Bumcheeks Revisited: Chapter One

Oh, we've all done it, so don't pretend like you haven't.
You're single, or maybe you're not but things are going absolutely rotten with "him" (or "her"), so your thoughts begin to drift back... back to when you were dating that other person, and how you recall those days being filled with sunshine, goofy jokes and steamy nights in dark bars and beds. You clearly remember how much fun you had, and how you'd walk along the boardwalk as mermaids threw bits of sunken treasure at you from the water, and you both would tuck the gold and jewels into your pockets before boarding the dirigible and floating off to your mountaintop castle, where hoards of leather-clad dwarfs served you lovely chocolatey things and let you win at all the video games.
It's all so clear in hindsight.

"Why did I let that go?" you think, as you gaze off into the middle distance (or stare malevolently at the back of the person responsible for your every misery, or at least intolerable banality).
You inevitably wonder what that person is doing now. Is he/she happy? Does that person still think of you, or (in some cases) even remember you?

Maybe, you think, your past love occasionally sits on a moonlit stone wall and gazes at the stars, wondering where you are. Maybe there's a song that brings you to mind, or maybe it's that brand of beer you liked or the smell of clove cigarettes... maybe you're on someone's mind and, goldernit (you think) you can't let that pass you by! You can go back! It's not too late... go find your lost love and dive forever into your shared life of magical ponies!

Yeah.
I'm here to tell you, you're a fucking idiot.

I'm sorry to be the one to break it to you, you not knowing me from a hole in the wall and all, but you are.
Now, pay attention. What you have forgotten is that he sucks on each. and. every. finger. after a meal of something he's eaten with his hands (even though he wasn't meant to in the first place). You've conveniently wiped from your memory the fact that he uses the word, "piss" way too liberally, can't sit still for more than a minute, and insists on singing along to the radio incessantly.
This isn't news. You know this. Yet, most of us still seem to have a persistent curiosity when it comes to people we left in our rear-view mirror 10, 15, 20, even 25 years ago.

That's okay. Really, it is. It's okay because I've decided to Take One For The Team.

I heard just yesterday that my divorce is final, and my last ties to the man I was with for 9 years (12 if you count the 3 years between our separation and actual divorce) have been severed permanently. My feelings about this are mixed and unexpected; I'm not sad in the least, except insofar as I'm sad about the 8 years or so of romantic life on which I lost out. I'm actually happy that he seems to have found someone he doesn't hate, and it's nice that at least one of us gets to win, even if she is sort of a moose that learned to walk upright. I also feel kind of like a dinghy that's been cut loose, and there's the vague notion that someone ought to start rowing.
Since, unlike my ex, I have not yet found another suitable partner, I have plenty of time for dumb-ass thoughts, and enough of a penchant for thumbing my nose at reality that I'm of a mind to play around with ideas from which most normal people would shy away.

So, I've decided it would be interesting to track down a few of my past Prince Charmings and actually have a look at what they've gotten themselves up to.
What could possibly go wrong?

One reason I think this might be entertaining is that I did exactly this, just for the hell of it, with one person a few years ago, and it was an eye-opener:

My second boyfriend ever was not named "Joe," but that's what I'm calling him here, because I think at the very least he deserves that level of anonymity.
I met Joe in the spring of my freshman year in college. I was on the periphery of the "Dead Head" community, getting very much into the music and fashion but not really inspired by the more adventurous drugs. Oh, sure, I got stoned regularly, but that and beer was about it. Joe was introduced to me by a female friend, and I fell instantly for those huge blue eyes, tousled brown hair and soft voice. We spent more and more time together, and my crush on him drove me nuts, but I was far too shy to admit it.
I lived in an apartment with 3 other girls, and we had a kitchen and bathroom with a bedroom on either side. Since Joe and I were both night owls, we spent practically every night in that kitchen, on the couch in the corner, talking as quietly as possible about God knows what until dawn. To be super quiet, we took to writing each other notes in (and this totally cracks me up now) a runic alphabet. It was our own little code. It was our thing.
Finally, one night, he wrote a short note, pondered it for a moment, then folded it and put it in his shirt pocket. We'd been doing the whole flirting thing for a while, so of course I was hoping like hell he'd written something interesting about me, but now he was adamant that I not see it.
Of course, that meant I wouldn't relent until I did.
After a great load of pseudo-wrestling, he finally relented and handed it over. Much to my shock, it actually was a declaration of romantic intent, and that was the beginning of our involvement.
It lasted through that spring and summer, and then ended when he found another hippie chick while away somewhere for a few weeks, but it was cool and we stayed friends for a few more years before finally drifting apart, at which point I was at art school in NYC and he was in boat-building school on the Atlantic coast.
I lived for many years with good memories of Joe. I remembered a good writer, how he smoked cloves and how I liked the smell, his obscure observations of the world, the weird music and comedy he introduced me to, his mellow, almost hypnotic voice and how relaxed and content I felt around him.

