38

Every year, I try to take one nice black & white photo on my birthday. And I did. But our computer is still broken, so I can't download the camera, and what I have instead is a 5:45am phone collage in my sweatshirt.

That is 38 for you.

If you can handle me at my best, you deserve me at my worst - Ralph Waldo Emerson, probably

This was the first year I've felt self-conscious about how old I am. You sort of drift agelessly from 25-35, and then WHAM, you're slammed up against 40. I am past my prime, skin-integrity-wise, but I am just coming into it, skills-and-interests-wise. That is acceptable. I have chip clips to hold the skin up.

Last year my neck started to get soft, and this year I was pretty sure it would just suddenly collapse like a souffle, but it still seems to be hanging onto the bottom of my face. No grey hairs that I can detect. Health is holding steady. Plenty of room for future deterioration, which is how you like to try to keep it. Make the wolves work for it - don't just lay down and let them eat you.

For my birthday, we saw a movie and ate at our favorite hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurant. There was homemade chiffon cake, and earrings, and a beautiful new palette to paint on. My mother gave me a bouquet of flowers, which I dutifully set up and painted, even though it was an overwhelming array of folds and petals and reflections and colors. There was no way I could do it with precision in one sitting, so I did it frantically, and that seemed to work well enough. The entire canvas is covered in paint, anyway. It looks good if you don't get up close to it, and THAT is how you know it's fine art, folks.

This was a very good year. No ER visits with unconscious children, no gouts of blood, no family tragedy. We built a painting studio and filled it with paintings. The chickens laid eggs and mysteriously learned to crow. There were trips on airplanes, interesting people, chilly boat rides. I will take a hot baker's dozen of these years, please.

Thanksgiving 2017

Things I was thankful for:

* The turkey that had been sitting in our freezer for A YEAR was still edible.

* The paper bag I stuffed the turkey into for roasting did not catch on fire this year.

* I fed the chickens extra stuffing and felt kind of wrong about it, but they ate it without asking any questions.

* The man went on his Homeless Turkey Endeavor again this year, but let me talk him into burying a pork butt with the homeless turkeys instead of bringing home another corpse bird. My mom had to pick it up on Thanksgiving morning and had a misadventure, driving all over campus trying to find the imu and then being asked to identify the body she was claiming without knowing what it was supposed to look like. There was a lot of phone panic, but they figured it out eventually, and it was really delicious.


 Things my kids were NOT thankful for:

 * The cat did not put her foot in the pie this year. No perfect little paw print to laugh at, no probably-poop-contaminated piece of pie to serve to the least popular guest. I reminded them that I'm always the one who forgets and ends up accidentally eating the paw print piece, and they thought that actually tied the whole thing up pretty neatly. I told them I'd stomp on their pieces of pie, if that would help.


 Things my cats were not thankful for:

* Maura got a butt gland infection and had to have her bottom shaved and squeezed out (inexpertly - but for free) by the vet tech students at the college, so she spent the holiday sitting gingerly on a cushion, growling and taking swipes at us when we got too close.

* Po was sleeping on the table when we pulled it out to add the extension pieces, and we didn't realize she was laying across one of the seams until the table opened up and she dropped through it like a bowling ball, her skinny little hind legs flailing up into the air for just a moment before disappearing from view. She told me off for collapsing onto the table, laughing.

Still mad

It was a good year. This was our first year hosting this particular feast at this particular house. The kids helped cook, the teenagers washed the dishes, my mother brought fancy cocktail ingredients and a scary diet pie (we like to have one wildcard item that is allowed to be a complete disaster), and my aunt showed us her gross almost-severed finger. It was a very familial family-type occasion, which is the best kind.

Also I have begun the process of massively overdoing it with the decorations, because I had a moment of panic when I realized that Gavin only has 4 holiday seasons left before going off to college, and I decided it was very important to overcompensate with cram-it-down-your-throat holiday decor. I'm going to assemble an entire Christmas village this year, and I'm only populating it with raccoons and bears. HOLD ME BACK.

Broccoli casseroling

Cockroach clustering.

This year's new and improved Cockroach Clusters (bacon wrapped dates) contained cream cheese and pecans. THUMBS UP.

Stuffing prepping. No fingers lost, unlike SOME PEOPLE.

The only pictures of me were the ones I took myself while drinking. As usual.

Needs more decorative gourds. And some miniature raccoons.

My aunt's deviled eggs had an accident in the car on the way over, but they tried their best.

In the background: the vase of fake flowers that Mike put water in.

My mother is head of the table and the only person who can carve the turkey without destroying it.

