I look hideous today. I woke up in the middle of the night with what felt like a horrible hangover, which is weird, since I had hardly anything to drink last night and then I couldn't go back to sleep and then when I finally woke up for the day I still felt hungover and exhausted and miserable. I suppose this is what happens when instead of my usual healthy regimen of drinking too much at least one weekend night and lying around eating too much through both Saturday and Sunday, I get more or less enough sleep and go to work every day. Great.
No weekend = no laundry. Hangover (undeserved though it is) = not caring about clothes. Which all adds up to = I'm wearing a black skirt with an uneven ruffly hem and the Ugliest Shirt in the World. This is a little poly/cotton number I got at Wal Mart on a horrible crazed whim. It's black with a giant technicolor vaguely psychedelic pattern on it in various pinks and teals and yellows and it doesn't, somehow, hang quite right and the poly is more prevalent than the cotton, so it kind of slides around on my skin unhealthily. The neckline is unbecoming and it makes me look fat. Also, insane, but that pales in comparison with the fat factor. Why am I wearing it? I don't know; maybe I'm bewitched. Maybe because my children are gone: the only other times I've ever worn this shirt my children have kindly pointed out to me that it is eye searingly ugly and I should burn it immediately, because they will not be seen with me wearing it. I put my skirt on inside out too but I figured that out before I left the house, thank god. In an hour I have to go do a photo shoot in public and I'm dreading it. I think I need a sign that says "Ha ha! I am wearing this hideous shirt IRONICALLY! See my total hipness!?" While I was thinking about this sign it occurred to me that signs would be helpful in general and perhaps I should patent and market little head mounted plexiglass sign holders so that everyone could wear one explaining their bad fashion choices and/or their sexual availability or lack thereof. Like, I could also have one that says "Despite my atrocious taste in garments and appearing (okay, not just appearing - french fry and beer created) gigantic fatness factor, I am actually very attractive and, hey, single!" That would draw in some quality guys, no doubt.
So, uh, if you happen to see me wandering around today with a camera trying to look anonymous, which is hard in a shirt as ugly as this one, remember that I'm wearing it IRONICALLY. As a statement about the post modern service economy and the price of rice in China or something. I don't care what. Something terrifyingly intellectual, left wing and opaque. You figure it out. I would never just put on a shirt like this and go out the door in a miserable state of lost my keys I don't give a shit what the fuck I'm wearing god I hate Mondays-ness. I mean, really.
Monday, June 18, 2007
Sunday, June 17, 2007
work work work work
I'm bored and I'm at work and I haven't had a day off in 8 days and whine whine, bitch, moan and complain. Yesterday I had to sit through two talks and take pictures and I learned waaay more than I ever wanted to know about the mineral specimens that come out of the Elmwood zinc mine in Tennessee. One of which is pictured here - which is the mineral specimen and which is the speaker? Damn good question, really. Yesterday I was tired and cranky; today I'm awake and cranky and I'm not sure which is worse.
Other than that, I have nothing new to report. I've been staying home and reading and Django has been trashing the yard. He destroyed my watering can, which is now in a million pieces around the yard and he took my new bright green bra off my dresser and is carrying it around. It turned out to be too small anyway and was on clearance so I couldn't have returned it, but still. There's something terribly embarrassing about trying to chat with your gardening (male) neighbor while your dog is traipsing around you with a lime green bra dangling from his jowls. It occurs to me that rather than bother with going shopping I should probably just hand Django ten dollar bills to eat. He also peed on my bed at some point yesterday - little fucker. He hasn't done that in a long time and I think maybe it was because he spent Friday at the vet's but really, there's no excuse and of course I didn't discover it until I went to bed and then had to track down clean sheets and scrub the futon with Dr. Bronners and flip it over and all that fun shit that you really, really want to be doing at 10:30 at night when you're exhausted. So I closed my bedroom door today.
Other than that, I have nothing new to report. I've been staying home and reading and Django has been trashing the yard. He destroyed my watering can, which is now in a million pieces around the yard and he took my new bright green bra off my dresser and is carrying it around. It turned out to be too small anyway and was on clearance so I couldn't have returned it, but still. There's something terribly embarrassing about trying to chat with your gardening (male) neighbor while your dog is traipsing around you with a lime green bra dangling from his jowls. It occurs to me that rather than bother with going shopping I should probably just hand Django ten dollar bills to eat. He also peed on my bed at some point yesterday - little fucker. He hasn't done that in a long time and I think maybe it was because he spent Friday at the vet's but really, there's no excuse and of course I didn't discover it until I went to bed and then had to track down clean sheets and scrub the futon with Dr. Bronners and flip it over and all that fun shit that you really, really want to be doing at 10:30 at night when you're exhausted. So I closed my bedroom door today.
Friday, June 15, 2007
project 365 #166: child with hailstones
So there I am, cracking geodes on Pack Square, hanging out with my coworkers, smokin' cigarettes and takin' pictures for my job, when the temperature begins to drop. We're under one of those funky little pop up carnival tents with the geodes and some of the roughly 300 signs I've spent the last week making in Illustrator (which signs have gotten progressively funkier, but that's neither here nor there.) So. It's getting colder and the wind picks up. Then, this very cool hippie lady (one of those super uber hippies who live around here, the kind who have seen everything and done everything and now are living at Earthhaven and yet have maintained a certain modicum of sanity?) comes running over to us and she says, "This tent is gonna go." And we say, "Oh, no, thank you, but we're fine." "Oh yes it is," she says firmly, grasping one of the poles, "I was at a Rainbow Gathering in Colorado one time with one of these and. . . " And just as she said that, the wind began to switch, the house to pitch, and suddenly the hinges started to unhitch.
Then the rain kicked in. I said, "If we get it in further towards the building it'll block some of the wind!" as three people, a tent and two buckets of rocks were lifted skyward. Somehow, with the help of another magical materializing guy, we got it in towards Pack Place JUST as the hail began to really hit. This is when I booked for the door and left the three of them there. Not because I'm an abject coward (although I am, and the hailstones PLUS the lightning PLUS the wind PLUS the thunder PLUS the river that was washing around our feet got to me a bit) but because I am a Photographer. Goddamnit. And I took pictures. And it was all very exciting and kind of felt like a 70s Sci Fi movie as people flocked around the windows and it was all lit up inside while outside some kind of wacked out weather apocalypse was going on and all our other coworkers came dashing up from the museum downstairs to see if we were still alive and/or to bring the tents in and we watched the one stranded volunteer near the flume wait patiently and I bummed a cigarette from a friend of mine and her little girl, pictured here, dashed in and out collecting hailstones.
High drama at work. I don't get a weekend for another seven days, so stuff like this must sustain me. Which isn't hard, since it was AWESOME. Also awesome is coming home to an empty house, putting on sweats, sitting back with a smoke and just, thank the gods, not having to talk to anyone or do anything for anyone or anything at all but just be. Right now at work I have to be nice all day to tons of people and run around and be helpful and stuff. I'm actually very good at this but it takes a toll and when I get home? I simply cannot be around homo sapiens at all, and since I don't have to right now, it's glorious. Oh, and when I got home? The deck was dry. No rain, no hail here in West Asheville, maybe five odd (very odd) miles from downtown.
Then the rain kicked in. I said, "If we get it in further towards the building it'll block some of the wind!" as three people, a tent and two buckets of rocks were lifted skyward. Somehow, with the help of another magical materializing guy, we got it in towards Pack Place JUST as the hail began to really hit. This is when I booked for the door and left the three of them there. Not because I'm an abject coward (although I am, and the hailstones PLUS the lightning PLUS the wind PLUS the thunder PLUS the river that was washing around our feet got to me a bit) but because I am a Photographer. Goddamnit. And I took pictures. And it was all very exciting and kind of felt like a 70s Sci Fi movie as people flocked around the windows and it was all lit up inside while outside some kind of wacked out weather apocalypse was going on and all our other coworkers came dashing up from the museum downstairs to see if we were still alive and/or to bring the tents in and we watched the one stranded volunteer near the flume wait patiently and I bummed a cigarette from a friend of mine and her little girl, pictured here, dashed in and out collecting hailstones.
High drama at work. I don't get a weekend for another seven days, so stuff like this must sustain me. Which isn't hard, since it was AWESOME. Also awesome is coming home to an empty house, putting on sweats, sitting back with a smoke and just, thank the gods, not having to talk to anyone or do anything for anyone or anything at all but just be. Right now at work I have to be nice all day to tons of people and run around and be helpful and stuff. I'm actually very good at this but it takes a toll and when I get home? I simply cannot be around homo sapiens at all, and since I don't have to right now, it's glorious. Oh, and when I got home? The deck was dry. No rain, no hail here in West Asheville, maybe five odd (very odd) miles from downtown.
Thursday, June 14, 2007
project 365 #165: django and the plunger 2
I've been having all kinds of deep thoughts on and off all day, which is quite something to deal with when you're also run off your feet busy. But I have and they've all been prose worthy wonderful bits of bloggy goodness, too. Unfortunately I no longer remember any of them. Them's the breaks. I do remember something about a line that went on about the evening light and an air of unbearable poignance which it adds to the most prosaic things so clearly it's probably all for the best that I've forgotten most of it.
I started watching a deep and meaningful movie, too, to wit, The Fountain. I think it's a good movie but personally I'm either too ADD or too something, possibly dumb, because I lost track completely very quickly and then I lost all interest and started drawing. Which half finished drawing is here for your inspection. I'm putting it up half done because I have a bad history of needing to do things all in one evening or they either never get done or become heinous and I like this so far, so, if it gets all awful, at least I'll be able to look back at the beginning and sigh nostalgically. And think about the poignant light.
Of course, it wasn't what I set out to
draw. I set out to draw a camel. I've been watching Planet Earth on Wednesday nights and it's affecting me powerfully. I just want to draw camels in the desert and Tibetan foxes and polar bears and stuff. Grasses swaying in the wind. This is unlikely to happen. I know it's unlikely but one can hope and anyway it's something to mutter about to myself as I alarm the neighbors by pacing back and forth to my seizure inducing kitchen light (it hasn't recovered from the mysterious 1/3 power outage yet and barely gives any light except in sudden blinding flashes) and wandering around in the flickering rain outside in my gnome pajamas looking to see if the damn dog took my phone.
He didn't. All he ate today was my knitting, and that's a blessing in disguise. Now I don't have to finish that horrible hat.
I started watching a deep and meaningful movie, too, to wit, The Fountain. I think it's a good movie but personally I'm either too ADD or too something, possibly dumb, because I lost track completely very quickly and then I lost all interest and started drawing. Which half finished drawing is here for your inspection. I'm putting it up half done because I have a bad history of needing to do things all in one evening or they either never get done or become heinous and I like this so far, so, if it gets all awful, at least I'll be able to look back at the beginning and sigh nostalgically. And think about the poignant light.
Of course, it wasn't what I set out to
draw. I set out to draw a camel. I've been watching Planet Earth on Wednesday nights and it's affecting me powerfully. I just want to draw camels in the desert and Tibetan foxes and polar bears and stuff. Grasses swaying in the wind. This is unlikely to happen. I know it's unlikely but one can hope and anyway it's something to mutter about to myself as I alarm the neighbors by pacing back and forth to my seizure inducing kitchen light (it hasn't recovered from the mysterious 1/3 power outage yet and barely gives any light except in sudden blinding flashes) and wandering around in the flickering rain outside in my gnome pajamas looking to see if the damn dog took my phone.He didn't. All he ate today was my knitting, and that's a blessing in disguise. Now I don't have to finish that horrible hat.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
project 365 #164: neighbors chimney and sky
M is leaving tomorrow and to this end his father is here. He was going to take the bus, but after I looked at all the decimated Greyhound schedules and realized that getting pretty much anywhere at all in West Virginia or Maryland entails 15 odd hours in a bus with several midnight transfers in small unknown towns (and bus stations are always so scenic and folksy at 3:00 am) I decided that despite M's incredible coolness factor and much vaunted toughness, I personally was not going to be happy if he was on a bus heading north. Yeah, I love living in a country with no public transportation worthy of the name. So his dad drove down from WV and they're heading back up tomorrow, thence to Baltimore and thence to the Delaware shore.
