Bizcuit

Classic Liz (Revised).

2009-10-09T16:56:00.000-07:00

I always do this, especially after a transitional summer, which this certainly was. Oh fuck, jesus christ, oh this summer.
oh oh oh oh
I did it here, after the ridiculous circus that was summer 2006.

So here goes,
My favorite memories of summer 2009.
(rewritten because I just accidentally deleted my original post while doing some major cross blog restructuring, so apologies if I forgot anything this time around).

*(probably the BEST one) Tim randomly showing up in town & Tim & Rin & I making that incredible dinner out of the nothing in my fridge & taking that late night walk & laying in the street & me calling out of work the next morning & us three having breakfast at the Green Bean.
*DnDnD2k09, pretty much the whole freaking thing, especially all the laughing & silliness in the car, our first night in Asheville, singing the Magnetic Fields' "Washington DC" as we drove into guess where, the beautiful highway into New Orleans through the Gulf Coast, the shrimp boil at the R Bar in the Marigny, the Bourbon Mile, the second day driving through the mountains in Virginia & dying of beauty & Foamhenge & car sandwiches. & again, so much laughter & adventure.
*my moving day into 133, the whole thing, from the toasted coconut cream iced coffees to the sandwiches from State Street & Ballantines in my old back yard to the mussels & beer sampler trays at at the Noho Brewery & A Dead Hipster Or A Stove Boat.
*so very much excellent dancing, at the Basement, the 11's, & Bishop's, thanks to all Noho's awesome djs for all those great nights.
*of course all my very late night walks home from dancing, just me & my ipod & the sky & my cute dresses, even when it was raining, which it always was.
*the night in June I randomly met Mark at the 11's on the velvet couch & we had that great conversation.
*visiting with gramma in Brewster & margaritas & white wine & scallops at Clancy's then Job Lot & Marshall's & Curious by Britney Spears & fierce new sneakers.
*at the Spoke the night it was WAY to cold for August
*late night adventures involving rooftop views & 7-11 snacks & parks in the pouring rain.
*the night Karen & I saw rabbit rabbit at the Brass Cat & then drove to the Basement for Woolly Bully blasting Nas & arrived exactly at the door at 12:59.
*the last Amazing Love where I danced with Jono.
* all those DnD Thursdays at Hugo's & Sierra especially the going away party for the road trip where we actually had a big party of people out making art together in a bar.
*Cirque du Filet.
*the night Jed & I dragged the kitchen chairs onto the front lawn on King Street & the road trip was born & then we went on that late night adventure to amherst & the top of that hill & drove around listening to hip hop.
* the dinner party Karen & I had had 273 with the rose petals.
*fourth of july & chicken apple sausages & jalapeno chips at Melissa's party & then dancing at Danielle's & Lisette making my dress much much shorter with scissors & Jed & I falling asleep awkwardly on the floor.
* that day Jono randomly made me lunch & we sat on his porch all day & enjoyed the garden & the rare sunshine.
* that trip Melissa & I took to Cape Cod for swimming & laying in the sun & thriftstoring & good food.
*the times at work where Amy, Cait, Hillary, Thomas & Faye really made me laugh so hard I cried.
*rewatching Twin Peaks in my living room with my roommates.
*remembering how much I love cooking for my friends, & doing something about that.
* that day in early summer where Rin & I began planting the garden & drank the first iced tea of the season with lavender ice cubes
*Isaac's fabulous bacon party plus the night before when my bacon lasagna was born at Hugo's (where all good ideas are born).
*the first meal cooked at 133, dinner party with Melissa & Jed where Jed drew us unpacking my books in short skirts.
*the beginning of DnDnE dinners with Beth. (hopefully many more to come).
*learning how to draw & paint again. & remembering why I care to do so.
& I guess ending on my birthday, the first day of fall, beginning with a perfect night dancing at the Basement, a perfect day of smoked salmon bagels & thriftstoring with my lovely stylish friends, a delicious dinner party with people I love & an unexpected gift the next morning.

Rereading the old post from 2006 to link to it, I'm kind of amazed & awed at the similarities.
I look forward to fall 2009. I really do.
I really think it's gonna be alright.
Some things broke this summer, but some things were fixed, too.

first dinner with friends at 133.

2009-08-06T23:04:00.000-07:00

first dinner party at my new home. with jed & melissa, pesto (my basil) & linguine & heirloom cherry tomatoes & a side of sauted chicken apple sausage & shallots & swiss chard.

what I picked from my porch garden for this meal.

oh, & cape cod blueberries picked by my family as dessert. served over coconut milk ice cream.

I should have taken more pictures of the food, but I was having too much fun, here's to more gorgeous dinner parties in this new house.

two symbolic meals

2009-08-03T20:45:00.000-07:00

first, my first meal cooked in my new apartment, the first new home I've felt really good about in a long time. patty pan squash, vidalia onions, my thai basil, local baby arugula, wild yam buckwheat soba noodles. Simple, but your first meal eaten in a new kitchen is a test. & this kitchen is beautiful. with flowers from ali & katie.

Second, leftovers at mum's house in brewster after driving here tonight. interesting day, accomplished a lot of practical things (new goal: not hide under the covers when faced with practical tasks) drank pbr with jed in the late afternoon at his house discussing album covers while mark slept in my bed at home, went to whole foods because for some reason I decided I couldn't manage the drive with sushi (sushi/road trip emergency) & realized that rin is my only real friend left in that whole store. weird, cause the store was once my whole life. anyway, cold macaroni, peas, mashed potatoes & roasted veggies at mum's, after a very contemplative drive, considering life & death & love & friendship.

I really miss my gorgeous new apartment & can't wait to unpack, but it's kind of nice to take the night off from noho.

last night, 273 south

2009-07-31T21:45:00.001-07:00

moving for reals tomorrow. still not ready, but yet still posting on my various blogs.

why why why

I'm currently eating this sandwich. cuz it's almost 1am & I've moved four times in less than six months because my life is insane. damn, have to fix that. later. (back burner, large stove, ali). anyway, the sandwich was sriracha, swiss cheese, mayonaise, & roasted red pepper hummous. a feel good classic. with jalapeno kettle chips.

what my desk looks like, roughly eight hours before moving, not good.

& my dresser. oh dear lord, help.

dustry rose tries to help.

but isn't really helping.
although still adorable.

well, here's to to my life being more stable at the end of tomorrow. & let's hope jed & jono have some patience with the chaos of my objects.

It finally feels like summer, so I'm using the oven.

2009-07-28T20:04:00.001-07:00

What happens when I'm really broke, moving AGAIN in three days & I haven't really packed, & it suddenly becomes really & delightfully hot out. & I'M HUNGRY.

free sunflowers from work are cool. I should so totally pack that vase, but whatever. beauty means something too. also cool is a shit ton of free summer squash. roasted in my beloved le cresuet baking dish with free shitake mushrooms, & thai basil & banana peppers & thyme from my garden. in olive oil & garlic & salt & pepper, of course.

dr taking advantage of the now empty record shelf. yeah I'm packing a little between drinking & cooking & blogging, etc.

even though having the oven on at 400 degrees was insane right now, it all smelled really good roasting & if DnD is really taking a road trip to new orleans in late august, I need to work on my heat tolerance. So far, after crap freezing rainy summer 2009, I'm really liking being sweaty & drinking chilled white wine in short shorts. over angel hair pasta. I think inspired by this post.

me, cooking & sweating & packing, july 2009.

dusty rose is also hot.

anyway, I think it's neat to cook yourself a really nice dinner in the middle of chaos. & last night I didn't pack at all but had an awesome time with a really good friend. & I'm about to embark on a road trip that I totally can't afford just for AWESOMENESS SAKE. & I'm going dancing right this minute.
Balance it's all about balance. & cooking & painting & adventure. That's it. oh, & dancing & friends & not killing yourself.

eating "exotic" squash & ignoring sadness

2009-07-26T21:24:00.000-07:00

First, & most importantly, here's DR, helping me pack. thank jesus for kittens.

Yup, another late night dinner. this time "exotic" squash free from work (no idea why it's so exotic, it appears to be a round version of zucchini) & onions (also free from work) & avocado & thai basil & a banana pepper from my garden & whole grain udon noodles. no time to be doing this, this cooking meals & then contemplating them. really need to pack. but something else besides the general life chaos of me/financial crisis/moving/uncetainty about housemates/ thing that's been going on with me lately also happened & so there an undercurrent of sadness to everything I do. A very dear & trusted friend told me, "just give it some time & don't think about it for a couple of days" & that's right. but now it's been more than a couple of days & I find I still can't think about it or deal with it. it still hurts too much. & so now I find myself not packing but at least I am cooking mjyself a beautiful dinner & not sit on the floor crying. & I packed one box of vintage juice glasses & fabulous shot glasses that's gonna have to be enough for now.

noodles plus green things.

& then eaten over the rest of yesterday's lettuce. for freshness. five different green tastes: squash in butter (warm), avocado (meaty), lettuce (crisp), thai basil (sharp), banana pepper (hot).

I dealt with a lot of practical shit this week while ignoring my current emotional landscape. I'm doing the best I can. I still believe that people should try to communicate better, but they never ever do. Still I really learned this week that even though I feel kind of out of place a lot of the time, I do have some real true friends, even here, & they all came from unlikely places.

So I'm just gonna eat my green things & noodles & drink more wine at 1am & keep listening to all of the silver jews albums mixed on itunes shuffle & maybe pack another box or two. doing the best I can. that's all I've got. & if my heart is breaking under the surface, well, I find that it matters less & less.

& I'm gonna end on one of my favorite lyric quotes ever, "& if cars could run on teardrops I'd be long long gone. " thanks david berman. also, Drinking & Drawing road trip 09 to the deep south in august to look forward to. If we don't die, it will be awesome.

3am Dinners?

2009-07-26T19:19:00.001-07:00

One element of the weird lifestyle I've been living lately is that my meal schedule (& my sleep schedule) are way way off. For instance, yesterday I worked, ate these things, went to the 11's for a night of "official" Drinking & Drawing, went to hugo's for more drinks & more drawing, & then we all went to the 11's to dance our asses off. Then I walked home all sweaty & realized I was starving & despite the late hour needed some real food. this has been my pattern lately, coming home from the bar to an extremely late night dinner, & finding myself really inspired to take pictures from my sketchbook & blog rather than sleep. Many of my finest blog posts are completed 2am or later, usually while I'm eating dinner.

last night I reheated cold ravioli from the previous night with tons of hot sauce & tomato sauce (I like food really spicy late at night).

& I had this beautiful head of lettuce that I brought home free from work hanging out in my fridge next to the banana peppers.

so I ate this, near dawn, while writing. that's goddess dressing on the lettuce.

then based on some late night text messages I left the house again, got to sleep as the sun was rising & the birds were going crazy (damn those birds), slept until around noon, got up in time to aquire my large iced coffee at the haymarket & some 3/$10 cds (stereolab, pavement, the smiths) at turn it up (my shopping contribution to the incredibly annoying noho tag sale), & head to work, where I just left, to come home, drink some wine, listen to the silver jews, & write on more blogs. & possible go out again to a party. & all I've had to eat all day is a bowl of soup at work, & I brought home a ton of free squash, so probably there's a late night dinner in my future. a typical day for me lately.
I worry that I'm turning into my dad with all my strange habits, I really do. He did, still does, the late night meal thing. I know this isn't normal, dinner at 3am, sleep at 5am, work at 1:30pm, I don't know.
I'm just so happy lately hanging out by myself, eating these crazy meals, & writing on the internet. although right now I REALLY need to be packing, since I am moving once again in six days. Having reasonable priorities has never been my strong point.

greens & wine & breathing

2009-07-24T18:58:00.000-07:00

It's been the kind of week where on several occasions I've woken up with the panic attacks that used to hit me every morning this winter, i.e. winter 2009, greenfield, when whole foods & some people in my life caused me to have a nervous breakdown. I don't like it. This morning I woke up that way, managed to calm myself the fuck down, drove to shelbourne falls (coffee roasters on king street, not the town) (although going to the town would have been nice) for coffee & juice, & sat in the breakfast nook & proceeded to deal with the internal list of all the stuff I need to take care of that's making my head feel all crazy. lots of life transitions, of which moving in a week is maybe not the least. considering that at 10am this morning I really couldn't see getting out from under the covers, a lot was really accomplished today. as a reward for not dying of panic, after meeting a potential new roommate in town tonight I took myself to state street & bought a bottle of very cheap red wine & a giant bundle of local swiss chard.
& made this.

there's the swiss chard sauting with olive oil, butter, garlic, a banana pepper from my porch garden, & some dried chili peppers (from the free bulk stuff at work that I've been carrying around in my purse all week). just like me to have dried chili peppers in my giant orange vinyl purse with all the pens & glue. food & art, food & art.

then I added some jarred tomato sauce (cheating but I'm moving very soon so am using up my staples plus not really buying much new food) & sriracha. I really like my tomato/pasta things to be spicy. my homemade red sauce contains sriracha, & usually some sort of spicy sausage, & fuck it's delicious. tomatoes lend themselves really well to spiciness. so does cheese.

there it is, over pasta (sadly kind of crappy trader joes ravioli things that I inherited from a friend who moved, but whatever, I'm pretty broke) with sliced cherry tomatoes from the porch garden on top. The cherries are very fresh & sweet & lend something very delightful to the spicy greens & tomatoey mess underneath. (I ALSO have to add that because I'm moving & in the process of packing, that that is not my dish. I know I know, I'm an aesthetic snob, but I cannot bear for the internet to not know that MY dishes are vintage & pretty & NOT Pier One CRAP. Thank you.)(I know: liz, stop apologizing in parenthesis.)

so making myself good dinners in the midst of pure chaos helps, & so does when I have an impromptu dinner party with two of my favorite people on earth, one of whom I never ever get to see. having good people in my life & realizing it makes me want to pull myself together & deserve it, & also a few simple moments of pure joy sliding down a playground slide at 2am with people you love after sharing an amazing meal together is why we put up with crap jobs & tricky living situations & being broke & scared & confused & still keep getting up in the morning.
I was not mostly responsible for the brilliance of this meal, so all I'll say is, it was delicious & the company was better. & all the flowers were grown by me.
I sometimes lately think that I just went from one nervous breakdown to another, from total unemployed isolation in snowy greenfield to out very single freaking night social butterfly in summertime northampton, but I'm still trying to pull it together. having the person who saved my life by writing to me this winter randomly show up for 24 hours this week...well, these are the things I am reminding myself of when I slow down & breathe through it. there are wonderful people on this earth, & I can count at least five of them as my true friends. ok.
I hear thunder. & now it's pouring. winter of ice, summer of downpours. I was going to go out dancing tonight but maybe I'll just get into bed & read instead. I need words. maybe cooking myself dinner alone in my party dress with dustyrose is enough.

where have I been? oh, OUT. + a recipe.

2009-07-21T22:47:00.001-07:00

long late spring/early summer for me. so so so long. in fact I should be sleeping right now. all I'm gonna say is the last night I stayed in for a single night was two wednesdays ago & that was just for one night. I left greenfield (in april, last time I posted here), & I guess I went crazy, from the shyest girl in the world to out every night. I don't know. I don't know. I still (theoretically) like staying in, I just also like being around people (also not a totally true statement), & the out option is always winning, at least at the moment. more time to do both in would be cool.
it's a lot to explain right now. it is 2:29am. although I also used to go to bed before 5am & now I also don't. but I'm always hopeful that "maybe tonight" I will. sorry for the long absence. I've also been doing these things: Drinking & Drawing & Eating & Drawing.
I moved back to northamopton. I found a new (soul crushingly horrible) job. I've met a lot of people, a few of them amazingly awesome. I've danced my fucking ass off. & plan on continuing to do so (although a small personal victory tonight was that I DID NOT go to the basement).
& life is still in turmoil.
I'm still working it out.
more details later but for now, what I ate tonight:

it was totally insane to cook myself dinner at 1:30am when I got home from melissa's tonight, but I was hungry & I had some very tempting purple scallions AND purple carrots waiting for me on the kitchen counter & I was hungry, so I sauted them in coconut oil with marsala curry powder...

& garlic & thai basil from my porch & a few red chili peppers. & randomly an egg, 'cause I was cooking all late night crazy like I do sometimes, & had just read a food article about singapore street food that made me insane with joy so I was thinking outside the box. then I added coconut milk...

& then the whole thing was served over white basmati rice & eaten at 2:26am while blogging. dinner shouldn't be eaten so late, but then again, why not?

hi again. I've been taking a lot of good/garden photos lately, so perhaps more of those later. XOXO
p.s. don't y'all think that being a vegetarian & especially a vegan is such an AMERICAN thing to do (still thinking about singapore street food, & by extension, street foods the world over).

retracing my steps

2009-04-17T19:14:00.000-07:00

I've had a strange week, where I've ended up revisiting, alone, a lot of places important to me in the past, the places that are the building blocks of my psychic memory of myself. I escaped from total chaos in northampton and finally gave in and took dustyrose and went to my mom's house on the cape. This is the longest I've spent in brewster since 1996, the summer between my freshman year at simon's rock and my first and sophomore year at risd, when I probably spent about a month here. Other than that, in the past ten years, I've been here for two nights at the most, maybe twice a year. And now I've been here eight days.

And because until last november I've been in a serious monogamous relationship for most of my adult life, this is also among the handful of times I've been home (mom's house, funny how quickly I've started referring to this as 'home' since I haven't had one of my own lately) alone and not entertaining a significant other since I was a teenager.

In this past week: all my favorite beaches and church thrift stores and ponds and woods and marshes and swamps and coffeeshops of the cape, the risd campus, my old apartment in providence, downtown new bedford and the walk between our apartment and the bookstore, the highway between northampton and new bedford and providence and brewster, a lot.

New Bedford: where my idea of what things should look like came from.

Brewster: the lake upon who's shores I grew up.

Providence: my first apartment, my first love, first drink, first sushi.

lots of driving, lots of ocean, lots of walking, lots of picking up shells, trips to drugstores buying makeup and other stuff like a teenager, loud music in my car,

places I haven't seen since childhood, and have never seen through my own eyes as an adult (by which I mean, just looked at them, not showing them to someone else while retelling the story of myself).

Wearing my boots and crazy vintage dresses all week, enjoying sleevelessness and my new since last summer arm tattoos, my badass boots on the sand of the beaches of the cape, big sunglasses and my ipod, guided by voices and pavement and the silver jews and modest mouse and bjork while I think think think, sound of waves in the background, the path around slough pond, the sidewalk of new bedford between orchard street and pleasant street that I've been walking alone since I was six, the brick sidewalks of benefit street in providence echoing my footsteps more then ten years ago when I first fell in love and I walked all night, when I first learned how to walk all night,

dreaming of my friends, and of bridges, and of nail polish bottles lined up on a mantle.

All this was unplanned, but the timing is seeming strangely fitting, as I have this weird feeling my life is about to change really soon really fast really majorly.

maybe not. I don't know. I think I'm right and I think I'm wrong and I'm sure what I want and then I'm not and then I remember, it's not exactly about what I want, if it's going to happen then it is.

This has been the week of revisiting, and of waiting. Past and future, edge of some sort of cliff.

thanks.

