eastside queenie.

try writing cursive

2012-02-14T11:25:00.002-06:00

Friends! It's been awhile. Great things are happening, and I even started a new blog that I was fittin' to tell you about and invite you over to see, but then a potential Job Opportunity That Could Change Everything stopped by instead. So, things are changing, and no matter the job outcome, all feels good and ripe and ready for spring. Positive energy in February? Who would have predicted that? I hope your winter has been one of good possibility, too.

keep it simple

2012-01-09T13:15:00.003-06:00

The first week of the new year wore me out: waves of office politics and mama bear frustrations crushed me into a melancholy mess this weekend. What a waste of a perfectly good weekend. I tried exercise, including an embarrassing session of what I now call "anger swimming." I tried martinis. I tried counting my blessings, even when they smelled funky and kept asking for more food. I tried telling myself that my current problems are temporary. Patience. Patience... patience... I'm terrible at patience. Oh 2012, I think you're gonna make me work on that one.

holiday rigarmarole

2011-12-23T13:31:00.006-06:00

Merry Christmas, almost! This weekend will find us at a Hanukkah latke party with assorted Jewish, Buddhist, and Muslim friends & colleagues, then the family Christmas celebrations and maybe a midnight candlelight service on Christmas Eve, because I love those, and then we'll wrap it up with a baby dedication at the nearby Hindu temple on the 26th. Remember when, in high school, I used to complain about how white-bread and boring Kansas was? Funny to think about that now.

Once we have the religion tour squared away, I'll be ready to practice my personal favorite holiday tradition: The making of the New Year's Resolutions. Top of the list, because it has to be, is getting our finances in order again after three years of unemployment dips & assorted crap. BUT then what? The list gets better:

2. Improve my three swim strokes (free, breast, & back)
3. Relax: About work, the economy, my achievements (&/or lack thereof)
4. Be firm but compassionate in my mothering
5. Work hard, play more, make a plan to go skiing someday soon
6. Paint the damn chicken coop a color I like
7. Save money for a new bike
8.
9.
10.

Need inspiration? Tracy tracked down Woody Guthrie's resolutions from 1942. Also, the NYTimes reader-submitted remembrances of loved ones who died this year will humble you & give some perspective. It did for me, anyway. Hope all your holidays are happy!

talisman

2011-11-02T09:12:00.004-05:00

When we stop fighting, when we give ourselves over to the things we can't control and finally decide to "just go with it," where will we be then?

Will we have sheets for the beds? Will I care that my sweater has fresh moth holes? Will the vegetable steamer still be in the backyard sandbox?

When I think about the whats of later on, I think about you, and holding your hand, and being older and calmer, less loud. Less effusive. I'll still hate the paint color I chose, and I'll still be dreadful at things like horseshoes and French. But the things I worry about now don't even register on my visions of then. Then of back then, and the then of down the road.

hello!

2011-10-20T14:25:00.009-05:00

Last week that big, fat, full October moon said goodnight as I walked home from work.

And it said good morning to me the next day as I headed back. Why does the full moon always look so small in photos?

In writing class, one of my students is wrestling with a self-doubt monster. An hour and she'd written seven heavy, forced words. Not knowing what to do, I asked her if she could figure out one of my typewriters, because the T sometimes adds a space, and sometimes does not. T wenty minut es lat er, she'd writ ten an ent ire page! This was not by design, but I wrote it down to remember for next time.

On Saturday we went to the re-purposed art/recyclable store at Wonderscope. Tim loaded the trunk with potential project supplies for his classroom, and it only cost $5.35. Get out of town!

I taking a sea-bath

2011-09-30T08:07:00.003-05:00

As Melville would put it, I've grown grim about the mouth. Meetings this week and all I want to contribute is, Do we believe anything we're saying? And other questions I don't want to ask, like, To what end are we working? Like, Where's the true heart of your life? Because if you were all wearing hats, really, like Ishmael I'd want to walk the room and methodically knock them off. We're all good people here. I think it's high time we get to the sea as soon as we can. Let's put that on the agenda.

Bob Cassilly & the City Museum

2011-09-27T16:12:00.006-05:00

The City Museum in St. Louis is a mash-up of salvaged, re-purposed, and re-imagined building demo scraps welded together in a crazy amalgam of chutes, slides, rides, tunnels, and ladders. It's a wondrous place: inspiring, creative, open, fun, breathtaking. (And for my fellow administrative killjoys, I'll admit to a little wonder regarding the zoning and permit stories behind the scenes.) The museum is truly one of our favorite places in the world, so we were saddened to learn that its visionary founder Bob Cassilly had died. In tribute to him, here are a few photos of our visit from earlier this month.

The boy in an onion at the end of the world.

A bus over an airplane (or two).

A rebar climb up a three-story dome.

A rooftop Ferris wheel.

A rooftop bus.

A rooftop story.

Thank you, Bob Cassilly.

postage paid

2011-09-21T10:36:00.003-05:00

I've decided this job can only be salvaged if I find some way to dissolve the internet. Then perhaps peace and efficiency will again come into my life. If the End of the Internet comes, would you kindly send your blog to me in 'zine form? I'll miss your color photos, but your words--those are what buoy me through my afternoons.

sometimes

2011-09-19T10:23:00.002-05:00

Sometimes your body doesn't let you do something you did easily the last time you were there. Sometimes you're caught in your own calendar so much you miss the weather of your favorite month. Sometimes you want to do the old things, but clearing the clutter just takes too much time. Sometimes you think you should scale back. But then sometimes a little girl shows up for your writing class wearing a Gryffindor cape and tells you about how she panicked the night before when the power went out, not because of the dark night, but because she had to stop reading.

front porch

2011-09-01T10:24:00.005-05:00

I have a crush on Carson McCullers. That's no secret. I also have a crush on Carson McCullers's porch. The book, the coffee, the little cordial glass, the contemplative pause that comes with a drag on the cigarette. Cigarettes make me woozy, I don't like them, but that pause—I envy smokers that pause. My porch has been an anxious place for many years: wasps, a parade of awful neighbors, rambunctiousness in the street, and now because of my neglect, general unsightliness. But this photo inspires me to hang some trellises, sew some pillows, and give my best put-out Carson McCullers stare to the rabble. This porch, world, is my territory. (Nest-building birds welcome.)

someday soon

2011-08-30T15:33:00.004-05:00

I'm revamping my kids' creative writing class, hoping to teach again in a little arts center basement room this fall. The abandoned one that smells of dried up photo chemicals, with the revolving darkroom door. It's our writing studio now, not that we'll be there much. There are adventures and field trips and missions to get us, and our words, out into the world where they should be. Maybe this isn't radical, but have you ever read a poem taped to a parking meter? I haven't, but I hope to someday.

Claude Monet's cigarette ash

2011-08-08T11:48:00.005-05:00

On Saturday I took my mom and my daughter to the Monet Water Lilies exhibit at the Nelson-Atkins Museum. I took my son, too, who only went to mitigate the stupor of the last days of summer break. Thanks to mom we ate Gates BBQ for lunch, and then after hours of museum walking, talking, and looking, we went for fancy ice cream on Main St. Mine was pineapple cilantro sorbet, which was very good. That evening I pulled out my sewing machine and stitched squares together to make a picnic quilt. I'm not allowed to entertain anxiety about how it looks. I'm calling it my Hakuna Matata quilt: No worries! African Studies moved their offices across the hall from mine last week, and that's what they have posted on the bulletin board. Sometimes I do a Saturday right.

work it

2011-07-13T09:28:00.003-05:00

Work changes are on the horizon--I've been feeling it internally, ready for a change, and then grant reductions put a fire under it. I'm eager for more challenges, and more creativity, and frankly more authority. I'm itching to be up and moving and not staring at a computer 95% of the time. I'd like to labor in a field I feel deeply invested in... my family? chickens? happy, healthy people? the greater good? Thoughts of job interviews spark the insecurity spiral: Build on my experience, or take a risk, make a complete career change, and start all over at the bottom? Invest in a devastating shopping trip to professionalize my wardrobe? Get highlights in my hair? Become a real life Administrator, or run away and live hand to mouth? (Fewer meetings, scarier budgets.) Deal with stress by working out, or baking? Find the balance, or let the balance find me?

your weekend mascot

2011-07-08T09:26:00.002-05:00

art & equity

2011-06-29T12:16:00.005-05:00

My recent public administration studies have sharpened my interest in the idea of equity in public spending, specifically municipal arts funding (state and federal funding is so damn ugly it makes my stomach hurt). A lot of the debate in the art world swirls around issues of fairness between organizations--that is, why does the city fund that organization and not ours? The real debate should be, how do we make art more available and more real, and therefore more meaningful? To absolutely everyone? When it comes to true equity, few organizations beat the Heart of America Shakespeare Festival in Kansas City. Truly top-notch professional actors and production, and truly free to anyone who wants to come. When our job situations improve, we look forward to supporting Shakes KC.

