ok while i'm waiting for my grey roots to become brown, because the chances of being interviewed by someone shorter than me is slim....another quick post.

yesterday i met (up close) my new bff in flight - Fontaigne...

never realized how freaking smart these birds are till we met.  when she comes out of her cage, she goes over to the cabinets and starts opening them using the knobs (looking for a treat).  she has a broken wing that cannot be repaired, so she'll be around for life, pecking at anything knee height or lower.  actually, just above the knee.  nurse!

in other news, recent news, like just now news - it seems Fontaigne may be smarter than me!  I accidentally set my phone timer to 10 hours instead of 10 minutes!  not horrible if you're baking a cake - i mean, you'll smell it burn.  but when you're coloring your grey roots for an incredibly important job interview in the morning, whew, i gotta say this about tops it all.  add in the near hurricane winds predicted for the day, and this may be a competition best-effort to get there.  darn it with the timer thing...what the heck anyway??  i only say "darn" in case my new employer googles my name and reads this blog post.  but i really had other more sinful words on the very tip of my tongue.  and for real, guys. haven't i had enough already with these little tricks?

so go here and meet my other new friend - not in flight.  well, maybe in flight - her work is just gorjus.  this is a very small peek, and i must say that what i see in her studio makes me weep.  why do you think i'm working??  to buy her artwork.  and AND to pay for my *drum roll* studio!  more later....cross your fingers please

my motto for the year:  if it feels good & right, do more of it.  If it feels bad, do less of it.

i still contend that my Intention Word for 2013 is correct: reset.  As in hearts, lives, beliefs, paths & journeys.  reset - going back, re-doing it the right way, starting over from scratch, throwing out the baby and the bathwater and moving forward - lighter & leaner & truer.  getting back on course from the drift.  un-softening your eyes for a bit to see if where you drifted was where you deep down darn-it want to be, or if it is just the popular place to be.  big word, "reset."

so many friends' tightly held truths slipping to the ground and crashing into bits ...so many friends telling of being sideswiped by a reality they never saw, or chose not to see, or saw fully but chose not to believe...that feeling in your gut that was pushed aside - now seems relevant and true...and as grateful  as we women are for our "women's intuition," how quick we are to ignore or not trust it...how many times we doubt what we should believe.  i am finding that i have little patience for the same old song and dance, and am not accepting hurtful, lax or bad behavior into my realm any longer.  no excuses allowed.  friendship is hard work, and i do accept that many have long periods of time where the mental effort of a conversation (in person, on the phone or in print) is just too much to bear. i raise my hand to this also.  however - a quick "xox" response takes nothing, and is everything sometimes.
oy another rant.  it's just that i am very often the repository for people's pain...and i often unwittingly hear both sides of a commotion, so i know who did what to whom.  and sometimes it just comes down to hurt feelings that could have been avoided if the most basic communication had been employed.  and sometimes it's that you put off what should be most important to you:  communication with those who's heart is tethered to yours.  or vise versa.
this year, i believe i will see, and hear of, many heartstrings being cut...many women simply saying "enough" and cutting ties with those women who have taken their friendship as a given, and not nurtured it properly.  There is no "business as usual" within a friendship - it is an ever-changing organic thing.  add hormones to the mess, and you really need to feed the monster (ever see Little Shop of Horrors?)
so comparing a sweet, wonderful, thoughtful friendship to an out-of-control weed...?  well yes.  get past.  i assure you if we email, we are friends.  and i am a constant communicator, so beware.  i don't often expect an epic missive in reply, but i do expect a response within a few days, unless accident or illness prevents.  i do.  and if you are no longer interested in how i am, or what i do, that is certainly your choice  - i don't pretend to be the world's Most Interesting Person, and you may need more excitement in your attachments.  simply don't respond, and from this point forward, i will consider us acquaintances, rather than friends (you can't "un-know" someone).
I say all this because female friendships are so so important, and we are wired for them.  as far back as cavewomen time - the men went out to kabong dinner over the head, and the women stayed behind together doing the laundry or whatever they did back then.  women have always gathered.  and whether the gathering is of two or three, or 20 or 200, there is a release of spirit that comes when we gather...a sprinkling of golden light that surrounds like-minded women gathered together for the purpose of enjoying one another's company and learning from each other.  each woman has a purpose in the group - whether it be teacher, learner (yes - "learner" is a purpose),  edifier, whatever...you've seen it, felt it.  and the further from home you gather, the closer to your deepest Self you are able to get to.  that's where the gold is.  the gathering cannot be forced or repeated exactly ever again.  each person in each moment will never not ever be the same, so each moment will never be the same.  does that make sense?  There was a retreat i went to one year, and decided to return the following year because the experience was so over the top.  guess what? it was a letdown at first because it wasn't the same.  of course, silly rabbit! i realized this truth - that each moment holds it's own magic, never to be repeated - and accepted the week for what it was, all on it's own.  the following years had an artificial ring to them - a trying too hard to be the first year, so i stopped going.  maybe it was just time for me to wander elsewhere, and that's where the feeling came from.  and that happens too - both in physical spaces, or in friendships...sometimes it's just time to bid a fond farewell.
i'm not sure why this tangent took me here, but there is a reason, and i hope you hear the message if it was for you.
for me?  right now i have a furry Diva Dog at my feet who wants to go for a Big Walk in the balmy drippy day.  so off we will go - her wish is my command.
love each other today...



