Blooms in February

Thank you all for your e-mails, donations, and prayers for Louis and his family. I wish it didn't take a crisis for us all to connect in such a way, where there is a collective barn raising, but every time I've experienced it, I am grateful and blown away by what people can create out of urgency and love. Thank you to all of you who have felt moved to respond.

It's the end of February, and while the New York winters are relatively mild, and while I enjoy a great deal of it, I realized that I am hitting that wall. I've been too inward. I want to reach out and I want the blooms of life to start showing up. I was thinking this and then it hit me: TODAY is my baby sister Lily's FIFTH birthday. If that doesn't summon up joy, which is a kind of blooming, I don't know what does!

I wish I was in California to celebrate with her, but instead I am thinking of her beautiful fiery self and her kind heart and her little swirls she draws to dot the "i" when she signs her name "Lily." Last time I saw her, we played a game where we did this funny voice and said the phrase, "Excuse me, but..." and then we'd fill it in with some sort of description about somebody. It started with me saying about our brother, Luke, "Excuse me, but name's Luke and have you seen my teeth?" Lily said my favorite. She said, "Excuse me, but I think you smell like CHICKEN." Where the heck that came from, I have NO IDEA.

I am wishing her lots of cake and ice cream and time with animals that she can pet and hold--which is her favorite thing in the whole world. I am also wishing her lots of singing over candles and laughter and most of all, I wish her love. Lots and lots of it.

Louis

Louis & Judy

I can't believe I am about to write this blog entry, but here goes.

I want to tell you about Louis, who is my friend Judy's nephew, and one of those people who is pretty much has been a gift to those who love him since day 1. I have been thinking recently about the first time I saw Louis. He was about 6 months old, sitting on the lawn with his mom, Rachel. I hadn't seen Rachel in about a year and she looked beautiful in red braids falling on either side of her head. It was clear that motherhood suited her--she was 20 and had never looked so well. Judy was sitting with them and she proudly pointed at the gorgeous rambunctious baby in Rachel's arms and said, "This is Louis." I said out loud: LOUIS!

Louis was diagnosed with Brain cancer at 7. Judy, who had been living near New York, dropped everything and moved in with Rachel and Louis. They formed a family unit and went forward. That's pretty much what happens--crisis is the great vacuum cleaner--it sucks up all the bullshit and leaves the furniture and the essentials. Louis' diagnosis was no different. It became a full-time job for all of them.

Some months after he was diagnosed, Louis came to my birthday party at a Chinese restaurant. While his appetite was kaput, he called from the other side of the table and said, "Summer, I highly recommend the scallops." He was 7 and he was thin and he had cancer and he couldn't eat much, but he wanted to recommend the scallops. That pretty much sums Louis up.

Another time I saw him, he had been spending the last hour "cooking"--which is to say, he was making his special sandwiches, where every bite was something different. You might bight into a peanut butter and jelly, only to take another bight and have it be hummus and cheese. When I got to their house, he was exhausted from his efforts, curled up on the chair in the kitchen. When I entered and saw him there--weak and skinny and in a ball, he said from the chair, "Summer, can I get you some coffee?" It was so sweet and funny--like his epic sandwiches, but I had to decline.

He fought his cancer, was clean for awhile, had a small recurrence, and then was clean. But cancer is not only a really BAD idea, it is mysterious and one fickle mother. I got an e-mail this weekend from Rachel and Judy that said what we all hoped was never going to happen: it was back and inoperable.

I wish that I could adequately describe all that I feel about this--how angry and sad I am. These awful stories happen and it isn't fair or right and it doesn't make any sense. If anything, this reminds me as individuals how connected we all are. It isn't just about Louis, but about the family around him. It is about the time they have together and the time we all have.

Rachel has been raising him as a single mom the entire time, and while she has been able to provide for Louis, after 3 bouts of cancer, she is pretty much tapped out. The doctors have said that they have probably about 2 good months before the disease starts to take its toll and they have decided, with help, to make those months count. I would like to make a public plea for your support for Louis, Rachel, and Judy. You can read more about their process here and make a donation. We, in this creative community often ask in a fit of desperation, what would we do if this was it. Well, for some it IS IT. Please help them enjoy the gift of the time they have left. They don't deserve this cancer, but they do deserve all the love and support in the world.

