Hi.

I’m posting THIS so I don’t lose the link. It’s a short story called The Yellow Wallpaper by a writer named Charlotte Perkins Gilman and it was written in 1892. It’s considered an important piece of feminist literature but never having read any feminist literature, I’ve never read it. Blake’s told me the concept of it a million times though and I plan on referencing it in an upcoming painting, so I suppose it’s about time I read it.

Speaking of reading, this article on the Goatse phenomenon is fantastic and I must thank Joey for posting it on Facebook because I thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s a long read but, I think, definitely worth the effort. I will not never in my life forget the name “Kirk Johnson” and I’m glad to know that he is not, in fact, deceased. (Stile is quoted a lot in the article and they talk about E/N a tiny bit too, if those are selling points for you.)

I’m listening to Jive Bunny and the Mastermixers right now and it’s very distracting because I keep singing instead of typing. “Swing the Mood” is probably in my top 5 favourite albums of all time. I just went on Amazon to see if they had any other albums and they really didn’t do anything beyond this album it seems, probably because they couldn’t get the commercial rights to all of the songs they mixed. Even on this album, all of the Elvis parts are sung by an impersonator for that reason. Actually a lot of the stuff is redone for that reason it seems. Interesting.

Anyway, there were/are great and I love this album like no other. I know the entire thing by heart. A little known fact about me is that I know the words to an impressive (for my age) amount of music from the 50s and 60s because growing up all my mom listened to in her store was an oldies station (1050 CHUM AM I’ll have you know) and then when I lived with my ex’s family as a teenager, there was a radio station that did Saturday night oldies (in fact, they still might – I should look into that because that was great) and all summer we’d sit on the back deck and drink until the oldies were over at about 3am. I would actually much rather listen to music of that era than anything created in present day because with an oldies station, I’ll probably like 90% of what they play but with anything modern, I’ll probably only like 20%.

When the Jive Bunny album came out, our library had the album so I took it out for a week and took it over to my grama’s house because she had a tapedeck with two decks so you could record one tape onto another and she was the only person I knew who had a stereo that could do that. Well, she loved the album too because this was all the music of her youth of course and I remember her trying to teach me how to swing dance in her kitchen. I think I would have been about 11. (She wasn’t always evil.)

I think it might have been Chalibear who sent me this album on CD a long long time ago from my wishlist but it’s been so long now that I forget. Either way, it’s one that sits on a shelf on my desk as opposed to being buried in my bedroom closet.

Here’s the video for “Swing the Mood”. I just rewatched it and the album version is a LOT different, using the actual vocals for most of the songs and just better mixed in general:

Another facet of my early exposure to early top 40 was that my step-dad was obsessed with The Everly Brothers. I probably know every word to every song they ever did as a result and I actually think that he liked them so much, now that I’ve kinda peeked through what they were really about and watched some videos, because it was probably one of the only kinds of SUPER HARDCORE ROCK ‘N’ ROLL he was allowed to listen to as a kid because his parents were super strict and super assholes who ruled all 6 kids with an iron fist.

I’m getting way off topic though…not that I actually had a topic.

So Blake and I stayed up late last night in bed talking about art well past our bedtimes. I can sleep during the day after my shift so I was okay but he was up late the night before with little sleep because he was on call and his work had “the biggest release of the year” over the long weekend and of course things broke, so he was exhausted but I’ve come to learn that it’s best to get him when he’s exhausted because that’s when he has the best ideas. (He’s going to murder me for saying that but to be fair, it’s not like I do it on purpose, it just ends up that way.)

We hammered out a lot of ideas and I think I have found my direction for the next painting. I can’t see beyond that one and I still have my last one to finish (and one I’m making for myself) but we basically decided that I don’t add enough detail. The metaphor (?) he gave me was the cow jumping over the moon. If you just draw a picture of a cow, there’s no story, there’s nowhere for the viewer to go, but if you draw the picture of the cow over the moon, even if you only change that one little detail, the scene and therefore the story, changes.

With “Me, two.“, there’s a story but I didn’t put in enough detail for the average viewer to really understand everything I meant. When I posted it my friend Jeck said that there was too much negative space and my response to that at the time was that was what was intended and that’s true, but the viewer is left to their own devices as far as understanding why I did that and they’re probably not going to come to the correct conclusion. (That painting is supposed to be a natural miscarriage and something that “just happens”, hence the plain blue sky background.)

Even with “Menarche“, my background is less than apparent. A little more is going on but still not a story, not a communication. I don’t think that needs to have a story or anything like that but I think maybe I leave too much to interpretation when I’m perfectly capable of doing so much more and there’s really no excuse not to except that I get excited and want to share before the idea is fully finished.

I’ll let the cat out of the bag (not that it was some kind of big surprise or anything) that the painting I’m working on that goes along with “Menarche” is “Menopause” and while “Menarche”‘s background is pure, white daisies, “Menopause”‘s (how the hell do I make that punctuation work, technically?) is forget-me-nots, using the exact same method, just changing the colours. That’s what I like best about them, I think.

I’m not really happy with “Menopause” and I can’t figure out how to fix it. I used the crackle paste for the myometrium and it’s white, so when I did a wash of “Terra Cotta Coral”, which is my default myometrium colour, it looks really coral or salmon instead of pink and if I paint it with straight paint, I’ll lose the crackle effect. I did a wash of “brown iron oxide” over top of it to tone down the orange tones but it didn’t do much to help. I may do another wash of that before I call it finished just to see what happens. I think I can only get away with one more before I’ll lose the crackle effect. Honestly, I just can’t wait for that painting to be done already. I had the idea to do it before “Menarche” so I feel like I’ve been working on it for months when it’s really only been about a week and a half. Really all I have to do is finish the forget-me-nots, which I’ll probably do today, do the final wash, varnish it and call it a day.

Doing about a million tiny dot flowers on a 30 x 30 inch piece of work is not my idea of fun anymore. My arms are killing me because you have to hover right above the panel to do them while holding your palette in your other hand and it takes every single muscle you have to do it properly, there’s nothing to lean on or you’ll fuck up your flowers because they’re fresh blobs of paint and you have to go at it with military precision or you’ll paint yourself into a very uncomfortable corner.

The painting I’m going to be doing after “Menopause” is also going to have dot flowers, but not as many of them.

Onto other things…

So what the fuck is going on in Wisconsin, eh? Ain’t that some sexist bullshit? Here are some quotes that SHOULD  piss you right off and turn you into an insta-feminist if you don’t already identify as one:

“Whatever gaps exist, he insists, stem from women’s decision to prioritize childrearing over their careers. “Take a hypothetical husband and wife who are both lawyers,” he says. “But the husband is working 50 or 60 hours a week, going all out, making 200 grand a year. The woman takes time off, raises kids, is not go go go. Now they’re 50 years old. The husband is making 200 grand a year, the woman is making 40 grand a year. It wasn’t discrimination. There was a different sense of urgency in each person.””

“Nor, he argued, does its conclusion take into account other factors, like “goals in life. You could argue that money is more important for men. I think a guy in their first job, maybe because they expect to be a breadwinner someday, may be a little more money-conscious. To attribute everything to a so-called bias in the workplace is just not true.””

I want to light this fucking asshole on fire. This is another thing Blake and I talked about in depth last night because I never really understood wage discrimination or wage parity or whatever it’s actually called. He said that it’s fucked up because (well, partly because) say a man and a woman start at the same job at the same place making the same amount of money. The woman after a year, goes on maternity leave. In Canada, that’s for a whole year (or you can split it up between husband and wife 6 months/6 months because we’re awesome like that). So in that year, say the dude gets a $5,000 raise. The woman doesn’t get the same raise because she’s not there and when she starts back after maternity leave, it’s kinda like she’s starting back at square one. Say she goes on maternity leave again, that’s two setbacks while her male counterpart is still in the field getting promotions and raises. Another thing is that cpmpanies may not want to hire women of childbearing age *because* it’s assumed they’re going to go on mat leave which costs the company money. I don’t know what the solution to that is. I don’t think women deserve raises and promotions when they’re not there, but there shouldn’t be this crazy wage gap either.

Another thing Blake said was that when women go in for a job interview, they often lowball themselves because they have low self-worth whereas men are often full of themselves so they highball. A company is probably going to hire the woman who will work just as hard and do the same job for $10k less than the man. That causes wage disparity.

That one we can fix. We can raise girls to have high self-esteem and self-worth and hopefully close that part of the gap within the next generation or two, but we can’t work on closing that aspect while creating fucking LAWS that widen the gap in other areas like we see happening in the US right now.

