All posts filed under: Mind

“One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” outfit

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Lost my ever-lovin mind somewhere between home and the Capitol. For legal reasons, this story will be told exclusively in Eminem “monster” lyrics and batsh*t public displays. “I’ve created a monster‘Cause nobody wants to see Marshall no more, they want Shady, I’m chopped liver“– Without Me, Eminem Monster, you get in my way, I’ma feed you to the monster (yeah)I’m normal durin’ the day, but at night, turn to a monster (yeah)When the moon shines like Ice Road TruckersI look like a villain outta those blockbusters– Godzilla, Eminem “I’m friends with the monster that’s under my bedGet along with the voices inside of my headYou’re tryin’ to save me, stop holdin’ your breath… “And you think I’m crazy, yeah, you think I’m crazyWell, that’s nothin.” – The Monster, Eminem Like BLTs are my comfort food, this is my winter comfort ‘fit. Bruno Duluc KUSH burgundy velvet dress – $6.99, ReStyle thrift store | NN07 No Nationality pastel rainbow wool from Italian yarns – $170 (? on sale), Nordstroms Rack | Croc Allcast faux fur lined …

“Not Going Back” outfit

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What a month and a half, no? The day of Trump’s near-assassination, I happened to be in Challis with a group of circled-up women, outlining rough plans if a Civil War breaks out after the election. You know. Just in casesies. (Waves white…er….American flag.) I know what I would do, I thought to myself, getting up to go….anywhere else….I would stand in the middle of the road and say, “Flatten me now, please and thank you. It’s too late to make me breeding stock, joke’s on you.” Putin-fleeing-journalist Masha Gessen wrote right after Trump’s election in 2016 about the apathy that sets in after a too long spell of the violently absurd. It felt almost surreal to feel….what is this strange thing?…after Biden dropped out and Kamala was vibing her way into the presidential race. Then it popped into my mind, a long-forgotten phrase fully formed by the wise words of Sarah Palin: “It’s that hopey changey thing.” It’s been a long, long time, hopey changey thing. Nice to feel you again. Custom Leather Works …

“Blowin’ in the Wind” outfit

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What if you’re so late to bloom you go to seed instead? Motherf…nature. I cannot pinpoint exactly what went wrong this year but it started with sudden weight loss and insomnia and hair loss and skin eruptions and severe unrelenting anxiety and you know when you learn new words to help better define your world? I highlighted ANHEDONIA in the Oxford: the inability to feel pleasure. “Ahhh, sounds about right. Dead-voiced yay.” Dictionary footnote: Maybe just don’t get off your meds, ok. “My books will be my kids,” I’ve said since I was 20. But what if I never wrote any books, and it’s too late to have kids, and what if I always thought all the gutting and hilarious and hideous things that happened were the ultimate storytelling fodder, but what if I was just dissociating from my real life, fictionalizing it in real time, instead? Here I am, 44, looking at myself dead-eyed in more ways than one. A pale vintage childless cat lady in a desolate red state in a white vintage Caddy …

“Queen of the North” outfit (aka Lucrezia Borgia of the Idaho Wilderness)

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By the favor of the free and cheap, Cheep Universe, I ended up on an exquisite hand-painted pink-and-purple wooden Viking ship (ok, a Dory, but it felt like one) floating down the Main Salmon River for six days through the vast Frank Church Wilderness. For weeks before, I had been seeing salmon everywhere. Then a college friend spontaneously asked me if I wanted to take a last-minute cancelled spot on her long-planned birthday trip. I think she knew I’m one of the few on earth who could drop everything on a moment’s notice to simply float for a week.   For a last-minute gift, I went thrift store shopping and gave her the Caitlin River Capsule Collection in a neon green duffel bag. Because what do you get for the woman who embodies everything, but more ways to embody herself? Each outfit had a ridiculous name and tagline, ala Cheep, and brought such weird magic to every beach night. I am finally using my superpowers for good. Lately, magic has been a running theme. At …

“Joan of Goat (Jeanne d’Chevré)” outfit

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“To believe yourself brave is to be brave; it is the only essential thing.” – Mark Twain, Joan of Arc Sometimes, I feel the undying urge to stoically 1000-yard stare into the distance. I’ve learned that this is a sign to go into The Wilderness. Because if you don’t stare awestruck at nature, you end up staring at the back of your skull—into the abyss and whatnot. Insane, misguided wilderness adventures are sort of my specialty. I excel in: Late starts. Night hiking. Specious navigational skills. Getting way, way lost. Strange encounters with wild animals. Going solo everywhere because…I fucking can…and my plan is…very last minute. This September, the 1000-yard stare urge was breathing down my neck, and so was the end of backpacking season. The where did your summer go again?#$%! I took off every Friday that month, and sojourned alone into the wilderness every long weekend. Did I completely nail every single one of the idiotic things I excel at? I’m a perfectionist, I guess. Always crossing off those lists. I hiked miles …

