I am not Bridget Jones

At least I hope not.

Today I stumbled upon one of the most unnerving coming-of-age moments in the lives of Western (Imperialistic Pig) Women: perusing the self-help section.

As I let my eyes glaze over in avoidance of "Men are from Mars..." and the likes of "Keeping the Love you Find" or "The Bad Girl's Guide to Sex", I wonder how I got to this place. I am really looking for something helpful. For myself. Does that have to make it Self-Help? Must I slog through so much psycho-babble to find a book on self-philosophical psychosynthesis, in other words: real psychology? I wish it weren't the case, but I doubt there'd be much of a book market for the genres of "Actually Helping Yourself the Hard Way" vs. "Trite Tripe to Make You Feel Incompetent/Accomplished Without Changing".

The best conversation I've had in several weeks was with a complete stranger, by email, based on his anonymous craigslist post lambasting Seattle's lack of social graces...well, I'd been thinking I was "doing fine" but that made me reconsider. I'm not doing fine. I'm just doing. Which makes me in no way different from most of this country, not to mention many others. The problem is, I've always felt and thought of myself as, at the least, a little different and, therefore, exempt from this frivilous, liminal-post-modernistic torment of Self. Or is it Selflessness? But that's why I was in the Self-Help section.

*shudder*

When support groups start sounding like the answer, what else do you do? Well, you go to a fucking support group, even if its with intentions no clearer or cleaner than Tyler Durden. Even he was, eventually and strangely, helped by that, yes? So I needed some new books to read and fiction is getting too painful--those perfectly scripted lives we live in our imaginations and yearn for but will never touch in reality--and non-fiction just feels like reading either old, very specific newspapers or being bragged at by people who will always remain if not more accomplished, at least more interesting than I. And if that assessment of why I read what I read doesn't scream "Get Help!" I don't know what does. The books are trying to make me feel bad.

I know I've got a lot of stuff together. Materially, I'm doing great! Hell, I have a job and, right now, that is a serendipitous and not-to-be-downplayed piece of luck. I live in a cute house that doesn't cost too much in a neighborhood that is probably it's most frightening only on Halloween when the midget sweet-mongers take over. But.... Like any reasonable over-educated West-coaster with a degree under my belt, each piece of luxury or sensible utensil of modern life makes me feel lacking, as though I become slightly emptier with each purchase, meaninglessness seeping in through the credit card bills.

Meditation escapes me, most times. The best I can manage is a few consecutive minutes of frivilous anxiety, replacing the disabling, destabalizing worry that most times leaks out my ears for want of a pressure valve. We'll see what books with worksheets in the back can do.

JOB!

Long lost brilliance

I've been looking for this piece since...a few years now. I couldn't find where I'd cleverly stashed it. But, in the chaos of moving, I've found it again and here it is, for all my fan! Oh, the excitement (and no, that's not a typo).

Hint: You'll need to click it to enlarge and read.

The Hostess Takes a Break

I finished another painting! The title is as above. This is the bigger, acrylic version of a watercolor painting/sketch I did about a month ago (image on left). I love it and her. I haven't quite finalized her face, but it's growing on me, so maybe she'll stay this way. Sorry the picture is a bit fuzzy and dark--I haven't had good photo-taking conditions yet. (no sun + crap tripod)

All this productivity is almost starting to make me feel like a functional human being. ...but that would probably make me less artistic, so I'm gonna cut that out. Socially dysfunctional all the way!

In other news, the website is getting a makeover, probably to come online in about three weeks from now. The biggest, bestest chance will be: my old comic books, readable, online! If nothing else, they will provide a foil for my newer, better work.

Happy Tears

As a woman entering my late twenties (my goodness...time flies), the idea of having a child looms large. Above all other questions--when? how many? how much?--is the bleeding-heart's catch-22: Do I want to bring a child in to this world? On one hand, I believe I and my partner would raise a thoughtful, good human being who would be a steward to this world. On the other...war, famine, "peak oil", antibiotic-resistant infections, trans-fats, Tila Tequila, Paris Hilton, biological warfare...

That list doesn't stop for a while. But then I heard the below edition of "This I Believe" on KUOW. If a 7 year-old boy in Texas can embody all the peace and calm of a Bodhisattva, of Christ, of the best of everything the civilizations of the ages have had to offer... The opportunity to bring more compassion in to this world, compassion of this caliber and depth--it outweighs that seemingly endless list of evils. And perhaps on just reading this list, the more skeptical of you might think that he is parroting, that he is only mirroring the values of his family. While I don't doubt that he does mirror these values, he is more like a prism, brightening, delineating and broadening those values through his actions. Listen to the podcast and hear it in Tarak's own words if you want to be convinced. It is transcendant.

