Eastery Artistry
Easter Holidays. A time to reflect about how much fun school actually is. A time to figure out ways to entertain one’s children without involving the television or the outside world because it’s feckin’ snowing out there for some reason.
I thought about making something chocolaty but given that I’m pregnant, it turns out there isn’t an ounce of the stuff left in the whole house. I thought about glueing eggshells back together but eggshells are flaky things and refuse to stay in tact under the pressure of a five-year-old’s grasp. I’d hard-boil them, but hey, we’re in a recession.
It was Puppychild who suggested an Art Attack. It’s one of her most favourite TV shows, bar Supernanny and Spongebob Squarepants. I showed her the website and guided her through its archives, asking her to pick an art project to do. I expected her to choose something involving fairies or fashion or something pink at least, but no.
She chose the severed hand.
I’m so delighted she’s inherited my sense of the macabre. TAT objected that this art project isn’t exactly Easter related but I disagreed… it does have loose connections to the theme of resurrection, if you think about it.
How K8 got her groove Bach
Recently I went on a rather anal whinge about home decoration… there really are too many shades of paint to choose from.
Then I had a brain fart, inspired by a coffee shop I used to visit a lot in Blackrock shopping center which was plastered floor to ceiling with old musical manuscripts.
Ok so I probably should have screwed the doors back on before showing it off, but you get the idea.
This is how I did it:
- First I downloaded some free piano sheet music here, and printed it off onto extremely cheap printer paper (the more absorbent the better)
- Then I found a large tray and added two kettles-full of boiling water to about six teabags (including raspberry tea for interesting colour). The printed manuscripts went into this massive brew to soak overnight; I sprinkled a few teaspoons of instant coffee between layers to add interesting speckling.
- The next morning I heated the oven to its max, and began to dry each sheet individually for about a minute per sheet (this part requires intense babysitting obviously) until I was left with a stack of crispy, slightly burnt paper that looked like it had just been rescued from a 200 year old vault.
- I then mixed some PVA glue with a little water, and plastered it to the surface with a wide paintbrush. The bonus here is that PVA glue is waterproof, meaning that the finished plastered surface is washable and permanent, provided that an extra coat of PVA is applied to finish the effect. Happily this doesn’t mean that the surface ends up glossy, but with a pretty nice textured matt effect instead.
While this whole ordeal is slightly labour intensive, it’s a heck of a lot cheaper than buying paint or wallpaper, and a lot less messy than applying same.
Thanks to Chaplin’s (ex) coffee shop for the inspiration, and to Art Attack for glue enlightenment.
Revenge of the Mutated Gunge
Being a mother is not a glamorous thing by a long shot.
Laughingboy has issues with his lungs but he rarely complains about it. Instead, from time to time he’ll develop a nasty pool of mucus in there and will begin to choke on it in a pretty alarming way. Most of the time he can handle it himself and will evict the gunge nicely onto his shirt-front, but occasionally he needs help. That’s where the suction machine comes into play.
This is basically a pump which sucks mucous out of my son via a long tube, and deposits it into an airtight bucket. It’s very loud and very scary to people who aren’t used to this sort of thing so it’s great for freaking out unwanted visitors and the like. The problem is that because it’s generally used in panicked situations involving a choking child, I keep forgetting to empty it.
I used it today and noticed that the bucket was almost full to capacity and hadn’t been emptied in quite a few months. It was sort of pulsating, much like the psycho-reactive goo as seen on Ghostbusters II, only it wasn’t pink, more of a brownish green sort of shade. I’m picturing germs in there all swimming around smoking doobies and shagging like crazy and producing genetically superior germ children who in turn have done the same. Generations of mutated gunge waiting for that special day when the bucket gets opened. That day was today.
I popped the bucket open but the lid got stuck and the green and brown gunge sort of splattered on my hands and around the sink a little bit. I emptied the rest down the toilet, and remembered with dismay as I flushed, that I probably should have put the toilet seat down. Millions of teensy super-germs all over the place, floating around like all their Christmases have come at once. I swear I heard them cheer as I inhaled them.
I washed the bathroom. I showered. I bathed the kids and bagged my clothes and then went to make dinner.
The reason I know that this bacteria is genetically superior, is that normal bacteria takes roughly twenty-four hours to incubate in the human body before first symptoms of illness begin to show but today, today they appeared within two hours. I sneezed eight times in a row (all over the oven chips) and came damn close to Nirvana. My throat closed and seems to have pulled the back of my eyeballs with it for they look like two piss-holes in the snow and are streaming uncontrollably. My head hurts. Oh how my head hurts.
I think I may have Bubonic Plague, but it could be my imagination playing tricks. Either way, lesson learned.
