I Am Art

i am understanding

My husband is featured in our newspaper today because he has big muscles, and is friendly and fearless. Oh, and he has a cool job. I was really excited to see that they spelled his name right! My curse is not community property! And, I was happy to see nobody dissed him in the interview, unlike the time I was in the same paper. Ah, they must not realize he is married to an outsider. If you read the interview you will see why I love this guy. He has such a great attitude. I especially like the part that says I am understanding (of course). Go read the interview here.

While Dustin was signing autographs, I took Suki to the vet. It turns out my suspicions were right~ she is older than 6-8 weeks for sure! See, I understand things. Suki is about 4 months old! She will be getting spayed in a few weeks which I hope will help with the constant moaning. Hey, I understand the moaning, too. Is it safe to give cats chocolate for PMS relief? She also has fleas! Poor thing. She's all sad and lethargic from all the shots today so I am on cat barf watch while I work.

Karen is on her way over so let's see if Suki will barf all over her Auntie. I think it's time the favor be returned.

*photo by Bill Inoshita

layers and layers

The new Ikea catalog arrived in my mailbox the other day and since then I have been covered in drool. Their new color schemes are all the colors I like:purple, red, and orange with a touch of black and white. NO BEIGE. They've also lowered their already cheap prices. It's perfect timing since I am on a redecorating kick that until recently involved doing not much because I couldn't find anything in purple or black and white that wasn't checkered.
I love to look at furniture and decorating catalogs. It reminds me of our childhood spring and summer vacations when we'd spend days in our grandfather's huge furniture store pretending all the fancy room displays were our homes away from real home. And, it is always fun to see how designers who don't live in Earthquake Country decorate bedrooms when they aren't afraid of being killed by sharp corned art pieces while they sleep. Is there anyone who survived the Northridge quake who has anything on the wall above their bed?
Our entire downstairs is wood or tiles floors and it's very cold in winter. I was paying close attention to all the  new area rugs in the Ikea catalog since not being freezing this year is high on my list. They are layering rugs under couches, under beds, under coffee tables, under dining room tables, and in entry ways. Layers and layers and layers of rugs. It looks awesome. And dangerous.
I think I need to move to Sweden. Apparently people there never trip.

i mean everyone

The world is a very scary place. Earlier today I was sitting in the parking lot at the post office talking on the phone in my car - you know, where everyone talks on the phone now- while I watched pretty much everyone back up out of their parking spaces without looking over their shoulders or in their mirrors.  How do you back up without looking? I mean everyone, not just one or two people, nobody was looking. I thought maybe some weird power came over everyone in the postal parking lot so after I looked over my shoulder and in my mirrors multiple times, I backed up and made my way to the grocery store to get the toilet paper I keep forgetting.

I sat in my car there for a few minutes and watched in horror as person after person pushed their empty carts into the open space then backed out of their parking spaces in their huge  "YES on 8" stickered SUVs without looking. WTF? How do they know they are not going to back into the cart they just left out in the open? How do they know the cart isn't rolling back toward them? Why isn't anyone afraid of getting in a car accident, killing anyone, or having to slam on their breaks so hard that their Frap sloshes all over their dashboard? It's so odd that all these people are so afraid of two men getting married but they are not at all afraid of slamming their big cars into people.

like a bad shirt

I've always thought camouflage stuff was lame. I never understood why anyone (like the military or hunters) thought wearing camouflaged prints blended in with trees. I don't really spend a lot of time hanging out in jungles or forests, but I have been in them and when I saw other people in the forest in camouflage shirts, I SAW them. They didn't blend into the surrounding trees because the trees didn't have oblong shapes in shades of green and brown perfectly placed on them. They had sharp branches and leaves. I never saw trees that were covered in ovals of neutral shades. Ok, maybe to the enemy with bad vision or to an innocent dear or rabbit, a Hanes tee with a swirly green print on it looks like a tree, but it doesn't to me.
Yesterday, I was sitting in my garden working on my tan and reading Glamour magazine during my break in between Oprah and Ellen when I heard a noise in a tree. I thought maybe one of the CDs was about to drop and kill me so I looked up and saw something for the first time in my life.
I have a camouflage tree!
Actually, it is the neighbor's tree but it leans over our fence and drops leaves in my yard. I checked to make sure it wasn't really a man wearing a bad shirt.

