Mood:  crushed out

Okay, I have new favorite superhero movie: Hancock! 

Hans called me from work last night to ask if I'd meet him at the movie theatre between his office and our house to see a 6:30 showing of Hancock and I'm so glad I did.  What a fun, funny, suprising movie!!  The premise is interesting, but the movie delivers more (or less, if you expect that they will stick with the premise alone).  Definitely recommended. 

This was our second mid-week date of the week - a real shocker since we never have mid-week dates.  A few months back, I asked Hans to have an affair with me and he turned me down.  Meeting him for movie dates has felt a little like having an affair (albeit the sweet, mostly non-sexual, naive, midwestern kind of affair people who knew me in high school might have predicted I would have) since we arrive and leave in separate cars.  It's so much fun to round a corner and find him sitting on a bench in dress clothes waiting for me!  It reminds me of seeing him on campus at USC.  We had this little sixth sense that could detect each other before we were actually within visual range, and we'd turn a corner and be looking straight at each other at exactly the right moment.  He even gets off the bench, walks toward me, and kisses me hello (when he arrives home from work, the dog gets his attention first because she demands it and I get a "hi, honey" while Kaija attacks him, so a kiss hello - in public no less - is big!).  My goal for next time, if there is a next time, is to get him to walk me to my car....  Bad Girlfriend by Theory of a Dead Man was playing on my radio as we drove away and I pulled up next to him at a red light to flirt, but he doesn't have power windows so that wen't nowhere.  Again, maybe next time....

Silly, yes, but that's okay.  And maybe a little pathetic, but I'm okay with that, too.  'Cause it's fun and just a tiny bit cute....

Thoughts captured by Kristine at 10:07 AM EDT

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Mood:  lazy

Hans and I have managed to smash all of our superhero movie-going into one week.  On Saturday, we saw Hellboy II; on Sunday, we saw Iron Man; and last night we saw The Hulk.  I imagine we will round all of this out by seeing the Bat Man movie this weekend, even though I haven't seen the first Bat Man movie with Christian Bale.

We enjoyed Hellboy II (especially the Neil Diamond scene!--it needs the bouncing ball at the bottoms so the audience can sing along (lyrics aren't required, however, as everyone will know the words, even if they hate the song!)) mostly because we love Guillermo Del Toro and because our brother-in-law, Norman Cabrera (shameless name dropping alert!), sculpted the Angel of Death and we are huge fans of Norman and his artistic brilliance.  Otherwise, I thought the movie said, "We've got the budget, let's spend it!" and it then went on to recreate scenes from Star Wars, Men in Black, Pan's Labyrinth, Lord of the Rings....  The first Hellboy movie was a smaller, sweeter story.  This was blockbuster gone gangbusters for the 12 year old boys.

I enjoyed, truly enjoyed, the Hulk--right up to the end.  Oh, no, that wasn't the end--it should have been, but they kept going and added on another ending.  Oh, and then they kept going and added on another ending.  Seriously.  If they had ended with Mr. Blue lying, grinning, on the floor of his laboratory, awesome movie.  I absolutely did not need the good-guy-with-gamma-poisoning vs. bad-guy-with-gamma-poisoning wild, wild west scene - again, a treat for the 12 year old boys.

But I have to say, so far, my favorite has been Iron Man.  Yes, I AM a HUGE fan of Robert Downey, Jr. going way back, but I also just really loved the story and could suspend disbelief long enough to get over the test flight where he encounters the icing problem.  (And I am just as crazy about Edward Norton, btw, so lead actor was not the determining factor.) This movie was just plain fun with pretty people to look at--including a super thin, what the hell happened? Jon Favreau--and technology that is not all that far-fetched.

Not a bad way to spend a week I'll have to say!

Now, we're getting ready to watch the last season of the X-Files on DVD in preparation for the next big event!!  (Speaking of pretty people, how can David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson look hotter now than they did when the series was on television?)

Thoughts captured by Kristine at 4:41 PM EDT

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Mood:  not sure

I was beginning to get into the stay-at-home meditation retreat state of mind, but then my life went absolutely haywire as I prepared for and attended the Surtex Show in New York.  It didn't help that I had the hemorrhage in my left eye while I was trying to review hundreds of slides of art and get visual products prepared, but I survived. 

