What did you do today? - A collaborative journal

[Doreen Peri]

Friday, October 14th -

I awoke from a dream that was so real, I thought waking up was falling asleep. In the dream, I was at a party. Stupid Bob showed up. He had dyed his hair and beard jet black and was wearing a black cowboy hat, a black biker-type teeshirt with gold lettering on the front and a black jacket with a black fur collar and black cowboy boots. There was a royal blue stage in the corner of the room. We talked about where we were going to set up the piano and drums for an upcoming show. Some ladies were serving a variety of different types of food. I wanted a piece of cake. Stupid Bob wanted to dance with me. He twirled me around and around until I got dizzy. Afterward, I ate a piece of cake in an all white kitchen next to a baby who was also eating cake sitting in a high chair. I didn't want to wake up. I love my dream world.

But I had to because I couldn't sleep any longer. I came out into the room where I spend most of my time. I inspected the painting I was working on until dawn and shook my head and got angry at myself for staying up so late to accomplish so little. If there is a God, he took his time creating this world. He didn't use quick brush strokes. He used detail and examined the light. If there isn't a God, the powers of nature took their time. I believe in taking my time. But I also believe in hurrying up because there isn't enough of it.

So, I woke up and I talked on the phone to three doctor's offices, exchanged probably 10 or 12 emails and revised a set of logos I designed yesterday to send to a client. I don't like any of them. I hate it when I work hard and don't like my work. But I couldn't spend any more time on them because I already spent something like 10 hours on them and it drained me.

I talked with my daughter when she got home from school. We talked about her friends and schoolwork. I talked with my mother on the phone. I emailed my sisters this evening explaining that Pilates is very much like modern dance training and has been used for training dancers from Ballanchine to Merce Cunningham. It's about centering. All movement comes from the center of you.

All movement comes from the center of you and if you aren't moving, you may as well lie down and die. God knew this when he held the paintbrush to paint this world in color. It takes time and it must come from the center if it's going to work.

And now I am typing words on the internet and painting in between. I'm painting a diptych. I must finish it.

What did YOU do today?

Let's create an ongoing journal. You share you and I'll share me. Shall we?

[Doreen Peri]

Saturday, October 15th.

Well, I did it again. I stayed up until almost dawn. It was 5:30am when I finally went to lie down. I felt fabulous staying up all night because I was doing something I want to do. Painting. I have a long way to go to learn the skills it takes to operate in this media but I am very much enjoying it. I can see that taking a class or two or getting some books to read about tips and tricks might help me some. In the meantime, I paint and put on jazz or blues, or piano or guitar music, or my own set which I'm trying to listen to to decide which tracks to include on a CD.

Last night I created a playlist of several versions of Misty... versions by Stan Getz, Billie Holiday, Billy Eckstein, Etta James, Errol Garner, me, Johnny Mathis, Julie London & Dave Brubeck. I listened to the set 3 times which I worked on a diptych of a sun and a tree and started a new painting of a nude (without a model, purely from memory ). You'd think I'd get sick of the song after hearing it so many times but nope, I'm ready to listen to that set again today.

A diptych is a painting done on 2 canvases which fit together to make one painting whether you place the left on the right or the right on the left. A nude is a naked person. Ha! But you knew that. In this case, it's a female. Her skin is way too pink right now so I have to work on some adjustments. She is a lovely girl, quite abstract, with a face that doesn't exist.

So, I slept for 7 hours. Got up at 12:30 and now it's 2pm and for many people the day is half over. Mine is just beginning. I'm drinking a 200 calorie Starbucks vanilla frappacino which comes in a jar and costs way too much but I'm hooked on these things. I drink one every morning. It's 2pm and it's morning to me. I have multiple colors of paint all over my hands and some speckles in my hair.

