turn on the waterworks
February 26, 2010
The second and third periods of last night’s hockey game were dead boring, what with all of the scoring happening in the first few minutes of the game. But, whatever. We won!
That guy with the “GOLD CANADA GOLD” sign had a white helmet on his head with a flashing police car light on top. Somebody on flickr said that he was in the front row at every game, always with the same helmet and different signs. Hilarious. He must have spent a fortune on tickets.
I always feel so sad for the team that loses, though, because I am a sympathetic crier and can’t see people crying on the teevee without joining in (it makes no difference whether or not I’m actually moved, and in fact television doesn’t really move me very often and I’m mostly cynical even about the few shows I like; the crying’s just a visceral reaction. Or whatever the viscera of tear ducts are, I guess). I wish the Americans could have felt happier in celebrating their silver, but they all just looked so crushed that the medals ceremony was hard to watch. The Finns, on the other hand, were ecstatic, jumping around and making kissy-faces at the camera. So cute. Anyway, it was nice to see some people in the stands wearing Canada jerseys holding up American flags and shouting “U-S-A! U-S-A!” after the silver medals had been given out. Okay, actually that might have made me cry a little too. I’m a big old crybaby this week. Y’all should have seen me hoofing it up that snowy hill to work yesterday in the wind and blowing powdery snow. I was crying up a storm then, I tell you what.
Another thing frequently seen on the teevee these days that never fails to make me cry:
The Tim Hortons “welcome to Canada” ad. For the record, I’ve never cried over a Tim Hortons commercial in my life before, no matter how overly sentimental and mushily patriotic they are. This one, though, I can’t watch all the way through with dry eyes. Good thing all this hockey will be over soon and I won’t have any more reasons to watch teevee.
Awww.
Posted by jodi on February 26, 2010 at 5.51pm
in which our heroine rides a wave of nostalgia and harbours wistful thougths for an evolving english language
February 17, 2010
I have nothing important to say. So let me show you something I bought!*
This is the same recipe box that my mom had when I was growing up. It’s also the same recipe box that Peter’s mom had, although unlike my mom, she never got rid of hers (my sister-in-law** has it now). I’d been keeping my eye out in secondhand and vintage stores for pretty much forever until I realized that everything ever made can be found online. And what would you know. I got one that’s in better shape than either my mom’s or my mother-in-law’s were (from this Etsy seller). It’s not even a rare thing, so I was able to pick and choose for quality and shipping costs. Yay! This brings me one teeny tiny step closer to my dream kitchen.
So one of my little projects for this summer will be writing out our favourite recipes (and some of the old family staples I’m always losing and having to phone my mom for, Mom can you tell me one more time how to make rhubarb pie/pumpkin bread/whatever-I-promise-I’ll-write-it-down-this-time?) onto cards so I can get rid of my overflowing binder and my floppy manila envelope of photocopies and the heavy stack of slips of scribbled-on paper stuck on the side of the fridge. The box did not come with the little section dividers I remember my mom’s box having, but that’s just as well, as most of those old 1970s categories are useless in a vegan home. Making my own dividers with letraset means I can have a whole section dedicated to TOFU! if I want. And a whole section dedicated to salsa. Hell, yeah.
Those Marina Jaques banana bran muffins are top notch, by the way. Not that I follow the recipe much, what with my picky eating habits and all.
*an old joke about a group of friends Peter and I used to hang out with a lot whose conversations (in which I wholeheartedly took part) seemed often to revolve around shopping adventures and the occasional “my new techie toy is better than your new techie toy” pissing contest.
**there has got to be a better set of words for extended family members gained through dedicated long term partnership that is quite deliberately NOT marriage. It feels like having made the life choice not to partake in the patriarchal institution of marriage dooms one to either using the “in-laws” terminology and thus being constantly thought of and mistaken for married OR having to use terms like “boyfriend” and “boyfriend’s sister’s long term partner” to describe people who, by dint of lifelong commitments made without the interference of state or church, are more than that. These words, much needed by contemporary families, should be:
1) short and to the point;
2) NOT trite and/or cutesy;
3) most definitely not a bunch of silly made up or pastiche words that any thinking person should be embarrassed to utter aloud (like, for instance, “ridonkulous” or “printstallation”).
