My Purpose...?

I can't find it lately. Maybe it's that I'm just not feeling it? I've been sick for a week now, I'm a horrible sick person, it's depressing as hell.

It is making me feel sick of myself. My lethargy is unbearable. I'm used to feeling good and with energy. I am neither of those right now. It's like... I have a swimming pool tied to my ass.

How do people deal with this? People that have physical ailments that are legit and ongoing?

Me Praying...

I have no idea, and I pray that I am not sick much longer. I pray this isn't a permanent state of my existence now - because that's how it feels.

I like to come and look at myself this way, it feels better to call it what it is: pathetic.

Me staring at my life

I'm wailing in self pity, so it's nice to do it loudly, really feel it.  Know what else I'm sick of? Being creative. Fucking sick of it, my brain is seriously over used right now. And preening over my creativity...?

God, make it stop. The preening anyways. 

I just want to stop feeling sick. I want to stop coughing. I want to stop feeling sorry for myself.

I want to feel spry. I want to feel connected to my purpose... which is... wait for it...

Feeling connected to my state of nothing. Enjoying the state of nothing and no one.

Right, that's it. I forgot. That's why I come here, to write the shit out of me, laugh at myself, and then move on. What a satisfying itch to scratch.

Me not doing yoga

So, here I go...

This is a lie, I have Purple Rain cranked right now...

Negative Space - A Christmas Story

I don't know where I stand right now. The world is turning at its normal pace but there's a duplicate version of it, that has a much shorter radius to me, that is moving very fast around me. It's dizzying.

Although I know very well what is happening around me, I don't know where I am exactly.

seems glum, donit? it gets better, I promise. 

Sure, my niece has just been introduced into my life which throws things upside down sideways. Sure, I just moved into a house with The Greek, it's official-official. Sure, most of my furniture doesn't fit in this house (is that a sign?), my life is changing even at a furniture level. And sure, we got a new VP of tech at work and my contribution is fairly (self) assessed at valuable knowledge:lack of experience.

But the deal, the real deal, is that it's fucking christmas (I just loathe capitalizing that word, I don't know why. Whatever).

I long for the magic of the story and this time. Nestled families, warm fires, warm food, celebration of love, giving fun things to each other, sharing... and magic.

Yay! Fake me!

The story of a person that swoops through the night and touches every life with the sweet glow of our true nature, and we all wake up feeling so present in the silence of winter with gifts that somebody loved us enough to know we would find small joys in. Pleasantries.

Lies... 

I don't care that it's not that way for some families, and that they all hate each other and every christmas is strangled by competing egos.

I don't want to see or hear those people.

I do care that while I attempt bliss with me and mine that there are people in countries that don't celebrate christmas in part because, you know, they're actually starving and fighting to stay alive in the hope that, what? They wont get raped, beaten, tortured, blown up, enslaved....  But should I feel guilty? Should I not do this winter celebration because the exact opposite exists somewhere else? As big as this question is, it's neither here nor there to my reasons of cognitive dissonance. How fucking "christmasy" is that for you?

somebody's Jesus forgive me

My reasons are still unknown. All I know is that there is a space between me and reality. A wholly selfish wade through the mire of self pity. I want to vomit. Every fucking christmas, I just want to vomit. Any day that is supposed to be "a day" which depends on me producing a magical realm in which to bathe my family in makes me want to vomit. Perhaps it's because I want it so bad. I want the magical realm to bathe me and mine in, as if I am the all good mother.

and here it is... enlightenment. you're welcome 

I'm trying to find the right society mask for the occasion, and the truth is that I do better being the one that shows up to these events, not the one that throws them.

All my problems cease to exist if I can be a lazy taker who just shows up with some excuse as to why I couldn't even be bothered to bring a bottle of wine for the table. Because that, my friends, is who I am. A lazy mother fucker who super enjoys the dinner someone else cooked and the presents they bought me.

This also allows me to be selfish in the time I take to craft the gifts I want to share with those I love enough to think I know what they might enjoy.

This also allows me to, once every five years or so, be genuinely festive and want to throw the dinner of great magnitude.

There is nothing deep and enlightening about any of this. My brain feverishly devours my soul looking for meaningful answers as to why I just. can't. accept. the. love. of christmas into my heart... and there isn't anything meaningful there at all.

