What the trashed and tactful are wearing this spring

First, it was a funny thing Claudia said we should do. Take the pages of a charm book and wear them like a garment, like an evening gown. Then we’d always know the right thing to say. Whether or not to say it would be a different issue. Either way, a dress like this would be handy.

We did some test shots.

We got serious. We shot and shot and shot.


We made more clothes from things that had been ruined or just abandoned.

I think the coffee napkin Tarot lipstick corset was my best.

We also made lingerie from film spool tape, a skirt from grocery bags, paper umbrella hair charms. We shot with junky pearls and teacups. We shot in a housedress my friend Mike’s mom wore when she was alive and had a tiny waist. See this? I’m sucking it in. Like anybody with good manners, I am not complaining.

We borrowed an antique linen apron my friend Amy had hanging in her kitchen. Amy is so ready to sell that house. She keeps having garage sales. I think she’s finally sold the baby clothes (never worn), or given them away. I’m not sure if the apron was a part of all that. We used it.

We shot and shot.

Mostly we were silent, but sometimes we talked about people’s bullshit or the value of restraint. The value of knowing the right thing to say and sometimes saying it and sometimes not. In which case, in the jar it goes. Then what? Then you find other things. At one point Claudia got out a laundry basket. Not a pretty wicker one. It was the real-deal white plastic truth.

We’re shooting again in a few weeks. Let me know if you need me to take anything, like if there’s anything you need to say, or not say, or if you have trash or secrets that would make good clothes. I’d love to wear them. It’s alright if they look better on me than they did in your junk pile or inside your head. I was blessed with the natural ability to look pleased about being stuck in a jar. Claudia was blessed with the natural ability to see things not visible to the normal naked eye, pull them through her lens and make them real. Give us your stuff. We’ll make it pretty, or we’ll find the most charming tactful tasteful way to show you that it’s not.

Pancreas ex vivo part two: check out this dress

Everyone, you can relax. I know what to wear to really show off my insulin pump.

I found it at a thrift shop right there on the rack with a bunch of regular dresses. It was so beautiful. I couldn’t not buy it. Actually, I didn’t buy it, my mom bought it for me. She’s great. She gets it. I think she might have been thinking about the times I used to get upset in August or so if I didn’t have a plan for what to wear for Halloween. I think she might have been thinking, ok, if she has a plan for what to wear in the afterlife, maybe she’ll calm down.

Like I said, I’m planning to wear it in the current life but it would obviously work in the afterlife as well. Or at a semiformal party with a “saint” or “ghost” theme. So I’m set. I think what would really bring it all together, in any of those settings, is to decorate my pancreas ex vivo as follows.

It’s Saint Benedict. I went looking for a patron saint of diabetes and there isn’t one. Benedict would be a good nominee. He’s already the patron saint of inflammatory diseases and poison. His novena says he taught religious perfection through “self-conquest, mortification, humility, obedience, prayer, silence, retirement and detachment from the world,” and that’s the most romantic way I can think of to look at the daily diabetes checklist. Not romantic-romantic, but it puts a nice intentional spin on things.

So now that’s figured out. I also have these.

I found them the same day at a different thrift shop. Right after I bought them, my mom and I went to get my grandmother from her hair appointment. She’s 91 and her hair is bright white. I carried the shoes inside the beauty shop and showed them around. It didn’t really get the reaction I expected. I expected everyone to be amazed at my taste and say a thing or two about the woman I’d become. My grandmother used to work at a bank. She wore suits, clear hose, triple strands of crystals, the whole deal. Very fancy. Everybody just looked at the shoes, and then my grandmother, who is somewhat hard of hearing, pointed to me and said, “she’s a singer.”

That was sweet. I hadn’t realized she remembered about the band.

But seriously, those shoes would go with anything. I should have shown them the whole ensemble.

I don’t know my grandmother’s shoe size or what kind of timing she has in mind, or whether she has an outfit already planned, but if she’d want to borrow this I would definitely loan it to her. Her hair would look great with it and so would her crystals and whatever else she would bring to the mix. I would keep Saint Benedict for myself, you know, for the future, so that when the time comes I can make the outfit really mine.

