June 9, 2008
So yes it is a heatwave. This would be more bearable if my office was not having a busted air condioner right now. But it is and I sat all day in front of a fan with no air and it was upsetting. I became terribly cranky actually. Extremely terribly cranky. Now I am home and I am going to use a lot of electricity and run my air conditioner all night and hope there is no blackout, which as I have said, I fear. I am going to cool off and use electricity and cheer up.
There is a mean cat in the backyard who terrorizes our cats. I used to think he was cute. But not anymore. He is a mean bully cat and he fights with our cats who get all shook up and scared trying to just be good cats relaxing in their own backyard. I am not sure what to do. I dont want him to bite them and infect them with his obvious germy stray cat things. I mean, he has very obvious cat germ things, gooey leaking eyes and other swollen unmentionables. It is hard for me to dislike an animal. Especially a homeless animal. But as there are mean people, I now see that there are mean animals. And here I am with a decision to make. I will start by spraying him with the hose when he shows up. I would like to just keep him away. The issue is how do I keep him away without having to have someone take him away? He was around last summer when I had the kittens thing happening. I think he might actually be their dad or uncle, based on his peaceful relationship with the kittens mother. I am pretty sure I have talked about him before, he is the cat I have referred to as Conjunctivitis. Anyhow, now he comes in the yard because he knows there is food around. He has come into the house and I have caught him at the kibble. So the other night he was literally bullying his way inside trying to get past our cat Samson and into the house! And there was all sorts of hissing and growling and screeching. Can you believe the nerve? Then, poor freaked out Samson tripped over his hand painted water bowl with his giant 6 toed paw and it flew into the air and it got chipped which is sad. Anyhow when this mean cat comes around and fights my cats I yell and scream at him and then feel bad because I simply want to pet him and ask him why he has to be such a jackass.
Alright then, off to sit in front of the air conditioner and use electricity and feel guilty. Good fun.
PS I did not go to the Womens Turkish Oil Wrestling after all. Instead I saw an excellent movie called The Visitors. Or The Visitor. It was good and definitely a conversation starter. Recommended for sure. Why I did not go to Oil Wrestling is a story for another time.
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June 6, 2008
I am at work alone. There will be no one here all day but me. Plus I have no work to do. I am thinking about watching tv shows online. There is always drawing. Artists should take complete advantage of times like these but quite honestly, I need a drawing break. There is looking on ebay. There is reading blogs and stories from the New Yorker. I dont much like reading online though and hate to waste paper printing everything out. Plus, by days end I am likely to forget everything I read anyhow so whats the use.
I have been here for 47 minutes and I am already going nutty. There is always a sort of lingering feeling of Not Having Enough Time. Then something like this happens and you are suffocated by Too Much Time. How does that happen? Because you cant go and do and be. You are in the office, you have to stay, it is gray out so there isnt sun coming in the office window that you are at least very lucky to have. You can email everyone you know. For some reason Facebook isnt working and you wonder if the place you work created some sort of block so no one can use Facebook at work. There are definitely enough computer geeks here to pull it off. I feel like I am trapped in a cage. Glued to ergonomic chair. Stuck until 4 pm thankfully there are early summer Friday hours. Locked in. My dvd player skips on my computer so there will be no movie watching. There is NPR. I put on NPR and don’Äôt really listen it is just for company. I keep saying I and then You. I guess I am not sure what tense I am in or which person I am speaking from.
Someone gave me an orchid. So thats nice to look at in my office. I hear they are hard to care for. Maybe if I name it there will be a stronger relationship between us and I will not kill it. I will name is Eloise. No, maybe Margaret. I am just not sure. Let me think for a minute. Princess Leah. No, I think Chlotilde, which is my mothers middle name which she hates but I think is lovely. Yes, the orchid will be called Chlotilde. I will care for it every Monday through Friday and wish it a good weekend. I think maybe I will go get more coffee and take it from there. Maybe I will see how much coffee I can drink without reaching the point of illness.
Yesterday I got a severe headache. I went home and ate a whole bag of potato chips. They were UTZ though which is a smaller bag than other brands. But still. I wonder if people crave salt when they get severe headaches. Maybe I will google that. I still have a headache but I am all loaded up on Advil. I bet if I made a small nest on the floor I could sleep the day away. I really could, I could just sleep here in my office on the floor. I wish it were carpeted. We have a coffeepot. Maybe I should make it here so it smells good. I will also save two dollars and eleven cents which is what I pay for a grande half cafe.
I just read a good book called Madness written by Marya Hornbacker. If you are into reading about mental illness and would like a well written personal account, I recommend it. I am now reading James Frey’Äôs new book which is really a downer but great. Also I just finished A Wolf at the Table by Augusten Burroughs, which was also sad but excellent. I notice here a trend of sad but excellent books. What can you do. I am working on a couple of other books but they are unremarkable so I cant remember what they are called.
Woah. It is twelve noon and someone else just showed up. I feel less alone now, less desperate to set myself free. True we are in separate offices and not engaging but still. He will be here for a few hours so maybe I will go play outside for a bit. In the gray. And tomorrow will be the heat wave and I will install the air conditioner and hope there isnt a blackout which I fear.
Tomorrow night I am attending an event called Womens Turkish Oil Wrestling. I have attended this same event for years now. About 4 years ago I was dating the person who was the host and referee. I acted as her fluffer meaning I smeared oil all over her. I was wearing short shorts and knee high sweatsocks and combat boots. It was definitely hard for me to walk around in short shorts but I think I was a little manicky at the time, so I just did it. After that I never acted as a fluffer again. I have never wrestled. It is definitely not in my nature. The women who wrestle are like, kind of psycho. They wear insane outfits and absolutely beat the shit out of each other while covered in oil. I am not sure what kind of oil. Maybe its vegetable oil. Its definitely not motor oil or olive oil. Anyhow I am starting to think about how hot it will be in there and I am starting to not want to go. It is usually ridiculously hot even when it isnt 93 degrees and unbearably humid out. Honestly though, Womens Turkish Oil Wrestling is actually rather jarring and has the potential to depress me but I am going to have loads of caffeine and go anyhow. I have never gone to the roller derby I dont really get it.
This isnt even a real blog. It is obviously just an attempt at keeping busy. Im sorry. You can totally not read anymore if you dont want to. I mean, you already know that what with free will and all. But if you stop reading it give me a chance and maybe come back next week and maybe I will write one of my regular stories which the people who read this seem to like. Today is an anomaly of sorts. A blog deviance, as it were.
One thirty pm. I have now looked at every website I can think of. Why am I not drawing? If I dont feel like drawing does that make me a lame artist? Shouldnt artists want to make art constantly?
I am going to go shopping at home depot for cleaning supplies. Shopping is a default activity of life, at least mine. First I will order an antibiotic and hormone free hamburger and fries to be delivered because of the iron deficiency. Only a couple more hours and I can leave. I managed to get through. What did I do? I have no idea. Time flies while standing still. Strange how that happens. This is a picture of art made by The Royal Art Lodge and it is how I felt watching the clock today.
Stay cool stay in school.
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May 29, 2008
Tomorrow night is the opening for my new art show. Tonight I am not really thinking about scrutiny, or talent, or lack thereof. I am not thinking about sales, press, or my big face zit. I am not thinking about color, archival-ness, significance, or remembering peoples names.
I am thinking about the point. I am extremely tired and trying to find my solar plexus but it is hidden beneath an avalanche of french fries and cognitive agitation.
The point is to get to have joy. Perhaps all of the significance is to be found in the joy moment. It comes and goes but it was had and that is the point.
So what does joy-had turn into? Something different than joy and I am thinking about what that might be or mean or be called. I dont want to use the term Joy By-Product. But I might have to. Back up though. The point was to get to have joy. And, it was had, in quiet consistent bursty ways. That ought to be enough. Cant I just stick with the original point? Everything keeps trying to take me away from the original point, which was to get to have joy. Which I got to have, over and over, so what is the problem? Why is everything a picture of something else? It is almost ridiculous how that happens.
Also, I am envisioning a water well - a water well that is dug up and it is swirling around in a tornado, and every once and awhile the way it elevates and twists itself allows me to see deep into it, and it is dark dark black inside with no light and no end. It is as if the well goes on forever and is still connected deep into the earth, even though it is swirling around in the sky in a tornado, and obviously dug up. I feel that I should get into it. Climb way to the end to see if it is actually attached or not. Maybe it is like a belly button. Or the tied end of a balloon.
Can anyone recommend a book about all of this or something? I dont know. Exactly. See what I mean.
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May 20, 2008
It is 2:00 am and I cannot sleep, again. People who sleep well all of the time aggravate me, especially when they say Oh I could not sleep last night and I am so exhausted! I have very little compassion for these people. Their one night of poor sleep every three months is but a momentary itch compared to the full body rash that is chronic insomnia. They tend to be earth signs also. Planted, rested, strong. I myself am all fire and air. Enough said.
I tried listening to music, mellow mellow music that is almost non-music it is so mellow, to mask the sound of my heart thumping and my mind racing, which is what they like to do when I am enduring / creating / perpetuating anxiety about not being able to fall asleep. My parts think to themselves, We are going to thump and banter to make our misery heard! We are not happy with this stirring, this bed that reeks of tossing and turning, this late night clock glow! Thump thump think cogs and wheels screeching and it is like a banging radiator or a neighbor blaring reggaeton when you are trying to read a book on a sunday. Any of you with insomnia know the drill. It is a sucky sucky drill.
What does one do? The information on insomnia says not to read or watch television or do anything stimulating. Should I look quietly at a wall? Pet a cat? (however, unlike me they are all sleeping) Shall I wash a dish? Why is it happening? Was it the late night dark chocolate? Should I be exercising more? Am I just not tired due to sheer inactivity? I am yawning constantly, what does that mean? Wouldnt that suggest drowsiness? Will I look wretched at work tomorrow? Thankfully I wear glasses, since they cover the bags under the eyes. I dont even like the book I am reading. I ate too much tonight, I feel barfish. My jaw is clenched. And also, I hit my head on the wall shuffling around in the dark, which was also total sucktown.
What is bound to help is that tomorrow night I go to craniosacral therapy. This entails a healer basically touching my sacrum and head and magically moving around some inner fluids. Apparently I have something called Cranial Nerve Entrapment. I guess what she does is untrap them. We shall see. At the very least it is extremely relaxing when I am there so I am going to spend the next 15 hours anticipating my appointment.
If any of you are awake right now I hope it is by choice. Maybe you like being awake late at night, when everything and everyone else are quiet. Personally, it really makes me feel out of sorts. You know what they say, the freaks come out at night. (Not to imply that if you like night you are a freak. I just wanted to quote that song.)
I just realized all of my clothes are on backwards, which actually feels quite appropriate. I am going to go wake up a cat.
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May 15, 2008
I went to a James Bond themed party the other night and after gorging on diet coke, I danced a lot. More like Fake Danced because when you cant really dance you Fake Dance. Fake Dancing entails a lot of jumping up and down and flailing your hands around. You grab your dance partner and swing them all over the room and do a lot of dipping. At one point in the night I was on the couch watching the party and this giantess of a woman was Actual Dancing which was great except that she was completely wasted and eventually fell down on the floor. Then she got up, danced more, and then fell on top of us laughing hahaha the whole time. Her man looked like one of the Kennedys and he was trying to hold her up while he Clumsy Danced and had this awkward confused grin on his face like, what have I gotten myself into with this broad she is totally out of control. There was also a gay man running around grabbing womens boobs and saying I really am gay - I just love boobs. I brought up Dr. Freud and the gay man snapped at me.
