Know What?

This post is a rant. A rant about one thing I think is crappy and what I'm going to do about it, and Something I think is not crappy at all but makes me very happy.

You know what I think is crappy? Motor vehicles.

Cars and driving and gasoline. I'm tired of getting in and out of my car - the actual act of getting in, buckling up, slamming my door shut to get it to close (my bent frame has screwed up the door's alignment so it doesn't always close unless I slam it...which I can't do unless I roll the window down, because the inside handle is falling off and I can't pull it too hard). I'm tired of pulling on the blinker switch. I'm tired of touching the gear-shift. I'm tired of worrying that a kid might be right behind me, or that a car might come out of no where and side-swipe me. I'm just tired of driving.

I love long road-trips, but I hate going around town. People are mean! Nothing exemplifies this more than the act of driving.

I was in Seattle yesterday and it made me so grateful that I don't live there. I started out having a lovely, calm drive with Jason Upton playing, making me feel whimsical and happy and at peace. Then I got lost in Seattle traffic and immediately wanted to shoot myself.

I'm tired of going to the gas pump and seeing more money disappear in one visit to the pump than I give to my church for the entire month, or to help poor people through charities in probably the whole year (so far).

Here is what I am going to do: I am going to sell the car I bought last fall and no longer need and can't afford to repair. This will give me a little bit of money for things I need, and make my room mates happy to have one less car. It will make me happy not to have a car in the yard. No more Car-Yard, please.

Second, I am going to stop driving my truck for a while. Yes, stop, altogether. I'm going to put it on that placeholder insurance policy thing for parked cars, which will save me money and force me to have to ride my bike or take the bus and not be tempted to keep driving around even though I hate it and it stresses me out.

There is no reason for me not to do this. Really. The only place I go right now that makes sense to drive to is my job, which is about 10 miles away. But I only work 2 days a week. A ten-mile bike ride two days a week shouldn't kill a person who continually daydreams about putting all her belongings in a backpack and tramping around the country on bike. Right?

I moved to Washington partly because I wanted to have an f-society, Walden Pond, Thoreau-Wannabe adventure. So now I need to actually do something counter-cultural and radical, otherwise, where is the adventure?

OK - Rant # 2. This one is happy!

I am going to rent an art studio space downtown. I AM SO EXCITED ABOUT THIS I WANT TO CRAP MY PANTS. (Well, I don't really want to crap my pants because then I would have some cleaning up to do, but I really could crap my pants involuntarily from the sheer excitement of this).

Now, I am not a trained artist. I do arts and crafts. I glue things, and paint things. I sew things together sometimes. I learn as I go. Most of what I make is simple and cute, at best. Not brilliant. Not necessarily worth spending a lot of money on. But for me, it is fun as hell. Doing art has been like doing therapy for my brain for the last 6 months. I sit down and paint or collage or cut out little pieces of felt or bead...and it relaxes me. I feel, for once, Okay. Sometimes it's like I can literally feel bad energy and negativity and stress of life just leaking away and melting off of me when I'm working on some kind of art project.

Random aside: I just talked to this lady on the phone at work, and she thought it was Saturday because she's retired and doesn't work and doesn't know what day it is ever (it's Tuesday). She couldn't figure out why we would be delivering her Salmon tomorrow - they do deliveries on Sundays? She was so cute and embarrassed when she realized how off she was.

The studio space is at a very awesome and fairly well-known place downtown called Jinx Art Space. They always participate in Bellingham's monthly Art Walk and it's always my favorite place to visit for showings. The building has a basement that has sections / rooms partitioned off for individual artists to use as both studio and gallery space. I've always been fascinated with the types of art that the artists down there do...lots of 3D objects and recycling projects, as well as some pretty sophisticated painting and jewelry-making.

These artists are Professional crafty people.

I don't know if there are any other photographers down in the basement, photography being the only thing I really feel like I actually know how to do. Everything else I do art-wise is just going to be fun and practice. I'm really not good at anything...but I really need a space that's quiet to work on photos and writing. Right now if I want to work on photos I have to do so in my bedroom. Which means I just clean my bedroom all day long and don't work on photos. Sometimes I write in coffee shops but I am starting to get sick of paying for coffee and gigantic cookies all the time. My hips are saying, Please stop.

So, that is good news for my life.

I thought there was a third thing...but I forgot what it was.