Since I’ve been under the weather for a week I haven’t been able to take a decent photo of myself for my last entry in the self-portrait challenge’s black & white theme. I look a little too unintentionally grim and sickly, if I do that on purpose it’s one thing but it’s not the look I’m going for right now.
What’s better to hide your appearance than a silhouette? Well, maybe a bag—damn, why didn’t I think of that earlier?
I’ve had a cold for a week and started to feel particularly bad Saturday night. I assume this cold is the result of my immune system being compromised by weeks of stress and anguish. Ironically last week was the best week I’ve had in a long time mentally. I sort of felt like myself and was generally happy and in a good mood. It reminds me of how I always got sick right after I finished all my finals in college. Once all the tension and stress of studying, writing and test taking were behind me and I relaxed—whammo, I’d get sick.
We went out to dinner Saturday and I probably shouldn’t have, but it was in our plans so we went anyway. The pain in my head was extreme and it left us having less than brilliant conversations. Our big debate was over what measurement is smaller, a titch, a smidgeon or a dash. What do you think?
I spent all day Sunday laying on the couch watching a bunch of miscellaneous junk in the Tivo and playing a video game. I’m currently stuck playing Resident Evil 4
I doubt there’s anyone who reads my blog who’s interested in video games, I’d love to go on complaining about it but I don’t want to bore you all to tears.
I guess I haven’t given any adoption updates in a long time. Why is that you ask? Because there is no update. They love to keep us totally in the dark .
We are still stuck on #11 in the adoption process checklist and that is because Guatemala keeps deciding it needs to make us jump through more and more hoops. They suddenly wanted another physical and then they wanted a psychological evaluation (which I will go into great detail about sometime in the future). Now we are sending those documents around to get everyone’s stamp of approval and then we can send them to Guatemala so they can hopefully proceed to the next step. (It’s been over a year now, c’mon man, let’s go already.)
Of course it doesn’t help me to read articles like this one: Guatemala Status of Intercountry Adoptions.
I should make myself adhere to my “no news” rule more closely.
If this adoption ever manages to be successful, I hope it happens before he can drive up here himself or I’ll find myself living in a cozy new room made of rubber.
I thought this post could use a song. I’ve chosen Playgroup’s “Make it Happen.”
This may only be amusing to me, however, I was just sending an email to one of my clients. In the subject field I typed “New graphics - HP 10BII Calculator.” When I went to send it, the automatic spell checker asked me if I wanted to correct some stuff and I just mindlessly said yes to everything and sent it on it’s way. Luckily I decided to add something to the email at the last minute and opened it before it was sent because I noticed that the spell checker had “corrected” the subject field which now read: “New graphics - HP LABIA Calculator.”
Doh! What a mistake that would have been, the email gods have smiled on me today and I am grateful.
Has anyone else experienced a significant increase in spam lately or is it just me? Holy cow it’s maddening!
One of the things that I’ve always wondered about spam is the disproportionately high amount of email that addresses the evidently rampant problem of inferior male body parts.
For all intents and purposes, a person would be led to believe that this is one of the greatest health crises facing men today. Is it? Honestly, are there hundreds of thousands of guys out there doomed to roam the Earth with nothing more than an acorn cap in their pants?
I received the absolute best spam on this topic yesterday, this one is the most creative and pathetic email I’ve gotten to date: (more…)
I was reluctant to upload this very stupid photo today, but it was the best of the lot (imagine what the rest of them look like) and I have no other choices really. Sure, I could take another batch of photos or skip this week but I don’t feel like it. Although the more I look at this photo the more I think I should reconsider that last statement.
I find this photo to be a strange choice for someone afraid of embarrassment. Although I do a lot of things that an embarrassment-phobe probably shouldn’t do, I make little sense.
What we have here, believe it or not, is me in a good mood. I’m sure you were thinking something else, but as a matter of fact I was quite jovial that day. It’s true that these good moods have been few and far between for awhile now but for some odd reason I cheered up Saturday and have remained in a decent space since then. So instead of hating myself and feeling ugly on Sunday when I was having a seriously bad hair day (understatement), I decided to embrace it and use it as a prop instead.
I used to collect hats and I bought this little number in an antique store about ten years ago. I can’t imagine what adult’s head this could have possibly fit on. Granted, I have a huge head and that cap o’ curls I’m sportin’ doesn’t make it any smaller but this hat must have been for a giant doll or perhaps a little person. Regardless, I like it and always planned to put it in one of my paintings, but that hasn’t happened yet, there’s never enough time to do all the things I plan—but that’s another story.
See what others are doing this week.
My poor little Piggy has such a hard time in the winter, especially when it snows. It’s not bad enough that his feet are freezing from the cold, but we also have to contend with people who don’t use animal friendly salt on their sidewalks. It’s impossible to avoid because it is everywhere, often you can’t even see it in the snow and boots don’t work, dogs don’t want to wear boots.
The Pig loves to play outside when it first snows (before he gets too cold).
It’s the saddest thing when one of the dog’s feet get hurt by the salt and other chemicals people put out. Our big dog sometimes just crumbles to the ground and cries the most gut wrenching sounds you’ve ever heard. It breaks my heart as she looks up at me with her giant brown eyes wondering what terrible thing has just happened to her.
Josie and the associate in last year’s big snowfall.
There are times when you can’t make their feet feel better and then have to carry them all the way home to wash the offending chemical off thoroughly. It’s no trick to carry a Chihuahua home, but try lugging 60 lbs. for a quarter mile in the snow and ice. I can’t actually do it any more now that we have two dogs, it’s impossible to carry her while trying to walk that little maniac or wear him in my coat, so I have to do my best to clean them off and warm them up until she can at least limp home. It’s the worst when they are both hurt because it’s hard to try and fix all their feet at the same time.
So, if someone happens to read this and doesn’t know how harmful some ice/snow melting products are to animals, now you do. Please consider purchasing animal friendly products. We are currently using Safe Paw Ice Melt, it works very well, doesn’t hurt animals or children and, to quote the product’s description: ”the non-polluting, non-toxic crystals won’t damage concrete, lawns, plants, floors, asphalt, or shoes.”
I know that I am a broken record with this sleeplessness thing I have going on, but I have never experienced something so bizarre. It would seem that my body just doesn’t remember how to fall asleep, I don’t understand this at all. February marks the seventh month of my insomnia. Seven months, WTF! No wonder I look like I’ve aged ten years in the space of one.
I would write about something else if I could think of anything, but I can’t, so I thought I’d see what others have to say about sleep:
How do people go to sleep? I’m afraid I’ve lost the knack. I might try busting myself smartly over the temple with the night-light. I might repeat to myself, slowly and soothingly, a list of quotations beautiful from minds profound; if I can remember any of the damn things.
~ Dorothy Parker
When you have insomnia, you’re never really asleep, and you’re never really awake.
~ From the movie Fight Club, based on the novel by Chuck Palahniuk
Sleeping is no mean art: for its sake one must stay awake all day.
~ Friedrich Nietzsche
Insomnia is a gross feeder. It will nourish itself on any kind of thinking, including thinking about not thinking.
~ Clifton Fadiman
Here we have my latest Self-Portrait Challenge entry. This black and white theme is absolutely my favorite so far. There are limitless possibilities and when you’ve got just the right photo it can make everything look so much better.
For example, the original version of this photo was total crap. I decided it may be salvageable, so I slapped it around a little in Photoshop and tried to show it who’s boss. But it was only after I turned it black and white that I found it to be something worth posting.
Click image for a larger view.
I’ve been finding it hard to stay awake during the day which is just as annoying as not being able to go to sleep at night. I can’t win. I was so tired when I was trying to take my self-portrait that I decided to just lay down take the pictures since that was all I could handle. I took about four shots and gave up because the effort it required to set the timer, run across the room, lay down and look relaxed was far too exhausting.
Note to self: I must get a remote for the camera.
1987 - I worked alone in this building painting street signs,
this left me a lot of time to take self portraits like this gem.
I haven’t had that many serious jobs in my life, however, some of them were real doozies. None of them thrilled me, but in retrospect I see that my position at the Historical Society of PA was a great job. I worked there my junior and senior years in college as a conservation assistant and they kept me on after I graduated. Then my grant ran out and they offered me a job in the manuscript library but I was too stupid to take it. I was probably 25 and didn’t really have anything to compare it to, so I just left thinking there was something more exciting around the corner (what a fool). It was also springtime so the idea of collecting unemployment over the summer was very compelling. That was too bad for me because my next job was the one that sucked the joy from my soul and changed me forever. But what can you do if you don’t know any better?
I spent the next eight years restoring art on paper. It probably doesn’t sound like something that would drive a person to want to end their life and it didn’t start that way. In the beginning it actually was somewhat enjoyable. The people were fun and I didn’t mind the work that much. I met my “associate” there and although we weren’t together at the time I’m sure that made going to work for the first two years much easier to bear. Gradually some of the fun coworkers began to leave and they were unfortunately replaced with people that were like kryptonite to me. At the same time the greed, corruption and lack of ethics in this particular business started eating away at me as did the horribly destructive methods we were using to “restore” the artwork.
As the years passed it seemed to get worse and worse. I would get sick every Sunday night knowing another week full of shit and weeds lay ahead. Each day was groundhog day, just another faded Lichtenstein or torn Warhol to repair. It was mind numbing. Everything about the place was an assault to my senses—the music that was played all day literally drove me insane, the chemical stench was insufferable, the fluorescent lights were a nightmare, the walls were a dingy grey-white, the floor was beaten up grey plywood, it was always freezing cold, it was a visual dump with crap strewned everywhere, we were halfway underground looking out windows at the tailpipes of cars in a parking lot and there was only one bathroom which was located about four feet away from one of the restorer’s desks.
The irony of that hateful job was that it was the place where I met some of the best, most interesting people I’ve ever known, the majority of the friends I have right now actually came from that hellhole, and of course as I mentioned earlier I also met my associate there. It was only because of these people that I could make it through the day without totally losing it and just running out into traffic hoping a truck would put me out of my misery.
Here’s a shot of Nina (now known to some as bluberd) and me. This is where we sat for eight hours a day, five days a week, year after year after year…
So I’m sure the question on everyone’s mind is why didn’t I leave. Well, some of you may know that jobs for artists are few and far between, especially ones that pay more than minimum wage. We really needed the money I was making. I also had no idea what else I’d want to do if I left. I usually had at least three interviews for other jobs every year, but I obviously wasn’t what anyone was looking for at that time.
Eventually everyone had left except for one friend, and she only worked part-time. At this point my physical and mental condition had become so incredibly bad that a doctor ordered me to leave my job. This was the most wonderful thing anyone has ever done for me (Thank You Dr. Armine). I then took out a loan to go to get some computer education and started working for myself from home.
There truly was no greater feeling than leaving that place for the very last time. I don’t remember exactly, but I imagine driving away with my sunroof open cranking this song:
