Rosa

Good Things

2012-01-27T20:22:00.002-07:00

After my whinge yesterday about the vertigo, I started something called the Epley procedure that is actually helping. The Epley procedure is a series of exercises that I do three times a day that is supposed to guide the wayward inner ear particles that cause dizziness out of my inner ear and into another part of my ear where they are more easily gotten rid of. That's a mouthful, but the point is that they seem to help. I'm supposed to keep them up until I go 24 hours without any vertigo. The article in the neurology journal where I found them suggests that the procedure has a 95% success rate. Those are pretty good odds.

In other good news, Dave and I had our sewing class last week. It was a one-time basic introduction class where we learned how to disassemble and clean and reassemble a sewing machine and how to sew basic stitches and things like buttonholes.

Both Dave and I have used sewing machines before, but it's been many years since either of us has sewn anything so I thought it'd be a good class to try.

We got to sew on little scraps of fabric.

At the end of the class, I signed up for another class in February and bought fabric and a pattern. This is the fabric I bought:

The darker fabric is from Japan. I love it!

And this is what I'll be sewing, something called a spice market tote:

The dark fabric will be on the outside and the lighter fabric will be on the inside. I think it'll look pretty cool when it's finished.

In other news, here is a good downward trend:

I left off the labels. The y-axis is my weight. The x-axis is time. Each dot is my weekly weigh in. Each small box is a pound. Does that make sense? Anyway, the overall trend is downward, which is good. I've dropped 29 pounds since the last week of October!

And my final good thing is a picture of Saba getting her belly scratched:

She doesn't usually brook such nonsense.

And Then There's This Thing

2012-01-26T08:57:00.001-07:00

I was in the urgent care center yesterday to see a doctor about this thing.

This thing started last Saturday when I woke up with a headache and nausea and dizziness. I assumed it was a migraine, so I skipped going to the studio and instead lay in bed all day. The headache lasted about six or eight hours and the nausea subsided for a time but the dizziness didn't go away. I felt fine as long as I held my head perfectly still, but when I stood up or turned my head, I would feel like the world was spinning around. I assumed I was dehydrated, so I loaded up on the fluids and it didn't help. I lay off the caffeine and it didn't help. I tried stretching out my shoulders and neck (they were tight and sore from a visit to the gym the day before) and it didn't help. That was Saturday. Sunday I got up and felt dizzy again. When I turned my head or looked up, it got worse. Monday, it was the same. Tuesday, the same.

I was getting pretty anxious about it. I didn't feel safe driving so I was kind of trapped in the house. I didn't feel like going anywhere anyway because whenever I moved I would feel dizzy and sometimes nauseous. The Brain is a well-known hypochondriac (already insisting that we had everything from a stroke to a brain tumor) so I avoided looking up my symptoms on the internet. Finally, after five days of feeling drunk, I asked Dave to take me to the doctor.

The doctor did an exam and diagnosed me with something called benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV). It's benign in the sense that it's not going to kill me, I imagine, and it mostly goes away on its own after a week or two (although from what I've read it tends to recur and some people suffer from it for years) and there are some effective treatments for it. The doctor gave me a prescription for an antihistamine that combats motion sickness, similar to Dramamine. I filled the prescription but I haven't taken it yet because I am a wimp about taking medications.

I actually feel a bit better today. Some of it is a lessening of symptoms (I can stand up without feeling like the world's spinning) and some of it is, I'm sure, a lessening of the anxiety that comes along with feeling like the world is never going to stop spinning.

A week or two of vertigo is probably not the worst thing that will ever happen to me, but it sucks anyway.

Shaved Pussy Cat

2012-01-23T19:41:00.003-07:00

He looks a little demented in this photo, our little million dollar stray Gray Kitty. But he actually puts himself in this position because he likes to have his belly scratched. Yes, his belly is shaved. It's shaved because he had to have an ultrasound. He had to have an ultrasound because his urethra was blocked. It's not a good thing for a cat to have a blocked urethra, so he had to have a catheter and that meant an emergency vet visit and an overnight stay at the animal hospital. So, yes, our little million dollar stray kitty is home now, getting his little shaved belly scratched. And yes, it feels weird. The shaving also revealed little tiny pink kitty nipples on his belly, which are hilarious to me for some reason.

Words with Pictures

2012-01-18T20:54:00.001-07:00

Here are the two little poopies I was sitting this past weekend.

Lester is on the left, Olive on the right. I used a treat to get them to sit still long enough to take their picture. Lester is completely fixated on the treat but Olive has one eye on the treat, one eye on me. (She's the smarter of the two, I'm convinced, but Lester is much sweeter and more dog-like, if that's a thing.)

Here they are collapsed on the floor for a little nap. They're little yin-yang pups, always in cahoots or tumbling around together or biting on each other.

Lunch, Etc.

I need to take some more interesting photos, but until that happens here is a picture of Tuesday's lunch (mini pita, olives, red onion, tomatoes, and hummus with flax seed oil on top). I love those mini pitas.

There was an interesting sunset at the studio this evening, too, but my new camera hasn't yet revealed to me how to take good pictures of sunsets. Someday.

No Pictures, Just Some Words

2012-01-17T22:36:00.000-07:00

Have you been watching Downton Abbey on PBS? Because if you're not, you should be. I got sucked into it and ended up watching the whole first season on Netflix. Now I'm keeping up with the second season episodes as they air on the PBS website. It's an amazing show, pure soap opera, but classed up all British-like.

Also recently Netflix'd: The first season of the new Sherlock Holmes. It's pretty good! I also saw the first three seasons of Breaking Bad. I resisted watching it for the longest time, but then ended up in some marathon viewing session of all that Netflix has and then buying the fourth season on Amazon. (Breaking Bad is filmed in and around Albuquerque and one of the potters at the studio worked on the crew during third and fourth season and he was so enthusiastic about it that I ended up watching.)

I've also just finished Frank Bruni's autobiography Born Round (short review: meh) which I picked up on the book exchange shelf at the Y.

Oh yeah: David, Judi and I all joined the Y together last week. Dave and I went to work out on Monday. Judi and I are going to work out tomorrow. I'll go again on Friday or Saturday with Dave. My initial fitness goals are very small: Just to build the habit up again to three times per week.

On the diet front: I dropped another two pounds last week. I'm getting a little complacent and need to tighten up on things like portion control and eating out. There were too many (three to be exact) Bob's Burger meals last week while Dave was out of town. Foot-long chile cheese dogs will be my undoing, mark my words.

And, oh yes, poor Dave had to go to Minnesota last week for business. Minnesota in the winter is no joke for someone who comes from the desert and is used to very mild winters. He actually took his heavier coat (still not that heavy), gloves and a hat, none of which he uses here in New Mexico.

Along with joining the Y, Dave and I are taking a sewing class on Thursday! It's a new year and we're setting out to learn some new skills for when the zombie apocalypse happens. Zombies need aprons and throw pillows, too, you know.

(Don't know where that zombie apocalypse thing came from. Maybe I dreamed it.)

I've also started another 100 Mug Challenge (which I mentioned about a week ago). It's different this time around than the last time I did it. This time around I'm a much more proficient thrower and handles don't scare me. It was nothing to get through the 34 I've done so far. I guess that means I probably need to think of a new challenge.

And lessee, Gray Kitty's UTI is back again, poor thing. We're giving him a pain reliever which makes it less painful for him to pee but which zonks him out a bit which means that he has to stay indoors when he's taking it which means that Saba is not happy. (The vet suggested that we try some kind of plug-in diffuser that diffuses cat phermones into their environment. It's supposed to calm them down so they don't fight so much, but all it's done so far is leak some sketchy liquid onto the bookshelves.)

I spent the weekend with the puppies next door. They are rapidly becoming less puppy-like but they still love to cuddle and have their belly scratched as they're falling asleep. I do have pictures but they're on my camera and they're very cute, but I'm too lazy to download and post them...

Yesterday

2012-01-13T13:12:00.001-07:00

Do you know where your floss is?

Yesterday after I cleaned the bathroom, The Brain suggested that we assemble a group photo of all the floss and flossing-related paraphernalia we had. (There are eleven items in the photo, but only eight different things.)

We have a lot of floss.

I Blame Bob

I had lunch with my aunt Char yesterday at Bob's Burgers. Bob is to blame for the plateau I've hit with the diet. Yesterday for lunch I had a Bob's taco burger combo meal with red chile-cheese fries and a diet Pepsi. Yesterday for dinner I had a Bob's foot-long chile dog with cheese and onions and red-chile cheese fries and a diet Pepsi. Then I went home and lay around wondering how it was that my belly was so bloated.

Bob's is not only a huge commitment calorie-wise, it's also a huge commitment sodium-wise. I always wake up the day after a Bob's Burger Binge with elevated blood pressure and urine that resembles maple syrup, I'm so dehydrated. But it's all worth it.

A few days ago I watched a documentary called Forks Over Knives which was all about the panacea that is veganism. I agree with much of it (eating animals and animal products and suffering from disease and obesity go hand in hand, I'm sure) and if I were a better person I'd be a vegan. But the way I see it, I actually don't eat very much meat for a meat eater. In fact, I'd guess that a fair chunk of my diet is in the vegan/vegetarian area, 80 percent or more, (that's because Dave is a vegetarian and I just follow along). The few times a month when I do eat meat, it's usually a burger when we eat out or a roasted chicken from the deli. I rarely as to border on never cook meat at home. I would like eventually to become a more committed plant eater, but that is Future Me talking. (The same Future Me who is in graduate school and reads more challenging novels.)

The Week

Dave has been out of town this week (he comes back tonight), so I've been spending a lot of time at the studio. I'm working on a new 100 mug challenge. The last one was over a year ago (!) if you can believe it. I've thrown and "handled" nine mugs in the last couple of days, which is pretty middling as far as mug production goes, but that's fine, you know. I'm okay with that for the moment.

I'll get some pictures up soon to show you.

Keep Looking At It

2012-01-12T11:40:00.001-07:00

This is one of the most popular photos on my flickr account.

What is it?

It's a picture taken in Omiya station with a group of young men who were carrying the equipment for Japanese archery. (I spoke to them very briefly in my poor Japanese and they were delighted to explain what they were carrying and to have their picture taken with a group of us.)

Why is it popular? A couple of years ago, someone on a fencing (?) forum linked to it and ever since then, it gets a couple of hits a week from people searching for information on Japanese fencing.

Strange, no?

Some Potential

2012-01-07T20:23:00.000-07:00

This is one of the dark clay pots with white slip and glazes. It has some potential, I think, this idea.

I did go by the studio yesterday and I got absolutely nothing done. I talked with one of the guys who works there and my aunt stopped by to put some of her mugs out to bisque. After a while, Dave texted to say he was getting out of work early and so I went to pick him up. We had dinner at Thai Vegan and came home.

Ugh, what a boring litany of days.

Years ago, when I was in love with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, I had a book that was his diary with a few annotations to explain who people were. I expected that it was going to be an exciting read, but it was tedious. Tedious. Tedious. It was things like, "traveled by carriage, rain, dinner at Salzberg" over at over, day in and day out. The tedium of days, even those of a genius.

I am not a genius, but I share that with genius, I guess. The tedium of most days. It hasn't felt like winter until recently. It's not the temperature, either (it was almost 60 degrees yesterday), but some sameness of days.

Becoming Human

2012-01-06T06:55:00.000-07:00

It's early Friday morning. Early for me, I mean, just after 6:30. I've been up for about an hour. I dreamed about traveling last night, to China, to Mexico. I got up and fed the cats and made coffee.

Because we have so many mugs, there's always a decision to be made about which one to drink from. This morning I passed over a couple of mugs made by other potters and chose one of Dave's, one that he made during the 100 mug challenge that we did a year ago. Number 35, looks like, from what I can tell without tipping coffee out onto my keyboard. It's speckled buff clay with a shino glaze over it.

I haven't been in the studio since New Year's Day, five days ago. I know why I haven't been into the studio, I have to make a clean start of it since finishing glazing all but the dregs of my bisque. I don't want to. This is a first world problem.

This is another day.

The Offending

2012-01-03T20:13:00.001-07:00

I was in the dentist's chair at 8:00 a.m., an ungodly hour if ever there was one.

I was back in the dentist's chair--a different dentist's chair--again at 2:00 p.m. That's when I snapped that photo of my tooth, the troublesome one.

(The troublesome tooth is the one on the far right hand side, the one that looks like a tooth and not like a Frankenstein-like screw screwed into my head. That's another nightmarish dental story for another time. But just as a little teaser: You see how the top of the screw seems to protrude into that cavity at the top? That cavity is my sinus. The way you get a screw to protrude into that cavity is to drill a hole into the bone then take a hammer and awl-like tool and hammer away until the floor of the sinus gives way. It's as unpleasant a process as it sounds.)

Today, both goddamned dentists did the same tests on my teeth. Both hammered away at it with little metal hammers. Both used freon-like material sprayed onto a cotton swab to test the cold sensitivity of the tooth. Both tests hurt like hell and turned my stomach. They do that to test...what? My ability to keep from strangling each of them maybe.

It might be a root canal situation, which makes me cringe. I've never had a root canal before and I was hoping to get through life without ever having had a root canal, but my tooth, it is not a happy tooth. For the moment, it's fine and we've all agreed to take a cautious approach, but...it may all go to hell sooner rather than later.

But nevermind--we have a reprieve, for the moment.

Glaze-a-thon 2012

Sunday was glaze day at the studio. I didn't glaze, of course, just having finished Glaze-a-palooza, but Dave, Lu Ann and Chris did. Here's Chris, glazing away like a little elf.

The fore pile of bowls is Dave's. (That's an awkward sentence, no? But I like its awkwardness, so I'm going to let it stand.)

The glaze-a-thon was interrupted by dinner at our new favorite restaurant, Thai Vegan, where we were given non-alcoholic champagne at the end of our meal. This was our toast:

To Melba!

(That's a Rocky Horror Picture Show joke, in case you didn't know, one of them anyway, the one that took hold when the theaters stopped letting you bring in actual toast.)

What other pics can I show you?

Here's Saba being cute:

She never rolls over onto her back, but I mean never. She held this pose while I took her picture, then attacked my hand when I tried to pet her. She's a wily one.

And I will be watching over these two little hounds soon:

That was in their puppy days, maybe three months ago. They're slightly bigger now, slightly better behaved, but still rambunctious.

Nearly Made It!

2012-01-02T10:55:00.000-07:00

Here are a few of the year-end pots, informal pics taken with my new camera!

These pots are made from a a new kind of clay (new to me, anyway) that is very, very dark brown. I made a few pots, small ones, just to see how well the clay throws (it's really nice, actually), and to test various finishes on them.

This is the clay with white slip, carved away, and clear glaze sponged on. I like the shininess of the finished product.

This little pot is the same as above only without the sponged on clear layer. I like the matte-ness of it.

This is the same as above only instead of clear glaze, I sponged on a bit of watered down rutile (a mineral comprised mainly of titanium dioxide and iron). The orange cast works on this piece, but I wouldn't use it again.

These next two are pics of the same pot:

It's the same treatment, only I brushed various glazes over the white slip. The real test was the red liner glaze on the inside. Despite this clay's having a reputation for not getting along with glazes, and the red glaze being a bit of a problematic glaze in an of itself, the two worked very well together.

These two kind of remind me of Thing 2 and Thing 1 from The Cat in the Hat.

This is what remained when the dust settled after Glaze-a-palooza 2011. I nearly made it! There are just four pieces to carry me into 2012.

This is a group photo of about a third of what did get glazed during Glaze-a-palooza 2011.

Happy New Year!

2012-01-01T06:42:00.000-07:00

Here is an entirely gratuitous picture of Saba, doing what I was doing when the new year pushed aside the old year:

Yes, I was sleeping. I actually woke up around 1:40 a.m., asked Dave what time it was, said happy new year, and got up and made a cup of coffee. He turned off his lamp and promptly fell asleep. And that is how new years goes when you are old, I guess.

And what about resolutions? Believe it or not I have a few:

Normally at the top of the list would be to drop some weight, but I started that off late last year, October something-th or other. (I'm terrible at remembering dates.) I've lost 25 pounds so far, only watching my diet (that is, with no exercise whatsoever). Some of those lost pounds were hard won--like the half-pound I lost the week of Christmas--but most of them were easy. (Hopefully that will remain the case now that the eating holidays--Halloween candy, Thanksgiving dinner/leftovers, Christmas cookies and tamales--are over!)

Anyway, so that weight loss thing is already covered, so I have to think of another resolution for the number one slot. And what I've come up with is to learn a new skill. Already though I'm taking the easy path: Dave gave me a gift certificate for Christmas to a place that offers sewing lessons. So I'm going to learn how to sew! Like, officially. Really though, I'm going to learn about sewing machines and how to use one properly. That is my real goal. Then I'm going to make you a special gift, a skirt with poodles on it! Won't that be fun?

The second thing I want to do in the new year is take an academic-type class. What though? I don't know. Maybe a writing class? Some literature class? That would be good, especially considering that the other one of my resolutions is to read more. I used to be a voracious reader. I used to tackle the big stuff, too. But ever since the internet came into my life in a big way, I've sort of stopped going after the heavy hitters. I read soft stuff on my kindle, yes (and I'm glad for it, too, because it allows me to read absolute garbage without anyone being able to see that I'm reading absolute garbage), but I want to get back to reading stuff that The Brain can chew on.

The fourth thing I want to do is to travel more. Dave and I talked about it tonight and we tentatively planned out a trip to San Francisco in late winter, a trip to New York in the spring, and a trip to London in early summer. That means getting passports in order as both of us are limping along on expired passports.

The fifth thing I want to do is to start to declutter with an even heavier hand. My gift to myself on my last birthday was permission to throw out any and everything. I have used it, but not enough.

The sixth thing I want to do is to focus on being better at relationships with family and friends.

I'm sure I'll add to this list as time goes on, but right now it's just before 7:00 a.m. on the first day of the first year and I think I might try to get in a post-breakfast nap.

Here is another picture of Saba though--and me, too:

Happy New Year!

On Why I Would Make A Terrible Food Blogger

2011-12-31T00:05:00.002-07:00

I'm a glutton at heart, in word, and in deed. When the food hits the table, the last thing I want to do is haul out my camera. By the time I remember to get a photo, we've already dug in. But no matter, I will try to get better. In the meantime, here are some action shots of the dinner Dave and I had at Thai Vegan, an absolutely terrific Thai restaurant.

This was our appetizer--well, the last of it anyway--dumplings filled with vegetables, deep fried, and topped with sweet red chili sauce. An order is six dumplings, but there you see the last two, spared for a moment by the arrival of the four other dishes we ordered.

This was our green curry with onions, carrots, peppers, bamboo shoots, basil, and tofu.

This was a beautiful cucumber salad in a sweet vinegar dressing.

This is a half-demolished plate of pad voon-sen, stir fried mung-bean noodles with broccoli, peppers, onion, mushrooms, and tofu. This is one of my favorite noodle dishes, simply because it is very straightforward in flavor and has not a speck of chile in it, which can be nice if all the other dishes are spicy.

I like pad voon-sen, but this? This is my absolute all-time most favorite Thai dish ever, tom kha tofu, a coconut, lemongrass, garlic, kefir lime leaf, and dried ginger soup with onions, carrots, mushrooms, tomato, and tofu. It is just the best thing you could ever put in your mouth, ever. I could eat this every single day and never have enough of it. I even remember the first time I ever ate it, at a small Thai restaurant near our house at the edge of the war zone almost twenty years ago (!). We ordered it out of curiosity and when it came I put a spoonful of it in my mouth and immediately wished that I could be transported back to my childhood simply so that I wouldn't have wasted two decades of my life not knowing that soup. I lamented all those tom kha tofu-less years. (I was pretty sad a few years later when we talked a friend into trying it and he was thoroughly grossed out by it, could barely hide his disgust with his characteristic politeness. I was sad, yes, but I was also kind of glad because then I didn't have to share the huge bowl of it with him.)

This is the rice that comes with it at Thai Vegan. I think it's a mixture of short-grain brown rice and red rice, which is why it's pink. The heart shape is entirely gratuitous.

Yes, we did bring home leftovers in boxes. No, it wasn't as much as you might think given this amount of food.

I ate and ate all day, actually, completely ignoring my diet. I am, of course, a bit of a stress eater and today was a stress-filled day. It was stress-filled because I started taking a new antibiotic for a tooth that is not happy. I hate taking new meds ever since I had an allergic reaction to one a few years ago. Ugh. Nasty. The Brain and I are convinced that I'm going to end up as one of those pharmaceutical statistics, dying over some bad drug interaction or allergic reaction. That seems so inevitable that it stresses me out and when I get stressed out I eat like a pig. You can see evidence of that above, but what you don't know is that huge dinner followed an equally huge and much less healthy lunch at a local burger place. And before that there were two breakfasts and a lot of other snacks. Just too much in general. I gotta figure out a way to get past the stress eating.

