Animated Grass

Okay so I'm in a bad mood. I was going to title this post "Foot Fetishes"... But decided that it had more to do with animated grass...

Different professions attract different sorts of people. (duh.) Now, I love to sculpt, by myself, in a room, all day long. Time becomes enormous as you look and work on your stuff. Sitting with my opti-visor on (the jeweler's visor)... a mangled piece of wax in my chapped fingers... the world is absolutely huge. Its not like things are beautiful, or perfect, or even particularly meaningful... Its just huge. I move mountains every day at the jewelry bench.

One other aspect is a certain obsessiveness could be attributed to such detail work. So. Combine that to another interest and when I learned that Tom Brady hurt his ankle in the AFC title game I freaked. The Pats don't stand a Ben and Jerry's chocolate mint chip frozen yogurt in my freezer kind of a chance of winning the Super Bowl if Tom Brady can't play. I watched the famous boot video, read the stories, and checked every morning for updates.

And have reach a couple of conclusions. One, I'm kinda tired. Also, what is it about sports photos? They over saturate them or what? Sometimes I think the nostalgia for natural turf and mud is the longing for a different chroma. One picture that sticks in my mind is Bruschi on his knees, arms raised, some white snow on the green green grass with Brushci's black hair pale skin and clenched face...

I haven't a clue on whether Brady and the Pats will do well in the Super Bowl. I'm over the cusp of my "ankle angst." The only conclusion I have reached is Brady needs to date supermodels. Really. No one else could compete.

SUPER BOWL PATS!

I left the bar last night because the guy next to me was a Packers fan, and I'd had enough beer, and my rear needed a change of scenery. I'd stayed for a little bit of the Giants Packers game to see what's up in a couple of weeks. Now. I liked the way the Giants played the Pats in week 16... it was great. Good competition but the Pats won anyway with a couple of record breaking TD throws. Absolutely perfect. Couldn't have choreographed it better myself... And since then I've been rooting for the Giants as they played the Cowboys and last night... I asked the fellow next to me so are you just a Packers fan or a big Packers fan? He said he was BIG... grew up in Green Bay and everything.... I'm like hmmm. *May the best team loose.*

I think a good team won. The question remains... will the Giants be perfect patsies for the Pats again?

For the record... my fingers and toes remained uncrossed... hair unbraided... I honestly didn't think the Chargers would win. (I read somewhere their name is after a charge card company? Is that true?* If so they are doomed.) Even though that weird and funny play where they had Moss run out of the backfield on a double reverse sort of typified the game... Even though the Pats won in a totally uncharacteristic manner.... running the ball and maintaining possession. (They had the ball for 21:35 of the second half.) Even though Brady threw THREE interceptions....

Which is why Belichick winning the coach of the year award is so totally justified. If I, maybe a bit of a neurotic and a fan, am feeling a shade complacent (the Chargers being pretty good despite their name)... Putting a team out there that wins and keeps winning... *that's so incredible*

Everybody else can win next year. Perfection might not be perfect but hey its good enough for me... Let this be the year of the records... GO PATS!


*Apparently it is not true that the Chargers' name has anything to do with a charge or credit card company. I still say they're doomed!

Rambler isn't just a car....

I posted this dream in the "hussy" thread at etsy.com this morning...

"g'morning. just realized the import of my dream the other night. You know the highway in california.. along the coast... in the big sur area? and you look down off the shoulder and there's a drop off and big boulders and green water below? well, i was driving... and its not like i accidentally went off the road. i was driving deliberately down the side of the cliff to the water below. like there was a road there. And this dream had something to do with my finances.

is that funny or what. like, duh, what could that possibly mean?"

The first time the Pats played the Chargers this season I felt like the Chargers were asleep or had bags over their heads or something. It was like a giant wet blanket had settled on a talented team and they were fumbling about in a grey never never land. The Pats beat the Chargers in the perky manner that dominated the first part of this season. (Just had to say that. Vrabel "perky".... hehehehe... Wilfork "perky"... hehehehe.....)

I was waiting for the book I requested from the Providence RI library system (the worst library system in any town that I have ever lived) to come in before remarking in a pho-erudite manner... but. One must go on in a timely fashion.... with or without George Bataille's " Theory of Religion." I don't know what all he says in that book... since it is not available in the Main Library of the Providence RI Library system... But I do know he talks about stadium sports as being an opiate for the masses.

So has also been said of religion. To me, (and maybe Bataille since I don't have his book in hand), the question of 'what is' the opiate may not be so important as 'why' the opiate. When defending Tom Brady (from people questioning his fatherhood... he has fathered we know that!), I felt like bringing up global warming. Minutiae being irrevalent and a threatened species reacts like a cat with kittens. (We are those kitty cats.)

Maybe stadium sports is necessary for the pain of fear. 'Opiate' suggests a not facing of the problems. (I'm concerned when I hear Chargers TE Gates is having his foot shot full of pain killer to enable him to play... that he's being scr*wed.) But if it were used in the case of surgery? Then it makes sense. But such trust would infer the scalpels are in the hands of surgeons... *I'm not so sure that's the case.*

I really want the Pats to win tomorrow. I will be rooting for them in their stadium full of not so innocents... I'm hoping I snag the best bar stool. But. Sometimes the happy ending you wish for may acquire an amorphous quality and it can become... a stay kitty in the street.

(The ending to this ramble was to refer somehow to it's darkest before the brightest light? It is really dark also when you first enter a cave.)

