Oh N-Oprah

Okay, disclaimer I totally didn't watch the show where she outed her half-sister who had been given up for adoption. I did watch a long thing on it that was broadcast on the ABC nightly news with Diane Sawyer, but it RILED me up.

The sister has known Oprah was her half sister for 3-4 years, and in that time she did not ask for money, she did not sell her story to the tabloids, she did nothing but live her quiet little working two jobs kind of life.

Last fall, she did finally connect with Oprah. Oprah revealed her on TV which I understand, I mean if I were her I would want to get out in front of a story like this at all costs. Oprah having her sister on her show is not my issue. That is fine on its surface.

What riled me up, is that part of the televised program (bits that WERE aired on the nightly national news which I did see) involved Oprah's sister confronting Oprah's mother that gave the sister up for adoption. WHAT? Oprah, this woman was thoroughly respectful of your feelings saying on your show, "I think family business should be dealt with in the family" (or something close to that, quoting from memory here). And then you reward this woman's tact and sensitivity by airing an emotional and uncomfortable confrontation with her birth mother on national television. Nice. Way to repay that woman and her tact. Or are poor people's tact and sensitivity for sale? Or were your ratings worth more than your family?

Being good

I think it is natural to like things more when you are good at them. Like when I was growing up, I loved playing the board games I was good at and hated playing HORSE with my sister because I was so bad at it. Not surprisingly, she loved playing HORSE and hated and often refused to play the board games with me.

I half think I picked my major and slowly trained myself into laziness by picking things I was good at to do because when you are good at something either you don't have to work very hard at them OR the work goes easy and quickly.

I was bad at my job for a long time and so I hated it. I have been better at my job lately, and on the days when I do something really well, I love my job for at least a couple of hours or even a whole day. Until things get hard. I mean clearly, what I like is being good. Not necessarily the job. And I think that makes me lazy because there could be lots of things that I start out bad at that I could be good at, but they take a lot of hard and probably unfun work.

I don't have like an answer or a solution to this. I think I just need to keep reminding myself about this.

Heather

Flabby Dabby Doo

I was just noticing the other night (when I went to the movies with friends) that I hardly ever walk anymore. I mean in part this is because it is the lovely and clement Chicago winter (because nothing says walking like below freezing temperature meets 10-15 mph winds). But I used to walk a lot. Even in the frozen times.

Going to the movies from work I ended up walking a bit, and then a few days before that there had been some sort of disaster/clusterfuck on the trains that I knew was going to result in packed cars, fighting to get on a train, and probably watching a few go by before I got that far. I decided my short trip on the train (4 stops, close together downtown ones) was not worth that, and I had other options. Above ground it was snowing fluffy lake effect snow during rush hour and had been snowing all day, so the bus seemed like an equally terrible and slow plan.

Then I thought "Eff it!" I was warmly bundled in my LL Bean down jacket that goes to my calves, a super long scarf, long johns under my jeans, winter socks under my winter boots, cozy sweater under the coat, firmly attached hood with fake fur snow ruff, and I could do this thing. It was about a mile and three quarter walk home, but if it was snowing in Chicago it was probably only a little below freezing instead of in the teens or lower, so let's get it done.

So I walked home. I strategically took a way that went past stores and starbucks and other places it would be totally cool to duck in and warm up if necessary, but it wasn't really necessary although I did make a stop off at a place I had been DYING to try. It has been open about a month and is called Grahamwich and is by chef Graham Elliot of Top Chef Masters and Master Chef fame and also President Obama's birthday dinner 2010 (as well as Heather and Sam Valentines Day dinner 2010, heather bday dinner 2009 and 2010) restaurant Graham Elliot.

Grahamwich is a sandwich shop with kind of spendy sandwiches (they are all $10 a pop), but I wanted to try it. It has had lines out the door and running out of food problems because it just opened, it was wildly anticipated, and was a foodie dream. So I hadn't gotten there yet. But this snowy night, there was NO ONE inside and the employees literally gestured me in. I got Sam the sandwich that sounds like Thanksgiving (turkey confit, sweet potato, sage mayo) and the taste I had TASTED like Thanksgiving, and I got the grilled cheese (white cheddar, cheese curds, tomato JAM, and proscuitto). It was awesome! Super super awesome best grilled cheese of my life.

