Jeannette Eats Spaghetti

I completed a nice mosaic project almost two weeks ago, but after a test-grout-failure, I am leery to grout the piece. It is my first commissioned work and the sculpture which it rests below is intensely beautiful. The tile and bronze (or copper? what are those circles made of?) turned out great, but I can't allow horrible grout work below this amazing sculpture. I looked into pre-mixed grout, but Lowe's didn't have any in black. Maybe I need a drill and a mixer attachment? I can only mix so fast and on the test run, the grout started setting and then my sandless grout, which should be smooth, ended up with lumps and I ended up frustrated. That can happen on a test run, but it cannot happen on a collaborative piece of artwork.

Bless you, Travis, for having faith in my abilities. Faith in myself is something I seem to lack as of late. But I'm working on it and I can feel an improvement.


Three days later I completed this project. Just add grout.

I've had a really hard time focusing my energy in the right direction(s).

I have been struggling with my resume and trying to somehow reinvent myself - because I do not want the same type of jobs I've held in the past - this has been a true test to my strength and belief in myself. A variety of friends have offered suggestions, edits, and the like - but in the end Kelly reworded and revamped my resume as I sat next to her, distracting her from working on... my resume. She did this HUGE favor a week ago and that really was the turning point in my mood; I feel tremendously better. Regardless that nothing's changed -yet- and I can't quite see a light at the end of the tunnel, I know I'm going in the right direction and I know I am surrounded by people who will guide me, people who want to see me happy and who have confidence that I'll be successful, no matter what I attempt.

For a while I felt like I were participating in that group exercise where I'd be standing on an elevated surface (you're probably picturing a picnic table, but I picture the severed remains of a once-giant tree) with my arms crossed and my eyes closed and I fall backwards into supportive arms of people who love me. Except I've been picturing myself tumbling into a den of captive lions who are burnt out on prepared meals and have been waiting for an opportunity to kill live prey. For months, I've felt as if I am the frozen-then-thawed food on which they normally fed. Now I know that I'm one antelope in a herd of many, but I am not The Weak One. When I fall, I have my own herd of friends and family who are willing to come to my assistance, help me up, dust off my jeans and encourage me to keep running (from those lions!).

While nothing's changed on the job front, I'm feeling better and more confident in my abilities to find a job that suits me. Until I find that job, my job is to find a job. Which kind of sucks, but it's not the first time I've been in this predicament. And I have so many other things to be happy and grateful for, they are overshadowing my ability to wallow in self-pity over losing my job three weeks after buying a house.

To quote my long-time friend (no, really, I've known her since third grade; I'm 32. That's about 24 years. The only other people I've known for that long are family members. Crazy. Anyway, I digress...), Terra, she wrote this to me during a different stressful major life transition, on 25 September 2008:

This could have been so much worse; this could have been so much better. But what could have been, never is, so onward and upward you go!

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Listening to: The Isley Brothers - Footsteps in the Dark
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After, I think, only one post with my 'listening to' at the top, I decided to move it back down to the bottom; I thought it'd be funky in people's feed reader. As if anyone feeds me.

At the end of every post I include what I'm listening to at the moment because I ALWAYS listen to music, always - and the style is varied. I'm thinking of moving the category to the top of my posts so that maybe ya'll will get exposure to some music you might not normally listen to. Today's post is brought to you by The O'Jays - Forever Mine.



I want to write more frequently, but I don't seem to have much to say. Same old, same old... the no-job/recently-bought-house fiasco has been downgraded from Overly Depressed to Freaking The Eff Out. Meanwhile, I think it'll all work and it'll be all good. So, I keep trying to tell myself, Meh.

Working on this mosaic during the last week has kept my mind occupied (almost finished!):


Otherwise, I've just been doing stuff like this:


And being very klutzy.

On Thursday I fell in the yard, twisted my ankle and bruised/cut up my knees. The next day I fell again, this time backwards down a few concrete steps and according to Travis, "Your butt killed my aloe plant!" Saturday, I sat down to enjoy a piece of carrot cake... except there was no chair in sight so I busted my ass, hard. The next day I knocked a box fan out of a window sill and it landed on my head. I've not hurt myself yet today.

Otherwise, you can keep up with my daily life by following my Year In Photos project.

It's been a few weeks since I've posted and after many calls and emails inquiring about my sanity, I thought it was time for an update.

My last post totally freaked me out. Writing it unlocked a too-strong understanding of the word uncertainty. Dealing with a lot of good and bad things all at once is stressful and the realization of buying a house, losing my job three weeks later, being unsure of exactly what I want to do with my life (other than take it in a totally new direction).... the list goes on - and my thoughts are deep for shallow me, anyway.

In other words, for three weeks I've been freaked the funk out.

With all this uncertainty, confusion, days awake in bed doing nothing but stare at the ceiling, followed by sleeping 20 hours at a time, with intermittent moments of unpacking and manically organizing my new house, attempting to revamp my resume, applying for work.... It's been an emotional roller coaster of stress. Everything is complicated and any little thing I encounter seems to come with difficulties involving extra work, extra time, extra effort, more stress.