There’s this author that I like named Cathrynne M. Valente who wrote these two books called The Orphan’s Tales Volume I and Volume II. They’re these award-winning fairy tales that all flow into one another and they are fucking fantastic. I loved them. In fact, that reminds me, Madison would probably like them. I highly recommend them.

Anyway, she also wrote this post on Live Journal yesterday about the War on Women happening in the US (THAT IS ABSOLUTELY FUCKING HAPPENING DON’T EVEN DENY IT) that’s also well worth reading. If I could make that link flash and blink and appear 10 feet tall, I would, because you have to read it. I cannot stand it when I hear women say things like “I’m not a feminist, but…” or “I don’t call myself a feminist because it’s such a dirty word”. It drives me up the fucking wall. (Hey I wonder if that phrase comes from The Yellow Wallpaper…) The word “feminist” is something that you, as a person, define in your day to day life. It is the RADICAL NOTION that women are people too. I argue this constantly. It’s nothing more, nothing less. Yes, it encompasses other issues, like gender issues or race issues, a lot of the time, but that’s as it should be. Women, gay people, people of colour, people with mental illness, people with physical handicaps etc etc etc, we are all minorities and if we don’t stand up for each other and become a vocal MAJORITY nothing would ever get done and we’d still be stuck in the fucking dark ages.

Blake told me last night that something truly disturbing came out of Madison’s mouth a little while back that is really getting under my skin today as a result of Cathrynne’s post and the fact that, AS A FEMINIST USHERING IN ANOTHER GENERATION OF WOMAN I should be vigilant about things like this, but I guess Blake and Madison were talking about politics or something and Blake asked her what she would do if she were called to vote on a law that was good for the majority of people, but bad or discriminatory for a small amount of people, like gay people. Wanna know her answer? “Well I just wouldn’t vote.” OMG HOLY SHIT WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS CHILD AND HOW DO I CHANGE IT BEFORE SHE IS OF VOTING AGE? YES I AM YELLING I AM ANGRY. I feel like we’re parenting failures because she said this vile thing. Blake has been talking to her about women’s issues and gender issues and gay rights since she was 4 years old, why is she so…I dunno what the word is, wishy washy maybe? She has opinions but she’s too afraid to voice them. She has strong feelings about right and wrong but she doesn’t assert herself. She has low self-worth. She’s a people-pleaser. I don’t get it. Where have we gone wrong and like I said, how do we fix it?

Don’t get me wrong, I love my daughter and for the most part I love who she is becoming but I wish she was more like me and my mother and even my grandmother who were/are all feminists just by being. It’s like, we have all these strong, mostly independent women generation after generation and then there’s Madison who’s like, the weakest link in this respect. We went backwards. Why? Is it because sexism in her life is not overt? Hell, it’s not even really overt in MY life so it’s not like she sees me having any great feminist battles like my mom and grama had.

For those new to the group, my grandmother (my mother’s mother) has owned a furniture store for most of her life. Not even most of her adult life, she started working in her father’s furniture store when she was a kid and then opened her own when she got married. Back then, women didn’t do this. But you don’t tell a Crittenden woman that she can’t do something (unless she’s Madison).

My mother had me when she was 15 years old. She had to fight to get her high school diploma because in 1979 the school wouldn’t allow her to be pregnant and attend. She had to write her exams in a janitor’s closet. But she still graduated, with the help of a tutor she’s still friends with to this day, and teachers who worked with her, despite the school’s rules and she’s been an independent business-owner since day 1, first with her wallpaper store and now with her art business. She is the most goddamn stubborn, opinionated woman I have ever met and I’m glad I grew up with that.

Feminism was never a topic of discussion in my life growing up, it was just a fact of life. Crittenden men don’t last long. They die, they get divorced, Blake was brave in taking my last name, let me tell ya. It’s the women who are the trunk of our family tree.

So with Madison is her lack of WHATEVER just because she’s been talked at instead of shown by example? Like, for example, the books she reads, we deconstruct those in this house like crazy and point out how the main characters are or aren’t good role models or good feminists. Most of the time they are though so I’m thinking that maybe there’s less sexism in her life so it just doesn’t register with her? And I think that’s a problem. That makes people lazy. That’s how bullshit like what’s happening in Wisconsin happens! How do I convince my daughter that her voice matters and is important?

I am going to be on her after school like a fly on shit now that I know she said what she said because to me that is absolutely unacceptable. I don’t know what I’m going to say but I’m going to be showing her Cathrynne’s post and going from there.

It kinda bugs me that Oprah has never really used her voice and influence to come out and say that, “yes, I am a feminist” and put a newer face on it. And if she did, I must have missed that episode.

Speaking of Oprah, my mom and I go to see her next Monday. My mom posted on Facebook on Sunday (I think) that she watched the Oprah’s Lifeclass Tour that morning when they were doing it from Radio City Music Hall and that by the end of it she was bawling. To be honest, I don’t really like Oprah’s Lifeclass because I find all that so-called inspirational stuff to be really boring and after watching a bit of the St. Louis Lifeclass Tour last night I’m wondering what the hell I signed on for. I like Oprah, I may even love Oprah (how can you not love Oprah? the woman’s a saint), but the rest of them like that Bishop guy and Deepak Chopra (especially Deepak Chopra) are just going to drive me nuts, I’m pretty sure. I am no longer a spiritual person. There is nothing guiding my life except me. I don’t care to hear otherwise. Science saved my life, not prayers (but thanks for them all the same, I mean, while I don’t believe in that stuff I don’t think it can hurt).

The other thing I’m worried about is that it’s going to be a lot like going to the Leafs game and I’m really worried that I won’t be able to do it and I know my mom won’t want to go alone. Plus, it’s not like I’m going to know beforehand if I can handle the crowd or not, I won’t know until we’re there. And my mom’s hardly sympathetic to my situation either, she’s of the “ull yourself up by the bootstraps” kind of person so if I’m having trouble being there, she’s probably not going to be of much help. I really should have gotten 3 tickets so Blake could have come and I’m wondering if maybe there are scalpers there we could pick up a third ticket so he could come. I know he doesn’t want to come with us, he doesn’t want to touch this thing with a 10 foot pole, but I really want to be there and I’m scared I won’t be able to do it without him.

Some feminist role model I am. I can’t even leave my fucking house.

Anyway, so my mom said on Sunday that the Lifeclass Tour, which is what we’re going to, had her in tears so last night we went to Wal*Mart so I could buy waterproof eyeliner and a smaller purse because they aren’t allowing big bags into the event and I currently use a laptop bag to haul my crap around. The purse I got is okay, I guess. It’s pretty…old person bag…but I didn’t really have a whole lot to choose from. It’s plain black faux leather with two pockets at the front that do up with silver buckles and then on the inside there’s a main part and a little zip up pocket for tampons and lipstick. It has visible white stitching. It’s the pursiest purse I’ve ever owned, I think and it’s definitely NOT me at all AND it cost me thirty goddamn dollars. At Wal*Mart! I wanted to get a new wallet too because mine sucks but that’ll have to wait for another paycheque because those were like, $30 too. Highway robbery.

The waterproof eyeliner I got is by Hard Candy, which is a brand I’m not familiar with but they had some pretty neat stuff. Like glitter pencil eyeliner in a million different colours (I got pinky purple, turquoise and silver, mostly for Madison to use next year when she’s in high school) and this neat face illuminator stuff that I didn’t get because I was on a pretty tight budget. I did get a new thing of mascara because I haven’t had a new one in a year and I think you’re supposed to replace that stuff every 6 months or something. HOWEVER, when I got home and opened the package, I realized that I got non-waterproof stuff so I’m going to save the one I had before for Oprah-like ocassions and use the non-waterproof one for every day use. I got Maybelline’s The Falsies mascara in case anyone cares because I really like it and it’s only like, $6 at Wal*Mart. I also got a tube of Maybelline’s new 10 Hour Super Stay Stain Gloss because it looked pretty cool and it really is. The stuff is totally a gloss but it does not budge. I put some on last night when I got home and slept with it on and here it is the next day and it still looks more or less the way it did when I put it on, just faded. Highly recommended if you like a gloss look with the staying power of a lipstick. I think next paycheque I’m going to try their new 24 Hour Lipstick since the gloss stuff is so good.

Hard Candy doesn’t test on animals according to their packaging but I don’t know about Maybelline. I know for a fact that L’Oreal tests on animals and while I really like their products, I’m trying to find alternatives for that reason.

I also got ponytail holders because mine all get lost. I usually use itty bitty ones because my hair’s so thin, like ones that slip on my fingers, but they didn’t have those so I had to get bigger ones. Oddly, Wal*Mart had a really small selection of hairbands which is another thing I went in for because I only own one of those and it’s leopard print and it looks pretty stupid.

