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December 31, 2006
Beginnings and Endings
By the time many of you read this, it will probably be 2007. Holy shit. 2.0.0.7. How the fuck did that happen? I swear to god just last week I was complaining to Dave about how long and slooooow and empty 2006 was going to be once Sight Unseen closed and the Jazz Festival ended. And yet, somehow, I have staggered to the finish line of this calendar year, bruised, battered and exhausted, with a much stronger resume, a new job and a vastly better sense of my worth as an artist.
Who knew that would happen?
This was my mantra at the beginning of 2006:
I'll never get to teach again. I'll never get to act again. I'll be lonely and bored and sad and--baaaaaaaarrrrrfff ... (I began 2006 with a nasty case of the pukes. I swear, I am encasing myself in plastic the next time I go visit Dave's family. Both Christmases I've spent with them, I've come home vomiting.)
And this is what happened to me during 2006 (in rough chronologial order):
1) Two strong supporting roles in two shows, one of which (Death of a Salesman), was the experience of a lifetime. There are still not words for how much I learned and discovered during that process, nor for how much of a gift it was to work with Danny Peterson. (Working with Peter Aylward, the guy who played my husband in Sight Unseen, was also a joy. I have been very, very fortunate this year as far as acting goes.)
2) A photography project which has brought me a teenytiny bit of recognition. People are visiting Sallyacious because of the pix, and they're telling their friends. Bless you all, and I promise, someday I'll get the photographs for September, October, November and December posted.
Because I took them. I really did. It was my intention to process and post one Sunday's stuff for each day I was on break. Only, I decided to make Christmas presents for my family, clean the house, sleep in and visit my new nephew instead. Clearly I have the eye but not the drive to be a professional photographer.
3) The knowledge that I can plan one helluva party (or two). And run a good lecture series. All of our guests felt pampered and cherished, and the stuff that went wrong was not my doing. I had a great time, and if I could, I would do it all over again. Especially because getting into all the parties ROCKED. It won't happen this next year, however, because I have nonononononono time for that sort of thing (see #5, Teaching Gigs).
4) Reiki Certification at two levels. Someday I'll get to use it on people other than the cats and Kieran. (It's excellent for soothing gassy baby tummies.)
5) Teaching gigs. I started the January semester of 2006 as a substitute secretary/event planner. By the beginning of February, I had three comm classes. Last semester, I taught four comm classes and trained the incoming graduate TA's. Beginning January 10, I'll have one comm class, the TA training and two sections of Sex and Culture. The exciting thing about Sex and Culture is that these two sections are MY classes. I am developing the syllabus (within the structure of the course). I put together the reading list. They are MINE. And I'm getting paid twice what I earn for the comm classes. Also, I'm official adjunct faculty now, which means that if I still get to do this next fall, I'll get the tuition waiver benefit and the don't have to pay to use the gym benefit. Plus, I'm a member of the Theatre faculty. Which is just, well, odd.
6) A NEW NEPHEW. Who I spent a week playing with, before, over and after Christmas. Hence the lack of posts. I was loving my boy. He's soooooooo beautiful. And responsive. His eyes are focusing now, and he talks up a storm. And every so often this last week I got a glimpse of who he's going to turn out to be and it is good. Also, his eyes are starting to change color. They're getting gold at the center. I think the same hazel eyes you can see in Dad, John and me are going to show up in the next generation. They're certainly the same shape as John's. And Dad's. And mine.
7) Art. From all over the world. I was introduced to Swap-Bot.com in late September, and have been working away like mad on ATC's which I have sent to Australia, France, Finland, Hawaii, California, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Texas, Arizona and Florida, and which I have received from Australia, France, Germany and all over the U.S.
The whole theme aspect has been a challenge for me in a very, very good way. I am forced to develop creative solutions. Rather than just coming up with art out of my own head, I have to come up with art out of my own head that fits the requirements.
8) A second novel. Which eats gravel, by the way. If I can ever bring myself to read it, I expect I will have to keep a vomit bucket handy. But I finished the sucker. 52K.
Okay. To be honest, I think it's probably not that bad. I can write, after all. It's one of the forms of expression I know I can do. And do well. And some sections of The Search for Herself are well-written. There's some good stuff in there. But there's an awful lot of dreck. An awful lot. Most of it to do with the unpleasant way the plot began. I'm sure I was working some stuff out psychologically in there, but, Dude, unpleasantness abounds, and it didn't make the book any easier to write.
