A Bender

I was given a gift card today, one of those cards you use as a credit card but it only has a set amount on it. So after work I went to Borders and I bought some stationary, then a calendar - not just any calendar however, a Dirty Dancing calendar. With that score I was gaining momentum and I browsed the literature aisles and picked up Middlemarch and Dostoevsky's The Idiot. I put them down among some romance novels when I realized I needed something modern and not quite so dense. 'Sides I'm already reading Nabakov, too much Russian back to back then. I have to parcel that stuff out. So I picked up two Murakami books. A little dip East and South of Russia. There was a girl reading in the corner right in front of the Murakami books. She didn't move as my glove dangled out of my big orange parka and created shadows on her book. Now I wonder if she was dead. I could be one of those people other people yell at, "well how could THEY not notice she wasn't moving in a crowded downtown borders?!" oh the humanity! I think she was a painfully unhappy teenager who's mother abandoned her in a corner and she was reading and marking time before she could run away to Sweden where her online boyfriend is.

Anyhoo I love Murakami and I figured I could leave them for my mother when I was done. I don't like to collect books physically, just on a list in the internetness. I cleared out my books when I moved to a small apartment in Brooklyn and it felt freeing. Then I saw another book, a memoir by Gore Vidal. He's a naughty clever kitten so I picked that up and immediately thought of a friend who would like it too. Murakami and Vidal will be my cozy train mates as I go home. With that settled, I now have 13ish dollars on the gift card that I'll wait until I have to pay for something almost exactly that amount so I feel like I beat the MasterCard gift card system. I felt rich, I felt like other people must feel when they shop. It felt nice, but like most drugs, I can't afford the high.

Part 2 of my bender took place at Walgreens where I picked up a box of macaroni & cheese, chocolate/peanut butter, and a Dr Pepper. If I wasn't a Diva Cup girl there would be a box of OB in with that assembly.

Now my belly is sooo full and somehow the powdered electric orange cheese hasn't inhibited my ability to type.

The End.

cookies!

I just discovered some lovely new music to get depressing with or bake cookies with.

whichever

http://www.myspace.com/singingsirens

Art and Snow

Saw the Jenny Holzer exhibit at the MCA last night.

Wow.

It was intense and wonderful. An assault on the senses that distilled violence, fear, power, yearning, loneliness. I love her work so much. I usually turn away from art that's about this kind of heavy stuff, but not in her case. She makes it relatable to me.

I'm so glad I went even though it was windy and snowing hard and the Michigan ave bus was packed and cranky and barely moving. I would have been better off plowing through the snow in my sneakers then smelling a mystery fart and reading a Vogue the woman sitting close to me was reading.

Also nice about going on a weather watch day was the MCA was not packed but sprinkled with dewy young art students even though it was Free day. I wanted to gather up some skinny bespectacled, bearded art students and hold them close and smell the dust in their hair and the hope and pomposity that clings to them with hints of coffee and marijuana. It would be an enjoyable high I know, but like wildlife in the park, I should leave them alone so the next person with an unrelated to semi-related job and a BFA can enjoy them too. That's just being responsible.

Lighting my way

This weekend I finally made my way to Home Depot and bought a replacement light cover for my bathroom. Not as cool as the fugly cover shaped like a clam shell, but what can you do?

Shell cover RIP

I also bought some energy-saving light bulbs for the kitchen. I had 2, 40 watt bulbs in the fixture as a temporary fix and it was too dark for a kitchen. I like a kitchen to be bright and cheerful. A seemingly simple purchase. Well I bought bright sunlight blue lights and that was a mistake. It is the worst florescent harshness possible for a kitchen and it make my pasty skin the pastiest ever. I'm afraid to find out what this lighting does to brocolli. My basket of apples looks like a dead purple color. It is cold and morgue like. No good! I hated it immediately, but the thought of getting on 2 buses in the cold and going back to Le Depot for light bulbs is unappealing. So I decided the solution was paint my kitchen light cover the first acrylic red I found in my laytex paint box. This looked as terrible as one would think. So I then cleaned (most) of it off. I guess I need this process to accept the fact that a cold bus transfer for some stinking bulbs is in my future. I had to go through a rash form of denial. I hate shopping for this kind of crap. I like to leave my house for work, socialness and exercise. Other than that I wish I had a drop box for all my worldly goods. I do however enjoy going to a hardware store when I have an excuse to buy hardware or tools. Gazing at the shelves of options becomes a beautiful communion of possibilities. Tool time is what I want Home Depot for, not light bulb mistakes.

soapbox climb #499

I always roll my eyes when a woman brags that she was a tomboy when she was a girl. If I don't actually roll my eyes I hold it in like a repressed sneeze. I think it hurts my brain or something. We all know Jo was the coolest Facts of Life girl, though Tootie was a close second, but come on. To me "Well I was a tom boy" is really code for "I'm cool because I'm not dumb like all the other girls are" It's stepping on the rest of us vagina holders to make the Tom Boy feel superior and join the boy team. Which is not nice is it?

Surprisingly, it comes up a lot and I'd like to condescendingly pat them on the head and drain the smugness out of their face and hand them a pink lolipop as I lean in and tell them "big fucking deal"

Anyways most little girls I've known are a combo of both with uncombed tangled hair with a grotesquely elaborate barrette on top.

The End. I read a "well I was a tomboy" comment today and it set me off.

cold, smells and spills.

It's cold in Chicago so it was inevitable that'd I'd see a frozen spilled coffee drink on the sidewalk. I find this brown sight gross, but fascinating. It looks so violent and dirty. It's a mini-wreck to divert attention away from the frigid wind whipping around the corner.

One of the buildings on my way to the train has been smelling all week. Like a whole lotta poop. There sewer system must be broken. I think they got it fixed because I didn't make an automatic squinchy face as I walked by this morning. I've been avoiding this frozen brown mound in the parking lot by this building. I usually cut right through it. Because of the smell it made me think it might be a big mound of poop. Maybe that was where the smell was coming from. Today I realized it was a pile of leaves.

I remember last week when it was fall and not sudden deep winter.

Most naked

This morning before work I was at my desk and I hear a crash in the kitchen or bathroom. I look around and don't see anything. I think it must have been my neighbors. A few minutes later I have to go number 2 and I sit on the toilet and there are shards of glass on the rim. ouch. no skin broken. I look over in the sink and the sink light fixture remains is mostly in the sink but also on floor and obviously toilet sink. Great. The place I'm most naked is now a broken glass clean-up site. I think I got it all, but not something I wanted to do on a Monday morning.

scales

I think I need a humidifier for my apartment. The past 2 weeks have require the heat to be on and I'm soo darn dry. As I sit at my desk I can feel my back skin strain over my bad posture. Well at least it's helping me "sit up straight"

Does anything make me feel more like a sullen child more than "sit up straight"? I can't think of any.

I don't want to take a shower and inflict more damage to my skin. This week it's shower one day, bird bath in the sink on just my stinky parts the next. This solution has put a small dent in the moisture barrier, but my skin is still dry. meh.

I gotta ride my bike today. Working up a sweat may help. I also can feel my body tell me it's not that tired when I go to bed. Needs more activity. Monday I thought I was going to carry home a big box to ship off some paintings. But I didn't. Tuesday I carried a 30"x 40" canvas with 2 other painting saran wrapped to it onto the El. My grip got a work out, but that's about it.

Today I'll be cleaning my house and buying the last bit of ingredients and making cornbread. I think I'll be tired enough by then.

Ah well, off to my bird bath.

a promise.

I'm up to my eyeballs in debt and today I realized that it's worse than I thought. I had to move the debt piles around to one big pile and JESUS.

So today I put into the electronic ether a promise to myself. I know better than this. Once I get out from under this shitpile, I'm not going back. I will have savings and a 0 balance statement as soon as frickin possible.

And also I hate all the pressures involved in Christmas. It's a yearly suck of finances dressed up in tinsel. Fuck you American Christmas.

transitioning

Things I have to force myself to do:

get out of bed
paint
get in the shower
floss
brush teeth
make my lunch
leave my house
ride my bike
stop browsing the internet
file paperwork
leave work
ride my bike
stop browsing the internet
floss
brush teeth
wash face
do the dishes

Everyday a battle of my weakness and my better self.

See You Next Tuesday

I'm reading Tropic of Cancer and I will finish it but it's getting challenging. I find myself rolling my eyes a lot, but maybe that's good exercise for my astigmatism. Miller's is frustrating me with his love of himself and his hand-to-mouth existence. It's a self-congratulatory piece of work. Every man he knows is a fool and every woman is just a space for self-congratulations when he's not at his typewriter. He likes to eat and fuck, but I doubt he can cook and I doubt he's bringing much pleasure to the women who provided him a warm space for his self-expression.

The thing is though, he's a good writer. He's a great writer even. Smart and interesting. Not very structured, but that's all part of his charm. It's so annoying. A thoroughly unlikable protagonist who is the writer of a good groundbreaking book. This book makes me think of Bukowski who is also the writer hero of man's underbelly but at least Bukowski admitted weaknesses. As I'm reading I get little flashes of book discussions with guys who brought these two writers up. I get a look eventually that shows a space between me and the guy I'm talking to. A look where they want to say, "you have no idea how profoundly brilliant, violent and sexual dominant I am because I've read and identified with this Bukowski" but they don't want to upset my delicate feminine self so they just hint at it. And maybe they're smart to do so. I've read them both and if I think you are jerking it to a Bukowski rape fantasy story, I will be repulsed. There are woman out there who love that stuff, but that is not my cup of tea. Maybe they were trying to figure that out. I don't know, but it's icky.

Anyways I think Miller is a liar who believes himself but is also a great writer with some good timing. He is also reminds me of Dante, who was also a smug little shit as he wondered around the inferno with Virgil pointing out everybody elses wrongs while he gets to sail off to heaven to high-5 God and his girlfriend.

I want to find the female equivalent of these dudes. I'd like to read that. If Miller wants to think of women as dumb hunks of meat to put his dick in, fine. I'm just asking, where is my counterpoint? The writer version of Liz Phair responding to the Stones. Maybe Doris Lessing? I dunno. I think it's yet to be written.

When it is written. I'd buy that book and read it 6 times and then put it on my best books of all time list.

Bike riding

I rode my bike today it was drizzling fairly hard on the way back and it was fairly cold. Towards the end I was not seeing much of anything through my waterlogged glasses. How do people deal with that? Also some asswipe honked at me for swerving about 6 inches to the center and I found no solace in mumbling, "asswipe" under my breath with my cold wet thighs, water droplet glasses. sexy sexy sexy.

Whatever. Challenges is good for the body and the brain.

Also when I started this bike commute thing I thought the cyclists were all friendly with each other. I imagined nods and smiles, maybe even a high 5 occasionally as we stopped at a light on Milwaukee. One big happy family on 2 wheels. Nope, it's more like sizing up and trying to jet off first. City life I guess.

loaded weapon

Been fighting a cold since Thurs. I felt so crappy and weak Thursday evening, I abandoned my bike and took the train home. Friday I stayed home and slept half the day in a sweaty/shivery way. Nothing spectacular, just sick. Saturday I felt much better, but today I've been a sniffy, snotty mouth breather more than when I was a weakened pile of poo on Friday. I could still breath.
Go figure.

I sneezed today what I thought was a normal sneeze, turns out I had a surplus of ammunition loaded and a huge snot rocket landed on my pants. I lost like half a pound after that sneeze. Luckily I was by myself and I removed it without an issue. So momumental it couldn't go un-noted however. Be a shame. It was like catching a huge fish with nobody around to see it. I'm sure nobody wanted to see it, but it was amazing.

figures

Last night I was putting away my dental floss and it slipped and fell in the toilet. Since I slept most the day with a million layers on sweating and shivering a cold out of my system, I'm gonna cut myself some slack and say I wasn't running at full potential. But how often am I running at my full potential? There's always something distracting me.

Thought about that girl who is such a little racist asshole that she'd fake her own mugging and cut a backwards B on her face. Too blinded by her crazy agenda to think maybe an O for Obama would be less problematic in a mirror and would make more sense. If I was a hateful crazy, that'd be the kind of detail I skip. Luckily I'm not a hateful pile of vindictiveness like she seems to be.

How many just annoying stink pots of trouble does one run into in their lives? A lot. I'm so glad she got caught quickly and well before the election.

I don't think she harmed Obama's chances, but every woman who fakes an attack hurts the credibility of women who really are attacked. We don't need that bullshit thank you very much.

a new rendition

Abandoned bike and took the train home cause I'm fighting a cold and I wanted to slouch on a seat on the El. Walking home from my stop a little girl about knee high to a grasshopper was blocking my path as she staggered to the left and right of the sidewalk. She busted out a spontaneous song

I Believe I can Fly
I believe mmmumble mmmmumble
Then mom took me to burGER KING!!!

It was really fricken cute and I laughed and snorted.

Also saw a kicked in pumpkin and crunched the leaves on the sidewalk. I'm starting to embrace fall.

Now all I have to do is kick this sniffle/worn out feeling to the curb with some peppermint tea and some r&r.

a wrong turn at Cicero

Today I went on a 25mile bike trip. I had meant to go to hit the forest preserve and take a trail. Smell some decaying trees, pass a few bums and pedal without bus exhaust fumes for a switch. It would have helped if I did a little research. Someone told me about their ride to the Botanical gardens via Elston -60miles round trip. Since my commute is 12 miles round trip and that's where my bike experience begins after a 8 year hiatus with the highlight being a girl scout race in 4th grade, I wasn't ready to go quite that far. But the forest preserve, before the gardens was a doable goal. I figured I could take Elston, see the trees and turn around about 20miles in.

Nope instead I missed the preserve and saw beautiful downtown Niles. A suburb with strip malls and angry drivers.

Alas.

Still excercise is good and learning the hard way seems to be my way. I may try it again on Saturday now that I actually looked up where to go.

And I'm glad I squeezed in a bike ride before my staycation came to an end. It was 11days straight sans day job. Playing fulltime artist for the first bit. Turns out even without corporate bullshit, I am still a procrastinator. I may not watch much tv but the blog reading and the internet social networking thing may be a problem right up there with choc0late bars and cookies. The little voice that should tell me that I don't need a cookie is also derelict in telling me that I don't need to check my email/facebook/jezebel for the 5th time this morning. I'll have to work on that 'cause my Jimmeny Cricket is a slacker.

For the staycation closing I made my sesame tuna vegetable rice dish and bought Bell's Amber Ale. The mix of physical exertion, cooking and beer is a fantastic closer to time off.

Next week though, my first time EVER in Florida. Now I'm a real American or a German/British tourist. Whichever.

it was an accident

so it seems like I accidentally called my blog "puppies and babies" but now I think I'll be keeping that. I love ridiculousness.

Puppies and Babies

Yesterday was the last day of Around The Coyote. I was anxious to get it done. I'm not into retail, even if it's my own stuff. -At least face to face retail but anonymous on-line retail is my kind of thing and I may post some watercolors on etsy.- Seriously disheartened I settled into the day and started talking to my very cool booth neighbors. The first band of the day started playing and the lyrics caught my ear and demanded attention.

puppies and babies
puppies and babies
puppies and babies
are soft and cuddly

It was kind of brilliant and very true and had far more depth than Brittney's new hit "womanizer womanizer ..." something about not fronting. The band was a group of developmentally disabled people who write their own stuff and play their own instruments. They were sincerely better than some of the bands I listened to and more importantly they were turned down to a descent level. Keeping all the arts under one roof maybe not such a hot idea. A loud jazz band is not helpful when some tall sweaty man with a facial tic, red Sally Jesse glasses is trying to tell me something about how he liked my work. I'm 5'8 and my head barely made it to his armpit. I had to lean in closely to his humpty dumpty type belly and say "What?!" in the bar conversation fashion. He sweated more. He didn't buy anything and limped away. In conclusion, the music was counterproductive. If I was there to check things out, the stuffy air, crowded stalls and loud music would equal "lets get outta here" not let me browse through this charming girl's drawings and familiarize myself with her work.

But I don't run something like that because it's a logistical nightmare and I met some great people, did some serious people watching, reread Camus' The Stranger, and sold enough work to break even.

Anyhoo, I'm thinking about ditching my myspace blog and bringing it over here. I like writing down my musing into the internet void. Lord knows I don't need another thing to check obsessively online, but I like to compartmentalize things and moving my musings into a less googleable arena seems like a good idea to me.