Love me tender

"Oh, she may be weary
Young girls they do get weary ..."

-- Otis Redding, "Try a Little Tenderness"

Self portrait 5-31-13

“And then I remember this morning and I wonder 

if it really happened or if I dreamed it. 

It was nice. And weird. And tender. 

I'm not used to tender. It's a fossil, that word. 

Conditions changed and it died out. Like the woolly mammoth.” 

-- Jennifer Donnelly, Revolution

Luna tick, Luna tock

“Zaphod felt he was teetering on the edge of madness 

and wondered if he shouldn't just jump over and have done with it.”

-- Douglas Adams, 

The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Polymer clay face 5-30-13

“Of all the things a man may do, sleep probably contributes most to keeping him sane.” 

-- Roger Zelazny,  Isle of the Dead 

“I lie on the floor, washed by nothing and hanging on. 

I cry at night. I am afraid of hearing voices, or a voice. 

I have come to the edge, of the land.

I could get pushed over."

-- Margaret Atwood, Cat's Eye

Ding ding ding!

Insomnia fun fact!

Since I was up all night and the moon was big and bright ...

Luna is the Roman name for the Greek goddess of the moon, Selene. She is best known in ancient art and literature for her role in the myth of Endymion.

Endymion was a shepherd, and is thought to be the first human to observe the movements of the moon. I figure he watched the moon a lot because he was up at night literally counting sheep and looking out for predators that might be stalking his flock in the dark.

At least he had a good reason to be awake, unlike me, who was up all night fending off anxiety, agitation and total lunacy by polishing all of my boots and shoes, lifting weights, reading a photography magazine, and watching Robert Irvine salvage yet another dying eatery on "Restaurant Impossible."

Ding ding ding!

Bonus insomnia fun fact!

"Lunacy" is a term that comes from the word lunaticus, which means ... wait for it ... "of the moon" or "moonstruck". "Lunatic" is a term referring to people who are considered mentally ill, dangerous, foolish or unpredictable. Hence, today's crazy face.

Yay! Fun with etiology!

But back to our myth.

According to the story, Selene (aka Luna) was super-infatuated with Endymion the hottie demigod shepherd, who was a son of Zeus, and who was young and beautiful (especially, it seems, by moonlight).

Apparently, Selene/Luna thought Endymion looked particularly good when he was asleep, so good, in fact, that she asked Zeus to grant him eternal youth and eternal sleep so that she could enjoy gazing at his flawless, moonlit, slumbering face forever and ever. Zeus granted her request, and every night until the end of time, Selene visits Endymion where he sleeps endlessly and eternally in a cave on Mount Latmus.

Sleeps endlessly and eternally ...

I'm totes jelly.

Some hottie demigod shepherds have all the luck.

Ding ding ding!

This isn't fun anymore.

Cut & paste

 “We're all misfits here,” he says, almost proudly. “That's why I started this squat, after all.  

For people like us, who don't fit in anywhere else.  Halfies and homos and hopeless romantics, 

the outcast and outrageous and terminally weird.  That's where art comes from, Jimmy, my friend.  

From our weirdnesses and our differences, from our manic fixations, our obsessions, our passions.  

From all those wild and wacky things that make each of us unique.”

--Terri Windling, Welcome to Bordertown

Collage 5-29-13

"There are no extra pieces in the universe.

Everyone is here because he or she has a place to fill,

and every piece must fit itself into the big jigsaw puzzle."

-- Deepak Chopra

“We're so quick to cut away pieces of ourselves 

to suit a particular relationship, a job, a circle of friends, 

incessantly editing who we are until we fit in.” 

-- Charles de Lint, Happily Ever After

I haven't made a magazine collage in a while. So ... if you hate them, bear with me. And if you love them, today is your day! 

I have been chipping away at this collage for a few weeks. It just kind of lives quietly on a little table by the window, and every now and then I noodle with it, usually while I'm sorting out an idea for something else. A collage-in-progress functions like creative free-time for me, creative recess. It's malleable and changeable and forgiving and ultimately becomes a picture I didn't maybe imagine. 

