Haus der Luege : Noli Evocare Quod Reprimere Non Potes

Do I friend someone I met once in a bar? My family and close friends? Everybody but co-workers & parents? The extended relations of my (theoretical) bowling team?

The magic number is one fifty. One hundred & fifty people that we can keep current in our heads. One-fifty is the top end number of slots at which we can have meaningful relationships. Included in that number is your momma, your 20 year deceased great-aunt Agatha, the first boy you locked braces with, the grocery kid at the store who chats you up. After we hit that number, we may be able to remember names, but health issues & allergies & marital status go right out the window. One fifty is the absolute largest number that monkey tribes grow to before someone goes off to start another monkey tribe. One fifty is the largest group of individuals that can be moved & organized before communications break down. The Romans figured this out too, modern armies continue the thought, mobilizing men into groups of ten, one hundred, one thousand, each group directed by one person.

The internet has turned the natural way our brains operate in a community into a popularity contest – she who accumulates the most friends, wins! And I cry shenanigans.

There is a huge difference between a fan page and a personal page. I have over 1000 people on my fan page, but I don’t kid myself that I’m friends with a thousand people. I know that the folks who have joined that page are fans of my paintings or writing, not necessarily me. Very different animals.

With personal pages, assumptions are made that one chance meeting makes us “friends”. While that has happened, I meet a lot of people, and can’t achieve the same level of intimacy with all of them. I also don’t assume that everyone wants to know the contents of my refrigerator.

Online, I’ve watched friends go through horrible ordeals. Sickness. Dying parents. Dying themselves, sometimes with an attendant suicide note (conveniently placed in an online “notes” section.) When I’m scanning a list of 748 people, a post about a family catastrophe gets lost between “Check out the cute popcorn kittehs” and somebody discovering unplowed fields in Farmville. And I think that’s wrong. ”Hiding” people seems disingenuous. I want everyone I track to know that I’m really there, and not just a collection of ones & zeros & clever commentary.

We are sacred creatures, not stacked soundbyes in accrual competitions. My relationships deserve honesty and authenticity, but by accepting everyone, I’ve made sacred time for no one. To that end, I'm gonna try to get my lists down to the magic number. I don’t begrudge anyone his voice, but I can’t think with all the extra ones in mine.

...might be found in this interview I gave to Flight Path Studio. They're a collaboration of artists and entrepreneurs dedicated to helping others navigate the creative life and small business world.

Also, one of my art auctions ends tomorrow. Anyone else interested in some priced-to-move originals? Usually my stuff has an extra zero or two on the end!

Finally, my studio is filled with Demonfae. This piece has sold, but there are others. Oh, yes there are. Chittering at me in the dark;)

My Spidery Mardi Gras Mask, starting at $100:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=200499222763&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT

And, this Carouselle Stud, who could be had for as little as $50:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=200499225607&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT

Thanks for looking!

...which one of these, or all of these, might be worth tossing onto the hopeful fires of eBay? If something REALLY grabs you, feel free to make me an offer I can't refuse:)


A pencil sketch for a potential male Carouselle horse - 10-ish inches high. (Would that make him a Carousil? I crack me up.)


Watercolor & colored pencil sketch for a Carouselle. Didn't fit the series, but was fun! About 17" high.


Pencil drawing of a cute girl about to get et. 17ish inches long. SOLD


Three ink doodled dancers, about 24" long. Could be cut into three images.


'nother sparkly Mardi Gras Princess. 10-ish inches high.


Spikey Goaty Thing. This was in my book. Original ink is mebbe 10". SOLD

As you can see, all sizes are approximate, but I'll get on that dependent on folks' interest. Thoughts?

[From Yum Universe]

Blender, Dinner, Family, Gluten-Free, Kids, Lunch, Vegan Food, Vegetarian Food, Wheat-FreeWritten by: Heather Crosby

Makes: 2-4 servings

Preparation Time: 30mins

Tools:
Blender

Ingredients:
5-7 leaves of organic kale (or spinach)
1/2 cup uncooked organic millet (or quinoa)

For Sauce
2 Tbsp fresh, organic lemon juice
1 small clove of organic garlic
1 cup pure water
1 Tbsp extra virgin coconut oil
3 Tbsp nutritional yeast
1 tsp pink Himalayan or Celtic sea salt
2 Tbsp organic tahini
3 oz. organic cashews, soaked

Let’s Get Started:
Bring 1/2 cup millet, a dash of sea salt and 1 1/2 cups of water to a boil in a saucepan. Once boiling, reduce heat to medium, cover saucepan and cook until all water is absorbed into the grain—about 20-25 minutes. Don’t peek (this is why glass lids and glass saucepans are great). You want to keep all that heat/steam inside for fluffy millet.

