Unmoved.

By night's end, the bunny count was at a whopping six, leading local residents to twitter about early tulips, fat robins, global warming, and potential stews for the upcoming year. The rabbits remained unfazed, however, and continued to nibble at the gardens and the cardboard Peanuts cutouts. Several took advantage of their holiday status and the atmosphere of springtime tolerance and basked on the sidewalks, tripping dogwalkers and flashing impertinent tails at the fair-weather runners.

Mornin'.

I'm in the worst mood of my life.

My knee has exploded in pain.

I have to serve thirty two people eggs benedict and polish sausage in twenty eight minutes (and counting).

My Easter Bunny has always been black with glowing red eyes (Santa has glowing green, the Tooth Tairy has glowing yellow). Every Easter, I wake in the predawn to the mental image of him slavering by my bedside.

My aunt has no fewer than five crucifixes in her house. I hate crucifixes worse'n the smell of eggs benedict and polish sausage.

Warrior woman.

There's been a hot debate (I should say, hotness debate) going the last couple of days over four little ladies. This pic puts things in better perspective, I think, and goes far to prove me right.

My ranking? From hottest to least hot, go from right to left.

Maybe a quick nap.

That owl knows something's up.

Who's the woman kidding, really? No self-respecting peddlar would sport her wares so carelessly. In these days of the Roadside Outlaw, the best method is to bundle and run from town to town, fingering a charm against brigandry.

There's also something about her appearance. An awareness of the waist and a tightness of the bodice that at best hints at coquetry, at worst vanity. Neither of which lends itself to an occupation that relies on distraction and deception and the savory secrets in pockets and twisted scarves. And those earrings, and ribbons, and polished(!) buckles--storybook embellishments, and no more practical than her shoes.

But over everything is the smell. Not of woodsmoke and bog, but of expensive perfumes gone stale. Of blood and of bad magic. As hard to disguise as the gold skirts winking around her ankles. But it doesn't have to be a lasting costume--just impressive enough for an adolescent. She only needs a few moments, and then it will all be cast aside as she gloats over her Bianca (or Blanche, or Alba, or Gwynne--whatever name this particular juncture in time and place sees fit to give its Snow White).

Such a thin getup for someone who knows. The owl could warn the girl, but why? He is a bird of ill-omen after all, and the sun is just beginning to rise....

"Three cirlces--two moons and a crown."

The latest in the avian antics down by the lake:

Three birds whirling in the way-ups. Hawk. Seagull. Crow.
The gull is wailing.
The hawk is the obvious aggressor--either holding something or after something, but certainly up to something.
The two smaller birds work as a team and take turns buzzing. One shining arrow, one dark blot.

I've got nothing. We could have been watching the end to the ill-fated pairing of two star-crossed birds. Or the beginning. Or perhaps it was simply neighborly altruism on the part of the crow. Or the traditional reenactment of some old Native story--Crow suing for Gull's hand, Gull pleading with Hawk. Or an assasination attempt by Hawk's two closest councillors.

It all smacked of portent. Or maybe of riddle.

A bit dated...

I was folding laundry and listening to My Radio when this (yes, it's a Rhapsody link) came on. The vocals were cloudy from where I was standing, but it had a strumming modern indie feel and it was good. Turns out it was Pink Floyd (when in doubt, it's always Floyd--or Beck). I happen to (really) like Floyd, but give 'er a whirl. If you likey, I also recommend "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun" on their A Saucerful of Secrets. You'll never believe it's from 1968.

In actual current music news, I hear Gomez has a new cd coming out. Word is May 2nd.

Deviations.

This one got away from me for a while. Probably because in the middle of the (excessively long) process I started making up stupid stories.

The girl in the middle is Mousy. Our heroine. Drab, temperamental, smart. She's poor--probably orphaned--but with some rare gift (aside from head-of-the-class status). The king likely owes her family some debt (her father saved his life, or maybe he was in love with her mother but they couldn't marry--I'm fuzzy on the specifics) and has taken Mousy in out of guilt and duty. She has the run of the castle and is included in the activities of the royal children--included, but always apart. Sigh. In their company, the dramas of her life unfold.

1. Black Haired Girl. The Bitch. Everyone knows The Bitch is always either very dark or very pale--but always lovely. Out to make Mousy's life misery. Grows up to be the comely competition.

2. Blondie. The Best friend. Quiet, unsure, timid. Beautiful, but not too bright. Devoted and demure. Vapidly religious. Outwardly appalled at Mousy's stubborn ways, but secretly approving. Smuggles snacks and gifts during the Hard Years when Mousy is forced to labor in either the stables or the kitchens.

3. Boy Standing. Some kind of wise-ass higher-up. Often partners with The Bitch to make the other's lives hell. Oh, but wait. He'll grow up to be cute and dashing, and will undoubtedly fall for Mousy at some point. Sorry though, hard-nosed girls don't go for spoiled-brat sons of viziers or dukes or whatever. He probably ends up with Blondie as consolation.

4. Sullen Boy on Wall. Love Interest, duh. Evil tempered but fair. Roams the grounds viciously defending--no, viciously tormenting--the castle geese and chickens and mice. Hates The Bitch (though she flounces around him enough, to be sure). Best friends with Boy Standing (though that relationship is weak and will eventually dissolve due to someone's betrayal). Goes off to adventure or crusade and comes back lean and scarred, and totally hot.

5. Boy Sitting. Look at that shirt. Mousy's Gay Friend.

Oh, and at some point they had a pompous tutor who fell off a wall.

In our fridge.

As predicted, Chocolate has pulled ahead of 1% in the Race of the Gallons.

Horses and Men.

Oh man. A very lazy draft of something I wanted to keep at the front of my mind. Don't look too closely, those rough edges cut.

Modern gods.

All right. Here it is. The single gayest piece of thing I've ever seen. And of all places, above the sink in my grandmother's kitchen.

Despite my past importunings, she's kept it there, insistent that my uncle will give her glory-halleluiah if he comes home to find it down, or (if I'd had my way) dropped indecorously into the toilet. Fact is, I've come around to it--enough to give it half-friendly, half-reverential taps as I fill the tea kettle. So it stays, winking at the blushing ceramic rooster across the room, keeping the cliffs of tea cups from caving in, and dancing over the dishwater like some jaunty Triton. All to allow passage of my grandmother's grey curly head as she raises her sails and gazes into the Backyardlands.

I've never even HEARD of "Where the Blue Begins".

I found a Japanese website that has masses of work from a smattering of illustrators. Some of the shots offer close-ups that verge on the obscene (we're talking bristle-strokes and smudged pencil lines laid bare for all to see), and while I'm sure the artists would have something to say about the unflattering microscopics of it all, it's great for study. I'm not going to give a link because I'm very possessive--and, might I add, a bit jealous and ashamed. But let's just add prolific to the mountain of praise that's already been heaped on my favorite.

The League of Extraordinary Hoplites.

