Welcome to the rebellious blog of an obsessively overly perfectionistic artist, who is compelled to create and occasionally write about the proccess. Do artists really have to be crazy to create? Perhaps not, but the water is warm, so dive in and find out! RSS Feed "Be a good craftsman; it won't stop you being a genius." - Auguste Renoir 11/28/2005 song du jour: Constant Rain, Sergio Mendez mood: listening to the rain from atop my soapbox I must be in ESP mode, because I keep writing in my head only to find, less than an hour later, that someone is talking or blogging examples of the very same subject. It's happened twice today. The second time was while I was skimming Egyptology News with my same old arguments and outrages going round in my head at people, who are upset about the current Tutankhamen exhibition. I was asking myself if I finally had the courage to blog them when I noticed a new RSS entry in my reader from Matthew PAGLIA ON ANCIENT EGYPTIAN ART AND MULTICULTURALISM In a 1997 Salon.com column, Paglia discusses Afro-centric interpretations of Egyptian artwork, and the paradox of it in its extreme posture: Militant Afrocentrism has stirred up poisonous resentment against the supposed European suppression and erasure of Egyptian culture. In point of fact, it was Africans who almost immediately looted and smashed up the royal tombs and afterward neglected or stripped and dismantled the sacred monuments. The great Egyptian sites, including Deir el Bahri, Karnak and Abu Simbel, were piles of rubble buried in sand for 2000 years until Europeans took an interest in them. ...Egypt and all of Africa deserve a much expanded place in the academic curriculum, —but not at the expense of European intellectual history, which invented the very tools that multiculturalism needs to understand the world. Here here. I would dare to say that the term 'Afrocentrism' is even wackier than 'Eurocentrism' because it collapses even greater glorious diversity into a single 'ism.' Oh, how flatland. During my second trip to Egypt, I lived on a street that specialized in foreigners. (I was the American oddity as far as my neighbors were concerned.) There were a great number of people from Ethiopia, Sudan, and Somalia. Twice I went to Aswan, which was once part of Nubia. As an artist, who is endlessly fascinated by the infinite beauty and variety of shapes, sizes, and colors that human beings come in, I was lucky I was in a culture where staring is not considered rude for I could never take my eyes off the women from Somalia. Most have the most delicate facial bone structure I've ever seen, and the undertones of skin colors of people from a relatively small geographic chunk of Africa run a gorgeous range of reds,ochress, and sepias for which the generic term 'African' cannot even hint. I haven't even begun to talk about the diversity of art and culture. Top 40 music in North Carolina sounds the same in California, not so the music of east and west Africa. In another part of Paglia's column not quoted here, she discusses the vast misinterpretation of Martin Bernal's book Black Athena, which I read back in collage and which I'll agree with Paglia has been misinterpreted and misused simply because of what its title suggests and not because of any (really boring) scholarship inside. Now frankly, I'm willing to give Africa ultimate credit for everything. Unless someone digs up older homo _____ bones on some other continent, it's really the motherland for us all, but if you're going to insist that Cleopatra was black, you'd better read up on some Egyptian history, because she was in fact Macedonian, a descendant of General Ptolemy, later known as Sotor, and appointed by Alexander the Great, whom Macedonians get really upset if you refer to as Greek. I get a little upset with the appropriation of famous people to any group, ethnic or social. It's like when people, who think they know who they were in past lives insist they were scribes in Egypt. Ever notice no one ever says "I was a latrine cleaner in ancient Egypt?" Oh, and to Anne Rice, you picked the wrong Cleopatra in the book The Mummy. Cleo the VII is the famous one not Cleo the VI. But here is my big question to everyone, who is upset that the recent reconstructions of King Tut are too pale: If the ancient Egyptians were ethnically the same as sub-Saharran Africans (as if, as I've already said, it weren't horribly offensive to reduce millions of people to looking exactly alike), where did they go? Alexandria may have been a hub for slave trade in Roman times, but it was merely a central location where humans from all over the empire were ruthlessly traded as a commodity. Egypt was not emptied of its citizens. The Arabians came thru with the rise of Islam, and while a few stayed and intermarried, they most certainly did not obliterate the existing population. Ask a modern Egyptian about this bit of controversy, and you'll get a response that loosely translates into "What am I? Chopped liver?!? I didn't just pop up here from no