What the fuck am I doing?

King Beast or “Baby arm”

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 00:31:50 -0500

King Beast or “Baby arm”

Christmas greetings.

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 00:15:06 -0500

Christmas greetings.

We have been in Spetses, Greece for one week. It is good.

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 02:42:29 -0400

We have been in Spetses, Greece for one week. It is good.

Why not just declare your own nation?

Fri, 24 Jun 2011 06:59:13 -0400

Why not just declare your own nation?:

In 1980, artist Lars Vilks began construction of two sculptures, Nimis (Latin for “too much”, a structure made of 75 tonnes of driftwood) and Arx (Latin for “fortress”, a structure made of stone), in the Kullaberg nature reserve in north-west Skåne, Sweden. The location of the sculptures is difficult to reach, and as a consequence they were not discovered for two years, at which point the local council decided that the sculptures should be removed. They declared the sculptures to be houses, the building of which was forbidden on the nature reserve………

Me and Michael have a conversation. S: “I have to stop eating...

Thu, 23 Jun 2011 12:43:00 -0400

Me and Michael have a conversation.

S: “I have to stop eating nuts. I just eat ‘em all. All day. I have to stop. If I were a squirrel, I’d be such a fat squirrel. I’d do great in the winter though. I’d be all, ‘Lalalah.’ While you other squirrels ran around begging for nuts.”

M: “I’d be a skinny squirrel. I’d be…”

S: “You would do terribly in the winter. You’d be sooooo hungry!”

M: “I would. I would. But I’d be fast.”

S: “You would sneak around and steal nuts.”

M: “I would. I would be like, ‘I’m soooooo hungry.’ I’ll just take one.”

S: “We’d catch you and feed you to the dogs.”

Deserted roof top cafe in Istanbul. Good.

Sat, 18 Jun 2011 08:22:44 -0400

Deserted roof top cafe in Istanbul. Good.

Antique Boy Fight I’m writing this on the roof patio of a...

Fri, 17 Jun 2011 12:38:00 -0400

window stalking treasures

Encyclopedia Brittanica

the first store I went in

stacked to the roof!

Antique Boy Fight

I’m writing this on the roof patio of a blessedly deserted Southpark cafe, right across the street from our apartment on Kumbaraci street in Istanbul. We are here for two more weeks and I have the lethargy that precedes change. I can’t seem to do any arty stuff so fuck it. White wine and journaling it is.

For conversational and planning convenience Michael and I give funny nicknames to places we like. So far we have ‘Meat Alley’ (our favorite), ‘The Mexican Place’,’Tulip Alley’, ‘The Tea House’, ‘The Devil Place’, ‘Absinthe Alley’, ‘Bar Alley’…you get the idea. When I see it in writing, I guess our names are less than stellar on the creative scale…..functional, if a little anemic. This comes up later.

Anyway, a few days ago, I was looking for this vintage sunglass place we happened past one day on a ‘we’re totally fucking lost’ “walk”. It was closed when we went by the first time. But I had this fantasy that everything in the store would be really stupid cheap and I would collect all these kick-ass vintage Italian and French shades for pennies on the dollar.

So, the desire to find it again finally wins out over incessant Facebooking and I leave the house alone, determined not to return without locating this oasis of cheap hip. Well, after winding through dirty back-allies for around 40 minutes I finally find it. As I round the corner and see the sign, I also see some 19 year old bronze goddess in an olive dress, jeans vest, and badass shades leaning against the wall under the sign. She is flowing, wild-brunette indifference, patient and still, drinking the sun. I gather she is waiting outside ‘Sunglass Heaven’ for her embarrassingly large and sweaty family to try on every pair of shades in the store. She cocks her pristine head at me through superior eye-wear— such a listless cool- totally unaffected. Skin cancer is not in the forefront of her mind. It’s always on mine…….I morph from a hip-ish 30 year old in jeans shirt, bake-lite leopard bangle, and skinny black jeans to ADULT ACNE in about 10 seconds. So after an awkward pause outside the store I decide it’s not worth the wait and escape this totally unwelcome reality check. I casually take off down the street like, “This is just how I was going little miss Lolita. What?!” So down some unknown back alley I go, comforted by the wad of cash in my pocket and the comparative lack of familial baggage.

