Yesterday’s post finally exceeded the tremendously popular “Hot MILFS taking spaces” post, in terms of page hits. Maybe I don’t have to resort to cheap, tawdry tricks to get blog stats. I know, I should be thinking about other things, which I do, but I’m also amazed how many people are in to HOT MILFS. Weird, sick world, this. In the other room two three year-olds are whispering underneath my sleeping bag about Kipper the Dog. Or as they say… Kipper A Dog.

I’m going to work in an office today, leaving once my parents get here to mind the ladies. Maybe I’ll go look at myself in the mirror… it’s been a few days.

The flower painting, in an earlier iteration, 36"x36"

Eight days since I’ve had a chance to quietly sit and type something longer than a lame-assed fuckbook status blob. A pathetic existence. Though the past eight days haven’t been particularly horrible. Just too busy to focus and type, which is horrible in a way I suppose. No, really. The time has been spent working, getting medical things taken care of, grocery shopping, playing with the girls. Driving to North Carolina, about 8 hours away, for Thanksgiving, staying with spouse’s family, visiting with his sister and parents and Beenie and Mimi’s cousin, Sophia. Making gluten/dairy-free pies and stuffing, chili and cornbread, chicken soup/stew. Lots of cooking. Lots of eating. I made a pumpkin pie yesterday, just because I never got enough of a chance to have pie for breakfast from the T’giving feasts. The one sitting in my fridge at the moment has a butter crust. Mmmmm… butter.

I am feeling a little bit crazy since I’ve had so little time to myself the past week or so. Last night and this morning I got a teenie bit of “me” time. Read about meditation without actually doing any before bed, then this morning when I woke up, I jumped into clothes and headed to the painting studio for the first time in what seems like two weeks. Splendid. The big flower piece is shaping up. The background is pink, which I think will glow once I apply the rustier, earthier layer on top of it. Defined a few edges today, in some of the petals, added a small, fluffy, feather-like element at the top of the piece, which should help balance the composition. Before there was just a little bit too much empty space on top. Now it makes sense. The feathery shape will become more a part of the background, methinks, but some kind of presence is needed at the top right. I was also able to get real aquariffic on the puddle painting this morning. Don’t know how much more I can describe the act. Suffice to say phalo green and blue were factors. I may be able to finish that piece by springtime. But who knows.

Puddle painting a few weeks ago. It changed significantly today. More green.

I got ANOTHER rejection letter, this time from a recent art grant application. For a few minutes I thought I might actually have gotten it — was able to semi-articulate my love and inspiration derived from Camera Morte, how I would spend the grant monies (time and space), and all of that crap. Am I barking up a dead horse? Is it possible Camera Morte is not an inspiration — no — LIFE ALTERING experience, like I think it is? I will not be beaten down on this, you jerks. I know it is something great, even if you don’t. Hell, add it to the pile of one million rejections. IT DOESN’T AFFECT ME! Well, actually, it does kind of bum me out. It would be so great to get a little extra something for art supplies and studio rental, or a nod from my arts community. The next grant deadline coming up is in early December, and I’m tempted to ignore it, since there isn’t a huge amount of new work to show. Why waste my time? I have so little time to spend on that kind of crap, it would be better spent making more art. Oh I don’t know.

I spent this morning, from 9:15 till 11:15 painting. I already wrote about that, eh? It was just… so… great! It is almost better to not have excess free time. Now when I go to paint, I contemplate the task before me, decide what color/s to work with in the next hour or two, then focus and paint. No time wasted, since there is absolutely no time to waste. It is baffling how much of my youthful artistic energy was spent NOT making a goddam thing, but just sitting around thinking or talking about ideas of what to do. Yes, I painted lots then, too, but I had few time constraints, and if it tickled my fancy, I could paint for a morning, take a lunch break, then paint the rest of the day. Hours and hours. Incredible luxury. Even when I was working crazy hours doing floral design, I still had plenty of extra time to waste. When you have children, there is no time to waste, unless you think time spent doing the parenting thing with them is a waste, which I do not. I’m talking idle hands, friends. With a capital ‘I’. Full ego immersion. At this point, what’s left of my ego has cheap sneaker footprints on it, and it is covered in yogurt and ketchup. Good riddance, I say. Me and me had plenty of good times. I think I like the more recent me better, though I am far more depressed than I used to be. But also, far less tortured. More, especially of late, truly enjoying communicating with my daughters, all three + three years of them. Making art helps, working helps, getting them into a preschool environment where I am not part of the goings on helps. Regular exercise would also, tremendously, help. That’s next on the list.

