Category: Uncategorized

>mucilaginous

sticky, gummy, like mucous or glue.

Mein Schatz!
Padding through the mush in our Schlaffenfuss gadabouts, we’ve spent our entire vacation in a very large bowl of oatmeal – a high-fiber resort, as it was touted in the brochure. Well, the gadabouts are really just high rubber boots (provided by the establishment as they take away your money, your passport, and your clothes) that make these desperate sucking sounds each time a foot reaches toward the surface of this mucilaginous terrain.
Bye, see you soon, in your flimsy atmosphere, after we decompress for a few days in a vat of beet borscht.*

*Actually, after this they went on a Maygar safari, stalking the mild paprika in their Hungarian galoshes.

Today, September 18th, is National Play-Doh day.

(This is where we all make a mad dash for the nearest Toys ‘R Us and stock up in order to make little green puppy dogs at our desks…)
Ah, nostalgia.
My theory is that Play-Doh was an early sociological experiment to determine which children would develop into obsessive-compulsive adults and/or be anal retentive.
I did not always keep Play-Doh in their proper color-designated containers. Sometimes I was just neglectful, other times lazy. During the construction phase, some colors would actually eke slightly into the others and as such, I did not believe color segregation was such a vital thing. I felt it was perfectly reasonable to place a compacted wad of green in the blue jar. Same color family…and though most families don’t get along, I considered it a form of constructive therapy.
My neighbor, Brandon, had no such theory.
My wedlock of Play-Doh hues would send his mind reeling. It was in violation of his principles. It completely rocked his world view. I don’t know what the state of his mental health is these days, but I think I would have to hold myself as at least partially responsible.
This kid would carefully construct buildings, toadstools, trucks, cats…out of one single color to avoid any hazardous cross-contamination. I don’t know if he felt that contamination would cause some kind of fissure in the space/time continuum that would cause some kind of paradox that would negate human existence, but his persistence in monochromatic construction, as a budding artist, rocked my world view. This kid’s probably separating his socks by color, texture and brand in their own separate drawers in one of his many dressers.

voulez–voulez–vous mucilaginous

>eek…blogging twice in one day? Isn’t that likethe internet version of not wearing white shoes after Labor Day?

I say we spit in the face of tradition and wear white sequined shoes! ha HA!

I pride myself on not being…well, one of those bloggers (sorry, LiveJournal)… who write about going to the local coffee shop with their Tommy Hilfiger-clad younglings in their $600 jogging strollers ordering nonfat decaf lattes light on the foam oh and can i get that$5 lemon tart for my three-year-old spawn cuz he just ain’t wired to the gills enough yet besides if i don’t get it for him he will (gasp!) cry!!! .and everyone knows that children are NEVER supposed to endure ANYTHING unpleasant because how else are they supposed to grow up spoiled, needy, self-indulgent co-dependent fine upstanding citizens of society???

Uh…wow…i have no idea where that came from. I have been upset about many things today, but I am confident that was not one of them. And to be honest I’ve never really read anyone who blogs about that, so not only was it startlingly unexpected, it was also irrelevant. Huh. Bygones.

I’m not sure what I intended to write about but I can assure you it had nothing to do with lowfat ice cream. Chocolate. Nope. No ice cream here.

I think I’m going to work on my crossword puzzle while I’m not eating the nonexistent lowfat Haagen-Dazs chocolate ice cream that is most definitely not sitting on the floor next to me.
Shit. I just dribbled some of the nonexistent ice cream on my “esc”, “~”, “1” and “tab” keys.
And…my foot’s asleep. Maybe I should follow suit.

>So, I am relocating. Again.

thunk-a-thunk-a-thunka-thunk a…..

thunk-a-thunk-a-thunka-thunk a…..

thunk-a-thunk-a-thunka-thunk a…..

Sounded like the kid was wearing my dad’s old combat boots.

This most recent Saturday was spent moving out of the basement in Northgate to the renovated attic space in Capitol Hill. However, aforementioned attic is not completed just yet, so for the next few weeks I am sleeping on a futon in my housemates’ 18-month olds’ future room. Which is painted to look like one is underwater. K did a beautiful job…I don’t think I couldn’t have done it better myself.

I had taken to saying, “Niff is going to sleep with the fishes…” instead of goodnight, but seeing as how her offspring would be occupying that room at some point, K wasn’t too thrilled with that one.

So, now I’ve dubbed it “the aquarium”.

As I mentioned, the attic isn’t done yet.

The contractors had been installing and sanding drywall, so to minimize the amount of drywall dust wafting its way into people’s rooms they had adhered these large, plastic sheets over everyone’s doors with a zipper running down the middle.

I absolutely hate them. Trying to carry your laptop and a cup of tea simultaneously…I advise against it.

They do have some amusement about them. When my housemates tiptoe over the bottoms where the zipper meets the floor and eke their way through the plastic, it has this very “sci-fi space portal” quality about it. My housemate whose room is next to The Aquarium calls them “pods”. “Bath Pod”, “Bed Pod”…

I wish we could arrange for some sound effects to accompany the zippered doorways. Like some kind of Star-Trek “pfffffft” sound when we entered and exited. That would be uber sexy.

Teh sexy, I dare say.

I actually don’t mind the inconvenience of only having a 12-inch opening to wiggle my way through to get into The Aquarium. Because the dust being produced is the drywall going up in my future room. In the attic.

So, I left the basement and somewhat tense environment of Northgate and moved into the attic of a happy, settled home. Heaven and hell, maybe?

I’d explain, but I have neither the inclination or the time.

voulez-voulez-vous altitude change.

>LAGNIAPPE:

What on earth does lagniappe mean? Could it be any or all of these?

– a sluggard who lies around ’till noon
– Provencal for “suburbanite”
– she-wolf of Anapurna
– the flutter presaging a migraine
– an empathetic ear
– a car that demands heavy pampering
– a debutante who eschews heavy petting
– Quebecois pastry that’s hard on the inside, floppy on the outside
– a row of winking buttons
– the step before the threshold

A commercial ritual in Louisiana, a lagniappe is something extra added to a purchase: a surprise handful of flour on a heap of homeward-bound grits, or the gratuitous flaskette of cologne coming along with a depilatory in a pearly paper shopping bag.
The word is pronounced lan-yap, the Creole French spelling having been laid over a word of Spanish and American Indian derivation.

voulez–voulez–vous debutantes who eschews heavy petting.

>A supremely teh hawesome way to get lost:

J-Walkblog

voulez-voulez vous only 8 more hours left…

>

voulez-voulez-vous the Surgeon General says that building a nicotine Stonehenge is better for your health than inhaling known carcinogens into your bronchial system.

But I’m not judging you…?

>I am in a post-Burning-Man funk

The playa kinda knocked me on my tush this year, but I will not be going into that.

What I will go into is this:

Some numb-nuts set the man on fire on Sunday night by setting off fireworks under it. Surprised the hell out of me…I didn’t realize The Man was flammable. (insert laughter here _______.)

My camp arrived early…the Friday before the event, to set up our art installation. The bitch of it was we had almost nonstop white-outs (where the wind kicks up large amounts of playa dust which adheres itself to anything and everything), 115+ degree temps and uber-cranky people who were attempting to set up 62-ft geodesic domes and sound stages. Testosterone flew and estrogen fled and people were generally having a crap time.

In an attempt to prevent the nastiness that can claim your hair working in such conditions on the playa, I had cleverly arranged my hair into several braids in which I had woven some uber-cool knitting yarn and ribbons and ended up arranging it into this bun-knot thing on the back of my head. The process of braiding required quite a bit of time and hair gel, and I marveled at my skill and creativity.

However.

hair gel + sweat + tons of playa dust = one nasty mess.

My hair remained un-mussed all week due to this coiffing mixture. Which was all fine and good. I didn’t have to worry about my hair not looking uber-playariffic. It just…stayed there. I became increasingly aware of the accumulation of nastiness on my scalp as the week progressed, but fortunately Burning Man is absolutely riddled with distractions.

I got home yesterday. Reality set in. I knew that I had to contend with the de-playafying of my head.

I contemplated calling my therapist.

My good friend Sev, who is an accomplished knitter, helped me de-yarn my head with some clever knitting tools she had on hand. Once said yarn was removed, I noticed, to my abject horror, that my hair had maintained its previous form minus the decor thanks to the playa-gel-sweat concoction. Placing my hands upon my mane was abhorrent. I prayed that acetone or turpentine would not be required.

I got back home and soaked my head in the tub for some time, washing it a couple times and soaking it in conditioner for a while. Rather than dealing with it after this, I went to bed.

I woke up not only re-hashing the drama of the previous week but to add insult to injury, I attempted to run my fingers through my hair and realized what a rat’s nest it was. I wadded it up into a sad, clumpy mound with a hair tie and got out of bed, still in denial.

About 2 hours ago I realized this problem would not remedy itself and decided to contend with the rats-nest on my head. Kira grabbed me a comb.

Ouch. Bloody blazing turnips on fire ouch.

