Ain’t No Sunshine When She’s Gone… June 30, 2007

Well, it’s been a whole day since my girlfriend moved away, and I’m still laying on the couch. To my credit, I did get up and clean today, and help my friend pack her house in Greensboro, but I returned to the couch, and feel the urge to stay here until school starts again. It’s not that I’m mired in depression, but missing someone so much lends itself to lethargy quite easily. I rented Lonesome Dove yesterday, for chrissakes, because it’s eight hours long, and that gives me an excuse to lay around for eight hours. I’m currently engaged in watching the Family Guy, in it’s entirity. I need my job to start. Staying busy will help with the astounding loneliness I am feeling right now.

I don’t believe the loneliness comes from being dependent on her; it’s the little things that I know I’ll miss. Like, snuggling on the couch while it rains. Or, cooking dinner together. Sleeping next to her warm body that smells so sweet and feels so warm and inviting. A built-in date to the movies. Mad Libs in bed. Daydreaming of our rosy future. Playing together on the river. Giggling about sleep-induced gibberish conversations late at night. Being with my family and how right it feels that she’s there, too. The knowledge that someone really knows me, and understands me, and loves me in that way.

Things haven’t always been perfect, but are they ever? We are good together, so good…and I have every faith that if our relationship is as strong as I believe, we can make it One Short Year. It’s knowing that the one short year is gonna feel pretty fucking long that gets me.

Maybe it’s beating a dead horse, but I miss her. Her face, her laugh, the little idiosyncracies that make her her. It’s appropriate that it’s raining right now. That’s how I feel inside. The skies will clear, and the year will blow by, and I’ll see her in the interim, but damn! It doesn’t feel good right now.

Now seating Pity Party For One.

Art Car Adventure June 22, 2007

My dad can never request any ordinary Father’s Day present.  This year, myself and HoCakes are painting my dad’s truck.  More precisely, turning it into an ArtCar.  Currently, I am waiting for the base coat to dry so we can attack the truck with the airbrush and the stencils we have made.  And, oh…it’s gonna be hot. 

Here was the conversation with my dad when we first discussed his truck:

Dad: “So, I want you to paint my truck.  You know, like the last one.”

He had an ArtTruck when I was in middle school.  I wouldn’t let him drop me off in front of the school until I was in high school, and my friends had decided it was cool.

Me: “O-kay.  Do we have a theme?”

Dad: “Think dragons, fairies, mermaids, lizards, chickens, gnomes using composting toilets…you know.  I want a permaculture truck.”

Here, I’m thinking that trucks, by nature, are not so very permaculture in and of themselves.  If the engine was biodiesel and we had to go to McDonalds to fill up off of the grease traps, that’d be a different story. 

Me: “So we’re freeballin’ it again, huh?”

Dad: “Yeah. Exactly.”

Back to freeballin.  Pictures to follow soon.  You can play Spot The Elves. 

Playboy Epiphanies, Part Seventeen June 19, 2007

In these past couple of years, I have slowly but surely been edging towards the realization that I simply adore Bruce Willis. That is not an easy sentence for me to type…it feels dirty (his support for W, and the war) and perhaps more butch than I like to feel. But it’s the truth. I can’t help myself. His roster is impressive, and entirely memorable, even with some stinkers lurking on his resume’. I like that he’s a man of convictions, even if I don’t agree with said convictions. I appreciate someone who will speak their mind, even if it’s not popular opinion; that’s what that whole Free Speech thing is about, and I respect the honesty and bravery it takes to express not-so-popular sentiments, knowing the media crucifixion that awaits.

