List Mania

In my 20's when I felt anxious, I wrote in my journal.  Now in my 30's, when I feel anxious I write lists.  Can I get an "Amen?"  I used to feel anxious about my feelings.  Who has time for feelings now?  Now I'm anxious about time.  Lists are quicker and more practical; they help me resolve the vortex of things I must do into a tidy sheet.  They organize my brain into a piece of freshly ruled paper.

But there are some things for which a list simply will not do.  Creative things, for example, do not lend themselves to a tidy sheet of tasks.  But there is a list-mania that has taken over these days, and I have fallen prey.  (McSweeney's, my personal favorite, takes this to extremes, as is their wont.) 

So while I sit here, itching to sink my teeth into something creative and consuming, I have this other part of my brain that wants to dissect and sterilize my projects into tidy lists.  But how can a list convey the sheer awesomeness, size and raw sex appeal that I imagine a giant origami jaguar will impose when placed in my living room next to the gold mannequin?  A list does not capture the spirraling iterations that I imagine will overtake me when I begin to make tiny origami forests for each of my friends.  That little list of projects in my notebook, a small 6x6 square of ideas, seems so manageable on the page, so clever and concise.  That list is my hope for the perfect execution of my daydreams.  Once I begin, the doubt will set in.  The temptation to abandon my perfect idea will begin to nag me about half way through when I am either unable to execute it perfectly, or when the critic in my head tells me what a silly idea it was to begin with. 

I need to make, but I'm stuck in think.

A Stirring

Fickle San Francisco, your weather upsets my expectations.   I walk outside in the afternoon and the light is long and orange: fall.  But the warm air whispers of popsicles, lounging on stoops and sleeping on warm grass.  I wander around looking for a tree with flaming leaves, but see only green.  I feel a pang for fall, but fall is somewhere else.  Here is just the promise of fall. I throw candy down on the trick-or-treaters, making candy-rain.  I fashion my own weather. 

Is this the stirring that I feel? Is it the desire for a new season?

Maybe it's the season or maybe just my internal clock ringing, but I hear my neglected projects calling me.  I want a cozy space and an endless amount of time to weave my long rope of projects, ideas, half-thoughts and wishes into something I can touch.

Caught in the Act....

The soda bomber strikes again.....

A Tale of Grape Soda or How Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

Screw the build-up, there's enough of that in this story anyway.  I'm going to start with the climax: a giant fountain explosion of sticky grape soda spewing all over my kitchen, behind the refrigerator, covering shoes and clothes and photos and the floor even the goddamn butter dish.  Everywhere.  And Darling Kai literally mopping the ceiling and getting so overwhelmed with my insane, mad scientist food experiments that he had to excuse himself to the shower to wash off the stickiness and calm his nerves.  And he banned any food projects involving fermentation "until you actually know something about it."  Touché, my dear, touché.  One explosion is a learning curve, two is a habit.  I think he may now have PTSD as regards the kitchen, which he has started referring to as "the war zone". This puts a serious damper on our unspoken arrangement about who does the dishes. (I'll give you a hint: it's not me.)

Yes friends, this is the side of food blogging that no one actually writes about...the projects gone horribly awry....the experiments that turn out mediocre, un-photographable or just plain gross.  Because here's the saddest part about the grape soda saga: it was supposed to be delicious....effervescent, sweet, bubbly and wonderfully wholesome.  But the part that I could salvage just tasted like watered down, slightly fizzy, boiled grape juice.  In other words, not at all worth mopping the ceiling and having a kitchen that will probably smell like stale fruit-roll-ups for the next two weeks.  Don't believe all the food bloggers out there who only show their professionally lit, perfectly arranged cupcakes, posting recipes and witty dialogue that makes it all seems so easy...liars!  Let my sticky walls and shell-shocked boyfriend serve as a much-needed reality check.  And also as a crash course in legal explosives.

Defeatedly,
Jenny "The Soda Bomber" Irene

In Honor of San Francisco's Crazy Indian-Summer-October

The Summer Day

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean--
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down--
who is gazing around with her enormous, complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

--Mary Oliver

The Love Blanket

Do you remember your little comfort buddy from when you were tiny?  My older sister had her teddy bear, Jonathan, but my younger sister and I were firmly in the blanket camp.  Meredith had a little blue and white blankie with a horse on it, Pony, and I had a fuzzy pink blanket with satin trim, Pinkie (...toddlers tend to be quite staunch literalists.)