A side-benefit of collage is that it also kind of frees your mind while your hands and eyes are busy searching for just the right piece (kind of like rummaging through a mountain of LEGOs for just the right block or working on a jigsaw puzzle). For me, it's kind of a palate cleanser between other projects. Like doodling.

Anyway, after a few weeks of fiddling, this collage kind of decided it was done, and I'm trying to be a good collage-whisperer who knows when enough is enough and just let it be what it is.

Remember, I am not  collage artist by any stretch nor do I profess to be. This is more of a peek into a part of my process than it is any kind of attempt at an actual finished product. I find ideas and inspiration for future faces through this medium, and I feel like some of my unspoken, underground artist's ideas get to drop by and say "hi" and have a voice.

I do think I like a couple of things about this collage, though.

I began this piece with the cascade of falling smiles that flow from the top left corner and filter through the birdcage and out the bottom. They come in all toothy grins and laughing and chatty, and then they go through the cage. It's kind of hard to see it, but there's a bird cage teeming with fading smiles, holding them captive until they're tamed, or quieted, or shut down -- until they're made into less of a smile and more of a sneer. There are still teeth visible, but all the happy is drained out in the cage. And when the cage gets too full and some of the caged un-smiles finally do escape, they are not smiles at all anymore. Just lips. Closed lips saying nothing. (*Your interpretation here!)

I am also pretty crazy about layering on faces -- putting someone else's mouth and another someone else's eyes over a another someone else's face, with someone else's hair or body. So that the eventual collage is a collection of mini-collaged individuals -- hims, hers, boys, girls, pick your mashup -- cut apart and re-made from any number of who's whos into brand new characters who all owe their existence and appearance to any number of others. They're made up of parts of each other.

Also,  I seem to use a lot of arms and hands in my collages. I am not sure what that says about me, but they are actively doing stuff all over the place, so that hands and faces tend to dominate a landscape run through by a ribbon of words.

There are lots of words in this piece, but my particular favorite words are shooting from the gun in the lower left corner, just above the chameleon. They say: "The artists will save us. Or at least blow our minds trying." 

Yep. We will.

Inside looking in

"Some of the greatest battles will be fought within the silent chambers of your own soul."

-- Ezra Taft Benson

Self portrait 5-28-13

"Few tragedies can be more extensive than the stunting of life,

few injustices deeper than the denial of an opportunity to strive or even to hope,

by a limit imposed from without, but falsely identified as lying within."

-- Stephen Jay Gould

Self portrait 5-28-13

                                                       

“I burn, I shiver, out of this sun, into this shadow.”

                                                                                                   -- Virginia Woolf

2:49 a.m. ... at least somebody's smiling

"Always keep your words soft and sweet, 

just in case you have to eat them." 

-- Andy Rooney

Smiley face cookies 5-27-13

Smiley face cookies (2) 5-27-13

"Life"

A crust of bread and 

a corner to sleep in,
A minute to smile and 

an hour to weep in,
A pint of joy to a peck of trouble,
And never a laugh 

but the moans come double;
And that is life!

A crust and a corner that 

love makes precious,
With a smile to warm and 

the tears to refresh us;
And joy seems sweeter 

when cares come after,
And a moan is the 

finest of foils for laughter;
And that is life! 

-- Paul Laurence Dunbar

I like baking cookies.

No, really, I do.

But let's be honest -- cutout sugar cookies with frosting are a real pain in the ass. 

Too much fuss with the rolling and the cutting out and the rolling again. 

And the cutting out. 

Again.

They take too long and the cleanup is a drag -- all that flour everywhere. 

And there's always that little bit of scrap dough that gets wasted.

And you have to make the frosting.

And you have to wait for the cookies to cool so you can frost them.

And nobody enjoys cleaning out a frosting-smeared pastry bag and piping tip. 

Nobody.