2009-03-12T21:16:00.000-07:00

I'm almost to my personal deadline for recovery (start of spring), and that means somehow I survived this winter.
Like this is an awards show (I know I'm way too obsessed with celebrity culture, well you know what, it's my healthiest current obsession so I'm gonna go with it), credit goes to: rin (for sitting there and listening to me so many, many times, and always knowing psychically exactly when to call me), beth & sarah h (cause I needed somewhere awesome to go on friday nights and plus oh my god, so much support and crafts and good thrift stores sense from you guys heart heart heart), my parents, especially my dad (for weirdly not judging me for ruining my own life, and supporting me so much), troy (for never once saying this was my fault, although a lot of it really was), hilary (for understanding me a lot, and remembering to check in) ali (for continuing to be the same incredible sister she's always been), and tim (for saving my life this winter, absolutely, one hundred percent through the written word). thanks so godamn fucking much y'all.
I was thinking about this while walking today (and even though it was kind of freezing it was definitely a spring day)(ha! "kind of" and "definitely" in the same cause, I'm so conflicted)(so I was reminded of the deadline)(ha! again so many ellipses)(I love ellipses), and I was suddenly so humbled I was tearful.
Not to be cheesy, but omg, it's been a hard couple of months (I know it's stupid, and worse things could totally happen to a person, way way way worse, oh god I do know, and I'm so grateful really), but still, I've been struggling to remain above water lately.
And none you ever, ever pointed out that obviously, in face of all possible disasters, this is nothing. Cause you knew I already knew that, and reminding me wasn't going to help anything.
Everyone was so kind in the face of my total breakdown over stupid personal shit.
Sorry if this is incredibly cheesy, but I am essentially breathless with thanks.
And I think one of the positives of a really bad betrayal is that you come to appreciate the people who are true.
so thanks. you are so appreciated.
AND.
final thank you,
(greg).
for continuing to take my calls and treat me like a true friend after what I did.
You have no idea how much that meant to me and I have no way to tell you.
(I'm writing this like I'm talking to you directly, but I'm sure many of those named don't bother with reading this nonsense.)
k. night. thanks.

love & gratitude & footstools & plastic deer & pink vintage suits

2009-03-01T19:53:00.001-08:00

This weekend. Was really great. Not that weekends should mean anything to be because I'm still unemployed, and they usually don't really, but I decided in advance that I need something right now in terms of pleasure, and that I was going to have a weekend, and then everything actually worked out that way, I don't know, I spend too much time alone worrying, I need a change, at least occasionally.
(this is going to be a really boring post of what I did this weekend that no one but me could ever possibly care about, just warning you)
So friday morning I woke up after sort of an important night with s. and was having a pleasant rainy day doing laundry and reading a lot, and was so happy with the warm rainy foggy weather, and was ok with a night at home but then b. called with the free sarah vowell tickets, and really all day I'd been kind of sad that I was missing that, so I was both excited to go, plus I am always kind of overly excited and humbled when people remember me or offer things to me or are especially kind to me, and it's not even like this is that rare, it's more that I never feel like I deserve it, or understand on some level why people care about me. I know, I have weird high/low self esteem.
So friday night was great, then saturday it was a kind of a beautiful day at least for the last day of February in new england anyway, very sunny and reasonably not freezing, and I got up and drove to noho and bought the world's largest scone (strawberry & walnut) from the haymarket and ate it on the steps of the church on main street in the sun writing in my journal for the first time since fall and had that awesome conversation with ali and went to the art supply store and was greeted so pleasantly by friends and then had a truly wonderful trip to savers with b. and s. and spent more than three hours there and had so much fun and acquired a footstool that randomly matches all my furniture and a bag full of plastic forest creatures and a truly awe-inspiring hot pink vintage suit and really enjoyed spending good thrift store time with people with excellent taste and came home and s. came over and I made thai beef curry and we had a really nice night. And my dreams were weird and intense but it was still really nice waking up in his arms.
I think I'm happy. And in terms of my recent past, I realized while driving my car this morning that NOT being unhealthily attached to a person in a super intense obsessive way does not mean that I don't like them, and I should stop comparing this to that other thing because it's really pretty great as it is.
Then today, sunday, I had a very lovely morning here with s. and then picked up r. and went to that opening (can't talk about that yet) and then we had lunch and had good art conversation and I'm really excited about the art project but I managed to get myself in a weird, sad mood on my drive home and it was hard to shake it.
My itunes shuffle keeps playing classic pavement in droves and it's very very nice. And wilco. Nice and relaxing and pleasant for a sunday night, especially since doing my required daily food painting rather cured my stupid depressive tendency to dwell on stuff and waste time.
Again, thanks art. I don't know what I'd do without you.

Art Project

2009-03-01T19:36:00.000-08:00

I had a really, really nice weekend, but ended with a rather ambivalent sunday night. I got melancholy for a while, for no reason at all...just starting to come out of it. through art. weirdly.
Thank jesus for this collaborative art project with r. (more on the details of this later), I really do need more concrete things to do.
And I hadn't realized how much I miss just painting, with actual brushes and paint, etc.
I really like all the parts this project has...my regular journal/sketchbook, my new food journal, my food porn facebook album, my daily paintings of everything I eat, my facebook album of those pictures, my notes in my regular journal about the project, my official journal of the project, this blog of course I think there will be more,
I wish it was tomorrow so I can eat and draw more things.
I like carrying around all these various notebooks. I feel busy and important. And it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks about what I'm doing as long as it feels that way to me. I like having my bag full of pens and glue and words and images.
But I was not in a good mood at all. Just sitting around and staring at things and tormenting myself with my thoughts.
I was really kind of frozen into inactivity, but then r. called, and reminded me about the project, and a tiny part of my brain woke up.
I HAVE to do this one food painting everyday, so I did it, and I liked what I did, and now I'm not in such as bad place. Hmm.
In terms of things in my life I am grateful for, this is way up there.

deadline

2009-02-25T18:48:00.000-08:00

I'm giving myself until spring to get over this, then I need to move on. And by "spring" I mean the official spring solstice, in many ways the holiest day of the year, and by "this" I mean I need to let go of a whole lot of anger and resentment and regret and everything to do with the whole foods saga.
I was suspended just days after the winter solstice, and fired the day before new years eve, so if this ends on the first day of spring, this will have been one complete season of my life.
And winter is traditionally the season of death and rebirth...which is what this winter has been for me, absolutely.
So it will be quite fitting if this period in my life takes exactly one season.
And my relationship with emerson fitted neatly into one season, fall, so that works too.
Fall has always been my favorite season, and so many parts of that relationship were pure pleasure, even though it ended badly. And I started dating him just days before my 30th birthday, and my birthday is always an important day for me.
And 30 should have ended my saturn return, I believe.
But spring. Spring will be something new.
I've really been working on myself this winter, seeing myself through something very dark born out of my own heart.
Come spring, I'm going to be ready for gardens, for sunshine, for dancing, for art, and for trust again, maybe.
Winter 2008-2009 I think I will always remember as the time I really got to know myself. Was always alone with myself. And it was scary and I cried a lot and always woke up in a panic, but look, now I sleep through the night again. I've accepted a lot of things. I've learned how to be grateful, that none of this is by any means the end of the world. That I am so so so thankful that this is the worst I've had to deal with, really I'm very lucky.
I've lost a lot of friends, but the ones I still have, are amazing. awe-inspiring. my family is amazing and awe-inspiring.
Spring is going to bring a lot more art work.
I still wake up thinking about him every single fucking day. Three more weeks, then that has to stop.
I think on the first day of spring I need to perform some sort of ritual. I don't know what yet, but I either need to set a bunch of things on fire or throw things off a cliff into the ocean.
When I got divorced almost three years ago a lot of people told me I needed to take the time to deal with it, even if it was hard, and I didn't.
I'm doing it now.
And I'm going to be at least a reasonably functional version of liz again, soon.

What I've gotten out of this so far.

2009-02-15T18:43:00.000-08:00

One thing. I know that right now I'm stronger than I've ever been. Because I don't really feel like I need anyone else. Because I've accepted all kinds of loss and let it go. Because I now one hundred percent totally understand the great pleasure in coming home alone to my own apartment and my cat and a book and my thoughts.
When burns left I partied all the time until I ended up in another committed long term relationship.
I was always surrounded by people, and then I met greg, and then I did that...
This time I lost mostly everyone, so I couldn't do that.
I have never in my life enjoyed my own company so much nor cared so little what other people thought.
This is been a weird hard up and down journey that I think I really needed however much it has sucks.
And today at the co-op they were stocking the seed display, and I thought, it's really almost spring.
I've almost survived this winter, with heart and mind somewhat intact. enough to work with.
If you'd asked me what the odds of that were on december 31, 2008, I wouldn't have been so sure.
But I did it.
The song I was just thinking reminded me of this whole thing just randomly came on itunes shuffle.
WEIRD WEIRD WEIRD.
Rilo Kiley, "A Better Son/Daughter."
I was just thinking of quoting it, and here it is.
Because I am going to come out of this better stronger smarter more grownup a better friend a better daughter etc.
"And I'll fight and I'll make it through and I'll fake it if I have to."
So in some ways he gave me a lot of freedom. Now if I could just find a job...

my valentines confession.

2009-02-13T21:32:00.001-08:00

still totally miss him.
still shaking from seeing him tonight.
still don't believe he isn't still hurting too.
I know we were in the same place for at least a while.
For sure at least for six months we were in the same place together and didn't even know the other felt that way.
so what goes on in his head? how does he deal with what eventually happened? I wish he would tell me so I could deal with it too.
still standing over the kitchen sink alone eating pumpkin ice cream blankly, too sad to even cry, trying to get drunk enough so I can just cry already...
...cause this hurts worse than tears.
He just looked at me on the street tonight like I wasn't even there.
And less than four months ago he convinced me to give up everything because he thought we could be together forever.
Who is he? How did I trust him? When will I stop caring about the answers to these questions?
I would take him back in ten seconds. This totally sucks. Happy valentines day. fuck fuck fuck.

((tiny related thoughts))

2009-02-13T19:28:00.000-08:00

I thought for a split second in the exhibit tonight that what I should be doing is being an eating disorder counselor for teenaged girls. I think I could do that.
Very well.
And maybe even help someone who might otherwise die. Like I almost did.
How do I even go about doing that?
(plus all this train of thought has huge relevance to my visual artwork that I can't even begin to deal with right now...but I'm aware of the connections...
...body image, celebrities, porn, britney, food, yeah I get it...or am trying too)

valentines eve & other weird painful shit: Part #2: Shame

2009-02-13T18:24:00.000-08:00

Tonight I was confronted with a lot of weird painfully deeply difficult to process things that take me back to my deepest darkest parts, the stuff that keeps me up at night. All night.
So I saw emerson tonight. That happened.
Earlier, I met b. at the Smith Art Museum, because it was Northampton Arts Night Out, and when the Smith Museum is free (as it should always be, of course) and Lauren Greenfield's Thin & Girl Culture was at the Smith Museum
That was really good, but weird and hard for me, because it was a lot of photos of women with eating disorders, and eating disorder stuff is still oh so indescribably hard for me to deal with, and I'm not sure how much I'm going to be able to write about it tonight. Still the hardest thing for me to talk about/deal with/acknowledge in anyway/think about.
Even though the year when I regularly weighed under 100 pounds was when I was 14, so 16 years ago now.
I've been living pretty much as normal and appearing normal for 16 years. weird.
To be clear, I can talk about it, in a very specific way, a way that I've created, a language I've created, where I can mention certain controlled truths, and act like I'm dealing with it, but that actually never really even scratches the surface. Of what I've done. Of what I've felt. Of how I still live.
I certainly don't talk about it in the present tense. It's 10:50pm and all I've eaten all day is a single yogurt. I'm fighting with myself with what I'll eat next. Since I've been fired, I can at least on some level see that I'm exercising compulsively (now 205 situps a day plus all this other stuff) but I can't stop. I love when people buy me dinner, because then I'm allowed to eat whatever I want without following my rules.
I eat plenty, and I maintain a normal weight, mostly, but the amount of rules, involved, I know it's not normal, whatever that is, because I can't find the words to talk about. I would never, ever tell anyone what I really think when it comes to eating.
I eroticize it, I play games, I deny myself things...I think this why I want to just go live on a farm because I figure if I was really in touch with food and the sources of my food than all this nonsense my intellectual mind knows is silly and ridiculous would go away.
Gardening helps. That's why I do it. Inpatient eating disorder units should have gardens. And animals. Really.
The show we saw tonight had all these photos of girls being forced to eat cookies, but what if they had to raise chickens and then kill and eat them? Or just gather eggs? That seems like something that would have shaken me out of my self obsession as a teenager. In a good way. And eating disorders are always a self obsession. not that you can stop it just because you know this.
Send all anorexics to sustainable farms and see what happens. seriously.
Food I create myself has less guilt. Food I cook myself does too.
Something about labor, hands, work, touch....
So seeing those photographs...I was almost in tears by the time I left that exhibit. I was choking in my throat.
Not in a bad way. I was really glad I saw it. But it wasn't easy. I think a lot of the point of my own work is that I'm trying so hard to conceive of a language in which to talk about these things.
I need to talk about them. It's part of why I am an artist.
Someone should. And that show tonight, that all from an observer's perspective, because most of those girls photographed are too fucked up to make their own art.
I want to be the voice from the inside, the one who was just that bad, but survived anyway. And I will survive what is happening to me now.
So it was an intense evening in my soul already...
And then I was walking alone down main street in the cold back to my car and standing at the light at the main intersection waiting to cross, and I look over my shoulder behind me for some reason I still can't figure out (ali says I was looking for him) and I see first one member of his band, then the next, and I knew what was coming but it happened so fast, then him, come around the corner, and I didn't know what to do, so I looked away, but I'm pretty sure he saw me, and looked away too, and walked past me.
And then I felt like crying again and I still do.
Both of these are things I'm ashamed of.
That I've treated and still treat my body this way. That I loved him and trusted him and that he treated me this way.
Shame.
That ties this whole night together.
And a lot of my recent life.
In the recent past I've been on my knees in front of one person while someone who likes me sincerely called me on the phone to make plans with me. And have been at the computer at 1am eating leftover homemade curry and dirty instant messaging two different people with the same first same name at the same time.
Shame.
What's going on here?
Starving myself/loving the wrong people. A lot to think about.
And it's almost valentines day...and I take holidays, even stupid ones seriously, because I love ceremony.
It's gonna be a long night.
Thanks sweet jesus that K. made me a 21 love songs mix for valentines day that arrived unexpectedly in the mail this morning, along with this month's cosmo (An Orgasm Almost Killed Her: we are not kidding)(actual headline).
and I'm gonna listened to that truly excellent mix and write my heart out and drink cheap white wine and eat a chicken sandwich from the food the guy who doesn't eat much left behind.
good for me. I am embracing having an appetite. I think I'll make curried chicken salad.
Fuck shame. So what I loved him and I was wrong. He should be ashamed, and he is, cause he can't even look me in the face. Fuck that.
I've got a lot more to write on this subject, I think. Stay tuned.

(valentines)(food)(the inbetween bit)

2009-02-13T18:18:00.000-08:00

(one other thing: my ideal valentines date, and which I've had with various partners for at least most of the last eleven years, is to cook a really special gorgeous romantic dinner at home with my love...I think the guy tomorrow wouldn't understand the food/sex/love/touch thing that matters to me so much...that's part of the problem...when I cooked him dinner for the first time this week, he didn't finish his plate and I was the only one eating butter...that sort of thing doesn't make me want to fuck you)
(I don't want to go to a restaurant, I want my valentines date to lick butter off my fingers and fuck me up against the kitchen wall while we are still cooking, pots and pans all on the stove and knives and cutting boards everywhere, everything smelling delicious)
(at least I know this)
(Iwrote this about myself the other day)
(You should message me if:
If you are open to adventure.
If you are by nature a sensual person, and the way life tastes, sounds, smells, sounds, and feels matters to you.
If you think food is incredibly sexy, and you agree that cooking an elaborate, messy, and indulgent meal is an excellent form of foreplay. And if you like to eat, because I like to cook, and I like people who truly appreciate food.
If you like dancing and getting sweaty.
If you want to go a dive bar for a bunch of hours and play the jukebox and act ridiculous.
If you smell and taste good, because I always notice that about a person.
If doing whiskey shots and eating cake in bed sounds like fun to you.
and you should like music, doesn't matter what kind because I like a lot.)
(of course, I know who all things are true about)

valentines eve & other weird painful shit: Part #1

2009-02-13T17:46:00.000-08:00

So valentines eve 2009. First valentines day since 1998 when I was 19 that I haven't been in a committed long term relationship with someone I was in love with on valentines day. That's eleven years, people.
So there's that. Not that I'll be alone at all, I have a date, a really nice date planned to go to see "Coraline" and eat sushi at osaka, with someone I like ok, who is handsome and smart and funny and seems to really like me and the way I think and who pays attention to my art, etc. perfect on paper, but on the other hand , as ali and jocelyn and I were just joking, I'm just not that into him? Get it? I could let him know that by suggesting we see, "He's Just Not That Into You" instead of "Coraline." But he planned this date, and it's a great date, it's all stuff I love to do, so what is my problem? That it feels like we are really "dating" now and one thing I do know is that I don't want that. Not with one person. My poor little heart can't handle it yet.
I'm turning into one of those boys I've dated who's terrified of the word "Girlfriend." I just don't want to be anybody's girlfriend, except maybe one person's and that's the wrong person.
And valentines day is of course complicated because ever since I broke up with emerson, well I guess not since we broke up, we broke up in november, and I thought for while we'd certainly get back together haha now we'll never even speak again, I guess since he got me fired at christmas, I 've been on a dating spree that I can't entirely understand or explain to myself or anyone else. Mostly people from the internet, a few from real life. Right now I am currently have a specifically nondating sex/friendship thing with three people, and dating two other people, making plans to meet at least two new people next week, plus two people I've met in person I'm avoiding, plus a handful of people I only email. Hmmm.
Very emotionally confusing, especially considering I've never really dated casually before, only ever gone from one serious relationship to the next.
And the only person who moves me at all is the one most specifically nonromantic. But maybe that's exactly the reason I'm moved, because that situation is safe. It's definitely the only situation where I'm having sex because I really want to, which is sad I guess.
I had a good conversation with a & k about what this means about what I really want, and whether or not it's ok for me to want the things I seem to want.
Am I a slut, a whore, am I really messed up emotionally, am I really sexually confused, am I normal?
When I describe it to myself, I just say that all I want is to feel something. And that I can't. That's here is an empty space in my chest and I'm just trying to fill it with something.
That the only reason that I can handle all this is that emerson left me so emotionally removed from myself and everything else that I can just jump from one person to the next and not feel a real connection.
I feel guilty about my date tomorrow, I feel like he wants something different and I'm not being honest.
I'm confused, because the me I used to be would have been so happy about this situation and the me I am right now feels nothing.
I mostly want to be alone these days, that's when I usually feel the best with a few exception.
I guess emerson gave me that, an appreciation of my own company that I didn't have when I was clinging to him for everything.
Although I never am alone, this week I had exactly one night to spend alone in my apartment.
But then why am I dating all these people?
I think I really really really need the attention, I'm craving it so much, just tell me I'm beautiful, sexy, special, that you want me, that I'm not the worthless creature that he threw away and wrecked and didn't even bother turn around to look back at.
I saw him tonight of course. For the first time since the morning after that fateful store party, back on december 17th. Then I was suspended on the 23rd and I never saw him again, I saw the back of his head the one time I went back to the store to get the stuff from my locker, but this time I saw his face and I believe he saw me.
That's part #2. But of course it happened tonight. Valentines Eve. In a parallel universe of course, we end up not destroying each other and I wake up in his arms tomorrow.

duality/complexity...trashy vs. everything else

2009-02-08T16:43:00.000-08:00

I'm having a problem lately with feeling like people keep making assumptions about me, or thinking they know what my next step with be, or making blanket decisions about my personality without really knowing me at all.
Like they take one tiny grain of information and run with it and construct a whole persona for me from it. I don't think that's fair.
I have a lot of complexity, and contradictions, and just because you really love one thing about me doesn't mean you'll like the whole package, so don't get so excited.
So don't go on and act all surprised if you like me, and then you learn something that you don't like. And don't try and act like I lied to you, because all sorts of contradictory things about me just happen to be true.
I try to be a good human being and bring my reusable bag to the grocery store and recycle everything and believe in and support local agrculture and businesses and would rather walk places than drive and like to cook and grow my own food and don't like mostly to eat chemicals or things from mixes or any fast food and all those things are very very true but I also drive an old Ford Explorer and I love it, if I had all the money in the world and could buy any car I wanted I might buy a really big ridiculous pickup truck and I love shampoo with really strong scents and all other manner of artificially scented body and cleaning products from target and my perfume if britney spears' "curious" hahaha and I don't like candy but sometimes a reeses peanut butter cup can send me to heaven annd I am very romantic and sentimental but I also like sex with no attachments and I like toenail polish and glitter eyeshadow, and trashy clothing from the mall, and coffee from machines in gas stations, amd I like to dress old fashioned and love beautiful vintage things but I like hip jeans and fabulous sneakers too and hell I like to mostly just wear my pink sweatpants from target at home so don't treat me like such a princess where I can only wear skirts and hair ribbons and I dislike most things new age or hippy-like at all but I really believe in yoga and tarot and do both of those things everyday and sometimes I love just sitting on my yoga mat focusing and I love to cook and really care about food and appreciate really amazing food but you can take me to a diner or make me frozen french fries and I'll be really really happy and I love very very much both beautiful old well-made objects and cheap plastic crap and I'm incredibly shy and have trouble meeting new people but I'll drive to stranger's house in a different city and get into their bed within ten mintues and have no problem with it and I love shoes but can't really walk in high heels and I keep my apartment really neat and organized but also don't care if my friends get crumbs and frosting all over the place and I can be equally excited about an evening spent crafting and watching anne of green gables and drinking tea or or an evening drinking a shit ton of alcohol and doing outrageopus things and I'll do a lot of things to please other people but I'll also stand my ground and it is not because I'm a bitch or may be it is and I'm very private about what I really think but I'll tell you a lot of intimate details you probably don't want to hear and I like a lot of very cool hipster music like the silver jews and guided by voices that impresses cute indy boys but I also love britney spears and ani difranco and hall&oats and steely dan and the pet shop boys and lots of country music and old broadway musicals and hardcore rap music and I love bad 80's hair metal like guns n' roses and bon jovi and poison a lot plus lots of queer punk from the 90's like team dresch and bratmobile etc and I read the new yorker and cosmo and like six food magazines and a lot of glossy tabloids and I love them all and I read nonfiction and poetry and difficult novels and chick lit and trashy horror novels and books which are basically food porn ...
and I feel like I am a smart spiritual artistic creative trashy drunken reckless slutty sincere open hearted self-protective romantic exhibitionist private girl all at once.
I know: all about me.
I am one hundred percent sure that this is true of everybody,. but I still keep getting: oh I thought "you were different, I'm disappointed" lately. Over stupid shit like I care about the earth but drive my big car, or really love pavement but also really love britney, or am a genuinely smart person but love love love bad reality tv. So what?
This is just what went through my head earlier today driving in beloved Ford Explorer listening to ani difranco wearing my badass motorcycle boots on my way home from a date where I felt kind of misunderstood/judged to the big y in greenfield to buy toilet paper, trash bags, fancy feast for dustyrose, and cheap white wine for me.
One last note: maybe this is my fault, because I will play with whomever I'm with. But never to the degree that it's not true, it's just that if there are things we have in common, I will focus on those. Is that bad?