where you know." Don't even try suggesting the pyramids were built by aliens. Back in Cairo, Skyler has a cousin, whose giant eyes are so almond shaped, you really can almost see them (one at a time that is) as frontal when she's in profile, and I have a friend, who is a dead ringer for King Tut. I've gotten, or rather avoided getting into this argument too many times, because it's so unP.C. Anyone who takes this same side is considered racist, and with me, people couldn't be barking up a more wrong tree. In the end, we can't just select what we like out of history and ignore the rest - like redneck southern whites, who talk of being Ango Saxon, forgetting William the Conqueror and that most Appalachian whites are a mix of English (which is made up of far more than the Angles and Saxons) and Scotch Irish (Celts, who were no friends of the Angles or the Saxons), not to mention often Native American and West African. Those urban legends about statue rhynoplasty, from Nefertiti to the Sphinx at Giza are just that, legends. The Germans didn't make substitutions and Napoleon didn't fire a cannon to make all of Europe think they can claim the Egyptians as theirs. I still champion the idea that those who saved, conserved, and are taking the best care of the monuments may hang onto them for the time being. If Dr. Zahi Hawass wants the Rosetta Stone, he can damned well go save the Valley of the Kings from more devastation first, but the only people who can claim the ancient Egyptians are the Egyptians themselves. 11:53 PM - permanent link email this entry to a friend 0 comments song du jour: Constant Rain, Sergio Mendez mood: listening to the rain from atop my soapbox I must be in ESP mode, because I keep writing in my head only to find, less than an hour later, that someone is talking or blogging examples of the very same subject. It's happened twice today. The second time was while I was skimming Egyptology News with my same old arguments and outrages going round in my head at people, who are upset about the current Tutankhamen exhibition. I was asking myself if I finally had the courage to blog them when I noticed a new RSS entry in my reader from Matthew PAGLIA ON ANCIENT EGYPTIAN ART AND MULTICULTURALISM In a 1997 Salon.com column, Paglia discusses Afro-centric interpretations of Egyptian artwork, and the paradox of it in its extreme posture: Militant Afrocentrism has stirred up poisonous resentment against the supposed European suppression and erasure of Egyptian culture. In point of fact, it was Africans who almost immediately looted and smashed up the royal tombs and afterward neglected or stripped and dismantled the sacred monuments. The great Egyptian sites, including Deir el Bahri, Karnak and Abu Simbel, were piles of rubble buried in sand for 2000 years until Europeans took an interest in them. ...Egypt and all of Africa deserve a much expanded place in the academic curriculum—but not at the expense of European intellectual history, which invented the very tools that multiculturalism needs to understand the world. Here here. I would dare to say that the term 'Afrocentrism' is even wackier than 'Eurocentrism' because it collapses even greater gloriousdiversityy into a single 'ism.' Oh, how flatland. During my second trip to Egypt, I lived on a street that specialized in foreigners. (I was the American oddity as far as my neighbors were concerned.) There were a great number of people from Ethiopia, Sudan, and Somalia. Twice I went to Aswan, which was once part of Nubia. As an artist, who is endlessly fascinated by the infinite beauty and variety of shapes, sizes, and colors that human beings come in, I was lucky I was in a culture where staring is not considered rude for I could never take my eyes off the women from Ethiopia. Most have the most delicate facial bone structure I've ever seen, and the undertones of skin colors of people from a relatively small geographic chunk of Africa run a gorgeous range of reds,ochress, and sepias for which the generic term 'African' cannot even hint. I haven't even begun to talk about the diversity of art and culture. Top 40 music in North Carolina sounds the same in California, not so the music of east and west Africa. In another part of Paglia's column not quoted here, she discusses the vast misinterpretation of Martin Bernal's book Black Athena, which I read back in collage and which I'll agree with Paglia has been misinterpreted and misused simply because of what its title suggests and not because of any (really boring) scholarship inside. Now frankly, I'm willing to give Africa ultimate credit for everything. Unless someone digs up older homo _____ bones on some other continent, it's really the motherland for us all, but if you're going to insist that Cleopatra was black, you'd better read up on some Egyptian history, because she was in fact Macedonian, a descendant of General Ptolemy, later known as Sotor, and was appointed by Alexander the Great, whom Macedonians get really upset if you refer to as Greek. I get a