artist growing

holiday resolutions

i'm going home tonight. i'm going to see the lovely folks and bake so many cookies and decorate the house and giggle until all hours. i'm going to eat so much delicious food and sing so many songs. i'm going to wash dishes and remember my grandmother. i'm going to play with the dogs. i'm going to see my brothers and my sisters and my parents. i'm going to sleep on the plane and take lots of photographs.

i'm going to feel out of place and feel deeply rooted. i'm going to feel so well loved. i'm going to pray over the food. i'm going to clean the house. i'm going to call my friends. i'm going to feel so pretty.  i'm going to borrow  my youngest sister's clothes. i'm going to go to listen to music with my oldest sister. i'm going to listen to my youngest brother's band's songs. i'm going to listen to my oldest brother's stories. i'm going to support my mother and my father.

i'm going to sleep in my old bed or on a couch. i'm going to watch scary horror movies that my brothers persuade me to watch. i'm going to wrap up the presents so prettily and unwrap them so daintily. i'm going to hug and kiss dozens of relatives. i'm going to tell the same stories over and over. i'm going to see snow. i'm going to miss my old dog (the best dog ever), brandy.

i'm going to ride in the car with my youngest sister and i'll feel old. i'm going to see the changes in my town and in my family's house. i'm going to watch football games and play video games. i'm going to make my grandmother's mushroom soup. i'm going to sip tea and chat past midnight. i'm going to meditate with my mother and sisters in a candlelit room. i'm going to celebrate christmas. i'm going to celebrate the old traditions and feel new with the new ways we have of celebrating. i'm going to spend time in my sister's house.

i'm going to be comforted. i'm going to meet my cousin's little baby. i'm going to welcome my other cousin's bride in to the family. i'm going to see so many people. i'm going to miss them even more.

i'm going to be compared with my mother, my sisters, and my grandmothers in my appearance. i'm going to miss my friends in portland. i'm going to be patient in explaining that i have no idea what i'm doing with my life. i'm going to blush when they ask me about dating.

i'm going to deal with the phone company and the student loans. i'm going to send my temp agency my timesheets. i'm going to be on top of all that what-not. i'm going to resolve to have even more fun next year. i'm going to resolve to give up even more of the most "precious" things in my life. i'm going to eat herring and drink champagne. i'm going to make my grandmother's pierogies and the santa apples. i'm going to feel so happy to be in their company.

i'm going to go to church and i'm going to see the pageant, even though none of my siblings or cousins will be in it. we're going to complain about it on the way home. i'm going to be impatient while waiting for my brother to wake up for christmas gifting. i'm going to be nervous that my family appreciates their gifts. i'm going to feel so much love for my family. i'm going to be back in 2 weeks or so. . .

exploring the neighborhood

today, i explored a new neighborhood grocery that opened up the street from my house. inside was the usual assortment of chocolate bars and sodas. i walked up the aisles and there were little tubs of  herbs and seeds, all labeled in swirling non-english letters  and marked with bright orange price stickers. i paused at a bag of dark brown chips honeycombed with crevices. it looked like it would be spongy if it were soaked in water.

the woman in the shop came over to me. she told me that that herb could be used in making stews. she told me that i could saute it in butter or oil and add the meat and the other vegetables. then she picked up each unfamiliar item on the shelf and told me its name and how to use it. she did not know the english name for many of the items; instead, she taught me the ethiopian pronounciations. there was one bag of herbs that looked like small sticks. drinking a concoction of it boiled in water would cure a cough. our conversation was tricky since her english was tentative and her accent strong, but i wanted to hear what she had to say.

i told the woman that i would be visiting my family for the next 2 weeks. she said that she'd teach me how to cook with these herbs when i got back. how exciting!

on my way back from the shop, i realized that all of the neighborhood shops in my area are pretty internationally representative. this shop had its ethiopian herbs. the next shop down the street, lao vieng, sold asian groceries. the next one was tienda video leonardo, a mexican video shop that also sold a strange assortment of other mexican items.  closer to my  house was the african international food market. its shelves are always so bare, but they sell the delicious rooibus tea there. then comes the italian bakery and, across from that, the taqueria. i sometimes forget how diverse my neighborhood is.

