Well shit, I'm starting to feel like a professional artist!

Since I just decided to take up painting as my new hobby just this year, I had to buy a whole bunch of art supplies all at once. I couldn't get everything I wanted right away, because that shit starts to add up - - paints are expensive, and so are brushes, nevermind the other extra things there are out there - - so I'd been making do with an old backpack to tote my supplies back and forth to class. And while I did get an easel for home, it was a cheap one, and it's a big one that stands on the floor; so big that actually my small pear painting couldn't sit in the middle of the easel, b/c it would fall backwards through the hole. I had it propped up against just one of the legs of the tripod whenever I was working on it. Which was all fine, no problem.

But for my birthday, my boss and my paralegal went in together and gave me a fantastic gift: an art supply box, with adjustable trays and compartments to hold a bunch of different stuff, and a table-top easel, which is also adjustable for small and large canvases. Both are made of beech wood, and both are nice. And both gifts took me completely by surprise; I had actually wanted both of those things, because I'd seen other people in my art class with variations of those things that I coveted, but I had not mentioned either one to either my boss or my paralegal. They just guessed at what they thought might make a good but returnable if I already had it gift relevant to my new hobby, and they couldn't have picked two better items, as far as I'm concerned.

I feel like a kid with a new toy on her birthday. I've already organized all my paints and shit in my new wooden box, and set up my tabletop easel too. Now I can REALLY pretend to be an artist!!!!

This is the stock I come from.

One of my mom's cousins told a story this weekend about herself, her dog, and the electric fence surrounding her property.

There's a cat in her neighborhood that has realized that her dog can't leave the yard. So the cat stalks up and down the boundary of their property, antagonizing the dog. The dog barks at it constantly but can't cross the electric fence to go after it.

Well one day last week, the cat must have done something really outrageous to piss off the dog. Because the dog did cross the electric fence. But once it was on the other side, it didn't want to cross the fence to come back home. Understandably, of course.

The dog-owning cousin, once she realized this, went out to get the dog and bring it back home. When she got to the dog, she took its collar off, the one that reacts to the electric fence, so that the dog could run freely back into its own yard. Which it immediately and happily did.

Having done her duty, the cousin then went back home herself.

Carrying the electric dog collar in her hand.

Yeah. Just because you took it off the dog doesn't mean it stops working.

When she hit the electric fence, she said, she threw that goddamn collar as far as she could throw. But not before she got the shock of her life.

And as hard as I laughed when she told that story, all I could think was, "that's totally something that I would do too." My family: we come from smart stock.

This is just ... so wrong.

In so many ways.



Male anchor back in the studio: "Have we ever done what to a big bear?"

Offending delicate sensibilities in the workplace (Or, Pumping pink cum from the rubber penis in the office kitchen)

Our office has generic-looking soap dispensers in the restrooms and in the kitchen. Every once in a while, I've noticed that the woman who works here who cleans our area of the office gets lazy about refilling the soap dispenser. Rather than taking the empty soap thing out of the dispenser and replacing it with a new soap refill, she'll just plop the soap refill down next the sink for people to use.

And what an unfortunate-looking soap refill it is. It's basically a bag of pink soap, with a rubber tube jutting out of the bottom of it. When put in the dispenser, I think that the rubber tube fits up against the little lever that you press when you want it to dispense soap. The pink bag and the rubber tube are completely hidden from view when it's in the dispenser.

When it's just sitting out next to the sink though, not in the dispenser, there's no nondescript little lever or button to push to get soap to come out. Instead, you have to squeeze the rubber tube to get the soap to come out. It's kind of like having to squeeze a really tiny little penis that shoots pink stuff into your palm.

Seriously, every time I've ever seen that little refill sitting all by itself next to a sink, I've thought that it looks like a tiny little penis. And every time I've had to sqeeze that rubber tube to get the soap, I've had sexual (though gross) thoughts.

I've often wondered if other people in the office also can't help thinking unfortunate thoughts and feeling kind of dirty (how's that for irony) whenever they have to wash their hands and that's the only soap available. I've never heard anybody else make a comment about it. Out loud, anyway.

But today, when I went into the kitchen and saw another refill sitting on the edge of the sink, I saw that someone had made a comment about it. Actually, someone had left a comment on it. I don't know if they did this as a joke, recognizing what everybody probably thinks anyway and leaving a note to give people a laugh, (in which case, well done), or if they were seriously offended and did this to try to get the cleaning lady to stop just leaving refills by the sink instead of replacing them inside the actual dispensers (in which case, way to be tactful). Either way, I thought it was pretty funny. Funny enough to take a picture of with my cell phone.

Here's the picture:



The sticky note says, "This is disgusting!"

And I have to agree. Seriously, should I really have to pump a rubber penis until it spews pink gunk just to be able to wash my hands at work?

p.s. My boss just asked me if I was the one who left the note. Apparently it looks like something I'd do.

Unimpressed

I have to say, the cats don't seem all that thrilled about the latest version:

Friday Night

I cut out of work a little early today, to catch a 4:30 movie. I saw "I love you, man." It was pretty funny ... I'd kinda hoped it would be a bit better than it was, but still, it was entertaining.

Watching Bruce Springsteen perform on the Daily Show right now. I love Bruce. I don't know what it is about his music, his voice, his lyrics, shit maybe it's just his harmonica ... whatever it is, it resonates with me. Makes me feel.

Bought a salmon filet earlier that I was planning on cooking for dinner tonight, but right now I'm so into the crab dip and crackers and chardonnay that I got at the same time I bought the salmon, that I'm starting to think I'm going to stick with snacking on the crab dip and crackers for dinner tonight, save the salmon for tomorrow night.

I'm still trying to figure out what I need to do to my painting. I've been playing with the fruit, I could probably keep playing with the fruit forever; but I still can't figure out what to do with the background. I decided the mirror thing felt like it made the whole canvas too busy, and it just wasn't right, so I painted over it. I still feel like it needs something else on the top half of the canvas though; I just can't figure out quite what. I'm thinking I might end up not putting anything back there at all, but if I can think of something small enough, just to add a little extra something, then maybe ... who knows. Anyway, here's the latest:

You've come a long way, baby.

It feels like I've come full circle in my legal career today, in a way.

For the first time today, I presented oral argument on appeal from a big case I tried a couple years ago to the Court where I clerked my first year out of law school. Back then I was a brand new lawyer, fresh out of law school, learning my way, clerking for the chief judge of the appellate court, reading appellate briefs daily, listening with respect to more seasoned lawyers present oral argument, and helping to draft court opinions. Today, I was one of those more seasoned lawyers presenting the oral argument. It felt good.

Especially since I KILLED IT. YEAH!!!!!!!

I argued before a panel of 3 appellate judges. One of the three was a judge on that bench back when I clerked there all those years ago. After oral arguments in this court, the judges always shake the hands of the lawyers who presented the argument. When this particular judge shook my hand today, she smiled and winked at me. That was cool, too.

Oh, and by the way, did I mention that I KILLED IT in court today? Yeah I did. WOOHOO!!!! I've come a long way, baby.

LOL break

There's a website I check daily with (usually) funny pictures of (mostly) cats with captions, called lolcats. The site's actually called I can has cheezburger. Anyway, I checked it out tonight while on a break from work, and I saw this picture that I particularly like and want to share.

When I first saw this picture I laughed. Then I thought to myself, "God, this could happen to me one day. Let's hope I don't hit this stage..."

Latest version

I think the mirror is definitely growing on me. Only my question now is, does this mean I have to paint a reflection in the mirror now? B/c I don't think I could do that. And I think if I tried I'd end up with something really weird-looking. So I'm kind of hoping I can get away with calling that a mirror w/o doing anything else to it. But does it look like a mirror in a frame? Or does it just look like a blueish-gray square outlined in yellowish/goldish-brown back there?

Anyway, that's where I am now. Guess I'll try to finish up the fruit this week, then see how it looks then.

The subconscious at work

I'm reading a legal brief written by a real asshole of a lawyer, and doing some legal research for my own brief in response. As I work, I can't help but think about what a slimy little jerkwad this guy is.

I've been making myself notes on a sticky pad as I go, sticking them to cases that I print and tagging pages of his brief with notes here and there. Mostly my sticky notes say things like "expert testimony," "due process," "no prejudicial error," things like that. But one of my sticky notes says "Aargh ... what a sneaky little weasel. Slimeball."

I wrote that sticky note about an hour or so ago, when I was feeling particularly perturbed by one of the arguments that this guy made in his brief, and a case that he cited, and the implication that he was clearly trying to make by the way he said what he said. Taking a dig at me and my client that was really, completely unnecessary - that's essentially what he was doing.

Then I looked back down at my sticky note just now, and noticed that I had drawn a little doodle around the word "Slimeball" - it looks like I started to draw a box around it and then ended up going with more of a circle thing. I think the reason I probably ended up making a circle-thing after starting off making a box-thing around the word was b/c the S was too big to fit in the box, so I just tried to loop it on in there. But the funny thing is, I just noticed that it actually looks kind of like I drew a dick around the word "Slimeball."