This fell into my lap yesterday. The cover is horrible and the reek of the Sci-Fi/Fantasy aisle at Barnes&Noble is usually enough to ward off my troublesome geek streak, but sometimes I will not be budged. I'm a big Holdstock fan, and the prospect of intertwining Arthurian and Greek storylines had me standing slack and salivating for more than a few minutes.

What held me was the idea of Merlin as one of the Argonauts. I'll admit I've had some passing theories of my own about the many incarnations of Merlin in literature (the ageless Schmedrick, anyone? Prospero? Hello, Gandalf, who came streaking out of the west from the direction of a place called, uh...Avallonne?) Most of mine are pretty ludicrous, but Holdstock's makes perfect sense--Merlin the Timeless, the Deathless could indeed have been around during the time of the Argo. And if he were, it certainly follows that he would have been a member of what was essentially the Bronze Age Justice League. Everyone who was anyone was on that ship (Hercules, Atalanta, Peleus, Orpheus, Castor and Pollux--even two dudes with wings, a la Hawkman)--it would have been incumbent on him as a B-rated hero to man an oar for the shining Jason.

So now, I've taken it on myself to ferret out which of the thirty-odd crewmen he could have been. Odds are I'll lose interest in the P's (who the hell was Peneleos, and why should I care if he was Boetian?), but it should prove fun in the meantime.

Maker.

My self-absorption knows no limits.

If only they had a ponytail option.

"When I look up, I just trip over things."

I've been on the hunt for the perfect tree. Perfectly imperfect, I should say. Been going around with our low-end digital camera (which might as well have a handcrank for as much good as batteries do it) and making a nuisance of myself in parks and on lawns. So as not to give people the right impression (I imagine I walk a fine enough line in the minds of our neighbors), I've been using Alex as something of a model. He's been a good sport, hamming it up with hemlocks, posing with poplars, beaming with birches and the like--all while I snuffle among the roots and shoots (gollumgollum), capturing everything but him and begging that he please not trample the mushrooms.

It's for a good cause. Or I hope. I've decided that if I'm going to spend my days shuttered in, I should at least have a reference of things without. Remind myself of the existence of organic line. Liven things up a little. Loosen my absolute stranglehold on symmetry. Perhaps throw a bit of dirt on the canvas. Or at least a little dust. Maybe something surprising will happen.

She choppa, she choppa, she choppa...

A farmer's wife.

She's blurry. And an apparent terror. But don't be so quick to judge. By the looks of her cheekbones and florid complexion, she's a woman that loves to laugh. Okay, and drink.

I'll warrant that she'd been patient. That she and The Three had once lived together blissfully. She would have viewed them with forebearance--even affection--watching as they collided daily with the table legs and each other, listening at night as they made their plans in high, sweet voices. They would have delighted in her cooking and allowed for her cat. One can't be too selective of company when it's in short suppply.

But lines, I'm sure, were crossed. And hair on the china and pawprints in the Sunday curd may be, for a woman in just the right mood, on just the right afternoon, perfect recipe for disaster.

Nada mucho.

Man, I've got a fever for the flavor of this shit.

Also got a new favorite song. Tiny Birds by Yo La Tengo. The whole album is of course fantastic, but everything builds up to and down from this one. It's swirling and sad and manages to get all sorts of caught in the back of the throat, so just sit still if you listen.

yo la tengo

Gripe.

It seems that my string of luck has ended. In more than one arena. I just got bored with this one. Bored. If the shit goes more than three days without being painted, I start verging on tantrum. Sometimes there are tears. I've learned to stay away from crockware after the Bent Pot Incident, but more often than not, I spend the afternoon grumping with my hand in the caramels.

Perhaps it's the green tea my grandmother gave me. I wouldn't put it past her to try to slowly poison me, crazy bitch.

"I'm only attracted to men of above-average intelligence."

Spent the afternoon shackled to a conversation with my cousin.

It really is the purest form of torture. She employs various methods to draw from me exactly what she wants to hear, and I try to preserve my self-respect in the face of Ultimate Pain. There are only so many "uh-huh"s and "of course you are"s and "holy shit he was married?"s that I can color with sincerity before I begin to lose it. My mood eventually sours as I realize that she will never stop. My sweaty running shirt freezes and I watch as my Kraft Cheesiest cools and curdles untouched. My stomach barks and my cramped arm and a million other factors conspire to wither me. Oh, but hold on, she's asking if she's pretty.

Like any despairing captive, I decide that honesty is my only way out:
"Shannon, you have other qualities. But I'm not going to spend the next twenty minutes stroking your ego."

And faced with a discussion that has a turned a disagreeable corner, she packs up her tools, speaks a word to the guard that secures her a later meeting, and is gone.

Kells.

Heard the first rumblings of this on a great illustration blog. It's a full length animated film-in-the-works, but the concept art is worth a peek. Think Samurai Jack, but with tonsures rather than katanas. No sign yet of any fussy whale-islands (aren't all Brendans the same?), but hopes are up.

Where it's black and black and green.

Wall of Kelp
Two blue, two colorless to cast

Someone had the temerity to compare this to a Magic card.

I've no idea what it is, actually. It would be slightly mer-mish, if not for the feet. It also reminds me of a "Remember the Lusitania" poster I saw years ago--but that's just morbid. It could be Thetis, but I've never really forgiven her for abandoning Peleus. And while I'd love for it to be Ino, the thought occured to me after I'd finished, and her shawl was green.

Fact is, it came on the heels of another drowning dream. The standard slip, fall, splash, slide into blue. Pretty enough as far as imagery goes, but I'm having trouble reconciling fear and fancy.

"I win. I always win. Is there no one on this planet to even challenge me?"

The last conversation I had with my brother began like this:

C: "When is the next Superman trailer coming out?"
J: "I dunno. I really don't want to see any more."
C: "I've been thinking. Maybe I should order three tickets for the first day now, just in case they sell out."
J: "They will sell out. But who are you ordering for?"
C: "Uh...Me."

Happy 28th.

Brain slosh.

God, I got nothing.

I hurt myself rocking out to this song:
"Bounce" - System of a Down

I found this picture (the first in the slide show) and decided to brag to everyone about how I've been in the highest tower room. As if it isn't the biggest tourist draw in the country.

A favorite site posted for the first time in months and they now have a blog. Crazysmart and fun.

Unremarkable.

One of those days where you want to do something senseless just to have something to blog.

I figured I'd walk down Elmwood instead of courting my own embarassment--there's always something off-kilter going on down by Wilson Farms. But today things were uncooperative--or simply dull. The riff-raff had been lulled by another successful garbage Wednesday (fat and sleepy bums are generally unwilling to spar). There were no dogs, no strollers, no kids in wagons. The cold had even driven the smell of ripe hippie from the Co-op. I came across someone I know, mouthed an "Aw-fuck", and steeled myself for awkward conversation, but they shuffled on.

The only real diversion was the early morning spitpattern outside of Merlin's that acts as a minefield between Spot and the bank. Not quite postworthy. So I performed the standard held-nose-hop-scotch to mind the stickies, walked home, and resigned myself to my inside antics.

