AJAX BELL

Author of the Queen City Boys books

Category Archives: dharma time


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I been missing you, hope you’re missing me

Wow, so yeah I haven’t really been blogging at all recently, huh? Maybe it’s time to start again.

I’ve been complaining lately to friends about how much I miss LiveJournal. The heyday of it anyway, since it still exists. Recently I’ve watched a lot of movies and TV that I want to squee with someone about.  I miss my old LJ community, a group wide, deep, and diverse enough that at least surely a couple people would be interested in talking to me about which Korean dramas I’m watching, about German pop-glamrock bands, about anime, and about why I might be the only person left who still enjoys Supernatural (do I enjoy it because I watch it in a void without fandom’s influence? I may never know).  But now I feel like I’m just shouting into the void or pestering my friends with things they don’t care about but indulge my babbling out of love (which is actually kind of awesome in it’s own way).

Lacking that community I’ve been trying to seek out folks I lost in the diaspora years ago. Looking the Tumblrs and the Twitters, poking around sites I last saw faces I recognized, but everyone has moved on to unknown fandoms, has changed their names, or otherwise I’ve forgotten how to recognize them.  Which is kind of sad, but won’t stop me from continuing to shout into the void.

So I’ve been watching Ouran High School Host Club (OMG Hitachiin twins!) in fits and starts, mostly when I work out.  Which it’s totally not conducive to working out because I find I’ve often slowed or stopped and am staring at the TV, slack jawed.  I mean really it’s like an entire anime made up of nothing but fanservice.  And layers of meta so deep you need hip waders to get through it.  Somehow despite how obvious it’s pandering is, it’s still gripping and smart enough that I actually care about all the characters.

I found this amazing academic paper, which didn’t tell me much I didn’t know about OuranHSHC, but it did prove that I made major misstep in my life by not going into a field where I got paid to teach and write about things like anime and manga.

Man, this show is so weird.  It gets as much right as it does wrong and I’m not sure you’d really enjoy it if you weren’t already familiar with anime and boy’s love manga. Or maybe you’d love it and be super disappointed when everything else didn’t turn out to be like the crazed, ridiculousness this anime is.  It’s on Netflix, subbed or dubbed, and I think everyone should watch it and come contemplate Mori-san’s love for Honey-sempai with me. We can talk about how every episode is more batshit crazy than the last. It’s just nuts. Nuts only my fangirl homegirls would really understand. If only I could find them all again.

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There is so much more love in the world than you can conceive of

Let’s talk about Tom Daley coming out. For those of you who don’t know (I’m assuming a possibility that the media storm about it has only been in the kind of online circles I travel in) Tom Daley is an Olympic Diver from the UK who came out this week in a very sweet little video (link has a transcript if you don’t have patience for a video). I’m very proud of him for his brave act, but I’m more interested in the responses I’m seeing in the media and in comments I’m seeing on stories about this. Really I just want to address the common responses I’m seeing.

1) “It’s no one’s business who he loves.” While in an ideal world this is true. Tom says it himself in his video that in a perfect world he wouldn’t have to do this. I wish he didn’t. But he does because all over the world people are still persecuted, punished, stigmatized, shunned and even killed because of who they love. Coming out is the only way to combat that. When your family, friends, and public figures that you admire make public statements about who they love it makes the entire idea of queerness less threatening. It opens a conversation to help everyone understand that two women or two men getting married isn’t a threat to anyone’s way of life. Because, yes, who your partner is IS a private thing, but it can’t be a quiet thing until we’ve made society at large safe for every one in it. Visibility is key to safety and coming out is key to visibility. So, of course it’s no one’s business who Tom Daley spends time with but until he and everyone queer is 100% safe then public coming outs will stil matter, will still mean something. It’s fine if YOU don’t have a problem with it, but it is important to recognize that your support is much more meaningful than dismissing it as something that is “no one’s business.”

2. Tom Daley “still fancies girls.” This so important and so complicated. Headlines say, “Tom Daley comes out as gay!” People angrily respond that he obviously came out as bisexual since he made a point about liking girls. Headlines say, “Tom Daley comes out as bisexual!” People angrily respond that he did not label himself, so we should not label him, besides he’s young and this probably just his way of easing into gayness or not ostracizing part of his fanbase. This is such an important conversation and it’s important especially because it’s happening. Whether Tom is gay, bisexual or something else actually is no one’s business. He’s been clear that he is with a man, he is very happy and he feels safe and supported in the relationship. That’s all that matters. So why are we arguing about the label? Because bisexuality is a real thing and it is often ignored or erased. Erasure happens because if a person likes boys and girls they generally pair up with one or the other and immediately become identified as gay or straight. Bisexual men are frequently told that they are just not yet fully admitting that they are gay. Bisexual women are often told that they are attention seeking, confused, or just slutty. Homosexuals are as guilty of these responses as the straight majority is. So when Tom Daley says he fancies girls at a time when he does not need too (everyone is going to say he’s gay anyway, everyone knows he’s with a man, so why temper it with mentioning girls?) it matters because it opens to conversation about how sexuality isn’t binary. It isn’t just gay or straight. There’s a whole huge spectrum out there that goes beyond the Kinsey scale. What it boils down to is that it still shouldn’t matter who someone’s partner is, but it does matter that they feel supported in their lives. We’ve been making some strides with gay marriage. As a society we are becoming more comfortable with lesbians and gay men in public spaces. But the whole array of human sexuality, the bisexuals, transgendered, genderqueer, asexual and whole host of other possibilities are still invisible. So when Tom Daley says he’s fancies girls he’s allowing for public conversation, allowing for visibility for everyone who hasn’t yet been invited to the table of acceptance.  No, it doesn’t matter how we label him as an individual, it isn’t our business, but it is our business to pay attention and to listen to our friends and family so we can better understand how they identify and make them feel safe as well.

So congratulations, Tom Daley, on your new found happiness, and thank you for making important conversations possible.

