Weekly Craft Update

Time to give my first weekly report on crafting my way through March!

At the top of the week, I had a fairly ambitious checklist of creative work at which I wanted to peck away: 

As it turns out, my ambitions outstripped my energy.

But as is so often the case, the week started to peck away at me, instead. Work left me both exhausted and tapped out, so much so that by the time I got home, I didn't have a lot left in me for the more ambitious projects. Nonetheless, I did manage to do some creative work, including:

• Blogging: So far, I'm 7/7 in terms of my goal to blog each day this month. With the help of Eldest Sister, I came up with a basic "itinerary" for each day's blog posts, subject to change. And while sometimes it's a bit of a struggle to start typing away at 10 PM when I'd really rather simply become one with the couch, I've powered through, and I am noticing that there is some truth in what Eldest says--the more you do something, the more ideas you have. 

• Knitting: Okay, so I know this one is a stretch. A year or two back, my friend Jessica taught me how to cast on, and then moved on to teach me the next step...and I just, I dunno, got stuck. It takes me a while to learn shit, okay? So I decided to perfect my ability to cast on before moving on to anything else. And then the Apocalypse happened, and I haven't had the opportunity to learn anything else from Jessica...so I just cast on, unwind, and cast on, in perpetuity. Or at least until Herd Day. Cast on, unwind, cast on...

When I do this, I feel like I am possibly the fourth Fate from Greek
mythology,the one who didn't make it past the auditions."You can't even
 properly knit; why should we let you help out with weaving the lives of
 mortals? For your hubris,we condemn you to a life of pointlessly casting on!" 
(Yes, I'm aware, that got dark fast.)

Nonetheless, Indiana is happy with this state of affairs. 

• Mandala art: My devotion to this has somewhat waxed and waned over the last few months. I don't have a very sturdy compass, which seems to be one of the basic tools of drawing mandalas. So until such time as I remedy that, I decided to do a little bit of...I dunno...doodling a hybrid of mandala/zentangles? With a little bit of mehndi for inspiration? (I want to be very very careful about cultural appropriation with regards to mehndi creations; although it seems like there is a great deal of mehndi influence in mandalas. It's often difficult to judge where one ends and the other begins.)

Personally, I feel like this is obviously very crudely executed,
 but it's freehand, dammit. That's gotta be something, right?

• Colouring:  On the nights when I was just too done in for much at all, there's my endless colouring habit. Here's what I did this week, as I binged Elementary.

I'm making very tentative travel plans to hit the beaches of Florida
over Thanksgiving, so this nautically-themed colouring
page is a happy reminder that better days are coming. 

So what about you? What are you crafting and creating right now?

Corners of My Home, Part 1

"Stay the fuck at home."

That was one of the earliest mantras of the 2020 Apocalypse, preceding everything from "Hey, all you cool cats and kittens!" to "wear your fucking mask or get the fuck out of my face, you selfish ignorant fuckwad who really must not give a fuck about anything other than your own fucking need to be right." Home became The Place To Be. If we were unlucky, we hunkered down with asshole roommates and shitty partners; if we were lucky, we spent our solitary days cooking and crafting and purging and redecorating and renovating and sometimes, even moving. I seem to remember reading somewhere, last summer, that the pandemic and the quarantine was actually a wake-up call for a lot of people, who then went on to sell their homes. Having to spend so much time in them, folks realized all the things that they didn't like about where they lived. I realized, myself, that when I look for my next home to buy or rent, I need to ask myself, "Once I'm moved in with all my shit, and my cats, could I picture myself being quarantined here?"

I was one of the fortunate ones. It's been six years since I extracted myself from an unhappy marriage, and three years since I've lived with an asshole roommate. It's just me and my cats and my stuff; and over the course of the last year, I found ways to both purge and acquire more. (Stuff, not cats.) Oh, capitalism and consumerism. Even when we're balls-deep in a pandemic, we can still count on you, as evidenced by Jeff Bezos's ever-increasing value. 

