work work work

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in bed with my hook and mirror.  The Blanket of DOOM.  coming soon...

already

it's not even 9 o'clock yet and i've already spent money i really shouldn't spend but a girl's gotta have a little fun and welcome herself back home properly. 2 new kiki smith books and a pair of yellow rubber rain books. hahahahahahaha! perfect!

and the shop is back up and running. i'm not sure i like the look of the little etsy side-bar thing-a-ma-jig on my blog. it clutters my space up. no likey, no no no.

and i'm full of coffee and rowdiness and eager for everything! i will be heading out to the art store soon for gouache and maybe even some really really big sheets of paper.

it's a drizzly day, full of the beautiful low-lying fog. everything is grey and bright green, the remnants of rain falling from the tall trees. gorgeous. my home.

honeys! i'm hoooo-ooome!

it took 3 hours and 45 minutes to get to the nashville airport yesterday morning. i have never seen such crazy weather in my entire life! it looked like the pictures of alaska i've seen. the highways had not been plowed or salted AT ALL. and there were jack-knifed big rigs every where and cars sliding off in to the countryside and you couldn't even SEE the highway. it was completely iced over and we had to make our own lanes, most of which weren't even close to being right, and at one point we were parked on the freeway for almost an hour because 3 big rigs had turned over and me and my mom got out and talked to the nice truckers who always know what's going on... though one guy told us you can't believe everything you hear on the CB because the story gets bigger and bigger as it travels down the line. ha! and then my flight was delayed (which was good since we were running a bit late and i thought i'd miss it actually) and so when i got to LAX to change planes, i got off my first plane as the second one was boarding so i literally walked off one plane on to another and i'm so surprised my suitcase made it. by the time i landed, i had been on an airplane for 6 hours. add that to the 4 hour trip to the airport and the hour and a half drive back to my little cottage and i had an entire day of travel. geez. but it's always fun. and thanks to the time change coming home, i'm pretty much back to my regularly scheduled program. :) i've got my hazelnut coffee and my sweetie is still snoozing away and i've already written in my notebook and inga is on her first nap of the day.

i feel happy and quiet and soft. the two weeks with my mom made me feel so thankful for so many things. i let go of a lot of things from the past. a few ghosts floated off and i feel peaceful and easy and grateful for what my life has been... and for who i am becoming as a result. my mom is good at softness, at generosity of spirit, at acceptance and forgiveness. she knows the value of really, truly being who you are and working to become better but never hiding yourself from the world or from others. she is wise and beautiful and i feel so blessed to have had her all to myself for two whole weeks. i'll be heading back out to tennessee in a couple months for round 2.

my bags are still in the car. i was much too tired to even care by the time we got home last night. and i hope to have sunday dinner with the neighbors tonight. there is silliness to be had and to propagate. :)

it's drizzling and silent and wonderful. my paintings look beautiful to me. beautiful AND smart. my eyes are clear and full of play again. i love everything.

ahhhhh...

we left at 8pm last night. i didn't want to wake up anywhere other than my own home. i didn't want to wake up to anything other than my beloved vineyard. i didn't want to fall asleep anywhere other than my own big, warm, ridiculously soft bed. and my sweetie seconded that emotion so off we went, in the dark dark dark, twisting up to the straight arrow of the 5 freeway. i dumped a whole bunch of horrible gas-station coffee in my stomach, thick from cooking on the burner all day, but it had the taste of salvation in it- the taste of leaving, forever, one's home-town. i don't think i'll ever go back. that was the last one. there won't be any more reasons. none. and that is a good and welcome cause for celebration and gratitude. the charm that once existed there is gone. bulldozed down just like the endless orange groves. it has been engulfed by the never ending strip mall that is southern california. brown, grey, trash, peeling paint, billboards for strip clubs, and not one single smiling face. we got stared at a lot. my mom said it was because of our smiling. no one smiles in southern california. i noticed that when i lived there before i'd ever even been anywhere else. no one smiles. no one but me and mine. and so the word of the day was "out". get out as fast as you can. and so off we went and rolled up to our front door at 4:30 this morning. 32 degrees but the warmest, most welcoming sight- our little cottage, the vineyard leaves, still and green and shining, and our enormous bed waiting. my mama got on a plane back to her mountain home this morning. back to her green, her deer, her roses, her man. she is smiling, always smiling. and me too. this is a great comfort. everything will be okay, whatever "everything" is.

