art saves witty – film at 11

So this last week pretty much shaped up like this: stress, art, sleep, stress, art, art, art, sleep, stress, a brief date with B.O.B. (battery operated boyfriend), stress, art, sleep, sleep, sleep, stress, massive quantities of chocolate, stress, strong urges to break things, STRESS….are you tired hearing about my week yet? I know I’m tired of living it.

Friday night, in fact, I was laying on the couch watching 20/20. It was a show about a guy down in Long Island whose shrink asked him to get him a gun with a silencer, an unregistered van and an unregistered boat, so he could get rid of a female patient who was sexually harassing him by lifting her shirt during their sessions and showing him her boobs. I mean isn’t that shocking? I guess he felt so humiliated that he was planning a dinner party for 6 people, all of whom he planned to shoot and then take their chopped up bodies and throw them into the shark infested waters off Long Island, so that he would no longer have to be “humiliated”.

WTF? Oh, I mean, wow, what a great idea! And what a great quirky movie for like HBO with James Galdofino as the angsty patient and Hugh Laurie as the boob-phobic shrink.

See what stress does to your brain? It makes you think you can produce quirky HBO movies with Hugh Laurie.

Unfortunately I conked out before the end of the show, so I never found out what happened. Instead I woke up early yesterday morning to violent thunderstorms with my front door wide open. My computer on. The lights on. And Guardcat looking up at me like why the hell didn’t you feed me last night, you fecking bitch!

It really has been another very stressful week, namely because my car cost me another $419 to fix. So $419+$269 in the same month=(word not yet invented, to express extreme anxiety). Plus having your mom have cancer. Plus making yourself go on a date with a Scientist. I guess it could have been worse. It could have been a Scientologist.

But at least these last 10 days have been filled with a lot of art activities, which have really helped me cope. Last weekend was particularly fun. Our city had its yearly arts and crafts fair downtown. I couldn’t buy anything of course, but I did stop by Charlemagne’s booth to see his collection of cute and creepy tee-shirts. We talked briefly about the selling of our “product” and he told me its not really a sale…unless you sell your  work to a stranger. I mean I see what he’s getting at, but hey, if someone is willing to plunk down a few dollars for something  you’ve created, I’m not going to sit there and debate its authenticity.

There was a lot to do that day. I loved watching all the artists doing their chalk artwork on the sidewalks. Our art group usually does a square, but our premiere artist, the Goth Twin, had a pulled muscle, so we passed on buying a square. I was a little disappointed, because I really enjoyed doing a little corner last year.

I did wander into this non-denominational church yard which had a tent set up. They had little 10X10 squares of canvas you could paint. The idea was to paint them and they will eventually make their way to Washington D.C. for a project called the “Gathering of the Tents” in Nov. 2008, raising funds for humanitarian relief in Darfur, Sudan. For more information on the project you can go to www.tentsofhope.org. This was my square. It was just a little 10 minute quickie.

I felt bad. There were two little boys painting their squares and they really wanted to take them home, but their Dad had to keep explaining that they couldn’t, since the church was going to send them to Washington and then on to Africa. I finally told them I would take photos of them and send them to their Dad. And wouldn’t you know it. I lost the Dad’s e-mail address. Blast!

anyways, I then wandered over to some African drummer guys who were really awesome. Three of them. They were just blasting away. I love African drum music. It just takes me someplace I can’t go with any other music. Suddenly I bumped elbows with the person next to me and it was “L” the Hippie Chick! She was totally getting into them too. At the Hippie-Fest in September, I’ve actually seen her jump out in the middle of a bunch of African dancers and shake her bootie. For a 62 year old Jewish woman, she ain’t bad. So we ended up walking around the entire fair together again.  She loves talking to all the artists working on the sidewalk. She also decided that our art group needed to be represented even though we didn’t “PAY” for a square, so she drew a little tasteful (cough) “beaver” on the corner of one of her art friend’s squares. She DOES love to draw women at their most intimate. Although fortunately, it wasn’t quite as graphic as last year’s, which had mothers shielding their children and Republicans running in stark terror.

The next day our art group had an outdoor drawing event. You know, as in nekkid people communing with nature. It was at a beautiful location out by Married Guy’s,  up in the hills. Unfortunately not many people showed up. I had to hitch a ride with Tall Skinny Guy, since my car was still considered dangerous at that point. Tall Skinny Guy, of course, was over the moon, getting to drive the goddess witty there, in his Dad’s van. For some god forsaken reason, he gets all goo goo ga ga over me, so getting to come to my apartment building and pick me up was apparently about akin to taking Angelina Jolie to the Academy Awards. I feel bad since he’s a nice guy. But yeah……………NO SPARK. I guess girls can say that too. 

And then on Wednesday, after over 2 years of pestering, I finally got “J”, my former co-worker to come to my art class. I could.not.believe.it. “J” reads my blog. Hi “J”!  It was so funny seeing him standing by the side of the street as I drove up with “L”. He was just standing there, looking like a deer in headlights.  He had said he was coming the day before when he drove me home. But in my head I was going “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Heard this before. Won’t happen.” And then having no sense at all,  when I saw “J” standing there, I was going to have “L” and I yell out, “There’s naked people in the building….RUN!!!!”  from the car window.

Ha ha ha. I’m so mean. No wonder nobody wants to date me.

But I gave “J” a break and pulled into the parking lot and we gently walked him in. You have to be nice to art newbies….otherwise they’ll run away. 🙂