I Talk The Line

Today is Thursday. Today we speak of lines. Already today I've been toeing the line(s). On the on ramp. On the off ramp. At that stoplight. While moving at a crawl. While moving at 60 mph. (That was a fast line, and a little scary when you think about it.) At the courthouse, where I walked in a serpentine line, handed a woman my traffic citation, she looked at it and told me to retrace my serpentine steps and stand in a line at a sign that said D.A. She could have told me to sidle two steps to my right, but no. I had to walk that line. (The D.A. was nice though.) Then I stood in the pay $146 line. Short, so okay, whatever. Back to traffic. More lines, including a dump truck backing up (beep, beep, beep) line. Got to the coffee house and stood in the get coffee, get cheese danish, pay and tip a dollar line. They were pleasant (for a coffee house). Then to the gas station line where I was blocked by some energy drink promoting minivans (go figure), followed by the I just want to pay for this Diet Coke will you please, please, please for the love of Christ pull your head out of your ass, stop talking and ring me up already line. Okay, back to traffic and...more lines. Merging lines, lane closed lines, let's look at the pretty blue sky while talking on a cell phone at a rate of 70 mph and almost crash into me lines, more with the off ramp kind of lines and let's put a party hat on this whole line-ridden morning with the if you think you're getting this parking space you're out of your fucking mind line.

Wake Up Sunday Morning

7:35 am from our roof

8 am from our roof

A Fair Time

The North Carolina State Fair. *sigh* I love the fair. And while I no longer feel the need to ride loads of rides (or any of the rides really- c'mon $8 for 15 minutes of standing in line and 45 seconds of fear?) and get no trill out of eating questionable deep friend "food" items, two of the main things that you're supposes to do at the NC State Fair, I could never pass up the experience of going. Now I have a list of things I would like to do when I experience the fair, here, in my now undeniable late twenties.
1- avoid crowds (this means going during the day and missing the fireworks, but I cope)
2- get a $0.50 kosher dill pickle
3- hold a baby animal (I wish the piglets were up for grabs, but a chick or duck will work well too)
4- throw a few baseballs at some beer bottles (therapeutic)
5- honey cotton candy (preferably warm)
6- leave when my feet hurt
I'm pleased to say that I checked each of these off my "Fair Time 08" list
Here are a few highlights:

I was really surprised to see the tea cups designed as tea cups I wouldn't mind owning. Way-to-fair
design!


bliss & baby animal. check.


And how beautiful is this chicken? I'm pretty sure I've seen some textiles that have borrowed this pattern.


And speaking of good design. I wanted to ride this ride simply because i thought it it was pretty and i liked the color scheme. Then we did the aforementioned math ($8 for 45 seconds of dizziness) so I settled for a picture of it.


And then it was offset by this beauty. Disgusting shots of photoshopped food crowed over each other with harsh drop shdaows... ugh.

And finally, the piece de resistance. Honey cotton candy.
It's the best.

Oh, Law

Law, you are so complex and ...sly. Let me count the ways in which you could cause my brain to explode. 1. 2. 3. wait for it. 4. etc.

You know this presidential election situation we have going on? this plan to elect the president of the United States? The American States. The ones protected by the Constitution, which is laws and stuff. yeah, well, let's say that someone is elected (and they will be) on Nov 4th. hooray, for the candidates supporters, right? wrong. very wrong. and the law says so (brain countdown).

there's a little thing called the Electoral Vote to consider. and this will happen on Dec 15th. i know, i know. why so long between the general election and the day the electoral votes are in? dude, shut up. this is the law we're talking about (cognizance failing).

Once the electoral votes are in they should be delivered to the president of the Senate of these United Places by Dec 24th. presumably for some festive reasons? or perhaps the pony express just can't get to Washington before that with all the holiday cards to deliver? why we never had the Arabian racehorse express is beyond me. but that's an entirely separate thing.

So, the president of the Senate, who is the vice president, has the votes in his hand ...or hands–the law doesn't s specify (go figure) – and they are immediately given to Congress for the Great Counting (my title , not official–unfortunate). and within hours your president-elect can receive your hoorays. right? wrong again. the law says so (brnai expadning).

