't understand, but still make perfect sense.

*And I honestly don't think it necessarily takes a 7.0 earthquake in this hemisphere's poorest country to have a reality check; as I said, flowers also tend to do it for me...some poetry...other humans...a flock of birds. And then experiences--trauma, grief.

Things I'm thinking about at 4:59 am...

2010-01-14T01:59:00.000-08:00

Hello folks, it's 4:59 am, and we've decided on yet another re-run of my favorite show "Insomnia." This is (surprisingly) my first insomnia post, since I started having it in August of last year. I'm not terribly bitter about this arrangement my body has made, rather I'm mostly fascinated. I was such a big-time sleeper before. Endless naps could be followed by full-nights' sleep...

I now have this funky type of insomnia that, regardless of the hour I go to sleep, I always wake up between 3 and 4 am, and either stay up (like tonight), or have totally inconsistent ups-and-downs from then on.

Here's what I was thinking about when I woke up today.

I had kept these dried flowers on my desk at work since my birthday last May, peonies, my favorite. They had dried somehow in perfect formation, and I'd put them in a little box to take home one day about a month ago, and then it started to rain, so I ran back in and put them in my desk drawer. As time passed, they were a little reminder of spring, of that unbelievable beauty that can be contained in a tiny, perfectly formed peony, even if it's long dead and dried out. It provided me with a small dose of joy every time I opened that drawer.

Yesterday, I got a call at 9 am from my coworker. There had been an earthquake in Haiti, had I heard? (I work for an organization that raises money for a hospital in Haiti). My first thoughts were: Is T hurt/dead? (T = ex-boyfriend, currently living in Haiti, the same one whose actions may or may not have brought about my current sleeplessness). Yes, he was ok. It was my day off and they needed my help with some online stuff. Trying to be nice and mature about being woken up (which is hard when you got to sleep around 7 am) I agreed to help (due to the dire circumstances, which clearly slammed my petty insomnia way into perspective) and got dressed to come in.

When I got in, the phone was ringing off the hook, and a news crew had just walked out the door. I sat down at my desk and opened the drawer where I keep my personal effects, and there were the flowers, crushed to pieces. My coworker had rifled through it in search of something inexplicably urgent I'm sure, and had totally crushed my happy, perfectly formed daily moment.

I guess you don't realize what role things play in your life until they are taken away. That said, I'm not completely sure why I felt just as crushed as the brittle petal confetti I took up between my fingertips. But I did--it was like all the grief and anxiety and disappointment in the world was held in the crushed flowers, just as only a day before, all the pleasantness and hope for spring had been in the perfectly-formed ones.

It would have been like her, I thought, not to notice the flowers, or even go as far to think that they might have been there on purpose, to bring me a little moment of joy each day. Still, it felt illogical to mention something or to be angry about it, or sad even, because I couldn't even explain why it upset me just so much. She'd been in a rush, I thought, to find some useless bit of information, which, in a panic, she was convinced was held in my personal drawer. What's all this garbage doing in here? She must have thought. Where is that file?

I know what you must be thinking--that we had to deal with the aftermath of a 7.0 earthquake in Haiti, make sure our people had what they needed, once they were accounted for--and I, selfish white girl in America, could only think of this.

But like the insomnia, the dried flowers contained more coagulate emotion than I can articulate or understand. Like my first thoughts of the day, that moment of panic when I'd been awoken. There is a measure of complexity to these feelings that is masked by the insurmountable integrity of one's experience (of insomnia, of the crushed flower, of the moment of worry). The moment makes perfect sense--there is no conflict there--but then, with time, distance, perspective, the true complexity of the feeling reveals itself, conceals itself, reveals itself once more. Perhaps, at a certain point you just have to trust that you're feeling, despite the knee-jerk, "What the HELL?!" that comes after some time. We'll find the "why" file eventually, it's in another drawer.

When I grow up...

2010-01-12T10:21:00.003-08:00

Paris is calling...

2010-01-12T08:35:00.000-08:00

And I have to go! I'm going to a comix festival in the south of France, but not without stopping in the city of Light.

There may be a Crumb spotting in store, who knows :)

Ing

2010-01-11T08:54:00.001-08:00

It is a new year--happy, happy new year, one and all. 2009 was tough for me. It was a year of perpetual transition, and at times, I felt like all I could do was hold on and go along for the ride. At the end of the countdown on New Year's Eve, I felt an unbelievable release. Not that this year will necessarily be "better," but it certainly will be different, and that's as far as my expectations go.

