Domestic archaeology

My mother is away for a few weeks, which is our cue to get over to her place and do some DIY. Install new ceiling fans and faucets, paint, re-plaster, re-screen, replace damaged floorboards. The man and youths handle the actual repair work - my job is to clear the rooms and be the person who gets in trouble for throwing shit out (JUST KIDDING MOM, I KEPT EVERYTHING). I spent the weekend sorting boxes of old paperwork, moving furniture into the other room, making donation and trash piles (HYPOTHETICALLY), cleaning everything, and embarrassing myself with a forgotten pile of my old teenage artwork. I kept the angsty poetry to laugh about when I’m old, but the doodles and shitty figure drawings went in the bin; sorry younger self, keep drawing anyway. There were a few piles of photos from 1997-2006 that made my heart hurt to look at, and it got me thinking about old songs while I cleaned. By the time I hopped in the shower, I was so covered in dust and grime that wads of lint rolled off my skin like a dirty window screen getting hit with a hose. I like hard cleaning, it's way more satisfying than tidying, but I still prefer painting in my free time, so I have decided to look into hiring a deep cleaning service once or twice a year for my own house, just to keep things from getting too neglected. It sounds so decadent, but I have to remind myself that we don't really eat out, drink, smoke, or go to salons, so there's some room in the budget if I move a few things around.* 

This was all complicated by a baby bird. Bobo the Bulbul, one of the former rescue birds we released a few years ago, comes and looks for snacks when I feed the chickens, and on that morning he was having a freak-out about something and attacking Pan, our fat old outdoor cat who sleeps on the patio furniture. I figured there was a downed baby somewhere, so I put the cat inside and followed Bobo around to the front yard. The fledgling was on its back by the car, feet curled up, looking very dead except for its chest rising and falling. I picked it up and it cracked an eye briefly, then went back to dying. It wouldn’t accept water, and I was thinking this was going to be another death-sit situation, but I dabbed droplets around its beak anyway until its tiny tongue poked out and licked it. After a bit of this, the baby suddenly realized it was still alive, and sat up to take some baby bird formula. By the time we got to my mother’s house, it was scarfing banana and fanning its wings. Poor thing must have been so dehydrated and overheated, laying there in the sun.

It took a few days to recharge and get strong enough to fly around my studio and pose for painting reference, then it perched at the window and called for its parents until they flew over, very excited. We gave the baby back, and the little family flew up into the lychee tree together. I wonder if Bobo Jr will come get me when he drops a baby, too. Bulbuls seem to be really bad at keeping their offspring in their nests.

Feeling very useful this week. 

* Immediately after deciding this, I broke a tooth. OF COURSE.

hobby: collecting therapists

Our couples therapist sussed out that I was no longer seeing an individual therapist, so she sent their secretary after me to put me on the books with someone new. Fine. I have to take a couple hours off work  for the appointments, and that is OKAY WITH ME. This week I introduced myself to her by dumping my bag of trauma all over the floor and kind of waving a hand over it all. Ta da.

She sort of glanced over the skinwalker/murderer/violence stuff and then went straight to the relationship junk. Damn. It would have been nice to talk about adventure and peril instead of why I was actually there. It's kind of unnerving letting someone dig around in your most private feelings. Your mind keeps going to the things you hope they won't notice - like the heart under the floorboards. There's a fear that if you let go, you will never be able to feel those things again. 

And I know it isn't always a bad thing to lose something you're hanging on to. The other day I was standing behind the circ desk, chatting with a coworker, when someone called out my name. I looked around and saw a woman who looked familiar, smiling and waving. "It's me, Tiare! Remember me?" I did, though she looked a lot different. We caught up for a couple minutes, she told me about her grandbabies (6 of them), and then we waved goodbye. As she left, happy, my coworker said, "So you know her?" "Oh yeah. She was my high school bully, I still have a scar." I pushed up my sleeve to show the line running up my forearm. "It's okay, though. She doesn't remember it that way, she thinks we were friends." And come to think of it, she was always smiling while organizing the kids in PE to pelt me in the face with footballs or hold their noses when I walked by, so at least she's still a happy person. She lost power over me pretty suddenly one day when she turned around in her seat and asked for help with the English assignment. We had to write an essay about what we planned to do with our lives. "What does that mean?" she said. "Well, what do you want to do after graduation?" She thought about it for a minute, "Get my benefits and marry my boyfriend." "Okay... what are you good at?" "What do you mean?" "Like… is there something you enjoy doing? Something you can do that you feel good about?" "Oh, dancing!" "Okay! That's good! What kind of dancing?" "What do you mean?" "Like, hula? Ballet? Breakdancing?" She held her hands up in fists and bobbed her shoulders around, "Skankin'." She meant it. I really saw her then, and felt a sympathetic kind of affection for her, and nothing she did ever bothered me again. 

