Winner of the chicken dinner

This fight was different. This time I am not buying a computer to write a book or fixing up the studio to comfort myself - I need to move ahead with my goals.

Life goals:

a cabin in the woods

publish a novel

paint what I want, when I want, and not worry about marketing/sales

be an involved member of the local art community 

be a kind and loving grandma who bakes way too much 

get a dog

revisit old places/catch up with old friends

never pay someone to push me out of an airplane 

I might only be able to afford a piece of shit off-grid shack in the middle of nowhere, but it would be my piece of shit shack  - just me, my dog, my trained raccoons, and all the bears I can eat. 

- - -

So that was how things were going when we went to the art show reception to collect my honorable mention, and we saw red dots next to both my paintings. Nobody else's had them, so I had to double-check that red dots still meant "sold" and not "disqualified, gtfo" or something, but yes! They sold! That felt like a grand prize to me, and I let myself enjoy a little quiet gloating for a couple of minutes. Ha, take that, baby judge. People still like classical realism.

And you know what? It's just enough money to book a plane ticket to see a guy about a cabin. 

(*cough* or pay the dentist)

the man took some pictures of me making weird faces as a show of effort, which I do actually appreciate

I don't like talking about things that haven't happened yet, in case they fall through, but I am stating my intentions here so it's harder to back out. It's this or hiking the Appalachian Trail to annoy Brooke, and this is less work.

Edited to add the winners from the show, for those as curious as I was:

update

Scabbers did not get better. She started getting worse again, they rushed her back to the vet, and further testing revealed that she had a large tumor in her abdomen. She passed away gently in their arms. We never knew how old she was, she was a stray cat who followed my mother home every day on her evening walks, and finally came inside and stayed. I called her the "imaginary cat" because I had never seen her, but sometimes I could hear her snoring from wherever she was hiding. Evidently she was pretty old, and had lived a hard life, so I'm glad she had food and comfort for the last couple years. While we were doing DIY, she came out and stood staring at me, looking pretty pissed off. I felt like I was seeing a unicorn. A notch-eared, patchy-furred unicorn with murder in its eyes. I'm glad I got to see her at least once. I'm so sorry, Scabbers. (My mother nicknamed her that years ago because of her recurring skin problems, and tried to change her name to Moani more recently, but it was too late.) At least Gavin knows there were compounding factors, and it wasn't entirely his fault she died. 

Aaaaand it turns out that coming home and immediately having a pet tragedy does not make a person happier about not being able to find any of their stuff. I am in trouble. Bringing a cake from the new Hebridean Baker cookbook as an offering for family dinner this evening. Hold me in your thoughts.  

Edit: my mother didn’t flip out, my son was exaggerating how annoyed she was. She’s really happy about the cleaning and repairs. However, the man and I unexpectedly had a nuclear fight and at this moment I am one foot out the door. Buckle up, therapist.

nice while it lasted

The problem with having a bunch of good days is that they're always followed by a bunch of not-as-good days. 

The baby bulbul took a turn and died, despite our best efforts. This is why I am a reluctant rehabber, and why I don't click on animal rescue videos  ̶  survival rate for rescues is 50/50, and it's a rough thing to go through over and over again. At least he was safe, fed, and warm. I feel really bad about it.

It has been a busy week with class visits, a program by the Humane Society, book shipments, and summer reading, so of course the power has been going out randomly. Not having power does not stop people from asking to print things, and the more stubborn ones will sit in front of the dead computers and stare at them. With the air conditioning down and groups of 40 kids hiking up from the park for storytime, it was getting a little bit stuffy in the library, and a cranky lady sitting at the computers started to loudly complain that it stinks like a dead animal, and she couldn't breathe, she was choking - all while looking at the guy reading in the corner. The guy who reads in the corner has never been a problem, he is mostly silent and minds his own business, but he is also homeless and Black. I am not sure which of those things she had a problem with, but I have been around the guy for months and he does not stink. My boss, however, takes words extremely literally and can't detect hyperbole or body language, so when he heard the lady say it smelled like a "dead animal", he went around asking everyone if they had an actual dead animal with them. As this was happening, another of our homeless guys came in wearing one of those clear hard-shell backpacks for carrying pets. I've never seen an animal in it, but in general we just treat animals like regular patrons (ie. no biting, screaming, or shitting on the floor), so I ain't give a damn. Boss didn't find the imaginary smell, apologized to the lady for the inconvenience, and went back to his office. One of our volunteers, who is nosy and thinks she works at the library, spied on the guy with the pet carrier backpack and was eager to run to boss and report that there was a live bird in there, so boss went out, called over the guy reading in the corner (WRONG PERSON), and told him sternly, "NO LIVE ANIMALS." Which is not the policy, but he was trying to look like he was handling things. The reading guy was confused, nodded, and sat back down with his book. The guy with the bird beat a hasty exit. The complaining lady was mad that the reading guy wasn't thrown out, yelled that she was going to give us a bad review, and stomped out. I watched the whole thing from the circ desk, where I was trying to check out books to a line of people using only pen and paper.

