eat it

sometimes things don't go as planned.  like when there's some kind of bug with blogger.   frustrating.  i spent the last couple hours on a painting, and then for no apparent reason the damned computer won't let me upload the image.  i might spend hours, wasting away at the keyboard, trying to figure out what is wrong, mad at the computer, sitting here saying "fuck you computer!" when really, truly, it is entirely out of my hands.  i should just walk away, peacefully.  and then the phone rings.  it will be a weird anomalous ring, and when i pick it up, it will be noone.  just a dial tone, a long, droning dial tone, reminding me i'm alone in a white room with large windows, fighting with a robot.  so maybe,  i suppose it's just one of those eerie, off kind of days.  and then, a breakthrough, i pull it all together in a moment of clarity, as if the troubling issue was just a backdoor way to victory.

life is like that.  weird happenstance can ruin a day, or make it, or ruin it and then make it.  and the chances are even steven.  like some days, unexpectedly, you or someone you know will be intolerant of the things that are normally allowed a hefty serving of patience. your adrenaline will peak.   you will get in a yelling match, you will be fired from a job, or you might fire someone, you might flip someone off or insult their character or tell them a thing or two about how your really feel.  you will feel an adrenaline running through your body, a numbness in your legs and a blankness in your mind afterward.  the conflict will consume you through and through, and you will replay it in your head, trying your darnedest to remember what you said or what they said that made you say what you said.  you might feel guilty, or defiant, or righteous, or embarrassed.  you might apologize, or hope it all washes away like garbage from a beach:  out of sight our of mind.  but it happened, it was real, and like many conflicts in our time, it was just a moment of raw, unabashed human emotion, necessary and unnecessary all at once.  "conflict is the beginning of consciousness," said m. esther harding.  yes, it is so true, how a conflict teaches us more about ourselves, our motives, morals, our fundamental wants and needs, more than anything else in life.  conflict may be necessary, but may every conflict lead to introspective learning.  for the sake of the future.

shelter

it's good to be home when the snow starts.  i woke up this morning and it had just begun.  within a few minutes it had powder coated the concrete in that familiar bend in the road outside my house.  i drank tea and watched it fall out the steamy windows.  i turned up the music and danced on the wood floor in my socks and felt a bit like a ballerina in a snowglobe.  it's funny how something so cold could make you feel so warm inside.  in my longjohns and stocking cap and rubber boots and wool sweater i worked with james to get the three woodstove fires that heat our home roaring to consistent and comfortable.  i looked outside some more and saw a bird flit on the windowsill,  hard pressed to find food in the arctic tundra.   i filled each of the three feeders out back.  later, when i saw four friendly rats climbing around chewing gleefully on the black oil seeds, i couldn't help but enjoy their acrobatic cuteness.  i was glad for their feast on my behalf, imagining how many creatures have to face this brutal cold, and what they have to do to adapt.  

i didn't mind feeding those little rats, evidenced by tunnels all around the garden, because that would keep them from under the barn, or in the cupboards.  they need food and shelter, just like everybody else, and they have as much of a right to live here on this planet as i do.  i remembered the time i found a nest, under a goose decoy, decorated with little scraps of cloth and straw and plastic.  it was adorable, and obviously cozy, and i felt kind of awful to displace the guy.  there was something familiar about that rat's nest; maybe it's because my house is busy and cluttered in a chaos that i find comfortable and cozy too.

we all need shelter and warmth in inclement weather.  when i was visiting the city, i was reminded of this again.  i was walking along on a torrentially rainy day, noticing how every tall building had a rain shadow.  sometimes the pigeons would gather there.  and the alcoves and entrances to many of the buildings were filled with sleeping bags, blankets, tarps and cardboard.  we all need to make our nests and hunker down, somewhere.  we all deserve a warm place to sleep.  seeing those folks making a home from nothing, barely scraping by using garbage as a resource and just trying to get through another day, i was reminded:  i am so fortunate.

