Category Archives: Collage

Light, silence, tooth, and time

Dull light this morning but no percussive hammering. I think it’s over.

Also over: the first (and most invasive) step in getting an implant for my front right tooth. The one with a history.

Grievance: a doctor who didn’t answer my email about anxiety meds until it was too late to do anything about it.

Humor: my brother disagreeing with her assessment that diazepam prescribed eleven years ago probably wouldn’t work. “Unless it’s turned to fungus,” he said, “it’s fine.”

It was fine. In fact it was so fine that I was relieved when K said he’d walk over with me. I felt that woozy.

Tonight I’m eating ice cream. I can be a bit of a baby.

Yesterday I wrote a scene where a character spins and spins and spins. Sufis were mentioned. Imagine my surprise as I noodled around with this week’s Paris Collage Collective visual prompt in bed later to see the Sufis emerge (from an old SoulCollage card). I remixed extensively to make them more visible (along the lower edge).

I didn’t seen them at first. With many of the dianaphoto app filters they disappeared. I love to be surprised like this.

A far cry from where I started.

The Christ-like figure is from a photo taken by Andrew J. Whitaker, a photographer for the Charleston paper The Post and Courier. He took it during the summer of George Floyd protests — George Floyd who recently would’ve turned 50.

@andrewjwhitaker on Instagram, photo itself

Other surprises from last night.

Incorporating photo of Hearts for Charleston Quilt

Triple jack

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You’re not gonna believe this. Before the excavator-mounted jackhammer could finish clearing out the new basement hole four doors up, a crew at their neighbors across the street started foundation work with a hand-held jackhammer. And tomorrow, a site that was cleared today (bye, bye Fortune Panda!) will begin jackhammering. It is five doors down in the other direction. That hole is gonna have to be deep enough to accommodate parking for the twelve-apartments that they’ll be building on top of it.

Seven a.m. is when the percussive banging started every day this week. The throatier, more intermittent hand-held jackhammering started at around one and went til five.

We might need to leave. It’s really possible.

Finn and I escaped briefly in some nearby woods. It was otherwise a spectacularly beautiful day.

The stone being jackhammered, I may have mentioned, is Roxbury Puddingstone (or conglomerate). This morning I looked it up. Among other things I learned that Roxbury was once called “Rocksbury.”

This is nerdy of me, I know, but I found the geology interesting — or rather, I liked the feel of these words in my mouth. Such a wholly other vocabulary. Even though the words don’t mean all that much to me, I’ll bet this Wikipedia excerpt would make a great writing prompt.

Because of the noise, I was once again relegated to the basement for a zoom session. My chair sits near a bureau piled high with magazine pages and collage supplies and so while waiting for class to begin I found myself gluing shit down, playing. The first one is another Two of Pentacles, I think.

The second one (above) is commentary about the climate crisis, which I also ended up writing about.

Canada, clutter, and prompts

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Passport. CHECK. Mouth guard and meds. CHECK (but didn’t have to carefully tuck them in carry on bag in case suitcase gets lost). Sewing, reading, and writing notebooks. CHECK (you’d think I’d have an elegant handmade etui to hand, but I don’t. I just stick needles and pins in whatever swatch of fabric is handy).

Our lovely house sitter will be taking GQ-level photos of Finn again no doubt. I can’t tell you how comforted I was to learn that she’d held a piece of cheese to her forehead for some of her darling shots from last trip.

I consolidated heaps of fabric and windexed here and there. The difference was relieving, noticeable. K said, “I’d live here,” which tells you something about his dry wit. What it perhaps doesn’t reveal as readily is how forbearing he is of my clutter.

Question to crafters: are works-in-progress demeaned by the label “clutter”?

Never mind that. What would be really hilarious if it weren’t so hypocritical is that I dare to ask him to please put his shoes away!

Traffic on 128 is bad. The trees are green. I will report back as we travel north. We may be in for some pretty foliage.

I’m excited to be going to Quebec City. Our older son went to McGill, so we’ve made many trips to Montreal in recent history, but I haven’t been to Quebec City since my French class traveled there in 1975.

WRITING PROMPT: Begin with “she said” and keep going. Whenever you get stuck, write it again, “she said.” Courtesy of Natalie Goldberg.

TWO MORE WRITING PROMPTS: Begin with “she could not get comfortable” or “so much depended on.” Both courtesy of Kathleen Olesky.

Lastly, I am reminded that people go through stuff and we don’t necessarily know about it. That’s as good a reason to be kind as any.

Honey I’ve Shrunk!

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I’ve lost half an inch — which means the next time I lose half an inch, I’ll be 4’11” and a half. I know it’s indicative of spine deterioration, aging, blah, blah, but I also find it funny. FOUR-ELEVEN and a HALF — REALLY? (I’m looking at you, Dottie!)

At my annual yesterday, my PCP managed to be efficient and personable at the same time. I got to air my concerns. She referenced reports from specialists and reviewed them for both of us. She even asked after the boys.

Are you lucky enough to have a doctor that gives you enough time?

In other news, this week’s Paris Collage Collective double image is dedicated to Tommy Tuberville who recently announced that white nationalists are Americans and not racists. He has since walked this back.

I agree with the commentator who said it was hard to tell if the man is more racist than stupid or more stupid than racist. And then there’s this:

The printer is working again, so there will be paper variations this week.

Wednesday I hear ravens

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I am still in California and it is still grey. At least it’s not the fire-roasted smoky grey of Boston or New York.

Sometimes in my double collage play with the Paris Collage visual prompt, the prompt gets lost. When it disappears, I don’t post to instagram, even though sometimes I like them better. Today I’ll share a bunch here.

It just occurred to me that making these double/triple/quadruple images might be my version of Hazel’s watercolors. I find her daily practice inspiring and the paintings expressive, sometimes beyond what her words say. I guess that’s one of the points of the practice.