Wednesday, January 31:

Hey! There are some new masks and focals up on the website. That doesn't happen every day so you better go look at them.

My pals Erika and Aaron (the welding couple) went to Puerta Vallatra and brought me back a superball with a plastic octopus inside of it. I recieved the gift just when I needed most something else to do (it was last Tuesday on the eve of Fearless Leader's State of the Union speech.) So instead of listening to the toadys clap I bounced my ball against the wall in the kitchen and tried to catch it with one hand over and over. It was actually quite a satisfying exercise because my hand eye coordination improved markedly as time went by. Something to do, anyway.

Another thing that's fun to do if you have a superball, a house and another person is to play one handed catch from the front door to the back door. The experience is enhanced and made more difficult if you hold a drink of some kind in your non-catching hand. Play until you lose the ball or until one of you runs into a wall and breaks a glass. It beats watching tv. Do not attempt this game if your house is neat and tidy.

Monday, January 29:

I've been thinking about going back to the dentist lately. Actually, what happened was Don's teeth finally drove him to make an appointment for himself then while he was there he made an appointment for me. I guess it had been almost three years since either of us had been there. How time flies.

Back in 2002 when we first got married and I first got dental insurance we were real regulars at the dentist's office. I had a hell of a lot of work done. Not that I didn't need it but you know how it goes--people with dental insurance need a whole lot more work than people without dental insurance. Dental hygiene is a slippery slope just like personal hygiene is--the more you do the more complicated the procedures get, the more time it takes, the more you need to do. Pretty soon all your teeth are crowned and you're cultivating a fancy, spindly beard around your jaw line that takes hours to shave around each morning. (The latter is what Don says will end up happening if you start grooming your beard. I don't know if I agree with that but I do believe that personal hygiene is a slippery slope.) But I digress.

Anyway, I can't remember what made us stop going to the dentist but I do remember the last time we were there because it was definitely the most fun that I ever had at any sort of doctor's office. It was Halloween morning in 2004. My dentist and his four hygienists were dressed like the Village People. The indian, Joan (I think that was her name) was the one who did my cleaning. My dentist, was he the biker? I can't remember. All I know was that he was wearing this disturbing patch of fake chest hair that looked like a Brillo pad. I got an eye full of when he looked in my mouth. When my cleaning was done my dentist's wife mixed me up a Hot Tottie. Everyone was yukking it up. I left with a mixed drink in one hand and a bag of candy in the other.

When the next appointment rolled around we just didn't go. I think maybe we were planning on buying the house then and we didn't want to spend any more money on crowns. After a few months away my teeth actually felt better because they weren't getting picked on anymore. Now I like to believe that I've got a nice, thick protective layer of tartar insulating my teeth. They really do feel better than they did when I went to the dentist regularly. All that will be gone soon.

Don reported back that our dentist now has one of those high powered water spraying things to take tartar off of teeth. I saw one of those one time on a veterinarian show. They were using it to clean the teeth of a sedated cat. The device seemed like a really good idea and I wondered if they made those for humans. I guess they do, now.

Sunday, January 28:

Hey! Emma Ralph and Kate Mc Kinnon are having a benefit auction for my pal and friend to the bead community, Jean Yates. All the details regarding Jean and the auction are right here on Emma's site. Scroll down to the first studio update. You have until February 1 to bid on the donated items.

In other news...I don't really have any other news except that my pal Kerry Shea has finally put together a website and it's really great! Here's the linky-doo. Take a run through her galleries--she does some outstanding work.

Thursday, January 25:

So this morning I'm watching CBS news when a story came on about Flora the Komodo Dragon. As you may recall, a few months ago Flora laid a clutch of fertilized eggs despite the fact that she had lived her whole life in captivity and had never been in the company of a male Komodo Dragon. Virgin births such as Flora's are rare but not unheard of in the reptile kingdom.

Anyway, the eggs hatched the other day and the people at the Chester Zoo were understandably excited about it. One rather plain-looking female zoo employee called the experience of watching the eggs hatch "The most exciting experience in my life." It was then that the CBS News Hump narrating the story interjected "I bet she's never had a date either." I'm not kidding. This was on CBS, not the jokey news show on FOX that we usually watch. Picking on an innocent, reptile loving zoo employee in Great Britian. That's just great. Asshat.