Posted by jodi on February 17, 2010 at 8.23pm
notes from a travel day
February 13, 2010
A Tims cup amongst other garbage left behind by hockey fans at Memorial Gardens in North Bay last night. Nipissing Lakers won 7 to 2. Better than that one game I watched a bit of on the local cable t.v., in which the Lakers got scored on in such quick succession that two goals went into the net in the time it took me to raise my teacup to my lips.
Peter and I have gotten so used to me living away in the States that we keep finding ourselves surprised at how easy our travel back and forth is now that I’m living away but still in the same province. At some point last week I was pondering where in North Bay I could go to change my money before coming home, and I’m embarrassed to admit how much time I spent worrying on that before remembering that I don’t have to change my Canadian money back to Canadian. Even this morning as we packed our last few things before hitting the road home, I felt that familiar apprehension in anticipation of crossing a border, and had to remind myself out loud that this time we have no border to cross, no questions to answer, and no worries about what’s in our car or how much money we spent while we were away.
But the best part of traveling home to Windsor from North Bay? WE DIDN’T HAVE TO DRIVE ACROSS OHIO TO GET THERE.
Peter’s happiest realization was that he could drive all the way up to get me and drive all the way back with me and never have to stop listening to CBC. You can’t believe how dismal the radio offerings are through Kentucky and Tennessee unless you’ve driven it yourself.
My years living in Georgia left me with an abiding love for the red iron oxide dirt colour, and seeing that same colour cropping up here and there in the jutting towers of rock that rise over Northern Ontario roads gave me that warm sense of home. Funny that my home province feels more like home when it reminds me of someplace away.
I think there must not be any teenagers living in South River, Ontario. Because there was an arrow sign there that read “BUCK YE HORSE FEED” and it had not been hacked. I mean, come ON.
In Huntsville, a Tim Hortons employee chastised us for not approaching the counter quickly enough. Not that remarkable, perhaps, but it was kind of funny how irritated he was. Last night at the hockey game in North Bay, hanging back for a moment before approaching the ticket booth totally paid off because a man saw us, came over and gave us a pair of free tickets (good seats, too!). Nobody at Huntsville Tims offered us free coffees, though. You can’t win ‘em all.
Next time I’ll call ahead to the Fluevog store before wasting a good three hours of our trip parking at Yorkdale Mall and taking the subway to downtown Toronto only to find that the boots on which I’ve now got my heart set MIGHT be available in my size again in August. Argh.
dans des nouvelles de tricotage
I finished up the last few cable repeats of this legwarmer at the hockey game last night; my crowning moment was crossing a four-over-four cable without a cable needle without once taking my eyes off the puck. That only happened once, mind you. But still, it only proves that I am AWESOME, right?
The ribbing and bindoff were finished in the car and #2 is started; I should have been able to knit most of the second legwarmer during our seven hours or so in the car today, if only Northern Ontario weren’t so damned pretty.
Posted by jodi on February 13, 2010 at 8.47pm
wednesday
February 10, 2010
is the longest day.
Posted by jodi on February 10, 2010 at 9.56pm
and so we begin the sad descent into february
February 1, 2010
(the longest month)
Posted by jodi on February 1, 2010 at 8.01pm
in which we get a lead on where she misplaced her groove, and how she might get it back
January 22, 2010
I have not felt creative in a very long time. Did y’all know I got a grant last year? It was for a project. I bought a serger with the money, and a few other supplies, spoke to a couple of people about the project (as it’s collaborative) and then just sort of. . . didn’t. I lost my momentum and spent many, many months caught in the cycle of not working, beating myself up for not working and feeling so bad about it all that I couldn’t work. We shall not speak of it. I have a new, albeit temporary, job, teaching again. And a change of scenery and the energy of the studio classroom is doing me a world of good. Whether it’s going to do me a world of kicking my arse back into the studio and some sort of serious working routine is something I’ll have to get back to you on.