little upset with the appropriation of famous people to any group, ethnic or social. It's like when people, who think they know who they were in past lives insist they were scribes in Egypt. Ever notice no one ever says "I was a latrine cleaner in ancient Egypt?" Oh, and to Anne Rice, you picked the wrong Cleopatra in the book The Mummy. Cleo the VII is the famous one not Cleo the VI. But here is my big question to everyone, who is upset that the recent reconstructions of King Tut are too pale: If the ancient Egyptians were ethnically the same as sub-Saharran Africans (as if, as I've already said, it weren't horribly offensive to reduce millions of people to looking exactly alike), where did they go? Alexandria may have been a hub for slave trade in Roman times, but it was merely a central location where humans from all over the empire were ruthlessly traded as a commodity. Egypt was not emptied of its citizens. The Arabians came thru with the rise of Islam, and while a few stayed and intermarried, they most certainly did not obliterate the existing population. Ask a modern Egyptian about this bit of controversy, and you'll get a response than loosely translates into "What am I? Chopped liver?!? I didn't just pop up here from now where you know." Don't even try suggesting the pyramids were built by aliens. Back in Cairo, Skyler has a cousin, whose giant eyes are so almond shaped, you really can almost see them (one at a time that is) as frontal when she's in profile, and I have a friend, who is a dead ringer for King Tut. I've gotten, or rather avoided getting into this argument too many times, because it's so unP.C. Anyone who takes this same side is considered racist, and with me, people couldn't be barking up a more wrong tree. In the end, we can't just select what we like out of history and ignore the rest - like redneck southern whites, who talk of being Ango Saxon, forgetting William the Conqueror and that most Appalachian whites are a mix of English and Scotch Irish, not to mention often Native American and West African. Those urban legends about statue rhynoplasty, from Nefertiti to the Sphinx at Giza are just that, legends. The Germans didn't make substitutions and Napoleon didn't fire a cannon to make all of Europe think they can claim the Egyptians as theirs. I still champion the idea that those who saved, conserved, and are taking the best care of the monuments may hang onto them for the time being. If Dr. Zahi Hawass wants the Rosetta Stone, he can damned well go save the Valley of the Kings first, but the only people who can claim the ancient Egyptians are the Egyptians themselves. 11:53 PM - permanent link email this entry to a friend 0 comments 11/22/2005 song du jour: Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, Movement 1, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart as (constantly) hummed by Skyler mood: thankful Trans Feminism, Le Feminism Nouvelle, or Crossing the Great Span (and Delving in with Depth) I've been giving even more thought than usual lately to the defining and embracing a kind of feminism that, unlike the NECESSARY and DEEPLY APPRECIATED feminism of the past, doesn't limit my choices and make me (and a significant bunch of femme-kind) feel confined, perhaps even toward something that doesn't leave all you poor guys out there wondering if you'll ever get it right around us superwomen. I know I'm not alone in this hunger, for suddenly I seem to be surrounded by other women, and men, in this emerging dialog. It used to just happen when I picked up a David Deida book. Now it's on Charlie Rose, linked in my comments section, in other women's blogs, and even on the lips and quips of my Volvo mechanic. Yesterday, when, mercifully, my transmission stopped acting up just as suddenly and mysteriously as it had started, my mechanic with the non stop one liners told me he harbored John Wayne fantasies. (?) Tentatively (I don't like westerns), I asked him to elaborate, and so he shared with me that secretly, he wanted to make it all better for his customers. He wanted to come in and save the day, be the hero, make my car troubles go away. "That's fine!" I told him, but he insisted men aren't supposed to do that anymore. "No, really, I don't mind. You can even open the door for me. I won't be the least bit insulted." It's come to that. Except for the few, who haven't figured out the days of the barbarian conquests were over a thousand years back (unless you're part of the Bush administration), most guys seem afraid to make a move or play the hero for fear of getting taken down. When my car breaks down, even more than when I have the flu, I just want someone, who knows what they're doing, to make it all better and without treating me like I'm too stupid to know where/what the tires are. None of us are good at everything. That's why we seek out experts to whom we can outsource. Shouldn't that include the play of the polarities, the fun of the battle of the sexes? After all, no one wants to be told the reason you're in