Scuba Duba Doo

Scuba Newfie

Graphite and Colored Pencil on Arches Paper

©2005 Katherinellis Fine Art

Thanks to the generosity of my wonderful brother (thanks, Bro!), I was able to while away every Monday night during June taking a scuba diving class at the Riverton Community Center in Portland. My biggest challenge turned out to be finding the damned place, but once I was able to locate the facility, everything from there on in was a piece of cake.

My instructor, Paul Rollins, of Rollins Scuba, was a dear. He is a very calm individual, an excellent teacher, and endlessly patient. Scuba diving is something I have always wanted to do, and since there's no time like the present, the Summer of 2008 seemed to be the time. Paul demystified the process and taught us the very, very basics of scuba in a series of 4 classes.

Learning to dive has changed a great deal in recent years. I have friends who are scuba-certified who had to work much harder at hours and hours of classroom discussion. I feel as though I have received a license to kill myself underwater after just a handful of classes. But maybe it's like Drivers Ed. Teach you just enough to be thoroughly afraid, and then you'll exercise caution when you are actually out there.

We did all the classroom work essentially on our own at home, and made sure it had penetrated by the means of weekly quizzes. Then we donned our gear and played around in the Riverton Pool. The first night I was far too uptight and concerned about equalizing my ears. Equalizing means to balance the air pressure inside your head against the water pressure outside your head, as you descend. Eventually I'll get it. Either that, or my head will explode.

I had forgotten the sheer joy I always feel simply at being IN the water. It has been years since I played in a pool, so being able to float around under the water, breathing away, was a real hoot.

At the end of the course, we had a final test, one final pool session to demonstrate mask-clearing and rescue skills and then we were done. Being the total geek that I am, I made myself sick studying for the exam for one entire weekend, but felt justified when I aced the written test.

When we went for our qualifying dives, I have to tell you I was terrified. But I was not about to be shown up by the 13-year-old who had sailed through the course on her way to World Domination. If the skinny little pre-teen could handle going underwater without flipping out, then I was damned well going to be able to do it, too. Okay, okay, so Paul let me hold his hand during the first dive. It was murky! That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

My friends who dive assure me that Maine waters are nothing compared to the wonders of the Caribbean. I am certain this is so, but the beauty that lies underneath the rugged surf of Maine astounded me. We saw sea ravens, lobsters, flounder, pink mussels and massive waving fronds of kelp. It was an utterly fabulous experience, and one I cannot wait to repeat.

The Asshole Factor

Untitled Nude

Silverpoint on Gesso

©1980 Katherinellis Fine Art

What's up with guys, anyway? Why is it that nice girls like me (and trust, me, I really am a pretty nice person) are always, always, ALWAYS attracted to assholes? See, here's the thing. It's not that they are total jerks. No, trust me, that would make it way too easy. I can steer clear of the psychopaths pretty well. It's the guys who have just a touch of asshole to them, just enough to give them an edge. Just enough slightly abrasive side to be clever, and funny, and witty and Not Boring. Why is it that I never meet the Nice Guy, the Boy Next Door, the brother substitute? 'Cause I don't. Or at least if I meet 'em, I don't remember them. Every guy who I find inexplicably mesmerizing has that edge to him, that little bit of abrasiveness. You know the guy, reasonably good-looking reasonably socially acceptable, who has just one or two startling political leanings, or hobbies, or incipient badly-timed mouthiness. What I have come to realize is the Asshole Factor.

So...I met a guy. And, foolishly, I thought he was a birthday gift for me. You know how special my birthday is to me, and how much I enjoy being the Birthday Princess for the entire month. Silly me, I thought he was just for me, and was one more wonderful thing to have happened during a fun-filled birthday extravaganza month. Whoo hoo! Bring it on, Universe!