sigh...

i haven't had more than 5 hours a sleep every night i've been down here. i am tired. i took a nap and am still tired. and now i'm drinking a cup of re-heated coffee. the coffee i made and promptly forgot about when i realized i should just go take a nap.

we are driving back tonight, all night. and i am happy to drive all night long to get back to our little, safe, warm, happy home. happy as a person can be. and tired.

hello november!

yesterday for halloween we actually went and looked at a house. yep. no realtor, just us, trespassing. it's a red log cabin tucked up against a mountain by the russian river. we drove over a huge old steel bridge to get to it and vineyards all around. the house has a black pot-belly wood-burning stove. we could make fires if we lived there. we could chop wood and go shopping for axes if we lived there. and the roof was pitched and beautiful. all the wood on the interior had been painted white and there were all those cute and cozy little built-in things- nooks! i love nooks! and in the tiny rear courtyard there was a claw foot bathtub - outside! - which was plumbed in! this is actually the major selling point with my sweetie- an excuse for outdoor nudity. ha! and being butted up against the mountains like that means no one would be the wiser anyway and my virtue would stay intact. :) we looked and looked and re-looked in all the windows, going around and around and around the house, peering and poking and tip-toeing just like little kids, just like the trespassers we are. we left our nose prints on every single window. we were there so long that i had to go around to the side of the house and pee. and we daydreamed the whole time we were there and for the rest of the day too. when i woke up this morning, my sweetie was looking at it online. :) very cute and so much fun to think about. i couldn't fall asleep to save my life last night. i was having way too much fun fantasizing about interior design and all that stuff. nesting, nesting, nesting. ha! i called the realtor and set up an appointment to view the home later this coming week. as long as the roof and foundation are sound and there's been no crazy pest damage, we're gonna put a bid in on it. first time buyers. our first real home. if we get it. but even if we don't, it makes my heart well up with love just dreaming of it. love for my sweetie, love for my life, for the life we're chasing, for inga, for her bouncing prancing self, our little kookie family and the drive to keep it happy, keep it safe, and to honor it with everything i've got.

just thinking about it, dreaming this way, makes me zone in on the fact that i am truly in love with a great many things. a pretty good little halloween.

fixing...

wednesday night is my night.
a night for dark and darker, darker still. my night.
secret meetings where all the unravelling is done. the strings pulled apart.
my tether loosed just a little. just a little, little.

my tears are not ugly.
and not my red face.
no comment about how blue blue eyes get during a good cry. no advice.
(that is not giving.)
no golden intentions, just the case,
the cause we all know, the disturbance
and Our Unexplainable,
the strict perfect chaos, the frozen, the freezing, the aftermath.
and then home.

then home.

to warm, to cool.
home
to home.

home...

it isn't that i've been sad lately, just feeling quiet. feeling still. going through the little that remains to be gone through- relics, nic-nacs, objects. it always wakes something up. always. but there are so few ghosts left this time around that it is a happy battle. the chaos i threw our home in to a week ago is almost reined in. i'm making myself go slow, putting things back or out the door thoughtfully. whenever i begin to feel anxious or overwhelmed by the task, i lug my canvasses outside and paint. today 3 big crows lined up on the driveway and watched. it was odd but comforting too and they were silent- no heckle and jeckle taunting as i pushed the oil round and round and stretched it out and out and out. now i am making myself a set of new potholders. yep. :) crocheted in the bastard stitch. black with a grey heart smack in the middle.