doing happy.

until i get my photos up....

2010-06-27T06:36:00.000-04:00

in my head it's twice in one day

2010-06-27T05:41:00.002-04:00

because i haven't gone to sleep yet. and given that kristi and i have to meet the KBA team to march in the Pride Parade at 11:30am, and it's currently 5:44am, and i'm raring to go, i'm guessing that i may not sleep until the last bit of pride has prided.

i started off the afternoon at Washington Square Park, hanging out under the great arch and handing out flyers for Pier Pressure, the Lovergirl party my friend Kate throws every Pride. as always, the moment when the dykes came marching in was amazing. it's a spunky sort of event- no parade parade permit, so it's a protest march, though it does have a celebratory feel. and all those splendid girls jumping and dancing in the fountain, and the drum circles drumming, and the rainbow flags and rainbow hair- there are so many gorgeous memories and moments in that afternoon, but i did not take a single photo. i was busy, flyering and chatting, and i just never took the camera out of my bag. but i did run into my dear friend Erin and her charming girlfriend Eileen and that was just marvelous.

next kristi and i worked at Pier Pressure. i handle the guest lists and kristi does the mailing list. it's an awesome party held at a brewing company restaurant right on the hudson river, and the moon was huge and full tonight, and the most amazing thing happened. it was not wholly unexpected but the way it played out was refreshing and inspiring and, at the start, kind of embarassing. i was going over th elist when someone said "Are you Dawn?" and I looked up and said "Yes" and someone was stading in front of me holding out her hand for me to shake and saying "Hi, I'm Daniela" and i said "Yes, you are" because it was Daniela Sea who is totally one of my heroes and is also incredibly, shockingly, strikingly beautiful. and i almost died. (For my Mom, and any non-dykes who read this, Daniela Sea is a lot of things, but she is best known as the actress who played the groundbreaking role of Max in the lesbian tv show The L Word. Max was a trans-man, and his story was such an incredibly important part of that show because it was the first trans character in a tv show who was actually part of the main cast, and had their own journey and story and wasn't just a tranny hooker on Law & Order or something.)

now, I knew that Daniela Sea was going to be there, she was the Celebrity Host of the party. but usually when we have celebrity hosts their bodyguards or chauffeurs alert us to their arrival and they get snuck in and it's all very hush-hush and they certainly don't walk up to the Guest List Girl and introduce themselves like normal people. she didnt show up with an entourage, just a friend with a nice smile who reminded me of Seamus, my friend from college.

throughout the night i ended up getting to hang out with daniela a bit, and be with her as she moved through the crowd and hung out. over and over again throughout the night i was surprised by her. she was friendly and mingled with the crowd. she got excited over the full moon and the river. she had a great time. she was incredibly patient and took a bazillion photos with people. she was charming onstage, easygoing everywhere else, and the only thing she asked for all night was a hit off a cigarette. she was humble and grateful and utterly normal. and that was really cool to see. she is a genuinely nice person who has none of the trappings or attitude i've come to associate with the celebrities i've had interactions with (living in NY and nannying for high-profile folks, i've run into perhaps more than my share) and that just makes me happy. this person has clearly not been spoiled by success and so i have hope for humanity.

and yes, i did get a photo with her- actually two, because it was the end of the night- we were actually standing outside the cab she was about to get in to go home- and we were both making horrible faces in the first one. yeah- that's the kind of person Daniela Sea is: she cared enough that i got a good photo that she made me turn the camera around and show her the shot to make sure we got a good one- and when she saw the cracked-out-looking shot we got, she laughed and was like "at least it looks like we're partying and having fun!" and then we took another one, which she also checked. she thought her eyes looked crazy but overall it was a pretty good picture so we kept it (and when your eyes are like that i imagine that they stand out in most pictures).

maybe i should try to sleep. it's 6:35am. i wonder where my rainbow flags are.

ps: did you know that she speaks Polish, plays 3 instruments and lived as a man in India for 6 months? seriously. my hero.

Ok, Kismet.

2010-06-26T11:59:00.003-04:00

So i haven't even been to my own blog in almost a year. Last post was photos of 2009's Pride Weekend, and of course, what is today? Saturday of Pride Weekend. I love it. Though I have been feeling the writing itchies lately. Maybe I will- NO. I'm not even going to say it. If I say it, I won't do it.

Anyway, something so weird happened that I had to blog it. There is no other way to share something this insane in its entirety with a tweet.

This week, while prowling on the internet I filled out a survey about Gay Marriage. I do this occasionally as a Gay who would like to be Married: I fill out the Conservative Surveys. The Republican ones. The ones that ask "Do you beleive homosexuals should be given special rights to get married and adopt babies and burn puppies and kill families and destroy the fabric of our country?" (truly, that is only a very mild exaggeration) and "Do you think the Radical Homosexuals should be allowed to teach in our schools and raise our children up in their lifestyle with a plan to take over America's churches and government?" And I answer YES. To all of it. Whatever you are scared the homos want, I'm there to make sure you know we might try to take it. And we might get it. Cause it weirds me out that there are all these crazy folks ou there collecting "information" that is so skewed it's mind-boggling, and then tryig to use that shit as facts. And if I can stick a monkey wrench into that practice while on my couch and eating a Twix, then so be it.

And usually the moment ends there- me feeling all subversive in my jammies, and then settling in to watch some Supernanny or some shit. But this week, I've gotten a letter back. Actually, two. From the same guy. Who apparently thinks his survey is some kind of recruiting tool for ultra-conservatives, and who likes to periodically capitalize the H in the word Homosexual like we are demi-gods or Very Important Things in an A.A. Milne story. My new pen-pal Eugene addresses every person who filled out his survey with the same absolute, utter confidence that they provided the answers he wanted them to. I think this guy is a little cracked in the head and I'm going to share this letter because it's too weird for words.

I'm also going to take this moment to thank God, publicly, for not making me grow up in a place/time where people like this narrow-minded freak with a tenuous grasp on English Grammar were the norm.

Without any further ado:

Dear Dawn ,

Thank you for your recently signed petition. I am excited to know you are an American who is willing to take a stand for pro-family values.

Here at Public Advocate, fighting for and defending the family values our nation was founded on is what we are all about.

If you are looking for a hard-hitting pro-family organization with a history of victories against the growing radical Homosexual Lobby, look no further than Public Advocate of the United States.

Founded in 1981, Public Advocate quickly took center stage as the nation’s leading family advocate with over 400,000 united pro-family activists.

Time after time, Public Advocate has beaten back the attempts of the Homosexual Lobby to pass legislation aimed at making homosexuals a special class of citizens.

But, victories these days have been harder and harder to come by.

Which is why I so excited to have your signed petition!

With it, I will prove to Congress that the American people still hold traditional family values dear.

And if you believe the threat of the Homosexual Lobby is being blown out of proportion, think again.

At this very moment, individuals and organizations with hundreds of millions of dollars that comprise the Homosexual Lobby are working to pass their radical agenda.

Here are just a few names and organizations you may recognize: Tim Gill, Barney Frank, Pat Stryker, Jared Polis, Cindy and Meghan McCain, The Advocate, GLAAD, and the Human Rights Campaign.

All of these people are working towards what they call “equal rights” for homosexuals, when in reality, the rights they are trying to acquire would be unique to homosexuals only.

A Thought Control bill was just recently passed. This bill puts into law regulations that deem so-called “hate speech” as illegal.

This has me worried, and I hope you are too. Because who is to say what language will be considered hate speech?

Don’t believe me? In Canada and Europe pastors have been thrown in jail for preaching Biblical teachings against homosexuality.

This very well may be the reality of Thought Control in the United States.

I hope you know how serious this issue really is.

Which is why, as President of Public Advocate, I have devoted my life to protecting family values and defending our freedoms.

I want to leave a legacy I am proud of, knowing the United States is still the nation I grew up in.

But without your support, this year alone we could see Barney Frank’s so-called “Employment Non-Discrimination Act” put into law.

We call this the “Gay Bill of Special Rights” because it doesn’t eliminate discrimination, it destroys workplace protection from radical homosexuals whose only mission is to spread their agenda.

If passed, the Gay Bill of Special Rights would require workplaces to meet a quota of homosexual employees, forcing employers to choose a radical homosexual over a potentially more qualified candidate.

And no workplace will be exempt. Churches, daycares, nursing homes, private schools, you name it, all will have to adhere to these regulations.

And Obama is even looking to push for the repeal of "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" this year, which would remove the protection our soldiers have from the Homosexual Lobby.

And even the Healthcare bill is filled with numerous paybacks to homosexuals, giving lower healthcare premiums to “unmarried” homosexuals than married couples, all paid for at taxpayer expense.

I hope you understand this threat is real. . . and imminent.

And I also hope you will consider making a donation to Public Advocate to help protect our family values.

Public Advocate will never waver from the firm conviction that political decisions should begin and end with the best interests of American families and communities in mind, and that marriage is a sacred union between one man and one woman.

Public Advocate has been 100% dependent on the financial support of contributors, we do not receive any government or taxpayer money, nor do we want it.

I would appreciate it if you could help support Public Advocate by making a charitable contribution, please click here.

No matter the amount, be it $5 or $50 or more, every dollar you give is greatly appreciated and will go a long way towards defending our pro-family values.

It is my hope to keep you up-to-date on the fight for pro-family values through email alerts.

There are some tough battles coming up very soon and I am going to need your help if we are to win.

Thank you for your support.

Sincerely,

Eugene Delgaudio
President,
Public Advocate of the U.S.

P.S. Public Advocate is the leading force in defending the conservative pro-family values our nation was founded on.

Please consider a donation to Public Advocate to help defend our pro-family values from the Homosexual Lobby's attacks.

ps- I can't wait for the part where we get Thought Control!

2009-07-05T12:42:00.000-04:00

pride never gets old.

2009-07-05T11:29:00.003-04:00

you know, there are people who talk about the day when we as america will be post-gay and we won't need pride parades. we won't need a special day or month to celebrate and interrogate queer culture and its role in our society. and to that i say, are we gonna do away with all parades? are we gonna be post-independence day? post-veteran's day? post-puerto rican day parade? pride is so much more than speaking out against that which is against us. it is joy. it is memory. it is tribute and love and experiment. it is a moment to stop and think about how far we've come, and how much better things can still become. i don't know about anyone else, but i don't plan to ever stop wanting pride.

where taylor avenue and griggs street meet

2009-04-18T14:49:00.001-04:00

she came of age in the eighties, I can tell:

big hair, stretch pants that fuschia shade of ugly,

dirty Keds and slouch socks.

She sucks on that cigarette like it’s cumming in her mouth,

she slouches on that corner, idle,

and she must live just a few houses away on that shabby block

with a coupla kids who drive her up a wall

cause she raised them spoiled rotten,

even though she couldn’t afford it.

And her husband is having an affair with that bank teller,

the one who always wears red lipstick even with a pink blouse;

and there is dirty laundry to be done, and dinner heated up,

and yet here is this Woman.

here

she

in her five minutes of glory:

just her, her cigarette,

and the sun setting way over there

with only a coupla telephone poles to puncture her view.

kites are fun

2009-04-02T13:20:00.002-04:00

sdv shenanigans

2009-03-16T19:51:00.003-04:00

type this, my hands are spotted with robin's egg blue paint, the result of spending the afternoon painting my living room wall. this was a spontaneous decision. i used paint that i had bought to make a frame.

in the last week, i've made 4 minibooks, like 12 layouts, and a multitude of mini-art bits for my house. i am on this creative jag that is insane and fun and rolling along like som e kind of drug trip. can't get the damn scanner to work, though, so i can't post most of the layouts yet. but here is a little bit of the fun i've been having:

holiday chez moi

2008-12-16T22:09:00.003-05:00

sometimes music really IS salvation.

2008-12-16T19:29:00.005-05:00

the world don't owe me nothing

even though i want it to

the world don't owe me happy

the world don't owe me a love like you

the world don't owe me nothing

even though i'm on my knees

not the things i took for granted

not the things i thought i'd got for free

but i will lay all my troubles on the ground

in front of you, and play

let me play just one more song

that's my rescue

the world don't owe me flowers

even though i planted seeds

the world don't owe me sunshine

the world don't owe me what i need

the world don't owe me a reason

for when the night's too long

the world don't owe me nothing

i don't understand all that's gone wrong

but i will lay dow my troubles on the ground

in front of you

and play

let me play just one more song

that's my rescue

the world don't owe me a highway

don't owe me a tree

the world don't owe me an easy way out

here it comes again,

another kind of pain

and i will lay all my troubles on the ground

in front of you

and play

let me play just one more song

that's my rescue

(thanks, catie curtis.

this is one of those need-it-like-air songs for my soul.

and a timely, timely find.)

on Milk

2008-11-30T16:39:00.002-05:00

saw Milk last night at the chelsea clearview with karen. left ragged, inspired, enraged. swollen from tears and gratitude. kept re-hearing in my head the applause that burst out of us all when the movie was over. how my hands smarted after. and feeling how nothing's different but everything is. we still carry the same signs. there is still such need. we still gather and dance and cry and we are still fighting and for me, there are just so very many big feelings tangled up in that.

so i walked home singing, feeling winged. tears drying on my face, my prayers floating up on breath. couldn't sleep. sat up all night listening to the real Milk speak his words (ah, youtube). i haven't been able to get out of the grey today. charles and i have snuggled our way through like 6 episodes of bones and all the deep meaningful looks are beginning to get to me. i've considered doing the dishes but it's not looking promising. i was supposed to go to the lower east side this morning, to pick up my finally-fixed fancy bag. no dice. no bag, either. it's like i can't think today, can't feel. did too much of that last night and today i am swaddling myself in soft stripey cotton. wrapping my head around this film is sort of an onion-y process.

2008-11-22T00:10:00.002-05:00

wow... the absentee blogger strikes again, huh?

or doesn't strike, as the case may be.

today:

the catherine opie exhibit at the guggenheim. me and karen.

sweet jesus, is that building ugly from the outside!

but oh my heavens, the show inside was incredible.

her portraits make me feel so many things.

her portraits made me want to learn how to take photos,

the first time i ever saw them. and they still do.

then:

the first wintery-feeling walk across central park.

dinner at tom's restaurant of seinfeld fame,

where my french toast was that shade of neon yellow-green i associate with

glow-sticks often acquired at bar mitzvahs

and the bacon came from the fry-o-later.

then:

changeling.

great period piece, but was i the only person

who was bothered by the police chief's semi-irish accent

making its first appearance a third of the way into the film?

i love angie's red lipstick and wish i could wear that every day.

angsty movie, though.

now:

to bed.

oh Mary this minute....

2008-11-05T00:23:00.005-05:00

so i was on the phone with my mom discussing plans for tomorrow and watching the live jon stewart-stephen colbert show with karen when it happened

and you could immediately hear the cheering through the windows... screaming and crying and howling at the moon.

the world just erupted...

so we grabbed the pugs and went for a walk down to 145th street.

i do not have words for the experience. every car that drove past was honking, with folks dangling out windows, laughing. people were singing, crying, dancing in the streets. children shouting O-BAMA! and YES WE CAN. even the cops were honking! over and over again, neighbors shouting his name and the names of his wife and children. and the numbers- the percentage points.

i can't wipe the grin from my cheeks. my heart is bursting.

