Posts written in 2011.
One of the dogs up at Getaway Farms died today.
Homer was one of those good old mixed breed 14 year old dogs that every farm needs.
This Summer Cyndi decided was going to be the “Summer of Homie”. She didn’t put any restrictions on him and let him do his thing. Luckily he went before the cold set in and the ground froze solid. It sounds morbid, but you have to think about these kinds of things when you are in zone 4.
RIP Homer.
I have a Superpower. I don’t talk about it much in the city because I don’t get to use it very much in town.
But it really is a Superpower.
I have no dermatological response to this:
Nah-Nah-Na-Na-Nah
That, my friends, is Poison Oak and Poison Ivy. Plants I am not allergic to. It may not seem like much to brag about, but when you are in the woods with people who are allergic to it (and most people are, I have found) you may as well be bullet-proof and trying to catch rounds coming from the end of a 357. The reactions you get are the same.
So while anyone with me cowers and covers and runs from anything vaguely vine-y with three to five leaves, I am swinging from vines that would make them turn into oozing pustules of despair and regret.
Chiggers, on the other hand, are my kryptonite.
I was so hungry.
I am in Elliott, IN and wanted to go to our place in Spencer County. It is right next to where Abraham Lincoln grew up and I have always felt a connection to it. My Dad says it is because the Spencer County farm is where I was conceived.
In any case, I wanted to go up there and so got a ride. It is about 45 minutes away on highway 162. On the way, I bought a bag of ice and a bottle of Port. One can’t have a nice evening at one’s country place without a nice Port, you know… I did not, however, buy any food because I know that my Dad and his friends hunt deer up there and there is always lots of canned goods.
So I get to the farm after a comedy of errors and realize I didn’t bring the right key. No problem. I took the door off the hinges by removing the pins.
Once I get inside I realize that no one has been here for at least 7 years. SEVEN YEARS.
The inside is a mess of mouse nests and snakes have shed their skins in every tight crevice possible. Also: Raccoons. Turns out I will have guests with my Port for my country evening. No problem.
I start clearing away the fire-pit that had been overgrown by Sassafras trees and got my firewood together for the night. 
I looked at the cupboard and saw two shelves of canned goods. 
Jackpot.
I got a fire going and opened a can of potato soup. As it plopped into the pan I thought it looked odd. I chalked it up to the freeze-thaw cycles that have happened over the seasons, but then hesitated and thought it was a good idea that I should look at the expiration dates. Oh, my. My potato soup had a best if used by date of 2002.
I was so hungry I thought about taking the chance – the nearest grocery or gas station is miles away. But then I thought better of it and started looking through the cans…
I didn’t get a chance to eat much tonight. All of the food is expired by at least 6 years and the only thing viable in the past five is the coffee. Instead, I cracked open the Port and went out into the treeline to gather a local wild green: Lambsquarter. I boiled it up and had a couple of cups of it. If you have never eaten it, let me tell you it is quite good – milder than spinach with just the slightest pecan-ish nutty flavor.
As soon as I ate my wild-man dinner I started making really bad decisions.
As it turns out, if you haven’t been on an abandoned farm that has two unmarked and overgrown cisterns, four dilapidated outbuildings, and enough wildlife to stock four counties in more than seven years, you should probably not go wandering around in the dark looking for big dead trees to knock down and burn after having had a little more than half a bottle of Port. At the very least take a flashlight.
Also: Once you find the cistern that hasn’t been used in 40+ years, best practice is that you should 1. Not try to draw water when drunk and 2. Not drink or use said water before boiling.
Breaking all the rules!
(I am lucky I didn’t 1. fall in and 2. Get Typhoid.)
My brother and his 7th Adventist wife named their second child Bacchus. Yes, you read that right. The woman who doesn’t give her children medicine and believes that demons were haunting her named her son Bacchus. Irony abounds at the Elliott estate.
In any case, you can’t name your son Bacchus and NOT have pictures of him picking grapes, now can you? There would be something very not right about that.
