Decisions Made

Thursday night I was so tired I wanted to go to bed at six o’clock. I’ve no idea why. I managed to stay awake for a while but I was dead to the world by 7:30. Consequently, Sheba woke me to go out at 3:00 am.

The house was cold. The fire had long gone out so instead of going back to bed, I was out in the woodshed fetching some nice pitchy wood to get a roaring fire going.

Thank God I don’t have a job.

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Thursday morning I woke with a decisive mind: I found myself inclined to an opinion concerning two decisions I face in my future. I’ve been under no pressure to make these decisions soon or anything; I knew they’d be comfortably made sooner or later. I had to decide when and for how often to reduce my visits to Dr. Shoja and what my next creative project will be.

I’m going to reduce my visits to Dr. S. to once a month.

The only part of my life I don’t like is going for therapy at the hospital. It’s not the therapy I dislike; I hate leaving home and going to Vancouver. I want to stop seeing Dr. S. but I’m scared to.

She’s helped me make sense of a very sudden and dramatic change in my personality. I can see her as often as I want; she’s consistently said so since my move here but I’ve been going almost two years.  

I have the studio now and three pets that I love off-the-scale and the deer and birds. Plus, I live in utter tranquility. I find today and every day here to be ideal. I’m in a constant state of bliss and there can be no better therapy than that.

As for my next project: I’m going to christen my studio by building a puppet theatre. I am very excited about this idea!

I built a real theatre and it launched my career and I just built Mertz Manor and loved that process. I want to build a big theatre. And then think of a story for which I can build the puppets. Then I’ll write the story last, just as I did with my Defiant Dress project.

It could be for kids. Or maybe I’ll do something for adults — something akin to what Isabella Rossellini did with Green Porn. I love that woman. In response to a commission from the Sundance Channel, she created a series of short films about the mating rituals and reproductive behaviour of various animals. In each film she acts out what is described in concurrent commentary. (She studied animal behavior at Hunter College in New York State.)

Jay and Patsy both have fabulous voices and Patsy is an actor. You never know.

It’s just an idea… but I like it.

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When Darrell came yesterday morning, he brought be some frozen smoked salmon. How sweet is that? And he’s working on an estimate for the sunroom, which I appreciate. I want to build something I can afford. I have a Plan B: Making it half as big. I could truly be very happy with even that. One way or another I am getting a sunroom.

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As a huge vote of confidence in Sheba, I bought a new living room rug. She hasn’t pooped or peed in the house for two weeks so I think it’s safe to proceed with the new rug. The outgoing one — the one found in the crawl space under the cabin — is just too full of Sheba DNA and cleaning stains to be kept. Besides, it won’t be here for a month so by then it’s certain to be safe.