While your millet is cooking, remove the stems from your kale leaves and wash them well. Roll the leaves and slice them into 1″ strips

Place your sliced kale into a large glass bowl and set aside while you prepare the sauce. In a blender, place all sauce ingredients and blend until smooth. Transfer to a small saucepan, and over low heat, stir for about 2-4 minutes until warm and it starts to thicken.

When your millet is cooked, fluff with a fork.

Pour your warm sauce over your kale leaves and add warm millet. Mix well.

The heat from the sauce and millet will start to wilt your kale leaves a bit. This makes for extra tasty, vibrant green kale.

Serve right away and/or store for up to one week in an airtight glass container. Feel free to reheat leftovers on the stove over low heat or eat cold. This is a great meal to make for satisfying, healthy lunches to bring to work and it is a delicious way to get a bunch of powerhouse greens in for the day. Prepare for addiction!

Read more at tumbling towards ecstasy

Over HERE on eBay, is my somewhat pouty Peacock Princess. Starting bid is $125. Thanks for looking!

After the feeding frenzy following my Studio Scavenging post, I've listed my first piece of art on eBay.

My Peacock Mask (my favorite Mardi Gras lady) will be available for bidding Monday morning:



If this works, y'all may have created a monster...

Is it weird that my work is either hyper-literal-surrealistic (how's THAT for a description?) or somewhat abstracted metaphor? This one is 12x24" oil on canvas:



If you like seeing stuff as it comes outta my studio & think I deserve a congratulatory cocktail, feel free to toss something in the tip jar. Thank you!

While rearranging my studio, I found several small pieces that I’d love to see in new homes.

They are all about 12 inches tall – if you’d like exact measurements, lemme know. With the exception of "Ecstasy Dance" (oil on birch), they’re gouache, some with acrylic highlights on board or paper, or paper mounted to board.

These girls are priced to move, and shipping will be on top of the piece, dependent on where you are & how fast you want it.

Thanks so much for looking!


Ice Fairy $200
(She has metallic & iridescent highlights that just won't show up on a screen)


Ecstasy Dance $125 (SOLD)


Swan Masque $125 (SOLD)
(metallic & iridescent highlights)


Horned Masque $100 (SOLD)
(metallic highlights)


Little Unpied Piper $100 (SOLD)
(metallic highlights)


Shy Demon $175 (SOLD)
(metallic highlights)

I don't have prints of these & don't plan to make any, but of course you can see lots more of my work (and lithographs!) at http://www.marrusart.com!

A drunken afternoon (and morning, if we're gonna be honest) with friends has produced the following bit of stupidity, and in my Bloody-Mary-fueled stupor, I promised to put it online.

So, I present for your amusement the New Orleans Cardinal Sins. Feel free to add more as you think of them as these are perhaps service-industry heavy. (I was hanging with a pack of tour guides & bartenders. It wasn’t pretty.)

IT IS A SIN TO:

1. Call prior to 1 in the afternoon, unless it is to invite the callee to a party.
2. Not reciprocate a round (hot women excluded)
3. Not tip
4. Start on time
5. Ask for a top-off
6. Piss / vomit / defecate in the street or on a house
7. Refuse a drink
8. Wear purple & gold instead of BLACK & GOLD
9. Wear beads when there’s no parade
10. Complain about noise in the French Quarter
11. Give gutterpunks money
12. Not get dressed for Mardi Gras (Goths wearing what Goths wear every day DOES NOT COUNT AS A COSTUME!
13. Get paid above the table
14. Declare tips
15. Pet / molest / steal a cop’s horse
16. Be on Bourbon Street without friends / family / job in tow
17. Ask a local “Did you lose everything after Katrina?”
18. Call street cars “trolleys”
19. Call crawfish “crayfish”
20. Pronounce our fair City “Nawlinz”, unless you’re from Chalmette or the West Bank
21. Live in Jefferson Parish, but call yourself a New Orleanian
22. Drink Hand Grenades
23. Call Burgundy the street like burgundy the color
24. Pronounce the Muse streets correctly
25. Climb lamp posts
26. Ask to “make it strong” (pony up and ask for a double)
27. Start the day at sunrise
28. Play “Bloodletting”, “House of the Rising Sun”, “Sweet Home Alabama”, or "Brown Eyed Girl" on the juke

(I take no personal responsibility for this list, and I don't necessarily agree with all of these, but a promise is a promise.)

