I, Curtis

Category: General Life

  • What does Curtis need?

    What is it that I need as a person? Why am I always so unhappy? I am happy in the ceramic studio, and in other classes as well. I am happy during the day when I am by myself and there is no one else around. I am not happy when people are around me and they expect me to always come up with things to do, or when I am around people and they refuse to speak. I am sad when I am alone, and find myself needing someone, and reach out for a “friend” and find that either none or there or none wish to interact with me, they are all too busy with other things, or are too busy holding offenses of the past against me. Is that how people in my life wish to punish me, by ignoring me when I need them the most? I know I am fucked up when it comes to interacting with people, and I try to improve where I can, and I try to apologize for my errors, but no one seems to be willing to forgive me, someone they consider to be a friend. Should I accept people in my life who are completely unwilling to forgive me for errors of the past that have not been since repeated? Should I call these people that refuse to interact with me when I need someone the most friends? Maybe I am selfish and should realize that I am not worthy of having people to talk to in those times? I have thought of going out and finding other people who haven’t been exposed to my problematic past, but I feel a certain loyalty to my current friends and would never want to create a situation where I would have to decide between my current friends and my new friends.
    Life interacting with other people is confusing.

  • Potter Going Crazy

    It is 0330, I should be asleep right now, but as much as a try, I can’t fall asleep, all of these thoughts are converging on my tiny brain at once.
    With such a short time remaining (14 days) it is becoming more of a challenge to keep these thoughts under control. I am going to spew them here….
    1. I am thinking about scrapping the original set of sculptures idea, instead, making the drawing (see a few posts back) the final member of the set, and starting from a much simpler point, the sculptures have to be 12″ tall, so I will do a large bowl, cut a hole in the bottom, add a cylinder that is almost closed at the top on top of that, make it have a hole in the bottom as well. That should be 12″, or higher, so that will be the first one, and I will develop from there to arrive at the final piece, which is in the diagram. If I can’t think of enough transitions, i will go back to my adding vines idea to finish out the set. Doing it like this presently is just too difficult, I am a wheel potter, not a sculptor, so the intricate detail of the vines, leaves, and flowers (well… wheel thrown roses aren’t that hard) is just an overload that I can’t do, i took a risk on trying it, and the risk failed.
    2. Talked to Molly a lot today, and we came up with a plan to mid-range fire some ware upon approval from Keith. Keith always says yes to a reasonable request, so we are go for that. I am planning to mid-range fire my sculptures just to make sure they have more of a chance of survival. I mean no disrespect to the mighty Alpine and Geil kilns, but the gas reduction is just a bit too much for some of my ware, so a Cone 6 oxidation might just do the trick to settle my nerves. (will custom mix glazes)
    3. I am planning to fire the soda kiln, since no one else is, i’m going to light a [metaphorical] fire under my subordinate classmates (the lower level of wheel students) to get them to prepare some stuff for that kiln. I have a piece that fired apart that I plan to have glazed fired in here to make sure it is a safe ride for it.
    4. Projects Remaining –

    • 3 – 5 sculptures
    • 2-3 more big bowls (final project)

    The sculptures will just round out the last few pieces of the set and make sure I have enough to cover my ass. The big bowls are to be really creative big bowls that will stand out above the rest of my work. I am working diligently to make sure my final project is a success. I have worried myself about my lidded wares, but I have finally convinced myself that enough of them exist and that everything will turn out OK. I have 5 seated in the piece and a lot more seated in the lid. I think I have met quota.
    Let’s do a quick check to see that I have done everything, shall we?

