self-actualization and potties

In my dream, I was dead. I was laying dead in a ditch and trying to get a flattering selfie of my dead self so I could update my facebook profile and see if people I hadn't heard from in a while might want to reconnect before I lost sentience completely. Which I was failing to do, because I was dead, and I couldn't get my arms to work. I woke up with my head hanging off the mattress.

If I'm thinking accidental death might be an expedient way to make friends, it might be a sign that I need more people in my life.

This is all Ann Brashares' fault. I stayed up until 11pm finishing the book, then went to bed like a hollow-eyed sad thing.

The lost love returns after 10 years and their someday arrives. The 'successful one' puts down her phone and finds her own voice again. The wayward girl hits bottom and then blossoms in the sunshine with a baby in her arms. Everyone reconnects, laughs and hugs and eats pop tarts, and it's all ok in the end.

Damn it, I want to feel things. And laugh about things outside of the letters h-a-h-a on my keyboard. And find letters in my mailbox. Maybe I'd get some if I sent some damn letters to people. 

Off to find a book that is more thrills-and-kilts and less weep-for-your-squandered-life.

In other news

* I missed Rhinebeck, the big upstate New York fiber festival. Again. Someone please help me come up with a reason to go to that thing without having to visit my in-laws.

* Looking at artwork on my blog feed (here, here, oh, and here) I felt existential distress because I haven't been making art - and then remembered that I've been spending all my free time drawing a potty-training board book. This is going to be my legacy. In a world of portraiture and fantasy art and stormy landscapes, I have a half-finished potty board book. And folks, I have discovered why there are not more potty books. Why there is an ever-present need for potty-training instruction and an inexplicable dearth of material. Why illustrators go through ridiculous back-flips to avoid drawing kids on potties (eg: "I'm a Potty Superhero!" with child in cape not actually using a potty. You know who does not know what a 'superhero' is? MY POTTY TRAINING TODDLER). Because here is what happens when you try to make a potty book:

1. After sketching the book out and beginning the process of gathering reference for the final illustrations, you discover almost immediately that it is REALLY creepy taking pictures of toddlers using the toilet, and you begin wondering how you'd explain it to a judge after the police ram down your door. I happen to have a toddler on hand. Imagine needing to borrow your friend's kid for pictures in the bathroom. NOPE. 
2. In an effort to avoid taking reference pictures, you turn to the internet - figuring there are plenty of proud parents posting tasteless pictures of their kids on the potty - and immediately you are punched in the face by horrifying pictures of bottle-sucking men in diapers and bonnets spreading their legs suggestively.
3. You set the computer on fire and go draw a book about ducklings.

I decided to just take pictures of my kid watching tv on the ottoman and pretend it was a potty, and that was fine. But then I had the great idea to include a bit about using a public toilet - because really, half of potty training is running across a giant store with the kid under your arm and crouching in the stall to hold them up on the toilet. So the next time we found ourselves sprinting to the Costco restroom, I helped her finish her business and then remembered to take a picture of the public toilet for reference. Just the toilet. On its own. "STOP TAKING PICTURES," my kid bellowed, and I felt the laser eyes of every person in the crowded bathroom shoot through the stall door into my back. "IT JUST FELL OUT OF MY PURSE," I lied loudly, cramming my phone away. Then I whipped her through the hand-washing trough and we ran for it.

I had better produce the next Once Upon a Potty for all this nonsense, I tell you what.