Author: Iz

Posted on

Get Some Good

Looked “outside” and nope, not much has changed other than the intensity. It’ll still be there for me to tend to tomorrow. Today, I am tending to me.

The afternoon’s distractions included getting the stereo working, and starting a butter pie crust (it’s resting in the fridge for a couple of hours before rolling). The working stereo totally changes our stay-at-home game. Break Away Records on North Loop by the way, is wonderful!  I called over and they had the headphone jack adapter and new speaker wire I needed. (Old speaker wire had corroded – I think that was the issue.) Pulled it and brought it out when I walked over, confirmed my troubleshooting plan, and made sure I already had the tools I needed. Now the stereo sounds amazing with Erykah Badu blaring. Grateful that was the last CD I had tried to play, it was right there, ready to go. It does have a couple of skips. Time to research disc recovery (can they be polished or cleaned?) or go MP3 shopping. Then possibly to the hills for comet viewing. We’ll see.

Hope you had some kind of good in your day as well. Love from the home front.

Izzi

Posted on

Like It or Not

…we are all in this together.

I understand if you aren’t sure which official announcement to believe when we were all admittedly lied to to start with; when we were told masks weren’t helpful because we weren’t trusted, and then told they are needed. We are given new information and new guidelines all of the time. The messages we get are mixed at best. I land on the side of STRONG caution, but I get not everyone will come to that conclusion in their thoughts. I ask you to at least come to that conclusion in your actions.

The worst that happens (to almost all of you) by being strict in distancing and masking is a little discomfort, inconvenience, and boredom.

If you own a business, (very few of us do), let your friends and loyal customers know how they can support you/your business if you don’t open back up to the public (gift cards, online ordering for curbside pick up, etc). Make sure they know masks and distance may help and won’t hurt if you feel you must open back up.

If the isolation is getting to you, (it does to me sometimes, too), pick up the phone. Many of us have all but ceased that old communication. It kept my family in touch with my grandparents for years during my childhood as we moved all over. It was (is) way more connecting than a text, email or social media.

Hating on each other on a personal level merely continues to divert attention from how we got here in the first place.  I’m saving my scorn for the lack of foresight, planning, and mitigation, for  depleted supplies of a de-funded, de-stocked stockpile that “necessitated” the first lie, for the still unexplained seizure of real PPE that is now still not available to hospitals or the public, for no action plan to get real supplies to citizens as well as medical professionals (who are still reporting shortages).

So, without hate, and without prejudice, I plead with you: wear your mask if you are near anyone not in your household; it helps if we ALL do it. It looks like we’re all we got.  Let’s let that go of personal animosity and take care of each other.

Posted on

Missing

I miss you all so very much. I miss the random interactions. I miss being able to choose to or not to come out some where in the world to see you, to choose whether or not I accept a hug. I miss your faces, beautiful and blurry across a back yard fire pit, across a giant art fire, across a field as one of us speeds by. Until such a time as we can be together again, should we ever be so fortunate, know I love you.

Posted on

Porch-sitting: a Tale of Two Times

This is some kind of time travel, not at all what I imagined.

I sit on the porch  watching passers-by. They are mostly oblivious or feigning obliviousness, none of my business which.

Time-slammed, date minus 30 years, not the same porch but close, 20-ish blocks south, on the same east-west line, sharing cheap jug wine with some friends, (it didn’t yet come in sealed bags, in sealed boxes, tapped for our convenience). Mike is up a tree, quite literally, shouting out, inviting people to join us. A few do.

Today, I sit alone, with a mostly cold beer.  We still need outdoors. Hell, we still need each other, a glimpse of each other’s faces (or at least each others’ eyes above a mask), the occasional friendly hello. There are no shouted invitations: no one wants one and I wouldn’t offer anyway. We are in crisis mode. This is a pandemic.  If we are close enough, we could kill each other.

We won’t share wine or sit on the porch until 3 a.m., beyond all reason. We aren’t together long enough to even share a laugh, much less a story.  Instead, we make do, grateful for a moment’s pleasantry and a moment of shared space, a (front) yard (several ruler yards) apart.

 

Posted on

My New Year

Starting my year of being 54, and while my suit is notably crankier, my mind is as creative and curious as always and notably calmer than ever. My honey is out of town with his stepfather.  I am spending the day with my grand babe. This is the age of caring for our young ones and our older ones. Dinner with the family last night and art with a friend tomorrow night are my celebration. I haven’t planned for this evening. I’ll see what comes up. Happy my birthday to you all. I love you.

Posted on

Signs of Sirens

Siren’s Gate is a collaborative art project, the beginning vision of which began as I drove home past a high school football field, lined with vinyl signs. The sun shone through the fence, through the vinyl. It waved in the light breeze, giving the impression of scales. From there the vision grew.

There will at least 5 themed pieces, in increasing sizes, hopefully to be displayed at Burning Flipside 2020, Sacred and Propane. There is room for all kinds of media and many skillsets! Blinky! Propane, copper! Fabric, found art, flames. I have two pieces in mind, but they need fleshing out, and we will need at least 3 additional pieces to bring the project to fruition. They may be developed over the course of a few events, and I may bring the starter art to FreezerBurn, with the compatible theme of Rudder Chaos.

