Walnut

A few weeks ago, I found a wood frame at the thrift store. Spent a few days looking at it, trying to figure out what it wanted to be. It said, a walnut. I imagined tiny portraits, curled figures, decorative objects, but it just kept saying no, just a walnut. So I took out the nut bowl and arranged a few walnuts on the table, with some filberts for contrast, but the composition wouldn't work. Just one walnut, stupid.

Fine.

So I painted a walnut.

Walnuts are meaningful to me. In the winter of 1990, we spent Christmas at a great aunt's cabin in the sequoia forest. My grandparents showed up with a mesh sack of walnuts the size of a dead body, which they bought at a roadside stand on the drive up from the airport. They dropped it in the middle of the room where my mother and aunts were sitting and said, "Whatever you can shell, you can keep." For the next week, we all sat in the cabin by the wood stove, talking and cracking and bagging up walnuts in big ziplock bags. By the end of the holiday, we had shelled about half the sack, and everyone was packing fat baggies of nuts into their suitcases. My grandmother looked from the mesh sack of unshelled walnuts to the neat baggies of nuts my mother had stacked on the coffee table, and said, "Actually, we'll just take the shelled ones. There's no way we can get that sack of walnuts on the plane." So we went back to the reservation that winter with a sack of walnuts the size of half a dead body rolling around in the back of the truck. There were no satellite dishes or phone lines on Black Mesa, and for much of the winter the mud roads were impassable, so we took our entertainment where we could find it. We had the only VCR in the teacher's housing, and a subscription to a mail service that shipped 2 movies every other month, which Donna (the former cop, who would shoot herself in the leg the following spring) filled up with Mel Gibson and Bruce Willis films. And we had nuts, goddamn it. For the rest of the winter, teachers trudged over to our trailer in the snow, kicked the muck off their boots, and plopped down on our couch with empty mason jars to watch Lethal Weapon 2 for the hundredth time and crack walnuts. The nutmeat went into one mason jar, and the shells went into the other. Donna and Diane lived in a hogan down the hill, with no electricity, no heater, and a mountain lion stalking the outhouse (which would lead to the aforementioned gunshot wound), and the walnut shells were really good for throwing into the wood stove to keep the fire burning on long, cold nights.

Walnuts in the winter mean safety, family, friends, and warmth. And Danny Glover on an exploding toilet. The important stuff.

long weekend painting - tv and toads

I love painting this kid.

I've been using a new brand of clear gesso, and it's perfect. If you're shopping for this stuff, make sure you don't buy one with "tooth". Tooth is code for "sandpaper". Or maybe "kitty litter". Or "actual, ground-up teeth". This is not something you want in a painting surface.

When I was happy with that, I pulled out my still-mostly-blank painting and added a bronze toad. 

The face took 7 hours, the toad took 45 minutes. That is how it goes sometimes.

paint and murder yarn

I'd like to be the kind of painter who produces large, atmospheric portraits and elaborate still-life scenes, or pages of tightly detailed pen-and-ink drawings with gruesome humor, but what I am is a librarian who likes small, soft, cheap paintbrushes and 5x7 rectangles of paper. I admire designs filled with flowers and bats and skulls, and what I paint is fire hydrants and children and cats. That's okay.

underdrawing-in-progress

Monday was my first painting day in more than a month. I got overenthusiastic and ended up biting off more than I could chew, because I bought a new adhesive to mount my oil paper onto hardboard and didn't have any boards smaller than 2 feet wide. And I'm not going to cut them down to comfortable 5x7 chunks, because power tools are on the top of my "DO NOT APPROACH" list, right next to fireworks and trampolines. I still have a lump on my head from falling face-first into the pointy end of a barbell in 2017. Whatever kind of a painter I think I am, I'll be a worse one without any fingers. But probably more popular, as a human interest piece.

So now I am staring at the expanse of empty background resentfully. Who wants to spend hours painting backgrounds when there are little pink ears and fat fingers and the soft corners of mouths to get caught up in? What was I thinking, painting something this big?

Too late now. Get it done, self.

This is just a detail. The rest is EMPTY EMPTY EMPTY.

And I have been giving my knitting another shot at killing me. Again. Of course.

 Lungs, like swatches, are for sissies.

varnish vids

The best part of finishing a painting is the varnishing. 

Even when the varnish reveals bits you mismatched because the color sunk between sittings. Like knitting a swatch before starting a sweater that won’t fit you, oiling in so your colors match is for sissies. 