I wish I could go too but alas I must work madly all weekend. It's busy as hell at work and I'm actually busting ass right now and coming home wiped out. The next four days will be even worse and I have to find someone to hang out with Django now too. Today he wasn't too bad - he tipped over a shelf on the deck and then ate everything on it. That means that he completely destroyed all my cacti, which were about four years old and super cool, a brand new Boston fern (he shredded the plant, the roots and the pot), the log carrier, the large pruning shears and the Coca Cola thermometer that the kids got me for Christmas about five years ago and of which I was rather fond. He also took the plunger out of the bathroom and ate that. For dessert, I guess. But here in Django world, this counts as a fairly mild daily tax. Except it doesn't leave a lot out there for him to destroy, which means he might turn his attention indoors next.
Argh. Want to come over and just hang out with my dog while I'm at work?
I wish I could go too but alas I must work madly all weekend. It's busy as hell at work and I'm actually busting ass right now and coming home wiped out. The next four days will be even worse and I have to find someone to hang out with Django now too. Today he wasn't too bad - he tipped over a shelf on the deck and then ate everything on it. That means that he completely destroyed all my cacti, which were about four years old and super cool, a brand new Boston fern (he shredded the plant, the roots and the pot), the log carrier, the large pruning shears and the Coca Cola thermometer that the kids got me for Christmas about five years ago and of which I was rather fond. He also took the plunger out of the bathroom and ate that. For dessert, I guess. But here in Django world, this counts as a fairly mild daily tax. Except it doesn't leave a lot out there for him to destroy, which means he might turn his attention indoors next.
Argh. Want to come over and just hang out with my dog while I'm at work?
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
bridge at malvern hills park
Well, Django's back. That didn't last long. Unfortunately, A's life seems to be too complicated right now for her to take care of what is, after all, her dog and thus there was a whole terrible late night argh argh argh thing with hysterical phone calls and shouting and all that sort of delightful thing. So naturally he's back at my house. He seems a bit chastened and quieter though - he's been back for almost 24 hours and he's only gnawed a bit on one of my Danskos, and since it's one that he already chewed up months ago, the extra damage is not too bad. And the fence reinforcement also seems to have worked. On the other hand, M was home all day with him today and that always helps; tomorrow will be an acid test. God. But I guess we all knew that of course I don't have the guts or toughness or whatever it is that is required to be like my mother or any of the sterner women of a previous generation who had no trouble banishing destructive dogs. Pity, that.
In other news I finally used the Barnes & Noble gift card my brother got me for mother's day and I am deliriously happily planning to never leave the house again except for work. Katherine Kerr! Charles Stross! Charles de Lint! and Iain M. Banks! Also, I got myself more Modest Mouse - The Moon and Antarctica because Tiny Cities Made of Ashes is one of my favorite songs in the whole world. I most heartily recommend, by the way, the Pandora Modest Mouse station. So far of everything I've plugged into Pandora, that one comes out with the most diverse and coollest mix and I listen to it all day at work and it makes me happy. Plus it pretty much always plays not only Ike Reilly but also the Apples in Stereo and this is good.
In other news I finally used the Barnes & Noble gift card my brother got me for mother's day and I am deliriously happily planning to never leave the house again except for work. Katherine Kerr! Charles Stross! Charles de Lint! and Iain M. Banks! Also, I got myself more Modest Mouse - The Moon and Antarctica because Tiny Cities Made of Ashes is one of my favorite songs in the whole world. I most heartily recommend, by the way, the Pandora Modest Mouse station. So far of everything I've plugged into Pandora, that one comes out with the most diverse and coollest mix and I listen to it all day at work and it makes me happy. Plus it pretty much always plays not only Ike Reilly but also the Apples in Stereo and this is good.
Monday, June 11, 2007
project 365 #162: arch and tree
Okay, we're giong to talk about sex. Yeah, surprising - we never talk about sex. Well, tonight, baby, is the night, as is so often put into song, most triggered, god help us all, by Rod Stewart and that really dumb song beloved of classic hits radio.Tonight's the night, baby, and. . .
And, well, as George Carlin most famously said, sex is like pizza: pretty damn good even when it's not that good. And way the hell better than nothing because quite honestly, my fingers or some creepy toy made in China by child slaves (I don't know; maybe it's cool with other people, but the thought of Chinese political prisoners manufacturing vibrators just kind of sends a cold unwelcome chill over the whole experience. Above and beyond the thought that you're going to have to wash the damn thing and how that's possible in a one bathroom house where children, dogs and casual relatives think nothing of strolling in to chat with the current occupant of the throne is the sort of thing that leads one to come up with nightmarish dreams of the sort that drive a saint to worldly liquors.) are just not all that really fun. Fun, no. Good for getting you to sleep, sure. Enhancing loneliness, yeah - brilliant at that.
But. Sex. Sex is a strange thing. The only time in your life you can really take it lightly is your early 20s, when your body is just raging a thousand hormones and running amok and your early 40s, when it's kind of doing the same thing. Granted, I personally was my horniest in my mid-30s (naturally, this coincided with a lengthy period of miserable celibacy) but that was when sex seemed to me to be a Very Important Thing. At that point in your life it's all bound up with babies and the house and foreverness and all that stuff. Which must be brilliant for the people for whom it works, and slow silent death for those it doesn't and sort of bemusing for the rest of us. But sex isn't that important, you know, really. Unless you're in love and when you are, well, gods help you, because I sure as hell can't and neither can anyone else.
So, uh, I'm concluding, having gone exactly nowhere with this blog post except to say, look, sex is awesome. Go have some. And when that sex is mixed with some kind of love and connection, it's even better. And so. And yeah. And talk at y'all next time.
Addenda: What I really meant and wanted to talk about was that connection and how important is it, really? Of course I don't have much of an answer and this morning in the shower I was musing on sex and love and reflecting that the last time somebody fell in love with me it was an unmitigated disaster, dear god, let's hope that doesn't happen again, but the last time I fell in love with someone it was just. . . good. Not totally reciprocated, no, but that was okay and, well, the whole thing was more than okay. And I miss that and I know how damn rare it is, when the whole thing, the sex and the emotions and all are in sync. I suspect it's asking a lot, looking for that to happen again. It's never easy and it gets trickier and trickier as you get older and acquire more and more baggage, although in some odd ways that you wouldn't suspect some things get easier, like honesty. By the time you're my age you've pretty much heard and told all the lies and it just no longer seems like it's going to shatter anybody's world if you don't fake an orgasm or act like you're falling in love. That's a good thing, all in all, I think. At least, I hope it is, since it doesn't seem like there are a whole lot of other options.
And, well, as George Carlin most famously said, sex is like pizza: pretty damn good even when it's not that good. And way the hell better than nothing because quite honestly, my fingers or some creepy toy made in China by child slaves (I don't know; maybe it's cool with other people, but the thought of Chinese political prisoners manufacturing vibrators just kind of sends a cold unwelcome chill over the whole experience. Above and beyond the thought that you're going to have to wash the damn thing and how that's possible in a one bathroom house where children, dogs and casual relatives think nothing of strolling in to chat with the current occupant of the throne is the sort of thing that leads one to come up with nightmarish dreams of the sort that drive a saint to worldly liquors.) are just not all that really fun. Fun, no. Good for getting you to sleep, sure. Enhancing loneliness, yeah - brilliant at that.
But. Sex. Sex is a strange thing. The only time in your life you can really take it lightly is your early 20s, when your body is just raging a thousand hormones and running amok and your early 40s, when it's kind of doing the same thing. Granted, I personally was my horniest in my mid-30s (naturally, this coincided with a lengthy period of miserable celibacy) but that was when sex seemed to me to be a Very Important Thing. At that point in your life it's all bound up with babies and the house and foreverness and all that stuff. Which must be brilliant for the people for whom it works, and slow silent death for those it doesn't and sort of bemusing for the rest of us. But sex isn't that important, you know, really. Unless you're in love and when you are, well, gods help you, because I sure as hell can't and neither can anyone else.
So, uh, I'm concluding, having gone exactly nowhere with this blog post except to say, look, sex is awesome. Go have some. And when that sex is mixed with some kind of love and connection, it's even better. And so. And yeah. And talk at y'all next time.
Addenda: What I really meant and wanted to talk about was that connection and how important is it, really? Of course I don't have much of an answer and this morning in the shower I was musing on sex and love and reflecting that the last time somebody fell in love with me it was an unmitigated disaster, dear god, let's hope that doesn't happen again, but the last time I fell in love with someone it was just. . . good. Not totally reciprocated, no, but that was okay and, well, the whole thing was more than okay. And I miss that and I know how damn rare it is, when the whole thing, the sex and the emotions and all are in sync. I suspect it's asking a lot, looking for that to happen again. It's never easy and it gets trickier and trickier as you get older and acquire more and more baggage, although in some odd ways that you wouldn't suspect some things get easier, like honesty. By the time you're my age you've pretty much heard and told all the lies and it just no longer seems like it's going to shatter anybody's world if you don't fake an orgasm or act like you're falling in love. That's a good thing, all in all, I think. At least, I hope it is, since it doesn't seem like there are a whole lot of other options.
Sunday, June 10, 2007
project 365 #160: surreal films and cool music at the new french bar 5
project 365 #160: surreal films and cool music at the new french bar 5
Originally uploaded by mygothlaundry
But then I started getting into it, partly because the whole evening took a delightfully surreal turn, since the Rebelles were performing at the Diana Wortham Theatre in Pack Place which is directly behind the New French Bar. The Rebelles are Asheville's own homegrown burlesque troop and they have this huge following and the theatre and the bar share a courtyard. So the Rebelles audience began spilling out into the film/music audience and it was totally awesome with Rebelles wearing glitter hot pants and garter belts and stuff and inexplicable mimes and a guy in a sheikh robe and so on amongst the crusty serious art students watching the films in devoted silence and the bemused New French Bar patrons who had just stopped in for a drink with their dogs.
Then T's friend J played some of his songs which were quite wonderful and then he played with Madagascar and then they just played - saws and accordions and drums (T has a totally clear drum kit which is very sweet and I wish I'd gotten a picture but by that point I'd put the camera away) and guitars played with bows and so on. It was great and then they all came back over here and we stayed up until around 3 or 4 or so drinking beer on the deck. They are all really nice and it was fun and made me nostalgic for the days in my life when this sort of thing was fairly commonplace. I think I need to get out more and do different stuff besides just sitting behind the Westville or at Broadways smoking too much. Not that there's anything wrong with that but the change was good.
Anyway Madagascar is on to play in Athens tonight and then a whole bunch of other places and you should go and see them because they are not only great musicians but very cool people as well.
Saturday, June 09, 2007
project 365 #159: behind the westville pub at sunset
So you probably didn't think I was serious about getting rid of Django, did you? Neither did I, but then I came home last night and discovered that in the three hours he'd been inside he had knocked over a big vase, shredded the artificial flowers contained within (okay, yeah, but I swear they were cute and just the thing that odd corner needs, besides, I just fucking got them) shredded a shoebox, gotten up on my dresser, taken a bracelet and eaten that, gone into M's room, tipped over his hamper, spread his laundry all over the floor and eaten some of it. That's all I know about but jesus. So I snapped and called first my children and then my mother to tell them that I was taking the dog to the pound in the morning. A called back and said she would take him - she's the one who found him in the first place, after all - and I said, good. Fine. Yes.
