#182: Red Headed Stranger by Willie Nelson

Red Headed Stranger by Willie Nelson (1975)

Favorite Tracks: "I Couldn't Believe it Was True" and "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain" and "Denver" and "Can I Sleep in Your Arms" and "Remember Me" and "Hands on the Wheel" and "Bandera"

Thoughts: We haven't heard Willie since #254, and I'm happy to have him back. I wasn't totally on board with the fact that Stardust was so far in as an album of covers, but Red Headed Stranger is original music--a concept album, no less!--so I left my gripes at the door. In the 80s Willie even starred in a movie by the same name. I haven't seen it. Have you?

Well, no matter how good or not good the movie is, but I can safely say the album is PURE GOLD. Listening to it was like sitting in a log cabin drinking whiskey by the fire. It's mostly about horses and women and heartache (like most decent country albums) but the gentle flow from the first track to the last felt like a leisurely--albeit melancholy--river float. It's not all-out depressing, but wistful and nostalgic. I highly recommend giving this album a listen--I know I'll be returning to it.

Is This Better Than Bad?:

A Woman Alone

When she cannot be sure
which of two lovers it was with whom she felt
this or that moment of pleasure, of something fiery
streaking from head to heels, the way the white
flame of a cascade streaks a mountainside
seen from a car across a valley, the car
changing gear, skirting a precipice,
climbing...
When she can sit or walk for hours after a movie
talking earnestly and with bursts of laughter
with friends, without worrying
that's it's late, dinner at midnight, her time
spent without counting the change...
When half her bed is covered with books
and no one is kept awake by the reading light
and she disconnects the phone, to sleep till noon...
Then
self-pity dries up, a joy
untainted by guilt lifts her.
She has fears, but not about loneliness;
fears about how to deal with the aging
of her body--how to deal
with photographs and the mirror. She feels
so much younger and more beautiful
than she looks. At her happiest
--or even in the midst of
some less than joyful hour, sweating
patiently through a heatwave in the city
or hearing the sparrows at daybreak, dully gray,
toneless, the sound of fatigue--
a kind of sober euphoria makes her believe
in her future as an old woman, a wanderer,
seamed and brown,
little luxuries of the middle of life all gone,
watching cities and rivers, people and mountains,
without being watched; not grim nor sad,
an old winedrinking woman, who knows
the old roads, grass-grown, and laughs to herself...
She knows it can't be:
that's Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby from The Water Babies,
no one can walk the world any more,
a world of fumes and decibels.
But she thinks maybe
she could get to be tough and wise, some way,
anyway. Now at least
she is past the time of mourning,
now she can say without shame or deceit,
O blessed Solitude.



- Denise Levertov

"The time has come...to embroider FOR YOUR LIFE. Good luck, and don't f*ck it up."

(I've only watched 2 episodes of RuPaul's Drag Race, but I'm referencing it in the title anyway.) When looking on Etsy for embroidery patterns, I stumbled upon this mermaid circle/threesome/synchronized swimming routine:

(x)

I bought the pattern and filed it away for the future. I know what you're thinking. "It's not completely embroidery! Large sections of the fabric is...dyed?" You're absolutely right. I don't know how to do that! Plus, you know my love of satin stitches. So it stood to reason that the only color in my version would be from floss. If you're looking for a recreation of the above image, you've come to the wrong blog post.

So why did I have to embroider for my life? Why wasn't it regular, non-fatal embroidering? Well, I discovered my friend Lucy's birthday was coming up, and decided I wanted to make her something. But the days between that decision and her birthday left me with a little less than 2 weeks for completion. Lady With Flowers For Hair took me about 2 months. The logical thing to do would be to make a reasonably-sized version of the pattern for Lucy, say 6 or 7 inches in diameter. But I laugh in the face of logic--HA!

I stuck my fabric in a 14 inch hoop and drew a 12 inch pattern! Go big or go home, right? Of course, right! I  have few areas of discipline in my life, as I'm a subscriber to the idea that the universe/God/Satan/coincidences/reality/other people will throw enough hardship and heartache at you, so be gentle to yourself. The one real exception: I'm a bit of a masochist when it comes to crafts.*

I realize I didn't put anything in this photo that really gives you any scale, but the two wood blocks when together make up about the size of a lipstick case. And for all the frat boy jocks** out there who would never make it their business to know the size of a lipstick case, let's just say it's about the size of...a bottle of fingernail polish. ["Ha HA!" Maryann lamely laughed alone to herself. Bitterly.]