On a more shallow note, holy smokes, Tom Daley is beautiful and his boyfriend is so handsome! And they seem so smart and thoughtful. There haven’t been many present day celebrity romances that have me me all fluttery, but this feels very old school romancey to me, very Bogart and Bacall. I’ll be over here sighing, with cartoon hearts in my eyes, every time I see a picture of them.


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Forced change and willpower

Last summer I finally hit the wall of being so unhappy with my body that I had to take action.  For years I’d gained weight and become more sedentary.  I thought I ate pretty well and figured that genetics was against me and there was nothing I could do about my round little apple dumpling shape.  And I didn’t care so much.  I’ve never been terrifically concerned with beauty aesthetics and I am genuinely concerned with the way our society raises young women to starve themselves.  I have a couple friends who underwent bariatric surgery to great (over 100lbs) weight loss and each of them told me that at the end of it, they were still who they’d been before and whatever demons they had still needed to be faced, skinnier or not.  I knew none of my demons had to do with my weight so why fight a losing battle with my body?

But as I age my body becomes more my enemy.  Aches, joint pains, longer recovery times, many new problems.  Everywhere you look there’s a new study saying that exercise will cure everything.  I got into physical therapy for my chronic, severe shoulder pain.  I worked on my posture, I diligently did my recovery exercises twice a day and I decided to get fit.  I mean if I was already doing some sort of exercise twice a day, why not add more?  I determined the the optimum, most convenient exercise for me (indoor rowing) and set to it, with long series of staggered goals.  The biggest one being “turn 40 being in the best shape of my life.”  I rowed and rowed for weeks and the weight almost immediately started falling off.  Exercise with a surprise benefit!  I wasn’t just becoming healthier, I was visibly changing.

Fitness minded friends encouraged me to count calories and really look at my diet.  I insisted I didn’t need to do that because I knew I ate pretty well: no gluten, mostly whole, fresh foods, very little packaged or pre-prepared food.  But I caved pretty quickly and started using My Fitness Pal, initially to just track exercise but my use coincided with discovering my recent weight loss.  I was encouraged so I started tracking what I was eating every day for a few weeks and yes, according to the general consensus, I was eating too many calories for my height & age.  Sure they were “good” calories, but they were still too many.

Armed with numbers (weight and calories and energy expenditure) I didn’t quite understand, I read up on nutrition and on nutrition and sports medicine.  There’s a mountain of information out there and lot of it is wrong.  I sorted through message boards and essays of advice and I eventually made a standard for myself.  Maybe some of it is wrong, it’s hard to tell, but for me it’s reasonable, practical and makes sense.  I eat a low carb, high protein, high fat diet, still avoiding most processed foods.  I spent months altering my diet slightly and recognizing what was making me feel better and what was making me feel worse.  And the weight continued to come off, slowly but steadily.

In the last few months I’ve been pretty uneven about exercise.  My consistent routine was upheaved by moving and the demands of the new house and my job, by not immediately creating a new routine when my circumstances changed.  Days shy of turning 40 I’ve nearly met the weight loss goal I set when I started tracking calories and I feel great.  I can’t stress enough how much pain I was in before and how much simple weight loss helped me feel better.  But even when I was heavier I felt much, much better when I was exercising regularly.  I’m small and relatively fine boned and extra weight was literally dragging me down, so yes, I feel better with out it.  Exercise however has a threefold improvement: the satisfaction of accomplished a single task set out to do (row 30 mins, walk an hour), you get the immediate rush of improved blood flow, it’s calming and over time you physically feel stronger and more capable.  It’s like this door to understanding has opened for me.  Yes, of course we’ve all heard “it’s just diet and exercise” for ever.  But I can’t state strongly enough how true that really is for me.  It is hard work, not because it’s hard to do, but because it takes commitment and dedication and sometimes the returns are slow to show. But really unless you have a major medical problem, six weeks of dedication, to diet, exercise, or both should show you what’s possible.

Still I’m not nearly to where I want to be.  Halfway there.  I’ve got diet figured out, as long as I stick to it I should be fine (“it’s not a diet, it’s a lifestyle change”). But exercise I’m still learning, it still feels forced some days and I don’t love it. Yet.  I’m going to get there.  That’s my goal for the next year.  I know I need to work harder because just like my friends, here I am at goal weight for my height, age and build and I look in the mirror and I don’t see much that’s different than where I started (in fact I can only see the difference when I compare pictures side by side).  Lumpy, poochy, misshapen belly, weak arms, shoulder pain that flares up when I’m too sedentary, aches that could otherwise be controlled.  I am so much better than I was 11 months ago, but  I’m not great yet and I want to age into greatness, into fitness and most importantly into strength.  So I will keep working, keep striving and never set an end point, because I want to have a good relationship with this body and like all relationships, you have to keep at it, keep listening and keep trying.

And because no make over story is complete without pictures:

Continue reading →


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40 years in a world which I cannot find a reflection of myself

In past years I have always done a 30 day birthday countdown, giving myself a birthday month essentially.  I didn’t do it this year, not by design, but because this year seems to have snuck up on me, like where did the last three months of my life go?  How is it April already?  How is it the end of April already? Ack ack ack!  Rewind, I’m not ready!

But ready or not, here it is, a mere 6 days away, the big 4-0.  I have no issues about turning 40.  Or rather the issues I have are not the expected ones.  Since I was 16 I’ve imagined 40 as being this magic barrier that I would cross and then suddenly be taken seriously as a woman.  Surely no one is surprised that that magic barrier is both moveable and non-existent.

I'm pretty sure that what I see in the mirror is the reverse of this.

I’m pretty sure that what I see in the mirror is the reverse of this.

