one thing that happened in the intervening silence of this blog was that my grandmother (my father’s mother) died suddenly at the beginning of April. it was unexpected in that there was no long decline, no hospitalizations immediately before. she simply died in her sleep, which, as my father pointed out to me, was exactly the way she had wanted to go. having been a nurse her whole life, she had no doubt seen the dying process take place in a hospital setting many times and wanted none of it. i don’t blame her.

her death affected me far more than i thought it would. even now, i get emotional thinking about it, which is surprising considering that she and i always had a sort of distant, fraught relationship. she was in Scranton, where my dad grew up, and the 2 and a half hour distance resulted in us never being close. i always felt a strange kinship with her, i think perhaps because we were so alike (which was also probably the reason for friction in the relationship, as it has been with my dad). i like to think we shared the same stubbornness and tenacity. she grew up in some very difficult life circumstances (her mother died when she was 7) and i think that really affected the way she dealt with her life. of course, this is all speculation at this point. i never will really know.

the moment my dad called me to tell me she was gone, i felt sad, of course, but also overwhelmingly guilty. last summer, i visited her in Scranton with my dad and we ended up having a long talk about the family’s history. she told me all sort of interesting and strange tales, and i took notes in my moleskine. i intended to record her telling these stories, and a few weeks later returned to her house with my dad and my Uncle Bill’s digital camcorder. i was only going to be there for a day, and i arrived from New Bedford so exhausted from being stuck in traffic that i immediately lay down and took an extremely long nap. i woke up in time for dinner and by then, it was too late to do the recording. my dad assured me could get to it on our next visit. we left right after dinner.

i will always regret taking that nap.

i really like teaching teenagers. teenage girls, especially. i first had this experience at Tyler (when i was barely out of my teens myself) when i taught the Weekend Workshop class, a Sunday morning (yes, Sunday morning) pre-college type class where i taught ceramics to a small group of somnolent teenagers. in between chasing them across campus and making them PUT OUT THAT JOINT AND COME BACK TO CLASS, i had a lot of fun.

so here on Nantucket i am teaching a teen class on reconstructed fashion. this has been a recent passion of mine, after finally giving up on regular stores actually stocking clothing that fits me and is fashionable at a reasonable price, i said fuck it, and started to make my own clothes and accessories. so i am trying to impart my clothing and fashion wisdom (as it were) to a small group somnolent teenagers, once again.

there is an informal teen intern program at the school that allows them to take a class for free if they assist with another class. i had met one of the interns two weeks before. she was sixteen, drop dead gorgeous, and incredibly intelligent and articulate, but intelligent and articulate in that pandering way that teenagers have toward adults. i suspect she has spent her life being told how wonderfully interesting and precocious she is (this is Nantucket, after all). alarm bells went off in my head as soon as i met her. we talked for a bit, mostly about photography, which she was really interested in. i have to say i admired her passion for it. no doubt her parents were planning private lessons with Annie Leibowitz or some such.

anyway, on Tuesday she showed up a few minutes before my teen fashion class started, and sullenly informed me that she was my assistant. i welcomed her but told her that given that most of the students in the class were right around her age, i probably wouldn’t need too much help, but she was welcome to stay and do the projects.

well, i can’t say why, but it was like a switch had turned off. as i taught the class, she sat sullenly, idly flipping through her Blackberry, sometimes giving me these insane crazy looks that were a combination of apathy, pity and contempt. i was crazy intimidated. by a sixteen year old girl. i couldn’t help but think that if i was 16 and we went to same high school, she would have eaten me alive.

she came to the opening at the school the next day, turning on the charm and the confidence around the adults as usual. i watched, fascinated. my social anxiety kicked in, i did everything i could to stay out of her path while still observing her interactions. of course, everyone here loves her. they think she’s brilliant. why wouldn’t they? she is. but i get it. the pissed off angry sixteen year old still lurking inside me gets it. i know girls like this. they don’t have to DO anything. in the hyper-charged world of teenage girls, all it takes is a look, a word, a well-placed roll of the eyes to do incredible damage.

