balance restored

Got up at 5am and kicked one of my dumbbells so hard I cut the top of my foot open, and the good news is that the blood offering seems to have ended the run of bad luck. The cat went bald again, though.

My feelings about what I want to share have been shifting, or maybe I just don't feel interested in things the way I used to be. I started blogging when I was 24, and every post was a bread crumb leaving a trail just in case the guy I secretly liked wanted to know what I was up to. 

"secretly" lol

Well, he didn't. I kept writing anyway, to pretend I didn't care. For the next 18 YEARS.

(Edited to add: it’s no use looking, I deleted the embarrassing stuff years ago.)

Young people have a lot of things going on. Grad school, babies, new jobs, moves, breakups, makeups, buying a house, renovation disasters, scary encounters.

And then one day, the friend group is gone. The kids are too old to tell cute stories about.* Experience means there are fewer funny mishaps and scary encounters. Adventure is going to Target with a gift card. The milestones are medical - and you know what happens if you talk about your brush with cancer? Strangers start searching your blog archives for “covid vaccine”, because there are fucking idiots out there.

Unless I take up a hobby like the people on tiktok who are sitting around in the backyard with trays of seeds on their heads to attract birds, not much is going to happen that's fun to talk about.

But this is MY boring life, so here's what's up:

Lost a few more pounds, went out to buy new pants (with a Target gift card!) and discovered that the summer styles are shredded acid-washed ‘90s mom jeans, denim bib overalls, crop tops, and dresses that are just sacks tied at the neck. If this is what we're doing, I can wear anything I want, I guess, so I ordered a hippie clown onesie, instead. 

I’ll save my gift card for the fall, when fashion sobers up.

Meanwhile, the family has booked tickets for summer travel in July and  I can’t join them because of work, and this means A WEEK ALONE. I am more excited about eating popcorn for dinner in my underpants and painting until midnight and having the house stay clean than I would have been about going on the trip.

The sun is up late, the lychee tree is covered in young little fruits, and it’s the last week of school. I love summers.

* As I was laying in bed typing this on my phone at 8:30pm on a school night, Leif came in and asked if I could bake a sheet cake for his class party in the morning. Did I jump up and bake him a cake? YES I DID. I still get to talk about my kids when they’re hiding giant sticks in my trunk (which is still in there, along with my collection of found-in-the-wild machetes), and making requests for “frosting-frosting, not ganache or fudge, 'cause it’s just for the kids in my class” half an hour before bedtime.

it's fine. IT'S FINE.

The bird survived! I drove across the island and got to my mother's house in the evening. The little bird was scared and struggling, but it calmed down when she picked it up, gently turned it over, and let it grab her pinky with its toes to see if the legs were broken. Both feet gripped her finger, and it could spread both wings on its own, so it doesn't need a splint for broken bones, although it's definitely injured. It accepted a bellyful of warm bird formula (very young bird, still had some rubber baby beak showing) and she put it under a heating pad to sleep the night. She texted to report that it woke up alive instead of dead, and had a big appetite, so that's promising.

I sunk all my good luck into that bird. It was after dinner time when I got home, so I found some sad salad in the fridge and ate it with the last three shrimp in the freezer. Did my fitness cult workout like a toddler being forced to put away blocks. The neighbor's son was blaring NSFW music to drown out Leif banging out Bach on the piano, and my nerves were fried. By the time I got out of the shower the duel had ended and everyone was settled down to their own activities, so I decided to get an hour of painting in to unwind before bed. Picked up my art stuff, went out the back door, slipped on a puddle, and fell down the concrete stairs.

When I came limping back in an hour later, Mike pointed at the mail pile. "Something came for you today." The something was an envelope from the post office, containing an apology letter and a torn scrap of cardboard that was the only surviving piece of the box of painting panels I had ordered a couple weeks ago. A sorting machine in Philadelphia ate the rest of it. 

But today is going to be a good day. I am going to throttle the goodness right out the day, goddamn it. 

Edited again to add: also I found my new teapot in the garbage because the cat threw it out of the cupboard and broke it.

edited because google still won't let me comment on my own posts: I'm fine, just busted my knees and elbows a bit. Probably helped that I was limbered up; one leg went flying out like Gumby all the way to the bottom of the stairs, the rest of me followed, and I went crashing down into pigeon pose on the wet patio.

rain and birds

It has been monsoon raining, turning the curvy downhill road to work into a white water river adventure. My kid went on a field trip to Honolulu with her class today, and hopefully they didn't have to get there by outrigger canoe. The dam reached spill point and flooded out the homeless encampment, but I haven't seen rescuers standing on the bridge with poles to fish out bodies, so they must have cleared out in time. If anyone has even checked. Half the island was stranded when Ka'a'awa flooded and shut down the only road to town, and my mother had to float her car across the bit where the ocean swamped the road, once the firemen were satisfied it had receded enough for a Honda to survive crossing. But do we get a snow day for all of this? NO, WE DO NOT. Somehow the power has stayed on, which means it's time for work, everyone.