And just because this is a beautiful thing, here is a poem by Miyakawa Kenji called Ame ni mo makezu ("Be not defeated by the rain"), the English translation first, followed by the original Japanese:

not losing to the rain
not losing to the wind
not losing to the snow nor to summer’s heat
with a strong body
unfettered by desire
never losing temper
cultivating a quiet joy
every day four bowls of brown rice
miso and some vegetables to eat
in everything
count yourself last and put others before you
watching and listening, and understanding
and never forgetting
in the shade of the woods of the pines of the fields
being in a little thatched hut
if there is a sick child to the east
going and nursing over them
if there is a tired mother to the west
going and shouldering her sheaf of rice
if there is someone near death to the south
going and saying there’s no need to be afraid
if there is a quarrel or a lawsuit to the north
telling them to leave off with such waste
when there’s drought, shedding tears of sympathy
when the summer’s cold, wandering upset
called a nobody by everyone
without being praised
without being blamed
such a person
I want to become

雨ニモマケズ
風ニモマケズ
雪ニモ夏ノ暑サニモマケヌ
丈夫ナカラダヲモチ
慾ハナク
決シテ瞋ラズ
イツモシヅカニワラッテイル
一日ニ玄米四合ト
味噌ト少シノ野菜ヲタベ
アラユルコトヲ
ジブンヲカンジョウニ入レズニ
ヨクミキキシワカリ
ソシテワスレズ
野原ノ松ノ林ノ蔭ノ
小サナ萱ブキノ小屋ニイテ
東ニ病気ノ子供アレバ
行ッテ看病シテヤリ
西ニツカレタ母アレバ
行ッテソノ稲ノ束ヲ負ヒ
南ニ死ニソウナ人アレバ
行ッテコワガラナクテモイイトイイ
北ニケンカヤソショウガアレバ
ツマラナイカラヤメロトイイ
ヒデリノトキハナミダヲナガシ
サムサノナツハオロオロアルキ
ミンナニデクノボウトヨバレ
ホメラレモセズ
クニモサレズ
ソウイウモノニ
ワタシハナリタイ

On The Surface

2011-12-28T21:29:00.003-07:00

This is a small box that I made. Dave used it in one of his recent saggar firing experiments.

The rusty red streak is from steel wool. The other colors are from a mixture of copper carbonate, borax, sea salt, and sawdust.

This is one of my favorite recent pieces. I think this is awesome.

It's rough and rusty and blackened. It looks like you might have found it laying along a hiking path. If every piece I made from here on out had this surface quality, I would be infinitely happier with my work.

Maybe I should explain?

One of the things I try to do. No. One of the things. No. When I am happiest with my work is when it is as close to nature as possible. No. When I am happiest with my work is when it looks as though nature could have made it. Yes. Okay. That. When I am happiest with my work, it looks as though the sun and the elements of nature could have produced it. It looks like something that. No. It looks like. No. It's rough and it looks like humans haven't ruined it yet, the way they ruin everything, by manipulating it too much. Yes, that.

Here it is as a mostly coherent thought:

When I am happiest with my work, it looks like nature--the sun, the wind, rain, time, all the elements of nature--could have produced it. It's rough and it looks like humans haven't ruined it yet, the way they tend to ruin everything, by manipulating it too much.

When I am happiest with my work, it looks like something--a rock, a stick, a feather, a rusted something--that you might pick up from the ground on a walk and put it in your pocket just because you liked it, just because it seemed important or because you were curious about it or you were drawn to it for some reason outside of curiosity.

Here's a story:

When I lived in Tokyo, I collected feathers while I was out and about the city. Moving to such a different place had stripped me of all my worn, familiar talismans and I often felt wary or unprotected, so I began to collect feathers, mostly crow feathers. The crows in Tokyo are enormous, loud, fearless, and notoriously clever and I wanted--it felt important--to carry some piece of that with me, so I collected their feathers when I found them. I sometimes want what I make to be what those feathers were for me, talismans that remind that people who find them that they have something within them that is enormous, loud, fearless, and notoriously clever, and that that thing is a natural thing, handed to them by nature, over and over.

Merry Christmas Tree!

2011-12-27T23:06:00.003-07:00

Here are some close up shots of the ornaments on our little tree:

That little skeleton foot is actually a Shrinky Dink earring that I made about two years ago.

That strange little star was an experiment with some new "satin" glazes at the studio. I made it about a year and a half ago. (It has an identical partner as I had planned to make earrings, but I didn't like the way they came out.)

That little brown skully is about nine years old, one of my first forays into calaveras in clay. (You can also see the garland behind it, a string of seashells that I think came from either a garage sale or from my mother's stash of crafting materials.)

That little ducky, a gift on Christmas day from Kelly and Kevin, is the newest thing on the tree.

And Etc.

Dave is on vacation right now and so after dealing with the day's plumbing issues and its accompanying plumbers, we went and spent some money at New Mexico Clay. (Dave bought some pyrometric cones and I bought some appendages to make hummingbird feeders. "Appendages" is not the right word, I don't think. They're the little rubber stoppers and feeding element. "Elements"? "Doo-dads"? God. My vocabulary used to be so large! But that was back when I was a reader and not an internet surfer. The internet has shrunk my vocabulary something awful, I'm convinced.)

After we went shopping, we went to the studio. Dave worked on his ocarinas and I continued with Glaze-a-palooza 2011. Tonight I glazed, lessee, ten pieces. Is that right? Two platters and two vases for the soda kiln, that's four. Three bowls, a mask, and two vases for the electric kiln. That's ten, no? And the best part? There's only one piece left. Yes, there's only one little piece standing between me and my goal to have every piece of bisque glazed by December 31.

Okay, that's a lie. I guess I'm not counting the calavera vases I made a couple of weeks ago. Those always seem to slip my mind, possibly because they're so new, unlike some of the pieces that I'm glazing now that are a year or more old. You laugh, but it's easy to get a piece to the bisque stage and then let it sit somewhat indefinitely, just gathering dust. Several months ago, one of the potters at the studio heard me lamenting about the amount of old bisque that I had and she went to her cubicle and pulled out a bisqued piece that was over ten years old. I'm not nearly to that stage yet--although that's a lie, too. I have pieces that I know are at least eight or nine years old, bits and pieces in boxes that are exempt from Glaze-a-palooza 2011 simply because they'd require me to produce more new work in order to get them through the glazing stage. It's confusing I know, so let's just say that those bits and pieces were grandfathered in as exceptions to this year's glaze fest.)

Anyway, what will I do after I'm done glazing all this stuff? Well, I'm determined to return to handbuilding, so I'm going to be doing a lot more calavera pieces. Dave bought me a slew of Day of the Dead-themed books for my birthday in August and I've been thumbing through those for ideas. He also bought me several botanical-themed books and I'm going to try my hand at some botanical carvings. I'd also like to make some large pots to put plants in come spring. So there's a list of things to do already.

New Work! New Camera!

2011-12-26T20:23:00.000-07:00

We just got back from the studio, Dave and I, where he worked on his ocarinas and I continued my 2011 Glaze-a-palooza. My goal is to glaze all the bisque wear I have in my cubicle before December 31. I'm pretty much on schedule, too, for once.

Here is some of it:

Bankys! There will never be an end to bankys it seems--although these are the last of the bunch, thrown at the beginning of this past summer. The ant-y bank was intended to be a birthday gift for Dave (whose birthday is in July). I had to blow quite a bit of dust off these guys before I could start glazing them.

These are more recent pieces, thrown within the last month just to try out a new clay called B3. It's a really dark brown clay, full of iron and manganese. It throws beautifully and gets along with glazes not at all.

Mas calaveras, of course.

Calaveras!

And that's a Mexican folk art-inspired cat design.

And one last vase, carved when I was getting tired of carving. I don't like it very much, but that's fine; I can always use it to test glazes on.

This last piece is not one of mine, but a piece from one of the guys who works in the studio. I got it from him during the Christmas studio sale:

I also have a new camera, a tiny little Canon elph. Yay! Merry Christmas to me from Dave!

Happy Christmas!

2011-12-25T06:46:00.002-07:00

Our little tree is overwhelmed by gifts. We opened a few on Christmas eve, of course. Dave got several books about clay from his mother as well as a brulee torch (which he's already planning on taking to the studio). We also decided to open one gift from each other. I got a package filled with scented candles and Dave got a package filled with Christmas treats like chocolate and nuts and cookies. We'll open the rest after Santa gets here.

Ah, Santa.

Ho Ho Ho!

That is my older brother, Rudy, with Santa, a long long time ago. Santa hasn't aged well, as evidenced by this picture (the only one I have of me--and Kelly, too--with Santa):

That Santa was pretty lit up, too.

Ha Ha Ha!

From a New York Times article about different kinds of Christmas traditions:

“For at least five years, our tradition has been to pull out our special edition DVD of the greatest movie ever made, which is ‘Showgirls,’ and watch that.” — David Peterman, an owner of a kitchen-tool company in Seattle.

The Tree

2011-12-23T10:14:00.000-07:00

The first tree we've had in many, many years. Cute, huh?

Tamale Day 2011!

2011-12-21T07:32:00.005-07:00

Sunday was Tamale Day! Here are some pictures:

Here you can see all the ingredients laid out on my aunt Char's dining room table. From top to bottom there's the masa (with lots and lots of lard in it--yum!), shredded pork with red chile, and corn husks. Dave was put in charge of the vegetarian tamales (squash and cheese, with and without chile) while my aunt and I primarily made the meat ones.

Char did all the prep work (Thanks, Char!), which is considerable, but next year I want to help out with that so I can learn all the steps. That probably means that tamale making day will turn into tamale making weekend.

That picture shows the test batch (the smaller pan on the left side of the stove) we used to check the cooking time for the tamales. Those were finished after about one hour and fifty minutes.

We did several things differently this year than from past years: We bought a tamale spreader--a little plastic device that kind of resembles a "float" (the kind of tool used for mudding or drywall finishing). I was a little sceptical, but it worked pretty well. Next year, we'll have one for everyone! We also didn't tie up our tamales at both ends, something that is a little bit heretical in my family. (That's not how Grandma did it!), but it streamlined the process something fierce. We also steamed the tamales on their ends--also not how Grandma did it, but it cut the cooking time down considerably.

Of course we had to test the test batch!

You can see that the squash with cheese tamale on the left leaked. That's cheese all over it and the tamale on the right. While they were hot, they were a bit mushy still, but when they cooled down a bit, they were perfect. That first tamale from a new batch is always the best one. But tamales are like potato chips, you can't eat just one. We ate that batch, then munched on tamales throughout the day. Then we sat down and each had a plate of tamales with red chile, cheese, lettuce and tomato for an early dinner.

It's funny, but while we were divvying up the spoils at the end, Dave remarked that we should divide the vegetarian ones somewhat unevenly because he had eaten so many throughout the day. Poor Dave. He didn't know the rule that the ones you eat while making them don't count toward your final total. Those are just gimmes. (Gimmales!) You need a little something to keep your strength up while you're making tamales!

After our snack, we went right back to making tamales.

There's Char and Dave, slaving away while I document the moment.

You can see the growing piles of tamales at the front of the table. (You can also see the coffee cup Char made at the studio. Her first coffee cup!)

There's my little work station and the tamale spreader and a finished tamale, ready to be put in the steamer.

Chicken Break!

We took a break to go outside and meet my aunt's chickens.

They had a snack, too.

Then it was back to tamale making.

Char is the most competent and fastest at tamale making, but Dave's tamales were the prettiest. He has made tamales in the past, but there's probably been an almost twenty year gap since his last tamale making experience. Since he's vegetarian, we put him in charge of the vegetarian tamales. He made the majority of the squash ones.

It's funny: We made tamales for the vegetarians (with beans and squash) and for the kids (with no chile), but I remember when I was growing up, there was one and only one kind of tamale. You got pork with red chile and you liked it. When I was very little and couldn't eat hot chile, I would get a tamale and eat the masa and then give the pork filling to an adult, usually my mom or dad. I was allowed to do that with as many tamales as I wanted, but there were never tamales made without chile. And there were never vegetarian tamales, either. (Of course as a kid I had probably never even considered that there were such things as people who didn't eat meat!)

We kept the two big steamers (and one little one) going pretty continuously through the morning.

By early afternoon, we had enough tamales to start the divvying process.

The divvying process continued. You can see the foil wrapped tamales in there, too. We do that when we run out of corn husks. And don't get me started on the price of corn husks this year. Six dollars a pound! Ridiculous. Where's my corn subsidy, President Obama?!

Anyway, the foil works just fine though it's not as pretty as the corn husks.

At the end of the day, Dave and I took home these two big pans of tamales and a box of sweets (biscochitos, Mexican wedding cookies, and peanut brittle) that my aunt had made a couple of days before.

And that was Tamale Day 2011.

Eventful Day

2011-12-19T22:02:00.000-07:00

Yesterday my aunt Char, Dave and I made tamales! We made pork with red chile, pork with no chile, squash with green chile and cheese, squash with no chile and cheese, and bean with red chile and cheese tamales. Last year it was just my aunt and I making tamales and it was a long long day. This year we streamlined the operation by adding a third person and buying a tamale masa spreader. We also tried a new method of cooking the tamales and that shaved a few hours (!) off the cooking time. I have pictures, of course, but they are on Dave's camera (and getting Dave to get the pictures off his camera takes only slightly less effort than digging a tree stump out of the yard).

Anyway, that was Sunday. Today was also an eventful day.

Yes, that is the plumber, come to fix the sink. I was doing dishes this afternoon when the kitchen sink started to back up. Then the toilet started to gurgle. Then the bathroom sink started to back up. Then I called Kelly and she called the plumber and an hour later I was host to one then two plumbers who snaked all the drains, unseated the toilet, and finally took care of the problem. But it took just long enough that unfortunately I did not get a shower before work. I did, however, get a text message from the other teacher telling me that she didn't feel well and wouldn't be coming in.

Luckily, there was this:

Snow! I say it was lucky it snowed because three of the four students scheduled for class cancelled. That left me with four students, a husband and wife celebrating their ninth anniversary (year nine is pottery--who knew?) and a sixteen-year-old girl and her older sister. It was a fun class anyway.

You can see, too, our new patio wall! Isn't it a beaut? It's very tall and the patio without all the boxes of books and plants and pottery is very echo-y, but come spring, it'll be full of plants.

It's winter proper though, isn't it?

GK UTI

2011-12-15T12:22:00.002-07:00

Well, little Gray Kitty and I (seen here in happier times) spent the morning at the vet.

Yesterday Dave noticed that Gray Kitty peeing down the shower drain and there was blood in his urine. Neither of those things is good. A quick internet search suggested that poor Gray Kitty probably had some kind of urinary tract infection. I tried to get him to the vet yesterday morning, but turns out he has grown too big to fit into our cat carrier. (It was like trying to shove a watermelon into a sandwich bag.) When I tried to carry him out to the car, he broke free and ran away and I ended up having to make an appointment for today and then go buy a larger carrier.

Today the vet gave him a big shot of antibiotics and gave me the task of getting a urine sample. Have you ever tried to get a urine sample from a cat? It's not easy. Vets use a big long needle to pierce all the way to the bladder and suck out a sample. (That's if they can feel a full bladder, which they couldn't with Gray Kitty.) Me? I got sent home with a small container of black plastic litter and a test tube and some vague directions. Good luck, right? Though actually, I did manage to complete my mission. (I put the plastic litter on a plate over the shower drain and two hours later I was driving a bloody urine sample back to the vet.)

Turns out that urinary tract infections are relatively common in cats (though in all my years of cat ownership, I've never had a cat who suffered from one) and tend to recur if the cat is prone to them. They're especially dangerous in male cats because they can cause urethral blockages that if not treated can kill the cat (by causing electrolyte imbalances and ultimately heart failure). Since it's hard to predict which cats will develop blockages, the vet is taking a kind of shotgun approach to treatment (antibiotics, urine test, change in diet and fluid intake).

Is there any such thing as a maintenance free cat?

Miscellaneous Catch-Up

2011-12-12T23:00:00.001-07:00

Snuggling with Gray Kitty in the new chair.

He's such a goofy cat. He loves to have his belly pet, so he'll often roll over onto his back like this.

Just stuff:

1. The street light out in front of the casita went on before 4:00 p.m. today, that's how gloomy it was outside. It's supposed to be even gloomier tomorrow.

2. Last night Dave and I picked a couple of children's gift-requests off the giving tree at the Co-op where we grocery shop. After dropping Dave off at work this morning, I went shopping at Target for two little boys, one-year-old twins. I bought them each a small dump truck with large Lego-type blocks in the back and one of those little boxes with shapes you have to fit into specific-shaped holes. (I bought them the exact same things, only now I think I should have gotten them different things. Or maybe not. I think it must be nice to have one's own things that one doesn't have to share, even with a twin.) When we picked the requests last night, there were still several on the tree and I thought that if any were left when I dropped off the gifts that I would take a couple more. But this morning the tree was bare. I'm glad for that because it means that all those kids will get something for Christmas this year.

It's strange what The Brain goes through picking out gifts for unknown children. Last year we picked an 11- or 12-year old girl who wanted clothes. I picked out about four outfits for her, then, knowing that my own taste in clothing tends to be unusual, I started to second guess myself. Would she rather have skinny jeans or boot cut? Would she want t-shirts or more ruffly things? What colors do other girls like? I remember when I was a kid, I didn't like to wear skirts or dresses (I didn't even consider a skirt or dress for her). I didn't like girly clothes in general. I also hated getting clothes for Christmas. But this girl had requested clothes, so I picked out middle-of-the-road things for her then I went and bought her a pack of flavored lip glosses and some candy. I mean, every girl loves flavored lip glosses and all kids love candy, right?

3. I've recently become a bit obsessed with EDC videos on youtube, so much so that I put together my own EDC pack for the bag that I carry. What's in it? A lot of stuff that I would normally carry in my shoulder bag anyway, things like my phone, lotion, lip balm, a comb, cash, a lighter, gum, eye drops, a maxi-pad, antihistamine tablets and ibuprofen, dental floss, hair ties, pens and permanent markers, Sweet'n'Low, a nail file, pepper spray and so on. (This list won't surprise most women who carry a shoulder bag, I think.) And then there's some stuff that I always felt I should carry but never did, like a little keychain light and a pocket knife. (Actually, I often did take a knife into the studio when I worked Sundays and knew I'd be spending a few hours there alone. I'd keep a knife, my cell phone, and pepper spray in my apron pocket. I'm paranoid, yes, but I was also a Girl Scout for years and am usually prepared.) To all that I added a Clif Bar and a tiny Leatherman tool and a few basic first aid supplies (bandaids, tiny packets of antibiotic and anti-itch ointments, antacids). I considered and then abandoned the idea of carrying hand sanitizer (I'm against hand sanitizers and anti-bacterial soaps in general), a travel-sized deodorant (I often don't wear deodorant to begin with because I'm not a "sweat-er" by nature), and any makeup besides the lip balm (I tend to put on my face and then never retouch).

It's funny, but I often put together packs like this when I have some change in my life. I bring all this stuff together, then at some point, I let everything disperse. When I was taking classes a year ago, for example, I assembled a similar pack with most of the things above plus a dissecting kit, lots more writing implements, and a whole array of office supplies (3x5 cards, highlighters, colored pencils, folders, and on and on), a water bottle and travel coffee cup, freeze-dried coffee in a small baggie, my iPod and earphones...After a few weeks, I started leaving my travel cup at home and buying coffee in the student union building. Or I would decide that I didn't need nine highlighters, I only needed three. Little by little, my pack would come undone--or maybe it would just be pared down to the necessities. (That sounds a little better, pared versus dissipating, no?)

4. The lady who took all my banks turned out to be legit. I have a $135 credit at the clay store now. Yay!

5. I'm still dieting, have fallen into the rhythm of it a bit. Thanksgiving threw me for a loop--I gained a pound and lost it the next week--but now the challenge is to stay vigilant. I've dropped nineteen pounds so far, a small chunk of change. (Or maybe a change of chunk?)

I say all that but then I also have to admit that I had deep-dish pizza for dinner. Dave, Rudy and I went to a local chain and split a veggie and a deluxe, both large. I had a slice of each and split a small second slice of the veggie with Dave. I also had some salad, no dressing, and a diet Pepsi. Unfortunately, tomorrow is Weigh Day. We'll see how that goes.

Checking In

2011-12-09T22:54:00.002-07:00

Dave has been out of town since last Sunday (he comes back tonight). This was last night's dinner:

Salad and a bowl of vegetable soup with an added package of tofu-shirataki noodles.