"Cat Foot Pie", sadly without cat foots. Recipe is here.

Some of the spread, with my stupid Pioneer lady dishes that I love so much.

The sisters, in pie remorse phase

Toad isn't impressed with my snowy garlands.

And now it is time to panic about Christmas cards! Hurray.

rough re-entry and yet ANOTHER figure painting

I incubated every germ in the airport and then spent the next week coughing them all up, laying on the couch like a big sad wet thing. The workshop taught me so much that I suddenly realized I couldn't actually paint at all. The only people who get things done are the ones who do the things. Got up, drank a quart of Robitussin, and then tried to paint a little portrait of a friend's kid as a gift. Painted a blue and pink pig creature, instead. Threw it in the garbage and collapsed back onto the couch to watch Longmire and bury myself in snot tissues. The next day, the mail carrier dropped a thick envelope on my GO AWAY mat, and I opened it up to find the pad of Dura-lar sheets I had ordered on my phone while Elizabeth Zanzinger was halfway through recommending them (I'm that student). These sheets are good for painting on, she explained, because they are cheap enough that you can bang out lots of studies without getting precious about them, but they are also archival, so if you actually like something, it will last forever and all you have to do is frame it.

I put the Dura-lar on the table and went back to my nest of tissues. All my brushes are garbage, anyway, I thought. The next day, the mail carrier showed up and dropped a box on my GO AWAY mat. This box contained one perfect paint brush.

I'm pretty stupid about hints, but I got this one, so I crawled off the couch and up to the table and painted.

Been feeling a little self-conscious about all the figure paintings I've been posting lately, and waffled a bit about whether to hide them behind a link for people who are at work, but meeeeeh. This is a  blog, that's what it's for.

So SHIELD YOUR EYES, because here's another one.

I'm about to start another longer-term portrait. Any time now. Zenny took a trip across the sidewalk on her face, and we are waiting for the scabs to peel off before setting up another pose.

workshop pictures

My mother was waiting at home for me when I pulled up after midnight and started sobbing onto her shoulder. "I finally got sick while I was on the plane and I couldn't find where Mike parked the stupid car and I have blisters from dragging the suitcase all over the parking garage and I couldn't find the key because he stuffed it inside the goddamn wheel and then it was $90 to get out of the parking garage and why didn't he just get dropped off like a normal person and I had such a nice trip but now I'm crying!" She patted my back and said there was an entire lasagna in the fridge. This helped. I was maybe a bit exhausted. Embarrassing.

PICTURES. In chronological order

Seattle with sun beams. Show off.

The ferry ride over - very pleased after watching a seagull trip and fall

cold

Langley, the cutest damn town, with pumpkins just thrown all the hell over it

flippin brambles of berries all over the place, like a storybook

Monica, the Anthes Ferments restaurant hostess

Phenomenal Meal #1: crab and cheese Welsch rarebit

Elizabeth Zanzinger's morning demo

my easel on the first day

My first painting was... not so good. But I learned a lot.

flippin bunnies EVERYWHERE

 Elizabeth Zanzinger's wall of past demos

 Phenomenal Meal #2: clams at the Prima Bistro

My top bunk nest

FIRE

Holly! I think! 

Second morning of painting: my underdrawing

And then in the afternoon I ruined it a bit

Consolation

Further consolation

Me and Elizabeth Zanzinger

Phenomenal Meal #3: Eggs Benedict with curried oysters, wild mushrooms, and bacon at the Braeburn restaurant

The view as I walked my buns off every morning

Last day of painting: my underdrawing

The model liked it, so I count it as a win.

Elizabeth Zanzinger's painting of the same model

The painting I bought from Elizabeth. I love it so much.

Realizing I was experiencing maybe the happiest moment of my adult life, I snapped a picture of my walk back to the airbnb to catch the moment. It was a poorly lit moment, but there it is.

Ferry ride back to Seattle - SO WINDY

 Non-phenomenal Meal #4: Sea-Tac airport Wendy's chicken sandwich and sad coffee

 Airport terminal gouache bunny

More Langley bunnies, which I painted while crammed between two sleeping men on the absurdly tiny plane

And that was it. I sent my mother home with presents for keeping the kids alive, kissed my sleeping boys, collapsed into bed next to my little girl, and have been drinking Robitussin straight from the bottle ever since.

Elizabeth Zanzinger's painting is hanging in the living room where I can see it as I sit on the couch with my tea, and I'm going to stare at it until my brush strokes are as soft and decisive and full of color as hers.



(Oh, and I lost 4 lbs. Phenomenal meals ftw!)