Sunday morning. Only Wes and I are awake at the time I’ve started this post. He’s playing his new video game (Bolt, purchased with a gift certificate from the Playstation Store), I’m listening to a new playlist and talking to Korpsy on Twitter about miserable movies. Yesterday Madison and I watched The Notebook, which is the second most miserable movie in the history of the world, and the little shit didn’t even crack a frown at the end, meanwhile I was a snotty, sobbing, toilet paper clenching piece of shit. I swear that child has no soul. (The first most miserable movie on the face of planet Earth is Life Is Beautiful, in case you were wondering.)

Last night was pretty miserable. I know I don’t really post about Blake very often, but I’m really worried about him. When I woke up from the nightmare of pancreatitis in Royal Victoria Hospital in Barrie, I woke up to the love of my life being a changed man and I don’t like this change. He can’t help it, I know, but he’s not well and I want more than anything for him to be better. He needs to talk to someone about what happened this summer and soon, I think, before this change in him, this sadness, becomes permanent. There’s just no joy in his life anymore, he doesn’t laugh as easily as he used to, he mopes, all he does is work to avoid everything else…he just goes through the motions of living, he doesn’t actually do more than exist. And that worries me a great deal. Last night we just held each other and cried. For hours. Things are not okay. Not everything is getting better.

………….

For the last couple of days I’ve been playing with an idea that I want to run by you guys to see what you think. I think I want to put a 24/7 spycam in my office, overlooking my desk and part of the couch. I say it would be 24/7, but really we would probably turn it off sometimes, just not often. Really, the only time it would go off is if there was any sexy/naked private time going on, which I know ruins half the fun, but I don’t do sex on cam, never have, and there are legalities in place that say a cam like this couldn’t be sexually explicit if children were to also appear on it from time to time.

What you would see, on any given day, would be me sitting at my desk making art and probably watching a movie, possibly with someone (likely Madison or Blake), watching TV with me on the couch. It would not be riveting entertainment and it would not be streaming cam because that would be extremely cost prohibitive. It would be a simple, old school, 30 second refresh cam that would be on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, give or take.  We could possibly chat live on Twitter.

Now, you might be asking yourself why on Earth I would want to do this so here are my reasons:

1. I am creatively blocked in a seriously painful way. I avoid my office like the plague and when I’m in there all I do is watch movies and accomplish nothing. Maybe with an audience, I’d be more productive.

2. Maybe with an audience I’d actually make an effort not to be a scuzzy bitch. Don’t get me wrong, if this happens you will most likely see me in yoga pants and t-shirts 95% of the time, probably with little or no makeup, probably with my hair in a ponytail. I’m not aiming to look beautiful here, I couldn’t care less about that at this point, I mean making an effort to have clean hair. Changing my clothes more than once a week. That kind of stuff.

3. Maybe this will attract more people to my site and more people means more people seeing my art and maybe buying some of it. Also, I think from a marketing perspective that maybe some people might be more likely to buy a piece if they see the process by which it was created. Street artists have been working on this principle for, well, ever.

4. I think it could be fun to chat with people while they were watching me (and whoever else was in the room), live.

Now, do I think anyone will actually watch? I highly doubt it. I think the ship for spycams, unless they’re maybe nature cams, has sailed. However, I know a few friends would watch sometimes and that it would enhance our spontaneous Twitter parties and that could be really really fun. Really, the cam is going to be pretty boring otherwise.

The only drawback I can see is that the whole world will find out my big deep dark secret, the thing only my family and a few really close friends know about, and I’m not sure how I feel about that. Really, the secret itself probably isn’t a big deal at all, I doubt people would care that much, but it is sort of strange and it will require an entry on the webcam FAQ I’ll have to write up to nip the whole thing in the bud.

So what do you guys think? Would you watch? Would you interact with me live on Twitter? Do you have any interest in this whatsoever? Do you see any drawbacks to this that I may be missing? (All family members have “signed off” on this, Madison even thinks it’s a good idea, Wes doesn’t care, Blake said he’d turn the cam off sometimes.) Oh and there wouldn’t be archives because archives take up server space and I’d really like to save server space for nicer pictures that I take with my camera. I would like to have something below the cam though, that said something like “3 people are viewing this cam right now”, but worded better. I have no idea how you would make it do that. Do you? I know how to make a 30 second refresh page (in Dreamweaver), so I’m good there, but I have no idea how to make a counter like that.

Anyway, just a little idea I’m thinking about. To make it happen, I would need the USB cable on my wishlist and another cam. Ideally I would use the cam I have now for the spycam and use the one on my wishlist for Camwhores, but if anyone has an extra *decent* cam kicking around that they would want to send me for this, I wouldn’t object. Blake says that as long as this thing doesn’t cost him any money, he’s totally fine with it, so this has to happen for free. (We have a little spare computer to use for this – at least temporarily, it’s technically spoken for.)

Oh but another thing about the spycam? If it bothers me, I’m taking it down. If it’s just eating up bandwidth and no one’s watching, I’m taking it down. If a family member objects to it being there, I’m taking it down. This may just be a temporary thing while I’m in this funk, I dunno. But I think it’s okay to try.

