Exquisite City

Last Saturday, the kids and I went to see a very cool exhibit, "Exquisite City," in a theater on the North Side of Chicago. As in the old game "Exquisite Corpse," the artists who contributed to this show were each asked to imagine, in cardboard, one city block in Chicago--without knowing how the other artists were picturing the assignment. Astrid was clearly feeling like Godzilla as she stomped around the "streets" of the miniature city--and I was a little nervous that one or more blocks might tumble in her wake. But both she and Elliot were impressed by the level of detail many of the artists achieved, as well as the humor and weirdness of many of their creations. In the same place, there was a little voyeurs' heaven....a wall full of windows into which we could stare. Elliot and I really liked the Mexican wrestler with the knife in his back. Astrid was not so delighted by this window.

What I'd like to be doing

Sometimes I feel like I've walked into a restaurant that looks really great from the street, but when I sit down and see the menu, I think....gee, do you have one with better choices? I know I walked in here under my own power, but now that I'm here, nothing looks too appetizing.
Here's what's on my menu:

1. revising an article that's due on 8/15, when I feel pretty sure that the revisions "suggested" by the editor will turn my essay into something much less interesting (to me)
   
2. grading more papers
3. cleaning the house
4. cleaning the house
5. cleaning the house
6. mowing the lawn and weeding

Here's the menu I wish I had:

1. sewing the six pairs of "around the house" shorts I cut out on Monday night
2. finishing the two sets of pillow tops I'm embroidering (a pair of pigs and a pair of camels; I've done the first of each set)
3. sewing a comfortable, belly-positive swimsuit with the Kwik-Sew swimsuits and activewear master pattern book I bought two weeks ago
4. finally finishing my big healthcare collage
5. taking a nap
6. putting together the Broken Dishes and Four-Patch quilt blocks I've finished
7. taking a nap
   
8. going to the pool by myself in the very attractive, belly-positive swimsuit I just finished (see #3)

Tonight when we were at a picnic with the other families from Elliot's baseball team, we heard the cicadas for the first time this summer. Every year I promise myself that I won't get melancholy when I hear them, but it never works, and this time was no exception. Unlike other years, though, I was with a bunch of other women who had the same looks on their faces as I must have. It was nice to know that I'm not the only one who mourns the passing of summer when it's really not quite half over.

Collage in progress

Here are two details from my collage-in-progress, a big (36"x24") canvas incorporating image mosaic, traditional collage composition (using paper and fabric), and acrylic paint (click on the images to see bigger versions). The collage shows tired men in a medical office waiting room (not pictured here), women worrying (together and alone), and other images connected to the U.S. crisis in health coverage. My main sources of imagery for the large figures are depression-era photos from the WPA and U.S. health service agencies, and for the mosaic components I am using tiny bits of posters from countries that have socialized healthcare. The big idea is that, in spite of what Republicans and too many Democrats say, socialized health sounds mighty fine (sounds like a human right, even!) to the millions of people in the U.S. whose access to doctors, nurses, hospitals, and medicines is criminally, unconscionably limited by a system tilted toward profit for insurance companies. End of speech. (But, hey, Obama, please listen up! I sure want you to win--*and* I want you to do something big and responsible about the healthcare mess we're living in. Please, no halfway measures.)

The photo below shows my new use for my mini-muffin tin--as a sorting tray for image mosaic pieces (Elliot's collage-in-progress is underneath everything). I had this idea a couple of years ago that I'd start making mini-muffins at dinner time (instead of regular-sized muffins) because they bake faster. But they don't bake all that well, at least in our oven, and they aren't as satisfying as a nice big muffin that you can slice in half and butter. (We really like muffins with dinner at our house. I make them probably twice a week, often with Bisquick, but sometimes from scratch. I usually dump a baby-food jar of squash, carrots, prunes, or some other vitamin and fiber-rich goop into the bowl. The whole process, from light-bulb-over-Mom's-head to dinner table, takes less than 25 minutes, and we often have enough left over for breakfast the next morning.)

This is one area in which I truly do feel like one of those cookin', nursin', husband-pleasin' women I read about in my mother's early-1970's copy of La Leche League's cookbook Mother's in the Kitchen. (I love, love, love that old cookbook. I especially like reading the lengthy section on the importance of including organ meats in the family diet, as well as the zillion and one uses listed for creamy canned soups. No, I don't make those recipes, but I have *very* happy memories of eating that stuff--especially the recipe for "Glory-Fried Chicken." Thanks, Mom!) Though I never attended an LLL meeting when I was a nursing mother (all the meetings were while I was at work....what's up with that?), I can't tell you how many I attended as a kid (my mom was an LLL group leader in Denver). Between two kids, I spent five and a half lovely years as a nursing mother. Hurray for the lessons of La Leche League!

Moses and Jesus had them, from what I've heard

Lately I'm blogging way too much about work, which is something I do not want to do. When stuff is going down, though, what else can I do? This week some of my colleagues are putting up a stink about a very solid photo exhibit at my campus. The exhibit, which includes at least 50 images related to assisted reproduction technology, has one small picture of women holding signs at a reproductive rights rally, a picture of an unclothed female torso (no face), and an analogous image of a male torso. A colleague said (I'm paraphrasing, but you'll get the gist): "I'm the sponsor of a Christian student group, and at the student organization fair, our table was really close to the naked pictures. It was *not good*! It was *not good*!" He was gripping the seminar table as he said these words.

We work at a private, explicitly secular institution. I really didn't think we'd ever be having conversations about whether Christians have penises and breasts (I am a Catholic Christian, and I have the latter, though not the former.) From what I learned today, some Christians don't want to be exposed to pictures of body parts that many of them also have. I grew up in a household with a (Catholic Christian) mother who specialized in painting nudes; at this moment, four of her paintings and drawings (including one of a hugely pregnant woman with a broken arm--it's awesome!) hang in my house. Updating my little family on the "naked people drama" at dinner tonight, Elliot just shook his head and said, "Well, you probably shouldn't invite that guy to *our* house, Mom--I don't think he'd feel comfortable." Lucky for all of us, I don't think *I'd* feel comfortable, either.