Louis, I'll take that cup of coffee now. I'll take a sandwich too.

Finally a BEST SONG I can relate to!

Returning to health is STILL happening, but enough about the bronchitis excitement (or non excitement), I woke this morning to a world that ACTUALLY awarded two artists I adore for a song I totally love--Falling Slowly won the Academy Award--holy crap!

I had about five friends say to me, "Have you seen Once yet? I thought of you." I finally did see it about a month ago, and yeah, it was so right up my alley and close to my heart, and I loved that it was totally LOW FI. I think Glen Hasnard is just awesome. So I downloaded some of the songs and about 2 weeks ago was listening to the soundtrack when I got Two e-mails within TEN minutes from friends across teh country who said, "I saw this movie this weekend, and I thought of you--have you seen it, it's called ONCE." I was like, I am LISTENING to the music right now, people! GEEZ!

I don't have a TV and the Oscar night is the only time I miss it. I went over to a friends' house last year, and I was shocked ALL OVER AGAIN by the two BORING HOURS that happens between the awards I care about. One of the things that I can always bet on post Oscars is that I will be mad about some award given to somebody, and that I won't care at all who got Best Song, because usually they SUCK or seem some weird backlash to AM radio. I remember The Good Will Hunting/Titanic year, and seeing Elliott Smith take a bow holding hands with Celine Dion, and it was just SO FUNNY. The man didn't BELONG there. He was a guitar toting sensitive punk rocker and he didn't DO costume changes like Celine or the often nominated Brian Adams. So, I am SO HAPPY that "Falling Slowly" was even nominated because it is a beautiful song that required two real indie artists and the fact that they WON just makes me beside myself.

Yay independent musicians--God Bless you! Keep wearing the same clothes! Keep writing those beautiful acoustic gems! Keep TRYING! We need you!

From the sickbed

I am still not at 100%, which is a total DRAG. I'm thinking that this year's bug is like this for everyone--but it STILL is a pain in the ass. I'm at that point where I am ready to be GOING and DOING and all that, but I feel physically limited and it's just a CHALLENGE.

Added to this is that strange vacuum that can happen when something goes to the dogs--the rest of your life seems to be in the sickbed with you. Without going into too many details, I feel in an odd crisis of faith and action. A lot of things that seemed workable before have also suddenly gone to shit and I'm wondering WHAT'S NEXT or how can I heal the head cold the elements of my life have taken on?


A BIG congratulations to my friend Keri and her husband Jeff for their little miracle Tilden! Oh, beauty!

We stand on a precipice, then before a chasm, and as we wait it becomes higher, wider, deeper, but I am crazy enough to think it doesn't matter which way we leap because when we leap we will have learned to fly. Is that blasphemy or faith?

-Diane Arbus

Sick as a Dawg

I have been bed ridden since Wednesday night with the worst cold/flu/bronchial horribleness I've experienced in years. Today is literally the first day that I've been able to manage being out of bed for any period of time. It SUCKS and it looks like Graham is getting it too (sorry about that, dear).

Just in case you haven't gotten a response from any e-mails that is why.

More soon I promise, but now, I return to the bed once again.

Eat It, People

A couple of years ago I was in a food co-op called Staff of Life in Santa Cruz, California (Oh, Staff of Life, how I miss THEE!) and I stumbled upon their butternut squash & coconut milk soup and I thought I had discovered THE NECTAR of the gods! I went back there hoping and hoping I'd find it at their soup stand again, but alas it was never meant to be.

Hoping to recreate it, I researched recipes, but they all seemed so INVOLVED and totally FATTENING. They all used copious amounts of cream, which hey, that's totally awesome, ( I normally don't turn down cream),but the coconut milk seemed like enough fat for one day, and I was searching for something a little less guilt ridden and simple.

