Ok, I'm crazy, but I think I can do it...

Put a set of fully articulated angel wings on a beautiful woman that she can move at will, and have them look like they grew there.  *chuckle*  Yes, of course, spun off of the Victoria's Secret thing on TV, but hey... a better challenge than figuring out how to say blow up someone's satellite in orbit without them knowing who done the dirty deed.

The First rule of Warehouse...

See the floor? Sweep the floor.  That's the first rule of warehouse, and it's a good rule because you really never know how long it's going to be before you see that patch of floor empty enough again to run a broom over it.  It's my rule, and I follow it.

As it stands right now I'm looking at a lot of clean floor.  My life at the moment isn't nearly as full as it has been in years past, pretty much everything will fit on the shelves with room to spare.  It seems almost empty by comparison, even though it's really not.  The job is done, the kids are raised, the wife has gone on and I'm standing here looking at what's left now that for the first time in a very long time my motives are truly just my own. 

I did this once before as a matter of fact.  That was 1974, and I stayed on base through the holidays.  I remember, sort of, what I was thinking then.  I was thinking how empty the holidays always felt, how they always carried that sour tang of exclusion.  I beat them to the punch that year,  I Scrooged that Christmas bigger than Dallas. 

This year Christmas isn't getting scrooged, this year the kids and I agreed we'd celebrate Christmas on Jan. 7th along with the folks on the far side of the world where Jesus is remembered by the Eastern Orthodox people rather than the Roman Catholics and Protestant churches.  Just works out better that way for us since the son will be working open to close so some folks with kids can spend the day with their families and there's a good chance the daughters will be pulling half shifts as well.  By the seventh those who are celebrating now will be back and time off won't be hard to come by.

So this year while the rest of my land is celebrating what I'm doing is looking at all this clean floor and wondering what should go back to fill it, and I suppose it's fair to say I'm being a bit picky.  As of right now the only promises hanging are the ones I made to myself.  They were always the last ones considered anyway, I knew I'd understand.  And I did.  But now it's my turn, and the very first thing I want to put back is a good plan that actually reflects the me I've become during those years of keeping the promises I made to the other folks.  I think that's probably the best thing to do, really, now while I've got the chance figure out what should go where since there's a good chance I'll never see this much clean floor again.

Why the Anglo World is totally f***'ed up...

I saw it today, I saw it in print, saw it on Anne of Carversville's emerging power blog.  It only took three words.  I think the three words were intended as the title of a one woman art show somewhere in Gotham City, or was it New York?  No matter, those two play about the same. 

But did the artist chose those words?  Is it possible she actually understood the problem, but had no voice other than her colors on canvas?  Or is she just another of the multitude who suffers away a lifetime to the contradiction? Mux nix, the three words stand on their own.  They define exactly how totally twisted the language has become... and as a consequence of that twist of implied meaning, that twist of shorthand convenience in support of mandatory immaturity as a condition of social acceptance... why so very many are so confused and helpless and hurting, trying to build a life when the very symbols they've been taught to think in sabotage their every effort from the get-go.  What three words?

Love before Intimacy.

That has got to be the most impossible contradiction ever set into symbolic communication.

Orcs, Trolls, and the Culture of Sexual Othering…

Folks, this post is in response to an unsavory phenomenon my friend CJ mentioned in a post on her blog page, one she and her sister models are all well acquainted with: the often truly disgusting online behavior displayed by certain elements from the male half of the world towards the lasses and ladies who model nude.  In a comment on her post I said I might have a bit to offer as to why they are subjected to such behavior, offered to write out my thoughts on the subject if she'd be interested in reading them.  *chuckle*  Me and my big mouth.  She took me up on it.  I am one hundred percent certain I'm not the best qualified to speak to these thoughts, but apparently I'm what's available.  

So before I jump into this to get… as the saying goes in my part of the world…  naked and nasty about the subject lemme' go brew a pot of coffee, and put this out there right up front:  if any of you girls who knew me back in the MET days should read this please don't think ill of me, I am working on the problem where can as can, and please don't hesitate to continue my education with a comment or three.  You're the ones who were face to the foe, I was just an observer.

Compression Bruising...



What follows is my comment to a most excellent post over on CJ's page.  I'm reposting it here because the thought involved is solidly part of my (slow to press but ongoing) series "The Third Reality of Man."

***   ***   ***

To Darkwolf, Rand-J and Karl: well said gentlemen.  Somehow I feel I might be at risk of hearing a chorus from a Carly Simon song to commenting on this post at all, and worse might even deserve it, but why not.  Here goes nothing.

"Othering" sounds to my ears like one of the many words reassigned and modified by those who are (unwisely) attempting to homogenize (and ultimately bottle for retail) all of humanity, a word well chosen to carry Big Brother's disappointment and displeasure, it works well as precursor to a veiled threat.  Still though, the function has been present in the human condition from the beginning, it deserves a name.

If it is accepted that Othering has been present since the beginning it would seem reasonable to assume it served some needed function, to my thought probably more from the realm of security than sustenance:  if the others helped there would be plenty for everyone, but the others might simply take our effort and leave none for us, there are after all more of them than there are of us.  To state the obvious, but there are always more of them than there are of us.  Us refers to those within our personal sphere of empathy, a local variable,  the Other refers to those who are not, an all inclusive default definition very global indeed.

Child abuse...

One of the cruelest things you can do is do someone's homework for them. You've just robbed them of something they're going to need from now on. You see someone doing a child's homework for them? Report them to child welfare, because that is child abuse, pure and simple.  End of subject.

Screwdrivers in the Dark...

Screwdriver Love
from the diner doodle series

Life in the refrigerator is not easy, no, it isn't.  In point of fact it is quite similar to any other prison.  The door closes, the light goes out.  The door opens, someone goes away.  Sometimes they come back almost empty, sometimes they don't come back at all.  Some only stay for days, others are confined for months or years, and there is no understanding of why.  Vodka soon enough became the eldest survivor on the shelf, seemingly forgotten completely, left to entertain pitcher after pitcher of orange juice with stories of his homeland, with each new lover secretly hoping she would be the one to make an end to his sentence...

Baby sitter blues...

Yup, me.  A fifty something proto-geezer in charge of three girls, none of whom have seen their fifteenth birthday.  I got drafted to give the brother a break from their weekend long sleepover.   Both by their words and their actions between them pretty well cover the full spectrum of the modern feminine: my niece (S.) who adamantly calls herself strait, one a sweetheart of a bi (D.), and one (R.) seeming pretty solidly lesbian.  Right.  And me.  Needless to say, it were an interesting night. 

Of course the dvd player got in the game while I fixed the kids something to eat, none of them are eating particularly well.  It was a double feature: Mel Gibson's "Signs" (by their request from the library) followed by "GI Jane" as my pick.   Signs is a good flick, but it was their response to GI Jane I was interested in.  I wanted to see how the girls responded to Demi Moore's portrayal of an awesomely strong sister.

Waiting for the Ship...

Just a "diner doodle" that turned out well, thought I'd toss it up just to have something new to post.  I found my big box of Sharpie magic markers, couldn't resist playing with the colors.  I touched this up lightly in Photopaint on it's way into the computer, but nothing radical.  Made the black be black, got rid of a few stray pencil lines from before I began inking, smeared the water a bit (not sure that wasn't a mistake, the original was done pointalism, more or less, and it was kind of neat).  That sort of thing.  Think I'll swallow hard, and break out the India ink for the next few, see if I can do a couple of decent nudes worked with stipling I think they call it for shading.  Never done such before, may take a couple of tries to get it in the ballpark.  *chuckle* A goal, a goal, my kingdom for a goal (to bastardize Bill).  Onwards and outwards...

Bedlam in a leaky bucket…

I've been sort of dreading today.  Every year the two major state universities meet on the gridiron to fight it out for their annual bragging rights.  One of those rather meaningless things really, but it happens every year, and this year it's here.  Ok, the idea of going out to find a burger is not an option, not today. It's bedlam out there.

I really have no gripe with the boys playing ball, no different from the young bucks out knocking horns so the does can decide who they want to father next years fawn.  It isn't the ball game that bothers me, it's the attitude of the fans.  Good grief folks, it's a ball game, hope it's a good game, hope someone wins, hope no one gets hurt.  But the fervor and hype is so totally and terribly overblown.  I liked playing sports at first, at least until the time I saw genuine bloodlust on a fan's face.