itesser ink: progress, uncensored

It's been a long (Satur)day, and I'm not sure I'm going to sleep yet.

For not being home, I did a surprising amount of drawing on Friday. Besides (unscanned) zoodles (zoo doodles), four pages of my big sketchbook were filled. Here's one of them:



Most of the page is "inside" jokes (inside my head)... if you don't know the context for Yote and Jackal, Mbear and Fox... it's all nonsense. Except for the hair I colored. I think that's univeresally awesome. And the self-doodle in the lower right. That one is accessible.

This page doesn't really indicate why, but for the first time in a long time I'm excited about scanning and posting my art again. Yaay.

...so here's an image quilt made hastily from the first 20 photos I scanned. All of these are from my recent road trip with Mom.

I realize that, in one way or another, the recent posts I've made can be boiled down to whining about my situation. I'm also afraid that today is par for that course.

Nearly all of today has been spent looking at and thinking about furniture.

It started as a lark while I was vacuuming the house. I decide to give myself a six thousand dollar budget and make a summer hobby out of finding ways to "spend" that money. From there I tumbled down to dozens of google searches, dozens of tabs, and dozens of pages of apartment therapy. Thankfully not for a dozen hours.

In the end today's brilliant idea is to get a one bedroom apartment instead of two (less money for rent, less money for furnishings) and learn how to build a bunch of modular tables/desks so that our living room can also be our studio. Besides an extravagant kitchen with a gas stove, ample storage space, and a KitchenAid mixer, the home-feature I dream of most is a large workspace for crafting. "Heartbroken" is a strong word (and better applied to things that aren't furniture, but I do remember the giant desk I had in Savannah with fondness.

How much trouble, I wonder, to construct a quartet of 30x30 tables? That put together and come apart without hardware? It seems especially silly to go forth and build furniture, especially knowing nothing about where I'll be living. The next week will be critical for finding out if I'm dreaming hard enough to dream these tables into reality.

When I was a kid I read every volume of Garfield comic strips I could get my hands on. One strip in particular that sticks in my mind had a sequence of Garfield standing by a light switch, flipping it off, zooming into his cat bed while the room was still lit, and in the final panel (a dark one) thinking to the audience, "Faster than the speed of dark."

It's a silly thing to remember, especially because I can't relate to the experience. In this phase of life my room (while I am present to experience it) is rarely a dark place. Even if only my body is present, the light is still on. On many occasions my mom has said to me, "And you were still up when I got up around seven" and I reply, "No, I fell asleep with the light on."

Comfort is why the light is on. Or maybe fear. At the surface, I can point to practicality: I fall asleep with my lamp still burning because I read myself to sleep and don't wake up until morning.

Bedtime reading is another thing that has stuck around since childhood. First the years of being read to by my mom, then the years when we would read a book together before I went to sleep, then the years when I would sneak my book into the bathroom and devour chapter after chapter despite the discomfort of sitting on the edge of the bathtub.

But now as I think about it, I don't remember this sort of nocturnal reading taking place very much in the last three years. I have a book light, sure, for nights of insomnia or an especially exciting story. Those times are the exception. Normally bed time means snuggles, curling up with my arms around my husband, or pressing my back against his and enjoying the slow rhythm of his breathing until I drift to sleep.

Leaving the light these days lets me stay with the comfort of an author until my brain can't string words together anymore. Books keep me engaged with thoughts outside my own head, escaping my vast, underoccupied bed to courtrooms and communes, restaurants and raceways, manor homes and motorhomes. It doesn't matter where I go or what I'm reading; "not present" is all I care about.

Leaving the light on helps me escape my own introspection. Alone in the dark, I often have to spend several minutes aware of thoughts that race or lurk around my mind. When I loosen the tethers of planning this and puzzling that, my consciousness wanders and often falls into the abyss, the unavoidable chasm. Even though I've been staying on its precipice for about 150 days, I'm still vulnerable to its gravity. I'm afraid of that abyss and the raw hurt that never really goes away when my thoughts linger on what's missing from my life, my bed. I prefer to move straight from fiction to dream.

