Character Sketch

 There’s lots of things about me people don’t know anything about.  That’s because they never ask.  Did you know that one summer I lived in New York City and played with a band?  We had gigs all over the city. My buddy found that for me.  He had a brother living over there at the time.

    Or that another time I jumped off a hundred and ten foot bridge?  The guy who did it before me broke his ankle.  I landed on my side and had a bruise and sore hip for several weeks.  Guess I'm too old for bridge jumping now, although it's the season.  

    It’s been nice just sitting here.  Although the sun is starting to get awful hot.
    Mind if I bum one of those off of you?  I've just got one left in my pack and have been holding onto it for dear life.
    Lady over there; she's $14 short of a bus ticket.  Told her to go to one of those churches in the area.  One time, in Denver, I was $5 short on a bus ticket--took me two days to come up with the money.  

       My mom sent me a letter a few weeks back about a reunion her family is having.  She’s not the sort to call or e-mail.  I decided to show up for it; it would be nice to get away.  Plus I haven’t seen my mom for maybe five years now.  I’ve already been waiting here half hour.  I know that she will be here, though. She just isn’t the punctual type.

    After the bus dropped us off and everyone cleared out there was still one taxi left who had no one to pick up.  The driver turned up his radio and opened up his car and laid back on the hood.  He played two great songs; "Midnight Special" and "Eye of the Tiger".
    There was some crazy shit going down on the bus.  This one lady; she fell asleep then the guy sitting next to her--guess that he thought that it was the right thing to do--he starts to lick her arm.  Then the driver tells him he has to get of the bus and he starts screaming obscenities at him, every one you can think of.
    This other lady, she came on with her two kids, then passed out on one of them.  The girl was hitting her mom in the face with a shoe trying to get her to get up.  People say that he had a seizure.  I could tell that she was really stoned, her eyeballs rolled back in her head like that.  

    Sure has been nice to get away for this two-day road trip.  I've been doing 10-hour shifts; roustabout work repairing people's pump jacks all day.  My old boss says he can get me a job as manager of Jiffy Lube.  A steady job sure would be nice.  Before this, I was unemployed for a year and a half.  What happened was, got laid off in December and forgot to get my license renewed.  I'd built up 3200 hours in plumbing, but couldn't get a journeyman's because I forgot to renew my license.  Fifteen percent of my income goes to child support. 

    I've done all sorts of things; used to cut hair, to cook; thought about going to culinary school; don't know if I wanted to do that as a career.  Only thing that I haven't done yet is go work on one of those boats out in Alaska.  One of these days I'll get up there, come back with a few grand in my pocket.
    Problem is though that I am really a musician. 

    I got real involved in a band in my early 20s.  That's why I dropped out of school, decided that it really wasn't for me.  I played bass, keyboard, some back-up vocals.  We had lots of local gigs, and even Sony was interested in us for awhile.  Kept thinking we would have our break and make it big.  Never did happen, though.  One of the guys left to get married, another went back to school.  Still have some songs rattling around in my head.  Maybe one of these days I will write them down.

    It's been, oh year and a half since my ex and I split.  We didn't do anything legal or nothing after the breakup, I just send her the child support check every month.  Have a friend of mine, he started to get his paychecks garnished when he wasn't paying, and now his ex- wife hands him the baby every Sunday and says "enjoy your stupid holiday."  Sure am glad we managed to avoid that.
    She was a little bit of a head-case; became an emotional nightmare after just two drinks.  That's because of a motorcycle accident she'd had in her teens.
    Sort of went crazy after we split, though.  I went on a Subway diet and lost 20 pounds in three weeks!  That was when I got into skydiving.  I’ve jumped at least fourteen times; last time I jumped nude with a bunch of people who I used to party with.
    Plus it's been hard, adjusting socially.  Used to come home and my ex would have a meal all prepared, it was all domestic and like.  Now I've had to learn how to go out and meet people again.  Think that I'm going to acquire a few pieces of flair; maybe a hat with a feather or something; think that should help. 

    At one point during the break-up I was living in the attic and she was on the first floor and I left for the weekend and when I got back all of my stuff was gone.  Found out what it’s like to start over from scratch.

    My ex got a new boyfriend and is already living with just after we split.  And she's been real obsessed with finding out what I am doing and who I was with.  Don’t really understand that.

    I haven’t been able to meet someone else.  Every time I get involved with a girl I put all of the effort into the relationship and she takes my heart out and steps on it and puts it into flames.  I've learned that good looking people don’t always treat you right.

    I met a girl once who wasn’t like that.  This was at a poker party, back in my college days, this was in my 20s.  (I never did graduate.)  I am trying to make him NOT of that 'I go to college and graduate' cultural cross-section.  She was pretty in sort of an unusual way; lots of freckles and didn’t have that real done-up look that I have always found unattractive.  It was more the way she talked that I liked; always making jokes but didn’t have to be the center of attention, or how she would mention things like a trip to Prague or her family’s condo in France in a real ordinary way that made these far-off places somehow seem accessible.  Just got the feeling she was the kind of girl who you might have spent the entire day with not doing anything at all.