"Shiny."

We were whorelets to the science fiction beast these past two days. I'm not sure whether to be more ashamed of the amount of time spent in front of the tv on the two warmest days of the winter, or of what we happened to be watching:

The end of Star Wars: Empire of Dreams. A History Channel documentary that we've seen before and will surely watch again. It's well done, funny, and Warwick Davis is pretty cute for a Hobbit...er, Nelwin...er, Ewok...er....

How William Shatner Changed the World. Two hours of bad. Bad writing, bad guests. And a scene with Jonathan Frakes brushing his teeth that made Alex distinctly squeamish. Oh, and they totally cut some guy off who started to explain a theory of warp. Something about being sucked backwards and the displacement of space, and what type of energy is needed, and all sorts of cool, and the camera just backed away in fear.

Firefly. There was a NINE HOUR marathon on the Sci-fi Channel. We taped it. We watched it. We loved it. For anyone who liked Serenity, we're willing to lend these out for a small fee. And, I know this is going to offend the Wash-crush of a certain someone, but when the doctor isn't taking his shirt off, I'm all about the captain.

Battlestar Galactica. The ninety minute season finale. It was excellent, but I kindof lost it when I thought I saw a Michael Biehn Cylon. It would have capped the evening off perfectly, as everything the man touches turns to science fiction gold (yes, that includes The Seventh Sign)--but it wasn't him, and I was sent to bed.

How do you spell "moraine"?

Some East of the Sun, West of the Moon. Or Cupid and Psyche for those who prefer their folklore Greek. I personally like a little Northern flava now and then. Mixes things up. Cools things off. Except they beat the word "lassie" to exhaustion.

It took ferfreakingever and I may have wept a little over it at the beginning, but it became more pliant with time and the threat of scissors. Eventually, our luckless heroine even came to take on a sympathetic tint--who could not feel for her, plucked as she was from her little bed and her (however indifferent) family by a bear? (Though I suppose a pauper would be stupid to not give up his prettiest to the first talking animal that passed under the sill. If the silly girls aren't eaten outright, they're practically assured wealth and status--and, anyways, it's one less mouth to feed...).

But first she must survive the trip. In a robe and thin slippers, clinging to the hair of her stinking mount. Watching the landscape change from hard, to bitten, to barren. Leaving behind her own hearthspirits and her familiar little gods and watching a new cast take their place. Committing to memory names like wind and faces like snow while they peek from behind their bergs and eskers and furrowed lakes, eager to proclaim her an unworthy new queen.

Poor lassie.

Tall, dark, and angular.

We do have a type.

This was nominated for Best Animated Short, and was probably the only thing of worth we took from our viewing of the Oscars.

The trailer definitely merits a watch.
Very Skellington-meets-Achmed.

Food or Fur, do you think?

This is the pickup truck that I discovered outside of the house today.


The crew was busy fixing the gutters, or the roof, or the siding, or any of a thousand projects that needs addressing. But despite the clanging of industry, they were not what first caught my eye. No...


...no. It was the dead coyote in the bed.


When I asked if they had hit it this morning, Worker One shook his head. "Nope. (Worker Two) shot it yesterday--they're nothing but a nuisance."

I decided against mentioning that the smell of two day old dead vermin on our front lawn wasn't any less annoying, but instead complimented him on his choice of ornamentation.

Our image in the neighborhood needed a little tarnishing anyway.

Ooh La La.

For those who care, Goldfrapp's new album is out and on the Rhap.

New blood.

The Neighborhood Kings that converge next door on sunny (but not necessarily warm) Sundays invited Alex over yesterday afternoon. They're self-satisfied lawyerly types who drink scotch and smoke cigars and wrap themselves in a rainbow of local team colors that would seem girlish on any other porch. They all have children (some grown) and not one dips below forty. I'm sure they fancy themsevles lordly and vigorous as they camp around a small radio under a Fightin' Irish standard and murmur. They are not to be refused.

After some frantic bundling ("Wear a scarf--NOT the one with the Pittsburgh colors, for chrissakes.") and a couple of barked orders ("Get me four Molsons. I don't want to go empty handed.") he went over. There was the sound of plastic chairs being rearranged and a settling silence that I closed the door on. Fifteen minutes later there came an appreciative roar of laughter. A half an hour after that he came in accompanied by the whiff of tobacco and single malt, with a glow that could not be entirely blamed on the cold.
And a demand for dinner that was grudgingly obeyed as I decided to grant him his day.

Sunday morning window shopping.

It clashes with my plans of yellow walls and big ceramic roosters--but, yum. In black, of course.

And, again.

I figured that sitting on the floor by the bookshelf, banging my head against the Norton, and crooning "better next time" over and over was getting no one anywhere. After last week's failure, I just decided to start over again. More worky, less wacky. And, walking by the piece this morning at four and giving it an appraisal with tired, unkind eyes, I realized I was right to do so.

Whatever. There's no shame in a remount. So.

But I had to draw something. This little guy took ten minutes, and while the broodiness of the whole is slightly undercut by a bouncy ponytail, it's accurate. Stupid Dove Shampoo, stupid natural curl. Always making light of my finest moods.

My poor nerves.

Just had the misfortune to watch the steaming pile that is Pride and Prejudice. It was a couple of open-collared shirts and a few loosely stitched buttons away from being a complete harlequin perversion. The gross improprieties! The shocking character miswrites! The contrived moonlight, and rainstorms, and misty morning meetings! Does one really need to sex up the greatest romance novel of all time? And while I love Mr. Darcy in any incarnation, my dislike of Keira Knightly is now resolute. Jutting collarbones may be attractive, but jutting jaws are not and I fear her Elizabeth Bennet was less "spirited English girl" and more "stubborn English bulldog." What good are a pair of fine eyes when accompanied by lesser talents?

Dearest.

My mom was striving to be sweet this weekend.

Mom: "We watched Proof the other night and I was struck by how much Gwyneth Paltrow reminded me of you."
J: "Ugh. I'm sure you mean it as a compliment, but I'm really just offended by the comparison."
M: "Well, it was more the lack of makeup and the undone hair. And her coloring."
J: "Not every fair-haired actress looks like me. It hurts that you've got me reduced to 'blonde and blue'."
M: "And her clothes--"
J: "It's the fake British accent isn't it?"
M: "--scarves, hats, cargoes and tee shirts--"
J: "Or maybe the pretentiousness? --pretention? --pretense?"
(Pause)
M: "Oh, and she was also completely crazy like you."
J: "Well, now that I'll take as a compliment."

Wah.

This picture broke my freakin' heart. But I guess there's no better nod to the mid-winter plunge than the complete overthrow of the mind and soul. Scomps!

It started off so well, and I've preserved the best, but I'll be damned before I let the rest from its interrogation cell. I don't know what happened. Perhaps I took too much time with the thing. Or too little. Perhaps it was because I was sick. I excuse myself so many other things--why not this? All I know is that, somewhere in the past week, it all slipped away. And I don't just mean the piece. There's a dented countertop that, if it had a tongue, would have nothing to say in my favor.

