Utilizing Saturday

...and another!  Fantastic fun.

 

Jamie & JackJack

Graphite, Charcoal, Conte on Paper

28" x 36"

I Write Letters to People, Though I Rarely Intend to Send Them

September 29, 2012

Dear Jamie,

We're having Santa Cruz weather and it conjures so quickly those feelings I used to have when I'd start my mornings on foot and soak up the beach air along the riverbed.  The exact same feelings!  Distinct and specific, marking a time so distinct to my memory it almost makes me well up with that combination of sad-happy (sappy?); marking the transition into something big and important, that I would not know until much later how big and important it truly was: art school, making art constantly, forging friendships with some of the most influential people in my life, including you, and making art together.  Doesn't it feel weird?  That times are so distant?

The clouds are low and warm grey.  It feels like the beach could be right around the corner.

In my dreams, right?

Love,
P

Idle Time

September 3, 2012

It's just this day, right now.  It's not everything, not all things that ever were or all things will be.  It's just right now.

And even though right now feels messed up, the air still smells beautiful and Fall is still sneaking in and my shoulders don't hurt today.  All of these things are so good.

I had a wonderful time with KT.  She is back from Alaska.  I didn't realize how much I missed her.  She makes me feel creative and energized and happy.

Wise Words from BFFSC

Before the move --

"I wanted to tell you about living with a boy: there are some things that you'll think a boy wouldn't care about, like say the color of new plates or a couch, but he does for some reason and so do you because, well, you're a girl and an artist so those things matter.  Just something to keep in mind.  Compromise!"

Sage advice.

Thank you, J.

<3

The New Happy: Crepes & Collage

This morning I went to breakfast at Chez Machin for my friend Nelle’s birthday.  She’s the prettiest little thing and has the most gorgeous olive skin I’ve ever seen.  We used to work together at a stock brokerage firm downtown, which we’ve since dubbed “Hell.”

Oh, so you and Nelle used to work together?

Yeah, the three of us here used to work in Hell.

You’re not there anymore?

Nah.  We all got out of there . . . For obvious reasons.

They sat our party at the back of the tiny restaurant in an added room with a latticed roof and old metal things nailed to the wood paneled walls.  One of the ladies brought her son, I forgot his name, but he had big blue eyes and ate only the jam off of the crispy toast his mom gave him.  Hmmm, I thought.  He does the thing I always think of doing but fear licking the jam off the toast in public wouldn’t go over very well.

I made this fun card for her.

This is the outside, then the inside

I’ve been doing more collage stuff lately and it’s really exciting me.  I’ve been fascinated with collage for a long time, but couldn’t get myself to “feel” it.  I have recently, and it produces a different kind of Happy than painting or drawing.  There is something raw about it.  A gritty quality, something more edgy and rebellious about it and I like that a lot. So the front of this card is a very basic type collage, but it lights my freakin’ fire.  I’ll call it “hawt.”

I’ve done some other collage things that I’ll post later once I get the scanner back from my brother.  My camera just can’t take good enough photos.  And my hand isn’t steady enough.

Anyway, the French place was so lovely and the coffee was mellow and fantastic and I drank way too much of it.  My other friend brought her baby, a super social relaxed Libra girl, so we were fully entertained waiting for the food to arrive.  I ordered something I couldn’t pronounce but it looked like this

for only a brief moment before I devoured it rabidly.  It was filled with sausage and cheese and other creamy drizzles of Heaven and my friend Sula and I shared a sweet crepe bursting with apricot jam, chocolate, slivered almonds and powdered sugar.  Coincidentally, I had a crepe yesterday from a food cart, a cinnamon sugar butter crepe (no joke, my mouth just filled with saliva thinking about it!  Ha!), that was also excellent.  Only that one came in a piece of triangular paper stapled at the sides, and ended up all over my face and the thighs of my jeans.

I don’t know what it is, but crepes also produce a very specific kind of Happy for me.  Like I feel fancy and beautiful like I’m a fantastic cultured regal sophisticated French girl sitting at a round metal table on a slanted street somewhere in another country, instead of a goofy tall plain-looking uncultured (but has cultured friends) white girl with a foul mouth who never quite feels “cool” enough and is getting slowly and suspiciously more soggy through the mid-section.

Maybe it’s the crepes?

No.  Absolutely not.

If you get a chance to eat at Chez Machin, I do so recommend it.  Also for crepes and French-type yummies, Le Happy is super as well, and it has more of a bar situation than Chez Machin.  Crepes and alcohol?!  Sign me up.  Every day, sign me up.

Last Saturday

I boarded a very small airplane, so small it was necessary to duck when entering.  We took off in a terrible rain that I watched pelt the propellers in the darkness of the sky.  A few mermaid sketches and two cups of coffee later, the horizon slowly revealed the blazing sun and lit up the ocean of clouds below.