2010. Ok.

I'm sure as time passes, a lot of things will stay the same, but so much will change all the time. I'm excited about the possibilities the new year holds, and trying not to brace myself at all for the inevitable commotion of each major (or minor) event.

I just want to keep on doing, being, without the residue of feeling, emotion or bitterness, but rather with the slivers of integrity and privilege that can be attained with each new experience.

Again, thanks to the Roches, aren't I predictable? (Above, me in New York city as a baby, spinning...)

Confessions

2010-01-05T08:58:00.000-08:00

Whole again...

2009-12-29T18:23:00.000-08:00

Whenever I'm feeling lonely, or bored, or sad, or triumphant, or dejected, or restless (or...) I go to Whole Foods.

Ahhh, Whole Foods.

Whole Foods is a big store that lives a block away from my new house. It has neatly packaged, generally environmentally copacetic food items neatly arranged in little rows on little shelves on long aisles marked with fun little signs that tell you what might be there, but always leaves room for possibility.

Ahh, possibility. For some, possibility is the first step on the Appalachian trail, a one-way ticket to China, a baseline job in a great business. For me, possibility is the smell of a hardware store. Or the endless rows of self-care ditties in a drug store. Or Whole Foods.

Somehow, the neatness, the endlessness of ingredients for any number of items--the lighting--the samples--makes me feel safe, but also invigorates me to no end. I don't even need to actually purchase anything. Just knowing that it's all still there, tirelessly maintained by its staff of tatooed and dread-locked twenty-somethings, is comforting to me.

In a way it puts things in perspective--that somewhere (or just around the corner) there is endless potential, all packaged and ready for your Whole Paycheck.

Thank you, Whole Foods. [And, no, I don't even care that your jerk owner is a Libertarian and anti-healthcare reform. Cause I don't even need you, it's just nice to stroll the aisles once in a while, is all.]

Whole Foods, this one's for you:

Hard Knocks

2009-12-22T07:30:00.002-08:00

This fall has been full of transition for me. Out with a lot of old, in with a lot of new. The big ones* were: I moved to a new house, I broke off a long-term relationship on bad terms, I switched jobs four and a half times. To boot, I've developed a healthy case of insomnia, which has probably changed my ability to deal with the constant flow of transitions ("In short, I'm TIRED!").

I'd say that the relationship bit threw everything else rather wildly out of control, especially after finding some particularly hurtful information, which put me solidly out for two full days. It probably triggered, or contributed to the insomnia, which in turn affected everything else. What might have been a fall of re-adjustment became a rather tumultuous exploration of what it means to be a grown-up.

Around the time when I wrote the Nonna/Nanny post, I also wrote two letters, one to each of my grandmothers, thanking them for being themselves, and expressing my admiration for them. My father's mother called me and asked about the break up**, and asked how I was. I said (as I've been saying, with relative noncommitment to the now tired subject) "The break up was hard. It's been a hard fall."

She told me that she thought all her grandchildren were "too pampered" and that we needed some good "hard knocks" once in a while to keep us in check. Typical Nonna mentality. Nonetheless, I felt I should respond with relative honesty. I told her I didn't think it was bad for kids to be pampered, and that sometimes hard knocks can make us "grow" and "learn," but we shouldn't go on encouraging them. She actually agreed, but still asserted that I'd be ok and that a hard knock still wasn't bad once in a while.

I've said this before and I'll say it again--this isn't the first or the last time I'll be feeling this way, dealing with all sorts of things like this. There have been two other times in my life that I can already remember feeling like everything was shifting below me, and that all I could do was kind of hold on and try to get through it. One was in the middle of high school. One was when I began my relationship with this recent ex-boyfriend. And one is now.

And while I already feel like a different person, I'm more aware of myself, and I'm acting with increasing resolve. That said, I still wish there were an easier way to get from point A to point Q.

*In between there's been a bunch of stuff, but it ain't worth getting into right now.
**Nonna it should be said, is fascinated with break ups. She can't hear enough about my friends' parents' divorces...She still wears her wedding band, though she's been divorced for forty years or so. More on that later.

