Pneumonic...

I used to use the planets as a pneumonic device to remember the mnemonic device for the planets.

The planets themselves were easy for some reason I could see them lined up in row, remembering which ones were bigger or smaller, hotter and colder helped.

Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto were easier for me to remember than “My very excited mother just served us nine pizzas.” My mother personally wouldn’t be too excited to serve us at all.

Had the pneumonic device been more exciting… I might have remembered that.

I did use that pneumonic device to remember the classifications:

King Philip came over for great sex.

I had imagined Prince Philip from sleeping beauty grew up to be king, and still a hottie at that, I'm sure the sex was great!

Kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species.

I knew the order of the spectrum before my dad taught me Roy G. Biv. But I wish the president had known about Roy G. Biv before he came out with his color codes for terror. The spectrum is red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. His color code went (form highest to lowest levels) red, orange, yellow, blue, and green. It irked me to say the least. It also irked me that nobody noticed or reported on the breach in the spectrum. But that’s another story.

So now there are new planets (Ceres and Eris) and a new pneumonic device to remember. Maybe this one will stick with me.


My Very Exciting Magic Carpet Just Sailed Under Nine Palace Elephants.

I’ve got to say… I like this one.

Movie Quote Quiz...

Right, Hadley did this. It's a list of movie quotes, some easy some maybe not form some of my favorite movies. Without looking them up... see how many you can guess.

1. That's the best introduction I've ever heard. "How do you do. Come and have a bathe." Hadley - A Room With a View

2. So, eleven hundred men went in the water; 316 men come out and the sharks took the rest, June the 29th, 1945. Anyway, we delivered the bomb.

3. That outfit’s wearing you, Felix.

4. I've always been considered an asshole for about as long as I can remember. That's just my style. But I'd really feel blue if I didn't think you were going to forgive me.

5. You bet. I finish work, I go home, read a book, have a couple of beers, take myself for a walk and go to bed. Hadley - The Muppet Movie

6. Those were the best years of his life, 'cause they made him who he was. All those years he was happy? You know, total waste. Didn't learn a thing. So, if you sleep until you're 18... Ah, think of the suffering you're gonna miss. I mean high school? High school-those are your prime suffering years. You don't get better suffering than that.

7. They say bread is life. And I bake bread, bread, *bread*. And I sweat and shovel this stinkin' dough in and out of this hot hole in the wall, and I should be *so* happy! Huh, sweetie?

8. That was the end of Grogan... the man who killed my father, raped and murdered my sister, burned my ranch, shot my dog, and stole my Bible!

9. I know I promised, Lord, never again. But I also know that YOU know what a weak-willed person I am.

10. Nothing? Nothing? NOTHING? Nothing, tra la la?


11. You total slut, you have a crush on him. You're defending him, you love him, you wanna have, like, ten thousand of his babies.

12. You see, that's one of the great things about getting involved with someone from another country. You can't take it personally. What's really terrific is that when we act in ways which might objectively seem asshole-ish or, or, incredibly annoying, they don't get upset at all. They don't take it personally. They just assume it's some national characteristic.

13. Sometimes the spaghetti likes to be alone.

14. In a sense, yes. My art has been commended as being strongly vaginal which bothers some men. The word itself makes some men uncomfortable. Vagina. Hadley - The Big Lebowski

15. Oh. It's not easy getting rides. Do you know what I mean? I mean most people are real afraid to pick up hitchhikers. I mean you never know who you might pick up. I mean I could be some crazed slime ball. I mean a real deranged, violent psycho. You know what I mean? I mean a guy who would rip out your heart and eat it just for pleasure

dOg...

For those of you reading this that’s not Dog (dawg) that’s dOg (doag). It’s a hard O. Why? I’m not sure but I’ve been calling it the dOg for some time. Time to work on the dOg…




The dOg is a gift for my cousin Steve and his lovely bride Lindsay. The dOg is actually a painting of their dog Hailey. It’s going to be used for the table numbers at their wedding. Their favors for their wedding are actually donations to the shelter where they got Hailey. Which sure beats Jordan Almonds as far as favors go. I loathe Jordan Almonds. It’s very cute and I had some fun painting it.