He pursued me. I know! Isn't that amazing? I honestly wasn't paying a whole lot of attention, being more fixated on the birthday festivities. Because there was champagne you know. And chocolate! But suddenly there he was. And it was fun. And it was sexy. And yes, kissing. And I, Birthday Princess that I was, felt light-hearted and pretty and ready to be done with the whole mourning and tearing of hair and rending of garments thing that had been going on for the last oh, twelve billion centuries or so.

I stupidly let down my guard, and opened my heart just the teensiest bit. I allowed myself to think that maybe, just maybe this might be Something. You know, not anything outrageously crazed like Marrying or Living Together. Because, while I may have just turned 50, I'm not smoking crack or anything like that. So I allowed as how it might not suck too badly to you know, like, maybe date. Possibly.

We spent some time together. Danced some dances. Ate some cake. Quaffed some wine. Charred some meat. Had, in his words, a "perfect time, too perfect". Too perfect? WTF?

And poof, just like that, he was gone.

Huh.

So what's the deal? Is it me? 'Cause, you know, Gentle Reader, I'm really pretty sick of this shit. I've dated, or attempted to date, like six guys now over the course of the last couple of centuries since I've been alone. Most of them, I've pursued, and that is really tiring. Mostly because they all run really, really fast....but also because it always ends with the same song and dance. "I'm too wounded....". "It's not you, it's me....." "I'm just not looking for that sort of thing right now......." "You're a really nice girl, but........"

Do I have some sort of built-in loser detector? Nice Guys Need Not Apply? What is up with that? Do I function as some sort of magnetic north for guys with a large helping of inner jerk? Only confused, mixed-up, potentially thoughtless men need bother even looking at me? Again, WTF?

Sigh.

So now my birthday month is over. The presents have been opened. The chocolates consumed. The champagne drunk. I guess it's just time for me to give up, right? Abandon hope for the happy ending. Forget about strolling into the sunset with a cute guy, hand in hand, walking our labrador retriever. Because it worked out so well for me beforem what with the Divorce and all. (In case you missed it, that's sarcasm, Gentle Reader.)

Yeah, right. Where's the Tao when you really need it?

Ask and Ye Shall Receive

Country Store Spice Jar
Franklin Mint
"Garlic"

My birthday is coming up, in 22 days to be exact. But who's counting?

ME! I am!

I'm going to be OMG 50 freakin' years old! Do you believe it? I sure as heck don't!

Deep breath.

My friends, as good friends should, humor me about the importance of my birthday. They laugh at the fact that I have been known to spend the entire day wearing my $1.99 Toys R Us Genuine Princess Crown all around town. The funny thing is, that now that I'm middle-aged, I can get away with more outrageous behavior than I ever could. I walk around town, eating out, shopping, and, as long as I'm wearing my Princess Crown and buoyantly announce "Today's my birthday", I am humored by wait staff and store clerks alike. I'm sure they are all silently wondering when I get taken back to The Home, but hey, a good time is had by all.

We didn't have a lot of money growing up, so birthdays were celebrated extremely quietly, if at all. But my mom did a fantastic job of making me feel as though I owned that One Special Day from sunup to sun down. I don't remember fabulous parties or mountains of gifts; I simply remember feeling as though anything, any miracle at all, could happen on My Special Day. And if that isn't the gift of all gifts, I don't know what is. She would make arrangements for dinner to be to our exact specifications, and mine frequently was Kentucky Fried Chicken. I know, I know, I don't have these horrid cholesterol numbers for no reason, Gentle Reader! But there would be cake, and every few years, parties and presents.

So the feeling of specialness has lasted a lifetime with me, as has my childish belief in miracles. If I wish hard enough, I am still secretly convinced that my miracle will happen. Just like my brand new green Columbia bike, in my secret heart of hearts, I'm convinced The Universe will give me what I'm wishing for this year. I'm only asking for three things--champagne, chocolate cake and.................But no, I can't tell you the third thing, or it won't come true. The champagne and chocolate cake are pretty much a sure thing. I'm buying a case of champagne and drinking my body weight in bubbly on that day. My best friend is making chocolate cake. So the Third Secret Wish is up to The Universe to provide. We'll see....

