what will you do with your weekend?

i'm no longer speaking to our car. we're supposed to be going to an 80th birthday party, but car troubles are preventing it. and that makes me quite sad. 80 is such an achievement! and i know it will be quite the event and i'm sad to miss it. this is the second time our jutlandish car has let us down when it was time to go to copenhagen - i'm beginning to wonder if it has something against the place. hmm...

yesterday, i visited the most fabulous leather store and stocked up on supplies for making iPad and laptop covers, so i'll comfort myself by using my day wisely.

i read this post and began to dream about there being something like the brooklyn brainery in my area. if there's going to be, i'll have to start it. i could also get into the idea of a society for the advancement of social studies in my neighborhood. i mean, an organization whose motto is: "all the history you knew but forgot, and all the booze you need to forget it again." has got to be good.

happy weekend, one and all...and if you want to read something interesting about the neanderthal genome, go here.

monocules©

we are working on something really fun around here and i'm really excited about it. as those who came to blog camp 2.0 know, sabin invented these little one-eyed guys. with some help from my sister and a clever and creative friend of hers, we have dubbed them monocules©. and we are working on their story. and a whole product line. and i'm giddy. because it's totally a family project. sabin invented them and makes them, husband's spinning the story, my sister came up with the name and me, i'm the paparazzi, posing them fetchingly in the garden. it's a collaboration made in heaven. are they super cute or what? we'll be sharing their stories very soon.

the theory of cat love

lila

lila showed up at our house about this time last winter.

she was wild and her fur was matted. we couldn't get near her.

i started putting out food for her and talking to her nicely.

she warmed up and now she's the perfect housecat.

but she refuses to come into the writing house. i'm not sure why.

so this is a shot of her through the glass of the door, waiting patiently outside for us.

we think she's a norwegian forest cat.

i have a number of friends with whom i have a relationship that i call "cat love." these are friends who i don't see often, but exchange sporadic flurries of emails with maybe once every year or so. they're friends with whom, despite the long periods of time where i don't talk to them, as soon as i do, we're right back at a very comfortable level of closeness, as if months or years hadn't gone by.

i recently had a couple of gmail video chats with one of these friends. we met in macedonia and now she's living in the US. we had only emailed a couple of times in the past few years and hadn't seen one another since she and her husband (he is that fulbrighter who had to flee albania when it collapsed in a pyramid scheme) came through to visit us on their honeymoon trip in 2003(?). but we arranged to do video chats and jumped right back in to our skins as old friends--joking and laughing, even though our lives have moved on and the topics are different than the ones we joked and laughed about in the good old days in macedonia.

i call it "cat love" because it's how cats are. if you're not there, they're totally cool and go about their cat lives just fine, sleeping comfortably and not thinking of you or pining away for you. but when you come back, they're totally there for you and it's as if you were never gone.

now if there's "cat love," there also has to be "dog love," right? "dog love" is the fawning kind. the drooling, overly excited kind. the kind where the more you are rejected, the more you love. i have "dog love" for P at what possessed me. she doesn't even know i exist, but i still eagerly go back for more, like a slobbering dog. and feel totally validated when we post on the same thing (tho' i didn't see her post 'til after my post). i was just so proud that i found and shared the same cool thing she found and shared. i was, in my own head at least, validated in my level of cool hipness. just like a slobbering dog who finally gets a dog biscuit after making those eyes and begging ('cause those kinda dogs are way cool and hip).

and because i don't want to be an idea thief, i will give co-credit for the creation of this idea to my old college friend jill, with whom i struggled through russian class, once drove in my little gold fiero to an audition for into the woods in chicago and formulated this theory. she is my first "cat love" friend.

the hazy outline of an idea

have you ever tried to force yourself to have an idea? only to find out that it just didn't work out. because you can't force ideas. ideas have to pop into your head, when you least expect them, you can't try to have them. i have the same problem when someone asks me, as a native speaker, for a word, as in "what's the word for that yellow fruit that you peel the outside of and that people slip on the peels in slapstick comedies?" at a moment like that i'm always completely blank, no matter how simple the word, i couldn't come up with the word "banana" to save my life. it has to do with being put on the spot.

well, i'm trying right now to come up with an idea. and it's just not happening. there's a partial idea there,  a glimmer of a thought, but i can't see where to go with it. i've tried sneaking up on it from an oblique angle. i've tried sleeping on it. i even consciously tried to dream about it. that once worked for me with a sewing problem. i was stuck on the sailor collar on a dress (it was the late 80s, so sue me). the directions were rubbish and i couldn't see how to do it. so i took a quick nap, dreamed exactly how to do it, got up and did it. my brain, in slumber, worked it out for me. but not this time. at least not yet.

and i want the idea now, now, NOW! i feel i'm in a holding pattern until it comes. so how do i make it come? i spend a rather shocking amount of time looking for inspiration on places like flickr and the internet in general. perhaps it's that my brain is so full of all that input that the output button is stuck.

i have half a notion to go wander around an art museum or take my camera and go in to copenhagen and wander around (clearly a need to wander, what with two uses of the word in one sentence). but maybe i just need to DO something today...empty a few boxes (it's getting better, but there's still one stack), wash that pile of dishes, finish the laundry (i already cleaned the upstairs bathroom yesterday), sew something, draw something...in general, get out from behind the computer, perhaps then, when i least expect it, the idea will come.  because i know it's there in the recesses of my brain, waiting for the right combination of actions on my part to release it.