In other news, I gained 3 lbs according to Wii Fat last night and I’m not buying that crap about body fluctuations because  I have a stomach flu (again) and I just took the mother of all shits right before I weighed myself so if anything i should have been DOWN some weight, but no, I gained  lbs.  This really sucks because as a family we’ve been tracking calories with MyFitnessPal and it says I’m only supposed to be eating about 1200 calories a day. Then at the end of the day when you’re finished logging, it says “if every day were like today, you’d weigh blah blah blah in 5 weeks” and the majority of the time I’m right at or just a little above the 1200 calorie mark so it’s been saying that I should be 128 lbs or so instead of the 135 I am. I’m supposed to be losing weight with this thing, not gaining. BUT as Blake pointed out, counting calories has slowed my weight gain considerably so that’s a good thing. I’m okay with being 135 lbs, I don’t mind being a healthy weight or even a little bit overweight but I can’t go over that without having a serious hit to my self-esteem and my surgeon really doesn’t want me to gain any more. I guess we’ll see how things go. I’m going to give it another month of calorie counting alone and trying to do better with coming under my 1200 (or at least not going over) and if I gain any more weight aft6er that then I guess I’ll be forced to use the dreadmill. It’s just such a goddamn waste of time, I can’t even stand it. I do not, in the slightest, take even an ounce of pleasure from physical activity. I was probably a sloth in my past life. I liked yoga though, but that’s not really an option for me right now and I never lost any weight doing it.

Okay I think that’s all I’ve got for today (as if that’s not enough) and I think I need to go have breakfast because I’m sick and haven’t eaten yet today and then finish this goddamn painting.

THE END.

Hmmmm.
This is pretty interesting.

I spoke to my mother yesterday morning and we filled out our registration forms together to make sure we’d be in the same cabin. We’re not taking the same classes, but I think that’s a good thing because that way we can teach each other the things we’ve learned. Last night I put down my deposit and today Blake’ll mail the registration form. Keep your fingers crossed that I get the classes I want! A lot of the spring ones are already full! (But we’re going in September.)

My first choice classes were (was?) Spirit Session on the Thursday, Pages & Paint on the Friday and Vinyasa yoga on the Saturday morning.

Spirit Session is a photography class where the teacher shows you how to use the settings on your camera. I know most of the settings on my little camera, at least enough to get by, but I have no idea how to use our Digital Rebel SLR (I don’t even understand what SLR *is* – Blake’s tried explaining it to me a few times and I just don’t get it). The Rebel is first gen so it doesn’t do video, which sucks, and technically it’s Blake’s camera. I’d really like to get a newer one of my own one day because I have a hard time using someone else’s something, know what I mean? Like I’m afraid of messing up settings or something. But at least I’ll be learning how to use it for whenever I get my own and hey, maybe I’ll find out that my little camera is enough camera for me. Who knows.

Pages & Paint is a mixed media class where I think we create two pieces. The teacher, Sarah Ahearn Bellemare, wrote a book that came out this spring, called Painted Pages: Fueling Creativity with Sketchbooks and Mixed Media that I’ve added to my wishlist and that I’d really like to get for my birthday. Blake won’t get it for me, because he already got me a Smash Book (more on that in a future post) and Smash Book accessories, but maybe my mom or someone else might get it for me. Because I’m in Squam-mode, this book is all I can think about and I read every page of the preview on Amazon and it actually looks like a pretty decent book. So many of these types of books are just basically excuses for the artist to show her work and they don’t really teach you anything. This one teaches you something, it teaches you mixed media techniques and gives you uses for mixed media elements. Like, for example washi tape. Pretend I have no idea what to do with washi tape. This book would tell me what to do with washi tape. The book just looks good and I want it, dammit.

Vinyasa yoga is vinyasa yoga. Vinyasa is really just continuous movement. Because both yoga classes take place on Saturday morning with the same teacher, I’m guessing that if the majority chooses Vinyasa, we do Vinyasa, but if the majority of people choose “Gentle yoga” then we’ll be doing “Gentle yoga”. My mom and I don’t really care either way. I put Vinyasa down for my first choice but Gentle down for my second and third.

Belinda and her boyfriend, Brian, are coming too but I’m not sure what they’re picking for classes. I know Bel wants to take Tell It, which is a writing class but I’m not sure if she actually picked it or not. When I talked to her last night, she was still just deciding whether or not to go so I have no idea what classes she ended up choosing.

I’m not totally sure what my mom picked either but I think she said her first choices were Story Scarves and Raw Matters. Story Scarves is exactly what it sounds like, you make a scarf with your story on it, whatever that may be, not like, Little Red Riding Hood. Raw Matters is a writing course.

I’m kinda getting nervous though, because as I was getting the links to make this post and as my registration envelope is sitting on Blake’s desk, ready to go out, one of the fall classes is already closed! It’s not one of the ones I wanted to take, but I’m pretty sure it was one of my mom’s choices (Gypsy Heirloom). Eeeeep! That one though, is actually off-campus at an artist’s jewelry studio, so it probably had a very small number of spaces to fill. Still, I know my mom picked that one either for a first or second choice. :o/

Before I decided Squam was a possibility, I felt out the atmosphere around Sunnyland to see where the financials may come from and a number of you said that you’d be willing to donate to the cause. I’ve decided to do a ChipIn to collect donations/birthday gifts but I haven’t set it up yet because I’m not 100% sure of how much I’ll need. I know I’ll need $1200 for tuition and $200 for gas and I know one night they don’t feed us so we’ll have to go to a restaurant and there are some supplies on the class materials lists that I don’t have (I may be able to make a “grey card”? I’m still not totally sure what that is, it’s a photography thing) and on the last day of Squam they have an art fair and I may want to purchase a book or something if the financials work out that way so I’m still working out the bugs. Another example is that we’re camping in the woods and the only flashlight I own that works is one you’d put on a keychain, so I’ll have to buy a flashlight and a pack of extra batteries (possibly, I’m not sure what we have for rechargables). I also don’t own an umbrella, which I may need if I’m taking a primarily outdoor photography class and it’s raining. I also really, really want an apron for my birthday – which is March 1st, by the way – one like this:

When I paint and I get some on me or there’s excess or whatnot, I wipe/rub the paint into the arms of my chair because it’s canvas and soaks it right up. Not only am I getting a new chair eventually, likely within the next year because mine’s kaput, but when I go to Squam, I won’t have my chair. I need to get in the habit of wiping the paint somewhere else, that’s not my pants (I’m bad for that too) and I also could use an apron for when I’m splatter painting so I’m not ruining perfectly good t-shirts. I wasn’t really sure where you even buy aprons, but I went to the Curry’s website and this one looked pretty good for only $7.99. Canvas is good. White’s not my colour, but it wouldn’t be white for very long, I suspect. Anyway, I want it and that’s just an example of the little things I’m going to have to buy for this trip – oh, bug spray’s another one – that I’m going to have to sit down and think about before I’ll know the financials. Believe me though, you guys will be the first to know once I figure it out. OH! I’m also going to need a passport or an enhanced driver’s license to get across the border. I think a passport’s $80, not sure about the license. I’ll get whatever’s cheapest I guess. I still maintain that I’ll be able to get over the border just fine with a license and a birth certificate, but my mom insists that I have exactly what is needed to go to the US as dictated by the border patrol’s website, which I haven’t had a chance to look at yet.

Thank god this is 9 months away, there’s so much to do! Lists to make! Things to acquire! BUT IT IS GOING TO BE SO MUCH FUN!

My mom asked me yesterday – and I think it was a totally legit, fair question – how my agoraphobia was going to factor in and I told her what my shrink told me a couple of years ago when I asked her the same thing in regards to Touched By Fire, she said that if I’m in a place where my role is defined, I’ll do better than in a place where it is not. For example, at Touched By Fire, my role is “artist” so I know what I’m supposed to do and what’s expected of me but at the Leafs game last year, my role is NOT defined or is defined very loosely, so I can’t function. As far as Squam, my role is “artist” and “student”, two things I’m very good at, so the agoraphobia shouldn’t be a problem. There will definitely be some social anxiety but I have good drugs for that and my mom and Belinda will be there so I should be fine. And I’m like a dog, I like car rides (as long as the person driving isn’t a maniac) and I’ve driven to NYC from here like, 40 times which is the same distance, so I’m not worried about it. I *am* a little worried about being tempted to smoke with my mom smoking in the car and this trip being a little bit stressful, but I figure I’ll cross that bridge when it comes. Plus, Belinda wouldn’t let me smoke anyway and my mom won’t want to share, so I’ll probably be fine. By the time the trip rolls around, I’ll have been a non-smoker for 17 months, if I did the math right (I quit in May 2011, the trip is Sept. 2012).

