And now for something entirely different...

I realize I have been dancing with my shadow side for a couple of days, so decided to get audacious again with the daily design. I don't know where I get this depressive streak, but it has definitely been with me the last few daze, making it a trial to get out of bed. I yelled at Pickle a couple of times this morning because she wanted me to wake up, and I didn't. Well, not every day can be a big surprise package, you know. And now that I think of it, why couldn't that be so? I think I will make that decision, put a big bow around the next 24 hours, and see what HP has in store for me. All I have planned it a trip to the noon meeting, al fresco, sans dogs, they are too much of a distraction, though I love showing them off, no ego here! Well, it's 11:20 AM, time to get out of the PJs and into my couture du jour, head out into that big rude world outside my little yellow house, make some joy. And so it is.

Show a little tenderness...

I went to the (smart people's) movies last night to see Easy Virtue, which was billed as a Noel Coward work, and I always love his wit and pithiness, a quality which is universally underated in my experience. And I was surprised to find it full of characters who, each in their own way, were remarkably fragile. Their rigidity made them brittle as glass, cracked around the edges, and vulnerable to attack at any given moment. The mother was the character I most loathed, and then, more was revealed, and it explained everything. It would be nice if that happened more in real life, if one of those horridly annoying creatures I give wide berth in my little world were to tell me their deepest hurts, and I could have compassion for them instead of barely concealed detestation. I do not subscribe to the idea that the world should contort itself to make me comfortable. Nor do I have to contort myself to fit in to a discommodious world. I just sort of relax into most situations, with the eternal question on my lips: isn't this interesting? Then I let all reveal itself in its inevitable fashion, and move if I am not compatible with its constrictions. Happy to say I can be comfortable in a lot of varied situations. Plunk me into almost any picture, and I will be there, in the background, with an amused smile on my lips. After all, wherever I go, there I am, and I know how to laugh at myself, so I am never without a source of amusement. Flexibility, that's the key. Only took 65 years to learn that.

Blessed confusion...

Today, I went to a free oil painting demo at our local art supply store, Sennelier pigments, the very same as those mixed for Cezanne. They still have a store in Paris, across the Boulevard from the Louvre, where they still sport long white coats, since the original shopkeepers were chemists. And the same family owns it even now. Well, I learned a lot, really. And I am now ready to try out some of her techniques, after all, she teaches at the Academy of Arts in San Francisco, and that's hot. Fascinating to watch her make vertical strokes for reflections in water, then stripe the water itself over. It made a very peaceful and easily recognized pattern. I also have my sewing machine out in hopes that I will get interested in some Eileen Fischer patterns, and a pile of books I want to read, and my piano books are spread out all over, and there are some CDs I want to put into my ITunes, and the lawn needs mowing, again. Life. You're not done till you're done breathing. Meanwhile, I'm going to the movies. It's hot here. Movies are air conditioned.

The endomorph's lament...

Once upon a time, I was an ectomorph. Or thought I was, you know, a twiggy Audrey Hepburnish girl. And then I hit puberty, and my meaty German heritage asserted itself, and voila! Endomorphville. My body is set at about 150 lbs. Going above or below makes it cranky. Yet, I keep trying to just nudge it in the direction of 130 lbs, where I am still well fleshed but much less upholstered. I like feeling light. It is a bouncy, I-might-just-fly-away feeling. I have known this feeling only fleetingly over my 7 decades of life, and am aiming in that direction once more. I get that this is my vehicle, my spacesuit, my abode, this body. I wash and maintenance my car better than I treat my body. And that is changing. Oh, and I still have to wash the car today. Yes, after the long walk over to the art supply store, where they are having a mega SALE. That is pretty much my favorite word in the Universe!

What's it all about, redux...

I visited my folks this weekend. Yes, they are still above ground, and still married to each other lo these 67 or so years (they don't talk about it, but I know I didn't come along right away, and I'm 65, so it must be at least that long). When I catch them both home together, I am spared Mother's litany of complaints about Dad, though I do get an aside or two when she thinks he isn't listening. What I notice about their house is how clean it always is. Never any dust, no errant spide webs, not even a gratuitous fingerprint on the big chrome-plated refrigerator. Where are all the little splatters from frying stuff? Don't they have pubic hair that winds up in the tub, like I do? Even the dog toys look spanking new. And they are all put away in the basket under the table. My dogs have gnawed and eviscerated and slobbered all over their toys, and, while I do have a basket to collect them, too, they are seldom residing there. Most likely, they are all over the place, numerous ULOs (unidentified lying objects). And, oh. my. God. You should see Mother's hydrangea. It is blue and pink and violet, and 90 feet tall! Mine is one bland shade of pink, and still thinking about blooming. I asked what she did, and she said "I feed it". Oh. On the other hand, I noticed my one token tomato plant has two tiny tomatoes on it already. So I am doing something right. Probably it is not the right thing, but hell, I'm working on it. And my obligatory visits to that bastion of perfection have ended for this year until Thanksgiving. Any further visits will be strictly voluntary. And I will be able to steel myself and be thoroughly satisfied with my imperfections so I can walk away, happy with my sweet, loving, messy little life.