I'm eating much, much healthier these days. (Well, except for the two Blake's Lotaburger meals I've had in the past week--though I did exercise some self-restraint and have Itsa-burgers rather than Lotaburgers. Small victories count, too.)

Lessee, what else has been going on? Well, we did really well at the studio sale, enough to pay for eight or nine months worth of firing fees anyway, which is significant given the amount of work we produce. This year the studio took 35% of the sales; I made up for that by making a significant chunk of deals under the table, cutting out the middle man. I don't feel the least bit guilty about that, either. And I always, always pay other potters directly when I buy their work during the sale.

Holiday Sale

2011-12-04T19:21:00.000-07:00

Whew!

Tonight marked the end of the annual studio sale. Man, was it a lot of work. On Thursday, I helped two others set up the display area, priced and arranged my and Dave's pottery. On Friday, I worked a morning shift at the sale, answering questions and wrapping sales items. On Saturday, I taught for several hours, a beginner throwing class and a two-person glazing workshop, and also worked the sale as necessary. When I had a free moment, I threw a few pots. Today I went into the studio at 10 a.m. and stayed until 6:30 or so, helping out with the sale while I put handles on mugs and threw a few more pots. Then at the end of the evening, I started to break down displays and pack up what didn't sell. (I'll have to return tomorrow to finish the job.)

Luckily, we sold a lot! Dave and I were the top sellers this year, by unofficial count. A lot of my pieces went very cheaply, ranging from $1 to $10. (To be fair though, a lot of it was from when I first started throwing only a year and a half ago.) I also did a lot of under-the-table deals, from potter to potter, which added $100+ to our unofficial total. And I traded several pieces and gave away several pieces. (One of the trades was for the quizzical banky in the picture above. It's going to Japan, believe it or not, as a gift to a little boy there.)

And something strange happened today: A woman loved my coin banks so much that she wanted them all. She told me that she and her husband own a pottery supply store in town (one where I shop quite often) and she would be happy to trade for merchandise there. Since clay is one of my biggest expenses, I gladly traded with her. Then I thought: I hope she's legit and I'm not going to walk in there and be told that of course she has no authority to trade merchandise for pottery.

We'll see I guess.

I'm home now, wondering what's for dinner. If I even have the energy to have dinner...

Wall

2011-11-26T04:01:00.001-07:00

Remember how I wrote about having a prophetic dream about there being construction around the casita? This is that construction as of yesterday. The wall is almost done, except for stucco and a gate. Our formerly cluttered little patio has been greatly extended; it used to end where the brick walk ends in front of the door, but now extends several feet beyond that. There were also some very large, overgrown plants that were taken out, leaving us with even more room. I don't know what we're going to do with all that space! I'm sure there'll be more plants--there always is--and a larger patio table (ours is nice but it's a small folding table that is none too stable) and perhaps a lounger to stretch out on and read (we have two chairs now).

When the wall gets stucco'd, Kelly had an idea to put some of my small carved pieces into it. I didn't really have anything ready (and it would take about two weeks before I could have anything ready), but then I remembered that I have little things like this that I carved almost two years ago:

That was inspired by a geology textbook from 1924 that I took off the free table about eight years ago.

And I've also started making planters for some new plants. They're small planters, but it's the first handbuilding I've done in a long time, a year maybe?

Happy Thanksgiving, Yo

2011-11-24T07:37:00.004-07:00

As I write this, it's ten 'til seven in the morning, and the workmen are outside getting ready to do a half day's work on the patio wall. I'm in bed, of course, with my second cup of coffee.

We don't have big plans for the day, probably some studio time and then macaroni and cheese for dinner with brussels sprouts on the side. Over the years, we've done every vegetarian version of Thanksgiving imaginable, but this year we're keeping it simple with some decadent mac'n'cheese.

Exactly How Thankful Are You?

If you were to list the things you are thankful for, how long would your list be? I would have a very long list. I would probably start with caffeine though (it's early). But you can be sure that your name would not be very far down from the number one spot. That's how I feel about you.

I miss my grandmother this year and her version of Thanksgiving dinner which was usually a turkey, mashed potatoes, lots of gravy, red chile, a salad, rolls, and stuffing that she made pressed solidly into a pan and cut into squares. In later years, she added a pasta dish for Dave. I seem to remember that biscochitos usually made their first appearance around this time along with other things for dessert, usually a kind of spice cake topped with Cool Whip.

We would all serve ourselves from the stove and sit at the table and eat.

I'm not doing this memory justice at all, not at all. I'm not explaining enough about the pots and pans she had and how worn and familiar they were--that old, dented roasting pan, the cast iron skillet--and how she used them both for cooking and for serving. I'm not explaining about the squat square wooden salad bowl she used and the bottled Italian dressing she liked. I'm not explaining about how the huge chest freezer in the kitchen was used as a kind of buffet or how there was usually fake poinsettia flowers in a cut glass vase on the table and plastic placemats.

I'm not explaining how sometimes it was a kind of obligatory self-torture, Thanksgiving. But everyone knows how family is. I'm glad that there was never alcohol involved in Thanksgiving dinner--we drank iced tea or Kool-Aid or, later, soda--so there was no alcohol-fueled insanity. It was all just ordinary, everyday, run-of-the-mill insanity.

I'm thankful for these memories, however much editing it has taken me to get there.

We weren't much for family photos around the dinner table, but I do have two photos of my grandmother in her kitchen.

That's her in her housecoat. The curtain behind her is not window dressing, but a covering to the doorway to the pantry. That's an old picture, meaning of course that it predates me. I'm looking for something familiar in the objects around her, letting my memory snag not on the objects themselves but on the feeling of childhood's object- focused intensity. (Does that make any sense at all?) I may remember the square yellow canisters and there's something I know about the chair--though maybe when I knew it, it was as a piece of furniture relegated to the yard. I definitely know the letter holder to her left; I was legitimately fascinated by it when I was very young.

And a few years later, the kitchen looked like this.

That's the table where we always sat. It was always, always covered with a tablecloth, but underneath it was a lovely brown wood only scarred in one place by a knife my uncle drunkenly planted there to make a point. I remember the apple-shaped cookie jar (it was later replaced by a large ceramic cat cookie jar) and I know that coffee cup--it's weight, it's shape, it's glaze pattern--on the table with the early eye of a later potter.

Ah, enough.

This Was Breakfast, Part II

I hope you eat breakfast on Thanksgiving morning! You don't want to be starved when the main event rolls around--or so I've heard.

Breakfast part I was a big chopped salad (cucumber, tomato, red pepper, flax seed oil, vinegar, salt and pepper) and coffee. Breakfast part II (above) was cottage cheese and a fuyu persimmon and coffee. Breakfast part III (which I just ate) was another cup of coffee and (I'm ashamed to admit) a 100-calorie pack of Twinkies.

Ay yi yi.

How It's Going

2011-11-22T11:45:00.001-07:00

It's been a week since my last post. Time flies, no? Some update-y type things:

1. In the last week, we bought a Zojirushi "fuzzy logic" rice cooker, a vacuum cleaner (an Electrolux!) and a reading chair. We also shelled out for a five-and-a-half-foot tall, carpeted, multi-platformed "cat tree," which Saba loves. Those are all relatively large ticket items for us. We also passed on our desk (to my brother) and its accompanying chair to make room for the new chair. We have yet to buy a reading lamp and ottoman. Maybe we'll also get a throw pillow. Who knows? The sky's the limit.

This week we'll be cleaning the casita and rearranging furniture to make a little reading nook and we'll also be using our new rice cooker to make what I call "faux-yakudon" (a play on oyakudon--a type of Japanese chicken dish served on rice--though ours will be made with Quorn instead of chicken).

2. Two nights ago I had a dream that there was construction going on all around our house--and then yesterday afternoon Kevin came over to tell us that two guys were going to come and build a new wall around our patio. Today those two guys are outside ripping out the old fence and digging the foundation for the new wall, listening to some oldies station on their boom box, and removing some old, overgrown plants from our old patio. Strange prophetic dream, no?

3. I've been working, teaching a lot. The classes are full to the brim because the people who signed up only have until the end of December to take their class. Last Saturday there were nine students. There are ten this Saturday. Ten students doesn't sound like a lot, but it is. It's a lot a lot.

Dave and I teach together, but I do the demos and hence provide most of the patter. The other potters in the studio (the ones who've known me for years) have a good laugh at some of the things I say. There are a lot of hand positions that are used in throwing and to teach people one of them, I told them to pretend they were Miss America and do that stupid, closed-fingers, fake wave that beauty queens do. That exact hand position is perfect for one stage of wheel throwing. There's another time when I tell people to use their middle finger to do something and I call that particular finger "my driving finger."

It just comes, the patter. One of the women in the studio said to me, "You're one of those people who can't do uncomfortable silences, aren't you?" And I was, like, you know, I hate uncomfortable silences. What use are they? You are an adult; you should be able to hold up your end of a fucking conversation.

Anyway, like I said, lots of teaching.

4. Like fools, we went to Costco. I say "like fools" because all the monkeys were there to fill up their carts with crap they need for Thanksgiving. We were there to fill up our carts with this stuff:

Water filters, Brussels sprouts, nashi, honeycrisp apples, red peppers, broccoli, tomatoes, fuyu persimmons, yogurt, cottage cheese, bananas, cucumbers, San Pellegrino, and wine, lots of wine for Dave.

That's a week or ten days worth of produce right there ever since I've been dieting and living on fruits and vegetables.

5. And speaking of the diet, I'm going to need a belt soon. I've lost 17.5 pounds so far, 4.5 pounds last week alone. That's too fast, but it always goes fast at the beginning, no? Anyway, so today is part cheat day. That means we went out to eat at Sophia's Place and I had this:

Huevos rancheros with over-easy eggs, bacon, and red chile. I didn't eat the tortilla--not because I'm dieting, but because it seemed kind of gummy. (I'm used to the tougher whole wheat tortillas these days.)

Dave had the vegetarian version with red and green chile, over-hard eggs, and a kind of calabacitas on the side.

I had a big cup of coffee with breakfast, too.

That little guy is my new friend, purchased for fifty cents from a machine.

He's apparently a Bok Choy Boy (from the forbidden city).

I'm including that picture not because I think you need another picture of Bok Choy Boy, but so that you can see how trashed my hands are getting from throwing all the time and having my hands in water and clay. It's not pretty.

I Should've Called It "Wah-tumn" Yesterday

2011-11-15T01:08:00.000-07:00

Here are some crappy cell phone photos of some new work, just out of the kiln this evening.

Yes, it's a bowl, a small one. This holds probably just over a measured cup.

These are bowls, too.

I made a bunch of small bowls because I've recently been practicing some portion control. Most of the bowls we already have are huge and it's a little disheartening to measure out a half cup of cottage cheese and put it in a bowl that holds three cups. So I made some smaller bowls. The doll plate school of dieting.

These are some flowers. I didn't make them. I made the vase, though.

Wah

2011-11-13T19:55:00.001-07:00

Yesterday, Saturday, was a long studio day. There were nine students, two of whom had the barest bit of experience. Getting nine students lined up and out of the starting gate clay-wise is not an easy task. At the end of the night, my back hurt from squatting and bending and my wrists hurt, too. Wah wah wah.

Around six-thirty, the studio quieted down and we all sat down to a potluck dinner. Kahori made chirashi sushi and potato croquettes. Lynn brought a lasagna. Dave and I brought posole and a banoffee pie, which turned from pie to a kind of soup. It was still good though. After dinner, there was all the student work to trim, about forty pieces. We didn't end up leaving the studio until almost 10:30.

My midnight snack--breakfast, too--was a couple of ibuprofen.

Today we slept in then went back to the studio to glaze some work. I glazed about twenty small bowls and Dave glazed eight pieces, all for the soda firing that's coming up in early December. (I can't believe how close we are to the end of the year!) I did not get around to trimming any of the work that's been sitting on my shelf for the last several days.

I'm in kind of a downer mood, which I'm going to blame on PMS.

Wah.

Slowing the Rate of Descent

2011-11-09T22:31:00.000-07:00

I just got back from the studio. Tonight, instead of addressing the sorry state of my cubicle or the enormous pile of bisqued pieces that need to be glazed, I threw yet more pots. I threw a half dozen pots, a cylindrical tumbler, and a large vase. Mostly I just felt like socializing, so I sat next to a couple of the chattier students.

Dave and I are still teaching on Saturdays, and this Saturday promises to be a doozy, what with nine students signed up for the one-time lesson. Nine absolute beginners can be a challenge. It's fun, don't get me wrong, but I sometimes the lesson starts to feel something like this:

Diet Talk

I've been dieting and have, in twenty-one days, lost ten pounds. That's a bit too fast I think, three pounds per week, so a few days ago I upped how much I was eating to slow my rate of descent to about two pounds per week. What's my diet look like? Well, I prefer to eat a lot and I prefer to eat all day, so I eat a huge amount of vegetables and I eat three meals and two snacks minimum.

This morning just after I got up, I had yogurt and a banana and coffee. Then a couple hours later I had an apple and soy nut butter (like peanut butter but made with soybeans) and coffee. A couple hours later, I had lunch. Lunch was a very big bowl of what I call faux pho, an entire package of tofu shirataki noodles with lots of vegetables (broccoli, carrots, green beans, baby bok choi, and seaweed) in a broth made with fake chicken bullion, garlic, ginger, soy sauce, rice wine vinegar and sesame oil. I stirred in three egg whites for some protein. For lunch dessert, I had a sweet potato and coffee. My afternoon snack (a couple hours after lunch) was wheat crackers with more soy nut butter and jelly and another cup of coffee. And a bit later, before going to the studio, I had a banana. I was at the studio for about four hours and came home hungry, so we had bean and Quorn burritos with cheese, sour cream and salsa, and a salad with tomatoes, cabbage, red peppers, cucumber, and olives.

Seriously, I'm losing weight on a diet like that. It seems like a lot of food (and it is) but in reality, it's about 1600 calories per day, which is about 800 calories per day less than I had been eating. If I eat 800 calories less per day, then I drop a pound every four days or so, or just under two pound a week, a decent rate I think. And that is with zero exercise. None.

Crush-ful

2011-11-06T20:08:00.001-07:00

Saturdays can be a little crush-ful. "Crush-ful" is not a word, I know, but if it were, it would describe Saturdays lately. So Saturdays start with way too much coffee, two cups at home and then this rice milk latte at lunch.

Lunch was a Malaysian stir fry from Annapurna.

Dave had something called "vegetarian poutine" which looks like someone puked on fries, but it was a tasty mix of green chile, cheese, and mushroom gravy on sweet potato fries.

After lunch, we went to the studio, taught and worked and talked.

One Night, Wednesday

2011-11-03T14:36:00.001-07:00

There's new work in every stage:

These are little salt cellars with spoons that look like tongues. They are still in the bisque stage. I have to figure out how to glaze the tongues. I have some idea, but firing them is going to be tricky.

These pieces just came out of the kiln yesterday. They were glazed somewhat willy-nilly.

These two vases are just off the wheel, thrown last night to practice using a coiled wire.

And this was dinner:

Posole and a salad and San Pellegrino.

Breakfast

2011-11-02T07:05:00.000-07:00

It was cold and windy last night and I dreamt all night about having an affair with Gary Johnson (!) who used to be governor for the state and who is now some sad-sack presidential hopeful with no chance in hell. In the dream, he managed a pharmacy where I worked and his wife (young, beautiful) would come in with their five or six children and ask me to do things like make her up a gallon of a solution that had one teaspoon per liter of sugar in it. (The sugar had bugs in it, so I decided to fake it.) I was sure she knew I was sleeping with her husband.

Breakfast this morning?

A banana and coffee. That is one sorry looking banana, no? He spent a couple of days in the fridge.

That was followed up half an hour later by--

Posole and another cup of coffee. I made vegetarian posole yesterday!

Benadryl, only half. The wind kicked up some wicked allergens last night and I've been sneezing all morning.

Happy Halloween

2011-10-31T15:16:00.001-07:00

Me and Rinako!
Originally uploaded by Tokyorosa

The last time I dressed up, so long ago, I was a blonde witch.

I'm posed with one of my coworkers, Rinako, who wore an Hawaiian dress and lei to the party. It was an exciting evening.

Kabocha & Saba

2011-10-27T21:20:00.000-07:00

There was about three-fourths of a kabocha left after we made tempura, so I simmered it. Simmered kabocha is a traditional Japanese winter-y food, though the Japanese recipe typically contains dashi (a broth made of kelp and dried, shaved tuna), soy sauce, mirin, sugar, and salt. I didn't go whole hog, I just simmered it in some water with a little salt.

It's an awesome snack over yogurt, or just by itself. Lots of beta carotene and fiber. The green rind is the best part. Yum!

Kabocha was fairly inexpensive in Tokyo, so I often cooked it for dinner. A little simmered kabocha followed up with some popcorn was a typical dinner in those days, believe it or not.

And Saba

Here is Saba, settled down to watch me surf the 'net.

We had to take her to the vet recently because she and Gray Kitty had some words, I think, and she ended up with an abscessed cut on her chin. They had to cut it open to drain it and load her up with antibiotics. She was not a happy camper. Now though, she's back to her normal self.

Healthy Dinner

2011-10-25T20:57:00.000-07:00

I'll bet my dinner was healthier than yours was!

Onion, red pepper, sweet potato, carrots, and kabocha (Japanese pumpkin). I also added mushrooms and broccoli.

All chopped up!

And deep fried!

This was my "cheat meal" for the week. I'm back to dieting, believe it or not. All my efforts last week resulted in a five pound loss! It's a bit too much for one week, so I decided on tempura soba for dinner tonight. Deep fried goodness, served with soba noodles and mentsuyu, a kind of a cross between a dipping sauce and a soup.

So good!

Seasonal Knowledge

2011-10-23T19:48:00.000-07:00

Where did the weekend go?!

Today for lunch I was craving Greek food, but we were in the wrong part of town. (We ended up at Subway instead.) Looking in my flickr archives for a photo, I checked today's date for last year and this popped up:

Greek food! We had Greek for dinner Oct. 23, 2010.

The Brain is so predictable.

Tonight though, Dave made green chile stew. It was good (even though he put carrots and celery in it) and hot. Cleared out my sinuses!

Friday Again

2011-10-21T02:14:00.000-07:00

My pumpkin buddy, a raku vase, and some white zinnias.

Lunch

2011-10-16T16:05:00.000-07:00

I couldn't take pictures in the museum, sadly, but I did take pictures in the museum cafe where we had lunch. That looks like a dog's breakfast, but it was a plate of green chile enchiladas, calabacitas, and carne adobada, all from the buffet.

Friday!

2011-10-14T17:11:00.001-07:00

Bachelor's ~~Dinner~~ Lunch

My final bachelor's meal before Dave comes home: a Blake's Lota-burger with cheese and green chile and a side of fries. Of course, yes, I had a diet Pepsi with it.

After lunch, I came home and cleaned some more. The poor kittens have been sneezing up a storm what with all the dust I've kicked up in my cleaning and decluttering spree. I have six bags of books and assorted sundries to take to Goodwill. I've got a bag or two of things to take to the studio. I've done sooo much laundry. And there's still more--much more--that needs to get done. I don't want to burn out, so I'm pacing myself. Also, I truly dislike cleaning and decluttering, (so it's not that hard to break off a given task and watch half an episode of Law & Order). In the end it's so boring, cleaning, isn't it? I mean, there is the small momentary thrill of having a clean, decluttered space--but then next week it's dirty and cluttered again so you have to clean and declutter all over again. I'm like Sisyphus with a dustpan.

Anyway, one of the reasons that I'm decluttering is because we're going to get rid of Dave's computer desk. Ever since Dave got his laptop, he computers while in bed, making the desk (and the desktop computer) space-hogging relics. I want to take out the desk and replace it with a comfy reading chair and lamp. You know, a real classy setup, like at a Starbucks.

The Pupparinos

And ha-ha! Olive and Lester finished their training, passed with flying colors. Here is Lester, standing at attention:

Look at that focus!

Just kidding. That's a stuffed blue heeler that Kevin got for us. I posed him in the sun, then I moved him over to my altar. (Maybe it's not a him, only I call him a him because he looks more like Lester than like Olive.)

See? That's Lester on the right, with the black rings around his eyes.

They're so good. When I went to borrow Kelly's vacuum cleaner, they jumped all over me and tore a hole in my cheapie from-Target shirt. Of course I rewarded them for it with lots of treats because I hadn't seem them in awhile and I felt guilty about it. Dogs have that effect on me.

Wednesday and Thursday

2011-10-13T19:50:00.001-07:00

My little pumpkin friend and I had dinner together again last night.

