Day 106/365: Favorite things.

Well, just a few of them anyway. All are new pictures, thankfully.

One of those things being "taking pictures through sunglasses"

Graffiti found in a coffee shop women's bathroom. See if you can guess which one is mine. 

A terribly adorable little girl that was with a pet shop or something in a recent parade. I was marching with PFLAG, and there's a dude in PFLAG whose sister was marching with these Feathers N More people. But seriously. LOOK AT HOW CUTE THIS GIRL IS.

My brother. Pictures like this are why I like taking pictures of people when they're not paying attention.

And yeah. That's pretty much it for today.

Tomorrow's theme is "fear".

Day 105/365: Fasteners. WTF.

You are not getting pictures of fasteners today. I have no pictures of fasteners. I really don't know why that even got on the list, actually.

I wanted to post a bit of prose/poetry that I've written, but I'm still going to post a few pictures so you still have something pretty to look at.

This first bit of prose/poetry whatever has been unfinished since probably some time last year.

"Laying in the field of clover, I heard you slip away

Across the valley, to the car, you got in and drove away

And I heard the words you never read from the note you never wrote

And they became the cloud of heavy summer air where you used to be

Where we used to walk at night when it was cool

Where we used to laugh and talk of fanciful things

Like what we'd do with lottery winnings

And what it might be like to fly..."

That's about all I've got. I'm a little hesitant to post my poetry because I am not very good as a writer and have never been especially talented with words. The line about "the note you never wrote" is a nod to Paul McCartney and Wings' song "The Note You Never Wrote".

This next bit is a little more personal. I have never been close to my mom's aunt and uncle, but they were nice and I liked them. Just a couple years ago they were both put in a nursing home, at slightly different times. My great aunt has alzheimers really bad so that's why she went in. Then my great uncle was becoming frail in his old age (he was in his mid 80s) and while he was more "there" so to speak, he still wasn't quite right. Most of the poem sat unfinished for a bit, while he was still alive.
Earlier this year he died. I added the last couple lines some time after that.

"Sold the house for nursing home money

Now I truly am trapped here 

Waiting to die.

To add insult to injury

I also hear we're selling the car

My car

God, I'm so pissed about it.

As for my physical pain, I can't be angry about that

After all, I'm the one who chose to fall down those stairs carrying that storm window

Don't judge me for it. 

You'd try to kill yourself too if your wife couldn't recognize you anymore.

For fifty years it's been just she and me. No kids. No alzheimers.

Now my body is withering away around me and this stupid stark white bed.

I can barely move and can speak even less.

My wife has lost her mind, but at least she can move around on her own.

Some days she calls me her boyfriend, others a familiar pair of pleading eyes that she just can't place.

Yet she remembers the names of childhood pets

and the words to old time country songs.

We had a good life, but I never thought it would end this way.

When I die, she won't even know I'm gone..."

Now, did take one liberty. It's true that my great uncle did fall down the stairs carrying a storm window. What isn't true is that he did it on purpose. There is nothing to suggest that he did it on purpose, but who knows.

I am open to constructive criticism, but keep in mind that I am no poet. I'm not a writer. I'm a visual artist.
Speaking of which, here are the pretty pictures I promised you.

Graffiti on the back wall of a building in town. It has since been painted over but it was up for months.

A cute little drawing I did, inspired by the Corinne Bailey Rae song "Call me when you get this".

My reflection in a mirror at Burlington Coat Factory...I messed with the hue and saturation in post editing.

You've probably already seen this before but I don't care. Craig Ferguson in a Willie Nelson wig is pretty much WIN and as such I can't resist posting.

Only in a state like Iowa are you going to come across this sight; a caravan of old people on motorcycles, and then a frickin tractor driving on the shoulder.

Tomorrow's theme is "favorite things", and that should be infinitely easier to deal with than today's theme. Seriously. What the fuck. Fasteners. NO.

Day 104/365: Fashion.

Fuck photobucket. I had several new pictures to upload for you, but wouldn't you know it, photobucket won't load on our other computer, and that's the only one that I can upload pictures on. The computer I'm on right now is shitty and can't upload a picture bigger than 1MB without losing the internet connection.
It's weird. I couldn't get to any of the websites I tried to on that computer, but this one still has the internet just fine. I'm far too crabby, groggy, hot, and in a fucking pissy mood to fuck around with it.

I didn't mean for most of these pictures to be of me, but I had to resort to looking on my facebook because I only had two deviations come up when I searched my deviantart gallery for "fashion". So that's great.
Let's get on with it.

This is a dress my brother designed. He had a rough sketch on some scratch paper and I decided to make one of these cute computer dolls. The dress is entirely hand drawn and colored, completely original. So that's fun.

My brother, when he still had long hair.

Another picture of my brother back when he had long hair.

I wish I knew where those sunglasses were, because I miss wearing them.

My brother holding one of my box cameras. I got them from a great uncle of mine. When he and his wife had to go to the nursing home, we went through their house to get it ready to sell. My aunt (as in my mom's sister, not my great aunt) had power of attorney. We kept a lot of things from their house, and among the stuff I chose to keep was this box camera from the 1930s. I took the picture with my digital camera and used GIMP to make it look like it would have been taken with a box camera. 

Which is strange to think about. Let's use modern technology to make a picture look like it was taken 80 years ago. XD

You are going to discover that I wear that hat quite a bit. 

SHE WORE A RAAAAAAAAASPBERY BERET

There's that damn hat again

An oooold picture of me. I miss my pink hair really bad. D:

My brother not paying attention

This has nothing to do with fashion, but when my brother and I visited the new location of the day care we went to as small children, there was this unbearably adorable little boy there. He was just the cutest little boy I've ever seen. You give him 15 years or so, and he'll be a lady killer

My brother not paying attention again. On that car trip, there were a lot of dead zones, so when we found an area where we actually got service we took advantage. XD

My brother being a gooftard with some glasses in an antique mall in Elkader, IA.

I are a properrr ladeee

And that's pretty much it. I would have liked to have had new pictures for you today, but apparently photobucket is too busy jerking off in the shower to care about working today.

Tomorrow's theme is fasteners, and I would like to take this opportunity to say

WHAT THE FUCK.

Fasteners? Were you destitute for "f" themes? 

Day 103/365: Fate.

Today you get a few random pre-taken pictures.

"Nothing that happens is ever forgotten, even if you can't remember it."

I found that quote while browsing through the memorable quotes from 'Spirited Away'. It's apparently from the Japanese version. I think in the English version it became "Once you meet people, you never really forget them" or something to that effect.

It's quite possible that I may have shown this to you before, but I can't remember for certain.

It's also possible that I've shown this to you. My brain is on the fritz at the moment and as such I'm really too lazy to double check.

I haven't done pictures like this for ages. I should do a few of those again. It's just that, with having to get up early to deliver newspapers every morning, it's hard to make myself do extra biking around town, knowing I have to bike around the next morning.

Tomorrow's theme is "fashion".

Day 102/365: Family.

This entry is for yesterday, but as you remember me saying, I was out of town, and thusly unable to submit it yesterday.

This is only a small sampling of the nearly 300 pictures I took in just a day and a half, because I didn't have much time on our computer that actually submits pictures without losing the internet. I will edit and hopefully decide to post a bunch of those. I love the energy and creativity that you get in larger cities. I love the urban-ness of everything.
I am a hippie and I do love me some nature, but I love bigger cities too. I could actually very seriously see myself living in Des Moines, actually. It's great. It's large enough to feel really urban and awesome, but it's not like a New York sized clusterfuck of a city.

ANYWAY. The pictures.

This would be my fashionable brother.

My parents acting like gooftards in front of a Keith Haring statue thing.

{My thanks to Vanessa for inventing the word "gooftard".}

Yes, my parents are kind of odd. I'm glad you noticed.

My mother not paying attention in Java Joes. I tweaked the color balance on it, but I still have the unedited version, should I decide to play with the colors some more.

As I said, this is only a fraction of the pictures I took, but since the drawing I was going to do for today's picture really did not work out, it's what you get.

Today's theme is "fate", and I will be using old pictures for that. I don't feel bad, given the sheer amount of walking around I've done in the past two days, and the sheer amount of sleep I didn't get. And, to put the cherry on top of my low fat smoothie, tomorrow is Sunday, and the newspapers are three times as big as they normally are, so that will be fun. Ugh. 

Day 101/365: falling.

Today, I have a couple new pictures for you. They were taken a little while ago but haven't been posted anywhere before today, so they're new to everyone but me. XD

I have no idea who that quote is by. The site I got it from didn't say.

Lyric belongs to Thomas Dolby.
I basically just layered a picture of my Lennon shades over a picture I took of one of our windows one day.

You can listen to the song by clicking the link below. And seriously, if you watch the video, you will know why this picture reminds me of this song.
VALLEY OF THE MINDS EYE Video - ARTISTdirect Music

You guys seriously don't know how long it took me to find that song online. The record company that owns the rights to that song is notorious for taking the song down over copyright bullshit. Which is actually not protecting their copyright; it's just effectively making sure that nobody but the handful of people who know/own the song will ever hear it.

But anyway. I have an announcement. My family is going to be out of town. We're leaving tomorrow super early in the morning, and will be gone until some time Saturday. I suppose the responsible thing to do would be to post two entries today, but we all know I'm not responsible unless I absolutely have to be. I will be bringing my camera and sketchbook on these little escapades, so I will still be making art, it just won't be uploaded tomorrow. 

Anyway, I need to start packing, making sure clothes are clean, and that mp3 players and cameras are charged, so I'll talk to you on Saturday.

Day 100/365: Fair.

Welcome to theme 100, kids. It's a little hard to believe that I've kept this up that long. I'm still having a few doubts as to the point of this blog, seeing as it almost never gets any action. However, I have churned out a few really nice pictures and drawings that I wouldn't have otherwise thought to do, so there's that.


Anyway. I have two pictures for you. I didn't just take them today, but they were taken within the last week or so, so they're fairly new.

Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything that is beautiful; for beauty is God's handwriting - a wayside sacrament. Welcome it in every fair face, in every fair sky, in every fair flower, and thank God for it as a cup of blessing. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Is it cheating to make a picture relate to today's theme by finding a quote with the word "fair" in it?  No, it's not. Those are the rules which I've just made up.

*Lame excuse to quote Eddie Izzard*

ANYWAY.

I lost the stupid quote I was going to use for this one, and apparently accidentally pasted the same quote twice.

Sorry about the font change, I copy/pasted the quotes from notepad and I'm too lazy to change everything back. XD

Anyhoo. Since I'm on our other computer I have no idea what tomorrow's theme is, but I will try to have something new for you.