Progress: #36. study more about Marxism.

Oh, hello! My life has been in a constant state of crumbling and rebuilding. So it goes.

Some updates of note:

• Treecycle has been provided with some great opportunities of late, but my interest is waning. The continual gamble is not for the faint of heart or the accustomed-to-steady-income. I'm going to step back, slightly - hopefully momentarily. My focus is just multi-divided at present.
• I'm moving this summer. To North York. In a whole house rental. With Geoff. I'm stoked. This reduces my work commute. This reduces my commute to my love - and increases my time with the same. This is full of space, potential, possibility. Redecorating into a HOME - our home - will be my summer project. I'm not traveling this summer. We have a yard to call our own. Morning coffee and trees. Love.
• I'm reaaaaallly into this local Toronto trading site called Bunz.com. I feel that is a very practical application for Marxist philosophy (hence the topic of this post), as evidenced by my most recent Facebook note. It reads:

Hey all, I’m moving soon. As such, I’m having a garage sale a week from today. Everything I have up on Bunz is headed for the yard, if not traded in short order.

However, I really would prefer trades. I feel this rush from determining value, as derived from use value (of my own assessment). I like ridding myself of something not worthwhile to me, and acquiring something not worthwhile to someone else - and therein upending and exchanging use values without there ever being paper or metal as a representation of, as Marx calls, socially-necessary labour time. It is a reinvention that warms my steadily-developing Anarchist/Marxist heart. 

It’s okay if you skipped that paragraph. Really, what I want to know is: Do you have stuff to give me for my stuff? If you’re too wary of the stranger danger of Bunz - hey, you know me. I can allow you to dip your toes in the water before jumping straight in. I want you to feel the rush of defying all these systems. I want you to unclutter. I want to unclutter.

HERE’S WHAT I NEED: - retro / vintage decor (especially tin signs) - retro games / gaming products - wall primer and house paint (tan is preferable. something earthy.) - seed beads - stamps (both rubber and paper) - cool wall shelves - vintage wood or metal decor / storage - a bread maker with a gluten-free setting - a 3D printer (I can dream!) - sweetgrass braids - an actual sweetgrass plant (/plants) - white sage bundles - handmade vegan soaps - cruelty-free eyeshadow - cruelty-free hairspray / gel - indoor mini fireplace - tabletop arcade - hammock - pinball machine - silver coins - soy / almond / cashew milk - (if all else fails, coffee beans always) You got that? HERE’S WHAT I HAVE: - 18 packs of whipped butter - retro plastic mayo squeeze container (new) - MasterCraft suede tool belt (new, with tags) - Crayola Dry Erase Neon Crayons - People’s Social Forum Swag (Four “Stop Harper’s Crimes” Stickers and a 1” button that says “WE ARE ALL AFFECTED”
- OSSTF toque and 2 buttons that say “I’m Sticking with the Union”
- a small green coat with short sleeves (sort of trench coat looking), some percentage wool
- 4 coffee mugs with logos of various schools where I’ve worked

- 1 large blue coffee mug with a chip - small ceramic planter (with drain holes at bottom) and tray - CD: Velvet Underground and Nico (Warhol banana cover) - vintage Olympia typewriter carry case - VICE comics issue - brand new star-shaped watch - The Bell Jar OOP T-shirt (Ladies S - fits more like XS) - Authentic native-designed Snapback trucker hat - Authentic native-designed pink Hummingbird bangle bracelet - Unique Korean hoodie - MAD Magazine 1998: ft. Titanic, X-Files - Pink Cabellas Deer t-shirt, youth XL (fits like a Men’s S) - TLC crazysexycool cassette tape - Peru handbag with llama - battery-operated mini air hockey table - sheet of vintage Expos and Jays stickers - snowboard, boots, step-in bindings - vintage pottery wheel workshop - rooster drying mat - a lot of necklaces (stars, steampunk watch, heart, feathers, faux pearls, elephants) - feather fascinator on hairband - bamboo mat - star wall hanging - a rotating spice rack (but no containers) - theatre masks belt buckle - pinecone beeswax candles - paper crane sculptures in jars - lots of wall art
You want that? You’ve got a week to holler, before it hits the curb. Feel free to ask for photos / details, if interested.

I am learning daily about my strength, worth, tenacity. So it goes.

[Original goal list posted here.]

