progress

Studio Friday (unofficially)

what i did yesterday...

When I started this blog I had to write that blurb at the top and had no idea what a blog was so I just let'er rip. Not that it's supposed to be anything, that's the beauty of it. But the more I blog the more I realize how lazy I am. Or is that, uninspired? Or uninspiring ...

Well, free spirited as I like to be, the Critic is hounding me to get some substance. So I happened upon the Self Portrait Tuesday site and think maybe I'll give it a try. This was via My Topography who also does Studio Friday. Also intriguing. I really admire women who can keep their creative energy flowing.

I've found that being perceptive and oversensitized has made me a little jaded. When I try to filter what comes in or how it affects me, the gates just shut completely. It's apparently a Capricorn trait to turn off when disappointed. But all that turning off gets me where?

Suddenly realizing that you're older than the people playing the parents on those family sitcoms that you still watch (because my daughter does) is depressing and liberating. I am not in a bubble where time stands still.

If I want to do something it has to be now, not later, whenever the conditions are better, whenever it's convenient for everyone, whether the results are less than perfect or superb. It doesn't have to be stunning. It doesn't have to get me that great job or impress a lot of people. It just has to start. Because I'm not dead yet but I really will be some day.

So, I want to do the self portraits, and take photos of what I see, and try to remember all the excellent things my kids come up with every day. Because this is life. So what about the crappy stuff. I'm gonna go charge my camera.

Thanks V.H.

So COOL, from Virushead's blog. Google "(your name) needs". So COOL.
I need:
1) jack : my dh
2)36 000 dollars : the amount owed to us by dh's former employer
3)a life : a life
4)answers : about the money, about our financial future
5)to clarify her bosses expectations : does he expect to pay us...
6)to learn it's normal for someone to have a bad day : is this just a bad day?
7)to evaluate her relationship with jack : uh, yeah
8)to wake up and smell the emotional abuse : possibly
9)to keep her trap shut about things she knows nothing about : not sure about this, but good advice
10)a man in her life : dh ?
11) to decide how much she likes that new car smell : alot. but i was ready to sell it months ago

thanksgiving supper

no more picture fun. "they" keep deleting them. totally insensitive.
big day at the farm. puppetheads on their way again. unhappy with a lip adjustment. happy with some eyebrows. very happy to be occupied away from house.
let dh get the sense of how lonely the day can be when it's spent catering to the transport needs of others interspersed with long periods of nowhere to go. two nights in a row i have come home to gross pizza ( LEFT OVER, REHEATED) after a day of fasting and working in an unheated shop, hugging a hot coffeecup to get the movement in my fingers back.
the effort i put into trying to come up with balanced meals - it like he's telling me to eat s*%t. thank you so much. i appreciate you too. nyah.

Your Blog Should Be Purple

You're an expressive, offbeat blogger who tends to write about anything and everything. You tend to set blogging trends, and you're the most likely to write your own meme or survey. You are a bit distant though. Your blog is all about you - not what anyone else has to say.

What Color Should Your Blog or Journal Be?

i seem to write most about things that are melancholy. in a conversation with myself the other day, the Critic asked me if i knew how to express anything other than woulda, coulda, shoulda.
flaws, cracks, wrinkles, smudges, bruises, sorrows, have always smacked me in the face until i can only point them out in painful detail. overandoverandover. this will probably never change. as i explore the thoughts of others, after so many years of self-imposed banishment, i am suddenly remembering. there are sunsets, sunrises, frost on the trees, moss on rocks, alters in the woods, grafitti etched in stone, splodges of paint, spontaneous hugs and new discoveries shared with my imps, snapshots, signs along the way, ingenious ideas that fill me with electricity.
i am remembering. hurray for internet.

Maybe its not nice to cut and paste other peoples photos/drawings into my blog without the proper accreditations. But it's kind of like cutting out magazine pics and sticking them on your bedroom wall...totally innocent. or doing collage. so if i have been bad i am truely sorry. but i will continue to do it because pictures mean i dont have to write so much. which is lazy but whatever. also i like to make my blog pretty as i am not so gifted at the writing part. this is a surprise to me, having been fairly good at it back when i was feeling like a real person many years ago. then i started splitting myself into smaller units giving a third of my brain to each child and the result is total distraction. i could write about being an expat and an expat-mom and an anarchist of sorts and escapism and unemployment and extreme employment and glamour and loneliness and fairytales and emtpy fridges and dirt under my fingernails that wont scrub off. i could write about the bubble and how i slowed down time inside the bubbble and how i wish everyone else would be the same when i return to the homeland once a year. but i CANT. i'm ADD. ALL THE TIME. i can only spurt off the surface. i can come up with a great story skeleton but i cant meat it in.
or is that WONT, says the Critic.
cantwontcantwontcantwontcantwont...
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

