For those of you who have been unable to find me lately, either this post will clear things up or send you around the bend, I don't know. First, though, I feel compelled to share a new icon I made (and the much better accompanying animation) inspired by syrjustus' fabulous theory that commander-in-chief is actually a secret identity for a superhero:







There's a size limit to making an LJ icon, but I decided the Justus man needed that one -- hence the crippleware version above.



I sometimes think I would have made a good medieval monk, the kind who sat in the attic and made manuscripts all day without saying a thing or even seeing another human being. Well, the kind of monk who could quit when he was tired of it after two months and then get let out to go rule the world or something...



I don't get to go to Estrella this year, and Trevor's in Tucson/Quartzsite for two weeks so I'm alone with the cat and my art. The first thing I did was flip my schedule so that I work at night and sleep all day. It is, IMNSHO, the only way to live in the summer, and my preferred way of living anyway. Yes, I did notice it's not summer, shut up.



I'm fairly sure some of you have tried to call me. Unlike my friend Travis, who last time I checked had chucked three cellphones into the Gulf of Mexico because he hates the phone with a purple passion even greater than mine own, I have not trashed the phone. I just turned off the ringers. I have this window of opportunity to be a creepy misanthrope and I'm taking it.



I have been living entirely in my right brain and it's been wonderful. Finally, finally, finally, the place and time to work on my backlog and even some stuff for myself and I've got art oozing out of my ears. ("What does it look like, Radar?" "It looks like a little nativity scene....") However, I have so abandoned my left brain that any articulation from me consists of "baaa." I don't care. I'm enjoying the hell out of myself. Except for the part where I ran out of food and there really are no stores open here after 9 pm. Kinda sucks at 3 am. Even the damn gas stations don't have the convenience food thingies -- you pay at the pump. Jeez, even Boise had 24 hour grocery stores. What the hell is wrong with this country? Creepy misanthropes and drunk writers and serial killers have to fucking eat too, you know. Honestly.

I'll surface eventually. If it's important, email me. In the meantime, I know that Fr-Ozone image is stuck in your mind forever. Haha.



EDIT: Thanks to scascot , the little animation has gone viral already. And when I posted the below on YouTube, it got a crazy amount of hits before I had finished entering the damn description. Go figure what people will click on. Or, for that matter, what shiny objects I will be distracted with in the midst of a graphics feeding frenzy.

Can I just say how fucking proud I am of my associo-prenti-ges-at-arms tonight? Alla y'all are making strides in the world that just fucking rock. I know not everybody might agree, some of you might get some negative feedback. You know, that's ok. He who is universally loved is boring.



I, on the other hand, think the bunch of you are explosively perfect. And I must have done something damn fine in a former lifetime to have you all as my crew.



I'm gonna remember moments like these next time I'm up to my elbows in guck cleaning out clogs in the plumbing.

It's so much more rewarding cleaning other people's kitchens than my own. Other people are grateful and most times, they pay you. Nobody does that here. Shit. And there are so many damn more dishes to wash when I'm in the throes of a cooking streak.



I've made chili, countless soups, cream pies, chicken pot pie, biscuits, casseroles, pastas with nine million sauce variations, bread, and tonight, mint chocolate chip ice cream with my fun appliances and fresh ingredients. [Shh! don't tell anybody she can cook or sew -- metal Laurels are supposed to be handicapped in the traditional Laurel arts]. You'd think that would make me happy, but there's this crazy Laurel voice in my head that says "you didn't grow your own tomatoes..." or "you didn't make your own stock" or the latest one, "you didn't butcher your own hog." What the hell is wrong with me? I'm not gonna butcher a fucking hog.



But there's this line of thinking that I'm obsessed with now -- where did this come from? And can I make it? Bread, ok, I made bread. Now can I make the things that make bread? Can I make flour? Well, technically, I can -- there's an attachment to a Kitchenaid mixer where you can grind flour if you are so in the mood, but I don't have one, and I don't think I want one. Can I make yeast? Oh, for the love of all that's holy, I can't think of a more disgusting project unless it's raising and butchering the aforementioned hog. So much for bread.



Chicken soup? Ruling out raising livestock, I've made chicken stock. Growing onions is a pain in the ass, but I could do that. I wonder how hard it is to grow celery. Carrots grow easy, but they never look like they do in the grocery store when they come from the back yard. Then again, who cares when it's soup. Can't grow rice in the back yard, but I could make pasta noodles. Starhelm thought making pasta was Playdoh for grownups...



The last batch of chili was made with some weird old salisbury steaks I found in Trevor's freezer. Nice use of leftovers, but let's see. I prefer to make chili with venision, but I don't like to dress my own deer. I don't really want to grow chili peppers in the backyard, and I don't even know what the hell cumin is or how you grow it. Hell, it might even be mined for all I know. Onions again, and tomatoes, and beans aren't that hard to grow.



Thinking of all that gardening is tiring, as is all the damn dishwashing that goes with the cooking. I so want a working damn dishwasher. I can see how modern life is totally different because we have dishwashers and don't have to bake bread every damn day. I don't think people take that into account enough when they fantasize about the past. Every day is pretty fucking boring when all you do is bake bread and wash dishes. Not a shitload of glory there.



Obessing about where food comes from is distracting me from the several projects with deadlines that I don't want to do. One project is for a total asshole, and as for the rest it's either too cold, or I don't have enough room to set up right to properly finish the damn things. Insert tired whining here, I suppose. I got a houseful of broken individuals who don't feel well -- Trevor's injured from painting someone else's house, the cat's more arthritic than usual, and I need a new neck but the factory doesn't make replacement parts. This hot-one-day frozen-the-next weather has got to quit.



On the other hand, I got some kickass ice cream, rich and creamy with no artificial ingredients, guaranteed to clog your arteries on your way to heaven. Guess I came out ahead. :)

Having had so many Christmases that I didn't enjoy (one ruined by a month of near-fatal pneumonia, one where I wanted to be alone after having booted out a useless husband but nooo my mother had to visit and actually hit on my new boyfriend, ugh, and the winner -- the one where my mother threw me out of the house on Christmas Eve because I dared to disagree with her about something, so having gone to my father's house instead, my stepmother made me sleep at the neighbor's house, soo fucking special), I thought I'd have one where I did what the hell I liked. It worked out, mostly...



We made drapes out of things we looted from Linens n Things going out of business. Whee! Also, I got a kickass industrial stick blender from my dad, a spice grinder from my brother, a pizza stone from katyakievskaya, and we ate like kings while we did it. Found my sewing machine, my professional iron, and The Good Scissors! in the Garage of Holding and sliced away in the throes of an appliance drunk while Trevor whipped me up some valance boxes and drywalled the new closet.



The end result was pretty sweet. Formal sweep valances with silk panels. Trevor said, "Wow, we look wealthy. I don't mind that one bit." (No use coming from money if you can't look it, baby.) Next to the chairs I restored and upholstered and the sideboard I refinished, it should have looked like part of an ASID portfolio. Unfortunately, because we haven't yet taken care of the horrible textured walls with their nightmarish amateur "faux finish" -- one, I might add, that was never taped so that it slops onto the ceiling -- and the fact that there's an enormous unfinished knocked-out hole in the wall, the overall effect actually looks like what might have happened if the late Duke and Duchess of Windsor had been forced to live in an abandoned El Taquito restaurant.



Perhaps it is time to get out the matched set of crested highball glasses, fire up the icemaker, and drink myself silly. Worked for Wallis.

Happy birthday to amykb and thorae .



There might be more, I know they could make a whole city out of people who share their Dec 22 birthday, LOL.