And so the bulb burns.

Occasionally, like tonight, I'm too exhausted to find any of my books suitably numbing. Sometimes I tell myself I'm not only too tired to read, not only too tired to move across the room to flip the switch by the door, but also too tired to stretch the two feet to snap my lamp off at the neck.

But tonight, while fussing around, arranging blankets and pillows and limbs into a comfortable sleeping position, I'll find myself close enough to the light. Despite my headache, I'll look up under the shade at the naked bulb as my fingers find the knob to cut the stream of electricity. It will take two clicks, then I will be treated to my own miniature, captive sunset. The filament will glow for an extra moment, reminding me that lightbulbs are a source of heat as well as light.

And finally, remembering the time Reagan and I burned a hole in a fabric napkin by draping it over my desk lamp in order to cast the room in San Marcos in a moody, reddish glow... I'll brave the darkness.

The majority of Tuesday

Today was limited in scope and depth so I vow to keep my comments on the day limited in length. My troubles were as few as my movements, though the correlation means little. I spent the majority of my day reading in bed. What can I say? My brother recommends a good page-turner. Tuesday might have ended there, with a small shift in pitch as the day's note faded out; when my book was over with (it seemed way shorter than 454 pages) I moved from a fictional court case in a novel to a fictional court case in a video game.

(Un)fortunately for my wish to sleep early, checking a walkthrough on my computer got me in contact with my best friend extrordinaire and I was inspired to put down my game and pick up my pen. And not just my pen, but my paints, too. I forgot how awful they can smell. Nothing beautiful came of the artsing session (and I can't get my scanner working), so no art to post just yet, but I'm glad that I pushed myself to be productive at the end of the day. Posting is cool, too. Now that I'm here I want to say more that these quick jots, but the hour is later than I thought.

I swear I'm going gray

Writing is not among today's victories.

Drawing is not among today's victories.

Getting my oil changed is not among today's victories.

Resisting running away is not among today's victories.

Receiving a free mug of tea at the bookstore is not among today's victories. It happened, and it was good, but I don't think I can claim credit for it. Even if the free tea (well, hot water; I brought my own tea bag*) was precipitated by me looking awful from a bout of crying, I can't say the freebie was intentional.

(* I did try to pay for the hot water so I wouldn't be that jerk who tried to scam free food, but the barista asked if I was going to be hanging around, and when I said yes, gave me hot water in a mug instead of a cup and refused my money.)

I'm counting the small things that went right today because it was a day of such intense heartbreak that I did wonder how I might be able to run away from home, or run to my husband without looking ridiculously irresponsible.

Heartbreak is supposed to be over when you find your soul mate, fall in love, tie the knot, and live happily ever after. But then why, oh why, despite all the love, devotion, and affection I have for my husband, does my heart ache so badly these days? Absence, instead of making the heart grow fonder, makes the heart a harbor for irrational resentment, accusations, and feelings of neglect and abandonment. All of those are irrational. (See above: love, devotion, affection.)

And all of those good things are returned to me. I hear from him at least once a day, pushing himself to be more verbose in his notes, and putting into paper (or at least email) the things I usually see in his eyes. But woman can not live on bread alone. I'm pacing at the end of my rope, unsatisfied with how little we share.

I've become so out of touch with my husband that I bristle at almost any mention of him. When people ask about him, friends and family alike, I can only stand to answer one or two questions, sometimes less, before shutting down and saying, "I don't want to talk about it." These brusque dismissals are often followed by me going somewhere to privately fight off tears. It's humiliating, but the breadth and depth of my situation are difficult to convey in the casual settings the topic comes up in.

The victories, you see, are in the times I act normal.

The times when I cook and clean.
The times when I create.
The times when I exercise.
The times when I leave the house.
The times when I socialize.