There's just a lot of crap to deal with that are not only a time suck, but frustrating and I'm not in the mood to fuck with any of it. But I trudge on, day after day, doing all sorts of little shit and trying to wrap my mind around my current situation of recently buying a house and shortly thereafter losing my job....and figuring out how I can earn money, survive and be happy. Life is too short to go back to an 8-5 desk job that offers me no creative opportunities, where I get treated like an eeediot and sexually harassed by one of the owners. I just can't do it.

On a positive note

A few things seem to be coming together. I'm working on my first commissioned mosaic, the base of a sculpture by Travis Taylor with two other projects in the works. And I still feel like "How cool is that, being featured in Springfield's Own for my mosaic work!?" I'm also working with Springfield Art Association to possibly teach a mosaic course later this year. I've been dying to do another floor mosaic so I'm going to mosaic my breezeway. The surface is ready to tile, which means I just need to come up with a design, paint the room, gather the material, and get to work.

I prefer to work a sporadic variety of random jobs. I originally wanted to be a freelance writer, but I've learned I prefer to freelance anything that interests me. Last year I helped an artist friend paint a gigantic basement. I've enjoyed working on the brick documentary with Bill Streeter. I'm attempting to work with Matthew Glasson on a low budget film project. Over the weekend I worked as a photography assistant for Teresa D Wells Photography. I loved the work! I got to use Teresa's fancy photography equipment and basically took as many photos of whatever I wanted in an effort to catch special moments. It was just a great experience, rewarding to work hard and best capture one of the most important moments of one's life. This might've been the best freelance job I've had as a Jill of all Trades.

I can't wait to work on more cool, interesting and creative projects in the future.For now, I need to get back to Travis' mosaic project. Just know that things are still crazy and stressful and I'm still fighting with depression and anxiety, but overall I feel that things are getting better.

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Listening to: Franz Ferdinand - Tell Her Tonight
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If you've been following along, you may have noticed that I bought a house on April 29th.



And then on May 18th I lost my job.

Don't fret, I feel very positive right now; I feel a sense of relief. Granted, I am scared (I just bought a house, remember), but I believe opportunities are approaching and many good things are going to cross my path; I am open to explore, try new things - and I always do. I am not a spirit that can be trapped within a box; I need flexibility and opportunity to seek and find creative solutions to problems that others do not realize exist.

In this economy, losing one's job is a frightening thing. But for me, this might be the best thing that could have happened. Otherwise, I'd still be there, feeling miserable, and wishing things were different. I now have the opportunity to make things different. I had a remedial job and was quite unhappy with my quote-responsibilities-unquote. I cannot work in an environment where suggestions for improvement are interpreted as obstruction; avoiding new approaches will inevitably impede growth and lead to deterioration within any organization. 'We've always done it this way' is inflexibility, ignorance, arrogance, and will do nothing but lead to failure....especially when the competition is evolving. He was exactly right when he said I wasn't a good fit for their disorganization.



Hmmmm, now what?

I'm not sure what my next step will be, but I cannot sit behind a desk from 8-5 M-F with menial responsibilities, no room for advancement or learning.... I digress. This post is about moving forward.

I've been struggling for a long time - years; this struggle wasn't triggered because I suddenly lost my job. I've been struggling because I'm searching for a box, a way to define or give a title to what exactly it is I want to be "when I grow up." By default, at 32, I am now a grown up. I need to take action and find a way to make a living and be happy. I have to stop trying to fit myself into a box someone else constructed. I need to take this opportunity to weigh and understand all my options, explore every path I can brave and find a way to be happy.

I decided this a while ago; I just want to be happy.

I blame society and myself for trying to follow their path. I seem to be making choices for reasons that feel right at the time (seems like all the other girls are working for someone else, in some office job, for health insurance eligibility reasons), but in turn, those choices make my life more difficult and miserable than it needs to be. If I depend on some person or entity, who doesn't really and truly make me happy, just to pay the bills, what is my purpose in life?

Really?

People think I'm joking when I talk about how I'd sit at work all day and ask myself existential questions about my purpose on this planet. All these wars and accidents which result in a weeks-long, catastrophic oil spill with no end in sight - these thoughts encourage me feel to feel like my purpose is nil - just like every thing that lives and breathes on this planet - I am here for a short time and then gone forever. Earth evolves over millions and millions of years, but any organism that lives and breathes is here, then gone, and eventually replaced by a new species.

If I only get a limited amount of time on this planet, how do I want to spend it? Happy. So where do I go from here?



Find my path.

No matter how I imagine my future to be, it never works out in the way I envision. And that's exactly what makes life so awesome - the unexpected.

What makes me happy?