Start watching the following clip at 4:50 to understand my current state of mind...

2009-12-17T18:48:00.000-08:00

Did you do it? Good. Fittingly, Barbara Stanwyck's character is named Elizabeth--"identifying" doesn't quite describe this....

Hmmm, if only my tall, hot soldier would remember his cue!

I Fear

2009-12-14T18:47:00.000-08:00

A lot of my artwork deals with trying to understand vulnerability. I think part of understanding what it means to be vulnerable is admitting what you are afraid of. I've tried my best to list these things below. But this is only a very small part of finding what it means to be vulnerable (which, ya know, we all are).

Vulnerability is the capability of being wounded. Understanding that means understanding that there are a lot of things that could hurt you very badly at any time for no reason at all.

I'm not there--I don't understand and I'm not fully able to let go of my invincible, endless, bodiless self. Articulating things that I'm afraid of can only do so much. I still don't actually realize just how wound-able I am. In other words, doing what I'm doing now isn't actually allowing myself be vulnerable, it's saying things that make me feel vulnerable, or, better, remind me that I am vulnerable when I think about them. Admitting that I have dreams that maybe won't come true, actually loving somebody a lot who then breaks my heart--now those are real fears, and it comes closer to accepting one's vulnerability. Pursuing those things without knowing, without caring about being pulverized by the world--that's scary. As far as I'm concerned, I think that may be the closest thing to truly coming into one's own vulnerability.

In other words, letting myself be what I am, un-armoured and unassuming, loving things that or people that I love regardless of the potential consequences, now that's accepting my own vulnerability. (Do you understand where I'm going here? I'm trying to understand how fear is different from vulnerability; how understanding fear is different than understanding vulnerability, though they aren't un-connected).

Ok? Ok, good.

As I was kind of saying, in many ways, my greatest fear is allowing myself to experience glimmers of real true hope, letting my soft body "love what it loves," and opening myself to this possibility of being trampled in the process. But you know what? Without trying for those things, without allowing myself the opportunity to really lose everything, then I'm not sure I'd be really allowing myself to live.

And I want to. I want to live and feel things and be hurt and try, and fail, and maybe be squished like a bug in the process. Bring it on, cause this is it. And I mean that exactly how I say it.

Food for thought.

Below, I've listed some of my fears (I'm sure there are more that I haven't thought of yet, but here's a quick taste.) Again, things that make me feel vulnerable, or that I think would make me feel vulnerable are different than understanding that I just am vulnerable. That said, I don't think it's is un-interesting to think about, and gather into a tidy little list on one's blog.

Fears:

present/tangible:
- spiders
- the dark
- basements (I still run up the stairs)
- being home alone/being alone in general*
- skiing
- sharks and big fish (they are quiet and have very big teeth).
- the ocean at night (one, solid black, black plane; thick, oily ocean; things below silently eating other things)

future/probable:
physical:
- becoming crippled (really--my feet and back hurt all the time)
- being really fat
- getting disfigured
- not being able to have babies if I want to
- being deaf (no dancing?)
- developing halitosis (it would be terrible)
- locked-in syndrome (also, terrible)

material:
- being bitter or not enjoying myself because I'm very poor or in debt (which should be distinguished from debt or poverty, because I'm not afraid of those things--I am afraid of being a bitter, miserly jerk because I'm poor or in debt)

emotional:
- getting really depressed again (the lethargic kind, not the kind I probably have now that keeps me awake too much. the kind i'm afraid of is the kind that keeps you in bed, and makes waking up feel like trudging through thick muddy swamps, and sucks the joy out of the things that give you joy--)
- being too serious/not enjoying myself in the moment
- the death of somebody close to me, or seeing/hearing a person who is close to me die (this I fear more than my own death; I've had many horrible dreams in this regard)
- not saying something important to somebody when I need to, and then never being able to (you know, like big things, like "I love you, you mean so much to me, I miss you, I need you" and then the person who I needed to say it to can't hear it anymore--because they die, because they marry somebody else, because they move away, because they have alzheimers and forget who you are)
- not allowing myself to love somebody 100% (romantically--I feel like I could do the 100% love thing, no problem, to most important people in my life --family [biological and surrogate], friends, unborn children, etc. everybody except somebody who I love and want to be with forever and ever and ever; maybe they hurt me, abuse my trust and then I can't bring myself to love them the same way again...or maybe I just can't let myself admit to them or to myself just how much I love them. That kind of thing, that's scary.)
- marrying somebody and then realizing that I'm in love with somebody else (I could never, ever be unfaithful; it isn't in my nature. But I can feel real unrequited love; and I can want things that I can't have--bad combo when it comes to already being married or something)