2008-11-04T11:56:00.002-05:00

halloween, me:

cowboy boots, sparkles, red coat, blue barack t, white scarf. favorite little skirt. doing festivities with karen & co. at the halloween parade in the village.

i was: hope.

yeah, i got that face from a bunch of the people at the parade too. i don't care. it is the only thing i can think of right now.

i threw glitter in the air and danced and laughed and it was splendid fun.

and now, tuesday:

full of spingles and hope and totally nervous.

i voted at 7:30 this morning with my dad

before jumping on the good old lirr to get home.

i feel like i could jump out of my skin.

like it's opening night.

i am a walking prayer.

belly-laugh of the day

2008-10-30T18:35:00.004-04:00

supplied by Pants.

undoing my cranky

2008-10-28T14:56:00.003-04:00

because i am a stuffy, drippy, headachey, feverish mess,

today's entry necessarily takes the form of a list of things that make me happy.

hats.

hope.

pacific organic buttery corn soup.

really good weezer cover bands.

writing in my k-made mosaic journal.

lesbians on tv. all of them. even the semi-awful ones.

beat-up old cowboy boots.

newish slouchy scruffy kick-ass orphan boots.

wandering my neighborhood.

polka dot umbrellas.

having time and excuse enough to read through friends' blogs.

michelle obama's lady-ness.

how my cat charles knows when i'm sick and keeps extra close.

looking through favorite photos (it never frickin' gets old).

being at Bumble & bumble and wearing that funny gown.

blake lively's voice.

ellen degeneres and barack obama, dancing together.

working out so hard that my muscles are wet spaghetti for days.

rainy days when i can be curled inside with a cup of tea.

that tonight is a new episode of House.

allouette on wheat toast.

empress of the world by sara ryan.

my new red corduroy coat from boden.

that stupid taylor swift song about romeo and juliet.

learning new things to love about old friends.

peonies.

tiffany box blue.

feeling good in my clothes again.

really well-made children's books.

wearing my boojiboo apron when cooking for my friends and family.

the fact that ellen just said, re: her halloween costume,

"i'm not gonna be sarah palin.

i ordered the bikini and the shotgun,

but then i changed my mind."

images from paradise

2008-10-14T17:47:00.006-04:00

just throwing it out there

2008-10-14T14:43:00.004-04:00

i hate hate HATE

the use of the word "totes" in place of "totally".

i think it is the ultimate in twit lingo.

i understand abbreviations in writing.

but honestly, are we so lazy we can't actually say the mostly-meaningless word?

i mean, really, "totally" is one of those words that is mostly filler anyway.

ugh.

new york is, like, scraping at my skin or something.

i need to go out and fall in love with my city again.

self portrait sunday

2008-10-05T05:39:00.005-04:00

oh, this poor neglected blog.

if it were a child, it would be would underweight,

with scabby knees and a runny nose.

so this week i have felt like my own ridiculous little vanity project. those who know me in a day to day way know i'm most comfy when messy- wearing a twirly skirt and no make-up. i'm not really one to be too into my own appearance. but in the last few years, my body's been through a lot. 16 surgeries and so much time with so little movement meant i gained a LOT of weight. and so, slowly, as i get healthier, i reclaim my own body one bit at a time. i build myself the way i want to be.

i'm leaving to go to barbados tomorrow. vacations mean photos, and barbados means beach. so i've been dreaming of real food and ingesting mostly rabbit food (plus nuts for protein and smoothies cause they're good!). i doubled up on my gym sessions with the incredible mr. mike. i got my toenails painted. i may even shave my legs! (don't worry, jare & kare. i 'm just kidding. of course i will shave my legs. can you imagine if i was that kind of lesbian? how incongruous!)

and, inspired by my dear friend kristi, i ended up getting an impromptu haircut at Bumble & bumble last friday. so very much my new favorite place. i don't care that it's their job to be that flatter-ish and nice to you- i buy their story.

i like wearing that cute little robe-uniform and being passed from one gentle set of hands to the next. my stylist was this sweet, lovely young girl named diana- she had great flavor and she was very understanding of my aversion to fussing and mussing with my 'do. plus, she likes scrapbooking!

yeah, i'm her new best customer.

so, it's 5:59am. i'm supposed to be at the gym in 6 hours. i gotta go pack and unpack my suitcase some more.

if i were a dog...

2008-09-23T15:49:00.003-04:00

i think this would be my idea of paradise.

my mom and i

found a little spot

in a park near her house

where a lake meets the woods

and pups of all sorts congregate

with their folks.

the puppy-joy is palpable.

2008-09-08T00:29:00.003-04:00

today wasn't supposed to be any kind of special day. i had a party to go to last night, and i have work super early on monday, so i didn't plan anything today. and by a series of serendipitous occurrences, it ended up being a pretty wonderful day.

woke up to kristi putting on the movie "save the last dance" at like 9 am... finished watching it after she left to go to ikea with the portrait bug girls. freaking cheesehead that i am, i got totally inspired and promised myself i'd go to wednesday night funk class at the gym this week. then, jeffrey called and then karen called and before i knew it, we were having brunch at a cute little place in our neighborhood, butterfly blue. (my belgian waffle was good but the bacon had a weird flavor.)

next, we headed home for a quick game of scrabble (jeffrey whipped us soudly) before karen and i went downtown to try and find her bedsheets. i unexpectedly found these funny little cabinet-extender shelves that i'd been looking for forever, which was a total freaking bonus. we spent a while wandering the aisles of gracious home , where karen found superfly shams on a fabulous sale, and i fell in love with this new york-themed set of dishware from fish's eddy.

and then everyone just sort of converged on my apartment, which is my most favorite thing. i threw together some homemade pizzas and sauteed some veggies, and jared brought this amazing chocolate ganache torte he made. kristi poured the wine and karen helped me set the table (with my new blue table-runner and a candlestick my grandpa made me).

and then we just sat around and laughed for, like, hours. my freaking stomach hurts from all the laughter. we introduced kristi to boggle (not her new fave) and i played my favorite song (i'm yours by jason mraz) like 40 times. we started with a nice red wine my dad sent over, but quickly digressed to blueberry-pomegranate wine coolers (laugh all you like, they were freaking delicious). karen and i called one another every hideous name we could think of as the boggle game got down to the wire. we are not the least competitive girls. but jared ended up winning. we were all bravado, he kicked our collective ass.

i feel full.

grateful.

thankful.

i love my friends.

les lunettes nouvelles

2008-09-06T01:10:00.003-04:00

homesnips

2008-09-04T01:23:00.006-04:00

tonight i am feeling grateful. for dear and perceptive and generous friends (especially kristi and jeffrey),

and for my home, which i have created and which nourishes me.

if there is one thing my mother has taught me in this world, it is how to create a home. how to obey my own instincts, surrounding myself with things i love and ending up with a home full of quirky, messy, chaotic beauty.

i look around my home, and i see curtains my mother made for me, and the watercooler my dad carried up here and the huge, funny fish sculpture/vase my grandma gave me. i see my books, collected over my whole lifetime, and loved. utterly loved. i love being in my home.

and i know there are those who preach against attachment to material things. and maybe it's just that i'm not very enlightened.

but i love my things.

my stamps.

my boxes of projects.

my file cabinet full of poems i love.

gifts from friends. games we play.

my framed photos,

my mom's old clothes,

the statue of Mary

my grandmother gave me

when i was small.

these things remind me

of who i am,

who i've been,

who those i love

believe me

to be.

who i choose to become.

i so called that shit

2008-09-02T02:30:00.006-04:00

... i am totally addicted to the gym. it's so exhilarating. i leave and i'm on cloud nine. partially cause of the endorphins and partially cause i feel so damn virtuous.

i skipped today cause i ran into a time crunch and i've been feeling guilty all day. i'm going first thing tomorrow morning. then i'm going to the island. officially, it's to help my mom paint and set up the new playroom at her house for my little cousins. but also i wanna take the dogs to the dog park again. we found this cool one by my mom's house that has a whole pond and the dogs LOVED it. they got so wiggly and happy and jumpy, it was the most wonderful thing.

so, check out my new glasses. i could have modeled them for you, but then you'd miss out on this shot of my little cousin thomas. and i don't know about you but every time i look at that photo i giggle. is he serious?

personal refurbishing

2008-08-25T10:09:00.004-04:00

it's monday morning. summer is almost over. the school year is approaching, and for me i'm stil not quite used to that not affecting or shaping my days.

i have to leave in a little while for my first session with my personal trainer, mike. i spent a large portion of yesterday rearranging the furniture in my bedroom. and unpacking. and a little bit of writing. i checked my voicemail messages for the first time in week, though i did not actually return any phone calls.

i feel like there are so many steps to take to make my life manageable again. and i'm trying to be upbeat optimistic chick but the greys are creeping in.

by all accounts i should be taking a class this september- apparently, not having taken Statistics as an undergrad is an issue when you're considering a graduate degree in the mental health field. so before i can apply to the master's progam i want to do, i've got to take friggin statistics. those who know me know there's a reason i've not taken a math class since high school. but so what, right? i can survive this life, i can do anything. i can take a bit of math class. no prob. what i can't seem to do is the running around and paperwork between like 6 different offices and 9 mildly belligerent secretaries that's required to get oneself into a required undergrad course as a non-matriculated student. ugh. i can barely type the sentence. so i don't go. or i go and deal in fits and spruts and nothing ever gets actually done.

do you know i've gain 70 pounds in the last 3 years? that's, like, an 11 year old. i'm walking around with an extra person dangling off my body. now, granted, much of the weight was a direct result of moving from the city to long island (where exercise is an activity you pay for as opposed to just how we live our lives) and then getting hit by a car and spending nearly two years at the most ridiculously low activity level because of my injuries. i have reached my pinnacle of weak and flabby. my brothers used to brag that i was freakishly strong. and i can still push through almost any pain, that strength has not gone away (hmm...... as i get older i feel less compelled to actually to do, to push through physical pain. though i remember it as a trait my gymnastics and cheerleading coaches loved in me). anyway, i'm so done with the tired broken down body routine. so i'm getting whipped in to shape. we'll see how that goes. i'm curious about my own reaction to the process. i'm kind of hoping my obsessive side will take over and i'll be at the gym 24/7. for a girl who deals with as many addiction issues as i do, it's kind of exciting when i adopt one that's not bad for me.

a fortnight's holiday up north

2008-08-24T12:30:00.005-04:00

tee hee... nearly all my british-isms in one title.

i've always summered on lake winnepesaukee in new hampshire, but this year i tried a week on a different lake, and i was absolutely charmed. it turns out there are oher nice lakes, besides my own. who knew?!

lake sunapee rocked my block.

our house was absolutely adorable. all knotty pine and windows with a big fireplace and, above it, a light-up landscape painting inn exceedingly opulent frame. kitsch delish.

the dock out in the backyard, however, was by far my favorite location. i took to starting my days out there at 6 am, bundled into a hoodie over my bathing suit. i'd cuddle over a cup of tea and a book while the mist rolled in over the lake. and by nine or so, the sun would be hot and high and i'd be baking in its glow with whatever various aunts and sisters and sisters' boyfriends would wander down to the

dock. watching the young fellas jump off the dock still bleary-eyed from sleep was a perfectly classic moment. we felt like a painting.

we had wild blueberries growing in our backyard. i ate a perfect red bowl of them with cream.

this lake fed a different part of me.

thinkin' some thinks

2008-08-22T22:38:00.004-04:00

been playin at YHP all day with my mom and kristi.

learning to twitter. or tweet. or whatever the hell kristi calls it.
i am ambivalent so far but that has not stopped me from periodically making public my current whereabouts.

we live in a weird age. even blogging is weird. fun, compelling, but weird.

just got back from two weeks' holiday in new hampshire (one week each with two sides of my three-sided family- one two seperate lakes!) and with my quickly-fading tan, my belly still kinda full from all the lobster, and a fist full of new photos, i have been scrapping my little heart out.

you know, i struggle so much with taking photos. it's weird- it's something that has always been such a simple pleasure for me, such a natural progression from participating in an event or seeing a sight to recording it or capturing it. but spending lots of time with folks who are doing picturesque things- or silly things in picturesque locations- i find myself wondering, second-guessing myself. when all my cousins run around and play football, i don't play. i'm the one on the sidelines taking pictures. and yes, it's true that i could not play football anyway 'cause of my surgeries and stuff, but it's small metaphor, really. i just know myself as a person of excess, and while i relish the blessing of art as a method of dealing with the world, sometimes i catch myself wanting to leave the world behind in favor of art.

just like RuPaul

2008-07-30T00:47:00.002-04:00

... i'm on the Catwalk!

i know i'm a total nerd, but i'm utterly freaking stoked.

i loved making that layout, i was totally inspired by nisa fiin

and her layout "me'isms"

and i am absolutely reveling in the validation of my peers.

getting comments on your work is so wonderful.

it so feeds that need to be seen, i think.

when we scrap, we say who we are- who we mean to be.

and when someone looks at our pages- really, really looks- they see us for real.

and that feels a little magical.

gee whiz, i love scrappin'.

flow

2008-07-25T19:24:00.004-04:00

so now that my apartment is somewhat in order- at least enough so that i can clear a table- i have finally had some time and space to really, truly, for more than 10 minutes scrap. holy bananas, i forgot how much i love to do this exact form of art-making. i've missed it without even realizing how much i did. and now that i'm back, i'm friggin unstoppable. i've been psyched as a newbie... i wake up in the morning thinking about colors, layered. i've been up past 4 am the last 4 nights in a row. my fingernails are caked with ink and my hair hasn't been washed in 2 days.

and i'm just reveling in playing.

and of course, the first few things i made were kinda iffy. falling back into my old ruts. elements of cool, without actually hitting the target i was shooting for. it was almost like i had to make some crap before i could get to the good stuff. the experience kind of reminded me of when my writing teachers used to make us write for 10 mins in the beginning of class, then pull the one or two useable sentences from the gobbledygook we had to spew and throw away the rest.

so now i've had a few days back at the table under my belt. i've sought some inspo, played around with some mags adn some poems and some SiS. and i feel me coming back. i'm starting to like what i'm making. this first layout was seriously inspired by Me-isms by nisa fiin- those are some of my most compulsively uttered phrases, and i love the idea of capturing them. also, nisa's traced-squares idea was really fun as a format.

so, thanks for looking, folks. i'm gonna go do some more making of stuff. but, hey, if you're finding anything out there particularly inspiring these days, especially visually, will you link me up over here? i'm feeling seek-ish. thanks! love.

been playin'

2008-07-24T17:57:00.002-04:00

things i love about living here, part 1

2008-07-16T04:35:00.003-04:00

i love that this is 14 steps outside my building. that this is where we walk the dog at night. that a walk on the water is always an option...........

i love that i have plenty of space to get messy and make art and that the kitties love it as much as i do. tee hee. check out chaz chillin on a stack of cardstock. he loves to get in on the art-table action. if i make him get off while i'm working, he feels left out and gets mad and beats up the rug..................

and then there's this, and possibly this most of all- i love that i have a home to decorate, nest in, make my own. i love making little vignettes on shelves and dressers. i love that my new bed is going to be delivered between 3 and 5 tomorrow. i love layering my tastes in this space....................

i love my home.

guess who's got the internet?

2008-07-15T23:34:00.003-04:00

it's me, it's me. new computer too. my first mac. her name is Mac. she's very sleek.

i'm just back from a week working in the hamptons with my kidlets... that's where the photos are from. i tell ya, if you gotta work, westhampton is a nice place to do it. even folding laundry feels more special when you do it while overlooking the ocean.

so i am absolutely brimming with wonderful ways i can now participate in the world of internet creativity, scrappage, story-telling and design. it's been more than four months since i've had regular internet access. gmail has a minor heart attack every time i try to open my email, that's how bad my inbox is. so i'm catching up slowly.

a request:

if you make a blog or a website, leave me a comment and give me your address... or even if you just have a favorite blog or two that you'd like to pass on.... i'm craving new bits of inspiration in scrappage, writing, design and life. i've been so out of the loop the last few months, i'm really interested to see what's been catching folks' attention these days. thank you in advance for the sharing of your inspo!

about those photos....

2008-05-15T22:07:00.003-04:00

i took them, i did. but they're on the computer at home- my new home- my cute lil harlem pad- and the computer at home has not yet been introduced to the internet, and so there is no way to get my photos into this post. but, upon having a random opp to access this crazy internet world i figured i had to blog a teensy bit, just to see if i remembered how to do this.

so, recent tidbits:

1. i have been collecting funny knobs from anthropologie and sticking them all over my apartment. they make me so happy!