As I'm sure we are all wont to do, my birthday always makes me pause and reflect on the Year in Review. I'm sure you do that, as well, Gentle Reader. It is always my fondest hope that the current year is a significant improvement over the previous year. While that hasn't always been true, especially during the Year of the Divorce, this year has been pretty good so far, with distinct improvement in recent weeks.

Hey, I've even been on a couple of dates. They didn't go anywhere, but a date is a date, right? Men were involved. Food was consumed. Chat was made. A good time was had by all.

My job is going pretty well. My art mojo is coming back, in some small way. In fact, I just painted a picture of a couple of poodles on a friend's van. It came out pretty well, and I even signed it to show the world that I was personally responsible for that particular piece of graffiti.

Dancing is fabulous. Last night I started a two-month salsa class, which is a fun way of doing an hour of aerobics in pretty shoes.

I even got my washer/dryer leveled, thanks to a talented and handy friend. (Yes, Dad, it's level, and I'm no longer ruining my appliances!)

So this year is looking up, and I am distinctly more cheerful than at this time last year. Even though I've entered menopause, even that is not so bad. The roller coaster mood swings of last year have ended abruptly, leaving me perking along on an even keel of chirpy cheerfulness. (I'm distinctly annoyingly happy these days.) Although sleeplessness still plagues me, about the only symptom I'm having is hot flashes. And even those just leave me with a pleasant glow, instead of being parboiled and sweat-soaked and drenching my clothes, like so many of my middle-aged peers.

So I'm optimistically looking forward to actually being 50 and having lots more fun in the ensuing half century to come.

Ginger Wafers

And to prove that The Universe is going to make all my wishes come true, I got an email just this morning from Replacements.com informing me that they could replace some broken collectibles I have wanted for years. My ex thinks this is the dumbest hobby in the world, but my advertising days have made me nostalgic for period packaging. So I collected a series of spice jars from the Franklin Mint, featuring old package labels. During my various moves, four of my spice jars were broken. I have been bereft for years, fearing that I would never be able to replace them.

Today, through the wonders of the Internet, I have been able to purchase replacements for them, and soon my little spice jar collection will be complete once again. It doesn't get much better than that!

Quaker Oats

My iPod

Wylie

8"x10" Graphite

©2008 Katherinellis Fine Art

Santa gifted me with an iPod this Christmas. Okay, well, Santa didn’t really come to my house. He says I’m a little bit old for all that and he has a bunch of deserving kids who go to the trouble of leaving him cookies and he didn’t appreciate the diet suggestions and the celery sticks last year. Humph. Try to do the Big Guy a favor…..

Anyway, so Mommy and Daddy gave me the cash to buy the iPod. Santa is up at the North Pole, pouting over his cholesterol numbers. Whatever. Join the club, suck it up, and eat your flaxseed, Kringle. Those cholesterol numbers won't go down all by themselves!

Don’t you just hate it when “kids these days” are right? Who knew an iPod could be so much fun?? I got the little bugger. Didn’t even begin to read the directions. Not that it had a whole lot of directions to go with it. But once I plugged it into my computer, it took off like a dream. Whenever I checked on it, it just calmly said, “Paws off, Katherine. Everything is under control. Go bake some cookies and we’ll just keep downloading music. Thankyouverymuch.” So, I did what any good minion would do, kept checking the little device every half hour to see if it was “baked”. And finally! Finally! All 1,834,702 songs were downloaded from my PC to my lovely little handheld piece of portable happiness.

So then I had to learn how to connect it to stuff. My tv. My car. My portable speakers. My ears.