ANYWAY.

Over the course of the last year, I've tidied and cleaned and purged and rearranged, and have done so repeatedly, all to make my home the most homey version of itself it could be. But it's funny, when you're living alone and staying the fuck at home and but not entertaining, sometimes without that outside accountability, you start to go feral, just a wee bit. 

It's spring, right? Time for some spring cleaning and whatnot. And that's what I'm getting on with, this weekend. If you're anything like me, you're nosy as fuck. I love seeing folks' homes; love seeing how they live and decorate and order their lives.  So! lucky you! I've decided to share some of the "corners" of my home, post-nesting. It's a snapshot in time, and won't stay this clean or cosy or collected for that long, but whatever. And if you don't like it, you can fuck off into the void. Happy viewing!

This is the living room. This is where the living happens. (Hey, I just made that connection! That's
why they call it the living room!) This is where I puzzle and watch TV and colour and read.)

This is where we used to get the party started. Alas, not anymore. 

My kitchen is an unholy mess (why the hell won't my cats clean up? I do the cooking, after all),
  but I managed to clean up this particular corner. (Also, side note: I love the colour teal)

One of my many, many bookshelves. 

My colouring station. Yes, I am aware, I have a problem.

Good-bye.

BC: Before Coronavirus

One of the silly little things that I do is "memory plan." How does one memory plan?, I am sure you aren't asking. It's basically just keeping a record of my days, sometimes with pictures or doodles, more often with stickers. I've been doing it now, on and off, since 2017; my engagement with it waxes and wanes, based on how engaged I am in my own life. 

This evening, I went over my "memory journal" from last February and March. It was fun to look over at first. In February, my words and descriptions covered mainly the quotidian concerns of work, and the personality politics there, as well as an inauspicious (and in retrospect, alarming) number of colleagues and reports being sick. However, also in retrospect, I had a very healthy social life: a gathering of my "Read the Book or Get the Fuck Out Book Club"; dinner with a former boss; Galentine's Celebrations with my lady friends; lunch with my aunt and uncle; road trips to see people in Indy; movie nights and catch-up sessions...I smiled as I worked my way through the month. But the red flags were there; I freaking recorded them without realizing their significance!

And then I turned the page and looked at March.

                                 

Even in that first week of March, we carried on, much as we always had. I attended meetings and ran errands and spent time with friends went to one of the best happy hours of my life on the first Friday in March, without even an inkling that that was, basically, Last Call. Closing Time. 

Two days after that I was scrolling through my Facebook, when something from my old California library--my old stomping grounds, the place that formed me as a professional--popped up in my Facebook feed.

I was more than a little perturbed--the only point of reference I had was the Swine Flu, back in '09, and we hadn't closed down for that! Yet here we were...

After that, there were only a few more days of normal to go before everything officially went to hell. And by "normal" I mean, pretend like things are normal when they are in fact disintegrating fast. And then we came to a sudden halt, and things like masks and quarantines and Social Isolation and Tiger King and that fucking stupid ass phrase "The New Normal" became our life. And they still are our life. 

On an almost daily basis, I think back on "lasts"--the last happy hour. The last concert. The last time I head my still-relatively-newborn "nephew." The last time I shook a hand. The last time I went to the grocery store without giving folks some serious side-eye. A lot of things were lasts that we don't even remember. But you know what? You bet your ass that even if we can't remember a lot of our lasts from Before Coronavirus, we will sure as shit remember the firsts when we get to After. 

What do you remember, and miss, the most?

Keep Calm and Read On. Unless You Can't. That's Okay, Too.

 In 2013, I read 142 books. At one point, I joked that it was because I was at my unhappiest point of my life, and was trying to escape. 

In 2016, the number of books I read plummeted to 76; I joked that it was because I had returned to Indiana, and was at the happiest point of my life.

And then, in 2020... I read 41 books.

