I heard this song a few weeks ago and haven’t been able to get it out of my head. Acquiring it turned into some sort of mad obsession this week. Why, I don’t know, it happens to me occasionally. I decide I absolutely positively must possess a certain thing and then I hunt it down like a dog.

Sure I could have just ordered the cd, but frankly I don’t actually like any of the other songs she sings that much so it would have been a big waste of my money and I’d have to wait for it to arrive. I tried finding it on various download sites but didn’t have a ton of free time to sit around looking for this stupid song: ”No Alex, I am not going to play with you, feed you or anything else until I get my mp3, so shut it!” would have sounded a bit neglectful. Although, who would have told on me, Piglet?

Long story short, I got it. You may hear this song and wonder what all the hullabaloo was about. I have no idea really. It’s a catchy little song that implanted itself in my brain. It makes me want to dance. It makes me want to sing into a hairbrush microphone like a 5th grader. That’s all I can say.

Sandie Shaw:  “Girl Don’t Come”

P.S. Cheese Queen, since I involved you in my quest, if you’d like this fine mp3 for your own cheese-riddled collection, I’d be happy to share.

I just can’t stop buying these vintage cameras now. I am as addicted to acquiring them as I am to taking ttv photos with them. I think they’re wonderful objects and can visualize a fabulous display case for them one day.

Here are my latest Ebay victories:

Yashica 44, Argoflex 75 and a Kodak Brownie Reflex Synchro Model.

There’s no story to go with this one per se, just a lot of working into the wee hours of the night.

The potentially tacky rainbow was in the original sky shot. I was going to take it out, but then I decided it worked for some reason. Well, it’s no worse than the stupid shirt I’m wearing. I thought that I was just going to take a regular old photo tonight so I didn’t put any thought into my wardrobe or makeup. I like how it turned out any way, even though I wish I had at least put some mascara on.

Visit SPC for more blue portraits.

There’s very little going on in my life right now. No funny or embarrassing stories to tell and I haven’t been depressed or even in a bad mood for a couple weeks so I can’t throw myself a pity party and post a depressing song. TV still sucks and it’s still cold. There’s nothing for me to blather on about right now so I’m going to have to turn to an Alex story for today’s post. I’ve resisted this post for the longest time because frankly, who wants to hear about somebody’s kid’s silly accomplishments. But tough nuts, I have nothing else to talk about.

A few months ago someone gave Alex a DoodlePro sketch thingamajig. He could have cared less about it for the longest time but around Christmas he started to show some interest in it. He mostly drew wispy marks and developed a soft touch quickly. I have yet to see him just scribble in a meaningless fashion.

One day I noticed him spending a lot of time hovering over the DoodlePro so I came over to see if he wanted some help or a perhaps cheerleader. I watched him holding the stylus delicately, as if it were a feather and I thought it was cute. He proceeded to study the blank surface with determined intensity. I think he was mapping out his masterpiece because periodically he’d place a small mark here and there. Suddenly he began the drawing. 

I’ve never seen a toddler move in any sort of graceful way when drawing before, but I have to say his movements were so fluid (almost elegant) that I just stared in amazement. He would end some strokes with a flourish, back away from his creation and then zoom in with one or two more lines. He finished with an “Ahhhh.” It sounded like he was parched and just chugged a glass of water. He put the stylus down and marched away.

While I think he was thrilled with his accomplishment, artists are a fickle bunch and I couldn’t risk him coming back to monkey with perfection, so I wasted no time scooping up the Doodle Pro and whisking it away for a photo shoot:

I think this drawing is totally worth analyzing for it’s artistic merit and 17 month old achievement award potential.

The way I see it, he drew what I have interpreted to be an angel. It was Christmas after all and the house was littered with angels—he was obviously inspired by the subject matter that surrounded him. Even if I’m overinterpreting here, I still see a person with a gown-like dress with something hovering over it’s head. The most impressive part of this drawing to me is that he made two identical and reversed marks where the hands would be. Come on, that’s genius, and completely remarkable don’t you think? In fact, there’s quite a lot of balanced mark making in this piece. There’s also a bit of variety in line weight which can’t be easy to do on one of these things. 

It still impresses me to look at this. Seriously, take a good look at it, there are a lot of things to notice if you know how to analyze art. It really is well conceived.

So that concludes today’s pompous brag fest. Tune in next time when I describe how I know I saw the face of Elvis in Alex’s diaper.

It’s been a few months since I’ve been inspired or had enough time to participate in the Self-Portrait Challenge so I guess I’m ready to give it a shot again. I was having a great hair day and I haven’t had one of those in ages so I thought, quick get the camera before it gets big and scary again. Ironically, after I was done processing the photo I ended up cropping out most of it anyway, oh well, it gave me some motivation and that’s what counts.

You may look at this little section of hair and ask yourself, “that’s a good hair day?” Yes, for me it is an excellent hair day. On most days, being home alone with only the dogs and the wee boy to look at me, I don’t put a lot of effort into taming the mop. As my father would say “it looks like I stuck my finger in an electrical socket.” Hey, maybe an upcoming SPC theme could be “insanity,” “the lost mind” or “on the verge.” I’d be ready for a photo shoot at any given moment of any day, no pre-planning required.

So here ’tis, my good hair day blue entry:

I’ve been really sick and out of commission for almost a week now. There’s been a lot of laying like a motionless corpse on the couch, coughing and nose blowing. As a result, I have watched ten tons of television. My TV spree kicked off on Sunday when I happened upon an America’s Next Top Model marathon. Something I’ve never had the slightest interest in before suddenly became the most riveting bit of entertainment I’d ever seen and I could not be torn away. I watched an entire season in one day and I was ever so pleased when Eva, the girl I picked from the beginning, turned out to in fact be “America’s Next Top Model.”

All jazzed up on Ben Kingsley from watching “You Kill Me” the previous week (we loved it), I tivoed another one of his movies and we wasted two hours of our lives watching a serious piece of dreck called “A Sound of Thunder.” Did someone force Sir Ben to do this “movie” at gunpoint? Did he need to come up with a couple million really fast to pay off his gambling debts? Was he suffering from temporary insanity?

Seriously, what was Gandhi doing in this horrid pile of crap? The special effects were so bad they weren’t even laughable. You know how they film the actors against a green screen and put the scenery in digitally and then the actors just walk around and do their thing as if they’re actually there. Well, this was so bad I think they were pretending to walk (like a mime does), it looked really stupid. They were also so clearly not in the scene that had they been projecting a movie in the background and acting in front of it on a stage it would have looked more realistic.

You know a movie blows when you cheer for the characters to get killed. We were thrilled every time a creature dragged one of the cast members off the screen. As a matter of fact, we also wished they’d grab a few of the cast members from the L Word and kill them too. Yes, we watch the L Word. We’re not up to the current season but we’re plodding through last season. This really could have been a good show but the writers have put these idiot women simultaneously in every extreme situation that they can think of—it is tedious and annoying. Every year they ratchet up the ridiculous scenarios which occur simultaneously to such a degree that we dread certain story lines and wince or swear when some characters show up. Why do we keep watching? Probably because there’s nothing else on TV right now. Just how many Law & Order reruns can a person watch? (FYI - tons if you live here).

TV is so lame right now that I’ve taken to tivoing old shows. My current obsessions are the Golden Girls and Still Standing. I love the Golden Girls so much that I found myself online this morning looking up lines that Sophia said because I was curious how to spell Bacca Gallupe properly. I have not found a definitive resource for this spelling so if I’m wrong let me know, because I want to call someone a “dumb bacca gallupe” just like Sophia and I think it’s important to be able to spell the insults I use.

Wrapping up today’s TV review I’d like to mention that I’m thrilled they brought American Gladiators back and I happened to stumble upon an appalling show the other night called “Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader.” I was immediately hooked  when the first thing I see is a college girl who is asked the question “is the kidney part of the digestive system?” She thinks and thinks and doesn’t know the answer so she defers to the panel of 5th graders to answer for her. The host asks her how she would have answered the question and she says she would have said yes. Well I guess she was at least smart enough to let a 10 year old answer for her because they said no and she won $25,000.