Yesterday Dale ordered a slender, almost needly tree and it was delivered a little after 7. Which gave us time to decorate it. Roslin was over so it was our special family time, though James wasn't really interested in hanging anything for some reason. Well...we had played 3 games of magic earlier and we were all a little tired from that. The tree is so small it's weird, but I am tired of dealing with the large tree. We had taken…

my level of exhaustion is hard to measure. this virus is unknown, a.k.a no-way-of-knowing-if-we-are-still-contagious*, a.k.a the soul crusher. it is relentless. it will not let us go. it's a terrible trickster, making one think it is gone but then roaring back. a week ago i stood in the kitchen thinking of Job and how maybe God has allowed Satan to corrupt my body which already has enough problems without this life/death struggle to REWRITE MY FREAKING DNA. for that is what…

Tomorrow night, Friday Dec. 1st, Clearstory Arts will...what...premier? Open the show? What do artists say? I don't know. In any case, my two pieces with "angels" in them will be in the Holiday/gift-giving show. My pieces don't fit this theme at all. I even went to the meeting about the show and thought I was in the "spirit" of the thing and now I realize just really NOT. AT. ALL. But that's okay. I wanted to "get my work out there"…

I picked up the canvases from the gallery today. I love them so much. It is beyond gratifying to see my work, images that before today only existed on my computer screen, in living I-can-TOUCH-them color. They are vivid. Strange. Weird. Scary. Ugly. Lovely. Provocotive. I only wish they were on larger canvases. I want everyone in the world to see them and go WTF? Also, learned that my idea of not "caring" about criticism about my art is...BS? We will…

A few years ago I had to have a pain-blocking surgery on my knee. While I was at the small surgical center waiting to be called back for my procedure, I walked around marveling at these paintings on the wall by an artist I had never heard of. Hans Paus. These are either early works by him or someone’s efforts to copy him. In any case, these paintings (on simple canvases—very large, in this tiny waiting room) struck such a chord…

Life was going well. I felt better than I had in ages, ages, ages. A spring in the step, an I-Can-Do-Anything Reading Rainbow feeling. Chin up. Chin up. Thoroughly thoroughly. Perfectly charmed by the upward progress in my life. And then? Bam. And again BAM. And it just keeps on BAMMING. In February we found out that James was in severe heart failure. LIFE CHANGE. LOW-SODIUM diet for AUTISTC ADULT CHILD. WORRY. WORRY. WILL HE JUST DROP DEAD?? Doctor's appointments. My…

i like to see the things i love to eat and drink, to remind myself of possibilities. water is the most perfect and most precious thing ale whiskey wine sumo citrus. like eating the very sun. coconut layer cake, served cold bon-bons with cream centers strawberries strawberry short cake apples Napoleon white grapes watermelon blackberries yellow cake with chocolate frosting, served warm raspberries carrot cake with cream cheese frosting red grapes blueberry muffin with sugar topping blueberry buckle the humble banana…

I have Thrush. I wish this meant that when I open my mouth I warble and trill because my insides are full of birds, but it does not. I wish this meant that when I open my mouth thrushes wing their way upwards toward the heavens, but it does not. It means bad luck. It means shame on you amoxicillin and stress, stress, stress. It means that I only THOUGHT I knew what cottonmouth was. I feel like one of those…

It occurred to me that in order to ever make peace with eating and food I will need to change my eating environment. It's what America needs. It's what I need. (see Marion Nestle) Then it occurred to me to really, really consider what that would look like. What do I really want to eat? When do I want to eat? How? With whom? Do I want to cook? Do I want to fool with the always-somewhat-yuckifying-and vaguely horrifying touching and…