Last year I took swing dancing lessons. I went three times and it was extremely stressful. Also, I was being the boy, so I danced with a variety of women of all shapes and sizes. You have to keep on changing partners and it gets faster and faster and if you are dancing with a partner who is as pitiful as you are, you will end up in a tangled disaster. Plus you are looking into a mirror, which makes everything happen backwards, and there isnt really enough room to move around, and sometimes you almost fall onto the floor, even though you arent wasted. I dont want to take any more dance lessons and I would prefer to simply bask in my ability to Fake Dance and have good times.
Tomorrow I have to do something for my job that might in some ways be worse than getting a root canal. I am probably overreacting. Perhaps it will be fine and just another day where I get through something that I thought was going to be harrowing but was not that bad after all. Only time will tell.
I just started reading a book called Wish I Could be There - Notes From A Phobic Life, written by Allen Shawn. I was immediately won over when I read this -"Therefore, I have interwoven two distinctly different ways of approaching my subject. I have written about my own childhood as I remember it, from within, and about the subjects I investigated - the brain, psychology, fear, the way we form habits of thought and behavior, what Freud was trying to describe of the inner life of the mind-as I understood them, as a layman trying to grasp the origins, both personal and universal, of his own predicament." Ah yes. I am most excited to read about the amygdala, cheerfulness as a mask for anguish, and anticipatory anxiety. Good fun.
And a total amazing find - "Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy", poetry by Tao Lin. Oh My God. In many of the poems Lin's subject is a hamster. And it is fairly obvious that Lin himself is the hamster to whom he refers. Which for some reason I find so brilliant. I like when people arent afraid to see the helpless fluffy animal within. See for yourself:
the next morning the hamster stands in the shower
the hamsters upturned paw has a small dab of shampoo on it
this will not be enough shampoo
the hamster feels sarcastic
the hamsters body and cheeks are warm
from the sunlight through the window
and the hamster is very afraid
it feels so sad so early in the day
On the business side of things, here is a link to the info for my upcoming show:
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May 9, 2008
The lizards have gone back home. They have been separated back into two cages and are doing well.
My eyes are dilated so I can barely see this screen. I still don't know if I am going to go blind, I need more tests. I will keep you posted. I am going to go nap because ALL THREE cats are on my bed sleeping in harmony and if that isn't an invitation I dont know what is.
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May 5, 2008
If you are sensitive about animals read this at your own risk.
I am trying to take a step back and see what it is I am meant to learn here, if anything. As opposed to just trying to not cry or go rescue a litter of puppies. It all started with Eight Belles. The filly who was absolutely amazing and came in 2nd in the Kentucky Derby, kicking the arses of all but one of the boys! But alas, as soon as she was finished, her tiny ankles went kapoot and it was Too Late and they put her to sleep right there. Moments after her triumphant win came her tragic, jarring end. When I read this on the news I started hysterically crying. It is true. I cried for half an hour over a horse I never knew.
Then, I went to visit the lizards. I am watching them daily, knowing they need better living conditions, more space, more light, but they are not mine and are going home Wednesday. I dont want to be a busybody lizard activist and get in the way, so I am just helping out for now and then letting go. One of them, he seems to have acquired the same disease as the last one who died. The Flopping Can’Äôt Walk Somewhat Paralyzed Disease. It is tragic, seeing them wither away one by one, and the flopping makes it so much worse. Last night the sick guy was flipped over on his back with his feet up in the air and his little paw was on his face. His paw just sat there on his face as if he were saying Alas, woe is me. I really thought he must be dead, but his eyes were open and moving from side to side. But he was all toppled over. I thought he must be trapped in his body and I became very very sad. This morning he was stretched out on a branch. So he moved again. I dont know what will happen. They are major troopers. Often they can have parasites and such things. You can take them to the vet and try and save them but you know, these are just someone elses lizards. I would like to keep the female who lost her finger because she is so amazing and continues to thrive. She is very cute and inspiring. Also there is an egg now. A baby lizard egg. Do I nurture and hatch it? Do we toss it into the toilet?
Speaking of toilets, when I woke up this morning it was to the smell of poo. I lifted myself out of bed and saw a turd right there, on my clean sheets. My wretched old cat Hamlet seems to have pood on my pillow and the poo must have rolled down into the bed. I am still, 10 hours later, horrified.
When I discussed this with a friend she said Life is suffering (lizards); humans have manipulated the world with dire consequences for the subjugated (horse, lizards); sometimes you wake up to shit (hamlet). I concur. She was spot on in her viewpoints.
One last story. Yesterday I was walking in my neighborhood. A man was running down the sidewalk. An envelope flew out of his back pocket. I bent to get it and chased the man to return it. The man I thought had dropped it said he hadnt. There was no one else around. I looked at the envelope and it said Happy Mothers Day. It had a phone number on it, a word I have never seen and it said $300. It felt bulky and there seemed to be a lot of money inside. I looked around. I rushed home and dialed the number on the envelope but it wasn’Äôt an actual number. I took a Spanish speaker with me back to the site of the dropping and we inquired about a person who was perhaps missing an envelope. We were directed to a bodega and a man with a giant stomach. He said it was not his envelope as he threw fake punches into the air. I took it back home. We all discussed what to do. It was for Mothers Day, how sad to have lost it. I decided that I should give it to charity so I wouldn’Äôt feel guilty. I was pretty torn over the decision and what to do. Maybe the universe threw it at my feet as a gift. Maybe it was a test. Anyhow, I sat at the table to open it and out came a giant pile of old scratched losing lottery tickets. What!!! What!! I felt dumb.
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May 2, 2008
This is a photo of a few of The Lizards. It is not a very good photo because of the light. I am sitting near them right now, watching them stay still.
As you can see, their wee ribs show and they all pile on top of each other. It is funny and strange.
News today is that there is something wrong with one of my eyes. This is a terrifying thing because as you know I am an artist and I need to see. I guess if I stop being able to see I can either a.) become a writer who talks into a tape recorder and has someone else type it or b.) make very very abstract art. Really I hope it does not come to this. It is kind of scary having something wrong with one's eye because the eye doctor is almost as grim as the dentist. This morning I had the puffs of air in the eyes which is horrid and then total dilation which is even more horrid. Then, for the rest of the day, once the blurriness wore off, whenever I thought about my eyes, everything looked like it was made of zillions of tiny shards of light and I would wonder if seeing looked like that to everyone else. Then I would have anxiety and get a little dizzy as a result. It was kind of a rough day. But I did have some delicious salad so that was good.
Well folks, have a lovely weekend. I myself will be watching lizards, dodging rain, and buying a new toaster.
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April 30, 2008
This is a story I will call "Infectious Waste".
This morning's train trip seemed normal at first. As usual, I entered the train and became a desperate seat monger. Because of my sheer drive and focus, I immediately scored a window seat. I opened my new book by Augusten Burroughs, who is one of my favorites ever. I decided to stay on the local so I could have more reading time. After a few stops I sensed people were shuffling around in a way that was not the same as the last thousand zillion morning rush hour shuffing moments, but I dismissed it as general rush hour shuffling nonetheless. After I read a couple more pages, I noticed people were all sort of looking in one direction, which was behind me. I put my head back down and read some more. Then I kept feeling like this woman near me was staring at me, so I looked up again, but she was also looking behind me with all of the other people who were looking behind me. So, I looked behind me. I saw that the whole center of the car had emptied out. I suspected something must have become smelly, so I inhaled. But I didn't smell anything, so I did a little shrug and went back to reading. At the next stop, the conductor entered our car and informed us that since there was Infectious Waste In The Car we would have to leave until it could be cleaned up. Somebody urinated in the car. It is Infectious Waste. You must leave the car, he said.
I looked behind me again and now noticed a giant puddle of pee covering the floor and spreading like a plague. I thought to myself, Oh man, someone peed. Did people see the person pee? Was it a completely horrific scene and I missed the whole thing? Was it a pregnant lady because I hear this happens and that would be sad. Or was it a creepy loser who decided to just pee right there? Was it someone mentally ill? Who peed? With my brain envisioning various train pee scenarios, I shuffled off the car with everyone and realized I will never know who peed and what happened. Honestly I will just never know.
And there is this one other mystery. There is a man who is in a wheelchair, he is small and the chair is small. He parks it at the very edge of the train platform and sits there and sometimes he falls asleep. I have never seen him get on a train. He is just parked there. The dark corners of my mind fear that he is waiting for an accident to happen. The other corners of my mind think maybe he just falls asleep sometimes and often does actually get on the train, I just haven't seen him do so. This I may never know either. I just might never ever know.
What I do know today is that I love coffee, and that trees are important, and that the boys at Fred Flare are the nicest ever.
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April 22, 2008
Our house is pretty big, so one would think the three cats would spread out or hide. But no, not our cats. They are always right where you are. They are all constantly right near you, and they always want something. Mostly they want the stinking cans of wet food, and they also want attention, both of which we are more than glad to give. But sometimes it is literally ridiculous, how they are all right there. As much as they will not leave us alone, they will also not leave each other alone. There is a constant conversation between them all - who is going to pivot, box in or stalk the other? Will they do more than two laps in the halls and through the rooms on the 2nd floor, one trotting after the other like a feline chain gang? I often imagine them wearing period costumes and speaking in British accents. The image of them in top hats, chiffons and spats while using walking sticks just cracks me up.
My cat Hamlet, he moved in last, after the two others had already formed their bond. It was extremely challenging for Hamlet since he is very old and does not play well with others. But after months of staring contests, I'll scratch your face-offs, and giant full body puffing ups, they have established some kind of understanding. Just yesterday there was a dog running wild in our house because we thought it a great opportunity to further bring the cats together in solidarity.
Now spring has sprung and I myself love letting them go play in the yard. They eat grass and vomit. They roll in dirt and immediately jump on the bed when they come back inside. Hamlet pees outside instead of in our houseplants, on our mail, on my shoes, on my comforter, on our hats, and sometimes actually in the litter box.
I don't know why I thought of writing a bit about them tonight. They are awfully cute when they all line up in a row and eat their disgusting canned food in unison. Samson, he has 6 toes on each foot so he gets ingrown fingernails, and the vet has his chart marked with a giant red warning because he goes absolutely psychotic when he has to go there. They had to trap him in a glass box while wearing industrial sized like, kevlar mittens, and gas him just to cut his one nail. It was out of hand. That's how psycho he went! And Billie, she is extremely wee and very scared of everything but will also scratch your face off when you least expect it so I have made it my goal in life to cat whisperer her. I have already made much progress, which I will not go into in detail but trust me. I am a natural. And also I think that cat whisperer should definitely be a verb.
I am going to go cat whisperer Billie a little more right now while I watch the Tudors. I feel like they should have cats on the Tudors. They don't have any animals it's weird.
