Scavenger Hunt

Last night a friend was talking about the music she wanted at her funeral, so we got to chatting about funeral requests.

The first thing that came to mind for me was a scavenger hunt. I like to create elaborate scavenger hunts for every possible occasion. I have been doing it for years. Rhyming clues that are themed with the party. I like to arrange it all in various ways. My fave is to hide the clues in balloons, then hide the balloons too. The hunters have to pop the balloon to get the clue--good for lots of screaming and excitement.

Anyways, so I am thinking why I have such a penchant for scavenger hunts. I am thinking this may have to do with the fact that because I am lost and also that I am seeking. Maybe I am just expressing some need.

This is when it sux to be a counselor. To be overly analytical. Sux.

I am going to have to work on the theme and the prize a little. Maybe I can make a gourd in my likeness, put it in a little coffin and allow the funeral guests to search for it by uncovering little clues. I can see it now. People dressed in black, trotting around the cemetery looking for clues.

Oh, well that won't work. I am donating my body to science. Wow, well that gives me lots of new ideas....

My Moral Turpitude

I had a rather interesting and enlightening convo with my sis n law the other day. She made a good point regarding some of my blogs and accompanying pics. She stated, quite reasonably, that I put myself at risk when I ride the edge, or go over it through word choice, pics of gestures, messages that are harsh and can be taken the wrong way.

Solid advice and points all well taken.

But..and you knew there was one....I am tired of being repressed. I thought about this for hours and hours after our conversation, and here is the deal. I will have to step up and own things I say and do. I may be over the edge, my language when I am ticked is foul--ask anyone who knows me--I will make threats and warnings (but I make good on them--I will give myself that. If I threaten you, guess what? I am not joking). I am human and I would like to be genuine as well. I just cannot put on airs any longer, let people mistreat me and do nothing, express nothing. Nope, I just am not going to do it any more.

So if my words and ideas defy moral turpitude, then so be it. This stance is subjective at best and I have up until recently allowed this concept to imprison part of my spirit. I also have first amendment rights to say what ever the heck I want.

In short, if my blog offends you, then don't fucking read it.

"Well behaved women rarely make history." Laurel Thatcher Ullrich

Mischief

So I finished my first professional gourd sale and mailed it off today. It is a cat clown/Pierrot called Mischief.

So does one sale make me a professional artist or just a cool artsy chick? Well it is not the first one I have sold, just the fist one sold to a person who is not connected to me in any way, just thru the art.

Man, I am kind of a big deal now.

Small Minded People and Liars

Small minded people suck and people who lie to others whom they supposedly care about should burn in a special hell. I could stop here and have said what I came to say, but then what would be the fun in that really?

Let us start with small minded people. You know the pouty, foot-stomper people in the next cube or office over from you at work? Yes, that guy. The one who works their passive aggressive magic on all of the other small minded people in a sort of social war tactic against those of us who are a lot better than that. See, this "mean girl" network is the only weapon of those who are weak in both mind and spirit and often times body as well. Well, fair warning to all of you and you know who you are. I am going to kick your fat asses in more ways than one.

Now that I am sufficiently warmed up, let me take on liars. You know the kind that lie to you so that they can in turn lie to themselves. You end up just being a vehicle really for their battle against themselves and their own shortcomings. That is what hurts--the whole human toilet feeling. Like someone has taken your feelings and flushed them down the toilet, but this person is akin to someone who lives in the sticks not the city, so your emotions do not travel thru the city works, get purified and ultimately survive to go back thru the proverbial city plumbing system only to travel thru yet another person. No this asshole has a fuking septic tank and guess what? Yep, your emotions get to sit and stew in that aromatic quagmire. Gee, thanx so much for that.