For many years I’ve attributed the way I’m treated in the workplace (and sometimes the wider world) as a factor of my youth or my youthful appearance.  I have worked hard in sub-par professional jobs most of my adult life, been under employed continuously in relation to my intelligence, knowledge and skills.  This, I believe, is a factor not just of my lack of ambition but the economic lows which have plagued my generation. But the longer I work the more barriers I run into that make me wonder how much my gender has also kept me pushed down. I’ve never felt like any employer has given me a chance to show what I  can really do.  I’ve felt a vague sense of being patted on the head told that I’m cute for working so hard, that it’s resented when I try to wield what power I have, that I’m valued much more for appearance than for my work (or not as valued when my appearance doesn’t meet some standard I’ll never understand).  These are things that I’ve started to see as failings of my (mostly male) employers and of society as a whole, rather than my own shortcomings. I find myself in conflict with coworkers merely because I’ve politely asserted myself.  I long ago let go of the false persona that tries to please everyone (as women are raised to do) and instead focus on the task at hand and the best way to get it done.  I’m told that I’m too brusque and business-like, that I need to make myself sweeter and more likeable (ask my friends, I’m plenty sweet and likeable when it counts).  No man has ever been asked to bake for clients to appease them (um, unless baking is his job). On the eve of 40 I can definitively say that it’s simply because I’m a woman that I am told to  to be kinder, sweeter and less demanding of perfection at work.

This doesn't empower me because I'm neither maiden, mother nor hag and we revere none of these in our society.

This doesn’t empower me because I’m neither maiden, mother, nor hag and we revere none of these in our society.

At 16 I had imagined 40 as some marker where I’d be strong, capable and wise, and no longer recognized as a sexual object and therefore able to speak powerfully and be taken seriously.  And there is a little truth to this.  Very, very slowly it’s becoming more true (thank you, Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Warren and strong outspoken women everywhere) but it certainly isn’t cultural norm yet (why are we discussing these women’s hairstyle in the news and not their jobs and qualifications?).  Women are still infantilized, particularly in my specific location (in the American South, working in construction, still a predominantly male industry).  As a society we have not made the strides toward equality and justice that I expected to see in my lifetime.  Growing up in the 70s we were all fed the “truths” that the world would keep changing at an expeditious rate and we could grow up to anything.  Which I guess is almost true, assuming you have the right stack of privilege, luck and opportunity behind you.   Yes, it’s been great to be alive to see all sexual orientations start to get their due, but what about the rest of us, the people of color, women, all the other marginalized groups?  How long will we be stuck in some moderately polished up versions of the historical roles society forces on us?

I thought we were charging forward to change but we lost our way sometime around 1984.

I thought we were charging forward to change but we lost our way sometime around 1984.

I meant this to be personal not political, (but the personal is, oh you know…) but I can’t avoid it because at nearly 40 I know much more of the world than I did at 16 and now I can see that the problem isn’t small with only me as its isolated victim.  It’s vast and keeping us all down and it’s shaped me over the years to dream of something better for anyone.  Where once I wanted to be taken seriously as person, now I wish to be taken seriously as a gender.  I want to live to see my sisters equally represented in positions of power.  I want our governing bodies, the world over, to truly represent our whole society.  Give me 51 female senators and 218 female representatives in my own country’s federal government.  Give all my sisters equal pay and equal opportunities or rise to commercial positions of power.  Bring us all up and punish those who strive to keep us down through sexual and physical violence, through words and actions, so that we may have justice with equality.  For my next 40 years that is my fondest wish, to live to see a world in which women can see a reflection of their true selves.

More easily attainable is my fondest wish for the immediate future: time off to hang out with my friends and family, cute outfits to wear and feel confident in, trashy TV to watch, and maybe a little celebration. I will work on my ability to find ways to always fit those things into my life, because even as half of me always seems to be raging at the system, at the news, at the pit of ignorance our society has fallen into, I am still human and it is the small things that bring me joy.  And isn’t joy (not love or money or happiness) what makes life worth living and gives us all the strength to keep fighting for a world where peace is easier to find for everyone?  For my part I will continue to redefine beauty and style to be personal and not a mask of society’s creation. I will challenge everyone I meet to judge me for who I am and what I can do and not on my appearance.  I will call out those who keep us down in speech and actions.  I will volunteer where I am needed, help those who cannot help themselves and try as hard as I can to model the behavior I hope to see from everyone.  I will relax sometimes, and enjoy the good still in the  world.  After all, I’m 40 now, it’s party time on the other side of that magic barrier.

I'd like to live a life of no regrets, but I don't even know this guy and I regret that he got this tattoo.

I’d like to live a life of no regrets, but I don’t even know this guy and I regret that he got this tattoo.


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Hooray say the people, it’s the Solstice!

Today in the Northern Hemisphere we round the corner on darkness.  It is the Hibernal solstice when the sun is near its greatest distance from the equatorial plane, standing still as it were.

Today Marduk tamed the monsters of chaos and for one more year we are safe as we move back into the light.

Today we light candles and keep them lit.  Though darkness is already on the run, we must continue to chase it away so spring can come faster.

Today the Oak King is apparently dead, his branches bare and cold.  We thought the Holly King had won, as he remained green,  but long live the Oak King as he returns to rule us into Midsummer!  Go, hang the holly, let it catch bad spirits on it’s tiny horns, protecting us in the months of darkness when the border with the shadowlands is permeable.

Today is the Saturnalia where we eat and dance and decorate the evergreens with red berries.  We will reverse all our roles, switch with our opposites and see the world from the other side, through other eyes.

Today and for the days to come, find joy in each other, celebrate, kiss beneath the mistletoe, feast in the light of candles.  Celebrate the darkness and the joy we have as  it washes away.  Tonight we breathe and meditate on our lives.  We breathe out the things we want gone, we breathe in our wishes for the coming year.  Tomorrow life begins again.


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Summer Begins

Scrolling back through entries here I see I’ve often posted at length on the Winter Solstice, but not for the Summer.

Summer begins at 6:09pm.  In Middle Tennessee, the sun today rose at 5:30am, then sets at 8:07pm, giving us 14.6 hours of sunlight.  The longest day of the year.

