susanne's kitchen table

New Hampshire-bound

2009-08-09T16:19:00.000-07:00

Heading up to New Hampshire tomorrow for "art camp," the yearly painting retreat with my teacher and people from my painting classes. I have not been out of the city since December.

I am giving myself a break this year and leaving the oil paint at home. Last year was a valuable lesson to me, and the work I've done since then has made me realize that the way I like to work in oils is not conducive to working outside. I'm slow and methodical, and it takes me months and months to finish something. Trying to slop something down in a week, or several somethings in a week, in oil, is just frustrating. So I am taking watercolors, gouache, watercolor crayons, and oil pastels, and will be working on paper.

I intend to relax this year and just have fun.

This John Hughes Thing

2009-08-07T01:48:00.000-07:00

It hurts in a surprising way.

Normally I would make fun of someone waxing nostalgic about anything. Especially something like this.

But as a nerd without really a clue about what to do about it in high school, his films did speak to me. I was Farmer Ted. I was Andie. I desperately wanted a Duckie.

His movies made me realize that there were other people like me out there somewhere. Not anywhere close to Northeast Texas. But they were out there. It made me want to go find them. And I did.

More changes

2009-08-03T18:40:00.000-07:00

Something very good happened at work. I am moving onward and upward. No promotion yet, but a new challenge that I am happy about. It will start in earnest when I get back from vacation next week (art camp again in New Hampshire). It's going to mean getting used to a whole new group of people, and it's going to mean learning a lot of new science-y stuff. And it's also going to mean more late nights at the office. But I'm good with that.

Part of the great un-wadding of 2009 has mean coming to terms with my work life and what that all means for my creative life.

For the longest time I tried keeping them completely separate. I think partly that's a huge holdover from my past life in the ivy-covered ivory tower. Anything to do with business was dirty. And it had to be kept separate from personal creative pursuits at all cost. That thinking resulted in a lot of unnecessary anxiety.

There is room for it all, and things seem to work much better when I take a more fluid approach. Much better than trying so hard to keep those walls up.

A girl gets tired of all that.

Helloooo. Is this thing on?

2009-07-31T17:46:00.000-07:00

So, it has been a while. A long while.

I have been feeling that old urge to write things that are not for my job, so I am seeing if I will pick this up again or not. I may very well start fresh elsewhere. But let's see if I actually keep up with this one first.

Things have happened since February.

A big thing that has has happened is that I am getting divorced. Again. A two-time loser am I. I think I stayed with it longer than I should have just because I didn't want to be twice divorced. It seems trashy to me. Your old creepy uncle gets divorced twice. But you? You have better sense than that. One is understandable. But two? Please.

But I got over that. Myrna Loy was divorced four times, by the way. Part of getting over it was looking to see how many fabulous dames had multiple divorces. Not that I want to give Myrna a run for most-divorced.

It is a good thing, this thing that is happening to me right now. People who I know well have been surprised at how calm I am right now, how much happier and lighter I seem. I am getting divorced. I am supposed to be sad. But I am not. Not any more. All the Sturm and Drang, the anger and the sadness, was last year. Last year was when I fell apart, when I started to see where this was heading. I went home for a visit with my mother back in December, and it was the first time that I allowed myself to say the word divorce. It had already crept into my thinking a couple of months before.

We were supposed to be trying to have a baby, the soon-to-be ex mister and me. What happened was that it was like turning on the light at night in your kitchen that you thought was clean and finding it infested with cockroaches.

Problems that had been there from the beginning were no longer able to be ignored. The more I looked at them in the clear light, the more I could not live with them. After the trip to Texas, I told him I thought it would be very bad if I did manage to pregnant and I got back on the pill.

An ultimatum was issued. A request to get a referral for marriage counseling from his shrink.

And then he did nothing. Nothing changed.

There was fear. Sadness. Profound disappointment in me and in him. In us.

The week after Memorial Day, I pulled the plug on it.

I have not regretted doing so for a moment.

I am seeing clearly. I feel strong. And being on my own feels good.

Hamster Wheel

2009-02-01T17:03:00.000-08:00

Work has just about taken over my life. Which is why I've been so quiet here. The part of my life that has nothing to do with work is not going so well at the moment either. If the economy weren't so terrible right now, I'd be up for making some big changes. But as it is, I feel like I just have to ride things out for a while.

I Found Jesus

2009-01-02T00:38:00.001-08:00

He was in Walmart and he had a Kung-Fu grip.

We went to Walmart in search of printer ink for Mike's mother. There's no other place in town that might have had it. And turns out even Walmart didn't.

But they did have a 13-inch, fully articulated, talking Jesus doll. He came dressed in a beige tunic with belt and a dark brown sash.

That Jesus doll was knocking on my heart, and if my father-in-law hadn't been with us, I would have, for $14.95, opened the door to my heart, as well as my wallet, and taken him home with me forever.