All that said, I really hated that I loved this guy that loved Bush so much. Enter this month’s Playboy (which, by the way, keeps coming even though we don’t send money…it’s magic. A $10 money order, two years ago, and the boobies arrive every month in their plastic privacy shield) which contains a lengthy interview with The Willis, himself. Much to my delight, he has rescinded his support (what’s new?), dropped out of the GOP, and registered as a Democrat. His stance on the war is still a bit iffy for my bleeding heart tastes, but he is intelligent, well-informed, and entitled to his beliefs. So he doesn’t necessarily call for a withdrawal of the troops…he does concede that there is no way out. To offset this unfortunate opinion, I was heartened to read of his support for civil right (financial as well as verbal), his belief in the welfare system, and the need for universal health care. He declared the War on Drugs sheer idiocy, and admitted that he has Smoked The Pot, and liked it. I like a person that doesn’t apologize for themselves.

Personal beliefs aside, here’s why I really love Bruce Willis: Moonlighting. Pulp Fiction. Sin City. Friends. The Fifth Element. Twelve Monkeys. The only good thing about Armageddon. Four Rooms. North. Death Becomes Her. That 70’s Show.

But really, all those things pale in comparison to the one movie that earned old Bruce-y the indelible gold star in my Minutes of Life. That is, of course, Die Hard. I have engaged in heated debates on numerous occasions as to the validity of the statement that Die Hard is the best action movie ever made; I happen to agree. As an Indiana Jones lover, this is a weighty remark, but I believe it is true. I’m sorry, Harrison Ford. You’re great, but you’re not Bruce Willis. I mean, have you seen the part where he wraps the fire house around his waist and jumps off the top of the building just as it explodes? Hello, adrenaline dump. It makes my heart beat fast every time I watch it. And, oh…Alan Richman. I could listen to that man spit terrorist commands, in German, into a CB radio all night long. He’s a perfect Bad Guy. Of course, Die Hard falls prey to the inevitable action movie plot device that says The Entire Movie Will Actually Revolve Around The Relationship Between Two Men, but it works; it’s touching, and funny, and believable (enough), and you know, before it happens, that when that crazy terrorist bursts out of the front door at the end, Al is finally going to be able to pull his gun again, in order to save his friend. We had learned earlier in the movie that Al became a ‘desk jockey’ because he “shot a kid”, accidentally, and had been unable to use his gun, since. This is progress, people. Al’s working out his demons (over a CB radio) with a man sitting in a half-finished bathroom, pulling gigantic glass shards out of his feet! If that’s not therapeutic, I don’t know what is.

I have a man-crush on Bruce Willis. He’s 52 years old, and I’m still jazzed to see him fuck some shit up in Live Free Or Die Hard. It’s as if wife-beaters were created to fulfill the need of John McClane to bleed onto something; he does it so well.

Now that I have proclaimed on the Internets, for all to see, what a thoroughly ridiculous nerd I am, I’m going to go masturbate and imagine that I’m John McClane, saving the very appreciative lady from those mean, mean men.

Final Exam Scene Painting II Winter Term June 18, 2007

Many friends have commented recently that they’ve never seen any of the work I’ve done at school. I am going to try to remedy that by posting what I can, here.

8′x6′-6″, casein/dry pigment and animal glue on muslin. A copy of one of Alphonse Mucha’s winter portraits.

I’m looking to sell this piece, so if you have any good suggestions, or might know an interested buyer, holla!!

Final Exam Scene Painting II Spring Term June 18, 2007

Translucency drop, 8′x8′, acrylic/casein on muslin. The observation point is the same in both shots.

This first shot was taken with the painting front lit.

This second shot was taken with the painting back lit.

The Spacebag June 18, 2007

This evening, I did something I haven’t done in ten years; I drank Franzia. Trusty old spacebag of wine…I used to travel with Franzia when I was in high school, when the important thing about drinking was that it be portable, and that there be sizeable quantity. Remember, these were the years before I drank anything for taste.

