The Happs

I went with David yesterday because he had to get a haircut for an upcoming business trip. While we were waiting, I watched one of the two hairdressers give a little girl (about four years old) a haircut. It was super cute, a little A-line bob with short bangs. I put myself on the waiting list and, when it was time, I requested the same haircut minus bangs. It was a big enough chop that a woman, total stranger, in the waiting room commented on how much hair I had cut off. It was probably about six inches or so--nothing compared to the fourteen or more inches that I hacked off in August.

I took delivery of several packages this week: Several new books including a new anatomy book to replace the one that I use at the studio that got caught in the rain and which became a mold factory. Two TheraBands that I'm using as a self-treatment (based on an article I found in the New York Times online) for my tennis elbow. Two new clarinets for David, which brings the total number of clarinets that he has to five I think. Maybe six.

I slept like a fiend all week. Allergies, I think, kicking my ass. I had hours and hours of insane dreams, wall-to-wall dreams, detailed, like I've been tapping into stories that were ongoing, like tuning into a show already well underway.

I did not get to the studio all week, but I started several sketches for new work, a kind of burlesque Day of the Dead series. I'm struggling about how to make them personal. I'm drawn to the images and to the form and to the material of course, but is there anything of me in them that makes them more than interesting exercises?

We had dinner out twice this week, once at a new Indian/Nepalese place and once at our new favorite Chinese place. Left to his own devices, Dave would live on cheese and bread and frozen dinners and I would live on fried chicken and eggs on toast probably. We need to re-focus on incorporating a few more vegetables into our diets.

I found a poem by Jorge Louis Borges. It's called You Learn:

After a while you learn the subtle difference
Between holding a hand and chaining a soul,

And you learn that love doesn’t mean leaning
And company doesn’t mean security.

And you begin to learn that kisses aren’t contracts
And presents aren’t promises,

And you begin to accept your defeats
With your head up and your eyes open
With the grace of a woman, not the grief of a child,

And you learn to build all your roads on today
Because tomorrow’s ground is too uncertain for plans
And futures have a way of falling down in mid-flight.

After a while you learn…
That even sunshine burns if you get too much.

So you plant your garden and decorate your own soul,
Instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.

And you learn that you really can endure…

That you really are strong

And you really do have worth…

And you learn and learn…

With every good-bye you learn.