rat in a cake (typo, leaving it)

I woke up in the middle of the night, took half a melatonin, and then the birds started singing and I realized it was not the middle of the night, it was time to get up for school. Oh shit. Jumped up before it could kick in, got some caffeinated tea, took a workout booster, and yelled at Zenny, "Quick! Get out here and watch tiktoks with me because I took a melatonin by mistake and watching a screen is supposed to be bad for sleep!" She was out of bed and dressed faster than I've ever seen her. (My algorithm is all tumbling kittens and badly behaved birds and funny Japanese videos - she knows I have the good stuff.)

I don't know if my pupils were the size of saucers or pinpricks by the time I got to my doctor's appointment after dropping the kids off, but I had a good weigh-in and told her that now it was time to get ripped like a gym bro, and then I asked if the doctor's office still did thread lifts and said I was just curious because it looked gruesome and I didn't need one because I could use scotch tape. She laughed and said, "Oh my god you're so cute!" And I was confused because I feel like I’m kind of an asshole, and this was the second time in 2 days someone said something like that. Yesterday's therapy was a shit show, but our therapist is amazing and helped me pick apart my rage over work/money/marriage, then she described me as a 'pleasant and calm person' in the center of a storm. I was literally crying and shaking with anger and sadness at that moment, but I looked at the little video box on the screen and realized I was just sitting and dabbing my eyes and nodding. It's not showing to others the way I feel like it is. Right after that we drove to my mother's house for family dinner and were attacked by a yoga ball with a monkey face on it while driving 60pmh on the freeway, and I knew for a fact that I yelled and cussed about it, so after my doctor said I was 'so cute' this morning, I downloaded the dash cam video to prove to myself that I am actually an asshole, and was very surprised to discover that all I said was "oh no”. I don't even know who I am anymore. Besides a person high on weightlifting stimulants who should be painting instead of word-vomiting their existential crisis on the internet.

anticlimactic

me, I guess

In other news, Gavin is home! I have the complete set of children again, and it's a big relief. He forgot to bring clothes, his shoes were falling apart like bologna sandwiches, and he looked like a victim of the Waterloo Effect, but we hooked him up with new duds, a haircut, and a beard trimmer.

Surprised the kids by ordering a cheap PS4 copy of 'The Last of Us' for the old game console they never use (a friend gave it to them after an upgrade, and they realized pretty quickly that they'd rather spend their money on, like, suits of armor and boba tea). I was tired of hearing people complain about the game vs the show and decided it would be fun to try it out. We're going to have a family game day and I'll throw the controller at the boys for all the scary parts, just like I did in college when we would rent a console from Blockbuster and stay up all night playing Parasite Eve and Resident Evil. (Games are okay now and then, I just don't like it as a hobby. Better to spend 8000 hours on something like writing a novel or making art or fixing up an old car or printing arms for the chickens.)

Not my chicken, Plucky would kill me

Also, on Saturday we went to the symphony to listen to Studio Ghibli music, and Leif was playing air-piano on his knees along with the theme to Howl’s Moving Castle. The college girl sitting in front of us was so happy she cried when they started playing My Neighbor Totoro, and her boyfriend hugged her against his shoulder and kissed her head. A 10 year old in the next row was playing air-violin along with the score. It made my chest fill up with all the good feelings to see the young musicians so happy. 

Another blurry selfie as we were running out the door (pre-therapy face)

I am finishing the Scotland landscape paintings today. Any second now. They are going... landscapey. I think I am getting better at it, but I'm still in the throw-this-shit-out-the-window stage of the learning curve.

Here are some grapes I am working on, instead.

I’m still unhappy about work/money/marriage stuff, but our therapist told me to make concrete plans for change instead of just looking at cabins in the woods when I’m miserable at work, and that is helping. Something big has to change, I can’t do this for another 10 or 20 years. The largest stressor is work, so I'm starting with that.

(Edited to add: the workout supplements are mild and I only had half, I just don’t do caffeine anymore and was as wired as a squirrel for a couple hours, it’s not as bad as it sounds.)

