another April question

Do you have a corporate job? How do you feel about it? If you don't, what do you have instead, and how do you feel about that?

ten hour curry

Yesterday I made a mild lamb curry.

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If I made this recipe again, I would include golden raisins - we wound up not having any in the house. I would also use some hot curry powder, since it came out a little bland. Still, this is much closer to what you would get in an Indian restaurant than my initial attempts were - my curries are getting better and better over the years.

I stopped by a local convenience store to get Indian bread to go with it, and put some plain yogurt on top. Fantastic!

it's in the way that you walk

Sometimes, I forgot to walk the way that I want to.

A few years ago, I took a terrific workshop on deconstructing gender with Kate Bornstein. After some writing and discussion of gender roles, we did an excercise where we walked across the room, very slowly, trying to shed all of the gendered characteristics of the way that we moved and held ourselves. When we turned and walked back, we were trying to assume our ideal genders.

Really next excercise. The thing that I noticed immediately was, the way I held myself? It sucked. I held myself like I was scared, like I was trying to protect myself by hunching up my shoulderblades and taking up as little space as possible. Like I was trying not to be noticed.

When I reached the other side of the room, gender shed, I decided to take up a more confident stance. I decided that the gender I wanted to be was Proud Femme. I decided that it wasn't about being flawed or not fitting in, but being who I was, which was sexy and fabulous.

And so, that day, I started to walk in a different way. Long relaxed strides - really stretching out my legs. Swinging my hips with each step. Taking up all the space I need. Holding my head high and letting my shoulders drop back. When I walk like this, the ground moves away quickly, and I look around - really look. I feel relaxed and confident. It's something between a strut and a lope.

Today, it was warm, and I was no longer huddled under my coat, trying to get away from the cold, and I remembered my walk.

Someday I want to not have to remember it. I want it to just be the way I walk, naturally.

a couple of older sci fi titles

Last week, I read Lady of Light: The First Book of Westria by Diana L. Paxson. Damn, that book is witchy. I mean, she doesn't actually jump up and down saying, "I'm a pagan! I'm a pagan!" but it felt like she had. I thought the writing was too flowery, I liked it less than her other books, my favorite of which is Brisingamen. (Which reminds me that I've been meaning to make up a list of fiction that takes god-possession seriously. I'm not a horse, but I think it's an interesting topic.) I didn't really like any of the characters and the way the world was set up was just a bit too easy ideologically. Two stars, and I'm not reading the rest of the series, not even the second book of Westria, which was in the same volume, which I own. It's been listed on paperbackswap already.

This week, I read Telzey Amberdon, which was a suggestion by chiennefolle. It was a collection of linked short stories, originally written by James H. Schmitz, edited by Eric Flint (perpetual co-author of Mercedes Lackey, if you're wondering why his name seems familiar). I liked it all right but didn't feel strongly about it. I think the non-Telzey stories at the end were my favorite. Three stars. I notice that the Cambridge Library has the second, third, and fourth volumes in the series. I wonder if they'd like a donation of the first. Then I could still read it, and so could everyone else.

I have a whole crop of new books out of the library today - I hope I'll find some of them more compelling.

happy things

- a new-to-me brown leather tote bag from Boomerang
- a Ganesha Tshirt from Goodwill
- a promising roommate interview
- having a clean house
- sunshine
- unexpectedly getting to have breakfast with 7j

What has made you happy recently?

Line Drawings of Picasso

So, this is a book of drawings, so you don't actually read it. :) I got this book out of the library after I fell in love with some prints by Picasso at the MFA. I am amazed by the simplicity of Picasso's line, and how well he captures the human form, so I borrowed this book.

I copied four or five of my favorite drawings from it. I'm not particularly into the stuff that he did that's really surreal. And I'll be the first to admit that I don't get, or share, his obsession with the Minotaur. But the drawings that he did about the relationship between artist, model, and art I really really like. I also love the way he draws faces.

I would recommend this book to anyone interested in contour drawings, as I am. I wish that I knew of more like it. Five stars.

I have a book on modern drawing out of the library, and am planning to work from it in the same way. Unfortunately, I am less enthused by Picasso's other drawing collection, Picasso's Private Drawings. I'm not sure I'm finding much material in it that interests me. I'm also going to see some Picasso prints at a museum I'll be visiting next weekend. I would love to get my hands on the catalogue of a show done a few years ago of the Vollard Suite, from which the Minotaur pictures as well as the art and artist ones, but so far my efforts in that regard have not borne fruit.

Those of you who are into art - what other artists should I be looking at, for line drawings of the face?