We descended over Oakland and I'd hoped I could see the Occupy Oakland movement from the sky.  (I couldn't.)  I enjoyed the postcard-like view of the Golden Gate Bridge, downtown San Francisco, and the entirety of The Bay.  For some reason, Oakland smelled like rotting garbage. I couldn't remember if this is how California always smelled and I'd just never noticed before.

My bestest friend J Chanandler Bing, her husband B, and her eight-month old baby Bambino picked me up at the airport in a small white car I'd never seen before.  We went immediately to breakfast because J knows that's all I ever really think about on any given day.  She also knows I must eat precisely every two hours to maintain mood equilibrium.

I enjoyed a third cup of coffee, something called Eggs Michael (which B inadvertently nicknamed my three-month old nephew), and watched Baby Bambino munch happily on his very first pancake and also on a spoon.

I feel confident Bambino and I bonded sufficiently.  He was skeptical at first, I could tell, but I think he realized we get along well because we're both Water signs.

My first night there, J made spicy pork chops, zucchini, and purple mashed potatoes with mushroom gravy.  I was genuinely impressed with her mad kitchen skillz and heartily devoured my dinner, plus some extra.

The next morning she impressed me even more by whipping up some sourdough French Toast with cream cheese and homemade jam-like syrup, which they call "jyrup."  

French Toast shown at actual size.

Mmmmmmm JYRUP MONSTERRRRRRR

After that, J and I made felt mustaches and glued them on sticks.  We made templates for several different styles and then modeled them for each other.

Fetch me my cigar.

We even tried one on Baby.  He liked it for a minute, but then decided it didn't coordinate very well with his nighttime onesie and would be better suited to a tuxedo or suit and tie.

Later, our lovely friend Flamingo came over and the three of us (well, three and a half, including the Wee One) spent the rest of Sunday acting fancy and nibbling on delicious snacks, including a nice Brie, edamame (please note: there is no "n" in "edamame"), and some manner of pink wine in beautiful crystal glasses.  Bambino decided he would pass on the wine, as he was saving his taste buds for homemade pureed prunes.

After the pink stuff I felt so happy I drank some of the sweet white stuff (that's what she said?) and ate way too many snap peas. Monstrous gas ensued.

We sapped that bottle dry before we knew what happened (whoops) so the next day it was necessary to pick up two more bottles at Trader Joe's.  (Those were gone pretty fast, too.)

The next morning we woke up, drank coffee, and packed up the Little One for a special trip to Santa Cruz, where J and I met in college on the first day of Art 60 in 2006.  We planned to head up to campus and pop in on our old painting teacher, but popped in on our favorite Mediterranean food restaurant first.  We reminisced about how eating there in college was really spendy, and forking out $7 for a meal would really set back our budgets.  I used to "splurge" sometimes and get an iced tea to go with it.

OMFG FALAFEL

The air, the sky, the trees -- completely unreal.  Being there reminded me of my old Self.  Being there made my soul ache.

We participated as Guest Critics at a critique in our painting teacher's Intermediate class.  Our critiquing skills were really out of practice, so I offered the standard suggestions that helped me when I was in school:  Go bigger.  Get texture.  Stop thinking so much.

The next morning J dropped me off at the airport.  Both her and Bambino cried upon my departure and I couldn't remember the last time anyone had cried about me before.  Hugs hugs hugs and I was gone, sitting at a Starbucks in the terminal, thinking about how cleansed I felt, how much fun I had, and how wonderful things are.  I wrote some stuff in the little sketchbook J gave me and drank some terrible coffee.

Truly bittersweet.

bit*ter*sweet
[adj. bit-er-sweet, bit-er-sweet; n. bit-er-sweet]

adjective

1.  both pleasant and painful or regretful
2.  pleasant but tinged with sadness

Cruisin'

with the Blue Bomb and KT Friend.  

Though not as much a fan anymore, John Mayer says it's 

"the kind of morning that lasts all afternoon."

By far my favorite kind.

Coffee, Bouffant, eggs, coffee, Scrap, Kombucha, coffee . . . 

Forgot my camera at home, though, so here's some shit ones from my phone.

Day of Labor + Mountains + Bacon =

Inside the tent

Outside the tent

Mah boots

The best part of any trip, event, day, moment, reunion, 

church service, pajama party, art class, or study sesh

UFO-sized arachnid

Enchanting!

Grungy, grimy, furry teeth . . . and still so raaawwwr

 

Oh hey, freakin' AMAZING MOST BEAUTIFUL OREGON DRIVE EVER.

Lalala The End.

