sweatpants and owls

Today is a good one for me, because it is the day I officially lost the last of the 20 pounds I gained after surgery last year. Years of competitive swimming messed up my knees, and they really didn’t like carrying an extra stone around.

I celebrated by buying myself a giant pair of baggy sweatpants. 

So that was nice.

Today I finished painting the birds. 

I posted a reel about it, and included my own face, even though I just finished reading The Circle, and I am still not okay. A couple weeks ago, Zenny and I read The Eyes and the Impossible, this year’s Newbery award winner, and we loved it. It’s a beautiful, funny book full of art and nature and pupusas, so afterwards I thought it would be fun to read everything else Dave Eggers has written. Folks, I was not prepared. He’s bringing these kids up to appreciate the beauty of life just to DESTROY them as adults. The Parade really bothered me in a way I couldn’t stop thinking about, and then The Circle did me in. It was great. I hated it. It’s like a really long and engrossing episode of Black Mirror. And by linking it just now, I have learned that there is a sequel called The Every. Oh no. I am absolutely reading it, but I think I’m going to take a week off from Dave and read Starter Villain (Alex award winner) until I stop wanting to smash all my devices with a hammer.

Go read The Eyes and the Impossible, though, even if you don’t have a kid to read it to.

No ugly thoughts

My kids said I needed to start showing my face in my weekly painting reels so people would recognize me as a real person if the piece makes it to the Artists of Hawaii show this year, so that added an element of discomfort to my week. It's already a jolt hearing your own stupid voice on a recording and realizing that's what other people hear all the time, and seeing yourself on a video without the mirror reversal is the same kind of feeling, especially as you get older and start avoiding cameras. But just like your voice, everyone already sees your stupid face every day and they like you anyway, so maybe it's for the best to just take the shock and accept what you look like to the world. Remember that whole Mom Stays in the Picture thing? While teenagers are 'mewing' (pressing tongue to top of mouth to fake a slim jawline), the rest of us should be 'Dahling' (think good thoughts and be lovely).

exerpt from the Twits, by Roald Dahl

 

So I'll try to stay in the videos.

Also as an effort to take up more space in the world, I have started collecting shirts to annoy the book-banning moms at my library. My fashion theme this year is “be a bigger problem for those three people specifically”.

Breaking news

Today is a big one: Leif is taking his driver's permit test. He should be road legal by the end of the day.

what we’re lacking

Valentine's Day is a minefield of old feelings that I have learned to navigate by impersonating a sack of potatoes. Throw me in the car, I’ll roll with whatever.

We took the day off while the kids were in school and played tourist in Haleiwa, eating an overpriced, over-salted lunch at the Beach House and then walking up and down the shops to look at sea shells and tacky souvenirs. When we passed the Wyland Gallery, I walked up and grabbed the giant dolphin-shaped door handles, “Let’s see why this guy is a billionaire and we’re not.” The gallery was full of poured resin art and sea turtle statues. On the wall of Wyland originals, I stopped in front of a black marker scribble of a dolphin, with a dot for an eye and four slashes in the corner for sunshine. It would have taken less than a minute to draw, and it was matted and framed for about a thousand dollars. The larger paintings ($50,000 - $100,000) were carelessly airbrushed seascapes with a whale tail whacked in and dabbed randomly with glitter. It looked as if he had assistants prep the airbrushed canvases so he could spend 5 minutes painting a tail and then go surfing.

“I see what we’re missing. The audacity.”

We walked across the street to another gallery, where the owner was smashing pastel-colored paint into the shape of an ocean wave on a little canvas with a palette knife. A group of blonde women politely admired it when she held it up, “You did that JUST NOW? Wow! And it took you, like, 5 minutes??” “Well,” the artist said with a little fake modest laugh, “years, actually. It comes with experience.”

These guys are like the kids who come up to strangers and brag, “I’m the best at ninja, watch this,” and then break into wild flailing and expect applause. It’s lazy and arrogant, and it’s the key to salesmanship. 

The audacity. 

If you don’t have it naturally, be grateful. We get to be the ones who can slow down and enjoy making or baking or building things, getting frustrated and seeing improvement, developing pride in craftsmanship, and having the freedom to try different subjects and styles and methods instead of banging out the same schlock every day for people we feel contempt for.