I had been in a really good mood yesterday afternoon too and looking forward to kicking back at home for a couple hours before meeting some friends at the Westville for either the movie or the trivia. So after I calmed down a bit I made myself a stiff vodka tonic and carried it out onto the deck to drink it while I called my mother and she told me that anyone else would have gotten rid of the dog a long time ago (my mother, who is tougher than me, has no qualms about summarily dispatching dogs who mess with her furniture.) I listened to this and sipped my drink and thought, wow, it sure tastes mild considering how much vodka there is in it. Oh well, I haven't had a drink in a week or so, I've probably forgotten. Then I went back into the kitchen to make dinner and that's when I found the glass of vodka sitting on the counter next to the empty bottle, because apparently what I did was take an identical, empty glass, fill it with tonic and ice, and drink that. Without noticing. Because I guess it's all over now and soon they will have to come and take my drooling self off to the moron ward.
This morning of course I felt guilty about Django (he's not that dumb; he was all cute and good and obedient this morning) and I started reinforcing the fence, thinking, I cannot take another perfectly healthy beautiful dog to the pound no matter how destructive he is, I just can't do it. Maybe it will work this time. Maybe if I. . . But then A showed up (with J; naturally, argh) and I handed him over without much of a qualm. I did make a few weak comments about possible joint custody and so on but hopefully that won't come to pass.
Although, like A, I too am locked in a dysfunctional relationship and I wouldn't put money on Django not returning to trash the house some more in the near future. Argh.
I had been in a really good mood yesterday afternoon too and looking forward to kicking back at home for a couple hours before meeting some friends at the Westville for either the movie or the trivia. So after I calmed down a bit I made myself a stiff vodka tonic and carried it out onto the deck to drink it while I called my mother and she told me that anyone else would have gotten rid of the dog a long time ago (my mother, who is tougher than me, has no qualms about summarily dispatching dogs who mess with her furniture.) I listened to this and sipped my drink and thought, wow, it sure tastes mild considering how much vodka there is in it. Oh well, I haven't had a drink in a week or so, I've probably forgotten. Then I went back into the kitchen to make dinner and that's when I found the glass of vodka sitting on the counter next to the empty bottle, because apparently what I did was take an identical, empty glass, fill it with tonic and ice, and drink that. Without noticing. Because I guess it's all over now and soon they will have to come and take my drooling self off to the moron ward.
This morning of course I felt guilty about Django (he's not that dumb; he was all cute and good and obedient this morning) and I started reinforcing the fence, thinking, I cannot take another perfectly healthy beautiful dog to the pound no matter how destructive he is, I just can't do it. Maybe it will work this time. Maybe if I. . . But then A showed up (with J; naturally, argh) and I handed him over without much of a qualm. I did make a few weak comments about possible joint custody and so on but hopefully that won't come to pass.
Although, like A, I too am locked in a dysfunctional relationship and I wouldn't put money on Django not returning to trash the house some more in the near future. Argh.
Friday, June 08, 2007
Free to Special Home
Slightly used Springer Spaniel, 10 months old. New home must have large (over 2 acres would be good) fenced (I suggest 10' tall stockade fencing, sunk 3' deep into a concrete trench, also, electrified.) yard and be prepared to walk dog (good luck with the leash training thing, there) for 2 to 3 hours per day. New family must have Buddhist attitude about possessions (they weigh you down and should not be taken seriously) particularly furniture. New family must NOT care about furniture. Bad with kids; good with other dogs; dubious with adults; god only knows how he is with cats but outlook not so good.
FUCKER ATE MY NEW BEANBAG CHAIR IN THE TEN GODDAMN MINUTES I WAS IN THE SHOWER THIS MORNING AND NOW THERE ARE STYROFOAM PELLETS ALL OVER THE DEN. I MIGHT AS WELL HAVE JUST BURNED A 20 DOLLAR BILL. ALSO, EVEN THOUGH THERE'S A PERFECTLY GOOD, COMPLETE DOG FENCE NOW, HE STILL CAN GET OUT OF IT AND SO HAS TO BE CHAINED UP EVERY MORNING AND ONE OF THESE DAYS HE'LL LIKELY HANG HIMSELF. OR SO I CAN HOPE.
FUCKER ATE MY NEW BEANBAG CHAIR IN THE TEN GODDAMN MINUTES I WAS IN THE SHOWER THIS MORNING AND NOW THERE ARE STYROFOAM PELLETS ALL OVER THE DEN. I MIGHT AS WELL HAVE JUST BURNED A 20 DOLLAR BILL. ALSO, EVEN THOUGH THERE'S A PERFECTLY GOOD, COMPLETE DOG FENCE NOW, HE STILL CAN GET OUT OF IT AND SO HAS TO BE CHAINED UP EVERY MORNING AND ONE OF THESE DAYS HE'LL LIKELY HANG HIMSELF. OR SO I CAN HOPE.
Thursday, June 07, 2007
project 365 #158: morning walk by the river 5
I took the dogs for an hour long walk this morning, from one end of the river park to the other and back again. This gives me a whole bunch of possible angles to blog from - there's the "Goddamn there are too many people in Asheville nowadays why when I was younger the park was deserted" rant and then there's the "Nature sure is gosh darn beautiful, isn't it?" pastoral odyssey and, for a third and final possibilty, there's the "The dogs are so crazy; you won't believe how many times they took a shit this morning" amusing dog story (of which there have been, yeah, way too many lately.) So many themes, so little time:
This morning when I got to the park I was surprised at how many people there were at Carrier Park and all of those people were totally fucking annoying, as is always the case with the New Asheville. But the river was lovely and all the trees were reflected in extremely tree like reflection grandeur. Then the dogs, who were not happy at having to stay on the leash, took way too many shits: I hate carrying a bag of dog shit around although I grant you it is pretty much a superior weapon should I be accosted by new Ashevilleins from Florida who are mad at my dogs and don't properly appreciate the true glory of the morning.
In other news, I've been staying home and being misanthropic lately and at the moment I'm kind of thinking this trend is not going to change any time soon. I seem to have lost my taste for going out and, since this is probably an unequivocally Good Thing, I'm just going with it. Also, my kitchen is remarkably clean, which is partly because of the Blessed and Holy Dishwasher. I love the dishwasher. I mean I love it. I mean I stand there in the kitchen at night and tears come to my eyes and I say in a hoarse whisper "This is like some kind of fucking almighty amazing miracle, you know that?" I have only ever once had a dishwasher before and I just can't believe the glory of it all. It's so incredible; I'm nominating the dishwasher for Best Invention Ever and also, a la Scarlett, as god is my witness, I'll never go dishwasherless again. Unless someone sells me a funky amazing 1920s bungalow for a price I can afford without one, that is.
This morning when I got to the park I was surprised at how many people there were at Carrier Park and all of those people were totally fucking annoying, as is always the case with the New Asheville. But the river was lovely and all the trees were reflected in extremely tree like reflection grandeur. Then the dogs, who were not happy at having to stay on the leash, took way too many shits: I hate carrying a bag of dog shit around although I grant you it is pretty much a superior weapon should I be accosted by new Ashevilleins from Florida who are mad at my dogs and don't properly appreciate the true glory of the morning.
In other news, I've been staying home and being misanthropic lately and at the moment I'm kind of thinking this trend is not going to change any time soon. I seem to have lost my taste for going out and, since this is probably an unequivocally Good Thing, I'm just going with it. Also, my kitchen is remarkably clean, which is partly because of the Blessed and Holy Dishwasher. I love the dishwasher. I mean I love it. I mean I stand there in the kitchen at night and tears come to my eyes and I say in a hoarse whisper "This is like some kind of fucking almighty amazing miracle, you know that?" I have only ever once had a dishwasher before and I just can't believe the glory of it all. It's so incredible; I'm nominating the dishwasher for Best Invention Ever and also, a la Scarlett, as god is my witness, I'll never go dishwasherless again. Unless someone sells me a funky amazing 1920s bungalow for a price I can afford without one, that is.
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
project 365 #156: rainbow over patton avenue
It was one of those days where I spent hours in the car so it's fitting that the picture of the day should be taken at the lengthy red light at the corner of Patton and Louisiana, where I was between the laundromat, where I was of course doing laundry and the K-Mart, where I was going to buy M some swim trunks and where I ended up buying a blue bean bag chair on the theory that every carpeted, panelled 70s den must have one. Too bad they didn't have orange. Blue will do but orange would have been better. So anyway, there's a rainbow in this picture. That's like the fifth rainbow I've seen this spring, which must be some kind of record. Maybe the little people are actually getting serious about giving me the gold. That would rock, except that, of course, somewhat in the same way that I never check the numbers of my lottery tickets against the actual winning numbers, I don't believe them and so I don't go trying to find it. Unsurprising, is it not?
Monday, June 04, 2007
project 365 #154: django and new toy after an hour
Yesterday I indulged in some serious retail therapy, or, well, it would have been retail therapy except that what I was doing was replacing several of the pairs of shoes that Django has chewed to shreds over the last year. Still fun but not quite as fun as, say, buying totally new and different shoes. And I bought a bunch of frames at K Mart and right now, in between bouts of struggling with Adobe Illustrator, which I am attempting to teach myself (I am "working" at home today, woot) by making some big signs for the museum, I am framing art. Except that naturally I bought all the wrong size frames even though I had a list with me and now I have to go to Michaels and get more frames. And find that one drawing that has vanished into the moving vortex - the only drawing that I want to find and, naturally, the one I can't find. Argh.
Last night was another party party night with S & Z & H & D & J & me all whooping it up on the incredible wobbling deck. It was lovely but of course I had had nothing to eat all day and so I gave up and went to bed while the party was still going on. This is rude but alas, sometimes necessary and miraculously I feel okay this morning, if a bit annoyed since M is out of school as of today which means that he and his friend C are taking up altogether too much space in the house clumping around, eating extravagantly spiced up ramen and leaving the bowls, along with almost empty glasses of coke and gatorade, everywhere. The steps are all fixed up and my nice landlord D performed miracles and even built a really goofy little railing where the old steps were on the deck to keep us from drunkenly falling off it. And my friend D is here right now; the fence is done, although Django can still get out of it, goddamn goddamn, and he's putting in a new dog safe - i.e., cheap and destructible - screen door. Things are looking up.
Last night was another party party night with S & Z & H & D & J & me all whooping it up on the incredible wobbling deck. It was lovely but of course I had had nothing to eat all day and so I gave up and went to bed while the party was still going on. This is rude but alas, sometimes necessary and miraculously I feel okay this morning, if a bit annoyed since M is out of school as of today which means that he and his friend C are taking up altogether too much space in the house clumping around, eating extravagantly spiced up ramen and leaving the bowls, along with almost empty glasses of coke and gatorade, everywhere. The steps are all fixed up and my nice landlord D performed miracles and even built a really goofy little railing where the old steps were on the deck to keep us from drunkenly falling off it. And my friend D is here right now; the fence is done, although Django can still get out of it, goddamn goddamn, and he's putting in a new dog safe - i.e., cheap and destructible - screen door. Things are looking up.
Saturday, June 02, 2007
Visual DNA test thingie
I thought this was surprisingly accurate. Heh. Besides, all my picks were, like, the least popular which proves that I am a special and unique snowflake - and also that there is noone like me which I had kind of figured out but whatever, oh well.
project 365 #152: auds django and theo on my bed
My daughter A came over last night. She's in the terrible throes of mid break up (again. Yeah, but maybe it will stick this time?) and was feeling at loose ends and lonely. So, since M was over at his friends' house for the night, we sat around and drank beer and talked and it was very nice. I did have plans to do nothing whatsoever last night - I have discovered the Sci Fi Channel and it is good - so it took me a little while to switch gears but then it was fun.
Supposedly my new landlord is going to call me or appear at any minute this morning to fix the steps to my deck of death. We call it that, or sometimes the Collapsapalooza stage because, as I explained succinctly to someone at DL the other night, it was built by hippies. Out of hemp. Well, no, not actually out of hemp - out of untreated lumber of various sizes and a whole lotta nails. This being Asheville, however, you can say "It was built by hippies." and everyone immediately understands what you mean: a certain unique je ne sais quoi approach to home improvement, done with a fine disdain for the structural engineering of The Man. My various carpentery friends have been under the deck and declared it not quite on the verge of imminent collapse. I would be more inclined to believe them if they didn't emerge from under there so quickly, looking a little worried and suggesting mattresses or bales of hay under it. Yeah. Maybe a lot of small trampolines. Then they ask me if I have any lumber lying around and say that well, probably it wouldn't be a bad idea to shore it up some. When there are more than 3 people out there it sways like the Titanic during those last fateful moments, which is a bit unsettling and makes me dubious about the current plans to host the blogapawhateverwhatever annual party here in July. Bloggers Killed In Freak Deck Accident makes for a good headline and possibly even a Metafilter thread full of dots but it's not really what I want to do this summer.