Ten years ago, my friend’s boyfriend, Corey Asshole Adams’, car broke down on the side of I-40, right alongside the weigh station, close to Mebane, NC. It was 8 in the morning, and we were racing to Greensboro–two of the passengers needed to get back for 10 am’s at Guilford College; Corey and myself were just along for the ride, and the raging parties that weekend. We had been up until 5 a.m. playing spades and drinking 40’s on my front porch, and all four of us were still, in all likelihood, drunk. We called AAA, and they showed up with a tow truck that could only accommodate the driver of the car–Corey. Corey and the tow truck driver pulled away at 9 a.m. on a blazing hot May morning, leaving three young women at the abandoned weight station. We called for back-up; they were on their way, just as soon as they got out of class at noon. That left us at least four hours to kill. Lucky for us, I had a backpack with supplies. Included in said backpack were these items: one full box of Franzia, one toothbrush, a fresh Sharpee, and a disposable camera. We did what any stranded teenagers (with hangovers) would do in this situation; we drank the Entire Box of Franzia (I believe it’s either five or seven bottles worth of cheapcheap wine), and had a photo shoot, complete with Sharpee graffiti. It was a great time, even though we baked in the sun, and we all had unbelievable headaches by three that afternoon, but we certainly made the best of a bad situation. It is a good memory.

Tonight, the Spacebag came out again. This time, the circumstances were much more controlled, if nothing else. KK, Waltina and I went to Waltina’s new house, still empty and ready for move-in, to christen the house with a celebratory photo shoot, complete with props. We took: one child-sized guitar, a Chinese horn shaped like a dragon, oversized gold fake eyelashes, an oversized cigarette I carved and painted for a school project, and an imitation Flava Flav Neck Clock. The big improvements, a decade later, were the addition of a flush toilet, and a trunk full of fireworks. KK ended up on top of the refridgerator, Waltina danced in smoke bombs while I shot artsy, blurred photos, and I got to double-fist gigantic sparklers.

I could deal with a Franzia event every ten years. The pictures are priceless, and even in the midst of serious inebriation, the memories are strong and happy. This is how traditions are made.

Peeing In Public, Part One June 17, 2007

Driving around Raleigh brings back a veritable flood of memories.  Mostly, they are good; humans, in general, tend to downplay the bad, and see only the happy times, when doing a superficial, location-induced Walk Down Memory Lane.  Here is a random assortment of small, yet poignant memories I experienced this evening when I went cruising, just to get out of the house. 

I am 15.  I am in the library with my best friend, A.  We spot a boy we both had crushes on, in kindegarten (this is humorous, as we have both realized our latent lesbianism by this time).  To our right, a young chunkster is having trouble with her math.  Chunkster begins banging her fists on the table and having a silent temper tantrum, berating herself for not being able to do her math (seems sad, now that I’m an adult and not a self-centered, vicious teenager).  We peer at the two, crush and Chunkster, from behind a very large, free-standing bookcase.  The crush catches us staring, A jumps back in horror, laughing hysterically, putting all her weight on the bookshelf.  The bookshelf falls over, in Extreme Slow-Mo, as really, reeeally heavy items tend to do, gaining momentum in an almost leisurely fashion.  A attempts to ‘catch’ the bookcase on it’s way down, succeeding only in pinning herself to the floor by the hands.  I laugh so hard I have to sit down on the carpeted floor.  I laugh so hard that I don’t care that I’m making Lots Of Noise in a library.  I laugh so hard I pee my pants.  A was unhurt; the carpet still bears my piss stain.  I had to walk home with Piss Pants that day.  A didn’t stop laughing for about two days.  That’s what best friends are for, I guess. 

Fast-forward three years.  D and I are bored, broke, and out of pot.  It is maybe 10 0′clock at night on a weekend, and too hot to play ping pong anymore.  Knowing from expereince that there were Always people doing drugs in the Rose Garden (attached to Raleigh Little Theater), after dark, on a weekend night, D and I outfitted ourselves in all black, grabbed our handy Maglites, and walked down to the Rose Garden.   Like ninjas, we crept around steathily until we caught the fragrance on the gentle night breeze.  Taking our time to get close without alerting anyone, we ascertained that The Smokers were psuedo-hippies from high school, not likely to pull guns on us.  Simultaneously, we turned out Maglites on, all synchronized and whatnot, and hit the group in the faces with the lights as we yelled, Freeze!, and, Stop, Police!  The kids did exactly as we predicted they would…they dropped their shit, and they scattered like cockroaches, never looking back.  Voila!  Free pot, and a good story to tell our grandkids. 

