I’m not super pleased with the way this jelly turned out, but each watercolor sketch is a learning experience.
1st Annual Kitty Christmas Card
This isn’t the photo that made the card, but this is my favorite. I figure for all the nights that Kitty wakes me at 3 a.m. because he wants to go sit on the screened porch, I am owed a humiliating costume experience. All was forgiven after he got some canned cat food for his effort. Incidentally, Jon has a post today about how you can tell your kitty is plotting your death. I might want to read it after this afternoon.
I’ll post the card photo closer to Christmas.
Why Do I Read It?
I just finished reading The Virgin’s Lover and I’m ashamed of myself for slogging through 400 pages of misogyny. It’s not as if this is the first of these novels I’ve read. I’m guilty of paging through at least half a dozen Gregory masterpieces of oppression. But these days I’m making an earnest go at enlightened living. Just because the book was on my mother’s bedside and I had nothing to read doesn’t mean I should have picked it up. Now, I feel like a dumber person for having read it. And the thing is. The thing is…Gregory is just adding some spice to a basic historical framework. To a culture, a time period, an era that had all the magic ingredients for patriarchy soup. I guess what gets me about this one is the single-minded deconstruction of Elizabeth I’s independence. Why would a woman want to do that to another woman? There are so many men out there already doing an excellent job of it. I doubt they need any help. They already have Sarah Palin after all.
So one New Year’s Resolution: No more Philippa Gregory. Ever.
The Learning Curve
Pre-entry announcement: After you enjoy your Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow, mosey on over to the Etsy Art Painting Showcase where one of my watercolors will be featured. All you have to do is select said category in the left hand drop down box.
So the holidays are upon us which means that The Breaux Siblings have begun discussing New Year Plans. We don’t do resolutions per say, but we sure like to commit to something personally meaningful when the fresh calendar goes up on wall. For me, 2009 was an ENTIRE YEAR of music and art therapy. It’s been real. I’ve grown. How to top that? Brother had this really awesome idea to set up a camera in his new apartment and take a picture every day at the same time. At the end of the year he would time-lapse it into a beautiful illustration of life and seasons. I wish I had thought of that.
Instead, I’ve borrowed an idea from a feminist writer, who borrowed the idea from one of her professors in college: Read nothing but books written by women for one whole year. It’s pretty ambitious for me and let me explain why. I went to a college prep high-school where I was required to memorize portions of The Bible (Old Mouldly Testament at that), The Prologue to Romeo and Juliet and for reasons I will never understand, The Lord’s Prayer in Old English (a nasty, foul language). Later, I matriculated at LSU where worship of Great Southern Male Authors is something of a religion. Sure, I had a class with an old bat who actually took tea and vacations with the incredible Eudora Welty, but my professor dismissed this relationship flippantly with a, “but let’s talk of Faulkner shall we?” Gag. Then I went to law school.
So when I read of this idea, this amazing idea, it struck me as revolutionary. Which is pathetic. And precisely because of the pathetic-ness of the whole situation, I feel Great about my 2010 plan. It’s exactly what I need to do. Preparation will be what determines success or failure in my little endeavor. I’ll have to start making my Book List in advance, which I will publish here. You, friend, could contribute with recommendations. I might even take them. I also might shoot for some number goal like, say, 50 books. And I’m allowing myself one male indulgence: should the venerable Philip Pullman publish, I shall read.
I thought of doing this with filmmakers too, but that’s just not going to happen. I am infinitely more lazy about what I watch. Case in point: I’m off to see the decidedly un-feminist New Moon this afternoon.
Slow it Down
With less than a month to go, I’m only half-way though my Christmas knitting project. So now is the time when I start asking myself: were you insane? What made you think you could knit six pairs of gloves in eight weeks? I do have two cats, I sip tea before bed, I get crotchety if my sleep is interrupted; I should have been the favorite here. Instead, Saturday found me manically knitting an entire glove (bottom right) in just under two hours. If this girl could have one wish for Christmas it would be for a half-time delay. Santa, couldya just give me a few extra weeks?
I’ve put down Curtis Setterfield’s novel about being a teenaged girl. Closed. Finished. Finally. It took me several months to slog through this return to the odd years and at first I attributed it to bad writing. Only, Setterfield is a great writer and I was ignoring a simple truth: high-school is a painful place to re-visit.
I attended a prep school with a few similarities to the one in the book. So, imagine my confusion when Setterfield’s work made me think not of my own high-school experience, but of law school.
Many students at my public law school referred to it jokingly as Paul M. Hebert High. Like most jokes, this one had a strong note of truth. Life in the microcosm of the law center was disorientingly like returning to antiseptic classrooms, awkward sex, and waiting for the last bell to ring. I remember the not infrequent feeling of being mis-understood by schoolmates. Particularly those with penises. Just like in high-school. I’ll recount one incident to illustrate:
Early on in law school I was dumb (later, I would make a brilliant encore in stupidity) and I briefy entertained the idea of dating a fellow student. Worse, this guy was in my section. Dating a guy in your section is sort of like if you were to date the guy that sits next to you in first through seventh periods - if it doesn’t work out, you’re stuck having to look at him. Really close-up. Anyway, this guy seemed super-nice. Indeed, he is a nice guy. We talked, sometimes very earnestly about things like the past and the future. We watched a few movies together. We both really wanted to like each other,but there was no spark . For my part, I had grown attached albiet not romantically. I felt lonely in the sea of Sperry topsiders and croakies.
One thing I found curiously refreshing about this guy was his modesty. I’d never met a boy who was so modest and so thoughful about what showing off body parts can mean to a girl. He seemed to know that intimacy is complicated.
Then came Halloween. In law school everything is an excuse for excess, but the Halloween party tends to border on amazing, profound and creepy excess. The Guy, Mr. Modesdty, decided to pull out all the stops for Halloween. This apparently meant pulling out his package and going dressed in a thong and a bowtie. The guy partied the night away while his male-ness jiggled back and forth to the beat. I stared. I can’t deny it. I stood there with my angel wings vibrating to the bass and stared a lot. Not because he was well-endowed or because I was upset. I was AMAZED. Where had this person come from? Did I know this guy? Did I want to? The answer was a resounding no. I did, however, want to save him. I recall another friend standing next to me as we watched The Guy shake it on the dance floor. Said my friend, “You know, I’d do something stupid like that if I didn’t want to run for govenor one day.” Picture the all-consuming weirdness.
Days later, the boy and I officially broke our thing-that-hadn’t-been- a-thing off at his behest. One of the nails in our law school romance’s coffin was allegedly the fact that I acted like a jealous psycho the night of the Halloween fete and stared him down the whole night long. Enter feeling of being a high-school teen. WHAT? WHAT? Of course I stared you down. You sleep in full pajamas and look at your baby pictures at night. How are you also thong guy? How could I so fundamentally misunderstand you? How could I be sooo misunderstood?
That, to me is the discomfort of high-school. One day the whole world get turned over and it’s like everyone is playing a persistent and sick game of opposite day. Oh, someone did something totally weird and off-putting? Good thing it’s opposite day so today that thing is AWESOME! Needless to say there was much back-slapping and high-fiving of The Guy who thereafter rose to 1L super-stardom.