Much to my delight, this alley was the soon-to-be-dubbed ‘ANTIQUE ALLEY’. Not fancy antique stores, no, this was my kind of antiques. JUNK STORES! Filled the hilt with broken legged chairs, complete sets of peeling Encyclopedia Britannicas, crumbling floral cross-stichings, dusty glass top cases crowed with buttons, coins, costume jewelry, and random knick knacks…the works! I don’t completely lose it though. We are already charged with shedding 50% of our luggage weight before boarding another airplane. So I keep my excitement in check. I will not be going home with that mysterious brass looking-glass or antique microscope set. Sigh.

I enter the first store on the row with mild trepidation. It’s one room, about 10 feet in diameter, without any visible electric lights on, dusty old furniture and BINGO!- an old glass case with tiny things inside. From the doorway, in the center of the room, I see three older Turkish men on short little stools sitting around a low table of lined note pads and smoldering ash trays- calculators out. I infer from the orderly scrawl on the notebooks, their concentration, and utter disregard of my presence that they are ‘doing the books’. With paper and pens. The books. Seriously. So after about a minute of staring, the one facing the door begrudgingly acknowledges me standing there. I wave my hand at the dusty glass case, “Can I open the door?” He gives me a slight nod and sighs. I spend about 15 minutes examining each thing. There are old captain’s wing pins, little tin boxes, mysterious coins with arabic script…..ahh. I’m in heaven. I finally select two coin pendants and two little silver looking Saint Mary pins and stare at the men until one looks at me. I ask, “How much for all of these?” He grunts as he stands and comes over to me. “This one is 75, it’s bronze, this one is 60- bronze, 10 and 10.” I’m horrified. My treasures disappear- replaced by a rude awareness that I am not in a vintage fantasy situation. This is much more than I expected. They are dusty for Christ’s sake. Abandoned. No one wants them but me. I squinch my mouth as he tells me the prices and settle on the Mozart necklace and two tiny Mary pins. More than I wanted to spend, but I felt compelled after rudely interrupting them to buy something. He tells me the total but I’m so flustered that I short change him $10 and toss the stuff in my purse pocket to walk out. He calls after me and puts his hand out. Instantly aware of my mistake, I want to say, “Shit! I’m sorry! I can’t do math under pressure!” but instead I turn red and hand him a bill. With relief I hop up the stairs and head to the next place. The three stores following are all versions of that first one.

So now, wised up, I’m simply window shopping(stalking) outside an amazing antique jewelry store filled with magical treasures I can’t afford. Hand carved coral earrings on 14 karat gold hooks, ancient cloisonne pendants, delicate glass perfume bottles on chains, ruby earrings, little hand-carved brass birds nestled on little brass boxes…It’s completely masochistic.

Traffic is picking up behind me and somewhat defeated, I think about going home. But just then I hear some kids run behind me kinda yellin’. I don’t think much of it until a movement out of the corner of my eye makes me turn my head just in time to see this little 10 year old scrawn pick up a wooden chair by one leg and raise it over his head to smash another little 10 year old in the head. Lucky for the intended recipient, the Raiser almost knocks a beefy passerby in the face. The Beefer yells at the kid, grabs the chair out of his hand, and shakes it in the his face before he gruffly puts it down. With an indignant arm sweep and some insults Beefy keeps on down the street. Undeterred ,the itty-bitty Aggressor, followed (mysteriously) by his intended victim and a random dog, darts across the street to a food stand and….I’m not kidding here….rips, RIPS a plank from the vendor’s porch/deck thing. Rips it right off the deck. He pauses there for just a moment holding the old 2x4 aloft and then swings it Casey at the Bat style right into the other kids left arm. With a dull thwack, the board breaks but doesn’t fall apart. To my amazement and confusion, the Recipient just stands there. Nothing? Nothing. Does nothing. Doesn’t run away? Just stands there. They are staring at each other with death threats. My need to stop this fight intensifies. This weirdo dog is freaking out and I can’t tell who it’s defending, but it is barking like crazy. Instinctively I know that I have no right to interfere but I’m really afraid of what’s happening. I’m an American woman. I don’t belong here and have no authority over these little rubbery kids. At this point the five or so adult male onlookers finallyexchange knowing glances and a near-by used purse vendor steps up and grabs the Aggressor by the arm while he yells at the other kid- who turns and runs off.

