In almost quite but not really publishing news...

So a press, I'm not sure I'm allowed to say which one, what is the etiquette here b/c the email was private? let me know that my MS placed as a semi-finalist in their first-second book award contest. It doesn't mean anything in real terms, but they are the first press to do so.

And so I am encouraged to begin sending out again, after the long LONG spell of not-sending during my full-on grieving period.

Am I in my half-way grieving period now or something? Why do I write these things?

Anyway, I'd badly needed a human being to acknowledge that the MS was worth a second look to anyone. They want to see it again.

I think I'll keep the name of the press private, but let's just say I would be really proud to publish with them.

And I believe that that envelope (or electronic submission) was the latest version of the MS's maiden voyage. There's nowhere else that version is at right now. Time to start sending it.

Here's a painting:

[collage]

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Dialogue

I'm a little bit happier today.

[collage]

Boxes

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My Delicious Chia Pudding Experiment

A friend of mine who is doing the Paleo Diet brought some unusual dessert to lunch the other day. It looked like wet sand. I asked her what it was and she said chia pudding. I was like, pardon? Apparently the same seeds that they cultivate for Chia Pets are actually, in non-sprouted form, a superfood that people are putting on salads, in smoothies, yogurt, even just eating raw --and have been doing for years now. I asked to try some. It was a little like tapioca but with more granularity instead of the soft bubbles of tapioca. Also, it had a pleasingly nutty taste. I find the flavor of tapioca rather bland and unappealing. My friend said that there were a zillion recipes on the internet for chia pudding and encouraged me to go for it. She said she bought the seeds at Whole Foods in the bulk section.

So when I got home I researched chia seeds and found out some things that convinced me I wanted to try making chia pudding. The seeds are high in fiber (higher than flax!), full of antioxidants, packed with omega-3, and they're a complete protein. Here's one article I found from the NYT explaining the history of how chia seeds went from a pop culture phenomenon to a health food. And here's one quick & dirty run-down of the nutrition benefits plus a pudding recipe from PETA.

Also, it should be mentioned: I like pudding. I mean I realllly like pudding. Or anything with a puddinglike texture --yogurt, smoothies, frozen Cool Whip eaten standing over the kitchen sink at 1am. But I'm lactose intolerant, and I gotta cross the river to get my soy yogurt, pudding, and so forth, and frozen Cool Whip ... yeah. I don't have to explain what's bad about eating that.

What I'm trying to say is: chia pudding is SO EASY to make that even the laziest cook (or, just perhaps, maybe you are suffering from a major depressive episode) can get behind it. Chia seeds and almond milk in sealed containers keep for a good while. No pesky trips to WF all the time.

These are the seeds. Mike drove me to WF and I too found them in the bulk bins, but you can get them in your local health food co-op or order online.

When you put them in liquid, they absorb it and become tapioca-like in their consistency. Actually, to me they are a little more crunchy and nutty than tapioca, which I find is an advantage. So to make the pudding base, all you gotta do is take a liquid, like almond milk for example (you can use any kind of milk), add seeds, stir-stir-stir for five minutes, and put it in the fridge overnight in a covered bowl.

Out of curiosity more than anything, I went back a few times during the day and gently tipped the bowl around to see how it was setting up. After about six hours I took the lid off and gave it another stirring, which seemed to be the right thing: the thickness increased dramatically after that. This is the chia pudding base the following morning. See how the seeds have absorbed the milk? Cool.

I found many ratios of seeds to milk while browsing internet recipes. I decided on 1c milk to 3 tbsp seeds + 1/2 packet of stevia extract to sweeten it. Sweet tooth plus grief-eating adds up to "I wanna keep it sugar free." You can also use maple syrup, honey, or agave nectar. Another cool thing about chia pudding: the high fiber content and the fact that the seeds have absorbed liquid keeps you feeling fuller longer. Yay!

 I knew I wanted to make A LOT of base and fool around with spices, so I made 4c milk, 12 tbsp of seeds, and 2 packets of stevia extract. It came out pleasingly creamy and just sweet enough. I like my pudding pretty dense though. The next time I make a large amount I might add an extra 1 to 2 tbsp of seeds to see if it firms up a bit.

