Horror films R Us

So. If you haven't guessed already, I live in Texas. Texas is hot. Texas has never been properly socialised. Texas has assholes in the Governor's Mansion and most of the senate and house.

Texas has bugs.

Big. Bugs. Spiders, scorps, centipedes you could put on a leash and take for a walk. Roaches that ask for the keys to your car.

Fortunately, I have never seen one of these, else I might not be alive to write this.

http://dorothyramon.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/

Eventually even the nicest houses get bugs in Texas.  Termititis is not a matter of of if, but when. Carpenter ants. Fucking Fire Ants (they can die in HELL). And these humongous tree roaches that invite themselves in during wet or cold weather and, like the worst houseguests, never leave.  They hide in insidious ways and then fuck a lot.

Please note: this is NOT my hand....NFW  Random pic from teh intarwebs
just to give you scale.

Also note, I know bugs are bigger in Belize, you don't have to show me, thanks.

So. These little (little?) fuckers had set up shop in my pantry. I don't think UGH is quite strong enough to portray my disgust. I had put out those bait things where they're supposed to dine, go back to the nest, die, and let their cannibal relatives eat them so they die, too.  Yeah...not. They would eat the stuff, decide to stick around, shit on things, lay their nasty little egg cases, then try to crawl across the floor but be so sick they couldn't make it...

This actually isn't my worst roach encounter...I should tell you about my kitchen in Mid-City, New Orleans....but I'm sure you've probably already lost your lunch.

Some time ago I had made sorta kinda loose plans to remodel my tiny pantry. It's got deep, particle board (read cheap) shelves where things get lost and organisation is just a buzzword. I'd show you the before, but I pulled everything out last night about midnight. On Thursday I told Silly Man that I'd had it with our little guests and it was finally time, this weekend, to tear it apart, paint it, make new shelves, etc. and use high-density roach poison for glue. Last night...I couldn't stand it any longer and started pulling things out, I got most of it out and this one cheeky, enormous fucker decided to flaunt my efforts...it didn't end well for her. Bitch.

So. That's my project, forsaking all others for this weekend. I want to do some things like these:

Apologies to whomever's photos I just nabbed. I will take them down if you contact me.

The door is only 17 7/8" wide. These very handy Bekväm spice racks from IKEA are exactly the right length. 

And I have four of them, so they might get used some place...but I'd rather make something like the last pic above it. I want to put things I cook with all the time and non-refrigerated condiments (e.g. ketchup) on the door. Spices, bottles, etc.  I have a whole slew of Indian spices that are on the metro shelf right now, getting exposed to light. BUT  (isn't there always a but?) I already have four of the little racks, they are the right size, and....no sawing. That's gotta be worth something, not to mention the time saved planning, buying, cutting, painting. I'll still paint them, though, because the raw wood would get grease-stained very quickly. I'll probably need a couple more.

 

I will try to be more diligent about posting pics and all. I really want this done THIS weeked HAHAHAHAHAHA....eh hem. One thing I excel at is scope creep.

Escaping earth's gravity, or welcome to the swirling mass of entropy.

I got the kitchen neat and straight, for the most part at least. Am determined to keep it that way, too. I've been doing the little dab of washing up every night and wiping things down. It's very nice to wake up to, by the way.  Have you every cleaned up a room and the rest of the house is a disaster and all you want to do is live in that room?  That's kind of where I am now. 😋

My husband's best friend from high school came through town this week and we had dinner with them. It was pleasant, although their two kids eat like little pigs, literally shoveling food into their mouths off the edge of the plate, and his wife is very nice. I might have committed a faux pas though, they're Mormon, which I didn't realise at first, and I ordered a beer...they were paying. Oops.

Anyway, apparently their house is not in "House Beautiful" shape either and she said they called it the swirling mass of entropy. I like that...classy name for too much clutter to move. I think my place has gone beyond the "creative clutter" term my mom used for my place back in the day. Of course that was after we had massive fights about the way I kept my place, which was really not that bad.

Quite ironic considering her place sank into major problems over the two and half decades after I left. She never hoovered; instead of cleaning the catbox, she'd set it outside and get a new one. My brother and I both found the most disgusting things in her fridge. After she lost her house in Katrina, it would have been a sterling chance to start over with a minimalist life style. But she proceeded to cram the place with furniture, most of it mine, and then when stuff started coming over from the second floor of her house in New Orleans, nothing got thrown out. Her good clothes were lost downstairs, so the clothes that came were bags of stuff she had been getting ready to donate...and yet...she still has them, in addition to clothes she bought here.