bed with someone is because you're too dumb and inadequate to do it by yourself. Let me back up a second and explain that all caps above and, um, cover my posterior curves a minute. I said "necessary and deeply appreciated" because I first and foremost acknowledge the immense work, frustration, anguish, and determination of all the suffragettes and feminists, who fought so I could vote, own property, and, at least in theory, earn the same pay for the same work as men. When we women criticize the down side and the less fortunate effects of feminism, we must always remember were it not for the pioneering feminists, we'd have far more to complain about, but as in our own individual growth, changes in culture and society often embrace the polar opposite in their quest to move upward and onward, and so, naturally, feminism in it's original form since World War II, paved the way for us to act as masculine as we wanted or needed to have the freedom of choice and the social and financial independence that men have had for centuries. The trouble is I'm not a man. I'm not even remotely like a man. I don't even presume to know what it feels like to be a man. - I used to have a close friend, who is a transexual, and who used to roll her eyes at any pre-op man, who claimed that he'd always "felt more like a woman." They didn't like her much when she'd ask them how the hell they could possibly know what that felt like since they had not in fact become women. I appreciated her stereotype blasting, but ironically, post op, she became a catty vicious bitch from hell, and we parted ways. - I know what it's like to assume all roles in life: mother, father, homemaker, bread winner, career person, artist, business woman, unschooling mom, flirt from hell, vixen, vamp, brainiac, logical one, and when necessary, ball buster. I don't have any idea what it's like to eagerly await the next issue of Maxim, nor have I ever laughed or am ever likely to laugh at fart jokes. I will freely admit, though, that I hate to ask for directions. It's not pride really, just bad short term aural memory (If I don't write them down, they're gone out the other ear.) and well, ok, an arrogant belief that people often don't know what the hell they're talking about even when they feel compelled to speak as if they do. I just watched Maureen Dowd on Charlie Rose. (Charlie, I had no idea that you're looking, but, honey, I'm everything you say you want, and I've had a crush on you for years!) Funny thing is, I was thinking that if I weren't so boringly straight I could get a crush on her too, when Charlie quoted someone else, who described Maureen Dowd as someone with whom you can't help but fall a little in love. Amidst her brilliant political analysis (and a whole big bunch of those 2 flirting) was the characteristic Rose style zing in question, "Do men find you intimidating?" Needless to say, I put down my pliers and gave the TV all my attention. "Not men who know me. I think, or I hope." was her reply. I used to think that was just the worst most depressing thing to hear from men (next to any even remotely derogatory comments about any of my body parts). There's nothing so alarming as hearing one is regarded as intimidating after articles of clothing have already been shed. That's happened to me more than once, but now, bored with the repetitious scenario, I'm more likely just to enjoy the ridiculous of it as one more asset in my dealt hand of flirt cards. Why not? All the qualities that make me regarded as intimidating are things I like about myself, and they are better than playing up my weaknesses. Vulnerability may be hot, but Achilles heels in the way of inferiority complexes most certainly are not. Courtesy of a blog comment, I found this from The Good Body by Eve Ensler. When a group of ethnically diverse, economically disadvantaged women in the United States was recently asked about the one thing they would change in their lives if they could, the majority of these women said they would lose weight. Maybe I identify with these women because I have bought into the idea that if my stomach were flat, then I would be good, and I would be safe. I would be protected. I would be accepted, admired, important, loved. Maybe because for most of my life I have felt wrong, dirty, guilty, and bad, and my stomach is the carrier, the pouch for all that self-hatred. As Dowd stated, sometime after deciding how we look doesn't matter, we flung ourselves to the other extreme, willing to submit to any promise, any anorexic air brushed magazine icon, any toxin, any knife. Me, I'm a slave to alpha hydroxies. I'll be fine as long as I can just peel my face off on a regular basis. So on the occasions when my top has been long gone by the time I've heard the 'i' word used to describe me, part of me was thinking "bloody hell, not again!" and part of me was thinking, "It's because my stomach isn't concave, isn't it?" I've been on the verge of making peace with the whole middle section of my anatomy. Usually about the time