These are old archived entries from my journal, Ornamental Illness. I have eliminated all graphics (except those in context of an entry) to save on my bandwidth usage.


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Friday, January 17, 2003

Somewhat Luddite, Moderately Simplistic, Only Slightly Romantic, but Hardly Anachronistic

I could easily live without all this. The things that make people happy these days are not what makes me happy. Assuming I had a job, just a stupid job like the one I had at the Chemistry Stockroom back in the early 1980s, (obviously, not my Kinko's job because its raison d'etre was The Macintosh, nor my Alistair Video job because that wasn't a job but a deathcamp) a job that didn't make me sick and a job where the people involved were of reasonable intelligence, I could easily give up this computer. I do not need a computer to make art, I need a computer to make a living with my digital art. There is something so pure about writing with a pen on a piece of paper...the feelings seem to flow much better. When Stan and I went to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, we were looking at the featured John Lennon exhibit and Stan remarked that if he was around now, all the handwritten lyrics would be on disc. I tried to explain to him that no, not necessarily. Sometimes a computer expedites certain things, but I feel when there is emotion involved, to have a keyboard and a screen is removing yourself from the immediacy of whatever poetry comes out of your mind. I'd rather have a piece of paper with scratched out words and arrows and loops and squiggly lines attached to other words than a delete key. When you scratch out a word, it's not really gone, it's there for future reference. Not so with the backspace. The other night/week when I got so inspired to write my '4th Pig' lyric based on Pink Floyd's 'Pigs (3 different ones)', I didn't use my computer. I pulled out a piece of paper and pen and went at it. It wouldn't have worked on my laptop. It just wouldn't have worked. Stan loves his ibook and I know it's much easier for him as he's working on his writing rather than writing everything by hand as he did before, but maybe it's the novelty? Honestly, I miss all my handwritten notebooks. Especially the ones on colored paper.

I was discussing with Stan how I could easily live 20 or 30 years ago and get along just fine. All I need is indoor heat, plumbing, electricity and transportation, my pets, plants and Stan (assuming they could all be transported back in time, or if the past could be moved into the future). Stan said he could easily live with me in the 19th century...he muttered something about the 20th century being the most violent and bloody in human history. I wouldn't like that, living in the 19th century. I admit I'm spoiled up to a point, hence, my requests for heat, plumbing and electricity. Not only that, but here's something a man might not consider...I want to live in a time during or after the woman's movement. For all the female romanticists and anachronists out there...do you REALLY want to go back to a time when you're expected to behave in a certain way? Think about it. I don't mean to criticize Stan for forgetting about that...it's easy to forget about if you're not a woman. In fact, I bet a lot of women don't even think about it.

But anyway, what does this world have to offer me that it didn't have to offer me 20-30 years ago? (Other than the fact digital technology has forced me to find a means of living using digital technology) Not a helluva lot, as far as I'm concerned.

Posted by Ann on 01/17/03@12:45 PM CST ..::Link::..

Ishy Drug Store Dream Complete with Disturbing Females

I was in some drugstore like a Walgreens that was in an old rather abandonned parking lot. I was walking all through the place which was dimly lit. I remember colors like a dark olive green throughout the store...not army-fatigue olive green, but 'fashion' olive green...like it was trying to be trendy by having a moody atmosphere as opposed to stark white fluorescents. I was looking in the cosmetics aisles...they had tons of hair color. There was a woman who I think worked there who was giving a customer a makeover. I was looking at some makeup which came in a decorative jars that looked a lot like the colored irridescent mica pigments I work with in art. There wre a bunch of beautiful colors and I wanted to try it on my face to see which colors would work best for me, but I knew that the employee that was doing the makeover would not be bothered with the likes of me, so I just browsed some more. Then I went outside and I can't recall the exact details, but it was if someone perhaps I knew during my high school years (female) asked me if I needed a ride. She had a car which looked a lot like a car Stan used to have, a 70s-something white and red Ford LTD with red interior, except hers was a two-door and in much worse condition. I put my purse in her car, and she put something in her car too, but we left the doors wide open and then we took off in another car through the parking lot, and I was telling her, 'we need to go back to your car and close the doors.' She didn't seem to worried. It was a very stupid dream.

Posted by Ann on 01/17/03@12:25 PM CST ..::Link::..

Thursday, January 16, 2003

DREAMs - One dumb one, one wild one

There were two dreams, but I'll start off with the last one first because it was typical and the first one was pretty...powerful.

2.) Stan and I were travelling and we walk into a motel. It's very cramped and there's a table with two black leather chairs in the middle that don't leave much room to walk around. There's also a bunch of bathroom and kitchen stuff around the periphery of the room, old sinks, toilets, etc. Nothing is color coordinated, some of the plumbing stuff has that 70s goldenrod color to it. The faucets and handles were mismatched. It was a pretty crappy room.

