new studio!

I just moved into this new studio today. I just brought a few things, stared out the windows (there's two), read a little bit, and took a nap while listening to my friend practice accordian and harmonica next door.

on waking up

The sound of cars passing by on Rte 12, with the front porch and a couple yards of lawn between the road and my bedroom window, is more gentle than an alarm clock, even adding on the doot-doot-doot backing-up sounds the construction trucks make just on the other side of the house.

I hear these sounds and even before I open my eyes I can guess what time it is. If I'm still half asleep I can guess what day of the week it is, too, by the absense or presense of the construction truck doot doot doot. If the cars are passing three or four or more in a row on either side of the two-lane roadway, then I know it's probably 7:30 or 8am, and the morning commute is commencing in earnest. 

Meanwhile, I'm deciding whether the dream I just had is worth remembering and writing down. Sometimes I have to write it down quickly before the whole thing fades. Other times they are so vivid I can remember them through the day and can still recall them before I go to sleep that night. Either way I have to decide, and once I do then I have to either write the thing down or get up and go about my day. No in-between there.

Occasionally I'll get a nice surprise, dreamwise. Recently I had a dream that someone I knew, only a little in college and not at all now, kissed me. I don't know why he kissed me. I don't know what was going on before that kiss, or afterwards. But those moments of intimacy, and it's palpable tenderness, linger on. 

So the gentle surf-like sound of cars passing on the road is a better backdrop for remembering such moments than the sudden sound of just about anything a foot away from my ear, as you may be able to imagine. No alarm clocks here.

 

early this morning

Last night I dreamed X stopped to talk with me but didn't really want to talk. Was considering not talking with me at all. As X was talking to me (about not talking to me) I could see X didn't have any teeth, that is, the jagged gaps where X's teeth used to be - as if they'd just been pulled, except X's mouth wasn't bloody.

I was thinking about this dream. Feeling bad, feeling I'd been unaccountably rude back some months ago, was it really that long ago?, when I thought what it meant that X didn't have any teeth: X's opinion/words/attitude didn't "have any teeth"; no bite; couldn't hurt me!

I had the most delicious feeling of relief and realized I'd hit on something undeniably true. I just smiled and smiled.



On an entirely different subject, really different, I got my first mammogram this morning.

A few months ago I switched doctors, and they (the doctor and the nurse-practitioner) recommended I get a mammogram, and scheduled the appointment for me at the local hospital. I'm forty-two, and since my family doesn't have a history of breast cancer it's ok I waited this long. But now, probably, I'm going to get one every year. Not that anything is wrong, but I want to know about it as soon as possible if anything does go wrong in the future. It's helpful that the health insurance I have covers one mammogram per year. I don't know how much it costs out of pocket, but probably more than I can afford...then again, maybe I can. I just looked it up and apparently it can cost between $50 - $150. Not anywhere near as bad as I thought. I was feeling pretty good about the insurance company covering it, but now I realize it's not much skin off their noses. Dang. Why they cover mammograms and not any kind of bloodwork that indicates other kind of preventable diseases, is a mystery (except bloodwork, as a preventative tool, is probably more expensive...and more frequently used than mammograms). Sigh. Whatever.

So I went up to the hospital at 7:45am, so I could be 30 minutes early for my 8:30am appointment. After checking in I ran into a woman I know, who was on her way out. Without thinking I said "how are you?" and got an iffy reply. She'd just gotten a mammogram! She told me it wasn't too bad, and if I relaxed my shoulders it would help. O-kay. I got into the waiting room and didn't even see the little changing rooms and went straight to the lavatory to change into the hospital gown. But I was used to gowns being wrong side around and went out to get help to snap it up in the back. A very nice woman in the waiting room told me the snaps go in the front for mammogram exams. Oh, yeah, that makes sense. I put my sweater on over the gown...it was something like -20 this morning...and waited my turn. I put my coat and tops in one of the lockers. I filled out the forms. Then, after the woman who'd turned on the TV left I turned it off and looked around. Lots of signage about where the gowns were and disclaimers about waiting times and payment plans, and the hospital not being responsible for lost or stolen items. But nothing about the changing rooms being changing rooms, how to put on the gowns, or what to do if you've never had a mammogram before. Oh, yeah, and this is the part I really hated: the cabinet that the mammogram exam gowns were kept was pink (nothing else in room was pink, and it didn't really "go" with the rest of the decor) and the cabinet was way too high on the wall for someone using a wheelchair. Actually, now that I think of it the changing rooms and lockers weren't remotely accessible to someone using a wheelchair, either. Does the hospital have separate accomodations? I'm going to call them and find out. It seems like an egregous oversight. I don't use a wheelchair, I just have a very strong belief in universal design. Anyway, even though it was clear the hospital had gone to some trouble to design this waiting room, they hadn't gone to nearly enough trouble.

Then I got the examination. The technician was a short white woman in her 50's or early 60's in a colorful hospital smock-jacket. She was friendly and warm and asked if I'd ever had a mammogram before. Since I hadn't she told me she'd tell what was happening every step of the way. She got me positioned into the x-ray machine, right and then left, and then left and right, four pictures in all. I was amazed how well she handled my breasts without feeling like she was handling my...breasts. It didn't feel like a loaded situation, it felt like she was positioning any other non-sexual part of my body. I'm guessing this must take practice, but it seemed to be normal for her, and she was completely comfortable in this very awkward situation. Thank goodness, because if she hadn't been comfortable it would have been just awful, because I was certainly not feeling super confident and at ease. So hats off to her for doing her job well! It took maybe twenty minutes. Amazing and normal and odd and uncomfortable and ok.

today

It's Friday. I woke up at 6:21 AM. I had been dreaming I was telling my friend Gina all about a crush I was recovering from. It was true to real life detail for detail (except I haven't talked with Gina about any of this, yet). The only thing that was different (than real life) was following Gina from room to room while I told her what had happened between me and my crush-ie.

Thursday morning my therapist asked me to think about how dreams effect real life, and vice-versa. Or, did he ask me how dreams and waking life interact? Or what it means to have dreams, and how they effect us, whatever is going on in our waking lives? Now I can't remember.

I do remember responding to his suggestion with sarcasm, as he knows I have issues about this subject, since my late mother was a Jungian psychoanalyst. Dreams and all that hoo-ha. Interestingly, my dream life seems to be effecting my waking life, despite my mistrust of psychoanalysis. But when my dreams act like my waking life one quarter step removed? I'm sorry, that's just weird.

My weekend is on Fridays and Saturdays. I spend a fair amount of time wandering around the internet during my time off, and today I've been spending some time on Maira Kalman's blog: here

I also ran into an aquaintance who is a bookbinder, who also has a blog and a website: maydaystudio

Both very cool, in totally different ways.

At 7:45 AM I tried getting my car out of my snowfilled driveway. It's only December 21st and I've already gotten stuck three times (front wheels spinning on ice under the snow). My next door neighbor took pity on me and helped me back out. But she said she's gotten stuck just as many times. WTF?! Winter is less than 12 hours old.

Mercifully this didn't take very long, so I made my appointment at the mechanic right on time. He replaced the purge valve, but first listened to another customers's engine, and then, while working on my car, took two or three phone calls and a visit from a potential business insurance provider (who he apparently knows personally...he kept making references to some awkward voice mail messages from someone they know in common). All this in less than an hour, and no more "check engine" light on my dashboard!

I park my car on the other side of my apartment building (where the traction is better) and walk downtown to mail a birthday present to my niece, who will turn 11 on December 24. I got her a little leatherette covered blank book and a graphite pencil. Last year I got her 12 Prismacolor markers and a big sketchbook. I am the art aunt.

I wander into my beloved independent bookstore, which can also be accessed at Bear Pond Books and I page through the 2nd edition of the cream of the crap, "The Rejection Collection: Cartoons You Never Saw, and Never Will See, in The New Yorker" by Matthew Diffee and Robert Mankoff. It's awesome, partly for the cartoons, but mostly for the seriously silly questionaire all the artists fill out (or ignore, or cover with graffiti, depending). They also have all been asked, apparently, to provide a photograph of 1. a self-portrait; 2. the inside of their refridgerator; 3. drawing a cartoon; 4. their feet; 5. their studio/work space. I love seeing all these artists riffing on the posibilities in these requests. The guy who photographs himself drawing a cartoon, with a handcuff attached to his wrist, also abligingly provides a photo of his foot drawing a cartoon with a (foot?)cuff attached, made my bookstore visit. It's 9:45 AM.

On my way home from downtown I start thinking about posting more of my mom's story on the blog, but first I pop some biscuits and chicken in the oven (I kind of skipped breakfast). I usually check out my main e-mail account, Doonesbury, dykestowatchoutfor, Found Magazine, my hotmail account, alas, a blog, and drawn!, before doing anything else on the web, including look at my own blog. And look at the personals hosted by my local free alternative weekly, Sevendays Personals.

Yeah, that's where I saw the ad for the guy I've had a crush on. He's the sweetest, but not for me. Oh well.

I did a little shopping at the food co-op a few hours ago, which was pretty busy at 3pm, but I knew it would be even busier later. Holiday frantic energy. Two advantages to being single and a Jew at the end of December: a short gift-giving list and it's all done before Dec. 25th.

I did write a bunch of holiday well-wishing cards to my co-workers earlier this week, though. I work at the Red Hen Baking Company, which just moved to Middlesex, VT (from Duxbury) a little over a month ago. I also work for Anne Davis, who is the artist who creates the greeting cards, calendars and now children's books for her company Anne Made Cards, which I used for the aforementioned holiday greetings.

Time to log off and relax on the couch with the latest issue of the New Yorker magazine.

Happy Solstice everybody!