I’ve always had a complicated relationship with the Summer Solstice.  Here in Tennessee I feel a little cheated, perhaps because of our latitude.  If I was in Seattle today I’d have a full 16 hours of daylight, being so much further north.  It is one of the glorious delights of the North, the drastic changes in the amount of light make you value the seasons.  It somehow gives you more visible seasonal drama beyond mere temperature changes and plants returning to life.  And yet, even in the Great North I always felt the Summer Solstice to be somewhat bittersweet.

The light diminishes after flaring it’s brightest on this day.  In Tennessee it means less in than it does in the North, as it will never get as dark in winter, so there is less burden to bear on that end.  Indeed, the longest days of summer are still ahead of us, if we are measuring by heat, laziness and availability of good food cooked outside on a grill.  But the light passing has always felt like loss to me.  A downward journey that eventually ends in the darkness of winter.  The beauty of autumn is joy to behold.  As is the desolation of winter in it’s own way.  Still today feel like an ending, a turn we took, walking away from spring. Fortunately spring will return next year, no matter what we do, and on the Winter Solstice we can look longingly at the slow the return of the light,  knowing that spring must come on the heels of the sun’s return.

I don’t know the origins of my dark view of midsummer.  Perhaps growing up so far north, where the loss of the sun means so much darkness.  Perhaps it’s burned in genetic memory from my Scandinavian and Scottish ancestors.  It’s no mystery that the Scandinavian cultures, and for northern European ones, celebrate Midsummer as a massive festival.  Because indeed today feels massive, like the most there is, the best you can have, ALL the sunlight.  And yet it is only today, quickly fleeting, like everything in life.


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Two down and what makes three?

Some days you just need to change everything.  And sometimes you remember to document it.  I’m pretty sure my hair was holding me back. Heh.

and

 

And of course if you’ve decided to have a week long mid-life crisis, then haircutting isn’t enough, you need to get a giant new tattoo as well:


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An open letter to Sherman Alexie

Just read a line in a Sherman Alexie story about standing in line at Bartell’s and suddenly I’m so homesick I’m not sure I can live through the heartbreak of it. In my head I ask Sherman Alexie if he imagines how many of his throw away lines profoundly affect people?  I think of every word I’ve put out there, every bit of fiction I’ve written, and no one has ever come back to me with the important words, with the phrases that I labored over, they only come to tell me about the how they were moved by my fast lines, the ones that drop out, that I don’t consider at all before I put them to paper.

Perhaps the lines I don’t labor over mean the most, come more truly from me?  Perhaps there is no meaning in any of it and will just keeping spilling out words, looking for the turn of phrase that will free my soul and find it someday.  Perhaps Sherman Alexie labored over that line and still will never know will never know how his two sentences made me break my own heart.  I could write him a letter and tell him, but I would labor too hard over the words, I would lose the importance of sharing what he gave me.  I have always been writing this letter to him in my head, through out the years, every time I read his stories and poems.  A letter that never makes it to paper, to computer screen, never achieves more than some small form of therapy for me.

I am talking to Sherman in my head (can I call you, Sherman, I feel we are close enough now) about my homesickness, about how I cannot ever really understand where he is from and he cannot understand how I am from where he is now.  I tell him it is a continuum that no one but me can see, a story that can’t quite be told, but is important all the same.  And the The Butchies pop up on shuffle on the old mp3 player and I start to cry because this is more homesickness than a soul can bear.  But this makes me get up and start to cook dinner: fettuccine alfredo with smoked salmon (real, PNW smoked salmon), peas and caramelized onions.  Because I am homesick and if I lived close enough that I could call my mom and ask if I could come over she would walk to me to a restaurant near her house (one Sherman Alexie has surely been too) and I would order some variation of this dish because you don’t really find it anywhere else in the world, not the way we make it in Seattle.

And while I am chopping onions the mp3 player turns again and gives me Kevin Gordon singing Watching the Sun Go Down, and I remember how I stopped at 6:42 am, on my way to work, to photograph the sunrise over an electrical power station, and got distracted by some horses too.  I think of how the redbuds are surely more beautiful this year than they have ever been before, blooming riotously, everywhere, making the edges of every roadway glow purple.  I think of how  the heat in Tennessee makes me feel warm all the way through to my bones, like I’ve never been warm before.

So I tell Sherman that he is lucky indeed, to be able wait in line at Bartell’s, but he has to go through cold rain to get there and I am saved by the sun  and the green in spring and the sounds, all the sounds, here in the dirty South.  Perhaps I am homesick for a place that no longer exists.  A place I visited, moved through in childhood, that is just a fairytale now, I can not go back.  My adult self does not have the magic to cross back over the boundaries of the places I’ve been before, I can only go to new places or create them myself. And I’m still crying when I sit down to eat my dinner, but not because I miss anything.  I am so lucky to have been so many places, both real and imagined. Lucky to be me and to be still so full of emotions good and bad (love) about all of those places I have been and the people in them.  Even the rude lady in the Bartell’s line that you have to tell to fuck all the way off.  So thanks, Sherman, for reminding of my home, the past one, the new one, the one that is always me and goes everywhere inside my heart.  I’m certain that you never knew that namedropping Bartell’s in a story would make some girl in Tennessee break out the fancy smoked salmon from way back home and cook herself a good dinner on a night when she would otherwise have been too tired, too worn down by work, to do more than make a quesadilla.  Thanks for dinner, Sherman, I really feel like we are close now.

 

(Pictures taken early this morning in Tennessee, when I stopped, before I even had coffee, to remember that there is beauty in the world.  Even when you feel like you break to pieces because of the stress that swirls around you and puts the anxiety inside you, there is still the color purple and leaves that were not that green yesterday and sunrises.  The redbuds really are spectacular this year.)


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Right out of the gate

Hello, 2012!  You look fantastic!

First project started: Love Letter From an Occupant.  This will be predominantly a visual project.  Go follow it with your own Tumblr or add it to your feed reader or bookmark to read later and then ignore it.  Or you can ignore it right out, I don’t mind.  I will probably set this up so it streams to Facebook directly, though hopefully not intrusively.  Probably I will add a wrap up of what happens over there here periodically as well.