My knitwear design “career” pretty much fizzled out near the end of my first year of grad school, when I took on too many commissions at once and would up totally fucking off and wasting that year while at the same time barely pulling those design commissions out of my very overworked arse. I became that designer who’s a complete cockup, making costly mistakes, turning things in on time or late, and generally being the kind of person you don’t want to work with because they’re too much trouble to chase after all the time. I decided then that I would have to take a break from the design stuff until I was finished grad school if I wanted to succeed there. In the year and a half since receiving my degree, I completed one design that was promised to someone but I was so terribly unhappy with the result, which looked not-so-bad in photos but was not a project of which I felt proud, that I pulled out of publication in order to rework it (and I’m still trying to get that done, in a new yarn, with major changes). And I made another design that should have been so dead simple, but because of my total creative breakdown the project kicked my arse completely and once again I turned it in very, very late, the pattern full of mistakes, feeling like a total failure and no doubt disappointing people who were counting on me NOT being that flaky fuck-up. I do not want to be that person anymore. I want to be the person who considers each project with care and executes it flawlessly, and in a timely fashion. I want to be the person others can count on, not the person they write off as unreliable.
So. I think it’s time I approached my knit design process in the same way I do my studio practice. The project I’ve been dragging my heels on is all about making personalized uniforms for other people in a workplace. I’ve asked three people who are special to me to work with me on some new designs: I’ll give them all a set of interview questions, they’ll send me images, songs, books, whatever things move them. And I’ll stop worrying about what I like, and what sorts of designs I want to work on for myself, and what things knitters want to knit, and just design the ideal perfect sweater (or other knitted thing) for each of those people. Maybe this isn’t so revolutionary, and is in fact what a lot of other designers do. But part of what’s going to get me back in the game is not worrying about other designers and just getting on with working. My way.
En D’Autres Nouvelles
This house has more mirrors than Enter the Dragon but because I’m living with COLLEGE BOYS they are all kinda grody. Anyway. Here I am in the kitchen, a good ten metres at least from my laptop, listening to blip.fm on my expensive new wireless headset. I’m much, much more excited about this than I look. It means I can talk all I want on Skype with my beloved and still knit or draw without the constant worrying about getting my hands caught up in the wires and yanking the ‘phones painfully off my head. Now I can even take my laptop up to the Monastery (where the art department lives) and talk with Peter while I cut woodblocks! Except I won’t be able to tell funny stories about students then, in case any of them are listening. I’ll have to find some funny stories about the housemates. So far the housemate stories all have to do with inconsiderate midnight laundry (the machines are right outside my bedroom door) and dirty dishes and nobody wanting to be the one to replace the empty toilet roll. And that shit’s just not funny.
Posted by jodi on January 22, 2010 at 10.55pm
lazy Saturday, big ideas
January 16, 2010
So here’s the thing. Since I finished grad school I’ve had difficulty readjusting to my normal life in general, and profound difficulty in particular in finding the creative means to move forward in my life as a professional artist. It has been like pulling teeth trying to force myself into any sort of working routine, and I’ve mostly been failing at that. My months-long near silence on this weblog is evidence to the deep chasm of creative vacuum in which I’ve been floundering. Then I got this new job, a limited term (5 month contract) assistant professor position at Nipissing University, filling in for two courses for someone who’s on maternity leave and one course for someone who’s on sabbatical. And, just as I’d hoped would happen, being around art students again and talking to them about their work is pulling me, emotionally, out of that slough of non-production, firing up my desire to make art again.
So then I make a flippant remark (about buffet restaurants having something to do with Manifest Destiny) and y’all call me out on it. Which you should, and please continue to do so, because I say a lot of bullshit things without really thinking and need to be called out on that and forced to explain myself. But thinking and writing are some of the things I’ve let myself get out of the habit of doing during my long wallow in self pity and creative blockage, and right at the moment all of those reawakening muscles are being used up in my teaching.
