Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

[StuckinLA]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

Cross-posted, Bruun. So sorry to hear about your dog! I do hope he feels better soon. Sending positive thoughts your way.

And yes, Cost Plus sucks so bad--but remember that I don't have a legal means of driving my car, and there aren't any retail stores in my neighborhood. So when I get the chance to walk about in pure awe at the capitalist machine, I take it. Basically I look at all the furnishings n' such and I pretend they're actually well made, and then I imagine them in a home I could never afford. Then, in this case, I buy a 4 pack of "mojito" flavored sodas and take the bus home.

Anyway, yeah... :l:l:l

[Bruunhilde]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

Thanks Stuck! Yes, I am in awe and disgust when wandering around those stores. Talk about disingenuous. Is that the right word to use when I mean the consumerism disguised as intrigue from elsewhere to empty your pocketbook?

I had a friend who ONLY wanted to shop - usually for herself - and eat. Talk about consumerism. I used to sit outside the store like the boyfriend, exhausted by all the selfishness. Need I end with "we're no longer friends" or would that be beating a dead thing? I like to beat dead things, I guess. Better beat a dead thing than a live thing, I always say. LOL

So, its FRIDAY. I know what you mean about having a deadline and something focusing your time, a goal in mind helps me and I have to remind and remind my dam self that I need to have a goal to achieve a goal. All that crap about chaos in life if you don't plan something else. What is it? That quote? I can cheat and try to google it. No I can't, I don't have the mental energy. I'm too busy fighting with right wingers about social security fixes and how Romney is going to kill the future of the middle class. If you're not 55, all the money you've contributed doesn't count, you'll get a fucking voucher.

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

I am trying very hard not to be one of those peeps you guys are talking about. We just got a Whole Foods in town. This is extremely exciting. Or it would have been back when I was adamant about eating organic, wholesome food. Now I'm just focused on eating!

And I have to admit that I was a Pottery Barn/Crate and Barrel glutton for a while. Only via online, because the nearest ones are an hour and a half away. You would not believe the dearth of shopping around here. From food to furniture it is exceptionally lousy. Fortunately for me, I went to NYC. I realized, while there, that they are not particularly fashionable people. Or rather, that the particular fashionable-ness of Manhattan has a lot to do with the fact that the options are almost limitless. From Ikea to Saks, of course. But the important thing, the standout thing, is that there is a bit of absolutely everything else. That was a light bulb moment! I will not cave to commercial consumerism!!! I will only cave to non-commercial consumerism! So it's back to Etsy and Craigslist and a spring shopping trip to the furniture mecca (well, it used to be) of Hilltop, NC. Anyhoo... That really didn't have anything to do with anything at all did it? Thanks for humoring me. (Oh, and I better get down there soon, in case there is a change in November. 'cause if that happens, Eric and I are screwed with a capitol [sic] F. )

Bruun, I am very, very sorry to hear about your pup's problems. When we talked about the Goose's issues (what? Two years ago? Wow!) I was near absolute panic thinking that I would have to choose between financial insecurity and her longevity. I hope (and earnestly...pray-ish) that you find that you will not have to do anything like that. And that there is a long joyful life ahead.

Stuck. It ain't up to me, baby. If it's working for you, that is all that matters and all that matters to me. Hope you're getting your work done!

Ed and I are off to test drive cars. As if buying a house wasn't enough! But the transmission on the truck is going. Considering that it gets 11mpg, it is not such a bad thing. Sorta. wtf ever. It's just money. As if. I've been broke-ish for WAY too long not to know that is something only rich people think, much less say out loud. We may just get a new transmission. Or maybe I can convince Ed to ride a bike the 27 miles to work? :H

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

Hey, Bruun, I'm really sorry about the gloom and doom, too. I'm realizing that I was way more mired in it for the last couple of months than I even recognized. It is...dreadful. Literally. Like the, what're they called? In Harry Potter? (I looked it up. Are they called Death Eaters? That's kinda lame. I thought they were SoulSuckers or something.)