Grinchy Claws

2008-11-30T14:47:00.000-08:00

The more I thought about Christmas shopping, the more it made me mad this year. It makes me mad every year, actually, but this year, what with everything going on that's going on, I just couldn't bring myself to spend time and money buying things that people really don't need. So today, I made a decision. When asked for my Christmas list, which is what the husband's family shops from, I sent a list of charities that they could donate to in my name and asked him to forward it to all of them and let them know that I'd be donating to charities in their names this year rather than buying gifts (except for the niece and nephew, who will get their swag, because they're kids).

I'd suggested this a few weeks ago, and Mike seemed nervous about my doing it. But after reading about store employees being trampled to death by shoppers, I made up my mind.

Here's to not buying stupid crap!

Texas, Our Texas

2008-11-18T11:52:00.000-08:00

I just got through booking a trip home for mid-December. It’s been two years, and I’ve been increasingly feeling like I need to get down there. Some people from high school are getting together in Dallas, so I thought I’d kill two mockingbirds with one stone, and get a family visit in, and see some people I used to go to school with in one trip.

While I’m looking forward to catching up with some old school friends (more like acquaintances, really, because the people I was friends with in high school won’t be there, but I have gotten to know some much better than I ever did then through facebook now), I’m not so much looking forward to the family portion of the visit.

There will be lots of sitting around in my mother’s dark house, watching television.
I also have to have a serious talk with my mother about my sister, who I saw a couple of weeks ago. I am somewhat dreading this, but have finally had enough of the denial and prevaricating, and am ready to clear the air.

My grandmother, while still physically in good shape, and mentally sharp, is, according to my mother, “ready to die.” I can’t even fathom what it must be like to be 96. I do know that she probably would have been happier if she had been left where she was living, with her cousin, in her own house in West Texas, with some semblance of her own life intact, and maybe someone hired to check in on the two of them regularly and run errands for them. Now she’s pretty much a prisoner in my mom’s house. And the dynamic between them is painful. She has no contact with the outside world, and over the last ten years or so that she’s lived there, she has become increasingly withdrawn and depressed. It is going to be hard to see, but if things are the way I think they probably are, this may very well be the last time I get to spend time with my grandmother.

Is it any wonder that I live 1500 miles from all that and it's been two years?

Susanne Takes a Moment Away from Her Facebook Obsession to Post Something on Her Dusty Old Blog

2008-11-14T17:49:00.000-08:00

Jennifer's comment kicked me in the pants to post something on here. I've been meaning too. Best intentions and all.

Things are going well. Busy, but well. Work has been good. Not having to stay too late these days, but the days are full and I am most certainly tired at the end of them. I still like the job, and am finding ways to juggle creative pursuits in my free time.

I got on facebook right after my Berlin trip. Back in touch with lots of people from the old days, and with people who have moved out of the city. I spend entirely too much time on there.

I am exceedingly thrilled about the outcome of the presidential election. I still somewhat can't believe it.

I went to visit my sister last weekend. It had been three years, which is entirely too long. I'm planning a trip to Tejas, as the guilt-o-meter there is well into the red. My grandmother will be turning 94 this December. I need to get down there.

Here's a painting I've been working on in class that's probably about 75 percent done.

I miss all of you. I should really bet back into the blogger groove.

Berlin, Berlin

2008-09-24T15:46:00.000-07:00

Wings

Comrade

Towers

Holocaust memorial 1

Holocaust memorial 2

Berlin

2008-09-19T13:13:00.000-07:00

I'm typing this from my extremely small room in a hotel in Berlin. I got here this morning and spent all day in market testing. Of course my time is all screwed up, and though I'm exhausted, I have no interest in going to sleep, though I have to soon, because I'm meeting some old friends for breakfast in the morning, some whom I haven't seen in about three years, the others in almost a decade.

The testing center was a good thirty minutes walk from the hotel. I had just enough time to check into the hotel, shower and change before I walked to testing. I'm staying, and the testing center was, in what was the big center of things before the wall fell. It is a little sad over here now. All the action is in the former east, in an area called Mitte. I'll stroll around over there tomorrow or Sunday to see how it's changed since the last time I was here and it was just getting to be a big deal over there. Where I am feels a bit sleepy, not quite down at the heels, just kind of blah.

Berlin was the first big city I ever spent any time in. It was up there as one of my wonders of the world. A decade in New York has me feeling a little less impressed with it, I suppose. And I think I've spent enough time in Germany in my life that it doesn't even feel like such a big whoop to even be here.

Used to, I'd get so insulted if someone wanted to speak English with me. I wanted desperately to pass. Or to not be recognized as an American. Now, I don't really care. It's amazing how much stress that has relieved.

I can remember so many times flying into Germany and starting to feel a nervous panic. This time it felt like I was taking the subway to some lost outerborough of New York that I don't visit that often, some freakishly clean, ueber-designed area way out in Brooklyn somewhere.

I flew to Munich first and then caught a flight to Berlin. I found myself feeling wistful about Munich when I thought I'd be feeling wistful about Berlin.

The year I spent in Munich was hard in lots of ways. It was when I knew I didn't want to finish my Ph.D., and the whole year I was just anxious for it to be over, because I knew I wanted to get on with my life, and to get on with that life in New York. I still had some good times there, and it was a beautiful city. I can't say I regret having gone through that. I guess I just wish I could go back and enjoy it more than I did then.