But I figure it would make a pretty starter page for a book, so I keep it. Pretend it was intentional. Forget the rest, but not forgive.

Stumps instead of feet.

Looks like the next in the series has been approved. This makes me happy. Let's just hope that by 2007 the Prevensie family has ponied up and found a good orthodontist.

How 'bout that.

I've been catching myself in the peripheries today. It hasn't exactly been flattering:

I walked by a mirror and realized that uncombed hair is not fashion forward--despite the interesting shapes it happens to make against one's head.

Mid-Von, it occured to me that my loud and proudly sung 'translations' of Sigur Ros are not clever--just senseless.

In the corners of a conversation this afternoon, I discovered that I mark the passage of time by the bars we've frequented. ("We were at YaYa's--why, who would have guessed that was exactly a year ago?").

I passed by the drawing on the table and found mid-cough, mid-stride, that under dim light it's beginning to resemble a piece from senior year--of high school. The significance behind that has me freaking out a bit.

Hummus dip and Baked Lays.

It's arrived.

Need I say I feel obliged to hold a general viewing?

And the breath it has a name.

Such pitiful predictability when it comes to music! How I love to limit myself. The last great discoveries were Modest Mouse and Sigur Ros, and those are going back three years. Since then I've been wandering the musical landscapes between Shoegazers and Stargazers, which are not boundless despite the sound of them. But I'm having trouble breaking out.

The latest (I guess) is Summer Lawns. If you give 'em a listen from one room over and brush your hair over your ears, they almost seem like the real deal--wavering, with that practiced indifference that I just. can't. get. enough. of. Otherwise, they simply sound like your little brother singing through a cardboard tube. But that's good too.

"Arise and conceal thyself, that I may shew thee my family without their seeing thee."

More Arabian Nights. Probably the last. There's a reason why they've been kept from Western anthologies: they're boring as hell. "Gulnare of the Sea" is really the best of the lot. Girl from the sea marries our Great and Irreproachable Sultan. She calls for her family. They come for a visit. Visit ends. She has a son. They come for a visit. Visit ends. Guh-huh.

Easy peasy silhouettes are harder when you're wound about in pajamas and blankets. I had a cranky time of it. Yes, booh-hoo, but, in explanation--that's a summoning fire our good Queen is lighting, not a Lucky Strike.

DNA, my eye. Everyone knows they turned into deer.

I was laid up in the Land of Counterpane this weekend. Whose borders are the stinking River Chamomile to the west and the Mountains of Discarded Tissue due south of my feet.

These are the best of times for anyone around me. It takes a reserve of energy to maintain the high levels of shrewishness for which I'm famed, and the common cold leaves me mild and manageable. Throw me in front of a PBS special on the wives of Henry the Eighth and your evening is free and clear for any and all XBox activities. Stopper my mouth with a chocolate heart and you may be able to make it out the door for Burger King before I can mumble a protest.

Of course, when recovery comes, it is swift and violent. Halfway into Sleeping Beauty I was croaking my opinions on the pink/blue debate and its effects on the Princesses Collection. At the end of "Digging for the Truth: The Roanoke Colony", I was lobbing "fuck you"s at the tv like any pro. By the time BSG starts in thirteen minutes, I should be back to Full Steam Harpy.

Seaworthy.

We rented this for last night, but an unwary stumble onto A&E had us watching this instead--

--during which we saw a couple of trailers, and you can betchyerass I'll be watching this.

One to nothing.

I'm proud to announce that the first porching of the year happened last night. It was impromptu and brief and hardly sanctioned by the sick and teetering Alex. But we were driven by the wild unlikeliness of it all and childish (or drunken) insistence won out.

So, we sat in the warm and waited for the wind, and when it came it flung the smell of beer and chocolate chip cookies down the street. I half expected to wake and find the remains of a conversation on Worlds of Warcraft littering the yards and piled against houses, but the neighborhood has been swept clean and all evidence has been (mercifully) frozen and shattered to bits by the cold.

The Talking Bird.

"Give me leave to rest myself; and do me the favour to tell me if you have not heard that there are somewhere in this neighbourhood a Talking Bird, a Singing Tree, and Golden Water."

From The Arabian Nights. I don't suppose it counts as idolatry if it predates Mohammed. But I've a notion that the cultural climate of pre-Islamic Persia wasn't all that different from that of post- --and that a woman caught slinking around in men's clothing was pretty much put to death. It's a good thing roadside dervishes weren't in the habit of running and squealing on every adventurous princess who came their way.

Violets are blue.

I suppose today is as good a day as any to reveal how I stalked and harrassed some dude online. How, at the merest crook of a finger, I whipped my portfolio at him and asked him to love me--LOVE ME!--with shameless abandon. How I tied a ribbon in my hair, and scrubbed my face, and swept the dustbunnies from my website and waited. How I called my mom and chattered and sang about castles and footmen and what ballgown I would wear to my first appearance at Comicon.

Of course this was all done with the strictest artistic modesty, and anyway, all of my attempts were rebuffed, if ever they were noticed. But it makes it no less embarassing. And it does nothing to erase the twenty minutes spent simpering and curtseying in front of the mirror: "Mr. L___, it's a real honor." "So very nice to meet you, Mr. L___." "I cannot tell you how long I've waited for this, Mr. L___." "Oh! You don't mind if I call you R___?" "Well, thank you!"
Swoon and faint and smelling salts.

Because Mr. L is just the sort of gentleman to carry them.

(All initials changed).

"For all you know, you're the only one who finds it strange."

"Satellite" - The Helio Sequence:

Nothing beats Elliott Smith, but this cover of his 'Satellite' is just gorgeous.

Their other stuff is worth a listen, too. Think Zepp meets Tangerine Dream.
Yeah, that's what I said.

Abbreviations in D Major

We got up very, very late. So late that all of our activities have been running together in an effort to approximate a full day.

Wakey at one.
Breakfast at one thirty.
Lunch at two fifteen.
Post at two thirty.
Walk at three.
Dinner at five.

All set to the desperate tempo of a pounding head. Next...next...next....

Reap it.

This past Christmas my cousin and her sister in law joined forces against me. Too much wine had made them brave and strangely keen and they orchestrated an unsanctioned hunt for my drawings. Finding what they sought, they demanded the soldier's right to booty. My escape routes had been plugged by a chubby baby and a crazy grandmother--both who demanded hugs--and I had no choice but to surrender everything to greasy fingers, stained teeth, and drunken carrion calls.

Shannon selected a Green Fairy: "She looks like me!" (Give a person a choice and they will always pick the one that "Looks like me!"). But of course, this wasn't enough:

"Jess, I'm taking this one, but I also want another. Better. Bigger. More details. More sparklies."

"Shannon, I think one is quite enough."

"And I want it before my Florida trip."

"Hey, did you hear me?"