intellectual:
- waking up one day and realizing that I gave up on the one thing or person that I shouldn't have (e.g. the big ones: regret & failure).
- dementia / decreased cognitive functioning (not memory loss--I don't think I'd mind that--I would mind always just not understanding things--like, if everything felt like college calculus, every day...that would be awful).
- loss of integrity (having people not believe me, not trust things that I say or do)
- being totally delusional--not seeing things clearly; I like to see things as they are (even though I have a vivid imagination)

Well, that's all for now; hope to balance out the rant about unwanted hair with some things I've been tossing around in my head for a while now. What do you fear?

* it should be distinguished that I don't fear loneliness or "ending up alone," which is different from being alone in the present sense. I just get scared when I'm by myself sometimes.

Ninety percent of my life is spent removing unwanted body hair

2009-12-13T20:15:00.000-08:00

I think of all the other things I could do if I didn't care about removing unwanted body hair--like, translate Dostoyevsky's complete works to Arabic (no, I don't speak Arabic or read Russian, and I'm not wild about Dostoyevsky).

That said, believe you me, I ain't as diligent as I used to be (in high school, where it seemed as though my very life depended on artificial hairlessness). Even so, it's a real life-sucker. Yes, I am the dark-Irish, dark-Italian mix, and I am also a girl (which makes it not ok, somehow). I have hair, dark, thick hair, on body parts that you probably didn't even know existed. Yep. Everywhere. I could give Frodo Baggins a run for his money. Chewey--I could eat for breakfast. (Hey, there's a reason why I identify with our hero, el sasquatch).

And as I get older, it's only getting worse. I should be losing hair, but it keeps growing back, thicker than ever and in even more bizarre locales. On my last birthday I discovered some "stray" hairs on my eyelid (EYELID!). Later came a discovery on my chinny chin-chin...

~ ON THE NEXT FULL MOON, THE TRANSFORMATION WILL BE COMPLETE! ~

And what luck. That I, more than anything, hate removing my body hair. Let's be real. Does any one out there like it? If so, what are you taking? I want some!

For me, it's always been a physically and emotionally straining activity, not to mention a huge waste of time, energy and money. I don't get why we can't all just live with the smells and the hairs we were given. Honestly. Think of the waste WASTE of all those little tools, products, all made of plastic or metal or paper or wax, made in factories using tons of energy and shipped using our precious fossil fuels. So that I can BUY it to torture myself and waste my own time, so that, what? Remind me?

And yet, despite all this, about every third week I take a little trip to the bathroom, and emerge, wholly primped and primed, smooth and hairless as a baby's you-know-what.

In the last two years, I've resorted to using these little wax strips which seem utterly sophisticated, undeniably European and generally in good, clean taste. That said, after I do the big pull, I have to circumambulate the tiny room at least four times before I'm able to bring myself to sit down once more. Why do I do this? Well, for one, to avoid the god-awful task of shaving, a ritual from which I've never emerged unscathed (usually there are about fourteen classic nicks in all the troublesome areas...knees are cumbersome, aren't they?)

I don't even mind it that much under my arms, on my legs, stomach, back, ears, forehead, teeth, whatever. I don't mind having hair. (I'd make a kickass Frida on Halloween, not to mention, I could make friends with the local sasquatch community). I have on more than one occasion gone on strike (for anywhere between two weeks and seven months), only to be shot down by peer pressure. The kind of peer pressure that is all breadth--seventeen people at different points in time, each 1) "noticing" and then 2) asking "hey, what's going on?" or "what's up with that?" or, even better, "WHOAA!" There's only so much a girl can take before she feels like she's a sideshow attraction.

Well, folks, I don't know what to do or say but to continue on this awful cycle of inflicting pain, getting indignant, striking, feeling like a freak, and then inflicting pain and wasting a ton of time so that--what? I can say I'm never EVER doing this again, and then within a month I'm back in socially normative purgatory.