Do you ever think about the edges of things? In a way, when I’m painting, it is almost all I think about. How one color or line or color field meets another. Is the edge flat? or does it have a Raw Umber layer beneath an Indigo layer. Does the space betwixt layers vibrate? Is the edge alive?

They both passed out. Mimi hit her little green pillow in the living room about two hours ago, and Beenie curled up behind me on the futon in their room about 45 mintues ago. Mimi puts herself down for a nap these days, usually between 1-3, walks into a corner with her bankee and lies down, thumb in mouth. But it is always strange when Beenie naps. She doesn’t really need to on a daily basis like her sister does. It is good for her to, though, sometimes. Shit, it is good for me to nap sometimes, too, I just never do. More often than not I wake up super depressed from a nap, therefore avoiding them like the proverbial plague. I guess it’s not good for me, then, is it?

Finished the first project at my job today. Ended up putting in a little over fifteen hours into the assembling of a small website with a CMS (content management system). I understand that this is a small site, and there weren’t any weird links or modules used, no video or audio or Flash or anything like that. It is good to come back to it with something manageable, since I have been out of this particular kind of web work for over three years now. Butcha know what? It is significantly easier than I remember it being. I am unclear if the CMS I am using has improved over that time away or if being a mother is so difficult and confusing and intense almost twenty-four hours a day, every day, that any job is going to seem easier than the very full-time job I’ve had since birthing these lovely girls a little over three years ago. It is kind of a relief to work with something that doesn’t steal it’s sibling’s blankets or shoes, doesn’t hit it’s sibling or have health or food drama. It is just a tool on a computer that has little quirks, but they are quiet quirks and that’s it. Finish some work, turn off the machine. Nighty nite. As I have said, though, now that I have even less time because of working at a job for someone other than my family, my patience and focus with the girls is greater, which makes me a greater mama (hopefully). I can’t wait to get paid!

I will say, however, that after one day sitting at a desk in the office, and mind you, only for about 4.5 hours, I had a small taste of what offices were like, and think the arrangement of me working from home with occasional time in the office is preferable to being in one all the time. Too many fluorescents make mama’s head hurt. But a day or so per week I can handle, methinks. It is great to be around other alleged grown-ups for some tech speak and think.

Actually, it gives me more drive than ever to try to get a focus back on the other things I fancy doing, like painting and writing and maybe making some fun video projects. Life is short. You know this.

The third and final commissioned painting is going to make its way into the painting studio, hopefully tomorrow at some point. That’ll be the Octopus piece for my new sister-in-law’s cousin’s wedding gift. The wedding was earlier this year. The piece is almost done, but has been sitting at my brother’s place for a few months while I waited for a painting space to arrive. That makes the following list of art to complete:

1. Octopus painting
2. Flower painting
3. Puddle painting

There is the solar/lunar series, but I am trying to do that one at home since it’s water-based paint and I need something I can do from home. Getting to the studio is not always an option por moi.

Have I said how great my daughters are lately? They just blow my little pea brain. Really. Complicated, sensitive thought. Massive attitude and moxy. Great looking. Brilliant. I just love ‘em and am so grateful they are in good health and brain. I hope I’m giving them the good job as parent they deserve. I probably am most of the time. Nobody gets a perfect parent. Nobody wants a perfect parent.

Where’d the leaves go?!

Not because I have some strange skin condition, but because there’s lots to convey in this short time we have here together — my fingahs is just itching to tell you about it all!

1. I worked three and a half hours today!
2. The girls were in school from 9:30-12:45 today!
3. I painted for two hours yesterday!
4. The girls have taken naps today!
5. We went to Target without incident today!
6. Autumn, fall. Beautiful!

