Ingredients

Ingredients that go into a calendar: ink, pencil, eraser shavings, white out, coffee, naps, books on tape, avoidance, wild fantasy life, intenet surfing, hours spent in your pajamas, Cat Stevens, Nick Drake, Tom Waits, freak outs, NPR, updating ipod library, googling, blood, sweat, & tears.

This is the fifth year I have completed the Annual Great Gals Calendar and every year I can't imagine it being done, or I wonder how I am ever going to draw somebody like Eleanor Roosevelt, or Ingrid Bergman, but somehow, day to day it gets done. The great and fantastic thing about making a calendar is that there is a clear and distinct FORMAT. There are 12 months, each month has its own number of days, and a very ritualistic way of proceeding. So it is easy to know exactly what needs to be done and WHEN it needs to get done by. That is the other glorious thing about a calendar--it has a distinctive DUE DATE. No ifs ands or buts--it MUST get done by X date. This is HEAVEN to someone like me who will procrastinate until the cows come home--and then will procrastinate long after! Thanks to deadlines, formats, and lists my yearly project is nearing its date with the copy machine. I just have a few more things to tinker with.

I am sitting at a wi-fi cafe that just opened a couple of blocks away from my apartment. I am using the laptop with the cracked windshield, so forgive if anything looks WONKY. I can only see HALF of the screen. It's kind of exciting--or tricky--or annoying--it depends on how you look at it. What am I REALLY TYPING? Only YOU the reader KNOWS! This wi-fi cafe is a strange addition to my neighborhood. Imagine, if you will, an urban industrial landscape, filled with an array of gated junkyards and werehouses, and no trees, with the occasional apartment buildings that have signs that read NO DRUG SELLING ON PREMISES. Then imagine a small cafe with tile and a sign in CURSIVE in the middle of all that. Then, you go inside and EVERY SINGLE whitey, you didn't even know LIVED in the neighborhood is there, to bask in the glory of steamed milk and and olive green and yellow color scheme. Inside the indie kid with the Cosby sweater, lethargically pours you coffee, and listens to the Cars. Outside, graffitti stretches across every surface imaginable and a a woman yells on her cellphone, every EXPLETIVE in the book, while carrying her toddler, who is drinking a bottle of Pepsi and crying. This is an odd world to exist in, and I am not sure I feel comfortable with my part in it.

But this seems to be the nature of things. It ain't like a calendar, with its clean lines and formulas. It's what it is--a graffiti signature over a beautiful building; a beautiful building displaying a graffitti signature.

The Air is Crisp Like an Apple

Donating my life force at Kinko's again. Something I didn't realize I'd do when I moved to New York: stay out because 2.5 hours is not enough time to go home and come back for a later activity. This is something that I never did while in California or Boston or anywhere else I lived. You get used to COMMUTING to do the simplest things like buying groceries o, say, getting ANYTHING DONE. Today, I meet one friend for lunch, only to gage if it's worth it or not to take a half hour to 45 minute subway ride each way to go home and back in order to have dinner with a friend. This is why I believe that New York may be the most high maintenance city in the world.

The air is crisp as an apple and I must say, BREATHTAKING. I LOVE the blue blue sky with the clouds lumbering their way across the sky. Yesterday Graham called me while I was at Wholefoods and he said "The sky is so beautiful that it made me think of you, and so I just HAD to call you!" This is the best thing he's done for me in awhile. Not to say that it's been lacking AT ALL, but when your betrothed spontaneously is MOVED by nature to call you, it's like suddenly the paint is wet again, and I SWOONED.

I've been spending the last couple of mornings listening to David Sedaris on tape and drawing the likes of Banana Yoshimoto and Nikki Giovanni. I only have two more portraits to go and I'm ready for print on the calendar---so thrilling! I NEVER get sick of seeing the calendar all done and assembled. It's such a THRILL to make something real and send it out into this world. You can give it a life elsewhere, so there is room to do MORE STUFF in your crazy CREATIVE CLUTTERED mind. Let there be MORE ROOM!

I'm off to explore the exciting world that is Grand Central Station. My friend Mindy got the idea from her boyfriend, that Grand Central has many undiscovered treasures--including a very cool, out of the way bar that used to be some guy's oversized office. Seems like good material to fertalize my dulling grass. I am very excited!