Anyway, this post was about walking and not a restaurant review. Anyway, would never have eaten there if I hadn't walked home. On the way to the movies I noticed things that had changed since the last time I had been in that patch of downtown, and I reflected on how much more I used to walk. Yes, it does suck to walk in the rain or the scary bad cold, so I probably won't start walking then, BUT I have decided it won't be a bad thing if I start walking more. Staying on the bus or the train and walking the same path to and from home sort of limit what I am exposed to, so I am going to walk more. All I have to do is dress appropriately for the Chicago weather and I am golden.

2010 in review

I was thinking about resolutions and the past year lately and I wanted to put it down here.

First, 2010 was an INCREDIBLE year for me. It started out pretty bad with my fiancée still living life as an active alcoholic, BUT on the wonderful front he is ending the year having plunged into treatment and loved it and he has 9 months sober. I also welcomed a new niece I like to call the "tiny niece" who is red headed and adorable and wonderful and the joy of my whole family. I took a great workshop from the wonderful Tim Miller, I finished 4 quilts (but I kept only 3, I need to keep more of them next year), I saw some great solo performance (from Tim, Mike Daisey and friends here in town). I deepened a friendship, I took part in the family program at Hazelden, I took a billion (well less) trips all over the country to spend time with family often for weddings, and I volunteered at the zoo. My life at the end of 2010 was full of joy in ways that seemed impossible to me at the top of it, and for that I am so grateful.

For 2011 this is the resolution agenda:
1) Let the baggage go and the water flow under the bridge
2) Monthly date with the fiancée at the Jazz Showcase (and maybe with Flaco's Tacos before
3) Instead of just watching tv (or playing vid games while watching tv), be sure to work on projects while sitting in front of the tv
4) Do a better job grooming my cat (or fight the hairball monster as it were)
5) Use my art institute membership more

All these are both healthy and doable and a couple of them are good for more than just me.

I totally got patted down yesterday at the airport

But not the whole big patdown. Then new full body scanners (which I went through) do not let you smuggle in a chapstick in your pocket like the metal detectors do. So, when I did that (like I always do), they asked me if anything was in my right pocket and I said, "oh, oh yeah I guess there is a tube of chapstick," and then a very polite lady told me she was going to have to touch my leg from right below my hip and down my thigh. Then she did just that. And really, if I had been paying more attention to the loud TSA woman in front of the scanners, I would've realized she was telling me (and I am paraphrasing here) take everything and seriously dudes everything out of your pockets because nothing can be in it when you go through the scanner.

Ummm, whoops? Well, that is what I get for not listening. Also, public service announcement: Take everything out of your pockets and your belt off when doing the full body scanner. Unless you want a stranger to rub your leg.

Haven't blogged in forever

I know. I just haven't had time or haven't wanted to put things so permanently out into the ether. Unless they were tweets, but my tweets are fairly discreet.

So I am sharing my new years resolution which is to be happy with what I have. Because honestly, if I were to really look at it, my cup of life is way closer to full then it is to empty and I shouldn't be a captain whiny pants about the things that aren't the way I think I want them.

2011, I am going to like my life and everything in it.

I need an attitude adjustment

Or so I decided a month or so ago. Like maybe if I change my way of looking at my worklife, I can find a better way of going through the day. Obviously this isn't a magic bullet that will make the truly stupid coworker be awesome, or a truly bad day better. But I think that I have been making things worse for myself.

If I go in to work every morning all having woken up with a cranky attitude that says nothing good will happen, it will be much harder to have a good day. Now I think it might be silly to go on thinking everything awesome will happen, but there has got to be a better way.

