Thursday, August 31, 2006
Sir may I have another
| So it's been a busy week. In the excitement I forgot to tell ya'll that I am officially the Queen of getting rear ended. Hee. Isn't that funny? Seriously. My poor car has been rear ended 4 times in the last 5 years. Ya'll. It's bright red. Not gray, not black but a vr vr highly visible bright, shiny, metallic red. Twice I have been in the car, twice not even near the car when it was hit. It's a LARGER, energy hogging, gas inefficient, non-PC, soccer-loving, Keeping up the the Jones' circa 2000, Mom-friendly, SUV. This last time I was hit was by an 80-year-old woman who got the brake and gas pedals confused. Flash forward to being at an intersection- my husband behind me in his car and BAM. We're hit. I look behind me and nobody is doing anything. Just looking straight ahead. I jump out of the car and start yelling, WHAT THE HELL?! You see, I'm waiting for the left green arrow. Behind me, my husband. Sitting. Behind him other people simply looking forward. Yeah. WHAT THE HELL?! Just how many times can I get rear ended? (hee.) My husband rolls down his window and informs me that the lady behind him hit us and to CALM DOWN. Zoom in center stage and a very old woman is looking straight ahead with a grin on her face. Okay. Calmly I get back in my vehicle and take the long awaited left turn. Husband follows in his vehicle. Old woman follows in her vehicle. My husband is relatively sure that I'm going to start beating people up (because I'm yelling WHAT THE HELL?!) And is repeatedly telling me to calm down. I'm rolling my eyes at him. I am simply in shock that I have been REAR ENDED YET ONCE AGAIN. (hee.) But, once I catch glimpse of how shaken said old woman is, I switch immediately to caretaker mode. Ya'll when she stepped out of her mangled car, she was SPARKLY. I thought, DEAR LORD, she's covered in GLASS. Turns out it was just a metallic jean jacket. When all was said and done, her car suffered the most damage. Her front bumper completely engulfed around my husband's trailer hitch. In return, his front bumper smashed, and my rear bumper was buckled and scraped. Folks remember. Gas on right. Brake on left. Look behind you when you back up. You never know. My car might be in the vicinity waiting, begging to be hit. Again. Beware. Be vr vr aware. And just a little ditty unrelated to being rear ended (hee. Or does it?) that makes me chuckle and ponder WTF . . . My husband went fishing for a week with 9 other manly men. After the week is up, they split up all the remaining manly-men camping supplies after a week of whiskey, cigarettes, campfires, poker, and fish. My manly man came home with his share of stuff . . . One of which included a half eaten petite jar of Maraschino cherries. Hee. Maraschino cherries? For their cosmopolitan cocktails while primped for all night poker? For stem-tying competitions with their tongues? For their ice cream sundaes? What the hell?! |
Sunday, August 27, 2006
When anxiety attacks
| Just a few things that MAY cause anxiety attacks . . . If you're really special . . . Like say . . . Me, who we will refer to as "you" to keep a personalized account of my doings so that you can really feel in the moment and as with one with myself. (GOOD Lord there's a lot of pronouns in the above sentence. Are you feeling dizzy? Yes? Take a drink. Not dizzy? Take a drink anyway.) Weekly anxiety attack (Referred to as WAA from here on out- How vr vr apropos.): Camping. In nature and trees and stuff. Where random strangers have the ability to keep you awake at all hours of the night, and then the next group of random strangers have the ability to wake you up REALLY early. And you really don't sleep so well anyway.  WAA: Your wedding anniverary comes and goes and the highlight of the evening is when you and your spouse have the most fun making fun of the 40-something year old woman who was proclaiming quite loudly just how "fine" her stepson and his friends are all the while enjoying your meal inside the ONLY Thai restaurant in your quaint little town.  WAA: 80th high school reunion. Okay, not 80th- but kinda close. And you went to school in the land of silicone, inhuman-like white teeth, peroxide, and credit card debt. You can't, don't want to, and refuse compete, yet "you" still secretly hope that the dumb cheerleader who stole your boyfriend got fat and ugly and you are willing to pay insurmountable amounts of cash to witness this firsthand.  