Years went by, and I occasionally tried to look him up, but he was always off the grid. Then, one day, the Almighty Internet rose like a social fungus, and eventually its tendrils reached into even the most out-of-the-way hidey holes of all but the most conscientious hippie.
A few years ago, my husband and I separated, and I left CA and returned to New England to re-group, as it were. After I'd been back for a few months, I started looking up old friends who I thought might be in the area, and the fact that Joe had been elusive over the years only reinforced my curiosity about him, so I set about digging up all the specifics I had on him, determined to re-connect with my old friend.

Now, this is an important point: I was not ever interested in pursuing anything romantic this time around. That wasn't my motivation. It was the chase. It annoyed me that someone could be so hard to find for so long. Well, that and I knew he was also a creative type, and I thought he might be an "in" as far as work or a circle of friends. Even though I had nothing but warm and fond memories of Joe, and while technically I have a "never say never" outlook, I had zero expectations or hopes in that department. Trust me... I'll tell you when I start talking about one of the ones in whom I did (or still do) have an interest.
This is not one of them.

I eventually found a "Joe" with the right last name and age, and I paid $6.95 for contact info, which turned out to be only an address that was maybe an hour from me.
Okay, so far so good.
I wrote the following (I've omitted names and other specific info here), and sent it off to someone I may or may not have once known:

"You now hold in your hands the 'Funny Thing That Happened to You Today;' A letter out of the blue from either an old friend from the distant past, or from a total stranger (either way, not an everyday thing). I hope it will turn out that it's the former.
    After roaming about, living in NYC, Paris and San Francisco, I have finally returned to Maine, and I’m looking for the (Joe) I met (in college) back in (19xx), with whom I lost touch shortly after I moved to NYC. I believe you were about to go to boat-building school at the time. If this sounds like it might be you, you may or may not remember (me), as I was known back then, though I’ve gone by (me) for the past 20 years or so.
    I doubt either of us are the same as we were back then (speaking for myself, I’ve tried to retain the comical absurdity while toning down the lifestyle as I grew up), but I remember you as a unique and creative individual, and I’m persistently curious regarding what became of you. If you are the (Joe) I once knew, and you’d like to fill me in on the last couple of decades, you may contact me in either of the following ways:"

Maybe a week or so later, I got a call from him.
Oh, that same voice... the nostalgia flooded back.
We had a good talk. He had a 7-year-old daughter and recently separated from her mother (no, I swear, I still had no "thoughts." I'm a city girl, and he eats raw string beans. Not my thing). He was living on a homestead in central Maine, in a house he and his girlfriend had built from scratch, and was working at a place that installs solar panels. I had not even a shred of surprise.

I went up to visit him and catch up one summer day. Why the hell not? This was fun, and I felt like I was doing something I wasn't supposed to. This, however, was where the reality of doing this sort of thing started to solidify into something far less ethereal and poetic as mere recollection would have one believe.

The homestead turned out to be a little house on a huge parcel of grassy land, with raised gardens and a chicken coop beside it. The land itself is beautiful; slight hills with long grass and wildflowers, a patch of forest behind the house, and rows of maples dividing the fields into irregular sections. The house itself, however, was apparently still a work in progress. Upon exiting the car, my dog immediately began terrorizing the chickens, which I probably should have recognized as not a good start. I got her under control just as Joe came out of the house.
Well, I gotta give him this: He hadn't aged much. He was the same weight, same build, same hair, same glasses... remarkable, really.
Inside the house, there was running water, but the floors and walls were unfinished. I wondered how the hell they coped in the winter, since I saw no heat source. Of particular interest, however, was the bathroom.

One of the reasons I hate camping is the bathroom situation. I am incredibly unhappy when I have no access to clean, cool porcelain, lovely floor tiles, plush bath mats, a sink free of crusted toothpaste, and a good hard flush. This bathroom had none of those things. The shower, I will say, was fantastic. They'd built a huge shower-room, festooned with blue mosaic tiles and raised up on a couple of steps, and you barely noticed that the water source was a hose run through a hole in the wall from outside.
The commode, however, was a work of art in its wrongness.
Someone had constructed a wooden box about 2 feet square and the height of the average kitchen chair. Inside the box was a large white bucket, and when I gingerly peered in I could see (somewhat to my relief) that it contained several inches of wood chips. That same someone (presumably) had also obtained a large-ish wooden arm chair, removed its legs, cut a bum-sized hole in the seat, and affixed it atop the wooden box o'bucket. Next to this contraption was a block of wood chips, which were actually the same brand I used to use as my horse's bedding.
It was explained to me that the established procedure was that one was to sit upon this throne of sorts, relieve oneself of whatever abdominal cargo one wished, which would collect in said bucket. At the conclusion of one's purging, one was expected to add a small layer of wood chips to the bucket to cover the evidence. Apparently, once the bucket became full, it was hauled out to some sort of separate compost area (I don't remember the specifics, as at that point I was still on, "I'm to whiz in a what?"), dumped, and returned to the box.
Um, okay.