Last week Blake and I went on a date. Keith, my mom’s ex-boyfriend, sent us a $50 gift certificate for Swiss Chalet and my mom gave both Blake and I gift certificates for EB Games and at the beach they’re literally right next to each other, so we went and had perogies, cheesy garlic bread, ribs, a chicken type of thing on flatbread, a strawberry sundae and a piece of apple pie – all for 4 bucks and change! Then we went next door and bought Skyrim.

I was so stoked to get Skyrim. I’d built it up in my head as this awesome fantastic thing but the problem was, my computer wasn’t good enough to play it so we had to get it for Playstation. #FirstWorldProblem, I know, but the thing is, I really really hate consoles. I can’t stand those little joystick things you use with your thumb to move, it just seems completely unnatural to me. I tried really hard to play Skyrim on PS3, I really did, but in the end I just got frustrated and gave up. Also the game seems way too big. Like, I played for about 2 hours and barely got past character creation.

The other thing is that these days I’m having a really hard time justifying the playing of games when I should be doing things that’ll make us money instead. Or at least things that are semi-productive. I canceled my WoW subscription because it was just stupid to keep paying for something I only played maybe once every 2 weeks and even then, I was just dicking around, farming for whelps and sprite darters anyway; I wasn’t even leveling. My subscription runs out on February 6th so I only had a month left to play it anyway because I was paying for it with Xmas money, so no big deal. I saved us 15 whole dollars by canceling a month early. *shrug*

I don’t know why I’m so unmotivated. Depression? S.A.D.? Our sketchbooks for The Sketchbook Project have to be in the mail in 16 days, I have one page to finish (I’m not finishing my whole book) and I can’t bring myself to touch it. Dunno why. Argent’s painting has been sitting on my desk, about 65% finished, but I can’t seem to push through and get it done. I have a million ideas for paintings, I’m not at a loss for those, I just have zero desire or motivation to actually make them happen. I have all the materials (although I’m running dangerously low on canvases). I have the pictures in my mind. What the fuck is wrong with me? How can I call myself an artist when I’m not only NOT making art but not selling any either? Like tits on a bull, I tell ya! Squam cannot happen soon enough!

Speaking of Squam, my mom and I damn near had heart failure yesterday when they announced on Facebook and Twitter that the spring session was full/closed already. My mom commented on the post on Facebook and after a few grueling hours, they commented back that there was still plenty of room for the fall, so we could breathe easy. *whew* We don’t think our envelopes have even left the country yet, so hopefully they get there in time!

Okay I can’t think of anything else to write so I think that’s it for now. Blake awake and making coffee so maybe I’ll get him to make me a tea too, which I’ll take into my office where the most productive thing I’ll do is stare a hole into my cutting mat. Oy.

Edit: Blake scanned my colouring contest entry. The scan kinda sucks though. The ornaments on the tree were silver and I guess the scanner’s light really washed out a lot of the colour for some reason. Like, in the original, Santa’s cheeks and nose are rosy and the package at the bottom is actually purple and lavender but it looks white and washed out. Oh well. Here it is.

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.)

On Sunday we cleaned my office. And I took pictures. Cleaning my office is significant because it basically never happens. I have a really large, square, u-shaped desk that is my pride and joy and it is usually piled a foot high with…VERY IMPORTANT STUFF. Also my office and my studio are the same thing, I just prefer the word “office” because it makes me sound important whereas “studio” makes me sound pretentious. Basically it’s my “stuff room” where I keep my stuff and do my stuff and I love it. I spend a LOT of time in there.

There’s a TV, a Blu-Ray player, a cable box with HBO and The Movie Network OnDemand. There’s my beloved Canada flag that I gaze at with pride every. single. day. There’s the banner Blake made me for my 28th or 29th birthday that says “It Is Your Birthday” that I loved so much because it was so funny that I never took it down (until Sunday). There are 3 paintings: one of sad flowers that was just an experiment in using acrylic on canvas long before I knew I could paint happy girls and two paintings that are a set, one called “Damaged” and one called “Dirty”. “Damaged” is done in reds and “Dirty” is done in browns. Here they are (super old pics, sorry for the crapola quality):

“Damaged” is about my body and I supposed “Dirty” is too because they were both made during a depressive episode where I didn’t shower for a few weeks. This was in 2005, according to the dates on the paintings. My friend Sini bought these two but said that I had to promise to always hang them on my studio wall, so that’s what I’ve done. They’re probably my 2nd and 3rd favourite paintings that I’ve done.

Anyway, let’s take a tour of my office with the “before” pics…

Look at that mess! Look at all that VERY IMPORTANT STUFF!
I am BADLY in need of a new desk chair, I have been for years, it’s just never happened.