2. i made the best steak i've ever made the other night.... and to think, i bought the marinade cause i liked the name! it's called Mild Mannered Sauce.

3. now that spring is in full swing, lil and charles have been a riot as they stalk the pigeons who've adopted our fire escape. running from window to window.... taking down curtains and plants but keeping an eye on them damn pigeons!

4. i am having scrappage withdrawal.... i have not fully mastered the organizational aspects of my new bedroom (thought the more public living room/kitchen is operating pretty decently) and so my art region looks like paper threw up.

5. this weekend i'm renting some dogs. hee hee. my friend karen is going on a mini-vacay and so i get her two splendid pugs for the weekend. suki & tuesday. we're gonna turn harlem on its ear!

i moved!

2008-02-25T10:50:00.002-05:00

clearly i do not have internet yet.
i also haven't switched the electricity to my name so i'm not sure why the lights are still on, but that's another story...

i love love love my new home. it's just the right size for me and all my crud. i have five windows and a new couch and i'm two buildings off riverside drive, which means that riverside park is like my backyard! living near the water is so good for my soul (even if kristi moans that it's 15 degrees colder than walking on broadway).

oh, and for the first time in like 5 years, i have tv. none of that fancy dvr stuff, or cable. but in manhattan, when you plug your tv in, you automatically get tnt, so i have been getting my law & order fixes.

photos are forthcoming......

guess who's blogging when she should be packing...

2008-01-29T16:13:00.000-05:00

i was DEFINITELY supposed to spend today packing. instead i stayed up til 4am last night reading a terribly trashy mystery novel, then slept til kristi called at noon to say she was stopping by on her way home from jerz to motivate my ass. instead, i un-motivated her and we laid around my room looking at all that needed packing and talking shit.

then we got kinda motivated and began the Great Bedstead Search, meeting my mom at St. Vincent dePaul. see, i have this vision for my new bedroom- an old wire-y sort of headboard that i can sand down and paint tiffany box blue, with pure white linens (with lots of good textures) and occasional bits of red for fun. so we're searching every thrift shop on long island for this damn headboard. it's out there. and it's not $158.

so now k's on her way to work and i'm at YHP with my mom, making ATCs and putting new idea pages in my home book...... here's my favorite ATC i've ever made. the quote is from rufus wainwright (in an interview in an old issue of Paper) but if i was more clever it could have come from me. i'm adopting it.

maybe i'll pack tonight.

gratitude girl

2008-01-25T22:26:00.000-05:00

so if you saw my last post, you noticed that in my book about my stay with my dear friends robin & ralph, i used one of those 7gypsies "wish list" cards to create a list of wishes for my new home, the one i was searching for during my stay at hummel hall.

well, yesterday i signed the lease on a faaaaaabulous apartment in harlem that fulfills every wish on that list, with one exception- i wanted a backyard, and yet this apartment comes with a roof deck, and it's less than half a block off of riverside park.

can you imagine?

my little tiny guru/therapist cynthia always used to stress the importance of articulating your desires to the universe and listening to your inner voice as it guides you. and every step of this journey, her assertions have been confirmed. i feel so blessed and so connected. it's weird.... definitely a new feeling for me.

this home is everything i could have dreamed- spacious, with lovely wood floors and huge, old-fashioned windows, a big bathtub and a kitchen big enough for good cooking. it's less than a block from my best friend's apartment, twenty blocks from the school i want to attend, and there's a fresh fruit market on my way home from the subway. i am boggled by the gift of this home.

i move next friday, and then i will have a home and the internet and i will be able to post more regularly all the crazy creative things i've been making. but for now, here are some of the ATCs i've been making... inspired by miss kristina who came to play with me at the store last friday and got me absolutely addicted to these tiny little bits of lovin'.

any one want to swap some?

hummel hall

2008-01-11T21:53:00.000-05:00

pugalicious

2008-01-11T21:21:00.000-05:00

my days are full of pugs.

on that very beautiful day this week, after a wonderful Sweet Mama's breakfast (good french toast can heal so many ills), karen & i took her pugs sukey and tuesday to the dog park, where tuesday got molested by a big dog and got so stressed out she puked bright yellow gunk. then, we took the pugsters on a wander through the woods to find a lake in the middle of blydenburgh park, and promptly got lost. we found our way back eventually.

then, last night, i had dinner with my dear old friend erin, who i used to live with after college. and after the most incredible foccaccia i have ever eaten (red bamboo rocks my block- best veggie cuisine in new york!), we went back to her apartment for a sleepover and i got to meet her cute cute pug named lola. me and miss lo bonded quite immediately, and commenced to play many many rounds of tug-o-war (i won.)

while lil and chaz remain the queen adn king of my heart, respectively, i've gotta say, the pugs get my dog-vote these days.

fancy pants new digs

2007-12-20T21:21:00.000-05:00

oh, the joys of a cozy home.

robin and ralph left a bouquet of flowers on the desk in my new room, to welcome me.

they filled their kitchen with green apples and pineapple.

there was a christmas stocking with my name on it.

and then my new room was kristi-fied. it's rather a smashing little nook now!

and then, as though this wasn't wonderful enough, robin and i spent yesterday afternoon with jason of guerlain in bergdorf's, getting made beautiful, drinking champagne and playing with lip-stuff.

blessed girl

2007-12-14T21:26:00.000-05:00

it's been a wild time of big turmoil in my life. i have been dealing with some large emotional issues and the re-shaping of some important relationships and also the fun of home-hunting in harlem in december. a wet, slushy, cold, nor'easter flavored december. i keep telling myself the universe is at work and so i must trust. i've been reading the artist's way by julia cameron, given to me by my dear friend robin, and it speaks to me in this gut-deep way.

actually, a lot of books that do that have fallen into my lap lately- the alchemist by paulo coehlo, the wouldbegoods by e.nesbit, eat pray love by elizabeth gilbert.... it's weird, how that happens.

synchronicity.

you need something so badly and it appears in your life, almost by magic.

i have been needing change, a big change, in the outside of my life- to reflect the internal spring-cleaning i've had going on for the last few months, and i was asking for it, praying for it, but not entirely sure how to create it or maybe just not feeling strong enough to create it and so the Universe saw fit to kick me in the ass and create it for me.

and then throw the necessary reading material in my lap.

and then, when i was feeling dark and alone and overwhelmed by all the brewing change, and scared that my newfound strength might not be strong enough, the Universe reminded me of the angels i already have in my life- friends who remind me by their very steadfastness, silliness, and willingness to give of themselves and their talents.

there's my friend jared and his magically-coinciding house-hunt that might well land me in my favorite apartment in all of manhattan, and my dear robin and her wonderful husband ralph who have opened their home to me and my kitties while we finish out our house-hunt, and filled the fridge with my favorite green apples and hung me a christmas stocking (with my name on it!). there's cynthia and her warmth and compassion and her faith in me. there's mary, telling me to breathe whenever i forget. and then there's kristian, who i haven't seen in forever but who pops up with his muscles whenever i have to move (and with his righteous anger for me which totally gives me the warm fuzzies). and then, there's kristi. kristi and her kick-ass purging and packing skills. kristi who i can work with for like 3 hours without either of us ever realizing we never put on music cause we were too busy talking and laughing. kristi who gets what it's like to struggle against the craziness of your own mind, and also wholly supports me steps to become as healthy as i can. kristi who didn't think i was insane when i said i would get rid of all my old pairs of chucks that stink, but only after we took them outside and photographed them in the grass.

so, tonight, i'm taking a break from the packing and moving. i'm scrapping some fun, random shit that has nothing to do with anything, and i'm taking a deep breath and just saying thanks.

scrapbook gold

2007-12-12T21:26:00.000-05:00

that's what my friend kristi called these photos, which my mom recently unearthed....

it's a photo shoot done by my mom's old friend patti, roughly three days after i came home from the hospital......

maybe it's the narcissist in me, but i just can't get enough of looking at my little tiny self. those big moon eyes. that little buddha face. her tiny self became me.

freaking boggling.

fire hooping, anyone?

2007-11-16T00:03:00.000-05:00

my friend tae is an expert hula-hooper.

to celebrate and honor this talent, his girlfriend meff

bought him a fire-hoop for his birthday.

a fire hoop is a hula-hoop to which several flaming flames are attached.

(insert flaming queer joke here)

i never knew such a thing existed!

this is why i love meff and tae.

well, it's not the only reason-

these fabulous and creative friends are some of my most favorite folks in all the land, for many many reasons-

but this is kind of exemplary of their spirit.

only at their charming, tea-filled home in brooklyn would i ever find myself photographing a fire-hooping exhibition at 4am.

god, i can't wait to move back to the city and be closer to these folks.

this bloody island's looking pretty freaking boring next to this.

rAiny daY pLayTime

2007-11-06T11:09:00.000-05:00

sometimes you just need to do weird little things to make your brain relax.....

check out my new favorite thing. someone on scrap in style just pointed it out to me and i got sucked in for like 45 minutes.

and where do you think i'm going when i'm done with this post?

taking photos of me taking photos

2007-11-03T00:39:00.000-04:00

so i have been slacking on my photo-taking lately. normally i am a camera-always-in-my-bag kinda girl, but lately i just haven't been feelin' it.

or something.

but the other day i'm standing outside the building where i go to therapy and i'm waiting for my ride and it's late afternoon and the light is really nice and i start playing around with my camera and these little plants in the medians of the parking lot and then as i walk toward the building i notice (for the first time in like 6 months) that its windows are mirrored.

so i start shooting.

i've always meant to get a decent shot of my with my camera- that's just a scrapbook page waiting to happen.

and now i have one! it's kinda pale cause of the golden hue of the mirrored windows but i don't care.

it was a happy moment for me, getting back in touch with my camera love, and these days i'm learning to take them where i can get them.

so, here's to happy moments of creativity. cheers!

halloween parties rock my block

2007-10-28T01:21:00.000-04:00

the stripey tights were high on my list of halloween priorities....

2nd on the list was margarita(s).... which, thankfully, were flowing like rivers.....

and then there was the beauty of being at a party with like 5 other scrappers.... oh, the repsect for photo-shoot moments! and stuff-shots! i loved it. i love halloween. and i love wearing my chucks for halloween.

i love getting the giggles so hard your belly hurts.....

and i love finding amazing dip and chips at the perfect moment (12 midnight) when all you need is salty goodness.....

did i mention i love halloween?

because i'm kind of a nobody

2007-10-21T15:48:00.000-04:00

i can say this: CK is crap. their shoddy manner of dealing with this little mistake- and their fear of the power of jealous, obsessed scrapbeasts- has turned into a huge, ridiculous fiasco.

because i am so enraged that i can't think straight so much, i'm going to borrow the eloquent words of one SiSter, hotpinkhibiscus, cause this kinda sums it up:

I think the thing that is sad is Kristina threw her hand up a long time ago and said 'yes, I did that, by mistake, so please sort it' to CK and they just ignored it. So now, KC has been pulled apart over something that she shouldn't have done but didn't mean malice by - ending in quite an ignominious situation. I hope the other people come out and say 'yes, I didn't take that photo' and be as gracious as KC.

word.

own up, folks (you know who you are). be as real as miss kristi.

and speaking of the lovely KC, i got her kit for my birthday! wahoo for true. and then my lovely friend evelyn had a birthday-scrap-party on saturday (10am-2am.... brilliant!) and everyone at the crop was so jealous of my fab new papers from miss K's kit. i am just so proud of this girl.

she's been a favorite of mine since the day she wandered into my family's store two years ago, in a full blown anxiety attack, looking for a particular shade of bazzill that she needed RIGHT NOW and we had it and she nearly wept in relief and then we looked at each other and realized we were both childless 26 year olds who were pierced and tattooed and smart and scrapster-lovin'- so, wahoo! new friend!

it gave me such a giggle to get a whole pile of papers with her name on the bottom. i mean, i know she's kinda famous and all, i'm used to that. but getting her papers in the mail- it was such a proud little moment for me. and getting to play with her kit on the same day that all this bullshit came down from the CK powers that be- it was my best, healthiest method of feeling a big FUCK YOU at all those scrapbeasts who have been so intent on hurting kristi anyway they can. kind of like the way that most gay bashers are just queers locked inside their own self-hating homophobia, these women are so freaking jealous (of the freedom with which kristi makes her art and lives her life, and inspires others to do the same) that they are obsessed with name-calling and sabotage and all kinds of middle-school-style subterfuge.

anyway, i used some of the rubs from k's kit on a layout about my new favorite website, Scrap in Style. and some of her other goodies on an as-yet-unfinished layout about the ridiculous amount of bowling that my cousins and i do every summer in new hampshire (it's the only thing open past 10pm). and i had fun doing it.

two and a half months later...

2007-10-19T00:36:00.000-04:00

wow. here i go. blogging. i wish i had a really good excuse for falling out of the habit for so long, but it's really more like 50 thousand little excuses.... my mouse broke and i couldn't go on the comp, my mom was sick, i had a small hissy fit and stopped being generally ocmmunicative for a bit... but here i go again. it's funny, i was never sure if anyone ever actually read this thing, but since i've stopped blogging, all kinds of folks who shop at my family's scrap store, YHP, where i hang out a lot, have been coming in and asking me when i'm gonna post a new post and put some new stuff up and it's kind of funny.

so, hmm....

recent moments:

i decided to be a purple-and-black striped witch for halloween, and i found the perfect hat- for $1.

i went apple picking with my friend karen and it was blazing hot and we sweated like piglets but the apples were so very delicious.

my friend robin gave me one of her old roll-y scrap bag thingies and also a huge tim holtz junk bag and i spent a large portion of last week collecting and organizing items to put in these fancy new bags which make me feel super offical when i go to the store to crop. the whole process has been rather fun.

i pierced my nose and decided that thisis my favorite piercing of all the piercings i have ever had. and there have been alot.

i turned 28 and spent the night cropping with some friends and i got back my lost mojo, or at least some of it. i had been having a crappy-scrappy time in recent days, but now i'm playing up a storm.

my cousin laura's guinea pig almost died of heart disease but after her boyfriend hung her blessed-by-the-pope medal and a padre pio over the cage of little Vinny the Guinea, he had a miraculous recovery.

there's a cat in my suitcase

2007-08-03T00:00:00.000-04:00

because he's staging a protest. he knows i'm leaving saturday to spend a week in new hampshire with my family and he's going to have to stay here with his sister and a cat-sitter who comes in once a day for feeding and the necessaries but will not have time to play fetch with him. he knows it's coming, and he's pissed. i'm kinda scared he's gonna pee in there tonight, all over my nice clean vaction clothes.

so i've been catching up on the blog-world. or, my friend kristi's, which kind of connects me to the rest of the world of blogs. and i've been playing around on SiStv which is my new favorite place. i'm learning the ropes there slowly, putting up some new layouts and making friends and just having fun with this new land of scrappage.

al;jdfisbfguiasrgf

2007-07-24T00:30:00.000-04:00

dental work sucks. especially two unexpected root canals. root canals suck. tylenol with codeine, however, is not so bad.

happiness is

2007-07-05T23:23:00.000-04:00

holy bananas, i have been having so much fun with this amazing kit my friend kristi made. i have been spending nights with her, cutting fabric and stuffing boxes & generally taking part in the kit madness, so it was so freaking fun to finally sit down and play with the contents of my very own kit package. i got the green book, and added lots of my own goodies, and just had so much fun playing. i'm not quite done, but i can't resist- i wanna share what i've got so far. here it is....

little wonders

2007-06-23T23:59:00.000-04:00

could i be the most inconsistent blogger ever? sorry, kids. i get distracted by real life and forget that the internet exists.

anyway, i've been busy designing my first few classes at Your Happy Place... helping my friend kristi put together her kits... taking photos of my little brother on his way to the prom.... baking goodies for the big graduation party.... and of course, scrapping. making thank-you cards for graduates to give out, layouts for display at Your Happy Place, and the best kind: stuff that just comes cause the right piece of paper struck my eye or i heard the perfect most gut-hitting song lyric... i love that kind of playing. when the flow flows and you feel like you could go forever.

today, kristi and i went on a crazy adventure to this amazing nature preserve. of course we got lost like 42 times on the way there, making a twnety minute trip into a 2 hour one, but sitting on the beach, taking photos and eating granola bars & cheese with miss chloenstein was so worth all the travel trouble. i just laid in the sand feeling the sun on my face and breathing deep and i felt like i was coming alive.

now i'm home and i'm all inspired and i should definitely be getting a good night's sleep but this one song keeps popping into my head and i made some layouts of it and here they are.

a whole new {arm}

2007-05-21T23:05:00.000-04:00

so all week i've been rocking out to a new mix cd from my friend laura and scrapping my little heart out, since my first surgery. and holy bananas- talk about prolific (here are a few of my recent pages). i think i'm catching up from all these months of non-scrappage. this new machine is amazing in its effects, i love it. i can scrap as much as i want and if i hurt, i just turn up the stimulation to the nerves in my arm (or the Zap, as my brothers have been calling it) and i feel better. there's always some sort of stimulation to the nerves and somehow it re-sets their path and makes them not hurt me anymore. it's like magic!

and tomorrow is the 2nd surgery, the one that will attach the wires from my spinal cord to the new electrical generator. the new one will be inside my abdomen, so i won't have to wear this dumb itchy waist-pack. and it will be permanent. or at least 5 years permanent. and it will be my pain-management system and i will be able to do nearly anything, and i plan to do EVERYTHING. i canNOT wait to get back to normal life. tomorrow's surgrey will have a pretty uncomfortable recovery- i'll be growing lots of scar tissue, which takes a few weeks, but once it's over, this whole ordeal will be, in essence, over.

and to think that last september i was talking about being out for a week or two. Ha! Nine months later...

anyway, it will be so good to put all this behind me and continue on with the rest of my life.

i'm sniffing paper, i'm so happy!

