With Grey, one morning I woke up and I had these astonishing stretch marks all along the underside of my belly. It looked like a tiger had carefully taken its claws and raked them up my belly -- all these angry red marks. It was actually almost lovely in it's own way.
So far I haven't developed any new stretch marks with this child (although I do have a -- gusty sigh -- month yet to go). But the tips of all my old stretch marks (now silvered and nearly invisible with time) are all touched red -- like tiny blossoms at the end of a garden of silver stalks.
I left straight from work on Friday and got to site around 12:45, which was unfortunately too late to join in on Vilfiication Ping Pong. I debated going in street clothes, but on the off-chance that Something Awesome would happen, I suited up.
Something Awesome turned out to be the birth of our new jug band, The O'Culligans!
See BJ over on the left wailing on his "guitar?" It has a working whammy bar and everything! And then there's Jessamine pounding the hell out of some benches (she took the skin off both her hands), Chad with his bottlecap shaker, me throwing horns and wailing on the jug Aerosmith style, and Brian on drums We crashed Drum Jam and broke pretty much all the drummers, who were apparently pretty damn bored before that.
Right before I left site for the year, Becca told a funny story about something that happened earlier this season that I wish to God I had seen. Apparently Colin from SS was walking past the sheep pen in the petting zoo one night, and as a joke, leaned over and told the sheep, "How YOU doin?" in a sexy voice.
As one, the sheep all bleated in alarm and ran to the other side of the pen as fast as they could.
And thus ends the year. I miss it already, and have schemes for next season rolling around in my skull.
And if you read through every single one of these posts this season, you deserve some sort of fucking huzzah.
I dig all of my classes...Even the challenging ones...I've got six classes this semester which a bit more than I've had for awhile but I'm being proactive about my time, which is making life a little easier this semester... Here are my classes this semester...
My class at The Atelier last night was relaxed and productive. With a huge weight off my shoulders, I worked for nearly three hours straight with only one short break for water. I want to push forward with this as fast as I can while still maintaining quality.
This is the bust I'm drawing and this is my progress so far:
I'm refining shadows and fixing the values of darkest parts first. Once I've established the dark shadows, I can build up and compare the mid-tones. This drawing will not be as refined as the previous Caesar drawing because I'm only doing a basic layout to transfer to a canvas for painting. The painting is going to be the REAL challenge with this bust.
I know a fellow-student who has been painting the same image canvas for two years now. I try not to dwell on that or I get a sort of sick feeling in my stomach. I'm not really bothered by the thought of painting. It's the HUGE time commitment that seems insurmountable at this point. But the Caesar bust drawing seemed impossible when I started that project and I somehow lived through it.
That's why I keep other projects going in my studio at home. Just keep moving forward, even if it's at a snail's pace.
Hello, LJ Land...Many apologies but I guess I'm long overdue for a virtual update...I just realized it's been about a month since my last post...And what a month it was...
Quit Job - I quit my Part Time I.T. job at Accessible Space...Really nice place to work for, but my school schedule this fall was getting too hectic and I couldn't rearrange hours that would work...Sorry to leave but I'm glad I did...
DragonCon - The last week of August, I was hired to work for Saracura (the store) and traveled down to Atlanta, GA with saracura (the cool chick) to help her out in the Dealer's Room...The drive down, with no A/C, was sweaty and aggrevating...The work itself was fun, but with just the two of us, we were constantly busy; we didn't have much energy at the end of the day to see panels or hang out at parties - although we did see quite a few interesting costumes...And we did get to have dinner with chebutykin and cajones but that was about it...And then, when leaving Atlanta, we made a wrong turn and, two hours later, found ourselves in the Appalachian Mts....while the detour pushed us back a few hours, the view was breathtaking...After a night at a crappy hotel, we got back home...and then I started school the next day...
School - I'll explain my classes in the next post, but suffice to say that the reason I haven't been posting anything is cuz I've been really busy with six classes worth of school work...and when I haven't been doing school work, I've been having brief periods of socializing or hangin' with my sweetie...
So dear reader, you'll forgive my absence, won't you?
Last year, during the month of October I emulated Hungry for a Month, where you can only spend $30 total for food in 30 days. I walked away with a heightened awareness of attitudes towards food as well as my own dietary habits.
I'm going to do it again this year, timing it so my first day of food freedom is November 6th, the day I'm planning on going to Siren for Omegacon. Counting backwards, this means that my first day will be next Tuesday, October 7th.
Does anyone want to do this with me? If so, let me know -- we can probably get a little more variety in our food if we coordinate shopping trips, split large things like bags of rice and dried beans, and maybe even swap some meals.
skywayman has done this project as well and while I cannot speak for him, I will say for myself that while it was not exactly fun at all times, it was absolutely, definitely, 100% worthwhile.
I had a day off with Malie today. We went to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts this morning for a few hours. I was itching to see Rembrandt's Lucretia and some other paintings. Sadly, they have put Lucretia behind glass now. The delicate shades of brown are lost to the viewer but she's still so tormented that I ache when I see it. I have a few gripes with the new administration of the MIA.
I had to see this again before we left: Temptation by the renowned Bouguereau is cheesy subject matter but so expertly painted that you can forgive him the sentimental mush. They fairly BREATHE on canvas. The baby was so realistic that Malie said, "Bye!" and waved when we left the room.
We walked past Murillo's Penitent Magdelene and Malie said, "Mama! It's you!" I had a good laugh about that. I do have long hair, pale skin and tired looking eyes. Not to mention the skull in my studio. We won't talk about personality similarities.
Malie was patient for most of the day. We got hollered at once when I let her put her hands in the main fountain (it's running water with no signs or ropes around it AND it's full of pennies...talk about mixed signals). I think bringing her stroller would have been wiser than letting her hold my hand and walk. Standing in front of a painting for more than 20 seconds is not her bag. Such is the nature of the toddler.
Fortunately, there is a Family Center downstairs at the Institute with boxes of toys, tiny tables and a changing station for diapers. I let Malie run free there with other kids. Introducing myself to other parents, I had the horrible realization that I was in the company of wealthy stay-at-home-moms who come to the MIA all the time with their kids (with names like Solan, Beatrix, Willa and Claudia).
Even more disturbing was the idea that I fit right in (Amalia is just as pretentious a name, I know). We discussed early childhood education and nutrition until I had the sudden urge to run for my life. Lucky for me, I have Weird Al and a love of Tenacious D to keep me lowbrow and down-to-earth. *whew*
Here are two photos of clever Malie building a Rube Goldberg machine with straws so she can sip in comfort. She cannot be left alone for long or I'm sure she would create a bomb from watermelon seeds, spaghetti and an old bib. Maybe she'll grow up to be an engineer:
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