Perspective, Mom-ing, & I Know What I Know

Journal Entry, July 28, 2009

Recently, some loved blog friends have had to go their separate ways, from each other, but not from me. The odd flow of connection & disconnection. Painful. I feel it over & over with time passages, all the times I've had to move (states, homes, jobs). It's just NECESSARY for me to remember that the whole of life, all aspects, is transient. Easier and easier as I age; hellish when I was young, and younger. I just wrote to one of these loved friends, "I don't feel like I know more than these younger women; and yet I KNOW I 'know' more than they do by the simple virtues of exposure, weathering, blisters on my feet and heart -- weight, warp & woof of experience, maturity." Said with a puzzled surety, not arrogance at all. It doesn't mean chasms or preclude commonalities. It just IS. It comes with me, no matter what, can't be denied or diminished. It's a grand exchange for all of us, even amid the kind of emotional confrontation that my blogging posse recently navigated. If these two lovelies had met in person, it may be their archetypes or spirits or physical chemistry would have spoken immediately about a less-than-perfect connection, and the relationship would never have progressed based on those signals, that intuition. The bloglandia environment buffers so much of that immediacy of response, delays its revelation, its impact. Anyway, I was thinking mainly in terms of my boys that I CANNOT take a 20-30 year old and 'lord' my wisdom over them. Mainly because they don't think I necessarily have any wisdom that's of relevance to them in their path of discovery. Certainly I, as an 'elder', challenge that, assert what I know based on what I've experienced. Youngsters [and testosterone-filled men-children especially (?)] think it's different for them [it both is, & isn't]; that THEY are different [they both are, & aren't]. Their adventures, curiosity, fresh approach & attunement, rattle me out of my presumptions, my stereotypes, my habits of thought. I love that! What I give them? I have NO idea, except usually a most unwelcome reality check, the caution and perspective of LOOKING BACK (20-20? perhaps) vision, which is mainly useless because it falls on deaf ears. I'm down with that because I'm the only 'me' that is and ever has been, and my path can never be exactly replicated. So someone else, someone younger, my sons specifically, truly CAN anticipate & achieve an utterly altered outcome. With David and Kevin, I have become the one who only gets loud and assertive when I think they're endangering themselves, their futures ... OR infringing on my right to think, choose, BE as an individual ... OR when I'm downright sure they're taking advantage of me, of Double BB, of gifts they're given but behave as if they're entitled to. That's when the can of whoop ass gets taken off my mental pantry shelf and emptied. In it's entirety. I'm Mom -- as such, I have certain inalienable rights to vocalize, to revoke or adjust privileges, to expect behavior modifications and to effect consequences if those go AWOL. An uneasy, NOT easy balance between me and two 'men' who are also my sons. Much as they may seem to chafe & eye-roll when it occurs, it's not an interaction I see myself dropping -- EVER -- just tweaking, constantly modifying to embody nuances. But they do what I did to my parents for so long, which is to see me ONLY as "MOM" [which contains such a plethora of presumed, sometimes paralyzing, parameters] -- and forget I'm a woman, a stand-alone individual, also. The older they become, the more I find I'm emphasizing my individuality, ON PURPOSE, because they need to separate from me (as Mom) but still have "ME". And me is not the sum total of my car to borrow, and clean folded laundry, and combs to swipe in one hand and deodorant in the other, dinners to eat. Those are functions that anyone could conceivably provide, not characteristics of my PERSON, my SELF. David, now 22, is seeming to perceive me, sometimes, the way I'm now able to see My Lovely Mother, My Daddy-O: as 3-4-5-6-7 dimensional beings who (in essential, intriguing ways) have absolutely nothing to do with me. SEPARATE -- the parent-child dynamic is no longer ever-present, though it's still of course a constant beneath our exchanges as adults, as individuals. My boys aren't there yet, clearly, and I don't have any desire to rush that. Even another decade won't bring it, I doubt. Maybe when they're in their 30s, with perhaps a child of their own. THAT event, singularly, altered every perspective I ever had of my own parents. Immutable, overwhelming realization, awareness! Have a child, cross a threshold in my own estimation of myself, who I was/am, and of my parents, who they ARE, who they WERE. BAM. I'm talking BAM - squared. Well, it was that for me -- total shock, even amid the joy & welcome & excitement. Oh! My! Gawd! I now have this David, this Kevin, to tend, to nurture, FOREVER. Can I do that? Well, of course I could, one minute at a time. And now they're 22 and 18, and I'm still asking if I can do this, this Mom thing! It doesn't get worse, easier, better. It just changes, minute by minute, as it has done since they were born. I guess I feel that so long as I'm still testing myself, strenuously, open-mindedly, with the question [which is one of my most HUGE and VALUABLE and ONGOING], then my eyes/heart/soul/love/intellect are able to receive what I need to help us all make it through each minute.

