This was my jack-lantern this year. The first year in over a decade that I didn't scrape the exterior into a face, but instead just sliced and diced, which seemed more expedient. And also twas nice to do something different. On the downside, I'm not sure I became fast friends with my pumpkin this year. His was a nice acquaintance to make, however.


The photography show we had this past artwalk-Friday went well. It took a little craziness to get there though.

The first part of the craziness being that N's phone died, so she wasn't able to postpone her arrival in a manner that I would receive. Thus, though she was supposed to get here in the morning, she didn't arrive until after the show had already begun. Aside from not being here to help me hang everything, as she was supposed to, and aside from the large temporary gap on the wall where her work was to go, I was worried sick. Irritated as I was to hear she had stumbled in to the studio cheerfully tardy while I was out scouring the bus stations, pubs, and gutters to find her... I was thrilled to put away the mental images of bus crashes, hate crimes, or re-ensuing craziness. Once she was there, and I griped at her a bit, we hung her work and everything was nice.

While hanging the pictures and prepping the studio, I'd also had another conflict with S, which seem to be increasing, and are strange strange strange. I'm hoping to put a kybosh on further squabbles... they seem to come from a combo of my own cranky tiredness--my unhappiness with my body and my writing and my lack of time--and a little bit of personality conflict between the two of us at times. But I'm ready to find methods to relax, and good cheer to get me through my work.


At the show, I sold two matted and framed photography pieces (I'll give you three guesses as to who bought them, with a hint being that I've only once sold a non-book piece to anyone else) plus was commissioned to mat a third. SP sold one piece, AD sold a number of postcards, and everyone wants JW to one day put her oil paintings on sale instead of hoarding them. Regardless of that, there was a nice turnout, everyone more or less cheerful, and the show looked good.

I am feeling pathetic though... my arms are sore and the only thing I can figure out is that they got exercise from hanging.


Backing up a bit, I went on a hike on Friday morning with Herald, so he'd stop looking at me like he thought I hated him. We went up to these two lake/ponds up near my house, and it was stunning... foggy dripping and gray, but with leaves covering the mossy paths and blowing around falling and tumbly stacking. Better yet, when I got to the beaver pond, it was totally quiet but with these huge spider webs - both satchel-like and woven - draping the snags in the middle of the pond. A kingfisher on a limb, and woodpecker holes lining the exterior of the trees, but on each of the ten limbs on the ten trees... ten webs with mist collecting on them, and did I say quiet? Not another human soul up there, just the intense reflections of the webs mixed in with tiny green lilies.

Then yesterday, I took a hike with MH, my new colleague/friend. The more time I spend with her, the more I love her. She is so calm, and yet wild like a wood thrush or beaver. I don't fully understand it, but just being around her makes me feel peaceful; all this craze just kind of seeps out of me and I feel happy and secure and able. I think she likes me too. So, we went on a hike and talked of this and that, and Herald played with her dog, and the leaves smacked the ground, and the eastern skyline occasionally opened, and the dog salmon rushed up and down the river as we got back, with Herald at first jumping a foot out of the water at their motion, and then chasing them to see what they were.

It all worked perfectly because N and S were supposed to go on the hike too, but N was stressed about teach-prep and S had to attend a function two hours after we were to start, and so both decided to just head home instead, so that nobody felt rushed and everyone had time. When M drove me back to drop me off with N, who had the car, we spotted N walking down the street to Archers, the pub, and we simply joined her and shared a beer.

I had a bad moment when the waitress -- who knows N and me because we all used to grab beers down there during grad school -- came up and said hello, then told me that she had just seen Soham a few weeks ago when she came in to say howdy. I almost started crying. It's hard to know that she'd been here and hadn't even bothered to drop me a line, and N could see I was super-upset and tried to redirect. She had known, but didn't tell me so I wouldn't get upset. Somehow these things seem to come out though. It amazes me sometimes to think that if E hadn't slept with D three weeks after dumping me, and if we hadn't all been in a class together, and if I hadn't been so damn wrecked about the whole thing, then I might have had a fairly different social life, maybe even life. But maybe what was going to happen was always going to happen, regardless of exactly how it happened. I'm sure that makes some kind of sense.

So anyhow, I was seriously struggling not to cry when I realized how nice the two walks I had been on were, and the show I had just had, and how good it feels these days to have quality friends. Maybe not tons of friends, and maybe not friends close enough geographically for my taste, but good friends. Both admirable and interesting. People who go out of their way for others, and who are kind even when it doesn't benefit them directly. And suddenly, I felt okay with it all. The people who are in my life are those who like me and want to be in my life. And I want to be in theirs. And that's that, we drank our beers in good company.

On my walks, I stupidly forgot my camera and so I have plans to go back, because this is the only cellphone picture that came out a little bit, and it doesn't capture more than the tiniest bit of the perfection or quiet.