    She really kicked our asses good.  I thought my mom had taught me how to play but she really showed me!  We sure was glad that we decided not to play for money that night.  I’d say that is the closest that I have ever come to love at first sight.  Although I don’t know if I even believe in that as a concept.

    Professor back in college said that you never really love another person; you only love your idea of that person.  Don’t know if I agree with that either.

    My dad is the one who got me interested in all of the philosophers.  Plato was his favorite, but he read all sort of things.  He used to read to me about Lady Philosophy and stories like Siddhartha or the allegory of the cave when I was just a little boy.  He’s passed away now, almost fifteen years now.  One day I opened the door to the basement at our house and the light was on, which was unusual.  So I stepped down a few stairs, and I saw him sitting there in an old recliner.  Kind of funny, I thought, since it was the middle of the day, and the light was on and all.  I called to him and he didn’t answer me, so I went down and thought that he was sleeping.  What really had happened is that he had swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills.

    Oh, sure, I miss him.  Think that is why I ended up studying philosophy in college.  Although I can’t say that I remember a lot of it anymore.  Think that it was Descartes who said something about “I am only wise in that I am not wise” or something like that.  I think that he was really onto something there.

    I mean, life is so complex.  When I was six, I thought that I knew everything.  I wanted to be Eric the Red.  Then, when I grew up and started going to school, I found out that everything had already been discovered.

    My mom should be showing up pretty soon now.  She sure did sound glad when I called and told her that I was coming home.  Although she has never been the punctual type.

    Anyway, I don’t mind.  Just gives me some time to sit here and think.  Although the sun is starting to get awful hot.

    I wonder whatever happened to that girl.  I can’t even remember her name anymore; just her red hair and eyes, low and slanted, like two grey stones.  And how she really kicked our asses good.  Boy.  We sure was glad that we decided not to play for money that night.

    And I wonder if it is true that 'in all chaos there is a cosmos' or if it's all just a mess and nothing really makes sense.

    And I wonder if someday I am going to have my break.  Or if somewhere, somehow, it’s already come and I missed it.

Happy Thanksgiving

everybody!  So what are you making especially for today?  The most exciting thing that I will be making is pumpkin bread; exciting in that I have never made it before.

Good luck to you tomorrow, may you arise early and snag many many door busters.  I've decided to have a disciplined Black Friday and to only go to JoAnns.  Terribly boring, I know.

it's ALL on sale!  

This Friday, Saturday and Sunday I'll be having *free shipping* on all purses and accessories in my etsy store; use the code "blackfriday", and on Monday everything in the store is 25% off!  (coupon code 'cybermonday').  Which is the better deal?  Couldn't tell you....you do the math.

Adieu~m  

"The Gospel According to Mark" by Jorge Luis Borges New Yorker Fiction podcast with Paul Theroux

So anyway, yeah.  If I were you I'd listen to this podcast....or perhaps I should say if you were me, you would have listened to this podcast....approximately 18 billion times!!!   Since this is in fact what I have done.  And why?  Because it is so goddamned good, that is why.  Such a brief story; (spoiler alert!) of a young Argentine who is crucified by some Gauchos after he reads them the Gospel according to Mark; but "deftly written" (Paul Theroux quote); the kind which you CAN listen to over and over (and over and over) again and continue get more out of it!!!  

Today I listened to it while doing a little paper-crafting--but more on that later.  Good story, good before and after reflections with author Paul Theroux and New Yorker Fiction editor Deborah Treisman.  

         

Fun Fabric Scraps from Sara at GoGingham!!

Here's my favorite of the scraps that
Sara gave me; at one point this was a dress sleeve.  I love
the sweet roses; wish that I had WAY more of this
fabric.   

Just a few weeks ago, Sara Tetreault of the blog Go Gingham generously donated an awesome bag of fabric scraps to me, which I have used in several of my creations this week.

These sweet little Florence purses have been a top seller for little girls;
I love the sweet Calicos and yellow gingham that Sara gave me.

I've incorporated some of the rose-calico fabric into
these tissue holders.

Tomorrow and Sunday I'll be selling these at the St. Anthony Bazaar in Forest Grove, and will be putting more online soon!  

The Politicization of Birth Control: Terri Gross interviews Jill Lepore on Fresh Air.

So anyway...yeah.  Terri Gross interviewed Jill Lepore on the history of the birth control movement on her program Fresh Air last Thursday.  Lepore recently wrote the article "Birthright" for the New Yorker on this dirty, hairy subject.   I listened to the interview while sewing together these 'camila' sunglasses holders.

Gross asks her why she's chosen to write about the history of birth control, and Lepore gives this eloquent response, "It is the great tragedy of American politics that this issue divides us so profoundly....there is a surprising lack of basic human charity when people talk about this issue no matter what their position...and I do think that that when we are often not talking about abortion that we are talking about abortion." (And why is it, I wonder, that when people are talking about birth control and they are so often also talking about abortion, as in this instance of Lepore's response?)