Thirty Things I Believe

by Tarak McLain

Listen Now [18 sec] add to playlist

Seven-year-old Tarak McLain was born in Thailand and lives with his family in Austin, Texas. He collects and hands out food to the homeless and raises money for orphans and impoverished schools. He reads about the world's religions and listens to public radio.

“I believe it's OK to die but not to kill ... I believe war should stop. I believe we can make peace.”

Tarak says he believes in helping the poor. He raises money by organizing yard sales.

Tarak says that he believes in nature and that people should go outside more.

"I believe that when I meditate I feel peaceful," McLain says.

Weekend Edition Sunday, January 18, 2009 ·

I believe life is good.

I believe God is in everything.

I believe we're all equal.

I believe we can help people.

I believe everyone is weird in their own way.

I believe hate is a cause for love.

I believe that when I meditate I feel peaceful.

I believe we should be generous.

I believe brothers and sisters should be kind to each other.

I believe kids should respect their parents.

I believe I should not whine.

I believe people should wake up early.

I believe people should go outside more.

I believe in nature.

I believe people should use less trees.

I believe we should help the Arctic and rainforest animals.

I believe people shouldn't throw litter on the ground.

I believe people should not smoke.

I believe God is in good and bad.

I believe in magic.

I believe people should not give up.

I believe love is everywhere.

I believe that God helps us to have a good time.

I believe we live best in a community.

I believe we can protect people in danger.

I believe we should help the poor.

I believe it's OK to die but not to kill.

I believe war should not have started.

I believe war should stop.

I believe we can make peace.

Independently produced for Weekend Edition Sunday by Jay Allison and Dan Gediman with John Gregory and Viki Merrick.

Too excited!

I can't sleep. I haven't been up much past 10:30pm for weeks...but it's almost 11:30pm now and I'm not tired. At all.

There are many reasons for this. First and most superficially, the above picture was taken last Sunday at the Seattle Comicon. I am in love with Karl "Helo" Agathon from BSG (Battlestar Galactica, for those uncool enough not to know) and getting to meet his actor counterpart, Tahmoh Penikett, was kind of overwhelming. I mean...celebrity crushes are supposed to be your own dirty secrets, right? You're not supposed to actually meet the person. When I first saw him in the convention hall, I turned bright red and dragged my poor boyfriend halfway across the floor before I could stop giggling long enough to breathe. It's like...like having a hot and heavy affair with someone and then, years later, running in to their identical twin. All those dirty thoughts are going to rush unbidden to your mind, superimposed on this person who wasn't actually involved. Or...it's just more like being 13 all over again.

Other, better reasons for sleeplessness:
1) I've had bunches of job interviews lately! No job yet, but an increase in opportunity increases my odds of getting hired, right? I mean...the market is obviously depleted of the best local candidates and employers are starting to sweep the benches for second-stringers. ... Kidding. Kinda. Not really.
2) Moving! House in Ballard! Nice neighborhood! A room just for MEEEEE! Within walking distance of Golden Gardens (the most California anywhere in Seattle!), downtown Ballard, a bakery. Oh...it will be great.
3) Website is up! So, get your fingers and eyes in gear and go to http://www.mledraws.com! (isn't it funny how I write that like anyone besides myself and my boyfriend reads this? Just in case, I guess)
4) ...some other good reason! Yeah!

My plan tonight is to just mess around on the computer until my butt falls asleep, crawl back in to bed and hope the rest of me follows suit.

And I will dream of hot men in futuristic flight suits (or out of them).

Swirling Down the Bowl

I'm ending month three of unemployment...and still feeling like a jackass. Why did I quit my job right before the world economy's death rattle?!!? So I keep reminding myself: Working for crazy people does not equal job security. Considering the number of positions I've seen open over there since I left (positions previously filled by long-time employees), I probably wouldn't have a job now anyway. But I'd have unemployment.

Feeling like a jackass.

But I have been able to concentrate on my art! For the first time in forever, I've completed a bunch of paintings (whimsical watercolors, mostly) and did a t-shirt design for Chris' younger brother. He started a small clothing company (http://www.foneticdesign.com) with a couple of his SPU classmates. They're not marketing geniuses, but they have a good idea and they're breaking even...which is pretty good for any business right now. The design I did is the one at the top of this post--the "206"! Apparently it's big with the Greeks.

