Another class collage, this time done at home on my own time with much input from AC. Colored pencil and blending stumps for the shoes, ink and marker for the soles and heel, and some Urban Outfitters tissue paper for the stockings.

This the first collage I have ever done (after spending a little time in Photoshop)...our wacky thinks-she-is-21-but-really-is-55 teacher made us 'create spontaneously'. Well, it was fun after all...

This is an epic moment. I am blogging from a brand new, bought-straight-from-the factory MacBook, MY MacBook, the first Apple I have owned or really used. I am not sure whether this marks a great fall, finally having succumbed to the absurd but seductive call of the unimaginably slick and hip, or whether this is truly the proper move into present times as I tell myself it is. Now that I am in school for Graphic Design, this only makes sense, and it has the added bonus of solidifying my commitment to a very exciting planned career change; but seriously, what am I going to do with 4 GIGS of RAM? Efficiently run my other bank-breaking purchase, the Adobe Design Suite, I guess. This is weird---I don't do things like this. Plodding along with used, scuffed, scavenged cast-offs os more my mode. On the other hand, this was a carefully weighed decision, made after many hours of agony and conversation, and I assure you, I am completely won over by the sheer sexiness of it all; still, it was quite an unusually large investment for the likes of me. AC consoles me by saying it is like buying my dentists' chair. She is absolutely right of course, and for that kind of support I am infinitely grateful. The way I like to look at it best though is the way my old friend from Oregon's dad sums up the dilemma of owning a car [and I paraphrase]: if you start out buying the $500 special that you string along for several months or (if you're lucky) years, then throw it away when it dies and get another $500 pile, at some point you will be too buried in kids and bills to even move up the $1000 rusty beauty; however, if you go out on that limb and get a new car right out the gate, you will have more time to save before the need for a new one catches up to you, and most importantly you are used to living with payments AND retain trade-in value. It's only up from there. Well, old cars are a way of life for me, and even if they weren't, it's way too late for that, but when it comes to something like this Mac...well, I have to say I agree with the premise. After all, of those who start out at the same place the guy who gets rich isn't usually the hardest worker or the most talented, he's the one who simply knew that someday he WOULD be rich, and acted as if it were already true. I guess the future will unfold in God's good time, and in His own Wise way. Alright, no more preaching tonight; I'm going to bed to dream about how amazingly cool, trendy, good-looking and intelligent I am now with my new tool [toy].

This may sound rather absurd, but AC and I have been on an '80s movie kick for the last few weeks. It started recently, one bored Friday night, when neither of us could decide on what to watch. She had never seen a good, classic '80s flick, so I grabbed the first one that came to mind: Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Well, we both had way too much fun watching it, and my memory was jogged a bit, so we followed it up later that week with Better off Dead. At this point we were both really getting into the mode; anyone who has seen one of the greats from that decade will inderstand. Then a friend told us we had to watch Subway ; a weird, super-hip, obscure French film by Luc Besson from 1985. What an awesome movie! Unusual, thoughful and simply beautiful; a lot like the Hungarian film Kontrol. That in turn sparked a search for more Luc Besson, (La Femme Nikita; Leon: the Proffessional; the Fifth Element---most of which we have not seen yet), and other strange, little-know oldies, that will probably fill our cue for the next few movie nights. Last night we really got out there with Some Kind of Wonderful...think what you like, it was a pretty decent show. Certainly sincere and sweet if nothing else, AND she drives a beat-up '60s Mini Cooper with no windows---hot! (My brother Steve and I were hopelessly in love with 'Watts', the drummer girl with the Mini, when we first watched it 'way back' in the '90s). Anyway, the song in the ending credits was really cool: some crazy mix of '80s Pop, and Celtic/Irish jig covering Elvis. Talk about one thing leading to another! I looked them up: Lick the Tins, from 1987, a one-hit-wonder band from London/Northern Ireland with a rave-reveiw album that just didn't get enough distibution to make it. (Call me crazy, but I love stuff like this; the smug pride of knowing about something so cool and obscure that no one else has ever heard of it!) The album is so rare Amazon wants $90.00 for one! Youtube has just their one hit song; look it up, you'll dig it.

As usual this is not the time be blogging. There are many, many things to get done today, and I am already tired and slow moving. But the computer screen is drawing me; it appears comforting and sympathetic. But it is a cruel, loveless thing. And now that I am here, my mind is soggy; I have run out of Important Observations, Critical Discoveries, and Artistic Musings. There is nothing to say that would help either of us, yet I am unwilling to leave this spot. Now; I must drag myself up from this seat, try to focus on happy things and the tasks at hand, and all the while wish I could be home on the couch with a blanket. I can't. But I'll think about it anyway.

As for me...

Every once in a great while I try and draw something from life, or at least based on something real. (heh) Not very artist-like, eh? Rashida Jones (Karen from the Office) has an interesting face, so...

Well, this still looks like a cartoon, but I tried.

For some reason I seem happier when it is cloudy. 'Paradise' is irritating, with its washed-out sunny days, low crappy buildings, and more-or-less soulless inhabitants. Out of town, in the hills on a cloudy day in the winter, this place isn't so bad...but it's still a 'waiting' place, a place loved and hated...more love than hate, the hate more like a despondent sigh. Do you think it is the cold, emptiness, adversity and the like that makes those northern folks, (what I once was) so productive and motivated?

At least it is cloudy today. It is a big help.