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August 20, 2005

Solace

So I managed to haul my arse in to the studio to do some work and get my mind off the thought of Peter driving down the interstate, farther and farther away from me every minute. Mostly only because I knew he would be disappointed in me if I just stayed home to mope. I did some puttering around in my new space, artfully arranging all my grubby ink cans on the shelves and sorting through the five-inch high stack of journal articles I have to read. Then I dug into the big folder of half-finished prints I brought down with me, all of what was still in my print drawer in Windsor when I graduated. I pulled out one of the Green Lady of Hay Swamp prints to keep (for now) and stapled it onto the wall, then ripped up some truly terrible ones to recycle into new paper and started doing this with the rest:

Don't adjust your monitor. I know it looks like muck. I mixed up a transparent white and rolled it all over the prints with a small brayer to cover them up. I always prefer to work on top of old images, on paper that has a history and that I've already established a relationship with. I hate printing on a new, clean sheet of paper, and have to force myself to print a few of each press run I do on new paper just to keep from running out of surfaces to work on. But I decided that I didn't want to just bring all of my Windsor work here and continue printing on top of all those old images; there's too much baggage in those bright colours, those shreds of knitting and glassy bird eyes. I needed to push them back, into the past. Now they're ghosts, and I can start building new life on top of them. It felt good to cover up all that stuff. Good riddance to bad rubbish, as they say.

Some more things about Athens: it isn't flat. I thought that if I chose the University of Wisconsin-Madison I would wind up with better legs because of all the hills and stair-climbing. How could I have neglected to notice the hills in Athens? After Windsor, Ontario's little pocket of prairieland, I'm not used to all the up and down. Hopefully my calves won't get too big for all my favourite trousers (that's what happened six years ago when I started working out. I've since stopped working on my legs, because they were freaking HUGE).

Speaking of environment-induced body mods: I'm really looking forward to all the weight I'm sure to lose from all this SWEATING. My god. Waiting for the bus this afternoon, I looked down and realized that I had never been this sweaty in my life. Really. I'm not talking armpits and inner thighs and upper lip here; every inch of my skin was sweating. My ankles. My cheeks. The backs of my fingers. All covered with a shiny layer of sweat. And on top of that, big extra beads of sweat in other areas I don't think I've ever sweated from before, like the backs of my wrists. My t-shirt had a six-inch wide band of wetness all the way around under my boobs, and let me assure you that my boobs are nowhere near big enough to sweat like that normally. Is this too much information? Sorry.

Anyway, this place is just that little bit closer to the sun than I'm used to, and I'm not sure I can hack it. Maybe I could get used to the heat if these crazy Southerners didn't crank up the AC so damned high. They just hold their breath and swim from air-conditioned environment to air-conditioned environment. I'm lucky, my roommate Jenny doesn't keep the apartment too cold, not like everyone else here. But still, I'm wearing work socks right now. On what I'm pretty sure was the hottest day of my fucking life.

Those memories of apartment living are starting to come back to me now, and I remember why we bought a house. Someone above us is very thumpy. Actually, that's the only thing really wrong with the place other than the absurdly long hike to the bus stop with no sidewalks. The apartment is lovely, there's lots of light coming in so I don't feel oppressed, Jenny is great and at least one of her cats likes me enough already to follow me around and curl up and go to sleep next to me, although she's not so big on the letting me pet her. The other cat watches me warily and doesn't get too close, which is a pity because she's got the funniest tongue, it's constantly hanging out, and I'm dying to touch it and see if it dries out. Ah well, all in good time, I'm sure she'll warm to me.

Already I miss Peter like crazy. We've been doing nothing with our evenings all week, sitting entwined together on the couch in front of the tv (we don't have one, remember? It's because we're reformed addicts, so when we're in a room with one it's easy for us to get sucked in, for hours) and going to bed early. I skipped knit night to be with him instead, even though I'm dying to meet all the other cool knitty Athens chicks. I figured that could wait one more week. I'm sitting by the phone right now, anxiously waiting for Peter to call. If he stops at a hotel tonight he should call soon. If he decides to push on and drive all the way home tonight it might be much, much later, but I'll be waiting. Already I'm desperately homesick.

Posted by jodi at August 20, 2005 08:22 PM | categories:  art stuff : school : self-absorbtion

Comments

Posted by: Lisa at August 20, 2005 09:27 PM

Posted by: sarah hb at August 20, 2005 09:33 PM

Posted by: Christine at August 20, 2005 10:34 PM

Posted by: jacey at August 21, 2005 08:23 AM

Posted by: Norma at August 21, 2005 11:58 AM