Also, young M went right through one of the steps the other day, which is why I played the Summon Landlord card which is also why I rolled out of bed this morning and started cleaning like a lunatic. Now he is 15 and thus inclined to thump about a bit, but still. The board just broke right in half and all the steps look to be in the same condition, which is extremely unnerving all the time and particularly if you happen to be wearing a skirt and high heels and are cursing the dogs at the top of your lungs for wiggling out of the (still incomplete, sheesh) fence when you have to go to work. Not that that has happened. More than five times.
Supposedly my new landlord is going to call me or appear at any minute this morning to fix the steps to my deck of death. We call it that, or sometimes the Collapsapalooza stage because, as I explained succinctly to someone at DL the other night, it was built by hippies. Out of hemp. Well, no, not actually out of hemp - out of untreated lumber of various sizes and a whole lotta nails. This being Asheville, however, you can say "It was built by hippies." and everyone immediately understands what you mean: a certain unique je ne sais quoi approach to home improvement, done with a fine disdain for the structural engineering of The Man. My various carpentery friends have been under the deck and declared it not quite on the verge of imminent collapse. I would be more inclined to believe them if they didn't emerge from under there so quickly, looking a little worried and suggesting mattresses or bales of hay under it. Yeah. Maybe a lot of small trampolines. Then they ask me if I have any lumber lying around and say that well, probably it wouldn't be a bad idea to shore it up some. When there are more than 3 people out there it sways like the Titanic during those last fateful moments, which is a bit unsettling and makes me dubious about the current plans to host the blogapawhateverwhatever annual party here in July. Bloggers Killed In Freak Deck Accident makes for a good headline and possibly even a Metafilter thread full of dots but it's not really what I want to do this summer.
Also, young M went right through one of the steps the other day, which is why I played the Summon Landlord card which is also why I rolled out of bed this morning and started cleaning like a lunatic. Now he is 15 and thus inclined to thump about a bit, but still. The board just broke right in half and all the steps look to be in the same condition, which is extremely unnerving all the time and particularly if you happen to be wearing a skirt and high heels and are cursing the dogs at the top of your lungs for wiggling out of the (still incomplete, sheesh) fence when you have to go to work. Not that that has happened. More than five times.
Friday, June 01, 2007
project 365 #151: theo at the park and watercolorized
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.
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.
Thursday, May 31, 2007
project 365 #151: auds at night
Last night A came over after a weekend in Baltimore at what was apparently the wedding from hell. It was a hilarious story that included a bridal party with pom poms and the theme from Monday night football. That was nice, and then, this morning, after a lovely, calm 24 hours with only one dog and a calm, peaceful dog at that (except for the relentless barking, okay) I went to pick up the newly deballed Django at the clinic. They told me to keep him calm; in fact, the directions were quite specific: they said No Jumping, Running, Playing or Going Outside Except On a Leash. Well, sure. That sounds fine and dandy and other dogs were coming out all sad with their poor tummies towards the floor and walking gingerly to their cars.
Django bounced about 5 feet in the air at least 10 times in the 15 feet between the clinic door and the car. When he got home he bounced some more. I tried to gate him into M's room since there's less stuff in there than in any other room (M is going for a dark and minimalist approach to home decorating, apparently) but he just bounced right over the gate. There's no way, without heavy duty doggie downers, that Django is not going to Run, Jump and Play for the next 7 to 10 days. It's not possible.
So I didn't know quite what to do and while I was dithering around about this young M and then the school called to tell me that he needed to come home for a few hours because he didn't actually have an exam until 11:45. I called work and told them I'd be late and went and got him and brought him home by which point, the grand old hour of 9:15 a.m., I was exhausted.
In other news, a huge and gigantic rat nearly ran over my feet this afternoon in the courtyard between Pack Place, the Marble Slab ice cream shoppe and the New French Bar. So if you are prone to sitting out there in the lovely evenings to drink, you might want to consider that. Gaaaaaaaaaahh!
Django bounced about 5 feet in the air at least 10 times in the 15 feet between the clinic door and the car. When he got home he bounced some more. I tried to gate him into M's room since there's less stuff in there than in any other room (M is going for a dark and minimalist approach to home decorating, apparently) but he just bounced right over the gate. There's no way, without heavy duty doggie downers, that Django is not going to Run, Jump and Play for the next 7 to 10 days. It's not possible.
So I didn't know quite what to do and while I was dithering around about this young M and then the school called to tell me that he needed to come home for a few hours because he didn't actually have an exam until 11:45. I called work and told them I'd be late and went and got him and brought him home by which point, the grand old hour of 9:15 a.m., I was exhausted.
In other news, a huge and gigantic rat nearly ran over my feet this afternoon in the courtyard between Pack Place, the Marble Slab ice cream shoppe and the New French Bar. So if you are prone to sitting out there in the lovely evenings to drink, you might want to consider that. Gaaaaaaaaaahh!
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
project 365 #150 new house at twilight
Yesterday, I collapsed. I did nothing whatsoever on the new house - except sleep in it, heavily, and eat dinner - and then I took this one photo, which shows the beginnings of the funkifying process of the front yard, so that eventually it will be chock a block with odd stuff and flowers and flags and so on, so that small children are frightened and delighted and the neighborhood association sighs great mighty sighs of despair. Or so one hopes.
It was a damn good thing I got a good nights sleep, too, since I had to wake up at 6:30 this morning and walk the dogs without letting Django eat anything. I had never noticed before just how much random stuff Django generally eats on a walk, from stray Kleenex to grass (lots of grass) to god only knows what else. But I'm still feelng unfriendly towards Django - he got out of the fence again last night, of course, and barked at the people across the street with their dog and they were not happy about it because their dog is unfriendly and blah, stupid dogs anyway. So I figured if the piece of kleenex and a couple of stray grass blades in his belly make him die under the knife, well, that's karma. Anyway, then I got the laundry into the car (the plan today is that after work I'm going over to my mothers and then directly to the laundromat, oh happy day) and got showered and got M up and made coffee and got Django into the car where he perched precariously on top of the laundry in the back seat, barking, and then took M to the edge of his school so he could go off with my last $3 to get breakfast and then took Django to the clinic for his appointment where people ooohed and aaaahed over how cute he is and I felt evil and then, finally, got myself to work with a giant cup of coffee and a turkey sandwich from the Sisters McMullen for the staff meeting. All this by 8:45 a.m. Yeah.
It was a damn good thing I got a good nights sleep, too, since I had to wake up at 6:30 this morning and walk the dogs without letting Django eat anything. I had never noticed before just how much random stuff Django generally eats on a walk, from stray Kleenex to grass (lots of grass) to god only knows what else. But I'm still feelng unfriendly towards Django - he got out of the fence again last night, of course, and barked at the people across the street with their dog and they were not happy about it because their dog is unfriendly and blah, stupid dogs anyway. So I figured if the piece of kleenex and a couple of stray grass blades in his belly make him die under the knife, well, that's karma. Anyway, then I got the laundry into the car (the plan today is that after work I'm going over to my mothers and then directly to the laundromat, oh happy day) and got showered and got M up and made coffee and got Django into the car where he perched precariously on top of the laundry in the back seat, barking, and then took M to the edge of his school so he could go off with my last $3 to get breakfast and then took Django to the clinic for his appointment where people ooohed and aaaahed over how cute he is and I felt evil and then, finally, got myself to work with a giant cup of coffee and a turkey sandwich from the Sisters McMullen for the staff meeting. All this by 8:45 a.m. Yeah.
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
project 365 #149: jodi catch and throw mojo
So it turns out that my pal S' new puppy, Mojo, who, as you will recall, came from my friend D's dog Cookiebob and her mesalliance with a miniature dachshund who belongs to the crazy lady next door to D up in Bat Cave, is a beer drinkin' dog par excellence. By which I mean, the dog is a lush and thus will fit right in at all our parties. S hosted a little get together on her back porch last night and Mojo kept knocking over beer bottles and lapping up the result. It took us a while to realize that he was doing it on purpose. When he started trotting off with cigarette packs in his little mouth we realized that the dog had a problem and that PETA would probably be after us forthwith. He's not a quiet, mellow drunk either: he got all rambunctious and started running in circles and trying to chew our shoes off our feet until K had to hold him out at arms length for a while.
Neither of my dogs have any interest whatsoever in drinking beer. Pity - it might mellow them out a bit. The dog fence is almost completely done and Django immediately scouted out the places where it isn't done and took off. Of course he's so dumb that he just runs wildly around to the front of the house and wiggles his ass all around like he does to be let in the front door, so it's not too bad. Tomorrow morning Django is going to the clinic. All you male blog readers had better sit down and cross your legs now - yup, he's going to have his balls cut off. (Say this at a party and watch all the guys cross their legs nervously. It never fails.) Hopefully this will calm some of his wandering and destructive tendencies - the little fuck had my reading glasses in his mouth last night and I'm tired of living in a house full of dog confetti.
Addendum: I went home for lunch and to let the dogs out. In the three hours since I had last seen Django, he had eaten (and shredded, and tossed all over the den:)
2 pairs of shoes - my flip flops and my sneakers
1 pillow - a nice one that I've had a long time
1 entire spindle of blank DVDs
1 small wooden box of rocks and crystals and, inexplicably, magnetic poetry
1 gourd bowl, perhaps my favorite gourd bowl that I ever made, that was up on a shelf.
He had started on a trash bag of wrapping paper but fortunately hadn't gotten that far into it. Now he's tied up again outside while I ponder, yet again, either giving a false name at the spay/neuter clinic tomorrow and just never picking him up or putting him on Craigslist as free to good home or dog torturing laboratory, whichever calls first. The neutering had better work some miracles or that dog is history.
Neither of my dogs have any interest whatsoever in drinking beer. Pity - it might mellow them out a bit. The dog fence is almost completely done and Django immediately scouted out the places where it isn't done and took off. Of course he's so dumb that he just runs wildly around to the front of the house and wiggles his ass all around like he does to be let in the front door, so it's not too bad. Tomorrow morning Django is going to the clinic. All you male blog readers had better sit down and cross your legs now - yup, he's going to have his balls cut off. (Say this at a party and watch all the guys cross their legs nervously. It never fails.) Hopefully this will calm some of his wandering and destructive tendencies - the little fuck had my reading glasses in his mouth last night and I'm tired of living in a house full of dog confetti.
Addendum: I went home for lunch and to let the dogs out. In the three hours since I had last seen Django, he had eaten (and shredded, and tossed all over the den:)
2 pairs of shoes - my flip flops and my sneakers
1 pillow - a nice one that I've had a long time
1 entire spindle of blank DVDs
1 small wooden box of rocks and crystals and, inexplicably, magnetic poetry
1 gourd bowl, perhaps my favorite gourd bowl that I ever made, that was up on a shelf.
He had started on a trash bag of wrapping paper but fortunately hadn't gotten that far into it. Now he's tied up again outside while I ponder, yet again, either giving a false name at the spay/neuter clinic tomorrow and just never picking him up or putting him on Craigslist as free to good home or dog torturing laboratory, whichever calls first. The neutering had better work some miracles or that dog is history.
Sunday, May 27, 2007
project 365 #148: ex house, view into dining room
It' snot getting any fucking easier and this new house is way too small and there aren't enough bookshelves and no mantel and nowhere to put all my things. It's hot and stifling and I'm sad; I'm homesick; I hate this. I hate moving. I hate having to move. I feel so sorry for myself right now; it's truly pathetic. The whole thing makes me feel like shit; like I'll never have anywhere nice again (probably won't; it was a pure-D lucky fluke) and I walk around downcast, jealous of everyone in a nice house. Shit. I hate being poor. I hate it so fucking much sometimes.
