Recently in Personal Category

No one around me seems to want to talk to me, and no one online is around. I am bored, there is nothing to do, but yet it is still much too early to sleep. I don't even seem to have anything interesting to blog about. What a sucky day this has turned out to be.

Would the person who decided to send me a subscription to Instinct Magazine please step forward?

I know I am a bit of a perv, but I really don't need dudes coming to me monthly in the form a magazine... at least not guys that are that gay. There is no information included with the subscription, so I have no clue who the hell did this, and the magazines just sort of appeared suddenly today (two of them, one for last month, one for this month).

I'm a bit freaked out, so if the responsible party will come forward, it will ease my worries a bit.

http://www.instinctmagazine.com if anyone else is curious what showed up in my mail today.

I have been sitting beside my bookshelf for the past hour while working on various things online, primarily taking care of some course related stuff. The bookshelf sits in this room, usually undisturbed unless I'm pulling something specific from it, usually for research or adding something to it, usually some book I will get to reading eventually.

Directly to my left is the reference section (I own about 3 fiction books, total), which contains numerous books on personal health and fitness. These are books I have been collecting until I can have a plan of attack which includes them and I think I am approaching that point. I don't work out well because I don't have a plan, I become bored because all of the exercises that don't require special equipment are all the same. I am going to change that. First, I think it is time to build a pull-up bar unit outside and it is also a good time to get back into either walking or jogging EVERY night. I have become too stationary again, like so many times before. I work very well when I have a plan and a schedule, so thats what I am going to do. I am going to set goals for myself, based on the United States Marine Corps basic fitness requirements. My longterm goal will be to obtain the highest score possible on these measurable tests. For the short term I intend to use the tests as a guide for where I need to be as far as fitness. Once I have gotten into motion towards the long term goal, I will also add in some other goals, such as working towards my ideal body look. My Polish genetics will be hard to adapt for in this plan, but I am going to do my best. I am fairly short, but almost maximum height for a Pole, so the only thing I can do is work on areas such as my obliques to get my width under control, which shouldn't be a problem. I can deal with the broad shoulders and wide hip bones as long as my obliques give me some definition.

My guides for this goal will be:

-USMC Guide Book of Essential Subjects (0-967-51236-0)
-Anybody's Guide to Total Fitness (0-7872-9878-1)
-Men's Health Hard Body Plan (1-57954-229-8)
-Men's Health Book of Muscle (1-57954-769-9)
-Complete Book of Abs, The (0-375-75143-2)
-USMC Workout (1-57826-158-9 (maybe, if I get up the balls to do it)

and for balance I will seek guidance from:

-The Perfectible Body: The Western Ideal of Male Physical Development (0-8264-0787-0)

I will spend some time this week preparing for this and then I will begin execution of it no later than next Monday.

This song has been stuck in my head for the past few hours and it won't seem to leave.
--
A British tar is a soaring soul,
As free as a mountain bird,
His energetic fist should be ready to resist
A dictatorial word.

His nose should should pant,
and his lip should curl,
His cheeks should flame,
and his brow should furl,
His bosom should heave,
and his heart should glow,
And his fist be ever ready
for a knock-down blow...

His nose should pant and his lip should curl,
His cheeks should flame and his brow should furl,
His bosom should heave and his heart should glow,
And his fist be ever ready for a knock-down blow.

His eyes should flash with an inborn fire,
His brow with scorn be wrung;
He never should bow down to a domineering frown,
Or the tang of a tyrant tongue.

His foot should stamp,
and his throat should growl,
His hair should twirl,
and his face should scowl,
His eyes should flash,
and his breast protrude,
And this should be his costomary attitude.

His foot should stamp, and his throat should growl,
His hair should twirl, and his face should scowl;
His eyes should flash, and his breast protrude,
And this should be his customary attitude,
His attitude,
His attitude,
His attitude!

-A British Tar Is A Soaring Soul, H.M.S. Pinafore

I have the capacity to make others miserable. I can hurt people emotionally with a simple glance, turn of my body and turn of my mind. I use these abilities all too often to get my way with things, or to deal with situations that make me uncomfortable. The one thing it seems I am not capable of is openly and honestly expressing the emotions which cause these behaviors.

I am a very closed person, and I don't want to be. Events of the past few days have proven to me that I am the cause of most of my own problems. If I only let others around me be happy when I'm happy, and I am only able to be happy when others are happy, then I am not very likely to be happy.