2007-05-17T20:41:00.000-04:00

so i've had the first of my surgeries and now it's a few days later. i can't sit down cause the incisions in my back hurt too much, but standing works great so i'm scrapping up a storm! my arm doesn't hurt anymore, it buzzes instead, with this faint electrical current that's sort of like the moments before you get pins & needles. strange, but at least it's not excruciating pain. wahoo for successful surgery!

so my instructions for the week are to do as much as i like, without bending or heavy lifting or twisting my upper body fast. next week is the finaly surgery to fully implant the pain-control machine in my back, and i'll be out for another week or so, they say. so today, i'm dancing withthe joy of a girl out of pain for the first time in months and i'm scrapping like a maniac.

it's perfect, cause i've got a ton of new photos. italy ones, and family shots and just random prints i've been meaning to scrap.

i've gotten some awesome shots of the kids i used to babysit- we had a visit last week- i miss them so much, it was soo cool to see how big they'd gotten. and they are always clamoring to be in front of my camera. they hammed it up for me at central park for a few hours, jumping out of trees and climbing "mountains" and smiling on the hillsides, but i think my favorite shots of the afternoon are these unposed ones of emily and julia dancing on top of a table in the livingroom, by the window overlooking the park. the sun through the window menalso there are italy shots and family shots and just everything inspires me these days cause i've been Non-Creating Girl for so long and OH! it's so good to be back with my tools in my hands and a mess on my table.

italy's lovely

2007-05-01T01:21:00.000-04:00

just back from the most lovely vacation ever. traveled with my mom, dad, grandma, great-aunt jo, uncle pete, aunt anna, and cousins laura, brian & kelly to italy for 2 weeks. spent a week living in an apartment in rome, then flew to sicily and spent five days in the little seaside village where my grandmother grew up. tons of religious art and gorgeous light and laughing with cousins and learning the language and drinking with the locals and shopping and eating and i took so many photographs. i met a hundred italian cousins and ate enough pasta to kill a horse. i swam in the mediterranean. it was brilliant and amazing. i'm still kinda stuck on italy time.

a month or more....

2007-04-08T22:34:00.000-04:00

it's been a long time, kids. i apologize for the long, outta-nowhere absence. 'twas not a pre-thought thing, things just started happening and then they didn't stop happening and now i'm catching you up. or if not offering all kinds of details, at least bringing you in on today's page.

so i'm leaving on saturday for two weeks' holiday in italy. i'm going to visit my cousins in rome and the little seaside village in sicily my grandmother emigrated from when she was ten. i'm going to go to the town my grandfather's family came from, montevago, where we may still have some surviving cousins (the rome cousins suggested we just walk to the tavern in the town's center and ask for the azzaras). i'm traveling with my parents, my grandmother, my aunt jo, my aunt annamaria, my uncle peter, and my cousins laura, brian, and kelly. i am going to dip my toes in the mediterranean, and dance in the ruins at pompei, and shop in milan.

when i get back, in early may, i will have two surgeries to implant an electrical stimulation device into my torso, attached to my spinal cord. once the device is in and final, i will be bionic. seriously. i will set off metal detectors and everything! and the best best part is that i will be pain-free! i will have a little remote control that i will use to control the electrical impulses which will control the nerves in my arm. and i will have to charge my battery once a week. no shit.

it's a time of large changes in life.

been playin'

2007-02-18T12:46:00.000-05:00

totally inspired lately....

on saturday i

went to a crop in Jerz with my friend Laura and her lovely friends Jen and Lisa. it was totally fun. there were so many different kinds of scrappers there- inky ones & plain ones & chronological ones & wild ones & mom ones & young ones & ones who mat and ones who paint & sand. i loved it!
i just really love to scrap.

i'm still kinda high from it

2007-02-18T02:25:00.000-05:00

spent friday night at southpaw, a brooklyn bar where the walls are covered in old record album covers. i was there to see melissa ferrick play. anyone who doesn't know who she is should seriously go find her. as an out dyke, she doesn't get a ton of mainstream press, but she's gotten lots of "acclaim" and seriously, here's my acclaim: her talent is mind-blowing, her enthusiasm is adorable and her message is one that is good for the soul. and not in a cheesy way, i mean, this girl effing ROCKS. but she's about peace and love in an active sort of way. she's about making choices and living consciously and really good freaking music. she's also a riot and puts ona fantastic show. i actually didn't get as many still shots of her as i wanted because she kept saying and doing funny things i wanted to video instead and it ate up all the battery. oh she is so amazing. seriously. her shows are cathartic and exhilarating and i got the cutest new green t-shirt that says Melissa Ferrick right across the chest. Yup.

someone got new meds

2007-02-10T03:58:00.000-05:00

... and it's been a very productive day.

also a factor: one of these days i'm going to do a poll among women-artists i know to find out if i am the only one who experiences a crazy surge of creativity & motivation during her period.

between the wild art-related impulses and the new prescription of nerve pain medication for the arm (which i heart big much), i have been a stuff-making maniac tonight, let me tell you.

actually, i'm showing you. my scanner is being pissy, and so i had all the new layots pose for a group shot for you instead. this is how i've been displaying them for myself as i finish them. the cat's getting kinda mad cause that's really his spot. tough noogies, chaz. lookit my art!

also did some organizing of scrap supplies. i'm packing stuff up for the big garage sale at YHP. i can't wait for that thing. what an amazing way to get rid of your unwanteds- and of course, if you're me, you end up buying a crapload of wonderful stuff from other people's tables. folks bring awesome stuff, it's just that they can't use it for one reason or another. tonight i went through my paper collection and began a stack for the sale. so far it's about 3 inches tall. can you imagine? i have that much extra. as i cleaned up and cleaned out in my studio tonight, i found that the excess is really getting to me. i am needing to pare down and simplify. making piles of stuff to sell and stuff to give away (like a fun pile for the kids i used to nanny for, who love to scrapbook and think patterned paper is like gold) felt so good.

it's now 4:24am and i am finally kinda tuckered out.

i want to marry dr.temperance brennan please

2007-02-06T21:00:00.000-05:00

i have developed a major relationship with this character. seriously. it's not even the actress- zooey deschanel's sister- gorgeous and appealing though she is. it's effing Bones herself. this character makes me feel less crazy. the fact that she exists makes me feel better about my place in the world.

anyway, recent life has been busy and complicated.

they changed up my physical therapy program based on the tools and movements i need to be able to scrap, stamp, teach and work again- like pressing down with my hand enough to be able to work a stamp, or squeezing enough to work a hole puncher or a cropadile or a quickutz. i've been starting to scrap again on my own slowly but those bits are mostly tool-less and technique-free. now i'm starting to practice based on the idea of being able to teach and demonstrate with all the tools at YHP again. it's exciting to be moving closer toward those goals, though the new program is kicking my ass. i plan to spend the rest of tonight wrapped around my heat-up teddy bear (an organic gift from my lovely and amazing aunt anna, originally purchased for cramps when i was going away to college, he also does nicely when i want to rip my arm off and beat people with it) watching old episodes of Buffy and moaning.

since i'm not up to lengthy typage, here are some current visual snippets:

toes: mine and karen's after a long, hard day of shopping and getting pampered at the salon (and no, my big toes aren't really that stumpy, i was just flexing them weird)

charles in the basket: i have an antique wicker valise i keep near my apartment door in wintertime, and i throw all my hats, mittens & scarves into it. charles has taken rather a liking to the valise. he naps there now, dreaming about wearing his own hat and mittens (red and white striped).

my spot: this is the place i go to, the little corner of the local park where i go to hide out when the day care that shares my house is going on and i need to breathe and feel alone. i bring my old tablecloth to sit on, i curl up under my favorite tree with a book, and even in the cold- i love this spot.

tarot & karen: a reading of the lovely Cards. and karen's snazzy new jacket, which she returned the very next day. why, this may be the only record of its existence!

the sky & the city: as seen from 22nd street between 6th & 7th avenues in manhattan, at around one o'clock on a lovely monday afternoon.

you prayed

2007-01-15T18:27:00.000-05:00

my camera's found. oh, hallelujah, my camera's found! seriously, did someone get my Grandma on the novenas? that was quick! my fabulous Aunt Mary Anne emailed today to let me know i left it at her house after the christmas party. in retrospect, it's understandable- i left that party drunk. so wahoo for you, and all the prayers, and my Aunt Mary Anne! and wahoo for my camera!

capetown love

2007-01-14T02:34:00.000-05:00

sitting here listening to this itunes mix i made of only tori amos and dashboard confessional songs... it's so satisfying.
it's been a good week.

massachusetts was wonderful, and riotous, and nostalgic. erin and ed have a beautiful new home and an incredible, gorgeous, sassy, smart little girl, and just looking at erin's pregnant belly and emma's big grin and seeing their life made me so happy and proud. it was a hopeful thing for me, if that makes sense. then we went to a party and started a mini-riot because we were liberals and from new york. or because we were not racist and we don't support the war or bush. i'm not one to speak up in a crowd, i'm more the oberver type. but dreadful frightening views were stated and so suddenly i was standing and if not shouting then speaking quite forcefully. it was awful to argue with people with whom political debate was impossible because they only shouted emotions and spat one-liners. they were much larger and louder and they were quite angry, if not particularly coherent. anyway, it made for interesting conversation on the way home.

oh, and i did not take a single photograph because my camera has gone missing. pray for me, guys. it's out there somewhere- i know it. i can still picture where it was the last time i saw it. i believe something strange happened and it will reappear soon. because the only other option is that it was stolen and i really don't want to think that it was stolen.

{the person in a diaper, basketball socks, and tiny chucks is me. i am holding, and possibly chewing, a koosh ball. i am one. the 7gypsies circle sticker says "eccentric in training" and the green one going across it reads "to thine own self be true" and the quote on the kraft paper reads "nobody can be exactly like me. even i have trouble doing it. ~tallulah bankhead" and thanks to miss k who let me play with her hambly journaling spots!}

the other day my friend laura was my moral support as we went to my local cvs and i partook of this wonderful new invention- the photo kiosk!- for the first time. be still my heart, this girl (whose printer is punking out and currently refuses to turn on) is bubbling over with joy at her many-different-sized photos! i'm working on a book called "an ode to my sistergirls" and i've also been making random layouts just for fun. i've been going nuts with big and littles of everything. i've got stacks of little 1.5"x2" photos- they are my absolutel favorite! oh- and i am currently obsessed with scenic route's capetown paper line. now, i don't normally plug stuff on my blog because i don't even know how many people are actually looking at this thing and it seems a bit of a waste of time but holy crap i love this paper and so i'm not plugging here so much as i am sharing with you the details of a rather intense relationship i've entered into. seriously, i can't stop using this paper line. everything i make lately has some on it. even when i try to stay away from it. even when i decide to not use it. it just looks best to me in this deeply satisfying way.

friday, kristi and i went into the city with this grand plan to go to all the paper and scrappy stores... instead, we drove to jared's, got dinosaur bbq (mmmm.... pulled pork salad & fried green tomatoes & oreo custard pie), had an adventure or two in st. nicholas park, and then headed home. we had a slumber party at kristi's and scrapped all night and watche the devil wears parada which i had never seen and so we had to watch it three times. i think i love this movie. glenn close is my hero. she is so effing amazing. her face enthralls me. and anne hathaway is rather enchanting, even when i'm hating her. so kristi scrapped all night (that girl busted out like 7 layouts and 5 cards!) and i took turns scrapping and resting with her hot water bottle, old and busted girl that i am. love that hot water bottle, though. gotta get me one of those! it does wonders for calming down my shoulder muscles at the end of the day, when they're freaking out from carrying this mostly useless arm around all day. i usually use one of those teddy bears you put in the microwave, that's organic and a little smelly but this stays hot longer. oh, god. i'm such an old lady. talking about hot water bottles. the scrappage was quite satisying, even though iwas no where near as prolific as miss k. and we had a lovely girls' night in with miss chloe who may be a lesbian with a mild foot fetish, considering the evidence at hand. her parents love her just the same.
{the tiny black stickers read: champagne in a}
actually i have been doing a bit of kristi-inspired work (will post photos as soon as my cranky scanner cooperates) - in this sistergirls book i'm making, i'm playing around with her technique of making transparency pages. it's kinda hard but really fun to play with layering stamps, papers, transparencies and photos into layers of meaning. this book is one of my most exciting projects recently, and i think i'm loving it most because it's just for me and just for fun. just to do it, cause i want to and cause i have the time to (even though i work so slowly i'll probably never actually finish) and cause i'm inspired to. so it's totally free play for me and i'm having fun experimenting in ways that doing scrapbooking work has not let me do. mmmmmmmmmmm i love to play.

ps, the movie 'pan's labyrinth' stunk like feet with its gratuitous violence and ugly faun, even though the little girl was rather enchanting and the story itself wasn't half bad.

mini-vacation=good for the soul

2007-01-04T22:31:00.000-05:00

this weekend, my dear friend karen and i shall embark on a much-needed mini-vacation. karen and i and our dear friend erin lived in the same suite on the 4th floor of johnson tower at skidmore my sophomore year. now erin is married to her high school sweetheart ed, and they have a beautiful two year old daughter named emma and they all live up in massachusetts and we are going to visit. it is so strange to think of us all grown (!) up, but here we are. erin with her baby (and one on the way)- and her career and her jazz musician husband. cate (another friend we're picking up along the way to mass.) is a frigging lawyer who lives on the upper east side. karen's one dissertation away from her PhD, for crying out loud! and then there's me, with ink in my cuticles and paint in my hair. we haven't all been together in ages and ages. and there will be plenty of wine and plenty of chocolate. yeah, we're gonna have fun.

