Ashyknees' Time Killer

The author is willing, but her punctuation is weak.

Thursday, September 29, 2005

Grammar Puss

I wrote "made me familiar with..." instead of "familiarized me with" in an important letter, because I can't figure out how to properly use the verb familiarize. OED gave examples like this one:

Horses and hounds recognized that shout, familiarized to them by many a good run.

That didn't help me much.

Head Shoulders Knees and Toes

Head: One of my dreams is to draw heads really well, heads that look like they belong to the models I am actually drawing instead of their wrinkly sad cousin. My professor keeps making us draw the skull of our faulty classroom skeleton, then superimpose the live model's face on the skull. This exercise blows my mind, because I'm thinking "But no, the model's head has to be totally different inside." My prof insists that all skulls are basically the same. How can this be?

Shoulders: The shoulders that I draw are ass-kicking.

Knees: I ignore them when I draw. Ironic?

Toes: Slowly improving, in real life as well as in art class.

Scored

I caught a point-scoring pass in this week's frisbee game. It brought out the prick in me, I must say. Felt good.

Monday, September 26, 2005

Overheard at Bizarro Policy Think Tank Meeting

Bizarro Politician: Bizarro response to natural disaster making anger. Make our poverty and social devides even more obvious.

Bizarro Philosopher: Poverty and social devides good!

Bizarro Economist: Must cut out programs for health, infrastructure, education and minority businesses.

Bizarro PR: Call program "Operation Offset."

All: Goood!

Dazzled in the Big City

On my latest visit the New York I was amazed at the raunchiness on open display at in the Victoria's Secret on Broadway near Lincoln Center. Until this weekend, I thought VSs only sold foundation, cloying body sprays and a few sparky thongs. In Philadelphia, I'd have to go to a specialty sex boutique to see the kind of stuff openly displayed in a Manhattan chain store.

Plus, the Duane Read near the Port Authority had a selection of soaps I could only dream of seeing in my local CVS.

Heavens to Betsy!

Tuesday, September 20, 2005

Shorn Again

JUST ONCE I WOULD LIKE TO GET A TRIM. A TRIM. NOT A SHEARING. HOW DIFFICULT IS THAT TO UNDERSTAND?

Monday, September 19, 2005

Musical Youth

Yesterday I attended Shoofly and her husband's swanky 1st birthday party for their son. The pastoral themed cake and squisito cookies were a welcome chaser to the barbeque feast.

During the gift opening ritual, Baby Shoofly took to his new keyboard like a pale and sighted one-year old Ray Charles. Daddy must have been so proud.

Consumer Confidential

The secret's out. I'm broke! Busted! Bupkis in the bank!

My most extravagant unnecessary recent puchases were:

taking the Amtrak to DC instead of the bus to avoid rush hour traffic and creepy DC bus station
a swimsuit on sale at Strawbridges
sunglasses at Ross
cookie ingredients from Whole Foods (I was a fool to even walk in that store.)
NJ transit trip to one-day Long Beach Island vacation, where I ate some food
seeing a pretentious dance performance at the Live Arts festival

There was other expenses, too, because some occasions demand more than sending a card. And even cards ain't free.

How's that for decadence? I wish could say I blew it all on sushi and rehab for my hophead entourage.

I'll be back on track in a few weeks.

Thursday, September 15, 2005

Qui's Roommate

"I want a baby!" Quiconque's roommate back in our dorm days used to say every so often out of the blue. And we were like "What the hell?" Why would a beautiful nineteen-year-old engineering student want a baby?

She was probably just bored (and a bit insane if I remember correctly), but some would argue that she was just responding to biological wisdom. Would it have made more sense for her to have a baby at 19 and study engineering in her thirties?

Naked Man, Please Calm Down

I'm taking a figure drawing class this semester because I can. Our current model is excellent, holding some very active poses for great stretches of time. During tonight's class, I began to wonder if he was slightly excited or if he always looks that way.

Have I Found My Inner Librarian

I have found a rare thing -- something that I actually enjoy collecting and sorting. I've just spent hours organizing my photo files, and that just after zipping around flickr, where I even added tags to other people's images. I will also spend many hours looking at netflix.

Unlike Babe, the sheep pig, or Party Girl, I have no desire to organize everything that crosses my path such as chickens, records and clothing. It's just photos and videos. And clamshells. And sometimes sugar and sweetener packets on restaurant tables.

Some may think this is the result of spending too much time with librarians, however I think there could be more to it than that.

Sorting photos is more absorbing than drawing naked people.

Wednesday, September 14, 2005

Beach Pedicure

Beach Pedicure
Beach Pedicure,
originally uploaded by ashyknees.
Getting some sand between my toes was a welcome change. Now I'm back at work, fully shod and ready for the next thing.

Friday, September 09, 2005

Could Something Be Any Cooler?

CIMG5316
CIMG5316,
originally uploaded by emma b.
This post goes out to all you bike and pirate lovers out there. You know who you are.

Maybe it would be cooler if there was a scientist in the background, holding an elaborate dessert in one hand and a musical instrument that isn't a guitar in the other. If a giant squid was riding the bike, that would be most cool.

Thursday, September 08, 2005

More Wind?

At times of national crisis, mainstream editors and journalists who live in and near cities like New York, Washington DC and Los Angeles, suddenly notice cultural divides. Even the front pages of the Wall Street Journal testify that it sucks to be poor and that --Oprah and Condi aside-- race, economic, and political status are related.

Will this sudden storm of socio-economic news flashes really lead to a productive national dialog on race, or will we just get more wind?

Know-How and Can-Do: Myths or Neglected Gifts?

Two of my best-loved American traits, Know How and Can Do, are looking pretty busted these days.

It seems that the spunk that other nations find so annoying (as they swill our sodas and swing to our music) has been squandered on a lot of nonsense lately. And when we desperately needed know how and can do right here at home, frankly, we couldn't get it up in time.

Let America lose it's status as world cop and top consumer, but never the Know How and the Can Do. The American century is over and some other nation will be the shit. So be it. I would probably prefer not to live in a super power. Empires come and go. It happened to other peoples. How many times has it happened to the Chinese?

Other nations have already laid claim to taste, thrift, industry, the most delicious desserts, etc. What are we without our ingenuity and the will to use it? We invented amazing musical and motion picture forms and some lovely processed cuisine, but what else speaks to the positive side of our character? There are other multi-ethnic societies with a democratic rule of law, so we can't pretend to stand out there. When I look at what's happening in Japan and Australia, I fear the U.S. won't even be in the running for the people with the most obnoxious popular culture. Being the country with people most likely to claim to attend church doesn't swell my heart with pride.

I want the know how and the can do back in full effect.

Sunday, September 04, 2005

Repent!

Grandma said the Lord is trying to tell us something and eventually the message will get though. I didn't ask Grandma what god has been trying to say. In the nearly one century she's been alive, I'm sure she's seen many events that could inspire repentance --few as devastating as a natural disaster that has sent thousands of people into her city seeking refuge.

I didn't bother to ask her what a hurricane might mean because Grandma isn't much of a talker and she's certainly not a fool. So I didn't think she would presume to answer such a question over a long distance phone call. Nor would she rush out to hang up "Repent!" signs all over town, or wag fingers at washed out casinos or large openly homosexual populations, or even global warming -- much as these things may or may not alarm her (I don't know if they do, since she and I haven't discussed them).

I wish more people were like Grandma. I wish these people would repent of the sin of turning to quick, canned meanings in response to a complicated confluence of forces. If there is meaning in the recent horrors, it won't fit on a billboard, a sound bite, or even a sermon.

And now, a sermon for the choir.

It is patently absurd to claim that any disaster --wrought by nature, human error or a combination of both-- is a holy retribution. It pains me to even have to write that out, it is seems so obvious. It does not compute. Those who believe there is any righteousness in an elderly woman traumatized by the memory of a dead baby floating past her would believe anything, would justify any atrocity, not only in the name of their great cause, but for the sake of comfort and convenience.

Repent!