Maybe, someday, I'll come to terms with whatever caveman castoff genes have made it through the evolutionary food chain up to my eyelids. Maybe I'll just lose all my hair and be sad because I look like a shiny, tall Q-tip, and mist up when I see the rusty, cob-webbed remnants of my razor.

But today, the struggle lives on. Daily. I notice new growth, and not the (emotional, intellectual) kind I need. And I try not to mind what people say, thinking about how nice it is that I have long eyelashes and big eyebrows (even though if it weren't for my relative diligence, I'd have big eyebrow)*.

And, heck, now I'm even writing a blog entry about it, so I'll cut my losses and leave you with this:

*Henson cast me before Burt came on board. The pressure was just too much and I had to move on.

Lizzy Loves Trouble, Shame on You, Shame!

2009-11-29T09:50:00.001-08:00

Oooh I can't help it.

I like to flirt and it gets me into trouble. Doesn't matter if it's a guy or a girl. Doesn't matter if I like them or they like me, or if they're my age. Intentionality is never part of the agenda. I just like it, it makes me happy. How can I flirt so shamelessly? Because, dear Watson, I expect nothing in return. I don't think they'll take the bait, which has no connection to any fishing line anyway. I'm just throwing my little flirt sardines into a big lake and walking away. Ye know, existential nihilistic flirtation, n'at.

However, it occasionally comes back to haunt me in the form of an unwanted return.
Didn't they know it was all for good fun? That when I actually like somebody, I can't say a word--not one. I contort my body and stare at the floor. Avoid them.

I suppose I shouldn't hold anybody to blame but my recklessness, especially when I'm under the influence of some kind of substance, namely, alcohol.

I should do better for my future self by:
1) never giving out my number
2) never giving out my real name
3) never caving into having senselessly witty conversations for the sake of having them

DUH. Or...at least not when I'm drunk. Slap, slap! Get some sense in that little head of yours!

Ho-hum.

* * *

When I'm not having fun flirting, I enjoy being contrary. This annoys people but doesn't end up haunting me nearly as much as an unwanted flirtatious text message from...?...early in the AM. That's when the contrary side kicks in, where I've probably enticed something (namely in giving out my phone number) which I never wanted anyway.

Why can't people just read my mind?! I suppose that's why I've started this blog, to help translate for those who are ESP-impaired. (And so that my friends can blame themselves, and not me for listening to/reading ridiculous thought trajectories like this one. Clever me!)

When I'm not flirting or being contrary, I sass. I tend to sass inanimate or distant people or objects. I sass Rafiki, our cat. I sass the Project Runway contestants, I sass my parents, I sass my roommates and their boyfriends. I also sass the poor flirter-backers, perhaps out of my love of the contrary, or just flat-out annoyance, which is then often taken the wrong way (as they haven't gone through contrary or sassy impulses, and they are still on the flirting track). They think my sass is flirting, and it isn't. It's pure, unadulterated sass-afrass. And then, all of a sudden a flirty response. I'm back to flirting again, down the slippery slope to replying to the silly repartees that today's social media sites have facilitated to no known end. No known end but trouble for Lizzy.

And now what to do, what to do?

Amsterdam Opens its Arms to Me

2009-11-24T14:49:00.000-08:00

And it lights its joints for my brothers...

That said, I emerge from the perpetual cloud for a few observations...

I like this city much, much more than I anticipated. The first time I came here it was with my best friend, and we had no money, no place to stay, no map, and, well, no money (that's no money, squared). We went to the Anne Frank house, the Rijksmuseum, then ate hash brownies and 2 for 1 Euro donuts in the street, walked through the red-light district, and went to bed before sunset.

Now, I'm with my folks, and they're paying for shit. And I'm not hungry or lost. I can just eat, humor my parents, and let my brothers teach me about the wonders of cannabis culture. My younger brother used the sweetest tone I'd ever heard him use when he turned to me and asked, "Would you like to try to roll this one?" With the help of a Dutch artist friend, I know all the little trendy gallery venues, which I can escape to when my parents have thrown in the towel. AND there's a film festival (the IDFA), a chocolate festival, and the cannabis cup ALL AT ONCE.

