I've Done a Bad Thing

Bad, as in thoughtless, careless, unwittingly mindless, self-absorbed happiness foot in mouth stupid.

The other day, while chatting with my gorgeous neighbor Steven, I realized I was going on and on in a bubbling brook of happiness sort of way, and upon hearing the actual words coming out of my mouth, I stopped, and had to apologize, in a very female sort of way.

It sounded like bragging, and I was horrified. "Steven, ohmigod, you do understand, right, that all of this wonderful school miracle good fortune that is surrounding me these days makes me pinch myself all the time in wonderment, I don't mean that I'm just so fucking fabulous, I am just in complete amazement after all those years of slogging in the B-store trenches and the 25 years of not being able to do this, that I'm giddy happy and---" and he cut me off.
"Of course my dear, and it is so nice to really talk with someone at length about good things going on, and I get it, I really do, you're genuinely happy and it's great! Don't worry about anything with this and me, okay?" What a generous pal he is. But it happened today with someone else, and after a comment they made off-handedly, I realized "Oh oh, oh no, I just meant to communicate that they shouldn't worry, things were improving and financially were on the upswing after some tough times, it wasn't meant as a boast, really!" Oh bloody hell, now I just have to sit quiet and say "Fine," when asked how school is going, limit it to "great!" and not reveal my amazement that it's all still happening, it isn't being yanked out from under me somehow, inexplicably, just stop there. Shit.

There is still this feeling of it all being unreal somehow, it can't last, it will get ripped away somehow like it did the last time, this thing that meant everything to me. It's unfair for me to assume people I know here in Portland would just know this about me, they haven't known me that long, they met me as a B-store drone, and so, okay, fine, you're finishing a degree, great, so shut up already. I can get carried away, but never ever meant to offend. Crap.

Of course, there is a volume of back-story about this, and I won't pour it all out here except to say that there was always a pattern of my academic achievements being sloughed off as no big deal, pipe down, go do your chores, don't act so big. So more unfinished business regarding school, as well as the plowing through the final credit hours. I'm just happy this is all happening, and I want to go all the way, and I don't want to be a jerk.

The Ends of the Earth

I fell off, it's true.

It may have been the 12 straight episodes of Deadwood DVDs, or the complete freedom of no classes, no job, no worries. Or too many hours on the phone with Florida. This week I have been remembering Bruno and not in the mood to write anything. Last week I was reeling from how tough the Astronomy class was turning out to be.

Today I sat on the porch after school, soaked up the sunshine, and read textbooks, all the while realizing that there's been such a shift in the whole picture. A change of season brings these bubbles floating to the surface of my mind, along with wanting to do some mental spring cleaning as well.

No, going back to school has not yet become day-to-day la-de-da no big deal. It is still a huge big deal, although the walking along the park blocks marveling that I'm there is ebbing. I'm busting my ass some days just race walking to get there on time, taking the flights of stairs without gasping, not wanting to sit in a sweat through a class. I snarked off at one of my professors last week and am still cringing when I meet his eye in class, sitting silent through animated discussions like a mushroom, not contributing, now enduring every minute of a class in my major that I had been really looking forward to doing well in. Shit.

But getting thoroughly saturated in this new endeavor has definitely shut the door on any lingering vestiges of my old retail manager's life and mental space. One of my old employees is in my astronomy class and we got caught up afterwards yesterday, and it was really the first time the whole B-store episode felt done done done and dead to me, really fully behind me and in the past. Can I be allowed the slack to take a bit long to move beyond a ten+ year period of my life and identity? Stockholm Syndrome, I think it's called, otherwise known as drinking the Kool-Aid, Corporate Culture. I did go into it kicking and screaming, as I recall. But then you find yourself accepting that first promotion and going salary instead of hourly---your soul is signed over and you bitch about it every moment until you get out. The relief is overwhelming.

Of course, I'm looking for work now, and going over all of this in my head again, how do I go about this again, doing the work part without signing over the soul part? What do I know now, to do better this time? They don't need my soul, they just need me to show up and do a good job while I'm there. Whatever it is, a campus office type spot would be perfect.

Last spring about this time I had just put Betty on a plane after 12 days and was recovering by spending intense time in the garden. After getting all the dandelions, I put in the tomato starts and some herbs, weedcloth and mulch, marigolds, nasturtiums and lobelias. This spring I'm lagging behind, spending more time enjoying the season, watching Peg shoveling woodchips, cheering her on. "Isn't it beer-thirty yet?" I hollar out. "Can't slow down yet, I'm on a roll," she throws over her shoulder on her way to another load. I go back inside for another beer, I'm getting exhausted just watching her. Gotta start those pea and bean plants, I'm thinking, there's enough sun now. Zzzzzzzzzzzz

The Tao of Pho

Everyone's been asking me how it's going, the school thing. And laugh at how I smile like a kid on Christmas morning. It's true, that's how the school thing is going for me, better than whatever Mary Poppins magic Santa ever left under the tree for me. I was always one of those kids who loved school, played school during the summer (when I wasn't reading under a tree) and thought August was truly the cruelest month.

It reminds me of that phase of infatuation when you don't need to eat, sleep, rest or think, the rosy sparkle cloud just carries you along effortlessly, buoyed by love and seeing the perfection of the Universe in everything.

That's how my first week of school has been. Sometimes the sparkle cloud is sky blue.

This morning I finally purchased my biological anthropology textbooks that came in last night, so we get a chance to catch up on all the reading before class on Tuesday. My first History of Prehistoric and Ancient Art class was divine yesterday, I barely got into it, thankfully a few people dropped it between Tuesday and Thursday. So for a few weeks I will be traveling in Deep Time and early history in all my classes, and reading for real what I've been gleaning from popular culture and cable TV for years. Like the 'Hobbitt' skeleton found in Sumatra that is in the center of controversy in paleo-anthropology right now; is it a new subspecies, or a child with encephalitic disease? This was on the National Geographic channel the past few months, and is showing up in my class, too. So so cool.

I'm finding out the category of anthropology I've always been the most interested in, it's called Post-processural Anthropology, uncovering the whys and hows of cultural history, and opening up the perspective to other viewpoints other than Euro-centric, Judeo-Christian, white male based. There. So now I know what it's called. (so happy)

Sipping chrysanthemum white tea and listening to classical 89.9, I find myself in a beautiful and unexpected place. There is a wonderful Vietnamese Pho restaurant near the campus that I stopped at on the way home for some lunch and chance to see the student flurry go by outside the wrap-around windows of the corner location. There are these occasions where I like to just observe and witness the whole picture and experience, to make it real each time while still marveling that it's happening. The restaurant was very busy at 12:30, and there were 5 or 6 women my age doing the 'table for one' thing, so I ordered a beer and the Bun Ga (chicken with vermicelli and the cilantro-mint-sprout-cucumber-carrot melange and sweet vinegar-chili sauce) and just relaxed. What a week! What a great beginning! Such a happy kid again. What a strange trip the past 12 months have been, and I could not have foreseen being here, now, doing this, from where I had been last January 11th, closing stores, ending so completely that 10-year phase of my life. It was a vast void of misty uncertainty to me then, what would start February 1st 2007. I like fog, I'm comfortable in it, can maneuver fairly well, and wound up here doing what has always been my greatest wish---going to school. Finishing school. Learning for real. And today the sparkle cloud is sunny yellow and gold, warm all around me, and stretching ahead as far as I can see.