Time marches on...

Wouldn't it be great if we could go back in time, do things we screwed up better, erase some of the damage? Yeah, well, not happening any time soon. I have been doing a lot of ruminating on the wreckage of my past as I ready myself for more amends. I am happy to say that the latest debacles have been more of the sin of omission kind rather than sins of commission. Nice things I didn't say, good deeds I didn't do, things like that. And then there's the good old hidden agenda stuff, like I'm really not using you, no sirree. Except, I am. Even if it looks like you're getting a good deal, too. Sigh. And I have not been as manipulative as I used to be. Well, I used to be cuter, too, and that made tweaking others, men in particular, easier than it would be now, for sure. I can't even get the dogs to stop barking, like at this very moment. Sigh. So, I go forth to bless and to prosper, I hope. If I hurt you, I'm sorry. Believe me, I am doing the best I can under these very human circumstances. I can only pray to become better. One day at a time.

It's a mystery...

Last night I spent a long time awake in the night, something that happens to the cow woman every so often, luckily, not as often as it used to happen, and that's a good thing. So I meditated for a while, then I turned stuff over and looked under the mental rocks for the slimy stuff underneath. Now, there is this person that I don't like. I dislike this person so much that I have changed my life to avoid her, given up some stuff that used to be important just to not have her presence in my consciousness. Not that she would ever invade my personal space, not again, that is. And there is no acrimony between us, just this tacit agreement to disagree. When I have run into her, we are civil to one another, and honor one another without engaging. And I had thought that, finally, she was history. Except that circumstances have plunked her right down, practically in my lap, AGAIN. So I am working on letting go of my righteousness about this person, like my need to be a BETTER PERSON than she is. Isn't it interesting that I have been in pursuit of a spiritual existence lo these 20 years, and still have not risen above the need to be superior? And I think I am a superior SPIRITUAL PERSON than this woman. How's that for hubris! So I asked HP to help me have COMPASSION for this person. After all, my dislike is based on things I THINK she did, or gossip of others, and, while I am not trusting her with any of my supersecret stuff, I can at least be gentle with her little soul, and with mine as well. After all, it is not about getting others to be what I want, it is about being that, myself. Yeah.

What?

I realized today that I know how to do a lot of things I wish I didn't. I know how to change a bed with Pickle on it. I know how to get gum off my favorite shorts. I know how to start the lawn mower, even when I have overfilled the gas tank. Unfortunately, I am not so hot at putting the grass-catcher on (or getting it off when it is full, either), so it didn't have that great a seal going, and I got a lot of chopped up pseudo-lawn sprayed all over me, and had to have a shower. Showers are rare and wonderful moments in my life. They usually mean I have been exercising in some way. I used to take a lot of showers. Which leads me to another thing I have been thinking about. How easy would this life be if I didn't have a body? Today, I walked to the restaurant to meet a friend for lunch, hoofing it to exercise my body on my way to feed my body. Then I got my body all dirty, after cleaning it all spiffy this morning in the bathtub, and had to wash it, again. I have this cabinet filled with things to keep my body smelling good, looking good, feeling good and working good. Every moment of every day is preoccupied with something my body needs: food, drink, a trip to the bathroom, a more comfortable position, more clothes, less clothes, music for my ears, soft socks for my feet. Never-ending, expensive, time-consuming need, this body has. And now I have to stop, because my neck is aching. Ach!

Changing the thing(s) I can...

That's the second part of the Serenity Prayer, after accepting the things I cannot change, and the wisdom to know the difference. It is deceptive to think that there is more than one thing that I can affect, like there is only one me. But I suppose you could stretch that to be my thoughts, my words, my actions, and, especially, my attitudes. There's the rub. I have an old and stubborn belief that my attitudes are caused by external forces, namely, other people (or, in Pickle's case, other mammals). What can I do about that? And the answer is always, think again. Start over, make a different decision. If caught soon enough, I can shift gears and decide not to be all pissy and moany, and get over it. If not, I am stuck with my mess of my own making until it has thoroughly thrashed me. No problem. I keep boxes of Kleenexes all over the house, courtesy of Costco. And, in the end, it is all good, as it teaches me, yet again, that, whatever crap is laid at my feet, I really can decide not to step in it, or roll around in it, as the case may be.

