Postscript

Pinafore.

Having just exited the crazy train and arrived safely in the arms of my ever understanding husband, I am able to reflect on the week. So here's a quick round-up.
Monday. Total blur, involved dance class and a Jamie Oliver beef stew, I also designed two book covers for a new project.
Tuesday. Mark went home to have Acupuncture, a first and I went back to work on a 3rd cover of the book. Afterschool we drove to town for vital supplies; hair conditioner. Fell asleep early. Uneasy dreams.
Wednesday. I turned 49. Pancakes and bacon for breakfast. Worked on designing some collateral pieces for a client, cleaned the house and had a little tea party with a friend and her darling son. It was pleasant but I could feel myself slipping, weakening. Watched Survivor. Slept poorly. Convoluted dreams.
Thursday. Worked a little in the morning on I don't know what, did laundry. It rained hard and was really dark and very cold. After lunch and a little activity I tried to work again but felt exhausted. I tried to nap but couldn't relax my body. After an hour a friend appeared bearing birthday wishes and we sat and talked a bit which sort of helped but my eyes twitched on. The rain stopped and I went for a walk and felt better. In the evening I took Pearl and a classmate to see another schools band play. It was very pleasant as was the ride home through the county, the roads were dry and the sky was filled with fluffy clouds that were illuminated by the lights from Canada to the north. We drove home and enjoyed the artificial lights of christmas on the various homes and farms along the way. Sleep was fitful.
Friday. Tylenol, coffee, water, strange hot beverage combining emergen-c and apple cider vinegar, toast. Worked on some new logos that I have had rolling around in my docket list. Went to town to meet yet another friend for brunch. Had a good chat. Went food shopping. Felt physically shitty. Took a walk when I got home, it was sunny and I almost felt good. Chopped firewood post walk and felt I had broken the spell of whatever was gripping me. Designed an ad and came to Canada.

There are a lot of grizzly details I have left out for the protection of the author but it was a rough week. I can trace it directly to hormones but it doesn't make it any easier to deal with or any less scary while I am in the middle of the thing as I hurl through time and space acting like everything is okay when I am certain it can't be. So when I walked in the door tonight and Mark asked me how I was I let it fly, knowing he was right there to catch me on my way down. The crazy train left the station a few wet minutes later and now I really do feel fine. Better than fine. I am alive.

And why to god is there a picture of a child's pinafore up top? I took this photo in a store in La Conner last weekend when I wasn't wrestling my psychosis. When I was a child and I would paint or help my mother with little domestic tasks I wore a pinafore. A pinafore is like an apron but more British, my mother generally made mine. I still think that they are a good idea and this one reminded me of the Marcy Tilton dress I made earlier this year which I would like to make again as I have been wearing this green one a lot. I thought this little pinafore was sweet in black with the peppermint piping, and then today when I was feeling better I read this about the appeal of the Shirtdress. This so-called Vintage French Country dress I made earlier this year is just such a garment. This is a dress but it's a working dress, part pinafore, part shirt, part dress. It feels great on and I can really move around in it or I can be quite comfortable in the fetal position on the couch, whichever.

Off-Track

I'm easily stymied. If in between things, at the end of one thing and not quite ready to begin another thing, I drift. Until I am ready to engage my brain in focused thoughtful work I loiter in the kitchen and eat or mindlessly clean dog nose prints off the doors, or just sit and stare. I am easily distracted and what felt up a week ago now feels down. I don't want to cook, I don't want to start my taxes. I need to think of numbers and scenarios for a client that I may or may not want. The things I want to be doing are jammed up behind the things I should be doing which are in turn pushed up against the things I am not doing and so I can feel my mood spiraling into chaos. To make matters worse I ate a crappy fast food hamburger today, the worst in terms of self destructive behavior in my books. The sensible thing of course is to stop whining and take a walk or a ride or do the pilates DVD I bought but have yet to do. I feel better just writing this itchiness down somewhere, thanks for listening big empty blog void.

One positive note, I saw "Secretariat" and really liked it. Who doesn't love a good horse story.

Friday again, already

I keep checking on my blog to see if I have anything to say and to see if anything I have said has prompted anyone else to say something. I check in on my Facebook page, I look at my analytics page and then I go back to work. I have had little to say this week but it's not because nothing is happening it's just because what I have to say is best left unsaid. The things that I cannot say have been eating up my insides like a cancer. On top of these things that are heavy and unsaid was a constant nausea from the flu I am getting over. Topping the nausea was a persitent headache and on top of that like the whipping creme of despair there was a hearty dollup of fear. It's like a suitcase I carry around with me, I long to leave it in a station somewhere where maybe some other traveler might mistake it for their own and carry it off but somehow I never lose it. It sticks to me covered in labels from the various places this malaise springs up. I keep it closed, I dont need to look in and see what is there, it watches me, silent as my clothes.

I learned a new word this week. Optimalism. It's a combination of optimism and realism. This week I was a little too stuck on realism, I have high hopes optimism will return as I get back to walking and maybe the sun will come out for us this weekend. That would be nice. I could use a little nice.

