Last night, in a fit of boredom, I watched the movie Dodgeball on the FX channel. I like the FX channel in a kind of horrified way: I'm all for explosions as an art form, but the commercials skeeve me out. I had actually never seen Dodgeball and I was surprised at how many little bits of that movie have made it into pop culture. Or at least internet culture, which is sort of what passes for pop culture these days. Among geeks, that is. In which category I more or less include myself. However. It was a pretty cute movie. It was mostly inoffensive, or as inoffensive as any movie that has only one "real" female character can be. Not to mention that that female character gets to pick between the lesser of two sexist bastards because, of course, she has to be mated off by the end of the movie. But, I know, I'm overthinking it; it wasn't intended to be a serious movie and so on. And I did kind of like it. I thought it was sort of sweet.
In other news, I haven't really got any. This, by the way, is a picture of the mineral Wulfenite, which should not be confused, sadly, with the movie Wolfen. Too bad, really, because a horror movie about werewolves and killer orange rocks would be excellent. Wulfenite, I have learned, comes from molybdenum, which is totally fun to say out loud but, alas, rarely comes up in conversation. At least not in the conversations I'm in.
Thursday, August 09, 2007
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
project 365 #218: my soapstone dog
On Monday night I went to a small stone carving workshop and it was totally fun. I think I've discovered a new hobby. Soapstone carving, it turns out, is extremely easy and, to make things even more excellent, surprisingly cheap, in that you can carve this stuff with, like, paring knives and a nail file. I was a little dubious at first, since we had to start with precut forms that were, predictably, a coyote, a buffalo or a bear. (You may have noticed, as I have, that soapstone is the accepted media for bear sculptures. Your half naked women with laurel wreaths or conquering heroes on horseback get bronze but bears? Soapstone.) However, I was kind of glad of the form and anyway, I quickly turned my coyote into a dog. "This looks like a dog," said the teacher suspiciously, "Do you want it to be a dog? I can make it back into a coyote for you."
"NO!" I said, "I want it to be a dog." She handed it back with a look that clearly said I was nuts for preferring dogs over coyotes but there you have it. Among other things, I've only ever seen like 3 coyotes in my life and I didn't exactly get a chance to study them, whereas I am somewhat familiar with dogs. Somewhat.
"NO!" I said, "I want it to be a dog." She handed it back with a look that clearly said I was nuts for preferring dogs over coyotes but there you have it. Among other things, I've only ever seen like 3 coyotes in my life and I didn't exactly get a chance to study them, whereas I am somewhat familiar with dogs. Somewhat.
Monday, August 06, 2007
project 365 #217: still life with garlic
I did a lot of various stuff this weekend, from the Biltmore Estate to getting new tires to a fabulous score at Salvation Army (patience, grasshopper, details are forthcoming) to hot, buggy but beautiful hiking in Bent Creek with the dogs to the Biltmore Village Arts & Crafts Fair. And other stuff, too, that included beer drinking and general fun and alas, smoking waaaay too many cigarettes, for which I am paying in today's smoggy heat. I would have liked to blog about this stuff. But I did not, which leads me to the following two observations about this past weekend:
It was hot as fucking Hades and I HATE CHARTER COMMUNICATIONS. I had no internet last week. So on Friday, since I had divined that this was going to be one of those things that involved hours on the phone during working hours, I called up Charter. Before I called up Charter, I dug through my recent correspondence with Charter, which I hadn't opened because, beacon of efficiency that I am, I let them just take their monthly pound of flesh out of my bank account directly and they send me a statement. I knew the money had been disappearing, so I didn't bother to open the statements. Charter, for their part in this symphony of ignoring, hadn't bothered to switch my account over from my old house and had happily been double billing me since May 15. Yeah. So they felt that I had never paid my bills at the new house and consequently they had taken away my internet although not, for some inscrutable reason, my TV.
It took a while to sort all this out and at the point where the customer service rep started to get snooty and suggest that perhaps I was some kind of evil fraud meister who was simultaneously getting cable at two separate houses, I lost it. Unfortunately or fortunately, in this day and age, losing it completely and shrieking like a batshitinsane bitch on steroids is the only way you can get these people to actually do anything. So they got my cable on again, in the midst of which we discovered that they had never switched my modem over and I should probably never have had working cable internet and so on and so forth and then finally it was done and I was content.
Until Sunday, when it happened again and I had to go through the entire goddamn same conversation (with additional screaming) again with a whole new rep. That's also when I found out that calling Charter's tech support line will get you a dysfunctional voice mail that just says "You have entered an invalid number" no matter what you do until you hang up. I was a bit rabid by the time I finally got through and then I just had to leave the house in disgust, argh.
However. All this is made up for by Friday's score. Friday morning I went to the Tire Barn on Patton Avenue (in WNC, btw, these two words rhyme, which is awesome) and while the really nice older Tire Barn guys were putting 2 new tires on my car I went next door to the Salvation Army. That's another good thing about Tire Barn - it's right next to a lovely strip mall containing not just a big Sally's Army but a head shop, a Sally's Beauty Supply, a giant store of wicker furniture that I have never been in, a taqueria and a KFC. Excellent. So at the thrift shop I perused the paperbacks, as is my invariable habit, and I scored a Wodehouse and a trashy sci fi novel called the Legacy of Heorot and, oddly enough, Minnie Pearl's autobiography. Cool, I thought, I've always liked Minnie Pearl, even though I know nothing about her. Guess what, gentle readers? It was signed! Yeah! I now own a copy of Minnie Pearl's autograph! Yeah! Woot! I have no idea why this excites me so but it does! Go me!
It was hot as fucking Hades and I HATE CHARTER COMMUNICATIONS. I had no internet last week. So on Friday, since I had divined that this was going to be one of those things that involved hours on the phone during working hours, I called up Charter. Before I called up Charter, I dug through my recent correspondence with Charter, which I hadn't opened because, beacon of efficiency that I am, I let them just take their monthly pound of flesh out of my bank account directly and they send me a statement. I knew the money had been disappearing, so I didn't bother to open the statements. Charter, for their part in this symphony of ignoring, hadn't bothered to switch my account over from my old house and had happily been double billing me since May 15. Yeah. So they felt that I had never paid my bills at the new house and consequently they had taken away my internet although not, for some inscrutable reason, my TV.
It took a while to sort all this out and at the point where the customer service rep started to get snooty and suggest that perhaps I was some kind of evil fraud meister who was simultaneously getting cable at two separate houses, I lost it. Unfortunately or fortunately, in this day and age, losing it completely and shrieking like a batshitinsane bitch on steroids is the only way you can get these people to actually do anything. So they got my cable on again, in the midst of which we discovered that they had never switched my modem over and I should probably never have had working cable internet and so on and so forth and then finally it was done and I was content.
Until Sunday, when it happened again and I had to go through the entire goddamn same conversation (with additional screaming) again with a whole new rep. That's also when I found out that calling Charter's tech support line will get you a dysfunctional voice mail that just says "You have entered an invalid number" no matter what you do until you hang up. I was a bit rabid by the time I finally got through and then I just had to leave the house in disgust, argh.
However. All this is made up for by Friday's score. Friday morning I went to the Tire Barn on Patton Avenue (in WNC, btw, these two words rhyme, which is awesome) and while the really nice older Tire Barn guys were putting 2 new tires on my car I went next door to the Salvation Army. That's another good thing about Tire Barn - it's right next to a lovely strip mall containing not just a big Sally's Army but a head shop, a Sally's Beauty Supply, a giant store of wicker furniture that I have never been in, a taqueria and a KFC. Excellent. So at the thrift shop I perused the paperbacks, as is my invariable habit, and I scored a Wodehouse and a trashy sci fi novel called the Legacy of Heorot and, oddly enough, Minnie Pearl's autobiography. Cool, I thought, I've always liked Minnie Pearl, even though I know nothing about her. Guess what, gentle readers? It was signed! Yeah! I now own a copy of Minnie Pearl's autograph! Yeah! Woot! I have no idea why this excites me so but it does! Go me!
Saturday, August 04, 2007
project 365 #215: biltmore estate
My friend D and I finally used up the free Biltmore Estate passes I got for working the flume there last summer. We spent the afternoon - a rather long, hot, dizziness inducing afternoon, actually - at the Biltmore Estate and we did it all, from the House to the Gardens to the Greenhouse to the Gifte Shoppe to the Winery. Actually, it was really fun. I haven't done the Biltmore like that in, oh, about seven or eight years, which I think is about the right interval.
They won't let you take pictures inside the House, which I think is serious bullshit and so, so dated and ridiculous. But then the Biltmore has been known to be dated and ridiculous before, and also, noone has ever accused the Cecils of being unable to wring every penny of profit out of every single opportunity they can dream up. If you can't take pictures, they reason, you must buy them. So what they do is ambush you as you come around the corner from the formal dining room and take your picture with the Conservatory in the background. Then they give you a coupon and when you leave, your utterly hideous portrait is awaiting, along with an 8 by 10 highly colored glossy of the outside of Biltmore House, for the low low price of, get this, $21.95. Yeah. $21.95 for two, not particularly high quality, digital prints.
Still, the house and gardens and all are amazing. I know, I curse the rich along with the best of them and yield to noone in fury against the running dogs of the imperialist capitalist oppressors of the people but still. It's a wonderful place in some ways. And even if the Biltmore corporate robot drones, who have like the strictest and most insane dress code ever, are evil in their refusal to hire the tattooed, pierced, mohawk'ed, non pantyhose wearing and/or bearded masses (and, one wonders, exactly how DO they staff the place with requirements like those? This IS Asheville.) but if it wasn't there, it would be another horrible Hendersonville Road like sprawl of condos and Mickey Ds. And it's so damn beautiful, so amazingly, achingly beautiful. I'd live there. In fact, I think that when the end of the world comes that's exactly what I'll do - get all my grunged out friends together and clamber onto our spiked out vehicles with our tough dogs and black leather and move into the Biltmore. We can put machine guns on the towers to keep away the zombie aliens flesh eating bacteria monsters and finally fill up the pool in the basement with water and swim in it, which I have wanted to do since the first time I ever went to the Biltmore when I was about 16 or so.
After the house and the gardens and the hothouses and so on, we went to the Winery, where they made us sit through a short and dreary video about the general wonderfulness of Biltmore wines, which, as any Ashevillein will tell you, is something of a joke. Released, we dashed immediately for the tasting bar, where a genial soul poured us small amounts of a panoply of wines. The only good one, and by good I mean you might actually drink it again not under duress, was, distressingly, a Pinot Blanc, which is to say, pink. Quite pink. Rose. Whatever. I bought a bottle for my friend J's birthday next week because the evil Biltmore marketing plan of getting their guests mildly schnockered in the Winery and then steering them through a huge wine themed Gifte Shoppe worked on me like a charm.
Then we went over to my friend S' house where we were joined by none other than J herself, who, during the course of a long and really fun evening of just women drinking beer and laughing for hours, mentioned her eternal hatred and loathing for pink wine from the Biltmore Estate. Well, obviously I had to give it to her right then, which led to much hilarity. It was a long and lovely day, all in all.
They won't let you take pictures inside the House, which I think is serious bullshit and so, so dated and ridiculous. But then the Biltmore has been known to be dated and ridiculous before, and also, noone has ever accused the Cecils of being unable to wring every penny of profit out of every single opportunity they can dream up. If you can't take pictures, they reason, you must buy them. So what they do is ambush you as you come around the corner from the formal dining room and take your picture with the Conservatory in the background. Then they give you a coupon and when you leave, your utterly hideous portrait is awaiting, along with an 8 by 10 highly colored glossy of the outside of Biltmore House, for the low low price of, get this, $21.95. Yeah. $21.95 for two, not particularly high quality, digital prints.
Still, the house and gardens and all are amazing. I know, I curse the rich along with the best of them and yield to noone in fury against the running dogs of the imperialist capitalist oppressors of the people but still. It's a wonderful place in some ways. And even if the Biltmore corporate robot drones, who have like the strictest and most insane dress code ever, are evil in their refusal to hire the tattooed, pierced, mohawk'ed, non pantyhose wearing and/or bearded masses (and, one wonders, exactly how DO they staff the place with requirements like those? This IS Asheville.) but if it wasn't there, it would be another horrible Hendersonville Road like sprawl of condos and Mickey Ds. And it's so damn beautiful, so amazingly, achingly beautiful. I'd live there. In fact, I think that when the end of the world comes that's exactly what I'll do - get all my grunged out friends together and clamber onto our spiked out vehicles with our tough dogs and black leather and move into the Biltmore. We can put machine guns on the towers to keep away the zombie aliens flesh eating bacteria monsters and finally fill up the pool in the basement with water and swim in it, which I have wanted to do since the first time I ever went to the Biltmore when I was about 16 or so.
After the house and the gardens and the hothouses and so on, we went to the Winery, where they made us sit through a short and dreary video about the general wonderfulness of Biltmore wines, which, as any Ashevillein will tell you, is something of a joke. Released, we dashed immediately for the tasting bar, where a genial soul poured us small amounts of a panoply of wines. The only good one, and by good I mean you might actually drink it again not under duress, was, distressingly, a Pinot Blanc, which is to say, pink. Quite pink. Rose. Whatever. I bought a bottle for my friend J's birthday next week because the evil Biltmore marketing plan of getting their guests mildly schnockered in the Winery and then steering them through a huge wine themed Gifte Shoppe worked on me like a charm.
Then we went over to my friend S' house where we were joined by none other than J herself, who, during the course of a long and really fun evening of just women drinking beer and laughing for hours, mentioned her eternal hatred and loathing for pink wine from the Biltmore Estate. Well, obviously I had to give it to her right then, which led to much hilarity. It was a long and lovely day, all in all.
Friday, August 03, 2007
project 365 #214: valorie miller at the westville pub
I went to the Westville last night with my friend E to see Valorie Miller. It was a lot of fun and the music was totally amazing. E was hilarious; she is a huge, huge fan of Valorie Miller and was just sitting there gushing like a schoolgirl. Kind of the way I behave at a James McMurtry gig, actually.
I was out back smoking cigarettes with my friend R for a while as well. There was an idiot girl there with an intact young male pit bull and it's purely because he was so young and essentially sweet natured that nothing bad happened. Jesus, drunks with dogs: that girl didn't even know there was a dog at the end of her arm. She kept sort of dropping the leash and cooing, "ooooh, he's so cute." Uh huh. He was cute but jesus - there were other drunks with dogs there as well.
My opinion of all this was validated by R, who is a total dog expert and owns the Soapy Dog (which is where you should all go to wash your dog in Asheville, right now, immediately) which made me feel better and also pleasingly expert like. I have nothing against pit bulls who are properly socialized and trained - there's one in Baltimore I purely adore, actually - but they are dog aggressive, there's no getting away from it, and the interactions this one was having with other dogs were right on the borderline of getting very bad indeed. Fucking idiots. My dogs are, of course, perfect. Yeah. And R is going to loan me a crate for my Buddhist dog to prevent him continuing with his teachings - the teachings that inform me that attachment to material possessions, particularly of the delicious pillow and quilt type, is futile. Fucker ate a case of CDs yesterday and really crunched down on Lucinda Williams. Fortunately it was Essence not Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, but still.
I was out back smoking cigarettes with my friend R for a while as well. There was an idiot girl there with an intact young male pit bull and it's purely because he was so young and essentially sweet natured that nothing bad happened. Jesus, drunks with dogs: that girl didn't even know there was a dog at the end of her arm. She kept sort of dropping the leash and cooing, "ooooh, he's so cute." Uh huh. He was cute but jesus - there were other drunks with dogs there as well.
My opinion of all this was validated by R, who is a total dog expert and owns the Soapy Dog (which is where you should all go to wash your dog in Asheville, right now, immediately) which made me feel better and also pleasingly expert like. I have nothing against pit bulls who are properly socialized and trained - there's one in Baltimore I purely adore, actually - but they are dog aggressive, there's no getting away from it, and the interactions this one was having with other dogs were right on the borderline of getting very bad indeed. Fucking idiots. My dogs are, of course, perfect. Yeah. And R is going to loan me a crate for my Buddhist dog to prevent him continuing with his teachings - the teachings that inform me that attachment to material possessions, particularly of the delicious pillow and quilt type, is futile. Fucker ate a case of CDs yesterday and really crunched down on Lucinda Williams. Fortunately it was Essence not Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, but still.
Thursday, August 02, 2007
project 365 #213: new lighter from peru
Yesterday some of my coworkers gave me a gift: this beautiful, amazing, googly eyed frog which, you're never gonna believe it, is actually an indigenous art form from Latin America! Yeah! It was handcrafted out of native unspoiled organic sculpy by some disadvantaged yet culturally pure Latin Americans up in the mists of the high Andes, where they have been making lighter cases for thousands of years. A village where the Googly Eyed Frog is a deeply spiritually significant totem animal. I know this because my fabulous new lighter came with a business card which reads (in four colors, yet, no expense was spared, or maybe they're manufactured by the ancient Macchu Picchu business card printing village) Pichincha: Spirit of the Andes. "Spirit of the Andes?" I said, examining my lovely froggy gift, "God, I hope not."
It is about the most fabulous thing ever. On the back there is a sculpy leaf and another small polished stone. There's one under the belly of the frog, too, but you can't see it since I tweaked this in photoshop to make it, you know, artsy and dark and somewhat foreboding. I wish my lighter to inspire fear. Fear and love, that's the ticket.
In other news, Django had another banner day of destruction yesterday. He cannot be left alone in the house all day or he goes nuts and chews stuff up - and I'm already running him for 40 minutes or so every single damn morning, so it isn't a lack of exercise. Theo is there with him but that's not enough, and since young M has apparently moved to his friends' house in Candler and wishes never to return home, soon I will be totally and forever pillow bereft. Yesterday he got two more pillows and most of a sleeping bag, plus he dragged half of M's clothes out of his room and into the den. Goddamn dog.
It is about the most fabulous thing ever. On the back there is a sculpy leaf and another small polished stone. There's one under the belly of the frog, too, but you can't see it since I tweaked this in photoshop to make it, you know, artsy and dark and somewhat foreboding. I wish my lighter to inspire fear. Fear and love, that's the ticket.
In other news, Django had another banner day of destruction yesterday. He cannot be left alone in the house all day or he goes nuts and chews stuff up - and I'm already running him for 40 minutes or so every single damn morning, so it isn't a lack of exercise. Theo is there with him but that's not enough, and since young M has apparently moved to his friends' house in Candler and wishes never to return home, soon I will be totally and forever pillow bereft. Yesterday he got two more pillows and most of a sleeping bag, plus he dragged half of M's clothes out of his room and into the den. Goddamn dog.
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
project 365 #212: sunset clouds and trees
I'm a bit disgruntled today, partly because I stayed up waaay too late last night listening to music and considering making intensely message filled mix CDs for pretty much all my friends. Fortunately, I didn't carry through on this. Yet. It's such a weird adolescent impulse, the desire to use pop songs to express your every wish, hope, dream and thought. Also, it doesn't work very well. You may be sure that this exact mix that goes from, say, the Buzzcocks to the Jayhawks to Lou Reed is expressing a precise and complicated mix of emotions such as "I miss you but I know you had to leave but all the same I wish you hadn't of left like that, I mean, you could have called me, you shit, plus by the way I have this huge painful bruise on my leg from the dog that reminds me of that day six months ago when you said that thing that almost, but not quite, broke my heart, remember that? Did I tell you about that?" but, once it's in his hands, the recipient is just thinking, "God, I can't believe she put Bitchin' Camaro on there. . . jesus, I hate that song."
I'm not sure what it is in the human soul that believes that it's possible to communicate in complicated ways other than language, because honestly even language doesn't really work all the time and conversations and text messages alike can be and are horribly misinterpreted on a daily basis. Without this fact, hell, we would have no comedy. Or tragedy. But somehow it just seems easier, if more opaque, to sometimes let Warren Zevon say it for you.
I'm not sure what it is in the human soul that believes that it's possible to communicate in complicated ways other than language, because honestly even language doesn't really work all the time and conversations and text messages alike can be and are horribly misinterpreted on a daily basis. Without this fact, hell, we would have no comedy. Or tragedy. But somehow it just seems easier, if more opaque, to sometimes let Warren Zevon say it for you.
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
project 365 #211: art still life
I woke up this morning with a Rhett Miller song in my head. This isn't surprising, since yesterday I finally got it together to put my Wal Mart special CD player thingie in the car - you know, it's one of those tape deck adapter things attached to a cheapass Walkman - and the CD I grabbed was Rhett Miller, The Instigator. This is because yesterday I was in the mood to emo out to that song that goes Am I Gonna Be Lonely For the Rest of My Life? In fact, I wanted to not just emo out but emo out at full speaker cracking volume and wail what's left of my lungs out as I drove down 240. Which I did. And it was good.
Then I listened again to the rest of the CD - most particularly, to this one song - the one that gets stuck in your head - and it goes, I kid you not, like this:
You come and you glow,
You hum and you hover
I cannot believe you are my lover.
Dude. Dude, you're fucking Tinker Bell. Did you not notice that she was a little on the short side?
Then I listened again to the rest of the CD - most particularly, to this one song - the one that gets stuck in your head - and it goes, I kid you not, like this:
You come and you glow,
You hum and you hover
I cannot believe you are my lover.
Dude. Dude, you're fucking Tinker Bell. Did you not notice that she was a little on the short side?
Monday, July 30, 2007
Felicity with her purple/pink highlights
My friend Susan took this on Saturday evening. Yeah I dyed my hair and yeah, it turned out well. Yay hurrah and I wish I was a little happier today but I'm kind of down. Bah. It's funny driving into downtown the day after Bele Chere - I always expect there to be more detritus and maybe some drunks laying in the street but it's amazing how fast they clean it up and the city goes back to whatever it is that passes for normal in Asheville. There's nothing out there now to point to the madness of the weekend. Well, there is a large black wooden box sitting on Biltmore Avenue; it kind of looks like a short vampire's coffin, like maybe he was out and about and got too drunk (the blood of Bele Chere attendees is 80 proof) to drag his coffin back under the parking deck where he usually lives and now he's stuck in there until nightfall when he might just wake up to find himself in whatever subterranean vault the city keeps all their Bele Chere oddments.
Actually I had more fun this year on Saturday night at Bele Chere than I maybe ever have. C & S & K & J and I got completely toasted and wandered around running into people and taking pictures for several hours and it was actually a blast. Usually I'm too cynical for Bele Chere and also I always have to work and I get into that "I hate all tourists get the fuck out of my way" mode but this year, with enough people and ample beer, it was totally fun. Didn't see any music though - but the people watching alone was enough.
I have no internet at home again and so today I have to spend hours on the phone with Charter, which I'm not looking forward to. I can't believe how miserable having no internet at home makes me: I am such a web junkie. I get reduced to playing solitaire on the computer, mopily listening to ancient mp3s and watching bad horror movies on TV. Also, eating too much, although I don't think I can really blame that on the lack of computer. Turns out that Asheville pizza really does deliver to West Asheville now and hooo boy, after years without pizza delivery (I hate Papa Johns and have ideological issues with Dominos) I can see that this is going to be a terribly dangerous trend.
Actually I had more fun this year on Saturday night at Bele Chere than I maybe ever have. C & S & K & J and I got completely toasted and wandered around running into people and taking pictures for several hours and it was actually a blast. Usually I'm too cynical for Bele Chere and also I always have to work and I get into that "I hate all tourists get the fuck out of my way" mode but this year, with enough people and ample beer, it was totally fun. Didn't see any music though - but the people watching alone was enough.
I have no internet at home again and so today I have to spend hours on the phone with Charter, which I'm not looking forward to. I can't believe how miserable having no internet at home makes me: I am such a web junkie. I get reduced to playing solitaire on the computer, mopily listening to ancient mp3s and watching bad horror movies on TV. Also, eating too much, although I don't think I can really blame that on the lack of computer. Turns out that Asheville pizza really does deliver to West Asheville now and hooo boy, after years without pizza delivery (I hate Papa Johns and have ideological issues with Dominos) I can see that this is going to be a terribly dangerous trend.
Friday, July 27, 2007
project 365 #207: haywood road panorama
I'm taking a brief break from working the museum booth at Bele Chere to soak up some air conditioning and let my ears recover from the thousant times damned Kiss Country Karaoke stage, which is unfortunately located about 20 yards from our booth. Did you know that people actually do karaoke to Californication? Yeah. Me either and I could have lived for the rest of my life without hearing it.
Bele Chere is staggering right along. The last guy I talked to had a big old black eye and scrapes all over his face. His eyeball was so messed up I dared not look, so I missed where he had Only God Will Judge tattooed around his neck. I was also trying not to look at his hairy, sweaty chest, oh lord. His girlfriend was maybe a little heavier than one should be to wear a skin tight wife beater and jeans with a large belt buckle under the muffin top and you know, there's a limit on the amount of bright blue eyeshadow anyone really needs. But what the hell. That is the special beauty of Bele Chere. Yargh.
Bele Chere is staggering right along. The last guy I talked to had a big old black eye and scrapes all over his face. His eyeball was so messed up I dared not look, so I missed where he had Only God Will Judge tattooed around his neck. I was also trying not to look at his hairy, sweaty chest, oh lord. His girlfriend was maybe a little heavier than one should be to wear a skin tight wife beater and jeans with a large belt buckle under the muffin top and you know, there's a limit on the amount of bright blue eyeshadow anyone really needs. But what the hell. That is the special beauty of Bele Chere. Yargh.
I Would Just Like To Say
that I dyed my hair mostly purple last night with streaks of other various colors and it looks amazing and I'm going to get my eyebrows done this afternoon which will also be amazing and, while I was driving in to work this morning the cock Rock station played Smoke on the Water, the whole thing, unironically, and I cranked it up as far as my long suffering car speakers will go and bounced happily into town. Yeah. Deep Purple, baby! Fuck this natural hair shit. Fuck letting the gray show. Fuck it with bells on.