It doesn't look like much, Wednesday's bachelor's dinner, just a small, very rare steak and some broccoli. I also had a little bit of rice toward the end of my meal (but it wasn't ready when I took this picture and I was too hungry to wait).

I was also too hungry to even think of pics of tonight's dinner, a chicken and cheddar sandwich with tomato and onion, carrots on the side. I ate it sitting in front of my computer watching an episode of Law & Order. (I remember sitting in a little boutique hotel in New York City, waiting for Dave to take a shower, and I turned on the TV and there was an episode of Law & Order, which, if you're a fan, you know is set on the mean streets of New York City. Very meta, that day.)

In between thinking of what to have for my bachelor dinners, I've been cleaning and decluttering like a demon. (I don't really know if demons clean and declutter, but if they did, I'd be cleaning like one.)

Tuesday

2011-10-11T18:59:00.000-07:00

Baching It Dinner #2

Had dinner with Chris and Lu Ann at Kokoro. I did not get a picture of my dinner, but guess what! It was this:

Katsu-don!

I'm so predictable.

Monday

2011-10-10T20:28:00.000-07:00

Baching It Dinner #1

Got home from the studio around 8:45 and made dinner: a salad (mixed greens, orange bell pepper, avocado, red onion, the last of the tomatoes from our one plant) and (left-over from lunch) stir fry (tofu, kale, zucchini, broccoli, green beans, garlic, ginger) on rice. Water to drink. My pumpkin friend kept me company. She doesn't eat much.

Don't get the wrong idea looking at that healthy, veg-filled meal. My bachelor dinners normally consist of fried chicken. Just fried chicken. My record is four fried-chicken only meals in a row. Yes, I am dedicated to my craft. But recently I've been trying to get a few more fruits and vegetables into my diet.

And darn it, I meant to take some pictures of my recent work at the studio, but I got busy working, then Kai came in and I ended up talking to him for about an hour. Then one of the other artists came over and chatted for a bit. And then I forgot all about taking pictures.

Recent Event-ish Things

2011-10-09T20:19:00.000-07:00

That is the last bite of a $4 two-day brownie. Or so I call them because they cost $4 and they take two days to eat--which is a record, a brownie lasting two days in my presence. I think the guy who makes them (and sells them via a food truck, Oz Patisserie, that parks near Dave's office) calls them triple-chocolate brownies. The guy apparently got a little huffy when Dave asked him for one of the brownies with the inch of frosting on top. "It's ganache," he corrected.

That brownie was my little lifeline this week, as I am into my third week of PMS symptoms. Which sucks.

I'm also having a bit of a struggle with my blood pressure, which has been in the high-normal range on and off for the last month. I'm thinking I may need to go to the doctor soon. Which sucks.

Let's see what else has been going on...

There's ground yak for sale at the co-op where we do our shopping. I've never eaten yak, but oddly Dave the vegetarian has (on a recent visit to a Nepalese (?) restaurant in Minnesota, where it was served to him accidentally--or so he says).

So there's that.

I've also been throwing lots and lots at the studio. Throwing is easier than handbuilding by far. It's also easier than cleaning out my studio space, which I have to do soon or else risk dying in some Collyer brothers-like accident.

What have I been throwing? Well, I've recently become obsessed with hiding in plain sight kind of things, so yesterday I threw two vases with compartments in them. It's hard to explain, but it's a closed form, open to the bottom, inside a vase. That doesn't make much sense, does it? I'll try to include a picture next time.

Bogged

2011-09-30T07:04:00.000-07:00

I bogged down in the 30 days of shameless challenge. Want to know the run of commands that did it?

Speak up about something crap that was done to you.
(I don't want to. Although I could mention briefly that I, for the time being, bank at Bank of America and leave it at that. That is shortly to change though.)

Hold yourself accountable — not guilty — for something crappy you did to someone else.
(Though now that I think about it, I would have to admit to having lifted a small glass beaker from my blond sorority girl-type chemistry partner's lab drawer to replace mine (broken) so that I wouldn't get charged for it when we checked in our equipment at the end of the semester. I don't know why I felt justified in doing this. Probably it was because I didn't want to be on the hook for a $6 beaker--and I didn't like her much. I mean, I didn't actively dislike her on a personal level. I just disliked her type in general.

Off on a tangent: I always ended up with dud lab partners. Partly it was my own fault; I used to habitually skip the first lab class because most lab TAs would spend that whole time reading the syllabus to the class and showing a joke of a safety video. Of course, everyone also divvied up into partners on that day, so that when I showed up during the next lab, I always ended up with the dud no one else wanted. Sorority girl was one. There was also a fecal-pheliac nurse--and an old woman who thought that enzymes worked in what she called "non-linear time"--and another woman who could never ever ever remember the DNA-RNA-protein sequence inherent in transcription/translation (she was the least nutty in many ways).

Dress, walk, and act like you know you’re all that.
(Ugh. This is a double-edged sword, I think. There's nothing wrong, of course, with having a personal style and confidence. But some people...take it a little too far, don't they?)

Spend money on a non-necessity or share a financial struggle.
(I guess I would consider my makeup purchases non-necessities. I spent, for example, around nine dollars yesterday on mascara and concealer.)

Discuss the reality of your work situation.
(There is none. That is reality. I'm teaching two days a week at the studio. So there's that.)

And speaking of the studio, I had two students on Monday night who were very fun. One of them, a young mother of a 3 year old and a 15 month old told me that her 3 year old loved Dyson vacuum cleaners and that, at the store, the way she could get him to behave was to threaten to not take him to see the vacuum cleaners there. He was not motivated at all by candy and such, only vacuum cleaners.

As far as getting my own work done, meh.

More Days of Shamelessness--What Day Is It?

2011-09-18T20:14:00.002-07:00

Declare your love for an uncool band.

Wow. Where to begin?

Maybe with the Bee Gees?

I'm a serial lover of uncool bands/musicians.

Dress to show some skin.

I've never, ever been one for doing this. Never ever.

You ever noticed that you (almost) never see men walking down the street in spaghetti-strap tank-tops and short shorts, showing some skin? Why do you think that is?

Share about a health struggle.

I've been pretty up front about my mental health struggles, about fighting and not fighting depression and anxiety. I'm very, very frightened of it--but I'm definitely not ashamed of it.

Speak up about something crap that was done to you.

I don't like to talk too much about people who manage to put something over on me. I don't like giving anyone credit for that; either do something about it or shut up about it. That's not to say that I don't bitch endlessly about things that I think are wrong. I want people to know when I'm pissed off, but I don't just talk about it, I tend to do something about it. (I've even been known to cut off my own nose.)

Hm. I wonder if that's true.

30 Days of Shamelessness and Counting

2011-09-13T23:01:00.001-07:00

Declare your love for an uncool movie.
I don't know. What's an uncool movie?

Many, many years ago I took a group of my university friends to see Citizen Kane. It's an awesome movie, often called the best movie ever made, but it was deeply uncool to my uni friends (one of whom took a group of us to see Undercover Brother, which, yikes.)

Looking over my Netflix account, here is a list of the last group of (non-documentary) movies I watched:

The Third Man (starring Orson Welles, whom I love)
Searching for Bobby Fischer (probably because I have a crush on the real life Josh Waitzkin)
Macbeth (the version set during WWII, starring Patrick Stewart)
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (I've seen it a dozen times because I love the Russell/Monroe duo)
How to Marry a Millionaire (Monroe, Bacall, Grable? I've seen it many, many times.)
Star Trek (the most recent film version; I love Zachary Quinto as Spock)
Strictly Ballroom (I adore this film!)

I was also on a Gary Cooper jag for a while and saw Meet John Doe, Casanova Brown, and Love in the Afternoon.

Act “girly” or “manly” in a way you’d normally avoid.

I will tell you a story.

Years ago, like almost 20 years ago, I read Richard Feynman's autobiography, Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! In it, he describes his experiences with lucid dreaming. At the time I read it, I didn't understand that lucid dreaming simply means that you are aware that you were dreaming while you are in the dream. (I didn't understand that because I'm always aware that I'm dreaming--just as I'm always me in my dreams.) I thought lucid dreaming meant that I could control every aspect of the dream. One night while I was dreaming, I thought: Oh, I need to try that lucid dreaming stuff.

In the dream, I was on a train going from car to car (just as Feynman had described doing in his dream). I tried to change the setting and couldn't and I became frustrated because I couldn't control the dream completely. I could control my own actions, so I went back to a car that I knew had a large mirror in it. I looked at myself in the mirror, lifted my arms. As I did so, I was able to change myself from female to male and back again.

I thought when I woke up, of course I can change myself that way. In fact, I often feel as though I do this all the time, this switch from female to male and back again.

Share your efforts at something you don’t think you do well.

Oh, jeeze.

I don't do most things well, I think.

I can't sing very well--but I still sing. I suck at bowling--but I still bowl. I'm miserable at parties when I have to talk to strangers--but I still go to parties (when I can't get out of it anyway) and talk to strangers.

Sweat.

No, thank you.

Expose something messy or dirty you’d usually hide.

Ha! Funny. I am literally messy. I'm one of the messiest people I know. No joke. It doesn't usually descend to the level of slob, but it hoovers around bachelor.

30 Days

2011-09-13T07:34:00.002-07:00

In the vein of 30 Days of Truth comes 30 Days of Shamelessness. Here are days one through four:

Declare your love for an uncool TV show.

I'm kind of a nanny show addict (Super Nanny and Nanny 911) as well as an addict show addict (Intervention). I will watch any show where women try on wedding dresses (Say Yes to the Dress). I also like watching those shows that document people's anxiety disorders and OCD habits (Obsessed). Crazy parents parading their little girls around in pageants (Toddlers & Tiaras)? Yes, please. To me though, of course, those are cool shows.

I've never been a fan of soap operas or housewife-based reality television. Shows about animals and nature almost uniformly depress me. I would rather use my right hand to cut off my left hand than watch a singing/dancing competition like Dancing with the American Idols Got Talent or whatever. I have never and will never watch any vampire-based television show. And the only space/fantasy show I can stomach (Star Trek: The Next Generation) was cancelled in 1994.

Look a fool.

Looks like someone forgot a comma in that command, no?

I constantly look a fool, actually.

Reminds me of a line from Raymond Chandler's book The Long Goodbye: "Most people go through life using up half their energy trying to protect a dignity they never had."

Eat. Whatever you feel like eating.

That's a funny thing to say to a woman who used to weigh 400 pounds. I've done it.

Waste time.

Waste time? I'm the master of wasting time. I've wasted most of my life.

Here is another quote, this from Walker Percy's novel The Last Gentleman:

"But if there is nothing wrong with me, he thought, then there is something wrong with the world. And if there is nothing wrong with the world, then I have wasted my life and that is the worst mistake of all."

I was a huge Walker Percy fan at one time, probably twenty years ago, even though I never could make it through his most famous novel, The Moviegoer.

Who couldn't help but love a man who could write this:

"It's one thing to develop a nostalgia for home while you're boozing with Yankee writers in Martha's Vineyard or being chased by the bulls in Pamplona. It's something else to go home and visit with the folks in Reed's drugstore on the square and actually listen to them. The reason you can't go home again is not because the down-home folks are mad at you--they're not, don't flatter yourself, they couldn't care less--but because once you're in orbit and you return to Reed's drugstore on the square, you can stand no more than fifteen minutes of the conversation before you head for the woods, head for the liquor store, or head back to Martha's Vineyard, where at least you can put a tolerable and saving distance between you and home. Home may be where the heart is but it's no place to spend Wednesday afternoon." (from Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book)

You're the Best

2011-09-12T21:22:00.000-07:00

That's a note that one of the studio employees left for me, asking me to fire his bowls. Since it was one of the last kilns I was going to load, I made sure that his stuff got in (I always gave priority to the employees' work) and that my own stuff got in.

I taught tonight, another three-hour class. Two students (of the four who signed up) came. It was a very, very hands on lesson. At the end both of them tipped me. I made $9!

Speaking of making money, Dave and I threw in with Chris and Lu for a one-day crafts fair at a local church. Dave and I made $80-some, Chris and Lu Ann made $90-some. But really, the big payoff was getting rid of some of the stockpiled work we had. It's overwhelming sometimes, the amount of work we produce. Everyone's getting pottery for Christmas--again!

Where Were You Ten Years Ago?

2011-09-11T02:12:00.001-07:00

Where Were You?

Today is 9/10/11, which makes tomorrow 9/11/11. Dave is flying tomorrow, going out on a business trip. He is not superstitious, I guess. Ten years ago, just seventeen days after 9/11, I flew into and out of Phoenix to attend a conference. The airline employees were gracious and helpful, an incredible change from how they are today.

On 9/11 proper, I was at university. Dave and I didn't own a TV and I never listened to the radio or read the newspapers, so I had no idea what had happened until I got to campus. There was one strange thing that morning though, an exchange I had with the cashier at the co-op where I stopped to buy hummus and chips to take as a snack to a research ethics class I was taking at the time. As I checked out, the cashier said, "Have a nice day! Well, no, I guess it's not a nice day today, is it?" And I thought, what a strange thing to say, but I didn't really question it. When I got to campus, I went up to the lab where I was working and everyone was pretty freaked out. I think the P.I. came in and told us what had happened, but I don't really remember. All of my coworkers in the lab were Chinese, here on student visas mainly, and they were worried about what would happen to them if war broke out.

I had a test in my immunology class the next day, and I was so intensely focused on that that I pushed everything else aside and went to the science and engineering library to study. In the library, television sets had been put in the study areas and people were watching the news. After a couple of hours, the university made the announcement that all classes were cancelled for the day.

I went to a coffeehouse across the street to study, still convinced that the immunology test was not going to be postponed. I sat with a friend, Amanda, and her brother (whose name I don't remember). He was in the Army reserves and borrowed my cell phone to call his friends to ask if they thought they'd be called up. Amanda chided him for using too many minutes on my cell phone.

What happened after that? I don't remember. I suppose I came home. I remember I was vaguely worried, but the antidepressant I was taking at the time thickened and evened out everything, not just my moods, but also the majority of my feelings. Numbness was characteristic of those days.

Years later, I remember talking about 9/11 with an Australian I was working with in Tokyo. We had a similar attitude: Look at that terrible thing that happened to a bunch of people I didn't know.

What's Going On...

...at the Studio?

Today was one of my teaching days. We had five students today, three women (one from Florida, one from Georgia), a father and son. Teaching is exhausting and my back hurts like crazy after, but it was still a good day. After the class was over, I cleaned up, threw for a bit, chatted a bit, helped Dave with the class he teaches in the afternoon. We also had a little studio sit-down dinner, ordering in from the Ayuvedic restaurant nearby. Dave, Chris, Lu Ann, Kai, along with a small group of students (Justin, Tim, and Sara) all sat around one of the big handbuilding tables and had a companionable dinner.

I'm finished, as of this week, with working Sundays and loading kilns. I'm so glad that this is my last Sunday doing it, as I'm tired of being obligated to work Sundays with no time off and very little in exchange for it. (That's such a long, boring story, how I managed to work myself into that position, that it's not even worth telling. Just know that your time is a precious commodity and trade it away cautiously.)

Some work from last week:

The work was still damn hot when I took it out of the kiln, so I carried it in wearing leather work gloves and I set it on the table to cool. While it was cooling I took a few pictures. The red heart shaped bowls have been sitting around in my cube waiting to be glazed for months, probably since April or so. The other work is more recent, things I threw to practice throwing with the wheel going counterclockwise (I normally throw with the wheel going clockwise.) The exceptions are the green and black pieces in the bottom picture. Those are some of the first larger pieces I ever threw, maybe from June (?).

It's funny, but when I teach, I avoid telling people I've only been throwing for fourteen months, mostly so that I can maintain some semblance of authority. Yes, I have been working with clay for eleven or twelve years, hand-building all that time, but throwing? Just over a year. And now I'm teaching it. Ridiculous.

The woman I teach with when I'm not teaching with Dave, the one I like a lot, turns out has been kind of slagging me off behind my back. She's been telling other people that I do several things the "wrong way," which would be fine if there were such a thing as the wrong way when it comes to clay. Turns out that if it works, it's the right way. That whole attitude of "there's only one way to do things" makes me insane. (It's also complete nonsense. A lot of the techniques I've picked up come from potters who make their living as potters or who come from a lineage of potters going back several generations. They'll often tell you that of course there's more than one way to do things, and though some techniques work better than others, it's up to you to find what works best for you. So I've gleaned a lot of my way of working from advice like that.) Unfortunately for the woman I work with, her criticism is not backed up by fantastic work. Turns out my thrown stuff is a lot nicer after a year of throwing than hers is after ten-plus years of throwing. Go figure. Maybe if you cling to shitty technique out of some misguided sense of tradition, your work suffers. Who knew? The crazy thing is, I still like her, still like working with her. I just see this bit of slagging off as her quirky inability to bend her mind around something she doesn't understand, a habit I associate with people who are not particularly intelligent.

And that's how you slag someone off, boys and girls.

What's been going on?

2011-09-04T19:15:00.001-07:00

Well, now. It's been a few days since I last posted. What's been going on...

...at the studio?

I'm (co-)teaching three classes a week. Dave and I teach together on Saturdays, and on Mondays and Thursdays, I work with another woman. The classes last three hours and they're mainly for beginning (or beginning-again) students. I enjoy teaching, but it is exhausting. It's also physically demanding; I end up squatting on the opposite side of the wheel to help people as they're throwing, and squatting while leaning over gives me a huge backache. It's also hard on my back to lean over kilns while I'm loading. (For that--and other--reasons, I've decided to give up the kiln loading part of my job.)

Anyway, I really enjoy working with new students. It's interesting to me to see how peoples' expectations and personalities manifest themselves in their work even from day one. Perfectionists, for example, seem to have a hard time with letting go and getting dirty and consequently they produce the least number of pieces during the lesson. People who walk in with the expectation that they're going to learn in one lesson how to reproduce a bowl that they purchased, say, from a potter who had years of experience also have a hard time of it. They learn pretty quickly that it's not as easy as it looks and their disappointed expectations make them some of the hardest people to teach. Kids seem to do the best. They're used to getting dirty. They don't have expectations about what their work "should" look like. They like to have fun. They're not invested in the outcome to the extent that they are disappointed with dinky little pieces. One kid made me laugh because he wanted to carve up his first bowl. I thought he was putting his name on it, but when I looked at it later, I saw he had carved "STAR WARS RULES" on the side.

So, yes, it's fun. But I'm also rapidly running through my Cost-co sized bottle of ibuprophen for my back and a big tube of arnica gel for my sore wrists.

With all the teaching, I also am having a hard time getting my own work done recently. To combat that, I decided today to glaze the bulk of the bisqued pieces that have been hanging out in my cubicle. I spent about four hours glazing, and in that time glazed thirty-seven pieces. Another woman was glazing at the same time, and the sheer number of pieces I glazed amazed her. (Unfortunately, leaning over glaze buckets did not help my back.)

...with the puppies?

What puppies? Kelly and Kevin's puppies Lester and Olive. I went with them--puppies and people--to puppy training class on Saturday morning. It was very confusing to the instructor, I think, that two puppies showed up with four adults (Dave came along too). It was fun. Lester and Olive are very smart and pick up on training very quickly. Lester is a happy-go-lucky pup and Olive is very smart and independent-minded.

...with everything else?

Last week my aunt Char and I went for pedicures. Now my toenails are gold. (My aunt chose a more sedate dark maroon color.) While we were sitting there, my aunt struck up a conversation with a woman who, turns out, grew up in the same neighborhood as both of us. (The woman was a few years older than my aunt, so they didn't really know each other. Still, small world, you know?) After getting our toes done we stopped by a paleteria to pick up some Mexican ice cream bars. I liked my crema con fresa, but my aunt was less thrilled with her mango bar.

We also, Dave and I, met Judi and Paul for breakfast at a place new to all of us, Cafe Green. The place looks like a rinky-dink coffee house from the outside, but inside it turned out to be all white tablecloths and upscale diner food. We'll be back for Dutch babies for sure.

I've been spending a lot of time at the dentist recently, too, because the crown on my implant was causing me some problems. The crown fit was so slightly off so that it took a year and a half before it started causing problems. The crown had to be pried off and the tissue underneath allowed to heal, then the crown had to be reshaped and re-cemented onto the implant. Ugh. Three dentist visits later, it's back in. I love my dentist but I hate going to the dentist, if you know what I mean. It's incredibly stressful. I end up feeling like I got hit by a bus at the end of a dentist visit, even a relatively benign one.