Like yesterday morning. I was cranky. I came to work cranky. I found myself getting quite angry early on in my work day when a coworker very politely asked me to complete a very simple task that is part of my job and neither awful nor terribly tedious nor difficult. Why would I do that? I gave myself a little time out and said listen Heather, that is your job. Do not get snippy with that person for having you complete a duty of yours. Let's take a deep breath, force ourselves to smile and think of England. Well whatever you know what I mean, perk it up chica.

So, singing happy songs and chair dancing and silly are being introduced back into my work day. Because if I go into everyday with a decent mood it will be harder to lose.

Quilting has a magic

Or rather, I am still new enough at it that it seems like magic because I am not quite as good at the visualizing things coming together as I feel like I should be. Or rather I don't have the practice to see it in my head just as it would be, although I am good enough with color and pattern and scale that it doesn't matter if I am good at it or not. Because in the end (or in this case in the middle) the blocks look nice and they go well together (and if they don't I can always rip stuff out and try again). But my November quilt top in a month might be very lovely, and if I could find the cable to connect the camera to the computer, I would totally post pictures.

Maybe that is what I need for christmas, a wi fi enabled camera or a much better camera phone. Like a phone that is mostly a camera with some texting and calling skills.

Sam's Christmas Present

He is usually super hard to shop for, but I just discovered what I will get him for Christmas. Rock Band 3 bundle for Wii with the keyboard. Because piano playing Sam will so be intrigued, and it includes a Huey Lewis and the News song that he loves.

This will be whole family fun. I am so excited.

He will never read this and ruin his present.

How I know Sam is doing well

He is nearly 7 months sober, and when playing apples to apples with a variety of friends some of whom knew a lot about his struggles with sobriety and some of whom knew very little if anything a green card came up with the following title "Drunk and Disorderly." Someone threw in the red card "My memories" and it was Sam. And he wasn't being sad or mopey, he knew it would be hilarious.

And it was!

New thought

Well I just turned in two quilt tops and backs to be quilted and finished making the bias tape for their binding this weekend. Which is good because I may have to drop everything and sew like a madwoman to get them finished as soon as I get them back.

BUT that means I am sort of at a now what stage in quilting. I do have a kit that needs to be tackled, but I think I should wait until I have a little more technique under my belt so I don't eff it all up especially since it is in out of print collectible fabrics. I need to start the front and back of Kathy's quilt, so I guess that is what I will do, but that will require a trip to the fabric store which may have to wait a week.

Although I did have a genius idea. Last year I was going to NANOWRIMO a novel in a month and barely made it 1/5 of the way to my goal. This year, 2010 is going to be quilt top in a month. I will start work on one side of Kathy's quilt now, but the other will go from pre-purchased pattern to quilt top in November. I will buy all the fabric, cut it all out, and sew it all up by the end of November. Then I can finish the other portion in December/January and be ready to bind it by March.

Boy is quilting a long term project.

Making Some Getting Things Done Changes

I am trying out some strategies that encourage me to actually complete some of my high falutin' ideas. I tend to plan lots of things and execute many less which isn't that big of a deal except often my planning is derailed by reruns of bad tv on cable, and it shouldn't have to be that way.

So the new strategies are leaving the house to get BBT blogging done, and doing it 2-3 times a week at a Lavazza coffee shop or an Argo Tea or anywhere that my laptop and me can get connected. This should help with being good at blogging here. They are involving others in my planned projects, so I cannot back down from them without disappointing others (because I am Catholic and guilt as a motivating factor is in my blood) which led to me inviting 6ish people over for a quilting bee in two weeks. And basically just keeping me away from the Law & Order reruns and kept accountable by others. The 2nd Saturdays of art are for this too, not all my plans are for work, some are for fun!

Second Saturdays at the Art Institute

I am instituting a new policy where I will visit the art institute every 2nd Saturday of every month, and I will bring people with me. I just upgraded our membership to be a 2 membership card kind of household which means 4 adults can go at a time. That means I can bring up to 3 friends, and I will bring them. So please friends, come with me, come to the art institute of Chicago, come for free. Just let me know, call dibs on a 2nd Saturday or take initiative and sign me up to go with you on any random day. And I work around the corner, so if it is a weekday and you want to go, call me, text me, I will come get you and a friend or two in, and then I will go back to work. I am working to bring art to the masses. The masses of my friends.