That's an astonishingly low number, given how much of the year I spent shut indoors, isolated from everyone. But upon further consideration, I don't think it's so shocking. I know that in March, April, and May of 2020 especially, my concentration was shot. I simply couldn't focus. Many of my friends and colleagues agreed that they were having the same issues. Now, of course, I understand that we all were (and still are) enduring a traumatic situation in real-time, and naturally there will be some impact on us and our minds. 

Fortunately, as the year went on, I was able to shake off some of my mental torpor, and I buckled down to the arduous task of literary escapism, resulting in the aforementioned 41 books read. I logged them all in my Goodreads account, which is rather fortunate--my dear friend Anna recently asked for a rundown on my "pandemic reads", and in reviewing my 2020 Booklist on Goodreads, I am absolutely floored by how many of them I simply do not remember reading. Like, I know I read them. But damned if I remember much about them at all. Trauma, amirite?

So, without further ado, here are the highlights of my "Pandemic Reads"

No one can do narrative nonfiction like Erik Larson. Whether he's recounting the Titanic's last hours, a serial killer in Chicago, or a selfish socialite in Hiter's Berlin, this man can sure as shit tell a story that makes you want to read just one more chapter. Last spring, as the weather grew warmer and the world fell down around us, I made my way through Larson's latest, an account of Winston Churchill and his inner circle during some of the worst days of the London Blitz. Vaguely, I felt as though perhaps there were some parallels between their struggles then and our struggles now, which perhaps accounts for why on occasion I lapse into some war metaphors at work, much to the bemusement and consternation of my colleagues. Anyway! Good book! And spoiler alert: Britain got its ass kicked yet didn't lose. 

Ah, the good ol' days, back when kids killed each other for entertainment...wait, that's still happening? Anyway, remember The Hunger Games? The author released a prequel in the first half of 2020 (I think? why do we bother measuring time anymore, anyway?) and Vox.com promptly called it "your apocalyptic escape from our current apocalypse." They...aren't wrong, really. This is a perfect example of my headspace at that time: I remember the basic plot of the book, but none of the details. But I didn't forget how deliciously escapist it was. 

So this last book that I'm going to mention is not technically one that I read in 2020, but it is one that I read during the apocalypse. I actually picked up this book last month, after galloping my way through the Amazon Prime show, The Expanse, which might be the single best show I've binged during the pandemic. And is based on an entire series of novels! George R.R. Martin calls the first one, Leviathan Wakes, a "kickass space epic", and while generally I think Martin is a useless lout who should fuck off into the sun...he's not exactly wrong. This series is set a few (or several; it's really not important) hundred years in the future; Earth is grossly overcrowded and has long since colonized Mars and various asteroid belts; and there is all sorts of conflicts and internecine strife and warmongering and faction building and class warfare, so...everything is basically same as it ever was. And that's before you introduce the element of extraterrestrial life, which is about to fuck everything to the sun and back, perhaps literally. 

So, there you go. A small overview of some of the books I read during a rather lackluster period of bookwhoring in my life. Feel free to pop over to my GoodReads account and see what else I've read in past, happier days and years! 

Life in Miniature

For one literal hot second, back at the beginning of this year, I decided that 2021 would be the year that I buy a house. 

Never mind two things: #1) that I don't actually want a literal house (a townhouse or condo is more of my jam, kthxbye, and even now, living in an apartment, I refer to my home as a "house",), and #2) that buying a house  in 2021 might be cutting it a bit close in terms of my current apartment leasing situation, which now ends in the spring of 2022...in general, according to my lofty, divorced-from-the-tomfoolery-of-the-pandemic goals, this was it. The year I would buy a house.

Well, guess what? In the most technical sense of the word, in 2021, I did buy a house. 

...just not one that I can live in. 

