I couldn't get the shape right on the fucking squirrel's head.
I have a painting I have been working on for about 4 years. It was originally a framed print of the four horsemen of the apocalypse - which I purchased for 3 dollars outside a thrift store - mainly for the wooden frame. I figured I could remove the print, and use the frame for something else; but as it turned out, the print was glued to the backing. I decided "fuck it" and put a few coats of primer over it. It was part laziness, unwillingness to make too much of a fuss over a $3 investment, and part just liking the idea of painting over the apocalypse.
The painting has been through several stages over the years. I have changed my mind repeatedly over what it is to become; and in the process I have painted on and over so many coats that the paper underneath - which has been slowly soaking up the paint in stages - is starting to bubble up and form ridges. Lots of time has passed in between each stage with the idea that if I got away from it and thought about it for awhile, the great idea about how to fix it/finish it would come to me.
First it was a lady smoking...on the far left side of the board - leaving too much space on the right and no real idea what to put there. I tried to cut into the space by enlarging her outline - made her features extra large and cartoony, but it didn't take out enough space. So I tipped it on it's side. Now she was lying down and smoking. So I painted a pillow underneath her. Now all the extra space was above her. I decided to place her in a flowerbed. Filled all the extra space with flowers. Too many flowers have the same effect as too much space. So a Volcano spewing flowers seemed the way to solve it. As I started outlining the Volcano, it reminded me more of an ocean wave. So, ok, ocean wave scooping up and pouring down flowers - that works too; but I had to paint the wave OVER the flowers, and was so sick of them by then that I didn't want to paint more into the wave. Not to mention that the wave solved the extra space in the upper left hand corner...but the upper right was still just a block of flowers.
That's where the painting stood when I looked at it again last Thursday.
It made no sense.What's missing? Why, a squirrel of course.
There is a great painting by George Caleb Bingham called "Fur Traders Descending the Missouri". I first saw it in an art history class. It is a naturalistic landscape painting of two men in a boat on the Missouri river...and with them in the boat, is a cat. It's not something you would notice or fix on right away...unless you had an inquisitive art history teacher who specifically pointed out the cat in the boat. Why? That's the beauty of it. Why the hell is there a cat in the boat. It's what sets it apart from the usual, apt, realistic landscape painting.
So I started painting a squirrel on her arm. And I couldn't...get...the fucking shape of the head right. So I started mixing the paint to go over it altogether - feeling stressed about the time I wasted to end up where I started from.
I had DVD episodes of Dexter running in the background while I was working on this. As I stood there - stuck - looking at the painting and scratching my head - thinking about where it had come from and assesing what probably should have been done to it instead (life metaphor) - the dialogue on screen caught my interest and pulled me away from the painting for a moment. It was a dream sequence where Dexter and Deb are getting off an elevator...Dexter is dragging something heavy but you can't see what it is. They are talking about Dexter's break up with Lila (obnoxious scheming slut). Dexter says, "She had me fighting with myself all the time. All that self-reflection is unhealthy." Deb replies, "Stop reflecting and MOVE."
Now, she was probably telling him to move out of her way - as he was dragging the dead body of the man who murdered his mother; and then the camera cut to to Batista, holding up a severed foot, and saying "You can't leave this shit lying around, bro."
NICE.
Every once in a while, you hear exactly what you need to - exactly when you need to.So I finished the fucking squirrel. I don't know or care if it makes any sense. Going forward with it, I am merely concerned with the fact that the squirrel and wave are painted more naturalistic while the lady and the flowers are painted more cartoony. I'll make peace with that next.
I think what's going to happen is that the wave is going to carry acorns; and the title will be "The storm brought out all the nuts but the squirrel sure was happy." Dunno. We'll see where it goes as it moves.
Aren't you tired of the way things seem?
Tired of believing
that this is how they really are?
Sick of the stars
shiny mocking bulletpoints
that show you where you are
reflected in the quarters at your feet
from when you hit the jackpot
lost your compass
and found your losing streak
Aren't you tired of being meek?
In the wake of all your winnings
Don't they light up rather dimly
While you're pining for your losses
and longing for something
that's really rather bleak?
And you always get distracted
when you stumble onto something shiny
not realizing
that it's distracted by you
as it tumbles to your feet.
It's late again
too late again
and I'm in another hotel
motel
indian chief
hide and go seek
and a conference center
next door
where drunks stumble around
and the people upstairs
are putting on a private play;
they fuck, they fight
they fall asleep
they stain the sheets
each to be alone someday
in one of these rooms,
not wondering what happened anymore.