Finally, last weekend I gave up and decided to try and make my own. Using Mollie Katzan's Moosewood Curried Squash and Mushroom soup recipe as a model, I tinkered with it and came up with this recipe--and HOLY MOLY, it is DECADENT. It's like a dessert. It's also totally vegan and YUMMY to boot. If you're a meat eater, but want to welcome your vegetarian and vegan friends int your home without serving them just CARROT STICKS, this is the soup for you. It's also th soup for you if you like...FOOD.

Eat it, people. I mean that in the nicest way--you will THANK ME.

The Bridge Between Where You Want to Be and Where You Are

On Saturday night I dragged Graham to the book party for Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six Word Memoirs from Writers Famous to Obscure. It's the first book party that I've been to that I had ANYTHING to do with, so I made us both go. Here's something that I've come to realize about the SEXY SOUNDING allure of book parties: They are parties filled with strangers (which to me is so NOT sexy). Although I have an outgoing streak, it's often to mask the HORRIBLE PARALYZING SHYNESS that I REALLY feel. I had to force myself to go to this one, because I had already been to Felicia's book party (Yay Felicia!!) earlier that week, and the feeling of awkwardness and shyness was still fresh.

Let's put it in numbers: I was 1 of 800 authors. Not all the authors were going to be there, but enough were going to be there with friends and family members, not to mention publishing folks and the editors and their friends--so it was going to be a BIG PARTY. Although I knew some other authors in the book, I didn't know anyone that was going to be there. I got nervous the minute we were on the subway.

Outside Housing Works, I saw David Rakoff waiting and looking for someone. I wanted to say, "Hey, I'm page 170 to your page 169!" But, that is in the fantasy part of my brain where I can talk to well-known people like that. The real me walked by him and said nothing, all the while my brain was popping with dazzling ferocity all kinds of intros I could have said to him.

We went in, and I was right, I knew no one, and I was freezing up faster than sidewalk cement. Graham and I walked up to the balcony and looked down at the throngs of people milling in and talking. Essentially we HID. Graham asked, "What do you want to do?" I wanted to go home, but then I didn't. I was playing a sort of hop scotch in my brain, hopping on every rationalization of why it would be okay to go home, and then hopping at another part of me that knew I was backing away from an opportunity. I started praying HELP HELP HELP HELP really hard. I was standing there at that place between fear and something new. I could go home and think about how I WANT things to be, or I could somehow do something to actively BE in a place that I wanted to be.

Then I remembered one of my favorite illustrators Peter Arkle was in the book and I knew he lived here, so I wondered if he might be in the throngs of people. But how in the world would I recognize him when I've only seen him in drawings? Then something came to me--an illustration of his wife, Amy--who had short, black hair, and I remembered that I had seen a couple earlier that kind of resembled them. So I scanned the crowd and UNBELIEVABLY I found them. I had no idea if it was really him, but I thought WHAT THE HELL, this is the bridge between what I want and what I have, and I really wanted to meet Peter.

As it turned out it was him and he knew who I was and it was GREAT. Peter is not only a really gifted illustrator, but a really NICE guy. This is also what I forget about book parties, there really ARE cool people who go to these things. Amy is a kick ass editor, who has edited a book by adolescent girls, called Red. Peter did some of the jacket artwork. It really MADE my whole night that I was able to not only meet someone I greatly admire, but that I had the GUTS to do it. Yay Amy and Peter! Yay everybody!

Then I went home and felt totally BAD ASS and Graham asked if he could not go to book parties anymore. I was so BAD ASS that I said with all the certainty in the world, "Sure, hon."

Interventions

My husband and two colleagues have started a blog to discuss philosophical views on ethics and international relations. For all your politicos out there, it's a good read.

Ladies and gentleman, I give you:

Interventions

The Early Years

Part of my scanning excitement (or what is now being called as THE GREAT EXCAVATION OF 2008) is going through all my old books of drawings that I still have from when I was a kid. Some of them are just plain EMBARRASSING, others I am considering stashing away in my "In case I need to Plead INSANITY" file.