Of all the new-fangled connections I had to make, the most difficult one was to my ears. The car was problematic until I learned what RCA jacks are. Who knew? (And don't say some pimply-faced teenager or I'll have to come over there and hurt you!) The ear buds that came with the iPod didn't work. So I went out and bought new ones that were kind of cool, what with the little skull faces on them and all. Don't even ask me what they mean...probably that I'm now officially Cool. But they still appear to be too big. They pop out of my ears when I blink. Or breathe. Or the wind blows. I've temporarily solved the problem by wearing earmuffs. But that solution only works ten months of the year. What will I do in July and August? Think I could get earmuffs and dye them the same color as my hair? Probably. Think anyone would notice? Mmmmmmm.............possibly.........

And now, as I walk to work, I can groove on an unlimited supply of tunes. I can be another one of those head-bobbing, finger-snapping traffic-oblivious teens wandering the streets these days. How did I live without an iPod before? It’s just so damned much fun!

Dang. Don’t you just hate it when kids these days are right?

I'm not dead!

I'm not dead. Just resting.

The picture at the left is what we in the artist biz call a "WIP" or Work in Progress. It's of a black standard poodle named Wylie. For those of you who have known me a long time, this is the grownup version of a piece I did a few years ago of my best friend and her puppy, shown below.

Wylie is also the best friend of Mason, the white poodle in my last blog.

Wylie

Graphite 8"x10"

©2008 Katherinellis Fine Art

So I wanted you all to know that I'm not dead--just resting. It's been a truly awful winter and I've done little more than sit around weeping and eating chocolate. Just kidding. Not.

But anyway, here is Wylie in his current incarnation.
I'd say he's about half done.

The trouble with this new graphite technique is it's so bloody HARD! Sometimes I wish I could send Mike Sibley's book back to him and curl up in a corner with big brushes and fast-drying paint and do abstract impressionism.

But then I look across the room at the chair where Wylie is sitting. I see his nose emerging from the paper. I imagine my girlfriend's face when she first sees the drawing, and what can I say? I have to do it. I'm compelled. So I put down the chocolate and the Kleenex box and reach for my number 8B pencil and have another go at those impossible poodle poufs. And before you know it, another hour has drifted by, I have a smile on my face, and a song in my heart.

Graphite. It's good stuff.

Wylie
8"x10" Prismacolor Pencils
©2005 Katherinellis Fine Art

Bah, Humbug!

Flag Book
©2008 Katherinellis Fine Art

Can an aspiring Taoist curse early Christian martyrs? Or is that just bad form? As you are no doubt aware, Thursday is that day, that dreaded day, which is the bane of all single women's existence. And, just to be completely fair--a lot of men as well.

It is cursed universally throughout the land as a stupid waste of time, money and energy. Not to mention all the cocoa beans and flowers that will die in vain. Saint Valentine's Day. Saint %$#^& Valentine's Day, to be exact!

Do you think that when those two martyrs died for their beliefs they had any idea that in just a few short centuries they would become chubby, naked shills for greeting card companies, chocolate shops and jewelers? Valentine of Rome was beaten and beheaded. Whoo hoo! Way to go, there, Martyr number 1! Nothing says "I love you" like a good beheading, I say. Of course, there are probably some husbands and wives out there who would vote for a good beheading even when it's not a special occasion. Say, when the offending spouse leaves the cap off the toothpaste or the toilet seat up in the middle of the night. Or fails to take the ultra smelly garbage out to the curb on trash day.

The second martyred Saint Valentine (also beheaded) was imprisoned and tortured beforehand. Well, you know, the more I think about it, marriage can sometimes feel like prison and unending torture. So maybe we've got it right when we let this hapless Roman bishop serve as a symbol of that particular institution.

As if it's not bad enough being a single woman, (see "loser" in the wikipedia definition) there exists a holiday like this one to rub our already out-of-joint noses in our status. Why is it that a single man somehow serves as symbol of victory for the male species? Other men congratulate him on his escape (from torture, imprisonment and beheading?), while the single woman is an object of pity, nay, even scorn. Even if the aforementioned single woman is happily single. Go figure!