It’s going to be a really good time, I think. It’ll be September so it won’t be too cold (unless you’re a wuss) but I don’t think we’ll be going swimming. I’m going to bring a bathing suit just in case though. I’m also going to bring a travel mug for tea and I’m going to get my mom to bring her electric kettle for tea in the cabin. I’m going to bring two cases of Diet Coke (the cabins have ice boxes, but I don’t know how big they are – doesn’t matter, I can drink room temperature Diet Coke) and a water bottle for water (duh). I drink a LOT, I dunno why, I’m just *always* thirsty. My mom got me this kickass cup that looks like a take-out cup from Starbucks, but it’s NOT the one from Starbucks, it’s BETTER because it’s MAPLE LEAFS and I love it. It’s for Diet Coke from the bottle though so I won’t be bringing it with me. I need cans so they’ll be more portable in a backpack. The one class, Pages & Paint, they want you to bring your favourite colours of paint so, money permitting, I’d like to get my favourite colours of paint in the Martha Stewart line. Black & white are fine with what I’ve got (Americana) and I have a few colours of Martha’s but I’d like to have some more to bring with me because it really is just excellent stuff. In the pictures on the Squam site, they’re all using Golden acrylics which are very very expensive. They’re the best, but I simply cannot afford that paint. I’ve been using Americana since the beginning but now that I’ve used Martha’s paint, I’ll never buy another bottle of Americana as long as she keeps making paint – it’s that good. I’d like to try her crackle medium to see how it fares against DecoArt’s Weathered Wood, which I’ve also used since the beginning, and she’s got some other mediums I’d like to play with as well, but that I don’t necessarily need for Squam. All I need for Squam is about $25 worth of colours, if they’re on sale. OH! ANd I’m going to have to bring all of my glitter of course – which I will gladly share with anyone who would like any because I have TONS and sparkle is just meant  to be shared!!!

When we were at my mom’s for “second Xmas”, she put out her cheese ball (gross!) with all kinds of crackers and stuff to spread it on and one of the things she put out were Ritz Munchables Pretzel Crackers. That’s the US site and I guess they have “buttery” and “cheesy” flavours but we have “original” and I think Blake said they had “sour cream and onion” or “ranch” or something like that at the store too. Anyway, the ones my mom got were “original” and they were amazing. Between the 7 of us, we easily polished off the entire box and last night Blake went to the store and brought home a box and between yesterday and this morning, I’ve eaten almost the whole box BY MYSELF. They should rename these things to Ritz Pretzel Crack! They’re hard to describe, you really just have to try them. They’re like Ritz crackers, they’re buttery like a Ritz, but they’re made out of pretzel dough so the outside is crunchy like a pretzel and they put coarse salt on top of them. They’re fucking GREAT. 18 thumbs up.

At 2pm today I have to have a root canal that’s apparently going to take an hour and a half to complete. :o( Nothing more to add to that except that it sucks. :o(

I feel like there was something else I wanted to say but I can’t remember what it is so I guess I’ll just end this post here and make a new post if I remember what it was.

OH! Now I remember!

I e-mailed Magic Pony/Narwhal Gallery on Wednesday I think. Here’s what I said:

—————————- Original Message —————————-
Subject: Hi.
From: “S. Crittenden” <Sunny@SunnyCrittenden.com>
Date: Wed, January 11, 2012 1:55 pm
To: contact@narwhalartprojects.com
contact@magic-pony.com
————————————————————————–

Hello there!

My name is Sunny Crittenden and I’m an artist living just a bit north of
Barrie.

In December I was in the art show Touched By Fire at Cooper’s Fine Art
Gallery and there I sold my painting entitled “Black & White”. This is it:

http://www.sunnycrittenden.com/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=7319

It was at Touched By Fire that I met Colette French, the gallery’s
director, and she told my husband to call her once the holidays were over
because she had a space in mind for my work. That space was Magic
Pony/Narwhal Gallery.

I’ll be honest, I’ve never been to your space before and I rarely venture
into the city. I’m agoraphobic so I rarely venture into my own town of
2,000 people! However, your websites look interesting and I agree with
Colette that my work may fit in quite well. I was wondering what you might
think?

Here is the gallery of my work:

http://www.sunnycrittenden.com/gallery/main.php

Unfortunately my paintings don’t come across well in photographs because
they’re very very sparkly. I’m no photographer so I have no idea how to
photograph them as they are, so instead, I’ve taken a few short videos of
them, which show their sparkles better. Here they are:

1. http://youtu.be/IVsMx04gmb4
2. http://youtu.be/Ndudc9kjknc
3. http://youtu.be/zjVIUIhn-yU
4. http://youtu.be/_cDL-nPvLaI

Colette said that if the pictures and videos weren’t convincing enough,
that she would be willing to bring some of my pieces to your shop herself
to see what you thought.

I am brand new to the art world. I’ve just been selling my paintings on
Etsy for the past few years and this is my first time trying to sell/show
them outside of my own website and Touched By Fire. I’m not really sure
how this all works.

Thanks for your consideration,
Sunny Crittenden

Magic Pony hasn’t gotten back to me, but I got a nice rejection letter from Narwhal Gallery last night:

—————————- Original Message —————————-
Subject: Re: Hi.
From: “Narwhal Art Projects” <contact@narwhalartprojects.com>
Date: Thu, January 12, 2012 7:57 pm
To: sunny@sunnycrittenden.com
————————————————————————–

 

Hi Sunny,

Thanks so much for your email and for sending us some
of your work. At the moment we aren’t taking on any new artists as we’re
fully booked for the next couple of years – however we’ll make sure to
keep an eye on your website for future consideration. Good luck with
your artwork and all the best!

Kristin

Sooooo so much for that! But there may still be the possibility of Magic Pony maybe? I’m not sure if the rejection was JUST from Narwhal or if it was from both and I’m not sure if I should ask or if I should just leave it and wait for a reply and then if I don’t get one, I get Blake to call Colette to see what we should do next? I have no idea how this stuff works. And who knows, maybe Colette doesn’t have any other ideas either. It’s too bad though because I really do think my stuff would fit in well at Magic Pony. :o/

Okay I think that’s all I wanted to say. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend! Peace oot! <3

For Wes the Pokemon Freak for Xmas:

Sorry the picture is a bit blurry. I took about 50 pictures using “burst”, trying to get one that wasn’t blurry, and literally only 3 were acceptable and this was the best of the bunch. It’s pretty easy to make, as long as you have a steady hand. I used Sharpie Poster Paint marker for the mouth, nose and eyes, then I just used my finger in metallic red acrylic paint for the cheeks and white acrylic paint for the dots in his (her?) eyes. Its ears are made from yellow glittered cardstock from Michael’s and I painted the tips of them black, on a slant, like in the pictures I found on Google image search. For ear shape, I just free-handed it. I THINK I DID AN EXCELLENT JOB.

Behold! Our 3 feet tall Xmas tree!

It’s a pretty sad little Xmas tree, if I do say so myself, but it kinda fits our very small, very sad-looking house. Actually that’s not true, I think our house looks happy from the outside and EXTREMELY lived-in on the inside. Every square inch of our house is covered with STUFF. That’s why we need a new house, there’s nowhere to put our stuff and there’s zero privacy – from our neighbours, nor from each other. (I totally read that in my head as “our chudders”. Madison used to say “our chudders” instead of “each others” [say it fast, "eachudders"] and we still say it all the time.)

This is one of my prized possessions:

She was my great grama’s angel, back when my great grama actually had a big tree. (When she got older and couldn’t set the tree up herself, she bought a pink, white and silver, pre-decorated, 1 foot tall Xmas tree that I hope, with all my heart, to inherit one day. But I probably won’t. :o() She’s not antique, yet, but she’s probably really collectible being from the 50′s or so. Another decoration I remember from the same era that my great grama also had was a weird, red pointy thing that said something something “Sputnik” on the box. That’s probably worth something today too. That I would part with, probably, the angel I never will.

The tree is set up directly to my left, on the other side of the room, which is only about 2 feet away so I’ve had a little while to sit here looking at it and contemplating the state of things. As I mentioned previously, Phil & Lisa are mad at me and if I had to put money on it, we won’t be invited to their house next year for Xmas and I can hear Blake now saying “you don’t know that!” but yes I do. I’ve known Lisa for over half my life at this point and she’s very sentimental. She also holds grudges, she’s passive-aggressive and she can lay a guilt trip on you that would shame the staunchest of Jewish mothers. Whatever they end up doing for Xmas THIS year, is also what they’ll end up doing NEXT year, as it’ll become the new “tradition” because we are now unreliable for tradition despite having legitimate reasons for not going up North this year. I would be willing to put money on this. (Although it’s possible that Lisa is reading this – she’d never tell me if she were – and just because I’ve written this and I think this, she would then do the opposite and expect us next year.)