If I use another exclamation point I’m gonna hurl! YEEEEACH! Okay, I am done. My mood is changing slowly, the more chaotic yet occupied my mind is recently. Yes, I always had lots to do, but now that I have even more to do, I’m happier. I think because some of which I have added to my proverbial plate involves zen-like, web-centric, intellectual repetitive thought and does not involve putting people in time-out and the constant explanation of why you can’t do that to your sister without her wanting to beat on you. Or potty stuff. Not that I don’t adore my girls, but I must say, I think I adore them even more now that they are only the majority of what I do all day instead of all I do all day. I know, housecleaning is stuck in there too, but I guess I’m thinking more the non-domestic duties I’m happy to have balance with. From. Whatever.

Started working on a second commission (it will be a commission if Nappy likes it) in the studio on Sunday. Smallish piece, in comparison to the really big piece I’m crankin’ on. A painting from a photo of a puddle reflection originally posted on this blog. If I can find the image, I’ll put a link in. The piece was rescued from my old painting studio, once housed in my friend Esha’s semi-submerged mold and spider infested garage. A few pieces succumbed to the mold and dankness, but the Puddle Painting emerged just fine to keep working on. Not sure what direction it will take, but I’m hopeful, as I am with pretty much any artwork I get to work on. The larger painting of a flower and some vines is coming along nicely. I have a pinkish cadmium underpainting for the background and a green wash over the floral areas. Not sure what other layers will be incorporated. I believe a rust color was requested as a part of the painting, so there will be rust. THERE WILL BE RUST. It is like what I imagine shooting heroin would be like to get the occasional hour or two here and there to work. I just love painting! If I could smuggle a few more hours in our basement, it would be sooo fun to start making music again, in earnest. It, too, is a favorite release, but it is a definite second to art in the list of creative outlets. All of it being good, clean fun.

I have an announcement to make: I would like to send you a present!
I seem to have five Snickers candy bars, full-sized, left over from Halloween this year. They are delicious, but after eating three in the last week, I would like to send them to someone who could really use this sort of sustenance, like a pregnant person, or someone who needs to put a warm layer of fat on themselves for the cold, cold winter. I have enjoyed a few, and would now like to remove them from my house. I’ll mail them to you. Just put a comment to this post letting me know you’re interested, and I’ll get your address. You know you want it. The first person who responds is the winner! Wooooo hooooo!

But I’m working! Right now, I’m doing work, with adults, making websites and charging money for my time. My biggest fear, yesterday, the first day I worked at my new part-time job, was asking everyone in the office if they needed to come with me to go to the potty. Are you SURE you don’t have to go? But I didn’t, proving my ability to pretend that I can hang with the over three year old set. More soon. For now, off to the content management system!

xo J

PIE FOR BREKKY!

First, Baltimore is doing a classic revisit of spring, dishing out two sunny warm (70’s!) days in a row, mid November, starting yesterday.

Second, the Vegan Apple Crumb pie I made three days ago still tastes great, and there’s still some of the vegan coconut milk vanilla bean ice cream left, which is the perfect complement to a heated slice of the pie. Unless it’s an occasional sliver of delicious cheese, dairy can really suck in the health realm. At least for me. FUCK YOU, MILK! I like the soy and coconut versions of milk better, anyway.

Third and most importantly, yesterday morning, Sunday morning, beautiful sunny Sunday, I woke up at 7:30 a.m., packed up some art supplies, got a coffee and everything bagel with butter at a nearby cafe, and drove on over to the STUDIO to get crackin’ on Lynn’s sister’s painting. I purchased the canvas over six months ago and am just now beginning to put paint to surface. Julia, in her benevolent desire to help a sister out, has given me a wall in her beautiful studio so I can lose my verbal self for a few hours a week and paint paint paint. I put in about 2.5 hours yesterday of real work. Painted a Burnt Sienna base color, drew into it, painted into the drawing, wiped the whole thing off in disgust, then did another drawing on the canvas and painted into that one, had it come out with the correct proportions, washed my brushes and left by 11:45. It was so deliciously right! Divine! I felt like I had cheated on my whole family, it was that kind of intense and forbidden love. The fucked up thing is, clearly I shouldn’t have to feel like I’m cheating on anyone by making art. If anything, I am saving my family thousands of dollars each year by staying out of therapy, if I can continue to eek out a few hours per week standing in front of a painting, thinking about it for a few minutes, then applying paint. Doesn’t that seem a wee bit more productive and life-affirming than going to a therapist’s office, whining about how I have no time or space to be creative, getting a fat bill and probably some medication, and still not being able to create?! I demand creative time. I NEED CREATIVE TIME! Not easy to find these days, this elusive ‘time’, since poor spouse has been working six and seven days a week. Mothers, don’t let you children grow up to be architects.