brain hurts -

my brain hurts like a warehouse today. i feel all hungover, but i didn't drink last night. i think working until midnight as a coat-check girl taxes my body so much. i have so much to process then, before bed. when i left last night, i was exhausted, but my mind was burning so brightly. i waited for a while for the max and got to ride it through the tunnel into downtown. i tried to uncoil myself by listening to brian eno's music for airports and it worked a bit.

yesterday, on my way to the receptionist job, i ran into a classmate of mine from college. she happened to be in the hallway when i was on the stairwell. we exchanged greetings, but i needed to get to my job. later, at my coatcheck job, i saw her again. apparently, the company i worked with was catering her company's holiday party. she looked gorgeous in a vintage peach gown. at the party, we exchanged contact information. running into an acquaintance twice in the same day, at two different jobs, just seemed a bit like the universe being less than subtle.

receptionist gig

this morning, i was so frazzled about my tight schedule in getting to my temporary gig as a receptionist. i woke up a few hours early so that i'd have time to shower and write before breakfast. my shower went long so things were running slightly behind schedule. i found myself with about twenty minutes for breakfast. i put the oatmeal on and sprinkled in some coconut. i remembered that i had some dried cranberries in my cabinet and tried to reach them by standing on my tiptoes. in reaching, i knocked a box of baking soda off the shelf and showered white powder all over my clean body and my all-black ensemble.  i dusted myself off as best as i could and swept up the floor. my oatmeal was just starting to burn as i poured into a bowl. i raced out for the bus and discovered that the clock on my cellphone had lost 7 minutes, since the last time i had reset it. good thing i was paranoid about being early.

officially, i'm a receptionist right now. i'm sitting behind the tall desk and looking at a flat screen monitor. i'm answering the very few phone calls and signing my name to the ups deliveries. mostly, though, i'm reading email and studying for the MAT.

i've never been a receptionist before and i feel a little bit nervous. i am a bit overly self-conscious over my voice. i never really thought about my voice until a cashier at my grocery mentioned that i might look into a career on the radio. i felt complimented until he described my voice as sounding like a little kid with a cold trying to sound like a grown up. hmmph.

so, today, i'm having to answer phone calls. it is kind of fun and kind of boring. i mean, i'm just sitting here waiting for the phone to ring. then when it rings, i get to ask a stranger how i can help them. they bark something out and i ask them to repeat it. then, i look at the list of 24 people and try to find the extension on the phone. it takes a while. then i transfer the call and i hang up.

just now, i somehow fell off my chair. good thing no one is in the office today. i don't even have a good excuse for falling off. maybe gravity is just a little bit richer on the third floor... also just now, as i was writing that last sentence, some guy called asking for "Mike Smith". when i couldn't find it on the list, i told him. then he corrected me, saying, "No, I'm Mike Smith. I want to speak with Fred Jones."  people are people and generally aren't very good at what they do.

after receptionist work, i'll have a few hour break. then, i'll get to be a coat check girl tonight at a gala event at the world forestry center.you'll recognize me... i'll be the one in all-black with a hanger in my hand.

the joy of rejection

yesterday was so lovely. i went to breakfast at a diner-ish bar with my friend. afterwards, i bought ridiculous quantities of canvas and rode the bus forever to get home. then i made a delicious frittata and shared it with dave. we rode to trivia night together. it was fun-- i had wonderfully accurate intuitions. i remembered the strait of bosphorus and that the angel in "Its a Wonderful Life" was named Clarence, though i couldn't recall his last name ("Oddbody") or his angelic rank ("Angel Second Class").

when i came home, i gave dave a painting and we said good night. i chatted with my housemates a while. we talked about the difficulty of taking responsibility for choices and of the various dramas in our lives. we watched "pride and prejudice" and drank wine.

then, as i came inside, i noticed a package for me on the table. it was my self-addressed envelope from portland modern. my artwork was graciously declined. hooray! my first rejection letter....  (you know the phrase, "if you are not being rejected, you are not trying hard enough.") also, in the mail, i recieved a postcard that i had mailed to myself. what great timing! i never mailed myself a postcard before, but i felt compelled. it was nice to have my good words come back to me when i was in a little bit of a nervous place.

the front of the postcard said:

"Everybody is ORIGINAL.  If they tell the truth and speak
from their true self, not the self they think they should be.  So remember these two things: you are TALENTED and you are ORIGINAL.  Be sure of that."
                                                                                                                                   -Brenda Ueland

i feel pretty solid. i'm excited for the holidays. as a reward, i bought myself a beautiful sweater today and some fancy soap....
 

