DUMBO

 

Today we went on a trip to DUMBO.  We're trying to visit different neighborhoods in New York, starting with brunch at a new restaurant and then walking around the area.  Usually it's because something interesting is going on in the area that we can do/see while we're there.

For brunch (what New Yorkers call brunch starts at 12:30 on Sunday) we went to Dumbo General Store Cafe, which reminded us a lot of one of our favorite restaurants on Houston, Brasil.  The food was tasty and fresh, but the coffee and tea wasn't as nice as the food - it's not unusual, so many of the good restaurants we go to still brew Lipton tea and don't use the nicer coffee beans available in New York.  The only one that had good tea and coffee that we've been to on these outings was tablespoon in Chelsea, still one of my favorites.

Then, after some wandering, we went to the Monster Drawing Rally at the Dumbo Arts Center, a fundraiser to support the center and other galleries in the area.  The admission was a suggested donation of $10 each, and all the drawings made during the rally would sell for $50.  It was interesting... we got there early on so maybe the best was yet to come.  Also it is their first year doing this, so they are still working out the kinks.

We saw wedding pictures being taken, wandered into a "these are random cool things I like so I'm selling them in my store" store, a boutique store for men with amateur pornographic images in the dressing room that you could see from the store, a book shop with a book making studio and performance  space inside, and were nearly blown away by all of the wind!

So. DUMBO, check!  So far we've explored Union Square, Chelsea, Chinatown, and DUMBO, with some quick visits to other neighborhoods, too.  And our quest to eat around the city continues...

(check back for pictures from our trips, they will have their own entries)

2011 Chinese New Year

Today was the big parade in Chinatown so we went to see what we could see.  There were a lot of people and it was pretty insane, but we were able to find a spot near the end with good visibility.  Unfortunately it was pretty late so we really only caught the tail-end of the parade... tail end, get it?

I got some fun pictures and I think I also got some good ones on my Holga but I won't know until I get them developed (hopefully tomorrow or Tuesday).  Instead, I present to you this collage of my quick digital shots, cut down to look like fake polaroids or something.  Ha!  I am excited to finally develop this roll of film... I have been afraid to use it because I didn't want to waste exposures, but instead it's been sitting in my camera and I have no idea what's on there.  So I finished the roll today and I can't wait to see what comes out.  Hopefully... SOMETHING.  As opposed to the NOTHING that I got from our trip to London in 2005 when I loaded the camera incorrectly - repeatedly.  Sad.

Two scary things happened today.  ONE: fresh fish flippity floppiting around.  If you know me, you know I have an irrational fear of fish out of water.  I don't mind dead fish.  And live fish underwater can just stay away from me.  But once they're out of the water and flippity floppiting, struggling and drowning in the air, I get uncontrollable shivers.  BLEH!  I'm even okay with fresh fish in marketplaces still moving, but it's the flipping and flopping.

TWO: We tried to take the Q or R from Canal street.  We got into the subway station and the train just wasn't coming.  The station continued to fill up with people until it basically became dangerous to walk on the platform because it was so packed.  I had visions of falling onto the tracks.  So we left.  And then we realized the station was full all the way up the stairs.  I'm glad we got out of there.  We walked a few more blocks and took a different train.  We wasted $5 and 20 minutes but I am glad we left.  I hope everyone still down there was okay.  I could just imagine something spooking the crowd and then it would be a chaotic death trap.  And it was nice out anyway so it wasn't a big deal.

So that was the day.  We're making an effort to do New Yorky things, so this was one of those things.  :)

Gramma's Gator

My gramma likes ceramics, too! She hasn't used the wheel much but she has taken many ceramics classes in the past and is now going to the ceramics class where she lives.  She hasn't gone much lately because her eyesight isn't what it used to be, which frustrates me because clay is something anyone can do (even people who have a hard time seeing - or can't see at all).  I'm not frustrated at gramma, but I wish the person running the class would make an effort to help her work with clay even with her sight issues, because she clearly likes it.  Well, I can't be the art therapist everywhere, I guess.  At least the person who does the jewelry making still encourages gramma to make necklaces, and I really think beading is harder than clay for people who have bad eyesight, so I don't know.  It really shows you how much the joy in art making depends on the facilitator.

Gramma gave me her alligator that she made in ceramics because I gave her my teapot.  I'm planning to give her another ceramics piece but not yet, I don't have anything I want to give her yet.  Just lots of bowls.  I love this alligator, especially because it has no teeth.  He kind of looks like a grampa gator.  She says his name is Ally the Alligator.  He's on display in the living room :)

Yesterday I went to visit gramma (my mom's mom) with my parents.  It's always fun to visit with gramma and I wish I had a car or an easier way to get up there.  I can get most of the way on public transit but there's 15-20 minutes of driving after the train stops and it's really hard to do that on a regular basis with cabs (or renting a car regularly to drive up there).  We never run out of stuff to talk about!  97 years old and she uses email.  Excellent.  Yesterday we talked about shopping, and how good bargains take a lot of work but can really be worth it.  She said she used to love to shop, especially at the discount stores that used to be at Union Square.  Well that explains my gramma's fashionable wedding dress!  It was, by the way, aquamarine, which I still can't get over... how awesome is that.