Lucy and her husband Kris have more of a neutrals/earthy palette to their beautiful home. When I originally bought floss for this pattern and the plan was to make it for myself, I'd picked out bright yellows, purples, and pinks for the mermaid tails. Less Peter Pan and more The Little Mermaid:

So I went back to the store and picked out the earthiest mermaid colors I could find. But because it was me, it still turned out pretty brightly colored. I split up hair and tail colors for each of the ladies, giving each mermaid a mystical name like Facing, Middle, or Away (just kidding--that's how I distinguished them in the pattern):

I would have taken in-progress photos, but good lord I was spending every waking moment stitching. On more than one occasion I stayed up until I heard birds chirping and saw the sun peaking through my windows. This isn't a huge surprise because I'm a night owl, but usually I'm not staying up THAT late. But my deadline and the stimulation of the project made me a bit manic. I now have callouses on my thumb and forefinger where I hold the needle (using a touch-screen phone with callouses feels WEIRD), and my thumb knuckle still hurts, even though I haven't stitched since Monday. I'm absurdly proud of myself for these crafts-associated 'battle wounds.' (See? Craft-Masochist.)

I'm less proud of how messy I let my place get whenever I'm working wholeheartedly on a project. A glimpse into the madness that is my living room floor right now (plus some gratuitous Norm tum-tums):

See all those little round bits of paper? That's what's holding the embroidery floss together when you buy it. Whenever I take them off I like to put them on top of the cats. The bits of paper are light enough that you can get like 7 on a Oz before he notices, since his fur is so long. Which means at the end of a project they've ended up scattered all over the floor until I finally go around with a recycling bag and pay for my Sins Against Catmanity.

But enough about my crafts-related mess, let's see the final product! Here it is, only seconds before the fabric was cut, and I put it in a nicer, smaller frame before whisking it off to Lucy:

Close(r) up:

As you can see I hand-traced scales onto each of the tails, which I am pretty happy with. I declined to give 'real' boobs to the blond mermaid because despite my previous claims, areolas are not for everyone. Or at least not everyone's home decor style. (This is no commentary on Lucy's preference for boob vs. boobless mermaids--I would have left than nippleless for anyone other than myself. Though Lucy, if you're reading this and decide you want some nipple-action, that can be easily arranged.)

My main regrets: 

1) I wish I'd taken the time to do natural light photos of the finished product. You can see some of the underneath stitching in these photos thanks to the flash.  I also wish I'd taken a photo of it in its smaller frame. The 'tightness' of the frame and stitches is cooler looking than the big gaps you see here.

2) SKIN COLOR. Bane of my existence. Lucy has two sisters (whom I love dearly) so I thought I'd give the mermaids the same skin color but different hair colors to match the sisters. But the skin color I picked is so fucking light! Unless you are up close to the fabric it looks like three floating tails and three floating hair blobs. Maybe if I'd given them shell bikini tops? Meh.

3) Faces. Faces, faces, faces. How to stitch a lady's face that doesn't look like a Kewpie doll. I'm not there yet. Fortunately I only had to do one face for this pattern. 

Other than that, I'm really pleased with how it turned out. I love the colors and arrangement of the mermaids.  As I drove to Lucy's house I worried about the possibility of her not totally loving it. I can see how needlepoint can be overly kitschy or cheesy for some people's tastes. If you make someone a gift and they don't love it, that can be...awkward.

"Sorry you can't return it. I mean, you could return it, but you'd be returning it to ME, since it's not from a store. I suppose I'd rather you give it to me than leave it at goodwill, but maybe instead you could leave it in a closet and only bring it out when I come over...? But that's a lot of work and lying on your part. So just give it back! But then I'll have it in my house and be constantly reminded that I made it for you and you didn't like it. HOMEMADE GIFTS ARE POISON TO RELATIONSHIPS!"

You get the idea. Fortunately Lucy's reaction was even better than I could have hoped. Her excitement when she opened it sent me over the moon. I spent so much time thinking of her when I planned and made the piece (that word sounds so pretentious when referring to art) that her wild appreciation for it gave me the greatest feeling ever. I love you, Lucy!

*And hair dye.

**You'd be amazed how many frat boy jocks read my blog. So many. The jock traffic is particularly high on the mermaid embroidery posts.

