installment the first: dyeing. i ordered dye from dharma trading. all the instructions i found were super specific about time and temp and that's just not my style. i found some salient points from a few different places and used them.

first is washing the wool. i used some textile wash from dharma. it was great. soaked the wool for a bit while i brought the water with a big splash of vinegar to a heat.

i put the dye in, using the end of the butter knife as a measure- just a pinch. at first i used a candy thermometer, but then discarded that (ha! who needs exactitude!). i left the wool in the pot for a little bit, until it had absorbed a lot of the dye. you can tell because the water turns clear again! sometimes i put too much dye in and then added more wool.

the colors came out kind of patchy which i liked. but i tried later to tease the wool out and open to get a more even color. that worked well but was HOT. then i rinsed out the wool with warm water and bathed in in the textile wash and rinsed it again.

some of it dried outside on Emily's octopus and some of it in the dish drainer. all weekend i kept having more ideas for amazing color combinations and it only took about a half hour or 45 minutes from start to finish so i kept making more. the only problem was i ran out of drying space!

the process of needle felting can be sometimes painful and bloody. so totally worth it.

following is the birthday dollie for my mum, then the cats and the dollie. she loved it! more to follow, stay tuned! love, lilly

not really, but this poem has been on my mind since i heard it on the writers almanac almost a year ago... applicable then, and still today, maybe even more so. which must be why i could even remember it...

You Must Accept

by Kate Light

You must accept that's who he really is.
You must accept you cannot be his
unless he is yours. No compromise.
He is a canvas on which paint never dries;
a clay that never sets, steel that bends
in a breeze, a melody that when it ends
no one can whistle. He is not who
you thought. He's not. He is a shoe
that walks away: "I will not go where you
want to go." "Why, then, are you a shoe?"
"I'm not. I have the sole of a lover
but don't know what love is." "Discover
it, then." "Will I have to go where you go?"
"Sometimes." "Be patient with you?" "Yes." "Then, no."
You have to hear what he is telling you
and see what he is; how it is killing you.

check it out here: http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/programs/2006/08/28/index.html

it simultaneously breaks and completely frees my heart  to be aware of the changing and impermanent nature of all the people and things in this world that i am so fucking attached to.  but even though it is heartache waiting to happen, i joyfully continue.

Listen to it here

I believe we have the power to create our own happiness. I believe the real magic in the world is done by humans. I believe normal life is extraordinary.

I was sitting in my car at a stoplight intersection listening to the radio. I was, I guess, lost in the moment, thinking how happy I was to be inside my nice warm car. It was cold and windy outside, and I thought, "Life is good."

Now, this was a long light. As I waited, I noticed two people huddled together at the bus stop. To my eyes, they looked uncomfortable; they looked cold and they looked poor. Their coats looked like they came from a thrift store. They weren't wearing stuff from The Gap. I knew it because I'd been there.

The couple seemed to be doing their best to keep warm. They were huddled together, and I thought to myself, "Oh, those poor people in that punishing wind."

But then I saw their faces. Yes, they were huddling, but they were also laughing. They looked to be sharing a good joke, and suddenly, instead of pitying them, I envied them. I thought, "Huh, what's so funny?" They didn't notice the wind. They weren't worried about their clothes. They weren't looking at my car thinking, "I wish I had that."

You know when a single moment feels like an hour? Well, in that moment, I realized I had assumed this couple needed my pity, but they didn't. I assumed things were all bad for them, but they weren't. And I understood we all have the power to make moments of happiness happen.

Now, maybe that's easy for me to say. I feel lucky to have fans around the world, a house with a roof and a wife who puts up with me. But I felt this way even when I was working at Long John Silver's. I worked there for 11 years as a fry cook. When you work at a place that long, you see teenagers coming in on their first dates; then they're married; then they're bringing in their kids. You witness whole sections of people's lives.

In the beginning, it seemed like a dead end job. But at least I had a job. And frankly, it was easy. After two weeks, I knew all I needed to know, and it freed my mind. The job allowed me to dream about what my life could become.

The first year I worked there, we got robbed. I lay on the floor. I thought I was going to die. I didn't think I stood a chance. But everything turned out all right. A lot of people look at life as a series of miserable tasks, but after that, I didn't.

I believe this is something all of us can do: Try to be happy within the context of the life we are actually living. Happiness is not a situation to be longed for or a convergence of lucky happenstance. Through the power of our own minds, we can help ourselves. This I believe.

I have not been feeling my usual dexterous self lately. Something is happening, maybe the planets are aligned crooked, or my mind is elsewhere, or I am loosing my smooth touch… but my fingers are going all different directions at once, gumming up the works. Last week I broke a nail (oooh girly? yeah, piss off) so far down I can't even pull it off. And yesterday somehow I got a papercut on the tip of another finger. And today I got hot glue from the (industrial) glue gun all over yet another finger. When I shook it around in pain the glue flew all over, further burning me. I feel like a clumsy clod, which is unusual for me. Hopefully once I take the 7 bandaids off my fingers I will be back to normal.