Even when those actions are facets of escapism... three days in the high desert, two days by the beach, five days driving around the state... they're still victories.

Writing is not among today's victories.

Six days
Five nights
Four tires
Three cameras
Two women
One trip.

(Six cameras if you count our cell phones and my mom's, but I'm just speaking of what I shot with)

It was a pretty intense trip.

Day one was driving up to Mill Valley, just past San Francisco on the 101. Instead of jetting up the 5, we took the scenic route.



Had a fanTASTIC dinner at a neighborhood place in SF. I had duck, perhaps for the first time, and the peach slices in the salad just melted in my mouth.

We crossed the Golden Gate Bridge before sunset...


And spent the next two nights with her friends Erin and Joel. They are amazingly sweet people... who I have no pictures of. They did, however, encourage me to procure a head of garlic, take it with me everywhere, and snap pictures of it.

I called the project "Finding Something to Savor Everywhere I Go". About forty photos of my bulb of garlic made it into the flickr set:



It solved my problem of lacking a subject in some situations, and I challenged myself to work it into as many shots as possible. Most failings happened when the bulb was left in the car or at our motel. It's a concept I'll definitely play with again, though.

Rest of the photos here.

I've been on the road for many days and can't keep my brain sharp as late at night as I'm accustomed to. D: Stupid waking up before noon all week...

I read something. It was neat. In the midst of the reading I said to myself, "I should blog about this so I remember more about the piece and the experience". Then I got distracted and wandered around the internet. Because I'm lazy. But I want to be less lazy, remember? So here's digging in for some concentration and writing about it.

The personal essay in question is Dumpster Full of Windows by Raquel D'Apice who I normally refer to (in my mind) as theuglyvolvo. (It's not personal or judgmental, she chose that username.)

Raquel seldom posts, less than once a month, but the quality of her essays more than make up for the "pain" of having a silent party on my friends list. Each entry is a personal story, but comparing it to what one finds on most diary-type blogs is comparing mountains to molehills. And besides climbing such mountains, I'd like to build them.

Components I think I'll need to construct such gems of creative writing (I've included a single example of each, usually the first occurrence, not necessarily the best, but definitely not the only):

+ Attention to detail
The tan vinyl on one of the seats has been slashed and someone has fixed it by stitching it back together in a zipper pattern with light pink thread, the inch-long ends hanging frayed from either side.

+ Connections of "unrelated" things
The train slows and the woman’s automated voice says, “This station stop is: Nanuet.” . . . The woman’s voice says all the syllables clearly and distinctly, as if Nanuet is the final answer in a multiple-choice question that my teacher is reading aloud.
In 1863, the Civil War battle with the largest number of casualties was fought at which location:
a. Appamatox
b. Gettysburg
c. Dorney Park and Wildwater Kingdom
d. Nanuet

+ Personal recollection
“But what DO you actually do?” a friend asked once.

+ Personal revelation
I have only a beginner’s carpentry set that has been used mainly to hammer nails into the walls and assemble shelving.

+ Recurring themes
.She pulls her sunglasses from the dashboard—they are always in a small compartment in the dashboard—and puts them on and kisses me.
.She puts her sunglasses back into the compartment in the dashboard.
.Opening the car door she reaches for her sunglasses, which are always in a compartment in the dashboard.

Perhaps this deserves a little more explanation. The first mention of her mother's sunglasses is part of the attention to detail that immerses me in Raquel's writing. The second occurrence underlines the use of "always" from the first mention. The third time the sunglasses show up, they help to wrap the piece up neatly as her mother is fetching them to "help with the glare" that will no doubt be an issue when Raquel builds a house out of the windows she saw in a dumpster.

The thread of her mother's sunglasses is probably the most pedestrian running theme in the essay, but necessary for the conclusion:

I thank her and put on the sunglasses. I will wear these to work on Monday, I think. I will saunter in to the office in my mother’s sunglasses, holding an idyllic wood-framed window, which I will set on the wall of my cubicle, propped against a bookcase. I will leave it open—it is nice to have windows, but it is nicer, sometimes, to have open windows; to feel a little bit of air on your face.

