oh no

lyrics time again. Besides I desperately need to bump the other post off the top of this page.

Listening to Gogol Bordello's album "Gypsy Punks: Underdog World Strike" - which is REALLY a VERY good album... not to mention Eugene Hutz is just yummmmmm... or at least his perceived self. Some how I just know this band will NEVER make it to Houston TX.

"Oh No" Gogol Bordello

Sometimes when facing common trouble
When whole town is screwed
We become actually human
Act like Prometheus would
Suddenly there is more humor
And a party tabor style
People ringing one another
"Yo man, how was your blackout?"
Suddenly there is more music
Made with the buckets in the park
Girls are dancing with the flashlights
I got only one guitar!
And you see brothers and sisters
All engaged in sport of help
Making merry out of nothing
Like in refugee camp
Oh yeah Oh no, it doesn't have to be so
It is possible any time anywhere
Even without any dough
Oh yeah Oh no, it doesn't have to be so
Forces of the creative mind are unstoppable!
And you think, All right, now people
They have finally woked up
But as soon as the trouble over
Watch them take another nap
Nobody is making merry
Only trotting scared of boss
Everybody's making hurry
For some old forgotten cause
But one thing is surely eternal
It's condition of a man
Who don't know where he is going
Who don't know where does he stand
Who's dream power is corked bottle
Put away in dry dark place
Who's youth power is well buried
Under propaganda waves
Who's dream life is in opposition
With the life he leads today
Who's beaten down in believing
It just kinda goes this way!
Oh no, it doesn't have to be so
Forces of the creative mind are unstoppable!

blech

I am sorry to be quiet... have been in a funk...started working on my cat "problem" and lets just say I have a lot of trouble dealing with this stuff...still when I think of having to euthanize I cry. I just can't deal with being the thing that connects these critters directly to their death.

I could not bring myself to take them to the SPCA where they would sit in some kennel scared shitless until abruptly being snatched up for their final procedure... so took them to a vet instead. He was very good...quick...kind... and he was very supportive of what I was doing.

I have another apointment on Friday for getting two females fixed and will continue slowly to take care of my out-of-control feral cat colony. I am ashamed it got this out of control, in my defense it happens quickly... blech.

last night...

G-spot and I went to town for Erica's opening... i was and am very excited for Erica in this new venture, but i have to admit after all this time of checking myself out of the maintstream art world i was even more excited to see old friends. and indeed! it felt so good being with them.

Max looked great and was in the prime-form that only he can be in. Mitch, Carolyn, John, Carrie, and i took a little trek off the beaten-path to Max's gallery to look at a piece that Max had been working on... an ink drawing of a beautiful gnarly old tree with a sort of yin yang going on as the tree is intensely lined and dark on one side, moving to clean, simplified light on the other. In typical artist-fashion he was worried that the piece wasn't "working" - but it was and we all tried to convince him of the fact.

While I was in his gallery I wanted to see the latest show that was hanging and took to wandering around the gallery... there are some really great works in this one... I come to expect this at M2 as Max and Michael have a high-bar set for what goes on the walls.

I discovered that Max had one of my paintings hanging in the show, "Release" is the paintings name. Now, my words can not do justice to the feelings i went through seeing it hanging without knowing it would be there. Max is really a good friend and I feel we share some common threads that leave me knowing we share a love for each other.. and NOT in a romantic or sexual sense! And full-knowing Max could be capable of hastily hanging that painting as a gesture of friendship knowing i might be there to see it... I also know how important it is to Max to have a show hung right...with each piece properly flowing into the next. I have sat and watched him agonize over every single painting in a show for hours on end... and so it is with this knowlege that I was so touched by seeing my painting there hanging. I know he wanted it there, I know he believed in it and its relationship to the gallery as well as the paintings hanging along side it.

I am still blown away by this, I just don't know how I could truly thank him.

There were LOTS of real life hugs last night and it felt so good... in contrast, I hate hugs where two people barely touch - as if there is a thin layer of shit between them that they dare not get on each other and these sorts of hugs are always accompanied by nervous pats on the back... those were not the types of hugs that went around last night.... we held each other, smiled, laughed, closed our eyes, felt each other's warmth... it was so nice.

I had one-of-a-handful-to-date, great psychology-based conversations with Carrie. She is an energetic woman alive with electricity I swear... she is getting ready to do her internship in NY at Mt. Bellview and as I write this is probably standing on a curb in Long Island checking out over-priced apartments, as her plane was leaving at o-dark-thirty this morning for three days of touring the hood for housing.

