Acrylic-painted, clay slab-built torso, Emperoress, by Tammy Vitale of Tam’s Originals

Someone once wrote:  the only thing constant is change.  The moon is full.  Mercury is in retrograde.  It’s been a very long time since I’ve felt this much change moving all at once in my life.

We are still negotiating on the house we want to buy/move into pre-settlement (and pre-selling our house – there’s a change:  add one rental payment on top of the mortgage for an undetermined amount of time in a slow housing market).  We have spent untold hours this week on the house inspection (5.5), pricing things that need to be fixed (about 3), running back to the house to make sure the measurement I took of the bathtub (4’4") was correct since standard bathtubs are now 5′ and you can’t buy anything smaller than 4’6" (3 hours counting travel time), thinking over options (sleepless nights), making our after inspection offer (3 hours) and now waiting (okay, I took at 2 hour nap today – sometimes your body refuses to do anything else).  So far, no news.

Change:  A gallery where I am a founding member (3 years) is on a 2nd story in an antiques building.  Last meeting some folks decided to form a committee to look for new space.  Inside of 4 days this week we were notified of available space and apparently 12 of 17 are for and 2 (counting me) are against with 3 unheard from.  And this is to start September 1 and we have to decide by Saturday or the opportunity goes away.  Our monthly rent jumps from $400 plus utilities to $1800 plus utilities and no one seems to think that is out of place and everyone seems to think that being on the ground floor will make that difference.  And, oh yes, of course artists’  monthly rent has to go up.  And we will hold on to 35 members even though right now we have 17 and have not been able to hold on to our original count of 25 since the very beginning (but of course being on the ground floor will change all that).  I’m ready to load out and quit tomorrow when I’m supposed to gallery sit (oh, yeah, in addition to rent, we have to gallery sit at least one day a month and no everyone is not doing their share, and be on a committee and no everyone is not doing their share there either….and we’re doubling the number of our people and everyone all of a sudden is going to do their share, right?).

Things feel as if they are spinning out of control, as if there is any such thing as control (ah, but we do believe we have it, dont’ we?), and I’m not sure I can keep my eyes open for this ride… while at the same time I realize that I probably should.

What is that tv commercial?  "Life comes at you fast."  Do they have an insurance policy to cover making decisions on gut and some information as opposed to all the information needed?  How about a crystal ball?

Thought for the day:  As human beings, in other words, we can only handle so much information at once.  Once we pass a certain boundary, we become overwhelmed.  What I’m describing here is an intellectual capacity – our ability to process raw information.  But if you think about it, we clearly have a channel capacity for feelings as well…At a certain point, at somewhere between 10 and 15 people, we being to overload…It’s a function of the way humans are constructed.  Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point:  How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference