Friday, March 15, 2002
The Ides of March and Toe Pinching
We were originally going to go to the vet today for the dog's annual heartworm checkup, but cancelled that because it's the Ides of March, and well, we're superstitious. So instead, this morning Stan and I went to my bank to open a small 6-month CD with the left over money from the refinancing. So on our CD, the opening date says March 15, 2002, (the Ides of March) and the maturity date says September 11, 2002 (the 1-year anniversary of the 911 Attack). Just another of those WEIRD things...
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Since the tone of my journal lately has been bringing up bad stuff from my past (which is sort of fun to write about, I don't know why), I thought I'd mention this one thing from when I was about eight:
I had moved to Liverpool, New York (suburb of Syracuse) from Raynham, Massachusetts (suburb of nowhere) in the summer of '69. I was about to start the third grade. Craven Crawford Elementary in the housing development of Bayberry (which is probably its own suburb of Liverpool by now) was a much larger school than North School in Raynham that was a very old four classroom school house that only housed first and second grade. I actually enjoyed myself at CC Elementary and got along well with the other kids, unlike my to-be-future experience of moving to Colorado, but that's another story.
Lots of kids ate in the very large lunchroom, and for some odd reason the janitors were the lunchroom monitors. We were all pretty well-behaved, but we naturally had annoying kid habits that were only natural, one being putting our feet up on the lunchroom chairs. This annoyed one janitor in particular, a big fat man that just seemed monstrous compared to us elementary students. Since he abhored cleaning mud and dirt off the chairs, he implemented his own preventive measure: pinching the toes of the offending students. I couldn't believe my eyes when I first saw him reach down to pinch a toe of a student. I couldn't believe the cruelty. He actually made some kids cry. I made up my mind I would never ever put my feet up on the chair.
Then one time I was caught up in fun and conversation and absentmindedly put my foot up on the chair where it was more comfortable.
It happened in slow motion, the hand reaching down...I didn't even know what was happening; the grasping of my toe...was this really what I thought it was? The hard squeeze and pinch, and then a shake of the hand holding the foot which seemed to send more of a signal of shame than just a steady pinch would have. I couldn't believe I forgot not to put my foot up! After it was over, my face turned red and my toe still hurt from the excessive force he used. The other kids looked at me, their expressions were that of empathetic indifference as they all had it happen to them at some time too. We went on eating our lunches as if nothing happened; those things happened every day.
It's just amazing that someone like that was allowed to get away with that. What a scary person. I hope when he went to a nursing home, one of the former students there was an aide taking care of him...and paid him back each time he got something dirty.
Posted by Ann @ 11:37 AM CST ..::Link::..
Thursday, March 14, 2002
There I go again...usurping authority and security measures...
The painting that won best of show is pictured at left.
See a larger detail here. The picture below it is of me to show you a size perspective...it's one of my smaller works. The lighting in this gallery was horrible...fluorescent lights...which is why my color looks odd (I tried color correction in Photoshop, but to not much avail. Because my paintings utilize a lot of metal and iridescence that cannot be captured with a still shot, it's really hard to really "see" the work with this digital representation. These photos were taken Tuesday night. We also shot some with my 35mm camera, but decided to come back last night to shoot some more, this time using a tripod.
We were standing there, minding our own business, shooting my painting, when these dumpling-shaped rent-a-cop security guys came up behind us. I was unaware of their presence as they were behind me; Stan, who was doing the actual shooting, saw them, but ignored them. Then they started to speak. I forgot what they initially said, but I figured they would want to see my ID to make sure that I was the artist. Naturally, I'm thinking of practical things like copyright infringement. 
The "head cop" looked like an older version of Fletch from Repo Man...he had greyer hair, perhaps a toupee, and a "molesterstache". He was accompanied by a foreheadless cretin that stared me up and down, leeringly, his butt-boy, his silent partner. The younger one didn't speak, he just stood there and stared at me, not at Stan, not into my eyes, but at my body. Obviously, he didn't pass cop school so he became a security guard assistant.
"This is my picture, I'm the artist. Would you like to see my ID?" I reach for my purse.
He shook his head. "You're not allowed to take any pictures inside the hospital at all," the older one said.
"I'm just shooting my picture, that's all. I don't have a slide of it."
"Well there are procedures for doing this, and Sarah Grimes is in charge of the gallery, and all things have to be cleared by her. Did you speak to her?"
