alone I am nameless, fearless and faceless.

So, the day after I wrote that previous doubting paragraph I had a sweet opportunity come my way. Just a reminder to focus on what I want and the things I have accomplished.

I had a funny, fucked up day yesterday. I'll just give the highlights. I had to take my mom out to the doctor and I almost dumped her out of her wheelchair, totally not on purpose (jeez!). Then we got into an argument. There was some swaring, I think, by me. I should be set on fire. Worst daughter ever.

Then I went to a large chain bookstore. It was very crowded because the lead guitarist of K0rn was signing his book. Not to slam on the his fans, but one has to picture the bookshelves this sure to be classic will land on. I'm guessing not next to leatherbound first editions. More likely next to a lot of D&D books, perhaps some books on Majik strategy, and the Big Book of Skulls. A Satanic Bible or two? Anyhoo, I needed help finding a book , I wait in line and I tell the guy behind the desk I'm looking for a book. He says, "Um, I can't really help you with that". However, there is a search kiosk thingy two feet from his right hand. I point this out to him and he says, "Yeah but I don't know how to use it". It says on the screen, "click the mouse to begin searching". Seriously. I ask if I can use it, even though it is slightly more on his side of the counter. He tells me no, and that I have to elbow through the K0rn crowd to go all the way to the information desk, which when I went back there, was unmanned. Where were these do nothing retail jobs when I was in my early 20"s? There's no way I could of gotten away with treating customers like that. I wasn't pissed, I was fucking jealous!

I can say that I hope it will be worth what I give up.

So there's been some doubts and worries lately. The thought that I'm not getting any younger or any richer or further down the road I want to be going down. It's all good though. Part of the process of being a human that takes risks, I guess. I can't say I wasn't warned, just not by anyone I believed in.

I've been watching some shows on you tube lately (no TV here) and two of my faves are the First 48 and Banged Up Abroad. The first one is an A&E show about homicide. Kind of depressing, but also very interesting and when the bad guys get it, it's a fist pumping fuck ya! The other show is British ( I think) and tells firsthand stories (and reenacts them) of people (American and Brits) who were/are imprisoned in other countries. Lots of very naive people drug smuggling, but also a guy on a road trip through South America who gets captured by Colombian rebels. If you wrote his story as fiction, it would be considered over the top. Search for it on the you tube. You won't be sorry. I haven't seen a dull episode yet.

I also spent some time with the true crime genre and I learned some factoids. One is that only paranoid killers remove their victims eyes. Another is the three elements most serial killers have: brain injury, childhood abuse, mental illness. Pretty much most of 'em have the trifecta of doom. Last one: at any given time there are about 100 of them roaming around the U.S. Sweet dreams!

Are you street or art school?

Highlights from my weekend:
Danced my ass off at kick-ass dance party. It was a rager.
Caught up with friends who just spent two months on the Silk Road.
Took part in a jam session. Some of the instruments in said session: two guitars, harmonica, egg shaker thing, bongos, dinner fork and beer bottle, bagpipes. The bagpipes were the Godzilla of the jam session, fo' sure.
Spoke with a long lost relative. Also, got an email from a woman I was friends with from preschool until 7th grade. In 7th grade, she got pissed off at me because I said that Who's the Boss, sucked ass. I guess she's finally over it.
Diagnosed my car's problem. I actually looked under the hood, took a couple of things apart, and put it all back together with no extra pieces. I'm so fucking butch, I can't stand it.

Squirrely

Birds do it. Bees do it. Squirrels do it in my yard. A lot.

I had opinions that didn’t matter. I had a brain that felt like pancake batter.

Ooooh, I was in sort of a black mood tonight. Big, nasty, monster dogs chased my cats through the yard, stepping on plants I just planted, Big Sir turned his nose up at the dinner I cooked, and then I spent close to an hour on the phone with one of those credit report places, most of it on hold. My security question was “what is the name of your favorite pet”? I had typed in my hands down favorite pet (living). It didn’t work. I typed in my hands down favorite pet (dead). Didn’t work either. So I was locked out of my account. When I finally got to talk to someone (India) they insisted that I name the damn pet’s name. I told them that both of my guesses were wrong. He suggested that I name all my pets. Now, I have had a lot of pets, with a lot of stoopid names. So I start naming names like Poopiehead and Loverbutterfacepants and Dingleberry Derek. Man, I started laughing my ass off and more embarrassingly he’s laughing his ass off too. The list was long and of course the pet I named last was the secret word. Ironically, it’s the pet I actually dislike the most. I must have been high to type her in as a fave. Or maybe she’d been kissing my ass that day. Who knows. I felt bad for the operator, having to listen to my sordid pet history so I actually let him roll through his sales pitch for like fifteen damn minutes. Ultimately, I don’t think he judged me that much. I’m pretty sure they name those sacred cows some pretty hi-fucking-larious names over there in that India. Or if they don’t, they should. Makes life more fun.