The thing is, well…one of the things, is that Lisa is now the matriarch of her family and she’s pretty young to be one. Her brother Paul and her (for all intents and purposes) sister-in-law Sandy do things with Sandy’s family for Xmas, at Sandy’s house. Sandy not only has a living mother, but also a son who is either already married or engaged and who has a toddler. As far as Xmas is concerned, they are their own little unit at Paul & Sandy’s house where Sandy is (despite having a living mother), the matriarch. She’s the one whose house it is, she’s the one who does (most) of the cooking, therefore, she is the matriarch and as we all know, Xmas is a matriarchal event. I mean, please correct me if I’m wrong, but that’s how it’s always been in my lifetime and that’s also always how it’s been in the other families I’ve observed (boyfriends’/Blake’s family). Sure, it’s “traditional” for the “man of the house” to carve the bird, but it’s the lady of the house who cooked it, who set the table, who put up the tree, who hung the mistletoe, who put the wreath on the front door and told the husband to put up the lights. She’s also the one who wrapped the gifts, with the exception of her own, which is the modern age, usually comes in a gift bag.

My point is that since the death of her own parents, Lisa has struggled to be the matriarch of her family and to create her own traditions. Since we were in the same boat (sort of…) at the disowning of  everyone in my family but my mother (and sometimes her too), we started going up North for Xmas. It just made sense. We had little kids, they had little kids and we were all in mutual agreement that it was all about the little kids.

But now our kids aren’t so little and neither of them believe in Santa anymore*. My sisters are 7 and almost 3, they have a few years left of the whole Santa thing and while I normally like my sisters for the most part, I cannot STAND them on Xmas and I’m not a huge fan of my parents either when it comes to them at this time of year. To put it mildly, they are spoiled brats, 365 days a year. That’s Lisa’s prerogative, of course, and none of my business, but I don’t think I should have to put up with it and neither should my husband or my kids. Raili antagonizes Wes. They get along on Xmas Eve, they get along on Xmas morning – that is until the presents happen. Raili is so spoiled the rest of the year that she disregards her mountain of presents and spends the rest of the morning driving Wes crazy, who only wants to play with his presents in peace. Madison gets stuck playing babysitter while Phil and Lisa make dinner, which sucks for Madison because Madison actually can’t stand kids and doesn’t want any of her own. The kid has zero maternal feelings whatsoever. (It can be said that Madison was a pain in the ass when they were up North while I was in the hospital this summer but that can easily be dismissed as Lisa expecting Madison to keep the kids occupied and make her job easier and Madison resenting it. That’s not to say Madison isn’t a pain in the ass, she is, but I think Lisa expected Madison to make things much easier instead of much harder when she agreed to take them. Also? Lisa was a total pain in OUR ass while we were in the fight of our fucking lives, wondering when we were going to pick the kids up and when we finally had a vague idea of when the kids could come home, she only met us half way between her house and ours.)

The fact of the matter is, it’s stressful for all of us to go up there, with the possible exception of Wes, who is fast outgrowing Raili and who has zero interest in Rachael. It’s been stressful for me since Day 1, it’s become stressful for Blake in the past couple of years because he can’t stand watching Raili and now Rachael becoming more and more bratty by the year due to absolute and total parenting fail, and then of course every year, Phil is a total asshole to Lisa, yelling at her in front of us for not parenting correctly meanwhile he won’t get up off his own ass and do anything and then – and then! – we agree, at Phil’s urging, to stay Boxing Day and sometimes the day after that and guess who fucks off to go snowmobiling with Paul early Boxing Day morning? Oh that’s right, my father who is SO GRATEFUL to have his family together at Xmas.

Long story short, I’m not seeing why we keep up this tradition except to secure Lisa’s place of matriarchy and I’m sorry but I grew up in a 5 generation deep matriarchy and it’s fucking stupid! I’m not saying that tradition is stupid, not by any stretch of the imagination, but I think maybe, after a few years of false starts, it’s time we start creating our own instead of blindly following Lisa’s for the sake of…nothing?

And before I get into tradition further, a lot of this has to do with the fact that Lisa and Phil did not go through this thing with us this summer. They were not present. My mother? She was present. Blake and I were talking about it last night and he said that Phil and Lisa can very easily put things into the categories of “their shit” and “our shit” and my REALLY FUCKING SERIOUS ILLNESS was most definitely put into the category of “their shit”. My mother was incapable of making that distinction. Therein lies the difference. Doing my mother’s house for Boxing Day has been a tradition since I was about 11. We don’t do it on Boxing Day anymore because it’s just too much at one time to do 2 Xmases back to back with the kids, but it’s still a tradition, it still feels the same (to me anyway) to do Xmas with my mom 3 days after Xmas as it did when I was 12 to do it Boxing Day. It may feel different to my mom, who still has Xmas dinner at her mom’s on Xmas Day despite the fact that my mother loves Xmas more than any other day of the year and (I think) would really love to host her own Xmas dinner one day, as she has her entire life because of that goddamn “M” word again: matriarchy. But I don’t know.

All I know, as I look at my great grama’s angel on my itty bitty tree, is that maybe, just maybe, I would like to decorate my own tree with my own decorations next year. Because really, what am I supposed to do with the ornaments my kids bring home from school every year that I’ve been collecting them since they were small, give them to Lisa to put on her tree? Because what’s the point, I’ve always wondered, of putting up our own tree when we don’t have Xmas here and we don’t really have room for one? I could give them to my mom and my mom would probably appreciate them, but my mom’s got very specific tastes when it comes to Xmas and decorating a tree (we, the kids, would decorate the Xmas tree in the afternoon and my mom would re-decorate it after we went to bed, I’m sure she would deny this, but one year I saw her do it and I know she wasn’t the only mom in the world who did the same thing) and I think my kids’ homemade ornaments would be best served on my own tree. And I think the best-tasting turkeys are free ones from our grocery store, lovingly prepared by Blake with mashed potatoes made by Madison and green beans microwaved by Wes. And fuck it, we can clean up the mess tomorrow.

This year plans haven’t been finalized, but this is how I think things are going to go (and it’s no big deal if they don’t): Deanna is coming up tomorrow around 1pm. She’s bringing the kids presents because she’s a nice person. She’s also bringing up presents from my cousin Haylie because she’s a nice person too. After work, Alex and Ronny are coming over. We will sit in my office or living room and shoot the shit until Deanna has to drive home to Uxbridge. Then Alex & Ronny will go home and we’ll have dinner like we do every night. We’ve invited Alex & Ronny to sleep over on Xmas Eve but I’m not sure yet if they’re going to. The idea is that they’ll be here Xmas morning (which can happen whether or not they sleep over, but I’m sure the kids would appreciate it if they were here as early as possible) and we’ll all have a big breakfast together. The kids will open presents (as I’ve mentioned, Blake and I aren’t getting each other anything and we don’t exchange gifts with Ronny & Alex – although I am making something for Alex and giving it to her on Xmas, but that’s only because she’s my friend and I like her and she’s going to be here on Xmas and I can’t get it done by tomorrow, it’s not an Xmas gift), I don’t know if Ronny & Alex will exchange gifts with each other. No big deal to us either way. After breakfast, Wes and Madison will do the dishes and Blake will get started on the turkey while Alex and Ronny and me do whatever in my office. Then later we’ll all eat Xmas dinner, Alex & Ronny will go home and the best part? We won’t have to stress out our dogs or ourselves and, if they choose, when Ronny and Alex have their own house or apartment, they can choose if they want to host Xmas for their family OR they can come to our house OR any number of things because it doesn’t matter! We’ll be doing what we do, the more the merrier, but no big deal if it’s just us. THE END.

See how easy that is? No guilt trips. No “well they got us X last year so we’d better spend Y on them this year”. No annoying brats (for many many years at least). Happy dogs that won’t barf on the way anywhere and who won’t have to sleep on a dirty blanket on a cold, concrete floor (and people who understand that there are 7 members of our family, not 4). OUR *OWN* LEFTOVERS (turkey and stuffing is probably my favourite food, followed closely by turkey sandwiches with mayo and pepper). A reason to put up our own tree and decorate it with our own ornaments. A reason to make our own ornaments (and not just to give them away). And that’s just the stuff I can think of!

And if Lisa wants to be the matriarch of her family, she can be one! And Phil can put all the pine nuts he wants in his own stuffing and feed his own family as many casseroles as he can come up with.  And they can trim their own tree with all the ornaments that Raili and Rachael come home from school with. And they can believe in Santa Claus. And Phil can go snowmobiling Xmas Day and Boxing Day and the day after that and the day after that and the day after that…! And they can all put up with each other and I don’t have to feel like shit on the one holiday where I’m supposed to feel anything but! THAT’S WHAT I WANT FOR XMAS! NOT A FUCKING TOASTER OVEN!