I'm a better taker than a giver. I enjoy the warmth that others create. I probably wont help in the kitchen, and we know I'm not bringing wine (so please have enough so that I can imbibe fully), and, while we're at it,  I prefer trees decorated in that fake-natural, old-timey, country Santa (that I can capitalize)  kind of way, please. And, make sure your fire is roaring, I like to sit by it and not talk a lot.

By all memes, make it memeingful, copy and share. Make me famous. 

I feel better now.

I was ashamed of this truth, that was the negative space between me and reality. Ugh, thank god I found that. Now I can let go of the stupidity.

Fuck you all and I love you.

Dude

I should write. Enough has happened recently that writing out my thoughts should be a good thing. However, I feel spent.

It's odd that my mind should think that I have some sort of audience that I should update, lest I leave them on the edge of their seats with the big season finale cliffhanger.  I wonder who that audience in my mind is; if I could give them all names, how many would there be? Let's tell the story first, shall we?

Our protagonist has just moved into a nice house with her younger, full of life, man-friend. Their life together has finally hit that sweet plateau. We've watched them struggle as both co-workers and lovers. We've watched them fight for and against the passion neither of them can resist. After 3 years together and a month backpacking in Europe, they know they're committed, they're ready to surrender to their unconventional love and reap the rewards. 

But, two weeks after settling into their new home they learn that the protagonist's 11 year old niece, who was recently removed from her mother's care, has now been abandoned by her father, too. There's no where left for her to go and nowhere our protagonist wants her to go but with her. Enough is enough.

So, before they have a chance to sing, "Looks like we made it" to each other and perform wild adult gymnastics in every part of their new house, their lives are forever changed; they're parents?

On the bright side, maybe, just maybe, everyone gets the opportunity to be something they've always wanted to be. 

Awe, isn't that sweet?

So yeah, that's it, that's the season one cliff hanger of [Super Awesome Title]. My life dressed up as a rom com. Seems like a quaint Love Actually kind of event.

Sure, why not

I guess I just want to say that, Dude, my heart is fucking tired.

Look at the date (lookatit!), it's five, FIVE, days before Christmas. I have one daughter I've barely started shopping for (oh my god, I just heard my first-world-woe there, that's embarrassing) and now I have to shop for my niece, and not just for Christmas. The (ugh, here I go) girl has been living with dysfunctional messy/hoarder types (great people and I love them dearly...) for forever and she just has nothing. We have to get out there and get clothes and personal items and fast.

Also, work is still moving fast and complicated. I want and need to be there.

These are high pressured times.

But here's the thing: after some initial bumps and bruises for all us, by the end of January my niece and I will be strolling down to the bus stop where she will hop on the city bus for short trip down the road to her new school and I will return to my routine of walking to work, getting my headspace. She'll get her self home and have snacks. One day a week, she'll go to an extra curricular drama class (because the girl belongs on the stage and, well, who doesn't drama class save? ).

Both of us have the support the social worker, counselling, programs, camps...

And if it gets too much for The Greek, I know we will both be graceful.

I just want - with all my heart - to give this girl a chance.

Perhaps, there's still time to sing:

I May Have a Parasite

Exhibit A

I'm tired.

Right this second, I'm tired of hearing myself pontificate. I'm tired of feeling it (also, I drank some wine over discussion with a friend last night. This may be a contributing factor).

But, like, I love Bret Weinstein. I fucking love him. He makes so much sense. And there are so many other people who make a similar amount of sense and have varying degrees of my affection and/or attention.

I want to talk about it, I want to shout it from the mountain top, I want to join this discussion... .

But, dude, in order to do that properly, there would be so fucking much I would have to read, discuss, learn, internalize, contemplate, listen to. And, well, I give you Exhibit A.

The fact that I used a fucking bitmoji for that should suffice in disqualifying me. Not to mention a bitmoji that says "I can't even." I'm embarrassed for me.

Only - I'm not really. And, it's not enough to disqualify me. I am a layperson.

I think there is a sweetness to entering the discussion from that humble perspective (for the record, sometimes I disgust myself).

I guess I'm feeling that I sense that I have a lot to offer (or... a parasite) and that, perhaps, it is my moral obligation to not be afraid to speak my mind.  But I'm just tired and I don't want to argue - I mean, debate - with people that, as it appears to me, are so far up their asses that they're too embarrassed to admit that there's shit all over their face. They're willing to die in denial to save themselves this humility. How do you deal with that?

Puzzle solver and solution finder me feels in her gut that there is a way. But like my friend Bret Weinstein says, we have to find the z axis in our evolutionary-knee jerk  two dimensional thinking.

It feels like I/we would need to cut through time. As in, we're going to need to use some quantum physics type shit to see what we aren't seeing.

So, yeah.

Whatever. Don't look at me... . 

I Might Feel Something Strongly

Can I get a... 

Things I've been a little glutenous about lately, Jordan Peterson.  Like many other sensible people in the world (or North America), I've become a little obsessed with the guy. He's dangerously almost perfect.

I've never been one to engage with social politics, because I just don't want to donate my time and mental real estate to people who appear to be stuck on a path that is, well, beneath (or behind) me. I figure, they'll either catch up or live out their lives in a semi-miserable dysfunction that, in the end, they were comforted by.

I did JP's personality assessment, Understand Myself, and I scored low on compassion (but high on politeness! Lucky you and you're welcome!) which then sums up my above statement pretty succinctly. BUT, when the clamouring intellectually and emotionally under evolved people start freaking the fuck out at each other, panicking and asserting, suddenly stepping on each other's heads to get out of the hole that was in part dug for them and that they then dug deeper, the affects of their actions start oozing over onto my side of fence. Now, I've created a very nice garden for myself and when I start to see that it's in threat of being overrun by mass hysteria disguised as left/right political over-correctness, the road to hell is paved with good intentions, bullshit.... Well, now I gotta get involved.

The Lord of the Flies kids are getting outta hand and somebody needs some grownups to come in and make some sense of this before the kids choose a volatile leader that promises order but provides or promotes, I don't know, genocide and,  because the tribes can't get along, a let the strong survive mentality.

Having said that, this really only results in me reading, reading, and more reading - and probably, at some point, stirring a pot somewhere. Not really my cup of tea, but neither is letting something that seems dangerous to my children's world, grow and evolve.

Don't fuck with my kid's shit. And DON'T MAKE ME COME DOWN THERE!

So, yeah, passive, compassionately lazy me says, "we'll see where this goes."

How does this relate to JP and what does this all mean to you? I might be on here more, joining the discussion. Ugh - I'm already annoyed by me. 

STOP SCREAMING!

actual cartoon version of me

Who do I present to the internet? The fun me, the intellectual me, the spiritual me, the I'm-all-those-things-at-once me? Who is the cartoon version of me and why do I need that?

The internet you is a cartoon version of you. Maybe your cartoon is a New Yorker kind of cartoon or maybe it's a Anime/pop culture super hero cartoon. Or, a Ready Player One video game avatar cartoon (also, if anyone wants to make a grown up version of that book into a movie, please call me). OR... or a Andy Warhol painting cartoon.  Whatever your genre, the internet highlights reel version of you is a fucking cartoon.

The fact that I can not escape this is driving me nuts. And that people are wholly blind and/or absorbed by this is freaking me out.

I don't want to be the cartoon version of me, but I still want to exist in this new world.

Everything internet is about manipulating the user down a path. Glitz and glam. Pretty magazines of information everywhere, connecting you to everything. Scroll! Scroll, SCROLL BITCH, SCROLL. Muhahahahah.

No, I didn't just figure this out. Until now, I accepted it, enjoyed it even. Then, I decided to accept it 150%: yes, market to me, listen to everything I say, because maybe you can curate decent content to me. Maybe you can show me local businesses that I, in return, feel self-righteous about supporting. Great! Feeling superior is exactly what I wanted.

Only, it ends up feeling like I'm wearing jeans that are way too fucking tight.

Because the fucking internet tells you what a super mo fo you are if you support local businesses. Now my super power is being a comfortable do-gooder... of shopping? 

It's all so painfully vacuous.

And every time I open my browser and visit a page that I think is going to entertain me - it feels like walking down a very noisy street of venders, artists, intellectuals, journalists, ignorant-people-shouting-their-opinions-and-making-me-judge-them,  people screaming at me.

They're all fucking screaming.

My computer and phone have become a portal into a vortex of screaming animals. All foaming at the mouth mad to get my attention. That's all I see and I can't un-see it.

I don't want to be political, intellectual, or beautiful. The internet is killing my desire.

Perhaps it's simply the difference of living in the city and then deciding the city is just too fast and too loud, so you move out to the country.

But if you don't know that your suffering from living in the city every time you open your fucking computer or phone then maybe you feel like you're going crazy and have lost control of your insides. And then the cartoon version of you is always attempting a take-over so that you can keep up the pace.

It's telling you that if you post a quote about being quiet and moving to the country, everything will be okay. Just make a country bumpkin cartoon version of you and everything. will. be. okay.

Reject progress and chill

When I searched for my bitmoji for country or bumpkin, there was no match. Cartoon me apologizes for this inadequacy.

Side note (because I'm totally judging my own drivel and want to beat you to the punch): Yeah, I know that a lot of people just aren't affected by this and simply turn off the internet. I guess, right now, I wish I was a bit more like them.

And! I know a million people have written the exact same bullshit as this and I'm late to this party. I'm just taking my turn.

Did you catch that that was cartoon me admonishing me-me for being a late blooming internet hater? It never ends.

Octopus Garden

The drying stage. 

He looks pretty cool, I wonder how he will fire and how I will paint it up.

I think this will be the  first in a series of tentacles and weird shaped heads.

I realize I could have done more justice to the eyes, but I was all "meh, I'm out."

Replete

I feel like I am always working - one project or another. There is this never ending stream of consciousness that needs to feed on creating, it's insatiable.

The truth though is that I am not always working. In fact, I believe the majority of my time so far this summer has been spent with my back on the couch and my limbs up in the air looking for some amount of a cool wind to alleviate the oppressive blanket of heat. For fucksakes. 

In other news: I've resurrected a silly little book I wrote and am editing it (well, attempting to) within an inch of its life. I have found that I really do swear too much (go-fucking-figure). The character I created doesn't read as a foul mouthed cynic - yet, she has the language of dirty redneck trucker at times. It really is good to step away from a project for a few years. I see now that I was too attached to the part of me that I was pushing into parts of her. Bad story teller. 

The art of bringing to life to all the little bits that collide around in my head and chest is mounting. Must feed, my very inside voice (the stream) repeats. And I look to inspiration when I feel like I don't have the physical energy to do what this stream of consciousness pushes. It is a push. I can feel it pushing its way through me, pushing me forward. "Come on" it says, "Come on... do it."

Sometimes I try and say no."I just want to be lazy, fuck off..." and those times I stumble over my feet that were determined to stay in one place. Touche stream of consciousness. Touche. 

I've come to understand that just because this stream may run through me, it doesn't mean I produce anything spectacular or even just simply good. I used to feel I wasn't doing the movement in me justice, as if the stream came to the wrong vessel. I am no Margret Atwood or John Irving and I am not a fantabulous sculptor either. Any work I do is riddled with immaturity and unsightly errors. It's very young. But the stream doesn't care about that, it only wants experience the movement of creation itself . It doesn't matter what I create so long as I create - so I abide. Today's stream requests languid tentacles and a bulbous head that is prepared to take many shapes: 

It feels good and it feels right, but there is much work to be done.

This morning I required a little inspiration to get motivated and turned to TED. I searched "inspiration" knowing a few of the returns I would get, one being Elizabeth Gilbert, the one I needed to hear.

I don't particularly like her writing, but her essence, her genius, her Damon is beautiful and just what doctor ordered.

Resistance is futile.

What is your experience with the creative divine? 

Injected

I was filing some papers at work, and  I suddenly (involuntarily) imagined there was this rip in...in the air beside me? Then, I suddenly imagined or felt there was a person  that  I could pretend to see. It was as if I was maybe writing a story, only the story was writing me first.

This person gave me the nod that, indeed, what I was imagining hearing, this loud static sound of ripping, was real. With his one nod, look, and slight smirk, he confirmed what this noise suddenly made me aware of:  that my current reality was just one option of existence and because of that choice and that broadening of awareness, I understood that all the trivial day-to-day societal things that are thought to be so important were, in fact, quite simply... nothing. The equivalent of intensely lining toothpicks up on a counter at the world fair.

I almost laughed out loud right there and then -a big, "Ha!"

It was as if my reality had had me building blocks on top of blocks, making large structures everyday only to dismantle them at the end of each day so I could start again the next. As if my job was to make mountains out of mole hills every day...

and didn't me and everyone else work up a sweat doing it - each in our own special way? 

How foolish, how sweet and naive we would all seem if this rip into other planes really existed. If we could see for moment that doors to things so much bigger than we are now existed.... Well, what? What would we do? 

 I  quickly looked about and saw us all as children: the bullies, the weak ones, the leaders, the smart ones, the nervous ones, the quiet ones, the pretty and the ugly. We didn't really matter, at least, not as much as we just were; the imagined gentleman I was communicating with agreed by way of a gentle smile.

Then I went back to work.

Is that time theft, do you think?

M-m-e-E-E-e-h-h-h?

Still going.

It really has been so nice to be sculpting again. It feels that there techniques that I've lost, like... hands. Once you understand the math of the hand, it's easy to lay it out. However, it's been a while and I think I've forgotten.

It never occurred to me before to check out sculpting videos, not sure why. But getting back into it, I decided to see who was putting stuff out there; sure enough, one of my favorite sculptures has a channel. Who knew? Philippe Faraut (who needs a new website, btw. Philippe, give me call) is amazing to me, his work is beautiful,detailed, and so clean. He is the reason I moved to a clay with no grog, I wanted to produce a final product that looks like his. Unfortunately though, I work to slow and am too lazy to do what it takes to keep this clay from getting too dry. Still, he is definitely an inspiration.


I also found Joanna Mozdzen (your site also needs some work, call me ;) and we'll get you sorted out. Also, yay Canada!) and have added her to my list of teachers. She has some great video tutorials which have helped get my brain back to where it was, as far as sculpting goes. When it comes to sculpting, I love precision, I don't execute it as well as I would like, but that's what I aim for. And I think that the precision that these two sculptors have just make the beauty of the whole of their work stand out. Perhaps some people are bored by it, but it inspires me .

 

 So, with some new teachers, I plug along - so happy to be back. I can't wait to start my next piece; however, this piece is still not complete, but she is coming along...

Because, for some reason, people tend to think these are life size (you weirdos) I will clarify that this piece, as are most of my pieces,  is about (and only) 10 inches tall. I would like to work bigger, but for whatever reason, this is what comes.

Still working out some issues and still working on the hands, and she's holding a gun, which I knew would be a struggle for me (hard to not meh out on that portion of it). What do I know about guns...? Not a whole lot. I've probably combined revolver aspects with automatic aspects. Whatever. She's a goat lady, she can have whatever kind of gun she wants.

and we can see here there are some shoulder blade issues, something just aint right. As well, she needs some kind of hair, which I haven't decided on yet.

A lot of the time, I end up not pushing myself for better and accepting imperfections that seem minor at the time. But, I'm too annoyed by previous sculptures that I look at now and say "why didn't I just keep working that..." So, perhaps, this time I will. So there.

And now, for something a little different...

Day two.

She has been waiting to come out of my hands for such a long time, she's been very patient. But, I don't think she expected to have a goats head.

It's been so long since I've done a piece that different ideas have been floating around; I decided what the hell and merged them. Kill two birds with one stone.

This picture doesn't really do it justice and she looks a little like an alien at this point, but it will come together.

I am using paper clay this time around. It's interesting. Apparently, it's a lot stronger and you can fire the hell out of it and it wont blow up (very good), but I've had an issue or two with it as well. I really have to use supports more than I've had to with clay that uses sand for grog.

As I finished up last night, I realized that one eye is much lower than the other... lame. I think she also looks way to tiny in the waist. Her boobs, though, are utterly fantastic (again, photo does not do justice), and, really, that's what is most important. Right?

Blank Slate

Day one of a new piece. The inspiration for this sculpture has been my laptop wallpaper for well over a year. And so it begins.