Gah, I'm hungover. I should know better than to go to DL and then, I should know enough to come home earlier and then I should know better than to invite my friend S over for even more drinks. Of course, I don't apparently know any of this which is why I'm crouched in my office with the worst headache ever and a raw tongue from salt n' vinegar potato chips.
Technology has gone too far. I heard from a friend who is in similar desperate straits to mine (the lack of male, uh, company desperate straits, not any of the other desperate straits in which I routinely find myself) and she took the bold step of approaching a guy she knew slightly and found attractive while he was crouched over his laptop at a local bar. She was all coquettish but he was busy and uninterested, at least for now. "I could talk to you the week after next," he explained, "because I'm busy next week." No, she was busy the week after next. So he added her to his Google calendar and had it send her an email telling her to talk to him in 3 weeks. Hilarious. But wrong. So, so deeply wrong.
Oh, and if the titles of the various posts & pictures & stuff are getting confusing, it's because I got all muddled up with what day it was, as in it's like the 152nd day of the year and stuff. Which is not a natural way to think of the calendar and so I had to add it all up and then go back through my Flickr Project 365 set and find the places where I had skipped a day and then renumber the ones after that. So I think I fixed it on Flickr but it won't update on the blog and frankly I just can't be bothered. At this point the blog is pretty much getting yesterday's photo anyway and you know what? That's okay.
Showing posts with label project_365. Show all posts
Showing posts with label project_365. Show all posts
Friday, June 01, 2007
Saturday, March 24, 2007
project 365 #83: mela shiva shadow
My friend P, who has been visiting from NY this week, took me out to dinner at Mela tonight. Dinner was fabulous but I feel bad for poor P - he arrived on Monday, got to have one fun night out in Asheville and then his hostess, me, promptly succumbed to the flu and he ended up being sort of farmed off to Bat Cave and beyond. Now that he's going back, of course he's feeling a bit out of it too, so I am probably returning him to the north with a nice case of Asheville flu. Poor P. He will never come back here, I'm sure. Well, mice, men, plans, etc. What can one do?
One can wildly overdo, if one is me, and end up feeling fairly gruesome again. Naturally as soon as I started feeling better yesterday I had to party like a lunatic and then as previously blogged wake up before dawn and then clean the living room completely and go to Lowes and work in the garden and so on, with the predictable result that I'm feeling like I may be vanishing back down the illness rabbit hole again. Gah. Boo. Hiss.
But at least I'm kind of caught up on my picture a day backlog, even if this isn't a prizewinner. Still, I'm a sucker for that dancing shadow - either Krishna or Shiva I think. Making the world or just making it with the cowmaids - Indian deities have more fun. Gods the food was amazing though - I want to move to India; I always have, although I've accepted the likelihood that I probably won't be able to marry Kim (damn) but I'd be happy just to eat Indian food every day for the rest of my life. Yum.
One can wildly overdo, if one is me, and end up feeling fairly gruesome again. Naturally as soon as I started feeling better yesterday I had to party like a lunatic and then as previously blogged wake up before dawn and then clean the living room completely and go to Lowes and work in the garden and so on, with the predictable result that I'm feeling like I may be vanishing back down the illness rabbit hole again. Gah. Boo. Hiss.
But at least I'm kind of caught up on my picture a day backlog, even if this isn't a prizewinner. Still, I'm a sucker for that dancing shadow - either Krishna or Shiva I think. Making the world or just making it with the cowmaids - Indian deities have more fun. Gods the food was amazing though - I want to move to India; I always have, although I've accepted the likelihood that I probably won't be able to marry Kim (damn) but I'd be happy just to eat Indian food every day for the rest of my life. Yum.
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
project 365 #73: tree by biltimore forest ingles
Why doesn't Asheville have a decent alternative radio station? Preach to me not of WNCW, oh my brothers and sisters, for I have been stalwart and yet finally, the twang and the jazz have defeated me. There is only so much bluegrass anyone can take and my limit has been reached; besides, they play jazz all the damn time now along with that horrific 1940s cowboy music and I can just no longer pretend I'm cool enough to enjoy it. I'm not that cool and I hate jazz. I hate swing even more and fashionable faux swing? First up against the wall when I become the evil overlord. I'm terminally uncool and I want to hear what was called, back in the day, rock n' roll music. All day long at work on the computer I listen to WFUV out of New York and I weep when they play music I can't hear locally and cheer when they play the traffic and weather because, thank the gods, I haven't lived in New York in well over a decade.
Seriously, though, it sucks. I was stuck in traffic on the goddamn McDowell Street bridge for like 15 interminable minutes this evening attempting to go visit my mother and I had a choice of boingety boingety twang twang jazzgrass on WNCW, Behind Blue Eyes on the clone classic hits radio station (Noone knows what it's like to be the sad man. . . yes. Yes they do. All 50 million of them who have been forced to listen to that fucking pathetic song thousands of times over and over on classic "we can't be bothered to own more than 10 CDs" rock radio, corporate whores of the demonocracy) and car ads on the other station. Or jesus. I could always listen to some asshole telling me about jesus, but he doesn't love me and I like it that way, thanks.
To add insult to injury, I dragged all my old cassettes out of the house and back into the car which, among other things, dumped dust and grime all over my black pants, only to discover that the cassette deck makes everything wobble and shake even more heinously than I, no serious audiophile, can stand. I mean, can you believe it? You don't clean a cassette deck for 10 years and then try to play a bunch of crusty 15 year old cheap ass cassettes on it and it's all wobbly? No pride in craftsmanship, I swan. So I'm in the market for a tape deck cleaner; I can so totally imagine how many of those there are around now. If you have one, I need it. I have a Men At Work tape from 1982 that's dying to be heard on Hendersonville Road.
Seriously, though, it sucks. I was stuck in traffic on the goddamn McDowell Street bridge for like 15 interminable minutes this evening attempting to go visit my mother and I had a choice of boingety boingety twang twang jazzgrass on WNCW, Behind Blue Eyes on the clone classic hits radio station (Noone knows what it's like to be the sad man. . . yes. Yes they do. All 50 million of them who have been forced to listen to that fucking pathetic song thousands of times over and over on classic "we can't be bothered to own more than 10 CDs" rock radio, corporate whores of the demonocracy) and car ads on the other station. Or jesus. I could always listen to some asshole telling me about jesus, but he doesn't love me and I like it that way, thanks.
To add insult to injury, I dragged all my old cassettes out of the house and back into the car which, among other things, dumped dust and grime all over my black pants, only to discover that the cassette deck makes everything wobble and shake even more heinously than I, no serious audiophile, can stand. I mean, can you believe it? You don't clean a cassette deck for 10 years and then try to play a bunch of crusty 15 year old cheap ass cassettes on it and it's all wobbly? No pride in craftsmanship, I swan. So I'm in the market for a tape deck cleaner; I can so totally imagine how many of those there are around now. If you have one, I need it. I have a Men At Work tape from 1982 that's dying to be heard on Hendersonville Road.
Monday, March 12, 2007
project 365 #71: half assed fireworks
Yup, as always, we're terrorizing the neighbors with our quality selection of high explosives. I put a stop to the bottle rocket fight last night - or at least I halted it temporarily while I got the hell out of Dodge. I find that my son & his friends & I all get along much, much better at fireworks time when I'm about 6 blocks away. Actually, I am guiltily fond of fireworks and loud banging noises myself, although the poor dogs are not happy with M's treasure trove and the cops do seem to drive by a lot more than they used to. Ah well. I don't think the roof is currently on fire. It will so suck if it is, since the dog ate the hose last week.
project 365 #70: folly jetty
So Sunday morning, which would of course be yesterday, we got up and checked out of the motel, right on time at 10:00 am. We drove all the way to the tip of Folly Island towards the lighthouse, past where the surfers hang out and parked the car and walked along the beach and sat on this jetty for a while and contemplated some herbal goodness. I took pictures and N lay in the sun with his blinding white self (N is the only person in the world who is actually paler than me) and then we started getting a bit sunburnt, plus we were going to meet two old friends for brunch at noon, so we headed over to James Island. I was sitting on the porch with my old friend R to talk a bit when he asked me what time it was - and told me that the clocks had gone an hour ahead.
Oops. My poor friend H had been sitting at the restaurant where we were supposed to meet for brunch for an hour. He had even called and I hadn't heard the phone ring; then, when I listened to his message, I assumed that he had called me around 12 midnight, since as far as I was concerned it wasn't noon yet and I blithely completely spaced the time change. I'm now in terror that the motel is going to charge me for an extra night (they have strict cranky signs in the rooms about it) and last night it got terribly late terribly fast. I hate springing forward. I am not up to it. And without the computer, which sets itself, I'm apparently completely incapable of finding out the correct time.