Everything else there was similarly makeshift or tree huggy, though I really didn't mind because some of it was kind of cool, plus I knew I'd be going home to my flushing, heated-water world. It was a nice visit, and his daughter turned out to be a sweet, beautiful little fairy-like girl. We kept in touch.

Now, the rest of our contact isn't too interesting, but what I learned was this:
What you remember as a blue-eyed poet with a charmingly child-like world view and a mellow personality can, if you get close enough again, turn out to be a blue-eyed clueless aging hippie with zero ability to make the most fundamental life choices, scrape together enough motivation to actually do something -- anything, or spring for the $40 to bleach the fuck out of that one brown front tooth.
I have friends of widely varying personalities, so it normally wouldn't bother me that he, for instance, insists on driving a car while turned fully around to look at his daughter while talking to her. No shit, doing 45 up Route 1, he's at the wheel and getting through 2 or 3 complete sentences in a row while looking out the back window. He also chews with his mouth open. I know, I'm so picky, right?
Schlompp schlompp schlompp...
It was fascinating. I couldn't have done it that dramatically if I tried.
Every misfortune he'd suffered had been at his own hands, like when he thought it would be awesome to go rock climbing alone, with no equipment, miles from traffic. Halfway up a 50-or-so-foot rock face, he lost his footing and fell, broke both feet upon landing, and a fraction of a second later his knees slammed up into his jaw, shattering it. He crawled 3 miles or so down the trail until he happened on some hikers who helped him out.
I can see a teenager doing that, but he was in his late 20's at the time, the dumbass.

There were a number of tiny quirks and aspects of his personality that scratched and dented my previously rosy memory of him, but again, with friends you take the good with the bad.
What tilts my narrative in a snarky, somewhat dismissive direction is what happened the last time I saw him. We had a nice dinner at my place, but before he left he got all serious on me. He explained very clearly how we had to "talk about this crush (I) had on him."
Uhwhaaat?
Wait, what?
He went on to explain how he knew I had a major thing for him, but that he just wasn't interested, in part because he'd met a woman he'd started seeing. "She's perfect, except that she's a raging alcoholic." My mind snagged on that for a few beats, as it boggled at how any parent of a 7-year-old could think it was a fine idea to deliberately bring a person with major substance abuse issues into their lives. I struggled with absorbing that information while some other part of my mind was thumbing desperately through the manual of How To Tell A Guy He Has Totally The Wrong Idea.

The sheer arrogance and patronizing tone is what makes me not at all hesitant to point out his shortcomings. All subtlety deserted me. I was left stranded with the choice to remain quiet, or bluntly explain how sure I was that I'd somehow muddle through not having the option to date a penniless, snaggle-toothed middle-aged dude who shits in a bucket.

I'd done nothing whatsoever to prod him into that conclusion, either. In fact, I thought I'd been pretty clear about wanting to go back to Brooklyn, my love of all sorts of things he wasn't into, plus there was my whole aversion to raw beans and desire to not have other people's urine hanging around in my house.
No, I bloody well can't let the toilet thing go. You didn't see it, dammit!

It turned out to be a mercifully short conversation, during which I mostly said things like, "Oh, well," without elaboration. I wished him luck, he left, we played phone tag a couple of times, but it's now been over a year since I've heard from him.


My "lesson" here, friends, is not that you should never seek out those who stick in your mind, but that if you decide to do so, be prepared for your memories to be marred by reality. I absolutely don't regret finding Joe again, because I'd rather know than wonder what became of him. The price I paid was discovering that he's much weaker than I remember, his creativity has gone unused or wasted on bad ideas, and he's nowhere near as smart or intuitive as I remember. He's a faded, diluted and worn version of the Joe in my mind's eye, and that's a bit of a shame.

The experience has made me curious, though, about a few other choice individuals from my past, so I'll be writing about them in future entries, whether or not I find them, and whether I fuck the whole thing up enough that they somehow think I have a crush on them, too.

(Finally, just for fun, here's a photo from that day I saw him for the first time in years):

The Wet Chicken Incident

Perhaps surprisingly, this is not a euphemism.

          Back in the first decade of the new millennium, in a far away magical land called California, I eked out a modest existence in the Bay Area in part by ranch-sitting for friends. One particular couple I knew were Charles and Kim, who I met when I needed a winter pasture for my horse, and a friend connected us. They were both living the textbook CA dream. He was a little older than I, had already made millions in something tech-related, and had invested wisely enough that he maintained his wealth through the stock crises. She was/is both gorgeous and one of the nicest people I knew, with a million dollar smile and looks that made for 50/50 odds that she was once an exotic dancer or a very high end working girl (neither of which are professions to which I object), and had gracefully held onto her beauty in middle age.