Mini mystery

A couple months ago, to prep for the whole landscape painting thing, I started painting tiny master copies on my lunch breaks at work. Then I got busy learning Blender and printing out tiny frames for them, thinking it might be fun for my library kids to paint on tiny canvases and then host a miniature gallery show at the end of the summer with everything framed. My brain REALLY did not like learning Blender after spending decades trying to forget my entire degree in computer animation, but I reignited the old brain connections like someone throwing breakers in an abandoned bunker.

Before leaving on vacation, I cleaned my desk and stashed all my art stuff. Got back to work this week (with the little framed paintings to show my coworker) and two mini easels were set up in the middle of my desk, each with a brand new mini canvas in a size larger than I normally get. None of my coworkers left them for me. Officemate says they appeared partway through my trip. The only other person who might know I paint these things is the nighttime security guard, who may have seen them while heating up their midnight hot pockets. 

It is a mystery. I did start painting on one already, though. Thanks, secret patron of the arts. 

Another thing that happened while I was away: the boys I went to school with on Molokai seem to be going through something, and I came home to a bunch of friend requests from dudes asking if I'm single. It must be mid-40s divorce season on an island with the same 6 people on all the dating apps, and suddenly the weird fuckin' bubble-eyed haole from their old high school yearbook is looking like an option.

I had to look at my own yearbooks to remember who the heck these guys even were, and found this picture of me about to ruin my life, learning digital art on a 1995 Macintosh Performa. 

Girl, RUN. Go be a painter! Live in the woods with goats and chickens! Learn falconry!

I don't know how many back burners I'm on, but it would take a very particular one to be any kind of temptation, and these are not it. Thanks for remembering me, though, guys.

edited to add: I got two more. What is happening? The yearbook is not a menu.

edited again to add: HARRIS, IS THIS YOUR FAULT? They all have you as mutuals! I am not a rancor! You can't feed me men like biscuits! 

As good as it gets

The customs agents at LAX ain’t give a damn, they kept the line moving at a brisk trot. I was so tired that when the guy held up our passports like playing cards and said, “Quick! Where did you just come from?” I forgot. “The plane! No, Heathrow! Shit. Scotland? Where am I?” He waved us through.

Back home. Hello, cats. Hello, house. Hello, gnawing ball of anxiety that lives in my chest. I can’t sleep. Got up at 3am after lying in bed for a couple hours, made a cup of tea and went downstairs. Sat on my studio couch and started crying. I’m trying not to look too closely at why, just let it work itself out. Now I have a headache behind my eyes and still can’t sleep.

Going to look at my sloppy paintings, see what I can do with them, and think about what’s next.

Day: the last

No painting, no art, just a day enjoying the city, eating at cafes, shopping for chocolates and biscuits to bring home, and a stop into the kiltmaker’s. Mike has been wearing a hand-me-down kilt given to him by one of the old RSCDS instructors, and has always wanted to get one made just for him, but they’re as expensive as any hand-stitched men’s suit. Well, if not now, then when? He went through books of weaver samples with the tailor, chose the ancient hunting colors for his clan (each clan has several tartans; ancient, hunting, modern, and weathered, and they vary subtly from weaver to weaver with their dyes and size of the pattern), and in 7 weeks it’ll be finished and shipped home. He was so excited, it was nice to see.

Clan MacIntosh

Trying on sample kilts to see how the fabric swings in different weights

In the evening we packed our suitcases and went to Blackfriars for dinner and a last pint. A mob of young musicians bunched in with fiddles, guitars, a banjo, bodhran, and an accordion, and the pub kicked off. What is this feeling? Happy?

This morning we are eating the last of the frozen croissants and heading to the airport. Back to Heathrow, back to the Pacific Northwest LAX (I didn’t read my itinerary), back to the islands. I am going to absorb all the moisture in the air and plump like a sponge. It’ll be a Last Crusade in reverse.

Ready to be home with my kids, my cats, and my own bed. This wasn’t a romantic trip, and I’m not sure yet if it was a shot in the arm for our relationship, but it was what I needed - art, hiking, time alone to just be me. I feel like I’ve finally eaten a meal after living on instant noodles for a long time. 

Fingers crossed my next update is from home and not from a detention center in British Columbia or something. I have decided to take it as a sign it’s time to leave if, you know, I’m chucked out of the country. Just roll with it.

Day 7: more painting

I had the payoff. After struggling for another few hours with the damn trees, I dabbed in a little blue spot that looked right and my brain zinged. That’s why people paint; looking for that feeling when you lay down one color next to the other and it just looks right. It would have been nice for that mark to be bigger than a tiny blob in the background, but I’ll take it. 

