Swelter

Dear gods, summer is coming early in Washington this year. It’s been about 80 degrees for the past week, my snap dragons are drooping, and my house does not have central air conditioning. 

I also haven’t cross-stitched in at least two months.Work leaves very little time for hobbies and I find myself doing something work-related most hours of the day. If I’m not conjuring up weekly editorial column content, I’m writing day-to-day news articles, trying to edge my way into company gatherings in California, or authoring my own editorial blog over at Engendered Dilemma. I’ve hired a local friend and artist to create an original layout for the site which will be nothing short of fan-fucking-tabulous. Hard launch is estimated for June, but content is rolling in pretty regularly.

I make $0 off of it. It’s mostly an exercise in my editorial review skills in hopes of garnering more responsibilities at my day job and also a place to vent frustrations in gender/sex stereotypes. I also review adult content, so you know, there’s that too. Fortunately, the business connections I’ve been pushing also came in handy for this, as I’ve got myself in with certain publishers who promote my reviews of their material regardless of whether I review it favorably or not!

My personal life is stable in the best way possible. My significant other and I are heading to Seattle for Penny Arcade Expo as a double vacation/two-year anniversary weekend. My son is attending preschool and doing well. My ex is, well, doing what he does. I try to concern myself with it as little as necessary. He may be moving to the West Coast or overseas in the coming months but I’d prefer he maintain his general status as much as possible.

It’s bad enough to hear my 3-year-old say in passing that he’s going to “wait” for him or “go get him.” There’s no emotional resonance there when it’s stated, but it’s enough to break a mother’s heart. Children are honest in that way. On the other side of the coin, out of the blue E. looked at me and my S.O. the other day and said frankly, “Mama and M. belong together.”

Yeah, sweetie, we really do. All three of us.

Ten Year Late Hurrah

I’ve been absurdly busy post-Christmas. I’m still absurdly busy but it’s approaching midnight, I haven’t updated in almost three months, and I don’t want to let all these moments slip away before I put them to digital paper.

I moved into my new home in January, along with my son and boyfriend. It is a modest, three-bedroom manufactured home on a quiet cul-de-sac in walking distance from the local elementary school. It’s salmon pink and lacks external charm but the open kitchen, office space, nice neighborhood, and plenty of real, old trees make up for it. I’m ten minutes from everything and no longer resigned to a cell phone dead zone in the middle of nowhere. Life is good.

Work is rewarding. Somehow, I’m still managing to churn out an interesting column every week with topics generated entirely on my own. Convention season is on the horizon and I already have my train ticket booked for my whirlwind stay in Seattle. I am looking to cast my net out a bit further in my writing circles but haven’t managed to generate any real leads out of LinkedIn yet. I’m hoping to make more network contacts at the convention this year, however paid writing work is limited. I have enough experience that editorial content as well as news-writing is worth a monetary amount. I’m not simply looking to “build my portfolio” at this point, but writing often gets tossed in with graphic design and other artistic skills: your buddies all thing you should do it for them for free.

On the other hand, at the ripe old age of 25 it appears my other hobby has started to gain a bit of momentum: modeling. After having a great time at my local theater’s Oscar Party event, which included a red carpet interview with local celebrity and Project Runway winner Seth Aaron Henderson, I learned something else. Seth Aaron presents his Spring collection at our local fashion show and said fashion show was on April 13. Delighted, I found its social networking site and “liked” it so I could follow up on buying tickets. Soon, the event announced a model casting call for the runway.

I was on a bit of a narcissistic high when I applied. My red carpet entrance was published in the local paper as well as an interview. I thought Seth Aaron really liked my dress, and somehow managed to borrow $14k in jewelry for the night for free. I thought I was hot shit. So, at the age of 25 (ancient in modeling years), lacking any runway experience, and measuring in at 5’6, I sent off a few old pin-up photos from 4 years ago and called it a day.

I didn’t really expect an audition call with a date scheduled a week later. I practiced my walk and showed up in “natural make-up” and “natural hair” which means I looked a right mess. Other girls were there. They were much, much taller than me with much more polished walks. They looked good without make-up. They also aren’t covered in very large tattoos.

I stutter through some questions. One designer does all the talking while the other two stand a bit awkwardly to the side. The talkative one doesn’t like my tattoos. I inhale deeply and walk the floor. I don’t think I exhaled until I was driving in my car on the way home where I immediately curled up in bed and sulked.

The experience felt a bit like high school all over again. Untamed hair and a ruddy face in a room full of glamazons. What the hell was I thinking? Being an intellectual, a nerd, that was my niche. That is my thing. Stop trying to be a butterfly when you are obviously better suited as a bee. Quit making a fool out of yourself.

That pity fest lasted a few days before I got back up, put on my make-up and a favorite dress and went to the grocery store. Even if I wasn’t cut out for runway, it doesn’t mean I have to limit myself. I can’t be a jean and t-shirt girl anymore than I can stop loving cheese, and books, and writing. The voice in my head saying I was a fool was really that bitter, insecure person who listened to her peers in high school

And you know what? I got an e-mail the next week saying I was in the show. I was picked by one of those quiet designers in the back who liked something about my tattooed, nerdy self. I finally felt like I got my validation, in this arena. I’d already succeeded in writing. Now i had an extra helping of “fuck you” to everyone who treated me like some awkward duck. Those who tore me down for not being a “real” woman because I lacked “curves.” Those who said I had an eating disorder, that my hair was frizzy, that I was hairy, that I dressed weird, that I didn’t belong. To everyone who tried to push me out because I thought Abercrombie was boring, because my style influences weren’t mainstream, or because my hair was green, fuck you.

I’ll never be satisfied simply being mediocre. If I want something, I make it happen, and none of the upturned noses and negativity in the world is going to tell me I can’t. Because I can. And I did. I could of used this hurrah about 10 years ago, but I’ll take it now. I’ll take it and run with it.

December Calling (Research Story in Progress)

I’m attempting to peel an orange and type this, which is a futile attempt in and of itself. My face is also stinging from some cosmetic “sensitive” skin make-up remover that isn’t being as sensitive as its advertised.

It’s really neither here nor there, I just thought I’d set an overall tone: I’m attempting to do something impossible and I’m suffering some mildly annoying pain simultaneously.

On an upswing: things rarely stay impossible for me. I’m persistent like that. I inherited my father’s tenacity and good luck alongside my mother’s “calling”. It’s a word that’s thrown around the family coined by my great-great grandmother. It’s either mentioned in a half-joke or a hushed tone. It’s something that is accepted without question; obviously it’s been present for five generations now but we all grin a little for fear of taking it too seriously. The average passerby might raise an eyebrow if they overheard us. It’s an ability enhanced by belief. If you ask my mother, she’ll just state that she has more common sense than her siblings but it doesn’t account for everything.

For my mother and I, it’s often prophetic dreaming. Nothing fantastically out of the ordinary, usually just things concerning other family members, like pregnancy. If I’m tapped in…well, wait.

Let me back-up about 120 years. Like every good ghost story, this one begins with a death.

In approximately the 1880s, Lilly Josephine Diffey, a half-native American girl living in Arkansas, witnessed her parents murdered by what was, for all extensive purposes, a horse-stealing bandit. The account made headlines and left Lillie and her siblings without a mother.

Lillie Josephine Diffey and William Larkin Anderson, on their wedding day. Lillie is 19.

On August 30,1899 she’d marry my great-great grandfather, William Larkin Anderson and together they’d have seven children: Myrtle Iona, Della Aretta, William Jennings, Stella Missouri, Geneva Alline, Virgil Leroy, and Lois Louise. Stella Missouri is my great-grandmother. She’d have thirteen children of her own and spend most of her days beating the living tar out of them.

Lillie died in 1968 at the age of 88. She spent a lot of her last years in bed with her long native hair rolling down from her head. My mother, about four, remembers sitting in bed brushing the tinny hair down Lillie’s gnarling back. It was in these quiet moments that she sat in her nightgown reading tea leaves and talking about The Calling…

The Hedgehog’s Dilemma

Another series of highs and lows. The holiday season is in full swing and I’m trying to enjoy it. I put up my own tree this year and decorated it with my son and boyfriend.

I also signed a lease and made a deposit on my home last week. I can pick up the keys December 31 and start moving in, although it is officially mine on January 1. I’m very excited for this transition and was also really happy that I had some great friends come forward and offer to help me move everything on top of helping me paint later.

But everything can’t be perfect. Things with my boyfriend’s side of the family are cracking and I feel my patience waning after continually having to patch things up. I know part of it is that I am poor at putting continual effort into strained relationships that give little reward. Backing out quickly is a defense mechanism I am very, very used to and it allows me the self-satisfaction of deciding not to bow to people. That oak tree and reed fable sticks with me long since childhood.

The situation is worsened in that it’s unprovoked. I don’t know how to deal with passive-aggressive female back-stabbing. It’s as foreign to me now as it was in high school but I have less tolerance or energy to navigate it. So my  defense mechanism kicks in, the one that says “Aw, fuck this.” Yet, that isn’t socially acceptable either. I’m supposed to maintain social graces for everyone else’s comfort, but I’d rather not. I’d rather just quit spending any of my free time with them, and it’s edging that way.

Along with stitching.

I’m actually a little further than this now and working on dark purple. I got some time in during Thanksgiving as well.

My pasty, dork face.

I rarely allow a straight on picture with a full on smile like this it becomes glaringly obvious to me how non-symmetrical my face is and also how much my face shape resembles my dad’s. Thanks for the dude chin! Ugh, there are worse things. My hair looks great, at least.

Small Successes and Failures

I have two major points to touch on. One is that I wrote out my work schedule (I freelance from home) to help layout what needs to get done and when since I juggle work, school and raising my son.

Written in crayon because I’m an adult, obviously.

I write a weekly column and am also in charge of info slides that are played during commercial breaks on a streaming TV channel. I also pick up extra hours and format press releases for my main client pretty much every evening. So, while I work a lot, I’ve also reached the point where I’m, wait for it…

LIVING ABOVE THE POVERTY LINE!

My income is modest by all means, but it is enough that I can afford to live on my own and fully support my son. This is my next course of action which means my son’s birthday and Christmas will be equally thrifty, but I am so excited to spread my wings out and have my own place. My own little home, with my own little table and chairs, and kitchen…

…and not live with my parents. The stress level has only gotten more prominent as time has gone on. It’s a place that has every material amenity but lacks a lot of sincere compassion. They wouldn’t say that though, but it is strikingly obvious how much resentment there is towards me due to the burden childcare has put on them for my work schedule. Which is understandable, but it causes me considerable stress and I’ll admit that while its an inconvenience for them it’s a temporary, four hour inconvenience. I’ve found other accommodations through my boyfriend’s mother and my ex’s mother now, so even that four hours is now gone.

I’ve felt that the wounds laid on me during what is an emotionally trying experience will be long irreparable. I’ve accepted the mark on me at this point, and while it isolating to be a young adult whose work, something I draw a large amount of pride from, is neither acknowledged or understood by my own parents, I am so used to it from my peers earlier in life that it is hard to garner an emotional response.

At some point I gained a sense of pride and accomplishment inwardly, through my own abilities, and became quite comfortable in being alone.

Oh, God. I’m On Video.

So, I’m doing video updates. Video updates on cross-stitching. If there was any doubt in your mind that I’m a huge nerd, this is it. That aside, this is my initiatory cross-stitch post so I’ll start with a description of the project.  First off, it’s huge at 11″ x 17″, by far the largest stitching project I’ve taken on so far. It’s titled “High and Mighty” on the Internet if you’d like to it for yourself.

I’m not even half-way finished at this point. I work on it almost daily and this sums up about 2 months of stitching so far. You can hear me ramble more about it in my first video. Also, don’t laugh at me too much!

P.S.

This is now a craft blog. Cross-stitching and crafts are my anti-depression drug of choice. Expect MORE poetry, MORE photos and most importantly MORE COLOR.