I have to be pretty desperate to bake cutout sugar cookies with frosting.

Like, up at 2 a.m., already lifted weights, already watched my all DVR'd episodes of "Restaurant Impossible" (Dear Robert Irvine, please come whip my life into shape) and "Best Ink" (yay, Teresa, you're my favorite!), none of the three books I am currently juggling are doing it for me, you-can't-break-me-I-won't-take-an-Ambien desperate.

Welcome to 2:49 a.m.

Cheerfulness can seem a little scarce at 2:49 a.m. when  agitation and anxiety are churning on high. 

When everyone but me is snoozing peacefully.

When sleep feels like a half-step sideways, four steps back, way back, kind of affair.

Sometimes, when you're the only one up at 2:49 a.m., you have to rummage around in the cupboard and scratch together enough ingredients to bake your own batch of cheerful.

Like Albert sings in "Bye Bye Birdie," sometimes you've got to:

Take off the gloomy mask of tragedy,
It's not your style;
You'll look so good that you'll be glad
Ya' decide to smile!
Pick out a pleasant outlook,
Stick out that noble chin;
Wipe off that "full of doubt" look,
Slap on a happy grin!
And spread sunshine all over the place,
Just put on a happy face!

Then go ahead and take that Ambien.

Inka dinka doo

"Something stirred beneath my skin,

some being inside I'd only suspected existed, 

demon or angel, I couldn't say.”

-- Ellen Hopkins, Burned

Self portrait 5-26-13

 “Tattoos, after all, are a passionate, 

usually doomed assertion of mastery of your own destiny,

or at least a defiant embrace of one that you cannot control."

-- Mark Simpson,  

Saint Morrissey: A Portrait of This Charming Man by an Alarming Fan

 

"Ink, a Drug."

-- Vladimir Nabokov, Bend Sinister

 

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

Simple as that

"We spend so much time creating a facade of what we want to project to the world, 

we almost forget what we ourselves are truly about in the process."

-- Jason R. Thrift, The Civilization Loop: The End Is the Beginning

Self portrait 5-24-13

Self portrait 5-24-13

"Sometimes the simple

 is the most difficult.”

-- Linda Olsson

When I tell people about my self-portrait projects, I get mixed reactions. The response that intrigues me most is one of sheer horror. In this Facebook world of self-image over-indulgence, believe it or not, there are people who just can't fathom even taking, much less sharing, photos of themselves. 

I must admit that some self-portraits are easier to share than others. It's the simple ones that are, for me, the most difficult. No costume to hide behind. No effects. No makeup. No disguises. No body paint. No sunglasses. No nothing. Just me. Me looking straight into the camera. Exposed. Open. Unadorned. Vulnerable.

These are the self-portraits that put a lump in my throat as I press the "publish" button.

The ones of the "real" me. 

If you look intently enough, this kind of self-portrait contains flashes of me at age 4, at age 8, at age 21 ... all of me are in there looking back at me. It can be unsettling. Disturbing. Scary.

But I find a kind of solace in these images as well -- a sort-of settling as I lock eyes with my self. It's a "Well, I guess this is where we are" kind of feeling. It feels true, and honest, and basic, and actual, and real, and centering somehow. Like getting back to the most basic basics. To the barest bare bones.

Lately, my daily existence feels as if it has been ground down to its bare bones. As I scrabble to live with the unpredictable and arbitrary side-effects of chronic insomnia, sleep deprivation, chronic pain and fatigue, I am learning a different approach toward how to live. Less is definitely more when you don't have the energy for much. I am adapting, surviving, by keeping my agenda as clear, as empty, as unscheduled and as simple as I can. I have pared away all but the absolutely necessary-est involvements, relationships and commitments.

My brain can't handle complicated right now. My spirit can't handle difficult. And my body can't handle hard. Sometimes I can't even bear the weight of clothing much less the weight of demands or expectations. My softest, least binding t-shirt and a pair of worn, loose jeans is as dressed as I can get. 