What is it that I need as a person? Why am I always so unhappy? I am happy in the ceramic studio, and in other classes as well. I am happy during the day when I am by myself and there is no one else around. I am not happy when people are around me and they expect me to always come up with things to do, or when I am around people and they refuse to speak. I am sad when I am alone, and find myself needing someone, and reach out for a "friend" and find that either none or there or none wish to interact with me, they are all too busy with other things, or are too busy holding offenses of the past against me. Is that how people in my life wish to punish me, by ignoring me when I need them the most? I know I am fucked up when it comes to interacting with people, and I try to improve where I can, and I try to apologize for my errors, but no one seems to be willing to forgive me, someone they consider to be a friend. Should I accept people in my life who are completely unwilling to forgive me for errors of the past that have not been since repeated? Should I call these people that refuse to interact with me when I need someone the most friends? Maybe I am selfish and should realize that I am not worthy of having people to talk to in those times? I have thought of going out and finding other people who haven't been exposed to my problematic past, but I feel a certain loyalty to my current friends and would never want to create a situation where I would have to decide between my current friends and my new friends.

Life interacting with other people is confusing.

It is 0330, I should be asleep right now, but as much as a try, I can't fall asleep, all of these thoughts are converging on my tiny brain at once.

With such a short time remaining (14 days) it is becoming more of a challenge to keep these thoughts under control. I am going to spew them here....

1. I am thinking about scrapping the original set of sculptures idea, instead, making the drawing (see a few posts back) the final member of the set, and starting from a much simpler point, the sculptures have to be 12" tall, so I will do a large bowl, cut a hole in the bottom, add a cylinder that is almost closed at the top on top of that, make it have a hole in the bottom as well. That should be 12", or higher, so that will be the first one, and I will develop from there to arrive at the final piece, which is in the diagram. If I can't think of enough transitions, i will go back to my adding vines idea to finish out the set. Doing it like this presently is just too difficult, I am a wheel potter, not a sculptor, so the intricate detail of the vines, leaves, and flowers (well... wheel thrown roses aren't that hard) is just an overload that I can't do, i took a risk on trying it, and the risk failed.

2. Talked to Molly a lot today, and we came up with a plan to mid-range fire some ware upon approval from Keith. Keith always says yes to a reasonable request, so we are go for that. I am planning to mid-range fire my sculptures just to make sure they have more of a chance of survival. I mean no disrespect to the mighty Alpine and Geil kilns, but the gas reduction is just a bit too much for some of my ware, so a Cone 6 oxidation might just do the trick to settle my nerves. (will custom mix glazes)

3. I am planning to fire the soda kiln, since no one else is, i'm going to light a [metaphorical] fire under my subordinate classmates (the lower level of wheel students) to get them to prepare some stuff for that kiln. I have a piece that fired apart that I plan to have glazed fired in here to make sure it is a safe ride for it.

4. Projects Remaining -

• 3 - 5 sculptures
• 2-3 more big bowls (final project)

The sculptures will just round out the last few pieces of the set and make sure I have enough to cover my ass. The big bowls are to be really creative big bowls that will stand out above the rest of my work. I am working diligently to make sure my final project is a success. I have worried myself about my lidded wares, but I have finally convinced myself that enough of them exist and that everything will turn out OK. I have 5 seated in the piece and a lot more seated in the lid. I think I have met quota.

Let's do a quick check to see that I have done everything, shall we?

• 5 small cylinders - check, all accounted for and done
• 10" or higher cylinders - check (little low on these, but more have been thrown to cover my ass and I have a few that count as multiple)
• Lidded forms - check (see above)
• Sets (2) - check (bowls and steins)
• Sculptural forms - almost, working
• Cumulative Body of Work - check (but with uncertainty)

5. Glazing - not exactly on my high priority list, I will eventually get to it before the end of the semester. I'm looking forward to getting this finished. If I am not careful, I will end up being my own glaze load or two, I should probably start on that soon so that I can stager the load over all of the remaining glaze kiln loads.

6. The weights of my clay balls - so many times in the past few days I have been asked how much clay I use for certain things. I DONT KNOW! I have ceased weighting my clay, I just crab from my personal barrel what I think I need and I work from that. There is no science behind it, just ceramic intuition. I feel bad that I don't have the numbers for those that ask, I am going to try remembering to weight after I pull out of my barrel so that I have more to offer than a dumb look.

7. Space Consumption - I have 2 standards (5 shelves each), one table (about 10' x 4'), about 3 other shelves and some floor space (for the really tall ones) currently claimed with my ware. I am concerned that I am becoming a studio hog. I have so much ware and I don't know what to do with it all. I want to be more organized about it and clean up a bit, but i just don't know how to go about it. I didn't really ask if I could use the table (i just sort of started landing on it one day and it has grown from there). I have bisque ware on several shelves, glaze ware on one shelf, and the rest of the space is greenware that hasn't been fired yet. I don't know when I will ever find the time and patience to manage to get everything dry enough to fire. More importantly, when do I stop throwing? I know I can work until the last day (April 26th), I'm just not sure how that will work out. I want to clear out my table of greenware, and turn it into a table for glazing (mostly for me, but kinda open for others too).