WAA: Swimming. Swimming can cause a whole myriad of problems that goes far beyond wearing a bikini that needs to be reminded it has a special place in society, and that is to stay in its designated place. Swimming means pushing teenage boys off boat docks into water. Who doesn't know this? And "you" know its like a LAW or something when they're all standing there next to the water, not even paying attention- Completely oblivous to their surroundings, that it IS your civic duty to give a great big shove. Oh. But please do take into account when playfully pushing teenage boys (whom might be the offspring of parents to where you resided for the weekend) that they may and JUST MIGHT have state of art, top of the line, cell phones in pockets. Uninsured, of course.  WAA: Offspring that come THIS close to drowning. So say that "you" have an irrational fear of water and especially seaweed which "you" know is completely unfounded (what is wrong with you anyway, freak?) and your 7-year-old son decides that he is going to jump off the raft 60 yards from the shore and swim to the beach . . . And then your son starts panicking and dipping under the water halfway between you (on the raft) and the beach?! What do you do? WHAT DO YOU DO? Well, obviously you beg drowning son not to make you save him which means diving into seaweed. When that doesn't work you decide to brave it, (drowning people can be so DIFFICULT), dive into the seaweed and save your son who repays you by trying to take you down with him. So after swallowing a few gallons of water, "you" end up saving your son but are so traumatized that you can't stop obsessing about the woulda, coulda, shoulda's. Saving lives is like. Hard.  WAA: Dictionary.com changed it's format and font and "you" are skeptical and are leery of the sudden change. WAA: Speaking of LEARY, you realize that you have a crush on Denis Leary who is amazingly HOT (and Irish!) and that you have never been partial to tall skinny blonde guys. But then "you" remember that "you" at one time liked anything with two legs and the slightest whiff of testosterone. This comforting thought makes you completely at peace with the world.  WAA: You have only enough wine for two glasses at home when you return from said trip and living in the country means no liquor store in the vicinity and all of your friends who might possess vats of wine have not yet returned from vayCAY themselves. But "you" are vr vr blessed and you did afterall return to all animals alive and living- Including drowning 7 year-old-son and his older sibling to whom you also gave birth to.  Your life is vr vr good (Ya big whiner). So good that you have a submission for this week's theme of "run" at Illustration Friday.  She's late. She's late for a vr important date. *Edited to add. I refuse to stay up any longer and try to make this bl*g entry make any sense. It doesn't. It would help, however, if you were here listening to me talk. Then it ALL comes together and KINDA makes sense. If you knew me. Really. (All the other retro images can be found at www.anntaintor.com)  |
Sunday, August 20, 2006
Good things come to those who check their mail
| Last week was an interesting mail week as far as snail mail comes. First the good, and every girl should have one of these:
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Sunday, August 13, 2006
Word of the Day - "annoyed"
| Do you know what annoys me more than when people drive slow in the fast lane, more than when people talk during movies, or EVEN more than people who smack their food when they chew? When computers crash. Permanently. RIP Compaq computer, you bastard virus-ridden machine. So, the last week or so has been spent getting my new Dell to accept all my personal quirks and hardware. She's been putting up one heckava fight, let me tell you. She's a stubborn one, this Dell. May I break her spirit. She WILL do the networking, yes she will. I already managed to coerce her, very unwillingly I might add, into working with my large format scanner and Wacom tablet. I know she can do it. She's just all . . . Quiet. And fast. Still waters run deep sort of computer. And don't even get me started on remembering passwords that were stored as cookies. This new one plays all innocent- like she has no idea what my passwords are. So yes. Annoyed. And do you want to hear what else annoys me since I'm on a roll? Listening to the same music over and over and over again. Why? Why am I still hearing Avril Levine and Ashley Simpson on the radio? Why? Are they even still recording music? And have you ever heard of Leona Naess? Why not? She's fabulous and has more talent in her little finger than does Ashley and her blonde sister and blonde father put together. But no. I get stuck listening to the same pop crap every day