          After they'd gotten married, Kim decided to fulfill her dream of having a ranch and raising Gypsy Vanner horses, so they bought a beautiful swath of hilltop land in the East Bay and proceeded to populate it with horses, dogs and about a million chickens. Okay, maybe there were more like 50 chickens (I counted 48 and 53 at different times), but anyone who's ever been around them knows that you count chickens as: One, Two, Three, Several and millions. She had Silkies, Barred Plymouth Rocks, New Hampshire Reds, some small ones that looked more like doves, Red Jungle Fowls, a few Bantam breeds, something gigantic and black, and one of whatever the fuck is on the Corn Flakes box. One of the dove-like ones was awesome. Her name was Abigail, and she was a lap-chicken. She'd sit on Kim's lap when she worked at the computer, and whenever I was looking after the ranch, Abigail preferred to ride around in the pocket of my sweatshirt as I did chores.
          By and large, though, chickens are hands-down the dumbest life forms (as a group) I've ever encountered, the Silkies being the worst offenders. Go to a drag queen cabaret and locate the most voluminous marabou boa in the place and wad it up into a ball. Glue a beak on in the most logical place, then jam the whole lot onto a pair of ruffled pantaloons and you'll have your very own Silkie.
Think I'm joking? Look, here's a picture:

 

          Now imagine this creation with a perpetual look of confused paranoia, occasionally running around in a histrionic, directionless frenzy. Add ten more of them and stand in the middle of the whole mess. Welcome to being me.

          Now, I've had my own ducks. I had Khaki Campbells and Pekins, and not only are ducks the most affable of fowl and a consistent source of hilarity, their eggs also make the best popovers ever. 
(Here's me with one of my Pekins. I think this one's "Billie Idol." That's right... I had my duck in my house. Don't you judge me!)

          When it comes to chickens, however, I've found that while chickens in general are kind of cool, I have one problem: Roosters. Or, as I prefer to call them, "Homicidal, Ambulatory Lunch Meat." Kim had a bunch of them, and I spent many an hour being seriously terrorized by a triumvirate of bantams (one copper, one black and one white with black speckles) who would surround and mock me as often as possible, and one godawful monstrosity of a rooster named, "Clancy." Clancy would follow me like a shadow as I fed the horses and dogs, cleaned the pasture, filled the waters, cleaned the coops, collected eggs and filled the chicken feed dispensers. 95% of the time he'd just stare at me with one eye. Oh, he had two eyes, but he could only terrorize me with one at a time, first glaring at me with one and then quickly turning his little pin head to fix the other on me. The other 5% of the time he would actively attack me with the venomous hatred of a ninja bent on avenging the slaughter of his family. The damage that a pound or two of angry bird could inflict on me was truly astounding; I went home with scratches and frequent bruises more often than not, and he went to bed in the coop some nights with wispy strands of my hair still tangled in his talons.

          The horses on the ranch consisted, at one time, of a Gypsy Vanner mother and foal  (they look like this, but they're only large-pony height):

an adolescent Clydesdale, a massive draft horse of unknown breed and mercurial temperament, and another friend's yearling draft-Thoroughbred cross named Ruby. Ruby, having been afflicted at an early age with the equine version of a sense of humor, had the annoying habit of climbing into the big (about 7 feet in diameter and 3+ feet deep) water bin in the pasture. She'd just hang out there, belly-deep in the water, with a look on her face like, "Well, waddaya gonna do abouddit?" The answer, of course is, "nothing." Sometimes we could shoo her out, but for the most part the safest thing to do is to let a large, young horse get out of the water trough when she's good and ready. Well, at least until we got the fence in the other paddock finished and we could move her to where the troughs were too small for her to get into.

          Chickens, it turns out, aren't as flexible with the whole water thing as one would think, especially not in winter. I found this out one morning, when I discovered one of the Silkies in some distress, it having flapped up onto, and subsequently flopped into one of the water bins, the sides of which were too steep for her to grab onto and get herself out. I'd found her just in time, and when I rescued her she was exactly what you's expect a cold, wet wad of marabou to look like, compounded by her being coated in green algae.
           There was only one thing I could do, since I couldn't leave her in the coop with the others on a cold night if she wasn't totally dry (they're not the best at dealing with cold). I had to bring her in the house and give her a bath.

          I was a little at sea,  since I had to use SOME soap to get the goop off of her, yet I didn't know if this would be bad for her feathers in the long run. In the end I used a very diluted smidgen of baby shampoo, which did the trick. As I toweled her off, the blow dryer caught my eye. To my surprise, it turns out it IS possible to blow-dry a chicken. Here's an animal that freaks out when a leaf blows by, yet sits quietly on a towel, happily dozing as I fluff up her feathers on low heat.
          As I embarked on this task, I had one of those moments where I slipped into a contemplative assessment of how life in general was going. Who am I? I mused. Well, I'm a graduate of an upscale private school, I have two college degrees (one from one a prestigious art school), I've lived in NYC for a long time, worked in the Marvel Comics Bullpen, partied many a night away in the depths of the East Village, spent time working for the largest ad agency in the world, skated drunk in a mylar mini-dress at the Rockefeller Center rink, been lots of places I had no business being, also lived in both Paris and San Francisco, actually spent a night in a Paris brothel (that's another story), and had a ton of other experiences in my 40-ish years that fall into the, "Huh, that's kinda weird" category. I marveled that all of that had eventually led me to this point, here, in my friend's bathroom, blow-drying a slightly green (but happy) chicken back into roughly the size and shape of a basketball.