Actually, its another couple of weeks until the Congress pulls themselves up from their drunken, holiday stupors and with bleary eyes snatch the votes from the vice president with grouchy grunts of 'yeah, yeah, yeah, we got it . we got it.' They then proceed to count the electoral votes and official proclaim the winner of the presidential election. This day is Jan 6th. two months have gone by since you cast your vote. two long months. two months of lawful uncertainty. two months where anything can happen. And this is what I'm really plugging away at. two months of pure, sweet , nail-biting danger.

Beeecauuuse...
somebody could die.

morbid? maybe. but this is interesting stuff. if you're interested in this kind of stuff. because until the Congress counts the electoral votes there really is no official president-elect. and until the states turn in their electoral votes they could decide to vote for humpty-dumpty. meaning: if the winner of the general election dies from any cause at all between Nov 4th and Dec 15th the whole already-garbled process becomes infinitely more garbled. All bets are off. Floating Casino. Big boat. Open waters. (mayday)

Now, if the general election winner dies between Dec 15th and Jan 6th we can then ride a blustery tack into the murky bay of the 20th Amendment. problem solved. ...No, it isn't. Thank you, Law. Nothing is concrete because the states can still change their electoral vote since the votes haven't been counted yet. But, also, the Congress could decide that the Dec 15th votes should be legitimate. Or, everyone could band together and decide that, yes, Humpty Dumpty would be a fine, fine choice after all. there is just no ruling one way or another.

The law says so (anbiannn eakxrdgnid).


Dumpty/Dum and Dee '08

You know when the moon is really big? It's not.

Matt Wood just enlighten me with the information that when the moon is low and on the horizon, and it looks much larger, it's not. That's right. It's just not. It's an optical illusion. One evening last week on my way home from work the moon was huge! And I thought there was no way it was my eyes playing tricks. My eyes have been malfunctioning since I was four years old...So I thought I'd try and capture it with my video option on my camera, but damn it, it was teeny! I can't believe I've been deceiving myself for so long! Need more proof? (I did) news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4619063.stm

Done

It's been a lot of work for a vacation but our house is finally done.

It's About Time

If you knew me, well, you'd know me. But you'd also know I'm fascinated with time travel.
And I believe.
Oh, and I love TV. And I don't care what people think. Well, I pretend not to care. But unless I open a dinner theatre in my living room and the troupe from "Everybody Loves Raymond" stops by, the TV it is. And anyway, Peter Boyle is dead, so he wouldn't be able to make it unless, wait...that's right...time travel.
Time travel, TV. TV, time travel. Parfait. Can't have one without the other.
Yup, everything I've learned about the great science of time travel–and soon to be key to solving the economic crisis– has come straight from the small screen. A source I trust to no end.
The Internet? Lies. Newspapers? Lies. Friends and family? They lie.
Ahh, but TV is nothing but the sweet nectar of truth.

Exhibit A: The Flintstones and The Jetsons
Elroy invents a time machine. Wackiness ensues. The two families go back and forth in the space-time continuum like a cosmic ping pong ball looking for a lost lottery ticket that COULD be a winner. And every bit of it is true.
And everybody lives happily ever after.
So, to sum up: If everybody lives happily ever after+It involves time travel+It is on TV=True.
It's mad genius I tell you!


Exhibit B: The Twilight Zone
Okay, this was going to be Exhibit A, but I found the Flintstones flying the Jetson's space car first. The Twilight Zone is chock full of travel. Yeah man, travel...space travel, airplanes, cars and trains, there was some walking and running, too. But it all comes back to, that's right, time travel. One big problem about The Twilight Zone is that while it absolutely proves time travel is true, rarely does everybody live happily ever after. So we're going to call this the exception that proves the rule. Plus, it was on TV. Rod Serling figured it out. He was smart even though he went to Syracuse as did the oddly elfin Bob Costas (who I believe to be a space alien, more on that some other time). So yeah, Rod Serling was smart. But he died pretty young of lung cancer. How he didn't see that coming I'll never know. Plus, why didn't he use time travel? Was he scared of reruns?