karen and i went shopping for miss emma tonight- it is so freaking interesting to shop for kids. we hit target and borders and we prowled every aisle. there is a lotta weird stuff out there. dolls called BRatz who are slutty, for one. and even a junior version for little little kids. we re not getting our junior miss any of that crap. erin said emma's very into the little mermaid and dora the explorer right now so we got her a very cool soft talking ariel doll, and then karen found this amazing kid-size cushy chair in this soft camel-colored micro-suede with a dora decal on it- ever so perfect for miss girl's new bedroom! and then we got her an eric carle book and an olivia one too. and then we came home and used my ranger daubers to stamp polka-dots in girly colors on kraft paper, and then we wrapped up all her presents and piled them up and it was just so satisfying. i cannot wait to give them to her.

so now i'm packing (what exactly is appropriate attire for a Little Christmas party?) and prepping and lil and chaz definitely know something's up and so they're both super-clingy wildkittens today. and i wanted to take a photo of emma's presents stacked up and karen's hands stamping the paper and charlies, playing in the pile of pink ribbon we were pawing through to find the right one to use on emma's books, but i can't because i can't find my camera. but then it doesn't matter because blogger is sucking right now and not letting me upload pictures anyway, so there.

lovin' the empire

2007-01-01T22:06:00.000-05:00

these layouts aren't truly new, but i'm just getting around to posting them tonight....

i'm trying to start off this new year with a bit of a clean-out. i'm working on finishing those half-done To Do Lists. clearing out space for extra breathing room. dusting.

and all while rocking out to my super-duper Remix! Special Fan Edition of the Empire Records DVD. oh, i do so love the person who knew enough to get this girl a blockbuster gift certificate. owning special movies is such a passion of mine. and this movie! oh, i am transported. this movie brings me right back to 1995- all the best parts. the popcorn giggling with your best friends at 3am parts. the singing of "say no more mon amour" while on walks in the woods. the memorization of dance moves.

trying to be cranky at christmas

2006-12-13T22:17:00.000-05:00

it's really hard to maintain a proper bad mood this time of year. i'm one of those people who gets so ridiculously excited over it all... christmas trees & lights & music and just the whole spirit of things. i've been feeling really down lately because of health issues and complications but in the midst of all this crap there have been these moments of- i can't even call it clarity- just goodness- you know what i mean? even while most of what i thought of as my life is collapsing around me, i'm finding joy in little bits of random wonderfulness- jared's kitty stalking the christmas lights.... my physical therapist's collection of Grinch ties (he has 36! and wears a new one each day during the xmas season)....... a new 'do (thanks to my wonderful aunties who gave me a gift certificate to a fabulous salon i could never afford!)... taking my grandma to the city to see Meet Me in St. Louis at the Irish Rep (thanks to jared!) and walking down 7th avenue with her, listening to stories about when she used to work in the fashion district....my collection of super-sweet and super-creative get-well cards from all my students and customers at YHP (who i miss so much!!!).... jeffrey's amazing red punch and the huge fruit-heart-ice-cubes..... i'm even a little in love with the team of nurses who take care of me when i go for my treatments at LIJ- especially the two dueling ellens and the sweet rakti who brings me warm blankets when my teeth chatter, without me even asking.... my amazing friend laura, with whom i have weekly slumber parties that are the most relaxing time ever (i, little miss I Don't Have a TV, am developing a very intense relationship with Bones, Grey's Anatomy, and Heroes) and who made me these incredible christmas mixes. i am especially obsessed with the dolly parton song Hard Candy Christmas... it kinda suits my current flavor. kindness is everywhere. how freaking cool is that?!

this week in photos

2006-11-19T02:49:00.000-05:00

since i'm not so into the typing these days (i'm taking a new tack: my arm is not busted, it's healing.), y'all get to enjoy some of the photos i've been having fun taking left-handed, holding the camera upside down, of course. how do real lefties take photos, i wonder? do they have to get special cameras? or perhaps they just give that bit of control to the most responsible finger on their right hand. i don't know, but geez, shooting lefty is an awful production for me.
anyway, pictured you will find (in no particular order, i figure you can figure which is which) two swans at twin ponds, who were exceedingly cooperative models and posed for me for like an hour... my amazing friend karen's bottom half, on a hike at twin ponds. if i only had an ounce of her style (perhaps i wouldn't be rotating the same 3 t-shirts on a daily basis).... my fantabulous sisters, elizabeth & catherine, being silly together (such fun they are.... even after having had them in my life for like 6 years, i still feel like having sisters is like this incredibly precious gift in my hands, unexpected)... my sister liz, laying around on the floor of the day care i live in (long story) during our sistergirls' night on saturday.... also, my dear friend amanda in the woods at sunken meadow, the amazing sky reflecting in her sunglasses..... the woodsy/watery scenery at sunken meadow..... i've been spending lots of time outside lately. fall in new york is somewhat breathtaking, most of the time, and i'm in a particular position to be able to enjoy it right now. so i'm hitting twin ponds, welwyn, sunken meadow, and every other outdoor paradise i can find.... and feeling weirdly grateful for this strange time.

a whiny rant

2006-11-15T01:38:00.000-05:00

it's been a big forever since i've blogged. not typing much these days. complications with the arm. i'm in this strange limbo state- i have more free time than i have ever had in my whole life, but i feel frustrated by how little i can do with it. i'm trying to use the time. to read books i've put off. to fully watch movies. to see friends. to take (weirdly-angled-because-i'm-shooting-lefty) photographs. to take exceedingly long walks in my little suburban neigborhood.

you know, i write it down and it sounds rather idyllic. except that my friends have jobs to go to, they can't play every day. and i'm bored of my neighborhood (and my movies and my books). what it comes down to is this- i want to be able to work. to scrap, and stamp, and teach and write. and all of that is off limits right now. and i'm tired of the pain and the uncertainty and the doctors and the lawyers and the effing sling. i'm tired of new pain medications that don't work and i'm tired of lying on my couch, huddled around my all-natural heating pad (a teddy bear full of rice that i stick in the microwave and which gives off a strange, old-apple scent). i've always been this diesel girl, even inexplicably so. i can move refrigerators and carry tons of groceries really far and in high school i was the cheerleader who threw all the other cheerleaders in the air- and now i feel like this little weakling thing. i have no stamina. lifting a 20 oz. soda to my lips with the wrong hand by accident will put me out of commission for the rest of the day. so i'm a bit cranky. but enough of the rant.

i am alive (you think i'd act more grateful- not everybody gets hit by a car and then stands up to ask "are you f-ing serious?") and i am mostly ok and even when i get cranky i have friends who are excellent to play with. photos are 1. from a recent jaunt to twin ponds with my lovely and talented friend karen, and 2. my lovely sister catherine, during our middle-of-the-night photo shoot on a sistergirls sleep-over at my house on saturday night.

a little sunday in the city (and CT)

2006-10-17T23:04:00.000-04:00

so sunday me and my friend kristi took a little road trip to CT to take a class with ali edwards. other than starting our day at 6am (ugh), it was truly a lovely experience. ali has a really warm manner and an accessible personality, and i really loved getting to experience her work in person. she is a uniquely talented individual. the books we made are freaking amazing- i love being pushed out of my box and into someone else's for a minute; it is an incredibly valuable experience as an artist. and it is ever so fun to put on that "student" hat and play. 'twas a lovely morning. so here's a photo of ali edwards and k and me. and here's a photo of my dear friend laura and me, also from the class. laura is a scrapster-buddy of mine who boggles my mind with her book construction skills and teaches for us sometimes at YHP. she was there for the weekend crop and to take ali's class too. we also met some lovely ladie swho shared our table, but afterward though we could remembr the giggles, we could not remember their names. ladies, if you're out there, drop a line- i totally got a kick out of sharing the class with you! you were excellent table-mates. so, post-class, after wanderig around the inexplicably swank Hampton Inn where the class was held, we followed up our morning in CT with an afternoon jaunt to Harlem, where we dropped the car at the home of my childhood best friend Jared and headed downtown by subway to do some prowling and visit jared at his theatre in Chelsea. it's very gratifying when my friends get along, and kristi & jared and their funny little friend-crush crack me the hell up. i think they are similar humans, on the inside. may be why k and i recognised each other from the get-go. oh, and a note: i just gotta say, i do love hanging out with other scrappers because they are the only non-tourists in new york who don't freak out when i bust out the camera in the subway and other obnoxious places. i will never not love taking photos in the subway- tunnels and trains. case in point: check me and k looking super-fly in our rock-star sunglasses and big attitudes at the 125th st. station. super-fly.

mixed blessings

2006-10-14T07:51:00.000-04:00

so the car-busted arm is not behaving and so for a time i shall not be working my regular job at YHP but instead i shall be going to physical therapy and strengthening and healing these messed-up muscles and whatnot. so for a few days i sat (laid) around my apartment moaning about how my apartment is dirty but it's too hard to clean (ever try to sweep with one hand? or change kitty litter?) and how i want to scrap but it's too painful with two hands, and too slow withonly one. and moaning when the aleve wore off (i'm a lightweight), etc.... i can think up any number of things to moan about when given the kind of opportunity afforded by entire days devoted solely to the pursuit of self-pity. so then i decided to at least try to make this time productive and so now i've been going for long walks in my neighborhood, smelling the fallness and taking lots of left-handed photos. i've been putting some time into organizing my photos, space, etc. reading books (the red tent, dear zoe, queers in space, hunger point). watching movies (but i'm a cheerleader, hercules, the opposite of sex, along came polly, better than chocolate, girlfight). taking time to see friends. and moaning a little bit in the afternoons (just for fun).

on monday

2006-10-13T00:10:00.000-04:00

me and jared went to the central park zoo and it was oh so delicious. i love that zoo. it's so tiny i feel like it's mine. when i used to nanny i'd bring the baby there every day (we were members, so it was free) to watch the sea lion feeding. this time it was overrun with schoolchildren (we forgot it was a holiday) but they were mostly pretty cool. and this zoo is truly the most wonderful place, all open-air (mostly) and cool creatures. watching the polar bears play in the water was mesmerizing. the penguins are a freaking riot. but the monkeys are my favorite. i relate to the monkeys intensely. at the big zoos my favorites are the huge gorillas that are like magic old people. but at the central park zoo my favroites are the sassy little monkeys in the center of the zoo. there's a whole team of them and they're in this huge open air enclosure with all these mountains and valleys and ledges and play places and they are the most fun creatures. they tease each other and play and fight and cackle and wave their little butts in the air and they are just the most wonderful thing. yep, i love this zoo.

wanna laugh?

2006-09-29T02:13:00.000-04:00

this is my cat chaz, hiding under the sheets of my bed. he's actually also hiding from the sheet but that's another story. anyway, he's really just mood lighting. i gotta show you something. but first, a warning: i didn't write this. i kinda wish i did. my dear friend jeffrey (who used to be my house-mate jeffrey) sent me the link and when i read it i laughed so hard i almost peed. for real. enjoy this link.

certifiable

2006-09-27T00:35:00.000-04:00

yup, i'm certified. fancy schmancy, as my Grandpa would say. Ranger U rocked my block. seriously, best time ever. it was so wonderful to be in student mode. to play and learn and experiment and to be in the company of other artists with the same mission. the scope of talent in that room was freaking amazing. stampers, scrappers, stamp-manufacturers, lawyers, creative directors, teachers, designers- and each one of them with this insane talent. folks from all over the world (love me some british and autralian accents!) and all over the country (michigan, missouri, oregon, philly, maine, california, you name it...) it was flipping incredible. i'm still kinda high from the whole thing. can you tell?

robin beam and tim holtz are a great team, they have fantastic chemistry- a real friendship and respect between them, which is so fun to see. you can totally see how they inspire each other and push each others creativity. i can not freaking wait to see the new stuff Ranger is coming up with, because of these two. and they are the coolest teachers- smart as hell, creative and funny and professional and kind. working with them was a pleasure and an honor. their enthusiasm for my work is something i will return to for strength in moments of doubt for probably the rest of my life. i feel so lucky to have had the opportunity to learn from them, not just about inks & embossing powders (though ask me about inks and embossing powders- i know so much now, i got info coming out my ears!) but about designing and teaching and working in the industry and working a room. and holy bananas, the product we got. it was like winning the inky lottery. miss kristi-cakes, get ready to invoke- i got some serious new toys for us to play with! i also got tim's new book, Distressables 2 (frigging amazing stuff, for true. and i like that he legitimizes my craft for my guy/punk-ish friends) and an awesome new book from Design Originals called Ink Essentials, featuring a whole bunch of robin's work (she's so freaking talented, she blows my mind.) and also some other awesome artists like erikia ghumm, who does amazing things with color wash. spent the whole train ride curled up with those two. then i realized that my dad who had taken care of mr. chaz and miss lil for the weekend, well, he had taken my huse key with him to pennsylvania to visit my brother joe at college. so i had an impromptu day at my dear friend jared's house and it was so fun. we rearranged his living room furniture. well, i barked orders and made design choices. he rearranged furniture (car-busted arm doing better, but not furniture-moving-ready. at least not yet.) . and then jeffrey and i went grocery shopping together and then we all cooked dinner and made dessert and watched the Simpsons and it was just the homiest day, being in my city and with my boys, and i just loved it so much that i was glad my key went to pennsylvania by mistake.

oh, the chaos

2006-09-26T02:15:00.000-04:00

it's been a wild few weeks. i spent the afternoon of tuesday, september 12th being hit by a car crossing the street near my house, and dealing with the aftermath of such an event. i'm ok. bruised up and banged around, but i'm alright. that's important thing #1. but i was in a lot of pain for the first week or so. i slept for days, was out of work a week. spent time in a sling that looked like a fancy jock-strap. now i'm chillin', if a little weak on the right side. still going for electricity in my muscls and getting adjusted like the good little holistic chick i am. i have a scan on wednesday to measure nerve function. we'll see how it goes.

in other news, i went to see Little Miss Sunshine tonight with my friend karen. we were the only people in the theatre and it was so fun. that movie is freaking amazing. the most wonderful costuming, and amazing photography and the characters- oh, i don't even have words for it. best thing ever. go see it. i think i'm going to to see it again tomorrow. this is the kind of movie i think i should maybe watch once a day every day. you too.

not for 2peas

2006-09-12T02:07:00.000-04:00

i made this layout this evening after clearing off my table enough to have a flat orizontal surface large enough to actually lay down some paper. it's exactly what i had in mind when i bought this postcard at a little shop in the west village. one of the twisty little streets off seventh, i forget which. i'm feeling this ambivalence about making public my political scrappage. true ambivalence, as in being pulled in opposite directions. because the point of this art is revolution. because what is the stuff for if not to be made public, to create opportunities for thought or conversation, why make it if not to make it known. and yet, in the back of my mind (and the warnings of some well-meaning folks who are true in their concern and must be considered if not heeded) there is the issue of a paycheck. there is the issue of marketability, selectively showing one's work to create the most widely likeable image. there is the fact that i am lucky enough to at 26 years old to be making a living from being a scrapbook artist. granted, i have to wear every possible scrap-related hat to do that, but i consider that a learning experience. eventually i'll narrow my hats, but right now i'm counting my lucky stars, overjoyed that i am able to do this for a living- to make art out of my life, to scrapbook and teach others how to scrapbook. to share my passion for this art-form, this history-making. to learn about this industry from every possible angle. i feel so lucky to be on this path and i don't mean to jeopardize that but i also don't mean to be anything but myself, no matter how professional i am supposed to be. see, being a rather girly sort of dyke, i run the constant risk of being 'passed' by straight people- that is, they assume i'm straight like them, until i tell them otherwise. a few years ago, after breaking up with a long-time girlfriend whose constant presence ensured my consistent public outing, i went through a phase where i wore a rainbow at all times, carried a messenger bag with a rainbow strap, went to a lot of trouble to out myself non-verbally. still love rainbows & the symbolism & all that, but i'm no longer theme-dressing. yet now i find myself in this industry where there aren't very many out queers and oftentimes the norm seems very, very white-middle-class-christian-girl. it's overwhelming to be so in the minority, especially after spending the last few years in new york city academia, which is a very queer place. i am finding myself having to come out quite constantly. it's rather tiring and also quite satisfying in a remember-harvey-milk sort of way. it's mildly maddening that i couldn't post this layout on 2peas, but i know it would offend on several accounts. but that's also why folks like me have to make such stuff, say such things, and make them public by any means necessary. just to be clear, the handwriting says: to every Queer proud enough to march- strong enough to be and live Out- and wise enough to claim your place in history- THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart. dm 2006.

fell in love with a new paint

2006-09-05T22:51:00.000-04:00

this stuff is called lumiere like the singing candlestick in the walt disney version of beauty and the beast and it is my new favorite thing. it gives even those of us who can't draw for shite the power to wield a paintbrush with considerable flair! i started running a make & take with this stuff and two people in, i couldn't stand demo-ing on little pieces of chi[board so i bought this awesome maya road binder book adn demoed on that all day. and now i have this book in progress and i'm loving playing with it. i've been having fun with playing technique lately, partly spurred on by all the rangerrific activity in my life, and partly because of the upcoming scrapbook expo in town. we're not going but we're having reps from lots of the companies come to our store instead to do make & takes and stuff so i've been running around designing stuff for that and also just playing and oh, it is so good to play with new creation tools (even if what i should really be doing is playing with new organization tools). tomorrow is the first day of school in this town and i'm mostly still in denial about the coming fall and i'm at the nearly-unworkable stage of messiness in my studio again. i shall have to clean one of these days. ugh. i'd rather play.

jesus h. christ.

2006-08-31T03:22:00.000-04:00

nothing like a little last-minute decision-making. bolstered by this ranger u shenanigan, i decided to go for their design team too. but it's due tomorrow, the application. actually, given the hour, now that's today. so, um, eek. and i have a big class to teach tonight. 19 students, team-teaching with laura, this week we're focusing on alcohol inks and finishing our little recipe books. wahoo! oh, and i have to finish typing my writtenpart of the application, too. the part where i have to be coherent and not just artsy. oh, and also it's my little brother david's first year as a fire fighter working the firemen's fair and greenlawn's is the biggest and oldest in new york, so you better believe my ass is gonna be there tomorrow night after class! so here's a sneak peek of part of my entry... i don't think you're supposed to show the whole thing til after we know which is in like 900 years....
wish me luck, kids.....

wednesday is my monday

2006-08-24T01:36:00.000-04:00

so today it was back to work after three glorious days off. i love my job and all, but today we're going to re-live my weekend:

day one was sunday- spent it out on the island, celebrating my grandma teddy's 80th birthday with the fam. it was the first time grandma had had all her grandchildren in one spot in over ten years (of course we took tons of pictures!). i'm the oldest, & i still think of my cousins as my "little cousins" (probably cause it's been a really long time since i've seen any of them) but they're in their teens and early twenties now. mind-blowing. it was really cool to catch up with everyone & get to know the people they're growing into. capped off sunday with a little furniture donation from the folks- my mom brought over a hutch of my grandma's (other grandma- this one is my mom's mother. keep up, folks! i have 3 grandmas. each one has at least two names. there will be a quiz later.) that i've been coveting for like ever. so i did a little scrap-organizing. mostly, i piled. but i love my new hutch!

day two: monday. my weekend. aah. my friend kristi and i went gallivanting into the city to hit the ink pad (cutest little stamp store ever!) and go out to play with my friend jared. we ended up on a major search for this mythical ribbon store in midtown, and just when i was ready to give up and throw a grilled-cheese-demanding temper tantrum, jared goes, "check that end of the block and then meet me in front of h&m [four stores away, on the same block we were standing on] in like five minutes," and five minutes later, he calls me from like 9 blocks away. he found the damn store. j&m trimming. or m&j trimming. i forget. that's why i have a business card stashed somewhere. the name is not important. the rows and rows and rooms of trimmings and ribbons and buttons and beads and patches and sequins and charms and tchotchkes- they are what's important. oh, it was a fun place. you're definitely paying mid-town rent on your ribbon, but it's some sassy stuff, lemme tell you. got some delicious velvet rick-rack, along with a new scrapster supply i'm so psyched about i won't even mention it til i use it. monday was the laughingest day i'd spent in a while, and it felt real good to giggle, even if half the time it was cause we were getting lost for the seventeenth time (a field trip to the bronx was an added bonus, as far as i'm concerned. everyone should stop there on their way to harlem.)... 'twas also the first day of fun in recent memory on which i have not carried my camera for every minute. it was kinda nice. i can't act like i totally let go, though. miss k had my scrapster-back. she brought hers and we just kept making the boys take photos of us. by the end of the day jared was shouting "click click bloody click" at someone else for a change.

day three and the final day of my almost-mini-vacation was tuesday: a lovely day on which i slept quite late, and then spent much of the early afternoon lazing about under my favorite tree at the park around the corner from my house, reading a magical old book. the evening was a kind of milestone of sorts. (i think i might be getting old.) i went to my first (i can't believe i'm making this public. it's just too funny not to!) tupperware party. hee hee. a tupperware party, can you imagine? cranky little doesn't cook anymore, lives in her art studio and eats only take-out me, at a tupperware party! my friend colleen and i sat in the back and drank wine and made a rather excellent peanut gallery, really. the best part is i kept winning things, all night. the worst part is one of the things i won (and i'm still not sure how that happened) is the fun of my very own tupperware party. i don't even have a house and i need a tupperware party? you've got to be kidding me. i won a cool thingie to carry my markers around though.

it doesn't feel like monday.

2006-08-15T00:28:00.000-04:00

it feels like wednesday, or thursday, or something much further along than monday. and holy bananas. vacation is fun, but in our family it's also exhausting. there were 23 of us up there on lake winnnipesaukee (new hampshire). doing all manner of cheesy together-ness things. there will be photos soon one day when i'm un-tired enough to do all the wires necessary to get them on the computer. if i could get blogger to let me press enter, i'd do so here. consider yourself notified- this is a new paragraph: in other news, i made it into ranger u! i almost punked out on the application but someone threatened to punch me in the head if i didn't apply and besides, the whole damn application was finished i just couldn't get the computer to send it. but finally with the patient and kind help of my lovely aunt donna, i finally sent it off. 9 emails, my application took. can you imagine? anyway, i'm so freaking excited. i get to go to jerz to learn all about inks & embossing powders with robin beam and tim holtz, in september. (provided i can afford the damn hotel, of course. i hate money. but we're not dwelling in the practical today. today we're still in unbridled joy) i am amazed and honored and so freaking psyched to have the opportunity to learn from these incredible teachers. i'm trying to take this as a validation of this particular path, especially on the crappier days. in honor of ranger and the u, here's a rangerrific layout (made my own background paper using resist technique, rhonna stamps, and distress inks with cut & dry and water. the stamp says "prepare to be amazed" and the handwriting says "the world is not ready".):

ranger u is kicking my

2006-08-04T03:04:00.000-04:00

ass. there, i said it. and i'm not even there yet! notice i said "yet". i'm doing positive thinking. finishing my application. having a bloody coronary because i left the disc with the first half of my app and my revised, whittled-down class list at the store. i figured that was God telling me to stop worrying about the paperwork and play. so i did. i photographed some projects to send off- my man book, a few layouts and anything particularyl ranger-y. i made this fun new layout using paper i made with ranger color wash and one of my favorite stamps. you know, product junkie i may be, but i still love it so much when i all i need to make a great layout is papers, inks and a good stamp or two. oh- and i realize i just scrapped that photo the other day but hey, it was part of a series, and it works. besides the folks at ranger don't know abou the other layout, and i decided that one wasn't ranger-y enough to send. ugh, this is worse than applying for regular college ever was! and to think i'm supposed to be ready to go away on vacation tomorrow. who do i think i'm kidding?! (she types at 3:27am while she could very well be packing).
ps- the stamp reads: do the thing you love more than anything in life! you might become a bit unpredictable (sometimes cranky),but you will be happier than you ever imagined possible. cross your fingers for me, kids.

this dare rocks my block

2006-07-31T02:28:00.000-04:00

love this dare. may have to do this dare every week. there are so damn many reasons why i scrap. and it's so good for me to examine them. to remember why i do this. to stop lesson-planning and worrying about technique and just play. so good for my soul to just do what i do & love what i do. that said, i kinda hate my scanner cause it won't let me scan the whole damn layout. apparently the 8.5x11 plus the technique tab is just too wide for my super-schnazzy scanner. so the scan is sorta iffy and the bottom gets a little wobbly-looking too. the word(s) Reason #1, which run down the left side of the page, also seem to be kinda cut off. ah, well. you get the general idea. the text of the page reads: why i scrap: cause nobody else is living this life... politically radical dyke scrapbook artist/sees stories happening everywhere, every moment/Mom, Dad & Bio-Dad: my life is an After-School Special/Compulsive Collector of Odd Objects/Blessed with Many Talents/often found struggling to do daily life/shy girl in a social business/seeker of goddess images/reader of everything/writing for my life.

more snippets

2006-07-29T23:02:00.000-04:00

Creature

The first moment I ever saw Gabrielle, I thought she was a boy. I opened the door of my friend Violet’s house (we were having a party) and this little person ducked by me in the midst of a small crowd, wearing a baseball hat and a huge green polo shirt and these big skater jeans. There were dark shiny curls hanging out of the back of the baseball hat and a good smell like soap and the sea and trees, as she ducked past me into the dark hallway. Of course I didn’t know she was she until the tall boy with the dark, shiny hair who followed her in and shook my hand, introduced himself (“Raphael… Pleasure to meet you”) put his arm around her shoulders, forcing her to look up so I could see her face and said, “and this is my grumpy twin sister, Gabrielle.”

She corrected him quick in her gravelly grumble: “Gabe,” smiling wide open into my eyes before the wave of people behind her and her brother carried her off into the depths of the den, where there were girls dancing on the end tables to music that sounded like the circus. I wandered into the kitchen, where there were some crunchy looking girls in patchwork and gauze eating oatmeal raisin cookies and smoking pot out of a sparkly periwinkle pipe.

Later, I saw this new creature again in the den, showing off a new tattoo to some flirty girls. She’d pulled off the big green polo shirt to let them see the Japanese kanji on her shoulder and underneath she was wearing this little green tank top with one of the fish from that Dr. Seuss book One Fish Two Fish, Red Fish Blue Fish on the front- a little red fish sitting in a teacup. And she had the prettiest body. She was beautiful pink-toned smooth paleness and Spanish hips and strong wiry arms and yeah, yeah, cute tattoos and all that shit but what got me I think was the juxtaposition of masculine and feminine, male and female. She did tough real well but she was so delicate. That’s what always got me about her. She saw me looking and winked.

The party had thinned out by the time I found myself on the back porch with this girl, smoking a cigarette and listening to Fiona Apple wail out the windows:

And I will pretend that I don’t know of your sins
until you are ready to confess but all the time
oh, all the time, I’ll know. I’ll know.

And we talked about our favorite books and high school traumas and the Catholic Church and our Mothers and singing in public and our worst Exes and what we wanted to be when we grew up. And she told me about how she had done heroin for a long time and then she had gone to rehab and she had gotten clean and now her life was so much better and I mean, I didn’t know it at the time but while she was telling me all this, she was high. On heroin, which she and consequently I called dope. At the time, I just thought she had cool yellowish eyes. Pretty and feline, I thought. It wasn’t until months later that I realized her eyes are only yellow when she’s high. Her real eyes are dark brown like mine. But when she does dope her eyes go yellow and her pupils go tiny- pinpoints- but I mean I didn’t know the difference. Not yet, anyway. We met at the end of May. By the time I went back to school at the end of the summer, I was starting to suspect.

It wasn’t til her first visit that I found her stash. But I couldn’t say anything. I think that was the most fucked up part. That I knew for a really long time and I didn’t say anything. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

That night I didn’t know anything. That night was crystalline, twinkling with sweetness and discovery. That night she was perfect, gentle and well-read, soft-spoken and funny. A sexy little tomboy-girl with kisses in her eyes and, that night, one sweet kiss on her lips for me, a good bye kiss of magnitude proportions; gently, quickly, quietly, I was hooked.
........................................................................................................................................................... Berries

Inside I am twittering like a bird. This is new, this whole thing. Not the feeling but the realization of it. She is my most amazing creature. Gabrielle, Gabrielle, my Spanish pixie twist of a girl. It is summer and I am hers, she is holding my hand and she is teaching me her New York. She says it’s fucking pathetic that I’ve lived here my whole life and don’t know how to go anywhere on the trains by myself (overprotective parents), so she’s teaching me. For the first few months, she would pick me up at Penn Station, waiting just outside the gate for me by the magazine stand. But now it is August, and I have been learning, and today she said I could take the ACE downtown alone and meet her at the basketball courts at West 4th Street. When I get there, she is already waiting, hands in pockets, eyes following the game. Her grin is like rubies to me, like new pennies or chocolate icing. I admire this girl-boy creature, the baggy pants and big blue polo shirt camouflaging pert perfect breasts and that waist-hip slope she says is Spanish, from her mother. Her long, curly dark hair is twisted into a perfect bun at the nape of her neck where she can hide it under the brim of her backwards baseball cap. She has the most perfectly shaped eyebrows I have ever seen. “You’re early,” I say, smiling.

She reaches out, gentle, smoothing back my ponytail and taking my arm. “I like those pants,” she tells me, smiling approvingly at my new jeans. “Where’d you get them?” I begin to tell her how Violet and I went shopping after work yesterday and all I am thinking is this is it. This is the most slinkster-beautiful person ever and I do not even know how to explain why but it’s there, somewhere in the tension between that perfect girl-body and the boy-clothes that hide it from every one but me, the waist-length hair that only I am allowed to see, to touch. The boy-face, the girl-pussy. She is like an alien, like a goddess, or a mythical creature too beautiful for this place, this now.

In the sunlight so bright we squint like kittens, she holds my hand and we do our rounds of the neighborhood. Across Sixth Avenue, to Juice & Joe’s for smoothies. We pick up one for Wolf: banana-wheat germ-tofu- and alfalfa sprouts. I get strawberry-mango-kiwi-papaya-raspberry-yogurt. We bring our smoothies to the tattoo shop, where Wolf gave me my first tattoo last Sunday. It was a present from Gabrielle, who wears her sleeves like armor- the lotus flower on her elbow, the raging fire, the swarming, waving water, Kwanyin, the strong and lovely goddess in the blue gown. Around my Gabrielle’s wrist, a new bracelet of Japanese Kanji symbols meaning: faithful, destiny, pride, angel. Her birthday was last week and these were her gifts: the bracelet Wolf tattooed on her right wrist, the wings he put on my back. She says she loves that I am pierced, willing to be painted. I pull off my beater and Wolf checks the wings on my back. This is what she has been calling me, my new nickname: Angel. She says I am an angel from above and I fill the hole where she used to put the dope, back when she was a junkie. And that is our song- “Angel”, by Sarah McLachlan, and that is what she calls me. I am her angel, her fairy, her good-luck charm, her wish-come-true-girl. Wolf rubs vitamin E from my shoulders to my hips and then slaps the sore skin heartily. “Now, don’t pick at this. I don’t want you fucking up my work with those fidgety fingers. Gabrielle, don’t let her touch it, I want to shoot it for my portfolio.” Gabe aims the fan at my back so it will dry and I can put my shirt back on.

