cobaltika

the whiteHouse : lawrence ks : december 2009

i’ve been carrying my camera more this week.
it makes plodding through the deep snow more fun.
everything is just so … interesting!

this &MORE - on etsy

i haven’t plugged my etsy shop in a while, so i will now. there is some good new stuff on there and some good old stuff, too, that is ridiculously marked down - see WINTER SALE - i’m going to keep at it for a while longer, although i think i am going to concentrate more on bigger pieces in the new year. i HAVE to. besides i am running out of dreadful photographs to recycle. FINALLY. i haven’t used film in so long. yes, i sort of miss it, but …

yesterday was one of the greatest artDays i have had in a long time. i got SO much done - mostly finishing up 2009 pieces and using up fragments and things, getting ready for a new year. and best of all i finished my new reconstructed book that i can use for a journal for 2010. i did not have one this year and i really missed it. it won’t be one of those awesome journals that i see other people do, but it will be nice and mine. i always feel so inspired at the end of the year, ready for the new.

i wonder if it will snow again tonight??!!

the christmas that almost wasn’t

i know i know. i’ve been very quiet. i’ve had to keep a low profile in the pre-xmas days. i was soooooooooooooo effing grumpy and i hate being all scroogy. then i had a bad cold the week of christmas. and i missed my family. EVERYONE. i had to stay home alone. and was too poor to send out wondrous gifts to my girlies. and i ALMOST missed my poet TOO. we had planned to spend at least christmas evening together and the weekend. it turned out he had to work on the day until 3pm, then his Sunday morning was stolen. then we had a BLIZZARD on christmas eve night.

yes, i *should* have traveled early in the day on christmas eve, so i would have missed it, but nooooooo. i still felt sick and grumpy and i wanted to cook something for dinner that required more than a hotplate and a microwave, so i stayed home. at least i did find a string of fairy lights and strung them around the “walls” of my nest room. that was cheering!

on christmas morning, i woke to find that yes indeed, the weathermen were correct for a change, and there was a great deal of snow. “white christmas” is so much more charming if one is not planning to travel that day. but i proceeded as if i were going somewhere and started cooking my christmas enchiladas. i heard the kids from downstairs open their garage and ran to the window to see if they were going to be able to get out. yikes! there was about a foot of snow in the driveway and the alley. their car is a heavier Toyota than mine and they had 3 people in it and they *still* had to push the car when it got stuck. shit! i called my poet and left a message that we might be disappointed today. i hoped more people would drive down the alley, so there would be a path, but nope. close to time to leave, i decided to go ahead and give it a try before packing the car.

i have been gloating over the joy of having a garage, but i guess it is not that awesome if you are stuck in it. not that being parked on the street would have been any easier on this day. surprisingly, little tinaMerlot leapt right through the deep snow in the driveway and into the alley. she stayed in the neighbor’s tracks nicely and we made it out … to find HEAPS of snow at the street. still she pushed through it. i saw that the big streets were mostly clear and felt confident that we could drive to Kansas City. however, miss tina had a problem getting back in the driveway. there is a slight incline and she was … stuck. but i felt sure she could at least roll backwards in her tracks, so went in to finish getting ready to go.

when i came out, she was completely stuck. and would not go forward or backward. there were just those sickening gritty sounds of a car stuck in the snow and ice. i couldn’t push her by myself. a neighbor came over and tried to give a push. no luck. he said it didn’t seem a good idea to get out on the road anyway and i knew my mother would say EXACTLY the same thing. i almost gave up. but decided to make a little more of that bad noise while trying to roll back and forth and all of a sudden tinaMerlot ESCAPED! we made it down the alley and out again and through the side streets without getting stuck again and then i could keep to the big roads. i was excited to see the barrier of snow as tall as my car in the middle of the street downtown. so thrilling! once on the highway, it was dry and i could drive 50! i was so glad i did not take any more cold drugs, because the snow snakes were hypnotic. 20 miles of them. i arrived at the poet’s workplace at exactly the right time and then we made it to his house safely. then it was christmas. yay.

yesterday, more snow, but nice snow. he took me to Utrecht so i might buy art supplies for my christmas gift! i did! we saw The Young Victoria, which was very pretty. and walked in the deep snow in the park, which was also. now he is gone to work and i *might* go out and make some pictures, but i am afraid of his door key getting stuck, which he warned me about, so i might just stay in.

it all turned out ok, but i am always happier when christmas is over.

duplex : patee neighborhood, st. joseph missouri : nov 2009

well, yes, it was a long lonely weekend and i had lots of time to bust the artSlump and bust the photoSlump, but i did neither. sure i made my hands a little busy, then put the things away to dry and now when i look at them … blech. not good. soul-less. and played with some more of the St. Joseph pictures, wishing i could go back there and make more, but i did not go make new pictures. not here. i thought i would die if i had to go out and clump around on slippery lumps of ice and snow. and it was so dreary. i stayed in and became agoraphobic instead. i was almost glad to go back to work today. and now i am getting fat again. dammit. maybe i don’t like seasons so much after all. i’ve almost had enough winter and it is not even the solstice yet. jeez.