9) Friends. Desiree. Uli. Maaike. Karma. Cyndi. Ginger. Amy. Heather. Britt. All of these wonderful women with whom I began and/or deepened friendships. I am truly blessed.
10) And although this had nothing to do with me and everything to do with him, a healthy, fit, sexxxy, national award-winning playwright husband of nine years. Why he still puts up with me is inexplicable.
So. That was 2006. I know there was a long stretch during the summer when I hated everything about life because It was a lot like January all over again (minus the barfing). (And the cold.) But boy, did that end with a vengeance come August.
You know how you should never pray for patience because what you will get is all sorts of opportunities to practice it? I've got another one for the list. Never ask the Universe to give you something to do.
Posted by sally at 10:54 AM | Comments (4)
December 25, 2006
Dude! Where You Been?
Sorry. Busy. Getting ready for the holiday.
Which reminds me...
Merry Christmas!!!
Or,
Happy Monday!!!
if Christmas isn't your holy day of preference.
And as a seasonal gift to you, a highlight of my weekend so far: Yesterday, a one-legged derelict offered to buy me a drink. I gracefully declined, but it's kind of nice to know I'm an approachable human being. (However uncomfortable that whole image makes Dave.) After all, a smile and a little common courtesy doesn't cost me anything and gives so much to the people with whom I interact.
Posted by sally at 10:18 PM | Comments (3)
December 20, 2006
Productivity
I got lots done today.
I am almost completely done with the Christmas presents I'm making for family. (I just have to put the final coat on the last two.) By tomorrow morning, they will be wrapped, packed and shipped off priority mail to Boise.
I'll post photos here after the holidays so you can see what I did.
I created four more ATCs and got them all packaged up to ship off.
I printed off several more copies of our 2006 wrap-up letter and got those ready to send out.
I feel like there was something more, but damned if I can remember what...
Tomorrow I clean the house, go antiquing with my friends Maaike & Ginger (Uniontown has no idea what it's in for), mail off some stuff and run a couple of other errands. But now, the gift wrapping and packing!
Posted by sally at 11:04 PM | Comments (4)
December 19, 2006
How I Spent My Tuesday
After a visit to the chiropractor, I parked myself on the couch and played with this all day:
It's fascinating. I love trying to figure out how to get different effects in my snowflakes.
Posted by sally at 08:18 PM
December 18, 2006
Sleeping In
I am done for the semester. Had some last-minute changes on Friday, but now, now I am done. Grades turned in, done.
And so I slept in today. As did my lovely David. Til 10am. Which is some kind of record for me . I can't usually manage that unless I'm sick. Apparently I needed it.
So. Because I am on Break, officially, here's my To Do List:
✔ Address and mail all the holiday cards I finally got addresses for. (Because this year for the first time ever I wrote a year-end recap letter.)
✔ Work on Christmas presents for the family. So far, they're turning out well. Beautiful, in fact, though I canna say wha' they arrrrrre, or show pictures, because that would spoil the surprise.
✔ Rake the yard. Because the time when the yard should have been raked was a time of 15 hour days away from the house combined with darkness whenever I was home. Now, I have time to rake, so rake I shall. And possibly also prune the climbing rose on the front porch. And remove the wasps nests from the back porch roof and the shrub next to the house. Just to help deter return visits.
✔ Work on the syllabus for my new class next semester. I've got the first three weeks of the schedule figgered out. I need to get the whole thing done. Mebbe I can finish by Friday. Wouldn't that be wonderful. (And completely unrealistic.)
✔ Clean the house. Ugh. I knowI should get it done, but I swear to god it is the hardest thing to get myself to do. I'm happy to pick up clutter and put things away and even clean the bathroom, but I can't seem to bring myself to either vacuum or mop. Which both need doing in the worst way. Hmmmmmm...
Oh Dayyyyyyyviiiiiiid...
Posted by sally at 01:17 PM
December 15, 2006
High Wind Warning
I hate listening to 40-60mph (plus) winds buffet the house. It's the sound of my worst nightmares. I don't know how people can stand to live in Tornado Alley. The Palouse Winds are more than enough for me.