Wednesday, January 24:

Above is the finished design for the official Lost School tattoo.I finally got it drawn up this morning. This is the one that every Lost School member who is cool (but perhaps not blessed with a lot of common sense) is going have permanently affixed to their body shortly. Last New Year's for some reason we named the creature depicted in the tattoo the "Apocalopse" (pronounced "a-POC-ca-lops") and designated 2007 the year of the Apocalopse. No one knows what to expect from the Year of the Apocalopse. Hopefully it will be hepatitis-free.

OK, so speaking of tattoos, I have a thing to show you that I've been saving forever. It's a column from a local publication called "Core Weekly". The column, which is called "My Jacked Up Tattoo", invited people to send in pictures of horrible home-made tattoos with the promise of someone winning a $50.00 gift certificate to Blue Lotus Tattoo Parlor each week. The weekly descriptions of how these tattoos came into being were similar but none of the results were as funny as this one. I've been saving that for at least three years.

Tuesday, January 23:

Look what I got in Nebraska! It's a mink muff made out of three snarling minks. I've got some close-up pictures here and here. The muff came from my sister-in-law who sometimes buys vintage fur clothing that she finds on ebay. She gave this to me because I was pretty facinated by it and wanted to put it up on the blog. Kathy, my sister-in-law, told me that she wanted to wear this to her daughter's wedding but her daughter forbade her to do so. That may be another reason why she gave it to me.

In case you're unaware, the muff is an article of clothing from Bygone Days when women spent a lot of time with their hands folded neatly in their laps. It's hard to drive a car or smoke or operate a cellular telephone when you're wearing a muff. I think that's why they went out of vogue. Or maybe people lost interest in them when they stopped including those fang inserts in the mink's mouth. In any event, this muff could be perfect attire for next year's Santa Rampage. If only we could rig up something to make the minks look like they're singing bawdy Christmas carols...

Monday, January 22:

Hello! I'm back in my coccoon at the store. I just popped by to shovel the sidewalk, count the animals and answer emails. Something smells funny in here but other than that everything is a-ok. Stuff that is waiting to be shipped will be shipped out tommorrow. I'm going to go home and take a little nap.

Tuesday, January 16:

The city is still on it's level-sidewalk bent. They sent this poor guy out to grind away at any and all protruding cement squares with an angle grinder hooked up to an industrial shop vac. Did I mention it's about ten degrees outside? And the sidewalk's evenness is kind of a moot point because there's snow and ice all over it? This makes no sense to me.

Don and I kicked much ass on our taxes. The business end is done. I can hardly believe it. I also found my missing shoe. Staggering productivity here. Good thing too because it turns out we have to leave tommorrow (rather than Friday) for the niece-in-law's wedding in Nebraska. Hence, I will be incommunicado from Wednesday the 17th to Monday the 22nd. Any auctions ending during that time will be shipped on the 23rd. New auctions will go up on Thursday. See you next week!

Sunday, January 14:

I finally found my flashlight yesterday. It was under a pile of crap on my desk. I needed it to help me locate one of my Good Shoes which I thought had fallen behind the refrigerator at the store. As you may have surmised, the Good Shoes and I don't spend a lot of time together--I just need to find the missing one pronto because I've got a Good Shoe worthy event coming up. (The niece-in-law's wedding--Congradulations, Sam!)

In addition to finding my shoe, would you believe that I have to get my taxes done before we leave on Friday? Our accountant wants the information on our LLC by the 20th. WTF? January is for being sick and taking care of all the stuff you blew off in December NOT for doing your taxes. I just spent the morning going through my cranniest virtual and actual crannies looking for receipts that haven't been entered in Quick Books. On the up side, the Quick Books makes record keeping a lot easier--things are much less of a mess on my end than they were a year ago. But taxes by Jan. 20? Come on, man.