Photo of my kids right before their first MacBeth performance. They were troopers!

mess

2011-06-21T13:01:00.008-05:00

My friend CDob has the homiest front porch littered with pens and notebooks, mismatched camp chairs, blankets, bats and balls and gloves, candles, beer bottles, bug spray. It's a working porch. It's a safe place to throw an idea, just to see if it'll stick. (You get a good, sympathetic laugh when it doesn't.) Often a crowd will gather to decompress after an event. We love to rant about big egos, undelivered concepts, money. It's very messy and alive. Good things spring from that porch.

I spent the better part of the weekend cutting leftover fabric into 6x6-inch squares. The plan is to make a picnicking quilt to take to the KC Shakespeare festival (MacBeth!), but really the fabric cutting was a way for me to fall into my head for a good, long while. I mulled over a kids' writing workshop I want to teach this fall. The concept is a mess, but I'm feeling like maybe some things in my life just need to be like that: louder and messier than I usually am, like Christie's porch. Unformed, unplanned, but energetic. This will take no small amount of self-convincing.

weekend list after a rollercoaster

2011-06-17T11:15:00.003-05:00

Monday and Tuesday boxed me about the ears, then Wednesday threw me on an up&down ride that lasted until Friday morning. I'm tired. Tired of threadbare professional clothes, payment due dates, catchphrases, and great ideas that lose steam fast. This week I lost my job, then was presented with an idea to keep my job, then worked hard to buff the tarnish off that idea, then had my job saved at the last minute. So, we're ending on a high note, one so high I'll even call it a good week, but boy howdy. I'm tired.

Hence the snarling protection of my weekend. I am guarding every damn minute and forcing some love out of the next two days. The loose agenda:

Removing the word "agenda" from my vocabulary
Teaching my daughter how to change a diaper
Writing a letter with coffee jitters
Sitting in a sauna until I get dizzy
Making something with what I have
Taking a walk with my son
Jotting notes for a class I might teach, maybe
Watching our chickens
Vodka lemonade

summer vacation

2011-06-13T16:42:00.003-05:00

Buttercup models her new bunny ears.

Photo by Tim von Holten.

art

2011-06-09T15:21:00.005-05:00

Was a time when a girl could spend time with art and get away from all the words that were constantly spinning, nagging, collecting, and pushing in her head. She could make her own opinions about the work, or walk away from it. She could come back a couple days later because she'd been thinking about it, collected some ideas about it, and wanted to see if those ideas held water. Adhesive vinyl lettering has changed that, as has outreach programming, and art schools, and an industry-wide determination to tell you what the art is about and how you should interpret it. One-stop intellectual stimulation, packaged by the nice curator who knows about such things. It makes for a lot of mental noise, initially, that quiets down once you leave. It makes for a lot of boring thoughts that eventually spin like a hamster wheel: what's the point? what's the point? what's the point?

Why a stainless steel tree to tell me that the environment is in danger? Why not just tell me the environment is in danger, perhaps in a more environmentally friendly way, like email?

My first love is abstraction, the messy, energetic, anxious kind, because that's the way I find most of us to be: complex, disparate, conflicted but so wholly beautiful and complete when we open ourselves up for show. My son, he tells me he prefers realism, and because he does I start seeing it with a more sympathetic eye. We hash it out, defend our preferences. And as we talk and ignore the professional instructions for how we should be seeing, I realize that I want realism in my art, too: Without the packaging and the headphones, but over the long hot course of the afternoon, with ice cream and real opinions and dismissal, teasing and laughter and eye-rolling and shrugged shoulders and a complete, solid understanding that we all see things so very differently.

Summer!

2011-06-01T13:28:00.007-05:00

This post is dedicated to BobS, who scolded me recently for not blogging more, and all that. On Sunday I rode 14 miles on the family truckster, Bob: Only 86 more to go! Summer begins with a savings plan for a new bike...

This past weekend Bea & I trekked to House in the Country's annual Okie Art Party. We camped in the yard with the lovely LazyMFs of Texas, and Tracy & Mike served up smoked meats and beer and old vinyl records. They're good at that: I know it's not easy hosting a party, but they sure make it look that way. It was fun seeing everyone again, and meeting lots of new, nice, quirky people.

We arrived home just in time to witness the latest spirited discussion between our neighbors. 1212 took offense at 1220's relations with mothers, and 1220 finds 1212 to be a real part of the female anatomy. 1220 also thinks that 1212 should "come on over," and 1212 said he plans to with his .9 mm. The police issued a citation for that remark. Just as the dust was settling, 1210's boyfriend threw a table into the street and announced that she was a lying bitch. 1216 will soon be for sale: Don't miss out on your opportunity to be a part of our town's most democratic neighborhood!

Meanwhile, in other summer fun news: Atticus kicked off his first day at the pool by getting the worst sunburn of his life. It's been a steady diet of Tylenol, Solarcaine, and whimpers ever since.

Happy summer, friends! Let's keep in touch.

hit random

2011-04-22T09:48:00.012-05:00

Spring has been a hum of money anxiety, overcommitment, good intentions, and ramped-up mood variations. Keeping my head down and gunning for May--the best month!--while also shocked that it's already May. May, I plan to embrace every day of you like never before. Policy Analysis That Is Due May 17: Sorry I haven't been returning your calls. I've, uh, been "busy."

Happily, and thankfully, House in Town provided a weekend harbor in OKC. We went to a farmer's market, bought funky yarn, ate popsicles on the sidewalk, and saw some real knock-down roller derby. For some reason, I only took lousy pictures. But it was fun. Thanks T!

I came home from OKC with intense pangs to pull up my roots: But to the country (more chickens! a field of lavendar!)? or a more urban-feeling city? The sameness of my town, despite some lovely qualities, has been nagging. I only recently recognized that we've been here nearly 12 years now. I'm a Kansan by birth, but this is my longest stretch here.

This week while I have been working on debt management reports, Bea has set herself to something more constructive with her time: Designing a fairy house in the unfilled garden beds. Hungry for some wild onion bulbs? You can sleep it off on the tulip petals.

A note on my blogging, and lack thereof: In truth, I've considered closing shop here, mostly because my head isn't filled with the type of blog topics I enjoy (hard to talk up the quirky attributes of public administration), but I'm also wrestling with a couple other things: (1) My sentimentality, and the way I (and so many other bloggers) tend to force positivity all the time. I'd like to make greater effort at fully rounded honesty. And (2) I find myself going into a more private period. The kids are older and are developing their own internet identities. It feels inappropriate to talk about them as much as I used to, at least without their consent. The openness of the internet is also a concern; I sometimes get weird traffic that makes me wonder who is poking around.

BUT this blog has been a fun way to keep up with a few very dear friends, which means a lot to me. I don't take that lightly. All that said, I also think that blogs are something you shouldn't think about too much. Have a nice weekend, everyone! We'll leave it at that for now.

spring snow

2011-03-28T12:26:00.004-05:00

Ah, I worked hard not to be annoyed with the cold and snow this morning. It was kind of pretty, if not simultaneously depressing, but at least it wasn't mud. (That comes next. If only my neighbors and I could harvest mud!) As for pretty, I've been in a funny way about pretty things for so long now, I'm thinking I'm changing. A scrappy tomboy who wants lavender pillow sprays and wallpapered closets? Me?? Yes, please, and lots of it: perfumes and silver and cotton and linen, roses and gardenias and camellias. Soft colors and poetry? What's next? Tea instead of coffee?? Well, sure. Maybe.

I've never read Tess of the d'Urbervilles, but the Posie Gets Cozy blog has me considering it. It will need to wait until my current love affair with Tea Obreht's The Tiger's Wife is over: And yes, it's as wonderful as the critics say. To walk in the shadow of an elephant as your grandfather tells you a story from past, war-torn Balkan days... That's the sort of revelry I'm in the mood for. Of course, Obreht scolds me in her way for having not yet read, for real, The Jungle Book. I should have by this point, I know. Also, while we're making lists: I've been thinking it's high time I read The Wind in the Willows, because alas, I find myself quoting it sometimes. These books, they're sneaky devils. You never quite feel like you're on top of it all.

To balance all of this polite conversation, I should also note that I'm falling in love with rollerskating in a big way. I'll get back with you on the psychological pitfalls of a Victorian-disco mash-up later this summer.

spring calm

2011-03-25T13:18:00.003-05:00

Last night the air was cold, rainy and clean-smelling, quiet except for thunder in the far distance. I had in my mind pretty things: spring magnolias, cotton laundry on the line, eggs in a basket on the counter. It was such a calm and peaceful mood, and I wanted to hold onto it like an object.

about a girl

2011-03-16T12:59:00.009-05:00

I've overextended myself with commitments this year, a result of circumstances and my own sense of obligation to things important to me but I see now can be put on hold. In recent years I've learned to say no to things I simply don't want to do; I still have a problem, however, with saying yes to work I believe in. I don't stop to consider the frustrating reality that there are only so many hours in a day. Of all the things about myself I want to change, this has moved to the top of the list. I can live with being overweight, or not reading enough, or going over-budget at the grocery store, but this problem of being constantly distracted has to change. It's the one fault I'll regret.

I knew I wasn't fully, or even mildly, present at home even when I was home, which was not often enough. I also knew something was brewing with our girl, but it took her teacher calling me about her changed behavior before I snapped out of it.

It's been a rough winter, although I haven't even noticed the weather much. But now, today--the last monster deadline is met, and the sun is shining, and the irises are popping out of the ground--I'm in awe. Isn't spring incredible?

So today I'm constructing emails. "I'm sorry," they start out, followed by an outline of my real abilities, time-wise, and preparing my colleagues for a transition. Funny thing is, it's fine--I'm lucky to work for understanding women who would do the same thing in this situation. But part of me wants to just drop out, take Bea and drive away, and leave that great line from Good Will Hunting on a note stuffed in the door jam: "I have to go see about a girl." But that's Spring talking.

art in the kitchen

2011-03-07T10:05:00.004-06:00

I played around with using my teeny point-and-shoot camera on a tripod Saturday. (The cactus was a more willing model than anything else in the house.) Turns out it's a tripod that stands between blown-out flash and dark, blurry photos of one's dreamy domestic blog bliss. But fret not: In my efforts to tone down my penchant for sentimentalism, I'll also work to refrain from blogger food porn. Yesterday's two epic potsticker FAILs, though, really should have been recorded for posterity. Oh the oil! The steam! The elbow grease and disappointment. So sad.

wild geese

2011-03-04T12:46:00.006-06:00

You'll say it's the product of my recent birthday, and I'll deny it because that's my pattern lately. Then you'll say it's the winter blues, and I'll concede easily on that point, to a point. But more and more I feel like someone who fell asleep on the train and then woke up at the Howard station, and having never been to the Howard station, wondering bleary-eyed where the hell I am. It looks familiar, but where exactly am I? And How did this happen?

The last few years I've made some decisions, mostly financial, that were the right thing to do, it seemed, but has slowly pushed me further away from who I thought I'd become. To be straight: I thought I'd be a writer, but I'm not. Not really. Self-doubt lands: I didn't invest in my abilities when I should have, and now I'm at a bit of a loss. I'm at the Howard station, blinking and checking my watch and looking around madly.

Such was my mental state when I recently attended a support staff "leadership summit." I went in skeptical. I bristle at corporate-speak and platitudes, and I expected a lot of it. But the bigger concern was my self-doubt: Who is this person, voluntarily going to a leadership summit? Enrolled in a public administration program? Who spends hours and hours at work and comes home with nothing to talk about? Is this me?

But a girl has to pay the bills, and no one can deny that my job is a good one all things considered. I participated in the summit. I kind of enjoyed it. Then the dean gave his keynote address, which included a reading of "Wild Geese" by Mary Oliver:

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

That line--"You only have to let the soft animal of your body / love what it loves"--hit me solid in the chest. I know now that I need to make some changes. Let myself go naturally in my approach, but work hard at quieting my cynicism and stop balking when the work gets hard and unrewarding. I need to love what I love. While I'm at it, though, I need to cultivate a measure of gratitude that I work at a place where the boss goes to poetry for answers.

Angie Pickman at the Arts Center

2011-03-04T12:20:00.007-06:00

I adore the Angie Pickman window installation at the Arts Center now. It makes me think of Polish pottery and long afternoons baking in the kitchen.

hard february

2011-02-21T13:47:00.002-06:00

February is a drag. Even when you get a spring-like respite from the miserable weather and the flu dries up, you still need to slog through the ugly political maneuverings, tolerate the yard mud, and wrestle grant budgets to the mat. I find that I hold my breath a lot in February: Are they really going to close these schools? Pull arts funding? Cut my pay? Will it ever really be spring? I fire off obvious letters and get easily annoyed, which makes for a serious blogging slump. I need to plan better next year. Like, FEBRUARY: Month of the Perfect Pie! Or, FEBRUARY: Adventures with Roy the Dog! Or how about, FEBRUARY: I'll Drink to That!

snow days

2011-02-03T15:37:00.004-06:00

If only we could get a snow day every couple of weeks. They suit me. Baking, reading, laundry. Listening to the radio. Re-doing those first few chapters of Moby Dick, again. Coming to terms with my crafting insecurities and knitting to beat the band. (Gloves! Crazy, I know.)

Bird watching, and a quiet neighborhood for the birds to rule. I really needed my neighborhood to just shut the hell up for a couple of days. Thanks for that, snow!

And as if that weren't enough, these two went and made Pancakes! Some days, spring and summer can't hold a candle to the sweet quiet homey surprises of winter.

diary of a sub-sub crafter

2011-01-27T15:46:00.008-06:00

I've been dabbling/revisiting watercolor paint, the last time being way back when, and I'm conflicted not about watercolor, but about me & creativity in general. Does anyone else feel the need to be creative, to make things, and then once the ball is rolling feel so much stress, not only about the outcome, but also the wasted precious time? God that's driving me nuts. I'm starting to think that perhaps I love books about crafts, but maybe the crafting should be left to others. It's wearing me out. But I also hate the idea of me not fussing & nesting, sewing & knitting, painting & writing.

(early) birthday

2011-01-24T13:32:00.003-06:00

We took a quick breather from regular life to do the things we used to do: Browsed books, ate Thai food, marveled at art supply prices, played with old surgical instruments in an antique mall with creaky floors, and agreed that if we were allowed to wear roller skates at the Bloch building, we'd like it a lot more. I felt like his girlfriend again, so easygoing the day was, so free of worry and schedule, but it's even better now than it used to be: We're battle-weary but thankful, a perfect fit, and besides, back then we didn't have funny kids to send funny texts to while we waited for our check.

Thank you for a wonderful early birthday, Tim.

fire

2011-01-13T12:55:00.003-06:00

It's a bitter wind blowing today in eastern Kansas, and while I am at work my mind is wandering to things I do not have: A fireplace or wood-burning stove, cross-country skis, time to fuss with our puffed-up hens, garden soil warm and ready for planting. Some of it is a matter of biding my time (hens, seeds, the someday-fireplace), but the skis are difficult to justify in usually-temperate Kansas. On the subject of time, though: it's been wonderfully, intentionally slow as I work on focusing my life and busy-ness toward things and people who really matter to me. I'll still be busy, even overwhelmed some days, but I want it all to matter. On the subject of simplifying, I've placed myself on a loose craft-supply probation, since we need to save money while Tim finishes school, and I've also found that having multiple unfinished projects lying about kinda stresses me out. But then one of the awesome Arts Center preschool teachers released a lovely book, Water Paper Paint, which is approachable and beautiful and has lit the fires of creative aspiration in me. Do I break my probation? Or, when it's -3 degrees outside, shouldn't I find warmth in any kind of fire I can find?

Monday

2011-01-10T14:03:00.003-06:00

I love the mindfulness that comes with the first real snow of the year. There's the quiet, and the coziness, but also the strategy I need, whether I'm walking or driving. The snow really gets me out of my daydreamy commuter state and address matters of great importance, such as, Will this next step send me willy-nilly down the hill? Or, can I get down this hill without blowing out a joint? (Me and this hill, we spar a lot.)

Also today, I swam. I am working on my swimming, and believe me, it needs my attention. My swimming skills were developed as a kid trying to keep up with my cousins, so they're mighty country. I splash a lot and get there, but efficiency and technique are nowhere in that mix. But now I'm a swim mom, feeding and ferrying two competitive swimmers to every pool in the region, and frankly it looks terribly fun. I have a long way to go—does everyone's ears and nose crave chlorinated water like mine seem to?—but I'm making progress.

here's to 2011

2011-01-03T15:30:00.003-06:00

Santa didn't give me the trip outta Dodge I'd banked on, but there was much-needed time for reflection and visits with very inspiring people. A fog has lifted—perfect for resolution-making, my favorite of all holiday traditions.

So, in 2011, I will work toward

1. Re-dedicating myself to relationships that are very important to me. While I've been busy cultivating tangential (and one-way) friendships and communities, I've let other, more meaningful friendships slide.
2. Feeding myself and my family better. (This makes the list every year. We're a crew who loves our junk food.)
3. Putting my career on a track that matters to me. Last year I proved to myself I can work damn hard to make changes. This year will build on that.
4. Have more fun. (As my friend Christy put it, less administrator, more rock star. I can dig it.)

2011 will be the year I take myself more seriously and lighten up. Here's to a good one!

touche!

2010-12-21T12:59:00.001-06:00

Not that I was feeling bad about not biking to work in the ice or anything.

oh, it's December?

