Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Daughter creature

I think I've outed myself as a "bad parent," and it's probably been noted that I eschew (actually...I just really wanted to use that word) the normal affectionate knicknames (sweetie, honeybun, little brat) and favor ones that have a little bit more color, i.e. rat girl, punk rock squirrel, fink, etc. If you don't have children let me assure you that this is normal and justified behavior. However, I find myself wondering more and more often if I don't have this parent/child thing a little reversed.

I haven't seen the daughter creature in a month or so (I didn't misplace her or antyhing, we have split custody and she's been at her "real" mother's house), and the first thing that we did when she got back was go to weed my garden. "Do you ever weed the garden when I'm not here to remind you?" was daughter creature's first comment.

"It's not a garden, it's an oxygen farm." I muttered.

"I think that if we weed a little bit everyday then we can get this done by the time I go to Canada with Grandma, I'm thinking maybe half an hour everyday," she says in such a reasonable tone of voice that I can't find anything to argue with.

"Grumble grumble, okay, I guess." says me.

"In fact, I think I'm going to write you up a schedule for when I am in Canada. You can check off every day after you do your garden chores, and then when I get back I'll be able to check and make sure you did it."

"Seems like that would take all the fun out of it, grumble grumble."

She just had her ninth birthday, and she seems determined to skip the whole "tween," "teen," phase and go straight to middle age.

"So what do you want to do today." I asked after she woke me up this morning.

Giving me an evil look she said, "You know what we have to do today, you can't get out of it that easily, we have to weed the garden."

Little tyrant. She also makes me go for walks. She's a short, bossy, nine year old life coach, and after she's done turning me around we can rent her out by the hour.

Ragnar...no longer captain of this here pirate ship.

Thursday, June 15, 2006

Like herding cats...

I am taking this working artist thing fairly seriously...okay, maybe not that seriously, but I am trying to take it seriously, is that good enough? I mean I have to have the occasional week where I sleep in until noon and realize at 4:00 that I'm still wearing my pajamas, if I don't act unemployed they might take away my benifits! But the rest of the time I'm really really trying to be an "artiste." Really. That's why I have a studio.

There is a couple that has their studio in the same building as I do, and we are organizing an open studio/art party/grand opening celebration for the 15th of July (consider yourself invited, I'll send you a map), and we are trying to get as many other artists involved as possible, because it is a sad fact of life in this town that people don't give a shit. The only people who will attend are our friends, and our friends don't have money to buy art...because otherwise the already would have right? But if we get other artists involved then their friends will come too, and we still won't sell any art, but at least we won't be sitting around twiddling our thumbs and getting skunked off of the obligatory boxed wine that must be served at an art opening.

Part of being a professional artist is being a big poopy head pessimist. Sorry about that, fact of life.

So anyway, I've been trying to round up some artists. If there is one thing we have a surplus of in this town, it's artists. You would think that the word "show" would be the magic bullet. Isn't that what all artists want? Some where to show? I mean, you're definately not selling any art when it's in a box under your bed, are you?

But here's another sad fact about artists. They don't want to do your show, they want to do their own show. I suppose that's what makes us artists isn't it? After all, if we worked well with others we would still have our crappy office jobs. Sigh.

Ragnar...art wrangler.

Tuesday, June 06, 2006

Mark of the beast, dude.

So how oblivious am I? When a friend asked if I had seen any of the undead walking the earth today I said "Huh?" And (with a note of incredulity in her voice) she said "Uh, yeah, it's the sixth day of the sixth month of the sixth year...666, mark of the beast?"

So, yeah, that slipped under my radar...I am a recovering goth girl remember? Although this is a serious enough lapse that perhaps I should say that I am fully recovered goth girl and go out and buy myself something pink and frilly....shudder.

How am I spending this holiest of evil-dead holidays? Well, I took the van to the alignment shop and dealt with a mechanic, surely one of Satan's minions made flesh...although this one seemed very nice. Then I tried to get approved for a car loan, since the SAAB is bleeding me dry, and the demons of the banking world didn't quite laugh in my face...but I did detect some off stage snickering, can you blame them really? I mean, I am unemployed, and my checking account is currently overdrawn, I couldn't exactly tell them I was good for it. And now I am at the library returning overdue books (probably not the what the demon of the black pit would do), and of course my least favorite librarian is working...but I don't think I can accuse her of being from the devil....which probably means I can't exorcise her, unfortunately.

What is the difference between exorcise and exercise anyway? From now on when I tell people that I am going to the gym to exercise, in my head I will be thinking exorcise.

However, I did decide which knitting project would be most suitable to work on while sitting on the porch and waiting for the sky to turn black and the rain of hellfire to begin. Yes! The lace socks! There is nothing in my knitting bag that even approaches the evil potential of the undead-lace socks. I tried to smother them in my knitting basket. I even started working on a blanket, a blanket! with which to suffocate the bastards...or rather, bastard, since I'm only half way through the first one...but they refuse to die! Or even dye...did I mention that they are pink, purple and green?

Is there some alternative yarn demension where everything you frog lives on? A dimension filled with miscounted lace, dropped stitches, and ill fitting sweaters? If there is, then there is a pink, purple and green lace sock there which would make a resonable leg warmer for an elephant, no doubt it will be even larger by the end of 06-06-06.

Ragnar...knit evil.