Oops. My poor friend H had been sitting at the restaurant where we were supposed to meet for brunch for an hour. He had even called and I hadn't heard the phone ring; then, when I listened to his message, I assumed that he had called me around 12 midnight, since as far as I was concerned it wasn't noon yet and I blithely completely spaced the time change. I'm now in terror that the motel is going to charge me for an extra night (they have strict cranky signs in the rooms about it) and last night it got terribly late terribly fast. I hate springing forward. I am not up to it. And without the computer, which sets itself, I'm apparently completely incapable of finding out the correct time.
project 365 #69: sunset folly beach 1
Got to Charleston in record time on Saturday and proceeded to make the embarrassing classic tourist mistake and drive over the Cooper River bridge. They'll be taking away my citizenship now - but I'm still not used to the new bridge and the old bridge had a handy cut off to East Bay Street that I always used. Ah well; it wasn't hard to turn around and driving over the bridge is cool.
It was a good weekend. The memorial service was lengthy and moving and I only knew two people there; one of whom didn't remember me and one of whom I didn't manage to speak with. It's been a long, long time since I lived in Charleston and even though I still sort of think of it as home, it isn't, really. Not anymore. Thinking about that and all made me sad, but then we got on out to Folly and everything somehow was worth it. Several long walks on the beach; a fried seafood platter at Bowen's Island and brunch with two old close friends West Ashley: it was pretty much a perfect two days. Now I'm exhausted as I always am after a road trip but a lot got ironed out, somehow, this weekend, and I feel better. Or I will when I get some sleep. But in the meantime, though, there's some kind of closure now on a whole bunch of levels.
It was a good weekend. The memorial service was lengthy and moving and I only knew two people there; one of whom didn't remember me and one of whom I didn't manage to speak with. It's been a long, long time since I lived in Charleston and even though I still sort of think of it as home, it isn't, really. Not anymore. Thinking about that and all made me sad, but then we got on out to Folly and everything somehow was worth it. Several long walks on the beach; a fried seafood platter at Bowen's Island and brunch with two old close friends West Ashley: it was pretty much a perfect two days. Now I'm exhausted as I always am after a road trip but a lot got ironed out, somehow, this weekend, and I feel better. Or I will when I get some sleep. But in the meantime, though, there's some kind of closure now on a whole bunch of levels.
Friday, March 09, 2007
project 365 #68: red shopping cart by the dollar store
I have nothing new under the sun to report. Tomorrow morning I'm leaving for Charleston but only for a short trip; I'll be back Sunday night. I took this picture while stuck in traffic on Haywood Road, which is not interesting enough to blog about and then I went to the Westville and drank a couple of beers with my friend S and then I came home and had a fight with M and made dinner and drank a few more beers and, momentarily, I am going to go and pack a bag for the weekend, keeping in mind that Charleston is dressier than Asheville.
I'm going to a memorial service for my old friend Michael Tyzack, who was my professor when I was an art major at the College of Charleston, who taught me about paint and color and how you should take care of your brushes. A couple of years later, when he was on a sabbatical year in NYC, living in a Soho loft, we dated for several months. And then we didn't anymore and I went on and lived my life and he lived his and there was no contact. Then, a little bit after I moved here and was working at the art museum, a card came announcing a retrospective of his at the College gallery, where, in other news, I did my work study stint in college, hanging shows and arranging gallery attendants and, incidentally, firing my friend D, who is still a friend of mine and still prone to always being late.
So I went to Charleston to Michael's show, because I hadn't seen him in so very long and he was overwhelmingly happy to see me. Michael was an Englishman who never lost his inimitable British accent and some of the stories he told me I still am telling, like the one where he went at age 15 with his Irish uncle to a bar in Dublin and, when asked to order a drink, ordered Scotch because he had never ordered a drink before but had heard his father do it. Silence fell, and his uncle said, "You're in Ireland and you'll drink Jamesons." And so, he did.
He watched me standing by a window once and said, almost surprised, "Do you know, you're really quite extraordinarily beautiful right now." "Yes," I said, since I was gutsier then and naked, "Yes, I know." And he laughed and probably pulled me back to bed. When I saw him in Charleston those five or so years ago I said, "Do you remember how we broke up? Because I can't, and it's bothering me." "Oh," he said, "We just faded away." And I guess we did. He was happy as hell to see me then and I was happy to see him and we went for a drink which was lovely and I would have stayed with all the people for dinner but I was underdressed (which is, I believe, where I started with this) because I had come down from Asheville in, god help me, jeans and probably hiking boots, to re-encounter downtown Charleson in all their finery and I felt dowdy and young and foolish, which is often how I felt with Michael, and so I begged off. We fought about that when I was dating him and finally he took me to a dinner party at Sean Scully's loft and I was, alas, dowdy and young and foolish and ignored. And now I am going to his memorial service: still dowdy, still foolish but not so young.