Anyway. :l Bruun. It is an awful nasty business you're in. Remarkably, ridiculously lucrative. But like pharma, it can be ugly. Nice to know that there's good peeps in it, though.

Mojito flavored sodas? I can't decide if that's super yum or yuck. Lime and mint? mmmmm. Yum. Fake rum? omg. No. That's just wrong.

[StuckinLA]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

No fake rum! Just lime and mint soda with real cane sugar, and it was delicious. So anyway then since I accidentally buzzed almost all my hair off I figured I'd grow a beard again. Totally not as weird as it sounds, and I think it's working pretty well. The bartender maybe doesn't agree, so I was forced to concede that if we ever go out I'll shave the beard. But this got us into an odd conversation about body hair, something about how she doesn't really have any, and then something about me feeling up and down her arm to confirm that yes, she is in fact naturally hair-free.

Then last night of course I went back for their costume party. Worked my online job there since there's free wifi, and just as I was finishing up and putting the laptop away the bartender started her shift. Dressed as Catwoman, but in a really, really good Catwoman outfit that was skin-tight, with a zipper all the way up the front that she didn't zip all the way up the front. And it was freezing in the bar with the air conditioning, so she's standing there in front of me kind of shivering, saying "feel how thin this material is." And I then felt how thin the material was. So she's spending a lot of time standing in front of where I'm sitting, and we're talking about trick-or-treating, and if I'm going to have candy for kids and whatnot. Which leads me to suggest that I may not have any, given that kids don't make a habit of walking up the goddamned steps to my apartment, because the effort would kill them, and so she asks about where exactly I live, and how I ended up there and what my place is like, and other general but kind of personal questions (which maybe doesn't preclude the possibility that my place will be robbed soon). And then she laughs and says she might have to stop by so I get at least 1 trick-or-treater, which of course will not happen but was still lovely to hear.

And even the neighborhood drunk (no, it's actually not me) waddles off his seat and without any teeth says to me "She likes you, you like her, go for it." And then a random guy sits down and buys me 2 rounds of drinks for absolutely no reason, then immediately leaves, and this isn't even the random guy who normally buys me drinks. That guy showed up later dressed as Iron Man, and it was his birthday, so there was tequila all around and general merriment.

And then today I woke up early and spent about 12 hours at my desk trying to work, and not working particularly well, but actually as well as I usually work considering my creative process sucks. If anything, I imagine my muse as a lanky girl with stringy dishwater blonde hair, reclining on a couch wearing camouflage pajamas and stoned, saying something like "Baby, just look at the computer screen..." Which, come to think of it, is a perfect description of one of my high school girlfriends. Huh, guess I didn't do a great job of getting over her...

Oh well, tomorrow's always a new day! Hope everyone's having a good one and getting sleep and all that stuff.

:l:l:l n' such.

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

Creative process? Isn't that slogging through knee deep mud through a fog filled valley toward a towering mountain? At the top of which you are expecting to find the clarity of a shiny summer morning with a beatific smile on your face and instead find yourself scratched, beaten, grimy and sore, groveling for solace from an adoring reader of some sort?

Or is that just me? (Edit: I mean, is that just my perception? 'cause it's not like I have a creative process.)

Nah. None of those paint colors is going to work. At all. No worries. I'm accumulating tiny samples of paint that I will store for years for absolutely no reason. But a cabinet full of paint makes me smile.

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

And however you feel about what you've written for the peeps that matter, it sounds a little bit like you are on. Wonder if you'll feel differently when you wake up? I hope so.

[Bruunhilde]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

Ne, the gabapentin helps with the death eater/soul suckers. I watched EatPrayLove again last night, and although JR wouldn't be my choice of people to do the movie, I think she did it well. I want to do that kind of self discovery trip! I think that movie/book was so popular because we all feel that way in America. Like, "is this all there is?" and we need to find ourselves and meaning in our lives. I wasn't so sure about the India part but the Bali and Italy part sound good. Although some of it seemed boring. I found myself wondering, how can she sit in bed thinking and taking notes all that time, without drinking?