Also, I really don’t have much more than flippant things to say on the subject. In thinking a bit about what I meant by my remark and how best to clarify it, I realized that the whole thing could easily come across as something else, something repugnant that is in no way what I mean by my flippant remark. So I actually need to write something that’s not really about buffet and Manifest Destiny at all, but about some other things only slightly related (and much more important to me). But, quite frankly, today is not a day on which I am willing to spend the effort on it. I’ve got lessons to plan and slideshows to assemble for this week’s classes. I’ve got drawings of my own to work on. And I’ve got a strong desire to stay in my underwear all day,
kick back on the surprisingly comfortable pleather couch in my new accommodations (note obligatory student housing Van Gogh poster), and finish this obnoxious yellow-green shawl:
It’s going to take me a bit of time to get back into the habit of writing, just as it will to get into the habit of making work. It’ll happen.
In other news: I’ve been thinking a lot about the physical spaces in which I’ve been working (or trying to work), about how I’d ultimately like to arrange my working life, and what exactly I’m hoping to achieve with my printmaking. I currently rent studio space at the local artist-run print studio and have a supplementary work space (mostly for the sewing part of my work) in the front room of our house. Working at the Printmakers Forum is good in terms of having access to printing equipment I can’t afford, but the truth is I don’t like working in a shared space, and I especially don’t like my studio work being in any way connected to my community service (I’m also on the Board of Directors for the studio). I need to set up my own print studio. I need to put pressure on my dad to finish the etching press he started building for me almost ten years ago (the hard part, the rollers, is already done), and I need to start piecing together a working letterpress setup. I need to find a space to house both the print studio and everything from my front room space, and get my studio work the hell out of what should be a common living space in our home. And I need to find a way to make it all pay for itself.
What I would most like to do is establish a small press-slash-bindery from which I could provide small run high end printing and bookbinding services and teach courses, and in which I could comfortably set myself up to spend the rest of my time (non-space-paying-for-itself time) pursuing my own studio work. All in a space that isn’t subject to the decisions of other people, and that isn’t in my house. But, despite my time spent in the purgatory of retail management, I feel completely unprepared to embark on something like this with my current lack of business acumen and planning skills.
And while I was wishing aloud for some sort of course in how to do market research and write a business plan and build myself a job and a business out of essentially nothing, Peter suggested that perhaps I should go back to school and pursue a Masters of Business Administration. It would be intensive (13 months of two classes a day, 5 days a week), likely a little more than what I really need, and a journey into a whole world of thinking that’s completely foreign to everything I’ve ever done before, but it would sure as hell kick me back into the habit of constantly working (even if the working wouldn’t be in the studio), and if I did it in Windsor then the tuition would be free. I’ll admit that I’ve always been the sort of person who makes major life decisions seemingly at the drop of a hat, but that has mostly worked out well for me thus far. I’m seriously considering it, and am planning to contact the school on Monday to see if I can meet with someone there to determine whether the programme would be a good fit for me.
Hm. Up until now I’d been toying with the idea of applying to teachers’ college, even though I really don’t have much desire to teach anything but art, or at any level other than university (which I’m already qualified to do, obviously). Is it possible I’m just addicted to school?
Posted by jodi on January 16, 2010 at 2.49pm
something other than snow
January 7, 2010
My new teaching uniform is basically variations on this:
-necklace/scarf: UNIFORM natural
-short sleeved shirt with smocking, thrifted over the holidays (Value Village)
-skirt: this one’s a little more casual than most of the others, but I thought that might offset the non-casualness of teaching in high heels. Value Village.
-several layers of tights and long socks: it’s cold up here in the Great White North! And from what I’ve seen so far around here, I seem to be the only person in North Bay not wearing trousers.
-mary jane pumps: Zellers
But wait a minute! You wanted more pictures of snow, right? Everybody wants more pictures of snow. And who could blame them, really. I got your snow pictures right here:
This afternoon after class I took a chance and walked home down the winding snowy path that used to be a road (no longer a road because the hairpin turns it took to get up the big hill were too dangerous). I’d been told that the path wasn’t plowed in winter but was well-traveled enough to be good and packed down. My plan was to check it out on the weekend, when I didn’t have anywhere to be, in case I got lost and ended up walking in circles or getting a huge soaker in my boot. But tonight I didn’t feel like waiting half an hour for a bus and I sort of had to pee, so I went for it. Turns out it’s impossible to get lost, and it’s faster than the bus! Plus two dollars cheaper. And when I got to the bottom of the path where it picks up the other road, I could see my bus stop from there. This town is so much tinier than Google Maps makes it look.