When Carrie and I have a chance to talk it is always a very candid conversation... and why not? I happily volunteer myself for her free-services, and in some ways she does the same with me, which of course is quite flattering to me.

She told me before we parted for the night that she loves talking to me as she leaves learning something about herself every time.. I was floored by this compliment to the point of not knowing how to respond, nor was I able to reciprocate and tell her she always has the same effect on me.

There was of course much more to the evening...but I will refrain from going on and on and convincing you of my oddness.

Now back to cleaning a path through our house so that when my mother arrives tomorrow night to spend the night she won't have to mark out an obstacle course to find her sleeping place... cheers!

tonight

I was invited into another family as they lived and loved and said goodbye to Rachael, who is returning back to Westpoint at bright-thirty in the morning. So many dynamics, an intriguing family INDEED... i was charged with both Gordy and Amandas cameras for the evening.... looking through the lense makes it easy to remove ones'self from the emotions at hand and simply be the quiet observer.

pics on G's camera

rainy thursday

pleasant rain drops, John Prine singing in my ear, smiles coming and going, new life breathing, old hearts still beating, female finch is hiding under the awning keeping out of the rain... HOWDY and CHEERS!

Nothing like a little bit of music...

... to usher ya through the day. Normally I don't listen to music at work because I have to keep an ear out for calls coming in...but today, screw it, I need some music! Got my headphones locked on and the music is bouncing around in my brain like a happy little ferret with a new toy. *grin*

Current tunes: Dream Baby (Roy Orbison), A Case of You (Joni Mitchell), Beautiful World (Colin Hay), We (The Roches), Down to Zero (Joan Armatrading), Free Fallin (Tom Petty) All of Rickie Lee Jones' album "Flying Cowboys" - oh man, I have always loved this album... digginonnit.

hello world...

...this is me. with trepidation AND delight i offer this image up. It was taken by myself in the quiet of my alone-ness in a vain attempt at capturing a mood, a visual explaination, misguided self-definition, a search for something beautiful... I dunno.

I have tried for a Loooong time to be at peace with the source of this image.

and so it is that I would like to create a challenge to a few of the women whom I am so impressed with to do the same. I guess I am asking you to participate in a new meme... this one visual, no words... play with a camera and please if you feel compelled present an image of yourself that speaks of you in some autobiographical way.

TAG upon TAG upon TAG - you are it! :) Love you!

Jamie, Michelle, JaneDoughnut, Becky, Paisley

one of those things i do...

...when i need to interrupt my thought process and insert a new trajectory is google search for random fragments/phrases/questions and see what comes up.

today:

1. what if i had a banana for a right foot?
2. how many times can I do this?
3. lizards are benevolent.
4. languid pools of pudding

and then this one:
"furtive glances" which among other items, popped up an article written in Harvard University Press in 2000.

QUANTUM PHYSICS:
Furtive Glances Trigger Radioactive Decay
Charles Seife

Common sense says you can't keep an atom's nucleus from decaying simply by looking at it. Quantum mechanics says you can. Now two Israeli physicists have come up with a way in which watching a nucleus might make it decay faster.

You have to be a member to read the whole article... I don't care to read the whole thing, rather like the out of context places you can take this. The title is like some kind of poetry.

a good storm...

...not a GREAT storm, but a nice one has rolled in over us. A little bit of lightening and thunder is dancing around us at the moment here at work. What does this mean?

1. The temperature has dropped and is now closer to pleasant range.
2. I am wet, because I had to go stand in the rain.
3. Gordy WILL be wet as he is riding the motorcycle on his lunch break right now.
4. The tadpoles eeking out their existance in the dwindeling puddles of the hole I dug in the yard have just been given another day or so to perhaps make it to toad-ism.
5. The little sulphur butterfly that flitted haphazardly between raindrops passing me as I stood in the rain did not make it through the next parking lot, the rain downed it somewhere by a red Chevy malibu.

Ha! Managed to convince...

...Gordy and Brandon of the awesome attributes of my super-power-boa for dispelling late-afternoon office buttlag.

ughhhhhh

This time of day, every day, every single part of my body is chanting "I want to go to sleeeeeeep."
but i put on my super-power-boa and galantly fight off the urge to cat nap

whenna da moon hits your eyeah likah...

bigga pizza pieah...