“Turn and face the strange, ch-ch-changes” speech

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This is keynote speech I gave to a cohort of certified change makers for the Idaho Commission on the Arts on Nov. 4. It now serves as an uncanny pep talk/reminder to my profoundly-changed future self on Nov. 14. But that’s how stories happen by nature. They take you by surprise.  A CHANGE WILL DO YOU GOOD? It’s a complete honor to be here before you amazing souls and creators and community powerhouses. I feel like saying… Much respect Namaste, like in yoga. Or, “we’re not worthy,” like in Wayne’s World. I’ve been meaning to plot out this speech on change-making for weeks and weeks, but instead, I’ve just had that one song playing over and over in my head, “A change will do you good.” And as if from over your shoulder, “Will do you good.” [looks back] Shut up song! Because, really? Will it? Really? I think we raw, raw, siss, boom-bah change all the time. It’s hip and rock star and bold and stuff. Without really acknowledging the fear and chaos it unleashes in …

[BREAK-UP DIORAMA VII] Her Apartment / ‘You’re A Big Girl Now’

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Be kind, rewind. And fin. Read the Museum Plaque Introduction» A change in the weather is known to be extreme But what’s the sense of changing horses in midstream? I’m going out of my mind, oh, oh With a pain that stops and starts Like a corkscrew to my heart Ever since we’ve been apart —Bob Dylan, ‘You’re A Big Girl Now*,’ (Blood On the Tracks) [Figure i: The Break-Up Dioramas. Right after they broke up, she drove to the California coast with her parents to attend a family reunion. Fuming down desert highways in a fog of resentment and pain in the back of a compact car with one’s parents was made substantially more apocalyptic by the replaying, then the replaying, then the replaying, at full volume in her tinny headphones, of her bitter Bob Dylan break-up soundtrack. A playlist of stuck devastation. 6 songs to match each room in that house that was hers but not for that much longer. One to fit her new place (but where was this new place?). She measured out each nasal lyric to weigh the exact …

[BREAK-UP DIORAMA VI] The Studio / ‘One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)’

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Well this is awkward. Read the Museum Plaque Introduction» I didn’t mean to treat you so bad You shouldn’t take it so personal I didn’t mean to make you so sad You just happened to be there, that’s all —Bob Dylan, One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later), (Blonde on Blonde) [Figure i:  Strangest places. Right after they started dating, he wrote a solitary song about her called Strangest Places—about the Darren Aronofsky film they saw, the windy conversation they had, the surprise connection they found—on their first date. She used to tear up when he played it. Every single time. For what is a lover but a muse?] When I saw you say “goodbye” to your friend and smile I thought that it was well understood That you’d be comin’ back in a little while I didn’t know that you were sayin’ “goodbye” for good [Figure ii: LTR groupie. After they broke up, they still lived together, they still slept together, for 3 unwittingly cruel and unusual months while she searched for an apartment that fit …

[BREAK-UP DIORAMA V] The Office / ‘Just Like a Woman’

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Seriously, WTF? Read the Museum Plaque Introduction» Nobody feels any pain Tonight as I stand inside the rain —Bob Dylan, Just Like A Woman (Blonde on Blonde) [Figure i: Read the headlines. “Hey, I probably won’t have a job when I get back,” she said to him, nonchalantly, reading the headline on the cover of The Oregonian while they were on vacation, walking through the foggy drizzle of a coastal town. It was September 2008, and the headline read: Dow drops 500 points. Seriously, like she knew what that meant. But she did know her smallish advertising agency—where she had been employed as a copywriter for barely a year—just went through a second round of lay-offs after similar bad news earlier that summer. When she was called into the conference room the next week, she already knew. She had presaged it via mass mediums. She mostly felt empathy for the woman who had to lay her off. Then she went to the back parking lot and called him. “It is done,” she intoned, with near Biblical prophecy.] Everybody knows That Baby’s got new …

[BREAK UP DIORAMA IV] Kitchen / ‘You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go’

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Chew on this. Read the Museum Plaque Introduction» I’ve seen love go by my door It’s never been this close before Never been so easy or so slow Been shooting in the dark too long When somethin’s not right it’s wrong Yer gonna make me lonesome when you go —Bob Dylan, You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go (Blood On The Tracks) [Figure i: The bourgeoisie hunting party. She knew it the first time she saw his house, one week in. This was never going to work. The kitchen curtains depicted a hunting scene with British bourgeoisie on horses sporting riding crops and foxhounds and bloodlust on thick plasticized 1970s polyester that only hung 3/4 of the way down the window. The dingy oil-based yellow paint that started in the studio ended halfway down the kitchen wall, picking up in dull white primer where that left off. One and a half years later, she found herself driving 30 miles to a second Pier 1 Imports in Eagle to snag a second panel of those $11 (org. …