Self Portrait Tuesday

08.02.06

SPC: Enclosed Spaces: Living the RVida Loca
Self Portrait Tuesday (12)

When Ford was about six months old, and we were weary of living in a hotel in Connecticut, we slung our money into an Airstream trailer. If not just as an escape, we bought it so we could toodle around the East Coast for a while. We trailered it with a converted stepvan that had a wireless satallite atop the hood, which served as Damon’s workspace, and I’d follow the trailer around New England in our family car, birddogging through the convoluted Boston construction, around granite cliffs in Maine, along quaint historical neighborhood streets. I loved every part of the journey, even the perpetually damp and confining bathroom that served our family of three and any visiting guests.

During the days that Damon worked at the brick office in Middleton, Connecticut, Ford and I spent our mornings and afternoons at the beach. I’d jog along the trail, he’d fall asleep under the billowing mosquito net ofthe jogger, and when he awoke we’d hang out on the beach itself. He learned to crawl on the sands of Hammonassett State Park. I’d put gossamer ctenophores in his hand, and they’d glisten little rainbow hairs as they slipped through his fat fingers. He’d wave his hands through the floating garden of red and green algae, slick translucent stained glass that looked entirely edible. He’d put rocks in his mouth, I’d sweep them out.

During the middle of the day, when it was too hot to be outside, we’d be confined to the trailer. And this was all good and actually lovely when he took his afternoon nap. I would steam up a latte and write or read. But when he was restless, we went a little stir crazy in the 22 foot trailer.

In this photo, Damon caught us decompressing against the screen door one hot afternoon, when we were too chicken to leave our three-odd square feet of cold air-conditioning and head to the beach.

Last May, we downsized and sold the trailer where Ford spent most of his first year. I miss it dearly, but what’s shocking is that Ford misses it, too. The other day I asked him,
“What do you miss about the Airstream?”
“The stickers in the windows. And the bed with all the windows around it.”
I miss the bed, too. I miss the encapsulation of our family within a small space, streamlining our experience and always having home to return to at the end of a bust day exploring some foreign place. That’s why I dream of a sailboat, of taking the kids for a year or so around the world, when they’re old enough not to need a “time out dinghy” or a line of drying cloth diapers hanging from the mast.

See more enclosures at SPC.
07.25.06

SPC: Me As A…Farmer
Chickens, Daily, Photos, Self Portrait Tuesday (10)

No time. Gotta run. More SPC. More later.
07.12.06

SPC: Me As… A Dental Student
Self Portrait Tuesday (13)

Once upon a time, I used to be a dental student! I did, I really did. I was so proud of myself: I had this great routine where I never had to figure out what I’d wear the next day, because I owned an endless supply of antique green surgical scrubs. And they were SO comfortable, like a pair of pajamas, that I often found myself sleeping in them with my books lying across my chest, the booklight still beaming down on me, my glasses resting on the arm of the sofa. At three in the morning, I’d have to turn on The Weather Channel just to have a chatty person to keep me company while I pored over flow charts and glossy Netter illustrations of nasal conchae, nerves, shiny pink mounds of taste buds.

On the first day of class, I sat in the front row, careful not to miss a detail. But with every day came another quiz or exam, so in no time I migrated towards the back of the classroom, where I was able to efficiently gather notes and vent stress by making fun of geeky professors along with the other juvenile students in my class. I could rest my feet on the back of the chair in front of me without being noticed, and eat the rest of my egg McMuffin and orange juice, or study for the next exam.

In gross anatomy, we were assigned a woman in her mid-seventies. Her lungs were matte and moldy black from years of smoking. Her withered terrain made me sad and her cross-section was so yellow with fat that I couldn’t eat enchiladas for the entire year. For weeks I tried masking the smell of formaldehyde with Vicks Vap-O-Rub, but it left my nose chilled and my chest filled with a heavy ghost of tank juice (which is what I called the bath). By the end of the year I’d resigned to the smell of gross lab, because there was little time to fret over odors during finals.

In this hilarious and surreal picture above you see me posing, as if I were about to grind the surface of a tooth down with a huge burr. We were clowning around that day and I think this was a halfass attempt to be amusing. I look possessed. What do you think?

When I transferred to California (University of the Pacific) during my second year, I suddenly felt at a crossroads where dental school, and all the rigidity it imposed on me, represented a dead-end road. So, to sum up an emotional month or two that followed: I quit. And I haven’t looked back.
…But I would like to know where I put all those probes and scraping tools, because they’d come in handy right now with the encaustic painting!

Enjoy more Self Portrait Challenge.
06.27.06

SPC: Pop Art: week 4
Self Portrait Tuesday (12)

Watching soccer on five plasma screen tvs at the same time. Drinking beer and eating fries with mayo (indeed) under the misting fans. There’s the modern dining experience. More SPC.

06.20.06

SPC: Pop Art: week 3
Self Portrait Tuesday (7)

I’m supposed to write something about this photograph, according to the Self Portrait Challenge rules. Well, screw that. I don’t have a thing to say about this photograph. I just like it. So there.

Self Portrait Challenge

06.06.06

SPC: Pop Art: week 1
Daily, Exploring, Ford, Self Portrait Tuesday (4)

Summer is saturated with mass-production. The sun destroys anything left outside. So after lingering twilight, chasing fireflies and each other around the flowerbeds, toys stay outside night and day. Our home has stretched out onto the lawn. Plastic toys will only last a few months in this climate.

This is an inflatable swimming pool that I bought last summer. I also bagged sand toys, beach balls and a Slip and Slide, but these have all been shuffled into the other toys, buried in sand and punctured by piercing UVrays. This pool has lasted longer than I imagined, knowing when I bought it that it would destruct by Fall, like summer plastic tends to do.

It’s beginning to get a fair amount of use, now that we’re baking our way towards the double digits. And every day we drain it, like I’m doing (with Ford) in the photo above. I don’t have time for stylized puns on Pop art. Take this as a nod to mass production. We like it. Well, maybe not, but it’s convenient and cheap and beautiful when you’re short on cash. And who isn’t, when you majored in Industrial Design in school?

And you can see more Pop art self portraits here.

Speaking of mass-produced: balloons. They are in high demand at our home. Chas loves them. We can drive by Blockbuster (our fallback now that all of our Netflix movies have gone awol) and Chas will scream for boobahs. BOOBAH!!?!? BOOBAH?! BOOBAHH?! like some heroin addict. JUST! ONE! FIX!!!
We brought home two of the Blockbuster balloons with us on Friday, and Ford picked one up to practice the properties of static electricity.

So he rubbbbbbed the balloon on his nappy hair a minute and then I watched him hold the balloon over a small mount of sugar. The sugar flitted excitedly on the table. “A sugarstorm, mom!” He passed the balloon over a pile of punched paper holes: “Dancing dots, mom!” and then he passed the balloon over an ant trail in the kitchen: “Mom! Check it OUT!” And, sure enough, the ants were flicking up onto the balloon. Can you see them? They’re tiny pharoah ants (otherwise known as ‘Piss Ants’ by my father in-law, the entomologist). Science is so funny.
05.24.06

SPC: Introduction #2: How I Operate
Self Portrait Tuesday (3)

While it’s true that I prefer to stand in the wings and allow my children the limelight, there are a couple of hours each day that I reserve solely for myself. I’m completely selfish with this time. It’s my workout time, maintenance time, and I tend to either drop them off at a sitter or ignore them (…as I trot around the hood with them in the jogger–relax!) . Lately, I drop them off with the fitness club child care; I can no longer ignore them and jog around the neighborhood while they drift asleep. They’re too excited about the universe at this age, full of questions and their own ideas. Bridling this kind of vitality kind of quenches my own, and I hate myself for dragging them into my sphere (but occasionally I still try).

When one of the kids is sick, as they were a few weeks ago, the machinery jams and I have to get creative. Fortunately, I have friends (hi Polly!) who can watch the kids when I need to go to the gym. Sometimes, I may do pilates at midnight on the living room floor. When all else fails, I have to do yoga when the kids are home. And it usually ends with injury, no matter how hopefully it commences. Less than a minute after this photo was taken, I was in cobra pose when Chas climbed onto my back, sunk his fingers into my nose, pulled my head back and really pissed me off. I clutched my nose, seeing stars, and had to run into the kitchen so the blood percolating from my nose wouldn’t drip onto the Bella rug.

SPC
05.16.06

SPC: Introduction
Self Portrait Tuesday (13)

I’m happiest when my children occupy the stage. Right now I’m enjoying myself in the wings, and this photograph captures my sentiments perfectly.

Self Portrait Challenge
03.23.06

SPT: time :week 3
Daily, Exploring, Photos, Self Portrait Tuesday (2)

We left the house on Sunday at noon.

The fog loafed through the canyon without much hurry,

and in our own haste I thought breathlessly about 101,

driving into town just before the tunnel above sausalito,

before hitting the traffic awaiting the Golden Gate bridge,

around 5 o’clock.

I was sad for a while after that, missing the eucalyptus,

thinking of how ridiculous is was that we had to move away from that place,

where Ford was born and where I enjoyed salty air in my lungs

simply because housing was too expensive.

The thought was fleeting, though, because the quality of life is good here.

And I like the smell of juniper about equally.

Around midafternoon we ran into thicker rain, to explain the mounting traffic.

When we arrived in DFW, cars were swimming in feeder lanes,

and flashing lights from towtrucks, fire trucks and squad cars reflected in the flood.

The following day, we spent much of out time in the car.

Why? Because I forgot how big DFW really is. In fact, we lived out of the car,

collecting disposable stuff and growing stinky.

Chas would go to bed later that night exuding that patented

deep-fried Twinky chimichanga funk, still in his day shirt, but too tired from

a fatty dinner to take a simple bath. Which is okay, because we were tired, too.

Damon had two exhausting days of training. A difficult thing for an introvert.

On the way home, I picked up my needles

and a skein of Peruvian kettle-dyed wool.

I smiled as we passed Willie’s Bio Diesel truck stop, in the middle of nowhere,

happily having left that muddled maze of people-clutter behind us.

While the kids were awake the ENTIRE trip back to Austin,

Chas occasionally would point to my needles and frown, reminding me to be careful,

by saying, “ow. ow. ow.”

SPT
03.15.06

SPT: time: week 2
Daily, Self Portrait Tuesday (6)

Midday, as the sun passed over us:
Chas dangled from my arms like a marionette,
complaining that I wouldn’t let him swim.

I inadvertently pissed off the fish.
I think it was my shirt.
Ford asked me to retrieve a berry,
he later pelted me in the head with it.

I fed Chas avocado chunks, but he didn’t eat much.
I worried that he isn’t eating enough.

While Ford asked “which is faster, ‘x’ or a satallite?”
Where x = many, many, many different things:
jet planes, cars, space shuttle, rocket…

SPT

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