tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-82050113617404787722024-03-13T01:17:24.516-07:00melissa shooka blog about everyday and about aging and about being a photographer and about staying alive..melissashookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02398008713376655570noreply@blogger.comBlogger278125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8205011361740478772.post-61802096259159309662016-02-04T14:01:00.000-08:002016-02-04T14:01:07.596-08:00A February note…….<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I have absolutely no idea why I took the dog for a walk and came back, having decided to write on this blog which I've ignored since last May.<br />
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I've been preoccupied with long projects, eight months of daily self-portraits that started in December 2014. It took me months to finish the digital prints which meant buying a new printer, expensive paper and learning new skills…and I can't say that I learned them all that well.<br />
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Then taking a nine-month course on writing a memoir which ended about two weeks ago. Now I'm working it even more seriously. This is a book I started about a thousand years ago, when I was in my late twenties and finishing up college through the Goddard Adult Degree Program. Will I finish it?<br />
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I've also worked on a long website about Briar Hill Farm and George and Arlene Brown. I met them in 2012 when I did my first video of George talking about how much he pays for hay, grain, feed, help and so on each year. At that point there was hope that the only Thoroughbred racetrack in Massachusetts would be saved and their business would remain stable. The closing of Suffolk Downs had a profound impact on hundreds of people who worked on the backside and also to those who raise Thoroughbreds. The website is www.briarhillthoroughbreds.com You might like listening to the Browns and looking at young horses.<br />
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My beloved dog, Bogie, died in June. He'd managed 15 years, with only a bad last few months. An excellent companion, gentle and polite, very accommodating. It's remarkable that his trainer, Jenifer Vickery, actually found another Shih Tzu for me. This dog has been left in a park, found by a young rabbi and her husband. Luckily she was training her real dog with Jenifer and that's how the connection was made and I got Boris Karloff. It took a long time to come up with his name. I considered Benedict Cumberbatch and also Leonard Nimoy, but neither seemed quite right. I wasn't entirely happy with him at first. He's small and rather too fetching. But he's grown on me and I've figured out how to prevent him from peeing in the kitchen at night. I thought he was smarter than I am. And he almost was. It's take quite a bit of cleverness on my part. He's without conscience and I was used to Bogie's earnest obedience.<br />
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Boris is very sociable and I'm going to a gallery opening tonight because he likes them so much. That's how I learned that he can stand on his hind legs, looking fetching, begging for a treat. I would never have guess. I'm not comfortable at openings since I can't think of anything to say, but he has such a great time that I'm forced to take him.<br />
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When he and I were taking a walk in Charlestown, a man stopped to admire him, announcing that he's an Imperial Shih Tzu. I'd never heard of that and looked up this new aspect of that breed when I got home. It turns out that this type of dog is quite suspect, the concoction of unconscionable breeders who are trying to create teacup dogs and that no one should buy one…. under any circumstances...they have trouble adjusting to heat and cold…. and are to be avoided. Boris is just about at the end of that weight scale and might just count as a regular Shih Tzu… rather than an inconvenient impostor.<br />
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Boris hates snow and has to be carried over it. It's been an unusually warm winter. I can hardly believe it since I was prepared for something like the level of snow that we had last year. It's hard to know whether to be pleased about this since it's clearly a sign of global warming……….<br />
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I have missed knowing what the Cuban in London is doing, but have been able to catch sight of the Tearful Dishwasher's children on Instagram. I fell in love with it …… after I used my iPhone camera with the Hueless app for the self-portraits. It's very touching to see photographs of people who live in Iran, Germany, Italy………… My pictures are pretty ordinary…and my name on Instagram is M_Melissa_Shook…..I used it since there are two other Melissa Shooks…one is a wedding photographer and the other was murdered by her husband in Florida some years ago.<br />
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Strange to be back on the blog……Happy New Year and thank you………..<br />
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<br />melissashookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02398008713376655570noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8205011361740478772.post-13051594384719182112015-03-15T05:58:00.001-07:002015-03-15T05:58:15.704-07:00A quick post<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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So, the site won't let me start at the top….with the guy from Blick who was so helpful and charming. It was his birthday and he'd done a touch up on his hair for the occasion.<br />
I bought some blue splat, brand name, but haven't used it yet… <br />
I thought he looked gorgeous.<br />
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And then there's the still snow from two days ago. It's gotten on my nerves.<br />
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And there's Bogie going to the groomer who shaved him down…he was a huge mess, now he's a scrawny clean dog who doesn't look like himself.<br />
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and here's the bag of water that I am trying to shoot into him every day. I had a terrible time learning how to do this and had help from a neighbor who had experience with his cat…. that helped. And I managed for two days and then last night, the whole bag dripped out, somewhere. It's Sunday and I can't get any more until I go back to the vet office tomorrow…<br />
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He has kidney failure and the odds aren't good…but I'll keep him going as long as he isn't in pain, not that I can entirely tell what pain is for him.<br />
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Fifteen years. He's been the best companion, endlessly polite,until recently. And he did some service…as a therapy dog, not just for me.<br />
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I have to finish my taxes today. I've been stalling…and they have to go in the mail tomorrow...<br />
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<br />melissashookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02398008713376655570noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8205011361740478772.post-3710799673596874432015-02-21T18:13:00.003-08:002015-02-21T18:13:44.674-08:00Atlantic Works and snow...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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If you crank up the heat, it's deliciously pleasant, sunlight changing in curious ways that continually interrupted my drawing.<br />
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I was armed with food, a book, a drawing tablet, pens and charcoal, two folders of poems and a book to write in…I thought I'd stay for three and a half hours and brought enough work for eight.<br />
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Saturday and one of the few days I've driven since this all started, almost a month ago. It's been impossible to get out of the drive on most days, that last little bit, the inability to make the curve necessary to miss the black SUV…but early on in this I was almost in two accidents…it's impossible to see over the snowbanks and an SUV was speeding along and almost hit me…and then when I back out, not being able to see on-coming cars and not being able to start once I got going because of the ice, I almost hit a car…give one pause.<br />
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I called Margaret early and asked if she'd give me a ride down to the Mass. General Clinic because I was going to catch the shuttle into MGH to ale my first class on Aging Gracefully. I had hoped it would cover nutrition and exercise, but it's centered on meditation. So, I left five hours before it started since it was either walk there or go early with Margaret…and wander around the hospital with my book, iPhone and camera. A good choice. I spent most of the time in a lower level cafeteria, reading and then talking with a friend in LA………a total Tuesday luxury since I hadn't been out, away, somewhere else, in another environment, without the dog sitting next to me in a long time.<br />
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There are twelve people in the class that's held in a small room that's extremely warm. Not every was there, given the weather. We watched a power pout presentation about reduction of stress, something that could have been more reasonably covered with a handout and a decent discussion. The young woman who runs it has a smiling voice coated with good cheer and optimism. We spent 15 minutes meditating at the end of the power point…. I hate meditation……..it gives me the willies and all the times, over these many years, that I was told how beneficial it is, I resisted even though those were the times when meditation thrived.<br />
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I knew that Herbert Benson had written an important book about meditation…etc…and that friends of mine read it…and that I should..and now I'm going to eight classes at an institute named for him… and I'm going to see what happens. Open mind. Even though I'm a normally unobedient person. I'll try. I think walking meditation or listening meditation will be easier. Sitting is difficult since my body, which I'm not allowed to call miserable and cranky and ghastly, doesn't like sitting even though I force it for the laptop and drawing.<br />
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The shuttle back to Chelsea broke down so we all waited for a long time. And then I walked home. I could add many more photographs of how hard it was to get back here, walking in the road sometimes, on sidewalks between mounds, etc., but I felt very successful. I had been OUT. ALL DAY. FORWARD AND BACK.<br />
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Thank you……………….melissashookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02398008713376655570noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8205011361740478772.post-16834891673196081572015-02-15T11:37:00.001-08:002015-02-16T16:17:52.144-08:00The heat didn't go off in this blizzard……..and it didn't go off in the first…two storms between and the second highest snow fall in Boston since 1979….that year when my daughter went out in it to do normal things and I stayed inside watching it on TV. I can't believe that. Or I didn't believe that, but now I do…<br />
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my big event for last week was going to the lovely Dr. He to have the pin put in my implant… and then I got another rag drawing tablet of the size I've been using and a couple small ones… part of me thinks this is silly, a waste of time when I could be writing, but perhaps I have no words, perhaps I feel too trapped in here.<br />
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I'm dependent on the man next door who I pay to shovel except that the plows push hard ice and snow back into the 2 feet I need to turn out of the drive, hard enough because the piles are so high that I can't make a decent arch without possibly hitting the SUV parked across the street.<br />
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I'm always interested in poets writing about the fields outside of their homes, the blossoming trees, the stars. They don't live anywhere near where I do. I'm not quite as close to neighbors as I could be because there is a useless piece of land between my house and that of Carlos and Maria. When I pull into the driveway, I can tell if she's drying the laundry because I small the sheet she uses to take away wrinkles. Sometimes the man on the other side smokes on his upstairs porch and often I see the tenants of Carlos walk back and forth. Of course they can see me, too.<br />
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This morning I took a photograph from my front door. It doesn't show the snow back which is probably 5 feet…but does make it clear that my yard is full up to the top of the fence.<br />
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I've done really well until about three days ago. Perhaps i got tense in the dentist office even though she's so competent…and say okey dokey sometimes. I asked where she learned that and she explain how much is learned form television when a person first comes here and that families in China were allowed to have a second child if the first had downs syndrome sine the child supports aged parents. She has the mot delightful laugh and is picking up her parents on Tuesday after their mostly-wintr in China. Her father would like to see snow so she hopes it might just get freshened up a bit which I think is possible since snow if predicted for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday….but not blizzards…. I like her very much, but I just can't hope for more snow.<br />
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The tedious thing is that I missed two drawing classes and the eye doctor appointment which was put off until this coming Wednesday. On Tuesday I'm starting a program on aging successfully. You may laugh.<br />
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This is the cat bowl that I was filled at night and taking in once the birds came to eat. After Brian caught the cat which had been out for years, he decided there was another, put the trap out the next day and damn, there was another not too happy cat in there, gray striped. I was quite surprised. I couldn't get a good look at him because he was very nervous, but I'm sure I had never seem him before. Brian says, "Chelsea. There are always more cats."<br />
