Entry tags:
executive dysfunction, funeral, advent of winter, harlequin & pierrot
Executive dysfunction strikes again: I've been waiting for 13 days thinking my new winter boots had not arrived yet, deeply sad and worried, and then last night I discovered that in fact they have arrived but I missed the arrival of two separate arrival notice emails that had been automatically sorted out of my 'Inbox' into the autocreated 'Updates' tab (thanks Google). But, I mean, it's happened before with the tabs and when previously in possession of more executive function, I've managed to remember to check the tabs. This is just more Disaster.
The funeral is over. I guess it went well, as funerals go, but it was a funeral. I've been to oodles of funerals in my time, or at least what felt like plenty of them, but somehow I failed to anticipate that when my spouse was the eldest child of the deceased the funeral would be a lot more taxing. To be fair, the funeral was mostly taxing for![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
waxjism (any time she had to go into or out of a room she was basically running a gauntlet of well-wishers and she had to talk to all of them and hug many of them, which included a good handful of people she didn't remember and had to pretend to know), and there was no law preventing me from parking at a table which I did a bit, but I wanted to support her and I know she frequently feels less alarmed when accompanied, so I went through perhaps 70% of these gauntlets with her even though she did most of the talking. I'm definitely never wearing shoes with any sort of heel to a funeral again in case of prolonged standing (they were her mom's dressy winter boots and mainly picked so that I wouldn't have to go shoe shopping or change shoes to go outside. But in retrospect, wearing rain boots and switching to ballet flats inside would've been more comfortable). She also perhaps got the brunt of well-wishers because for people who hadn't seen the family in a long time, they could pick her out immediately because she "looks just like her mom" (not EXACTLY, but yeah, it's there), whereas spotting her brothers in a sea of Swedish Finn men of their generation in dark suits (if you don't remember them clearly that is) who are all likely their 4th or 5th cousins in terms of genetic similarity given the small size of the Swedish Finn gene pool... much more challenging (I overheard them being pointed out to people several times, but everybody seemed to make a beeline for Wax).
It's also snowed a few times and the yard is coated in a fine layer of white frost, which in the sunlight is as sparkly as a coat of white glitter. Yesterday Wax got winter tires put on her mom's car, so we won't be using Bernie the ancient white van (it's named after Bernie Taupin) much until spring. Kind of inconvenient because we still have a lot of trash to get rid of, but the builders will remove it (eventually) for a fee, at least. Speaking of the builders, the apprentice who is doing our downstairs bathroom as his final exam is still plugging away in spite of going to school all week, but he had a cold a while ago and has been here a bit less often lately. Still, there's tile on the floor with the mortar curing, so perhaps it won't be too long until we can hook our washing machine back up and stop paying 40€ every time we have to do the wash at the laundromat at Prisma Piispanristi in Kaarina.
That sketchbook I cracked open on October 10th only has 20 pages or 10 sheets unused still, which means I've used up to page 173. About 90 pages of that is primarily Commedia dell'arte, including 24 Harlequin/Pierrot pairing drawings.waxjism is baffled and amused (listen, outfit designs for Pierrots and Harlequins are both really fun to draw and they both have such a rich history and visual tradition to draw on...!) and suggested the other day that I've drawn enough for a gallery show (it'd have to be a pretty tiny gallery though, and not too formal, given that my sketchbook isn't large and most of the sketches in it don't ever get made into finished pieces. But the quantity is there). ... If you were placing bets about what the worst part of falling into Commedia dell'arte fandom would be, you might point to the lack of currently active fiction, or the aforementioned fact that my pairing of choice is underrepresented. But I bet it wouldn't have occurred to you that it would, in fact, be that browsing images of Pierrot would bring up multiple Sexy Pennywise Halloween costumes in the related images. Thanks Pinterest! I won't share because in this case, they're probably worse than what you're imagining.
The funeral is over. I guess it went well, as funerals go, but it was a funeral. I've been to oodles of funerals in my time, or at least what felt like plenty of them, but somehow I failed to anticipate that when my spouse was the eldest child of the deceased the funeral would be a lot more taxing. To be fair, the funeral was mostly taxing for
waxjism (any time she had to go into or out of a room she was basically running a gauntlet of well-wishers and she had to talk to all of them and hug many of them, which included a good handful of people she didn't remember and had to pretend to know), and there was no law preventing me from parking at a table which I did a bit, but I wanted to support her and I know she frequently feels less alarmed when accompanied, so I went through perhaps 70% of these gauntlets with her even though she did most of the talking. I'm definitely never wearing shoes with any sort of heel to a funeral again in case of prolonged standing (they were her mom's dressy winter boots and mainly picked so that I wouldn't have to go shoe shopping or change shoes to go outside. But in retrospect, wearing rain boots and switching to ballet flats inside would've been more comfortable). She also perhaps got the brunt of well-wishers because for people who hadn't seen the family in a long time, they could pick her out immediately because she "looks just like her mom" (not EXACTLY, but yeah, it's there), whereas spotting her brothers in a sea of Swedish Finn men of their generation in dark suits (if you don't remember them clearly that is) who are all likely their 4th or 5th cousins in terms of genetic similarity given the small size of the Swedish Finn gene pool... much more challenging (I overheard them being pointed out to people several times, but everybody seemed to make a beeline for Wax).It's also snowed a few times and the yard is coated in a fine layer of white frost, which in the sunlight is as sparkly as a coat of white glitter. Yesterday Wax got winter tires put on her mom's car, so we won't be using Bernie the ancient white van (it's named after Bernie Taupin) much until spring. Kind of inconvenient because we still have a lot of trash to get rid of, but the builders will remove it (eventually) for a fee, at least. Speaking of the builders, the apprentice who is doing our downstairs bathroom as his final exam is still plugging away in spite of going to school all week, but he had a cold a while ago and has been here a bit less often lately. Still, there's tile on the floor with the mortar curing, so perhaps it won't be too long until we can hook our washing machine back up and stop paying 40€ every time we have to do the wash at the laundromat at Prisma Piispanristi in Kaarina.
That sketchbook I cracked open on October 10th only has 20 pages or 10 sheets unused still, which means I've used up to page 173. About 90 pages of that is primarily Commedia dell'arte, including 24 Harlequin/Pierrot pairing drawings.
waxjism is baffled and amused (listen, outfit designs for Pierrots and Harlequins are both really fun to draw and they both have such a rich history and visual tradition to draw on...!) and suggested the other day that I've drawn enough for a gallery show (it'd have to be a pretty tiny gallery though, and not too formal, given that my sketchbook isn't large and most of the sketches in it don't ever get made into finished pieces. But the quantity is there). ... If you were placing bets about what the worst part of falling into Commedia dell'arte fandom would be, you might point to the lack of currently active fiction, or the aforementioned fact that my pairing of choice is underrepresented. But I bet it wouldn't have occurred to you that it would, in fact, be that browsing images of Pierrot would bring up multiple Sexy Pennywise Halloween costumes in the related images. Thanks Pinterest! I won't share because in this case, they're probably worse than what you're imagining.
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