I will leave the window open and the wind will rush through. It will blow the smell of cookies back into the far corners of the office, where people on other floors will suddenly realize that they are hungry, and it will blow the papers from my inbox—shooting them out in sheaves out onto 49th street, leaving the air hung with forms—white and blinding and precipitating like snow.

(I pause a moment to swoon again.)

One last component bullet point:

+ Creative wit
The strongest example of this requires too much context for me to copy verbatim. The author is telling the reader a bullet list of her rules for organizing her office. In the middle of the list, Raquel's mother interrupts twice. It breaks an informative section of writing into a narrative (though fictional, I'm sure) form in a way that tweaks my brain. In a good way. It feels as though in the realm of body-of-writing, platonic-ideal-author and platonic-ideal-audience, there is also platonic-ideal-Raquel and platonic-ideal-Raquel's-mom who can see and relate to the bullet point list as though it were a solid object, like a building.


The individual components aren't as impressive, however, as the intricate way the essay is constructed. Sometimes I write "essay", sometimes "story", but neither feels wholly true. Poetry, in fact, seems closer to an accurate description for the rhythm, refrains, filigrees of words, and charming way it all comes together to ride off into the sunset.

Forgive me, Raquel, for this attempt to dissect your writing. It is only so I may learn from it. I hope you are not of the bourgeois, those who will send the bobbies after this poor worker caught trying to steal their secrets.

1- I was going home and saw windows in a dumpster
2- future conversation with sister about #1
3- details relating to #1
4- unrelated joke about voice on the train (mentioned in #1)
5- long details about getting off train
6- sunglasses
7- conversation with mom ("relax")
8- description of job (ends with imagination)
9- more thoughts about job (ends with imagination)
10- interaction with mom (groceries)
11- sunglasses (#6)
12- continuation of #10
13- Kitchen description (#10)
14- stuff on sale (#10)
15- dollar stuff for office (8, 14)
16- office forms, poetry (#8)
17- exchange with mom (16, 2 [in spirit])
18- rule from elementary school (#16)
19- putting away groceries (#10)
20- interaction with mom, clothing details (#10)
21- more interaction with mom (20, 2[memories and Pam])
22- observing clutter (10, 20)
23- groceries, overwhelming, organize (10, 8)
24- "Rules for organizing a workspace" (10, 8, 17)
25- what are these (24, 17)
26- weird stuff "for grandkids" (25, 17)
27- "don't throw out the coupons" (14, 25)
28- deep breathing (21)
29- apology conversation (7, 20)
30- different job (8, 1)
31- talking with Pam, house of windows down the street (2, 1, 21)
32- check on the windows (1, 2, 3)
33- tools in the garage (24)
34- if i had that house... (1, 31, 15, 24)
35- glare in the house (34, 20, 6, 20)
36- work on monday... (8, 1, 6, 15, 16, 35)

In retrospect, that's a dissection with scissors instead of a scalpel. Not every description of a passage (one or two paragraphs or a section of dialog) is exact enough to know what is being referenced or reiterated when the number recurs. I hope the list conveys the snowball effect that takes place over the 3500-odd words of the piece.

I feel like I know the author once I reach the end. Not only because she shares many details about her family, her thoughts, her life, but because she calls on me to use those details of what she's shared as the "conversation" between writer and reader goes on. Little things accumulate over those 3000 words until you feel like you're sharing an inside joke at the end. Through the repetition the pattern, the web, of interrelated thoughts emerges, so when we're comfortable with the author's rhythm, the poetic, imaginative ending is very satisfying.

It's time for me to get out of bed, I've spent almost two hours on this. I'll ruminate some more, let thoughts settle and sink in, then see what I may be able to apply to my own reflective writings.