Exhibit C: It's About Time (The Gilligan Corollary)

It's About Time was a "show" that was "created" by perhaps the greatest scientific mind of our, or any, time: Sherwood Schwartz. Mac and Hector (Astronauts!) travel in time to the prehistoric age (Before History!). There they meet Gronk and Shadd (Cavepeople!). This was a major breakthrough in time travel. (Later subverted by The Planet of the Apes movies, which were on the BIG screen, and therefore...what? That's right, lies.) The great leap forward by Schwartz was made possible by the Gilligan's Island experiments he conducted three years earlier. Naysayers scoff at this assertion, saying that the Minnow incident was simply a case of poor seamanship. Nonsense. If a three-hour cruise isn't time travel, I don't know what is. And people lived happily ever after. And they were on TV. Case closed.



Okay, I have to go to my "Cable Access TV meeting" now. (Hint: Cable Access=Time Travel!) Bye!!

to knit or crochet, that is the question...

ever since my sweet baby entered my life, I have had little to no time to be crafty, but now that I am not quite as sleep deprived, I think it might be time to pick up a new hobby. I have been trying to decide between knitting and crocheting, ultimately I would like to learn both but which first? anyways, I cannot wait until I can make these...






seriously, too cute.

Hooray for Science!

Ever heard of a Bow Shock? or the terminal shock for that matter? I'm talking about space here. the solar system. solar winds. space. the sun. billions of miles out in cold, dark space without a single drop of hot cocoa to sip. Voyager 1. yes, Voyager 2 , even. out there. voyaging for discovery. totems of our un-idiocy. reaching out. calculating. sending back information at modem-speed (hey, they're a long way away). They're in the heliopause, in fact. or, one of them is. furthest ever. 26-year long working lunch. no return. science. space. all of it. explosions on the sun traveling millions of miles per second. smacking into lord knows what. the spot where outer space meets inner. hello, there. excuse me. slow down solar wind and let's call it the terminal shock. sure. anything. fine. cause that's science too, right? put your name on a star. MW224AstleyRules. spinning around the galaxy. knocking into other stuff out there. the great eddies. not at all including the one from ohio. or the guitar one. maybe the cruiser head. but i'm thinking more about the tea cups. wind blowing through your hair. zipping around. stomach in your throat. bow shock supreme. santa fe. science. its all over the place. its inner and outer. its behind the aurora and heat and comet tails and behind every dark corner. 'hey, what's that strange sound ? i'm all alone but i'd better check it out.' ...whammo! science. still going . another decade maybe. further. out there. into something. into nothing. doesn't matter, does it? science. ...hooray.

Bringing Shadows to Light

It's hard sometimes to take a step back from design to clear your head of the path Adobe has put before us. So I’m profoundly encouraged to see it when art and design can hold hands and declare their love and make babies.
Here are a few examples of clever art and design that use light, and more importantly, shadow.


This is the sign for the Gallery Hotel Art in Florence. The only catch is it’s only visible at night, but what a great pay off!
Designed by amerigo.



These are installations by Fred Eerdekens. I especially love the clouds. I’ve spent quite a bit of time deciphering cloud shapes as animals but never type.


I saved the best for last. This is one panel (word) from a piece called "having guts always works out for me". I’m enamored by the brilliance that comes from Stephan Sagmeister. I went to a lecture of his last spring and left completely inspired. He’s a prime example of a blurred line between fine art and design. He combines imaginativeness and craftsmanship into all of his rarely-born-from-computer work, giving an idea of what unique contemporary graphic design could look like. Definitely check out his most recent book.

Almost there

Day 3 move in. The bar is partially stocked.

A Night at the Studio

Pitch time, around these parts, translates to seeing both the AM and PM of most of the numbers on the clock. I don't have many of these late nights under my belt yet, but I'd say this one went fairly smooth. We had coffee, sodas, snacks and music - all the ingredients of productivity.

This is my first ever attempt at iMovie, so be kind to my lack of attention to detail.
Here's a few more shots for your viewing pleasure.

Here you can see a little studio sprite in his native habitat.


This is the only picture I managed to get of Kevin. Let it be noted, he was there til the almost end.


Stu stu studio.


Here's Silverman working on a preformance piece titled, static cling.


Check and Recheck are on a boat, Check jumps out, who's left?

Dear Matt Wood,

Hope you're enjoying your beach vacation.

My Fortune, My Love.

I had a wonderful laugh tonight with my pitch peeps after opening a fortune cookie from Rainbow takeout. One peep suggested I blow it up and drymount on a 20 x 30 board to add to the pitch wall.

With Our Powers Combined...

He reads Anna Karenina - I read Harry Potter. He plays keyboard and guitar in a real band - I'm up to medium guitar in rock band - He's working towards his PhD in sociology - I am absolutely fine with my BFA. He has lots of rips in his jeans - I patch them up with scraps from my fabric arsenal.
We meet in 1999 through a (victory records) patch sewn on my satchel and our foundation was laid with a mix tape, from him to me, which lead my musical tastes from NOFX and Less Than Jake to Damien Jurado and Jets to Brazil. (Those of you who do not recognize these band names; think chef boyardee to penne ala arrabiata. Music has always played a part in our relationship (pun). Through many mixed tapes and CDs, going to shows, sitting on the floor listening to records - talented musicians could better explain how we felt about one another. One year for our birthdays (which are in the same month) I got him piano lessons and he got me drum lessons. How cute is that?!
My better half, Thurston, and I are both artists in our own right. And while his dream is for us to be in a band and write music together the next best thing is for us to make mixed CDs together for our friends and family. I design the album artwork while he compiles a list of 30 or so songs (2 or 3 that are from me) and together we carve out a CD that has a fluid musical theme.
The first one was our 2007 Wintry Mix Vol. 1



and the second which was just last week, was Adios to the Lovelace Tres, which was a goodbye gift for our friends trading NC for TX.


So let us know if you want to be on our list to receive Wintry Mix Vol. 2, because it's in the works and you know it was made with love. (back orders also available: )

Family Albums

I am blessed, at least on my mother's side, to come from a family which cherishes family photos and the stories that they tell. As a young girl, I remember visiting my great-grandmother in northern Wisconsin. We'd spend hours and hours squished together on the couch flipping through stacks and stacks of albums, and shuffling through boxes full of snapshots dating so far back, they may have been taken with one of the first cameras invented. The real blessing though was the stories. My great-grandma Alice was a wealth of information about our family history. I was fascinated with her ability to recall the smallest details about our family from several generations back. One time, during our visit to Wisconsin, we visited a local museum, and my Grandma Alice could identify just about every single individual in every single photograph that hung on the walls. And provide a witty anecdote to go along with it. For my contribution to the blog today, since you are something of a captive audience, I would like to share with you a little piece of my history in the form of some old family photos.

First off, a couple of photos from my Grandpa Gordy's time spent serving in WWII. Sadly, he passed away before I was old enough to ask him to tell me the stories that went along with these photographs.

This one I think is pretty self-explanatory. Gordy in Aachen.

This one came with a caption: Cologne, August 1945

This next photograph is looking down a wooden ski jump in Iron Mountain, MI. (Which is in the upper peninsula of MI.) I remember climbing on this a couple times in my childhood on our visits to Wisconsin/Michigan.


I love this next photo of my Grandpa Gordy & Grandma Dolores' cottage in Rhode Island after a hurricane in 1976. The softness and glow of the photograph are just so mystical to me. I made several trips to this cottage in my childhood, and I always remember it being this magical and dream-like. The sounds and smells and sight of the quaint little beach cottages....



And finally, this photo made me smile, having just celebrated my own wedding this summer. I love admiring the style of bridesmaids attire from my aunt's wedding in 1969. (That's my mom in the blue.) I wonder what my nieces will think of the dresses I chose for my own bridesmaids when they look at my wedding photos 40 years from now.


Leave a comment and tell me about one of your favorite family photos.

Halloween’s Coming (Hide Your Heart)

I walked into a Wal-Mart this weekend and straight into Halloween. Candy, costumes, moving six-foot-tall butler’s offering trays laden with assorted creepiness. Holiday frivolity abounds– get ready, kids.

For me, it just conjured up memories that didn’t need to be conjured. But Halloween's coming (again), with the inevitability of something that's...um, inevitable, and I can't stop it.

Halloween (which originated in Ireland, by the way) is one of those holidays I never seemed to be able to master. Great costume ideas that come to you in an alcoholic fog in February (That would be GREAT!) have long dissipated into the ether come harvest time.