It's So Funny

Finally, this school thing is starting to feel real to me. I was protecting my fragile heart from disappointment all these months, with the missing transcripts, delay delay, uncertainty about the process, the worry that it's really just too late to be relevant.

It's real. It's really happening, I am now a full time student again, it is OFFICIAL. I did it!

Crossing the line of demarcation almost effortlessly yesterday, while standing in a line for my photo ID, gripping my stack of 'welcome students' materials, smelling the strange mix of fruit gum, coffee, vintage 70s student lounge and youth in the air, I emerged a student. Say hello to the new peculiar institutional structure, go stand in long lines, there's always a few hundred people doing exactly what you want to do when you want to do it, and off-campus living means structuring my time when on campus to get more things done. But I quibble.

My hair looks fabulous. The gray was growing in fast and furious, so the fine student Emily at the Aveda School salon layered in some warm brown and light blonde to take 10 years off me, and gave me a swingy flip cut that brushes my shoulders. That photo ID card will be my constant friend for a few years, and I didn't want to scare myself each time I pulled it out. After scoping my required textbooks at the school bookstore, I came home and ordered online for a fraction of the price, saving enough to pay for half a new laptop. That student discount can really come in handy.

Most of the orientation was kind of a snooze, I'm afraid to say. It was a full force gale outside and the tour leader's voice was whipped away, and we all just followed her like baby ducks from stop to stop as her arm waved in this direction and that. Okay, there's the library, look up the hours later, here's the music building, looks neo-classical easy to remember, here's the athletic complex, check specifics later, student parking structure, dorms, health clinic, student center, engineering , let's go back check your maps. Since I hadn't waited until the very last minute to register, I skipped out on the 'how to register' section at the end of the afternoon and went to the text bookstore before the other 350 newbies headed over there. The campus looks very urban after dark while rush hour traffic crawls by at 4:30, the bus really is the best option.

It just feels so perfect, completely right, on-target, natural and fulfilling. So I'm already thinking ahead to grad school. A four year plan to getting my masters degree is the bigger picture as it appears to me from here, and it looks doable. Anything else just fades into unimportance in comparison, except the usual; animals, friends, crafting, Porch Time, and gardening. Gone gone gone are all the days and years of not feeling genuine in my own life, going through the motions. Instead of automatically reflecting back to my old retail-centric life, I'm enjoying the distance I feel from it all now, it's really fading away, too.

It was easy to close down my booth at House of Vintage, it felt like the right thing to do, and the rumor is the building is going to be sold anyway. I'd made about as much money with it as I was going to without a cash infusion to keep buying to restock it, and that wasn't happening. So, I'll keep crafting to sell online, which is no rent, and I can work on it at my own allowable pace with school and everything else. It's all good. Fabric Depot was having a 40% off sale yesterday and today, and I found some yardage I really love for a futon couch cover, so I'm going to head over there later this afternoon when the Estrogen Brigade thins out at dinner time. Why bring toddlers to a crazy-busy fabric store? It's insane. Shop in shifts and leave them home. Please.

Betty is waiting for me to call and give her the report on school updates. Better have some breakfast first.

Silent Solstice

A dear friend of mine is the happiest little Christmas elf I've ever known. She's sparkling with that classical Christmas Spirit that is sincere, heart-felt, generous, and evergreen. We can out-do each other in snark contests, but when Autumn and Thanksgiving roll around, she creates the traditional Christmas Home and Holiday experience for herself and her lucky family. And she enjoys doing all of it, fits it all into her working schedule, and pulls it off splendidly. She gets her Christmas cards mailed before the 15th. This morning I received a beautiful ecard from her, with a chorus singing 'Silent Night', of a snowy lake shore and gazebo, cue snowfall, light Christmas tree, skaters glide, night falls and the moon rises. It reminded me of being about 6, the Mythical Winter of 1967, when my dad stood outside night after night spraying water onto the backyard to create an ice rink when I got new ice skates for Christmas. He installed flood lights on each corner of the house so we all could skate at night, and the neighbor kids came over with their hockey skates to play off the street (which was solid ice for weeks) and I spent hours out there. We didn't have a gazebo, just a big white doghouse, but the moon did rise beautifully, and it was so far below zero for days at a time, that you could hear the Milky Way tinkle and chime overhead over the scrape scrape of your skates. The big multi-colored Christmas lights on the eaves around the ranch house made it all feel even more magical and outside of time, and the sub-zero silence was profound, even to a 6 year old.

That is the Magic I love to create this time of year. Even without ice skates, without the home-made ice rink, the 10ft high snow banks, or even the 30 below zero nights playing outside, what I love about the start of winter is the deep stillness you can find, and how the chill makes all the lights even brighter. This time of year all the colored and white lights come up, but to me it all has little to do with Christmas, even though that's why most get put up. The darkest time of the year, with short and shadowy days, calls for the most stars and moons and Milky Ways we can find, to bring outside for each other to admire. Late December to me is monolithic pine and fir trees blanketed in snow, then shrugging it off later in a good wind to sigh all night in relief. I got to wear the hand-knitted sweater my grandma made for me that was too big the year before. It's hanging on to the nylon rope while our black Lab Whiskey pulled me in my slick plastic boots down the icy road fast enough to make my eyes water. Outside was where it all was for me, the fun, the beauty, the make-believe kingdoms.

Holidays, cooped up indoors with uneasily blended families, lots of cigarettes and alcohol, hurt feelings and other injuries---"I'm goin' outback to skate!" met with some chuckles, a reminder to wear the dry snowpants, and go through the garage. Within minutes, I was free.

Hours would go by, people would start to go home, one of the neighbor kids would come over with his new skates, it was so quiet, the air smelled so fresh and blue, the fireplace smoke would float by once in a while, and to me, the whole Santa and Jesus thing just wasn't this good. Polar winter was what I loved, snow forts, tobogganing, your nostrils freezing together, all the ways the snow sounded depending on how cold it was, the green smell of cloudy afternoons, the liquid amber sunsets glowing through the icicles on the front of our house.

Working retail and restaurant jobs for so long brought me to a high bitterness with the whole Christmas idea, the cranking, wheezing and groaning machine of it, the Mall of it. Tuning in to Solstice is closer to what it means to me, but not in any kind of organized Pagan denomination either. Work-wise it was always a misery for me in my professions, then add on what people in your life expect you to play along with. For years, I just boycotted the whole thing, played Scrooge better than anybody and meant it. Anyone who's heard David Sedaris perform his piece "Holidays on Ice" has an understanding of my personal take on American Christmas in my tarnished experience. To those who love and do it so well----I salute you.

My neighbors throw an outdoor winter blitz that can only be a Rite of Baccus, and I think they frolic naked and debauched around a roaring fire, but I don't want to look. With all the leaves gone now, and the bloated chorus at 1:45AM, there are just some things that should remain a mystery.

This year it's different, in every way.
There's no sick employees and customer madness, no greasy aprons and slow-healing burns, no drunk and surly boyfriends or relatives, no feuds or car wrecks, no frantic, no airports, no bad Jello to choke down. The sourest part of my Inner Scrooge is getting some rest and twinkling lights therapy, does not have to teach a lesson about over-consumption when someone wishes me a Merry Christmas, and is taking the next few weeks off in honor of my Christmas Elf pal.

