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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Saturday, June 22, 2002

DREAM-You Know How to Whistle, Don't You?

I was looking at this old apartment that Stan and I lived in in Fort Collins. We were staring up at the attic window on the outside. Then I saw Matt, Tim's ex-roommate inside the window. I don't know what he was doing there...crawling around, decorating or something. Then he crawled out of the window and was on the hood and windshield of our car, which was like one of the old 4-door sedans we used to have. He couldn't see us inside the car, however. Then the dream got even weirder. I was at some party with some people I vaguely knew. There were people running around doing strange things. I was then seated with a bunch of other people...we were like the guests of honor or something. There was a weird woman dressed up like Carmen Miranda running around with some weird thing that she blew into that whistled, and each guest of honor had to take turns blowing into it and whistling, except when they got to me, I tried to blow but it didn't whistle. Then when she gave the instrument to the person next to me, I realized I had part of the whistle mechanism stuck in my mouth.

Posted by Ann on 06/22/02@09:12 AM CST ..::Link::..

Friday, June 21, 2002

Me: Geeky Utopain?

Six years ago, I purchased an external hard drive for my 7200 Power Mac. It had 2.1 gigs. Two years ago, I purchased an external hard drive for my iBook for the same price. It had 20 gigs. Just now, I purchased an external hard drive online for my G4 for about the same price. It has 120 gigs. Not that I mind storage getting cheaper by the gig, but it's sort of a case of the emperor's new clothes. Back in 1985 when I first started working on Macs at my then job, I was using a 512 K Mac (that's kilobytes!). In a few years they moved me up to an SE 30. That's 30 megabytes. My first Mac I bought in 1995 had 500 megabytes. Imagine using a 7200 Power Mac with a 500 meg hard drive back in 1985...one would wonder what to do with all that space! Now, Photoshop 7 would practically fill up the whole thing! The thing is, storage isn't really getting cheaper because files are getting bigger. Our needs still need to be met, and the price of those needs have stayed on course, in direct relation to the size of the files. It's all smoke and mirrors. But it's not bad...I'm not complaining about this.

It's too bad that the rest of the economy can't stay in direct relation to our needs in the way the computer hardware industry has. Wouldn't it be nice if we could say that houses *appear* to be getting cheaper because one can buy a larger house or a house with more amenities for the same price one payed in 1990? Or that one could buy a car now for the same price as one would pay in 1985, but that it would include a lot more "stuff?" Makes one wonder why other things can't be like technology, economy-wise. As technology becomes more affordable, other things in society become more out of reach. Wages, especially, are way out of proportion to what wages were several decades ago, workers earning proportionally less, corporate CEOs earning proportionally more. Not that I mean to sound like a geeky utopian or anything, but the economy really does need to look to what is happening with technology becoming more affordable and more available to the masses, because as I see it now, it's the only thing where the price is keeping pace with the need.

Posted by Ann on 06/21/02@09:45 AM CST ..::Link::..

DREAM-Red Rocks, Red Blood

I found myself in a canyon with red rocks, either red sandstone or feldspar. I don't know where I was...it was familiar but only because I think I've dreamt of similar places before. It was rocky like someplace out west, but it was too filled with vegetation, like someplace in Wisconsin. I was either walking or driving down a dirt road in this canyon. There was something ominous in the dream, but it could've been something on the radio that was on while I was dreaming, but I forgot what it was.

I also dreamt that my cat Caligula was throwing up. I looked at his vomit and it was filled with blood. I was panicked.

Posted by Ann on 06/21/02@08:33 AM CST ..::Link::..

Thursday, June 20, 2002

Show Update

Just got an email from the gallery last night...they gave it a name for me based on a series of my paintings, "Satin Riots." That's fine...they did well with writing the press release from the info I gave them. It would've been funny if they chose "Ornamental Illness," however (another series). I almost called them back on Tuesday to say "Go with 'Ornamental Illness'" but "Satin Riots" is fine.

The opening will be on Friday, July 12 from 6:30 - 8:30. There's another person having a show in another part of the gallery, or "Gallery 2." (I'm in "Gallery 1"). Stan doesn't get off until 5:30 that night and it takes a half hour to drive home, at which point he'll have to change clothes. I guess I'll be fashionably late for my own opening. He can't get off work earlier...they're just that strict at his job. Thank heavens the gallery is half a mile away and not in northeastern Wisconsin or something....I guess he'd have to call in sick for the day then, but people do that all the time there...to go play the casinos. See, if that place didn't have workers that were so infected with the Ho-Chunk flu (calling in sick to go to the Ho-Chunk casino), then people like Stan could get legitimate time off more easily. But stupid people and their ridiculous little addictions always have to ruin it for others.

Posted by Ann on 06/20/02@10:16 AM CST ..::Link::..

Wednesday, June 19, 2002

Yesterday

My once dying Maranta plant is now alive. Yesterday, one of the former sprouts unfurled itself into a perfectly-formed leaf. I think the main plant parts are dead, but the sprouts continue to grow. I am so relieved...that thing is a rarity, and I was fortunate enough to find it the day I brought it home.

My ferns aren't doing too well...they are so difficult to keep alive.

My peperomias that I'm trying to propogate by rooting in water aren't working. The stems are rotting. Guess that technique doesn't work for them--I'll have to rely on the rooting medium method. The first one I tried that way that was forming roots on the stem now has baby leaves coming up from the roots. Yes, they are cute. I was pretty excited...I actually propagated a peperomia. It seemed so foreign to me...not at all like propogating coleus or wandering jews that root easily from stem cuttings. This was more advanced...like I've attained honorary horticulturalist status.

Yesterday I took a few paintings over to Kingsfoot Gallery where I'll be having a show in July. They needed a few to photograph for press releases. I was asked if I had a working title for the show. Ask me that ten years ago, I would've had a dozen. Now it seems so difficult and tiresome to come up with stufff like that. I hate the administrative duties of being an artist too...paperwork, resume writing, press releases, artist statements. I seem worse at it than I used to be. I don't know whether it's because I'm jaded, bored, old, cumudgeonly, stressed, fragmented, or what. I have so many files in my hard drive that sometimes they're hard to retrieve. I don't know where I stored them. Sometimes I think my disk might have crashed a few years ago, but I'm not sure when it did, or if it did. Stan claims his hard drive crashed when he was in his mid-thirties. Sometimes I think I purposely misplace files I don't want to deal with. Or maybe my hard drive never crashed but is continuously losing data through some sort of electro-neuro leak. Do they make Norton Utilities for brains?

Watched "Sybil" last night and on Monday night. Stan never saw it...I always wanted him to. I saw it when I was a sophomore in high school, I believe. It brought back lots of memories. That movie, combined with "I Never Promised You a Rose Garden" made me want to be both a psychiatrist and to have hallucinations and multiple personalities. I thought cultivating multiple personalities was a way to have siblings and relatives that I never had, and the friends I lost because of moving across country a lot and always being the new kid and never fitting in. You know how those "Drugs R Bad" movies actually made kids want to do drugs? That's how that movie was to me. It made me want to be crazy. Maybe I just liked the thought of a nice Joanne Woodward psychiatrist understanding my problems. But it's not like that in real life...not that I went to any psychologists or psychiatrists or anything, although I did see a social worker in graduate school (which was a total waste of time). When I told my mom I was thinking of studying psychology, she told me that psychologists/psychiatrists only went into it the field to work out their own problems. Was that my movitation? I was rather put off by her statement at the time, yet as I grow older, I find a lot of truth in it. So I never became a psychiatrist or psychologist...three courses in psychology was enough for me...I'm not a studier when I'm required to learn something, and didn't adapt well to those multiple choice tests they gave in lecture classes. I'm still undecided on the crazy part. I don't know whether I already went crazy, have always been crazy, haven't gone crazy yet, or am better adapted than most people and can't go crazy no matter how hard I try. All I know is that I can't find a piece of paper I layed down two minutes ago. And it happens every day. And that scares me.

Posted by Ann on 06/19/02@11:09 AM CST ..::Link::..

DREAM-Nuclear Train

Strange dream. I was watching a train transport nuclear waste. I don't know if I was there in person, or watching it on TV. I was scared. Then as the train passed, the "camera" or my eyes started focussing on some trucks. Supposedly, the trucks were carrying the waste as opposed to the train, probably to trick anyone who might sabbotage it. The trucks were driving down a highway and were shaking all over the place. I could imagine all the nuclear waste being shook around inside. It was scary.

Posted by Ann on 06/19/02@09:21 AM CST ..::Link::..

Monday, June 17, 2002

Firestarter, or, Who Needs Terrorists When You Have Disney Witches?

I originally wrote a version of this in a comment section of my previous unrelated entry, but I thought I'd bring it out here so it can have an entry of its own.

Re: the national parks employee who caused the Hayman fire in Colorado: What a freakin' Disney Witch! In a little fit of witchy-dancing hysteria, this whacko decides to burn her ex-husband's letter. In a National Park. That she works for. During a drought. No wonder the guy's her *ex* husband. I guess he's glad she's out of his life. What a flipwad. Couldn't just throw the letter away. Or keep it for posterity in her "weird" file (everyone should have one of those). No, she has to go through some sort of ritualistic hystrionics of burning it, meanwhile displacing thousands of people, dozens of them permanently. Lock her up for good.

Too bad people who should be winning Darwin awards are actually making other people's lives miserable.

Posted by Ann on 06/17/02@12:47 PM CST ..::Link::..

Sunday, June 16, 2002

Getting Back to My Roots

This post by Nico cracked me up. But you want to know something weird? I have this reverse aging process going on with my hair. I kid you not...I am not making this up:

I have been plucking the few white hairs coming in on my head for several years now. I have not used a lightener or any hair dye product that causes any chemical change for over a year (I used to streak my hair). Any hair that has been effected by chemical lightening is at least six inches down on my head. Only my natural dark gold color exists on the crown for at least six inches. All the new white hairs that come in are not very long...maybe an inch or two. As I've been plucking these, I've been noticing something extremely weird happening within the last year. Some of them have dark roots. Now I know that these hairs are natural white and not unnaturally lightenened. First of all, I never lightened streaks in my hair *that much.* All my lightened hair has some pigmentation in it, and it glistens light gold in the light. These hairs are white. They do not glisten. Also, as described before, all the lightened hair has grown out and the natural growth is six inches long. Therefore, these white hairs that are only a few inches long at the longest did not even exist on my head when I streaked the hair, and the dark part of the root is only about an inch or less. So the dark roots are not because the hair was originally "dark" and "dyed"...the dark roots were originally white hairs that decide to turn dark. I do not know why this is, but I have been saving these hairs in case anyone wants to do a study on me. Maybe I've inadvertently discovered the fountain of youth...I don't know. But it's sure weird. I guess I'll stop plucking for a while.

Posted by Ann on 06/16/02@08:58 AM CST ..::Link::..
By Ann @ 20:56 AM CST:06:20:02 ..::Link::..