But when it’s time to show your work and you feel embarrassed or out of place, remember to square your shoulders and think, I’m the best at dolphins, watch this.

A month into the project

I’m still keeping up, but I forgot I was supposed to do two paintings on the figure page (there are fewer pages than weeks in a year, so I’m pacing a couple weeks on the same page), and to make up for it I’m spending the next 4 Mondays on the birds. I’m going to be living on this spread for a month, hopefully it won’t be covered in coffee, fingerprints, and cat feet by the end.

(Paper is warped because I gessoed it, it’ll dry flat)

 

missing wildlife

Someone has abducted Baby Jesus. Over the weekend, extra cat food cans started appearing next to his dish (a plastic tupperware lid), and I cleaned them up so I could keep track of how often someone else was feeding him. Yesterday he was gone, and no more cans have been put out. One of the secret nighttime cat ladies has nabbed him, I think. I hope. I know she exists, but I don't know who she is. A couple of times, I came by after dark and got out of my car to find myself surrounded by dozens of glowing eyes, with all the fat glossy strays gathering around the walkways, waiting for their dinners. I have read Millions of Cats enough to know how this kind of thing ends, so I ran for it.

(Nearly all of them have notches in their ears, because Night Feeder also takes them to the Neuter Scooter like a good citizen.)

Today was going to be rescue day. We worked with the university vet tech program to arrange free treatment, and I have the humane trap in the trunk of my car, but he has vanished as suddenly as he appeared. I'm worried about him, and hope he's getting the care he needs. I'll keep checking for him.

Meanwhile, I have been getting weird about birds. DLNR announced their annual wildlife stamp competition, and I started thinking about painting an entry, which got me reading about endangered forest birds, which led to researching how scientists measure populations, and then getting mad about disruptions to albatross nesting grounds. Watched a video of researchers photographing a bird that hadn't been seen in 140 years, and now I feel like grabbing my camera and charging off into the woods to find all the extinct little birds that may still actually be alive. It gives some hope.

 love this

My sketchbook is filling up with birds. I might not paint a contest entry because I'm just trying to keep up with my painting-a-week project (progress on instagram), but I'm enjoying the birds.

Maurice

My paternal grandfather died this week, and I’ve been having feelings about it. I met him twice that I can remember, and only had a conversation with him once as a teenager. He seemed like a dialed-down version of my father; a generally happy person who enjoys the idea of piecing together clues to unlock conspiracies. For my father, that means he’s loudly cheerful and loves theatrics and alien files (he even wrote a book), and for his dad that meant noodling away at Bible code theories, convinced there were messages hidden in the texts if you applied the right cipher. Dan Brown conspiracy theorists, not anti-science conspiracy theorists - the kind of people who are looking for clues to puzzles, hoping to get a look at some secret world that’s bigger than what we can see. Joy-seekers. 

I would have liked to know him, but I think my grandparents didn’t want to intrude on our lives, and I didn’t want to intrude on theirs. We all missed the boat on that one. Now I send Christmas cards, and sometimes my grandmother replies, and that has had to do.

If I’m invited to the funeral I’ll try to go, but I think they won’t want to bother me with it, and I don’t want to bother them by asking. At least that would be consistent with how things have been.

Burns Night 2024

Denver was flat and brown, with a tiny line of distant mountains obscured by smog. I had it in my head that all of Colorado was some kind of snowy mountain wonderland, but half of it looks like it was ironed. The view from the terminal while I ran to catch my connection was a bunch of parked planes, so it’s just as well there was no scenery out there anyway.

When I got home that night, the house was cluttered, the kids had no clean laundry, homework hadn’t been done, and the fridge was empty. But the kitchen ceiling was tiled. I feel really tired about all the shopping and chores being left for me, but the ceiling does look nice.

I tried hard to stay inspired and enthusiastic, but for the rest of the week I was stuck at the circ desk, helping people click "print" and pointing to the bathrooms, and then spending my evenings cooking and grocery shopping and doing laundry and helping with homework to catch up with things at home. I feel like a snuffed candle.

At least there was an event to look forward to, if I could just get through Saturday. Story time was out of control. About 80 people showed up, and did nothing to stop their kids from screaming and running through the aisles and pulling entire shelves of books onto the floor. I wished I had candies to hand out to all the people in the adult section who were hunkering in front of their laptops with clenched jaws. They didn’t complain, because they know this hour is for the kids, and I appreciate it.

