who knows

Who knows where this came from. I found it on my computer, and thought, yeah.

Yeah!

I’m going outside on this gorgeous day (it’s a day of Spring inserted into Summer) and paint/stain a micro-porch.

cleaning up

Jasper: “Thanks for all of the beautiful work on the house, Kate McKinnon.”

Me: “Thanks, Jasper, that means so much to me.”

I about cried with relief when both boys were at school this morning. I am simply not cut out for life with the untidy and the careless. It’s not very intelligent to keep trying to make a house clean and neat while assorted male creatures are lumbering about dropping pants, garbage and dirty dishes, but stupidly I try, because I don’t have any mechanism to live in squalor of any kind. Honestly, anyone of a tidy nature who lives with people like that should, if at all possible, cut their emotional losses and move out of the ape cage.

I’ve done what I could on that count, but I simply don’t have it in me to abandon my family. Sometimes I think of pulling a Gaugin, but only on a fantasy level. I’d miss them too much. So I come in, and do things like move the couch, and pick up all of the dirty socks, dusty papers and outright garbage behind it, and I wipe down the sticky cabinet fronts, and the shelves in the refrigerator, and then I usually cry a little bit, because it was so gross, even though I’d only been gone a month. Or a week. Or a day.

I make forays like that until the place is sparkly and neat, but then one or more of the three of them comes home, and things start appearing on the floor, piled on tables, and in sticky places on counters. I’ve tried to find some kind of a balance between living as a blind zen person and a frustrated maid, prone to yelling things like “What about a wet towel DON’T YOU COMPREHEND? They don’t go in heaps on carpets, or on top of wooden dressers. They get hung over something. Is that rocket science?”

And then I remind myself that I don’t want to be that person. So I can either pick up the wet towel without bitching, bitch and force the perp to pick it up, or look away, or leave. If there is another option, I have never been able to think of it.

There is a housecleaning service that does come in, but they don’t come every day, and they won’t move the couch and pick up the trash and vacuum behind it You know. They do what they do, which is bathrooms, floors, and a sort of dusting/wipedown. They don’t keep the fridge clean or move the couch and pick up the garbage behind it.

People ask me all of the time, “Why do you live half time alone?” and the answers are so complicated, so full of regret and some spastic attempt at fairness, some struggle to both live a life for myself and also a life of service, a love I don’t know how to look away from for each of the three boys; a raft of other feelings, that I’ve learned to simply say, “Oh, I’m a writer. You know, we’re odd like that.”

So I just keep moving forward, removing both literally and figuratively the weeds from the garden, the sticky from the shelves, and reminding myself that I must seem just as incalculable to people who don’t care if things are sticky, or if there are dirty socks on the counter.

I do pretty well as long as I’m left mostly alone; that’s always the goal for me, the shimmering mirage in the almost-touchable distance.

Service

This past week has been like a Service Intensive, where I put myself aside and worked for others. On the whole, it’s been enjoyable to fix and clean and spiff. This old house appreciates it, as does Bill. What two teenaged boys think about anything is academically interesting, and sometimes hilarious, but not of particular practical interest. Mostly I wish they would put on their pants. But they don’t.

I have a limited tolerance for males in underwear; they are such monkeys, you know, always scratching at themselves. (Bill is stunningly civilised, and is not part of the monkey-problem at any time.)

In fact, Bill is going to compare himself to monkeys; the snow monkeys of Japan.

Tonight, he’s on the way to Tokyo to enjoy the annular eclipse (ring of fire!) and then tomorrow, up to the mountains to commune with the monkeys and the forest.

I practically forced him to take a few extra days to enjoy himself, and have an adventure. Hopefully by now he thinks it was a good idea.

I’m back to Home Despot; I’ve been there every day and that’s just what it is.

Ah, man

I’m so tired. Tireder than tired. I’ve fixed so many things in the past five days that I might just have to lie in bed ALL DAY tomorrow, moving only to make coffee and feed those who are very small. Those who are tall can feed themselves.

My everything hurts and I long for Miss Fish, who is in Tucson, or Bill, who is in Japan. Maybe Wyatt will come walk on my back. I’ll take anything at this point.

