G stock photo of daffodils, my favorite spring flower.

Also a tease for my post tomorrow at Create a Connection, Sunday Creative Challenge

I know that it’s been a while since I’ve posted.  I’ve gone from posting daily here and at myspace to not posting at all.  My excuse:  it’s February.  it’s cold.  I have winter doldrums.  I am fuzzy and unfocused.  You know, the norm.  But there have been a bunch of distractions, so I will catch you up and get them out of my way so I can clear out a bit psychically.

I may have mentioned that I have been diagnosed with GERD:  gastro-esophageal reflux disease.  What you get when you don’t pay attention to the pain of heartburn.  Except it hasn’t been that bad until just recently and I had no idea.  Now I have a damaged esophagus and am on medicine, possibly forever if we can find one that works (I had "forever" when it comes to medicines.  I don’t care what anyone says – they have no clue what they’re giving us).  If I eat more than about 1 cup of food total at any one sitting, I know that I have been a "bad girl."  I have cut out all caffeine, wine, oil, sugar and citrus fruit.  Talk about a life changing experience!  Husband’s and my usual recreational activities – eating out and sharing a bottle of wine – have gone out the window.  We are trying to stick walking in as a substitute.  I find that we still talk but it isn’t quite the same as relaxing over a good dinner at our favorite restaurant.  What I can find on the web tends to be somewhat contradictory with reference to "good" food and "bad" food.  One blog suggested almonds – and they work!  A life savor! (crunchy and tasty – not much taste in the "good" food arena).

Additionally I am back in physical therapy.  It started because my neck was tied up in knots.  I read that can be a side effect of the GERD.  But anytime you work out knots, other things start happening and the rotator cuff of my left shoulder and top left arm are now continually achy.  And I can’t take anti-inflamatories because that isn’t good for my stomach (and I have to wonder if taking double doses last year, by doctor’s order, isn’t what led to this in the first place).

So I am having daily conversations with my body, assuring it that I’m listening.  I’d better.  Pain is a very good teacher.  Yesterday, ravenous, I tried and "experiment" – eating only good food but more than I have been.  Guess what?  I can chart that up as a failure.  Body says:  nope.  Won’t do it.

On the creative side, I have been circling my 24 x 36 canvasses as if I can no longer paint:  what if I mess them up?  Well, were did that come from?  and why?  no idea.  I suppose I need to just throw a canvas on the floor and have at, but I haven’t found the time yet.  Because I haven’t made it.  Have kept up with the wood stove to ward off cold (and it’s a good productive excuse) and been reading, buying books (good indication I’m searching for something….buy books.  Eventually it’ll fall into your hands – that thing you’re searching for. )  I did find a book on using Lazertran.  It has everything the stupid CD I paid $17 for didn’t.  So I’m going to try again with that (at some point).

I did make my ‘tall thing" who I have taken to calling Megan because she is a woman and because I’ve always liked that name and because "tall thing" just isn’t doing it for me anymore.  Because of my kiln size and clay weight, she is made in pieces that I hope to be able to join  with buckets of goop and a prayer that she’ll stay together.  She’s ready to fire, along with the 2 Wylde women and 5 of the Women series (Vi – X).  All need to be glazed, if I’m planning on glaze, not my favorite part of the process.  And so I have procrastinated there too.

Meanwhile, I wrote the following review for my poet friend Maureen Sherbondy who I noted is having her first chapbook of poems, After the Fairytale, published on March 22 (which happens to be my birthday (you can preorder now).  Here it is:

"Have you ever wondered what happens to all the people in those fairytales that end:  "and they lived happily ever after?"  Well, Maureen Sherbondy, in After the Fairytale is more than happy to bring you up to date on the lives of all the favorite valiant men and beautiful women you memorized growing up, hoping that your life would be just like theirs.

Forget "happily ever after."  Welcome to Reality Fairytales.  Sherbondy brilliantly plays out the on-going stories in powerful poetry, carefully crafting the recent turn of events in our characters’ lives, never wavering in her extended fairytale metaphors.

Here’s Alice, back from Wonderland, who "turned to/gin, whiskey, anything she could find./Every bottle was inscribed with/ Drink Me…"  Ever the modern heroine she goes to AA meetings where "she’s afraid to cry,/not wanting to drown recovering alcoholics….plays Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers on a Walkman,/read Howl until she recites it by memory…"

And there’s Snow White, dreaming erotic dreams of "…a menage a trois with Doc/and Happy…" and who "gets a sample/of Viagra from Doc and leaves the bottle/on the Prince’s dresser."

The beanstalk Giant "…settles in Florida but feels out of place,/doesn’t fit in with other retirees…"

Isolation, anger, resignation, hot flashes and the Wizard of Oz as "cranky politician" unfold as the pages and stories turn in ways that are, yes, enchanting as well as thought-provoking.  Sherbondy adds her take on the true outcomes of fairytales to Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs by Anne Sexton and the various works of Margaret Atwood, both in poetry and prose (to name just two of the many compelled to take on this task of following up on the details).  Sherbondy’s poems serve as cautionary tales about being careful what you wish for.  Bedtime stories. will never be the same again."

Writing that sent me back into my own master’s work on fairytales, especially feminist fairytales and I wound up on some great sites and buying 5 (yes 5, but they are used!) books.

So there you go.  A post that is way too long, but catches us up to date and hopefully I can take it daily from here.

thought for the day:  Never give up.

Today I go to an opening at River Gallery in Galesville where I had 3 pieces juried into a show and tonight I post for Create a Connection.  All caught up!