44

I did not take the time to get the good camera out and take a decent picture, so we get phone selfies and a screenshot with Gavin this year. I’ll update with better pictures if I find a minute to do the thing right.

Forty-four. This skeleton wrapped in meat is showing wear and tear. Gained medical weight this year, got some of it off, still working on the rest. My neck is starting to think about sliding down onto my collarbones, but it is still hanging onto the bottom of my face. I still have all my teeth, although another one of them got crowned. Fitness Cult has become a half-assed effort; I’ve been too busy catching every illness that gets sneezed onto me at work. But I have painted a lot, and traveled, and walked through many museums, so I’m happy with my body’s service this year.

 

For year forty-five, I am riding this meat sack to Baltimore, where I will eat all the crabs in Maryland. I hope to travel with my kids in March to hunt out some snow for them to experience for the first time (Leif saw snow as a baby, but can't remember). I have painting ideas, and things I want to sew, and a new Norwegian knitting book.

 

Let's do another year, I am prepared.

Thanksgiving 2023

On Tuesday I was so happy to be out of isolation and into the kitchen that I forgot my brain wasn't working at full steam, and immediately burned the shit out of my hand. It's bad enough that now, days later, I'm wondering if I should have gone to Urgent Care instead of just taping a bag of frozen peas to it, but I don't know what they could have done about it. It's going to be another scar added to the collection on my hands; X-ACTO blade, parrot attack, cowboy rope burn, and seared pork chop. It's a well-rounded assortment, at least.

With one hand out of commission, I wasn't feeling wild about Thanksgiving. The family pitched in, we cheated with a couple of pre-made items and frozen appetizers, and everything came out fine. Zenny made a really great chocolate silk pie, Leif made eggs Benedict for breakfast, and we facetimed with Gavin at his aunt's house, where he was enjoying a huge noisy gathering full of cousins. I'm really grateful he has family close enough to visit while he's in university, instead of having sad dorm room holidays.

Leif spent a few hours making a Lego centerpiece, and the cats threw it off the table. Along with my new sugar bowl. And three tea cups. 

And then they ate the shrimp platter when we weren’t looking. The cats would rank this as their best Thanksgiving. I’ll take it.

2 paychecks to Christmas. Haven’t made holiday cards yet. Oh no.

Three days to get in cooking shape

Still sick, but I beat back the shingles with antivirals before it messed me up too much. Back to being the most beautiful girl in the room. 

Binging Ink Master, wondering if it’s too late to change careers while also feeling glad that I never have to draw a sad clown riding a rubber chicken for some weirdo who wants a tattoo in their armpit. 

Finished the painting finally. 

Finished appliqué and started echo quilting. It’s going to have to get washed and quarantined when it’s done, gross. 

 

Should be back up and running by turkey day.

Oh good

Now the shingles have spread to my face. Just itchy and blotchy so far, but overall shingles has a downvote from me. It only attaches itself to middle-aged people because people it’s own age (25 BCE) won’t have anything to do with it.

Feeling cute, might develop painful unilateral blistering rash later IDK

The little quilt I’m working on:

I had an idea for a painting, and decided that spending 3-6 months hand-quilting a backdrop was totally fine. That was supposed to be a problem for Future Holly, who isn’t going to be pleased about being handed off the appliqué work of Covid Holly.

Wtffff

Started a still life today, and only got the background in before I had to lie down. I kind of like this hole-punched-in-the-easel stage.

Doing okay. Appliqué notwithstanding.

lolsob

I have covid AGAIN. And also shingles, because apparently covid can cause your immune system to reactivate the chicken pox virus just for fun, so that’s nice. At least it’s on my ankle, not my face. My short term memory is going to be completely in the toilet. I’m going to be living my life like that guy from Memento, relying on my own habits to figure out what I did with things. This was from the last time I was locked in the bedroom for a week, when I found my diamond ring hidden in a box of my kids’ baby teeth:

Better order myself a tattoo machine so I can take better notes for myself.

In other news, I started therapy.

I got tired of having PTSD dead-baby reactions every time a storytime toddler smacked their head off a library chair. It’s going well, except that talking about one thing brings up other things throughout the week, and I ended up crying for most of my session yesterday. And then I got sick this morning. Conclusion: crying gives you covid.

And so it is back to my painting desk, back to sitting on the bed and quilting while watching murder dramas, back to sleeping with the whole bed to myself. Except for the headache and possibility of brain damage, I really dig being locked up in quarantine.

Artists of Hawaii Show

Update: The old guy died. He was 90.

Really weird day. And no, I did not win any prize money.

The gallery posted an Instagram video of the show right before I went up for story time, which caused my stomach to sink. It was full of post-modern sculptures and abstract art, with a few realist pieces added in like grudging afterthoughts and stuck in the back corner of the gallery. I didn’t stand a shot if my work wasn’t the judge’s aesthetic, but I didn’t have time to be disappointed, so I grabbed my books and went out to greet my story time kids. Halfway through, the Amplifier arrived. 

Most story times are sweet and calm, with the kids listening well and singing along between books, but it only takes one Amplifier for the entire group to start jumping and screaming and playing and running through the aisles while their parents talk loudly over the noise instead of helping. I powered through, going extra hard with the sound effects and fingerplays, and managed to get most of them through the last book and up on their feet to do the goodbye song before losing control completely. While my student worker set out the craft activity, I got back behind the circ desk to take a breath and figure out who the Amplifier was. My usual dynamic toddlers weren’t there that day. I finally narrowed it down to a pack of moms who were howling with laughter in the board book corner, and realized that one of them was a new face. She was talking animatedly with the other young mothers, then she checked out a huge stack of books, said how great story time was, and left with her toddler. The noise level dropped to a confused murmur again while people readjusted to being in the library, unable to figure out what had changed. Story time is as much for the parents as it is for the kids, so I’m really just glad she had the break she needed, made some friends, and will bring her kid back again, but WHOA these days take it out of me.

I stopped at the store after work, still coming down from story time and feeling nervous about going to the gallery reception, where my little food painting would be hanging awkwardly next to all those giant post-modern pieces. As I drove into my neighborhood, there was something happening by the tennis courts, and I slowed down. Someone had just been hit by a car. The vehicle had stopped in the road, doors open, two blonde girls who looked barely out of their teens screaming into their  phones while a crowd of people ran over and covered their mouths and cried. A man was bent over the person on the ground, holding his hand and stroking his face. The guy looked pretty dead, the hand and arm held by the onlooker was dark and shiny and wrinkled. He was an old guy. His hat was ten feet away, in the crosswalk. I moved out of the way, knowing I couldn’t help and that the hospital was only 20 seconds away, so I’d be blocking the ambulance if I stopped. As I pulled into my driveway I heard the sirens. I hope he’s alive, I hope those girls don’t have their lives ruined. It hasn’t turned up on the news. They usually report pedestrians being hit by cars, but they don’t catch all of them. And they don’t report accidents involving military personnel at all. 

We changed clothes and headed into Honolulu, passing the ambulance and police cars. The car with the young driver had moved, but the ambulance was sitting with its lights on and the police were taking notes with bystanders. 

We picked up dinner at the noodle place and drove down to Chinatown. The gallery went all out, with free valet and dessert buffet and good beer, and it was absolutely crammed with people. Most people were dressed in aloha business attire, with a few pretentious artsy outfits that were either deliberately raggedy (old artists) or comically gimmicky (young artists). My piece had a nice spot by the entrance instead of in the back corner, because one of the women hanging the show has known me since I was a teenager and was happy I had entered, but the painting was in danger of getting elbowed off the wall by all the people crowding in. I said hi to her and fought to hang on to my kids while we edged through the gallery to look at everything.

After all the awards had been handed out, we had a look at the Best in Show and then did an Irish Goodbye out a side door.

Best in Show was a ceramic chain mail “quilt”.

I wasn’t bothered by not winning anything. I was thinking about that dark, shiny, wrinkled arm. I had consumed a free beer while crammed up against a Pepper’s Ghost installation. I had quacked at high volume with 32 moshing toddlers. It was a strange, unreal day. 

Next year I’m going to stubbornly submit another piece, but this time it’s going to be big enough to make it hard for them to knock off a wall.

Halloween 2023

 Halloween started weeks ago at the sewing machine. After putting together an ill-fitting and slightly shabby vampire costume for Zenny (which she likes anyway, because she's kind), I spent a week quilting a gambeson for Leif to go under his armor. Which was real. I warned him that real armor is heavy and uncomfortable, but the boy had his mind made up, and he earned the money himself with his after-school job, so why the hell not? He will have responsibilities and bills and groceries for the entire rest of his life, but he will never be 15 in a full suit of armor again. And maybe buyer's remorse is an important lesson to learn before you're old enough to blow all your money on a sports car that can't clear a speed bump or hold a car seat.

On Saturday, the last stitches on the padding went in, and we got in costume for the annual spooky train ride at the historical train society in Ewa. Kids screamed and ran from Leif. One pointed and got excited, "That's the knight from last year!" Different costume, but pretty cool that he's become part of this child's holiday memories. Last year the theme was Hawaiian ghost stories, but this year - probably owing to a lack of historic Hawaiian costumes at Party City - the theme was fairy tales, and we rattled through the industrial yards listening to a teenage narrator tell very fast stories over an old buzzing speaker system while children reenacted the scenes in the grass beside the train tracks as we passed by. 

On Halloween, we threw the costumes, jack-o-lantern, and boxes of armor into the trunk of the car and drove over to my mother’s house for trick-or-treating. Her elderly cat ate the brie off of the cheese platter while we got ourselves in character. The cousins showed up solo, because my aunt is in Arizona caring for grandpa and left them to survive on their own for a few months (they’re 21 and 16, it’s okay). Leif began struggling into his armor, already sweating. After an hour of buckling and adjusting, he clanked down the street with us, looked at the giant hill we had to walk up, and stopped. If you have never seen a knight in full armor and helmet that looks as if it’s about to cry, I am here to tell you it looks exactly like you’d imagine. I sent the girl ahead with her cousins and walked the knight home. 

“Take the heavy stuff off and just wear the top part and undergarments,” I said. “Or you can wear the hot dog costume I brought as a backup.” 

He shook his head and trudged inside, dejected. I left him with his dad and granny to hand out candy, picked up my gnome skirts, and ran to catch up with the kids before my younger cousin could get into trouble with a drunk homeowner over being a 6’2” trick-or-treater.

By 8:30pm we were collapsed around the candy piles and Leif had cooled off enough to eat some pumpkin cheesecake while we watched BBC Ghosts. Poor guy. He’s down to his last two Halloweens before college, so next year we’ve got some making up to do.

He still looked good, though. 

Nobody knows what a garden gnome is around here. “German… beer… princess?” Close enough. Hard to see in photo: I had on a 2 foot-tall pointed hat.

Giant cousins 

Now if it will just cool down and get under 80 degrees, I’ll feel like making Thanksgiving happen.

It’s a no

It is done, I did not get the job, and I am kind of relieved. Putting that whole thing to rest for a while and focusing on the holidays, the gallery reception, the new book contract, and the ALA conference. Not giving up, just taking a break until the right thing comes along.

endless waiting

Tension is very high over here as the end of the week rolls by with no rejection or offer from prospective employers. My feelings about this whole thing are changing from "this was a great idea" to "this was a terrible idea" every hour or two. Maybe that hesitation is the answer I need. Or maybe I shouldn't let fear make decisions for me. I DON'T KNOW. Our tentative agreement is that if I get the offer, I go visit the place and see how it feels before accepting anything. I can always say no.

In the meantime, I have been selected to attend a library conference in Baltimore in January, and I've been going ahead with planning that, even knowing I might have to throw a wrench in the gears and make life hard for the admin who chose me for the trip. Until I hear otherwise, I am just going to live my life as usual. I bought some cute snow boots, and I'm looking at parkas online (surprise - we don't have any here). If anyone has a favorite coat that keeps them warm in a blizzard, please drop it in the comments.

Also, my 7-11 painting made it through two rounds of jurying and the award ceremony at the gallery is next Saturday. Fingers crossed that it places in the top 5. 

that tracks

No time to post lately, deeply in the midst of fckin up my job interview. Waited with presentation at appointed day and time; no Teams meeting link was sent. Emailed them before the meeting, no reply. Double-checked all my notifications from them - no link. Interview time came and went. Sent an email, apologized, asked if I had misunderstood. Sat in front of computer for another hour. Decided I had been stood up. Went to bed. Woke up next morning to reply emails, saying there had been a formatting problem and I should have been sent a link a week ago. They had rescheduled me for new interview time: half an hour before I woke up. Panicked, threw on clothes, ran to computer, tried to join meeting late. Nobody there. Sent humble apology, said technology and time difference had won that day, and I was still interested if they'd be willing to give it one last try. They replied and pointed out that the new link was for Wednesday. Tomorrow. I had the time right, but not the day.

 

At least I am distinguishing myself among the field of applicants.

Update: Interview went well! If I don't get it, I'm satisfied that it's not because I embarrassed myself. Results in a week.