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Sherlock spends a great deal of time taking care of himself. I have interrupted him as he's going after his stomach…He's very fastidious, though he'd been more suitable as a scrabbled up cat, a nick here and there since he's given to great annoyance. He counts how much food Bogie gets since the dog whines and begs for just a few more treats in his bowl if he's going to eat that awful renal failure food… But, by the time it's nine in the evening, and I've gotten up 7 or 8 time to give something more since he wild NOT go to sleep until this mysterious process of filling up is over, Sherlock just watches from a chair in the living room.<br />
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Thanks for reading this…..excuse the spelling mistakes, I really do have to get to that eye doctor appointment so I can have the laser treatment and be back to where I was, but it's just too much effort to correct everything….<br />
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melissashookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02398008713376655570noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8205011361740478772.post-53751156162870792492015-02-08T07:14:00.002-08:002015-02-08T07:25:15.886-08:00Atlantic Works Gallery sitting………..<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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For the first time in weeks I had a reprieve of six hours from sitting in the house (which is one way of getting a lot of work done) because the fellow across the street and then my faithful shoveler from next door worked on the driveway so that I could actually back out and get in again without too much crunching noise as the car hit the ice banks..<br />
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and I was scheduled to gallery sit at Atlantic Works from 2-6. After a bit of a problem getting in the first door, success getting in the second and the happy sight of Rachel and her husband almost finished with photographing hfer work, I was there for my four hours…armed with drawing paper, stuff to sort and my computer.<br />
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Fortunately, after about an hour, a woman who has a studio down the hall came in and she told me how to turn up the heat…down the hall…"Crank it up," she said and I did…that helped a great deal…"Turn it down before you leave."<br />
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The gallery has a view of the harbor (or maybe it's Chelsea Creek?) and shore on two sides and buildings on the third….one of which was half covered with white plastic and reminded me that I used to take photographs whenever I saw this white wrapping covering any building, hoping to eventually print an homage to Cristo…. I can't tell you how many images I took for this never-happened project.<br />
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Two of the drawings that Audrina, who I went to the supermarket with to buy food for the opening…too much food for an evening that was so cold….had fallen off, but I pressed them back and took this photograph which in no way represents the cool white of the paper and the tones of her drawings.<br />
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But the shadows her nails and the shelf make are apparent. I wasn't taking 'real' photographs as Rachel and her husband had been doing…with lights and tripod, but amusing myself with my point-and-shoot, not the beloved one that wore itself out with hard, long service, but the replacement which has no heart.<br />
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On one of my pacings, I found a pack of cards that were made by Stephanie Arnett (sp?) and her husband as part of a road-trip to Marfa…they take a curious stance on Judd's bastion, photos they took with extensive details printed on the back about most, all, many of the small businesses in town..I really enjoyed reading about all of them, including hours they were open, numbers to phone, details of the food served…a nice part of what I vaguely understand is a long alternative Biennial Project that a group of the gallery members, including Anna and Bo, have been working on. I forget the real title of the project…I imagine there's a website about it…and I'll try to find out the address..<br />
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By this time, I'd finished most of what I could do, eaten two cookies from the closet and some of the food I brought to tide me over and started to take photographs of segments of the work…this is part of a drawing by Chas…two others are below in their original form, though the color is off...<br />
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This show the gallery…or part of it, Walter and Rachel's work….Chas is in the tiny room in the back corners and Audina and I aren't visible...<br />
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My drawings, 4 of 6, with the illegible writing.<br />
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This pleasant fellow came in wearing moon boots which he said are very old, twenty years maybe, uncomfortable, patched with gaffer's tape, but absolutely waterproof as none of his other boots are.<br />
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The snow on Saturday was about 30" with another foot or so expected over today and tomorrow.<br />
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He stopped by to see the Pyromania show, on his way back from somewhere..he drops in every five or six months so it was my good fortune that the gallery was on his route…even though it was not<br />
the show he wanted.<br />
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These are segments of Rachel's work…she is very seriously investigating and working with sculpture though she was deeply and successfully involved with theatre in Israel before she and her husband moved here. I wish I'd known about the experimental theatre she started in Somerville..what I was most interested, in listening to a little bit of her history, is how long she and her company worked on each presentation, six months if I remember correctly, developing a sense of community and slowly enriching the production. Interesting.<br />
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These hardly do justice to her work….especially to the figure that plays off Degas' ballet dancer in the MFA, but I hope she doesn't mine my including them.<br />
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When Walter installing my work up, Rachel asked if I was going to keep the shadows or put pins in the lower edges of the drawings.<br />
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She also drew my attention to the illegibility of the writing and suggested that I do a little booklet so that the viewer can read a typed version of what I've written. I think that's a good idea…and would probably do something like that if I show them again. She considers the audience in a way I never do.<br />
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These are some of the shadows of my drawings. The other ones that show the pins weren't in focus.<br />
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Walter's sculpture, above and here…with details of his work.<br />
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And isn't this gorgeous? The light in here is lovely in the day, with a curious pattern of shadows that move across the side wall…I was hoping to photograph them, but no sun.<br />
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I left a little after five, having been told by the woman with the studio down the hall who came in to look at the show, that it didn't make sense to stay until six on such a cold night, with or without snow.<br />
<br />melissashookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02398008713376655570noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8205011361740478772.post-6152899552419075502015-02-02T13:14:00.001-08:002015-02-02T13:14:12.602-08:00Snowing and Drawing….<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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On the night of the blizzard, I promised myself that if the electricity and heat didn't go off, I wouldn't complain. So, I'm not complaining, but paying the kind man next door to do the shoveling. This time I imagine my car being drivable in two days…..<br />
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I've spent several days inside drawing tree knots or rather someone is using my hand to make these drawings because they are in a style I find unimaginable…very chilly and quite precise…. <br />
but I figure that if I keep going, doing as many as I can which is maximally three a day since they take so long, I will get a quite a number finished before the real person comes back and starts drawing in the way she knows how to draw --<br />
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I've enjoyed photographing tree knots, not knowing quite what I'd do with the photographs…the way I've photographed all the mushrooms I've found growing in the parks, not knowing what I'll do with them.<br />
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I've joined Atlantic Works Gallery in East Boston, a situation that's comfortably like going back to the sixties with a collective of wacky packers, completely enjoyable.<br />
I have ten drawings in the show of the five new gallery members. I hadn't realized that my writing is totally illegible, but I know now… not that I care much. I don't seem to ever care.<br />
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But it was pleasant installing it…Walter helped me….so that was a quick task…. And I slouched around for a while, helping if I could…<br />
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Audrina and I shopped for the opening food at Shaws, a sorry supermarket, …and she packed almost everything in her cloth bag since she is a vegetarian and a non-plastic person, young and capable of lugging huge amounts. By the time we got to the gallery, my back had given up and she did a lot of the setting up while I lay on the floor. <br />
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I managed to last over an hour at the opening….It was an extremely cold night, extremely….I enjoyed the gallery folks, pleasant folks… I'll have pictures of the gallery next week since I'm gallery sitting on Saturday…2-6, not many people visit the gallery, so more time to draw…<br />
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My new vice was The Grand, a BBC production, bless those Brits, a soap opera that gave great pleasure, set just after the first world war when veterans were suffering and times were changing…there was a gorgeous old madam who ran a brothel. as a main character and a couple of murders, two brothers at odds with each other, etc…what could be better…. Unfortunately, there was only 18 episodes… alas…Now I'm on to The Paradise…not nearly as up my alley…<br />
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thank you…….for reading..melissashookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02398008713376655570noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8205011361740478772.post-76907807797934832015-01-22T09:29:00.003-08:002015-01-22T09:39:13.615-08:00Pyrromania and the cat<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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My daughter salvaged 16 or 17 strays with a lot of work, energy and Brian, who is devoted to saving cats and has a network to pick them up, have them altered and find them homes.<br />
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He doesn't like to take cats from Chelsea because many of them have diseases, but he tricks the giant, as my daughter would say, picks them up anyway.<br />
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This old guy had been around for many years. He was fed by two people on the street in back and by me, when the birds didn't eat his food. If you could see closely, you'd see that I dropped a lot of food on him after he hustled me from the car to the bowl.<br />
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I hadn't known whether he was eating the food I put out, though I could see his footsteps in the snow, or whether the birds were getting it all.<br />
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But Brian got him. He left a cage here early on Saturday and by mid-afternoon, the old guy went in and sat there, waiting quietly. Brian later called me to say that he was very calm and had obviously been an indoor cat that was abandoned. There's a lot of abandoning of cats around here.<br />
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I felt seriously guilty that I'd pulled him from his routine since he'd worked out a life, but I felt much better after Brian told me how calm he was and that it won't be hard to place him.<br />
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This is purple, or Geileise, trying to get on my lap. She could easily squash me with her clumsy eagerness.<br />
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The Wolf Hound seems to be primordial, like wild turkeys that I saw recently near Mim's house where seven or eight seem to have quite a happy existence.<br />
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These are the pieces for the pyromania show. They looked very quiet in that lovely space, so nicely sunlit, but okay.<br />
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There's a lot of writing and a little drawing and the paper is quite terrific. I bought a bunch of sheets from someone, intending to draw mushrooms on them. But I didn't. And couldn't imagine that I'd have any use for them, but they worked well for this…lovely paper with odd edges and a heavy texture.<br />
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Thank you for reading…and take care...<br />