2010-12-13T14:08:00.002-06:00

Well, there went a few weeks. So many work projects due, so many class projects due. So much writing was done. I'm down to one pending grant and then, fin. A lot fewer hours in front of the computer. Starting at 10 o'clock tonight, when I get home from class, there is going to be a food revolution in our house. Vegetables are back, and so are other whole foods! The word cooking will no longer have quotation marks around it. My plans for the holidays: Maybe try out a few affordable road bikes, take a hike in the woods, hopefully play in some snow if it comes. Hug on some friends. You know—live!

my short list

2010-11-24T15:49:00.003-06:00

I do love Thanksgiving, and how we send out little messages of gratitude on the airwaves this time of year. I am thankful for the health of my children, the easy attitude of my husband, my larger, loyal family. I am thankful I have close, wonderful friends who tolerate my loud opinions. I'm thankful for my jobs. I am thankful for my health and vow to mind that more than I have in the past.
I'm thankful that although in this family I'm the odd man out when it comes to seeing the hilarity in farting, these three are damn witty and theatrical and silly.

I'm thankful she dresses like this. I wish I had the knack.

I'm even thankful for our little weedy, leaning corner of the world. And I am thankful you read my blog and share your blogs with me.

Friday list: Genius

2010-11-19T09:02:00.007-06:00

There's a certain physical reaction I have right before I assert a work of art is genius: A mounting admiration, a touch of envy, and then a hot rush and a swelling in my chest that makes me struggle for breath for a few seconds. I feel lucky. So, here are some recent experiences.

We reluctantly rented Where the Wild Things Are (slim pickings at the video store, and Wild Things seemed more appropriate for family viewing than Saw). To say that you loved the book is like saying you were born with a heart, but I'd resisted the movie because I thought it would attempt to be an interpretation. The quiet of the book is what I love most, and I expected them to fail at that. Also, I'm not (or wasn't) part of the Eggers tribe. This movie, however, is brilliant in such a different way than the book. Eggers and Jonze respect Sendak but also capture the under-appreciated and under-recognized complexity of childhood: the gritty confusion, the ugly emotions, the sheer strength of will it takes to grow up, the masking bravado, the ways a kid is forced to navigate a world in which he can be eaten at any time. (Also, I think even the positive reviews are off in their interpretations in many ways, but I like that about great art: It doesn't tell you what to think about it.)

I finally read Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things after many years of knowing I should. Like Wild Things, Roy's grasp of the complexity of children—in this case, what they observe and how they take these fragments of experience and turn them into an interpretation of the world—is astounding. This book left me devastated. I couldn't read anything else for a few weeks afterward.

Aleksandar Hemon is a genius, period, and I sometimes wonder if I'd make some kind of crackpot bargain—give up my right arm, say—to write like him. His affair with the lushness of the English language, his brilliant narratives, the haunting past playing in the absurd present have at times made my hands shake with emotion. A friend ran into him at a party once, and I have to admit I live in fear of that happening to me. I'd make a fool of myself for sure.

I've been knee-deep in writing grants for an artists' residency program, in which factors a collective, Postcommodity, who critique culture from an American Indian perspective, etc. All of which has me revisiting Guillermo Gomez Pena, whose bizarre and unsettling performances take identity politics to such a theoretical place beyond the usual preaching to the choir. I saw him perform in 1995 with Roberto Sifuentes, and I've not been the same since.

outside

2010-11-17T14:31:00.003-06:00

Considering the pretty-good art museum and the departments of art & design & music & theater & dance with solid enrollments, it's puzzling to me that the KU campus feels like an artistic wasteland to those of us who don't work in the assigned art-making buildings. They like to keep it to themselves, I guess. To be honest, I don't know if the letters and words throughout campus this week are part of an art project, or yet another Vitamin Water promotion, but it gives me hope that there's a "new audiences" component to someone's syllabus.

sick day

2010-11-15T15:10:00.007-06:00

It's been one big, fat, gorgeous fall here in Kansas. Thoroughly seductive. Perfect soup weather, perfect homemade bread weather, an autumn that makes you want to do hearty activities like chop wood and hike with your dog. I could get used to this.

Also, like clockwork, the post-Halloween illnesses came.

Snuffles, achy joints, crabbiness followed by long quiet mornings lingering in bed. Nothing that can't be soothed, fortunately, by wrestling yourself into your brother's preschool dinosaur costume and watching endless episodes of Futurama and Project Runway.

doing stuff

2010-11-11T13:07:00.009-06:00

Are blogs dying? Is my blog dying? Maybe we're just busier than ever. I like to think that you're busy sneaking into clandestine art shows and doing some hard time for it. Or maybe riding your bike on a tour of Mexican restaurants. Or you joined the circus, finally. These are all things I wish I'd busied my time with this week. I recently lamented to CP, "how can I be so busy and yet so bored?!" Friends, this shit needs to change. Then maybe I'd blog again.

Fortunately there has been some silver around my clouds of discontent.

The weather has been lovely.

Mike Hoffman had an art show, and lots of Oklahomans showed up!

And our neighbor kept the Halloween torches burning, despite the dramatic lack of trick-or-treaters in the Deep East side of town. His unwillingness to let low audience numbers inhibit his fun brings me much happiness, year after year.

notebook

2010-10-14T12:53:00.005-05:00

Tonight, I'm starting a journal of our family's dinners. I read this article in the NY Times a while back, about this gal who has recorded every meal for over 9 years now. Today I decided, with my new re-dedication to paying attention to our food a little more, that I should cop her moves and purchase an appropriate notebook.

This project is twofold. One, I like journals and pens and lists and letters. That girl in elementary school who collected stickers and wrote constantly in little books squirreled away in her closet? That was me, and I've not grown out of it.

Two, for some unfound reason, whenever anyone says to me, "Hey, what's for dinner?", my mind opens into a blank, hot-white field of anxiety. I have no idea! All memories of meals I've made before will be wiped out of my head, and then I spiral: We could eat... I don't know. Dinner? Let's see. Hmm, I think we have a chicken in the freezer, but it's frozen solid. We could have couscous but DAMMIT I forgot to buy couscous again. There's some kind of beef, maybe, but didn't we just have beef two days ago? We shouldn't be eating so much beef! So let's see...we have an onion, a sweet potato, a OH FUCK IT WE'RE HAVING CORNDOGS AND POPCORN. Or worse, we go and throw down $45 on yet another restaurant meal where someone sulks & openly resents his or her family because YET AGAIN we did not choose his or her preferred restaurant, thus proving YET AGAIN that this boy or girl is not the preferred child.

See, my new handy notebook: A record of meals I can accomplish, a way to keep me honest in the whole eating-better endeavor, the path to peace and balanced parenting.

photo: My fallow garden, as dry & empty as my mind at dinnertime.

plans

2010-10-12T09:13:00.003-05:00

Here we are: That family milestone where the kids are eating as much as us. They wear it better, because they expend it immediately, what with all that growing and swimming and growing and ballet and growing all over the place. My new busy schedule has walloped me into the convenience food aisle too many times, and oh how I wish all of these prepackaged granola bars and yogurt drinks weren't covered in plastic and full of plastic, because the ease is nearly intoxicating. So starting this weekend, we're giving our Saturdays over to food: Planning menus and baking homemade granola bars and making our own yogurt (finally splurged on a maker!). The kids will do it with me—being big enough to eat like this means also being big enough to learn how to do it right. They won't protest. They like a good mess.

Also this weekend: Filling my raised beds and planting garlic. The garden went fallow this year, which is simply too dispiriting.

Until next time: This is a perfect autumn lentil soup via Orangette via Melissa Clark.

guerilla gallery: 8th & Pennsylvania

2010-09-27T09:50:00.010-05:00

I've been chewing on the idea that Gallery Space is dead. Galleries often feel dead: the quiet, the morgue-like white, the policies & paperwork. So when friends tipped me off to this weedy little art show this weekend, I was thrilled. What a small testament to the stripped-down artistic spirit. It's a quiet, anonymous affair that rotates, dissipates, and accepts the weather. A woman who lives nearby has taken it upon herself to pull the paintings in when it storms, then bring them back out once the sky clears. She doesn't know who paints them; they just show up, and it breaks her heart to see them get rained on.

sigh

2010-09-24T13:58:00.004-05:00

Lately I refer to myself as "Support Staff to the World" or "The Administration Dept." Usually I'm joking, unless I'm crying, which means I'm not finding it funny so much. There's a truth to this mini-tragi/comedy–I sew Halloween costumes so others can get candy, I write grants so others can dance, I organize events so others can share their research. It's all fine, it's paying the bills, but DAMN. I should be doing some, just a little, of that candy-getting and art-making. This is my new goal. I don't know where to fit it in, or how, or what it is, even. But I'm working on thinking about it.

king kong

2010-09-07T06:24:00.002-05:00

Branson, Mo.

Lucas, Kan.

UPdate

2010-08-19T18:47:00.013-05:00

I admit I've been feeling kind of private, not sure I had anything to share on the great wide interwebs. But things have been looking up, quite happily, and I figured it wasn't fair to just drag you through my worrisome whimpering. I should balance it.

So, like I said, this rocky summer shaped up nicely in the end.

On the last day of July, I did a triathlon. 500 m swim, 10 mile bike, 5K run. I finished it, but I should have trained more. It was hard.

But here was my goal. LOVE, people. It makes the world go 'round, and it gets this girl across the finish line. (Tim's the real sport here. I was a freaky wreck clear up until I finished the swim.)