Damn.
Note. After rereading this a couple of days later I want to make sure it's clear that it was only me and my insecurity (and my reprehensible taste in clothes) that made me feel dowdy and/or foolish. Michael never did; he was great.
I'm going to a memorial service for my old friend Michael Tyzack, who was my professor when I was an art major at the College of Charleston, who taught me about paint and color and how you should take care of your brushes. A couple of years later, when he was on a sabbatical year in NYC, living in a Soho loft, we dated for several months. And then we didn't anymore and I went on and lived my life and he lived his and there was no contact. Then, a little bit after I moved here and was working at the art museum, a card came announcing a retrospective of his at the College gallery, where, in other news, I did my work study stint in college, hanging shows and arranging gallery attendants and, incidentally, firing my friend D, who is still a friend of mine and still prone to always being late.
So I went to Charleston to Michael's show, because I hadn't seen him in so very long and he was overwhelmingly happy to see me. Michael was an Englishman who never lost his inimitable British accent and some of the stories he told me I still am telling, like the one where he went at age 15 with his Irish uncle to a bar in Dublin and, when asked to order a drink, ordered Scotch because he had never ordered a drink before but had heard his father do it. Silence fell, and his uncle said, "You're in Ireland and you'll drink Jamesons." And so, he did.
He watched me standing by a window once and said, almost surprised, "Do you know, you're really quite extraordinarily beautiful right now." "Yes," I said, since I was gutsier then and naked, "Yes, I know." And he laughed and probably pulled me back to bed. When I saw him in Charleston those five or so years ago I said, "Do you remember how we broke up? Because I can't, and it's bothering me." "Oh," he said, "We just faded away." And I guess we did. He was happy as hell to see me then and I was happy to see him and we went for a drink which was lovely and I would have stayed with all the people for dinner but I was underdressed (which is, I believe, where I started with this) because I had come down from Asheville in, god help me, jeans and probably hiking boots, to re-encounter downtown Charleson in all their finery and I felt dowdy and young and foolish, which is often how I felt with Michael, and so I begged off. We fought about that when I was dating him and finally he took me to a dinner party at Sean Scully's loft and I was, alas, dowdy and young and foolish and ignored. And now I am going to his memorial service: still dowdy, still foolish but not so young.
Damn.
Note. After rereading this a couple of days later I want to make sure it's clear that it was only me and my insecurity (and my reprehensible taste in clothes) that made me feel dowdy and/or foolish. Michael never did; he was great.
Thursday, March 08, 2007
project 365 #67: stump
This is from a stump at the park this morning and, as often with macros, I'm just blown away by all the sort of painterly abstraction and color and so on. Yeah. Also, I went out while doing the laundry and had a few beers with J at the Westville and I can't see anyway and, well, let's just say it's a bit difficult to type right now. Which is okay. Yes. I guess.
There was a lovely beagly dog named Forrest at the Westville who was wandering around happily. He kept going into the kitchen, which evoked yells of "Forrest! Out!" from the cooks, but it was so nice. A restaurant kitchen is like heaven on earth for a dog and really, all kitchens should have dogs in them. I like businesses that have animals, from the fish market around the corner from my East Village apartment in the late 80s that had the healthiest, most beautiful, sleekest big black cat I have ever seen to Lexington Avenue Books & News, where, as all Ashevillains know, Retail the cat holds court on the counter. But, see, cats are unfairly overrrepresented in businesses, and actually dogs are great in them as well, if not better. Once in Maryland I went to cut down a Christmas tree at Doyle's Tree Farm, which was actually around the corner from where I used to live, and their resident dog pinned down all my kids, one by one, and licked their faces thoroughly. You just can't pay for that kind of customer service.
