An Aries (Who Knows Some Stuff)
I don’t know what time it is in your part of the world, but here in the Central Time Zone, it’s just after midnight of August 11, and that can mean only one thing.
A NOLA MULE IS ON THE MOVE to be the first to wish Marika the happiest of birthdays!
A few weeks ago, codyfrizbeejr posted photos of plants and flowers from his garden and asked his readers how many they could identify. I didn’t recognize them all, but my score was high enough for him to promise me a prize.
Last week, my winnings came in the mail. Along with a bag of BBQ Fritos, he sent me this set of buttons from his prize stash:
Thanks, Rob!
P.S. The answers to his quiz are here.
Someone I don’t know who also obviously doesn’t know me sent me a little message, the gist of which was:
Don’t you think all this doll stuff is kind of silly and a waste of your time?
Yes, I absolutely think it’s silly! And I think being silly is often one of the best ways any of us can use our time. Being silly (after a year of coping with stress, physical pain, losses, writing a novel and working with Tim to find a home for our anthology on behalf of some superb writers, and dealing with enough changes and responsibilities to turn me into the She Bitch of the World on more than one occasion) is just what the doctor ordered. I mean, SERIOUSLY just what FOUR doctors ordered–and not one of them was a psychiatrist. Being silly with my friends may be what keeps me OUT of therapy.
My advice to anyone, including you, Person I Do Not Know, is to put more silliness into your life–and I won’t even charge you $.05 for this. The war, the economy, the cruelties and failings of humanity–I can’t fix these things. That admission reminds me of a day when I couldn’t see my mother because my back pain was so bad, and Tom did errands for her. As he was leaving her apartment, for no apparent reason, she said, “Tell Becky to stop trying to save the world.” Even with Alzheimer’s, she had wisdom and knew me so well.
While I’m being silly with dolls, I’m still taking care of my home and my work–not that it’s any of your business. And if you are creative at all, you already know that any process of creation relaxes and opens your mind to more creativity. I don’t sew worth a damn, quite frankly, and perhaps the reason I keep stabbing myself with needles while I’m trying is because my mind is preoccupied with ideas for what I will write next–and as fun as writing can be, I do take its process quite seriously–I just don’t take myself seriously. It’s an important distinction.
A few nights ago, another wise person, while shaking her head with a smile about the Runway Monday goings-on, generously said, “If more people were at home doing what you guys are doing, I’d have less work to do.” She educates people about hate in our society.
In fact, all the people in my life, whatever their own cares and concerns, do much to heal the world with their time, their art, their energy, their work–and with their silliness. I couldn’t be more grateful to know and be inspired by them.
Wednesday night was fun. After getting a ton of stuff done around The Compound during the day, I drove out to Green Acres and watched Project Runway with Tim. That wasn’t why I went; I’d have had fun watching it with Tom, too.
However, Greg Herren recently mentioned a silent auction in Denver to benefit the National Stonewall Democrats. They were looking for donations, including books signed by the authors, or art (paintings or prints)–I mean, come on! Democrats? Signed books? Art? I was ALL OVER THAT.
Tim and I decided to send them a signed hardcover of Three Fortunes in One Cookie. This novel remains so dear to me, and I love donating it to a group I support. Phillip, the protagonist, is an artist, and his character is truly a collaboration between Tim and me. I thought it might be interesting if we sweetened the donation by painting some little canvases (3 x 5 inches) in a way that expressed some facet of Phillip from each of our perspectives.
There’s nothing similar about the art that Tim and I create. Yet without planning it, even though our styles are so different, when we finished our paintings, I see them as a natural progression of Phillip’s style. Mine would have been painted by an adolescent Phillip; Tim’s, by Phillip in his twenties.
Your heart never forgets your favorite characters.
Tim just posted something that makes me crazy happy. If you, too, would like something to be happy about today, please give me a page number between 1 and 611, and another number between 1 and 25 in comments, and I’ll tell you what the book says.
Because happiness, like a pickup truck, is something a friend can always use.
I think I’ve gotten over the tragic failure of my design to have the judges praising my name in the streets and bearing me on a litter to a celebrity-packed event in my honor. I’m strong that way.
I took Rexford out for a visit to Green Acres Monday night. He was supposed to stay, but it didn’t work out. His old pal Sue seemed a little cranky, and after his visit to the vet, Rex was in no mood for nonsense from anyone. Tim thought it might be best if Rex returned to The Compound to give Margot more material for her emo poetry (“The smiling dog is back…fool…I suffer…”) and Guinness someone to bump against and wail, “He started it! He DID!”
The dogs all got a clean bill of health. The vet said not to be overly concerned with their weight or their numbers on various tests, as all that can fluctuate on a raw diet, and the dogs all appear to be doing well. This, probably more than anything, annoyed Rex, because he keeps looking back at his ribs, then at us, to indicate that more oatmeal would be mighty fine. Mighty fine now. No, RIGHT now.
EZ and I are getting along well in the TimLair. Unlike the neurotics who stay with Tom at night, EZ’s personality fits her name. Everything is just okay with her. Feed me now, feed me later, I’m good. Walk me now, walk me later, or just keep trying to find us an America’s Next Top Model marathon to watch–all is well.
Except then the rains came. I woke up…well, on Tim’s schedule…and looked at EZ. Her eyes were inscrutable. Or maybe floating. So I took her out. Twice. The only thing that accomplished was to get me drenched. Lindsey called after the second attempt and brought over mocha frappuccinos for us to celebrate both her recent accomplishments in the art world and the hope that a single blade of grass in my yard might stay green because of Tropical Storm Edouard. Then, in the finest act of friendship ever, when the rain stopped, she took EZ for a walk, whereupon the dog finally let nature take its course.
If only I could develop the bodily functions of dogs into a full-length novel, I’d be gold.
Just in under the wire… I feared I would forget mary919‘s birthday today. I’ve been so busy taking care of extra dogs and doing my design for LJ Runway Monday that I almost did. Mary, I told you I’d pull a fortune for you from the fortune cookie box. This is the one you got:
Happy birthday!
Now back to stabbing myself with a needle.
Summer and I won the second week’s challenge of LJ Runway Monday! I’d like to thank judges Michelle Hors, Miranda Priestly, and TJBTimmy, boss-of-us Heidi Gunn, the other designers, Mattel Top Model Figarunt for behaving so badly, Mattel Top Model Nikki for breaking her hip, and all the people who read and commented.
I’m that much closer to the $100,000!
What? There’s no money involved?
Dang.
Figaro models Mark G. Harris‘s design.
Nikki models Timothy J. Lambert‘s design.
In our other lives, we are all writers.
You can read what the judges had to say right here.
It’s Wednesday, I know, and I’ll get to your bit of happiness. First, I want to share some of the good things about my week. I don’t have pictures of the sight that makes me smile from ear to ear, and that is Rexford G. Lambert and EZ running The Compound grounds together. They don’t play with each other yet, but they are able to enjoy being outside, unleashed within the fence, acting like dogs who’ve become part of the same pack.