The subconscious at work, I guess. He really is a little prick.

The painting, continued...

Well, I didn't like the extra piece of fruit I added. So I took it off. But I still thought it could use something else. So since I took off the extra piece of fruit in the bottom corner, I decided to add something to the wall in the background. A mirror. And once I did that, I thought the cobalt blue rim on the tray was too much, so I painted over that as well. Not sure what I'm going to do with it from here. This may all be a mistake too. Hmmm. We'll see.

More of the painting in progress

I decided to add another piece of fruit to my painting since my last post. Not sure if that was a good idea or not. And I've got a lot of bright colors going on right now; I'm not really crazy about them, but that'll change as I keep working on it. Although I do kind of like the cobalt blue on the rim I added to the serving dish. But it still feels kind of ... off, somehow. Like something's either missing or not right. In the general layout, I mean. Maybe I shouldn't have painted my table on the diagonal, maybe that's what's throwing me; or maybe I should've put the whole tray of fruit more in the middle ... it looks like it's about to fall off the bottom of the canvas. Hmmm. Well, I guess I'll keep playing with it for a while; maybe once I get the colors looking more the way I want them, get the fruit looking "fatter," as my teacher said my pears looked, then I'll start digging it. Right now I'm kind of ho-hum. But still having fun, which is the whole point really.

The neophyte at work

A week or two ago I posted a picture of my first painting, which I did while taking my first actual art class. Sadly my class is over, but I'm so inspired by how much I enjoyed the class and the process of painting those pears, that I've begun a second painting that I'm now doing all on my own here at home. And this time, I've decided to document the progress of the painting as I go.

It began with a trip to the grocery store, to buy fruit, which I then arranged on a serving dish, which I then placed on top of an empty cardboard box that was sitting on the floor in the room in my house that I call my "study" because it's sort of a random room where I hang out a lot and where my computer is and where most of my books are and a tv too, and which is where I've been doing all my painting since I started this class. Here is a photo of the fruit as I arranged it at one point (it went through multiple arrangements):



So I sketched that with a pencil onto a canvas that I had started to use for something else but that I had then taken a lot of the paint off of because I didn't like that something else, and so the canvas was left covered with shades of yellow and green. But I didn't sketch it exactly as it looked, because I had to make some adjustments so that I could draw something that would fit onto my canvas (esp. since I added a bottle of wine to the drawing too), (also, I adjusted the positions of the fruit several times between that picture above and the final sketch, so there's that difference too), and this is what I came up with (if you can make out this crappy picture):



Then I used some brown paint that I mixed up and a small brush to go over the outline of my sketch, then I started filling in my very first layer of paint on everything, just to get it started, and that is where I am now, and this is how it looks right now:



It will not look like this when I'm done, b/c I'm going to change the colors a lot as I go and play with it as I go, like I did with the pears, which started out as three solid yellow blobs; and I'll probably try to get rid of the harsh brown outline that I've started with by the end of it all, but there you go.

This painting stuff is good therapy, btw, I tell you what. SO GLAD I started this new hobby; it actually makes me feel relaxed when I get home from work and start doing this. I get into a zone ... a really cool, relaxed, focused-yet don't-care-if I-screw-up-because-this-is-just-for-fun kind of zone, and it's awesome.

Things that make you go "hmmm"

At 11:42 a.m., The New York Times posted this news article.

Then, at 11:54 a.m., it posted this little bit of news.

Any correlation, ya think?

A klutz never learns

Dangit, can't I EVER get through a day without spilling something on myself? Yesterday afternoon a speck of sauce dropped off of my sandwich and onto my shirt; the day before that, coffee spilled onto the skirt of my dress; and just now, Diet Coke dribbled down the front of my cream-colored blouse. Why do I have to be that person who always has a stain on her clothes? Argh.

Full Frontal and the R Movie Rating

I was just sitting here in my office, the place where I'm supposed to "work," indulging in a little daydream action featuring my most recent celebrity crush, Jason Segel.

I don't know what's got me crushing on him all of a sudden, I mean he has been around for awhile after all; I think it's that Lifetime recently started airing 2 episodes of How I Met Your Mother every Monday night, starting at the very beginning of the series, and I just happened to get a TiVo right before they started, so I've recorded all of them so far and sometimes engage in a random late-night How-I-Met-Your-Mother-athon when I can't sleep, and I've decided way late that I really do like that show. Mostly I've decided that I really do like that actor, Jason Segel.

He seems pretty goofy, comes across kind of dorky but yet still fun, like you'd probably have a good time if you were ever to just hang out with him doing a whole lot of nothing. And he's cute, again in a kind of goofy way, and tall, and he's good at the whole comedy thing, which makes me think he's a funny guy in real life. And there are all these previews floating around right now about this new movie he's in that's coming out soon, Bromance, or I Love You Man, or something like that, that I'm probably going to end up going to see in the movie theater, because it looks like it should be pretty funny, at least as far as I can tell.

Then I remembered how he was also in that movie Forgetting Sarah Marshall, which I saw, which I was kind of disappointed in overall but I did still enjoy just the fact that he was in it, because like I said, there's something about him I find likeable. Like, he seems like the kind of guy I would really, really like to date. And THEN I remembered, and couldn't believe that I had forgotten, that he has full frontal nudity in that movie. Which I also really enjoyed, even if it wasn't done in a way that was supposed to turn you on but instead was done in a way that it made the scene funnier, it was still nudity, which I generally enjoy.

So since I was spending all this time sitting here thinking about all this, I googled Jason Segel, to see if I could find any more fodder for my daydream/fantasies of him in which he plays the part of my boyfriend. And I saw this interview he did where he talked about the full frontal scene in the Sarah Marshall movie, and there's this quote in the interview where he says he found out that you can have male full frontal nudity in a movie and keep an R rating so long as the penis is flaccid. And there was this other quote in the same article from John C. Reilly, who apparantly has also done a full frontal scene in a movie, which I did not know, and Reilly was agreeing about how you can show the penis in a movie and keep an R rating as long as the penis is flaccid, and then he said, and I thought this was funny, "In my movie, when people are looking at it, they feel a little bad for the penis."

I think he hit on something there, even if he was just being all self-deprecating and funny when he said it; I think maybe that's the distinction. If a movie shows a guy with a rock hard dick, well then, he's obviously either about to fuck someone or really wishes he was fucking someone; either way it makes you think about sex, it's very sexual. But if a movie shows a guy with a limp penis hanging there, well then, I could see how you might just look at that and feel a little bad for the penis. "Awww, look at that poor little penis, I can't believe they just showed that." And I guess if you're either laughing at it or feeling sorry for it, then it's just an R, whereas if you're looking at it with drool running out your mouth thinking about how you haven't been laid in ages and you'd like to feel that pounding away inside of you, well then we're a little beyond the R at that point.

And those are my Wednesday afternoon thoughts, brought to you from my office. I think I just spent a good half hour at least with all this, what with the daydreaming and the googling and the random stream of thoughts and the post that has no point and probably makes little sense, and now I'm a little closer to time to go home. And really, I guess that was the point after all, so mission accomplished there.

UPDATE: Uh-oh, I think maybe that whole logic up above about the flaccidness of the penis dictating the r movie rating is flawed after all ... because I just remembered, wasn't Harvey Keitel shown fully naked and sporting a solid erection, about to throw down Holly Hunter and take her right there, in the movie "The Piano," and wasn't that movie rated R? I believe so. I believe I do recall that erection, and I think it was an R. Oh well, so much for that theory.

That dirty rotten scoundrel...

Sounds to me like this guy took a few lessons from Lawrence Jamieson and Freddy Benson.



"Ruprecht, do you want the genital cuff?"

It's a sad world.

Flipping through channels on the television, I came across a program on little girls who enter beauty pageants, and their fucked up freaked out moms who drag them all over creation and dress them up like teenage sluts to compete for tiaras and sashes.

One little girl's aunt was criticizing her sister, the girl's mom, for letting the girl - who is all of seven years old - shave her legs (the tan sprays on better if the legs are smooth, the mom says) and get highlights in her hair (what can I say, she wants them, the mom says). The aunt thinks the girl's just too young to be doing all that. I gotta go with the aunt on this one.

Then another mom was shown rolling her 5-year-old daughter's hair in curlers. As she curled her daughter's hair, the mom spoke to the camera. She said: "Part of pageants that I don't like is all the fakeness. I don't really agree with tanning, or anything like that."

Hmm, maybe this mom still has a few brain cells left in her head, I was thinking to myself. But then she continued:

"We do use the fake eyelashes and the hair extensions, but that's it." - - What?

Sigh. What the fuck is wrong with people.

awww....

I hate to see any dog get hurt even just a little bit, so I feel badly for this poor doggie in this video, but I can't help it ... it's still hilarious:

BEHOLD, MY MASTERPIECE:

I call it, "Pears."

I took the photo with the camera in my cell phone; not a great shot, kinda shaky, but you get the idea. Not bad for my first painting ever, first art class ever, huh? I think I'll hang it up somewhere in the house.

Look at me, I'm an artist! :)