Hero of the Day: Bruce Elliott

Bruce Elliott, for his "Nude Governor Series".

A Chicago painter, Bruce paints for fun. He doesn't care if anyone likes his work. He mentioned (sarcastically?) that's he's kind of like Van Gogh, not appreciated in his time. But he says he can live with that. Especially, he says, when your wife owns a bar.

Bruce came under fire for his nude painting of Sarah Palin for being about a woman and a Republican.

His response? A second installment. And this time, about a man and a Democrat, entitled, "Cavity Search," starring a nude Rod Blagojevich.

Both paintings will be on display in his wife's bar, The Old Town Ale House.

Check out the Chicago Tribune's story here. Make sure you watch the video!!

Update

Living with Noah: Wonderful :) I love our life.

The Apartment: Amazing, except for the rampant 8 am construction occurring on scaffolding outside my window. That's right. We thought we'd gotten away from the construction, but no, it just followed us. So I wake up every morning to what sounds like someone taking a jackhammer to my concrete ceiling.

I'm so tired.

But on the upside, I've been taking meeting lots of new people in the neighborhood, mostly people from work, and been taking glass classes. I just finished Glass Blowing 1, and now am taking a Boro techniques class. Pictures of some finished work soon to come.

I made my first pair of fire poi. I LOVE THEM. I wasn't practicing on a regular basis for a few months, and it was beginning to show. So I've been putting in daily practice and can feel myself getting back in the groove. I'm going to take a belly dancing class and a capoiera class to improve my performance too.

I figure that since I have to stay put for a while to work and pay off some bills, I might as well do everything that I can't normally do on the road. Like take classes. Be super domestic create a comfortable home. Apply to graduate school. That's a big one. I'm definitely applying to Chatham University for my MFA in Creative Writing. I would kind of like to do the full-time residency program, but I think I will just do the low-residency one, that way Noah and I have options when it comes to where we want to live or if we want to travel for an extended period of time. He wants to put in at least 2 years at a job before we take off for a while. We're hoping he gets a good full-time offer from the place he's contracting at right now.

I can't put into words how happy I am that I met Noah. I feel like I can see how my entire life has led up to him. While it's amazing we never met when we were young, it could have only happened this way. It was perfect. It was like we were unknowingly drawn together, like a divine hand caused our paths to converge that morning. I can't believe that it was just chance. I don't really think that anything is chance.

I look forward to a long life with this man. I just want to make him happier than he's ever been. Because he not only makes me happy, I am better because of him.

I left my heart in Black Rock City

I woke up with the realization that I am not going to Black Rock City this year. And it made me really sad. I think that today was the first time that it really sunk in. I distracted myself with Shambhala, but today is the day that everyone who didn't leave yesterday left. I'm just really sad that I won't be there for most of my friends virgin burns. At the same time, I'm totally excited to go with everyone next year, where no one will be a virgin. And I'm excited to go with Noah next year. This time we can really plan, and do some great stuff out there. And, of course, I'm excited to just share the experience with him.

I'm going to start making and collecting stuff for the burn next year. Making plans for everything, food, camp, people, transport, everything. Maybe I'll buy a little trailer or something. *Spends 15 minutes looking at buses, vans and shuttles on craigslist.org.

What I'm really excited for, however, is to move into Noah and I's new place. I've moved all my stuff to his building, but it's in storage for now. No point in unpacking things I have to move in a week and a half. We're hopefully moving on the 3, at least by the 5. Our new apartment is going to be soooo nice! It's a one bedroom on the 16th floor, so we have a view of downtown. I feel like we're going to get a lot more light, and it will be much quieter without all the street noise, and people yelling drunk at 2 am. You walk in and there is the kitchen first, which is much bigger and like a real kitchen than the one we have now. It's open to the living room, where there are big windows that face south. To the right is a little hall where to the right is a much better laid out bathroom, and to the left is our bedroom. I AM SO EXCITED TO HAVE A BEDROOM AGAIN. I don't know if I can stress that enough. It's going to feel like a real home. As soon as we checked out the model one, I could see us living in it, see us sharing a life together there. And I knew I wanted it. Wanted that, that life, to share it with Noah.

I just feel the need to let everyone know...

that I am in love with Noah Eckstrand.