[On Friday, July 10th, I walked around Ian and Traudel's Durlstone Close neighborhood in Sheffield, and shot all these photos.]

Double-Dippin'

[Tracy's Smart Car, which Dave absconds with on every possible occasion -- is it because the car matches his Thursday socks?]

Journal Entry from my patio roost, this morning:
and hark! It's morning, the crews are hard at work on the 2-story frame-up one block over, bangin' and bammin'. I dreamed of having to pee, so I finally got up (4 a.m.) and did so, then I dreamed ------? I couldn't find my car, but I was looking for my old Aveo and not the Impala. It's TODAY, by golly! Do I really feel this perky? Jeans to work, for the third day in a row. I like it. I like it a lot. Not feeling any bright ideas this morning. Still thinking of WAY narrowing down my blog-surfing list and spending my 'free' time at work somehow differently. Writing? I dunno -- more focused as I'm working, anyway. Like, WHY do I read some of these? Like, Judy Wise' journal pages kick my keister & inspire me, so that makes sense. Stuff like that goes through my mind. YOU know. I got onto somebody's blog or Flickr or some such yesterday, about 20 layers deep so I can't remember who or where, and in looking at her photos I thought -- mine are this good without all the photo doctoring. Straight Out of The Camera 'good' pictures don't seem to have any credibility OR (most significantly) MARKETABILITY anymore. People like 'prettified.' Heck, I like prettified. But what? Now no one is going to be able to distinguish a solid S.O.T.C. shot because we've raised everybody up on photoshopped photography? Digitized, airbrushed, fixed, layered, filtered, color-enhanced, textured, brushed, effected ... not always a sign of a good picture under it all. (This artist's photos were awesome, by the way, and had obviously started out that way before the prettifying.) ANYWAY ... Getty now sponsors this woman's photos (not sure what that means, but I DO know what 'GETTY' is/means). Is that because a) she's got them on Flickr where many more people can view them (such as Getty scouts?) or b) because they're prettified? She's been blogging only 3 years, if I remember correctly, and was enumerating all that blogging has brought into her life, cool things like Getty, and publication, and article writing by invite, etc.

And I think -- ok -- why her and not me? I admit it. That's what I thought. My level of writing, at least, is surely as good as anything I've seen on any blog. But no invites to write articles have come my way. My answer to myself comes in the face and voice of one Ms. SuziBlu, who so sagely reminded us on a video post on her blog that we don't NEED any of that to make it happen; we can do it all ourselves now. If I have an article to write, I can plainly write it and post it. Or a poem, or a story, or an anecdote, or a travel tale, or a photograph, or a novel, or a hello a thank you an up yours a kiss my pert heinie. I am my OWN credibility, AMEN variable, acceptance letter, final say.

