grey is my favorite color

I had planned on getting up early   taking a bath, with tea maybe.

Waking up gently.

Instead I slept in and walked to work with an apple,  milky Earl Grey in a thermos,
shivering, hurrying jerkily through the misty cold.
Later, an old man leaned in as I gave him his coffee, said
"Today should be canceled on account of the greyness."

Finished!!

I have a new room and I love it so much!

Yay!! I finally moved out of the basement room, and into the back room. Upstairs. That has 
windows. Two windows! I feel much better in this room. 

From just inside the door...I have lots of wall to paint on. 

 

The other side of the window. I have even more art space!

Loft! Under the loft there are two desks covered in piles of....of.....god, I don't even know. Stuff. Lots and lots of stuff. Someday, I will bring order to the chaos and then I will have a space for jewelry and a space for sewing. Or so I keep saying.

 

From the loft. Yes, that is paint all over the hardwood floor. It was there when I ripped up the carpet. It makes me feel less bad about making a mess. 

       The view from where I am sitting. :)  That dog is Panda, our new wolf dog. She loves mirrors.

                ...and couches.

Art in Progress

Before Medusa was a Greek girl who offended the goddess Athena, she was the third aspect of the Libyan goddess Athene (also called Neith, Metis, Anath or Ath-enna). Medusa was regarded as the seat of (female) wisdom. She is spiritual kin to Kali: both a life giver and death bringer. She is the storm, the calm, the destruction and the redemption.In Africa her face was said the be shrouded, because to view it was to gain the knowledge of your own death. And she has much bigger problems than snakes in her hair...

This started off as an exercise in how to make two different faces into one. I'm sure that I'll finish it soon...

 This painting has been consuming a lot of my time lately...

This painting is an experiment in "stream of consciousness" painting. I've only just started to go back in and develop the image. It was interesting to see how even when I disengaged and stopped paying attention to what forms I was painting with what colors, I still came up with a working sketch. 

Quit smoking and got a job.

Tired from waking.
Tired by the ritual of coffee, pills   that I always forget to take.
Tired of preparing food and eating cotton.
Tired of bones full of buckshot,   lead weighting limp wrists.
Tried from walking on legs that hate to stand.
            [too tired to care]
Tired from breathing.
Tired of my brain   dripping gasoline  -mercury smooth.
Tired of grabbing at thoughts that just slide off, down to my lungs.
And Tired     of coughing them out, sounding like that old, old man.
           [down by the liquor store? who can't hold his cigarettes?]

Dear Valued Customer,

Every day that I have to wake up and go to work I hate the idea of my job more and more. I hate working for a corporation. There is so much waste involved with the relative financial stability of large companies: small amounts of milk are poured down the drain every few minutes; trashcans have to be double bagged, and emptied when they are 2/3 full; all the boxes shipped to us involve ridiculous amounts of packing and packaging material (true story: we were once shipped a 2'x3'x1' box containing nothing but one large plastic bag and a roll of packing tape). I hate the blatant consumerism: the up-selling of mediocre food and the ridiculous prices attached to it; the thousands of cups that pass through our hands daily. I hate just saying "Yes," to people who force me to fill the (two) sugar shakers at least every hour. I hate the tone I take when I dislike a customer, but can't say anything. I especially hate getting up early to serve people who forget what a job like this is like.
The problem is - I really love doing my job. At least, when I'm actually being a barista. Things like perfect cappuccino milk - airy, but still velvety smooth and rich - thrill me so much that I can ignore the rest of it (at least until I have to get up the next morning).
So why then, do I get up every day, knowing that I'll come home in eight hours with sore feet and a backache, stinking of sour milk and strong coffee, burned, sticky and exhausted? Because I (speaking completely apart from my company and coworkers) want to make you the best cup of coffee that I possibly can. Which sounds, aloud, so...well, kiss-ass that you will actually never know this, because even if I told you, you wouldn't fully believe me. So, if I promise not to make you question how little I care about my menial job, will you occasionally pretend that I'm human?

Thanks! Have a nice day.

Recently seen in my room...

this is why you glow

slumped:  head     hanging, shaking.

And Still the laughter bubbles,   Breaking!    against your teeth,
jumping UP    orange.    fizzy.    confused.

Seeking    a way out.
Seeping    through tight pressed lips.