until I want to yank my radio out of the dashboard, strangle it, then strangle it some more. (*Edited to add- The new album on Leona's site seems a little dark than what I care for. Her past albums have "catchy" upbeat songs. Cheery music! Yay! Everybody get happy! Karaoke waHOO!) Men that spit. Why? Why must they spit? And men that chew? Okay. I can safely speak on the behalf of ALL the women on the planet and say that it's beyond disgusting. Just the thought of a chew bottle/bucket/whatever causes a vomit backup in my throat. A young guy friend of ours had a wad so big in his lower lip that I couldn't even look at him while he talked. It's just nasty, guys. Chewing + Spitting = yucky. Even spitting without the chew- Ew. I went to the country fair yesterday and was afraid to sit in the grass after seeing all these men just walking and spitting. But what I really want to know is- WHY? Do you have more saliva than women? Do you think it makes you look cool? Because it doesn't. Really. I wouldn't kid you about these things. Laundry. Laundry is annoying the hell out of me. I'm going to burn all white clothing because I hate white clothing. With white clothing means sorting white socks. I hate sorting socks- such a menial mind-numbing task. Oh, why couldn't all of our socks have died instead of my lovely Compaq? It just ISN'T fair. I'm seriously thinking of joining the crips or the bloods or some other gang just so that I don't have to do white laundry. Bonus- I look much better in red or black. Nearly all of my clothing is black, and red just happens to be my favorite color. Not to mention that it would be really cool to flash gang signs and tag freeway overpasses. Art? Oh yeah that. Yes, I have been creating stuff. And yes, I know I promised to show you some. And yes, I am fully aware I haven't posted illos the last two weeks at Illustration Friday, but I am in mourning. My computer died. Along with it went many important things like all POP3 info and family digital photos. (Don't even get me started on email issues.) And I do understand that it's a bl*g named "Art by Shano", but I really need you to like me for me now, okay? Like those of you who have been sharing your favorite female singers. You rock. Compaq computer 2001 - 2006 RIP PS Don't tell me all about your wonderful MAC computer because I just don't swing that way. |
Thursday, August 03, 2006
Panic at the Disco
| Okay, there wasn't a panic at the disco, but rather at the computer. The damn thing was acting all temperamental and stuff and I had to show it just who was boss. After hours of backing up files, disk defrags, scanning for viruses and spyware, my faithful puter seems to be minding it's P's and Q's. Good boy. Good Puter. So I finally uploaded gobs of stuff that I have been working on the last few weeks . . . You didn't think that I wasn't painting did you? Well, I was and am. It's just harder in the summer because I have kids and have to like, feed them and keep them from killing and/or maiming themselves and stuff. So I'll share that stuff with you tomorrow after I receive my Illustration Friday theme of the week email. You never know if I'll have to use one of these images for a theme. (Please don't tell Penelope that I mildly cheat. Once in a while. Occasionally. Hardly ever.) So yay. On to more random thoughts. I'm just like an idiot savant, minus the savant part. I am enjoying: Music. I have been so SICK of listening to the same music that I have been frequenting amazon looking for advice on good music. Thanks to people with fabulous taste and no lives, they offer lists of their favorite albums where you get to sample music. Here is who I am digging recently- (And my husband asks me, "Where do you find all this obscure music?") And NO, you will never have heard of these artists, but if you have, you rock. Literally. So check out Heather Nova, Vienna Teng, and Brandi Carlile. More things I am enjoying: Books. I am now reading The Color of Water by James McBride. I typically prefer female authors, but Mr. McBride is fab. He doesn't dick around with a bunch of overvealous adjectives and gets right to the point in his terrific memoir. A must read for everybody. Then on a lighter note, there is Something Borrowed and Something Blue by Emily Griffin. Read both of these in a couple days. Intriguing brain fluff- You know. To keep the mind light and happy with drama that doesn't involve self. Things I am not enjoying: The thought that I might be one of those bl*ggers where you read their bl*g and think, "What the HELL are they talking about?" See you tomorrow bright and early for Illustration Friday. |