I’d really love a hot bath, especially now that our old tub is all prettied up- I spent about half a day today with a caulk knife, digging out decades of grout, caulk and yuck from the cracks and crevices, making small repairs, and re-grouting the whole thing. I got dirty and sweaty and even my toe bones are sore, but of course I can’t get it wet for 24 hours. It’s our only shower and our only tub. Boo! I’ll probably risk a bath in the morning, putting Saran Wrap over the grout. I really did a good job and I don’t want to mess it up.

Also: did you know you can rearrange the Earth’s continents and major islands to form a chicken?

. . .

It was a hot day today, which makes the fact that I am smelling someone’s FIREPLACE a particular outrage. WTF? Is there no relief ever possible in this town from the smells of cut grass and fireplaces? I regretfully close the window; I am annoyed. A fire in summer. What would Poirot say? He’d look in the grate for a burned will, or compromising note. Here, it’s probably just someone toasting marshmallows.

Oddly, I got accosted by yet another woman with a wad of photos of her grandbaby. This was a completely random woman; I didn’t know her from Eve. She didn’t know me, either, she just decided that it was my lucky day. And once again, bizarrely, I am shifting from foot to foot, trying to extricate myself while a woman shows me photographs of a baby I do not know.

It was even odder that it was in Home Despot, in the hardware aisle.

Must. Sleep.

Skyscraper earrings, made to order

It sure has been pretty here in St. Louis this week. I’ve had all of the windows (all of them! every single one!) open since I got here.

As I mentioned earlier, I’m making a series of handmade fine silver Goldberg Skyscraper earrings and pendants, and I’m doing them to order. So if you’d like a set, please click here.

Shipping June 4th.

I LOVE making these elegant little half-cylinders, resonant with my love for genius Chicago architect (and lover of the little guy) Bertrand Goldberg.

One day, I’ll spend some time in his exquisite masterpiece overlooking the Chicago River, Marina City. I’ll take a six-month lease on a sweet pad, high up, and spend a spring and summer there with Bill, walking, walking. I am there, in Chicago, every time I look at these excellent little forms.

When I think that anyone living in Chicago could simply rent an apartment and move there, and live downtown, my brain shuts down. Because every single person I know who lives in Chicago doesn’t really live in Chicago. They live in some burb, and I just can’t process that. Having made the dreadful error of moving out of the city center here in St. Louis (raising those pesky kids) I’d never in a million years do it again unless I was headed to the damned mountaintop or beach. Especially not in CHICAGO, one of the greatest American cities.

It’s safe, exciting, packed with things. What more could you ask?

headway

I’m making headway, happily on all fronts. It feels fantastic. I’m slowly going through everything in this house, just like I’ve done in Tucson.

We used to have a nasty dank basement full of God knew what, and the dampness in it made my soul feel green and polluted, and now we have a bright, clean, mostly dry (almost! almost!) expanse of white, a place we go to do laundry. We have windows that work. And a roof that’s done right. We’ve been beavering away on these things for years, admittedly never actually expecting to get anywhere.

Yet. despite our low expectations of Victory, we are bemused and impressed every time we look around and realize that our house has officially gone from disreputable to adorable.

The new porch is almost finished, and it looks as if it’s been there forever. I love our builder, Don Anderson. He’s got a great portfolio and he and I are soulmates on the details. And the great part is that now I have a Porch Under-Roof to paint haint blue. It’s just got a primer on it now. I’ve always longed for a real porch, and never really owned one. This one is tiny, but hey. Room for a swing.

I need to have projects everywhere I go, otherwise I become a bother to myself and others, and find it difficult to concentrate on my (actual) work.

If all I have to do is what I’m supposed to be doing, there isn’t a chance in hell that I’ll even approach the tasks. But if I have delightful projects that I can wear myself out on, then it sparkles my creative brain and exhausts my body, a perfect combination for sinking into my bed with my computer.

Rarely do I get the thrill of actual new structure; this year has brought boons in the form of a PORCH and an ARBOR. I am faint with joy.

(It’s just a coincidence, by the way, not some onset of sudden wealth. Rather the opposite, in fact. I’ve got to get to another kind of work; making some fabulous new earrings, I think. Yes? Earrings? Let’s start with a series of fine silver Goldberg Skyscraper earrings. I love those.)

