Beautiful, Artistic Life

Life is beautiful. It all happens so fast.

I am a certified Starbucks barista. I love my job. I love the people I work with. I totally understand why friends like Amanda (Moorhead) Stephens have stayed there for so long. It's wonderful. Tiring sometimes, but great.

I've got some interesting feedback and ideas about OSGA and students involved in politics.

I'm working on my second and third pieces for The Loop Magazine.

I have texted the man a lot, but we haven't resolved anything or made any plans. I'm officially in waiting mode for him. I think. Unless "god" shows me something else.

Today I was really sad about that, but then I talked to my Lovesound, and just hearing her voice - her light, carefree, youthful voice - reminded me that we are young and beautiful and everything will be okay. So after work, I ate a little dinner and then went to Frank's tattoo shop to hang with him. I talked a blue streak and he drew me this picture:

He said my voice made him think of this. It's a flower in abstract. He said, "somebody should dissect that shit and figure out what it means." I told him I was fine with leaving it how it is: a cool picture that came from a conversation between artists/friends. We talked about two tattoos for him to put on me: my cherry blossom tree, and something he thought up on his own that I like. He said he'll teach me to play the guitar. I'm sharing song ideas with him.

I wrote the beginnings of a song. I have 85% of the words, and a fun little melody. It's about my version of "god." It's called "You Are the Messes Too."

I felt like a much better, more balanced, more beautiful version of myself while making art imitate life with Frank. I could never completely live his lifestyle, but I'm happy to let him rub off on me.

There's a guy Marcus Muse, who Frank taught to tattoo and who Frank has re-employed as a legit shop artist (rather than a janky, back room of the house artist), who specializes in paint. We hung with him a bit too. Frank called us a trifecta, and I immediately fell in love with the idea of this trio of very unique people spending time being creative together.

Days at school and work. Nights being creative with my boys. Writing writing writing. Hell yes.

"This is my beautiful life
The only thing certain is everything changes
The lows and the highs
and all those goodbyes
As hard as it gets I know it's still amazing to be alive
It's a beautiful life"

the best laid plans of mice and men...

LORD You are good and Your mercy endures forever. i come before You humbly asking that You insert Your will into the making of these plans and then grant me the grace and the courage to follow through with them.

to lose the weight:

the good news here, is that i've already lost 12 pounds. what's cooler than 12 pounds are the articles of clothing i don't wear anymore because they are too big! unfortunately there's are still several items that are too small. the goal is 12-15 more pounds by my birthday (august 1), 5-10 more pounds by the time school starts (august 24) and another 20 pounds by christmas. that makes 50-65 pounds total.

the tactic:
1. walking>jogging>running daily or at least 4 times a week and lifting weights or using other toning exercises 5 times a week
2. drinking more water and less pop, eating less dessert, and planning and counting down to indulgence days.

my new style:

simply beautiful is what i'm calling it. i'm taking tim gunn's ideas and adding them to my career plans and personality. i need staples: nice solid black, white, pink, and blue tops; nice solid tank tops for layering; 2 or 3 pairs of good jeans; functional but classy pants in muted tones; solid colored dresses; vests, jackets and sweaters galore. if you're bored with these ideas, the plan is to take full advantage of this lovely new discount jewelry store in the okc metro and buy all kinds of loud, crazy, fun jewelry and accessories, including scarves and hats.

we're not even going to touch shoes. shoes are an entirely different beast. i haven't decided which avenue my shoes will take.

i'm also going to have a consulting done about my hair. the goal is to wear dredlocks. the lady i've talked to who has locks and knows how to do them says she waited a year to lock up her hair because she didn't want to start off too short. well, i'm not afraid of short - i rocked the rihanna for several months. so in a couple of weeks i'm going to make and appointment to see her and figure out if it's possible to lock my hair at the length it is. if she says it's possible, i'll probably take the plunge around my birthday.

the biggest thing about the simply beautiful transformation is that the hair is all i can start on now. i will not buy jeans or tops until i'm closer to my weight loss goal. it's my incentive as well as a money-saving tool.

and i'm all about throwing in a couple or three new tattoos! lol.

the house - cleaning:

i clean my bedroom all the time, which is wonderful progress from where i was. now i need to learn to clean the kitchen. that will just take a pair of rubber gloves and bravery. if i really want to be good, i could clean the garage, but i'm making no promises there. and then there's a spare room that could use some sprucing.

tactics:
1. i need to really get rid of all the bags of things leftover from the move. it's not sexy to have bags everywhere. plus i still don't know where a lot of stuff is.
2. the issue there has been that i moved from a HUGE bathroom to really a half-bath so i have a lot of stuff. i could get one of those fun door hangers that were made for dorms.

i have turned our spare room into a work/art space. it's tiny, but its functional. it needs some work though.
1. i need to bring my desk out of storage and into the room.
2. i need to gather and store all of the unused bedding in our rented facility.
3. stack and label my art boxes
4. keep my office things contained
i'm highly motivated by the show "clean house." thanks, trish suhr.

the house - living:

1. i need to make routines for cleaning and re-organizing
2. i need to hang my art on the walls in the spare room
3. i need to print some pictures off of my computer
4. i need to have real projects, not just boxes of supplies
5. i need an ipod dock that charges and has good speakers

one more thing...i need a job!

Relationships and Art

I love being an English major. We discuss some of the most interesting things in class.

Today in American Literature we read The Awakening by Kate Chopin. If you are into literature at all, you should read it, because it's very good. My classmate, Joe, made a statement that I'm probably going to write my final paper around. The purpose of this novel was for Chopin to punch a hole in the Romantic ideals (Emerson, Whitman, Thoreau). I won't tell you the story; you should read it yourself. But I agree with him, I think.

So this was almost off the topic of the novel, but we got to talking about relationships and artists and how they may or may not go together. Can someone who is completely sold out to their art also be a good wife/husband? Is it different for a wife versus a husband? Perhaps you can be married, but if you have children then it's too much?

I used the example of Oprah and Stedman. My mom and I have discussed "playing house" and whether or not it is moral or even relationally beneficial for two people to be in a long-term, committed relationship and live together, but never get married. I think people like Oprah avoid marriage, not in order to avoid monogamy, but to retain their independence and ability to do whatever they want. If Oprah gets an offer to move to Seattle and do a show, she should be able to decide if she wants to move to Seattle. She should care what Stedman thinks, but his opinions and desires should be independent of her final decision. I want to be able to make moves that are good for me and not have to consult anyone else. I can dig that.

Another example: Chris Brown and Rihanna. They have been dating for years, but they haven't been publicly dating for near as long. If I were CB's manager, I would have advised that he keep it under wraps as long as possible, because so much of his fan base is young women who like to envision him as single. That's a simple marketing tactic, a way to stay afloat in the business.
So they went public with their relationship. That wasn't a big deal, but now all of this domestic violence stuff is going to make it harder on them as artists. I have to think twice before I listen to CB's cd. "Your soldier, your friend, and your lover, girl, I wanna be." But he beats his girlfriend. I have to think harder about how I view Rihanna. "I gotta check into rehab, baby, you're my disease." And she stays in an abusive relationship.
If they were more low-key about their love life, perhaps all of this would only affect their families and their persons rather than their careers and the way people view musicians, especially Black musicians.

I guess you can see which way I kind of lean.

What do you think?