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This is the last of the gorgeous scarecrow that my daughter made for the community garden a few summers ago. It was a painted mask of her face with shells for eyes and ears, the head attached to a stick body. I liked it a lot and it wore quiet well until I just had to bring it back here and finally, finally, finally sent it off…. I'm sorry I didn't hang on longer, but that's often the way it goes…hanging on too long or letting go too soon….melissashookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02398008713376655570noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8205011361740478772.post-82130699528473814182015-01-04T17:21:00.006-08:002015-01-05T02:28:32.763-08:00Oh, man, 2015………musings….<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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So, 2015. Quite amazing.<br />
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The lights went out at six on New Year's Eve and I got in bed with the New Yorker and a flash light. They came on at nine and I thought, "Now, I'm in business," but they went off again. I vaguely thought about whether the heat would go on again, but there was nothing I could do, so I went to sleep. I do think about death, as much as I always have. And clearly it's closer since I'm 75. But I feel as if I'm just starting…….how can that be? All this energy and clarity. Quite amazing. I hope for ten more years and health.<br />
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And I also hope that my beloved dog, hardly hearing and not seeing much, barking sharply when he's lost me, stuck in the kitchen alone, makes it to 15. The evenings are a great trial because he wants special treats, bits of food, something delicious six, eight, ten times adding little tidbits to persuade him to eat his food.<br />
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The young men working on the windows had lunch outside near the fence and dropped a tiny piece of bread, maybe the tiniest bit of chicken and Bogie found it. And hopes that someone has dropped more. He hunts in the leaves, hoping.<br />
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But all the work those fellows did seems to have worked. The wind doesn't blow the curtains inside or rattle the windows. I don't have to put up plastic! What a big change.<br />
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I joined a small gallery that's a throw back from the sixties…all that freedom and lack of fussing. Nothing organized. I don't even get the emails since there's some disconnect somewhere. But who cares...The first group show is about Pyromania and the drawing above is one of my two pieces. It's rather formal and I imagine that most everyone else has produced wilder work….. But we'll see at the meeting on Tuesday night. I wish I'd joined years ago because it gives me a chance to expand beyond photographs. And it's truly wacky-packers…. just what I like.<br />
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When Mim made tea and offered these gingerbread fellows, I honestly had a hard time eating them. My father used to buy packages of sugar coated almonds, bundled in pink or blue blankets with little baby faces. I couldn't eat them either, but he happily bit the heads off. It's incredibly silly not to have wanted to eat a cookie from this plate, but I'd been drawing one of the man that she gave to us at the Bagel Bards, nicely each in a sandwich bag. I brought mine home and Sherlock knocked it off the kitchen table. I followed Bogie's obviously delighted self as he high-tailed it to his bed, the bag in is mouth, intending to eat it and then the cookie. He managed to knock the arm off before I rescued it and I've been drawing it. That made my attachment to Mim's<br />
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cookies more intensely personal...<br />
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Sherlock got two new boxes from Costco for the holidays. He still has his slightly larger regular box, but seems to prefer the new smaller ones.<br />
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Lee felted this hat and it happens to look reasonable on me. I'm not a hat person, but…. It looks fine. I can't wait to wear that glorious scarf. She knits while sitting in front of the TV because she'd incapable of just sitting. You will find videos of the Irish Wolf Hound puppies that she whelped about eight months ago… on www.pennyanteproductions.com And you'll see the house she lives in, the stallion and an old mini-horse named Napoleon.<br />
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We've stopped giving presents, thank goodness, but when Jim gave me this card from he and Orson, I opened it and said, "Oh, no, it's not a photograph of you both on vacation!" I never learn to keep my big mouth shut. He's had an exhausting year, they didn't have time to print a vacation photograph, it was a lovely card…and I have it, alone with an image from a past vacation next to it. (They are so gorgeous, improbable, huge and overpowering men….and they take elaborate vacations. Orson particularly loves Cairo. And Jim does, also...<br />
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I've gotten by/through the season, from Thanksgiving until this last week-end of the holidays, by watching Hercule Poirot on Netflix in the mornings. I don't like Agatha Christie, but I thoroughly enjoy a pleasant murder and it's been very comforting. And I'm trying to learn from him to make a vague statement rather than blurting out what I really think. But I've only started taking these lessons, so they haven't had a serious effect yet.<br />
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I'm seventy-five and haven't learned to shut my big mouth yet, but there's always hope.<br />
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I had a nice talk with a friend who now lives outside of San Francisco, laughing about the bottle of rum from which we added to the store-bought egg nog…she remembered that we talked about being old ladies, still drinking egg nog and nipping at the rum. That wonderful loft she had on Eldridge Street, the kids running in all that space… That was a 'real' loft with all the advantages and disadvantages. I used Kahula (sp?) with yogurt ice cream a few nights…in spite of my determination to drop five pounds… An instant buxx.<br />
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Tomorrow's a repeat mammogram. And then in February I'll have a laser treatment for my eyes so they will be back to the glorious clarity that I had after the cataract surgery. The eye doctor confirmed my sense that I don't see nearly as well, explaining that 20-25% of people have this problem…the clear film that fills the space in the back of the new lens sometimes becomes like wrinkled wax paper, making it hard to see as well. But as easy problem to solve.<br />
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This is a nicely designed show at the MFA… those unimaginably elegant dresses from movies…in the 30's and 40's. I used to wear a white satin dress that had been my cousin Patsy's and let my best friend, Cinnie, wear the purple one which might have had white grapes. Hard to imagine that Patsy had gowns and I played dress-up..and that I kept the best dress for myself.<br />
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And Mim making an apple tart…very beautiful.melissashookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02398008713376655570noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8205011361740478772.post-73260615990195769562014-12-27T07:27:00.000-08:002014-12-27T07:27:02.619-08:00December 27, 2014<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The season is over! From Thanksgiving to X-mas a cloud comes over me. But I fought it mightily with morning doses of BBC mysteries and with the help of good friends and family … It comes over my brother, also, who is 91 now and not in great shape. So, it's a family thing.<br />
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But I'm grateful for having had more than a decent time and for the lovely moments with friends.<br />
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All my new photographs are locked on my glorious new iPhone, so there's nothing special to put up… wait a week and they will appear… I can't tell you how much I love this expensive toy which I bought to start a new series of daily self-portraits. I'm allowing myself the luxury of composing backgrounds into which I peer. They have a formal quality which I'm not generally interested in, since I like a bit of mess here and there. But it's been an interesting month of following this particular idea in this long project…. and, even though using the face of the phone as the camera produces a smaller file, that's what I've done. Did I say all this before? Probably.<br />
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And the great thing about my phone/camera is that it counts my steps. I always get up to a mile. And with effort, I get to two or three miles… which hasn't helped because I gained 8 tens of a pound this month. I go to Weight Watches on the last Saturday of every month to check on myself. The problem can't have been the wonderful apple tart that Mim made…I know she used very little sugar and only the minimal amount of butter in the crust…but I caved into cake and icing at Jim and Orson's….rather than eating his pear pie… So, it's back to kale soup and 3 miles a day.<br />
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Maybe I've showed Big Face before. I'm hoping that in 2015 that the fellow who rescues cats is able to get him. He's been out for years and comes around for food fairly often. I put cat nibbles on the first floor porch (which the birds also eat) and bird seed upstairs which gives Sherlock something to watch from inside.<br />
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When I sent to the eye doctor a week or two ago, he confirmed that my vision really is worse, nothing like the way it was after cataract surgery. And he thinks it's caused by a membrane that fills the space in back of the new lens. In 20-25% of people, this becomes like wax paper, with wrinkles. This has most probably happened to me which makes it harder to write since I can't accurately tell what I've written unless I enlarge the image on the screen, which I just did. It's not a serious problem and can be corrected with an in-office laser treatment. Magic of modern medicine…or the skill of modern medicine.<br />
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It's been hard not to be depressed by the new of the CIA and the so-called enhanced interrogation. Read torture. <br />
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But the sun is shining and I'm glad to be alive, missing a dear friend who died last year, but still very glad to be alive and grateful to other friends...<br />
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And wishing happy new year all around….<br />
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melissashookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02398008713376655570noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8205011361740478772.post-85300277359934026682014-12-16T16:08:00.001-08:002014-12-16T16:08:17.793-08:00Another Post...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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It's nice that this photo came up first, a stained glass rainbow piece made by Michael who died unexpectedly more than a year ago. He was a gentle soul with the most gorgeous face, of Greek descent with great bone structure and an excellent personality. I got to video tape as he put in a gorgeous window that he'd made for a man who turned out to be entirely untrustworthy and is now in jail. Michael was the picture of health, but died of an aneurysm.<br />
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Jimmy Sullivan died last week, or as Smith says, he's really cruising in Florida. His fifteen lives are finally officially over, though I can hear him talking still.<br />
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I was fortunate to meet him through Jim Anderson, his good friend when we were both there for dinner…. When I heard Jimmy tell part of his story…being gay bashed in the early 80's and recovering from brain damage, returning to being a male after a heady time as a female prostitute and so on and so on, one story after another from this man who lived large and fully, I couldn't stop myself from asking whether I could make a video…<br />
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Unfortunately I started it right after I'd been sick and I just wasn't able to do him justice, make a film that was strong enough to allow viewers to understand his trajectory from an abusive home through drugs and addictions that substitute for love.<br />
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I wish I'd been able to make a better film…. But I thank him for all he told me and Jim Anderson for introducing us and showing me what being a good friend is…He was with Jimmy to the last, having gotten him into the hospital and then out of it so he could go back to his elegant apartment.<br />
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When I visited Jimmy while he was in palliative care, the nurse asked if I'd give them the film so they could see who he'd been. I didn't get around to it before he felt well enough to leave…but I should take it to them now… <br />
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I have no idea why this dinosaur is here, but I like this drawing. I'm trying to get back to drawing after spending months working on videos for a new website pulling together long, long, long video interviews of folks who worked on the backside of the racetrack. www.pennyanteproductions.com<br />
I can't imagine that many people will have the patience to look at them since they aren't shortened and dolled up into soundbites, but I'm glad some of them are finally viewable…<br />
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The dinosaur was a present to my daughter from her grandfather quite a few years ago. I'm afraid that I liked it better than she did and have used it in watercolors of objects that are meaningful to me. He also sent her the skeleton of a giant beetle he'd found outside in Nova Scotia. She didn't like that either, but I kept it… <br />
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And old photo from my mushroom collection. What does this mean? What does it all mean?<br />
One foot in front of another.<br />