Also, if you live in Chicago, I would highly recommend getting a membership. It changes the way you look at and experience art because it gives you the comfort to really take in pieces you normally would race by or avoid altogether as you head towards the greatest hits that you are used to seeing. I spent my 29th birthday money on it, and it was the best birthday present I ever got.

Genius Idea(s)

So a few weeks ago I got the idea that the 1950's grey on grey tile pattern in our bathroom would actually make a kind of cool quilt pattern, and it might look kind of modern and sleek instead of old fashioned-y and if I kept it in its current color pattern it would hide our cats shed fur and be palatable to Sam as a bedspread (in like a year when I get around to finishing it after the other QIP's I have).

It is alternating 3" by 3"sets of pattern that would easily be broken down into quilt squares of that size or bigger or smaller. One of the 2 basic patterns is a traditional 9 patch all of the same color like a tic tac toe grid. The other has an offset 2" by 2" square and in the opposite corner a 1" by 1" square and then along the edges left by them two rectangular pieces that are 1" by 2". These two basic designs are then laid out in a checkerboard pattern.

Now there is less color variation in them than I would want in a quilt, and depending on how you squint at them (and yes this idea came to me just where you would expect because you have some time to look at the floor) different squares are made to seem the 'center' of the repeated pattern and could make it look even more modern and interesting particularly if they were played up not just with placement on the quilt but fabric selection (lighter, darker, solids, patterns, even gradations of grey).

That sounds like I will be making a lot of mock ups of squares to see how it goes. Or using graph paper, OR I could figure out a way to make excel do this for me. I suspect this will take some research and some fiddling to work out.

Sewing Machine Joy

I have a sewing machine that is older than I am and heavy and it has not been sewing well lately, but I really really like it (plus it was my aunt's). In part because it predates the computerized models that are all the rage now, but for quilting I don't want a computerized model. I want an easy does it machine that will take a licking and keep on stitching.

It is like the machine featured in this ebay listing.

However, it has been losing its mojo lately, and I was scared. Scared that it was in its death throes. Scared that I would have to buy a new one, which would mean figuring out what kind of new one I wanted and pricing out one that wasn't obscene (although now I kind of want a 1930s of 1940s featherweight if I ever get a room big enough to just be my sewing room which would mean we had a house big enough to also have a music room).

This past weekend I took it to the Singer factory outlet/repair place. I filled out a big form and they said that they would call me on Monday with an estimate. I was Skkkeeeered! I figured this is going to be minimum a couple of hundred bucks and I wouldn't get it back for the better part of a month.

This morning in came the call. It needed a big time tune up. It needed to be torn apart and all put back together again because a needle had broken and the tip of it was floating around inside it and gumming it all up.

But for $90 I can have it back in two or three days as good as new!! And it won't need another tune up like this for 20 years! They were running a special so I wouldn't have to be billed hourly. STOKED! I am stoked. Oh machiney, I cannot wait to have you back!

What a Beautiful Chicago Day

I started it by riding my bicycle to the Lincoln Park Zoo where I volunteered for a few hours doing interpretive education, and having a wonderful time!! Then I cycled around the southern edge of the new Nature Boardwalk also in Lincoln Park to shop for tomatoes (from city farm) and raspberries (from Michigan) before cycling along the lake back home.

I finished my day with a quick trip to the oral surgeon (to prepare for extraction of my wisdom teeth at the end of July) where I got a super cool 3-D x-ray taken of my whole head and some M Burger (a Rick Tramonto burger joint which has a window into the kitchen of Tru). Then a nap. Now some quilting!

Happy Birthday to Me!!

Today is my birthday.

I am 31-which as I type that seems unrecognizably older than how I feel. And also younger than I feel, and also exactly right.