Friday, January 12:

I went for a visit to my psychiatrist this morning--mostly just to say hello and pick up some prescriptions. The group to which my doctor belongs moved to a different building so the walk to his office was new to me. Anyway, I'm walking down the hallway with Dr. C and I saw the most unusual thing: Right on the hallway floor, right where you could trip on it if you weren't looking down, someone had arranged a semi-circle of medium sized, mean-looking plastic dinosaurs around a small stuffed bear. Behind the bear was a cardboard sign (maybe 6"x8") written in magic marker that said "With patience humans can be trained". I'm not making this up. I saw it twice. It was the most out of place, funny thing I've ever seen.

I would expect something like this from the folks who work at my dentist's office. They are professionals and yet a fun loving bunch. Hell, I would expect something like this from ME, the patient. I play with plastic animals and make little jokey signs all the time and frankly it's just that sort of behavior that makes me think that I'm not wired up quite right. The last place in the world I would expect to find the same symptoms is on the hallway floor at my shrink's office. Everyone always seemed so straight-laced there. Is one of them kneeling on the floor playing plastic animals? Maybe a kid arranged them and an adult added the sign? That's still a pretty strange thing for one of them to do. Also--isn't this type of free expression better suited to an employee break room?

Of course I didn't bring up any of these questions to Dr. C. We have an incredibly brief time together and the clock was ticking. I'll mention it next time.

Wednesday, January 10:

Hi everyone! I'm back. Me and Don had that Norwalk virus over the weekend. Being sick kept me very, very busy from Saturday night until Moday night. I don't think I've ever been that busy. Mercy! The thing goes away fast so that's one good thing to say. You go from deathly ill to walking around and tenatively eating bland things in about 48 hours. It's really intense. I hope you don't get it. I put a picture of the virus up there so you'll know what it looks like.

I think one thing that helped me get better faster was drinking large amounts of Gatorade right from the beginning. Putting fluids into my body seemed counter intuitive at the time but I think it was the right thing to do. If you like Gatorade and you want to continue enjoying it when you are well you should probably stick to drinking one flavor while you are sick. I've developed a pretty serious aversion to orange Gatorade since the weekend but I still like the lime and the other ones. That's about all the wisdom I can bestow on you with regard to this topic.

Friday, January 5:

I was gone yesterday. I had to clean the house and paint over the graffitti on the outside wall of the store. Inspectors. Again. This city is so nosy.

So today I was wasting time making a little sculpture out of chewed pieces of nicotine gum that I was sticking to the side of a styrofoam cup. (After I make more gum it's going to be a bird, in case you can't tell.) Anyway, the gum got me thinking about an outsider artist type who used to make sculptures out of chewed gum. Of course the internets knew who it was- Nellie Mae Rowe. She popped up on a site called 'Raw Vision' which is the name of a magazine that is all about outsider artists and outsider art. They have lots of detailed information and pictures right there about all kinds of folks. It's a great place to kill some time. I started snooping around in their back issues and found an article on Simon Sparrow who used to live right here in nosy Madison. He used to preach in the Library Mall downtown back when I was street vending. I don't know a lot about the guy but I love his work. I do know he had an art car covered with religious icons. Simon would have loved the Copper Jesus, I bet.

I have to get to work now.

Wednesday, January 3:

I finally made a new murrine and bead based on the Alien Alphabet book given to me by my pal Tera (Beadygirl Beads) last July. Isn't it freaky? The book is pretty freaky. It's got 26 pictures of various creatures with descriptive names (Arachnid Alice etc.). The pages are split vertically so you can mix and match Arachnid Alice with Beastly Bob to make Arachnid Bob and so on. There are 676 possible combinations. Flat Ass Fred (the above bead-not part of the book--the word "ass" is never used in the book on account of it's for kids) as well as Tribal Fear, another bead made with the new murrine will be up for auction on Ebay tonight.

January 2, 2007:

This cold is kicking my ass. Don is still sick but he's getting better. Neither one of us has a sense of smell which can be a little unsettling in this season of leftovers. One of the reasons you live with another person in the first place is to have a live-in backup opinion on whether or not things smell "funny" to you. It does not come up all the time but you miss it when it's not there.

So despite illness and zero planning on our part we ended up with a nice little party on New Year's Eve. I didn't know who was showing up or when they were coming over but by 11pm we had nine people and a weiner dog in the house. (That weiner dog hates the singing tree, by the way.) Everyone brought food or champagne or pears that look like hedgehogs. It was a swell time.

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