more from my apartment tonight

2009-02-03T19:22:00.000-08:00

I don't why, but ani's really nice tonight.
Two quotes from "knuckle Down" which I generally think is just a terrible album, and I've never really listened to, I can't stop playing over and over again. Again, it's probably been ten years since I seriously listened to ani difranco. But I guess I made the correct random choice tonight.
"come home and my guitar
has nothin to say to me
i recoil from all my friends
and then i'm in misery
been so long since i've been held
really since i was his
probably just need to be held
that's probably all it is"
-ani, "recoil"
"but you can't will yourself happy
you can't will your cunt wet
you can't keep standing at the station
pretending you're being met
you can't wear a sign that says 'yours'
when that ain't what you get"
-ani, "callous"
....other little things about tonight...I've been reading Julia Child's memoir, "My Life In France, " and that's making me incredibly happy. And she didn't learn to cook at all until she was 36, so maybe there is serious hope for me. Maybe I will have my restaurant someday. And she found the love of her life in her late 30's, and they lived happily ever after, complete with delicious food, so again, hope...
...I found a completely brand new "clear head" candle from whole foods in the bathroom that I had forgotten I had and that's making the apartment much better...
...last night I stayed up late reading and working in my sketchbook, not messing around pointlessly on the internet and I think it might happen again tonight...(except then why am I writing in this blog?)
...even though it's late I just did some yoga, and now I feel bendy and calmer...
...my tarot card for tonight was the Hawk, Messenger, "do not let your emotions cloud your perceptions. Examine your life from a higher perspective." When don't I let my emotions cloud my perceptions...hmmm.

in my space

2009-02-03T18:03:00.001-08:00

It's weird, I like this guy, the one who came to visit today, we had a nice day, and spent some quiet time drinking coffee and reading at bart's and later sitting in the whately diner looking out at the beautiful snowy dusk eating french fries and talking about country music, and he had his own fries but was using my ketchup which I thought was cute, and we drove around in his truck in the snow which I love, and lately he's really felt like my friend, but every time he's here, as soon as he leaves I feel compelled to clean and clean the apartment and get rid of every trace of him.
When he left tonight I first took a long walk in the snow, because I needed fresh air so much...and when I got back to the apartment I meant to do some other stuff but like I had no choice in the matter I immediately started rinsing out ashtrays and picking up glasses and changed my sheets and lit candles and am about to take a shower. I was thinking of cooking something even though I'm not hungry just so the apartment won't smell like him anymore.
...and I'm listening to old ani difranco for some reason, which I almost never do anymore....I think it's going to be sleater-kinney next, too.
When I was with e., he'd also manage to trash my entire apartment every time he spent the night, but I'd kind of enjoy finding the reminders of his presence the next day. Same with when g. and I first started dating. The time he left my bed full of lucky charms I thought it was adorable.
But now it's like I want to erase any hint this guy was ever here, and just get my home back to the way it was when I woke up this morning.
Again, I do like him, so I don't know what this physical aversion to him in my personal space is about.
Maybe it has nothing to do with him and this all has something to do with the boundaries I need right now in life. Like I just don't want boys in my space and that's that.
I don't know, I still feel like if it was the right boy, I wouldn't mind if my sheets smelled like him, but maybe I'm wrong.

Recipe: Comfort Food=broccoli & udon noodles

2009-02-02T16:48:00.000-08:00

This is my most comforting at home dinner: Broccoli, chicken, and udon noodles.

Broccoli
1 to 2 jalapeño peppers to taste
Red Bell Pepper
chicken breasts
1 onion
several cloves of garlic
a avocado
package of udon noodles
olive oil
sesame oil
soy sauce
sriracha hot sauce
chili oil
fish sauce

1. Saute the onion and garlic and jalapeño peppers in olive oil for about ten minutes on medium high heat.
2. Add a couple of tablespoons of soy sauce.
3. Add broccoli, chicken, and bell pepper, cook about another five minutes.
4. Add chopped avocado.
5. Add a splash each (or more to taste) of sriracha hot sauce, sesame oil, chili oil, fish sauce. Let simmer, adding more soy sauce if it needs liquid. Cook at least 15-20 minutes.
6. Boil water, add udon noodles.
7. Add drained udon noodles, plus more soy sauce, cook on high for another couple of minutes.
Serve.
(I'm going to go eat this right now).

random kindnesses are good

2009-02-02T16:25:00.000-08:00

On the positive side of my last post, and I think this is different from basing your happiness on other people, some lovely people I am fortunate enough to know have really warmed my heart in this past week.
It's the little random things people do that they don't have to that make you realize that you are really not alone even when you are taking some time off from reality and hiding out in your apartment.
1. In the middle of the yucky snowstorm last wednesday, a king cake arrived on my front porch sent by a friend in new orleans. The amount of joy I felt when I walked up to the front porch in the midst of all the snow and ice and saw the giant festive box cannot be measured.
2. the king cake inspired a king cake party the next night, and having my friends over to my apartment for cake and homemade cheese straws and valentines conversation hearts and hummus and hello kitty toast and giggling and wine and whiskey and poetry and dirty versions of the barbie queen of the prom game (barbie queen of the blowjob, complete with toy dinosaurs and gummy octopuses as playing pieces) was needed.
3. my car was completely and utterly stuck in the snow in my driveway following that snowstorm last week, and three of my next door neighbors whom I do not know at all helped push the car, shovel snow, actually drive the car, and just generally assist until I actually got out of the driveway (oh god god god I'm getting really sick of winter) (I pretended I was from louisiana I was so embarrassed at my inability to drive my own car). But they helped so much, and they totally didn't have to, and it was amazing.
4. The chinese food bought for me on friday when I was starving and broke, oh yay for hot and sour soup and sesame balls and eggrolls at ten pm when it's cold and you haven't eaten all day but have no money.
5. this unexpectedly lovely trip to boston on saturday, filled with lots of humor and conversation and getting lost and activities meant for children.
6. Something kind and true said by a friend on aim yesterday when I was at my lowest point and needed it most.
I hope that these are things I can do back for people someday.

finding myself around here somewhere

2009-02-02T15:42:00.000-08:00

It's been a real roller coaster ride the past couple of days. I have no idea if this is all in my head or if outside events are contributing.
Still unemployed, so I'm still spending a lot of time in my head.
Last week there was another snowstorm, and that really depressed me...not sure exactly why, except certainly there is no novelty anymore to days spent alone in my apartment getting to do cozy stuff and read and cook and work on projects. That's what I do everyday.
But I'm still enjoying it. I could enjoy that for a very long time. It's just sometimes I get into a bad place in my head where I'm very very unproductive, and then when I feel like working again, I get angry at all that wasted time.
I'm definitely basing my happiness too much on other people. I'll wake up so down, and stupid things like an email or a phone call can really lift my mood, but it shouldn't be that way.
Yesterday, some plans I was really looking forward to were canceled, and I was way too down about it. Which made me really glad in a way that those plans were canceled, because it was a good lesson.
I woke up so depressed about it, and then was like, no, I should be happy to have the evening to myself. This is a gift. And I was really, deep down inside.
And I took a long walk, and came home really grateful that I still have my gorgeous apartment, and my lovely cat, and enough money to cook my little dinners...(last night avocado, peas, udon noodles, fried, weird but really good.)
What would I rather do than spend the evening home alone with dustyrose writing and drawing and listening to music and cooking? nothing (I mean occasionally some other things).
(and last night I also ended up having an unexpectedly wonderful and random phone conversation...which made me really happy...but see, basing my happiness on other people again).
Someone I care about recently told me that thing everyone always says about needing to be ok with yourself before you can be there for other people, and my mood this weekend really made that seem true to me.
And he said that I was being selfish with my feelings, which is also very true, I'm keeping all my real feelings locked close to my heart in a tiny box.
I do one hundred percent enjoy my own company, a lot, and nothing about my selfimage should have anything to do with how other people see me.
Plus, there is so so so much I want to do. So much. So I could actually see no one ever and just work here, and not run out of things to do for a long time.
I haven't even made my calender page for February yet, never mind the rest of the year! omg! And I have all these painting ideas, and I want to crochet, and I just started to learn embroidery, and I have all these things to read....and I like having the time to cook, and I have letters to write (oh and I should find a job at some point)...
But I still let what other people think or say about me get to me too much. I need to stop waking up and checking my email to see how I'm going to feel about the day.
I need to go into my interactions with other people from a much stronger, more secure place.
Lots of walking and writing and tarot and yoga. And cooking and making sure that I take care of my body.
I'm paying attention to the physical details of life as much as I can. Tasting delicious things. The feel of the air yesterday when it was surprisingly warm and I could sense spring in the air. The feel of my wonderful bed and sheets and blankets and pillows when I go to sleep all by myself with a book.
My tarot card today told me that I needed to be playful and trusting again, and to let traumatic past events go.
I'm listening to fiona apple tonight, which is kind of nostalgic and fun.

more thoughts on trainwrecks...

2009-01-27T14:44:00.000-08:00

Britney...she's like an old school glamorous celebrity, not in talent, but in capacity for trainwreck...tragedy...disaster...like judy garland or elizabeth taylor...the glamour in tragedy.
That's key as to why we keep looking at britney. It's almost impossible for human beings to look away from tragedy, especially a poetic tragedy all done up in glitter.
Girls crying with their eyemakeup running, stockings torn...it's classic.
If only a national tabloid had been there that night of the whole foods store party to find me crying on the stairs.

Old School Surveyness...(afterall I wrote this one)

2009-01-26T20:09:00.000-08:00

Since I am actually the author of this survey, and it makes my last totally insane post not the first one, here you go...

1. Three things you did today that you liked?
Took a beautiful walk at dusk, filled out that 25 questions thing on facebook and then wrote in my blog, did yoga and listened to music.

2. Three things you did today that you didn’t like?
That phone conversation, that coffee conversation, applying for jobs that I don’t want, essentially the things involving other people were bad and the things alone were good. Except beth and I had some awesome facebook comment conversation that warmed my heart.

3. What are you wearing?
Pink pj bottoms with horse silhouettes, white wife beater, ancient vintage brown hooded sweater with giant holes, braids.

4. What was your last meal?
Homemade by me last summer frozen spicy cilantro pesto with 365 butternut squash ravioli.

5. What did you wish it was?
That was pretty good, but maybe ideally it would have been a totally indulgent steak and potatoes and wine dinner with someone cute.

6. Five objects on/in your:
a. kitchen table: ceramic bird, dried pink tea roses, two plants, pair of black fingerless gloves reading “rise up with fists!!!”, my large sketchbook and various collage materials
bedside table: tiny plastic jesus and virgin mary figurines (mary glows in the dark), pile of books, pile of new yorker magazines, can of polar seltzer (pomegranate flavor), stone from cape cod reading “hope” from mum and barb’s wedding
fridge: chocolate bacon, cheap white wine, various chutneys and curry pastes, honey roasted peanut butter, coffee syrup (for coffee milk like in rhode island)

7. Reading/listening to/watching in the last three hours:
Reading: Stupid novel about maine I bought at the salvation army here in Greenfield for 75 cents, because I keep wanting to move to maine, listening: the mountain goats sunset tree, watching: mostly the laptop screen and dustyrose act like an idiot attacking things no one else can see.

8. You get inspired to leave right this minute on a road trip, from which you may never plan to return, what do you throw in the car:
Sketchbook, some magazines and old books for collage, glue, the laptop, my best cowboy boots and my motorcycle boots, my roughly three or five or eight favorite dresses, lots of tights and socks, an assortment of books I love pulled off the shelf at random, a couple of my precious objects (i.e. shot glasses, ceramic animals, toys) to remember who I was, dustyrose and all her favorite toys and feathers, lots of scarves and fingerless gloves, my Cusinart, a handful of shells, my tarot cards, whatever photos I can grab quickly.

9. Who did you talk to or text or see today (not including people who were at your work)
Saw Danielle, texted Beth, spoke to someone I really didn’t want to, some other internet communication.

10. Describe your environment right now (sight/sound/smell/light/taste):
Beautiful golden light I created here with lamps and objects, still listening to the Mountain Goats, always vaguely smells like garlic and butter and curry here.

11. What is that environment lacking?
Not that much. On some days I would say company, but right now I’m good solo. I stress, right now. Ask me in an hour.

12. Where are you going next?
No idea. Austin? Back to New Orleans? Nowhere? Onto a fishing boat?

13. A recent dream?
The Martha Stewart one where I had to wear a short skirt in order to work for her at a job involving cookie eating was awesome. I also recently dreamed I found really nice rug. It was blue, very blue. Seems random, but I remembered it very clearly and it was a happy dream. I’m still having reacquiring nightmares at the moment, I don’t want to talk about those.

14. First thing you do when waking up?
Right now, I panic, then calm down, go make tea, email friends for a while in order to feel human. Then do yoga.

15. Best very recent memory:
Diane’s party last Friday.

16. What do you want to learn to do right away?
Cook professionally. Learn knife skills.

17. Favorite things from all five senses:
Sight: sunset
Smell: butter, onion, and garlic
Taste: kissing
Feel: yarn of good quality while crocheting
Sound: country music

18. What do you want in life right now?
Less uncertainty. Less distrust. More love and openness.

19. If you want to talk to someone, do you call or text?
I text. Because I’m shy. And awkward on the phone, although lately I’ve been improving.

20. Would you rather have the love of your life last forever, or lots of important and meaningful relationships?
Both?

Trainwreck (me & britney spears & courtney love)

2009-01-26T18:02:00.000-08:00

Just a few random thoughts...lately a various assortment of sort of shitty things have happened to me (and oh believe me I fully realize that these are not shitty things on a truly horrible scale, I know that I am not dying or sick and not starving and not living in a war zone or a natural disaster, I know, I know, and I am incredibly grateful for all those things, I am I am I am)...but I still have experienced what one could call some sort of trauma, and the way people are now treating me is, um, interesting? weird? hurtful? funny?
(this going to all tie back into britney, don't worry)
(also this won't make a huge amount of sense, overall, so if you are looking for cohesion, stop reading)
But I made a terrible romantic decision and that caused me to lose my job, and before that he hurt me really badly both emotionally and physically, and since about mid-november I've been in a kind of downward spiral, way before I lost my job this happened, and that led to some other insane behavior and lots out of control drunken reckless behavior...
Hi britney! Hi courtney love! yes! trainwreck city!
I think it's true, no matter who you are, you get your heart broken publicly, it hurts the same way, and people treat you the same way, like it's catching, and just because someone fucked you over real real real bad, and you have the emotional awareness to be feeling it, then there is something wrong with you.
"just get over it", they say. "move on." and I know that to be true. but I'm not there yet.
For me, the fact that I get up and get dressed everyday, keep my house clean, feed the cat, feed myself, apply for jobs, paint some, write about art, all these things are a major victory. A lot of me just wants to lie in bed and cry.
But I get accused of dwelling in the past. I guess I am. But that was such a major betrayal. The whole thing, the violence, the betrayal, the effect it's had on my life, I'm not ready to move on. I can't yet.
I can't. I'm trying. I'm trying so hard...to let go of the anger, the hurt, oh I know these are unproductive emotions, I want then gone, I do I do.
But I still don't sleep. I still am having panic attacks. I still go over it in my head constantly. I still wake up so sad every single day. I never ever want to get out of bed in the morning. I'm trying but I don't. I'm still grateful for everything I have, but that doesn't mean I feel ok.
Ok, this is the bad part, here goes:
I AM SORRY THAT HE BROKE MY HEART WORSE THAN IT'S EVER BEEN BROKEN BEFORE AND I FELL APART AND THEN HE GAVE THEM MY LETTERS AND I GOT FIRED AND NOW I'M BROKE AND UNEMPLOYED AND REALLY FREAKED OUT AND LONELY BUT I HATE EVERYONE AND CAN'T TRUST AT ALL AND CAN'T LET ANYONE IN BUT KEEP TAKING THESE CRAZY RISKS IN ORDER TO HEAR SOMEONE SAY THAT I'M BEAUTIFUL BUT I MOSTLY HAVE AN OUT OF BODY THING GOING DURING SEX NOW AND I'M SORRY IF HE WASN'T VIOLENT ENOUGH TO MEET SOME PEOPLE'S STANDARDS BUT IT WAS VIOLENT ENOUGH FOR ME AND I KEEP DISCONNECTING AND I DON'T CARE WHO THINKS I'M LYING OR EXAGGERATING OR TRYING TO GET ATTENTION WHAT HAPPENED BETWEEN HE AND I NO ONE SHOULD KNOW THE DETAILS OF EXCEPT HE AND I AND IT WAS REALLY FUCKING BAD AND I HAVE BEEN 13 AGAIN SINCE NOVEMBER 29. SO FUCK YOU EMERSON. AND COURTNEY. AND YOUR FRIENDS. AND EVERYONE WHO THINKS I AM TAKING IT TOO HARD. YEAH I WAS A SHITHEAD TOO. BUT YOU DIDN'T HAVE TO TAKE EVERYTHING. YOU FUCKING BASTARD YOU SLAM MY HEAD AGAINST A WALL AND CAUSE ME TO HAVE A SEMI-NERVOUS BREAKDOWN BECAUSE NO ONE HAS DONE THAT TO ME SINCE I WAS 13 YEARS OLD AND THEN YOU BLAME ME FOR IT WHICH I BELIEVE AND THEN I START TO COLLAPSE AND YOU TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THAT TO GET ME FIRED AND REMOVE ANY STABILITY OR REASON TO GET OUT OF BED AT ALL FROM MY LIFE JUST WHEN I NEED IT MOST.
ok, bad part over. But for everyone who keeps asking, this is where the Britney thing comes from, people watching while you go from everything to nothing, and both judging and enjoying it at the same time.
I know people are backing away from me in that "oh no trainwreck" kind of way.
Look how courtney love has been treated for more than ten years now, because maybe you act crazy when someone you love even tries to kill themselves. I've been there. And people want you to act normal. But nothing is anymore.
Falling apart publicly...it's interesting.
Driving to work the day I was suspended totally unexpectedly, I was listening to the new britney album, and really liking "circus" a lot, and already thinking about changing my facebook status to "all eyes on me in the center of the ring just like a circus." and then I was interviewed about my emotions and my sex life and then suspended, and I did change it to that, but then it was so much more funny and sad and ironic.
My final point: women should be allowed to be outrageous and hot and crazy and emotional and feel pain and act out without being raked over coals like this. Only girls ever seem to be left crying alone on the stairs and photographed at their worst and mocked and judged by everyone.
From the Mountain Goats, "I am going to make it through this year if it kills me."
I'm just really wounded right now. I'm doing what I can. That's all.

Deliciously Random

2009-01-26T17:38:00.000-08:00

25 Random Things About Me...since I bothered to write this out for facebook, I'm putting it here too. So there.

1. Some things I do every single day: Pick a tarot card, do an increasing number of situps (currently 65-70 per day), about ten minutes of yoga, listen to music, feed dustyrose, read something, paste/draw/write in my sketchbook, waste time on facebook, walk somewhere, use lipgloss, drink wine/coffee.

2. I eat sriracha hot sauce with a spoon. Frequently.

3. My favorite cities so far are San Francisco, New Orleans, and Las Vegas. But I’m currently very interested in Austin.

4. I can’t decide if in life I am too cautious or too reckless.

5. Frequently if I am alone in my apartment I am wearing only a wife beater and pj bottoms or just underwear.

6. I use vintage cloth napkins even when I am eating by myself. And my wedding china. Even if I’m justing sitting on the floor eating and watching tv.

7. I never ever paint my fingernails but I like my toenails to be red.

8. I consider the basic essentials in my fridge to be butter, 1/2 & 1/2, curry paste, cheese, mayonnaise, peanut butter, and white wine, and in my pantry to be garlic, chickpeas, whiskey, rice, udon noodles, olive oil, hot sauce, soy sauce and honey.

9. I’m unreasonably fond of hot chocolate, and I think whipped cream is good to an unearthly degree.

10. I’d rather eat broccoli sauted with garlic and olive oil than candy anytime.

11. My two favorite songs at the moment are “Jaded Lover” by Papa M and “Stoned” by Old 97’s. Lately I'm feeling very country/rockabilly.

12. I’m a sucker for all that cheesy stuff like people who open car doors and being met with flowers. Or living plants. Being greeted with the gift of a plant is even better.

13. I would generally rather someone bring me something random and cool from a thrift store as a present like a ceramic bird than something expensive.

14. I know I should eat breakfast but I never do unless I’m being taken out, in which I love it.

15. I’m addicted to print magazines, especially food magazines, and currently subscribe to Martha Stewart Living, Cosmo, The New Yorker, and Saveur, and am dying to get both Bon Appetit and Gourmet, even though I know it’s all a huge waste of paper. And I usually buy a couple of weekly tabloids too. And glossy porn. I’ve always wanted someone to buy me a subscription to Hustler and to US Weekly but it hasn’t happened yet.

16. I communicate better in writing than in person but I’ve been getting better at people recently.

17. I’m very very shy but sometimes it doesn’t seem that way. Like when I’m making a giant spectacle of myself on the dance floor for instance. All part of being shy though.

18. I talk to my plants all the time, and I get really sad when plants die, and at the end of the summer when I have to dig up the garden.