    • 5 small cylinders – check, all accounted for and done
    • 10″ or higher cylinders – check (little low on these, but more have been thrown to cover my ass and I have a few that count as multiple)
    • Lidded forms – check (see above)
    • Sets (2) – check (bowls and steins)
    • Sculptural forms – almost, working
    • Cumulative Body of Work – check (but with uncertainty)

    5. Glazing – not exactly on my high priority list, I will eventually get to it before the end of the semester. I’m looking forward to getting this finished. If I am not careful, I will end up being my own glaze load or two, I should probably start on that soon so that I can stager the load over all of the remaining glaze kiln loads.
    6. The weights of my clay balls – so many times in the past few days I have been asked how much clay I use for certain things. I DONT KNOW! I have ceased weighting my clay, I just crab from my personal barrel what I think I need and I work from that. There is no science behind it, just ceramic intuition. I feel bad that I don’t have the numbers for those that ask, I am going to try remembering to weight after I pull out of my barrel so that I have more to offer than a dumb look.
    7. Space Consumption – I have 2 standards (5 shelves each), one table (about 10′ x 4′), about 3 other shelves and some floor space (for the really tall ones) currently claimed with my ware. I am concerned that I am becoming a studio hog. I have so much ware and I don’t know what to do with it all. I want to be more organized about it and clean up a bit, but i just don’t know how to go about it. I didn’t really ask if I could use the table (i just sort of started landing on it one day and it has grown from there). I have bisque ware on several shelves, glaze ware on one shelf, and the rest of the space is greenware that hasn’t been fired yet. I don’t know when I will ever find the time and patience to manage to get everything dry enough to fire. More importantly, when do I stop throwing? I know I can work until the last day (April 26th), I’m just not sure how that will work out. I want to clear out my table of greenware, and turn it into a table for glazing (mostly for me, but kinda open for others too).
    8. Bonus project – if I complete my sculptures in my next visit or two to the studio, I plan to utilize the time to work on another “final project” of sorts. I want to work more on my tall vessels. Up to this point, all of my tall vessels have had “accidents” in the kilns (2 in bisque, 1 in glaze). I want to take some time and attempt to do 6 – 10 tall stacked pieces to sort of utilize the last days as best as I can and maybe show Tweedy my dedication to the course. In addition to these tall things, I intend to work on doing small projects for myself as well. I have had a request for some salad bowls, which will be a challenge for me, but I think I will enjoy learning how to make them. I hope my friend Oscar won’t be too critical of them since this will be my first time doing a shallow bowl. One thing I found the night I did the set of steins (yes, the whole set, in one session) is that I am good at sets. I have a talent for repetitive throwing (Tweedy mentions that a lot, but not usually in a good context), I want to exercise that talent.
    9. Wheel work at home – I have been working some on my wheel at home, I have gotten good at sets in earthenware too. I am more conservative with my clay at home than at the studio (where I have been given Carte Blanche on clay consumption), because at home, I have to pay for my clay. I likely won’t do anything big at home during the summer, but I will keep throwing as long as I can still afford to buy clay and can throw things small enough to fit in my kiln.
    X. Tweedy has pneumonia, this doesn’t make me happy, since there is a lot left to be done, critiqued or put down. How can we finish the semester without Tweedy? Also, I have noticed that I am the only person in my class who is this far along to completion, everyone else is trailing by at least two projects. I am trying to offer encouragement, but these guys are easily put down by their own bad emotions relating to the stresses of the course. This isn’t a course that can be done lightly with success, it requires skill, motivation, and most importantly, a belief that when it all comes down to the last few moments, your ware will all emerge from the kilns and be safe, and the course will come to a dramatic halt as the pieces are paraded like show horses on a summer day in Tennessee. I feel really bad for Tweedy, at the start of the semester she stepped on a needle and was out for a few weeks and now she is ending like this.
    Its 0400, I feel slightly more tired, but not by much, but at least I have had a chance to do a proper memory dump.

  • Definition: To Throw An Egg

    Throw An Egg – to use a lump of clay to create (“throw”) a closed form on the potter’s wheel, resembling an egg.
    //Just a simple clarification for anyone who thought I was planning to make a mess with yolks this evening.

  • Time-Opps?

