Take What is Rightfully Yours

Late hour, sitting at my computer. Drinking vodka and tonic with limes out of a cheap pint glass - stirring it with a odd chopstick from the knife drawer. I feel accomplished today - not yesterday - or this weekend for that matter - but today I do. I worked. Made cream of tomato soup from scratch. Started knitting sleeve number two for my hoodie. Read. Made banana bread - also from scratch. Working on uploading all of my photos from my trip to Europe 3 years ago - finally going to print them. The great thing about waiting so long is remembering all of those thing that I saw and indulged in and enjoyed.

I had a very short but extremely stimulating conversation with a co-worker today. He's older and has been doing graphic design since you actually had to physically cut and paste (using real scissors and real paste) things on a page. He is a painter. He helps me think though stuff occasionally and he really helped spark something today - just a process thing - but it will make a real difference for me.

I found today to be a nice inspiration for a jump start is enthusiasm and getting things done. I haven't run since Saturday's race - so it has given me more time and energy to accomplish other tasks. It seems to me when I ignore my s.o. and his son and focus on what I need or want to do and sort of 'hate' on them - that is when I do more for myself.

Last night my s.o. threw my cat (a.k.a. my fuzzy little muse) off of the bed. I was petting her, she was purring and just about to lay down and snuggle with me when he tossed her off the bed. Not in a nice way either. I slapped him and bitched him out for being a jerk. I've been pissed off ever since. And then when I got home and got on the guys cases about getting shit done, I'm the one that gets yelled at for being a controlling bitch. I'm just trying to keep people on task and to keep them productive, instead of watching bullshit re-runs of crap shows that they have already seen and know how the mystery unravels.

It's so much better to be getting stuff done than to be laying on your ass and not improving yourself in any good kind of way. I do more stuff for me - like I should anyway- when I am pissed off at someone for being a total jerk. I shouldn't have to do that. I should just do more stuff for me and not feel guilty about it. Guilt. That is where the problem is for most people most of the time. Guilt prevents us from taking what we want - be it the last piece of cheesecake, the sweet piece of ass from the office, or the new car that you really could afford if you just re-budgeted. Screw everyone else. If they aren't out to get what they want out of life, then let them be trampled by those who are out to get it by any means necessary.

Guiltfree. As it should be.

Putting it in Motion

Yesterday was a bust. I ran that race. Came home, showered, ate, took a little nap and then got sucked into a whole day of hanging out with my s.o.'s family on his parents boat. Yes, fun - but not what I had planned. I did manage to read a bit last night - but I essentially got zero from my list accomplished. I love spontaneity but I don't like it when I have other plans. It was a nice alternative to going to the beach though - we got equally as sunburned and I drank the same amount of beer.

Today will be different. Besides the trip over to the fabric and yarn store with my pseudo-mother-in-law, I'll be blasting through the list. I've already put one last coat of acrylic gel on the one sample that needed it. I'm drinking coffee and getting geared up.

I've got to get my ass in motion so this is going to be short - I'll try to write more later!

Purpose of All This

Tomorrow I will get up early and run a 7 miler through the vineyards of Lelanau County. Tonight I am drinking a beer - or two - okay two. Consider it part of my carbo-loading. And my pre-race relaxing. I'm also gearing up for my weekend of making. I have already told my s.o. that this is what I'm planning on doing with my weekend time and I think he understands. I'm going to be selfish for most of this weekend. I need to do that more. I give so much of myself away the rest of the time. I stayed late at work today, I spent my lunch hour a few days ago shopping for stuff that the guys needed, I usually spend my lunch hours cleaning the house or prepping dinner. I should be spending that time cultivating my creativity and knitting and reading and doing something for myself.

My acrylic gels will be ready for peeling the paper off tomorrow. I'm excited to see how that is going to work out. The one that I have been laying down textures on for every layer has some wonderful character. The other one is really flat right now, but when I add textures to the right parts it might just pop.

I need to find a way to be less of a pessimist. At work, but just in general. I think it has something to do with the lack of control I have over certain things in my life and the amount of control I have over other things and my ability to influence things if only I would instate that control and do something about it. This weekend is part of the beginning of the death of my pessimism and the ruin of my attempt to control shit that I shouldn't even worry about.

Control. That is the real problem but it is also the solution. I will because I want to.

I'm afraid of boring my 'audience' with this blog - but at the same time this is not about them. It's about me processing all of the shit that is in my head everyday and clearing it out and attempting to make sense of it. If you're bored, I'm not sorry. Thanks for reading this much - and I hope it's interesting - but I'm just trying to get a jump start on my creative life (again). Journaling is a great way to do that - and posting it on a blog is just a little extra motivation for me. There are very few people that I feel comfortable sharing my creative endeavors with at least in the preliminary parts of the process so it's just easier to stick it all out in the giant sea of garbage that they call the internet and share it with everyone and no one simultaneously all anonymously. It is amazing the secrets that people reveal to the vastness of cyberspace.

I have found that this is the best place to rant, bitch, vent, philosophise, spew random shit and think. It keeps me from driving people in my real life totally crazy and lets me repeat myself as many times I want by restating the same crap over and over in different ways. You don't know me and I don't know you and who really gives a shit anyway. This is where I figure out things that need to be figured out. Sometimes it's paragraphs and minutes into this before anything good comes out - or should I say - reveals itself. That's how it works. I sort of free associate - go with my natural mind-flow and just type what I want and what I'm thinking right now. Most of the time it's crap or the same crap - but occasionally there is a gem of a concept or thought that really means something and that is what makes it all worth it.