i’m not really as grumpy as i sound. but it was just a loooooooooong weekend. i really need to have more fun, but am not quite sure how that would manifest itself. it seems odd that it is almost xmasTime. i am staying here this year. no $$ to go visit family again so soon. hopefully i will get to go see my mama in january. i will hang out with the poet though he has to work on xmasDay. we will go to lots of movies!

i hate the way i feel dead when i am not making art.

this is not today but it looks like it.
no way i would have been trying to manage a camera *and* not breaking my butt on the ice and snow this morning. the last time i did was the time i slid down and bruised my butt *and* broke the favorite nailpolish camera that made this picture. it is 12 degrees and my hands won’t get warm, even with the heat on. i don’t leave it on while i am at work, because that seems wasteful. usually this little place warms quickly, but perhaps not when it is this frigid? no worries. i have my flannel duvet. and my furboots. all is well.

i am in a little artslump lately. and a pictureslump, too. coming up is my long lonely weekend at home, so i am planning to break out of it. i think it is partly because my focus was on writing all last month, and it still is, but not to such extremity. i am still writing on the novel, but am feeling less confident about it and also slightly blocked, not knowing where to go next. i couldn’t give it to betsy to read yet. but i will eventually. getting closer. i decided to make a visual journal again next year. this year i didn’t and i missed it. so i have been getting the book ready. it will be a weird one. and if nothing else, at least i will list the books read and films watched.

the world is really crazy lately, isn’t it?

LA! and of course there are LOTS more here!

LIVE from my new paid-for home internet connection!

i came from from my GREAT trip to LA to find my sporadic bootleg connection had been locked up. i was so spoiled from hanging out in Betsy’s apartment with 24/7 access so i decided not to wait for January, just to do it NOW. there are a lot of things i could care less about having - television, microwave, fancy clothes and stuff, a bathtub, a dishwasher, but man - i want my internets!!!

the trip to LA was wonderful. it was the best thing ever to hang out with both my girls and then their dad came from Oakland and we had t-giving dinner that turned out to be fairly traditional, even though we didn’t have a clue what we were going to make when we went into Ralph’s grocery at 2pm on t-giving day… dressing was requested and sweet potatoes, so we did those, then made a HUGE salad and had 2 pies and decided to buy some hunks of rotisserie turkeybreast, too. and lots of cheap wine! we took a walk around Betsy’s neighborhood (Park La Brea) while waiting for David and saw the tar pits. ick! stinky! David took us on a night sightseeing trip around LA after dinner. he had never been there either. we went to the Griffin Observatory to see the city lights and then drove around downtown and Hollywood.

Next day, much more sightseeing, we went to Beverly Hills and Santa Monica and Venice and Topanga Canyon and Malibu, then after dinner to this crazyass place - Citywalk? Universal Studios? i’m not sure, but it was BIG and NOISY and i was sleepy and i got lost and almost cried and then they found me and held my hand and watched out for me the rest of the night. i guess that was my least favorite place.

Next day, no one would get up and play with me, so i walked all around Betsy’s neighborhood. i LOVE city neighborhoods. finally the girls were up and we rode the bus to Hollywood and went to thrift shops and tourist places. it was way fun! then we rode back, got off at Trader Joe’s, who is my new best friend, and bought some dinner stuff and a bottle of cheap champagne and some 2-buck-chuck. back to Betsy’s and we drank the champagne, hoping Margaret would chill out enough to be able to handle 3 hours in the LACMA, which was free after 5, so we were meeting David there. WHAT AN AMAZING PLACE! even Margaret loved it. there were paintings i never imagined i would see. i spent the whole time looking at 20th century paintings and then the contemporary building, which had the most impressive collection of Joseph Beuys documentation. It would have taken an entire day at least, to view just that exhibit. Then we returned to Betsy’s and David made fettucine alfredo. YUM.

Again, no one wanted to get up, so i worked on my novel and drank coffee. David came by to tell us all goodbye. The girls dressed and we walked (trying to burn off fettucine calories) to West Hollywood, so Margaret could look for minor celebrities. Betsy was helpful and they did manage to spot some and even saw the house of one. we ate salads in the Whole Foods on Santa Monica, while they hoped for some further spottings. we walked back, stopping at the 99-cent store for junk food to take to the movies. the only mistake of the trip. Then, back to Betsy’s, for ibuprofen, since we had walked about 7 miles, i was not the only one with aching legs, and to load our water bottles with white wine and go to see New Moon. we giggled inappropriately, but we were not the only ones. it was SO DUMB! but so much fun, to go together.

Next morning, i was VERY sick from that crap i ate from the 99-cent store. luckily, i recovered before we had to leave. Margaret and i rode the bus, then the rail, then the shuttle to get to the airport. We rode the bus about 4 or 5 times while there, it was so convenient and CHEAP. man, $2.50 to get to the airport instead of what? $45 or more for a cab? every time we were on the bus, we were the only white people. the car culture in LA is obscene. and there are huge wonderful sidewalks. empty. except for an occasional dogwalker, and then in the shopping areas, of course. it just seemed crazy. but still, i liked LA MUCH more than i thought i would and since Betsy is planning to stay there, i am sure i will go back. i can’t wait!