And also, just to follow up on the lizards. There are 9 lizards, 3 of whom are lame. It is upsetting to watch them struggle. One, a girl, her hand has been mamed. So she clings to the tree with her one good paw while her other mamed arm and paw dangles there. You have to understand, the arm, it is like, three quarters of an inch long and almost see- through and so tiny you can't really believe it. She is such a trooper so we are calling her Trooper. Then there is one who is so gimped out I am hoping he will die so he isnt so uncomfortable anymore. He lays in a pile all folded over. When he tries to move his whole body spasms and flips around and he sort of flies and falls. It is SO UPSETTING! I don't even know what to do. If it were my lizard town, I would get them new cages and more lights and spend hundreds of dollars and then the lizard would probably die anyhow. The other lame one is a true fighter. He had been left for dead in a 4th grade public school coat closet but was rescued and nursed back to life. He is still unwell but he is eating and no longer looks like a crusty shoelace. He is called Rocky. The healthy ones dont have names. They are in good shape and have not needed cheering on yet. This experience of lizard sitting, which thankfully will be over next week, is another reminder that nature is cruel and brutal. That within all things beautiful lurks the darkness. That when something is unbearably cute, it is that much harder and sadder when some tragedy befalls it! Thus spoketh lizard.
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April 18, 2008
Today I had to work for twelve hours at my job. That is kind of a grim fate on a Friday. One positive aspect of my very long stay at my job today was to sit around and listen to a bunch of people tell stories. The stories were about their experiences being new art teachers out in the world, in various schools in new york, from kindergarten through high school. It was actually kind of amazing to listen to twelve different people tell a story with the same theme of being an art teacher, because every person told the story in a really different way and there was enough of a range of experiences shared that sitting around for a couple hours listening was actually not boring and kind of inspiring.
I am not an art teacher nor do I ever want to be one. But I have to say I am really glad that the world has them, and I am getting to know them up close, people who really and truly want to teach kids to access their creative parts. One woman has been teaching at a seriously tough school in Harlem. She was exhausted and desperate for her vacation. The school has had 5 principals in 5 years, truly indicative of the scenario of frustration and hopelessness that seems to prevail. There are guns, baseball bats, knives and major gangs, fighting, threatening, and shooting. She has been called every derogatory name you can think of. She has only recently begun to get the students to control themselves in her class because she has explained to them that she knows how to box and has studied self defense, so now they respect her more since she can kick their asses, even though she is just a skinny white lady, they say. She is overwhelmed and wants a new job. But she keeps getting up and going to work each day, against the odds. Amazing.
I think teachers are extraordinary people. I wish I had just one art teacher when I was a kid who had even one tenth of the greatness I come across in the people I meet at my job now. But alas, I had the nuns. The macrame owls, the drawing of the flowers in the vase, and nothing else memorable enough for me to even write here. Go art teachers go. Go all teachers go!
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April 17, 2008
I am going to ignore the fact that I haven't written in almost a year.
We are taking care of some Anole Green Lizards. They are minuscule and so cute with wee eyes that sort of just look at the lamp or look around or stay closed while their whole body stays otherwise still. They are sleepy calm eyes, they look wise. I think I am supposed to learn something from them. Anoles are sometimes called chameleons. This is due to their color-changing ability. When severely stressed or ill they will turn dark brown. They have these tiny little ribs you can see through their skin. I want to hold one but I am told they are so fast they might scurry off and then one of my cats will surely catch and eat it and that will be too tragic to deal with. Therefore, I plan to simply sit and stare at them through the glass for as long as they will let me. Which, being that all they do is stare at the lamp, at each other, or back at me, might be a very long time.
I have an art show coming up. It opens May 30 th at Mixed Greens. I am happy about this. Here is what it says on the press release. If it sounds interesting to you, please stop by. My many drawings would like to see you, as they are tired of just looking at each other while crammed into folders and envelopes.
Types of Kinds: A Study MAY 30 through JULY 3, 2008, Opening Friday, May 30th, 6 to 8 pm
Mixed Greens is thrilled to present Christina Mazzalupo's third solo exhibition with the gallery. In this very idiosyncratic study, she identifies a cross-section of kinds, parts, and types that significantly affects her observations of life on earth. Mazzalupo's recent work explores myth, science, genetics, adaptation, and chance through an assortment of descriptive portraits and pseudo-scientific studies. For each of the drawings, she uses pencil, ink and watercolor on aged paper or classification tags. The antiquity of the paper echoes the inscrutability of history. Through an ardent investigation of theories, beliefs, and lives, Mazzalupo finds circuitous ways of discussing the topics that cause humans to contemplate and research, generation after generation. Why is one person more attractive, more evolved, or more fortunate than another? Why does the Equus Zebra have perfect stripes? Are all governments run by a race of shape-shifting lizard people? Cause and effect, destiny versus luck, personal perception versus collective comprehension, monomyths, mutations, and fantasies are all explored in this project. Mazzalupo's drawings will cause you to ask yourself why you aren't better looking and if your experiences in the bedroom were actually alien abductions.
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May 22, 2007
I have fallen behind on the blogging, this much is true. I updated my site yesterday in light of recent tee shirt events. I'm peddling a new little line of shirts called funniest tee shirts in the universe. Some might think that calling my shirt line funniest tee shirts in the universe is smug of me, but really, I don't even know if they are all that funny. It's a joke title. All these people were laughing a lot over them the other day at a street far where I was selling them though, so I can only hope their reaction was indicative of the sense of humor of the world at large. Anyhow, humor is subjective.
At this moment in time, I am being called forth to engage in a rousing game of scrabble. This is what scrabble usually looks like for me:
Phew
Spleen
Cat
Because of this, I may find something else to do. Only time will tell.
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February 27, 2007
Hello.
I am writing to conclude my story about the Old Man Who Lives Downstairs. I have written repeatedly about him, his history, his art, his smell, his begging, his sadness, his drug use, his rude drug riddled boytoys. On some days he is witty and charming. A few times I saw him late at night, wired, wearing eyeliner and a poncho, laughing and telling stories, walking with ease without his cane. Other times he hobbles desperately on the streets begging for money for food. He says: Its terrible. I am sick. Its so terrible. Do you have a buck. Can I have some Tylenol. Will you look at my drawings. I sold two drawings for five dollars. Come and look at my art. Do you have a teabag. I am an old man. It is terrible. He calls me Katherine and I dont bother to correct him. Mr. Fluke. This person who walked across India, met the maharaji, has a degree in metalsmithing, collects sticks and branches, hung out at The Factory. When I told him I met and talked with Penny Arcade his face lit up and he was so excited. Penny was an old friend he said, he adored her.
He is sometimes so articulate and smart and wise. But here he is now, old, rickety, sick, desperate. He lives in a nice building in Cobble Hill Brooklyn. A 4-story walk up which is so hard for him to manage. He has lived there for years and years. He is being evicted. They say he hasnt paid his rent. He says they owe repairs. Today he is going to court. I asked if anyone was going with him. No he said, he prefers it that way.
Here is the thing. This weekend I moved out, after three years. My roommate and I both found new places to live. Last night was the final night of cleaning and discarding and saying goodbye. We left him some food and a blank canvas. We wanted to do something big, like a ton of groceries, but we just didnt. I am so broke from moving that I just couldnt take another bit of money out for him. We have given a lot over the years. I myself have become quite frustrated by him, even though I care about him so much. I snuck past his door daily, hoping I didn’Äôt have to see him, because he would inevitably ask me for something. Even if my hands were full with a giant laundry bag, and I was loaded down and sneezing and breathing heavy, he would ask me for something. He was knocking on our door daily, always asking for something. I just wanted to not have to say goodbye to him. I knew I couldnt help him not get evicted. I have my own crap with this landlord to deal with. I knew I couldnt get his artwork seen, because in my opinion, it is just not good enough. It hurts to say it, but he is no Henry Darger or George Widener. He has written books, he says, tons of them. And he always tells me about how so much of his art was stolen. Hundreds of drawings taken and never returned.
So last night I stood in the kitchen, and I felt a pang of self-loathing because I was just walking away from Mr.Fluke. I helped him in tiny bits over the years, I listened to stories, looked at his drawings, gave him food and money. After a couple years, we usually didn’Äôt answer when he knocked. It was an intrusion. Sometimes he brought offerings like terrible pocketbooks or bracelets he found on the street. I have 6 tiny drawings from him. Once he left a note saying he wasnt trying to play quid pro quo, but he felt he wanted to give us things for helping him. He was grateful.
Today he goes to court, alone. My roommate gave him $20.00 that he is going to use for a car service to get to court. I think I gave him nothing because I was secretly angry at him, for begging from me for three years and bringing a sadness to my hallway and my home. Last night, as we were taking down the last load, he stood there in his doorway. The hall light was burnt out, so it was pitch dark, and he was sick and coughing up phlegm. He asked for ginger ale and Tylenol and I told him we had nothing left in the house. We were carrying giant pieces of furniture out. He told us about court and said he was scared. I didnt know what to say or do. I said I am so sorry Gabriel, I will send you good wishes.
What will happen to him. His things. His ponchos and branches and oil pastels. His rugs from India. I dont know. It is confusing. I feel that I am supposed to take something away with this. A message, a lesson. But I am not really certain what it is. Here is this person with such interesting life experience and he has so many stories, and he is so very intelligent. But he smells and is annoying and kind of inconsiderate and he just carries this aura of desperation that after three years was just too much to bear. I dont know if he will be evicted. I dont know what will happen. What is the lesson here. I will probably figure it out in 5 years.
One night my neighbor was passed out drunk in the hall. Mr. Fluke came home and found him. He picked him up, found his keys, told funny jokes and got my neighbor into his apartment safely. It was a side of Mr. Fluke I had never seen. Self-sufficient, helping someone else. It was so so good to see.
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January 26, 2007
Last night i was informed that the 2nd oldest tortoise known of died this past summer. She was possibly Darwin's tortoise, (there is skepticism on this). Amazingly she was named Harriet, and she died at 176 years old. She was the size of a dinner table and for over 100 years everyone thought she was male. Harriet had a heart attack and passed away quickly overnight. Look at how cute she was:
So, i was kind of wigging out the other day about the state of the world, just feeling very prickly about it all. i'm feeling better today because yesterday i had this little vision where i was on a giant cliff hundreds of stories high, and there was no ground below, just a glowing light, a pool of misty cloudy light. and i knew that it was warm, and good, and that the bottomless pit of glow was the place i wanted to be. so i just jumped. and in the little vision, after i jumped, i was suspended in the air, frozen there, because apparently i was not ready to be in the light yet. there was a lot of stuff that had to kind of align itself before i dropped down fully, but it seemed the fact that i jumped was what mattered. so now i have this picture stuck in my head, i am kind of hovering a few feet from the edge of the cliff, and my body is all stiff like a wooden soldier. i can see my mind busy with its cogs taking inventory of what needs to happen before i can loosen up and fall in. so, that 's interesting.
also, last night a couple of my friends were talking about email etiquette, regarding the proper use of grammar and so on. one of the issues brought up was people who do not capitalize. i hereby admit i am criminal at not capitalizing, as you can see. for me, it is a matter of sheer laziness. maybe something about cybercommunication takes away the rules and regulations of punctuation and syntax. anyhow, i thought i would take responsibility for my typing shortcuts. maybe i will try harder, but honestly, i probably won't. what can you do.