10.21.10 journal entry

Click the image to see a larger (more legible) version.

Same to you, buddy! :(

I was still kind of on this high today after having such a good day in the clay studio yesterday. I'm at work, walking around, la dee da, and a client passes me in the hallway as I'm off to lunch and says "Do you mind?"

"Mind what?" I asked.

"Mind if I ask you a question?"

"What question?" (sometimes the questions are too personal to answer)

"Well, why don't you dress more respectably? If you just brushed your hair and wore a nice shirt you'd look respectable."

I was pretty much floored. I lamely said, "I like my clothes..." and walked away, off to lunch, alone :(

I was pretty hurt and angry. I went to the cafeteria and wrote in my journal first thing, because I had to get this feeling out somewhere and I didn't have anyone to talk to right then. Cascading sadness :( :(

Wow he made me feel really terrible. It really brought me back to comments I've heard throughout my life about not dressing well enough. There was a time when I was a teenager and I wore pajamas all day every day...

But anyway! What! I felt so defensive and sad. It took writing all of that out in my journal to be able to take a step back and really think about the situation. If he hadn't been a client, I could have said something really nasty right back. That made me remember who he is and look beyond his comment. I know him, I know how vulnerable he is. And I wondered, did someone just say this to him recently? Did it hurt when he heard it like it hurt when he said it to me? Because saying "You would look more respectable" doesn't even sound like something he would ever say!

Where I work it is important to talk to clients about hygiene and dress, but I guess this is just a reminder about how it's also important to be sensitive about it. Just because someone isn't taking care of herself doesn't mean she doesn't think about it. I had a lot of reasons for dressing like a shlub in high school, and none of them were that I didn't care how I looked.

My reaction was wanting to say it to someone else, pass on the poison, but instead I'm taking it in, processing it, and putting it out here and in my journal. I guess that's part of being a therapist. If I were in a one-on-one with someone who thought I reminded them of an abusive parent, I'd have to hold a lot of poison like that, so this was basically nothing in comparison. I wish I had been able to do it faster, though, and been able to say something in the hallway. I guess I just wasn't prepared! Talk about a surprise attack!!

I mean, let's not make any pretenses of maturity here. Of course I immediately went to the bathroom to check my outfit/hair in the mirror. Don't worry, I looked cute. (HA!)

Back in the studio

I started a new semester in a new ceramics studio, so you know what that means! ...Boring pictures of in-progress clay pieces!!! YAAAAAY!

Because I have extremely limited shelf space in this studio, I'm not really keeping anything I make until I'm satisfied with it. So no more misshapen bowls and stuff in the apartment, just the things I want to keep. The upside of this is that I can cut everything in half to see my technique and where I need improvement.

Today I made the tallest thing I've ever made (it's about 7 inches tall right now):



This teacher is explaining how to use our thumbs, which is nice because until now my thumbs kind of stayed out of the way. It's helping me make things taller, although after I made this I wasn't really successful for the rest of the day. SO whatever. I had a good run (haha).

Then I started my workstudy portion of the afternoon. I work from 3-6pm in exchange for class and studio time. First, I mopped the floors and wiped down the counters. Then I did the crossword.

Then at 4:30 the children's class started. It was chaos but SO MUCH FUN. The kids were ages 7-12, so I positioned myself between two 7 year olds at the wheel and basically gave them lots of attention in order to make sure they didn't fly out the window or something. One of the kids was so hilarious, I would say "I think you need more water," and he'd say "I agree!" or "I was just thinking that!" Ah yes. I'm sure you were.

It's also pretty amazing working with "normal" kids, aka, kids who have not suffered extreme abuse or trauma (this is my most recent experience working with kids). It feels so much different. I say to them, clean your tools, take your bucket to the sink, and come back to wipe down your station. And they do it! Okay, water gets everywhere, whatever, it's pretty much done how I asked them to do it.

And the behavior is enough under control that we can do funny things, like when we were looking at our hands and the girl said ,"it looks like I'm wearing mud gloves!" and I said, "I know, me too, look at my hands." She said, "no you have some spots without clay." "Well, I think you need to help me with that, then!" And then she wiped clay all over my hands so I had mud gloves, too.

That isn't to say I don't like working with kids who have a more difficult history, but it is very different. Working with these kids today makes me appreciate that work more, somehow.

You don't train cats...

..they train you.

Lilly, our cat (otherwise known as the art room assistant) is a cutie-face but she can't help being a cat. A dog, you can train them not to dig through the trash, or chew on your stuff, or pee on the rug. Dogs want to listen to what you tell them to do because they want to make you happy (usually). This is not the same for cats. This same cat doesn't give a care in the world about my houseplants until she is mad at me, and then she will wait until I'm in the room, stare at me, and then chew on my plants. Just because she's mad.

We have had to learn to outsmart / predict her moves. It requires a lot of patience, creativity, strategy, and psychological analysis.

Example 1:

Lilly is not de-clawed so she does what cats do, which is enjoy a good scratch now and then. These delightful exercises for her meant pretty severe damage to our old couches.




We got rid of the couches when we moved, so we bought a new one when we got to New York. We are desperately trying to keep her from destroying this one. We have tried spraying and making loud noises, etc, but when it comes down to it, you just can't train a cat. She's going to do what she wants when we're not around, so all we can hope for is to try to sabotage or redirect her habits and instincts.