Fed up with trees, I started a second painting. This one was a big mess, but I liked the colors, and it got me painting in a way I don’t usually. It still looks aggravatingly as if I painted it, which is the worst. I only like my paintings if I can come back to them later and think, huh? How did that happen? The ones that somehow paint themselves are better.

Added a few more heads to my studies and then went out for a sloppy mess of haggis fries with gravy and a pint of cider. Good day.

I’m taking this last day off to sightsee, shop, and pack up. Ready to see my kids and sleep in a comfortable bed again. 

Day 6: painting

 It is really weird trying to recreate someone else’s way of painting, and I’m not sure I’m doing a good job at it, but so long as it echoes it a bit I’ll be happy.

It was a good day, alone in the apartment listening to audio books and painting Castle Fraser. When I got frustrated in the afternoon and was tempted to scrub the whole thing out, I cleaned my brushes and walked up to the museum to have a look at some of the landscape paintings, instead. 

Help

Talk to me about those trees, Giles

Feeling more like I was on track, I went down to the shops and picked up something to make for dinner and a few more tubes of paint, cutting through the churchyard to read the headstones. So many dead women and babies. A wife, 38, who died in childbed and was laid to rest with her infant daughter, who died 2 days later. A wife and husband, buried with their 14 children lost in infancy. Every grave held the bones of babies and mothers. I thought about that woman who died in childbirth at 38, and had been “rightly loved”. There were no other children named. Had they been married a long time, and always hoped for a baby? Were they excited when she became pregnant so late, or did they know it was a death sentence? Did she hold her baby before she died? Did her husband have to make the choice to save her or the baby, only to lose them both? Did she tell him to do it? Every grave is a story, and I felt sorry for the stones that had become eroded and lost their names.

To stop myself from ruining my progress as the light faded, I left the painting alone and started sketching a few “personalities” until the man got back from Loch Ness.

I am feeling a bit better now that I’m not power-walking through a cold. Resting and drinking tea works, huh.

Another painting day today, with more breaks to visit the shops if I feel like it. Walking out onto a street lined with cathedrals and bell towers is never not wonderful. 

Day 5: Fraser Castle

We did the accidental Outlander tour of the Fraser and Lord Lovat estate yesterday, after 2 miles of walking through rolling pastoral land because the map app lied and said the bus stop was closer than it was.

It was a beautiful walk, even if I was on cold meds (UK cold meds are adorably mild compared to the meth in a bottle we sell in the US). 

We caught our breath over tea and scones, which came with a little packet of clotted cream and a tiny pot of jam. I made love eyes at the little bookshop in the courtyard and felt happy for all the people who could come tend the castle grounds for a living. What a life that would be.

The castle tour was centered on the towers, with about 5 stories of rooms and libraries up tightly winding staircases. 

Realizing there are practically no pictures of me on this trip, I’m trying

We walked into the field behind the castle to find the site of another James Giles painting from 1858. One of the ladies of the castle had removed the cow pond and cut down a lot of trees a few years later, but we found traces of where they were. 

In the afternoon we walked back, rode the bus to Aberdeen, and went to an Indian restaurant for our best meal of the trip so far. The owner of the flat sent an electrician to reattach the heater to the wall after it fell off and scared the hell out of us the other day, so we let him in and then warmed up the apartment for bedtime.

Today the man is off to Inverness. I baked a few frozen pain au chocolat to send him off (why do we not have frozen croissants at home?!), I have a pot of tea and a couple Murderbot audio books, and I am ready to get cooking on this painting. 

If I can decide which one to start with.

Day 4: Brig o Balgownie

Getting sicker. You know what’s good for that? Walking 10 miles looking for statues and bridges. Got to get all this done before the body collapses completely.

Early in the morning, we walked along the docks down to Footdee, where Francis Richardson painted Pocra Quay.

I’m not super excited about this view, but it’s doable, in terms of reproducing in a painting.

We sat down for tea and split a donut at Greggs, then hopped a bus to the university. The modern buildings and dorms were as depressing as anywhere, but the campus by the old part of town next to the river was goddamn magical. There were fairy rings of wildflowers and rough stone roads with cottages covered in ivy. The walk through Seaton Park to find the Wallace monument and the bridge of Balgownie followed a footpath through trees and wild garlic. 

