Maggie May

Reluctance to commit to an orientation is a good sign. 

And these wrinkles! The silk has shed little shadow ghosts of dye in places. I'm thinking about amplifying them in some way other than stitch. 

I actually have to go buy some black embroidery thread. 

The morning sun when it's in your face really shows your age. 

A pop song from ages past (1971!) that still gets too much play. I never understood the connection (there is none) between the intro and the song itself.

Rod's singing about the problems of being with an older woman. 

 I was with a guy who would have been a whole two years behind me in high school if he had graduated. He seemed to think that skipping that part gave him some kind of special status. Whenever this song came on the car radio, he took perverse delight in turning it up and making something of our age difference. I used to look out the car window and think, What an asshole. But then, he was the asshole who told Jimmy he could come sleep on my couch...

There is SO much cloth in the scrap bin I'm having a sale.

Reaction

 

Silk shreds dating back to 2010 experiments with ColorHue dyes. I don't recall the source of the silk. I can't imagine what cloth like this would be used for other than the kind of negligee that was made to be torn off. There are tiny scraps of it wandering all through my private stash.

The base is the trimmings of that handkerchief linen shift that I hand stitched together, again, because I have no white thread for the sewing machine. I sat with the shapes as they came from the bag, with no cutting or tearing. I prodded, pinned, and unpinned through a couple episodes of "Homicide: Life in the Streets".

The show was recently released on Peacock TV.  I didn't get to watch it much when it was first aired. I was still a nightbird for AT&T and was never one for slavishly needing to have a show taped for viewing at my leisure. I had kids. It won awards and a cult following for good reason. 

Balance. Up, down, crime, justice, left, right, life and death. 

The cloth is wet because I didn't want to iron away all the nooks and crannies to blend away the holes from a false stitching start. 

I'm not even sure there's going to be any visible stitching. Tomorrow may tell.

Addendum 

Around sunset a storm flickered by.

The end of the line

 

For this one, it was sudden. I found it on the lawn. Out in the middle of the yard, unprotected. No damage that I could see. No cats or other predators in sight. I put my finger under it and thought I felt a grip, or those legs just have little grippy hairs. No flutter, response. I put it in one of the potted Swedish ivy, thinking, "Rest a bit, then move on." Hours later, unchanged. Gone like a summer day.

Last pool day, maybe.

Someone in the neighborhood felt the need for a fire. 

It's been in the sixties overnight and the water temperature in the pool is approaching "no can do". I've recognized it's what I say aloud on that hot, sunny day late in summer when I go down the later, and by mid-calf, I can't go any further.

 

Today, I pushed it and by the time I was standing on the bottom, I was largely numb. Not good, so I skipped the cleaning routine and climbed aboard the floatie. Skimming the surface was do-able. Weatherwise, I might have a few more days like today. It's a strange flavor of sad.
 

I may do more of these. Make them a page.  Reading the cards gives me a fine kind of buzz. Like there's more oxygen than I'm used to. Feels a lot like writing.

The blue I do

 

Imagine chasing a runaway creature. It zigzags across the meadow, you dig in and try to cut it off. It gains on you, then stops and looks back over its shoulder. Maybe even sticks out its tongue or waggles its ass. 

That's writing when you are out of practice. False starts and blind alleys. But an elusive taste is all it takes to pull me back in and it's been delicious.

This is the blue I'll be working with for a while.

The cloth and threads will tend themselves.

I'm prepping for a road trip. Does anyone have any audiobook recommendations? 

He's nearly mastered shuffling. The hands will grow and it will get easier. 

After this, there was no living with him for a few hands. 

We use imaginary money and the discussions are about odds, percentages, money management, and gambling addictions including a warning about genetic predilections.  

My advantage? When only two people play poker no one ever gets too far ahead. 

Full moon reading

I left my Tarot spread out on the carpet by the glass doors. The full moon was so bright that I woke up disoriented about the time.

You've simultaneously been under the spell of the past and the unknown future.  Overlapping ripples. 