Hypochondria by MichaelO
Three a.m., St. Michael's Ward
I remember the Juggernaut. I remember the blinding lights and the windscreen and the rain droplets that suddenly morphed into a million tiny pieces of glass… and the fire. I remember the furious heat most of all. Burning hair. My poor car! I wonder what it looks like now.
I don’t remember how I became so lucid! There was nothing in between, no tunnels or white lights and definitely no Grandmother welcoming me into her open arms as I expected. Those people must be starved of answers for that is not what death is like. Unless… am I dead? Maybe I’m not. I feel a sudden want to be a wet dog at the beach, to send a flurry of shakes throughout my body and furiously flick away whatever is causing this fuzzy strangeness but I can’t, and instead it clogs my mind so that I can’t think straight.
Slap slap slap… my bare feet on linoleum… I’m walking through a corridor that smells of uric acid and tumble-dried cotton, a corridor that could use an open window to breeze away the heavy stuffy fug that amplifies the muffled sounds of swishing ventilators. It’s oppressive. The fact that I can feel that is good, right? I’m so confused. A nurse passes me and shivers. She won’t look at me and I don’t want to talk to her, she has work to do and I seem to have no urgent agenda right now, anyway. A buzzing exit sign that I have no interest in whatsoever passes me by.
A baby screams.
“200. CLEAR!”
Where is that child? It’s urgent cries tear through me. It makes me flinch and I yearn to pick it up and have it feel the warmth of my neck, I need to stop it from herniating itself, such violent cries should not be left untended… what the hell is wrong with that infant? I pass doorways, dark rooms that seem like capsules of immune silence. Sleeping souls oblivious to the suffering outside their rooms snore gently and beep contentedly. The screaming gets louder as I find the room I’m searching for.
“300. CLEAR!”
It’s empty. I can’t believe this room is empty save for this poor child. His blanket has tied itself in knots around his kicking ankles, his pillow sodden, its whiteness paling so bleakly against the furious redness of the small child’s cheeks. As I reach toward him, I feel the change. I feel the needle entering my arm and it’s so wonderfully exhilarating. Beautiful and uncontrollable ecstasy rules my functions and I collapse into a nearby chair and my stomach distends but I care not a jot for the unborn child. I feel like I’m dying all over again, but this is a living death, a torture of unheardof proportions.
“500. CLEAR!”
A jolt of clarity awakens me and I sit up, the child is still there in front of me and still crying and I am infuriated with my lack of willpower to stay with it and so I stand with sudden urgency. I reach out and touch the child whose skin is burning and itching from a rash of foreign cause and I feel its deep loneliness and needing. I know now that there’s no mommy, that mommy has gone away, mommy was never there in the first place. The baby’s need is so urgent that I can feel it too, tears trickle down my cheeks as I grab the child with sudden urgency and squeeze it tight to my breast. It’s ok now. Every little thing’s gonna be alright. Shush now. Shushhh.
“700. CLEAR!”
I feel the end. My feet no longer touch the linoleum beneath as my weight shifts and a great racking breath leaves my soul, I’m plunged into newness and I care no longer for my car.
“Let it go… she’s gone. Time of death, three fourteen a.m.”
The baby’s cries stop in a sudden vaccuum of inevitability and a peace falls upon its tortured soul, the heroin addiction no longer there. It relaxes its clenched wrists and notices the lights above the door to its room and it gurgles with pleasure. The baby sleeps, and wakes to a whole new dawn.
(Image from Glasseyalley.com – best Photo Blog, Irish Blog Awards ’09)
Trippy
Pretty! It’s like a magic-eye picture only without all the hassle…
October's Dog's Bollocks
Indeed and it is time for this month’s winner of the ‘Dog’s bollocks of the month’ award!
It’s a recognition I devised that’s different from the other awards fellow bloggers spin around, in that it’s not a meme. It’s a button that you get just for you, just because you’re you. You don’t get to pass it on and, (I’m looking at you, Maxi) you most definately cannot sell it.
This month’s winner of Dog’s bollocks of the month goes to:
Sam, Problemchildbride!
This is not just because of the quality of her content (which I’ll go into in a minute), but a lot of it has something to do with the new design… a combination of the colour and the desolate but slightly cheeky banner has me feeling like I’m under a duvet with a torch reading on the sly.
As for the content… well, you most likely all know her by now. I’m a huge fan of the unusual, and you can’t get much more unusual than this- her fiction lures you into a false sense of security and then slaps you with a wet fish across the face periodically. It’s strange, it’s weird, it always has a moral in it somewhere, and I love it.
I offer for your reading amoozment:
The Gloomsome Tale Of Jed, Goat Of The Night ; a random work of fiction (it’s hard to choose just one) that seems to be an allegory of something else entirely, so much so that you might wish that all News items could be described like this.
Short One Act Play Followed By In-Depth Analysis And Commentary ; This post makes me realize that I’m being a big fat whingeing cow when I’m thinking I’ve got nothing to write about… talk about conjuring up a mind bending post out of thin air? Genius!
