Posts Tagged ‘Jessica’

Cue Obsession

February 2, 2010

grace1914

This is a photo of my great aunt Grace on the beach in 1914.

How gorgeous is this?  I could stare at it all day.

Except instead of stare at it, I’m going to develop a roll of film and print out staff paper. *

Because I’ve got my music back. 

I don’t know what happened, but some dam burst in my head.  And suddenly, it is all MUSIC!MUSIC!MUSIC!MUSIC!MUSIC!MUSIC!MUSIC!MUSIC!MUSIC!MUSIC!MUSIC!MUSIC!MUSIC!MUSIC!MUSIC!MUSIC!MUSIC!

Actually, it’s rather annoying.  I mean, seriously.  I must have ADD.  Just do one thing already, right?

But the damn . . . dam.  It’s as if it was always there, the MUSIC!MUSIC!MUSIC! building and building and building, and it just reached this threshold, and fwooooosh.  I can’t really stop obsessing about music right now.  It’s quite obnoxious.

I do tend to be fickle, of course.  And so, surely this too shall pass.  But for now, there is nothing more pressing in my life than to learn to play the electric guitar, and more specifically, to play this one song on it.  And maybe one or two more.  Luckily, I know a guy.**

It was impossible to not be musical growing up in my family.  For as long as I can remember, up until I left the house, it was always MUSIC!MUSIC!MUSIC!MUSIC!MUSIC!MUSIC!MUSIC!  For the rest of them, it still is.  But it hasn’t been, for me, for whatever reason.  I mean, I’ve got a piano sitting in my living room.  And I play it sometimes.  And I’ve even played this one song on it.  But the full moon, and the thought of an electric guitar, these were the last two straws.  Or water molecules.  Or whatever.

fwoooooooooooshhh.

I’m not predicting future mother-of-four rockstardom or anything.  Just, MUSIC!MUSIC!MUSIC!MUSIC!  until I’m bored.

 

* You should know that I forgot to pick up Mowgli from school while searching for this.  Doesn’t the red flag for clinical psychosis have something to do with being unable to perform daily tasks?  shit.

**I’ve known these people for a couple years, and never took the time to listen to their music.  Don’t make the same mistake, go listen right now.  Scroll down and find Hello, Hospital.  RRRRRRRRRRRROCK!

Nina

January 11, 2010
You’ve met my friend Nina before, haven’t you?

This is the illustrious Nina:

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Nina + crew, tri-x in the mamiya 645af

 

And Nina’s Palette is her new website.

Nina is my friend Jessica’s sister.  You’ve met her before, too.  And here she is, headless.  Ain’t she purty (despite the dust on this negative scan)?

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Jessica and her Yashica. Me, and my tri-x and my Mamiya. Arigato.

And to complicate things, they also have a younger sister who is also gorgeous and fabulous.  (And she’s my little brother’s age, so I’m working on a set-up plan, because then we’ll be related.  Except she would be all, “Yeah, dude.  Get in line,” and he would be all, “whatever.”  So forget it.  Forget it, already!  And anyway, this is all about Nina.)

BECAUSE, LOOK!!!  She is featured in OnMilwaukee.com today!

A few weeks ago, Nina and Jessica kidnapped my children and helped them make self-portraits on 16×20 canvas.  And besides being blown away by the joy of it (the art, of course, not the missing children), I felt a little inkling of you are on to something here, my friend.  It was the collaboration with kids that I sensed, I think, and I knew she was in her element. 

fischer kid's self portraits 11-21-09

Shortly after, she created this beautiful painting with her son, Malachi.  When I saw it, I had chills.  And also maybe I cried a little.  Or a lot.  Do you ever get that feeling, when someone you love touches something within themselves that you know is soul, and is purpose, and is divine . . . and then shares it with the world?  Oh, it is a really good feeling.  An all-is-right-with-the-world feeling.

Go read her story.  I think you might just cry.  A little.

ninas

collaborative acrylic painting by Nina and her son, Malachi

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see? blue cast. photoshop fail.