I thought I'd be feeling wistful about Berlin, not only because experiencing it way back in college really opened my eyes to what was out there in the world beyond Arkansas and Texas, but because I spent a lot of time here with Foghorn, my ex-husband. And those were fun, exciting times, with lots of friends and laughing and traveling around. I was in Chicago for market testing right before I got to Berlin. Foghorn lives in Chicago now. I didn't see him, but he was on my mind. My old life was on my mind. I guess there's been enough distance from it now that I can see what was good there. Not that I'd want to go back to it. Now is so much better.

I actually thought my old life would be much more on my mind while being here, but it hasn't really. I'm just here. As I am now.

And that's good.

Hot Dexter Dryers

2008-09-09T05:53:00.001-07:00

Psychic Tut Coffeeshop

2008-09-07T18:54:00.000-07:00

Sarah Palin

2008-09-01T19:45:00.000-07:00

This, offered without commentary, since I think it speaks for itself, is snipped from an email I received from someone I used to go to school with:

"he has the degrees and the experience...but compare that with her charisma and legs....brotha didnt have a prayer...had never heard of her before today....but just a little googling has shown me that she has real experience in running a government, not running a campaign or state senate office....or first lady experience for that matter. i could barely stomach McDaddy but now i am comforable with the McPalin happy meal."

Commentary by request:

Vile. Just vile. Manages to be both racist and sexist and is so busy talking on the white male privilege courtesy phone that he doesn't even realize he has been racist and sexist. When I read it, I had visions of one of those old cartoon characters where a man turns into a wolf, tongue lolling out and eyes bulging, when some hot dame walks by. I mean, he did pretty much compare her to a chicken McNugget.

The reason he doesn't like McCain is priceless. This former classmate of mine is an evangelical Christian and doesn't care for McCain's values.

Happy Birthday to Me

2008-08-27T05:56:00.001-07:00

And to Pee Wee Herman and LBJ.

I'm going to celebrate by going to work. Whee!

I Went to Art Camp and All I Got Was...

2008-08-18T16:58:00.000-07:00

About 20 skeeter bites, a nasty sunburn on the back of my neck despite many generous applications of SPF 45 sunscreen, a much-needed change of attitude, one big sort of ok looking landscape painting of the pond and treeline as seen from the picknick table behind the cabin, two crappy landscape paintings done in an organic flower garden, and half of a painting done of the interior of the cabin still to be finished that might really be something.

Not bad at all.

I even managed to hang on to my new-found attitude all day, through work and even though on the way in and back, it seemed like everyone in NYC was trying to stand too close to me.

Lime Popsicles and 7 Days and Counting...

2008-08-03T07:16:00.000-07:00

Until art camp and New Hampshire and a whole week of nothing to do but paint.

Where has the summer gone? There have already been two mornings where I've felt the very first hints of fall even though it is still hot and humid here and we are in for much more.

I feel like, after almost a year, I am finally settling in to my job. Things do not get me so anxious anymore. We had several rounds of creative reviews where we had to show concepts and they barely registered a blip on my radar. These reviews used to make me sick to my stomach with nervousness.

I had a comic come out in an anthology. I have to hunt around for the PDF of what I did for it. I'll post it on my comics web site soon and link to it from here if I can remember how to do such. I've actually been itching to do some more comics lately, so maybe my hiatus from it isn't permanent after all.

I've also had the perverse desire to take a writing class in the fall. Don't know what the hell that's about. Maybe I just want to do some writing. I hate writing classes.

My School of Visual Arts catalog came in the mail last week. I'm thinking about taking a printmaking course: monotype, woodcut and linocut. I've always wanted to learn that. And it's on a Saturday, so work would not interfere.

The whole one season of Square Pegs was released on DVD recently, and I got the first disc in the set yesterday and promptly sat down and watched all 7 episodes that were on it. I was in 9th grade when that ran, and remember desperately wanting to be SJP.

There is a man who has just moved into the hood who takes the train in the morning at the same time I do who looks just enough like my ex-husband, Foghorn, for it to be a little creepy. He has the same air of superiority. Dresses the same. I would bet money that he's a college professor, too.

The other day I saw a tanorexic bleach blonde with about an inch of roots showing either side of her part, teetering on spike heels, in tight jeans and wearing a tight tank top stretched over Pam Anderson-sized silicone mams. Tucked under her arm, cover to the outside so everyone could see, was a paperback copy of Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead, still with its half-priced books sticker on it. I snickered and then I remembered that I'm trying to be all Zen-like and not mean these days so I tried to stifle it. I made it half a block and then snickered again.

I bought a box of lime popsicles yesterday at the grocery store. I think I'll go have one now.

Birch Trees

2008-07-02T17:54:00.000-07:00

Finished this over the weekend.

One, One Picnic Basket. Two, Two Picnic Baskets. Muah Ha Ha Ha!