Most of us, at this point, have established some homebound hobbies, or pandemic pursuits, or quarantine quackeries. Me, I've developed (or at least re-established) several; drawing and playing with paints and blogging and puzzles and colouring and journaling and fuck, I literally can't keep track of them all. But this...this has been creeping up on me for a while, until the time came over this last month for me to give in. I went onto eBay and somehow managed to find a beautiful dollhouse, already built and ready for my "creative" eye, and mindbogglingly, only a few miles south of where I lived, and thus, easily delivered. 

The thing is, I have a lot of conflicted feelings about this hobby (because, spoiler alert, the dollhouse is only part of the hobby. Miniatures--as in, dioramas and god only knows what else--are a kinda big thing...ha...paradox much?) ANYWAY, part of it goes back to my original insecurities about art and crafts and creativity and vulnerability and failure, but more than that is the fact that...this is not the first time I pursued this hobby. The first time I did, I was a confused and isolated 11-year-old who didn't know how to interact with people or make friends; who was absorbing what in hindsight now seems like a fairly steady diet of trauma and rejection; who wasn't happy with her current life but didn't know how to change it. I had a dollhouse and a separate universe that I immersed myself in, and while my family went along with it, sometimes I now wonder if that was the healthiest thing for me to immerse myself in an imaginary life with imaginary people and circumstances, rather than leaning into actual life and reality. And when I mentioned all of this to my therapist earlier this week, her question was, Well, is it a coincidence that you've taken this up again, at this particular time?

I don't have answers to that. But I do have a dollhouse. And hopefully, I still have a healthy grip on actual life and reality. 

No Work, Only Best

Over the course of this past year, as my world contracted and dwindled, I began trying to find little ways to inject a little bit of interest into life. One of my favorite ways to do this would be to consult Chase's Calendar of Events to pinpoint fun, quirky, or informative holidays and celebrations, and then try to honor them accordingly. 

Which is how I have come to learn that March is National Crafts Month. 

Granted, it's only been thus since 1994, when the Craft and Hobby Association (perhaps in concert with the delightfully demonic dame Martha Stewart) declared it so, but still. A whole month dedicated to the celebration of DIYs, glitter (AKA the herpes of the craft world), and homebody creative activities. What a time to be alive, eh? 

The thing that I love about this is that the word "craft" is so wildly open to interpretation. Generally, when I think of crafts, I do NOT think of highly refined or highfalutin creations. But then...there's the word craft, singular. Merriam-Webster defines this as "an occupation or trade requiring manual dexterity or artistic skill", which seems a little more...structured, or focused, perhaps? than elbow macaroni and yarn. Anyway, I'm taking a very broad interpretation of National Craft Month, and in addition to making a concerted effort to playing around with my crafts, I'm also going to try to work on my craft of writing, via blog posts. I'm going to try to write a post each day.

Already I'm struggling with this a bit; I feel as though I don't have a lot to say about my life right now. My work takes a great deal of my energy and focus, and as it entails managing several dozen people, there's a lot of stuff going on in my day to day life that has to remain confidential. And then, what's there to remark on at home? the things I yell at my cats? the tv shows I am binge-watching?  I'm not even able to socialize much these days with the interesting and creative people who normally inspire me and help me feel a little more in tune with my own possibilities. 

Here's the thing: I don't think of myself as a very creative person; nor have I ever. The reason why I never pursued a research degree was because I never felt like I could bring anything to the table of "original research". Things that I want to create, such as a mandala painting or a watercolor sketch, are usually copies from someone's tutorial, and not skillfully-rendered copies, at that. One of the few creative projects I ever finished was a fanfic, which is of course derivative of someone's ACTUAL art. I don't have much by way of bright, EUREKA moments, and also--I don't have much by way of actual talent or training or dexterity when it comes to anything. 