From where I'm sitting, I can see my rose trellises flexing in the wind. Every time this kind of wind happens, I fully expect to wander around the yard and find pieces of the roof. Or to have some flying object crash through a window. I hope the Dish TV dishes are on nice and tight. I'm going to have to wear earplugs to bed tonight or I'll never get to sleep.
Requirement for The Next Place We Live #473:
No regularly scheduled high winds.
Posted by sally at 12:18 AM
December 13, 2006
You Know It's Windy When
There are whitecaps on the puddles in the mall parking lot.
Posted by sally at 03:12 PM | Comments (3)
Inadequacy Revisited
Why, why do I always feel like I'm not doing anything? Like I haven't done anything? Like I spend my life sitting around like a lump, taking up space and air that could be used for other, more interesting, more useful people?
I was feeling like that the other day and then my friend Desiree pointed out I'd done quite a bit recently. So let's recap my November:
◊ Two weekends of Death of a Salesman performances including one Thursday morning matinee.
◊ I voted.
◊ My lovely friends Cyndi & Karma came for a visit, as did my parents. (So there was all the prep for that. Well, not for Cyndi & Karma, obviously, since I didn't know they were coming.)
◊ Wrote a 52K word novel (even though this year's sucked huge, hairy rocks).
◊ Created 10 ATC's & sent them off to various parts of the US & Australia.
◊ Graded around 100 student persuasive speeches, along with their self-critiques, critical analyses and mini-speeches. (And taught 8 50 minute classes a week.)
◊ Read two books I'm thinking about using next semester, selected films to watch in class and started trying to figure out how to put together the schedule & syllabus for Sex & Culture.
◊ Shadowed the instructor who I was hired to replace for one of her Sex & Culture classes.
◊ Worked monologues with beginning acting students so they could get another perspective (in 5 75 minute classes a week).
◊ Posted 22 blog entries.
◊ Spent a week in McCall with family.
◊ Took Arboretum pictures.
Obviously, I did quite a bit in the 30 days of November. So why do I look back on it and think, "I'm so useless. I have done nothing of value."
On Monday I finished grading my students' self-evaluations for their final speeches. They had to look back over the semester and analyze their work in light of where they started. And so many of them talked about how much more self-confident they feel and how much better they were at the end than they were in the beginning. Part of that is because of me. Because of how I work with them and how I structure the parts of the class that aren't set in stone by the course syllabus (over which I have no control). That should be accomplishment enough.
But I can't even take a moment to rest on my laurels and say, "Wow. Good work. Look at everything you've done." Instead, I worry that I can't continue to prove myself worthy of--I don't even know what. I don't know what I have to prove or to whom I have to prove it, only that once again I'm failing to measure up. And I couldn't even tell you what standards of measurement I'm using.
What in the name of virgin olive oil is wrong with me?
Posted by sally at 10:26 AM
December 11, 2006
Grading Is Done (More or Less)
All graded, all entered, all tallied, all posted.
I'm just waiting for students to look at everything to make sure I didn't forget to include points for items I graded. (I had a little trouble with that this semester, grading things and giving them back to the students and forgetting to enter the points in the grading spreadsheet. Oops.)
Plus there may be a problem with the online component of the semester being calculated incorrectly by the software. (I have the right numbers in my spreadsheet. I'm not sure why their program is getting the totals wrong.)
So. Now I just clean up and move my stuff to my new office, turn in my keys to my old office and call it a semester. Well, and post final grades in the actual final grade place next Friday.
Posted by sally at 04:45 PM
December 10, 2006
Our Very Own SantaCon
I live in a very small town. This should surprise none of you, as I tend to bitch about it on a regular basis. According to the latest census, the population here is a little over 21,000. When I tell you that more than 1/3 of those 21,000 were aged 18-24, you can see how the University might be skewing the numbers a bit. Especially when I add that almost 50% of the households were made up of non-families (i.e. roommates).
It's not as small as some around here. Genesee has 946 residents, Troy has 798 and Potlatch has 791. Still, though, when compared to the city I came from, Moscow is small.
Which is why I was delighted to discover that yesterday, Moscow had a SantaCon.
For those of you who don't know, SantaCon is, well, it's a hearkening back to the Lord of Misrule, but mostly, it's about dressing up in a Santa suit and mildly misbehaving. Much of the (mis)behavior is fueled by alcohol, and I suspect it was no different in Moscow's case.
