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, August 24, 2002

What are the odds?

Stan and I went to Kenosha to submit art. Wanted to stop off at Artist and Display in Milwaukee to pick up some supplies, but I was oddly craving a Calzone, or something Italian. We decided to go to a restaurant we never tried before, Giuseppe's, but would see all the time cattycorner from Java Coast, where we usually stop for coffee on the corner of 100th and Bluemound. Now keep in mind, we've lived in Wisconsin since 1989 and would frequently drive by that restaurant, but never tried it. Now the one time I get a craving for something Italian, it's gone. Not just out of business. The whole damn building is gone. Demolished. OK, what are the odds? I asked this of Stan. "Stan, what are the odds?" Response: "There are no odds."

Kurtz: "Do you see my methods to be unsound?"
Willard: "I see no methods..."

So we decided to go to another place further south on 100 called "That's Amore" and what should hit my eye like a big pizza pie when I walk into the door but a big mural of Dean Martin. If that wasn't funny enough, back in the seating area there were life-size cardboard cutout illustrations of Martin, Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr. The whole place was filled with Dean Martin pictures. It was waaaay too funny for us, and I kept thinking that my cardboard cutout of Perry Como that we impishly pilferred from our old art department still life setup many years ago would sure like these as companions, even if Perry was an actual photograph and these were only mere illustrations. (If you drew Perry in the picture, you were marked as a problem student...if you omitted him, you would go on to become a professor yourself. Of course I drew Perry.)

If we had "borrowed" Perry Como now, we'd have a criminal record. Back then, our professor just stopped at our house and yelled at us when he saw his old two-dimensional stiff classroom buddy in our front window (I think he was drunk...our professor I mean...Perry was just comatose). If we had spiked the punch at an art opening like we did back then (with Everclear...couldn't taste a thing...didn't think you were drunk until you got up to navigate), we'd be way busted. Back then, no one cared. Back then, we were just college students, art punks. Now, we'd have criminal records for the mild pranks we did.

Things sure are different now. I think I liked it better the way it was. It's getting more and more like a police state.

Posted by Ann on 08/24/02@06:45 PM CST ..::Link::..

DREAM - mixed up stuff

Strange dreams, only remember snippets and not the whole structure.

In my dream, I suddenly realized we'll be out east in November (this is true) and considered that we should go to NYC to Ground Zero (I really don't want to do this...too morbid). Then, it was like I actually was in NYC, but somehow in my dream I ended up at Max's Kansas City or CBGB's or one of those places. It was in the day and there weren't many people there. I had to go to the bathroom (OK, do I EVER have a dream where I don't have to pee?) so I left my table and found the women's room but it suddenly turned into this weird corporate atmosphere, and I was in the bathroom of a temp employment agency (eeewww) and somehow. I remember trying to find a stall where the door stayed shut. People there were talking all this corporate talk, and when I went back out, it was as if it had picked up from some lost part of my life where I was looking for work at a temp agency, which, I will sooner kill myself than ever ever do again. Then it turned into a vacation out west, but it was at the end of the vacation and Stan and I were leaving. We were staying in this very weird duplex, Stan on one side and me on the other. It was quite old. I remember peeling green paint, and about 6 steps up to each front entrance. I had to change my clothes before I left, but there was this guy coming to see me, and it was like a combination of our friend Dale, my Dad and Stan's cousin Dave (weird D thing going on there). I told him I'll be right out, but that I had to change. But it was like the person morphed into my dad and we were sitting on a bed playing footsie (kill me now) and talking about when Stan and I got married and Stan's relatives and weird stuff. Then I remember our friend Pat was in the dream too. Both she and I were dressed/wrapped in some weird gauzy material...we were like mummies. Then I think there was a separate dream and Stan's mom (Colorado) was in it and she was talking on the phone to someone and she was saying something about not being able to do something with them because she had to do something with her daugher-in-law (me) and the way she said it was sort of "oh that Ann demanding help again" kind of way, which is so unreal because I'm basically NO bother (unlike other relatives...heh).

Posted by Ann on 08/24/02@08:41 AM CST ..::Link::..

Thursday, August 22, 2002

Very complex trio of DREAMs.

Dream 1: The first dream was by far the best, although very baffling. Stan and I had moved into a different house that we were sharing with some 20-something professional single mother that we had nothing in common with. Nothing. I have no idea why we were going to do this...maybe to save money? Her house was where Bohler's Hole used to be on Mulberry St. in Fort Collins, except it wasn't that old townhouse building, it was a different house in its stead. The rooms were rather maze-like, but spread out and there weren't many doors. There was a wonderful room in back that was sort of a familyroom/greenhouse. She had lots of plants, a fireplace and lots of very large, friendly cats for which she kept food out constantly. I knew this would be a problem with Caligula, who would consume too much. She had some empty walls with rather interesting wallpaper that I wanted to hang my paintings on. She had her own private bedroom where she slept with her baby. The bedroom had a small clawfoot tub up on a high platform...weird. I think Stan and I were in our own bedroom, sort of unclothed, but we could be seen by some visitors of hers, other 20-something professional healthclub type women that we had nothing in common with. They were staring at us, like "who are they and what are they doing here?" I quickly covered up my nakedness. The woman we were sharing the house with explained who we were, but I could see them all whispering about us. Despite that, and despite the fact that this new house had even *less* of a yard than our real house does (we live in the city...small lot...40x120), I really liked the place.

Dream 2: I was corresponding via email with some local artist who was a head of some local arts organization. I wrote him a letter that angered him, although it was not my intention to anger him...I just wanted to let him know I wasn't interested in grants (which would mean all the more for him and his grant-sucking cronies, right?) He sends me back this really scathing email that makes my Mac computer screen turn into an old DOS screen with black background and greyish-white text, then automatically shuts down when I was finished reading his email. This happened twice in the dream. I wanted to write him back or call him back and tell him that I don't give a damn if he gets grants, it's just that they're not for me, and I'm able to survive by selling the occasional painting, doing freelance work and selling my own line of dingbats and graphics. I knew he didn't want to hear that because to people like him, individual artist grants (government art welfare) are the highest form of artistic success. I really hated this dream.

Dream 3: I was wandering around in this very strange place that was part university student lounge (it had a very 70s groovy sunken lounge CSU student center quality to it) and part outdoor recreating place like a zoo or beach. The restrooms were very grimy and wet...disgusting. I was trying to find someone I knew was there, like my mom or friends or someone, but they couldn't be found. I was walking up and down all these shallow steps where students were lounging around with large pillows. During this dream, IRL I had on WPR, and they were discussing the Democratic gubernatorial debates that they held last night so in the dream it translated to me looking at some numbers where the Evil current Gov. McCallum was only a few hundred approval points ahead of Kathleen Falk (approval points were measured in hundreds of thousands, not percentages...it was more like actual votes), then later in the dream I looked at it again and Kathleen Falk was ahead. I was glad.

Posted by Ann on 08/22/02@08:42 AM CST ..::Link::..

Wednesday, August 21, 2002

Loud Family

The Loud Family is at it again. All these people do is sit out in their backyard all day and shout. Don't they have jobs? Things to do?

What's the east side become? Once upon a time this neighborhood used to be pretty cool. Now it seems like if it's not The Loud Family, it's the well-dressed flag waving yuppies. Thank goodness The Connors are still here (they have a Kathleen Falk for Guv'nor sign..yay!) as well as some of the other "old timers" (middle-aged, actually) around here. I guess we're old timers...we've lived here 12 years.

I heard that this neighborhood has a high percentage of work-at-homes like myself.

I don't think The Loud Family is working, however.

I have a headache.

Posted by Ann on 08/21/02@12:07 PM CST ..::Link::..

New Author and Nostalgia

I added Stan to this journal as an author. I don't know if he'll contribute much or not. He does have his own laptop now, but he's busy learning Sicilian. ;-D

Back in the old old days (before some of you were born!), Stan and I would write together all the time. I'd write a section, then he'd write a section. The results were quite surreal, comic bookish...mostly our adventures (along with Leon, Sharleen [we named rats after them], Adam and some other blokes) in the fight against preppie Cindy and Craig and the evil pineapple-headed Rene. And then there was Huhduhduh, but that's very politically incorrect right now in left circles, and could cause an international incident in right circles, so we won't go there (hey, he had a cheesey moustache, didn't he, Stan?). Sometimes we'd bring The Daves in there for comic relief, complete with Dave D's classic Buick. And then there was the graveyard. Fort Collins had the best graveyard...don't know what it was about it, but it was cool. Madison's graveyards aren't as good. Maybe it was just the time, as opposed to the place.

I'm getting pretty nostalgic about that time. Maybe it was that dream I had with Mitch with no warning which made no sense. No matter how many personal stages I go through, you can't totally forget parts of your life. Despite the fact I do not make art with humans in them anymore, I have this little picture I did back in '83 propped up on some nails above a mirror to the side of my computer, just so I won't forget that I once did. It's about 7 inches square, the size of a single. Since I was a non-musician, but a total music lover, I wanted my art to be like music, so I made a series of these little black and white drawings the size of singles. This picture is in a Frankenstein type laboratory, there's a semi-naked woman on the slab, Ross is losing his mind with arms up in the air, Igor is doing some tests, The old doctor...(what WAS his name, Stan? Dr. Von....something...not a very developed character) is rushing into the room from an arched doorway that contains the silhouette of a swishy limpwristed Randy W., and Adam is leaning into the right edge of the picture, eating a sub sandwich with a black t-shirt that spouts the slogan "Destroy Craig's Brain."

But the best one was done on a piece of typing paper in pencil, entitled "Craig Walks the Plank." We're all pirated out...Leon, me, Adam...Stan, were you there? Except Craig. Craig was wearing yuppie pastel 80s cotton/poly plaid (well, it was a black and white picture, you just had to picture it was pastel if you remember the 80s like Goatboy). And he was on the plank, blindfolded. I don't know if I have the original, but I did make lots of copies on astrobrites at Kinkos and plastered them all over the art building, the Chemistry building (heh), and various places on campus. Just for the helluvit.

Sometimes I'd look at those old pictures and feel embarrassed. They weren't art with a capital A. But so what. They were still part of me.

OK, that's a glimpse into my past life.

Posted by Ann on 08/21/02@09:58 AM CST ..::Link::..

Tuesday, August 20, 2002

Stan you big dummy

My dream with Mitch is here. Like, when it says "more" you need to click on the "more" link to read what's inside. Scroll down below 8.12.02.

I love you big dummy.

Posted by Ann on 08/20/02@08:32 PM CST ..::Link::..

So, what are the odds...

...that the people who have the cardboard "no dog shitting" signs out back move out and several months later the new people who bought the house put up a cardboard "please be the good neighbor and pick up your dog poop" sign? I mean, what are the odds? There's something Twin Peaks about that. Like that house only attracts...a certain kind. Doppelgangers.

Posted by Ann on 08/20/02@07:01 PM CST ..::Link::..

DREAM - Anngry Customer

This is hard to explain because I don't remember it too well. It was as if Stan and I were at one of those drive-in restaurants and there was a young woman taking our order. Something about a milkshake? She wasn't giving good customer service, it was as if she couldn't give me the milkshake for some reason. Then I went inside the restaurant and talked to her supervisor who was working behind the counter. She was a large, burly woman, and when she wouldn't answer my questions directly, I started to climb up on the counter, and shout my question over and over until she responded to me. I can't remember exactly what happened, if I got the service I needed or what. I think this is symbolic for my hosting problems.

Posted by Ann on 08/20/02@12:28 PM CST ..::Link::..

Another temporary diary

Again, I had started my journal offline because of the server move. Too technical to discuss, but I want to make sure that everything is in place before I add another entry. [more]

Posted by Ann on 08/20/02@12:27 PM CST ..::Link::..

Sorry

To those who left posts while my server was moving and the DNS was resolving. Your posts did not come through. See there were two things, first, my move to a new host, and then several days later, THEIR move to a new faster server! So it was a double blessing/cursing.

I did not delete your posts on purpose...the server sort of did...it's just the way things happened.

Does seem faster now, doesn't it?

Ooops...I hope I didn't curse myself.

Posted by Ann on 08/20/02@12:25 PM CST ..::Link::..

Well guys,

I think this is it. I think I'm back.

Posted by Ann on 08/20/02@12:23 PM CST ..::Link::..
By Ann @ 20:56 PM CST:08:20:02 ..::Link::..