Anyone looking for some mural art? Seems I'm destined for some crazy wall- painting this summer. Ha. And just as I was looking for a "real" job, too.

Here's some of my (smaller) work on paper:

Floating, pastel on blue paper, 14x 24"


Walking Around, oil pastel on bristol paper,  8x11"

Mouseprints, watercolor, 8x8"

East of The Sun, watercolor/ digital collage 10x10"

(I can paint BIG, too!)

Ex.

I've been thinking lately. You know, sitting on the front stoop and waxing philosophical on stuff, like love and experience and regrets.  Watching cars go by, poking at ants, humming to myself sort of thing.

Specifically, there are these two chicks which I rather admire, both being kinda mouthy and fierce and brilliant, one like a sister and the other pretty much a stranger, and regular xangans to boot (go find them yourself!). They both have a tendency to get me thinking. At the moment they're on opposite ends of the romance spectrum, one chronically broken-hearted, and the other steadily in love.  Where it gets curiouser and curiouser is how they're all inexorably tangled up in my own mess of regrets and experiences, because the degrees of separation in this case are not so few and far between.  Is that plenty cryptic enough?

We fell for the same guys at one point or another, basically.

Ex- girlfriend awkwardness and malingering hostilities aside, it's a funny thing to hear your own love story reinterpreted. I suppose we're all  instinctively territorial about our foothold in a person's heart, and like to believe that whatever it was, it was a  worthy, one-of-a-kind experience. To hear it slighted or downplayed is not a happy feeling.

I guess it makes me think about regret. My heartbroken sister-xangan and I had a long conversation about this the other night, clearing away the sadness and anger and jealousy, and getting down to forgiveness. I mean, we totally made fun of his dorky underwear and stupid jokes and all the times we basically wanted to kick each other's asses- but we dealt with it, because it needed to be done. Some pretty heavy, nasty, regretful sludge got hauled out, acknowledged, and put in its place. We both had a worthwhile experience, for all the pain and sadness, it got us where we are now. We're both still stupidly heartfelt about him, but all in all, I think things worked out rather well.

I was thinking about this around a year ago- after my philosopher flaked on me, and the guy from colorado never turned up at my doorstep, and a seemingly bajillion other dumb boys couldn't get their act together or decided to be in love with someone else or just plain shut me out, and I myself had run away from the most profound love of my life after seven years of holding on- and I decided that I have no regrets. Nope. Not allowed. The thing is, to me, it has nothing to do with forgiveness, but in accepting things as they are, as important experiences. It sucked sometimes, yeah. It was great, too. These are  things that got me where I am, and where i was a year ago, sitting on the stoop thinking about how love has made me who I am.  Made me ready. Waiting for something good to happen.

And that's about when Bryon pulled up in front of my house, with a carful of my pals, and introduced himself to me.

I have decided to be late to work today.

Not that this is any different from any other day I have ever worked,
except that today  i am planning on  it. It's all in the
intent, you see.

This is because I realized this weekend that a.) there are only two
weeks left in the school year, and I've already resigned, so who gives
a crap? and b.) my performance evaluation for this year, although
pretty much a moot point since i won't be returning and am obviously
not up for a raise, was fairly stellar and nobody can do anything to
change it at this point. So I'm being a delinquent.  Going to the
store to buy fashion magazines to hack up. For an art project today.
See. I'm not so bad.

Bad Annie.