I was amazed to realize that I hadn't been above the third floor of a building in the five years I've lived in North Carolina, so the scale of NYC was something of a shock!  The Javits Center where the convention was held is huge and full of glass and I didn't feel like I was standing on solid ground for the first few hours I was in the city.  Then, my hotel room was on the sixteenth floor.  Luckily my cave of a room looked only into the windows of another building only a few feet away, so I wasn't visually aware of the height.  The first night, though, every car horn that would honk (and they honked all night long!) woke me up and I would remember that I was alone in New York City on the 16th floor of a hotel with nine floors above me and I'd have to go through a whole routine of telling myself that all of those things were true but that I was still okay.  And while I found all the people I personally came into contact with to be exceptionally friendly, I hated crossing streets.  On the street, there is a completely different aura where it seems everyone is racing everyone else, cabs are just dying to hit you, and men can say whatever rude thing they want to you and walk on past without any fear of retribution.  I loved the idea of being able to walk around a city--the hotel was only fifteen blocks from the Javits Center--but I didn't actually enjoy the walk most days.

Seattle spoiled me with its mix of small town feel and international appeal.  And North Carolina, with its riot of green this spring, has really become home.  So, yes, I am glad to be back.  I learned a lot about licensing art and a lot about myself on the trip, but I'm glad to be home.

I haven't settled back into a routine yet, though.  I'm trying to begin the Five Factor Fitness diet to reduce my sodium, sugar, and fat intake and thereby lower my triglycerides and blood pressure, hopefully, restoring the vision in my left eye or at least keeping it from getting worse or hemorrhaging somewhere else.  It hasn't been easy.  Even though Pasternak talks about how restrictive other diets are and how his isn't, six days out of the week he is asking me to give up chocolate, Mountain Dew, ice cream, and fast food all at once.  I'm not getting hungry on his diet, but I am getting extremely fidgety! 

This post is my note-to-self that it's time to get back to writing every day and to get serious about meditating, weeding out, and calming down.  I can be successful and less stressed...I'm sure of it!

Thoughts captured by Kristine at 2:39 PM EDT

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Mood:  cool

but what's new?

I said I'd launch the blogging component for my new summer project, Bringing My Self Home, from here on May 1.

Well, it's May 5 (for the next 8 minutes!), and I'm launching it now.

Check out https://lavaflower.tripod.com/2008/ for an update on what I'm up to.  I'm taking a little bit of a media break this summer and so will be cutting back on my television and Internet consumption.  If you want to find me online, this new blog is probably where I'll be hanging out most frequently until September....

Be well! 

Thoughts captured by Kristine at 11:56 PM EDT

Updated: Tuesday, May 6, 2008 10:35 AM EDT

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Mood:  spacey

I can't believe it's nearly May and that my last post was in February!

So much has happened since February...how can that be?

Maybe I haven't been writing here because I have actually been honest to goodness writing with a pen and paper every day for the past month or so.  (I know, that doesn't account for the end of February or all of March!)

I am slammed busy with things at work--we're finally launching the new children's website this week, we're opening a new show on Friday, and I'm preparing to go to the SurTex convention in New York in May while Sudie is preparing for an artists' trip to Paris.  Too much to do, but at least some of it is interesting.

I am also counting down the days in April.  My fifteen-month goals end this week, and while I blew my teaching goals out of the water, most of the others just hung out on my wall and mocked me.  I'm trying to figure out why this particular system didn't serve me better--it combines several techniques from Barbara Sher's Refuse to Choose book but it didn't really motivate me the way I hoped it would.  I'm trying to figure out if the timeline was too long, the goals were too big, or if the act of making goals for things that should be fun somehow made them scary and I failed to get anywhere near them--for example, I did not write a single poem in fifteen months!  I started two or three, but didn't finish any of them.

I also have a new program that I'm beginning May 1st to help me commemorate the 10th Anniversary of the GTE Big Ride Across America to Benefit the American Lung Association and to help me clear out my life to make room for new things.  It's kind of an at-home, "real life" detox, meditation retreat.  It's going to include an electronic diet--no t.v. six days a week, Internet only for work--but it will have a blogging component that I will launch from here on May 1, so please come back.