Today I received a mini lecture about a homework folder.  I’m sure it was as simple as “Mowgli didn’t bring his folder to school today,” but I only heard: “You are a failure as a mother, and your children are destined to become even more terrible failures than you, thanks to your parenting ineptitude.”

When I got home, there was mascara all over my face.

Now, granted, it is a new moon today, plus, nature is just about as dark as she gets right now.  And however skeptical you might be about nature’s effects on the soul, the new moon does at least have physical implications for me.  (read: P. M. fucking. S.) 

Anyway.  I came home—drippy mascara, hungry kids, and all; and went online to place another photo order.  While the order was uploading, I (surprise!) went on to facebook, where a friend admitted to having a bad day.  It was a simple, honest sentence, but was more comforting to me, in that ridiculously depressive moment, than any other words or actions could have been.  Beyond support, advice, or sympathy, it sometimes is just nice to know that you’re not alone. 

I know. I know how obnoxiously weepy and sappy and whiny that sounds if your life is perfect and you are never sad.  (Seriously?  Your life is perfect, and you are never sad?  Wow.  Bitch.)  But for those of us humans, we actually find great comfort and connection in one another’s imperfections.  It’s true, isn’t it?  Don’t you feel closer to a person once you’ve seen their soft underbelly, their endearing (and not so endearing) flaws, their mistakes and secrets?  Or worse, their mundane?

So why in the world do we try so desperately to hide those things?  We flaunt what ”should” be flaunted, and hide what “should” be hidden (including our sadness).  And then we, wearing mascara and perfection, disconnect.

I had a similar conversation with a friend the other day, and she remarked on what a vicious cycle it is: the attempt to connect by appropriately flaunting and hiding and fitting into stereotypes, which, in turn, only causes more loneliness.  Counterproductive.

I was feeling all smug and non-people-pleasy then, like, psssh.  glad i’m not like that.  pssssh. 

Until I thought about what it would be like to meet, in person, some friends I know only through this here electronic device.  And it made me feel socially anxious–a feeling I am not at all familiar with.  I realized that this is totally different than the normal way of getting to know someone.  You people know me at my most manic depressive.  I flash my soul here, in words and pictures and drawings like I would never do over a casual cuppa, yet you would not even recognize me in passing.

Someone directed me to this post by Jen Lee that says it perfectly.  “Being new friends is sometimes about breaking the bad news to each other.”  My confession, my soft underbelly (no pun intended), is more about how normal and relatively boring I actually am.  And so, without further ado, I’m breaking the bad news, a few of my horrifyingly mundane attributes:

 (these will not be making it to the christmas cards.)

~ I have ugly feet.  I mean, who doesn’t have ugly feet?  But apparently, mine are even that much uglier.

~ My dreadlocks really have nothing at all to do with a spiritual journey.  It’s just another hairstyle.

~ I have really short, stubby fingers.  Bad for arpeggios, good for trills.

~ In a matter of minutes, I can be all three of these things: extremely happy, painfully sad, and completely apathetic.  Quite frequently, actually, this is the case.  (Did you know that already?)

~ Currently, my comfortable jeans are a size 12.  And I have neither ambition nor desire to change that fact.  I’m fine with it, but if exercise and dietary discipline are virtues, then fat is a fault.

~ I’m not terribly good at photoshop (obviously?).  AND I use (prepare yourselves, photographers!!!) Photoshop Elements.

~ I don’t wear sunscreen because I like how I look with a tan.

~ I am likely the messiest person you’ll ever know.  Seriously.  (Tell ‘em, real life friends.)

~ I live in the most standard ranch house ever.  And I don’t.  Have.  Anything.  Hanging.  On.  My.  Walls.  (except something I will tell you about later.)

~ I don’t at all take care of things like DVDs (Hi, Jessica!), TVs, laptops, carpets, . . . oh, anything really.  I don’t take care of material things.

~ I was the homecoming queen.

~ I don’t send Christmas cards.