taking stock

it's that time of year for stocktaking. last year at this time, i realized that i was answering to my fourth boss in three and a half years and that i didn't have the energy for the starting all over that that promised. each one came in and wanted to undo everything the previous one had thought was ok in order to leave his mark, so it was an endless cycle of defending the projects one was already doing. and i realized it was no longer worth it to my sanity. and so i'm no longer there. and it has taken me nearly this entire year to recover psychologically, but i do feel that i have at last recovered and found my way back to myself, strong and whole and probably better and stronger and more sure of what makes me tick than i was before.

so that makes stocktaking feel like a good and worthy activity, so although i'm not really a big advocate of new year's resolutions, it seems worthwhile to think about what one wants going forward into the new year.

yesterday, i had a two hour brainstorming session with two very brilliant and wacky minds. these two people get more ideas every minute than you can imagine and i am always in awe when i'm around them. i feel that i am also a person who gets a lot of ideas, but i could tell that spending a couple of hours brainstorming with them yesterday was the most productive and energizing time i've spent in ages. and i realize that although working mostly from home over the past year has been a true luxury, it has been a bit isolating at times and isolation can be stifling to ideas. you need other people around who stimulate you creatively. your own ideas become better when you bounce them off of the ideas of others. so one of the things i resolve to do in 2009 is to regularly spend time with creative minds who push my thinking in new and exciting directions.

this morning, i sat with my newspapers and a cup of tea and read headline upon headline about the financial crisis and how it's starting to impact businesses and individuals. when i walk around on the pedestrian shopping zone in my little town, i see little evidence of any christmas slowdown. people appear to be hurrying around, shopping their little brains out, with that slightly panicked glazed-over look in their eyes, grabbing another and another and another gift. and i realize that i really don't want to do that anymore. it doesn't make us feel good, so why is it that we are driven to consume?

last night, i downloaded and read from cover to cover the latest issue of mankind mag. it's a free download from design for mankind and i thought it was so awesome that i went back and donated to it. completely in tune with the zeitgeist, it's the consumption issue. erin talks to artists all over the world about consumption. even before i opened it, i thought of an artist i'd seen on etsy who made daily drawings of the things she bought. and i was delighted to find that she was there in this issue--kate bingaman burt. and because i'd lost track of her after stumbling onto her on etsy months ago, i have now bookmarked her blog.

so i hereby resolve to document my purchases, on a daily basis, for at least the whole month of january. perhaps it will be so much fun (or so shocking) that i will continue. but i've been talking about off and on during 2008 that i want to be more conscious about my consumption and now it's time to do something about it.  i actually tried keeping a food journal at the beginning of the year, in order to be more conscious about what i was eating, but somehow it didn't catch on with me and it's lying mostly empty by my bedside.  the cover above features a drawing of purchases by UK artist gemma correll that's amazing and inspiring as well, so i think i'll be able to stick with this resolution this time around.

one other thing i've been thinking about in addition to spending my money more wisely is spending my time more wisely as well. some of the first blogs i discovered at the beginning of the year, when i began spending time in the blogosphere in earnest just don't fit me anymore. and it took me awhile to realize it. there are a couple in particular which have been daily reads for me, which i have come to realize are really quite empty and false and pretty much annoy the hell out of me. so i resolve, actually already now, as of this minute, to un-favorite them and not spend any more time there. some people, "rad" as they fancy themselves to be (seriously, who says that?), really aren't worth it. and besides they never reciprocated by reading me, so who cares? my time is too precious. (EDITED:  please note that i do not mean any of you guys who visit me regularly...these were people whose blogs i visited, but who never visited me!!!)

and, i'll leave you with erin's challenge from her editor's note in mankind mag--"every time you spend money, you are casting a vote for the kind of world you want." --anna lappe.  then erin asks, "have you checked your vote lately?" i for one will be checking my vote a lot more often.

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just stumbled onto an interesting blog entry and song demo by suzanne vega on the NYT website. check out her song, it's very timely (tho' completely unrelated to what i've written above, just had to share because it was cool).

a new kind of craftiness!

i'm so excited! i have been looking and looking and looking for a stamp with a lightbulb on it. i have even enlisted others in my hunt. in my written journals and in my little black book which i carry in my purse and which contains all of the excellent quotes i've heard and my to do lists, as well as moments of inspiration--i scrawl a little lightbulb beside ideas so that i can page straight to them. i've been wanting a little lightbulb stamp to use instead, since i adore stamps. i haven't been able to find one. and neither have mom or monica, who have been put on the task as well. well...last night while browsing etsy (that bastion of lovely creativeness), i discovered that i just might be able to make one myself.

however, in case i couldn't, i requested a custom stamp from a lovely shop called mayberry sparrow. here's what corabelle came up with:


that's really great! but here it is...my first attempt! not as good as the cool stuff corabelle is making, but a pretty cool first attempt, even if i do say so myself.


i bought a handful of inexpensive white erasers today. i cut one in half, drew one of my lightbulbs on it and carved it out with an exacto-knife. easy peasy lemon squeezy. and very affordable on top of it! plus, it's MY lightbulb! the one that i draw!

i suspect that many erasers will be sacrificed this weekend. i'm thinking a wine glass, a dandelion, some owls (why am i suddenly obsessed with owls?--it's that sassafrass paper, i'm sure). the possibilities are endless!

something totally cool...

...and unexpected. an everyday thing and yet not. an object that isn't necessarily useful, but which brings joy, just because it's so colorful and whimsical. i found these colorful felted rocks on etsy. they're made by an artist named reya who lives in the netherlands. and there's a real rock on the inside. what a totally cool idea.