I’m betting it’s not quite so quick a trip going the other way, uphill. But the extra cardio workout is going to be worth it.
Posted by jodi on January 7, 2010 at 6.13pm
of flesh and blood I’m made
January 5, 2010
Here is my 2009 überlist wrap-up. Every year I write down my list of goals in the front of my year-of-the-what datebook, then promptly forget to ever check the list, pretty much ensuring that only the ones that are actually important to me get done. This year it was worse: I spent the year up against a profound creative block that I couldn’t shake, and even though I had the time to devote to my studio work, I didn’t have the energy or the emotional fortitude to take advantage of my situation. So the items on the list that were the most important, those that were work related, did not happen. As well, most of the work around the house type stuff didn’t happen. This year I’m going to repeat some of last year’s goals in hopes of really getting all new-leafy for reals this time, and I’m also going to try and make the list as a whole more realistic. As for the creative block: I have a feeling my new job is going to have a great impact on getting rid of that, and allow me to focus my energies on my studio practice again.
Because I want to dwell on the positive here (in fact, I think I’ll put that at the top of 2010’s list), I’m only listing the items I accomplished. All the others are just dust in the wind as far as I’m concerned. I’m also going to give myself half points for a few that I half-accomplished. As incentive!
Goals I met in 2009:
1. no refined sugar for at least a month: half points, because I don’t know if I ever managed to go a whole month in a row without slipping at all (I do occasionally use a small amount of sugar, usually demerara, in cooking), but I did limit my sugar intake to pretty close to nothing all year.
7: 365 days flickr project: I did that, and ended up mostly hating it. In fact, I think it killed my other picture-taking-and-posting activities. I missed a lot of days but I’m still taking the point for sticking it out even after I was completely done with it in my mind.
9: use chopsticks once a week for practice: maybe not every week but pretty close to it, and often several times a week.
12: eat more greens (2 x or more a week): yup.
13: drink more whiskey: hell yes.
18: clean up my work table: Points for doing it once, since I didn’t specify otherwise. I did not, however, get points for the following item, which was to keep it clean.
21: try a new recipe from every cookbook we own: half point. I tried a lot of new recipes this year, some of them from books I hadn’t really cracked before. I tend to rely more on my favourite vegan food blogs for new recipes. I’m going to try this again for next year.
23: organize my fabrics and sewing stuff: It didn’t entirely stay organized, but I did do it in tandem with the filing cabinet clean-out.
30: update in progress section of website: done. Needs to be done again, though.
32: clean out basement built-in shelves (painting stuff): half point, since there are two equal-sized sections (one with doors, one without) and I fully cleaned out and organized the part with the doors. Which, unfortunately, is not the part where the painting supplies are kept.
33: get the rest of my student work onto flickr (spring 2008 lithography class)
34: water plants every week, no forgetting!
37: clean out filing cabinet
39: get a job: I did indeed get a job: a full-time limited term faculty position at Nipissing University for the spring 2010 semester, teaching two drawing classes and a printmaking class. I started yesterday!
59: finish wallpaper in bathroom: the sections I started were finished, and since it’s not my decision alone I deferred to Peter when he talked me into only papering the one wall because we don’t know when we’ll rip out those walls but we’d like to do it as soon as possible. I’m taking the full point, because I never put “don’t make inconsistent and arbitrary decisions” on my list.
63: make a new shower curtain: done. It looks exactly the same as the old curtain, but the problem was with grunginess, not with design.
65: have a picnic in a park with Peter: we don’t do this as often as I’d like but we do it once in a while, usually on trips when we don’t want to eat highway food. For 2010 I’ll aim for some picnics that are strictly for fun and not for convenience.
67: shoot a roll [of film] with the Canon AE-1: I shot two, one colour and one black and white, at Pennsic. Both are sitting unprocessed in the fridge.
