At Deb's Diner

Deb's Diner is a couple blocks from our old house. Every once in a while for some unknown reason we are all compelled to eat there. About halfway through breakfast we start naming all the places we could have gone that have better food... Check out the 60's decor, especially the orange lamps. It probably reminds me of my childhood... my mother didn't like to cook and by the time I was a teenager it was usually just the two of us for dinner. My podunk nowhere home town didn't have very many dining options and we usually ended up at the bowling alley. I ate many a grilled cheese sandwich to the sound of crashing pins. Now that I think of it the bowling alley coffee shop looked a lot like Deb's diner. The photos are G. and A. complaining about the bad coffee and limp bacon***

Just when the snow was mostly melted it starting snowing hard again tonight. I love the way snow looks when you are driving in the car and it is swirling toward you in the headlights. Will I get to my class I am teaching tomorrow? or will there be a snow day?***

I finished my painting of Simon the bichon, a present for g. and 6 coasters, painted on both sides. Even doing a little art at a time adds up. That's all for tonight, off to bed.

White and slushy

The little specks on the hill are people sledding, right across the street!

Monty the snow dog...

We came home from the coast early this weekend because it was snowing in Eugene. Even the coast weather was intense. There was snow, and then hail at Cape Perpetua. It was a bit scary driving through the coast range, but the snow was slushy on the road, so safe. It was so beautiful to see all the mountains dusted white and snow on the riverbanks. Tomorrow it will be a skating rink I am sure as all the slush turns to ice. We pulled into Sylvan Acre (the name of our townhouses, not a cemetery) and when Monty got out he had a great time running through the snow. Simon the bichon, got out of the car and headed for the neighbor's front door. No snow for him!

The weekend at the coast house was way too short and we didn't get anything done that we had set out to do. It was too rainy to finish cleaning up the yard and going to the dump, and we didn't get Ginger's heavy tools loaded into the van. Oh well, we did have a great visit with M. our wonderful neighbor across the street. I made cherry-walnut scones (Ardmore Inn recipe). We checked in with L. and K. and I gave everyone the directions to get to my self-focused blog. (giggle). There was some great shopping in the trashy, yet ever intriguing antique malls in Waldport. And we finished watching season 3 of Six Feet Under.

Well, this sounds fairly boring, but it was fine, now we all need to go to sleep with the beautiful, soft feeling that having snow all around gives. If you are reading this from a cold climate it may sound daft, but snow is still very special for this Los Angeles raised girl.

Being me

The little dog bed is everyone's favorite!

There is a wonderful comment from Michele on my last post. Thanks so much for the support. I'm glad the world has evolved as far as it has! Writing about Martin Luther King Day reminded me of Harvey Milk, the first gay elected official in San Francisco (1977). He said: "If a bullet pierces my brain, let it also shatter every closet door". He and the mayor of San Francisco were killed by another supervisor... His legacy lives on. A wonderful documentary is "The Life and Times of Harvey Milk". Today at work I told my friend L. this story. I feel so much gratitude for all the wonderful friends in my life gay and straight who stand right beside us. Once you are out of that closet there is no turning back, no matter what. The folks opposing us are fighting a losing battle...



On a totally different wavelength of the "being me" topic is drawing. I think a huge challenge for every artist is to learn to love their own line. Each person makes marks in a different way, especially when drawing from the head and not from life. I am watching a documentary (PBS, American Masters) about Andy Warhol. What gorgeous drawings he made in his early life and career as an illustrator. The moral? When your drawing goes wonky, save it. When you look at it in 6 months try to see it's uniqueness and go further. I'm preaching to myself here!

In the evening after a long day

A very goofy photo of G and I taken by my Mac.

I read Michelle's blog about Martin Luther King and it made me want to write about what this day meant to me this year. I felt very emotional at work on Monday. A work friend showed me her engagement ring and I felt so happy for her and then a wave of "different than" "unfair injustice" and anger washed over me. If we can celebrate MLK day, then gay people like me deserve civil rights too. In Oregon we were supposed to have domestic partner benefits on Jan 2nd. Not that I want to be a "domestic partner". (Sounds too much like housecleaning!) I want the right to marry like everyone else and the right to the benefits it brings. And I know the friends and family and new friends reading this want that too for us and I send many thanks for your support. But I still was sad on MLK day. Martin Luther King's life has given me the strength to be proud of who I am and never live in a closet.