I miss you, Haymarket

I was reading April's blog today, which I do in moments of nostalgia, and it made me very homesick for Haymarket. I say homesick because the co-op will always be my home. I feel like if everything in my life went down the shitter, I would always be welcomed back into the house. It would be my sanctuary from life.



For now, I will have to quell my homesickness with visits, visits that I can almost afford now! Noah and I are planning to visit his mom in Rhode Island sometime this fall, and I'd like to stop in Chicago too, you know, to introduce Noah to the family :)

Life can get better....and throw you a couple twists

In my last post I said that life couldn't get any better. Then I remembered, of course it can. And I was right.

You know that 2 day outdoor psytrance party I spoke of last time? Well, it ended up being the beginning of something I don't even know how to describe yet, other than that I met this amazing guy named Noah, and we've happily spent pretty much every day together since the party.

It's funny how when you take a step to change things, you allow your life to happen.

And I got fired from the glass studio. Shocker! I've never been fired from any job in my life! I got really sick, stomach problems, dehydration, low blood pressure, orthostatic hypotension. I was pretty unhealthy for a minute but feeling great again now! As for work, I'm serving at a sushi place in belltown 2 blocks from Noah's place. Can you say convenient?

Okay, update done, for now :)

It's a wonderful life

I got the job in the cast glass studio!! I start on Tuesday :) I'll be starting off making molds and cutting glass, and they're going to teach me everything about cast glass, coldworking, welding and woodworking. Yay! It's my dream job! I will be working at Lundgren Monuments, who do memorials and monuments, architectural glass, and custom work. They're doing things that no one else in the country is doing in cast glass, mostly because it's a "pain in the ass," says the studio manager. I'm so excited! And it's in Fremont, a 10 minute bike ride from my apartment.

My last day of work at Sodexo was yesterday, and now I'm looking forward to a fun-filled 5 day weekend! Tonight is the lovely trance queen Kelly's birthday, and so we're going to celebrate the only way we know how: to dance our asses off! Tomorrow half the crew goes to Armin Van Buren in Portland and the other half of us are going to Prosperity in Wenatchee, a 2 day outdoor psytrance party in the middle of nowhere. Monday will most likely be spent recuperating, and Tuesday I begin my new job! Life can't get any better. Well, of course it can :)

Not to mention the fact that I ended it with my boyfriend. We just weren't right for each other. We didn't have anything in common and there just wasn't a connection. Once I realized that a deeper connection was possible, and that having things in common was probably a good thing in a lasting relationship, I knew what I had to do, and finally, did it. I feel like I let light back into my life again. I feel like I can finally breathe, can finally begin to take the time to create the life I dreamed about living in Seattle. It's beginning to take form, I can see the outlines of the picture, but the shading and colors have yet to be filled in. And that's okay. It takes time to create a work of art, you have to allow the splendor to enter you and consciously seek it and give it back.

Changes!

Wow, it's been months since I've last written! Well. I suppose an update on life is in order.

So I left Chicago at the end of January, right in the dead of winter. My brother flew over to keep my company on the drive back. Little did I know how much of a help he would be to me and my failing car! If it hadn't been for him, I probably would have overheated in the middle of nowhere, engine catching on fire and burning all my worldly possessions. Hey, it could have happened.

We stopped in Omaha, Nebraska the first night, and stayed at a place called Hotel Frank that I found on Couchsurfing.com. Within minutes of my brother and I walking through the door (which they had told us just to walk in, because no one would hear us knocking) we were being whisked off to a Liberty Tax place to dance on the roof (to really bad techno) and my brother was dressed in an Uncle Sam costume. It was great. But way too freaking cold!

The next night we made it to Boulder, Colorado, before my transmission kind of gave out. Luckily, we were with friends. I had met Lincoln at NASCO Institute last fall, and he lived at a co-op in Boulder. It was great staying there, it was affirming to see a co-op just like Haymarket existing and functioning in harmony. God, I miss Haymarket so much right now! I miss having a community of people, always having someone to talk to, and the kitchen. Oh, how i miss the kitchen.

Anyway, we stopped in Snowville, Utah the following night then booked it home the following day. We got back on a Thursday. Friday morning I was job hunting online, and applied for a barista position at amazon.com. I was hired Saturday morning, and I started on Monday. It's been a whirlwind ever since.

I feel like I haven't even been able to take a breath since I've been back. I moved into a sweet little studio in the University District, and I love it. I've been filling it with plants and flowers and I started an herb garden. I live blocks away from a vegan pizza place and a vegan grocery.