she makes Regina George look like Mother freaking Theresa.

how do i say this without sounding insufferable?

i kind of hate Nantucket.

i have been in an unbelievable funk since i got here. i have tried to logic my brain out of this depression, which works most of the time these days, thanks to a well-worn and hard-won mental pathway that i can force myself down if need be. but that isn’t working. even going out to studio and attempting to make work isn’t working, which is frightening, because 99 times out of 100 it does. i’m afraid it may get worse before it gets better. this morning i could barely force myself out of bed, and i stood in the studio at 9:10, knowing my students would arrive in twenty minutes, knowing that i would have to put on a brave face and not slink away like i wanted to, like i knew i would have when i was 22.

rather than it being one large reason causing my malaise, it seems to be a series of small ones. the largest of these small ones is that i am homesick. i miss David terribly, even though i have seen him for every weekend so far (we switch off so one of us travels each weekend). i am so homesick for our little apartment in Natick that all i do is dream of gray walls, low train whistles and the pleasant white noise of his central a/c. as soon as we part ways for the week, i am already plotting the next few days, organizing a countdown for Friday in my head. this sort of thing leaves me without the resources to actually enjoy what i am doing throughout the week. that kind of sucks.

then there is the heat and humidity. i am convinced i have some sort of reverse Season Effective Disorder, because the weather wreaks havoc on my body and my mind. less than two weeks ago i was felled by the most severe migraine of my life. the aura from it is still hanging on.

then there are the insects, everywhere, all over my room and studio. and the fact that i have to share a bathroom and shower with four other people and to get to it i have to traipse upstairs in a bathrobe, dorm style. i’m sorry if this sounds high maintenance and snotty, but i am too old for this shit.

and the guilt. the guilt is getting me down, because i feel bad for feeling all of the above. i feel bad for hating it here, because i am surrounded by lovely people and great kids and a light enough teaching load that i should be busting out work like crazy. and i am spending the summer on one of the best vacation destinations on the east coast, filled with quaint cottages and stunningly beautiful beaches. people pay millions of dollars to live in little shacks on Nantucket.

however, Nantucket starts to be a drag if a) you hate the outdoors, b) you’re not rich enough to eat at most of the restaurants on the island, c) you are more or less indifferent to the beach, d) you don’t have any friends to do anything with, e) said friends are all in New Bedford doing fun stuff without you. David and i are plotting tentative vacations for the fall, and they include going to cold, stony European cities on the cusp of winter. we are united in our hatred of vacations on beaches and in the woods.

i imagine it will eventually get busy enough here at school that i won’t have time to feel bad. until then, mope on.

in early March, i went on my first date in two years.

i would have been more of a wreck about it if i wasn’t so busy with school. at that point, i was three weeks away from beginning the install for my MFA show, and i had so much shit on my plate that there was a part of me that couldn’t believe that i was making time to go out with someone, especially when that someone was a stranger who i met on the internets. but i figured i had to get out there, after all, because once school was over in a couple months i would no longer have an academic excuse to crawl into my hole and avoid this type of social interaction. i was expecting it to brief and awkward. i gave a friend the usual information and instructions to call emergency services if i did not arrive back in New Bedford by 9:30.

of course, it was awkward at first, but not brief. dinner, an impromptu 45 minute drive into Boston, dessert and drinks and a walk around the Back Bay stretched far into that Sunday evening (Oscar night). all the while i couldn’t shake the feeling that i knew him from somewhere. surely we had met and spoken before, somewhere, about something. there was simply no space to fill in between, even the silences between us already felt comfortable.

our first dinner together was at a little sushi restaurant in a strip mall in the deserted suburb of Easton.  as i was driving up 24, a wave of panic hit me and i nearly drove right past the restaurant and circled my way home. since then i can’t tell you how many times i’ve passed exit 17 on the way to and from his place and smiled at the memory. he believes that things happen for reason; i prefer to think that the universe didn’t allow my courage to fail me in that crucial moment. either way, we’ve been together since that night.