2008-06-30T18:10:00.000-07:00

News from the Park Service, courtesy of my husband, the park ranger:

Man Sentenced for Attempted Homicide

by The Virginia-Pilot

June 30, 2008

A 26-year-old ex-sailor will serve nine years in prison for his role in an attack on an acquaintance in the National Park in Yorktown last September. Lawyers for Stephen Walters say he was high on a mixture of painkillers, amphetamines, cocaine and LSD during the attack. Walters and two others admitted to stabbing Jonathan Barron, lighting him on fire, and using a meat marinade injector in an attempt to poison him with a mixture of Barbicide, a disinfectant used in salons, and silver thermal compound, an electronics adhesive. The circuit court judge sentenced Walters to 60 years in prison, with all but nine years and five months suspended.

The judge asked Walters why they chose the silver thermal compound and Barbicide. Walters said the liquid cocktail was selected for its vampire-killing qualities.

Las Vegas or Leave It

2008-06-28T14:51:00.000-07:00

(Warning: Misanthropy Level Red)

Until a week ago, I had managed to live my life without ever having been to Las Vegas.

As a preface, you should know that there is only one place I'd less like to go in these United States, and that place is Orlando, Florida.

There are just some places I know aren't for me.

I had to go to Las Vegas last week for a conference. I stayed where the conference was held, at The Venetian. Which is owned by this gentleman.

It was super swanky. The whole joint was encrusted in marble, gilded, and every surface covered with faux Venetian Renaissance and Baroque paintings. There were three our four levels that had swimming pools. There was a spa. And lots of expensive shops. For instance, a New Yorker like me, feeling homesick, could go and shop at Barney's New York. In Las Vegas!

My dissertation advisor once told me that the French call Americans the world's children. And Las Vegas is full of the world's children in all their pleated khaki, fanny-packed, and white-sneakered glory, busy soothing themselves by sitting glassy-eyed in front of slot machines, tapping the little button like rats in some freaky psychology experiment. Or drinking something. Or eating something. Or buying something. Or clicking away on some electronic blinky gadget.

When I called Mike the first night, I said, "This whole place smells like sex and cigarettes."

On the last evening, as we were about to split up to go back to our rooms (which were super swanky suites, complete with little sunken coke dens) after dinner, a colleague stood next to me, arms across his chest, and said, "America. Right here. This is it."

I had thought that I might play a slot machine, just to say I'd done it, but I couldn't do it. Gambling creeps me out. Probably a good thing it does, given my addictive personality.

There were machines, by the way, on which one could play electronic poker. No need to actually, like, play a game with other people at a table twenty feet from you.

So what does a girl do in Las Vegas who doesn't drink, tries not to overeat, tries to stay out of the sun, doesn't care much for shopping, is married but without her husband and is not interested in becoming an adultress, and doesn't gamble?

Why she goes on a two and a half mile death march down to the seedy end of The Strip with another colleague (who was wearing high heels and had to stop to buy flip-flops) in an attempt to reach this, the 1200 foot Vegas equivalent of the Space Needle, at the Stratosphere. All the way from The Venetian, my colleague could tell that the tower had rides on it. I went along for entertainment purposes, telling her, sure, sure, I'll go on one with you, but secretly saying to myself, like hell I will.

The colleague is from Connecticut and not used to hot weather. It was one of the times I was truly thankful for my Texas upbringing. It was the middle of the afternoon. There was no shade. I was dressed head to toe New York black, but I did not falter. The colleague, when we were almost to the space needley thing, past the motels and the wedding chapels, just about had a heat stroke, and I marched her into The Sahara to get some water at the bar and let her cool off.

Now The Sahara is one of the last of the dwindling old casino resorts. It has seen better days. The machines built into the bar (you can keep on gambling right at the bar and never miss a beat) were grimy and old and looked like they had been made in the 1980s. The clientelle was a little more down at the heels, too, than I'd seen. A little bit seedy. We chatted with the bartender who was wearing a tag that said "Richard California," like California was his last name. Richard had smeary tats on his hands, a mustache, and was sporting a gold nugget ring. He was very nice and called me sweetheart when I gave him a tip for giving us water.

Although I could have stayed there and people watched the rest of the day, the colleague wanted to get her kicks at the space needle.

We went in and paid $13 each to go up to the observation deck, and another $10 for the one ride I agreed to ride, and she paid another $20 to ride the other two.

The ride I agreed to was on the needle part of the Vegas space needle. The ride fits around the needle part, and riders are strapped in, the whole shebang is jerked up to the top of the needle, and then does a freefall, catching about halfway down the needle, then yanked back to the top and dropped the whole way.

The rides I refused to consider were two that had riders dangling out over the side of the tower, nothing between them and screaming down to their death but thin pieces of metal and straps. One was like one of those octopus carnival rides, except the arm swung out over the edge of the tower. Riders had a little square of metal to rest their feet on, but otherwise, there was no floor to the ride, so it must have seemed like just dangling there above the abyss. The ride twirled around and spun the riders so that they were flying out, facing the ground. The other one had a little short track that led off the side of the tower. Riders got into a car and were shot down this track over the edge, with the car jerking to a stop and just hanging there.