Aesop Rock has a song called "No Regrets." It is a really killer song about a girl called Lucy who lives her life as an artist and cares little for much else because she is passionate about art and expression and positive things. When she is a girl, the other kids don't "get" her. They mess with her, say mean things and she responds to their inane requests to get her to do things with "I'm busy, thank you much" and continues to draw her cityscape in chalk on the sidewalk for a whole city block. When she stops they say tauntingly "You're just giving in" and she says "I'm not giving in, I'm finished" and she walks away.

As a young woman, other young women invite her to lunch more because they are gossipy and nosey and not so much cuz they like her. They think she is weird--a novelty. Lucy tells them "I'm busy, thank you much" and then the song states, "While they spread their rumors thru the streets, she made another masterpiece."

As an old woman in a nursing home, she tells the nurse "Look, I never had a dream in my life because a dream is what you want to do but still never pursue. I knew what I wanted and did it until it was done so I've been the dream that I wanted to be since day one." She then blows a kiss to each of her pictures, then she dies.

So to all you complete and utter bitches who in all honesty I do not think are good enough to be breathing my air "I'm busy, thank you much."

Vixen

I made a new gourd for the annual Chula X-mas extravaganza where we smoke, drink, say "bawlsaq" a lot and generally act very unladylike. So anywayz, I make one of my sculptures as my gift for the fuk-u-beeyotch-I-am-stealin-ur present gift exchange we do. You know where you can pick from under the tree or steal someone else's gift?? The deal is that once one has been stolen 3 times, it is frozen and not even the number 1 person can steal it back in the end.

I get a bottle of wine that Allison has had labeled special so that it says "Chula Ballsaq" with a caption that reads "Here's to getting really drunk." DeLaine gets some x-mas thongs from Conn, Conn gets the baby Jeezus, Mary and Joseph lantern sculpture and guess what? She's Jewish, and Gerlich gets the 25 days of x-mas shot glass/candle holders--yeah right you can put a tea light into anything and call it a "candle holder." The list goes on, but you get the picture.

So my gourd gets stolen 3 times and frozen and I was so flattered by that. At the end of the party, I took a pic of my gourd reindeer in her box before Emma took her home. I was really sad. I was thinking how attached I get to the sculptures sometimes. How there is a piece of me in each one of them and that they are really actually quite personal. Then I realize that the sadness is also in part because the party is over. This is the end of another year and the party that we all wait all year for is now at a close. It is bittersweet really because every year, we get closer in this group of friends that we call chulas. Our own ya-ya sista hood. You start to wonder with every passing year if we will be 65 years old sitting in Diane's living room laughing and cussing and eating chimichurri and sushi.

I hope so.

I am just being raw today OK?

I don't feel like being cute or clever today. I just sort of feel like a beeyotch, a M-a-v-e-r-i-c-k. This could be from drinking champagne all day and eating stuff I should not have and just wanting to kick myself in the buttocks for having stuffed crab AND pie. I feel like a P-I-G pig! But that is what happens when you wait an extra day to do Thanksgiving. The anticipation gets you and you go overboard, head first into the sweet potato casserole.

First off, the turkey this year was pimping out of control. It was a boiled egg stuffed inside a hen stuffed inside a duck stuffed inside a goose which was stuffed inside a turkey with layers of crawfish stuffing all crammed up the various fowl asses. Cool, I just made a pun.

Anyway. I am feeling piggish.

What does this have to do with gourds? Well simmer down home grown, I'm a gonna tell ya.

I get blocked when I am making stuff if I A.) have cluttered closets and drawers B.) am feeling piggish. So I either gut closets or work out extra hard, or both. Every single time, I am all arty and frisky again. I am gourding out of control as I would say.

So at 9:00am, I am hitting the gym and working out with my trainer. Then I think I will come home and make a pig gourd.

Happy Gourdsgiving

How long can I tie the making of gourd art to daily events you ask? Hell, I dunno.

Today is gourdsgiving day really. That is more appropriate. See the American Indians were using gourds for 100s of years before those nasally English folks came over here whining about "religious freedom" and killing off my ancestors with their filthy diseases and enslaving them just cuz, well they were largely English and English people used to be all up their own asses about being the boss of like, everybody, worldwide. Gawd I hate Eurotrash (I am nearly half American Indian but not Wampanoag like the tribe that was actually aiding the capillary deficient, belief-disabled Euro freaks). Anyway, due to having hard skinned gourds, the pasty English people were able to have vessels for water and other stuff, like medicines needed cuz they were all so flippin disease ridden.

The closest thing to a gourd eaten at that "first" feast in 1621 was squash, which is also something the Indians turned the Pilgrims on to. Other Indian gifts worth mentioning: tobacco and peyote. Hey, don't turn your nose up OK? Your fundamental, fuk thru the hole in the sheets, Puritan, chastity belt wearin, slave ownin forebears from across the Atlantic were already in the habit of eating with their hands like cavemen, so, a little peyote in the gourd pipe was an improvement. Plus, I am sure the Wampanoag were all like "these brothas need to R-E-L-A-X!"

Some claim that the 1621 gig was all ad hoc and whatnot, but that the REAL "first" Thanksgiving occurred right here in this great state of Texas over in El Paso when the Don Juan de Onate took official possession of that area near New Mexico. I am in Texas and I grow and sculpt gourds which brings us full circle back to the mighty gourd.

So Happy Gourdsgiving! Hope you don't choke on your turkey! Wishing you pleasant peyote dreams/astral projections!

A blog for your thoughts.....

I think sadness and blogging should sort of not go together, but then somehow are a perfect combination. Ironic, huh? On the one hand, it could drive your ass totally over the edge. Say you are thinking of hurting yourself or others, hypothetically. You sit down, you are crying, mascara running, you are drinking coffee or Southern Comfort or coffee spiked with Southern Comfort through a straw but otherwise in a coffee mug because your kids are still awake. You are feeling like fresh hell. You begin to blog. And you blog and blog and get worked up and the BAM! you are down one dog or cat in the house.

On the other hand, it could be totally cathartic. You let that bad energy flow onto your well-conceived and charming blog page. The words flow like....um, let's see...Southern Comfort. Yes your blog becomes proverbial Southern Comfort. You harm no animals. You take no prisoners. You do no drunk texting or e-mailing or Facebooking. You manage to stay out of jail yet once again and all thanx to your quirky, urban, yet somehow non-threatening or pretentious blog.

You are now totally unblocked artistically. You are able to down a margarita flavored Spike and make some gourds. Well, I make gourds. Others may find themselves gardening, napping, making a bong out of a coke can---whatever---the point is you are all sane again cuz you had a blog to save you.

I am sad today.

My day sucked even though my gourds rock

Wow. Got a butt load of feedback on the new site and my blog. A couple of people have been Bond-mo-tized too, so now I have 2 official blog stalkers AKA: "followers." I have never been so proud.

So today I am all at my desk. I am eying the scissors and thinking how perfectly they would fit into my eye socket. Then I remembered "Hey, I am a blushing Blog virgin and I have an official site!" So I checked in and realized that even though my day largely sucked, my gourds are not too shabby.

So now I want to tout them as "live-saving" gourds or "good karma" gourds. I want my own infomercial with Marlo Thomas as my spokesperson.

Enjoying my new blogging power

Dayum. I am feeling so liberated now that I have the power to blog. What the fuk does "blog" mean anyway? It sounds like a euphemism for having sex or something. Jesus, I just realized my daughters may blog someday and how awful that sounds.

I am working on a gourd right now. The guy wanted a clown. I can't do clowns. It just isn't in me. I think I am too dark and cynical for clowns. But I am glad to be out of my comfort zone and am doing a Pierrot. But not a human Pierrot. It is a cat Pierrot.

This happens. I don't really know what the blog I am making until I get started and then it sort of tells me what it will be. Kind of like that episode of Night Gallery where they dolls all come to life and have these evil teeth and are all scaring and bossing the people around (and biting them too).

My Kick Ass Gourds

So here are some of my more recent gourds.