Thankful

Man! We have been kinda slacking in the blog department this month.


Anyway... I had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend. My Mom and her friend Virginia did a Thelma and Louise and drove from MT to spend it with me. We walked every day as the weather was great, did a mass amount of shopping (I got spoiled), drank mimosas for breakfast and wine for dinner, went to the Nutcracker and had a Rummicube tournament. They left me Monday morning with a fridge full of food and actually made it back to MT without killing anyone or driving off any cliffs.

I also took some pictures on our walks that I thought I would share:

This little girl was having so much fun feeding the birds on Alki.


Rainbow in the International Fountain.


Love the purple of the EMP.


Trail in Lincoln Park.


View of ferry dock from trail in Lincoln Park.


I took more but those are the hi-lights... hope you liked.

Falling for Trees

Okay, so Fen shared... I guess it is my turn.

1.) Not technically in the graveyard but I liked the way it turned out.
2.) Children dieing young and neglected graves are sad but they make wonderful photos.
3.) I really liked these checker board walks. They made me think of Alice in Wonderland for some reason. There was quite a few but this one in need of repair really caught my eye.
4.) WAR hooh GOODGODYALL...what is it good for? Photos I guess.
5.) This is the tree I fell in love with. It is a Camperdown Elm and it's beautiful.
6.) Another tree (what can I say? I have a thing.) This one was ghost-like though and set the mood quite well.














Hope you like.

the sparrows and the nightingales

so, as we've both been promising, i am putting up my initial part of our lakeview trip. there's still one roll of film left in my camera that i need to finish off, so there might possibly be a future post containing some more pictures, but this is what i have for now. please keep in mind that the only editing on these has been sizing them down (a few of them look much much better at larger sizes, but i'm not leaving them thousands of pixels big). so, here we go!

there was a lot of gravestone statuary. all very beautiful.

something you don't tend to see or notice much: family plot cornerstones.

a russian gravestone i thought was pretty. you can see staysea in the background. :)

there really is some amazing detail on some of the stones. this particular one is a bench style with this tree on it.

i didn't notice until tonight that they'd died only a few years ago. but the two-part inscription on the base is beautiful.

the sun came out with stormy skies in the background making everything out in bold colors.
(those are fake plants, but they look quite real from afar.)

there was a lens flare on my camera when i took this. i believe i actually said "yay! lens flare!" when it happened...

staysea loving her a tree.
(this picture looks cool when the left side is set as the bottom, too.)

more dramatic statuary against the sky pictures!

a view to the east. that's lake washington in the background there. it was getting towards sunset, so, yes, the sky is pink.

here is a crow. he was one of the ones the old man was feeding.
i tried talking him into staying there so i could get a close-up. he didn't listen. :(

here's another old man we saw walking around part of the cemetery.
we thought it was a little melancholy and sad that he might be visiting old friends and family.

our theory is that the mausoleum door was bricked up to prevent a zombie uprising, or because he's a vampire.
we're not sure which it should be.

and yet more dramatic statuary. yay statuary!

so there you have it. that's my portion. it will be interesting to see staysea's take on it all when she gets her photos of the day up. undoubtedly we'll have another trip there as we quite enjoyed it and didn't see everything. we didn't stop by the lee's graves as there were a bunch of touristy types there mobbing them. stay tuned!

Boxes, Birds, Fishies and Hair

Fen and I are participating in a group art show at a Gallery this month. Fifteen other artists, Fen and I were given foot square (approximately) shadowboxes and were told to "Think inside the box"... Anyway chaos ensued and lots of adhesive later, we had the opening for said show on Thursday. Lot of comments were made about our pieces, there were a bit of people there and I took home about half a bottle of wine so all in all, not a bad night. Oh and Fen's hair was delightfully huge and fro-like that night. :) We will have to post pictures later.

But here is a picture from our photo-outing of the last blog to tide you over.

curiosity without the cat

yesterday was a productive day for us here are arrt pirates. we went out and took pictures at lakeview cemetery then we went and spent waaaaay too much on books at the barnes & noble in the village. on the up side of spending too much there, i now have a calendar for next year and, for once, it's not after the first of the year! plus its a really good waterhouse one. <3 waterhouse.

as for the cemetery, well, that was fun! we plan on going back sometime to get pictures earlier in the day and at different times of year. the cemetery was much bigger than i thought it would be, but it was worth the 2 hours of wandering about - we still didn't really see it all after that much time. most of the other people there were going to see the lee's graves (bruce and brandon that is) and so we kinda had the run of the place without worrying that someone would randomly walk into a shot.

in one part of the cemetery, there was an older man tossing out food for a murder of crows. we were wondering why some guy was standing there tossing stuff at the crows when we crested a hill and first saw him and heard the birds. and, as we got closer, we could tell he was feeding them. we tried to get them to cooperate with us, but they wouldn't. they knew we were trying to get cool shots of them on the gravestones, so they kept watching us and then being like "nope, sorry, you lose" and flying off. as we reached the old man feeding them, he was picking up bits off of the pavement. he stood up and gave us a kinda look, not really pained or anything, but kinda neutrally long-suffering (can anyone really look that way?) and said basically "someone's gotta feed the crows." i can't remember now if that was exactly it, but, in essence, that's what he said. as we walked off, we debated why he was doing it. was he a caretaker? was he just some guy who likes to feed birds in cemeteries? does he just like crows a whole lot? was he paid to come in and feed them regularly? in the end, we decided that, whatever the real reason is, it would be totally awesome if he were feeding them simply to keep the proper ambiance in the cemetery. after all, a cemetery isn't complete without at least a few crows hopping about.

i think she put it best yesterday when staysea said that it would be interesting to see how different we see the place even though we're there at the same time taking pictures of the same things. in the end, i have 5 rolls of film plus a 6th in my camera from the trip. i'm not sure how much staysea has, but she has a few as well. soon as we have them all developed, we'll throw up each of our own impressions of the cemetery.

Half a Glass

"Cold," you say, and hand the glass to me. I open my chest and place it where my heart should be.


Another week of ups and downs. I guess that is life, huh? The boy and I are over... is this a glass half full or half empty thing? A bit of both I would think. I just ordered myself a Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTI. I'm quite sure this is a half full thing as my parents are paying for it as my Christmas and next Birthday presents. Work is going okay. My new job is kinda making me wonder if I made the right choice in that regard. I haven't been able to really concentrate at either job lately though. I really want to move out of my apartment. My landlord is never going to fix my door. I want to stop going to a laundromat. I need more room for my art stuff. But do I really want to move right now? I haven't been here a year yet and I just kinda got it so I like it. I haven't been sleeping well for quite some time now and I think it is really getting to me. I keep trying new ways to keep awake during the day and actually fall asleep at night. But nothing really is working for either. My favorite holiday is coming up (Halloween) but I don't have the spirit this year. No decorations have come out this year and I don't really have an idea for a costume yet. I doubt I'll do anything anyway as it is on a Wednesday between hanging for a show and the actual show. At least that project is going pretty well. I gave up on finding one thing for it but it is almost done and I like where it is going. I have been painting a lot this week which is a good thing. It is like therapy for me which it seems like I need right now. I need something to happen that will make me sleep well and get me out of this funk. I I I.... I know this blog is self-centered and kind of a downer but that's what is in my head right now. But I think of all you too and hope you are well.

that time of year...

so it's that wonderful time of year when the leaves are falling and the rain is making everyone run for cover at odd moments and the days are beautiful and blustery...and what does that mean? it means that it's the perfect time of year for taking photos of cemeteries!

i believe that this year i shall have to actually visit at least one cemetery as i have not in quite a few years. i used to go all the time back in high school to the pioneer cemetery by where i lived. so, to celebrate a little right now, i'm going to share a few pictures from there!

this is one of my favorites.

i've no clue where those crazy lines came from...

taking a different perspective.

so there you have them! i know that they're all sunny and cheery, but it was may and i had my first slides roll and was on a mission from my photography teacher...(yes, these are old. they're from 99!!)

i think i'll go this weekend and take some at lake view cemetery up by volunteer park...anyone wanna join in? you're welcome to!

Human Trampoline

...There is a girl in West Seattle,
Who calls herself the human trampoline,
And sometimes when I'm falling flying
Or tumbling in turmoil I say
Whoa so this is what she means... (edited Graceland lyrics by Paul Simon).

Okay... so I've had one of those weeks where it feels like I've been riding a roller coaster. I have been really tired all week for one thing and I have had a lot of stuff going on in my head. I also had all these climbing and up moments like the boy spending the night, my show going fairly well and discovering a great new band last night. But I also had some descending and down moments as well like being late for work and getting lectured about it, my phone not working and locking my keys in my car. By last night I wanted to just curl up with a bottle of whiskey and hide on my couch. In fact I went straight to the liquor store after work and ended up buying a bottle of vodka as well as a bottle of Jameson.

Some more details on some of the good stuff as I don't want to talk about the bad stuff right now:

My show on Thursday was pretty good. I had worked both jobs that day and drove down to Renton to see the boy for a bit but still managed to make it to Gallery Ok by 6pm. A lot of people showed up actually. Some friends I see a bit but also some I haven't seen for awhile which was cool. I didn't sell anything but got some good responses as well as some constructive criticism. And did some artistic networking.

And last night my friend Brian said I should come out to the Rim (instead of drinking myself stupid at home). And I'm glad I did because the band that was playing was incredible. They are called "The Consul" and they are kinda hard to describe but maybe punked-up jazz would fit them. There are only 3 of them and they don't have a singer but holy cow they rock. All their stuff is like at least 10 mins long. Anyway I bought a CD and got them all to sign it. I totally recommend you checking them out.

there was an accident...

soooo we've pretty much ignored this blog for the whole month of september...wow. go us. yarr!

anyways...staysea is going to be in an upcoming show this next thursday at the gallery ok - the theme is fear! i was going to try and do a last minute entry...buuuuuut yeah...that isn't happening...idea = great, execution = not working out. sooo yeah. way to go creativity. *sigh* i think that my energy is mostly going towards not hurting people at work and towards the november box show at gallery ok - yes, i'm in an art show!

it's now officially fall here in the northern hemisphere (yay for summer for all of you people i know in the southern one!) and it's starting to look a lot like wonderful. yes, i am a fall/winter/spring fan. mostly fall and winter. mmm...love the rain and snow and such...but i won't go into all of that or burst out into random fits of singing. (it's infectious. just ask anyone who grew up watching newsies. damn you disney and christian bale!) it's nice and rainy in the forecast for the next week. sucks that i'll be stuck in work for most of the time, but them's the breaks. lucky for me i'm treating myself to a 3 day weekend this week. i'm heading home to surprise my mom for her b-day (which was tuesday) along with my brother. hopefully i have enough time to charge the ipod before the drive tomorrow night. if not, the ds is packed and super mario is gonna be my best friend...now i just hope that the suspension really is fixed in my brother's car and he's not gonna drive so badly that i can't look at anything straight...

i have a rant ready to type up...i've had it for weeks, just haven't found the time to sit down and do it. i should get on that sometime this weekend. yes. yes i should...

okay...i should stop procrastinating. agenda: shower, dinner, daily show, bed. go!

this is what i did tonight instead of doing other things...

shellac!

Talk like a Pirate Day is 9/19

Since most people think all you have to do is include "Arrr" after everything you say to sound like a pirate.... I give you some better words to use from this pirate's lexicon (noun - the vocabulary of a particular person). And all of them have me favorite letter in them to boot.

vixen -- (noun) An ill-tempered woman.
As in: Ye must be daft if ye thinks you can get away with calling me a vixen.

noxious -- (adjective) harmful to health or physical well-being.
As in: Be warned, this ship's head is full of noxious fumes.

transfix -- (verb) to make or hold motionless with amazement, awe or terror.
As in: It's been said that t' Captin's evil-eye and deep voice will transfix a landlubber on t' spot.

hex -- (noun) an evil spell; curse. or (verb) to bewitch.
As in: Met'inks that scurvy dog be plottin' ta put a hex upon me men.

jinx -- (noun) a person, thing, or influence supposed to bring bad luck.
As in: Most male pirates think wenches are a jinx on board their ship but don't mind spending time with them on land.

axiom -- (noun) a self-evident truth that requires no proof.
As in: It be an old axiom of this here pirate that dead men tell no tells.

bollix -- (verb) to do (something) badly; bungle.
As in: How can ye bilge rats possibly bollix up somethin' so simple as weighin' anchor?

pretext -- something that is put forward to conceal a true purpose or object.
As in: I became a free-booter on t' high seas as a pretext for swillin' grog, singing sea chanteys and wearing stripity clothes.

flummox -- (verb) to bewilder; confound; confuse.
As in: Me hopes me didn't flummox you with this here vocabulary lesson.

Stuff for walls

I've been at the age where all my friends are getting married and having kids for awhile now I guess. I never know what to get people really. My Gram without fail would always get people towels. "You can't ever have too many", she would say. I will go by their registers (if they have them) and try to get them something that most people wouldn't. Like the couple who had stuff for their cat on there. I thought it was funny... anyway getting off track. If they actually do register for it, I prefer to get them something artsy. And if I know them well though, I like to do something of that nature for them instead. No one seems to remember that they need art for their walls as well as stuff like toasters. I like to remedy this. This goes for having a baby as well as getting married. Babies grow out of cloths too fast and don't have a lot of need for much else. About 3 and half years ago I decided to do drawings for my cousin and my best friend as one just had a baby and one was due to have one. I have always liked Alphabet books so I made the drawings into pages from an imaginary one using the baby's name (i.e. H is for Hannah and S is for Sydney). They went over really well especially being one of a kind and tailored to what I knew about the parents. I have done about 6 more (mostly K's) since those two including one I finished today. Thought I would share.

OH. EM. GEE.

THAT WAS FRIKIN' AWESOME!!!

so we totally saw young frankenstein the musical tonight. more than worth what we paid for the tickets. i laughed so hard my face hurt. i even peed my pants a little...several times...

you should go see it if it's ever near you.

(image courtesy of broadway.com)

4 hours later...

i just spent the past few hours working on putting together a weird collage of stuff only to realize that it sucks and i didn't feel like posting it. so then i decided to post a color version of a sketch i did a while back...but i couldn't find it. no clue where it is. i really should organize my image folder better...*sigh*

anyway...here's a quick colored version!

"You're gonna need a bigger boat"

2 notes and you have a villain. Go to www.jawsmovie.com/jsounds/jaws2.wav to hear it if you don't know what I'm talking about. The Jaws theme is probably one of the simplest, but most inspired creations in the history of music, let alone film music. It can instantly warn us of danger by implying the shark's presence even when we can't see it on screen.
I totally love the 1st Jaws movie by the way. It actually came out the summer I was born. We totally arrived in this world at about the same time (which might explain some things about me but that's a different story). It was totally ahead of its time. There are some really funny quotes in it as well as being a good action/horror movie. Stuff like:

Quint: "Here lies the body of Mary Lee ... died at the age of 103 ... for 15 years she kept her virginity ... not a bad record for this vicinity"

Hooper: "Uh ... I think that I'm familiar with the fact that you are going to ignore this problem until it swims up and bites you in the ass"

Quint again: "You go inside the cage, cage goes in the water, you go in the water, shark's in the water ... our shark"

and of course Brody said the line in the title of this blog. Anyway... I saw this pic on the I CAN HAS CHEEZEBURGER website and when I was done laughing until I peed a little, I thought I would share it. Enjoy!

Sunday Nights

Sunday nights I have been going to Pacific Rim Brewery in White Center. They have great beer and a bunch of great guys get together and jam. I come for both. And Matt always tries to squeeze in his version of Lyle Lovett's Election Day for me. I did this scratch board drawing of one of the guys (Brian) who plays bass. I really should bring my camera sometime and take pictures of the rest of them so I can do some more of these.

They were in an interesting mood tonight and bouncing band names around. Gravy and the Biscuit Rollers. The Middle Men (they have issues starting and stopping sometimes). And something to do with marshmallows that I didn't quite catch. Anyway... it was fun. Thanks guys!

so cute you'll puke!

okay...not really...but it IS cute. keepon is a little robot created by a japanese scientist and is used to study social interactions or something like that. frankly, i just want the dancing one for the sheer awesomeness of it. i mean...little yellow dancing squishy looking thing? hell yeah!

Happy Birthday to Me

I have to say that I had a pretty good birthday weekend. Fairly relaxing. My cousin was here the whole time. Good to see her as always. Chinese food, beer and movies Friday night. Shopping and then went out and got drunk on Saturday night with friends. Sunday recovered at bit, had a good brunch and then went to the Simpson's Movie again. Got some cool presents. Had a lot of birthday wishes from friends and family via cards, phone, texts, email, by myspace and even in person today. And tomorrow I start a new job. ... I'm glad I made it though another year and wish me luck on this 32nd one ... :)

food for thought

We go out and eat teriyaki and this is what I sketch when I get home. It must have been the decor.... :)

Also today was my last day in cubicle-slave land. Yay me!

catch the book

so this is something we do in our boredom at work...

A = ARRRRR, “all hands on deck”
B = Bandana, boots, barnacles, blackbeard (captain), biscuits
C = Captin’, cannon, Caribbean, (the) Code, compass, crossbones, cannibals, canvas
D = Dingy, dice, doubloons, “drink up”
E = eye-patch, end of the world, executioner
F = Flag, figurehead, flogging, first mate, fish
G = Gold, gunner
H = hangman, hats, horizon
I = incan gold, instruments
J = Jack Sparrow, jewels, jolly roger
K = kidd (captain), kraken
L = Loot, limes
M = monkey!, mast, me hearties!, mermaid
N = noose, navigator, north star
O = orient
P = Pirates!, pistols, parrots, pieces of eight
Q = quartermaster
R = rum, really-bad-eggs
S = Ship, scallywag, swashbuckler, sails, sword, stripes, skull, scurvy, swab, skull island, seven seas
T = Tortuga, treasure
U = undesirables, undead
V = vast seas/oceans
W = west indies, wheel, wooden leg, wind in the sails, waves, water, wind
X = X marks the spot
Y = yarr!, yo-ho
Z = zombies

yeah...that's what we do...stay tuned for the book! arrrr!

equal opportunity pirates

so i turn on the tv and cartoon network has a scooby doo movie on and the pirate crew in it sure has a lot of ladies in it...it also has some really bad songs in it that seem to want to rip off the pogues. so bad.

also, i saw a guy wearing a gas mask this evening as i was walking down the street. one of the homeless druggies walking past him and his friends at the same time asked him in a super druggie voice "hey, can i try your gas mask on?" i think he got a weird look from the gas masked guy. i shall dub him "mr. tastyface"...the gas masked guy that is, not the druggie.

on a related note, here is an old drawing of a girl with a gas mask:


...top model barbie? wtf are they teaching girls these days?

Yo Ho Yo Ho

Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me.
We pillage plunder, we rifle and loot.
Drink up me 'earties, yo ho.
We kidnap and ravage and don't give a hoot.
Drink up me 'earties, yo ho.

Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me.
We extort and pilfer, we filch and sack.
Drink up me 'earties, yo ho.
Maraud and embezzle and even highjack.
Drink up me 'earties, yo ho.

Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me.
We kindle and char and in flame and ignite.
Drink up me 'earties, yo ho.
We burn up the city, we're really a fright.
Drink up me 'earties, yo ho.

We're rascals and scoundrels, we're villians and knaves.
Drink up me 'earties, yo ho.
We're devils and black sheep, we're really bad eggs.
Drink up me 'earties, yo ho.

We're beggars and blighters and ne'er do-well cads,
Drink up me 'earties, yo ho.
Aye, but we're loved by our mommies and dads,
Drink up me 'earties, yo ho.
Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me.

death to all that cross me

Don't you hate when you are just mad at the world and the world just doesn't give a shit. Yeah, me too. Why is it that there is always something or someone that rains on your parade when everything seems to be going so well. Well.... FUCK them I say. I don't care what they think or what they do.... I'm a Pirate and Pirates don't care what people really think about them anyway.


On a lighter note, I saw Stardust last night and it was pretty cool. De Niro was incredible as Captain Shakespeare. Three cheers for Air Pirates.... hip hip Hurrah, hip hip Hurrah, hip hip Arrrrrrrr....

End Log..... Pirate StaySea

maybe we should start this thing...

so this has just been sitting here and we haven't done more than mess with how it looks and our profile pics...so maybe we should actually put something up, yeah?

well, here we go! the sketches aren't always gonna be about pirates, but, well, this one is! ;P

hi!

doot doot doot