I have many things I want to accomplish today. Mundane things that need to be done. There's a pile of papers which need to be sorted. I finally got a rod hung in my closet. There used to be an incredibly bothersome shelf with a metal piece on it which wrapped in a semi-circle toward the back wall and that's where I have hung my clothes for the 10 years I've lived here. Finally, I got sick of it and had it torn down, had the neighbors bring their circular saw here to cut the stupid metal edge off the shelf, repainted half of the shelf and the wall with the only paint I could find around here.... some white exterior satin paint.... and had a bar hung. I did a terrible job on the painting. It looks really sloppy. I can't paint a wall well all in white but I expect to paint paintings to hang on a wall? I must be delusional.

So, I will today hang back only the clothes which I intend to keep. They are all currently piled up on a bed in a spare bedroom. At least half of them are 20 years old and I never wear them. I've never been a packrat. I keep telling myself that. As I said, I'm delusional. I'm going to pack up all the clothes I'll never wear again and put them in big plastic bags and call the Salvation Army or Goodwill to come pick them up and hang the usable garments back in my "new" closet. It will feel good to get this task accomplished.

If I make it that far before the sun goes down, I will go mow the lawn (if someone hasn't done it for me by then). It needs one last mowing for the season. I will also sweep the leaves off of the deck, another project which I've screwed up. I had the neighbors come and powerwash it and I bought the wrong stain and sealer. It was too dark and blotchy after they applied it, so I tried 2 times to use a brightener and a big sweeping brush to tone down the color. I should have bought a clear sealer.

We have a family of squirrels living in my eave. Last year, there was only one of them. We tried to shoo her out and seal up the hole with a can of something-or-other which expands into this plastic goop when you spray it. But apparently it didn't work. She must have found a mate and now she has 2 or 3 little ones living with her. I guess the only answer is to name them like pets. I think I will call her Shelly. Her babes will be named Jeff and Quigley. Why not? Shelly, Jeff and Quigley. I like it!

It is a beautiful autumn day. The sky is blue and clear with scattered clouds. What are the types of clouds called that look like wisps of smoke in trails? I can't remember but those are the type in the sky today.

After the sun goes down, I need to take my daughter to her sleepover. Then, when I come back, I'll do what I do every night. I'll sit here and click away on the internet back and forth between this site and several others in between brush strokes, attempting to be a painter, listening to music or taking a break to play the piano.

What I *should* be doing today is catching up on the work that pays me. I have a to-do list with 14 tasks on it, two of which are new websites to develop. Not small tasks, some of them. And I'm behind.

How do people fit in everything they want to do and need to do without staying up until 5:30am? How do YOU do it?

What did you do today? What are you going to do tonight?

[Doreen Peri]

Well, it's 3:58 pm and I've done absolutely NONE of the things I listed on my last post which I had planned to do today. I've done nothing but sit and stare and talk to my sister on the phone and click around on the internet and think.

This is hard work, this thinking stuff.

Plans are a good thing but I guess I'm lousy at following through.

I bet you got something accomplished today, didn't you? Tell me what you did. I can live vicariously through your accomplishments.

I feel horrible when I don't accomplish anything. Why is that?

[hester_prynne]

Friday, Oct 14

No work scheduled today, and no money in my pockets either, and I am thrilled about spending some time with myself. I sleep in until noon and get up leisurely after drinking coffee in bed and watching the news. My eyes get a workout from rolling at the tv and all it's lies spewing forth. I thank Goddess my coffee is just too delicious for anything to spoil it. And, I have the whole day off, and everything I need and the happiness of that prospect can't be affected by anything, even a war, right now.

I get up, wash up, and dress comfortable. I eat a banana and a bowl of cheerios. Then I go outside and walk around in the piles of leaves all over the yard and on the street. I find myself staring at the leaves, and talking to them in my mind. I ask them questions silently. What's it like to have fallen, into the piles I find so inviting?
What was it like to be green and strongly attached to your tree, only to fall now, into a pile of ready mulch for mother earth?
I want to be close to these leaves, so I lie down with them, cover myself with them, to feel like them. I go blank and become a leaf.
I have no thought, but I know, I know there is a sunset painted on me too, and it is beautiful. I go into a trance. I am in bliss.
An hour later my friend Peter drives up to continue working on the gutters for the landlord here. He sees me lying there and shakes his head.