I ran out of litmus paper
and the acidity or base
of your diminishing footsteps
no longer interests me
no longer make a noise
as they fall to
as I rise from
another generic bedspread
to turn on the television
to silence my head.
The scientific process
failed
and I added another unrelated component,
(to further confuse the situation)
exhaled smoke,
and unwrapped a glass
which wasn't "half" anything;
I made comparisons of choices
and turned my back on 2 of 2.
I desire nothing
that isn't offered freely
and I don't go anywhere uninvited
but that's a lesson
from years of a death grip
on lost causes
and being moved
against my better judgement.
The questions are all rhetorical tonight.
I overslept the alarm clock this morning and only managed to get about a half a cup of coffee in me before running off late to my scheduled pap smear.
Coffee is a fantastic thing to wake up to…a pap smear is not. If you ever have to choose, go with coffee.
When I arrived, the nurse told me that a new midwife/nurse practitioner was being trained and familiarized…and would I mind if she stepped in with my doctor to ‘observe’ the procedure.
My …stuff… generally prefers an audience or participant of one; but I made the deal that as long as she was in fact a medical practitioner - and not a curious relative of the doctor looking for something to do that day - it would be fine.
I was left to strip from the waist down to the ankles. You want to leave your socks on because the floor is always freezing. I don’t care if your doctor’s office is on the sun…the floor is cold. And if the floor isn’t cold, the metal stirrups are. My doctor tries to be cute about this by putting little cloth coverlets over the stirrups; they have flowers on them and everything. It’s not fooling anyone. Once you get your feet in them and your legs are forcibly bent into the flailing cricket position, you are not flowery and dainty. Nor are you cool. Any pretense of being cool gets left in the waiting room. Even Joan Jett would look awkward in this position. You’d be wondering where she lay her band uniform and trombone.
My doctor enters and introduces the new girl – who smiles at me nervously…much like a stranger brought to your party by the person you invited.
After assuming the position, and with my ‘party’ prepped and ready to go, the doctor begins the overture of the speculum…and I rediscover that I could actually walk on my ass cheeks if my legs were broken.
After what seems like the more than usual amount of prodding, my doctor says, "Huh. Your cervix is hiding from me."
("It’s scared," I think to myself.)
Out loud I say "Yes; it’s shy…" then I tip a glance to the still nervously smiling midwife/nurse practitioner and add "…I guess it has stage fright."
My doctor issues a half-hearted snicker – the kind that comes from someone who hears uncomfortable jokes all day long…because the situation pretty much demands it.
(It occurs to me then that my doctor – who has never had trouble locating my cervix before – might be fumbling a little from the pressure of demonstration. "What a weird situation to want to show off in" I think.)
10 seconds later, the whole ordeal is over and my doctor takes our new friend and my sample and leaves me to clean up and put my pants back on.
I walk out feeling like someone should give me something pretty…the way you do when your fun bits have been medically handled. I come within an inch of demanding a lollipop every time.
But I do have work to look forward to.
I need to vent a little here.
I have received 2 robocalls from the RNC this week; their transcripts are -word for word- as follows:
1. Hello. I'm calling for John McCain and the RNC because Barack Obama and his fellow democrats got caught putting HOLLYWOOD above America. On the very day our elected leaders gathered in Washington to deal with the financial crisis, Barack Obama spent just 20 minutes with economic advisors, but hours at a celebrity Hollywood fundraiser. Where are the Democrats' priorities? This call was paid for by McCain/Palin 2008 and the Republican National Comitee.
2. Hello. I'm calling for John McCain and the RNC because you need to know that Barack Obama has worked closely with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers whose organization bombed the U.S Capital, The Pentagon, a judge's home, and killed Americans; and democrats will enact an extreme leftist agenda if they take control of Washington. Barack Obama and his democratic allies lack the judgement to lead our country. This call was paid for by McCain/Palin 2008 and the Republican National Comittee.
I have been screening heavily because I am registered as an independent voter in a red state where the candidates are in a dead heat; and campaign calls have been coming in increasing numbers. I found these on my answering machine...and...I think my brain finally broke. I couldn't decide whether or not to erase them - I WANTED to...but I left them trapped in the machine...as though there were an intellectual abuse hotline I could call and report them to. But there isn't; so I tipped my head to the left, banged on it, and finally managed to get some of the stagnant pool water to come out of my ear.
Some points:
* Hollywood is in America. The two are not mutually exclusive. I'm sorry if you couldn't pass elementary school geography but don't take it out on my answering machine.
