Gifts from others, gifts to self, presents!

Gift giving: maybe because I have never kept Xmas or really had a birthday I like giving gifts and I like getting gifts whenever. Gift giving is fun, and so is getting them: nothing better than seeing something and thinking, “Oh I bet X would love that!”

Anyway, I did give one gift over the weekend, but not as many gifts as I would have liked. I was sort of sat upon by my ill health (sometimes when your heart doesn’t beat right, it is like a giant coming and sitting on you – ug!). So that kept me down, but I will make up for it this week!

But I did give MYSELF a few presents (oh was the task to give to others, oops!). Seriously, most of these I got over a month ago and have just been waiting to arrive. For example a sort of friend and person who picks up things for me in Japan offered (as he was sending me two books I bought; a Ghibli card collection – I said yes!) As you can see, the artwork is stunning and now I am wishing I got twice as much, but that’s the old problem of the pocket versus the eye (my eye is GOOD at finding things to get, my pocket not so brilliant in finding the money to get them.).

As it happened several people this weekend gave me gifts including a woman who had the stall next to the yarn knitter (last blog post) who was lusting after the Ashford (why is it EVERYONE including Neil knows this and I can’t remember it?). this woman sold goods out of recycled products, in fact everything she sells is recycled, but you would never know it. Anyway, after we chatted for a while she said she wanted to give me a card, because she said it embodied me. So here it is, and I guess in a way it is how I operate (I just tend to use more swear words!). Linda had some nicer way of saying it (like, "this is so you!"), I just said thanks and wheeled off in a daze.

I was kind of in shock (actually I medically WAS in shock but for now I mean emotionally) that someone at a farmers faire would just GIVE me stuff. I figured it meant either I exude some special essence, or I look REALLY bad, or maybe they had a similar mission we did, to give something that weekend. Which might be true because I was then given another gift, one which is just as much about who I am, the embodiment of me. It is this necklace which the person actually had commissioned for me (how humbling and cool is that). So yes, that’s right, I now have a pendant of Hello Kitty in her Goth boots, with a bloody knife in one hand and a severed heart in the other. SWEET! How incredibly kind and cuddly is that? And she even looks like me!

Plus by post I received from a land I will not name, these stickers, which when I received them, immediately made me lust for more, because I want to put them on people’s postcards. But I only have these six. ARG! Oh well, how do I decide though who gets the “Kangaroos Next 25 km” warning?

Actually a few people sent in gifts this weekend to help with the Postcard Project, which is becoming sort of a collective project as the postcards and the stickers are coming from literally all over the globe. Admittedly I end up doing some of the hand work, but I think this is great, how so many postcards sent out now have 3-6 people’s assistance in the creation of them (one person sends a card, another a sticker, another gives a stamp, I assemble and write the message - that's four right there!). So here is one person whose gift arrived this weekend, they sent me some postcards to send, along with a rubber stamp. I, being me, immediately put one of the postcards and that stamp to work (hey, we have people who LIKE spiders on the list!). As well as this person/s who send some cards to add to the collection. I have to say I have a few candidates in mind for that woman in blue, as well as the seagulls.

So, if you get one of these postcards, I hope you won’t feel it is less of a surprise but more of the joy in receiving a group effort, that your card has ALREADY traveled and been cared about by people before I started on it, just in order to get to you! Thanks to those who sent in cards. As for me, I sent out 32 today (a weeks work) but still, that’s 64 in two weeks so yeah, I do spend hours finding, ordering and buying postcards every week.

In another gift to myself, a person we contacted in Japan went to a limited Exhibit of Oga’s art work, another artist who does some work for Ghibli Studios. I have seen his work in the Museum in oil paintings. To give you an idea, here are four of the postcards, just “simple” reproductions of his art. I only have one set, and since the Exhibit is going off, I can’t get any more, so I am afraid this IS a gift for me (sigh!), and you will only be able to appreciate them on here (or when you visit me in person).

I was also given ANOTHER necklace this weekend. An Opal necklace, which the person said that opal as a necklace is supposedly bad luck……but what else could happen to me? I really wished they hadn’t phrased it THAT way. I prefer to think of it as since my disease makes everything topsy-turvy, that bad luck opal will be good luck for my heath – and that’s is why I am going to wear it (when not wearing the heart cutting out Hello Kitty!).

Also, a gift I had been waiting on for a LONG time – I don’t know how long, so let’s say 6 weeks, a long, long time (two months?), finally came. And that is my Gothic Lolita Hello Kitty Mug designed by h.naoto (he is Japanese fashion designer – if you are somehow overflowing with cash he has tops for $200 or so, but I want a red spider backpack he makes which would be perfect for a wheelchair and is only (just say it fast so that word sounds believable) $88 or so – if it helps I have a $10 off gift certificate?). Anyway the mug was considerably less but is the touch of COOL, Hello Kitty is subversive, Hello Kitty is not just pretty and pink (except when covered in blood). She's cool, and though I can’t wear goth loli (would probably die of heat just putting all those layers on), I can enjoy my Gothic Lolic Mug. Ahhhhhhhh……it is true, some of the best things are worth waiting for (like a new kidney?).

I think that is most of the pile of loot that I gave myself and got (notice I didn’t mention what I gave because I am kind of secretive about things like that – to me gift giving is like a form of communication. Unfortunately I think that means either, I really like myself or I really like Japan, or I really like Hello Kitty, or all three). I hope you had as much fun as I did with giving and maybe you will show me the gifts you gifted yourself with or received?

Also, for every postcard and card and gift I have received, thank you for thinking about me. I try to write you to let you know but with the swiss cheese brain I have now, I miss people out. That isn’t intentional. And the same with postcards, sometimes I find I have forgotten someone so I write one right away! It was fun showing you all the stuff, I liked it (I was like “Here, here, look at this! Look at this!”), so I hope you liked looking? I hope you received or gave some good stuff too!