Thursday, July 26, 2007
project 365 #206: garlic bouquet 7
My friend D came down from Bat Cave yesterday and took N back up the mountain for a couple of days. She left a huge bouquet of black eyed susans on my table and a big bouquet of garlic tops on the doorstep as an exchange for N. It was a fair trade, I think, although N will occasionally do dishes and stuff, but the bouquets beat him out for decorative purposes. I called her last night to thank her, because the flowers are wonderful and the garlic tops are incredibly excellent (they do all kinds of funky things like bend into spirals and grow new bits and they kind of look like something from Beetlejuice; most satisfying) and she warned me that garlic flowers, while scenic, are not perhaps a good idea for an indoor arrangement due to their, uh, olfactory qualities. I ignored this and put them on my dining room table. Well. Let's just say that absolutely no vampires will ever come in my house now. I am so safe.
I finished Harry Potter last night and I feel, frankly, kind of let down. I should be all happy but I need more details; I need to know exactly how every minute of Harry Potters life progressed or something. What I want, specifically, is Harry Potter and The Mid Life Crisis. But somehow I don't think it's going to be forthcoming. Just a minute ago I started to write it but then I got hit by a magical wave of sanity so I didn't. Y'all can imagine it. It involves alcohol, regrets, divorce and dead end jobs. Yeah. Welcome to adulthood, Harry.
I finished Harry Potter last night and I feel, frankly, kind of let down. I should be all happy but I need more details; I need to know exactly how every minute of Harry Potters life progressed or something. What I want, specifically, is Harry Potter and The Mid Life Crisis. But somehow I don't think it's going to be forthcoming. Just a minute ago I started to write it but then I got hit by a magical wave of sanity so I didn't. Y'all can imagine it. It involves alcohol, regrets, divorce and dead end jobs. Yeah. Welcome to adulthood, Harry.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
project 365 #205: crane in biltmore village
I go hang out with my mother for an hour or two at least once a week and yesterday was one of those days. Yesterday, actually, was one of those days period. I had to go to a community planning meeting thingie and I had to go to the bulk mail place with a mailing (and I hate mailings) and then my landlord called because my neighbor called him to tell him my dogs were out which meant, of course, that I had to go back down to my car and drive home to find out that the dogs were happily on the couch with N and had in fact only been outside the fence for like 10 minutes. Too much driving hither and yon makes Felicity a very cranky girl, not to mention that 3 block uphill slog between parking space and office.
Anyway after work I drove over to my mothers to find that instead of an hour or so sitting alone with her getting the news of the aged - "So and so died. And you know so and so? Broke her hip. That other neighbor? Cancer." It's a rip roaring good time, let me tell you. - she had invited some other neighbors over to drink this Italian bubbly wine that she has just discovered and fallen in love with. I have not been drinking for the last two weeks but, alas, soda water is not an option when my mama has her heart set on some Prosecco. So I had some Prosecco and it wasn't too bad: it didn't give me an instant splitting three hour headache, which is my inevitable champagne response. It also didn't give me a buzz or induce in me any desire to drink anything else. The whole not drinking thing is freakily easy, actually; the only problem is it makes me misanthropic and disinclined to company. That's probably okay and bonus, I think I'm starting to lose some of the beer weight, which was the major impetus behind the whole thing.
This neighbor's husband recently passed away. I knew this, but naturally as always in such circumstance I have no idea what to say. Also naturally, I end up inserting my foot deep into my mouth. My mother had me open the wine, which is like champagne in that it's scary to open. My father installed a deep fear of champagne corks in me early on because he always saw opening a bottle as one of those big opportunities to wax enthusiastic about the possibilities of champagne bottle related death. That cork is under pressure - it could put your eye out. Or ricochet through one ear, bounce around your brain and then go out the other ear. Or, in some temporary suspension of the laws of physics, go straight through your heart! Argh! Be afraid! So of course I had to bring this up. "Hope I live through it!" I said brightly, aiming the bottle away from the ladies. "Shut UP," whispered my inner sane person, but it was too late. The cork came out.
"Look!" I said happily, "I survived!"
"GOD!" shrieked my inner sane person. "Will you shut the fuck up? Her husband just DIED."
"NIce to know I can live through opening a champagne bottle" I babbled on.
My mother was beginning to look a little desperate. I couldn't seem to stop. "To life!" I said cheerily. No, actually I didn't go that far. I think maybe someone stuffed an hors d'oeuvre in my mouth. Thank the gods. I really can't be trusted out of the house.
Anyway after work I drove over to my mothers to find that instead of an hour or so sitting alone with her getting the news of the aged - "So and so died. And you know so and so? Broke her hip. That other neighbor? Cancer." It's a rip roaring good time, let me tell you. - she had invited some other neighbors over to drink this Italian bubbly wine that she has just discovered and fallen in love with. I have not been drinking for the last two weeks but, alas, soda water is not an option when my mama has her heart set on some Prosecco. So I had some Prosecco and it wasn't too bad: it didn't give me an instant splitting three hour headache, which is my inevitable champagne response. It also didn't give me a buzz or induce in me any desire to drink anything else. The whole not drinking thing is freakily easy, actually; the only problem is it makes me misanthropic and disinclined to company. That's probably okay and bonus, I think I'm starting to lose some of the beer weight, which was the major impetus behind the whole thing.
This neighbor's husband recently passed away. I knew this, but naturally as always in such circumstance I have no idea what to say. Also naturally, I end up inserting my foot deep into my mouth. My mother had me open the wine, which is like champagne in that it's scary to open. My father installed a deep fear of champagne corks in me early on because he always saw opening a bottle as one of those big opportunities to wax enthusiastic about the possibilities of champagne bottle related death. That cork is under pressure - it could put your eye out. Or ricochet through one ear, bounce around your brain and then go out the other ear. Or, in some temporary suspension of the laws of physics, go straight through your heart! Argh! Be afraid! So of course I had to bring this up. "Hope I live through it!" I said brightly, aiming the bottle away from the ladies. "Shut UP," whispered my inner sane person, but it was too late. The cork came out.
"Look!" I said happily, "I survived!"
"GOD!" shrieked my inner sane person. "Will you shut the fuck up? Her husband just DIED."
"NIce to know I can live through opening a champagne bottle" I babbled on.
My mother was beginning to look a little desperate. I couldn't seem to stop. "To life!" I said cheerily. No, actually I didn't go that far. I think maybe someone stuffed an hors d'oeuvre in my mouth. Thank the gods. I really can't be trusted out of the house.
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Plans
I've decided that what I need to make my life complete is to make a movie. And not just any movie, no - what I want to make is a Giant Possum Movie. Possibly the only giant possum movie ever, although you can never be sure, given cable tv and their eternal search for the most horrific cheap movies in the world. For all I know, someone in Hong Kong could have beaten me to this lucrative possibility years ago. But I don't care. I'm going to make a Giant Possum Movie, by god, and it's going to be the best damn Giant Possum Movie in the universe.
See, the other night I was sitting out on my deck with my friend C and the conversation turned, as it so often does, to possums. When the conversation turns this way, I am honor bound to mention the huge possum, almost as big as Theo, who lives near my old house and marches down the center of the street in broad daylight, fearing nothing. He's right to fear nothing, because everyone who spots him, human and canine alike, does the same thing: they make a kind of eeeyarrgh, urk noise and run away. Which is the sensible thing to do. So I said to my friend C, "Suppose possums are like fish? And they just grow and grow until they get hit by a car or something?" "Yes, Felicity," said C sardonically, "Possums are just like fish!"
Nay sayers, bah. It's possible. Although if it was true, you'd think someone might have spotted a house sized possum or two strolling through the neighborhood, which would, let's face it, be awesome. Well, bad, yeah, but bad in an awesome way. Therefore I am going to make the movie. And if my movie possums are not only gigandor but also shoot laser beams out their eyes (while, naturally, making that particular and specific I am shooting laser beams out my eyes right now noise - that's a very helpful noise, that is, without it you wouldn't know when to drop flat on the ground because the presence of the giant lizard or robot or whatever wouldn't necessarily have alerted you to the fact that dropping flat to the ground might be a good idea right around now) well, that will just be bonus. And I think I can make this movie pretty cheap, too. Possibly in Photoshop.
See, the other night I was sitting out on my deck with my friend C and the conversation turned, as it so often does, to possums. When the conversation turns this way, I am honor bound to mention the huge possum, almost as big as Theo, who lives near my old house and marches down the center of the street in broad daylight, fearing nothing. He's right to fear nothing, because everyone who spots him, human and canine alike, does the same thing: they make a kind of eeeyarrgh, urk noise and run away. Which is the sensible thing to do. So I said to my friend C, "Suppose possums are like fish? And they just grow and grow until they get hit by a car or something?" "Yes, Felicity," said C sardonically, "Possums are just like fish!"
Nay sayers, bah. It's possible. Although if it was true, you'd think someone might have spotted a house sized possum or two strolling through the neighborhood, which would, let's face it, be awesome. Well, bad, yeah, but bad in an awesome way. Therefore I am going to make the movie. And if my movie possums are not only gigandor but also shoot laser beams out their eyes (while, naturally, making that particular and specific I am shooting laser beams out my eyes right now noise - that's a very helpful noise, that is, without it you wouldn't know when to drop flat on the ground because the presence of the giant lizard or robot or whatever wouldn't necessarily have alerted you to the fact that dropping flat to the ground might be a good idea right around now) well, that will just be bonus. And I think I can make this movie pretty cheap, too. Possibly in Photoshop.
Monday, July 23, 2007
Long Weekend
It's funny how some people can manage to live their lives in planned and sensible ways and never seem to be troubled by demons or ever even experience that thin, sharp edge between the world we know and the abyss, but others are always right there, right on the boundaries. I've spent some time staring into that black hole myself and that's probably why I'm drawn to other people like me, who know it all too well. Which is what happened to a good friend of mine - he slipped off the edge and was holding on by his fingernails. So I rented a car on Saturday morning and drove up to Baltimore and picked him up and spent the night on his boat and then drove him back down to Asheville yesterday where now he is asleep on my couch: thin, spent, shaky. Hopefully a bit wiser. Hopefully he will feel better soon. Hopefully he won't do this again. Hope is a strange and wonderful thing.Driving 1100 miles in 36 hours is always interesting. There are all kinds of vignettes in my head right now, from the patient cat by the Virginia Burger King door to the clouds and deep sky of the Shenandoah Valley. My ears are still ringing a bit from the good stereo in the rent a car and I'm still swaying a little from the night on the boat. I hadn't slept on a boat in oh, about 10 years I guess, or more, and lying there unable to sleep, listening to the stays clang on the mast and the water and wakes shaking the bow up and down made my head go into overdrives and layers of memories and old senses.
It was a pretty heavy weekend. I'm tired. I'm putting up a few pictures on Flickr soon. I didn't take very many. It wasn't really a picture taking trip. Things are all in flux again and that, I think, is the way it goes when you make that choice to live a little closer to the edge than many do. But I wouldn't have it any other way and somehow, I think I did something right, since I was able to do what I did this weekend.
Friday, July 20, 2007
project 365 #200: day 200 self portrait
I'm kind of on a much needed social hiatus right now - staying home, reading a lot, even, gasp, watching TV. Although now that we have TV for the first time in almost 7 years, the inevitable has happened: there's nothing on. 60 odd channels and nothing anyone in their right mind would want to watch on any of them. I knew it. But it's been pleasant anyway and I'm planning to keep on like this for at least another week or so. And I'm fucking around with Photoshop, as this image makes clear. When one picture a day is no longer enough, you must merge a few.
All this healthy living is getting me to the river most days. Yesterday it was beautifully foggy; today was clear and thanks to my canine alarm clock, we got out the door at 7:00 and walked all the way to the campground on Amboy Road from Hominy Creek Park. Django never slows down for even a minute, which would be totally awesome if he hadn't figured out that there's a place he can jump in the river one last time just before he gets into the car to leave so that he's all lovely and soaked and muddy. He has a thing about water, that dog. Last night he did something truly weird: he brought a sock from M's room into the kitchen. This is not at all out of the ordinary, but then - and I watched this, I swear it happened - he dumped the sock into the waterbowl, pulled it out and happily carried the drenched and dripping sock out to the backyard. Because dry socks are no longer enough? I have no idea. Socks taste better when wet? Even Django can't handle the taste of one of M's socks without dilution? Who knows?
Postscript a few hours later: You know, I absolutely have to stop thinking that my life is boring or, gods forbid, writing about it in this blog. Because every time I do that, things suddenly get hairy. It is possible now that I will be embarking on a brief, fast, longdistance serious road trip this weekend. In fact, it looks very possible. Like, probably. Details when I get back if I go. But sheesh - just thinking that I never do anything or go anywhere but work, the river & home never does seem to fail to send me right out of my usual orbit.