In Netflix news, I'm suddenly on a Nanny 911 kick. I love watching nanny shows. I love watching clueless middle-class white people who have completely and utterly lost control of their entitled little brats. You wonder where serial killers and investment bankers come from? They come from families like that. It's like rubbernecking at the scene of a car accident. Fun for everyone.

Ha-ha-ha Happy Birthday!

2011-08-31T20:15:00.001-07:00

A little blurry, a little younger!

Days 27, 28, 29

2011-08-29T14:30:00.001-07:00

Day 27 → What’s the best thing going for you right now?

That's a good question.

Day 28 → What if you were pregnant or got someone pregnant, what would you do?

I think I've documented my feelings about pregnancy. I'm against it.

Day 29 → Something you hope to change about yourself. And why.

This feels like a repeat of day one's question, "What's one thing you hate about yourself?" I hate that I'm so lazy. I remember reading years ago that the most difficult of the seven deadly sins (lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, envy, pride, wrath) to overcome is sloth. I'm pretty tempted to believe that. Why would I want to change this? I guess the easy answer is that I feel like I devote too much time to it.

Etc.

I'm just finishing watching a documentary called My Flesh and Blood, about a woman in California who has adopted 13 children with special needs, everything from mental challenges to terminal illnesses. It's pretty amazing.

A Little Bit More Truth for You

2011-08-27T20:53:00.002-07:00

I'm sort of lost in this 30 days of truth exercise. I know I'm a few days behind, up to day 25 when I think I should be on day 27, but I feel like I may have skipped a day and lied too much already. I'm not out and out lying, I'm just obscuring the truth too much. It's an old habit, one that goes back to my childhood and having an abusive, alcoholic parent. That was the lie that I had to learn to tell; I couldn't tell the truth about that situation at all. Not, I've since realized, that anyone would have done anything to rectify the situation--there are no heroes in that story--but it was a shameful thing to me as a child.

So Day 25 is → The reason you believe you’re still alive today.

I'd probably have to give credit to David for the past couple of decades and to my mother for the couple of decades before that. There is no thing that has kept me tethered to this life, except the feeling that my exit might disappoint only those two people.

Day 26 → Have you ever thought about giving up on life? If so, when and why?

It's funny, but the suicide question is one that every therapist is trained to ask, so I've heard it a lot. Years ago, I used to lie and say no, but then a therapist told me that everyone at some point or another has had thoughts of suicide. So I changed my answer to: It's a plan, but it's not today's plan.

It's not today's plan, but about a year and a half ago, I really had to think long and hard about why it wasn't that day's plan. I thought that for many, many days in a row. I was going through one of the worst bouts of depression that I've ever had, and I really was afraid that I was going to harm myself. It seemed so inevitable that I had a hard time coming up with reasons to make it through a given day. Looking back, I can't remember even what those reasons were.

Day 27 → What’s the best thing going for you right now?

I guess a pat answer would be my health, which is fair to middling. The Brain has other ideas about that, but I'm fine with giving that answer.

Etc.

Oh, dude. I am reading the funniest book right now: Elinore Pruitt Stewart's Letters of a Woman Homesteader. It was free Kindle download from, I think, Amazon; I downloaded it probably more than a year ago, but never bothered to open it up until a few days ago. I wish now I had read it ten years ago so that I might have read it ten times by now.

What else? I started teaching this past week and I think I'm going to have to teach this 3 month run and then give it up (along with my ancillary job loading kilns and working as a studio monitor). It's not because I don't enjoy teaching, but because I'm spending too much time at the studio doing everything but my own work. The trade off is not worth it to me.

I'm also ready to go back to school perhaps. After I passed up the position in the botany lab, I realized that I do want to be in school. I do want to be studying something, even if it's just to keep The Brain limber. Maybe I'll take a welding class.

A Half-Hearted Attempt at Day 24

2011-08-25T19:22:00.001-07:00

Day 24 → Make a playlist to someone, and explain why you chose all the songs.

This is for you, just in case you want to get to know me better. I keep a file in iTunes that I call "Love Songs." They're not love songs literally, they're just songs that I love. These are the last ten songs from that list:

1. Get Ur Freak On (Missy Elliot)--I just love Missy Elliott.

People sing around
Now people gather round
now people jump around
Go, get your freak on

2. City with No Children (Arcade Fire)--I tend to pick one Arcade Fire at a time and listen to it obsessively until it loses it's power. This one has the wonderful lines: I feel like I've been living in/ A city with no children in it

3. She Moves On (Paul Simon)--

She says, "Maybe these emotions are
As near to love as love will ever be."
So I agree

Then the moon breaks
She takes the corner
that's all she takes
She moves on

4. Born Never Asked (Laurie Anderson)--
You were born
and so you're free
So happy birthday

Ah, making playlists is tiring. The Brain is not in a list making mood today. It's been a strange week, I think. My stepfather, for example, decided fall off a ladder and break eight ribs and crack one of his vertebrae. That happened a couple of days ago. My aunt hurt her back late last week making or moving adobe. And this evening I feel like the hunchback of Notre Dame after co-teaching a pottery class this afternoon. (I spent a lot of time hunching over students' wheels and my back is now killing me.)

Strange, no? All these recent back injuries.

Teaching and Can-Do-Ness

Teaching the class was very interesting. I'm teaching with a woman who throws much, much differently than me and since she does the demos, I bite my tongue while she shows students how to do things that I would never do. Still, we get along really well and I enjoy working with her. Anyway of the five students today, four had never touched clay, and one--the one who had two lessons under her belt from ten years ago--sat down and announced before we started that she definitely couldn't do it. That attitude makes me almost as crazy as when people say that they're not creative. If you walk in with a defeated attitude, then the clay knows it and will not be so inclined to work with you.

It's funny, but I had a fairly fast rise in my throwing skills over the past year simply because I would find someone on youtube who had filmed themselves making something I wanted to make. I would watch them, thinking: I can do that. Then I would go into the studio and sit down at a wheel and do it. There was never any doubt in my mind that I wasn't as good as those other potters, or that I couldn't do what they could do. I just thought, oh, that's how you do it. Then I went and did it and it worked every time.

So when someone walks into the studio and says they can't do it, I'm like, well let me just take this cleaver and hack off one of your hands. Then you'll have a real reason for not being able to do this. (Although now that I say that, one of the most talented potters I've seen on youtube is, in fact, one-handed, after having removed his hand with some fireworks as a young boy. So even one-handed-ness is not an excuse for not being able to do it.)

Day 23

2011-08-24T08:37:00.001-07:00

Day 23 → Something you wish you had done in your life.

Have you seen those refrigerator magnets that are drawings of women in the 40s with snarky sayings on them? My favorite is a fabulous looking 40-something woman dressed an evening gown, holding a martini, saying something like, "Ooops, I forgot to have children."

Me? I feel the same way.

So I guess what I'm really writing about are the expectations of others that I've managed to slip out from under.

Having children is one of those expectations. I can't tell you how many sympathetic faces I've scoffed at when it comes to the subject of babymaking and my own lack of same. I don't want children. I have never wanted children. I don't consider this to be a character flaw.

And along with that comes the whole marriage, house in the suburbs, SUV with a "baby on board" sign stuck in the back window fantasy that women are supposed to adhere to, right? Well, I guess I forgot to do that, too.

Start a career in my 20's? Forgot. Keep up with pop culture? Forgot. Learn how to smile nice and pretend to care? Forgot.

For the most part, I forgot. I forgot. I forgot.

Other common virtues that I forgot to learn? I forgot to learn how to smile and be nice to people who treat me like shit. I forgot to learn how to treat ignorance with respect. I forgot to learn how to suffer fools gladly. I forgot to learn how to keep my mouth shut when something is wrong and I know it. I forgot. I forgot. I forgot.

Now, don't get me wrong: I've had ample opportunity to practice. I put up with things to various degrees. I've suffered the consequences of having a big mouth and a lack of respect for convention. I think all of that has made me a better person than I would have been if I hadn't forgotten.

Day 22

2011-08-23T10:24:00.000-07:00

Day 22 → Something you wish you hadn’t done.

I'm one of the types of people who lives constantly with regret.

I was talking to a friend once who said something like, "I did it and at least I know that I tried," and I was, like: You made a damn fool of yourself.

I'm very anti-making-a-damn-fool-of-myself.

A young man who worked in a coffee shop that I frequented while I was at university had a three-item list of his most embarrassing experiences. Number one was...I think it was the time he set himself on fire. Number two was when he accidentally fondled a man who was wearing a shirt similar to one his girlfriend was also wearing. I don't remember what number three was. Maybe it was the time a young woman he was dating announced at Easter dinner with her family that she had no intention of ever sleeping with him.

Me? I tend to put my foot in my mouth all the time.

Last week a woman at the studio showed me a vase she had made and I said something like, "Oh, that's nice. Doesn't look like your work at all." I meant: That doesn't look like your work AND ALSO it's nice. But she took it as: Your usual work looks like crap, but this is kinda nice. (Actually, she's very good humored, so she understood what I meant; she just wanted to tease me.)

Years and years ago, I had a chemistry teacher who used to talk up her husband all the time, saying how wonderful he was and how kind he was and how handsome he was. One time she brought a picture in of him and I looked at it and without thinking said, "I thought you said he was handsome." She hit me in the arm and grabbed the picture away. God, I felt like a dunce--but it's true, he wasn't handsome at all. Then later when he left her (I think for another woman), I felt somewhat vindicated. Turns out he was an ugly person after all.

Days 19, 20, 21

2011-08-22T22:26:00.002-07:00

Day 19 → What do you think of religion? Or what do you think of politics?

Sigh.

I knew I’d hit this one eventually.

What do I think of religion? I think it is a double-edged sword. I think it gives some people a lot of comfort. I think it gives some people the excuse they need to act like complete assholes.

I am not religious. Because I rankle against authority, especially institutionalized authority, I could never be part of a church.

What do I think of politics?

I despise politics; I pay the price for despising politics. I despise politicians. The intelligent ones are few and far between.

Day 20 → Your views on drugs and alcohol.

I don’t drink anymore. I don’t use drugs anymore.

I am suspicious of adults who don’t drink or who have never used drugs.

I think drugs and alcohol are necessary evils.

Day 21 → (scenario) Your best friend is in a car accident and you two got into a fight an hour before. What do you do?

I don’t even know what this question is truly asking. What does that mean, what do I do? I go to the hospital and do what I can to help my friend.

Although now that I think about it, that would depend on what the argument was about.

Days 17 & 18: The Truth Project (30 Days of Truth Telling)

2011-08-20T11:48:00.002-07:00

This truth thing could get tedious. Lying is so much more...creative.

Day 17 → A book you’ve read that changed your views on something.

I'm a big reader--or was, before the internet brought its addictive self into my life. I've absorbed a lot of literature, so much so that I don't know if I can pick one book that changed my views on something.

Here are a couple of books, though, that did bat my life into an interesting direction:

I guess we could start with the basic biology text that accompanied biology 121 so many years ago. Even though I nearly failed biology in high school, I now have a degree in biology. Of course it wasn't just the book, but it also was the book, if you know what I mean.

I also could mention an earlier book, Little House in the Big Woods, by Laura Ingalls Wilder. I clung tenaciously to that book when I was a little girl because as far as I knew growing up, there were no other interesting, amazing books with little girl protagonists. I carefully engraved every passage in all of Wilder's books on my heart because I wasn't sure any other little girls protagonists were going to come my way again. And, to be honest, few others ever did. I'm not talking picture books, for babies, but honest to goodness real books. Oh, I read Little Women (when I was about nine)--but those were young women practically. I read The Secret Garden and The Little Princess, but those little nineteenth century English girls were so remote from the little brown American girl I was. I loved their stories, true, but there was no trace in them of the wild child that Laura Ingalls was. I needed desperately as a young girl to read about Laura's struggle against the rebelliousness in herself.

Books are still relatively important to me, but since I don't need them now to save my life their intense charm and transformative powers have lessened, of course.

Day 18 → Your views on gay marriage.

My views on gay marriage are very simple: Anyone who wants to be married should be legally allowed to be married. And anyone who says otherwise is a bigot.

The Sky, the Rain and the Raven

2011-08-18T23:13:00.007-07:00

Let's say there's this thing called the internet where people feel free to write things about themselves. And one of those people wrote an exercise, say, where one commits to telling the truth for 30 days. And let's say that fourteen days ago I turned 40 and I should've started with the truth on that day but I hadn't even heard about this exercise 'til now, fourteen days later. Or maybe let's say that I'm a massive procrastinator and now feel the need to play catch up.

Day 01 → Something you hate about yourself.

I hate that I am so lazy. I hate that I won't dig past that laziness to find out what's behind it, why I do it. (That's already a lie.) The truth is that the laziness covers up a fear of failing and looking foolish. If I never try (because I'm lazy) then I never fail. That is related to deeper issues both within and without myself. For example, sometimes I am so infuriated at the expectations placed on me that I choose to fail on purpose by going the lazy route. I express a kind of failure through laziness (or other means) because I want to force the other person, someone who has put their expectations on me, to deal with disappointment.

Day 02 → Something you love about yourself.

I am very creative. To me, creativity is a responsibility. All the adults I grew up with were creative, so I see it as the responsibility of adulthood--one of the few that I adhere to. I feel sorry for people who say they aren't creative. I feel sorry for them the way I feel sorry for people who have been horribly, accidentally disfigured.

Day 03 → Something you have to forgive yourself for.

The first thing that popped into my head: I have to forgive myself for being sentient.

Day 04 → Something you have to forgive someone for.

I don't look at forgiveness as something that necessarily benefits the person you forgive. To me, forgiveness is the one thing I can be entirely selfish about; it doesn't matter whether or not the other person accepts or even knows about it.

Day 05 → Something you hope to do in your life.

I want to travel more. I want to travel a lot more simply because it scares me, travel.

Day 06 → Something you hope you never have to do.

I can't imagine ever having a child. The thought of having to care for a child day in and day out for decades fills me with disgust. The thought of being pregnant and giving birth to a child makes me physically ill.

I also hope that I never have to bury another sibling.

Day 07 → Someone who has made your life worth living for.

A woman with a very simple name, one of the simplest, who was fiercely kind to me not once but twice. I haven't seen or spoken to her in over a decade, but it was enough.

Day 08 → Someone who made your life hell, or treated you like shit.

I avoid naming people who do--or attempt to do this--in my blog, simply because I would never want them to find it and think that they had succeeded in making me feel anything at all. When people treat me like shit or try to make my life hell, I do as much as I can to make them miserable, to make them suffer, then I do as much as I can to forget them.

[Update: I went away for a couple of hours and thought of someone who I could call out for this for the very reason that at the time, I was too young to immediately grasp what this much older person was trying to do.

When I was eight and in the third grade, I played violin. The grody old violin teacher who always smelled like rosin used to come once a week to my elementary school to give lessons to me and two of the other girls in my class. The teacher had a reward system by which we could earn points for practice time and playing scales and so on. After a certain number of points, we could choose a prize from a box of little plastic trinkets. You know how kids are, plastic junk is the stuff of childhood motivation. We used to compete for points, the other two little girls and I, and we each kept overly meticulous records of the others' earned points.

One day, the teacher came while our class was having a party. There was pizza and punch and a puppet show and I didn't want to leave the party to go to a violin lesson and I said so. One of the two other little girls and I were made to go to the lesson anyway. (The second girl was part of the puppet show and couldn't be pulled out of class.) At the end of the lesson, the violin teacher pulled out the box of trinkets and let the other little girl choose a prize. Then she closed the box and sent us both back to class. On the way back to class the other little girl said to me, I wonder why she didn't give you anything.

We both knew that neither of us had enough points for a prize. The teacher had simply wanted to punish me for objecting to having to go to a lesson during our class party. She wanted me to feel like shit about it in fact. It seems like a small thing, but that small thing happened thirty-two years ago (that teacher is dead by now, surely), and here I am, simultaneously recalling and attempting to coherently condensing that ugly memory.

At the time, it was puzzling why the teacher would do that, but in fact, looking back I can see that this kind of shit happened to me a lot when I was a kid. I was an ugly, fat, four-eyed, smart, outspoken kid and that was enough to make some people hate me, even adults. It's still enough, though now that I'm no longer eight years old, I can defend myself.

On a tangential note, there is this: A few weeks ago, I came across a blog called "The Pervocracy" which is written by an awesome twenty-something woman. She wrote a blog post called "Growing Up Ugly" and it's one of the most amazing things I've read in a long time. A lot of it's about her sex life (it is a feminist/BDSM/sex blog ultimately), so if you don't want to read about that, skip down to the section called "When people give you shit, it's not because you deserve it, it's because they're shit-givers."

I wish I had turned out half so well as she has.]

Day 09 → Someone you didn’t want to let go, but just drifted.

There was a young man in Japan whose name is engraved on my heart. There was no drifting, but a conscious decision to let go.

Day 10 → Someone you need to let go, or wish you didn’t know.

There aren't many people among the living who fall into this category. I don't hang on to people like this really. Because I am so judgmental and unforgiving, I let go of people very, very easily. Almost too easily, probably.

Day 11 → Something people seem to compliment you the most on.

Probably my sense of humor, biting and bitter though it is.

Day 12 → Something you never get compliments on.

My house-keeping skills--though that is simply because I have none. I'm being sarcastic, a little.

Day 13 → A band or artist that has gotten you through some tough ass days.

Oh, jeez, do I really have to admit to a continuing love of Morissey's music?

Day 14 → A hero that has let you down.

I don't know that I've had a hero in a long time. I'm far too devoted to cynicism for that. But I also believe that the small print in the hero agreement we all sign tells us that one of the roles of heroes is to eventually disappoint.

Day 15 → Something or someone you couldn’t live without, because you’ve tried living without it.

There is no thing that I couldn't live without.

Day 16 → Someone or something you definitely could live without.

I'd like to quit smoking--eventually.

And that catches me up with the truth to date. There will be more truth in the coming days, but first have a look at this.

This is a photo of the sky, rain, and a raven.

I took it the day David and I went to Acoma.

Do you see all three?

Here's my question: In that picture, is truth the sky or the rain or the raven?

Lester & Olive

2011-08-17T00:27:00.000-07:00

I got to puppy-sit these two last weekend. Here they are trying to share a chew ring. They're very cute together, don't you think?

Lurid!

2011-08-15T16:07:00.002-07:00

I don't know what reminded me of this today, but here it is:

A couple of years ago, Kelly's niece came out to visit with her husband and new baby and when we had dinner with them, Kelly's niece told us this thing Kelly used (?) to do, which was, she'd cut people out of photos.

Huh?

Apparently, when she'd take a photo of you, like say, in a group or something, and it wasn't the most flattering photo, she'd give you the photo only after carefully cutting you out of it. You know, to save your feelings about being an unphotogenic slob.

How hilarious is that?

About a week after hearing this story, I was reading Slate's advice column "Dear Prudence," and Prudence told the story of her mother who would use stamps to cover her own face in photos. When one would go looking for past vacation photos one would find mom's head carefully covered by, say, a Queen Elizabeth stamp.

I've been meaning to do this for years:

(Kelly and I at the balloon fiesta a few years back.)

See, I myself favor a black bar rather than a complete black-out or a stamp. I just happen to like the air of luridness a black bar adds. I also took the liberty of giving Kelly a vato-style mustache. I think it suits her! (Then again I think vato-style mustaches suit everyone, really.)

See?! How awesome do I look with a black bar and a vato 'stache? Pretty damned awesome.

Here's another picture, taken about six years ago:

No one is safe!!

Road Eats. What We've Eaten While Traveling

2011-08-11T19:23:00.002-07:00

Fry bread!

I feel sorry for anyone who has never stuffed their gullet with fry bread. Fry bread is magical. Magical! We had this fry bread at the Sky City Cultural Center Yaaka cafe as a snack before touring the pueblo. After, we had lunch (Pueblo tacos) in the same cafe, and the young woman working the counter came out to our table to chat. She looked too young to be talking about her two-year-old baby, but there it is. She told us the baby's father had bought the baby a pony which the baby promptly--and with a two-year-old's logic--named Woogie. No one could persuade the baby to explain the name apparently.

This doesn't look like much, but it was some really good pie from Pie-O-Neer in Pie Town.

Pie Town is surreal. The whole place is really just this one pie shop. (It used to be two, but one I guess drove the other one out of business.) The first time we went to Pie Town for Pie was over a decade ago when Dave took me, for my birthday, to Walter De Maria's Lightning Fields near Quemado. Either on the way there or on the way back, we stopped in Pie Town, which is as close as you can get to being in the middle of nowhere. It was afternoon and we walked into this near-empty cafe that had about fifteen different kinds of pie on the menu--some of them only minutes out of the oven. Two old ladies were running the place, and I just imagined them sitting around dreaming up kinds of pies and running back to the kitchen to bake them.

