Put Yourself to Bedlam

"If the Phone Doesn't Ring, It's Me" ~ Jimmy Buffett

Gee Whiz. Thirty one days in a row.

I SAID....THIRTY ONE DAYS IN A ROW!

Yup...that's a lot of days in a row.

Put Yourself to Bedlam is putting itself to BED sans LAM - unless you think of it as in "on the lam"

I'm taking a break from the blather, and further promise not to bore my reader with tedious lists ever again for at least a week.

It's done. Selah.
XXKHT
p.s. if you can't live without my inanity be sure to stop by The Life of A Garden - the garden grows on whether I want to write about it or not.

“Every writer is a narcissist. This does not mean that he is vain; it only means that he is hopelessly self-absorbed.” ~ Leo Rosten

I think this month of blogging every day has had the opposite effect I'd hoped for.

Instead of forcing me to be more creative and disciplined, it frustrated and bored me. Compelled to post every day, I fell back on talking about the easiest thing...myself.

I realize PYtB has become little more than a Myspace page most of these days and I'm a pretty sick about it. It took a little over four months to become fabulously boring. It's like a love affair gone quickly stale, after you got your hopes up by it's electric beginnings.

I blame the 31 in 31, but not because it's a bad idea for everyone -  it was just a bad idea for me. In future, if I decide to accept a daily writing discipline challenge, I'll do it privately and only publish what's worthy.

On the other hand, I suppose starting another blog simultaneously to the exercise may have had something to do with it...

Bah!
XXKHT

Sold! To The Highest Bidder!

Tonight, I participated in my first official art auction, both as an artist, and as a bidder.

The auction was organized by Arts Alive! and despite not being able to locate any info in the usual advertising venues, I was pleasantly surprised to find hundreds of people in attendance when I arrived.

The last event, First Fifty, in which I put a large mixed media piece priced at $1,200, did not get the kind of exposure I'd hoped for, and so this round, I put a very small piece in the show in response to the warning on the application that, "because this is the first Arts Alive auction, we're not sure how much people will be willing to spend, so offering work in the $100 and under range is wise, unless you're ok with it not selling." Plus there was an additional fee for adding a reserve.

Following their advice, I entered a small mixed media piece, that is essentially a miniature version of the last show's piece Dead To Rights, but this time it is just one picture of a soldier mannequin, strung inside a cigar box with an artist's figure model inside.

To my horror, my piece went up second in a line of over one hundred items, and the first item did not sell. I turned red as a beet as they brought around what looked to me now in this giant venue, a minuscule representation of my work -  I may as well have submitted a postage stamp.

The auctioneer began the bidding at $15, and it was bid on immediately followed by $20, $25, $30, $35...pause.....$40...$45. "Do I hear $50? We're at $45....going...going SOLD!" To my friend Hillary sitting right next to me.

I almost felt sorry for the lovely person (who I could not see) that bid it up and didn't win.

Plus, I really didn't expect it to sell for more than $30 and in the end, relative to some of the huge, beautiful paintings that sold for under $200, I made out like a bandit. I couldn't believe some of the pieces that sold for so little last night. Even with no money to spare, I bid on a few just  because I couldn't stand to let them go unsold for such incredible prices.

Good thing I didn't have any money to spare, or tomorrow morning would find me with more art than I could hang on my walls.

It was great big fun and a learning experience for next year. I'll have to put something a little bigger and better in, but not worth more than $100.

XXKHT

I am the life force power of the fifty trillion beautiful molecular geniuses that make up my form - at one with all that is." Jill Bolte Taylor

The following video floored me.

Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor is a Harvard trained Neuroanatomist or in plain English: a big wig scientist who studies brains.

JBT had a stroke in 1996. The video is of her speech about the event, her recovery and most importantly what she learned about her essence by experiencing a brain trauma from the inside out. It is a fascinating presentation on every level.

Peace,
XXKHT

p.s. For better quality, large screen viewing, see the video at it's original source here:

Jill Bolte Taylor at Monterey

“An artist is a creature driven by demons. He doesn't know why they choose him and he's usually too busy to wonder why.” ~William Faulkner

Today plain got away from me.

It started out well enough. I sent out a job application first thing. After that I put on some housecleaning music and danced around deep speed cleaning. I vacuumed, which may not seem like much to you readers, but if you knew how much I hate the noisy heavy machine...

Then the doorbell rang and it was my daughter Ash with my surrogate daughter Hillary (Ash's best friend) and Ash's new beau, Rob, a kid I used to work with at Shitty Markup. A kid I was particularly fond of, so this is good news.

But there went my day; before I could say linguini, dinner plans were being made and the rest of the day was consumed with the making of it.