Now I really contemplated calling my therapist.

This took some time. A lot of time. And profanity.

As the process continued I noticed more and more hair was coming out of the comb I was using.

And more.

And more.

The playa was balding me.

When all was said and done this is what I was left with.
I used the comb for scale.

Ever have a moment of incredulity? Happened to me.

Fortunately I had a ton of hair to begin with, so this massive fuzzball has made little difference in the appearance of my head. I know I should throw it away, but part of me wants to keep it both as a souvenir and as a relic of nostalgia.

Maybe I should mail it to the persons responsible for my playa-drama thanking them for the stress which may have been partially responsible for my excess shedding.

I wonder how much postage I would need?

Voulez-voulez-vous playafied.

>

44 Days until Burning Man!
Not that I’m excited or anything.

Me last year with Dan, left, and Lars, top…

Masks I laboriously slaved over that didn’t survive…

And, what every girl needs to survive in the desert…

Patron….

voulez-voulez-vous 44 days…

>She’s folding maroon-colored Ikea blankets. I’m goofing off on my laptop. Aidan is playing “BATTLE!!!” with the kid next door, and Dan is ion his way home from a magic gig but not before he stops and acquires cilantro per Tina’s instructions for dinner tonight. This is my Sunday home life.

It’s so frustratingly frequent that I will often be having a conversation and a topic comes up of such oddity and curiousness that I feel compelled to respond, “I need to blog about that!”

Then I’ll be damned if I don’t forget what it was.

I have been spending a better portion of of the day trying to recall such conversations to no avail. I have a vague recollection of some conversation about “cow pancakes”, but the how or the why is gone.

I have paint all over my fingers. I had helped Tina hang up her paper star-lamp thingee, but to do so I had to use coaxial cable staples which, unfortunately, are black. So I had found some latex paint in a similar shade to her bedroom wall to paint said coaxial cable staples so that they weren’t appallingly eyesore-esque and in the process got the latex paint on my fingers as i used them to capture the paint drops that were sneaking off of the side of the container in an attempt to keep the paint from plopping all over Tina’s bed and preventing me from getting smacked with a spatula. She’s a cook. She does that.

One thing I could discuss is that my show is finally set up. Dan and I went out to Edmonds yesterday to install all 20 of my pieces with all of the corresponding title/price tags so I can become rich and famous. I just want enough money so we can buy and furnish a house, I can get a new car (4 door Jeep maybe?) and pay off my student loan, thank you very much Sallie Mae.

Tina’s outside visiting with Aidan’s friends’ mom doing her mom thang. Uh oh. Boys tried to run across the street without looking both ways first. I just heard a mitxure of: “Aidan – Joseph – wait – get – back – here – stop – right – now – that – is – not – okay – no – no – no – stop – right – now -young – man – AIDAN – JAMES – YOU – GET – BACK – HERE – RIGHT – NOW – JOSEPH – NAH – AH – AH!!! YOU – ALWAYS – LOOK – BOTH – WAYS – BEFORE – CROSSING – THE – STREET – YOU – UNDERSTAND!!!???”

The kids, of course, are completely oblivious and have engaged their voluntary selective listening disorders and continue their jaunt across 21st ave NW.

I think my mother hooked up a device with an electromagnetic pulse to disable mine when I was about fifteen. Or perhaps it was the threat of being grounded that kept me on the straight and narrow. Or perhaps she really did engage an electromagnetic pulse that wiped out my memory. What the hell was I saying? I don’t know…shit.

voulez–voulez–vous Sunday

>
…is never clean.

Oh, sure it starts out that way. I spent all of last weekend re-organizing, consolidating, arranging. It looked beautiful. Brilliant.

I couldn’t find a goddamn thing.

So I am spending this beautiful 4th of July Wednesday fighting with framing one of my pieces that I was brilliant enough to paint on PANEL, which you just can’t hang on the WALL without a FRAME, so that’s how I spent my morning. But if you observe, at the center of the above image, you will see i was ultimately successful.

You will also notice that to be successful, it involved busting out the following:

– yardstick
– pencil
– wood glue
– drill
– drill bits
– nails
– hammer
– disassembling a previous painting to use the lumber for the frame (hey, i’m broke…)
– wood filler
– palette knife
– ink and brush
– pliers
– sandpaper

Hence the disaster. But dammit, I know where everything is. Now i just have no space to work.

Now i have to clean all this crap up so i can finish priming this 5′ canvas that i need to work on.

Can’t wait until Saturday. The show will be installed, and i can breathe.

voulez-voulez-vous studio shut-in