The pie from Pie-O-Neer reminded me of this apple dumpling from the Dutch Eating Place in Philadelphia. This is a breakfast thing apparently, and it is very, very good in that painful tooth-dissolvingly sweet way. We had one every morning we were in Philadelphia. I looked up the recipe when we got home, thinking I would try my hand at them. Unfortunately they are filled with everything bad for you, including sugar (of course), white flour, and margarine.

This was my lunch in NYC at the same Chelsea diner where we happened to be seated near a very bad Elvis impersonator (he looked like some redneck's elderly delinquent uncle with dyed hair and too large sideburns) with his posse of elderly women in double-knit pantsuits.

The food was good though.

Sin Nombre No Mas!

2011-08-09T13:14:00.001-07:00

Look at this face!

This little sweetie is one of two blue heeler puppies that Kelly and Kevin adopted a few days ago. Her name is Olive and her brother will go by Lester. (Lester was sleeping under the chair when I took this photo.)

Very Large Array and Pie Town

2011-08-08T21:31:00.004-07:00

On Saturday, Dave and I went to the NRAO VLA (National Radio Astronomy Observatory Very Large Array) and to Pie Town.

The VLA is one of my favorite places ever. The radio antennas are beautiful. The land around them is beautiful. The sky around them is beautiful.

The antennas are 25 meters across and weigh 230 tons each.

Twenty seven antennas stretch out over the Plains of St. Agustin, covering about 23 miles. They work together, acting as a single antenna.

I love how they seem to listen to the sky. Every once in a while one will slowly and ponderously tilt its dish to a slightly different angle as though to focus more carefully on something being said, something that you can't quite hear.

It's quiet out around the antennas which seems about right for listening in on radio waves from distant stars and planets.

After you wander around and take photos at the VLA, you can drive another hour or so to Pie Town and have pie at the Pio-O-Neer.

Stop!

We had lunch first--a shared bowl of veggie soup, a quesadilla, and a grilled cheese. Then we had apple crumb-topped pie with ice cream.

We were lucky. We made it just in time to snag two of the last three pieces of pie.

Acoma/Sky City

2011-08-06T22:01:00.005-07:00

Yesterday Dave and I drove out to Acoma/ Sky City to tour the pueblo and have lunch.

Look at the view. Wow, no? This is one of my favorite places in New Mexico.

It's an amazing place. There's no electricity or running water even, and the pueblo is very quiet.

It was hot and sunny the day we visited. As interesting as it is to see the pueblo, it was also interesting to The Brain to watch the non-local whitey tourists broiling in the relentless New Mexico sun. There were a lot of beet red people climbing onto the tour bus at the end of the two hour tour, let me tell you.

That woman in the hat and short sleeves, for example, was only about one-third of the way broiled in this photo. By the time we got to the last stop on our tour, I looked over at her and saw that she had slowly turned the color of a well-done lobster.

The one person to escape that fate was our guide.

He took off his hat so I could take that picture of him. Interesting fellow.

Later in the tour, while we were visiting the mission, someone asked him a question that I didn't hear. I could imagine what the question was though, from how he very delicately wended his way through an explanation of why he himself didn't follow certain aspects of native religion, because some require periods of relatively extreme celibacy.

The view! Still!

We bought some souvenirs, too, as we always do.

That little bit of ceramic was made by one of the potter's nine-year-old son. He told her it was an angel. We paid $3 for it. We also bought a tiny piece from the potter herself:

I bought a pair of earrings from another potter Sharlym Chino.

And I bought two pairs of beaded earrings from a young woman with some kind of developmental disability.

Similarly, this small keychain and bit of mica were purchased from a young man with, I believe, Down's syndrome.

Preying

Remember a couple of days ago when I told the story about catching a praying mantis in my underwear? What he was doing in my underwear I had no idea, but I put him outside into the rosemary near the front door and this happened:

Yes, the praying mantis at the top is eating the one at the bottom, my little underwear visitor. The little cannibal ate the whole thing, too, even though the two of them were exactly the same size. Which, can you imagine eating a whole human being your own size? That would take some effort I think.

Munch, munch.

You Were Born, And So You're Free.

2011-08-05T22:50:00.005-07:00

Day before yesterday was my birthday!

I would've turned 40 years ago if I would have known it was going to be that good.

Dave gave me the best presents ever. First, he took the day off work so we could hang out together. Then he gave me about a dozen awesome books. Seriously, my tattoo, calavera, and Day of the Dead art references quadrupled. One of them is a collection of Jose Pasada’s work, which my calavera stuff is largely inspired by. Another of my favorites is this crazy volume of Russian prison tattoos. Dave also got me a new futon (!) and sheets. Soooo comfortable. Then there was a new case for my ‘droid.

We had planned on a roadtrip, but I was feeling strangely apprehensive about hitting the road so we postponed our trip and went shopping instead. Our first stop though was breakfast at Annapurna, where I had an ABLT (a BLT with avocado) and Dave had a breakfast burrito. We stopped at Starbucks for coffee after that then headed to New Mexico Clay to spend part of a gift certificate from my mother and stepfather.

I bought brushes (including this awesome Japanese brush which I’m convinced will make me into a real artist), terra sigillata (which, ha, I just realized I always pronounce "sig-lee-atta" when it's actually "sig-ill-atta"), squeeze bottles for glazing, a current copy of Clay Times, stilts for firing glazed ware, a backup set of carving tools (I have about six sets of the exact same carving tools, but they’re like pens and pencils to me, I can’t have too many of them), a small drill for making holes in leather hard clay, and this strange tool that I’ve never seen before that purports to be useful for rounding the top edge of handbuilt (?) things, I also have some left over on the gift certificate so that I can go back and buy clay later.

Thanks, Mom and Marshall!

After New Mexico Clay, we went to Hancock Fabric store where we picked out some fabric and thread so I can make some hair things. Hair “things”? Yes. See, I’ve recently been wearing my hair in a kind of old school style; I call them milkmaid braids, but others have called them Frida Kahlo braids or even Princess Leia braids (the way she wore them on Hoth until they got to Endor). I started out trying to hold them up with hairpins and bobby pins (which, did you know, the British call “curvy grips”), but the texture of my hair is such that pins really don’t hold. So I derived a way of braiding fabric into my hair and then tying up the fabric. Since I had no fabric in the house though, I improvised by cutting up old bedsheets and cutting the legs off a pair of black tights.

(An early attempt using hairpins. And while I've got my rosy cheeked self in here, can I just say: I had always thought I'd have more gray hair--a lot more actually--by the time I was forty.)

This is turning into a long story, isn’t it?

Anyway, Dave picked out the pink fabric (I asked him to pick out something from the pink section) and I picked out the green nested pentagons.

After that, we went up to a cooking goods shop and bought a Cuisinart 12-inch skillet (which it turns out is too big for our stovetop and sadly doesn’t have a lid so it will have to be exchanged) and a microplane grater and I wire cheese slicer (for use on clay, not on cheese).

Then of course we had to swing by Sephora to buy some makeup. Dave helped me pick out a gorgeous palette of matte shadows from Too Faced and a lipstain in a color called Absolutely Red, which I love. As I was checking out, I got a birthday gift (Sephora’s good that way) of Philosophy’s shower gel in a scent called Vanilla Birthday Cake.

I had, by then, had enough of shopping so we went to lunch at Roachlish (Relish) and had sannies.

I wasn’t ready to stop yet, so we dropped off our new things at home and went to see a show about S.E.T.I. and something called "Impact Earth" (about asteroids and comets) at the planetarium at the Natural History Museum. It wasn’t a very good show, sadly, and I napped through the end of the S.E.T.I presentation and through most of the next presentation. Oh well. But then there was this:

Yes you are correct, that is a pair of astronaut “sleeping shorts” with horizontal strips of velcro on them. We can put a person into orbit around the planet, but it’s only velcro short shorts that keep that person from floating off into space while snoozing. That is a low tech solution right there. Check those out! What do you stick yourself to while you're wearing them is what I want to know. (Probably another astronaut.)

And this is a display of astronaut food, complete with a package of Lorna Doones there in the seven o'clock position.

Lorna Doooones in spaaaaace!

We also bought more books, these from the museum gift shop, for use at the studio.

The day still wasn’t over yet. We went for Indian food for dinner and stuffed ourselves with aloo gobi, dal tarka, and tandoori murg.

That little guy was hanging out in the lobby of the restaurant.

After dinner we stopped by the grocery store, then the studio to check out some of my new work just out of the kiln.

Those pieces are still super hot, so I put them down on the (trashed) glazing table to photograph.

Finally wee came home and had a couple of mini cupcakes for dessert. Dave bought a dozen of those instead of a big birthday cake for me. That one in the middle, the one with the white icing flower on top is a Boston cream cupcake and they are very, very good. Very good.

And that was my day except for this:

A bag filled with many, many awesome things from Kelly and Kevin, including this amazing print (!) and a hilarious poem about turning forty and a hair ornament that actually holds my hair (!!). (This is seriously awesome because the longer and heavier my hair gets, the harder it is to find useful hair ornaments. Most of them can't hold up to my medusa mane.)

Whoa. Just look at that. Just look at it.

Saba also thought it was her birthday when she spied the garland Kelly used to wrap my gift. Seriously, Saba was enthralled by it, so much so that my brain started to calculate just how much her vet would charge us to remove all six feet of it from little Saba’s colon. And now the garland lives on top of our tallest bookcase, away from the paws and jaws of little kitties.

Kitty treat!

Thanks, Kelly and Kevin!

And there’s more yet to come. My brother and I are going meat shopping on Monday for my birthday. My brother has a terrific, never-fail strategy when it comes to gifts: He asks you what you want and then buys you exactly that. This year, when he asked me what I wanted, I told him I wanted some steaks from Kellers Farm Stores, so that’s what I’m getting.

(We were supposed to go this past Tuesday, but there was an unexpected visit to the dentist—DUN DUN DUUUUUNNNN!—more about that later.)

Hm. So yes, it was a very good birthday!

This is the perfect birthday song, by Laurie Anderson:

You were born and so you're free.
So happy birthday.

Mantid

2011-08-03T21:32:00.001-07:00

I found a praying mantis in my underwear today.

That isn't a euphemism for anything.

I really did, while putting on my underwear, find a praying mantis. I actually only found it because it bit me on the back of the thigh. When I felt the bite, I looked down and there was a praying mantis looking up at me. It was kind of freaky. It's hard to take off a pair of underwear that's got a praying mantis in it.

Anyway, I took it outside and put it in the rosemary plant by the front door where it was promptly eaten by another praying mantis. That part wasn't planned either.

I don't know what any of that means exactly. Maybe it was just a weird insect interaction.

(That isn't a photo of the praying mantis I found by the way. Dave took that photo three years ago; I just had it in my flickr account.)

Is That How It Works?

2011-08-01T15:51:00.003-07:00

1. Star Trek: The Next Generation is still gnawing away at my brain cells. I'm 22 episodes into the fifth season.

I also happened to read, in the New York Times, a short interview with Oliver Sacks. He says he once visited the set of ST:TNG and met Brent Spiner, the actor who plays the android Data on the show. He told Spiner that Data was an inspirational character for many autistic people. "I don’t think he knew what to make of that," Sacks said.

I also happened to read Jaycee Lee Dugard's recent book, A Stolen Life, about being kidnapped at age 11 and held for eighteen years. In it, she talks about how she had a television set and often watched Star Trek: The Next Generation. Data was her favorite character.

Years ago when I had only a few episodes of ST:TNG under my belt, Data was my favorite character. I found him oddly mesmerizing. Now I find him creepy. His clinical detachment freaks me out a bit.

2. We had an okonomiyaki party at the studio a few nights ago. Kahori, a young woman from Japan, and her husband Aki made okonomiyaki. I made meatballs and brought the fixings for meatball subs, which Aki appreciated very much. (He ate two and took enough fixings for four more home with him.) The okonomiyaki was much appreciated, even by the most apprehensive attendee.

Talking to Kahori makes me miss Japan very much. We often talk about food and cooking, and she is surprised that I can eat a lot of Japanese foods that non-Japanese typically don't like, natto, for example, and yama-imo (sometimes called slimy potato because of its snot-like texture when it's grated).

While googling around for a link to explain okonomiyaki, I came across a page explaining the train system in Tokyo. Ah! I miss Tokyo so much. I miss the trains especially. Strange, no? It's not just the public transportation aspect of it, but even looking at pictures of the ticket machines makes me feel lonely for Japan.

3. I am still handbuilding at the studio. The pace of it has been difficult to settle into. I was a bit afraid that that would happen. Handbuilding is much, much slower than throwing, and it seems after a year of throwing to be glacially slow. It's fine. I'll readjust.

I'm working on calaveras mostly.

This is new work:

4. In three days, I'll be forty years old. I think I should feel it to be some great milestone, but I don't have that feeling at all. Thirty was big, but forty feels...expected maybe? I guess it follows in the progression of years.

Although I was having dinner with LuAnn and Chris and Dave. I asked them the age of their various longest-lived family members and it turns out that, if you go by familial longevity, I was the only one who was middle aged. LuAnn and I are the same age, but her mother is eighty and climbing, so LuAnn may now just now middle aged. Chris's mother just turned 90 so even though Chris is in her forties, she still hasn't even reached middle aged! Dave's grandfather lived to be 99 (died just a few weeks before his 100th birthday), so at 41 Dave is still almost a decade away from being middle-aged.

I don't know of anyone in my family who lived to be eighty, so I'm actually past middle age.

Friday-yay-yay!

2011-07-22T16:37:00.000-07:00

Dave and I are going to dinner tonight with Paul and Judi, and this is my "trying hard to not look like I'm trying too hard" look.

Yes, I took that photo of myself using my cell phone and a mirror held behind the cell phone so I could see the screen. I think the effort of that made my smile all crooked. And, try as I might, I could not manage to get my hair in the shot. I'm wearing it in milkmaid braids (a style which I attempt and fail at quite often). There are, no joke, about twenty bobby- and hairpins in my 'do.

The light is quite good in that photo, I think.

I took this photo at the student-run salon where my aunt Char and I went to get cheapie mani/pedis on Wednesday. (Hey $5 for a mani and $7 for a pedi!)

The students were soooo young, most of them, and as I chatted with them while they worked on me, I felt that weird feeling of being too old and hoping like I'm not coming off like I'm trying to be hip. The "mutton acting like lamb" feeling. I hate that.

I got my finger- and toenails painted with a silver polish, but the young woman doing my manicure put the polish on too thick and it both bubbled up and wouldn't dry. It was still tacky about six hours later, so I took it off. I'm really more about bare fingernails anyway.

Ha-Ha-Happy Birthday!

2011-07-20T08:18:00.001-07:00

Gone, Baby, Gone

2011-07-19T21:52:00.000-07:00

I gave away my motorcycle.

There we were, in happier days.

Girly Things

2011-07-18T15:15:00.001-07:00

I'm not a girly girl.

Evidence in support of this statement:

1. I don't own a skirt. Not a single one.

2. I haven't worn high heeled shoes in over three years.

Evidence to the contrary:

1. My makeup collection. I have a large train case filled with makeup, all kinds.

2. I have approximately ten pairs of high heeled shoes.

3. This pictures from a recent trip to Sally's Beauty Supply:

What are any of those things?

That's a strange device, no? It's a rat! Rats (or sometimes ratts) used to be made from hair harvested from hairbrushes and rolled into hairnets. It looks more like something you'd use to scrub pots and pans though it's actually used to add volume to hair. (Obama doesn't seem to like it, but really he just doesn't like being used as a backdrop for rat photos.)

These are some old school hairpins, about three inches long. Recently I've been paying attention to where the things I buy come from. No surprise: Most things I buy are made in China. These however are made in the USA by Sta-Rite.

I wonder what life in the Sta-Rite hairpin factory is like.

These, on the other hand, were made in Japan:

You can tell that they were made in Japan because of how they're packaged. They're arranged in neat rows and come in a little tin with a sliding lid.

And I Said, Okay. Who Is This Really?

2011-07-14T00:02:00.002-07:00

For a long time, I was enthralled with Laurie Anderson's performances and music. I still am to some extent. This song is called "O Superman (for Massenet)." The video was made in 1981 to be shown at MOMA.

O Superman. O judge. O Mom and Dad. Mom and Dad.
O Superman. O judge. O Mom and Dad. Mom and Dad.

Hi. I'm not home right now. But if you want to leave a
message, just start talking at the sound of the tone.
Hello? This is your Mother. Are you there? Are you
coming home?
Hello? Is anybody home? Well, you don't know me,
but I know you.
And I've got a message to give to you.
Here come the planes.
So you better get ready. Ready to go. You can come
as you are, but pay as you go. Pay as you go.

And I said: Okay. Who is this really?
And the voice said:
This is the hand, the hand that takes. This is the
hand, the hand that takes.
This is the hand, the hand that takes.
Here come the planes.
They're American planes. Made in America.
Smoking or non-smoking?
And the voice said: Neither snow nor rain nor gloom
of night shall stay these couriers from the swift
completion of their appointed rounds.

And when love is gone, there's always justice.
And when justice is gone, there's always force.
And when force is gone, there's always Mom.

Hi Mom!

So hold me, Mom, in your long arms.
So hold me, Mom, in your long arms.
In your automatic arms. Your electronic arms.
In your arms.
So hold me, Mom, in your long arms.
Your petrochemical arms. Your military arms.
In your electronic arms.

I learn something new everyday:

While rooting around the internet for this video, I found out that "O Superman" is based on Massenet's opera, Le Cid, specifically this aria, "O souverain, O juge, O pere!"I like how Anderson went from Savior/judge/father, to Superman/judge/mom and dad.

Tiny Little Update. Practically A Tweet, Really

2011-07-13T17:53:00.001-07:00

What have I been doing besides watching the first two seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation on Netflix? Well, not much really.

Maybe it's the heat or the delayed monsoon rains, but I've been feeling very worn-out lately. I've even given up on caffeine as a solution; it hasn't seemed to work in a while. Yawn.

Ha-Ha-Happy Birthday!

2011-07-06T20:34:00.001-07:00

Born on the 4th of July

2011-07-04T06:32:00.004-07:00

Happy Independence Day!

For what it's worth, John Adams apparently refused to participate in Independence Day celebrations on the 4th of July because the Declaration of Independence was signed on July 2nd. If Adams had had his way, we'd all be wishing each other a Happy 2nd of July. Adams died on the 4th of July--as did Thomas Jefferson.

Me?

I'm tired and my head hurts, so maybe it would make it all better to look at the headlines of the NY Times online.

Pakistani Military Still Cultivates Militant Groups, a Former Fighter Says Pakistan officials have long denied this to be the case apparently, which I guess is important because those groups are devoted to supporting Afghanistan in the fight against American troops. We've apparently given Pakistan $20 billion dollars in the last ten years to fight against terrorism. That doesn't seem like money well spent so much anymore.

Closer to home:

Executive Pay at Big Companies Rose 23% Last Year The average raise for American CEOs rose 23% last year to make the average compensation $10.8 million dollars per year. That's about $207,000 per week. Contrast that with the average American worker's $752 per week, or 0.5% more than the year before. And unemployment among us poors is still around 9%.

Reading that, I can't help but feel sorry for the rich in this country. Poor rich people. I guess the only way I can help them is to vote Republican to make sure that they don't have to pay more taxes. If I do that, maybe one of them will give me a job.

French See Case Against Strauss-Kahn as American Folly (I don't even have the heart to outline this one.) Have you heard the one about the rich white middle-aged guy who raped the poor black immigrant hotel maid? No? Well, joke's on you because poor black immigrant women apparently can't be raped. Turns out that by sheer dint of being poor, black, an immigrant, and/or female, your orifices are open 24/7! Ladies, plan accordingly.

Wow. I bet every rapist wishes he were French right now. I guess Roman Polanski had it right to run to France after raping that 12-year old.

That's a depressing game, isn't it?

If you're like me and can only take so much real news before running straight into the warm embrace of entertainment news, you'll probably already know that Lindsay Lohan had a birthday recently and that Michael Jackson is still not the kind of pedophile who gives alcohol and drugs to little boys.

What else is going on in my life?

I'm still working at the studio, of course. I decided to end my year of throwing at the last Empty Bowls throwing party. (I went from the Empty Bowls throwing party in June 2010 to the Empty Bowls throwing party in June 2011.) To complete the transition, I'm clearing my shelves of all bisque wear. I will either glaze and fire it or I'll break it. With the amount of bisque I have, I expect glazing will take about two weeks. Breaking the rest will take an afternoon.

After that, I'll start handbuilding again, perhaps with a bunch of calaveras. My goal for my 40th year is to start an Etsy shop and to do at least one arts and crafts show. I'm struggling, as do all potters, with pricing my work. Carving and glazing the calaveras take so much time and effort versus throwing mugs and such and as a result, the prices will be much higher than I've charged for them in the past. We'll see how that falls out.