I'm so into music now - I never used to be - I was a standard Beatles fan, a classic rock fan, and then something changed. I started listening to different stuff. Playing roulette with the CD selection at the library. Then I discovered Pandora. Fuck, I love it. Really, like where else can you find stuff you like and then have them show you more stuff that you're going to like too. White Lies, Miike Snow, The Bravery, Mute Math, Jupiter One, Hard-Fi, The Editors, Interpol, MGMT, Cut Copy, The Kooks, really - so much stuff that I would have never heard of if I would have just listened to the bullshit that they play on the average radio stations. It's sick to me to think that most people will never hear of most of these bands. But it also makes me feel good about discovering them for myself and enjoying their music.

I think I've expelled enough of my interpersonality for today - off to knitting and readng and some sleep.

Running is like Art

Last night, before I posted anything, I fell asleep-on the couch-with my kindle in my lap. I guess it was just too much yesterday. Busy at work - then making homemade tomato soup from our garden tomatoes - and a 4 mile run - and then relaxing. I did get a run in today too - 10K Vasa Trail Loop. Beautiful, saw those two white tailed deer again - within a quarter mile of where they were last time. Majestic creatures - makes no sense to me why anyone would shoot them.

I'm planning a weekend of 'making'. For real this time. I'm gathering materials and prepping for it. I do have a 7-miler - the Harvest Stompede - early on Saturday - I have to be there by 7:30 for packet pick up. After that - I'll probably buy myself some breakfast - or come home and take a shower and then go get breakfast and bring along my sketchbook.

This is how I'm going to jump start my making it. I'm going to spend all the feasible minutes of my weekend making things and working through processes. I have to do it! Here's my list:

• Acrylic Gel Lifts Testing - Finally getting the paper off them, layering them with color and applying them to the gesso boards.
• Water drop Background - Complete it!
• Photo Backdrop & Stand - Buy bolts & sew backdrop pole pockets and hems.
• Grey Wrap Skirt - Make pattern & make skirt - need to do this while it is still warm enough to wear!
• Work Through Woman Piece - Look at symbolism and concepts for the main portrait part of the piece and figure out how to shoot it and photoshop it.
• Work on Red Coat - If I have time.

This does not include the mandatory reading (book club meeting in a week and I haven't started the book) or any knitting - my mental list of yarn projects is mounting and I and barely half done with one sleeve of the sweater I'm making myself.

I also need more nature. Maybe a photo shoot.

FOCUS. If I can make myself run 6 miles when I'm really not feeling it, I can make myself make some art! I think it's really that same concept. I've always been an individual sport kind of girl. Never enjoyed working on group projects. Love being in my own space alone doing what I want. Running is like that. But sometimes you have to push yourself to do it. I don't run in the morning - first of all because I can't ever get out of bed early enough to do it and still make it to work without being more than my typical variety of late - but mostly because it makes me sick, it makes me feel like throwing up and gives me a headache. I use running as a de-stress-ifying end of my day thing. To be completed before dinner, but after work. It keeps me sane and on an even keel. I have been running for almost 2 years now. I love it and would never go back to a couch-potato lifestyle. Running is how I relax. I find that some of my best runs - or best results from a run - are from those that I force myself to do.

I think that is when I do my best artwork too. When I am absolutely forced to be creative. Like for every single one of my projects in college. I'm the Queen of Procrastination - dubbed that by my parents during high school due to my lack of preplanning and preparation and basic "I better get started on this ahead of time because it's a huge project worth half my grade" train of thought. But those projects always got me A's. When it was down to the wire, glue is not dry but I'm turning it in, putting the last coat of protective spray on it even though I'll be tardy for class but it's due right now, pulling the pins out of it and trimming threads as I walked to class, those were the times that I did my best work. I need that. I need the pressure. I need to force myself to get into a routine and 'train' for creativity and set deadlines and a schedule. Just like I do for running a race. I must. That is what this weekend is about! Begin where you are.

Fashion Phase

I had a great day today. Got the kid to school - talked to the office staff about the 4 things I needed to ask, made sure he knew where to go to get his schedule and locker info and then left. Went to work - arrived a little early, chatted with one of my co-workers that I don't get to have private conversations with very often, busted ass all day putting in jobs, took my lunch hour to come home and steam beans and prep tomatoes for some homemade soup, went back to work and hammered out the rest of what had to be done, came home, ran to the store, came back home... and found my s.o. in a pissy fucking mood.

Nothing like that to set me off. I poured myself a glass of wine, put another coat on my acrylic gel samples and here I am. I'm venting. I'm going to spend the evening doing what I want to do. Reading, knitting, maybe a little sewing - at least pattern making. I've got such a huge list of things and so little ambition sometimes. I'm skipping my run today since I ran 5.5-ish miles yesterday (maybe more maybe less, I never really measured it). This will give me an extra hour and a half to get more stuff done.

I've decided that there is something about making my own clothes that really appeals to me. I love having something that no one else could ever have because I made it myself, because I made the pattern, because the fabric I used was an old table cloth from a thrift store. I have always liked having my own style and mixing and matching thrift store finds with my brand new store bought stuff. But I've gotten tired of going to the store, trying on a bunch of crap - new styles that require a belt, or are just not what I'm in to, or are not the right color - and then seeing that it is all made in some third world country - probably by some under age, under paid, over worked person that can barely make ends meet just so that us stupid americans can get trendy clothes at a reasonable price - a price, by the way, that is still way too high and the store will still make money when the product is marked down by 80%. Sick. I really think I'm done buying clothes - except for maybe bras and underwear and maybe jeans - just because I can't imagine (and don't have the right tools for) making them.

I made myself a vest a few months ago. The first piece of clothing that I actually made in a very long time. I usually make curtains, purses, pillows and that kind of shit. But to actually make something that fits me and that I like and took the time and had the patience to sew well, that is something! That is part of the whole appeal of knitting too. Now I can make sweaters! I started making a coat, a beautiful longer length coat. sort of a cranberry color wool. Fabric that I had bought back in college from one of the grad students that had been trying to clean out her sewing room. I had originally intended to do cyanotype (hand-coated photographic process {old school}) prints all over it and turn it into some kind of a blanket or throw with a nice little blanket stitched edge - kind of like a woolworth style item but with more gusto and a lot more edgy and less pine-cones-and-oak-leaves-tame. BUT instead, I waited 10 years, started making a coat out of it and waited another two years, and now I need to finish it! I would love to have it done for this winter season.