After work we hurried to get ready for Burns Night, and drove to the country club to pretend we were fancy for a few hours. The club changed the rules to prohibit outside alcohol and top-shelf booze for nonmembers, so everyone was grumbling about not having a bottle at each table. They had to drink cheap scotch from the bar, instead. Scotch is my enemy, so I drank water and didn’t give a damn.

Nobody took a picture of me, so imagine a black v-neck pencil dress with a bow at the waist in that mirror selfie 

 

In other news

Baby Jesus the Stray Cat (he needs a better name) still keeps the fence between us, and he’s still thin and bony because he’s about 200 years old, but he’s feeling better and getting lazy about coming over to eat after having a big stretch and a scratch. I’m okay with him taking the meals for granted, he deserves for something to be easy.

Baltimore, Last Day

All the major literary awards were announced today, including the Printz, Caldecott, and Newbery, and I was there! I was there, too, when the selection committees went through the publisher booths and put the official award stickers on all the winners, to lots of cheering. It was pretty great.

Big winner: The Eyes & the Impossible, by Dave Eggers.

Today was the best day of the trip. And the most expensive, because I was set loose in the city as soon as the conference ended at noon, and went into full tourist mode. Walked up to Blick to buy paint and brushes, then hopped a bus and rode down to Fells Point to visit Kilwins, where I bought overpriced chocolates and fudge for the kids. I had a mission to find the statue of Frederick Douglass for my painting project, so I walked down to the harbor and wandered around until I found him under a tree. Really nice sculpture. Really weird how all the streets were completely empty. To be fair, January probably isn’t tourist season in Baltimore.

I decided to eat early so I could catch the bus back before it got dark, and walked into Harbor Tandoor 10 minutes before their lunch special ended. The server recommended butter chicken and momo with fresh naan, and so that is what I ordered. It was AMAZING. Truly special. And half the price of that stupid wet crab cake. 

I packed up what I couldn’t finish for breakfast, left a good tip, and caught the bus to the Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History & Culture. 

I only had an hour before it closed, so I gave it a quicker tour than it deserved, but I still learned a lot. The artifacts were chilling, the art and education was inspiring, and they played “Black Moses Barbie”, which made me laugh.

I bought some shirts for work in the museum gift shop, because I’ve decided to make myself more of a problem for our book banning moms.

It was only a mile back to the hotel along the harbor, so I walked the rest of the way. My watch clocked 87 exercise minutes and 6.5 miles of walking today. I’m going to have buns like cantaloupes when I fly home tomorrow. Layover in Colorado this time, which is another first for me, and then straight home to plump up in the humidity like a raisin in hot water. Looking forward to it. 

Baltimore Day 3

Man, I’m terrible at making friends, I need to step up my game, I thought as I settled into bed. I picked up my kindle to read a Jess Lourey short story and the first page I flipped to had suggestions for me. Synchronicity!

Did I break the ice with miraculous mayonnaise anecdotes this morning? No, I did not. And that is why I went to all my sessions and then walked to the harbor by myself in the evening. I was going to latch on to whatever group was walking somewhere, but they all evaporated at the stroke of 5pm. How did 2,000 people vanish inside the 2 minutes it took me to put on my coat and gloves? It’s one of those mysteries of nature.

The harbor was closed. All the fancy restaurants were shut down. I stared sadly into the dark lobster roll shack, then ran back 3 blocks and had another meal at the sad crab cake place by my hotel. This time I got a flight of local beers and the salmon, which was much better than the wet crabby patty they gave me last time.

Wow, very boat. Much historic.

There was nothing stopping me from commandeering a sea monster and going for a joy ride in the Baltimore harbor, but I didn’t do that either. Disappointing.

Drinking by yourself is okay when it’s for science. 

Stout, Nitro, lemonade Berliner Weisse, Martzen

Hard to fuck up a nice piece of salmon

What I learned today:

Nobody will attend a session when there are free cookies in the exhibition hall.

How to handle challenges/protests/violence in response to programs at the library.

What to do as a library when a natural disaster wipes out your community.