Anyway.

Even though it might seem like I am looking out at you from this self-portrait, I am actually looking in, at me. I am simply letting you see what I see.

And that is the hardest part.

Is it getting dark in her?

“... Richard began to understand darkness: 

darkness as something solid and real, 

so much more than a simple absence of light. 

He felt it touch his skin, questing, moving, exploring: gliding through his mind. 

It slipped into his lungs, behind his eyes, into his mouth ...” 

-- Neil Gaiman, Neverwhere

Self portrait 5-23-13

“There is darkness inside all of us, though mine is more dangerous than most. 

Still, we all have it—that part of our soul that is irreparably damaged 

by the very trials and tribulations of life. 

We are what we are because of it, or perhaps in spite of it.” 

-- Jenna Maclaine, Bound By Sin

Self portrait 5-23-13

 

“What strange places our lives can carry us to, what dark passages.” 

--Justin Cronin, The Passage

   

I am trying really hard.

I am trying really hard to keep my attitude positive. 

I am  trying really hard to function normally in spite of persistent sleep deprivation.

I am trying really hard to change my perspective and not see my insomnia as a curse, or as the whole universe conspiring against me, but rather as a mere inconvenience that I have work around for now, or forever.

I am trying really hard to use my sleepless nights constructively, to grab control of them before they get any traction so that they don't wreck me. When I can't sleep, I water the garden, mop the kitchen floor, bake banana bread and cookies, lift weights -- all in an effort to stay a step ahead of the anxiety-riddled fatigue that stalks from the dark perimeter.

All of this trying really hard helps, sort of, for a limited time and to a certain degree, for a while, -ish. 

Me and my insomnia are learning to co-exist like roommates who don't have a choice, who are forced together circumstantially and made to cohabit even though they don't really like each other all that much -- who honestly loathe each other -- but who are good at faking it, at play-acting a charade of civility and politeness and tolerance, who are good at making the best of an unavoidable situation so that nobody gets hurt and the rent gets paid.

Still, in spite of all that genteel courtesy and politesse, something still lurks in the shadows, twitching, watching, waiting. Waiting to ambush me, like Cato in the Pink Panther movies, the martial arts genius who masquerades as a humble manservant and who hides behind doors and atop bookshelves in Inspector Clouseau's house and repeatedly jumps out and attacks and beats the shit out of Clouseau in his own home.

That's how living with insomnia feels -- like I'm constantly being ambushed in my own home -- in the one place where I should feel the safest and most protected. 

It's hard not to get skittish, watchful, fearful.

Dark.

Because even though I am trying really hard to outwardly project a brave and positive face, the darkness still blooms and spreads, like internal bleeding. I have to let it out from time so it doesn't destroy me. I guess that's what today's post is about. It's a bloodletting, of sorts -- a controlled attempt to draw out the darkness and bad humors -- to let the poison out before it kills me.

Clayface

"What is a face, really? 

Its own photo? Its make-up? 

Or is it a face as painted by such or such painter? 

That which is in front? Inside? Behind? 

And the rest? 

Doesn't everyone look at himself 

in his own particular way? 

Deformations simply do not exist."

-- Pablo Picasso

Self portrait with polymer clay face 5-22-13

Polymer clay face with jiggle eyes 5-22-13

 "No man for any considerable period 

can wear one face to himself 

and another to the multitude, 

without finally getting bewildered 

as to which may be true." 

-- Nathaniel Hawthorne

"Facing it, always facing it, 

that's the way to get through. 

Face it."

-- Joseph Conrad

Never mind

“Your battles inspired me - 

not the obvious material battles
but those that were fought and won
behind your forehead.”

                                                                  -- James Joyce
 

“The face is a picture of the mind with the eyes as its interpreter.” 

 

                                                                                  -- Marcus Tullius Cicero 

Self portrait 5-21-13

 

“You're wrong. The mind is not like raindrops.
It does not fall from the skies, it does not lose itself among other things.
If you believe in me at all, then believe this: I promise you I will find it.
Everything depends on this."
"I believe you," she whispers after a moment.

"Please find my mind.” 

-- Haruki Murakami,  

Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World 

Nighthawk

“All my life I have been a poor go-to-sleeper. 

No matter how great my weariness, 

the wrench of parting with consciousness 

is unspeakably repulsive to me. 

I loathe Somnus, that black-masked headsman binding me to the block; 

and if in the course of years I have got so used to my nightly ordeal 

as almost to swagger while the familiar axe 

is coming out of its great velvet-lined case,

 initially I had no such comfort or defense.”

-- Vladimir Nabokov

Self portrait 5-20-13

Somnus is the Latin name for the Greek god Hypnos, 

a son of the goddess Nyx  (night) 

and the personification of sleep. 

His palace was a dark cave where the sun never shined. 

His dwelling place had neither door nor gate 

lest he be awakened by the creaking of hinges.

Nobody puts Baby in a corner

 "We put limitations on the way that we think about things, on ourselves, 

think about all the boxes we live in, male or female, 

you're this age, that age, this is your job, this is not your job, 

everything is about getting boxed in."

-- Brit Marling

Wood mannequin with cutout face and hair 5-19-13

 
 "The way they boxed us in here. 

Bricks and windows, windows and bricks."

-- Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman

Wood mannequin with cutout face 5-19-13

 

"Nobody puts Baby in a corner."

-- Johnny, Dirty Dancing  

Serenity now!

"We can be serene even in the midst of calamities."

-- Swami Satchidananda, The Yoga Sutras

 

"Let reality be reality."

                                                 -- Lao Tzu

Stone garden statue in my backyard 5-18-13

Frank:      "Serenity now! Serenity now!"
George:    "What is that?"
Frank:       "The doctor gave me a relaxation cassette. When my blood pressure gets too high,
                  the man on the tape tells me to say 'serenity now!"
George:     "Are you supposed to yell it?"
Frank:       "The man on the tape wasn't specific."

-- Frank and George Costanza, Seinfeld episode 159, "The Serenity Now"

I am trying a new approach.

Instead of lying awake all night struggling for sleep that never comes, I have decided to stop fighting against my insomnia and start cooperating with it instead.

The first step is acceptance.

Insomnia is my "calamity." It is the card I've been dealt. It is my reality and it doesn't seem to be going away any time soon. 

So we're going to have to find a way to co-exist.

I think it's called coping.

I did a dry-run of the new plan last night. It went like this:

I went to bed at 11:30 p.m.

I was still wide awake at 2 a.m., so I got up and lifted weights for an hour. 

I know, I know. Trust me, I know. All the sleep advice says not to exercise late in the day or in the evening, because it might disrupt normal sleep patterns. Well guess what? My sleep patters are already abnormally fucked and I'm not sleeping anyway. Also, I've been wanting to work some strength training into my routine. And, 2 a.m. is neither late in the day nor is it evening. It is technically early, early morning. So I was actually getting a head start. Look at me being the early bird. Getting that worm.

I was wider awake (and sweaty) at 3 a.m., so I baked molasses cookies.

My very wise friend Jill suggested this tactic. In an email (all the way from Chile!), Jill wrote:

"Do you ever cook at night? 

I used to do that a lot. Actually, baking, more often. 

You can just make tons and tons of things, because it doesn't require a lot of concentration 

and it gives you something to do that has a tangible outcome. 

Plus you live with guys, so they can eat your stuff." 

She was right. 

It didn't require much concentration and I wound up with a satisfying pile of 5 dozen delicious cookies that made my not-sleeping seem not-so-futile. Plus, the house smelled amazing -- spicy and welcoming and homey. Jill was also right that the guys I live with would eat my stuff. This morning, my husband went back for thirds with his coffee. Even my paleo, carnivorous, carb-hating weightlifter-of-a-son gobbled a few. As he was chewing one cookie and reaching for another, he told me, "These are really good cookies." Bonus mom points.