I get ok with being a Venus, who's born a child, I start mourning gravity in other areas. Atlanta is a skin city even in the cold, and everywhere are waifs in wonderbras or silicone with straight lines from the bottom of their last top curves, straight past their unpuckered hip huggers, and down to their knee caps. I want to like my belly. I've spent enough time learning how to flutter, shimmy, and roll it up and down. If I lived in another era or another culture, I'd likely be regarded as too skinny, but when I catch a glimpse of the post mama-hood me dancing on video, I vow to give up cake forever. It doesn't work. I'd rather hate my belly and love cake. Oh, to one day love both. One of the things I love most about my crazy, role embracing life is it's inherent (and desperately necessary) spontaneity. One minute I'm working at my bench, the next I'm baking bread, the next Skyler and I are erupting his new volcano kit. This is a normal day for us. I was elated to see this from Hannah Dallman on her blog: I'm so invested in this motherhood business that I feel that what I do next will have to blossom from that. And, I feel funny about that. Like it's a cop-out to make something about that, or I won't be taken seriously enough, maybe even be a little embarrassed that I want to talk about motherhood and babies and all those desires that are tied in with wanting to care for your child while still having a career. So, what is it that's making me feel so embarrassed about shouting my desire from the rooftops; through film or otherwise? Could it be that feminism has new ground to cover? It's accomplished one mission of releasing women of feeling guilt about their sexual desire; allowing it to be a wild thing in the midst of 'tame civilization.' Why is it that all our images of motherhood are soft focus portraits of women in frilly nightgowns contentedly nursing their newborns or of scattered housewives, embittered by their domestic trappings? Isn't there a better option out there? Where are the real role models of motherhood? Where do we see the true, real intensity of the desire to protect and nurture our young? ...I have shunned advice to cover myself while I nurse in public, and now proudly consider myself a 'lactivist.' I bring my baby wherever I go, to school, to a cafe, to yoga, to visit with friends, to a film set. And I don't want to be ashamed to talk about my experiences or my deep desire to mother through my art. I remember it well. I didn't have frilly nightgowns either except for the one my mother bought me, which wouldn't even fit over my post pregnancy bust size and added to the hormone induced night sweats, exacerbated by an emergency c-section (the one that made my belly ripped but not in the way of a 6-pack). I didn't think it was cool to make art about mothering, and so it came out anyway If you click on that link, look at that piece really closely. It's my inadvertent self portrait. From there began the giant shift in my work from the elements to the play of masculine and feminine forces. So, where is the feminism that embraces ALL of this? Where is the ideology, the lingo, the rallies, and the public awareness that encompasses ALL our energy in diversity, for that's what the feminism is: the countless ways energy manifests in this world. We can each only embody a section of the spectrum at a time, but holding space, letting patriarchy die means understanding that expecting us to confine ourselves to one role, one set of desires, one set of acceptable behaviors is oppression. Where is the place that I can resolve a love for FM shoes, 'lactivist' emeritus curves, sharp wit, honed logic, boundless creativity, and mother bear love? The place where I can be but don't have to be everything? Within. And without. 6:32 PM - permanent link email this entry to a friend 3 comments 11/14/2005 song du jour: Digging Your Scene, The Blow Monkeys mood: giddy Naked Adornment This week's featured artist on Integral Naked ME! :-) (The first month is free!) 3:37 AM - permanent link email this entry to a friend 5 comments 11/12/2005 song du jour: Let's Fall in Love, Diana Krall mood: do you really want to know? Gee, Thanks 'W.' The Temperature Inside My House is 60 F (If only it were as cold in here as it is in my fridge right now...) One isn't likely to grow up in the South, born of pre-boomer, middle class, parents, who were the first in their families to graduate college, and not be raised amidst rampant conservativism. It occurred to me after a recent exchange about Buckleyian Conservatism (which apparentlywarrantss a capital 'C' for some reason) with Matthew, that this is a bit of my past I've so long taken for granted, I've never really discussed it. My parents missed or just couldn't be bothered with being hippies, and so, of course, those people, who dressed so much cooler (The 70's was my mother's 'beige period.'), and who seemed to be passionately upset about really important stuff got my attention as opposed to my father, who was always onlywrappedd up