New librarians think “all conflict comes from miscommunication” and that active listening can fix anything, because they don’t know about people who poop on the floor yet.

Telling new librarians about people who poop on the floor won’t get you a dinner invitation.

I got back to my room, took a hot shower, stood huffing steam for a long time until my nose and lips rehydrated, and I am ready to watch True Detective and go to sleep buried under all 6 pillows from both beds. The heater is loud.

One more full day and night to go.

Baltimore Day 2

There is no way I am going to sleep through the night, I thought when I turned off the light at 10pm. And then my doggamned* alarm went off two seconds later at 7am.

*That is how my tired fingers typed it and I am leaving it.

I threw on clothes and went downstairs for the “free continental breakfast” in the hotel lobby. It turned out to be a pile of bagels and packets of instant oatmeal. I dumped some oats in a coffee cup, added too much hot water, and said hi to the clerk. 

“You’re still here, huh?” I asked, because he’s the night guy.

“Yeah, supposed to get off at 7, it’s already 7:45 and she’s not here yet. I didn’t get to leave until 11 yesterday. At least I get paid for it. Missed half my mom’s birthday, though.”

“Did you take her out somewhere?”

“Nah, she’s only got one leg, she doesn’t like to go out no more.”

I finished drinking my oats, realized I had packed everything except a notebook to write notes on, and the clerk tore off a few pages from a yellow legal pad for me. I said goodbye and walked across the street to sign in and get my badge. This time, I did not pop a kidney stone, and spent the entire day going to sessions and hitting up the exhibition hall for free swag. I drank a Coke Zero for lunch and just kept going. 

It was worth it.

Kate DiCamillo made us all cry with a really amazing talk, and then I waited for 45 minutes in a line to have her sign an advance copy of her new (unreleased) book - only to fangirl at her about the Beatryce Prophesy and mispronounce the name of the book to her face. I said “Chronicles” instead of “Prophesy”. It was one of those moments I’ll wake up cringing about at 2am for the next 20 years. Like when I called MC Chris “McChris” when I was 26. Or when I sneezed and farted at the same time in front of my crush when I was 9. 

Muttered to myself and slapped my forehead all the way to the intellectual freedom panel, where I got into a really great talk with a presenter who looked just like Tig Notaro. We ran out of time and she said, “I need your email!” but we didn’t get a chance to exchange info. I’ll keep an eye out for her tomorrow. 

I took a picture with Kate DiCamillo, but I was grimacing exactly like a person who was just realizing they had mispronounced the author’s book, so I cropped it out because I was too embarrassed. I’m in the FaceTime screenshot for proof of life, that’s it for today.

At the end of the day, with pages of notes and bags full of free stuff, I got back to my hotel room and realized I had yet again failed to make dinner friends with anybody. Lyft rides were $13 to the touristy restaurant area, and then I would just be over there by myself and have to come right back, so instead I looked up a seafood restaurant within walking distance and bundled up to trudge 5 blocks while it was getting dark. It was not a good idea. I got away from a scary person who was aggressively pretending to ask me for directions while sizing me up for robbing, and ran into the crab restaurant. It was huge and incongruously decorated with rococo ceilings, art deco sconces, a 10-foot golden Buddha, and enormous neon crabs. I sat by myself and was just wondering how I’d get back to the hotel without getting knife holes in my new coat, when a group of 6 people carrying swag tote bags came in and sat down near me. I shamelessly asked if they were librarians and they let me join them at a big table. They were all coworkers at a university library in Texas. We ordered seafood, and the crab legs and crawfish came out in big puffy bags filled with spicy steam. They didn’t give out cracking tools, so we all attacked our shellfish with our hands and teeth. It was exactly what I had hoped Maryland seafood would be. The younger librarians had the fanciest cocktails they could think of, and when we were done we pulled off our plastic bibs and walked back in a nice safe mob. I peeled away at my hotel and waved goodbye to them as they headed on to a bar called the Pickle that allegedly serves drinks in Big Gulp cups. I am too old for that shit, but I’m happy for them, and really glad they took me in for a couple hours.

Sorry, delicious little cockroach buddy

Talked to my family on FaceTime, took a shower, covered myself in lotion like it was mayonnaise and I was a dry hamburger bun, set my alarm, and I am ready to conk the fuck out. 

Great day.