Zombies . . . .Love and Midterms

About this time a year ago when I was working, I rolled the office chair I was sitting on over my own foot.

It takes talent sometimes.

It was about this time a year ago that the writing was also on the wall for the long term funding for my department. Dead Department Walking.

It was also this time last year that I was working towards the World Fantasy Convention, Lisa and I had collaborated on the House Where Halloween Things Live When It Isn't Halloween.

Which was the last Poppet Project I finished.

So the most interesting thing about running over my toe was that I didn't realize that I'd damaged it until almost right before I left for WFC, because I was trying on dress shoes and felt some pressure. My toe had done that thing toes do when they are bruised under the nail. I'd had experience with this before - it takes about a year to grow out and not look like Zombies Ate Your Toe.

I'm pretty good at predictions, not by being psychic but by doing the work. The department had a two week window at this point last year, if they didn't have good news by the time I was back from WFC, no matter what they were told in meetings they were going to be absorbed back into the larger group, their support staff would be let go, they needed to plan. Schemes were hatched , promises were made, but in the end it's gone down almost exactly the way I'd told them, and now, the zombified toenail is almost grown out - one professional pedicure and the damage will be gone, and the department is officially dissolved. Zombies Were Eating Our Department.

I had one more prediction, that even in "good" times, I'm such an odd collection of skills that it takes about six months to a year for me to be hired again. This time last year I had two months to go before my contract ended, I had finished an amazing accomplishment in 40 days, and I was preparing for the coming storm.

Some of it went the way I expected, and some of it not so much. It's been more difficult in ways. It all feels like circles. Like I'm riding the ripples as the move outward. Sometimes I've been a little zombified.

But at a particular point in time - which was scary and a little low - Lisa sent me some Zombie Love. I didn't know I needed or wanted Zombie Love but there it was.

Smiling it's little embalmed stitching smile at me, fresh blood running down it's ruff . . .

In it's own weird and creepy little way, the Zombie Poppet made all the other zombifications kind of identifiable, and avoidable. Like having an actual Zombie kept all the other zombie wannabes away. Like a totem. It helped a lot.

So when I saw Lisa, I brought Zombie Love with me, and we made a joke about Same Time Next Year. October is now the month I seem to see Lisa in person. It seems so strange to me that I haven't ever cooked for her.

I felt guilty, there were things that we had talked about doing but the year happened without us. It was OK, maybe the year need to grow out, for the damage to work it's way out. Like the toe, maybe I hadn't realized the extent of the damage until it became really visible and it was too late to do anything other than let it heal on it's own.

So here's where I am - the Zombie Toe is almost gone, Zombie Love arrived when I received my Forgiveness Poppet ( who will be appearing here soon as the Embarrassed Ambassador's Younger Sister), Lisa and I are still playing with the House Where Halloween Things Live, because there's no rush, we did it to play. Here's hoping that my annoying streak of being right continues and I will find a job that works for me in the next few months since I predicted it and that the long dark streak of no work on Poppetropolis will end, since I didn't predict that.

It will be like a Halloween Resolution.

And everyone should go to the American Museum of Visionary Arts where some of Lisa's Dark Caravan is being shown in the Smile Exhibition.

My Zombie Love is at the edge of the roller coaster there.

I owe Lisa some pictures. . . . does this one count?

World Fantasy Con - Collaboration Happens

Here is what is now officially titled " The House Where Halloween Things Live When It Isn't Halloween"

This is a picture when it was still in front of Poppetropolis Proper.

(Poppetropolis is the area in NYC where the Embarrassed Embassy is based, it's like Chinatown, or Little Italy but where all the expats from Poppet Planet live).

The Embarrassed Embassy is not yet a year old - but it's 1st anniversary will be soon. Like many construction projects in many cities, it has undergone some changed scope and is behind schedule. It is part and parcel of my reaction to Lisa's art. Lisa and others have told me that my reaction to her work is art. I'm still struggling a little with that.

But it is what it is.

In September, when she asked if I would do something with her for Halloween, I said yes. I had an idea that didn't belong to Poppetropolis and it would be more fun to do it with her. Then later we decided to bring it to the World Fantasy Convention and debut it there. Which is really grand but a little scary because we hadn't met in the Meatworld.

And so we got to explore a little of the surreality of our relationship and reaction to each other. There is no question that we had a relationship, but it was in the new ether of the internet, which is not the same as in person. We were now collaborating cross country, but the first voice contact we had was a phone call to let her know I was at the hotel.

We had emailed and shipped and consulted, and had pictures of each other and, I think a place in each other's lives, ( unbalanced, but equally real) and yet we were still introducing ourselves to each other, but we do know things.

One of the things we knew, is that we were both people who had been involved with conventions before. This ended up being a very useful thing over the weekend. I helped with the set up, I was very happy to be useful. I am always happier when I'm useful.

We set up the art show together and talked while we did. Here are the pictures of most of it without the bid sheets - for posterity . .

The sculpture in the center of this shot is called Blackbirds, and I believe Lisa will be making an 8ft version of it in the next year.