Before I dreamt that dream, I lied awake for about an hour just thinking about the one I just had:

1.) I think I was watching TV, but I'm not exactly sure. There was a young woman on it who was wearing a very strange outfit made out of jewel tone velvets. I forgot the exact colors she was wearing, but it was like two colors that clashed in a good way, like purple and teal or something. She was sort of dressed up like a court jester, I believe, and if not that, then something sort of renaissancey. (I know...ugh...this whole dream has sort of that pseudo artsy fartsy fantasy quality, but hang on, I don't think it's that easily discountable) I forgot what she was doing, but she was disobeying someone's orders and walking away into a gold/sand-colored room with her back turned to the 'camera.' I think I followed her into the room where there was a man sitting on a chair, almost like a throne. He wore a robe that was also jewel-toned velvet in purple colors, I believe. He was either a doctor or a fortune teller or a high priest or shaman or something, I couldn't tell which. He had sort of medium-colored hair, sort of non-descript. I walked up to him and put both my right hand and left hand in a bowl of strange balm or ointment, then rubbed the top and bottom of both hands on his robe, then he took both my hands and held them, sort of like he was taking my pulse, but he wasn't holding my wrists, just the hands themselves. It was like the balm was some sort of conductant medium that he needed in order to sense things about me. Weird. When he spoke, it was definitely American, maybe even with a slightly southern accent, but definitely no English or European accent. He said something about my left and right side, and the sun and the moon. I was afraid whatever my diagnosis was was going to be bad, but he smiled and he told me he was incredibly surprised, that he's never (felt? sensed?) anyone who had all four elements (I am thinking he meant earth, air, fire and water) so equally balanced. He kept going on about how 'balanced' I was. I was a bit surprised to hear that.

Posted by Ann on 01/16/03@09:33 AM CST ..::Link::..

Wednesday, January 15, 2003

DREAM - Pugshunds and Strange Fruit

I was with someone else, I have no idea who, and some young guy, again, I have no idea who...he was about 19, tall, curlyish brown hair, average, boring, non-creative, not my type. I don't know what I and the other person (who I don't know who it was...Stan? Someone else?) were doing with him, but we walk over to a Burger King or something, and this guy gets behind the counter and pours himself and us a cup of cola. I figured he works/used to work there or something and was familiar with the place. We had what looked like a cross between a Dachshund and a Pug on the counter. I was carefully watching it so it wouldn't fall off the counter. It was young, still a puppy, rather cute like a pug, but had sort of a longer body and the fur was Dachshund-coloured.

I was staying at someone's house in a suburban area. They lived on a cul-de-sac, and I had my van parked on the street, but the cul-de-sac was very narrow and there was no way I could pull out of my parking spot and turn around. I was thinking if there was someway I could pull out of my parking spot, and then back out onto the main street, that would work, but I didn't want to leave the people's house as I thought that was rude, but I didn't want to stay there either because I was bored. I walked across the street, I think I was with Stan, but can't exactly remembr. There's a flowering fruit tree and we're looking at it. It sort of morphs into a counter at a gift shop where they are selling a bunch of very strange candy in jars...it's like candy, but it's very organic and comprised of a bunch of twigs and stuff. I remember flavors like mint and chocolate. We're trying to find a jar of the stuff that isn't too big in a flavor we like, but as we're looking through all the choices, the jars keep disappearing because people keep buying it, until finally we're not left with much choice at all.

Posted by Ann on 01/15/03@09:26 AM CST ..::Link::..

Tuesday, January 14, 2003

DREAM: Echoes

...In Labyrinths of Crystal Caves...

Stan and were in one of those 'crystal caves' like in the Black Hills. We were waiting in line for the tour to begin, and Stan decides that he doesn't want to leave Plato in the car, so gets him and brings him into the cave with us. I ask him if he's sure that dogs are allowed in the cave, and he says it's OK, however I doubt him because of the danger it could cause to the dog or other visitors. He doesn't even have Plato on a leash, and Plato is squirming, trying to get out of Stan's grasp. Finally, he escapes, and goes running down a path, and I'm screaming 'Plato!' and I wake myself up, moaning and in tears. It was rather hard to get back to sleep after that.

Whoah. I just realized...Dog in a Cave. Think about the sexual Freudian implications...

...And Everything is Green and Tourmaline...'

After I finally got back to sleep, I think I went back to the cave dream, except this time I had both dogs with me and they were on leashes. Except Stan was not with me, and I had to manage them both myself, which was quite difficult. Hieronymus starts running down some stairs and I'm afraid that he'll hurt himself.

Then I'm driving the van (no passengers, just me driving) down Monroe Street in Madison and I keep seeing these things tumbling across the road that look like this one mollusk called a 'shark eye' that we found on the island this fall. I think they're probably just leaves or stones, but there's lots of them, and they have the distinct snail-shell shape with the 'eye' in the centre. I'm thinking to myself 'If I didn't know better, I'd say those were shark eyes.' I pull off the road, get out and find a bunch of them on the sidewalk. I'm thinking that they must be land snails as opposed to ocean mollusks. I'm walking down the road, gathering as many as I can find. In some of the sidewalks, it looks like some shells have embedded themselves, and it looks like corals too, like it's really an ancient seabed instead of a city sidewalk. I even find some whelks, so I know something is strange because whelks are definitely not land creatures. The storefronts along the sidewalk are rather old fashioned, Mayberry-ish and abandonned, however as I'm walking, it turns into this very yuppie-esque upscale boutiquey indoor mall. I'm still finding shells outside of the stores, but some of them now look like they were set there intentionally for decoration, and I'm afraid if I pick some up I'd be ripping off the stores. I remember one store distinctly, it had all this red and green decor, not like christmas, but like tourmaline. I got a sense of holly berries and bayberry too, but the tourmaline gems (there were those long strands of beads for doorways that you saw in the 60s and 70s made out of tourmaline) far outweighed any tacky holiday quality. Then I was leaving the mall, and it was like I was leaving a theatre or museum, the way it was layed out. A young female attendant asked me to deposit my pin upon leaving, and I reach for my jacket and pull off one of those pin tabs like you get at museums so that they know you payed. Mine was blue. As I walk out of the building, I realize I'm now on the Capital Square. I'm looking around for Stan and there's this guy there...skinny, blond, pale blue eyes, medium height, sort of my age, but older-looking, sort of artistey, sort of obnoxious, who's talking to me. I'd wished he'd go away. Suddenly Stan is there and I'm glad to see him and I see the van parked on the street and we head toward it and the dream ends.

When I woke up, I couldn't help but think that those lines from Pink Floyd's 'Echoes', with the two modifications (Crystal for Coral and Tourmaline for Submarine) fit perfectly for titles.

Posted by Ann on 01/14/03@09:44 AM CST ..::Link::..

Monday, January 13, 2003

DREAMs...a whole lot of weird ones.

I was in a swimming pool. The water was blue like fake Cool-Aid or Hawaiian Punch. I had an empty cannister, like the kind Hawaiian Punch comes in, with me in the pool. It had a hole in it that one could blow through, and as I blew into it, it caused the water to lift up into a shape like the canister, like it was frozen in time and not liquid, but solid.

I was somehow perched in our upstairs window, sitting in it with my feet hanging out. We had two windows in the bathroom and they were much larger than our one window IRL. It was very early morning and I was looking out on our back yard. I saw some neighbors from down the alley start to leave for school, so I tried to crawl back inside so that they woudn't see me there. I couldn't get the screen closed properly afterward.

I was having sex with Stan in a strange position.

As if these dreams weren't weird enough, as I was sleeping this morning Stan woke me up by saying, 'You mean, like the pug dog?' I asked him 'WOT?' Groggily, he told me that it was in response to something he thought I said, but that I only said in his dream-state, which was:

'It must be painful to be so methodically puffy.'

I thought that was a hilarious line, and I'm so glad I remembered it to write it down. But what does the pug dog have to do with being methodically puffy?

I think I went back to sleep after that and continued to dream: Someone who we used to know (who we heard from a friend had just gotten married) was going to meet us somewhere with his new wife...somewhere seemed like this reocurring dreamplace that is out on a peninsula somewhere on a great lake, that is very, very far north, however it also seems like Kenosha, WI, which makes no sense. Anyway, we were in this parking lot and we see him pull up in an SUV and some sort of trailer attached to the SUV. He's trying to park, and it takes him a while to do so. In the mean time, his wife gets out of the car...we're expecting a young Asian woman (as it would be IRL), but instead it's a Caucasian woman who's about 55, overweight with short curly grey hair. Like someone's mum. Very surreal.

Posted by Ann on 01/13/03@09:40 AM CST ..::Link::..

Sunday, January 12, 2003

New Kid at School

I was 'the new kid' in school. I was in Junior High again, oh spare me. It was a cold winter day and I was trying to find the new school I would need to start in Fort Collins. I was walking up and down Pitkin Street, trying to find the school, asking directions of people on the street. The school system had changed and the schools I had attended while I lived there weren't being used as schools anymore, so I was confused. Someone asked me where I lived, so he could assist me in telling me what school I needed to go to. Suddenly, I was in a very large restroom, mostly grey-coloured, and I was telling the person that I lived in 'this' stall, and I pointed to a bathroom stall. Then it was like it was a classroom/restroom and there were all these jr. high kids sitting in desks that were arranged in a circle. I then realized I was where I needed to be, but felt strangely old (duh!). All the kids were staring at me like I was an alien (again, duh!) so I start talking dumb with a bunch of 'yo's' and then they accepted me as a fellow student. There was a boy of mixed race who took a liking to me and put his arms around me, but I was creeped out by the whole thing and told him he was a nice little boy so that he realized I was waaaaaay too old for him (like old enough to be his mother at least).

Posted by Ann on 01/12/03@01:44 PM CST ..::Link::..

Change

Thank you to all the people who have ever left timely comments in the past. (i.e., within a few days or so after I post the entry) Please rest assured that the removal of the comments form has absolutely nothing to do with anyone who has ever left "timely" comments. It is simply preventng "google pollution" by those who come in through the back doors and cracks in the windows via search engines and leave incomprehsible, illiterate and moronic statements. I don't want to have to clean up after their trash, so I've walled up my journal; it's still viewable, just unwritable.

Posted by Ann on 01/12/03@11:04 AM CST ..::Link::..
By Ann @ 20:56 PM CST:01:20:03 ..::Link::..