I immediately find a “margarita” , put treasures out of my head and go home. It was a great day.

Share this and keep this dick from Santorum-ming everything up.

Tue, 14 Jun 2011 15:19:26 -0400

Share this and keep this dick from Santorum-ming everything up.

Young Manhattanite: Dear White Power Milk pt. 6

Mon, 13 Jun 2011 13:32:10 -0400

Young Manhattanite: Dear White Power Milk pt. 6:

youngmanhattanite:

Some emails we’ve received over at WPmilk@gmail.com

— — — — — — — — —

“Dear White Power Milk”

can you, while purifying the milk, say words while you garlge the milk, so perhaps the words get placed in the milk. Just may be, when I open the package of milk, i might hear that word, or feel it…

Journal entry from July, 2005

Sun, 05 Jun 2011 06:41:00 -0400

“A couple of days ago we had a freind visiting from Nacogdoches. We were all hanging around in the dining room before he had to go home. I was listening to him talk and my eyes drifted across to the bookshelf, and settled on James Hillman’s The Soul’s Code, a book my dad had given me for high school graduation. I had never read the book, but I knew what it was about. I felt the need, not desire, but need to pick the book up and look at it. I was casually flipping through the pages and reading passages out loud. Afterwords it just wound up on the desk again. I didn’t think about the book again.

I had a dream yesterday morning, well more of a nightmare. In the dream I was sleeping in my house-in my bed and I woke up to see a small boy in silhouette standing in the door frame. I heard him whispering the word “Camus”, over and over. I yelled for Michael, “There’s someone in the house! There’s someone in the house!”, but Michael wasn’t home. In my dream him saying Camus, Camus was just the scariest thing in the world to say to someone. I was terrified. I woke up right after the dream and was like, what the hell was that about? I got up and didn’t think about the dream again.

Yesterday afternoon I came home from dropping some family photos off to be developed, and I had the nagging sensation that the day was going to be wasted. I didn’t feel like going to the studio. Blah blah blah. Anyway when I got home I saw the book sitting on the desk and thought what the hell and settled in to read it for real. I got to about the 30th page and there the author references Heidegger and Camus, the philosophers. My heart nearly skipped a beat. I have never had a concious thought about Camus, ever. I have never read Camus anywhere. I couldn’t have told you that he was a french existentialist writer who champions art as sublimation. I started to cry from fear. What if I have to pay attention to this or I suck? How can I not diminish this to fit into my understanding of the world? How can I? I felt a cosmic connection to something else, something that was guiding me, because it thought maybe I could hear it now.

A more subtle version of my first dream last night. I dreamed I was in art school, and I was going back to my studio to get my money to buy this little boy some redneck food for Christmas because that’s what he wanted. As I was going to my studio my professor, old and annoyed with me for my laziness, was telling me what project I would have to do now just to pass his class becasue I hadn’t even written my paper on “The Plague”.

I feel as though I am charged with the duty to read an assload of Camus now.”

A journal entry from July, 2005

Sun, 05 Jun 2011 06:29:00 -0400

“Here I am wanting to tell a story. As I sit blankly, staring into the screen of a laptop that is not mine, in an apartment I do not pay for, I am wondering where did my imagination go? This wondering takes me back to a specific memory, the conjuring of which does not logically answer the question but, none the less is what comes.

My father, 40ish, my brother, 14, and I, 8, are driving over a set of old railroad tracks in the family’s 1980 Chevy astrovan, affectionately named “Willy” after Disney’s horrible movie about a whale of the same name. The van was so full of farm and construction related detritus, that the carpet actually sprung to life with growing grass and several dozen baby praying mantis. We lived on a country road in rural Alabama about 15 minutes outside of a small, KKK infested town named Roanoke.

So anyway back to my memory. We are driving over a set of railroad tracks in the afternoon heat of a sadistic Southern July. Dad was explaining to me that when John hits me or calls me fat it is only because he cannot hurt my father. It’s just transferrance of aggression. John calls me stupid because he feels stupid, and he calls me a whiny, fat, brat because he feels like a whiny, fat, brat. Projection. My father had hurt my brother, and my brother abused the only thing he could, which was me. This is my father. Calmly explaining to his eight year old daughter the mysteries of human emotional motivations. Calmly explaining to me on a sweaty summer afternoon in Alabama, that he was to blame for both our pain. Calmly robbing me of the right to be angry. Opening my eyes to the fact that he would not protect me from my brother because he was guilty, not sorry. It was not about me, it was about my father. He was saying this in front of my brother, who was silently seething with hatred for both of us in Willy’s back seat. There were times I was afraid my brother would do permanent damage to me, or more likely kill my father. Which he almost did at 19. All of this is what comes to mind when I wonder where my imagination has gone. It has been suffocated by the weight of what has become more real. What I can see, and perhaps what I believe to be the total insignificane of human life.