I'm on the verge of another crazy fashion time of my life. Through the last two years of high school, and all of my college life, and then for a couple years after that I was a completely grunge-old-man-pants-wearing-mechanic-shirt-clad-flat-shoes-little-to-no-makeup-tom-boy. I'm going hippie-retro-punk-chic this time.

Surprise

Labor Day. Weekend. Having a Monday off is so refreshing. I really need to start taking some vacation days from work here and there this fall. Just an extra Monday or Friday to have longer weekends once a month would be awesome. I'm going to need to do that in the next week or so to go down to Artprize with my mom. I do need to put in a few extra hours this week just to make up for the extra time that I took off by leaving early on Friday. I love these long weekends and time in my house when no one else is here.

I haven't blogged in a few days - I intended to on Friday - but got carried away with other things and going out to dinner and for drinks at a few new spots in town. Then on Saturday, my s.o. and I went to a restaurant out of town for a late breakfast and then cruised around to the little shops in that area. We even stopped at a little winery and did some wine tasting. When we got back to our house there were a bunch of cars parked in the street and a tent in our driveway. Surprise. Birthday party. It was so nice to have all the people I care about all in one spot for a few hours. My whole family drove up and so did my best friend and her husband and one of their three kids. IT really was a surprise and it was wonderful. And, apparently, when you're 30 people expect you to be drinking a lot. I was given a fifth of vodka and 5 or 6 bottles of wine. Now, my wine rack is full and I don't need to be buying and booze for a while.

Yesterday, friends from downstate came up and we got sucked into hanging out with them for the whole evening and didn't get home until almost 1 AM. I'm awake, ready to get back on track, working on my acrylic gel lift layering, getting caffeinated and ready to go for a run. The weather has taken a cold turn. Which is great for running, but not so great for going to the beach or anything like that. School starts tomorrow - so I'll be carting my s.o.'s son every morning at a time that is typically too early for me to be awake. This may, however, allow me to leave work a little earlier than normal since I will be arriving before my normal time.

I also need to call one my my co-workers today. She asked that I stop over at her house this weekend sometime so that we could discuss some things. She is very secretive and private and has not actually aluded to what the hell she wants to talk to me about - except for the possibility of a studio space on her property. Interesting. Maybe that will work.

That might give me some more real purpose in what I'm doing with my art life right now. Maybe Artpirze will help too. I've got two books to finish reading and I've got a knitted hoodie that I need to finish before I can start on all of the knitted Christmas presents that I'd like to make. I just need to also work into my running and daily life all of the art stuff I want to try too. I keep saying this over and over but it's like a mantra. The more I repeat it the more it sooths me and the more of a chance it has of coming true.

Illuminated

I just finished watching 'Everything is Illuminated'. Interesting movie. Really makes you consider your predecessors lives - especially if they came from a different country and an era and place where a war happened. It makes we want to travel to Ireland. To see where my family came from, the problem is that my family moved to America so many years ago that there is no one alive today that would remember those people or anything about them. I might be able to find distant cousins and maybe their elders would be able to shed some light on the brave souls that migrated across the ocean, but odds are it would be extremely difficult to find them even if they did know anything.

I finally got to eat my birthday cake today. I had a cake at work (a nice surprise) on my day, but this one was special. My s.o. got it for me and we were so tired when we got home that night that he forgot and I fell asleep. I'm just dragging out my birthday celebrations so I can feel like I haven't turned 30 quite yet. This is Birthday: Day 3. I did realize though that no one sang the happy birthday song to me this year - for the first time in my life. 5 years ago I was serenaded by three men - two of which I slept with and while I only slept next to the third one. Interesting what half a decade can do.

My s.o.'s brother. What a piece of work. I love the guy. He's building an awesome set of steps/deck on the back of the house we live in. He's very good at what he does and he loves it and you can tell. But when it comes to women, that is another story. He keeps dating these girls that are nowhere close to what he wants in his life. He breaks up with them because of the drama, but gets back together with them because he's lonely, or he needs something to do, or just because he needs to be getting laid to feel good about himself. He's an attractive, intelligent, talented, funny (seriously), all-around-great kind of guy. He just keeps selling himself short because he will settle for anything with two-legs-and-a-hole because it makes him feel validated and worthy. I want to slap him around and force him to make a list of the top twelve things he is looking for in a woman and not allow him to date anyone that doesn't match that list. He is wasting his energy and his life chasing tail and feeling empty because those relationships never go where he wants them to.

I didn't run today. Too hot. I'm going to run tomorrow even though it is Friday and my s.o.'s son is spending the night at a friends house. I'm going to make the time to do it - even if it's only a 4 miler. I can always run a 6 or 8 miler this weekend. Thank the universe that it is a long weekend - and hopefully its not the last of the summer weather. I've got to set aside some time to do these things that I want to do. I just haven't figured out how to make it work and starting next week it is going to be even more complicated because school starts and I'll have to take a kid to school every morning.

I think that Saturday mornings will be where it's at. Before everyone else is up during the week maybe. But mostly the weekend. I just need to do it and stop thinking about it.

Nemesis

Ok. I'm an NPR junkie. Wait, I guess I should say something about why I didn't post yesterday. It was my birthday. I turned 30. Fuckin' nice. Ok, anyway, NPR. I listen to NPR whenever I'm in my car. I love it. It's how I get my news and nice dose of wordsmithing and creative writing and soundscaping. Tonight, on my way home from night two of my birthday celebration (a.k.a. mourning the passing of my twenties), I heard one of my favorite story programs, Snap Judgement, where they were discussing the idea of a nemesis.

