I wear above-the-knee skirts for those who can't. Stay in my lane? Ha! We don't need no stinkin' lanes. But every so often a cattle chute is useful. Hey, baby. Your authenticity is showing.
Semi-Daily Scribbles
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Shoved to the back of the shelf with a hole in my belly. My appearance invites conversations about identity and isms, so I suppose I can't complain about my station in life. I came into the world like this, but it's your perception that defines me. Some see a foe, a friend, a fetish. I will work with whatever I get, just don't give away my place at the table.
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The best way to burn the candle at both ends is to go to bed early.A colleague is mad at the world because he was observed sleeping at his desk by a visiting-from-out-of-town C-Level Executive. C-Level Executive decided she had room in her day planner to schedule a "Must Look at Attendance Records" for the group to which Sleepy reports. It was found out that Mad-at-the-World Colleague had been leaving his post early, arriving for duty late and playing fast and loose with the Company's vacation policy. And as luck would have it, the day Sleepy was found snoozing was also the day he wore pajamas to the office. Who's going to notice roomy, comfortable clothing when everyone's away celebrating Winter holidays? Apparently, visiting-from-out-of-town C-Level Executives with impeccable timing. If it were just a jammies thing, a brief conversation with the Team Leader would have been the end of the story. However, Sleepy's teammates are now under scrutiny; a fact which makes one particularly rebellious but punctual co-worker wonder what would happen if she were to show up tomorrow in the plaid flannel PJs she got for Christmas?
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2017 seemed like a good idea.Resolutions you won't find me mucking about with, but here are a few thoughts as we try another year on for size:
* Be kind to your favorite unreliable narrator.
* Keep the O's. Toss the X's.
* All the iterations of Porkins go down in a fiery ball.
* We don't need to grow an exoskeleton, but toughening up the epidermis is a worthy pursuit.
* Watch for winged things.
* Run if you should meet your Authentic Self (because, of course, one of you must die.)
* It's no illusion: Define the confusion before it defines you.
* If your world's been tipped upside down, make sure you are the one shakin' shit up.
* There is only ever one beat to follow. Grab your sticks, pardner.
* There really are such creatures as happy-go-lucky pessimists!
* Our most meaningful relationships are subsidized by Big Swigs and Hate Chicken.
* WALL-E is humanity's eventuality.
* To love is to flail our arms at each other. A lot.
* Make peace with all your disparate pieces.
* Are you telling your story the way it needs to be told?
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What have you turned to gold in your workshop this year? Did you write a happy ending? Did you build a solid beginning? Did you set out with Right Intention when you created your Invention? If none of the above ring true, you're invited to kick around a resolution or two. 2018 wants to hear your pitchy singing. She wants to hang on her wall the photo you took of oranges nestled in the lap of a pair of faded blue jeans. 2018 needs to read your schnauzer tales. If the world appears a most hopeless place, please make a little art. It's easy and hard at the same time! But it's what makes you You; a beautiful blend of imperfect notes and tones. You are the reason I wrote this post, mon ami. So go ahead, soften that holiday glare. Make something to burn in the fireplace. Make something to share. I'm off to do the very same thing, matches happily in hand. -
Olympia The Owl wishes one and all a splendid Winter Solstice. Olympia also wants to share she's mad as hell over some scuzzy creature having reached its filthy paws into her letterbox and stealing the seasonal greetings her Aunties sent to her from far beyond the Purple Mountains. She hopes the thief choked on the woody fibers of the beautifully crafted, talonmade Christmas cards Olympia looks forward to receiving each year. Thoroughly put off by cheery thoughts of sugarmice and piney spice after the post was stolen, Olympia steeled herself in order to complete her Solstice notes. Next on the greeting card list was her gorgeous yet clingy friend, Octavia the Octopus. In her fashion, Olympia thought and jotted, scribbled and scratched several sentences before coming up with the perfect holiday sentiment:Don’t ride the raft of contentment indefinitely. “Go with the flow” only works once you’ve made a course correction first. Otherwise, count the barnacles that grow in your soft spot and accept your fate as lost treasure beneath the waves.
After signing, sealing and posting via airmail, Olympia winged her way to an appointment in a ramshackle barn, confident she'd be able to smooth her feathers, raise her vibration and get back her festive Decemberness.
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I've tossed all my maps on the Yule bonfire, so you're my guide now. What will the world look like when we make up new coordinates? Ah, the fallacy of maps! They seem to ask: What has power over you?Maps suggest the uncomfortable, too: Greenland is Bigger because White is Better.
Paper trails, that's all they are.
But the big reason why you hate maps is they take us where we have to go, and that's no way to find home.
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Should our Lady of Handicrafts really be driving the backwater byways? The interstate fast lane? Darla's sense of direction has always been off, and depth perception is a sketchy proposition for a gal with nyctalopia. At least we know the pick-up's parked for now somewhere between home and Morton Grove.
Showing up is half the battle. Isn't that what Ort always says? So why do I feel put-upon and, quite frankly, downright apathetic toward my body of work? Salvation via the scrap heap! I love what I do. And money doesn't buy … Gas tank's awfully low, though. Did I miss my chance back there? Darla Varney, you fudgewit!
The picnic table at the Easy Cedars Rest Area off Hwy 12 was as good a vendor booth as any Darla had worked recently. The senior citizens handing out complimentary coffee in Dixie cups and patrolling the grounds shouldn't hassle her too badly. Might even get one of these folks to pull out her wallet. Darla eyed a well-seasoned chap in an orange stocking cap approach her display.
"Hey little lady! What you got there?" The grizzled and bristly bearded man picked up one of Darla's tissue-paper-and-uncooked-spaghettini rabbits and turned it upside down.
"One slightly blackened soul," Darla replied as she watched the prospective shopper place the bunny against his ear and shake it.
"Sole? Huh. Aw hell, that reminds me of the time I worked aboard a fish processor with a bunch of Norwegians. They got to arguing over whether the saying is: He's got a wild hair up his ass. Or, he's got a wild hare up his ass." Darla tilted her head and sighed as she watched the man nibble the spaghettini whiskers of the snowy Kaninchen.
"I think with Scandinavians it could go either way. And that'll be seven bucks for the conejo."
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What important work have you touched today? Pushed it to the back of your muchly packed brain, did you? Adventure. Faith. Patience. Resilience. Surrender. This is how 2017 ends and 2018 begins. We have this moment. Then we have rapid thoughts and nonsensical synopses of what transpired in this moment. Or that moment. Or the beat that's about to drop that we've already missed. Forgotten or not, here it comes. There it goes. Time sidesteps us like that. Time wipes the slate clean with each breath taken until we …Transform & Triumph
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Darla is the runner in this relationship as she holds grudges against those who flow in the opposite direction as hers (Darla's way resembles mud puddles rather than point breaks.) What an irksome thing, that disconnect between the noggin and the ticker. The board and the body. The desire to make crocheted clowns vs. the need to pay the rent.
So take to the road! Shirk responsibility! Ditch the dude who wants to like you a lot. Leave unfilled that prescription that prevents you from seeing dancing chalices and floating bones.
Darla pulls into a rest stop to needlepoint more only those whom you love can hurt you throw pillows.
Semi-Daily Scribbles 