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January 22, 2007
last night when i closed my eyes to go to sleep, my mind was inundated by vast amounts of images. they were all of these characters, one after another appearing at lightening speed. from balloon-like queens draped in pink taffeta to flittering fly shaped creatures blowing raspberries with their tongues. eventually they disappared and i drifted off into a very plain world of average dreams, one of which entailed having a sore throat and watching television with my parents.
it was nice to see these kinds of images because in the past my tendency was to see super creepy pictures of super creepy faces in my head when i closed my eyes for bed and it was pretty awful. but now they were all of a sudden happier and more appealing to look at and that's good. it was a much more pixish fairyland type deal. so here it is morning and i really want to draw these pictures. but i can't see them anymore. i can feel them, they are still in me in a way, but i can't see them clearly enough. its infuriating really. really and truly. i was thinking if i had some drug trip going on it would make sense, but i just took the normal pre-bedtime lot - calcium and rescue remedy. who knows really. i just wish the pictures would stick sometimes. its like i am given this visual gift but then it is taken away by consciousness. or something. what does it all mean? sigh. below you will find a very lame attempt at reproduction:
ps. today's theme song is i dont like mondays by the boomtown rats.
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January 17, 2007
In celebration of the upcoming Outsider Art Fair, here are links to some brilliant artists:
and my super deluxe favorite : George Widener
presently, i have a show up at a cafe in new paltz, new york. it is called the main street bistro and apparently many people who visit and live in new paltz eat there. i have to say, i am kind of proud of the show and there is a lot of new work in it. three big paintings and a bunch of collages and some drawings etc. maybe you know some hippies who live up there and they can go and see it. they can also eat good food while they are there.
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January 8, 2006
not to be a harbinger of darkness, but today there are killer bees in lousiana and 60 dead birds found in a 2 block radius in austin. oh and a scorpion biting a dude on a flight from costa rica to toronto. and of course, the overwhelming scent of gas fumes permeating all of new york city, brooklyn and jersey this morning (yet to be identified). plus, the plastic explosives found in miami, my train coming to a severe screeching violent halt this morning and its brakes suddenly failing and all of us being rerouted like the herd of cows that we are. and oh yeah a subway train in DC derailed this afternoon injuring 20 people. it is one of those days. one of the days where a shift is occurring, today is not a baby step like regular days, today is a jump. the puzzle pieces aren't locking together gently like they normally tend to do during the good old everyday. today, it sounds more like gigantic ten foot rusty cogs that have gone unused for 100 years, being suddenly reset and the noise is like a scratching squealing grinding growl.
today's fumes of course reminded me of a day in october in 2005 when the whole of manhattan smelled like pancakes, or more specifically, maple syrup. really it was nothing they said and by the next day no one ever spoke of it again. what was it we asked "we aren't sure" they answered so let's just forget about it. in the newspapers, about the pancakes, people were being interviewed about the smell and the new york times shared various quotes about the residents' subsequent desires to go out for cake and ice cream and vanilla lattes.
so, how can three boroughs smell like gas, or maple syrup, and we all just go about our business and not demand answers? today the mayor actually said "sometimes new york gets weird smells, but then they go away." the maple syrup, i feel it was more suspect than the gas because it smelled sweet. and chemical attacks, they smell sweet. like flowers mixed with mowed hay or something. anyhow i think it makes sense to at least consider that someone just might be investigating wind patterns and how much stink can spread through a city like this one in the amount of time it takes one sleepy middle aged guy to travel from say bay ridge to bryant park. anyhow. i feel kind of hopeless and angry plus super frustrated because i will go get on the subway and go home tonight and i will never know who sent the anthrax and why it smelled like pancakes that day and where the gas came from and how to really truly save the polar bears beyond recycling and buying a hybrid car and not taking a bag at the grocery. tonight on the train with my herd, i will say moo, day after day. moo. moo.
(yes i feel hopeless and freaked out today but tomorrow i will put my helmet back on i promise.)
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December 6, 2006
I am not feeling particularly literate today, but I want to take a minute to plug a book I am presently reading. The book is called "2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl", and it is written by Daniel Pinchbeck.
"This literary and metaphysical epic unifies the cosmological phenomena of our time - from crop circles to quantum mechanics to the worldwide resurgence of shamanism - in support of the Mayan prophecy that the year 2012 portends an unprecedented global shift. Cross Umberto Eco, Aldous Huxley, and Carlos Castaneda and you get the voice of Daniel Pinchbeck. And yet nothing quite prepares you for the lucidity, rationality, and informed audacity of this seeker, skeptic, and cartographer of hidden realms."
For those of you who care, I recommend it highly. It is tugging me out of the banality of the everyday in really excellent ways.
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November 27, 2006
Also, this is how crazy I used to be, this is one of my paintings from grad school:
I'm so glad I am not that crazy anymore, it was truly exhausting. I have no idea what I was even talking about. People bought these like hotcakes though, I guess they planned to eventually cash in on my mental instability. They might be disappointed because apparently "used to be crazy but is ok now" doesn't tend to increase the value of art. oh well.
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November 27, 2006
This mornings report on NPR said that most Americans waste and trash $600.00 worth of food yearly. They discussed the importance of cutting the brown pieces off of your lettuce and freezing leftovers for future use. They said the food can still taste delicious. I myself am criminal at throwing away rotten looking foodstuffs in fear of getting food poisoning or some kind of bacterial intestinal vomitous ecoli-esque infection. Three bouts of food poisoning are enough for me. I feel that food poisoning rates right up there with torture. Although I believe rottenish broccoli will not cause severe permanent damage, I am very sensitive to the feelings of sadness and self pity that can be ignited by the ingestion of wilted vegetables. Failing to feed the body and mind fresh green gently misted with water at the health food store expensive organic food can bring a dark cloud to mealtime. When things are wilted I can not help but wonder where the worms are hiding and what parasites are crawling their way in and out of the yellowing leafy curls.
My unwillingness to eat browning limp vegetables causes me extreme guilt. I am very aware that I am lucky to have food at all. Once, I made dinner for a girl, I think it was grilled salmon with rice and kale. I had discovered a worm in the pan while sauteeing the greens, an ugly yellow wormy maggot thing that was about 1 inch long and fat enough to make a difference. After my obligatory shriek and shiver I threw it into the trash and worked hard to let the experience go and not wreck supper. It wasnt until my meal was 1/2 eaten that I saw a second, severed worm in my dinner plate. Yes, I had neatly forked worm number two in half and eaten either its head or its backend. You can't really tell the difference with the worms. Suffice it to say I almost cried and did not eat kale again for about two months, which is very sad because kale is my favorite. Anyhow, I digress. My intention was to discuss the importance of not wasting your food and eating your leftovers. Don't waste food and eat your leftovers ok?
.
mmmmmmm.....delicious.
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November 21, 2006
This is beautiful:
www.marriedtothesea.com
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November 1, 2006
I don't know if it was because it was Halloween yesterday or what, but I had this crazyperson dream last night with ghosts and decapitation and all this stuff. I was at my grandmother's house and she asked me to clean these giant dustballs that were all accumulating where the wall meets the ceiling. She said my cat was too dustbally and creating dusty havoc. And I said, wow he has never made this much hair hmmm. So I climbed a ladder and started cleaning them. Suddenly it occurred to me, the dustballs were ghosts! I jumped off the ladder and looked around the room. Suddenly one of the dustballs turned into a ghostperson, a lady who looked like Lucy Liu and she kind of flew around and then disappeared. A little bit later another dustball turned into another lady who jumped down and then vaporized right into the floor. My friend came over and she confirmed that they were definitely ghosts. I told my grandmother they were ghosts and I took off. Eventually I was on a mission to somewhere with 2 people, I don't recall who they were. Suddenly, a big black car drove by and these kids in masks popped their heads out and started shooting at us. this was fully inspired by Veronica Mars last night, this I know. so the guy and I mashed into a wall hiding, and we were both shot in the leg. But it was just B.B. guns so we were ok, just scared. We were on the run and walked onto this pond area with big rocks and we sat and I looked into the water and there was a dead body, a woman, face down and decapitated. She was all bloody. I said Look! I can't stay here! Look at that! So we left. Eventually I was somewhere safer and talking to a friend from work. He told me how a male co-worker of mine had had an affair with Walt Whitman, but not to tell that I knew. Later on that day the other co-worker and I were talking and he said when he was 5 he had an affair with Walt Whitman. I thought to myself that was too young and ew, but he seemed to be totally okay with it. Then I went back to my grandmother's and there were still the ghostdustballs, and they all started chanting in scary voices and I was so scared again. I don't remember anymore. I think I got out a vacuum cleaner.
There is a student here today in his Halloween costume, Charlie Chaplin. It's a good costume, but Halloween is over. He said he was too sick yesterday to dress up. But I think he looks sort of weird and desperate in his costume today.
also, i revisited the Married to the Sea website today:
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October 26, 2006
Last night I watched a movie called Julie Johnson, starring Lili Taylor and Courtney Love and Spalding Grey. It was depressing, even though it was listed as a comedy. Basically, Julie is a miserable housewife who realizes she is a math/science genius and throws her crapass husband out and has a lezzie affair with her best friend Claire. Then at the end we realize that when you are a math/science genius you pretty much have to hang out with only other math/science geniuses because regular people from Hoboken dont want to hear your quantum magnetic force field theories. Also, you can't really be a lez there because all of your friends will shun you and call you a dyke and your children will be terrorized on the playground because you're a big homo. But in a way even though Claire can't deal and splits, Julie ends up happy. Lesson - following your dreams can screw up lots of other aspects of your life.
In other news, I lost an envelope filled with autograph book pages from the late 1800's. I am traumatized and hope to find them soon.
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October 18, 2006
1. Today I got to help an old lady up onto the sidewalk. She was so cute and took my arm and I wanted to help all old ladies worldwide at that very second. I thought I could institute a Help An Old Person Day. We could all call in sick and spend the day walking around looking for old people to assist. As soon as we said our farewells and walked away I almost started to cry though because she was so cute and I wanted to stay with her all day and hear about her life and see pictures of her grandchildren and make her a sandwich. It must just feel so overwhelming to be an old person who needs help with little things and this is why I did not get a job working with old people or animals even though I love them, because I can barely contain my feelers during emotional moments whether they are happy or sad. I could cry right this second thinking about her smile.
2. I made some new collages. It was good because I thought I might never make art again:
3. A thrilling piece of news is about my band making a new video. We are very excited because it is going to involve choreographed dance and fight scenes, which in our opinion, are the best things ever. There are going to be tons of people in the video, and maybe even a unicorn. Or perhaps a horse. I'm not sure yet but keep yourself posted in the new year because it will take your life by storm. The video is being directed by the brilliant, gifted, and good-looking Esther Bell. Here is her website:
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October 12, 2006
I just wrote a whole long blog. Then I accidentally lost it. This is reflective of the last couple of days of my life . So, now I am going to keep it simple with one of my photo essays designed to make you ponder the mysteries of life. Today's mystery is the transformation of Joey Lawrence. The story of a young man who traveled the road from Cute to Horrifying...
"WOAH".
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October 6, 2006
INCONSIDERATE:
1. without due regard for the rights or feelings of others
2. acting without consideration; thoughtless; heedless.
3. overhasty; rash; ill-considered: slovenly, inconsiderate reasoning.
4. insensitive, uncaring, rude.