Saturday, May 26, 2007
project 365 #147: still life with petunias
Well, it's done. My mom and I and my friend D worked all day like crazed cleaning lady slaves and the old house is empty, still and immaculate. And me? I'm drained, exhausted, empty and far from immaculate, even if I did just take a shower. And I'm sad. It was so sad to look at the house so beautiful and shiningly clean, possibly cleaner than I've ever seen it, certainly cleaner than it was when I moved in 6 years ago (and obviously when I was living there it never got all that clean. . . ) and think, you know, wonderful, I have left a big beautiful house I loved for a small not so beautiful house that I just kind of like alright. It's sort of like leaving your husband, Johnny Depp, for Danny DeVito: just doesn't make a whole lot of sense. But there you have it and I'm trying very hard to remember that it's all good karma and moving is good for a person - shakes things up and all - and so on. You know, all the usual new age claptrap.
But I'm still sad.
But I'm still sad.
Friday, May 25, 2007
project 365 #145: voyage to the wrong planet
The moving schtick has ceased to be entertaining or funny, I know. I feel exactly the same way. I feel, in fact, like this hapless astronaut - I stepped off the Mars lander onto the wrong planet: the planet of predatory dinosaurs! Ah oooooga! Run away, men! Yeah, see, that dinosaur is The Moving Experience and that astronaut is, like, me, and that part where the black cloth is kind of falling down is, uh, symbolic of the way that shit is, like, falling down all the time. Get it? It's complex.
The end is kind of in sight though. Tonight I'm meeting my friend G at the old house (Yay G! He has a truck AND an allen wrench! Too bad he's already married!) to tear up Frankenbed and haul the last stuff over to the new house. Then, tomorrow, I'm meeting my mother, the Queen of Clean, at the old house where we will scrub and scrub all day and then that, god willin' and the creek don't rise, will be the end of that and I'll finally be able to fully turn my attention towards fitting all my useless, broken, silly, dirty junk into a house that's a good 300 square feet smaller than my other house. Yargh.
I wish I was going instead to this party in Boone that I was invited to or that I could just sit around on my ass and drink heavily all weekend with occasional breaks for hamburgers, as is my American right since time immemorial on Memorial day when we are supposed to remember the valiant dead but usually instead wax drunkenly maudlin about the ghosts of summers past when we were younger, thinner and less inhibited. Or just grill and drink beer and enjoy the mosquitos, either/or.
The end is kind of in sight though. Tonight I'm meeting my friend G at the old house (Yay G! He has a truck AND an allen wrench! Too bad he's already married!) to tear up Frankenbed and haul the last stuff over to the new house. Then, tomorrow, I'm meeting my mother, the Queen of Clean, at the old house where we will scrub and scrub all day and then that, god willin' and the creek don't rise, will be the end of that and I'll finally be able to fully turn my attention towards fitting all my useless, broken, silly, dirty junk into a house that's a good 300 square feet smaller than my other house. Yargh.
I wish I was going instead to this party in Boone that I was invited to or that I could just sit around on my ass and drink heavily all weekend with occasional breaks for hamburgers, as is my American right since time immemorial on Memorial day when we are supposed to remember the valiant dead but usually instead wax drunkenly maudlin about the ghosts of summers past when we were younger, thinner and less inhibited. Or just grill and drink beer and enjoy the mosquitos, either/or.
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Stress
So I'm stressed again. There's too much to do and not enough hours in the day and, worst of all, I've progressed to that awful point where I'm frantically buying random stuff at Wal Mart. I hate Wal Mart and yet, it's just so damn convenient when you're moving and you need a pizza and a giant thing of coffee and more underwear and curtain rods and 8 lighters and a giant coil of rope because, you know, you're moving, and while you're at it you might as well buy 6 or 7 industrial sized things of soap because, if I have learned one thing during this move, it's that as god is my witness, I will never go soapless again.
Boxes still need to be unpacked and the garage is even more full of random shit than it was before and it was pretty full of random shit. The dregs and last bits of the move are the worst part: where you find stuff like your show jumping helmet from 5th grade and the wicker picnic basket that's been used maybe twice and that horrible assortment of unmatched wool gloves. All of them get shoved into a backpack or a duffel bag or a garbage bag or piled into an open box on top of the trifle bowl and the big trivet and the small camera tripod and the box gets hurled into the garage on top of the winter coats and the bridesmaid dress I wore in L's wedding in Baltimore, a million million light years ago. All this makes even venturing into the garage some kind of terrible exercise in nostalgia gone horribly wrong and there's that sinking feeling that every. single. one. of those boxes and bags is going to have to be unpacked and the contents organized and dealt with and put somewhere. Possibly a closet. Yet did I do anything last night? No. Nothing but drink beer, smoke, make strange Thai food (first dinner in the new house and not too terrible) and whine.
Also, I need a man. Yeah, but I mean a man with a truck, for just a few hours. A truck and an allen wrench (be still my quivering heart, a man with an allen wrench!) to finally take apart Frankenbed, which proved partially resistant to my best sledgehammering efforts and then help me get all the last bits of outdoor stuff, like tomato cages and trellises and Christmas reindeer and giant moving Halloween spiders, over to the new house. Tonight or tomorrow night would be very excellent, oh faithful reader who is reading this and has a truck. I'll be over there tonight scrubbing the house and tomorrow night, hopefully, I'll be getting the last bits and pieces out. If not tomorrow night, then definitely Saturday. Please?
Boxes still need to be unpacked and the garage is even more full of random shit than it was before and it was pretty full of random shit. The dregs and last bits of the move are the worst part: where you find stuff like your show jumping helmet from 5th grade and the wicker picnic basket that's been used maybe twice and that horrible assortment of unmatched wool gloves. All of them get shoved into a backpack or a duffel bag or a garbage bag or piled into an open box on top of the trifle bowl and the big trivet and the small camera tripod and the box gets hurled into the garage on top of the winter coats and the bridesmaid dress I wore in L's wedding in Baltimore, a million million light years ago. All this makes even venturing into the garage some kind of terrible exercise in nostalgia gone horribly wrong and there's that sinking feeling that every. single. one. of those boxes and bags is going to have to be unpacked and the contents organized and dealt with and put somewhere. Possibly a closet. Yet did I do anything last night? No. Nothing but drink beer, smoke, make strange Thai food (first dinner in the new house and not too terrible) and whine.
Also, I need a man. Yeah, but I mean a man with a truck, for just a few hours. A truck and an allen wrench (be still my quivering heart, a man with an allen wrench!) to finally take apart Frankenbed, which proved partially resistant to my best sledgehammering efforts and then help me get all the last bits of outdoor stuff, like tomato cages and trellises and Christmas reindeer and giant moving Halloween spiders, over to the new house. Tonight or tomorrow night would be very excellent, oh faithful reader who is reading this and has a truck. I'll be over there tonight scrubbing the house and tomorrow night, hopefully, I'll be getting the last bits and pieces out. If not tomorrow night, then definitely Saturday. Please?
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Update
I found my camera. I haven't found my deoderant, perfume, moisturizer, rings, other comfortable shoe or my cel phone charger yet, but I have found the camera, M's baby clothes, piles of fabric I bought cheap at a warehouse outside Baltimore over a decade ago when I thought I might start sewing again, the pasta machine, with which I have been planning to make goat cheese and wild mushroom ravioli for more than seven years now although I have never yet used the damn thing, and a vitally important box full of small McDonalds type toys, lincoln logs, lego blocks and other stuff that noone has played with for five years. There's an American flag and an LL Bean boot on top of my refrigerator and I'm sleeping on my futon on the floor, which the dogs think is a fine innovation. I didn't shower or brush my teeth for four days and I nearly wept when I actually finally found the soap on Sunday so I could wash my hands.
Now, though, the shower curtain is up, even if it does keep sort of falling down. There are some curtains up even if some of them are duct taped together; there are piles of random stuff everywhere and I called my mother practically in tears yesterday which led to her spending all day in my kitchen, occasionally sighing "Oh, Felicity" in that way that she does but gods bless her, organizing the whole damn thing. The dishwasher leaks and the dogs are tied up in the backyard, since my friend D has still not posted with the damn fence. Granted, there is currently no way to call me: try email.
Tonight I have to go bust my old bed up for firewood. It will not go out of the room. No, we tried and tried but, see, I built that bed. It started as an Ikea bed and then it got moved a couple of times during which, naturally, I lost the special Ikea allen wrenches and the special Swedish bolt and nut thingies and so I just started using my own mad carpentry skillz on it. I am using mad in the British sense here, as in, "She's gone completely mad! Run, run away!" and anyway I kept right on using those carpentry skillz every time the bed collapsed, which was unfortunately not as often as one would hope due to my several years of singledom there, although, given that, was still more often than a bed should really collapse. At those times I would go to Lowes and haul more lumber home and start sawing and nailing and screwing (again, not in the fun way) the whole thing together. Well, what I achieved was Frankenbed, and Frankenbed must die, alas.
Tonight I'm going to go finish junking out the old house because they're taking the giant mountain of trash away tomorrow, or at least I hope they are, although it's not really my problem anymore since I was careful not to leave a forwarding address with any of my old neighbors so they won't be able to lynch me. There are probably 2 or 3 carloads of stuff still at the old house and I doubt I'll get it clean, which means another night or two spent over there scrubbing before it's done.
My whole body aches and I have bruises in places I didn't think could get bruised. I've learned new things about which muscles you use to lift boxes and this is knowledge I could conceivably have done well without. But there's food in the new fridge (also in the old fridge, although I don't think it really qualifies as "food" in the strictest sense of the word anymore) and the recycling people took a mountain of cardboard away and there are a few pieces of artwork up on the walls. The new house is not as cute or as big as the old house. It is just a house, not a love affair and that makes me kind of sad, but on the other hand the shower works and I found the soap.
Now, though, the shower curtain is up, even if it does keep sort of falling down. There are some curtains up even if some of them are duct taped together; there are piles of random stuff everywhere and I called my mother practically in tears yesterday which led to her spending all day in my kitchen, occasionally sighing "Oh, Felicity" in that way that she does but gods bless her, organizing the whole damn thing. The dishwasher leaks and the dogs are tied up in the backyard, since my friend D has still not posted with the damn fence. Granted, there is currently no way to call me: try email.
Tonight I have to go bust my old bed up for firewood. It will not go out of the room. No, we tried and tried but, see, I built that bed. It started as an Ikea bed and then it got moved a couple of times during which, naturally, I lost the special Ikea allen wrenches and the special Swedish bolt and nut thingies and so I just started using my own mad carpentry skillz on it. I am using mad in the British sense here, as in, "She's gone completely mad! Run, run away!" and anyway I kept right on using those carpentry skillz every time the bed collapsed, which was unfortunately not as often as one would hope due to my several years of singledom there, although, given that, was still more often than a bed should really collapse. At those times I would go to Lowes and haul more lumber home and start sawing and nailing and screwing (again, not in the fun way) the whole thing together. Well, what I achieved was Frankenbed, and Frankenbed must die, alas.
Tonight I'm going to go finish junking out the old house because they're taking the giant mountain of trash away tomorrow, or at least I hope they are, although it's not really my problem anymore since I was careful not to leave a forwarding address with any of my old neighbors so they won't be able to lynch me. There are probably 2 or 3 carloads of stuff still at the old house and I doubt I'll get it clean, which means another night or two spent over there scrubbing before it's done.
My whole body aches and I have bruises in places I didn't think could get bruised. I've learned new things about which muscles you use to lift boxes and this is knowledge I could conceivably have done well without. But there's food in the new fridge (also in the old fridge, although I don't think it really qualifies as "food" in the strictest sense of the word anymore) and the recycling people took a mountain of cardboard away and there are a few pieces of artwork up on the walls. The new house is not as cute or as big as the old house. It is just a house, not a love affair and that makes me kind of sad, but on the other hand the shower works and I found the soap.
