Claymation

Yes I'll get to your silly claymation. But what I am floored by right now is the fact that "recordation" is actually a word. It set off my "not a word" radar but I was wrong. I came upon this piece of sentence in editing: "the tables are used to manage the recordation of financial transactions" and I immediately think, you mean the "recording of financial transactions", since "recordation" is a bloated, though amusing, made-up word. According to dictionary.com I am wrong. Now back to work. The claymation comes later...

Ocular Cavity

Amazingly, I'm not one of those people that quotes So I Married an Axe Murderer or really any movie. My sig. oth. quotes movies and stuff all the time and what he gets from me are mostly blank stares, poor guy. I have never been good at most kinds of memorization. It is sort of the main reason I changed my major in college from the sciences to the arts. Though, with song lyrics I do much better. However, if you get yourself into a predicament wherein you have to write about some topic that came to you from your subconscious (maybe my subconscious has movies memorized--or the stuff I was supposed to learn in Anatomy class) and so you decide to google "Ocular Cavity" you see a surprising number of references to a certain Phil Hartman monologue in a certain cherished comedy from the nineteen nineties. And you might find this interesting website called Four Word Film Reviews and thereby discover a new potential addiction.

Oh, here's the text that goes under the picture up top (which maybe isn't actually a cavity, but I liked it):

Our Eyes and brain divide what we see into a right and left half. In the drawing above, light gray represents the left half; dark gray represents the right half. The eyes invert the image and the left side of what we see ends up in the right side of our brain and visa versa. This all works out because the right side of our brain controls the left side of our bodies and visa versa (the source).

p.s. Happy Birthday Robyn!

Regal

Purple.


Headless.


Apolitical.


Regal.


p.s. The dress is maybe going to be my bridesmaid dress for my friend's wedding--the color is eggplant purple

Rocktastica! Rockstastica!

Here's the way this works. The titles of the next eleven posts will be determined by the first word that comes to my mind cooresponding to the letters in the word Rocktastica. Are you ready for this? Hold tight round yer head as your mind is about to be blown.

Regal
Ocular cavity
Claymation
Kindred spirits
Teetotaling
Asparagus
Savory nuggets
Tailor-made
Inquisitivity
Cellular Meiosis
Aperture


Were you, perhaps, expecting something different?

I would go back and edit that list but I feel the need to be true to my "Art."

I already know what I'm going to say about asparagus. Sit tight, crew.

Working for a Living vs. Getting Paid to Do Nothing

The last couple weeks I have been in limbo land, and let me tell you it's not a very fulfilling place. I have been getting paid (theoretically--my pay check in a couple weeks will tell the truth) for doing nothing--or almost nothing; I have been given a few small tasks to do as I "work" from home. A dream come true, right? Money for Nothing, as they say.



It's like a grant from the NEA (that's a simile--I don't really have a grant). I can do whatever I want. So what did I do? Not much.

I worked on some stories--for a little while, and practiced guitar--a couple times--with a metronome since my timing could use some work. I read the Bible (it's true). And I wasted endless hours surfing the net. But everything I did happened in short spurts. I figured if I get too carried away and my employer calls me or sends me an email and needs me to do something right away (which actually did happen a few times) I'll look like a dufus if I miss it. And my conscience kept weighing me down so I would send frequent emails: "Anything I can help you with?" "Has my laptop been approved yet?" "Anybody i should contact to speed things along?" "Am I REALLY getting paid right now?"

The result is that a good portion of the time I just felt like a loser, since I was not being of use. And I felt like a loser because I was not managing my time to complete any projects that I feel are really important--like sending out my work for publication. AND I felt like an impostor when I talked to people with "real jobs" about my day.

Today the real work starts. I might not even like it. It is technical writing, for the sake of poor pete. It's not something people get really excited about. But I know I can do it. And I can do it well. And I can be of use and do my part to increase the efficiency of the federal government (hah!). Soon we shall see which I prefer. Which do you think you would prefer, random blog readers?
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On a completely other note, the actor that played Owen Meany did a supremely excellent job conjuring his essence. The show was very entertaining, though the climactic scene lost a little oomph from its original telling. It is a very cool to see a drama you know rendered on stage by people that (at least mostly) get it.

A Prayer for Owen Meany

I'm going to see a play tonight at the Roundhouse Theatre in Bethesda, MD. It's been a while since I've read John Irving's novel, but I remember where I was when I read it. I was taking the Amtrak from Denver to Newark, NJ via Chicago. Especially fond in my memory is waking in the early morning and making my way to the site-seeing car to watch snowy western PA pass by and read A Prayer for Owen Meany. I could not take my mind off the wild and gregarious pipsqueak Jesus-figure of Meany and it was like everyone I saw on the train was a version of the lonely and jaded narrator, for whom nothing else mattered after Owen Meany, just wandering. To me, Irving is one of the greatest story crafters of the modern age, one of a handful operating at the weird intersection between literature and pop fiction, and an heir to Dickens (i did not come up with that, many have said so). I am excited to see one of the more memorable characters from the latter 20th century on stage. Yee-ha. The script was actually approved by Irving so it will have to be good. And funny. I remember that book being sooo funny. I'll let you know how it is.

Leaving YOU in the dust, TEAM

If the voice of two people is equal to popular demand, then by popular demand I am relinquishing my vice grip on teamred, my previous blog, and letting the shattered pieces of my former life fall where they may. Count the cliches in that sentence, I dare you. Teamred, I am leaving you in the dust. We had some great moments but you required too much of me. The constant vigilence to keep the comment box from filling with spam (I gave up some seven months ago), the few bucks to register the site, the technical devotion required to produce something truly stellar. Guess what? I don't have it in me.

However since I refuse to be silenced completely, I shall create this blog ROCK-TAS-TI-CA! It begins not with a bang but a whimper, like so . . .

"Hello. I am Rocktastica. If for no other reason than that my splendiferous name was not already being used on blogger, I had to be born."

Stay tuned for something actual.

----identify each cliche in this post and win!----