I almost don't know what to do with myself. Got on a hand-knit sweater, strung up some colored lights, and I even saw a movie filmed in Siberia that just blew me away. My bones like the milder Portland climate these days, but Elemental Winter just awes me. There's so little human interference with it, and I respect that power, and find it hauntingly beautiful.

Since You Asked

Thanks for the support, the waiting game is tough.

Still no word from Portland State University on my admission status.
My transcripts are all in, and I've already gotten a letter that had a student ID number on it, but it may have been regarding another student with my name and some previous PSU term grades. Of course, it arrived on a Saturday, when the office is closed, so I sent off an email asking them to please look into this ASAP so it doesn't hold up anything for me.

Classes start in 5 weeks!
Aaarrrrggghhhh!

Anyway, that's where I am with school, and will probably be able to meet with someone this coming week to get going with Registration and Orientation, etc. Then get a campus job and get going with my new life. Yesterday I talked to a woman close to my age who had her nursing school books spread out all over her workspace at a shop on Hawthorne, her anatomy final is this coming week, and she was cramming. We talked a long time about Life, and the timeless what-happened-during-my-20s-and-30s, and how it's pointless to regret past choices and what got in the way the first time. She said her hardest problem is wanting to be too chummy with her professors, being her peers, and not being a stand-out too much by answering all the questions out loud in class. I didn't ask her about the Mrs. Robinson Issue, maybe she's happily hooked-up, so she didn't mention it either. I'll have to just behave myself.

Speaking of... Consistent Mr. Torso sightings at the gym have me doing laps like Aqua Girl. He's in training, I overheard him saying the other day to the only other person under 60 with him near the pool besides me. Whatever gets me into the swimsuit and the water, whatever it takes. He's got to be under 30, which means I really need to get a grip and just admire the scenery.
Whatever. Like I told my pal Jolie, lucky for me he has a cheap hobby like swimming, all he needs is the goggles and trunks, unlike some people I know who have to own horses, rent the barn, buy the chaps and hat and gear, pay to show the horses, and you never get to see them (legally) smiling and relaxing in the hot tub almost naked. But she does have the hunky ferriers...

Sorry, my middle-aged lady got loose again, got to do something about that.

And I'm not going to Florida for the holidays, since Betty and I do the weekend 3 hour phone calls, we're pretty much caught up I think, and other than getting her computer set-up working at optimal level, there isn't much reason to fly me out there. Earlier this year I had thought about it, but that was so long ago, and now all I care about is getting into classes and arranging a job around that as best I can so I still have a life, time to study and write papers, and make stuff to sell. I'm going to get a portfolio of my stuff together, take photos, and shop it around the Portland Craft Mafias and see who wants to hook up with me, to supplement the Etsy site and focus on some local interest, too.
The Oregonian did a nice article on the hand craft movement here in town, and how high-profile it is becoming nationally, encompassing re-use, reduce, recycle and how to support local shops and craftsters instead of going zombie-like to the mall to have your brains and wallet sucked dry. One December night a few years ago, I came home zombie-like from my store at the mall, poured a tall tumbler of Merlot, and spent about 90 minutes being Santa and took care of Christmas all at one sitting. Didn't even need to refill my wine glass. What a relief that was, all shipped, all done. Ho ho ho.
This year I took the hand-made pledge. Hopefully they'll forgive me.

While I Wait....

This waiting thing is twisting me in half.

Reading other of my favorite blogs, they write about the usual things they always write about, crafting, writing, living with non-creatives, work, family, online life, kids, politics. It's comforting to read and know that these blog-pals are forging ahead, spit to the wind, writing when they can, and knowing why they do what they do.

Talking to my landlady last night, I saw the smiling webshot of the new Brittany dog coming home tonight from the shelter, and it is heart-warming to know the house will have a big lovey dog in it again. I have been doing dog-watching more frequently, and that has eased some of my dog-envy, but it never goes away. My cats love me, I love them (little beasts), but the space in your heart for a dawg is a specific place, like for a mate, a kid, a horse. Nothing else really fits that space, and you make the best of it, and love the hell out of what you do have. My life would have to completely change some more for me to fit a dog into the mix, and I don't know how much more utter change I can handle this year. Hanging tough with what I have started in motion feels like the way to go for now, and focus on school.

And wait some more, send polite emails with a slight edge of urgency, double check my paperwork and deadlines, and wait some more. Oh yeah, Thanksgiving. Sure, happy happy, whatever. Do not tell me the admissions office is taking this week off or I will run screaming down there to lodge a protest. Since when did Thanksgiving become a week off like Christmas?
It's a one day holiday, maybe two if you're lucky, but the whole week? WTF?

I am working through some of the frustration by swimming laps at the gym, with the occasional Mr Torso sightings keeping me motivated. Sometimes it's great to be half-blind in a swimming pool, you just don't care how you look because you can't see them either, so you're invisible. Except for the Mr Torsos, they're all a sodden blur, and I just make another turn in the lane and head out for the other side, odd number out, even number back, 19 out, 20 back, 21 out, 22 back, keep going until 30 then stop counting. Collapse into the steam room, inhale eucalyptus clouds, leave the gym a new woman. Come home, still no letter or email from the admissions office, grind teeth, continue job search. My gym is open the morning of Thanksgiving, so I can go swim off the feast I will eat later, excellent! There's a rhythm to this, and it's working so far, and I look forward to enjoying my first non-retail, non-restaurant business Thanksgiving and Black Friday in over 20 years. I remember working in a family owned deli in 1986 where they closed for the four day weekend...I believe that may have been the last time I was off.

Little things...I checked out of the Multnomah County Library a series of DVDs featuring classic Russian paintings, produced by a brilliant Russian director who won an Oscar in 1996(?) for best foreign language film. His name is Nikita Mikhalkov, and he made this series for Russian television and schools, but the subtitles are poetic and he presents each artist with passion and intelligence. I had never heard of any of these painters, and Mikhalkov delves into their biography, presenting each painting with an audio setting of what the painter may have heard surrounding him while painting and perhaps chatting with the subject of the portrait. The music is haunting, evocative, and pulls you into romantic era of these artists, from early 18th century portraits through early 20th century Impressionists. Delighted to see this DVD set is available on Amazon for @ $50, now I need to find some big Taunton or Rizzoli artbooks with these painters, because unfortunately PSU has no History of Russian Painting classes in the catalog.

This morning, a break from the rain, a splash of sunshine, but the chill is here to stay. Gloves and wristmitts to keep the damp out, and my craft room is too cold to use comfortably. So it's time to move the desktop computer back into the livingroom, rearrange the furniture again, vacuum like a madwoman, toss more stuff into the crawlspace, set up an area to study for school. The cats try to help, but I wind up shutting them in the bedroom for a few hours so I can actually get something done. They always sit just where you were pushing the couch to.
One of my favorite bloggers lives in Australia and is at the "too damn hot to knit anymore" stage of summer. I am building little nests of wool sweater for the beasties to sleep in on sunless days, every old wool store-bought sweater is a potential pet bed to me, and I have the nerve to felt a sweater I didn't knit, cut it up, and make it into something new and wooly-smelling. The beasties approve and don't have to fight over who's bed is who's anymore. It's the little things...