I experienced major inconsideration last night. These people who live behind the backyard, meaning their backyard buts up against ours, they had a party.
It is always frustrating to go to bed on a work night and be challenged with party cacophony. But you know, you turn on your white noise machine and suck it up. You did after all, chose to live life in the big city.
But these people, they got louder and louder as they got drunker and drunker. It was suddenly an endless barrage of these dudes totally yelling and howling and trying harder and harder to keep up with each other...I will talk over you because you are loud and engaging and getting more attention than me, so I will keep increasing my own resonance until it becomes an unspoken battle of vocal virility. Dare not challenge me with your har-har jokes, I will tell a bigger better story about that time as an undergrad when i stripped down to my boxers and raided the cafeteria during parents' weekend! It was so killer!
And the women, they laughed and squealed and yipped like hysterical teenagers ALL NIGHT LONG.
The People got louder and louder as they gOt drunker and drunker. It was all wrong. It was two a.m. and it was a work night, a work night in a working class neighborhood filled with people who have to go to work early in the morning and who have tiny children who have to go to school in the morning. It was a school night! What is wrong with these newly moved in people?
In my opinion, what was even more annoying was this - they are late 20's caucasians, part of the ongoing gentrification process (as are we)...but they clearly have no respect for their co-dwellers or regard for the ethics of the neighborhood. So, I have decided to hate them. To hate them tremendously. I feel they are another example of why the world feels white people believe (whether consciously or subconsciously) that they are entitled to everything and can do whatever the fuck they want. Move out of my way, I am here and I want to have a loud outdoor party until two a.m. on a work night. Or there is always this one, "OH I'm sorry I didn't realize we were being loud." Passive aggressive jerkitude.
I want to egg their backyard. And trample their foliage. But instead, maybe we will leave a note. "Have your party on a weekend please". Or, "Perhaps you can keep it down after midnight." Or maybe I will stand in the yard, facing their house, really late every night for a week straight, and hold up a boom box like John Cusack in Say Anything, and blast Dont Worry Be Happy by Bobby McFerrin over and over and over and over. That seems annoying enough.
I dunno. I'm just tired today. Idiots.
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September 28, 2006
brilliant lady!
funny man!
smart man!
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September 25, 2006
I went to see the movie Jesus Camp this weekend. I just wrote a giant blog about it, then I decided to erase the giant blog. Instead I am going to just throw a quote and a link up, and you can decide if you want to see it and what you think of it. After you see it, you can also decide if you felt the documentary was biased or if it was untainted, factual reporting on some extreme crazy shit that is unfortunately non-fiction. (When shit is just plain crazy, it slants itself.)
Here is a good quote I found from Slant Magazine:
By layering particularly frenzied church gatherings with ominous music, playing radio news broadcasts of Samuel Alito's confirmation hearings over shots of gray highway landscapes, and occasionally cutting away to anti-Evangelical Air America talk show host Mike Papantonio, Ewing and Grady slightly undercut their supposedly evenhanded approach while providing little insight not already available from the brunt of their footage. Yet during incidents such as a gentleman warning campers against telling ghost stories that don't "honor God," 12-year-old wannabe-Marjoe Levi delivering a sermon that brainlessly regurgitates the same anti-Satan, "we're a key generation" spiel he previously heard Fischer give, and 10-year-old true believer Tory stating (like an extra from Footloose) that she's always careful to dance for God and not "for the flesh," the film's nonjudgmental perceptiveness renders such editorializing miscues negligible. And in its astute visual juxtapositions of belligerent fire-and-brimstone preachers and the rapt, absorbent countenances of their fresh-faced spectators, Jesus Camp, a piercing portrait of innocence perverted, devastatingly corroborates Fischer's statement that "The Devil goes after the young. Those who cannot fend for themselves."- Nick Shager
This is a scene on Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=co1_9lR9EpM
Oh one more thing. I totally fell in love with this little boy in the film named Levi. I think we are supposed to all fall in love with him. Someone has to check in with him in 15 years. There is something so special and bright about him, and I feel like he will reach a more worthy form of enlightenment and actually become an important spiritual figure for many people. Of course, this will occur only if he finds a way to reverse the damage done to him by people like Pastor Fisher. Maybe you will see this potential in him as well. Maybe I am just hopeful. Maybe it's because of his shaved head and cute rat's tail. This is him:
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September 21, 2006
Since the first time I heard her voice, I have loved Cat Power. I went to see her at a small performance space here in NYC, sometime before 2000. The experience was so upsetting and not at all what I had dreamt of. She hid behind her hair while mixing all of the songs up so there were words from other songs all sloshed in between music from different song versions and it was just a mess. At one point she had a little fit and walked off, and we all sat there quietly and unsure of what to do, but then she came back and played for like ten more hours. I would get all excited when she began one of my favorite songs and I would look forward to hearing her hit some high note (one that would sendme swooning when I listened at home in my headphones) but instead she would pull her face away from the mic and none of us would hear a peep. It was like a constant buzzkill, over and over song after song.
Behind Chan screened the original 1928 Passion of Joan of Arc, in all of it's torturous and painful glory. Imagine her head bobbing in a tiny spec in front of the giant scratchy black and white screen. Envision the agony on Joan of Arc's face as she burned up into a little piece of martyred soot. Imagine this visual merging with the deep wailing sounds of sadness coming from Chan's heart and head. It was a true recipe for a" holy shit that was really upsetting i am glad it is over" kind of evening.
and
= 
Well, after that i decided to never go see her perform again...not because of the Joan of Arc backdrop (I love Joan of Arc) and not because it was all around sad, but because Cat Power herself was such a disaster that it broke my heart all up. It was just too much you know?
Until now.
Go chan go.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/20/arts/music/20cat.html?ex=1158984000&en=3f2d7299adb41651&ei=5087%0A
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September 19, 2006
i miss my cat. it has been almost three months since i had to put her to sleep. i found a bunch of old photos the other night. some from when she was a baby and some from when she was giant and fat. when she was giant and fat she looked like a watermelon with a tiny little head taped on. 16 years is a long time to spend with anyone, a person, an animal, even a plant. it's just a long time. sometimes i try and talk to her in my head, and i immediately freak myself out by thinking i hear her tell me she is scared and lonely. however i know that is just me projecting my fears that she is scared and lonely, or that after death we are all scared and lonely and find ourselves lost and terrified in a big vacant black hole of nothingness. i cant help but feel like i have somehow abandoned her, throwing her into that possible abyss on her own. she was so very little, 7 pounds and tiny boned, almost slothlike. i feel responsible for sending her somewhere that i can not assure myself is safe and filled with loving animals and people and kibble and flowers and sunbeams waiting for her to lay in. now i just miss her and have unanswered questions and her little bones all cremated in a tiny little tin can they gave me. the cremains. (that's what they call them, cremains)
when it happened i was feeling very in tune with nature and trusting she would be immediately at peace and filled with knowledge and ease. but now that it has sunk in and i truly feel her absence, i just don't know. death is such a trip. i imagine it is much more complicated for those of us left living than those of us who Go To The Other Side. Walk The Stairway to Heaven. Experience the Big Kicking of the Bucket and Buying of the Farm.
Anyhow, luckily I have this handsome old pinknosed boy to keep company with.
here is a website about coping with the loss of a pet if you are put in that position and need coping skills.
http://www.hsus.org/pets/pet_care/coping_with_the_death_of_your_pet/
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Tomorrow there is a protest against the war scheduled in NYC. The president will be at the UN this week spewing more of his pro-killing everyone insanity malarkey. United for Peace & Justice has organized this march, beginning at 9 a.m at 6th avenue and 37th street. They were even granted an actual permit. An actual permit!
http://www.unitedforpeace.org/
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September 1, 2006
My roommate and I have been discussing how many creepy things have been happening recently, one after another. For example there was another plane crash today, in Iran, with 80 people killed. There have been more crashes, floods, evacuations, fires, and pets dying than I have ever seen, just in the last few months. Snipers, car crashes, ambushes and hurricanes. Yesterday a fire in a plane in Florida, and 49 folks were killed sunday in a crash near Lexington, KY. Last tuesday 170 people killed in the Ukraine in a crash. Not to be a downer but what the fuck? Something is going on with the energy of the world. I think that we are doing a collective consciousness thing where we are all so war minded, therefore destruction minded, so there is just this bitter flavor of devastation in the air. We feed all of the fear energy and our energy swirls into the ether and then it turns into yuck and fear and crud and it makes things happen that are not good happy fluffy baby pug puppy things.
Growing up in Catholic schools (for 13 years) made concepts such as the apocalypse and the number 666 carry quite a burdenous weight on all us little catholic polyester uniformed kids in middle class all girls school run by scary very old nuns and closeted unattractive lesbians. (And I am certain this fear was prevalent for all the rest of the Catholics and Christians as well, but I can only speak here for myself.) Fear...for example: "He will be tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb." (Rev. 14:9-12)
What?! Tiny children being taught this stuff...no wonder they shit their pants and have to take pills.
Leviticus in particular was a giant freakish storytelling liar, and the book of Enoch was removed from the bible because it has all this cool shit in it that THEY don't want us to know, lest we think for ourselves and ask questions. (Also I know this topic is a giant ever expanding dialogue that just branches out into tons of other issues. But this is just a blog so you know I am just saying tiny tidbits of things that are in fact the ingredients of chock full long books of conversations and explorations and analysis. Ok.)
This is enoch:
I have been thinking and talking for years about the damage THEY do...focusing on my personal experience with the catholics and eventually exploring the same tactics utilized in other organized religions. Granted a few of them, more modern minded, liberal and evolved organizations, are much less fear-driven and actually produce some healthy folks with a positive, open attitude about faith and compassion and peace and unconditional love etc. But these sects are few and far between i think yes? Some spiritualities like Buddhism are wonderfully amazing and insightful, but there are still a lot of old fashioned unfair practices such as women being forbidden to be monks and the Buddhists' intolerance of homosexuality. I still love the Buddhists though, don't get me wrong. I cry a little when I see monks because I am so attracted to their energy and the Oms and the smells and I want to come back as a monk in my next life, so I am trying hard in this life to do a good job.
Basically I am an advocate of Make Your Own Spirituality. 3 items from column A and 2 from column B kind of thing. I think most folks I know are in the same place with that.
Anyhow if you are at all interested in living without the trappings of any form of organized institutions you can read Jiddu Krishnamurti. What he poses is almost impossible to accomplish but it's worth spending some time mulling.
http://www.kfa.org/biography.php
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August 29, 2006
awesome things:
1. the album shut up i am dreaming by sunset rubdown, with spencer krug from wolf parade.
2. the movie invincible with mark "don't call me marky mark" wahlberg.