All this healthy living is getting me to the river most days. Yesterday it was beautifully foggy; today was clear and thanks to my canine alarm clock, we got out the door at 7:00 and walked all the way to the campground on Amboy Road from Hominy Creek Park. Django never slows down for even a minute, which would be totally awesome if he hadn't figured out that there's a place he can jump in the river one last time just before he gets into the car to leave so that he's all lovely and soaked and muddy. He has a thing about water, that dog. Last night he did something truly weird: he brought a sock from M's room into the kitchen. This is not at all out of the ordinary, but then - and I watched this, I swear it happened - he dumped the sock into the waterbowl, pulled it out and happily carried the drenched and dripping sock out to the backyard. Because dry socks are no longer enough? I have no idea. Socks taste better when wet? Even Django can't handle the taste of one of M's socks without dilution? Who knows?
Postscript a few hours later: You know, I absolutely have to stop thinking that my life is boring or, gods forbid, writing about it in this blog. Because every time I do that, things suddenly get hairy. It is possible now that I will be embarking on a brief, fast, longdistance serious road trip this weekend. In fact, it looks very possible. Like, probably. Details when I get back if I go. But sheesh - just thinking that I never do anything or go anywhere but work, the river & home never does seem to fail to send me right out of my usual orbit.
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
project 365 #199: Haywood Road sunset
Tomorrow is Day 200 of Project 365 and I'm already getting performance anxiety. On Day 100, I got everyone at my house to jump and I took their picture and it was cool. Frankly, I was a whole lot cooler 100 days ago. Right now I'm in a bit of a funk and I'm trying to change my entire lifestyle or something so that I can sort of get my shit together at least temporarily. This is hard to photograph because it seems to involve a lot of staying home and reading fantasy novels and walking around in circles talking to myself. Trust me, you don't want to see that. Even, or perhaps especially, since I do most of this great wisdom seeking in my hot pink with giant hot green limes on them capri pajama pants and my vintage (by dint of the fact that I still own it) 1988 14th St. Leave Me Alone oversized T-shirt. It's a fetching ensemble and it goes well with my ubernerdchick glasses. Also, I have mysterious bug bites that itch like crazy.
And ticks. No, not the kind that make you twitch, although, actually, there is nothing like the feeling of a tick strolling around on your body looking for a good place to settle down for a leisurely lunch to make you twitch. This morning I knew there was one on my back, which made me keep reaching my hand up behind my neck to casually probe around under my shirt. This is a complex maneuver that is extremely difficult to manage casually in an office setting, like, oh, don't mind me, I suddenly have this urge to root around under my clothes, it's nothing, really. You can get away with that once but by the fourth time people are staring, believe me. And you really don't want to say, "Uh, sorry, I think there's a tick or two on me." People are so squeamish these days, sheesh.
I finally found it about an hour later in my hair: fortunately, I was alone at that point. And then, of course, I spent the rest of the day jumping about and rubbing myself all over just in case that tick had friends and relations along for the ride. I didn't even go to the river this morning, which seems unfair - I only went over to the calm, tame (one would think,) orderly environs of Malvern Hills Park. Why no river this morning? That would be because the nifty Timex clock radio which I bought for young M for Christmas from the clearance rack at K-Mart for $11, which he naturally spurned and which I finally opened up and installed in my room about 3 weeks ago, just up and died. This has made me furious, because among other things, it took me at least an hour to decipher the manual and actually set the goddamn thing. But I liked it because the numbers were constantly changing color and all those hallucinogens I took in the early 80s has made me fond of that sort of psychedelia. Damn planned obsolescence. Damn Timex. I never even licked the stupid clock and yet it metaphorically ticks no longer.
Oh and hey, my friend Z took a good picture of me a coupla weeks ago with the fantastic bumper sticker I found in my basement which is now on my car. Is love better than Schlitz? I have no idea. I don't think I've ever had a Schlitz (does it even still exist, that harmoniously named lager?) and these days I'm leery as hell of love.
And ticks. No, not the kind that make you twitch, although, actually, there is nothing like the feeling of a tick strolling around on your body looking for a good place to settle down for a leisurely lunch to make you twitch. This morning I knew there was one on my back, which made me keep reaching my hand up behind my neck to casually probe around under my shirt. This is a complex maneuver that is extremely difficult to manage casually in an office setting, like, oh, don't mind me, I suddenly have this urge to root around under my clothes, it's nothing, really. You can get away with that once but by the fourth time people are staring, believe me. And you really don't want to say, "Uh, sorry, I think there's a tick or two on me." People are so squeamish these days, sheesh.
I finally found it about an hour later in my hair: fortunately, I was alone at that point. And then, of course, I spent the rest of the day jumping about and rubbing myself all over just in case that tick had friends and relations along for the ride. I didn't even go to the river this morning, which seems unfair - I only went over to the calm, tame (one would think,) orderly environs of Malvern Hills Park. Why no river this morning? That would be because the nifty Timex clock radio which I bought for young M for Christmas from the clearance rack at K-Mart for $11, which he naturally spurned and which I finally opened up and installed in my room about 3 weeks ago, just up and died. This has made me furious, because among other things, it took me at least an hour to decipher the manual and actually set the goddamn thing. But I liked it because the numbers were constantly changing color and all those hallucinogens I took in the early 80s has made me fond of that sort of psychedelia. Damn planned obsolescence. Damn Timex. I never even licked the stupid clock and yet it metaphorically ticks no longer.
Oh and hey, my friend Z took a good picture of me a coupla weeks ago with the fantastic bumper sticker I found in my basement which is now on my car. Is love better than Schlitz? I have no idea. I don't think I've ever had a Schlitz (does it even still exist, that harmoniously named lager?) and these days I'm leery as hell of love.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
hideous roadside shot improved dramatically
So this is how I spent my Tuesday night. Well, I spent the first part of it having a brief and inexplicable sort of panic attack but then I hunkered down on two computers simultaneously and created this masterpiece so that I could improve Sunday's picture, which was so utterly lame even I couldn't bring myself to put it into the project 365 pools or my set. Now I like it better even if it isn't the worlds best photoshop job. Yeah, I know - it looks like one of those collaged flyers we used to make at Kinko's late at night in the 80s except in color but see, it's on purpose. Really. Absolutely. Sure. And if you believe that, can I trade you a handful of beads for that nice bungalow? I love doing weird stuff on photoshop but I get irritated when I have to start fucking around pixel by pixel, which is why I will never be one of the great designers of our time. No, I will just be one of the weird designers of our time, which is totally okay with me.
See, here is the terrible or
iginal shot, which yes, I took from a moving vehicle, specifically S' car on Swannanoa River Road, which we were navigating enroute to see the new Harry Potter movie. A little photoshop made it much better, n'est ce pas? (That right there is French for Innit, which itself is, like, British for amirite. I am so cultured and international and all, ya know.)
The novelty of the project 365 thing has kind of worn off. It's more than halfway through the year and I'm getting tired of having to take a damn picture every day. I feel like all of Asheville has been photographed unto a fare thee well already and, frankly, at least during the week, I just go to walk the dogs, work and then home. It's dull in real life and even duller in pixels, I'm afraid. Hopefully I'll get my inspiration back soon because the past couple of weeks have been a slog photographically. Much as I love my camera, I'm sick of yanking it out all the time.
In other news, spurred on by the Harry Potter movie, I, like thousands of otherlosers fans have been rereading the books. Well, actually only the most recent one, which I read in several gulps. It was better than I remembered it being and now I'm really excited for the new one to come (yeah, okay, I pre-ordered it from Amazon, what? You wanna make something out of it, muggle?) even while the part of me that will forever be eleven years old and addicted to sequels is hyperventilating at the thought that it's the last one ever. But then, if I'm tired of taking a photo a day half a year into it, I can only imagine how much JK Rowling wants to off Harry Potter and his posse by this point. So more power to her, and here's hoping I get off my ass, write a book my own self (a better book than the last one I tried to write, in 1994 or thereabouts, which got a bit too, uh, complicated) and the legions of Harry Potter losers fans snap it up and send me tons and tons of lovely moolah so I can actually buy a bungalow with something other than a handful of beads.
See, here is the terrible or
iginal shot, which yes, I took from a moving vehicle, specifically S' car on Swannanoa River Road, which we were navigating enroute to see the new Harry Potter movie. A little photoshop made it much better, n'est ce pas? (That right there is French for Innit, which itself is, like, British for amirite. I am so cultured and international and all, ya know.)The novelty of the project 365 thing has kind of worn off. It's more than halfway through the year and I'm getting tired of having to take a damn picture every day. I feel like all of Asheville has been photographed unto a fare thee well already and, frankly, at least during the week, I just go to walk the dogs, work and then home. It's dull in real life and even duller in pixels, I'm afraid. Hopefully I'll get my inspiration back soon because the past couple of weeks have been a slog photographically. Much as I love my camera, I'm sick of yanking it out all the time.
In other news, spurred on by the Harry Potter movie, I, like thousands of other
Monday, July 16, 2007
My Quick Review of the New Harry Potter Movie
1. It's not as good as the last two Harry Potter movies.
2. But it's still better than many, many movies.
3. Is it better than the giant crocodile alligatorsaurus movies on the Sci Fi Channel?
4. Yes.
5. Daniel Radcliffe needs to learn that in acting, there is more than one way to express anger.
6. Just breathing loudly and tensing one's neck muscles is not enough.
7. Maybe he has asthma.
8. All that gasping got really annoying after a couple of hours, though.
9. There was a girl - well, actually a woman, I think - sobbing loudly in the theatre through the last part.
10. So what with all the angry Harry breathing on screen and the sad moviegoer snuffling in the audience, there was a whole lotta wheezing, coughing and other lung noises going on. Even the occasional moan.
The whole Harry Potter thing is still just so damn cool, though, that it makes all the breathing noise oddities okay.
2. But it's still better than many, many movies.
3. Is it better than the giant crocodile alligatorsaurus movies on the Sci Fi Channel?
4. Yes.
5. Daniel Radcliffe needs to learn that in acting, there is more than one way to express anger.
6. Just breathing loudly and tensing one's neck muscles is not enough.
7. Maybe he has asthma.
8. All that gasping got really annoying after a couple of hours, though.
9. There was a girl - well, actually a woman, I think - sobbing loudly in the theatre through the last part.
10. So what with all the angry Harry breathing on screen and the sad moviegoer snuffling in the audience, there was a whole lotta wheezing, coughing and other lung noises going on. Even the occasional moan.
The whole Harry Potter thing is still just so damn cool, though, that it makes all the breathing noise oddities okay.
Sunday, July 15, 2007
project 365 #194: chicken hill
It's been another party party weekend and jesus, I can't wait to go back to work and leave all this mindless frivolity behind. I tell you, I am too old and feeble for this kind of relentless fun pace. I need a long dark period of angst and stern internal reflection, preferably in a bleak wintery landscape somewhere, to recover.
Friday night there was an opening at the art museum which was actually quite fun and then, afterwards, my friends S & C & I went over to our friends Z & H's for a small impromptu dinner party, which was totally fun. I took this picture on the way over there, by the way, and I actually think it is quite good, although not, alas, as good as I thought it was when I looked at it drunk, at which point I thought it was probably the single best photograph ever taken. Still. It's not bad. Then S and her puppy Mojo came over here, which led to me being hungover yesterday but not too bad, since I was able to put my new bed together! Yes! I am no longer sleeping on the floor and it is good. I also went to Aldi yesterday and to Ingles and issued a lot of stern commentary on the high prices of groceries and how I'm not going back to the goodamn supermarket for at least a week, do you hear me, an entire week, and certain teenage boys should pace themselves in their consumption of beverages if they expect to be drinking anything but water come next Saturday. This was received with the utter apathy it rated.
Then last night was my friend J's birthday party which was very nice. There were mojitos and good food and everybody - well, the female everybodys - was wearing pretty summer dresses so it all felt very sophisticated and grown up and it all put me into a state of complete and total garden envy, since J & K's garden is amazing, as is Z & H's and all I have are some resentful tomatos in a container by the fence. They would like me more if I watered more often, but what can you do? Besides, obviously, water more often. I'm way too lazy for that. I miss the old days, when water just fell from the sky.
Today I have not done one single goddamn thing except lie around and moan and eat Fritos. It's pathetic and I swear I'm not going to do this again next weekend or even the weekend after. Nope. No. Uh uh.
Friday night there was an opening at the art museum which was actually quite fun and then, afterwards, my friends S & C & I went over to our friends Z & H's for a small impromptu dinner party, which was totally fun. I took this picture on the way over there, by the way, and I actually think it is quite good, although not, alas, as good as I thought it was when I looked at it drunk, at which point I thought it was probably the single best photograph ever taken. Still. It's not bad. Then S and her puppy Mojo came over here, which led to me being hungover yesterday but not too bad, since I was able to put my new bed together! Yes! I am no longer sleeping on the floor and it is good. I also went to Aldi yesterday and to Ingles and issued a lot of stern commentary on the high prices of groceries and how I'm not going back to the goodamn supermarket for at least a week, do you hear me, an entire week, and certain teenage boys should pace themselves in their consumption of beverages if they expect to be drinking anything but water come next Saturday. This was received with the utter apathy it rated.