Completed: #13. make my own sushi

Now, I love me some veggie sushi. I order it every few months when I am empty of fridge and hungry of belly. However, I always end up asking myself two questions upon ordering:

1. Is this worth the cost?

2. Couldn't I just make this myself?

It is out of these questions that this goal originally transpired.

Now, I steadily prepared for this goal for weeks. WEEKS. I bought a bamboo mat. I bought a brand new, shiny, sharp, Japanese-style knife. I bought some sushi rice, reading and rereading the preparation directions on the reverse. I read sushi-making blogs and watched sushi-making vlogs. I tailored my Mama Earth veggie order to sushi-making. I planned an evening trip with my sister and baby nephew to our best local Asian supermarket.

I couldn't have been more ready. 

Bring it, said I, in an unusual burst of self-confidence, energy, and enthusiasm. I will make sushi for days. DAYS.

Well. Hours after this photo was taken, I posted to Facebook:

"That was a disaster. Here's a photo where I have to earn *some* presentation points. I really tried. Haha"

My dear friend Hema responded:

"It looks great. What was the disaster?"

My response - a mere photo, a very illustrative photo - says it all:

Of all the how-tos I consulted, this one was the most helpful:

I am grateful to this goal for providing me the answers I was so desperately seeking to the above two questions:

1. Yes

2. No

[Original goal list posted here.]

Progress: 8/30 - #18. read 30 texts that will aid in my teaching

Apologies for the ever-slow output of goals and posts these days. A late winter chaos, after its undue upheaval, left me in a place of great contemplation and transition. I've been feeling quiet. I wrap up all my thoughts and dreams and hold them safe and silent in the centre of my being, like a secret. It escapes only - even to most of those once closest to me - in the gentlest of vagaries, almost imperceptible unless paying close attention. Really, though, we pay the utmost close attention to our own selves almost exclusively. It's excusable. We're the centre of our universes. "You," I tell my 9s whenever I try to help them unlearn the false "good guy"/"bad guy" dichotomy, "are the protagonists of your own life story. Do you only do good things? Think about it more like this: You will not experience any events untainted by your own lens. For better or worse, you're with yourself wherever you go, and you see the story through your own eyes."

Anyway.

This line of thinking gets awfully lonely these days, so enough about self-centeredness by necessity, and more about the heart.

It is garage sale season. On my first and last outing with Geoff, I picked up five books, a handful of vintage wooden Christmas ornaments, and an old Underwood typewriter.

One of these books was Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist.

A student of mine this semester had me fill out an application in support of him completing his 4U English course in the summer, overseas. He has been reading ahead on all materials and steadily consulting me for opinions.

Of this same book, he said: "Oh, Miss, if you like The Little Prince, you will like The Alchemist." That's about the most appropriate and compelling review someone can give about a book, yeah?

I picked it up a few days later.

This past Saturday evening, to be exact.

I had a craft sale that was a total bust. It was freezing. It was raining. I had a sink of overflowing dishes to do, but I chose The Alchemist, a fire, and some ginger tea with almond milk instead. Nothing wasted. (Lamenting, as I am oft to do, my lack of productivity, it suddenly struck me and I said: "Years from now, would I remember that on this day I did the dishes, or that on this day I read The Alchemist?" Doing the dishes would be superimposed on so many other memories of doing the dishes, such not to be distinct or significant a memory at all. The Alchemist, though, was another world. I would remember The Alchemist.)

This book has assisted me during a time of terrible and beautiful transition. It is about choices, sacrifice, personal legends, listening to the heart, fear and courage, the massive intricacies of our paths and how each opens another series of connections. It is full of truths about love and travel and the too-convenient sound of settling before we've even allowed ourselves to finish our journeys. 

I've dog-earred half the book through discovering what I deemed to be the most insightful quote. However, each turning of a page uncovered another.

I'll leave you with only one. You'll just have to read the rest for yourself.

"I love you because the entire universe conspired to help me find you."




[Original goal list posted here.]

Completed: #24. make five different First Nations crafts (5/5 - Peyote Stitch Keychain)

I have been wanting to bead the bottom of my eagle feather - but I knew that this would require some variety of circular bead stitch. I only know freehand and loom stitching.

I looked up resources online. I reviewed diagrams, written instructions, and YouTube tutorials. When there are hard and fast rules, I simply learn best by verbal instruction, kinesthetic experimentation, and the ability to ask - and immediately have answered - any troubleshooting questions.

