When the goin’ gets tough, they can kiss my...

I'm trying to clean everything up a bit in the apartment before the new year. It's out-with-the-old-in-with-the-new mentality. I sort have adapted Chinese New Year philosophy into our own.

So in spirit of that, I also have to clean house in my mind and air all of my grievances from 2007. I usually don't complain, and I most always try to stay on the sunny side of life. But I have to do this, then I will move on. The list is composed a’la David Letterman style.

Top 10 worst things about 2007 for us
10 — Countrywide Home Mortgage
9 — Any one that is associated with buying and selling homes. Meaning lawyers, brokers, agents, loan officers, and city municipalities that force home owners to abide by ridiculous laws passed in the middle of the night. They are all shysters.
8 — Peekskill Water Department
7 — Not getting paid for our first wedding
6 — Having to remove an oil tank from our driveway
5 — Not being able to continue our wedding project the way I intended
4 — Having my calculator (that Joseph bought for me from MOMA) stolen by a spoiled teenager, whose parents make more in one year than Joseph and I will make in a lifetime. Thanks a lot, jerk ass.
3 — Dorothy
2 — The Guggenheim won't return my calls
1 — Emily tore a ligament in her back right knee. She now needs surgery that will cost more than we have.

Thanks Ted Nugent for the title lyrics!

Emily tries but misunderstands...

Yesterday we celebrated our Emily's birthday. A big 8! The doctors kind of guesstimated her birth since she was a found puppy of sorts. The vet said Christmas, but you know what happens when your birthday is on Christmas...so we give her presents the day before. Lots of dog biscuits and a homemade fish toy.


Cheers

Christmas Is Going to the Dogs

On a lighter note, we’d like to wish everyone Merry Christmas and hope you have a safe and happy New Year. Look for some changes to this blog (when we can get around to it). If you liked the paintergirl blog, I think you’ll be pleased.
Here’s hoping everyone takes their chill pills, and learns to take a little responsibility with their lives. Whether it be fiscally (with one’s own credit or, say, the national debt), or socially (I don’t know where to start with this one—littering, parental responsibilities &c).

peace + love

Intervention again

Again-the management would like to apologize for the following message, but they feel it is necessary to post. To everyone else, again they are sorry.

There is a certain member of our family that is acting inappropriately. It's horribly rude and selfish to call so late and demand information from relatives. Calling over and over, leaving messages is embarrassing. You need to speak to a member of the clergy, or a counselor. In the end, no one can help you but yourself, except you need assistance from an outside source. This has gone on too long and has only gotten worse. Get help.

Some numbers you should call
(770) 271-8989 Christian counselor
(770) 236-8442
(770) 952-3308 counselor

Sleigh bells ring...

I'm feeling very photo montage-like tonight.

















This is what happens when you put something wet outside. He he. This photo does not illustrate how I was imitating my son talking. The arms dried the way he sleeps.














And here are 4 of the 50. These are a few of my favs. Painting 4 x 4 is a challenge. I want to do a gigantic palm frond.

Can't get you out of my head

Over the past several years I have become interested in things that have been in the periphery of my life for a while. At first my chosen obsessions were limited to the typical things a teen or pre-teen (geek of my age) would be interested in: the Beatles, Star Wars, Marvel Comics. The whole "interest in girls" thing which followed threw everything off kilter, and out of perspective, for a while.

Some of my more recent obsessions: Steely Dan and the "lost" Gaucho album, and cartoonists Chas. Addams and Charles Schultz. You may know Addams from the Addams Family or his brilliant New Yorker cartoons. A complicated man with some very interesting and sad relationships. What got me into Schultz is that a cursory reading of stories and interviews with him led me further into a person of great depth. You might not be aware of this if you are casually associated with his strip Peanuts (a title he despised), but rediscovering the strip as an adult makes me appreciate it even more (maybe not so much the later years).

Below is a piece he wrote in You Don't Look 35, Charlie Brown! It's kind of unexpected from someone who wrote comics. And not likely something you'd hear from someone as well known.
There must be different kinds of loneliness, or at least different degrees of loneliness.... The most terrifying loneliness is not experienced by everyone and can be understood only by a few. I compare the panic in this kind of loneliness to the dog we see running frantically down the road pursuing the family car. He is not really being left behind, for the family knows it is to return, but for that moment in his limited understanding, he is being left alone forever, and he has to run and run to survive. It is no wonder that we make terrible choices in our lives to avoid loneliness.

Had swept the winter street...

These are the days that reindeer love
And pranks the northern star,
This is the sun's objective
And Finland of the year.

Emily Dickenson

New stuff

50 small paintings show. Pictures will follow.



Just finished reading The Single Hound by Emily Dickenson, and loving our discovery of Rockwell Kent.