in himself, or my mother who was consumed with work and, well, raising me. One thing a conservative raised daughter turned democrat turned way bigger picture than most people ever bother looking at learns is that the buck might or might not stop here, but it certainly starts here. I have a sense of self responsibility so strong that it borders on neurotic. I can be justifiably angry at the injustice I see and experience, and I'll rail about it where appropriate, but in the end, even that is probably because I feel like it's my responsibility, and so, as I sit here freezing in my house that feels colder than outside (current Atlanta temp 58 F), it might sound contradictory to say I blame the President, but I do. Why? Because everyone else does. (Huh?) Seriously. In this country, where spin and opinion are everything, the economy is not driven by the worth of the $ or the price of oil or precious metals. It's not driven by holidays. It's not even driven by government really. It's driven by fear. Fear of lack. Fear of things falling apart. Fear of diseases, natural disasters, and, most scary, the unknowable future. Oh, all those previously listed reasons play their part, but our ability to handle them is more effect than cause. Trust me. I know. So does anyone else, who is self employed and in the business of non necessity products. There are plenty of women, who will argue jewelry is not a non-necessity, but you know what I mean, luxury items that are retailed. Unfortunately, no matter how much intent and state of consciousness might go into a work of art, the actual selling and collecting of artifacts is intimately tied to retail trends. In this studio, it doesn't take long at all to feel the trickle down economics run dry. You see, I used to get into heated debates about what's wrong with America with my Egyptian friends (nothing like being the liberal, who has to play defend the empire, sheesh!), and be they taxi driver or a close friend's father, who was head of the national bank (that the equivalent of Alan Greenspan's position over here), the understanding of American politics is based on the idea that the president has the same power here as your average Middle Eastern president (read elected dictator for life) or European prime minister. I would try to explain that our government didn't really work that way, but in the end out of frustration, I'd say, "I'll be sure to convey your sentiments to Bill next time we have tea." Nowadays, they're closer to the truth thanks to a little governmental department, known as Homeland Security, but how I know about that is another story. So why do I blame the president? Like I said, because most everyone else does, which is NOT to say that I agree it's always accurate to do so, but because I'm witnessing others' behavior. Before I sound as though I'm experiencing a momentary unheard of conventional moment, I'll explain. Much as it pains me to say this, the complaints of all the gallery owners I know is not actually 'W's' direct fault. Ok, he picked the SS...uh, um, I mean the appointees that have more direct influence over us all. Do I give him credit when things are better? (That's a hypothetical question.) No. I didn't even give Clinton all that much credit when the economy was good, and I liked him. - Ah, for the days when all we worried about was an illicit blow job...Only in America could there be equal amounts of outrage at one lied about orgasm and the mass torture of Abu Gharib and Guatanamo prisoners. My general feeling is if your biggest problem is an orgasm, things just can't be all that bad. - The President carries the burden simply because how people feel about the future of the economy is directly related to whether they approve or disapprove of ouchiefif. When people are confident about the future, they spend money, and when people are scared about the future, they hold onto their money. Our collective fear is directed to the top of the pyramid. Fear = save/don't spend + wait and see. Plain as that. Now, having lived thru the summer retail lull (a generous word for this year's slump), and having made relative peace with my 6 month stint of NOT using a single credit card being firmly behind me, I sit here in the cold, wearing the fleece jacket my mother bought me when she decided polar fleece was the greatest thing since toasters (the one I never wear because it makes me feel like a fuzzy, shapeless, purple blob) because the one rate plan on my gas bill renews next month, and if I turn my heat on, I'm screwed for a year. Of course, I will be anyway, given the predicted HUGE rate increases on natural gas, but for she for whom the buck starts here, there is an illusion of at least a tiny amount of control. Ok, so it isn't entirely 'W's' fault that my leaky gas line to the furnace had to be replaced, or that the central air cleaner's shot insides is why I've had mildew from hell (at least something was still undewarrantyee!), or that the gas leak in my house turned out to include most of the T and Y