Invariably, whenever I go on internet hiatus I find something upon my return that reminds me why, though I may take occasional breaks, I do truly love the web.
This time around it was this blog: Stuff No One Told Me
Marvelous illustrated life lessons by Alex Noriega, and the blog is fairly new so it’s easy to catch up on all of them.
My brain is too fried from revisionland & futzing with the blog layout for a proper post, so here is a miscellany of links to click on full of fun things I’ve encountered in the wilds of the internet recently. You know, when I haven’t been revising or futzing with the blog layout.
Also, I got a gargantuan box of yarn and bunnies and teapuppies in the mail today. I live in a world of whimsical wonderment. Seriously.
There is a fluffy coating of snow falling outside my windows, obscuring what’s left of 2009 in powdered sugar white. White primer to paint 2010 over.
Ten years ago tonight I was ringing out 1999 in the dearly departed Grotto nightclub in NoHo. The only bit I clearly remember is asking drag queens about the lyrics to that Whitney Houston song that was all over the place, and they confirmed it was indeed “something about Amistad.” That seems very long ago & far away.
I don’t have the memory or the inclination to do a decade in review. Ten years ago was my senior year of college. Since then I moved around Massachusetts at least five times, got married, got cats, had bad jobs, quit bad jobs, made lots of art, completed a tarot deck and a handful of novel drafts. Somewhere in there I developed a rather poor memory, too.
But here, I’ll look back a bit at 2009 proper, since that’s freshest in the blur that is the ’00s.
2009 was…
A year of literary agent blogs and Absolute Write and query letters and having minor heart attacks every time my phone rang with a 212 call. A year of taking up residence in revisionland and preparing to move back in tomorrow. For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse. Or something.
A year of flax-golden tales that made me happy to be a dreamer and a wisher and a liar, especially one that is friends with Carey Farrell.
This year, more than any previous year, made me own the writer half of artist/writer. Even to the point of moving slowly toward writer/artist, which is surprising but nice, all at once.
It was a year of Sleep No More (carrying over into early 2010, seeing it 2x more) which kind of blew open the creative part of my brain. Remember that episode of Six Feet Under where Claire is trying to break her eye open for art school? Sleep No More did that for me.
A year of Bat for Lashes & Azure Ray & new Moby & yes, Lady Gaga.
A year for finishing the tarot deck after 3 years and 78 paintings.
A year of Fluevogs and shiny objects and cutting my hair shorter than it has ever been in my life. I’ll post pictures at some point, I promise.
I had an interesting year, I think. I’m not sure if it was good or bad but it was full and varied and I get to have Prosecco & fondue later so I can’t really complain all that much.
Things I Am Thankful For in this, the last week of November in the year 2009
(an unnumbered list)
Happy Thanksgiving to everyone celebrating. Happy everything to everyone else. Have something with cinnamon in it for me.
Yesterday, for my birthday extravaganza, the boy and I went to the Peabody Essex Museum. We hadn’t been in awhile, so all the special exhibits were new to us, but by far our favorite was the Trash Menagerie, an exhibit teeming with creatures made from recycled materials.
(Sulphur Blue Smeck, 2005, Michelle Stitzlein, mixed junk, 62 x 84 x 11 inches)
This butterfly is even more impressive in person. The stripes on the bottom of the wings are piano keys and the circles at the top are pots. It was impossible to pick a favorite, between the cardboard monkeys and the clam made of cigarette butts and the bunny with cigarette filter fur (bunny was even more adorable in person) and the glowing centipede comprised of bundt cake pans and bicycle brakes.
I love art made from repurposed stuff, and something about repurposing junk into animals is entirely enchanting. I can’t precisely put my finger on why, but the whole exhibit made me very happy. Finding new and exciting things, especially on my birthday, is a happy-making sort of thing.
After museuming we went out to dinner and managed to not get rained on, though it is the second coldest birthday that I can remember having.
We are still munching on funfetti cupcakes and I have a beautiful new necklace, my very first piece from Parrish Relics after years of coveting. Will be posting the first flax-golden tale tomorrow morning, and so far being thirty-one is very nice, indeed.