Even though I thought I would chicken out, I went ahead and rode the first ride. I was all chipper until they strapped us in. The belt buckle clicked shut and I thought, I really, really do not want to do this, but now it's too late. Used to, I would have been all woohoo and would have ridden all of the rides. But as I've gotten older, I seem to have lost my nerve. I squeezed my eyes shut, clung to the arm supports and said over and over to myself, hurry up and be over, hurry up and be over.

Scary.

But the scariest thing?

Scarier than the ride, than being out of my New York comfort zone and in the arms of America?

That was the photo they snapped of us when the ride ended, which of course my colleague bought a copy of.

In it, I looked just like my mother.

Coupons

2008-06-27T13:07:00.000-07:00

There are several people who stand outside Grand Central in the mornings, handing out the free papers AM New York and Metro, and they always call out to people passing by to take a paper. Most of them just stick the paper out in front of you and say "free paper?"

Today one of them, a man, stuck a paper in front of me and waved it and lisped, "Girl, it's got coupons!"

A New Blog Name May Be Required

2008-06-18T17:12:00.000-07:00

Mike is thinking about applying for a job that would take us to Kansas, of all places.

Kansas.

A small town in Kansas. Smaller than any place I've ever lived.

I've already got the name for a new blog about the wacky adventures of a black-clad city girl in small-town Kansas: Big Grouch on the Prairie

Has a nice ring to it.

Tres, Tres Chic

2008-06-15T15:01:00.000-07:00

I've certainly been neglecting my little corner of the innerwebs. There's been work, of course. And also have been lazy.

I have also been preoccupied with some reading related to a little project Mike and I are starting to work on. We know the rudiments, of course. But there are some finer points that needed elucidation so that we can hopefully be successful in our endeavors.

Mike's working weekends, as he has to do in the summer, so I've been left to my own devices. Today I went to see a move (The Happening, which was as ridiculous as I thought it would be, but I was up for some silliness, and the whole thing was worth the haw-haw afterwards I had with a couple of old ladies about the silliness). Then I met a friend at a cafe in L.I.C., and after we had our lemonades and iced coffees and girly talk, we wandered up Vernon Boulevard for a bit and poked around in some boutiques.

I hate boutiques.

I am a size 10. Not one of those plus-sized 10s (not that there's anything wrong with that), but a size that is a few below the cut off for straight sizes in most stores. I have lost 35 pounds since December. I still cannot shop in NYC boutiques. I don't think I could have shopped there back at my smallest when I had an eating disorder. The sizes go a little something like 0, 2, 4. There may be a 6 in there. Lots of XS and S with nary a M or gawdferbid an L. The friend I was with can shop at these stores, and she is tall and quite thin, and I'm thinking that even she would have had some trouble finding something to squeeze into.

Who wears these clothes?

How do these places pay their rent when they only sell sizes that very few women can wear?

How do indie designers make a living if they are only making clothes that very few women can wear?

I live in the far reaches of L.I.C., and except for the Japanese girls who live over here because it's cheaper than Williamsburg, I don't see many women around who aren't my size or bigger.

I have money, and today had a paycheck burning a big hole in my pocket.

What did I buy on my shopping jaunt through L.I.C.?

Some cat toys at the indie pet food store.

Curmudgeon Corner: Kids These Days

2008-05-24T05:37:00.001-07:00

I was headed into the city last night to meet Mike and a friend for dinner. A group of older teenagers got on, also headed into the city, apparently to celebrate a birthday, since one of them held a birthday balloon.

They came onto the train with cellphones and other clickety clackety personal handheld communication and gaming devices and proceeded to ignore each other.

It made me feel a little sick.

It's the same feeling I had a couple of weekends ago when I watched a couple sitting across from us at a restaurant. Dude had one of those bluetooth borg dealies clipped to his ear, and he chatted and laughed with several different people during the course of his meal, none of whom were the woman who was his actual brunch companion. She sat there grimly shoveling down her food.

I fear for humanity.

The Break-Up

2008-05-18T18:41:00.000-07:00

It was a long time coming. We hadn't been spending any time together. I blame myself. And so on Saturday, I finally did it.

I broke up with the gym.

There was a layer of dust about an eighth of an inch thick over everything in my locker. Not surprising since I hadn't been there since December.

Do you mind if I ask why, he wanted to know.

I don't have very much free time anymore, and I don't want to spend one second of what I do have here, I answered.

Auf Wiedersehen, Crunch, darling.

Pushing Aside the Cobwebs...

2008-05-11T07:29:00.000-07:00

Anyone still here?

Had to do some traveling for work. Got a talking to for sassing a client. Finished up classes for the semester. Tried to quit smoking. Failed. I'm not really smoking that much, so don't worry. Took Mike to the thee-a-tah for his birthday to see The Bully Pulpit, an one-man show in the Hal Holbrook channeling Mark Twain variety, but this was about Teddy Roosevelt. Bought a lot of art books. Otherwise, just trying to keep things going.

This is a detail from the final painting I did for my oil painting class.

Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition

2008-04-25T05:03:00.000-07:00

Listening to the Dixie Chicks and having fantasies of moving back to Texas, buying a beat-up old truck, and getting a bartending job at a dive bar on the county line.

New York Comic Con This Weekend...