I plan on having a design charrette in the coming weeks to garner collaborators, ideas, and support. Come on out and throw some spitballs at the wall with me. Watch this space for details.

Posted on

So Long So’bruary. Hello Marching Forth!

So’bruary has brought unexpected revelations, and increased attention, and as such, I am going to call it a success.  Though I did have a few alcoholic drinks through the month, I did so with intention, and attention. This intention and attention had me examine and dismiss cravings, and enjoy a handful of well-considered, well-spaced beverages.

I also discovered that, while I do enjoy a good beer, glass of wine, or cocktail, I had been in recent months bored-/stress-/escape-drinking. Not tons, and not daily, but more than I should and more frequently.  I did not lose weight during So’bruary, as I thought I might; perhaps because at the start, I replaced bored/stress/escape-drinking with eating. I can nosh on low-calorie snacks, drink non-alcoholic beverages, meditate, write; all good ways to escape stress/boredom/over-thinking, or at least direct those thoughts more productively.

I may also be allergic to beer; a single pint one night left me feeling inflamed, puffy the next day.  Perhaps it was coincidence, but it didn’t feel like it. I will pay attention next time I indulge in one, and note the results accordingly.

I discovered that I became more open to the creative thoughts that run through the ether and sometimes land in our heads. It’s been a month rich in ideas. 

I also found I slept more and better, by and large.

As So’bruary comes to a close, I look forward to what’s next. I intend to retain my mindfulness about alcohol.  and I look forward to the next experiment. If I can become more mindful from taking a  break from drinking,  I can work  on becoming more mindful about movement and my current lack of enough of it. 

March starts with changes at work that will involve me having to go up and down two floors to the copier. Our offices are closing, and we are relocating in the building. I will, in my reception role, be on the ground floor; however, much of our work room, which I tend to use in my administrator assistant role, will be on the third floor. I am going to take the stairs whenever possible. I need to figure out what other movement/exercise I will add to the mix, but for now, it’s stairs. 

I like this direction. I’m looking forward to A(rt)pril.

Posted on

Love is Cheap

I have heard through much of my life not to love lightly. Not to express love lightly. Not to say “I love you” “unless you mean it,” with the implication that we can’t possibly mean it when casually expressed; that to do so isn’t placing enough value on the precious commodity that love, as argued, is supposed to be. We’re not to squander it, but rather to hoard it. There was a way to further impress this upon us when we were young and tender: “If you love it so much, why don’t you marry it?” You can hear the jokey, sneery voice saying it, can’t you?
The lesson is that you should should be stingy with your love, as though there isn’t enough of it, and you may run out of it if you give to much of it away. That you need to save it for special occasions.

I am going to argue, possibly unpopularly, at least in playground terms, the opposite. That we should feel (and express!) love often, and at any level of depth (or shallowness) that we feel it; that loving someone you just met for their jokes, or your boss for their sense of style, or, I don’t know, trees, or the color red, doesn’t devalue love at all. Rather, each instance of felt and expressed love is an opportunity to dwell a moment in that feeling, and to, should we want to, examine the very nature of love. It is a chance to celebrate our connection to who or what brings us that feeling, and to explore ways to give that feeling, even in fleeting ways to others, to the very world.

So go out, be cheap with your love. Love red. Love that video of an otter. Love chocolate cake. And love each other.

Happy valentine’s day. May it be full of love.

Posted on

Welcome to Sob’ruary

I am giving up alcohol for the month. I want to see what effect it has on awareness, mood, on my pocketbook. On health and weight, perhaps, but those aren’t the reason. I am not hard-core, and will likely consume kombucha, will bake with vanilla, etc.

I thought of adding additional goals, but instead, I think I’ll see what some mindfulness and sobriety make space for. Creativity? Punctuality? Timeliness? Cleanliness? (Never a strong suit of mine). Attention! Memory, exercise, relationships, etc? Sure. These are all on the table. I’ll see what naturally arises.

Given much of what I like about wine, I may take up tea outings. I may go in search of the Best Mocktail in Austin. I may explore juice bars.

Posted on

New and Good (and Tired)

Izzi B in professional attire
Business Time

Wow. Work. It’s been eating time and thought and attention in a big way. I am tired, but grateful. This gig has potential: it’s really pushing me in ways that fuel my growth. I am building patience, calm, attention, humility. I am learning new-to-me culture, language, traditions. I am again supporting what feels like good in the world by supporting those doing the feet-on-the-ground work of building community, of supporting the less-fortunate, of finding their greater callings. I still feel new and outsider-y, but less so each and every day. The intensity of activity at work makes it easy for me to sustain activity or collapse well when I am not at work, which is serving me as I start into web design tools and basic programming classes (as well as intro to computing *gigglesnort*). Anyhow, I do want to see you all, and will whenever time, energy, and in-the-moment inclination allow it, but I may also have my head in a book, or a project, or (who knows…) for a while.