She can't find anything she needs, like her SSN card or birth certificate, there's mounds of paperwork, none of which does she need, but she keeps blaming Katrina...twelve years later. and won't throw anything out. I do understand the trauma. but it's kind of hard to help her. And for a while now, her memory is going and she's got the beginnings of dementia, up to and including thinking my son-in-law called her up and bawled her out about something on Facebook. Erm....no...sorry, didn't happen.

There's much more going on and I'm not sharing here, but on top of my own health stuff, work, and my clutter at home (have I done that so I don't have to have my uncle and aunt over?), dealing with her issues is trying to say the least. There are days I just want to keep driving...but I'd have to get lost and stay lost, since my family would never speak to me again.

Thursdays are my night to meet my friend at a coffee shop and write. We chat some, but mostly it's companionship. She's a published author and maybe one day I will be, too. Meanwhile, I keep getting rid of clutter and plot my escape.

14 July 17 -- Happy Bastille Day, or how I became a puffer fish.

Moving along, at a tortoise's pace, with the house. Every small thing is a victory, I guess. Recently I've been watching this Irish chick, Laura Hutchinson, on You Tube. Her channel is called How to Get Your Shit Together.  She's gotten a little theatrical lately, but I love her stuff, she's Irish and sweary and that's right up my alley. She's a big proponent of the KonMari method of "tidying," which really should be "decluttering," as tidying is dusting and hoovering and the day-to-day routines that keep your place tidy once you've found all the furniture and floors...

Apparently I'm late coming to the table on this, the book has been around for a couple of years and there are a kabillion and one videos on YT about how everyone's "KonMaried" their digs. But...if you're like me and haven't seen it yet it's called The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing by Marie Kondo. Even if you didn't know she's Japanese, you'd figure it out soon enough by reading. Among other things, she tells you to greet your house each time you come in and thank your belongings for their service...as you're shoving them out the door. 

I got the paperback version because it was the cheapest, I'm glad I did. I made notes in it, made it mine...and lent it to my daughter. But it comes in all formats from audio to hardcover. I haven't really started "doing" it yet, but the basic advice is sound. 1. take one category at a time (e.g. clothes); 2. take them all out and put them in one place; 3. handle each and every item; 4. decide if the item "sparks joy"; 5. if it does, keep it, if not, thank it for its service and discard 6. find a permanent place for things you keep.*

"Sparks joy" is open to interpretation, of course. For instance, your toothbrush or dishcloths are not going to "spark" any fuckin' joy...but you need them. Discard, or as Kondo keeps saying "throw away," is of course a multi-layered thing. Garage sales, charity shops, freecycle, Craigslist, etc....the last thing you want to do is actually bin it, and only if other options are not apropos for the item,. I have several options here: a creative reuse shop run by the city where they resell craft and art supplies to support the city arts program in schools; the Habitat for Humanity Restore, which takes all kinds of things; Freecycle; the hazardous materials depot for those cans of paint and bug killer you no longer need; and of course the good old stand-by: Goodwill. I don't use Salvation Army because of personal philosophies. 

This past weekend I took boxes of shit I'd decluttered to all those places--nothing freecycled or garage-saled, however.  It felt sooooo good, too.

I've been working on a project, making a china cabinet I got from a friend work for me and here's how massively stupid things had gotten. I found myself working on top of the washer and dryer and a little dresser because EVERY SINGLE FUCKING TABLE had shit two feet deep on it. I stopped and literally said out loud, "What the actual fuck? just clear off the tables already, what is WRONG with you???"   You don't know how tempted I was to just take my arm and literally sweep everything off on the floor. But then I'd just have a pile o'shit on the floor. Not helping.

I got stalled mid clear-off because I had to go clean mum's kitchen...that's a whole other thing, there...

I actually started this post because I woke up feeling just a tad nauseated and resolved to eat very little and as cleanly as possible today. I had waaaay too much sugary crap yesterday (omfg that cherry pie was delish); I'm not even going to test, I just don't want to see the number. I have also stopped taking both of my acid reflux meds, famotidine and pantoprozole. The famotidine was making me gain/keep enough weight as it was, adding the pantoprozole made me feel like a puffer fish, like overnight. 

So, today's program: tea and fruit, no fucking gerd meds (going with a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar in a cup of cold water before bed--sounds counter-intuitive, but it works), and clearing those tables!

Cheers!

*ETA for the time being, I will have to treat each table, then each room as a "category."  More on this later.

Musings on Art

We have the perception that art must be made with great purpose by “artists.” It needs to have a level of aesthetic beauty and logic, even if it makes us uncomfortable. Art is merely the visible or audible expression of emotion. Dance, theatre, visual arts (2 & 3-D), film, and music are expressions of the soul. If everyone has a soul, then everyone is capable of making “art”; talent has very little to do with it. Nonetheless, we expect our artists, musicians, and performers to have talent; we jeer at those attempt which do not please our elite notion of “art.”

While it might painful or squirm-inducing to get those inept portraits of your favourite stars that hit your twitter feed or sit through an emotionless performance by the likes of Kristen Stewart, at least these people have moved out of their own comfort zone and “gone public” with their art. They have shown us a part of their soul.

The Devil in the Detail

I have punished myself for over 20 years...how and why you ask?

Well, the how is simple. I keep my house in an ungodly state of ....disarray? mess? chaos? shittiness?  which keeps me not only mentally unable to do the things I REALLY want to do, but physically keeps me from doing them, too.

Why?

Good fucking question, y'all.

I had this table nearly cleared off...and it is again, and in my defense, I was shifting things around trying to clear the BIGGER mess on my cutting table. *sighs* But this photo captures my world, my mind, the clutter that has become my life. I am not truly a horder...really... No...really! lol   But...I am a clutterbug. I can use all kinds of excuses, my ADHD, depression (erm...we know the clutter actually contributes to the depression, kind of a catch 22 sort of....fing...), because I work and have no patience/energy to deal with it when I get home...or maybe I'm just lazy...

But the root of it is my child mind doesn't think I'm worthy...yeah, it's the ol' lack of self worth rearing its ugly, pathetic, moronic head again.  I wish to kill it...yes...kill it.

I actually have cleared about 18" off the cutting table...woot.  Back for more...

Unclear on the concept.

Or why "women for Trump" is the biggest misdirection ever.

I can't find the page again, but just saw a twitter header for a Trump supporter, a "#womenfortrump" and "#MAGA" type. The header was in large, black, handwritten letters on a bubblegum pink background: Feminism is Cancer.

In her bio she says she's into journalism and politics.

This is not just a hypocrite, but an ignorant one. What the hell movement to you think cleared the way for you to be in journalism and politics?

Feminism.

You did not get there on your own chickie, no magic door opened for you because you're a conservative.  You rode the shoulders and backs of women who fought for our place among men...to be counted as humans as opposed to chattel and breeding stock.

Feminism, in its proper form, is not about eroding men's rights or pussy-whipping them, it is merely the fight to be counted as equals. Men and women are not the same, but we are equal, and while certain "gender roles" are immutable, jobs should not be predicated on gender. Neither should pay.

These right-wing gender-traitors can be classified in two ways, in my opinion. They are either the ultra-religious types who defer to their husband in everything (and make me want to vomit and slap them at the same time) and feel they are not discriminated against because "God made them weak and they should let their men do everything and decide everything." May I add "GAG!"?

Or, they are the self-sufficient type who deny we have anything to bitch about. Well, bully, fuckin' bully for you, sweetie. the century of suffrage and sacrifice, inequality in pay, designs and inventions stolen by men to aggrandise themselves (I could go on indefinitely), all of that means nothing to you? If you think you walking in, smelling of Caron's Poivre or Chanel N˚ 5, sporting Prada, and thinking you just had more of what it takes (or you didn't have to go down on the prospective boss to get your job), means there's no such thing as sexism or misogyny, or that somehow Feminism is misguided, unneeded, or....a cancer...you have a lot to learn, baby. so very, very much to learn.

Oh, and check your pay against any man doing the same job....surprise me.

Used art supply haul

I always do this to myself, decide to paint a wall or some such DIY thing that delays what I really need to do. But...in my defense, I want to get the walls painted before I start moving furniture around...so I don't have to move it around again. Logic, right?  Right??

So, I'm moving along, getting things done and for some unknown reason I decide to browse Craigslist...you know, scan the free stuff...meh, nothing catches my eye, then...oooh...art supplies!

So I end up with this total haul of used art supplies for 20 bucks: Pastels ( a LOT of pastels), couple dozen pastel pencils, brushes, close to 60 tubes of oil paints (many still good), pencils, blending stumps, small stack of paper, a stack of nice-sized pieces of canvas, a small tin of watercolours, a painter's box, several cans of fixative & retouch varnish, a bottle of Liquitex gesso, a jar of Golden gesso, a jar of Liquitex gel medium (never opened), two unopened quarts of odorless turpenoid, a half-full pint of Grumbacher turpentine, two jars of picture-hanging hardware, 4 palette knives (3 really nice Holbein ones), an ink brayer, an unused bar of castile soap, two large-ish baskets, a stack of art books, and an antique knife...oh, and a small plastic funnel (??).

The young woman I bought the stuff from said she got it from a friend and it had been his grandmother's.  This lady. The girl said she had taken a few things out, because "she didn't know what she was doing." I'm assuming she might have taken the better brushes, as the ones left were not the best...but other than that, I don't know.  Any one of the groups of things by themselves, the pastels, the stack of canvas, any 6 tubes of paint, the gessos and gel medium, or the painter's box, are each worth over $20. There are three tubes of Grumbacher in the original plastic cases, never opened, that list for $23.50, $29.45, and $29.45!

So, even If I were to give the brushes to Creative Reuse (I have a boat load of brushes) and the books, too, and throw half the tubes of paint out (I've already binned three of them)...I still came out like a bandit.

Many of the paints are no longer available, like the "Permanent Pigments" which became Liquitex. Liquitex no longer make oil paints, they have concentrated on acrylics. I remember way back in art class in high school, we dabbled a bit in acrylics and that was the only brand there was back then.

I can tell things have been stored: the oil paints have leaked out their oil in some cases, due to heat, and the brushes have been nibbled by bugs. I had that happen to some of mine....the little buggies love the boar bristles!!

So, even If I were to give the brushes to Creative Reuse (I have a boat load of brushes) and the books, too, and throw half the tubes of paint out (I've already binned three of them)...I still came out like a bandit.

It feels a bit weird, going thru all this stuff, sorting it, etc, as the lady's name is written on a lot of it, along with her address, but I think she'd be happy someone has her supplies and is using them. I took all the pastels out of the three original boxes Grumbacher portrait and landscape and NuPastel)  they were in and the other, random box the Rembrandt and Webers were in. I know some people like to curate supplies and keep the boxes and all, but I put mine in my pastel drawers--I hate having to go through various boxes to find the ones I need.

Several years ago--after not having worked in pastels for literally decades, I gave my collection to one of my best friends as she was into them at the time. I've slowly been building my collection up again and this increased it like, 3-fold.

I've also been thinking about working in oils again, but didn't want to spend the money if i decided I didn't want to keep up with it--good GODS paint has become expensive!!! I notice even Jerry's is slowly edging their prices up, and soon, like Bed, Bath, and Beyond, they won't be a discount place any longer. Tricksy.

Anyway, I bought a Gamblin medium starter kit (I just realised the little red box was not in mine 😡) and am really looking forward to trying my hand again.  This video explains the different medium types.

So...that is what has derailed the progress of house and studio this week. Tomorrow I have to make some embroidered streamers for work... So that will derail things for part of Sunday as well.

Please pardon the fuzzy pics...erg...

Basket O'Paints

Paint box w/palette and slots for boards. I'm probably going
to paint the outside of this, it's raw wood, but Ruth wrote all over it.

Brushes and palette knives. I really had to work to resurrect the
two larger brushes you see.

Stack O'Canvasses 

Grumbacher landscape pastels

12" Antique knife. Rather sharp!  Stamped "WILLIAM SANDERSON & SONS
BEST CAST STEEL SHEFFIELD" Dated to most likely mid-to-late 1800s. Crucible steel, and
very early type of plastic for the handle.

Gesso and gel medium

The long sticks are the NuPastels. The other are oil pastels my brother gave
me for my birthday in the 60s!!!

Pastel pencils

Top three sections are Rembrandt & Weber soft pastels, the bottom is
Grumbacher portrait pastels

Solvents and fixatives--those two quarts of turpenoid are worth over $20
by themselves. Just call me Zorro....