connectors in the gas pipes under my house, requiring that I have ALL THE GAS PIPES REPLACED last Tuesday (quick, where's a credit card with space?!?), or that after spending next month's mortgage payment money to pay this month's bills last night I went in for some ice cream therapy (which I was going to down with my feet on the hot water bottle) and discovered that the bottom of line, cheap FRIDGE a previous (TIGHT WAD) co-owner picked out a mere 5 years ago HAD SUNG IT'S LAST SWAN SONG, and I can't believe how fast Sears gave me a new credit card! -Wow, my high school English teachers were wrong. You can make entire paragraphs out of single sentences. - No, sometimes, junk dies, but just remember, the gift giving season is coming, and if you were thinking of trickling on over this way, you might find something just about to go on sale, if you ask nice. ;-) Hey, I've been out doing my part to drive the economy, fearing cold, salmonella, and he who will have to go without chocolate milk on demand until the new fridge comes next Tuesday (along with the VERY badly needed new dishwasher to replace the one that timidly spits on my dirty dishes. Gee, hey,what's spending 4k you don't have when you've already spent 3k?), because they are even scarier than the thought of a less than lucrative Xmas season, especially that last one. So, if you're not busy, we're free for dinner (and lunch and breakfast) for the next few days. I promise not to talk politics. ;-) And in the meantime Courtesy of Jean 10:33 PM - permanent link email this entry to a friend 0 comments 11/06/2005 song du jour: Weather Storm, Craig Armstrong mood: I figure I'll be recovered by January Mr. Metrosexual, aka The Mad Hatter, and My Hero the Man from the Gas Company I just survived the throwing of Skyler's 6th birthday party! We've been reading Alice in Wonderland for the past month or so and decided this year's theme would be a Mad Hatter's Tea Party. My son, Mr. Metrosexual, loves tea parties. Ever since his cousin, Dima, turned him onto toy pots, pans, and tea pots when we were in Cairo back in 2001, Skyler has wanted to be a chef and host with the most. After that trip, when my mom wanted to get him a real tea set but hesitated at bending the gender roles that far, she decided perhaps she ought not to worry too much when Skyler first poured the tea and subsequently picked up the tea pot again and licked the drips off the spout. There's nothing particularly prissy about my child. He's rough and tumble and never saw a young blond woman he didn't like, but he also despises finger paint or the feel of real clay on his hands too long and can easily go to pieces wearing any shirt with the tag still left in the back. Personally, I don't care which way his orientation goes. He is who he is, and I've always presented all toys, games, and activities with as little societal gender bias as possible, letting him pick whatever he likes. I just take a sit back and watch attitude, but it is fascinating to see a male child whose tendency is highly relational (the extreme extrovert!) and who is still ga ga about dump trucks. So a tea party I threw, frantically trying to get my house in non-gross-out-the-adults mode, and making all the pastries and little sandwiches. My home tends to look like a toy, dust, and crumb bomb went off. Right now, it looks like a pastry, present, and wrapping paper bomb went off. Hey, for about an hour and a half somewhere in all this, the place was actually clean. I made scones, tea cakes (which are like big soft sugar cookies), eclairs, brownies, a Victoria sandwich (which is not a sexual position but rather an English cake with divine butter cream spread on every conceivable surface), cucumber & cream cheese sandwiches, egg sandwiches, ham sandwiches, and cupcakes decorated as clocks ALL organic btw. There were a couple of adults I was expecting to stay, who dropped off the kids instead and a couple of last minute cancellations, so now I have enough leftovers that I'll be frantically stuffing my face before the stuff turns furry. Yeah, sure. Come on by for tea time tomorrow! We'll feast! Earl Grey or Ceylon? I must, though, back up a minute, and share with you, dear readers, what transpired in the hours before the big event. Yesterday, I was absolutely dragging and thinking that I was subconsciously digging my heels in at the idea of yet another day of doing something every second I was awake and didn't really want to be. Funny how we have become culturally programmed, after thinking, 'No, I don't think I'm coming down with anything." to start examining the psychological or even spiritually deficient causes for everything that feels icky in us. My mom caught a whiff of natural gas when she picked up Skyler yesterday afternoon, but, since I'd just started the oven when she arrived I blew it off as my Tuccan Sam ("the nose always knows!" ) paranoid parent, who believes my lack of equal olfactory sensibility to be practically a moral deficiency. Then I came home after decadently attending