So nothing in my range of ideas or creativity has to wait on anything or anyone external == all of THAT whining becomes an excuse for sitting on my own hands and feeling overlooked and pitiful (in the self-pitying way). Blecch. Much as I love my own big paws, but I prefer them in front of me making art, pushing a pen, typing a blog entry, folding towels, petting my Zoe-Toes. Alive. I'm already alive and viable in every way. Why does that sometimes get so lost? So diluted? Nobody can know how well I write unless I put it out there, anyway, & the technological age I live in gives me endless venues to do just that. AMEN! I think I'll start with this page, as a happy reminder to everyone out there that he or she really is the only necessary factor in the exposure equation, the expression effect. Eesh blimey and rock 'n' roll! I AM A WRITER. Period. A Toni factoid. I'm also a pretty damn decent photographer, and a steadily growing artist. DEAL WID IT. [I'm not talking to YOU. I'm not talking to 'them'. I'm talking to ME!] Own it, do the Snoopy Dance to a Stevie Ray Vaughan riff, and share the love, Woman! Maybe I don't get a paycheck for it but is that really the same thing as a reward? A sense of accomplishment or satisfaction? Is publication ACTUALLY any indication of personal growth or any measure of ability? If my goal [MY goal] is to be published and that happens, certainly. If my goal is to express myself and I've done so, haven't I achieved the same thing?

====== IS THIS WHAT YOU CALL AN AHA MOMENT? ======

I like it. I like it a lot. I'm definitely posting this. I'm liking that wearing jeans during the week means I can procrastinate on shaving my legs, too, so this is a two-for-one AHA moment.

[all bloom photos from Ian and Traudel's garden - an AHA of an entirely different sort!]

Informal, Please

Keswick.

Journal Entry, Sunday, July 19, 2009
Here is what I am realizing about my own behavior. Because of the history between our families, I took for granted the in-place, warm, 'already there' status of my "relationship" with Ian, Traudel, and Kurt, Alison and Dave, even though I'd only met Ian and Traudel in person once, and Kurt, Alison and Dave - never. Maybe that makes me assume a level of intimacy or ease or just 'familiarity' that isn't necessarily appropriate OR reciprocated. Still, I loved them already because they loved/cared for my brothers, and then my mother on her trip last year, and because of their relationship to Klaus, who has been a cherished presence in my life and a part of every overseas trip I've been on. Kate, Luke, Klaus, & My Lovely Mother. At the same time, the relaxation I'm exuding may help to set a tone, to put others at ease, to establish ---- connection? I do surely hope. Greenhouse (glass house at Chatsworth). I suck at formality. SUCK AT IT. To the point that when I do encounter it, I freeze completely, turn 100% inward, and become totally quiet. [I don't see the point of it, true story.] The kind of people who rock my world [i.e. Luke, above] are not, EVER, formal, so I don't even want to attract them to me. I mean, I can behave with grace, manners - I can put forth the minimum required to endure a formal occasion, but inside I'm screaming for escape (& usually do, as early as I possibly can manage to!). Maybe that's why I assert myself by asking NOT to be treated as a guest -- please LET me do the dishes, play with the little lad, make the pot of coffee, go along to shop for dinner groceries, set the table. It made Ian and Traudel uncomfortable but only at first! The people that I feel close to or want to establish closeness with? I want to cut straight to the truth of who I am, so they can more easily shift back into who they really are. I think when Dave initially met us, he felt that from Mom and me both, and it's the reason why he came back with Tracy, and then again to share his WW II items. Mom and I weren't stuffy or stand-offish; we didn't give a rat's heinie about his pierced ear or burly biker facade (**& we LIKED his Thursday socks!**) -- we leaned in, we teased him, we engaged! I'm proud of us for that -- my whole family is this way, no b.s., let's get real and stay that way. And about formality, it extends to physical environments, not just people. I much preferred the gardens at Chatsworth [above] to the interior, which made me feel hot and claustrophobic (same way I reacted to Versailles' interior). Same difficulty I have viewing art in museums, as opposed to in someone's home or on the crumbling walls of buildings. (Then again, I consider crumbling walls of buildings to BE art!) Formality alters my receptors because it raises an odd block of defenses. I love the open, wild field of grasses up the way from Ian and Traudel's [above] even more than the part of the Chatsworth gardens I saw, and that's consistent. And the cottage-y, rambling, friendly garden at Hilltop Farms [above] - GORGEOUS. Even the deeply layered profusion [above] at The Mount. I love the wildness I sensed, the flowers' freedom, the unkept sense of artistry. Irresistible Luke.

