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.
One of these days I'm going to learn to spin. I've been teaching myself to knit, and I'm going into the sheep industry, so spinning is right up my alley. I also love both farm and craft...and I feel like creating textiles from wool is a great and valuable skill to have, something that can only become more viable if the economy keeps plummeting.
ReplyDeletenat, you should find a spinning class, or visit me and i'll show you how! it's hard but not impossible to learn from online videos. what are you going to be doing in the sheep industry? (i have sheep envy!)
ReplyDeletei had a few angora goats years back and they were more challenging than i expected (being used to dogs). i felt so clueless and dependent on my vet and a shepherdess friend. but i keep researching sheep breeds online, so i guess it's just a matter of time! right now i'm loving jacob sheep.
I don't know what I'll end up doing, but I'm a first-year grad student (ms/phd) in animal science, working with sheep. Right now, maternal behavior and endocrinology are my focus areas. The Cornell sheep farm has dorsets, finnsheep and their crosses. I think the finns are cute in a dainty way, but the dorsets are pretty stocky and utilitarian. They make jacob sheep look like runway models, haha!
ReplyDeleteI think there's a spinning workshop in the spring that I'll be able to attend (and probably help organize). I'm looking forward to it, for sure. I'd certainly love to learn from you firsthand (and, y'know, meet you and stuff) but atl is quite a drive from ny! (We just moved here from SW FL in july and who knows when I'll see the south again.)