Boundaries

I need boundaries. I need limitations.

My idea to experiment with cooking has no limitations at all. That also means no starting point and no direction. I've realized that it's mostly been about baking breads, muffins, cookies, and drinking tea and coffee. Actually cooking is a little more tricky. Following recipes for dinner foods seems much more difficult and requires finding more obscure ingredients in the grocery store. I find that I end up eating the same staples (beans, rice, vegetables thrown into everything, pasta, and left overs). My only real adventures here have been a couple of things with lentils and homemade tortillas. The problem is my lack of limitations.

The world is at my finger tips and I have NO CLUE what to do with it. Sam always says that artists need some kind of limitation to explore to get better. You can't just start throwing paint on a canvas and have it work, but if you have some kind of limitation it will help you find your way. An example would be basic art assignments where the professor has you break up a canvas into a grid and then try different paint applications in each grid. It gives you a vague clue of where to start and you will definitely know when you have finished.

I just started reading a book called Julie & Julia: 365 days, 524 recipes, 1 tiny apartment kitchen. Julie is 30 and in the throws of a life crisis (do they ever go away?) and deals with it by making herself a project. Within the space of a year, she will make all 524 recipes in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Since she has these limitations, she knows what she needs to make and uses the slightly crazy project to work out all of her frustrations and gain some crazy culinary skills. I don't know what to do in my tiny apartment kitchen! I went through and put those post-it tabs on recipes I thought looked good a while back (not something I imagined myself ever doing until I actually did) but haven't tried most of them. Maybe I should make that my mission... instead of obsessing over graduate school applications.

This is the real problem. Sam's applying to 10 or more schools for the fall of 2009 to get his Masters of Fine Art in studio painting. I've spent the last two days researching grad schools and teaching jobs in all the cities where he's considering applying. It's starting to make me crazy. I think I know what kind of career I would find most fulfilling. Working in a community outreach/ social justice/ service organizing office at a university sounds splendid. I can easily see myself being fulfilled and happy in a job like this... and doing it well. There aren't a lot of things I can say that about. I signed up for the GRE today, I've made spreadsheets, and sent emails to people who have the kind of job I want, spazzed, and spent hours pouring over websites. I have no clue if it is getting me closer to any kind of plan. Options in the air right now: (1) Get a Masters of Public Administration. (2) Get a Masters of Theology. (3) Get a Masters of Higher Education. (4) Don't find a good grad school fit and just find some way to make money while Sam is in his first year of the MFA program. Hopefully choices 1-3 could get me to that dream job or something similar... or better... but I don't know which I want, which is available, RANT, RANT, RANT.

I need boundaries.