This is the most common sight in all of Sunnyland: laundry baskets and receipts.
The dryer is in my office, hence the laundry baskets.
I never throw away a receipt if it has anything to do with Sunnyland Studio.
I don’t even file taxes as a business but I’m scared one day I’ll get audited and I’ll need these receipts so I keep them.
The playing cards on the left-hand corner are pink for breast cancer, underneath them is Skip-Bo and Uno’s in that mess somewhere too.
The bottom corner of the coffee table was chewed off my our old puppy, Zulu.
The black binder is from metabolic clinic and the green one is Cammity Jane.
The round thing above the binders is this awesome blue and silver star garland that I’m going to put around my office door after Xmas when I steal the lights off the Xmas tree to put around my door with it.

I think this one’s pretty self-explanatory.
Blake took the banner down on Sunday so I would be able to put up the lights and garland when it will be time to do so.

Blake got me the TV for Xmas last year and beside it is the furnace.
And of course, my flag.

I love my bookshelf. It’s getting a little full, but I think that’s a very good thing.
Right now I’m reading The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen who is amazing to me.
Blake once described Joyce Carol Oates’ prose as being “chewy” and if that’s the case then Jonathan Franzen’s is “smooth” like vanilla pudding.
More laundry baskets of course.
And a dog who wants to go out.
And a treadmill with Blake’s gross sweaty towel hanging off of it.
And that turquoise-y thing on it is a heat pack that you put in the nukrowave.
Lots of boxes in the corner because you never know when you might need one.
There’s an easel back there too, that I never use. I save it because Blake got it for me and maybe one day I’ll need to display my art on it or use it to take pictures of my art.

Despite having a large room all to myself, I share it with a furnace and a dryer and one wall is aluminum siding and therefore mostly unusable so my paint sits in this box beside my desk while the colours I use the most sit ON my desk.
These clear boxes are full of scrapbook paper, one is just glitter paper alone and these boxes aren’t even the whole paper stash…I just compulsively buy the stuff because NOTHING inspires me more than paper.
On top of the paper is a Michael’s bag full of Hello Kitty puzzles for my sisters for Xmas.
On top of the box are my treadmill shoes and a 3-hole punch.
Behind the box is a big frame that my step-mom gave me a million years ago for Xmas that is pre-matted and says something stupid on it about family. I save it because one day I’m going to use the frame for something, I just don’t know what yet.

LOOK AT THIS MESS!
To be fair to myself, this was AFTER going to Michael’s for supplies to make my office more “me” and to make some Xmas presents, it’s not normally this messy, but pretty close. I usually have a workspace in the middle on this side of the desk.
My phone’s not normally on the desk (the rectangle thing beside the remote, the other phone is usually on the desk).
All that paint is always on the desk.
All that tissue paper (on the left by the Barbies) is for making paper peonies that I’m going to be hanging from the ceiling.
Currently hanging from the ceiling are these gross rubber spider moneys Kevin gave me a long time ago and birdhouses I never got around to painting. The spider monkeys are going in a box and are being put away and the bird houses are gonna probably be thrown out. Oh and there are crystals hanging from the ceiling too, but I’m probably going to leave those there.
The wicks (center) are because I’m going to be consolidating all my candles. I have a million candles where they burnt down to the bottom but there’s like, 2 or 3 inches of scented wax left over. I’m going to melt that wax and make new candles with these wicks I got for $4 a pack. It’s cheaper than buying new candles and it isn’t such a waste.

Did you know Martha Stewart makes acrylic craft paint now?
She does and it’s GREAT.
It’s $2 more expensive than the paint I use now so I’m not going to use it for everything but her metallics (she calls them pearls) are fantastic. The pink metallic paint that DecoArt discontinued on me? Martha makes the exact same shade. She also makes a lighter pink metallic that is the same colour as the stuff I was hand mixing for “Pink & Green I” and “II” AND she makes a light turquoise metallic called “Aquarium” that is just gorgeous. I wish I had money to burn because they’re 60% off right now and if I had the cash, I’d buy one or two of every metallic colour she makes.

I do my makeup at my desk because it has the best light, hence the mirror and lipstick.
Behind that is all my pens and markers in old mugs.
This is the back corner of my desk, it faces a window but I always keep the blinds down.

More of the back of my desk.
Sketchbooks straight ahead in a pile.
Embroidery floss in the box.
Vitamins.
Odourless mineral spirits in the tall skinny bottle.
Watercolour paper leaning against the window.
Sparkly gel pens to the right and also this fantastic circle-draw-er I got at Michael’s for a shocking amount of money, considering what it is. It’s for drawing BIG girls, which I’m going to start doing in the new year.

