DecapitatingShadows

I started these pillows waaaaay back in December. It's now August. September almost. At least I didn't forget about them. I think I am going a little bit pillow-happy, as I now have plans for more, bigger, and better pillows.







I also wanted to say a word of apology about the commenting thing. I didn't know that the blogger comment form wouldn't prompt for a name. We have a couple of options here (and since blogger now supports polls, I could do an actual survey). I could go back to the old system, in which I have no control over people spamming my blog; or I could disallow anonymous comments, which means you would all have to sign up (free) with blogger to be able to comment. Neither option is particularly great. There is another, third option that may come into existence, but I'll keep that a secret until later.

In the meantime, if you could kindly just type your handle at the end of your comment, I would really appreciate it. Otherwise I'll have to randomly guess what idiocy came out of whose mouth. You've got no incentive to be civil if it's just anonymous anarchy.

Blogger has added commenting as a feature for us cheapskate free bloggers, so hopefully I'll have that working shortly. The bad news is that all the comments on old posts will disappear (it was a third party bit of code hosted elsewhere). I hope you can all come to terms with it. But now at least I can prevent things like the recent ad-spamming to my precious blog. Or if not prevent, at least retaliate.

What is my favorite time of day? Why?

My favorite time of day is probably first thing in the morning, before the rest of the world is up, before the heat of the day, when it is still rife with possibilities and energy. I was up at 4:45 a.m. today, as I had to leave for a client meeting for work at 6 a.m. It's getting harder and harder for me to get myself up quite that early in the morning, but when I do manage it, it's very enjoyable. There's something nice about either getting lots done around the house, or getting that first cup of coffee and hitting the road for somewhere interesting before rush hour.

My other favorite time of day is mid-afternoon on a day when I don't have to work. I usually take a break from whatever I'm doing and have a snack and a cup of coffee. It's a time of day I keep just for me.

What do I enjoy?

There are so many things I enjoy that I get frustrated at not having enough time for them. I do not enjoy working 12 1/2 hour days, that much I can tell you. Why not tell me what you enjoy in the comments section? (Yes Steve, I know that you are the master of the interactive blog post, and I bow to you now.)

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A tempera version of 'The Scream' has been stolen from the Munch Museum in Oslo, Sweden. At gunpoint and in broad daylight. I have never understood art heists; you can't sell stolen paintings on the open market. You can sell them to unscrupulous private collectors, but what kind of wacko would want to collect things they could never, ever let anyone know they had? It's all just very odd. The value of art is so nebulous and really depends on the pieces being available in the open market. Very strange indeed.

Where am I wasting time, energy, or money?

It's hard for me to come up with an area where I honestly feel I'm wasting anyything. Strangely, painting still feels like a waste of time to me. I guess because I'm not doing enough of it, or not selling it/showing it. I make things that sit in a closet. Why?? I waste a lot of energy on worry. I'd like to focus more on where I waste money, seeing as we may have to do with less down the road a little. When I go over my personal expenditures, I find I spend a huge amount on food and entertainment, but a lot of this is for "dates" with A. I certainly don't consider that a waste, though I suppose we could find less expensive alternatives to sushi and martinis. I've heard people who are living on one income go on and on about how society is bad and wrong to convince us we must be "productive" so that we can have two cars and nice things. This kind of pissed me off (partly because it was directed at me, as a working woman), mainly because a lot of what we do with our two incomes is save for the future. It's not wrong to want to own your own house instead of paying the Man every month. I also like to travel and see the world (and in so doing, hopefully avoid being a narrow-minded provincial), and I'd like to be able to enjoy my retirement years. Maybe these things are all a part of the system, and as such wrong-headed too, but I'm just not ready to move back to the farm. I also wish I could figure out where I waste time, because I often get frustrated at not having enough time for all of the many things I enjoy doing. I have to force myself to sit and relax for a couple of hours on Sunday morning. Sad, I know.