I may go to Hell, if it does, in fact, exist. 

George Clooney+Brad Pitty=Another Shitty Sequel June 15, 2007

This Thursday night, in an attempt do something other than drink wine, smoke cigarettes, and talk politics, my mom and I decided to go see a movie.  Both of us have a taste for the action/thriller/heist film, and seeing as Live Hard, Die Harder doesn’t come out til next week, we settled on Ocean’s Thirteen.  Neither of us had seen Ocean’s Eleven in it’s entirity, or Ocean’s Twelve, at all, but we figured the Star Power was strong enough that we could piece together what little we’d missed.   We were correct. 

The upshot to this movie-going experience was that we were (almost) alone in the theater, one man being our only other company, so we felt free to chat in a MST3K kinda way, through out. 

Though I won’t ’spoil’ the film by giving away intrinsic plot details, I will say this:  If you like to watch George Clooney and Brad Pitt banter in a finish-each-others-sentences fashion, this film is for you.  Watching The Boys in tuxedos certainly didn’t strain my eyeballs, and the garish, grand opening of a new casino (owned and operated by a Mr. Al Pacino) left room for a plethora of stylistic critiques.  Casey Affleck induced laughs in his role as The Insider at a dice factory in Mexico, and Ellen Barkin was horribly dressed, and horribly misused–that woman is a damn fine comic actress.  Matt Damon was unimpressive–the only thing about his character that was the slightest bit amusing was the fact that his name is Linus.  Don Cheadle, whom I loved in Boogie Nights, made me groan consistently with his shitty British accent.  The Old Guy (not Elliot Gould) was perhaps the best character in the entire film; his bit, in disguise, was great.  Al Pacino was a cold, hard, scary bastard, but that is not exactly a stretch for him.  Elliot Gould was comatose for a majority of the film, so his contributions were minimal. 

Julia Roberts, thankfully, was nowhere to be seen.

All in all, while it entertained me to watch well-dressed people rake it in at the roulette table, this sequel was no different than most; stale, overused plot devices masked with a slew of handsome faces and glittery, expensive scenery.  I’m glad my mom sprung for the tickets.  Otherwise, I would have hated it.  As it is, I’d give it 1 and a half stars.  And that’s only because, once, you get a glimpse of Ellen Barkin side-boob. 

The City of Oaks June 15, 2007

As per usual, when I get lonely or bored, I headed home to Raleigh for a couple days respite.  Respite from what, you might ask?  Yeah, that would be nothing.  School finished up two weeks ago, the only job I have lined up for the summer starts, ambiguously, “in July”, and the moths are flying out of my wallet every time I crack it open.  Again.  I hate being poor. 

I’ve been here for three days now, and I’ve successfully avoided having The Money Conversation with my parents, which is humorous, because we all know it’s coming.  There’s nothing that makes me feel like a failure more than asking my parents for money.  I’m almost thirty, for chrissakes!  My stepmother will tell me that complete finacial independence is difficult for anyone to achieve, and that I shouldn’t be too hard on myself but that I should get a job, and then my dad will hand the money over, telling me to make a budget, and then giving me more than I asked for, because he still feels guilty about divorcing my mom when I was six.  It’s like clockwork, really. 

 And it makes me feel like drinking hard liquor. 

 I realized these past couple of days that, truly, I don’t know many people in this city anymore, except for my parents, and women that would try to sleep with me.  This leaves me with zero social options, as my dad and stepmother go to bed by 8:30 or 9 (seriously), my mom lives in a suburb called Clayton, 30 minutes away from Raleigh and with no night life to speak of, and I don’t want to sleep with any of the aforementioned women.  When I stay in Raleigh, I watch cable and re-read one of the Harry Potter books.  When I stay with my mom, we sit up late drinking wine, smoking cigarettes, and talking politics, which all adds up to uneasy sleep.  Why can’t they all move to Asheville?  They’d all be happier there.  They could quit the jobs they complain about incessantly, they could get out of the city that they all have begun to dislike, and they could provide me with the Best Case Scenario; parents in a good city full of friends. 

