Eleven Pots!

I survived the test. It was actually not nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be. It was a very long day. I was at the test center from the time it opened to the time it closed. Watching people taking shorter tests come and go...and come and go...and come and go. Yep, that's me, the first there and the last to leave. Hey, at least it's over. It didn't really hit me until this morning when I woke up and thought I would have to study and then remembered with that great glow that you get like when you were little and woke up thinking you had to go to school, only to remember it's Saturday and you get to snuggle beneath the covers a while longer.

So I spent the day at the studio throwing bowls...eleven of them! I'm donating them to a charity event to raise money to feed kids (http://www.emptybowls.net/). I don't think I have ever thrown that much in one day. I'm quite pleased with some and less pleased with others. And as I'm throwing them, the instructor tells us that mostly it will just be professional potter's stuff and that people get to choose which one they want. The ones that don't get chosen will be given away for cheaper as seconds the following year. I can just see it now. My poor little pots will be left all alonee at the end of the night. We get a free ticket to go if we donate ten or more, but I'm not sure I can take seeing them get picked last...or not at all. I might have to give the ticket to a friend.

In addition to throwing, I also got a couple pieces back--hot from the kiln (literally, I had to carry them to my car with leather gloves like the kind that falconers use). They turned out fine. I like the glaze combinations. It's always a bit of a risk since they look so different before they're glazed. You have to try to imagine them when they're finished. And then often when they are finished adjust your imagined image to what they really are--usually beautiful, but not usually what you thought you'd be. These two actually turned out mostly as I'd expected for a change.

On the way back from the studio the landlord next door was out at their rental building so I stopped to look at the place with him. It's a nice apartment, especially for the price. And I already love the neighborhood. The big struggle is what to do about the rest of it. The relationship part. I've caught myself over the last couple days imagining living on my own again and it has been sort of fun. On the one hand, I don't like to be alone, but on the other I'm just not sure this whole thing with M. is the right way to go either. Sometimes he is so sweet, but other times he is so crabby that he tends to just "run me over emotionally." (A quote from my previous self that he still teases me about.) I'm feeling like I want to move, but I'm worried about it; and not quite sure yet how to navigate that change.