England - A Familiar

Journal Entry, Evening, July 17, 2009

England didn't surprise me -- that's what it is. So different to Italy, to France, those landscapes where I surged wholly OUT of myself. England tilled the earth of me and presented upturned memory, re-imprinted the sense of place I inhaled and took possession of in Maryland. Towering old trees, deep with leaves, and vast blooming meadows tinseled with Queen Anne's Lace and yellow-red-orange-blue blooms I couldn't (then) and still can't name, stone facades - sooty, aged, rough, but mainly unpainted or hidden beneath their ivy finery. Every window a new story I wanted to hear, every doorway as individual as the occupant, 2-lane roads devilish with twists and riddled with echoes. My tales of England are my own history - how odd, how unexpected!

Yes, the green initially startled me, overwhelmed my breathing -- after 30 years in this sun-bleached desert, of course it did! But very soon I recalled the green of my growing up, the parks & fields & lawns & prairies. There is where I started; that is what I left behind (& agonized for) when I got to the moonscape of Phoenix. In all these years, I thought I had learned to 'let go', when in fact I took it inward and kept it close, like an inner layer of skin I mentally wore without realizing it. The rural dynamic of England, though different to the faces of Nebraska and Maryland, still kept true to that feel -- the way my eyes opened as my breathing slowed and deepened -- familiar amid the foreign. Home, with a twist, at once near and far.

Low-slung stone-riddled mountains, rivers with water actually IN them, hedges, smaller scaled everything, movements more regularly paced. Rain. Skies that changed every few moments, altering the light absolutely and begging me to photograph, again, the very subjects I'd just used a roll of film on. That sense of AGE, the ever-present companion of history permeating the 'now' -- this, too, I always felt in Maryland, and in the constancy of my own genealogy in Nebraska.

I've been so worried that the tales I'd have to tell would seem small -- no glitz, no glamour, blue jeans, the same jewelry every day, minimal makeup, a blister on my heel -- but instead I see their reflections internally, and I hear myself resonate. I photographed what I always photograph, what I always respond to: lamps, stone, windows & doors, where I was, a room, a bed, a beautiful tile or carpet -- and I realize I was adding to my personal library of images -- from old Eastern plantation houses to crumbling headstones, to the beckon of a home, a face, a plate of fruit or scones.

What I see is that England showed me more of what and who I am, where I began, my roots. Nothing is ever lost, or abandoned, just submerged, overlaid by the realities, patterns, infusions of the day-to-day present. How fecund I am -- all I've seen and known, touched and met, the travel, the dialogues, the food & flavors, the airports & alleys, the dreams, the walks, the dusks and dawns, the cups of tea & coffee, the glasses of wine or mugs of beer, the dogs I've petted and the cats I've said "meow" to in multiple languages!

How immense! To recognize that I am a constant -- that I am THE constant. It really is subjective, travel -- what goes in, how it's filtered, or consumed (RAW). No discos or wild cavorting or scaling of peaks, no 'big deal adventures', but this is who I am -- quietly taking it all in and still making SOMETHING of it. I'm not interested in others' ideas of a great travel experience. I forge my own way, find experience even in a rose that buds pink but blooms white with pink speckles, or a miniature-sized jug of milk, a piece of wallpaper, a parking ticket stub, a friendly white Westie named Dugan, a hand in mine on the sofa as we watch Cash in the Attic, laughter in a room full of newly-met but somehow always-known people, driving on the wrong side (to me) of the road, roundabouts, days of the week socks, salmon with hollandaise for lunch.