Even with all that, I've still been feeling king of down lately. I think it's because I'm beginning to get bored at my job, and it's never good when that happens. I've decided that I need something more fulfilling, meaningful, and challenging. I want to be doing something that I don't know how to do, rather than something I'm overqualified for. So, I'm applying to a non-profit working with homeless youth, a cast glass studio, and I'm trying really, really hard to score a glass blowing apprentice with this shop BLOCKS from my house. That's the one I really want. I've come to realize that I'm never going to get where I want to be in glass unless I am able to really devote lots of time and energy into it EVERY DAY. And that's just not happening right not. But, keep your fingers crossed for me, because I'm hoping all of that will change. Wish me luck!

Fire pics!!

Here are some of the latest pictures from some fire spinning I did in Washington over the holidays. Photos by Chrissy Menke! You rock, girl!

First day of the New Year

Today was an interesting kick-off to the new year.

It began with breakfast at Valois. An experience all in itself, Valois, a Hyde Park breakfast institution, was packed but according to my housemates, was not busy. "On Sundays around 11 am the line is practically out the door," Lauren and Corrigan informed me. At 1 pm on New Years Day, the line went about halfway to the door.

Snaking up to the long counter the only white person behind the counter takes my order. With 7 cooks behind him running back and forth crazily cracking eggs and flipping cakes, I feel pressure to get my order out in as few words and as quickly as possible. "Two eggs over easy bacon hashbrowns," I say. Usually I like cheese and green onions on my hashbrowns-but that's 4 extra words. The guy turns and barks my order at the cooks (all overweight older Hispanic men) with a baseball "hey batter-batter," slang, and in the same breath, looks at the person behind me and says, "Next!"

"Any toast or pancakes?" A woman asks me as I push my cafeteria tray down the counter. I shake my head as she asks me, "Anything to drink?" Oj, please. I push my tray to the register where you pay. "We'll bring water to your table," the cashier says. (It never actually comes...)

Regardless of the hustle bustle craziness, the eggs were awesome, the hashbrowns crisp and golden, and my entire bill under 6 bucks. Can't beat that for a hangover breakfast.

After coming home and vegging out for a couple hours doing, well, nothing, I decided I should go across the street to the apartment I'm watching and walk the dog. I trudge through the snow and up 3 flights of stairs, open the door...and notice the suitcase on the floor. Oops! They were home already....and I didn't clean up yet! Crap. I awkwardly hand them the keys and bounce. Well, at least I'm leaving the state.

Upon returning home, I commenced my taking it easy. I learned about some interesting people/things. Like the Transmission of Affect, a book Lauren told me about. It is a theory that says we project our energy/feelings to others. I also learned about Tuli Kupferberg, a crazy anarcho-author, Kate Bornstein, a transgendered gender theorist and writer of 101 Alternatives to Suicide, a vegan household in Capitol Hill, a cool new writing opportunity, and finally came up with a label for my sexual orientation (i am a lesbian except on special occasion-and most men simply aren't special enough).

Now it's 11:31 pm and the first day of the new year is almost over. It may not have been an entirely productive day, but it was certainly interesting.

Tuli Kupferberg

My favorite person of the day is Tuli Kupferberg. A contemporary of Kerouac, Kupferberg is a poet, cartoonist, author and anarchist. He wrote 1001 Ways to Beat the Draft in 1967, co-founded the band The Fugs, and is now writing things called I Hate Poems About Poems About Poems, and Teach Yourself Fucking. Anyway, none of these things are the reasons for which Tuli Kupferberg is my favorite person of the day. One reason is that he also wrote 1001 Ways to Live Without Working, on folded sheets of 8 1/2 by 11 paper and sold it on the street himself. But the main reason is this passage out of the prose poem "Memorial Day 1971" written by Ted Berrigan and Anne Waldman:

I asked Tuli Kupferberg once, "Did you really jump off of The Manhattan Bridge?" "Yeah," he said, "I really did." "How come?" I said. "I thought that I had lost the ability to love," Tuli said. "So, I figured I might as well be dead. So, I went one night to the top of The Manhattan Bridge, & after a few minutes, I jumped off." "That's amazing," I said. "Yeah," Tuli said, "but nothing happened. I landed in the water, & I wasn't dead. So I swam ashore, & went home, & took a bath, & went to bed. Nobody even noticed."