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Saturday, February 8, 2003

Rough Draft

My dream about barbecued pigs inspired me to eat barbecue pig. Over ribs at Famous Dave's, Stan and I were discussing his dream and the characters/personalities and environments contained within. The character of 'Keto' was so reminiscent of people we knew at grad school. I told him that Keto would probably have a doctor's excuse to get out of taking the three-credit academic credit. We actually knew people who were so mentally challenged that they really tried to get out of taking their required non-art course! I am not making this up! The old character of ours, August, also came up. I invented (or shall I say, August came to me) in the early 80s. He had long dishwater blond hair tied back in a ponytail with goatee and always wore a beret. August was an intellectual artiste and one picture or print I drew of him, he was wearing an 'Eno is God' shirt. That was before I discovered Eno for myself and my view on him (Eno, not August) changed forever. Then we discussed Terry Mattheson, the little brown nosing overachiever who we wrote fake papers by in Art History that always won him a steady 'B.' After discussing these three individual characters, Keto, August and Terry, and how they fit into the scheme of things in graduate school, i.e., 'The Deathcamp (Ann)' or 'The Locker Room (Stan),' Stan says to me, 'So, are we ready to make our 'Animals' album yet?' I hadn't even thought about that, but this cracked me up so much, because yes, there we had our own distinct categories of people, or shall I say, grad school student artists. We have Keto, (The Sheep) who wiled away his time in his studio grassland grazing amongst his art supplies, doing what was told by the teachers, puttering with his paintings, a rather Kurt Vonnegut sort of image. He gets by probably on some sort of defective disability stipend. We have Terry Mattheson (The Dog), the one who was destined to become a teacher himself, always getting the right job to succeed in academia, student teaching, assistantships, advanced brownnosing. And last we have August (The Pig), but wait, there's three different kinds of Augusts, just like Pigs (Three Different Ones)! This ties in so well with a painting I did in the mid-late 80s called 'Three Sensitive Fort Collins Men I Wish I'd Never Known' which was a picture of three Augusts, essentially. August doesn't teach; he's too good for that. He has other ways to get by:There's August who runs a gallery, there's August who lives on NEA and assorted grants, and then there's August the trustafarian.

There you have it.

Posted by Ann on 02/08/03@04:32 PM CST ..::Link::..

Speaking of which...

I wonder how Rob's doing lately?

Posted by Ann on 02/08/03@12:30 PM CST ..::Link::..

Beef Sheep Bheeps

I wasn't thinking about sheep. I was thinking about the relationship between the begining of my dream where the beef was being prepaired for consumption, and the pastoral life style of Keto. It seems to me that a creature (even an art student) that's living a pastorial life is likely to end up on someone's table in slices someday. It's hard to explaine, but I think it's reasonable to be suspicious of a life where passing time in comfort with an endless food supply is the deal. Wouldn't you be wondering who and why you had a life where everything you needed was already at your feet?

Posted by Stan on 02/08/03@12:26 PM CST ..::Link::..

Intentional? Hey Stan...

I thought it sounded familiar:

You wrote: "while he passes the day with meaningless grasses of his little art projects"

Sheep (1st line): "Harmlessly passing your time in the grassland away"

Anyway...

Wasn't it during one of our sentences in that death camp that some student had an MFA project that was a bunch of grass/sod? I bet they could fertilize it well....really pile it on like.

Posted by Ann on 02/08/03@11:59 AM CST ..::Link::..

Commentary

Isn't it weird how my and Stan's dreams have connections when we dream them on the same night? See, the meal I dreamt about was bereft of beef (I like that term...bereft of beef...has a certain ring), probably because Stan was still preparing the beef. And it's weird that we both dreamt of things from grad art school.

Oh, but Stan, re: the profs thinking you're a Nazi thing...tear down the wall already! We all know the real Nazi is Keto (Kato?) whoeverthehell he is or represented in your dream. I like the hypothesis that the person was symbolic for Kato Kalin (sp?) from OJ fame because all he did was hang out and leech...much like the sycophantic grad students who didn't have to work from our hellish past.

Posted by Ann on 02/08/03@11:46 AM CST ..::Link::..

Roast Beef University

My dream began with large chunks of cooked roast beef. I was helping someone get these pieces of dead cow out of buckets to thaw them. The beef still needed to be sliced and I had no interest in eating any of it.

Then I went to this gym locker room in a basement that wasn't being used for athletics. There was a large common area used for college artist studio spaces. While I was in the common area I noticed wet pillows on the floor in the women's locker room area and went to get a closer look.

Then I heard someone using the restroom in the mens locker room through the wall and thought to myself that I didn't want anyone to see me in the women's area. I returned to the commons area and some guy names Keto (kay-toe) said behind my back "I don't like that guy."

