puppies, roosters and bling ...

Yes, it's true, this was a loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong week. Even though I built in extra days and stretched out all the hours, and even increased page length for some of my client's stuff and then compressed it all again, so that they could have it all in three milliseconds tops (!!!!!), I somehow did not have any hours in the day left for sleep! I was on the average zzzzzzzzzoning for way less than 6 a night, and we all know that sleep-deprivation can make your brain explode, and I should know this, right?!?!?

So … Last night, as Mark would say, I "shut 'er down!" instead of continuing to, as he would also say, “get ‘er done!” I was in bed and asleep by 11pm ... my goal was 9pm but Mark was watching (trying not to fall asleep during) Travolta and DenzelW in the remake of "The Taking of Pelham 123" and the banter and dialogue in that movie was fab-you-lust ... or worth lusting after, so I finished watching it with him, plus poking him to keep him awake... and then we went to bed!

I got good, solid LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG sleep.

Y' all saw the part where I dreamt that Mark, IN MY DREAMS and lying right next to me had the absolute hairy-assed nerve to make out with someone from our old high school, someone with really big boobs (only in the present tense ... in the bed right next to me no less, while I am sleeping and not even realizing that I'm dreaming about it until I wake up really mad him for some reason!) ... and this someone who shall remain nameless in case she would ever facebook add me, might be a little teeny bit surprised, with all her big boobs and all, why I slap her in the face at our high school reunion next year.

I mean, really seriously, Ms. Big-Boobed-You-Shall-Remain-Nameless, we graduated in '80 and Mark by then was already a grown man/child in the Navy, and if I didn't even know he existed in high school, even though we both went to school with his brother ... what right do you have coming into my sweet dreams and making out with my "old man from the sea" while I'm sleeping! You didn’t know anything about him either, and there you were RIGHT IN MY DREAM! Bitch!

Yeah, still kind of pissed, but I'm working through it.

Also in the dream, I was riding, cruising, and absolutely dream-screaming down country roads and bi-ways on my bike, and at the same time took some fan-ass-tab-u-lust (or to lust after) pictures of some giant black bears with grinning teeth who were chasing after me, but I was brave enough to stop on the downside of every glacier-y hill to get their photos with my phone when they crested the hills behind me, and stopped of course to take a breath and get their picture taken. (whatever, it’s my dream, bears can do that!)

Giant moose were also crossing my bike path, but I didn't get pictures of them. Damn it! This was my dream, and for once I wasn't clumsy and I was biking and taking pictures AT THE SAME TIME (pictures of things behind me, no less) while giant menacing bears were chasing me, and I managed not to even hit the moose! Mooses, the several moose and moose-ettes!?!??!? Math *is* heard, but everyday English … sheeeeeeeeesh!

Anyhoo … This is what I call a good night's sleep, because I dreamt, and when I woke up I even remembered the dream, and was peppy and well-rested enough to really be mad at Mark for kissing Big GaZonga Girl.

The rule on dreams is ... it's not what the symbols, objects or whatever meant, but it's all about how you "felt" when you woke up, and remembered the dream.

Well, like I said, I tore Mark's head off for kissing Nameless Girl, and made a mental note to blacken Nameless girl's adult woman eye next year at a social event.

But mostly, I was really F'ING fan-tab-u-lust (or to lust after) happy! HAPPY, I say.

Okay, one more time ... HAPPY!

If you are into analyzing dreams, I know that certain things showed up because they were on my subconscious tongued tip list when I fell asleep, and during this busy week, I know how they all got there too.

The Bears/Moose: Facebook-related, Wyoming-related, putting pictures up related, where there are some of me and favorite ex husband (1st husband) camping at the top of the Big Horns (’82-ish, no kids yet). We were the only ones in our wilderness arena. No other campers! A moose walked through our camp site, right past me at the fire when I was sizzling dinner. Male moose with rack! This somehow spun out in my brain that if we were the only ones atop the mountain that night, and the animals were that brave, that I'd certainly be eaten by a bear, so I slept in the truck with a pistol and Chris slept in the tent because he was not acting like a freaky scared dork. And I'm the one who wanted to come to Wyoming in the first place (huge back story), was lucky to have arrived alive, thrived and live there, and was the one who was ultra-excited about our camping trip that summer … but I suddenly tripped out over bears .. quit laughing ... I'm still trying to find the photo where, Chris is in a blow-up raft fishing in a serene water scene, and I took the picture from way up above on a ridge, where I still sat with his dad's pistol in my lap, but at a vantage point where I could shoot bears if they came after me or lumbered into the water to kill my husband! [okay, so maybe my brain damage, paranoia and other stuff was always there, even before the stroke ... but the neuro guys are still at the roundtable discussing all this]

The girl from high school ... has everything to do with SCOLIOSIS which I have and which I've been discussing with my exercise/fitness trainer this week. Anyone from my high school that is already on my facebook page, might know now who was kissing Mark in my dream, if they really think back on it, because there was only one girl in our high school who wore a scoliosis brace. My S-curved spine thankfully is milder (although still painful) case than that, but I also was born with a giant stick up my ass, so that my be why I never wore the brace.

