Glitch
I have spilt tea down the front of my shirt four times this morning. This is not a problem because I'm working at the kitchen table next to a sick little girl and I'm wearing a yellow gingham nightgown, slouchy thick gray striped socks and over the whole thing I'm wearing an oversized blue flannel shirt I stole from an ex-boyfriend. As I'm sure you can see, some tea on my shirt is not the worst of my fashion problems this morning.
This stay-at-home side-adventure is an unfortunate glitch in the middle of my finals at school. I have done the impossible yesterday by making a little motion piece in After Effects sans any sort of training or instruction besides my own study. After something like a week of intense Lynda.com tutorial (thanks Rori!) viewed around the flurry of family responsibilities, my TWO Thanksgivings and working on the weekend, I produced a little motion piece inspired by Muller-Brockmann using Illustrator and AfterEffects. Nothing fancy but I did it and I love it like the simple lovely thing it is. Plus I do love Josef Muller-Brockmann and his obsession with order in the form of the typographic Grid so this is a labor of love for me. I need jewelery, I'm telling you: I'd wear a pendent inspired by his posters in a heartbeat.
Egads, that five times I've dropped tea down my front. My hair is getting crunchy from the sugar-coating it's taking today. Good thing I haven't taken a shower yet - I'm going to call this smart pre-cog subconscious foresight and also a new form of hair masque. What? it's a very new treatment - I'm not surprised you haven't heard of it yet. It's all the rage in Topeka I assure you.
So: sick child and I'm working/studying from home this morning until (hopefully) Auntie can come relieve me so I can make my second class. My little one must be feeling better cause she's talking up a storm which makes it hard to concentrate on homework. I've got crayons and paper and pens and notebooks galore for her but there's just so much to say about the world, isn't there? In an effort to get her lost in something a little more... not, you know, talking to me... I've downloaded my little girl's self-proclaimed favoritest song du jour, Avril Lavigne's I'm With You. She assures me that her dad has already downloaded this song and the video for her on his ipod so it's clearly 'apopreate'. Sing loudly, now, over the actual lyrics: "IT'S A DAMP COLD NIGHT..." Sheesh, the hoops I jump through to keep a little smidgen of innocence in this world.
I just noticed that there's a bottle of Martinelli's Sparkling Apple Cider out on the patio, slyly peeking up through the last patch of snowmelt in the shadow-corner of the balcony. It's likely that it got put out there on Thanksgiving to chill.
...Cider's cool now, everyone!
This evening I'm accomplishing the improbable by finishing up a Memory Box for my sculpture class. The purpose of the box is to give you the sights/sounds/touch/smells of a memory I have of my childhood in California of walking among orange trees. They're gone now, the California groves that used to grow near my house or beside the freeways, so the only way you can get this memory in the present is my box. It's fine woodwork and lovely cloth-parchment forms and the whole thing is beautiful/glowy/warm/ephemeral/creepy... highly appropriate for a childhood memory. I really like what I've discovered delving into the antecedents and concept of this piece but I sort of didn't anticipate how complicated the actual construction and delivery system of all this would be and now I'm in the middle of it and it's too late to stop now but I'm not exactly sure it's possible, ha ha hrm.
Yeeeeah... story of my art career, right there.
It's almost noon and I have to go wash the tea out of my hair and get this little slightly-fevered girl all clean and warm and put her down for a cozy peach-scented nap before I head out to Digital Design class and then on to Woodshop until forever o'clock. Life is crazy-making right now but I need to remember that everyone's happy and my hair is going to be shiny and basically it's all going to turn out in the end. Just in case, though - hug me when you see me, make me look you in the eyes and repeat after you: "IT'S GOING TO BE OK."
I regret to inform you that I won't be wearing this interesting Little-House_on-the-Prairie-meets-grunge ensemble when you see me.