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<br />melissashookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02398008713376655570noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8205011361740478772.post-67443828706520089712014-12-05T14:57:00.000-08:002014-12-05T15:03:24.755-08:00Pyromania and change..<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Pyromania is the title of the January show at Atlantic Works. This drawing was done with red clay from Georgia and dirt…It's one of six on a large sheet of handmade paper and will have text. I've never tried to think about this type of problem… The camera is so limited.</div>
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The transformation of the downstairs apartment into a studio, at least temporarily, involved days of work by a clever friend capable of carrying heavy cases and thinking about organization.<br />
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Though I planned to use all these cleaning supplies, I ended up hiring several woman who whipped through the place in a blink of an eye. I'd had it cleaned professionally a few months earlier so it needed very little.<br />
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I've started to see a new therapist who approaches these sessions in an entirely different way -- I have had many therapists, but of the old variety who didn't ask questions about functioning in daily life and practical goals. One of the phrases that she threw toward me was the idea of executive function. As if mine is a bit wobbly. I hadn't told her that, while I had her address, I'd forgotten her name. That didn't particularly bother me because I assumed she'd tell it to me when I got to the office or I'd muddle though, somehow. But it became necessary to take the elevator in the building. I had to show my license and tell the guard where I was going. I knew the floor and the room number, but the not her name. Luckily he figured it out. <br />
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And this week, when I drove to Salem, I got lost as I usually do, trying to find Peabody Essex Museum, which wasn't bad. The problem was when I went home … that was major league getting lost. <br />
It wasn't until I was almost home that I realized that I have an iPhone, a new one, and that there is Siri inside of it who at least could have told me where I was.<br />
And there's also a map, not that I could have read it since my map reading skills are nil. But I could have used the woman who talks the driver on her way. <br />
I don't know these systems yet, but when I learn them, hopefully I'll remember to use them.<br />
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And then, I promised myself that I'd go out on Wed. night to a poety reading…so that I wouldn't fall prey to the dreaded winter horrors that attack as soon as it gets dark. I hate the dark. I'm not depressed, actually, just filled with hatred for the dark. I'm functioning quite as well as usual, thank you very much, in daytime, but night… No…………. <br />
At any rate, I'd promised myself to go to this reading, early, 5:00, so I could do some work on the computer… but……..I didn't. Since I hadn't bothered to notice who was reading…I didn't know that I was going to miss a reading by George Kalogeris, one of my favorite people.<br />
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Did that teaching me a lesson?<br />
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I hope so………………………..<br />
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I have to work on executive functions. I used to drive the chairman of the art department absolutely wild because of what he called my 'inattention to detail.' I wish I'd understood it better then, It would have saved me a lot of grieve and allowed me, at least, a protective layer. Luckily I had friends, like Lorie Novak, who helped me when I was in the worst of the dog houses.<br />
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Sherlock thinks this is his apartment, rather than my studio. He's an absolutely gorgeous creature, if only I weren't allergic to cats and he was nicer to Bogie who he deliberately taunts by lying across any doorway the dog wants to go through. Sometimes he pounces when Bogie's asleep in the morning (he doesn't get up before 11, usually,) thinking that if he wakes him….he'll get a second breakfast…. <br />
Bogie is 14 and eats special food, so he gets more servings and much coaxing with tidbits. I think that cats, in general, and Sherlock in particular, watch carefully, judging the fairness of food distribution and he's quite right that he doesn't get fed as much, as often, usually.<br />
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<br />melissashookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02398008713376655570noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8205011361740478772.post-31903437188675449082014-11-21T05:18:00.003-08:002014-11-21T05:31:30.948-08:00Work of the more distant past and the just a few weeks ago past...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Laura Montgomery curated a show of ceramics at Bunker Hill Community College. She's so gracious that she came over with her truck and students and hauled the boxes downstairs and away and they all set it up. Naturally I missed the opening because I wanted to see Jim Greene talking about why it was so important to keep Suffolk Downs open by picking Revere as the casino site..that came on at 7 and by the time he'd talked it was DARK…and I absolutely hate the dark… It's late fall and often dark and the opening was, by then, in the dark. I could have gone if I'd left here at 5:30 and gotten there by 6 when it opened…Alas. But it's a very nice show, like a little jewel to come upon in that huge campus of hurried and hurrying students. As someone who paid for parking at UMass/Boston, I can't imagine paying only $20 a year for parking…perhaps most students are commuters. Anyway, it's a nice campus… And a delightful show. The small grid of six self-portraits in which a nude using her body as if it were clay weren't included. I think that makes the piece stronger, but I'm glad to have shown it and that Laura was able to do that.<br />
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(I should add that the casino license was not given to Revere which endangers the existence of a Thoroughbred racing track in Massachusetts and thus the lives of many people from grooms, to hot walkers, to horse shoers to trainers. I've been working on video taping interviews with many folks and some of them are on a new website www.pennyanteproductions.com<br />
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and more will be added…. Nine years of work.)<br />
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I absolutely had to do something with the paper I made in Cathy McLaurin's class… eight hours of driving back and forth and something like $220 for the class… (not that I begrudge the expense of those classes because the ones I've taken have been interesting…and quite inexpensive and Cathy is terrific)…but anyway, it was an investment and here I was with a huge piece of drawing paper covered with interesting shapes made by flicking a string held on a thin dowel and dipped in ink… I loved the process, quietly standing there while others applied paint in various ways including with a toy bow and arrow… their pieces were far more colorful, dense, intense, but I liked the process I used. And wanted to do something with it. The problem, I found out, when I decided to make an accordion book is that it was drawing paper and the paper cracked slightly in the folding. I had to buy linen tape to reinforce the back of the folds. It wasn't particularly easy since math isn't my forte…nor is cutting even slightly heavy book board… and it's a bit formal. But I liked the idea of using ink drawings of the some of the mushrooms I've been photographing for the last four or five years. It's a bit formal, another book with a black cover.<br />
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By the third class, I realized that I liked the surface design I'd created and wanted to use that technique again. We were supposed to use a variety of tricks/methods to limit our way of applying paint..using a long stick with chalk at the end of it, applying a splint and tucking a paint brush in it.<br />
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But I used a toy I'd bought for Sherlock, four feathers on a stick, and flicked ink on BFK Reeves that I'd brought. (I did make another sheet of the supplied drawing paper using the same technique, but since I knew I was going to make another book, I finished the class using my paper.)<br />
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Since I'd applied the design using the cat toy, I thought I'd use drawings of Sherlock Holmes as I'd used drawings of mushrooms.<br />
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But as I walked by the kitchen table, I noticed refractions of light from the fruit bowl, pale, delicate lines which I traced.<br />
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I'd made many line drawings of shadows as they crossed the wall at the first landing of the wide staircase in Les's old dowager of a Victorian where I lived for five years. I loved those drawings and never though I'd find anything to replicated here in my little apartment.<br />
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I liked a lot of the work in the show Laura curated..from rather primitive figures to very finished elegant pieces. All of it was more than competent. But along with taking photographs of my own work, I took a picture of this piece by Sparky and two of the three 2-D pieces by a man who now works at Feet of Clay, but came from Bosnia, if I'm correct. He worked on clay tablets as if he were drawing and added a clay form. They are charming as is Sparky's piece, I thought, of found female forms.melissashookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02398008713376655570noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8205011361740478772.post-46985977529780931322014-11-04T05:43:00.001-08:002014-11-04T05:46:24.961-08:00Essex Art Center<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I've been taking a class or two a year for the past five or six years. I have no idea how I discovered the Essex Art Center, but driving up Route 28 to Lawrence is always a pleasure. Inevitably I think of something I hadn't realized about whatever I'm working on. I hate highways, but this is a nice road, in and out of small towns.<br />
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I've taken drawing and watercolor and now am taking the third session of a class that Cathy McLaurin teaches about different ways of approaching work. It's not really relevant to my work since I'm not a painter, but I like her, enjoy her approach and the people who keep appearing whenever she offers it. It is, for me, a lark.<br />
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The first class involved driving this very small vehicle over different objects and then printing from then.<br />
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Barbie dolls are indestructible. Running a 1,000 pound roller over them multiple times doesn't crack the surface. <br />
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In fact, not too many items were squash able. My objects were bought in a gift shop in housing for somewhat elderly folks…and the 93 year-old woman who runs it was pleased with my $30 donation. She had discounted all the items and I was happy to carry away three bags of cutlery, eye glasses, wire baskets, a silver vase and two metal dish wracks.<br />
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My plan was to squash a dinner service and print that, but I didn't even put the fork under the roller. The wire baskets worked since they were delicate enough to flatten. And I printed them along with various berries for additional color. Not too interesting. What I liked was taking photographs, except that my battery ran out.<br />
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And of course I drove the roller.<br />
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I had to do that. The first time I jumped into something I'd never driven before was when someone was asked to volunteer to drive the new 14 person van in the shelter where I was working. My hand went up automatically. It took me two weeks of driving before I noticed the side view mirrors, but I did no damage. The woman got to their alternative sleeping arrangements and the van was unscratched.<br />
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My next favorite ride was in a golf cart that I drove up a small mountain with someone I'd known in middle-school…I hadn't seen her in years and was completely surprised when she apologized for something she said well over 50 years ago about my mother's death. Of course, I didn't remember it, but it was so touching that she has carried a worry about what she felt was a harmful comment all these years. What we store in our minds is fascinating.<br />
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Driving the roller was a bit difficult. I got on it before it became apparent that nothing thick would crush, so it was a bit bumpy as it traveled over candle sticks and other such stiff stuff. Later when I drove it again, we'd figured out that what was useful crushing material and it was a much less bumpy ride.<br />
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During our second class, we worked on large sheets of paper with odd tools. I've moved my sheet where I can work on the floor, using strings dipped in inks. It was interesting enough and I will try to make a book out of it. Since it's doubtful that anything I do in Cathy's classes will be incorporated in my work, I am making an effort to use this particular product.<br />
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As if I don't have enough to do.<br />
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Thanks for reading...melissashookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02398008713376655570noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8205011361740478772.post-71517771286726603432014-11-02T14:23:00.005-08:002014-11-04T05:43:33.884-08:00It's November…..<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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and soon I have to hide under the mattress to avoid the coming holidays.<br />
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I've been working really hard…in part to keep adding to a new website www.pennyanteproductions.com<br />