the king's men

on exhibit @ the paperdoll, bellingham, wa

sometimes i get an artistic wild hair.  i want to try something new.  i'm antsy and i get bored with myself and my same old style of "painting the things i see".  you may know this about me from my blog and the random anomalous paintings in there.  they are awkward like the jokers in the deck, the black sheep in the flock.  how they usually come about: i see the art of my friends, like daniel long for instance, and think: i like that better.  i want to make art like that.  i told daniel about this conundrum in particular last night, about how i was drawn to his work because it is raw and emotional and immediate and has so many layers of interpretation.  i said i wanted to paint like him. i even tried. and he said the exact same thing.  he wanted to paint like me.  its stupidly funny how we were like suburban neighbors, looking over the fence admiring each other's greener green grass when our own grass was just green enough. and it served as a revelation, of sorts, about human nature.  we always want what we don't have.  usually, after dabbling in this or that style in search of excitement, getting nowhere fast, appropriating ideas from here and there like a bad medley from a cover band, i run back to my good old standby.  doesn't everybody?  because it works.  it's tried and true.  it's actually even faster for me than experimentation, because i know exactly where i'm going. it's like driving a familiar car: reliable, trustworthy. these are the comforts we can't take for granted. and the qualities that make us individual.

cat man

when i leave the farm i always hear stories about it.  usually these stories have to do with the animals.  this time, stories were particularly centered around the two cats.  james, he's never really been much of a cat man.  they've grown on him, but i think his adaptability is more of a survival skill. that's because he lives with me, and i am cat-obsessed. i hold their paws when i'm sleeping, a baby talk them, i rub their bellies and feed them better food than i eat. i am a weirdo and do all kinds of funny things because of them and i can't help it.  maybe it's some kind of genetic disorder:  my crazy ukranian grandma and crazy aunt are breeders.  i need cats.  and i don't really pay any mind to their obnoxious tendencies, their hairballs and grass pukes and shedding and all.  and so james, well, he puts up them.  and they are lucky for that.

today began with james discovering that max had eaten a hole in the bag of dog food and splayed it all over the floor.  fat bellied, he went on to be a naughty boy all day.  he attacked james in a show of dominance, and persistently followed him around for food and pets.  all day.  chachie, she attacked an unsuspecting customer in the store, using her feet to kick at the poor guy's hand and her toothless gums to gnaw away.  when the guy finally got his hand back, she went for his leg. poor james told me the stories over the phone, exasperated, with max maxxing out on his lap and the fresh ground turkey for their dinner defrosting in the kitchen.  from here, it's clear to see:  the animals are head of the household.

a sideways glance

for some reason i can't get this hat to go the right direction.  i tried for a while earlier this afternoon, but got frustrated and gave up.  i tried again this evening after a busy night working and out on the town and now i'm exhausted and this is all i could do.  so the hat's off, the gig is up.  g'nite.

water

the rain.  it's everywhere.  on the freeway going south, it gathered in lake-sized hydroplane puddles in the low spots in the road,  and it sprayed my windshield in a thunder of solid mud as the semi trucks barreled past me.    in a thick cloudy mist it filled the air, and created delicate rockwall lace waterfalls where waterfalls aren't usually.  yesterday, it coated my wooden cityscape displays in the dark and made drippy soggy runny messes of my painted vellum cutout windows as i  stepped in puddles trying to avoid other puddles.  and today, walking the six blocks to stumptown get a cup of tea, it penetrated my wool jacket and my leather boots and my jeans and my socks and my wool hat.  and when i looked down to pour the soymilk into my tea, it flowed from my cap in a steady stream onto the counter.  defenseless against the wetness,  my wet wooly self smelling like a post-rainy-walk-dog, i succumbed and let it roll off me and down my neck and into my hair, marveling at the clogged gutters and broken downspouts and awnings all spraying like impromptu celebratory fountains to the concrete.  there, water meeting more concrete, searching for the storm drains leading to the underground maze of tunnels that will eventually drain to the river, the bulbous brown river of mud and motor oil and sewage and debris, the river that will drive itself swiftly out to sea, i wondered: how do the roots of the city's trees, hidden beneath the sidewalks and lanes, find the water?

an old friend

seeing an old friend after a long hiatus is like finding a pair of clean dry socks on a rainy day when you didn't think you had any: refreshing, comfortable, warm, cozy.  much needed.