Good Morning

Almost done my painting! So close. I just have to do the umbrella and touch up a few spots, which hould take about maybe three hours or less. Then I shall start on my next painting immediately afterward and hopefully it turns out as nice as this one has. And then another and then another and another. On and on.

Last night was a really giantic thunderstorm, so gigantic, in fact, that it actually woke me up briefly. This is big news because I am an incredibly deep sleeper and I can sleep through almost anything. Not this time though. So the point is not my sleeping, it is Clara, my dog. She freaks out in thunderstorms as I've probably mentioned on here and last night I guess she somehow managed to escape. Fortunately, some girl was walking home last night and Clara followed her and this girl just happened to work at a dog sitting place that is associated with Clara's vet. So they looked at her tag and called us up this morning and said to come and get her. So I had to wake up early on my sleeping in day to go fetch my psycho dog from the most random location for a dog place which was across town (I'm still wondering how she got all the way over there without dying).

I tried to get back to sleep but I couldn't and it sucked. So I laid in bed for about half an hour then I got up, read the comics and here I am, telling you ghosts about my lame morning and how much lamer it is going to become: I'm writing a thing on Othello. Woo. I'm going to do that today, paint if I have time and then go to work at four (I think?). When I get home I'll probably just do nothing until I go to bed. Tomorrow I don't know exactly what I'm doing other than church but I'm relatively sure it won't be much of an improvement on my weekend so far.

Gah! I really don't want to start writing. I somehow managed to hunker down and crank out my huge essay on the influence of technology on art in a few hours (mind you, I didn't even really revise it because I'm a slacker) but this stupid little one page thing I don't even want to think about. It doesn't make sense! Ugh. I guess I'd better stop wasting the internet's already overcrowded space and get to work. Sorry this post sucked so much. I just wanted to share with you how stupid my Clara situation was. I know I should be happy she was well taken care of, and I am, but I'm bitter about my sleep.

Noodle Hair

I had an interesting day today.

I have been unusually tired this week, which doesn't really make sense since I haven't been doing anything too out of the ordinary, but I have been simply aching for Saturday to come around so I could sleep in and feel good again. This morning however, I decided I couldn't push myself through one more tired day and after I got up, took a shower and walked the dog I went back to bed and slept until 12:30. It was awesome to say the least. So when I got up I had toast and delicious yogurt and tea for breakfast after walking the dog again, which was also awesome. I then read a magazine for a while and decided it was painting time.

I started painting at around three and took two breaks to walk the dog and eat a quesadilla, and I stopped painting at nine. That makes, including time lost in breaks, about five and a half-ish hours of painting today. Phew. Hard work indeed! At least I had an interesting adventure in the mix.

As I was walking Clara on my first painting break I saw this guy in plaid shorts with a clipboard going from house-to-house and I assumed he was doing some sort of municipal check up or something and went on with my walk indifferently. Only about ten minutes later, who should show up at my door but plaid shorts and clipboard guy. He asked if the homeowner was in and I said nope and asked when a better time would be and I said I don't know, because I really don't, and he said thanks and left. The whole time he was talking he kept glancing up at my hair which was curious. He seemed to find it fascinating.

I went back to painting and then about five minutes later I heard a knock at the door again, so I got up and there is plaid short clipboard guy again! I'm thinking what in the world does he want? I answered the door and he said, "Sorry to bother you, but could I have a glass of water? It's really hot out there." Really. Hm. I invited him into the doorway and gave him some water and it turns out he tries selling people water furnaces or something else random like that and he usually sells about three a day. One time he had a day where he sold six. Big news in the door-to-door water furnace business. As he stood there I won't deny I checked him over, because despite his ridiculous job he was rather good-looking. He had nice grey eyes and black hair. He kept mentioning that he "went to school" and I think he was trying to get me to ask about it/prove this was just a job, not a career, but I really could have cared less and decided not to pursue it. Then he left and I went back to painting. It was really very strange and random that he should come back to me instead of just asking the house he was at, but nonetheless, it made for a blog. Perhaps he just wanted to stare at my hair some more.

I end today with a long, long sigh, filled with satisfaction and exhaustion and contentedness and silliness.

My Big Laundry Story

So I was doing some laundry by hand as I am a person who washes my clothes exactly as they say to be washed on the tags because I don't want them to shrink or fade or stretch or whatever other horrid things might happen as a result of incorrect washing. It may be hard to believe, since I am the offspring of a woman who washes everything the exact same no matter how obviously different the articles are, but I know I must take care of my clothes if I want them to last. This is especially true for expensive clothes, which is a good number of mine, because I also believe that you get what you pay for. This has reigned true in my experience.

Anyway, I wash washing a sweater because it was effing cold enough to wear one and I was laying it flat to dry, as per the care instructions. I like to speed up this slow drying process ever so slightly by laying the article between two thick towels and walking on it to squeeze out water and wrinkles at the same time. I had the sweater between towels and as I walked around on it I began getting distracted by my thoughts as always. I inadvertently began to stomp my feet to squeeze more water out quickly because some idea had compelled me to want to be elsewhere, but when I realised I was stomping my feet I paid attention to that and stomped even harder.

Well, things got carried away and pretty soon I was hopping on the sweater; then it got even worse and I was seeing how high I could jump. I was jumping higher than I expected. So there I was, looking like a lunatic as I jumped around on a wet towel in my bathroom by myself without even some music to justify what I was doing. Unfortunately, this story is sort of anticlimactic because nobody walked in on that, but I did get a huge headache after I stopped jumping, from rattling my brain, I suppose. Either way, it was still awesome and I thought it might give you some wonderful and ridiculous images to make you smile. I'm only here to brighten your day.

Questions

Why is ant hill sand different from regular sand?
Why do they bother embedding nice things like flowers into toilet paper?
Why are there always pencils when I don't need them and no pencils when I do need them?
Why is underwear so enticing?
Why does tartar sauce taste so damn delicious?
Why do my camera batteries die right when a photo opportunity is presented?
Why does recess only happen in elementary schools and court?
Why do they publish awful books?
Why do they patent dumb ideas?
Why is everything on sale when I'm saving?
Who comes up with all the font types?
Why do I only start thinking hard when I'm trying to fall asleep?
Why do forks have four prongs?
Why don't more people use sporks?
Why won't Batman marry me?
Why is it so hard to draw a straight line?
Why can't there just be silence sometimes?
Why aren't more people happy?
Who decided silent letters were necessary?
Why can't things just make sense?

A Whole Bunch of Photos.

Simon demonstrating some guy's workout he saw at the gym

Trees

Simon's watch case with him in the background

Magazine

Family

Shel Silverstein

A children's educational book

Charlotte

CJ and I