doodless

IT'S ALMOST SUMMER....
AND I MISS ASHEVILLE/WESTERN NC.
DEARLY.
my old roommates and their animals, the air, the rivers, the walks, the youth, the cheapness of living, the birds, the MUSIC, the awesome bars and places to spend money on good things like food and coffee.




OH WELL. I WILL TRY TO FIND THE GOOD IN NH.

Tuesdee

Started reading Women and Madness by Phyllis Chester ('72)today. So far, it's reminding me of a wonderful, passionate feeling (anger) I thought I'd lost. It feels good unburying "care", diving back in. Lately I've been really interested in "madness" (schizophrenia-depression-anxiety-personality disorders-etc) and its relationship to contemporary culture-chaos. For example, the multitudes of selves and layers of dishonesty/shame/pressure that come with carrying on such disjointed lives. It's a miracle we function at all. I am this here, that there, on this website one thing, at this job another, and when I am finally alone I am terrified and exhausted but still must find comfort in ONE way of being. For me, this ONE way, reality, the essence of me, is one big fat elusive tease. I'm already feeling like a good feminist read like this might be just what I need to turn my "issues" into my strengths again. Ok, well, I know a book isn't gonna solve things, but so far, one or two captions have inspired me to take some initiative in understanding them...

This one literally brought tears to my eyes:

"Perhaps the angry and weeping women in mental asylums are Amazons returned to earth these many centuries later, each conducting a private and half-remembered search for her Motherland- a search we all call madness, Or perhaps they arefailed Goddess-Mothers, Demeters, eternally and miserably unable to find their daughters or their powers..."

On a brighter, somewhat ironic note... I found an awesome dress for my good friend's graduation party at the Salvation Army today. I went in looking for fabric, but I found this instead (and I am not going to slice and re-dice it):

Now, if I only had some little white shoes...

SELFISH!!

help!

I thought I'd post some recent self-portraits. Seems I'm talking to myself anyways!

yelp!

I like the first one alot alot alot. I miss doing MS paint drawings. Whenever my parents' computer is functioning, I can dedicate hours to drawing horrifying pictures of myself and/or my cat. Makes me laugh, cry and say hmmmmmm. Sometimes I feel like maybe I'm too old for this bunk, but the urge, the itch, the thing is there, goading me. Even though the second one looks nothing like me, i can't say it's not a self portrait. HA!

Made it to Sunday!

So I've been in the house and under the weather for about 72 hours now and I thought I was going to go totally berserk. But I made it to Sunday morning (ok, sorry party people, it IS 12:06 AM!) and it's time to celebrate.


Besides the two rum-punch drinks I've already consumed, I want to celebrate my cloistered existence by sharing this movie I just watched. Now, granted there was no pop-corn, no fountain soda, and sundance has been the supplier of way too many good movies lately (I need to get out), but I'm SO glad I stumbled upon this film before it was too late.

It was called Somersault.

It was made in 2004.
It had a kind of a .. eeh .. disappointing ending.
But it also had BEAUTIFUL music, BEAUTIFUL visuals, and BEAUTIFUL Abbie Cornish. Oh my goodness.
Emotionally, it ran the gambit.
Also, I liked how the film approached the issues a young woman deals with when she doesn't know how to use her sexuality, how to love herself, or how to be alone.

In the end though, I have to say I wish it was still 2004 and Abbie Cornish was my best patty-cakin' friend. My best friend that would bring me medicine and get me out of this god forsaken house!!!

After many failed starts with the blogging thing, I'm gonna go ahead and try again. I've tried to make it work on various websites but it typically turns out feeling dumb and useless. Anyways, I'll do it here and the only association it will have is ME. Not "art" or "depression" or "quarter-life crisis", but yeah those things will come up and I'll try to keep the venting, whining, moaning, and groaning to a minimum.

So right now I feel like sharing what I did today:

For the last couple of days, I've been typical me, sitting around the house feeling absolutely pitiful. Yesterday, or maybe the day before that, I went out to buy a pack of cigarettes and saw a sign for a church booksale. So today I ventured out and around the corner to this really old church where I remember going to aerobics classes with my mom when she was a total hottie. Hottee hotty. whatever.

The creapiest people were there. They were all up in my face about all the goodies (fudge, gross) they had for sale. One of the "volunteer"-shirted ladies was my kindergarten teacher I hadn't seen in years. I think my reluctance to look her in the eye made her a little sad. I'm SO SO Sorry Miss Kemp (was that her name? Or was that my seventh grade math teacher, the one with the cancerous growth on her nose?) The only other shopper was a 30ish guy in mismatched clothes, no less than 6'9", with painted red nails. The guy looked like he might have had his shit together at one time. He was buddy buddy with the church folk and I guess this meant he was probably a regular at the AA/NA meetings they hold there. No biggie. When I see people like this, in the suburbs, who aren't visibly mentally ill (ok, retarded), who aren't even fat or ugly or crippled, I seriously worry about my own future. In the end I was able to fill a shopping bag of books for 2 buckaroons (that's a mix b/w the pirate and my favorite cookie, macaroons, which they DID not have for goodies at the church book sale).

They had a bunch of brand new Marquez books, which I snatched up to either read or sell. Also got some self-help books, and a neat philosophy text book from the seventies with an awesome, crusty old syllabus typed up and creased between pages 70 and 71. I buy way too many philosophy books, maybe because I just wanted to be the type that reads them. Who effing knows. Good self-help books on the other hand (no, not to be confused with philosophy which generally destroys and discourages me) I've been secretly wanting to get a hold of but for one or another reason, I've been reluctant.

I've been reluctant to do a lot of things.....

INCLUDING THE ARBITRARY PAINTING OF ROCKS AND STACKING OF THUS PAINTED ROCKS.

Not sure what prompted me to do it but I really like the look of things that you know are supposed to have all these different shades but have been to reduced to ONE. Like spraypainted furniture or painted faces (like, hmm, the blue man group) or food covered in gravy or the silver surfer guy. Monochrome. Chromedome. I guess I was probably inspired to do it myself by some photos I saw a while ago, most likely on designformankind.com or ffffound. Playing with the rocks reminded me of this lovely time I had with my nephew Toby when we destroyed all these beautiful hippie rock towers in a creek at a festival last summer. So I made towers and a hangy thing (at the top of the post). And it felt friggen great. I would actually love to have a rock painting/arranging cookout or something. It's great summer fun, I'd say!