true of false: penicillin is to sickness as quilting is to writer's block

i think i have writer's block. or at least i've been using that excuse for awhile. but it's a valid one. i've been thinking about everything lately, analyzing some thoughts to death while others go completely unattended. i'd like to say i'm slowly getting a grip on everything, but then i wonder if i have to knock on wood and there's not much wood near where i'm sitting and i'll get sidetracked if i get up to go find some.

(sigh)

i've been trying to find more time to journal because i realize i've got nothing to put out here if i haven't gotten the big load of stuff down on paper. i've started at least a dozen blog drafts, but never find the ambition to finish them in words. i end up typing a bit, then closing my eyes and imagining the rest coming to an end through a canvas i've painted in my head. i haven't found that words are working for me lately. maybe i should take up painting. no, painting's not me. i try to pretend i'm a mark rothko, but i'm really not. or i am, and then i just wonder what in the world i'm trying to say through my splotches of color. i'm sure mark's saying something, but i'm only really saying "look, i can make thick, straight lines of color." my curved lines look like chapter one of drawing horizons for dummies, so i don't try them anymore.

i've thought about taking up quilting recently, after realizing that knitting may never be an option for me (i can't knit. i tried once years ago in an attempt to prove to myself that i'd make a good mom someday, but i failed miserably. it's too hard for people like me who want to do everything perfectly the first time). but somehow quilting seems possible. or maybe it's because my mom has finally decided to say goodbye to all of our baby/kid clothes. when i was home a few weeks ago, sarah and i took a look through all of our old clothes - nkotb t-shirts, hang 10 shorts, oversized camp t-shirts, all that good 80s stuff - and sorted out what we wanted to keep. she was looking for future baby clothes (that's a trend setter for you; only fashion people in the know understand that what a baby wore in '77 could pass for hip and cool for a baby in '07); i was looking for a way to remember my childhood and decided quilting would be my best option.

of course, i have no idea how to quilt. but the idea of putting something useful together all the while remembering my childhood seems like the kind of project i want to invest myself in right now. i'm not sure if what i'm feeling is an identity crisis, but telling a story of my childhood through old t-shirts sounds just like the kind of artsy thing a non-artist at a lack for words should do to figure herself out as she is now.

maybe i'll stop at the library on my way home tonight and pick up quilting for dummies.