Don't lose your head

"How does one kill fear, I wonder?

How do you shoot a specter through the heart,

slash off its spectral head, 

take it by its spectral throat?"

-- Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim

Barbie disguised as the Headless Horseman
with polymer clay Jack 'o Lantern head and a bronze horse 10-25-13

"No, you must believe me. 

It was a horseman, a dead one. 

Headless."

-- Sleepy Hollow

"I just sort of lost my head for a little while."

-- John Mayer

"I like a woman with a head on her shoulders.

I hate necks."

-- Steve Martin, A Wild and Crazy Guy

I have played with Barbies more during this 365 days project than I ever did as a child.

And here's why.

At least, here's why I think why.

I have 3 sisters. And with 3 sisters you don't play Barbies alone.
If you have sisters, then when you play Barbies, you play Barbies with at least one other person.

And when you play Barbies with others, especially strong-personalitied, opinionated, bossy others, they often try to dictate what and how your Barbie does what it does.

Because they also have a Barbie. And the Barbies must interact. The Barbies can't just live independent, parallel lives that never intersect. That's the whole point of playing Barbies. You've got to make them interact. They have to come out of the Barbie beach house and socialize.

For instance, your sister's Barbie needs to borrow a pair of rubbery pink pumps because she only has yellow ones. So she hops her Barbie over to you and trades shoes, and you get the pink ones, one of which is chewed. 

Or your sister's Barbie wants her Barbie to go cruising in the pink Corvette and wants your Barbie to ride along. But your sister's Barbie gets to drive, because it's her Corvette, which means your sister gets to push the car while you just sit and watch.

Or your sister says your Barbie can't wear the sparkly dress because her Barbie is wearing a sparkly dress, and they can't both wear sparkly dresses, because that's copying and her Barbie had her sparkly dress on first.

So you dress your Barbie in a pair of Ken's bell bottoms and maybe a nice sport coat and a pair of loafers, and calmly watch your sister lose every last bit of her ever-loving shit.

If you've followed the blog very long, you might know that back in March I bought a bag of 7 Barbies for $2.99 at the thrift store. They were all buck naked, but otherwise in really good shape. Among other things I've put mustaches on them, stuffed all their heads into a Chinese takeout container, turned one into a zombie, painted a Day of the Dead face on another, and covered one with blood a la "Carrie."  

Good, good times.

Today, I popped the head off one and replaced it with a Jack 'o Lantern that I sculpted from clay. I even painted blood on her neck stump (with permanent marker) and hot-glued a sword in her hand (I glued it because the bitch can't grasp. My G.I. Joes can grasp. Ever hear of a little thing called the "Kung Fu grip"?)

Trust me, if I did any one of those things to any one of my sisters' Barbies, they would have raised holy Hell and screamed something at me like "I'm telling!"

But I don't have to worry about that anymore. Because now I have my very own Barbies. And I can do what I want because there is nobody here to tell me I can't. And that's why.

I'd say I've definitely gotten my money's worth.

A personal note:

The summer I turned ten years old, my parents took me and my sisters to Mackinaw Island. The trip was my "big gift" (note to parents: if everybody else goes on the trip, too, the birthday child knows they're getting juked, 'cuz everybody else got the same gift as them and it isn't their birthday.) Anyway, the horse in today's portrait was in a gift shop. It was one of a pair of $20 bronze bookends. I only had $10 -- birthday money from my grandparents, who always gave us our age in dollars. Somehow my dad convinced the shop owner to break up the pair and sell me a single stallion for $10.

I loved this horse more than I loved the trip, because nobody else got a horse. Just me, the birthday girl. Even if I did have to buy it myself.

I also remember something about fudge and a rubber tomahawk, but the details are sketchy.

That'll make your head spin

 "As long as the world is turning and spinning, 

we're gonna be dizzy and we're gonna make mistakes."

-- Mel Brooks

Arranged face on a head of lettuce (spinning) 5-25-13

"My tides were fluctuating, too -- back and forth, back and forth -- 

sometimes so fast they seemed to be spinning ... 

It's a marvel that a person can appear to be standing still 

when the mood tides are sloshing back and forth, 

sometimes sweeping in both directions at once."

-- Jane Pauley

Click here to read an excerpt from Jane Pauley's book "Skywriting: A Life Out Of The Blue," about her experience with bipolar disorder. 

 

Arranged face on a head of lettuce (still) 5-25-13

 "You spin me right round, baby

right round like a record, baby
Right round round round
You spin me right round, baby
Right round like a record, baby
Right round round round."

-- Dead or Alive, "You Spin Me Around (Like a Record)" 

 "All the dreamers in all the world are dizzy in the noodle."

-- Edie Adams

Jarhead

“We are not trapped by our thoughts. 

What we generally do, however, 
is create thoughts that trap us.”