When I was out getting seeds and spices, I also got some tiny food storage containers (1/2 c each) to portion out the pudding. I wanted to try four different flavorings. This is where I abandoned the recipes and struck out on my own. I'm a much better improvisor than recipe-follower. I wanted 1) chocolate 2) ginger-cardamom 3) cinnamon-lavender-clove and 4) mixed berries.

Here's the chocolate:

I added (to 1c base) 2 tbsp of Hershey's Special Dark Cocoa + 1 packet stevia extract to counteract the bitterness of the cocoa. RESULT: Yummy but tastes a bit too diet-y. Next time, 1/2 less stevia.

Here's the ginger cardamom. The picture isn't so interesting because I took it after I stirred in the spices...

I added (to 1c base) 1/2 tsp ground ginger and 1/2 tsp ground cardamom. RESULT: Spicy like a good chai. I love it!

Here's the cinnamon lavender and clove:

I added (to 1c base) 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon and 1/2 tsp crushed lavender flowers, and just a sprinkle of clove. RESULT: Unexpectedly delightful. I would almost say magical. You get the lovely floral taste from the lavender and also a slight bitterness, but then it's very earthy and sweet from the cinnamon and clove. When I was making this one I felt my mom's presence there for half a second. Maybe I just imagined it, but whatever. She was all about making cakes, pastries, and breads... maybe when I experiment with a sweet, I will feel close to her. For those of you who don't read this blog regularly, my mom passed away four months ago, almost to the day. Tomorrow it will be four months. EDIT: When I ate this pudding this evening, the cinnamon had overpowered the lavender. Next time, reduce cinnamon by half.

Lastly, the mixed berry:

As you can tell, I added WF Cherry-Berry Mix to the 1c base. Dried fruit is good for you but I don't like the taste of raisins... This mix has sour cherries, bing cherries, strawberries, and blueberries. I just tossed in a handful and stirred until it felt right. RESULT: The pudding seemed a little more all-over sweet plus I got extra pops of sweetness from the fruit. I wonder if the fruit will re-hydrate as the pudding sets in the fridge.

Here's what it looks like portioned out:

So each container holds half a cup. This pudding is rather rich, so half a cup should be enough to satisfy... and if you eat more at one time, who's judging? It's good for you.

NOTE: 4c of almond milk plus 12 tbsp of seeds makes about 4 1/4 to 4 1/2c (dry measure) of pudding. This might be obvious to people who measure things a lot, but it wasn't to me. Like I said, when I cook I'm improvisational. I'm mentioning it because, if you decide to do this method and make 1c each of different flavors, you can use an ample cup. The chocolate was the first one that I made and you can see in the picture that those 1/2c containers aren't full! I was using a scant cup and then I had leftovers. I ate the remaining 1/4-1/2c for breakfast. To me it was even tasty all by itself.

[collage]

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The Broken Line

The Universe Box and Radical Acceptance

The day I walked into the room where my therapy sessions are held, the words RADICAL ACCEPTANCE were scribbled on the whiteboard in failing black marker. I dimly remembered this skill from last time (199something). There was something else written under it which my mind wants to paraphrase as "This really sucks right now but there's nothing I can do about it."

Easier seen on the whiteboard than taken into the heart and mind. A few days later, a fellow group member let me in on his idea for something called a God Box. You made a special box where you put thoughts and feelings that were just too big, overwhelming, too much for you to handle. The idea was to physically and metaphorically give up control to a higher power, who has the capacity to handle these things much better than you do.

This box works if you believe in any version of a higher power at all.... even if the higher power is just the best parts of your Self, not easily accessed --that strong core that has kept you alive thus far. I called mine the Universe Box because it suited me.

Here's a picture of the top of my box. I didn't have the energy to make the whole thing pretty but I did at least do the top.

That uneven black rectangle is the slot I cut where I put the thoughts. I made it small deliberately, so that I would have to fold up the pieces of paper REALLY TINY to get them in there. And I glued a nautilus to the front because I find them beautiful. It sort of looks like the thoughts might all be pouring into the mouth of the nautilus as well.