Anyway, yes, painting yesterday was everything I wanted it to be. Except, of course, back again today. I’ll shoot for Wednesday morning putting in some studio time.

Okay, so, someone I know who lives in Los Angeles just got a medical ganja prescription for her PMS. This sounds highly reasonable to me. Should I consider moving my family west? Do I need to re-think my stand on living on the west coast? Because if the only real threat is that part of the North American continent breaking off and melting into the Pacific Ocean, it kinda seems worth it if you can puff as you’re going down. Kipper the Dog and his friends all do it, except for Pig, since he’s a single dad and needs to be present for his toddler pig, Arnold. My question is: where is the bitches, y’alls? Why are there no female-type characters in Kipper? I had an epiphany the other day that all of the characters are homosexual dogs and pigs and they don’t really hang with the hags and that’s okay, too. Pig is raising his adopted son, Arnold in a loving community, Kipper and Jake and Tiger, who may be Kipper’s partner, but I am unsure about this. Who is with me on this? Am I reading too much into it?

1. you don’t have to cut up all foods into small, bite-sized pieces
2. some mornings, the two hours of school silence just have to be spent on domestic duties
3. other, more of the 2 hour mornings, should not be spent on domestic duties
4. people are listening, don’t be an asshole
5. if you got up at 5 a.m. every morning, you could start making art again
6. one day your children won’t wake up in the middle of the night and need your help
7. where does the snot come from? and how in god’s name can there be so much of it?
8. pie. today is pie day.
9. all human beings suffer
10. go for the double, in general
11. it’s okay to keep some of the halloween candy, just not all of it.
12. peeing into a cup isn’t that big a deal… who knew?
13. don’t forget to bring your camera
14. flossing IS important, especially after that poppy seed bagel
15. even if you’re already yelling, you can stop yourself and not ruin the morning for your two three year-olds
16. a cold isn’t the end of the world

That’s all I’ve got. Sixteen tidbits of wisdom from a double soy latte’d up mama with an hour and a half of freedom after a week of 24/7 snotty people. Finally dragged them back into preschool this morning. Fever and really bad snots gone, just dregs of runny noses and bad attitudes left. Almost got into a knock-down with Beenie this morning over her clothing, or lack thereof (it’s fucking cold out there, crazy girl!), as we do at least once a week, but I stopped myself in the middle of my own fit and made it better. But you know what I will not tolerate? Two little girls fighting over who has the slightly darker shade of pink on the tops of their sippy cups. That’s when Beenie asked me if I was mad. And I said loudly, “Yes. That really pisses me off,” and removed the dark pink top from one of the cups and replaced it with an identical light pink top and told them both that I didn’t care if they drank juice or not. I WILL NOT LISTEN TO YOU TWO FIGHTING OVER THE COLOR OF THE TOPS OF YOUR SIPPY CUPS!

Woah. I’ve already invested way too much of my precious quiet time thinking, then writing about this.