The Gold Standard

My mother wants a pendant... which is nice... in gold. I sent her a sketchy sketch of a design I thought she might like... and here are my 2 models from that design. (Carved into wax and cast into sterling silver. The models are not polished and do not have any antiquing agent applied... because they are models and will be recasted.) The first model adheres closer to my original design but I wasn't totally happy with it. The textured jump ring I made in the second picture would go with it also.

And here is my second attempt... I'm happier with it but think I might offer it to her as a silver... Gold is just soooooo expensive. I can't quite see this in gold either... I think a few more salamander and flower carvings are in my future!

In Defense of Tom Brady (As if he really needs it...)

(A good offense might be all that's necessary...)

But really this is in celebration of my accidental prescience in not owning a T.V.. I don't own a T.V. because (for me) it is an annoying time waster that jellifies the brain. (And my brain needs no extra help there...) This time of year I almost regret it... but really. I would have watched 6 hrs a day both Saturday and Sunday and my rear would hurt and a lump of wax would be sitting in my studio in a still unmangled lumpish state. As It is... I watch 1 game a week, the Pats, and on their off week I watch whichever opponent scares me the most.

In not owning a T.V., not listening to commercial radio, not listening to talk radio (well. I do listen to NPR and BBC), I am a bit underexposed to the bullsh*t of celebrity culture. Whenever I am stranded in a place with plastic chairs and People magazines, like when my pickup is being resuscitated, I don't know who those People pictures are.

You see, I've figured it out. (I am soooo slow, I know, but, it's da jelly brain.) It's Brady's bad luck to be a superstar quarterback in not only a celebrity culture... but in an overanalyzed bloggified celebrity swamp. I have heard relatively (!) intelligent people suddenly go off on what a bad father Brady is. It's like you are talking football one moment and the next you're on the toilet, magazine in hand... I was talking to a guy and I'm like WTF... I don't know do you know and WTF! I was like... the folks involved are a bunch of millionaires and what's it too you anyway? And his answer was enlightening... he said well its in your face all the time. See. That's the difference. I don't own a T.V.... So I don't have an opinion on Brady's love life... or his fatherhood... or anything non-football.

And with not owning a T.V. I can say, beer in hand, with only the prejudice of being a Pats fan... this is some kind of good football we are seeing. Tom Brady is a truly great quarterback on a truly great team. People magazines kinda belong on plastic chairs... leave them there and enjoy the fun. GO PATS!

Positive Omens...

Okay maybe I'm stretching this a bit. But when a car ran into the side of the pub where I was watching the Pats game last night, I took it as a positive omen. It was around the first part of the third quarter... I'm not sure exactly as I was watching the freaking game. I do know there was a kickoff going on. There was a smash and a "Wow" unrelated to happenings on the screen. I looked over and a car's turn signal was poking through a window. I didn't go out and survey the scene... And when someone came back and commented on this I was like... Game time. I may be just a Pats fan but I can be focused too.

I kinda hate to admit this but I pretty much thought the Pats would win. Even after the slowish start. That's what perfect seasons do to folks! I did have a fear though... that it would be some kind of catastrophic blood bath and the field would be littered with bodies. All week long I've been reading about how "physical" the Jags are and the horrible unspeakable second half of last year's catastrophic end of season is scorched in my worst dread memory file. As it turned out, the only casualty from last night's game that I could see was this...

*and I don't like No Parking signs anyway.* GO PATS!

Goodness Gothic!

I just purchased an ACEO from Ravenwolf.etsy.com.... and feel like showing it off. Its the first one in a new series and I nabbed it.

And here's a few gothic thingies I made last year for fun. I identify most with the gargoyle hitching a ride on a pickup...

Run?

One of the reasons I keyed into this story, was the amount of change George Martin had found so far on the side of the road. The blurb I read said 48 dollars, with about a third of the distance walked. George Martin is a retired NFL player who spent 14 years with the New York Giants and was co-captain to the 1986 Super Bowl team. He is walking from the George Washington bridge to the Golden Gate Bridge to raise money for the medical needs of the first responders of 9/11. The first responders entered an environmental cesspool on 9/11 in their desire to do the right thing.

George Martin started his walk on September 16, 2007. He's hoping to raise 10 million dollars. I figure, that also means about $150 from the side of the road. But I wonder, is he picking up pennies. I pick up pennies. If you run into the guy (figuratively speaking), lemme know. I don't think he is.

But. Is it just me... but. Like, vote. Yell at your representatives, and vote. The first responders entered that cesspool to do the right thing for their country and their country isn't doing right by them. They should have hesitated. Asked, whose going to pay if we get sick. (Since, of course, this is the one country without some form of universal healthcare.) Who's going to help us out. Who is going to walk the mile....

And as a not-so-side note I wonder if he watched the Giants Pats game. Good game. (Might not have felt so if the Pats lost, but, can now lean back a bit in appreciation...)

3 Days in...

I'm depressed and have reason to be.
1. No Pats game this weekend. I have to wait until next weekend to see if all my hopes are crushed. Or wait 2 more weekends to... to... (what can I say as a karma helper?)
2. I'm not a millionaire yet though I ate black eyed peas on New Years Day. Maybe it just takes awhile to kick in.
3. The Presidential campaign season is seriously on.

Now, as regards politics... I've protested I've voted and whenever I have to I pay taxes. I say this so you know I care... but. When I hear a Republican (Ron Paul) talk about "corporate fascism".... And David Cay Johnston talk about his new book on corporate subsidies... And a deafening SILENCE on universal health care (read: influence of drug and health care companies)...
(Sorry, but with only Kuscinich talking about universal health care that kinda equals silence.)

I'm so glad I don't own a T.V. I'd put a bag on it right now. Oh, and...

4. Baby its cold outside.