I made sure to varnish in the lucky cat hairs - my marks of authenticity. The only realistic art heist crime novel will be cracked by detectives who can identify pet hair, and it will be about 3 paragraphs long. “Unless Fra Filippo Lippi owned a maltipoo in 1469, you will find, sirs, that this is a FORGERY.” The End. 

who knows where

The song I was listening to on my evening run told me to follow the strange trails, so I went trespassing into a dark construction site like a complete ding-dong.

 

Here is the resolution for 2019: put down the feel-bad machine. I bought a paper journal to replace my blog. I'll still upload art, like this post, but I've removed twitter, facebook, newsfeeds, netflix, and pretty much everything else except my e-reader. It's time to stop dropping breadcrumbs and be done. 

My email is tempestpilot at the g mails, and I'll receive direct messages from fb if anyone needs to get hold of me. 

 -h

The annual questionnaire

1. What did you do in 2018 that you’d never done before? I painted a city scene. Badly. Also learned to bake Japanese breads, painted on paper, helped roof a house, and experienced a nuclear missile scare.

2. Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions? Resolving to get over things never works. "I will get over my relationship hangups." WRONG. "I will get over that traumatic accident that happened." HAHA, NO. "I will stop being pissed at that one asshole I can't stand." NO, YOU REALLY WON'T. You're not supposed to get over things. Things keep you alive. 

Also I didn't get any metallic pants.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?  A childhood friend in Indiana is working one of these.

4. Did anyone close to you die? Mike's grandmother died this week, on Boxing Day. And we found out on goddamn facebook, because everyone thought someone else would have called to tell her offspring. 

5. What places did you visit? I rode the hobo train through Portland. Tried a new Thai restaurant downtown. Went to an impound lot for the first time. Did not go to Maui.

6. What would you like to have in 2019 that you lacked in 2018? A whole-family trip. Probably to New York. I don't actually want to visit Lake George next summer (or ever again - my young-and-in-love feelings about the place have turned into tired-and-sad feelings), but I do want to see the kids have fun. I'll do it for the trip to the jerky shop with the wooden pig out front. If anyone finds me standing under a tree on the wooded path looking sentimental, please come punch me in the face.

7. What moments from 2018 will remain etched upon your memory? Crying into my sweatshirt on the flight home from LAX. Taking Zenny to the ER for a broken nose. Hanging Leif's first oil painting. Going for a jog at nightfall and having all the street lights come on, one by one, just as I ran under them. The look on Mike's face when he had to confess to losing my entire truck. 

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? I went to a painting workshop in a city and did not get murdered. Got another book contract. 

9. What was your biggest failure? I submitted a painting to an art show and was rejected. Also, applied for a passport and was rejected. It was a good year for rejection.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury? Cut off the top of my thumb while slicing a peach. It's flat now. Also it is missing a bit of thumbprint, so I just have to cut a few more peaches and I'll be ready for a life of crime. Or I will be unable to get away with any crimes ever because of my highly-distinctive patchwork fingerprints.

11. What was the best thing you bought? Arches oil paper - this changed my whole year of painting. 

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?  The boys were pretty great this year. Leif took an interest in learning to oil paint, and didn't poison himself. Gavin went to the Robotics World Championship in Kentucky and made a computer out of a toaster with his friends. Both boys went to Japan with their dad and had an amazing time. They're really nice guys, I love who they're growing up to be. 

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed? HEY IT WAS ME AGAIN. I opened the boyfriend box in the top of my closet and handled the artifacts.

14. What did you get excited about? Oh no, it was paint again. I did feel excited about flying to the mainland for a workshop, even if the trip didn't pan out like any of the scenarios my brain came up with. Which is good, because some of them involved embarrassing accidents, miscommunications leading to arrests, and, in one case, a bazooka. I had a bit too much time to think about it on my nightly walks. 

15. What song will always remind you of 2018? I listened to a lot of Led Zeppelin this year, but Gavin rammed this thing into my head like a fork:

My painting instructor did this to us:

And Pandora got me with this one:

16. Compared to this time last year, are you:

a) happier or sadder?  nothinger
b) thinner or fatter?  14 lbs thinner
c) richer or poorer? first time in 15 years without early childcare costs - HOLY SHIT I AM RICH. Have been buying frozen Costco entrees like a big shot. 