. . .

When I was going through the Tupperware drawer this morning, noticing how many lids we have that no longer have a vessel to protect, I thought, isn’t that just like life. We are always sorting through crap that doesn’t fit trying to isolate our better and best choices. I say, get those fucking lids out of the drawer, so I never have to evaluate them for fitness again. We should only have things in our lives if they give us joy and we can keep them nice.

 

A very few more Special Book Kits!

Great news!

Before I left Tucson I did a count of Limited Edition Book Kit orders and crazed beads and such, and figured out that I have just a few more special Book Kits available. I wasn’t sure, so I cut orders off on May 1.

The kits contain special mixes, interesting shapes, vintage charlottes, fabulous Delicas (and many in the spendy and lush 300 Series) rounds, and assorted delights from my hoard.

Geometric Sampler ropes in Delicas and rounds, Kate McKinnon and Gabriella van Diepen

Yum!

If you meant to order one of these, and were sorry you missed the deadline, yay! Go here to get one! But hurry!

Email me if you need me to hold one for you, and if you want to get one as a gift for someone else, just let me know, and I’ll gift wrap it for you, with a love note.

This seems like an excellent excuse to post another photo of the hilarious and delightful Japanese Puzzle Erasers, because you will find them in your Book Kits.

We use them to store our slender pushpins, so useful with the eraser for gently exploding beads in the wrong place that are (for whatever reason) unbackoutable.

(This useful Pearl Of Wisdom brought to us by the Mighty Great Lakes Beadworker’s Guild.) I only wish I knew which genius came home with the first Rubber Biscuit. Perhaps one of the Elders knows the full story, and we can sit around the campfire and hear of how the fierce tribe from the Deep Lakes first discovered the biscuit and pin.

The excitement of the puzzle erasers is that all of the layers come apart, so you can just use the slice that fits behind the pin in your beadwork. Sometimes you need to get into crotches (!) or tight areas, and you might want a corner, or a strawberry tip. Sometimes you just need gentle pressure into the flat of the crunchy cookie layer.

As an added bonus you can trade fillings with your friends. They’re interchangeable. We’re putting a few in each kit, along with some hilarious, mindbendingly good French Pastry erasers.

See how they come apart! Every element! I could play with them all day.

Bill is in Japan now, surrounded by the Magical Hello Awesome like these puzzle erasers. Me, I’m in the middle of a handful of deep projects. Photo organization for the book. Database organization for the book. Planning the Paris trip. Beading an odd new idea. Deep cleaning the house. Riding herd on the last week of school. Stuff like that.

The days are flying by, I have some Band-Aids. And things are marching.

My email, although shot in the leg, is definitely repaired. I wish I had time to really work out what exactly happened when I attempted to change my settings, but isn’t half of the trick of life knowing when to drop the leather and move on?

Time to blow the magical horn, (I actually have one but it’s in Tucson, so today it’s imaginary) mount my imaginary stallion, kiss my imaginary Bryan Ferry goodbye with lots of tongue (tucking his silk pocket square into my bodice for luck) and thunder off to the next windmill, enemy, or pile of rubber macarons, whatever the next shimmering cloud of dust turns out to be.

another day slips into the sea

Progress. Dustin and I had a great idea about our double-layered Rick-Rack before I left, and I’m getting excited in background to start my own experiment. I have a good one to play with and think I’ll start tomorrow morning, just to see what happens.

Our first wave of our last shoot should be at Kyle’s place soon (sadly missing the Gorn Commander action figure, who managed to escape from the box as it was being taped up). Dang. I’ll be sure to get him in the next one, or Photoshop him in somewhere.

The “actual” Gorn Commander, photo Paramount Pictures

I asked our brilliant photographer Kyle Freaking Cassidy to shoot the new pieces as if they were spaceships, or alien life forms. As if no one had seen them before or would see them again, and he had to capture their curve, their deeps and their tentacles, communicate their personality.

Several of the shots he will be getting will be meant for use as graphic standards in the book; a long stripe of Rick-Rack, digitally stitched together. A box formed by the outline of a Horned Square. A circle, inside a Power Puff Bangle shot from above.