If it were productive or fun it would be a drug, but it's neither. And so you are emotionally empty. Exhausted. 

But that's an open, receptive state. 

The Knight is doing what must be done. The steps are known and clear. Move forward with a heart open to the emotional relief that taking these steps will bring. 

I spent the morning posting new sets. Moving the colors around and auditioning quartets is a fine way to pass the time.

 

Wild weekend

 

I had to ask both my sons who taught them to skateboard? Both said, "Nobody!"  The best I could do was not watch, even when Colin came inside and said, "I think I broke my arm." He had. A greenstick fracture to the forearm.

In this sport, injury is inevitable. Charlie's getting a good start with all the necessary gear and came away from his first flight with a minor bruise and an appreciation for how hard concrete is. Bless those young bones.

With very little input, he was up and finding his balance point. All I could do was sit quiet, get a few shots, and keep my lip zipped. 

We left the skatepark to get to the adjacent soccer fields to cheer on Charlie's cousin in her first game. In minutes, the game was called for lightning! And we had a harrowing ride home, fortunately with a pro at the wheel of a big, safe truck.

My camera failed to catch the orange ball of the sun as it sank under that freight train of black clouds that chased us home.

Back home in the studio, the cloth that I left out in the rain kept a lot of its promise.

The marathon

My dear friend and foremost crit partner and I have been trading scenes and chapters for many years. 

There was some scratching, biting, hair-pulling...nah. None of that, maybe a few tears as we "killed our darlings" as writers must. 

No, it was straight-up, honest, sometimes difficult assessments of each other's words in the service of the stories in our hearts. A priceless exchange for which I will be forever grateful.

Now, Dee Mallon's debut novel, "The Weight of Cloth" will be available September 5, 2024. You can preorder it now.

I was on a plane with a sheaf of her printed pages, red pen in hand, intent on the work. As I turned the page over, the stranger sitting next to me said, "Wait. I didn't finish. It's really good." He was right.

Be proud and joyful, Dee!  I'll let you read more about it in her words.

 

Studio life

 

My staging space has been co-opted by the household security guard. I should have expected this because he's been camping out by my feet most mornings. 

Now I have a small stretched canvas balanced on my knees while I try to level the camera and work around the shadows flickering through the window screen. 

The hard light tells it true. 

Barriers

I believe he knows what's hidden under that piece of linen. 

I have been instructed to leave off with marketing for a bit. Attend to other matters. 

Who am I to argue with the 'Verse?

The players

 

A gray day today. The window to get these shots was very brief. Not a bad thing. I was sitting there waving hanks around trying to make them play nicely. Not so fast. This rainbow hit the blender. 

This is less than a third of the hatchlings. I don't know what else to call them.

There are at least two dozen that have three to four interacting colors. I promise to give everyone else first crack at these. My threadbox is overstuffed now. 

                                                          This is Opal

I will need to open some creative bandwidth to get all these sets gathered and named. I try for balance when I choose these groups. Should I include one of the stone ponies in some sets? Do people every want monochrome? This is going to take a while. 

The wait.. updated

 

This is the coolest thing. It collapses down to nothing and gets "misplaced" because I can put it away in too many snug places. 

I bought it a few years ago intending to dry my herb harvest, but luckily, I did a lot of research and this is not appropriate for the proper drying/curing of the Devil's Lettuce (or was that Jazz Lettuce?) Anyway, the flowers have a lot of sticky business, like sap. The more the merrier. It would have stuck all over the mesh ruining the crop and dryer. 

Turns out that High Hoops is the best way to dry hanks of thread and small pieces of cloth. Some of that will happen tomorrow. 

These have been hanging outside for most of the day. In about an hour, I'll bring the whole thing inside and get the new players into the lineup. 

There is a LOT of thread here. I'm going to sort these into color groups. 

Would Textilians trust me to put together sets of colors without committing them to groups just yet? So time-consuming!

If you trust me to dish up a rainbow of color plus one of the B&Ws, email me and we'll work something out. 

While we wait, some fun:

Hatched!