17. What do you wish you’d done more of? Painting butts. 

18. What do you wish you’d done less of? Painting buildings.

19. What is the general state of your heart this year? I'm a year further into my transformation into Marilla Cuthbert.

20. What was your favorite TV program? Look, I tried to like the Good Place, but I don't know what everyone's been talking about. It isn't funny, the explorations of morality are not original or insightful, and the characters are not likable. Forever was a lot better, as afterlife/morality comedies go. The best thing I watched was Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency. 

21. What was the best book you read? This year I read every book Christopher Paul Curtis has written, and the one I loved the most was Elijah of Buxton. The last few Expanse books didn't blow my hair back, but The Long Earth series by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter has been really resonating with me. I'm reading Lethal White right now, every minute I can find.

22. What did you want and get? Travel. Another book contract. Kitchen counters.

23. What did you want and NOT get? Company over coffee. An aptitude for painting city scenes. A suit of armor.

       23 B. What did you NOT want and get? More abominable chickens. 

24. What was your favorite film of this year? Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. 

25. Did you make some new friends this year? Sort of? I became friendly with one of the storytime moms and she lets me hold her baby while she uses the bathroom. I definitely do not want any more babies, but bouncing around other people's babies is nice, in the way that knuckling risen bread dough is nice.

26. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? The ability to mentally electrocute people who brag about not being afraid to say "Merry Christmas". Nobody has ever been afraid to say "Merry Christmas". Nice people actually want other people to be happy, and are aware that those other persons might be Jewish or something. If you're less nice than me, the person who wants to mentally electrocute strangers, that's maybe a bit problematic.

27. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2018? It was supposed to be "That Would Look Good in a Painting," but ended up, "Who Stole my Chicken Hat?"

28. What kept you sane? Painting, baking, walking, and planning my eventual escape into the woods.

29. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? I made fun of John Krasinski on a horse.

30. What political/news issue stirred you the most?  INCOMING BALLISTIC MISSILE TAKE COVER THIS IS NOT A DRILL

31. Who did you miss? I missed wide open, empty, people-less spaces. (Not the kind that come immediately after an incoming ballistic missile warning. The kind with blackberry bushes and squirrels.)

32. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2018. DON'T OPEN THE BOX.

Christmas 2018

The fanciest of feast

We were hosting dinner on Christmas Eve, so I chased the kids around with Windex, making them wipe the windows before company arrived. "Everything has to be fresh and clean," I explained, "in case baby Jesus shows up." I was raised in a place where people frantically painted their homes in the week before Christmas so that it looked nice and fresh, just in case the infant savior dropped by for a dram of whiskey. I've always thought it was a nice idea, even if it is all a bit concerning from a child welfare perspective.

At that moment, a stray cat meowed outside the window. "BABY JESUS," the kids yelled, and ran outside with a bowl of dry cat food.

"Wait!" I yelled after them, "If that is the Christ Child, you should give Him wet cat food!" Kids, I tell you.

It was a nice Christmas. The roasts were enormous, the Yorkshire pudding was a foot high, the pies were perfect, and I only caught one dish towel on fire. Weeks of living off cookies and candies have reduced my iron levels to barely-living, and I have been falling asleep on armrests and face-down on my desk at lunch. I am ready for everything to get back to normal. If we could find a way to skip New Year's Eve and just head right into 2019 without having to stay up late and listen to drunk neighbors blow their fingers off, that would be great.

Monday painting: leather jacket

Sorry for the disappearing post, rss-feeders. I got myself locked out of the house, emptied a handful of pens from a jelly jar in my studio, and was sitting on the back porch drinking a jarful of porter from the basement kegerator when I got bad news about my broken-down truck, leading me to violate two blog rules: no posting after a beer and no ranting about family members. The kids enjoyed the trip to the impound lot, and my truck is back in the driveway. Dead. But not set on fire on the side of the road, at least.

So I was really ready to have some time to myself on Monday. Finished one painting, framed another, packed one up to be mailed, addressed some Christmas cards, and baked a bunch of rugelach and gingerbread.  

Leif's jacket:

Framed:

I swear it looked a lot bigger than that while I was painting it. If I had to do it again, I'd remember to make the leaves and stems GREEN, and not the all-black of the plastic Halloween bouquets I got from Walmart. Had a bit of tunnel vision while getting through all those damn petals.

The rugelach was really ugly, but it tasted good, and that's what counts when you bake something for the first time. I'm checking off new recipes to try. Next up is chocolate babka. One of our family mottoes is: you have to do the work to make the magic. Even it means taking the holiday by the neck and shaking the happiness out of it. Someone else will pick up the good feelings, even if you're not able to.