It all opens me to more -- it all reiterates "ME", it all stays MY tale, this green English one.

England Travel Journal - Peep Show - Scene 1

Drawings in the airport, en route to Chicago from Phoenix, and to Manchester from Chicago. Fuchsia blossom from Ian and Traudel's garden, and a sheet of etchings from gravestones, including the name EYRE. Ephemera items found on our walk to the 'surprise view', and the calling card from the cafe where I had my first scone with clotted cream! Various items from a day spent in Derbyshire with Ian and Traudel. Woman image from a brochure for an upcoming art event in Manchester. Ian saw this and said the woman's 'smarties' are showing -- can you figure out what that means? Butterflies to remind me of the two red and black winged lovelies that Traudel found, one of which let her catch it, then sashayed up her palm onto my finger, where it posed for a solid 30 seconds before flitting away. The swirly black stamps here are the re-entry stamps for Chatsworth. Calling card and bread stick wrappers from San Rocco, where we enjoyed a sumptuous Italian meal one evening, before going to meet Kurt, Alison and their family. Chatsworth receipts, ticket, sugar packet, calling card from our lunch spot in Derbyshire, receipt from post office where I bought Air Mail stickers and postcard stamps! Top and bottom: images from Chatsworth brochures which evoke the sensations and moods I felt there. Blue and gold foils are from the candies Traudel handed around in the car as we drove!

Trying to Inhale

I headed out to work with my folder stuffed, 3 backgrounds for the LaBelle journal ... listening to some music, moseying along, looking forward to checking emails, posting the backgrounds, then hitting my Friday. Same ole', same ole', but with a good attitude.

Then, on the freeway, 1/2 mile from my exit for work, and directly (and I mean DIRECTLY) in front of me, a blue car swerved from the HOV lane into the white car in the middle lane just beside me, but also in front of me ... both cars crossed in front of me (in the right lane), hit the masonry wall ... the white car spun around, the blue car rebounded off the wall and flipped three times that I counted and landed upside down in the center lane. The white car spun to a stop in the right lane, where I had just been. I had, meanwhile, slowed and then stopped in the emergency lane and immediately dialed 911. As I was on the phone with them, the driver of the blue car actually EMERGED ... a young guy, 21 if a day, in shorts, a loose t-shirt, Vans, bleeding all down his right side, his head bloodied, STAGGERING toward the concrete wall. Another car had stopped and those two people instantly went to him, guided him to a sitting position over near his vehicle, took his cell phone away (he was even trying to use THAT, although obviously disoriented and badly injured). I finished talking to DPS and then drove on.

As soon as I was past the crumpled vehicles and could no longer see that kid, I burst into sobs. Flashed on my oldest male child (his accident was 2 years ago, the 17th of this month) ...

I had wanted to get out of my car and go to that boy, but I didn't want to create yet another hazard, and I was blocking the only useable passing area (the emergency lane). I called 911, told them, they patched me thru to DPS, and you wanna know what the first question was out of both of those operators' mouths? "HOW MANY LANES IS IT BLOCKING?" Excuse me? I said, loudly, 'Look, you've got a kid here with obvious serious injuries! Talk to me about sending an ambulance and then we'll talk about lane blockage.' What the FUCK?!

I got to the office, crying like the Still Scared Mom I am and still wanting to hug that kid, not to mention my OWN sons ...

so maybe later I'll post my perky LaBelle backgrounds ... right now I am trying to clear my head of the vision of that young guy bloodied and staggering like he was, and being thankful he was alive and the other driver was alive and I was alive cuz it was 2 feet from my front bumper, all of it ... and that my son is alive,

and that's just plain enough.