My next picture should be boat. Which will be a gift for my brother.

Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentines Day folks. Here are the valentines I made for today. Go ahead and print them up, cut them up and hand them out. Think of them like those valentines that you used to get in school. Give your favorites to your friends, give you least favorite to you enemies. Have fun!



Happy Valentines Day!

After the snow...

Some of you might know this image from facebook or other places I posted it. Having developed a fondness for the image I decided to try it out in watercolor and I'm somewhat pleased with the results. It's still not right... but it good enough for now. I'm trying to keep this up for a while. We should turn inspiration away if we can help it right?

An artist in name...

The other day I mentioned to a co-worker that sometimes I didn’t think of myself as an artist anymore. He asked me way.

I launched into and explanation of how I don’t make any money off of it, I don’t have time to do what I want, I lack confidence and motivation. I amended, sometimes I still do think of myself as an artist… but I’m failing. I joked that I couldn’t conceive of being defined by my job so there was no choice but to be an artist. But my confidence is shaky about this. I remember art, and I don’t know that what I do is anything like that.

My mom’s birthday was coming up. It was actually last week. And I wanted to give here some framed art. But my art… is what it is and often it is not hung on peoples walls. It’s described as children’s book illustrations. I suppose its true but… why does that seam so insulting sometimes? And why do I draw so many strange little children’s scenes, with fish and animals and mermaids and whatnot?

So I had an idea. A terrible idea… a tacky idea. I would take a photo that I liked from my cell phone, which was little blurry and off and paint it for mum. You have to understand that this idea intimidated me. I haven’t done anything like that since college, since high school. I picked a fun image, my sister and I in red in blue wigs, on the way to the Patriots game. I wanted to like the image. I didn’t want to get sick of it half way through.

My first attempt was laughable. I abandoned it soon in... feeling nonplussed about the whole affair. But something inside of me was ticking, and I thought to myself surely you can do better than that. And I did.



So it’s not perfect. I’m seeing more faults by the minute… but I didn’t think I could do this any more. It’s kind of like doing the handstand.

Hadley gave me the best compliment I could possibly get. She told me I had another donut moment. I couldn't have been more pleased.

Peace and joy....

Christmas time is here...

So this is a little drawing that I waited to post until after Christmas.

I'm at work right now and I'm in the throws of the Christmas Blues. I want to be home right now, I want to be with my family. I want to be sitting around eating leftovers and watching Christmas movies. I want to still be wrapped up in the holiday spirit.

But I'm not... I'm sad and lonely at work. I'm tired and blue.

But I thought maybe if I posted this I'd feel better. It's an image I did for my Mom's present although I ended up using it for my sister's present as well. I actually did the snowman as a complete painting on it's own before I decided to add the kids. And the kids represent my brother, sister and me. I only wish I'd ben a stylish kid like that.

Anyway... Merry Christmas everyone. I hope you had a good one.

Presents under the tree...

Every year I set out to write something meaningful about Christmas, my favorite time of year. And with the exception of an observation about glorious failure last year… everything I write turns to sugar, sweet but ultimately unsatisfying.

Beth and I had a Christmas Party last weekend. It was small but fun. The guests seamed to enjoy themselves, and because it was small, each person was presented with a small but thought out gift. There were snowflake swizzle sticks for mom, and a special loose tea mug for Eva, Sarah got a jar of Sarah Beth jam, and Dana got a twirling ribbon (which we must have discussed 14 years ago). People were surprised by the little gifts and pleased.

Beth had her presents for the family and friends nestled sweetly under the tree. And there were several comments about the quantity of gifts. Were all of them real? Who could they possibly be for?

Beth and I marveled at this… there were a lot presents under the tree, and none were in fact fake. The presents, were for our cousins, and Aunt and Uncle, Mom, Will, me, our brother Brian… they were for Beth’s friends.

We, my sister and I give each other a fairly large amount of presents each year and we each give our mother multiple presents and our brother. We don’t usually exchange just one gift. So this must have baffled the guests at the party.

The thing about that is… when my dad died, my aunts, with only the best intentions really, had tried their best to look after and protect my mom that year. Sometimes that meant trying to protect her from us. They presumed they new what she needed. They did so only from kindness… but sometimes she needed us. Sometimes she needed the truth, and sometimes she needed to understand that we needed her too. When my dad died for at least six months, we lost both parents. My mother was not there anymore… which is understandable, she lost the love of her life. And it literally took an afternoon of screaming at her, to finally make her understand that she needed to come back. This was the type of thing her sisters would protect her from.

Resentment grew between my aunts, and my sister and I. Christmas was coming… Everyone was worried abut Christmas that year, it was the first Christmas without my father. Christmas was going to be hard. We asked for a list from my mother, a list of gifts she’d like for Christmas, determined to get her whatever she wanted that year. The list was made, a black velvet jacket, a pair of boots, a black skirt…

I don’t remember everything on the list, but my sister and I got everything on the list. We knew we had to take dad’s place this year. He was the one who bought her the most gifts. Now it was up to us. I had been putting my mother’s stocking together for years. Since I was 16 and my father passed that honor on to me. We were poor and in school and struggling but we were going to prove that we could take care of this. Even though my father had died, we were still a family, a complete family unit. We didn’t need the aunts to take care of my mother, we could do this.

We went into Christmas with something to prove, something to prove to my aunts, to my mom, and to ourselves. We were proving (as we had repeated so many times since my father’s death) that things were going to be okay.

It was a very merry Christmas that morning… my mother was overwhelmed by her gifts, by our efforts. There were many tears, of joy, and sorrow, and overwhelming sense of gratitude shared between all of us. Grateful that we had each other.

When we went to our aunt’s house, my mom’s sister had also fulfilled my mother’s wish list. They were again filled with the best intentions. It was a sweet gesture by the sisters who adore her. And with a very un-Christmas like glee my sister and I watched as each gift was opened. You see the gifts we had already given her were enough. Each present was opened sweetly and my mother would thank them and mention that we too had given her boots, or a velvet jacket, or a skirt… and whatnot. We were vindicated. We needed this.

We get along well with my aunts these days. Although, I’ve noticed of all of the cousins, we are the only ones who address them without their titles.

As for all of those Christmas presents under the tree that seem excessive… we take the role my father had, providing my mother with the majority of her Christmas presents for the last 11 years… I think we got used to playing Santa for her and for each other.

I used to believe in Santa, and stopped over time… only to believe again. Because of course we are all Santa Claus… if only we believe.

Merry Christmas Everybody!

We don’t have places like this in Boston.

This is what I remember form my dream the other night. I was standing on a bridge with a few people fishing on either side pulling up colorful fish after fish. The sky was grey and purple… the trees were that bright green of early summer. And the buildings around us, we were in a city where white and grey… old and stained. But the colors of the fish, and turquoise water and the trees were so saturated. I thought we don’t have anything like this in Boston. And that’s all that I remember!...

But I was painting this at the time I had the dream and I think it influenced my landscape.



The words were peacock, tent, stormy, drinking, and glamour.

Things I like about this piece:

That middle tree, the expression on the peacock with its head down, the color of the sky.

Things I don’t like about this piece:

Her mouth, the rainbow quality to the color, I should have made the tent darker or lighter.

Now I have start my Christmas card. Which is scaring my right now. I have some ideas but nothing solid yet. In a fit of despair I looked for inspiration in the one place I knew would enchant me. My big book of Jim Henson. Somewhere in the middle there are pictures of the Jim Henson Christmas cards through the years. Many simple, others elegant, others warm. 20 years from now I want to have a collection of card half so impressive. Which means I have to get started on this. Sigh… why is it so hard to get started?

Oh blank page I’m coming for you.

Taken away....

The other day I was in a used book store. One of those stores that specializes in old books, you know the type of store, they all have that smell… the smell of the past. It’s dust, and damp, age and secrets… the smell of tombs and treasure. These are dreams hidden away in labyrinth of shelves.

And on the counter, a book, an afterthought, waiting to be put away… was book that caught my eye. “Cape Cod Folk – A Novel” It was a book about a trial, set down the cape, written in the late 1800’s. It held no desire for me… this was not a book I’d read.

But for a moment it took me away. And I thought of my dad. I would have bought this for him for Christmas. I could see it all… the stocking with the book nestled snugly inside the title peeking out, with a pair of warm black gloves beside it.

Suddenly it was Christmas, at the old house, the house I grew up in. There was never such a house as this for Christmas. The house was built for Christmas. The fireplace with the window above the mantle. So you can watch the snow and the fire at the same time. There was an alcove to the side of the fireplace, where we’d put the tree. We used to cut our own trees and they were widely regarded as sparse, “Charlie Brown” Trees. They were big wide natural trees deep with hollows for hiding away ornaments, toys and candy.

And suddenly I was happy to be thinking about my dad, and Christmas. I felt so warm and happy, and lucky. Lucky to have such memories, lucky to have seen something that reminded me of my father… just lucky.

This feels interesting...

Do you want to know why yoga is such a humbling experience?

Because it’s widely acknowledged that two of the toughest poses are Savasana and Tadasana. For those of you not familiar with yoga speak that’s laying on your back and standing up strait. Getting the full benefits of these poses is tough. Mmm hmm. This is humbling stuff.

Right… I had yoga yesterday. It was the usual. I worked really hard, had a few moments when I started to beg to come out of position and laughed when someone said they couldn’t feel something in their hamstrings.

I can always feel something in my hamstrings. My hamstrings are so tight, I chronically worry about them during class. Not so much “Will I be able to stretch them enough…” I won’t but more like “Is that sharp shooting pain actually something tearing? Is that normal? Should I be on the verge of tears? Collapse?” And it’s always the hamstrings, or my hips, or sometimes my back. But the most excruciating pain is in the hamstrings. And we use them for almost every pose.

We did have one pose that we held for a little over five minutes. Sphinx pose. It doesn’t involve your hamstrings. It’s a small back bend. But after about 2 minutes I started to burn a little… after 3 I hurt… after 4 I began talking myself into coming out of the pose. And somewhere around five I began begging and bargaining in my mind to for the love of god let us out of the pose. When we finally came down I almost cried with joy. My arms and shoulders were aching. Our teacher tells us to think about the sensations we feel and notice if any are interesting. That’s her word for painful.

As in “Ah this root canal feels interesting.”

Mmm hmm. Sadist.

Fear and yoga in Jamaica Plain...

So yoga… one of the healthiest things that has ever happened to me. Yoga has given me strength, balance, confidence, calm, acceptance… forgiveness and most importantly humility.

Before practicing yoga, I was terrified of yoga. I’m not a fit person, I’m not a flexible person. I’m not a person comfortable in tight pants and tank tops. I was terrified that I wouldn’t be able to keep up. I would advance, I wouldn’t balance. Each pose would be to difficult. Each position would roll my flab into new exotic shapes. This was my fear.

I have a co-worker… Soap Opera Shane. (SOS) who lives in JP and practices yoga. Just like me. It was my cronic fear that I would see SOS in my yoga class. That one day he would show up. He’d been doing yoga for years. This would be the worst case scenario.

The first day went to yoga and was asked to go into downward dog… something kinking terribly in my shoulder. It was freakish. It was my body’s way of freaking out. And my mind followed. I sat down and tried not to cry. When the teacher came over to ask what was wrong all of the self doubt bubbled out of me and I left the class… It was just that scary. The next week I decided to face my fears, decided my shoulder spasm was just freakish, and I would try again. This time in the most beginner class of all. I loved it.

I’ve come a long way since those first classes. I’m actually starting appreciate my body’s abilities instead of focusing on it’s flaws. Although I still focus on the flaws too much. I’ve come to love difficult poses that I have yet to master. I’ve come to enjoy breathing.

Last week I came into yoga and was talking about our office Diwali Party. All of a sudden I hear “Kate”. I turned with a complete lake of focus. I never thought about the voice or who it might be… I turned and smiled and saw Soap Opera Shane. We’ll blow me over with a feather. Just when I thought I’d lost my fear of yoga. I smiled and commented that he missed our Diwali and went to set up my mat with that shocked smile frozen on my face.

Panic intensified as I realized the only open space was somewhat across the room from him. We’d have to see each other twisting, contorting, practicing yoga… I steeled myself and said… it’s okay. You’re doing fine. You are doing the best you can do, and your improving. This is going to be fun. Think of the stories you’ll have to tell in work. You’ll do fine. And then he moved his mat to be on the same side as me two people down. Suddenly I was disappointed. I wouldn’t have moved. I would have gotten over it. It’s yoga, its about focus. But this way I watched him without him noticing me. I watched the teacher correct him. Watched his handstand, his downward dog, his lunges, Warrior one, Upward Dog… And he was very good. He’d been doing it for years.

After class he asked me how I liked it. I stared blankly at him wondering what he could possibly mean by that. How did I like practicing yoga with a coworker? How did I like yoga?

The class? He clarified.

Oh right, the class, it’s been great I said, really great, I’ve been coming here Tuesdays and Thursdays for 4 months.

He looked surprised. Really?

Sure.

You must have been surprised to see me! He joked.

I smiled. Right. I was surprised to see him and I was glad that it happened. I wouldn’t have to wonder anymore. And I had a great story to tell my co-workes.

Now here I go again, I see the crystal visions

Last night I dreamt that all Long Warf had been converted into a submarine dock. And the military was sending subs in and out of the Harbor… The ferries were gone and the subs were moving so fast, too fast. I was afraid they’d crash into the docks. Sometimes they would slow down or go under and you got the feeling that they were diving under the city.

Then there was a talking cat. The cat was really a teenage boy that went missing 14 years before. He was under some sort of spell, and he needed to get back to his old apartment to find something to break the spell. So we decided to help him. There was a moment when we needed to find the key to his apartment and I knew to look in this metal mail slot for a magnetic panel that revealed a key. We walked up two tall flights for stairs, sneaking quietly into his apartment.

It was this amazing loft apartment build into a church. How I didn’t realize it was church before was beyond me. It was beautiful. His parents had died when he was 15 some sort of accident. And that’s when I did the math, this cat disappeared about 15 years ago when he was about 16 he’d be about my age. Hmmm… this could be interesting.

And then I woke up.



I did this drawing a few weeks ago. The words were genie, tropical, restaurant, dreaming, and believe it or not lamp. This is what I came up with. I wanted there to be a difference in color between dream in reality… of course the dream is in a little more in the real colors, and the reality is very dreamlike in color.

I miss my readers...

What do I expect after not blogging for years. I pick it up again and I don't have any readers. I never had many readers. But I always had a few. It gave me someone to write to. Right now this feels so lonely.

But maybe thats good.

Maybe I should always have kept this blog just for me.

Or maybe I should write as if I had thousands of readers hanging on very word I post. Well, they'd be sadly dissapointed.

Maybe I shouldn't think of it at all.

I should post about my ideas for Zelda Zap galactic space girl. Or the book Fran and I never wrote, about the Rabbit whose heart flies away...

I'm going to try to finish a picture every week. And I'll try to post that. Sometimes I won't post it. It might be a Halloween card for next year or something of that nature. But I'll try to make that a goal.

Happy Diwali

If you are a fan of the TV show The Office, you might remember the “Diwali Song”

This is sung to the tune of Adam Sandler’s Chanukah Song

The Diwali Song

It's time to celebrate Diwali
Everybody looks so jolly
But it's not Christmas, it's Diwali
The goddess of destruction, Kali
Stopped by to celebrate Diwali
Don't invite any zombies
To our celebration of Diwali
Along came Polly
To have some fun on Diwali
If you're Indian and you love to party
Have a happy happy happy happy Diwali

Happy Diwali!



That’s right everyone, it’s Diwali! The Hindu Festival of lights! The New Year!

I have two Indian co-workers who celebrate Diwali. Last year one of them was upset that no one acknowledged their favorite holiday. She was upset that she never got home for her favorite festival and wanted to share it with the office. Thus our office Diwali celebration was initiated. Last year we ordered in, and had snacks and a few decoration. It was very pleasant. Everyone had fun… it was great. And for a moment I felt like we had helped my coworker feel like her culture and customs were appreciated and important, and relevant even here in the US.

So this year I wanted to step it up a bit. We went out for lunch and I decorated the kitchen. With great hangings swaths of fabric. And I built a (I hesitate to say shrine) but I covered the hideous desk and bulletin board. There was food, snacks, sweets, piles of food. Delicious food, food I remembered from the last year. These spicy fried wheat crackers that I love. And mini samosas filled with cashews and raisins. Syrupy sweets drenched in coconut and rose flavors. And everything looked good, and tasted good.

My coworker was shocked. And while perhaps my decorations weren’t quite proper. Maybe they didn’t fit the Indian ideal. In my defense I did the best I could with my limited knowledge of Diwali. I think I accomplished my goal. Which was to try to give her a real sense of celebration… at least in its office form.

Creepy Tree...

I think the words for this picture were: Mountain, Fairy, Tree, Holding and Love/Hate Relationship.

I drew this a while back and on Hadley’s suggestion I decided to go color. It’s the sketch book she gave me about a year and a half ago, and I decided to go with watercolor on it’s drawing paper. So the paper doesn’t exactly hold up to watercolor. But I like the effect. In fact I’m working on a series of images in this sketchbook. I just need to make time to do that.

Is there a story? I don’t know. I guess the tree loves the fairy, she wants to get the hell away from the tree and it all happened in the fall. Because I like red and yellow and orange. I do find the tree incredibly creepy.

I notice I keep to this same weird pastel color scheme. I have to work on breaking out of that. And not relying on yellow to balance things or to make me happy.

The phoenix...

So the phoenix rose up from the ashes on All Hallows Eve and flew throught the night.

I mean, this was my Halloween costume, the pictures don't do it justice. It looked great. The mailman told me so this morning.

This is Halloween!

Happy Halloween Everybody!



This is an drawing I did using my words. I liked the way it turned out though and decided to use it as my Halloween E-card this year too. The words were Vampire, Pop Art, Castle, and Pouring.

I'm at work dressed as a phoenix, but not Jean Grey. And I managed to convince two other women to dress up too. One is a Lady Bug and the other is a Geisha. It's actually pretty cool, they both look adorable. Maybe next year we can have a costume party.

Anyway... Happy Halloween Everyone!

It’s not a field… it’s purgatory.

Last night I was told I need to get out of my field, meaning my line of work. I told them it’s not a field… it’s purgatory.

Oh sure I put on a brave face, I opening joke and smile about my troubles. I pretend to have some sort of meaning, and convictions. These are my daily delusions. They get me through my more pathetic moments... the moments that I look at my life and start to think about how badly I am failing this test. I need these justifications and delusions. I need them to keep going. I need them to stave off the depression that would engulf me if I actually looked at life in the buff and saw it for what it is. If I saw all of my shortcomings at once, I’d never get out of bed again.

So please forgive me for not knowing what I want to do with my life. That decision doesn’t come easy for all of us.

And forgive me if I try to figure it out by making clothes, and drawing and painting, and dressing up for Halloween and indulging my creative side. The epiphany? It’s still there. I won’t be happy until I’m doing something with my hands. I need to make a physical product. That’s the rule. That’s all I’ve got, handed down from the heavenly ether to me.

Perhaps you know what that means, and how to implement it. Perhaps you know how to make a golf skort design marketable to the world, and who can manufacture it, and how to promote it. Because I have a great little design for cute skort, but I don’t know what to do with it except to wear it golfing.

Maybe you’ve never been stared down by a blank piece of paper. You might not know what that’s like, to be defeated by a blank piece of paper. To look at it, command yourself to make something of it and break. Such a simple unimportant task and you fail at it. Maybe this has never happened to you, buts it’s happened to me. And it doesn’t feel good. If I tell you about my words, (yes I’ve taken up drawing form my words again) please don’t dismiss it, it’s a big step for me towards getting over my fear of the blank page.

Yes, I know I’m failing. I’m more disappointed in me than you are. Trust me.

I just think at this point I need to hang on for dear life. I’m just trying to get through this. I know it’s not working, but I’m still trying, I’m still going. Despite failures and set backs, I dust of my sketchbooks after years of neglect and I put pencil to paper and try again. So please understand how scary that blank page can be when you’ve avoided it for months. And please give me a little credit for putting something down on it. When that blank page glares at you and you’re able to put anything down on it… good for you. That’s one monster down a sketchbook more to go.