#929

Now I'm counting down the last days before Vcon. We're all frayed around the edges, but I'm not stressed about the convention. It's a friendly group---at least I assume so---experience tells me it will be.

I had a camera on hand when we took a short break today. Spencer played. I took photos of my feet---no idea why---

and photos of some of the newest gas masks for Poppets.

This summer has sure battered us on many levels.

Yes, it's nearly October, but summer in the desert isn't over until we feel a chill in the air.

Where's the chill? sheesh...

The work is good though. At least we have that going on.

Have you been watching the news? Do you, like me, watch with the blankets pulled up around your chin? I'm thinking, it's never really a good idea to panic, but maybe time to think ahead a bit.

I'm not saying we'll be running for the hills, but these are scary days.

I'm thinking that now, more than ever, it's time to be a little kinder to each other---even and especially to those with whom we disagree.

Beyond that, I don't have much. I pulled some photos totally at random from the files I set aside for one of my VCon programs. It's a weird mix.

Lisa wants her groove back. Possibly (and likely) the convention will give me a reset. Such a weird mix of sadness and comittment to the work---to you too.

Today Aubrey and I went shopping for the last bit of stuff for the children's programming at the con. We'll be making Halloween brains. We bought way too much crap. But then, Halloween is my Christmas, sort of. Possibly we shouldn't drink iced coffee before shopping.

Have a good Saturday.

strange days

No, I have not expired, gone into hiding, or given up.

I continue to be the idiot artist struggling toward the light, with bloody knees and singed hair, a slightly crazed look and a slow, determined pace.

These last months have been, so far, the most difficult I can remember. Your artist is tired and sad, but not hopeless, and even now I recognize there have been bright glimpses of better days ahead.

I'll be leaving for VCon on Oct 1st. I'll be a bit raw around the edges, but deeply inspired. If I'm very lucky, it will all balance to the good. Dispite all, I tend to be able to turn things around. I'm not terribly worried and look forward to spending some time with the folk there.

The work continues to be good, when we can get to it.

So. There we are. Ben and I are pretty wrung out but are looking forward to the convention. Spencer will have another surgery tomorrow but is working in the studio as I type this. Poppet Planet continues to spin along on its axis while we humans try to make sense of things.

There is a book in here somewhere.

Now, I'm going to eat this little box of Whoppers I bought for myself last week. Then I'm going to sleep.

I feel human, humble and present in all these moments.

They are what they are. Whatever you're doing, I wish you well.

g'night

What I wish I didn't know.

******

Thank you for your "what I did this summer" comments. They are bigger inside than out.

I struggle now, these weeks, sorting through the debris of my own adventures, and deciding exactly which general direction to head into. I began to realize, in the midst of all this thinking, that my creative process has changed a lot since I started. I began to think of 'what I know now" as an artist that I had no clue about when I started. It became a sort of list of things that could be reasonably beneficial.

ten things I know now

Less useful, likely, but interesting in an entirely different way;

ten things I know now, but wish I didn't.

Hmm.

When I was then, we stayed out on the beach all day, got deep, dark tans, smoked cigarettes, drank Boones Farm or someone's grandmother's Manischewitz and had sex without latex--- with joyful abandon.

When I was then I believed the adults in charge were at least smarter than me and had our best interests at heart.

When I was really, really then, I believed I might hear tiny hooves on the rooftop on Christmas Eve.

I wish I didn't know....what? This is a tricky question for an autodidact.

Curiously, I typed each not as something I know now, but as a 'then' counterpart. I don't know why that works better. Will think when I'm not terribly sleepy.

Anyway. there it is.

What do you know now, that you wish you didn't?

Lots of stuff going on in the world. Lots of it bad. The news seems more scary and people seem more stupid. Is it me?

For Spencer, (banned from wheels) things got very serious, very quickly this past week, with surgery and a week in hospital. Now we play catch up. Again.

I am now extremely sleepy. g'night

photo of Orion by Mimi Ko

Mostly pictures of humans making

If you've been away, visit the previous entry and add your summer experiences. I'd like to know, and I'm fairly certain others would too.

what I did this summer

Just like that. The classic "What I Did During Summer Vacation." That essay was a staple when I was in grade school, a ritual exercised by nearly every teacher after every single summer to serve as transition into the school year.

What I did this summer is a very long and oddly disjointed list that includes:
learned to make good iced coffee
trespassed
hosted several birthday parties
questioned my core beliefs
took about 1000 photos
lost 20 pounds
read a dozen books

...and so on.

Ok. possibly only sublime to myself, because of what my mind attaches to each.

It's way too long a list for any given summer, but I know there could be worse things on it.

I'm not the same person I was in March. Then, who is?

I think it's time for me to start watching the news again. To care whether my shirt is inside out.

What I'd like now is some perspective. I'd like to know what you did this summer. Are you more like you are now than you were in March? What do you know now that you didn't know then? Imagine traveling directly from, say, March 10 to today, with no memory of the time between.
yes. let's not do that again.

Time for sleep. Never a straight line, stumbling towards the light, knees bloody, hair on fire. It's coming out in the work. It might be coming out in the work for a long time. But first. Sleep and healing. And more sleep. Because tomorrow is another early morning. School is in session. Summer is over.
g'night