So once the dust settles from this year’s festivities and we survey how things went, this is probably what’s going to happen and I won’t lie to you guys. The majority of the reason for this is because A) where were they when I was pretty fucking close to death? and I’m sorry but if you weren’t there for me then, you never will be and if you never will be, then fuck off and B) you don’t pull this passive-aggressive bullshit on me when I have no other fucking choice. Lisa didn’t reply to Blake’s e-mail for 3 or 4 days and then replied with “oh by the way, your shit’s on a bus, Merry Christmas”. Compromising, like maybe them coming here for Xmas this year, didn’t even enter the equation. Or even saying “that’s okay, we understand, hopefully next year will be better!” Nope, just thinly veiled animosity.

So fuck it. I’ll spend my pre-Xmas afternoons making hand-painted ornaments for my son for my tree. Fine by me.

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(*Wes only this year and only because we told him. We didn’t have the money for “Santa presents” this year, or stocking stuffers and we knew there would only be maybe one more year of him still believing anyway so Blake told him. Also – and I’ve always thought this – why should Santa get all the credit for what *I* do? That’s retarded! We work hard to give our kids a good Xmas and to get them the things they want, some mythical being shouldn’t get all the cred. and cut into our Xmas budget. And don’t gimme that Jesus crap being the “reason for the season” either, grace has never been uttered in this house on any occasion.)

So I survived Blake’s work party. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I enjoyed myself, but I will say that everyone was very nice to me and I was fed well. Honestly, it was actually pretty mellow, almost to the point of boring. All we did – which was totally fine by me – was sit in a corner and eat food. Madison developed a crush on Blake’s boss’ son so she went back & forth between upstairs where we were and downstairs where the kids were being a total creeper (she gets that from me). That was the most entertaining part of the evening.

There were some babies, which I ignored, and they ignored me. And of course there were kids, which I ignored too. We had brief interactions with Blake’s coworkers but they sorta stuck together and ignored us for the most part. I met everyone of course, but with a couple of exceptions, I couldn’t tell you any of their names or what they were wearing. I know that Anthony, the fake Korean, brought the fucking AMAZING Korean BBQ that us Crittendens devoured like it was going out of style. I know Mandy, the hostess, made the butter chicken that was pretty good too, as well as the turkey which was also delicious. We brought mashed potatoes with cheese on top and these potatoes too which weren’t very good because Blake left the peels on. Lesson learned. (Also Pinterest is awesome because that’s where I got the recipe.) With lots of butter they would have been pretty good but we didn’t think to bring any and I didn’t want to ask for some.

When we got there, Blake made me a very weak Crown Royal & Coke Zero which I sipped on for about 45 minutes before my guts started hurting so I made him get rid of it and I just drank Coke Zero for the rest of the evening.

We left around 10pm, I think, and I was craving beef like crazy so we stopped off at Burger King on the way home where I get some kind of crazy super beef burger with just ketchup, none of that crap they pile on, and I ATE THE HELL OUT OF IT. But, as is often the case when we get food on the way home, I started falling asleep while I was eating it but I did finish it when we got inside and then we went to bed. Or at least I did, I can’t remember if Blake went to bed when I did or not.

Anyway, I survived. The party was tolerable. Now that I’ve gotten it over with, I don’t have to go to any work functions ever again unless I really really want to (which would probably never happen). So yeah…

But one thing I did want to share is my eye makeup for the evening. Usually I’m really shy when it comes to makeup because honestly? I don’t know what to do with half of it. I buy a lot of it though, because it’s pretty, and I think I’ll wear it one day, but then I never do. I decided, after watching Hedwig and the Angry Inch and hanging out with Jen last weekend, that life’s too damn short to just let it sit in my makeup bag untouched. I’m going to LEARN how to use it, godammit! So Jen showed me how to use eyeliner last weekend and I applied my knew knowledge to last night’s look. I’m warning you in advance that I apparently suck at taking pictures of my own eyes, but it looked good, trust me.

Left: HiP by L’Oreal eyeshadow
Right: Super old Revlon eyeshadow

This Revlon stuff I have is literally from grade 10, so it’s like…17 years old.
It used to be shimmery but now it’s just plain white BUT I like it because it STAYS PUT.
It doesn’t gather in the crease of the eye during the course of a night and you only need a little bit to get full coverage.

This stuff is so cool.
It’s black liquid liner with flecks of silver in it.
I think it’s a CDN brand.

Silver solid eyeliner.
Also a CDN brand I’m pretty sure.

I got this 2 Halloweens ago but never knew what to do with it until now.

Step 1: White eyeshadow over the whole lid
Step 2: Silver shadow on top of that, thickly, because the silver on its own doesn’t show up very strongly.
Step 3: Black liquid liner along the top lash line
Step 4: Curl lashes.
Step 5: Use Maybelline’s “The Falsies” mascara, 2 coats (I really wish I had an eyelash brush!)
Step 6: Put the silver liner under the lower lash line.
Step 7: Put lots & lots of glitter eyeliner on top of the silver liner.

And that’s pretty much it.

What I did do was stick a Q-Tip in my mouth to wet it and then I used it to remove any eyeliner from the very inner corners of my eyes because I tend to wipe gunk from there constantly and I didn’t want to smear anything.

So that’s what I did.
Jen would be so proud.

Speaking of Jen, when she was here last weekend she put purple and turquoise streaks in Madison’s hair and then she used her razor thingy to cut it. I think it looks really good (Jen’s in hair school right now, she finishes in March).

Here you can see some of her streaks:

And the cut:

God she looks like me in these pics. o_O

Poor kid.

I have a whole whack of posts to make today, so bear with me. This one just covers the party, I’ve got at least two more posts to go. (And and just so I’m not making a separate entry just for this, no I haven’t heard back from my brother yet. I’m betting I won’t.) I think I’m gonna pee, grab another drink, make another post, then go sit on Blake’s chest until he agrees to go to the store to get me croissants and Diet Coke.

So I re-read my last post about Blake’s Christmas party tomorrow and now I feel like shit because – while I didn’t mean to – I slammed the Barrie office and that wasn’t really fair, especially since they did SO much for us when I was in the hospital this summer. I meant my comment on the subject to be about how I’m glad I (probably) wouldn’t have to hear about mommy & me type subjects at his Christmas party because no one he works with now has kids, but now that I’ve re-read what I posted, I can see how what I said could be misconstrued to think I was bashing people in Barrie. That was not my intent and I apologize for not being clear. Not that it’s an excuse, but today has been “one of those days” and up until about 20 minutes ago I was one giant crust of a person and that’s where my hostility stemmed from.

I think the lesson in tomorrow’s Christmas party is that I need to be less judgmental. I’m not typically a judgmental person, which I think most of you can tell if you’ve been reading long enough, but I have some funny ideas about work mixing with family. I just don’t like it. I don’t think it’s a good idea to put your career in the hands of the behaviour of your wife or children and I think it’s unfair to ask them to behave a certain way because it might affect your job. I think the two things should be completely separate.

I also believe that there are your friends and then there are your “work friends”. Work friends stay at work, friends come over for dinner. This way there are no rumours about you at work because of something that happened outside of work. In the same vein, all throughout school I had friends and I had “school friends”. Yeah, there was some cross-over because you can’t really help it when you’re 12, but let’s just say that the “friend” friends are on my Facebook at 20 years later and my “school friends” aren’t (for the most part).

OH. MY. GOD.
I JUST HAD TO PLAY MADISON NIRVANA BECAUSE SHE DIDN’T KNOW WHO THEY WERE.
She said, when I compared the song ” Exquisite Corpse” from Hedwig and the Angry Inch to early Nirvana, “is that the band with the naked floating baby on the cover?” so she gets points for that, but man, that hurt.

I played her the beginning of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and she remembered who they were, but still…

 Blake is bringing me home two McDonald’s grungeburgers, fries and a root beer, which I’ve been craving for weeks now. (The root beer, not the new “slow food” haha But it was Katie linking that in Twitter that made me call Blake to get some on his way home. Horrible, I know. But today was a terrible food day. I made an English muffin for breakfast, with butter, and the butter dripped all down my Gogol Bordello shirt and onto my pajama pants, then I made spring rolls but they changed the recipe into some type of MAJOR FAIL when they became “Sensations” as opposed to “Compliments” [store brand] so I only ate two of the six I made, then I made a peanut butter and jam sandwich but gave half to the dogs because the bread was kinda stale, then I just gave up on food and slept for the rest of the day.)  Over the past few weeks I’ve been treating my guts like a garbage disposal and it’s making me feel like crap. A person just shouldn’t eat as many chips as I’ve eaten in the past month, my blood is probably like glue and I’m definitely gaining weight since my guts decided to stop regurgitating everything I swallowed. I was at just above 100 lbs at my lowest point after coming out of the hospital and last I checked on the Wii Fat, I was 115. I’m okay with 115. I’m okay with 120. But anything above that and I’m not going to be very happy with myself. I keep saying “tomorrow I’ll eat better”, but I never do. I think this is like, in the same vein as when people cut themselves. I don’t really know how to explain that statement except that I’m not exactly practicing self love these days and that needs to change.

Right before I started writing this post, I had the first shower I’ve had since JUNE, not counting the hand-held ones (3 or 4) Blake’s given me with the shower chair and in the hospital over the last 5 & a half months. This one was standing up, got in by myself (despite the act I put on, my legs still aren’t very strong and the reason I haven’t had a shower this whole time is because I wasn’t sure I’d be able to get out of the shower by myself without falling), got out by myself. It was actually kind of gross the amount of dead skin I scraped off myself, I hate to admit. I used Happy Hippy shower gel, which I love, and Ocean Salt face wash, both from Lush. I also used Nioxin on my hairs, which is weird because it makes your scalp really really cold. But I did it and got out by myself and found clothes and got dressed and changed my underwear and everything.

And now I got distracted by Blake and food, so I think I’m going to go finish my headphones project in my office and watch Hedwig and the Angry Inch for the 4th time this week.

Who barfs up grapes? That’s all I’ve eaten today is grapes and water and it all came up about 20 minutes ago. I’m upset about it because until this moment, I considered grapes one of my “safety foods” because I hadn’t barfed them up yet and on days when Blake’s not home, I would have them for breakfast. I figured grapes were a pretty light, bland food, which is what I’m supposed to be eating right now but nope, apparently not. I guess I’m sticking to water, Lipton soup, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, diet ginger ale and crackers, although we’re going to try out that cherry tomato pasta thing Blake makes tonight. It’s a pretty basic, simple recipe so I’m hoping I’ll be able to keep that down.

I’ve been barfing so much that my lips are super chapped due to the acid and they’re kinda weeping clear fluid in a few places. Gross, I know, but it’s the truth. I can only imagine what this is doing to my teeth.

Anyway, the reason I started this post was not to discuss barfing but to tell you all that our A Million Little Pictures pictures have been digitized. You can see Blake’s here and you can see mine here. This Saturday the tour is coming to Toronto for Nuit Blanche and Blake, me and Charlie are going to go see it and our pictures! Obviously I’ve seen Blake’s and my own but I haven’t seen Charlie’s yet and I’m really looking forward to it. Nuit Blanche is an event in Toronto where from 7pm-sunrise the city is filled with art. We’re only going to stick close to the block where A Million Little Pictures is because I can’t go great distances with my walker, but that’s okay, we’ll get to see what we planned on. Before we go see the art, we’re going to go to a restaurant to have dinner but I have no idea what to eat that I’ll be able to keep down. I’m kinda thinking just a regular salad is probably my best bet. Hopefully they’ll have Catalina dressing though because that’s the only kind of salad dressing I like. Maybe I should bring some in a container in my purse just in case? Would that be weird? I already know I barf up french fries, I can’t remember if hamburgers are on the barf list or not (we’re going to a hamburger joint), I just know that last weekend I barfed up poutine and that it was really unpleasant due to it being on the side of the fucking road. It also sucked because poutine is one of my favourite foods and now that I’ve barfed it up, I can’t have it anymore. :(

I’ll figure something out. My theory is that no matter where we eat, there has to be *something* on the menu that I can eat without puking my guts up. I just wish that thing could be fries and gravy. :(

In other news, here’s are a couple of articles on occupying Wall Street:

Article 1 (translated into a bunch of different languages)
Article 2

And with that, I’m off to catch up on the usual places!

So my brilliant idea of doing a series of photos from my bed in the living room hasn’t been going so well, mostly because the lighting in here fucking sucks, but also because really? Not much happens from my vantage point and my four-legged subjects don’t often cooperate.

After this post I think I’m still going to take pictures from the bed but unless there are some really interesting ones, I don’t think I’m going to bother cropping and posting them. So here are the first set of pics, you decide if they’re interesting or not:

In the pic above, you can see my loving husband Blake, the towel my nurse uses so I don’t get soaked with saline and blood while she changes my vac dressing, my barf bowl (because my stomach is VERY sensitive now for reasons no one’s too clear on) and my awesomely blinged out mouse.

More Blake, because I love him. <3

I bet I’m on Facebook more than any other living person on planet Earth. And I don’t even play Farmville.

Blake’s guitar. Mine’s beside it (black Hello Kitty Strat! that I totally don’t know how to play!) but you can’t see it from the bed.

A somewhat blurry Lucky laying in front of my walker.

Madison and Blake. I forget why they were both looking at me.

My living room night table. We’ve got (from L to R):
- My super awesome wake-up light
- Tweezers
- Bottle of Tylenol 3
- Kleenex
- The remote for the fan
- Floss
- My glasses
- My phone
- Glasses cleaner
- Glasses case
- (At the back) TV remote on a pile of books
-  Shotglass containing hydromorph contin and colace
- Freezie mug likely full of limeade or 5-Alive
-  Mirror
- To the very right, beside the mug, you can see part of my vac machine

Exciting stuff!

Vac dressing from my vantage point.

Wes playing video games on some website called Poptropica.

And last but not least, the window I can’t see SHIT out of due to all those damn leaves!
Although even if the leaves weren’t there, I don’t think I’d see much but a field.

So there ya have it, scenes from my bed.

In other news, this week I stayed home by myself for the first time while Blake went to work. He works from home on the days Siske comes so he can wrangle the dogs if need be and help clean up afterward or get things for her after she’s put on her sterile gloves – stuff I can’t just do myself. Then on the days Siske *isn’t* here, he goes to work in Toronto and with the kids in school, that means I’m left to my own devices.

I was really nervous about the prospect but I stayed home by myself for 2 days this week and nothing bad happened so I’m not as worried about it as I was before. My big fear was someone coming to the door because I can’t go down the stairs to answer the door and if it was something like a heavy Amazon box, I wouldn’t be able to take it from the delivery person and put it somewhere because I just don’t have the strength. Also? I wear a hospital gown 95% of the time, which is open in the back and isn’t the most flattering thing in the world and I don’t exactly want strangers to see me in it.

But no one came to the door and Blake put a note on the door telling delivery people to just leave the packages at the door, so I don’t have to worry about it.

My other big fear was falling but now I know I can get up if I fall (as long as there’s something to hold onto and really, that’s everywhere) and really, prior to getting sick, how often did I fall in my own home? Like, never. So why would it be any different now? It’s true that I’m a little unstable on my feet just because I’ve only been walking on my own for about a month, but I only fell once at the hospital and that was after I’d been walking on my own for only a few days. Sooooo, I’m not really worried about falling anymore.

My first day home alone kinda sucked because I woke up to no internet. I instructed Madison on how to reset the modem by unplugging the power cord but she DIDN’T FUCKING LISTEN (which has been a problem with her recently) and she pulled out not just the power cord but the ethernet cable too, which she only loosely plugged back in so long story short, the internet could have come back on 5 minutes later but I wouldn’t have known about it because she fucked up the cords. It was only by fluke that I hobbled out of bed and checked them myself at around NOON and found that she hadn’t plugged the ethernet cable back in and when I plugged it in, I had internet seconds later. I could have killed her because really, the only thing I can do from this bed is use the internet or watch TV and I don’t watch TV very much, especially not during the day, so I ended up letting the hydromorph win and I took a nap instead.

But then! After I woke up and checked all my internet stuffs, I got hungry and I wanted Kraft Dinner but it was on the 2nd shelf in the kitchen cupboards and I can’t reach that shelf without a chair. So I got a chair and I put it right below where the Kraft Dinner is and I went to stand on it but my muscles aren’t strong enough yet to propel myself on one leg and onto the chair. I was afraid I’d fall and hurt myself if I attempted to do anything further so I put the chair back and got a fork, which I used to knock the Kraft Dinner onto it’s long edge, then I dug the fork into the seam of the top of the box and pulled and then I could reach it that way. THIS IS BECAUSE I’M A GENIUS.

I feel like a moron saying this, but making Kraft Dinner took a lot out of me. And then when it was finished cooking, I took about 5 mouthfuls and didn’t want any more.

On Blake’s way home he stopped at the “good” grocery store where they make the best pre-made salads and he got me a caesar salad to have the next time he went to work.

