Hells Yeah!

OK, listen up, creatures. I'm making a public statement here. The following is what I'm going to do this year:

• Get an article published in O Magazine (topic to be determined)
  
• Make a portrait of Oprah's dog(s) (an idea I've been obsessed with for far too long)
  
• Have some kind of correspondence with Elizabeth Gilbert (author of Eat, Pray, Love)
• Pay an editor to read my book and tell me how to get 'er done
  
• Paint one portrait a month
  

Don't look at me like that! I know this list may seem about as likely as falling helplessly in love with a hairless dog with bat ears. But I did, so I know I can make my list a reality, too. It will just take focus.


Which means no more draining away my energy on things I can't change. Like other people's thoughts and opinions. Some people are really good at influencing others, but that's not me. At least not around anything to do with things, like, say, gender issues, as per my last post. It's too close for me. Discussing it makes me nuts. And that's energy stolen from the other thing that matters to me most. Me.


My current thinking is that if just stay focused on my goals, I'll put better energy into the world because I'll be happier, which may make me more patient and generous with others in the end, which may make me a positive influencer after all. Just via a more circuitous route.


To help me achieve my goals, I am using Martha Beck -- life coach extraordinaire -- as my guide. Her article in this month's O! suggests creating a kind of accountability fellowship with people most unlike you in terms of how they operate in the world (to illustrate her vision, she refers to the motley crew in the Lord of the Rings, an unlikely "team of hobbits, humans, a dwarf, a wizard, and an elf." But they were able to save Middle Earth because their disparities were the necessary complementary powers that, together, made miracles happen. Until I can assemble my own Fellowship of Un-Lizzes (it's not like I don't already know hobbits, elves, dwarfs and wizards, it's just that I need to find a way to tell them that I was wrong -- that their weirdo ways are actually EXACTLY what I need in my arsenal of assets for success; a tricky proposition, but not undoable), I have put together some other aids that can help me in the right now.

First, I'm tattooing this piece by Charles Bukowski to one of my eyelids:

"If you're going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don't even start. If you're going to try, go all the way. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives, jobs, and maybe your mind. Go all the way. It could mean not eating for three or four days. It could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail, it could mean derision, mockery, isolation. Isolation is the gift, all the others are a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it. And you'll do it despite rejection and the worst odds, and it will be better than anything else you can imagine. If you're going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods and the nights will flame with fire. Do it, do it, do, it. Do it. All the way, all they way. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter, its the only good fight there is." (Thanks for sending this, Anth, my angel.)



Which is why I'm going to make paintings again and just assume that I will be selling them either through commissions or an agent or a gallery or whom/whatever. Or, not selling them but painting anyway. I'm a fracking painter, dammit. I mean, when I painted this picture of Tristan, I knew. I just knew. I'm tired of wasting my gifts. Fuck fat thighs, painting makes me happy!

Aid number two: this e-mail from my father, which I will tattoo to my other eyelid. He is very the definition of mensch.

"Sorry I missed it [an e-mail I sent him with a link to my last blog post] but sure glad I found it. Because of course it led me to your blog and to some shattering, no, I mean earth-shaking writing. I am still stunned by the piece on women. Stunned by the quality of your writing and the overriding importance of the message it conveyed....but equally stunned by the realisation of my own complicity in the sad state of affairs you so brilliantly underlined and exposed regarding the role and treatment of the women in our lives and in the world in general. I have to say that for the first time I think I am truly beginning to grasp the full enormity of the issues you raised and for that I have to thank you. But I also have to express my pride in your writing and intellectual accomplishments and in knowing that my own daughter is the one who is shining such a brilliant light on the awful state of affairs you have described in such a compelling way. Your writing ensures that there can be no averting one's eyes from the truths you have so artfully placed before us all. I loved this piece although I am still shaking from the description of the Kingston incident of 1991. I have heard the story before but this time it really hit me between the eyes. Finally I have to say that I remain awestruck by your intellectual gifts and cant help wondering where they came from, considering the very modest contributions that were available from D and me!!!!"

I have no words. I am blessed.

Aid number three:


I was most disconcerted when, in response to my query about what my three-year old niece might like for Christmas, my sister-in-law told me to purchase anything princess. My first response was a steadfast refusal. Thank god I expressed it to a friend (pictured below), and not to my sister-in-law. Friend informed me in no uncertain terms that I would be the most unlikeable and unfun aunt EVER if I did not get my niece EXACTLY what she wanted.


My desire to be liked far outweighs my desire to push my agenda (which some may find hard to believe, but those people clearly know me not!). So, I -- and everyone else in the family -- purchased a moat-filling mound of princess-related stuff for our little princess. But as she sat amongst the wreckage of pink paper and princess paraphernalia, all she really wanted Christmas morning was for me to "PLEASE OPEN MY PEZ CANDY, AUNTY LIZ!" She could not get it into her princess pez dispenser, and then into her princess mouth, fast enough. I knew just how she felt.


And after that was done, she produced a pink polka-dotted suitcase that opens up into a crazy big array of kiddy make up in colours and glitter that only an LA marketing team could have dreamed up (I own exactly one lip liner and one lipstick) and proceeded to give my friend, Anonymous Above, an expert make over. I clearly have nothing to worry about with this girl.