Late afternoon on Halloween usually finds me slouching down the aisles of the Dollar Store wondering how much tin foil is needed to cover my body (too much), if this white jumpsuit can be fashioned into an ironically funny costume (no, decidedly not), or even considering trying to be Instant Karma again (Which, done right, will get you punched. Or maybe I had it coming.), in any case, I’m always screwed.

So, yeah, costumes. Not good at them. I blame my mother. Growing up, every year was an argument, every year I lost. When I was ten, all I wanted to be was a bum (I know, be careful what you wish for), and she said “No, you’re going to be a hobo, people don’t like bums, they’re dirty.” So while I scurried up to my room to look up “semantics” she started in on assembling what she believed to be the prototypical hobo costume. I’m guessing her “vision” was something like this:



Yeah, I'm sure in her mind's eye she saw me walking down the street, my bedroll tied to the end of a stick and thrown jauntily over my shoulder, dabbing the hobo sweat from my hobo brow with my perfectly starched hobo bandanna, all the while minding my manners and reaping more than my fair share of treats. That's right, her son, King of the Bindlestiffs.

I didn't have the heart to tell her that I was going trick-or-treating with Tim Murtha who was getting his sister to dress him in drag. He was a little ahead of his time, because I don't think "dressing in drag" had entered the common parlance yet. Then again, his whole family was a trend-setting, devil-may-care bunch. Which I think, in some small part, was the reason Mr. Murtha would wander his front yard, barefoot and shirtless with beer in hand, cursing at his crabapple trees.
So, anyway, off Tim and I went, looking like "Of Mice and Men" meet "The Rocky Horror Picture Show." And of course he (she) was the big hit. I ended up with half a sack of taffy and Murtha ended up with multiple bags of swag, looking like the Grinch right after he wiped out Whoville. I think some of those ladies are still sending him cakes and pies every Halloween.

Anyway, there's a lesson in there somewhere, but that would require years of therapy.

All that said, there is one small gift Halloween brings. For me, Halloween's single purpose is to serve as my own personal Distant Early Warning system, alerting me that the "family" holidays are closing in. Breathing down my neck. That the fresh hell of Thanksgiving and Christmas are approaching. And they always end badly.

October! We've been waiting for you.

Okay so I’d be lying if I said I was waiting for October to research Halloween decorations, but now that it is October it’s perfectly acceptable to post about it. Halloween may be the only holiday that doesn’t conjure the sneering remark “they’re putting _____ out already- ugh.” Halloween decor and costumes could come out right after Christmas and you would not hear a complaint from me. Although I’m not ignoring the fact that October means more than just Halloween. It also means my birthday (the 24th so mark your calendars), the NC state fair, and maybe most welcoming, the change in seasons.
Along with preferring cooler weather to warmer, I’m also set up in the camp that likes Halloween to be scary and gruesome as opposed to cute. Nothing at all against cute - I love cute. I spend exceptional amounts of time ooohing and ahhhing over baby animals. But as I learned last year while planning a Halloween party with my dear, dear friend Steph and Megan, I tend to be drawn to severed digits and spattered blood while the decorations they chose were happy-faced and covered in glitter. Let me stress to you again - happy faces: yes, glitter: absolutely yes; but it just doesn’t beat cobwebs and creepy crawlies.
One of the best sources for finding great decorations and recipes that are both happy faced and scary - Martha Stewart.
So here’s a sampling of my favorites so far:

Im definitely doing this one, even though I live in an apartment and no one sees my front door. It's just a ripped up trash bag pulled and stretched into eerie spindles. Love it!


I thought this was a nice change of pace for a jack-o-lantern.


Very easy to do and looks awesome. Megan did some of these for our party last year.


See. Glitter.


See. Scary.


Craft store creepy crawlies and some hot glue and you're in business.


Again, black construction paper has endless possibilities.


Some are taped to the inside and some are hung by string to distort the shadows. Subtle. I like it.


Bat garland!


See. Glitter again! I really like this one.


Cupcake brains. Your kids class would love these.


Cheesecloth ghosts- a little involved, but look awesome.


YES! Gross edibles. That's what I'm talking about.


Cheesecloth curtains- again, a little more involved, but cheap and spooky.


Paper silhouettes. Only give your candy out to the brave trick-or-treaters with these. Or don't answer the door at all and really give them a scare.
Find all theses directions and how-tos here.