Here's more about radical acceptance. This is from the book, by Marsha Linehan, Skills Training Manual for Treating Borderline Personality Disorder (c) 1993. When I first did this therapy, they were only using it for borderlines, but docs and clinicians have since seen the value of using it as a therapy for bipolar, depression, eating disorders, anxiety disorders, and probably more than that.

Btw, if you google Marsha Linehan, the first thing that comes up is all these images of tees and sweatshirts from CafePress that say things like "Marsha Linehan is my homegirl." Not even kidding. Well, her therapy did save my life once, and now we're working on rescuing my sanity 17 years later.

Okay, so the ideas of radical acceptance, straight from "Distress Tolerance Handout 5: Basic Principles of Accepting Reality." There's two sub-sections I'm going to outline here. One is called Radical Acceptance. One is called Turning the Mind. These aren't my words. Please Marsha, don't sue me.

I do have lots of italicized notes though, like this one.

[NOTE: if you are reading this blog and you're pretty well-adjusted, you might think that the worksheet title is odd. You may not have trouble accepting your reality. You may even enjoy your reality most of the time. And for the times when you don't enjoy it, you may be doing things about it that are effectively helping your reality conform to the way you'd rather have it. That person was pretty much me, from about 1998 or so to August 9, 2012. I'm not saying I was super-sane or asymptomatic, but I was relatively good until the flea infestation that started off my downward spiral. Which I am planning on discussing in group today. Anyway, IF you have trouble accepting your reality because something SO world-rocking happened and you have limited or no control over it, then radical acceptance may be for you.]

RADICAL ACCEPTANCE

• Freedom from suffering requires ACCEPTANCE from deep within of what is. Let yourself go completely with what is. Let go of fighting reality.
• ACCEPTANCE is the only way out of hell.  >>> I starred that one
• Pain creates suffering only when you refuse to ACCEPT the pain.
• Deciding to tolerate the moment is ACCEPTANCE. >>> with all the self-medicating I'm doing right now, I really want to work on this aspect some more
• ACCEPTANCE is acknowledging what is.
• To accept something is not the same as judging it good. >>> This one is very important to me. It means that even though my mom killed herself, I don't have to forgive her right now, or even seek my own emotional understanding of her motives. It just means I have to accept, for example, that there was no way I could fix her.

TURNING THE MIND

As I understand it, this means literally re-orienting your mind from a place where you are attached to the pain, where you ruminate and dwell on what-ifs and should-haves and whys --which, remember, you have no control over--to a place where you allow yourself to let go.

• Acceptance of reality as it is requires an act of CHOICE. It is like coming to a fork in the road. You have to turn your mind towards the acceptance road and away from the "rejecting" reality road. >>> Note: rejecting reality is not the same as denial, although it might be. Rejecting could be, for example, going over a problem in your head that is past all help, but you can't stop dwelling on it. I just thought of Adam's t-shirt on Mythbusters that says "I reject your reality and substitute my own." I love that shirt. And it's fine in an imaginative sense, when you are engaging in acts of creativity, or when you need an escape, or if it's a joke printed on a shirt. Or if substituting one's own reality can actually produce a positive change. Damn, I love that show. I wonder if they had a new season when I wasn't paying attention.
• You have to make an inner COMMITMENT to accept. >>> I find that if you believe in a higher power, it's really helpful to lean on that higher power to help you make the commitment. 

• The COMMITMENT to accept does not itself equal acceptance. It just turns you toward the path. But it is the first step.
• You have to turn your mind and commit to acceptance OVER and OVER and OVER again. Sometimes you have to make the commitment many times in the space of a few minutes. >>> I starred this one too. It's so important. I remember when I was in my first year of recovery from self-injury. I definitely had to re-commit every minute in some stressful circumstances. Because it's like your brain has carved these neurological pathways that tell you [insert destructive pattern here] is the only way, and it's not. My pathways for self-injury haven't caused me to act on them for 14 years, even though those neurons that say do it still fire. 

