'Clos-play?'

At this moment there must be a group of mothers who have surely marked me for death. 

Because despite 50 plus years of maternal admonishment, I currently have the lights on IN EVERY ROOM OF MY HOUSE. 

At 11:30 p.m. I awoke in my studio in front of the last moments of the original, Louise Beavers/Claudette Colbert version of 'Imitation of Life.'  I thought 'I'll do my yoga & go to bed early'...with Santa Claus & a unicorn, evidently. Instead I have gone from room to room, starting or finishing several tasks in each, & blazing a lighting trail to lure me back.  

And then I finally got productive & started going through drawers, sorting into give away or throw away piles stuff that I'm replacing with the neat, clean, folded items I'll sort into give away or throw away piles a year from now.  

Among the cast off linens, I found some swimwear & a couple stray bras that I had to try on before levying judgement for or against.  The best was my red, rhinestone-studded & preposterously padded gag bra, made even more outlandish by the fact it is now buckety-big from a combo of weight loss & TEFS (Tropical Elastic Fatigue Syndrome--the early onset dry rot that possesses elasticized items here in paradise).  

When I bought this little house, there was a medium sized safe in the bedroom closet. After thinking 'how cool is that?' & obsessively closing & opening it with the combination to be sure I could, I considered what to put in there. I then realized I was pretty much devoid of what most people & all thieves might consider 'valuables.'  Eventually I pulled the little tray insert out & carefully arranged my bejeweled red bra in it, then stuck it back in the safe, leaving the door slightly ajar. Some time later I told Buck I had finally decided the item of greatest value & deserving of the safe's protection. He looked, laughed & my gag bra has been in the safe for the last eight years. 

Time for yoga & bed, but I'm already planning tomorrow night's 'clos-play' (as in closet) foray. I seem to recall a pair of satin platform shoes emblazoned with pastel rhinestones that will definitely require a try-on.  Good night!

Aerosmith Insomnia

Screenshot of the next endeavor--installing this 9'x9' Anthropologie mural

Classic.  2 a.m. & I'm just in from stargazing. It is a gorgeously clear night, & among the other visible brilliant luminaries, Orion, Big & Little Dippers, Dorothy Parker, Julia Child & the Seven Sisters (I don't tell you what to see in the clouds, so don't tell me what I see in the stars--deal?), three shooting stars made guest appearances. 

Raucously loud-mouthed lizards, frogs & distant confused roosters provided the soundtrack, & the show was so good I had a hard time making myself come inside to do my day's end yoga, shower & finally find my pillow. 

I feel bad for people who really suffer from insomnia. I don't. Instead of lamenting or fighting sleeplessness, I've always embraced it, not just for its familiarity but for its potential. A true insomniac puts head to pillow & waits for elusive sleep to overtake. Instead, I have 'Aerosmith Insomnia'--in Steven Tyler's dead-on lyrics, 'I don't want to miss a thing.'  I'll turn my bed down at midnight, but at 2:12 a.m. I'm still ratting around, fighting the strong compulsion to start a new project or complete a procrastinated to-do item.  

Yes, this weekend is scheduled to be 'slipcover-palooza 2016

And all the while Mu looks for the darkest of the still-lit rooms in which she can get her redundant beauty sleep.  

Sweet Dreams!

Sixth (non-?) Sense

If you define 'Senses' as the entry points/means by which we experience the world, I'm voting to add a sixth I'm labeling 'hope.'  Synonyms would include 'potential,' 'faith,' 'promise,' 'possibility,' or 'vision.'  You could argue hope is less real/tangible than the other five, but I'd argue back, citing Synesthesia, the neurologically baffling state wherein a Synesthete experiences one sense in the form of another, as instead of hearing a sound, sees it as a color (thunder might manifest as a red rectangle, or the sound of a piano might be experienced as a flash of blue light).  If that is possible, then I believe some of us actually experience hope in a way that is just as real as sight or scent, etc. 

Hope in the form of a 'before'

Like everything, hope is relative & subject to degrees. Depending on the seriousness of your conviction, hope could be as small as the sparks of interest in a chance meeting or the rush of obtaining something dilapidated to restore.  Bumped to the next level, we have re-marriage after a bad divorce, buying a whole fixer-upper, or moving somewhere radically unlike where you're from.  Then the epitome of hope is faith, when defined traditionally as 'belief in the substance of things not seen.'  