3. the website glutenfreemall.com.
a not so awesome thing:
1. the dude who has been sleeping on the F train who smells so bad like poo that i cannot understand how anyone can sit on that car.
also this week a brazilian woman gave birth to a 14 pound baby (OW) and the world's oldest woman died at age 116. she was called maria esther de capovilla, and was from ecuador.
elizabeth bolden of memphis is now the oldest living person, also age 116 but 11 months younger than maria was. however, a woman in south africa named moloko temo claims to be 132 years old.
so, what do you get for being the oldest person living? do you get a badge or a certificate? what do you do with a certificate when you are 116? i guess you make it into guiness if you win. i wonder if they are/were all wise. i wonder if they qualify as wise old women. just cause you are around for a long time doesn't make you smart. hm. i used to love the guiness book when i was young. what a great read. (they do in fact give certificates)
it's almost fall. wow. i can understand how someone can get so old because the older you get the faster time flies. this is a picture of Shigechiyo Izumi, the oldest ever person, who lived to 120 years and 237 days:
also, today is the 1 year anniversary of hurricane katrina. several events are being held around the country to commemorate this disaster. unfortunately one of those events is not the impeachment of the president.
anyhow i am hoping to see the spike lee movie, when the levees broke. i think it is being released today.
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August 23, 2006
I can't help but be kind of curious about Tom and Katie. I get angry at myself for wanting to read Star magazine and get all dramatically involved with whether or not Tom is keeping Katie, now Kate, locked up in a cultish prison with their secret baby all swaddled and secret with special oils and chanty things happening. With thetans in a big circle wearing robes singing about L.Ron Hubbard and Xenu. Has Kate "surrendered her critical thinking skills" and "succumbed to 're-education'"? Is she walking around all zombied out their big house with dilated pupils and a little drool coming out of her mouth? Has she really pulled away from friends and family who are non-believers? Is it true that Tom tried to woo a couple of other actresses to be his bride (like Scarlett J.) and baby maker and they all ran in fear? I want to know! I want to know! I mean, I get wanting to be into something and stuff, but the whole element of keeping new members away from other folks until the higher level folks think they are brainwashed enough and ready to re-emerge into the world filled with the knowledge and power pretty much smacks of cultdom. And the Scientologists are all rich people. It costs about $350,000 to get up to "Thetan 8", which is like, bigwig status. Something about having to pay shit tons of money for spiritual evolution just confirms the creepy element. I just don't like how I want to know. I want to see photos of Katie looking all tired and freaked out wearing a silver robe, and then see some people do an intervention and rescue her and the baby. Then there will be custody battles and Tom will claim that Suri is the second coming of some alien god and I just don't know why I care or want to see this happen. I don't think Tom is crazy, he is the same as every fundamentalist religious person, or new age person, or devoted seeker of any type, he is just more publically preachy and judgemental. Everyone is desperate. We all want the same thing, answers. I think that Tom seems extra kookie because he is extremely arrogant and rich, while being manic and unmedicated. It's just Katie, I just want to know the truth about what Katie Kate is experiencing. Free Katie!! Run Katie Run!!! Why do i care!? What's wrong with me!?
one one my favorite websites: http://www.tomcruiseisnuts.com
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August 22, 2006
Interesting, when you take something away, and you fully cleanse yourself of it, and then eventually you bring it back into your life, you really can see or feel its effect in a much more clear and extreme way. This stands true for ones relationship with people, spaces, everything and anything. Distance creates understanding.
But I'm not really talking about anything deepish right now. I am just talking about gluten. What a thing. Sickening people worldwide and they have no idea. 1 in 150 people have Celiac Disease, which is a genetically inherited autoimmune disorder. Celiac Disease is an intolerance to gluten, which, if you take the time to look at the labels during your next grocery store visit, is in almost EVERYTHING delicious.
Since June 1st I have been doing major food elimination testing and to my dismay, I have realized that gluten has been wrecking me for years and years. Wow. So it is time to make the change, no more wheat, no more rye, no more barley. Maybe no more oats either depending on who you ask. But gluten makes this country go round. Amber waves of grain!! Aghhhh! (My first plan is to go to the gluten free mall online and buy breadcrumbs to send to my mother so I can still eat the family meatballs. Really that's the only thing I am concerned about, how to eat the meatballs.)
Luckily there are tons of new products coming out daily since Gluten Intolerance and Celiac Disease are finally getting proper recognition. Thank Mary Magdelyne I didn't figure this out 5 years ago when I would not have been able to find half as many gluten free breads and cookies and crackers and cakes which I love! Are you gluten intolerant? Some folks are and they don't even have symptoms. Their stomach lining is just slowly being eaten away year after year and then suddenly one day they have a critical disease caused by this autoimmune disorder! Doctors blow it off. Since there is no medicine for it why should they bother looking for it, they cant make money off of it. It is one of the most common genetic diseases that exists! And hardly anyone knows about it. Ridiculous.
Luckily for me (kind of), I have had severe stomach problems and headaches for years so I finally found someone who listened to me and didn't just hand me another useless diagnosis I couldn't do anything about. Jo, my spectacular acupuncturist/holistic health care practitioner true gift from above has again saved the day. She could not believe that I had seen doctors about migraines and burning holes in my stomach since I was a wee child and none ever said, well, sickly little child, let us look at your diet.
this is a picture of some ladies playing with gluten.
Anyhow if you suspect you may have a problem with Gluten, look at: http://www.celiac.org
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August 16, 2006
When I was in Vermont like I said I saw some emu's. I can't stop thinking about how many Dr Seuss characters look like emu's. This isn't any big revelation or anything, it just feels satisfying. Here is my photo essay:
= 
anyhow yesterday there was a crackwhore in my apartment building. i know that calling someone a crackwhore is totally uncool, and I would like to call her a "sex worker and or/ addict" instead, but really if there was a "how to identify a crackwhore" poster, she would be on it. refreshingly, she was super nice and held the door for me while i took my bike outside as i was trying to not stare at her face (or maybe his)...it was all long and narrow with tons of makeup and she had this crazy hairdoo. but as crazy looking as she was, she had that nice maternal hooker vibe you see in movies, do you know the kind i mean? like, hey baby let me get the door for you...anything else you need? alright...sounds like a drag of a cigarette followed by a sip of hot whiskey.
anyhow i was just thinking wow look at your high waisted jeans and how thin you are, hig heels, a tear in the calf of your pants. clenched tiny pocketbook. She seemed very happy, smiling. Not high. She had been visiting the old man who lives downstairs from me who lets drug dealers and addicts crash with him. he begs me for money constantly and comes and knocks and begs for food, which would be fine if he wasnt bringing drug dealers into the building. anyhow it's complicated and extremely frustrating. as harmless and goofy as his roommate dudes are, they are still doing and dealing drugs and that always comes with bullshit you don't want to deal with when you get home. especially when you pay buttloads of rent and live in a building owned by italians who should be able to just have some legs broken or something. just saying. the one thing that had me a little on edge yesterday was that the dumb monkey who lives there now, with the old man, he was hanging outside with this tweaker who was wiping his face over and over with a tissue repeatedly like a spastic freak and suddenly i realized he, the face wiper, might be this guy that i had a fight with last year. i don't have fights with people ever. but this dude was hanging out in the subway entrance every morning for weeks and bothering people, asking for money and upsetting many of them with his weird creepy behavior. so this one day he said something rude and dumbass to me so i said something like leave me alone! you are a jackass, etc or something, to him so he started yelling all this shit at me and called me a c*&t. it's true. i was already through the turnstyle on the other side, and kind of shook up from arguing with him...which was lucky for him because i was going to whip out my numchucks and kick his stupid skinny ass. anyhow so it might be him hanging out in my hallway buying smacktastic drugs. awesome!
anyhow this posting is totally rude and politically unconscious and awful. i know. i'm just irritated.
wait look at this, it's funny:
at least the junkies in my building wear pants.
http://www.toothpastefordinner.com/index.php
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August 15, 2006
This week two people have asked me if i believe in "god" or "a god" or you know, a cause beyond randomness. i found myself unable to articulate on all of the mind expanding interesting shit i have read on this issue. All i could find words for was to say that i believe in possibility and i think that trees smell too good and fish have far too many remarkable colorings to be random. Something had to create the first atomy thing and a piece of carbon dioxide and the whole sky which is not nothing. Something bigger had to have the creative power to instigate the big bang and put the ingredients into the soup you know? Pyramids and geometry, galaxies, time, you can't just ask someone the question, "do you believe in god" because there is far too much possibility for exploration outside of the old religious notion of god! It made me get all riled up because I have worked very hard to become less absorbed with my brain's desire to explore things it cannot actually grasp. So when someone asks me about it I get all riled up because there is just so much to think about that I have to take a nap afterwards and I have nightmares about falling into black holes and waking up in Pink Floyd pyramids.
For example, "The fourth dimension is time. While time is very different from the familiar spatial dimensions, Lorentz and Einstein showed at the beginning of the 20th century that space and time are intrinsically related. The idea of additional spatial dimensions comes from string theory, the only self-consistent quantum theory of gravity so far. It turns out that for a consistent description of gravity, one needs more than 3+1 dimensions, and the world around us could have up to 11 spatial dimensions".
It makes my throat tighten up and my arms tingle just to read this sentence. How are we suposed to just live without thinking about all of this!! ahhh!
You just can't know til you know. That's all I know. I am going to go read about simultaneous parallel existences of oneself now. Maybe if I can locate my other self it will be able to tell me what all this stuff is about so next time someone asks me if i believe in god i can find my words.
Oh ps. On a light very relaxing note, I went on vacation to Vermont. Highlights: rode bike 16 miles one day then 10 miles another, canoed very far and threw up from seasickness attained on lake, hiked up a mountain (i think it was 900 feet), a garder snake crawled across my foot it was awful and i wouldn't wear flip flops outside for the rest of the week, saw some emus, some hawks, pet some baby goats, saw a giant pig nursing about 20 newborn piglets, and held a baby bunny that was a week old. Also did numerous crossword puzzles and got my ass kicked repeatedly at dominos which you have to be a monkey to get beaten at that many times in a row.
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July 28, 2006
Good news. my parents are giving the cat a second chance. i really hope she doesn't do anything mental again because she is really very lovable otherwise. quite honestly, we mazzalupo's tend to be very sweet while at the same time being total hotheads, so it would only make sense that she remains part of our family.
Tomorrow is my thirty seventh birthday. The people that share my birthday are Geddy Lee (which is funny because 3 people have now said when I sing I sound like him which is so hysterical), Peter Jennings, Benito Mussolini (eek), and Alexis de Tocqueville. Vincent Van Gogh died on July 29th, which I always felt was kind of inspiring in it's own creepy way. Schumann also died on July 29th, also inspiring in its own creepy way.
What I hope to do on my birthday is this : buy the new TV on the Radio cd, go to the Brooklyn Superhero Supply store, ride bikes with my girlfriend to the waterfront, and eat vegan gluten free cake from Babycakes.
My new age research shows that the number 37 is a prime number and it can be arranged as a perfect hexagon. Our Spiritual Center is the 7th chakra, and 3 is the number of commitment. Apparently, 37 is associated with a sensitive nature and productivity in the arts, which sounds pretty good so I won't complain anymore about turning thirty seven.
Right now I keep getting these visions of this one spot in the house I grew up in. It just keeps flashing in my head. This one spot in the living room, facing the stairway. what does it all mean? is it something about 37??? what is happening? I guess we all have a big storage facility filled with our memory and consciousness and experiences, I wonder where it is located.
Sometimes it is weird being a person who gets visiony blips visiting my head so often. The come so often it's astounding. Blip after blip. I have recently come to a more clear understanding about some of the scary creepy faces I see when I close my eyes to go to sleep. (I think they are called hypnagogic hallucinations). This new understanding is helping them to not be as creepy and to keep me less freaked out and I am exploring ways to put the information into my art and life in positive ways and whatnot. it's called "having a conversation" with them. maybe i will become a professional visionary for creepy pictures and i will go to conferences with other people who tap into weird scaryness on a regular basis.
