Tag Archives: fun

Looking for a Word

03 Saturday Feb 2018

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(Just skim the two paragraphs of techie art neep if you’re not interested in paint. The essay proper begins below them.)

I just participated in a month-long journal challenge with a group of women artists, and Got Religion–I discovered a new medium! It’s Japanese watercolor, often called “gansai tambi” as that’s the ad blurb used by the manufacturer to describe them.  (It literally means something like “vibrant aesthetic.”) I majored in what I suppose I must now call Western watercolor in college, making full sheet (22×30″) color field paintings (think Rothko, only busier) and thinking I was having the time of my life. Then fast forward thirty years and here’s this stuff that made me squee when I unpacked it. (Disclosure: I had a $50 gift card from doing a survey, and went on Amazon. The 36 pan set, three water brushes, and another six-pan set of metallics left a buck and change on the card; YMMV.)

Part of my honeymoon joy is being forced once again to learn what stuff does–the great thing about the big abstracts I did as a kid is that it showed me pretty much every trick Western watercolor and its French cousin, gouache have up their sleeves. It’s a little like gouache, a little like either sort of tempera in consistency, and behaves on paper like nothing else I’ve found. The pigment is crazy thick and you need a lot of water to make it behave like . . . watercolor. Sigh . . .

Anyway, I whacked out a basic image to use as the Tribe of Tiger cover and came back to the computer because the sun was in my eyes. I noticed, almost as a by-the-way, that I was ecstatic. It was very much a body feeling–a combination of terrific sex, a filling breakfast, and a satisfactory trip to the loo. Oh, and the best coffee. I feel this way every time I make art I’m pleased with, and even when I’m depressed, it makes me feel at least some better, at the very least while I’m making something.

I thought to myself, “Weird. I guess sex is the closest many people get to ecstasy.” Maybe joy too. I don’t know how that makes me feel. Am I right? If so, am I being kind of snobby to feel a bit sorry for them? Or is this more about me being abnormally unimpressed with sex?

Don’t get me wrong–I’ve had some great sex. It just doesn’t hit the same spots as, say, the smell of oil paint, which makes me tremble and moan. I have similar reactions to music I like, which is to say, much of it, but maybe particularly early music (think Byrd and Tallis).

As for writing, the feeling is more subdued, possibly because I’m not getting as much sensory input, and it’s more draining. But I still come away from good sessions feeling like this is why I’ve been put on earth.

So what do y’all think? Especially other creatives–is it better than sex? Is it ecstasy? Or do we need a new word?

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Journalish Entry

27 Saturday Jan 2018

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inky hand

Who’s procrastinating? I am! I am!

My still foggy brain figured out how to add the photo and still have text next to it; faithful readers with sharp memories will notice this as a new skill. Yay me!

I’ve been depressed for most of the past two months–Christmas cheered me up, which makes me feel shallow and trite, but there it is. (Can a person be trite? Sure they can. We’ve all been trapped at that business dinner.) It’s not that I spend hours gloomily musing on Being and Nothingness, it’s more that I don’t know what to do. (As in, read a book or play a game. As far as Being and Nothingness goes . . . ) Worse, once I figure it out (if I do), I spend seemingly hours getting it done because I am far more easily distracted than usual. This is a common symptom of depression, but I have ADHD, so who can tell?

I am open to suggestions. I can’t take meds, because I either have a weird reaction to them, or they might make me manic. (Trust me–or trust those who’ve been close to me–you don’t want to see me manic. I don’t do anything amusing like start new religious movements, but I do end up in the hospital. Pity. Being manic feels great! Which is why it’s so hard to treat.) I am working my WRAP plan. But here’s the hell of it: If I am trying my best, if I am doing something borderline productive (like blogging), it means I’m having a good day. If I’m having a bad day, I can’t even focus on a video game. Arrghh.

In other news: Although I have been faithful to my protein shake breakfast, to the point where it now feels normal, I’ve only lost about five pounds. I had it pushed a little lower, but the holidays snuck two pounds back on. Sigh. (This matters because I am due for bariatric surgery this spring, and I must lose 16 pounds so they can maneuver around my massive fatty liver, cuddled around my stomach like a protective bloat of tick.) However, I have dropped my application off at the Y, and the guy who Does That will come back from vacation any day now. Sigh. Seeing as I don’t get a surgery date until I see their shrink (March) I have some time. It’s only 11 pounds, right?

Tribe of Tiger (this year’s NaNo and the third in the kitty series–Eureka, published here, is in the same world but is not strictly canon) is SO close to being finished it’s a bit scary. I’m at the point where the next two or three paragraphs will wrap up the main action. There must be a name for this feeling that I should kill somebody off for it to be good art!

I’ve been doing more visual art lately–got involved with an art journal challenge. Seeing as I wimped out on Inktober, I would have been more reluctant, but, golly mo, my daughter makes those blank books! So I begged one that had some invisible flaw, and have been having a great time. Sure, I’m behind, but it’s an improvement over Inktober’s 12-day performance. (To be fair, what slowed me down then was lack of scanner access; I learned from this mistake and have been doing just fine snapping pix from my phone.)

OKCupid (deliberately not linked because drive-bys) used to do this thing where they made you pick three words to describe yourself. So I guess right now they’re fat, depressed, and creative. I could do worse.