Biking ... also discussed at the gym this week, because I HEART it!

Photos ... I take them all the time, enough said.

Clutziness ... that's me in general, and was implied in the dream by the fact that it did not exist in the dream.

THE END … sort of.

THE COLLAGE, like the dream, all about sleep and the messages within relate to the peeps I love and my puppy and is comprised of items I picked up, here and there in the house this morning, pinned to a piece of cork, scanned, and then put the items away. The Saturday clean sweep while walking around with a cup of coffee missing my new personal assistant and housekeeper (and yes she gets paid), Carol.The items regarding the end of my long week, sleep and my favorite puppy and peeps are as follows:

WALTER: One of his two boy pigtail boys that he had on his head when Mark picked him up at the groomer yesterday. Mark took them off, of course, and then to get back at me kissed Name Not Mentioned girl in my dreams, hello!?!?!?!?! There are not two bows in the picture because Mark crammed the other one up my ass and told me to stop putting purple sweaters in the dishwasher (hole other counseling appointment coming up on the calendar now, I’m not kidding!)

BEKAH: The striped moon is a piece of something from her wedding. I miss her. Kyle is sort of a part of that too, but while I tag him in this note, I would never ever tell him that I think that highly of him because he’s a brat!

CAROL: The purple ribbon, is all about her first child support and placement hearing last month, and then another appointment she had right after it, while I was in the car reading with Lili, where someone gave Carol a handful of "purple ribbon[s]" and stick pins, because it was for domestic abuse (mental, physical, sexual and otherwise) recognition. Carol came back to the truck with them and said "How ironic is that, after this morning in court, huh?" And how ironic is this? Carol had a horrifically long week, this week too, and when I came across this ribbon on my dresser this morning, I smiled because by Friday she was flying high again, and sleeping on new sheets! (long story, as are all of mine of late … but her story to tell, but the story is showing!)

ALICE: The button at the bottom with the energetic womanly figure on it. We got it at her "dad's work" last summer the excruciating time "gerald" met her dad. (ali is laughing her ass off right now reading this). And Ali is at her dad’s this weekend, and that’s where she’s laughing about this, and it’s good because we all love her laugh!

SARA ... the button with the owl made from a bottle cap. Because I think of you often and love you to death! You think I mentor you, but this year, especially the last month, and artsy-fartsy and word-wise, watching you thrive has renewed my own motivation and lust for such!

THE LITTLE GIRLS: The "pretty pretty 'sing" multi-natural stone bracelet on the edge, because everyone knows if you are a little girl and you have a really great grandma (which I did too), you love her and all of her pretty pretty 'sings! It's a given and the ongoing gift of womanhood in our family. And it’s all for Ru, Rae and the little Bug!

MARK: The bling bracelet, from last Christmas, wore it several times in the last several weeks, needed to put it back in its box and note it again in my heart. Plus the mental note that for years and years and years, I’ve always deserved really nice things, kindness and regard, and it’s even okay to ask for them up front. Mark is my reminder of that, which is why he probably gets away with kissing other girls in my dreams, sometimes.

THE ROOSTER ... because we collect them, Mark and I, and because it's all dark and purple’d and torn from an Ambien ad (which I did not have to tweak that kind of med for my own sleep train ... woot!) and because Roosters also remind of Scarlet Rae when she asked, "Grandma ... so why do you and Grandpa Mark have all these birds, and the roosters, because …………… it might be kind of creepy!" (We have roosters made out of almost everything you can think of save our own shit, so you can see why she might be kind of freaked out!)

Creepy and Happy are "almost rhymes" ... THE END

Guest collage/my collage/Place Holder ...

two collages today, and words to go with them, but the words are in a "note" on facebook and i'm too zonked to move here, but need to place-hold and mark time and know that i completed my "collage of the day" and have a great deal of pride in the "guest collage" that my daughter did (below) she rocks in her own right ... more on that tomorrow:



my collage of the day without the words and epiphany that came with it i will also add tomorrow, but here is mine:

All of a Sudden I Could Do Things!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is the cover of my newly purchased for a dollar at Walgreens rest o' 2009 and all of 2010 Planner ... the colorful polka-dots are all that is left of the original cover, which in my book means, the planner is now AS IT SHOULD BE! ... except on the inner pages I tried to add 52 more hours to each and every day of the week, extend all weekends to 4 days, which makes a week actually 9 days long counting the additional four days added to the five-day work week, but when I tried to do the math of what that meant for hours in a year x the number of new days to make up that year for the grand yearly totals of extra time, MY HEAD EXPLODED.

You will all forgive me, however, and thank you very much, because I did manage to push the Scan Photo and Upload Blog buttons before my brains spoiled on the floor!

What happens on a run stays on a run!

This next piece is for my lover-butt significant other. He's been teasing and teasing, about still no really good collages about motorcycles. I came up with this one last night, and the images (believe it or not) are from a vintage McCalls magazine that I've been tearing the heck out of, over and over again, and there are oddly STILL PAGES LEFT! Woot.

I also managed to work in a Honda joke, because we all know "real men ride Harleys," or so I have heard.

--------------And I also managed a quote from "Sons of Anarchy" about "what happens on a ride [staying] on a ride," which tell the character Gemma that (love Katie Sagal!!!) when she found out (as if her own menopause symptoms were NOT ENOUGH!!!) that Clay (Ron Perlman/excellent!!!) ... well, er ... um, he tried to understand her symptoms and "dry" condition, but he got his member sucked on a recent run!

Gemma broke the woman's nose, and had some pretty choice words to say when Clay found out she was in jail.

(Go Gemma/Katie Sagal ... woot!!!! ... yeah, you can tell, I'm hooked on the show and the writing!)

Anyways ... managed to get that in there too and then scanned my collage and tweaked it a bit, and here's the fun part. The photo program I'm using is at Piknic.com, and I'm just flying by the seat of my photo-tweaking ass, because I'm just messing around over there.

There are these great APPLY, UNDO and REDO buttons which are really cool, so if you tweak too far or too much, you can go back and fix and not lose something you liked.

------------And I just noticed last night that you can save a before and after (side by side) view of each tweak too, so DOY!!!! that will make my life easier now.

I didn't know the "collage a day" would take off. I've been collaging for over five years, probably longer if I look back at old journals and realize I was doing a little bit along all the way ... but anyways, I have done some fairly decent larger pieces, and altered some items and done some special orders for people (projects and such).

But ------------ I also kind of let it sit off to the side and rot when I get busy (translation: when I'm probably really stressed or depressed and most need to be doing art!!!).

Recently, I picked it back up again, on a mission, and found that doing one a day has really improved my mood and my method of handling the madness of each and every day.

So last night's piece was frosting on the cake, because the last tweak I did made me actually speak out loud at 1:00 a.m and say, "Holy F! He's going to love this!"

With all my messing around, APPLY, UNDO, REDO ... last night it was CROP, CLICK, a few little tweaks and such in the fun CREATE section at Piknik and yeah, so I was celebrating out loud!

Before I show you the pic, I'll tell you with my he-man, Clay-like (a.k.a. my own big sweetheart and softy) said when I sent him the scan (he travels during the week).

His exact words, when I told him this one, which is 8x10 now, will be blown up and framed poster-size for his growing garage art (NASCAR, Harley and other dumb stuff) and he said:

I could get used to seeing this hanging around ... although, I'd have to say it's not quite rough and tough enough. (or some such rot, trying to say he loved it, but hello?!?!?!??! it's girlie collage art!)

And my response was, well, I can spray beer all over it, but you hate when people waste beer!

And now the piece that made me speak outloud at 1:00 a.m. this morning:

this like many of the others
you may have to click on it to see the larger image. :)

there is no such time, only change ...

kind of a horrific and quick scan but the gist of it is:

But as she has gorwn, her smile has widened with a touch of fear and her glance has taken on depth. Now she is aware of some of the losses you incur by being here--the extraordinary rent you pay as long as you stay. --annie dillard

.... the original is 8x10 and a bit more readable

... day of the dead.

a note on the collages:
they've obviously taken off on the daily basis, and it's never a struggle or an exercise i feel threatened to complete, otherwise listen to my own self chastise my self to death. that hasn't happened yet. i look ever forward to them. and soon i'm going to have to start compiling them in some kind of scanned book of prints since the actual collage and then some of the tweaking and stuff, they start out as one thing and then turn into something completely different.

today's was a perfect example of that. it's original glue and paper and paint and such and stuff and then some tweaks with the depth and color and they are two different pieces, so that's a fun aspect to it all as well>

thing are never quite as they seem, and yet things are starting to follow kind of a daily theme and then they all pile up with an odd cohesion.

the day:
...today, i'm sort of feeling like a "a whole in the head fred" [egg sandwich] day of the dead head, but this too shall pass.

'twas a busy monday, that's for absolutely sure. busy on all fronts, incoming wounded and patch casualties heading out to continue the fight ... sometimes mondays are like that where i'm working, playing, creating and basically "multi-tasking" my rear-end right off, while simultaneously balancing incoming calls and of course eating more leftover tootsie rolls from halloween than it is even possible to count.

tonight, ali and i laid out a great feast on the glass top table on the deck, under the full moon with our usual bay leaf floating in broth, a cup of tea with ginger, little bowls of sugar and cream, candles and incense sticks.

the air was crisp, the cups and bowls steaming, our cheeks crimson from the cold, and it all feels good.

nothing is ever gone, just gone deeper.

i feel that way about the papers i tear up and destroy to make yet another image, and i feel that way about the people i have lost in this life, those just to the side of things behind that filmy curtain, just out of our reach ...

... it's november ... woot!