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.

Oy

The phrase "when the other shoe drops" has held an unhealthy amount of weight in my life lately.

Last night, I appear to have gleaned its meaning. Not only is my relationship teetering on the brink of nothingness, I've given notice at my horrible job, and when I checked my email I found that my father (biological) has contacted me to let me know he was getting divorced from his second wife, "G".

I liked G. I loved her. I remember telling my dad to marry her...round about Tacoma on an Oly-Seattle moving trip. I was a witness at their wedding. I painted them an anniversary present of the two of them embracing. ...but it seems that the reasons I chose to discontinue my relationship with my father have been some of the reasons G and he have decided to end their marriage. Dad's email hinted at mutual decision-making, but I'm fairly sure it was her idea. My father isn't enlightened enough to realize when he's f*cked something up. ...Although I can almost believe he's starting to figure it out. Forty years later.

...

I'm begining to realize I'm constitutionally incapable of working for other people. It's high school band all over again. I quit that mid-way through sophomore year--not because of freezing-cold marching band practice at 6am, not because of the consistently flat trumpet section or the nose-up first-chair flutes, but because our band director was such a phenomenal A-hole (and I'm sure continues to be). He bullied students who weren't like him (thick-necked conservative football-types who only cry when thinking about their long-dead huntin' dogs), was known to have had "relations" with students and god-forbid he find out your parents had recently divorced--he would call up your mother and hit on her. Creep show, right? But he liked me, and I just had to quit.
This is the pattern that continues in my life. Bullies make it in to power, they need competent help like me because they don't understand why their power isn't enough to make the business run smoothly, and because we live in a "civilized society" I have to quit when I get tired of their dull-eyed machinations. I have to quit...instead of challenging them to a death-match and hauling the tiger-skin from their still-warm corpse as my new consort hands me the tribal sceptre. "Let's reorganzie the accounting division!" I would scream above the awed cries of the masses, my muscles still glistening with sweat, my face streaked with blood.

No, I haven't watched Conan the Barbarian recently. But I plan to.

Several months later...

I bought two new plants on Monday, before I realized my bank account was entering the lower double-digits. I have them resting on the high, faux-granite breakfast bar in the kitchen of my new apartment in the Juanita neighborhood of Kirkland. I'm going to let them sit there for a week or two, in the company of more seasoned and hearty house plants, in hopes they will survive the eventual transplant from their tiny, crowded, grocery store pots.

I'm not yet sure if I've survived my transplant. I had outgrown Olympia in many ways, but like any rootbound greenery, breaking me out, busting up my roots and putting me in unfamiliar soil has shaken me to...well, my very roots. I'm wilting, I'm malnourished, I'm starved for the familiar.

That's about where the plant metaphor ends. I'm still working in a salon; the same product line, the same sales representative (bless you, Amy) and similar chat in the back room made it an easy transition. But the salon is in Fremont, an exhausting 10+ mile commute every morning and night. The salon is also owned by a frequently over-doped, psycho visionary who seems more possessed by entrepenurial spirits than driven by one of her own making. And I'm kind of in management again. *cringe* This means more hours, getting dressed-down for things beyond my control (Q: "Why aren't the stylists selling more retail!?" A: "Because their services are artificially over-priced and clients can't afford it???"), and generally inconvenienced in the name of a "collective goal" I haven't bought in to and am not paid enough to care about.

Just love it here...

It's like most of my thoughts during the day are first sifted through gritted teeth. I have no outlets, no drinky-weeknights with F & D (girlfriends of an incredible caliber) and walking home after too much at the BroHo. My parents have moved back to Spokane and are in the midst of their own financial crisis. My boyfriend is... Oh my.

Everyone says that moving in with someone is the biggest step you can take next to marriage and/or children, that it will make or break your relationship, that it brings up issues, desires and fears that you could never even have imagined. Well, I have a really active imagination. I couldn't (ha!) imagine that I'd left some concern un-turned, that I hadn't worried every rocking piece of my precariously balanced psyche and imagined every horrible fight, every possible malfeasance. I, of course, hadn't.

So far it's been, probably, farcical. If only I were viewing my life from row G, looking into 3/4 of my expensive apartment (3/4 would be easier to afford...) and scoffing at the obvious miscommunications, chuckling in sympathy for the oblivious and oversensitive characters. But, alas, I am on the stage, the 4th wall is up, and I am quite frequently at a loss for what to do.

I try testing myself--could I leave him? Do I want someone else? Something different? The answers, the truthful answers, have settled out to be Maybe, No, and Maybe. The attendant caveats being But I Don't Want To Have To, Absolutely No, and But Not That Different.

As with so much in this life, it all comes down to communication. Here's where I also wish I'd dated in high school. Boys, that is. Women may try to play silent and hurting, but eventually someone's gonna spill the beans, fights will be had, feelings trampled, tears shed; eventually everything is better after or it's not. Ta-da! With men, with My Man, it's like his retisence is contagious, tying my already knotted tongue in the sort of Boy Scout rope-trick I was never, as a girl, trained to unravel. I say something in a way I would to another female...and it just seems to make everything worse. He does not deal well with emotional dualities ("Well, I'm happy and sad about it..." "It's okay, but it's not.").

It doesn't help that I can't develop any sort of sense of self-righteousness, that I can't claim to know what is better or to appeal to him for his superior knowledge. We are, as they say, babes in the woods. Or more like babies in the dumpster. I seem to thwart his good intentions at every turn. The signs of happiness, productivity, he would like to see from me are impossible. I can't be creative right now. It's the transplant. I'm struggling just to stay green and healthy. The one thing I have drawn is a mug shot of Satan himself after a particularly vivid dream about being Wonderwoman.