I get up as he has spoiled my trance and shifted me into wanting more coffee. He doesn't ask me what i'm doing. He knows it has nothing to do with him or anyone. I like Peter for that.

We go in and have some coffee and he offers me a few hits off his cannibus pipe. I feel blessed by the marijuana Gods today, at this gift. We talk about the world and how harsh it is. He looks me in the eyes and asks me if I'm okay. I assure him I'm better than ever
compared to what! We break into that song....."and it's hangin up the Got damn nation!.....I can't use it! try to make it real compared to whut!"

He leaves me a sizable bud and gets to work on the gutters. I turn on the computer and visit studio eight, write a silly poem called queen turka, which I'm pleased with as I think it's funny. I think it's so funny that the whole world will laugh at it. I'm stoked.

It's about 4 in the afternoon now, and I check the mail. My mom has sent me a safeway gift card. I see on the news that a windstorm is coming so I get in the car and go to safeway to buy some cool candles, the kind in the skinny glass jars that burn all night and only cost 99 cents. I buy three of them, and stock up on some food. It takes me an hour and a half to find all the bargains. I feel like a huntress, with a barren forest in to shop in, and I am joyous at my success. We can eat well for a couple of weeks now.
The gift certificate was for 40 dollars. The bill came to 40.39.

I arrive home and it's getting dark. I make dinner for myself, make it nice and light a special candle to eat by. I say a prayer to noone and everyone and eat. The night is ahead of me, i'm full and complete and ready to really relax. I get my pj's back on and bring out that bud Peter left me. I find an old movie on channel 54 to settle in with, me, the cat, cigarettes, coffee and bud. I turn the phoneringer volume off and settle in for the night, happy as the happiest of clams. I turn off the lights and leave one candle going.
No intrusions, no others, just me. It's all I need and I am content.

Sat. Oct 15.
Slept in again. Work at the homeless shelter at 4pm until 9 or 10. I'll continue in slow motion until it's time to go to work, time to go and tell the homeless in the shelter to hang in there, to have faith and keep trying.

I'll know that i'm not far from living there myself.
I'll know that these hours i'm working, at minimum wage will not pay the bills, will not pay the rent. But i'll continue to go forward anyway, because there is nothing in going back.
Wheeeeeeeeeeeeee!

H

[K&D]

friday, i woke up early...i left my roomates window open over night and it was freezing...i didn't want to get up out of bed, but i knew i had to.

spent sometime alone, first time in a long time, my roomate is at a wedding in louisiana. i finnally got up and studied for my midterm at 1:00, i listened to soft music and enjoyed the rare momments of peace that i had all to myself.

1:00- holy shit, i got nervous my heart rate picked up, i had a mid term in 1980's Reagan revolution. i took it to the CAE to get extended time and computer useage. theres a set way of doing things but as usual the place was disorganized so i sat down and typed. i rocked that test, finished it in an hour, 3 questions 1. in what ways are Fordist/kensyist theory and the theory of flexiable accumulation 2. what is the difference between modernism and postmodernism and 3. in so many words, what change did reagan bring to the united states after his administration.

i finished early and confidently, my last mid term. went to my room cleaned my room because my dad was visiting this weekend, then we had dinner up on the mountains, we smoked a j between the 4 of us, went back down, went to target...hung out, went bowling. i was neck and neck with a friend of mine, he eventually started loosing when he finished off his third bear in 30 min, by this time i was pretty sober so it wasn't really a fair game.

afterwards we drove home, i had my first shot of tequila in my life, that stuff isn't that bad, not as bad as whiskey anyways. it was getting late so a couple of us went to my room and watched Woodstock the dvd, i did the best Joe Cocker impersenation yet, talked and went to sleep....normally my fridays do not include this much contraband...i swear.

[Doreen Peri]

For two nights in a row now, I've played Scrabble online.

The opponents were worthy. Matter of fact, they beat the crap outa me. Well, a couple of times it wasn't all that bad. I had a couple of close games.

I've always been pretty good at this game. I thought so anyway. I held my own pretty well, though, online, it's "speed scrabble." They play too fast for me to think.