    “Time? This is no time to talk about time, we don’t have the time” – Cmdr. Deanna Troi, Star Trek: First Contact
    Computers: OK
    Weather Station: OK (late)
    Radio Clock: not yet (expected in 24 hours)
    Cell Phone: OK (late)
    GE Auto Clock: nope
    VCR: OK
    Router/Switches: nope, and I’m not going to check that damn box! (never have)
    Dad’s Coffee Pot: 2 hours behind (manually set, hmm… something is up there)
    I now must do the math to make the wrong devices right again. Why do these devices not support Atlantic time?

  • Subtle Humor Lost in the Written Word?

    I have been told my previous blog entry, “Time”, was insulting. For anyone that may have been insulted by the entry, I’m sorry, I did not mean it in that way. I accept myself to be a standard of non-standardization, and expect my readers to do so as well. I exist in a world of my own where I can state what is normal, knowing that it is likely that anyone viewing into my world will perceive it as a queer and confusing place. I accept that I am different from a lot of the world, hence I write from a perspective of the majority, with the reality of being in the minority, in order to personify the way I experience things in the “normal” world. So again, I am sorry that my words were taken as an insult, I have a great respect for those of you who can still think of 12 hour time as the standard.

  • Time

    Daylight Saving, Universal Coordinated, Tea, Eastern Not-so-Standard. Why do we care? Why does the United States government feel the need to control time? Here is a thought, why don’t we all just make the plunge and convert to UTC? Time is a reference method for common understanding, at its most dramatic meaning. Moving times around just confuses everyone, and if interacting with people in different time zones, things become even more complicated, especially on days of daylight saving implementation/demise. Time would be much simpler if everyone could just agree to adjust their schedules forward or back an hour at the appropriate times of the year, still allowing for adjustments for the agricultural community, as well as reducing energy consumption based on the sun’s schedule. With so many wireless, radio, and Internet communications not being physically able to respect the political boundaries of the time zones, there is no logical reason to continue operating on diverse time zones. Also, the practice of time keeping in exacts is ridiculous, time is a natural concept, which relies on the Earth’s rotation, which is always constantly changing speeds as it reverses its rotation (currently it is slowing down). The biggest reason to kill off daylight saving time is that it isn’t natural, and the human body reacts badly to it. The human brain can be trained to accept any sleep pattern as normal, but sticking to one pattern has been proven to prevent abnormal weight gain, and also increase “happy hormones”, lowering the chances of slipping into a depression (DST is sometimes a factor in seasonal affective disorder).
    Also, while we are adjusting times, what the fuck is wrong with you people who are hanging on to your precious 12hr time format? It is insane! How do you ever know what time it really is? When I am in the ceramic studio, I get so annoyed when I have to turn up a kiln, there is a problem and I check the log, only to find that someone last checked the kiln at “9”, 9 what? 9 when the sun was up? 9 when it was dark? 9 and 21 are much more distinct numbers. 24hr time is far more logical in the long run. Also, it doesn’t take very long to adjust to 24 hr time. According to military performance reports, it takes a new US Marine about 3 days to become fully acclimate to 24 hour time. Shouldn’t civilians be able to adapt in less than a week?
    I never give the time changes much thought, but this year, I have had to give a little consideration to the event to ensure that things are consistent.

    • Computers – updates have been applied (but I am a little worried about my Linux server)
    • PDA – applied patch and new version of ActiveSync
    • Media Player – doesn’t give a flying fuck about time (seriously, watch it not know how long a song is)
    • Weather alert station – gets updates locally from radio, will update normally.
    • Projection Clock – gets radio updates from a Denver, CO (via a repeater), little nervous, not sure if the adjustment will take
    • Digital Camera – not too worried, always needs a manual update anyway
    • Cell Phone – will be updated by its tower
    • Router/Switches – My router and managed switch update themselves via NTP, but require end-user checking and unchecking of the Daylight Savings Time box.
    • VCR – PBS will update it for me 🙂
    • Network Printer – uses UTC via NTP, doesn’t care about DST

    So, did I miss anything?
    If you are attached to DST practices or the 12hr clock, please comment, I want to know what everyone finds so enjoyable about either of these topics.