*Politicians attend fundraisers. John McCain also attends them.
*The leaders who met in Washington didn't nor would they have accomplished a damn thing within the few hours that a candidate was at a fundraiser. Neither candidate had any more impact than any other senator or house member in that mess...there is a theory afoot that their prescence was actually more disruptive than helpful...in fact I think the consensus is that Prime Minister Gordon Brown is getting the MVP award for stepping up to the financial crisis.
*There is not one single mention of McCain in his own campaign calls...no policies, no solutions except to blame the democrats.
*(There should totally be a game show called "Blame the Democrats.")
*(Although personally my favorite scapegoat is Alexander Hamilton.)
*I don't really believe that the party who voted for Ronald Reagan, Arnold Shwarzennegger, Sonny Bono, Fred Thompson, and Clint Eastwood - have any real issue with celebrity. In fact, look up the word "celebrity" in the dictionary and you'll see how stupid this is.
*Al Franken is running as a democrat in Minnesota. This has nothing to do with anything; I just like saying "Al Franken."
*Bill Ayers was a trust fund radical who hasn't been relevant as such in 40 years. His organization "The Weathermen" DID plant bombs in the men's crapper at the Capital building in 1971, and the women's crapper at the Pentagon in 1972. Nobody was killed because they called in advance and warned people to evacuate. They were suspected of bombing the judges home, but it was never proved and they didn't take credit for it as they had the others. The Americans who were killed were 3 members of the Weathermen who died when their own bombs exploded on them while they were making them. Basically, (in my opinion) they were hysterics reacting to hysteria like reactionaries do, and decided to have a big temper tantrum and destroy property instead of doing the boring work of organizing voters and educating people on the issues. They DID manage to make it difficult for anyone else who wanted to do these things peaceably in an effort to protest the war to do so without being painted as a mad bomber.
*Between then and now, Ayers was pardoned and has become a respected leader in the field of education...go figure.
*The Comittee that Barack Obama worked on with Bill Ayers also included a Republican governor and a former Nixon official who has given $1,500 to McCains campaign. Not so leftist.
*MCCain/Palin 2008 and the RNC conveniently forget that McCain has his own supporter who was an extremist on the right 40 years ago: G. Gordon Liddy. You'll remember him as part of the Watergate break-in scandal during the Nixon administration. He was convicted of conspiracy, burglary and wiretapping; and has admitted plotting to murder a journalist who wrote unfavorably of Nixon, and to firebomb the Brookings institute. He served 4 years of a 20 year sentence before he was pardoned. He has given a fundraiser for McCain, donated to his campaign, and McCain has praised his "adherence to principles and philosophies that keep our nation great."
* (Hilarious irony...get ready:) Ayers was not convicted because the evidence against him was obtained by illegal wiretapping. In a weird way, Ayers and Liddy complete each other.
*In 2008, Ayers is a professor, and G. Gordon Liddy is a radio show host - neither regrets their past. but I think it would not be a bad idea to put Liddy and Ayers in a big Monster Truck Arena and let them at each other so that the hysterics and extremists can go watch them duke it out while the rest of us focus on voting for the president of 2008.
*Having said that - I'm not surprised by the amount of public PTSD symptoms after the last 8 years. I'm having one now.
*I am not interested in a re-enactment of the Joe McCarthy comittee on anti-american activities. We should have learned the danger of hysterical finger pointing from the Salem Witch trials...but that would require learning.
*The Gateway Media Literacy website has this lovely quote on their homepage: "Media Literacy is a critical thinking skill that is applied to the source of much of our information: the channels of mass communication. As such, media literacy has emerged as a survival skill that empowers individuals to decipher media messages."
*This helps when you get an email forwarded from a Southern Baptist Uncle you never met which states that Obama is a socialist terrorist and the proof is a picture in which Obama is holding a copy of Fareed Zakaria's book, "The Post-American World," which I am certain this man has never heard of let alone read.
*Rush Limbaugh is a douchebag. he just is.
Karen- 38
Emily- 36
Sheryl- 21
I have only gotten results from 2 people so far, I will post more as they are emailed to me.
Lindsay- 41
Emily- 36
Karen- 35
Joey-21
Sheryl-11
Lori- 0 (Or so she says..I think she just doesn't want to add up her points. Add up your points dammit!)
Week 1 of the fitness challenge is wrapping up today. Email me your total points for the week and I will post the weekly winners tomorrow!
You can use this section to post your comments, progress updates, observations, words of encouragement, questions to other participants, etc. Remember that everyone can see the comments you post!
