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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Ornamental Illness main entry page

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Ann's Gemstone Jewelry

The Dingbatcave

Art Objects

Eyebalm Fine Art

Windowsill Cactus

Saturday, March 8, 2003

Appointment...

...to see a couple of black pug pups on Monday. Can't get my hopes up too high yet, though.

Posted by Ann on 03/08/03@04:24 PM CST ..::Link::..

Did you know...

...if you do a search on "Pulp Fiction Gay Zed Hick" on Google, this site is the first of only three sites that it brings up.

Wow.

I feel special.

Posted by Ann on 03/08/03@09:57 AM CST ..::Link::..

Friday, March 7, 2003

And the Dream Continues...

Oh how foolish of me. I just remembered more dream. Of course, what would an Ann dream be like without either a reference to Pink Floyd or to a dog? Well here goes: For some reason, Someone We Used To Know (SWUTK) came to visit us unexpectedly. (He was the one who I will always relate to Hieronymus falling down the stairs forever in my memory, so its strange that he makes a dream appearance shortly after Hieronymus's death). Our house was a mess, and I had all this Pink Floyd stuff strewn across the living room--not cds or videos or books, but weird stuff, like a Pink Floyd video game or a Playschool Pink Floyd See and Spell or whatever those Playschool things are called...things that didn't make one bit of sense or exist and certainly things that I wouldn't own (Stan, if we had a kid, would we get them a Playschool Pink Floyd See and Spell? Isn't that the most surrealistically hilarious thing I've made up?) Anyway, I was seriously afraid that SWUTK would make some disparaging remark about my Pink Floyd paraphernalia, but he didn't, which really surprised me. Nonetheless, it was most unnerving to have this person in our presence, even though he seemed to have mellowed a bit.

Posted by Ann on 03/07/03@10:11 AM CST ..::Link::..

DREAMs. Massive, Epic Dreams.

1.) I was at my parent's house. They had the spare mattress on the living room floor (the one from the roll-away bed that's actually much more comfortable to use directly on the floor rather than on that springy, misshapen metal poking thing) for me to sleep on like the last time I visited them. (My parents literally have no guest accommodations...it's worse than Jerry Seinfeld's parents' condo in Florida) For some reason there was a set of underdressers under the mattress, but my mom told me not to put stuff in there because she was using them. I thought that odd as they should be underdressers for guests. Then for some reason I was out with my dad and he was driving our van. He stopped by the old CSU chemistry building to pick something up (even though now he's retired and years before he retired they even moved the chemistry department to a new building). We were in the van watching Rene, Roy (is he dead yet, Stan? Can you remmber what my dad said?) and even Grandpa, who is our neighbor's father and would have no reason of being in Colorado other than he'd probably like hanging out with Rene and Roy. They were leavingm going out for coffee or something and there was a police car there, I think, handing out tickets to them because they were illegally parked along the area where the liquid nitrogen was stored by the loading dock. Then my dad drove the van down the loading dock (a long incline that lead directly to the basement overhead door) frontways instead of backing it up. I didn't want him to do it because I didn't think the van would have enough power to get back up the ramp in reverse (even though I'm sure it would IRL). My dad got out of the van and went inside and I waited for him. And waited for him. There were these popular girls from high school that were standing out there--I don't know why--and I was applying lipstick rather heavily in the van. Then I got tired of waiting and got out of the van and went into the building to look for my dad. As I passed my reflection in a glass window, I could see that I had applied not only a lot of lipstick, but also copious amounts of rouge, I was wearing dark horn-rimmed glasses, my hair was short and curly and I looked like a Mrs. Beasley doll (the only thing that was the same was my nose...thank goodness I didn't have a Mrs. Beasley nose). Heaven help me. Then I realized that they had moved the chemistry stockroom around and it wasn't accessible the way it used to be when I worked there in the early 80s. (this is true...before they built the new building, they did rearrange the layout of the basement in the original one, but that was after I didn't work there anymore) I kept asking people I'd see in the hallway "how do you get to the chemistry stockroom?" and they'd point, but it was very hard to figure out. I finally found my way there, walking through assorted strange barriers that didn't look too "chemistry-like" and more like left over stage props from a theatre department. I finally found the front desk. There was a woman working there, Sarah, who worked there when I did. I asked her if my dad was there and she said no, and then I grabbed the phone without asking her. It was a reddish orange phone, not at all like the standard government issue cold war dark green ones like they had when I worked there. She looked at me strangely, like I was rather rude to grab the phone. I started to call my parent's home number, preceded by a "1". I didn't get ahold of anything, and asked her if you have to dial a certain number to get an outside line (yeah, 9, stupid). Then she asked me for a credit card so that I could have the call charged to my account. I fished around in my pocket or purse and remembered that I left my credit card at home (in Wisconsin) by my computer, but I did have my "cell phone card" (no such thing IRL) where I could have calls charged to my cell phone. I pulled that out and said that I would use my cellphone except that it probably wouldn't work in that building, being in the basement encased in steel and concrete (that is probably true). There was a slot behind the stockroom's red phone that my "cell phone card" could slide through like pulling a credit card through the magnetic thingy. Sarah tried calling my parent's number for me, but that didn't work either. I thought "to heck with it" so I went outside behind the building and tried to call them on my cellphone, but I still couldn't get anyone to answer and instead got an operator asking me what number I'm calling. I tried to have the operator place that call, and that still didn't work. Then I went into the lobby of either the chemistry building or the microbiology building across the street to wait for a bus or my dad to appear or something. I noticed there was this incredible caterpillar trying inside a plexiglassed-in area. This thing was the size of a cat, like three inches in diameter and a foot long. I wanted to take it home with me but didn't have any place to store it. I just watched it and hoped no one would harm it. It was green with assorted markings and eyes on it. It was trying to build a web or coccoon or something. Some man noticed I was watching it and started to talk to me about it. He said they had another one and pointed over to another area in the room where there was another one that had successfully build a chrysalis. I kept watching "my" caterpillar and noticed that its "butt" that had anchored itself to the plexiglass, lost its grip and it started flailing around. It would have to start restructuring its coccoon/chrysalis, and I was worried that it would exhaust all its resources creating its silk that it wouldn't have enough energy left for the metamorphosis. Then I also noticed that its arms got caught on some of the silk, but its arms weren't caterpillar arms, they looked more like monkey arms. Weird. I was genuinely worried about this thing.

2.) I was looking at an old photograph taken in the 1980s. In it were people I knew from college like our friend Brian, except there were two of him...most odd. And there was Ron (who is dead) but Ron looked more like he did maybe at the end of high school before he went off the deep end. Then it was like the people in the photograph were moving and I was now in the photograph, but things changed and I was sitting in someone's suburban kitchen with their two youngest daughters who had very strange names. The youngest daughter, who was maybe around 8 or so, her name began with the letter "A" and the second youngest daughter, who's name was something gawd-awfully-strange like "Buzzby" or something, was around 10. They named their kids starting with the letter "E" and ascending to the beginning of the alphabet with the youngest. Very strange. I have no idea who these people were...not a clue.

3.) I was looking at these strange hybrid animals that I had in a jar. They were sort of like lizards/chameleons but they were also like caterpillars and they would transform into chrysalises. I suddenly realized their food supply was low (leaves) and a few were frantically crawling around the jar trying to find more food. I told Stan that he had to go outside to pick more leaves. I think I woke up with a start because I was freaked out they would starve.

At some point in my sleep I yelled out "I don't want to talk about that now" but I can't remember what it was in relation to.

Whew.

Posted by Ann on 03/07/03@09:32 AM CST ..::Link::..

Thursday, March 6, 2003

Dream about our friend

In my dream Ann was in a panic because our friend Tim - his mom had called Ann and said Tim wouldn't answer his phone. Ann and I were then rushing over to Tim's house to see if he was ill or something. I think the dream was keeping in line with Tim's aunt being on her death bed and he'll have to go home for a funeral soon. I don't think the dream was about anything happening to Tim directly related to his health, but his aunt's impending death.

Posted by Stan on 03/06/03@08:24 PM CST ..::Link::..

Pet Peeve of the Day:

Glamour Shots. Ewww. Glamour Shots. Take an ordinary-looking woman, put gobs of make up on her, pose her with a sultry expression, ridiculously tease up her hair in a 'that was soooo last-decade' big hair style and voila, do you have a raving beauty? No, you have instaskank. Aren't the best photos the ones a friend takes of you in a setting that is natural to you while you're wearing your clothes that you're comfortable in, your hair the way you naturally have it and as much or as little makeup as you noramally wear? Glamour Shots huzzzzz me out. And you know what? They probably train their employees to tell *every* woman that she's photogenic!

Posted by Ann on 03/06/03@12:29 PM CST ..::Link::..

Return of Spew

Communications Productivity Development
Creative Database Streamlining
Creative Online Internet
Database Communications Solutions
Digital Internet Development
Digital Network Development
Digital Web Applications
Integrated Database Portfolio
Integrated Online Applications
Integrated Systems Provider
Integrated Virtual Systems
Integrated Web Streamlining
Internet Database Consulting
Internet Workflow Marketing
Network Applications Development
Network Database Management
Online Productivity Streamlining
Online Streamlining Resources
Porftolio Productivity Solutions
Virtual Marketing Resources
Virtual Network Provider
Virtual Productivity Knowledgebase
Web Communications Database
Workflow Applications Software
Workflow Knowlegebase Marketing

----

Take my slogans! I'm not using them.

Posted by Ann on 03/06/03@11:37 AM CST ..::Link::..

DREAM--Time all nonsense now

Roger Waters was living catty-corner across the street from us, but I guess that was a while ago because I wasn't even aware of it, or I wasn't even living here when he was here, but at the same time I could see back into the past and I saw him out on the front lawn with a toddler...a kid of his? I'd have to guess he was probably around my age, or a little older in this dream. Then I was able to fast-forward into the present, and I was kicking myself that I never went over to introduce myself to him (symbolic for my not having been into Pink Floyd as I should have back when?). I was in absolute awe nonetheless that he had lived in Wisconsin (can you imagine? I'm dying of laughter...) for a while, let alone IN OUR NEIGHBORHOOD! I was staring out a top floor window of our house, looking at the house he once lived in, longingly, seeing now only the current occupants who appeared to be a bunch of college students (this was in the dream only...a young couple and their child/ren live there currently IRL). Then I remember I was singing to myself...I think something from The Wall, but I can't rmember, but I was loud enough that people could hear me outside, which was rather embarrassing. Then I don't know if this was the same dream or a different dream entirely, but I was in a prison cell. It was dark and grey, and there was an uncomfortable bench to sit on. I remember seeing phones on the wall, but I didn't call anyone because I didn't want to use up Stan's cellphone minutes. (?) I remember looking around trying to see if there was any sort of camera that could be recording me. Then a black woman came in to talk to me...I don't know if she was a nurse or my social worker or parole officer or what. I have absolutely no clue why I was imprisoned. I remember saying something in my sleep in regards to this, defying the woman who was talking to me, but I forgot what it was.

Posted by Ann on 03/06/03@10:47 AM CST ..::Link::..

Wednesday, March 5, 2003

This has always been a problem for Stan

Thanks, Stan, for your silly misspellings. Now I have people finding this site via Googling "Pink *Floyde*" and "*Sid* Barrett".

Sigh.

Posted by Ann on 03/05/03@11:18 AM CST ..::Link::..

Bride of Spew

The Emperor still has no clothes. I bet you'd find lots of these words at F*cked Company.

Applications Knowledgebase Network
Communications Software Database
Communications Workflow Portfolio
Creative Porfolio Marketing
Creative Productivity Knowledgebase
Creative Web Consulting
Creative Web Resources
Database Marketing Systems
Development Consulting Resources
Digital Management Provider
Digital Workflow Communications
Integrated Online Portfolio
Integrated Software Development
Integrated Virtual Provider
Internet Database Streamlining
Internet Development Solutions
Internet Marketing Knowledgebase
Marketing Communications Solutions
Network Management Software
Productivity Management Software
Productivity Marketing Solutions
Systems Streamlining Resources
Virtual Internet Database
Virtual Workflow Consulting
Web Applications Resources

Feel free to use any for your corporation...be my guest~!

Posted by Ann on 03/05/03@10:00 AM CST ..::Link::..

Bush Slash Putin

ROTFLMAO! My site came up when someone did a search on "bush putin slash fiction." I knew it. The thought, however humorous it may be in a politics makes strange bedfellows sort of way, is nonetheless enough to make the most atheistic among us go pray to a porcelain god. Would someone really read it if it existed? Well, I guess they read my site/take on the matter, although that was just done in jest.

Posted by Ann on 03/05/03@09:55 AM CST ..::Link::..

Yet another dog dream.

Large dog. Jumped up on me. I was a bit scared, but it was friendly. Can't remember much else.

You know, these consecutive dog dreams won't stop until I get a puppy.

Posted by Ann on 03/05/03@09:18 AM CST ..::Link::..

Tuesday, March 4, 2003

Spew

Maybe I've gone mad, but the emperor has no clothes. Here are 25 slogans for today, created at random:

Creative Communications Development
Creative Communications Knowledgebase
Creative Consulting Solutions
Creative Digital Streamlining
Creative Network Solutions
Creative Online Streamlining
Creative Portfolio Software
Digital Workflow Solutions
Integrated Internet Consulting
Integrated Productivity Provider
Integrated Web Software
Internet Consulting Network
Internet Development Resources
Internet Knowledgebase Streamlining
Internet Management Applications
Network Portfolio Systems
Online Database Solutions
Online Development Streamlining
Online Software Knowledgebase
Virtual Consulting Software
Virtual Network Consulting
Virtual Provider Streamlining
Virtual Streamlining Resources
Virtual Workflow Knowledgebase
Workflow Knowledgebase Resources

Posted by Ann on 03/04/03@01:20 PM CST ..::Link::..

Listserves

I subscribe to a bunch of listserves that I get via email, most of which I really don't have time to read and subscribed to when I was interested in the topic, but remain subscribed to because it's easier to delete the message than it would be to try and figure out how to resubscribe in the future if I wanted back in after unsubscribing. Naturally, much of the discussion on these (I guess you could say they're all related to art in one form or another--either local art or art software) as of late have turned to the world situation, peace activism, etc. And of course there are going to be some people for one reason or another do not like the discussion taking a political turn, especally a pacifist political turn. They believe that the topic should stay strictly related to the software or art or what have you. I guess I'm pretty blown away that anyone is taking a listserve so seriously in the first place, that they just can't delete the message (like I do) when it's not something they're interested in. Am I wound too loose? Some people seriously need to go hug a dog.

Posted by Ann on 03/04/03@09:52 AM CST ..::Link::..

Another disturbing dog dream

For some reason Plato was in an accident...I don't know what happened to him, but I could see under his collar that he was severely cut and bleeding. He lied down on the ground and I was afraid he was going to die and that we would be without dogs completly.

Posted by Ann on 03/04/03@09:32 AM CST ..::Link::..

Monday, March 3, 2003

Life Self-Consciously Immitating Not-So-Good Art

Heard on the Tom Clark show this morning that CBS is planning to do a reality-TV Beverly Hillbillies. They're actually planning to get a real life Kentucky family, bring them to Beverly Hills, give them a million or so dollars, and film them...kind of like the Osbornes. The guest on the show this morning (I slept through most of it...it was 6 am) was complaining that poor people were always being used as the butt of jokes...I don't know if he was from the Southern Poverty Law Center or what, but I understood his point. But regardless if the family is from Appalachia, the UP (Ya hey it's warm dere in California, ya) or wherever, it doesn't matter, the whole pretense is just ridiculous and I can't imagine watching something like that. Why not do a "trading spaces" sort of thing and have the Hollywood producers move to an Appalachian shack, take away all their money and earthly possessions and film them? See, I'd watch that just out of morbid curiosity...call me sick. It's just unbelievable that: 1) someone would come up with a pretense like that for a show...but I guess they did do a Survivor on a desert island sort of like Gilligan's Island...I don't know, I don't watch the rot, this is just what I gather from the media vibes in the ozone. 2) people have such pathetic lives that they would be entertained by watching that, I mean the original FICTIONAL Beverly Hillbillies wasn't exactly a masterpiece either but compared to this, it would be fine art. 3) The producers would actually *think* the public would want to watch it in the first place. I think a caller made the comment that pretty soon they'll be paying people to be in a zoo. That's about right.

Posted by Ann on 03/03/03@12:11 PM CST ..::Link::..

The Emperor has no Clothes!

Google is fast on the draw, allright. Trying to embellish my meaningless corpspeak vocabulary, so I plugged in my words to see if any new terms would hit my fancy, and immediately my site comes up as #1!

Here's another dozen to add to the mix:

Virtual Software Web Internet Database Communications Streamlining Productivity Consulting Knowledgebase Portfolio Applications

C'mon, folks, The Emperor has no Clothes! Can't you see it?

Posted by Ann on 03/03/03@11:54 AM CST ..::Link::..
By Ann @ 20:55 PM CST:03:20:03 ..::Link::..