"Yes I did." I had spoken to Sarah, she had called me last week and said someone might be interested in buying my painting, although I hadn't spoken to her specifically about shooting my picture. I didn't know I had to.
"Did she give you permission?" I couldn't believe I was getting this runaround for shooting my own freakin' painting! It's not like I was shooting pictures of the hospital itself, or patients, or their equipment, or the secret experiments they're doing with pig-men.
"I spoke to Mary Ann Fahl who is the chair of Artful Women, and I told her I hadn't taken a slide of my painting yet, and she told me I'd better hurry down here and do that as people have expressed interest in buying it."
"What was that name? Mary... Ann? Falk?"
"Fahl. Mary Ann Fahl."
"I'll have to go check with my supervisor..." he headed off with piggy-boy behind him (it's at least nice that they employ their secret experiments).
Stan and I stood there. I was seething, but Stan calmly finished shooting the roll of film. "I wonder if they're really going to check with a supervisor or if they're heading off to the donut bar?" he wondered. He folded up the tripod and started to leave. "Oh, look, they're coming back."
I looked behind me and the two apparently were heading back in our direction, but turned to go into a locked room. Stan and I left the hospital grounds.
I just hate these types who are put in charge and obviously cannot distinguish between a benign incident of an artist shooting a picture of her own work, minding her own business, and someone who's using a camera for nefarious purposes. And it was like they were so feeble in taking care of the problem, too. If they really thought we were a security problem or something, why did they wander off together instead of perhaps leaving butt-boy to keep an eye on Stan and I while the Fletch guy went to check it out? (Although I don't know what he could've accomplished at 7pm at night when most the administrative staff has left) Or maybe watch us while we finish shooting JUST MY PAINTING and accompany us out to make sure that we don't start photographing their secret experiments of pig-men? I mean, it was just so feeble. And disturbing. And that little dork that kept staring at me...aaaarrgh! Stan said I should've said to him as he was wandering off behind Fletch as his head was still turned toward me, "Get a good look?" like what Elaine said to Dalrymple in the cleavage episode.
This reminded me too much of my Mexico incident. Hassling the innocent while the guilty are slipping through the cracks.
Stan and I joked that this incident will cause the hospital not to host any more art exhibits. And it's all my fault.
But you know, I am kind of paranoid about it...
Posted by Ann @ 12:01 PM CST ..::Link::..
Wednesday, March 13, 2002
How DARE I earn a living!
New SQUARE jPEG, Deb's "Summer Place"!
I found a random blog today that was proudly displaying a bunch of those "Validated HTML Certified Checked by W3C" buttons on their site and I couldn't click on their links! Kind of like the kind of pompous parents with the "my child is an honor roll student at..." bumper sticker, and they can't even signal properly or stay in their lane.
I also found something in my referrers yesterday that was a real NPW (Nasty Piece of Work) slagging sites like mine and another well-known web designer, that have the audacity to sell graphics to newbies because graphics pollute the web! Her site was horrible...bad color combinations, lame "hmmm...I've seen that graphic 1000 X before" pale blue cloud pattern background (which didn't go with her other color choices of green and pink and gold, BTW).
It all made me realize...people take this web stuff waaaaaay too seriously.
I'm off to work on my paintings, and maybe throw darts at my Jacob Nielsen dartboard.
Posted by Ann @ 08:55 AM CST ..::Link::..
Tuesday, March 12, 2002
I am in shock!!!!
This past Sunday, Stan and I attended the Artful Women juried show that I was in (self-juried, one piece per woman). It was at the UW Hospital's Skylight Gallery and quite stuffy and hot, as you know how hospitals are. They were going to have awards later, both "official" awards given by the committee as well as People's Choice Award. Stan kidded me, "Do you want me to vote for your piece for People's Choice?" "No, don't bother, you know how I hate that stuff," I told him. We ate some food, but didn't stick around too long. We had taken cameras to photograph my piece as I heard rumours that it might sell and foolish me hadn't documented it previously, but it was too crowded so we decided to come back later in the week when there were fewer people.
I had a sort of a bad night last night and didn't get much sleep. I had just gotten off the phone with Stan around 1 pm today to ask him if he could pick up some slide duplications of mine on the way home. As I hung up the phone, it rang again immediately. Still groggy from trying to catch up on some sleep, the woman on the other end was the chair of the Artful Women committee, asking if I was going to be home in the next ten minutes. I said I would be, and wondered what on earth could be going on.
She delivered me a bouquet of flowers (Azaeleas?) and said I had won Best of Show!!!
Now you know that I don't seek out awards. I will continue to enter this show (as I have since I've lived in Madison) regardless of this or not.
Thank you, Artful Women! This is such a wonderful surprise!
Picture of flowers, congratulations card and check. "Armless" cat not part of the award, but Persephone wanted to be part of the picture anyway.
Posted by Ann @ 01:50 PM CST ..::Link::..
And all I can do is fantasize about a painful castration and facial mutilation for this dumbass.
We put a man on the moon over three decades ago, and we still can't prevent credit card fraud before the damn thief gets away with the merchandise.
I just got another reversal through an online retailer of my fonts. This sh*thead has my fonts illegally:
Jim Harris
JUST4U@LAW.COM
CHICAGO, IL, US cctype: Visa ccref: 5873 (I think this is the last 4 numbers of the visa he swiped)
I doubt the email address is legit.
Posted by Ann @ 10:17 AM CST ..::Link::..
Monday, March 11, 2002
Free to good home: heart-slightly used
When I started college back in 1979, I was going through a really rough time. My friendship with my best friend from high school, Harriet, was ending, her choice, and a long story. Other friends from high school went to different colleges and we seemed to be a bit alienated in our ideals. I had an on-again, off-again lightweight boyfriend, Lenny. I hung around him a bit, but it was so difficult to keep a conversation going with him. He thought I was "too intense." I had another male friend, Tom, but he was at another university. The first class I had on Monday, Wednesday and Friday was Drawing 101, I think it was called. There was a familiar face in it, someone that I was acquainted with from my high school, Shelly. We became incredibly fast friends that first college semester. We seemed to have so much in common, at least at that time in our lives. She told other people we were best friends (which seemed sort of junior high if you asked me). We did everything together. I was there for her when she needed a shoulder to cry on after losing her job. She helped me out at a job I had. I helped her out with her figurative drawing ability, which she was struggling with. She supported me when I was having a hard time dealing with the breakup of my friendship with Harriet. I opened up a whole new world of music to her beyond much of the MOR pop/rock she listened to. We spent New Years Eve together with Tom, and went to see The Who with Lenny and another friend of hers. We were inseparable.
Then she met Rick. ..::more::..
Posted by Ann @ 07:54 PM CST ..::Link::..
Strange Day
I just realize that dreaming kills bunnies. :( Maybe I shouldn't post my dreams anymore.
A couple of strange things happened today. We went to a 2nd hand shop and bought some saucers to use for putting under plants. The lady checking us out seemed...not all together there. It took her forever to ring us up as she checked the price tags over and over. Then all of a sudden she exclaimed as she looked at me "You have beautiful hair!" Stan looked at me with and nodded, agreeing with her, sort of to calm any misgivings I may have about my hair. So, the good news is that I have beautiful hair...the questionable news is that is the opinion of someone who is not all together there. Oops...I didn't mean to make it sound like Stan isn't all together there; oh well.
Then we went to a hardware store. As we walked in, a customer standing in the paint aisle turned around to look at us, noticing Stan's black leather jacket said, "Enjoying biking outside today?" I noticed a Harley Davidson logo on the back of his jacket. Stan didn't understand what he said and asked, "I'm sorry?" The guy didn't respond. It was just odd...it was as if he thought just because Stan was wearing a black leather jacket (which is NOT a motorcycle jacket), that he was a biker. Too strange.
Posted by Ann @ 06:21 PM CST ..::Link::..
Ghost Tape...a real-life spooky mystery
On Saturday, Stan was sorting through a bunch of his books and VCR tapes in the living room in preparation for removing the old rug and installing the new one. As he came across VCR tapes that were generically marked, he'd put them into the player to watch a few minutes of them to see whether he should keep them out as tapes to record over, or stash them away for safekeeping. One tape had us particularly baffled. It was not in with the rest of the tapes, but rather in with a bunch of his physics books (yes, he reads quantum physics books for fun and relaxation...don't ask). As he put it in the player and pushed "play," we were even more baffled by what appeared to be on the tape. ..::more::..
Posted by Ann @ 09:46 AM CST ..::Link::..
So Quote Me
"Beware the Ides of March," a soothsayer to Julius Ceasar, 44 BC
"Beware the Ideas of March," Ann Stretton to Stan Starbuck, 1995 AD