Monthly Archives: December 2007

Are you kind of proud of me for posting every day so far this month? Kind of a little bit? Four days worth of proud?

I started working on a new painting this evening after work. Well, technically I had been working on it for the past couple months, dripping color onto the background, but today I really set in. Last year while I was painting my somewhat expressionistic and cartoonish variety of the human figure I thought on numerous occasions, “For what I’m doing here, I really ought to try using acrylic paint,” for I had been using oils. Well, I’ve since switched over to acrylics, largely due to my lack of ventilation, and I can’t maintain last years style. The paintings seem to have gone from expressionistic and cartoonish to just plain cartoonish. Not that I have a problem with cartoonish! I think cartoons are far more interesting than fine art. I would take cartoons any day. But I realize I’m a minority in saying so.

I have to cut this post short, my battery is about to die. I know, you’re so sad. Which is more dull, reading about painting styles or reading about a month long novel contest?

My new bedroom is adorable. It’s like this tiny little ship cabin—when I’m in here I am half-expecting the floor to sway from the motion of the waves. And my new little painting studio? It’s terrific. Now all I need is some inspiration. To cap off these little improvements to my living quarters, today we put up a Christmas tree and hung colored lights around our door frames. I didn’t even think we were going to decorate but we did, and everything feels very cozy now. If I haven’t said it before, I really love our apartment. If you are a reader who knows me personally and lives within driving distance (which I think holds true for most of you) you should stop in for a Christmas visit. We can roast some chestnuts over the open fire and sip some Tom Collins (gross!)

Oh, Christmas.

As for the snow, it’s mostly pure ice now, and I have to admit that this morning as I was attempting to get out of our driveway and then off of our side road I kind of wished I owned an SUV. But I only thought this after the second time my car bottomed out over a rudely placed snow bank, all right?

Okay. Having dated a musician that I was first a fan of, I should know better than writing about any professional musicians here. Well, that said and ignored, I am not quite sure about this new Rilo Kiley album (Under the Black Light). It’s not my favorite, although some of it is incredibly catchy and maybe they really are the new Fleetwood Mac. But I don’t set out to write music reviews here, I just need to say this: Jenny Lewis will always be my favorite female vocalist—always. I don’t agree with everything that comes out of her mouth, but I agree with the way it comes out! (If you have the album, come on, her last couple lines in Breakin’ Up? “Ooh, it feels good to be free!” Does it get any better?) Anyway, she’s it, she’s my favorite voice, forever. And of course nothing is quite as binding as the thoughts posted here in this blog…

I re-read that last paragraph and it kind of sounds like my opening line is hinting that I once dated Rilo Kiley. Let’s put that rumor to death right now. Rilo Kiley and I are just friends, and always have been.

As it turns out, that wasn’t snow coming down all day yesterday, it was cement. And this morning I woke up and got in my car to go to church but the cement had fastened me to the ground, and probably at this point I should have said, “Oh, these are no conditions to drive in if I can’t even get out of my driveway!” But I was stubborn, and rocked my car back and forth, drive, reverse, drive, reverse, and my neighbor even came over and helped me push because she must have thought my mission was urgent, if I was so determined to get on the road, like perhaps I was called in to deliver a baby at the hospital or some such thing. Well I managed eventually to pull out and onto a main, plowed, road, and I arrived at the little Lutheran church I was planning to visit and was greeted by a sign that read, “No Church today,” because most sensible people would have stayed in.

Undeterred, I drove a bit further and stopped at the rock and roll church, which was packed, filled with people perhaps like me who refused to give up to some obstacle. The minister at the rock and roll church was talking about Christ’s persona as a passionate bridegroom, which should have been particularly interesting to me because I had just one day earlier had a conversation with a good friend about this idea. And at the beginning it was interesting and I could follow along. But then I noticed that the minister had peppered his sermon with a few subtly disparaging comments about “the liberals” which seemed really unnecessary and I just shut down. I couldn’t listen to him anymore. And when they began to serve communion I slipped out along with a couple people who were leaving to smoke a cigarette, and as I tromped through the thick wet snow back to my car I thought, maybe even out loud, “Why did I do this?” Really, maybe I should have stayed in this morning.

I don’t think it was just his comments about liberals in the midst of a message of Christ’s intense love for his created children (Even the liberals! Even the atheists!) although that did frustrate me. Why do we have to use these labels and make these little jabs at each other? It’s not just conservative Christians thumbing their noses at liberals and secular thinkers, it is also liberals and secular thinkers demeaning Christians as ignorant fundamentalists. And while one (the fundamentalist) preaches that God loves all, and one (the liberal) preaches that we must be accepting and tolerant of all beliefs, somehow these two seemingly cooperative ideas do not mesh and in fact they repel in an almost violent way. It’s frustrating. And here is the thing, I believe there is an absolute truth, I think there has to be, it just makes sense to me that way. And if there is an absolute truth there really can’t be any universal agreement, ever, unless we’re all agreeing to believe the same thing. I think that’s why I’m discouraged by it, because I have a foot in both camps, a Christian first and foremost, with some increasingly liberal views about some things, and I don’t feel conflicted about it most of the time. But I do feel conflicted when I hear one of my affiliates speak badly of another one of my affiliates. I want everyone to get along, but know they can’t, or won’t. And maybe they shouldn’t, and I’m a phony for trying to reconcile these two parts of myself.

Well anyway, after I left the church I stopped at the video store because I’ve been trying to rent Waitress, but it was checked out, just as it was checked out at the place I stopped at yesterday, and I’m starting to get that feeling that I had when I was rocking my car in the driveway this morning, trying to get out. I wanted to rent the movie at first, but now it’s turned into something else. I want to get it because some force is telling me I can’t. Well, maybe they’re right.

Yikes, so this ended up being kind of a depressing post. I think what it boils down to is this: I was looking forward to an Advent service today, a peaceful, joyful Advent service, and didn’t get one. But it is still Advent, whether the churches are closed down or not. Okay? Stay warm and dry, everyone! Jesus is coming!

Here is what I just did: I just booked a flight to Hawaii for the end of January and paid for it with my c redit c ard and then a giant buzzard swooped down and tried to peck at my belly but I shooed it away and said, “Hey! Don’t do that! I’m going to Hawaii!”

And I am!

I woke up this morning and the first thing I thought was, “I don’t have to write a novel today.” And then I smiled. Instead my project this weekend is turning my bedroom into a painting studio, and moving my bed… elsewhere.

There are little specks of snow drifting to the ground as I type this, and I’m reminded that it is December, and of all winter months December is the least depressing, so let’s rejoice! Tomorrow is the first Sunday of Advent, and I’d like to have the right mindset about it this year, maybe for the first time, one of waiting, anxiously and hopefully, for that what has been promised. Good grief, can you imagine? A savior!

I’ve been listening to the Sufjan Stevens Christmas collection, since it is the only Christmas music I own but also because it is just so good. We probably won’t decorate at our apartment–we are Scrooges in that way–but the heart will be there. I am a secret Santa at work, and I’d like to make something creative, little clay elves or something, but since all of my coworkers know me as somewhat of an artist that would probably give me away. How does Santa do it??

By this time the streets outside are covered with a layer of snow. I hope everyone remembers how to drive. I hope I do!