This is the OTHER back of my desk. If I were to sit here, I’d face a wall. Usually my computer is hooked up here (hence the monitor), but right now it’s in the living room and there it’s going to stay until after I have my big surgery.
To the left is paper and a box of glitter. Also my Sketchbook Project sketchbook which I haven’t worked on in weeks. :o/
Behind that is a bunch of drawers that I never use. All I knew before going through them when we cleaned up was that one of the drawers contained a mummified mouse carcass that we found behind the stove and that I wanted to do something with, but I decided I never would so we threw it out.
Beside that is my clipboard.
Beside the pile of paper and glitter is a turquoise bra and my pencil case, which is High School Musical. (Blake has a strange sense of humour…)
Beside that are turquoise glitter letters that I’m going to use on Argent’s painting.
Beside that are tickets that I got at the dollar store for $2.50 a roll! NO idea what I’m going to do with them yet but they’re cool as hell so I bought 4 rolls in various colours. I would really like to do a Mardi Gras girl so maybe I can hang the “beer” and “liquor” ones from strings as a background or something. They say “beer”, “liquor”, “admission” and I think “refreshments”.  I love them.
Beside those are the Touched By Fire catalogue and my printer that is perpetually out of ink.

This is my ribbon shelf. It also houses tape.
In the bag is a LOT of pink and neon green tissue paper from Xmas last year.

AND NOW THE “AFTER” PICTURES!
It only took about 4 or 5 hours, but we got it organized (more or less)!

Look at that! You can actually see the DESK!

All my paper neat and tidy!

The little bag to the left is my Powerpuff Girls makeup bag. I love it.
The little white jar that says “Golden” on it is their crackle medium, which I’ve had for years but I’ve never used. I hope it’s still good because it was expensive. I’ve never used it though because it’s weird, you put it on a had surface and the stuff, which is white and like a paste, crackles and then you paint over it. Not really useful for what I do.

So there ya have it. My office. Now clean.

What’s funny is that now that it’s clean, I’m afraid to spend any time in there in case  I mess it all up again. Stupid, I know. I was in there yesterday with Blake where we watched Ren & Stimpy while he walked on the treadmill and I tried my hand at making paper peonies. I got really frustrated with it though, because the paper kept ripping, so I got pissed off and crumpled it up and threw it in the garbage. Then I put away all the materials for them and announced that I would not be making any more of them. Blake said, “okay”, because sometimes he sucks and doesn’t say the right thing.  The right thing would have been to be encouraging.

Anyway, I ended up getting the half-finished peony out of the garbage and finishing it, which wasn’t so hard once you knew to go slow, and when Madison saw it on my desk after school, she asked if I would make some for her room too, which I will. My plan, after this post, is to wash my hair and watch movies while I make more paper peonies. Random fact of the day: my computer is named Peony.

So there’s been a bit of drama…I think…in Sunnyland recently, having to do with Xmas. I say “I think” because it’s hard to infer tone in an e-mail sometimes, but I think my step-mom, Lisa, is pissed off at us because we’re not going up there for Xmas like we have for the past few years.

The reason we’re not going up there is because it’s almost 2 hours away, in the opposite direction of the hospital, which very well could, since no one wants to be in the hospital during the holidays but me, call and say “be here in a few hours to claim your bed and have your procedure”. Being 2 hours in the wrong direction would not be a good thing if that happened. Not being at our home phone number, the only number this doctor has for us, would be a very bad thing. Having to wrangle kids and dogs and pack up presents, which is a process in and of itself that usually takes sometimes over an hour, is not something I want to deal with. Dressing changes while we’re up there and bringing supplies (and hopefully remembering everything – what happens if we don’t?) is not something I want to deal with.  Dealing with days worth of pills is not something I want to deal with when I take well over 20 of them 3 times a day.

I am high maintenance. I don’t want to add the chaos of kids and dogs and dealing with my father to the mix, thankyouverymuch.

When Blake e-mailed Lisa to tell her we wouldn’t be coming, we got an e-mail back 3 days later that was pretty frosty, saying that our presents were on a bus to Barrie already so we’d have them in time for Xmas (which we wouldn’t care about in the slightest but I guess it was important to her?). Also in this e-mail she mentioned that Phil had taken some time off work because his father had died.

Excuse me? My grandfather dies and no one fucking tells me? No, we were not close, yes, I barely knew the guy, but I was planning, if I could, to go to his funeral to learn about the guy. And no one fucking tells me? Why the fuck would no one tell me? I don’t understand! And I’m fucking HURT. Yeah, I feel like SUCH a part of this family now, we should all scramble to act like one for Xmas and hey, if I have to wait 2 more months for my procedure, that’s okay, at least we gave Lisa the happy family Xmas she wanted.

God I hate Xmas. There’s just no such thing as a bullshit-free Xmas and at this point I actually WANT us to have Xmas at home every year just to avoid all the bullshit of going up North. Ronny and Alex may be sleeping over on Xmas Eve so they’re here for Xmas morning, where we’ll do presents with the kids (Blake and I aren’t getting each other anything, except the new Jeffrey Eugenides book, which we’ll both read) and eat breakfast and everything will be mellow until we eat the Xmas dinner that Blake will have lovingly prepared because he’s totally awesome.

One note about our turkey this year: IT’S FREE! Our grocery store has this thing called “turkey bucks” where if you spend $50 on groceries, you get one “turkey buck”. We’ve spent enough on groceries that we may have enough money for one and a half free turkeys or just one large one (which is probably what we’ll do because our freezer won’t fit a turkey). Also at our grocery store, there’s a colouring contest for all ages and last time Blake looked, not only was mine the best, but it was also the only one in my age group so I’m totally gonna win. NO IDEA what the prize is (hopefully it’s not a turkey) but yay winning!