When the moon hits your eye
Like a big-a pizza pie
That's amore
When the world seems to shine
Like you've had too much wine
That's amore

Bells'll ring
Ting-a-ling-a-ling
Ting-a-ling-a-ling
And you'll sing "Vita bella"
Hearts'll play
Tippi-tippi-tay
Tippi-tippi-tay
Like a gay tarantella

When the stars make you drool
Joost-a like pasta fazool
That's amore
When you dance down the street
With a cloud at your feet, you're in love
When you walk in a dream
But you know you're not dreamin', signore
'Scusami, but you see
Back in old Napoli, that's amore

(When the moon hits your eye)
(Like a big-a pizza pie, that's amore)

That's amore

(When the world seems to shine
(Like you've had too much wine, that's amore)

That's amore

(Bells will ring)
(Ting-a-ling-a-ling)
(ting-a-ling-a-ling)
(And you'll sing "Vita bella")
(Vita bell-vita bella)
(Hearts will play)
(Tippi-tippi-tay, tippi-tippi-tay)
(Like a gay tarantella)

Lucky fella

When the stars make you drool just like pasta fazool
That's amore (that's amore)
When you dance down the street
With a cloud at your feet, you're in love
When you walk in a dream
But you know you're not dreaming, signore
'Scusami, but you see
Back in old Napoli, that's amore

The worst current manifestation of...

...my dysfunctionality is my inability to take these feral cats to the SPCA... I have a BIG problem with having to be the decisive element in what brings their lives to an end.

So, as a result, here is yet another tail in the never-ending saga of becoming the bonified cat lady of H-town Texas.

This one begins before all the damn cats showed up and I was still actively rehabbing wild birds. I received two pigeons at about the same time- one pigeon had been injured to the point of being unable to fly ever again. The other pigeon was perfect, but to his detriment, HE fell in love with HER and would not leave her side, always walked on the ground as near to her as he could get.

In a typical rehab situation a flightless bird, (especially a non-native flightless bird) would be euthanized unless it was one of educational value, like a raptor or an owl - or a threatened/endangered species.

Federal law does not protect rock doves (city pigeons) as they are non-native and considered an invasive species. I could have made stew of the bird had I wanted... instead I opted for having she and her mate bask in their love for each other.

Eventually, I built a birdhouse for them. I am no carpenter so it wasn't the finest piece of architecture by any means. I placed a ramp running up to the birdhouse so that the handicapped pigeon and her companion could easily come and go from the house. The two love birds lived there for quite some time until eventually the female met her inevitable flightless fate. The male hung around the house for a few days, but soon afterward took to flying about the tree tops, zipping in and out for a final day before the call of the wild pricked his little ear holes and he decided it was time to look for another love to fill his feathered void.

The tacky little birdhouse has been there, uninhabited for a couple years. The "ramp" is long gone, I believe it was recruited to fill in for some other wood during a hasty repair job on the porch.

Number One on the bench below the birdhouse

Remember Number One and Number Two? The two kittens left behind in my shed after their mother was hit in the street? Well, One and Two decided that they liked the old high-rise condo and moved in a couple weeks ago.
Number Two hanging on the porch

They sleep up there at night, hang out on the little "porch" and on the roof during the heat of the day, and as of this morning I discovered something else they did up there... argh.
Bless their pointed little heads.

This is just too cool NOT to post

Thank you Emily for sending the link :)

a long story about doing dishonest things (aka confession)

When I was 16, fresh from a year-long residency at the Hope Center Wilderness Camp for juvenile delinquents, not all the lessons I had learned at camp had quite settled in my brain yet and I managed to convince my mother who had pretty much given up on me, to allow me to go live in downtown Houston.

I went there to live with my girlfriend from camp... Not wanting to appear afraid of doing the job, I found myself working in a nude modeling studio at another persons suggestion. It was an awful job - full of perverts, deviates, drinking, and self-preservation via other mind-numbing substances.

I learned how to trick a lie-detector test that summer because vice came in and made all the models take tests to ensure that they were old enough to be working in such a place. It should come as no surprise, most of the girls were not... and yet we all passed the test... payoff or did we really fool the test?

It is at this place I met a customer (a man about mid-thirties who liked to see me tied up) who began to come in repeatedly to see me and claimed that he was falling in love with me and wanted to marry me. One day, while not at work I was walking with my girlfriend, and her OTHER girlfriend (of course I did not know at the time we were all sharing the pie) This customer pulled his car in front of us, cutting us off and saying that he had a surprise for me, he had gotten me a ring.