Then last night was my friend J's birthday party which was very nice. There were mojitos and good food and everybody - well, the female everybodys - was wearing pretty summer dresses so it all felt very sophisticated and grown up and it all put me into a state of complete and total garden envy, since J & K's garden is amazing, as is Z & H's and all I have are some resentful tomatos in a container by the fence. They would like me more if I watered more often, but what can you do? Besides, obviously, water more often. I'm way too lazy for that. I miss the old days, when water just fell from the sky.
Today I have not done one single goddamn thing except lie around and moan and eat Fritos. It's pathetic and I swear I'm not going to do this again next weekend or even the weekend after. Nope. No. Uh uh.
Friday, July 13, 2007
project 365 #193: underside of 40 2
Wednesday was my brother's last night in town so he and I and young M went out to dinner at Thai Basil. It was excellent beyond belief - even my jaded NY brother said it was about the best Thai food he'd ever had. It is not cheap. But it is most delicious. In other news, last night I went to my friend J's screening. She is a filmmaker who does gorgeous stuff and this film, which starred another friend who did a long fast in the woods some years back, was most excellent. It was very cool and fun and I had a good time and felt all artsy and shit, which is always good. Tonight I will be enhancing that artsy feeling by attending the art museum's opening of their paper dress exhibit, for which they requisitioned my lava lamp. Then I'm going to see another friend play music. All good.
Except. (Okay, if you are male and/or squeamish, you may wish to exit here.) It is that time of the month and, good gods almighty, yet again it occurs to me that periods are the single best argument against intelligent design yet. I mean, I'm sorry, but I hate my stupid period. Yes, I like the part where I go, oh yay, dodged the pregnancy bullet again, but that part is only about 15 seconds long and could be accomplished via a simple email from my uterus. The rest of it is cramps and tiredness and my fingers are all fucking swollen so I can't even wear my amethyst ring and my back hurts and I'm not even going to go into the part where I turn into a homicidal/suicidal psychopath for a week or two previous. And I can't go out to the woods because of the bears and I can't swim in the ocean because of the sharks and I can't swim in the Catawba river because of the piranhas and I can't take a bath because of some weird old wives tale that we were earnestly told was untrue in the helpful brochures given to all fifth grade girls in 1976 but probably is true anyway. Those same brochures and the informative folder in the Tampax box tell you to exercise for the cramps but if you exercise you bleed too much and then you'll be walking home from the park leaving a trail of gruesome spots behind you which the dog might lick up, causing utter illness in your soul forever and firing up that old hidden worry about dogs possibly developing a taste for human blood and starting to sneak out at night to chew on babies and anyway you're too damn tired to exercise. Also, I'm tired of waking up in a pool of blood and I'm not happy about the way my period just gets worse and worse as I get older yet my older friends only utter sepulchral laughs when I complain about this and tell me that I have seen nothing yet.
Despite all this, the prospect of menopause fills me with even more daunting horror because then, as far as I know and rumor has it, I will overnight sprout a million wrinkles and chin hairs, begin cackling, dry up altogether and never have sex again. I mean, fuck. This sucks. They tell you it's natural but natural is not always so great, you know? Typhoid is natural and so is cholera and so, apparently, is the way my upper arms and belly are changing shape and not for the better. Bah. The whole thing is completely fucked up.
Except. (Okay, if you are male and/or squeamish, you may wish to exit here.) It is that time of the month and, good gods almighty, yet again it occurs to me that periods are the single best argument against intelligent design yet. I mean, I'm sorry, but I hate my stupid period. Yes, I like the part where I go, oh yay, dodged the pregnancy bullet again, but that part is only about 15 seconds long and could be accomplished via a simple email from my uterus. The rest of it is cramps and tiredness and my fingers are all fucking swollen so I can't even wear my amethyst ring and my back hurts and I'm not even going to go into the part where I turn into a homicidal/suicidal psychopath for a week or two previous. And I can't go out to the woods because of the bears and I can't swim in the ocean because of the sharks and I can't swim in the Catawba river because of the piranhas and I can't take a bath because of some weird old wives tale that we were earnestly told was untrue in the helpful brochures given to all fifth grade girls in 1976 but probably is true anyway. Those same brochures and the informative folder in the Tampax box tell you to exercise for the cramps but if you exercise you bleed too much and then you'll be walking home from the park leaving a trail of gruesome spots behind you which the dog might lick up, causing utter illness in your soul forever and firing up that old hidden worry about dogs possibly developing a taste for human blood and starting to sneak out at night to chew on babies and anyway you're too damn tired to exercise. Also, I'm tired of waking up in a pool of blood and I'm not happy about the way my period just gets worse and worse as I get older yet my older friends only utter sepulchral laughs when I complain about this and tell me that I have seen nothing yet.
Despite all this, the prospect of menopause fills me with even more daunting horror because then, as far as I know and rumor has it, I will overnight sprout a million wrinkles and chin hairs, begin cackling, dry up altogether and never have sex again. I mean, fuck. This sucks. They tell you it's natural but natural is not always so great, you know? Typhoid is natural and so is cholera and so, apparently, is the way my upper arms and belly are changing shape and not for the better. Bah. The whole thing is completely fucked up.
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
project 365 #191: wildflowers in jug and sky
You know that cartoon character with the little rain cloud over his head? The one who walks around in a continual shower? AKA the truck driver from the Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy who was actually a rain god? Yeah, well, that has long been metaphoically me, I know, I know - but it seems to have moved into the realm of actual physical reality and that's bothering me a little. I mean, if some metaphorical thing in my life can take on tangible reality, why can't it be my vision of myself as the prom queen? Or a lottery ticket? Or that Frankensteined metaphorical perfect boyfriend?
But no. No, instead I manage to walk the dogs during what was apparently either a very localized (not unusual in WNC, where if you don't like the weather you should walk a half mile or so) or simply the only total downpour of the day. It started as I got out of the car at the river with the dogs and ended after our walk as I drove home. By the time I made coffee the sun was shining and birds were tweeting and my soaking clothes draped over chairs in the dining room near the panting, drenched and smelly dogs all looked bizarrely out of place.
I would take this in my stride if my cookout hadn't been rained out on Saturday and if it hadn't been raining, yesterday, outside my kitchen window, where I was, but not on the deck. Until I'd been there for a couple minutes, that is. Yes. Again, having it rain on one side of your house and not the other is uncommon but not totally eyebrow raising in Asheville - but it followed me. The rain loves me. And I would love the rain right back except if I really wanted just to stand next to the tomatos I'd use a bucket.
But no. No, instead I manage to walk the dogs during what was apparently either a very localized (not unusual in WNC, where if you don't like the weather you should walk a half mile or so) or simply the only total downpour of the day. It started as I got out of the car at the river with the dogs and ended after our walk as I drove home. By the time I made coffee the sun was shining and birds were tweeting and my soaking clothes draped over chairs in the dining room near the panting, drenched and smelly dogs all looked bizarrely out of place.
I would take this in my stride if my cookout hadn't been rained out on Saturday and if it hadn't been raining, yesterday, outside my kitchen window, where I was, but not on the deck. Until I'd been there for a couple minutes, that is. Yes. Again, having it rain on one side of your house and not the other is uncommon but not totally eyebrow raising in Asheville - but it followed me. The rain loves me. And I would love the rain right back except if I really wanted just to stand next to the tomatos I'd use a bucket.
Monday, July 09, 2007
project 365 #190: waterdrops on rugosa begonia
My new boss started today and I barely saw her. This is good, because I had wild nightmares all night last night about new bosses in general and all the terrible havoc they can wreak, particularly if they actually happen to be long toothed undead types but noone will believe the poor worker. Hate it when that happens. Between that and the dogs deciding that there were long toothed undead types right outside about four times between 1 and 5 am, I didn't get much sleep. Why does this kind of thing always happen when you absolutely have to be on top of your game the next day?
It rained again. This is the second time in three days which is some kind of a record for this summer. It poured on my cookout Saturday night which seemed a trifle unfair, given that it hadn't rained in months and had to pick my mother's birthday party to soak. We were grilling under umbrellas, but it all turned out okay. Still, it's so dry that the rain doesn't do anything but run off the ground, which is so hard you can't possibly dig a finger in to see if it's wet or not. Judging from the potted plants, it's not.
It rained again. This is the second time in three days which is some kind of a record for this summer. It poured on my cookout Saturday night which seemed a trifle unfair, given that it hadn't rained in months and had to pick my mother's birthday party to soak. We were grilling under umbrellas, but it all turned out okay. Still, it's so dry that the rain doesn't do anything but run off the ground, which is so hard you can't possibly dig a finger in to see if it's wet or not. Judging from the potted plants, it's not.
project 365 #188: moms birthday party 5
My mom turned 80 on Saturday and we basically celebrated all weekend long, which of course entailed a lot of cleaning and cooking and running around and so now that it is Monday, I am tired. Cheerful, but tired.
I've also noticed that I use the word kickass way too much lately. It strikes me that this isn't necessarily a bad thing in that having a lot of things going on in ones life which one can fairly refer to as kickass can never be a bad thing, but perhaps I should branch out into other adjectives. Like awesome or sweet, maybe, bleargh. I use those too much too. Anyway, the dinner on Friday night? Kickass. The slightly rained out birthday party pictured here? Kickass. And my friend S' party on Sunday? Totally kickass, dude.
Work? Ass kicking, which is just not the same at all.
I've also noticed that I use the word kickass way too much lately. It strikes me that this isn't necessarily a bad thing in that having a lot of things going on in ones life which one can fairly refer to as kickass can never be a bad thing, but perhaps I should branch out into other adjectives. Like awesome or sweet, maybe, bleargh. I use those too much too. Anyway, the dinner on Friday night? Kickass. The slightly rained out birthday party pictured here? Kickass. And my friend S' party on Sunday? Totally kickass, dude.
Work? Ass kicking, which is just not the same at all.
Friday, July 06, 2007
project 365 #186: yancey county road hills sun wires
Well, I took young M up to Yancey county yesterday for his old hippie school's reunion. I still can't quite believe he wanted to go to it, given his usual comments about hippie jail and so on, but he did and off he went, giving me what would be three lovely days of peace except that tomorrow is my mom's 80th birthday and I'm having the party by royal decree. Which also means that my younger brother is in town and wants to do stuff, so I'm doing stuff. Like having a small temper tantrum/snit, which I did last night. I got over it eventually, though, and I promise I will not forget to take my PMS pills again. Although I was right. And if he does it again, I am so telling Mom. Then he'll be sorry.
There is this well documented effect of families: they turn everyone involved into a 15 year old. 15 year olds are such a total joy to be around - that's why the gods decreed that multiple births in humans would be exceeding rare. Otherwise, if we had litters like puppies, they would all turn 15 at once and the species would have died out long ago through perfectly justifiable teenicide. So when all the theoretically adult members of a family become simultaneously 15, as is wont to happen across America on the 4th of July or Christmas or something, it can get a bit hairy.
But it will be okay. I just have to remember my PMS pills and the fact that I did leave 15 behind me long ago. Even though I went and bought expensive hippie shampoo and conditioner at 8:00 am the other morning so that young M would not suffer the disgrace of inadequately perfect hair at his reunion and it turned out to be the exact same shampoo and conditioner that I used myself at 15 and the smell catapulted me right back into anxieties about pimples and boys, both of which, I am sad to report, have changed alarmingly little over the intervening "few" years. And the conditioner sucked, too. My hair is all snarly and cranky now (like me, okay) and the no doubt totally natural smell in it will not fade, which is giving me a headache. You cannot go back again.
There is this well documented effect of families: they turn everyone involved into a 15 year old. 15 year olds are such a total joy to be around - that's why the gods decreed that multiple births in humans would be exceeding rare. Otherwise, if we had litters like puppies, they would all turn 15 at once and the species would have died out long ago through perfectly justifiable teenicide. So when all the theoretically adult members of a family become simultaneously 15, as is wont to happen across America on the 4th of July or Christmas or something, it can get a bit hairy.
But it will be okay. I just have to remember my PMS pills and the fact that I did leave 15 behind me long ago. Even though I went and bought expensive hippie shampoo and conditioner at 8:00 am the other morning so that young M would not suffer the disgrace of inadequately perfect hair at his reunion and it turned out to be the exact same shampoo and conditioner that I used myself at 15 and the smell catapulted me right back into anxieties about pimples and boys, both of which, I am sad to report, have changed alarmingly little over the intervening "few" years. And the conditioner sucked, too. My hair is all snarly and cranky now (like me, okay) and the no doubt totally natural smell in it will not fade, which is giving me a headache. You cannot go back again.
Thursday, July 05, 2007
project 365 #185: 4th of july fireworks 9
Yeah. Fireworks. The 4th of July. Patriotism. All that good stuff. It was really fun - went down to the Asheville Brewing Company for the special Drinking Liberally and all the usual suspects were there as well as some new people - although the guy who said he was going to come and burn a flag didn't show, rats - and my younger brother, who flew in for my Mom's birthday on Saturday, came too. Big fun; we wandered up to a church on Aston to watch the fireworks, which were awesome and I also got out of downtown just before the giant exodus clogged the bridge. This is also good.