And 'after,' in the form of manifested potential

Not surprisingly, hope is the very model of my favorite psych concept--intermittent reinforcement, the sure-fire way to create an entrenched behavior by randomly rewarding or withholding reward for it.  The fact that once in awhile & following no particular pattern, we get a pleasing result from some behavior, & that the positive result is not attributable to anything we did or didn't do.  This forms the basis for gambling, gardening, Home Depot & HGTV.  

This weekend hope took the form of sanding/painting/transforming an ugly brown lingerie chest purchased at a big box retailer about ten years ago.  Since I'm happy with the result, maybe I'll move up to leaving the house & meeting people next weekend.  

The new/old piece in place

Or maybe I'll paint the two chests in my bedroom.  

The Fast Five

Tonight, when my perverse internal clock sent new brain juice in at 12:37 a.m., I thought up an interesting way to channel it. Maybe you'll play along.

First, quickly & without much thought list five 'major' life events that have happened to you.  Don't waste time deciding what others would consider major. What counts is if it was major to you. As you think of each, jot it on a scrap of paper, fold it in half, & put it off to the side as you write down the next. 

When you have all 5, mix them up a bit & draw one.  Read it.  Now, quickly & honestly say what you thought would happen as a result of this event. 

My first drawn was 'Bought house at 46.'  What I thought would happen: 'huge mortgage payments would dominate my life & define all my choices until I was 76.'

My second drawn was 'teen marriage.'  What I thought would happen:  'I'd have a marriage like my parents''

Third drawn: 'Moved to St Croix.'  What I thought: 'five years, tops.'

Fourth: 'Lost two close, young friends.'  What I thought (each time) : 'I'll never find that again.'

Fifth:  'found the love of my life.'  What I thought, 'this can't  last long at this intensity.'

The difference between what I predicted & reality is enormous...& has formed a pretty remarkable life. I mean remarkable to me. Unless you are a much more even-keeled person or a psychic, I suspect the deviations from your list will surprise you too. 

The point?  No matter what you're currently in the middle of, what you can't see over or around, you're probably guessing wrong about eventual outcomes. 

For me, that IS the point. Good night.

I wrote mine on the little cardboard boxes my new cabinet knobs were packed in.

Doggiest Days of Summer

When temperatures turn sultry & I can no longer say with a straight face, 'I don't need air conditioning at all...ever,' I start to lose momentum on my outside projects. This is generally marked by a change in perspective. Not speaking philosophically here--I change actual perspective by finding more & more tasks I can accomplish in the cooler tile floor. 

You may notice Mu looks taller in pics, simply because I'm photographing her from underneath. 

Melted Mu

Swinging a pick axe, shoveling gravel, or lifting concrete block lose their romance & I do a lot of yoga, crunches, stretches, & anything else to get fit without abandoning my beloved tile.

Here I am, looking for all the world

Like a deranged advice columnist. 

I steam the floor more regularly in the summer, leaving it clean enough for the 'floor exercises' plus other subterranean pursuits like cutting upholstery fabric. 

After season 'half time,' this will clad my From the C booth this fall. 

Inevitably at some point during the summer I have to do some personal archaeology too. I get frustrated & overwhelmed at the zillion piles of project starts, & end up putting everything away & doing an aptly off-season version of Spring Cleaning.

Making 'bamboo-wrap' gold strands for

Earrings & rings

Necklaces...in progress...on the big red

Sofa I'm still thinking about slipcovering

In a ridiculously futile effort to maintain the freshly discovered clear surfaces,  I then try to limit myself to single, or at least single digits of projects. This goal usually lasts a couple of earnest weeks before I'm knee deep in imagining again. 

Second Gear

There is a small immobile pick up truck parked in front of our office this week. The owner was really happy to remove it from storage, having paid off the back debt.  Then he tried to move it and he couldn't get it to go into second gear. So there she sits. I see it every day when I pull in and pull out, and it bugs me. I don't care about the fact there is an immobile truck parked by mine.  I'm annoyed by the fact a nice tenant thought he had some forward momentum going and instead, there she sits.

I've been in reruns this week, painting furniture & watching the documentaries "The 60s" and 'The 70s' on Netflix.  

And they remind me of that damn truck.

I was born in 1962 and I've always been fascinated with the movements for social change that were born in the same decade and the one that followed.  Civil rights, women's rights, LGBT rights all made amazing strides in that twenty year period. Humanity was scaling some steep slopes rather spryly… And then we couldn't get it out of first gear.  