Let me take this moment to say, I'm sorry you didn't get to be roommates in college with MissieD, because she's a splendid gal.

Then some major projects at work came through, which resulted in me getting a nice promotion, complete with title change, benefits—the works—and a sigh of relief.

This summer also showed me the first glimmer of the man my son will become. Bittersweet.

That's a big cello on his back. Speakin' of big: Check out Bea's cotton candy!

Happy last days of summer!

flight

2010-07-13T14:48:00.003-05:00

Let's be nice and blame the lethargy, and my ramped up flight impulse, on the summer heat. I need to go somewhere. Someplace different, someplace new, not even anyplace exotic. Maybe have a different kind of taco, maybe turn a corner and see something I didn't already know was there. But like clockwork, cuts in my work hours again have my wings pinned to the cardboard. I may not accept this turn of events. I may give my middle finger to the Economy and just go. Right? Someone enable me, give me a platitude to push me on. ("You only live once," or "Everything in moderation, including moderation"—those might work.)

Some neighborhood kids and I have been trying our hands at a creative writing club. As a group, they couldn't be cuter, and as individuals they are so thoroughly individual. Such defined little people, strong-willed and eager for life and not the least bit afraid of not making any sense. Which is good, because making sense is not their strong suit. (Hey, it's summer.) Stories just end sometimes, so what?! Sometimes Mr. Crab Crab gets on the scene and EVERYTHING goes CRAZY and the story turns into a theatre production and then we'd better make PUPPETS, nevermind we have no puppet-making skills! Or supplies! We have sticks and google-eyes, just give us three more minutes, okay?!

You got it, kids. Let's all hop onto this Galaxy Flyer and see where it takes us. Hurry up before Mr. Crab Crab and the foreclosure goons get here!!

glory

2010-06-24T12:07:00.002-05:00

Sorry you missed this: At the indoor pool Tuesday night, a—shall we say—BIG & TALL gent climbed the steps of the high dive. He spent some time fussing with the board adjustments, did a pre-dive arm stretch, and slowly walked the length of the plank. The board bent into an arch; it barely held him; his toes gripped the end. We tried to be discrete, watching from the corners of our eyes. One of the boys snickered nervously. And then...AND THEN: He leapt into the air and executed THE MOST BEAUTIFUL spread-eagle belly flop in the history of the WORLD. And we SAW IT. We were there! It was magnificent. It showered us with its splash. The place erupted in applause. Take THAT, France! We might be one of the fattest nations on the planet, but this man, THIS MAN is a national treasure.

adventures in craft

2010-06-22T16:24:00.007-05:00

It's been a struggle to come up with something to write—I've tried and tried, my friends, but Workaday Me, she's a BORE. Anyways, this writer's malaise will collide with the start of my Kids' Creative Writing Club Word-Based Extravaganza here in the neighborhood, starting tomorrow. I think those kids will be the inspiration I need. That kid energy, that mix of summer boredom and parental good intentions, will get my brain back in the game.

Inspiration has come to me, however, in the form of a new garage sale desk and a little girl: I dusted off the sewing machine again. My Bea, she's a delight, and this is turning into her Best Kid Summer Ever, but the missing front teeth, the scabby bug bites, and the Closet Haircut Experiment have culminated into a look that hovers on the line between scrappy and miniature meth-head. So when she envied a pretty, white, darling, romantic little nightgown on the Angry Chicken blog, my heart soared and I got to work. My skillz are rusty, and I set those damned sleeves at least eight times, but I completed the project, which is a good feeling.

While at the fabric store, I also splurged on 2 yards of this Edelweiss ribbon, just because it's pretty. As for my new pottery class—me and the wheel, we don't get along.

adventures in art

2010-06-11T12:48:00.005-05:00

This is not me. I wish I had the ovaries to slip rubber sea anemones onto my boobs and whoop it up downtown, but alas, I lack the concept, the nerve, and (I suspect) the boobs to pull this off.

She was partying at the Art Tougeau parade, where Ben here tried to get Bea to ride the Farnsworth Pony Bike. She was with me in the Lack of Nerve Office that day.

A couple weeks later, Tim & I participated in the annual Okie Art Exchange, hosted each year by Tracy & Mike. Always good food & good people & good fun & lukewarm reception to my anemic (though heartfelt!) attempts at "art." I believed I used the term "lead balloon" when describing the moment it was unwrapped. Tip: Do a little research about regional zoning laws if the point of the whole piece hinges on the widespread neglect of zoning laws. This line of humor is not universal. Also: Don't confuse "zoning laws" with "funny."

Summer is here, and with that comes the easy-going pretending that it all isn't about to hit the fan any day now. All jobs are re-negotiated within weeks! All directions are determined by people who have never had to think about money and who really don't know me at all! Life is absurd.

In the meantime, I start my ceramics class tomorrow morning. I've been thinking about taking one for a couple of years. I enrolled in March, which was followed by the loooooonng march of time. I could barely wait for my ceramics class. And now it's here! Which must be why I suddenly feel like sewing instead!! Goddamn I annoy myself.

summer plan

2010-06-03T09:14:00.003-05:00

Inspiration has been fleeting this summer, but I'm set to change that. Here lately an idea has come—to build a new walk, say, or sew something—and I think it over for days. Then some shadow passes over me and I get all Droopy Dog about it. I don't have the time. It will cost too much money. My interests are too varied (jill of all trades and master of none). These doubts do carry some water, but it's making me bored, and boring. Enough! My new plan of attack is to always be busy. Just for this summer. Get home from work and put the work gloves on. Be cheap, busy, and inventive.

a return

2010-05-13T09:29:00.002-05:00

STRESS. It's been really pulling me under, wreaking inner havoc. I've about had it, too, and I know my family wishes they could throw in the towel for me. But alas, these depressive states—sometimes they're not to be argued with, but simply ignored. Today, and tomorrow, and the day after that, I WILL NOT think about job losses or career paths or how life just goes so fast. Because let's face it: I can't stop time, and I can't fix the economy, and my career "path" has always been cobbled but not too shabby anyways. Instead, I'm going to think about papier mache, and old typewriters, and riding my bike with no destination at all in mind, and about doing stuff because it seems like a good idea, nevermind the reason. Life is too short. Right?

I'm back. I've missed you! Let's go get a drink and talk about how stupid being a grown up can be.

joy of life

2010-04-27T09:06:00.002-05:00

“Mom, what do you love to do more than anything else in the world?” she asked me. She was in the bathtub scrubbing dirt off her knees and marker off her fingers. (She’s a scrappy kid—she gets very dirty very regularly.) I admitted that I’ve been asking myself that same question lately. The truth is, I don’t know. I think I like to dig in my garden, but I haven’t done it yet this spring. I like to read, I suppose. And write, though everything I’ve written over the last year is intolerably whiny, which makes it not enjoyable at all, in its way. “That’s crazy!” she said, for good reason. I envy this kid and the way she grabs life without question. She’s not afflicted by bigger-picture worries like her brother. She takes it as it comes and makes the most of it.

This spring, our temporary schedule requires that the kids and I take the beat-up, loud, and fumey 1980 Ford truck across town for swim practice three days per week. We’re not as bad off as it looks, though things are admittedly tight. Last week as we approached the curb, truck rumbling, I had to ask Bea to climb out and scoop up a dead mole so I wouldn’t smash the poor thing. She slammed the door and exclaimed, “Man, I’m POOR! This is embarrassing!” I winced. But then the Bea joie de vivre kicked in: you could see her recognize the silliness of our tableau. I couldn’t help but stop everything and take her picture.

cake

2010-04-16T16:35:00.002-05:00

I've been on a cake kick lately—not that I've been making them. Rather, I've been adoring them from afar: House in Town made one, and Pura Vida made two, and my coworker is making a wedding cake soon. How amazing is cake? I dream of early retirement and days upon days of cakes, tall and celebratory, quiet in their grandeur. Little cakes for my sweetheart, big sheetcakes for the dances at the senior center, cupcakes for the neighborhood kids. A friend's mother once mailed him a birthday cake when he was studying in China. He said it held up pretty well. Yep. Cake. It's awesome.

RIP Slithers

2010-04-09T15:50:00.006-05:00

Snakes in the spring are not unusual in our yard. Finding one dead and stiff, with no apparent signs of trauma, though—that's a treasure. The neighborhood kids set to memorialize his short little life by plucking my hyacinths clean and setting up a makeshift grave.

Slithers: A beloved snake found in the VonHolten yard.