And still, you try not to spill
                                 one drop.
while it runs down lines, webs
across wrinkles,    soaking back into your skin.

Look what I found!

Isn't she fabulous?

I finally did it!

After months of sitting around and talking about what I wanted to do with The Dungeon (as we've nicknamed my studio), I finally woke up this morning and did it! Take a look! To the left is my painting area, and moving towards the right end are my sewing, jewelry and glass tables. Fantastic, no?

Process

sleepless ravings

How many nights, how many hours have I spent sitting in bed watching smoke swirl and mingle over the lamp, rising from the incense on the table, the pipe in my hand? How many pages have I filled with bored, illegible scribbles? How long have I spent staring blankly at books I don't want to read, clothes I don't want to put away? By three am I intensely dislike everything around me.

When you can't sleep, it's always three am.

Some nights I lie in bed with the lights off, singing long, slow songs in my head. Every so often I'll stop to guess the time. I'm usually right.

Mr. Durden has already explained to us how insomnia makes everything a copy of a copy of a copy. And while I do agree with him, I wish to emphasize the "everything" part. As the night wears on you go from one tired copy of yourself to the next: a copy of a copy of a copy.

Are you there god, or do you just suck at your job?

I have a theory. No, not even a theory. A passing thought, just an interesting tidbit...I think (passingly, you understand) that we have disproved the existence of God. Or, at least, that we've proved the god that most "major" religions worship has not been hanging around our universe lately. According to these various peoples there is a kind, forgiving, rather grandfatherly god who just loves to watch out for us, right? However, most people don't realize that they basically believe in the same things, so they continually fight over whose god is better. Okay, so, here's what I don't quite understand: how does god feel about all this? Cause, see, if I was god, and I was as awesome as we seem to think he is, I don't believe I'd want anyone fighting in my name. I'd like to know what kind of god allows (him/her/it)self to be used as an excuse for so much violence. Just, you know, a thought...

For all of you photographically inclined folks...

I did a shoot last week with one Ryan Chahanovich, a sweet, enthusiastic hippie from Austin. I think you should go take a look at his blog. Not only because there is a glow-in-the-dark picture of my arm on it, but because I really like his work. And because he got me a decent bottle of wine when he could have bought a three dollar bottle of shit.

Peace y'all.

long lost riding hood

This is a super old version of Little Red Riding Hood from France. Notice that the girl does not actually have a red riding hood of any sort.

There was once a woman who had some bread, and she said to her daughter: take this hot loaf and a bottle of milk to your granny. So the little girl set off. At the crossroads she met a bzou (werewolf).

“where are you going?” he asked of the girl.

“I’m taking a hot loaf and a bottle of milk to my granny.”

“Which path are you taking, little girl? The path of needles, or the path of pins?”

“The path of needles,” she replied.

“well, then,” says the bzou, “I’ll take the path of pins.”

They set off, the girl amusing herself by collecting needles, while the bzou raced ahead. He arrived at the grandmother’s, killed her, put some of her flesh in the pantry and a bottle of blood on the shelf. The girl arrived and knocked on the door.

“Push the door,” said the bzou. “It’s just closed with wet straw.”

“Hello granny. I have a hot loaf and some milk for you.”

“Put them in the pantry. Eat the meat that’s there, and drink the wine.”

As the girl ate a small cat said: “She is slut who eats the flesh and drinks the blood of her granny.”

“Undress, child,” said the bzou, “and come into bed.”

“What shall I do with my clothes, granny?”

“Throw them into the fire my child, you won’t be needing them anymore.”

“Oh granny, how hairy you are!”

“It’s to keep me warmer child.”

“Oh granny, those long nails you have!”

“To scratch me better, child.”

“Oh granny, what big shoulders you have!”

“The better to carry firewood with my child.”

“Oh granny, what bug ears you have!”

“All the better to hear you with my child.”

“Oh granny, what big teeth you have!”

“All the better to eat you with, child!”

“Oh granny! I have to go badly! Let me outside!:

“Do it in bed, my child.”

“No, granny. I want to do it outside.”

“All right, but be quick.”