Broken tooth cost $700 to fix. I mean, some day I'd love to buy some Staub bakeware or a SMEG appliance (mostly so I can call it a "smegma"), but having teeth is nice, too.

In the middle of all that, my mother came home, Gavin tried to help medicate one of her cats for a skin condition, and he accidentally administered an overdose when the cat turned into a wild thing and squirted out of his hands. She hid and licked off the medicine before he could catch her, then started acting like she was having a stroke, so they rushed her to the animal hospital. She spent 2 days in critical care. The bill has rolled up over 5k so far. Gavin was so upset that he almost killed poor Scabbers, but he paid close attention to the explanations about the blood/brain barrier and recovery process, and he's been very attentive with her since she got home last night. She is temporarily blind, but eating and walking again. It'll take a few weeks of care, but she'll be okay. Gavin is considering the vet tech program at the university now, so that's something. I was worried he'd lose his confidence with animals, but he cares a lot, keeps calm, and uses mistakes to learn from, so he's got the right stuff for the job. 

On the bright side

I dropped off my paintings for the upcoming show and got a call today to say I won an honorable mention cash prize. It's only like $25, but I'll take it. And put it in my tooth. Reception/awards ceremony is next week, and I'm very curious to see who the baby judge selected for Best in Show (the judge is my son's age, which will always be "tiny baby" no matter how much time passes). 

My mother is happy with the renovations and cleaning, and hasn't gotten annoyed about all her [ALLEGEDLY] missing stuff yet, due to the immediate cat emergency. I may have gotten away with it.

Look who’s back

This guy just can’t get the height to fly back up to the nest. Everything went well for a few days, but then he was down on the ground again and too tired to get back up by bedtime. I found him when his parents were cussing at the cat after roosting time, and I went out to investigate. The cat was sitting and watching the screeching birds, not very interested in chasing them, but open to the possibility of them flying into his mouth. I put the cat inside and then stood and scanned for movement. It was getting too dark to see a brown bird on brown dirt with brown leaves, but after about 30 seconds there was a rustling and he flew/flopped over to my feet. He was so excited to be back with the Feeding Hands, he nipped my fingers until he got a banana, then cuddled on his nice dry sock in the bird carrier and went to bed. This time he’s just going to have to be a resident bird for a while, until he's definitely strong enough to get back into the treetop. 

Hope he likes DIY, because we're headed into the last long weekend of renovations. This past weekend, while the new floors went down, I removed everything from my mother's bathrooms and scrubbed them down to the baseboards, then took apart her living room and did the same. The boys made dump runs and brought home Korean bbq, which we ate on the floor, feeling sore and happy. Next up: window screens and fresh paint. The end is in sight.

Meanwhile, the library is at peak summer chaos. I have been doing book-related activities with about 150 kids every week, and today we made one-page mini zines. The youngest kids were scandalized that I was letting them use real scissors, and then very pleased with themselves when they didn't cut their own fingers off or stab themselves in the eyeball. They did, however, chop their zines into pieces and scribble all over them, but that is 1st grade for you. The older kids nailed it, though, and I am pleased to report that in this age of ipad kids and AI apathy, only one of them was refusing to engage his brain. I made him do it anyway, and he was surprised when it worked.

"Miss, tell me what to write."

"Nope. Use your brain, you've got lots of stories in there."

"No, I don't. Tell me the title of a story."

"Uh uh, you are not going to ChatGPT this. We are using Actual Intelligence, not Artificial Intelligence. Have you ever been scared?"

"Yes." 

"What scared you?"

"I saw a cane spider."

"How big was it?"

He held up his hands like a dinner plate.

"What did it do?"

"Nothing, it was on my wall."

"What did you do?"

"Nothing, I just closed my eyes and ignored it."

"Did it eat you?"

"No."

"Disappointing. And there's your story! Now write it."

And he did. Here is what he wrote:

THE SPIDER

Once I was in bed and saw a spider on my wall. 

It was HUGE.

I was afraid to close my eyes because it would EAT ME. 

I closed my eyes anyway. 

It did not eat me. 

Lazy spider. 

The end.

"PERFECT. I love it." He left with his little book, looking pretty happy. I really hope that small win sparks something for him. I have been hammering them all summer with two main ideas: EVERYONE can draw, and EVERYONE has stories. You can learn to draw well, but drawing badly is fun. Stories don't have to be complicated, just think of a time you were embarrassed or scared or mad.

Here is the quick zine I made as a demo, based on an embarrassing story of my own: 

It's nice being an actual librarian in the summer, and not just a burned-out Kinkos employee. "Can you print this for me?" NO. I AM VERY BUSY AND IMPORTANT. 

*scribbling about poop*

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.

That is not what I meant

As soon as we decided to make some real life changes, the man’s car barfed up its transmission. Nobody would try to fix it, because it was too old and the parts were all discontinued. 

So now we have a new (used) car and a new monthly payment to make.

I guess it’s a start.