Where the Grass Has Died

A little while ago I was talking to my friend Matt about a mutual friend of ours. I was asking how this friend was doing, because it always seemed like they were doing something EXCITING. Matt said, "I think [friend's name] always thinks they are happier where they are not. They always think the grass is greener somehwere else." I coughed and took a sip of lemonade and uttered, "Never heard of it."

Here's a pickle: what do you do when no matter where you are, the grass is always greener somewhere else? When I was living in Santa Cruz, California, I bemoaned how beautiful, yet dull it seemed. NOTHING WAS HAPPENING. I missed the east coast. I missed the seasons, the TEXTURE that a more urban life had given me. People didn't get SARCASM. A lot of people seemed to have ideas, but no OOOMF to do anything about it. So I was THRILLED to move to New York. Back to the east coast! Back to FALL and SNOW and CRAZY INTERESTING THINGS. Now here I am a year later, and there's that old thing creeping up on me again, uttering a very familiar thing: "I miss the West Coast. I'm bored here. I'm lonely. I'm sick of the crowds. I miss trees. I miss the Pacific ocean. Wouldn't it be better if I lived...etc. etc. etc."

I was walking in midtown, against the crush of pedestrian traffic, and I looked up and saw this building that I used to love to look up at. The side of it is decorated with silver stars. I looked at those stars and I thought to myself, "If you're not satisfied in the city that has the most options, mystery, history, potential, excitement, etc., etc., etc., than THE GRASS HAS DIED IN YOU and NOWHERE ELSE."

Even in my favorite time of year, in a location that emotes every fantasy I've ever had while watching a Woody Allen movie, IT'S NOT GOOD ENOUGH. I've grown WARY and the sparkles have all fallen off ALREADY. There is an active list of WHAT WORKS and WHAT DOESN'T. My voice has started to ring in that nasally tone, that is best described as WHINING. I've been watching it happen. I'm mentally leaving this place, for other greener pastures. I've never really just sat with this feeling before. Usually, when that BORED TO TEARS tone comes over me, I just go with it and then move across the country, or break up with my boyfriend, or play hard to get.
It's always so EXCITING when you arrive somewhere new. The possabilities are ENDLESS. The DREAMS are UNBRIDLED. The paint is STILL WET. It's very HOT, as NEW love affairs usually are. Then time passes and it becomes...normal. The horror!

I'm beginning to think that this may also be why it is often hard for me to finish projects. The idea is so exciting, but then somewhere it dies. I get bored. I get restless. A new idea comes to me that seems like a better idea. Again, the grass has died in me--it ain't where I've landed, but somehwere inside, where I think I need to replant, but instead, it just needs MORE TENDING TO.

I've said it a million times here before, but there are things I want to do in this world. To want to do them is a great beginning, but I'm discovering in order to SEE THEM THROUGH I might have to sit through the parts that seem "dull" or "boring". Natalie Goldberg sais that boredom is just "fear plus inertia" which for me is SO FRICKN' TRUE. What do I do when I get bored? I RUN. But this is it. This is all I get in this world, is today, right this second, and when it's gone, it's gone. Life can't always be a PARADE of confetti and roses, which isn't to say that it can't be good. It's to say that I must sit on the lawn I have planted, and dig further, and withstand the quiet that has come over me. There's discovery in that too.

Taking the Red Eye

I am red eyed this morning from crawling into bed at 1:00 am after playing a show in Brooklyn last night with my pals Girlyman and the glowing We're About 9. You know, I used to live on 4 or 5 hours of sleep when I was a whipper snapper in my 20's, but once I hit 30, it was CURTAINS to those days. Now all I want is a delicious nap--but NO. I am in an office with the rainy streets of Madison Avenue echoing outside. I'll be the first to admit it, I'm GOING SOFT in my old age.