that's all for now

well, my studio is pretty much gutted & packed away - except for my painting stuff, collage stuff, and jewelry stuff.  which is a lot of stuff still.  but all the rusty metal and wood and goo-gaws for assemblage are packed away.  there was too much stuff, and i needed to make room for my little twin daybed that replaced my papasan chair in the reading corner.  i like the twinny so much better - fat folk should not endeavor to get in or out of a papasan.  just sayin.  (side note - PSD bought me a shirt that says Fat Amy Is My Homegirl!  love it!  watch Perfect Pitch).  but anyway.  i now have room on my worktable to do little collages and make my journal books and Special Phrase books.  Just.Loving.It.  My job was a 1-week wonder.  after a week of diva being at Camp Grandma, and me sleeping on the twinny to avoid the snore-a-saurus, i decided that at this point in my life, there was no need for this type of life modification for Any Reason, mortgage, surgery, sailboat, hell or high water included.  so i let them know that i knew that it was not a good fit for me.  or them.  and poof was gone.  lovely company.  excellent pay & bennies.  not for me getting up at 4:30am and driving an hour.   am still diggin the twinny though.  it's like camping out.  a little short, but i curl up.  so if you want an awesome papasan, it's for sale.  the pattern above.  they aren't making them anymore, so it's a real collectors item!  for those who've asked, diva is hanging in there - she doesn't seem to be in pain, but also doesn't seem to be real with it a lot of the time.  especially at night.  it's like sundowning in alzheimer's patients, almost. when the evening comes, she paces and paces and seems like she's lost.  very difficult.  but then the next morning she seems normal for an old lady.  difficult decisions.
okay - off to make 5 ATC's about fairy tales.  now what would i know about fairy tales?? *teehee*

yes, i know

i know i said i was packing up and moving on, and most likely you have left this little scrap of cyberspace, and i'm sitting in an empty room talking to myself.  probably.  most likely.  however and still...
you know me.  you know i am a compulsive sharer.  you knew weeks ago that i'd never not ever be able to not be back.  and you knew better than I did, because i was sure i was done.  and maybe i should remain done.  maybe my rants have grown cynical.  maybe my point of view on some matters makes people uncomfortable.  maybe.  and if so, thank goodness i'm alone in this room talking to myself.  Because i strongly and fully believe that each person has a right to believe what they may.  and even when proof and common sense and their gut tells them otherwise, they have a right to go forth in whatever direction they decide.
i think i decided to cut our conversations short last month because i was about to reach a breaking point, a pinnacle, and didn't want to spew the nasty bits here to sit forevermore.  but i'm past the bursting point, and on to the part where the deflated begins to rise again, hopefully not overfill once more.  and after the explosion burnt ears here, and after tears and wails and wringing of hands and all manner of dramatic motion ceased, it was time to examine the bits left behind and decide what to take back to the lab, and what to leave behind for the earth to reclaim.
and here is what i kept...still in disheveled form, but a quick inventory of most items and a longer look at a few....
i put too much salt into what some others were serving, taking at face value that what they were saying (for a fee) was what their heart brought forth.  it wasn't.  it was just a really cool come-on for their rent money.  and once i realized this, the set of dominos began to tip and totter and fall (first slowly, tip tip tip, then with a thundering CLACK CLACK CLACK) and I became glad that I'd bought the books but not the ideas but freaked out at what could have been (and what actually IS for some i know as they grasp for any straw, any hand to pull them from quicksand).  and that brought me toe-to-toe with an anger, the force of which i have never not ever felt, and equally saddened me to feel such a thing and scared me that i could.
everything.shifted.
i sank into a depression so deep, i tell you, so deep that i began to enjoy it - it was easy just floating in it...the days the nights became one and there was nothing to care about...let the sellers and the buyers work it out.  it all swirled like a lava light stew around me.  till one day i knew i needed to grab a hand to pull me out...a hand much like the one i'd offered time and time again.  and i reached out - hard for me to do when things get that bleak - and...nothing.  no returned calls.  no returned emails.  a silence so loud it sent a concussion of force through the goop and i broke away.  and i stood.  and set about making evaluations and changes about who i would let close to me and who i needed to keep at a distance and who i needed to turn from altogether.  and i tell you this, raw and nakedly and in truth, because you need to know that there is a lot of sugar-coating out there on meat that has gone bad.  there are those that want you to follow them, but they do not have a map.  and i beg you to trust your gut.  i beg you to know that you are all you need.  if a friendship costs you $99 then back off.  we are all here as equals - i am no better, you are no better, and neither is worse than the other.  i may have a gift that you don't because my journey calls for that.  and your gift is for your journey.  different. equal.  and i promise you that you will never not ever have to take my workshop in order to be my friend.  i promise friendship is much harder than that, and much easier than that.
Like the voicemail says: "I've made some changes for 2013.  Leave a message.  If i don't get back to you, you're one of the changes."