2008-04-19T18:41:00.001-07:00

And it's fitting that I should pick this weekend to finally admit to myself that I am on hiatus, very likely permanently, from comics.

I'm not going to say never.

I'm just saying unlikely.

And it's not just the job.

My interests have shifted. I like painting. I've always wanted to do it. I was always terrified of it. But I'm doing it now. And I'm not afraid. Cartooning is starting to feel like a step I needed to go through, to move from writing to something purely visual.

But I don't want to over-analyze, or write some creation myth.

I just know that I keep looking at my drawing table and thinking, you should be an easel.

Third Avenue Fauna

2008-04-09T17:26:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, or maybe it was the day before--work has made everything a bit of a blur--I was headed home, walking up 3rd Avenue to the subway. I'd just passed one of those free AM New York paper bins, or maybe it was one of those mysterious metal boxes by the curb that are here and there--work blur thing again--and just out of the corner of my eye, I saw something dart behind me out into the sidewalk. For a fraction of a second, I thought it was a sparrow flying out, because the blur was brownish, but then my brain snapped awake and I immediately knew. I turned around to look, even though I didn't have to, because of the shrieks from other pedestrians, but it was a rat. A big, brown rat about the size of a possum. He was tearing down the middle of the sidewalk, headed downtown, unimpeded, like Moses parting the Red Sea, people scattering to both sides as he headed towards them.

Fart

2008-04-05T07:21:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday when we were walking up to the Philadelphia museum, we walked past the Rocky statue. Tourists were standing around, holding their arms up in the same woohoo pose that the metal Rocky held, having their pictures taken by friends and relatives.

As we passed:

Mike: Some art here at the art museum, huh?

S: It's art with a little a. They keep the art with a big A inside.

Mike: So this is "fart."

S.: What?

Mike: Fart, you know, faux art.

The Liberty Bell and Other Disappointments

2008-04-01T19:41:00.000-07:00

Mike and I went to Philadelphia for a couple of days. I had vacation time that was use it or lose it and didn't realize it until it was too late to plan a bigger trip.

We saw the Frida Kahlo exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. If you are in NYC and like her work, get yerself on a train and go see it before it closes on May 18. 40 paintings and tons of photos I'd never seen before. Be sure not to miss the Fridapalooza gift shop while there. Oy. Giant hologram posters. FK neckties. Shopping bags emblazoned with her face. She probably would have hated it. And also loved it.

I'd never been to Philadelphia, and was desperate to see all the historical sites around Independence Hall. Including the Liberty Bell. Which, um, hello. Is very small.

It's one of those things that I had imagined was just monumental in size.

I kind of felt like I did when I saw the Mona Lisa.

Tiny.

Otherwise, things are ok. Pretty good, really.

I seem to have momentarily gotten a grip on my stress issues. Meditation is a wonderful thing.

My new sense of calm was most sorely tested on the way home tonight, though.

After a painting class, I had to go buy cat food. At Whole Foods. Because The Marcel and Mlle. Rose do not eat just any old food. But the kind of food one has to buy at a health food store. The lines were long. At 9:00 pm.

When I got out, there was train drama, the kind that makes you feel like you are being punished for evil you perpetrated in a previous life. The kind where no matter what you do, you are adding on to your travel time. I waited and waited and waited and then said fuck it and decided to try another train line. I waited and waited and waited and as a train on that other line came, the announcement was made that the fuckedupness on my regular line had been fixed. So I stomped back over there with my bag of five hundred pounds of cat food and waited and waited and waited. And then waited some more. And cursed myself because if I'd taken that alternate line, I would probably have been home. Or at least closer. A train finally came. I got on. And when it came to my stop and I got out and onto the street and about a block away from my apartment, it began to rain. Hard.

Have you people heard about some movement in which people renounce complaining? I saw something about it on CBS morning news. It was a church. But I think it may ultimately be something Oprah-related.

Seriously.

No complaining.

I ain't even April Foolin' with y'all either.

HB¡Hola!

2008-03-23T17:24:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday, plagued by Mike's sighing after each trailer aired for the John Adams miniseries, I snatched up the phone and ordered HBO. It's not that much more a month. We watched the premiere. He taped it. On a videotape. I still don't know where he scared one of those up from. Probably the bodega across the street where one can find displayed in the window large bottles of men's froufrou and different kinds of condoms, like Caribbean Dreams, which come in rasta colors and are ribbed and studded.

Anyway, I get home Thursday evening, and he is sitting there watching HBO en español. It wasn't so unusual to find him watching t.v. in spanish. Even though he doesn't understand any of it. He thinks it's funny to see things like Terminator.

But this was different. He was frustrated. And twiddling with the clicker settings.

Sometimes, he said, HBO is in English and it's fine. Other times, it seems to be broadcasting in Spanish, and I can't turn it off. I did something once or twice before to make the Spanish go away, but I can't remember now what it was.

Hmmm. I said. And watched him go through the clicker functions again, to no avail.

Why don't you just call, I suggested. Tell them to fix it.

So he got on the horn and waited and then finally got to speak to a service rep, and I listened to him explain and then go through all the options with the clicker again, and still, HBO was in spanish.