October 25th was the last moment I had enough uninterrupted time to write here. I have a feeling even this post will be cut short due to a certain Beenie, who, in her troubled sleep is hacking up a lung as I type, which is quite distracting. She fell out of bed a half-hour ago and didn’t wake on impact with the ground. Poor sweet sickly thing. She’s had big gooey snots for the past week and now is choking on them, and Mimi is in and out of two days now with her second mystery fever of the season. I suspect this won’t be the last one. She’s not particularly sickly other than becoming quite hot in the evenings, and is now displaying lesser snots than her big sis, but snots nonetheless. Of course, this means I, too, have contracted some form of their hybrid scourge, leaving my right lymph node swollen and sensitive, as well as my left sinus filled to the brim. Damned viruses. Nothing quite as dramatic as to bring me to the doctor, but certainly tiring and uncomfortable, getting in the way of autumnal fun. At least we didn’t miss out on Tricks or Treats. The ladies donned flamenco dancer outfits imported from spouse’s old friend living in Spain. Extremely cute. I took the ladies to Michael’s, the hideously fantastical craft mecca to pick out the obligatory fake long stemmed red rose and acquire deep pink fake blooms to attach to headbands, completing the practically perfect Halloween costume. Despite traveling no further than two blocks from our little row house in Baltimore, the girls somehow came home with TONS of candy. Much of it to my liking, some of which I threw in the freezer, especially the copious M&M’s, some which I sent with my husband to his job. And there were a fair amount of Dum Dum’s lollipops left over from the candy bowl, which I now whip out when it seems like nothing else could help. Lollipops are the candy of choice by the resident three year-olds, with plain M&M’s coming in at a close second, though nobody sings an M&M song, which is not the case for lollipops.

** I have to pause for a moment… I really have so much I want to jot down, and it is just freaking me out now that it has taken almost ten days to to come to a place where I can sit down in solitude, at 11:34 p.m., listening to the clunky dishwasher half-wash the dishes (better it than me), listening to Beenie cough and cough and know there isn’t much more than what I’m already doing that is going to help her out. How is it possible my life has been so hectic that I can’t even write a blog post?**

You may be interested to know my brother got married this past Sunday to his Rebecca, who I wholly endorse and am delighted to have absorbed into my dysfunctional but creative and honestly strange and great family. Well done, young peeps! Okay, not that young, but younger than me, which gives me the right to say ‘young peeps’. Love love love. I offered up to do the flowers for their intimate event, a wedding bouquet for bride and boutineer for my bro, the groom, as well as random other arrangements dotted throughout their house, where they held the ceremony and reception. In case you didn’t know, it isn’t weird that I did the flowers for the wedding. I was a freelance floral designer for over ten years, in one of my many pasts. From my early twenties through my early thirties, up until I got suckered into learning how to make websites once I moved to Baltimore in 1998. I am old enough to have had two completely unrelated careers, if they can actually be called careers, both of which have exceeded ten years in length. If that doesn’t make me feel old, I don’t know what will. Anyway, I had two anxiety dreams over the course of the week I started thinking and discussing what kinds of flowers Rebecca wanted. My husband hit it on the head: I don’t have any sort of outside demands in my life, only internal to the house and people in the house (and don’t you worry, all of this is plenty demanding), so when an outside act that would require some sort of work and exposure to unknown people came about, it was more than my little pea brain could handle. It automatically went into potential failure mode and I started worrying about all the things I worried about when floral design was the way I made a living. Funny. It all worked out in the end, tho, you should be glad to read. The bride loved her bqt, groom was fine with bout, the flowers all looked great in their house for the excellent happening. Whew! Now I can go back to worrying about what preschool to send the girls to next fall, where my identity went, how in tarnation I’m going to squeeze out some artwork so that I don’t have to go into therapy for lack of creative expression, despite the fact that THERE IS NO TIME FOR ANYTHING. Breathe. Breathe from the belly.

Oh, and I think I’m going to start working soon. Like in the next two weeks. I got through the nine pages of paperwork required to start the process, then today had blood drawn to check for strange diseases floating around, and peed into a cup for a drug test. I felt a little bit violated, though understand why it is all done… I’ll be working with a hospital, in their marketing department, building out websites through a content management system, ten hours per week. If it all goes through, which it should. I never in my entire existence thought I’d agree to a drug test. But today I did. And lived long enough to tell you all about it. Someone said this sounded like a “Gateway Job”, which I thought was clever and accurate. It could possibly lead to bigger, more addictive employment. We’ll see. I can’t imagine being able to hold down a full-time job when both my daughters are sick. How do people do it? You can’t take ‘em in to school when they’re sick. Reinforces my conviction that you should find the cheapest preschool available, that treats your kid/s well, but doesn’t have too many bells and whistles, because in the end, they won’t be there much in the first year or two.

Oh boy I’m tired. There’s more to write, like about me moving my petty art operation into a corner of my friend’s studio. Hoping to start work on a few commissions, get the turpentine flowing. Maybe that would clear out my sinuses. Can you neti pot with solvents?

