The wind is bitter cold today, and it’s snowing a fine particulate placeholder snow, nothing really meant to accumulate, a snow just there to remind you that hey, you’re in the Upper Peninsula, and what in blazes were you thinking, anyway?

Cruised around Calumet today. It didn’t take long. There’s a couple of surprisingly good galleries here. One had good realism and bad abstracts, and one had bad realism and good abstracts. I find this amusing. Someday when I have scads of cash–and a house–and more wall space!–I’m gonna buy a really good abstract painting, just to remind myself that it can be done. Then I’ll hang it over the bed or something. (The space over the bed at home is the only empty wall in the house. I can’t figure out what to put there. Past experience has taught me that a banner of Digger proves distracting to gentleman callers–“The wombat..is…staring…at…me…”–but the large blank wall is galling. Perhaps I will get ambitious and buy several large blank canvases and do bad abstract art on them myself. Or maybe I should just buy more a few more barong. Heh heh heh. At least the barong have a charming leer. Well, I find it charming….)

Hit a souvenir shop. Bought copper jewelry. Almost bought more Zuni bear fetish earrings. Refrained, with difficulty. (What is it with me and the little bears?!) Found those cool copper-dipped filligreed leaves, in earring form. Succumbed. Copper is their big thing up here, lots of old copper mines.

I had hopes that I was going to go back with less net stuff than I came with–after all, I was bringing lots of chocolate and some Christmas presents up!–but between the present recieved, the loon decoy, the books I needed to pick up, the inevitable swapping of clothing now that my mother and I are both size 10s… Which is a sad commentary on the laughability of women’s sizes, by the way–I’m nearly a head taller, she’s exceeeedingly well endowed and falls out of anything that would be almost absurdly conservative on me, and it is only in a deranged fashion world that we should wear the same size–but now I have a rather nice red linen dress that I’ll have to find someplace to wear. But anyway, god only knows how I’m going to fit it all in the suitcase, particularly after I bubblewrap the loon. Some of it may have to get mailed.

I always get the urge to make art when I’m up here. I think it’s a critical mass of art in the house or something. We’ll hope I retain it once I get home…