A Confession

05 Friday Aug 2016

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I read self-help books. A lot of them; I think my average is about one a week. But here’s the thing: I am not the typical reader Looking for Answers. Instead, I’m looking for bad grammar, faulty spelling, and an inability to stay on topic–i.e., I style-edit them. (How’s that for a What’s My Line? job?)

Most of them say the same things: Stop negative self-talk. Get in touch with your spirituality. You can be happier–here’s how. (Many of the suggestions are solid, but then, some Harvard professor did a lecture course and wrote a book about it, so we already know this stuff.) In fact, I’m waiting for the book entitled We Already Know This Stuff. (But maybe that’s the subtitle of this blog entry.)

Every once in a while I run into one that borders on the toxic, like the followers of gurus who are considered really sketchy, or who tout pish coming from organizations under the disapproving eye of people like QuackWatch. Sometimes it’s really hard to smush down my opinions on the material, but we’re professionals here at Nova Terra, and even the unintentionally hilarious bits go no further than my kids. But none so far have been written by haters, although there’s some unconscious naivete now and again that I squash like a bug. (It’s the 21st century–for the love of Mike, don’t have your bad guys dressed in black and your good guys in white! *facepalm*)

But most of it is a cheerful treacle of love, joy, and unconditional good stuff, and you know what? It kinda works, in that I am more conscious of the good things in my own life. I’m not so sure it’s because of the soundness of the philosophies in the texts; rather I think it’s because I’m spending time with upbeat people. You know, sorta like how you get on a bus full of Jesus freaks headed cross-country and somewhere around Idaho you get drawn into a surly chorus of Kumbaya. And then they let you play with the tambourine, and you teach them a little bit about Neo-paganism or secular humanism, and you all get off the bus giggling and hugging.

Somewhere around here I have a couple of crystals and two Tarot decks, and I think my daughter has some essential oil. Maybe I should get it all together and play and then journal, especially since I’m at T-3 days for the surgery, and I have some sort of staph which already requires this purification ritual of putting stuff up my nose and showering with surgical scrub. Some silk scarves and candles and chanting with the Buddhist rosary might make it all more . . . fun. And fun, mah brethren and sistren, is what this vale of tears is all about.

Blizzards, Paychecks, and Sloth

26 Monday Jan 2015

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My governor has shut down public transit for tomorrow, which means no work for me. Although I do have a vision of making the two mile hike over the Longfellow Bridge, pretending to be Eliza crossing the ice, or Matthew Henson, or maybe one of the Yeti who might be poking their snouts into my 2014 unfinished WriMo, I probably wouldn’t end up being paid anyway. We have a policy of being closed when the Boston public schools are, which is a pain in the sheep because the Boston public schools are wussies. Last month when we had a cold snap they closed down, which at least gave me a *quiet* day here at home, as the Cambridge schools laughed and told the kiddies to pile on another sweater–as well they should.

But tomorrow there’s no arguing from me, because we’re SUPPOSEDLY getting up to 30 inches by Wednesday morning. Even the new boots Sunny gave me this past weekend ain’t gonna cut it. I’m just hoping we’re dug out and back to quasi-normal by Wednesday, because we had two weeks of enforced “vacation” cutting into the budget this month as it is. Grrrr. I had always assumed that this was a way of balancing the department budget, but was told when I complained to the leadership committee that it was “just tradition” because “peers don’t ever take breaks.” Until my as-unwhiny-as-possible email, it apparently hadn’t really sunk in that “peers don’t really like being forced to eat ramen noodles,” and now for 2015 it’ll be only one week break. Yay!

But it is what it is, and with both spawn working, we’re hanging in there, doing much better than we have in the past, and much better than the people I serve, so I can’t really complain. (Much.) So much for blizzard, so much for paychecks, and on to the sloth!

Snow days have an American magic about them, because even the vaunted Protestant Work Ethic has to bow before Nature’s divine tantrum. I suspect we’re really supposed to clean out that closet we’ve been ignoring, but instead everybody treats it like a free Saturday, when we can’t even do errands because everything is closed. (Sort of like Christmas, only the Chinese restaurants may not make it either.) We sleep in, we read trash (which is all I ever read anyway, even though my trash has mellowed for a century or so), we eat whatever we find in our larders. (This depends on when we got to the store the night before and whether or not we staggered home in a daze, clutching only the last battered packet of toilet paper and half a box of butter.)

I myself will be doing at least some work, as I have a couple hours of graphics stuff piled up and I haven’t entirely forgotten the paycheck–and there’s always *shudder* query letters and Real Writing–unless, of course, the power goes out. But I have charged and loaded up my Kindle accordingly, and can always do the next stage of dollhouse repair, until it gets dark at teatime. Then all bets are off, and I don’t know what will happen. We might even play a board game by candlelight–at least until the cold drives us to huddle under our blankets in defeat. I’m almost looking forward to it, because it always makes our usual impoverished prosperity so shiny and valuable by contrast.

All in all, I’m a lucky girl. Even if Amaterasu the ferret did drag the insoles out of my new boots.

Update: Boss called and informed me that Boston schools are closed Wednesday too. Sigh.