It has interviews from folks who work on the backside of the local racetrack… If you like very long, hardly edited interviews from people who work with Thoroughbreds, take a look, please.<br />
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Occasionally I find a recipe in the New York Times that I think I can manage. And I can't. They are expensive, extremely expensive and time consuming. I spent a fortune making two dishes for a Thanksgiving with Orson and Jim that no one ate since Orson is the most fabulous cook….and my onions, even though I'd bought a clever new dish to serve them in, were hardly necessary on that laden table.<br />
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This time I decide to make a tarte tatain (that's not the right spelling, probably…) just because it looked beautiful. And it is.<br />
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And it also served the purpose of distracting me, preoccupying me with shopping. I've been quite nervous and fretful with a stomach that's out of sorts, so this was a tricky, but ultimately safe activity since I could toss it out if I failed.<br />
The recipe called for eight apples of a particular type that don't have a lot of excess liquid. Wholepaycheck didn't have the specified type, but it had the two allowable alternatives…. <br />
And it had frozen puff pastry. EIGHTEEN DOLLARS for a package. I didn't blink as I paid for the nifty box. Nor did I read the direction which said it had to defrost in the refrigerator for two days before I started peeling and cutting the apples in quarters in order to refrigerate them for a day (it wouldn't hurt them, the recipe said, to stay in that lightly covered bowl for two to three days) so that they would dry out sufficiently.<br />
You get the drift. It was never going to be ready for the occasion I planned to take it to.<br />
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But two days later I baked it and took it over to share with friends. We ate it warm. Excellent. <br />
And then I used the leftover puff pastry to make the ugly little things shown in the photo above. The first time I laid it out, sprinkled sugar on top, put another layer on with more sugar and stuck it in a very, very hot oven, the fire extinguishers in three areas went off which meant I had to take it out, refrigerate the unshapely dough until the next day and clean the stove of all the apple-sugar juice that had spilled from the tart and charred. <br />
Nothing is simple.<br />
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Then I took the left-over half tart when I went to visit Margo. It wasn't nearly as good cold, not nearly! But she's very polite.<br />
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As I was leaving, she gave me flowers from her garden. I photographed them along with another bouquet of marigolds from the Chelsea Community Garden along with these particular flowers, daisy and borage which grew wild in the path between my plot and the next.<br />
After having cut no bouquets all summer, I have four in the house as fall starts…. The cat is pleased.<br />
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For the last couple of years, I have been collecting photographs of mushrooms, an enjoyable activity.<br />
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And I was tempted to start another collection called red. And another called yellow.<br />
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Luckily I decided this is more folly so I am only collecting photographs of dogs I meet (I do ask the owner usually, and he or she is usually pleased by my nuttiness and never asks what I'm going to do with the images), mushrooms and images from museums.<br />
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There is a very good article by Donald Hall in Poets and Writers this month…about aging. A book of essays he's written will be published in December. Evidently one you get to the mid-eighties, you stop worrying and take every day as it comes and enjoy it.<br />
I've got ten years to go. Right now I have to say that the changes aging are bringing are worrisome… and I find myself running as fast as I can to escape them. When I'm not running, I watch Netflix.<br />
Take care of yourselves…and enjoy!melissashookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02398008713376655570noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8205011361740478772.post-43133018633276321852014-10-14T07:14:00.000-07:002014-11-02T14:24:40.850-08:00Staying<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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So, I have very little time since I'm going to lunch with Elsa Dorfman and have to stop at FedEx to mail a box, but here I am, trying to add to the blog which is tucked so far in the back of my mind that I hardly remember it.<br />
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But, I stayed in the house, thanks to Genevra, who agreed not to force me to sell because I'd signed papers agreeing to do that. And I spent money on it for the first time. Oh, I'd put on two roofs and replaced an oil burner and fixed the downstairs bathroom and had my bathroom floor repaired when the toilet threatened to fall into the apartment below… <br />
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But I hadn't done anything else. I hadn't decided that this is my house, even though I've lived here for 30 years. It was still temporary with all my collapsable furniture and clutter.<br />
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But Elsa suggested Delson, the most magnificent contractor imaginable. I didn't imagine that I could afford him. But he's reasonable and has lovely Brazilians working for him -- his son-in-law, two nephews and various assorted others who he's hired. The first photo show the remains of the porch that he thought he'd just have to repair, but that I knew was in dire shape.<br />
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For years, Joe and Pam lived next door with his parents. Pam did a lot of work on the garden, in the yard, which was undone by the folks who bought it. They even took down a pine tree taller than the house that his mother had planted when he brought it home in a styrofoam cup from kindergarten. Pam has volunteer petunias and offered me some, but I somehow never got around to take them. But here's one that was growing by the sidewalk and I dug it up with a spoon, at night.. There was another one, but two days later, all of that was clipped. The folks next door like everything clipped. So, here is the petunia in a tiny garden that I started in all the madness of having done nothing, nothing, nothing to the back yard when the house was supposedly going to be bought as was.<br />
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And this is the phlox that's growing wild back there. I fell down the backstairs on my way to transplant it…madness of madness. Why?<br />
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I ended up as a pretzel with my legs lodged above my head in the twist of the stairway. I am lucky to have only gotten a swollen ankle and a limp for a few weeks. Needless to say, I didn't transplant it, them, anything.<br />
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I had imagined that it wasn't going to be an easy job. The railings had not been up to code and I thought that a family with a young boy was going to stay in that apartment and wanted that fixed. This is what it led to, a very elegant downstairs porch. Nicely stained.<br />
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And then the upstairs porch was stained, in the nick of time, because the pressure treated wood was parched and starting to crack.<br />
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An agency for Massachusetts was giving trees, planting them, with just the stipulation that I water them every week for a year.<br />
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I wasn't pleased with this particular one which looks half dead, but she assured me that it will be fine in spring. They put in five, including this one. I wanted to replace the lovely cherry that finally gave up, two cherries to be exact. One used to hang over the driveway next door and Joe's father used to pick cherries to put in brandy. No such luck now because they had no actual fruit trees and I wouldn't have bought one because I can no longer dig a sufficiently large hole and dump in humus.<br />
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The new double pane windows might save me from paying $700 a month (or more) for heat in this little apartment. At any rate, they look gorgeous, though the photograph doesn't show them..that's just the covering of the outer sills..which took Alex days to cut and bend and fit into place...the windows were inserted after that was done and then there was caulking.<br />
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I felt terrible when the guys left, as if they were leaving home. They had a strange sweetness, as if they weren't judging me or my house, just trying to make it better.melissashookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02398008713376655570noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8205011361740478772.post-24779956745546702142014-08-24T14:32:00.000-07:002014-08-24T14:44:56.851-07:00New Hobby<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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In order to keep myself totally distracted so that I accomplish something, I start endless projects. This is the new one and it involves going to the MFA for two hours on Sunday morning…getting there before there's no parking on the street, just as it opens, wandering with my camera…you are allowed to take pictures anywhere as long as you don't use flash or a tripod. (Well, maybe not everywhere…) And I'm collecting images. Usually I collect sculpture. And have even, get this, used raw for the digital camera (but not today) so that I'll get the maximum details for whatever I don't do with these.<br />
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And the don't doing is fine. I start enough that it's alright that I don't finish everything.<br />
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Actually I am in the process of putting up a new website…www.pennyanteproductions.com for the long, long, long interviews with folks who work at the backside of the track. And a wonderful editor, Maia Lynch, is working on an inter-active documentary site. So, I'm not lying in bed eating chocolates, much as I'd like to be. When I do lie in bed, I'm rereading Kitchen Confidential and wishing I'd had some experience of that wild life which was, let's be honest, pretty much only available to men. Today, I went to the Shinique Smith show, new… as you will see by the photo below which isn't really representative of her painting, though they also use cloth. And then took an hour tour, wandering around after a woman named Mead who spoke nicely about Copley.<br />
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This was in the Egyptian area which has, basically moved, from the upstairs. A lot has been changed as the museum was tarted up. I suppose that's a good thing, larger, fancier, more glistening, etc., etc.<br />
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And on Saturday, I had the delicious time with the great-grandbaby of Arlene and George Brown while we watched the races in the grandstands. George won one out of two races…and I had this freedom to take image after image of Colin. I am deeply obsessed with taking photographs and wouldn't know what to do with myself if I just had to sit there since I know too little about the finer points of Thoroughbred racing. <br />
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This is the house that I still have after all the chaos I caused by thinking I should sell it. Instead I'm putting in new windows, insulation upstairs, and also fixing the back porch and who knows what else. As Susan said, "Why haven't you ever done anything to it?" That was a great question. I'd put on two roofs and put in one new oil burner, but nothing else that might have made life easier, improved the climate inside during the winter and saved on the oil bill.<br />
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If you should go to that new site, which isn't entirely finished, you will find videos of Lee Loebelenz and the Irish Wolf Hound puppies…they are listed under Lion Spring Farm. I'm not entirely finished editing them or editing the site, as I said, but at least it's up. I'm quite pleased by that, though I have many, many more interviews to add. It will be a reference point for those interested in the stories of folks who work with Thoroughbreds and about Thoroughbreds which go on to have new tasks, new lives once they leave racing and then there are the Wolf Hound pups…going from what look like tiny pit bulls, to real long-nosed dogs...<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJB9bjnc87Ncrfv1TUDU0GwwXg3rCYGWAslpZW3aQY8lpT-OKjb2czWd4b6DLynFbxE7C49_bvzbgmSgeQE1-ptrNm9ty6tb1kT3Ggz6Im-AbjkSdD8ljZCgYlh8PCGa-hVO6J9Vs_JXg/s1600/leePup4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJB9bjnc87Ncrfv1TUDU0GwwXg3rCYGWAslpZW3aQY8lpT-OKjb2czWd4b6DLynFbxE7C49_bvzbgmSgeQE1-ptrNm9ty6tb1kT3Ggz6Im-AbjkSdD8ljZCgYlh8PCGa-hVO6J9Vs_JXg/s1600/leePup4.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a>melissashookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02398008713376655570noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8205011361740478772.post-3782858562234261612014-07-06T12:06:00.001-07:002014-07-06T12:13:24.742-07:00Big Time Catch-Up<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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A lot has happened.<br />
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As a friend said, remember you'e an alcoholic, given to precipitous decisions … and regrets. Technically, I'm an adult child of an alcoholic, but what the hell, it's all the same. I leap, then look, there's no ground, I've almost sold my little two family, almost bought a condo, but…<br />
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I want to go backwards.<br />
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I'm not ready to leave the little two family and all the light and all the problems, yet…maybe in another couple of years. By the skin of my teeth and much gnashing, I extracted myself from the sale (that's to a very, very kind buyer…) and got out of the purchase (thanks to a very nice relator) and am still here in a big mess that definitely needed a shop vac which Bogie and I bought today.<br />