The bzou tied a woolen string to her foot and let her out. When the little girl got out the door she tied the end of the string to a big plum tree in the yard. The bzou became impatient and said: “Are you making a load out there? Are you shitting a load?” When he realized that no one answered him, he jumped out of bed and saw that the little girl had escaped. He followed her, but he arrived at her house just at the moment she was safely inside.

peanuts/sweet potato fries/guys

on peanuts and lifelong hatred
It seems that I've been a little behind the times for the last nineteen years. Have you ever figured something out, only to find that 3,567,224 people know about it already? Well, I have just made a fascinating discovery: peanut butter is really good! I've spent my entire life being repulsed by the smell, taste, even thought, of peanuts and their butter. If, when I was little, my mother had given me a choice between "green things" (which must be said with a proper six year old sneer) and a PB&J for lunch, I would have eaten the vegetables. Maybe if she had done that I wouldn't have hidden my veggies under my booster seat. I hated peanut butter that much.
I remember working at a smoothie shop, gagging every time I made a peanut butter smoothie. On Halloween I would trade all of my Reese's Cups for candy the other kids didn't want. I could never pin down what it was about peanut butter that was so repulsive. Macadamia butter, almond butter, cashew butter, hell- even vegan butter, were all okay with me. But peanut butter?
Then, a few days ago, for absolutely no reason at all, I ate a spoonful of crunchy peanut butter. And I loved it.

on sweet potatoes
Take a sweet potato and peel off the earthy skin. Cut it into thick slices, then to matchsticks. Drizzle them with olive oil, dust with salt and pepper, toss them with your hands. Food is more honest when you touch it. When you don't prepare it with care you feed only half the body's hunger. Bake the sticks on a sheet pan in a 400 degree oven, turning them often so they brown evenly. Take them out when they are done, not before, and certainly not after. Be mindful when you eat them; expect to melt. They're good.

on the subject of men
I think that dating guys may be one of the stupidest things I've ever tried.

There is such a thing as too much.

Finally, I stood up and taking off my earrings, stumbled into bed. Curling into a ball, I burrowed into the striped, colorful mess of blankets. The room throbbed. Some giant hand was massaging it like a failing heart. My own heart raced and thumped with it, beating wildly, erratically. I breathed slowly, carefully trying to calm the frantic heartbeats. But I was distracted by my arms. They were freezing. As the cold intensified into shocking pain, I realized that blankets wouldn't help. The cold was not coming from the air. It was inside, diffusing from my blood into my hands, my fingertips; a burning, cutting pain that felt like being rubbed down with menthol and then walking naked into the rain. I huddled into the pillows, completely fascinated by the threads of agony spreading through my ribs, into my neck and all the way to my toes.
Sometime later, I remembered my panicked heart, and raced to reassure it. But I arrived to find it thumping calmly, perfectly cool and collected.

I can't stop watching this.

It's just so beautiful. Over 2,000 photos were needed to make this stop motion video. Find out more about it here.

Color #6D7B8D/Light Slate Grey

It's half a hundred degrees out, and cold threads of air pry their way into the car. We drive in silence, last night's tequila still gurgling in our heads; the questions we won't ask or answer settling into the cracks between our lips, filling our ears. There's the tenseness of excitement: the promise of an adventure. Hands twined, we stare out of our separate windows at the leaping, whirling gulls. Together we watch the waves rearing towards the highway.

You grin as I shrug into your brown coat, silently saying how cute I look in it. With hands deep in our pockets we peruse the paths, rubbing elbows. Awkwardly, shyly hesitant, until our explorations took the edge off. Once, we paused in the sunlight, and I kissed your neck. The moment rocked, warm and twisting deep in our stomachs. And on the ride home I rested my head in your lap and slept, your fingers in my hair. Through the layers of unconscious, I could feel them twining, smoothing the strands.

Later, your fingers traced the dusty blue bite marks on my shoulder, whispering of fascination. Tonight, my own fingers travel the same lines, asking why I left.

A Random Sampling

I have to walk around Lake Merritt to get to school, which is a wonderful way to wake up. See the tallest building all the way in the back? That's my school.

Frida!

Our pepper plant, that really needs to be put in the ground. Poor thing.

I have a tendancy to make small shrines in unused spaces.

See?

This is our bear, Iley. Seriously though, she's huge.

People in Oakland are still tense over Oscar Grant. There are signs up everywhere, Oscar themed art shows, etc.

This is where I get surprisingly good coffee before I go to class.

Home!

Our tomato plant also needs to be put down in the garden.

Is this not the coolest cathedral ever?

Just, ya know, practicing swordsmanship in the park.

All the rest are from the zoo. :)