As with all things in my life, I took what started out as a simple idea and made it complex very quickly.  I'm not sure I'm going to implement every aspect of the meditation retreat program that has occurred to me, but I'm sure I won't be able to keep myself from implementing some.  More soon! 

Happy spring, all!  North Carolina is in full bloom now and the onslaught of green is truly overwhelming.  Luckily, the allergy symptoms seem to have peaked last week, so things are good.  I hope you can say the same.

Kristine

Thoughts captured by Kristine at 3:34 PM EDT

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Mood:  celebratory

I keep forgetting it is my birthday.  I have lots to wrap up at work so I can get outta' town, and it's hard to keep the whole "it's my birthday! aura" about me.  My six year old nephew called me this morning, taking me totally by surprise, and sang to me.  Lovely, lovely boy!  If I could clone him, maybe I'd have a son of my own....  I'm excited to be spending a week with him and his 4-year-old sisters at The Happiest Place on Earth.  Given various other circumstances of late, I also feel blessed that I'll be sharing the trip with Hans, my sister and her husband, and especially my parents.  Lots to be thankful for!

I have known since I was a little girl that I shared my birthday with Susan B. Anthony, but I learned today that I also share it with Jane Seymour (my favorite! My niece is named after her character in Somewhere in Time.), Chris Farley, Matt Groening, and Galileo Galilei.  Interesting company!

One last note: in a previous post this week, I said I got married at 29.  Technically, I got married two days before I turned 29.  So 29 with the Big Ride followed by the Big Depression was a mixed bag.  I'm thinking 39 might follow suit, but I'm hoping for more positive transformation and a little less pain and suffering!

Big, Big, Love! (to steal from my imaginary friend Mary in California)

K 

Thoughts captured by Kristine at 12:01 PM EST

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Mood:  happy

We had the most beautiful, and surprising!, snowfall last night! 

Sometime after 8:00 the rain stopped and when I looked out the kitchen window around 11:00, I was amazed to see the trees outlined in white.  It was a wet, heavy snow that completely covered the grass, piled up several inches thick on the asphalt and concrete, buried my car, and made every living thing glow!  Snow happens only once or twice a year here, and this event was unexpected and magical.  I slept more peacefully than I have in weeks and woke up with a smile on my face.

Kaija, on the other hand, was not thrilled.  I tried putting her boots on her, but she hates them, so she had to go out barefooted.  It's kind of sad, and a little funny, to watch a dog try to walk without putting her feet on the ground!  When she comes back in, we play the towel game whenever she goes out in the rain or snow, though, and this cheers her up.  I try to dry off her head and feet (the rest of her body stays dry thanks to her fleece, 4-legged coat) with a towel while she tries to take the towel away from me, get it to her bed in front of the fireplace, and break its neck.  She will be happy this afternoon to find that the sun has nearly melted all the white stuff and the rain is long gone.  We're heading to Florida on Saturday--where she was born but hasn't visited since she left at twelve weeks old on a plane with Hans for Seattle--so the shift to 70 degree days is going to confuse her even more.

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone!  I hope your heart is filled with love and your spirit filled with peace.

 K

Thoughts captured by Kristine at 12:22 PM EST

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Mood:  mischievious

This week I will turn 39.

I dont feel 39!  I usually feel about 17, alternating with brief periods of 25, but definitely not 39. 

When I turned 29, I spent the whole year telling people--including myself--that I was 30, practicing for the coming year which felt absolutely monumental.  So when I actually did turn 30, it was no big deal.  I was rehearsed and relaxed and slid right into my third decade with relative ease.  Of course, I did the cross-country bike trip when I was 29 and got married when I was 29, so, at least some days, life felt exciting and fruitful (although to be honest I slipped into a pretty severe depression when the Big Ride ended).

Ten years later, I'm a little amazed that I've been married ten years, my life is definitely more financially stable, and my adventures come in much smaller doses.  But I do feel more confident, more skilled, and, yes, a little wiser.  It is all beginning to gel.