• Thai Chicken Stir Fry with Homemade Linguini, Asparagus and Broccoli

• Fresh Fruit Salad with Mango, Orange and Pineapple

• Green Salad (Ash insisted) with Romaine, Red Onion, English Cucumber, Avocado, Local Goat Cheese, and excellent quality EVOO and Red Wine Vinegar.

• Dark Chocolate & Lime Pie - a Key Lime adadptation with Chocolate Cookie Shell, Lime Custard, Chocolate Ganache and Unsweetened Whipped Cream

• Red Wine and Awake Dark Star Coffee

And a good time was had by all - except for maybe you :oP
XXKHT

*Sorry there are no pics
Recipes available on request.

"That definately [sic] put my banana seat wrapping elves wearing zodiac glitter aprons theory to rest." ~ bentsprocket

Today, I got all the bike parts for my upcoming Sculptcycle except for the tricycle.

The coordinators arranged a series of recycle your bike drives and the artists are welcome to take what they need from the depots for free. The one here in Burlington is at Queen City Steel, down in the Intervale - go figure! (Could there be a more heavenly place?)

Anyhoo, while I was down there, I also grabbed an old bike to make my own that I admired again today after having noticed it during the first reconnaissance visit.

The bike I have at present was a generous gift by an amazing co-worker at Shitty Markup - she overheard a phone call at work about how my bike had just been stolen on my way to work as I stopped at a yard sale. As my back was turned, a brazen little monkey turd walked right up and rode away. He was half way down the street before I noticed and I had clogs on. Aack!

Plus, I was five minutes away from my shift.

I went to work and made phone calls on break while the co-worker, Christina - from another department and who I barely knew - overheard my story. As soon as I got off the phone she offered me a bike she had on her porch that she said she'd, "been meaning to do something with, but since she hadn't and I needed it, she'd like me to have it." Then she brought it in a week later and left the key in my mailbox.

Love that girl.

Anyway, it's a working bike, but it has failed to become my bike - because I need something special. Even more special than this karmicly blessed one. One in which it seems to know me as well as I know it (it happens, just ask a cyclist).

So today, down at Queen City Steel while Robert and I were digging in the icy snow to find twelve matching tires for the sculpture, there she was again, sticking out (admirably) like a sore thumb and calling me to take her.

She's a classic girls Huffy touring bike with an ancient teal base paint that has faded to a lovely blue/yellow patina. She sports bright yellow handlebar grips and there is more sunny yellow in her name stickers. She has some rust and will need all new tires, brakes and probably a spare part here or there, but other than that she's downright spiffy!

I was bragging her up to my friend Jess on the phone tonight and she wondered if the bike had a banana seat. I told her no, but it recalled my first two-wheeler that had that and of course those high handlebars with long, multi-colored, plastic tassels.

One otherwise ordinary day, while proudly cruising the neighborhood like a big girl on my new yellow two wheeler with it's many colored tassels, I completely bit it, and in the process bruised the hell out of not only my crotch, but also gained a fat, black shiner from those high, chrome handlebars.

Raped by a banana seat and bitch handlebar slapped on the way down - no helmet was gonna save me that day.

My friend Johnny wondered how many young girls lost their virginities to bike accidents. I told him it was most likely horseback riding before that - that is myself, as well as girls historically.

All I can say is my mother should be thankful that it was summer and there was no school. By today's standards she'd probably have served time for the implications alone if any authority had caught on.

Say, I just noticed I'm working some themes here. Post on 3/24: "Bad Things That Happened To My Crotch When I Was a Young Girl;" Post 3/25: "Bike Safety Story;" Post 3/26: "Bike Safety Story" and "Bad Things That Happened To My Crotch When I Was a Young Girl"

All this reminiscing,* has caused me to consider starting yet another blog:

"Don't Get Me Started - The Bizarre Story of My Life So Far"
Despite my best intentions, PYtB's fairly well become that anyway,

XXKHT

The birthday list is as long as my arm ending in Robert Frost (137). If you wanna see for yourself go here: MARCH FAMOUS B'DAYS and skip down to 3/26 (duh) and don't forget to add four years.

*about my crotch

The title quote is taken from this bulletin board thread: http://www.schwinnbike.com/heritage/showthread.php?t=54199

"Follow the bouncing ball..."

With spring approaching, I'm thinking about my bike. I love to ride in the city but I know it's very dangerous. I'm a defensive rider, usually taking the sidewalks (yeah I know, but I go slow around pedestrians). The fact is, I just don't trust cars. Intersections are dangerous. All cars are most certainly trying to kill me.

Paranoid or not, every year countless cyclists lose their lives to unaware motorists. Bike lanes improve the odds, but they're certainly not infallible in that at least here in Burlington, I've often observed drivers using them as turn lanes.

Statistics show that America has one of the worst bicycle fatality rates: three times higher than Germany, and six times higher than The Netherlands.

I keep a bike in Amsterdam and it never fails to astonish me how aware the drivers are even as they're speeding from one point to the next. My cousin, who lives there and is an avid cyclist said to me as I hesitated at an intersection, "Don't worry. They can't hit you."

By can't, he meant that the laws were on the cyclists side, and that the cabbies would lose their hack licenses, or worse, and therefore made a point of being more aware, as their livelihood depends on it. Not so much in the US where many (most) at fault drivers end up going unpunished for their obliviousness.

This amusing and enlightening (and very short) video is about awareness. I promise it will surprise you.

For more information on cycling statistics check out this informative site:

Bicycle Almanac - Safety, Fatalities & Injuries

Sent with hope, into the ether..
XXKHT
Damn Boring Birthdays: 3/24 - Steve McQueen (82!); Harry Houdini (138) and 3/25 - Sir Elton John (65!); Aretha "I wanna rock ya" Franklin (70); Anita "hope there is a hell so you can rot in it" Bryant (72); Gloria "yeah baby, burn that bra" Steinem (78); Howard "the mouth" Cosell (92); Arturo Toscanini (148)

"Bad luck is bending over to pick up a four-leaf clover and being infected by poison ivy." ~ unknown

I'm completely bored with listing so I'm going to tell a story instead:

Up until about sixth grade, we had a farm in West Virginia. We didn't live there, it belonged to my father's mother's family and it was a place we spent many memorable weekends getting away from the suburbs of DC.

To call the farm rustic would not be a stretch, as the asphalt shingle house listed heavily to one side and the comical effect was plainly noticeable from the road. The house had electricity, but any and all of the heat came from a large wood burning flat top cooking stove in the linoleum tiled kitchen. Spring water, from the core of the mountain, ran continuously into an algae filled tub at the edge of the back porch and toilet facilities were out of doors, or, in winter we used old fashioned pee pots or "potties" as they're called in antique stores - collectibles now, I've noticed.

But this story isn't really about the farm, or it's house, it's about the time in third grade when I was allowed to invite the entire third grade class at Annandale Springfield Country Day School to Spring Gap West Virginia for a hay ride picnic down at the creek (or "crick" as they say in those parts).

When I say my entire class, it's not exactly true, because the class was made up of thirteen girls and one boy, James Bonzell, who once threw a rock at the playground and hit me smack between the eyes, causing the need for a stitch or two (oy the blood was everywhere).

Needless to say, James was not invited to the party and besides, we didn't do things like that back then. Boys parties were boys parties and girls were girls, at least up until jr. high school.

I honestly can't remember any other details of the party, up until the time we were coming back from the creek, the hay wagon filled with giggling little girls in bathing suits, drying out in the hot sun.

Somebody needed to use the bathroom, and since there was only an outhouse waiting for us back at the farm, my dad pulled the tractor over and we all ran into the woods, chaperoned by my aunt Shirley.

As we finished our business, Shirley handed out leaves she'd foraged because we didn't have any toilet paper. We piled back onto the hay wagon and headed back to the farm.

I don't recall the phone calls that must have come in from anxious parents that evening, but I do rememberl the horror of realization as my own poison ivy rash broke out later that day (or night). I remember that it was too nasty to attend school the next school day and I suspect it was the same for the others.

A portent to the many bizarre disasters that were to line up to create the storyboard of my life so far.

I imagine to many of those girls, and maybe even James Bonzell, I'm the girl in third grade who gave a crotch malady to the whole class. Or maybe some have blocked it out as one of life's traumatic childhood experiences. How special.

F'the birthdays tonight. I'm breaking with convention.
XXKHT

"When God wants to punish you he answers your prayers"

The last in our triptych of Mr. Deity in celebration of the holy daze.

MR DEITY AND THE MESSAGES

I hope you all have a lovely day no matter what you're celebrating, or even if you're not.

XXKHT

Birthdays: PALE DAVE!! Chaka Kahn (59); Roger "four minute mile" Bannister (79); Doc Watson (89); Joan "No wire hangers!" Crawford (108)

editor's note: I just realized all these b'days I've been jacking from here: MARCH FAMOUS B'DAYS are four years back dated (except for today's and henceforth) - so add four years to the last month's b'days cuz I'm not going to go back and fix em... D'oh!

"If this is the best God can do, I'm not impressed." ~ George Carlin

Since it's the holy daze, I thought I'd run a little Mr. Deity triptych while Jesus is in purgatory (or wherever he goes between getting nailed up and re-animation):

MR DEITY AND THE REALLY BIG FAVOR

Happy Belated Equinox everyone!
XXKHT

Some B'days on this day: Reese Witherspoon (32); George Benson (65); William "Emoticon" Shatner (77); Marcel "Talk to the Hands" Marceau (85); Karl "Don't Leave Home Without It" Malden (96); Chico Marx (121)