change, change, change #2

Some  major change has happened at my house and in my car. I have finally taken one of my beloved Brandi Carlile CDs out of my CD players and replaced it with The Airborne Toxic Event. Luckily, I have the type of CD players that hold more than one CD at a time or I suspect there'd be a pile of CDs weeping in the corner.
I love the Airborne CD. I love it so much that I am bummed I wasn't loving it sooner. This song is one of my favorites on the treadmill, treadmill, treadmill. It reminds me of Miss Mary Mack all dressed in black, black, black.
What are you listening to?

every addiction

I've had CNN on while I do stuff:

*There's been a lot of talk about that woman-hating freak who went to the gym and started shooting. It's very sad. What is weird though is that all the neighbors interviewed said the same thing about the guy. Neighbors, mind you, who didn't really know him but based on this one thing determined that he was fucked up: he never decorated for the holidays. That is right. A single man with no children never decorated for Christmas, Easter, or the 4th of July.
As a regular watcher of LockUp Extended Stay, I have spent lots of time looking at what goes on in the cells of serial killers. Most of them decorate their cells. I don't think the odd thing is that the guy didn't put lights on his house.
I think that, just like the Craig's List Killer, this guy LOOKS LIKE A MENTALLY DERANGED KILLER. Also, after spending hours watching LockUp, seriously, serial killers have a look and it's ok to be judgmental about that. If you see someone who looks like a serial killer, he probably is. Cross the street.
 

*The story of the wrong-way driving mom who killed all those kids and the three men is just so sad. It is interesting to hear the husband say his wife was not an alcoholic so defiantly. It made me think of all the things the entire internet knows about me that my husband might not know and would say was not true about me. I don't think he knows I am addicted to those cookie pie things. It's not at all a secret but I don't think he ever looks in the pantry. I never knew that every day he went to work and ate scrambled egg whites with avocado until one day we were discussing high-protein meals and he said it was too bad I am allergic to avocados because it's a good breakfast (GROSS). Choo never know, unless of course you blog and twitter all about your every addiction.

*Every time I see those photos and video of Lisa and Laura Ling being so happily reunited I cry a river of tears. That hug between Bill and Al was nice, too.

an experiment in change #1

Sometime last year, I was getting annoyed with a friend who has had the same problem for years.  She kept saying she was miserable but stayed in the same miserable situation or would get out if it to get in the exact same one. So, finally I told her SHE was the problem and that she should just change. Actually, it wasn't finally. I'd been telling her that for years. I decided she just wanted to be unhappy, that that was how she was happiest. But still, since we are us, Karen and I had to keep talking to each other about how this person was so stuck. And, because we are us, I had to point out that change and risk are easy and that even I* could change lifelong behaviors. Of course, I picked ones that had nothing to do with food. I am not unhappy, so I picked things that would make me and Karen laugh and that would be time savers!
For one month, unless I was specifically asked, I did not correct anyone's errors, tell them how to do anything better, or give any advice. I didn't tell anyone I was doing this.  It was really hard because last month was the month many people I know had many errors in their blogs, in letters they sent clients, in art projects, and in life in general. In my mind, a good friend is someone who points out errors  so you don't embarrass yourself but I have been noticing that people get totally PISSED OFF when you correct them instead of saying thank you. I totally do not get that. If you tell me I spilled tea on some art for sale, I'll send you a thank you card! If you catch a huge error in a proposal before I send it out, dinner is on me. If you tell me my husband might be a serial killer before he kills again, sweetheart, we're going to Hawaii on my dime. Most people over the age of 5 do not like to be corrected and will get very defensive when you remind them of the me, a name I call myself rule.
During the month I got a lot of emails and calls from friends that went mostly like this:
You have been awfully quiet. You must be busy or mad at me.

Uh, ok. The thing was, I had not been quiet! I had been as chatty and complimentary as ever and when I am mad, I say so. I am not sure what the lesson that month was yet. People were offended when I corrected stuff then were offended when I didn't.
I'm still laughing about it.

There's an experiment in change going on this month, too.

*The "even I" thing is not really fair. Even though I am stuck in my ways, my ways are adaptable to change.

