Rough times Junior year

After I got back from winter vacation two years ago, my parents were frustrated they weren't around to support me. It frustrated me, too. My mom, though, in her sensitivity, sent a care package full of protein bars and new socks and tights. She even included a little chai she found at a thrift store. I wore that chai every day for the past couple years, pretty much. I think it was her way of giving me a reminder that life goes on, a gift that told me every day that my parents and G-d will always support and love me. It's easy to forget that after a bad critique, or when you've lost your friends, but I really did appreciate it. I noticed this morning that it wasn't anywhere to be found, not in my sheets or in my sweater pocket from when I took it off for RAD. There's a conspicuous absence to me, but I know that I would not have lost it if I still needed that reminder every day, and maybe it's a blessing in disguise. Sorry, mom :(.

Perchance and recup

Me and my momma! Doesn't she look great for just having had two knees replaced? What an awesome lady! Going to see Juno tonight and hang out with my friend from high school Liz, very exciting! Oh, and my surreal experience was, yesterday, while in the fabric district buying for next semester's projects at Michael Lavigne's, I texted one of my ex's and told him I just saw his momma's twin. Only, his mom was, unbeknownst to me, in town for a knitting show. "You're kidding?" I answered when he called in reply. "No, knitting show." "Call her on her iPhone, right now." So I, clutching my two yards of rubber-backed yellow fluorescent (at a pricey $13 a pop, thanks Michael Lavigne's!), watched as this woman, HIS mother, picks up her iPhone. She gets asked if she is in the fabric district. She looks around for a satellite or hidden camera or something that would explain...and there I am. And she is there. In my state. In my part of it. In the same store at the same time as I am just because my mom's having surgery a few miles away. I will never forget how small the world is sometimes if things like that occur in my life on a semi-annual basis.

Yay for early thank-you's!

As a present for helping around the house with all of the preparations for my moms' knee replacements (yes, both of them, at once), after making falafel for dinner and retiring to my room to let muscle relaxers kick in, I dropped by the kitchen to see how the food went over, and sitting on the counter was this. "An early thank-you present," mom said. I couldn't believe she'd gotten this for me! It's coming back to Baltimore and will take up residence in my studio this next semester.

On "Finding Voice"

Regarding finding my voice... and the blog Blog Core Values. So, the blogging "voice" doesn't exist.  Or rather, we write, we read, or "see" words, instead of hearing them.  The author uses the word "telephonic," the longing for something that is as ephemeral as the powerful feelings we have sometimes.  But, text, html, blog survives voice, body, phase.   I'm failing at blogging every day.  I wait till night, when I've got a whole day to blog about, but do I really want to write about the day I just spent?  How I didn't finish the dishes, how I read and read but couldn't put fingers to keyboard.  I've committed myself to this independent study, but I've got to admit that I've comitted myself to this for me, not for my instructor.  This is a selfish desire to be introspective for myself, and put it out there for all to read. It is actually the loss of selfishness, I think, that led to the end of my relationship with Justin.  I became obsessed with HIS life, HIS existence, HIS work, not my own.  This isn't a tendency far from my lineage.  My mom is a Sacrificer.  She Sacrifices.  And that's noble and good but at some point there's nobody else there but you, and you've got to be happy with yourself when you are on your own. Right, so, back to "finding my voice."  Stop looking for instant identity.  It will take a little while for my personality to come out in this space, and that's to be expected.  Everything I've read in "You've Got Blog" has taught me that.  So, tonight I'm going to keep writing till I'm near-empty.