An interesting concept. Especially for someone that is freaking out about turning thirty. I feel like I am my own nemesis. I am the one preventing myself from moving forward or from completing something. I am my own worst critic and what I think are other peoples opinions of me are completely misjudged. Maybe if I can just get myself motivated and stop screwing around. Even writing this now I am distracted. I think that maybe I am afraid of actually completing work and putting it out there and then realizing that it is nothing close to what I expected it to be and that I will never live up to what I wish I was.

I think that this Half Marathon Woman piece that I have been envisioning is actually going to be changing into the My Own Worst Enemy (Nemesis) piece. A bucket full of ideas that just gets schlepped around and never put to use - maybe a hole in the bucket where the ideas are leaking out. Or the bucket being held like an innocent infant - being protected from the harsh outside world and its judgements by never letting them grow, develop, or be seen. Scissors, cutting off my own hair. Gun to my head - held by my own hand. Hole in my chest, exposing my heart locked away - keys dangling over my open lips about to be dropped in and swallowed. Hmm... I like how this in going. Multiple arms and legs, like a Hindu Goddess - but more bohemian hippie midwesterner - 3 different shoes and one bare foot.

I think that having a hard time with starting my first year in my thirties is all inside my own head. One of my co-workers is telling me that his thirties have been the best years of his life so far and that I should be enjoying it - but he really isn't looking at it from the same perspective that I am. He is in a completely different place - and he could never put himself in my shoes. I think that it is easy to tell someone what you think about what you know of them and their life from the outside - but it's really hard to truly understand someone and their motives and background and psychology. And it can almost be more difficult to understand all that about oneself from inside your own skin, operating within your consciousness.

Last Day of 29

This is it. The last day of being in my twenties. Where the hell did they go? College. Boyfriends. Crappy Jobs. I guess some of the best stuff that came out my the past 10 years is my current job, my love of running, vegetarianism, my renewed appreciation for art and living where I live now. It's really hard to think back to where I was a third of my life ago. Part of me wishes I could go back, while the seasoned, more intelligent, 'older' part of me is glad to be here now and wouldn't trade a second shot at college life for anything.

I'm trying to look on the bright side of this age thing - there is nothing I can do to prevent it anyway. I'm just wondering if my s.o. put together a party for me or not - and if he thought ahead enough to not have to go to class tomorrow night so we can celebrate it. Either way, I'll make sure that I enjoy it. That is one of those things that I have discovered - that you truly are the one that is in charge of your life and if you hand the reigns to someone else or take your eyes off the road for too long you are going to miss opportunities.

I've got to get cracking on my list of things I want to do. I need to find a way to get myself away from the TV and into making things. It just has to be a conscious effort on my part until it becomes a habit. Tonight I have made plans to run and to figure out how to put together the grey wrap skirt and maybe knit a little. That is part of why I am blogging on my lunch hour instead of my normal morning/evening time slot. This way, if I get into the sewing and don't want to take a break I don't have to. But I will definitely be running out on the VASA trail - it is gorgeous today and that is the best option for being out in the woods and getting some exercise at the same time and it's great training for the Harvest Stompede 7 Miler that is 2 weeks out.

I am going to begin posting images of the projects I am working on and the status of them from day to day. That will help keep me from blabbing about the same shit all the time, I hope. I've realized that a lot of my projects are clothing related. I really like making things to wear and things that are utilitarian, but beautiful and well designed. I've got so many ideas for things to sew but I sometimes really hate sewing, that is why I knit too, but sometimes that gets dull. I guess I enjoy having a larger skill set so that I can create lots of different things and keep mixing it up and combining skills for projects so I don't get bored. It's interesting to me though, how much I like clothes that I make for myself compared to the clothes that I see in the stores. There is very little that I like and don't buy many things at the mainstream stores. I'm really working on my sewing skills so I can buy things and repurpose them and make cooler one-of-a-kind pieces. I think that is going to be one of my goals for the next year - not buying anything that is not essential and stuff that I would be able to make.

Lustrum

Well, I only accomplished about half of my list from yesterday. The important things, like making hummus and going to brew fest. Today is seeming like a lazy Sunday. Maybe there is no surprise party. Maybe my. s.o. isn't going to propose. He's out cleaning the garage right now - taking out all of the ancient cardboard boxes and Styrofoam packaging that has occupied that space since last fall and the old pink chair that has been out there since we moved in almost 2 years ago. He and I met 5 years ago today. It is our lustrum anniversary and I was sort of hoping for something to happen... maybe tomorrow - since that would be the anniversary of our first "date".

Well, yesterday I got to see my co-workers sweet ass apartment. If I was single I would be living in that building. Amazing. I'm so jealous - but I don't think I would want to pay the amount of rent that he does. Still, incredible and probably worth every penny. My place would be a little more bohemian-chic than his WWII-modern take.

I'm working on making my current house a little more bohemian but it's difficult because of the preexisting furniture and the 1890's era style of the house. I'm starting to look for a house to buy. It is very scary for me to have such a giant financial obligation - but very exciting at the same time.

Today, I need to get motivated!

Drinking Fest

Well, I drank too much last night and fell asleep before I blogged. I plan on drinking too much tonight too. Not entirely way too much, but a little more than normal. I really like finding that happy place and then sipping my way across that plateau for as long as possible. That place is where inhibitions float away and maybe you talk to much, but you are more apt to dance and talk to people you don't know. The annual brew fest is today (it started last night) and when I went last year I had a blast - my s.o. and I called it the highlight of our summer. This summer had too many highlights to count! But I'm sure this afternoon's festivities will be awesome.

I'm really annoyed/intrigued by one of my co-workers. I actually think that he is an awesome, intelligent and very fun person. But on several occasions (including last night) he told me (after my s.o. had left the bar and headed home) basically that I could do better and that I shouldn't settle. We went out to lunch one day to "settle our differences" (it really ended up being that we are actually the same control freak personalities and that was causing the clashing) and he told me a very similar thing. Weird - or maybe he just likes me. Then I met his girlfriend and listened to her blab about her ballerina daughter for a while and wanted to tell him the same thing. He could do better, a lot better.