Here's a combination of elements that make up a really KICK ASS show: a venue that not only greets you with a smile and an immediate introduction, but they provide EXCELLENT sound, helpful staff, a comfortable and CLEAN greenroom, with a bathroom that doesn't smell like, well, ASS. Add to that great musicianship, with people you not only genuinely enjoy the company of, but they are GENEROUS and KIND and GOOD. It also, doesn't hurt to have some people who had never ever heard of you, LISTEN and APPLAUD and then come up to you afterwards and say good things and then BUY stuff. Southpaw in Parkslope, Brooklyn, and the fans of Girlyman, I so HEART YOU in the biggest way. No kidding.

I just got confirmation on something I've been holding a SECRET, and waiting until it was OFFICIAL. Now I want to SHOUT OUT to the world that Skirt! Magazine has begun what I hope is a monthly publication of my 30 days flyers! In October's issue, you will find my "Offices" flyer. I am SO THRILLED about this development. Skirt! is a great magazine of women and creativity. I am so HAPPY and PROUD to be included in this publication.

Pan me, don't give me the part, publish everybody's book but this one and I will still make it! -Ruth Gordon

News From the Far End of Society

Continuing my "New York Internet Tour" I am writing you from the lovely climate controlled atmosphere of the City University Graduate Center's library. Sorry, internet moochers, you need a graduate student to get in. Luckily, I live with one. So let the mooching continue!

My non office time is nearing an end. I have work on Friday and then I start a 3 week stint on Wednesday. I feel like suddenly all the free time I had stretched before me has evaporated. I am racing to my list that I started making months ago about all the things I wanted to experience while not in an office, and I have done NARY A ONE. Instead, I've been listening to Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon on tape, drawing women for my great gals calendar (like arty Miranda July pictured above), baking gingerbread, eating like crap, and taking breaks to watch Harold & Maude. I am newly obsessed with this movie. I liked it before, but recently I've had an inkling to take an afternoon break, drink sweet milky tea and watch this movie ALMOST DAILY.

I have been known to watch movies I love a number of times, but I haven't had the DAILY URGE to watch the same movie or even parts of it. There's a couple of reasons why this movie has been DOING IT for me as of late. One is that it was filmed in and around my hometown of Palo Alto in 1970, so it has the light and surroundings of my childhood that are very comforting. Another reason is the soundtrack is just SO KICK ASS. Cat Stevens! Why oh why don't I own any Cat Stevens? The third reason is Ruth Gordon, known to the world in this movie, as Maude. Her character is so inspiring to me, so full of life, so philisophically PITCH PERFECT that I often rush through the other scenes, just so I can hear her musings on life. I can remember the first time I saw this movie just a few years ago. I was depressed and in a HORRIBLE MOOD. I was at my folks' and we put it in and I literally thought, "I wonder why everybody always says this movie is SO GREAT." By the time Maude declares that she would like to comeback as a sunflower, and explains to Harold her belief that "most of the world's sorrow" stems from the individual being treated as if they aren't an individual, but a mass of identicals, I was BAWLING.

Anyway, I managed to pull myself from the urge of watching it today, to make my way to midtown and here I am. There a number of things that I need to get done. One of them, being my resume. I got an inquiry for a part-time job with benefits. I can't tell you much about it yet, only that I SO WANT TO GET IT! SO BAD. It's a good job and it will pay my basics, so that I can do art four days a week--hallelujah! Hallelujah! Can I get an AMEN?? AMEN! So wish me well. It might just mean that I get internet at home, so that I can quit this mooching and be a full fledged member of society. Either that, or it will give me a place to go so I don't watch the same movie over and over again.

The things you do when you don't have internet

Sometimes I wonder at my sense of "frugality" (otherwise known as totally poverty-addicted behavior, cheap-ass, thrifty-mindedness). Graham and I don't have internet at home. I tried to find an adequate internet service last year, but because we live in an "up and coming" neighborhood of Brooklyn, anything outside exciting dial-up is considered OUT OF RANGE. I am sure there are other solutions, but I gave up when I got a long term temp office job and opted for the computers there.

Well, here I am again--guerilla surfing. I've gone to Kinko's, which is just synonymous for TIME and MONEY SUCKAGE. Not only do you have to play by the minute, but it has a SLOOOOW connection, so that you are paying by the minute while it takes FOREVER just to load their home page. I've wasted probably a whole month's fee for internet service at home in one or two sittings.

Graham has an airport modem and we've run to every corner of our apartment to siphon some other people's wireless, only to be kicked off. The NERVE of SOME people!

