I'll see you in the ICU!

Here I am again

Just me and you, up late. Although, you might be reading this during decent hours...
(sigh)

I've gotten so used to the hours it's sort of sad. When the doorbell rings, and it's a package delivery, I am virtually blinded by the daylight when I open the door. The UPS guy must think I'm a crackhead. The other day I came upstairs and was blinded by the 4:30 pm sun. Pathetic.

I'm Dracula, evidently. If this were "olden times" I'd have villagers at the door with pitchforks and torches by now.



Anywho--here I am. This wouldn't be so hard if it weren't winter. It's dang cold in the house, and the downstairs bedroom gets so hot with the heat on, so we leave it off all night long. So, to offset the cold, I bake things. My husband must think he married a Keebler elf since he wakes up to scones, bread, cookies and all sorts of other crap that is bad for our waistlines. I try to be wholesome about it, whole wheat, organic whole grains, etc, but you know...it's still cookies.

Anyway, my point tonight is this:

I'll get to it in a minute.

We were talking about a mutual friend who was laid off around the start of the year. He's undecided on what he wants to do--so he does nothing. His situation makes me think. I've been there, and I was at the same crossroads. Lately, the difficulties I've had adapting to women in the workplace have made me wonder if I've made a mistake. Last night I was sketching out the changes I want to make in the kitchen--a sudden peace came over me as I lost myself in design (and I wasn't really even getting that far into it.) Somehow, moving lines around was calming. I was happy for a moment. The thought that tomorrow night I will have to go back into that den of vipers and hold in all the comments I'm thinking, while they openly insult me, chide or belittle me, makes me a bit queezy.

It's only for a year. I'm almost a third of the way through. I've been through worse, I'm not complaining, really. I just smile and think that soon I'll be gone, and on to better things.

There's only a couple weeks left in the year.

Incredible.

I think back to last year...slogging it out in New York, going to sleep at 2:30, getting up at 4:00, standing in the bitter cold waiting for the shuttle to Cornell, missing home, at least now I'm home. At least now I can occasionally see my husband and dog. What could be better?

:)

ok, so now my point: I was thinking about this friend of ours, and how nice it was to have a sharpened lead in my hand, and sketch paper, and to be using my creativity. I realized how much my spirit has been sapped at this place. I used to have some ideas rolling around up there, in my brain case, before I was a bitch, or a dumbass, take your pick.

So, I thought about some of my ideas that have fallen off the back of the stove, while being back-burnered.

I wanted to buy an apartment in Florence, Italy, and have the sort of life that would allow me to go there at least a few months out of the year. Now all I think about is paying off my debt. Or rather, how long that's gonna take.

I wanted to write a book. I still don't want to jinx it by talking about it, but it was a study of the Italian Piazza, done to the level of architectural research projects...I was just hoping to make enough money to pay for the apartment, actually...that would have been cool.

I wanted to patent something--I have a design, and some sketches, but I have never filled out the forms needed for this.

It's funny how now all I want is to learn as much as I can at this place, enough to make people stop hating me or even one better: enough to go back to Columbia.

I used to be one of those big thinkers. Anything was possible if I set my mind to it. Now I've let those vipers gnaw away at my self-confidence, my self-image...this sucks.

I'm trying so hard to regain/retain any little part of my creative self...but god damnit...it's so hard.

Not that architecture was great; it sucked balls at times.
Here's a picture of Thom Mayne, one of the creators of Sci-Arc (the school) the Santa Monica Style, and the firm Morphosis.



He once made one of my classmates cry when he said, during his critique, "where is the architecture!? if you're going to tell me this is architecture, I say BULLSHIT!! This..this...STUCCO CRAP!! How is this any DIFFERENT than ANYTHING that is out there now?! What PROBLEMS have you SOLVED!? HM? What PROBLEMS? (my classmate looked at his model here, bottom lip quivering) I say BULLSHIT!!! Architecture is your WORST ENEMY!!"

Wow, that was some harsh jury he had that day. So, I can suffer a bunch of insecure vipers, and their petty jabs. Any day.


Really, this ain't shit. I've made it through way worse.

posted by sketchmonkey @ 2:06 AM