I decided to leave but Keto followed me to explain why he didn't like me. He said I wasn't a dedicated enough student because I didn't spend enough time in my studio like he did. He made it a point to tell me that I should be spending 5 to 6 hours a day in the studio like he does. This is why he didn't like me.

Thoughts went through my mind about things I wanted to tell him but didn't. I didn't tell him 'well if your teachers thought you were some kind of Nazi I bet you would want to stay away from the studio too.' I wanted to tell him that I had a job and apparently he didn't need one so thus he has more time to hang out that me, but didn't.

Instead I told him that I was taking lots of non-art classes and so I had a lot of homework to do. He didn't seem to relate to this at all and insisted that I needed to spend more time in the art studio.

On some level what he was saying struck a fantasy - I would imagine how pleasant life could be to spend the day hanging out in a studio and farting around at a leisurely pace with making art. Sure it sounds like a pleasant life, but it's not really me. Not only did I not have the financial resources when I was in college to live that way, but I didn't and don't have the mind for it either.

I see Keto grazing like a cow in a meadow, without a worry in the world, while he passes the day with meaningless grasses of his little art projects. I feel very fortunate that I didn't turn out like him, and very happy with the life that I do have.

So Keto whether you are from my dreams, from real life, or both it makes me very happy to know that you don't like me.

Posted by Stan on 02/08/03@10:32 AM CST ..::Link::..

Freaky DREAMs

I had a small puppy and was keeping it in an alcove with a window above it. It kept jumping up toward the window, which was a very strangely shaped quatrefoil-style stained glass window, and I thought, 'eventually it's going to be large enough to jump up into the window and escape.'

I was at some sort of dinner with relatives of Stan. Stan was cooking it, and people were helping themselves to food cafeteria-style in the kitchen. By the time I went into the kitchen to get some food myself, I was most baffled because I couldn't find any plates or silverware. I didn't know what to do. Also there were these huge servings of meat...whole small chickens, whole small pigs, halves of very large fish. Everything was covered in sort of a brown sweet sauce, like barbecue. I didn't want to take just one piece of meat and eat just that, I wanted to break of small pieces of all the meats, but couldn't do that without knives. It must have been rather traumatic because I wake myself up flailing and moaning and kicking.

Stan and I were with Tim and perhaps some other people in a restaurant. I was drinking and telling strange stories. Everyone seemed fascinated, but I forgot what I was talking about. It was all rather surreal. I think there was a large theatre hall there as well. Then an ex-grad school prof of Stan's (Ken Ray) makes an appearance and he has this very strange mechanical doll. We're sitting on the floor and he winds it up and it's extremely freaky because this doll crawls along the floor and heads toward me. It reminds me of some scary movie I saw as a tenager where there's this voodoo doll that comes to life and it's dark and crusty looking. Ken's doll's mouth is moving and it looks at my butt and starts to try to bite my butt. I'm trying to kick the thing away (it's just a doll, right?) but it's very strong, so I'm using all my strength to hold it back. Then it crawls into a closet and Ken crawls in after it to retrieve it. Damn weird. Then we're walking through Stan's biomom's Inn, but all the rooms are connected to eachother, no walls. It's more like an antique mall rather than inn rooms. Then we're driving in some car and I pull down the visor. The sky is an unreal sort of blue.

Posted by Ann on 02/08/03@09:39 AM CST ..::Link::..

Friday, February 7, 2003

Silly Seinfeldian Naughtiness (again)

Last week, Plato was spazzing out in a way that was reminiscent of Cosmo Kramer. I told Stan, 'He's like Kramer.' It made us remember that just a few days prior to that, we had made mention that Hieronymus was like a dirty little boy, like George Costanza...(auto stimulation on your 'parent's' couch, anyone?). Then it hit us. Persephone, our only female pet, is Elaine, and Caligula, the pet who would be 'the straight man' is Jerry. Yup, we have the cast of Seinfeld in our house. (Who is Newman...an evil neighbor dog?) We've even started calling Caligula 'Little Jerry' instead of his original 'Little Boots' (which is what Caligula means). But the main point of distinction is that in the 'real' Seinfeld, 'Little Jerry' is a cock, whereas our 'Little Jerry' is a pussy.

Posted by Ann on 02/07/03@01:15 PM CST ..::Link::..

DREAM - Stan and flower

For some reason, Stan was mad at me. It was very surreal and hard to explain...he was at work, but I could somehow see him and access his 'workstation.' I was at home, however, looking at our jade plant. It was putting out profuse roots on the branches, and it was almost as if the individual branches were separating from the main branches and creating their own plantlets and becoming epiphytes on the main plant. There were also flowers on it, strange, large, peony-type flowers that were pink and purple and yellow and steel grey. They look like some large cut dried flowers I've seen but have a hard time describing. They were huge. I pull off a stem that is attached to a large flower, and put it at Stan's workstation. He is not there, but there's like a receptionist woman there who tells me that Stan will be back soon. I can see the workstation from where I am at home, and Stan is now there and he waves the stem at me as if to say 'I got it, thanks!' I think he also looked younger, like the way he did when we first started going out. It left me with a very strange, uncomfortable feeling.

