A spiderweb, in the smoking area of my favourite pub. Obviously there’s no shelter from the rain for man nor beast…
Shot with my Hipstamatic for iPhone
Lens: Susie
Flash: Cherry Shine
Film: AO DLX
Feb12
Monthly Archives: February 2012
Feb12
Perhaps it is time to get serious…
First, let me swear on whatever you find worthy of swearing upon that I have not ever clicked on my own blog link after doing a search for ’11/22/63 art.’ (Proof: it isn’t purple in my browser!) I only ever looked because I kept seeing it pop up in my stats, along with ‘Siamese cat drawing.’ So, being curious, I wanted to see where I ranked. The last time I looked, I ranked just below the official Stephen King website. Today, I rank above it.
WTF WTF WTF.
I actually feel a bit ill seeing this. It scares me. What if King finds me? I might have my first-ever panic attack… and then invite him to Ireland to drive around Mayo on a rented Harley with me (on my own bike, of course). I know better than to ask him to the pub.
What if the publisher sees it, or the person who did the book jacket, and says I’ve infringed on copyright by reproducing the first page? I want to do more of these, and I even started one for ‘IT’ but the movie’s images kept getting in my way. I’ll have to read it again (oh darn, the hardship) and find a good image to use. So right now my idea is to do a couple more, then go ask the publisher if I’m in trouble and need to stop…
Feb11
Small fame with big rewards
I forgot I had this photo. I was updating my iPhone because there is a new, free, Hipstamatic lens. While doing so, I looked at some of my Hip pics. While this isn’t a good example of what the app can do, it’s the only pic I have of this:
This picture was taken inside my favourite local pub. What a great advertisement for Guinness! Look how happy the model is! Look at that perfect pint! And, of course, the Guinness logo on the glass is turned perfectly to face the camera.
What’s so special about this poster? Well, it’s been up in the pub since early August. It’s a not-very-good colour printer job, on big paper, and stuck to the wall with Blu-Tack. You could say that alone is pretty impressive – that it has lasted this long in a pub when it is so fragile in nature.
What tickles me to no end is that I’m the one in the picture! It was just a night with a pint, lost in history – until iDJ chose it as one of many pictures he printed out and stuck around the pub for my fortieth birthday party. We took them all down at the end of the night – except for this one. The landlord asked if we would leave it up. Of course I wasn’t going to say no. He says he still gets compliments on my smiling face and the perfect pint in hand. Yay, me! I especially like that I just happened to also be wearing a necklace made by my stepmom which is very appropriate: it’s an Irish penny.
My short-lived modelling career when I was young didn’t pan out, but hey, I still got it. Particularly when someone gives me a fresh pint…
Feb11
On the art of keeping my big mouth shut
Ugh.
I’ve had enough drama in my life, how about you?
I don’t go seeking out drama. The problem is…the problem is, that I always, always, react. I have the hardest time just walking away. I’ve been like this my entire life, and my sister can confirm that, with a sad shake of her head for all the trouble I could have avoided. ‘Just ignore them, they will get bored and go away’ has never been a real option for me.
Personal injustices eat at me. Indeed, I hate those nights when I can’t sleep and I dredge some nastiness out of my past. I’ll rehash the incident until my adrenaline is over the limit and there’s no chance of my sleeping again. I feel like this:
Using words as my lance, I want to skewer my opponent or knock them on their fat ass. You really don’t want to keep pushing me past the point when I am able to use my words, either. Blind unthinking rage isn’t far underneath my surface.
Today, something happened. A bit of condescension toward me, a big dose of childishness on the other person’s part. I was willing and able to let it go. Until a third person chimed in, and insulted me in a couple of ways.
Well, I didn’t want to let that go. Let me set the record straight, biatch!
I spent way too much brain power cogitating on responses: intelligent, snotty, insulting, funny, off-hand, etc. I thought about this for a couple of hours while I did housework and puttered in the garden.
None of my cleverly crafted responses made me feel any better. Because I realised something: this time, at least, walking away was the only solution. You can’t have a battle of wits with an unarmed person. I wasn’t going to ‘win’ by arguing my point (which was already well made, not my problem they were too thick to understand it properly). I wasn’t going to make my opponents less childish or condescending or insulting. In fact, I realised, it would mean more hours of thinking up responses to their responses. Drama.
So perhaps I’ve grown up a bit, finally. I walked away without a word. Buh-bye.
My only worry now is this: am I now going to turn into a passive-aggressive snot-nose whiner? I mean, I’m here, posting about ‘the incident’ without going into detail or naming names – isn’t that what people mean by passive-aggressive? Cuz I really prefer to just be aggressive.