On Art and the Inherent Preoccupation

Making bundles of balloons out of white price tags
colored with pink and green, inked with wandering chicken feet
and bouquets of flowers and wise words:

Live
Rinse
Repeat

What good advice I gave myself when I drank until six AM
and pieced myself together enough to get to class by eight;

I boiled the eggs and bought the milk and la-dee-dahed the day away
unable to get it off my mind, even tried a nice salty float
but had a hard time --
she's weird about things in her ears --
and my mind kept going back to that stuff;
plagues every train of thought
every avenue of existing comfortably in my skin
and comes back every time
like it did back then when I used to drink a lot
and make things --

What is different?  Have I changed?

I'm still me, pretty sure,
I have the same ailments, same mental emotional retardation
and latent anger I keep thinking is destructive a little
but GOD DAMMIT it feels good sometimes;
I drank some wine and that made it worse or maybe better
depending how you look at it,
maybe better like it used to make it,
but J. Chanandler Bing would say it's fucking awesome
'cause I think she wants to drink the wine with me too;

I feel in love and alive and level and clearer than I've been in a while
even though my dreams are nuts and grossly epic,
I still love when Bear ponders the emotions flitting across my face --
'cause there are thousands, just thousands of them --
because it lights up his and I love
when his face looks like that, so sweet and eager,
and damn that fucking charming beard.

Damn It Feels Good To Be A Gangsta

a real gangsta-ass nigga plays his cards right 

a real gangsta-ass nigga never runs his f***in mouth
'cause real gangsta-ass niggas don't start fights
And niggas always gotta high cap 

showin' all his boys how he shot em

but real gangsta-ass niggas don't flex nuts
'cause real gangsta-ass niggas know they got em 

The Only Way to Say :

i thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

 (i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings;and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any - lifted from the no
of all nothing - human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

E. E. Cummings


Courtesy of KT

Chai + Samosas On A Beachy Sunday

Tao of Tea

3430 SE Belmont

Atmosphere: A magnificent cave

Tea: Sultry & complex

NomNoms: Eclectic & delectable (Eclectable?)

Staff: Appropriately distant

Overall: A good place to lose track of time

Aaaand, I know you're jealous that I got a

Tea Date with Devon, even though sometimes

it is a little difficult to be around

so much pretty.

Here, I Got You These Paper Binoculars

Why, yes -- I will polish off the remaining Baker Josef's Semi-Sweet Chocolate Callets (For Baking, Melting & Nibbling) because they are so perfectly un-sweet, so yummy and melty, so delectable and crispy in fine round discs.  Nevermind the fact that I've been eating chocolate like there is no tomorrow (because if there is no tomorrow, I will feel better going out knowing I spent my last moments reveling in smooth semi-sweet perfection), on top of the sneaky handfuls of free Jelly Bellies and runaway Snickers Bars left beneath my computer monitor at work. 

I think I might be broken. 

In more ways that I previously suspected.

And now I am alternating between bits of smooth chocolate and sips of hot green tea, brewed extra strong. 

It's Bliss: Version One and Bliss: Version Two in harmony. Or, duking it out. 

Either way, I've decided this is my Heaven and I'll surely be okay if today is indeed the last day of the world.

On my mind lately(besides a basket

of other things):

              Chickens

              Chocolate

              Sleep, more sleep

                                 ... 

I feel increasingly tired as the week wears on.  Last night I dreamed of robots (again), super high-tech super computers made paper-thin and attached to belted keychains, and spies trying to get away from government officials. 

Despite that, I'm sleeping well.  Just. Still. So. Tired. 

Oh, and hens are coming out of my head.  But that doesn't appear to be affecting my sleep.

 Note to self:

The Way March Eighth Unfolds

Morning

I am already starting to regret the half a Paradise cinnamon bun I just scarfed, starting with the middle and working outward.  It was quite the helping, since the whole bun was about the size of my face.

Modesty?  Not today. 

           "I don’t know why I think I can get by with using small Post-Its. 
            I just can’t get my point across in 2 ½ inches." -KT



Afternoon

I am so over this day. 
Are you over this day? 
I am So. Bloody. Over. It.


Of note: An Evolution
    
     Ridiculous
     Ricockulous
     Ridonkulous
     Stupid
     Stoopid
     Super stupid
     Super stoop
     Stoopy stoop
     Ristoopulous
     Ricockustoop
     Ristoopucock



Eve

Rocked out on the treadmill and got up to 6.2 mph at 8% incline.  Only for thirty seconds, but man that thirty seconds sure does feel like twenty minutes.

Now my legs feel like thin spaghetti noodles, my back feels like rotini, and my mind feels clear like a smooth alfredo, even though I had beans and rice for dinner. 

And on the bus home I thought of nothing except KT's beans and rice song, sung to the melody of a Beethoven Symphony.  Playing over and over again, it helped to stave off the hunger pangs and concentrate on more constructive things, like chewing my gum in time with the melody.

Oh, and I
 finally caved. 
   Kind of a no-brainer
     at $9.99, wouldn't
       you say?