I am actually glad for Facebook’s existence.  It’s allowed me to better keep up with my family than I ever could, and brought me back in touch with people that I am thrilled to have found.  But frankly it makes me lazy on the internet.  I have been actively participating in online communities in a variety of ways since about 1992.  It has opened doors to me, introduced me to many of my friends and made me creative in ways I never could have imagined.  I think Facebook actually damages a lot of that.  It’s easy to thoughtlessly toss up a picture, or a quick status and stop thinking about why things are being shared or taking the time to really write about things.  I can’t give up Facebook because it is my main connection with some folks and that’s okay, but I am spreading out more this year than I have for the past couple years.

To some extent I’ve been locked up inside myself for the last 30 months or so.   I am thankful that I’ve had the time for introspection and the chance to find myself again.  Now I need to stretch a little creatively and a little personally.  The Tumblr project is personal.  I know from past year’s experimenting that I can’t do a picture a day or anything that requires specific time commitments, but there are pictures, narratives and imagery that I’d like to be sharing more thoughtfully and hopefully this project will be the beginning of that.

I am ready to go, are you? Let’s go! Let’s go!

Seattle horizons. December 23, 2011.


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Resolve

I was trying to think of a fitting send off for 2011, but really I wish it would sneak quietly out the back door and be done with.  I can’t really even be bothered to tell it not to let the door hit its ass on the way out.

In 2011 I got better.  I recovered, almost completely, from 2010 and 2009.  I reconnected with some amazing, beautiful old friends who I am so very glad to have back in my life.  I reconnected with my old online community which is no different than sitting down with old friends.  I learned, I changed, I stayed the same, I became more me, I remembered who I was, and who I want to be.  I think I managed to find myself again, or at least the creative center of myself, even if the rest of me seems much changed than who I was even a year ago.  I am glad to be moving forward, looking forward, and carrying on with the people I have around me.

In 2012 I plan to take myself less seriously.  I want to worry less about external pressures and ask less of myself.  I want to write more and laugh more and sing loudly even when I’m out of tune.

I have an extensive list of new projects I want to work on in 2012.  I’m not sure yet which will make the cut and which will fall by the wayside but I am going to strongly commit to one or a few and be dedicated and vigilant in my work on what I do choose.

I will be smarter and more me by the end of the 2012.  I don’t think that’s too much to ask of myself.

I am so grateful for my huge, wonderful family, for my mother and my sisters.  I am so very thankful for my friends and my community.  I wish I had the words and time to tell each of you just how much I love you and how much you mean to me.  I will carry that love in my heart every single day, I will use it to bolster myself against the hard times.  I will do my best to love you all even more, every single day.  I will trust you all and work to to learn to trust myself and my instincts more.  I will try harder to be worthy of the love given back to me.

Here we go!


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Busily sewing Lisettes

I’ve been working on several sewing projects at once, which kind of is and isn’t a good idea.  I am slowly sewing my way through every premutation of Simplicity’s Lisette 2211:

I started with a muslin, in some unlikely colored fabric I had sitting around:

I left off the sleeves and edged it in black bias tape.  The pattern calls for buttons on the faux placket detail, but I thought with this fabric it actually looked better without them.

Belted:

I’ve actually worn this a bunch.  Despite the fabric’s weird chartreuse coloring and pattern, it’s really comfortable and summery.  YAY!

I didn’t set out to make exactly the skirt on the envelope.  I’m trying not to buy fabric rather just sew with what I have on hand, and what I had looks just like the envelope:

This pattern runs really big.  I went down two sizes from what I originally cut in the skirt and I will probably have find a way to sneak some elastic into the back waistband or something to make it comfortably wearable.  The top has some nice details which are kind of lost in the fabric I picked:

I haven’t tried it yet, but I suspect the blouse will get some wear untucked and belted with jeans or something.  I just really love it’s funny little Art Nouveau print and care not all that it’s really too busy for this pattern.

I have the shift dress cut out from this pattern as well, in some grey cotton twill.  I’ve been having trouble deciding on a color to go on the collar/placket, as everything I’ve picked looks too matronly or too twee.  Hoping to finish it this week.

I have been working the long promised bird dress as well.  It’s nearly done, just needs hemming and finishing on the sleeves and neck.  However, I’ve decided to forgo the tie belt the pattern calls for and make my own self fabric belt with a buckle.  This will surely end up being more work than the whole dress, but hopefully it’ll be worth it.

This weekend I also made a little tunic out of a pretty remnant I got for a couple dollars:

I used Simplicity’s Cynthia Rowley 2586.  Holy cow, is there a lot of ease in this!  This is down two sizes from what my measurements said I should cut and I’ll probably take another 3 inches out of the side seams before I wear this out.  I’m really glad I muslined this.  My plan is to make a dress from it next and I would have been swimming in huge tent if I’d done that!

Last month’s wadder is still hanging around.  I’m thinking I might try and recut it into the Cynthia Rowley pattern.  Hopefully I can mange that with out confusing myself too much and destroying all the fabric.


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Housedress extravaganza


This is my old Target housedress that I have worn thin in places.  It’s perfect for lounging and pulling something on fast, but I’ve been wanting a cotton version of it for humid summer Southern days.  I found some ridiculous border print peacock quilting cotton and took a few evenings to pattern out and sew my own version of it.  I finished up all the details of it this past weekend.

And the back:


The cotton is definitely a little stiffer than the original rayon dress, but I think after a couple washings it’ll be just fine.  I’m very pleased with how this turned out.  There may be another one in my future in something cotton but with a softer hand.

__

I got amazing a lovely birthday day wishes and gifts from so many of people this weekend.  In lieu of actual content  here’s pictures of a just a few of them:

Handmade table runner and pretty bowl!

Le Creuset cassole dish getting it's first use.