          It's moments like that which give one a fantastic perspective on life.

Why I Eschew Internet Dating

While going through some old documents, I found this rant from years ago, when I briefly tried a couple of dating sites and walked away feeling like I'd just tried to seek companionship with a whole different species. I've been bitching a lot lately about dating in general, so I figured I'd share this, since it will, I fear, always be relevant:

Here’s a hint for all of you guys on dating websites: Don’t quote your mom in your profile, especially if you’re doing so to substantiate your claim of being a funny guy. Also, embrace the baldness or get a hat. Are you seriously thinking that black toupee perched atop your noggin, like a ferret on a pile of dryer lint, is fooling anyone? The lingering wisps of hair clinging to your temples are grey, as are your eyebrows and mustache, and your flaccid denial of this says more about who you are than 10 pages of profile prose ever could.
While we’re at it, about the mustache: 1976 called… it wants its face back. It screams, “I wish my Scion was a Camero,” “50% of my wardrobe is naugahide,” and/or, “I’m not gay. I’m NOT GAY!” Finally, when you list your favorite music as “Bluegrass,” it’s probably better to bypass the woman whose profile literally states, “Bluegrass makes me break out in hives.”

Are there no men out there with style? I’m not talking about manscaping metrosexuals. I mean a guy who you can look at and think, “Wow, you’re different, and it really works for you.” What rock to I have to peer under to find a non-smoker, non-drinker, non-drug user and non-caffeine drinker with no kids, who isn’t also going to preach holy hellfire at me, or try to trade me for 2 camels and a chicken?

Even if I narrow my criteria to the bare minimum of a) Men who are as smart/smarter than I am, b) Men who have some form of income, c) people without criminal records, and d) Guys with good oral and personal hygiene, the prospects are distressingly bleak. Add to that the frighteningly common “Open Mouth Chewers,” the “Finger Lickers,” the “Frenetically Tapping Along to the Song in My Heads,” the “Free Sneezers” and the “I am Biologically Linked to My Cell Phone/PDAs,” and you have a field of dating prospects that makes me wonder if I should even bother at this point.

I’m sorry I don’t hang out in bars anymore unless there's something going on other than drinking. I’m sorry I only go to the gym 4 times a week, and that I have no interest in base jumping. I’m sorry that I REALLY don’t want to be your kids’ new mommy.

I seek practicality without tightwaddiness. I seek that guy whose top 10 communication preferences do not include texting. If your diet includes more than 2% of foods that are deep-fried or “fast,” move along, nothing to see here. I’ve seen countless men who fan out their colorful feathers by declaring how much they love traveling to exotic places. Where’s the guy who knows that a good book, a deck of cards, a porch, a hammock, a few passing thunderstorms and a shitload of lightning bugs are also elements of a decent vacation? Someone like that is a million times more interesting to me than the dude who can’t let a day off go by without putting more effort into it than the average workday (I’m not sure if I’m putting this right, but why does everyone seem to need to be entertained all the time)? 

On second thought, maybe it just annoys me because I know that being on an exotic adventure doesn’t make you interesting, and it seems like a lot of people don’t realize this. At some point, you’re going to be passing the Grape Nuts back and forth in the morning, and that’s the point when you’re either happy to be right there, or you’re desperately thinking of the next entertaining getaway and someone other than I with whom to be on it.

Willing The Studio Into Existence

I swear, my brain is all over the fucking map lately.

Right now, I'm suffering in the feverish throes of desire for change.
For Making Things Happen.

Chief among my ideas in this vein is that I want to open a studio with at least two other friends; one is an illustrator and the other is a phenomenal stained glass artist. We've been toying with the idea for a bit, poking at it and batting it about, but so far none of us have had the balls so pick the damn thing up and run with it.

It's one of those things you tend to think about in terms of, "We'll do that when we're older," under the assumption that "older" means an established career, good credit and some disposable income. None of the three of us has ANY of that shit (despite being "older") and, in fact, only one of us even has a child (not I), but I'm starting to think that now may be the time to just do it.

Every once in a while, when faced with this sort of life-assessing string of thoughts, I like to imagine that I've just slipped through a temporal wormhole from 20 or so years in the future. I see myself lounging about somewhere in that time period, contemplating that time (i.e. now) when I had a certain set of choices, and wishing I'd taken a leap that I hadn't. Then, suddenly, fate shoves me unceremoniously into the vortex and I slam into existence here, now, in my den, on the cusp of saying "fuck it" regarding some life choice. I've been given a second chance, though without the benefit of the hindsight I'd have gained in that imagined future.