Dave and I are having dinner over at Chris and LuAnn's house this evening. They're going to BBQ and we're taking side dishes (potato salad, coleslaw, and a caprese salad).

What Say You, Dead Guy?

2011-07-01T04:03:00.003-07:00

Dead Guy and The Greedy-Fingers Demon

Around the studio, one of the things I don't get compensated for but do anyway is clean off the shelves that have been abandoned by former students and studio members. In the month I've been doing it, I've cleared off about forty shelves, some of which were abandoned over two years ago. When I clean off a shelf, I'm supposed to box up the work, tools, etc., label the boxe(s) with the person's name, then put them up on top of the shelves. That's what's supposed to happen. What actually happens is I first smash up the greenware (unfired clay) pieces and put the bisqued and glaze pieces on a cart where abandoned work goes after several months. When it comes to the abandoned tools, The Greedy-Fingers Demon in me takes over and rifles through them to take any that look interesting, offers the remainder to those in the studio at the time, then places what's left in a big bin for people to pick through later.

By this means, I've acquired a gaggle of sponges and wires, a few throwing tools, a couple of stamps, and other small miscellaneous things that I might find useful at some point. I've supplied other people with sponges, wires, needle tools, a few hand-building tools, and other things that they might find useful at some point.

It's a rogue practice that we engage in, The Greedy-Fingers Demon and I, but I'm okay with it because most people aren't coming back months or years after leaving the studio. They probably aren't going to make a special trip to retrieve their sponges and needle tools. In fact, in the eleven years I've been at the studio, off and on, I've never seen anyone return for their old things. (Dave says he's seen it happen twice.) So, whatever. The way I see it: I had to clean off your shelf for you? Your tools are now mine.

But what about Dead Guy?

First of all, Dead Guy may not actually be dead. I'm just assuming he's dead from circumstantial evidence. See, Dead Guy paid six months rent late last year, showed up for a month, then stopped showing up. No one has seen him in about eight months. His rent ran out almost three months ago. When I asked about him (because I'd never met him), someone told me that he was quite sick with leukemia the last time they saw him. The logical brain says that either he's already dead or too sick to come back to the studio.

I shouldn't strip Dead Guy's shelves, says my guilty conscience. What if he comes back from the dead? What if he's not really dead? What if he's just very, very sick, makes a recovery, comes back to the studio expecting to find his stuff? What then?

Here's where The Greedy Fingers Demon comes into it. Dead Guy has a lot of nice tools. Really, really nice tools. He's got a top of the line banding wheel, for example, and a set of really nice stamps and stencils. He's got some really nice throwing tools.

I've picked up and put back and picked up and put back almost every single thing on Dead Guy's shelf. Clearly, I don't hesitate at pilfering, but acquiring tools from the careless living is different from robbing the uncertainly dead.

Oh, I'll do the right thing in the end, of course. I just hate having to think about it.

TMI!!

2011-06-21T22:37:00.000-07:00

Yes, it's true, this summer I'll turn 40! I'm actually very much looking forward to it--really!--even though there is the small matter of menopause on the horizon. Now, it may seem strange that I'm already thinking of menopause at 39, but in fact, it's not out of the question considering that I started menstruating at the age of nine.

Yes, this is going to be one of those too-much-information blog entries.

So, most women have about thirty years worth of periods and most get their first periods at age 15 or so, so most women start menopause when they're around 45 years old. If you do the math using my numbers, however, you get 9 + 30 = 39. And here I am, thirty-nine years old. (The Mayo Clinic website also suggests that women who have never had a baby may also go through menopause earlier than expected.)

Googling around, I came across a list on the internet (where I, uninsured, get most of my medical advice) of thirty-four signs of menopause. Have you seen it?

Here's the list (along with my own personal experience or lack thereof):

1. Hot flashes/flushes, cold flashes. Yes, I get mini-hot flashes. They're pretty mild at the moment (consisting of a flushed face and neck) and they happen with no rhyme or reason. I've always thought I was having an allergic reaction, but they happen even when I haven't ingested anything I'm allergic to.

2. Night sweats. No, thank god.

3. Irregular periods. Yep.

4. Loss of libido. Not really, no.

5. Vaginal dryness. No.

6. Mood swings, sudden tears. Yes, yes. I have always just associated this with depression, though. Lucky me, it might be both menopause and depression!

7. Fatigue. Fatigue here "is defined as an ongoing and persistent feeling of weakness, tiredness, and lowered energy level."

Oh, my god. Yes. Absolutely yes. Abso-fucking-lutely posi-fucking-tively Y-E-S. Yes. I feel, many days, like I've been hit by a damn truck.

Apparently fatigue is the second most commonly reported symptom of menopausal women. One website suggests that women may experience fatigue or they may experience something called "crashing fatigue" (which sounds like the double-secret probation type of fatigue).

[C]rashing fatigue is a normal symptom of menopause that is caused by temporary hormonal imbalance. This primary underlying cause can be made worse by complicating factors such as lack of sleep, stress, and irritability.

Why did no one tell me this?!

I have the kind of fatigue that laughs at naps, scoffs at vitamins and caffeine overdoses, and isn't deterred by whole days spent prostrate in bed.

8. Hair loss or thinning; increase in facial hair. I haven't noticed this--but I do have very long hair so even normal hair loss seems like a ridiculous shedding problem. Plumbers exist to combat the kind of drain-clogging hair I have on my head. Seriously, one of the last plumbers who came out to snake our shower drain actually kept the rat's nest of long, dark hair he pulled out of there. (He carried it out to his truck anyway.) Heh. He probably used it to perform some voodoo ritual that turned me into a crashing fatigue-type zombie.

9. Menopause sleep disorders. Yes. (I am typing this at 2:28 in the a.m.) You can just add menopause-associated sleep disorders to the long list of sleep disorders that I already suffer from. Most of the time I get so little sleep that I'm convinced that there are really only two states of being: Mild Zombie and Full-On Zombie. I am a life-long insomniac, but even this statement from the article has the power to scare the hell out of me: "Typically, the frequency of insomnia doubles from the amount you may have had before you entered premature menopause."

10. Difficulty concentrating, disorientation, mental confusion. I don't even know what to say about this. I have always been really sharp, but suddenly I find myself sometimes struggling to put together a coherent sentence. Which I hate.

11. Disturbing memory lapses. Yes. It has mostly to do with time and timed events and timing of things. Sometimes it's words or phrases.

12. Dizziness, light-headedness, loss of balance. Yes. This often manifests itself in a dissociative feeling, like...I don't know how to explain it exactly, but it's kind of like when you're getting the flu and you feel really removed from everything? Like that. It happens to me a lot.

13. Weight gain. Ha. Try forty pounds within the last two years.

14. Incontinence. No, thank god.

15. Sudden bouts of bloating. Yes.

16. Increase in allergies. Yes. I've thought about keeping my benadryl tablets in a PEZ dispenser.

17. Changes in fingernails--bending, cracking, or breaking more easily. Yes. I've never been a chronic nail-biter, but you wouldn't know it from looking at my fingernails.

18. Changes in body odor. Yes.

19. Bouts of rapid heartbeats. No. This would scare me though.

20. Depression. Yes, for the last 30 years. How can I tell when the pre-menopausal depression ends and the menopausal depression begins?

21. Anxiety, feeling ill at ease. Yes.

22. Irritability. Ha. Yes. It's funny though, I was talking to a friend of mine who is in her 70s now and she was telling me that when she went through menopause she felt homicidal. Sometimes, she said, she felt as though she were going to attack her husband. She told me that it went away when she started hormone-replacement therapy. It was strange, but I had been feeling very irritated, too, to the point of losing it.

23. Panic disorder, feelings of dread, apprehension, doom. Yes. Panic attacks are the worst. They started about two years ago.

24. Breast pain. No.

25. Headaches. Strange, but this is one of the few things I would have said (before reading this list) was an absolutely positive menopausal symptom that I am experiencing. Why? Because before this past year, it was incredibly unusual for me to have one or two headaches a year. Seriously, over my lifetime there have been blocks of years where I could honestly say that I had no headaches. None. Zero. Zilch. Not a single headache. Didn't even own a bottle of aspirin. Now? I get headaches about once a week if not more.

26. Aching, sore muscles, joints and tendons. Yes.

27. Burning tongue or roof of mouth. Bad breath. No.

28. Electric shock sensation under the skin and in the head. Yes. For about the last two or three years, the top of my scalp sometimes feels like someone is holding a live wire to it. Sometimes I get similar shooting pains in my upper arms. The article says that it happens because falling estrogen levels affect nerve tissue. Would've been nice to know that before I thought I was going crazy or was getting blood clots or I had been poisoned. (I seriously couldn't figure out a cause for these sensations, so those were the explanations I came up with.)

29. Digestive problems, gastrointestinal distress. This is a normal part of getting my period, so I imagine it will be a normal part of ceasing to get my period.

30. Gum problems, bleeding, swelling. Yes, but mildly so.

31. Increased tension in muscles. Yes, my arm, shoulder, and leg muscles sometimes feel like they're made of steel, they're so tensed up.

32. Itchy, crawly skin. Yes, sometimes it's nearly unbearable. Before reading this list I had just assumed, as one might, that I was going insane.

33. Tingling extremities. Yes, especially my fingers. I had put it down to an overuse of artificial sweeteners. Seriously.

34. Osteoporosis. This only happens after several years of menopause, so I'm not there yet.

Isn't that an interesting list? I'm shocked at how unfamiliar I am with those symptoms, especially considering how generally aware I am of women's health issues. How can I not know that these things are common to women in menopause? That sucks, frankly.

Day Two

2011-06-21T15:20:00.002-07:00

I haven't gotten around to writing about day two of our workshop yet, have I? It was only a few days ago, but it seems like forever ago!

I guess I'll hit a few highlights:

Simon had the kiln before we left on day one, then had unloaded it after we left. (He wanted to film a youtube video of the unloading.)

First thing the next morning, we got to see all the work out of the kiln, and I immediately picked the piece I wanted to buy. In the pic below, it's the little brown bud vase in the back row of bud vases.

(Those pictures are by another workshop participant, Rachel, who kindly sent them to me.)

Here's a pic of our little vase that I took later:

Cute, no? It's only a few inches tall, glazed with tenmoku over celadon.

So that was a nice little souvenir.

After looking over all of that, we got almost immediately back to throwing.

While I was throwing, I had a conversation with Simon about his mother. Simon is fairly reserved and private, but a few years ago, he posted this video to youtube in which he shows his very elderly mother some of his work.

Something about that video--especially the part where she is excited to see the white slipped pots (at about 2:30 and again at 4:20 on the video)--stuck with me, and for some reason I brought it up with Simon. As soon as I did so, I realized that probably, given the age of his mother in the video and his response, his mother had died in the years since he had posted the video. (In fact, there is another video, made about a year and a half later, in which he says that, yes, she had died and the house where he grew up was having to be sold.) I asked him if his mother had also been a potter, and he said, no, she was a painter with a good eye and some talent, but she hadn't really pursued a career in art.

Later, I had another conversation with Simon about my throwing skills and my crazy habit of reversing the wheel direction according to what I'm doing. When I'm throwing a pot, some steps I do with the wheel going counter-clockwise, some steps I do with the wheel going clockwise. Simon was a bit...concerned maybe about that, and told me that I wasn't doing myself any favors. I tried to explain that I was perfectly content to do things my way and that I only did things that way because I wanted to, not because I had to. To convince him of that, I switched wheel direction to show him that I can throw on either side of the wheel, with the wheel moving in any direction. That confused him, I think.

See, the thing is, I do things my way because I'm happy doing them my way. Since it doesn't do any harm to do things my way (as far as I can see) I will keep doing them that way. And too, if I had to force myself to learn to do things with the wheel going in only one direction I could, but then all the joy would go out of the process for me and I'd probably give up throwing all together.

So those where two stand-out conversations. Otherwise, we watched Simon do some demos. I requested that he show how to throw a lidded pot and its accompanying lid, and he obliged and threw two pots with two different style lids.

We practiced, practiced, practiced. Had lunch, then practiced. About two hours before the end of the day, we stopped throwing in order to practice pulling handles. Rachel got a funny shot of Simon demonstrating the hand position for pulling:

I think he could see the light at the end of the tunnel, because he was in a jovial mood, hamming it up for the camera. Lucky thing too, because as we started to pull handles, he asked if we minded his filming another youtube video. When no one objected, we found ourselves on camera--and a few hours later on the internet.

So: Yay?

Anyway, that was day two.

I will say that it was an interesting workshop and I did learn a few things that I brought back with me, so that's good. I like that it was limited to five people and that it covered some basic things (reclaiming clay, rolling rims) that are useful to know and have some experience doing (even if I never do them again).

There are a ton more photos, if you're interested and want to click through them, on my flickr account.

Day One

2011-06-18T00:58:00.004-07:00

So I posted a few pictures from our trip to Pennsylvania where Dave and I attended a workshop with Simon Leach in his studio. Here are a few more pictures and a few more words to go with them:

I've mentioned before that Simon has one of the most famous names in pottery; most potters will be familiar at least with his grandfather, Bernard Leach, who is sometimes called the father of British studio pottery (whatever that means). I know Bernard Leach's work from books and online of course, but also from the museums I visited in Japan. (Leach studied with Japanese potters and later founded a pottery in England with one of those potters, Shoji Hamada.)

An assemblage over the sink in Simon's studio--postcards of Simon's pots, drawing of a Leach kickwheel, two photos of ~~Bernard~~ [it's actually David, Simon's father] Leach throwing.

But none of that really has to do with our visit to Pennsylvania.

Oh, one thing: Most people seem curious as to how Simon ended up in Pennsylvania after nearly 20 years in Spain. The simple answer is that his wife Jennifer is from there. They live in a house that she found on Craigslist.

What about the workshop?

The workshop is a two-day affair in a two-car garage behind the house that Simon has converted into a studio. There's a small wood burning stove at one end (which I'm guessing did nothing against a Pennsylvanian winter), five small Shimpo wheels, and a large electric kiln that Simon has converted to a gas kiln using weed burners and fire brick he bought from a hardware store. (He fired the kiln for the first time just before we arrived, so we were lucky enough to see the products of that first firing.)

Here's my home away from home, the wheel I used during the workshop:

We started out talking about how to reclaim clay.

Reclaiming clay is not something that I do. Some potters do go through the trouble of drying out then re-wetting clay so that it becomes a kind of bacteria and algae-laden sludge which then has to be further processed to a workable consistency, then wedged and kneaded. It makes sense in the long run to reclaim clay, especially for those potters who are trying to make a living at pottery and so must watch where every penny goes. Me? I'm one of those wasteful potters who buys pugged, de-aired clay by the bag (for about forty-six cents a pound) then ditches the scraps at will.

Why? Well, it takes a lot of space to store dried bits of clay and clay slurry and it takes a lot of time to wedge and knead clay. Also, neither activity is especially fun. (The Brain and I like the fun bits.)

In this picture, facing the back of the studio, you can see the brown wedging table in the lower right corner. Underneath that table are a bunch of five gallon buckets filled with clay sludge. That sludge (which resembles swamp mud both in texture and in odor) is slopped out onto plaster bats which absorb the excess water from the clay. Once the clay firms up a bit, it must be wedged and kneaded to even out the texture and remove air bubbles. Because of that last bit, the removal of the air bubbles bit, it can't be kneaded like bread dough because that introduces air into the clay. There's a special technique you have to use to knead clay.

Let Simon show you his technique:

Dave applied himself to the task and got better at it. I gave it short shrift.

After a bit of feigning kneading, we weighed out one-pound balls of clay. I have never, ever weighed balls of clay in my life. (See also: Brain, The--Not fun for) I usually just cut off a piece of clay with my wire and form it into a ball (I didn't even used to do that) and start to throw.

Anyway, this is Simon's electronic scale that weighs out clay to three decimal places.

After the wedging and the kneading and the weighing, we got set up to throw. Dave and I had already claimed adjacent wheels by putting our tools down on and near them. Simon came around to inspect the tools we brought. (He throws with a minimum of tools and I think it amuses him to see the tools people bring to workshops. One woman for example, perhaps the least experienced thrower in our group, had one of the most expensive tools--a large, hardwood throwing stick in absolutely pristine condition--and she had no idea how to use it.)

Simon asked us to throw a cylinder and we did. Well, Dave and I did anyway. Simon came around, squatted by my wheel to inspect my wonderful cylinder, and said, "Someone's been practicing."

Here's Simon throwing a cylinder:

(You can see, just beyond him, the first three cylinders I threw on day one.)

Simon has a very efficient way of throwing that, I think, only comes from focusing on efficiency while practicing lots and lots. I'm not a very efficient thrower, I don't think. I've never really focused on efficiency in throwing, partly because when I focus on efficiency, impatience begins to creep in. I'm already too invested in impatience in my non-clay life so I try my hardest to keep it out of my clay-life. That doesn't mean that I'm not a skilled thrower. I am. (You'll hear more about this when I write about day two of the workshop.)

We threw a few more cylinders, Dave and I, then Simon decided we two could move on to throwing to a gauge. (Everyone else continued with cylinders.) What's that? It's simply a chopstick stuck into a wad of clay that's stuck to the side of the splash pan on the wheel. It'll be no surprise to you that The Brain did not like that at all. The Brain does not like it when it has to conform.

I tried though. I tried. Funnily enough, the cylinders I threw before I tried using the gauge were more uniform than those I threw using the gauge. The Brain does not like being told what to do.

We worked at it for a bit then had lunch. We sat out beneath the big tree in the front yard and chatted with the other workshop participants. There was one guy, Ed, rode the train 900 miles from Ames, Iowa. Another woman, Rachel, came from Maryland. A third woman, the throwing stick woman, Shelley, came from...hm, I don't remember. Anyway, she was accompanied by her husband who wasn't there for the workshop, but was there before and after and during lunch; one of those.

After lunch, we went right back to throwing. Simon showed Dave and I his technique for rolling rims and we practiced that. (We were more successful, The Brain and I, at rolling rims.) The others went right back to cylinders.

At the end of the day, Simon had us tidy up a bit, gave us a snack, and then cracked open the kiln. (This was the electric kiln he converted to gas.)

We looked at the work for awhile, and that was the end of day one.

2011-06-15T05:07:00.000-07:00

We are back!

The view from our room, sunny version.

Since we were in Pennsylvania (part of, I think, Reala Murrica), we started our days like this:

But we didn't go for the food. We went to see a man about some pots. This is the man we went to see, Simon Leach.

We threw pots for two days.

Some of those are mine, some of those are Simon's, pots he made during demonstrations.

This is Simon's house. We sat out under that tree and ate our lunch.

We bought some of his work.

Bigger

2011-05-30T16:22:00.001-07:00

Next month, Dave and I will be going to a workshop in Pennsylvania at Simon Leach's pottery studio.

Because I've only been throwing for about eleven months, and I only have stuck with throwing because I wanted a break from handbuilding, I've been somewhat lackadaisical about pushing myself to get better. Oh sure, I completed the hundred mug challenge (which Dave is still struggling with) and I made all the bankys as a way of using up the closed forms I learned how to throw, but my work was stagnating at a certain size--mug size, really, or around one to two pounds of clay. As a result, I decided my next challenge is to throw larger things.

Can't keep those mugs out of the picture! It's like an infestation! (No, actually, I included it as a size reference so you can see that I am actually throwing larger things.)

I started with vases. I started with vases because they're larger than mugs, yes, but they're also much taller. It's a double challenge in that way. Large things are challenging because it's more difficult to center larger amounts of clay on the wheel. With small amounts of clay, I can use my hands and forearms. With large amounts of clay, I have to think about how to use more of the muscles in my chest and shoulders and how to brace myself in order to use my upper body as leverage. It seems strange that it takes so much thought and muscle into getting five and a half pounds of clay into position, but there it is. Those are the rules of the game.

This is a youtube video on centering, in case you're interested. This guy is a career potter, one of my favorites on youtube, but he makes centering look almost idiotically easy. (It's not--unless you've been doing it for thirty years, then it is.)

In addition to centering, throwing taller pieces is more difficult because suddenly your hands aren't able to touch one another while you're throwing so they're not sharing as much information with your brain. It's a little disconcerting at first, especially because one hand is completely out of sight when it's inside the piece. It's easy to tell how thick something is when you measure it between the thumb and forefinger on one hand, but try measuring the thickness of something using both index fingers. If you tried it and think it's easy, now close your eyes and try the same trick. It gets harder to do when you can't rely on your eyes to confirm what your hands are telling you.