A workshop? Yes, please.

My little sister and I attended this peyote stitch workshop at Peterborough's Canoe Museum lead by Andrew Bullock. (To clarify: No hallucinogens. Just a really accomplished instructor, some retired ladies, beads, my little sister and I, surrounded by canoes and informational plaques in a place that smelled of rawhide and wood.)

A lucky bonus: My little sister is aces, and I don't get to see her enough. She was kind enough to drive. (I am directionally inept.) For many reasons, I could have never done this workshop without her - not the least of all being that I had several moments of imagining myself silently crying if she were not there to help me along with understanding the basics. She's probably the smartest and most humble little gal I know and she picked up this stitch incredibly quickly - which is not a surprise, because she's a really fast learner. Here is a photo I snapped of her before we started, alongside her final piece:

She's super pretty AND mad-talented, see.

My pieces are not so impressive, but complete. I started them both yesterday, and accomplished the first last night and the second this afternoon. These are both freeform designs. I have some patterns - and I would like to try them out on branches to make into keychains and/or necklace charms for Treecycle. When I feel satisfied enough with my progress, I want to make my own pattern and bead my eagle feather.

I am glad to now know the basics of the stitch, however.

 

Here is my first attempt, in progress and complete. I am aware that it looks vaguely phallic. This was not intentional, okay??

 

Here is my second attempt, in progress and complete.

For those who want to be in the know, these are constructed of a doweling rod wrapped in soft leather. The beads are size 10. With the assistance of an eye hook screwed into the top, they will be keychains. If you're capable of following written instructions and/or diagrams and/or YouTube tutorials, there is a plethora of information online for this stitch.

I have also been working on freehand-beading a drawstring medicine pouch necklace. It's taking quite awhile, but I intend it to be precious to me - so I figure it's worth the effort. Although with this final fifth of five First Nations crafts, I've accomplished my goal, I'll post to show you the medicine pouch upon completion regardless.

Dear goal #24, you brought me hand-crafted medicine wheels and a love of beading. For that, I thank you dearly. If I never scratch another goal off this list, I have already been enriched.

[Original goal list posted here.]

Progress: 7/30 - #18. read 30 texts that will aid in my teaching

Our 3Us do an independent study on a classic novel. I keep a list of ones I have read as recommendations. It is my most extensive list. There are, still, always more to add. Sometimes I end up basing my "to read" list on their own presentation coverage, when it sounds engaging. Flowers for Algernon wound up on my list through these means.

It is sad and beautiful. I've always loved books written in epistolatory style. It's always, to me, an even more intimate first-person portrayal. In this particular text, it's essential to really demonstrate a development of character and a subsequent tangible - and heartbreaking - degeneration.

I like its commentary, likely very progressive for its time, on the treatment of individuals with developmental exceptionalities. (I mean, I've been thinking lately about withdrawing from the midst of a system that says one thing and does another. That has buzzwords to please a certain segment of the population, while caring little about caring for another. Our children will grow to be adults in a world that does little to accommodate them, when no one is keeping tabs any longer. Maybe I will learn to make a difference - but not within a system I do not respect. I am being necessarily vague. I am working through what I think. Forgive me - books make me feel self-reflexive. I am midst-transformation, but I haven't yet figured out where I want to land.) Likely very progressive for 1959 - but have we changed? In almost sixty years, have we really changed anything substantial?

Four quotes that most struck me:

"I shouldn't have stayed, but it's hard to break the habit of listening, because people have always spoken and acted as if I weren't there, as if they never cared what I overheard." (67)

"It's more than that. I've been afraid before. Afraid of being strapped for not giving in to Norma, afraid of passing Howells Street where the gang used to tease me and push me around. And I was afraid of the schoolteacher, Mrs. Libby, who tied my hands so I wouldn't fidget with things on my desk. But those things were real - something I was justified in being afraid of. This fear at being kicked out of the bakery is vague, a fear I don't understand." (110)

"Sure, all this has changed me and the way I think about myself. I no longer have to take the kind of crap people have been handing me all my life." (123) 

"'You've become cynical,' said Nemur. 'That's all this opportunity has meant to you. Your genius has destroyed your faith in the world and in your fellow men.'
'That's not completely true,' I said softly. 'But I've learned that intelligence alone doesn't mean a damned thing. Here in your university, intelligence, education, knowledge, have all become great idols. But I know now there's one thing you've all overlooked: intelligence and ed­ucation that hasn't been tempered by human affection isn't worth a damn.'
I helped myself to another martini from the nearby sideboard and continued my sermon.
'Don't misunderstand me,' I said. 'Intelligence is one of the greatest human gifts. But all too often a search for knowledge drives out the search for love. This is something else I've discovered for myself very recently. I present it to you as a hypothesis: Intelligence without the ability to give and receive affection leads to mental and moral break­down, to neurosis, and possibly even psychosis. And I say that the mind absorbed in and involved in itself as a self-centered end, to the exclusion of human relationships, can only lead to violence and pain.'" (249)

[Original goal list posted here.]