And, yep, that all pretty much sums up my weekend!  Sewing and eating.  Oh I also read a book, The Painted Boy by Charles de Lint, which I’d highly recommend but only if you’re already into YA magic realism already.  Had a great Friday night birthday party at the Family Wash, missed everyone who wasn’t there, most especially my family.  More house pictures and birthday pictures just as soon as everything is all unpacked at home (that’s soon, I swear it is).


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If wishes were horses I’d be, uh, shoveling a lot

I have been thinking about it, and given the frequency and astounding brilliant content of my posts, I assume my readership to be made up entirely of incredibly wealthy, bored, would-be patrons who just haven’t found the right person to send gifts too.  In light of that, I would like to point out that today it is 94 days or 3 months, 4 days until my birthday (of course you don’t have to wait until my birthday for gifts, silly, even though it’s très gauche, I accept them at any time).  Here are some ideas of what you can get for me:

The purchase of this pillow would give me something soft upon which to rest my head and save me from having to to do hours of pains-taking, meticulous embroidery myself to recreate such a homespun masterpiece.

Any sized print of any of these three photographs (the larger the better!).  This would save me the time and expense of having to go 2500 miles across the country and waiting around in the damp woods for the perfect lighting conditions.  Plus, I am generally an abysmal photographer and mine certainly wouldn’t look this good.

The Frye Carson Lace-up.  This fulfills my need to romanticize early last century laborers, while looking cool, hip and stylish.  A purchase of these (dark brown, size 8.5 please) would save me from having to spend hours on pouring over Ebay to find some that were a tenth of the cost of these lovely originals.

If none of those suits your fancy, I am also accepting plane tickets to Spain (no return needed, assuming you are also purchasing a small coastal villa to reside in as well) or one (or both) of the following:

 

wombatMatt Damon

Thank you for your consideration to this very, very important matter.  If not gifts, you can direct flowers or checks directly to me in my office and I will use them to buy my own villa in Spain (assuming the flowers are filled with diamonds as well).


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Start at the beginning of time

Happy New Year!  It’s 1-1-11, so I am calling it a new beginning.  As with so many beginnings I have no idea where the end will be.  I am going to try and not burden myself with too many resolutions, too many stumbling blocks to trip me up if I fail at them.  Instead I will simply say that I am determined to end 2011 in a better place than I am beginning it.

And in the course of that I hope to exercise more, sew more, learn more about sewing, read more, sleep more, and smile more.  And, you know, floss regularly.

In lieu of anything deep or meaningful to say in my own words, I’ll start the year with some of my favorite poetry.  Frederico Garcia Lorca:

Clock Echo

I sat down
in a clearing in time.
It was a pool of silence.
White silence.
Incredible ring
where the bright stars collide
with a dozen floating
black numbers.

First/Last Meditation

Time
is in night’s colors.
Quiet night.
Over enormous moons,
eternity
is set at twelve.
Time’s gone to sleep
forever
in his tower.
All clocks
deceive us.
Time at last has
horizons.


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The season of giving

That is, the season of giving things to ME.  Look what Talk to Owls bought me:

It’s a shiny, PURPLE, girly bike for riding ’round town and ’round the park.  In case you forgot, TTO is charming, sweet and generous.  I didn’t forget.  I didn’t even need the bike to remind me, although it sure is nice to have.

My mom got me a shiny new phone which  am quit smitten with.  Except for getting used to typing on a touch screen it is perhaps the easiest, most intuitive device I have ever owned.

I also finished THREE sewing projects this weekend.  Pictures and project progress updates soon, I swear.  For now I am going to go take my last autumnal apple cake out of the oven (don’t be sad, winter gingerbread cake starts soon). And read a book.


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I can I can I can I will

I am moved.  Mostly settled. I have a relatively regular schedule for the next 6 or so weeks. I will sew. I will sew. I will sew. I will sew. (And I will blog about it, but regular internet at home will go a long way towards making that happen for sure.)

I have my sewing room mostly ready to go.  I have a blouse muslin cut out (hopefully one that will end up being wearable).  After the blouse, for my next project, I have purchased this pattern:

Crepe by Collette Patterns

I am super excited about it, although I haven’t even cut out the fabric for the muslin yet and I’m already imagining modifications to it.  My muslin is going to be this weird pima cotton:


I am also imagining this dress in heavier, winterier fabric.  Maybe plaid, maybe something slubby and woolen looking.  Both would require me to acquire oxfords at some point.

Now I am going to finish my day’s work so I really can leave early and go do something about these projects!


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perchance to dream

I am so overwhelmed by life right now that the word ‘overwhelmed’ doesn’t even really mean anything anymore.  It’s like ‘awesome,’ so overused that it’s impact has been reduced to uselessness. I wish I could tell you some big sweeping drama that’s tripping me up, but it’s really more like the minute patterns of my days.

About 14 or 15 months ago things started to go all wonky for me.  Since then each month has brought some new and hitherto un-thought of obstacle.  I have for more than a year been waiting for whichever thing it is to pass/complete/recover so that I can get on with every day life and making plans for the future.  And surely the cycle of unexpected things never ends, but it seems I’ve hit a lull.  I’ve weathered the oral surgeries; the long term separation from a loved one; the break up; the 500 year flood; the resulting work over load; the scalding, torturously hot summer; planning, moving and completely and totally rearranging my life, my plans and my future.  And I gotta say, ya’ll, I’m tired.  Like soul tired.  I want to relax and figure out if I even know anymore how to let go of anxiety and worry.  I want to read a book for hours on end, uninterrupted so I can reset myself  to creativity.  I want to remember how to think about designing and forming things with my own hands, simply creating things. I want to plan menus and buy groceries and quietly cook in my own kitchen.  I want to relax in my own personal (physical) space, unencumbered by outside demands on my time, my energy, my love and my mental peace.