Poor Slithers. At least he has a dime for his new journey.

prisoner

2010-04-08T11:27:00.003-05:00

Spring is here and it's lovely, and yet... I'm not feeling it. My usual impatience for planting potatoes has been replaced with some ugly snarling on my part. How can a working girl resent sunshine? Sure, I'm tired from working, and the rains can take some blame. But really—it's my neighbors. We have some neighbors I like, some I downright adore, and a couple of bad apples I can't stand, and they're OUTSIDE ALL THE DAMN TIME hollering at me, running their power tools, playing stupid music, and tearing off in their vehicles (though never taking the whole party with them). Front yard, back yard—everywhere. The situation has me so distressed that I just might leave the garden fallow for a couple of years until we can sell the house and move. Where the first order of business will be a privacy fence. Because I know this about myself: My enthusiasm for community is strengthened when I can balance it with healthy doses of solitude.

recalibrating

2010-03-23T12:27:00.003-05:00

So in February I got a new job, and then I had to write a crazy number of do-or-die grants that pushed me into an uncivilized bout of stress eating and so much coffee that one afternoon I had a heart palpitation that took my breath away and made me believe for a couple of seconds that it was curtains for me. And then: I finished the grants. And it was spring!! So we went roller skating. (I'll refrain from telling you about my "great" idea to "unwind" by painting my dining room, as well as the freak snowstorm on Saturday.) With a new season comes a new Leslie—one who eats sensibly, keeps more opinions to herself, rolls with the punches, and does yoga. One who acknowledges that these two beasts and their papa are priority, and my harbor,

and that when I feel I'm being pulled under, it's time for us to get on our bikes and recalibrate. Hello Sunshine!

UPDATE: Our schools were saved! What an amazing success, and a surprising outcome. There's more work to be done, for sure, but for now we can all breathe a bit and be happy.

a break

2010-02-14T23:08:00.002-06:00

Life is good, my spirits are up, but I can't come up with much to write about lately. Time for a blogging break. See you in a couple of weeks. Or the spring. When my brain thaws out.

looking up

2010-02-09T14:17:00.004-06:00

I know I'm risking reader fatigue on the subject, but it's February—what better time to obsess over things? I'll make a pointed effort after today to move onto other topics. In the meantime, how about my boy here? Turns out he's quite the activist—I caught him stopping traffic with his sign before the march started. Then he & his friends ran to the front, with the rest of us 1200 following behind.

Things are looking up in Lawrence. These schools aren't going down without a fight. And the issue is bringing a lot of people together. So many came to support us—families from other districts, or who don't have kids, or who homeschool. If I could give a bear hug to 1200 people, you bet I would have.

Also: I got a new job. It's part-time, so I'm keeping my current job, too, but man I'm excited. The Lawrence Arts Center—there are changes afoot, and I get to be a part of them. Plus, I have so many friends who work there already. AND those folks are stylin'. A built-in reason to shop for new cute shoes tomorrow. A perfect antidote to February.

P.S. I am giving away free hugs to all my friends & family who could use some job-getting mojo. Come on by!

Bob!

2010-02-02T11:34:00.002-06:00

Atticus's comic characters are featured in today's artsyville blog. Vote Bob and Gopher(Beaver) in the next school board election!

where I've been

2010-02-01T18:01:00.002-06:00

HEY. Sorry. Sorry I've been gone, shirking my blogging duties. Truth is, I was in a nasty funk for a while (I'm fine now, having treated it the old-fashioned way), and I've been job hunting, and obsessively checking my emails, and fighting and gathering evidence and all of those soul-numbing tasks that are the foundation of contemporary adulthood. PLUS it's February. BLAH. I don't know about you, but I could sure use a new pair of inspiring shoes.

lemon pie

2010-01-29T14:37:00.005-06:00

I wish I was one of those people who are energized by civic battles. The kind who compartmentalize the sociological bullshit appropriately—instead, I tend to get revved up, obsessively scan the internet, check my email at least once per minute, mentally chew on the situation. I'm trying a different approach this time. Pacing myself.

We're fighting a school board that seems dead-set on closing our small schools and building underperforming factory schools 10 years down the line. It's stupid. It's exhausting. It's classist and makes me angry—angry that only 8% of my neighborhood votes, angry that people have become so removed from life—that a city commissioner will make a decision about neighborhoods he's never even walked in—that history and heritage are given little more than lip service. It makes me wish I had the fortitude to run for office. But I'd rather eat glass.

Sigh. Tonight I'm going to try my hand at lemon meringue pie. The kids and I are going to make a mess of it, too.

Bea makes a poster

2010-01-28T14:09:00.001-06:00

word

2010-01-14T14:36:00.002-06:00

A list of truly fantastic words I have come across lately: obstreperous, deshabille, incubus, quiescent, rockaway, otiose, ontological, somnial (not in Webster's 10th!), cothurni, adjutant, wafture, minikin, crepitating, obsolescent, edentate, feculent, transmogrified, demarche, calenture, assiduously, piceous, munificent, seditious, and the humble yet underused piebald.

scrivening? scrivenering?

2010-01-07T20:46:00.006-06:00

Despite worthy evidence that I enjoy life in 2010—my apparent affection for nattering on about myself in the blogosphere, my relief that women hold more societal property, my new love affair with air conditioning—it's nearly every day when I get a pang of grief about what we've left behind. This week, I can't help but mourn that my ideal job is one that no longer exists. Yes, it came to me Monday that I would have made one hell of a scrivener. Think of it: My love of hand-addressing envelopes taken to a career level. Days upon days of lettering legal documents by hand, proudly flaunting sets completed without blots. Lunch hours drinking beer with Turkey and Nippers, my obstreperous mood accepted as the affects of such hard toiling. Office politics punctuated with threats to black one's eyes, or substituting a wet ginger nut as a stationery seal in sarcastic protest. Ah, another ship sailed!

little birdie

2010-01-04T14:47:00.002-06:00

Adrift. That's what I keep telling people—not too sure where I am going, what I am doing; I'm floating along. Spending a lot of time staring out the window: the bird feeder show is fantastic this winter. Three different kinds of woodpeckers, finches, cardinals, blue jays, two cooing doves, a few starlings, and my humble favorite, lots of little fat puffy sparrows. My indoor winter plan is to steep myself in books, revive some rusted gears in my head, but these birds... they make me so daydreamy.

gearhead past

2010-01-02T09:30:00.007-06:00

Drag racing came up in conversation yesterday, which set me reminiscing about the cars of my reckless youth. The beautiful ones belonged to my brother or cousins. Mine was a 1979 Mustang, which was respectable on the rare occasions when it would both start and not spin out into a ditch. Saturday nights were for tough talk, burned rubber, and quick parking-lot repairs; Sunday morning was for church and gearhead gossip. If I ever find out my kids have done any drag racing, there will be hell to pay.

tabula rasa

2010-01-02T08:29:00.002-06:00

Hello 2010. I have kissed my husband, had my black-eyed peas, made my resolution, and read in bed snuggled with both of the kids—a strong, cozy, happy start. Things are in order for...what? I am adrift: My tenure with the Percolator has ended, finances have forced me to drop my class this spring, and my job ends this summer. I turn 39 in a few weeks. KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON, I keep whispering to myself. Also, healthy body = healthy mind. 2010 just might be the year we go belly-up in the money arena, but dammit I think it's also going to be the year I finally do a triathlon.

holidaze

2009-12-28T11:39:00.003-06:00

I do grumble about Christmas—there really is no reason for it to be so expensive, and to take up a third of the year—but come each Dec. 24 when I am finally home, and something is in the oven, and we're all here, I find myself listening to WASPy Christmas music on the local classical music station and feeling an uplifted sort of happiness in my chest. Because really, what could be better than a message of universal redemption, a belief that things are going to be better now? I like to concentrate on that, and retain a simple hope of comfort & joy for all of us. (And that's not just the rum speaking.)

Of course, the local news has been snow—which was wonderful. For two days, if we weren't bundled in snow gear out in the woods, we were in our pajamas. We ate chocolate cake for breakfast, drank coffee all day, refilled the bird feeders multiple times. Today we're heading to the indoor pool, though, because the boy has much energy and is picking fights much the same way Ishmael does before he realizes it's time again to head out to sea. Here's to the curative power of water!

open house

2009-12-23T13:37:00.003-06:00

The incoming storm may not only cut my work week short, but it may catch Santa a little off guard in regard to Santa's husband's gift—unless Santa can argue that an uninsured office visit for a spider bite inflicted while chopping firewood is a gift from the heart. Ugh. I'm in a pickle. But though I am poor in some ways, in others I am rich. RICH in eggs, my friends. Those lazy white rock hens finally built up enough warmth in their cockles to get things moving. Tonight Bea and I are baking up a storm, with eggnog to boot, and I get to wear my new kicky Christmas apron from Tracy! That Chubby Season spirit, I have finally found it. If you're in Lawrence this week, stop by—we love the holiday drop-in.

winding down, gearing up

2009-12-21T14:55:00.003-06:00

I think most of you will agree—2009 has been kind of a tough one. So many of my friends & family look fatigued, ready for an email or phone call that will alleviate a lot of worries. Let's hope for the best: let's hope we all land on our feet, that our schools stay open, that in May we all look at each other and laugh at our good fortune. That in May we see new roses in our yards, and not For Sale signs. That we come out of this with an embattled but grounded sense of where we belong, with more sweat invested than we'd expected. Tonight I'll spend the solstice baking gingerbread and giving the dog a bath—we'll start the slow journey to spring smelling sweet.

clutter

2009-12-18T13:17:00.002-06:00

Here I was with a smidge of holiday spirit creeping into me, when all of a sudden the Stomach Flu walks in and smacks the tar out of all of us. A week later and fudge, eggnog, rum, all of it just kinda wrenches my tummy out of turn. DAMMIT. Me and this holiday, we just don't get along. I'm ready to accept it, and I think the boys are too, but we live with a little girl who LOVES Santa and LOVES the Nutcracker and LOVES singing carols. It is pretty darn cute, actually.