I don't think you let go of things, I think things let go of you. So maybe it'll happen again with this whole therapy business, and maybe it'll be a relief.

imaginary books and miniature paintings

Had a dream that I was in the middle of a fight against head-ripping monsters when I got a Ring notification from my front door. The video showed my old crush leaving a paperback book on my porch. I zoomed in on the small blurry video image to see the book was beige, very old and worn out, with a tall dark figure on the torn cover, kind of like an old fantasy or pulp fiction novel. It has been bugging the shit out of me. What book was it?! My brain had to be drawing it up from somewhere.

Haven't been sleeping well in general, partly because of my ongoing battle with Blender. Usually when I wake up at 3:30am I try to go back to sleep, but lately I've just been laying in bed until 4:30, deciding it's technically morning, and then going downstairs to drink tea and mess with 3D modeling. Finally got the hang of it and knocked out a few designs for mini painting frames. I've got kind of a big pile at this point, so I'm making an Etsy shop to get them moving. 

The mini canvases can vary in size by a millimeter or two, so I decided to just include the blank canvases for free so I know they fit properly - the only thing worse than selling things is getting complaints about them. I mean, goddamn, I just want to be the grunt who makes stuff, not the person who tries to build a brand or pester people for reviews or track "engagement". Trying to keep it simple. 

So I'll post an announcement when that goes up. 

Otherwise, summer is summering, and it's really busy at the library. Not hating work at the moment because my coworker is out for a few weeks and I've been doing her job in the back room, processing new books and listening to survival/spooky true story podcasts. It's a nice break from the constant flood of people trying to make me print their stuff/fill out personal documents for them/yelling at me about needing a thumb drive to scan things on the copy machine. 

Doing okay.

Super great

Well, I started the landscape. The first sketches and rough blocks of color went ok, then I took a break to work on some flowers. For about 6 hours.

Still really rough, but I’m having fun

Oof. First layers are painful to look at.

Saint Andrews Cathedral, Honolulu. 

Also I submitted a couple pieces to a show next month. There are modest cash prizes, but the judge is a recent art school grad and I’m not sure how fresh baby artists feel about realism these days. Here’s hoping our boy likes flowers.

Summer reading is underway and our first big program is today. I am not a natural event coordinator, it feels like when you're a kid and see the nurse coming with the big needle. I am putting chocolate in my purse so I can hide in the media cupboard and nibble it like a quivering rat when the shit hits the fan. I'm making a Library Program Bingo card: 

Are we still doing a craft? (This is a free 1-hour performance with beatboxing lessons, so NO. But yes, because I have a stash of extra crafts for complainers.)

Is storytime after this? (This is a special storytime with someone rapping Dr. Seuss, so NO.)

Can you ask the kids to be quiet? I'm working.  (There have been signs up for 2 weeks, and I booked this for the normal noisy kid hour in order to avoid extra disruptions, so NO. Feck off.)

The sound system broke (PANIC)

Update:

Handed out crafts. Old lady complained about the noise. His sound system was stolen from his car and he didn't realize it until he pulled up and popped the trunk, so we had to scramble to find the library's speakers and cords. The mic was broken, but it was okay because he was loud enough to handle it. I ate all the chocolate like I was stuffing my cheeks with acorns. 

1 program down, 24 to go. 

Haven’t quit yet

It has been summer break for about 2 days, and the kids are so happy. Gavin is applying for jobs and seeing friends, Leif has been working on getting his license and hanging out with his girlfriend at her house on the beach, Zenny started robotics and is excited about going to camp. 

I am not having as good of a summer, and it has only just started. I am burned out, fed up, and need to find another career. My mother suggested buying a house on the side of the active volcano, and I was like LET'S GO, even though lava tops my list of things in nature that I do not want to get killed by, right up there with tornadoes, sharks, amoebas, and cliffs. Even if the mountain stops shooting lava, the unreported crime on the Big Island is wild, with dead bodies washing up all over the place and people getting robbed by dudes in trucks with shotguns and pit bulls who show up at night to steal your generator and tools. "Adventure!" I said. I need to deal with this existential crisis before I end up as an archaeological curiosity for future bone diggers.

Really happy for the kids, though, and I'm not going to do anything that would take Leif away from his last year in high school and his first love. Yesterday they swam at sunset with the sea turtles and then helped her mom make dinner. How goddamn magical is that? He’s making the best kind of young summer memories. 

I am still working on my grant paintings. Staying home tomorrow to start a local landscape in the style of the Scottish ones — NOT to work on the floral painting I started even though I have a deadline. I am getting better at landscapes, so I know THIS one will come out great. Super great.