False Starts, A-Weekending We go

Unsatisfying: to visit your blog posts page and see the top half littered with "draft," "draft," "draft" and remember, too, that you started blog posts at that bar with dodgy internet and that lovely restaurant last month and g*ddamn, why's it so hard to establish habits which honor that which you find to be most important? Turning 44 in less than a month, which I haven't acknowledged until now, and Javier is EVEN older, and I won't give specifics, but it's a milestone*...I'm trying to turn over a new leaf**. It's a pretty low-tech leaf, with pen scrawls over recycled paper with two-week buckets loosely gridded out. I can...ease into...a routine, right? So at the least, I can list out the highest priority tasks for the duration, and that way, given twenty minutes, or an hour, or a few at the end of the day, I can point and shoot, versus waffle around anew each day. We'll see how it goes.

As Sundays go, it was a pretty contented, domestic one, despite May snowflakes and Saturday's momentary hail. For years in make-do jobs, I often wondered whether Sunday's melancholy was intrinsic, or if it would assume a different character without Monday's work looming overhead, with its email backlog and sludge of meetings***. Well, I'm here to report that, yes there DOES seem to be a pleasantly mild, abiding sadness, but why?

Gingerbread pancakes started the day off nicely, paired with the afterglow of seeing Javier bask in his directorial success at the DIA the night before****. I carried Oyo across the street to see my family-friends in the neighborhood; and then we briskly surveyed the Yourist Spring Pottery sale tent. We followed artist Stephen Kerr inside Yourist, duckling-style, as he's

similar. from Lakeside Pottery

often a good person to follow. He talked about his new favorite black clay ("Cassius Clay") and let me hold a piece so I could confirm its buttery pliability. We chatted while Stephen made a round standing form. He sealed a 2 inch clay band to its circular clay base with a rolled coil shape (think: those tiny playdoh snakes from decades past), which he pressed down with a tiny spatula thing. The indents made pleasing little teeth prints. He added a second band on top of the first; and at that point it looked like an oh-so-neatly frosted milk chocolate cake. Also pleasing, but distracting. I thought maybe I could make the gingerbread pancakes with chocolate chips next time; or slather them with nutella.

favorite sweater

Stephen complimented Oyo on her best handknit sweater and told me that he used to teach his third graders to knit, so they could knit while he read Harry Potter chapters out loud to them. Don't you wish you had a similar third grade experience to share? My memories from that grade centered around Mrs. Sudler bullying a classmate to "not draw like a baby" i.e. coloring the sky in broad horizontal strokes, rather than a scribble here and there. Art ruiner. And she put up lots of blackboards of homework, which seemed excessive then but is probably normal now. Multiplication stressed me OUT.
 

...but not knitting for soldiers. from mylearning

The rest of the day meandered on, much like this post. I had pancakes and tea during Oyo's disturbing naptime*****; and then we visited the grandparents, where Oyo was gobsmacked by her Grandpa repeatedly opening the refrigerator and her Grandma handed her several paper napkins, which she gleefully shredded before eating them. And so it goes...


*as they say, when they wish to convey gravitas to something potentially unpleasant and resented. As with the entire rest of the human race, neither of us really feel we should be the age we are, even though I get carded tons less, "ma'amed" by either clueless young men (just don't address this, unless you're Southern; I get "miss"ed by the same demographic, which also makes me want to slap you; but since I won't slap you, I'll just tip you less) or male idiots who are approximately my age (you should totally, utterly know better; don't spread your paternalistic passive aggressiveness my way because you're not comfortable waiting on me; I wouldn't look down on you, except: now I do) *SECOND NOTE TO THE ASTERISK --he's older and also damn more accomplished. but to say that would be setting the wrong dynamic between us, right? But seriously, he has been following his passion with a passion for basically his entire adult life -- and he's talented -- so, yes, he's most definitely more accomplished.

**And, you know, fix everything about myself before Oyo stops being astounded by my poor whistling (like a bird!!!) and ceases to check in with me from across the room ("Hahaha,"...I mean, is this all cool Mom? This person is picking me up and knows that my feet are ticklish, is this okay?...Okay") and starts understanding terms like "self-thwarting."

***my favorite corporate culture video ever, Conference Call in Real Life and more, recently, Carrie Brownstein's New Yorker piece on eliminating conference calls 

**** A/k/a Rick Sperling, Mosaic Youth Theater of Detroit's newest "Midsummer Soulstice," which is really, really fantastic, my bias aside. Seriously talented and professional young artists. Isn't it lovely when you can stop and enjoy what a dear one has wrought, through vision and will? Which, again, is not to give credit solely to one person for the success of an entire play -- this only comes to pass through dedicated and impassioned staff; and dedicated, talented actors. So much hard work, for something to potentially exist for a few nights! But like grows like, right? An impressive display of talent, paired with a sense of command, inspires further pursuit of talent. Thank goodness for the ripple effect, wherever you find it.

*****Odd to sip tea accompanied by an extended bout of gnawing via the baby monitor; the crib rail now has dented spots free of shellack, ohhhh industrious Beaver Baby.