Revelation (followed closely by dismay)

Blog reading is good for me. Generally, it's just up building; it bonds me to others; it's artistically/creatively inspiring. Then, every once in a while (or back-to-back, like this week), I run across a post that gets all kinds of red flags waving in my brain. Today, the matter involved dreadlocks. [Googled image] Of course you recognize Bob Marley, reggae God, hottie beyond hotness, musical angel, and (heretofore, in my mind) the epitome of Those Who Wear Dreadlocks.

Now this [Googled image, runway model, dreadlock-coiffed]: What I read today was someone's innocent, simple declaration of her lifelong desire, and new found intent, to have dreads. Someone who is a white woman. I read, and found my face screwing itself into a pretzel. And my brain trying to launch a fur ball of some sort. ????????????????????? And BAM FLASH KAZAM, Batwomen!! This image then blasted into my brain. Since its introduction into media history, I have DETESTED this photo. It's not the swimsuit, the bouncety-bouncety-breasts-on-the-loose beach jog, the chiseled body and cheek bones. IT'S THE HAIR!!! I have categorically (and for, what, DECADES, now?) despised the hair. Inauthentic! Poseur! White Woman Wanna Be!!! Why should Bo Derek launch beaded tresses into the main stream? Bo Derek, a white woman?

oh. eesh. oh. blimey. oh shite shite shite!

Today, my friends, Toni tripped ALL DAMN OVER an internal prejudice. SPLAT. It was NOT pretty! Toni's prejudice: white women, by virtue of being white, are somehow disallowed from braids and dreads. As if I have felt, without realizing it until today, that they are ethnically challenged, inadequate, and otherwise lacking in credentials to do so. And (especially, I soon realized), BLOND white women, who are of course the farthest removed from my, Toni's, Epitome Of Those Who Wear Dreadlocks, Mr. Marley himself.

I never knew. I never knew I felt that way. And in examining it, earlier, in my journal, I discovered a deep, relentless FEAR at the bottom of it -- fear of being ACCUSED of being a wanna-be, an impostor, a poseur, especially by those my mind has deemed ethnically 'allowed' (qualified) to wear the dos. Fear of what other people in general think, would think, have thought, of a blond white woman walking through life with a head full of dreads. Or braids. Ridiculous! Outrageous! Arrogant! Doesn't know who she is or where she's from! ... oh the weird, revealing daggers my brain threw!!!

I'm dismayed, & dagger-shredded & quite bloody!!! Me, who just two days wrote this: 'We've fought to rise from under it, to declare ourselves WOMAN in whatever way WE define, for so many decades.' And yet I've been carrying around this discriminatory, close-minded, shrunken, absurd opinion all this time?!!!

So ... what happens, I guess, is that I'm looking at a white blond woman in dreads or braids and WORRYING (for her, but actually for ME) that fingers are pointing and tongues are wagging about how she's being inauthentic, that she's illegitimate in that style, that she's appropriated something she 'has no right to'.

I'm so ashamed. I've got some major internal housekeeping to do. I know I won't be growing dreads as atonement because ... because ... I'D BE SCARED!!! [I don't, actually, like them, not for me -- I don't like ANY 'do' I have to actually take care of, spend time on .... ] but the REAL REASON is that I'd be scared!!! of external opinions! ME!!!!

I gotta reckon with that. splat, splat, splat.

Oh, thank god for blogs and others with more enlightened viewpoints -- I LIKE being busted hard across my chops when I need a wake-up call.

ROCK ON, BLONDS WITH DREADS, BLONDS WITH BRAIDS!!! I have new eyes and a new heart, now, with which to see you!

Reality Check (Testing, 1-2-3, Testing!)

Ok, world. I'm feeling combative, distressed, ruffled. A post on a blog I follow started this -- photos she took of a friend, photos her friend took of her. Glamour Artist photos. Been seeing more and more of those. Lovely, the photos, the subjects.