And that’s all I have to say.

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.

So if you know me at all, you know I get crushes on various boys pretty easily, especially if they happen to be in the arts in any way. ESPECIALLY if they’re super good or super passionate about something. Then I go mental.

So right now I have this pretty massive crush on Eric Calderone who’s this metal genius on YouTube who does covers of popular songs. And he’s absolutely, drop dead motherfucking gorgeous. Not to be crude (too late) but whenever he posts a new video, I sit there watching and my clitoris literally twitches, it’s the most bizarre thing that’s never happened before.

Now of course I would never act on any of these crushes and if faced with one of them I’d probably embarrass myself by crying or something lame like that, but I would definitely like to be friends with them. Like, internet friends. The way I am with you guys except like…we e-mail dumb shit to each other and stuff. Like I do with other people. Like like like.

But anyway, I love him and here’s some of my favourite Erock videos (yes, he calls himself Erock and yes I think that’s kinda stupid – no offence Eric, I love your nerdy ways):

“Hey guys,

So I had requests for more 80s songs and had requests for classical songs which ended up as a combo. The Mozart parts I used just in case anyone is wondering were Symphony no. 25, Symphony no. 40, and part of his Requiem. There were so many to choose from but I fell upon the ones I thought could work best. Hopefully Mozart’s not rolling in his grave. Thanks so much for the comments, messages, and subs. Once again, you guys amaze me, BIG UPS.

Best to ya

E”

OH SWOON. BE STILL MY BEATING FUCKING HEART OR HOWEVER THAT GOES. *fans self*

Okay I’ll stop, I just fucking love the shit out of him. I want Blake to fly him to Canada to play our anniversary party, if we ever actually have one. (Looks like 10 years ain’t gonna be it, so maybe 15?) But watch the videos, isn’t he beautiful? Don’t you hate him for his ability to grow hair? Cuz I totally do.

Anyway, enough about Mr. Crittenden the Second.

[Insert photo of the elusive Benton here]

So Ben’s not really a boyfriend, by my usual definition because I don’t really have a crush on him, but he is a boy and he’s going to be my goddamn friend if I have to hunt him down and sit on him.

Ben is one of my nurses. He’s 29, from Vancouver and from what I can tell, all he does is work. That means he has no friends here and I swear to Christ, I will take drastic measures to ensure that he has people here because he’s great and it bothers me thinking about him just being alone all the time. But hey, what do I know? Maybe he does have friends here and he just hasn’t told me about them yet. YET.

Anyway, I get excited about the prospect of new friends (I never used to, I’m growing soft in my old age) and Ben is a potential new friend and I’m looking forward to having a little party at our house with Alex and Ronny and Ben and lots of booze.

Speaking of booze, I’m too scared to ask my doctor but with all the drugs I’m on, do you think I could get drunk and not die? I guess I’ll ask her when I see her tomorrow. Honestly, all I want to do these days is be drunk and listen to music and cry. I am so goddamned depressed it’s not even funny. I have S.A.D. pretty majorly and like, I missed the whole summer. I went from winter, to barely any spring, to fall, to winter. There was snow on the ground this morning! This is not good for my mental health!

Blake’s mom and Charlie just bought a house in Florida with an indoor hot tub and pool and all I want to do is go there. I need sunshine. Badly. I want to get this stupid pseudocyst “procedure” done (still haven’t heard from the specialist), have my big surgery, go to Florida with Blake’s parents and the kids (that I have no idea how we’ll afford but I really need it :o( Maybe a Chip In account thing?) and then get my job back. That’s how I want things to go. That’s what I want for my life for the next few months.

I got an e-mail from my boss last week, which is promising. I explained everything to her and offered to work part-time until my big surgery if there was work available, but I haven’t heard anything back. We are so ridiculously broke. :o( The thought of Xmas makes me really upset because I just don’t know how we’re going to afford anything when we’re going into debt EATING. Madison’s said that all she wants for Xmas this year is a $25 iTunes gift card which very well may be the only thing she gets. I don’t know what to get Wes. Then there’s my mom, Phil, Lisa, Raili and Rachael. I just don’t know what to do.

Blake’s getting me Skyrim for Xmas, but I’m getting it on Thursday. We can only afford to get that because he’s going to trade in some of his old games and one of mine (Final Fantasy whatever # came out for PS3 that I hated and barely played). My one year old computer isn’t good enough to play the game so I have to get it on PS3, which sucks (and I know how whiny and privileged that sounded) because I hate consoles, but I really want to play the game so I guess thems the breaks. And these days it’s not like I have anything better to do. I sit on this bed in the living room and refresh Facebook and e-mail every 2 minutes, all day, every day. I haven’t even been creating anything because I just too depressed. I should be working on my sketchbook but I just don’t have it in me right now. If I send it unfinished, I send it unfinished.

So that’s life at the moment.

PS. My hair’s falling out at an alarming rate and if I lose much more, I’m just going to shave my head again.