For more on the diabetes and martyrdom, check out The Pod and God by Ann and diabetes writer/blogger/big thinker Amy Stockwell Mercer. For your own attire for the afterlife, you can try Frugal’s Vintage Boutique & Salon but I really think I bought the one and only.

Pancreas ex vivo

This isn’t my real pancreas.

It’s my new fake one. My new pancreas ex vivo.

The manufacturer recommends placement on the upper arm.

Or on the hip.

Where it should blend right in.

In high school I learned that if you had perfect legs, they made diamonds in three places. Above the ankles, below the knees, between the thighs. I learned this from a cheerleader who showed me in gym class. She put her feet together and pointed out how the light came through. I don’t remember where the backlighting possibly could have come from, but I remember the diamonds. I don’t remember if I showed her mine.

Here are my legs two years ago after I fell shins-first down a brick staircase. My shins scarred but the silhouette stayed good. Above the ankles, below the knees, between the thighs. You can really see the light.

I don’t know what the insulin pump manufacturer would say about placement here. I do know what the cheerleader would have said. She would have said, oh wow, weird diamonds. I guess you have four now. Since it was high school, I probably would have said oh wow, Michelle, you know what? I guess you can shut the hell up.

Arm model from the Green Point Market in Cape Town thanks to Scott Fee. Hip model by Henri Matisse, leaded glass by David Hanel. Pancreas ex vivo by OmniPod. For more talk of legs, love, hate, and insulin, visit The Smart Woman’s Guide to Diabetes blog featuring literary/diabetes superstar Amy Stockwell Mercer.

Ruined is the new remodeled

The second floor of The Grand Kabaret in New Ulm is half-undressed. It’s been that way for a couple years, the proprietress says. She’s not too happy about that. I think it’s gorgeous.

My kitchen is like that too right now, except without the velvet curtains or the Eiffel Tower.

I would love to half-cover up like The Grand. Love. Problem is, if we do that we might never put actual cabinets on the walls. We might never actually put up walls. There would be the chance we’d live forever like the second floor of The Grand Kabaret, no cabinets, just hot blue potential.

It would be terrible for resale, but good as a state of mind. You ever been all dressed for work and made expensive coffee in a kitchen with just lath and plaster? It’s pretty good. It tastes like craftsmanship. It tastes like nothing should be taken for granted.

If we could agree to call all this performance art, instead of regular life and real estate, everything would be fine. Everything would be better. The Grand would feel like home and my kitchen would be perfect and every day would be a hot ruined masterpiece.

New Year’s Day wardrobe reorg for the thrifty, the slouching, the three-footed

Approach your closet. Give it some credit, let it reinvent itself. It might be bored with you, too.

Consider a new silhouette.

Shoulders are key. Everybody looks good when they stand up straight.

Consider the power of footwear.

Consider the power of feet. Balance is everything. Three might be the new two. Bare is definitely the new strappy. Stand as bare and balanced as you can, on a ledge, even, and see what that does for you.

Back up and look at the lines. Consider what other people see that you can’t due to where you usually stand. It probably all looks great from a few steps away. For example, you probably don’t need half that much eyeliner. Stop standing so close and you’ll like everything a lot better.

Accessorize! You don’t have to buy anything new. Pick stuff up off the ground, drill a hole through it and call it a charm. If somebody else needs it more, let them borrow it. Get it back someday, but no rush.

You’re the only one who has to believe this stuff works. If you wear it like it works, it works. It’s totally working. You look really good. No, I mean good. A new year’s worth of good.

Photos at the Cathedral of St. Paul and the yard sale of ceramic artist Jake Zeiher, who has so many pendants, teapots and three-footed beauties you wouldn’t believe. Look!

Bad Mother Music

So I run into my pianist friend Yumiko at Cub. There she is rounding the corner to Pharmacy. I love running into her. She’s like, how are you? I’m like, how are you?!?!

Yumiko says she’s in between recitals. She dislikes the down times. Me too. She says it seems odd to have a teenager. Me too. She says she’d like to do some new art. Me too.

She says her daughter just got her permit. My son, too.

While we’re talking, my phone rings about five times and I also get about five texts. I don’t know it at the time. Jake has customized his ring so when he calls me, it’s his voice saying “Mom, pick up the phone pick up the phone pick up the phone.” It’s loud in Cub. I’m talking and Yumiko is talking. I don’t hear my phone asking to be picked up, so I don’t, and forty-five minutes after debate team practice ends, Jake calls the coach who comes all the way back to the school and drives my child home.

Yumiko says, what should be our topic?

Bad Mother Music. A song cycle by Yumiko Oshima-Ryan & Ann Rosenquist Fee. Sneak preview Saturday, Feb. 18, 2012, 7:00 p.m. in Music Area Room 103 in the Schaefer Fine Arts Center at Gustavus Adolphus College. Bad mothers wishing to be on the guest list should get in touch: annrosenquistfee {at} hotmail.com. You know who you are.

Black Friday, a Front Street/Steely Dan mashup

I’m going to tell you how to shop on Friday. Start at the corner of Front and Liberty facing diagonal. Aquarium supplies are to the right, the yoga studio is behind you, the jail is straight ahead. You can’t get that kind of balance at the mall.

Walk to Fillin’ Station and get coffee.

The 410 Project. Buy art, see artists.

Once Read Second Hand Bookstore and Exchange. Buy books, look at old magazines, pet the cat.

Sun Moon Yoga Studios. Just walk in there and Mona will sanctify you. Even if you’re cold and broken and can’t forward-fold.

Mystic Emporium. Tarot, crystals, numbers, everything, no bullshit, best incense selection in town. Readings by appointment. Call Sally: 507-388-9913. No, I’m serious. Call her. She does parties.

Keep walking.

Now you’re at Tonn’s Cambodian. Now you have everything you need.

Now you have coffee, now you have art, now you have walked close to the jail but not inside it. Now you’ve touched a brittle Rolling Stone. Now you have felt Mona’s hands tuck a blanket around your feet and press your shoulders down into the ground. Now you have bought a multi-pack of Nag Champa and been told you’ll make it through the year. With these things in your pockets and Steely Dan in your hearts, go forth into the holiday season.

Dr. Maruna takes responsibility for Charles Manson

In college, Shadd Maruna was always the smartest person in the room. Not just out of the students or the rest of the writers at The Daily Vidette. I mean out of everybody.

Shadd never took it easy, even though from his sandals and the hair, you’d have thought that.

Shadd publishes quite a bit now. We’ve remained in touch yet he has never once asked me to illustrate an article. I don’t even know what to say about that. As smart as he is, you would think he’d see the potential value-added.

If you ever went to one of Shadd’s talks, you’d know that he has good timing. I think I could help make that more clear to Shadd’s readers.

You can’t tell me this stuff isn’t funny.

Shadd’s monologue excerpted with liberties from Maruna, S. (2011). Why Do They Hate Us? Making Peace Between Prisoners and Psychology. International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology. 55(5) 671-675. Good stuff. Happy birthday, Shadd.

Still life with insulin

You learn how to inject by using an orange. It helps you get comfortable making contact and depressing the plunger, but you don’t get a good feel for how it’s going to pop through the fibers of your skin. You get that later. The one thing you know right away is that it’s going to be tough to dress this up.

I work so hard to make it pretty.

I keep the Lantus by my bed in a painted box Scott gave me.

I keep the Novolog swaddled in cloth. Partly to keep it from banging around in the fridge but mostly to give it a little style.

I like a 1/2 cc 30-gauge with a needle long enough to get it all under my skin so there’s no bead of liquid on the surface when I’m done.

If you start every morning like this, if you take some time with it and feel all that popping through the fibers, it’s tough to get too worked up about anything that comes later in the day.