Thursday, July 29, 2010
No Shirt Sherlock
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Thursday, July 22, 2010
A lotta little heads. . .
 Doll molds made from "Mold & Pour" mold making media After I made my nifty molds I went digging into the craft stash for some polymer clay use in the molds. I found several bricks of vintage clay that I had thoughtfully written purchase dates on. It appears that I last bought clay in 2005. (It's been much longer than I thought since I've taken a clay class!) Amazingly some of the clay still softened up to a workable consistency. The result was a bevy of oddly colored little heads inhabinting my craft table. I have another batch in "teal" that came out of the oven. I think those are going to get "rusted". Then into the stash they go until the next collage project.  Inked, Distress Crackle Painted, and Natural my collection of conks, |
Monday, July 19, 2010
Seriously When Did I Get Sent to Hell?
| Today's hot entree in the work cafeteria was stewed goat. Goat. From the people who can't make a decent piece of baked chicken or a grilled cheese sandwich. They are saying that next week they will be serving Anaconda meat. Anthony Bourdain aside. This is a freakin' work cafeteria. There are 2 hot entrees if we are lucky. The sandwich line takes 30 minutes and lunch break is 30 minutes. To go out for lunch takes at least 1 hour if we run to the car and don't get in a line at the burger joint drive thru. I takes 30 minutes to get in and out of the building alone. We are a captive audience for the jerk who would be chef. Whether goat is yummy aside, why cant' we get a cook in the cafeteria who makes decent routine food that doesn't give everyone the runs? The chef asked if I wanted goat. I replied, "No I'm working so I don't have to eat goat, yard bird, squirrel, rabbit, raccoon, possum, chitterlings, trotters, muskrat, or roadkill." I stopped short of asking him why he didn't learn to make a simple grilled cheese sandwich and work outwards from there. This little nut zone gets a little stranger every day.  |
Friday, July 16, 2010
Earthquake? If you say so. . . .
| At 5 a.m. this morning an earthquake rumbled through the area. Or at least that's what the folks who monitor such things say. 5 a.m. is the time to be asleep. Sound asleep. Not up getting preened to go to a job you hate. Not up watching the talking heads bitch about the news. 5 a.m. is the time for tranquil sleep. The rats will still be racing when you get out there to join them at a more reasonable hour. People at work were talking about pictures rattling on walls and all sorts of hoodoo voodoo surrounding the quake. When they were marveling at the side effects of plate tectonics I was having an nightmare. For some reason my mother had escaped from the assisted living. She had taken the dog, my credit cards, and the car. She was putting the hammer down heading for her house in Florida. Wearing only shorts, Reeboks, and a sleeveless T-shirt she was driving a 1992 Ford Taurus through a blizzard down I95. I was trying to figure where she would stop for the night. I was calling the police and the credit card company. I was anticipating what mom would say when she found out I sold her house. An Earthquake was in no way as terrifying as mom finding out I sold her house. Nothing on the planet has ever struck me to be as terrifying as my family. I don't think anything ever will. |
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Under Re-Invention
 We're looking for new ideas. Pardon our lack of dust. The digital Tuxedo Inn is getting ignored a bit while we re-arrange the physical one. We're expanding out studio space and taking over an adjoining room. The craft table and chairs are in. The lighting still needs to be changed. The tool and supply storage is coming along nicely. If I can remember to put some batteries in the camera, I'll take some snaps of the new space. We previously had a 3 ft work, we now have a 6 ft table. We're also moving the artsy area out of the office. The office is already overloaded with book storage, computer equipment, the pinball machine, the exercise bike, and a recliner. Thanks for 3M and their 'anywhere' easy removal hanging system, a lot of completed projects that were stored are becoming artwork for the walls in the rest of the house. Of course there is also a great deal of stuff that needs to leave the premises. I hope I can convince the organizer to come and spend some quality time with me soon. We need to amass copious numbers of industrial trash bags, turn on some serious funk music, and do the "throw out dance" for several hours. |
Thursday, July 08, 2010
Calling, Calling, Calling . . . .
| Don't know if it's the record breaking summer heat. Don't know if it's the color of the sky or the taste of summer cherries. Don't know if it's memory taking another lap through the loop. Don't know if it's meclazine, sudafed, or caffeine. I just know the calling is back. I can describe it but I can't define it. I suppose everyone has their turns with it. The best word for it is "calling". Sometimes it's been the urge to go to Savannah for a weekend. Sometimes it's been the urge to go to Edinburgh and wander up the hill from the train station to find a place I'd never been but I remembered clearly. Sometimes it's been the "traveler" from the "blue room" who appears in my dreams then disappears for months at a time. Sometimes, this time, it is the dream of a white sand beach, cyan blue ocean, the horizon uncluttered, and the ruffle of beach umbrellas in the breeze. I want to tan my toes and spend my days renting out beach umbrellas and sand chairs. I feel the great propensity to stare at the horizon until my head empties out. I want to stretch out in the salt water and feel the ocean subsume me back into myself. When I was younger I felt the ocean calling incessantly. I felt the lure of remote islands calling me away. I wanted to crew on a boat or rent beach umbrellas. I wanted anything but an office job. I took the office job. It's worn away at me as sure as the tide wears away at stones. I am weathered, curled, changed, unrecognizable. I am ready to go back to being empty, except for the sound of the ocean coming in and going out. |
Tuesday, July 06, 2010
Bali Hai
There is a soft Broadway tune lulling itself around in my head this afternoon, "Bali Hai". The airport is recording a temperature of 105 degrees Fahrenheit. I've been on Meclazine for vertigo for three days. I am reverting to my surf rat ways. For almost twenty years I lived on a tiny island between a bay and an ocean. There was only one tree on my block. Everything was paved right up to the beach. I had not grass or woods, but I had the thundering Atlantic and I've never really felt at home since I moved away. On vicious summer days I feel the pull to go back.  A beach town postcard from 1979. On a post card one beach town is much like another, but in memory each is different, each is perfect. I want to slink into the shadows of the house. I want to snooze until dusk behind light blocking shades. Then I want to rise and walk along the surf as the cooling sand and water generate a haze. I'd find a place along a dune side, hollow out a back rest, and settle into the sand to watch the moon rise over the water. July moon, larger than a city block, peach colored, and speckled with grey. I'd relax into the nightfall. I'd wait for him to come walking along the sand. He'd come ambling along with a six pack of beer in a paper sack and he'd dive down onto the sand beside me. The charter boats would buzz by on their way up to coast with deck loads of tourists looking at the city lights. When the wind would flick around to the east and the south the sounds of the rides and bars on the boardwalk would argue with the smack and hiss of the surf. We'd sit there in amiable silence 'til no one noticed us there anymore. Then we'd run into the water and dive into the waves just past the low sandbar. So used to the feel of "our beach" beneath our feet, we'd swim and dive and find each others arms in the cool deserted ocean. I'd feel my fingers again in that hair as black as night. I'd have one more chance to look into the eyes I remember being as blue as a January sky. I'd feel that electric, insane young love sizzle its way into every nerve. I'd say a name I don't have the right to say anymore. Perhaps I'd say that I was sorry for the way we were going to turn out. Maybe instead, I'd stay poised in that moment forever, looping through eternity as a ghost no one could see. Perhaps I'd join him then, in our moment by the sea, my long lost love, so many years in the grave. See how he comes back to me at the most unexpected moments? When the sun is baking the earth and I feel a dry old husk. I carry him, like a bad luck charm, a sacrosanct secret, to my grave. |