I did not have a bad childhood. It was wonderful compared to most. But what I did have, I thought, was a very keen understanding of emotional motivations. All seen through the distortion of the super negative. It is hard to grow up with a father a narcissitic as they come and an angry, critical mother. Narcissism in a parent is a strange thing. I have not begun to understand it. But enough about my parents, I have grown to accept that I chose them to be born to, and not the other way around. Freedom from the idea of logical conclusion is hard work, but I am fighting the good fight to get away from one and one is two, stupid!”

another little sketch….Untitled, Prague, January of 2011

Tue, 24 May 2011 09:25:04 -0400

another little sketch….Untitled, Prague, January of 2011

Watercolor sketch From the East to the South

Tue, 24 May 2011 07:21:04 -0400

Watercolor sketch From the East to the South

sansrowdy: Another song I wrote for the one square mile,...

Fri, 13 May 2011 04:13:42 -0400

sansrowdy:

Another song I wrote for the one square mile, Barrow Alaska

You seriously need to check this stuff out. My great friends are amazing film makers and really know how to capture the feel of a place.

-r

I had a dream that a cobra I had been keeping in a cardboard box...

Sat, 07 May 2011 08:33:58 -0400

I had a dream that a cobra I had been keeping in a cardboard box had gotten inside my head-curled around my brain-because I had forgotten to seal the top of my skull? It was so terrifying. I kept wondering if it had already bitten my brain and my thoughts were not real anymore. I can’t even comfortably look at pictures of cobras now.

Istanbul

Sun, 01 May 2011 02:38:46 -0400

Istanbul

Last night was one of the clearest nights we have had yet. This...

Thu, 21 Apr 2011 03:57:29 -0400

Last night was one of the clearest nights we have had yet. This is the view from our little patio.

A quick sketch of my and Michael’s inner state yesterday...

Wed, 20 Apr 2011 02:32:00 -0400

A quick sketch of my and Michael’s inner state yesterday during the cleaning lady’s visit.

A picture of a frozen egg. I don’t understand the...

Tue, 19 Apr 2011 08:06:00 -0400

A picture of a frozen egg. I don’t understand the fridge.

THE CLEANING LADY’S FIRST VISIT or SARAH’S INTERNAL NIGHTMARE DAY

We are both sitting at the two tiered glass table by the window with the view of Bosphorus bay. Miniature boats zig zag around in slow motion. Arrivals, departures. My watercolors, inks, brushes, ipad, and paper are safely stored on the table’s lower deck. Both MacBooks open, warm and click-y across from each other. I’ve just replaced the cartridge on my latest brand of electric cigarette, a Nick, and wonder if the stranger in our house will think that I am smoking inside. Will she be curious? We both got up early, around 7:30 this morning, so we would be ready to walk out the door to breakfast as soon she arrived. Our misunderstood evacuation. Google Translate open on the laptop, ready with a message for her that we were going out for breakfast but would be back in an hour. Total garbage…she read it like 10 times and then made a ostrich head with her hand and gently kissed it several times, “yes, you are going to eat something. I understand.” Me, the clown, mimicking her and smiling, a humiliating victory of techno and primitive communication.

As we sit at the table to work I make and extra effort to become unavailable and invisible. My headphones in and back to the room as she scrapes and crumples, pads around on sock feet wiping and clinking. She has already cleaned the kitchen floors and vacuumed the rugs so we took off our shoes upon returning, polite and careful. This is her house today. I touch my hair too much and can’t seem to look at her without an impotent little smile. Compulsive little apologies. I hear her wiping mirrors with newspaper, smell the antiseptic-mildew stink of off brand Windex, and remember my mom doing the same to the windows of our old Alabama farm house 20 years ago. Memories of raking the front yard carpet of brown pine needles into elaborate mazes for no one. Little fat brat alone, farting around outside. I think I had pin worms from eating buckets of plums off our trees….or running around barefoot…and I think that was around the same time our missing cocker spaniel finally came crawling out of the woods, dragging a dangling and bloody hind leg. My mom soaked it in salt water for a day or two until the maggots fell out. Did my dad shoot her? Was it a bear trap? There’s no bears in Alabama? Why did we decide that?

