I almost didn’t launch my Kickstarter last night. I was actually fixin’ to launch earlier in the day.

I went out to lunch with Ellie Blankfort. Always filled with such joy and learning for me when I see her. What can you say about a friend that leaves you feeling more and more healed every time?

When I got home, there were a bunch of messages on my voice mail – never a good sign since I usually have none. And they all came from Alabama where my Aunt Susie lives. My Aunt Susie, whom, last I checked, was in full remission after five rounds of chemo for stage 4 breast cancer. It was some kind of miracle.

I’ve probably mentioned this story about how my brother and I went out to see her days after we received this news and, what we thought was going to be a trip of “goodbyes,” wound up being a trip about celebration. We were able to see her and my cousin Lisa – eight and a half months pregnant – her husband, and my little 2nd cousin Damon.

But not just six weeks after we left, Lisa overdosed and died, leaving her brand new baby boy, Samuel, her other son, Damon, her husband Tim, and my aunt (her mother), Susie, all in wake – not to mention my brother and I. It was a shock. Then again, it wasn’t.

Yesterday, the messages I received were even worse. Susie is in the hospital. The cancer has spread to her brain. No longer able to respond,  I am the one to decide on life support. Also, the boys are in Child Protective Services and there is going to be a 72 hour hearing about their placement on Friday at 10:am. The kids will either be going to their other grandparents, or my brother’s family – and who can make a decision like this under such time constraints?! But a decision needs to be made or else they are going into foster care.

On top of that, I find out that Tim died last Thursday. No one knows how exactly, but we can all only guess.

By the time the night came, exhausted from crying and making about 1000 phone calls, I just pushed the “launch” button. Susie wouldn’t want me to hold up my work, and for who knows how long this can all drag on? The work was already done. The button just needed to be pressed and I can go back to making all my phone calls. Maybe it’s inappropriate, but I need the distraction in all honesty. She is the last of my immediate relatives (besides my brother).

So this morning we are moving her to a hospice facility. She will be gone any day, any time, any moment. She has an older granddaughter that keeps coming to see her, but she says Susie is just sleeping peacefully, and there is no way my brother, nor I, can make it out to Tuscaloosa now. All I can do is place others around her and hope she knows I am putting all her interests in place.

I’ve been working my ass off lately. Now, I’m positive that when people do “normal” things in their life, they don’t feel like they are working their “ass off,” but I sure do. I feel like my ass is missing if I just go to the store, or take a shower, or, like today, make a circle in the dirt.

That’s right. I made a circle in the dirt. And that wiped me out! So much, that I came back inside and passed out for an hour.

When I got up, I went back outside and started to fill the circle with rocks and planted a few tiny cacti around the outside of the circle. And all of that business did not make me feel nearly as tired as building that circle in the first place!

I just thought you all should know that.

Oh, before I move on to the next deal-o, I finally met Gregg Chadwick, fellow blogger, who has also had his blog up from since to DAWN OF TIME! I met him at one of Peter Clothier‘s One Hour/One Painting sessions at Rosamund Felson’s Gallery. This was on one of Marcia Roberts‘ paintings. It was an incredible experience. First of all, I had never actually done one of these with Peter, I’m ashamed to say – because I know him and I just haven’t put my ducks in line to get my ass into gear to go to one. He does these things frequently and I highly recommend doing it – on a painting you admire OR NOT! Because that doesn’t even matter. I had such a wake up call, and I am someone who believes in that saying …I think it was Agnes Martin, who said something about only needing a chair with a painting? Somebody should comment and let me know what that quote is. But my point is that I am a keen observer of paintings anyway.

But anyway, Gregg Chadwick was there and he is lovely, and I was so happy to meet him in de flesh. And now I think he might join Artists’ Matters – possibly. He’s going as my guest tomorrow night and we’ll see what happens. Check out his paintings here.

Okay, so also, I have been spending an enormous amount of time putting my Kickstarter campaign together. Yup! I am about to launch one! Any time now. You’ll see. Buckle up. This one is going to big, and I am going to be talking about this a LOT, so I certainly hope I do not become overly annoying. I mean, more annoying then I already am, but I truly need to raise funds for this goal, so bear with me. It is a very important project that I very much hope you will be able to back me on, in any way you can. Even your nice thoughts will work!

I have spent the last three weeks, and I kid you not, working on this thing, non stop! When you see it, you’ll think to yourself, How on Earth did that take her three weeks? I could have done that on my coffee break!

Well, you most certainly could have! Most people, and most eight year-olds could have done the video in about the same time the video is, which I think is something like four minutes. So, that’s the amount of time it would have take most people who know how to use an iPhone.

But apparently, I like to do things in the hardest way possible – but listen – I swear – never on purpose!

I happen to have a Sony DCR-TRV9000. If you know what that is, it was like the first tier “handicam” that was created to make HD motion pictures. You could actually make a real “Sundance” film on this thing. Not the best one ever, but it would pass. I got it for a steal a while ago, when I had this great plan to film my family and make a controversial film about how fucked up they were. My inspiration for that was most definitely: Tarnation. If you have never seen that – it is a masterpiece!

Oh, now…I guess I’m getting into the story a bit, but I’ll give you the short version.

Once I got the cam in my hands, everything changed. I had always made fun of my family in my art, but as soon as I watched it from that cam… Let’s just say I had what you call, a

Well, it was 2007 and I had a nervous breakdown. Okay?

There. Because of this camera.

And so, it sat in the bag for years! I didn’t touch it. But then I had this new idea for a project that required video. I said, Hey, I have a great cam! And I pulled it out and drove out to Joshua Tree, and low and behold, the mic started to clip, until it was just broken. I was trying to do my Kickstarter video there. It would have taken a few minutes. A take or two at the most!

I figured, I’d pull the footage off and narrate over it, but then there was no firewire to connect to the computer. I ordered one, and that didn’t work. Finally, I was so frustrated, I filmed the footage from the television on another camera and thought it looked kinda “cool.” (Not!)

When I went to narrate, I had no microphone at all. The one on my laptop was shit. So I had to buy a new one.

This is getting boring, but do you see how all this got to be three weeks?

Anyway, don’t count on three weeks equaling a great production. It’s the dorkiest thing I think I’ve ever made, but I do hope you’ll be excited about my project. So stay tuned!