project 365 #50: stripes

project 365 #50: stripes
Originally uploaded by mygothlaundry.

I feel a bit boxed in right now. . . jailed. BY LACK OF LOVE AND, AND, AND SOMETHING ELSE ALL DARK AND EMO AND STUFF. Rejection! I want to listen to sad love songs and go off on my own personal Asheville rejection tour, whereby I wander around to see all the men in this stupid fucking town who have decided for one reason or another that a relationship with me is just a really bad idea. I AM ALL BUMMED OUT! Or, well, something.

Actually I'm just hungover and miserable and fed up with my own dysfunction and the dysfunction I'm allowing to happen all around me, argh. I just got home from work only to realize that this place looks like something that was rejected from Animal House as too appalling; there seem to be people asleep on every piece of furniture and they ate all the frozen pizza. Yet again I hit that weird central conundrum of my whole life: I somehow failed to grow up. Somewhere, somehow, along the way I got stuck at about age 23 and I have never managed to break out of it. Which most of the time is a good thing - and I have been trying to make peace with it, or at least stay drunk and stoned enough where it no longer bothers me - but when it comes to after party cleanup?

An inner grownup would be handy.

Project 365 #1

living room still life jan 1 project 365 #1
Originally uploaded by mygothlaundry.

I lay on the couch today, getting up only to eat more collards & hoppin' john and to get the camera. I did take a series of collard macro still lives which I was planning to use as today's picture, but they're too artsy fartsy and today was much more a day lived in the true spirit and nature and name of this blog, if you get my drift. Mmmmm hmmmm, nothing like 4 or 5 PBRS quickly followed by waaaaaaaay too much champagne, pink and otherwise. Happy hungover new year. Thanks to S for a lovely party and also bless her for coming by to return my cel phone this morning. She stopped by while I was watching MST3K do Teenagers from Outer Space and we both nearly died laughing: "Find me a man of surgery to extract the metal pellets from my flesh!" Ah lazy hungover days are not all bad.

Conan Movies Are Way Underappreciated

Here at Hangover Headquarters, we have special ways to recover from post Thanksgiving stress disorder. It's a multi part process that involves first laying around in bed most of the day, reading magazines. By the way, Bark magazine? Really strange. Who knew there were so many expensive dog thingies out there? Or so many dog obsessed yuppies to buy them? My brother brought it over as part of his latest quixotic campaign, which is to turn my daughter into a dog whisperer and I read it cover to cover yesterday. Sorry, Bark people - I really hate to break this to you - but dogs aren't kids. They're dogs. I have two dogs and I love them dearly, but they're dogs. They're fine with plain dog food and a backyard and sleeping on cheap dog beds on the floor. They don't need clothes, designer bowls, handmade treats and special environmentally conscious toys that have been hand made by disadvantaged handicapped blind children in Nepal. They like empty water bottles to chew on and tennis balls. Their collars came from K-mart. Their rabies tags came from the clinic. And their ID tags came out of a machine at the Petsmart.

But wait. Back to Thanksgiving recovery. After you're done marveling at the weird world revealed by niche magazines and napping (many naps. Naps are mandatory.) you must eat Thanksgiving dinner all over again and then settle in for an evening watching both Conan movies, back to back! Yes! Conan movies are AWESOME! Conan movies RULE! Conan movies require NO HIGHER THOUGHT PROCESSES! Although you can mentally note that the director was smart in keeping Arnold's lines to a minimum - mostly he just says "CROM!" with a look of surprise. He's very good at saying "CROM!" Then his muscles ripple or something else amazing happens or they have a big old clanking sword fight and it's all good. You can relax into a leftover turkey haze and just lay back and enjoy. Seriously, though, they're not bad movies at all. Trust me on this - I watch bad movies for fun, and neither of the Conan movies qualifies - although the second one comes perilously close in parts, particularly the parts where Olivia D'Abo is required to do something besides look cute. They're well paced; they're nicely shot; the dialogue is mercifully minimal and the actors don't go insanely overboard.

Besides, my favorite movie line of all time is in Conan the Barbarian: "A couple years ago it was just another snake cult. Now, they're everywhere!" Truer words were never spoken - a subtle political observation that's more valid today than it was even then and makes the recent elections even more heartwarming, since we got to crush our enemies, see them driven before us and hear the lamentations of their women.