#183: The Stooges by The Stooges

The Stooges by The Stooges (1969)

Favorite Tracks: "1969" and "We Will Fall" and "No Fun"

Thoughts: We JUST heard The Stooges back at #183 and I wasn't blown away. This is their debut album and since it's from 1969, I wasn't very disappointed. "We Will Fall" is a 10 minute song with a repeated mantra (I don't think in English) that could have been annoying, but was haunting and meditative instead. It's got an Eastern, psychedelic feel and I always associate the Stooges with a more punk sensibility, so it helped expand my view of their music. Especially the violin (or some type of string instrument) at the end that even added a country feel! "No Fun" was a catchy start to side B, and had me wanting to clap along.

Overall, not bad, but not a new favorite either.

Is This Better Than Bad?: Not to me.

Trapped Swallow

The trees are quiet and moist, they stand
attentive as good children in new clothes,
hands folded before them. I have washed
the blanket and am struggling to heave
its damp mass over the yellow plastic of the line.
It was marked with the swallow's panic,
the swallow I found in the stairwell,
exploding off ceilings and doors;
I caught up with it at last,
scrabbling the window behind a row of pot plants,
closed my hand on its air-tight life,
opened a door and threw it up into the sky. My life
is small and I would have it
no other way. The first whitethorn
has broken and martins flicker and skim. Last night,
by the river, I noted the scream of the swifts.
Two grey herons rose up from the bank
and went lumbering into the trees.
Further down, the raven flung
its harsh cry from the woods. It broke
and circled, its blunt wings drubbing the air. A little wind
has come up now, out of nowhere, and with it
a misting of rain. I reverse my heave and pull
at the blanket's felt. With the swallow
suddenly quiet in my hand
I felt the weight of privilege: my dense flesh sheltering
its weightless life. The privilege
crept into my sleep and I woke with it
today. I have this small, deep pain
of understanding nothing. The spring is changing
into summer and I keep adding
years to my life.



- Kerry Hardie

in bloom

In early March I finally purchased an art print I'd been admiring for months. The artist is Irene Renon from Vicenza, Italy. I saw her watercolor painting "flowers bloom" and loved it immediately. If only I could paint like this:

I hung it in a frame above my medicine cabinet in my kitchen, (I'm much better about taking food with pills if said pills are actually near food! Also that means a medicine-cabinet-raiding-pill-popper would have to steal them in plain sight. ...Unless I'm the bathroom. Damn.) and admired it daily.

That is until admiring it wasn't enough. "I must needle you!" (Not nearly as cool as declaring "I must paint you!" Instead it sounds like I'm just going to annoy it for a few hours.)

Attempting to embroider a watercolor painting is a fool's errand. The options for layering and blending are limited--especially at my novice status. But inspiration struck and I decided to go for it. I drew a general outline sketch on the fabric, but as you will see the flowers themselves were not correctly proportionate. Fortunately I still liked how they turned out. It's actually the face/neck that didn't go as well as I planned. I wish I'd done it more orange-peach like it is the painting, instead of just regular cream/beige.

It took me about two months to finish, but it's finally done. 

Ter-DAH!

Here it is with a copy of the painting I made for reference:

Close-ups:

I love it, but I'm a little relieved that my next project has a pattern for me to work from!

Currents, May 2013

Current Drink: I will be spending the rest of the summer sipping Spanish Pomegranate Sangria whenever I can.

Current TV Show: I'm watching Fringe and I like it. The similarities to The X-files are strong, but where The X-Files fails in its 'huge' conspiracy surprises, Fringe is brilliant and continues to follow through on its plot twists. But the characters in Fringe will never matter to me or make me feel things like Scully and Mulder did. (Do.) I also watched seasons 1-4 of NewsRadio but couldn't go on after Phil Hartman's death. Too sad.

Current Movie: I finally saw Django Unchained and really enjoyed it--especially the soundtrack! Richie Havens, Ted Neeley, Jim Croce? Not to mention the awesome theme song.

Current Food: Still eating loads of pesto.

Current Book: I Can Barely Take Care of Myself: Tales From a Happy Life Without Kids by Jen Kirkman.

Current Time-Stealer: I've got an embroidery project that is KICKING MY ASS. I thought it would go pretty quickly but I'm starting to develop tapestry needle callouses. I can't wait to show it to you.

Current Indulgence: Real estate. All it takes is someone in my life looking for a place and I get lost in the housing market looking for cute, unique, old-world houses.

Current Fashion: I've picked out an outfit for my friend's wedding that includes billowy silk patterned high-waisted wide-legged pants. I think it will be the first time I've worn pants to a wedding! At least in many years.

Current Music: Can't get over this movie or its end-credits song:



Current Wishlist: I would love this trunk for a coffee table, thanks.

