Making Stuff

Scribbled on a purple Post-it above my desk: "Art is weird. Sometimes it's ugly. Sometimes you just have to sit and look at it for a while before you can continue."

I'm more excited about working on the faustfatale (apparently I need a dom to treat me like a trained monkey when it comes to collaboration, since otherwise I tend to act like an untrained monkey). It also feels good to shut myself up in my office, where even the cats don't go, and work alone; that's always been my favorite thing.

I hope to post some photos of the collages soon. The ones I've tried to take with my little Nikon Coolpix look crappy, but I might know a photographer.

Many more lovely birthday presents came in from my wish list! It turns out that five pounds is a LOT of gummi bears! Virtual thank-you notes (since Amazon no longer gives addresses to send real ones) to Jaime Weida, Karen Marie Hancock, Cynthia Ann Coons, Colleen M. Frankhart, and the kind soul whose name I didn't get who sent the Calvin Klein Eternity for Men cologne. My boyfriend likes it.

One of the gifts I got was Lynda Barry's wonderful book What It Is , which is all about how writing and making art can become work rather than the purely fun activities they used to be when we were kids, and how to (maybe) get back to that place of having fun. There's a lot of gorgeous collage work in it that has influenced the stuff I'm doing. It's one of those undeniable cases of a book magically turning up at just the right time in your life.