There was a lovely beagly dog named Forrest at the Westville who was wandering around happily. He kept going into the kitchen, which evoked yells of "Forrest! Out!" from the cooks, but it was so nice. A restaurant kitchen is like heaven on earth for a dog and really, all kitchens should have dogs in them. I like businesses that have animals, from the fish market around the corner from my East Village apartment in the late 80s that had the healthiest, most beautiful, sleekest big black cat I have ever seen to Lexington Avenue Books & News, where, as all Ashevillains know, Retail the cat holds court on the counter. But, see, cats are unfairly overrrepresented in businesses, and actually dogs are great in them as well, if not better. Once in Maryland I went to cut down a Christmas tree at Doyle's Tree Farm, which was actually around the corner from where I used to live, and their resident dog pinned down all my kids, one by one, and licked their faces thoroughly. You just can't pay for that kind of customer service.
Saturday, March 03, 2007
project 365 #62: max patch distant kite
The wind at Max Patch today was like nothing I've ever experienced, and I've been for walks in the wake and edge of hurricanes. It nearly knocked me flat, a couple of times, and my ears are still kind of ringing seven hours later. My friend S. gave up and retreated a bit behind the bald for some protection; I tried to get to the absolute top of Max Patch and couldn't even make it all the way. That sounds so ridiculous, and it was, but it's true: I couldn't get to the top of Max Patch. I thought the wind was literally going to blow me off the side of the world. It was fantastic. It was amazing. It was like, well, nothing, because I don't think there is anything that quite compares to trying to stand up in that kind of wind on top of a mountain on a blue, blue day. It was 70 mph winds hitting you from every side until you can barely stand, with your hair completely standing out on end from your head (I think I have dreads now. So that's where they come from.) Wind like that blows all thought out of your head. It was great.
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
project 365 #51: asheville high school
M is sick; N is getting sick; I am sick and tired, but otherwise just fine. A had it last week; the dogs are sickening and the state of my kitchen would make anyone sicker than hell. So I had to go pick up M from school around noon, since, as he martyredly noted in the car, I had yelled at him this morning and forced him to the halls of academe, pictured here. I am evil that way and he didn't have a fever. But then when the nurse calls I always get consumed by guilt and so, on the way there, I stopped at Kerr Drug and picked up $30 worth of cold medicine, cough drops and kleenex - the last of which I left on the kitchen table and then discovered this evening, opened from the side. From the side. I love my son but good lord, the boy does not know how to open a kleenex box. No wonder he's doing so miserably in school. Maybe I should be kinder to him and use words of one syllable in a soothing voice instead of screaming about jesus, His crutch and sacred pogostick at 7:45 every morning.
I also had to sign my soul away to receive sudafed, now that it's become a controlled substance. This is ridiculous. Nyquil doesn't work anymore and sudafed, which is so harmless that even I, notoriously afraid of pills, will take it without qualms, gets me more evil looks and signing of forms than the damn percodans and morphine I picked up for my mom last summer. Which is utterly stupid, since, among other things, you'd think the clerk would have realized that if I was planning to come on home to the trailer and cook up some nice meth for dinner I wouldn't have bothered spending all the rest of my money on new, unimproved Nyquil, cough syrup, echinacea lozenges and, of course, the aforementioned giant boxes of kleenex.
In other news I reread my blog myself and yeah, okay, I guess I have been a bit insane lately. I felt like Homer Simpson - I wanted to beat the monitor and yell "Be more funny!" So I will try. Not that I'm not secretly grieving all sad like and adolescent and pathetic, okay, because I am, like, so fucking emo that it would blow your head off and make Morrissey (the old, interesting Morrissey) look like the teen leader of Up for America but still. I will attempt a return to making more funny. And I have a call into my guru therapist so that he can take up the angst slack, so everyone can breathe a big old sigh of relief.
Have I mentioned lately how much I hate February?
I also had to sign my soul away to receive sudafed, now that it's become a controlled substance. This is ridiculous. Nyquil doesn't work anymore and sudafed, which is so harmless that even I, notoriously afraid of pills, will take it without qualms, gets me more evil looks and signing of forms than the damn percodans and morphine I picked up for my mom last summer. Which is utterly stupid, since, among other things, you'd think the clerk would have realized that if I was planning to come on home to the trailer and cook up some nice meth for dinner I wouldn't have bothered spending all the rest of my money on new, unimproved Nyquil, cough syrup, echinacea lozenges and, of course, the aforementioned giant boxes of kleenex.