PPS. Water For Elephants was a HORRIBLE movie, but an excellent book. Why is that always the way?

So yesterday we met with Dr. Hanrahan and she was surprised that we hadn’t heard from the Toronto surgeon. She said she was going to call him and see what was up. As we were leaving, the secretary had checked the mail and in the mail was the disc of CAT scan images they’d sent to him that were returned for some reason. So that explains that. The secretary said she’d figure out what went wrong and that she’d make it right.

Other than that, Dr. Hanrahan sent me to get blood tests and just told me to keep doing what I’m doing: eating foods that are good for me (which I do about 90% of the time, I just like junk food!), drinking plenty of liquids (that’s one thing that’s good about me, I loooove drinking, I dunno why) and taking stupid amounts of iron. Oh and she wants me to take more colace to battle the effects of the iron and my other medications.

So the visit was pretty uneventful and I see her again in 3 weeks.

Oh yeah, she wants me to supplement my diet with Ensure, which is like a protein shake in a can and they’re really gross and when I was in the hospital, it made me puke. So I won’t be doing that. Same with Boost which is essentially the same thing but Boost also has juices that taste horrible and those made me puke too. So eff THAT.

My hemoglobin is apparently half of what it should be which is probably why I’m so tired all the time. That and the hydromorph. I’m scared that if my hemoglobin gets any lower she’s going to send me for a blood transfusion which is my nightmare. Someone else’s blood in my body just skeeves me out, I don’t know where it’s been. Blah.

Dr. Hanrahan was happy with my new binder, so that’s good. It makes me ridiculously itchy though, like I think my dead skin has nowhere to go and that’s what’s making me itchy. She looked at my wound and said it looked good, then she taped it back up with this thick tape from her desk. That tape made me break out into hives. WTF?! I thought medical crap was all supposed to be hypoallergenic! Well this shit wasn’t and I am very unhappy that I have new places that need scratching.

I am SO sleepy. Normally right now I’d be napping but Janice said she was going to be here between 10am-12pm and I hate it when she gives me a large window like that because I can’t do anything in that time except internetting. Can’t nap. Can’t go into my office to watch TV and make art. Can’t make food because what if she comes while I’m eating? Then I’ll have to stop eating and wait for her to do the dressing and then start eating again once she leaves. I don’t want to do that because my wound grosses me out. (Not that I want to eat right now, but still.) BLAH! I say!

So I took pictures of my sketchbook pages as promised, but admittedly they’re not very good and I’m very sorry about that. The digitized versions done by Art House Co-Op will be better. So without further ado, here they are:

The page on the right is crap. I didn’t know what to put there so I just painted it pink and covered it in sequined glitter glue.

This is a better picture of the left page, even though it’s a little blurry.

I don’t like this page because it’s all crinkly.
Her hair and face was made with Inktense pencils.

I’m honestly not sure if this page is finished or not.
I feel like I should be adding fall leaves on the ground or something.

Her hair is done with Inktense pencils but I think her face shading is done with watercolour pencils.
Notice the lacing of her bodice. :o)

This is Madison’s favourite page.
What I want to do is have a girl on one side of the layout and a quote on the other side.
That’s why I need you guys to post quotes!

Her face shading was done with watercolour pencils, carefully blended with a regular pencil crayon.

This one was done using pencil crayons (Prismacolour) and odourless mineral spirits to blend and shade.
This was really just a practice page since it was my first time using the technique.
My next page is going to be shading a girl’s face using this technique.
Not sure how it’ll turn out, but I’m definitely going to try.

I kinda messed this girl up when I tried to shade her face using Inktense pencils.
I ended up with almost black lines all over her face that REFUSED to blend in,
which really pissed me off.

See? Horrible!
The jawline goes over her bottom lip and just looks awful!
As I said, her face is done with Inktense pencils, which I’m finding very finicky.
Her hair is done with Inktense as well, but her dress is pencil crayon & odourless mineral spirits.
I’d totally rip this page out of the book, but I’d lose what’s on the back of it, which is the “Grow Dammit” page that I worked way too hard on to lose.
So this page is staying even though she looks like crap. :o(

So that’s my sketchbook so far. I have 17 pages left to do (plus the cover), which seems like a lot, but since I’m mostly doing double page layouts, it’s really only 8 double pages and 1 single page at the back, so totally manageable and easily done before the January deadline if I keep up the pace I’m already at. I need to figure out what I’m going to do for the cover though and I honestly have NO ideas for it. Suggestions totally welcome.

I think I’m gonna go forage for food just to plan out what I’ll have once Janice leaves. She should be here any minute. Hope you’re all having a great Thursday! Bye for now!

PS. My hair is falling out and I haven’t had a period since July (I’ve just had the cramps of a period). :o(

“Tell a girl she’s beautiful and she’ll believe it for a moment. Tell a girl she’s worthless and she’ll believe it for the rest of her life.” – Unknown

Today was pretty uneventful. Last night was pretty uneventful too. While Blake, Ronny, Alex and the kids went trick or treating, I stayed home and did a topless show on Camwhores since I hadn’t done one in a really long time and had the opportunity. Lots of people showed up including Belinda, Zombie Bunny, badbob, jojo and many others. It was good to feel supported by the community and I even made some tips! That like, hardly ever happens and was MUCH appreciated! You can watch my show in the archives, for those of you who missed it!