[end handout]

I hope that I can switch my neurons again. Before (in 199something) I felt it was the one pattern I had to work on. Don't self-injure. Don't self-injure. But now I feel like it's a bunch of smaller counterproductive patterns (erm, like a fear of leaving the house, e.g.) that I would like to mend, and it's all complicated by this grieving process that I know barely anything about. Except it's unpredictable, nonlinear, and it can take a long time. Woo hoo.

and stuff

I woke up at 4:10 this morning and couldn't turn off the thoughts. What could I have done to prevent her from doing what she did? I'mabaddaughterbaddaughterbaddaughter. Even though by now extensive therapizing has convinced me that this is not a fruitful path for my brain to go down. I folded up some thoughts and put them into the Universe Box but still could not go back to sleep.

My mother killed herself.

She sat on the couch for four weeks while she starved to death.

She would not allow anyone to intervene.

These things happened.

I need to say it. Because I can't believe it. Because it fucking blows my mind whenever I think about it or whenever I'm not thinking about it. For example, when I'm trying to sleep. I wonder if my aunt can sleep. I wonder if she's having nightmares. Or if she's put it behind her. I can't call. I can't email. They don't email me or call either even though they have my number / address. I probably wouldn't answer if they did call. I want to ask DO YOU FEEL THINGS ABOUT THIS? Because I feel things. I feel many things. I want to throw up just thinking about it. The holidays this year (Thanksgiving-birthday-Xmas) have sort of divided between happy moments and being a fucking sham. That is, I'm the sham. I shamble. I try to move and talk like a human. I make small talk. I come up with talking points in advance.

I went to a reading this weekend. I had to read a thing. And before and after I had to talk to people. It was short. It went well. Livingdeadgirl looks / acts so real.

It's a real wasteland in there. My brain is. Sometimes (like, all the time) I worry that there is no coming back from this.

I Want to Believe

surprise; it's another collage

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Rum Library Records

I keep giving you pictures b/c I can't give you any words.
Most of my doings are private and/or internal.
They're gonna let me out I bet in like 2-3 weeks.

Sting

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Sting

The Nest

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The Nest

TINY CRUSTLESS PUMPKIN PIES

Because who really cares about the crust anyway?

I heart pumpkin pie, the spicier the better. Often it is I who "insist" on making the pumpkin pie for a holiday dinner --in fact I am a control freak. I like my damn pie the way I make it. I have noticed the past few times though, that I had a LOT OF pie batter left over. Like I filled the two nine inch pie crusts to brimming and there was still over a dozen tiny crustless pumpkin pies' worth of material. 

In case you want to convert a whole recipes' worth, I estimate that you'd get about 36 tiny pies. 

THE RECIPE I USE

Is found on the back of the Libby's pumpkin can, with a few modifications. In case you are not staring at a can of pumpkin filling, here is the recipe:

1 1/2 c sugar
1 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp cloves 
4 large eggs
1 can (29 oz) of LIBBY'S (R) 100% Pure Pumpkin
2 cans (12 fl oz each) of CARNATION (R) evaporated milk
2 pie shells

Mix sugar/salt/spices together. Whisk eggs in large bowl. Stir in pumpkin and sugar-spice mixture. Gradually stir in evaporated milk. Pour pie into two shells. Bake at preheated 425 oven for 15 mins, then cut the temp to 350 for 40-50 mins or until a knife comes out clean. Cool for two hours. Serve immediately or refrigerate.

My modifications:
1) Double the spices.
2) Lessen the sugar by 1/4 cup.
4) Add nutmeg. Just shake it all around in there. Give the top of the batter a good sprinkling.
5) Add vanilla. Don't measure this either. Pour it in like you're topping off someone's drink.

So anyway like I said, I realized that even if I fill my two shells to capacity, there was a lot of potential pumpkin custard left over in the bowl. So:

Line a muffin tin with baking cups. Ladle batter into cups until they are full but not brimming.

Bake tiny pies with regular sized pies, exactly the same temps. I put mine on the bottom rack and they turned out fine. Cool for two hours and then refrigerate. 

***
For any of you who follow this blog and know what my situation is right now, you should know that being mentally together enough to make tray-loads of pie amazes me. Baking is a joyous thing. I didn't know that I could rise to the occasion.

[...]