And this makes me very happy:
My brother is the father of a GOD!
After the Fire Demon that got his poor dimensional portal burnt up happened, I thought I would be done with demons for this trip.
I was riding with my brother and his wife today. They had just picked me up from the coal cabin I was staying at and were taking me to Grandma Schlachter’s house to spend the rest of the afternoon before either of them had to go to work. We drove down Hwy 245 past the small house they used to live in on our way.
It is a neat little farmhouse with a garage, outbuildings, and barn. It is a very sweet little setup. I liked it.
But then Bobby (that’s my brother) said: “I am so glad we moved. The old lady was getting to be too much for me.” I pressed him a little and he told me that they thought the place was haunted. He said something about being driven crazy by ghosts when my sister-in-law piped up and said “It wasn’t a ghost, it was a DEMON”
Now, let’s do a little setting-of-scene here. It will help you understand what is going on as we drive through Santa Claus (yes, that is really a town), Indiana.
My sister-in-law wants desperatly to be a good 7th Day Adventist-slash-fundamentalist. Nevermind the fact that she has a mouth like a sailor, married a muslim in her first marriage, a rabid atheist (that would be my brother) in her second, or can’t distinguish any particular version of the bible. Forget that she has only the loosest grip on any theology whatsoever. She knows what she wants to be and grasps at straws blindly to get there. It makes for some interesting (if uncomfortable) family dinners to say the least.
So I look at her and say “Demon?”. “Yeah, a Demon! Amir (that is her son by her first marriage) said that it would blow in his ear! And I felt it too!”
Now. I grew up around a LOT of fundamentalists. The world was always ending, the end was coming, the coming was at hand, the end is nigh, et-cetera, et-cetera, et-fucking-cetera. I am used to this kind of talk.
As an adult, I have found that it doesn’t work to directly counter what the person is saying. What you have to do is engage them without insulting them or discounting the ridiculous thing that JUST CAME OUT OF THEIR MOUTH.
So she mentions that she both believes in demons and thinks one was haunting her at the place in Spencer county.
Another aside: This is the same sister-in-law who told me that she doesn’t believe in medicine or pharmacology because “You know where we get the word “phamacology” and “pharmacy” don’t you? We get it from the Latin word for evil magic.* Why would you want to give your children evil magic?” Did I mention that she is an RN and is going for her PA? Yeah. That.
So knowing that she had a love of etymology and that it was important to her in making theological decisions, I thought it would be a good time to say:
“You know where we get the word ‘demon’? It comes from the Greek word ‘Dæmones!’ (‘ΔΑΙΜΟΝΕΣ’); which were not evil spirits, but rather neutral or positive spirits. In fact, Plato said that at Socrates’ trial he [Socrates] attributed his inspiration to his daemones.” {You, as a reader, can read more about Socrates’ trial here.}
She said: “Well, they must have been wrong or not know what they are talkin about!” She believes that the English language has been around “at least since the Romans”.
I said that it wasn’t until the Christian era we came to understand demons as malevolent or dark. Well, she wasn’t having any of it. She looked at me as if I had just said: “Follow me to the dark side and let me rape your children while you eat the flesh of your mother. ” For. Serious.
And that was where demons in the real sense came into my sabbatical for a second time in as many weeks. Personal demons? Well, that is a totally different story. They are an everyday occurrence.
*We really don’t. Here is the etymology for the word pharmacology/pharma derivatives. They are Greek in origin. Considering it comes from the period after Christians destroyed nearly ALL of the world’s learning, well, I am surprised that we got this far <insert more rant here>.
And just for fun:
Pretty soon the website for Rural Pursuits will be up and running, but in the meantime, I am helping my friend’s sister around her place.
Getaway farms is a great place that Greg’s sister runs by herself. Try managing 15 acres, 7 horses, a huge barn and a track and see how far behind you get.
One of the jobs we tackled yesterday was getting old railroad ties up and out of the ground in a corner of the yard that used to be garden and grading it back into lawn.
There were 15 of these damn things!