-- Joshua David Stone,  

A Beginner's Guide to the Path of Ascension

Self portrait 5-5-13

“The things other people have put into my head,
at any rate, do not fit together nicely,
are often useless and ugly, are out of proportion with one another,
are out of proportion with life as it really is outside my head.”

-- Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions 

As a chronic insomniac and someone who struggles with anxiety, I often long for the ability to take off my head at night, literally unscrew it and remove it. If only I could shelve it and it's squirming tangle of restless, anxious thoughts, and stick it all in a jar with the lid screwed tight. 

I also sometimes think that about my feet, when they are throbbing and keeping me awake. But I can put ice on my feet and they'll quiet down. My head, not so much. 

I can't ice my thoughts. Can't turn down the volume. I can't turn the knob to "off." The more I try, the louder the static, the more intense the voices. I've tried creating new thoughts to replace the disruptive pre-existing thoughts, but the result is just cumulative, more and more thoughts piling on until all there is to do is listen to the maddening, creepy dry rustle of them writhing and tumbling atop and in and around one another like a den of snakes.

Portrait of a soul

“Man has gone out to explore other worlds and other civilizations 

without having explored his own labyrinth of dark passages and secret chambers,
and without finding what lies behind doorways that he himself has sealed.”

                                                                                        -- Stanislaw Lem, Solaris 

Paperclay face 4-3-13

“The most adventurous journey to embark on; 

is the journey to yourself, the most exciting thing to discover;

 is who you really are, the most treasured pieces that you can find; 

are all the pieces of you, the most special portrait you can recognize; 

is the portrait of your soul.”

                                                                                             -- C. JoyBell C.

There comes a time in every 365 days project when I consider how many of those 365 days still remain. And I wonder ... 

Will the supply run out?

Will the ideas dry up?

Have I discovered all there is to discover?

Have I thoroughly explored my own "labyrinth of dark passages and secret chambers," or merely tapped lightly, timidly, at their doors hoping no one answers?

Have I found all the pieces of who I am, or have I only just begun assembling the scraps?

Have I plumbed the murky depths, or barely skimmed the surface?

Will sameness and repetition ground my enthusiasm and spirit of discovery?

Is it over?

Is there more? 

Am I done?

And I pick up the camera.

Somehow I catch a thermal, an updraft, a rising column of -- not air. Something purer lifts me up and over, carrying me beyond my limited down-here point of view. Scanning the landscape from up here I spy movement, I spot a frightened little possibility, a skittering something, zipping and dodging furtively across the ground looking for a place to hide, hoping I won't notice.

But I do notice. 

And I capture it. I capture an image that didn't exist a moment ago. A face is born. Maybe it's my own face seen anew. A me that changes every day. Maybe it's a brand new face, a face made of paper, or clay, or in today's case, Paperclay. 

I mold and push and carve and pinch a shapeless blob of plasticized paper pulp until my hands cradle a little man. And the little man is smiling.

Paperclay face (2) 4-3-13

"Hold still," I say. "While I take your picture."

He indulges my intrusion. Like a gentle, tolerant old family dog that has spent its life submitting to silly costumes and the poking, prodding hands of clumsy, sticky children, the little man keeps smiling as I pose him, position him, turn him, move him. I encroach on his boundaries and trample all over his comfort zone as I shove the camera lens smack into his face, all the while pressing the shutter again, and again, and again trying to crack the code and get at his personality, to unlock his mystery, to catch a glimpse of his soul. 

To catch a glimpse of my own soul, which is far more skittish and elusive.

The pursuit is intoxicating. And like any potent intoxicant, addictive. I will want more of it tomorrow. I want more of it right now.

Yes, there are worlds and civilizations out there for the discovering. I am not interested in those worlds. I am not that kind of archaeologist. I'm searching for the bits and pieces of "me" that are still hidden, pieces I've subconsciously or all-too intentionally locked away, and which have become entombed in something like hardened earth, which rest sparkling like treasures in a riverbed. 

Because they ...

"Once conform, once do what other people do because they do it,

and a lethargy steals over all the final nerves and faculties of the soul.

She becomes all outer show and inward emptiness; dull, callous and indifferent."

                                                                                                               

                                                                                                  -- Virginia Woolf

Barbie head with cutout eyes and mouth 3-30-13

You never know when you meet someone
Will she be the one?
You never know and I wonder to myself
I wonder to myself
Are you beautiful?
Are you beautiful on the inside?
On the inside?
Are you beautiful?
Are you beautiful on the inside?
On the inside?

                                                      -- Chris Pierce, "Are You Beautiful"  (from the movie Crash)

Barbie head with cutout eyes, mouth (2) 3-30-13

Scarface

 “The human race tends to remember 

the abuses to which it has been subjected 

rather than the endearments. 

What's left of kisses? 

Wounds, however, leave scars.”

                                                   

                                                    -- Bertolt Brecht

Wounded (Styrofoam wig forms) 3-23-13

 “Some wounds run too deep for the healing.”

-- J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix