luxe

what is this a photo of? answer correctly and you will win a little something.

firstly…it was 60 degrees today! it is supposed to drop down drastically overnight and then a snowstorm, but my oh my, was it nice to go outside on the deck to hand laundry (not that it dried) and not even with shoes on! it was a bit dreary for some of the day, but just being able to open the windows is downright sublime. i am not easily exciteable (outwardly, anyway), a fialkov trait, i think, but when you get to smell the damp soil, like when i go out to garden, my heart just soars. i feel like becoming a jogger. or learning to ride a bike. then i get my head back and just go and stand in the grass with bare feet. and that is pretty good. it really really is.

i was so inspired by the amazing weather that i did a bit of straightening up, the aforementioned laundry, moved some stuff around and then spent hours on another of the “house” mixed media collages. this one, no windows or doors, but siding and shingles on the roof. i dream about the work i have been making lately, or i do drawings after i take my p.m. medications and i don’t clearly remember making them (i am really odd at night, i make an effort not to call anyone or buy stuff online because i don’t tend to remember, i assume at the moment it seems like a super idea. sometimes it actually is, too.) i will post photos to-morrow. does anyone know what the meaning of a house with no doors or windows is? it does have a chimney, though. anyone? i kept fussing with outlining the shingles until i mucked it up, so i forced myself to just put it down until to-morrow. i have a huge problem with seeing the larger picture in anything i do. i get so fixated in the details that i screw with it until it is screwed up. when i was tattooing, this was something that absolutely tormented me. i get so so close to whatever i am working on (like my nose would touch it) and details drive me insane. for that reason, i don’t tend to work on things that are really large. i would obsess until i just didn’t want to look at it ever again. here is one of the early versions of the house series, i don’t think i posted it yet, did i? i am not terribly proud of not having much else to show you guys.

so about the fire. on sunday morning, early, jakie woke up because he smelled smoke. he never wakes up. i could smell it, too. it smelled like marshmallows burning. he went all over the house, to the furnace, nothing. in the morning, he went to make me my sunday breakfast (cause he always brings me coffee and blintzes or cereal and yogurt or whatever for breakfast. he is so sweet. i should be doing it for him, sweet boy. he asks me to come downstairs. he sounds stern. i don’t wanna go. i ask him what it is? did peeps pee on something? did i leave the back door open? what could it have been? i go downstairs, he tells me to look in the microwave…there are the charred remains of my embroidered lemon tea towel (part of a wedding gift we got from my friend rosa! i still have the lime one. sob!) sitting in there, and the microwave is all filled with the greasy smoke, which the magic eraser took right off, btw! the only thing i remember was that i had a headache and went downstairs to microwave my mint mask (one of my secret pals sent it to me, whoever it was, if you still read my blog, i use it ALL the time and would like to get another one, or find out what it is in it to find another…drop me a note. it is mint they say, but it smells like lavendar and something else, too.) i put it on top of a towel so that it wouldn’t touch the bottom of the microwave (why? not sure) and took it out and went upstairs. i thought i had burned my mask by heating it too long because it smelled a bit funky, but i am guessing that the smell was the tea towel smoldering. should i worry about my mask catching on fire? and anyway, the microwave contained the smoke and the flames and is a generally safe place for a fire because it will put itself out, which it clearly did. the bad part was that i didn’t notice the towel smoldering, or the bit of smoke at that point, unless it was that slow smolder? dunno. not good. we do have smoke detectors all over the place, though, and clearly it didn’t make enough smoke to do more than smell like smoke. we thought there had been a fire in the neighborhood or something. i also went through some severe sleepwalking spells years ago when i was under a lot of stress and misery (pre-jakie times) and i would do stuff and totally not remember it. jake has dealt with me in some times that i am stressed or have a really bad migraine and i don’t know when it is, where i am, and tend to try to leave. it is freaky. it is like being a blackout drunk, i think.

the other odd thing i have been noticing is that i have no appetite. i have gotten myself to always eat as soon as i wake up, and i went from not being a breakfast person (you guys need to figure out what you can eat and just work with it. you will eat less in the middle of the night. believe me!) it used to make me feel nauseous to eat when i got up, but i started slow and now i am hungry when i wake up. and i don’t do anything first. this morning i was busy and had coffee but forgot to eat and then i was on the phone whilst doing house work and house artwork. hee. anyway, i forgot to eat. so by almost 12m, i ate some shredded wheat, a lightnfit no sugar added yogurt and black coffee with one raw sugar. (white sugar smells like bleach to me, i don’t even use it to bake. blech. i have sugar cubes for anyone that might come over and want white sugar (my in-laws are sugar people. i think the brown stuff is scary. my parents, also. they use sweet n low.) but that is it. i literally forgot to eat. and i am not even hungry. i think that on days that i feel the least bit energetic, i am so driven to go and do and get and do and do and do, that eating just seems downright secondary, ya know? i remember what i used to be like, just going nonstop, making myself sick, ending up in the hospital or with pneumonia, or my favorite…legionaires disease. that one was rough. mainly because they told me it was a cold and to quit being a baby. story of my life.

jake and i got to spend some quality time together and i just love being around him. he rocks. he really does. how i scored a hot piece of arse like him…who knows? he will be in sanfrancisco for work next week and i would have loved to come and see barbe and diana and any of the other grrls that would be kind enough to show me your fair city, but i felt like spending almost 500 bucks on a ticket to go for a few days was just too much. of course jakie said he would pay for it, no problem, he likes me to come with him everywhere. he is one of the few husbands that really does want me to always be there. i just can’t bear the thought of him having to work the hours to pay for the damn ticket. we don’t have enough miles saved up yet, so. jake, when you read this, did you put your tickets on the card that gets the miles?

i am sleepy, so off i go.
i hope you guys know how much you all mean to me. your emails and (rare!) comments are always appreciated. jake always reads em, too. he will be doing another post soon, so always feel free to ask him if there is something you would like him to blog about…

xoxo
n.