In other news I reread my blog myself and yeah, okay, I guess I have been a bit insane lately. I felt like Homer Simpson - I wanted to beat the monitor and yell "Be more funny!" So I will try. Not that I'm not secretly grieving all sad like and adolescent and pathetic, okay, because I am, like, so fucking emo that it would blow your head off and make Morrissey (the old, interesting Morrissey) look like the teen leader of Up for America but still. I will attempt a return to making more funny. And I have a call into my guru therapist so that he can take up the angst slack, so everyone can breathe a big old sigh of relief.
Have I mentioned lately how much I hate February?
Monday, February 19, 2007
project 365 #50: stripes
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.
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 #49: dinner party
It was one of those weekends. You know, one of those weekends where you drink way too much, steadily, continuously, and things go from one emotional extreme to the other and back again? It was both wonderful and hellish (with a lean to the hellish) and right now, Monday morning, I'm exhausted and drained and, well, sad.
The fun is all over for me again. I'm back to having to be a grownup and I'm also back to being as alone as I've ever been. Not that this is surprising; I expected it; maybe not quite so soon. That's why I have to be cryptic sometimes: things can change in the proverbial twinkling of some huge and glaring red eye. And they have. Not really for the better. The spider who was living in my shower is dead and a curled husk on the ceiling. The gates to the doors of perception have slammed closed yet again and it's back to business as usual at Hangover Headquarters.
Sometimes I wonder what gods I offended so powerfully in my last life or two, or maybe it's something I did in this one and no longer remember or maybe it's just that I'm a fuckup. There you have it and life just goes on because it must. Next year around this time I think I'll take an extended vacation in a concrete bunker under a bleak mountain somewhere because while you can live on indefinitely hopeless, happiness is a painful fucking thing.
In other news I had a party last night; it was really nice; my friends came down from Bat Cave bringing a load of firewood which was excellent and, also excellently, my friend A, using a rake and the whirlwind ADD abilities that are his trademark, totally cleaned up the horrific Dog Bosnia that Django had turned my backyard into.
The fun is all over for me again. I'm back to having to be a grownup and I'm also back to being as alone as I've ever been. Not that this is surprising; I expected it; maybe not quite so soon. That's why I have to be cryptic sometimes: things can change in the proverbial twinkling of some huge and glaring red eye. And they have. Not really for the better. The spider who was living in my shower is dead and a curled husk on the ceiling. The gates to the doors of perception have slammed closed yet again and it's back to business as usual at Hangover Headquarters.
Sometimes I wonder what gods I offended so powerfully in my last life or two, or maybe it's something I did in this one and no longer remember or maybe it's just that I'm a fuckup. There you have it and life just goes on because it must. Next year around this time I think I'll take an extended vacation in a concrete bunker under a bleak mountain somewhere because while you can live on indefinitely hopeless, happiness is a painful fucking thing.
In other news I had a party last night; it was really nice; my friends came down from Bat Cave bringing a load of firewood which was excellent and, also excellently, my friend A, using a rake and the whirlwind ADD abilities that are his trademark, totally cleaned up the horrific Dog Bosnia that Django had turned my backyard into.
Friday, February 16, 2007
project 365 #47: ice
The ice that somebody dumped in the Rhino courtyard after an event isn't going anywhere. No, those cubes are sitting happily, fully formed and almost sentient, like they're about to take on some kind of creepy ersatz life, like Frosty, only more debauched. Ice Cube Guy, a demented creature built of cubed ice, lurching around looking for a nice rum drink to bury itself in. No luck, Icey, no, sorry, Ice, Ice, baby - we're drinking hot toddies and rum and hot chocolate, curling up on the couch under a sleeping bag, spending the majority of our paychecks on heating oil (fuck, that hurt too) and in general hoping something resembling spring hits soon.
Fuck February. Fuck days where it's 24 degrees when I get to work and 20 when I leave. I don't recall signing on for the Yukon.
However, Ashevillains are getting out. N & I tried to go see Casino Royale at the Brew N' View and it was sold out & the place was packed. Then we went to Burgermeister, which was great, but also jammed full of people. Why aren't they all at home huddled around a blow dryer like sane folk?
Fuck February. Fuck days where it's 24 degrees when I get to work and 20 when I leave. I don't recall signing on for the Yukon.
However, Ashevillains are getting out. N & I tried to go see Casino Royale at the Brew N' View and it was sold out & the place was packed. Then we went to Burgermeister, which was great, but also jammed full of people. Why aren't they all at home huddled around a blow dryer like sane folk?