Stoned ponies

 It's been a while. This is my psychedelic, off-the-chain version of Jude's magic thread.  Black and white and barely in control.

When I was mixing up the colors I took a lot of time balancing the black for as neutral an outcome as possible. Not too blue, not too green, but a whole lot of pizzazz. There are a few little dirty glove fingerprints, but all in all, I'm happy with them. 

Just some of the Blues. Has a color ever been more joyous?

The back end

 

Today is the first day that I've felt good since last Friday. There's a lot of work ahead, but the big lesson of yesterday was Pace Yourself. 

Even two years after retiring, I sometimes still run my day as if I had to clock in around three.

Not today!

It's supposed to be hot and sunny with no sign of rain until next weekend. I'll be washing cloth and thread and watering the plants daily. In small chunks. 

Under the Big Top

 

That was a first. I shouldn't speak of it until everything proves out. It got completely out of hand, but there I was, eleven unique colors mixed and ready. An inky black standing by and a full cone of 

DMC hanked and holding. 

Nothing for it but to charge.

I was going to lean blue but the Curse of the Crayons got to breathing down my neck as the minutes in the heat mowed me down. I stopped the show and napped in the middle of the production.

Tomorrow, I'll be crouched at the riverside (figuratively) rinsing and washing everything. I am SO grateful I never put weed in that herb dryer. 

Today I read about a study finding that people who nap have a significant decrease in heart attacks and strokes. I have Colin to thank for forty-four years of diligent practice. When your firstborn only sleeps ten minutes every two hours for the first year of his life, you learn the art of napping in self-defense.

Dream Life

From some writing craft book: "No one wants to read your character's dreams." 

I wonder. 

I woke up this morning exhausted, not quite knowing where or when I was.

A horse is led into a strange, country-style living room. Big red fellow, sturdy and calm, but watchful. I can tell he will not suffer a fool. No saddle and only a rope halter. 

I am expected to ride this animal on some kind of journey and I look around the room for a chair to stand on. He's as still as a rock wall as I mount efficiently and seat myself forward over his front legs and not in the middle of his back because the thought of doing that makes my own back hurt. 

There is no saddle or blanket and I can feel his living heat right through my jeans. He is wide and my hips already hurt. 

Then the person who led the horse in handed a plate of hot food up to me. The horse shifts from foot to foot and he sways from side to side just enough to make my stomach turn over. 

On the plate, a small slab of meat and a pile of fettuccini all of it swimming in a sauce redolent of red wine. "Horsemeat," she said, cheerily. Big Red heaved a deep sigh and I pass the plate back down to her. 

This is what I get for following the Mongol Derby. 

                                                            ***

I'm hoping to have a dyefest in the next few days, but I really need the tent set back up. 

I wait patiently for that help. Cloth and thread are ready. 

I need to think about color for a bit.

This never gets old.

That's Rocky peeking out. Dennis taking his ease. 

A huge limb from the water oak on the island fell across the yard yesterday. You can see it's shadow in the foreground of this picture from a few days back.

I don't know whether it fell on its own or the cable guys knocked it down on purpose. It's clearly very dead and there are more up there like it.. It missed my car by a few feet. 

Debby didn't do Atlanta

 At all. 

Yesterday was sketchy with cloud patches wandering aimlessly. Every time I thought about suiting up the sky got punchy. Five minutes later, blaring sunshine. 

I gave up the notion of swimming and took care of some errands. Drove a wide loop that took me from the post office to the library along with a herd of the yellow peril. I'd forgotten about school buses oozing into regular traffic like so much molasses. Oh well. 

The Algo must have sensed my need for good music. I love it when a great segue makes me say, "damn smooth." Finished the circuit with some iced coffee and glazed chocolate donut hearts.

The cold dwindles finally after some experimentation with herbal and OTC meds. It probably would have resolved without them, but I slept good.

All that in preparation for some good reading followed by a whole morning of word whipping and finally, pool time. My gills were drying out.

Hot and sunny, Debby skipped us altogether. 