Last year when I tested this idea, half the tiny pies turned out tasty but how shall we say, aesthetically lacking. This was because I had to scrape them out of the Calphalon baking pan. I did not use baking cups. I didn't want the rippled edges. But I had not realized the wonderfully adhesive quality of caramelized custard. 
I'd had to call my mom. She'd told me (duh) use baking cups or parchment and how long to cook them for. 
I didn't remember how long, for this year. I had to keep testing them. Whatever she said, I hadn't written it down.

Fuel for my wrongdoings

Fuel for My Wrongdoings 

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Playing with washes of light

I've been feeling like words are not quite saying what I want them to lately. So you get some images instead.

Gas

No Parking Bus Stop

Tattoo &

Today

Today with the assistance of my friend K I am going to the Bereavement Center to see about, well, grieving and how to do it. Part of me feels like omg, the last thing I need is another f-ing therapist. But they also have support groups which may be helpful. I've had positive experiences with group therapy before, so I'm cautiously optimistic about it.

Among the many sympathy cards I've received (thank you, btw, even though it is really difficult to open them) workshop-mate DK sent a note that included the following line: I don't think anything really prepares us for losing our parents, but I am especially sorry that you have suffered this loss while you are still so young.

I really appreciated that thought. Because I feel I am too young to deal with this loss, but I'm not a child, and so I don't have the family all around me and the more structured and supported grieving that a child (ideally) would have.

[Aside: Stepgoddess Pam has recently left me two voicemails which I haven't responded. She says in each one, if you feel like talking.... I don't. But I love her. After the ashes arrived I regressed somehow back into myself. If you are reading this Pam I know you're there.]

Of course I feel like magically "older" women who lose their moms must have some grain of life experience that fortifies them for it, but that's probably not the case. My mom was 66 when she died. I feel like that's the age you're "supposed" to be when you lose your parents. 66 means you've had a lot of stuff happen in your life and probably learned how to get through a crisis or two.

I'm not saying I haven't had crises, but as far as stress goes, this situation and its surrounding weirdness equal, in stress, what happened when I was 17 years old, when my dad found out about my self-injury and moved me out of my mom's house into his apartment and I finally got diagnosed with OCD and could leave the house without breaking apart. Or when I was 20 and breaking it off with my psycho abusive boyfriend of five years. Those were times when I crossed from this reality into a border area between what's real for everyone else and what was real for me... a world so decorated with pain. Pain dripped from every aspect of the landscape. Gory, lonely, boring, crazy-making. I was so utterly crazy that I was actually bored by how crazy I was. Time stopped moving. There were people around, but I was completely alone in it.

My stylist told me I was losing my hair. From stress. But she also said it had started to grow back. Yay for growing back. Then I got all of it chopped off so I now have a little pixie with long bangs and pink extensions. It's breast cancer awareness month, you know. So pink. N said I "looked stunning" and "[she] liked my fluff."I guess that's a good description for the stuff on top off my head now. I had been calling it quills.

Here's another collage, International Correspondence (after Nick Bantock).

Insomnia

My mother passed away two weeks ago today. I can still hardly believe it. I've been trying so hard to escape my brain, to let the feelings out slowly. Truly, I am a bit scared of my feelings. Amidst my frantic attempts at escape, N says sometimes I will just have to "sit up with it." It meaning, I suppose, the feelings.

How am I doing

So in the middle of all this mom stuff, friends are asking me how are you doing? And I don't really have a good answer for them. I'm working my recovery program. I am alive. I made a tshirt scarf and some cute jewelry this morning to take my mind off stuff. But then this afternoon I wanted to go to Writer's Cafe and I was getting ready and smacked my head on something (aGAIN) and realized that there was no way I could go out today and blend in like a normal person.

Mom was responsive last night though she couldn't talk. Today she is unresponsive and has a fever. They don't have her intubated. I assuming that she couldn't talk because... well... yeah. Okay so they're gonna move her to the hospice care floor soon. I know she didn't want to be in this situation, to go in a hospital. But I think at a point, I guess you just lose control of what happens to you.