So on my 2nd day home alone, I figured I was all set for lunch because I had this caesar salad where all I had to do was add the packet of dressing, the packet of croutons and then shake it up but after I did that and took a bite, I immediately felt nauseous because it was just so gross. It’s not the salad’s fault, it was a perfectly good caesar salad, it’s just that apparently I don’t like caesar salad anymore which is just one more thing to add to the list. Blake ended up eating it that night for dinner and meanwhile the only thing I could find in the kitchen for lunch that I actually felt like eating was grapes, so that’s what I had for lunch that day.

Again, that day was pretty uneventful. All I did was nap (twice, because I take the hydromorph in the morning, then again at 2pm and it makes me sleepy – most of the time I fight it off, but if I’m bored, or more to the point, depressed, I just let sleep take over) and refresh Facebook and Google + about 5,000 times. I also posted a lot on the Camwhores forum. (By the way, I have 10 free trials, no credit card necessary, to Camwhores if anyone wants them. All you have to do is comment with your e-mail address, one that’s never received a free trial before, and I’ll send it to you. First come, first served. An added bonus to these free trials is that even after it expires, your account remains active, albeit in a limited capacity. You can still see the cams, just not the full archives, you can still chat on the tagboard and you can still post on the forums. I’m not sure if you can vote, I think so though. The only thing you really can’t do is see the archives past 12 images or watch live or archived streaming shows. Anyway, like I said, comment with your e-mail address and I’ll send them out!)

I think next week we’re going to do the same as this week with Blake working from home on Siske days and going into the office on non-Siske days. I’m not worried about this at all because nothing’s going to happen. I’m still uneasy about being alone with Siske though because I can’t wrangle the dogs (what if one got out? that would be a nightmare!) and the least we can do is clean up after her because we appreciate what she does for me, although technically I believe it’s her job to clean up after herself. Plus there’s the fact that she’s basically a stranger and I don’t feel comfortable with strangers in my house at all, but especially if I have to be alone with them. Eventually I’m going to have to get over this because Blake IS expected to be at work every day, it’s just that today is not that day. This week is not that week. I don’t know when it will be, maybe the week after this one, but we’re playing it by ear.

Tomorrow night we’re going to Toronto to see Mother Mother. When I was in the hospital, I was worried that I wouldn’t get out in time to go to this show and then when I did get out, I didn’t think I *could* go to this show for a number of reasons.

1. The show is at Sound Academy which is a big but essentially shitty venue because the floor is level so if you’re short and at the back, you can’t see anything and with my walker, I would have to be at the back. There IS a platform with tables and chairs on it but getting a table is next to impossible and there’s a big column in your way anyway. Also I wouldn’t be able to stand on the platform because I need my walker.

2. For obvious reasons, I couldn’t be in the pit or even in the crowd.

3. I can’t stand for long periods of time and there’s nowhere to sit, period, let alone somewhere to sit and still be able to see anything.

4. What the hell would I wear? Because my guts are swollen and all displaced, I look about 6 or 7 months pregnant and I don’t exactly have maternity clothes I could wear!

But Blake being Blake found a solution to most of these problems. He called the venue and asked about wheelchair accessibility and as it turns out there is an area to the left of the stage that’s sectioned off specifically for gimps like me and when Blake explained that I can’t stand for long periods of time, they said there would be a chair waiting for me when I got there. Problem solved. We’re going to get there early so there’s not too much of a crowd and we’re supposed to ask for a specific person when we get there who will get me set up in the designated area.

As for what to wear, I think I solved that problem when I went to see my shrink earlier this week. I have this awesome pair of black, drawstring yoga pants that my mother-in-law got me years ago that I absolutely love so when I went to my shrink I wore those, tied below my belly because there’s a hose connected to my (normal) bellybutton region which is totally in the way, and then I paired it with a grey, v-neck t-shirt that Charlie got me from Old Navy (which you can see in my recent cam pics) and over top of all that, I wore this grey, knitted hoodie with faux fur trim on the hood that I have. Casual but classy. Normally I would NEVER wear anything that casual to a show, that’s usually when I pull out all my Free People clothes, but right now I don’t really have much of a choice. I’m fine with it, though. Totally not a big deal. After everything I’ve been through over the summer and the indignities imposed upon me, I honestly could not give an entire shit as to what anyone at this show thinks of what I’m wearing.

So, with all problems solved, we’re going to see Mother Mother tomorrow! And while I was mopey today and basically decided not to go, now I’m thinking it’s a good idea. And so does my shrink and Siske. My shrink prescribed me more Ativan, which I’ll get Blake to pick up for me tomorrow and with that and a bit of lipstick, I should be pretty good to go!

And I think that’s all I’ve got in me for tonight. Have yourselves a lovely weekend and I’ll probably write more on Monday.

Thanks, Ruggedo! <3
(My mom gave me the pussy willows.)

We have:
Candystripe cosmos – 1/4 lb
Daydream cosmos – 1/4 lb
Gloria cosmos – 1/4 lb
Purity cosmos – 1 lb
Radiance cosmos – 1/4 lb
Bachelor Buttons – 1 lb
Organic Russian Mammoth sunflower seeds – 1/4 lb
Grandpa Ott morning glories – 1/4 lb

For those new to Sunnyland, my entire front “lawn” is actually a wildflower garden. Here’s what it looked like in 2009:

You can view the whole history of “Keep Off the Lawn” by clicking here.

Last year we really focused on the vegetable garden in the BACKyard and mid-summer I actually got depressed and anxious over the front yard, which happens when you have issues leaving your house, so I had Blake mow it down. :o( But THIS year it’s going to look fabulous and I have it on good authority that the kids are going to help me keep it weeded so that’s a plus and I’m kinda stoked. The seeds for the veggie garden came last week, as did these things you use to hang plants upside down! I’m going to use one for golden cherry tomatoes, one for regular cherry tomatoes and one for cucumbers.

Anyway, Blake’s picking me up some dirt today so I can get the grow op on the windowsill in the living room started and then it will really be spring!

It was an innocent invitation and Ronny, please don’t feel bad about this, you didn’t know…

It was an innocent invitation to go see Sucker Punch tonight with Ronny and Alex and their friends Christina and Joseph, who I met at Ronny & Alex’s wedding.

But see, I can’t go to that. And it makes me really really upset that I can’t go to that because I really really want to see that movie.

They’re going to the big theatre in Barrie, which is panic-inducing at the best of times, but at a prime time showing on opening day with people I don’t really know? That’s impossible.

So I said we couldn’t afford to go (which is true), but Ronny said they’d pay. And I just said I couldn’t do it because that’s what it boils down to.

I can only go see movies at times when I know the theatre is going to be almost empty OR if we can get there (minimum) half an hour early to claim our seats. That’s the only way I can go see anything and it also pretty much has to be the Midland theatre because the Barrie one is too panic-inducing and NEVER on opening weekend unless it’s something I know no one else would want to see.

Dott, my co-worker, said “Well hopefully they understand.” But the thing is, and this is what I said to her, “if they did, they wouldn’t have asked”. And this is not to make Ronny feel bad for asking but the invitation and then further insistence when I said no, has thrown me in a 4 Ativan + 2 Klonopin tailspin that required a call to Blake at work because I was/am freaking out completely.

I would LOVE to be able to go to see a movie I really want to see on opening weekend. I bet there’s even a GetGlue sticker if I go. Maybe even a Foursquare deal. But I *CAN’T* and it’s very very fucking frustrating and upsetting to be reminded of that. It’s like, I’d imagine, having no legs and your friends asking you if you’d like to come swimming.

Ronny obviously didn’t mean anything by it, but he said, after offering to pay, “we owe it to you guys for all the steak and potatoes and treats you have given us at your house!” But he didn’t stop to think that there’s a reason we have steak and potatoes and treats at my house, it’s because there’s no other alternative.

And again, I’m not mad at Ronny, this is not to be negative toward Ronny in any way, the invitation was extended with nothing but good intentions, it’s just that I can’t go, even though I’d really really like to and that’s extremely upsetting to me.

(And don’t comment with the fact that I’m not “missing anything” because I would have to rip off your head and shit down your throat if that were the case.)

Edited to add:

“To be fair, Ronny asked me if we wanted to go but acknowledged that he wasn’t sure if it was a Sunny acceptable thing. Knowing that Sunny really wanted to see the movie, I asked him to check with her since I was uber busy.

So I think this is more my fault.

On that note, I stopped at Lush in Newmarket and got some of those fresh masks that you can’t get online then headed out and got a video game, Despicable Me and that Anne Hathaway boobie movie so we are totally going to have a pampering night in.”

- Blake