"And I want it to look even more like me."

Sacred Values.

Looks like that bandwagon is getting delightfully full.

Excuse me...?

A late nod to the beginning of the Year of the Dog. I got a little lazy with the corner.

Nearly every day I pass this guy and his dog. They stand on the same napkin of a lawn, facing the same direction, long noses and intelligent eyes trained on the traffic from Chapin. They're grizzled and grey and have barely one good leg between them to stand on. As a result they end up leaning into each other and swaying in a tangle of scarf and leash and winter grass.

They're there when I go and when I come back and are largely ignored by the fast, purposeless afternoon walkers. But I've a nagging feeling that they are waiting for the right someone to ask the right question. Or any question. And then whatever door they are guarding will swing idly open.

"Cuz everyone harbors a secret hatred..."

The same ol'. But there's been an urgency to attach a pic with every post. Dunno why. I don't think I'm dying or anything. Maybe it's a new breed of superstition. Great.

However, while the creative tides are at an ebb, I've had hours to contemplate the face of another J&J witch. She's had me stumped in more ways than one.

It's like this. Your typical crone has a motive--an unkept bargain, the unfortunate slight or two, family ambition, even simple hunger. But there's nothing here. Not a missed invitation or an ugly daughter to be found among all those empty birdcages. The best I can guess at is jealousy--the unmaker of all women. Hers is the indiscriminate rage particular to the once-beautiful. Whose loveliness has fled and clings instead to the trees and the birds, and to that silly wench with the picnic basket. She's a witch, but knows all magic withers before beauty--she can mask beauty, or accent it, but can never create it (find me a witch outside of Medea who has). So, her only option is to capture it and cloak it.

And, as truly worthy lads come around only about once every hundred years, she's got a long solid run before her.

More J and J.

Don't look at that arm. Don't do it.

Come to think of it, the whole damn thing got away from me. I tried some last minute erasing, but found that once the watercolor is down it's impossible. Only a weird partiality to one of the trees stopped me from going Owen Meany on it.

The pen and the scimitar.

Strange that these two episodes have popped up simultaneously.

Quite an unfortunate contrast for the Muslim world.

The artwork is barely worth the mention, being neither very witty nor very good. But it's a good bet that Europe performs its customary roll over and play dead. A director working for French newspaper France Soir who chose to publish the cartoons has already been given the boot by the Egyptian owner (not without some admirable protests from the staff).

That's not to say that I'm breathing a sigh of relief that we live on this side of the pond. I took it as some sort of sign that, while typing, I received an email regarding this. A bit of a stretch from the Middle East, but I figure people here are just limbering up.

Fandom.

From MSN today:

There were a few boos at the groundhog’s prediction of six more weeks of winter, but most of the hundreds of revelers instead turned the event into an impromptu Pittsburgh Steelers rally.

As it should be.

Zee first.

This has just been put on the must-buy list. It's considered to be the first full-length animated film and was crafted almost completely (score aside) by one woman a decade before the release of Disney's Snow White. Homegirl took cardboard cutouts to a whole new level.

Quite the find. Thanks to someone who loves her dirty martinis.

Ring around...

Another victim of my chronic laziness. And it's not like I didn't have eight shiny new colored pencils to tempt me. But there was just so much space. Who wants to be coloring and smudging and moistening for hours on end with no guarantee of quality? I'm skittish when it comes to large expanses of paper. I figure that's where the real brilliance happens and I've a small bag of tricks.

The real question is how many pictures of (Blank) in Front of a Tree can I get away with? To this I shrug my shoulders and reply "As many as can fill my days". It's really one of the oldest standbys and, in my book, among the most attractive. It ranks up there with Ring of Dancing Fairies, and Woman at a Window, and Girl by Water Contemplating Suicide. The oldies and goodies, used by the best and the worst. I figure their ubiquity must mean something, and I've put it down to each having some primal, sub-conscious importance.
Who the hell am I to screw with that?

Gold and Black.

One lovely weekend in the Pittsburgh area and this is what I have to show for it.

Slumming it.

I got a call from a friend the other day. We exchanged pleasantries and it took me more than a few seconds to realize that it was, in fact, a wrong number. I stopped, laughed and proclaimed that he sounded "just like someone I know". Then he tried flirting. I think. I hung up too quickly to really find out.

Strange?

Well. Later that afternoon I got a second call. This time from the NYS Department of Police or some shit. A recording stating that I had received a call from a correctional facility and would I like to sign up for some program? I balked and hung up even quicker than before.

I laughed a bit, swore a bit more. And, after checking all the locks, quietly unplugged the phone for the day.

Got me.

I have no clue, either. Sometimes you just gotta draw gnomes, man.

It has a funerary kind of feel, which is what I orginally intended, but I just couldn't bring myself to see the whole thing through. The Hanging of the Fruit Men was a bit too grisly for a Wednesday morning. And then there's all the explaining that would have come with it--the Why's and Who's and What the Eff's.

So instead, it's a Harvest. Or a Birthing. Or a Religious Rite.

I'll content myself with ambiguity.

The only logical explanation.

So, I have a bit of a family bias, but this article had me raising an eyebrow.
...freaking environmental terrorism at its purest.

Me Me.

I'm borrowing this from scott. I said I needed a good meme.

Here’s the next meme for everyone, as long as you get it before someone else with your name does. Type in your first name and the word “needs” into Google. Post the first 10 results, plus a few other interesting ones.

Jessica needs:
1. an adoptive family that is very structured.
2. coffee
3. to wear something sexy again to gain the spotlight among so many superstars.
4. to be left alone.
5. constant attention.
6. to grow a backbone.
7. a new color lipstick.
8. to spend lots of time just kissing Helen.
9. to rethink her position on doing adult films.
10. a new kidney.

The Albas and Simpsons out there are just ruining things for me and my kind.

Run.

Been all about them lately. More than usual.

An oldie, but a fave. The animation is amazing, and the acoustic version blows the original away.

"I can see all of Orion."

I didn't ski this weekend, but drinking someplace other than the chair facing the mirror at you-know-where is an adventure in itself. And while there was no free popcorn, the windows at the cabin were reassuringly reflective.

We ate meat at every meal. I slept in front of a fire, dreamt of blackened feet, woke up to bacon. I ran up the slope in the backyard and found two ponds where the land tabled off. Got to look over the hills and study the bluing effect fo' reals. Played tag at 1 a.m. with an overweight cockapoo until my fear of bears sent me scurrying inside. Drank wine. Ate guacamole.

Altogether good. Even without Raisin Bran or Wikipedia. Though I'm not quite convinced I've sold the Garvs on Sigur Ros.

...and an umbrella.

What does one bring for a ski weekend?

Wool socks
Something LL Bean (in this case, a fleece from 1989 that smells like tacos)
powdered cocoa
Herodotus (to keep up appearances)
Radiohead Radiohead Radiohead (there's some converting to be done on the trip down)
pencils and paper
sweater with snowflakes
Motrin
...Tolkien trivia cards...yes?