With the proceeds from my show, we’re going to buy a printer because ours is way old and out of ink and the ink is really expensive (if you can even get that kind anymore) and it prints really sloppily anyway, so it’s time for a new one. I need to have a working colour printer to print my grant materials with, so that’s what we’re going to buy.

Today I woke up at around 9am and did some internetting until 10am, but then I got sleepy because of my drugs so I fell asleep on the bed in the living room for about 45 minutes and woke up soaking wet! For some reason, when I sleep now, I sweat like crazy and it’s really gross.

Janice, the other nurse, got here pretty much right at 11am, which was when she said she’d be here and she changed my dressing, helped me put my binder back on and sat and talked with me for a while about my health, both mental and physical. I guess they get an abridged version of your chart from the hospital, so she knows what I’ve been through and like Siske, she’s amazed I’m still standing.

I made of much sterner stuff than pancreatitis.
I will be alive at the end of time, you just watch.

Tomorrow is Dr. Hanrahan and as I’ve expressed previously, I’m worried as fuck that the surgeon at St. Mike’s can’t drain the pseudocyst since we haven’t heard from him yet. I’m also worried that she’s going to make me have another CAT scan and blood work because that sucks and we won’t be able to do it tomorrow after the appointment because we’re going to have to rush home to get there in time for Siske to change my dressing and I don’t know when we’d find the time to get it done because Blake works every day. I wonder if we could do the CAT scan on Saturday since that’s at the hospital and the hospital doesn’t close? And maybe the blood test place is also open on Saturday? I have no idea.

My mom’s coming with us tomorrow, which is a good thing because I never hear what the doctor is saying and I need it repeated back to me later in terms I can understand, which my mom (and Blake) is really good at.

And we’re not gonna get Starbucks this time because last time I barfed it up within moments of being home. It was the best tasting puke I’ve ever had though!

And with that, I’m oot.

PS. Madison is awesome. She holds my hair when I puke, then deals with the puke bowl and she even cleans up when I spill water on my night table. I love the shit out of this kid.

Just thought I’d share! Again.

Today has really really sucked. First of all, I woke up at 4am with diarrhea. Again. And I decided that since I was up, I might as well eat an apple stick. To the uninitiated, an apple stick is this awesome apple pastry, like strudel, that comes in the shape of a tube about an inch & a half in diameter by about 6 or 7 inches in length with chunky sugar sprinkled on top. They are DELICIOUS and only available at one chain of stores here, which happens to be the type of grocery store we have here in town. The ones Blake bought me yesterday were baked yesterday so they are EXTRA DELICIOUS. So yeah, that? Was the highlight of my day. It was pretty much all downhill from there. Sort of. Bittersweet may be the better term, but when you wake up with urgent shits and fail to make the bathroom, and that trend continues throughout the day, it’s a little hard to be Miss Mary Sunshine.

A couple of weeks ago Blake got me salmon steaks from the big, good grocery store in Barrie that I love so much because it’s humongous and it has an actual meat counter, not just a tank of lobsters, not just a deli, but an honest to god meat counter with kickass steaks and kickass salmon steaks.

Blake bought two of them, which the butcher wrapped in butcher’s paper and I told Blake to freeze them without knowing they were wrapped together in butcher’s paper. I am the only person in this house who will eat fish (the kids will eat shrimp, according to my step-mom, but I’ve never seen it) because the kids don’t like it and Blake has a possible allergy to it where he doesn’t like it and it’s been known to give him the shits/make him throw up so he’s more or less avoided it his whole life so I was kinda pissed when I saw that he froze BOTH of them in the butcher paper when I have a hard time eating ONE, you can’t refreeze them after they’re thawed and you should eat them within a day of thawing naturally, immediately if defrosting in the nukrowave. So once I realized they were frozen together and spazzed on Blake, we asked the kids if they’d be interested in trying it and they said they would be, so we decided that in order for them to try it, I would pretty much have to wait until a weekend to have mine, which was fine.

Well today was that day.

As it turned out the steaks were individually wrapped in plastic inside the butcher’s paper so I basically spazzed on Blake for nothing (how was I supposed to know?) and much to my surprise, considering his lifelong aversion to all things that swim, when I asked him to cook them for me, he agreed and since he’s a million times better at cooking EVERYTHING than I am, he cooked them perfectly (just fried in olive oil with salt & pepper) and I absolutely loved mine. The kids weren’t so much fans, but they both tried it. Wes thought it was disgusting while Madison was more thoughtful about it (“good, but the aftertaste ruined it”) and much to my surprise again, Blake said he was going to try it. He said it tasted really good but at the end of his trial his gag reflex got set off, so he only had that one bite. He didn’t feel sick afterward though and he doesn’t have the shits to my knowledge so maybe with some practice we can get him eating salmon steaks with me because they are delicious and very very good for you.