While the cookies baked, I watched an interview from 2009 with Jason Bateman on "Inside the Actor's Studio," in which Bateman said there would be a film version of  Arrested Development. Wait, what? Did I miss something or is Jason Bateman just a big fat liar?

At 4 a.m. I was still pretty awake (and salty about Jason Bateman being a liar and all), but I went back to bed anyway. I drifted off around 5 and dreamed that an old friend and I were de-hoarding her mother's house. So it appears as though I accomplished that, too.

I slept about an hour and a half. 

I was awake again at 6:22 a.m. and got up for another day. 

This day. 

And even though my eyes are puffed like Mr. Magoo, and even though I am really tired and will probably be pretty much worthless for the rest of this day, at least I managed to sidestep a lot of the negative, toxic, self-loathing, dark, emotional and psychological turmoil and anxiety that usually shits on my sanity while I'm lying helpless and hopelessly awake for hours and hours on end. 

Also, my shoulders look pretty buff.

Charmed, I'm sure

 "But upon that perfect countenance 

was the mark of eternal pain, 

of deathless agony and suffering past words."

-- Gertrude Bacon, "The Gorgon's Head"

Polymer clay Medusa face 5-17-13

“I was my face, I was ugliness ...
It became the launching pad from which to lift off,
the one immediately recognizable place to point to when asked what was wrong with my life.
Everything led to it, everything receded from it--my face as personal vanishing point.”

-- Lucy Grealy, Autobiography of a Face

“I would pay snakes to bite her.”

-- Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters 

You don't have to rip my face off

“I want to make something of myself. 

I believe it’s called a statue. 
” 

--Jarod Kintz

The Titanic would never have sunk if it were made out of a sink.

Smiling bendy man with magazine cutout statue and a polymer clay face 5-16-13

“Stealing, of course, is a crime, and a very impolite thing to do. 

But like most impolite things, it is excusable under certain circumstances. 

Stealing is not excusable if, for instance, you are in a museum and you decide 

that a certain painting would look better in your house, 

and you simply grab the painting and take it there. 

But if you were very, very hungry, and you had no way of obtaining money, 

it would be excusable to grab the painting, take it to your house, and eat it.”

-- Lemony Snicket, The Wide Window

4 a.m. blues

“There is a dead spot in the night, 

that coldest, blackest time 

when the world has forgotten evening 

and dawn is not yet a promise. 

A time when it is far too early to arise, 

but so late that going to bed makes small sense.”

-- Robin Hobb, Assassin's Quest 

Polymer clay face 5-15-13

"I could hear the roots of loneliness 

creeping through me when the world was hushed 

at four o'clock in the morning.” 

-- Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

“Night is the hardest time to be alive  ...

It lasts so long, and four a.m. knows all my secrets.”

                                    -- Poppy Z. Brite

Now you see me

“A tangled forest and the feeling of hidden eyes watching.”

― James C. Christensen, Voyage of the Basset

Self portrait with black paper flowers 5-14-13

 

"You are like a chestnut burr, 

prickly outside, but silky-soft within, 

 and a sweet kernel, 

if one can only get at it.” 

-- Louisa May Alcott, Little Women 

Self portrait with black paper flowers (2) 5-14-13

Egg on my face ... er, I mean, face on my egg

 "Because each of us is an egg, 

a unique soul enclosed in a fragile egg. 

Each of us is confronting a high wall."

                                                                                                            -- Haruki Murakami

Egg face with jiggle eyes 5-13-13

“It's what's buried deep inside that frightens me 

because it's broken, 

like a shattered mirror.”

-- Jessica Sorenson, The Secret of Ella and Micha 

 Egg face (2) with jiggle eyes 5-13-13

 "She was just a shell of her former self,

 functioning and talking but hardly alive."

-- Sarah Dessen, Dreamland

Only if for a night

 And it's breaking over me,
A thousand miles down to the sea bed,
Found the place to rest my head.
Never let me go, never let me go.
Never let me go, never let me go.