But despite all of that--I enjoy creating. Or, to perhaps be more strictly accurate, producing. I don't always care for the end product because it's usually a poorly executed imitation, and that's doubly discouraging! Plus, and I know many of you feel like this too, I want to whizz past all of the failures to be the best, even though going through the process of trying and failing is how we get better at something. But instead of permitting ourselves to try, and to fail, and to not be good in the beginning or perhaps ever,  we allow ourselves to be scared off by the elusive concepts of Good, or Better, or Best. 

At the end of the day, I think probably my views and thoughts on creativity are a bit distorted. Probably somehow attached to some consumer-capitalist concept of use and profit and product, and when whatever I create doesn't read like John Grisham's books or taste like Ina Garden's food or sell like Michael Graves' everything or sound like Adele's voice or look like Dale Chihuly's sculptures, I think, what's the point and I am a failure and this isn't creativity. 

That's not healthy. That's not okay. I wouldn't say those things to you, and I shouldn't say these things to me. I'll sign off with several quotes about creativity; hopefully some of them will help us feel seen, feel validated, feel encouraged. Hopefully we can keep mustering the courage to lean in, create, and live. Craft on, comrades. 

"Creativity is just intelligence having fun."

–Albert Einstein

"To practice any art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow. So do it." 

– Kurt Vonnegut

"You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don’t try." 

– Beverly Sills

“To be creative means to be in love with life. You can be creative only if you love life enough that you want to enhance its beauty, you want to bring a little more music to it, a little more poetry to it, a little more dance to it.”

– Osho 

"Mistakes are the portals of discovery."

 – James Joyce

"It's only when you risk failure that you discover things. When you play it safe, you're not expressing the utmost of your human experience."

– Lupita Nyong'o

"There's no such thing as creative people and non-creative people. There are only people who use their creativity and people who don't."

– Brene Brown

"Life is trying things to see if they work.”

– Ray Bradbury 

Welcome to the Winter of My Discontent

"November is the most disagreeable month in the whole year, " said Margaret, standing at the window one dull afternoon, looking out at the frostbitten garden..."I dare say, but nothing pleasant ever does happen in this family...we go grubbing along, day after day, without a bit of change, and very little fun. We might as well be in a treadmill."

-Louisa May Alcott, "Little Women" 

Unlike Miss Meg March, I don't find November to be particularly disagreeable; my beef is with the month of February. Differing months notwithstanding, Meg's opinions may as well be my own. Even during years in which prolonged apocalypses aren't occurring, February is a stupid, wretched month--the best thing that can be said about it is that it's the shortest month, but it's still so wretched that every now and then it pulls an extra day out of its bleak, wintery ass, just to be an even bigger dick. Fuck you, February, and your stupid fucking Leap Years.  Fuck off into the sun--except in February, there is no sun. There is only endless grey, and black ice, and deathcicles dropping from the eaves.

And my friends, you know how much I hate the sun. And when we get to the time of year when even I am craving the sun, you know we've had too much winter. Of course, the pandemic makes things so much worse; it keeps most of us from partaking in the cozy, communal activities that normally keep us sane during the cold months. 

Still, we've survived. We're in March; a weak sun is shining and if the weather reports are to be believed (and they shouldn't be), we'll have sun for the next several days, although any more, I barely seem to register such curious concepts like days, or weeks, or months. (Except February; I still know what's up with that month.) We're in March, and we are a couple of weeks away from the one-year anniversary of when everything went to shit. A part of me wants to let out a primal scream of disbelief, of grief for a year lost, but really, what have I to scream about? I'm still here, alive and relatively healthy, and able to mourn my old life, to give February the stink-eye, to plan for a day beyond the pandemic. 

I'm alive, when 500,000 of my fellow Americans are not. I'm alive, but I hesitate to say I'm living. So while I'm grateful to still be here, you'll forgive me if I cannot muster much by way of joie de vivre. Perhaps as we put more distance between me and February, it will steal back into my life, like a hesitant yet inevitable spring. 

If it can steal in with a vaccine, so much the better. 

Do any of you struggle with February like I do?

Proof that February hates me and wants to kill me.