In the past, we tried techniques that would hopefully make her avoid scratching the couch. We tried double-sided tape because we thought if it was sticky where she wanted to scratch, she wouldn't do it. Well, she's too smart, and would just find another spot on the couch. Plus, the tape left a disgusting residue that was impossible to get out of the couch after we took it off.

This time, we bought two narrow scratch boxes and put them in her favorite places to scratch on the couch as a way of following her lead. It's like how if a cat poos in a certain spot that isn't where the litter box is, you can try moving the litter box to that spot. This is a very person(animal)-centered approach (haha).



As you can see, she got the gist of it quickly... with the help of a little catnip spray (it wears off in about a minute but it gets her attention long enough to try out this weird new thing that she's not sure of). Will this replace the couch for her scratching post? Only time will tell.


Example 2:

Another bad habit/instinct is her desire to terrorize the guinea pig, Fiona. I have no doubt that she would not hurt the pig as I've seen them interact many times over the last five years, but she finds her to be utterly fascinating. One time I came home and found her sitting in the cage on top of the guinea pig's house. Fiona had moved her food bowl under the house so that she could spend her whole day in there, scared of this ridiculous animal that keeps invading her space. At least I know I've earned some respect from the kitty because when I shouted "Lilly! Get out of there!" she immediately leaped out of the cage and sat on the floor, blinking and looking quite ashamed.

In the past, I would use more of the wire grids that I use to build the cage and kind of create a very tall wall that is impossible for the kitty to scale. Unfortunately, due to space constraints, a tall wall would also make it impossible for me to access the cage for feeding and cleaning.

This is where an analysis of Lilly's personality comes into play. She is not a risk-taking type of cat; she will not jump somewhere unless she knows 100% that it is steady. She generally just doesn't jump. To get into the cage she would put her front paws onto the cage and then kind of leap-frog herself in there. My object, then, was to prevent her from putting her front paws on the cage, thus sabotaging her efforts.



I tied lots of plastic zip-ties to the edge to make a kind of barbed wire fence, then added a cut-up grass mat to increase the unpleasantness of putting her feet on the edge of the cage. We joke that it looks like Fiona is in a bunker in Vietnam.

After I did it, I sat and watched. She came over and surveyed it, tried putting her paws on it, found it unpleasant and backed away. She walked back and forth looking for a weak spot but eventually gave up.

How do I know it's working? I saw Fiona lounging in a nest of hay outside of her box this afternoon. She feels safe enough from the kitty not to hide all day.



It's perhaps to early to say this, and maybe I will jinx it, but...

Me: 2
Kitty: 0

Support

I started my new internship/volunteer position this week and it has been an interesting experience! One thing that I feel is so great is the supportive professional environment that seems to exist among the staff.

In the morning staff meeting one day this week a person said she wanted to check in about a client. She said the client came to her group the day before and spoke a lot in group about really personal things. This client had just come out of more intensive treatment where it was encouraged to really delve deeply, so the client may have been "opened up" (per se) from the time spent there. The client then began to cry, left the group, and said that he/she would never return to treatment at this organization. The staff member said she wanted to know if anyone had heard from this client and if he/she is doing okay.

The amazing part of this that I saw was that not only did the staff assure her that the client is okay and came back, but the staff recognized that this person needed some support around what occurred in group. She was asking if she had made a mistake, if maybe she should have known this person just came back from treatment and should have sat out of group until he/she had time to settle. And the staff was supportive of her decision to have this person in the group, that there was no way she could have really known what the client was bringing to group that day, and that if he/she hadn't had that experience then his case workers may not have known about how this person reacts to opening up to people and feeling vulnerable. This staff member didn't specifically say "I need support around what happened in my group yesterday," but other people heard it and supported her.

It made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside :D

4th of July Pictures

While we spent most of the day packing, we took a break to our friends' rooftop patio to watch the fireworks. While we were waiting, we watched a stormcloud slowly pass by us (we did get rained on but not for very long). Ahh, it was reminiscent of my days going to the National Mall for fireworks, where it rains almost every year at some point on the 4th.

A great shot of Lake Shore Drive from the 38th floor...




We were so high up the fireworks seemed below us (although also they were far away). These were the Montrose fireworks.





The cloud (you can even see it raining on the lake).





It almost seems like you can see up into the suburbs from this view. It didn't come out well in the picture, but when you looked in this direction you saw at least 10 other sets of fireworks going off at the same time. It was like watching popcorn pop across the city.





These are the fireworks from Navy Pier.



What a great last night in Chicago!

When we arrived in Chicago it was a Wednesday night and Navy Pier has fireworks every Wednesday and Saturday night. As we drove in on Lake Shore Drive we were greeted with fireworks. So on our first night and our last night in the city we saw fireworks. :)

Button Flowers

For our wedding, we had felt and button flowers commissioned from Princess Lasertron (aka Megan Hunt). I am so happy that we did this - not only did we get beautiful, unique additions to every bouquet and centerpiece, not only did we support an independent artist, but also we have fun little reminders of our wedding around the house in little vases. I definitely recommend having some non-fresh flowers in weddings because you can save them or give them to guests / bridesmaids as presents.