At this point, I guess I just need to find a chair.  The right chair.  For the last few months, when I try and imagine this particular part of whatever thing it is now being over (mostly moving etc.), I close my eyes and I see a circle of light from a lamp over a comfortable place to sit and read or think or draw or sew or simply imagine goodness.  Moving has given me and Talk to Owls both space to stretch out and find calm again.  I been working (ugh, working, so over it in any context) to make this space my own, our own, simply someplace that is comfortable and safe and filled only with the things we need to live and create.  Still I lack this imaginary chair.  I can’t quite see it’s dimensions or design, but I know it’s out there. It is the next thing to strive for: completing a space of relaxation and a place in which to gather myself back together and get ready, be stronger for, the many more rounds of unexpectedness that life is sure to bring me.


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Ain’t nothin’ gonna to break my stride

"Raven and the First Men" by Bill Reid at the Museum of Anthropology in Vancouver, BC.

I think the less said about moving the better?  I will say that no matter how long you have to complete it (3 weeks or 3 days) it still sucks just as much. Also rumors of my impending move to the West Coast have been greatly exaggerated.  Sorry.  All I can say about that is that in this economy good jobs are better than freedom to move around.  And in any economy it’s nice to keep a good boyfriend close as well.

Of course since I haven’t been thinking about anything but moving, I don’t have anything else to talk about.  I read this old post from Bruce Sterling.  There’s a lot of irrelevant info in there so let me quote the important parts:

What is “sustainability?” Sustainable practices navigate successfully through time and space, while others crack up and vanish. So basically, the sustainable is about time – time and space. You need to re-think your relationship to material possessions in terms of things that occupy your time. The things that are physically closest to you. Time and space.

In earlier, less technically advanced eras, this approach would have been far-fetched. Material goods were inherently difficult to produce, find, and ship. They were rare and precious. They were closely associated with social prestige. Without important material signifiers such as wedding china, family silver, portraits, a coach-house, a trousseau and so forth, you were advertising your lack of substance to your neighbors. If you failed to surround yourself with a thick material barrier, you were inviting social abuse and possible police suspicion. So it made pragmatic sense to cling to heirlooms, renew all major purchases promptly, and visibly keep up with the Joneses.

That era is dying. It’s not only dying, but the assumptions behind that form of material culture are very dangerous. These objects can no longer protect you from want, from humiliation – in fact they are causes of humiliation, as anyone with a McMansion crammed with Chinese-made goods and an unsellable SUV has now learned at great cost.

Furthermore, many of these objects can damage you personally. The hours you waste stumbling over your piled debris, picking, washing, storing, re-storing, those are hours and spaces that you will never get back in a mortal lifetime. Basically, you have to curate these goods: heat them, cool them, protect them from humidity and vermin. Every moment you devote to them is lost to your children, your friends, your society, yourself.

It’s not bad to own fine things that you like. What you need are things that you GENUINELY like. Things that you cherish, that enhance your existence in the world. The rest is dross.

Do not “economize.” Please. That is not the point. The economy is clearly insane. Even its champions are terrified by it now. It’s melting the North Pole. So “economization” is not your friend. Cheapness can be value-less. Voluntary simplicity is, furthermore, boring. Less can become too much work.

The items that you use incessantly, the items you employ every day, the normal, boring goods that don’t seem luxurious or romantic: these are the critical ones. They are truly central. The everyday object is the monarch of all objects. It’s in your time most, it’s in your space most. It is “where it is at,” and it is “what is going on.”

It takes a while to get this through your head, because it’s the opposite of the legendary of shopping. However: the things that you use every day should be the best-designed things you can get. For instance, you cannot possibly spend too much money on a bed – (assuming you have a regular bed, which in point of fact I do not). You’re spending a third of your lifetime in a bed. Your bed might be sagging, ugly, groaning and infested with dust mites, because you are used to that situation and cannot see it. That calamity might escape your conscious notice. See it. Replace it.

Sell – even give away– anything you never use. Fancy ball gowns, tuxedos, beautiful shoes wrapped in bubblepak that you never wear, useless Christmas gifts from well-meaning relatives, junk that you inherited. Sell that stuff. Take the money, get a real bed. Get radically improved everyday things.

Sterling says some other great stuff, but the main thrust here is rethinking your (my) relationship with stuff.  Obviously we all do this every time we move.  That’s the easy part: you look at something and think, “Do I like this enough to pack it, carry it twice, unpack it and put it away?” But I feel like I haven’t been saying “No,” in answer to that enough.  So I’ve been thinking much harder about what value objects have to me.  Are they sentimentally meaningful? Like old pictures of my grandparents? If yes, I’m making them active by doing things like framing those pictures and putting them up in my office where I see them everyday instead of just storing them away.

I think some of it is a factor of age as well.  I can look at knickknacks and trinkets now and think, “Am I using this as a way to express or define myself?”  If the answer is yes, then out it goes.  I guess maybe I know myself better now?  The same is true with books.  Do I have this book so people will see it and think that I am the kind of person who has this book? Yes? Away with you!  Of course, I also have a Kindle now, which has greatly changed my relationship with books.  I still love books.  I still want them.  But now I look at them and keep only the ones that are rare, special, or with strong visual impact. Shelves of paperback novels I might read again someday? Gone!  If it can be acquired from the library or for the Kindle it doesn’t need to take up space.

And it isn’t happening this week, moving or not, but I would like to move toward simply owning less stuff.  Or more stuff, as long as it’s genuinely meaningful or useful.  I have been thinking about this for a long time and I am glad to have a chance to begin to seriously act on this change.

If you’ve read this far and you’re still wondering how the picture on this post relates, it doesn’t really, but it does.  I just really love that sculpture and I found a postcard picture of it while I was packing and discarding unnecessary objects, so I thought I’d share the picture with you, rather than hoard away the post card.


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Coming up for air again and again

[Most of this post has been sitting in ‘draft’ form for a week or more.  Lately I just can’t seem to line myself up to post, or finish any thing really. Will work on posting more regularly here to hopefully give my non-work life some structure. My weeks ago post saying that I am all over the place has definitely been true.]