On my way home from my pre-employment screening, the sun was beginning to set for the evening. The quality of light was something glowy and cool and warm. I drove by a nearby graveyard and snapped some pics. I find old graveyards to be grounding. This graveyard in particular has the most gigantic fabulous trees. The trees look like the sum of all the dead people was concentrated into growing these ivy covered mammoths.

Hey y’alls. The sun is lowering in the sky, it is 3:43 in the afternoon. Cool, warm sunshine. Nothing looks like this time of year. And, of course, I have my motherfucking decorative gourd collection sitting on the kitchen table, no wicker fucker this time, tho. Not sure that I have one or really, what one is. I just like the use of the two words together. Really resonates.

My cute little family went to church this morning! We’re trying to do it once a month or so, get the girls used to some kind of spiritual life. My husband’s church is about as liberal a church as I can imagine, myself not being of any particular faith other than humans being good to other humans and animals and the earth. Everyone is welcome at this place, though, and I have no reservations sending the girls into a belief system including everyone no matter what. Bring it. As an old co-worker once said, “I’m trying to put the fear of God into her (her daughter), since she’s not afraid of me.” You get the idea. I am not pushing scary gods or anything, but awareness of greater forces in the universe outside of ones’ self is important. I think so, anyway.

The day has been a good one, this Sunday. Cool, bright. Got home, had a leisurely lunch, girls off to play with blocks and a dead fly I put in a glass baby food jar for observation, on an old tablecloth that belonged to my grandmother, who ruled. Snaps to Margaret! She was an ass-kicker and we used to crack up together all the time. She called me ‘Fred’ after she’d gone down a long list of other names, including my mom and uncle, brother and sister. I can totally relate. Grandmother Margaret also showed me the importance of solitaire, and taught me card-based parlor games, most importantly rummy. I still have the little table she used for cards and fully plan to teach my own daughters the imperative of cards and active, participatory, mindful interaction with other people outside of television and computers.

Now the ladies are chillin’ on the couch, watching Kipper the Dog, resting up until we leave in an hour and-a-half to attend the Great Halloween Lantern Parade down in Patterson Park. This is one bitchin’ parade, fiends. All the beautiful peeps in Bmore arrive to celebrate fall and Halloween and lights and alladat. I’ll take some pics. Keep it up, Sunday, you’re my fun day!

Yeah, that’s right. Watch out! I was informed this morning as I shoe-horned my daughters into the car to go to school, I’m a double space hog. It didn’t seem that way when I parked on my street yesterday afternoon, when there were almost no other cars parked, but apparently it became a fact by the time someone wrote me a note (above) late last night or early this morning. I wonder who has time to write a note for a parked car… Shit, I can barely get the two people I’m responsible for from our car to the house, which is usually not more than a twenty foot distance. I wish I had time to write notes for people’s cars. It isn’t as if I drove over the sidewalk and stopped on someone’s front lawn, then poured myself onto their lawn drunk and passed out in my own vomit. Somehow, over the course of the day, when the street went from virtually empty of parked cars to the usual jam-packed by the end of the night, my car was left with a space in front of or behind it, and that warranted someone saying something.

Dear Note-Leaver,

Thanks for your courteous note, asking me not to take up two parking spaces. Were you watching me from your window all day, noticing how cars were pulling in and pulling out of the finite areas in front of our row houses? Do you think our cars should be able to tuck into line behind and in front of one another the way our row houses do? The houses stay in the same place, day in, day out, but the cars, they come and go. As do the people on our block. Well, everyone but you, who sits quietly in your house, watching to see if the most efficient use of street space is being observed. Which car is yours? The minute you notice if too much space has opened up in front of your parked car, do you run outside and scooch it up a few feet? Probably. I was wondering, since you’re paying so much attention to this situation, the impossibly impossible parking situation on our street, if you would mind coming by, giving me a friendly heads up that I could be doing a better job, making enough room for as many cars to be jammed in a row as possible, in front of our houses. Or you could even give me a ring. Whatever is easiest for you. Leaving a note on my car window seems like too much work. You didn’t even have time to write out the word “PLEASE”.

Sincerely,

J. the hot MILF double space hog