A History of ....

I have been trying to mentally compose this blog entry, but I keep going back in my mind, the back story to set the context, to explain the why for I was there at that particular time. And back and back and back. So, fuckit, let the stream of consciencelessness begin...

One of the most intensely spiritual and formative events that ever happened to me, happened when I was sixteen. Nineteen seventy three. Free love. Hashish. Bell bottoms. Thai sticks. Long hair.

And there I was....

...in Athens, Georgia. 1973. Home of the University of Georgia and a burgeoning music scene that would later produce REM and the B 52's. Free concerts were a part of campus life. Expected. What one paid student fees to provide. Drugs were freely available. For free.

I was sixteen and into self mutilation with cigarettes and other things. A cup of depression, anyone?

However, I do not wish to diminish the experience. Second Oldest Brother had surfaced there from his hitchhiking trek, maybe the year before. (Please excuse me if exactitude of dates is your obsession. It was a long time ago.) That summer, Mom and I drove from Northern Indiana to visit Brother. Lean on Me was everywhere on the radio. I did and do now love that song. I ended up staying in Athens for a few weeks, supposedly with Brother; mom drove back home, I guess.
Brother must have had his own plans, however, because I was quickly pawned off onto his friend, Alex. Alex was the manager of a motel and I lived with him there on Lumpkin Street for the better part of a week. He was way cute, with the requisite long hair and the plus of a having job and a pad! (I was so completely cool with that, but on how many levels was this wrong?)

Brother left me with 3 little green tablets which he said were LSD. HOTDAMNDOG!! "Don't do them all at once" was the sage advise - as he left me with a 23 year old crazy motel manager whilst he frolicked with the TWINS. (Hi, Brother!) I think I waited for about twelve minutes after his departure to take the first hit. This was the initial time I had dropped acid. "Take me there, Baby! Wherever THERE is!!!!!" (I took all three hits in four days.) It was pretty cool. The radio hallucinated at me. I about wore out a ball point pen making spirals on a notebook page. I was exceedingly alert and then I slept.

The next day, though, I had the Experience. Tripping out of my gourd on the second hit, I was in the motel pool when the rain began. I saw Every. Single. Rain. Drop. I saw the relationship. We are one. The ocean accepts all rivers. My mind was literally expanded that day. That night, Tom took nude group photos of me and Alex and three other people that I do not remember. Sixteen and trippin' and drinking Coor's brought from Over the Mississippi AND gettin' our picture took. (Tom, where are those negatives???) And how would these folks be prosecuted today?

It is a hard thing to explain, how that experience changed me. It was a pivot point in my creation. The why of the me of today.

To see the connectedness of all things, instead of the separateness of US from THEM that the Baptists taught. I am no Alan Watts. I can't describe it, but I lived it and try to live it still.

I think the last time I did LSD was at the premier of Star Wars thirty years ago. The Pyg (aka Pygmalion, the first husband) and I saw the second showing of the much anticipated movie at Loew's Tara in Atlanta. GoodGodAlmighty! I was twenty. Ushers were actually selling cups and frisbees and stuff to the people in line, as souvenirs. It was like two in the afternoon on a Friday. And hot. We were much too broke to buy such crap. Dope - that shit, was affordable. Always. The movie, of course, as time has told, was great! So exhilarating! After having sat in about the third row of seats in the middle of the theatre, and seeing the best western movie EVER MADE - I annihilated a lot of the enemy out the car window on the way home. Not so much a spiritual adventure, except for maybe killing a lot of the enemy. I'm a good shot.

I FELT IT

It's hot and windy in Lovely LAconia today. Clouds have moved in during the afternoon, but no rain is expected until maybe tomorrow. Maybe. The farmers are worried.

One of the things I decided that would add some zip to my festival display was various and creative uses of my fiber. (Not everyone spins, dammit.) Last year at Maryland, I bought Carol Huber Cypher's book Hand Felted Jewelry and Beads, read quickly through it and promptly put it in the bookcase. Until this week.

I can't say I care for many of Carol's designs. The mere idea of wearing felt jewelry makes me sweat. Felt flowers for my hairdo, on the other hand, I could imagine. So I gathered the required bubble wrap, plastic, towels and soapy hot water, along with some pink, purple and green bits of wool and silk. The technique wasn't hard and thirty minutes later, I had this.



It was actually rather fun. It was nice to do something besides knit and spin. (I have been trying to work up to sewing some clothing for quite awhile since I still have 45 yards of silk noil waiting and much of my current wardrobe is strangely shrinking.)(Don't hold your breath.)

The spinning and knitting, by the way, of the current shawl is proceeding. This one is uncharacteristically monotone, at least once knit up. The original fiber was browns and pinks with dashes of gold, blue and purple. (I'm positive that the border will contrast.)



So anyway, as the one flower dried, I studied it and began mentally designing a myriad of others in fantastic shapes and colors. I make no promises, but if more do materialize, I will let you all know.

a joke

Q: How many hipsters does it take to screw in a light bulb?

A: What? You don't know?

Also, I want to credit Found Magazine for the deeply wonderful Bunnee drawing.

Tomb Stones

Between us, Sweetie and I have buried three bunnies since Friday.

The first was one of the five babies - he asphyxiated in a burrow, snuggled up behind another baby. That one was almost gone, too, but was revived and survived. Nobody ever said that bunnies were the sharpest knives in the drawer, but at least this little dumb one went to sleep to never awake.

Whilst I was in Franklin, Quentin of Wry Neck passed on.

Also whilst in Franklin, Stubby's hindquarters were somehow affected. Either he was injured or was somehow ill. Today the town dogs broke his neck because he couldn't move fast enough. This was just after a phone conversation with Sweetie about whether we should cage the Little Warrior or not. Damn. Stubby was a love and I cried hard.



Tomorrow, we build a fence. I am ashamed that we are such slack asses that it takes something like this to get us motivated to build the fence that we have planned to erect for at least two years.

We Back

It was a mixed weekend, a give and take, a ying and yang.

The festival was, for the second year, sparsely attended and many other vendors I spoke with, but not all, said that sales were meager. After my expenses of motel and gas, plus product cost, not including my time, I broke even.

On the plus side, my booth came with excellent lighting and it's own ceiling fan. I made new friends, bought sock yarn, made trades and came away with ideas to improve my presentation. I received pleasing comments about my fiber and the two shawls that I was able to display on the clean white walls.

Considering that I had not worked hard in the preceding weeks to prepare, and that I had miscalculated the date, the fact that I got my shit together and made it there at all is remarkable.

By way of cookie magic, I discovered that my blog has been nominated for best knitting blog name, by whom, I do not know and actually, for what purpose, I do not know.

But it is still cool.

uh oh

Sometimes I don't know how I can screw up my existence any worse. And then I do.

The Franklin, Indiana Hoosier Hills Fiberarts Festival is THIS WEEKEND. Not a couple of weeks away.

I am taking what I have, fiber wise, and five bunnies. Wish me luck.