Honey, but I always could accessorize.

The latest and the last. Still haven't arrowed in on the style, but whatever. Also, I examined the template piece quite closely and decided that the guy's canvas must have been huge. There were mini-hatches on everything. The chair legs, a woman's cheek, a saucer. I'll admit, it gave nice dimension to every bitty thing, but it bordered on an obsession with detail that I haven't flirted with since my mad freshman days. It's best to let those demons sleep, but I have a feeling I'll be revisiting them for tea very soon.

Blather and blather.

Oh, and don't look too closely at the walls. I felt compelled to hang them with meaningful nothings. I tried for some Subversive Feminist Wit. It eluded me, as it always does, and I decided to leave things to the pros after my "Venus Tobacco" fell flat. The closest I got was a weak silhouette on that bottle in the front which could be passed off as the Green Fairy. Big surprise. All my roads lead thataway.

Gleeee!

Still reeling at bit from that comment on my last post. I think I'll leave the page untouched for a while and just bask.

Flotsam.

Fuckall. I got nothing. Where's a pesky meme when you need one?

Well.

I woke up this morning to find my knees had erupted in bruises over the night. Could be the weather. Or the tae bo. Or maybe all that church.

I found a website for the old cartoon Wildfire which I will not be linking to. Good christ, no.

I learned a new word, thanks to Peter S. Beagle*.
thaumaturge: a performer of miracles or magic feats

*Still haven't read his sequel Two Hearts--probably because I've no desire to invest in his audio version of The Last Unicorn (not while Christopher Lee is, I'm sure, out there somewhere just waiting to molest it).

6:21P.M. Friday, Sunday, Monday...

I have a certain fondness for helicopters--I like to think we've grown up together. I remember when the Cobra was the norm and the Apache was hot shit. I remember playing tag around the Chinooks as they sat in the hangars like sleeping elephants, and clambering over the Blackhawks as if they were bigtoys. I remember how their blades and rungs looked and felt--smooth and drowsy in a placid green skin. How fast they moved, how your brain rattled in your skull when they flew low, how the tops of the tallest trees were singed by their constant traffic. It was nothing to see six, ("no, ten! no, fourteen!") at a time, crawling in a line over the woods in your back yard. Nothing to see, but you always stopped to look.

But unhinged militarism and exaggerated pride aside, it's unnerving whenever your house off of Elmwood--so far from any post-- is buzzed by one. Three times this week in what I'm sure is simply a changed flight pattern. But it's getting to me. And I can't quite tell if it's making me paranoid or just wildly sentimental.

Rest Assured.

Meh. After twenty years of aping one person's specific style, I wasn't really surprised to find it taking more than one try to even approximate another's.

I've considered this one a warmup and have spent the weekend mulling. Which is to say that Bass took precedence for a day or two, but things should be started and done by week's end.

Fever.

I detatched myself from the treadmill yesterday and instead went for a run in the freakish weather. Figured a nice break in the springish temps would do me good, contract the pupils for a change. The rest of the city seemed to have the same idea and my quiet outing turned into a game of dodge. Dodge the frisky dogs. Dodge the frantic post-school traffic. Dodge the three sunbathing bums sitting in a puddle of beer (oh, please be beer) yelling at me.

I got home angry and hyperventillating, realizing too late the error of dressing in three layers, and the stupidity of braving a city that will spaz and break out the sunscreen and bermudas at the merest hint of a thaw. I figure today it woke up, recalled yesterday's excesses, and turned its face to the wall for three months of cold shame.

Blue-ish.

Just listening to this and puzzling over how to draw a gun.
As in sketch, that is.

Rhapsody Playlist

Only in a leap from the lion's head.

A small business owner on Elmwood has finally decided to wise up to his customers. The store is wonderful, but it's a deathtrap for the unwary female buyer. Be warned. He plays a dirty game and sets forth a gauntlet of three traps of such cunning that any misstep spells doom.

1. Shock and awww: Enter to find the prices low, the wood burnished, and the pillows sparkly. Set by a working fireplace to perfect effect is a lordly English bulldog, proferring her upturned belly for a petting. You kneel in obedience.

2. The Porridge Bowl: Move on giddily, only to come face to face with a candy bowl of indecent proportions. It's attended by candleholders and appears to be perpetually refilled by an enchanted reserve of mini Hershey's...Take one. They're freeee.

3. The Crush: With that word floating on the air, there comes the final blow. While you stand, disarmed and dazzled, smelling of puppy and gumming marshmallow and chocolate from your teeth, the owner sends out his impossibly gorgeous young partner as emissary. He may or may not be holding a second puppy. You will try to ignore the blue eyes, and the smiles, and the conversation about washing shams, and your brain will yell "GAY!", but the senses can take only so much battery.

And your voice will inevitably betray you with those fateful words:
"Yes, the queen sized one, please. And throw in that pillow."

Fake Plastic Something. Part 2.

I just. don't. know. what it could be.

Birdie cheerleading squad?
"Torture in Feathers and Beads" by an eight year old sadist, circa 1983?
The first unsuccessful attempt by Leda and the swan?
Baba Yaga's chariot?
Some totemic thing from the Spirit Land of my fathers, come to warn me?

Or maybe she's doing us a favor and it's our own little house god. Warding off bogeys and all attempts at good taste.

Fake Plastic Something. Part One.

A few warm weekends ago, we sat outside drinking. This was in the midst of our boiler problems and our ceiling problems, and our landlady had just received a notice for three years of "seriously overdue" water bills, so my sense of porch-entitlement was raging. I had placed the sagging lime green foldouts just so and had arranged the beer cans at a flattering angle when she walked up the steps grinning at something in her arms.

I was enjoying a pleasant buzz and took the bait.
"How was vacation?"
"Great!"
"Whatchya got there?" A little cautiously.
Guilty laughter.
"Well?"
"Flamingos!" Silence. "Flamingos for the front yard!"
"I guess Florida really had its way with you."
"Yes! They're so kitchy! And they light up!"
"Yes. And they match the trim on the house." This was me trying to be polite. And how much cause does a person have to turn up her nose at plastic yard decor when she's just instructed her guests to "No, ash into the tray and spit over the railing"? So I smiled and opened the door for her.

The next morning I waited for their debut, but nothing changed. A few days later I discovered the chalky remains of our garden gnome. Apparently he had climbed the stoop and dashed himself to pieces in the bushes--no doubt in fearful anticipation of sharing his beauty bark with glowing, neon fowl. But still nothing.

And I breathed a little easier for a while. But punishment was sure, if slow, in coming....

For the birds.

More of the same. Also one more to go under the knife.

I wonder how many of those little brown wrens and sparrows wanted freedom. I suspect warm beds and food aplenty were hard to come by in those days, and that the lifespan of a woodland bird probably approximated that of a woodland girl--especially taking into consideration the rigors of childbirth. How many Jorindas and Gretels bled out their lives onto sandy floors at the age of fifteen? Better to feed on grain and rest unmolested in the straw bed of your cage. Better to come to love the scarred and wrinkled hand of the woman who took you, in a sense, under her wing.

