If there's anyone out there reading (at all?) who happens to remember the blue bird's blog of old, you would also (possibly) recall that I'm not a huge fan of marking linear time the way we do. This year I'm celebrating the fact that the damn holidays are over rather that the fact that they exist. Not in a bah humbug way, I guess, I haven't been cranky or demanding. I've just been mellow and keen to see the crowds dissipate, as if somehow all the people in Los Angeles who are not supposed to be here, and some may think that includes me!, are somehow getting in the way of my forward momentum. Maybe I'm getting in the way of my forward momentum. I've definitely done that before.
Anyhow, you might imagine New Year's Eve/Day is one of the more annoying times for me, given the previous paragraph, and since I don't drink alcohol. I used to love New Year's Eve as a kid--we got to stay up late, there was still no school for a week or so, and my sister and I spent large amounts of time creating elaborate honey graham/cream cheese type delicacies, and cutting confetti, and arranging the dolls and stuffed animals for their optimal New Year's Eve enjoyment.
But as I grew older, and frankly the more Postmodern I've become thanks to literature and what not, I don't care for the linear marking of time. I'm not fond of the notion that, somehow, everything I do today bodes ill or well for the coming year, when in fact, the problems with any coming day, or any past day, are really in the windmills of my mind, which haven't been turning that quickly of late (that's a confession). They're not rusty or cobwebby, they're a bit apathetic. I guess I keep waiting for Don Quixote to rescue me, instead of rescuing myself, even though I don't need rescue.
Yikes. Sometimes you start writing something and it goes to new places. That just happened, me and Mr. Confessional.
The past two months are my focus of reflection. Some very good things have happened, some things I don't want to jinx just yet. But in other respects, I haven't made things happen. There's the rub...me making. It has nothing to do with external forces, I am alone responsible for my ennui in certain areas.
If there is a resolution this year, which I also hate, because perhaps I am cranky right now, and am always writing and re-writing and questioning and revising my goals almost weekly anyhow, but if there is a resolution, it's to move forward boldly. Sometimes I'm still fighting making this Western Expansion my new life, and I know I have to get to a place where I recognize myself in the mirror here and can get things moving in the direction I know they can go, successfully.
So, there. If you must know, today I slept late, worked out on muscle beach, dipped my toes in the freezing Pacific for the New Year, wandered on the beach, went on the Venice Pier, then walked around Venice thinking. If it foreshadows anything in the "coming year," it foreshadows (and aftshadows) my contemplation, and that's always going on, so that the time in my head is more of a spiral. If you looked at it from the top, you'd think it was a circle, but I'm convinced it's a spiral moving...up.
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Dead Ringer for Love
Not a dramatic new development, well, except to me. For some time, maybe a few years, I have been insisting that Cher did a duet with Meatloaf, and the urgency of my insistence has been compounded by how much my Mom likes Meatloaf's songs (well, the two she's heard). I was sure that at some point I had the CD in my hand and saw "Cher and Meatloaf." This certainty hath often been met with blank looks of "no, that was Beavis and Butthead and Cher."
But no, tonight I found and downloaded the song "Dead Ringer for Love," from Meatloaf's Dead Ringer CD.
My memory is, once again, vindicated. Don't question me! Haha.
But no, tonight I found and downloaded the song "Dead Ringer for Love," from Meatloaf's Dead Ringer CD.
My memory is, once again, vindicated. Don't question me! Haha.
Monday, December 24, 2007
Previously Stated, Posted Later
Just for fun, and since you'll see if first if I post it now, here are the actual cards for the last three years. You can see how I snatched the body from last year's Hard Candy Christmas card for Saint Nicolas' "official" body template. It was fun modifying that costume back to the original state and making the Stealth Suit. This year's was actually the easiest in many ways since the bagginess ensured the fit could be...baggier. Haha. I contend this is a sight you wouldn't be terribly surprised to see on Venice Beach, after all!
Now scroll down and see this year's card.
Now scroll down and see this year's card.
Saint Nicolas 2007
Every year Saint Nicolas, well my version of him, appears in a different outfit on my official Christmas card. For the first two years I just handed the cards out by hand, and I think only my close family got the 2005 version. But last year, during the Hard Candy Christmas Power Christmas, I made them in time to mail them out all across the country. A dangerous precedent to set. But, I managed to get the card made and sent out just before the strep business, so almost everyone I intended to get one got one except for a few notable slip ups or people whose addresses didn't get to me in time, or my roomie in Canada, because I didn't get them made and sent in time to go that far North.
Anyhow, this post is the official internet debut of this year's card, which I decided on last year, and had mostly done last year because it was fun, and only this year, with the introduction of the paper doll idea, did it fully gel.
This year I collected four different outfits for Saint Nicolas, from his standard attire to the Stealth Suit to Hard Candy Christmas to this year's debut outfit West Coast Christmas. So, here you go, for those who didn't get a card because I don't know you or didn't make it out in time or didn't have an address. Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas!
Anyhow, this post is the official internet debut of this year's card, which I decided on last year, and had mostly done last year because it was fun, and only this year, with the introduction of the paper doll idea, did it fully gel.
This year I collected four different outfits for Saint Nicolas, from his standard attire to the Stealth Suit to Hard Candy Christmas to this year's debut outfit West Coast Christmas. So, here you go, for those who didn't get a card because I don't know you or didn't make it out in time or didn't have an address. Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas!
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Hard Ricola Christmas
Hey there. You remember me from last year, Mr. Hard Candy Christmas? At that time I was determined to push myself through a bad October and November and, since my family had decided to celebrate Christmas for Jr., I threw myself into the newly anticipated Holiday season with a gusto those who saw my apartment will remember well. In the immortal words of Dolly Parton, from the Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, I'd be fine and dandy. It worked pretty well.
Well, flash forward a year, here I am in Venice, California, about to spend this Christmas alone, and praying that the sweat dripping off of my forehead is the damn fever from my strep throat breaking, and not just because the heat in this house distributes unevenly in the grotto. Yeah, that's right, strep throat. I blissfully awoke yesterday to the strain of a burning/cutting sensation in my right jaw and throat. In truth, I knew what it was, but, I told myself it couldn't be. It could. It was.
After a night of crystalline lattice dreamworks--honestly that's how the first full night's sleep works for me, lattices and endless mazes of light all night long--I decided I had to get this seen about, strep can be dangerous, and, I didn't want the second night features, in which the lattice dreams, confusing though they are, turn into blades, buzz saws and other such items, cutting into my jaw and arising from the bed. I'm not kidding. I had this last January and that's how it went.
But, and this is new, I'm here in Venice and I don't know a damn thing about the medical works. Where do I go? A quick iPhone search revealed any number of therapies from acupuncture to holistic healing to alcohol and drug treatment. Yeah, well, I can' risk it, strep's a bacteria and it has certain policies it adheres to, and as much as I believe acupuncture can help in certain situations, I need these strep buggers dead.
So I go online and research, and find a place that looks doable, attached to a hospital, no less. They even advertised "you'll feel better knowing you're just a 10 second wheelchair ride to the greatest hospital ever." I'm exaggerating about the greatest part, not about the wheelchair bit.
Anyhow this place was in Marina del Rey, and for some reason I can't explain, I like Marina del Rey, even though I haven't been there much. So I'm thinking this will do. But I'm also thorough in my research, so I got the yellow pages and did a few searches. And I wound up at a place a few yards away from the other one, but still in Marina del Rey, in fact facing the Marina. Not that I cared, it wasn't about the scenery, it was about ensuring my health. Also this place had the best ad. Or the biggest. I don't know. They had a downloadable patient form so I printed it, filled it out, and took a 5 minute drive to the Marina.
I expect to be there 6 or 7 hours of course, like Midland, but it was only about 2. They were friendly, even jovial. The aide took my blood pressure and then came to do a strep test swab, explaining to me that two double lines is positive for strep, like a pregnancy test, but I wouldn't know about that, but two double lines is positive for pregnancy. Yeah. So I'm thinking, should I be nervous about possibly being the first male to become pregnant? And who's the daddy/mommy?
Anyhow, back to waiting, until a slender Asian comes in, she's the doctor, and I swear she was so friendly that I was, at last, at ease in a doctor's office. Despite the fact that my throat felt like shards of glass were sifting about.
She looks at the test, checks my heart and lungs (A-OK) then feels my lymph nodes and I swear she winced with pain for me. Then she explained the whole say AAAHHH procedure (these people were awesome, seriously, so attentive) but we never got to the AAAHHH. She backed out into the hall to escape the towering inferno that was my tonsils. I'm kidding, but, I think she was across the room. It was that apparent.
She's pretty convinced it's strep throat, the test was positive to boot, so she tells me about antibiotics and I ask if I can just get a shot. She looks a bit taken aback, tells me that the shot doesn't increase recovery time, but I was thinking it sure would save the whole get to the pharmacy wait in line wait for it to be filled be extra sick while I have to wait syndrome. So, yeah, a little pain in the arse for a lot of time saved, I'm cool with that, I'm a tough guy after all.
So, another aide, or a nurse, comes and apologetically administers the shot. She tells me this is how she'd have gone about it as well, the shot instead of drugs, still apologizing for the imminent pain, then after we get everything situated she jabs it in and yep, it's a doozy, but I survive. She still apologizes, tells me to hold on to the cotton, and generally makes me feel really good. All these people were so nice. That or they somehow called my Mom and she told them what a big baby I can be.
I saunter back into the waiting room to pay, a little bit of limping because it was sore, my upper buttockal area, and the aide says "yay it was positive" and I say "yes I'm pregnant" and she laughed and then apologized about being happy that it was positive, but meant was glad a determination could be made and treatment pursued. I doubt she would have phrased it thusly, but we all know I'm verbose, so I just did.
Then I paid and drove home and drank some juices, forgetting that OJ is bad for strep since it digs into the pulpy flesh with citrus power. And it was raining when I left. I got to pay $6.00 to park of course. Then I crawled in bed and sort of slept, throat still hurting, but happy that the penicillin creatures were inside me gobbling away at the evil strep.
Which is great, because Christmas will be here soon, and everyone's gone. I'll be alone as I, for some brilliant reason, thought it would be equally brilliant to stay here for the Holidays. Yay brilliant me.
Well, flash forward a year, here I am in Venice, California, about to spend this Christmas alone, and praying that the sweat dripping off of my forehead is the damn fever from my strep throat breaking, and not just because the heat in this house distributes unevenly in the grotto. Yeah, that's right, strep throat. I blissfully awoke yesterday to the strain of a burning/cutting sensation in my right jaw and throat. In truth, I knew what it was, but, I told myself it couldn't be. It could. It was.
After a night of crystalline lattice dreamworks--honestly that's how the first full night's sleep works for me, lattices and endless mazes of light all night long--I decided I had to get this seen about, strep can be dangerous, and, I didn't want the second night features, in which the lattice dreams, confusing though they are, turn into blades, buzz saws and other such items, cutting into my jaw and arising from the bed. I'm not kidding. I had this last January and that's how it went.
But, and this is new, I'm here in Venice and I don't know a damn thing about the medical works. Where do I go? A quick iPhone search revealed any number of therapies from acupuncture to holistic healing to alcohol and drug treatment. Yeah, well, I can' risk it, strep's a bacteria and it has certain policies it adheres to, and as much as I believe acupuncture can help in certain situations, I need these strep buggers dead.
So I go online and research, and find a place that looks doable, attached to a hospital, no less. They even advertised "you'll feel better knowing you're just a 10 second wheelchair ride to the greatest hospital ever." I'm exaggerating about the greatest part, not about the wheelchair bit.
Anyhow this place was in Marina del Rey, and for some reason I can't explain, I like Marina del Rey, even though I haven't been there much. So I'm thinking this will do. But I'm also thorough in my research, so I got the yellow pages and did a few searches. And I wound up at a place a few yards away from the other one, but still in Marina del Rey, in fact facing the Marina. Not that I cared, it wasn't about the scenery, it was about ensuring my health. Also this place had the best ad. Or the biggest. I don't know. They had a downloadable patient form so I printed it, filled it out, and took a 5 minute drive to the Marina.
I expect to be there 6 or 7 hours of course, like Midland, but it was only about 2. They were friendly, even jovial. The aide took my blood pressure and then came to do a strep test swab, explaining to me that two double lines is positive for strep, like a pregnancy test, but I wouldn't know about that, but two double lines is positive for pregnancy. Yeah. So I'm thinking, should I be nervous about possibly being the first male to become pregnant? And who's the daddy/mommy?
Anyhow, back to waiting, until a slender Asian comes in, she's the doctor, and I swear she was so friendly that I was, at last, at ease in a doctor's office. Despite the fact that my throat felt like shards of glass were sifting about.
She looks at the test, checks my heart and lungs (A-OK) then feels my lymph nodes and I swear she winced with pain for me. Then she explained the whole say AAAHHH procedure (these people were awesome, seriously, so attentive) but we never got to the AAAHHH. She backed out into the hall to escape the towering inferno that was my tonsils. I'm kidding, but, I think she was across the room. It was that apparent.
She's pretty convinced it's strep throat, the test was positive to boot, so she tells me about antibiotics and I ask if I can just get a shot. She looks a bit taken aback, tells me that the shot doesn't increase recovery time, but I was thinking it sure would save the whole get to the pharmacy wait in line wait for it to be filled be extra sick while I have to wait syndrome. So, yeah, a little pain in the arse for a lot of time saved, I'm cool with that, I'm a tough guy after all.
So, another aide, or a nurse, comes and apologetically administers the shot. She tells me this is how she'd have gone about it as well, the shot instead of drugs, still apologizing for the imminent pain, then after we get everything situated she jabs it in and yep, it's a doozy, but I survive. She still apologizes, tells me to hold on to the cotton, and generally makes me feel really good. All these people were so nice. That or they somehow called my Mom and she told them what a big baby I can be.
I saunter back into the waiting room to pay, a little bit of limping because it was sore, my upper buttockal area, and the aide says "yay it was positive" and I say "yes I'm pregnant" and she laughed and then apologized about being happy that it was positive, but meant was glad a determination could be made and treatment pursued. I doubt she would have phrased it thusly, but we all know I'm verbose, so I just did.
Then I paid and drove home and drank some juices, forgetting that OJ is bad for strep since it digs into the pulpy flesh with citrus power. And it was raining when I left. I got to pay $6.00 to park of course. Then I crawled in bed and sort of slept, throat still hurting, but happy that the penicillin creatures were inside me gobbling away at the evil strep.
Which is great, because Christmas will be here soon, and everyone's gone. I'll be alone as I, for some brilliant reason, thought it would be equally brilliant to stay here for the Holidays. Yay brilliant me.
Saturday, December 15, 2007
Other Updates
So I spent my Friday night working on a few more website updates. Finally got animations of Hallowed Eve and her other incarnations up on the website, story and info still to follow. Maybe my Saturday night. Haha. I am a wild man.
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Holiday Updates
Well, not updates on my life per se, other than the fact that I finally got a good computer desk, and it has allowed me to get off my butt and update my website and work on some holiday treats for my friends.
Anyhow, check out Saint Nicolas online now. It is December, after all. ;)
Anyhow, check out Saint Nicolas online now. It is December, after all. ;)
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