Lovely, but ...
a) why must we be Glamour Artists, and not just real women making art?
b) who can possibly afford such a photo shoot without sacrificing her art supply budget for two years?
c) Why do I feel like it's becoming not just sort of a competition of art, now, but of blog, of studio, and of self?

It's like Cosmopolitan Meets the Blog World -- our SELVES, bare bones, stripped, are not enough -- we have to have these photogenic & staged studios, these photogenic & staged blogs, these photogenic & staged selves -- make-up, ethereal dresses, fetching angles & almost-visible nipples-- some of it verges on soft porn, for cryin out loud! And I'm -- frustrated by it! This is women between women, perpetuating this -- er -- what is it? This MYTH, this stereotype, this hype! Everything, every one of our aspects physical, environmental, personal, always requiring a buff and a polish. Eesh, blimey, & shite!

Who is looking at these photos but other women artists, other women bloggers (predominantly)? Does anyone else get ruffled by this? Lovely as it is (and it IS), something just doesn't sit right in my gut about it.

And it's not enough that I totally GET this is these photographers' business, and that the ones I follow/read via their blogs are utterly sincere, genuine, real women, in and of themselves, even when unbuffed and unpolished. And yet -- AND YET -- ai! Lay me down in the tall grass, with a wispy, wizened bouquet and an Anthropologie Direct wardrobe and THEN take my picture? Why can't we just leave this behind? We've fought to rise from under it, to declare ourselves WOMAN in whatever way WE define, for so many decades. But no matter what, it seems, as women we yet must be alluring, too. Harkens back to an extension of that myth, another outdated belief structure: beautiful is better. Beautiful artist makes better art. Beautiful studio produces better art. Beautiful means more credible, more valuable, more intellectually capable, more able, more viable.

CRINGE!!

If I didn't know what any of my blogging posse looked like (& many I don't) or what their studios look like (the majority I don't), it wouldn't alter my impressions of them one iota. And I know this to be true of these particular photographers, shooting other artists in Glamour Artist shots. They're trying to capture the internal nuances of their subjects. I GET it! I do! and I want to accept it, as is, plain & straightforward ... but darnit, hard as I try, I still get ruffled.

Same reaction to the Where Women Create magazines all over the place, now. Who women? What women? Where women? Where are the studios like mine, with scabby hole-pucked walls, clogged, mismatched, unpainted, raw, tinseled with dust and pet hair, boxes, stuff stuff stuff -- organized but in makeshift, doable, affordable ways? Does the condition of my studio, my cleavage, my lack of a bouquet, make me a lesser artist, woman, presence? I gotta glam up to go in the studio now? Lipstick, & pumps, and Miss Congeniality sash all over again. NOOOOOOOO!!! I never ever want my own face in soft focus!

I stopped participating in the self portrait group because, and I quote myself here, "I always look like shite!" No technology or software in my possession to make myself over. OhmyGAWD I bought into it, didn't I? All of this is some kind of gimmick to put an appetite in women for the 'pretty' (the improved, the made over, the enhanced), when function serves us all so well -- and don't we all pretty up and personalize in our own ways, always, anyway? It's a marketing ploy -- spend spend spend -- on the magazine(s) at the very LEAST -- feel BADLY when you don't measure up in your crusty paint-smeared skort in your 'poor' studio. I want no part of it.

BUT!!! I'm aiming for shaking myself like a mangy dog when I project my own doubt and ruffly attitude on those who I know, without a doubt, don't deserve it. I trust these photographers, their talent, and their intentions, and when the bottom line is that I would trust any one of them to shoot photos of me, I know they don't deserve this rant at all.