Monday, May 21, 2007
Moved
First post from the new house, hallelujah. Or not. It's been the weekend from hell and it's nowhere near done yet and, worst of all, my camera has totally disappeared. I really, really hope it appears again soon and didn't somehow walk away during all the chaos and confusion. This has been the worst move ever. Really, seriously bad: I wasn't organized enough, the guys I hired from Craigslist didn't show up and my friend who was supposed to build me a dog fence hasn't yet. Next time I move I'm taking a whole week off work, hiring professionals and putting the dogs in a kennel. Also, shooting myself.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
AAARRGHH!!!
So, what with N leaving and my subsequent need to go to Broadways and get all emo on my friend J's long suffering shoulder and then the night before when something or other happened that has faded into the mists of time but surely did not involve putting tchtochkes into boxes, I'm way behind on the packing. And my new landlord has not called me back and I don't know when I can go get the keys to my new place which I totally want, like, right now so that tonight I can go over there and reassure myself that I do in fact have a place to live and it wasn't all some kind of weird elaborate scam. And the U-Haul people have not called me back either and the craigslist guy I emailed has also not called me about helping me move and I'm freaking out and did I mention that, naturally, o just naturally, it is of course that time of the month? My glasses are not ready yet and my Amazon order is delayed and Django already lost the new tag N & I made for him on Sunday.
So I really, like, NEEDED to have my current landlord call me around noon and tell me that he's selling the house I have lived in for the last six years, without, mind you, asking me if I wanted to buy it despite the fact that I offered to buy it a few years back. Not that I could afford it, but still. He could have asked. So he's selling the house which explains the slow parade of people who have been driving up and down the street peering at me the last few days but now, to add insult to injury, he wants to show it TONIGHT. And I tried and tried to get out of it because, jesus, my house looks like Tobacco Road only far worse right now because I'm a mess in every way and I haven't got time to pack AND clean and also I sort of gave up cleaning in February when I had my 19th nervous breakdown and then what with N living there and M being a teenage boy who prefers to live in ultimate squalor and me having decided that life is too short to clean, well. Plus the huge piles of trash everywhere since I'm sorting stuff by boxing things I want to keep and throwing things I don't want into piles. I tried and tried to say no but I failed and THEY ARE SHOWING THE DAMN HOUSE AT 7:30 TONIGHT even though, for chrissakes, the house will be all theirs a fucking week from today but no, that is not soon enough. So I ran home for one hour around noon and my friend S, (I really do have the best friends in the whole world; I am not worthy) came over and washed dishes while I frantically swept floors and threw clothes and sheets and stuff into a pile and discovered that Django, who I had locked into the house this morning since he's gotten utterly brazen about breezing through the fence and touring the neighborhood, had taken it upon himself to shred a box of records - fortunately, he had so far mostly only eaten the box and a corner of The Association, Windy, which I very likely will never listen to again anyway if I ever even have since I got it for a quarter on a street corner - so I had to clean that up too and then let him out, at which point he disappeared, which led to incoherent shrieking on my part and then when he finally came back I tied him up in the backyard and came dashing back to work, since I had to take the desk at the museum this afternoon, argh, grrrr, meaning that I won't be able to leave the museum for the rest of the day even to smoke or pee. I cannot believe this but it's happening; I'm furious, my head hurts and I think I might be losing my voice.
MOVING SUCKS. PEOPLE MOVING AWAY SUCKS. THIS WHOLE THING FUCKING SUCKS!
So I really, like, NEEDED to have my current landlord call me around noon and tell me that he's selling the house I have lived in for the last six years, without, mind you, asking me if I wanted to buy it despite the fact that I offered to buy it a few years back. Not that I could afford it, but still. He could have asked. So he's selling the house which explains the slow parade of people who have been driving up and down the street peering at me the last few days but now, to add insult to injury, he wants to show it TONIGHT. And I tried and tried to get out of it because, jesus, my house looks like Tobacco Road only far worse right now because I'm a mess in every way and I haven't got time to pack AND clean and also I sort of gave up cleaning in February when I had my 19th nervous breakdown and then what with N living there and M being a teenage boy who prefers to live in ultimate squalor and me having decided that life is too short to clean, well. Plus the huge piles of trash everywhere since I'm sorting stuff by boxing things I want to keep and throwing things I don't want into piles. I tried and tried to say no but I failed and THEY ARE SHOWING THE DAMN HOUSE AT 7:30 TONIGHT even though, for chrissakes, the house will be all theirs a fucking week from today but no, that is not soon enough. So I ran home for one hour around noon and my friend S, (I really do have the best friends in the whole world; I am not worthy) came over and washed dishes while I frantically swept floors and threw clothes and sheets and stuff into a pile and discovered that Django, who I had locked into the house this morning since he's gotten utterly brazen about breezing through the fence and touring the neighborhood, had taken it upon himself to shred a box of records - fortunately, he had so far mostly only eaten the box and a corner of The Association, Windy, which I very likely will never listen to again anyway if I ever even have since I got it for a quarter on a street corner - so I had to clean that up too and then let him out, at which point he disappeared, which led to incoherent shrieking on my part and then when he finally came back I tied him up in the backyard and came dashing back to work, since I had to take the desk at the museum this afternoon, argh, grrrr, meaning that I won't be able to leave the museum for the rest of the day even to smoke or pee. I cannot believe this but it's happening; I'm furious, my head hurts and I think I might be losing my voice.
MOVING SUCKS. PEOPLE MOVING AWAY SUCKS. THIS WHOLE THING FUCKING SUCKS!
project 365 #137: nate leaving
Well, N's gone. The hours between 5:00, when I got off work, and 9:00, when we put him on the bus, were possibly the longest hours of my life. They went on for like 10,000 years; I mean, empires rose and fell, religions were born and died - the world changed. And not for the better.
In the last two days he cleaned out the basement and the shed and the yard; he worked like a dog to help me move and so I don't grudge him missing the Saturday big move thing at all. And I knew he was going to leave eventually but. But of course, it's much harder to handle when it actually happens than you think it would be. I suggested, this morning, a lot of ridiculous things and he said, "Don't do that. That would be emo." He's right. I won't be emo, although I really, really want to be so emo right now that it would embarrass an emu, but I won't. I hope he finds what he's looking for. Or figures out what he's looking for, which is what, really, we all want to do.
In the last two days he cleaned out the basement and the shed and the yard; he worked like a dog to help me move and so I don't grudge him missing the Saturday big move thing at all. And I knew he was going to leave eventually but. But of course, it's much harder to handle when it actually happens than you think it would be. I suggested, this morning, a lot of ridiculous things and he said, "Don't do that. That would be emo." He's right. I won't be emo, although I really, really want to be so emo right now that it would embarrass an emu, but I won't. I hope he finds what he's looking for. Or figures out what he's looking for, which is what, really, we all want to do.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
project 365 #136: new house
This is the house I will be moving into this weekend. It's a time of huge change around here on every level: N is leaving tonight. I will miss him horribly and even though I know he needs to go, needs to get out into the world and do a whole lot of various stuff and have adventures and so on and I support him totally in this - still. It will be hard coming home without him there. Even though I'll soon - so soon, and I'm not fucking packed yet - be coming home to a house where he's never been (and that's for a reason) still. My family is diminishing; A is off in her new house and now N will be states away and it will be just me and M and the dogs, and we will all be lonely. When M goes off for his summer, which he will do, then it will just be me.
And Theo barking and Django, eating my goddamn underwear. I'm down to three pairs; he ate my favorite, sexy yet comfortable, pair yesterday. And he ate my fucking Danskos, and so now I have no comfortable kick around in shoes except boots and no underwear and no time to replace any of these items. It's a good thing I have dogs or I might get bored.
And Theo barking and Django, eating my goddamn underwear. I'm down to three pairs; he ate my favorite, sexy yet comfortable, pair yesterday. And he ate my fucking Danskos, and so now I have no comfortable kick around in shoes except boots and no underwear and no time to replace any of these items. It's a good thing I have dogs or I might get bored.
Monday, May 14, 2007
project 365 #135: peony bud with ants
The house has figured out that I'm moving and in retaliation things are starting to break down. I've seen this process before: the house gets all mad at you when you plan to leave, or maybe it's depressed, or maybe, like most of us, it produces this toxic mixture of sorrow and fury that it trots out at the least hint of change. Whichever it is, I'm terrified, because I'm watching the last few remnants of my security deposit go swirling away down the drain with the broken mirror and the round thingie that goes around the thermostat thingy and the ominous sudden murmuring of the refrigerator. That's another reason why I have to move as fast as possible; the other reason being, of course, that if I give myself 2 weeks to move I won't do anything about it for the first week anyway, so might as well freak out completely and all at once.
Still, it's difficult to concentrate on work and homework and, for chrissakes laundry right now, let alone feeding everyone. Everyone complains about vegetarian chili made from all the stuff that hasn't been eaten yet and cornbread anyway and does not understand that I am not buying groceries simply to move them across West Asheville a few days later. Also, the dogs shredded a box across my bed in what is either an attempt to help "Wow she sure likes cardboard boxes right now! Let's give her a hand by chewing one up on the bed!" or hinder. "This is one box you won't be filling up, lady. Bwah ha ha ha! Now you cannot change things!" Whichever; I still have a pile of lovely damp shredded cardboard all over my bed and that doesn't even address the complex tactical maneouver that I am trying to figure out at the moment: to wit, how to make sure I have clean sheets on my bed for my first night in the new house, which may be impossible. I'm also beginning to get all choked up and teary eyed about getting rid of so many books and even self pitying statements of doom like, "You don't deserve those many books anyway, Fliss. Huge libraries are for the rich people who get to own houses and you? No books for you! Get back to your dumpster with a torn up Archie comic, scum of the proletariat!" don't seem to be helping much. Although they do, a bit, because then I laugh and toss another book into the going away box with wild abandon, a sob, a swig of beer and a little, muttered curse.
Then I bitch for a while about the goddamn missing tape gun. Which is what I'm going to go do right now.
Still, it's difficult to concentrate on work and homework and, for chrissakes laundry right now, let alone feeding everyone. Everyone complains about vegetarian chili made from all the stuff that hasn't been eaten yet and cornbread anyway and does not understand that I am not buying groceries simply to move them across West Asheville a few days later. Also, the dogs shredded a box across my bed in what is either an attempt to help "Wow she sure likes cardboard boxes right now! Let's give her a hand by chewing one up on the bed!" or hinder. "This is one box you won't be filling up, lady. Bwah ha ha ha! Now you cannot change things!" Whichever; I still have a pile of lovely damp shredded cardboard all over my bed and that doesn't even address the complex tactical maneouver that I am trying to figure out at the moment: to wit, how to make sure I have clean sheets on my bed for my first night in the new house, which may be impossible. I'm also beginning to get all choked up and teary eyed about getting rid of so many books and even self pitying statements of doom like, "You don't deserve those many books anyway, Fliss. Huge libraries are for the rich people who get to own houses and you? No books for you! Get back to your dumpster with a torn up Archie comic, scum of the proletariat!" don't seem to be helping much. Although they do, a bit, because then I laugh and toss another book into the going away box with wild abandon, a sob, a swig of beer and a little, muttered curse.
Then I bitch for a while about the goddamn missing tape gun. Which is what I'm going to go do right now.
OKAY, This is Where I Beg
Ah, friends. Wonderful, wonderful friends who I cherish so much and who are so important to me and for whom I do all kinds of terrific friendly helpful things, never asking for anything (well, not asking for much, or maybe just beer) in return - until now. Now, I need you. Now I am going to beg and plead shamelessly. Yes, it is that dreaded moment that you have all been, uh, dreading: the moment when I Ask You To Help Me Move.