I have no idea where exactly my dad's wife Jody worked when I was growing up, but she was always able to provide these bound books made at the office, and it's thanks to her that so many of my drawings are still in tact. I poured over illustrator and comic book artist books where they showed them at work in sketchbooks or in studios--at age 9 I was already interested in the process of art. I fancied my drawing books like a series of books that would comprise my own "WORK." That's why I named my books and put titles and bylines on them. From Drawing Book #1, I give you the beginnings of one of my EARLIEST forays into dramatic fiction, "A New Kid in School":

Yes, that's right, I STILL haven't learned to spell, but at 9 I was already familiar with the high drama a cute boy can create when he shows up to a new school. I was already boy crazy, and I actively WORKED THIS OUT through my "stories" and my Barbie doll afternoons. As it happens, this story STARS Barbie--I was trying to get down on paper the conflicts and stresses that I impressed upon my harem of Barbie Dolls and one Ken. Actually, those stories usually had to deal with DIVORCES and trying to get the vain and pretty Barbie to think of others, like the smart and shy Malibu Barbie. This story is influenced by Sweet Valley High, as is displayed with this dramatic scene between Barbie and her teacher:

I actually didn't even know that EDITH HEAD existed, but you'd never know that from the depiction of the teacher.

In later years, I worked out my relationship issues with an obsession of all things Elfquest. I poured over the fantasy graphic novels of Wendy and Richard Pini as if they were a sacred tome of all things wonderful and artistic. My best friends Tonya and Lisa and I (thanks to the book binding abilities of Jody) made our own books of Elves and their tribes.

This would last for another THREE YEARS and I would end up making nearly FIVE Elf Books filled with characters and relationships and story lines. As I looked through them tonight one everlasting thing continued through my drawings of elves: cleavage. All the female elves were not only STACKED but they happened to have PUSH UP BRAS. I don't know if you can blame me--this was my inspiration. By the way, I don't know if you noticed, but this drawing is "small because it's from a faraway ANGLE." Just in case you were confused. 25 years later, I know I can see why I would need to explain it.

Voting Makes Me Happy

I gotta tell you all, I LOVE voting. I forget until I do it and then it makes me HAPPY. I love going to the school or the community center and seeing all my neighbors there doing their part, and me telling the lady or man in a windbreaker my name and having them say, "Pierce?" to which I answer, "No, PEE-AIR." Then I go into the funny little booth with the stiff curtain, that is so much like a cross between a garbage bag and a shower curtain, and it's always a surprise as to what I will find in there--what machine or piece of paper?

This morning I went in and it was a WEIRD machine that was obviously old, but I had never seen it. It had a giant red handle that you turned. I felt like I was the operator of a strange, solitary amusement park ride as I jerked it RIGHT to cast my vote. Then I turned the black little knob that made an X appear next to pink window with the black lettering. Then I cranked the big red arm back to the left and saw the X disappear and I thought, "That's it? Well, let's hope so." Then I came out of the crinkly curtain, and the lady in the windbreaker smiled and said, "Thanks for coming." I should have said, "Lady, thanks for being here." But instead I just said "Have a good day." Graham and I walked out into the wet streets and I thought, FINALLY! The NEWS has come HOME and I was so happy, I skipped to the subway.

I hope wherever you are you are casting your vote. It's a great ride.

An Accident of Hopelessly Effing Up My Blog

Okay, as you might be able to tell, I TOTALLY screwed up and accidentally ERASED my entire template. I learned the HARD WAY that blogger isn't as EASY with people who publish themselves through an FTP source. I wish I had known that BEFORE I pushed that big old GOLDEN 'OKAY' button.

I feel like I have a REALLY BAD haircut and I can't escape it. It turns out I am a nazi when it comes to my blog aesthetic. It's not like I had the most GORGEOUS blog, but at least it felt like MINE and not some generic blog that was spit out from an html code someone made up a long time ago.

If your link was here before and it isn't now, I swear to you I am NOT trying to cut you out of my life as the weird Emily Post's Guide to Blog Ettiquette might suggest--I'm just building from the ground up and haven't retrieved it yet.

Changes will come I hope, but until then, please forgive the blank look on this blog's face.