19. My ideal romantic evening is cooking someone I have a crush on a really elaborate and delicious dinner in my apartment, getting drunk with them and listening to music, showing them random stuff around the room that matters to me and telling them the story, and ending up cuddling on the floor on my giant floor cushions.

20. I care enormously about the aesthetic of my personal space…I’ve heard my apartment is like an art installation.

21. I’ve been trying to watch the first season of Lost on dvd from netflix since before Christmas, but I keep falling asleep while watching it and waking up all confused on my living room floor in the middle of the night. It’s not that I don’t like it, or that I’m bored…but I just fall asleep.

22. My facebook status is usually song lyrics. Or at least I prefer it to be.

23. I am not particularly materialistic in terms of value, but I love objects, and have an incredible amount of them in my apartment.

24. I have a wild streak, and have really done some crazy reckless drunk and disorderly things in my time. If offered another cocktail, I almost always say yes.

25. I trust my cat more than anyone else right now, and I”m ok with that.

26. I’m copying beth and doing 26. Hahaha facebook rebels! I think about taking off in my car on a crazy road trip at least several times a day every day.

heart broken, shattered, still cooking

2009-01-22T19:25:00.000-08:00

All week I've been seriously freaking out about work and money and life and what on earth am I going to do. Right now things are getting really scary.
Emotionally as well as financially.
I can't sleep. I keep doing all these crazy things and taking these stupid risks just for the chance at sleep. Any distraction, any person, any body, just for some sleep.
This morning, I woke up with someone in my bed who I really wasn't sure if I wanted to be there, and got up by myself to clean up the aftermath of the night before and drink tea alone and sit at my computer at the kitchen table, where I ended up just torturing myself on the internet about that boy who recently broke my heart and got me fired, you know that one.
That made me really sad, and made me realize that I miss him really badly, so I was dealing with that, but...
Then eventually the guy from my bed (and I like this guy sincerely, I really do, but I don't know what is going on and I think I let him push me around too much because I'm so disconnected and frozen and shattered right now...that's a whole other post though) left my bed and my apartment, and right on cue a registered letter arrived from whole foods denying my appeal of my termination, which states as part of their evidence for why they should have fired me the fact that the boy gave them all of our emails back and forth for our whole relationships. And it does state officially that his roommate and my former friend made the complaint about me, and that is really the reason why now I'm totally broke and scared and freaking out. I kept trying to blame myself and give them the benefit of the doubt, but I guess I was wrong.
oh god he gave them our letters.
This official letter from whole foods actually states something about how on september 18, 2008, we know you were in "insert his name here"'s bedroom because of a facebook message to that effect.
That's the correct date too, of the first time we slept together, which makes me so so so so mad...no way whole foods should know that.
That came from a message he wrote, that first morning, that was so beautiful, and even post breakup, was something I treasured. Breakups are one thing, but now he's taken our love letters away from me.
I remember, it ended with, "you are beautiful like nothing else" and it gave me chills at the time. He said his bed smelled like me, and he was invigorated by that.
I wouldn't write about this here, ever, except he's ruined it all anyway.
I can just see those whole foods executive people reading those messages and it makes me want to crawl out of my skin.
I can't even speak.
One of the ways they say I lied was that they asked me in the investigation how I felt about the breakup and I said well you know, I'm getting over it, like you would say to anyone you didn't want to cry to, and they pointed out a facebook message I wrote him right after we broke up in which I said I was upset as PROOF that I lied.
How was I supposed to answer that question officially? How do I feel about the breakup? I don't know. I think what I actually said was that it wasn't the worst breakup I'd ever had, so I would live.
That is very very very true. Maybe they don't know how bad things can get. Probably they don't, because they don't even seem to be human. But once you've seen someone you love's blood all over the walls...well....even though I ended up getting fired, this still wasn't the worst breakup I've ever had.
Fuck fuck fuck you whole foods, for firing people for being humans and having feelings.
The letter from whole foods goes on for six pages of this stuff.
I can't even understand how it's possible to live with so much anger.,
And then I talked to my dad and he said my mom is mad at me because she still blames me for the whole thing simply for trusting that boy at all, my bad judgment=my fault, as if women don't date men who beat them and hurt them all the time, and I guess she read on facebook or this blog or somewhere that I went to vermont and that hot tub and thinks I'm spending money like crazy. Although vermont cost me nothing and I even got two free meals out of it. I am allowed to have friends, just because I'm unemployed am I supposed to turn down invitations that are fun if they cost no money?
All this makes me want to sit on the floor under a blanket forever.
oh god god I need a job right now. right this minute.
What kills me so much about this situation was right before that asshole had to sell me out, I was the most totally self sufficient I've ever been in the 30 years of my life...totally single, making a good salary, paying for everything myself. And he took that for no reason.
In order to cope I had to make myself a really nice dinner of scallops and cream and noodles (frozen scallops from trader joes I already had since I am still really freaked out about money) and exactly $4 of very well chosen vegetables from the co-op. Shallots, crimini mushrooms, baby bok choi, fingerling potatoes I already had, garlic, butter, white wine.
Every time that guy spends the night I feel like I have to reclaim the apartment, it smells like him, and objects are displaced and everything is chaos.
So I've been fixing it all night. And cooking helps. The smelling wrong thing bothers me the most.
The positive things about today (because I swear that I am going to remember the positive): my sweet kitten, who every time he sleeps in my bed also sleeps very close to me to look out for me (she usually sleeps in my bed, but when he's there she really makes sure she's close), that fact that when I finally escaped that house to take a walk, the sun came out it it was relatively warm (36! felt warm! that's how you know it's january in massachusetts), diane and david being there for me this afternoon, making a really satisfying mix tape, talking to my dad and having him be there for me and not judge, looking forward to learning to embroider with beth and sarah tomorrow, my lovely apartment that I am trying to hold on to despite being broke, wendy mailing me a king cake from new orleans, loving myself and my cat and my home and trying to fight to survive.

my (late) new years resolution

2009-01-15T17:33:00.001-08:00

Yesterday I was talking over hot chocolates with some of my very dear friends about our new years' resolutions, and I realized that I hadn't made one yet...mostly because my life fell apart pretty much on December 30th. I guess at that moment I was resolving to continue on, that was all.
I did end up having a pretty special and wonderful and unexpected new years eve though.
Lots of unexpected delights have turned up here and there in my life lately...gorgeous early morning drives by myself through mountains, chocolate bacon and homemade toast with breakfast, trips to taco bell for ridiculous amounts of food, gifts of music I love love love and never heard through email, again, the hot tub in the snow, the way people happen to surprise you, support you, stick up for you, feed you, love you...
so my resolution, 2009:
to stop self editing. to be me around people, and not who they want (or I think they want) me to be. to remember that I am beautiful, and not be surprised when people tell me so.
To be open. To not let recent disasters and betrayals totally destroy my trust in people. To remember that there's a lot out there and that I enjoy my own company when I'm being myself and other people should too. To keep living for pleasure and enjoying delicious things and beautiful walks and all manner of sensual delights.

why britney? (Most of life is unsettling and I think it's comforting to see that reflected in art)

2009-01-11T11:14:00.000-08:00

(some thoughts on art to make up for all the recent drivel about boys)
Most of life is unsettling and I think it's comforting to see that reflected in art.
This has something to do with britney spears, and with tabloid headlines. What I like about tabloid headlines (reminds me that I need to go check out this week's headlines) is that they are expressing these huge raw human truths in these giant yellow letters. "IM SORRY" "HUMILIATING BETRAYAL" etc and usually you can find some expression of some drama going on in your personal life expressed in some magazine in the grocery aisle. like just after my most recent break up I found "HOW COULD YOU" and more recently "THE FEUD GETS WORSE" (haha who's that refer to?).
using britney specifically first of all ties all this in to one story which I think sets some boundaries first of all, because I'm working within the confines of actual events in the life of britney spears, and also provides some visual continuity, rather than if I was using every possible celebrity drama.
Britney Spears, too, more than anyone else, obviously symbolized "the raw messy details" which is the theme of my current work.
Before all the bad stuff even started happening to her, britney was over the top and unreal in a way that other celebrities just are not.
I find visually the progression from the lolita/candy imagery of her earlier career to now with the crisis/mental illness headlines to contain a lot of moments that are really relateable to being a human being, but done in this over the top ultra theatrical kind of way.
I think mental illness and breakdowns and heartache and tears are the things that people like to keep under wraps and not bring out into the open, and in britney case they are being shoved under a giant stoplight.
the headline glued into the front of my current sketchbook reads "from breakdown to center stage"
I think that's such a great sentence, thanks people magazine or whatever.
All the work I've done with britney genuinely makes people uncomfortable, and it's not actually that easy to make people uncomfortable with visual artwork, especially if you're not using really violent or sexual imagery (which I also do but I'm trying not to overdo it).

Flirting with food

2009-01-11T11:06:00.000-08:00

I've found in my recent adventures with internet dating, the only thing I can honest flirt about is food. The only time I can feel genuinely sexy when chatting on the internet is if I'm describing how and what I might cook for someone if I had them there in person.
I'm surprisingly addicted to this internet thing. Talking to people who DO NOT AND NEVER HAVE WORKED AT WHOLE FOODS is like a drug, I love it.
I had a surprisingly pleasant phone conversation last night with someone who offered to come over and let me cook for them while it snowed, and I said no (I cannot do the sex with total strangers more than once a week I think)
But I made myself a nice dinner with music and wine at midnight during the snowstorm.

oh no! more stupid dating stuff

2009-01-11T10:22:00.001-08:00

Here's an interesting dilemma, why do I now feel rejected by random internet guy who imed me at 4am last night to say he's sorry but he doesn't really want to be committed to me?
like I want to magically be committed to random internet guy? Like oh god, what would be scarier than suddenly finding myself committed to this guy I met online who I don't know at all?
Why on earth would that hurt my feelings? I spent most of the first day he was here wondering when exactly he was going to leave. I HATE HATE HATE the subconscious girl part of my brain that gets attached to people if I sleep with them even if the point of sleeping with them was to sleep with someone I'm not attached to.
I got really mad at him for assuming that I even wanted to date him, but of course if it made me sad then he was right, which makes me even more annoyed.

(I promise I'll write a post about art (or at least about buffy) sometime soon as a break from all this stupid relationship nonsense. I think I was a lot more interesting when I was just in a longterm relationship and didn't have to think about this stuff so much).

adventures in bad decision making and/or stepping outside of my comfort zone

2009-01-11T09:00:00.000-08:00

This week, tuesday night I think, I joined an online dating site totally against my better judgment out of a combination of curiosity and a genuine interest in finding some people somewhere on earth who do not and never have worked at whole foods, and do not know nor have slept with any of my friends. I made a profile and someone emailed me right away, and I messaged him back, but then got distracted by something else I was doing, and and let that conversation trail off.
On wednesday night what I was planning on doing didn't work out, (it's a bit of another story, but I was doing tuesday night and what I meant to be doing wednesday night-I'll try to get back to that at the end) so I emailed the guy from the previous night out of boredom and frustration with something else who decided after iming for about five minutes that he wanted to drive to my house from two hours away at 2am, which for some reason (I'm going to stop right that now-please feel free to insert "for some reason" in any part of the story as you see fit, my reasoning here is frequently unclear, even to me) I agreed to, then he stayed at my apartment through the next afternoon at which point I agreed to go to northern vermont to the top of a mountain with a complete stranger (bad decision making) and we did go to vermont to his friends' cabin (which in reality was this giant insane house in some ski resort for the ultra rich) and then I came home on friday and somehow managed to not be kidnapped or murdered.
(high point of the whole experience: outdoor hot tub at midnight in the snow)
(I texted two friends on the way to vermont and they were both like "why. are. you. doing. that. what. is. wrong. with. you.)
So it all worked out fine, except
1. I don't normally spent 36 hours with someone I'll probably never see again, and I don't necessarily want to see this person again, but it's not how my heart operates so I feel strange about it.
2. The entire time I felt like I was in a movie, and was playing a part, and I was definitely self editing and not being myself.
3. I just feel kind of depressed about the whole thing....one one hand I was trying to step outside of my comfort zone and take chances, but on the other hand, it made me tired, a bit, and I cannot say enough times how I was not being myself.
Most of the 36 hours this was going on I felt pretty neutral about the random internet guy himself, like I wasn't sure if I thought he was cute, or if we had enough in common, and I was pretty ok with him leaving at anytime, but I thought the experience itself was good for me, because I was spending time with someone new and it was distracting me from some other stuff I'd been worrying about, and vermont really was fun, and was an experience that I wouldn't have got to have otherwise
(standing in the snow in my underwear completely warm with my hair frozen and steam blowing everywhere)
but I was still kind of distanced the whole time but then when he left I felt sad.
But do I really want that guy back, or was it just the company I liked?
(the other thing, that I was doing tuesday and wanted to do wednesday, is this whole other story that involves these semi-romantic letters with this old friend. How I feel about those letters is a whole other complication in my heart.)
Another good thing about the whole experience: at one point (actually in the hot tub in the snow which would be a good scene if my life were indeed a movie) internet guy said, "you're very beautiful and you're smart and funny, and you don't put yourself out there as if you know this at all."
True. Something to think about.

hopeless romanticism brought to you by the snowstorm

2009-01-10T17:16:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking about dating, about people, about relationships, and how sometimes I don't want to be alone and I wonder if my standards are too high, but then why can't I expect to be with someone whose just perfect?
Is perfect too much to ask?
Or should I just accept "well this is ok."
In the past couple of years, starting from "well this is ok," was pleasant but not mindblowing, at least not in the beginning, but then led to a lovely two year relationship and we are still friends.
Then I had something that did seem perfect and mindblowing, and we dated for like a month, had a horrible horrible messy heart breaking breakup and he got me fired and we'll probably never speak again.
So maybe I should be looking for people who AREN'T like me?
What do I mean by "like me"?
just how some with people you get this "this person is like me" feeling...it's both a visual and an emotional feeling, like you feel like the person would just fit into your life without any effort, not like they were exactly the same person and they couldn't bring anything to you, but like if you saw them in your room it would make sense and you knew you could play music and they'd probably like it and you could recommend books for them and it would probably work out and you wouldn't worry too much before cooking them dinner or suggesting an activity for the first time.
Someone who in your minds eye just "looks right," and that has nothing to do with attractiveness.
I can't explain it anymore than that.
I want to be open to people and not just hung up on this idea in my head, but on the other hand, I when I feel like I'm compromising I get bored and frustrated and spend my life daydreaming in my head.
I was feeling all of those "soulmate?" type feelings about my most recent completely horrible dating situation, and it just ended so so so badly that I really don't know what to think.
There's some other stuff going on to that I'll get to in the next post that's also part of the reason I'm thinking all this stuff.
I'm snowed in with a fresh french press of coffee, so what better time to contemplate these questions...plus being snowed in reminds me that I'd rather be snowed in with that person whose "just right."
I know, I know, I should go buy a copy of glamour or something. I'm sure there is a trashy women's magazine out there that can solve this problem for me.
(apologies for this "single girl" post-I'll get back less sex and the city content shortly, it's just been a weird couple of days, weeks, months, etc.)

more on my endlessly fascinating buffy analogy...

2009-01-09T22:25:00.000-08:00

I just took an internet buffy personality quiz and it turns out that I am glory! Glory!
THAT MAKES TOTAL SENSE.
Now I have to go rethink everything...
(the internet has done a lot for me lately)

being new age & trying to be positive

2009-01-05T17:32:00.000-08:00

I was just walking around thinking about stuff (I think best in motion) and I was making this list in my head of all the things which are good and make me happy right now...I think maybe I'm being unnecessarily negative about this situation, it was only a job, it wasn't me, and the people who hurt me are people that I didn't even know a year ago, so they turned out to be assholes, who are they to me really?
Definitely life could be worse. This is not all misery. I think if I can manage to step back from this situation, I see a lot of good things in this particular period of my life, although it is a difficult one.
Anyway, here's my list: this is what makes me happy right now:
Writing letters, my apartment, especially when I first walk in the door after being away all day, all my lovely plants, writing in my journal, gluing things into my journal, doing yoga in my room in the morning, my nautical bathroom, reading books, venturing out in the freezing cold and finding a hot chocolate and a cookie somewhere delicious, cooking myself little meals in my delightful kitchen, dustyrose, late night walks under the moon, scarves, gloves, hats, mittens, socks, and tights, my several pairs of awesome boots, really hot showers, my friends here whom I haven't distanced myself from, spending time with new people and rediscovering old ones because I have distanced myself from so many, painting, listening to the itunes shuffle and dancing alone, laying on the floor on a cushion and reading my subscriptions to food magazines, driving around and listening to music, udon noodles, wearing cute outfits even though I have nowhere to really go, toast, all my stuff that I've collected, being open to lots of possibilities and an unknown future, eating breakfast sandwiches and people watching, coffee, tea, wine, and beer, appreciating good lighting and beautiful sunsets, being on a difficult path and accepting it, reading tarot cards, being scared but no longer feeling trapped, realizing that I have successfully lived alone for three months for the first time since I was 18, and now I'm doing it with no job too, chickpea curries and sandwiches with hot sauce, reminding myself that "unemployed artist" is a way cooler occupation then "whole foods assistant customer service team leader," being a fulltime rock star rather than rock star/grocery clerk, being forced into a lot of solitude and liking myself better mostly for it, crocheting, taking a lot of stupid self portraits with my borrowed camera, poetry, conceiving of art exhibits, and certain unexpected friendships.

Is this possible?

2009-01-04T19:30:00.001-08:00

Have I mentioned? That whole foods broke my heart way worse than a person ever could? wtf?

When I was Fired From Whole Foods For Totally Sketchy Reasons

2009-01-04T18:16:00.000-08:00

Oh, whole foods.
In 3 1/2 years I've never had a single warning. I was a customer service assistant team leader, had just had an excellent job dialogue with no complaints, then two days before christmas I was pulled off the floor, interviewed by the store team leader and a regional person for almost two hours exclusively about my personal life, then suspended for seven days without pay, then fired. This is what is says on my separation agreement:"Liz was not truthful and forthcoming during the course of an investigation which is in violation of our team member investigation policy." That's all it says. I'm ineligible for rehire ever, due to "major policy infraction."
However, it is "against whole foods policy" to tell me what I was being investigated for, or to tell me what they think I lied about. And my team leader was never informed, questioned, and she still doesn't know why they fired me.
The way I was fired was completely psychologically messed up and hurtful...
Seriously what the fuck is up with firing people over christmas and new years, it's like they want to kill santa claus...
...you don't really understand corporate america until you've been personally "investigated" by whole foods. that's some fucked up shit.
"oh you were in a car accident, was it on purpose for attention? oh, when he broke up with you, that must have made you upset. surely if you were experiencing physical violence in your personal life, that must have affected your job performances. "
I am not kidding.
The back story. I was an assistant team leader in customer service. Back in october I was dating one of my cashiers.
So with this person, there had been months of us denying that we liked each other. to ourselves, even.
We met when I came back to work after my long workers comp injury period november 07- february 08 (yes I also have a permanent physical injury from the company that fired me, and I signed a paper saying I'd never sue over the injury in order to keep my job).
I had a boyfriend of two years at the time who I lived with. And I was his boss. We both denied this like crazy, it was all flirty facebook comments like crazy and staring at each other at work. We both apparently constantly denied to our friends that we liked the other person. I did, and I've heard he did the same, "of course I don't like liz, you're crazy...she's my boss and has a boyfriend but isn't she great?"
Then we started hanging out outside of work as friends. JUST FRIENDS, that whole denial thing, but we believed it at the time.
While I was still luiving with my boyfriend.
Then we started talking how we maybe had feelings for each other.
But neither of us wanted to do the work secretive thing.
Then there was some ambiguous shit, like sleeping in the same bed but not having sex and creating all these stupid piontless boundaries...we can make out, but not do this, etc.
then he looked for and found, a job in a different department, which is all whole foods requires in these situations.
then we broke up. unfortunately he also had this totally weird intense relationship with his best friend and roommate which complicated everything.
She and I were really good friends, and I really trusted her. She worked just under me in my department and became a supervisor with my help while he and I were dating. and when we broke up she turned on me, and told him I was going to get her fired because he and I had broken up, which is entirely untrue because I really really valued her friendship, and in a lot of ways the way she was acting hurt me more than the way he was, because when you get romantic with someone, you are signing yourself up for some degree of eventual heartache, but you want your friends to just support you, no matter what.
(and in retrospect, when he and we dating we were always all astonished by how similar we were, but she and were equally alike, and I don't know, it was fucked up situation).
No one's fault, necessarily, but it was really like I was dating them both.
One of them complained about me, I don't know which one, and as I've said whole foods refused to tell me, but my interview during the investigation included a lot of personal stuff that only he could have told them, and a lot of questions about my relationship with her.
And I was questioned a lot about a particular incident with her where she accused me of trying to get her fired at work, and which another employee witnessed, and they refused to interview that employee, even though my team leader told them they really needed to.
At the end of this I know nothing.
Other than after three an a half years I lost my job that I had really worked for and put my whole soul into totally out of the blue.
But my heart is broken, by everyone.
Hopefully having written this out helps me in some way.
I don't know, I was suspended on december 23rd and fired on december 3oth, and I still can't stop crying.

pop culture reference sunday!

