Upheaval.

We are looking for a new home at the moment. If only I could find one that looked like this.

This is the work of the very clever Leah Giberson. I have never met her, but we seem to share the same favorite architectural flavour.

A startling discovery.

This afternoon something happened. I was writing some things and then I decided to do some crocheting. So I went directly from sitting at the computer writing, to sitting on the couch crocheting. Now, one of the reasons I like crocheting is because it pretty much empties my brain of all thought and turns me into a drooling woollen zombie. Which is a particularly peaceful thing to be. But today, I discovered that crocheting is the perfect accompaniment activity to writing poetry. Cause I would write some things and then as I crocheted, all the words I had just written would sort of circle around in my brain, and the crap ones would fall out and new and better and shinier ones would take their place. And then the words would circle around some more and after a couple of rows of crochet I would go back to the computer and write some stuff down and it would be like I hadn't really had to think that hard about it at all. Imagine! I am feeling pretty happy with this discovery.

Library envy (part three).

Pangs of savage one-person-library-pod-envy are afflicting me.  

See this and more things filled with greatness on BB-Blog.

Super impending interview excitement.

For months now, I have been wanting to start the process of fashioning interviews and photo essays about all the amazing people that I know who are doing super things with their creative brains. I have been waiting to purchase a pricey bit of equipment that would let me record directly onto my phone, so as to efficiently capture all the pearly wisdom which will no doubt be forthcoming. For week after week I have been feeling thwarted by my financial incapacity and projecting forward to the moment in time when I would hear the satisfying snap of my recording device plugging snugly into my phone. And then about five minutes ago it occurred to me to look in the App Store.

Der! One dollar and forty nine cents, and about forty five seconds, later I can record straight to my phone. This makes me feel a) old and feeble for not thinking about this earlier and b) incredibly cheerful cause now I can start sharing the astonishing pile of cleverness that is my friends and associates. Hooray!

And I had my second last painting class on Monday night, which now seems quite a long way away, in fact that means my last painting class will be in only three nights time. Boo hiss. I think what I would really like is if Fiona-the-painting-teacher would just come to my house once a week and we could have a natter and do some painting and she could tell me stuff and I could give her a bowl of soup and we'd be even.  Cause the prospect of the ongoing painting tuition is just not hugely financially viable in my universe. Maybe I should try and get together with some of the other people that I know who like to paint and do some sort of regular hanging out, painting & nattering event. Like a Tupperware party but without the plasticity. Like that great bunch of 'craft night' people in that Etsy video. I think they were in Texas. Here, let me see if I can find it.

Okay, watch this great little mini doco here. And watch out for the knitted caravan cover. These are people who are inspiring me to try to make a painting party. A very sedate one, of course. Perhaps with an element of baking and recipe swapping worked in as an added incentive. Sheesh. If my seventeen year old self could hear me now, she would just spit. Luckily she's at the pub getting drunk and then going to see a hardcore band so I can sit down with a cup of tea and get a bit of crocheting done. So many granny squares, so little time.

I spy.

I promise I am not going to turn into a look-at-my-dog obsessive type. But. Look at my dog!

Ain't she sweet?

I spy.

This is the lovely work I bought a couple of weeks ago from the 'See Me, Hear Me' exhibition.

D-Day.

The poor old Aardvark has taken a back seat the last couple of weeks; I feel like a neglectful parent. A neglectful parent who has left her (aardvark) child in a play pen with a box of cereal and the newspaper and gone out dancing. And the reason for this neglect? Birthday dog!

My son, his name is Seth, turned thirteen on the weekend. Pretty much since Seth could speak, he has been haranging me to let him have a dog. Between the ages of about four and six, he would have happily exchanged me for the dog, such was his enthusiasm and intense drive to join the dog owning universe. Having had dogs in my before-child life, I never flagged in my stoic refusal to fulfill the dog fantasy. I know what dogs are like. And I know what four year olds are like. And a clever dog will have a four year old trained into a treat-sneaking, bed-sleeping, your-mum-will-never-know lacky in about five minutes flat.  So it was no to dogs.

But then, a few weeks ago, I realised it was time. Time to stop resisting because the thirteen year old wants to be the boss of the dog. The thirteen year old has been on the receiving end of repetitive instructions his whole life and is only too happy to find someone to share this burdensome position, even if it's his dog. And the thirteen year old can take the dog for a walk unassisted. And here's the clincher, the thirteen year old can pick up poop. So, finally, it was yes to a dog.

I spent a week researching dog rescue sites and talking to crazy dog rescuing ladies, (no, really, I don't want the rottweiler with anger management issues even if he is a 'lovely boy') and finally found what I was looking for. And so she became, the birthday dog! I wanted to call her Bertha in honour of her exalted role but the men of the household wouldn't go for it. She was a secret birthday surprise, which required a fairly high degree of subterfuge, particularly when we had to build gates and fences before her arrival. We used the chicken smokescreen to great effect -

Seth: 'Is that a gate? Are we getting a dog?'
Me: 'Nah, you know we can't have a dog, we're gonna get chickens, awesome huh?
Seth: 'Yeah. Chickens. Awesome.'

On the day, when Seth realised that he was being gifted a dog, the first thing he said was an approximation of 'oh-my-god-oh-my-god-oh-my-god-I-love-you-guys-oh-my-god-oh-my-god-I-love-you-it's-not-chickens'. 

So now we are a three human, one dog household. And it is really great. And Seth is beyond thrilled. And I am back writing and will pick up the camera this weekend as we settle in to a new kind of normal. Normal with dog. It's all poop bags and liver treats now kids.

I spy.

Cheating again. Technically not my house. Nice but, hey?

Trouble in the brain.

Today is Tuesday. Last night was painting class number five. I didn't go. But wait, before you get your trousers of scorn and condemnation on, I have a really good excuse. My stepmum had an anuerysm and had to get her brain operated on. For dead set true. An actual operation on her one and only brain. So I spent the day yesterday at the hospital hanging out with my Dad, trying to be a good and helpful human and lessen the general state of anxiety that spousal neurosurgery inspires. Funnily enough I didn't feel so much like painting afterwards.

But I did do quite a bit of painting during the week. More on the pears of course. And another thing that I have started that I think might turn out to be about jellyfish. The pears are really my personal playground by now, I just keep doing different stuff to them to see what works. I may keep painting them indefinitely. They are kind of soothing. Comfort pears.  I can now understand the concept of painting the same thing over and over which I had previously thought was just odd and disturbing and downright uninspired.

And I am working on another poem, slowly. I think it may be about my husband. I have only ever written one poem about him before. And it was really just some slapped together flirtation on paper. But I've known him a pretty long while now, so perhaps it is timely to make some words say some things about him. And you know, I've been thinking a lot, well, since yesterday, about the whole brain operation bonanza. I think there might be the seed of something brewing in that soupy cerebral fluid. I don't have a clue what it is. Might be sort of shiny and arterial. Anyhow. I must go and talk with my friend Jessie who is a genius but requires me to make understanding noises whilst she figures out how to plan our friend Ruby's baby shower. What she doesn't know yet is that I have only one piece of advice to offer; more champagne.

Texas.

(This is the first poem I wrote about my husband. It's cheating cause it's not new work, but I dug it up as an historical artefact.)

Is that you
my evil twin

my bad brain
smoke alarm
bootleg version
of happy ever after

my mexican candle
my whiskey sour
my sticky sweetheart

my neon knitted exit sign
flashing in the dark.