Posted by Ann on 02/07/03@12:54 PM CST ..::Link::..

Psychic CD

You know, it's getting weird to be so psychic. Or maybe it's being a 'strong sender.' Why, just the other day, I realized that I never got my free, complimentary Bitstream Type Odyssey 2 CD (I have 30 Dingbatcave fonts on it, and all contributors were supposed to get a free CD for participating). I was thinking that I needed to contact them and inquire about it. Well, just today, I see a package inside the door. Expecting it to be a Pink Floyd cd that I bought on eBay, I was surprised to see the seller shipped it via UPS instead of regular mail. Upon further inspection, I was even MORE surprised to see that the The Dingbatcave was in the address. How did the seller know that? Well, it wasn't the Floyd CD, it was the Bitstream CD! Someone heard me wondering...

There's a shipload of fonts on this thing. And if I had it back 7 years ago, after I got my own Mac and was starting to go freelance, I'd be in font orgasmic heaven. And don't get me wrong, I'm glad I have it, it was owed me as promised in the contract and it will come in very handy. But ironies and truths be told, I'd still be more excited if it was the Floyd CD.

Posted by Ann on 02/07/03@12:49 PM CST ..::Link::..

Thursday, February 6, 2003

DREAM - Really dumb and weird one

I was standing inside by our back door, but it was more like my parent's backdoor, except that there was an alley in back, just like behind our house. I was looking out into the alley and there was an older couple walking by. I didn't recognize them. They saw me standing in the door. Then I was sitting on the floor and trying to attach spider egg cases to the door (WHY?!?). The older couple walked by again, and I thought, 'Oh shoot, they're going to see me here again and they'll think I'm watching them, but I have to finish attaching these spider egg cases.'

WTF?!?

Posted by Ann on 02/06/03@12:09 PM CST ..::Link::..

Wednesday, February 5, 2003

DREAMs - Some rather odd ones

1) I was with a bunch of people, mixed gender. I think they were all younger than me, or maybe I was younger than me in the dream--I can't recall. Everyone seemed early 20s, and they all seemed like well-scrubbed popular shiny smiley happy people, not like the kind of people I'd be hanging out with (that doesn't mean I'm an unkempt dull frowning depressed loner [it only appears that way when I wake up in the morning]...maybe my description of them should be more along the lines of just 'stepford people.' Yeah, that's it...reminds me of a dream that Tim had once where he described his perfect classroom with 'stepford students,' yet I digress). We were in some sort of building, and everyone had to find the bathroom. I walk into the women's restroom, but for some reason the door to my stall doesn't close properly, so I have to leave it open. Fortunately, no one else is in the bathroom and can't see me, although I can see other people in the hall through some sort of glass door. For some reason, it's taking me a long time, and then the stepford people start filtering in to the women's bathroom and start congregating right in my stall! It doesn't matter to them that my pants are down by my ankles and I'm on the john, it doesn't matter to them at all. They wouldn't leave, and I needed to--you know--wipe myself--but didn't know how to do it surreptitiously so that they wouldn't see. But what would they care? They were a bunch of grinning idiots.

2) I think I was with the same group of shiny stepfords as above, but some of them were getting on some mode of transportation to leave (and not a moment too soon). I was waving 'bye' to them...I don't know why. Then for some reason, I'm on their mode of transportation, which quite frankly, is invisible. It's like there *was* no mode of transportation, and we were all falling out of the sky (uh oh...space shuttle nightmare) and we had to hang on tightly to eachother and entertwine our legs so that we'd form some sort of human spacecraft in which we could tumble safely to earth. It might have been wonderful if the people I was with were lustworthy, but unfortunately most of them seemed like perfume counter women.

3) I was listening to the radio (IRL I really was as I was sleeping, but it was only NPR news) and there was some announcer talking about Pink Floyd and quoting something that Roger Waters had supposedly said (in the context of this dream, that is, not IRL) which was something like looking back he was glad that he was obscure and still alive rather than dead and famous or something like that.

After I woke up, I had to think 'was there really something on the radio about Pink Floyd or Roger?' It seemed so real, but then again, I had a dream the other night that Stan was starting to make love to me while he thought I was asleep, and I swore that he really was, but after I questioned him he swore that I was just dreaming it. Weird.

Posted by Ann on 02/05/03@12:59 PM CST ..::Link::..

Paintings Held Hostage...the finale

I got back my paintings, thank goodness. It appears that they (they = the foundation/board of directors or estate of the woman who bequeathed (sp?) the building to be used as a gallery for local artists) are going to sell the building. See, here's the thing. I heard from a first-hand source who worked there that their accountant was totally screwing everyone around who worked there. My first-hand source's position was terminated, other people quit. The director, who was totally enthusiastic about the whole gallery and exhibiting Madison artists (instead of the usual overbaked Chicago/NY fare that the prior director had) and making it a prominent local venue, didn't feel she could work under the absurdity of what the board and the accountant was doing, i.e., getting rid of their internet connection and other such ridiculous things. She quit, gave her two week notice. They (the foundation) never replaced her. They are letting it die. Shortly before, or even during the time I had my exhibit there, the benefactor, the woman who wanted that building, her building, used as a gallery for local artists, died. Now it seems that no one is honoring her memory. Everyone is trying to lay blame on the director who quit, saying it was her fault, leaving them in the lurch. I don't know, two weeks notice is all that is legally required for notice of leaving. When I called one person inquiring on how to get my art back, he totally blamed the ex-director, really trying to make her out to look like the bad one. Maybe if I hadn't heard a different tale from my first-hand source, and if I hadn't met the director myself (she was the one who came to my house to see my art and was very happy to have me show there this summer), maybe I'd be easily duped into thinking it was all her fault. But I think I know human nature a little better than most, and I can smell something a little fishy. They needed a scapegoat to take the fall so that they could get rid of the place once the benefactor died. The best defense is a strong offense, you know.

Posted by Ann on 02/05/03@09:39 AM CST ..::Link::..

Tuesday, February 4, 2003

Jumbled DREAMs

1) I was at my parent's house and was taking Plato out to poop in their backyard, which is fenced, but I had him on a leash. He runs toward the back of the yard and grabs something in his mouth and brings it to me. I'm standing next to my mom, and he jumps up to her and shows her what he has, which appears to be some black mittens. I think there was more to the dream besides that, but can't remember it.

2) I am walking with Stan and we are carrying suitcases and assorted luggage. We are around the east side of the 100 block of North First Street, heading toward East Washington. For some reason, Stan's arm or hand gets tired, so he leaves one suitcase behind. I ask him what the heck he's doing and he tells me he can't carry it anymore. I ask him why he didn't ask me to carry it then, instead of just leaving it there. I run back to get the left-behind suitcase. I think Stan is behaving very strangely.

3) I had to carry both dogs for some reason, at once. I couldn't manage it, so I left one of them behind.

Can't get any more mundane than these dreams, especially when I just discovered via my referrals today that this site comes up #1 on Google for 'Dream Pink Floyd.' Can you beat that?

Posted by Ann on 02/04/03@10:10 AM CST ..::Link::..

Monday, February 3, 2003

Things I do not understand

When you don't win something on eBay, why they send you a list of other 'similar' items that you might be interested in, that are not at all similar.

Why some people are freaked out by the slightest thing/how weak some people's stomachs are/bland their tastes are.

Affected lisps in some gay men.

The soulless weblog that just lists funny links, like 'Virtual Garbage Disposal' or 'Lizard Enemas' or 'Gucci Fashion Accessories for Your Cat' or 'Fart-in for Peace'. This is especially troubling (for me) when no commentary is offered for said link, just the link itself. It's so much like my post of a while back, 'It's Not Funny Anymore' where I ponder the futility of gag gifts and the ephemeral moment of 'ha ha...how funny'. It's as if the only meaning is in that single second of 'ha ha what a funny link' and once it's scrolled off the weblog (or the link is broken/webpage has disappeared) there is no meaning. Maybe that's the point, that there is no meaning. Period. I think that's sad. Why develop a writing style when you can just link to other pages without having to think? Are our ideas really so fugitive and meaningless?

Pledging to be a virgin until you're married. Oh please. People who are engaged to be married and 'hold out' until the wedding day because they truly believe a piece of paper and a clergy's blessing changes everything.

The trend of looking absolutely hideous. I'm not saying people should try to look like fashion models and if they don't succeed, throw in the towel and never be seen again in public, but isn't it only natural to want to look the best you can given your own personal limitations? (and that *doesn't* mean following fashions) Birds are attracted to other birds with lovely plumage. Flies dance to attract a mate, hence, dancing is a form of making the fly 'attractive.' All throughout the animal kingdom, animals seek beautiful mates. People naturally seek beauty. Then why do some people seem to try to be the most homely as possible *on purpose*, sort of in a conscious defiance of nature? 'Look how un-shallow I am...I will not wash, give myself an ugly haircut, wear stupid clothes and not brush my teeth just to show the world that I am deeper than the superficial ones.' Isn't that a form of superficiality in and of itself?

Posted by Ann on 02/03/03@12:11 PM CST ..::Link::..
By Ann @ 20:56 PM CST:02:20:03 ..::Link::..