2009-01-04T17:33:00.000-08:00

I was recently fired from my job of three and a half years under totally ridiculous circumstances, and I haven't written about it much because I'm still in total shock and distress,
(whole foods related post traumatic stress disorder) but I did realize something totally hilarious today.
I was fired under very confusing circumstances, but it seems like two people I know, one my exboyfriend and one his best friend and roommate and formerly my very good friend, were at least on some level responsible.
I'm not blaming people. I wasn't really told why I was fired. But I've heard the rumors. And these people don't seem to want to deny them. I wish they would. It would be easier to be betrayed by a horrible corporation than by two of my best friends.
Very long story that should go in a separate post.
It's complicated because it's just a huge awkward mess involving lots of people who are friends, or sleeping together, and lots of drama and hating and ridiculousness.
However, especially since I don't think very many of my real life friends know about this blog, and I'm fairly sure none of the people involved do, this is actually a good forum to discuss it.
STAY TUNED FOR THE STORY OF HOW I WAS FIRED FROM WHOLE FOODS.
Anyway. Back to our original subject:
I realized at a moment of pure pop culture brilliance that the girl who may or may not have gotten me fired is exactly the character faith from buffy the vampire slayer. Because she does a lot of really bad shit and must be stopped from hurting people, but is still a sympathetic character because she's so crazy and fucked up that you can see how she has no choice but to do these things. She's evil in a sexy awesome kind of way, but you still know that buffy has to eventually stop her, even though she kind of understands her.
And I'm am buffy in the sense that obviously I make terrible relationship decisions (exboyfriend choosing to get me fired). But look at buffy...angel, riley, spike...
And the exboyfriend is angel after he lost his soul. Because he turned into a totally different person out of the blue, and went from someone I felt like I'd always want in my life on some level to someone who would get me fired out of spite.
Ok, I know this whole post is lame. I've had a rough week, and figuring out that buffy analogy really cheered me up.
Isn't that the point of having blog though, that I can share these totally pointless yet amusing to me observations?

new years eve #1

2008-12-31T15:11:00.000-08:00

It's new years eve 2008. Since I turned 30 in september I've lost first one boyfriend and then after, then my job after three and a half years, and now it looks like a lot friends on top of it, and I've moved to a new city away from northampton where I'd lived for five years and felt really comfortable.
So I'm opting to spend new years this year by myself in my little apartment.
There's been too many major betrayals recently, my foundation is shattered and I just can't see even trying to be around people right now.
It's been over 24 hours since I've been able to speak without starting to cry about, so it doesn't even make sense.
I guess it's sad in a way, but I just took this long walk by myself in the freezing cold and wind and ice and snow, in the dark, and walking by myself in the dark kind of crying quietly and looking up at the very faint crescent moon through the clouds....it seemed like one of the most honest new years eve's I've had in a while.

Recipe: dinner to impress boyfriends

2008-12-06T19:03:00.000-08:00

Steak:
some not too nice cut of steak, like new york strip
1 bottle of the cheapest red wine
2 cloves of minced garlic
1 cup chopped shallots
1 stick of butter
salt & pepper
fresh parsley

In a large skillet, cook shallots, garlic and parsley over med-high heat for about five minutes, add steak, cook another five minutes, add red wine, turn heat brief up to high, then simmer for about 20 minutes. Salt and pepper to taste. Remove steaks, reduce the rest of the liquid for sauce.

Potatoes:
1lb banana fingerling potatoes
1 cup gruyere
1 cup parmesan
1 stick of butter
1 clove garlic
1 cup 1/2 and 1/2
lots of salt and pepper

Boil potatoes. Drain. Mash with everything else, skins on.

Plate everything. Pour sauce from steak over both steak and potatoes. Serve with really good hot bread and butter.

It comes across kind of impressive, but it's easy, and not too expensive, because the slow cooking wine makes cheaper cuts of meat taste awesome.

Roasted brussel sprouts are good as a side with this.

honesty, and britney, and why things fail

2008-12-06T18:49:00.000-08:00

Why is this so difficult, like in my last brief dating situation, there was so much talk of how similar we were, everything was based on that, but I wasn't dealing with any of the things I was hiding about me, even to myself when this was going on, like, I buy a huge amount of celebrity gossip magazines, that's what my work is about, so it's important, I really listening to britney spears albums, really, and britney has a lot to do with my multi-year underlying art project, so she can't be ignored with me, and I really like vegetables, and I don't even like donuts, but I do like going to the mall, and I like a lot of weird trashy crap as much as I like my more hipster acceptable neat vintage accessories, and I'm in general not the specialized version of myself I was trying to be. All the things I was presenting are true, but they are just a part of the whole, not the compete picture.
So I should have known something was wrong, the first time I want to buy a gossip magazine to cut up, and didn't, because I thought he wouldn't like it, even though he wasn't even there.
I'm not all cute 50's dresses, and bakelite silverware.

Recipe: Liz's signature chickpea curry

2008-12-06T17:23:00.000-08:00

My oldest recipe:

2 cans of chickpeas
1 tbs garam masala
3 tbs mardas curry powder
1ps tumeric, coriander, cayenne, cumin
salt and pepper
1 large onion, chopped
4 to 5 cloves garlic, chopped finely
2 serrano peppers, chopped
1 bag baby spinach
about 4 cups 1/2 and 1/2
several tbs olive oil and butter
rice

optional: frozen peas, potatoes.

Saute onion, garlic, and peppers in large pot with a lid, for five to ten minutes, on medium heat. Add all spices and stir throughly, cook for another minute. Make sure the mixture isn't too dry, if it is, add slightly more olive oil. Add chickpeas, combine throughly. Start adding spinach in bunches. Keep stirring. Once all the spinach has been added, and has wilted, add 1/2 and 1/2, if you want there to be a lot of sauce for bread dipping, add more. Turn heat up to high, bring to a very quick boil, turn heat down to low and simmer uncovered, for half an hour until as long as you want until you're ready to eat.
If adding peas or potatoes, do so after spinach, before 1/2 and 1/2. If adding potatoes, simmer uncovered at least an hour.
Serve over rice, with bread.

Recipe: sort of southern style beans & rice

2008-12-06T17:07:00.000-08:00

I was recently thinking that everything I cook lately comes from my own invented recipe, and that maybe I should write this stuff down. What better place than this blog? I ask you.

sort of southern style beans & rice

1 onion, preferably vidalia
several cloves of garlic, to taste
2 jalapeno peppers
1 bunch collard greens
a couple of tbs each butter and olive oil
2 sausages, preferable andouille
1/2 package of frozen okra
several carrots
salt and pepper
white rice (I like jasmine or basmati)
several shots of whiskey, should be bourbon
splash of sriracha hot sauce
1 can of beans, I like black eyed peas the best, but pinto beans or kidney beans work too.

Saute chopped onion and garlic and peppers in butter and oil for about five minutes in a large pot with a lid.
Add carrots and collards, chopped, cook a while more, on medium heat.
Then add chopped sausage and about 1/2 a package of frozen okra.
Add whiskey to personal preference
and salt, pepper, and hot sauce to taste also.
cook on medium-high for another five to ten minutes, stirring occasionally.
Add can of beans, stir more, cook covered on low heat for about an hour.
Serve over white rice. Hopefully with rin's cheese straws.

things about a saturday

2008-12-06T14:34:00.000-08:00

I've lived in this apartment and in this town for more than three months now (so scary, to think that this weird messed up transitional period of my life has been going on for months now...I can't believe that I'm been putting up with living like this for so long).
I realized that I have yet to spent an entire day here in greenfield where I don't use my car and I just stay here in town. I'm always driving off to northampton to meet people, or going to the store on my day off to shop, or driving to savers, or something, I think it says something about my general frenetic energy level, that I haven't been able to find the piece of mind to stop moving long enough to just spend a relaxing day off at home.
I slept terribly late, which was needed, it's been one of those weeks where every single morning I have so much wanted to stay under the covers longer then I've been allowed to. I got up around noon, made really delicious coffee from the rest of my Chocolate Sparrow coffee from when I was on the cape last week for thanksgiving, and wrote a letter to a friend about poetry sitting at the kitchen table.
One thing about being alone more lately, is that I actually get to do this like sit around in my pajamas and write long letters about poetry.
Because I get to stay up late reading poetry, which I did last night.
I took a long walk around town in the particularly wintery sun light, which I enjoyed visually despite a certain bleak aspect to it. I generally do really hate winter and the cold, but there is something about walking around on these late winter afternoons that does please me. There's a quality of the light that is very particular to winter, a paleness, and then the sunset colours are very specific shades of pale pink and peach.
I walked to the salvation army, and found an astonishingly wonderful cookbook from the 50's,"The Master Chef's Outdoor Grill Cookbook" that actually makes me want to jump for joy, the pictures are so great, these incredible technicolour pictures of all these wacky 50's people grilling and doing outdoorsy stuff. I'd like to just save it, but another part of me feels like it's way way way too good not to cut up.
I just walked to the Green Fields Market and am now in such a warm and fuzzy mood, because that was such a lovely food purchasing experience, sort of the opposite of the soulless grocery store experience, and you know, I have lots of reason to think about the soulless grocery experience.
I like walking to the store in the freezing night with my little reusable bag, and buying things like beautiful multicoloured carrots, and collards and andouille sausage, and eggs with of picture of the chicken they came from on them. And I bought wine from my local liquor store, and a pound of coffee beans from my neighborhood place.
It was nice just for once, to not spend any money in any huge chains, especially not the one where I am employed. I mean, not to be hypocritical, because my money comes from that store, and I am paid reasonably, but still it was nice to take day off from putting my money back in, and nice to feel like I was getting to have a charming local experience.
I'm drinking hot chocolate from mapeline farms chocolate milk, and I'm about to make black eyed peas with sausage and collards and carrots, in a whiskey sauce.
And drink some wine, and get some art done, particularly I need to start on my calender, and now I have the charming 50's people from the new cookbook, yay.
I just received a lovely picture via email that really puts me in a good place to start working.
Right now, not right this minute necessarily but in my life, I am both terribly lonely, and at the same time really reluctant to see people, since no matter how lonely I get, right now I seem to be happiest alone here in the apartment. I don't know what else to say about that.
If this is what he was feeling, then maybe I understand a little bit more about why he wanted what he wanted, and where he was coming from.

rainy highways.

2008-11-15T21:39:00.000-08:00

The last couple of nights, driving home in the pouring rain on the dark northern bound highway, feeling like I'm at the end of the earth, it’s been good. In a weird, sometimes sad way. For thinking. Really dramatic weather lately for a really dramatic life moment.

Not dramatic. Cinematic. Beautiful.

Beautiful perfect weather, especially for just trying to figure stuff out within yourself. 65 degrees and pouring rain.

And tonight I drove home after Ira Glass listening to the mix I made back in late august when I was thinking about him. Just thinking about what I might want, and what could happen. Funny to hear it now.

appreciating good conversation

2008-11-15T21:01:00.000-08:00

I kind of fell apart a bit earlier this week, and for some reason right now I'm pretty ok, and that's really pretty cool.

I had a pretty insanely bad night on thursday, so bad that friday morning at 5:45am before work, was an "ok, no more" moment, and I think I am now doing a bit better than I was even before everything started really collapsing. I think I've been going downhill for a little while now, and that night was the last straw, and maybe now I can figure some things out.

In the past two days it's just worked out for some reason that I've had a lot of time to just have really good conversations with lots of different people I don't talk to enough. Like kind of a crazy amount of nice conservation for a couple of days, but it was really needed.

It reminded me that that's a real reason that Greg and I aren't together anymore, apart from all the other stuff, because I missed this.

Yesterday, friday, I woke up in the worst way possible, after a pretty shitty night, and then work was ok, I buddy rang with shane and we has some pleasant conversations about food and movies and tom waits, and I left and had my self reflecting target experience previously mentioned here, and then I met angie and danielle and vanessa for coffee and hot chocolate and tea and wine and beer at amherst coffee and then met rin and em for pizzas and then went to hugos. and somehow still made it back to greenfield to read in bed before sleep.

Getting to crochet and talk for that long was kind of wonderful, and with wine and hot chocolate too, and while it was raining outside and slowly getting dark in a november way. Then walking in the rain and mist for pizza and talking about art along the way was wonderful. My pizza was wonderful: prosciutto, black pepper, caremelized onions, and Parmesan cream sauce.

And today, I met Beth and Sarah and Sarah's boyfriend who was cool at thai garden and we went into roz's for a while and saw Ali, and then had spicy coconuty lemongrassy food, and then Beth and I went to look at frivolous pretty things which was delightful, especially those sparkly particularly masculine reindeer, and then Ira Glass at the Calvin and god I needed to hear someone just talk about stuff like narrative structure for a while.

I like people. I've missed them. Although I'm amazingly socially awkward still, it's very nice to spend time with good people when I can get out of myself enough to do it.

corporate america explaining me to myself

2008-11-15T20:44:00.000-08:00

yesterday I was killing time before meeting danielle and vanessa and angie to knit, and I went to target and bought the following objects:

blue sparkly mini christmas tree with blue lights in that perfect dark aqua blue I love, and I've always loved blue lights anyway, they remind me of maia and her room in providence

discount dvd copy of Breakfast at Tiffanys

sparkly gold and white thermal footless tights

copy of Star magazine with "HOW COULD YOU?" as the giant yellow headline for my next painting

metallic shiny hair elastics in earth tones

This is just connected to my recent thing of really enjoying the grouping of random objects together. All summer I've been enjoying the combinations of things I've found at yard sales or on a particular thrift shopping day and such.

Like the saturday morning before work right before I moved where I found two great nautical pictures in frames, the kentucky jigger whiskey glass(which I just remembered is still at dustin's house from halloween which makes me annoyed again that I forgot it there) and the small brass pony.

Or when vanessa and I went on the salvation army tour of franklin county and I got the awesome brown leather belt, the perfect vintage levis jacket, the ship made of shells, the complete asian cookbook, and the ceramic deer.

Or I can't even talk about the most amazing trip ever to the Deerfield antiques center or whatever it's called, on rte 5 & 10 driving home that sunday early afternoon when I bought all the most amazing stuff ever all at once. The falcon picture! The brass crab!

I kind of want all these objects to get to live together forever.

And as a kind of sequel to my last post, the other thing my artwork is about (as if everyone was dying to know) is stuff overlapping with other stuff. if that makes any sense at all.

and that particular bag of stuff from the target in the hampshire mall of all places, that really actually perfectly describes me as a person. Those particular objects combined. That's a nice self portrait.

communcation & heartbreak & my return

2008-11-15T20:19:00.000-08:00

I haven’t used this blog at all since I moved, since the end of august, since right before everything happened...for all these reasons…huge amounts of life turmoil takes up a lot of time, quiet time like right now where I'm getting to sit alone in my house with a glass of wine and write at the kitchen table, with no one needing me or caring that I'm hanging out drinking and doing this. Right after I got this apartment I had also no internet for a long time, so I couldn't even if I wanted to, and there were a lot of things going on which were very private, and which didn’t belong on the internet. Both because they were very intense and personal, and because they were secret, too.

In moments of crisis I tend to not be very contemplative, I just move ahead very very fast, and don’t stop to think. I just don't breathe, I just push ahead. Not that this is a good thing, at all. But sometimes it's the only was I know to survive.

As I’ve been calming down, and spending a more reasonable amount of alone time, I've been just writing in my sketchbook a lot, more then I have in years, and I haven’t felt any need to write here.

First I was in a period where I was with people all the time, because I had nowhere to live, and was staying with friends, and life became constantly social. Any self reflection at all had to be done in these brief stolen moments, on breaks at work, trying to find private space, and so my sketchbook become really really important, like it was the only private space I had.

I think one of the memories I will always retain from september and early october of 2008 is me on the bench by the bike trail out back at work, writing, trying so hard to make sense of it all. It always seemed to be incredibly beautiful and clear and blue and gold and perfectly fall, and I was always so confused.

I think also, if you spend no time alone, you really really don't need a blog, because sometimes a person really needs to stop communicating and be alone.

This still has a lot to do with then stuff that’s private that’s been going on, because that’s what I really feel the need to write about. I was thinking that I wouldn’t do this anymore. Because in order to make it through the past few weeks, I've really needed to write constantly, and it's not anything I would ever want anyone to read. Except for some of the art stuff. Which also doesn't belong here, I don't think.

One of the reasons that I always did like to do this was my obsessive need to document things like objects I find and see, and meals and tastes I create, views from windows and the way light looks at certain times of day. And maybe some of that stuff is different from my more personal weird writing, and certainly separate from how I’m feeling.

Real importance of ordinary, tiny specific concrete details to any creative medium.

The other night, in the midst of a horrible, horrible, completely heartbreaking and soul shattering phone conversation, I was drunkenly ranting and raving about communication, and how it was fundamentally the thing my work was about. Even in the midst of all the ridiculousnesss and anger and sadness that was going on in the conversation, I recognized something I was saying as really really true and important.

"horrible, horrible, completely heartbreaking and soul shattering phone conversation" makes me embarrassed to write because it's so over the top, but it was bad enough to really shake me up, and although I've been sad ever since it happened, in some ways I've been better than I've been in a while, because it was bad enough to make me really pause and think about what I've been doing recently.

I've been thinking about communication ever since. rin and I talked about it last night. It is what my work is about.

strange vegetables

2008-08-26T20:25:00.000-07:00

weirdest stir-fry ever:

the result of whatever I had in the garden this morning and my random impulse purchases at work tonight

japanese eggplant
chanterelle mushrooms
broccoli (garden)
heirloom tomatoes (garden)
sorrel (garden)
dragon beans
parsley, thai basil, rosemary (garden)
habanero pepper (garden)
jalepeno pepper
garlic
shallots
olive oil and butter

tasted good, although I might not serve it to company.

this is sad.

2008-08-26T20:17:00.000-07:00

In Touch magazine has informed me that the rumors that Quentin Tarentino asked Britney Spears to be in his remake of Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! are NOT TRUE.

Damn. How awesome would that be.

I'm going to go listen to my Faster Pussycat soundtrack album and think sadly about all the lost possibilities.

looking forward

2008-08-26T19:53:00.000-07:00

to buying camping equipment and camping with greg this fall. i can't wait to own my own tent. and wake up outside again, which i haven't done since i was eighteen on the last camping trip ali and ira and i went on. and roasting things in camp fires! and those nights looking into the fires, talking, no tv or reading or other distractions.

to not driving back and forth to ny every week and having more time and making more art. or any art outside my sketchbook. although i have been good this summer about really working in my sketchbook consistently. and writing a lot.

to practicing the drums and actually having band practice. and making my awesome mysoulisatigerloomingoverthecity tshirt design a reality.

to planning my 30th birthday party on saturday september 20th! best party ever.

calm before the storm

2008-08-26T19:37:00.000-07:00

I think it was the most beautiful fall day ever today. Getting early up to take my walk before work, it was nice wearing my sweatshirt and it being all crisp and cozy and bright and shiny. I love new england falls, something in my heart just picks up and gets excited on days like today.

So much promise. So much hope. Anything could happen when the sky is that blue, and the greens are that green.

I'm writing this in the kitchen after work cooking my dinner and even though it's cold I opened the window because I love the feel of these very early fall nights. Sitting at the kitchen table drinking red wine and smelling/feeling/tasting the night air is, I don't know, cleansing? Exciting? Inspiring?

Today I met my small goals of remaining calm at work, even right up until the end with that woman in the cafe who had no idea how to use her $3000 brand new powerbook and thought she'd blame eliza and I. So we each had to stay an extra half hour late and explain the concept of internet. Or the "interweb" as she called it. We are the goddesses of patience.

I took a long walk on this beautiful morning. When I got home I made really good coffee and picked broccoli and tomatoes out of the garden for tonights dinner. I picked a bouquet of roses and gerber daisies for the kitchen table. I invented a smashing outfit of bright green, mustard yellow, purple, cowboy boots, and really good jeans. I got to work early with my best attitude. Whatever that means.

I keep trying to remember what I care about ever second, no matter what. I write in my journal and draw on breaks. I breathe. I look at trees. I take care of my garden. I stretch and dance and do little yoga things. Breathe, breathe, breathe.

And my animal card today was snake, transmutation and magic.

Magic.

which is not to say. that change isn't good.

2008-08-22T18:38:00.000-07:00

I am frequently entertaining fantasies of total and complete change.

Instead of driving to work, turning the car south and going to texas, or back to new orleans, or hell, north to montana to be a cowboy. Driving driving driving, away from connecticut and nyc, to places with skies and plains and views.

Quitting everything and living on a farm or on a boat.

My happiest moment this summer was when I arrived on the cape and drove straight to the beach in south dennis by myself and danced in the ocean during a midsummer dusk. When I first put my barefeet into the ocean I almost cried. That has to mean something.

I still really, really like my job, I do. And I'm grateful to have it. But I feel like, something, I don't know what, has to change...

...location, people, sleeping schedule, maybe I need some travel, I know I need more art but when, and I need to crochet the dress I invented in my head last spring, practice the drums, but paintings I really really need. I think...However much I try to quit painting, I can't, for some reason I need to make these ridiculous things...

Last night I awoke from a really good dream, to the police arriving at 5am because the neighbors were fighting. I think I've been confused by that all day. It was a nice dream though.

How I've successfully not lost my mind so far.

2008-08-22T17:56:00.000-07:00

I'm not entirely sure. After day after day where I feel like I work as hard as I possibly can, so much that I can't breathe or think, and still it's not good enough.