Thursday, February 15, 2007
project 365 #46: hangover breakfast
It was a coca cola in a pepsi cup morning for sure and this was the only picture I took today; taken by the crazy hippie chick in the long black skirt and big fur hat, with her pajama bottoms sticking out under the skirt and purple plastic clogs. The only woman among the cold and half awake construction workers at 8:15 in the morning who also like the bacon and egg biscuits at the Eblen gas station on Amboy Road. You expect a person like that to whip out a big camera and take a picture of sodas on the roof of her car because, clearly, she nuts. Yeah, she crazy. It's okay.
It was a long miserable day at work, too, but you know what?
No regrets.
It was a long miserable day at work, too, but you know what?
No regrets.
Monday, February 12, 2007
project 365 #43: dog
Totally forgot my camera today and then went to see my mother for a while, cursing the perfect warm day and skies that were oh so photogenic all the way. I even got windshield washer fluid for the car the other day so I could continue endangering the lives of innocent motorists by shooting over the steering wheel without the whole thing looking like a pile of weird white amoebae, but all to no avail. So I came home and made mashed potatoes, pork chops and collards to appease young M, who is in open rebellion against all the vegetarian hippie food I've been serving lately, and took a lot of heinous kitchen still lives. They all sucked, even the ones with the Silver Surfer action figure in them (Yes. I have the Silver Surfer in my kitchen; an 11" high model suitable to date Barbie, should Barbie suddenly find herself in the mood for a bald guy with improbable silver muscles on an out of scale surfboard) which proves that while you would think that the Silver Surfer would, like, totally make any photo of onions far more worthwhile, you would be wrong, because a boring picture of onions with the Silver Surfer is still, alas, a boring picture. So in desperation I ran over and took a bunch of close up macros of Djangos' nose (which I am too kind to share: they're good photos from a creepy scientific point of view, but honestly you don't want to look at a dogs nose that close and neither do I) and then this one. Which will do. After all, it was Monday.
Sunday, February 11, 2007
project 365 #42: vaguely thai stir fry for dinner tonight
One of those Sundays: clean the kitchen, chase the dog around the block in high confusion, make pancakes, clean the kitchen again, chase the dog again and so on. Laundry. Floor mopping. The dog getting out of the fence repeatedly and all of us fanning out around the neighborhood to find him, fearing for the worst while he was having the time of his life with a similarly un-human-encumbered doggie and, somehow, swimming. The dog was swimming, I mean, not us, thank god, although it was a beautiful day.
Now, dinner & the kids watching a really horribly gruesome slasher flick: how comfortable and American and normal! Yes, there's nothing like watching people saw their own limbs off to work up an appetite. I can only hear it, thank the gods, not see it, and occasionally I get to shout a plaintive Mom-ish "Why are y'all watching something like that?" into the living room, which naturally goes unanswered. It's all in the mix, I guess - we did all watch Pink Flamingos earlier and upping the grossness ante after that is damn tough.
Now, dinner & the kids watching a really horribly gruesome slasher flick: how comfortable and American and normal! Yes, there's nothing like watching people saw their own limbs off to work up an appetite. I can only hear it, thank the gods, not see it, and occasionally I get to shout a plaintive Mom-ish "Why are y'all watching something like that?" into the living room, which naturally goes unanswered. It's all in the mix, I guess - we did all watch Pink Flamingos earlier and upping the grossness ante after that is damn tough.
Saturday, February 10, 2007
project 365 #41: N at daniel ridge falls
For a day that started out hungover and weird, wow, did it get nice. N & I ate food, lay around and then eventually got our shit together to go "hiking." Yes, by hiking I mean we drove around through Pisgah National Forest, occasionally getting out of the car to take in some of the closer sights, such as Looking Glass Falls and the trout hatchery. I love the trout hatchery. Something about all those fish just is so. . so. . I don't know what. N loved it too, which is brilliant, because it's so depressing to go to the trout hatchery with people who are all like, uh huh, big tanks full of large fish, so what? The trout hatchery always makes me want to get naked and jump in, just to, um, see what it would be like. For, um, science. Ooops. Now I have outed myself as a creepy fish pervert. What 
do they call those, anyway? Scalies?