I’ll take the drama over turning into a big sissy.
Feb9
Brushed still life of random junk
I have no idea why I’m putting this up here, instead of doing another drawing… well, yes, I do. I was reviewing older works – in preparation to create a new one – and this picture caught my eye.
Backstory: After Christmas dinner, I loaned my iPad to my hubby’s uncle and he spent ages drawing my mostly empty glass of Pepsi. He’s an artist – and a retired art teacher – and what he did with Brushes blew my socks off. (Even though I had to continually tell him how to work the app.) Everything I would have considered a horrible mistake – undo! undo! – he left in. And wow. I’m totally not posting his work here, uh-uh, no way. My ego is too fra-gee-lay.
Instead, here’s my attempt to follow his lead. I’m intrigued (in retrospect) by my own effort here. I started with the scissors, and it shows. They look terrible, complete shite. The rectangle thingie is a lighter a friend brought me from Russia. It has a famous bridge on it – not sure where, as I can’t read Cyrillic. That was second. It just kind of sits there, a boring mark on the canvas.
But the last thing I smeared on the page, as I was getting steadily happier and drunker, was my nasty ashtray. And I love how it turned out! I almost cropped the pic and just posted the ashtray part. But a lot of you have come along with me on my art adventure and I felt I would be cheating if I didn’t share the whole picture, warts and all.
Feb8
Google street view discovery
I have to be Guarda vetted in my new job, as I have ‘access’ to vulnerable people. Part of that process was having to list everywhere I’ve ever lived. Ever. Perhaps that’s an easy task for the average person.
Perhaps that’s an especially easy task for the average Irish person. For iDJ that list is just two places, unless you could his digs when he was in college. So, four, I think – at the most.
Me, I’ve moved a lot. A crazy amount. I racked up seventeen addresses, and I know (in retrospect, now that I’ve turned the form in) that I forgot three in Florida and one in Ohio.
Three times I moved over a thousand miles, and once I moved over 3,000 miles. I think I’ll stay here a while, yes?
I had to ask my dad for help, too. I remembered the names of both of the streets I lived on before the age of six, but that was it. He kindly took some time to dig the addresses up for me, thanks pop!
So, today I thought I would see if I could find the houses on Google Earth. It’s odd, but neither road has Street View yet. Even my house here is on SV… but the satellite image is a big green blur. Anyhoo, the sat pics of both places are superb, and my sis helped me find one of the houses.
The first place did have Street View for about a block, but not where we lived. I ‘walked’ down there anyhow, and I found this odd capture:
I’m fascinated. She? He? is in a bathrobe and slippers hauling nasty old wood along the side of the road. There’s a whole story here.
Sure, it could be trash day, the day they pick up odds and ends perhaps. And he was caught by surprise upon hearing the truck in the distance, having to run out in his PJ’s to put out the rubbish.
But maybe not.
Maybe she’s smuggling civil war rifles, or baby crocodiles, or even unpasturized cheese in that pile of wood, and the shabby clothes are just a cover.
Maybe he’s part of a bizarre fund raising stunt: dragging scrap wood around the state for charity while dressed in his mom’s bathrobe.
Maybe she’s part of a cult, and due to some infraction (reading Harry Potter, perhaps) this is the punishment the elders have chosen for her.
We will never know. The mystery person does, but I bet they aren’t willing to talk.
Feb7
A video experiment…
iDJ took this video and sent me the link – going to test it here and see if it works…
Feb6
Socks has a small melon! Ok, had. Now baby is a banana…
Wow, I’m a crappy chronicler and tipping into being a crappy friend, too! I haven’t updated my Socks+Button posts in two weeks. I know she doesn’t hold it against me, but I’m disappointed in myself for not being on the ball.
So, I have two weeks to talk about here, and I’m going to make a hames of it (I have no idea how to spell that bit of slang, it’s an Irish expression for ‘a mess’. Phonetically will have to do).
I was giddy about last week’s fruit because Button finally tipped into melon-size territory. I’ve been waiting for this, although now it is here and somewhat gone, I feel as though it wasn’t as funny as the anticipation. I guess it’s hard to tease someone about carrying a small cantaloupe in their belly when they are so happy about it, and totally comfortable with the expanding waistline.
That’s a cantaloupe. Smiling face by moi.
Last week, Button was 6.5 inches and 11oz. That’s 8.89 cm and 311.84 grams. Really growing fast now – and at 20 weeks, she was half-way done cooking! The banana (this week) is for length only, and that measurement is from ‘crown to rump’ only. Head to toe is probably more like 10 inches. Socks says she’s gained ten pounds (4.55kilos). Of course she has no issues about her weight, that would be silly and while Socks is great fun, she isn’t a self-absorbed narcissist who is worried that she is ‘fat.’