My new neighborhood, being posher than my old neighborhood, doesn't have as many fireworks. I kind of lament this in the same way that I kind of lament the absence of crack whores, death wish kids on scooters and stray pit bulls. Which is to say, I know it's weird to miss these things, but damnit, I do. I'm not sure I really like suburbia and also I worry about the neighbors showing up at my door with torches and pitchforks at the new house. My recycling clinks so and it's not all organic juice bottles. Actually everyone is very nice and I do like the new neighborhood - it's just not what I'm used to. I guess I can get used to it; hell, I leave the car windows open and the doors unlocked and so far noone has strewn the contents of my glove compartment across the lawn. It's like they're not even trying. Who can understand the suburbs?
My new neighborhood, being posher than my old neighborhood, doesn't have as many fireworks. I kind of lament this in the same way that I kind of lament the absence of crack whores, death wish kids on scooters and stray pit bulls. Which is to say, I know it's weird to miss these things, but damnit, I do. I'm not sure I really like suburbia and also I worry about the neighbors showing up at my door with torches and pitchforks at the new house. My recycling clinks so and it's not all organic juice bottles. Actually everyone is very nice and I do like the new neighborhood - it's just not what I'm used to. I guess I can get used to it; hell, I leave the car windows open and the doors unlocked and so far noone has strewn the contents of my glove compartment across the lawn. It's like they're not even trying. Who can understand the suburbs?
Wednesday, July 04, 2007
project 365 #184: cardinal on stone fountain
This guy and his wife/girlfriend/significant other live in the holly tree in the Pack Place Rhino Courtyard. I want to get pictures of the whole family but so far I've only got him. Last year they had a particularly demanding child - I watched them try to teach him how to fly and it was hilarious. Parenting techniques and parental exasperation cross all species' boundaries, I swear, because the totally fed up look on both the parent cardinals' faces had to be seen to be believed as their youngster squawled and hollered from first the tree and then the ground and then the tree again as first one and then the other parent swooped down, said something encouraging and nudged him a little. Then they would get fed up and yell at him. Presumably he eventually learned to fly and left home and his parents breathed a sigh of relief and then, not having learned a damn thing from their traumatic experience with a teenager, started the whole proceedings all over again this year. Which is sort of what I did 15 years ago but now it's all coming back to me in terrible clarity as I imagine it is to Dad Cardinal, here.
In other news, here is a list:
Holidays Dogs Hate:
4th of July
Halloween
New Years Eve
Holidays Dogs Like:
Christmas
Thanksgiving
Labor & Memorial Day
Holidays Dogs Don't Care About:
Easter
In other news, here is a list:
Holidays Dogs Hate:
4th of July
Halloween
New Years Eve
Holidays Dogs Like:
Christmas
Thanksgiving
Labor & Memorial Day
Holidays Dogs Don't Care About:
Easter
Tuesday, July 03, 2007
oops
For the first time in 182 days, I did not take a single photograph yesterday. Was this for some heartfelt political/social reason? Hells no. It was because I'm the Queen of the Space Cadets (I am, I swear. I have a hat and everything.) and I just completely spaced it out. I carted the camera everywhere I went, from, uh, home to work and then back home again, big exciting Monday - and it stayed in my purse. Drat.
Don't worry, fans! Hee hee. Or rather, don't get up false hopes - I'm not stopping the project now. Picture a day, picture a day - it goes on. I already took some today and they promise to be excitingly lame and boring and stupid! Yeah!
In other news I was asked to draw special attention to the following announcement: DRINKING LIBERALLY IS HAPPENING TOMORROW even though it's Wednesday but WHICH IS LIKE JULY 4 WHICH IS LIKE INDEPENDENCE DAY AND STUFF EXCEPT I HAVE TO WORK BECAUSE THE TOURISTS NEED TO COME LOOK AT ROCKS TOO AND THEIR RIGHT TO HAPPINESS TRUMPS THE HELL OUT OF MINE AND BESIDES IT'S OKAY WITH ME I'M TAKING FRIDAY OFF, WAHOO - BUT ANYWAY. SPECIAL JULY 4 WEDNESDAY EDITION OF DRINKING LIBERALLY AT THE ASHEVILLE BREWING COMPANY TOMORROW. I'LL BE THERE AND SO, PROBABLY, WILL MY BROTHER FROM NEW YORK IN A SPECIAL GUEST APPEARANCE.
Yay be there. Yes yes. And we can talk about why "Scooter" (hee. Yeah. His name is Scooter. What a dork! Heh heh. Rhymes with dooter. Patooter. Grown men and right wing ones at that who still cling to seriously stupid boyish nicknames are kind of reprehensible, don't you think?) Libby was pardoned and can't someone, anyone find a fuckable intern for W so we can, please oh god, impeach his evil lawbreaking ass? I know, it would be rough on the intern but she'll just have to give one up for the good of the cause. I know it won't work for Cheney - maybe a bucket of water? Has anyone tried the old bucket of water trick? He'd so melt.
Don't worry, fans! Hee hee. Or rather, don't get up false hopes - I'm not stopping the project now. Picture a day, picture a day - it goes on. I already took some today and they promise to be excitingly lame and boring and stupid! Yeah!
In other news I was asked to draw special attention to the following announcement: DRINKING LIBERALLY IS HAPPENING TOMORROW even though it's Wednesday but WHICH IS LIKE JULY 4 WHICH IS LIKE INDEPENDENCE DAY AND STUFF EXCEPT I HAVE TO WORK BECAUSE THE TOURISTS NEED TO COME LOOK AT ROCKS TOO AND THEIR RIGHT TO HAPPINESS TRUMPS THE HELL OUT OF MINE AND BESIDES IT'S OKAY WITH ME I'M TAKING FRIDAY OFF, WAHOO - BUT ANYWAY. SPECIAL JULY 4 WEDNESDAY EDITION OF DRINKING LIBERALLY AT THE ASHEVILLE BREWING COMPANY TOMORROW. I'LL BE THERE AND SO, PROBABLY, WILL MY BROTHER FROM NEW YORK IN A SPECIAL GUEST APPEARANCE.
Yay be there. Yes yes. And we can talk about why "Scooter" (hee. Yeah. His name is Scooter. What a dork! Heh heh. Rhymes with dooter. Patooter. Grown men and right wing ones at that who still cling to seriously stupid boyish nicknames are kind of reprehensible, don't you think?) Libby was pardoned and can't someone, anyone find a fuckable intern for W so we can, please oh god, impeach his evil lawbreaking ass? I know, it would be rough on the intern but she'll just have to give one up for the good of the cause. I know it won't work for Cheney - maybe a bucket of water? Has anyone tried the old bucket of water trick? He'd so melt.
Monday, July 02, 2007
project 365 #182: django and mojo are buds 2
My friend S brought Mojo the puppy over to play with Django yesterday. Those two are so bonded. They played for hours. Theo is highly disinterested in puppies and also he's going through his yearly I Hate Summer thing where he itches all the time and just wants to lie in a hole. So every time Mojo comes near him he warns him off with a short growl and snap combo that makes Mojo leap backwards. Do not disturb Uncle Theo, kid. But Django adores him and that makes up for surly old Uncle Theo. Besides, watching Mojo go straight up in the air and then back at Theo's snap is highly entertaining itself. Almost as entertaining as when either Django gets Mojo's collar and drags him around the yard or when Mojo gets Django's collar and tries (very cutely) to drag Django around. Puppies. Ah.
project 365 #181: album cover dianna charles adam
Saturday's picture of the day. Everyone else got ticks on them in this field but I thought I had miraculously escaped tickless. Until this morning when I was sitting there with my zen guru therapist trying to avoid his searching and cogent comments and questions about why I am constantly at war with myself when a tick crawled down my arm. I threw it out the window and now I'm all eeped out trying to figure out where the hell it had been hiding for the past two days. Ah, Mondays. Sudden ticks.
Sunday, July 01, 2007
So, this is just a little bulletin from the planet where we start drinking beer and smoking heavily at 4:00 pm, okay? Things are good here. We call it the weekend, and it has been lovely. My friend E came over and got my computer back on line, which is why there are suddenly a bunch of new pictures on my Flickr stream. Yesterday, after several Baltimore phone calls, my friend C and I drove up to Bat Cave to see if A & D were still alive, since their phone had been out for like a week. They were. There had been a phone knocking out thunderstorm. Their daughter is out of town and they were in no hurry to reestablish connection with the outside world and who can blame them? We hung out for hours on their lovely cool porch and then wandered up the alpine meadow past their house where everything is lovely and green and washed in a sort of muted glow that makes us all look like we’re posing for an early 70s album cover. Impossibly cool. Even though A had a giant beetle on his ankle which hissed so that we could all hear it and which eventually made A change from someone who was saying, “Wow! Check out those stripes on him!” to someone who was saying, a bit pitifully really, “Please get it off me.”
In other news, M is home. He called last night while I was still up in Bat Cave to ask if the house was locked, which was the first I’d heard of him coming home – although, you know, I’m quick that way and figured that that statement was pretty much a hint that he was, like, almost home – and then when I came home, lo, I was right and M is back. Already the ice cream is gone.
Giant thanks and kudos to E, frequent commenter on this blog, who sacrificed several hours of his Sunday evening to fix my computer and hang out with me and S. Big enormous thanks. This is awesome.
Friday, June 29, 2007
project 365 #180: damselfly
There's a lot to be said for getting the picture of the day out of the way by 8:00 a.m. I explored further into the secret mystery park (I refuse to give the location, because there is nobody there at 7:30 in the morning and I can let the dogs off leash to run and run and run and nobody, but nobody, is going to mess with my newly found morning peace) and went under the highway, which was very cool. Then this fortuitous bug flew by my nose and posed, which was extremely nice of him. I said thank you.
Went briefly to DL last night and it was interesting as always. I hung out with my friend C, too, which was fun. Other than that, it was work. And the grocery store, always a thrill a minute experience, right?
However. My underwear is falling off again today. I must therefore post a small rant about underwear and how idiotically difficult it is to get decent underwear these days. I know all about this, since, thanks to my dogs, I have become something of an underwear expert. I have been shopping for underwear on a weekly basis for several months now and I have this to say: contemporary underwear industry? You SUCK. It used to be that I could find bikini underwear - which is my underwear of choice - in lots of funky patterns and/or materials, cheap, everywhere. Now, everything is boy shorts and they look dumb on me and I hate all the other options, like briefs, which are just too gross for words - ditto thongs - or anything else in the strange and confusing world of ladies' underwear. Nevertheless, I must persevere. So I bought a pair of bright green lace boy shorts with bright pink lace trim the other day on the theory that they were so ugly, they were cute. They keep falling down. They're not the only pair of new underwear that has this issue, and the old ones, forget it. The elastic has gone and they're all just one small misstep away from making Haywood Road history. I'm starting to feel like an Art Frahm painting about to happen and since, actually, I do need celery, the resemblance could get even closer this afternoon. As amusing as that is, I don't want to be in the Ingles parking lot with a bag full of celery and my undies around my ankles. But I may have no choice. If only I could sue.
Went briefly to DL last night and it was interesting as always. I hung out with my friend C, too, which was fun. Other than that, it was work. And the grocery store, always a thrill a minute experience, right?
However. My underwear is falling off again today. I must therefore post a small rant about underwear and how idiotically difficult it is to get decent underwear these days. I know all about this, since, thanks to my dogs, I have become something of an underwear expert. I have been shopping for underwear on a weekly basis for several months now and I have this to say: contemporary underwear industry? You SUCK. It used to be that I could find bikini underwear - which is my underwear of choice - in lots of funky patterns and/or materials, cheap, everywhere. Now, everything is boy shorts and they look dumb on me and I hate all the other options, like briefs, which are just too gross for words - ditto thongs - or anything else in the strange and confusing world of ladies' underwear. Nevertheless, I must persevere. So I bought a pair of bright green lace boy shorts with bright pink lace trim the other day on the theory that they were so ugly, they were cute. They keep falling down. They're not the only pair of new underwear that has this issue, and the old ones, forget it. The elastic has gone and they're all just one small misstep away from making Haywood Road history. I'm starting to feel like an Art Frahm painting about to happen and since, actually, I do need celery, the resemblance could get even closer this afternoon. As amusing as that is, I don't want to be in the Ingles parking lot with a bag full of celery and my undies around my ankles. But I may have no choice. If only I could sue.
Thursday, June 28, 2007
project 365 #178: theo in the den
Not having the internet at home is getting really old really fast. Where are all you technical wizard types when I need you? Help!
I have now discovered two distinct places on the television machine, though. First I found the Sci Fi channel, home of such awesomeness as the giant shark and man eating crocodile movies, which as we know I am partial to, and a lot of inexplicably military focused futuristic space dramas, which I am not so fond of but will watch if the alternatives are all boring "realistic" shows in which people who have more money than I ever will make stupider remarks than I ever will in their giant unrealistic homes. I like my fantasy straight up, thanks - the more out there, the better. And they have ghost hunting programs, bonus, even if the ghost hunters are all nerdy wannabe hipsters with unconvincing snarky lines and Bigfoot hunting shows with surprisingly huge budgets in which the Bigfoot hunters, who have a lot in common with the ghost hunters, fly all over the globe as delineated in a charmingly old fashioned lines on a map to talk to just this side of drooling Bigfoot Scientists whereever they may be. Yay, Sci Fi channel.