But today someone was rubbing my neck in the booth, and remarked that I didn't really feel that tense. Which is amazing, since I always carry all my stress and tension in my body.

I've been trying so hard to be present, to be in my body, to stretch and to breathe.

Getting up early, taking my walks in the morning, taking time to stand barefoot in the grass and look at my flowers in the early morning. Driving home at night with all the windows open, listening to music I love loud. Sitting in the sun on my breaks and letting my mind go blank. Bubble baths.

Reading my animal card every morning and thinking about it and trying to act accordingly.

Allowing myself certain daydreams as a guilty pleasure.

Noticing the weather.

Being barefoot as much as possible.

Standing in yoga positions whenever I can. Dancing as I cook and water the plants.

Making sure I take notice of small physical things that bring me pleasure, taking that moment in the morning to enjoy snuggling against my sheets, taking naps in the afternoon with my windows open.

And buying myself Dogfish Head pumpkin beer, good cheese, Spicy Thai kettle chips, and a heirloom tomato before I left work today. Getting home and taking some old paintings of mine out of the attic and hanging them in the hall, to remind me of who I am.

beauty for it's own sake

2008-08-21T19:27:00.000-07:00

I've always been really into vegetables when gardening, and this summer I thought that was all I'd do. Because I'm pretty practically minded, and vegetable and herb plants are both beautiful and functional, so perfect. When I started this garden in the spring I was really not going to put in many flowers. I just planted the morning glories so there would be something on the fence.

but then i bought that yellow rosebush with ali and katie at walmart on a whim because it was cheap and it was beautiful and it needed a home, and i loved it, and now i have four rosebushes, and i don't know, i kept buying flowers, and i just love them so much. and the roses everywhere make me so happy.

and my morning glories just bloomed and they are so breathtaking, and they made my whole day the first morning i was getting into the car and saw them. what incredible blues and purples. wow.

and the experience all summer of having giant bouquets of flowers on the kitchen table that i picked myself...and hanging out in the yard looking at flowers...it's been really great, and it's helped me maintain some degree of sanity this summer.

so maybe i shouldn't have been so smug about flowers, about growing things only for beauty. i mean, i have houseplants i love so much that they are like pets, so what was i even thinking?

in conclusion, next year i'm going to work on my flowerbeds.

and on a sad note, my squash plants had developed a fungus and i had to dig them out and throw them away today. which is hard because i hate to give up on plants. but now the garden looks much better. even though i felt like i was killing my dear friends.

celebration of life

2008-08-04T19:26:00.000-07:00

instead of going to a funeral today (I wanted to and I couldn't)...

...I...

went to work and did a good job.

bought two for the price of one (she would have appreciated that) rose bushes and planted one in the yard, one to be planted on my day off wednesday after I think about the arrangement of things in the yard. I planted the one I got for free for gramma bess, because she liked bargains.

took my walk on the bike trail and thought about stuff.

got my fourth tattoo, the beautiful mermaid lady rin drew for me. and that was a good experience all around. And I met my goal of getting a tattoo created by someone I care about before I turn thirty, and it is perfect.

walked home from downtown with my crazy post-tattoo bandage and went to stop & shop for supplies.

talked to father about funeral.

made and labeled and froze three containers of pesto from stuff from my garden so I can eat summer things in winter. Two traditional basil, one spicy cilantro. I love the spicy cilantro one a lot. And all from garden things.

Am cooking myself a special dinner, a sort of ragu/stewy thing of steak tips sauted in olive oil, butter, a bottle of red wine, garlic and shallots and a jalapeno, with summer squash from ali, purple carrots from the noho farmers market, and red chard, rosemary, broccoli, and tomatoes from my garden thrown in. Simmered on the stove for a while, then served over leftover cold white basmati rice I think.

That where I am now, writing this while the summer stew simmers.

I'll probably eat while watching bad reality tv from the tivo (I love Money) which isn't very meaningful so I don't know where fits in, but whatever, take care of my tattoo, talk to greg, and read some of the poetry which was waiting for me from amazon when I got home from nyc yesterday (A Doorless Knocking Into Night, by Lexi Rudnitsky and Actual Air by David Berman).
And write the more secret details of the day into my journal.

Like the anger. And the guilt. And sorrow. That accompanies all of this.

Right now, I appreciate Greg, who told me to plant flowers when I couldn't go to the funeral, and that that would be ok. Beth, for giving me a second chance and having dinner with me last week. Rin, for drawing me this beautiful tattoo, and for being himself. Sarah K, for being there when I lost it at work last week, and for hugging me. And because she writes on facebook about quiche. Emerald for being tough and awesome and fighting through this. And my other gramma, because she ate raw oysters with me on cape cod last week, and because she understands parts of me that noone else does. And for gramma bess, because she loved us so much, even though she never understood us for a second. But she took us to diners, and bought all our school clothes, even though they were hideous, and let us watch tv endlessly and eat ice sandwiches and mcdonalds, and took us all out to breakfast every saturday and brought us cold cuts and knishes from sal's deli every friday, along with crazy muffins from stop & shop, pink strawberry and green pistachio, and made the best tuna fish possible on this earth, served on little dinner rolls, and wonderful brisket and chop suey and matzo ball soup, and bought me all these my little ponies and my little pony accessories like this weird robe and crown when ali was in the hospital and I stayed at her house when I was in kindergarten, and played cards with the ladies and had so many friends, and such an awesome taste in home decorating, and she loved me, and I wish I'd gotten a chance to say goodbye.

I don't know where that came from. That's not where I was going with this at all.

I think, I'm turning thirty in slightly more then a month, and someone who always took care of me as a child just died on saturday, and I'm trying to grow up, and I'm trying to do that by being present, and this is what I did today to take care of myself.

maybe I’m not very smart.

2008-07-13T19:23:00.000-07:00

Because why are the things I care about most the way certain things taste and the way the air feels on my skin and the grass feels under me feet. why is all that really makes me happy so essentially sense-oriented?

Taste, smell, and the way the air outside feels move more then I can say. Sometimes at night the way the air feels with the wind open wakes me up and I can't breathe I'm so happy. The air driving home tonight. Unspeakably wonderful.

And sometimes it scares me the way I relate to my plants more then I do people.

I think eating raw oysters sitting on the sand by the ocean with someone I love and want makes me happier then anything I could possibly imagine, so really, am i as intellectual as I think I am? I wonder.

three garden menus, & meditations on summer

2008-07-13T19:22:00.000-07:00

1. red chard, chicken breast, banana peppers, and fresh thai basil, over black udon noodles.

2. summer squash over basmati rice cooked with butter, white wine, fresh parsley, dill, and thyme, and parmesan cheese.

3. panko fried green tomatoes with sriracha mayonnaise. and leftover cold squash.

and a bouquet of flowers from the garden (pink and red and white, zinnias, dahlias, gerber daiseys, and sweet williams).

I've been lately kind of enjoying these summer nights on my own although I really miss g. Come home from work, water the garden at dusk, cook food I grew myself, drink wine alone in the kitchen and listen to music and read. It's kind of nice. tonight it was perfectly beautiful and pre-summer rain when i was out there. I couldn't think of anyplace I'd rather have been then there in the garden at 8 on a july night, by myself, listening to the wind in the trees and taking care of my plants.

Now I'm frying the tomatoes that came from the branch that broke off my one of my tomato plants this morning, battered with panko bread crumbs and two loose eggs I bought at work and carried home very carefully, cushioned by the bread crumbs.

I am really learning to appreciate solitude. There is something about coming home only to plants that is very satisfying. And I think finally at very nearly 30 I have learned the value in cooking a lovely, complex dinner just for myself.

When Burns left I stopped cooking. And when I started dating greg I cooked for us. But this summer with greg away I've been really enjoying my solo dinners. Maybe I'm just old enough now to really appreciate my own company.

I will...(inspired by beth)

2008-07-08T19:20:00.000-07:00

One day I will....

...have an entire summer where all the produce I eat comes from my own garden.
...live where I have the sea outside my window and I hear it when I sleep.
...communicate without using the internet.
...travel in morocco, japan, and iceland, and the rest of the world.
...figure out who my real friends are and manage to spend time with them and not lose touch with them.
...live on a farm in the middle of nowhere and craft like crazy and enjoy open space and yarn and green things.
...fall in love forever.
...spend more time with ali and my parents.
...have sons and daughters who are challenging.
...open a tiny restaurant or cafe or farm stand where all the food is perfect.
...paint, paint, paint.
...stop defending my passions.
...be surrounded by gorgeous plants always.
...swim as much as I want.
...dance regularly.
...not hate my body no matter what.
...own my own beautiful house with views and a garden and a view where I can always go and where my weird thrift object collection can live.
...be able to defend my alone time.
...live on the west coast again.
...travel to gorgeous beaches.
...live in the desert.
...go to las vegas whenever I want.
...spend days and days and days lying on the grass and reading.
...have people truly appreciate my artwork, at least once in a while.
...get more tattoos.
...stop worrying about stupid shit that I know is stupid.
...meet britney spears.
...be in the whitney biennial.
...have lots of dogs and cats.
...and of course a pug.
...learn how to talk to people.
...listen to people's opinions but not care what they think.
...write in my journal everyday and put things in my sketchbook constantly.
...have gallery shows that are perfect to me.
...learn how to open an oyster.
...buy all the stupid, ugly thrift store paintings that I want too. And hang them.
...own and use beautiful professional quality kitchen equipment.
...drink good wine with dinner ever night.
...spend more time on boats.
...love and being loved without fear.

Ummm....

2008-06-10T19:18:00.000-07:00

Ignore my little menu posts. I'm just practicing for the fictional restaurant that in my head I eventually open. And I'm addicted to Top Chef, I can't help it.

p.s. I'm really addicted to cooking right now. Want me to cook you dinner? Or to cook with me? Really, call me. Instead of going out ever, I cook extravagant meals and drink lots of wine. It's really pretty good.

Some Spring & Summer 08 menus

2008-06-10T19:13:00.000-07:00

Menu NYC Union Square Farmers Market June 7th: Pomegranate Fennel curried lamb homemade sausage

Fresh baby spinach sauteed with olive oil

Raw milk jalapeno Cheddar cheese with homemade cranberry walnut bread

The world's best oatmeal raisin cookie with honey vanilla ice cream

Menu (summer) 6/9: From the garden southern style:

Black-eyed peas with vidalia onions and jalapenos, over white rice.

Fresh collard greens mixed with sorrel.

Green salad with edible flowers.

Menu 5/24: Scallop and Morel Mushrooms in a Cream Sauce with Fresh Basil, Thyme, White Wine, and Shallots over Orechette Pasta.

Chibatta Bread Pudding in a Markers Mark whiskey sauce.

Menu 4/30: Fiddlehead Ferns Sauted with Polish Sausage, Olive Oil, and Shallots.

Bay Scallops in White Wine and Butter, with Freshly Grown Parsley and Thyme

Fresh Local Roasted Asparagus

Menu 4/27: Fresh Tri-Colour Linguine with Homemade Pesto Tossed with Local Asparagus

Garlic Bread

Strawberry Shortcake

sometimes...

2008-06-09T19:19:00.000-07:00

...I want to go and live by myself on a farm. A farm by the ocean. And only eat things I grow and gaze at green and blue. And sleep smelling the earth and sea.

I like. With Dinner.

2008-04-16T19:12:00.000-07:00

I like driving home from during a gorgeous spring dusk with my windows open listening to the silver jews' american water, after a day in which I did every single thing I was apprehensive about, and all those things I think I did well, and going home to a pleasantly empty house to cook an elaborate recipe I invented in my head while walking in the sunshine on my break, and making the food even more delicious by using my kitchen window garden for the first time, and starting to pack for my trip to the desert while smelling my own rosemary and thyme cooking, walking barefoot in my kitchen by myself wearing my green corduroy apron and my oldest tshirt.

For those interested, the invented recipe was: Olive Oil Garlic Chicken breasts with artichoke hearts and green peppers, in a reduced sauce of fresh rosemary, thyme, parsley, white wine, tomato puree, and vietnamese chili sauce over middle eastern couscous. Inspired by the sunshine, by a recipe in the new Rachael Ray magazine, and by the book on Cuba Vanessa lent me I finished today.

new work and my finger

2008-02-13T19:10:00.000-08:00

so all of a sudden I've been making the first good new work I've done in at least two years...definitely since the a.p.e show...since I feel like everything new I showed last winter and spring was really crap. and I seem to have done it without going back to the older, more traditional, paint-only stuff that was boring me.

it only took two years, but I seem to finally have figured out a way to incorporate the collage stuff onto canvas successfully. or at least I think so. To me, anyway.

and there's randomness, and text, and images from varied sources working together, and drawing. and a really textured surface.

and it's looking right.

and for some reason, even though I usually prefer to work really large, small surfaces are working for me, so I can work in my room.

and my crooked finger isn't really getting in the way.

on a little side note, I've been feeling a ton of anger about my apparently permanently messed up finger, a lot of it because I am an artist and a craftsperson after all, and MY HANDS ARE IMPORTANT damn it.

but I'm making way better work than I was before I got hurt. And before I got hurt, I was thinking maybe I just wouldn't make paintings anymore, I was so frustrated. So who knows if I would have made what I'm making now if I hadn't had all this time to think. More time than I've had to figure stuff out since I was in high school, at least. And then I wasn't using it properly.

So I guess, just take things as they come. and try not to get to angry about things that seem awful.

thank freaking god it wasn't my right hand, right? and that the only activity so far I've found that seems impossible for me to manage now is typing with both hands, and I never could do that anyway.

remember to be grateful, grateful, grateful. could have been worse, worse, worse.

I'm all over the place, so I'm going back to painting.

oh, and when I have a couple of more things finished, I'll try to take some pictures and post the new stuff on my website. Maybe totally revamp the website, since there's a lot of stuff on it that I hate. anyway, will let y'all now.

creatively busy

2008-02-13T19:09:00.000-08:00

After more than three months off recovering from the tendon injury, I'll be back to work, very soon, and it struck me the other day how when i first got hurt, I was really freaked out by the free time, and now how even without work, I seem to be incredibly busy. I have like eighteen projects going at the moment. I guess part of the change is simply that I've gotten used to functioning despite my crooked finger. But also I think I've gotten better about being motivated with my own free time.

Right now I am actively:

1. trying to finish reading David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest

2. reading the Omnivore's Dilemna

3. making handmade valentine cards and mailing them to people

4. working on four different paintings (which are turning out really well, I think)

5. knitting a pair of socks

6. crocheting a present which is secret so I cannot say more

7. trying to teach myself to do needlepoint

8. making sure I draw and collage in my sketchbook regularly to keep my visual thoughts focused

9. reading this week's new yorker so I don't have piles of unread new yorkers lying by my bed

10. remembering to keep trying out new and complicated recipes while I have time to shop and cook and don't have to spend all day dealing with other people's food needs

11. putting together a valentines day package

see? that's a lot. even today, with weather so miserable that I've not left the house except to run to the store for snacks, I've been so busy in my room that this is the first real break I've taken since I got up around 9. anyway. it's been a pretty nice day.

bike trail chronicles

2008-02-07T19:08:00.000-08:00

bank employee looking person 1: "so they had mussels, fried oysters..."

bank employee looking person 2:"fried oysters!!!?????? they can fry oysters? how? does it work? are they really fried? that's crazy!"

this made me laugh because it sounded like something a whole foods customer would say. well, you don't fry them with the shells on, sir. people don't ever think before they open their mouths, it seems.

p.s. if you haven't noticed, I take a lot of walks since I haven't been working. chronicles of the housebound. well, I'm not really housebound anymore, I can drive. But it's still nice to take advantage of the free time to exercise.

grateful.

2008-02-07T19:07:00.000-08:00

that walley, sarah, and emerald were at whole foods when I went into shop today. being in the store kinda makes me panic at the moment. unconscious-accident related trauma, apparently. although I still don't feel like the accident itself should have been that traumatic. the fact that my finger is still so messed-up at this late date is what is traumatic. but regardless, walking into the doors of whole foods makes it hard for me to breathe. go figure. anyway, y'all made me feel a lot better this afternoon. thanks lovely sweeties. i miss you guys.

lighthouse keeper

2008-02-05T19:06:00.000-08:00

also because I'm so restless lately, I've been kind of obsessed with all things nautical. I want to go to sea. I want to live on a fishing boat. I was really into the guy on anthony bourdain:no reservations last night who lived by himself in a neighbourhood in st. bernard parish that everyone else had abandoned and fished on his shrimp boat. I love the culture of the louisiana river parishes, and the shrimp and oyster men.

and this weekend I was at home on the cape, and spent as much time looking at the ocean as much as I could. which was more comforting then I ever could have hoped.

I'm just so out of sorts all the time lately. I have always been a very good, sound sleeper, and lately not only do I ever single night without interruption wake up sometime around four and toss and turn for about two hours, I have actual nightmares about like horror-movie-esque bloody things scratching on the windows and such. very vivid nightmares. which is weird. because I never dream like that.

But the ocean definitely helped. greg took a lot of beautiful pictures. I am going to print them and post them around my room.

oh, and regarding lighthouses.

on saturday greg and I and my mom and my mom's wife took this walk in provincetown at race point down the fire road out to the lighthouse. and I was dreaming of being the lighthouse keeper (I know those don't exist anymore, just a dream). and on the way home we stopped by the highland lighthouse in north truro to watch the sunset, because I like lighthouses, and the guy with the keys to the lighthouse happened to randomly be there for the sunset, and we got to go up in the lighthouse to watch the sunset. in truro, where you can see the ocean from all sides. did you know that once the sun touches the horizon, it will sink all the way into to the ocean in less then five minutes?

then I really wanted to live in the lighthouse.

and the historical society guy was telling us that female lighthouse keepers where known for always risking their lives to save sailors lost at sea.

and of course earlier that day we had gone to the beach in wellfleet where the eighteen century shipwreck had washed ashore in the storm last week. so for someone who likes living in their head I had a nice fantasy going.

but enough about me for tonight already! how about that super bowl!

in conclusion, I just bought bjork's medulla for a second time since my copy has been missing for almost a year and I gave up (probably somewhere under the seat of my car) and it's so awesome, listening to it again is making me so happy. if you own it, play it.

restless (& thoughts on new orleans)

2008-02-05T19:05:00.000-08:00

taking the last post further, I'm sensing a vague theme of restlessness in me lately.

I used to frequently have a fantasy when driving my car of getting onto the highway and just driving, driving, in the most common fantasy ending up in texas. I have this whole thing about moving to texas. I can't get into it all right now.

It's not a serious fantasy, just sometimes I'd be getting on the bridge to drive to hadley, and while waiting at the light, I'd imagine getting on 91 south, taking it down to 95, driving down to tennessee, and cutting over to louisiana and texas. I've sometimes thought conceptually about mixtapes I would make to bring on this drive.

today in the car I had this desire really strong. just turn the car and go. today to new orleans.

I'm feeling very new orleans nostalgic today, it being mardi gras after all of course, but when I lived in new orleans I wasn't even that into mardi gras, so that's not entirely it. but seeming it on the news brings up memories. and last night anthony bourdain went to post-katrina new orleans on his show, and even though the show was kind of crappy, for some reason it was intensely emotional also. I always, always thought, when I moved back here (way pre-hurricane), that I would eventually go back. and now I don't think I ever would. because I do think it will happen again. and things will never be the same. and I totally think the people who stayed rock, but I also feel that they are going to lose everything again, so maybe they should try to rock somewhere else. I don't know.

but I also really badly want to go back, and walk on those streets, and see my old house, and just see how things really are.

isn't that what we all really want. to see how things really are.

but I was driving today, and just thinking, goddamn, how much do I want to just drive straight to the bywater, and see if the bywater bbq is somehow still operational and go and sit at the bar and have the chicken and bacon club sandwich and a gin and tonic and find out where people are. and all the neighborhood gossip.

stupid that television shows about this still make me cry. no matter how inane.

I made red beans and rice for dinner in honor of mardi gras, which is silly because I never ate that way when I lived there. but what to do? I'd throw some beads around, but I got rid of all my parade junk when I moved here because I was sick of it. I'd like to go out dancing tonight at least, but no one seems into it, and I'm not in the mood to create a holiday all on my own right now.

Maybe if I still had some beads.

driving.

2008-02-05T19:03:00.000-08:00

today I drove my car for the first time since november 11th, when I severed the infamous ring finger tendons. I'm still wearing a cast (and as of today, an old-fashioned plaster of paris one, yay fancy modern medical technology) but I have to begin practicing my return to so-called normal life.

I was actually pretty terrified, since as many of you may know, I'm generally a pretty terrible driver...but when I finally got into my car this afternoon...oh man...I swear I was tearful with joy. really. turning onto prospect street, listening to the magnetic fields loudly, I got all choked up. the first time I accelerated on the gas, I was bouncing up and down in my seat.

I really love my car. she's so big and green, and has a lighthouse glued to her dashboard. and her seats are big and cozy and the heat works really well and she plays music so wonderfully.

I got so excited that I immediately cleaned out months of trash, and all the gross wet stuff from the ceiling leak I was having in the summer and fall. It's nice to have the old girl back.

this must be some sort of lesson in humility...or the pleasure that comes from limited expectations...or something...because nothing has made me so happy in weeks as driving to hadley listening to "the charm of the highway strip" and going to the fabric store and target. where I acquired embroidery supplies and the cutest pink long underwear set for $5.