The walk was not so successful in terms of finding a site to paint, because the monument was under repair and fenced off, and the foliage around the bridge has grown so you can no longer see anything but branches from the place the artist stood. Took pictures for my report anyway.

Brig O’ Balgownie, by Algernon Talmage

Nailed it

The Wallace Tower, downtown Aberdeen 

Actually I could still work with this. (The tower was relocated by Marks and Spencers when they bought the building because they didn’t want it destroyed.)

We rode back into town, had lunch at Nandos, and then I summoned all my audacity to stand discreetly by a wall and take sneaky pictures of shoppers as they walked by so I could paint a modern version of James Giles’ personality studies.

Today the congestion has creeped down into my chest. It’s going to be another walk back to Boots to get cough & cold medicine before this thing really gets a grip on me, but I’m almost ready to settle into the room and paint for a couple days anyway. If the meds do their job (we hid all the potpourri and fragrance oils the host had tucked all over the flat, and opened the windows; it feels like this is just allergies + cold weather, but that can still turn into a chest or sinus infection) today will be one last trip out to see Fraser Castle, then Mike is on his own for a few days while I work one of these sites up into the beginnings of a painting. He’s thinking about riding up to Inverness to get a tattoo. If he gets one on his back right before a 22 hour flight, I will laugh and laugh. We head back on Friday.

Day 3: Stonehaven and Dunnottar Castle

I bought an entire pharmacy of anti-sinusitis drugs, nasal spray, and vitamin C lozenges at Boots before we grabbed steak pies and hopped on the bus to Stonehaven. The cold wind makes noses run like faucets, but it’s not going to take us down that easily.

Stonehaven is a beautiful bayside village. We had three sites to find along a 2-mile stretch, and we found them all:

 A Stormy Day, John Muirhead (1864-1927)

Stonehaven Harbor, William Arthur Laurie Carrick (1879-1964)

Dunnottar Castle, George Reid (1841-1913)

It was beautiful. The coastal path led up from Stonehaven, over hillsides covered with sheep and cows, along a cliff, and all the way up to the ruins. I sat in the grass and sketched the view, then we climbed the stairs to explore the castle.

The walk back to town worked up a sweat and an appetite, so we stopped at a seaside restaurant for mussels, meats, beer, and cider. On the way to the bus stop, I bought a handmade silver pendant by a local artist. 

My watch says I walked 10 miles, 40 flights of stairs, and lapped my exercise ring 4 times. I had better sleep the sleep of the bone-tired tonight.

Day 2: Fyvie Castle

 We bought a week’s bus pass to anywhere and caught a double-decker into the countryside, sitting upstairs in the front windows to see everything. It was lambing season, and the hills were covered in new babies. Also, I saw a badger! It was a dead. And a river otter! Also dead. But I’ve never seen one of either before, so it still counts.

Fyvie Castle was beautiful, and half of it is still a private residence today. The tour guide told interesting stories about the badly behaved people who have lived there since the 1200s; getting drunk and racing horses and donkeys up the 10-foot stone staircase, murdering their wives when they didn’t get sons, owners insisting on being buried in the walls, and the badly abused dwarf who grew up with patronizing rich people like a pet and became a warrior with a custom suit of armor after surviving being thrown against starving animals for sport (there is a small book called “Lord Minimus” written about his life, which I will have to read).

We took a chance and walked down onto the Laird’s land to try to find the site of James Giles’ painting, and discovered a lot of clues about how it was made, and what was embellished for art’s sake. I fell over a mossy log and took a spill into a patch of wild daffodils. Embarrassing.

In the evening we bundled up in warmer clothes and walked to a Thai restaurant for dinner, which was very fancy and acceptably tasty. It’s probably hard to get all the right ingredients in the land of sheep and puffins, but they did okay.

My legs are very angry about suddenly being made to walk 10 miles a day, and they had better stfu because today we’re walking a coastal path from Stonehaven to Castle Dunnottar, which should not have changed much at all in 200 years. Our throats are trying to get sore, and that will not be tolerated either. It had better be the weather and not travel plague. We will stock up on decongestants and ibuprofen today.