The truck cont.

I went to work, stopping at the door to tell the man to get the truck towed and put it on the credit card. He texted me at 10am and said a hose had blown and it was a 4 min. fix. This sounds like he fixed it, right? WRONG.

Got home, noticed there was no truck in the driveway, and then discovered that I was locked out of the house. Someone had played with the door knob lock, and I only have keys for the dead bolt. So I went around back (which I don’t have a key for because of Reasons) and did some laundry and helped myself to the kegerator, using a mason jar full of pens in my studio (minus the pens). Found where the chickens were laying eggs in the basement, had a toast with them. We haven’t actually named the two youngest chickens, we just call them collectively “the chickadoos”. Plucky came down, sang the egg song, the chickadoo felt better about this horrible thing that had come out of her, and the chickens all walked off together under the house, feeling very sisterly. I refilled my mason jar. I had had about 1.5 mason jars of very strong beer when the boys got home from swim lessons to shove Leif through the bedroom window and open the doors. Mike said, “So... well. Yeah. The truck is gone.”

THE TRUCK IS GONE. I told him to tow it, I told him it would be set on fire or stolen, I told him it would be impounded. And it is gone. And he has been at swim lessons. So I started laughing. “Call the cops and ask where they impound vehicles,” I said, and went to sit on the porch bench and watch Gilmore Girls with the rest of my mason jar of beer. Zenny went running by, “I have the eggs!” and fell down with them.

So Mike drove off in my mom’s car to file police reports or pay ransoms, and I am eating chocolate to absorb the beer so I can meet my mom for the traditional Thai food dinner on the night before Gavin’s actual birthday.

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE.

Update:

Truck was located. We went on a very exciting trip to an impound lot way out in the industrial district, where I interrogated the poor man at the desk about what exactly the big sign detailing firms for “water recoveries” might involve. Lots of drunk people driving into rivers, evidently.

The truck has suffered a fatal explosion to its insides and it probably dead forever. We have made arrangements and gone out for Thai food.

I’m not feeling depressed anymore! Adding “tow truck driver” to my future career change options.

solution: plum cake

My truck blew up. A week before Christmas. Because of course it did.

I went out at 10pm to rescue Mike from the side of the highway - me in reindeer pajamas, him in full kilt and jacket, carrying an empty beer keg. You're welcome, passers-by. *

This morning I made a plum cake for everyone before going to work. This is foolproof comfort food. Quick to prepare (and quiet, if everyone is still in bed) and very, very good. We make this at least once a month.

Plum cake

5 plums (or whatever soft fruit you have on hand)
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice (or whatever pie spices you've got - ginger, cloves, nutmeg, etc)

1 stick butter, cut into 4 pieces (salted butter is best)

1 cup sugar
1 cup flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp of salt (more if you're using unsalted butter)
1 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp almond extract

Turn the on oven to 350. (I use a toaster oven.)

Chop up the plums into about 6 pieces (discard the stones, obviously), get a medium-sized mixing bowl, and toss the fruit with the 1/2 cup sugar and spices. Set them aside to get syruppy.

Put the butter in a medium baking dish or deep pie pan and put it in the hot oven to melt.

In another bowl, whisk together dry ingredients, add milk and extracts, and whisk until smooth. Give your fruit a stir to make sure it's getting syruppy (I add some vanilla if it's looking dry - depends on the fruit). When the butter is bubbly and hot, take the pan out of the oven, give your batter a quick stir, and pour the batter over the hot butter. The edges may sizzle and start to cook, that's fine. Drop the fruit all over the batter and pour the syrup over the top. Pop the pan back into the oven and bake for 50 minutes, until the cake is golden and bubbly and beautiful.

Let it cool for about 10 minutes, so the remaining butter settles in and the syrup thickens. You're supposed to flip it over onto a platter for presentation, but who needs to dirty another dish? Just spoon it out onto plates and eat it. The edges are crispy, the middle is tender, the fruit is sweet, it's delicious.



* The man was coming back from a retirement party. He had brewed a keg of Hefeweisen and had to do a highland dance. There was a bagpiper. Then he blew out my radiator. And the towing insurance expired 3 hour earlier, Eastern Standard Time. Naturally. It's fine. It's fiiiiiine. PLUM CAKE.

** I feel I should add here that he did not drink a keg of Hefeweisen. There were 200 people at a party with free drinks, he barely got to taste it to make sure it wouldn't poison everyone.