I wanted so bad to get on the highway and keep driving....just holding onto the steering wheel and pressing down on the gas I feel like I woke up from a long dream I've been having.

I know that cars are bad for the earth and it's kind of bad to love them, but I have all these issues with power and control, and it means so much to me to know I could drive away if I wanted to. I think knowing that I could take off in the night by myself if I needed to is the thing that keeps me sane.

I haven't been able too go places in so long, and I've been having so many thoughts about roads and romanticizing movement. I went kayaking on sunday and it felt incredible just to push the paddles through water. for someone who's been mostly housebound for more than three months, breaking through ice with kayak paddles was, i don't know, i can't describe it. I want to say again, like I've been sleeping for a long time and I just woke up.

today on the bike trail, these three teenaged boys were sort of hassling me, but like i was their age. like teasing me in a flirty kind of way. and by

2008-01-11T19:02:00.000-08:00

today on the bike trail, these three teenaged boys were sort of hassling me, but like i was their age. like teasing me in a flirty kind of way. and by teenaged, i mean 13-14 years old. i mean, come on, boys, i'm 29. more than twice your age. please. could it have been the pigtails? or the fact that all my clothes came from charlotte russe? i don't know.

eggplant musings

2008-01-11T19:01:00.000-08:00

today i came home from a walk in the pouring rain soaking wet. i'd been in a weird mood all day...woke up pretty early, but was kind of depressed and was feeling a really strong lack of purpose, so went back to sleep for way too many hours. when i woke up i was still sort of mopey. i don't know. rainy day stuff i guess.

but then i actually went for a walk and got soaked to the skin and felt better for some reason. i guess it was rather cleansing. and then the weather broke just after i got home, and as i walked up the stairs to my room in my dripping jeans the sun came out just as it was setting, and made my room sort of glow.

then since no one was home (which is sort of rare around here) i went down to the kitchen and made eggplant parmesan and played the new mixtape i just made very loudly. eggplant parmesan is one of my oldest comfort recipes, along with tuna casserole. those are the two things i learned to cook from my mom and the first things i cooked when i got my own apartment in college. and the things i cooked to impress girls when i was seventeen. uh-huh.

this was not supposed to be a post about cooking eggplant, by the way, but i did have the thought that i may be happiest by myself at home in my sweatpants frying eggplant, listening to good music loudly, drinking a glass of wine, watching a sunset, and dancing.

i am generally happiest cooking i think. i am also very happy working in my sketchbook, but then i have guilt about the purpose of the activity, why am i doing this, is this a waste of time, etc. cooking gives me the same feeling, only i know the purpose.

i don't know. maybe i've been reading too many food books. since i have all this time to read, i have this whole reading this of food writing. currently, it's "heat" by bill buford, next will be "trail of crumbs" by kim sunee or "real food" by nina planck. for those of you even remotely interested in my reading list.

or maybe i'll just read the new "in touch". oh britney. how has it come to this?

overheard on the northampton bike trail recently...

2008-01-07T19:00:00.000-08:00

"no i don't think you cheat on me all the time, just some of the time"

"well i think it all started with your slutty roommates and with the police showing up at my parents house"

"you have a doctor's appointment on a friday, that's so gay ... no, my mom made the appoinment, my mom's gay"

good times (warm weather, melted cheese, and badass outsiders)

2008-01-07T18:59:00.000-08:00

1. the fact that it was 50 degrees out today, and will be 65 tomorrow. i know it was a horrible illusion, but GOD DAMN it was nice to walk outside today in the sun wearing only a hoodie and my favorite blazer and my giant dolce & gabbana sunglasses feeling the melting snow drip onto my head and pretend it was spring for a moment. i'm going to shove all the snow off the picnic table in my backyard tomorrow and sit on top of it in a t-shirt and make believe i am sunbathing. i know globwarming is very bad and all, but i am a californian by birth. i fuckin' hate new england winters. bring on the 65 degree january days. fuck it, i should just move back south.

2. i can lately manage to cook a little, mostly because my good arm has gotten pretty freaking strong. and i can use my left hand enough to steady things, as long as i don't lift them. anyway. so tonight i made homemade macaroni and cheese from the martha stewart cookbook (the old, intense one, not the new trashy one). with life nine cups of cheese and proscuitto too. it was sort of insane, if i do say so myself. and i said "fuck you, martha" and made the crust out of ritz crackers and melted butter like my mum taught me and it was way better them the homemade breadcrumbs martha recommended. plus, i haven't cooked from this cookbook in a while and forgot that all the recipes are for 12 people so i made a ridiculous amount and now tomorrow i can use the leftovers to make the fried macaroni and cheese balls from the paula deen christmas magazine i've been dying to do. good times.

3. i was flipping through channels trying to escape from the horror that was the i love new york 2 reunion show, and found john waters' 'cry baby' on encore. which i'd been wanting to see lately anyway. which is such an awesome movie. plus john waters is my idol because he collects fake food like i do, and keeps it randomly all over his house. and he loves baltimore and provincetown, two places i love love much. i love ricki lake in crybaby so much i can't stand it. sad that she turned into some sort of lame weight loss champion. my new project while i'm still on the disabled list is to rewatch all john waters movies. maybe i should finally go ahead and get a netflicks subscription.

jamie-lynn spears

2007-12-20T18:57:00.000-08:00

i was commenting on my friend amber's blog, because she posted about jamie-lynn spears announcing her pregnancy at 16 in ok magazine today, and because of course i love britney spears and follow her religiously, i had enough to say that i realized i was way exceeding the blog comment etiquette.

so below is my original comment, plus my additional commentary below that.

ok, i never comment on complicated issues, i but i have been especially following the saga of britney over the years, and there are definitely a few things that are bothering me about this. and it isn't the teen pregnancy thing i don't think. my parents were really young when i was born, and i also enjoyed having younger parents and i appreciate that my grandparents were in their early 40's when i was born, and that because of that they and i are very close. that said, 1) about ten years ago, britney and her mom were all over the press on the sex before marriage is wrong issue. remember? britney and justin never did it, because they were church-going folk? that has certainly helped britney a lot. and the abstinence only kids are the ones who are likely to make mistakes, not use birth control, and regret things. 2) the ok article says a lot about lynne spears' adorable grandchildren and jamie-lynn's adorable nephews and doesn't mention that they don't really see them because britney has been ruled by the state of california unfit to spend anytime with her own child without a court appointed parenting supervisor. 3) in all this talk about unplanned pregnancy, no one has mentioned that there are way, way worse consequences to unprotected sex than pregnancy. and as a former louisiana safe sex worker, really, it's the kids who don't use birth control because they figure babies are cute anyway are kids who get sick. and this last point is what is really bothering me. because 16 year olds should use condoms because they don't want to end up hiv positive. ok, end of rant, thanks for listening.

the ok article was creepy. both jamie-lynn and lynne answered "we just need to focus on the baby right now" to every single question. britney was never mentioned except to say how cute her babies are, except of course she has no idea how to parent them. and let's not mention the father very much, because he's clearly going to bale at some point.

jamie-lynn said something about needing to find work she could do to stay home with the baby, except of course the one million dollar deal with ok magazine for the story plus the exclusive rights to photos of the newborn would really be enough for most single moms with one infant to live off of for a while. and i don't even care that she sold the story, because, yeah, way to be an kick-ass single teen mom and make yourself a million dollars. whatever if she's exploiting the baby. i wouldn't care myself if i'd been in a goossip magazine as a baby. but don't pretend that's not what your doing.

and still the thing that bothers me the most is the lack of connection of stds to unprotected sex in any of this. because really, pregnancy is an ok outcome, because that won't kill you. i spent a depressingly long time doing hiv/aids statistics for the state of louisiana public health department, and it makes me mad that jamie-lynn won't say, "even though i got pregnant by accident, i am happy that i'm going to keep my baby and i think everything will be fine, but unprotected sex is still not cool, because everything would not be fine if i had ended up hiv positive and not pregnant, or worse, both hiv positive and pregnant. and at the health department in louisiana i used to deal with the case files all the time of teenagers much younger than 16 who were both hiv positive and pregnant and that is why i now work for whole foods in customer service and make much less money, because i couldn't fucking take it anymore.

and on a lighter note, how could they have named that girl jamie-lynn (dad=jamie, mom=lynne), come on, please be more southern white trash.

i wish both britney and jamie-lynn could just get it together and collect their children and go live in an awesome punk rock lesbian feminist mothers' collective. that would be wonderful.

how come?

2007-12-06T18:56:00.000-08:00

...there isn't a project runway/top chef style reality show for fine artists? there's really something to be said for having the opportunity to work with/be judged by one's peers. or maybe thinking this is just a sign that i should go back to school and get the mfa finally. or maybe i'm just bored artistically and should meet some cool artists. or maybe i already know them, and should just not be so shy that i cannot talk to them. or maybe i should just try to heal my left hand real fast and learn to sew on ali's old machine, and make the quilt i've been planning for about five years with all the beautiful lily pulitzer things i have that don't fit. or learn to hook rugs or something.

i really do think a reality challenge show for fine artists would be good though. how come the chefs and the fashion people get to have all the fun?

top chef!

2007-12-06T18:55:00.000-08:00

on the top chef holiday special tonight (which i've been way too excited to watch all week) they were shopping at whole foods! goddamn for like ten minutes the whole thing was like a whole foods ad...'well i was excited by their great produce' and 'when i got to wf and saw the meat and seafood selection i got really excited about this challenge' etc. on one hand this sort of product placement is obviously very wrong...on the other hand, i really really really love top chef, so i still squealed that they were shopping at the store i work for.

i knew from worjkthat wf was the official food sponsor now for top chef but i hadn't seen it on tv yet. i can't wait for season 4 when wf is on every episode!!!

sorry. i know this post is lame. i think it's just comforting for me after my last angry post.

mindless visually stimulating pretty food tv = the anecdote for bitchy myspace emails that hurt ones feelings.

misunderstood collage girl

2007-12-06T18:54:00.000-08:00

someone i know recently got rather mad at me for saying that i liked their myspace icon photo...i guess their choice of photo was meant to convey something important about stuff that was going on in their life which apparently i suck for not noticing...

i don't know, a lot of the art i like is a mixture of dark feelings and lighthearted representation. i know it wasn't necessarily a happy image, and i don't know exactly what i liked about it, but it kept catching my eye. i do tend to use the word 'pretty' for any image that makes me look twice and maybe that confuses people who simplistically think i mean pretty in the most basic sense. i don't know. i didn't really mean that i like it as a myspace icon, just that everytime i happened to see it that picture caught my eye. it's sort of my full time job to identify images that make me look twice...i was trying to pay that person a compliment by acknowledging that they had picked out an image that made me want to look.

all i do all day right now is sort through piles of images and save the ones i like. i am training my eye. i didn't realize that someone would think i was happy that they were sad. i also really did think that myspace in general had to be some mixture of silly and serious. i would never assume that my friends should throughly understand my mental state from anything they read on myspace. communication is tough in the best of circumstances. you've got to at least try harder then your internet profile.

i went off on a long ranty email in response and that's where a lot of this post comes from, but i made me really angry, i think especially because i've hanging out on the couch tonight watching top chef reruns on bravo and collaging from magazines in my sketchbook, so i was definitely in a mind set of finding visual inspiration wherever i find it. when i'm just free collaging, i tear out anything that catches my eye, and don't stop to think about why. i work fast, and i let the meaning come together later. once i've glued everything back together, it all means something that i couldn't have planned in advance.

so i'm sorry if i said an image that someone intended to be negative was pretty. i guess i was just born to find beauty in ugliness.

anyway, bitches always want to be hatin'...whatever.

knitting metaphors

2007-12-06T18:53:00.000-08:00

last night i remember dreaming that someone was talking to me and using knitting metaphors...i can't remember exactly what the point was, but it was something like, this thing in life is like just knitting, while this part is like both knitting and purling. this was so vivid when i woke up that first i thought it was something i had read or seen on tv before bed, but that doesn't really make any sense, but the metaphor doesn't really make sense. in my dream it did though.

trying not to hurt myself anymore is...

2007-12-05T18:51:00.000-08:00

...frustrating, because i am trying so hard to make the most that i can out of all this free time, and i feel like theoretically i should be able to make my work one-handedly and i can but not much, only for really limited amounts at a time, and damn it, the thing is that it's super hard for me to get to the place where stuff works right for me, and so all night i built up to it, and hey, it's midnight and i have no work or plans tomorrow and my boyfriend is out of town and we already said goodnight on the phone and i'm in my room and the music is right and my room is right and and all my materials are right and i've had the right amount of time playing in my sketchbook and i've reached that very elusive place where i can see the connections between images so effortlessly and it is so hard to get here and every time i look around the room there is something on the floor that should be glued to something else and i shouldn't do anything that involves moment right now at all. because i really can't do anything without somewhat employing the good fingers of my left hand, at least to hold things in place, and i sensed on the last thing i did that i was really pushing. and i had some really bad pain trying to get the lid off a gluestick. and for i while i really thought that i popped the tendon again and fucked everything again, i think it's ok but i'm still a little scared because that would be so stupid. anyway i feel all energetic and creative and wide awake except my arm is in a lot of pain and i can feel every inch of the tendon burning and i know it needs to rest. and all this would be fine if i could easily tomorrow just get in a good place to work again but i know i can't always and honestly i haven't felt this much like working in months. mostly i've been looking for any excuse to not work and this certainly is one. although typing this is making me realize that i did use to at least feel like a serious writer and i could do that without hurting myself i think, also i realize that this is such sloppy writing and i use 'super' and 'really' and 'sort of' every two seconds. i should probably not actually post this, as it makes little sense, but what the hell, this is sort of a journal entry anyway, and it's hard for me to write with a pen right now so i might as well record things here.

on an unrelated note, i hate when i say 'it is hard for me to...' because it sounds pathetic, and i keep doing it anyway. note to self: really must stop complaining asap. blah blah blah,

anyway that was my rant. 'night, y'all. i'm gonna go lie on my bed and rest my hand on a pillow like good girl.

at least while i'm going that i can enjoy my pretty pretty glittery snowflake christmas ornaments i giot at the hospice shop today and somehow manage to hang in my window (one of the reasons my hand is so tired).

p.s. sorry the title of this post is so dramatic, i didn't mean it that way, just that my hand is very delicate and most normal things are now dangerous. hey, 'most normal things are now dangerous' would have been a much better title, wouldn't it?

chicken and diamonds

2007-12-04T18:50:00.000-08:00

so you know, i've got a ton of free time right now, and it's winter and freezing and lame outside, so i've been watching way more tv than usual. also i spent years having no tv at all and now i have on demand plus tivo, so occasionally tv just seems really surreal anyway.

but last night i was watching a very long mini series on the sci-fi channel, and it was astonishing how many commercials were either for kfc or kay jewelers. i felt like there were these images of a woman biting into a piece of fried chicken or a woman who looked like the same person crying over a diamond necklace. i know television commercials are evil, but the art part of my brain sort of loved it. what a wonderful juxtaposition, the generic blonde all american woman, in ecstasy over chicken and diamonds.

although things like that are the reason i make collages in the first place.

but i was terrified that by the end of the night all i would want in the world would be a chicken leg and a gigantic ring shaped like a heart. which sort of happened, but it wore off.

on a related note, i watch football games with greg sometimes, and it's creepy how many diamond commercials there are during football games. i swear, i know this is only my first serious boyfriend, but i am confident that men are not actually so stupid that they cannot buy christmas gifts unless they see commercials for them during football and those gifts do not actually have to be hideous diamond jewelry that looks like it came from kmart. i mean, maybe i am mistaken, but greg appears to be a rational human being who knows me as a person and can pick out a gift or two.

and that is my media commentary for today. thank you very much.

I wonder why...

2007-12-03T18:49:00.000-08:00

...there has been a slice of pizza lying on the kitchen counter all day.

i also wonder why i like to eat jalapeno slices out of the jar as a snack so much.

and i wonder how wacky i'll get by the end of this week. i'm kind of strange anyway, and with not working and not being able to drive combined with greg being out of town and wintery weather keeping me in the house, who knows what sort of bizarre habits i'll develop. as if sitting on the floor of my room listening to britney spears and tearing things out of food magazines and gluing them onto cheap calender pages wasn't odd enough.

ah, these mysteries of modern life.

lovely

2007-12-03T18:47:00.000-08:00

walking in the falling snow with rin and sarah this afternoon and drinking whiskey and eating gingerbread muffins in the park. and having the sun break through right at the end. lovely friends and lovely winter.

mail

2007-12-03T18:46:00.000-08:00

i've just spent the morning writing letters the old fashioned way, because what the heck else do i have to do, on a snowy monday morning still being an invalid and with greg having left for vancouver at 5am, and i was really appreciating the tactile sensation of putting paper into envelopes and addressing them, and of walking the envelopes out to the mailbox in the snow.

there was a nice rhythm to writing the letter, packing it up to go, and them putting on my big sweater and sheepskin boots to walk out into the snowy drive to the mailbox, then back up to my desk to write some more.

i was writing letters on my collection of postcards, so the letter continued on from one picture to the next and something about the combination of words and pictures really pleased me. i love postcards, especially the tackiest possible touristy ones. there's something so wonderful about their enthusiasm. greg just bought me some chicago cards at the airport and i am excited because i have never been there.

it's such a quiet day, sitting at my desk watching it snow and writing things down, occasionally checking in with greg stranded in the airport in chicago, not even listening to music, just hearing the sounds of the house.

duck fat, blankets, sunset.

2007-11-29T18:45:00.000-08:00

going to the nail salon next to the cumberland farms on king street to get the nails on my right hand cut, the sun coming out unexpectedly while i was walking, mocha lattes made right, the taste of hot and sour soup delivered by diane, rachael ray making chicken apple sausages and figs while i snuggle under a blanket, noticing the sunset from my desk, collage on my floor, the magnetic fields, an email from amber and memories of toast in san francisco, wearing the shawl i made right before i left nyc for california, watering my plants, love, confit means cooked in fat, thinking interesting thoughts even if nothing concrete gets accomplished, reading novel for the sake of the story, the value of time of dream and imagine and think.

some things to remember

2007-11-25T18:43:00.000-08:00

10 good things from this weekend, thanksgiving 2007

1. my mom's turkey pot pie made with thanksgiving leftovers and the concept of turning all things into pie

2. watching the moon rise over slough pond at dusk sitting on the dock

3. abel stealing my roll at jared's birthday lunch and watching abel smile in general

4. walking to the lighthouse at race point through the sand dunes

5. seeing the cape in late november when the trees are all bare and everything looks white and brown and blue and clean

6. listening to journey in the car with ali in the rain and feeling cinematic

7. crab cake blts and peanut butter things and chowder

8. mum making everyones coffee for them at 7am

9. ceramic lighthouses and pictures of bears and my new boots

10. reading with stella kneading the blanket like a giant weirdo

i am a cranky bitch

2007-11-19T18:42:00.000-08:00

or so it seems. i keep getting super frustrated that i can't do things for myself. then i attempt them myself instead of asking for help. then i get more frustrated and get into what is sort of tantrum mood. then i get mad at myself because i feel stupid having to ask greg for every little thing. and when greg gets annoyed that i am asking for help with every little thing, i get angry and we have a fight. although he's really being very very patient, he is. sometimes there is just a whole serious of things in a row i can't do. zip my sweatshirt, tie my snowboots, open a bottle of juice, get my coat on, drive the car, hold the basket of groceries, quickly get out my wallet. that sequence is a recipe for a fight right there. i can't understand why i can't be more gracious. i mean to. i am grateful. but i hate to ask for help, and i seem to be taking my anger at myself for needing help out on whoever's helping me. mostly greg. what's up with that? someone should send that boy a fruit basket. he's had a rough week here with me, poor guy. why can't i act a little more mature? i do not know.

oh dear.

oh well. the snow looks lovely out the window, and i am pretending i am curled up in a ski lodge. i am had a pain killer, and i may soon have some hot chocolate. then i'm going to watch season 6 of buffy on the dvd boxed set katie lent me. not so bad. perhaps this will all improve my temperment.

my state of mind

2007-11-16T18:40:00.000-08:00

so below i've posted two surveys i just filled out, because i think that they are a pretty accurate record of my state of mind right now, and i think i should remember this. i'm really having to struggle a lot with being grateful right now...i can think of one million ways in which this situation could have been worse, much worse, and yet every time i turn around i find myself complaining about something stupid, like not being able to easily zip my sweatshirt. or not being able to drive. or not being able to wear most of my clothes. and i know before i got hurt i was complaining about even more stupid things. like having to go to work. even though right now i am dying to go to work. but i'm sure when my hand heals work will still suck. so this whole post is just to remind me to be more self-aware and not complain so much. and to remember to be grateful. because this thing with my hand is really nothing in the grand scheme of things, and yet it's somehow been kicking my ass.

anyway, below are those surveys. i seem to have forgotten to eat all day, so i should go take care of that. someday you can look forward to the post about how my fucked up body issues are doing with my not really being able to exercise much. it's fun. but i'm not even ready to write about that yet.

also, you guys should give me shit if i don't post a lot of blogs over the next few weeks. what else do i have to do but write?

1

1. Who were you with last Friday night?
greg. we got super drunk for free at gallery night, then went to packard's and had burgers. mine was deep fried and had cheese and jalapenos inside, yay!

2. What woke you up this morning?
nothing really, i'm home recovering, i have nowhere to be. i think it was the sunlight hitting the bed, maybe.