Birds don't do well in a downpour. They get washed out of nests and crash into things with wet feathers. One of our homeless guys found a young cardinal who had been hit by a car and was flopping around in road puddles, so he put it in a box and sat with it at the library computer the entire day before showing me and asking if I knew any rehabbers. I took the box with the terrorized injured bird in it, and now I have to drive across the entire island to give it to the bird witch of the East (my mother). I hope he makes it.

Sorry, buddy, hang in there

Time warp

My college kid is home for the summer, and I slept the whole night for the first time in months. It was beginning to feel like he wasn’t real, just a dream of a fat little baby, a kid running on the beach, a teenager walking around with cats slung over his shoulders. The tech industry employment scene is crashing as AI has been introduced, and a lot of his classmates haven’t been able to get the internships that are required to graduate - him included - so we don’t know what will happen as they enter their last years without the co-op credits. Their academic advisor doesn’t know either, and just says, “uh, try again for next semester? Apply to more?” He’s applied to hundreds. Maybe the university will have to change their requirements, or maybe he’ll have to transfer to another university to graduate. It’s okay, he’s young enough to switch majors and do something else if he can read the writing on the wall (I would have, if I had a time machine to go back and warn myself). For right now, I’m just glad to have all my kids back at home.

Small time glitches have been happening. We went to my mother’s house for dinner on Sunday and found a strange car parked in her spot. Inside, we met two elves from Lothlorien - the nature commune in Indiana where we spent so many summers as I grew up, run by some of my mother’s closest friends. It’s one of those places where you can feel that natural kind of magic that exists in the world, with heavy sunlight, fireflies in the evenings, and raccoons that can unzip your tent and steal your marshmallows while you sleep. The founding members ran around mostly naked through the woods, building communal structures, tending gardens, and playing music. These girls were second-generation, with blue hair and gauzy tie-dyed clothes and witchy tattoos and little metal vape pens. They were in Hawaii for a wedding and stopped by with no warning, like visitors from ye olde 20th century, pre-cell phone. We put out a buffet of carnitas and taco fixings, sliced up the apple pie I brought, and caught up on stories over dinner. “The government finally found us, now we have to get rid of the composting toilets - which have been working just fine for 40 years, thank you - and put in flush toilets. Could be worse, at least it’s just toilets,” they said. There wasn’t enough time to hear everything in one evening, we all hugged and said goodbye when it started getting dark. It felt like we’d opened the door and walked into an Indiana summer, with old friends we’d never met, and it was a bit sad closing the door again and being back at home. The governor is making reluctant promises to give us hazard pay for working with the public during the lock down*, and now I am mentally spending my hypothetical lump sum on a chunk of forest by Lake George to start an artist’s colony in my retirement years. 

It could happen.

And if I’m going to start an art commune, I’d better be able to teach something, so I watched a 10-hour demo on Dutch floral painting with Carlo Russo, and then ordered the brushes and panels on his materials list. The birch panels he uses are from a small husband and wife company in Pennsylvania, and you order them by calling up, chatting with the wife on the phone, reading out your credit card info, and then waiting with no email confirmation or tracking number for the panels to arrive by mail, not sure if they’re even coming at all or if you just handed over your entire bank account to an outlaw. It is a 1980s mail order adventure, checking your mailbox every day like a kid who sent in cereal box tops for a prize (which I did once, and I still have the blue limited-edition boy My Little Pony, who was hotly fought over by all my friends so he could be put in horrible situations and then rescued by the other ponies). 

Also this week: the elementary school brought back their May Day program for the first time since the plague, and I walked down from the library to watch all the kids dance hula and twirl like little rotisserie chickens in the hot sun. It was really sweet, and I got a bit emotional seeing my first crop of storytime babies performing as big kids. Including my own, who is going into her last year in elementary, and looking forward to her first sleep-away camp this summer. 

It's just a jump to the left

Feeling time sneaking up on me lately.

* don't get excited, he's also talking about cutting our pay by the same amount to pay for the Lahaina wildfire recovery that he's been messing up

I have an announcement

I am back in my clown pants era. 

The stores are full of pants so big you could smuggle entire pizzas into movie theaters up your trousers legs. Pants your kids can use as play tents when you hang them in the closet. During the Revolutionary War, one of my ancestors smuggled rebel documents inside her petticoats, and I am ready to join the resistance. They’ll never know what we’ve got up there, ladies, let’s ride.

Edited to correct which dang war my ancestor was involved in. I went to primary school in Canada, okay?

Three Tables

One of my resolutions has been to accept the offer if anyone asks me to go to the beach with them, even if I really don’t want to.