In other news, my brain is feeling much like this covert photo I took at Monster Pawn: full of used, dusty, dead ideas, lurking fears, ghosts of things I never got around to tackling and seem insurmountable now. I could use a new strategy, one that makes sense and is CHEAP. In the meantime, I'll go for a walk.

what he said

2009-12-08T13:21:00.005-06:00

"I don't know which is more discouraging, literature or chickens."

—E.B. White

'tis the season

2009-12-03T12:00:00.002-06:00

I asked Atty if he wanted me to sign him up for the upcoming swim meet. He replied, "Heck no!" I was surprised. "It's the chubby season," he said. The chubby season? "Yeah—Christmas cookies, turkey, mashed potatoes, candy. The chubby season!" So although he's still going to daily practice, and doesn't have an ounce of body fat to his name, the boy has plans. Plans that probably involve me getting my oven repaired and my @%! lazy chickens to start laying some @%! eggs. Happy Chubby Season!

the Lincoln Museum

2009-11-30T12:50:00.003-06:00

Yes, I knew I wasn't supposed to be taking photos at the Abraham Lincoln Museum in Springfield, Illinois, and yes, I had a feeling when I heard the word "hologram" that I was going to get my dander up—that chances were good that this museum wasn't for dusty old traditionalist me. But hats off to the airtight security camera system and stealth guards who busted me taking covert photos in the exhibits. They knew I had every intention of posting photos online to poke fun at the horrible wax figures and Oprah-ized interpretations of the Great Emancipator's soulful eyes. Sadly, they forced me to delete my photos in their presence. Heads up: They don't take kindly to jokey comparisons to security guards in the Pyongyang airport.

thanksgiving

2009-11-30T12:42:00.003-06:00

Last Monday I was walking to work with a heavy heart—sad news from friends combined with our own shaky financial future was weighing on me. Then up ahead I saw my friend Howard slowly, unsteadily, limping toward his bookstore to unlock the door. The tears took over me. I am thankful for Howard's impromptu toast at my wedding, and I am thankful for modern medicine so that he is still opening his bookstore 10 years after we thought he might die. I am thankful for the benches in Southpark so I can collect myself when I cry suddenly. I am thankful that we're all stronger than we usually give ourselves credit for being.

monday evening, new moon

2009-11-16T20:25:00.002-06:00

Today it snowed! Fat, heavy flakes fell at the slightest angle and made all of us in the office happy. I've noticed that before, the way the first snow takes us by surprise & sends us to the windows, excited. Coworkers come in from the cold and report conditions to us, as if they mushed their team to our outpost; someone marvels at the timing ("seems late/early this year"); another acts aloof, letting us know this isn't real snow. Whatever. I love it. Today, winter feels so cozy, a nice change of pace. Not yet heavy and impossible.

What is impossible today is cooking anything in my oven. It's completely neurotic: 350 degrees to 540 then down to 415 to 325. Within 15 minutes. My cookies, my brownies, the roast—utterly baffled.

And yet, and yet—this week, I did yoga! And did laps at the pool! And walked a lot. And am at HALF my coffee intake for 5 days in a row now. The kids inspire me, the way they love using their bodies. I feel good. Of course, I enjoyed many drinks with House in Town & LazyMF & BBF Saturday night, but one had a raw egg in it, so that makes it healthy, I'm sayin. I've seen Rocky.

currently thinking about...

2009-11-09T14:51:00.000-06:00

...the AMC Hornet.

not a minimalist

2009-11-09T10:02:00.004-06:00

I just opened a file drawer here in the office to joyfully discover that everything in it was obsolete. Cleaning out clutter, purging, making room—these are tasks I relish. Jettison the unnecessary! Make space! Yes, I can be rash, I admit, and woefully unsentimental. And I never have anything to contribute to your yard sale or your clothing exchange. There won't be many heirlooms, either. Sorry about that.

Art community as an organism: A defense of criticism

2009-11-08T10:28:00.005-06:00

"Life depends on the following environmental factors: Water, Food, Oxygen, Heat (Energy), and Pressure.

Pressure: An application of force on an object or substance. For example, the force acting on the outside of a land organism due to the weight of air above it is called atmospheric pressure. In humans, this pressure plays an important role in breathing."

--Hole's Human Anatomy & Physiology, 10th ed.

Onto art:

JERRY SALTZ:

"Everyone knows that dismissive, vicious, or not-so-positive things are said about shows. This is one of the things that make the art world lively, contentious, and fun. Yet when it comes to written criticism, seldom is heard a discouraging word.... Much art criticism is adulatory or merely descriptive. Many critics have never seen a show they weren't enthusiastic about.... Future generations will peruse today's art magazines and suppose ours was an age where almost everything that was made was universally admired."

THOMAS CROW:

"I don't like cults of personality, even minor cults. It gets in the way of observation and learning. Your material should be out in front, carrying the weight."

PETER SCHJELDAHL:

"You're not going to get a good art critic in St. Louis. To be a good art critic, you have to be able to make a new enemy every week and never run out of people to be your friend. In this country, that's L.A. and New York. Otherwise you're going to be moving a lot."

Some think there is no role for critical dialogue in regard to our brittle and precious local art community, yet I think that's what's keeping it from being dynamic and, frankly, a part of the real culture of our town. Saltz sums it up: "After I wrote a disapproving review of wild-style painter Cecily Brown, she told me how she disagreed, and slyly reported that she quotes a nasty bit from my review in her lectures to show that I'm wrong. Since then, we've managed to carry on conversations about art or whatever. This is the way the art world should be."

&

2009-11-06T15:55:00.002-06:00

This weekend I will be cooking & painting & gardening & shopping & knitting & felting & sewing & planning & reading. & Eating. Always the eating & the drinking. Then the procrastinating & the sleeping & the not getting to any of it. Except the cleaning of the chicken coop. That HAS to be done.

art$$

2009-11-05T14:52:00.003-06:00

On an excursion to buy paint, because I'm trying my hand at it again, I recoiled with sticker shock. Who can make that kind of commitment? I downsized from oil to acrylic, then down again to cheaper acrylic, and then cheaper still. Boo. One paintbrush, and I decided that some paper I had at home will suffice.

Friends, don't hold your breath. I'm not quitting my day job. Twenty years hindsight is loud and clear: No one needs more paintings of Chief Joseph, old blues singers, or ballet dancers. Purple is verboten. Late-night coffee, Ornette Coleman, and pretentious art-talk will be kept to a minimum. If you can't bear to go through all this again, I understand.

saint loouey

2009-11-03T06:53:00.005-06:00

A couple of weeks ago, we went to St. Louis for a day. I wonder how the citizens manage day-to-day lives near the Arch--it's so gentle and striking, I think I'd be straining constantly to see it. Think of the conversations and data sheets and presentations I would derail every time I pointed out with relief, "Oh, okay. There's the Arch. I see it."

Also nice is that we're far enough away from Modernism that the cream has had time to rise to the top. The Arch can be appreciated apart from less poetic attempts at simplicity and function.

At the top, I managed to keep my cool when I could feel it moving in the wind. Kids are emotional sponges. I took deep breaths.

A testament to the harmony of architecture and landscaping.

When I grow up, I want to be a National Park Service Ranger.

November

2009-11-02T14:46:00.003-06:00

November always comes with an exhalation. I love October—it may be my favorite month of the year—but it's too busy, what with homemade Halloween costumes & autumn agritainment (chestnuts! pumpkins! apples!) & celebrations of this and that. November is the calm before the storm, the holder of my favorite humble holiday, and when the garden gets put to bed. Nice.

list

2009-10-19T10:09:00.004-05:00

Have you planted your garlic yet? Yeah, me neither. I haven't planted bulbs of any kind, nor have I mailed my nephew's birthday gift (from August), or gifts for our new niece (from June). I haven't taken the GRE yet (from 4 years ago) or finished sewing the dress I wore to Tim's opening last October. There's a sweater I knitted for Atty that's awaiting a collarband (from 9 years ago). And a triathlon I was training for (5 years ago). BUT this week I DID finish some old-lady lookin' chair cushions, and ate a turkey leg at the RenFest, and made three huge pots of soup for a group of graffiti artists & etc people. POP QUIZ! Q: How much food does it take to fill a 5'6" muralist? A: Two bowls of soup, a few pieces of bread, a big Coke, and five corndogs with yellow mustard. Plus one more corndog for the road. And your Getz/Gilberto LP, because your husband thinks he's so funny.