-- Florence + The Machine, "Never Let Me Go"

Self portrait 5-12-13

“Self abandoned, relaxed and effortless,

I seemed to have laid me down in the dried-up bed of a great river; 

I heard a flood loosened in remote mountains, 

I felt the torrent come; 

to rise I had no will,
to flee I had no strength.”

                                                                                              -- Charlotte Bronte, Jayne Eyre
 
 

I slept.

All night.

Somehow I cracked the code.

Probably it had something to do with the fact that I had slept less than 2 hours in the previous 36. 

But still ...

I am rested and alert -- a strange feeling for sure -- all buzzy and tingly. Scrubbed. 

When I woke, I wanted to marinate -- no, to drown, in the beautiful buzziness. 

I wanted to sink further into it and soak it up and to never get out of bed again lest I break the spell -- that magical convergence of fatigue, hope, hopelessness, the planets, the gods, and pure dumb luck that mercifully pulled me under and held me beneath the surface, only if for a night.

I know the spell won't last.

All magic spells are momentary, breakable, un-doable.

There is always a reversal, an anti-spell. 

But for now I will accept this elusive and magical gift that comes along but once in a very blue moon, before it slips away and is eventually and inevitably, undone.

Jesus, my face is up here

"Let me give you a little inside information about God. 

God likes to watch. He's a prankster."

-- The Devil's Advocate

Cement garden statues 5-11-13

 “We are all tempted, Mma. We are all tempted when it comes to cake."

 "That is true," said Mma Potokwane sadly. 

"There are many temptations in this life, but cake is probably one of the biggest of them.”

-- Alexander McCall Smith, In The Company of Cheerful Ladies

  

“We never find out the strength of the evil impulse inside us until we try to fight it.” 

-- C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

                                                                                                                   

For the past several weeks I've been driving past this nursery/garden supply place in my town as it's been re-opening for Spring. They sell flowers, plants, seeds, gardening tools, birdbaths, fountains, wheelbarrows, hoses, fertilizer, trees, mulch, dirt, you name it.

They also sell statues.

The statues are all situated under a pergola near the road, and after driving past a few times a week, I got curious wondering whether there might be any good faces in the crowd.

Um. There were.

It tickled me so much, this juxtaposition of the religious with the carnal, the paradox of Jesus and that weird little monk-robed dude hanging out beside David and the Venus de Milo. I love how Jesus is sort of fondling that flaming heart-thing on his chest, trying not to look but clearly stealing a sideways glance at David's junk, with Venus' tits tempting him right there at eye level. The little monk-robed dude is just totally fixated on David's candy.

So many photo captions and dialogue bubbles, so little time:

"How's it hanging?"
"Wait, what? You mean this isn't the Christian Mingle mixer?" 
"Yo, Dave. The Miracle Gro is in aisle five."
"Jesus, my face is up here."
"No one said anything to me about the full Monty!"
"When I think about you, I touch myself."
"Did you find that thing in the annuals or perennials?"
"Don't touch my junk!"
"Look but don't touch look but don't touch look but don't touch look but don't touch."
"I guess that other thing wasn't the last temptation of me after all."
"Get thee behind me, Satan. You're blocking my view."
"Nice mums."
"I have a heart on."
"He isn't risen."

OK, I'll stop now.

 

I promise, I did not in any way touch, arrange, pose or artificially assemble these statues for my twisted photographic amusement. I shot them undisturbed in their natural habitat.

Can I buy a Z?

“Winston was gelatinous with fatigue.”

                                                                                             -- George Orwell, 1984

Polymer clay face 5-10-13

“You cannot imagine the craving for rest that I feel—a hunger and thirst.”

                                                                                     --H. G. Wells, When the Sleeper Wakes

Soooooo tired.