As an artist, I think a little misbehavior is good for the soul, so I applaud the good people who participate in SantaCons around the world. We get so hung up on appearances in this society that we tend to forget to have fun. And we teach our children to not have fun as well. Making an idiot of yourself in public is tantamount to a mortal sin in modern uptight America, and that's just not healthy. SantaCon acts as a reminder that even grownups should get to play occasionally. So it was nice to see Moscow participating.
Even if it was only one Santa.
Posted by sally at 12:14 PM | Comments (4)
December 08, 2006
Because I Cannot Believe I Took This Photograph
Just a little taste from the outrageous backlog of Arboretum Project pix. Taken last Sunday.
The brighter bird is a varied thrush. I was taking pictures of it, and apparently the robin got jealous. It flew into the frame.
Posted by sally at 10:02 AM | Comments (1)
December 07, 2006
Grading
My schedule for this past week:
Teaching
Teaching
Grading
Grading
Teaching
Teaching
Teachng
Teaching
Grading
Observing
Observing
Observing
Grading
Teaching
Teaching
Grading
Grading
Grading
Blog post
Grading
Maybe some day I'll come up for air...
Posted by sally at 11:23 PM | Comments (4)
December 02, 2006
And a Third (Specific) Reason to Love Maaike
Posted by sally at 02:45 PM | Comments (2)
The Most Important Christmas Present Ever
May I direct your attention to the column on your right? You should notice a new item there. One with a thermometer. That badge links straight to a donation page at the Heifer International website. The amount on the thermometer is the amount I have pledged to raise this holiday season via this here blog. Every time someone donates money via my donation page, it registers here.
This, you see, is what I want for Christmas. $1000 in donations to Heifer International. More than that, if we can manage it. I'd like to blow the top off that thermometer and turn this entire page Heifer Donation Red.
I don't remember the how long ago it was that I first heard about Heifer. Long enough ago that my parents were still living in Salem, because they were introduced to Heifer via their church, John Knox Presbyterian. Mom told me about Heifer International and showed me a video. It was the first of many times that Heifer made me cry.
Let me explain. I do indeed cry at sad things, horrible stories, the discussion of other people's pain. I also, however, have a particulary tearful reaction to hope and compassion and courage. Someone commits an act that fills another with hope? That sets me off like Old Faithful. I weep and weep and weep. Seriously. Tears are dripping on the cat right now as I type this, with the thought of the amazing things Heifer has done over the years.
I still cry, every year when I get their holiday gift catalogue, "The Most Important Gift Cataogue in the World," because of the stories of hope and joy and healing. And every year, Dave and I make a decent-sized donation to Heifer in the names of all our families and friends and then I make simple gifts so that everybody has something to open as well, but the big present, every year, is the donation to Heifer.
This is how they work. Heifer goes into needy communities around the world, working with local individuals and organizations, and provides families with animals. In order to receive their animal(s), the families must undergo training on care and feeding so the animals will remain healthy. These animals, however, are not a gift. They are a loan. The loan is repaid by providing another family with the first female offspring of that animal. It's called "Passing on the Gift," and the people who are helped in this way do just that. They are not only the recipients of something that can change their lives, but they are allowed to exercise their own generosity, which is, I think one of the things that makes us fully human.
One of the great things about this organization is that they pay attention to the needs of the people they help. They select animals for that community based on the lifestyle, environment and social situation. So, for instance they give healthy llamas to families in the Andes, and teach them about healthy breeding practices because the llama herds were getting so inbred that the llamas were getting smaller and weaker with each new generation. Now, the families know what causes those problems and can work to prevent them. Or in parts of Southeast Asia, where they give farmers water buffalo and teach them how to use the manure to run biofuel stoves as well as to fertilize the fields. Or in parts of the southeastern United States, where poverty stricken families get sheep or cattle or chickens and learn about stustainable farming so they can keep the land healthy and their animals healthy.
And back to the whole generosity thing. The people who get these animals are poor. Poor. Poorer than most of us who have access to computers and the internet can even imagine. Poorer than we can comprehend. So poor their children can't go to school. So poor that one parent has to leave home to find work someplace else while the other scrambles to feed everybody. So poor that they have to walk miles, daily, for water.
Poor.