69: shoot at least one roll of film with one of the other old cameras we have (the Brownies?): I did not use any of the Brownies, but I did shoot a couple of 12-exposure rolls of old Kodak Instamatic film that I found in Peter’s mom’s basement, expiry date 1976. Both were shot at Pennsic, one with an Instamatic that used to belong to my grandparents, the other in one that was Peter’s grandparents’. I’m not sure yet if I can even get it processed, since it’s colour film. They’re currently in the fridge.
70: join the Printmakers Forum board
71: join the Artcite board
73: get my next tattoo
78: can something I’ve never canned before: picked cauliflower, pickled rutabaga, peaches!
79: go see In the Pocket at the Vic tavern: we did, once or twice. As they play there every week, I’d like to go more often. In the Pocket is a sweet little blues/r&b cover band from Detroit who have been playing Saturdays at the Vic for years. Their signature song is Purple Rain, and you wouldn’t believe how hard they rock it.
80: host 4 dinner parties: half points because I can only remember two. But they were super fun, so this will be on next year’s list too.
82: go to the eye doctor: new glasses!
83: get hair cut at least 4 times (in order to grow it out awesome instead of growing it out gross like last time)
91: shred old files
95: organize craft materials
104: construct features for the front garden (metal bars, helms, hippo): half points. Nothing got built or installed yet, but we spent some time in thrift stores amassing a fantastic collection of plastic dinosaurs and ceramic squirrels, currently in the basement waiting to become lawn ornaments of awesomeness.
105: disassemble the back deck: this was a joint effort: Dylan took out a lot of the boards for us and then Peter and I knocked apart the rest together. Now we are down to the original back porch, which is really as much porch as we need. Now to plan the patio!
107: knit up the leftover yarn from finished socks into blanket squares: half points. I still have some scraps but I did make a heck of a lot of squares.
Total score: 29 out of 109, or 27%. In the antiquated Beverly Hills 90210 scoring system my datebook offers, 29 points makes me a Kelly: “You accomplish a fair amount without much effort, then spend all your free time patting yourself on the back. It’s annoying. Also, you’re boring and nobody cares what you think”. Yup, sounds about right.
In a couple of days I’ll record here my all new list of smaller, more easily achievable goals for 2010. Because the level of boring self-absorption on this weblog isn’t nearly high enough (put it on the list!).
Posted by jodi on January 5, 2010 at 10.35am
all done with the slice and dice
December 18, 2009
I’m only showing half for now, but the other half is basically the same save for a few spots we had to leave unfinished in order to avoid some skin that hasn’t quite finished healing from my spilling boiling water on myself a few weeks ago while draining some lasagna noodles. Trust me, you don’t want to see that anyway, it’s Grody with a capital G.
This piece was designed to commemorate my tubal ligation, with Queen Anne’s lace flowers (an abortifacient) arranged to resemble the altered plumbing in question. Directly across from the little W, a corresponding loop of vine cradles a Q, for the name I always planned to give my daughter (after Miss Quentin Compson); the W is for the long line of ancestors named William that my Granddad used to say had gone unbroken since Hastings.
Giving the ladyparts the snippety-snip was my first time ever in the hospital, and I learned that apparently the sleepy drugs turn me into someone who thinks she’s incredibly funny but is actually some kind of Xander Harris-type schmuck. Upon waking after surgery I was confronted by two people staring down into my face, and the first thing out of my mouth was “are y’all done with the slice and dice?” (answer: yes) followed by “I guess it’s too late to change my mind then, eh” (answer: also yes). To which the nurse said brightly “I can’t believe how wide awake you are!” with a look that said “oh DEAR GOD SHUT UP”, and then I’m pretty sure she slipped me something to shut me up because I went right back to sleep. And woke up in recovery, rubbernecking at the dude on the next gurney over and desperately trying to see around the curtain so that I could catch his eye and give a “hey, we made it!” wave. Then I heard him ask, why is it warm? to which a nurse cheerfully replied, it’s because you peed! And I was glad he couldn’t see that I was awake and listening. And also glad I wasn’t the one who peed.
Posted by jodi on December 18, 2009 at 12.57pm