I am sure there are grammatical errors in this post. I did not bother to proof read it- nobody asked me to.

knock-ring-knock-ring

Dear Parents of Annoying Kids in my 'hood,
The next time your kid rings my doorbell then knocks on my door then rings the doorbell two more times all within 20 seconds, his head better be on fucking fire and there better be a wolf right behind him. It better not  be just so he can see if he can have an apple off my tree or so I can fetch a ball for him. I am done fetching.
Some people don't wear a bra or makeup or even matching clothes when they are at home and don't feel like answering their door. Also, some people saw that episode of Oprah where she tricked people into answering the door to strangers and they got robbed so they never answer the door in case it is Oprah playing a trick. Also, Some people work from home and can't rush to the door to stop it from being repeatedly knocked on because your kid doesn't know it's annoying to knock-ring-knock-ring for ten minutes. Kid, if I haven't answered after the first knock, LEAVE. Or, use your skills and read the DO NOT DISTURB sign first. Having to interrupt a call with a client because Jimmy is banging on the door for an apple is just not professional.
Also, parents, why are you letting your ten year-old kids go knock on someone's door alone? Why is that ok? Do YOU not watch Oprah? I am not sure what is bothering me more~ that nobody is teaching their kids how  to not be annoying or that all these kids are alone and knocking on the doors of strangers. Either way, it has to stop immediately.

Yours truly,
Your neighbor in the cheery yellow house with the peaceful Buddha on the front porch

in sync

This morning at 2:30 I woke up with a migraine. It's a common thing lately since I am at that stage in life where I either have my period every couple weeks with a killer migraine or my period never comes but there's a killer migraine. Actually, we are both at this stage since we are not that far apart in age and what happens to one happens to the other. We are in sync! It's been over 100 degrees here most days which is just wonderful when you are all hot flashy and migrainey. What a treat. Even at 2:30 in the morning it is hot.
My husband was still sleeping so I quietly got out of bed (which is downstairs) and went to the kitchen for some migraine and PMS from Hell relief. I bent down slightly to open the drawer where we keep the drugs and was stopped mid-reach with stabbing pain in my lower back. Great, just great. How come that little rubber band that ties all your lower body bones to your spine always stops working at dumb times? The drug drawer is right next to the freezer so I grabbed some ice with the drugs and made my way to the couch that is downstairs. The couch is near the fireplace and semi-far from a ceiling fan but was easy to get to in the dark and while walking like a duck. I'm lying there on the ice when I hear the bird that has made my chimney its home start to fly around and make noise. This freaks me out every time I hear it but usually it's in the day and when I can run away easily. And, even though I am sitting on ice, I feel a bit warm. It's late (or early depending on how you look at it) and I was in pain and I was pretty sure that mean bird would fly down the chimney, open the doors on the firescreen thing and peck me to death while I zoned out in a Vicodin haze. It took me about half an hour, but I made it upstairs to the other couch, one beneath a ceiling fan and in front of a tv. It was better there, air is blowing, the ice is working, but I could still hear the bird squeaking. So I turned the TV on but I couldn't reach the remote that changes the channel. It was stuck on some infomercial where really unattractive people claim they are now a size 8 and got that way by eating lots of foods they love. The Mexican woman was saying she lost weight eating lots of enchiladas and rice. The black woman said she lost weight eating fried chicken and corn bread. A white woman kept stuffing her face with hamburgers. And just as I was waiting in shock for one of my people to come on and say she lost 50 pounds eating kugel and knishes, I fell asleep.
I woke to the sound of tools being banged around and my husband mumbling and mad about the bathroom sink he was trying to fix. My head was still aching, my back throbbing, my ice had melted into a puddle that for a second made me nervous that I had the never-ending period,  and somehow now the mold and sludge in the pipes was my fault (even though it wasn't). The not very politically correct infomercial was over and now Gordon Ramsay and his weird horizontal chin wrinkle were telling someone to fuck off.The bird was still squeaking.
I thought for sure that part was just a bad dream.

this makes no sense

Karen and I don't live that far apart but far apart in the LA way that means we have to really plan the right time to visit each other or be stuck in traffic forever. Without traffic, we are about an hour away from each other. I had to go to Karen's house today to work on a thing and I planned it perfectly to arrive by noon and leave by 3:30. I brought donuts with me, partly as a photo prop but also to eat because you are supposed to take treats when you go to someone's house. Karen's daughter, Emily, really wanted to eat the donut with pink frosting and sprinkles and being the good aunt that I am, I told her she had to pose with it first. We are all work in this family. Karen was making a panini on the stove for her son while the donut negotiating was going on and when the donut came out of the box she came right over. That donut had magic powers and we were all transfixed. So enamored in fact, that Karen forgot about the panini until the smoke and flames brought us back to reality.
We had donuts and uncontrollable giggles for lunch.
So anyway, back to my point. I left at 3:30 and at 5:00 was still sitting in traffic. If nobody has a job anymore, why is rush hour traffic still so bad? This makes no sense.