Saved by Solatube

Solatube in action

I live in a converted garage. It's true. I don't inhabit a quaint ranch house as some think. It's a 900sq foot box with bad lighting. Because it's a garage it was sited as such on the property so it's tucked into the trees away from much direct sunlight. Sometime last winter I was complaining to a builder friend of mine about how dark and depressing the house was. He asked me if I had heard about Solatube. I had in fact heard of these shiny light tubes and I very quickly found a local company who came out and gave me an estimate for a few of them. The Solatube is a fancy skylight but it's smaller and easier to install, there is a lens on the end of it so the light that comes in gets spread around more. It's like a giant potlight. Last summer when GW Bush sent us our stimulus check I bought my Solatube and I have to say that it was well worth the money. Even on overcast winter days my living room is well lit instead of pitch black. My electricity bills were less this winter and overall having more natural light in the house just feels healthier. So a big shout out to Solatube for improving our lives a lot.

My Girlhood

I digress.

I'm feeling slightly fragile at the moment and it's my own fault. Try as I may to pin it on say, my beloved husband. I have been slack about nurturing my girlhood and while I like to feel I am above all this stuff, I am not. I want to feel attractive and well put together, everyone does. We all have beautiful fashionable friends to whom we compare ourselves and it is never good. I spent the night in Seattle this week with such a friend and I came away feeling really shabby and unkempt. My girlhood is easily wounded (isn't everyones). I see now why I have been feeling so needy. I need a haircut, a pedicure and perhaps some other unspeakable but effective beauty treatments. I will feel new and shiny again, like a good luck penny. It seems so superficial but it's really true, we feel better when we honor our girlhood a little bit. When we feel better about ourselves we attract more attention which is what girlhood is all about.

Taxidermy; The Agony and the Ecstasy

I finally got a call a few weeks ago from Ralph Akers letting me know that Oscar the Rooster was ready to come home. I was really excited. I have wanted a stuffed chicken ever since one of my students at Western designed a piece that featured her aunts collection of stuffed fowl. I had to have one of my own.

Fast forward to that day a few months back when Oscar jumped me for the last time and in a fit of PMS rage I called Ralph, who is coincidentally my neighbor, to come over and whack the bastard. We joked a lot about it afterwards. Mark claimed renewed respect for me and vowed never to really piss me off.

When I went into Ralph's place I was prepared to be wowed by what I saw but my excitement was replaced by something quite different. The bird I had loathed enough to sacrifice was not the example of taxidermy I had imagined. At least I was not having the reaction to him I had expected. I put on a brave face for Ralph and wrote the check, took Oscar home, put him in my office and left for Mark's for the weekend.

Don't get me wrong here, Ralph had done a great job. I was reacting to the way Oscar looked dead and stuffed. It was a bit creepy. Taxidermied animals who you did not know when they were alive are one thing. Animals you knew are quite another. What troubled me the most was Oscars comb, the red fleshy thing on his head. In life it was full and erect and bobbed a bit when he moved, now it was dry and pointy. I considered molding him one out of Fimo clay and attaching it with a chin strap. This idea got a few laughs but ultimately I felt like a shit for having this bird killed (by suffocation so as not to marr his fine body) and then paying a pretty good price to have him stuffed. I was experiencing terrible remorse for this act of pure bravado. It was a real slap down.

When I got back to my office after the weekend a few new realizations surfaced. Taxidermied animals smell slightly. Each time I opened the door to my office I was met with the reminder that a once living thing was now in a preserved state in my sacred workspace. Pearl, upon returning from my office one evening said the rooster freaked her out. He scared the heck out her while alive and was still doing it dead, great. Even the dog was disturbed by him. She would not lay down and relax because I had Oscar placed on a shelf above the couch where she normally sleeps while I work. I moved him to my work table where he was in my peripheral line of sight which made me want to constantly turn my head to see who was there, it spooked me. As the the week progressed Luna got a little bolder, running in and sniffing him, saying hello perhaps, and then settling on the couch. The cat sniffed around him quite a lot but kept a safe distance. I gave up thinking about the prosthetic comb.

By that Friday I decided I had better take a few pictures of Oscar for the blog. I was waiting for Mark to arrive so I took Oscar out on the porch of my office where the sun was setting and snapped a few pictures. In the process of doing this I had to look at him really closely and suddenly I fell in love with him. His feathers were so beautiful, vibrant and iridescent and his little glass eyes seemed alert and watchful. A stuffed Rooster is not a live Rooster and takes a little getting used to, I had to replace my previous knowledge of live Oscar with the new stuffed Oscar and honestly I like the stuffed Oscar much better now. What a relief.




Purchase the Letterpress Print that immortalizes this proud bird.

Irate Returns

Irate came back today. I was going for a walk with the dog when she arrived. The dog was momentarily MIA so I walked up the driveway calling for her. Whistling, then calling then whistling, then walking and pausing to listen for her tags, then calling again, then yelling. Then yelling more. And there she was. Irate. I wanted to kill the dog, scream at my neighbor (I'm sure she was somehow involved in the dogs disappearance) and really showcase my big bad ugly anger.

It's been several hours since the incident. Irate has had a few glasses of wine and should sleep for another month or so.

Mood Swing

6am to 6:20am-Dread
6:20am to 6:30am-Resignation
6:30am to 7:45-Neutral work mode
7:45am to 8:45-Cheerful nurturing persona
8:46am-email from client
8:47am to 9:04-school drop off, dread and self loathing
9:05-call client
9:07am-Elation, new work on the way, sun is shining
9:10am-9:15am-consider playing hookey and going skiing, return home instead.