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He wasn't entirely happy riding in the cart, shivering with dismay, and he definitely must have considered the advice by three young girls that it would be better to have him in a stroller, close to the ground, to be a good thought… <br />
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I had considered myself very clever to have gone on-line to find a filter for my 30 year old stop vac, but it had no umph… the new one does, except that I had it hooked up to blow, not suck, so you can imagine the dust of the ages blown around in that attic.<br />
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Ann-Marie came to help for a week, when I still thought I'd sell it, a great deal of sorting, carting, looking through…it's an endless amount of work, was, is, will be…don't worry, of course I'm making a video about the process, my grim face as I survey the wreckage….. whatever is gone is gone and whatever is going will get out there, including the old shop vac…<br />
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The inspector from MASS Saves comes in the middle of the month and I'll find out about windows and insulation, etc….and whether they sponsor a loan… so, that's good… interesting. Why, as S. asked, have I never done any of this before? Good question. Excellent question. I wasn't ready? I didn't know how? I didn't think about it? This winter was so awful I had to move or face it? I'm have the duck-and-cover tendencies of an alcoholic?<br />
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Who knows…………..<br />
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In the beginning of all of this, I paid to enter a show…and was sort of chosen to be part of it, relieved to finally exhibit this landscape work…………took endless effort, carting it downstairs, all those boxes, setting it up, wrapping it again, taking it…………. <br />
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and the show is terrible, horrible, ghastly, worthless…<br />
a mass of work from an endless amount of people, everyone it looked like, who sent in checks.<br />
I'm so sorry I did it and now this is in the never-again-category that another friend often reminds me of…. <br />
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but it was nice to see it set up downstairs…the insane installations I made at Feet of Clay in Brookline without ever thinking about what I'd do with them, how I'd show them…<br />
<br />
The good thing is that I decided that the blobs, otherwise known as "For No Earthly Reason" which were on my regular website…could be given away for donations at the community garden during the Art Walk… and they went like hotcakes, 8 or nine boxes of them…money tucked into a jar…<br />
<br />
I still have ten or twelve tucked into my own garden…and they are sort of friends, and the rest have tiny cacti growing in them or serve as decorations…can you imagine…<br />
<br />
Now I have to figure out what to do with the porcelain boxes and the 1,000 little figures of nude ladies...<br />
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this is back to the landscape…<br />
670 something little formations from different types of clay, different uses of slip and glazes..<br />
<br />
crazy…what do I do with them now?<br />
wait until next year and the Art Walk??<br />
<br />
Anyway, I'm grateful still to be in the wreck of a house and to have had such success with the physical therapy………… I will do the exercises, faithfully…<br />
<br />
please do look at<br />
www.run-to-the-roundhouse-nellie.com<br />
Susan Landry's on-line journal about memoir.<br />
I like Alan Helms reply to my questions and think his book is extremely important….for many reasons….<br />
<br />
thanks….melissashookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02398008713376655570noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8205011361740478772.post-91171564793902621052014-03-28T11:32:00.001-07:002014-03-28T11:39:41.821-07:00Physical therapy & horses<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Since shoveling twice, the sciatic nerve called a halt…and I got another prescription for physical therapy. But first, a week earlier, I tried the advice of a friend and went to the Russian bath house, Dillons, here in Chelsea.What an amazing place. Women's night is Monday, 4-9, and one woman told me she's been going for 20 years, with the exception of an illness, brings her dinner, leaves with her pajamas on when it closes. Quite an amazing place. $23 to get in and use the sauna and steam, neither of which are to my rase, and $45 for an hour massage (plus tip,) four women in a narrow dark room, new age music. My woman had fingers of steal and I could straighten up the next day. Quite amazing. What would my feelings for this little city be if I'd started doing this twenty years ago?<br />
<br />
We'll see if the physical therapy works. It did last time, six years ago. But I haven't made much progress so far, one visit only… and an hour drive to the drawing class and too long spent bending my neck over to complete a curious exercise in redrawing into a failed drawing and continuing to work on it. The class is designed for folks who are painters, so I'm a bit lost, but I've watched the bit kids long enough to have learned a few tricks so I knew I could use charcoal, and ink and scissors..all sorts of tools that I could never have imagined using. If I'd been able to stand up and do more than hobble afterwards, it would have been totally successful. I'm so type A that I get furious if I'm impaired, as I often am, by some ache or another.<br />
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I've had a lot of chances to take photos of Lee's chickens and Seamus, her Irish Wolf Hound. Now I'm making weekly visits to photograph the puppies that Goose had via c-section. Lee was lent this huge dog to whelp the puppies, a task which is, probably, a good deal harder than helping Thoroughbred mares. She's virtually watched them, except for four hours a night, since the five of them were brought home from the vet, each just about a pound. To me they look like pit bull puppies… or little rats. Highly unimaginable that they will become huge shaggy dogs that lope along agreeably.<br />
<br />
The first time I drove to Lee's farm, Lion Spring, it took three hours and many questions to strangers. Now it takes about an hour and 15 minutes. And she's great company, a exuberant talker, my favorite kind of person.<br />
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This is my experiment, whether it's possible to link a vimeo video to the blog because I need to make one for the Chelsea Community Garden….<br />
so, hopefully, if anyone gets to watch this video about the puppies, I'll know that my next task, or is it the one after the next task, will be possible.<br />
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<span style="color: #3e3e3e;"><b>Lee Lobelentz, Goose & 5 puppies+</b></span><br /><a href="https://vimeo.com/89583951?utm_source=email&utm_medium=clip-transcode_complete-finished-20120100&utm_campaign=7701&email_id=Y2xpcF90cmFuc2NvZGVkfGY0ZDYxYjBlOWFiOTU4ZGQzMTM4NzY5OGZjMTQ2YmEwNDA0fDIyNDMzODIxfDEzOTUzMDgwNDF8NzcwMQ%3D%3D" target="_blank"><span style="color: #2786c2;">https://vimeo.com/89583951</span></a></div>
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And I've been working on a project with Linda Hart-Buuck about her Thoroughbred, Layla…video taping as she moved from the racetrack to her next career, whatever that turns out to be. Recently, we went out to the barn, another very long drive, and I had the chance to photograph this horse which is a special something or other breed, not a Thoroughbred, but special none-the-less for some reason or another…I don't like horses, actually, they are too big and, to me, unpredictable, especially Thoroughbreds. So I maintain a level of fear about them, but this horse is such a beautify with those gorgeous eyes. The owner has two others and seems to collect them…<br />
<br />
So, it's one foot-after-the-other, though I can't keep thinking about discomfort and aging and sorrow. A dear friend died not that long ago, unimaginable. I think about those early days in New York, sharing the kids, all the help she gave me, her laughing nature and sheer practicality. She was the only person I knew who had a similar career as a photographer and teacher, though she worked far harder than I have, and was a far better academic who took all that very seriously. I'm so sorry she's gone.<br />
<br />
But it's still one-foot-after-another to accomplish what I can before I can't.melissashookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02398008713376655570noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8205011361740478772.post-2489970889420507612014-02-13T12:36:00.001-08:002014-02-13T12:39:38.476-08:00By request….after a long pause<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I had just about given up on blogging, but I had a request by email yesterday so here's one. I've drowned in video, endless video about Thoroughbreds. The problem has been learning to edit the new final cut pro X…or one problem…which has been solved by weekly appointments with the endlessly patient and informative Tommy…though he firmly believes that a program should be learned before you start to use it, he's been gracious enough to accept that I'm not going to do that and am in the middle of a huge mess of information that I want to get into some order…not only an interactive documentary, but a new blog which I'm working on.<br />
<br />
The dogs have gone to L.A. for a long vacation. Bogie, my dog, isn't unhappy. Unfortunately, I found out that he has kidney problems recently so I've taken to feeding him with a spoon. Oh, I hope his former trainer doesn't read that because she told us that some dog had trained his owner to get down on the kitchen floor and feed him with a spoon. I sit on a stool.<br />
<br />
I bought this feeder for five dollars and let it hang around for years. But now it's in good use.<br />
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This is the 16th cat that my daughter rescued from the back yard. He is one of two that she called big heads and spent weeks in the basement after he was neutered and before he went off to become acclimated to humans and then to find a new home. Last night, after my one-to-one lesson, when my brain had absorbed as much new information as possible, I found another cat in a cat on the back porch. K. had left notes on how to find the two folks who come pick up the cats so I frantically called one and by 7 or 8, a fellow came to pick up the other extremely angry big head. He will be fixed on Friday and then will cool down and hopefully go off to a better life than scrambling around in the cold looking for food.</div>
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The very good thing that happened after this cat was taken away was that I called the Verizon help line and was walked through putting in my wifi connection. Another very pleasant fellow patiently took me through the very long process so that I can continue to rescue myself by watching Netflix. I got from Thanksgiving through New Years and then on until now by watching BBC mysteries using some else's wifi. Now I am on a Canadian program, not nearly as good, but I'm still hooked, Murdoch Mysteries. I'd prefer to be looking at Midsomer Murders. I saw 81. But I think it's too soon to start again.<br />
<br />
If you got this far, thank you.melissashookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02398008713376655570noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8205011361740478772.post-76714537774445546752013-08-30T14:17:00.000-07:002013-08-30T14:22:38.249-07:00Cataract Surgery....it's easy and painless....<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The day before cataract surgery, I couldn’t remember my
phone number and realized that I was nervous. That’s like the story someone
told me about going to a medical conference and hearing a speaker say, “I must
be nervous. I just took a valium.” I’m like that in the slow-reaction
department. Why bother to feel anything since it’s just going to get worse. But
I hadn’t bothered to feel anything before the operation since it wouldn’t do
any good…<br />
<br />
It was getting dark in here and a bit smudgy. I could no longer drive legally at
night and it was inevitable. James, who I never manage to correspond with, much as I want to, said to do it five or six months ago. That was when the optometrist suggested that it was time to introduce me to a surgeon. But I wasn't ready.<br />
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The operating room was cold, but the process was interesting and the
surgeon was willing to describe what I might be seeing…caused by the intensity
of the light. I saw three small pink circles in a field of changing color, orange, lavender, green, orange again. Sometimes the dots moved, revealing black as if there was a mask underneath them. Later,
when he was taking out the actual cataract, the field was pale gray with white crackles…and I
knew when he was putting in the lens because of the extremely narrow lines of white
light…<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The nurse had spoken to her supervisor and I had to delete
all the photographs I took that included any patients or staff…she stood behind
me after the operation and watched, to make sure. But I kept a few blue elbows,
which didn’t seem to bother her.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Waiting with all the other people waiting, some older than me, some a bit younger, men and women, the men looking more sprightly, strange as that seems, took far longer than the operation did……….a long
time sitting there, trying to write about years ago when I had my toe nail
taken off and was in a New York hospital near women with serious problems…a
mastectomy, an amputation. And was certain I’d die from the anesthesia. I
didn’t. I’ve heard so many stories about
how easy this cataract experience is and that when it’s over, it’s over. Never again in
that eye. Cataracts don’t redevelop.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I must have been nervous, though, in spite of what I thought
because I went to the wrong office for my next morning after-inspection. You
are not allowed to make any important decisions for 24 hours after the surgery.