I'm a pessimist - at least that is what people say about me - but I'm actually just a realist. I analyse the situation, person, thing, etc. and then look at it in a very realistic way. Maybe I am negative but I don't try to be. I do complain a lot - and a lot about my s.o. and his son, but that's just me. I think I have complained about every boyfriend I have ever had. I don't know if I would be able to not complain about a boyfriend, even if he was Mr. Perfect.

Our local Borders (along with all of the other Borders stores) is going out of business. I stopped in yesterday on my lunch hour and bought a few things - a nice edition of the I Ching (I have always wanted to read it) and a game for my friend's kids (I'll probably save it until Christmas). The employees look dazed, the few loyal ones that have stuck it out to the nasty finish, the few new temporary ones that just needed a job for a few weeks before they left for college, the ones that are happily welcoming this unprovoked inescapable change in their lives. While I happened to be scavenging through the dregs The Smiths song There is a light that never goes out was playing on their sound system. I loved the slight touch of irony that went with that choice of music.

I have a giant list of things that I would like to accomplish this weekend:

Saturday:
Farmers Market
Try on Shoes at Plamondon
Run
Go To Hardware Store
Start Testing Acrylic Gel Lifts
Go To Grocery Sore
Make Hummus
Pre-Party at Co-Workers Apartment
Go Drink at Brew Fest

Sunday:
More Acrylic Gel Lifts
Work on Grey Wrap Skirt/Red Coat
Sew Photo Backdrop
Attend My Surprise Birthday Party
Maybe Run Again

I've got to get started if I'm actually going to get this stuff done.
3 days left of being 29.

Return of the Pseudo Step Child

My s.o. and I had a nice quiet summer while his son was away visiting his mother on the other side of the country. The boy just got back in - literally hasn't been here more than an hour. I'm glad he's back - I know how much my s.o. is excited to have him home. I was able to enjoy one last night of sleeping in the nude, one last ice cream dinner, one last loud humping session, and one last quiet evening watching what I wanted to while I knitted. It was an easy transition when he left but a harder one for him returning. It's easy to be lax and let loose, but much harder to tighten it all up and get back into a routine. I really don't want to get back to a schedule and am not planning on it. I am consuming a second glass of wine for the evening. I plan on running after work tomorrow. I think that my inability - no I won't call it that because I am perfectly capable - my unwillingness to go back to the routine might just cause some fissures.

I'm planning on being more bohemian in my year of being thirty. I'm going to be a little more free spirited - going out for drinks after work, meeting up with friends at the last minute, taking road trips and little timeouts for my creative self.

I've been adding things to my projects list and hopefully I will be able to get a few of them completed and off the list before I add too many more. I guess it is a good thing to have too many ideas for thinks to make. I just have to get myself to start plugging away at them. I did knit for a while tonight. I have 30 rows left to go on the first sleeve of the green hoodie that I'm making. I have printed the xerox prints for testing some techniques for my Half Marathon Woman piece (acrylic gel transfers with some added painted color and applied to a gesso board). I just have to finish the photoshopped background, take the images for the center portrait part, put together the symbolism for the objects surrounding the portrait and then shoot that. Then I have to find the best way to execute the project so that it has the feel that I think it should. Complicated - and the first real "Art" (with a capital A) piece that I have put together since college (7 years ago).

Virtues of Age

I feel that after my post last night, and the creation of my "Projects" page, I have things lined up a lot better and more organized. This makes me feel good. My job has been crazy and I have run my new favorite trail run 10K loop twice this week already. It seems like when I have more shit going on I do better. Like the one semester in college when I took on 15 credits (5 classes), worked two jobs, was the president of photo club and managed to keep up my social life - that was one of the best semesters for my GPA (all A's). I find it interesting that when I am completely overloaded with things I manage my time better and do better quality work.  If I could only keep it up without getting totally burnt out. Now I just need to start working on my projects and bring that into the mix.

I've got some plans for this weekend - but I think that Saturday morning I will be spending wrapping my head around either the red coat that I started more than 2 years ago - or the grey wrap skirt that I have only concocted recently. I know I will wear the skirt before I wear the coat - but the coat is already more than half finished. Maybe I'll do both.

My 30th birthday is looming. 6 days out. I guess it won't be terrible but I'm still trying to think of a way to commemorate it - like another piercing or a cute short haircut. I already got a tattoo this summer after I ran my first half marathon, so I'm going to wait a while before I get another one. It's an interesting thing, a woman turning 30 in this era. I guess it's not really a big deal. There are a lot of people my age that have not really found their place yet. I just want to find my place with art. And I need to start figuring it out now or else it will never happen. I've already waited too long since I was in school. I fucked that all up because of a boy anyway - I could have had a Bachelors of Fine Arts instead of the Bachelors of Applied Arts. But I let someone elses desires dictate the outcome of part of my life. I'm never doing that again.

I guess that is one of the virtues of getting older - figuring out where you stand, what makes you happy, how to achieve the things that you desire and not making the same mistake twice (or at least not more than twice). I like being this age - but I also see those grains of sand slipping through the hourglass and how there is more and more sand in the bottom and less and less in the top. I want to make something of my life - something bigger than me - something that will last - something that will bring people together - and if I can do that in the years I have left then I think I can feel good about waiting this long to make something happen.

Creative Lifestyle Calendar

It has been several days since I have posted anything. I spent Friday afternoon through Sunday afternoon out of town - baseball game, concert, etc. It was great to get away but it was also very expensive and exhausting. I really enjoyed getting to spend that time with my brother and doing those fun things that we only get to do once in a great while. But, I was so glad to get back into my own space and my own little town and away from the crazy, dirty, terrible place that Detroit is. There are so many parts of that city that look as if they had just been bombed. I asked the cab driver what he liked the most about living there and he looked at me like I was crazy and said "Nuthin'". I guess I would probably feel the same way.