And, by all accounts, the year I turn 40 is going to be the best year of my life.  This should be exciting news, but it's also a little daunting.  It seems to imply that I have to be ready for something amazing, that I have to be mature and open and somehow stable enough to roll with whatever the something is without turning my life upside down the way I would have ten years ago.  Or maybe not.  Maybe I need to be able and willing to turn my life upside down after spending ten years learning how to be a responsible adult with a mortgage and car loans and student loans and a retirement account.  I really don't know.

I do know the grey hair I see in the mirror is a daily reminder that I am not 17 nor 25.

I do know my body is changing in ways that are sometimes frustrating and sometimes scary, forcing me to face the fact that I am racing toward a reproductive deadline at which point my body will make a decision for me, regardless of whether I have reached a decision or not.

I know I have goals and plans and am working each day to be better.

I know 39 will come whether I am ready or not.  As will 40 and all the years beyond.

And, I can continue to take comfort in the fact that no matter how old I get, most of my friends are still older!

So happy birthday to me: May I become more me each day and open ever wider to the possibilities still before me.

I wish the same for you!

Thoughts captured by Kristine at 3:38 PM EST

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Mood:  crushed out

Wow!  I've been gone a looong time and my traffic stats show it!  One sweet person still checked on me yesterday, though, so there may still be hope for me and this space.

It's not that I stopped thinking about blogging, it's just that my energy couldn't support it.

I ran myself into the ground in the last four to seven months of 2007 and I could hardly think a coherent thought, let alone write one.

So, let's see, since my last post in October:

I finished teaching the afterschool creativity classes I began in September and barely survived one of them.  Mary saved me on so many levels, and now I'm taking a break from teaching.  I have to recooperate from the stress and maybe learn a little more about dealing with groups of 3rd - 5th grade boys!

I took a watercolor journaling workshop with Juanita Wrenn in January and I mostly learned exactly how much I have to learn!  I have cultivated the ability to suspend judgment and allow myself to play as the result of teaching the creativity classes so it was fun, and I have experimented in small ways on my own since.  I have several instruction books and I'm going to work through them in some kind of orderly way, allowing myself to play on my own whenever the mood strikes, but it's going to be a slow process.  I have heard so much recently about writers who may be known for their words but who also paint.  It makes sense that studying painting would make you a better writer, but I'm not sure that studying writing is going to make me a better painter!

I also jumped--finally!--into the study and practice of energy healing.  I have been interested in this, and collecting books and information, for more than ten years, but I kept postponing actually learning it.  It seemed complex--which it kind of is--and difficult--which I'm beginning to think maybe it isn't--and time-consuming.  But, it is time I learned and I'm LOVING IT!  I won't go into details now, but it is transforming my life.  I'm getting lighter, I'm back in my body, and I'm seeing small progress that keeps me encouraged.

This, 2008, is my year of weeding out.  I'm getting rid of things that no longer serve me--like all the excess weight I've been carrying around (Mom and I joined the Biggest Loser Million Pound Match-Up Challenge and have lost a combined 11 pounds in our first four weeks), clutter, and certain ideas that I've outgrown.  I'm creating space in my life for new, amazing things to move in and grow.  And, I'm working on getting daily habits in place that will enable me to create and grow and explore and still maintain a sustainable burn.  That's where diet, exercise, adequate sleep, daily creative work, meditation and energy healing come in. 

I'm building toward something, but I'm not certain exactly what that something is yet.  For now, I'm happily working on laying a healthy foundation so that when it arrives, I can grab it with both arms and run! It's going to be a GREAT year!

Peace!

Thoughts captured by Kristine at 2:17 PM EST

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Mood:  chillin'

Tad, in his infinite sweetness, typed me out two long passages from Proust and sent them to me by email this week.  They both discussed art, one in which a writer risks his life to get to a museum to see a painting by Vermeer, and one in which a writer is so overcome by the beauty of life that he has no ability to write about it.

I am not in a particularly verbal state this week, feeling overwhelmed and fairly exhausted and a little swirly (which I think is akin to the Phoebe/Lisa Kudrow state of "floopy"), so I responded by sending him a little photo of a sunset I took with my cell phone last Thursday at the park after a short, teasing rain that filled the sky with clouds.

Thoughts captured by Kristine at 1:06 PM EDT

Updated: Wednesday, October 24, 2007 2:12 PM EDT

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