cobaltika

no pictures - just moving tales.

how can i make pictures when i can’t find my cameras yet! (or my clean underwear, dammit!!)

but i am now moved and settling into my new home - even with boxes and piles, it feels so homey already to me. i LOVE my new place. it is a little different to arrange it, without walls and “proper” rooms, but it is fun! i love the open-ness, but realize i need a secret and calm nest for sleeping, so i am making one. i have ceiling fans - and the shower is for a tall person - things WORK - a window in the bathroom - i could go on and on about the small details that please me. the moving felt very hard, which was strange, as i have NOT acquired new things since the last move. my poet came to help on his one day off and though i was trying to be tough and self-sufficient, i *needed* him. and am grateful. then i hired my boss’s son and a friend to do the bigger things and the boxes (and boxes… and boxes…) of books and artStuff and they were amazing!

King Tubby seems to like the new place and actually stepped outside the door this morning. i am hoping he will return to his outsideCat status SOON - because cat boxes - ICK. at least he has stopped the yowling of last month.

not only have i made a transition of environment, also this is the week that my job transition is made. i am now only working 24 hours/week. gulp. i have looked forward to this reduction, in conjunction with the winding down of our program, for a couple of years. i did not anticipate that i would no longer have my freelance job at the time though. of course, you can just never know what will happen. but i decided to make the leap anyway. maybe i am foolish. i am going to be stunningly poor. hopefully, i can creatively overcome that problem, but if not, well … we’ll see. gulp.

so. it is a new life now.
even though i am exhausted and a little fearful - i am happy! very!

mi casaNueva

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finally.

i can stop looking. i can stop fretting.
i can finish packing & moving (this weekend!)
i can have a new healthy safe happy home.
back in my favorite neighborhood!

i tried hard to make “before” pictures - but interior photography is quite tricky! the space is essentially a garage apartment over a huge 3-car garage, a big airy loft room with a handsome, efficient kitchen, a long lovely bathroom, with a window and no falling-through floor, a big closet and a … garage! i will change those curtains to my own white lace ones. it is like a big empty canvas and it does NOT smell like catpee, as so many places i have looked at in the past couple of months do. the landlords are nice, real people and not creepy property “managers” who will trick me into renting a cavern with a leaky bedroom floor and dolts throwing beer bottles and cigarette butts from their cement balconies. i feel glad!

and it makes *perfect* sense that a person who loves to wander the alleys, capturing garages - should LIVE in a garage in an alley. of course!

i am SO ready to be settled and get back to artMaking, thank you.

click to go - if you like

still a favorite scene. downtown.
every time i see it still there i am glad.
pencam. may 2009

i suppose it is possible this may become an active journal again, but man, i’m not sure when and how. i am just not into it lately. i *am* into ranting and whining and weighing the pro’s and con’s and if’s and how’s - but that has to stay under lock and key. i am expecting i will never again journal publicly the way i used to. i *would* like to be a little more open, but i am just not feeling it right now. i definitely still want to show art and pictures - and share some of my life - so i guess i will keep this bit of my site up for now, in case there is interest. perhaps when i finally get settled into my “new life” - whatever that will be - there will be more to tell. obviously, i am still in the throes of home/space-finding - although there was a sweet trip to the Tallgrass Prairie with the poet last weekend. that was nice. and tinaMerlot behaved so well!

not from this weekend. but from the last time i wandered around my town. it seems a long long time ago, but it *was* this month. sometime… i have been so obsessed with the moving thing, that i seem to have lost track of time and even good sense. now i am settling down though. i probably won’t die from mold poisoning in the next month or so and i am already such crap on paper that having a broken lease, even for a very good reason, isn’t something i need. and i just do not have the energy to put up a big self-righteous fight. and i DREAD moving again, so i am procrastinating. have given notice. and still looking. just not in a crazed way.

from this weekend. to Kansas City to visit my poet and try to relax a little. it worked pretty well! brunch at Happy Gillis Cafe and some thriftshopping with poor results. some wallowing and a good hike at Fleming State Park. for some reason i was really nervous about copperheads, but did not see one. whew. it was sweet to be in the woods by a lake though. very hot. lots of cold crunchy salad for dinner. and water. Kaufmann Gardens (both the fancy gardens and the natural ones) in the morning - then TERMINATOR SALVATION! wheeee! (shut up!) Cancun tortas, the grocery store and an air-conditioner into the poet’s window. then home. and a day off in which many household chores were accomplished. then back to the grindstone. yes, that’s right - i haven’t touched the artTable for nearly a week. but there are things in my head. at least.

King Tubby’s seasonal psychosis has befallen him. he yowls constantly for no good reason. acts hungry but won’t eat. just yowls. i want to strangle him. but i probably won’t.

i know i know. it has been forever. not like me, huh?

well - since i dropped in to delete all the spam comments i thought i would lay down a few words, too. just in case there is any wonderment. nothing pretty to show. nope. not even random wandering-around pictures. the only images i have made in the last week or so are documents of the mold growing along the edges of my carpet, the floorboards and the legs of my nice wooden chest-of-drawers. in my bedroom.

trust me, you don’t want to see. but i needed the documentation.

other hours have been taken up by (1) the fluorescent prison, (2) home-hunting (i am so grateful that tinaMerlot came along about now. she makes the nightmare of finding a new place so much easier than riding a bike! yeah! and it *is* a nightmare. i didn’t really want to move again until i was finished here. but i have to. so i am looking at all kinds of options. and it is exhausting. but kind of fun. isn’t that libran?) and (3) putting on my ancient nightgown, getting a glass of wine and reading a paperback until i fall asleep.

i’m sure i’ll return eventually.

meet my new companion! (my familiar?)

we are going places together!

yes indeed, i am no longer a car-less person. after over one year.
sure, it was amusing for a while. rebellious. so green. so urban. but so … claustrophobic! enough elements in my life have changed and will be changing in the near future, that having a little old used car to get around in at times seemed a very good idea. and i think i got incredibly lucky! tinaMerlot is a 95 toyota corolla, with a bunch of miles, pretty dinged up in places, “lots of cool stickers” and an effing tilt steering wheel!!! (i love the smallest details.) she seems to go pretty well! sort of vibrate-y and noisy, but hey - i’ll just stick in a CD! wheeeeeeeeeeee! adventures to come!

(don’t worry, i’m taking her to a mechanic this week. i want to take good care of her!)
(ps - i got her plates today!)