So I love this city right now. I can float along the streets as if I'm drifting along one of the many canals here, not thinking about anything really. My siblings talk and complain, and I can just look, snap photos, and happily not express any thoughts, opinions or feelings as the world busies itself around me. I'm not part of it, I'm an implant. I don't get upset about long lines, about the rain and the wind. Want to go out? Sure! Want to stay in? Sure! Ah! A canal! Ah! A handsome couple on a bike. Look! Graffiti. Snap, move on, open umbrella, get dinner.

At the end of the day, I take my friendly little pill. I sleep. And then a new day starts, where I don't have to go to work, or owe anybody anything, or be worried that I might bump into somebody. Or understand someone else's conversation, for that matter. My lack of opinions (even to me) seem utterly virtuous. My cellphone is off because I'm out of the country. No complaints. I'm not getting emails from work anymore, everybody's on break. It's just me, my loud, opinionated family & the Dutch (who generally keep to themselves, tend not to shout out to girls on the street, and are tidy and respectful!).

Yes. I can just drift. Like a house boat. Pirl. Like the fraternal smoke plumes that envelop me.

Thank you loud, opinionated family, thank you foreign lands. Amsterdam, I love you! Let me just drift, be. Sleep. I'll think later.

I think that not allowing your blog viewers to comment on your blog posts is just friggen' abusive. Stop your self-importance and let ME respond!

2009-11-16T19:25:00.001-08:00

...in a public forum. To your thoughts and...everything. I keep going back for more, even though it's a totally one-sided, sterile, comment-proof relationship! Can't you at least PRETEND that you care about what OTHER people think? Or are you just tired of the life of a celebrity blogger?! I need the attention just as much as you do, even if you have a bigger fan base than I do!!!!

What the heck. Alison Bechdel allows comments on her blog, why can't you?! Are we just supposed to gorge ourselves on your wisdom? And what is there for a self-respecting blog reader/fan to do?

And, while I'm at it, as for the Crumb newsletter people--I feel utterly pooped on! Why would I want to buy Crumb's Illustrated Genesis for like five-hundred bucks? Oh, right, it's because there's a serigraph print inside. An opportunity not to be missed! Oh, god, Warhol's wet dream. Good thing I know better, having lived in Pittsburgh and understood Warhol's industrial roots. It's a friggen' silkscreen and it wasn't even printed by anybody of remote importance. I'll take my first-print edition of the book for $24 at the corner comics place, thank you very much. And you know what? R. Crumb would never, EVER have a blog unless he could have the chance to earn a hot dollar. You think I don't know him? Don't know what you're doing? Have you no finesse? Do you not understand how you need to stroke a lady with a perpetual hole in her pocket??! Any notion of my feelings as a mindless consumer of your products?!?!?! The comics world is vicious! Vicious, I tell you! They pretend that they have all the thought bubbles spelled out, but really you should read in between the frame sequences. This industry prays on its innocent fans' obsessions! Hey! Stop it! Screw you! I'm going to STOP THIS it before it starts to possess me!!!

* * *

You know what? If I take just two steps back, I instantly realize that I'm experiencing something akin to sexual frustration in the comix fan world. Pooh, what's a girl to do? Guess I better read more comics to console myself...gee wonder if Kevin H. has updated anything since...hmm noo...ah and I'll just top it off by writing an angry blog message to nobody.

Hooked, lined, and sinkered,

L

OMG

2009-11-16T15:27:00.001-08:00

And she called me a week ahead just to remind me so I wouldn't beat myself up for forgetting.

Except I did anyway. And did last year....And the year before.......

I guess I was busy doing other, more important things. Like shopping. Or updating my flickr page. Or reading the Illustrated Genesis. Or....

As always, I'm so lucky to have friends who appreciate (and put up with) me. I love you all.

L

*Note that all these pictures were at some point or other taken...while at work. (gasp!) Sometimes, midday, you need to take a picture to document your state of mind. And it comes in useful later when creating spur-of-the-moment whoops I'm a jerk videos for your friend(s) whose birthday(s) you forgot.

Total Girl Crush

2009-11-12T10:19:00.000-08:00

Her, allison bechdel, and my yoga teacher---ahhh!

On schlooping...

2009-11-09T09:43:00.000-08:00

I found out that somebody close to me is probably sleeping with two girls at the same time.