Other things we were able to save from the wedding: kippot with our names in them, and a copy of the booklets we made ourselves that served both as place cards and helped explain the ceremony to our guests. There's a lot that goes on in a very short period of time in a Jewish wedding ceremony (well, it's short if you leave the explanation to the booklet and just go-go-go!).




We also had bentchers made for our wedding (of course). They are little prayer books that have the blessing for before and after meals as well as some songs. We have a ton of these left over, actually! But it's great because now when we have people over for meals we have plenty to go around.



I love that a lot of the things we saved from the wedding show up in our regular, every-day lives. :)



(Photo Credit: Amy Raab Photography - our fabulous wedding photographer!)

Moving

The weird thing about moving is you kind of take an inventory on everything you have, some you throw away, some you give away, and some you keep. It depends on the move how much throwing/giving away you do.

In our case, we are downsizing our apartment size by a lot in our move to New York. A lot, a lot. On Thursday we're having a big good-bye barbecue with a lot of our friends and we are setting up a "take what you want!" table in the apartment. It's covered in books, board games, DVDs, and other things we think other people might want to take. Whatever our friends and family don't take will be donated.

The hardest things to part with are the books. But we have so many books that we read once and will never read again that have followed us from city to city. It's time to give them to someone who will read them (and maybe take the book with them from city to city). We are keeping the books we care about the most, though. It still makes me a little sad to see them go. But the empty spaces on our bookshelves won't be empty for long - as soon as we find a used bookstore near our apartment in NY we will be sure to restock...

Dream Movie

Sometimes my dreams are actually movies or TV shows and I watch them the way I watch a movie or a TV show. I don't know the name of this movie I was watching in my dream but I wish I could see the end of it.

We see a quick background story of two conspiracies - good guys and bad guys. The bad guys have a bigger, strong conspiracy, and they go around killing people, etc. We see the protagonist fighting the good fight.

Flash to present day (in the movie). The protagonist has amnesia, he doesn't know who he is. (The protagonist is played by Henry Ian Cusick, "Desmond" on LOST). He finds himself in the home of an elderly couple who are taking care of him while he is completely confused. Suddenly he sees a man he knows he should recognize.

FLASH BACK - we see this man killed the protagonist's pregnant wife. This man doesn't know the protagonist, but somehow the protagonist found out this was his wife's murderer. He also seems to know he will soon lose his memory, and he repeats to himself the name of this man over and over. "I must remember this man, George X" (I don't remember the guy's last name). "GEORGE GEORGE GEORGE." Over and over.

FLASH FORWARD - The protagonist goes up to this man, confused, but knows that he knows this man from somewhere. "Do I know you?" he asks.

"Yes, I think so," George responds.

"Who am I, then?" the protagonist challenges, for some reason he feels defensive.

"Harry Gottesmann." (I have no idea where I got this name)

"And who are you?" Harry asks.

"I'm George X."

Harry gets a flash of clarity. He has to kill this man. He doesn't know why, but he knows he has to. He grabs a gun from somewhere and shoots George dead. The elderly couple are screaming. Harry tosses the gun and flees the scene.

Next scene - we see Harry racing around town, now not only trying to figure out who he is but who is George and why did he need to kill him. He goes into stores asking if anyone knows George X, if anyone can tell him anything about him.

That's when I woke up.

Sometimes my dreams are exciting to watch!

Labneh

I made labneh to bring to class on Sunday as part of an Israeli-style breakfast I was putting together with my breakfast teammate. We had labneh, hummus, pita, eggs, and tomato and cucumber salad. It was a hit.

Labneh is really easy to make. I'm making it again next week actually for my final critique in ceramics (it's a potluck and you're encouraged to bring your food in a dish you made this semester).

My labneh recipe:

1 tub of plain, unsweetened yogurt
salt

1. Mix salt into the yogurt, to taste.
2. Put a colander over a deep bowl, layer the colander with cheesecloth, and dump the yogurt into the cheesecloth.
3. Leave this for over 24 hours. I put it in the fridge but apparently it doesn't need to be in the fridge (and possibly some of the sourness comes from the spoiling yogurt haha)
4. Turn over into a bowl/plate/whatever.
5. Dump some olive oil on it. At this point adding zatar might be tasty but I didn't have any.
6. Eat with pita (and salad).

This is now the second type of cheese that I know how to make. I also make mozzarella. Okay, I have made it a few times. In any case, I have some classmates who want to come over to make their own mozzarella cheese with me, and I think that could be a very fun afternoon thing to do (and then eat some cheese with fresh tomatoes and basil, yum).

My thesis has been submitted!

(Spring in Chicago, so pretty!)



Today was a crazy day. In the end, I submitted my thesis. I ruined the ending, but that's okay.

I finished editing my thesis last night for reals. Then, this morning, I realized the title page was wrong. Okay, I can manage that. I fixed the title page in the PDF, saved it to three different places (email, CD, data stick), and left for school to print and turn it in. Printing happens, not to big of a deal, I have the forms and everything, I'm done done done! Right! I'm so happy.

I go to the office to turn it in. No, they say, we won't accept this without signatures from your readers. But it doesn't say in the manual that you won't accept it without signatures! We won't accept it.

