jaeleslie

Next Friday for my calligraphy study group we are planning an action-painting session. A couple years ago I had a conference workshop in painting with Charles Pearce (check out http://www.charlespearce.com/ ) and our group has wanted to try throwing paint on big canvasses together ever since, but it takes so much room we pretty much had to schedule it for the milder months when we could work outside. Thinking over how much room we would need for three or four people, and what to do in case of inclement weather, I thought of using the garage. But tacked up canvasses over the interior studs would still be hard to work on. We thought about it and discussed various possibilities.

Now Mr S has put up plywood on two of the interior walls of the garage. (The third wall is still devoted to storage of tools and pots and stuff, like the set of old encyclopedias I dragged home from curbside which have great collage pages in them. Yes, we have books even in the garage.) Number One Son helped paint the plywood front and back as a moisture barrier, and Uncle Mat helped with the drilling and sawing too. In just twelve hours it was renovated and the electrical service relocated too. With the small windows in each wall, and the garage door open to the north, we will have plenty of light. Maybe I won't come back in until the snow flies.

Have just discovered that I was planning to write a zine about the calligraphy conference, which would be the one that is due to be copied Saturday morning (before I go to APT). Not that the 21st as a deadline doesn't come up regular as clockwork every month, but I have been a little busy.

It is a good thing my calendar planner has very small pages in it, and very little room for writing, since it seems to be my habit far too often to list major projects as single line entries.

Yeah, I haven't been online much lately. At least I remembered between upstairs and downstairs that I needed to renew the time management book I checked out from the public library. Again. Moving on toward the later half of it at least. The detective mystery next to the bed I have been stalled on for about month somewhere in the last chapters where the sleuth assembles everybody on the boat and explains who the murderer is.

Still recovering from strenuous weekend, which ran over into Monday adventures on State Street. After the cellphone rang at 8 a.m., remember. My friend V was not entirely relentless, she let me sit down regularly at cafes while she shopped and shopped, but her husband has the irritating attitude of someone who thinks my chronic fatigue is just malingering which a proper strength of character ought to counteract, don't I wish!!! Yesterday I actually woke up at 5 a.m., can you say sleep disorder? but after doing a bunch of stuff (reading, writing, mail, laundry, dinner defrosting) I got a couple hours' nap later. Last night I slept a much-needed ten hours. Wish I wasn't still so tired. And the first one who says maybe I slept too much gets a whap upside the head.

We had just finished successful filming of our three he-men wranglers, in flowing desert silks, riding respectively a horse, a camel, and an elephant, so the production was going pretty smoothly, considering the rough ride the elephant had given, and they had unbuckled their swashes and disappeared into the Memorial Union for refreshment. Then Tracy who was co-ordinating the whole circus was called urgently to the security office. I was swaggering about as a sort of piratical maid-of-all-work and asked a gofer what was going on, and learned that a fairly serious situation had developed with our Rudolph Valentinos being detained at gunpoint by armed security guards, although how one might mistake an overly colorful Sheik of Araby wanting a beer for a dangerous terrorist was hard for me imagine. So I went into the building and wandered over to the security office, where through the glass I could see Tracy was talking fast. Then a little security woman in blue who was trying to look businesslike even though she was a head shorter than me (I am of merely medium height) gestured meaningfully toward the gasoline can I was carrying, decorated with a rampaging tiger. It barely sloshed, as I had been filling up the tanks for some small engines. "What?!" I explained, "you wouldn't want me to put it down and leave it somewhere would you???" Someone was going to have to explain our carnival to these people in terms they could understand.

But then the cellphone rang and woke me up.

Far too early, I seem to recall. It's been a long day. More later, I hope.

So, I ordered lots of art supplies online, for the painting weekend I am going to host later this month for action painting. I haven't actually painted anything since I got back from conference, and I bet I would feel better if I was doing more painting and less cooking. Made dinner, and started watching a Peter Paul & Mary retrospective, which Number One Son of course thought entirely lame and I found horribly depressing, because it is hell getting old. Then Uncle Vicky called and cheered me up. We are going to have a fun weekend. Even with the cooking. It will be good.

We have been planning this reunion of a group of friends of mine from high school for this weekend coming up. It is not a whole high school reunion, but just the people out of the whole class that I really want to see. The planning has taken place over months, from picking the date when people from far away could travel to the area, finding people's email addresses, and settling on a place to meet. Now I find out that Catherine, our queen bee, the one who had picked the date and said Be There which makes everybody want to be there, is not going to be able to come. So I am kinda sad today.

I am going ahead to make fruit salad and almond cake and pack up and drive down a day early to see my friends and talk to everyone and enjoy. But still.

Mailed off an apa, and wrote a bunch of email. Was that it?

Maybe it was the workout. I went to the gym for the first time in a couple of weeks, and did a fairly minimal workout, twenty minutes on the bike and one set of everything but mostly at my usual, lately increased, weights. So I'm tired. Surprise.

But I'm still up, and it's tomorrow already. I had a coffee while we were at the play. Drove out to American Players Theater with the usual posse to see Playboy of the Western World. It was startlingly Irish. (Hey, at least when they do the Shakespeare it's in an understandable accent. This would have been occasionally impenetrable even pronounced in midwestern American.) I can see how if one were to take this farce as being about those wacky Irish, instead of more general human nature, it might prompt one to riot in protest as the first performance audience did a hundred years ago. But we did not riot. We applauded politely.

Couple of bad dreams last night, this morning, whatever. [Cut excessively gruesome description.] I don't think I should be watching those police dramas, particularly after taking a couple weeks off and getting out of the habit. Nasty. The other dream was less unpleasant but sad. I forget. Good thing huh.

Wrote a bunch of stuff, apahacking, today. Me me me.
Called the hospital, wondering where Barbara has gone, worrying.
Talked to Number One Son on current subjects: driving, cellphones, socializing.
Wrote email plans for reunion potluck of old high school gang this weekend. I have done this pickanick plan before. We all have done this before. But I made notes.

Worked on my apa.
Gave Number One Son driving lesson, woo hah!
Dinner is sweet corn, potato salad, edamame, brown rice, green salad with croutons.
There are still not enough hours in the day.