my number

Last year we received a Christmas card from a high school classmate who addressed it to both of us. We received it just a few days after I had arrived in NY to be with Dan. Today we got another Christmas card from him. This one was addressed to only Dan with a letter inside asking Dan to call him to let him know how things are going. Diplomatically, he's wondering if the card should have still been addressed to the two of us, but most likely now just to Dan.

Well, it's been 1 year and 5 days since I arrived in NY and moved in with Dan. Not only have we thoroughly enjoyed each other but it's been the best year of our lives, and at 55 years of age, that's saying a lot! I've never laughed so much in my life.

Now that we're embarking on year number two together, we've discovered a lot about each other and how we want to be in the world, especially with our art/business. We so love working together. I never thought I'd ever say that about a man again after working with a spouse in his field for way too many years. I was determined not to ever do that again. And yet, with Dan I have become a better artist, a deeper what-iffer, and one who wants so much more from myself.

We've been playing with a business concept for a few months now. We've been discovering how we want to show our work, and we're getting a finer concept on how that could possibly be.

I have loved Jude Hill's work for years, since Tina Ferguson brought it to my attention in an intuitive reading she did with me. I've been slowly sticking my toe in that ocean of hand embroidery, but with a different twist -- tie-dyed floss on tie-dyed fabrics. I've been making my own 3-D animals/angels with hand embroidered faces, and now I'm embroidering a shower curtain. Dan brought it home from a thrift shop. It's a Martha Stewart that he paid a buck for, and he tie-dyed it in pinks and purples. I embroidered on pieces of white linen -- a cat face, a woman's eyes and nose, and a flower -- and sewed them onto the curtain. This morning I laid across it and doodled all over it with Sharpie pens. I wrote large letters, drew spirals, formed leaves, captured a bee on a huge flower, and then I began to embroider each line. It's becoming... breath taking.

Yeah, yeah, it's a shower curtain that will eventually hang in the bathroom, something we'll look at only when we're using the sink or the toilet. Yeah, I get it, but while I'm doing what I'm doing in the bathroom I get to look at something that makes me smile, colors that warm me, and faces that bring me joy. What better way than to do it in my own bathroom? (Shared with two and a half men...) It's my bathroom graffiti. There are no phone numbers listed for a good time, but believe me, making this curtain with my own skill, imagination, and Dan's tie-dyeing magic has been a good time. And, the man who I'm having a good time with already has my number...