The service rep said he couldn't figure out what was going on, and that he'd have to "kick it upstairs" and someone would call us in a day or two.

The channel Mike had the t.v. on was 903.

I thought that was a little strange, such a high number for a channel that so many people use so much. Most of the things that high up are 24/7 Hindi movies. Or news from China. In chinese. I grabbed the clicker and put it on the electronic guide, started at Channel 1, and started scrolling. By the time I got to close enough that I could see the label for channel 203, I was having to stifle a giggle.

I selected 203, and suddenly, The King of Scotland was playing. In english.

And then I started cackling.

Channel 903 was permanently in spanish because it's spanish HBO.

Technology es muy complicado.

For You, For Me

2008-03-15T15:10:00.000-07:00

After our Saturday excursion in Manhattan, Mike and I were on our way home and waiting on the train platform.

I noticed the very strong smell of urine, a particular version of which usually means that there is one of New York's homeless and mentally ill denizens nearby. I looked around but didn't see anyone. I believe I have confessed this before, but one of my main NYC paranoias is that I will be pushed in front of a train by a crazy man. It happened to a woman shortly after I moved to the city. Shortly after that another crazy man bashed another woman in the head with a brick while she was standing at a street corner waiting to cross. Came up from behind. And not all that long ago, a crazy man took some sharp tool that happened to be left on the platform by a worker and went after someone with that.

Don't lecture me about my lack of compassion. I'm not gettin' my skull busted open if I can help it. So if I see or smell before I see, I'm moving down the platform, to the next subway car, across the street.

Mike noticed me looking around. What are you looking for?

I smell bum piss, I said. Let's move.

So we did.

The train came and we got on. There was a young couple standing near us. And the guy was talking and talking and talking and talking. Loudly. I don't think I heard the girl say a word. He was tall. Twenty-something. Carrying two Uni-qlo shopping bags. And talking nonstop. I was enjoying watching them, actually, because he was clearly besotted with her.

When the train got to our stop, they also got out there and they were right behind us. I know, because I could hear him. Talking and talking and talking.

Mike does what Mike often does. He just stopped walking. I walked a few steps until I realized that he had stopped. People streamed around. Including the talking dude.

What's wrong? Why did you stop?

Mike said: For you, it's bum piss. For me, it's twenty-something dudes with ratchet-jaws.

Nice Way to End the Week

2008-03-08T04:43:00.000-08:00

This week was so stressful that I fell off the smoking wagon. Wheeled right into a deli after work on Thursday, smacked my ten dollar bill on the counter, and said, hook me up, my good man. I've had about half a pack since, and the rest are going in the garbage. I feel like shit from the smoking, of course.

I can't believe I used to do two packs of those a day.

I also had stress dreams this week in which I was drinking. I'd be somewhere, at a party or something, and I'd look down at my hand, and in it would be a glass of something--bourbon or beer--and I'd be sipping on it and then mildly note to myself that, oh, I don't drink any longer, but I would keep on sipping.

I had to stay a bit late yesterday at work, and was running late for my painting class. It was raining hard, which always means subway drama, plus the running late had put me leaving right at peak. I have to take the shuttle train between Grand Central and Times Square to switch to the line to get me to my class, and this shuttle train, even on a good day, is packed.

I got to class about 20 minutes late.

When I walked in, there was an easel set up in my spot, but no one sitting there. Everyone else was working.

I thought, the fuck? That's my spot. Who set up in my spot?

I walked around, confused, and looked at the painting.

Whose painting is that? It's good. I don't remember seeing one like that last week when I was looking at everyone else's work during break.

Finally, the teacher said, I set your easel up for you so you could get started right away when you got here.

I looked at the painting and blinked a couple of times.

It wasn't until I sat down in front of it that it finally clicked. Yes, dumbass, that is your painting.

And it's pretty good.

Material Girl

2008-03-04T19:43:00.000-08:00

Oh, the gnashing of my soul's teeth lately. I have a job I really like. But I worry about my extracurricular creative pursuits. I worry that time is slipping away, that I could still turn something around, maybe go back to school, do something with visual arts. Art therapy maybe.

But the money, oh, the money. I was so stinkin' poor through my entire 20's and into my early 30's because of school. I'm not Daddyette Warbucks, but I am, for once in my adult life, not living paycheck to paycheck. After work, which, by the way, caused me to miss my studio class tonight, I bopped over to a shop and bought some new clothes. New clothes I wanted. New clothes I liked. New clothes I didn't even have to look at the price tag on and worry if it was too much.

And I liked being able to do that. I like not constantly worrying about money. But I didn't like having to miss that class. And I don't like thinking about waking up at 65 wondering what the hell I did with my life.

Queensborough Morning Song

2008-02-22T19:53:00.000-08:00

I was awakened by the following sounds:

Scrape scrape scrape FUCK! Scrape scrape scrape FUCK! Scrape scrape scrape FUCK!

When I pulled back the curtain, sure enough:

Snow!

Ramblings, Literary and Otherwise

2008-02-20T16:52:00.000-08:00

It has come to this. Posting a cat picture.

I feel like I have nothing to write about.