And yet, these people don't just pay off their debt to Heifer by passing on one animal. They continue to give. When I was at the Heifer Ranch in Arkansas in March of 2002 for the Women's Lambing Project, one of the other women there told a story about a trip to a community in Nepal. The women in this community had received rabbits. Good for food, good for fur, good for fertilizing the small fields. They had also started a women's group there. (Women's empowerment is also one of Heifer International's goals. I told you, I believe strongly in everything they do.) This group decided that they had been so helped by the generosity of Heifer and their program that they needed to do their part. So each woman saved a handful of rice a week from her family's food--which was a goodly amount for people who had next to nothing--and when this particular group from Heifer came to visit the community, the women's group presented them with a big pile of rice to be sold. The money from the sale, they explained, was to go to start a Heifer Project in another community. They had barely more than nothing themselves, these women, but they wanted to celebrate the hope they had been given by providing it to someone they'd never met who also needed help.
See why I cry?
But don't just take my word for it. Go to the Heifer International website and check out what they do.Then come back here and click on the badge on my page to donate, so that we can make that thermometer bulb rise. For those of you in the US, it's a 501(c)(3) organization, so anything you donate is tax deductible.
The original gift of Christmas was hope. Help me to celebrate the season in the spirit it began. By providing hope to someone else, and by extension, all the rest of us who live here too.
Posted by sally at 11:35 AM
December 01, 2006
Dreams of November
Last night, I received two sets of gorgeous ATC's in the mail. For two different swaps. (I feel sort of like I cheated, because both swaps were international, and even though the partners were randomly assigned, my stuff went off to people in California and Pennsylvania and Oregon, and I got ATC's from people in FRANCE and AUSTRALIA. Okay, maybe not cheated. More like, Wow, how incredibly lucky am I?)
One set was for the Coffee swap I posted about already. These were the cards I got from France (Hi Isa!). They are fantastic. Gorgeous. I have not enough adjectives to do them justice. Plus, each card came in its own fabulous personal envelope, which was also based on the coffee theme and was, I assume, handmade.
Even better is the letter included saying she wants to do some trading specifically with me. I am all over that. More incredible art from this woman? Fantastic.
The other set is from Australia, as I mentioned above, and they're also amazing. She tied hers in a ribbon. Like a present. Why do I not think of these things? I was proud of myself for packing the cards I sent off in bubble wrap and little boxes (because they've got 3-D aspects to them). It never occurred to me to make the packaging pretty as well as functional.
The cards from Australia are for a swap called Perchance to Dream, and the theme was any aspect of dreams and dreaming. Everybody had to create six cards to send to two partners. (Three each, in other words. All you copy editors out there can just keep quiet. I struggled with that sentence a long time before I gave up and let it be what it was.)
Getting these cards reminded me that I hadn't posted pix of the cards I did for my Perchance to Dream series, so you'll find them below. I don't know why, but after the Coffee series, I was interested in going even further with the three-dimensional thing, and since ATC's are the perfect opportunity to experiment, I went hog wild. But see for yourself:
Nightmare I
Nightmare II
Yes, I really did use three different sizes of googly eyes for the above two cards. They're a lot of fun to tip and tilt.
Flying Dream
This card includes a blowup of an actual photo I took of a bird flying and several layers of gauze
Dreamscape
This one took forever to make. The base is seashells and beads glued to watercolor paper. The whole thing is decoupaged over with grey and purple paper, though not enough to be completely opaque. Then I poured a layer of glue over it. When that dried (more or less), I glued on real pressed flowers and then coated those with a layer of glue. So shapes are distorted, things seem to be floating, you can see the shapes of things under other stuff, but not enough to really tell what they are. Dream logic, in other words. I can stare at it forever.
(Or at least I could, until I packed it up in a box and shipped it off to Pennsylvania.)
Dreaming of Forgotten Things
I don't know why I felt like harking back to the days of sailing ships. Probably the Romance of the Sea.
Hallucinogenics
For this one, I deliberately cut the paper I used for the background slightly off so that it adds to the freaky dream sense. It makes me think of Alice in Wonderland.
I had so much fun making the above cards. It was great to just let my imagination loose to play. I hope the recipients of my all of my recent ATC's are as thrilled with their new art as I am with what I got in the mail yesterday.
Posted by sally at 10:58 AM | Comments (3)
©2006 - All content copyright Sally Eames-Harlan unless otherwise noted