I do have some bitter disgust to pass on to the art world. As if it reads this. It doesn’t.
Please, please, please for the love of all that is pure and good in this world, cease and desist using owls, deer, and skulls in art. It’s not interesting. It’s not cute. It’s not ironic. It’s stupid. And boring. And totally overdone. And completely fucking lazy. Lazy because a person doesn’t even to attach meaning to these images to show them and sell them in important places. The meaning seems to be that everyone else is using them, which isn’t meaning, it’s lemming bullshit. For some reason this keeps getting celebrated over and over. Artists, please stop using these images. Gallerists and curators, please stop showing this bullshit, Collectors. For gods sake, stop collecting it. It’s not going to be worth a g-damn dime in ten years. It’s an insult to artists who are effectively using unique, thoughtful, meaningful symbols in their work. Gah! I get all frothy mouthed about this issue.

Alright, let us not end on that note. Really quick movie reviews. As it heats up outside, I hide in movie theaters more and more. Big Sir and an animator friend dragged me to Wall-e. I had zero expectations. Actually, that's not totally true. I expected to hate it. And I didn’t. I didn’t love it, but you know, Disney preaching to me about corporations that turn people into sloths… Well, that’s a little more than I can take. But, I really liked the first hour. I wish we could have stayed there. The deserted, lost and forgotten earth was really quite beautiful. The only other movie I’ve seen is Encounters at the End of the World. What a great movie for a hot day. I really love Herzog and although it is no Grizzly Man, it is quite beautiful and interesting. Basically you get to take a trip to Antarctica with Herzog. Which I totally would have, but he never called me.

Cliché quota met

Lately, Big Sir and I have been getting up at 5:30 in the morning to go running. Who am I? I don’t even know anymore. I’ve also been going to a yoga class once a week which starts at 9am on Sunday morning. And I show up on time and not hungover or anything. Last week were asked to loop our index fingers around our big toes, while standing, and swing the arm/leg combo out to the side. Try it, your leg will feel like its starting to leave your hip socket. Actually, don’t. It’s too crazy. I also have given up coffee. And TV.

This morning while we were running not only did we see a bird catch a worm, but we heard a rooster crow. It actually went cockle-doodle-do. I mentioned this to Gypsy Prince and he said, “Wow! That reminds me of the time I was hanging out with our friend J. She was on acid, and we saw a white rabbit”.

Give that coyote a one dollar taco.

My mom lives in an assisted living facility. It is a very nice one and she is actually quite happy there. The food is pretty good, they go on outings at least once a week, she has had suitors. The people that work there have been there for years and are very warm and caring. It is the best case scenario for someone with a chronic, debilitating disease, which she has. The one real drawback is that the people who live there, die periodically. When someone dies, they put a framed picture of them by the elevator along with any announcements of pending services. When I was visiting this week, I noticed a picture of a guy I call Patchy. Patchy was actually fairly young (late 50’s) to live there. He had the diabeetus and probably other things too. He still drank and smoked and had lost a leg and an eye, hence my nickname for him. He was always really antisocial and sort of had a chip on his shoulder. I’m sure he had his reasons for his moods. As a fellow moody person, I’m not judging. I said to my mom, “Oh wow, look Patchy died”. My mom says in this very ominous tone, “We all woke up Monday morning….except him”. It was as if she’s seen the cloaked figure of Death tapping people on the shoulder during bingo. Maybe she has. She is on a lot of medication. I signed her up to go see Iron Man to get her mind off of Patchy.

Last Friday we went to meet some friends at a new bar that has like hundreds of beers. It is sort of an arty/yuppie/NY lookin’ type of bar. It’s a little fancy for our side of town. However, it is located in the middle of a neighborhood that is currently involved in a fairly active gang war. We got there 15 minutes before they opened (8pm on a Friday!) and waited outside looking desperate for a drink. They had a large, newly paved (empty) parking lot that they wouldn’t let us park in. “Employees only” we were told. So, we get in there and I’m thinking, “Two strikes on this place”. We get our drinks, which are excellent, sit for awhile on comfy, cool couches, and have a great time. The music isn’t too loud, there aren’t too many people there, the bathroom has a butterfly theme. It’s all good. Our friends get hungry, and we are too tipsy to drive. The bar only serves bags of chips. We go outside and the doorman tells us there are tacos down the street. Huzzah! We walk about a block and we see a huge grilling table on the sidewalk. It’s actually an industrial grill like you’d see in a restaurant, except there’s no restaurant, just the grill and a table with condiments on it. We get some tacos (a dollar each!) and while we are waiting for them, we see a coyote cross the street, moving fast, nose to the ground. It was one of those moments, eating illegal tacos on a darkened street, in a gang ridden neighborhood, while scavengers skulked around us, that made me glad I live here. It’s exciting even when nothing is really happening. We get back to the bar and the bartender gets pissed at us for eating the tacos inside. The reason being, “It’ll smell like a taco truck in here”. Strike three!