This wasn’t a decision and not all that different in terms of mistakes than I
do make – arriving an hour too early or too late or on the wrong day. But it
was a first for a wrong office, the one in Boston rather than Cambridge.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Oh, well. The surgeon, an incredibly pleasant man, didn’t mind my taking
photographs. Many eye doctors are also photographers, though of a very refined
and classical bent. Landscapes that are perfectly in focus and beautifully
printed.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Now my left eye sees everything in a heavy tinge of light.
Whites are really white. My right eye still gives a yellow tinge. Yesterday
when I visited friends, their house was yellow when seen with one eye and a
very pale, pale yellow, verging on white, when seen with the new lens. I can’t
imagine how awful all the photographs I’ve lightened recently must look….<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>oh, well…</div>
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I have to go back next Thursday. And it is difficult to be on the backside with the left eye protected by gauze. I have to find another solution by the time Layla Jane gets taken to her new home on Friday.melissashookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02398008713376655570noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8205011361740478772.post-60760167365005269792013-08-23T15:54:00.000-07:002013-08-23T15:54:22.737-07:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I should, there is that word, should, get up and go to the garden, water the spinach I planted a week or more ago...but that means getting in the car for the umpteenth time today. So, I didn't and remembered that I actually have a blog which I've paid absolutely no attention to since April....<br />
<br />
But here's Dolly. She's been Shirley's project and is coming along nicely, thank you. So, she's gone from a pet who I actually enjoyed...to approaching the status of a racehorse which is not as friendly a creature. But she's still gorgeous. I wish she was her old flopping self and hadn't improved so nicely into the profession she was born to...but there you go, that's what happens when a good trainer gets going.<br />
<br />
The good accident is happening upon a woman who has just purchased a Thoroughbred who she will take into her next life and I've been able to video the process of them getting acquainted before the horse leaves the stalls and takes off to a more elegant life. This filly has always been treated gorgeously, so the new owner is not getting a problem horse who needs a lot of work until she becomes secure.<br />
<br />
It was rather an accident that I ended up video taping the folks who breed and buy the horses, but I feel into two interesting projects last summer...and here I am, drowning in material. It's exciting. And I'm glad. But I bought a new video camera. And that meant a new editing program. And that's connected to my new computer, a desktop that I bought almost a year ago, but still don't know how to use properly. Besides, it has it's own technical problems that have been fixed once. Etc. I've got great new material and a mountain of technical information to absorb. <br />
<br />
A good space to be in.<br />
And a bad one that just means I have to put one foot in front of the other and get to it.<br />
<br />
I'm certain that if I were at the garden, I wouldn't have another squash that's been eaten by what most people seem to think is a woodchuck. My squash plant, singular, probably will decide not to have any more zuchs. My tomatoes, though they are sickly looking, are still prolific and I would have liked to have a couple with my pita and hummus. But, there you go...they are there and I am here.<br />
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I've done most of the dishes. And could vacuum. And do more sorting because the decluttering will start again in the fall when it's not so hot upstairs and the track is close to closing for the season and I've had my eyes fixed so that it's not so dark inside my head and I can drive again at night....melissashookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02398008713376655570noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8205011361740478772.post-15433181787057272412013-04-09T07:49:00.000-07:002013-04-09T08:01:12.567-07:00Distractions from Decluttering<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The impetus for this particular post came from my attempt to publicize www.run-to-the-roundhouse-nellie, com, the memoir site brainchild of Susan T. Landry that I'm working on, also...<br />
<br />
Never imagining I'd have any luck, I fooled around on the web for memoir sites and memoir groups and found Pat McNees, whose link I hope to attach... Remarkably, she's not only a writer/editor and involved with memoir, but also has a blog on decluttering which is part of her larger concern with death and dying, how to allow us to accept this inevitability with more grace or ease. That preoccupation came from time spent with her father when he was dying and has led to a great deal of work on her part, including a book. You might well want to check her out if you're interested in memoir, writing, hospice, clutter and so forth. <br />
<a href="https://by2prd0111.outlook.com/owa/14.16.287.8/scripts/premium/redir.aspx?C=inVGQhBAikuBR0zh9mRdu8VHnCPJCNAIY3Z7wIaQeVNcwlYBzHvdCXdJgt6bbfu6uYF07vcLhKE.&URL=http%3a%2f%2fwww.comfortdying.com%2fblog.htm%3fpost%3d905971" target="_blank">http://www.comfortdying.com/blog.htm?post=905971</a> This is the site for cluter...on her comfortdying site.<br />
<a href="https://by2prd0111.outlook.com/owa/14.16.287.8/scripts/premium/redir.aspx?C=inVGQhBAikuBR0zh9mRdu8VHnCPJCNAIY3Z7wIaQeVNcwlYBzHvdCXdJgt6bbfu6uYF07vcLhKE.&URL=http%3a%2f%2fwww.writersandeditors.com%2fblog.htm" target="_blank">http://www.writersandeditors.com/blog.htm</a><br /><a href="https://by2prd0111.outlook.com/owa/14.16.287.8/scripts/premium/redir.aspx?C=inVGQhBAikuBR0zh9mRdu8VHnCPJCNAIY3Z7wIaQeVNcwlYBzHvdCXdJgt6bbfu6uYF07vcLhKE.&URL=http%3a%2f%2fwww.writersandeditors.com" target="_blank">http://www.writersandeditors.com</a><br /><a href="https://by2prd0111.outlook.com/owa/14.16.287.8/scripts/premium/redir.aspx?C=inVGQhBAikuBR0zh9mRdu8VHnCPJCNAIY3Z7wIaQeVNcwlYBzHvdCXdJgt6bbfu6uYF07vcLhKE.&URL=http%3a%2f%2fwww.comfortdying.com" target="_blank">http://www.comfortdying.com</a> <br /><a href="https://by2prd0111.outlook.com/owa/14.16.287.8/scripts/premium/redir.aspx?C=inVGQhBAikuBR0zh9mRdu8VHnCPJCNAIY3Z7wIaQeVNcwlYBzHvdCXdJgt6bbfu6uYF07vcLhKE.&URL=http%3a%2f%2fwww.patmcnees.com" target="_blank">http://www.patmcnees.com</a><br />
I am inspired to declutter in part from my experience after my father's death when it took 5 or 6 people and almost a week of working full-time sorting and tossing. I knew how much my step-mother had collected over the years, long before she was unable to think and reason. But I imagined that my father with his spare habits would have left next to nothing. No so. We had many laughs, a lot of good meals and felt considerable dismay an attic of useless things she's bagged, tied and stashed and in the basement, the chairs he'd meant to cane, but forgot about and all those bottles for making wine, etc.<br />
<br />
I don't want to leave that caliber of mess for my daughter and so decluttering means, to some extent, thinking about death, my death. But it also centers around the idea of moving, so there is an underlying positive motive lurking under the massive weight of it all.<br />
<br />
But it's slow going. I've thrown out reams of paper from piles I thought I should keep. And have moved files from shelves into the empty space in the file drawers. I have labeled them all with large letters in black and categorized -- a major learning leap. I know it seems crazy to most people to stick (labeled) files into the drawers without any system for easily finding them again, but there you go. That was how I did it for umpteen years. Until this week.<br />
<br />
And I liberated a narrow basket under the table (along with two large ones) which contained four thick files of poetry notes from my mentor, George Kalogeris, a gentle man with a quiet voice who provided the backbone for all that writing during a period of four or five years. His neat pencil tics next to lines he liked, his brief suggestions, so important. What mattered most is that he respected my voice and all its quirkiness. I saved those four thick files, unable to part with the sense of George. But today I'll throw them out since there's absolutely no sense in hanging on to them. I've long ago incorporated his suggestions and I certainly won't look at them again. Why hang on?<br />
<br />
Why hang on is the question that dances around every object I pick up, each piece of paper. It's a complicated one. I couldn't learn how to think about this without the pleasant woman I'm paying standing here, talking, looking, offering suggestions. There are many, many good books, some of which you will find listed on Pat McNees' blog, but I don't learn from books. And breaking the habits of the typical adult child of an alcoholic who has lived through and by chaos is very difficult.<br />
<br />
I'm skipping two weeks of supervision, but look forward to what I'll learn during my next session.<br />
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In the meantime, I went back to work on a documentary on George and Arlene Brown's Thoroughbred breeding center. We went down there on Sunday to see the newest two babies and I'm hoping to catch an actual delivery, though that's hard to time since they happen between 10pm and 2am. Someone is always in the barn, waiting for signs of a potential delivery since the mares often need help. In the wild, 50 percent of the foals die, as well as some of the mares because the baby was wrong-way-round and the hooves penetrated her uterus and stomach.<br />
<br />
Woody is drinking, or at least looking at water, with his mother and Wilson, a bit older, is at the water bucket on his own. George couldn't stop talking about what a marvelous creature Woody is, but I know knowing about horses and can't tell a thing. Best I can do is figure out which kitten is the largest in a litter.<br />
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And water colors are a fabulous distraction. So relaxing. I've started using little talismen that I've kept around over all these years, propping them against a Starbucks cup as a scale, drawing and painting them. And just started self=portraits!<br />
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Many of the files on these shelves have been transferred to the empty file draw spaces, but not all of them. I'm not finished with this room by a long shot. Damn, it does take so much time.<br />
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<br />melissashookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02398008713376655570noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8205011361740478772.post-29206320504855129732013-03-30T08:03:00.000-07:002013-03-30T08:06:49.950-07:00Learning and decluttering......<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>During the third three-hour sessions with the kindly decluttering
supervisor, I realized that, while I had exhibited enough to be put on a tenure
track, and enough to actually receive tenure in an Art Department, and have had
a few self-portraits shown at MOMA twice, I’m of no real importance as an
artist and it’s fine to toss out copies of emails recording the negotiations
for two exhibits in Lawrence, for the Bread and Roses strike centennial last
year. Certainly it was interesting to work on those videos and the drawing
piece, about 100 more-or-less 4x5ish pieces of Reeves BFK.<br />
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I was happy to drive up there on route 28, a meandering road that
avoids the highway I’m phobic about. I liked the people I met and thought I did
a good-enough job with the interviews, that they’re useful in the history
center archive. Maybe someone will watch the DVD’s in some form or another 50
years from now and maybe the folks who I interviewed will watch theirs some
years from now and feel pleased about who they were, what they were doing, in
2012. But I’m hardly important enough to keep all that correspondence. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Now, that was an important realization and will make a difference in the
tossing out and decluttering process.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And, when I woke up this morning, I
knew that I’d truly absorbed the lesson of ‘large, bold, black letters on each
file folder’ and understood that folders containing related information should
be put near similar files. That’s such an easy concept that my decluttering
advisor probably has no understanding that I needed her time and her patience for
me to finally absorb it. No de-cuttering book, magazine or article<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>could have taught it to me. I needed a
real human, standing here, going over all this stuff, taking out her Sharpie and
lettering some folders, for me to understand, absorb, the concept by the next
day.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I’m sure it’s hard for this nice woman to walk into the house and see
that I’ve not finished one room before I’ve wandered on to the next. That there
are still unsorted piles, visual blobs, in rooms that she’s helped me tackle.