Here is the thing: When you tell me there is work to be done, I turn into a Real German®. Not the happy lederhosen wearing beer drinking German that you see at the Bierstube, but a hardcore task master that stays on task and WILL complete the job.
We were laughing together as we dug out chinese elms and maple trees. There was a little whining halfway through, but we powered through. At one point, she was ready to give up and go eat. I said: “Let’s finish this and then we can eat. Let’s power through. We get no comfort until the work is DONE!” To which she replied: “OK! OK! I know what happens to us Poles when we get under the thumb of a German!”
So the day went well – we worked in really humid windless conditions, changing clothes 2x because we couldn’t stay cool or dry, but we. got. it. done.
Needless to say, I don’t normally look like this after a day of work:
Done.
Well, it is probably a good thing I am going back to Wisconsin and then down to Elliott, IN for a bit.
I have a cute neighbor across the alley behind the offices… I have noticed him before, he has lived there a couple of years, but he recently started talking to me across the alley from his window. In his boxer shorts. Talking about horses and sailing. POW. Right in the jaw. Then tells me that “You know where to find me! Just yell over!”
Now, I know as an adult when to let things be. I know that mild flirtation is just that. But when I start sitting in that window just on larks all of the sudden… well… Houston we have a problem. The same problem a lot of smitten 12 year old girls have.
So we shall see what happens but I really need to put a lid on it.
I would like to read about this, so if this is your line of work and you want to steal this for a paper of some kind, please do.
I was thinking that there is some tie between Christianity and the lack of a fourth Servile War in Rome.
I don’t have any more for you than that, but you are welcome to it.
Thanks.
As I was riding today, I remembered part of an old WWII era joke I heard one of the old men at the VFW tell.
I always understood the German for horse as Pferd. I was doing something online and came across Gaul as an alternative.
And all of the sudden the half-remembered punchline of this forgotten joke made sense. It had to do with riding a Gaul (Frenchie) as if she were a Gaul (horse).
And there you have it. A joke I don’t really remember that I just figured out after a 20 year comic pause.
I rode again today for the first time in a while…
Here we go!
My horse was Kayla, a chestnut Quarter Horse with (what seemed like) an even disposition. Even until we got out on the track, that is. She was pulling me this way and that and then started cantering to the barn.
View to the North as I got dragged along the track.
We eventually came to an understanding, but not before a couple of scares. Once we began to understand each other, we really had a nice time.
Riding in the practice field.
Like Cyndi was saying: Horses just want a leader. The herd mentality is strong and they need that direction. If they don’t get it, they assume it for themselves.
Out of the Gate!
So we rode for a while in the heat and it was really nice.
A lot of the time I will talk to myself in a kind of broken piginy German. In this case, I kept repeating “Reite Das Pferd! Nichts Das Pferd Wird Von Mir Geritten!” A real German would laugh at that, I think… They would rather see something like: “Gerittente Pferd” or something, but whatever. I use the word Tagleuchter too, so what do you want?
I know what you want. You want more pictures from Getaway Farms.
Well, here you go:
I think I made my Uncle Roger mad.
He is the beer expert in the family and I asked him what made Miller High Life beer taste so specific. There is this kind of astringent peak-i-ness to it that I can taste and smell from a mile away.
My Uncle Gary (his brother) used to drink it all the time. He was not a very nice person and was pretty hard on me and my brothers in the name of “manly fun”. This included being picked up by the ears, being thrown around, and any number of other fun things… all while surrounded by the distinct bouquet of MHL.
So I asked Uncle Roger what made the flavor so different so that when I am talking about Miller High Life beer I can say “oh, it is the yeasts” instead of “it tastes like child abuse”. In my mind, the smell of child abuse isn’t whiskey and cigarettes or leather or rope. It isn’t duct tape or the basement closet with its mold and slightly damp air… it is MHL.
Roger said that it probably IS the yeasts. He did not comment on the child abuse.
These people can DRINK.
For real. I grew up with rabid teetotalers on one side and just as rabid alcoholics on the other* and have NEVER seen this much booze consumed.