But I'm also getting ready to show you WHERE THIS WOMAN CREATES -- my version of a reality check, cuz this is the most stunning, dream-filled place I have access to on a daily basis, and I'm the most stunning version I ever GET close to of myself when I'm in here. Do come in. The view upon opening my studio door. Looks like heaven on earth to ME! Shelves to the left of my studio desk. Home to eyelets, brads, all decorative papers, foamie rubber stamps, and my cherished magazines. Beth said she NEVER looks at old issues, but me? I'm in them ALL THE TIME!! CD player atop, with current most-listened to CDs and also books on CD. Stack of magazines currently getting my mojo a'slobbering! I have a color-system of tabs -- green ones mean inspiration for backgrounds for the LaBelle journal! My world -- the studio desk. Pens in a white metal picnic tin, embossing powders and Jacquard paints above, glue sticks, clothespins for drying, idea board presently pinned with Julification instructions, pattern-edged scissors, essential tools and glues in the back center, blotter paper in the middle, and to the right the stack of scrap copy paper I use for gluing, blobbing, heat gunning, 'processing'. I use the plates for palettes. Work horses: brushes and scissors. I got two of these white tin picnic thingies (meant for silverware) at Pottery Barn for $4.99 each ... score, Babee, score!!! Close up of the 'Julification tin' -- all the major ingredients of/for my Julification class housed there, vintage index card file (metal). LOVE that thang! The overflow fridge, which I want to drop kick outta here every minute of every day, except that at least the diet coke with lime and beer are handy. Pfft. I could USE that space, I'm tellin ya! Atop: shoe boxes holding sorted, cherished letters from family, envelope boxes full of gifts sent from overseas, my GBC binder, and a 1-31 monthly sorter personalized to hold stickers, words, rub ons, die cuts, alphabets, overlays. You know, stuff! Facing the center of the closet -- Zoe's personal magic carpet, the rolling red tool box. Stamp pad inks and goops behind, markers and spray inks atop. The plastic bins hold tools, stencils, bits left over from backgrounds, spare brushes and scissors ... you know, stuff! The ceiling fan (which, oddly, is working today -- normally it never wants to do that!), the peeling plaster from major leakage 3 years ago, the vent that has to be replaced. Homey, ain't it? The drying table ... also Business Central (home of bills, stamps, etc.). Also usually covered over with all the magazines I'm perusing for inspiration, stuff I bring home from work and drop to the surface, my purse, business filing I don't wanna deal with, you know ... STUFF! But I have to leave a trail for Zoe to get up in her window basket or up on the window ledge. My treasured filing cabinet, a gift from My Lovely Mother 4 years ago ... organized to the Nth degree, folders by subject, filled with the images I use on my journal backgrounds. Also houses my various printer papers, and blank journals. A beautiful beautiful thing, my filing cabinet! Atop, my flock collection, along with a favorite elephant and a frog from my Beloved Aunt Judy. DUSTY!!! (I'm so proud!) Letting the outdoors in, I yam! In the right closet corner: scanner and cords, binders full of rubber stamp sets, box of 11 x 17 'blotter' paper, air compressor in 'visa' bag which my oldest bro' hasn't had time to teach me how to use yet. Box o'stuff that used to be on the walls in the kitchen, currently undergoing replastering. Soiled stuff, including Zoe bombs, on the left. Recycle on the right. It's a fairly 'green' studio, yup. Still with me? Or did I SCARE ya?!! Litter box essentials. Under my studio (working) desk. Map drawers house the majority of my rubber stamps. Deco tapes. Basket o'necessaries like paper towels. Zoe trying to dodge out of the picture, lower left. Under the drying table behind my studio desk. Magazines I use for images, words, patterns -- I've foregone the rip-n-tear-then-file system for now. I've also stopped adding magazines to the pile. My old wallpaper books also live here. And Zoe's food dish and water bowl and launched litter. She IS a litter launcher, that furry wench, regardless of the huge blue storage container I made into her litter box! Books to be read, atop. Completed journals, vintage envelope collection (in white seagull box); vintage black & white photo collection in blue cigar box. Accumulated cardboard, which yes, I use. Dark recesses of a closet corner. Luggage for England trip buried back yonder, oh noooOOOo. Massive ... music ... collection! That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Peace out.