K asked me to post pix of the scarf when I was done. So here they are. It's super comfy for the transitional weather we've been having. Lovely and cool but then verging on warm in the afternoon.

cutting and pasting

Okay, so my friend B, who is pretty much the only friend I've kept in touch with continually since high school (that's how rad she is) sent me an email which included the following little bit : Also I have thought of you because I love your collage work. You know I am always looking to use my creativity [...] and I think I would like to try to do some collage. Do you have any tips?

When I was writing her back the message got longer and longer. I didn't realize how strong I felt about collage... or maybe what I mean is, how articulately I felt about it. So I'm gonna blog the part of my response to her that focuses on collage.

 Thanks for liking the collage! You know, it started when I had first gotten out of the hospital --for the first time. You probably knew this already but I pretty much spent from 1995 through 1998 going off and on into inpatient / outpatient programs because I was so unstable from PTSD. I learned (no that's not the right word) --discovered --collage in an art therapy class that focused on mindfulness. Mindfulness of course being the idea of living in the exact moment, the very SECOND that you exist in -consciously --and not ruminating on the past or feeling anxiety about the future. 

There was something quite visceral about cutting (or tearing) the paper, feeling the glue on my fingers, layering paper on top of paper on top of paper.... 

For quite some years I used to live in houses with many people. Once I attached a huge piece of cardboard to our kitchen door, which we never closed. I started a collage and left a pile of magazines but also pre-cut images, and some glue, on the table near the door. I invited my housemates to, whenever they passed by, add an image to the collage. That way, when it was time to move, I would have this ENORMOUS artifact of our time together. 

Imagine my surprise when they were like, "Okaaay Jill, that's cool... maybe later." I couldn't believe not everyone wanted to glue stuff with the same rapacity I did. Eventually I did get my artifact, though I had to contribute more than I wanted --not that I minded doing the work --it was more that I wanted the others' input. 

However, we'd hosted a German exchange student for awhile and when she was ready to leave she did a bit of work on it, including just writing down some phrases in the margins to express how she was feeling. She asked me if she should write them in English or German. I told her to write them in German because then later I could find a translator and it would be like uncovering a wonderful puzzle. 

When I moved to Ohio I lived in a series of small apartments where it was not convenient to do the large-scale collages I had previously liked. That's when I switched over to doing 90% of my work digitally. As much as digital collage frees me from things like large work spaces and messy glue & paint, it also lacks the visceral nature which was so pleasing to me when I first got into collage. 

There are a lot of books on collage / mixed-media art / making altered books that you can buy and they tell you about different advanced techniques like stamping and transfers and wax resists.... but to me the best thing about collage is that you can make beauty from accidents. 

I can't draw very well. I certainly can't draw life-like things from purely my imagination, which is a skill that I still equate with magic. I love to paint as well, but I can't paint, say, a convincingly realistic landscape or a scene with people in it or stuff like that. I don't know if it has to do with my visual impairment, which is significant, the fact that I haven't practiced enough, or the fact that I'm just not that talented in these areas. 

Doing collage / mixed media, for me anyway, basically says "fuck perfection." It lives somewhere between 2D and 3D art because of all the delicious layers. If you mess up, that can just be a "seed" to start a new layer which is just another opportunity for magic. There are lots of unforeseen rips, snags, wrinkles, and stains. There's nothing that has to be symmetrical or in a visual perspective that imitates life. It is about BEING FREE and living in the moment. It is messy and sensual. 

Writing all this stuff down for you makes me think I should get back to "my roots" so to speak... which means, just slap it the fuck on there. 1) Glue paper to a sturdy surface. 2) Glue some more paper to that. 3) Maybe add paint or ink. 4) Glue some more. With my hands, not the computer. 

I'm a control freak. All my therapists say that I'm really good at confronting challenges and working on myself. The hardest part of the serenity prayer for me is "accept the things I cannot change." It would probably benefit me to re-engage myself in an activity where control is not required, where lack of control is a good thing. Mindfulness.

So I guess what I'm saying in a long LONG round about way is that you don't have to learn. Just start. If you want you can pick a theme (like everything will be warm tones!) and just start gluing stuff to other stuff.  

in the walls / underneath the floors

attack-decay

ipanicwhen