VCRs at the ready.

New episode of Battlestar Galactica tonight at ten...and two a.m....and Monday at eleven...

Halloween orange.

We came home to drama. It seems that the one instance where you're allowed to parade the street in slippers and pajamas is when neighboring houses are in flames.

Everything is fine. I think. The street is plugged with fire trucks and ambulances and with Buffalo's finest who appear to have things under control. I got to see how the system works and why there's a required fifteen foot parking distance from hydrants. There's a crowd of tired people and hyper dogs (no dalmations). There are some grim looking firemen and two engorged hoses are snaking their way down the road.

I'm still rolling on four pints of Bass but, boy, do some of our neighbors look scary without their makeup.

For heroic meritorious achievement of service.

After seventeen years of stellar performance, it breathed its last this morning. There're only so many four-second packets of Shredd and Ragan a little machine can be asked to take.

Seldom what they seem.

Sleeping Beauty is hands-down best for sheer volume of images. Perhaps because it's so extensive within its relatively closed framework. There's not much adventuring, but it's really three fairy tales in one (the story of the childless mother, the story of the child, the story of the child's rescuer). A lot of shit happening around one little castle.

It's pretty, although not quite a favorite in its current watered-down incarnation. And while the old version has our heroine waking up to the suckling of twin babies (fathered by a philandering prince who seems to have adiosed), it's much less the dark and ghastly that I prefer than it is simply gross. Though, I must say this particular Briar Rose is baring a little more leg than she should and her hair has developed into a Lovecraftian beastie of its own.

Crossing the streams.

Despite all appearances, there's a kernel of guile rattling around in my grandmother's head. With it, she managed to procure and use my cousin's cell phone number with none of us knowing. The two have met a handful of times over the years, and it seems that this past Christmas an unnatural alliance was formed. I cannot guess as to what they discussed--the addled old bag and the self-involved shot-girl-turned-realtor--but somewhere galaxies are collapsing, matrices are crumbling, and wise men are going mad.

Chapter One. Volume One.

Taking down the house. All the red and gold must be tucked away. All nog dumped. I'm currently mapping out a route for our tree that will involve the least amount of mess. As quick as that shit goes up, it comes down all the faster. These are the words I say every year.

I rang in the year stuffing my face with artichoke dip. Appropriate. I ended the night completely obliterating some stranger's ego. I started my day with tea and a run. Looks like I'll be staying the course for another year.

I have no lofty goals, unless facing my fear of Stephen King and starting the Dark Tower series can be considered a resolution. It's good. I'm on page eight and have committed myself to a night of reading in stinking running clothes.

Fresh fuel for the sodium flares.

Our landlady's cleaning team (yeah, that's right) is flitting around upstairs. I'm still confused as to how much shit can crop up around a person who is never home, but it's beginning to crystallize as once a month the whole house trembles with the activity of three latina women and their cleaning appliances.

She's a sweet girl, but it's times like these that her strange priorities hit me squarely. The house is very literally falling to pieces, but won't she be damned if it doesn't sparkle on its way down? Her brand new upstairs washer/dryer combo has just flown off kilter and is sending showers of paint chips from the closet ceiling onto our clean towels. The loose panes of glass in the front door are dancing in time to her dishwasher. A vaccuum has been turned on and my computer screen is flickering accordingly, running on the fumes of our electrical system. Some industrious soul is cleaning the carpets and the whirring is competing with the efforts of our newly installed, eleven year old boiler (she discovered it moldering in another basement where it was apparently just waiting to shine in our's).

But her new rhododendrons look so nice encased in snow, and the chandelier is just lovely spinning on its last rotted nail.

Pillars.

From earlier this month, but right now I'm plumb out of ideas.

Is that you?

Still a little shaky from drinking with our betters last night.

We saw Chronicles of Narnia this evening. It was pretty and mild and dimensionless, and the perfect toast to my reeling stomach--until some kid threw up all over herself and her nachos and very nearly on my heels. I suppose that's what we get for insisting on driving the twenty minutes out to suburbia for our viewing pleasures (under the flimsy excuse that the sound is better at the Transit Regal, when really it's just that I can't stand the smell of weed). But it's a fair trade.

Oh, and I've a weenzy crush on Tilda Swinton. Her arms are like Hera's, though her makeup could've used some popping. I'm also going to suggest Orlando for the billionth time. It's got Billy Zane....

Fucking...

It was a harrowing end to the holiday. The Cousin Who Will Not Be Named decided that to drive home after a bottle and a half of wine would not be safe. Clearly not understanding the danger she put herself in by opting to stay.

At seven she scooped up my uncle's skittish dog and started to cuddle it and coo repeatedly, "She comes to no one else but me. She loves me best" as the poor things soul drained from its eyes.

At eight she smacked my dad in the back of his head and got a severe talking-to that shut her up until eight forty--

--when she bounded into the computer room where Alex and I were lurking, spilled her don Ramon, and leapt into Alex's lap for what I obligingly timed to be seventeen minutes. And he sat, good man, and comitted himself to one of his store of benign expressions, and played Mario Cart, and looked at her not at all, and endured the screaming and whisker-pulling and desperate pleas for attention--an unlikely Santa to her spoiled brat.

At ten thirty we had a reprieve when the accent she'd affected since her five day trip to Spain finally breathed its last.

And then there was this morning, when she yawned mightily from the back room and called into the quiet: "Guys? How do you spell lusive? As in lusive dreaming."

Dagnabbit.

Spent the bulk of Christmas Eve apologizing to mortified babas for my language. It seems that I can't carry on any kind of conversation without swearing. There was the flurry of whoopses and half-finished sentences in the first half hour of mingling. By dinner I was reduced to pointing and sputtering. After gift-opening my stores of default profanity had been stretched thin and at the stroke of midnight all of my baloneys turned back into bullshits.

Get!

I kick a fair amount of ass at holiday gatherings. Years ago I went toe to toe with my fearsome great-aunt and won for myself a place as second-in-command in her kitchen. It seems that my abrasive and unyeilding nature was the perfect fit for her culinary regime. That or she figured if I was going to be constantly poking about in her fridge, she might as well put me to work.

The position is a lofty one and I'm granted the ready fear and respect that all cooks enjoy in their own kitchens. It's a heady experience that has nothing to do with food or drink and everything to do with being Big Fat Kitchen Bully. All I need is a wide skirt, some yapping dogs, and an extra hundred and fifty pounds and I'll be ready to join the ranks of the terror-inspiring, spoon-weilding tyrants of yore.

Lo!

And it came to pass in those days that there went out a decree from Fuelus Nationalia that all of New York should pay terrible gas prices. And all had to pay, every one in his own city. And the man went up from Roswell, out of the Medical Corridor, into the Elmwood Village and unto his home to consume the precious heat with his espoused wife who was a great child. And so it was that while they were there, the days of winter were accomplished that she should go crazy and insist on keeping the heat at 60 degrees. And she brought forth her madness, and wrapped herself in a swaddling Red Blankee, and sat herself shivering with it at the dining room table because there was no room in her miserly soul to pay one damn cent more.