I've decided to throw five days a week until we leave for the workshop.

R.I.P. Lewie

2011-05-28T19:30:00.001-07:00

We'll miss our friend Lewie.

Saturday Morning

2011-05-28T09:45:00.001-07:00

Both cats had to go to the vet this morning for yet more vaccinations. They have had so many already. They were vaccinated against everything the vet could think of, including ingrown toenails I think. They weathered it well; I got a scratch from Saba (who was aiming at Gray Kitty). We came home with two unhappy cats and a $16 four-pound bag of cat food that's supposed to help keep their teeth clean. Gray Kitty won't eat it (he's more of the $2 per can organic cat food type) but Saba thinks it's a four-pound bag of treats and she actively begs for them.

Before the vet's visit, we actually got up early and went to the farmers' market. What did we buy? $36 worth of goat cheese and yogurt, for one thing. We also got kale, chard, radishes, eggs, orange cauliflower, breakfast burritos, apple fritters, and palmiers. In the craft and sometimes art section of the market I bought two tea towels, one of which has a stylized depiction of the VLA silkscreened on it. I like the farmers' market because I get to wear my straw hat and avoid sampling foods at booths, two of my favorite things to do at farmers' markets. As we were heading to the market, I thought: I wonder if this will be enough to vault us into the pretentious Yuppie semi-finals or if we'll have to get an electric car for that?

So far today, I've eaten three slices of leftover pizza (shortly after midnight), a concha (Mexican sweet bread), a breakfast burrito, and an apple fritter. I've had three cups of coffee.

We're home now for a bit before we have to go to the studio. Dave and I both got back into our pajamas. Gray Kitty crawled into his closet hideout to sleep off the stress of a vet visit and shot. Saba ran immediately to her food bowl and begged for treats, so I opened the $16 bag of cat food and gave her a handful.

Last Day/First Day

2011-05-13T23:08:00.001-07:00

I wrote this on Thursday.

Crunch is a hard dog to photograph. He's all hair! I took this pic with my cell phone yesterday while we were on our morning walk. Yes, that's his leash leading to the collar around his neck, which is under that mass of hair.

That's the park (one of them anyway) where I walk Crunch. You can tell that he lives in a ritzy neighborhood because there are five parks within easy walking distance of his house. (Where I live, there are no parks within easy walking distance.) Most days, Crunch and I hit three parks on our walk.

Today is my last day dog-sitting Crunch and my first day dog-sitting Lewie. It's about 10:30 in the morning and I've already had breakfast, walked and fed Crunch, loaded up and brought home all my stuff from Judi's, been to the studio to load one glaze and one bisque kiln, and installed all the updates on my computer.

I still have to walk and feed Crunch one last time, change the sheets and vacuum the house where I've been staying, feed Lewie his dinner (Lewie has a big yard to run around and poop in, so he doesn't need walks), and pick up Crunch's owners from the airport. I'd like to get a nap in there somewhere, too. I only got about five hours of sleep last night. I'm tired.

One of the things I do when I'm tired is eat too much and drink too many caffeine-containing beverages. I know it's common to overeat to try to keep one's energy levels up. It's only 10:30 and I've already had Quorn nuggets, a box of Amy's pizza snacks, two cups of coffee, and half a 2-liter bottle of diet Pepsi.

I've got that tired, burning feeling in my eyes. I hate that feeling, don't you?

In the Past Week

2011-05-10T21:16:00.001-07:00

I'm house- and dog-sitting until Thursday. This past week I've watched about a million hours of TV, got sucked into a Project Runway marathon, way too many episodes of Sex & the City, hours and hours of Deadliest Catch. I've taken the opportunity to do about twenty loads of laundry using Judi's washing machine (our little apartment-sized washer doesn't do bedding). I've walked about fourteen miles with Crunch, picked up about twenty-one bags of dog poop, chastised two dog owners for letting their dogs run off their leashes, had to chat twice with a young man who has a shiba-inu called Momo.

In the past week, I've been to the studio five times, glazed four things, loaded five kilns.

In the past week, I've eaten at Kokoro twice (katsudon both times), at the bakery once (a turkey-avocado sandwich with provolone cheese), had a heartburn-inducing carne adovada burrito from Hurricane's, had pancakes with maple syrup for three meals. I've drunk five liters of mineral water and two bottles of bilberry nectar, all mixed together to make a kind of bilberry soda.

In the past week, I had my teeth cleaned (no cavities, but large pockets behind two teeth that have to be watched) and bought a water-pik.

I've slept too little--dreamless sleep, too, thankfully. Paul and Judi have a strange bed. It's filled with air and has a remote control that controls the amount of air in the mattress. It's not the least bit comfortable because for some reason the head and foot of the bed seem to be lower than the center of the bed no matter how much air is in it. I wake up with headaches unless I prop up my head on a folded pillow. That means I can't sleep on my stomach, which I usually do. Waa. Waa. Waa.

This Week So Far

2011-05-05T21:06:00.000-07:00

It's been a strange week, kinda. I'm still here with Crunch, dog- and house-sitting. I've been watching way too much cable TV (Deadliest Catch is on right now and I'm dividing time between that and House Hunters International while I type this out).

Day before yesterday someone rang the doorbell and Crunch barked and I opened the door to a young man scouting locations for the TV show Breaking Bad. I think he expected a less blase response to his potential offer to film in the house, but it's not the first time Judi and Paul have fielded the offer. I took his card and said I'd pass on the request.

Yesterday we were picking up some dinner at the co-op and I was chatting with the cashier who said that earlier in the evening Samuel L. Jackson had come in to do a bit of shopping. "What'd he buy?" I asked. The cashier said he bought mangoes, lots of fruits and vegetables.

This neighborhood is pretty popular for filming TV shows and movies. About six months before he died, I ran into some production including Dennis Hopper one morning while I was walking Crunch. On the same walk, a very large transvestite in a Hillary Clinton-eque pantsuit thanked me for picking up Crunch's poop.

In non-Hollywood type news, I have been eating out quite a bit this week. On Monday, I had lunch with Kelly and Shawn at Kokoro. That evening, I had dinner with Dave and Rudy at Viet Taste. Today I had dim sum with my aunt Char at Amerasia. Tonight I had dinner at Farina, a pizza place, with Dave and two of his co-workers (one current, one former), Yusef and Colleen.

It's a good thing I'm getting some exercise walking Crunch.

£20 Million Fairytale

2011-05-01T06:09:00.001-07:00

Did you watch? I'll admit that I did--mostly because Crunch woke me up around 1:30 in the morning to go out for a pee. When I couldn't get back to sleep, I turned on the television and, lo and behold, there was the pre-game coverage. I watched until it got boring.

My favorite moments: Queen Elizabeth standing quietly while everyone sang "God Save the Queen." Prince William leaning over to his bride at the altar and (so say the lip readers hired by the news channels) saying, "I just thought it'd be a small family affair." Fergie's daughters the princesses Eugenie and Beatrice showing up in the most ludicrous hats ever. One hat looked like an IUD. Seriously.

In Other, Less Royal News

There was a gas firing at the studio. I don't put any work in the gas kiln because it's too unpredictable. Dave had about 20 pieces in and he likes about six of them.

My favorite of his pieces is this mug. I took its photo next to my 32oz soda, just for scale.

Probably won't use this one for coffee but for water it should be fine.

Here's another photo from the studio:

That's one of the boys who works in the studio. He's very fun, likes to spend part of his Saturday work day playing and joking around with us.

Book News

I've been reading a lot recently. Yesterday I finished a book called The Long Walk by Slavomir Rawicz about a group of men who escaped from a Soviet gulag and walked across Siberia, into Mongolia, across the Gobi desert, and into India. It took them a year, and half of them didn't make it. It's a very densely told tale, but a quick and enjoyable read. There are pages and pages of reviews for it on Amazon, about three pages worth of one-star reviews howling that the story is a fake. It may be, but it's still a great read. Kinda reminds me of Mark Twain's admonition to never let the truth ruin a great yarn.

Crunch O'Clock

2011-04-27T22:27:00.000-07:00

Crunch and I are spending some time together while his owners are off galavanting around Europe. I took them to the airport Monday morning at 5:00 a.m., which is too early for human beings. Then I came back and read for a little while (Down and Out in Paris and London, George Orwell) until it got light out and then I took Crunch for a walk, gave him breakfast, and went back to bed.

Tako-chan!

2011-04-24T01:13:00.003-07:00

Another terrible cell phone photo!

This tricky little banky came home with me and is not sitting on the shelf above my bed along with a photo of my grandfather (tucked into the frame of an Addie Draper pastel that Dave gave me for my birthday about seven years ago), a pendant made from a photograph of monks taken by a woman who lived in Japan in the late '40s, and a folding paper cup printed with rabbits (a going-away gift from a student when I left Japan).

Dave thinks it's a bit creepy, but I think it's kind of impish. It's modeled after an octopus--a tentacle-less octopus, I guess.

Etc.

I've been Netflixing some old comedy specials including one by Mitch Hedberg. Do you know Mitch Hedberg? Probably not, considering he died of a drug overdose in 2005. Anyway, one of his jokes compares quitting smoking with starting flossing. They are equally difficult, he says.

Flossing must be on my mind because I am having a heck of a time keeping up with it. (I skipped it tonight, for example.) That's unfortunate because I really, really need to do it. And still I don't. Why? What is it about The Brain that makes flossing such a chore?

Anyway, I've also been Netflixing a show called Wire in the Blood, which is an intense British drama about an eccentric psychologist who helps the police catch serial killers. It is so intense that I often find them difficult to watch and have to pace them out to keep from being overwhelmed by the grimness of them. It is almost completely without humor, but very well done. Why is The Brain draw to it, I wonder.

What else? Oh, yes. As a bit of an antidote to Wire in the Blood, I've also been Netflixing Jamie Oliver's 2002 cooking show Oliver's Twist. It's terrible, frankly. I think this despite the fact that I adore Jamie Oliver. It's poorly filmed, the dishes generally aren't very interesting, even the theme song is annoying. And I've still watched about twelve episodes. Why, The Brain? Why?!

I'm Netflixing a lot recently because I just came off a Kindle reading jag. Over the course of a couple of days, I read a half dozen books, including Pride and Prejudice, which I've never read. It's hilarious, by the way, something that I had not suspected it of being (which is the main reason I never read it). I also read Hodges's The Little Princess, Bossypants by Tina Fey, Daddy's Little Earner by Maria Landon, Hard Time by Shaun Attwood, and Why me? by Sarah Burleton.

Just Some Things

2011-04-22T20:36:00.003-07:00

Six new little bankies, just out of the kiln. These are still about 300 degrees (I was impatient so I unloaded the kiln while it was still pretty hot) so I didn't manipulate them much to take their pictures.

This little banky is glazed in mint and black.

I want to get a better picture of this little banky for sure. Dave thinks it's very menacing, but I like it. It's glazed with desert sage under peacock green. The eyes are black.

This little banky is glazed in sunset pink, Archie's base, and black. (That's a crap picture, I know. It was very hurriedly taken with my camera held upside down.)

Yes, I know it's a little affected (affected as in pretentious, not affected as in influenced) to call them "banky/bankies," but I'm going to do it anyway.

In other studio news, Dave and I took Albus to the vet to get his vaccinations. The actual reason he went was because he had a cut on his foot that we were afraid was going to get infected. But since it was already healing by the time we took him, we just went ahead and had him shot up with vaccinations. Albus is the priciest cat we've never owned (with the possible exception of another cat that we could never manage to tame, Doppleganger, that we took care of for about a year before he moved on).

Dave and I took a walk Thursday morning, along the large irrigation ditch. I got this picture of us standing on the bridge.

Dinner, Death

2011-04-19T03:18:00.001-07:00

Dave and I had dinner last night with my older brother Rudy at our usual Monday night spot, Kokoro.

I had gyudon because it reminds me of Yoshinoya's gyudon. (Gyudon is usually beef and onions cooked in soy sauce, mirin, and sugar, and served over rice with beni-shoga, salt-pickled ginger.)

Dave has one of his trusty stand-bys, miso ramen. Though it's normally served with pork, he has them substitute egg.

Rudy is working his way through them menu and so this time tried the chirashi-donburi. Chirashi means scattered in Japanese, and in this case it is a bowl of rice "scattered" (that is, artfully arranged) with seafood and vegetables. He requested no eel, so he had salmon, tuna, tamago (egg), imitation crab, roe, cucumber, avocado, kampyo (gourd cooked in soy, mirin, and sugar), gari (pickled ginger) and seaweed.

Scotty

A couple of days ago--the 17th, to be exact--was my younger brother's birthday. He would have been 37 (I think). I noted it on the day, but didn't blog it for whatever reason.

I was in Japan when he died and I came home for the funeral, which was surreal. By the time he died in February, it had already been a kind of brutal winter, both my grandmothers also having died in the months just previous.

I'm not the kind of person who gets caught up in remembering the details of such things. I'm not very good with happy events and anniversaries--one of my email accounts is set up to email me reminders of these things--much less unhappy events and anniversaries. I'm content to be that way.

This Dinner

2011-04-18T07:41:00.001-07:00

I've been reading the archives of a blog written by a young Japanese woman who photographs everything she eats. It's pretty interesting!

In that vein, here is tonight's dinner:

On the left are calabacitas (zucchini, onions, garlic, and corn--we forgot to buy green chile to add to it). On the right is something we call Quorne adobada (a vegetarian version of carne adobada made not with pork obviously but with Quorn in red chile) topped with cheddar cheese and served over pinto beans. We also had guacamole and chips while we cooked dinner.

Dessert was a 100-calorie fudge popsicle.

In case you're wondering, breakfast was a soy-nut butter and grape jelly sandwich and coffee with milk.

Lunch was a Michaelina's frozen lasagna, a pear, and a bag of Cheez-its.

April Fool

2011-04-01T16:13:00.002-07:00

4/1/06 O-hanami in Ueno Park, Tokyo

SPRING

To what purpose, April, do you return again?
Beauty is not enough.
You can no longer quiet me with the redness
Of little leaves opening stickily.
I know what I know.
The sun is hot on my neck as I observe
The spikes of the crocus.
The smell of the earth is good.
It is apparent that there is no death.
But what does that signify?
Not only under ground are the brains of men
Eaten by maggots,
Life in itself
Is nothing,
An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs.
It is not enough that yearly, down this hill,
April
Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.

--Edna St. Vincent Millay, from Second April

Cherry trees in blossom, Hibiya Park, Tokyo (4/1/06)

Banky!

2011-03-30T07:16:00.001-07:00

Here are some quickly-taken cell phone photos of the new bankys perched on the plastic case I keep my brushes in. I finally feel like I'm getting somewhere with the glazing!

This little sweetheart is glazed in black, really red, sunset pink and Archie's base.

This smiley little banky is glazed in turquoise and black.

This little striped banky is eggshell and black.

This alien banky is black, red, eggshell, gunmetal green, desert sage, and peacock green. He's a bit too metallic-y green, but I like the luridness of his red lips. (Also, I once dated a guy whose lips and teeth looked almost exactly like that.)

And I like the glaze job on this little banky (pansy purple, Archie's base, eggshell, and black), but before I glazed it, one of the guys who works in the studio said, "It looks pretty phallic," and now I can't unsee that part of it.

In other pottery news, there is an NCECA (the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts--potters should not be allowed to name things) conference this week in Tampa, Florida. I'm not going of course, but some of my and Dave's mugs are, as demo pieces for the glazes our studio owner is hawking at the conference. It's funny, but Martin, the studio owner, picked out of my mug collection what I consider to be some of the ugliest mugs I have. Dave's were much nicer, of course.

Dinners, Mostly Sans Photos

2011-03-29T01:05:00.001-07:00

We've had a few worthwhile restaurant visits recently. Friday we had dinner at Jennifer James 101, where I had a wonderful steak, perfectly rare, topped with a ginger-port sauce and served with asparagus and shitake mushrooms. Dave had their vegetarian dish, lentil and basmati-stuffed chard in tomato sauce with almonds and burnt onions (that's how the menu describes them) on top. I passed on dessert as they were out of the chocolate flan, but Dave had a chocolate-pecan tart with ice cream. I had a seriously terrific cup of coffee. (I don't know how they do what they do with coffee, but when it can stand its ground against such wonderful food, it's pretty darn good.)

Last night, we had dinner with Rudy at Kokoro, our favorite little homestyle Japanese restaurant. Rudy is systematically working his way through the menu there and had oyako-donburi ("parent and child" rice bowl, which is chicken and egg with onion cooked in dashi, mirin, soy sauce, and sugar and served over rice with beni-shoga, salt-pickled ginger). Dave had the tamago-donburi (which is the same dish without the chicken). I ordered natto soba, fermented soybeans over cold soba topped with seaweed and green onion. In case I didn't like the broth (I don't like too fishy soups), I also ordered a small oyako-donburi. (Of course I ended up eating both.)

In addition to our main dishes, we also had sushi appetizers (vegetable maki, tempura shrimp roll, and inari) and Dave had egg rolls.

So, yes, we waddled out there, stuffed.

So it was kind of funny when the young man (the son of the Japanese woman and American man who own the place) ran out after us to give us three of these:

Koriyama Cheese Cake. (There are four in the picture because Dave bought one to bring home.)

It's funny, but both times I've ordered natto at this restaurant, the woman who owns the place has given us a little treat like this. (The last time it was a box of almond Pocky.)

What else has been going on around here besides eating?

Hmmm. Well, Dave's mother paid him a visit two weekends ago. I didn't mention it because I didn't, by design, see her. She and Dave had several meals together and saw a play and went to the museum. I went to the studio and stayed out of the way.

And speaking of the studio, there was a little bit of manufactured drama there of which I was the object. I didn't write about that either because I was very, very angry about the whole thing at the time, but now that it's blown over, the whole thing seems rather silly. Such is the nature of manufactured drama, I suppose.

There are new banks to be seen, but I didn't get pictures today. (And if you're reading, Heather, your bank is on the way. I just put off posting it a week or so beyond when I said I would partly because of some weird thing I have about post offices and partly because when it comes to procrastination, I am the reigning world champion. Sorry 'bout that!)

Where to Begin?

2011-03-21T23:23:00.003-07:00

Where to begin? With new work, I suppose. Here are new banks, out of the kiln just this evening.

(Sorry about the small pics. I took them in a dark studio with my cell phone and they are a bit blurry. You can click on them to see larger versions.)

I'm messing with the glazes a little bit here, and with some mendhi designs that my hands go to when they don't know what else to do with a squeeze bottle filled with glaze.

And look:

Dave made a colander to replace the one that was destroyed during the Great Meltdown of 2010. It's hard to judge the size of it from that pictures, so I took this picture, too.

Cute, no? (Note to Dave: That's the pic you should have sent to Jay!)

And here's a photo that Dave took as we were loading a kiln on Sunday. If you look closely, you can see some of my new little banks nestled among someone else's mugs.

And dinner

Dave took that photo of our dinner night before last. We had vegetarian sausages, rolls, and a salad made with goat cheese, asparagus, strawberries, and pears, with balsamic and olive oil dressing.

One of the best things about that photo is that every one of the dishes on that table was made by us!

Last night's dinner (take-out fried chicken) was not nearly so photogenic.

Tortured by Pollen

I've been spending a lot of time indoors recently because seasonal allergies are kicking my butt. Even doped up on benadryl, I'm still a stuffed up, snotty mess. (I'm taking benadryl because all the other antihistamines I've tried have either worked not at all or have messed me up pretty royally.) I've also been desperate enough to start rinsing out my nose with saline, something I swore I'd never do because it's so disgusting. It helps for about twenty minutes after anyway. And tonight I was in bad enough shape that I went and bought a box of surgical masks. They do help a little by maintaining a little localized humidity (the benadryl dries out everything in as uncomfortable way as possible).

The wind has been insane, which is how you know it's springtime in New Mexico. The manic wind coupled with the highest pollen counts in ten years has made it a miserable season sinus-wise for yours truly.

Happy Birthday!

2011-03-19T22:15:00.002-07:00

Here's a picture of my older brother:

La Familia
Originally uploaded by Tokyorosa

Isn't that a funny picture? I'd say it was Halloween 1978 (?) and we went to our grandmother's house from school during lunch to change into our costumes. My mom sewed that vampire cape if I remember correctly, and the makeup job was courtesy of my grandmother.

My older brother had a birthday today. He came out to the studio and threw some pots and then we had Japanese takeout. Lots and lots of Japanese takeout!

Gray Kitty

2011-03-16T20:26:00.000-07:00

This is Gray Kitty. You can see that his ear is clipped: He's a stray, and before we took him in he was trapped and neutered and then his ear was clipped to avoid trapping him again. It's a common practice, I think.

He's a sweet cat.