Staying warm. my new obsession. lots and lots of wood in the fireplace and drinking hot chai tea. kids are playing hide and seek. daddy's doing diy. home improvement - the very best way to get your wife off your back. the tv is off and all is well. sigh. dh lets me obsess at the computer in hopes t'will appease the unfocused restlessness which causes his wife to pick petty arguments. and overfocus on which toys belong in which boxes and which tools belong in the garage and which shoes should be put in bedrooms and which can stay on the rack. one pair out per customer, that's the rule. otherwise it's shoeland. who am i kidding. this is shoeland. there's a pair of my dh's shoes at every door. until i throw them outside. with everything else he leaves en route to somewhere else. wait. stop this. i was almost peaceful for a moment there. just one other thing. sorting clothes. opened a box of carefully preserved six year old's stuff from my eldest now to go to her little sister. well, it's depressingly out of style and so here i am with a quandry. a laundry quandry. so sentimentally attached am i to the visual memory of "things". i know it's just stuff. but my big girl will never be that small again. it's a sickness. live in the now, says the critic. i know but look there's a stain on that dress form the canteen. "Maman, will you come and help at the cantine? Please? All the other kids mommies have come..." says the little stain. "i will some time honey but mommy's very tired with the babies and i don't have anyone to look after them..." says the place i meant to scrub so long ago but didn't. so i hang on to this stuff cause it talks. sometimes more than my actual 14 yr old . therefore, perhaps i will stop blogging and go help the kids mess up their room. and add another log to that fire.

suddenly it is cold. grey fog over the trees, blanketing the yard in mystery. my island. to step from driveway to road is to step into nothingness. isolation from the noisy world. happy in a cloud. hello winter. heighten my senses. the fire that crackles in the stove. and coffee steaming. warm meets cold.
and comfort. a constant purring pussy cat curled up fat and content. endlessly feeding, sleeping and licking it's own butt.
thing needs to be kicked outside and ignored to be truely appreciated.
where is that cat?

The Critic has been at work. Several posts deleted. Why? Because I can. Ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,haaaaaaa...

Tits and Ass

Saw a movie last night. Bad movie. part of a festival. had to sit through it and try to hold back true feelings so as not to offend the producer. bad because the female role might as well have been played by a blow up sex doll. no place for "female spectator identification". no thought to it at all. all for the tits and ass. felt like a hostage. very upset that i went in expecting to take the movie seriously. very pissed off about having to keep my mouth shut. very pisssed.

surveys are cool

Your Element is Metal

Your power colors: white, gold, and silver Your energy: contracting Your season: fall You are persistent (and maybe even a little bit stubborn). If you see something you want, you go for it. You have a lot of strength, and it's difficult to get you down. Very logical, you tend to analyze everything going on in your life.

What Element Are You?

Bag of Diamonds

Saw "Cold Mountain" yesterday. Really good. Going to get all philosophical again. Reminded me that life's a struggle and that the comfort we have today is SO not real. (like i needed reminding)
And here comes the self-reflecting garbage: Ava and Ruby pretty much sum up the two sides of myself that unlike them have not learned to cooperate. Let us go to the divan....
I came to my adult life (blah-di-blah-di-blah) a "wild child" AND a "pretty thing" with so little practical knowledge I could not survive. The "wild child" pulled me through and took over for a long time. Until it was time to be a wife. Now I'm the onlooker who feels that nothing useful can be done in my current position as a mother. I've never achieved balance...
The wild child is SCREAMING at me to DO SOMETHING. The civilized lady is agreeing but can not see what exactly. The wild child has painted over 200 sq. meters of house single-handedly in the last four weeks and the lady has torn out her hair, sent out a few CV's and felt useless.
Ava gets a grip in the movie and learns from Ruby. She "packs ice around her heart" and gets on with it. How do I reconcile these strong forces in my life and make them work together?
And this made me think too: when Ava is finally (re)united with her man she wonders how they could both believe so hard in what were only a few moments together before they were separated. He answers it was not the number of moments but the wealth of what each moment represented, like a "bag of diamonds". Hmmn....I should stop chucking all those little bags out the window just because i think they're never going to be full enough.

The Empress

http://www.lunaea.com/tarot/ - of course this is not my art. But it would be alot like my art if I did any. And the topic of the day is Tarot. I have been advised by my spiritual source to UNCLENCH. Too true to ignore, I can only say, download the Tarot widget. Very cool. Also cool,http://artpad.art.com/?ipjgarihkhs

I Have An Announcement To Make

The other day, as I hinted to last week, I had a big interview. The result being, I have been proposed A Big JOB. And I am freaking out now. Freaking out. Proof that the Tantric Living Theory really works. But here I cower behind a door that the Self-Preservation Squad has efficiently slammed shut and bolted tight. Why!!!!!!! This is the perfect job for me. It's ME. Except I haven't been me for so long and although I know I have the stuff, well I'm a little rusty at that thing they call Determination and Self-Conviction. I'm capitalizing too much. Forgive me. Also, although the job was conveniently untitled, alot of time was spent telling me it's not a 9-5 day. Because apparently I will be in charge of everything. That much I'm used to. But on a permanent basis, I fear for my children. The first one grew up so fast while I was job focused in my 20's. Urrrrrggggggg. Tear out hair. Beat fists. BUT YOU NEED THE MONEY!!!!!!!!!!THIS IS A JOB FOR YOU!!!!!! IT MAKES SENSE !!!!!!!!!!!!!! IT'S POETRY !!!!!!!! NO ! IT'S, IT'S, IT'S, PISS-OR-GET-OFF-THE-POT-TIME !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Well, obviously I have no choice but to take it once they figure out how much they can pay me. Offer which I expected on Monday. This is not the first time they've made me wait, therefore not a bad sign. But if I actually do take the job I will expect things to be a little more prompt. Yes I will. Until then I will torture myself with the unlimited possibilities of what will be shall be...

Lounging

This is me today.