Thanksgiving, Live from the Trenches

So far today:
8:30 woke up hungover. Naturally.
9:30 fielded phone call from mother. Yesterday morning fought with mother over her desire to participate in turkey, lost battle, mother brined turkey overnight. Now mother freaking out over amount of time necessary to cook turkey. Told mother time fine.
10:00 read Joy of Cooking, called mother back, demanded turkey immediately. Made stuffing. Made frozen biscuits for kids.
10:30 brother showed up with turkey in roasting pan. Went with brother to Earthfare, wandered hungover in daze around store, bought a ton of stuff, forgot cheesecloth, nearly lost vitally important list but recovered.
11:30 stuffed turkey, put turkey in oven.
12:00 realized there were no giblets with turkey, called mother again, fought again over giblets, discovered that mother cooked giblets yesterday, got upset, smoked cigarette, called daughter, complained about mother, daughter fighting with boyfriend and upset, thus completing traditional trigenerational female thanksgiving stress trifecta.
12:30 cleaned bathroom. Scrubbed living and dining room floors on hands and knees. Vacuumed hallway. Semi tidied up bedroom. Yelled at son for doing nothing but playing World of Warcraft.
1:30 started cooking again. Peeled & cut up mountain of potatos, got on stove.
And now it's 2:00 here at Hangover Headquarters, and Thanksgiving is imminent. Whooo eee! Back to the turkey mines!
2:14 son uses guest towels for shower, destroys bathroom. Scream at son.

Utterly Pathetic

Okay, I've spent waaaaaaaaaay too much time today doing my part for the internet: clicking away brainlessly, voting on the funniest picture, the cutest picture and on the prettiest picture. Somebody, after all, has to make the tough choices and it might as well be me. The prettiest is the hardest one: both choices are usually pretty goddamn horrific - having looked at the actual top winners, I'm just clicking on anything that a) doesn't have a waterfall and b) was not created by an AdobeTM product. The cutest picture contest currently only seems to have about six images to choose from, approximately three of which are actually cute, so it's fairly simple. And the funniest? Well, that's your source for seriously dumb shit; it's entertaining. If you like dumb shit, that is, and hell, who doesn't?

I have done absolutely nothing today; it's just wrong and evil but somehow I feel so relaxed. Some days you just have to surf the web, halfheartedly rake a few leaves, go back to the web, eat too much and stare into space and today I have done all those things superlatively well. It's good to be good at something and I am really good at doing nothing. Yay me.

Shopping

Pink Feather Xmas Tree via phone
Originally uploaded by mygothlaundry.

Yesterday, as is so often the case, I was somewhat hungover. The shot of Jamesons with hot tea and lemon and honey, kindly made up by the nice server at the New French bar, would have been okay on its own but then, you know, I just had to have a bunch of beers too. Ah well. It was one of those slight disconnect from reality drowsy hangovers and so, I went shopping.

I went to the library to return my woefully overdue books and I went to Downtown Books and News & traded in a big bag of paperbacks for a slightly smaller bag of paperbacks (including a new copy of The Magus, a book that somehow forever changed my life or at least my brain when I first read it and which I have to always be getting new copies of since I keep giving mine away.) Then I went on to Ross Dress for Less, where I happily tried on many, many pieces of clothing, including a bright and multistriped snowflake sweater (bad), a pair of green jeans (worse) and a pair of plaid slacks (truly hideous.) Christmas has begun at Ross Dress for Less and there were lots of people there opining about the beauty of faux blown glass santas and plates with reindeer, including one lady who was explaining it on her cel phone "It's just the cutest thing. It has a picture on it of a dog, see, and it says, "Don't forget the dog!" What? No, honey, it has a picture of a DAWG, see, and it says, DON'T FORGET THE DOG! Uh huh."

I went from there briefly to Office Max for printer toner and then to Michael's Crafts, which is fully and completely decked out for the holidays. I love Michael's. It has that unique Michael's smell, that weird mixture of potpourri and evergreen and faint disinfectant, and all those weird Michael's things like knitting machines and large sponges cut in the shape of snowflakes, and it's always crowded and cramped full with just plain strange shit. Okay, I confess: I went to Michael's to buy some highly respectable art supplies but what I secretly wanted was a flag with a turkey on it. I'm turning into one of those middle aged women who has seasonal flags hanging outside her house and who trots out a holiday themed vest or sweater at every occasion. It is true. My lack of taste has lost its ironic, hipster edge and become just straightforward lack of taste, yet somehow this bothers me not at all. However, if you do ever see me in a Halloween vest, you can shoot me, it's okay. Alas, turkey time is past; there is no room for turkeys and pilgrims and corn at Michael's now - it's all Santa and snowmen.

And artificial Christmas trees of startling hideosity, such as this one, which I totally covet, but it was like $40 which is a little more than I could quite wrap my head around. Is it not lovely? Does it not sum up the true spirit of Christmas? This tree ROCKS.