What in my life makes me feel competent?

The things in my life that make me feel competent are my work life, which thankfully is moving more and more towards artistic pursuits. My marriage makes me feel competent; having been through so much together and knowing that we can accomplish so much together. Other more mundane things that make me feel competent are money management(though not today, as A is balancing the checkbook and finding several math errors in my handwriting), and probably cooking.

I am currently reading The Mother Trip by the fabulous Ariel Gore. It's a book of essays about feminism, motherhood, and the creative life. In one of her essays, Gore poses a series of questions that she asks the reader to ponder. These are questions about being truly happy, keeping onesself centered, and generally creating a little peace in one's life. Hoepfully this isn't way too serious for my dear readers, but I thought I should think about them honestly and have decided to use them as a device to keep up a little better with my blog.


Where am I feeling burdened, restricted, and limited in my life?

The things that make me feel burdened are the "oughts" in my life--financial, social, etc. The things I know I "should" do to get where I'd like to be. I feel sometimes I don't have enough time to relax, enjoy myself, and I fear not reaching my goals because of some of the other personal decisions I am making at this time.

I don't know that I'd use the word "restricted" to describe how any of these things make me feel; I have always reached the goals I have set for myself, but I do fee a lot of time pressure now (fast approaching the big 3-0.) The timeline for many of my long-term goals is getting shorter and shorter. I have developed this sort of schizophrenic consciousness of the passage of time--feeling too old to keep starting things over, but conversely having the wisdom to see that many things are built in little pieces over a long stretch of time.

Well, folks, I really hoped to be better about this whole blogging thing, but since at my day job we were just informed that 60 hour weeks are expected until further notice and I also have about 20 hours of freelance work left undone, I shall attempt to console my loyal readers with the occasional Photograph of Interest. First in this series, one of the treasures of my recent trip to Las Vegas. I give you: The Cowboy.

Just had to share a little good news. I was notified today that two of my collages have been accepted into a juried show at The Parkland Art Gallery at Parkland College. When it rains, it pours. Well, I don't have to have my pieces there for a couple months yet, but it has come at a time when I'm super busy with some web design stuff and the usual ten thousand other things. I'm pretty excited, since it's my first juried show.

In other news, there are people falling from the sky all around our apartment. Literally. Our humble town is the site of Free Fall, which is a big-deal skydiving gathering that happens every year. Apparently they usually lose a few participants (one story had something to do with a helicopter rotor. Ouch.) It was a gorgeous, clear day today, and every time I went outside there were half a dozen people parachuting down over the airfield. Who says life in rural Illinois is dull?

The Sixth Sense was scary. And cool. And well-done.
Unbreakable was interesting and kinda cool. Very original story, and fairly well done.
Signs started out scary, but got kinda dumb and I left feeling a little cheated.

If you sense a pattern here, you know what's coming.

The Village had some cool/scary moments, but the acting was horrible and the plot twists were too... I don't know. Twisty. It's fun to have the rug pulled out from under you once, but when it keeps happening you get a little numb to it I suppose. I really can't say anything about this movie that you haven't seen in the previews (There's a village. It looks to be about 1805. There are monsters in the woods, everyone running about with cloaks on, scary scary and so forth) without ruining it, so I won't. It was a really interesting idea, but somehow it just came off as corny/poorly acted. Which is surprising, with heavy hitters such as Sigourney Weaver, William Hurt, Joaquin Phoenix, and Adrien Brody. But on to Adrien Brody. Why is he so hot? I mean, he's not Brad Pitt handsome, but I think I'd let him do things to me I wouldn't let Brad do. And I haven't even seen The Piano. Interesting.

In any case, The Village wasn't "I want those two hours back" bad (See Event Horizon and/or Eye of the Beholder for that level of suck), but I was thoroughly disappointed. It did make me jump in my seat once or twice, which is a good thing, but not enough to carry the movie.