Skip.

Oh, man. I just found out that Tolkien's Earendil was inspired by Anglo Saxon poetry, specifically Crist, where "earendel" is linked to the morning star. Blows my mind.

And also, Wikipedia is dominated by the geeks. There's an extensive breakdown of the Halfelven line there that makes me embarassed.

And now that no one at all is reading, I can come out and say that Thundercats Season One was released on dvd this past Tuesday. Good week.

Part Deux.

The front man's eyes are crooked. And the dude way in the back on the left is totally throwing up the horns.

Lockdown.

Ever pass by a mirror and think "Whoa, crazy person"?

Today the yo-yo-ing temperatures decided to make an embarassment out of me. I will blame the weather, as my cloistered life demands no dress code and I should not be held accountable to walls and rugs for my appearance. If things go well or poorly for my state of affairs, credit is given to an outside force--an angry puck of the Tangled Hair Guild, or, in today's case, the fitful elements.

And they raged. My hands puffed and shrivelled accordingly. My hair alternated between clinging to my scalp for warmth and springing away from my head at right angles towards any spare heat. All very amusing until I emerged into public for food. As I walked to my table and unwound myself from Midgardian lengths of scarf and drifts of snow, I got the look/look away/snicker from a table of glossy ladies and decided that "hats on" was the way to go. And that from now on I would keep the dining to inside with my uncomplaining tea cups and broken kitchen chairs.

Rocking faces.

I've spent more time being driven home in snowstorms to Bon Jovi's Dead or Alive than I care to discuss.

Fasting.

This is the best time of the year for study. When the bones of the earth are just poking through.

Keeping the receipt.

A copy of N.Y. Salad arrived yesterday. Much sooner than expected. I went mano a mano for my Amano with our wretched mailman who took his sweet time finding a pen and who had the temerity to touch my hand and rest his boot inside our lobby. I swallowed the bile and smiled like a darling and quelled the impulse to do something evil and inspired with his Bic. Then ran whooping into the house--all loathsome contact forgotten.

It's a lovely book and will look even better after I slice it open and harvest its pictures for the kitchen. I'm feeling some guilt, but it seems I'll do anything to add to the horde of obscure hangings that runs rampant over our walls. It's actually starting to get a little ridiculous in here. Things are walking a faint line between dark nursery rhyme and geek chic. I think I'm going to have to start roping sections off before things get violent and the iron frogs start suing for territory and Shakespeare's Britain starts developing fleets of its own.

"She ate me up for breakfast. She put me in a vice."

Wanna see the slow decay of the creative mind? Illustrator Louis Wain fell victim to schizoprhenia in 1917 but kept drawing well into his illness, fixated on cats. By degrees, his style changed in some startling ways.

It's fascinating to witness the documented disintegration of an artist through his work. Thing is, the pieces made during the late stages of his affliction are arguably better than anything done previous.

I was given a tart "Don't even think about it," after humming appreciatively over those last paintings. But I can't help but feel that Wain may have stumbled upon something in his insanity--or was cursed to madness for an unlucky discovery. Nor can I shake the image of what I suspect he eventually became--a figure sitting over a fire, clasping his creation between two fingers and burning away all traces of mortality from the canvas. Until all that was left was the divine essence of Feline. A thing of fire and mathematical beauty, with only a faint telltale thumbprint sealed into the paint to hint at what was once body and blood. Or whiskers and fur.

Wooo.

In order to keep up appearances, we are headed off to my parents'. I would have liked to surprise them, but that would have given my mom no time to make potato salad for our arrival.

Mania.

From the mind of a crazysmart local. An experiment.

I'm not sure if I like it. I'm also not sure if I should be 'experimenting' with people's Christmas gifts. Another version is in the works, along more traditional lines. I like giving people a lesser-of-two-evils option.

Score one for the grandkids.

My grandmother-in-law has her quirks. She looks disturbingly like Larry King. She refers to herself almost exclusively in the third person and she never shuts up. But she's got an engaging gap-toothed smile, she's quick as a whip, and she yarns on about life in 1930's NYC. We get along famously. It's been a while since she's had someone who doesn't quit the room at the first hint of a story, and it's a novelty for me to have a grandparent who doesn't give me old cereal box toys on my birthday.

That being said, she is hell to buy for at Christmas. She's naturally picky and, as a matter of principle, has decided to be nervy in her old age. Every year we agonize over her gift and wait in a state of terror/delight to hear those words: "Well, I'm not sure exactly where a single-serving tea pot is going to go in my packed cupboards. But it certainly is interesting."

So, this year, I threw my hands up, uttered a gusty "fuck it" and bought the fallback of all presents. One bitsy tantrum, two free gifts, and an obnoxious amount of money later, and we were headed out of Godiva in shame. But apparently thoughtlessness and snazzy gold wrapping are the perfect combination, because three days later she called us crowing:
"Guess what arrived today! You sure do know what Grandma likes!"

Retraction.

Is it too late to take back all of the nasty shit I said about Fiona Apple's latest?

I've been listening to her on the sly. And while I still maintain that Extraordinary Machine is full of show tunes masquerading as adult contemporary pop, it seems that cutting back to a cigarette a week has restored my vocals, and I'm beginning to take a sick pride in being able to hit those annoying high notes.

I really just use it for my morning musical exercises. Gets me prepped for my lunchtime System of a Down.

Short "O", not long.

The heat is working, though one wouldn't know it by the temperature I've been keeping things at lately--but I miss my plumbers. I miss the clanging and whistling beneath my feet. The trembling floors and jets of steam and the sounds of industry, however misplaced. It was all very Hephaestian around here for a couple of days.

And (clumsy segue) speaking of the classics, I got a pleasant surprise when I found that our apprentice plumber had majored in Latin and math . It's not often that a girl in overalls and soot stands tinkering at your thermostat and says, "I'm checking for bleeders in your radiators--I'll be out of your hair in a second, if I could just steal some paper towels. Oh, and if you like Ovid, you should probably check out Catullus."

Lovely.

"Maybe you should offer them a fireflower?"

Sittin' in a blankee. In the freezing cold.

Doot dee doot.

Our heat's not working. The plumbers came yesterday morning and wrestled with the boiler until eight. It was a grand effort with much banging and swearing and a few scattered conversations about thug life that I could just barely make out beneath the floorboards. But some thingy still won't ignite. They promised to return with the broad daylight, but I've heard nothing as of yet and the temp just dropped to 57.

No matter. I like a good challenge. There are two hundred fifty million Chinese people who are only recently getting heat in their homes, so who am I to complain? Besides, I have faith in our handymen. Not only because the head plumber is kindof cute (and I only say kindof for decency's sake), but also because his apprentice has a cell phone that rings to the tune from Mario Brothers.