8. Bonus project - if I complete my sculptures in my next visit or two to the studio, I plan to utilize the time to work on another "final project" of sorts. I want to work more on my tall vessels. Up to this point, all of my tall vessels have had "accidents" in the kilns (2 in bisque, 1 in glaze). I want to take some time and attempt to do 6 - 10 tall stacked pieces to sort of utilize the last days as best as I can and maybe show Tweedy my dedication to the course. In addition to these tall things, I intend to work on doing small projects for myself as well. I have had a request for some salad bowls, which will be a challenge for me, but I think I will enjoy learning how to make them. I hope my friend Oscar won't be too critical of them since this will be my first time doing a shallow bowl. One thing I found the night I did the set of steins (yes, the whole set, in one session) is that I am good at sets. I have a talent for repetitive throwing (Tweedy mentions that a lot, but not usually in a good context), I want to exercise that talent.

9. Wheel work at home - I have been working some on my wheel at home, I have gotten good at sets in earthenware too. I am more conservative with my clay at home than at the studio (where I have been given Carte Blanche on clay consumption), because at home, I have to pay for my clay. I likely won't do anything big at home during the summer, but I will keep throwing as long as I can still afford to buy clay and can throw things small enough to fit in my kiln.

X. Tweedy has pneumonia, this doesn't make me happy, since there is a lot left to be done, critiqued or put down. How can we finish the semester without Tweedy? Also, I have noticed that I am the only person in my class who is this far along to completion, everyone else is trailing by at least two projects. I am trying to offer encouragement, but these guys are easily put down by their own bad emotions relating to the stresses of the course. This isn't a course that can be done lightly with success, it requires skill, motivation, and most importantly, a belief that when it all comes down to the last few moments, your ware will all emerge from the kilns and be safe, and the course will come to a dramatic halt as the pieces are paraded like show horses on a summer day in Tennessee. I feel really bad for Tweedy, at the start of the semester she stepped on a needle and was out for a few weeks and now she is ending like this.

Its 0400, I feel slightly more tired, but not by much, but at least I have had a chance to do a proper memory dump.

I have been told my previous blog entry, "Time", was insulting. For anyone that may have been insulted by the entry, I'm sorry, I did not mean it in that way. I accept myself to be a standard of non-standardization, and expect my readers to do so as well. I exist in a world of my own where I can state what is normal, knowing that it is likely that anyone viewing into my world will perceive it as a queer and confusing place. I accept that I am different from a lot of the world, hence I write from a perspective of the majority, with the reality of being in the minority, in order to personify the way I experience things in the "normal" world. So again, I am sorry that my words were taken as an insult, I have a great respect for those of you who can still think of 12 hour time as the standard.

Two days ago was the 12 year anniversary of my grandmother's death. During the day I conducted myself fairly silently and in a mode of reflection and attempting to resolve the ongoing mourning in my head. Every year on December 4th I have either cried, been depressed or otherwise had problems functioning, much like the morning of her death. On December 4, 1994 my entire world changed. It started with a startled awakening as my mother and cousin entered my room at just after 4am to inform me of the event. It wasn't a secret that the event was coming, at that time, cancer was almost a certain death. I handled the event gracefully given its severity and the earliness of the hour. I managed to exhibit no signs of weakness or mourning at all at first, staying strong, just as my grandfather was. It wasn't until my grandmother's Hospice nurse arrived and began talking to the family that my grandfather and I both reacted at almost exactly the same time. When I tried to calm myself and listen for the big clock in the living room's excessively loud ticking, which usually comforts me, I found it missing. One of the great ironic events in sourthern tradition, when someone dies the household clock is forced to halt, to bring the family luck and to allow the soul to pass peacefully. Beyond my aunt asking me to go for a walk with her, and finding myself physically unable to I don't recall much else about the morning.

The other day I decided to repeat my steps of that morning, returning to the same spot at which I froze up 12 years prior. I wasn't awake at the exact hour it originally happened, but if I would have been I probably would have attempted to repeat it then. I sat down at the point of my original freeze for nearly half an hour to reflect on the day of her death and the things that have happened over the past 12 years. My grandmother was a big influence in my life, and perhaps my role model then, and maybe even now? Like the clock, many things in my life stopped then. I stopped being artistic, creative and my desire to do things outdoors, such as gardening.

After all of this time, and all of my attempts to move forward, I think I have finally managed to get a good start on it.

My GITI journal has large gaps in time and lots of changes in format, the blog misses a lot of major events and isn't that accurate because of the fact that it is outward facing. I am having a hard time opening up fully to either myself in my personal journal in GITI or my public blog (friends?). I don't like the closed person I have become.