Someone has eaten all the fabulous butter pecan cookies that Anita baked for my birthday.

I blame this little pig.

He must have flown in the window and scarfed them down.

Today was a good day, although my mind would have me thinking otherwise.

It was what I consider a “noodling” day, where things get done, but in a non-linear, roundabout way. My brain hates these days. They don’t make sense! What’s going on?! There should be structure, and planning, and the crossing off of lists. Instead I answered some emails, paid a bill, returned a phone call, kissed the cats, and bought milk and oranges at the market.

I noticed the guy wearing the brand new superman t-shirt. He looked happy. On my way home I stopped and, leaving my groceries on the curb, I took pictures of graffiti. It dawned on me with surprise that I was enjoying myself, and that this might be a good use of my time. I know how to noodle my way through a day, but this may have been the first time I haven’t felt guilty about it.

One of the curses of self-employment is that there is always work to be done, right there in front of me. No bell rings to say that school is over and it’s time to go home for the night. There isn’t a commute to mark the beginning and end of my workday, or that relaxed feeling that I did the best I could and now I’m off for a few hours.

And there is no boss: there’s just my brain, whose default setting is permanent high alert, watching for danger and deadlines. My brain is a bad boss with a puritanical sense of priorities, who thinks Sisyphus was gainfully employed just because he was working so hard.

Well. I am taking back the “self” in self-employment. I’m going to go listen to Laurie Anderson.  And then – I’m firing my boss.

I don’t know about your brain –
but mine is really bossy.
I come home…
and I find all these messages
on wrinkled up scraps of paper
and they say things like:
Why don’t you get a real job?
or: You and whose army?
or: Get a horse.

This is my favorite piece of neighborhood graffiti. It’s being encroached on, but maintains its sunny disposition.

All the more poignant given its dismal location. We need to make a difference.

I’m also a big fan of Minimalist Elvis. He’s so much more than a hound dog.

I made a pendant yesterday, a new member of the Leaf Collection. I’m enjoying the simplicity of the single, feathery leaf.

I love finding relationships between objects or images. Over time I’ve tucked these four pictures into the frame of my bathroom mirror.

Andy’s group portrait of my class at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts

“Fanny and her kindergarten class mourn the death of the class gerbil”
by Donna Ferrato

“Preacher within the Circle” by Bill Traylor

a postcard titled “Hula Hoop Habit, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, 1958”

I don’t yearn for freedom: these days I yearn for security. I’m tired of being in between things/jobs/rent-paying gigs, and of the inherent uncertainty. Some days run smooth – a sequence of moments during which I appreciate being in my studio and having the time to explore and make things. Then comes a growly, frightened day when I wake up scared and anxious.

Yesterday I came across the Girl at Play archive, which chronicles Alex Beauchamp‘s transition from executive secretary to freelance writer and artist. It comforts me to read another woman’s creative angst, knowing how successful she’s become. Other people’s life paths appear straight and true when seen from the outside. By comparison my own path is the one walked on by Little Red Riding Hood, darkly shaded by trees and stalked by hungry beasts.

On the E train there was a woman sitting with a shopping cart full of garbage bags parked in front of her. She was shouting, and I was doing my best to ignore her, but as I was about to exit she yelled, “If you don’t long for freedom, don’t come over to Queens: go on back to Brooklyn!”