Hot hot hot historic telenovela will be starting after Univision's Gaviota concludes the first week of December. These are great series of Colonial Mexico, with carriages, horses, swords, duels, gowns, haciendas, rancheros, chaperones, nuns and priests, Generalissimos, mysterious spinsters, etc. Should be 9pm, maybe 8pm, depending on whether they overlap it with the finish of the Gaviota novela or not, check your Univision channel. Here in Portland it's Channel 31. What writers' strike?

Regroup Again, With More Feeling!

There was one entire sad day last week when I discovered I didn't get any of the jobs open at the Glorious Stained Glass factory. Not the manager's job, and not even the sales job, and the "thanks but no thanks" letter must have been mailed within 24 hours of that last interview, when they had another four days left until their deadline for making a decision.

Blue blue day, a half hour of stunned silence, then the rest was the swamp of dejected shadowy disappointment.

However, by the end of that day, I had circled the wagons and then set off in an entirely new direction, left the paved roads completely and blazed trails towards ----going back to school.
Started the online part of it, and the next day got the Portland State course catalog and schedule for January 2008, and sent off for transcripts, test scores retrieved from the electronic bowels of the ACT and SAT (skip PSAT) warehouse of students of the 1970s, and felt so much better.

By Friday I had had many of my questions answered by Jane Sproul at the Women's Resource Center Continuing Education Office, and I now have a sensible chronology of what to do when and what's next.

I get so psyched I can't fall asleep the past few nights, until I haul out the course catalog one more time and go over the requirements (Freshman Inquiry??? WTF???) and the tagged pages in the Anthropology and History sections, skimming Business and English/Writing, and what the different Masters' programs look like. Then I doze off thinking of studying and sitting in class again and taking notes....zzzzzzzzz until morning.

This does have a huge impact on the job search, obviously. A high-powered manager's job for only the next two months is not so hot of an idea, unless I can't get admitted until Spring or Summer Term, then that route is the way to go. If I can get admitted in time for the January 7th 2008 start of classes for Winter Term, then that $12/hr temp office thing is the way to go.
Or the mindless holiday cashiering job at any local retailer. If I'm starting school in 8 weeks, I don't care as much who's nametag I'm wearing, suddenly my Sense of Meaning is strung to a very exciting comet of finishing my degree, a solid gold Get Out of Jail Free Card, $200, Pass GO!!

Monday morning (right after Pet walking and feeding) I'm hitting the admissions and financial aid office to sign in for appointments to get more answers, and hopefully by the end of the afternoon have a rounded-out idea of a "YEA" or a "NAY" on a January start. If I have to wait a term or two----not my preferred choice, but at least I'll know and set my teeth on the bigger bone. Head down, make cash happen, stay focused on deferred gratification, still good.
If I can start in January, my neighbors will think I won the Powerball lottery, I'll be running around and screaming until the police arrive.

Winter in School, it's been 25 years since I've done that, but all intuition lights are full on green for it, all reaction by friends and family has been positive, and Jane Sproul was optimistic. I could work in the PSU Bookstore---who there would be more qualified than me?

The Actively Waiting Game

Absolute flurry of activity since Monday, and now I am on pins and needles, wondering, waiting, carrying my phone to the powder room so I at least hear it ringing, checking email 17 times an hour---no it's not the Publisher's Clearinghouse Sweepstakes, I'm waiting for word from some of the many applications I've been submitting, and still applying while I'm waiting.

My friend Steven has helped me do a breakthrough with this process, by reminding me of some staggeringly obvious things about Working: A: If you don't like it, quit soon.
B: If you need to work ASAP, it's okay to take
another retail job and keep looking for
a new job while you're earning money.
C: There's a million office jobs that will allow you
to leave the job at the office, to go home and
do the art, writing, craft pursuits that you
have re-prioritized as essential to your new,
non-B.store manager Life.
D: You had a great sabbatical, keep your values.
E: Get serious about your money & your worth.

Whew! Is he a pal or what? I've promised him a fine dining experience at our favorite local restaurant Venerable Quandry as soon as it is feasible for me, and probably some more stops at Pok-Pok nearby.

I've already checked phone and email twice while writing the above, this is madness.

So, part of the Re-invention Process for me is also remembering the interview process from the side of the table I am now on, and being warm, engaging, disarmingly competent, using just enough corp-speak to sound like I know what I'm talking about but not so much to sound like a Dilbert cartoon, and find out what the holiday scheduling will be like---I'd still like to figure out a way to get in a four day stint to FLA for Christmas, or at least get a few days off. My new priorities are showing.

I also need to make a list of all the places I've applied to, after 12 you can start to forget. This is when it really hits me that I haven't applied cold for a job in over 10 years, and before that, there was a lot of 'he knows my friend, who worked for them, who dated her' kind of thing. How often is too often to call to check on your app? My rule was if they call more than once every other day, that's too often. If I didn't respond within a week, it meant I was not interested in setting up an interview with the applicant. But the County, State and City hiring procedures are based on a cut-off application date, so if someone applies right after the job was posted, the waiting period may be three or four weeks until the hiring manager even looks at the applications. Now that I am the applicant, it gets me growling, grrrrrr.

My booth is still operating, but I had to re-evaluate the profit vs expenses aspect of it, and since I always knew at least a part-time job was in my future, I decided to do something full-time that was less interfering to my personal life than retail management, and secure benefits, too. Once I gather some more capital funds to invest in the project, I'll see greater returns, and besides, it's still a blast and very creative. In fact, I feel like I'm just getting started with it, so taking the pressure off of it to be my sole income source opens it up to more whimsical and funky ideas, just in time for the Holidays. Overall, all is good with Groovy Rhubarb. I have so many cool sweaters to sell, and things made from old sweaters that I felted and fabricated into new items. My great-aunt Meta would be so proud (and 112 years old) to see my craftiness, and she would know that she was the greatest contributor to this obsession I have, Auntie's influence lives on.

Last Chance, Sundance

*sigh*


Such high hopes for harvest, such dwindling results, and I'm talking tomatoes now.

Seven plants.

Planted the end of April, that caught all those sunny and hot May days, tenderly staked & watered.

I was planning on washtubs of salsa, pasta sauce, mountains of BLTs, maybe even a little table with a sign, "Heirloom Slicers, $2.00 a bag".

Maybe next year.

I'm taking the AC unit out of the window today, putting the box fans into the crawl space along with the AC, and switching out the duvet cover to the one that's already faded on one side from the reappearing southern sun in the bedroom windows. Moving the feline Lido Sun Deck of their permanent life-time cruise closer to the heater, and folding all the sleeveless shirts and assigning them to the back of the closet. Sweater Sniff-Test 101: Hint of Tresor perfume? Not cleaned since being laid off. Mrs. Meyers' Lemon Verbena and woolly? Recently handwashed, okay to hang in the closet. Where's my leather jacket now? How did I accumulate all these scarves? And how come it still isn't enough? Time to start another pair of fingerless gloves in some of that new Noro yarn? (calm down)

Summer's over in more ways than one. I am excited to be going into Fall (or Q3 & Q4 as we used to say) without thinking of it as The Holiday Build. I am hoping to perhaps enjoy this strange winter time habit of gift-giving and over eating that you earthlings call The Holidays.
I found my large gift bag of Christmas CDs that I took to the store every year, right on the floor in the living room closet where I heaved it in January, and I didn't even cringe. That's progress!

