“Living is a form of not being sure, not knowing what next or how… The artist never entirely knows. We guess. We may be wrong, but we take leap after leap in the dark.” — Agnes de Mille
“Inside you there’s an artist you don’t know about… Say yes quickly, if you know, if you’ve known it from before the beginning of the universe.” — Rumi
EAT…
“I can’t for the life of me not eat something that I want to eat. You know how if you turned on a faucet in your sink to wash your hands, the idea of not turning it off is insane? That’s how I am at ignoring delicious food. I can go five years without taking any kid of vacation, but I have never once refrained from eating a Girl Scout thin mints cookie if someone brings in a box to work. The truth is, if I were going to successfully diet, I would have to think about what I eat constantly. I cannot imagine a life more boring and a more time-consuming obsession than being preoccupied by what I eat. I mean, maybe being in a coma would be more boring, but then at least you’re free to dream about your favorite foods.
“And, the fact of the matter is, I don’t have that much brain space to use thinking about it…
“Healthy people are always saying that diets shouldn’t be diets — they should be thought of as ‘a new way of life’. Well, that is just the worst thing I have ever heard.” — Mindy Kaling, Why Not Me?
COMICS ROASTING OVER A BLAZING FIRE…
“When I watch roasts, I am actually physically uncomfortable… The self-proclaimed no-holds-barred atmosphere reminds me of signs for strip clubs on Hollywood Boulevard. ‘WE HAVE CRAZY GIRLS! THEY DO ANYTHING!’
We don’t have to do anything. Let’s bar some holds.” — Mindy Kaling, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?
RIPPLE EFFECTS, CLOSELY DRAWN…
“Deliberately do a small thing that feeds you. A little rest, some exercise, some time for yourself — and then notice how this affects others… run little positive experiments and let the results sink in.” — Mark Hanson
WHAT IS THIS SWIRL OF ACTIVITY? DO I SEE YOUR HEAD SPINNING?…
“Our much-vaunted American energy is also shadow rather than substance. It is not merely that we are playing out a new version of cultural decline… Every civilization has its twilight period… during which it hardens into a classical phase, preserving the form of its central idea, but losing the content, the essential spirit.
“Hence, Egypticism, Byzanticism, Mandaranism. In the American case, this phase has been aptly labeled… ‘McWorld’ — commerical corporate consumerism for its own sake.
“Check out any tv ad for Nike or Pepsi and you will see that McWorld has tremendous vitality. It appears energetic and upbeat. The problem is that since this vitality celebrates nothing substantive beyond buying and owning things, it itself IS the cultural decline.” — Morris Berman
“EVERY TIME WE FEEL SATISFIED WITH WHAT WE HAVE, WE CAN BE COUNTED AS RICH, HOWEVER LITTLE WE MAY ACTUALLY POSSESS.” — Alain de Botton
Yesterday I went back to bed. Did my Puritan ancestors back to the Mayflower roll in their graves? Maybe. This just isn’t something I would do. Oh yeah? It is now. When I got up around eleven, I went ahead into my studio and painted. Rumpelstiltskin, babe. Rip Van frikkin’ Winkle, babe. Bad to the bone. But what if I have become a person who lives in the present? Do I sleep when I am sleepy, eat when I am hungry, paint when I am ready, not to some freaky deaky schedule, but marching to the different drummer of exactly what I feel like?
The weather has been cool enough at night to wear a heavy black fleece sweatshirt. The black sheep, appropriately attired in black fleece nightwear. And possibly because of the forgiving cool weather, I feel wild and free. Like I can do anything. If I wanted to, I could:__________ (fill in the blank)… Get out of the box and flatten it for recycle. Get out in the daylight, and go for a walk…
“Box: a rectangular space or enclosed compartment… a casing or enclosure… to confine, trap or block; esp. to impede movement…”
When I was little, we were still living in a little house on six acres. My sister and I would plot becoming runaways, like the Bobbsey Twins, who lived in an abandoned boxcar. I suppose that is where the romance with weird living spaces started, long before I fell in love with the idea of an artist’s garrett. Never mind that boxcars, with their no heat and no insulation would be hellish, as were the various artist’s garretts I found to live in. My sister and I went so far as to secret a box of canned goods in my closet. But our imaginations — ramped up by keen intelligence, piles of books that fostered romantic notions of being on our own — did not take us any further than back and forth to school. Try running away from home when you are not allowed to cross the street.
Now I have successfully lived most of my life without recourse to what other people think or what your family, your husbands, your friends or your economic circumstances will allow. Who will change the world? Those who don’t like it the way it is. I have not set the world on fire, nor have I changed it in macro. But in micro, wow! “If you want to change the world,” says Tyra Banks, “start with the person next to you”…
This morning I finished packing a gift bag for my friend Jane who is coming to Vallarta in two weeks. Then I packed up two lots of French onion soup for my mates down in the neighborhood. Then, I painted.
“A few little boats, I am satisfied.” — Aristotle Onassis
FRENCH ONION SOUP…
3 big white onions, sliced
2 tbl. olive oil
2 tbl. unsalted butter, in 1/2 inch chunks
1/2 tsp. kosher salt
1/2 tsp. thyme
1/2 tsp. bay leaf
1/4 cup Mirin, or dry sherry
4 cups chicken or beef broth
slices or chunks stale French bread (or any old bread, I guess)
grated Gouda or other cheese (not Parmesan, too salty) — 1 cup
In a covered casserole dish, bake onions, butter, olive oil, salt, thyme and bay leaf @ 350F. (Use your toaster oven or a regular oven) for one hour. Then stir your onion mixture, and bake it for another hour. Next, put it in a crockpot,k add the rest of the ingredients and cook on low for an hour or so. Spoon finished soup into ovenproof bowls, top with bread, then the grated cheese. Pop back in the oven for 15 minutes. (Adapted from Elizabeth Bard’s Lunch in Paris)
LADY OF LEISURE…
What if someone had told me how fabulous it is to be retired? That I get to choose what makes me happy, and what makes me feel like I am going to a hanging? I would have felt like I CANNOT WAIT, instead of planning to work until I dropped in my tracks like bony old mule, because I was scared of all that nothing I thought I had to face. Hmmm. Not enough time in a day.
Think new thoughts. Make new karma. Love is all there is. Everybody needs love. Let us be love. And be love.
Out of the Armchair 