from the ferry, the water looks like dark, opaque corrugated glass. the night before was hazy, foggy and humid, and as i drove onto the Cape early this morning, it started to clear. from the window that i sit at now, on my way to the island of Nantucket, i can see no land or blue sky. not yet.

i’ve went through a lot of changes in the last few months - my MFA show went up and came down, i graduated and thus ended my formal schooling (i hope) for this lifetime, began a new relationship, and last night, packed up the last of my things from 94 County Street, piled it all into my car, drove that car onto the M/V Nantucket early this morning and here i sit, riding a slow and ponderous ferry boat as it steams across Nantucket Sound. but the changes never felt completely permanent until i walked through my now-empty apartment, quietly saying “good-bye” out loud to each room.

i regret not writing until now. i know all the wonderful things, large and small, that have happened to me since March will be mostly lost. of course, i will remember these things in a general, hazy way, but i rely on my writing to help me remember the small details of my existence. these small details can trigger in me an avalanche of good, useful memories. maybe i will try to back track over the next few days, maybe i won’t.

last week, a dear internet friend of mine lost her partner of 19 years in a cycling accident. i’ve known Violet for over 10 years, but, in the strange ways of internet friendships, only actually met her for the first time last summer when i was in San Francisco. it was also the one and only time i met Kim, her partner. it’s been particularly hard for me to watch her grieve and cope, mostly because i think i finally have someone who is dear to me as Kim was to her. i look at David and try to imagine something happening to him and get really emotional and sad and just try to be mindful to never take anything for granted.

of course, 4 months is not 19 years. i think i understand the differences between the hope of a really young relationship and the deep comforts of being with someone for decades. they are two different animals. one is not better or more worthy than the other; they are just different. i understand on some level that V’s grief is centered around the fact that the daily presence of that person is gone and will never be replaced. i think that’s so much harder to come to terms with than the death of someone you don’t see day in and day out. my heart hurts for her. i wish i was closer to help in some way.

i passed my oral defense. thesis with distinction. i haven’t quite figured out what this means yet, but apparently it’s a big deal. it will be on my diploma.

oh, i just want to hold onto this feeling. hold it hold it hold it and not forget it.

i came across some of my old artist books from around 2003-2005 today. i haven’t unearthed them for at least three or four years. i was showing them to someone here at school, and after she left, i found myself diving into them. many of them are sketchbook journals, covering my time in Scotland in 2003, and then my residency in Houston in 2005-2006, and immediate thereafter. it’s always interesting to look at things like this from my past, to see what ideas keep cycling through. i came across a few books i made about new york, and my various emotional and romantic entanglements that are tied so closely to that city.

i say this only because i may be standing on the precipice of something new, but: god help the men that fall in love with me. they’re going have to be okay with being in my art, all over it. i don’t know any other way to be with someone. that’s one theme i picked out, looking through these old things. i feel a bit like a succubus sometimes, endlessly feeding off all this love, passion and misery, so i can then go into the studio and make something out of nothing.

John Cage: some rules for students and teachers.

RULE ONE: Find a place you trust, and then try trusting it for awhile.

RULE TWO: General duties of a student – pull everything out of your teacher; pull everything out of your fellow students.

RULE THREE: General duties of a teacher – pull everything out of your students.

RULE FOUR: Consider everything an experiment.

RULE FIVE: be self-disciplined – this means finding someone wise or smart and choosing to follow them. To be disciplined is to follow in a good way. To be self-disciplined is to follow in a better way.

RULE SIX: Nothing is a mistake. There’s no win and no fail, there’s only make.

RULE SEVEN: The only rule is work. If you work it will lead to something. It’s the people who do all of the work all of the time who eventually catch on to things.

RULE EIGHT: Don’t try to create and analyze at the same time. They’re different processes.

RULE NINE: Be happy whenever you can manage it. Enjoy yourself. It’s lighter than you think.

RULE TEN: “We’re breaking all the rules. Even our own rules. And how do we do that? By leaving plenty of room for X quantities.”