So prep your liver before you come, cause they start early and run late.
*Why yes, extended family gatherings were very interesting, thank you.
I can see the light. It is dim and distant, but I see it.
Almost done putting Greg’s stuff up on Ebay and then begins shipping it out and off to the four corners of the world.
Catharsis or something like it.
I wrote before that this kind of full-body grief is like being punched in the stomach.
You know what else is like being punched in the stomach?
Love.
The record producer and his wife across the hall from the workroom have a little girl, Elizabeth.
This was nice.
Wow.
Besides being just about the best baby EVER, I find myself being super protective of her. She just turned one in April and has been walking and trying to talk for a while. So I walk her around the neighborhood and help out when I can.
So she is starting to get into things here and there and today I helped Mary, her mother, clean a cut on her finger from a pair of scissors. Elizabeth wasn’t happy about it, but she stood still while I talked to her and cleaned it out and put a bandage on it. She still wasn’t thrilled, but stopped fussing and met my eye solidly the entire time. When we were done and she smiled and started dancing.
My little heart just sang.
It is odd to feel so strongly about a child who isn’t yours, but there you go: It takes a village and all that…
Here is a pic of us when I was best man at her parents’ wedding:
Now this, THIS will brighten your day!
They came over and got me (I had been in pretty bad shape for a while – you can see my face and how beat up it was from all of the crying and emotional stress lately) and I was best man and head-baby-wrangler for the afternoon.
Wow. You have to remember what makes your life really sing sometimes.
Hundreds of pictures. Hundreds.
Not even 30% of the way through the tables of stuff from Greg’s and am getting tired.
I really want to get everything except the antique glassware, books, albums, and cds done tonight.
If I can get those listed, then I can list the rest of the things over the course of the next two days.
Aiming to have the whole workroom empty by 6 July. A tall order, but I think it can work.
The nice thing about this much mindless focus is that it really takes you out of yourself. It is the one thing I liked about a corporate job – you are called on just to do. Format, template, rules, just do. Do. Do. Do. So this kind of thing is not making me tear up like something that forces my creative side.
OK. If you want to look at the mess I am in, check out my Ebay profile.
No crying today. THAT, my friends, is a very good thing.
And you bask in the cliché of it and realize…
Sometimes things are going along and then something happens out of the blue that completely changes your tone for a while.
It happened to me today. I was re-hashing all of my (very) first-world worries with a student* who dropped by for a bit and then my email pings and I get this:
Hi there!
I LOVE everything I’m seeing about your life. If I were in Chicago, I would be taking your classes! And I drool over the culture you’ve created in your workroom.
I know the years in between are overflowing with joys and sorrows that make us who we are today. But I look at pics of your workroom and I am transported back to that slow moving train from Italy, walking through tunnels of hydrangeas, and a place and time where critical thinking and classic theoretical exploration were encouraged. And I miss it.
I’m starting my European job search because it’s time to get out of the desert. My brain dries up a little more with every passing year. THANK YOU for keeping me focused! Please keep the blogs and pics coming.
Macht’s Gut!
Erin
I kept re-reading that first line again and again.
“I LOVE everything I see about your life…”
“I LOVE everything I see about your life…”
“I LOVE everything I see about your life…”
Let me copy that again…
“I LOVE everything I see about your life…”
Because really, I haven’t been loving my life.
In fact, there has been very little about it lately that gives me any joy at all.
Erin and I went to college together and then spent time in Switzerland at Franklin College in Lugano. We have lost touch (almost) completely over the years, but she saw the class blog I just revived and felt compelled to send that note. And what a difference it made in my day.
And that did it. I have been able to create this thing – with my own hands – and make it work. Sometimes it hasn’t been pretty, but there is something to this.
Something real. Something outside of our ridiculous consumerist culture. Something that makes a difference. Something that teaches people and makes them think!
AND I DID IT.
MYSELF**
And it was hard and I suffered and had setbacks and thought I would lose it and that it didn’t matter.*** But it does and was really good to hear.