"Visual hypnagogic/hypnopompic imagery might also facilitate interpretations in terms of ghosts or apparitions. Faces may be experienced which range from the beautiful and the pleasant to the hideous and the terrifying (Leaning, 1925; McKellar, 1957; Mavromatis, 1987). These faces are often characterised as being extremely life-like and often seem to be looking at the observer (Gurney et al., 1886; Leaning, 1925)... Such faces/figures can be singular or in groups, of known or unknown, living or dead persons and may sometimes seem to represent particular moods and emotions (Leaning, 1925; Mavromatis, 1987). The experient may also hear their name being called which might be interpreted as attempts at communication by deceased persons." Yep that's it in a nutshell. I'm sure it's Just Stress. Everything is Just Stress.
i did a google image search for "visionary" and i found this:
Oh i recommend this Things That Suck website, its kind of funny. to feel better after you read all the things that suck, make sure to visit the Things That Don't Suck website afterwards. Personally, I don't agree with many of the things on the list, and you probably won't either, but that is one of the things that is so interesting about existence as a human person. Freedom of choice.
http://www.mindspring.com/~rtbrain/suck.html
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July 27, 2006
i have an upsetting update on the cat my parent's got. she went psycho. i knew she was too good to be true. we are all very disappointed. my dad liked her so much and felt so lucky to get such a nice cat. but alas, the world can be a cruel grim place. apparently, last night she was on his chest cuddling like usualt, and he was just sitting there talking with my mom, and suddenly the cat growled and clawed his face for no reason except that she became a mental case. she was probably hallucinating or something and just freaked on his face. woah. she didn't cut his skin but my parents are both more or less scared of her now. it's kind of annoying cause the rescue said that she was there because the kid in the house had developed a skin allergy, so that's why the people had to put her up for adoption. so someone somewhere lied, hoping to get her another chance. it's a little fucked up if you ask me. maybe it should have been more like, "Hi. My son got a skin condition from the cat so we are putting her up for adoption. The skin condition is called, Oh Shit the cat is scratching my son's face off."
mostly i am sad for my dad. now he has to take her back which is so upsetting, and he is probably never going to get a cat again because this will be the second psycho cat in a row he has been faced with. sigh. what is it about cats. they are so unpredictable. maybe it is better to get one who is a kitten after all, so you can mold and shape them into what you want them to be. i guess it's why folks have their own babies and don't adopt kids who might end up scary and twisted. i suspect when you adopt they don't tell you about how the kid used to use magnifying glasses in the driveway to sizzle and murder ants. or how his neighbor's pets kept going missing. (these are by the way signs of a budding sociopath or serial killer, in case you are noticing this type of behavior in a youth you are acquainted with, get them help this instant).
i am going to go be sad about the cat now. sigh.
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July 25, 2006
This weekend I went to Connecticut to see my folks. I sat under a 110 foot pine tree where for the zillionth time I asked myself why I live in a smelly polluted treeless land that is slowly (some days it feels fastly) killing me. Why do I live somewhere that causes so much discomfort to my autonomic nervous system, instead of somewhere quiet with birds and trees that smells like the earth is supposed to smell? I try and remember to enjoy the smell now while it lasts, as we are wrecking it all together like a big giant wrecking ball made of little stupid people with cars and laptops and air conditioners. At this point I need to shit or get off the pot basically, because this is like my 15th blog about wanting to live where there is more nature and I need to quit my whiney whinebag whinery.
Outside of my life location issues, my Dad, he needed a new pet. After 5 years of mulling over whether he wanted a cat or a dog this time around, we got him a cat this weekend. This cat is an anomaly of catness. I have never ever experienced a cat so intent on cuddling and getting all on you and purring. Within an hour of her first day home she was making rounds from me to my dad and to my mom, jumping on each of us to get pet and lick us. We were like, "Ok what's the catch? When are you going to go psycho?" But she hasn't yet. She isn't begging for person food, she isn't jumping on counters, scratching furniture, or yowling all night...she is just being a normal cat as if she has lived there for 10 years. A friendly cuddling, non-psycho normal cat. It is fascinating.I think my folks deserve a good sweet cat like this because their last cat was a Total Psycho. She was fully mentally damaged, but we had raised her from birth and never beat her or starved her or anything, so the only explanation we had was genetics. She was just a plain old mental case, and there was nothing we could do. She had giant chain link fence with barbed wire boundaries and we all tiptoed around them for 12 years. Her brother is my cat Hamlet, who is a little slow and mentally challenged in his own skiddish and dorky way...so I think maybe their dad was a giant orange tom cat who happened to be the town idiot and my cat Pheobe, their mom, she maybe got kind of drunk one night on too much grass and wasn't very discriminating, if you know what I mean.
Anyhow, the psycho cat, my dad loved and cared for her until her bitter sickly end, when he was feeding her through a tube into her little orange skinny greasy fur. I think the reason he now found this loving sweet new cat is karma at work. My dad was so good to the mental case other cat, loved her with her faults and all, so now karma was like, "ok here is a nice cuddly cat, you earned her." I think it's just a really good thing.
I wonder if I could buy and import a 100 foot pine tree and have it installed on my roof in brooklyn. then i could sit under it all of the time. i could import barrels of pine needles to constantly refresh the sitting area, and i would also import 3 different kinds of birds to live in and around the pine zone. also, ants. and an industrial sized fan to make breezes. how many years can a person live outside of the environment they crave before they Totally Crack? ugh i have nothing more to say today. blah.
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July 20, 2006
Last night I watched the most disturbing movie ever- Tarnation. I kept wanting to turn it off and had to cover my eyes because there were so many horror movie scenes, but I wanted to make it through, which I did, and it remained totally upsetting til the end. Wow. The boy in the film looked really familiar, I think I must have seen him somewhere in New York being gay at the same time I was being gay.
Also, I took the best bike ride yesterday to Red Hook. If you live around here you should go down to the waterfront where the Fairway just opened. There is the nicest little park with flowers and a pier where you can sit and listen to the water splash the rocks and see the statue of liberty and not have to deal with lots of folks. Not yet anyhow. There are nice little cobblestone streets (which are hard on the arse while on a bike)...and I think I have previously mentioned the amazing artist lofts there. I am so jealous of the artist loft building, they have GIANT gardens, cobble, they are right on the water, literally, and there is the man who sells key lime pies out of a little key lime colored truck right there in their driveway. I trespassed kind of, on my bike like a little jealous freaky freak. To live there would bring such daily joy. I spent ten minutes alone thinking of what a nice breeze they must get in their windows.
The group show at The Fountain Gallery that I am in, it will be featured in the health section of the N.Y. Daily News on Sunday. (I am not sure which sunday, maybe this one or next week). So that's exciting. I had to look on wikipedia to see if it was the Daily News or The Post that is the terrible paper. Luckily it was The Post. Phew.
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July 14, 2006
things that are scary today:
little man. every time i see the poster i cringe in fear and agony. this is a terrifying image. someone please put a stop to adult heads on baby bodies. i mean, i know its an adult body shrunken down on a computer to look like a baby body. it is just so ugly with his big adult head in a bonnet. also i wonder if little people are offended by this. since i am not a little person i cannot presume to know their feelings. some activists with an obsession over what is politically corrent do that a lot. they presume to know the feelings of other people without ever actually engaging with the other people. it's annoying.
gas prices. i am SO glad i don't have a car right now. i would have to push it across the street when they have street cleaning and alternate side parking because i wouldn't be able to put gas in it.
plastic surgery addicts. this lady freaked me out more than any other plastic surgery addict. she was on oprah last year and i just cant forget the freakish sadness. she is only 28 and addicted. also just to say i am very disappointed in dolly parton's plastic surgery because it looks pretty horrible and she was such a cutie.
global warming. look at that polar bear. i am reading an inconvenient truth and it's just so scary and i think everyone should adopt children who are already around because why make new kids to put through that kind of tragedy if we don't have to.
on a lighter note. i am invited to a renaissance party this weekend. it is a joke party by some really weird friends of mine. they will be serving turkey legs and potatos and beer. i am dressing like a peasant because it is easy and i can relate. Although poor, peasants knew how to have a good time. "Peasants enjoyed much recreation. Free from the confines of fancy clothing, and prissy etiquette, peasants were known to eat, drink and be quite merry, when given the opportunity. Ribald drinking songs, country dances and Maypole festivities were common avenues of recreation for the peasant class. Given much more to enjoying themselves outdoors, this is a perfect class to choose if you wish to portray a poor, but high spirited character." I am going to be a fletcher. This is someone who makes arrows.
This will be me. Begging for a turkey leg. I just have to go find some hosen this weekend...hosen! i have to admit, i can't wait to see the wenches.
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July 11, 2006
Today I finally get to go see a group show I am in. There are a couple of pieces on the website that look really great. I had a 3 day migraine last week and was most majorly out of commission, therefore unable to attend the opening.
The show is called:
Pieces of Mind (A Celebration of Dangerous Gifts)
It's at Fountain Gallery, 702 9th Avenue @48th street...NYC.
http://www.fountaingallerynyc.com/Shows-Detail.cfm?ShowsID=150
My exhibition at Mixed Greens is coming down in 4 days. I am now having an existential crisis. It is actually pretty severe. Normally when I am having an existential crisis, which I have been doing for about six years, I do research on where to move or daydream about other careers that also pay next to nothing. Everything I want to do pays next to nothing. So, as I flip out about career and money and future and self-worth and where to live and how much I want a car and the need for more trees, I seem to make very few positive changes. This time however, I am going to be more proactive and look at how to change things without the unproductive flipping out. Yesterday, I asked myself, how can I improve my quality of life without having to leave what is actually good here in New York? I tend to believe that moving to the woods and getting a job at a local cafe and making tons of art is the only way I can ever create true peace of mind. (A long standing dream). However, new research has offered me a few ideas about how to work in what can be a more fulfilling day job, without having to freak out and leave New York just yet. I have been too poor to buy new shoes for twelve years and it's long enough and a shame. So, it is time to take the bull by the horns. Come bull, let me grab your horns and we will ride into the wind in red capes and duct taped booties. One can only sit at a desk, uninspired and slowly dying, for so long. I am not going to say yet what my new ideas are until I get some more information. Let's just say it's about animals, helping them in ways that do not involve steroids, IV drips, stitches, or cages. Only time will tell.