I was really upset. I had to sit down for thirty minutes to compose myself. I reserved only a small number of brain cells for this activity and I didn't have enough brain cells left to manage turning this in next week. It has to be done today.

I went back to my thesis advisor and got her signature. I ran to the train and went up north to my internship site to find my second reader and sat outside her office while she was in a meeting so that I could get her signature. I then raced back down to school and sat outside the classroom waiting for my other second reader to get to class to sign the paper. She signed.

Then I went upstairs armed with two copies of the signatures and forms and thesis and extra envelopes and paperclips in case what I had wasn't good enough. It was. I turned it in.

Okay that doesn't sound so crazy but it sure felt crazy.

Next up, thesis presentation on Tuesday!

The Saga of the Mugs (aka JewishGuy is AWESOME)

Once upon a time, JewishGal and JewishGuy went to the Renegade Craft Fair. At the first booth they saw pottery (JewishGal's weakness at craft fairs) and there was this perfect mug. This mug that had a tree with a robin sitting in it: a Robin Mug. This was the perfect mug for JewishGal. She bought it. It was an expensive mug but it was immediately her favorite mug.

This mug was indirectly (or directly?) the inspiration for JewishGal & JewishGuy's wedding. JewishGal's name means "bird" and JewishGuy's name means "tree". The theme for the wedding ended up being birds in trees...


Soon after the wedding, JewishGuy went on a trip to Houston and JewishGal planned an elaborate surprise... she redid the kitchen, unpacked all the wedding pots and pans and reorganized the kitchen. This took a long time and she was very tired so she went to bed late, exhausted.

She woke in the morning. Her eyes bleary and her brain fuzzy, she began to prepare her daily tea. She of course used the robin mug. As she poured the boiling water into the mug, she missed and poured it right onto her hand. Her fingers uncontrollably opened and the mug fell to the floor, smashing to pieces. She cried, not about her burning finger (which she wrapped), but about the mug. She was afraid this was a bad sign. The robin mug was in shards. Sadly, she swept up the pieces and kept them together, not knowing what to do with them but not wanting to throw it away.

Months later, JewishGuy glued the mug together.



The plan now is to hold onto it, perhaps using it as a small pot for a flower or a plant.

But it could no longer be JewishGal's favorite mug. She went to the artist's etsy page but there were no more robin mugs for sale. She went to the Renegade Craft Fair two more times, but Jennie the Potter was not there.

JewishGal was very sad.

..................

Tomorrow is JewishGal & JewishGuy's 7 year anniversary (from when they began officially "dating" ... it's the anniversary of JewishGuy's first visit of many in their 2 1/2 year long-distance relationship before JewishGal moved to Houston). JewishGuy ruined the surprise by saying he had a present. JewishGal couldn't wait until February 1 for the present. So he brought it out...

It was FOUR NEW ROBIN MUGS.



(two pictured here, the other two are already dirty from this morning's coffee & tea. also pictured: kitty chest.)

JewishGuy commissioned them from Jennie the Potter!


They are a symbol of JewishGuy & JewishGal again :)



(and look, there are even little blue eggs - one mug has one egg and another mug has two eggs!)

Perfect Egg

Today I made an egg, sunny side up, on a piece of challah toast.



You can kind of see a fish-eye reflection of me and the camera in the egg yolk!



Perfectly runny center with a deliciously fluffy white.

It's taken me a long time to finally get this egg. I've overcooked it so many times it's sad. I probably will continue to overcook my eggs. But for now I am enjoying how pretty and beautiful it was, and how tasty it was.

(This is why I take pictures of my food!)

The challah toast is from a challah that JewishGuy made this week... an art he has perfected over the last few years :)

Problem/Challenge out of String

When I feel like things are particularly out of control and I am really agitated, what is most calming for me is to work with string. I had forgotten about this but I really think working with string is what got me through 7th grade (probably the hardest year of my life so far, with a bully who posed as my "best friend" and was both emotionally and occasionally physically abusive). In 7th grade, once I started making bracelets every night, spending hours tying knots, I soon was able to separate myself from this bully and asked to transfer schools for the next year.

I used colorful embroidery floss and started a little business that was perhaps surprisingly organized: 25c for a standard 3 string bracelet, 10c for every string after that - for custom orders it was 50c + the regular charges. I was a little entrepreneur. I made a lot of money in quarters that year, which partially went to buying more string (and eventually expanding to making beaded rings or including beads in the bracelets, also at extra cost). I'm still pretty proud of how organized it was. I used to display my inventory on my backpack (I hung the bracelets off of the back using safety pins) so people could see my wares as I walked the hallways. I did accept trades, as many girls were making elastic bracelets with big plastic beads - only a few years ago did I realize the colors of the beads on those bracelets apparently stood for various sexual acts the person wearing them was willing to perform. I just liked the colors.

My former bully was my biggest competitor in the market, but she priced her bracelets too high and her workmanship was shoddy. Everyone went to me, especially since I did custom orders, but especially because I wasn't an ass. So through the bracelet making I learned that nobody really liked this person who had isolated me and made me feel terrible about myself. I also had conversations with people who formerly hadn't spoken to me. I also spent a lot of time in a semi-meditative state, tying knots for hours at night, not thinking but allowing myself to relax. It didn't reverse the damage she had done to me, but it made me feel better in some way - is that wrong?