And it’s a good thing to do. We drove up to Three Tables and I sat on the sand, watching my kids dig holes and throw rocks into the ocean. A plover swooped over the waves and landed on the sea rocks after the water crashed over them, catching a little fish and then flying away just before the next wave crashed down. It landed on the sand and fought with the little fish before eating it.

It was too cloudy to see the sunset, but the orange light on the ocean was pretty, and the street lights near the beach park glowed in the waves. Leif accidentally scooped a very surprised crab out of its hole while digging in the sand like a golden retriever, so he made a new hole for it and coaxed it inside. 

A couple days later I opened up the trunk of my car and discovered a very large stick crammed in diagonally, because teenage boys (and golden retrievers) can’t resist a good stick. It’s still in there, because I guess I like a good stick, too.

Did it again

Met my new doctor the other day. He looks like British Shel Silverstein and kissed me on the top of my head when he said hi. I was okay with this for some reason, so I guess he’s the doctor for me.

Today was my second tv interview via zoom. I grimaced like a monkey and nodded like a nodding thing. I forgot what I was saying and picked up a random object off my table to show the audience, instead. I told my horror story about fucking up the Beatryce Prophesy to Kate DiCamillo’s face. 

Well, if he didn’t want to interview a muppet, he wouldn’t have asked me back on the show. It’s fine.

let's jinx this

We finally have staffing at the front desk, so I have been freed up to move into the back office to do my co-worker's job while she's on leave. All day long I get to catalog books, put barcodes and property stamps and labels on them, cover them with plastic, and get them out onto the New Books shelves. I can listen to podcasts and look through each new book that comes through the library, walking out to the front desk occasionally to answer tricky questions or help kids find what they need, and the day flies by. I forgot what it felt like to be happy to come to work. I am living the Paul Rudd meme.

Finished uploading the final illustrations for my second book project, and I'm DONE. Back to painting in my sketchbook on my lunch breaks. I signed up for an online atelier program, and I'm starting at the very beginning with the kids, teaching them classical drawing skills on the weekends. So far they're on board. We'll see if they can make it through Bargue drawing and into painting a single egg. 

The guy who hung around the library doing meth, waving his dick at people, spraying scribble graffiti, and throwing bricks through the windows of neighboring buildings has finally been arrested for robbing a 7-11 with a realistic pellet gun. IMMEDIATELY we got a new guy who laugh-screams like a maniacal villain and tries to light "cooking" fires in the driveway. Oh well. At least he stays outside.

I have another local cable interview next week because my colleague didn't think the last one was as bad as I did. He asked for it - here I come with my awkward jokes and garbled book summaries.

Dumped dirt on my flower beds, bought a couple plants and left them on the porch. Feeling like a homesteader. 

Things are okay around here. I am suspicious.

On drugs again

Edited to add links to the vases: printerror on Etsy. You can find some of the same designs for cheaper elsewhere around etsy, but they’re smaller and lower quality. This guy has a really good printer, so it’s worth the extra bucks.

Spent the weekend at a resort with two of my oldest friends. Tried to convince their toddler that using a pool floatie was super fun; stuck my head in it, fell off the stairs, and got all the water in the pool up my nose. The pool bacteria was really excited about this. Woke up with a sinus infection. Tried to make an appointment with my doctor, who could see me in 2 weeks, so I ended up at the CVS minute clinic AGAIN. Why do we have primary care doctors even? 

Now I am in bed with a bottle of giant antibiotic pills, but I am happy because:

a) had a great weekend with friends

b) my decapitated head vase arrived today

I also got a planter made of legs. 

These are INVESTMENTS, okay? They are still life props. I have decided to take atelier classes online to learn how to paint like the olde Flemish masters, and it turns out Flemish painters took anywhere from 3 weeks to 2 YEARS to finish a painting because they need to dry the damn things for about a week between each step. So that is a lot of time to shop for 3D printed vases.

I actually did get decent pictures of myself this weekend, but I took them in Instagram and saved them as a draft, and then the program crashed and took them with it. Oh well. 

Easter 2024

Easter went smoothly, with baskets and candy and plastic eggs lost forever in hiding spots around the house. I sent a delivery of prime rib and cheesecake to my college kid, made a big meal with three desserts, fed the family, took pictures of my cousins (I have been the only person to take pictures of them for their entire lives, so they lined up expectantly when I picked up the camera), and then dropped like a rock the minute everyone went home. There are no pictures of me, because I am also the only person to take pictures of my own self, and I forgot because I was too distressed by the flan cake, which was fully cooked but sagged just enough in the center to look like a puckered butthole. Happy Easter.

At work, my coworker was gone, we had a college student starting her first day, and we were rolling out the new RFID circulation/security system, so I was training and trouble-shooting while also trying to process a big pile of new books. It made the day go very fast. "Don't worry," I told our new part-timer after a weird guy started barking at the water fountain, "We only have to call the police once or twice a year." Three hours later someone started screaming violently behind the library and then played dead on the ground when we came to investigate, so the police were called. Sorry, new person.