It really isn't surprising when you're making giant forward strides on so many fronts that progress slows.  Sometimes it even halts while adjustments are made. But eventually we must resume the climb. The events of the last few months have me convinced that we are not just stuck in second. Watching all that was achieved in that 20 year span, I feel shame and helplessness when I view the events of the past few months. Forward progress has not only slowed or even stopped, we appear to have jammed it into reverse.

There is strength in passive resistance.  There is humanity in passive resistance. I have to believe both these premises, as much as I believe that the acts of madmen, in the end, will not overwhelm either. Institutionalized divisiveness, the blame game & calls to violence leave us in reverse. Please consider that elected voices spouting the rhetoric of hate, no matter how subtly, are not motivated, as they claim by concern for the greater good. Please stop. Breathe. See the whole picture. And VOTE. 

You're Gonna Get Hurt

Last night's project--'dis-en-brownifying' this little console. :)

Ten years ago Ikea put out an ad campaign depicting lab coated scientists watching other lab coated scientists test their products for durability.  It was one of my favorite commercials ever, mostly due to the deadpan faces of the scientists with the clipboards. One nebbishy, middle-aged scientist with a severely receding hairline would open the cabinet repeatedly saying over and over again "mom can I have a cookie mom can I have a cookie mom can I have a cookie mom can I  have a cookie?" In a completely uninflected, expressionless monotone while a like-faced, bespectacled woman made check marks on a clipboard. My favorite part was the nerd-scientist joylessly jumping up & down on a bed while the other scientist made checks on a clipboard & repeated in a monotone, 'you're gonna get hurt you're gonna get hurt you're gonna get hurt.'  If you want a laugh, Google 'you're gonna get hurt ikea' & watch the original. 

Yesterday's voluntary, 'you're gonna get hurt' project: unloading heavy pails

As I'm going through the oh-so-fun process of getting in shape at age 54, I'm realizing I'm surrounded by lab-coated, clipboard-wielding scientist wannabes who worry that 'I'm gonna get hurt,' & also seem fond of reminding me that extreme activities are better left to peeps twenty years younger. While I appreciate the concern, I want to say here & now you can all put down your clipboards, loosen your lab coats & stand down. I'm not as crazy as I seem. 

For one thing, yoga-for-years keeps me 'bendy.'  

Yesterday's other project--AFTER...&

BEFORE (just to mess with the order requirements in your head)

For another, I do either 100 or on good days, 200 crunches everyday. People say lift with your legs. Instead, I concentrate on lifting with my stomach, focusing on exhaling & tightening those muscles before & during each attempt.  

And most importantly, I'm fully aware of (& not one whit regretful about) my age. I'm aware the cape & tights aren't as zingy with immortal juice as they were when I was thirty. One of the reasons I started trying to get fit was my knees. To quote a favorite line from a favorite movie ('An Affair to Remember'), ' My knees--they are as old as me.'  Thirty-one pounds ago, my knees hated my living guts & my sofa was my best friend. I had stupidly taken a years-long hiatus from yoga (from whence I derive any remaining superpowers). And most decisions to do or not to do included a fear of getting hurt.  

But there was something much scarier & self-defeating looming. Unless I made real, radical, tough choices & made them immediately, I was going to have to (horrors) cull my closet contents yet again to get rid of the outgrown, & truly horrifying--the occasional chest discomfort might one day be an actual heart issue. 

54 could be half time or the end of the line, & while not completely within my control, a lot of factors are...so here I am, & why I like the challenge of so-called 'grunt work.'  

See Ma--no hernia, just happy!

Treadmills & oval tracks don't get it for me. Effort should produce tangible results, or at minimum a pleasurable or novel experience. When I was younger I jumped out of a plane & I used to run the road along the north shore coastline, then halfway up 'the Beast,' (the killer hill of triathlon fame) daily. Both fell into the category of pleasurable & novel experiences. 

I still have the urge to jump off or out of something, & I'm not ruling that out. My knees, though much happier now would no doubt flip that script if I tried running again. That isn't fear of injury, rather a realistic interpretation of an expired parts warranty. So...the tangible results idea is my current playbook. I try to build something, plant something, physically make something every day. And when I finish lifting rocks or roof coating pails, or pick-axing rocky soil to plant a tree, or build a wall, or plant a gross of seeds, I can see more than numbers on a scale or better fitting clothing. 

And that will do nicely until they finish the zipline...or until I check out the new hang-gliding group.