I feel hardly more than a teenager really, just old enough to drink. I feel fresh and inspired. But I also feel the fear that comes from living and being jaded paralyzing that inspiration, as I fret that I have waited too long to start what I want to do. Even as my new motto for my own art is two lines of a much longer manifesto, "Begin anywhere; don't be cool." And I feel as if I am what I am, the product of exactly the life I have lived at this point.

I am lucky to be healthy and safe and secure in a time when I know that isn't exactly true of many people across the world and many people of my own acquaintance and in my very own city.

I am also lucky to be at a turning point in my life that is actually swinging the good way on the pendulum. This will be a very good birthday, and I think 31 should shape up to be a wonderful year.

(Plus tonight I get dinner at Graham Elliot who charms me on top chef masters every season).

Back?

So I said I would update around my birthday (which is Monday), and here I am.

Sam is doing wonderfully. I am also doing very well. Getting used to everyone being functional and healthy at our house is oddly harder than it seems like it would be. It is amazing what you get used to when your 'normal' gets turned upside down by an addiction. Anyway, we all seem on the right path and even the world's angriest kitty seems to be dealing better with everyone (although I still think he would trade us for our housekeeper any day).

That will be the end of my speaking about that.

I said I would decide what to do about blogging. And I haven't totally decided. I miss having this blog as a forum to talk about things, but I also think it was really good for me to reboot on healthy privacy because quite frankly there are some things that should be kept to myself and if once upon a time I knew that, it has been a very very very long time since I put it into practice.

Right now, I think I am going to continue to blog, BUT it won't be about my personal life. It will be about my life but more thoughts about art and media and about restaurants and concerts and activities I participate in. Definitely more about my quilting. Quilt #3 has been started (it is the same pattern as the other two) and Quilt #4 has had the fabric selected. It should start to get cut out tomorrow.

In order to sort of reboot my blogging life, I am also going to make a major effort to post more pictures to the blog. I like blogs that look like that and the only reason mine does not is that I am a lazy person. I can fix that.

I will also likely blog an upcoming project that I am doing with a few friends. There is a book called "The Artist's Way" and it is like a 12 week life realignment to get you to say more yes to art in your everyday life. I had never heard of it or done it, and my friends all have. I think it will be super interesting and very helpful. I am however terrified of the 'Media free' week. No TV, no internet, no movies, no books!!!!!! I might actually physically die.

I am not as bad as last night's post sounded!!

Today there was laughter and love and I might have adopted myself a little sister. I am hopeful for the future, but as an assist to myself and my recovery and by extension Sam's I have made another decision.

I am taking a hiatus from the blog. I will check back in two months from now around my birthday. I just need to focus on me and keep my writing a little closer to the hip and to my heart and on paper that I haven't published into the universe yet.

There is a possibility that this hiatus will mean the end of this blog as it stands now. I don't think it will be the end of my blogging. It is possible that the hiatus from this blog will result in a less personal blog that gets worked on going forward or just in the meantime. If that is the case, I will link to it here. But in order to recover myself, I think it is in my best interests to keep off of here because I am not capable of keeping the recovery thoughts out of my confessional thoughts here or keeping this non-confessional enough to do that.

I got here and it is kicking my ass

12 hour days, three of them in a row, sitting a lot in weird chairs and I haven't cried this much since I was in a workshop with Kelly Q. In fact even then I don't think the whole workshop cried as much as I have all by my lonesome at the two day point!

That is all I am going to say about recovery as the first rule of recovery is you don't talk about recovery (not really, that was a bad fight club joke, the real thing is that it is anonymous so you shouldn't advertise you inclusion in it or anyone else's).

I am still both scared and hopeful, but I have seen Sam and he looks well and seems committed.

We also decided that in the service of repairing our life and pursuing our mutual and individual recovery, we are not going to be setting a wedding date until this time next year and we will do NO wedding planning until then either. It will be stressful enough to get through year one of his sobriety, and choosing to add wedding planning stress voluntarily on top of that seems STUPID. We are still 100% planning to get married, so don't get worked up or start rumors.

Now I am exhausted and will watch a little tv and fall fast and hard asleep.