Alone With a Bowl of Candy

me halloween 06
Originally uploaded by mygothlaundry.

So here I am, in my default Halloween blue wig, just me and a bowl of candy. Fortunately, I am currently immune to candy, since I gave in to temptation at work and now my teeth hurt and I feel a little ill. I keep watching the clock and wondering if I should go out and then listening to the little voice of sanity in my head, squeaking from under the sugar high. The little voice says, "You have barely recovered from the hangovers of the weekend! You do not need to go out drinking on a Tuesday night even if it is Halloween! Besides, you don't have any money!"

I must listen to this voice. Hell, I should have it recorded on a loudspeaker (maybe like M has done on his cel phone - whenever he gets a text message his own voice says, really loud and dripping with teen irony, "WOW! Hey, I got a text message! Gee!") and make it play a small recording of sober goodness to me all day long, every day. God knows that should certainly make me even more interested in beer than I usually am -

In other news, I finished the painting I was doing for the New French bar and I will attempt to photograph it tomorrow before work. It's very shiny & thus hard as hell to capture. I had not one, not two, but THREE hangovers last weekend, which is some kind of crazed record, but I'm better now. The party turned out to be a huge success with tons of people showing up. In fact, it was such a success that the puppy got sick on Monday from all the goodies he ate late Saturday and then all day Sunday while I lay there and watched episode after episode of Lost while resolutely ignoring the dishes, the mess and the dogs. A good time was, I think, had by all, or almost all. I haven't finished cleaning up yet anyway and a three or more day cleanup usually means a good party.

And now it's Halloween and I'm all partied out. Ah well, I think I've done enough Halloween over the years - it's somebody else's turn this year. Although. . .

A Quick Note

This is just a quick note to say that I am having a bunch of people over for dinner tomorrow night, so if you're in the area and hungry, come over around 6:30. Or later, because I usually ask people to come over about an hour or two before I actually feed them, since hunger is the best spice and tends to disguise any heinous cooking mistakes the chef de nuit (that's french for me) might have made.

This was a good idea about 5 days ago when I first conceived it and it's still a good idea but going out to Broadways tonight and getting all drunk up and taking pictures of J playing pool (really well) was probably not such a good one, preparation wise. But oh well, what the hell, so forth and so on. Come on over tomorrow night. I'm making pasta.

Dimensional Time Slippage

I feel better, if a bit transparent, as you can see from this lovely self portrait. It took exactly 24 hours and some Chinese food to cure me; the ghost of the chicken salad is forever exorcised, thank the gods. And another simple pleasure is removed from my life: fuck chicken salad. I am never eating chicken salad again. That part of my existence, the I think I'll treat myself to some chicken salad for lunch today part is fini, kaput and ended. Chicken salad turns out to be treacherous stuff, not to be trifled with. Or eaten. God, not eaten.

Meanwhile, there is a ghost ship in Italy and my son has a theory that it's all due to seismic activity. He thinks that tectonic plate collisions under the Bermuda Triangle may occasionally cause interdimensional time slippage, small vortices of time, and that's where the ship came from. It thrills me beyond measure to have someone in the family at last with whom I can carry on these sorts of conversations, I must say. I am very fond of this boy. Last night we went over to get the aforementioned Chinese food at the Golden Dragon, our favorite takeout, and he was lamenting the fact that we don't live in NYC, which he perceives as a mystical wonderland where noone could ever get bored and they have Thai takeout on every corner. He cheered up, though, when we got to the strange little strip mall which houses Golden Dragon (this strip mall was apparently dumped there by a Bermuda Triangle time slip itself, because its location is vastly peculiar, its architecture unlikely, and its tenants ill assorted) and discovered that a shop calling itself the Euro Grocery had opened next door. Euro Grocery apparently caters to displaced Russians and Greeks (in Asheville? Who knew?) and it contains a treasure trove of strange Russian candy, whole smoked herrings, and soda with improbable labels. We promptly bought some mysterious chocolates, a jar of taramosalata and a 2 liter bottle of soda which was billed as pear flavored and turns out to be a little too obscure, not to mention sweet, for our lame American palates.