When is this ever ok?* I dunno. He doesn't seem to be conflicted about it. At all! I also found out that two other guys that I know, and had thought were relatively stable, respectable individuals (the quiet, reclusive creative types) had opted into flings with one or more undergrad (or recently undergrad) art major girls (in half of these cases, the girls in question were between 5 and 12 years their junior). And no, we're not talking not the genuinely quirky art girl undergrad, who wears dreadlocks, funky outfits and has "deep conversations" over a joint, but the kind whose very being is enclosed in at least 14 sets of quotation marks, the kind who has pre-calculated every pose, gesture, and silly little comment.

Well, it goes without saying that I'm pretty disappointed in these guys ~ why are they doing this? They each seemed so great to me initially, like, they stood on their own and had cool thoughts 'n' stuff. But then I find out about their absurd, superficial and somewhat extravagant relationships with a girl (or girls) who make me seriously question the judgment of the guy in question. (I'm also sure that if I knew any of the girls in these situations, I'd be equally perplexed ~ why are they dating these guys who so obviously seem to be using them...)

A friend and I recently reflected on this trend, in light of the aforementioned discoveries. It was unanimously determined that this sort of thing is in many ways a major part of the 20-something arts/arts university community dynamic. I guess I'd never noticed it before, as I was an English major at an all-women's college, and the worst thing I had to deal with was the Mary Gordon devotees, or, perhaps even worse, the PoMo Possee. Anyway, my friend and I came up with a term for this phenomenon: we call it schlooping.

A schlooper is most often a guy, in his 20's, (30's, 40's etc,etc), who is just conscious enough of his shortcomings to feel at a loss. He wishes to be whole, or at least to appear as such. His books of theory, complete 4th season of The Office DVD, and vinyl collection fails to keep him warm at night; they can't adore him the way he needs to be adored.

So the schlooper seeks out and sleeps with a younger, artsy-girl type, often the powdery pastiche of self-conscious, utterly deliberate effervescence. Such types are commonly known as schloopettes. Schloopettes are often younger girls. They are the spritely, free-thinking, politically apathetic dippy dabblers of mankind, in all their artful, calculated effortlessness: sentinels of sarcasm, monitors of the monotone, harbingers of hip, who are prepared to spread their "perspectives" at any moment. And, perhaps even more importantly, they are more likely than the average joe to dish out praise to that older, mysterious, aloof guy who seems to know so much.

Schloopers and schloopettes engage in a symbiotic relationship that is wholly self-referential, masturbatory, self-perpetuating, and theoretically self-contained. Theoretically because the schlooping few think of themselves as isolated, but in reality, sometimes a non-schlooping individual gets involved, and they get hurt, or their heart gets broken, or they find out that the guy they like is sleeping with two girls at once. Or they are just disappointed in individuals for whom they'd had higher expectations. In this sense, I'm think it's also fair to say that schlooping, generally, is highly (self) destructive behavior.

Why** do the schloopers seek the schloopettes (and vice versa)?***

Because they are insecure. Could it be this simple? I think so. There's a fine line between knowing one's shortcomings and hating them utterly. Schloopers think for some reason that they need something to make them better, brighter, to give them the air of being more mature, more mysterious, more in control. And then they hop on the stationary bike of doing cute underfed art student after cute underfed art student for that quick burst of satisfaction, instant grat, and a nice stroke of the ole ego.

They build up a shabby armor of alternative music downloads, obscure film references and VICE blog material, and pad their lives with Achievements, and, even worse, Experience. The more they build, the better the compliments they get as their superficial relationships splay out. The result? Frequent, empty, amaurotic (am-erotic) schlooping.

At the end of the day, our schloopers and schloopettes are using people, each other. And they are inevitably disappointing to people like me, who are so ready to accept their kinder and relatively uninteresting, real selves. Because, in my book, real is almost always more interesting. Give up the gauze, folks!

When will our poor schloopers and schloopettes learn? They should just accept their imperfections and move on, curtail the incessant witticisms, shrug the showism and try to direct their affections and energies in a more genuine direction.

Glug, can't we all just be friends?!

* Crumb's different.
** Echoes of Olympia Dukakis in Moonstruck, "Why do men chase women?" I'd like to think that the case in question is a slight variation on this epic question, as it is particularly rampant in the arts university community.
***Or what, more specifically, do schloopers seek in schloopettes (as they so vigorously dig to the core of each one)?