Happy graduation to the kid, happy diabetiversary to me

Jun4

Today he graduates. So very happy for him, and so proud. Proud of his creative outside-the-lines accomplishments throughout K-12, yeah, but mostly right now proud that he hung the rental robe on a hanger to get the wrinkles out, just like the directions said. Just like the directions said! Public education, everyone.

Today also marks twenty years with diabetes, for me. Which makes it the anniversary of being told pregnancy wasn’t a good idea. It was the first thing I asked, because we were on the fence about when to start that whole deal. The doctor was like, well, you can try, but you’ll have a high risk of ___, ___, ___ (blah blah things nobody who wants to have a baby wants to hear). That nailed it. We knew that now was the time. How else do you know that now is the time, other than somebody with a clipboard telling you that now is not the time?

This isn’t my usual way. There was just something about that day and that doctor. Also, I’m married to a person who sees rules and restrictions the way some people see gnats. It’s artful, how he waves them away. Like tai chi but a kind of tai chi that erases cement, if that’s a thing. Anyway. Pretty soon Jake was in the world.

Today, at this point, there’s very little for which we can take credit. I didn’t even art-direct these photos. Honestly. I just made sure there was enough chalk for him to do what he wanted and I got the suit cleaned afterwards. That’s how it is, at this point.

I do take partial credit for the look in the eye.

It’s not my look and it’s not Scott’s but I’ll take some credit because I think there was something that sprung up off that clipboard that day, and lodged. Something like OK, mmm hmmm, we’ll just see about that. It’s a good look. It’s a very good gift. Happy diabetiversary to me.

Portraits by Claudia Danielson. She is the best.

Border Protection won’t let me give you the good stuff

Jun23

The last thing I did before I left South Africa this week was buy all this great food to bring back for everybody. Tasty stuff. Ostrich pâté, springbok pâté, crackers called Salticrax which aren’t exotic but the name is funny even if you’re sophisticated, like me. Supersophisticated. Look how poised I am while the manager at the duty-free shop takes back all my stuff once he realizes I’m American, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection doesn’t allow meat. And the Salticrax aren’t that funny on their own.

This left me torn between sadness over not having any treats to bring to work on Monday, and excitement over looking non-American enough that I got away with buying this at all. If that’s why it happened. I’m pretending it was. While I sort that out, here are some hassle-free souvenirs:

For Claudia, an undead flower.

For Brian who’s been painting and posting the most contagious black lines in search of his Black Madonna, a tavern wall.

For the Black Madonna.

For all my artistically risky friends, and the regular risky ones.

For my friends who worry about size of their ass or anything else.

For my friends who brew their own. This was in the yard of a microbrewery where Scott accidentally ordered a popular lager and the proprietor said, man, you’re at a microbrewery, you’re being insulting. We re-ordered. The head was impassive.

For Jacob who enjoys a roadside skeleton.

For Rachael who is macabre.

For Amy who thinks about decorating her rafters.

For Goth Mom whose shadows are delicate yet terrifying.

For Launa who would wear these quite well.

For Shandy, the only woman in the Western world to wear a baby as stylishly as Africans do. Check this out, with a bath-sized towel. Every mother there does it just like this. I don’t know how the baby doesn’t fall out backwards or why this looks so right.

I don’t know why I’m cursed with hair that won’t turn into soft dreds.

It’s possible that I haven’t surrendered enough, yet, to something. A shampoo-free life. Something.

This is for Scott and Becky who showed me a version of surrender, the version where Scott drives an hour in a traffic jam to a city that’s closed.

To see the lights.

Hello from Gandhi to Jake.

Also for Jake.

And here’s a little take-home for me so I remember how it felt to spread out my pencils in front of a breathtaking tableau and then remember that I can’t actually, like, draw. I can’t draw big things.

I tried anyway, of course, artistic risk and blah blah blaaaah. That was enchanting for only so long. About this long:

I was so blank in the face of that, I went up to the edge of the pool and took a picture of that instead. Like, fine. If the sky’s going to be that way I’ll just see what’s in the pool.

The pool was at Glen Garriff Lion Farm in Harrismith, where I also got to see this. I watched and watched and watched.

To simulate my experience, imagine that it’s chilly but the sun is relentless. Imagine smacking sounds and tearing sounds, longer and more luxurious than noises you can make yourself. But you can try. After a while you maybe can’t help it. There you are in the sun and the stillness, watching this, not a single canned thing for miles and miles. I mean hectares. Just this, and this is everything, and it stuck in my eyes and ears and now I’m giving it to you, and Border Protection can’t really do anything about that.

What the trashed and tactful are wearing this spring

May13

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.