3 cheers for the coworkers

i've been baking biscotti to distribute for the holiday gifting. i've made a cranberry-pistachio batch, a chocolate-almond batch, and an anise seed batch. they are so beautiful and tasty, too. yesterday, i stopped by my old workplace and gave a tin of them to my ex-coworkers. i hope that they were well-enjoyed.

it was a strange thing to see my old coworkers. they all looked so harried that i felt bad that things weren't as smooth for them as they might be. i liked working with them all so much. they were writers and painters, athletes, musicians, students, and otherwise adventuresome individuals. we drank and whined together; we worked together; we even presented complaints and solutions to our boss and our boss's boss together. ah, the good times...

their fabulousness made leaving the job much more difficult. i used to think that it wasn't so often that you got to meet so many marvelous, fascinating folks, but i now think that it is at least much more common than i had previously thought.

recently, i've done some temporary work as a high-priced coat check girl. every time i say that, someone points out that it sounds like a hooker-type job, but really, i'm (happily) overpaid in it. last weekend, i worked two events with the same partner, erin. she moved to portland to live with her sister, who is in her senior year at reed college. we had a lot of time to chat, because most of the time,  people at the parties are neither dropping off nor picking up their coats.

today, i bought $60 worth of canvas. hooray! now i won't have to repaint my old canvases to keep my hands moving. i still haven't heard from the portlandmodern.org folks about whether they accepted my paintings...

lately, i've been stuck on "blood on the tracks". i'm not sure i really like the whole album-- it is so male (and overwhelming in its maleness, even). i'm so grateful for the headphones. i forgot how much i love walking and listening to music.

simultaneous decisions

some moments i wonder how many other people in the world are doing the same exact thing as me. it feels like the population, for example, of all the folks eating bean, rice, and cheese burritos on the west coast at noon are somehow related in a strange and wonderful way... 

anyway, this morning i made myself a frittata based on leftover spinach-mushroom risotto. i wondered how many other people were eating the same thing as me and if any of them lived in the same time zone... i felt sort of delighted and sort of alone in my breakfasting.

last night, i worked as a high-priced coat-checker at a financial group's holiday party. some of the women came dressed sparkling like christmas ornaments, while others wore elegant, simple chemises. some of the men wore dapper suits with silk ties. some of the men wore khakis and sweaters, too. the variety of dress amused me as did the attitudes of the people.

they fussed so much over the name tags that people hadn't retrieved. "Are these the people who didn't show up?" they asked. we tried to explain that some people didn't take their tags and that others had returned them at the end of their night. they wondered if they were the first to arrive, and later, if they were the first to leave. the party dwindled 2 hours longer than they expected.

the best parts of the evening were 1) when the ice sculpture of a fairy gazing at a ball exploded (big crashing sound!) from the balmy, wet weather and 2) pinning a stolen tulip to the lapel of a man waiting for his wife to finish socializing.  i wonder how many people last night got to experience both of those things at once... i wonder how many of them enjoyed it as much as i did.

small case of the blues

i don't know what has laid me so low, but yesterday, i spent so much time in tears. i woke up sad and it didn't get better. i went through my day and baked a ton of beautiful biscotti, but i was feeling so trembly-rough, too small and delicate for the world. i thought i'd feel better if i left my house.

i went downtown on the train and met my ex. he had a portable cd player and some cds to give me. we chatted a little bit. he mentioned that he and kristin are going to andy and jewelie's holiday party and i felt a bit awkward about it. i want to go, but i don't know if i can really handle them socially. i told him that i felt anxious and that i worried that he and she would get drunk and grope each other in front of me. he said that that really was a distinct possibility. bleh! i mean, what's the point of voicing a concern if it is only recognized as a concern...