I’ve a few stories this time: one is about…drum roll please…CAKE. Socks had a craving for CAKE, and went a bit overboard… I’ll probably have to explain some of this in advance. See, there’s cake, and there’s crappy grocery-store-made sheet CAKES that you only ever have at a party. Cake is homemade and lovely. Grocery-store CAKE can be tasty but is nothing like real cake. It comes a in huge, one layer, 16×12 (bigger than 30x40cm) shape, and the icing is always way too sweet and way too greasy and there is always way too much of it. But, when a pregnant woman craves crappy grocery-store CAKE, there is no other solution than to go buy a slice.
Unless, of course, they don’t have just a slice for sale when you are in mid-craving. Then the only option is to buy a whole damn CAKE and take it home. Here’s the visual (wish I had a photo): a visibly pregnant woman with an entire huge CAKE in her arms, and nothing else…except for a big ol ‘mine-all-mine!’ smile on her face. With her happily indulgent hubby right behind, because he just knows she’s never going to eat it all herself. Quote of last week: ‘OMG I’m breaking all the rules! Wait, I’m an adult, why can’t I buy a whole damn CAKE when there isn’t a party if I want to?’
Socks’ mom is coming to visit in March, and the visit coincides with the next scan appointment. MommaSocks is, of course, super excited at the prospect. Oh, Socks can be cruel: she said she gave a big X-Factor Results type of pause before telling her mom whether Button was a girl or boy. “It’s….a…. …. …. (tension building music)… … Girl!!!!”
I’ll end on a sort-of-gross note, because I wouldn’t be me if I wasn’t fascinated with the parts of living beings that are usually hidden. Button now has taste buds: which is a bit disturbing because she now can, and does, swallow the amniotic fluid she is swimming in (the fluid itself changes daily, dependent on what mom eats: Socks says Button is going to love Wint-o-green flavour Lifesavers and citrus). This might not seem too strange until you consider that what goes in, must come out. Where does the urine go? Back into the amniotic fluid!
So, yes; we all drank our own pee before we were ever born. Tasty!
Feb5
Spotted Owl has been Brushed!
This is for Socks, and her Button! A spotted owl – or, an owl made out of spots!
Feb3
I have nothing of importance to say.
But I’m here anyway. I guess I sort of treat this thing like a diary, or Morning Pages – even though I’m here in the evening for the most part.
I have so much random shit in my head that I feel the need to babble a bit.
I’d be seriously tempted to take off on Monday, so I could watch the Stuper Bowl in the pub. It doesn’t even start until 11:30 here! No way I can watch even a little unless I have the next day free. I have to sleep; not getting enough sleep is worse than the worst hangover for me. I don’t even care about the Super Bowl, really. iDJ likes to watch it, and he likes the idea that I’m getting a little bit of ‘home’ even if we don’t get to see any of the commercials (the best part, at least until hell freezes over and my Browns are in the Bowl). I mostly like being the only person in an entire sports bar that knows how the game is played. I really get a kick out of telling the men the rules, and it makes up for all the questions I ask during a rugby match (a much superior sport, and the Six Nations also starts this Sunday – Ireland v Wales).
About blogging: WordPress has some VideoPress thingie they are all happy about. I checked it out: it allows video upload from iPads. That would be very nice. If it didn’t cost over $50 a year. Go away.
I have £45 in Amazon gift certificates, the oldest dating back to early August. I can’t make myself buy anything: I don’t spend money on myself. I don’t know how to do it without going crazy, so I just don’t. I had a look on Amazon a little while ago… There are five Dean Koontz books I do not own! How did this happen? I don’t like his work as much as I used to, but I collect his books and have for decades. Ugh. Those five alone take me to £40. I also really, really want all of the Stephen King Wasteland graphic novels. I have some of them, but he just keeps making more. Damn him. The cheapest is £12.12. Bollocks, that puts me over the limit. There’s also a new Zelda game for the Wii. The previous one was brilliant and I spent over 70 hours playing it, so whatever they ask, it is pretty much worth it. But then I could only get the game and one, possibly two of the Koontz… What do I put back? I can’t decide. So, I’ll leave it for another few months, until there is even more crap I want but don’t need.
Right, I think I’ve rambled on long enough. Except I didn’t mention the two flat tires on the Mini this morning, and how the air hoses – both of them – at the closest garage didn’t work, and I had to use the little compressor we keep in the car (thankfully) and how I was almost late for work when I meant to get there early…
heretherebespiders 