Then we came home and watched a vintage Dr. Who episode, City of Death, and he actually got into it right along with me. It turns out that my deep love for Tom Baker remains, which may, now that I think about it, be one of the reasons I can never date, because, you know, who can live up to Tom Baker in the 70s? That hair. . that scarf. . . those deadpan jokes. . . god, I love him so. M did not, of course, understand this true love, and to protect his adolescent sensitivities I tried not to mention it more than 50 times or so, but he did get into the whole Dr. Who ethos: that "Oh my god this is SO bad. . no, wait, wait. . this is awesome!" thing that you either understand or you do not, and I am happy to report that in at least this instance the apple has not fallen far from the tree, and he gets it. Gets it totally, just as his sister, who sometimes seems to be not a bit like me, still managed to greet the arrival of the hand chair, seen above, with something approximating my own glee and delight. Yay. It is good when your kids like the same things you do.

Another Day, Another Hangover

Actually, the hangover was yesterday, and was so bad that I stayed in bed all day. 24 hours on that futon and my back hurts like hell today; oh well, another lost day, it was raining anyway. This rejoining the 9 to 5 world is kicking my lazy unemployed ass, I must say, although I grant you that being utterly sober all week and getting hopelessly sloshed on a Friday night is not the healthiest way to be gainfully employed. (Wow, that rhymed! I am a po-et and I don't. . the rest was omitted in the interests of not sending all of us into a crazed axe ridden fury. This has been a public service announcement.) Let's get all angst ridden, or rather, let's not, and instead dwell on this super groovy fabulously cool art show at the LG gallery. That's my friend H in the picture there, and his stunning work along with the work of a bunch of other extremely talented people is currently on view. The opening, which I went to on Friday night, was spectacular. Some of the best work I've seen in ages and so I urge you to make tracks downtown - 63 N. Lexington, to be precise - to check it out. Finally, finally someone has taken the technology behind that cool thing, the plasma ball and turned it into art, and the results are as amazingly wonderful as you might think they would be. The gallery is only open on weekends; don't miss it.

In other news, old friends are flocking to Asheville; my good friends D & A have successfully moved to Bat Cave and after I clean up this horrifying kitchen I'm going to try to go find their new house. That should be fun, since I don't think even they have a clue where it really is. Apparently last weekend in the midnight throes of moving with kid and friend and giant piano bearing truck they came over and banged on my door at about 3 in the morning. Noone woke up - not even Theo the watchdog. If only they'd put on dog or squirrel suits: that would have done the trick. Theo is really good at alerting us to the presence of animals; humans, not so much. Other old friends L & A and their three adorable daughters appeared suddenly in town and I met them for a drink at the Brew N' View, which is where I take all Ashevegas neophytes and visitors and which I think is probably directly responsible for D&A's decision to leave Baltimore and come here.

A went off to NY for the weekend and took my car to the Charlotte airport with her, leaving me the keys to her Frankenmobile. I hate the Frankenmobile; clearly, I'm an unfit parent, since although I won't drive it, I seem to think it's fine for A to toodle around town in a car with the hood bolted on by giant bolts (hence the name,)a drivers' side door that's in imminent danger of falling off into the street and a passenger seat that wobbles alarmingly all over the car, to say nothing of the assorted thumps and bangs and unnerving clunk noises the damn thing makes constantly. She left me a long voice mail about how to get Frankenmobile into reverse: put it into all the other gears first, let up slightly on the clutch etc., but I've come up with a better plan, which is just not to drive if at all possible. Every time M leaves the house I keep telling him in a doom laden voice that I cannot, can not, will not, pick him up no matter what, especially at night or in the dark. So far, so good, but A doesn't come back until tomorrow night, eek.

Long Week

sunflower, backlit
Originally uploaded by mygothlaundry.

It was a long wild week, a week where it was necessary, for one reason or another, for me to go out drinkin' every single night. I know, that's a lot to ask of any mere mortal. Not everyone could bring themselves to make that kind of a sacrifice simply in the name of fun, but let it never be said that I quail at such responsibilities, that I cower in the face of taverns or that I, god forbid, can't hold my liquor like a gentleman. Actually, you could say the last and be terrifying accurate, but let's not go there. Ever again. It was, as M would say, epic. Yes. An epic week, like an old Norse saga, with similar amounts of beer and sagas, if slightly (only slightly) fewer horned helmets and clashing sword on shield. Which gives me a chance, oooh, to link to one of my new total favorite pieces of Viking flash in the world!

I went out, I drank vast quantities of beer, I had fun, I had hangovers of varying proportions, although none, I'm happy to say, as cripplingly bad as I almost certainly deserved. I even somehow managed to clean the house up, mow the yard and get a little work done. And watch the first two installments of the Back to the Future movies, which I hadn't seen in many years and about which I can only say, "Scientists, get cracking. There are only 7 years left before I get my flying car - hop to it!"

And meanwhile, the garden is rocking right along and the sunflowers, which I love so much are, as my friend C would say, raging. Raging most awesomely, dude.