Saturday night, just me and the dogs and cats

The cow and the monkeys are Rio Hondo pottery, a fairly recent obsession of mine. Rio Hondo was cheap pottery popular in the 40's and 50's and was made in El Monte, California (not far from where I grew up). It was the kind of pottery a kid could afford... on some pieces the prices of 5 cents or 10 cents are still written in pencil. I like the skunks and squirrels the best. And it's still inexpensive to buy. I have to figure out some display cabinets here as it's really fun to put it all out at one time! Ginger bought the cow for my 55th birthday, an incredible bargain at a Waldport antique mall for 2 dollars!

I made the mistake of taking a nap about 4pm and when I woke up it was dark and the dogs wanted dinner and I felt totally out of it. I am still tired, so the the rest of the evening I'm just going to browse art on the Internet, and lie in bed and read and then tomorrow get up early and do the thousand things I want to do. I hope the weather holds enough that we can get the big cabinet we bought for the studio into the house.

Had a great talk with K. about writing a blog, and no longer feel like this is strange. Bottom line is that it is so helpful and nourishing to hear from other artists. Love to all my friends, Janice.

January 18th, 2008 A day off work...

I've been reading blogs, artist's blogs to be exact and that is how all this writing got started. Up until now the only blog I had seen was L.'s created during her artist residency. So far my favorite blog is: How to draw a Coffee Cup, Michele Maule. Here is this young woman who makes paintings that look like cream and graphite (beautiful) sharing her daily creative life. And she was kind enough to write me back! It seems strange to write in such an honest way to people I do not know, yet oddly satisfying too. It feels very good to read about the struggles and elation of choosing a life as an artist. And as I told my sister, there are thousands of autobiographies in the library that are incredibly personal... and right there to share with everyone.

Here are some new house pictures. This may look like a garage to you, but it is really G's new shop. I am so excited about G having a real place to woodwork, it's been 8 years since she's been able to really use her tools. Next is G and Monty in the empty living room (or dog playroom). The last photo is some strange blueberry/huckleberry muffins I made in our very cute oven which has a little window and is at eve level. I'm happy at our new house. Most of our furniture is still living at our old place which is enduring the slump in the real estate market by not selling so far! (Another story). We have gotten to move in slowly and get to know this place well and by the time the old house sells and frees up our finances we'll know exactly what we want here. I look out every window here at trees, and my new studio room is light and bright. I am even going to have the Annual Valentine Card Making Party this year as the empty living room will provide lots of room to set up work tables!

January 14, 2008

Simon, aka. "Fuzzball", age 10, takes a little nap.

Monty the angel greyhound wonders why chairs are never the right size...

Why am I writing this? And why is it called a blog? People my age and older have no idea what a blog is. Is it egotistical? Self indulgent? Maybe? But it's fun, and perhaps it's a way to mark the passing of time and appreciate the day's events.

Today, riding the bus back to work a 30ish couple gets on with sleeping bags and a backpack. They smile and I ask if they are travelling. They look at each other and the man says, "we have had a bit of a hard time and we're homeless and moving to another place". The woman tells me " On Christmas eve I had surgery for an aneurysm, at least I am alive". We wished each other a good day and I got off the bus thinking I had no reason to feel anything but grateful for my life.

I'm so glad my sister read all this. Maybe the blog is about the need to speak with her more than I do. I see things that remind me of her all the time, "oh Sonny would like this". She lives so far away.

January 11, 2008

Hooray it's Friday! I am so tired, mostly because the cats have been driving me crazy at night. Curzon (featured in the above photo) wakes me up "combing" my hair and kneads my pillow, Oscar sleeps between my legs, pinning me to the bed and they are up and down and in and out (or want to be all night!). Starting tonight they will be sleeping in the laundry room which is quite comfy with a lovely cat box and food delights. And maybe tomorrow morning I will be more rested when I awake!

So far one person has read my blog that I know of, my friend L. Muchas gracias amiga. Esta amiga tiene ropas muy fashionista y ella auadame mucho a mi trabajo. (Sorry for my mangling of this language) Since this is over the airwaves I don't really want to state my friends names in case they value their privacy.

The topic for the night must be what we are all currently obsessed with on the television... We have no cable, but have Netflix instead. Along with movies there are the TV series: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (alltime fave), Dead Like Me (only ran two seasons but wonderful), Lost (is it appropriate that we still don't understand the plot?), and now Six Feet Under. The characters are so rich that even though they are on the flat TV screen one feels as if you could climb inside them. I love all the characters, but maybe the mom the best.