They discuss Margaret Sanger, who opened the first birth control clinic in the US in 1916.  Sanger thought that women needed to have control over the amount of children they had, since childbirth was very dangerous at the time.  (She grew up in a family of 11 children and her mother died age of 45 while her father live to be 80, and also witnessed many difficult childbirths during her work as a nurse on the Lower East Side.)

Interesting to note that in opening her birth control clinic in 1916, Sanger intended only to provide birth control to married women; and not to provide abortions, making me wonder what Sanger might think about her legacy in the modern-day Planned Parenthood.

They also discuss the politicization of birth control.  For example, in 1970 Nixon signs Title 10 which provided government funding for family planning services.  In his re-election, however, he reversed his support of Title 10 and, in an attempt to divide the Democrats by securing the Catholic vote, speaks eloquently about the sanctity of human life (Humane Vitae had been published in 68).  Probably a smart move for him to make, as in the last several decades all successful presidential campaigns have won Catholic vote.

Lepore unfortunately only superficially mentions the Catholic Church's opposition to birth control with publication of humane vitae in 1968, and never discusses its prediction that widespread use of birth control would create a culture where men "may forget the reverence due to a woman, and, disregarding her physical and emotional equilibrium, reduce her to being a mere instrument for the satisfaction of his own desires, no longer considering her as his partner whom he should surround with care and affection." ~A consequence that can widely be seen in this Western culture today, where 'living in sin' has become the status quo, and sexual trafficking has increased dramatically.

A surprisingly good interview.  Gross' questions did not reveal an overt agenda, as they so often do when she discusses religion or politics.

Holiday Bazaars in Portland, Lake Oswego, Beaverton

Hello all,

Here is a list of the Holiday Bazaars where I will be participating this month and next.  The Carriage House Holiday Boutique in Beaverton is going on now through Sunday, November 13th.  Also, be sure to visit my etsy store;  through November 20th use the coupon code "HolidaySale" for 15% off all items.

Cheers,

Meghan 

Carriage House Holiday Boutique, November 4th-6th and Wednesday Nov 9th thru Sun Nov 13th

Location: 8760 SW Jamieson Road, Portland OR
Time: 10 am to 5 pm
_____________________________________________

Fall Bazaar at Carman Oaks, Saturday November 12th

Location: 3800 Carman Drive Lake Oswego OR
Time: 10:00 am to 3:00 pm
______________________________________________

St. Anthony Bazaar, Sat/Sun November 19th and 20th

Location: St. Anthony Catholic Church 1660 Elm Street, Forest Grove
Time: Saturday November 19th: 9-6 and Sunday November 20th 9-4
______________________________________________


==December==

Garden Home Show, Saturday December 3rd

Location: Garden Home Rec Center, 7475 SW Oleson Raod, Portland
Time: 9 am - 4 pm
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St. Pius X Women's Bazaar

Here's my purse and accessory display at the Bazaar.  

This weekend I participated in the St. Pius X Women's Club Bazaar in Cedar Mills, a happy gathering of many fun and talented artisans.  

These are some of the items that I had for sale.  

Here is some of the beautiful pottery of MamiYamada, who I also have sold with at the Beaverton Art Court!

Look at her totally cute plaques!  Love the quotes.  

Here's a biz card holder that I purchased from Mami--LOVE it!!!  

Check out this beautiful crochet, at the booth next to me.  I love images created from crochet! 

Too cute!  This is a mini-fabric studio, would have loved to have purchased this for my 

studio space.  

And here is a pizza studio that she has created as well.  So so cool.  what a fun weekend!  

Last Saturday at the Art Court

An interesting visitor approached my table of purses and accessories at the Beaverton Art Court this weekend, the last show of the season.  Unusual in part because, unlike 98% of the visitors who look at my purses, he was not of the female persuasion.   But there's more to it than that.


He began to sort intently through the purses and accessories, with a desperate look on his face.

"Can I help you find something?"  I asked.

"Not something," he told me.  "Someone."
He unfortunately did not elaborate on any of the details, but said with dreamy, far-away look on his face, "I just finished running the Portland Marathon, and as I crossed the finish line, all I could see was her face."

"Ah," I responded.  "Well if you want to get her back you're going to have to do something dramatic."


And I suggested this purse to him.



"No," he said.  "She really likes to play tennis.  I'd better go with something bigger."

So he decided on this purse, which is in fact large enough to fit a tennis racket inside of it!  Plus, it has short handles for carrying with your hands, and long handles to carry over your shoulder.

He had a t-shirt that he had purchased for another vendor.  "This will go great wtih the purse," he said as he stuffed it inside.  


"Good luck." I gave him a pat on the back, and he went on his way.

With this story, I want to address a group of people who I have largely ignored in my aggressive marketing campaign; men; and to emphatize to you that no matter what you have done, in whatever context, to whatever woman, that you can win her back!!!

Buying one of these purses will help you.  Trust me, she will be thrilled.  As thrilled as the woman in this picture.

(pretend for a second that the ring is a purse with a t-shirt in it)


Evern better, find a shirt, to stuff inside the purse, perhaps one from here, or here, or even here.  That will put you off to a good start :)