3. Where are you?
at my desk, even though i should really move the laptop to the bed so i can put my hand up.

4. Is tomorrow going to be a good day?
should be, i'll still be in a cast but i'm going to go buy art supplies to make one-handed art. might as well try to use all this time off of work.

6. When's the last time you cried?
i keep throwing stupid temper tantrums about stuff i can't do that i really shouldn't get that upset about. i really know it could be much worse. i do. i am trying to be more mature. i am. my boyfriend is very long suffering.

7. What were you doing at 10 last night?
playing life with ali and katie and greg.

10. What were you doing at midnight last night?
either sleeping or still reading one good thing by kate atkinson.

11. What were you doing at 2:00am?
definitely sleeping by then.

12. Ever thrown up from a roller coaster or an amusement park?
once. on the horrid pirate boat thing at knott's berry farm when i was little. but my gramma had just feed me a bunch of fried chicken right before going on the ride.

13. What's on your mind RIGHT NOW?
i kind of want the use of my left hand back.

15. Where would you like to live?
lot's of different places. a house on cape cod. a house in vermont. a place in new orleans. a place in san francisco. an apartment in new york city. an apartment in tokyo.

16. What kind of home would you like when you grow up?
like my room right now, only expanded. lots of specialized rooms for art projects. like the collage room, or the knitting room. the quilting room. lots of libraries. a wonderful kitchen with a viking stove and fancy kitchen appliances. a herb and vegetable garden. lots of thrift store paintings, especially ones of tigers.

17. What do you want to be when you grow up?
artist, rock star, worlds fastest crocheter.

18. Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
hmmm.

21. What is the longest you have gone without checking your myspace?
well, since i've been at home in a cast, i check myspace every three minutes. literally.

23. Who was the last person that sent you a message?
On myspace? either diane or danielle.

24. Are you friends with this person?
yes with both of them.

25. How often do you log in to myspace?
Usually once a day, right now, all the time.

26. What do you like to do in the car?
sing along loudly to britney spears and the silver jews. (i wish there was actually a britney spears/silver jews duet album). drink coffee from 7-11 in insane flavors.

27. Do you like candy necklaces?
absolutely. i also love ring pops. i'd really rather all my jewelry was edible.

28. When was the last time you fell over or ran into something?
does running into the milk bottle with my finger count?

29. Do you listen to music every day?
yes, all the time.

31. What was the last thing you ate?
i just realized i haven't really eaten all day. bad lizzie. i did just drink a kombucha. in grape.

33. Is it the weekend?
it's friday evening.

34. What are you doing tonight?
probably just hanging out in my room reading and listening to music. i left the house for a few hours today. i think it was all i'm up to.

35. Whats your favorite soda?
i don't really drink soda much, but a coke (regular not diet) is required for certain foods, like mcdonalds french fries.

36. Ever moved?
quite a bit. although maybe still not enough.

38. Favorite sport to watch?
basketball.

39. What do you want right now?
right this minute i really want to put my hair in a ponytail. which i can't do with one hand and it's been driving me crazy since i hurt myself.

40. Are you listening to music right now?
yes. tegan and sara, the con.

41. Do you like summer break or Christmas break better?
i don't think i get those breaks anymore.

42. What was the last tv show you watched?
the wire on ondemand.

44. Best place to eat?
in noho: osaka, green street cafe, circa.
in the world, citrus club and cancun in sf, croissant d'or in new orleans, apsara's in providence, mamas in nyc, kates seafood in brewster, the wonderful oyster place in portland, me, lots more, just those off the top of my head.

45. What time is it?
6:18 pm.

46. What should you be doing right now?
maybe lying down. other than that, not sure.

48. What song makes you cry?
tons, lots of silver jews, cat power, jenny lewis, tom waits.

49. What song makes you happy?
right now, piece of me, britney spears.

50. What do you listen to before you go to bed?
whatever cd i am obsessed with at the moment.

53. If you were a crayon what color would you be?
one of the glitter ones.

56. What is your cars name?
big green car.

57. What is your dream car?
a car i can drive a lot without getting it fixed much.

58. What is your favorite state?
louisiana. although i'll probably never live there again.

59. If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go?
probably someplace in asia. or north africa.

60. What is the farthest from home you have ever been?
london.

61. When is the last time you threw up?
the horrible day after we went out to celebrate nora's last day at the tunnel bar and i drank so much i almost died i think.

62. Who was the last person to call you?
greg.

63. What does your last incoming text message say?
still going but almost over

64. Where was your last kiss?
about an hour ago.

65. Would you kiss that person again?
yes!

66. How would you describe your mood?
Okay. copping. trying to be grateful that things aren't worse but still frustrated.

2

1. When you're home alone, do you still close the door when you shower?
yes because i have a lot of housemates. i think i would do it alone, too, just out of habit.

2. Has a friendship ended recently that you wish hadn't?
Yes

3. Did you ever have a person VERY close to you pass away?
no.

4. You win the $300 million power-ball lottery. What do you do with it?
buy a big gorgeous house somewhere amazing. buy some house for other people. fund a lot of art projects. travel. pay off loans.

5. Do you like your music loud or at a reasonable level?
very loud.

6. Are you a beach person or a snowy mountain person?
always beach.

7. When do you prefer to take a shower, morning or night?
morning. but night in the winter, so my hair doesn't freeze. i have long hair AND hate hair dryers.

8. Can you watch scary movies alone?
no, i get paralyzed with fear and have to hide under blankets.

9. Soft bed or firm?
firm, with tons of blankets.

10. Would you rather stay home all day, or be out and about?
out and about! thats why im going crazy right now. but i'm trying to deal. and home is nice too. i like it better when i can cook or knit, but its hard to do those things with one hand. but i've still got reading and the internet.

11. Have you ever wet the bed?
not in recent memory.

12. Favorite necklace?
i don't have one right now. i do wear 7 bracelets and the same earrings everyday.

13. Are you more likely to be with a large group of people or a few close?
both.

14. What are your plans for November?
recover from hand accident. make some art while recovering. go home for a while and spend time with my mom. try to see friends i've been neglecting.

15. Where would you like to live?
san francisco, new orleans, new york, cape cod, vermont, montreal, japan, china, spain...

16. Who was your last hug?
walley!

17. What's on your mind right now?
medical stuff

18. What is one fear that you can't seem to overcome?
people

19. Are you good at math?
no

20. What's stashed under your bed?
my vintage linens collection. luggage. artwork.

21. Is there anyone you regret ever meeting?
i try to have no regrets, you never know what leads to what.

22. In the opposite sex, where should the piercings be?
don't care.

23. Would you rather have roommates or live alone?
i suck at having roommates. i'm good at living with my significant other only, it seems like.

24. Do you drink iced coffee?
don't know what i would do without it.

25. Do you like to drive?
yes! i miss it so much!

26. What is your favorite thing to wear?
my fur vest at the moment. and i am grateful to my target fleece lined sweatpants, since i can't do buttons very easy right now. and they are very cozy.

27. If you found out that you were going to be a parent, what would you do?
that would be interesting.

28. Do you give money to homeless people when they ask?
no. too much time living in new york.

29. A weekend in Las Vegas or Key West?
i'm sort of obsessed with vegas.

30. Last time you cried?
a little while ago.

31. Have you ever made someone so mad that they broke something?
i'm sure.

32. You have 3 months left to live, what do you do?
spend time with the people i care about, enjoy myself, i guess. ps i really hate this question. who knows, really.

33. You're having a bad day, what's one thing that can make your day better?
the right music. a hug. a carmel macchiato. a glass of whitehaven sauvignon blanc. greg. ali.

34. What's worse: Tanning bed or Sun Rays?
i don't even know what sun rays is. but all fake tanning stuff is weird.

35. Have you ever talked on the phone for 5+ hours?
yes.

36. You wake up in an unfamiliar place, what is your first reaction?
how drunk was i.

37. Is there anything that you should be doing right now?
sadly, not really. that's sort of the problem.

38. If there was a way to know when and how you're going to die, would you want to know?
I don't know.

39. What is your favorite breakfast?
eggs benedict with really good hollandaise. bacon. biscuits. gravy. cheese grits. all that good southern stuff.

40. Your phone rings at 4am, who do you expect it to be?
that hasn't happened in a long time. don't know who i'd expect.

41. Last thing you ate?
dinner last night. udon noodles and peppers and broccoli.

42. are you vegetarian?
no, used to be, for a long time. but i love seafood and bacon.

43. Do you hate anyone?
i don't hate. i get into unpleasant situations, though.

45. Do you have kids?
no. maybe one day?

46. Would you want to date anyone on your top friends?
i am dating one of them.

47. Do you go to school?
no.

48. What's your relationship with the people in your top friends?
they're a pretty rockin' bunch of people. or why else would they be my top friends?

49. Do you have a crush on someone?
yes.

50. Do they know?
i assume, since i've been dating him for more than a year and we live together.

I don’t believe in this

2007-08-28T18:39:00.000-07:00

I was just wondering why I've had such an insane year and why I can never make up my mind and why I keep alienating people and why I did all this work to change jobs and then took it make and why I moved three times in three months and why I am driving myself and everyone else crazy and have been all year. Why I don't at all know who I am anymore.

And I was wondering if I was having some sort of weird mid-life crisis and I was thinking about being 28 going on 29 right now, and then I remembered before my last birthday being warned by everyone older then me that 28 was going to be rough and the saturn return thing was not a myth. And I just looked it up on google and it kind of freaked me out.

See below:

"Astrologers call the period between ages twenty-eight and thirty "Saturn Return." That's because it's the first time the planet Saturn completes its cycle through your birth chart and returns to the spot it occupied when you were born. Internationally respected astrologer Rob Hand calls Saturn Return "one of the most important times in your life. . . a time of endings and new beginnings."

For most of us, ending a phase of life that is familiar and embarking on one that is new and untried is unsettling, even painful. Few people describe Saturn Return as a pleasant period. While undergoing your Saturn Return you may find yourself turning inward and reflecting on your individual destiny. You examine your true needs and desires and the role you want to play on the world's stage. You may feel lonely and alienated from those around you, while family and friends think you are shutting them out. But this is a necessary period of consolidation, when you must retreat from the distractions of the outer world and focus on yourself at your most fundamental level.

The first Saturn Return marks the end of youth and the beginning of the productive adult years. It is now that you truly become an adult--not at eighteen or twenty-one. You realize your need to define yourself as an individual within society and to demonstrate what you've learned. This transition into adulthood is often accompanied by a sense of urgency, a feeling that you must try to accomplish everything you've ever wanted or planned to do now. Goals start to come sharply into focus. If you have not settled into a definite career, or have been pursuing one that is inappropriate for you, you'll experience a strong push to establish yourself in a more fulfilling occupation.

Saturn strips away illusions and points out limitations, allowing you to view yourself in a harsh, often unflattering light. At the same time, it endows you with prudence, practicality, and the perseverance to work hard toward achieving your purposes. Consequently, this is a good time to rearrange your career or lay the foundation for a new one.

Saturn Return almost always requires some major adjustments in lifestyle, attitudes, and relationships. Anything you have outgrown, or have tolerated but not found satisfying, must end now or be altered to meet your emerging needs. Often interpersonal relationships are deeply affected by Saturn Return. The U.S. Census Bureau lists the peak divorce years as ages twenty-eight to thirty. Some people experience more subtle or private adjustments in their patterns of relating, such as shifts in responsibilities.

Growth is often accompanied by trepidation and turmoil. As the old self is pushed aside to make room for the new, you may feel weak and vulnerable. You want to move ahead, yet are frustrated by a fear of doing so, torn between a compelling urge to throw off everything connected with your past and an equally frantic need to cling to the familiar rather than brave the great unknown.

Even if your external world seems to be in order, your internal structure may feel as though it's being assaulted with a battering ram. Nervous conditions, irritability, depression, insomnia, and feelings of insecurity are common. Most people go through some sort of identity crisis.

Saturn Return is one of the most crucial turning points you ever experience, when you assume the greatest responsibility of all: responsibility for your own life."

That kind of freaked me out. Seriously. Although I stress that I hate taking any astrology nonsense seriously. Exactly all of those things have precisely happened to me in the exact year.

Whatever shall I do?

10 things that were. Awesome. About today. In list format!

2007-03-12T18:37:00.000-07:00

1. That it was 58 degrees! Yay spring.

2. At the library, when I was there returning books and all that normal shit, seeing some random person very closely studying my art work not knowing I was the artist and I was there. Much better than the opening in an artistic way, for me. Although the opening was a wonderful time to see all the people I love and hug them.

3. Walking around town running errands and overhearing some very adorable elderly ladies say about me, "oh to be young and walk that fast." Because I've had so much back and leg pain lately and have been limping so much despite my best efforts. And believe me people, I have been gritting my teeth and digging my nails into my palm in order to walk normally lately. So I really really appreciate moving fast without thinking about it.

4. Drinking wine on my porch and reading a book at twilight. For the first time this year. Even though I had to sit under a blanket because after all it's only March 12th.

5. Having a really nice conversation with g earlier and then cleaning my room majorly and doing a ton of the stuff on my ongoing to do list.

6. Having a reasonably pleasant conversation on the phone with my dad.

7. Not being in the kitchen when one of the light fixtures decided to randomly fall down and smash everywhere for no apparent reason. I like NOT having glass fall on my head.

8. Making another bizarre yet successful meal from leftover food from my opening since I am broke yet have a surplus of chips and crackers and cheese and salsa and cookies.

9. Remembering tonight while playing music in my room how much I love Madonna and Courtney Love.

10. Really really enjoying rereading Kate Atkinson's "Not the End of the World", possibly the best book ever written. Goddamn. To write like that. Man.

If You Haven't Seen Me Lately (Art Notes)...

2007-02-28T18:36:00.000-08:00

...it's because I've probably been sitting on the floor of my room gluing things together. Endlessly. I hang this show tomorrow, and that's good, because I am literally going crazy. I think.

I've been spending every night for way too many nights in a row staying up all night in my room sitting on the floor working on this set of paintings.

And this is the most personal work I have ever done ever.

So this is sort of like sitting around ripping open not-so-old, not-very-well healed scars over and over. Photographs, memories. Damn.

And listening to music and drinking wine and crying a lot.

Thanks so much to sarah sam and rin (some of my favoprite people) for picking me up and getting me to leave the house last night. Goth night has never been such a healthy thing. Love you guys very much. Y'all have no idea how much I needed human contact last night.

And thanks to brian tonight for the free wine to get me through one last night of this.

I have no idea if this work is even good. This is the first work I've done in ten years without my built in personal critic in the house. She would have put a stop to work this crazy personal and messy a long time ago.

My room looks insane. There is photographic imagery everywhere. And clothing. And wine bottles. And notes to myself. And jars of gel medium and water. I've been living in my bunny overalls and pink hooded sweatshirt (hood up at all times). Today I got up, excerised, worked for 8 1/2 hours, came home, and went straight to work. Today I have eaten one scone, way to much coffee, the free pistachios from the booth (thank you salt-free parrot), and a piece of cheese. I really need to try to stop and eat dinner. Since it's 12:04am now and all and I'm nowhere near ready for tomorrow.

I think after tonight I need to take a small break from either thinking about me or britney spears for a little while.

What I Need To Know

2007-02-27T18:35:00.000-08:00

I have this very small collection of vintage reference/instructional manuals that I keep on my desk. I sort of think of this collection as my rules to life.

I am very selective when it comes to aquireing new volumes. I think everyone knows that I have hundreds of old hilarious books everywhere for the porpose of collage, but these books are special enough that they don't even get cut up. Amazing.

Today in the used book sale at the lovely library I found my next book. So now my rules to life consist of 1) Standard Handbook of Cosmetology, 1977, Livestock Judging Handbook, 1947, And The Good Housekeeping Needlework Encyclopedia, 1947. The Needwork Encoloypedia is the book I purchased today, and it begins with the absolutely charming sentence, "Women will always be interested in neeedlwork." This pleases me more than I can say.

I envision someday having a whole set, covering all sort of varied subject matter. Then I will know everything I need to know. What will the next be I wonder?

I love the weird used book sale at the library. Besides that gem of a needlework encyclopedia, I also took home a very strange Japanese English dictionary, a copy of by Nicholson Baker, and a copy of The Will To Change by Adrienne Rich in hardcover. All for only $5! Yay.

Can you tell from this entry that I have a show to hang on Thursday? And have 10 paintings in various stages of completion sitting around my room looking at me accusingly? And that Ive been up all night for the past two nights sitting on the floor cutting and gluing and painting over things? And naming. The naming is also important.

Back to work, lizzy.

random favorite things

2007-01-30T18:34:00.000-08:00

Because I have a weird OCD tendency to want to list things, yes. This nonsense below. Things that make life awesome. Are:

Some of my favorite books: Haruki Murakami, "The Wind-up Bird Chronicles," A.S. Byatt, "Little Black Book of Short Stories," Zadie Smith, The Autograph Man," Kate Atkinson, Not the End of the World," Iris Murdoch, "A Word Child", Poppy Z. Brite, "Liquor".

And,
some IMAGES:
1. noodles
2. chicken legs
3. eggs
4. deserts
5. cities

FOODS:
1. hummus
2. saag paneer
3. scallops
4. sushi
5. mashed potatoes

That's all. That's just what I've been thinking about. For whatever reason.

AND,

I love Tom Waits, Britney Spears, and Bjork a lot. And I'd like to visit Toyko, Bombay, Iceland, Morroco, and Prague.

Why do I think and write these things? I do not know.

Tomatoes, mittens, wool blankets, and snow.

2007-01-18T18:32:00.000-08:00

I should write more. I know that using my myspace blog for self-improvement is kind of retarded, but I need to write things down, somewhere. So I can stop telling elaborate descriptions of things to myself in my head while I walk for three hours in the cold freezing my hands.

I am having this day of extreme ups and downs. I woke up so happy it was unbelievable. Actually, I also went to sleep that happy. That keeps happening lately. So my lows today weren't even real, I don't think. Just the product of overstimulation and twelve hours of drunkeness and bacon and sausage and french fries and creamed chipped beef. And having an astonishingly good time. And then coming home to a very silent, very grey day.

I am pretty content. But keep feeling melancholy at the same time.

Probably tired, and needing to eat more vegetables.

And melancholy for me always makes me notice details with great clarity. There was a day last week where I still felt so weak and unlike myself from being sick, and hearing Leonard Cohen's Famous Blue Raincoat at Haymarket changed the whole sense of the day for me.

And today: the surprisingly summer-like taste of a january tomato that shouldn't have tasted that good; the snugglyness of my new mittens on sale at jc penney for $3.29 and put immeadiately on my frozen fingers; the warmth underneath my favorite wool blanket; gold nail polish on sale at target; the beginnings of snow; and the pleasant surprise of a phone call while driving stupidly lost on a highway in the snow. And a date at Stop & Shop. Yes.

Vulnerability: I hate it.

2006-11-07T18:31:00.000-08:00

I am in a very bad mood. Because I had to call out sick from work today due to back pain. I tend not to take these back pain incidents of mine very seriously, since they are usually caused by nothing, and go anyway without me doing much but suffering through it.

Last night I just stepped inside my front door wearing the boots I wear all the time and knew immeadiately something was wrong. And it was definitely still wrong this morning.

I had every intention of going to work anyway, because I HATE TO ADMIT DEFEAT. The thought that I really CAN'T do something makes no sense to my brain.

But I got up, and I made it out to vote on foot, and it was pretty crazy because I was limping really bad and had to walk so slow it took me almost an hour to make to the polling place (someplace I could ordinarily reach in about ten minutes) and I was still planning on going to work until I was getting ready in my room and I had been standing still in front of the mirror and I went to take a step and I screamed involuntarily. And then had a really hard time making it the three steps to pick up my bag.

Ok. Don't know how I'm going to be standing on my feet all day and bagging groceries if I can't PICK UP MY BAG. This was clearly obvious from the moment I got out of bed and limped my way into the shower, yet it took me THREE HOURS of being in serious pain and walking around as if I wasn't to believe it.

Why is it so hard for me to take care of myself?
Guilt. Refusal to admit defeat. Some degree of embaressment over having a stupid pain thing affect me. Because someone joked about back pain making me old last night. Because being physically strong is very important to me.

And I know,
because I will feel better later today, because the only thing I can do for this kind of pain is rest, that when I feel better I will feel even more guilty over having given in, because I'll make sure I don't remember that this rest really was necessary.

And beat myself up over how I should have just gone to work. When really, I couldn't. I would habe prefered to have. Because now I feel bored and displeased with myself and out of my body and restless.

I'm going to try to enjoy being in my bed and reading about ten of my favorite novels and wearing my pajamas and a stolen orange t-shirt that still kind of smells like someone and listening to a lot of music. And remembering that this sort of pain is all psychic and stress related and that being nice to myself is something that I need to do ocasionally or I will be unable to walk.

Hmm. Why?

2006-11-05T18:30:00.000-08:00

How come? Since this is gonna be a work day and I'm gonna paint and be messy I've decided not to shower until later. And just wear my jeans and risd sweatershirt and crazy hair. And yet. I still put all my elaborate eye makeup on. Why is that. Oh well. I do sort of get into a performative mode when I paint. Maybe I should start actually dressing up too. Wig. Feather boa. Prom dress. Heels. Why not. Even if I am just going to be alone in my room with glue. Haha.