I'm a City Girl. I admit it, I can't change it... don't want to. I want a studio where I can play with colorful, sparkly shit, indoors, and in close proximity to the disgusting, filthy, unreliable, occasionally dangerous, but ultimately beloved subway (the train, not the sammitch purveyors). I want to hang some Christmas lights somewhere. I want to be influenced and inspired by my friends' work, and to cooperate with each other so that we all achieve enough success to live without having to pander to the banal people and work environments that conspire to suck the life out of us. Some brick would also be nice.
I want to teach others some of the weird shit I know how to do.
I was to meet more weird artists like myself.
I want, ever so rarely, to go to a club and dance like an idiot.
I want to do drastic things with velvet.
I want to have a studio open house and display things in a gallery.
I want my dog at work with me.
I want rhythm, I want music, and dammit I can ask for anything more.
(Okay, fine, I'd be happy with just the music... we all know I'll never have rhythm.)
I want to make things that light up and glow in the dark and, moreover, I want to make other people want them, too.


Given all of that, what the fuck am I DOING with my life?

Is it really so much of a fatuous idea to just MAKE it happen once the weather warms up?
I have this funny feeling that if we did, by banding together we'd go three times as fast as we would on our own, pooling time and resources for the benefit of all. It could be something extraordinary, or it could be a colossal failure, but I'm thinking it could turn out to be an amazing thing.

In a time when artists have been stomped into rigid molds for corporate jobs, terrified by the prospect that someone who's a little faster, a little younger or a little cheaper will take away our incomes, or already unemployed and/or unemployable due to our desire for a voice of our own, it would be a glorious thing for a few of us to team up and go all old-school on everyone's ass and make our own rules.
And, and this would the important bit, succeed in doing so.

I looked into studio rentals in Brooklyn and Manhattan and, to my astonishment, I found a few that would be both suitable and affordable! I have an office desk and chair, a spare desktop Mac, my own drawing table, rugs, shelves, a coffee table and even a full-sized fridge that could all go into our space. If I could secretly crash in the studio for a few months until I got an apartment (and shower at friends' places), it's actually do-able.
The more I ponder it, the more I fall in love with the idea.

I'm not dumb... I know it would probably be several miles of rough road. Possibly VERY rough road, and there are a lot of variables, so what it comes down to is: Is it worth it to try?
I'm SO leaning towards...
"yes."

Today's Featured Celebrity Crushes

My top two celebrity darlings have been holding steady for a while, even though I can't even envision them in the same room together: Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Noel Fielding. Neil and Noel... like two sides of the best coin ever.

Oh, Neil, how I adore thee. I can't imagine anyone NOT liking this guy. Not only is he a world-renowned astrophysicist, 6'2" tall New Yorker, fine wine enthusiast and seemingly all around hilarious cool guy, but he has also mastered that most elusive of skills: Translating sciencey-speak into language for those of us without PhDs.

Look at him! Adorable AND a genius. You just know he's the kind of guy you want at your dinner soiree... guest and entertainment all in one. He'd probably also bring a hell of a pinot noir.

If you don't know who he is, look up ANY YouTube video of him saying pretty much anything.

Maybe "crush" is the wrong word to use in this case, because even though I'd date a guy like him in a second, ultimately I just wish I could hang out with him for a day. I have a feeling I'd come out of that day with a completely different view of the world, and that's one reason I love this guy so much; he's changing the world with amazing knowledge filtered through his personality. People who listen to what he has to say become a little smarter, or at least a little less stupid.
Well, I guess that's inaccurate... what I mean is that he brings new knowledge to everyone in a way that makes them care about and retain it. Let's face it, if you're stupid you're stupid, but at least he can make it an INFORMED stupidity.

Here's to you, Neil.
If I'm lucky enough to meet you some day, I just know you'll say something atomic.

*****

As for Noel, he's the perfect example of a guy I shouldn't be into, but I just can't stop. God dammit, he SHOULD annoy the crap out of me, but I see something of a kindred spirit there, and I find those to be woefully few and far between.
I can't STAND hipsters, and this guy not only comes across as King Hipster, but also as a guy who has every reason to have an ego in the stratosphere, which is also a me-repellant. When you see him in interviews, though, he's got obvious nervous tics and is unexpectedly soft-spoken and laid-back, and I've heard/read several accounts of how he's the sweetest guy when you meet him, so I can't quite get a bead on him.
Ultimately, though, I just can't lay off the weird ones, and he definitely takes the cake in that department. He takes the cake AND leaves it out in the rain.

This is the only photo I found with him dressed in an outfit you wouldn't notice instantly, and in which he's not being goofy.

Everything about Noel appeals to me at an indirect angle. He's that sort of thin and pale that some British guys seem to have perfected, with an odd profile (that I'd love to draw), but when animated he somehow pulls it all together into something adorable. He's funniest when he's on the spot, when he writes stuff for his shows and/or when he's seemingly not TRYING so hard. He does stand-up, but it's not really funny. He so obviously has one foot in some other world that his humor goes right past a lot of people, but on his shows? A dude discussing Sartre with a busted coconut (and all that leads up to and follows)? THAT's funny.