The call to prayer has started. And again, they have started out of sync, competing cross-town megaphones….wobbly mechanical incantations….row row, row row row your boat, gently down, gently down the stream. My inner child desperately wants to sing “Like a Virgin” through the loudspeakers. This place is full of antique prayers. I wish it were fall instead of spring. Every day is misty and cold; my sweltering, dusty Istanbul rudely missing. I wonder what she is thinking. What is her name? Is it Malekam salam or a malekam salam? Ahah, google says it is “Wa alaikum assalaam”- yeah, I’ll get that right. Do they expect foreigners to get it right? The fresh battery and cartridge of my cigarette has a satisfying sparkle and crack sound, smoked apples and tobacco vapor. There is an unnaturalness to her presence. A tangible interruption, a hostage situation. A betrayal of our solitude. Our routine is all fucked up- this stranger in our midst. She, the guilt, casts us all wrong, we morph, become self-conscious, easy living and lazy….all head, mentally fat, spoiled Americans. Trite tourists. Stupid and language-less. Staring at Michael’s full bottle of water, I want one, but she is in the kitchen. Last time I walked by her to pee, she asked me something in Turkish I inferred to be “Should I change the bed?” and I answered with doubled-handed break tap and a side to side head shake. “We’ve already changed the bed this week. Just leave it.” Anything to avoid a repeat of that. I will die of thirst until she leaves. What does her hair look like? Are we dirty?

She is in the living room with us now and I am desperately trying not to notice. Without looking, I hear the sounds of a bucket of water and fear she may start to mop the floor. Oh god, what if she gets on her knees?! Normal is out of reach at this point and I wonder if I will adjust to her presence in time or if we will just try to avoid being here next time. She’s going to come every other Tuesday. 9 am to 4 pm……an eternity.

A formerly white cat, obviously with the cat version of AIDS, is yowling relentlessly on our doorstep. I am alarmed at my ability to ignore it. It haunts our street. Yucky, dirty, skeleton- crying all day. Fuck that cat. Fuck me. When did I give up the fantasy of strays? Displaying my compassion, humanity, with little bowls of tuna, kidnapped baths, the first trusting pet, the first purr…I’m all grown up about it now. Did my dad shoot the dog?

She has just asked us a novel of Turkish. Blank stares. She does it again. I bust out Google translate-again. Ahh! I’m already doing it as I suddenly panic about the cached You Porn site still stuck on my favorite pages. Yeah-confirm it for her Sarah. Good job. We’re all pigs. Mid key-stroke, I notice that I have saved the G.T. link on my bookmark bar, not my favorites page. Crisis averted. I type in “Are you finished for the day? Or are you returning in a bit?” She waits for this over my shoulder, reads it, then repeats herself. Four wide eyes prompt her to pare down to a few key words. Blank stares. Oh god. We give up. I stand up and say, “Just give her the money. I don’t know.” and Michael gets up and hands her 85 Turkish lira, about $60. She takes the money as Michael slowly says, “Is this enough?” She smiles-a brief exchange of hand gestures. With great relief she turns and walks out.

oops

Sun, 17 Apr 2011 17:00:40 -0400

I just realized that i never updated my health after the last doctor’s visit in Prague. Basically she said that i have eczema and that i need to avoid dust and other allergens as much as possible, take a claritin everyday, use lotion everyday, avoid stress (hehmmm) and that should keep it under control. So far so good. she didn’t think it was diet related at all, but that isn’t stopping me from thinking that diet influences my overall immunity, etc. Some of the tests indicated that i have some tendency towards inflammation in the guts (awesome!), which i suspected. but, she said that alone it’s not indicative of anything yet. She suggested further testing in a year or so. So, i’ll try to keep close to the diet, but praise Jesus, i get red wine and tea again!! Haaaay! Oh and the best part, it only cost me about $80. They didn’t charge me for any of the tests??! Smiley face.