Wow. Just very basic techinical things getting in the way. Looking for a straight edge. Could I use the bottom of the tv table. That is flat and metal. or...this bendy tape measure. but it's too thin. It reminds me of the ingenious things that Peter explained his cell mates could make. They did something with a bic pen to make a tattoo gun.

Peter's cellmate made a tattoo gun out of a bic pen and a sharpened bed spring.

Z... the healer, tattooed her wrist in honour of her mid life crisis.

There is a seven second space that keeps people guessing...those moments when the green man is neither green nor red.... Myself...I was always checking my watch. I'm so relieved that it's going to be addressed. It will add a few seconds to my day.

Technical difficulties

Electrical and electronic things not being my specialty... my camera needs a charge, but where is it?. The last time I saw it, it was coming back to life after a period of the date running and running until it beeped. This happened as I think a button was permanently pressed while it was in my purse. I don't like to look at my camera when it is broken so I put it in the bowl of miscellaneous things in the kitchen. I do need it today. Sometimes, I have found that with a broken laptop or camera, if you put it away for a week or a month depending on the damage, a little time alone in the dark will fix it.

The computer...this toyota is not loading very quickly. But I have so many songs and movies on the data base....not my idea...that it is all running on 19% of the memory which i hear is a strain. So I must get a terrabite I think it is called that will plug in as a remote memorty...or I could toss the whole computer out the window and start again. I would lose a lot of pictures though.

Ohh. Ben is shouting because he put stickers on my pyjamas last night and now, they are a little rumpled. And yesterday, |Tony accidently ran into soy latte woman and told her to choke on a chicken bone....not good. Wanted that chapter closed. But mended with a text and voice mail. Hard to apologise when people don't answer the phone.

Did have to stop painting last night as after a tea break, I came back and couldn't find the black I was using. I hope I can find it otherwise will have to switch to brown.

Looks like I must frame these paintings now. It is not an electrical challenge but it involves cutting matboard which involves finding a surface big enough to do that. I don't like cutting mat mounts. But I better just do it.

Exhausted from the painting all day and most of the night. The text takes a long long time and looking at the faces to decide who they are and what they will say ...Zoe...no not an e-mail from her...an e-mail to my mother passed on to me. So she has time to research and find an old family friend from New York- and passes on her address so that we can be in communication?Hmm. But she doesn't have time to return her sister's phone calls or ever write an e-mail. Not since x-mas...what a bleeding waste of time. Why was I cursed with this bull dozer of a sibling who has half a cow in her basement freezer she grills up daily. That's it. I'm a cow for mentioning her cow eating and the inch of hazlenut creamer she puts in her coffee each morning which is 60 calories a teaspoon. I do try to get on with her. But she's just so mean that even our high school counselor said there couldn't be two Zoe's in the family. She takes up too much room in every way. She has my paintings all over her house, but she can't return a bleeding phone call. I am in a mind not to see them this x-mas. I'm only Ben's escort anyway. That satisfies them doesn't it...missing Ben..lets see them.
When I try to write to my sister, I feel I am betraying myself as we are such opposites. I should really not worry about it and just wish her an early retirement.

Lately

Paint still drying on the mass portraits--luckily it's watercolor. upcoming group show at Langham Gallery on Lambs Conduit. Opening Tuesday the 20th . Other shows lately, one of two hundred artists in Miniscule at Oblong. Each piece very small dotted around the gallery. Amazing feat to fit in so many different voices and a good opening party.

Max Love. Bushy Park. Counted 25 deer and found three bags of children's books sitting there in the skip with a rust-free hamster cage. A lot to carry home. The issue of a pet- Well. We found a dead mouse on the road and so took that home as a trial. After a day, Ben was over it. We have discussed rabbits--which are docile and somewhat human, dogs..a no, cats...ruin the furniture, snakes are a bore as are birds. Rats apparently are interesting. But for now, Ben is working on collecting stars towards a lop eared rabbit.

Tom visited from Rockford. How nice to walk down the road with an old neighbor and friend. Not somewhere to go back though. It is not the place I remember. Tom's wife, Sue...her former student has killed five people. There is a death by gunshot once a week. And almost all the malls have closed. One has turned completely into a church which offers video sermons for busy people so they can fit the Lord into their schedule.

And Valencia. That was the best holiday which was extended by ten days due to the volcano. Ben and I biked all over the town up and down the river turia- a dry riverbed park with cafes and play things for the kids. A chilled out town which doesn't get as much press as it deserves. The City of Sciences--nice buildings. But buildings are a bore without some good company. Pilar really made us welcome.

100 Square Feet

Just dropping off a painting for a show called 100 square feet. Faces with stories. An interesting concept to exhibit 100 artists in a 10 by 10 foot cube. The show opens February 27th for one week in Hackney.

January

January was taken up mainly with building work...a new kitchen and bathroom. What a lot of dust. And the London Mime Festival which was wonderful. To think that people spend an entire year creating something that only lasts an hour on stage. The groups with five or more people were the most enjoyable to watch as they interacted with acrobatics, balance, mime, and various props. A magical performance by the Swiss troupe and an interesting piece by the French Bearded Lady as she picked up seashells with her toes and put them in a basket on her head that had an instrument inside. It made a strange song as the shells dropped.

Museum of Everything

To the guy on the vespa coming out of the Museum of Everything after the film. If you were to have a child yourself, it might teach you that there is more to life than hair gel and your next soy latte.
I apologised once, twice for any noise my child might have made (he slept through most of the film) and had only asked a few questions. The film was free to the public. But you kept on going after my apologies. What did you really want? Choke on your skinny soy latte asshole. Missing debate club?
Otherwise, the Museum is very nice indeed. And an interesting film about Seraphine, the naive painter.