The other channel I like is only two clicks away (not on the remote. There is no remote since Django ate it lo these many months gone and also the buttons on the TV are wonky and when you go to adjust the volume it usually changes the channel, but that's another story.) and it's Animal Planet, which mostly has truly horrible, unceasing commercials but also runs that Planet Earth documentary that I'm so addicted to on Wednesday nights. Last night they did forests and caves and showed baobab trees in Madagascar with foot long exploding flowers that were stalked by hand sized lemurs with giant eyes, causing me to become near catatonic with glee. Then they showed giant Texas cave salamanders who looked like flash animations of themselves and cave fish and cave crystals and horrible alien bacterial life forms called, appropriately, snotties. Too cool. In between they ran a lot of ridiculous commercials for dumb pet stuff, but who cares? Baobab trees!
I have now discovered two distinct places on the television machine, though. First I found the Sci Fi channel, home of such awesomeness as the giant shark and man eating crocodile movies, which as we know I am partial to, and a lot of inexplicably military focused futuristic space dramas, which I am not so fond of but will watch if the alternatives are all boring "realistic" shows in which people who have more money than I ever will make stupider remarks than I ever will in their giant unrealistic homes. I like my fantasy straight up, thanks - the more out there, the better. And they have ghost hunting programs, bonus, even if the ghost hunters are all nerdy wannabe hipsters with unconvincing snarky lines and Bigfoot hunting shows with surprisingly huge budgets in which the Bigfoot hunters, who have a lot in common with the ghost hunters, fly all over the globe as delineated in a charmingly old fashioned lines on a map to talk to just this side of drooling Bigfoot Scientists whereever they may be. Yay, Sci Fi channel.
The other channel I like is only two clicks away (not on the remote. There is no remote since Django ate it lo these many months gone and also the buttons on the TV are wonky and when you go to adjust the volume it usually changes the channel, but that's another story.) and it's Animal Planet, which mostly has truly horrible, unceasing commercials but also runs that Planet Earth documentary that I'm so addicted to on Wednesday nights. Last night they did forests and caves and showed baobab trees in Madagascar with foot long exploding flowers that were stalked by hand sized lemurs with giant eyes, causing me to become near catatonic with glee. Then they showed giant Texas cave salamanders who looked like flash animations of themselves and cave fish and cave crystals and horrible alien bacterial life forms called, appropriately, snotties. Too cool. In between they ran a lot of ridiculous commercials for dumb pet stuff, but who cares? Baobab trees!
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
project 365 #177: 15 minute craft project
Oh, and I forgot to mention that my internet is no longer working at home and I totally cannot figure out why. This made yesterday's car insurance debacle even worse since I couldn't look up my records. Help, somebody, I need help with my stupid home computer and internet connection. I could call Charter, I know, but their tech support consists of an endlessly looping robot tape telling you to reboot your modem. Tried that 16 times already and that's not it; this is more complicated.
So yesterday I did manage to make another Martha Stewart Of The Trailer Park craft item! Yes! It will fall apart soon as do most of my crafts but in the meantime, be impressed! I will give you directions so you can make one of your own and also, since there is a really, really good chance that you, whoever you are, are much more patient and detail oriented than me, yours will be better than mine and will not fall apart so quickly. It will be good. You can give me credit for the idea.
You will need:
4 sticks. Twigs, really. Your dog will be happy to help you with this part.
4 nails. Small ones. I used 1 big nail and then 3 small nails because I used the big one first and realized that, hey, now I had a big pointy nail sticking out the other end. I decided to ignore it. Also, you'll need a hammer. Unless you use a clog or something.
A piece of screen. I have no idea where you get this. I found one. I think it's from when D cut the screen out of my screen door to make a ghetto doggie door. (aka "A hole in the door")
A staple gun. Single most important tool in my life.
Directions:
Lay the twigs on the screen in a rectangle-ish sort of way.
Nail the twigs together.
Cut the screen at the corners sort of so it kind of wraps around the twigs. Does that make sense? You can figure it out.
Wrap the screen around the twigs and staple it. You might need to hammer the staples in.
Cut off the extra screen in the back and the dangly bits of screen on the corners. I haven't done all the corners yet as you can see from careful examination of this fine photograph, lower right. I'm going to get around to it as soon as I find the scissors again.
Hang on your wall with cup hooks and hang your earrings up.
Yay! You are talented and creative! Also, cheap!
So yesterday I did manage to make another Martha Stewart Of The Trailer Park craft item! Yes! It will fall apart soon as do most of my crafts but in the meantime, be impressed! I will give you directions so you can make one of your own and also, since there is a really, really good chance that you, whoever you are, are much more patient and detail oriented than me, yours will be better than mine and will not fall apart so quickly. It will be good. You can give me credit for the idea.
You will need:
4 sticks. Twigs, really. Your dog will be happy to help you with this part.
4 nails. Small ones. I used 1 big nail and then 3 small nails because I used the big one first and realized that, hey, now I had a big pointy nail sticking out the other end. I decided to ignore it. Also, you'll need a hammer. Unless you use a clog or something.
A piece of screen. I have no idea where you get this. I found one. I think it's from when D cut the screen out of my screen door to make a ghetto doggie door. (aka "A hole in the door")
A staple gun. Single most important tool in my life.
Directions:
Lay the twigs on the screen in a rectangle-ish sort of way.
Nail the twigs together.
Cut the screen at the corners sort of so it kind of wraps around the twigs. Does that make sense? You can figure it out.
Wrap the screen around the twigs and staple it. You might need to hammer the staples in.
Cut off the extra screen in the back and the dangly bits of screen on the corners. I haven't done all the corners yet as you can see from careful examination of this fine photograph, lower right. I'm going to get around to it as soon as I find the scissors again.
Hang on your wall with cup hooks and hang your earrings up.
Yay! You are talented and creative! Also, cheap!
project 365 #176: tripped out wildflowers
Yesterday SUCKED. This is Monday's picture which was blurry & boring so I tweaked it into a sort of mid 60s album cover thingie. Monday was okay as far as I recall. I was tired. I went to work. I ate polenta and mushrooms for dinner and read most of The Algebraist by Iain M. Banks which reminded me that Iain M. Banks is one of the best writers around. Wait, was that the night that I watched that hilarious Harpies show on the Sci Fi channel? That was brilliantly awful. I mean really bad. I mean so atrocious it was fantastic.
But yesterday was Tuesday, which, as I may have mentioned, SUCKED, went like this:
1. Car insurance cancelled out of the blue, rendering me afraid to drive.
2. Turns out I hadn't paid my car insurance in several months because, well, I'm a dysfunctional idiot and I sort of forgot.
3. Had to borrow S' car and drive out to Arden and give the insurance people THREE HUNDRED DOLLARS. Rendering me broke as hell.
3a. Good thing I hadn't gotten around to buying the new tires that money was earmarked for.
4. Now my car is legal again but still totally unsafe what with the bald damn tires and all.
But yesterday was Tuesday, which, as I may have mentioned, SUCKED, went like this:
1. Car insurance cancelled out of the blue, rendering me afraid to drive.
2. Turns out I hadn't paid my car insurance in several months because, well, I'm a dysfunctional idiot and I sort of forgot.
3. Had to borrow S' car and drive out to Arden and give the insurance people THREE HUNDRED DOLLARS. Rendering me broke as hell.
3a. Good thing I hadn't gotten around to buying the new tires that money was earmarked for.
4. Now my car is legal again but still totally unsafe what with the bald damn tires and all.
Monday, June 25, 2007
project 365 #175: grass and tree
Yesterday we were supposed to go out to Bat Cave and thence to Lake Lure to take pictures of fat tourists. And we (me and S and puppy Mojo) made it to Bat Cave to visit with our friend D but we didn't make it back down the mountain and into Lake Lure. It was just too nice up there sitting on D's porch drinking beer and talking and being continually buzzed by hummingbirds and watching the dogs play so instead of fat tourists I was forced to take pictures of, like, Nature and shit. Sheesh. It was very relaxing and great and there was even a nice afternoon thunderstorm. Then S & I came back into Asheville where we met C for dinner at the Westville and then went over to his house to admire his garden. I confess, after D's & C's gardens this weekend, I am feeling terrible garden envy and am almost, but not quite, tempted to dig up some of the back forty and see what I can get to grow in this mostly dry almost July. I feel lame only having a few containers of plants and like my Earth Mother cred is all getting ruined.
So everything was nice and mellow and I went to bed at a reasonable hour and all, only to be awakened by the forever damned smoke alarm outside my bedroom at 3:30 this morning. It was really going off, none of that low battery chirping, no, the full throttle wail siren "you are going to die!" mode. I leaped out of bed and got on a kitchen chair and disconnected it and then took the battery out and then spent the next two hours in a state of terrible heightened paranoia whereby I was sure that even though I could smell no smoke whatsoever no matter how hard I strained my nose and also poked it into places where it didn't want to go like the attic crawl space and behind the bookcases just in case, horrors, an electrical outlet had suddenly decided to go berserk and caught randomly on fire, the house was nonetheless on fire and about to kill me and the dogs. Around 5:00 am I decided that if the house had actually been on fire for over two hours I probably would have noticed some change in my environment so I drifted back off to sleep only to wake up again at 9:00 - I am theoretically supposed to be at work at 9:00. I hate Mondays. I hate possessed smoke alarms. The internet tells me that it may have been the humidity that set the damn thing off in which case I guess I am doomed for the rest of the summer.
This has happened to me once before - I had mercifully forgotten the last possessed smoke detector in my life. That was in the bat infested farmhouse in northern Baltimore county where we lived in the late 90s and it also happened in the small hours of the morning not long after we moved in. It was actually worse, though, in that the kids and my boyfriend were all there as well and I believe that M, who was quite small, was frightened and crying and A, who had just started high school, was yelling as she often did and the dog was barking and I'm sure, although I don't remember it, that the cats, of which we had many then, were underfoot. Meanwhile, my boyfriend was wobbling unsteadily on a chair at the top of the stairs trying to disconnect the smoke alarm. Which finally he did, which did not faze the smoke alarm one iota. No, it just kept right on wailing away even though we had pulled the battery out. Then we had to disconnect it from the wall by main force and even then, with no power source whatsoever, it continued to shriek. I remember a conversation between me and said boyfriend about whether we would actually set the house on fire or perhaps electrocute ourselves if we just cut the damn wires with a pair of scissors, goddamnit. I swear to you that this is true. Not only did it never shut up, but then we chucked it far, far out the window towards the woods and you could still hear it chirping distantly which is why I found myself, soon after the sun rose, burying a smoke alarm deep in the earth by the state forest. I felt like a murderer - a very tired murderer who had really pretty much had it up to here with the murdering business.
So everything was nice and mellow and I went to bed at a reasonable hour and all, only to be awakened by the forever damned smoke alarm outside my bedroom at 3:30 this morning. It was really going off, none of that low battery chirping, no, the full throttle wail siren "you are going to die!" mode. I leaped out of bed and got on a kitchen chair and disconnected it and then took the battery out and then spent the next two hours in a state of terrible heightened paranoia whereby I was sure that even though I could smell no smoke whatsoever no matter how hard I strained my nose and also poked it into places where it didn't want to go like the attic crawl space and behind the bookcases just in case, horrors, an electrical outlet had suddenly decided to go berserk and caught randomly on fire, the house was nonetheless on fire and about to kill me and the dogs. Around 5:00 am I decided that if the house had actually been on fire for over two hours I probably would have noticed some change in my environment so I drifted back off to sleep only to wake up again at 9:00 - I am theoretically supposed to be at work at 9:00. I hate Mondays. I hate possessed smoke alarms. The internet tells me that it may have been the humidity that set the damn thing off in which case I guess I am doomed for the rest of the summer.
This has happened to me once before - I had mercifully forgotten the last possessed smoke detector in my life. That was in the bat infested farmhouse in northern Baltimore county where we lived in the late 90s and it also happened in the small hours of the morning not long after we moved in. It was actually worse, though, in that the kids and my boyfriend were all there as well and I believe that M, who was quite small, was frightened and crying and A, who had just started high school, was yelling as she often did and the dog was barking and I'm sure, although I don't remember it, that the cats, of which we had many then, were underfoot. Meanwhile, my boyfriend was wobbling unsteadily on a chair at the top of the stairs trying to disconnect the smoke alarm. Which finally he did, which did not faze the smoke alarm one iota. No, it just kept right on wailing away even though we had pulled the battery out. Then we had to disconnect it from the wall by main force and even then, with no power source whatsoever, it continued to shriek. I remember a conversation between me and said boyfriend about whether we would actually set the house on fire or perhaps electrocute ourselves if we just cut the damn wires with a pair of scissors, goddamnit. I swear to you that this is true. Not only did it never shut up, but then we chucked it far, far out the window towards the woods and you could still hear it chirping distantly which is why I found myself, soon after the sun rose, burying a smoke alarm deep in the earth by the state forest. I felt like a murderer - a very tired murderer who had really pretty much had it up to here with the murdering business.