Friends of ours are visiting this week. They used to live up here (northern lower Michigan) and decided to move back down to Detroit to be close to their families. They are both working two jobs. Never get to spend any time together. Complain about what life is like down there. For the life of me I have no idea why anyone would choose that over this.

I love it here. I love to travel. But I love coming home. I enjoy the simple structure of having my place and my projects waiting for me every night. I have so many things that I would like to make and finish and create. I need to start a list and begin sticking to it. I'm going to be 30 in a week. 7 days - less actually - 6 now, really. I'm sort of dreading it. But I'm glad too because it will be a finite point in my life where I can see a division between my creative and non-creative life. A point that will drift behind me as I progress and proceed to new horizons. I'm sure that giving myself this turning point and pursuing my artistic career will make some kind of a difference - even if no one is able to see it except for me.

I'm having a hard time balancing everything in my life. I feel like I might need to let some things go. I know that running and art are very important to me right now. My book club is something I would be okay with letting go of - it would give me more time to read and research the art things that I want to. Knitting and sewing are important to me - but I really only do that for making things for myself and my house and as gifts - so I could let some of that disappear - but it is another way for me to be creative. I think that I need to come up with some kind of a calendar that makes me make time for all of these things - and a system that allows/forces me to do all of these things. I'm thinking about not watching TV for the next year and see what that does for my creativity. Maybe that is where it's at. No more crappy movies, no more life sucking shit television that is not informative, educational, or inspiring. I think I need to let that go first. I've probably said all of this already, but I am in this stage of prioritizing and organizing this process and figuring out how I'm going to do all of these things and still live a normal life and work my normal job and keep it all together.

The calendar,a list of projects, cleaning my art space (and really making one), keeping up on my running, not worrying about everyone one else and the crap they need to do, and really focusing on the important art making aspect of my life. That is how this will work.

Creative Lifestyle Calendar

Daily:

• Blog Post - 20 to 30 Minutes
• Creative Hour - Photo Editing, Art Piece Creating, Sewing, Knitting, Sketching, Making!

Weekly:

• 3 to 4 Runs Per Week - Tempo, Sprints, Long Runs, Trail Runs, Easy Runs
• Reading - Either for Book Club or for Art
• Photo Shoot or Art Piece Processing

Monthly:

• Study Artist or Art Movement
• Complete Art Pieces/Creative Items

Your Surroundings

Today has been an extremely busy day. Even what was supposed to be the 'downtime' part of it. I went in to work early so that I would be able to leave early so I could babysit, but the babysitting got cancelled so I stayed late at work instead. Upon my arrival home, my s.o. was getting ready to meet up with a friend of his and that guys girlfriend for drinks and expected me to join them. I had intended on staying at home, eating food that we already owned and doing laundry so we could pack and leisurely prepare for our trip downstate tomorrow. Tigers Game, Concert, Food, Drinks, Hotel, Cab Rides, and all the other shit that costs money when you visit another city. Anyway, after dinner we went shopping for a few provisions and ran into one of my s.o.'s friends that is freshly going into a divorce. Of course we got to hear all of the nasty little details and then got to listen to him rip on the soon to be ex because of her weight. Fantastic. That only took a half an hour. Then to search for reasonably priced Tigers gear - nothing worth the price tag that was on it - disappointing. Then of course, I had to ask my s.o. if he was okay. He has been in the shittiest mood lately. He has not been sleeping and he has been in pain because of his shoulder. But that doesn't warrant him being an ass whenever I ask if he is okay. I think that there are some other issues going on inside his head that he just won't talk to me about. I really wish that someday I will meet a man that can just open up to me and pour his life out in a very matter of fact, frank, blatantly honest kind of way and that I'll be able to do the same and we'll accept each other for what we are and that everything will be right with the universe.

In all of the craziness of the day, I did manage to order cupcakes for tomorrow to surprise my coworker for her birthday, to make sure that I had everything together for this trip, to get in touch with my brother to make sure he had what he needed for meeting up with us for the trip, as well as inputting and managing a million jobs and tasks at work. Tomorrow is going to be a crazy one too, at least up until when I leave work at 11:30. But I have found that I operate best when I have this much going on. I even remembered to take back the movies that we never watched so we wouldn't have to pay late fees for not watching them for a few more days. When I have less stuff going on I am much less productive in my daily life. It's sort of weird how that works.

I've also found that so many of my 'friends' are just my coworkers. My s.o. has so many friends that have sort of become my friends - but he never reaches out to them to set up any kind of get-togethers or anything. He's more of a home-body than I think he wishes he was. I've always been an introvert and I'm totally fine with that. I don't think that you should hang out with acquaintances and wish that you liked them better so that you could really go out and have fun together. Most of the people that my s.o. is friends with are not people that I would want to see all the time. I don't ever feel the need to call people so we can all go hang out somewhere and bullshit about crap. It can be fun to go out for a drink after work with people, but why does it have to turn into some huge bar crawl social event? I would much rather have a few great long conversations with a handful of people throughout the year instead of getting wasted every weekend and make an ass of myself in the process. That is the one thing that I miss the most about college and the friends that I had then. Sitting around and talking about real stuff, stuff that maybe wouldn't change the world, but would alter your perspective on things and bring you a new set of ideas and appreciations for things in you life. Whatever happened to that? I guess that is something that crawls into a hole and dies after you start working 40 hours a week and having some stupid responsibilities. Maybe it has more to do with who you surround yourself with. Who knows.