I am moving on Saturday, May 19. I have reserved a U-Haul truck and I am busily boxing stuff and throwing junk away and organizing and planning and I have put an ad up on Craigslist looking for a couple of paid guys to help as well - this offer is also open, y'all - but as we all know, the more the, if not merrier, than certainly less grueling. And if I manage to get some paid people, then they can do the really heavy stuff. So. FREE PIZZA AND BEER, Y'ALL! It will be FUN! Noonish to sixish, Saturday. From one end of West Asheville to the other - please, please, please come and help me move. Email me for directions.
I am moving on Saturday, May 19. I have reserved a U-Haul truck and I am busily boxing stuff and throwing junk away and organizing and planning and I have put an ad up on Craigslist looking for a couple of paid guys to help as well - this offer is also open, y'all - but as we all know, the more the, if not merrier, than certainly less grueling. And if I manage to get some paid people, then they can do the really heavy stuff. So. FREE PIZZA AND BEER, Y'ALL! It will be FUN! Noonish to sixish, Saturday. From one end of West Asheville to the other - please, please, please come and help me move. Email me for directions.
Sunday, May 13, 2007
project 365 #134: mothers day
I totally forgot it was Mother's Day. I woke up early and felt fine, if hungry, so I started making this elaborate greasy breakfast. Unfortunately, I soon discovered that I had one of those elaborate creeping hangovers that just gets worse throughout the day (stealth hangovers. So bitterly unfair.) and the greasy breakfast was perhaps not quite the ticket. So I sensibly went back to bed from whence my daughter rousted me, small pot of snapdragons in hand, annoyed that I had already done the breakfast thing. And her boyfriend mowed the front lawn, which was wonderful.
Still, I've been too hungover to accomplish anything much today, although N and I did go over to the Brevard Road super gigantic ultra pet store where it turned out they were having one of those adoptathon things. There was a friendly love of a red bone hound there with a happy, floppy hound face and I knew that he should come home with me but somehow, although it was tough, I resisted. I also resisted the Maine coon and the sad kitten in the cage and even the geckos, anoles and iguanas, although I want one and for some strange reason have recently decided that I need more lizards in my life. But I did get Django a new collar and tag and some expensive cable to tie him up (he breezes through the fence with the greatest of ease and this must end.) And I got Theo a new tag, too, so he wouldn't feel left out, with the new address on it. Something about writing the new address on dog tags makes it all so official and I can't believe that I wasted a packing day moping around being bleary. Bah.
I did go over to my mother's - my younger brother had asked me to pick up some flowers for her for Mother's Day & I also got her a big white petunia. It's damn near impossible to get flowers at 5:00 on Mother's Day evening, let me tell you. They were totally out at Earth Fare and I had to go to Ingles, where I got the last flowers in the store. One of these days I'm going to open a Procrastination Palace that specializes in last minute holiday appropriate stuff. I'll be open from 5:00 pm to midnight and sell all kinds of weird shit. It'll be great and a new and novel way to lose vast sums of money.
Still, I've been too hungover to accomplish anything much today, although N and I did go over to the Brevard Road super gigantic ultra pet store where it turned out they were having one of those adoptathon things. There was a friendly love of a red bone hound there with a happy, floppy hound face and I knew that he should come home with me but somehow, although it was tough, I resisted. I also resisted the Maine coon and the sad kitten in the cage and even the geckos, anoles and iguanas, although I want one and for some strange reason have recently decided that I need more lizards in my life. But I did get Django a new collar and tag and some expensive cable to tie him up (he breezes through the fence with the greatest of ease and this must end.) And I got Theo a new tag, too, so he wouldn't feel left out, with the new address on it. Something about writing the new address on dog tags makes it all so official and I can't believe that I wasted a packing day moping around being bleary. Bah.
I did go over to my mother's - my younger brother had asked me to pick up some flowers for her for Mother's Day & I also got her a big white petunia. It's damn near impossible to get flowers at 5:00 on Mother's Day evening, let me tell you. They were totally out at Earth Fare and I had to go to Ingles, where I got the last flowers in the store. One of these days I'm going to open a Procrastination Palace that specializes in last minute holiday appropriate stuff. I'll be open from 5:00 pm to midnight and sell all kinds of weird shit. It'll be great and a new and novel way to lose vast sums of money.
project 365 #133: bee on sage
Yesterday's picture, of a GIANT BEE! Actually, no, it was not that giant, which is kind of too bad, because a six foot bee on giant blue flowers would be excellent. However, despite global warming and signs of armageddon and all that stuff, the bee is normal sized. Of course, he may also be the last of his kind, which is a depressing thought.
Saturday, May 12, 2007
project 365 #132: gas station at night
I went out for a couple of drinks with my friend J last night at Broadways and there was a huge rainbow over Town Mountain. That was nice, although the pictures of it, which can be seen here, sadly aren't so great. Ah well. Then I came home, stopping first at the liquor store where I spent vast amounts of money on vodka and rum, thus ensuring that my moving crew will be a very happy moving crew (if N and I don't drink it all before next week, which is a disheartening possibility, alas) and picked up beaucoups de boxes. Those boxes are now all over the house and I'm packing and tossing books. I think I can live without Agatha Christie and Ngaio Marsh (in 90% of Ngaio Marsh books, btw, the murderer is a sex starved spinster. Yet another reason why celibacy is just so BAD for one.) but I need Dorothy Sayers and Marjorie Allingham. And Steven Brust and of course Tim Powers but not Sean Russell or Robert Heinlein, although I am saving Podkayne of Mars, god help me.
The books are filthy and I'm covered with grunge and that weird crud that gets all over books. What IS that stuff? No, wait, it's possible I don't want to know.
The books are filthy and I'm covered with grunge and that weird crud that gets all over books. What IS that stuff? No, wait, it's possible I don't want to know.
Friday, May 11, 2007
susans porch
I know, I said there would be pictures of the new house and N & S & I went over there right after work yesterday so I could show it to them and I had the camera with me and everything and. . . and. . .I completely forgot to take it out of the car. Yeah. Sometimes my inner space cadet takes charge. So I took a couple of not so good pictures of N & S and S's porch, which notably features my old painting, the really dramatic one with the broken glass and the apocalyptic epic Norse poetry and all. It looks good up there. I think it's happy to be out of a shed or garage for the first time in about 20 years. And it was fun hanging out on S' porch with N & S drinking beer and smoking and being mellow, too, particularly since young M pitched a huge fit about moving and said he hadn't been consulted (when, god, oh when will children realize that the family is not a democracy?) and he wasn't moving and in particularly not to Malvern Hills, was I crazy and forget it, he hated me and the rest of the world too and he was going to Baltimore to live with his father and so on. Teenagers are such a special joy. It worked out okay, though since when I went back I placated him with promises of cable television; he is happy now, the fickle, bribable boy.
Also, I made chicken vindaloo and raita for dinner and got everyone involved in making garam masala for that, which process initially resulted in an extremely fragrant burned powder - "Look, y'all! We made incense!" - and then turned out pretty damn good.
And then I packed up books. I packed up all the books in M's room last night and filled 4 big banana boxes with kids' books to give away and only 3 small beer/liquor boxes with books to keep, which is the kind of ratio I want. It was tough to choose in some cases so I just kept the real classics and the ones I totally love, like the Moomins and the Bear Who Wouldn't Be and sadly consigned Little Critter and the Stupids and all those insipid Magic Tree House books, which M inexplicably adored as a 2nd grader, to the banana boxes. I guess I really don't need Where's Waldo ever again but it's sad to kiss One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish goodbye. Oh well, life goes on, and we have waaaaaaaaaay too many books and since the chances of me ever having another little kid to read to are close to nil (please oh great astarte do not take this statement as some kind of personal challenge, thanks) I think the Seuss can go to somebody else's child now.
Also, I made chicken vindaloo and raita for dinner and got everyone involved in making garam masala for that, which process initially resulted in an extremely fragrant burned powder - "Look, y'all! We made incense!" - and then turned out pretty damn good.
And then I packed up books. I packed up all the books in M's room last night and filled 4 big banana boxes with kids' books to give away and only 3 small beer/liquor boxes with books to keep, which is the kind of ratio I want. It was tough to choose in some cases so I just kept the real classics and the ones I totally love, like the Moomins and the Bear Who Wouldn't Be and sadly consigned Little Critter and the Stupids and all those insipid Magic Tree House books, which M inexplicably adored as a 2nd grader, to the banana boxes. I guess I really don't need Where's Waldo ever again but it's sad to kiss One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish goodbye. Oh well, life goes on, and we have waaaaaaaaaay too many books and since the chances of me ever having another little kid to read to are close to nil (please oh great astarte do not take this statement as some kind of personal challenge, thanks) I think the Seuss can go to somebody else's child now.
Thursday, May 10, 2007
project 365 #130: emerald in calcite matrix macro
This is yesterday's photo, by the way. Monday's photo is here and Tuesday's is here (they both are pretty goddamn lame, so you probably don't want to bother clicking) and that catches us up to today. Hopefully I'll get back over to the new house this evening and take a couple of exterior shots for today's photo!
Actually, I must say that yesterday was pretty cool, despite the Asheville High School lockdown, which young M was totally fine with, since it meant he got out of school early. During all that, which entailed a whole bunch of panicky recorded messages from the superintendant of schools (sometimes the information age gives us a little more information than we really need, you know) a local super fancy jewelers called us up and asked us to send over some museum people and a photographer to look at this guy's emeralds. Well, that would be me and my coworker P, so off we went, and I got to take a bunch of pictures of these truly amazing emeralds. Sometimes I really like my job. Then in the evening I went over to my mom's and had drinks with her and some friends and that was really nice and then I went over to my friend S' house to meet her good friends from NY who I had never met before and who are totally cool. It was basically a pretty excellent day - and there have just not been enough of those lately so it was really extra good.
Actually, I must say that yesterday was pretty cool, despite the Asheville High School lockdown, which young M was totally fine with, since it meant he got out of school early. During all that, which entailed a whole bunch of panicky recorded messages from the superintendant of schools (sometimes the information age gives us a little more information than we really need, you know) a local super fancy jewelers called us up and asked us to send over some museum people and a photographer to look at this guy's emeralds. Well, that would be me and my coworker P, so off we went, and I got to take a bunch of pictures of these truly amazing emeralds. Sometimes I really like my job. Then in the evening I went over to my mom's and had drinks with her and some friends and that was really nice and then I went over to my friend S' house to meet her good friends from NY who I had never met before and who are totally cool. It was basically a pretty excellent day - and there have just not been enough of those lately so it was really extra good.
And There Was Much Rejoicing
I gots a house!!!!!!! Sing hallelujah! Yes, I have just now come back from signing a lease on a funky little 2 bedroom ranch house in West Asheville, on the other side of West Asheville from where I currently live, near the Malvern Hills Park. It has a fireplace! And a dishwasher! And a garage! And a big if somewhat rickety deck! And a huge yard! It is nifty! It is kind of like a scaled down Brady house!
I get the keys a week from today and I'm thinking I'm going to try to move that weekend if I can get my shit together. I'm happy and sad all at once and a bit trepidatious about what young M is going to say, since he hasn't seen it and it's not as convenient to stuff like convenience stores as the house where we now live. Saying goodbye to BJs Food Market will make me sad, too, but saying hello to much leafy greenness and a park with a pool and tennis courts is pretty damn cool. Young M will just have to get a bike and suck it up.
There should be pictures later today. Yay! I have a house!
I get the keys a week from today and I'm thinking I'm going to try to move that weekend if I can get my shit together. I'm happy and sad all at once and a bit trepidatious about what young M is going to say, since he hasn't seen it and it's not as convenient to stuff like convenience stores as the house where we now live. Saying goodbye to BJs Food Market will make me sad, too, but saying hello to much leafy greenness and a park with a pool and tennis courts is pretty damn cool. Young M will just have to get a bike and suck it up.
There should be pictures later today. Yay! I have a house!