On a different note… I watched an excellent movie last night. I saw it a few months ago and fell in love. But now I am in love all over again, in a completely new and sweet way. But this movie… is about Henry Darger, the artist who wrote a 15,000 page novel titled The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinnian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion. He also created these amazing multi-media murals depicting events from this war, combining all kinds of techniques, people and experiences from his life. There are some amazing things about this man and his art. The volume of work he produced, all alone in his little room is impressive. He created the processes he was to use with no instruction. He collected pictures and used them over and over, gluing some of them into old phonebooks. There are sweet, creepy and fantastic animals, people and events. The themes of bravery and heroic acts by little girls, religious symbols and graphic violence are… colorfully executed and appealing.  So it's a great movie. I saw the exhibit at the Frye in the middle of October- it was wonderful and… well that's another story.

I am feeling nostalgic for the past recently; more so than usual. Not like I wish it was happening now or that I was still there, but just recalling those memories fondly, even the fucked up ones. Not just mine either, but others' as well. Because those are what inform our thought processes, tastes and opinions now.  I like to think about how we were before we knew each other.  I like to save scraps of memorabilia- dated receipts, matchbooks, stickers, notes, photographs- that kind of stuff. These pieces of ephemera help me recall hazy details, piece together the days and are somehow comforting.

            I like the thought of people I know now when they were teenagers- those idyllic days of youth gone wild.  Because their experiences made them the person they are and I love that, I love them. I smile and giggle quietly when I think of stuff they told me…or feel a little melancholy… Like tearing up coats in the church coat-room and throwing dishes out the back door; staying up all night dancing at raves; seeing shows; following bands around the country; jumping trains; hitchhiking home from Alaska; having funny haircuts and wearing funny clothes; being in love with Led Zeppelin; a Vegas acid trip; being in fake and real bands; girlfriends, best friends, pets, siblings, parents: all these memories become part of me, because this person I love has become part of me. Not all of them are sweet and happy though- there's stuff like loss, misery, shame, regret, anger and bitterness we still hold on to. But that's part of you, part of me and part of the deal.

            Another aspect of this is the bonding over shared experiences, our collective consciousness. Like 'oh I was at that show too- all my friends were too high to see.'  Or we used to drink at the same bar all the time or we acted in the same selfish, careless way. Read the same books, went through the same phases of drugs, music, silly outfits, affectations. And it's like we could have been friends then, there together. And yeah, a common thread in these experiences is getting fucked up. But it makes me glad to think those days are behind some of us, and we are better for doing it then and not now.

            I think thinking this way allows me to be more empathetic than I may be otherwise. It explains how and why people are like this. I see our similarities instead of focusing on our differences. And this reserves a place in my fanciful little heart for them forever. It may be sealed shut and you can't get back in, but the shell is still there, perfectly preserving the way I remember you.

What made me think so much about this were a few recent conversations and these song lyrics by Regina Spektor:

Hey remember the time when I found a human tooth down on Delancey
Hey remember that time we decided to kiss anywhere except the mouth
Hey remember that time when my favorite colors were pink and green
Hey remember that month when I only ate boxes of tangerines
So cheap and juicy, tangerines

Hey remember that time when I would only read Shakespeare
Hey remember that other time when I would only read the backs of cereal boxes
Hey remember that time I tried to save a pigeon with a broken wing
A street cat got him by morning and I had to bury pieces of his body in my building's playground
I thought I was going to be sick, I thought I was going to be sick

Hey remember that time when I would only smoke Parliaments
Hey remember that time when I would only smoke Marlboros
Hey remember that time when I would only smoke Camels
Hey remember that time when I was broke
I didn't care I just bummed from my friends
Bum, bum, bum, bum, bum...

Hey remember that time when you od'ed
Hey remember that other time when you od'ed for the second time
Well in the waiting room while waiting for news of you I hallucinated I could read your mind
And I was on a lot of shit too but what I saw, man, I tell you it was freaky, freaky

It is a freaking police siren with lights! I followed directions and soldered all the parts into the right places on the circuit board and it even works!  the lights and siren are created by components that generate a two-tone oscillating siren and flashing lights. The final instructions suggested to turn it on and "...stand back.  You'll soon know why it's called a Police Siren." It wasn't dissapointing exactly, but not quite as loud as we were anticipating.

This is the back. Notice those sturdily executed solder points.

Here is the front. You can see the blinding light, but sadly cannot hear the deafening wail of the siren.

This is me and the amazing police siren and flashing light, with the excellent tool holding pegboard in the background.

i miss you terribly. the only thing i know how to do is keep my shit together to get through this sane and safe. sometimes i feel that slipping away and franticly attempt to collect myself. you showed me so much about myself and the world around us. i will always treasure the fun times and not so fun times. i keep thinking 'what would kevin tell me to do?' (besides not buy everything i can get my hands on) and thats not to worry and stress out so much, something from the tao, and to be comfortable. you are the best reason i have to keep my nose clean right now, maybe the only.

from india.

The mom in this family hated me because i was lazy and never went to school or washed dishes. when my mom came to visit she gave her an enema kit as a gift...it was marginally appropriate because she was a doctor.

Sangita and her family before she got married and had to go live with that family. she was so sweet and wanted to finish school and be a nurse.

where the living goddess lives. I think her name is Kumari.