Sunwise, we're where we were in March, Equinox time, and continually working our way back again to December and Winter Solstice. This is how we Porch Worshippers calculate time, where is the Sun and when? Imagine trying to ripen tomatoes outside in the sun in March. You see why I despair. Thanks to my friendly neighbor Kathy, the solar domes are working their magic on the partly sunny and overcast days, but when it's full-on sunshine, I run out there and pull them off, do my Ripening Ritual Dance, then run inside before the police arrive.

This past spring, as the sun strengthened and the days lengthened, I felt less and less like working and more and more into seeking---answers, alternatives, peace of mind, perspectives, my current state of being. Autumn brings me back into wanting to get busy, languid is over, my mind sharpens, my hands are restless, I need a brisk walk, the day needs to be scheduled and the To Do List is no longer the TA-DA List, because now it's detailed and lengthly. It sounds almost like Boss Lady is back, and that may be so, in such a way that I am roping my own stray cattle in, that roamed all summer in the tall grass. Those green tomatoes are in for some serious discipline in their ripening attitude.

Beer With Bookseller Chick

Finally, a chance to get caught up with the most famous Portland blogger and also my pal and former assistant manager Linsey. Her celebrity status making even brief tete-a-tetes difficult to manage, and getting through her entourage with a message being almost impossible, it was a delight to be IM'd by L.J. Schmidt herself yesterday morning. You may also know her from her brilliant contribution to the 2007 Writers' Handbook, chumming with Erica Jong, Neil Gaiman, et al. Being so genuinely happy for her keeps me from wanting to pull her hair and teeth out with jealousy. (Jealous writers, a lethal gang indeed!)

Bringing some humble home-grown tomatoes as a feeble tribute, I spied her tall and willowy self on her way to the Bagdad and we grabbed a table on the sidewalk and proceeded to drink beer. This now being late afternoon, I should add. No bodyguards, no entourage, just we two and keepin' it real talk about life, the universe, and employment status, books, and how life is better after 25. I let her go on at length about that, agreeing with her but not wanting to be a wet blanket about the crowding 50 part of this new wisdom she's gained. There's wisdom in Hefeweisen, too, and you can get wiser and still drive home in a couple hours.

We picked the Bagdad because we are both doggie-watchers, and there's so many cute dogs walking down Hawthorne on nice sunny days, and we are both dog-less. *sigh* When she isn't doing a Houdini to get out of her bra while stuck in traffic, or shooting blue comicbook covers with friends from Darkhorse, my friend is looking for some post-retail gainful employment in the publishing industry, preferably here on the West Coast. We both had to laugh about how picky we've become after having some time off, "No nights, no weekends, no holidays, no cold-calling, no commute," and realized this will probably mean inventing some kind of work situation and maybe a limited part-time thing for moms with kids in school.

"Another round, please" as our illustrated waiter-man swept by, a DEVO shirt and faux-hawk de rigeur. He was nice and patient with our three hour squat. The woman behind us with bright cherry hair was flirting with him, and two amazingly clean and ruggedly-handsome men in their 30s sat down together, but my gay-dar wasn't working. They looked and smelled good, so I guess it didn't matter, really. We were there for the parade.

Again, Linsey and I decided we should start a business together, but with no capital and lots of ideas, it's a tad early to draw up a business plan. She doesn't want to return to modeling, and I don't want to be a boss lady anymore. I am not a Border Collie type now. We both hope that the writing thing will come through somehow, as Julia and Natalie say, "Keep writing, no matter what, keep writing!" so we both do. That thing about the money...it may be temping in our futures, a nice office-y thing for a few months at a time that we leave behind at 5:30 so we can go home and hermit ourselves with everything else we need to do that actually feeds our souls.

For me, for now, that's okay, I did a stint with The Corporate Thing already, but Linsey is early on her ascent arc and the heavens are before her. The COOL and BIG job is ahead of her, so I'm going to dust off the reference letters template I drafted earlier this spring for her, and find that logo stationery I stashed somewhere in February.

Good thing I left my entourage at home, so that none of them could see my softer side and use it against me later; projecting all this ruthless talent is hard work.

Fast Forward 20 Years

This week I met the woman I want to be in 20 years.

I acted casual, easy-going, all that laid-back stuff I do so well. But my brain was spinning like a cold fusion cube, and the high ceilings with ochre paint treatments, oil paintings, narrow french doors and old-growth timber floors were wavering and rippling around me. Had to plotz for a sec.

Old historic spaces do this to me frequently, but then also meeting this kindly multi-talented woman who owns this oasis just shot me into the Never-Never Land of Potential Future Lives.

What in the world do I do now? and a little voice said, "just what you are doing already, dear"

A few posts back, I was winge-ing on about a former employee, not calling her back, etc. Bad me. So I finally emailed her, telling her how busy I am in my new careers, starting a new project, happy happy happy, gotta go. Not only did she call about the old days in our store, she was calling because she is going to be running a seasonal kiosk for our old employer this fall and winter in our old mall storefront, and she's looking for former co-workers to work for her. I may screen all my calls until February. Talk about going backwards...

Not interested. Not even a smidge. Work for her for $8 an hour. Not happening.

That would be re-wind 10 years.

Fired off a fast email to my pal and former asst. mgr. Linsey, "Heads UP!" and all that, and reminded her she would still make more using up the rest of her unemployment than going back to that situation. "No worries!" she said, "I wished her luck and told her I might be by to get a 2008 calendar."

So the take-away here is that once you've done all the mental earth-moving to step forward into your new life, going backwards just isn't an option. Because then you are being buried alive. And I don't think that's too bleak an assessment, because of all the people I've worked with and known well who felt squeezed and took the familiar step back, and then within a week, knew it was wrong, and were kicking themselves hard to numb the regret.
Keep growing, keep moving, forge ahead, stretch out, learn a new skill, surprise yourself with another thing you do well. You'll meet new people who will enrich your life, and being bored or tolerating hours of crazy-making drama will fade and be forgotten. Get outside and enjoy this wonderful gentle late summertime to re-charge, and dive back into your new stream.

Sorry for the interruption...

Let me introduce you to my little friends...

l to r we have Senorita Zapotec, behind her a stripy black Brandywine, assorted Sungolds and Sugar Babys, and two Black Princes.

Plus I've been making a large dent in a fragrant pile of bark mulch, that only caught fire one time last week, as I'm happy to join any landscaping party that involves frozen strawberry daiquiris and rum raisin ice cream as a parting gift. Bring on another pile!
As we Portlanders know, we are about reaching the tail end of our splendid summer, and I have been spending every possible moment outside with the sunshine. So bring out some pillows to blind-stitch, buttons to card, the lap-top to write, weed some more and water the herbs, deadhead the roses, ride my bike to the library, read craigslist on the porch---tick tick tick as the sun heads south and sinks earlier behind the houses across the street. We put hoodies on by 6:30 lately, and that used to be the intense solar bake time. Next year again, I console myself.

I am so happy to declare that all my pillows sold out at Groovy Rhubarb, so the crush is on to crank out some more, as well as do some research for some friends who are interested in maybe starting up a book-type store that serves coffee. As a joke I told customers in January that after being laid off by Borders, I was going to open a consulting business. No joke after all. It's an exciting project for me, and makes the multi-stream new career that much more interesting.
Between the photography and the writing, research and selling, manufacturing and gardening, I am almost there. With heirloom tomatoes everyday! Other than my pal Linsey, I don't miss the old retail grind at all. I still get a little managerial when I go to Powells and see the can't-pretend-to-care service, and am disappointed these folks aren't a little more happy to be playing with books all day, but I'm getting better. I'm not buying books there, I'm selling, by the way. Plus, they sell CRAFTzine, okay?