Most clients must want a finished product…all surfaces cleared, no piles in
corners, a closet door that will close. But what I want is to learn how to
think. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>So, our time in the kitchen and so-called living room didn’t teach me
anything I didn’t already know – get rid of what you don’t need. But my two
sessions in this workroom have taught me the concept of like-with-like and how
one might keep files in a way that would prevent the necessity of shuffling
through all the labels, faint as the printing is, to find the one I want.
Invaluable.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It really doesn’t look as if there’s been progress. And she might well
feel discouraged. In fact she probably has to tell herself, ‘Well, she’s paying
me and I can’t force her into finishing what she clearly doesn’t want to finish.’
Though there has been progress between sessions, it never puts paid to one
room. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Hopefully she understands my sense of humor as I grumble along, annoyed
that she wants me to find places for the last four unidentified bits and bobs,
as she calls them, before I careen into another basket of stuff that’s been
sitting on the floor, under the table, for eons.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>She mentioned a coffee table, or something low with a drawer (another
concept -- drawers,) that I might buy since she identified my ‘spot’ for
working which involves dropping books and papers, envelopes and pens on the
floor and keeping whatever is important on a small-low stool – my checkbook and
the still life for whatever watercolor I’m mucking away at. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>She is sure that I will understand that the floor is not a place to keep
things. And I’m sure that I won’t because it’s so convenient. So, we’ll have to
see whether I’m capable of grasping that. Capable of buying something that’s
knee height and serves as nicely as the floor does.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I did pretty well, physically, while she was here. And was careful to
lift only one very heavy basket because I was so eager to tear into it. I
actually asked her to lift two others, which I felt bad about, why should she
lift the symbols of my disorder, but they were smaller and my sciatic nerve was
already angry. </div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I was capable of carrying a box (a box, does she know how valuable boxes
are and how hard it was to let go of that box?) to the car filled with a few
things she’d volunteered to take to Goodwill, including the white chamber pot
with a small chip that I bought when I taught workshops in Maine a hundred
years ago. Why on earth did I buy something as odd as that, as absolutely
unrelated to anything I was interested in? I bought it the way I bought old
photographs of people I didn’t know, photographs that I’d never look at and had
no reason to want except that they were inexpensive and it seemed like the thing
to do. I was a photographer, right? A photographer with no general interest in
history and no understanding of the early photographic processes, no less. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I’d taken a Tylenol before we started and planned to take on four hours
later. A card table that my friend Lorna was getting rid of was set up in the
room because I’d understood, after it took me almost three days to get over our
last three-hour session, that bending down to sort things on the floor was
truly impossible. And when my back began to hurt, after about twenty minutes, I
tried to think of ways to stop aggravating it. Fibromyalgia or resistance to
this whole process? It’s not important to know why the aching starts so quickly
since that’s an old problem, one I’m used to handling.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>However, by the time I got back upstairs and was actually making myself
a healthy dinner (hard to believe,) I had to hold on to the stove, then the
kitchen doorway, squealing in pain. Full-blown misery, the kind I often
experience if I’ve taken a walk and then gotten right into the car. Terrible.
But it doesn’t take long to go away. And I did eat and actually do back
exercises.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I was able to go to an early meeting of Weight Watchers this morning,
only to find that I’ve gained THREE POUNDS in one month. I’m a bit achy, but
not feeling nearly as bad as I did two weeks ago after our three-hour session.
Maybe we can do another session next week. Hopefully. </div>
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<br />melissashookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02398008713376655570noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8205011361740478772.post-72175388347910444032013-03-24T07:58:00.001-07:002013-03-24T07:58:27.098-07:00Friends<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDOz5VZcoGMOrG7fjxPjPXTFmaxwLP31iDgVjBjI9Bgymz_tXV8drBBGnem34-bcSqBHj3zMuqJZS6fBteEmmn1ec4_fBG-jmRwkK9TukPpWTdwqFZBonrCryYsAejojsJrtOgg774sQA/s1600/Cake*.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDOz5VZcoGMOrG7fjxPjPXTFmaxwLP31iDgVjBjI9Bgymz_tXV8drBBGnem34-bcSqBHj3zMuqJZS6fBteEmmn1ec4_fBG-jmRwkK9TukPpWTdwqFZBonrCryYsAejojsJrtOgg774sQA/s320/Cake*.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
When we met, my girl might have been three and their first son might have been a year...give or take a bit.<br />
<br />
I had traded friends with a then friend. She got P., I think, and I got J. who is married to E. and who were, and still are, my exemplary married friends. Lucky me.<br />
<br />
She and I sat in their kitchen in a Park Slope brownstone that they were renovating, drinking coffee, until one of us had to break the conversation to pee. It was heaven. Often I snuck over there to Brooklyn when my daughter was in daycare, on days when I wasn't printing in my friend Will's darkroom on 9th Street. He was teaching me what would make my becoming a teacher possible...excellent darkroom practice, the technical skills I probably wouldn't have absorbed from a less patient, kindly teacher. And J. was teaching me about writing with her patient reading of so much of what I wrote...reading and commenting.<br />
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They moved from Brooklyn, to Beirut, to the environs of Washington, D.C. and most recently to Providence. Where we imaged we'd see each other more often.<br />
<br />
She's become wonderfully busy ... I say wonderfully because the organization she's joined has surely benefited from her prioritizing skills, her clear-headed ability to sort through problems and her low-key, well-honed ability to sort out difficult problems and set a tone that makes conciliation possible.<br />
<br />
But she's very busy. And I'm busy, too, though not as focused on one specific set of problems, with specific goals.<br />
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As always, I roam all over the map, getting myself tanged into projects and problems. Getting tired. And thinking that even getting on a train to visit them is too much trouble. "I have to think about it" which means that I have to decided whether I've recovered from whatever mess I've gotten into that's knocked my muscles into screams. The latest has been the de-cluttering which is combined with .... and ....and .....and .......(all things that needed to be done, a book to be read, notes to be made, questions to be thought up, photographs to be taken, a meeting to be chaired....and so on...)<br />
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I couldn't believe how easy it was, how pleasant the train was and how quickly those hours at their house went by, that my friends are still my friends....comfortable, talkative, as if we had seen each other just the other day, been talking over the phone constantly instead of occasionally. I had to pinch myself to imagine this is possible and to stop myself from feeling endlessly guilty about how detached I've become.......how distant........<br />
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What a cake, hazelnut and dark chocolate. And coffee............. (in addition to lunch.)<br />
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Heaven!melissashookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02398008713376655570noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8205011361740478772.post-65901122678559363572013-03-17T09:21:00.000-07:002013-03-17T09:28:06.836-07:00Run to the Roundhouse, Nellie and Clutter<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Susan T. Landry has conceptualized and supervised the design and up-putting of the new website, www.run-to-the-roundhouse-nellie.com </div>
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Puuleeeze check it out. It was a huge amount of effort.</div>
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And looks really smart! </div>
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I wormed my way out of contributing much to it any of that extensive labor, though I do present one of the two memoirs and ask the writer of it a few questions. And that takes me about three days, not totally including how many times I read the book. And I'm retired and only involved in the mischief I make for myself. I can't imagine how Susan has managed. </div>
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One thing I've done, in part because a friend sent photos of her neatly arranged closets and clean desk, is to hire her childhood friend, newly retired and taking up advising on decluttering. She's a very cheerful person and the seven hours we've spent together so far has brought results.</div>
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However, it takes two and a half days to recover from three hours of de-cluttering supervision. There are undoubtedly many reasons why.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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One could be that the concept of putting like-with-like is so foreign that my mind fizzles in trying to absorb it. Paperclips and envelopes of differing sizes, a stack of new, white 8 and ½ by 11 and another recyled sheets I print on the back off. Two shelves. </div>
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Of course, that the stapler and staples probably should be on those two shelves, also, instead of in the square basket where I shoved them after tossing out a great deal of other oddments.</div>
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And pens? Where should they go? </div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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Or it could be the internalized fight with my mother, carried on since she died when I was twelve and erased her from my conscious mind, preserving only dimly felt instructions – </div>
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be a good girl, which might have translated into being a good woman which I never was, </div>
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don’t sit on your spine which I’d always done, alas, only in this advanced aged realizing how right she was, </div>
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your eyes are bigger than your stomach </div>
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and whatever she must have said about the state of my room which had three closets, two built especially for my things (there was another closet for hanging dresses and blouses and storing shoes,) under the eaves, with a window seat between. </div>
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After her house was sold and almost all her belongings disposed of, I must have vowed not to create a home for myself, and since I had to live somewhere, I’d remain uncomfortable in chaotic surroundings. What an old battle. And I’m seventy-three!<o:p></o:p></div>
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Of course, my body is always cranky. Fibromyalgia. Something aches, my shoulders or neck, small muscles along my rib cage ping occasionally just to alert me of their presence. And my haunches are full of misery. So, climbing on the chair to reach high shelves wasn’t helpful. Would using a stepladder have helped? I never thought about the one propped against the wall in hall, waiting for someone to replace the fire alarm battery.<o:p></o:p></div>
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And allergies. By the next day, I had a deep, aching cough, still lingering.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Five shelves. A very small section of this workroom tidy looking, at least. Two trips to Home Goods to buy baskets and one to return some. </div>
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Profuse apologies to James and the Cuban in London and the pie lady for not reading blogs at all. I imagine sometime I'll get back to doing it...it's not that I don't appreciate your writing and want to read it, it's just........................ I'm tired.melissashookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02398008713376655570noreply@blogger.com0