Progress: 6/30 - #18. read 30 texts that will aid in my teaching

In small groups called "Literature Circles", our grade 11s read texts and watch corresponding film versions to form the basis of a comparative essay. These text selections existed at this school before I did and, as such, some of them I have not read.

One of these, prior to this past week, was Alan Moore's Watchmen.

A not-so-secret is that one quarter of my bookshelf is filled with graphic novels. Another not-so-secret is that I used to long to be a graphic novelist.

That being said, superhero comics were often lost on me. This comes from the same rationale of a teenage version of self that craved [quote] reality [unquote] and thought science fiction was trivial. 

I did not understand.

I separated literature into such unspoken categories as "real" (because real equalled profound and profound equalled important) and "not real" (because not real equalled fantasy and fantasy equalled trifling).

I did not understand the psychology and the politics and the parody. 

Kids almost literally fight each other to be granted the privilege to read Watchmen. A small handful of pages in, I said to Geoff: "We give this to students to read and they don't complain? I'm so confused."

It's a process of unfolding. I want ready answers sometimes. I want to know I'm right. I want to know I'm right immediately. I'm entirely too black and white.

(... Which is why I suppose it makes perfect sense that my favourite character ended up being Rorschach?) 

I was wrong in my underestimation of how superheroes and science fiction and fantasy speak to the condition of being human - that they are, despite requiring imaginative stretch and a suspension of disbelief, more real sometimes than real: so prophetic and satirical and empathetic it hurts.

I wrote a pencilled point form list of aspects in this text that most got to me. In no particular order, it reads:

• Hollis Mason's story about his regret over Moe Vernon's suicide
• When Jon Osterman knows that he will be disintegrated in the test chamber, and he just wants Janey Slater to stay with him - he does not want to die alone
• Hollis Mason's death on Hallowe'en - the broken pumpkin and his flashbacks to Nite Owl
• Dr. Manhattan's meaning of human existence on an atomic level
• Everything about Rorschach's childhood

I took photos to complement the parts that resonated with me that I couldn't really explain in words:

As a university student, I eschewed anything "post-modern". As an adult, my most favourite texts would tend to fall into this category: intertextuality; creating dialogues between text, image, and arrangement; juxtaposition to imply and make meaning; stories within stories as reflections of those stories. Watchmen contains all of these - and, in its intents and execution, is not so different than aspects I greatly appreciate in David Foster Wallace's mammoth Infinite Jest, or Mark Z. Danielewski's House of Leaves.

Geoff and I were just speaking of the idea that we, as human beings, probably cannot create new neural pathways if we take easy routes and refused to be challenged.

I am always learning and finding new value.

It's an ongoing battle to live in the greys - which is possible, so long as I permit myself to do so.

Next up: Watch the film?

[Original goal list posted here.]

Update: #30. make an updated website for my art

Despite its claim to get back to me in 72 hours, 120+ hours and one additional email later has yielded a tumbleweed-rolling-by utter silence from Go Daddy. 

Oh well. I'll add it to the mental list I'm keeping called "Mistruths of Late". (I figure, in the future, this could also be an appropriate band name. Failing that, well, a pretty rad name for a mix.)

ANYWAY. I slightly altered my domain name, courtesy of the lovely WebStarts.

I hereby officially introduce you to...

treecycletoronto.ca

Visit. Share. Peruse. Maybe even buy?

New business cards are on the way, paid for courtesy of using eBay like a virtual garage sale - which is still working out for me like a piece of vegan carrot cake topped with toffutti cream cheese (aka awesomely). 

(Forgive the verbal splurge. I've spent almost 24 hours sleeping off a hardcore migraine and I talk to a grand total of three people lately, ever, pretty much.)

[Original goal list posted here.]