* Who is turning out to be a friend – who knew?
** Not really, but it is a nice illusion when you are trying to pump yourself up.
*** To get the proper cadence of that sentence going through my mind you should really read it:
“AnditwashardandIsufferedandhadsetbacks
(and inhale)
andthoughtIwouldloseitandthatitdidn’tmatter.”
That is how I talk to myself in the morning.
Short and simple commands. Like a German shepherd.
If I am tempted to linger in bed past 4 or 4:30: UP!
If I am tempted to dawdle and wait for the next bus: MOVE!
I get to the workroom this morning and force myself to open email: OPEN!
I’m functioning, but in the simplest way possible.
More Ebay today, then resurrecting the blogs, then a former student is coming by for a bit.
I can’t wait for September. I have always wanted a Summer off. I haven’t had one – ever – because I was always being forced to play baseball or I had a job. I did not, however, want a Summer off under these circumstances.
Be careful what you wish for when the genie asks you what you want, I guess.
Have been video recording blog entries, but they are so dark and involve a lot of crying and fear. Maybe I’ll post them once this all passes over. Maybe.
MOVE. OK, time to try to get stuff done.
Today has been pretty good so far.
Yesterday, as part of my purge of the workroom I sold my Singer 31-15 Industrial sewing machine.
It made me sad, but it went to a good purpose:
Matt and his boyfriend James picking the machine up from the workroom. They were super excited about it. Mat had been texting and emailing all morning so that he could be the one to get it for James. We spent some time talking about what they do and the machine. In all, I think that the history of the piece will carry on. It will certainly get more use than it was getting up at the workroom. You can read more about what James does here:
That is James on the left and Matt on the right.
The history of that machine, just in case it gets sold and someone looks up the serial number:
I bought the machine from a guy named Petar on the near West side of Chicago. Here is the text of the history he knew of it:
We acquired the machine when my mom bought a cleaners located at 3521 W. Fullerton Ave. We moved to the space in 1966. Before that someone else owned the cleaners throughout the 50s and early 60s. Around 1970 we were forced to move because we lost our lease and the building was sold, so we moved next door to 3523 W. Fullerton Ave. where the machine stayed until 1979 when we sold the business. Fortunately, my mom took the machine with her to our home in Park Ridge, Illinois and had an alteration business going in the neighborhood – we lived at 1029 S. Prospect – we had a completely finished garage – it was a story and a half and the first floor was carpeted – the previous owners had 8 kids so they had made the garage into a family room. So the machine was there until 1992. After my moms death in 1988 and my father moving to Italy and getting remarried, we sold the house and I took the machine to my apartment at 8654 West Summerdale Ave Apt3s. It was there until 2000, when I bought a town home in Round lake Illinois and moved it along with the rest of my things there. I was there until the fall of 2003, I sold my town home and moved back to the city, however I was renting a room from a women and didn’t have room for most of my stuff, so I put it into storage with Midway Moving and Storage – they have a warehouse around Pulaski and Lake Streets. It was there until November 2006 when I purchased my current place and put it into the storage room. The machine has essentially been unused since 1988 when my mom passed away, however I really tried to take care of it. That is about all the history i know. it has been moved around a bit – would be interesting to find out what it was doing pre-1950s; I guess that will remain a mystery.
The serial number is: G521375
It is a Singer 31-15
I am especially happy that yet another creative gay guy owns it. Keep it in the family, so to speak.
And that is it. The things we surround ourselves with have these rich histories. Sometimes they are mundane and work-a-day like this and sometimes they are more exciting. The point is that we are connected to each other by more than just our humanity. We are connected through our tools and artifacts. They are tangible things that tie us together as human beings.
One of the biggest problems and biggest fall-outs from all of this has been my professional life.
My personal life? All I have is totally internal, so there isn’t much of an external one to notice change.
But my professional life tends to be my connection to others. I may not have friends like most people, but I have roomfuls of people who chit-chat, make nice, and then I teach them a stitch or make them a dress. And there is the rub. Making the dresses.