Soon comes the Big Move. Our current place is wanting to up our rent by over 5%, making what we pay $400-$500 more than anywhere else. We've decided to try relocating to the west side of the lake. All the better for me to go to grad school and have a job. We're praying to find a cute little house...and have a garden...and not have to worry about the bird pissing off our neighbors. Ideally, it would also have room for me to have a "studio" (room full of art shit).

But I still feel like a jackass.

Some thoughts on artistic "success"

It started with the stories—people saying I was “such an artist”. As early as four or five years of age, I remember the tales I would spin for my god-sisters. When one asked why our nearly-identical snow boots were somehow different colors right down to the Velcro (this does seem a mystery at four), I explained that when they grew the boots up at the North Pole they all started out white but changed color based on what they were fed. A diet of strawberries and grapefruit would give you pink boots, whereas tomatoes and cherries made red, celery and lettuce for green, eggplant and grapes for purple, etc. But I had early learned that those sorts of stories set off some special sensor in the grownups, so I kept my tall-tales to the obviously fictional for my parents and their peers. This, of course, led to comments of what a great writer I could be!

Then again, I was drawing long before I could verbalize my rich fantasy life, and, since I kept it off the walls, my parents were very proud of what they saw as my great talent. I was a strictly inside-the-lines sort of colorist. If any of my crayon marks strayed it was because I felt the vegetation around Snow White needed extra flowers—or apples in the trees (an early nod to foreshadowing I have never been able to shake). Instead of any great “talent”, I would attribute my artistic success with a penchant for mimicry and extrapolation. While giving life to Barbie’s Beach Vacation with my grandfather around the age of six, I watched him shade Skipper’s hair, making it almost ripple in the breeze from the Aquamarine water, and I immediately started doing the same, giving sensuous dimension to Ken’s biceps and Barbie’s thighs. I observed my uncle’s handmade cartoon Christmas cards and discovered stippling, crosshatching and other tools of 2D trickery. I was praised for these as if I’d invented them myself.

School brought a sudden concatenation of story and picture, also further praise and the expectations they bring. We were asked to practice our writing on giant sawdust colored pages with blue-ruled lines. The paper was so thin that erasing was not an option. The top half was for illustrating the two or three sentences below. No doubt, the idea was to give our teacher some guess as to the chicken-scratch, the better to edit backward letters, interestingly spelled words and half-finished ideas. (“wә tuk th doɢ. it wusNʇ rainig!”–illustrated by a circus tent and something that looks like a giant hamster.) I took this canvas as my mandate to create something like a page from the children’s books I adored. I put everything I could in to those illustrated assignments. My teachers grandly announced my great future as an artist, an illustrator, a writer. Although I did just as well with math, with our science labs or book reports, I was never declared to be a future Academic (although I now understand that to be one of the longest Four Letter Words in our culture) but was declared Artist Emily. I suppose my academic excellence was viewed as precocious given my apparent avocation.

Eventually I learned to stop trying so hard outside the Art/Write category. No matter the class, it was my creative endeavors that garnered the most éclat. I passed AP American History because of an extra-credit project: a retelling of the movie “Spartacus” as a socialist student-movement during the McCarthy/anti-Communist era (my teacher loved it!). It might have taken me five out of the four weeks of our Advanced Chemistry unit on biological chemistry to memorize and correctly calculate the equation for photosynthesis, but I aced the essay questions!

I understand now that the “praise” I received was based on low expectations and a lack of understanding on the part of most teachers, my parents and my peers (not to mention, myowndamnself). A science teacher expects you to at least try to excel in science. If you also write well, they’ll be impressed. Art and creative writing teachers have been so underwhelmed for so many years that any student that does at all well is a bolt out of the blue—and a ray of hope. Also, the years and years of sub-standard artistic education in American schools have lead to a society with very little understanding of what it means to “be a writer” or “be an artist”—and what idea they have is romanticized by Hollywood. While my cheering section felt they were giving me a yellow-brick road to my rosy future, they were instead filling my head with aspirations that could, at best, lead to a futuristic version of Great Expectation, only less optimistic. So, instead of anyone correctly informing me that I was nearly equally talented in everything I attempted (and exceptional in none), I was sent out in to the Great Wide World with a bit of a sense that I was special and that, should that not prove true, I should at least try to be.

So here I sit now, having completed college with no major, not in grad school, not working and with no credentials under my belt other than having a fairly effective green thumb and the fact that I am, on occasion, a very eloquent whiner.