  • Aging

    I am 10 days away from my 22nd birthday and it doesn’t quite feel like I should be this old yet. It doesn’t seem like that long ago that I was in high school, learning to drive, discovering my sexuality, or any of those familiar memories. My world has remained fairly stable for the past few years, but I want more from life. I want to reach out and have the world to know who I am. I don’t really know what I want in life, all I know is that I need to become familiar with the world before whatever I decide to do can actually happen. I have feared the outside for way too long.
    Unlike a lot of people, I don’t do New Year’s Resolutions, because they aren’t personal to me, but I do sometimes do “birthday resolutions”, stuff I want to accomplish during one year of my existence. Last year I went for exploring my creativity, I think I did OK at that. This year my goal is to become a less angry person. I want to love a little more and hate a lot less.
    Overall, I feel like i’m not giving 100% of what is possible towards making my life better, so I want to start putting more energy into being a better person and a little less into being a lazy (angry?) slob.

  • Happy St. Valentines Day

    Isn’t it amazing how a small act can change the way someone feels. I was being kind of neutral about the whole valentines holiday thing until a few moments ago. One of my friends, Jonathan Kay, sent me a message from a website he designed (http://candyhearts.jonathankay.com). Its such a simple thing, but yet makes me feel kinda special. Thanks Jonathan for thinking about me.
    OK, so now that I am in a good mood about the day, Happy Valentines day to all of my readers.

  • Questioning the Type of Person I Am

    Am I a good person? Do I care about others? Do I do the harder things in life because its the right thing to do?
    Due to a variety of events and emotions lately these things have become questions in my mind. To the first question I answer, no, I don’t think I’m a good person. I used to be a good person and I feel that I have the potential to be again, but it is going to take a lot of effort, starting with making things right with people who have encountered the wrong side of Curtis. Do I care about others? I’m not sure, but I do know that I have compassion for individuals who care about me, but lately, not even those special few have been exempt from having their feelings questioned. Do I always do the right thing? No, usually I do whatever is easiest for me. I started doing that at some point because I was too depressed or busy with other things to take the time to do the right things in my life. My only little bit of hope with this is that I still remember what the right thing is.
    My answer to all of this? Start over. I’m going to take everything very slowly in my life for the next few weeks and try to resume relationships from where they were last good (and I guess just try to make peace with those that have been permanently destroyed).
    I learned in my Interpersonal Communications course in 2004 that it is normal for people to have a different “presenting self” to everyone they encounter, but I fear that this has gone to an extreme in my life. I am sick of having to interact with everyone differently. Sure, I can interact with my family, out friends, in friends and new acquaintances in different ways, but its time for me to start closing those gaps, everyone in my life needs to know the same person. I don’t like feeling fake, but as long as everyone knows a different person when knowing me, thats all I can be.
    I am a man on a mission, a mission to bring myself back into good standing with my friends, my family, and my enemies.

  • Whats up?: January 07, 2007

    At the moment I am freaking out. I just added assignments for my courses to GITI and I’m looking at due dates, looking at material, seeing that there are concepts here that I don’t understand, concepts that are beyond my present reach. I feel like I am drowning in assignments. GITI is limited to displaying 5 assignments, this used to be enough of a limitation to comfort me, but now I feel like I need some sort of “one thing at a time” view in GITI. Maybe I should rewrite Todo tonight, but what if it becomes even more useless and I am not able to make it help? Will it hurt the situation? Would it be a waste of time?
    Oh, to complicate the situation even further, today has become a perfect day to sort things out in my life, things like friends, sexuality, hobbies, motivations, and pretty much every other thing that has daily interaction but almost no contemplation ever.
    I am so fucking stressed right now, and as far as I can tell, its for no logical reason.