I was not the only person who travelled from distant coasts however, Lisa met with a Poppet Collector from Australia, who asked for a picture of the Poppet that Has Travelled to Australia and Back and the Creator of Poppets.

She is a wonderful lady and an excellent dinner companion. She was actually Queen of Australia and New Zealand, so I was honored by her Poppet's acceptance of an invitation to visit The House Where Halloween Things Live. This marks the first Visiting Poppet to that House.

He is an Outside Steampunk Poppet.

Here he is being greeted by Elul, who made the trip out to show off the House along with two of the Jackos and about 10 other East Coast Expats.

The Australian Outside Steampunk Poppet converses with the Raven and peruses the House Where Halloween Things Live Library.

Of course there was Poe. The book on the table is The Purloined Letter.

Many things happened at World Fantasy Con, I'm still sorting a bunch of it out. I'll write about it while I'm processing it. I have funny anecdotes, and weird ones, and serious ones. I will probably not tell them all. I have anecdotes that involve food:

Anecdotes of Lisa and the Poppet who lives on her desk.

Our mutual love of coffee.

and what it means when people ask you questions like "What do you do?" or "Don't I know you" or "What do you want out of this."

And of course the big one "Why are you doing this"

I think I have begun to have an answer for that last one -

I used to process all the things I couldn't say through words, but I put the words aside. It stopped being safe.

I used to use all the things I felt to communicate, when I was wearing the skin of someone else, so the personal could become universal. It was like breathing, but I learned how to hold my breath and now I cannot exhale.

I used to build things to create small worlds or hold other worlds at bay. I'm still doing that.

The words are too complex, the feelings are too deep to show in someone else's skin, I may have spent to much time trapped in my own. I can't use the older tools I have to process what happens to me when I react to Lisa's art. So I'm building things to help me understand my own reactions. I'm building things to share and show what's going on on the inside.

I'm having trouble telling the story, so I'm building it instead.

It's a stealth story, I've hidden it inside things you might use to tell your own.

And if you see or play with something I've built, then you're wearing my skin, sharing my world which is all ajumble and full of art. So it shouldn't surprise me at all that there are Poppets there.

I am just a little (very!) surprised that other people like it too.

The thing is, I would make it anyway. I don't think I could not make it.

Maybe that makes it art after all.

Scary Random Thoughts

When I say to someone "I am scared" or "This is scary", I am not looking to be reassured that "no it's not really that scary."

Maybe it's not for someone else, but the scary is waiting there for me. It's mine.

I am not saying it to attract attention in a dramatic way (Quick! We must come to her rescue for she is scared!) I would simply ask for help.

I am not proud that way.

I am saying it to give it voice. The scariness. Because if I bother to say it out loud, you know that I am going to do the scary thing, or be in the scary place anyway.

If you know me, you know that I would never say anything if I weren't going to do it.

So when I say "I'm scared."

I mean "Please cover my back, I'm going in anyway"

And if what I'm scared of doesn't seem that scary to you, well that's OK, but I want you to know that it's not effortless, this going in, even if you think it looks easy for me. Even if you think it would be easy for you.

That's the danger of the scariness really, it's mostly invisible.

So when I say "I'm scared." I'm really just trying to make sure that the invisibility doesn't swallow me whole and have me disappear too.

And if I do disappear, I will at least have announced that it was not my intention to do so.

I'm going in.

The Secret is OUT

I've been working with Lisa, we are collaborating on a House Where Poppets Live.

When this is done we will also be making smaller houses, they will be for sharing. This house is meant to leave and go out into the world too.

I've never built anything that intentionally was going to be outside my house for the Poppets so I'm being very careful to make sure that the materials can withstand being played with by grown ups.

I've wondered why I keep building little Rooms of Their Own. Poppets are observers and visitors and adventurers, it's their very nature to be in new spaces and where Poppets live is probably very different than the spaces I make for them, but then I realized that deep down it's about something very important.

It's about the Poppets and Lisa and me, things we know we might have in common and things that we probably don't know at all.

Lisa's writing about it on her blog.

I'm not sure how much to explain, it's all in there. Nothing in the house is by accident, it's all thought out, including the materials we're using to make things.

I'm not sure what to do about the "behind the scenes of it all." I share a bunch of "how to's" on the Embarrassed Embassy forums for Poppetropolis but I haven't been as methodical with recording the step-by-steps on this - because it's a Very Ambitious Project which we're trying to complete in 40 days.

I'm 26 days in.

So if you have questions I think you can ask me here. I check every day. I'll post any really new techniques or discoveries on the Poppetplanet Embarrassed Embassy Forum, and Lisa linked to the Flickr album we're using to collaborate over the two coasts.

So I'll answer questions where ever you want to ask them.

There's lots of other interesting things and people all over the Poppet Planet Forums, so it's worth checking out if you've got some downtime. Lisa and others share all sorts of information about photography and mulitmedia and inspiration and such.

Not everyone who wanders is lost, but they still might like a comfy chair of their own and a nice cup of hot cocoa.