He will also, as far as I can tell (and this I really dig), wear absolutely anything. Zero wardrobe boundaries, and that's my kind of guy. He could show up wearing a prom dress, a latex bunny suit or flannel pajamas with red glitter cowboy boots. You can always see hipsters wearing odd/ugly things which they do to be deliberately fashionably rebellious (which completely negates the effect, of course), but no matter how badly I want to believe he just does it to maintain an image, I can't help but actually believe he does it because he never lost that 5-year-old kid thing of, "I'm gonna dress like a cowboy for school today."

Once, I was on a camping trip with a bunch of friends, and two of whom (Mark and Andy) opted to do 'shrooms one night. I've given up all drugs as of several years ago, mostly because I find them to be a waste of money, as I can stare at something for hours and contemplate how fascinating it is without being on anything. Plus, and of greater concern, is that I have a feeling drugs will render me either irretrievably mad or (worse) totally normal. Anyway, Mark and Andy consumed their contraband, and the conversation continued on, until it eventually began to meander here and there at the whim of their "opened" minds. I, being me, followed along with interest and not too much thought, and eventually Mark turned to Andy and said, "This is so weird... did you notice that we came over to the 'other side,' and (I) was already there waiting for us!"
They found this to be, of course, a profound revelation.

This is one reason I'm so taken with Fielding. He's on the other side, too, and (fortunately) has found a way to make a living from being way over there (or "here," from my point of view), the lucky bastard.

I'd do damn near anything to spend just a day with him, talking about any topic, finger-painting on the roof and playing the "Post It" pub game. It's somewhat irritating knowing that if we'd been at the same art school, I'd probably have dated him, but those are the breaks. It's even more irritating that the likelihood of our paths ever crossing is pretty close to zero, because I think he's another guy who can give one a new (and delightfully bizarre) way to see the world, and I'd find that to be like conversing with someone who speaks the same arcane language as I.
And that's kind of a shame.

Some time ago, a teacher of mine told me that my writing pieces would greatly improve if, after I'd written a page or so, I deleted whatever I'd written as the first paragraph. This is why some of my posts may seem to come out of nowhere... I still always delete that first bit, and trust me. You are missing nothing.

(True fact: After writing this entire thing, I just DID delete the paragraph that I'd written first. It had nothing to do with the rest of this. It's SO weird that this happens EVERY time).

Instead of blathering on about some stupid opinion I have right now, then, I'll write about what's currently on my mind: Masks.

Some people can arrange their lives like concentric ripples; family, job and maybe a hobby in the center, and all other interests radiating outward in order of priority. I, on the other hand, don't exactly wish I was one of those people, but my life is more like every element is one of a million ball-bearings, all of which are in a perpetual state of just having been dropped, and are now bouncing and rolling all over the place, and sometimes I wish just a few of them would stay in my pocket. I'd need at least a dozen lives to fully explore all that interests me, so I wind up fairly constantly focusing on one thing and being distracted by another.

Look at me now, for fuck's sake. I'm sitting here at 5am doing some self-indulgent wanking in the form of writing, instead of getting sleep. If I was supposed to be writing, though, I'd probably fall asleep. Anyway, masks.

One of my great passions is costumes. I'm not into the Ren Faire thing or Comic convention cosplay (although, having one foot in the comics industry, I do like seeing some of the more amazing ones people come up with), but I do like inventing wearable artwork. I can drape clothes on a mannequin, draft patterns, sew, knit and crochet, of course, but what really floats my boat is starting from there and throwing in wire, feathers, beads, glitter, Austrian crystals, embroidery, plaster, latex, plastic skulls, acrylic paint, glass, gemstones, and damn near anything else that seems to either go with whatever it is or assist in the structure. LOVE it.

Back in a year that will remain unspecified, I was the "Angel of Death" for Halloween. I constructed my costume using a pair of old umbrellas, gauze, marabou, ostrich feathers, glitter, spray paint and white duct tape for the wings, and then I made a white corset with all sorts of white glittery things on it (I WISH I'd thought to make it out of latex), strapped it on over a fluffy white something (was it a dress? I dunno... coulda been just a bunch of fabric I slapped together), covered all my exposed bits with makeup and topped it off with a sword and some chain-mail hand thingie I had lying around (as one does). It bugs me to this day that the white wig I had went AWOL on the night in question, so I had to improvise with the spray stuff, and that I ran out of time and didn't get to festoon my massive, 7" high, silver-glitter platform heels with rhinestones. I only have one photo of me in the getup, and it's not a very good one, but here it is:

And, yes, that's my friend's hand on my boob. See the Angel of Death? Grab her boob.
It is customary among my people.

What the hell was I talking about? Oh, right. Masks.

So, I've been increasingly obsessed of late with segueing from making jewelry to making masks. I have a long history of making silver, gold and beaded jewelry, and some of my work has even been published, but I don't feel like my aesthetic translates well sometimes. I've frequently wound up with really cool components (like a stone I set into something), but no finished piece, so I wind up just farting around with them for months. As it turns out, masks seem to be the perfect venue for some of them, so now I make elaborate masks reminiscent of those at the Venice Carnival (where I hope to go one day).