a party with some of my integral salon buds and other cool people to get the same whiffs in the midst of my cleaning frenzy before taking to baking in the wee hours. (Isn't that what everyone does when they get home from a party?) With visions of trying to explain to a small child that his party was postponed, I gave up and called the gas company, having pin pointed the source to around the hot water heater. Just as the very polite and humorous technician from GA Gas Light (you'd have to be at that hour of the morning in potentially life threatening or totally paranoid situations) was about to dismiss it as what I caught when the hot water heater turned on, he did one more required check by sticking the sensor through the hole underneath said water heater and down into my crawl space. The thing went off like a Geiger counter finding a rare element. (I've already said 'bomb' twice in this blog. Why push my luck with Big Brother?) The technician did a very thorough search under my house while I watched at the entrance to the crawlspace, wondering whether he was going to have to shut off my ability to bake cakes, wash dishes, or shower, and pondering the weirdness that standing in such a space outside, conversing with a complete stranger I've just let into my home in the dead of night didn't even seem weird anymore in my oh so surreal life. Turned out that I have a leak in my furnace connection. This is my furnace that I replaced less than 2 years ago. The tech said he couldn't say for sure that it was installed improperly by Estes Heating and Air (who can now officially bite me!), or that the possible crack in the fitting wasn't there all along. He could definitively confirm that the technician who performed the service call this past Monday should most certainly have noticed it, particularly since I had told that tech that I was experiencing symptoms similar to what I had experienced when the old furnace was shot and wasn't venting properly, and I had to buy the new one. I asked if Estes shouldn't have had a the same kind of sensor to pick up any leaks. He gave me a look of severity and said, "Integrity is expensive." Mercifully, only the gas to the furnace had to be shut off, and it's warmed up here again. The party was on...even with an overly stressed out, exhausted hostess. FYI, something everyone should know. A carbon monoxide detector will only register CO2 if it is in the could kill you range. Between the 'O' of ok and the '1' of get out(!), there is a range that won't kill your but can make you quite sick. I've decided, after 2 episodes of fumes, the damned thing is only good to wake me up in the dead of night if a car backs into my living room. The kids decorated hats, which, with all the glitter glue, ended up being too wet to wear thru the tea event, but they had a great time while I got all the vast varieties of sugar on the table. There was a moment in all the complete chaos and the insanity of doing all this by myself when all the kids were around the table full of pleases and thank yous and "would you like some more tea?" that I was totally enraptured by how civilized these little creatures were, and all the other moms and friends just watched in amazement. Later on the kids all got locked in Skyler's room with the screwed up catch on door that they didn't know is to remain open at all times! Normally this is an inconvenience remedied by a pair of scissors where the doorknob should be, but somehow the thing wouldn't open at all. With 7 kids and one mom on the inside, and an audience of all the other adults in the hallway, my mother, who already seems to generally regard me as somewhat of a clueless failure at hostessing, worked the catch, while I repeatedly threw my body against the door (like in the movies) to force it open. It gave, and there in the lead was Sophie, my metalsmithing teacher Gia's oldest daughter, standing in Skyler's new Harry Potter cape, holding the spell book in one hand, and the wand in the other, exclaiming "My spell worked!!!" It's an event no one is likely to forget, least of all The Mom. Skyler and the gang (at my fab Japanese style table that Jean refers to as, "the dining room table for people 5' and under"). 12:42 AM - permanent link email this entry to a friend 3 comments 11/01/2005 song du jour: Hickory Dickory Dock mood: worn out Skyler and Gran at, um, "3:00am" That's 'Mouse' running up the side. :-) 10:17 PM - permanent link email this entry to a friend 1 comments

Click here to subscribe to Victoria Lansford dot com for info on gallery updates and classes   New Work Undulation IV Gazing Landscape of My Dreams II Orb IV Crescents & Starlight X   Instructional DVDs     Artists & Writers Nanz Aalund Nick Bantock Because I Said So Clear Vision Studio C4Chaos Hannah Dallman Matthew Dallman Dan Alison Egyptology News Alex Grey Lionessroars, Willow Pearson Dana Jung Munson Polysemy Sage Typetalk.com (MBTI info) Visit crafthaus   Archives August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006   Gallery Page