Alternate Universes

I said vehemently that I wasn't interested in having my own store. And repeated this to anyone who was nearby and probably not listening anyway. In renting a booth space at House of Vintage, I was splashing in the kiddie pool of a shop-thing, but not really committing. 'Easier than a continual yard sale, yadda yadda' and felt fine with this. Fine, I said. Really.

But that's all changed now.

Thanks to CRAFTzine's blog, I am now hopelessly in lust for my own funky green/sustainable/vintage fabric-textile-fiber-sewing shop.

Rhett, whatever shall I do now? There's no hope for me.

This picture is from Ambatalia, a fabric nirvana in Mill Valley CA, and I'm so beside myself with love and inspiration and envy that I may need to walk around the block a few times and eat ice cream or something. Good god. Like the time I first stepped into the former Hexafoo retail space on Belmont and felt faint and pierced like St Ursula with raptureous pain. Here is my ready-made life, just with someone else's (husband's?) money and some sexy younger woman living it. And a small artsy staff. Maybe I can re-adjust the time-shift sequencer and do this again slowly...

No good. The owner of Ambatalia is named Molly, and her inspired visionary oasis has classes and things for kids and moms and non-moms and our ilk of fabric fanatics; anti-mall, anti-plastic, pro-sustainable and renewable, un-crassly-commercial, very creative and unique. She begins her store blog last October 31st by talking about her reluctance to throw up the usual obnoxious Xmas window display, and how her store is so not about that. I hugged my monitor. There's lots of pictures of Molly and her store and her amazing staff, and her beautiful goods, and the website is fun.

I think it was the crappy weather this past weekend for the Hawthorne Street Faire that sort of deflated my hot air balloon of love with Groovy Rhubarb, that I didn't get the sales and turn-out that I was hoping for and honestly, counting on for revenue for August. I was kinda blue-ish and not on fire this morning to whip up stuff. I spent an hour with Sunday's job classifieds, drinking what felt like really bitter coffee, but that was just my mood. Another gray chilly day, blah blah blechh. Where's my Muse today? Should I abandonez-vous?

Then I opened the link on CRAFTzine to Ambatalia's weekend fabric sale, and I decided to live again (with deep envy) and stay on focus with my own funky alt-business. If Molly can do it...

What's the Password?

The phone rings, and I'm the type who thinks, 'Hmm, is there anyone I want to speak to today? No, not really,' and listen for the machine to kick on. Sorry friends of mine, but you know I'm like this and you still love me. If there were a finger of the Pacific Ocean that reached all the way into the coastline to an isolated outcropping of land, upon which clung a driftwood cottage, that would be me, Hermit Crab Woman. The sign on my front door says "Go Away!" so don't take it personally. Just because I have a phone, doesn't mean it gets to interrupt me. I even go so far as to find a great, hefty black 1940s model, my own piece of film noir, to trick myself into wanting to answer it. Funny, but the ringer doesn't work except at night between 10:30 and 11:30, when it chirps twice, but no one is there. This is a true story, and I don't want to solve the mystery.

Someone I used to work with in the bookstore keeps calling me. And I don't call her back. This sounds bad, I know.

Why not? you ask.

Lets be honest. I don't feel nostalgic for the bookstore. I don't miss everyone I worked with. I don't want to rehash all the last days of closing it down, and where is so-and-so now? Some of us have moved on, most of us, actually. But she hasn't. I'm not her boss anymore, she's not looking for a reference from me, either. She wants to dish, and remind me what she used to do for me this time of year, and how amazing and helpful she was, and how much she misses it and the gang, and weren't those the good old days, etc. She was one of the most high-maintenance employees I've had in years, and I don't feel obligated anymore to hold her hand and play nice because it's my job.
Three times she's called me, and I don't call back. I don't even want to put my mind into the space it would have to be in to have this conversation with her, even for 20 minutes. If she worked during one of my days off, she would call and leave long snarky messages just to bug me and try to make me call the store. The time is long past where I am obligated to call her back. Move on already, please!

So I'm a jerk. Delete. Lower the volume on the machine so I can't hear it from the other side of the house. Get on with my projects. Turn up the music. Decide to finally cancel the land line. I'm such a crab.

Either Writing, or Not-Writing

Being so impressionable, I must admit to a certain ennui about blogging when my bookmarked list of favorite bloggers are not posting, thinking, "Wow, we of similar genius and brilliance must all be on the same no-blog-today page, and I didn't even get the memo---cool."

And, NO, I am not reading that dreaded doorstopper of a book that just came out which shall remain title-less in this space. Ee-gads, perish the thought!

I have been reading, and not magazines, some titles I found through our esteemed Multnomah County Library system, on Hollywood before the Decency Codes were enacted, pre-1938 films.
There is "Complicated Women" featuring the amazing sirens of the time, Barbara Stanwyck, Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, Greta Garbo, Kay Francis, Norma Shearer, Louise Brooks, Clara Bow, Joan Blondell, Jean Harlow, even Loretta Young and Myrna Loy. There's another title I am waiting to be returned, about the male actors in this pre-code era, and another one with huge photographs called, "Sin in Soft Focus" putting it all together. I can blame this all on finally getting the cable package with Turner Classic Movies, where you can start in the 1930s and not emerge until sometime the next day. So it has compelled me to begin reading again, perhaps finally warming up enough to read the new non-fiction Barbara Kingsolver book, "Animal Vegetable Miracle," the new novel "The Blood of Roses" about a young girl in Afghanistan (I think) who makes carpets, and another book on the new physics wave/particle field emanations theory. Summer will be over shortly.

Tomatoes have begun coming in, the SunGold and the SunSugar cherry toms, bright orange when fully ripe, and so sweet they are barely a vegetable, more like a tiny plum. The heat two weeks ago was great for the toms, but wiped out my marigolds and forced them to seed and they died all at once. Scattering seeds where the parent plant expired will hopefully return a few sprouts before November and frost, plus I replaced a few because I missed the sunny globes on the porch step planters. How can basil die so easily? Just a few days of heat, they were watered every day---I may have to cheat and buy a few big plants like I did last year from Trader Joe's. I was eating peas from my neighbors' garden this morning, and they said the patch was done for the summer. Ha! Before they left town, that is. And the pods are tender and as edible as the peas inside. Now, about the three ripe figs about to fall off the fig tree, purple as black grapes and soft---might have to bring those home. They have about 200 new green ones on their way to ripe, they won't miss these. Fig leaves, all jokes aside, are actually very elegant and beautiful, I'd never seen a real one so closely before, what a great woodcut or rubbing it would make. All jokes aside.

This is a week almost every year that I would have taken for vacation time from the store. I believe there was almost an unacknowledged agreement with myself about the bookends of February 1st--- being the first date of being jobless and also the announcement of the release of the 7th and final volume of that dreaded book, that would be occurring with accompanying frenzy on--- July 21st. A weird kind of stasis, purgatory-lite, now that That Book is out and done, not worked through like the past ten years of my work life (paperbacks, remember!) I feel absolutely free of it. A big book retail ritual that I missed completely! Imagine what being on the other side of a book retail Holiday Season will feel like? Giddiness is overtaking me. Kind of like when ending a relationship, just getting through the first set of holidays by marking little anniversaries, you really begin to let go for real. Two years on, you don't even remember to remember. Usually.

Official Re-Invention Chapter 3: Create Your Job

I'm job hunting.

Seriously job hunting.

As in "just a decent job I like to do" instead of "this is my next expedition up a corporate ladder."
(sooooo lucky that there are so many jobs out here right now)

What kind, where, what hours, what money, who with, how long, gotta get away at the holidays.

One of my friends suggested that I float on Groovy Rhubarb and not distract myself with another group of associates and workplace politics, just "do" the GR 60 hours a week and it would make money. And that is probably good advice, and partly true, just not enough money to live on yet. My strength is in idea formulating, conceptualizing, and BIG PICTURE stuff.

My weakness is in the details. "Where's My Staff?" Too much Martha, not enough Assignment Editor. My astrologer would say it's the Venus in Gemini, a double helping of an Eye for Beauty, more Snow White than the 7 Dwarves. Collaboration is great, I love it, but it has to be with the right person, and I do better with a layer between me and the masses. I can't do barista again, or even busy bookstore.

I am a Maker of Things.

Hopefully, of beautiful things, delicious things, useful things, descriptive and unusual things. Not so much a Seller of Things, although I have been known to fool people for a long time that I was. A Seller. But never, not really. I was rather a Provider of Place for Things to Be Bought. The Maker of Place, I am very very very good at. Provider of Selection of Things, again, very very good at. Hostess, Cheerleader, Girl with the Fan, not at all so much. I honestly don't want to be involved in making people buy just anything, as much as making something they feel they have to buy, or have to go to. What they do then is up to them. But I'd love it if they told everyone they know, "You've got to go get ______ at ________!!!" There is the perfect situation for me.
Completely pleased about making my living this way. Thank you, see you back soon.

Once upon a time, in a land far ago and away, lived a pretty but shy girl who loved books. Being in a village full of bookstores, she soon found the three that she loved more than anything else in the whole small world, and she made a wish. "Someday, I want to have my very own bookstore! It will be just how I want it, and I'll be able to unpack all the UPS boxes of new books, and read everything, and meet cool customers, and live so happily ever after!" The young girl had made some friends at one of the bookstores, run by a friendly beautiful Jewish Buddhist Witch, who let the girl learn things and volunteer at the store, and order cool incense and crystal necklaces, and invited the girl to participate in her Crafty Buddhistic Fairy Witch Circle. For some years, not enough in a row, the girl was happy to do this, and felt closer to her dream. But the girl had to leave the magic village by the river, and found herself somewhat closer to Hades, and very much farther away from her dream, or so she felt for a long time, too many years in a row.

One day, the now not as pretty and not as young woman found herself in a coffeehouse filling out an application to a bookstore, which back in the village had been only one tiny store, but had magically grown in size to encompass the entire whirld these many years. It was a serf's job, but she thought it would be a beginning. Unbeknownst to her, she was soon sucked into the gruesome, grinding Managers' Maw of the Underworld Corpse-oration the little bookstore had become, and she lost her soul, her name, her youth, her girlish figure, and her mind. How ironic, that this place had once been one of her favorite three bookstores back in the little village by the river.

Grasping at a glimmer of light she desperately hoped was the sun and not another red eye of the Beast, the woman slung herself across the land to another less grinding Managers' Maw of the Beast, and then soon again after to an even quieter eddy pool of swamp she called My Own Store. At last, gathering every fiber of beauty, kindness, laughter, magic, wit and whimsy, the woman wove a nest of wearying but entertaining labor of a noble sort, the bringing of magical books to the souls who wandered in while caught up in the Swirl of the CrassMall, the marble Tomb of the Unknown Salesgirl. There was, for a short time, a momentary Oasis of Knowledge and Wonder. Insanity and illogic, of course, still being an appendage of the Corpse-oration, but then suddenly, at the most insane, at the most frantically intense, the fairies were all set free.
The spell was broken, the ring of fire became gentle rain, passing to the clear blue sky and happy sun above and plenty of hours to sleep and be rested. There was much rejoicing.

And the woman had a large View of Realization---having emerged from this tale of enslavement and enchantment, two of her biggest wishes in her entire life had been granted. First of which was to have her very own bookstore, that had her stamp upon it, and she had completed the fulfillment of that wish. The Second Wish, well, meeting Robert Plant in her very own bookstore was pretty much the Sword from the Stone kind of event. She was completely and deliriously satisfied how miraculously the second wish had been fulfilled. And called everyone she knew. And cried.

And the Third Wish? Obviously to the woman, embarking on this was the next part of her journey. And, curiously enough, it was not instantly revealed to her exactly what that Wish was. She had been a stranger to herself for so many years, there was an awkward small-talk and getting reacquainted phase to accomplish, getting to know and trust this bold and free person she was becoming. Some mornings, she awoke excited and ready to live the rest of her life as this creative and fearless person. Other times, it was all just too much, she was shy and completely at a loss, alone and afraid. Her Fairy Stepsisters were off in far off lands, cranking out their own Realization Magic, and sent their love and sparkling encouragement, hugs, emails, and cackles. One afternoon, the answer to her seeking, the Vision of the Third Wish bloomed in her mind, and she felt a relief to her many questions. There was now a direction to head into, a place to look towards for her bearings. And she knew it was the right thing to do, completely.

Anything else was a path back to bondage, a compromise and distraction from her clear sight.

"All of my power, all of my gifts are in the Making of Beauty, the Creating of Beautiful Space. These years deep in the earth have shown me how to make something from meager tools and ingredients, to keep it alive and finally succeed. The Masters I have served pressed me into a Diamond of Light and from now on, I have to keep shining, keep making, keep sparking the fires of creativity.

My Third Wish is to live as an Artist, at this age I will not sell my soul again, I won't give up on what I value, I am eager to live my Genuine Life, bring to life what I see in my mind, and give it to the world. And do it again and again, as long as I live. And I'll continue on even after that."

WorkSpace: The Final Frontier

Having been living La Vida Loca this weekend, three birthdays and one more tomorrow, there was little writing done. Or working. But lots of Life, the Universe & Everything chatting, drinking, snacking, and grilling. And porch sitting. With dizzying moments of those woo-woo-woo swirly, 3-D, eyes gazing skyward, "What would happen if...?" daydreaming.

What would happen if...Steven and I were off work at the same time, brainstormed how to make a fortune, and lived happily ever after next door to each other?

What would happen if my JunkWench business actually took off, and I had to actually hire on help?

What would it look like if I did house-sitting, garden-watering, pet-tending as an actual part time enterprise, so much per hour, many references, early AM hours preferred? Like $20 per hour or per visit minimum, here's my card.

How much does it cost to get a trailer hitch put on, and find an itty bitty trailer to haul stuff around instead of getting a truck?

Will the universe bless me with limitless abundances if I haul a bunch of stuff I don't know what to do with to the curb with a big "FREE" sign on the tree? Will this stoke my Good Karma? Will the neighbors complain?

Suddenly, I am revisiting my urge to design furniture, and have found some sympathetic souls who appreciate affordable modern chair design. Should I concede defeat to the IKEA gods and just forget the whole idea? Is this the seductive voice of the Viking trickster god Loki leading me like a lemming off the cliff?