Telly ; A post about how Sam has forsaken Telly for the new media… pretty much like meself. I commend you Sam on your resolution and clean break from the time-wasting slave box that is TV and your efforts to wean the ickle ones from its grasp. That’s not easy. I sympathise a lot.
Good on yeh, PCB! There’s a pair of Dog’s bollocks winging their way to you by email so lettuce know if you got them safely! Misdirected bollocks are a painful thing.
Stop the lights
Ok, this is it. This is the story of one of my worst fears coming true. It’s a good thing I came prepared! It’s difficult to write because it’s still fresh and it gives me palpitations just to think about the nightmares I’m going to have as a result of it; so I’m hoping that flushing it down my blog will help a bit. Sorry, it’s going to get messy in here.
-o0o-
I picked him up from a car park in Bray today as per instructions from base. He appeared straight away, a tall man wearing a grey suit, carrying two bags full of beer from the off licence.
When he sat into the seat he gave me a sharp shock, with a two-second time limit to regain my composure. He pleaded with me to bring him home, desperation was in his voice and his face… his face. This guy would be a good advertisement for why it’s not a good idea to put water on a burning chip-pan. Perhaps it was a petrol bomb? Something had stolen the skin from the entire near-side part of his head and what remained was topped with a bright ginger mop of hair. He stank. He was pissed as a fart and had the worst case of hiccups that I’ve ever heard in a person.
Why did I let him stay in the car? I dunno. Was it because I’m a sucker for a needy, or was it because I was looking for a good story? Who knows. Stayed he did.
He calmed slightly and I asked him where he wanted to go.
“Tallaght” he said.
“Okaaay… now just to warn you that might cost around fifty quid and I’m going to need most of that up front, I’m afraid.”
“Whhaaa? Ah no, I’ll give you a twenty. All I have’s a twenty.”
“Fu.. no way, chancer! I’ve me own mouths to feed. I can bring you to a bus stop or a train station though?”
“Anything, jus gemme outa here. But don’ go back inta d’town, I don’t wanna go there, take the back roads.”
Strange request. I was driving around now, heading south where he pointed. He calmed further as we drove, and started crooning gently.
“I love you… I love you so much… you’re lovely for taking care ‘me. I love you more than I love myself right now….” the rest trailed into mumbles interspersed with ‘Y’know warri mean?’ or, ‘You know what I’m talkin’ about, don’tya?” to which my automated reply – ‘Yep.’ was standard.
I picked up some garbled words, and picked out that what I had here, was your genuine bonifide tinker. The fact was disguised by the scarring and the accent which had a Belfast sort of frosting to it. I asked him about it, and he uttered a few staccato words (still battling seriously stubborn hiccups) – soldier… army… real… with random lines of semi-coherent speech. Turns out he did a few terms alright, interrupted by court, prison, and a coma.
Well. Fucking. Dodgy. Mate.
As we drove, he reached into his bottle bag and withdrew a bottle of Bud. He de-capped it, sipped for a bit, then belched loudly. At least that cleared his hiccups I suppose. He then leaned in towards me and started whispering sweet nothings. The stench was incredible and raised my hackles instantly.
“OI, BACK OFF MATE.” I said sincerely. “Put that belt on and sit the fuck still. Try anything funny again and I’ll radio the coppers. Don’t want that, now, do ye?”
“No. Sorry I’m sorry – sorry. Sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I just got out of court! Sorry, so sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry etc…” for ten bastard minutes. Then I hit traffic and he had my undivided attention. He asked for my hand (this is the usual stage when drunken old men realise that it’s not appropriate to chat up your driver and get so apologetic that they feel like they have to shake my hand to confirm it.) so I offered it and shook. He rose it to his lips and planted a fat wet kiss on my knuckles.
My squirm factor ploughed the ceiling and I looked in my rear view mirror to see that the dude behind was watching intently. Nice one. My passenger then started to kiss my shoulders wetly and roughly and so I pulled the fuck over.
Bollocks. I can’t get out. Fight or flight or money and car? Bollox to it. Fight.
“OUT YOU GET” I shouted.
“Ahh no don’t do that, I love you. I’m gonna give you a hickey as payment! He chuckled and I laughed maniacally at his fucking hilarious joke. But hey guess what? It wasn’t a joke. He reached over and grabbed my neck with his right hand and pulled himself towards me. Our heads collided and I elevated to Code Green and my sanity left the building.
I whipped one of these bad boys out and shoved the pointed tip into his larynx.
“Don’t fuck with me, fuckface.” It was the best I could come up with I’m afraid. I’ve thought of loads more things I should’ve said since, but the delivery seemed to do the job nevertheless. He sank with huge melancholy back to his side and slid out of the door, slamming it after what seemed like an eternity.
I sped away and my sanity returned. I suddenly felt like I needed to throw up, so I parked by the beach and sat still for a second. Adrenalin ebbed away with the tide and I screamed. I rolled up the windows and closed the sunroof and I screamed for thirty seconds.
When I’d finished, I was a new person. Alive, strong, powerful, shitscared… it’s another patch on the quilt that is my life and I’m better for it. You make your own luck. I had no problem picking up drunks from the Foggy Mirror after that, their leers paled by comparison.
The base fed me sweet tea and cigarettes and cured my shakes by taking the piss for a while and then sent me out on a nice relaxing drive to Terenure. Just what the doctor ordered… rush-hour contemplation.
-o0o-
To people who love me and hold friendships with me, don’t freak out. I mean this most for my mum and dad who will, if they find this, go completely ape-shit. Not without good reason, either – I have babies too and understand the intense worry. They will tell me to quit taxi driving but I’m going to stand my ground. This is life, and if I run away I’ll never grow stronger. I’ve been vulnerable all my life and that was a mistake, toughness must be bet-in through experience, which is what I got today.
Wow, that feels so much better, the burden’s been lifted and I feel floaty with relief. I’m so glad I have a way to get it out! Maybe I won’t have nightmares after all. They’re your nightmares now.
Lost Bear
FOUND:
ONE LOST BEAR
CORNER OF MAIN STREET AND QUINSBOROUGH ROAD, BRAY CO.WICKLOW, OUTSIDE HILTON’S PHARMACY
WILL BE RETURNED WITH FREE TODDLER
(Photoshop tricks learned HERE)
Ogham my…
I got more hard-earned payment for my webdesign efforts today! I burned candles from all ends working on Celt Clan Ink, and it’s pretty much finished, barring a few tweaks and a more involved forms page. There are now some pretty excellent photos in there.
So anyway, back to my payment:
What’s that all about then?
Ogham was carved and read from BOTTOM to TOP.
(Also carved, occasionally, right to left).Also written as ogam or ogum, it is pronounced “AHG-m” or “OH-ehm.” Ogham served as an alphabet for one of the ancient Celtic languages. Its origin is uncertain: it may have been adapted from a sign language.
Current understanding is that the names of the main twenty letters are also the names of 20 trees sacred to the druids.
Some authors have suggested the existance of a 13 month calendar which shared some of these names.A 15th century treatise on Ogham, The Book of Ballymote, confirms that ogham was a secret, ritualistic language.
However, there is no direct evidence that the Ogham alphabet was used [in antiquity] for divination or any other magical purposes. (Taken from http://ogham.lyberty.com/oghamintro.html)
The first third of the tattoo is the name of my firstborn. The numbers show the date of his birth, and the infinity symbol represents his place in this world.
The latter part is the name of my little girl, with a smiley face slyly hidden to represent her infectious happiness.
I used the following alphabet (there are many different versions) and added my own tweaks and scribbles to add more information:
I’m aware that I’m going to have to explain all of this many many times during my life, but it’s ok. It’ll give my taxi punters a good conversation start, I’m sick of talking about the weather.
The Accidental Terrorist has gone a bit mental regarding the website contract, he is planning a portrait of Wouldye on his shoulderblade, and has already gone for some celtic warrior inking:
Pretty amazing art, innit?
What was that website again? Oh yeah… Celt Clan Ink! Great design, isn’t it? I wonder who wrote that site…
Postermania
It really isn’t a good idea to abandon the blogging world for too long, is it? I really really need to use this google reader thing everyone keeps telling me about, for it would make catching up so much easier! Anyway, all my poster and tattoo site work is complete! I’m just waiting for Ron to pull his finger out and upload the files onto the interweb so I can link it for you. I’m proud of my poster endeavours, so I’m bloggerizing them. Also this proves that I haven’t been sitting around on my thóin all week.
-:-
Also I’d like to show you this photo I took last autumn:
As it turns out, this photograph is cursed. The black cat you see (for whom I admittedly had a death-wish), was run over a few weeks back, and the dog… well, I found his body in my garden yesterday while sorting my junk pile. Funnily enough, his name was Twenty Major. I’ll be framing this photo for my neighbour who owned both of these unfortunate animals.
Indeed and if it is not the photo itself but the camera that is cursed, I can take pictures of your enemy for €1,000 a piece, and they should expire soon after of natural causes.
Oh yes, and since I last posted on here, I got my first tattoo! I now have a giant anchor on my back. I’m well-ard, me. (Nahhh, just kidding. I’m now marked with the symbol of the ying-yang. What else?!)
Ok… now for some serious catch-up. Can I borrow some broadband?
-:-
Looky look! My virgin attempt at a website!
Laugh all you want, I don’t care. I just gave myself a lollypop.
Thanks Ron!
