Nice Weekend. Now, I'm depressed.

Depression. Other sentence fragments. Ennui. What a good word, Ennui. Deceptively fun to say.

I had a nice time this weekend visiting all of Teri's relatives. We went to Salmon Fest in Leavenworth and had a good time. Next year, I may enter the chalk art contest.

Then we came home and everything was right where we left it. I hate that. Brownies should clean when I'm away from home. And then cook a nice dinner and have it ready when I walk in. And draw a bubble bath in the fancy hot tub that they installed in the new basement they dug under the stairs. The hot tub should be next to the game room and there should be a plasma TV on the the wall. One of those obscenely large ones that I could watch football on (if I watched football, which I might if I had a huge plasma TV and a hot tub).

Then the brownies should go away, leaving lots of cash on the kitchen counter to buy pizza with after the left-overs from the big dinner are gone. They could leave the cash right next to the keys to my new motorcycle (which they should have custom built after they dug the basement) that way I don't have to walk my lazy butt to class. And then they can call their little leprechaun buddies (on their own phones, talk about long distance charges!) and have them make new shoes for the kids. Just because.

Holy Crowds Batman!

Okay. Going to the In-Laws for the weekend. Normally a pretty cool thing. They're nice folks who have a great place on an orchard up in the hills. Its beautiful and peaceful there. This weekend there is going to be a huge crowd of people. The Mom and Dad; 2, The Sister and family; 4, The Cousin and family; 4, the Neice; 1, the Uncle and family; 5 and Us; 4. That's 20. Add to that the very real possibility of the other Sister and her bunch ( another 5) and the Uncle and Aunt who live nextdoor as well as the girlfriend of one of the nephews and we're up to 28.

I'm too old and cranky to sleep on the floor and its going to be too cold to pitch a tent outside. This adds up to a potentially stressfull mix. I'm a bit afraid of this little weekend get-away.

Yipes! New stuff!

I actually added something. I'm so proud. See the keen link to my Facebook profile over there on the right? Click it.

A blog? I have a blog?

You know, I almost never post here. I had almost forgotten I even had a blog. Bad Jim. I'll try to post something substantive in the next few days.

Twisted art?

I'm taking an advanced drawing class this semester that is looking at the performance art movement. The textbook is frightening. I'm still a bit conservative, I suppose, because a bunch of the stuff in that book isn't art to me. Some of it looks like blatant appeals for the intervention of mental health professionals.

With that in mind, I've made it a point thus far to choose projects for myself that don't harm anyone physically ( and hopefully only jar slightly on the mental or emotional level) while still being creative and compelling enough to stand on their own. I think I've done pretty well so far, I'm pulling a B+ or A- by my calculations.

But the final project, oi. We have to pick a historical figure, read a biography of same and then take on the role of that person to perform 5 acts in the world. These acts are then to be documented by drawings, paintings or photographs (the prof has a very fluid definition of "drawing"). Not so bad, really.

Except, I picked Vlad Tepes. Mostly because I was interested in reading the book (which spends chapters on Hollywood vampires and literary vampires as well). But it occurs to me now that maybe the class is getting to me, at least as far as my choice of historical figure goes. I'm about halfway through the book and I realize that some of the stuff this guy is thought to have done isn't so very far removed from some of the "art" pieces in the creepy textbook.

So, I'm going to try to turn it around. I'm not sure just how yet but I think I can find a way to use old Vlad the Impaler to shine a light on the depravity of the whole movement we're looking at. Wish me luck. Or else its the stake for you! ;)

For Duncan

Okay, what if the wheel of samsara actually turns counter to our perception of time? The Hindu concept of reincarnation then leads to each successive life being further and further back in time. Each previous generation being smaller than the current one, we see more and more souls attaining nirvana as we proceed back in time.

Perhaps then animal souls become karmicly more pure than human souls? The ever increasing number of people in the world, according to our perception of time as flowing into the future, gives an indication of the great number of souls that began with Brahman. The number of extinctions within the animal world follows then, and by extension, eventually all animal species must die out and only humans will be left on or in the world. Humans being the basic form of soul from which the cycle started.

Take that! :)

The wonder of youth

I was walking my 5 year old son into preschool yesterday. He was eager to get inside in the hopes of being the first one in his class to arrive (this is an enormously huge deal when you're 5). As we stepped up onto the sidewalk another family got out of their car to head inside just in front of us. They had a little girl who had to be around 4.

My son takes one look at her and says (loudly, because its cool to be loud when you're 5) "Look at that baby! She's tiny!" His tone positively dripped a proud sense of superiority (you're not a baby when you're 5). Then the tiny diminutive person, seat of such wonder, performed a miracle even greater than that of existing with a smaller stature than that of a 5 year old. She spoke to her mother!

My son heard this (your hearing isn't mangled by headphones when you're 5) and he cried out in abject awe. His little voice so full of wonder that small mammals and birds darted out of the shrubbery to have a glimpse, he yelled, "AND, she can TALK!"

I felt such pride that my own son has not yet grown so world weary and cynical that he can't appreciate the wonder of an honest-to-goodness talking 4 year old. Next, we'll go looking for a surly and antisocial teenage boy! What joy!