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
James McMurtry - project 365 #127.5
Sorry about the lameness of blogging lately, y'all, but life is hectic and insane and I have to find a place to live before I end up in a cardboard box under the Patton Avenue bridge and so on and so forth. Meanwhile, although I should do nothing but pack and whimper and make phone calls, I took some time out on Sunday night to go down to the Grey Eagle and see that great true love of my life, James McMurtry. And OMG and WOW and it was AMAZING and he's so incredibly cool and talented and fantastic and so on and so forth. I could insert a couple lurid paragraphs of the worst kind of adolescent girl gushing here but I will leave that up to your imagination. It involves a lot of Eeeeeeeeee! noises and blushing and stammering. Also, my mighty detective skillz helped me deduce that James has in fact had a recent breakup (the first five songs he played were all, like, angry breakup songs, so clearly, you so know he's totally single, OMG!) and therefore perhaps I should move to Austin. In the meantime, however, I did have a brief but really nice chat with Darren, his drummer, and he's also extremely good looking and very sweet plus has the added bonus of actually knowing I exist. That is helpful when one is in love.
In other news, there is no other news. I wish there were. I can't seem to find a place to live - freakin' Asheville is getting like New York city, I swear. I didn't get the place I put the application in on and I think that probably I should have realized that it was like New York around here now and gone prepared to look at it with like $1000 in small unmarked bills. It is insane. It is disheartening. You make 25 phone calls the minute the Iwanna comes out and of those, 5 of them have been rented (why don't people pull their ads? And then why do they get all cranky when you call abou the ad? I mean, jesus.) 15 of them will never return your call no matter how many times you try and of the other 5, one will be a horrifying shithole deep in the wilds of Leicester, although they say it's West Asheville, one will have changed their mind about pets, one will be so minuscule that even leprechauns couldn't live there without stooping and the other two will be too expensive for you and also just rented, like, 5 minutes ago. Add to this the fact that rents have almost tripled in the last 7 years and It really is getting dire around here.
In other news, there is no other news. I wish there were. I can't seem to find a place to live - freakin' Asheville is getting like New York city, I swear. I didn't get the place I put the application in on and I think that probably I should have realized that it was like New York around here now and gone prepared to look at it with like $1000 in small unmarked bills. It is insane. It is disheartening. You make 25 phone calls the minute the Iwanna comes out and of those, 5 of them have been rented (why don't people pull their ads? And then why do they get all cranky when you call abou the ad? I mean, jesus.) 15 of them will never return your call no matter how many times you try and of the other 5, one will be a horrifying shithole deep in the wilds of Leicester, although they say it's West Asheville, one will have changed their mind about pets, one will be so minuscule that even leprechauns couldn't live there without stooping and the other two will be too expensive for you and also just rented, like, 5 minutes ago. Add to this the fact that rents have almost tripled in the last 7 years and It really is getting dire around here.
Sunday, May 06, 2007
project 365 #126: schwag the puppy best
So did I mention that my daughter A took one of my friend D's puppies the other night? Yes, yes she did, and this is Schwag, who came over to visit today. I take back everything I ever said about little dogs and yes, I know that what I said was usually in condescending tones - the kind of tones used by those of us who are fond of large dogs who feel that eeeny dogs cannot be considered true dogs at all. But Schwag acts just exactly like a real puppy - only quarter sized! He is scary adorable! He is total cuteness! This is puppy love! I took 52 pictures in like an hour! The best of those can be seen here if you want more sweet, sweet puppy action.
project 364 #125: waterdrops on poppy petals
So the party is over and we're slowly beginning to clean up. Yesterday was hopeless for this, since it was raining and we were all hungover anyway. Instead of tidying we went and got three thoroughly weird movies (I am the queen of picking strange movies at random in the video store) and lay around and watched them and ate party leftovers and hamburgers. We watched Basquiat, which had waaaaaaaaaay too many long musical interludes during which nothing much happened and strange cut in blue surfing over skyscrapers interludes which were highly symbolic of a way over self indulgent filmmaker. As N remarked, too much art and not enough drugs.
Then we watched some new, totally bizarre Asian movie called Curse of the Golden Flower which made no sense at all but was highly, or well, passably, entertaining anyway. There were endless sequences of extremely technicolored hallways (N said, this must be from the Acid Dynasty) up and down which people in totally improbable costumes rushed in various states of extreme emotional distress, and later in the movie, gory stabbed-ness. There was incest. There were like ten million yellow chrysanthemums in pots - an apparently infinite supply, actually, of yellow chrysanthemums in pots. There were ninjas on bungie cords and zip lines. There was tons of gold everywhere and a freaky sauna chair. And, best of all, there were all these people whose apparent total job consisted of roaming around the aforementioned long psychedelic hallways banging on gongs and announcing what time it was in strange little metaphoric poems. I have decided that this is probably my dream job, so if you're hiring a human clock any time soon, let me know.
Then we watched some new, totally bizarre Asian movie called Curse of the Golden Flower which made no sense at all but was highly, or well, passably, entertaining anyway. There were endless sequences of extremely technicolored hallways (N said, this must be from the Acid Dynasty) up and down which people in totally improbable costumes rushed in various states of extreme emotional distress, and later in the movie, gory stabbed-ness. There was incest. There were like ten million yellow chrysanthemums in pots - an apparently infinite supply, actually, of yellow chrysanthemums in pots. There were ninjas on bungie cords and zip lines. There was tons of gold everywhere and a freaky sauna chair. And, best of all, there were all these people whose apparent total job consisted of roaming around the aforementioned long psychedelic hallways banging on gongs and announcing what time it was in strange little metaphoric poems. I have decided that this is probably my dream job, so if you're hiring a human clock any time soon, let me know.
Saturday, May 05, 2007
project 365 #124: office birthday gift
Party party party party. Party on, dudette: yesterday was my birthday and totally partied on down. It's amazing that I don't feel worse today - the party was still going strong when I slipped away and went to bed at around 2:30 or so. I know it's lame to crash out at your own party but oh well, I'm so old now that I can disregard basic laws of etiquette like that one.
So I got some nice stuff for my birthday - as seen on the right, some bubble lights and a fern and some chocolate and a wonderful get lost doormat from my coworkers. N gave me the Allman Brothers live at Fillmore East and Fruit That Ate Itself by Modest Mouse. My lame children A & M gave me cards with promises of presents to come, when they get less lame. My friend J made me a most amazingly wonderful Prom Queen tiara out of pink foam and jewels and my friend S gave me a totally fantastic brightly painted steel mask that she made herself and which says Ohhhhhhh Shit on it. My friend D brought me some fancy cleaning spray so I can clean up this house when I move; my friend M brought a bottle of wine and a couple of my other friends gave me another form of consumable. And my friend J the potter gave me a certificate for one of her coffee mugs AFTER I move, which was adorable and totally sweet and smart of her. So I got great loot; the food was great; the people were great and D brought a couple of her puppies and succeeded in giving one of them away - to A, hee hee. It was an excellent party. Awesome, even.
So. I am now going to officially declare something that all of y'all may have to remind me sternly of in the future: I am NEVER internet dating again. No. Never again. I'm just too strange and picky for it and if I'm going to date anyone I have to start with an actual man who I've met in a nonvirtual sense and then maybe discover somewhere along the line that he's a good writer - it can't be the other way around. It's never worked before and it didn't work this time and I think I can now confidently say that it will never work in the future. I know, there are lots of people for whom it does work just fine, but not me. I am just too damn weird - also too damn willing to overlook the sensible rules that sensible people follow - and that's okay. I have a feeling that I can find a guy in the old fashioned way and if not? Well, hell - that hasn't killed me yet.
So I got some nice stuff for my birthday - as seen on the right, some bubble lights and a fern and some chocolate and a wonderful get lost doormat from my coworkers. N gave me the Allman Brothers live at Fillmore East and Fruit That Ate Itself by Modest Mouse. My lame children A & M gave me cards with promises of presents to come, when they get less lame. My friend J made me a most amazingly wonderful Prom Queen tiara out of pink foam and jewels and my friend S gave me a totally fantastic brightly painted steel mask that she made herself and which says Ohhhhhhh Shit on it. My friend D brought me some fancy cleaning spray so I can clean up this house when I move; my friend M brought a bottle of wine and a couple of my other friends gave me another form of consumable. And my friend J the potter gave me a certificate for one of her coffee mugs AFTER I move, which was adorable and totally sweet and smart of her. So I got great loot; the food was great; the people were great and D brought a couple of her puppies and succeeded in giving one of them away - to A, hee hee. It was an excellent party. Awesome, even.
So. I am now going to officially declare something that all of y'all may have to remind me sternly of in the future: I am NEVER internet dating again. No. Never again. I'm just too strange and picky for it and if I'm going to date anyone I have to start with an actual man who I've met in a nonvirtual sense and then maybe discover somewhere along the line that he's a good writer - it can't be the other way around. It's never worked before and it didn't work this time and I think I can now confidently say that it will never work in the future. I know, there are lots of people for whom it does work just fine, but not me. I am just too damn weird - also too damn willing to overlook the sensible rules that sensible people follow - and that's okay. I have a feeling that I can find a guy in the old fashioned way and if not? Well, hell - that hasn't killed me yet.
Friday, May 04, 2007
project 365 #123: lazoom bus woman in red
Turns out that the La Zoom bus stops at the Brewing Company, which is where I naturally was last night, it being Thursday and all. My camera, for some reason, truly loathes the purple color of this bus and all the pictures I keep trying to take of it get all facocked.
So anyway, that was Thursday's picture, which is to say yesterday. Today is my birthday; yup, yup it is. It's been a party party week and right now there are a zillion kids in the museum and when I planned, two weeks ago, to have a party tonight I was thinking that I would get the whole house clean and organized and stuff by Thursday night.
That didn't happen.
So I'm running around like a mad woman today and at work and hither and thither and yon and actually, this has already started off to be a really nice birthday, beginning at midnight and then this morning at work where my sweet coworkers left a pile of presents by my office door.
So anyway, that was Thursday's picture, which is to say yesterday. Today is my birthday; yup, yup it is. It's been a party party week and right now there are a zillion kids in the museum and when I planned, two weeks ago, to have a party tonight I was thinking that I would get the whole house clean and organized and stuff by Thursday night.
That didn't happen.
So I'm running around like a mad woman today and at work and hither and thither and yon and actually, this has already started off to be a really nice birthday, beginning at midnight and then this morning at work where my sweet coworkers left a pile of presents by my office door.
Thursday, May 03, 2007
project 365 #122: smoke ring gun best
Yesterday's photo, of my friend J at the museum, where he's been doing some contract computer work and also finding time to experiment with everyone's favorite gift shop I'm bored item: the glow in the dark whizzing zipping smoke ring gun! Yes folks, a gun that shoots smoke rings - a singularly useless and yet enthralling thing.
Yesterday was super heavy and very fraught and not so good, all in all and all I'm going to say about that is, yeah, okay, you all were right. I'm just not very good at this stuff. But I am pretty damn good at being alone and self reliant, and that will come in handy over the next few months, I think. Which is a good thing.
Still no news on the housing front - it's getting scarier and scarier, argh: there must be somewhere out there for me and young M and the dogs to go. Right? Right?
Yesterday was super heavy and very fraught and not so good, all in all and all I'm going to say about that is, yeah, okay, you all were right. I'm just not very good at this stuff. But I am pretty damn good at being alone and self reliant, and that will come in handy over the next few months, I think. Which is a good thing.
Still no news on the housing front - it's getting scarier and scarier, argh: there must be somewhere out there for me and young M and the dogs to go. Right? Right?
project 365 #121: my mother, wasp and wine
Here is Tuesday's photo: my mother sharing her wine with a large hornet. My mother (the witch) is completely and totally unafraid of bees and wasps and hornets and other stingy things despite the fact that she is, or at least used to be, deathly allergic. My father would occasionally make a big thing out of this and try to scare us with tales of how we would have to give my mother a shot of this stuff in the refrigerator but meanwhile, a yellow jacket would be landing on her arm and she would say calmly, "It's not time for me to die today." and the yellow jacket would fly away. I have been trying hard to inherit this stoic serenity myself but so far I haven't managed quite her level.
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