Next Gabrielle and I go next door to buy mangoes and bread and cheese from Hercules, the four-foot-tall deli-owner who loves us and wants me to marry his rich brother who is waiting in the old country. We bring our food and our books and our big blue tapestry to Washington Square Park and stretch it out on grass dappled by sunlight and the shadows of big, strong oaks. Intoxicated by the summer and each other, we sprawl under our favorite tree and feed each other bits of fruit, pulpy juice running down our chins. She licks the stickiness of my fingers, she nibbles the tips and I shiver.

I lay with my head on her belly, listening to her stomach’s quiet odd sounds, sketching the way the light falls through the leaves on the trees. Gabrielle has fallen asleep, the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy lays open over her face, her hand resting open and useless on top of the book.

I sit up and look around, keeping my palm to her belly in the warm place where my head had been.

A family like dark red apples in a blue and white bowl. A family like jasmine growing in a kitchen window, stained glass and surfboards on the porch. Tan, blonde children, scampering, skipping with hair made into haloes by the dying sun. I cannot tell if they are girls or boys in their bright striped pants but I want to take their picture. The moms on their blue blanket look alike with sandy hair and long strong legs; they could have been sisters except that I watch them awhile and I see the hand on thigh, the gentle eyes, the feeding of a slice of strawberry as they watch their children dance. I have heard the children calling the watch-me calls of children everywhere: Mama! Mummy! One mom is nursing; the fat blonde baby pats the breast seriously as she sucks and watches the world with wise eyes; the other mom is tall and her long braid swings down her back as she stands, opening a picnic basket, calling the children to come and eat sliced melon, blocks of cheese, wheat crackers from long cardboard boxes.

Gabrielle stirs, reaches for me, her hand opening and closing, fingers feeling the empty air. I touch her hand, take the book off her face and kiss her pink pouty lips. "Look," I say. She leans up on her elbow and looks and the children are on the blanket now, lolling against their moms and one another, eating bites of cheese and tossing berries into one another's mouths. Her eyes widen and she slips her arms around my waist and we sit, watching like TV and feeling each other close and solid and real and she looks at me and she says "Marry me."

one long prelude

2006-07-27T01:10:00.000-04:00

so it's kinda weird. i'm struggling a little with putting a bit of this book up here. and yet, as i'm reading and revising and re-writing i'm missing the context of a writing workshop, ears to bounce these words from. i'm wanting to use this forum, my blogster world, for my word-bouncing, so to speak, but part of me is slightly scared of letting this part of me touch this place. The thing with blogs is you never know who's reading them. And i work in a rather conservative sort of industry where is image is pretty much everything- and the thing is, i'm relatively palatable as a nice femmey white lesbian from a middle-class christian family, (relatively, and in new york.... i still doubt my palatability to most of the south and definitely 97% of utah) especially since I'm not currently dating anyone and therefore i can exist in folks' minds as a rather sexless sort of human who just doesn't date men. a theoretical lesbian, if you will. though i'm quite sure the signs are there for those who are looking- i do lean towards birkenstocks and lots of keys and no make-up and i have two cats and duh, i like girls, and ok, i could go on but i'd like to get back to the point tonight because I have to pee and i want to publish this before i go upstairs. anyway, point is- my writing, my fiction, is kind of harsh, for lack of a better word. the story in this book is not a pleasant one. i just want to be clear about that. cause the thing is, i have decided i'm not making the book have its own blog or any such thing. cause this is me: writer, scrapbook artist, teacher, sister, dyke. i'm not relegating any one portion of my self to another forum for any one's comfort. so if you're faint of heart, skip the rest of this post, ok? for the rest of you, thanks for reading. in advance. and if you have a reaction, share it. i've gone through some incredibly tough writing programs, i'm used to truthful criticism. i appreciate it. ok, so here is one small niblet of this story (which is told in mini-chapters which are often found out of chronological order)...... ps, i don't know why the spacing is all weird but i can't seem to fix it. just know it's not stylistic, it's just a cut & paste glitch.)

Queries:
Stella answers some Questions

Why the
wings?

On my back? (she smiles loosely and wraps her
arms around her chest, cupping her shoulders in her palms and stretching her
long fingers onto her back, where the wings are. Huge, in shades of grey
and black, and the most intricately feathered detail, they stretch the widest
span of her shoulders, from hip to hip; the outer edges of her upper ass is
where the feathers stop and smooth plain pale skin begins again.)

I
love them. I’d wanted them for so long. My mom used to call me her
little angel, too, you know. And my grandma, she was Italian, and she’d
say “Che bedesta bupo … cara mia, dito Angelina…” When I was a kid I read a
story about changelings and thought for a while I might be one of those. I
was always convinced I was going to die. Or be drastically maimed. Once my
Mother found me hopping around with my leg tied to a chair with a hair
ribbon. I was practicing for when my leg got amputated. Not
if.

I wanted to be a fairy. I settled for being an
angel. A godsend. I did everything she asked and when I was done I
asked “Can I do anything else?” and she’d say “Stella, you’re an angel,
you’re a star, what would I do without you?” And I wouldn’t get a hug or a
kiss but sometimes those words, like a caress themselves.

Also, when I was little, like six, I had these dreams about sex or
what my idea of sex was, then. Which was not sex so much as being naked
with people and kissing them and painting on each other’s bodies with lipstick
and eyeliner, magic markers. Writing poems on asses and thighs.
Painting flowers on knees and elbows. That’s what tattoos are for me,
then, sex and art and pain combined in the most perfect way.
And Gabe
gave them to me. She gave me my wings. (she laughs and looks out the
window)

Why did you stay with Gabe for so long?

You
know the Australian Aborigines? I read somewhere if you put them in jail, they
die, because the horrors of jail become all they can see. Their time is
different from yours. Jail becomes their all. You cannot tell them
It’s only for three weeks. It’s only for six months. They lay down
and die and get out of jail right away. It’s not that they don’t believe
you, it’s that the future doesn’t exist and they know that.

But,
you understood that you weren’t really--

I knew I was a girl, and I
was small and weak and in the end I couldn’t save her. But you have to
know that for years before, I did. I was. She called me her Angel
and that was enough. I was.

What about others around
you, how did they see your relationship? Did they know you were being an
angel?

When we would leave her house after visiting, her mother
used to say to me, “Keep my girl safe,” and I would smile and say “I always do,”
because I always did, and at least that way I wasn’t promising anything, just
reminding her of all the days I’d already kept Gabe alive.

Don’t
give me that look. I know I wasn’t really responsible for keeping Gabe
alive, but at the same time I was. Or at least that is what everyone was
saying so that must be true enough. She believed it. Doesn’t that
make it true? If someone gives you a power over them, does it matter that they
never really had the power to hand over? She told me everyday that I was
the only reason she got up in the morning, and most days she acted like it was
true. That I was her reason for being. Well, me and heroin. Us
two.

fetch-maniac

2006-07-25T03:26:00.000-04:00

ok, i realize it's 3:23 am and civilized people are asleep and i'm on my way, i am, i just had to share this because i just discovered it and though i have some wonderful friends if i called any one of them for this, i'd have one less friend.

my cat, charlie strokes, esq. aka chaz, and i have been playing fetch.
seriously.
fetch.
i didn't teach him how to do this, he just started doing it, and now he won't stop.
he's like a fetch-maniac.
see, i have these little mostly-round wooden pegs that go in the sides of a cheap old table to cover where the screws go in and chaz loves to play with them and sometimes if he gets in the way while i'm scrapping or something, i take one of these thingies and i throw it far away from me and then he chases it and captures it and carries it around triumphantly in his mouth for a while. so tonight i'm sitting on my bed reading and he's rolling on my book, 'fighting' with his peg-thingie, so i take it and i throw it and he chases it down and picks it up and brings it back to the bed. then he puts it down in front of me and nuzzles my hand toward the peg-thingie, meowing. no freaking joke. i really wish i had a video camera. and that' s been our routine all night. while i read my book (venus envy by rita mae brown), while i rearranged my library (going back to the old color-grouping system), while i fake-scrapped (putting stuff together for a page i still haven't fully formulated cause hte really good photo of my friend's son is intimidating me and i want to do a good job for her). and now i want to go to sleep and chazzy keeps bringing me the damn peg. and then he totally gives me lovin' until i toss the toy. heaven help me, i'm gonna be throwing this peg in my sleep!

her angel

2006-07-24T01:26:00.000-04:00

so i'm writing again. or actually, reading in preparation for writing. it's not actual procrastination. see, i wrote a book in college and it was a good book, i think, that needed some tweaks and some finishing and so i kinda halfheartedly fake-finished it for school (and i got an A+) and then i graduated and then i started DreamBooks (my old custom scrapping company i had in the city, now defunct) and then I moved out here and we started Your Happy Place and once I was working in scrapping that took over my life and my book has been sitting on my laptop, and then it was on a disc for a while, and the other day i finally put the files onto my computer, and printed out all the chapters i had, and organized them into a binder for editing. so i've been reading my own book. it's kind of weird. some parts are better than i realized i could write, and some parts are so awful they make me cringe. reading it now makes me glad i didn't try to publish it back then. at least not the whole thing (one chapter was published as a short story by the magazine 14 hills under my pen name which is Charlotte J. Ball- that's another long story, which i will tell another day) so anyway, now my book which is called Her Angel now has its own binder and i've been whipping out ideas for new bits and sketches for new meat of chapters and it's so fun to stretch this other creative muscle. but it's also really hard. harder than i thought it would be, really. perhaps in a few days i'll share a paragraph or two, see what y'all think. first i gotta see if i can stop producing such crap and come up with something worth seeing the light of day (or your computer screen, as the case may be). we shall see.

in the meantime, of course i'm making scrappy stuff too- this layout is the first non-work-related layout i've made recently. i swear, that 7gypsies definiteion paper is my favorite thing on the planet. this page began as a response to the Dare about hindsight but after i did all my hindsight-related-journaling, all i wanted to do was give myself a hug. so i did. on a page.

2006-07-21T02:25:00.000-04:00

it's been a strange and wonderful week so far, and it's not nearly over.

spent monday with the lovely and talented kristi, playing technique and going for walks in the sunshine with the lovely miss chloe. me and chloe, we're buds. chloe is a very discerning little dogster-girl, so she took her time making up her mind about me. but in the end, we made nice and she posed quite nicely for several photographs. and now i'm addicted to this dashboard confessional stuff. forgive me for being the most out-of-the-loop girl, but it is a new thing to me. and i like it ever so much!

on tuesday i had a margarita at noon. actually, i think it was like 12:20. it was a mango margarita. it was kind of a milestone. i don't even drink, really. at least not as an activity. but it was the anniversary of the day my friend amanda got into a car accident and totally busted her leg and got completely effed up but now a year later she can walk and do stuff and she's doing so much better than they thought she could and so we (me & amanda & stephen, boyfriend of amanda and all-around awesome guy) went out to lunch to celebrate and we had margaritas. well, i only had the one. and stephen, driver that he was, had a diet coke. but you get the idea. and the funny thing is stephen predicted at lunch that though we were all going back to their place to be productive- he to study, and me & mands to scrap- he figured she and i would be out cold by 4. well, i believe it was actually around 4:30 that amanda and i finally gave up our battles with the scrapping supplies, put away our measly one pages, curled up on our respective couches and took the best nap i've had in ages. ok, the only nap i've had in ages. but still. it was a splendid way to spend an afternoon.

been practicing self-portrait-taking. so far, i suck. i want a tripod and a window and a black velvet drape. and a better camera. ugh, how american of me. of course it's the trappings of the sport that will make me good. blecch. i make myself sick.

oh, and it's official. there are reading glasses in my life now. and for the computer. i'm dealing. don't get me wrong, i like them, i think they're cute. and i totally used to have phases where i'd wear glasses for fun. but it's less fun when they're functional. why is that? anyway, i made a page about it. [unfortunately, i can't seem to get the page load here so if you wanna see it go check out my gallery at 2peas- name: dawn m.]

such a fleeting joy...

2006-07-17T00:36:00.000-04:00

the joy of a clean work area... oh, i'm reveling. the other night my wonderful friend laura RAKed me this cool turquoise blue shower tote-turned-tool-&- embellishment-holder for when i got out to play with my friends. and then i finally decided to suck it up and actually use the super-cool junk bags i got from tim holtz. and laura also gave me some amazingly wonderful organizational tools and there was also a trip to tarzhay involved and so now i'm all inspired and i've been organizing like a maniac ever since friday. my scrap space had gotten out of control, and it was becoming non-functional and so the (s)crap was spreading all over every single thing in my apartment. now i've sorted, categorized, purged, packed for hours and i've actually gotten down to where you can see the surface of my table. see the pretty wood and stampages? i forgot how fun some of the little stampages on my table are. i add to them whenever i get some fun new stamps. i took a photo cause i know this is not gonna last & i will need evidence to prove to the naysayers that it happened at all. the naysayers are, of course, those who know me and my work-habits well enough to know that ordinarily i seem to thrive in creative chaos. anyway, thanks, laura, your RAK rocks my block! now i'm almost a semi-travel-able scrapper. and my space is kinda clean. i am so psyched. spent tonight doing two layouts for a new class i'm teaching- 2 basic grey layouts in one night. i don't usually teach layout classes, but i've been getting a lot of requests for them, and hey- they don't call it Your Happy Place cause we like to piss people off. they ask for layout classes, i make layout classes. it was actually fun to play in 12x12 again after not having done so in about a hundred years. too bad miss computer illiterate girl can't scan and stitch or y'all could see them. ah, well. and now- get this- i'm actually gonna clean up the shit i used to make those layouts and then i'm gonna curl up with my book and go to sleep. tomorrow i have off and i have a playdate- wahoo!

i suck at blogging

2006-07-13T00:00:00.000-04:00

i readily admit this. see the state of this blog? this is what happens when i think i'm fancy enough to add my own links. i drop half the blog on the floor (visually speaking, at least), i end up with links that don't work and long addresses typed out instead of cute little link names and nothing works and i sincerely hope you don't mind because i'm not even gonna play like i can fix this shit. i'm waiting for my friend laura to help me on friday night. wanna know why? because the other day laura said "i think i am gonna make a blog" and like fifteen minutes later her blog was up, running, funny, and totally pimped out. this chick can do anything. i can't even link you to her cute new blog. i'm gonna be super-old-school & just type out the address. here goes: www.laurasrandom.blogspot.com so there it is. i'm gonna go glue some things together. that's what i'm good at. paper. look, i've been making stuff:

i'm daring

2006-07-04T18:56:00.000-04:00

when i was in high school, my best friend Danie, who had plenty of balls, used to laugh at me for having no balls. when i stepped outside my box and got a bit sassy, she'd giggle and say i'd earned half a ball. i still struggle with being maniacally un-assertive in my day-to-day life, but i have learned to depend on ballsy-ness in art and writing to get me through each day. which is a big part of why i am so psyched to be doing the (effer) Dares. at least from time to time when i can get my ass in gear. i so appreciate the revolutionary spirit of the movement within the world of scrappage that these ladies kick-started. i like the way these dares tap into the heart of this art-form and force you to do something bigger, deeper, more than you would have ordinarily. they force you to reach so deep inside yourelf that your art is coming from your guts- your innards- your balls (and i'm not being facetious, we women have balls just as much as guys do- it's just that we've tucked them quite neatly under the skin in between our hips). so without further ado, and with great humility, i present: (Dare #34) D: a List........

lots of things are going down

2006-07-03T00:41:00.000-04:00

so i'm making stuff.

play is so good for my soul

2006-06-23T23:46:00.000-04:00

so i haven't been the most consistent blogger. some days i'm just too tired/cranky/busy to go near something as hard as a computer. some days i just need that pen in my hand, the book on my knee. and then i am running around crazy working on stuff for work, new classes i'm designing and gifts i've been making and i've actually been trying (a little bit) to have a (small) life outside work and my studio. occasionally. so now i'm blogging. bear with me.