One last trip for the horse...

My original idea was to give myself a break from the cows and paint a horse. Well, the horse has been a night-mare (little pun there) from the beginning. No one really knows what a cow looks like, not in all the intimate details. They are just kind of lumpy and bumpy, actually strangely configured, and if I don't get them exactly right, no one notices, except me, and I am determined not to fuss over them too much. But, everyone knows how a horse is supposed to look, although everyone seems to have a different picture in mind, so I have altered this poor animal more times than I care to remember. And because he is white, the whole thing threatened to fade out entirely. My last foray into the painting was to heighten the values of both light and dark, slim the animal in critical areas, and just attempt to make it a more dynamic piece. Whatever, I like it now, and I didn't ever, before. How challenging this is! And, sometimes, satisfying, too.

Well, here it is, again...

Another re-worked image, one I like infinitely better after loosening the whole thing up a whole bunch. And brightening it up here, darkening it there, voila! Gee, I hope you like it. Because, that's all she wrote, folks.

She puzzled and puzzed...

Okay, I know that happiness is an inside job, and to be truly happy, I need to keep it there, and not give it to another human being, or to an object. That being said, I will admit that I derive a great deal of happiness from my things, temporary as they are. My favorite thing is my car. It is small, not very fancy, economical, and shines very nicely after the Zen car wash. If I keep it serviced (and I do because I know intimately what happens if I don't), it just starts right up and takes me wherever I want to go. How wonderful is that. And I don't take that for granted, because they get old and crotchety, cars do. But, then, there are new cars! Nothing is as wonderful as a new car. Until I get my humility dent, that is, that one little imperfection that reminds me nothing is perfect. And my next favorite thing is this here computer. Just spent a bundle getting her all up to snuff, more RAM, less adware and annoying pop-ups. And she is not a youngun, my big Bertha Dell baby. I've had her about 8 years. And I'm not getting a new one until Vista walks west till its hat floats. I love my Windows XP Professional. Every morning I fire her up and read my Thought for the Day, my Beliefnet advice, my NY Times headlines, and whatever my friends have dug up to send me from YouTube. And I go to my Facebook homepage and cyberlurk in all my friends' lives, my kids, too. And then I play a game or two, just to decompress after my second cup of Sumatra, and get the gray cells perking. This all happens before making the bed or feeding the critters. I know what is important. So, things may not be the fount of all wonder, but they sure do make my life full of it. And, hell, Ford or Dell will give me a new one, no $$$ down!

And another flipped bird...

I never liked the little hummer, not from the very beginning. He was too big, too long, too not right at all. So I changed him drastically, bigger head, bigger eye, shortened him up and dressed him in more finery. Very loosely, I might add. What you see is a minimum of strokes, on the bird. The background got a lot of attention, and I think he really popped, which is what I want all my paintings to do, have some WOW in them. One of the things I did was leave white out of the equation, a lot. I love to schmoosh paint all over the palette, mixing it until it is just barely tinted mud. And I get muddy paintings. So I had an eye for values and colors this time, and it worked! Some things resolved themselves, like the funny branch he is clinging to. I thought it was not very defined when I put the painting to bed yesterday. Now, I like it a lot. And I think I like the painting, too. I am never really sure. Yesterday, as I puttered around doing all this stuff, I was watching a program on Cezanne on Ovation TV, a treasure I found not long ago in that seemingly endless parade of channels on my satellite, and he was never satisfied with his work, doubted his vision right to the end of his days. Yet, now, he is considered a virtual master and visionary that led us into cubism and the modern era. Go figure. Artists are just insecure, and a little looney. Moi aussi.

Flipping the birds...

I noticed on my trip around West County, perusing other artists' work, that birds are a favorite subject. I decided to try a few myself, and they have been mouldering on a table in my studio for months in a dissatisfying heap. So, they got pulled out yesterday, and I gave them a makeover. Jim's Jay was painted from a photo my friend (Jim, of course) took, and it was just kind of washed out looking. Now he is all punched up with complimentary hues and looks pretty spiffy, if I say so myself! I am not unhappy, and that's saying a lot.

This may be the one...

Since Art for Life, the ultra-chic silent auction to benefit Face to Face, our AIDS charity here in our county, now wants me (!), I am mulling over small paintings, those that I have a frame in house to fit, to donate (and that is so much easier than hoofing down there and tapping my foot while they juried my painting into their event). In the process of reworking everything I have ever done, I think this came up really nicely, not too worked, not perfect but kind of Cezanneish, definitely joyous and happy to look at. You think? Oh, hell, whatever I give, just send someone to love it, like last year. Are you listening, HP?

Now we're cooking!