Self-imagined Imperfections

I didn’t blog again first thing this morning. I try to get up early but when I have my two little fuzzy feline muses curled up next to me in my bed it makes it extra difficult. Especially now that the nighttime temperatures have dipped a little making it much more comfortable to sleep. The official summertime is nearing an end, which is depressing, but it does mean that fall will be on the way which will bring Halloween and much better running weather with it. I have a hard time with the winters here in northern Michigan, but it is mostly because I don’t have the equipment to do a lot of snowy weather outdoors stuff. I did invest in snowshoes, but I think cross-country skis will be the big thing this year and will supplement my running quite well.

I’ve got to go to the beach today. It’s only a five minute bike ride from my house and I’ve only made the short trek once this summer. Now that the bay had warmed up to swimming temperatures I should be out enjoying it. It always takes a bit of convincing to get my s.o. to do anything like that on a weeknight especially. But once he concedes and gets to where we are going he has a great time. I’m usually right. Like I was about the citrus flavored mouthwash that he bought a gallon of without trying first. I have learned one thing about men that is an invaluable lesson and should be shared with all women: A great idea is never a great idea until it is the man’s idea.  You have to find a way to convince them that this idea is actually their idea. Then you also have to find a way to bite your tongue when they share their great idea – you need to give up the fact that it was your idea to being with and just be glad that they now appreciate your great idea and have adopted it as their own.

I have a few ideas for a project that I am starting – but it seems like many other things in my life – I am waiting for one thing before I am able to start any other aspects of it. Once the one thing is fixed I’ll be able to print images and test some techniques and start to build up a style for producing the type of imagery that I have inside my head. I also need to get past the fact that nothing ever turns out with the perfection that it has while it only exists inside your mind. As soon as you start to make something real it loses its virginal qualities and is immediately less perfect than you had hoped. But that is part of making something real. And most of the time, the creator is the only one that these ‘flaws’ are perceived by because the creator was the only one with a preconceived idea of what the piece would look like. This is where a lot of creatives mess up – you should not point out any of these so called ‘flaws’ to anyone that potentially would buy or sell your pieces. You just have to live with the self-imagined imperfections and be glad that you were able to bring your idea to life.

Lost

This post is way overdue. I was planning on posting every morning - but when you're running late for work on a day that you have meetings you just have to skip a few things like breakfast and blogging. I promised myself that I would blog everyday that I could and I know that waking up late is not a good excuse. Even though I love sleeping and when I'm having an amazing or interesting dream it is worth hitting the snooze button a few extra times.

I've been running for about a year and a half now. I love it. It is my way of relaxing in some strange twisted way. It really helps with my stress levels and it makes me feel good about myself.  I ran 4 miles today. I left a get together at my employers 'cottage' a bit early (I mean really, it's a frickin house, on a lake, but it's a house - it make me wonder what his 'house' looks like). I had one beer and then I left. It is very difficult to sneak out of gatherings like that without telling everyone goodbye and thank you and all that crap. But I managed to do it, I just said I was going to go and said "bye" and left. It was refreshing to be able to just leave because I wanted to - I didn't really feel obligated to stay and I'm pretty happy about that. I've been working on doing what I want to do and not worrying too much about anyone's feelings and this was a nice test. I was offered additional drinks - but my desire to get home and go for a run trumped my wanting to stand around on the boss's brand new patio and beach blabbing about nothing important with my co-workers.

My run was nice - but what was better was when I got out of the shower, my s.o. had dinner all plated up and sitting on the table. He was nice enough to cook and then wait for me to eat it. He is such a great guy. He even went over to our neighbor's house to extract a bat and then let it go outside.  As much as I may complain about him and as much as he may get on my nerves sometimes, he is a wonderful man and I am very lucky to have such a thoughtful and caring person in my life. He is having some major health problems (shoulder replacements because of AVN, among other things) and I am really worrying about how long he is going to be able to walk and take care of himself. It's really scary and it's just starting to weigh on me now that his second shoulder replacement is nearing. He is everything I ever thought I wanted in a relationship and now I feel like someday he just wont be there and not because of a choice he made but because of his health. I don't want to lose him.

Reproduction Does Not Equal Fulfillment

Time for my morning writing. Getting out of bed this morning was almost impossible. I was just about ready to go to bed last night when my friend called. She and I haven't talked in a long time so I answered and that delayed my going to sleep by 45 minutes or so. It was nice to chat with her but I'm paying for it this morning.

I think it is interesting how people with children will tell people that don't have children how amazing parenthood is. I think that those of us without kids know that it is probably a great thing because so many people do it. But, in my case, having children has never really been a priority or even a possibility. I just don't want my own kids. Really. There are so many people in my life that think that because I am almost thirty and not married and without children, that my life must not be fulfilled yet. That I must be yearning to get hitched and make babies. I really don't understand where that comes from, the 1950's I suppose. I've got a great job. I enjoy getting out of work and doing what I'd like to do. My s.o. has a son. He was eight when I came into the picture. Now he's thirteen. I can deal with that - never had to clean up dirty diapers, didn't have to wake up in the middle of the night to feed him, didn't have to deal with wetting the bed or any terrible twos kind of stuff. This I can do. He dresses himself, feeds himself and can do most of what he needs to do without being told.

I am more than happy to just keep on doing what I am doing in my life and not worry about making more people that will just end up making more people and choking out this planet. That was the reasoning behind several books, protests and movies that have been made - as far back as the 60's. The population is becoming so large that this planet is not going to be able to support it all. We are going to have the become very creative when it comes to feeding everyone and preventing diseases from spreading. That was just the icing on the cake for me not wanting kids - a great philosophy that actually goes along with how I feel. I'm happy with where I am in life and I think that other peoples views on having children need to change - they should not think that it is the number one way to be fulfilled in life because there is so much more to it than just reproducing.

Social Satisfaction

The more often I go out with my s.o. the more I realize that he has never told the the whole story. It is entirely possible that it is out of some kind of strange modesty that he never talks about himself in that kind of light, but the stories that are told about him during social gatherings paint a slightly different picture than the one he has created for me by himself. I suppose my best friend would do the same thing - expose me for what I really am, whatever that might be.