AWESOME weekend!

2009-10-13T12:18:00.004-05:00

Finally no longer the only kid in the class with all her teeth.
Spray-paint graffiti workshop with the Black Sheep Art Collective at the Percolator.
A sudden and intense and consuming love of skateboarding.
Zombie walking with one of the funniest and cutest gals on the planet.

Not pictured: A pendulum-swinging tour of artists studios, a Black Sheep lecture, late-night arts center photos for posterity, wine & opinions about my hair, and a Joel Bogart photo show at Tom's. I'm forgetting something. This weekend was action-packed madness. And so much fun.

friday afternoon on campus

2009-10-02T13:22:00.004-05:00

Back in the office now after getting subsumed by what I think might have been a protest? Maybe? My afternoon coffee and I were taken over by 200 or so college students who were cheering a guy with a megaphone. He said that we were going to prove that THIS generation can effect CHANGE. He had people hold up cell phones to SHOW THE WORLD that we were equipped to make CHANGE. We just need to get TOGETHER. We can COMMUNICATE LIKE NEVER BEFORE. After 20 minutes on this rail, I asked my co-protesters what we were uniting against. Every single one of them shrugged their shoulders. None of us knew. I guess THIS generation doesn't make posterboard signs anymore.

If it hadn't been so darn cute and poignant, it could have been crushingly depressing. I guess it is, really, in a way, but hey—I splurged on a two-shot latte, and ain't nothing touching THAT.

It's been a week of ups and downs, but none of significance. Just TGIF, people. And a Facebook break. But might I recommend something? If your nerves are on edge, bake a loaf of pumpkin bread. It helps.

Have a lovely weekend, my friends.

I really don't have time to worry about your pretzels!

2009-09-25T10:41:00.002-05:00

Early Friday morning dream: Dinner at Kendra & Aaron's is going fine enough until I look out the window and notice many neighborhood kids, and they are so dirty. So I fill up the bathtub, go outside to snatch them up, and start furiously washing all these strange kids. When I go into the kitchen for more soap, Kendra is in a panic with flour and dough everywhere. "I need to make these pretzels from scratch, but it's not like I knew you were going to come over and BATHE EVERY CHILD IN MY HOUSE!" To which I yelled, "I REALLY DON'T HAVE TIME TO WORRY ABOUT YOUR PRETZELS RIGHT NOW!" Then my neighbor Beth Anne knocked on the door to tell me I gave her cat fleas.

fill 'im up

2009-09-24T12:12:00.003-05:00

I wish I could tell you how this happened, but suddenly I like to cook. I mean, I actually kind of enjoy it lately. I guess some of the credit should go to Atticus, who is growing and therefore eating like a horse, and when he comes home from swim practice, it's a great pleasure to put a bowl of food in front of him. "Oh, man!" he exclaims, the last words he manages until he gets his fill. (His sister, sweetheart though she is, demands & receives every night one PB&J sandwich and one carrot. Without fail. Prisoners eat better than that.)

So the other night it shouldn't have been a surprise when I came home to find that he and Tim had eaten all of the dal I'd left on the stove, saving none of it for me, the gal who cooked it. Oh well—really, who can complain about a Kansas kid who eats dal?

bring to a boil

2009-09-22T21:27:00.005-05:00

Tonight I rescued a strange kid off the roof of the park gazebo, hugged a good friend goodbye, wished I'd worn a jacket, and spent my ride gazing at the stars. When I got home, I ate potato leek soup.

Potato Leek Soup

2-3 T. ghee or olive oil
3 leeks (just the white & light green parts), sliced fine
3-5 small potatoes, cut into bite-size pieces (with or without skin)
2 cups vegetable stock
2 cups water
salt & pepper to taste
pinch of turmeric
pinch of cayenne

Heat the oil/ghee in a deep saucepan. Add salt & pepper, turmeric, and cayenne; stir to distribute. Add leeks and potatoes and saute until leeks are soft and potatoes are coated in the oil. Add broth. Bring to a boil. Lower heat and simmer about 30-40 minutes partially covered, stirring occasionally, until potatoes are soft.

non sequitur

2009-09-21T12:51:00.006-05:00

A rainy morning following a too-busy weekend. The leaves are beginning to turn. Hooray! It's soup weather.

Have you noticed how life gets suddenly easier the moment you realize you need to get over yourself? I love that. It takes reminding, but when that reminding comes, everything just lightens up. Egos are tricky things: Ambition and motivation, and then you step over some unseen line and it's all friction, noise, and resistance.

A list of words I am sick to death of writing (mostly at work): featuring, exploring, discuss, celebrate/celebrating. Words I tired of some years ago and seem to have jettisoned finally: delineated, possesses, grotesque, modernity.

I am currently in love with excellent structure and architectural seaming. Never underestimate the beauty of a perfect pintuck or the impact of a well-placed dart.

10

2009-09-17T14:29:00.002-05:00

This summer Atty & I took a tour of the Nelson art museum, and a cheerful lady in the group asked how old he was. I of course was very polite and told her, but really—look at him. Could he possibly be anything other than 10? The ballcap, the freckles, the pockets full of erasers and little Legos and bottlecaps. The notes full of penciled code keys. The oblique one-way conversations about robots. The way he still grabs my hand sometimes when we cross the street, and the way he gets inhibited about it and quietly pulls away. He's so very 10. Can I just freeze him right here?

busy bees

2009-09-16T20:39:00.004-05:00

We are off to quite a start this fall, BUSY but happy. One's on the swim team, the other's in gymnastics, and my fella, he's taking classes and making changes. We're booked every night of the week, except Fridays, which are also filling up. With martinis!

I had a college professor back in the day who announced that he was quitting so his wife "could have a turn." They'd made a pact when they had kids: He'd get 5 years to do his thing, then she'd get the next 5. They switched off the homesteading duties; I took note that this seemed like an excellent approach: one concentrating on career & finances, the other concentrating on home. I liked how the many aspects of life were acknowledged as equally important in a happy family, and yet no one was locked into the drudgery of it all.

It hasn't worked out to be the clean split for us—I still need to work during the school day—but the arrangement has liberated me from classes and other obligations. I'm cooking and nesting, arranging carpools and planning Halloween costumes.

Though I do recommend getting into this type of situation with someone who is appreciative and skilled at mixing drinks, like this hottie!

kcmo

2009-09-02T18:10:00.002-05:00

I've been doing a lot of what I call "perimeter living": Avoiding downtown to have quiet meals along the thoroughfares. We even had coffee at Dunn Bros. DUNN BROS! This townie claustrophobia has sent me fleeing to Kansas City & Topeka more than usual, places where I can take part in the culture as a simple, unknown participant. No backroom gossip muddying my experiences. Today I was reminded yet again how insular the downtown scene is: During coffee on a beautifully cool morning, I had to overhear cruel & unfair gossip from another table about a friend of mine. It really put a bitter turn on my day.

the zen of chicken

2009-09-01T14:09:00.004-05:00

Going into our third year with chickens, I have come to understand a couple of things: One, you can't teach a chicken anything. Two, you can't help a chicken. Chickens always do the opposite of what you want them to do, and they shit on everything. Every day is a whole new world to a chicken, but maybe that's not so bad. Imagine the freedom if you weren't held accountable for the things you'd done the day before! Stress-free living, my friends. Also, chickens love watermelon, so they're not all that different from us. Recommended: After a lousy day, watching your chickens while you drink a beer with your husband is just about as good as life can get.

abstract

2009-08-28T13:25:00.004-05:00

I'm wondering if this weird mood is a phase, and if so, what kind of phase this might be. I've become this odd, skeptical person outside of myself who has been asking some pretty pointed questions. Such as, "What exactly is it you do all day?" And, "Who benefits from this?" And, "Why are you participating/attending/working toward this goal—and do you even know what the goal is?" Granted, I'm not one who sees the need for a goal in everything we do, but I do recognize that there are a couple of things I toil away at for an abstraction I'm incapable of explaining. This abstraction looms large, steals my energy, and may need to be shown the door. Which is exciting in its way. (Sorry to be cagey. I'll elaborate later.)

dime bag doll

2009-08-19T17:50:00.003-05:00

My contribution to this year's Dime Bag Show at the Percolator. I made her from a salvaged shirt, yarn, and pillowcase. The quote is from Richard Ford's Independence Day.

autotherapy

2009-08-19T17:36:00.003-05:00

My brain has been a tangle of anxiety, confusion, and doubt lately, which has manifested in some bitchy and weepy behavior. I have not been easy to live with. After dropping the kids off at school this morning, Tim bought us a couple of coffees and we hit the highway west. He let me talk, and talk, and talk, and he told me frankly what he thought of each and every topic. There were no interruptions from the kids, no distractions from projects. By the time we got to Paxico, the weight of the world was off my shoulders. On the way home, we stopped for tacos. It's been a wonderful day. I feel so grounded.

take a deep breath

2009-08-17T15:37:00.004-05:00