Anyhow just to say, I was up all night with achey legs from RLS (restless leg syndrome). This is not to be confused with (PLMD) periodic limb movement disorder which entails these intense repeated jerks all night that occur constantly and repeatedly and wake me up when I am trying to get some sleep. I have recently added PLMD to my already existing ailments which entail exploding head syndrome, being mental, migraines, and chronic tinnitus. I like to mix it up. How about you? (I really need a comments section so you could list all of your ailments here. that would be fun.) If anyone knows how to make a comments section on regular webpages, if it is even possible, please tell me. (xtmazz@aol.com)
todays picture is this one:
July 6, 2006
i have no blogpoint today. just a few things:
books i am presently reading: 1. until i find you by john irving 2. seth speaks by jane roberts 3. is there no place on earth for me by susan sheehan 4. gilead by marilynne robinson 5. marley and me by john grogan 6. an inconvenient truth by al gore. i hope i finish at least one of them.
this is today's word of the day from the wordsmith website: *BILABIAL. it means using both lips. huh.
next word: LUMPEN (wow i love this word) adjective: 1. of or relating to dispossessed people who have been cut off from the social and economic class to which they would normally belong; belonging to the underclass. 2. unrefined or unenlightened. 3. noun: a lumpen person.
today i feel myself to be a lumpen person, a sleeping lump. a log who is a lump. a log who is wet and sleeping like a lump in the forest. maybe instead of lumpen i will just be tardigrade (slow-moving). today i feel that my job is a hoosgow (jail) and i would love to just leave and go be a spendthrift (wasteful and extravagant) at deisel and barney's. also i am having some nostomania (an overwhelming desire to return home or to go back to familiar places). what can ya do.
my cat hamlet is still majorly grieving the loss of phoebe, and he is depressed and continues to look around the house for her and it is so tragically sad. i am petting the hell out of him and giving him all wet food and telling him stories. i am also putting rescue remedy in his water. my friend has a cat named kitty who i have loved for 6 years, and kitty was just diagnosed with lymphoma and he has only one month to live. i don't understand why all these animals are leaving! in the last couple months folks I know have lost molly, leroy, ocean...and now kitty will be gone soon. plus, hamlet has a big hard lump on his chest that i am finally ready to have looked at. i have been pretending it was his overdeveloped very manly ribcage for the last few months. oh little housepets. i hope they all play in the fields of the afterlife together. arfing and mewing happily.
tonight is an art opening for a group show i am in, but i am so headachey and super deluxe tired i don't feel up to going. but i have to because i would like to meet the kids who put it together even though i have such a headache i don't want to talk to anyone.
Here is a drawing of phoebe when she died, and also a picture of a pig that is telling us that it is ok to eat healthy:
July 5, 2006
hi its raining and humid and disgusting out. last night was fireworks. i had a few friends on my rooftop. twas my annual "it's the fireworks, sorry about that one big building in the way" july 4th bash. it was kind of pretty, three rooftops in a row with all these folks on them and everyone looking up into the sky at the lights. i wanted a photograph from above. it would have been very close encounters look a spaceship is coming and it is really sparkly and engaging .
we all say, every year, how do they do that? how do they make smiley faces and cubes and saturns? it is fairly amazing. every year we laugh about how we always wonder but none of us ever find out. we also do our best to forget that there is a senseless war going on, and how we are really feeling about the US of A, and we just look at the pretty lights for some kind of hope that things will change. sigh.
on monday i took my pal to coney island where we hit balls at the batting cages and played skeetball. we tried to give our prize tickets to some little kids who looked like we were trying to give them arsenic and they said no no and shook their heads and ran off. woah. well, i guess it is best to not take things from strangers at coney island where there are many creeps. also we put our feet in the water and sat on the boardwalk in a nice breeze. my friend had pizza and i had french fries. it was good times.
speaking of coney island, yesterday was nathan's annual hot dog eating competition. imagine, had i been there yesterday instead of monday i could have seen that in real life. my roommate had it on tv. we both covered our eyes while fighting our gag urges. it was horrifying hot dog ramming and king kobyashi won again. he is the champion my friends. also it is strange how they rock back and forth as they gorge on the dogs and buns, is that a digestive measure? all i can say is why oh why. why!?
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ps. here is an article on fireworks, if you are interested: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/2903_firework.html
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June 30, 2006
i had a dream last night that i was going to live in a dorm room in college, and they gave me my room and it was super dirty and gross, and i sat in the bed and saw three critters moving around under the covers, and then they were biting my feet and i realized that they were mice. i was like oh! there are mice in my bed! ew! so i jumped out and ran out of the room and noticed this giant metal closet outside my door and it was all chipped up and nasty and graffitied and very dirty inside and i didn't want to put my things in it. i walked back in my room and went through a door into a big giant room which was apparently the rest of my dorm and it was so big i was excited about it's potential, but there were 3 more beds for roommates and i was not excited about roommates. then i realized the giant room was attached to a public space, like the cafeteria or something and i though that was weird, holy no privacy. then me and my friend went to the cafeteria to eat and i was happy about my college prepaid food plan, because i didn't have to pay for the food. since i am on a special diet, however, there was nothing for me to eat except for one artichoke that i couldn't even dip in bitter. i couldn't stop thinking about the mice and how i wanted a different room, so i went back to see and the mice were gone. i was on the lookout for any poo nuggets they may have left in my bed. but they seemed gone so i went back under the covers to take a nap.
i am going to the beach tomorrow yay. i will be surrounded by tons of homo men swishing around fire island in gay joy. maybe i will wear my rainbow speedo. haha just kidding i dont have a rainbow speedo.
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June 29, 2006
I saw Superman last night. I was SO excited to go (almost as excited as I am for Spiderman 3). I watched the Superman trailer on my computer twice yesterday, and when I saw that old mailbox that said Kent on it, I got a chill. An anticipatory chill of superhero joy.
I will not go into detail because I don't want to tell you what happens because that would make me a jackass since it JUST came out, but here are a few thoughs I can share:
1. Don't bring young children to see this movie. They will be totally confused and probably experience Post Traumatic Stress Disorder afterwards.
2. Regarding violence, there were no people getting killed, and thankfully no blood or gut splattering, but there were however plenty of folks getting massively banged around and their heads getting smashed and being absolutely terrified and screaming and there were scenes where tons of folks had to have died but they just didn't show the aftermath so you kind of forget that the devastation happened because you are still so taken by Superman's outfit and how fast he flies. (Kind of like the whole war thing...If we dont see the aftermath then mayhaps it didn't actually happen ooh look at that cool airplane)
3. One scene with an airplane, and another one with buildings falling down confirmed to me (and my companions) that we are probably never going to really forget 9-11. The movie makers waited 5 years to bring that imagery to us, and that imagery still makes you feel like 9-11 was just yesterday. Any visual reminder is still intense and jarring and upsetting.
4. The new superman dude is likable. I like his face. I love how that curl in his hair stays in place. The little kid is adorable. The Lois Lane lady is a dime a dozen. Parker Posey was disappointing. But it is superman, saving the planet, being handsome and 6'4", flying faster than the speed of light. It's too bad the dude isn't real. We could use his help.
Oh, speaking of Kate Bosworth, I just put this photo essay together to confirm my suspicions that hollywood is not very creative. Is it me or are these ladies all the same person? Hello I am KateKeiraNatalieJennifer. I am a complicated woman with many sides but I look in the mirror and know who I am. I am a brunette. I am an actress. I am your fantasy girl next door dream wife person.
Anyhow is it just me? I really think they all look so alike its freakish.
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June 26, 2006
It is time for a blog about something sad. Beware, emotions loom.
I had to put my cat Phoebe to sleep on Friday. She was a little over 15 years old, and she had the big C. We weren't sure if it was the big C or not, but then the vet confirmed it because her little gums were very jaundiced. Plus her little back legs were very wobbly and weak. She had been ill for some time and it was time to put a stop to her discomfort. It was the saddest of sad things ever.
Now, it's just me and Hamlet, my other cat, who is Phoebe's son. He is around 13 years old and he is a giant tan pink yellow cat. I was wondering how he would handle this loss. This weekend, he was looking for her. He peeked his big furry head under the couch, in my bedroom closet, and behind a big chair, all the places Phoebe liked to go to get away. He is walking around, constantly looking for her. His eyes are sad, he looks confused.
I keep explaining to him that she is gone now, in kitten heaven, doing all sorts of cool morphy things with her consciousness and kittenspirit. It is helpful for me to be his support, and for him to be mine. As we all know, losing a pet after 15 years is unbelievably difficult, especially when you are ridiculously attached to them and tell people they are your favorite thing in the universe...especially when they are the who that you would take to a desert island. I have recognized how much time and energy I used everyday just being aware of her, where she was, what she was doing, petting her picking her up talking to her and waiting for her to talk to me, just loving her immensely. I love Hamlet tons as well, but he never seemed to require as much attention, so he didn't get as much attention. But now that it's just the two of us, I am working on helping him loosen up and accept more attention, what with all of the catlove I have to offer. He is still looking for her, his mother, behind my canvases, under the table, on the shelf. I wonder how long it will take him to understand. I was such a disaster Friday I was convinced I had to move out of my apartment, since every nook and cranny was reminding me of the horribleness of losing her. But now, just a few days later I am growing appreciative of those nooks and crannies, and grateful, and all of that business.
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June 22. 2006
This morning at 6 a.m. I was awoken by giant trucks and cranes outside of my window. This was extra annoying because I was up 1/2 the night already, due to a head cold that is very aggressive regarding snot production. So these loud cranes and trucks, I noticed, belonged to a film crew. So I said to myself "Oh ok since we work for movie stars we can wake up a whole neighborhood at 6 a.m. like entitled assholes."
Then I went about my morning.
When I went outside I decided that I should look at the notice on the parking meter just for kicks, as the set up seemed to be a really extensive endeavor. I had the sopranos outside of my house last year, that was most entertaining because you couldn't tell who was on the tv show and what neighborhood guy was just on the sidewalk watching (I live in an italian neighborhood in Brooklyn). Anyhow, today's setup was way more of a big deal than that.
Normally I don't look at the signs and figure if I am meant to bump into say, Michelle Williams, who sees me and decides that I have to play a role in her next movie, she will see me on the sidewalk and run up to me and beg me to be in her movie and we will take it from there. Plus if someone sees me looking at the signs, they might judge me and think that I care about seeing movie stars, which I really do not. Living in New York for years and years sort of takes the fun out of that.
But this time, I looked, for whatever reason I was pulled to the pink parking meter taped on no parking here Columbia Pictures sign. And right above where it said Columbia Pictures it said SPIDERMAN 3. I gasped with delight. I got a chill even. Spiderman is my absolute favorite superhero especially now because of Toby Macguire. I am really very excited. I know if he scales buildings it won't actually be HIM and it will be a stuntman but that's ok because the stuntman will still have the suit on and the suit is what matters. I dont know if buidlings will be scaled or if he will just be getting a slice with MJ, but either way I know what I am doing tonight.
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June 19, 2006
Yesterday, I was in Sunset Park, the actual park not just the neighborhood. There was a lot of litter which was upsetting. People just throw their trash all over the place over there. It sure puts a damper on a sunny day under a giant tree. Anyhow, suddenly there was a little boy with his pants down and we said "haha he is going to pee on the tree look at his tiny butt" and then suddenly, while still standing, he looked behind him and a poo dropped/shot right out of his butt onto the ground. So then he stood there, looking confused. His mom walked over with a napkin, wiped his poo ass, and then threw the napkin onto the ground and walked away with him. There were people laying on the grass about 7 feet away from the dropped poo, and she just left it there with the poo covered napkin. She just left the child's poo right there on the ground in the crowded park under a tree with people sitting right there!
Do the curb your dog laws not apply to children? Why do people litter? And to litter human poo? I don't understand and I think it is completely horrible.
Also, my girlfriend stepped in dogpoo yesterday morning and my cat also left me a small brown gift on the kitchen floor. There was far too much poo happening yesterday.
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