Low tide, but turning

 

Since Friday morning I have been entertaining a world-class head cold, no other symptoms, thank you. For me it's the kind of thing that requires stillness. I have been sitting in the stitching chair looking out at the Island Jungle or in the darkened bedroom watching the Olympic surfers in Tahiti with the sound off. 

I let the Island go totally wild this year. Just off camera to the right, there are 10-foot-high pokeberry trees and some other unknown shrubby stuff taking advantage of the runoff from the neighbor's slightly elevated yard. None of the flower seeds I scattered in the spring stood a chance.

Colin stepped outside for a smoke and our resident doe spooked away right in front of him but she stood snorting and pawing in the driveway because she had hidden her fawn(s?) out there. The cats don't even venture in there anymore. 

It teems with butterflies and birds and lots of things unseen. Snakes, of course. Cocoons and larval stages of everything. Come late Fall, I will make some hard decisions about paying for professional help before shrubs become trees. I imagine it drives my Mango maniac-supporting neighbor across the street crazy. Wait until she sees the HARRIS sign I'm going to put out there.

The waters off Tahiti sport my favorite range of cool blues. I understand the need for the safety of the surfers - the waters at the break are shallow and the coral reefs are punishingly sharp. And it is French Polynesia. But if you have ever felt the power of the ocean lift and carry you while you balance on a slab of wood and plastic, these waves look tame compared to the majesty of the surf around the Hawaiian Islands. 

To be clear, the only time I ever surfed was in the freezing waters off Race Point, Cape Cod MA on a rented long board and not enough sense to wear a wetsuit. I will always remember that lift and launch.

Last year, I was captivated by the Eddie Aikau Invitational and the fairytale story of the winner, Luke Sheperdson who took a lunch break from his life-saving job to nab the wave that made him the winner. And then, he went back to his day job. 

Today I'm going to try to get in the pool for a bit before the cloud cover from Debby takes hold. I had planned a dyefest for this week, but I don't have the energy. There's still plenty of August left. 

In all this quiet, there has been a running conversation between a precocious girl child and a spectral Barbary ape.

Form and function

I wasn't going to wear this as is, but a lag in doing my laundry called for it. In hand, it didn't have much promise. Then I slipped it over my head.

"Heavenly" might be misconstrued. The funny thing is, if I lived alone I'd still be sleeping naked as I did most of my life. Since Jim passed, I've gotten used to having a little something between me and the sheets. The favorites have about run their course of usefulness. Now this. Soft, airy, just roomy enough without any excess. 

Now I have a template, a perfect fit for me, and the search is on for one or two more of these elegant, simple tablecloths. I'll measure it tomorrow, including the foot and a half that I lopped off. That piece will become the facing on a robe I'm working on. 

This is the only seam. I overlapped the two edges and left a few inches open mostly because those hemmed edges fell open like flower petals. Just enough. 

I stared long and hard at the array of fancy stitches the Janome had to offer. Test drove a few and settled on this one for its clean functionality. Of course, I had no white thread so I went with the pale blue rayon which won't be obtrusive if it refuses the dye. You never know. 

I cut off one edge, doubled, for the shoulder straps. Left them wide and comfortable. Pinned them into place before committing to the spacing, front and back.

I'm still going to dye it. 

Me, all pleased with myself just before a summer cold fell on me like a starving hyena.

Home from away

 

The days swung between stultifying and glorious. Giddy and melancholy. 

We ate crap and watched every damn episode of Futurama. Loitered in the library and discovered that Hardee's is the bomb. Politics and the Olympics spiced each day.

Do you remember being over summer vacation and unwilling to admit that you were looking forward to going back to school?

I have been reminded. 

The birthday party was a huge success. The house and grounds buzzed with youngsters like so many dizzy hornets.

This was the best day. We paddled around and he narrated a sci-fi screenplay on the fly. Zombies and all. 

Minute by minute I was reminded of my purpose, much more than in loco parentis. I have magic to share every moment I can spare. All else is dust.

I have a lingering case of ennui that I hope to solve tomorrow by cleaning MY neglected pool. The cats have forgiven me.