I've had to stay late this week and by the time I get home I just want to sit on the couch and drool. And just yesterday morning I was feeling all refreshed from the long weekend. On Saturday I went to the movies by myself, which I think is a treat (Mike is away for work), and went shopping for art supplies. Then I watched Sense and Sensibility (the version Emma Thompson wrote the screenplay for) and Pride and Prejudice (the Keira Knightley one) for costume studies for a comic/graphic novely adaptation of a story written around the same time as the Austen novels were written. On Sunday I spent the whole day at the Met, and when not hissing hateful things at the befannypacked tourist who was on the coat check line behind me and kept stepping on my heels and knocking her fanny pack into me, I was doing costume and furniture studies for the comic, checking out the reorganized/renovated 19th century European painting galleries, and sketching in the Greek/Roman galleries. On Monday I had to do a little bit of work for work at home, and napped, and met someone I used to work with at my old job for coffee.

This person I met was not someone I was close to, or was social with. And I wondered what the desire to meet was all about. Since my social circle here in New York had dwindled to about one person, I thought, what the hey. Plus, I was just plain curious. Trying to be curious in an open to the world kind of way and not in a snarky tee hee let's just see what kind of fiasco this will be kind of way. Which is a way of thinking about things I am trying to get away from, but it's hard, because I tend to be a glass half empty kind of gal.

Turns out what this person was not so subtly really after was seeing if we might have use for this person's side business where I work. Which we wouldn't, unfortunately.

After meeting up, I did wander into a Border's bookstore, because I had a gift card leftover from the holidays that was BURNING A GIANT HOLE in my pocket. Snagged a collected Jane Austen and a costume history (how lucky for me, given my current preoccupation) for 75 % of the original price.

I've had my nose buried in the Jane Austen book (reading Mansfield Park for the first time) since I got home with it. It's having a strange effect. I can't stand to have the t.v. on, or to listen to any contemporary music. And it's making me feel like I should be a little less Texas clydesdale and a little more delicate English rose.

I'm sure we can all imagine how this will turn out. All it will take is a befannypacked tourist or pushyshovey Korean grandma on the 7 train.

Anyway.

The Marcel highly recommends Al Gore's book.

I Heart NY

2008-02-14T17:44:00.000-08:00

On the way home today I passed through Grand Central. There's a Godiva store there. The line to get in there was halfway down the Lexington Passage and out onto the sidewalk. Every other person seemed to have a bouquet of roses. I saw more than a few carrying a sad little single red rose with bruised petals wrapped in plastic. At Walgreen's on Union Square, a teenager was scurrying around gathering gifts for all the women in his life. He had a pair of pink faux shearling slippers in one hand, heart-shaped candy boxes and cards piled in his arms. I stopped in Sephora at Union Square, because I'd been looking at magazines today and found a fragrance sample in one that I liked and I haven't bought perfume in years, because I normally don't like them, but I liked this one, so I thought why the hell not. They were doing brisk business. The Wallstreeter stood next to me. He had a little black Sephora shopping basket on his arm and was loading it up. I somehow had the feeling that all that perfume was not for one woman. When I went down into the station at Union Square, I saw a gaggle of teenagers with big heart-shaped balloons holding carnations and 99-cent-store teddy bears.

Tonight, my valentine is away, playing Revolutionary War/War of 1812/Mexican War reenactor shoot-em up with a bunch of other hillbillies (he is from the Ozarks and calls himself one; some of my people are from up that way too before they made it to Texas and Louisiana) somewhere in the wilds of Alabama, but he was sneaky and had some garnet earrings sent to me at work. I miss him.

So...

2008-02-13T17:40:00.000-08:00

Set this new place up and now I've got nothing to say.

I keep waiting for blogworthy occurrences, but so far, not really anything. Sure, I could rant about subway transportation experiences, but that's too easy. Not blogging anonymously now is also interesting.

I've just got to get back into practice, I suppose.

Since I've got nothing in the way of a coherent post, here are two things:

This morning on my way in a huge flock of seagulls (always a sign of screwy weather in NYC when you see them inland) swept up and circled like pigeons against the red brick of PS1 as the 7 train I was on passed.

I've seen Sixteen Candles twice in the past week on different channels and have watched it all the way through. My friends (who were gay versions of Farmer Ted) and I had the lines from that movie memorized in high school.

I feel like a masochist because I can't stop reading stories about Hillary Clinton and accompanying comments by the Hillary haters on Web sites. I'm not gonna wax political here. People are for who they're for. But the sexist vitriol is depressing. For some reason I keep punishing myself by reading the nasty things people write about her. It's been contributing in no small way to my seasonal blues.

The Coffee and the Croissant Ran Away With The Spoon

2008-02-09T12:07:00.000-08:00

I give up on trying to keep my Web site sketchbook page updated with blog-like posts. Too much of a pain in the ass to maintain. So I am back with this format to record the daily runoff from my brain. Much more comfortable.

And I can post sketches here, too. Like this little number I did the other day. Mike and I were headed out of town for an IKEA run and he had to stop for gas up way north in Astoria.

I saw this sign in the window of the gas station.