So blankets are comforting, right?  They're fuzzy, you can snuggle up with them and they're pretty portable/practical when traveling.  And they happen to be a fantastic way to use up all the leftover yarn odds and ends sitting around in your preciously-small apartment storage space.  I made the original Love Blanket for Darling Kai.  (Reason #1: his bedding was kinda wooly/scratchy; Reason #2: who doesn't want their boyfriend to think of them when he climbs into bed?)  

So I knitted up a giant love blanket for Kai last year as a Christmas present and soon after he started having dreams that about it.  He'd be in some dire nightmare situation and in his peripheral he'd catch a glimpse of the Love Blanket glowing in the corner--Love Blanket to the rescue!  I think the moral of the story is that my knitted creations have magical powers. (Yes, I am taking commissions...).

The Original Love Blanket

Right around the same time, I find out (joy of joys!) that I'm going to be an auntie.  Sister Kate is having a baby boy and we just celebrated with a shower last weekend.  So obviously the little one needs a blankie with magical powers. 

Baby Mango's Love Blanket

I'm super addicted to the pattern for this blanket (based this Knitty article). You start with a little tiny circle in the middle, add stitches as you swirl around, and the blanket gets bigger and bigger.  It works especially well with my disdain for planning--it's a pattern that encourages improvisation; you can make it as big as you like, adding colors and stripes whenever, until it reaches blankety perfection.

I hope the little mango has dreams about  his glowing, super-powered Love Blanket; that he wears it as a cape while he flies around his apartment; and that he loves it down to the nub.

Guest Post: iheartmies and a lot of one thing

One great thing about having creative friends is that you get to have these full, funny, long conversations about the things that fascinate you.  In a friendship that is approaching the ten-year mark, iheartmies and I have been having a years-long dialogue about a lot of one thing.  Really it's a conversation about transformation by simple multiplication.  I get such a kick out it, that I asked her to write something for the blog.

But first a little intro to the lady: she's a bloody Renaissance woman, a damn fine karaoke companion, and I seriously admire her collages (and covet one of the queen and Tricky Dick...hint, hint).  There's a very good chance that she is the only thing keeping me hip at this point in my life.  Without further ado:

talking to jenny about muses
for her
circles
for me
it is a lot of one thing

 

why do i like a lot of one thing?
and why is it my muse?

lets just break it down into fundamentals

shit lets make a list
im good at lists

So where and why do we see a lot of one thing?
(1) nature - to carry on ones species

(2) social - to have a sense of community

  (3) creative - because visually, it is stunning

(4) something about space/universe the unknown 

(1) nature - this is a couple of things, but not scientific for purposes of this discussion

mathematics and procreation
this is general
we are not talking adoption or twins
those situations make the math complicated but follow with the perpetuation of a lot of one thing
so
1 person + 1 person = 3 people
1 flower + 1 bee + 1 flower = fruit + honey
apids (man i hate those invertebrates, stop eating my kale! jerks) they just multiply
1 apid x my kale = hella aphids
so as we see in ourselves and nature
there were fewer of us and things
now there are more of us and things
shit dies to but, not as fast

 

(2) social - sense of community
we migrated to people and stay in groups
as do other animals and plants
some of this is just nature
some of this is social - common cultures, age groups, genders, etc.
gathering with likeness is common and comforting
its gives us something to relate too
chinatown
old folks home

(3) creative - because visually, it is stunning
hundred of things coming together to become one thing
its where complexity and minimalism meet
it makes something so intricate in number but so simple in form

 

(4) something about space and the universe/the unknown
space
its infinite to us
we cant count all the stars and they are millions of miles away
those numbers can not be broken down or distinguished in our minds
but we can grasp the idea of the universe, its a lot of one thing condensed into a concept
the idea that we are comprised of, surrounded by and submerged in a lot of one thing is my muse

a lot of one thing
its simple but, its complicated in its execution
it allows us to relate to something with multiple scales
its a way for the human mind to make sense of a large number

Let iheartmies keep you cool too:

photos

etsy

music