Anyway, I've tried crocheting at various points in my life and it is coming up again in grad school as an alternative medium for art therapy. However, I am sadly inept at crocheting. This is probably due to my inability to follow directions and keep track of what I'm doing.

Tonight I was feeling really agitated and angry (as you can read in my previous post about the craft fair). It wasn't only the craft fair that was making me angry, but I won't go into the rest here. I have a project due on Thursday where we are supposed to make an art piece about a problem or challenge at our internship. So instead of doing my standard watercolor painting, I dragged out the yarn and decided to crochet with no purpose and no design, letting whatever formed form, and not be disappointed in the results.

This is what happened:


I started with the circle, which was originally intended to be flat, but like I said I can't follow directions and now it is a mountain. The hand really grew organically, first I had a weird outgrowth of the circle, then a finger, then two fingers, then I realized it was a hand and finished the hand. I went back and reinforced the rest of the piece, including adding a handle, when I realized it looked a lot like a chamsa. I added the blue to the evil eye part to give it an extra protective element.


I think at first it was supposed to be about figuring out how to make all of the different elements work together. I started off with white, brown, and orange yarns, trying to use three pieces of yarn at a time. Then the orange ran out, so I added another yarn, which is kind of gray with multi-colored flecks in it. When I realized what was happening I was able to create a recognizable shape, but not just any shape, a protective shape.

I think one of the biggest challenges of my internship is figuring out how to be myself there. I feel so protective over people that I work with, but I think I don't take good enough care of myself. I have to see the bigger picture, and think of everyone involved and not just the particular client I am closest to at the moment.

I think the chamsa appeared as a wish to be more protected, because maybe I still feel very insecure there, even when I feel like I do a good job I don't feel secure.

AATA Conference: Shabbat Edition

What's spending Shabbat at a conference like? Hard, weird, challenging, and... basically... not the best Shabbat you've ever spent. For sure.

I had to do things like... buy sandwiches for Friday dinner and Saturday lunch on Friday and then keep them in the hotel room refrigerator, stock up on snacks for the day, bring tea bags so I could get free hot water and make tea, chase people to the elevator to ask them to push buttons for me, and hope my roommates were in the room when I got back so they could open the door. It was interesting. I gave money to one of my classmates in advance to take care of any expenses for me just in case. I'm not saying I kept Shabbat as well as I keep it at home, but I stuck mostly to my comfort zone.

I put a notice on the bulletin board for Kabbalat Shabbat, but nobody showed up. Oh well.

Friday night I had a department party to go to, which was really fun. We stayed a lot later than we had anticipated, and then when I got back to the room my roommates weren't there (they left the party early to go out to a bar). So I finished my book that I brought, which isn't really smart because then tonight while I was waiting for Shabbat to be over I had nothing to read. Then my roommates came back tipsy, so I had fun having weird conversations with them until we fell asleep.

This morning I slept in... had a cookie for breakfast, and then spent the rest of the day keeping busy at the conference doing things that didn't require writing or art making.

• Commemorating Catastrophe: Community art making in New Orleans on the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina
  This presentation was done by two alums of my program so it was cool to see the work they are doing now. I really appreciated Holly beginning by describing how she messed up the first year she was supposed to do it, did everything in a way that was not culturally appropriate, and nobody showed up. It was good to hear that. She described all the lessons she learned and the success of the programs once she implemented those lessons. I think in many ways what she learned is also reflected in the way my site uses therapy, art, art therapy, etc.
  
  
• Multicultural Exchange Forum
  I went to this not sure what to expect. I'm glad I went... I'm not sure what constitutes "multicultural," and that was one thing I meant to bring up but didn't get a chance to. Technically it encompasses everyone, it sounds like. But I wonder about being White and wanting to be involved in multicultural events - does being Jewish count? I don't know. And someone mentioned how when she had issues with her department she didn't realize there was a Multicultural Committee to back her up. I wonder: if I had known about the Multicultural Committee back last Fall when I was having a conflict with my department about days off for religious holidays, would I have contacted them? And, if so, would they have done anything?
  
  Also, I caught up with the person who led the presentation on transgender youth the other day. (Last night I also happened to run into someone else who had been in that presentation who wanted to talk to me about my site since I had mentioned it in a response) She is trying to put together a sub-committee for LGBT issues in art therapy and in the American Art Therapy Association and wants me to be in on it. So that might be cool. I'm not sure how I feel about that, not identifying with the LGBT community but rather as an ally and someone who sees similarities in that community to my own. But I'm also becoming involved in this observant Jewish sub-group of the AATA so I wonder how many different things I will be involved in.
  
  
• Drawing Out the Shadow: Art Therapy and Sexual Addiction
  Not sure how I feel about this presentation. It as the fourth presentation I went to at the conference having to deal with sexuality and I was debating not going at all since there are other things to see. But I couldn't really see a good reason not to go. But the person leading the presentation had a way about her that really put me off... I was kind of uncomfortable throughout much of the presentation. She referred to people suffering from sexual addiction as "sex addicts," which made me uncomfortable right off the bat because they drill into our heads in our program a "person-centered" approach, which means you wouldn't refer to people as their diseases but rather as a person WITH a disease/disorder/whatever.
  