It got me thinking, though, about WHY I love costumes so much. It's not that I want to be something or someone else for any length of time. I don't think I know how to be anyone other than myself, and I can't help but think I'd get really confused if I tried. What I concluded, however, was that I DO want to look like something/someone else pretty much all the time, and the reasons are a little sad.

I don't fish for compliments, because I don't expect them, and manipulating a compliment out of someone is cheating anyway. The problem is that some things are difficult to explain to anyone because there's no good response to it, so no matter how badly I want to try and make someone else understand what this is like, the only place I can write about it is here, because you're not in front of me, faced with the choice of voicing an opinion one way or another.
The following IS a bit of a whiny rant, though, so read it if you want to, but you've been warned.

I am not an attractive woman. I'm short (slightly under 5 feet), around a size 8 or 10, and I have kind of a weird look. Almost invariably, women tell me I have a classic beauty, like a '30's actress. Also almost invariably, men blip over me as if I were invisible. It's an odd contrast, and actually kind of interesting. If only I was a lesbian, I'd have it made in the shade, but alas, I'm not interested in anything but a man I can sink my claws into. (Not only that, but I have the world's strangest taste in men. If you lined up all of my past boyfriends, my ex-husband, my unrequited interests and celebrity crushes, you'd be hard pressed to find a common visual theme. They just have to be smart, weird and funny, not necessarily in that order).
However, I'm thinking back over the years, and I think I've been asked out on a date maybe twice? That's just a guess... I can't actually recall EVER being asked out (I've always dated people who were friends of mine first). I HAVE, however, been asked to the junior prom by one guy who needed a date because he was the only one who didn't have one (I didn't go), I almost got suckered into being someone's date at a "pig party" (a friend saved me from that one, thank goodness), the single blind-date I went on resulted in the guy ditching me after 10 minutes, and once (charmingly), I was used as the subject of a bet (long story). When out with friends, I'm always the "last choice" chick. Granted, my female friends are wonderful and they are truly all gorgeous, but I've gotten so used to being the one cleaning up at the end of the party instead of going home with someone that I no longer expect anything else. Truth be told, the available options are sometimes unpalatable enough that this is rather a relief, but even my own father has never told me I'm beautiful. Smart, creative, articulate... those I get all the time, but never pretty. I have absolutely no idea what it's like to have a man (with no obvious psychological issues) look at me and think I'm beautiful.

Now, ultimately, I really am happy being everything BUT pretty most of the time. Someone asked me once whether I'd rather be gorgeous and stupid or smart and plain, and I said that if I could be gorgeous and just stupid enough to not KNOW I'm stupid, I'd opt for that one. Why not? Smart, funny and creative has gotten me nowhere (lost the husband to a blonde, can't get a job, etc.), so why the hell not? It must be kind of relaxing to be an idiot.

Oddly, the majority of my friends are male, though I only have interest in two that I can think of. One is "the perfect guy" but he has a... let's just say a commitment, and the other I adore like crazy but he has no interest in me (and yes, I brought the topic up in clear language, which is why I know, and I'm totally cool with it. It's not something I pine over. I'm that used to this sort of thing).

So, basically, "Waaaah, waaaah, waaaaah, I'm unattractive and shallow enough to care." Cue violins.

As such, you could probably see this coming from a mile off, but this is one reason I love to obscure my appearance with loads of makeup, fake eyelashes, wigs, masks and any other contraptions I can think of. If I do so with skill, I wind up being cool-looking, intentionally entertaining and/or at least secondary to the costume elements.

I've been making masks recently mostly as an art form, and if I get enough of them done I'll try to market them, or at least maybe get a gallery show. I use acrylic paint, beads, gemstones, bronze bits, glass chunks, shells, coins, mirrors, chains, and I just figured out how to put little LED lights in them. I'm working on ones inspired by Dia de Los Muertos, some monster designs I've been playing with, traditional carnival designs, brocade patterns and some are inspired by friends' artwork (credit will be given where due).
The real trick was figuring out the substrate. The sparkly bits are almost a no-brainer, but a mask that you CAN sew elements on is irritatingly difficult to find or create. The needle is so fine that the substrate has to be soft enough for it to go through, but flexible and sturdy enough to actually hold the beads, etc., which can be heavy. Commercially produced plain masks run from cheap plastic ones (gross), to plastic covered in fabric (needle won't go through), to paper mache masks covered in a hard medium that a needle also won't go through. I tried making some myself using "Mod Podge," my own paper mache, felt, gesso, "Stiff Stuff," and a number of other experiments, but none yielded a usable result.
FINALLY, just recently, I found the answer, and I'm not telling. Go figure it out yourself. I'll publish a how-to after I make some money off of the ones I do, dammit. It took me way too much time and a few very lucky guesses to get it right, so I'm holding on to what little edge I have (and I have to say it's been working better than I ever thought it would).
Sorry. Suck it.

Mask photos will be up soon, as soon as I figure out how to obtain decent photos of them.

I guess what I'm saying this evening is that I'm over the moon about how my latest art endeavor has been developing, in part because if I create what I hope to, I may some day wear one of my creations and know what it's like for someone to look at my face and see beauty.