Steven suggested finding an agreeable intimate friend to share householding with, two living more cheaply than one, go in on a house together...and I said, "You mean sex for money?" He gave me that patient look, like I'm the last dance hall girl holding up the bar on a Saturday night.
"No, silly, a caring roommate or friend," and I remarked that at this point I was much more likely to find a job. Then he quit talking to me.

The Perfectionist is wreaking havoc with my Inner Buddha. "Don't you even think about painting canvases until you get that studio space completely organized!" "Focus on the money-making projects, don't squirrel around with the fun art stuff until you're making some more money." We all know this tyrant. The one who also makes you buy the 99 cent shampoo that gives you troll hair. "Don't you dare get the Pantene until you are making money!"

The curious thing, is that I am basically living the daydream life I always envisioned while on an interminable conference call with the mute button on the whole two hours, or taking another 6 hour register shift during Christmas, or sort of enjoying my day off while dreading the phone ringing at any moment to break the spell. Except for the $10 million dollars part, that is, from the amazing book deal/movie rights/wheelie suitcase full of unmarked $100 bills on the curb part. Or even, say, lower 6 figures to get warmed up from some genius idea I sold for fun and profit. I have that life right now---with less than a month to fire up the Money Generay-tor.

Being a very creative person, I am receptive to ideas from other people, and I spend much time going off into Brainstorm Mode, don't make any prejudicial limits here. When I know damn well that I want to futz with fabric and fibers, funky vintage stuff, paints and writing, webstuff and digital images, and not ever wear a name tag ever again. Even one of those name stickers you are supposed to write your name on illegibly in hotel ballrooms with bad coffee.
"HELLO! I'M trying to play nice today."

Now don't spread this around, but I've even thought about putting an apron on again and working for a caterer, as long as I never have to deal with the clients in any shape whatsoever.
I can make all the food, even platter it up if you insist, but Mrs. Hargrove and I must never breathe the same air. You schmooze, I'll make the kugel.

In the meantime, I'm off to fluff-and-puff the Groovy Rhubarb booth, add some new stock, and figure out how to get a large antique trunk from my basement to the House of Vintage. This trunk alone could make the month for me. How about one of those four coaster-wheel moving dollies and a short rope? I'll drive really slow through the neighborhood and only make 2 right turns. These are moments when you pay the price for all this rugged individualism.

Hand Cramps & Forearm Seizures

No, not from gardening, but from choosing a freakingly tiny yarn and needle size to fabricate the beautiful short-sleeved sweater for Betty, and having an unrealistic deadline for completing it. It's a combination Mother's Day & Birthday gift, them being within 6 weeks of each other this year, and she's cool with that. But this morning my hands are frozen like claws, and my forearms are twitching and so fatigued I can hardly type. And I'm not even half done. But the back piece is almost done, and the yarn makes a stunning fabric, I'm deliriously happy about that. Pretty sure she'll find it cool enough in its rayon-blend light weight to wear, and that the colors are what she wanted. Her friends will be impressed. It will look great with black and other bright solids she has. I hope I will actually take today off from knitting and let myself recover, maybe immerse myself in some hot dishwater and get dishes done, or better yet, go for a steam and a good pounding in the clinical strength hot tub at the gym. (Can I grip a steering wheel safely?)

Over the weekend, I had an afternoon of insanity, and hung out on eBay bidding on batches of old buttons. To make cool stuff with. To sell. The "Ideas" notebook is filling up, and I saw some amazing button creations that inspired me to make something less cutesy and more funky. It is true, the Etsy bug has bitten me, and I'm in a fever to create, to make, to arts around. There is a new Thrift Emporium on Hawthorne, near the wildly popular Presents of Mind, where a used books & magazine shop used to be. The neighboring Thrift Stall Shop expanded to take over the entire building, and I'm checking it out, rates, percentage of price commission, rent, etc. to see about having a booth to sell things, that I don't have to inhabit while it's open. That is the cool thing about these Emporiums. Your merchandise tags have your vendor code on them, and the customer takes up the stuff they've picked from the various vendors to the central cashier, and you get credit by the code for the merchandise of yours that is purchased. So I could sell online as well as locally and not be tied to a store 7 days a week all hours. And the Emporium would be great to sell the bigger items I have, antiques, books, records, heavy stuff, odds & ends. Stuff that would be challenging to mail if sold online. Re-purpose, re-use, re-sell, re-furbish, re-invent.

Right now, I could really use a hand and arm massage. Signing off for now, maybe more later...

"We're Closing Because----" du Jour

It began harmlessly enough, some eye rolls, sighs, exasperated sidelong glances, tight-lipped "have a great day"s...I can't even remember the exact comment that sent me off into raucous hysteria, but none of us could hide that this question was getting too tedious; because the only real reason is because this person and 10,000 other maniacs didn't buy enough items in our store. There's the discount warehouses, suburban big boxes, 60" plasma orgasm fund-sucker factor, on-line buying, construction junction, grocery check-out line co-options, lots and lots of money mouths to feed, okay. 'Nuff said, we're closing. No one has jobs lined up, and it so sucks. Perhaps a concerned comment, thank you, we'll miss you, too. But when someone asks merely to let you know how much this inconveniences them to walk one block to another store to purchase the same two $1.99 & $3.49 magazines...this started the descent into madness and delirium.

I stood at the computer and began 99 pt typing "We're closing because--" and a customer receiving her change back said "Wow, I've never seen Iowa" upon spying an Iowa state quarter. I typed "--I've never seen Iowa" and that was the first sign. I did not stop laughing for at least an hour. It got progressively worse. "We're closing because my millionaire boyfriend insists" was next, "We won Powerball and you didn't", "the book deal came through", I've been appointed Minister of Culture of the Czech Republic," "our mission on this planet is complete", "it's time to make the donuts," "your mom needs me bad" (no, not that one) "American Idol's auditioning" and you got the idea. Hi-larious, over the top, snarky and for once, very real. As in, the souls behind the name-tags.

Most people laughed. An actual couple from Iowa thought it was bizarre. Most people got the gist, another store a block away, ha ha, but we liked your place better. The next question of "What's going in here then?" is the one I want to do next, but I think I'm feeling bitter and will be the only person to get the joke. "Watch for 'Big Bubba Hubba's Tattoo Removal and Face Tightening' by Feb 15!" Or the "Ganesh Love Handle Candle & Pawn". Landlord would love those ideas.

Sometimes you just need to laugh, and bring a lot of people with you. Try to keep up.

Tomorrow is our actual last day with customers. Then the sparkling carriage turns into a humble punkin again, and Saturday morning dawns haggard on instantly worthless products, mountains of packing, sorting, and ruthlessly dumpstering. It all reminds me of the bleakest Ebenezer Scrooge of all, Alastir Sim in a B&W post-war London film studio's Victorian sets, with the ragpickers, scullery maids and undertakers bickering over Scrooge's linens, bed curtains, and measly effects. I love that film, it's so real, and always converts me from my Scroogeyness. I feel gratitude, and quit being a crab-ass, and feel gently blessed.

This term of service with this company has been a ride that has provided me with a lifetime of material, for which I am , if not grateful, at least thrilled to escape with. We will put on some Led Zeppelin, inappropriate t-shirts, eat pizza and drink way too much Coke, pack up the detritus and redundancy, and hit the street full of party plans. Try to keep up.