HINTS: Always be around. Come or go to everything. Always go to classes. Read anything you can get your hands on. Look at movies carefully, often. Save everything – it might come in handy later.

after too many years of fighting 18 wheelers on the Cross Bronx Expressway, i now taking a series of small parkways into Manhattan. starting somewhere up in Connecticut, from the Merritt to the Cross County to the Saw Mill to the Henry Hudson. all these highways in miniature, made twee by the lack of trucks. to me, it seems like a vastly more civilized way to go to New York. it makes me feel like i should be driving a mid-century Ford Fairlane with an AM Radio rather than a 1995 Taurus listening to NPR podcasts. through the Bronx, onto a small but high bridge over the Harlem River, at which point i almost instantly find myself on West Side Highway. simple.

i walked all the way to 11th avenue to meet Lauren and Laurence. as i was nearing the park, i noticed a long line of people stretching around the block. i belatedly realized that The Daily Show was taped right here, i had completely forgotten.

the dog park was small but crowded. i found them in the middle of it all, with little Isla cowering near them, constantly looking upward for reassurance. every time i meet the two of them anywhere, it feels like i am walking into the abrupt dissolution of an argument, a dissolution made necessary by my presence.

while Laurence was busy at the market assembling the ingredients for dinner, i entertained/distracted Isla while Lauren tore the cellophane wrapping off a dozen black frames, frames that were soon to be occupied by the stack of prints on the coffee table from the wedding and their honeymoon in Viet Nam. the destination for the frames was the wall behind my head, under the sofa. i watched as she carefully considered the composition, arranging and rearranging. i considered offering my advice, but hung back. she seemed to be enjoying it too much for me to interfere. i believe my sister is an inherently creative person whose opportunities to be creative have been severely curtailed by her nightmare of a marketing job. it’s my hope that eventually there will more room for this in her life. someday.

after dinner, i departed, subway directions written on my hand, to the Bowery Ballroom, which was the reason i was in New York in the first place. i hadn’t been a live show in a long, long time, and so my timing was off - i arrived at 8:30, a half hour after the show was ostensibly supposed to start, only to find myself still incredibly early. i was broke, so no drink at the bar for me. i headed upstairs to wait for the show to start.

i don’t necessarily mind going to shows by myself, but it’s awkward. there’s no one for me to talk to, and my cellphone had died, so i couldn’t even pretend to occupy myself with that. and so i contented myself with people watching, which satisfies me enormously. i pressed myself against the wall as the room slowly filled with the usual hipster contingent. i watched a lot of making out, both gay and straight couples, and wondered if this was the universe’s way of poking me gently about my perpetual singleness.

and then the music starts, and i remembered what this was all about, i remembered the person i was, back when i went to shows all the time in Philly, at the Troc, the TLA, the Electric Factory, that energy that coursed through me, that incredible precious intimacy of a tiny little dark stage and all of us, craning our necks upward. i miss this. i hate being a grown-up right now. hate it so much. i have to find a way back to this, somehow, some way.

one good, one bad.

the bad: i got my first rejection via email today, from SUNY Oswego. i always wonder what goes on behind the scenes when you’re rejected that fast (i sent in my application a scant two weeks ago). was my application that bad, or did they already have someone lined up? i shall never know. and fuck it, i didn’t want to live in Oswego, NY anyway.

the good: i was written up in an essay for a show i am currently in in Texas (including picture!). the essay was written by Elaine Henry, who is editor for a fancypants ceramics journal from Australia called Ceramics: Art and Perception. this is awesome considering there were about 50 people in the exhibition. the quote reads thus:

“The Clothespin Bag is so familiar, yet alien and the material seemingly has been pushed to its limits and then left raw and vulnerable to its contents.”

coincidentally, in the essay i was sandwiched in between two people i sort of know: Jeff Mongrain (friend of Nick’s, my professor from Tyler) and Martha Grover (graduated three years ago from my program).

after writing volumes and volumes about my own work for the last two and a half years, it’s strange to have someone else write about it. it’s an interesting feeling, the knowledge that what i make eventually goes off to live a life that’s entirely out of my control.