*****

I think that's quite enough personal whining. But I suppose it's slightly more palatable than yet another blogger weighing in on the election? Wait and see and have a gun handy. That's my motto.

Political Wishlist

No matter which Democrat gets behind the reins of the White House, the next four years will be a time for change in political appointments--judges, cabinet members, foriegn ambassadors, secretaries to the ----. I am hopeful. I am also wishful. Here are some of my greatest wishes:

Suze Orman to head the Federal Reserve, explode credit card rackets and bring the US out of debt in 5 years or less.

Oprah appointed as new FEMA chairwoman. Her Angel's Network makes homelessness a thing of the past, finishes rebuilding New Orleans in six months and deputizes middle-aged homemakers everywhere to be first responders during disaster conditions.

Angelina Jolie takes over as the US's G8 leadership position, partners with Bill & Melinda Gates to stop the spread of malaria, lower AIDS transmition rates and provide vaccines and medication to poor countries.

Madeliene Albright for Secretary of State. 'Nough said.

Herbie Hancock as Secretary of Education--renews all Arts and Music funding to public education ($$ available thanks to Suze, of course) as well as emphasizing the Sciences.

Gloria Steinem put in charge of National Defense. (Oh, shush. She's brilliant.)



*sigh* It'll never happen...but maybe? This is proof that I'm not a complete pessimist. For proof that I am, click on the cartoon and read the full post. Yes, I really had that dream. It still haunts me.

I can't...I have to wash my hair

I washed my hair last night. It is, of course, still damp.

People have been in the habit of asking me "How long did it take you to get your hair like that?" for quite some time. I've always answered with another "How long..." based question: "Oh, I've had it this way for about 5 years."

Both of us usually walk away a bit unsatisfied with the exchange.

Last week, a woman stopped me in the supplements section of the grocery store to ask: "How long did it take you..." The lightbulb went on--they're assuming I just let these happen. As if I were lucky enough to be Jamaican and these 6 winters in Olympia have just bleached me out.

I answered her, "Well, I got them in in about a day and it took around six months for them to tighten."

"You mean," she said, "that you didn't just let them happen?"

I laughed a little. "No. I'd look like a filthy hippy if I did that."

She looked a little relieved. "My daughter, she wants those. She thinks she can just let them happen."

"Well, yes. Lots of people think that. Unless you have increadibly thick, coarse and textured hair, you cannot just let dreadlocks happen. You'll look like you have hairballs glued to your scalp."

That made her laugh. We talked about the websites that help we melanin-challenged folks to acheive evenly sized, healthy dreadlocks--we even talked about which cultures, historically, have worn dreadlocks and why. We walked all the way to the checkout lanes and then parted ways.

I'd ask where this myth came from, but I suspect it has something to do with the feel-good PC dogma of color blindness, the equality of all people and the New Age desire to "get back to [our] roots." Not that I haven't been accused of stealing African heritage--as though I were The Grinch That Stole Kwanza--but as someone with several times the hair of the average white woman, I feel I have a right to do what I can with it. I agree that a less than pure motivation is no doubt at the root of some cauco-pasty desires to wear dreads or mumus or hiratchi sandals and shell necklaces. The kids out here want to piss off their parents, bathe a little less often and feel like a Stevie Nicks groupie. Carefully grooming in well-shaped dreads is not part of that mystique.

So I wash my hair every week or so, oil my scalp, tighten, powder and wax. My hair is still damp. Thankfully, it's Monday and my day off, so I can stay in and let it dry.

Now, I have a logo to design for The City of Tacoma's Bike Month. My life as an artist-for-hire begins!

Sunday in the Beauty Salon

After a complete crash-and-burn experience with conventional corporate advancement (flunky to manager in four months flat) I am currently experimenting with doing nothing at all and getting paid for it.

I don't do nothing, exactly. I answer the phone and schedule appointments and check people out after their appointments. I sell shampoo and skin products. I put makeup on people who don't want to look like they're wearing makeup. It isn't, as they say, exactly brain surgery. At least I can read at work.

Today is the second Sunday I've worked, giving the other receptionist a much-needed day off; she works two jobs, six days a week. Today I get paid hourly to gossip, read my book, check up on the news and, at the end of it all, do a load of laundry, clean out the color brushes, count the till and go home.

And yet I am dissatisfied. My brain hasn't seen much action lately. As I've always felt when long in the exclusive company of men, being in the salon atmosphere where 95% of our staff and 99% of our clients are female, I'm getting dumb.

In my more conemplative moments, I've started a theory that the two sexes and inherent (whether physical or socially derived) differences there between are essential for social progress. That's vague and more or less a "yeah, I know" statement, but just as people of disparate personalities push our buttons and keep us on our toes, the company of a strange and foreign body is antagonism of an entirely different kind. Biologically, this has been proven--pheremones, reproduction, etc. However, what of academics? I can't help but wonder if the surge of scientific, medical and theoretical breakthroughs of the last century and a half aren't so much due to humanity's innate velocity but to the gradual education and inclusion of women in academia, worldwide.

And I've done it to myself again. Inside a voice whines: "I wanna go to grad school...."

Yesterday a woman told me I should be a math teacher. I had just successfully explained to her in 30 seconds what even college-level math never had: how to figure out a tip. I'm not sure if that's adequate reference to get me a teaching job, but I'd do it in a second if not for the going-in-to-debt issue.

In case anyone reading this doesn't already know: Move the decimal point one number/interger/space to the left, then multiply by two. That's 20%. For you stingy types, divide by two and add the result to your first number, that's 15%.