It was fun hanging out with a bunch of people I don't know and a few that I do yesterday afternoon. But most of the time that I was there I felt like being somewhere else. I think I am more of an introvert and more socially awkward than I would like to admit. But I'm more okay with that now that I'm a little older. I've never been a big social party kind of person and that is probably due to by parents never having friends over. I can count on one hand the number of times I remember them inviting people (the kind that we were not related to) over for drinks and hanging out. Most of the time we just had relatives show up and they would drink coffee and eat whatever confections we had already in the house. Sort of boring, but I guess it was 'socializing' in my parents eyes.

I have one friend. I guess it works out because she is my best friend and I don't have to make any other friends feel inadequate because they have not been selected as the 'best'. She has three children. I have none. She is going to college to help people breathe better (according to her oldest child). I was an art major and am only now attempting to use my 'skills' to better myself. I'm okay with not being a popular socialite. Do you really need more than one great friend and an s.o.? Is it okay that my s.o. is not my best friend? I mean, I tell him lots of things, maybe not everything, but he doesn't really talk to me very much about the important things anyway.

I feel like I am embarking on another selfish journey this year - the first being training for and running a half marathon - which I awarded myself with a tattoo for completing. This new art journey is going to take up the extra morning time that I would have spent sleeping, the extra evening time that I would have spent watching shitty cable television shows, the extra weekend time that I would have spent doing something that probably didn't need to be done. I'm working on my priorities now. I'm coming up with a list of things I need in my life and the things I really don't need to be wasting time on right now. I know that Running, Reading and Knitting are all important things to me now. Running because it relieves my daily stresses and helps keep me fit and sane. Reading because of my commitment to my book club, because I enjoy it, it expands my vocabulary and it gives me a chance to escape. Knitting is sort of more of a utilitarian sort of thing for me, slightly therapeutic, but being able to make my own clothes and the fact that it gives me the chance to make unique and personal gifts for my friend and family is something I really do enjoy.

This taking of time for myself is not a bad thing. It's not that I care less about my s.o. and that I should feel guilty that he might need to make dinner a few more nights a week. I need to let go and do this. I need to stop being afraid and rehash some old ideas and make them live. Maybe if I can bring out the demons of my inner psyche and have them in a physical form right in front of me being brought out into the light and living then maybe I can work on being more complete and satisfied with my life.

One of Those Days

In "The Artists Way" it is recommended that every morning - first thing every morning - you should sit and write for 30 minutes or so. A way of decompressing before your day begins. Exploring your thoughts through a free flow of writing - physically writing word on a piece of paper with an actual pen or pencil. I tried this almost 18 months ago and found that it was too much paper, too much crap to hold on to for the duration and that my hand always cramped trying to write as fast as I was thinking. I'm changing it up a little. I'm going to type - this way I can keep up with my thoughts, not kill as many trees and not have to have a pile of evidence of my deepest secrets sitting around my house where anyone can find them and read about the deep dark holes in my psyche.

Some days you wake up and your significant other is in a shit-tastic mood and you know from the get go that today is going to be one of those days. Well, that is how my morning has started. My mom was visiting because she was photographing a wedding for a friend of hers and it happened to be close to where I live. Well, my significant other (s.o. from here on out) doesn't have the same amount of admiration and tolerance for my mother as I do. Which is completely understood - but I'm tired of making comments in a pseudo-apologetic way to cover the fact that he is really being rude, and that he is trying to ignore my mom and seems to not be able to wait for her to go. She has been through a lot lately (as has I and the rest of my immediate family - as much as my s.o. seems to want to ignore it). Being married for thirty years to a man that has just recently come out of the closet is not a very easy thing to cope with. It is difficult to be one of the people that gets to listen to her vent about my own father and his new husband but I do it because I know that she is not ever going to see a therapist and that I am the closest thing to that for now.

It is amazing to have something like this happen this far into my life - a true reality altering event - and that it is actually more of a relief than it is tragic. I'm not saying that I wasn't shocked. I'm just saying that now, I understand more things about my father and the relationship that my parents had. It is all a bit more clear. It is still difficult to look at my homosexual father and think that he was really like that the whole time. He concealed it pretty well. The hardest part is that I had thought my dad was the ideal husband, never looking at another woman or talking about other women or anything of the sort. And when I started dating, I found out that straight men actually do that sort of thing - and they do it all the time. It made me feel like my boyfriends were not being faithful - like my dad was to my mother - but really it was just because they liked women. Looking back on it now - the strange ways that my dad would look at other men - that was his way of ogling. Silly how no one noticed because it would have been impossible for my straight father to be looking at men in any kind of a sexual way. I guess that is also why he loved watching Martha Stewart, The Golden Girls, Sisters, and many other non-straight-guy shows. It is just too bad that the past is crystal clear and the future always looks so murky.

Daily Journaling Blog

I have tried working through a book called "The Artists Way". I tried about a year and a half ago as a New Year's Resolution. Well, you know how those typically go. So, here is where I re-start. I was planning on waiting until by thirtieth birthday to begin this endeavor - but giving yourself a hard start date is stupid when you could really start anytime before then - like now. It's like saying that you'll start your diet and start working out on Monday and then eating shit all weekend and then feeling too crappy on Monday to exercise.

I am starting this process now. I'm not waiting 17 days to begin. 20-30 Minutes of Journaling Every Morning - I can do this. I have so many ideas that have been fermenting inside since I was in college more than eight years ago. It's time to pour them out and see if I come up with anything of worth.

Almost Thirty

I've realized in my almost thirty years, that if you do not do something it is not going to happen. This is where my 'doing' will begin. I've been waiting for the right time, the right space, the right income, the right location - but it appears that the longer I wait the less likely it seems that it will all come together. So, I'm not waiting. I'm going to do it and maybe by making it happen I will actually make it.