After lunch we internetted for a while when suddenly I got it in my head that I NEEDED fizzy Skittles. I love fizzy Skittles. Hell, I love non-fizzy Skittles too. So Blake went to the store to get me fizzy Skittles and berry Skittles and a slush. A cherry slush.

So Blake got those and came home and then I sent him out to get pumpkins so we can carve them tomorrow and I can bake the seeds. The seeds make me poo fantastically so I’m very much looking forward to eating them. Not too firm, not too runny, just perfect poos. I highly recommend pumpkin seeds if you have any type of poo problem. As Blake (and Madison) were getting pumpkins, Wes and I were eating Skittles and I was washing them down with my slush.

This was a mistake.

Blake and Madison come home. I’m internetting and eating Skittles. Washing them down with slush. Blake started playing Arkham City and I got tired of eating Skittles so I put them away and continued my internetting for about half an hour, maybe 45 minutes. Then I started screaming for Blake to find my bowl (it was in my office) because I was dangerously close, without warning, to puking all over myself, my computer and the bed. He ran and got my bowl, I grabbed it and filled that thing within centimetres of the top.

My vomit tasted like cherry and Skittles and had the texture of salmon steak. It was the sickest thing I’ve thrown up so far. And I don’t know why I barfed it all up, I followed all the rules:

1. Eat things that aren’t very greasy. Check.
2. Eat them slowly. Check.
3. Eat small snacks, spaced out throughout the day. Check.

I’m even wearing that godawful girdle binder Dr. Hanrahan wants me to wear to keep my guts squished in and aligned. Blake picked it up this morning and it’s horrible. My waist isn’t long enough for the stupid thing so it’s either digging into my hips when I sit or digging into my underboobage. And the fucking thing was $50! If anyone would like to help us out with the expense of that because we’re down to one income and ran out of donated money about a month ago, there’s a donation button on the bottom right-hand corner of my site. I hate to sound like I’m begging and I’m not really, this was just an expense we weren’t prepared for at a time when there’s no money for extra expenses. And not that one has anything to do with the other but I’m going to thank everyone who donated before, here, because I’m on a lot of drugs and can’t remember if I already thanked everyone in a previous post while I was still in the hospital. I honestly have no idea how we would have gotten through until now without those donations.

Blah. I’ll shut up about money now. This post isn’t about money.

Tomorrow Blake’s going to look at the binder and see if we can use Madison’s pinking shears to take an inch & a half or so off of it so it’ll fit properly.  My guts really hurt when it was first put on this morning but throughout the afternoon it started feeling…almost normal? I mean, it feels like I’m wearing a girdle but admittedly my guts hurt less with it on then without it. Without it I look about 6 months pregnant with a square baby because my guts have drifted out of place to either side of my abdomen, the binder brings them back to the middle and the goal is to keep wearing the binder until I have my wound/hernia surgery so it’s easier for Dr. Hanrahan to make me normal again.

Well, as normal as I get anyway. Physically normal.

No word from the pseudocyst surgeon yet. Waiting, waiting, waiting…I feel like that’s what my life has become. I am *SO* worried that if surgery and recovery (main surgery not the pseudocyst one) don’t happen soon enough I’ll lose my already slim shot at getting my job back. And I’m really really scared about what that means. I can’t just go out and get another job! And Blake’s been putting a lot of pressure on me to do everything in my power to get it back because we’re pretty much fucked if I don’t. And it would be really nice to not have that stress. I’ve never been able to contribute financially to the household by selling paintings because I don’t sell enough of them and I have no idea HOW to sell more of them. I feel like I’m doing everything I can already. It was nice having a job because that meant there was no pressure on me to paint what was profitable, I could paint what I wanted to, but now that’s gone.

Guh. This post is not about money. This post is not about money. This post is not about money.

Alex @replied me on Twitter tonight to tell me that it’s a really small friggin’ world. Siske, my nurse, has told me about her daughter many times before and as it turns out WE KNOW HER DAUGHTER. She’s really good friends with Ronny and Alex and we met her at their wedding! Weird, right? I can’t get over it! She never told me enough to put 2 + 2 together and chances are I wouldn’t have anyway because I’ve only met her daughter once, but it’s crazy to me all the same.

And speaking of Siske, she’s going to have my ass up early tomorrow morning to change my dressing so I should probably finish this post and go to bed. Before I do though, here are some pics from the bed, mostly of Pixel because I thought Phaedie would like them:

I took this pic because Madison claims these toys were sent by someone on the internet but neither of us can remember who or if that’s even true, so if you remember giving these to Madison, please let me know!

I have no idea what she’s doing in the above picture.

And in case you didn’t get enough Pixel today, here are a couple of videos. The first is Madison and Pixel being best friends and the second is Madison and Pixel playing with ribbon.

And last, but certainly not least, I leave you with Blake attempting to sing “Miss World” by Hole while playing guitar. Enjoy and goodnight!