After an all-too-short sort-of hiatus, my insomnia has stalked me down again, with a vengeance.
Just when I thought I was making some miniscule headway, crawling out of the dark and tangled forest a sleep-drug-free inch at a time, insomnia reached out and snatched me back into its spiky, spiny briars.
And not just the "it takes a long time to fall asleep" kind of insomnia. Oh no. It's the "wide awake all f***ing night, a 42 mile bike ride, two Ambiens, two Unisoms, a fistful of melatonin and valerian, white noise machine, sleep hypnosis CD, all the chamomile tea in the world can't touch it" kind of insomnia.

Forget about catching Zs. I can't even buy any Bs or Cs.
Go big or go home, right?

I frequently, seriously and hopelessly wonder if it will ever get better, or if the rest of my life is going to be this -- this search, this struggle, this quest for something that is supposed to just naturally happen, that is one of the most basic functions of being human. Or maybe it's not so much as a "quest for" what should be happening, as it is a wish to "escape from" what actually is happening, this mean and terrible thing.

Either way, it's a tug and pull that is grinding me down, hard. A lifetime of it looks pretty bleak.

Not sleeping can crush a whole day -- just pulverize any possibilities and potential into a dry pulpy dust.
So as a result, I don't make plans.
I don't look ahead.
I don't commit to anything.
I don't "hope for."
I don't make promises.
I don't go anywhere.
I have no great expectations.
I have no not-so-great expectations.

Because chances are I won't be able to show up or follow through anyway. And I hate having to back out of things and cancel stuff all the damn time. An uninterrupted string of empty blank squares on my calendar is soothing, a comfort. If I don't make plans, then I don't have to worry about letting anybody down, because nobody is expecting anything from me. It's easier to just say no, and to isolate myself, like I'm under quarantine. At least behind the self-protective closed door of my life I'm the only sufferer.

And behind the closed door, I have this 365 days project. And I will not let insomnia ruin this. Because right now, this seems to be the one thing that I can plan on, look forward to, commit to, hope for and expect. It's someplace I can go. It's the only promise I seem to be able to keep. So I will cling to it.

I tried to shoot a self portrait today, but for the first time all year I just deleted every photo, every file.
I looked ninety eight.
And not a good ninety eight.
I haven't played with my clay in a while, so I sculpted this exhausted little face as a stand-in for my own.
My fingerprints are all over him, though. So I guess it is a self portrait of sorts.

Or more accurately, a self portrait out-of-sorts.

Sigh.

You're nobody 'til thumbody loves you

"Do not underestimate the power of the Thumb!"

                                                             -- Black Helmut Man, Thumb Wars: The Phantom Cuticle

Thumb face with cutout eyes, bandana and a cowboy hat 5-9-13

Under my thumb
The girl who once had me down
Under my thumb
The girl who once pushed me around

It's down to me
The difference in the clothes she wears
Down to me, the change has come,
She's under my thumb

Ain't it the truth, babe? 

-- The Rolling Stones, "Under My Thumb"

Mandala me

“If her own life was that carefully described pencil line, 

she knew it all at once that the two ends were drawing close together. 

I have come full circle, she told herself, and wondered what had happened to all the years. 

It was a question, which from time to time, caused her some anxiety 

and left her fretting with a dreadful sense of waste.”

-- Rosamunde Pilcher

Self portrait 5-8-13

“I have begun to wonder where I came from. 

The person I am now, this fumbling, stumbling supplicant ... 

was I built on the foundations of my old life, 

or did I rise from the grave a blank slate? 

How much of me is inherited, 

and how much is my own creation?”

-- Isaac Marion, Warm Bodies

“Learning without reflection is a waste. Reflection without learning is dangerous.”

-- Confucius

Burn, baby

“...that yearning inside you that seeks for fulfillment -- does it still burn?...”

-- John Geddes, A Familiar Rain

Thrift store doll with cutout hands, lighter, cigarette and eyes 5-7-13

“The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.”

                                                                                                             -- Plutarch

“This disease of curiosity.”

                                                                                                  -- Augustine of Hippo