Went Weds. night last week to the seeekrit pre-opening of the Mas Tacos storefront location.  She did an amazing job on the location.  It feels like it’s just a south of the border taco joint that’s kind of outside time and space. The atmosphere made the tacos even better. Especially the awesome jukebox. They open on Tuesday, if you’re in Nashville, you should go.

I’m also desperately awaiting the opening of the Brentwood location of the Local Taco [HA!  Since I wrote this, it’s opened and I’ve been–didn’t like it as much as the original location, but we did go on opening day, so they get some super slack].  This is my new favorite place ever.  Partly because I love tacos and having more places to get them is good.  Partly because the tacos are gooooood.  And once they had sauteed Swiss chard with Shitake mushrooms as a side that was so spectacularly out of this world, I don’t even know how to explain it to you.  I do know I’ll be cooking more in the near future and I see a lot of experimenting with Swiss chard until I can duplicate that amazing dish. YUM YUM YUM.

It’s been stupidly hot in Nashville.  Fortunately I am house sitting for some friends that have a lovely pool.  Air conditioning is great for keeping cool.  Swimming before bed is even better.  It turns out that if you go swimming right at sunset, the bats are circling the yard and skimming the top of the pool for about 20 minutes. It’s a little weird, as they fly low right over you, down the length of the pool and then up. I can’t tell if they are skimming the surface accidentally while looking for bugs, or if they are cooling their bellies on hot evenings. It’s kind of like being in a nature show though!  Last night a hawk sat on the pavement surrounding the pool, just watching, until he noticed me and flew up to watch from the nearby tree.  I wonder if he was waiting for the bats?

Work is, well, work.  I know I haven’t been writing here.  I could say I don’t have time, but that isn’t true.  I’ve spent a lot of evenings reading on the porch (until it’s gets too dark or too hot, hot usually happens first), or out running around with Talk to Owls, or just, I dunno, pretending I’m getting “stuff” done but mostly flitting around like a spaz.  Housesitting means vacation really, since most everything I think I should be doing requires me to be in my own house.  Work has leveled out to normal hours. So I have time, though mostly I’m too tired to bother doing anything creative, fun or useful. I don’t see that changing in the next few months.  Plus my learning curve on the job is really steep right now (speaking of, I should totally be working right at this second–I’m purposely procrastinating until I calm down enough to feel like I’m actually absorbing information).  I guess what I am trying to get at (ironically in an all over the place kind of way) is that I’m completely scattered.  Mostly in my home/personal life, but that’s definitely bled into work (not in getting work done, but in understanding the work and fitting it in to a convenient pattern).  Even though I am reading and swimming and trying not to overwhelm myself with “Right now I SHOULD be doing…) still I feel like everything is speeding by at this accelerated pace that was created by work in the 6 weeks following the flood.  Working less doesn’t seem to be allowing me to fit more into my life.  I can’t seem even to focus enough to explain to myself how I feel right now.  Loose ends, I suppose.  Lots and lots of loose ends. Come too short to even tie together.


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Day 37: Still Tuesday

Talks-to-Owls and I have agreed that this Tuesday never seems to end. It’s been about 37 days since we last had a day off of work.  Which makes every single day Tuesday.  In a regular week you can spend Monday reflecting on the past weekend, on Wednesday you’re halfway through, Thursday is almost Friday, and Friday is the end!  But Tuesday? Just another day with nothing great on either side of it.  So here I am having been through more than a month of Tuesdays, with half a dozen to a dozen more in front of me. Sure the bulk of it is behind me, but still, the light at the end of the tunnel is faint and seemingly far away.  I guess it won’t truly be bright until I actually have a solid end date. And that end date does depend on how fast my team can work, but it has many wobbly and unknowable outside factors creeping out of the tunnel shadows.

—

I work in the construction industry, in an office that was, until my arrival, mostly male.  I currently have a staff of 5 temps, all female, that are sitting in the larger shared office space that was, as stated, all male.  Overheard this morning (before the girls arrived):

S: Man, the ratio of boys to girls here is just so different you can’t even be yourself no more.
K: Better let one off before the girls get here.
S: T just did.
*I walk into the room laughing*
T: I ate daffodils for dinner last night.  It’s flowery when I let one off.
S: Farting honeysuckle everywhere you go, I knew you were that kind of guy.
T: Flowers and poppy seeds, that’s all I eat.

On the one hand, hilarious.  On the other hand, what does it even mean? I’ve been having weird Wizard of Oz field of poppies visions all morning because of that conversation leading to me to read more into it than I should and wonder what the underlying metaphors I missed were.  (The answer, none, no metaphors, just boys BSing.)

—

I have mentioned elsewhere that I am making a conscious decision NOT to boycott BP over the oil spill.  There are many reasons for this, the main one though is that the gas station I drive by every morning, my most convenient station, is a BP station.  I have been going there regularly for 4 years.  I know and like the people who own it.  I don’t want their livelihood to disappear just because they signed the “wrong” franchise agreement.  Honestly it could have been any oil company that caused this disaster and I do not want to see any more of the little guys get hurt.

(Southern Beale has written an excellent post on the kind of “punishment” that is fit for BP after this disaster.  Surely much more effective than a consumer boycott.)

Truly I ache for the fishermen, the people who live on those coasts and all the regular people who are so seriously impacted by this (we all are in the environmental sense, but the folks who might not pay bills right now because of it really weigh on me).  And it’s so wide reaching.  Like now BP might withhold dividends on stocks? Which would hurt British retirees whose retirement funds include BP stock.  How many more average people can BP fuck over with their greed and incompetence?

—

Here are some things I like:

Firefly lamp

Tom Robbins is weird

Synchronous fireflies

Banksy, especially his “Shop”

Blooming lamp

—

And my cousin and his wife had their first baby this week!!   Welcome Caleb James (who was clearly named after me, though that’s a joke that probably only my mom will get).  Weighing in at 9lbs and 4oz!  Hello big boy!  He’s healthy and home with mama, poppa and puppies.  HOORAY!  Here’s his “little” toes: