mum's new art project

happy xmas, after all

what to do

i don't have much of an interesting thought in my head. tonight i am blown away by little big planet - like a claymation sonic world, or michel gondry doing videogaming - i don't know how to describe the coolness. i have a feeling i'll be wide-eyed, glued to it, and dying frequently for most of the winter holidays. i think i'm regressing - stuck to my video rocker in the glow of a huge tv and santa. if i re-emerge, it may be in the form of an imaginary sack girl, dressed in green daisy print, sporting a lion's mane.

no, can't say goodbye

while i'm out of town trying to find some solace, my brother has been taking care of my critters. today, my poor mom tells me that he found figaro, my kitty of 16 years, dead. no signs of what may have caused it. fig was pretty old, but had not had one single bad day of health in his entire life - including the day right before he passed, according to my distraught brother.

i've had figaro with me my entire adult life. he came with me to atlanta. he was steadfast through different apartments, relationships, jobs, decorating schemes. this has taken me completely unawares and i'm not up for a kitty eulogy or any sort of goodbye. i am bereft.

my dear old friend sarah with mortimer, a starling. he and sarah have lived together for six years. he says things like, "lu-cy!" and "that cat gotcha nervous?"

we made a decision as a family to heat with wood this year, only wood. but little tequila seems to be cheating!

i'm weirdly attuned to smells these days. i'm in love with the smell of wood smoke, which is abundant, and clean laundry that smells of sun. i'm living with a lot of uncertainty and dog hair, waiting for my new vacuum cleaner bags to come. loving how little packages just appear on the doorstep.

i haven't started writing again yet. anna suggested waiting until we talk in january. then we can come up with a plan and a schedule. it would be luxurious to take the month off, really off. i could use it. but...i'm very goal-oriented and not sure if it's possible to change that about myself. i've been redoing my craft/work room. i have such a wonderful opportunity here, to start anew. i mean, i'll finish what i've started at school, but there's no real bar to creating whatever kind of life i choose. my ability to do and be what i want is limited only by me. whoa.

i guess i'll keep working on my film project, but something about it doesn't stir me. but i am excited by orphan films and photographs. new media studies, and old media studies, the whole analog, lo-fi, diy thing. the prospect of media archaeology.

and then, i'm also drawn back to my old love, before i got into all this dissertation crap: spinning. some of the new spinning techniques and yarn are so thrilling. fiber farming affords that unique combo of farming+craft that i seem to crave. plus, then i can photograph it all. it's a thought, anyway. i'ma pull out my wheel and scare up some fleece.