I thought playing one of my most favorite games would give my mind a good exercise, an escape, a break from all the things I am normally doing.

I was wrong. All it did was add more clutter.

Speed isn't what I'm looking for.

I'm looking for thoughtful interaction.

Time is a jewel.

"Opal" is a good word to play if you can put the P on a triple letter score square and hook into a double word score while forming the word "eclipse" in the other direction at the same time with the L.

"Love" doesn't give you much of a score unless you put the V on a double or triple letter square and double the word, too, with the pink square.

I wrote a poem using Scrabble as an extended metaphor once. I can't find it. I've lost it somehow.

All I want is thoughtful interaction. It takes time to get the letters in order and place them correctly. I want to play the word "love" repeatedly but there are only so many 4-point Vs available.

Writing is like Scrabble, especially when you try to go in two directions at once to make multiple meanings.

I'm not a ranked player in Love or Scrabble. If I were, I'd score pretty darn low.

[Lightning Rod]

I've never been too good at journaling. I'm not so much of a chronicler as I am an analyst.

but here are some adventures:

I'm going to have to start studying up on my Beethoven. I've long had this little blind spot in my hearing, somewhere in the high frequencies. We would be rehearsing in our studio and the doorbell would ring. Hank would stop playing. He could hear the doorbell. I couldn't. He would say, 'didn't you hear that?' And I would just look dumb.

I got kicked in the head by a jealous husband when I was about twenty-three. It broke my left eardrum. The docs told me that I had a thirty percent hearing loss in that ear. I accepted that because I figured that my hearing was probably thirty percent above normal anyway. After all, I heard symphonies in my head.

But last evening I had a scare. I decided to take a nap. There was a cricket chirping outside the window. If I buried my left ear in the pillow, I could hear the cricket just fine. When I buried my right ear in the pillow......nothing. Nada. It's not that I can't hear from that ear, it's that I can't hear some of the higher frequencies in that ear.

Is that part of the penalty for living a life of sensory overload? Your senses grow dim?

So the upshot it that yesterday morning I was doing some recording and I got up from my throne in front of the computer to refresh my glass of beer and when I did, I tripped over the wire to the headphones and ripped out one of the wires. It was the LEFT ear. Is that symbolic? ....say what?

[Doreen Peri]

Wednesday October 19th - Yesterday it was "hurry up."

Thursday, October 20th - Today it is "hurry up and wait." I got an email yesterday about a project I've been working on. Where is it? When will it be ready? So, I spent several hours finishing it up, tried several ways to email the huge files or put them up on the company server. Nothing worked. Finally, I burned them to a CD, sent out a notice Wed evening to those who were waiting for the project and let them know I was taking the CD for printing on Thursday. That's today.

Today, I woke up up to several emails, one of which said stop the presses. There will be changes. Text will be changed. Photos will be changed. So, I hurried up. Now I wait. It's all in the name of the game. This is the work world. It's called teamwork. You know what they call a horse that's designed by committee, right? A camel. Heh.

That's OK. I understand hurry up and wait. That's what life's all about. We hurry up to grow up. We wait to get married. We hurry up to have children. We wait for them to grow up. We wait for the marriage to work. We hurry up and buy a house. We wait for it to get fixed up. We hurry up to work on a personal project. We wait for it never to be finished. We hurry up to plan an important event. We wait to find out it can't happen for this reason or that. We hurry up to learn our craft, perfect our skills. We wait until we die for someone to recognize our presence..... and our absence.

We watched Hitchcock's "39 Steps" last night. Awesome flick. 1935. He was a genius. Tonight I will paint.

[mnaz]

Okay.... it ain't pretty. But here goes....

Wed., Oct. 19th.

Got up late, cracked a beer and some cornflakes. I wrote for awhile, finished my latest desert camping sketch, about the playa and polished white marble, etc.... well, finished at least for now. I checked the 'help wanted' ads for awhile, then I sipped beer and screwed around on the internet for hours and hours until I got up the nerve to post my latest writ....

Like I said.... it ain't pretty....