Then I stepped on his laptop. That was fun. It was under the covers of our unmade bed and I stepped on it, hearing a dulled snap. The face of it cracked like a windshield and now bleeds across the screen in a dark blue scar. Yesterday was A LARK, when, out of desperation, I took it to a wireless cafe, and had to use a very SHAKY wireless line, and to write e-mail or better yet, READ e-mail, through a midnight colored GAPING WOUND across the screen. My spelling and typing are normally a little CREATIVE, but ALL HELL BROKE LOOSE yesterday. I apologize to those who I wrote and to my waning blogging audience. The visibility was NIL.

So today, I come from the neon gleaming rooms of the New York Public Library. It turns out that Graham and I are NOT the last people in the New York metropolitan area that don't have internet. 43 computers and a reservations system involving receipts say to me that others are too cheap or are inadequate like myself to slog their way to service. People, where have you been all my life?

Freewheeln' Jake and Summer Pierre

My dad left in the wee hours this morning. We were standing on my dark deserted street, waiting for what would be the cab that would take him to the airport. I said, "All that planning and anticipation and its gone JUST LIKE THAT."

That's how it felt. It was so great and (dare I say it?) MAGICAL. There were moments, like seeing my dad begin to cry when he saw Van Gogh's Starry Night at MoMA, or walking in Central Park, where I thought I AM NEVER GOING TO FORGET THIS AS LONG AS I LIVE. And it was all too quick. There were lots of things we did, like standing on the corner of Jones and Bleecker where Bob Dylan's Freewheeln' Bob Dylan cover was shot, and getting yelled at for trying to take a picture of a Van Gogh paintng at a special exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Or how about all the laughing and sugar eating and good talking we did? It's so rare that he and I get any time together, as he has a young family that keeps him busy, and it's even rarer that family members will come to where I live, that I just wanted to EAT IT ALL UP.

It was over way too soon. And now I am left with that lonely feeling when someone you love leaves. Our home was SO FULL with my dad there, and now that feeling that I am a needle in a haystack of this big city comes over me. Luckily there is of course stuff to be done and my friend Jenny Sue is in town and the weather is beautiful and my dads visit has left me with enough to write a book about. Lots to chew on, to ponder, and to work over, so I won't feel lost for long.

Sweet Buttery Scents

Hi gang! just a quick post because I'm at Kinko's and that means it's a pint of blood every minute, so if I sat on too long, I might PASS OUT. I just wanted to send a postcard to say that time off is ultimately great, but also confusing as hell. The first day off, I had breakfast with a friend (hi Spalding!) and went home to "get work done," but felt promptly TOTALLY AIMLESS. It's been all I can do to get ANYTHING DONE. Then yesterday, I had a migraine and was OUT COLD all day, which means that I have to fit TWO DAYS into ONE today. My dad is arriving later tonight and I still need to buy an air mattress, go grocery shopping, and pick all underwear off the foor and various pieces of incriminating evidence. It'll be just my luck that one evening, we'll be sitting in the livingroom, and one of the cats will run in and play a soccer game with my packet of BIRTH CONTROL PILLS. It makes such a nice rattling sound, afterall! EGADS!!

ANYWAY, I started the day this morning by baking cookies and watching the rain fall and if that doesn't NAUSEATE the HECK OUT OF YOU, I don't know what will. It was nauseatingly wonderful. I think every chilly, rainy morning should ne started with filling your kitchen with sweet buttery scents.

In other news, Just Like Heaven by the Cure just came on in the overhead music here at Kinko's and few songs put me in an INSTANT good mood, like this song suddenly appearing. I've said this before, but my friend Eddy plays THE BEST VERSION EVER on the mandolin, and I am so proud to say that he will be playing it at our wedding ceremony. I am hoping that the crowd of friends, cousins, grandparents, siblings, and parenst will be so siezed by this song that they will all join in and at the top of their lungs and cry out: You look, lost and lovely, you look just like a dream, just like a dream.

Well, the blood levels are dropping. More next week, I promise. Wish me luck with my dad in the big apple. We'll be following the footsteps of Bob Dylan, eating cupcakes, and trying not to fight.