A delicious dinner

Last week I made myself a delicious dinner. Roasted eggplant, baked salmon and a huge side salad. It was absolutely wonderful and precisely what I needed to have.

I cut an eggplant in half and rubbed it with olive oil; a dash of salt and pepper and I roasted it for 40 minutes in the bottom of the NuWave oven. About 25 minutes in I used the four inch rack, lined with foil for the salmon. I sliced some onion, red pepper and lemon, tossed in a little oil and salt. The veggies got piled on top of a frozen salmon filet and roasted.

I flipped the filet halfway through it's cooking time to make sure it cooked thoroughly. When it was all done, I plated it up beside a humongous salad. Not in the picture are a pair of Kings Hawaiian rolls.

I absolutely enjoyed my dinner that night, and definitely plan to do it all again!

Lotus; wash over line.

I want to talk about art and about being who you are and about bullies. Honest, they really do all intersect.

When I was little, I drew pictures. And people ooh'd and aah'd and told me they were good, but I saw all the flaws in them, the places they just weren't quite right. So I practiced and I worked at it and I continued to see the flaws and messed up bits. I saw how the circle wasn't really round and how that didn't really look like that and how utterly horribly rotten I really was at art.

I looked at Degas and at Leonardo, at Rembrandt and Picasso, and I knew, just knew I'd never be that good. 

I took a two day oil painting seminar in high school. They said I was really good. I painted a few pictures, and again, I saw the flaws. 

In high school, I didn't take art classes, because I wasn't good enough for that. I didn't show anyone my pictures or tell anyone I could draw because it wasn't enough, it wasn't good enough, I wasn't big enough or shiny enough or cool enough to be an artist. Artists are people who wear cool clothes they drew on and they smoke cigarettes and carry pencils and sketch pads everywhere and they don't care what everyone around them thinks.

I cared. Oh, I cared. I cared that they called me Caspar because I was pale. I cared that they told me I stank, and that I was ugly; when they said I couldn't I believed them, and when they told me I should die I tried.

My mom told me I laughed too loud; my aunt told me to question everything because it was important to make up my own mind about things. I became uncertain. I knew the words the kids used about me were wrong, but what if they had a grain of truth in them? I had to question both the rightness and the wrongness of what they said about me.

I saw the flaws in myself, pointed out by my "peers." I wanted to be quirky and cool, suave and sexy and awesome, but I could see the places where I wasn't quite round enough, or sleek enough, the places where the lacquer had worn through and the spots where the underpainting was the wrong tone.

I didn't even consider a University with a fine arts program. Hard science all the way.

Every time I moved, my art supplies came with me, in boxes labeled 'crafts.' When I told people I could draw, it was in a downplayed, simplified version of 'drawing.' I can make circles and three dimensional boxes. 

In my heart of hearts, I was an artist. I painted the world in new ways, showing people what is really there, and opened up eyes and minds and hearts to emotional experiences... I captured the world and made it mine through paper and pigment; I created things that were brand new, never-before-seen marvels of the imagination. 

And I hid it all away, because it was too flawed. 

Each time I told someone what I did, who I was, it hurt more. More and more to not say 'Artist.' 'Creator of beauty.' 'Person who tames the world and shows it to you, new.' Part of me screamed through the rest of me to make art again. 

I'd do it, for a while, until life got in the way (that's what I told myself.) I'd do it until I was overwhelmed by the flaws in myself and had to put it away again. 

Now, I changed my life to have more room for art. This thing that has been at the center of my soul for as long as I can remember must be at the center of my life, too. Flawed, broken, not as good as Degas or Michaelangelo and wonderful. 

I am an artist. I see the world and interpret it through pigment, paper, wire, glue and clay; I present it to you, my audience. This art is me, do you see it? React to this thing that I made so I know that I exist. Show me the impact I have had so that I may know I live. 

Art is life, I am art. I show it to you as I show you my own beating heart. See its flaws? Do you love them, too? The places where I can see that this time I made it better than the last, and the places I have still to work on... aren't they lovely? 

I no longer define myself in the negative. "I'm not Christian, not straight, not monogamous, not normal, not boring, not not not not..." No. I am an artist. I am queer. I am Zen. I am ART. 

Tho I will still question, quest after greater skill and technique, I will no longer listen to the voices from my youth, the ugly evil ones that tell me lies about myself. I know who I am now and the words of others cannot change that.

I am an artist. I will make the world and show it to you; I will look at the world you have made. As you see me, I see you. We exist, together. Let's make art and prove it.

Tibetan Sugar Skull Mask

One of the things this move was supposed to provide me with was the time and space in which to make more art. It's taken me some settling in, but this past Sunday, I finally made use of my art setup.

I made this --->

It's a skull mask inspired by Mexican Dia de los Muertos sugar skulls with a Tibetan Buddhist twist.

I picked up the skull blank a few weeks ago at Michaels' Crafts. It was plain brown, paper mache, in with a huge stack of others just like it.

On Sunday, I gesso'd it on the outside surface with two coats, and let it dry a few hours. Luckily, acrylic gesso dries really quickly. I used Liquitex Acrylic Gesso in plain white. After it had dried fully I sketched the design I wanted onto it.

Just like the traditional Mexican sugar skulls, I picked individual designs for each of the teeth. I've got hearts, music notes, a tree, lots of different flowers, a paint brush, cup of coffee, peace sign and even a lesbian symbol! Mine deviates from the traditional Mexican version however. The dome of the skull has a lotus with Sanskrit symbols for each of the chakras and scrollwork around the central figure.

The jaw bone is decorated with hearts and vines, and the cheeks feature more Sanskrit symbols. In this version, the symbols are an Om and the symbol for Anahata, the heart chakra.

The first thing I did when adding color was to paint the lotus. I know, usually in paintings you do the background first, then add details... and for most of the skull that's exactly what I did. But I started with the lotus. I wanted it in shades of blue, with light and shadow. The lotus is the most realistic part of the skull with, honestly, the most detail in it. I also used Resin Sand to create texture in the skull; dots over the eyebrows and detail on the scrollwork got raised and textured with the sand, as well as the large heart on the chin.

I knew that I wanted my skull to be colorful, with lovely jewel-like tones, muted into their pastel counterparts. I wanted it to look rich and sumptuous, not too dark or scary; it also had to blend smoothly from color to color while maintaining each 'zone' of the skull separate. The dome of the skull is a lovely mintish green created by mixing Hooker's Green Hue and Titanium White in Liquitex Acrylic Medium Gloss. The back and sides of the skull are in blue tones, created using the same paints for the lotus (Cobalt Blue Hue, Ultramarine Blue and Cerulean Blue Hue.)

The jaw is yellow, created by combining Naples Yellow, Cadmium Yellow Light and Titanium White. The central face is the most heavily blended, ranging from orange-pink under the nose, through Cadmium Red Light Hue and T.W all the way to Prism Violet and Magenta over the eyes.

At this point, I set the skull aside for a couple of hours to dry completely. Because it was paper mache, adding layer upon layer of water soluble paints to it made it a bit... soggy. If I had continued to work on it without allowing it to dry completely, I could have malformed it, which would have made me very sad.

Once it was totally dry to the touch and sounded dry and hollow when thumped, I picked it up and continued. Most of the detail work was completed with Sharpie Markers. One day, I'll be able to get myself the 144 color set of the Prismacolor Markers, and then, oh then... no surface will be safe from me! Mwah ha ha.. ahem.

The final details on the skull were added last night around midnight. I highlit the Resin Sand dots over the eyebrows as well as the Sanskrit symbols on the cheeks with a dab of Gold paint. Signed the inside of the skull, dated it, and collapsed triumphant into bed, to dream of brightly colored corpses that glowed from within. (I have strange dreams.)

I did make one change to the final design from my initial sketch: the symbol on the right cheek is no longer the chakra symbol for Anahata. Instead, it's an actual word in Sanskrit. It says 'Tapas', which in it's shortened translation means 'spiritual austerity (while seeking a goal).' Of course, 'tapas' is also a Spanish word, and it refers to yummy food! Since the skull was patterned after a sugar skull (a traditional yummy treat in Mexico around Dia de los Muertos), I think including a dead language pun about food is pretty hilarious.

That may just be my weird sense of humor tho, or possibly the fact that I thought it up near midnight last night. Sleep dep plus art leads to some weird things. Amazing, awesome weird things. :)

I wanted to take this chance to once more thank the person who gave me these paints for my birthday a couple years ago. Without the paints, the skull wouldn't have happened, and without the skull, I think I'd be a lot more sad and a lot less content than I am today. Thank you.

Chicken Experiments

This morning I indulged my creative cook side with some roasted chicken experiments.

Yes, for fun and art I experiment with food. It relaxes me, pleases me and at the end, I get to have delicious food!

Today's experiment involved the NuWave Oven, three bone-in, skin-on chicken breasts and spices. I seasoned the first chunk of chicken with salt, paprika and chili powder; I was aiming for spicy chicken with this one. The second got some Adams Reserve House Blend Rub, a wonderfully balanced blend of garlic, black pepper and salt that I picked up at the new HEB store Friday. The third was seasoned with a Chicken and Fish blend that Lorie had in the kitchen (all of the other spices, plus a few.)

I put the chicken in skin side down for ten minutes, then flipped it and roasted the chicken for another ten minutes. Really. Twenty minutes was all it took. I was talking on the phone with my mom all the while, and she agreed that only twenty minutes to fully roast bone in chicken breasts is amazing. Usually I'd stick breasts like that in the oven for a good half hour to forty five minutes. Twenty?

I was skeptical, let me tell you. But, at the end of the second ten minute session in the NuWave Oven, the breasts looked done. Brown on top, fat running out, and the smell! mmm. I poked the breasts in the thickest part, and examined the juice that ran out. Clear juice means done chicken (this saves cutting into the breast to examine the color of the meat, btw), colored juice means cook it more. These babies ran clear.

I let them cool a bit, bagged them and stuck them in the fridge.

I tell you, I should have taken a picture of my dinner today, it was so pretty. I warmed up the Adams Reserve House Blend rubbed breast, some brown rice from the other day and added a nice side salad with some Wishbone Chunky Blue Cheese dressing. It looked pretty, smelled wonderful and tasted even better. I had a couple of King's Hawaiian sweet rolls on the side, and let me tell you, I cleaned my plate.

I'm really looking forward to trying the other two chicken breasts, as well as using that oven more! I've got a three pound bag of frozen boneless skinless chicken breasts in the freezer, as well as some wild salmon that I'm just itching to play with!

Bon Appetite!

In which I seek compassion

In the past month four gay or suspected-to-be-gay youths have committed suicide after having been bullied by their classmates.

Billy Lucas (15 years old)
Seth Walsh (13 years old)
Asher Brown (13 years old)
Tyler Clementi (18 years old)

They hung themselves, shot themselves and jumped off a bridge to escape the torment of their daily lives.

Tyler Wilson (11 years old)  had his arm broken by bullies because he joined a cheerleading squad.

I don't have the words to express how this makes me feel, but I must try.

I am unutterably sad that these young people could see no way out of the situations they were in other than to take their own lives. That level of hopeless despair, the depths of the pain they were in... I know that feeling, I remember it. I remember feeling so broken, beaten, feeling like there was no other solution, no options left. Feeling that the way things are is the way they will always be, and that to live one more day in the pit was too much...

Oh gods do I remember that feeling.

I am completely pissed that such a situation could arise. I am enraged that it has arisen not once, but four times in one month. The culture we live in sees nothing wrong with teasing and baiting children, bullying these babies until every drop of hope has been killed, rooted out and only despair remains. I fucking hate that.

I hate it when I hear 'gay' used as an insult. I want to scream when something is called 'so queer'. I want to shake the people who think buyllying isn't big deal, I want to inject empathy into them until they understand.

I want to let go of this anger and hatred in myself, because I know it is the same anger and hatred that leads to bullying, teasing, and acts of violence. The thing I reject grows inside of me; I pray for compassion. Because I know that hate and fear grow in ignorance, fostered by the same lack of hope that drove Billy, Seth, Asher and Tyler to kill themselves. Instead of focusing inward, the despair seeks outward for a target; something, anything to relieve the pressure, alleviate the suffering...

I want to find a way to tell all the hurting people that there is hope, there is a way out, there is a solution that doesn't require you to spread your pain to others. I want to tell them not to give up, not to lash out, not to suicide. I don't know if my words are enough and I fear that I lack the strength to do more.

When it hurts too much, when you can't contain it anymore, release your pain and let it go. Yes there is pain, and there is fear, but giving in to it only makes it stronger; fear and pain can strengthen you, temper you, make you better -- it is the form your actions take that gives meaning. What you do is more important than why you do it; intentions don't matter.

If you hurt and you act in violence, the violence is what will be remembered. If you ache and despair and act to harm yourself or others, it is the act that will be remembered. You will be remembered by your actions in this world, not by your motivations. It is in your acts that you will be judged, weighed, thought of.

Instead of violence, instead of hurting others to numb the pain inside, instead of following the same gods-be-damned patterns do something different. Make art, write an angry poem, volunteer with a soup kitchen, make a video about how you feel, sing a song... if the root of your fear and anger is a cultural rejection of the idealized anti-male/female/feminine then embrace that rejected half of your soul.

You want to feel whole? Happy, healthy, hopeful? You want to find peace in this moment, peace in your skin? Do you want to smile and laugh and be happy right now? This moment is all that there is: the past is a memory and the future is speculation. Right now, in this moment, you must face what you fear, face your anger, recognize in it a part of yourself, and embrace it.

The people you hate, the ones who symbolize your hate, fear and anger? Them? They don't deserve to have your unexamined Id spewed all over them. Everyone is fighting a battle of some kind; try to keep the friendly fire to an absolute minimum. And don't spread your destructive hate-filled angst around.

Outlets in which to express yourself:

The Trevor Project volunteer, call and talk, get educated.
the It Gets Better Project make a video, express yourself.
http://www.glsen.org
http://www.safeschoolscoalition.org
http://www.beatbullying.org
http://wegotyourbackproject.wordpress.com
http://www.imfromdriftwood.com