today has been a good day. had an intense and wonderful class experience tonight. i can't even say i taught a really good class, because i don't feel like i taught all that much. but i feel like the other women, the "students" and i were, together, part of something kind of powerful. see, the class, called Your Scrapbook, Your Story, encompasses everything i love about this art form. i think that's why it's so cool- it truly combines every magic bit for me. the writing, the art-supply-play, the history-making, the photography, the utter recognition and validation of the fact that each of us has a story and that each story is worth telling. and that creative play is truly the most wonderful way to tell it. the book we make is eternal (love them open-and-close-able binder rings!) so i can keep making pages for this thing til forever (and i probably will!). and i get to force people to write from their guts, and the results are seriously incredible. this is one of my favorite parts of scrapbooking and one of my favorite things to teach. i cringe when i hear students and customers saying they don't ever journal or see why journaling is necessary. the art aspect of this thing is super-important to me, don't get me wrong. i love to play with paints and inks and fabrics and staplers and all my supplies and tools. but in this project i get to say "put your pencil to the paper and write for ten minutes without stopping or thinking or doing anything else but letting your self write. use these prompts and go," and they do, and i do, and together we write our selves down. it brings me back to the fact that i was brought into this art form as a writer who loved to play with design (decoupage end tables with photos of women and poetry about power- arrange my library in rainbow order- take lots and lots of photographs and make people gifts out of the best among them). that was how i came in. in the beginning i was just a writer. now i feel like i'm more. i make art out the words of myself.

and yet, sometimes, scrapping, i feel outside of my writer self- especially when i scrap really simply or keep the focus completely on the photos. and that is fun, too, but often (though not always) less meaningful. doing this class brings me back to my writer-self in the biggest way. sharing that, seeing these women tap into their deep deep selves and pull out incredible art made of words and colors and emotion made literal- it's just the coolest feeling ever! there are definitely days when i just want to be left alone in my studio for a hundred years with my cats, my supplies and enough food to keep making things. i definitely have a bit of the hermit in me, i can't lie about that. but then something like tonight brings me back to the magic of the social aspect of this thing. it's women-magic, i think. and i think the sharing of our conscious words makes the sharing of the visual art part even more powerful.

i loved the class-to-crop feel of tonight too. i got to force every one to write from their guts for a little while. we talked technique in terms of applying the journaling to the layouts. and then we just played. with stamps and paints and words and papers and acetate and oh it was just so much fun! i got to play too, which was super cool. laid out a page and tried this fun technique with staples and ribbons and ghost flowers (thick clear plastic flowers, a translation for my non-scrappy friends) and it came out quite nice, i think. have to finish it. and i also wrote writh everyone and it felt really good. don't even remember what i wrote about. don't care. the good part was the writing of it, in the company of others with similar goals- the emotional purge, the play, the chat.

and you know what? today i got tickets to go see the dixie chicks in august with my friend laura and i'm so freaking excited! and also i gave someone a gift they really liked and that felt really good too.

a few thousand words

2006-06-05T00:42:00.000-04:00

so i've always been known amongst friends as a bit of a picture taker. or, to quote my dear friend jared, "click click bloody click, dawn, that's all it ever is with you. click click bloody click." too effing bad, darling, i love taking photos. i just do. it's satisfying in this deep deep way. and so i was totally psyched when this weekend my store hosted this incredible photography workshop sponsored by the lens company Tamron. the workshop was seriously amazing- i learned so much. they sent this wonderful photograper, andre constantini, to teach us. if i was the kind of girlw ho knew how to do such things, i would like his website here. just google him, kids, he's brilliant. actually briliant. i love his dance photography and all the weird little risks he takes. it was awesome to learn from him. we spent the morning at the harbor, where there is a park and a pier and it was misty and cloudy and it had poured the night before so there were puddles for our little subjects to jump in. my friend jennie brought her adorable sons luke and max and their friend, the lovely little anna, and the three of them were the most wonderful little models. the park was full of fun things to climb on and mud puddles to jump in and one of those old-fashioned merry-go-round htings that makes everyone feel a little pukey. and there were bubbles to play with and those cool wands that make the huge bubbles. i got some cool shots of this really sweet little boy named darian blowing bubbles. i also got some good shots of sidney, the very sassy and very beautiful daughter of stacie, who was the event's coordinator. stacie is one of my customers, and i've had her in class, and she is a lovely woman (not to mention a very tlaented scrapper!), and this weekend was just such a cool experience for all of us! i'm posting a few of my favorites of the shots i got with my own camera. i'm still waiting to get the cd with the other 300 i shot with one of their big fancy cameras. and, oh, i'm so inspired! they taught me how to work my self-timer, and how to adjust aperture and some light tricks and all kinds of things. i feel more competent and slightly less like getting a good shot is a crapshoot. i just want to take pictures of everything now.

heaven

2006-05-25T01:58:00.000-04:00

days off are so very good for the soul. especially when you have wonderful friends to share them with. there is this place on long island that is the most amazing thing ever. welwyn. i love it there. i climbed fifty thousand miles of scary rocks and panicked the whole way (see photos) but i finally landed at the Far Away Gazebo and it was splendid out there near the sky. when i think about taxes and bills and college loans, i want to run away and live in the Greenhouse that People Forgot and which grew over wildlife-style so there are trees in doorways and wisteria hanging down the walls. it feels like the Secret Garden in there, like you are Mary, discovering. Or Colin, remembering how to walk.

ah, home.

2006-05-18T01:06:00.000-04:00

this is what lil does when i've been spending too much time making pretty things and not enough time worshipping at the altar of her gorgeousness. right in the middle of the 12x12 paper, too, see how nicely it curves up to make a nest for her pretty little self? um, yeah.

so i have been watching a documentary about jonathan larson's life. you know, the guy who wrote Rent? he died the night before opening night, and on this documentary people keep talking abut how when he died suddenly we lost this great talent who was destined to create so many more amazing works but i think he was here for exactly what he was here for- he was an angel on a mission, if you will. he was here to give the world that gift and to see it brought to fruition, and as soon as he had completed that mission he went home. he was inspiration itself- the man worked on his art constantly, literally. worked exactly as many hours as would pay the rent and spent the rest of his time creating. the urgency he felt about creation resonates with me and i am remembering what i loved about being in the theatre. and how i can continue to do what he was doing, doing this thing that is my own thing. i've been thinking about missions, and history, and art. i've been marveling how this torch gets passed sideways and backwards and all kinds of random ways in this community. and i have been inspired to be inspired. and i have been reading francesca lia block, toni morrison and giving myself time to breathe. been writing in little books again. had a much-needed lunch with an old friend. went to three different bookstores to see where my book was displayed. traveled four hours round trip to walk down my favorite street. been thinking through a book i want to make with my sisters. spent two hours in a field on monday, stalking a family of wild bunny rabbits and taking their photos. communed with trees and had a good chat with a best friend. it's truly wild- there are so many things gone awry every single day- so many aspects of life at which i am completely incompetent- but most days, even the shitty ones, i really really love my life.

springtime

2006-05-09T02:32:00.000-04:00

oh, it's been the busiest of times... i'm enjoying springtime- my apartment is full of fresh flowers (from the lilac bush outside, roses from my grandma and a gorgeous bouquet from my customers debbie and rebecca from when my book came out) and getting lots of work done for classes and things. i've been wearing birks every day, which for me means summer is here and real shoes can be put away til november or so. so scrap city came out, which is the book with ym work in it. and the book is awesome and we held a celebration and book-signing at my store last saturday and it was f-ing fantastic. paul, the author, came out, as well as odette dillon and her band, bettie after midnght. we sold tons of books and signed scads of them (and gave away a few copies too) and just generally had a grand old time! it was a splendid day and i'm looking forward to the book release party at madame x's, at the end of june.
there are things i'm missing, things i'm thinking about... i miss my sisters and wish there was a way to see them more often... i spent the other day in the city and i cried walking down 6th ave, because i jsut miss it so f-ing much. i've been thinking about the lizards in aruba. the colors i saw there. the desert leading up to the ocean and dropping off into cliffs.
i'm making some good things lately, and writing a lot, and feeling like something good is building. gonna ride this wave and see where it takes me.

it's official

2006-04-25T05:02:00.000-04:00

the scrap city website is up! check it out:
www.inspiredtype.com/scrapcity.
wahoo! i am so excited to see this damn book!
supposedly mine is on its way.
can't wait to see it.
can't wait, can't wait, can't wait....

drunk on afternoon sunshine

2006-04-18T23:33:00.000-04:00

had monday off... spent it in the city...
shopping and visiting and
laying around in washington square park, people-watching in the sunshine...
kinda hoped it'd fix my jones
but it's official:
i miss my home so bad my teeth hurt.
i'm ready to make promises to god:
if you let me move home, i swear
i will never bitch about the summer heat
or the way you have to wear boots every single day in winter
fashion be damned because of that bone-crunching cold
(that isn't colder than in the suburbs, it's only that in new york city,
unless you are extremely rich, you are out in the elements a lot. )
and i promise that i will love
that you have to walk every day,
three, four, five miles
to and from the subway
underground in the tunnels
to and from work
and you do it fast
and because of this your ass isn't as fat as your diet would suggest it should be.

i miss my tall brooklyn windows

and how you could see the empire state building from the rooftop at 156 Quincy St

and the dinosaur sculptures in our front yard.

and i miss the crackle in the the air that happens there

and nowhere else.

i miss it so much.
the street-songs, the good shoes,
the waitstaff that isn't gonna be perky so drink your coffee or fuck off, lady, i don't care which.

by hook or by crook, folks. by hook or by crook.

oh, mean girls.

2006-04-18T00:14:00.000-04:00

so i love the movie 'mean girls'. i have a minor crush on tina fey, and she looks totally hot in it. and there are all the fun cameos and the girls who play the plastics are very fun and i totally buy lindsay lohan’s story. and so tonight i’m laying around watching it for like the 3rd time since i bought it on sale on Saturday, and maybe it’s just that i’ve seen it so many times in so few days that the patterns are starting to pop out and i’m seeing something i feel like i need to work out: mean girls is anti-lesbian? how weird.

let me spout: so there’s damian the super-queer. and he’s adorable, i love him like i love my very own queer boys. but we can’t forget that he’s gay by way of stereotypical femme presentation, not by way of sexuality. he’s absolutely sex-less. i don’t think he expresses a single iota of desire once in the entire movie. (though now that i’m saying that, i want to go back and watch the movie again and check that out for real, see if he doesn’t cast a bedroom eye at someone.) and of course, he does have the vanity thing going on, as well as the penchant for show tunes and an awesome bitchy-girl side.

and then there’s Janice. i love Janice. i really do. she’s an awesome artist and i like her style and she’s totally f-ing hot (those eyes?! holy shit, i’m weak-kneed). but let’s examine the issues here. she is highly female-centric in that she exists in an almost man-less circle, given damian’s neutered persona. and at one point, when cady is referring to regina’s appearance, Janice’s comment is about how regina’s “got pretty big jugs” now that she’s putting on weight. hmm…

and there are no less than three occasions in the movie where damian attempts to tell cady why Janice hates regina so much, and each time Janice silences him. then, when cady reads that the Plastics think Janice is a dyke, cady refuses to tell Janice that. instead she lies and says that Janice wasn’t mentioned at all. her actions show us that to cady, being called a dyke is so bad she can’t even say it to her friend. and to Janice, being called a dyke is so bad that she can’t even have it mentioned to her friend that that is the reason she hates regina. hmm…

and then, just to top it all off, when cady enters the Halloween party and the voiceover is talking about how girls dress like sluts on Halloween in America, dead-ahead there are two girls dressed in slutty gear, making out in a doorway. and though these high schoolers are supposedly so gay-friendly that damian’s sexuality is apparently fine by everyone, cady definitely gives the making-out girls a weird “what the hell is going on here?” look.

hmm… i feel like this movie is having a strange relationship with the gay folk. i love this movie. it kind of hurts my feelings.

he's ready for his close-up

2006-04-08T00:16:00.000-04:00

so last sunday was the most lovely afternoon and me and chazzard had a photo shoot in the yard. it was so fun. he is starting to be pretty chill on his leash again. it's been pretty hard to regain all our lost ground since we moved to the suburbs. see, in brooklyn, our backyard was really enclosed and only connected to other backyards, so he felt safe even though the sky was bigger than the ceiling (a continuous issue for chaz). but out here in the country, even in the back-yard chaz can hear cars and trucks and they freak him out a little. also, i think cause there's so much stuff here for him to climb in and on and under, he wants to frolick more than his leash will allow. but he also has a neurotic mother who knows that he is perfectly capable of getting scared and running under something large and getting stuck and so refuses to let him off his leash. anyway, we were playing with afternoon light and my [love it but don't really know how to use it] camera. chazzard is the most handsome fellow, and he's quite the willing little subject. he thinks he's a supermodel.

art journal day

2006-04-04T23:21:00.000-04:00

so there is something cosmic going on. piskies afoot or some such. strange things have been occurring. gifts being handed to folks who don't know they need them.

i had a play-date with my friend kristi and such things are so good for the soul. making art with, and talking-making-art with other art-making-folks is so new and cool for me. most of my creative work is done in the middle of the night in my little studio all alone with maybe chazz trying to steal buttons or something but that is the extent of my usual level of creative collaboration. and it's not like we were critiquing or getting involved in each other's projects, really, it's just that there is good energy in the air. anyway, the point of the story is that kristi showed me her art journal and said 'i really think you should start one' and i said uh-huh and then today i was having a very cranky day and feeling rage-ish and stifled and messy and purple and i found an old book in my collection of old books and it was called "good morning, young lady" and so i began an art journal and it is so fun. all that messy is good for my soul in a different way than scrapping. this is a new thing, it reminds me of the really intricate notes and doodles my friends and i wrote each other and made for each other when we were in middle school. we folded notes into shapes: squares, triangles. i wrote around the perimeters of pages. made flowers of paragraphs. nad mine were not the most wonderful. i remember: lisa harmon and her handwriting, coils of letters in alternating colors. kristen pufahl's perfect script. it's so odd, what we keep.

here is a page from my art journal. the quote is from a splendid drag queen named Ms. Guy and it says: "I'm not a gay icon in the way Bette Midler is, and I don't necessarily want to be. But if all the Chelsea queens thought I was the shit, that'd be fine too."

i'm feeling old today, and young, and cranky and tired and messy and mousy and i'm making a book about it. tee hee. i love art.

thanks, k. you get a big hug. the chocolate cupcake didn't hurt either :)

it's time

2006-03-30T23:55:00.000-05:00

time for new chucks. always a bittersweet time for me. my emotional attachment to my shoes is intense. i loved these ones, they had a good run. note the blue stars i doodled along the side, along with art by my sister Catherine and my friend Andi. these aren't getting chucked (ok, i'm sorry but i could NOT resist)- they'll be hanging around for a while, but they are officially retired. holes in the toes and a leaning toward the stinky. the new ones arehigh tops- pretty fly, but as always, they'll take some loving in. here's to old friends, and good shoes.

Be calm and orderly in your life so that you may be violent and original in your work. -- Blaise Pascal

2006-03-30T02:14:00.000-05:00

i'm thinking about this quote a lot. and how the older i've gotten, the less-believeable my life story has become, the less i dye my hair. the more 'normal' my clothes are. people's parents like me and i'm writing a book about my heroin-addict ex-girlfriend and how i was almost as bad as she was in ever so many ways. does that count? i am feeling the need to create order amid my chaos lately, or maybe i'm just nesting. it's nearly time. every month, the week of my period is my most creatively fruitful time. the moon gives me superpowers, i swear. and now i'm bubbling with ideas from the weekend. and i am having special guest craft hour on monday here at studio me- totally psyched. it has been so good for my soul to (re)connect with kindred spirits in intellect and art. girly warrior-creatures with music in their souls. sometimes the gifts of the universe overwhelm me.