 Maybe I should just shut the hell up and realize that I visit my family to visit my family and not to have a hot time on the town.  I tell ya, though; after three nights of solitude by sundown, I’m having a hard time being gracious, and not letting on to the fact that I am antsy to get out of here, already.  Raleigh, like much of NC, has lost it’s lustre; I feel, now more than ever, that it is time for me to move on. 

I have spent 28 years floating back and forth across this state, so much so that it’s hard for me to get lost, anywhere in NC.  I need a change of scenery.  I think, then, the visits home wouldn’t be quite so mind-numbing.  I could happily remember that Raleigh houses the largest, free, state-sanctioned art musuem in the country.  I might take advantage of the used book and record stores, the old coffee shops I frequented when I was in high school, the tasty restaurants I used to love.  Boredom would resemble nostalgia, if I lived somewhere other than two. short. hours. away. 

On the upshot, I have spent time researching two interesting topics: 

1. What kind of paints and sealants I should use to turn my dad’s truck into an ArtCar

2. How to get my insurance company to approve the Lap-band procedure I am interested in getting

The first is much more colorful, and much, much cheaper. 

Wuv, Twu Wuv June 13, 2007

My girlfriend has been gone for two short days now, off to Tennessee to visit her parents and attend the Hippie Stink Fest, also known as Bonnaroo. She will only be gone one week, and while I will enjoy the Solidarity, I find myself listless and bored, missing her face and her conversation, wishing she were lying in bed next to me, right now.

I’ve noticed that when she leaves on short trips, the first day is always full of Missing Her. My head fills with rose-colored, romantical meanderings, and I am left wanting to create something to express my love for her. I don’t have it in me to paint again yet; that 25 hour marathon to finish my translucency mural is still too fresh. But I can write. I can always write.

I have a tattoo on my ankle that serves as a constant reminder that there is a missing piece in my life; I have always felt it, since I was a young child, a sensation of never quite being full. I have stuffed myself with so much in an effort to feel whole; food, drugs, sex, art, books…and yet nothing has left me feeling sated. Nothing, until I looked into her wide blue eyes, and I saw myself reflected there, and I saw myself truly for the first time, and all the walls I’ve spent a lifetime building dropped away, and I was who I am, only more. More truth, more strength, more beauty, more alive. Even within our struggles (it’s hasn’t All Been Cake…we’ve got issues just like every other couple), I take solace in knowing that we seem to be progressing together, learning how to communicate effectively, and figuring out each other’s idiosyncrasies. Through all this, I’ve realized that no one stumbles across The Perfect Relationship; that it takes work and understanding and a good bit of luck.

Well, I’ve gotten lucky. I’ve found someone that I could Have A Go with, truly. And now she’s leaving. And it’s the right thing. And it sucks so much I can’t stand it. Granted, it’s only a year, but that’s 365 days without my sweet love to laugh with and learn with and love with. Did I mention the sex is awesome? As a thirteen year old girl in Ventura county would say, “Like, woah…”. I am struggling, trying to find the Right Way to handle a long distance relationship, so that it doesn’t fail like most tend to do, because more than anything in the world, I want this to work. I want the future I know we could have. She wants the boat life just as much as I do, and the picture in my head of living with her, somewhere tropical, spending our days in bathing suits, eating fruit we’ve picked off of trees, wrangling the occasional pirate trying to board our fabulous vessel…it would be paradise, plain and simple.

She’s my missing piece. She’s the sarong to my palm trees. The paint to my canvas. The fresh crisp sheets to my good night’s sleep. The motivation to my lackadaisical dreams. She’s my lobster. That’s the bottom line. Lobster’s mate for life, you know?