We are also entertaining ourselves by using  Jeroen Medema’s beaded gun and two excellent drawings by Allison Shock to liven things up (I’ve shown you her Pearl Of Wisdom oyster, now groove on her excellent Tips One Should Heed fortune cookie). Adorable!

Drawing by Allison Shock.

I’ve got stacks of images; in fact I’m getting a bit cramped, trying to sort things on my laptop. I’m thinking about a screen for our final layout session- it would be so good to have one in front of us like a virtual layout table. I have an old Studio Monitor, and I love the Use What You’ve Got school of thinking, but I’ve learned not to use old screens to lay out new books. I think it’s time for a new Bluetooth display, so we can all sit in front of it, editing and sketching, and moving things about.

We’re each writing our own introductions for the book. I’ve been working on mine for months. It’s interesting how my focus keeps changing. I have no idea what the final word will be, or what Dustin and Jean will say.

I’ve never worked on a project I both cared so much about and also had so little control over; the book is flowing itself together, and any ideas we’ve had about directing it have constantly been altered by the nature of the work, by our own simplifications, by time.

There is no one more interested to see how this all plays out than me. But I’m content to simply let it unfold. Now that my email is all (or mostly) fixie, I’ll be drafting the Press Update.

Also, I miss Jean Power and can’t wait until we are all back together in Tucson. Just a few more weeks!

Again I ask myself, how is it almost midnight?

Tomorrow I’m taking cookies and thank-you letters from Liam and I over to the Police Department, in gratitude for them finding The Dog. Liam’s on a second course of antibiotics now, but at least he’s not supplementing that with a rabies series.

all fixed up

It’s a glorious springy summer day here in St. Louis. Birds, flowers, kids about to get out of school. Really gorgeous. It’s the kind of day that anyone could get behind. I’m having fun with the boys (they are hilarious) and am pleased to be in it, even if I am missing the Slatting Day.

I went to the Apple Store this morning. My MacBook dropped a few screws from the case, and they were right under my trackpad, and that was obviously not a good thing. I also needed to get a better understanding of my IPhone options; my hated TMobile contract expires in August, and I needed to grasp a few basics re data, coverage, etc.

Missions Accomplished.

The beautiful 24/7 Apple store in NYC; a transparent cube over a sub-t store. Gorgeous.

The reason I really went in, though, (braving the mall) was that I needed to understand what in the hell happened when I attempted to switch my email from POP to IMAP. This struck me as a sensible idea; both in order to move into the future and also to have one database to manage, not two. However, it was in fact a bad, bad terrible idea. Not IMAP- that’s good. It was the changing settings in midstream that was the problem.

Bad, terrible things happened, freaky things. I didn’t lose any orders, or pre-orders, and so that’s good, but I may in fact have lost immediate access to much of my Sent mail, and that will certainly come back to bite me in the ass if I don’t go back into Time Machine and restore the email folders from the last backup, and then redownload the new mail. It was good to get in there and have an understanding of exactly how I fucked it all up. I love facts, and smart people, and fast service, and free repairs, and beautiful, sleek machines.

I left the Apple Store once again marvelling at their level of service. I don’t care if I could buy three PC laptops for what my MacBook costs. I’ve been hard as hell on my computers, and I’ve pretty much had three MacBooks out of them for every one I’ve bought.

Anyway. Moving on. And maybe I even have time to eat lunch. What a concept.

Charlie Pierce, I love you.

That’s all. I’ve said it before and I’m quite sure I’ll say it again. I love Charlie Pierce.

Here is a link to his gorgeous essay on the Arizona high school team who sat out a championship baseball game rather than play a game with a team that had… wait for it… a girl on it.

Also, Arizona.

For Christ’s sake. What’s the matter with us, so many bigots and right wing extremists tucked into the lawns of Phoenix and the dusty knolls of the desert.

(I must point out that Tucson is not like this; we are the Boulder, Colorado of Arizona, the Austin Texas of the Wild West. We vote blue. Every time. And our lawmen refused to enforce the racist hate legislation sent down from Phoenix.)