Saturday, June 23, 2007
project 365 #174: end of the storm
A totally wasted Saturday and damn, does it ever feel good. Not only was it wasted - I mostly just puttered around the house, going in circles, discovering that I'd bought the wrong vacuum cleaner bags, slowly tidying up the top of my bureau and that sort of thing - but I ended up taking myself out for some retail therapy in the evening and spent too much money. Yay me. I feel good about it because, you know, a person simply cannot have too many nearly but not quite identical black skirts. And I put the plaid halter top back because I think perhaps I am just a little too old for halter tops. Alas. Also, it wasn't on sale.
I went out to that horrible "mall" by the airport; the one where, in a triumph against everything that architects and engineers and even mildly green people have been saying for decades now, you have to drive from store to store. It's as much as your life is worth to attempt to walk from the freestanding Old Navy to the more or less freestanding Target because those soccer moms are out for blood, yo. But sometimes I go out there anyway because, after all, I am an American and there is something about fluorescent lighting and big SALE signs and relentless, endless loops of Elton John that warm the very cockles of my consumerist heart. Then this giant thunderstorm hit with insane rain and crashing lightning and the lights at Target, where I was attempting to buy the right vacuum cleaner bags (they don't carry them, the shits) went out briefly to a chorus of delighted screams from the teenagers who haunt this shopping wasteland. So I couldn't leave for a while which is how I seem to have come home with a Pilates exercise ball, complete with DVD of, no doubt, highly fit people exhorting me to bend a lot and three pairs of highly dubious underwear.
I was supposed to go to a party this evening and I backed out, which I feel bad about since it was a party for a good friend who is suddenly moving to DC, but unfortunately my whole self went into lameness mode and there was just no way I could be around people. Sorry, L - I know there were a ton of people there and I'm sure I wasn't missed - let's go grab a beer next week or the week after?
I went out to that horrible "mall" by the airport; the one where, in a triumph against everything that architects and engineers and even mildly green people have been saying for decades now, you have to drive from store to store. It's as much as your life is worth to attempt to walk from the freestanding Old Navy to the more or less freestanding Target because those soccer moms are out for blood, yo. But sometimes I go out there anyway because, after all, I am an American and there is something about fluorescent lighting and big SALE signs and relentless, endless loops of Elton John that warm the very cockles of my consumerist heart. Then this giant thunderstorm hit with insane rain and crashing lightning and the lights at Target, where I was attempting to buy the right vacuum cleaner bags (they don't carry them, the shits) went out briefly to a chorus of delighted screams from the teenagers who haunt this shopping wasteland. So I couldn't leave for a while which is how I seem to have come home with a Pilates exercise ball, complete with DVD of, no doubt, highly fit people exhorting me to bend a lot and three pairs of highly dubious underwear.
I was supposed to go to a party this evening and I backed out, which I feel bad about since it was a party for a good friend who is suddenly moving to DC, but unfortunately my whole self went into lameness mode and there was just no way I could be around people. Sorry, L - I know there were a ton of people there and I'm sure I wasn't missed - let's go grab a beer next week or the week after?
Friday, June 22, 2007
Obligatory Dog Blog
So yesterday I adopted a suggestion of my mother's and went and got the dogs a couple of those huge butcher bones from the grocery store in the hopes of keeping Django so occupied that he wouldn't trash the house or try to escape from the yard. Although I must say that even before the bones, he's been waaaay better lately. Saying that out loud, or, as in this case, in print, makes me feel all itchy and nervous like the gods are watching and about to strike with a loud shout of "Hubris!", a pointed finger and a thunderbolt that makes the dogs eat the couch and then go on some kind of terrible furniture shredding rampage around the neighborhood. But I will say it, and I will also say that the giant bones worked like a charm. They're pretty creepy though - they're all shrinkwrapped but when you unwrap them there is just no escaping the reality that this was until recently inside some large bovine type. I mean they're sinewy and sort of slick and it gives one, even one who is pretty damn far from her long ago vegetarian days, pause.
The only problem with the bones is that they give Django an acute case of bone paranoia. He can't let go of his bone because then, you know, it might disappear or Theo or I might seize it or, or, something. Something bad could happen. So when I got home last night and he was doing his usual ridiculous wiggle all over to show me how overjoyed he was at my return, oh person with the dexterity to open cans, (Django's tail was already cropped by the time we found him, cropped way too short, too, and so when he goes to wag his tail he ends up wagging his entire body instead) he couldn't drop the bone or actually come near me in case I snatched it. It was hilarious; he was so torn about what to do and there was Theo getting petted but he couldn't come near me but. . . you could watch the wheels clunk slowly around in his little pointed head. I mean, you can see his point, because I want his bone so bad - all day I think, gee, wait til I get home when I can take Django's big spitty bone and just lie down on the rug and gnaw on it for a while. Yeah.
I could make a really dirty joke here and so could you but I won't. Anyway, I'm not into interspecies romance.
The only problem with the bones is that they give Django an acute case of bone paranoia. He can't let go of his bone because then, you know, it might disappear or Theo or I might seize it or, or, something. Something bad could happen. So when I got home last night and he was doing his usual ridiculous wiggle all over to show me how overjoyed he was at my return, oh person with the dexterity to open cans, (Django's tail was already cropped by the time we found him, cropped way too short, too, and so when he goes to wag his tail he ends up wagging his entire body instead) he couldn't drop the bone or actually come near me in case I snatched it. It was hilarious; he was so torn about what to do and there was Theo getting petted but he couldn't come near me but. . . you could watch the wheels clunk slowly around in his little pointed head. I mean, you can see his point, because I want his bone so bad - all day I think, gee, wait til I get home when I can take Django's big spitty bone and just lie down on the rug and gnaw on it for a while. Yeah.
I could make a really dirty joke here and so could you but I won't. Anyway, I'm not into interspecies romance.
minotaur
Another drawing done and yeah, I'm getting weirder and so is my art. It's cool though, having this whole new kind of series coming out of my subconscious and also, hey, I actually finished it. What does it mean? I have no idea but oh well, why not? Come on, it beats the hell out of another picture of the dog and accompanying boring dog blog post, right?
I went to Drinking Liberally last night and met Cindy Sheehan's former lawyer who was a really nice guy from New Orleans. Also, some other new guy named Chris gave me a lengthy and unexpected compliment comparing me to Boadicea and going on a bit about female leadership and stuff. Since I am totally not a leader at DL anymore unless it comes to beer consumption (forgot to pay my tab again too, damn it, it's clearly early-ish onset Alzheimers, probably time for the ice floe except, of course, there aren't any anymore which means that we'll soon have near toxic levels of grandmother build up) I was a bit confused. But whatever. Take the compliments where you get them and, after all, why not Boadicea? I clearly need a war chariot. I think it's the long red hair that gets to them even though it's not all that damn red lately and I need to get my ass to a hairdresser forthwith. And I would, too, if I hadn't earmarked all my money for other frivolous shit. Like dog bones.
I went to Drinking Liberally last night and met Cindy Sheehan's former lawyer who was a really nice guy from New Orleans. Also, some other new guy named Chris gave me a lengthy and unexpected compliment comparing me to Boadicea and going on a bit about female leadership and stuff. Since I am totally not a leader at DL anymore unless it comes to beer consumption (forgot to pay my tab again too, damn it, it's clearly early-ish onset Alzheimers, probably time for the ice floe except, of course, there aren't any anymore which means that we'll soon have near toxic levels of grandmother build up) I was a bit confused. But whatever. Take the compliments where you get them and, after all, why not Boadicea? I clearly need a war chariot. I think it's the long red hair that gets to them even though it's not all that damn red lately and I need to get my ass to a hairdresser forthwith. And I would, too, if I hadn't earmarked all my money for other frivolous shit. Like dog bones.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
django in dog bosnia
Part of the reason that Django's being so good is that he finally has the backyard set up the way he likes it. It's a good thing I have cool neighbors. And it's a good thing that L gave me the term Dog Bosnia, because without it I would never have come up with a way to describe Django's mad exterior design skillz. I was trying to figure out a cute nickname for him this evening, like, what or who does nothing but destroy things? Who also preferably begins with a C, like Commando, so he could be the Canine Commando, except that of course, Commandos are supposed to be stealthy and smart, two factors in which Django is utterly lacking. Daleks are all Kill, Crush, Destroy so I could call him Dog Dalek except that he's more like Lick, Hug, Destroy. Or Lick, Pee, Destroy. Which is just not, I don't know, Dalek. The Hulk destroys stuff, but only when he's mad, whereas Django is pretty much 24/7 destruction. Is there anything (besides my dog) that is purely bent on destruction but in, you know, a cute way? There must be something and it's probably Japanese. Maybe Mothra - Dog Mothra.
project 365 #171: django fetch
Django's being good. Scary good. Other than dragging his food bowl into the den, where, presumably, he could lick it shiny clean at his leisure in carpeted comfort, he's done nothing horrible in days. In fact, he's discovered how to play fetch. Sort of. He's got the chase the ball thing down, but he only has the give the ball back to be thrown again thing intermittently. Usually late at night when I'm in bed, at which point he'll bring me the lovely, drenched tennis ball hopefully.
Other than that, I'm working, being efficient at work (scary, I know) and I saw my therapist this morning and he made me think all kind of deep thoughts which I think I've kind of forgotten. These 9 am therapy appointments are kind of a problem, because I have to hit the absolute magic point of caffeine at 9 am. Too little, and I might as well be still be dreaming; too much and frankly, I'm too damn wired to get anything done, to quote a cartoon I saw long ago.
Now I have to go and drink beer with S and Mojo the puppy. Bye!
Other than that, I'm working, being efficient at work (scary, I know) and I saw my therapist this morning and he made me think all kind of deep thoughts which I think I've kind of forgotten. These 9 am therapy appointments are kind of a problem, because I have to hit the absolute magic point of caffeine at 9 am. Too little, and I might as well be still be dreaming; too much and frankly, I'm too damn wired to get anything done, to quote a cartoon I saw long ago.
Now I have to go and drink beer with S and Mojo the puppy. Bye!
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
project 365 #169: hidden
I think I'll turn that shirt from yesterday into a pillow, since Django has eaten all my throw pillows now. Actually, though, he's being very good for Django. He's gotten the dog yard into the kind of state he likes - completely strewn with trash, stuffing and bits of plastic and crap everywhere, and that seems to be keeping him content for the time being. There has been, amazingly enough, no further terrible dog destruction recently. Knock on wood. Knock on, like, all the wood you can find.
I came home last night and collapsed for about an hour, then did laundry. I used to have this weird fantasy that I would one day meet a guy at the laundromat but I've laid that one to rest. The only guys who hang out at the laundromat are either Latino, which would be fine if they a) spoke English, b) weren't mostly married and c) weren't so damn short or, if they're not Latino, they're scary freaks, which would be okay if they a) didn't have scary freak girlfriends already, b) spoke English as opposed to crack addled Madison county-ese and c) weren't so damn creepy. There are occasionally a few reasonable guys at the laundromat, but they're too much like me already: they keep their eyes on their laundry and try not to attract attention.
That's cool though, because I'm not really in the market anymore: I've lost interest. I've realized that there are far worse things than being single for the rest of my life and also, having young M gone is giving me my first long spell of total solitude in a long time and it's glorious. I had forgotten just how great it is to be the only person in a house messing up the dishes, for one thing, and for another I get to crank my own music whenever I want to and lie around and read books naked whenever I feel like it, which is most of the time. Being alone rocks and what I really need is not a boyfriend so much as a robot who will walk the dogs twelve times a day and then turn himself off or possibly into a Pilates instructor because, as I am realizing to my sorrow, it wasn't the hideous shirt that was making me look fat so much as it was the fat that was making me look fat. Damn.
I came home last night and collapsed for about an hour, then did laundry. I used to have this weird fantasy that I would one day meet a guy at the laundromat but I've laid that one to rest. The only guys who hang out at the laundromat are either Latino, which would be fine if they a) spoke English, b) weren't mostly married and c) weren't so damn short or, if they're not Latino, they're scary freaks, which would be okay if they a) didn't have scary freak girlfriends already, b) spoke English as opposed to crack addled Madison county-ese and c) weren't so damn creepy. There are occasionally a few reasonable guys at the laundromat, but they're too much like me already: they keep their eyes on their laundry and try not to attract attention.
That's cool though, because I'm not really in the market anymore: I've lost interest. I've realized that there are far worse things than being single for the rest of my life and also, having young M gone is giving me my first long spell of total solitude in a long time and it's glorious. I had forgotten just how great it is to be the only person in a house messing up the dishes, for one thing, and for another I get to crank my own music whenever I want to and lie around and read books naked whenever I feel like it, which is most of the time. Being alone rocks and what I really need is not a boyfriend so much as a robot who will walk the dogs twelve times a day and then turn himself off or possibly into a Pilates instructor because, as I am realizing to my sorrow, it wasn't the hideous shirt that was making me look fat so much as it was the fat that was making me look fat. Damn.
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