My first reaction was a little bit of fear at being tracked down in real life by a customer. But my two cohorts in crime quickly nudged me and encouraged me to go along, get the ring, later we could go to a pawn shop and sell it, and never see the man again.

We had a very bizarre mini-celebration at the Shakeys drive-in on Westheimer. He bought all three of us burgers and after all was said and done we had him drop us off at a fake location... said good bye... and then as soon as we could, made our way to a pawn shop. That was supposed to be the end of it - we were so sure of ourselves and our evil plan.

In trying to find me, This man, managed to find out my real name (models did not use their real names) - he also found out my mom's real name, her address, and phone number. He began to call her telling her he was worried because he was unable to locate his future bride. By the time I moved back home with mom, the man actually showed up with his two young children (YES! HE HAD KIDS) one night to introduce them to their new mother. Mom bravely faced him in the driveway, telling him that he was mistaken, I was much too young and that he should forget me and never call, write, or show up again.

I was so scared at seeing this man standing in our driveway that I wanted to run to a back window of the house, climb out, and run until I could go no further, but instead stood frozen in my place, watching mom silouetted by the headlights of the mans car which was still running and listening to her voice... and his voice, and watching as one of his small children (at his order) dashed to the front door of our house delivering an easter basket full of gifts for me. He did finally collect his children and leave.

For years this man sent me things in the mail, called, and stalked me. Two days after learning to drive a stick-shift I recieved a card in the mail that asked: "So Daisy, have you learned to shift gears yet?" and went on to say that he looked forward to the day when we would be together eternally in heaven. I received many cards like this over the years. He often mentioned things I was doing and the belief that we would meet up on some mountain where there, we would become eternally bound.

By the time I had my first daughter, he was still writing, sending packages, calling me at odd hours when my husband would be working the grave yard shift. One night he called back at least a half-dozen times, I broke down in fear for my new baby suffering some terrible fate at the hands of a crazy man all because of my dishonest act as a 16 year old and begged the man to stop calling me.

At one point as soon as I hung up, I called the police. The whole scenario did not lend itself to any sort of empathy on behalf of the policeman I spoke with - and rightly so, in many ways I deserved this... but I knew my baby did not, and if anything happened to her it would have been a horrible thing. Back then, there were no stalker laws, there was nothing you could do about the calls, about the cards, or packages. Even though the officer agreed the words used by the man were creepy - unless the man came right out and said "I am going to kill you" There was absolutely nothing the law could do to stop it and suggested I simply keep my phone off the hook when not wanting to receive calls.

My husband, daughter, and I moved from that house. More years went by and Mom continued to receive things addressed to me in the mail from the man. He did not conceal his identity so mom managed to track him down. She contacted HIS parents and told them of all the things their son had done over the years and asked them to do everything in their power to discourage and stop their son.

That was about the time the calls, cards, etc. stopped.

Why on EARTH did I write this? Well, it is something (one of the things) I did that I have forever felt guilty about (taking that ring and selling it) - but also because I can see that someone from the town of his last residence (that I know of) has started coming to this website - repeatedly. I can't help but say that seeing this in the stats sent an alarm off.

At the extremely bizarre chance this visitor could be that man (you and I both know who you are) I apologize to you for my selfish actions as a fucked up teenager, and would like to reimburse you for that ring.

Infinity

How To (or NOT) Write a Users Manual

AAAaaaaRRRgggHHHhhhh... There! Had to get that out of my system.

When I am not pretending to be an artist I work for a software company. The job helps me to afford pretending to be an artist after 5pm M-F and on most weekends.

The last couple of weeks I have been in charge of re-writing/designing the updated users manual for the software product the company sells. So in between tech-support calls, marketing pieces, trade-show signage, new product design discussions, and picking my nose I have been locked away in my cubicle trying to write the manual. This is no easy task for me!

I take this documention very seriously. To me, the users manual is your one real chance outside the software itself to prove to a befuddled user that YES infact, the software IS easy to use.

Finding the balance between instructions that are clear and concise, giving the user enough information so as to understand what the heck it is all about, and structuring it in such a way that it visually not too overwhelming, is a fine act to pull off.

Don't get me wrong - what ever I finish will be far from complete. Anyone who has read my blog entries knows my spelling and grammar is *eh-hem* somewhat lacking. After me, the document will go to our Master of the English language for a manicure.

The point of this entry is what? Well, just that I needed to say: Man will I be glad when I'm done with this thing!