This past week was full of firsts. Many new challenges to work with.

School

A big week. Started my first clinical rotation this week at a rehab facility. Started in right away the day after my orientation with my own patient. He’s an interesting case who has had quite the hospitalization journey. From one possibly fatal circulation issue to another nearly fatal heart complication and the patient was then broad-sided by a close call with a severe GI issue. Finally, patient got an infection on top of it. Yeah. They have had quite the journey. But you wouldn’t know it by anything but the incisions… all they complain about is a chronic pain from a congenital defect. Really pretty amazing.

I gave my first meds, did my first documented health assessment, took vitals, assisted with a dressing change. All in all pretty neat. That said, I had my fair share of anxiety and feeling overwhelmed too. I feel as though I’m constantly playing catch up. I never seem to know quite enough… this is to be expected I know. My amazing clinical instructor said as much. She put things in perspective when I was stressing that fact that I didn’t take a particular assessment after an incident. She reassured me saying that my only job in the circumstance was to notify the nurse that something had changed. I did extra… but still in the circumstances I wanted to do everything I could for my patient.

I am hitting a few personal brick walls. They’ve been there all along but now that I am in a service industry they are coming to the fore. I am self-oriented even as I am interested in the welfare of others. I don’t directly empathize with a person… instead I have to filter their sensations through a projection of my own experiences. This creates a delay in my reaction. It is something I’m working on. Also, I don’t multi-task well. I hyper-focus on what I am doing and its already an issue. I’m supposed to always be doing at least two things at once: Asking about comfort level while assessing skin turgor and affect, etc… I need to figure out a way to make this happen. Hopefully, it will come with practice.

Health & Wellness

I’m adjusting to my new schedule. The heat this week had made things difficult. My clinical is first shift (6.3a-2.3p) and so I’m up and out early. Trouble is I’m a night person. I study best at night, especially when its so hot in the afternoon. So I’m averaging 4-6 hours a night, which really isn’t enough. Hoping to recover this weekend…

Employment & Finance

Still waiting on the nursing assistant position. Issue is everyone seems to be on vacation.

Volunteering

MaSNA: Working on getting some volunteer opportunities together for student nurses. Looking into walks and clinics. If anyone has any ideas, please let me know.

Hospice: Started with my first hospice patient this week. She is a lovely woman with a love of birds and chocolate. I had to keep the speed and complexity of conversation in check. That will take some work. I’m going to look for a bird picture book for next week. I’m not sure yet how she feels about her prognosis. Right now, I just try and make her day a little more pleasant. The experience is a nice counterpoint to my clinical patient care where I have little time to spend with my patients.

Red Cross: I still haven’t been out on a call but I’m sure it will happen sometime soon. I’m looking into taking a class on shelter logistics soon.

Personal Practice

Haven’t had too much of a chance to sit on Sundays due to other scheduled commitments. But I’m hoping to work that in over the next few weekends. There is a work weekend I’d like to help out with. I think my practice will really be key to helping me keep my head on my shoulders. I just need to follow through with it.

Also, I am reading a book by John Daido Loori, called “The Heart of Being.” It is a book about Zen ethics. Really a very interesting read.

Social Life

Been gaming lately. Loving the campaign we have going on. Really a very fun character and world.

Went to see The Last Airbender. It was…ok. Loved the scenery, costumes and fights. The rest was not really that great. I did not like what they did with Inro. And why the name pronunciation changes? I hope they do a second but get a different director. And can someone please tell me why they keep hiring Shayamalan?

Namaste all.

Read more at tumbling towards ecstasy

So, it’s all going to hell. We’re in day-almost-80 of this mess, and all efforts to fix the poison gushing up from the seabed have failed. Booms haven’t kept the oil out of the marshes. Sea turtles are being incinerated. Bird estuaries are oily messes. Tar balls have washed up on every coast surrounding the Gulf. Louisiana’s seafood industry has been much more than “decimated” – which means “reduced by ten percent” – it’s been destroyed. Waitstaff all over the country are being queried as to the origination of their seafood, the resounding response being “If it’s from Louisiana, we don’t want it.” (Even if the fish is freshwater, from inland, nowhere near the spill.) Fishermen who’ve earned an honest living for generations are being paid to clean up the what they can - that is, if BP’s checks clear, of which there has been some question.

And while of course it’s awful, I’m noticing some people seem to have the wrong idea about some of the events surrounding this mess.