I love talking to Strangers. Like today, @Roseyland came to do some touristy stuff and after a long day of this, we're strolling through Abe Lincoln's 'hood and see these two dudes. One guy is the cameraman and the other guy was doing other stuff, kinda like when I'm on a shoot with Bill. I instinctively run up and say to the 'not Bill' guy - who I'm now imagining as myself, doing the same things I do as Managing Producer for BRICK by Chance and Fortune - and I ask, "What are you guys doing?" And he responds with a British accent, "Working on a documentary." I excitedly replied, "I'm working on a documentary - about bricks!"

Now I'm stunned that there are two dudes from England in Springfield filming a documentary and he's stunned that I'm working on a documentary about bricks.



In the least eloquent way possible, I attempted to say this. He was intrigued and wanted to check out our trailer (you should, too) so I wrote three things on a piece of paper and handed it to him:
- StLBrickFilm.com
- JeannetteEatsSpaghetti.com
- The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret
(That last one is way off topic and I couldn't help bring this up, but I've no time to explain it to you now.)

I walked away and couldn't stop thinking, "D'oh! I should have gotten his contact info." As we were about to leave I decided, "Screw it, I better go back and find out how I can find about their documentary when it becomes available." So, David from Bristol, be expecting an email from me.

My point is, I like talking to strangers, asking them questions and learning about them. (But I have to take notes because I have the worst memory. Many years ago Travis said one of the truest statements about me that one could possibly make, "If ever there is a horrible crime committed, I hope to God that you are not the only witness.")



Which brings me to photojournalism. I love taking pictures, it helps me remember. I take my camera everywhere and I take a ridiculous amount of pictures and then upload a few and sometimes write a story about it. (Problem is, I don't write about the typical stuff. Of aaaaall the things that appealed to me the most at the Illinois State Fair, I was most intrigued by the Butter Cow's Va-Jay-Jay. Yet somehow I never got around to writing about the blow-up slide in the shape of sinking Titanic. The only way they could've made it "better" is to have a wide, deep and very cold pool next to it.)

But, yeah, I like going places, meeting people, experiencing things and writing about the nuances I discover. I have a variety of interests that are ever-expanding. Heck, I was even featured in a local magazine for my mosaic work. I never thought of it is as something that anyone else would care about. I've always been drawn to tile so for my first attempt, I laid a floor mosaic (hallway and foyer). And those brownish accent tiles, I made those in a pottery class. That's right, the photo below, is my first mosaic. And it's not a little one, either.



I'm still in shock that I was approached about and interviewed for breaking stuff and making it into a mosaic. They were interested in my 'art.' The only other time someone ever called me an Artist was the dude who I see at Salvation Army on Saturdays (but first he asked if everything was alright at home... because I stopped in every weekend to buy dishes).

You know what else I like? Working crazy shifts for days and days and weeks at a time, while taking a break every so often to run an errand, then sleeping in one day (any day - not just Saturday, Sunday, designated holidays, sick days (those are no fun), vacation days, non-paid days off or whatever). I want to work as hard as I want, when I want and when others need me to - but the schedule will vary, have terms and limits that are agreed upon by both.



And in conclusion...

How can I fit this in a box? I'm searching for a non-existent box created by someone else -- and that is an unattainable goal, like Partnership for a Drug Free America. Side note: There has never existed a society or community throughout all of time, even pre-recorded time, which has been completely 'drug free'. Drug use and misuse has always existed; the drugs deemed acceptable, are openly used and the ones frowned upon by society are hidden. Drug users.....they walk among us. Oooh, scary.

I have no idea what you're thinking after reading this, but I'm thinking that I have a limited number of days on this earth and my life can end at any moment; I want to spend my time exploring, meeting others, sharing my experiences, making a positive difference, being challenged and challenging others' perceptions. I want to feel passionate about my career. I want to work with people who are open-minded, accepting, compassionate and helpful - like me. This can't be done spending the majority of my waking moments in a remedial job that's going nowhere and cutting me off from life experiences. Other people make their living doing random things they love - so why can't I?

Origami should be my hobby -- not mosaics, photojournalism, working on documentaries and other film projects, writing and exploring a lot of random opportunities - all those things I love to do should be my career and not my hobby.

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Listening to: Ben Folds Five - Song for the Dumped
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Lots has been happening and I was going to write a big long thing about it, but instead I uploaded a bunch of photos on flickr and spent time writing descriptions instead of a blog post, so if you're really interested, you can read what I wrote for each photo.

I bought a house


I started a new 365 Project


I was featured in Springfield's Own magazine for my mosaic work!!!

There's so much more happening and for over a month my life has been at a level of chaos that's nearly unbearable, but a lot of positive experiences have been coming my way. I wish I had time to go in to detail, but extra time, it's just not there.

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Listening to: Balkan Beat Box - Joro Boro
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Lots of stuff happening and my life has been crazy busy and blah blah whatever. Happy belated birthday to me. It was mostly a normal day. But you know I like self-documentary; here's my birthday self-portrait:


Normally I'd tell the story now, but, eh, I'll explain later.

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Listening to: J.U.F. - Balkanization Of Americanization
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