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

Bruunhilde;1401683 wrote: I found myself wondering, how can she sit in bed thinking and taking notes all that time, without drinking?

:H I would put money on the guess that that's exactly what she was doing (or something very similar) right before she lost it and ended up on the bathroom floor and then a last ditch effort to "find herself." Ya' know?

But yeah, I'd agree. And I don't think it's uniquely American. I think it's human..."WTF??? Is this ALL THERE IS?"
:H
I love her, by the by. And Anne Lamott. Though she's a little sweet and nice. I don't think Gilbert is particularly sweet or nice, and I really like that about her.

I am overrun by spiders in my study, btw. Does anyone have any idea what to do about feckin' spiders everywhere? I take them outside, and then three more appear. Lest you think I exaggerate, I remove spiders from the floor of the office every single morning. Every morning. All the same kind, but all sizes of them. I think I'm going to have to pull out the vacuum and just start killing the damn things. But where on earth are they coming from???
No time to google/figure out a long term solution, unless you peeps have one, so I think they're just going to get pulled apart into tiny little pieces.

[ifulovelife2]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

Conkers. Put conkers in the corners of your office and near the doors and window ledges and they'll stay away. If you don't know what a conker is, well tough tittie. That's your fault for being too American.

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

Where the hell am I supposed to get Buckeyes?

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

Actually, and I kid you not, my neighbor has a huge chestnut tree. I couldn't say what flavor of chestnut, but perhaps any flavor'll do?

When we're not in the middle of a hurricane I will run out and pick some up. Thanks!

[joanna_d]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

Ne/Neva Eva;1401518 wrote: Creative process? Isn't that slogging through knee deep mud through a fog filled valley toward a towering mountain? At the top of which you are expecting to find the clarity of a shiny summer morning with a beatific smile on your face and instead find yourself scratched, beaten, grimy and sore, groveling for solace from an adoring reader of some sort?

yep, creative process is horror!! and you can forget about the towering mountain. well it's there, but it tends to be a very thin mountain with a cliff waiting for you once you've climbed the mother at my last gallery talk, which took the form of a dialogue between me and a professor at an american university with whom i have worked on a project (him writing, me drawing on the same subject, but of course from totally different perspectives) he said that he'd become to realize that he was an artist himself. same process of making drafts, start getting serious, throwing it all away and starting with drafts again, repeating that for some time, finally getting seriously serious and in the end, when it's time to present the work, realize that you've produced mostly rubbish and planning on doing some actual good work next time. and then still present the work you've done, realizing it's just a phase in a process.

creativity sucks bigtime people. don't do it!! it eats your guts and leaves you with nothing but self loathing

so good to read your discussion about cat suits, Stuck flirting again , chestnuts, fake mojito's (thanks for the recipe Stuck. i love mojito's. never tried them without alcohol of course). i love the sense of humor and self-relativaty (is that a proper english word?)

[Bruunhilde]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

This creative process sounds an awful lot like life. And learning a trade. And for me, just about anything. Learning about what's wrong with my dog has been like slogging through sewage in the dark, falling at least once and getting a little in my mouth. Crying about it, and getting up and slogging again. Then a glimmer of understanding, but what I understand is there's more shit, and the best possible outcome at the top of the mountain of cash spent on cannine spine surgery will be that I'm not out more cash than I am afraid I will be, and that the surgery will WORK.

[StuckinLA]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

:l, Bruun.

Thanks everybody. Managed to pull another one off at the 11th hour, hopefully. Or, well, as usual after a day of working I went to bed, woke up early today and actually finished everything. Hopefully it's at least decent. It really is a throwaway document. There's not a person in the world who will care about it after Thanksgiving--including me--so I don't know why I'm stressing. No, I do, because that's what I do.

Anyway, that's about it I guess. Now I can move on to all the grading I have yet to look at, plus planning a class for this week, plus whatever else... Oh, and picking up one of those plastic pumpkin buckets and stuffing it full of Almond Joy and Mounds bars to take to the bartender on Halloween, since she mentioned chocolate and coconut...

That gallery talk sounds... like a nightmare, actually, but that's probably just me.