For one, this whole “Boycott BP” thing. (Usually, in all caps, as a FaceBook page, with attendant exclamation points.) I got some news: BP ain’t the only one using that crude – they sell it to everyone else, too. And what’s more, if you boycott & bankrupt them, you know who gets to clean up their mess? Us. We do. The taxpayers.

You wanna stick it to the oil companies? Drive less. Vote for people who want alternative energy sources. Use less oil & gas. Make your home more energy efficient with new windows or appliances. Burn candles in winter for extra heat and have a romantic dinner. Refill water bottles with tap water – it’s better regulated than the bottled stuff, anyway. Shop at local farmers’ markets, or in bulk, and make arrangements with your friends to all go on the same day. Carpool, or *gasp*, take public transportation if you can. Ride your bike for errands. Tell your kid, “Too bad. You can’t have a car til you can buy it & insure it yourself.” Send money to the folks doing the animal cleaning, like these guys. It takes $5000 to rehab a sea turtle, and those little guys need a place to live until we clean up the mess we made of their homes.

A little inconvenience might be worth not poisoning our oceans, and I promise, making arrangements with friends & neighbors to go shopping cuts costs & builds community. Hell, do someone a favor – when I have to drive out to a big store, I ask my neighbors if they need anything. Even if the answer is “no”, lemme tell you, everyone here smiles at me & talks to me, and keeps an eye on my house when I’m gone. It’s nice.

Another thing I’m hearing is the screaming about how BP isn’t letting folks near the spill to take pictures. Scratchy videos are popping up on YouTube as some beleaguered cop turns away yet another wanna-be journalist with an iphone.

Jay has a hazmat clearance, and HE can’t get on site. You most likely don’t know how to properly clean a pelican. You might hurt the pelican. You might hurt yourself. You don’t belong there. You can’t help in this fashion, you don’t know what you’re doing, and you’re just gonna be in the way.

Now, I know that there’s some underhandedness going on. I know BP is doing stuff they’d rather us not see. But I have to have faith that the various professional news agencies, who rely on fearmonging & making deeply uncomfortable nuisances of themselves, will find every scary bad thing they can with which to terrify & enrage us. And they’re better at it, and better connected than you.

I know it sucks. There is no upside to this, aside from changing our behaviour so that we no longer need oil to sustain us. When I was up in Gloucester, Massachusetts, I heard the people there screaming about the wind farms. I thought the windmills were pretty, but that’s just me.

THAT’S the kinda crap that needs to stop. We need more sources of alternative energy, and we need to quit our throwaway culture. (Plastic water bottles, anyone? You know where THOSE come from? Yup. Oil.) You DON’T need every piece of sparkly future-piece-of-landfill geegaw that comes along. You CAN bring a canvas bag with you to pick up some milk. You CAN make a difference.

But screaming “boycott” and impeding the people who are trying to fix this isn’t gonna do it.

chairs moving
at first one apart
then one closer
then the same
then time
and they shift
so that they are further
as if they are
creeping
magnets
push pull
flip
but now creeping (more)

This poem was written after watching a special on Michaelangelo, and how he carved David in perfect perspective when one stands on the floor.

MICHAELANGELO



They say he did it all in his head,
ten feet up in the air
with his ass literally
in a sling
figuri (more)

He was five pounds when we
stole him
so hungry
he ate three meals of cat food
in two hours
starved for love, too
would climb to shoulder
in an instant,
cuddle madly in a lap
he had a sister
we used to see her
crying at the window
for him, (more)

the problem with swings

is that we become accustomed

to them--a bit of pumping

and we can fly

unwinged, unfettered

straight up to skies

and clouds

and migrating geese


It gives us ideas. (more)

My nephew has autism. He wasn't my nephew when he was born, but his mother and I became friends over the internet and when I was going through a rather rough time coinciding with cheap airfares, his mom invited me down to The Deep South (at least, to my Yankee Brain. I've been since info (more)

outsider, the body

I used to live in that,
I think
the legs used to fit
like silky dance stockings
the hands like
tailored kidskin gloves
but each day that
I trip over
some small thing
and hurt for hours--
each day that
the b (more)

Picked over chicken bones of earth
brown and wet and strange
self-consciously naked
glancing away
the season where the eyes
skips to avoid
the ugly details
the orange Frost Heave
signs warning
bone-rattling ahead
and yet.

shyly acquiri (more)

When I was 21, I went to see Arlo Guthrie for the first time.

That was a while ago. Kethrai at 21 was a very uptight young woman. She had reason to be; working hard at college, taking care of a boyfriend who preferred sympathy and money from others instead of medication for his clinical depr (more)