See, the entire Spring session was a disaster. It began when I was at my worst. I tried to soldier through it. I really did. But I wasn’t at my best. Luckily my third or fourth best is better than most people’s first best so it seemed ok. OK as far as the classes went. It seemed.
But how many times can you catch yourself screwing up and making terrible mistakes – or in a classroom setting not catching others and stopping their mistakes before they happened.
See, I have always said that my students and clients deserve my best or something close to it. That hasn’t happened for months and now I have everyone pissed. Well, not everyone. The students are pretty good about it. But the clients aren’t.
Oh, sure, make the dresses, teach the classes, whatever… how hard could it be? What is your problem? But when you are your own worst critic (it isn’t really that much of a cliché… some people aren’t) it is overwhelming. You make ridiculous mistakes and then spend hours crying about them. In a corner. You lose time, you lose money, you lose the little spark of inspiration that makes it all worthwhile. I thought I understood depression before, but until I caught myself NOT going to Greg’s 23rd floor apartment because there were no locks on the windows and what if… well, you know you have a real problem.
Wellbutrin seems to be helping, but I won’t know until nearer the end of the Summer. Right now I am trying to stay out of harm’s way. It is a real pain – in every sense of that word. It feels like someone punched you in the stomach the night before while you were blackout drunk – you have the pain and the cramping but can’t explain it.
I had experienced a broken heart before – once – in my early 20s and it wasn’t fun. But this. THIS was something else. Something profound and life-altering. It is one of the worst things so far and I am someone who has plenty of battle scars. YOU can’t see them, but they are there.
Have been telling myself for years that if it came down to it I would go back to the country raise tomatoes and ride horses. That may just happen.
But the title! What the hell does all of this have to do with the title?
Ah, glad you asked. I have been sick to my stomach for months with three projects that just aren’t going to happen. I don’t want anyone’s money and have offered refunds because that’s what I do, but so many folks are pissed and I just can’t do it. I hate to disappoint them. I hate it that I can barely pick up anything creative or build something without it turning into some nightmare-fueled sob-fest.
So you can’t please everyone. You can try to explain, you can try to deal with it, you can try to keep things to yourself and let people in on an as-needed basis, but it is still going to smack you in the face and you have to decide. You have to decide if screwing up that dress and sending yourself into some dark hole for a dress just so someone won’t be upset with you.
ramblerambleramble… You can’t please everyone. It is good to try. But at the end of the day, you can try to make it as right as you can and then you have to accept that not everyone is going to be ok with it. You can hope they see what you are trying to do, you can try to explain, but in a professional setting it isn’t really appropriate to say something like: “Well, I have been crying for six hours and that is why there are water-spots on your taffeta. Sorry ’bout that.” People think you are a drag (and you are).
One thing the past three weeks have taught me, though: I will never go three weeks without checking my email again, that’s for. damn. sure.
So, you know, at least there’s that to gain from a horrible month. Gotta hold onto something…
What was I doing last time I wrote?
I had just gotten the call from my friend Greg’s sister. He was in the hospital again and I was pissed.
Well, I’ve changed my tune now, that’s for sure.
See, March 6th started me on a terrible roller coaster. I wasn’t in a great place to begin with. I have been like a schizophrenic drunk with vertigo on some horrible amusement ride. Does that color it properly? Yes, I believe it does.
So for a while I will write about lessons and how life kind of smacks you around a little sometimes. I have a friend who would say: “Be more Stoic!”. What he means is: “take it like a man”. He doesn’t realize that if one is really being stoical he would fall on his sword tout suite.
My little ride has almost cost me a business, has worn me down to nubs I have never been worn to, and yet has still given me a couple of cherries.
Remember: It is not all bad.
Until it is.
Throughout the Summer I am going to be posting about some pretty personal stuff. Don’t be too hard on me. I am trying to live my life in the open and help folks out. Don’t read it if you don’t like it.
So stay tuned and read me rant. Hopefully I can make you laugh or think.
Or cry. Sometimes all three.