So if you are reading this blog and want to talk about TV obsessions or anything else you can by clicking on the comment word at the end of the posting.

January 10th, 2008

yawn... it was quite a day. Up really early to teach my class on crisis intervention. 14 students from different departments in the hospital, most really don't want to be there. Can I blame them? I was the same way, who wants to risk 8 hours being bored. I work really hard at not boring my students. The class is all about figuring out how to get patients to calm down and not hit you or throw a chair at you, or pull out their tube in their groin, run in the halls naked and bleed to death! (one of the many stories told today). Sometimes I think I am a really good teacher, mostly when people laugh, and sometimes I forget what the material is all about in the middle of a sentence!

I told J. that I would be posting a picture of Ginger in her cute sock monkey pajamas. She had just gotten up and is her sweet, sleepy self. I love digital cameras! I love taking photos whenever I want to with my camera that fits in my bag. I love the everyday life photos, candid photos... my photos make me laugh and they make me happy.

anyway, I got home from teaching my class and there was a wonderful letter from my amazing niece who I love so much. She is a good writer, I wonder if it runs in the family as my sister and I have logged miles of paper writing back and forth over the years. A letter on paper can be read over and over, pondered, cut up for collage, answered thoughtfully. Can a blog do the same? Probably not.

yawn again, I'm off to watch another episode of 6 feet under. What characters! wow... love to all who read this, since I'm pretty sure it's just my friends and family!

January 8, 2008

This is a little painting I am working on. I think the title is "blender city". When our carpets were cleaned the man left all these little Styrofoam blocks that keep furniture legs off damp carpet. I glued paper to them and here is the amazingly lightweight, but kinda fragile sub strait for the painting. It's fun using recycled materials...



It's 10pm and I should be in bed, but I always wake up this time of night. G just put Monty and Simon out and from downstairs I hear, "it's snowing!" Sure enough the yard has a thin cover of white. This morning when I left to walk down the hill to the bus it was a bit like a skating rink. I flagged a passing car and during the two minute ride to the bottom of the hill, I heard the driver's story of her bad fall in the shower, and she showed me her pinkie finger which she had chopped the top off of by slamming it in the car door. yikes! All this happened on her birthday. Quite a rendition while she was puffing away in a car filled with cigarette smoke. Kind of her though, she didn't want me to echo her accidents by falling on the ice.

January 6, 2008

In November there was a big storm at the coast. Some places saw winds as high as 100 mph. I don't think it blew that hard at our house, but it stormed hard enough to topple this tree in our backyard. And... I watched it fall! I was standing by the bedroom window when it sailed past me. I was so shocked I couldn't speak for a moment. Luckily it did little damage, just tore off the gutter and roof fascia. Before we left to come home I cut a branch off the downed tree and viola! our Christmas tree for this year! It was so

pretty, even though a bit crooked.

This dinosaur was a present from Lynn. He came in a little box with two little candle lights flickering. When you squeeze him he lights up in all different colors. He reminds me of Away in a Manger, prehistoric style.

January 5th, 2008

Winter is wrapped around me. Today is Saturday and as they say on the news there is "snow on the valley floor". Big, wet flakes that didn't really stick, but the sight got everyone at the library all excited. Strangers talk to each other here when it snows...

I love the library. I checked out a book of children's drawings, and several magazines including "The Sun" (great stories) and "Print", my fave for illustration and graphic design.

My new project is making a couple hundred little paintings on coasters. These are the coasters that come under your drink, thick and with advertisements. I'm trying to get my friends and co-workers to collect them for me, but I'm not sure they understand what I am doing! I'm punching holes in them so that maybe someday there will be a little sea of them hanging from the ceiling on fine threads, sparkly?

Oscar has joined me, all 15 pounds of him on my lap. He is an insistent kitty with strong dislikes and opinions. He is the alpha animal here in our house. Simon the bichon worships him longingly, stealing a lick sometimes as he passes by. Monty, the greyhound does his best to never make eye contact with him. And I spend my days waiting on Oscar, in and out, wiping his enormous paws (many toes), and carrying him everywhere. He sleeps in my arms purring when I'm still and growling when I disturb his rest. I'm working on G's computer, so don't have access to my photos, but you can get an idea of the size of those feet!

I'm ending now to watch an episode of "Six Feet Under". We are on season two, it's everything everyone said it was: fantastic.