i tried to take good care of myself, though, and made a spinach-mushroom risotto for dinner. i watched the beautiful weepy film, "son of the bride" and sipped some whiskey. i talked to a friend for a few hours before i fell asleep. i'm not very good at asking for support when i am sad. i worry too much about taking up too much emotional space. i worry too much about risking the friendship.

my moods seem to coincide with lots of other people's lousy moods. maybe the blues are as contagious as the flu? perhaps you can catch it through touching doorknobs and handling money. maybe i just have a weak psychological immune system...

today, i'm feeling a little better. i've been walking around in the rain for the last few hours, listening to music on the headphones. i have some friends coming to dinner tonight, so i have more focus in  my day. i'm making pasta e fagioli, a big salad, an apple pie... maybe everyone will bring some wine and maybe we'll all have some fun...

gender motions at holocene

Last night, I took a taxicab over to Holocene and watched DK PDX (dragkings of portland) perform, "Dungeons and Dragkings", a show with music from movies like "Never-Ending Story" and "Labrynth". I was so excited to watch the crazy fun performances again. Johnny Mozzerella only appeared in one act, ABBA's "Dancing Queen". It perfectly showcased Johnny's wide-eyed sweetness.

I was most impressed with Mariah's ability to perform as Gigi BangBang and Oliver Easy in the same act, the B-52's "Love Shack". The left half of her body was in full Oliver Easy costume: slicked back hair, sleazy mustache, Hawaiian shirt, board shorts. The right half of her body was in full Gigi mode: poufy hair, glamorous eye make up, bikini top, and flashy skirt. When she switched directions, her transition between characters was so complete, so distinct. The characters moved so differently. Later, Dave and I talked about Mariah's ability to convey a character through her dress and movements...

At Holocene, I enjoyed watching the people as much as I'd watched the performers. I found that so many were so gender-non-specific in dress and hairstyle, while their movements tended to be gendered. I couldn't quite put my finger on what makes a motion look like a male movement or how the tilt of someone's head might look female. Dave suggested that women moved more fluidly than men did, but I'm not too sure that that theory covers all the motion. I think that the male movements were broader and took up more space. The female motions were less grounded and daintier. I am still wrapping my brain around these differences...

no new knee pain

Yesterday, I went for a lovely hike with my housemate Amy's friend, Stu. We were planning on hiking through the Lava Canyon at Mount St Helens, but it was closed for the season. We found a hike for Mount Mitchell instead and drove to that location. Our guidebook was a little out-of-date regarding the trailhead and we found ourselves scrambling through the clear-cut, trying to find a trail. On the way, we found lots of orange peel fungus and more false chanterelles, but no trail. We finally decided to head back to the road and start our search again.

We headed back to the road, and behold! to our right was a teensy sign indicating out 6.2 mile (round-trip) hike to Mount Mitchell. The trail was steep and rocky, with quite a few switchbacks. Stu and I needed to take lots of breaks, especially in the beginning. As we climbed, we realized that we probably would not be able to complete the hike-- we started too late (what with the scrambling through clear-cut) and were moving too slowly to make the hike in the 3 1/2 hours that we estimated before it would get dark. I was okay with that-- I've learned my lesson that it is more important to go my own pace than it is important to get to a specific place (at least for hiking, at least for the health of my happy knees). We pressed on and watched as the mud underfoot got solid and then covered with thicker and thicker layers of snow. Mostly we were in the dimly lit trails, winding beneath the canopy. Whenever the trail was naked, we paused to look at the surrounding views. It was incredibly beautiful...

This morning, I'm feeling sore in my calves, my hamstrings, and my big toes. I am so excited that I'm not sore in my knees. I've had terrible knee problems in the past and I was honestly scared that I would spend the day with my feet elevated, zonked on ibuprofen. I love that my knees, my legs were strong enough to deal with the hike. I am inspired by the visceral experience of progress and healing...