Category Archives: Art

I Have a Plan

Posted on 16 February 2014 | Leave a comment

I am guest blogging over here at Where’s the Finish Line, which is my friend Teresa’s amazing blog about her quest for a strong and fulfilling Ironman Wisconsin finish. I am writing my own little posts about every two weeks about my struggle to make it to Racine 70.3 in my own column called “Corby’s Corner.” Stay tuned there, because the posts will be solely related to my struggle to maintain moderation in food and exercise. If you’re interested in that sort of thing, head over there.

So, here’s an update for My 20 Before 40:

1. Run a marathon. I signed up for the Twin Cities Medtronic Marathon on October 5, so I have 230 days to get myself to be able to run a 6 hour or less marathon.
2. Finish the Racine 70.3 on July 21 in under 8 hours. I have signed up for this, and it’s 153 days away. My goal is to finish the 13.1 mile run in under 3 hours.
3. Swim a 500 in 7:30 minutes. This needs some work.
4. Do yoga every morning. Yeah, not so much.
5. Do a 30 burpees in 30 days challenge. I am going to start this on the day after Bec moves to MN. I figure it’s a good way to work off anxiety.
6. Ride a century ride on the bicycle. I need to sign up for something to motivate me to do this.
7. Meditate for at least 15 minutes each day. Yeah, not so much.
8. Eat paleo at least 80% of the time. Um, well, I am doing something a bit different with this: eating when hungry. Eating foods that bring me joy.
9. Try foods that aren’t the usual things I eat. I’ve had gluten-free granola, and I bought some whole-grain, gluten-free bread for PBJs for lunch.
10. Visit every Indiana state park with my brother. I think we might be back to breweries/cideries/distilleries. Who knows what we’re doing here.
11. Learn to cook one new thing each month. So far we’ve tried oxtail stew and shark. Next month, I am going to make haggis.
12. Do not drink alcohol until my birthday. This isn’t even something that makes sense for me. I love a good beer, cider, bourbon, scotch, or mead. Why be miserable?
13. Read the whole Bible. Working on it.
14. Finish the Sketchbook Project book. Decided just to fill my own sketchbook. It’s going slowly.
15. Finish my master’s degree in creative writing. Publish. Yeah. This. Class.
16. Post a blog post every Sunday. Well, I am trying, but it isn’t working. More about this goal below.
17. Get a new tattoo. I’m going to do this after Racine 70.3.
18. Lose 60 pounds. Um, yeah, about this. Why the fuck can I never lose weight?!
19. Find a job doing something I love. This may be a pipe dream, but I hope it works out.
20. Read a new book each week. I am reading so much for school, it feels as if I am reading a new book each day!

Blogging. Blogging. Blogging.

So I’ve decided that I am going to put a bit more format into my blogging efforts. I am going to write about a different goal in my list each week, with a bit more in depth of a focus. For the most part, I am going to go in order, but tonight I want to write about how I plan to structure this blog, so I can get a couple more posts in each week. Some of these post topics or ideas came from my friends’ blogs, so they aren’t original ideas at all, just themes that may help me to be more diligent in thinking about my life with focus.

So here goes:

Mystic Mondays: I’ll chose some Biblical or theological text, story, or scripture to discuss. I made this one up on my own, like the super smart kid I am. Haha!

What I Ate Wednesday: I’ll write about everything I eat that day, and I’ll include pictures when I can. I stole this from Teresa, who stole it from someone else.

Fiction Fridays: I expect my students to write reflections for Fridays about what they’ve read through the week. I think I’ll start doing the same. Some works won’t be fiction, but I’ll still call it Fiction Fridays. I stole the idea for this from many of my friends who write blogs or maintain some sort of online presence. I reserve the right to reflect on art, movies, television, news, literature, music, or any other creative endeavor.

And Sunday, Sunday will be my regular blogging day where I talk about what the heck is going on with one goal from the list. I hope in this way, this space will become more relevant and more regular so folks start reading again. The last Sunday of each month, I’ll reevaluate my goals, instead of discussing one in depth. Now, let’s just hope I can keep up with this. Writing brings me joy, so how is this so difficult?

Let’s do this.

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Posted in Art, Beer, Biking, Buddhism, Christianity, Cider, Cooking, Cycling, Education, Food, Goals, Grace, Joy, Meditation, Mental Health, Paleo/Primal, PBJ, Reading, Relationships, Religion, Running, School, Spirituality, Sunday, Swimming, Tattoos, Triathlon, Vegetarian or Vegan, Writing

Tagged blogging, Century Ride, Fiction, Food, Goals, Health, Ironman, Jelly, marathon, Mystic, Peanut Butter, Racine 70.3, Spirituality, Sunday, Triathlon, What I Ate

My Own Private Advent

Posted on 26 November 2012 | Leave a comment

I know Advent hasn’t technically begun, and won’t technically begin until next Sunday, December 2, but the past few days have felt like days of anticipation.I feel like things are changing for me. I still feel pretty hopeless most every morning, but I know there is an end in sight. While Bec and I were on our Thanksgiving road trip, I realized that I have much to be thankful for and much that I take for granted. I spent five days riding in a truck with a woman I love. We stopped at nice hotels. We ate excellent food. We met friends, new and old. We walked on the beach. We just enjoyed each other’s company. I take things like that for granted, but I know my life could be radically different.

I have quit Facebook and Twitter, and I am pretty sure it’s for good. I waste a lot of time and the posts people make are inane and anger-filled, so I’d just rather not participate. I’ll miss seeing pictures and having people see mine, but I won’t miss the angry posts. I have enough anger of my own; I don’t need to borrow any more from other people. That being said, I plan to celebrate Advent by writing, reading, running, eating clean, not watching TV and not taking my life for granted. If I have time, I’ll add in doing some art. I’m looking forward to doing that again. And, of course and most importantly, I’ll look forward to Christ’s coming.

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Posted in Advent, Art, Christianity, Christmas, Goals, Grace, Mental Health, Paleo/Primal, Reading, Relationships, Religion, Running, Spirituality, Writing

Eight Beautiful Things in Life: A List

Posted on 15 October 2012 | 2 comments

I’ve been sitting here trying to think about what to write, and though my ideas are pouring out of me, they aren’t really cooperating and being coherent. I’ve been having the same problem for a while now. I can think of all sorts of ideas and concepts I want to discuss, but I can’t get them to come out in a logical fashion. My thoughts have been coming out in images: So much depends upon a red wheelbarrow glazed with rain water beside the white chickens, right? Short snippets of songs: mystic crystal revelations, Aquarius. Short bursts of my favorite artistic visions:

Paris Street Rainy Day

As much as I try to gather my thoughts and put them in some sort of order, they just shoot out of me like children throw those little pop-its on the Fourth of July. Random. Loud. And extra-annoying. So, I’ve decided to make a list of eight beautiful things that have happened in my life within the last two weeks.

Eight Beautiful Things in No Particular Order

I cut my 5K time by 6 minutes. I went from a PR of 41 minutes to a PR of 35:17. This was beautiful to me, because after five or more years of running, I started to actually feel like a runner. I ran 11-minute miles. Three of them. Consecutively. Not only that, but I got up the next morning and ran a mile, and got up the next morning (this morning) and ran four more. My body felt like it was singing at mile four, and I felt as if I could have kept going for another four miles. Suddenly, running doesn’t feel like a job; running feels like a joy. My new goal for the half marathon is 2:45.00 or less.
My students read and discussed “The Wasteland,” and I think they liked the poem. They were engaged, they were thoughtful, and they seemed to finally get Modernism. Maybe when I teach Modernism next time, I will start with “The Wasteland” to set up the unit. I feel like I have new eyes for this poem, because it was never one I really enjoyed, but my students were really able to relate to the fragmentation of it, and they had so many ideas about why “April is the cruelest month.” The lines that seemed to resonate the most with them were these: “What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow out of this stony rubbish? Son of man, you cannot say, or guess, for you know only a heap of broken images, where the sun beats, and the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief, and the dry stone no sound of water.” I wonder if they can relate to this feeling of despair in a way that I can’t, because I swear to you, this poem has never had the meaning for me that it does now.
I can actually recognize the melodies of some songs that I have been playing on the piano. I know sharps and flats, slurs and ties, eighth through whole notes and rests, and how to start on the upbeat. I can play a weird version of “Mary Jane,” “Clementine,” “In the Valley,” “Jolly Good Fellow,” and “When the Saints Go Marching.” I can also play an F, G7, and C chords. Basically, I feel good about this piano thing, and what feels really good about it is that I feel so relaxed when I am muddling through the few songs I know. Having something that doesn’t involve reading or exercise to help relieve my stress is perfect, especially this year.
Fall is the most beautiful season when it’s fall. Spring is the most beautiful . . . Summer is the most beautiful . . . Winter is the beautiful . . . But it’s fall now, and fall is the most beautiful when the trees are fully dressed in their brightest colors and the limbs are shifting and dancing in the wind. Fall is beautiful when the rain falls lightly down creating a haze of the lights reflecting on the river and when the days are shirt-sleeve warm, but the nights need a fireplace warming. When the leaves crunch and the birds take flight, fall is the most beautiful.
After I helped my dad butcher some chickens, I learned that I could sustain myself through farming. We raised quite a bit of produce through three minuscule gardens in our city front and back yards, and we made at least five weeks of food-base (broth and meat) from two chickens. I am pretty sure that given a larger farm and a part-time job, I could grow, process, and store up plenty for our family for the year. We might even be able to cut out the grocery for a good portion of the late summer and early fall. I’d even make sure to grow things we’ve never had to keep our mouths interested in home-grown foods.
My brother and I started our first batch of hard cider yesterday. We are brewing five gallons of honey-cider to try an initial test run. Adding honey theoretically makes the cider more alcoholic because the yeast has more sugar to feed off of. I am hoping it will give it a nice clover-y taste so there will be a uniqueness to our cider. We have to let this sit for two weeks or until it stops bubbling, then one more week to let the yeast sift down. Then we have to add in a bit more sugar, so it will carbonate, before we siphon the cider off into another bucket. Once it’s in the other bucket, we stir it up and bottle it. This cider thing, if it works, will be one of our greatest sibling cooperative efforts.
Through a rigorous paleo diet and running at least a mile every day, I am within 5 pounds of weighing 200 pounds. When I get down to 196.4, I will have lost 60 pounds, and as it is right now, I’ve lost 50-55 pounds, depending on the day. I’m well within range of my goal of 170—I don’t want to lose Athena status for running—and I am so excited. Bec asked me if I wanted to buy some clothes when I reached my goal weight. Yes, I do, but first, I want some new body art! Always with the tattoos!
I got to spend the evening with my friend Lyn, who is an artist. We sat at the Yart Sale here in Muncie while people looked at her art, asked for lots of business cards, and then didn’t really buy much.I’m not so sure that people just buy art right out anymore. I mean, we do, but I think we’re atypical. Most people look, mull it over, look some more, mull it over some more, look again, mull it over again, and then maybe buy it. It’s a little disheartening if you’re an artist, I would think. What the Yart Sale did for me, though, is two things: (1) I got to spend time with one of my dearest friends, and (2) I got to soak up all that artiness, all that beauty, all that truth, and all that grace. That evening made me fall in love again with art, and I would argue that’s what’s making my thoughts come out all discombobulated. Art poisoned my logical mind: “I feel certain that I’m going mad again. [. . .] And I shan’t recover this time” (Virginia Woolf).

Untitled, Skull

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Posted in Art, Cider, Cooking, Education, Fat, Food, Gleaning, Goals, Literature, Modernism, Music, Paleo/Primal, Piano, Running, School, Tattoos, Teaching, Whole 30, Work

Piano Lessons. Body Issues. Teaching. Flowers.

Posted on 14 September 2012 | Leave a comment

I started taking piano lessons at the end of August, and the lessons are going pretty well. I like to think that since I can play two chords and some melody with quarter, half, and whole notes, that I’m going to be the next Sunnyland Slim or something. I can even play with both hands at the same time, though when I have to play a half note with my right hand and a dotted half with my left hand, I get a little confused. The purpose of the piano lessons is two-fold:

(1) I want to be able to play the blues. I think in a former life I may have been African American, and the blues just feels natural to me. The blues are natural to me in much the same way as African American women’s literature feels like a comfortable, old shoe that I’ve worn and worn, which is a compliment because I feel so at home there. I feel it, like I feel the blues. I wonder sometimes if I can identify with African American texts, music, and art because of my own struggles. Though they pale in comparison, I think many GLBT concerns, pains, sadnesses, or inequalities make the bearers empathetic to the plights of others. For whatever reasons, I feel the blues, man. I feel ’em.

AND (2) I needed something to use for relaxation. I used to read for relaxation, but when reading became my livelihood, books stopped providing the same sort of haven for me as they once did. In fact, I can’t stop reading pleasurable books, like I read the books I use to make a living, and I find myself doing feminist or Marxist readings of The Little Engine that Could. Which is the opposite of relaxing. I started playing piano, so I could have something to do that wasn’t letters or pictures or anything rhetorical. Music is round notes and lines. There are few words involved and the pictures music makes in my head aren’t feminist or Marxist or any other -ist. The pictures made by music are art and equality. One day they will also be beautiful. Right now they are 1, 2, 3, 4 or 1, 2, 3 or even 1, 2 as I count the beats in a measure and lift my fingers or put them down accordingly. I have faith in future beauty.

On Monday, I plan to start a new Whole 30 and a 30 day running streak, which means I have to run at least one mile every day for 30 days. No questions asked. My goal is to run 2 miles for each weekday and 5 miles for each weekend day. I have to do soemthing, so I don’t feel like shit. I’ve returned to my pre-paleo ways, and I’ve gained five pounds. I’m at 215 pounds right now, so technically I’ve gained 10 pounds from my lowest. Admittedly, I haven’t started eating grains or most other agricultural products, but I have been drinking much too much alcohol and eating much too much ice cream. I just can’t resist a good Strongbow or Chunky Monkey. The last time I went for a run, my body felt so good afterward I am not sure why I didn’t keep up that momentum and just keep running. I felt as if I could run miles and miles! I still have a goal to run a marathon before I turn 40, which means next fall is the last chance, because I can’t run when it’s hot out.

My goal is to complete the Heritage Trail Marathon in September of 2013. I tried to run a road marathon last fall, but I failed miserably because of an asthma attack, so we’re volunteering for that same marathon this year. Once I get ready to amp my mileage back up I am going to order some Altras. (EDIT: I went ahead and ordered the Altras, so I can get a jump start on those longer runs.) They are zero-drop with a wide toe-box, but they’ll provide the cushioning I like for my feet. Because I am a big girl, the barefoot thing works for short distances and in theory—but not in practicality—for longer distances. I plan to order them as soon as I get down to 200 pounds. I keep telling myself: You started at 256.4, and you’ve made it to 205, so how hard will it be to lose 15 pounds? Damn difficult is the answer. I’m hoping that by doing a Whole 30 and running every day I can jump start the weight loss again. If not, at the very least, I’ll feel 100 times better.

School’s going well, and I love teaching American literature three times each day. We’ve covered all of the early Americans and my students took their first test today, focusing on William Bradford, Olaudah Equiano, Jonathan Edwards, and some of the important Founding Fathers. I was most frustrated during this unit because the writers we had to cut from the original syllabus were all women or poets. Grr. I should have cut Jefferson, Paine, and Henry. Doesn’t everyone know, “Give me liberty or give me death,” that we’re all created with “unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” and that “these are the times that try men’s souls.” Wouldn’t an American sophomore be brain dead not to know these things? One would think they’d be familiar, right? If so, one would be oh so wrong. So, we spent a day with our three rhetoricians and their famous words.

I have been surprised about how much I’ve actually enjoyed teaching British literature, too. My students have read A Taste of Honey and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead among other things, and I’ve been impressed at their thoughtful consideration of texts that even I find challenging. We’ve discussed cultural studies, hegemony, existentialism, absurdism, Othering, and a variety of other cultural issues, and we’re only three weeks into the school year.

Finally, I have been surprised at how much I feel like I am getting done this school year. I get up early, and I work on my dissertation. I go to school on the weekends, and get every thing ready for the week. I stay after to take tickets at ball games or to work on some grading or whatnot. I use my prep periods to prep things or grade. And I have time to do other things. I feel so on top of things, and the feeling is pretty nice for a change.

Everything’s comin’ up roses. Or marigolds.

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Posted in Art, Cider, Education, Fat, Food, GLBT, Goals, Literature, Music, Paleo/Primal, Piano, Reading, Running, School, Teaching, Work

Tagged Art, Blues, Fat, glbt, Music, Piano, Running, Weight Loss, Whole 30

Some Things I Love

Posted on 19 April 2012 | Leave a comment

I love God. I love the way [They] decorate this land every spring and then make it barren every winter. The older I get, the more I appreciate the beauty of this land. I want to capture every single beautiful thing and share it with others. Every morning when it’s light out on my way to teach school, I stop and take a picture of these two trees. This morning was particularly wonderful.
A few sunspots, but a beautiful sky.
I love my partner. Even when I am grumpy and don’t want to hear her singing in the morning before 9AM, she can still make me smile by making fun of my grumpy, pouty face. She’s beautiful, and I am so blessed. The past few weeks, since she finished school, have been a blessing. We’ve been able to reconnect in very meaningful ways. Walking at the Mounds every Sunday is one thing we love and one thing we share. Those walks have reconnected our souls.
Aren't we cute?
I love my family. We are pretty zany, and sometimes we are a little out of touch with the rest of the world, but we rock nonetheless. My parents are getting older, but they still want to do fun stuff with my brother and me. This summer we are going to the minor league home run derby and all-star game in Buffalo, to Gettysburg, and to Hershey, Pennsylvania. My little brother is one of my best friends, and he takes me to eat oysters, which are also some things I now love.
My little bro.
I love art, every type of fine art: drawing, painting, writing, 3-d design, graphic design, photography, theater, music, and all those I haven’t listed. Sometimes I even love bad art, because I think about it as someone trying to say something about this human condition. Good art just makes my heart sing. Good art makes the viewer feel more beautiful, more conflicted, more empowered, more enlightened, more spiritual, more angry, more depressed, more loved simply by being in proximity to it. Sometimes I feel as if I can reach through the art (in whatever form) and touch or feel what the artist was feeling.
Sculpture in Front of Minnetrista
I love coffee and tea, but coffee more.
Greek Coffee at The Artist Cafe in Chicago
I love my bicycle. I actually love any sports equipment that allows me to move my body. I love my Vibram Five Fingers, my kayak, my basketball, my disc golf discs, my bathing suit, and all of the other things that help me play outside during any season. This is the one of two areas of my life in which I am a little self-indulgent. I own way too much sports equipment.
Zbornak the Bicycle
The other area of self-indulgence in my life is food. I love food: the way it looks, the way it smells, the ways it tastes, the way it feels in my mouth. I love experimenting with tried and true recipes, making up my own recipes, and just eating food in its natural state. Really, two things make my heart sing: food and exercise.
Bison Steaks
For the purposes of this post, the last thing I love hearkens back to my childhood when I’d sit in my little red wagon on the way to the library watching the trains and waving to the caboosers and engineers. I love trains, and all things railroad. Watching trains roll by fantasizing about hopping on and riding until they stop, walking on the tracks or rails, lying on the ties on the trestle over the river looking down between them smelling the river water roll by. I look down the tracks and think about how blessed I am and how my life is coming into what I’ve always wanted it to be.