Current Worry: I am going to make it my goal this year to not get sunburned at ALL. We'll see. It should be for health reasons, but it's really that I can't stand trying to sleep when sunburned. Also: cat scratches.

Current Project/Location: My deck! I'm slowly turning it into my personal outdoor paradise.

Current Celebrity Crush: Stephen Amell has been making me swoon in Arrow.

Current Obsession: I reaaaaally want to learn how to hand-paint stuff like furniture with detailed design.

Current Reminder:  Every time I get anxious about the weather getting warmer, I remind myself that I bought a fan on sale last year, and then I feel better.

Oz + Light

Remember when I'd write emotional medical posts? Me too. Here's one for nostalgia's sake.

In 2009 and 2010 when I lived in the dungeon of my dark despair and journeyed into darkness deep as hell, there were several small mercies. One of them was my great, fantastic, kickass, take-no-prisoners, lovely, beautiful health insurance. It was a dream. I like to imagine that during that time there was some sweet claims person working for the company who started to care about me via my medical bills.

- "What's that? Maryann needs a shower chair? You got it!"

- "So Maryann is ready to go home but needs to remain horizontal for another two weeks...we'll give her a lift in an ambulance on a gurney!"

- "Is this Maryann's 5th MRI? Poor thing. Let's hope this one has good news."

Honestly, after I hit my ridiculously low deductible in both of those years, I'd say my insurance covered thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars worth of medical needs. A walker, spinal taps, blood patches, catheters, meal upon terrible hospital meal, those automated leg ballons that kept me from getting blood clots, OT, PT, PICC line, neurosurgeons and oncologists and a bevy of nurses, and my very favorite and drug of choice (but not addiction, I swear!): dilaudid. Not familiar? It also goes by the name 'hospital heroin.'

Now, when I praise my insurance company, I really should be praising my employer. Because they were really the ones footing the bill and the reason I had such great insurance in the first place. Not to mention the sick and disability leave.

Can you tell where this post is going? You guessed it. Our insurance is changing. For the worse. Harrumph.

I'm very lucky that my personal medical crises happened while on the Luxury Plan: Anything You Need, Baby--Shhh. But  some other go-lucky 25 year-old employee could go in for a routine pap smear and end up discovering an anterior meningocele ready to rip her and her life in half. But she won't be able to rest in the knowledge that no matter what, at least she has Luxury Plan: Anything You Need, Baby--Shhh. No, she'll have Fuck You and Your Wallet: Start Buying Lottery Tickets Because You're On Your Own plan.

Now, I'm trying not to be a spoiled brat/employee here. I know that it's a huge blessing to be insured at all. And that the new plan isn't the worst health benefits package out there. But I'm still going to grieve the loss of Luxury Plan: AYNBS. They were there for me. When I was at the lowest of my lows and wanted to climb inside a tequila bottle and live there forever, I could! On Fuck You and Your Wallet: SBLTBYOYO I'd need to ignore my feelings and start applying for another job. There's no shame in having more than one job. But when you wish you were dead, more work is sort of the last thing you want or need. Unless your second job is letting puppies lick the tears off your face for eight hours a day.

Tonight I found out that my wonderful doctor isn't even in-network on the Fuck You and Your Wallet: SBLTBYOYO plan. That is something I couldn't give two shits about in 2008. A doctor's a doctor's a doctor, right? WRONG. My previous doctor tried to prescribe online-dating to me. While I was sobbing in front of her about my health. It's not like the doctor I have now gives me foot-rubs and popsicles or anything, but she did find a working anti-depressant combination for me, which in the scheme of things is like a billion foot-rubs given to you by Idris Elba while Curtis Stone hand-feeds you homemade sorbet.

In the end the Fuck You and Your Wallet: SBLTBYOYO will save my employers money, which is good because while our health is a good cause, there are reasons why the price for it shouldn't be astronomical, which apparently it was on Luxury Plan: AYNBS. In the end it's for the best, I'm lucky to have benefits, and it's the way of the future in healthcare. BUT. I am going to send a letter to the headquarters of Luxury Plan: AYNBS to tell them what a big difference it made to have a medical plan that didn't question what I or my doctors thought was best for my needs, or force me to take out a loan in order to pay for it.*

Or maybe I'll just send them this post.

*(I would send my employers the letter since they were the ones actually paying for the costs, but I'm afraid it would make them feel bad. And I'm pretty sure the permanent scowl and tear-filled eyes I displayed at the informational benefits seminar already took care of that.)

whiskers in the water