Then we went on over to the waterfall at the end of the Daniel Ridge loop trail (I know it has a name but I can never remember it) which is one of my favorite waterfalls in the world and then we drove forever to get up to Bat Cave to hang out for a bit with D & A & R, which was lovely, and then we came home to drink beer & listen to Lou Reed. A perfect day, really. Damn. Dag. And all those things.
do they call those, anyway? Scalies?Then we went on over to the waterfall at the end of the Daniel Ridge loop trail (I know it has a name but I can never remember it) which is one of my favorite waterfalls in the world and then we drove forever to get up to Bat Cave to hang out for a bit with D & A & R, which was lovely, and then we came home to drink beer & listen to Lou Reed. A perfect day, really. Damn. Dag. And all those things.
project 365 #40: theo by the river in the morning
This is a boring picture for yesterday, Friday: what turned out to be a decidedly unboring day and evening. Do you realize that just three weeks ago I was bemoaning my dull and boring life and how every day things were just exactly the same, starting with taking the dogs to the park in the morning and then going to work and so on? Jesus. Imagine that. Somehow or other, in the last three weeks my whole life has changed weirdly and my head is all full of crazy stuff which I won't go into in this blog (sorry, dear readers. Sucks to be you when I'm on a confidentiality kick.) and then, of course, there's still, at the bottom, loss and grief and shit.
It's weird how life can bushwhack your ass, sneak up on you and toss you in the pigpen. You know, for a moment there you're flying - and then you're in a world of shit. Some of the shit I am currently experiencing is fun, if somewhat dangerous, shit and some of it just makes me sad and some of it is, like, holy shit! But at least I'm not, for the nonce, bored.
Hungover, yes. Bored, no.
It's weird how life can bushwhack your ass, sneak up on you and toss you in the pigpen. You know, for a moment there you're flying - and then you're in a world of shit. Some of the shit I am currently experiencing is fun, if somewhat dangerous, shit and some of it just makes me sad and some of it is, like, holy shit! But at least I'm not, for the nonce, bored.
Hungover, yes. Bored, no.
Thursday, February 08, 2007
project 365 #39: nate at ed boudreaux
Took the boys - young M, and youngish N, who has joined our crazed household for the nonce - to Ed Boudreaux for dinner. Yay good barbecue and Mardi Gras decorations (purple & shiny!) and then I took them home and went on to Drinking Liberally, where there was a huge turnout and a group of Democracy for America people telling us all about the arcanities of precinct meetings and so on and so forth. All good, but the best part was sneaking out to smoke with my friends S & J & L . They're all beautiful, brilliant, funny, interesting women and I thought to myself that it's one of the perks of growing a bit older - getting to hang out with women like this. We do tend to come into our own at our age, and we're one hell of a lot of fun to boot. They blow me away. So yay, also, for amazing women.
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
project 365 #30: frightful the peregrine
Frightful (of course her name is Frightful. What's frightful is how little imagination kids have when it comes to naming falcons.) the peregrine came to visit the museum where I work today. Good thing too, since I was utterly useless otherwise all day, so being called in to photograph a falcon in front of a picture of the earth was at least something good. She's very beautiful and sort of awe inspiring and grounded forever due to an injured wing, which makes me sad.
But it isn't taking much to make me sad today. I'm kind of a mess, actually, and I'm not sure how much of it is grief and shock and so on and how much is hangover from the whole intensity of my trip, also the driving, which does tend to get me the next day. I remember this feeling, though, this wide eyed inability to focus, jagged throat, numbness and exhaustion. It's always a shock to lose someone, no matter how much you expect it, or so my mother says, and she has had some practice, so I believe she knows. I do not want to know. I do not look forward to that part of getting older when this shock isn't so much a shock anymore but a perpetual creepy small thing at the small of your back: another one lost, another down.
For now, though, it's a shock and a feeling that I thought I'd forgotten, that comes back like a blow and I remember, ah yes, this is how grief feels: this is sorrow, this is that feeling that someone is missing from the world, this is that disturbance in the force.
But it isn't taking much to make me sad today. I'm kind of a mess, actually, and I'm not sure how much of it is grief and shock and so on and how much is hangover from the whole intensity of my trip, also the driving, which does tend to get me the next day. I remember this feeling, though, this wide eyed inability to focus, jagged throat, numbness and exhaustion. It's always a shock to lose someone, no matter how much you expect it, or so my mother says, and she has had some practice, so I believe she knows. I do not want to know. I do not look forward to that part of getting older when this shock isn't so much a shock anymore but a perpetual creepy small thing at the small of your back: another one lost, another down.
For now, though, it's a shock and a feeling that I thought I'd forgotten, that comes back like a blow and I remember, ah yes, this is how grief feels: this is sorrow, this is that feeling that someone is missing from the world, this is that disturbance in the force.
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