The Canadian band, Great Big Sea, has a rousing song called, "Scolding Wife". The refrain goes something like this....."I swear to God I'll hang myself if I get married again...." Think we could use it for a Valentine's Day theme song? I know a few folks who would happily learn all the words (if they don't know them already....)

I'm going to celebrate by lopping the heads off of a few hapless roses and eating my body weight in dark chocolate. Romance? Passion? Tenderness? Bah, humbug. Bring on the beheadings, baby!

Loving Life

Mason
8”x10” Graphite on Arches Hot Press
© Katherinellis Fine Art

Tao Te Ching
Translated by Stephen Mitchell

If you realize that all things change,
There is nothing that you will try to hold on to.

My studies of Taoism in recent weeks have led me to a book by an extraordinary woman named Byron Katie. She does not call herself a Taoist. She doesn’t call herself anything. But the way she lives her life and the vision that she shares come as close to the living embodiment of Taoism as anything I have found so far.

Katie has written three books, one of which is called A Thousand Words for Joy. In her books, and on her site, she proposes a simple way of achieving a joyous reality. Her philosophy is simple. When you argue with what is, you cause yourself stress and pain. By accepting your reality, minute by minute, you free yourself to experience joy. We can’t control life, but we can control our thoughts.

True. Too simple? Life-changing realizations usually are.

When I read her book, A Thousand Words for Joy, it really spoke to me. Her husband, Stephen Mitchell, is also one of my favorite translators of the Tao Te Ching. Each chapter in this book begins with a quote from the Tao Te Ching.

Katie’s contention is that life doesn’t cause suffering. It’s our thoughts that cause suffering. Change your thoughts, change your life. Simple. Easy? Yes. No. She does say that it’s easy to achieve this goal when life is pleasant and comfortable. What’s not to like? But when life brings pain, suffering or grief, then learning to love what is becomes far more challenging.

I am thoroughly enjoying learning about Taoism, reading the Tao Te Ching, as well as other books on Taoism, and trying to learn to love what is. I still don’t have an answer to the question, “can a snarky brainiac be a Taoist?”, but maybe there is no answer. Maybe there is no question.

A true Taoist lives in the moment, flowing like water with the events of the day. A true Taoist loves everything that happens around her. I’m trying to learn how to do that. Some of it is easy, other stuff not so much.

Am I loving my gorgeous new condo with the brand new furnishings? Yes! Loving it!

Am I loving walking to work in the sunshine and fresh air, rather than enduring a white knuckle suicide trek of thirty-five miles with giant scary SUVs riding my baby Nissan’s bumper? Yes! Loving it!

Am I loving my newly size 3 tush and brand new wardrobe of non-geeky clothes? You betcha! Loving it!

Am I loving my newly copper-colored coif? Check! Loving it!

Am I loving the undereye bags and wrinkles evident in my newly-skinny face? Yep. Absolutely. (Really, honest! No lying here.)

Am I loving the head cold that has mountains of orange-colored snot oozing from my nose at all hours of the day and night? The sub-zero temperatures rampaging through the state of Maine and the semi-truck-sized mountains of frozen ice and snow? Mmm….not so much.

Am I loving the chapped, flaky, raw, bright red nose and chin the aforementioned head cold has engendered? The snot-covered mounds of puffy white Kleenex adorning my person at all times? Mmmm…..

So…Gentle Reader, I’m trying really hard to love my life in all its glorious aspects, but some issues are more “challenging” than others. Obviously I do well with the easy stuff. I even embrace the challenges of living the newly-single life. But when it comes to head colds, there are areas, specifically in the region of mucus, that I cannot yet fully love. My Taoism has yet to embrace all aspects of my life. Obviously I need to grow far more as a person and Taoist wannabe.

To sum up my ongoing philosophy on this topic, I will leave you with the following pithy quote:

You can kiss your honey when your nose is runny. You may think it’s funny.
But it’s snot.