Third time I have modified this little masterpiece, my Just Because painting of sunflowers. It was washed out and kind of gray originally, then delicate pale blue, which was sweet, just not very dynamic. So, I thought, why not red? After all, paintings are not photographs, they don't have to be reality-based (well, photos don't either, I have learned from Photoshop). And this is probably a taboo in a lot of books, so I did it, with a lot of elan, lots of dabdab, slapslap energy. When in doubt, tuck tongue between teeth, dip brush and just GO. It took a while, and the idea simmered in the frontal cortex for a long time. What the hell, I can always paint over the whole mess and begin again. Xrays of the great masters shows they did that, a lot. So do I. So there.

Help, I'm on the cliff without my glasses!

Yesterday, a friend an I hiked the cliff trail between Goat Rock Park and Shell Beach, parked our butts on the cliff and had a picnic. As you can see, it was one of those pristine days at our coast. There were wildflowers, a carpet of them, in every hue. There were pelicans. The sea was as calm as a lake, until the wind came up later in the afternoon. It almost always does that, the wind from the sea. I remembered the food, the binoculars, the camera. Just forgot my glasses, so I couldn't review any of my shots, just had to trust I framed them properly and that they would be in focus. Some were not, but that didn't seem to matter. It was just so spectacularly lovely, I couldn't possibly do anything wrong. And Photoshop was waiting at home, for adjustments, as necessary. Or not.

Funky Monday...

It kind of feels like the day after everything, that "is this all there is" funk. So I am flitting around the little yellow house as if I were a newborn butterfly, acting my way out of it. Not working, yet. Nevertheless, I did my morning dose of superduper cellular cleanse. Cells must be pretty dirty after 65 years. Oh, actually, oldest cells are just 7 years old, n'est-ce pas? Well, whatever, they are all slick and refreshed. Then I watched a 1981 interview of Jonathan Miller by that terribly cerebral Dick Cavett, about Mesmerism and modern medicine and general intellectual repartee, which set the old brain humming. I agree, advances in health are due more to nutrition, proper drainage, and a cleaner environment. And violence is due to the anonymity of the population in general and the ability of the cities to successfully cloak the perpetrators. How depressing is that? And that leads to another thought: AA is successful because of the community it creates, a place to be seen and noticed and validated. So many addicts isolate, and they did so before they were active in their addiction. Certainly that is my modus operandi. It is an effort to go out into the world a lot of the time. I love my tiny world here. There, I have unburdened myself of my innermost secrets, and can now take my tender little self into the day.

Out and about in West County...

Today, my terribly urban attorney daughter and I took each other on a quest for art in the wilds of West County. That is where a lot of sweet artistic souls camp out in wonderful rustic settings amid eucalyptus and redwood trees, up and down twisty turny rutted narrow roads on the eyebrow of a hill. We stopped in Graton, my mother's hometown, and after perusing the antiques and the Graton Gallery, had lunch at the Willow Wood Market, where I showed kiddo a picure of her grandmother in a fifth grade class photo in a book on Graton. It used to be the other side of the tracks, terribly poor, and is now a chichi little community like Mendocino, you know, Disneyland for grown-ups. From there, full of chicken, spinach, apples and walnuts, we headed to Occidental, big name for another miniscule place on earth, and saw a variety of art styles, all equally wonderful in their own way. Mylette Welch's dogs are a favorite of mine, dog lover that I am, goofy, slap-happy, and somehow tender as well, in vibrant Crayola hues. And Amber liked Tamsen Donner's work, especially a little painting of a sponge. Well, you had to be there, I guess. I was interested in her work because she started painting around the same time I did, though I think she didn't take the long breaths between works. And she is brave in her subject matter, painting a drainer full of dishes, or cabbage on a chopping block. Kiddo liked these, can't get her head around still lifes because they seem contrived. That is because they are! And, you know, I agree. Full of ideas, ready to get going on my own stuff. There's a plan!

Saturday, gray Saturday...

Cheery little image for a really gray day here in the little yellow house. Dogs are restless, barking, making the dog door flap a lot. I mowed the front yard, hurriedly in case the threat turned into real rain. Now thinking about some stuff that needs doing around the house. Thinking, not doing, at least not yet. Have been to my morning meeting, with muffins (lemon-blueberry, chocolate-chocolate chip) and strawberries in hand, made me very popular. Forgot to get reimbursed. Sigh. And no luck getting gas into gas can so I can mow the backyard, too. Sigh. Praying for gas can filling ability to land on me, soon. And reminiscing about when I did this homage to Vincent, in design class, for my final project. Hard to do in acrylics, you know. Still not as vibrant as his original composition, but a fair likeness. Funny, put things away for a while, and they are like presents when I pull them out again! Sweet!