  And then there were some things she said about internet pornography that bothered me, like how it is the "gateway drug," like she said marijuana is a gateway drug, saying that studies show people who use marijuana are likely to use other substances (which I think is really outdated information, at least that's not what we learned in our substance use class this summer). I know a lot of people who look at internet porn who are not addicted to sex just like I know people who smoke marijuana who have either never tried any other drugs (other than nicotine or alcohol) or who have tried other drugs and did not continue their use. It just sounded really outdated and a bad comparison. She didn't explain how someone can be addicted to a behavior as opposed to a substance - for example, heroin addiction affects certain chemicals in the brain, and when you withdraw you have a chemical withdrawal in the body. How does one become addicted to a behavior? Or is it a compulsion, more in line with anxiety, like OCD? Not explained.
  
  Especially after attending the session on Thursday about having conversations with clients about sexuality, I was uncomfortable about the way this information was presented. It sounded like she thought pornography was was something that is toxic to people and relationships, something that healthy people wouldn't look at/read. And I'm not sure what she meant by "excessive" in any respect (sexual activity, masturbation, pornography viewing) and there was no talk about whether or not the client is distressed by this or it causing impairment in functioning as being the main reason for the diagnosis. She kept talking about these people as being narcissists and shameful... I wonder what was going on there in terms of counter-transference.
  
  
• Harm's Touch
  This presentation was done by one of the faculty in our department. It was about using response art to hold the trauma we hear from our clients or see around us. I really like the way she uses response art, how she really prescribes it as necessary for our profession. My journal is full of weird little drawings that I do right after something happens as a way of letting it out... I am not as strong in response art, but she did her entire PhD on the use of response art, so, you know.
  
  
• Annual Business Meeting
  I didn't get to go to last year's business meeting because I didn't wake up in time. This year they held it at the end of the conference so I got to stay and see how everything works. I think it was a relatively good meeting, some stuff was said (not sure if it was heard), and I got to see who Judy Rubin is finally... Everyone is obsessed with her but I have no idea what she looks like. Judy Rubes!!!!

And now I am going to join some friends in the city for a pre-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving feast.

Tomorrow I'm having brunch with someone I met at the conference and then I'm heading home!

AATA Conference (quick, before Shabbat!)

I have a few minutes before Shabbat starts so here is today's AATA Conference review.

I woke up really late and missed the keynote, but I heard it wasn't too exciting, so okay. I overslept because I was up late freaking out about my cat who decided to eat something she wasn't supposed to and had to be taken to the emergency vet by JewishGuy. Awesome. She's going to be okay, though, at least that was my last update.

So the first thing I went to was going to be a panel about mistakes with working with adolescents and using those mistakes for future lessons... I gave it about 15 minutes, and was like, okay, today I am not going to sit in on presentations I'm not interested in, and got up and left. I went to another session instead. This was the lesson learned from yesterday's missing an awesome presentation because I was for some reason afraid to leave the room.

• Sexually Abusive Adolescents and Self Portraits
  This was the presentation I went to instead of the one about making mistakes with adolescents. This was actually really cool - they had the adolescents take photos, then printed the photos onto transparencies, which were then projected onto the wall and then traced. It was great to hear how successful this is (I have heard of this technique before). I wonder what this would be like at my site... Also they mentioned that as long as they have been tracking discharges, 80% of their clients who are discharged have not offended again. Wow.
  
  
• Art studio time
  After lunch I spent some time in the art studio. I took a photo of the studio (with my phone) which eventually I will upload. It was so peaceful and relaxing. I met a few people while making art, one person is an alumnus from my program. I love the art studio... the classic "networking" events don't really necessarily make sense for art therapists, many of whom rely on their artwork for much of their communication with other people they don't know - ie: clients... So it's in the art studio that I feel most outgoing and comfortable.
  
  
• YOWSA: The influence of the art therapist's delight by Bruce Moon
  Bruce is a great presenter. His group sounded something like some of the groups I lead, except that he is clearly a much more experienced art therapist and is better able to hold a safe space. My groups are not very safe. I'm not very good at that right now, especially with this population. I'm working on it, though. It was great to hear his success though :) It was great to hear that he let group members sit and not make art for as many sessions as they needed, they could just sit and listen to music if they wanted. Maybe I should be more relaxed about that, too.
  
  
• Attempt at jewelry making workshop
  It wasn't clear that there was a sign-up for the workshop. I was excited when I found out Shabbat started a bit after 5 because the workshop was at 4pm and I had originally thought Shabbat started at 4. When I showed up, though, they turned me away :( Instead, I made a card that will be sent to a soldier wishing him/her a happy holiday season and then came back to the room.
  
  
• Observant Jewish art therapists networking
  I have met a few shomer Shabbat people here, and one person suggested that since I am staying in the hotel for Shabbat maybe I could lead Kabbalat Shabbat services... so I put a note on the community bulletin board inviting people to join me at 5:45. She let me borrow her siddur for Shabbat so I could do the service, so we'll see!
  

Okay time to go!!! Shabbat Shalom!

Posting from AATA Conference

Hello from Texas, I am at the AATA Conference this weekend! I miss Texas. I miss warm Novembers and tasty Mexican food.

So here I am!

What have I done so far?

Wednesday I did work on the airplane for my thesis, look at me being so industrious! Something else I miss about Texas... We landed and the guy in the row in front of me reaches out across the aisle to shake hands with the Navy man sitting there. He said, "Before you leave I just want to thank you for your service," and shook his hand. Then someone alerted him to a woman who was sitting nearby who is also a soldier going home in plain clothes and he shook her hand too.

It turned out I was on the same airplane as someone in my program (we found this out when she got up to use the bathroom at the end of the flight and I happened to see her pass me). When we landed we called two of our faculty who also had landed at the same time at the same airport and all rode together. These two faculty members are also big names in the field and besties, so it was kind of fun to share a cab with them. When we got to the hotel we threw down our stuff, registered for the conference, then went for sushi with friends from the program. We went to CVS to buy snacks and BLUEBELL ICE CREAM (another thing I miss about Texas), which we devoured.

This morning my head decided to have its monthly migraine, so that woke me up at around 4am, and I didn't really sleep again. I got a phone call at 7am from someone I was going to meet (didn't realize she was going to call at 7am, though), and then I decided to take a migraine pill, so I could finally sleep. I hesitated to take the pill because it has a lot of caffeine in it and I wanted to sleep, but I was so exhausted that the relief at the lack of migraine overpowered the caffeine.

What I did at the conference today:

• Sexuality & Art Therapy
  This was a fabulous presentation. I am going to buy the book she referenced heavily: "The Heart & Soul of Sex" by Gina Ogden. Unfortunately, the presenter didn't tell the book store station (at the conference) they were going to present on that book in advance so there were no copies available to buy immediately after. I'm lucky, though, because this book is going to be ordered to the store so I can just go pick it up sometime soon (or just order it on Amazon). The presenter talked about bringing healthy conversations about sexuality into therapy, normalizing sexuality with clients, etc. It was great and very empowering!!
  
• "It Begins With Us" - Working with Transgender Clients
  This was an okay presentation but I made kind of a prejudiced statement before going that I was only going to go to presentations done by people with MA or above because often the presentations done by people with lesser degrees (ie: undergrad or grad students) are not very well researched. This was a presentation of a class project she did. If she had had more time and had really done a real research project by sending our her survey to more people, there may have been more results (also if she had consulted someone on her survey questions). It was pretty good, though, especially for a class assignment. But they didn't really bring in any of the deeper subjects relating to working with transgender clients, or really many honest responses to people who identify as transgender... I skipped a presentation about Gush Katif for this one - that presentation was apparently AMAZING, people CRIED - so I am kind of sad...
  
• MARI Card Assessment
  (What is the MARI Card Assessment?) I had been looking forward to this all year, ever since last year I missed it because I waited until the end of the conference and there was no time left. Also last year I chose to research this assessment for my class and it is super top secret, there isn't much information about it anywhere! This was a really amazing experience... It ended up being a lot about my wrestling with my Jewish identity and spirituality... WOW.
  
• "Points of You: The Coaching Game" trial
  I was walking around the exhibition room and I heard two women speaking in Hebrew so I went over to the booth where they were standing and basically asked if I could practice my Hebrew on them. So they said, we can give you our shpeal in Hebrew if you want! So that's what they did... it is actually a really cool game that inspires a lot of interesting conversations. It's basically irresistible - you feel compelled to talk about the cards you pick! Very cool. It's really new and was developed in Israel. I have a few critiques about it, though, one big one being that all the people pictured in the cards are White. But it is a really cool tool. Plus I got to practice some Hebrew.
  
• Student session with Pat Allen
  This session was designed to be a small conversation, I guess Pat didn't realize how many people would show up because there were more than 50 people in the room, actually probably close to 80! So it was just her answering questions... describing the Open Studio Process (OSP). It was obvious nobody in the room really knew who she was because people were really confused about the OSP - she never identified it by name, herself. But one person did say "oh do you do something like the OSP?" and I laughed inside... She invented the OSP! Literally! But she didn't say that, she was really cool about it. It was kind of annoying, though, I didn't need to sit in a session about the OSP, but because I sat in the front row I couldn't leave! Near the end we did talk somewhat about jobs and whatever... I don't know. Last year's student session with Shawn McNiff didn't get so derailed, but mostly because he didn't ask for anyone's opinions about anything hahaha.
  
• Art of Edith Kramer Opening Reception
  This was cool, Edith Kramer is one of the Founding Mothers (or the "אמהות" "imahot" if you want to make a reference to the biblical matriarchs, since there are 4 haha) of Art Therapy. Here I actually introduced myself to someone I had been seeing around the conference all day, turns out she lives kind of near my parents and knows one of the teachers at my school. Ha! Small world... The shuttles were timed really badly, so it took forever to get there and back, so I almost missed the movie about art made by Holocaust survivors, which I wanted to see. They had underestimated the amount of space they needed for the audience of that movie anyway, so I got there about 30min into the movie but people were sitting out in the hall on the floor or on piano benches because there were no more seats. I just gave up.

SO. that is the conference so far. I don't know what the rest of the conference update will look like because Shabbat starts at 4pm tomorrow and then as soon as it's over on Saturday I am going to a friend's house in the city for dinner. That should be fun :)