Art Attack Central
Fixing stuff, myself included…
Punctuality
All the time I was on time. If I told someone I’d be there at 1:45, I was there at 1:45. Somehow over the last couple of years that’s changed. Now I’m lucky if I’m not more than 15 minutes late. I think I’m becoming my mother! Everyone was always waiting for my mother. It wasn’t that she was more laid back than the rest of us. She was always busy, and there was always more to do before she could do so and so, or go to such and such. I am the oldest, so I was the test baby. Apparently I passed the test at the tender age of three, the other three arrived in quick succession.
Yeah, but what about punctuality?
Well, I’m not sure if it’s mine or my mother’s lack of it I want to talk about. I used to set my watch about five minutes fast; now I’m relieved to notice that I’m wearing a watch. Watch is a funny word for the time piece we wear on the wrist. Watching the time go by. My internal watch/clock seems to function fairly accurately; unless I’ve been absolutely wild and crazy the night before, my eyes pop open at precisely 5:00 AM. Perhaps it’s my fascination with computers that has turned my watch upside down. Instant communication requires careful editing.
What’s that got to do with punctuality?
Punctuation and punctuality go hand in hand, or maybe it’s watch to wrist as in wristwatch. In any case I’ve lost my ability to arrive on time, and I think there is a connection between my late arrival and the speed of internet communication.
That’s not all you’ve lost!
Okay, but my mind is a different thing and unrelated to what time I get somewhere. Hmmm… maybe my mind isn’t there at all without time.
“Everything happens to everybody sooner or later if there is time enough.”
–George Bernard Shaw
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Blogger Insider
This time I’ve been paired up with Thea at syaffolee, who by the way wrote a novel in 30 days! Here are the questions she sent me:
1. The structure of most of your blog entries are certainly unique. You must have “interviewer” as one of your “hats” as well. How did you come up with this layout?
MPD…heh, heh NOT really. Since I’m always questioning myself mentally it just follows my own internal dialogue.
2. Have you lived in Maryland for most of your life?
Mostly yes, but I have this thing that happens every once in a while where feel I must live near the ocean. Twice in my adult life, (relatively speaking) I’ve lived for a year at a time on or near Chincoteague Island. Chincoteague is a small island off the coast of Virginia. If you read Misty of Chincoteague as a child, that’s the place. During the eighties I lived in Princeton New Jersey, while my then lover completed a Phd. I also lived in Washington DC for four years (late eighties/early nineties).
3. Suppose (because of a dare) you find yourself in a “haunted” house and you find a dead body that’s been rotting in the guest room for the past fifty years. What do you do?
Look for a wallet. Fifty years says I don’t need to go for the air freshener, so if there’s no wallet I’ll call the cops on my nonexistent cell phone (boy I’d really like to have one of those). However, if I do find a wallet I’ll put on my Nancy Drew hat, look for clues, and begin trying to figure out who done what to who.
4. If the meaning of life isn’t 42, what is it?
Everybody knows it’s 54! hmmm… or was it 55?
5. The people at NASA have selected you to be one of the founders of a new colony on Mars. What will be the first thing you do once you hit Martian soil?
Look for the ladies room?
6. If there was only one thing in which others could remember you by, what would it be?
A large painting of the inside of a red pepper
7. Okay, so time travel is possible. Except only in a limited sense–you can only watch past events like television. So what particular part of history would you tune into and why?
The garden of Eden so once and for all we could show that it really wasn’t Eve’s fault after all. And what about those dinosaurs?
8. You’ve just won the lottery. What are you going to buy?
Yeah, yeah okay so I give some to charity like a good girl, but then I buy:
an old jaguar sedan from the 60s with a brand new engine, a bunch of canvases and new brushes, a house on the ocean, an apartment in Manhattan, a trip around the world, a new lease on life… have I run out of money yet? Guess I’d better invest some of it.
9. What’s your favorite book? Why?
I’ll have to think on that one.
10. What was your favorite childhood board game?
Clue
11. You are going to start a cult called The Strawberry Monkeys. Who will you invite?
The folks who do the Tuesday Too, plus Su, Rob, Abbott, Mary and Dana. Just don’t ask me what we do in this cult.
Post 100
“Strange brew… girl what’s inside of you”, that’s from an old 70s song the name of which I don’t remember. Anybody know it?
So what?
Don’t you sometimes wonder what’s inside of you? I don’t mean organs, or bones, or veins, but rather what’s making you tick on a particular day. What’s making me tick today is this: I’ve got some relearning to do, and I just don’t want to. All that statistical “stuff” I knew two years ago is somewhere in my brain. Maybe I just need a jump start like the car. The car, the damn muffler is falling off and wired up with a coat hanger once again. Why do they do that? Fall off I mean, really it’s like the statistics; perhaps a little rewiring would help there as well.
You’re not making a whole lot of sense.
I didn’t ask for your two cents worth!
Now you’ve gone and done it.
What? Who’s asking the questions here anyway? Okay so I’m asking and answering; what do you want to know?
Are you going to finish that damn thesis in time?
I think I’ve got to find someone who’s been doing statistical analysis for a while to help me, because I don’t have time to go over all that crap again. Yes I said crap! I don’t know how I ever got through all that “stuff” the first time. I’m rambling all over the place so I’m signing off. “You are the weakest link! Good-bye”
“Diamonds are nothing more than chunks of coal that stuck to their jobs.”
–Malcolm Stevenson Forbes
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Tuesday Too #5
1.) New evidence suggests expansion of the universe is speeding up. Your time is now limited. What unfinished personal business would be your highest priority?
The funny thing is our time is limited, and yet we live as if it weren’t. How much time do I have? Two weeks, two months, two years? The more time I have, the less compelled I am to change familiar habits and patterns. So I give myself two weeks, and even though it’s very little time I know that one thing I must do is paint. Yes, catch up with many family members and friends, but painting would be something I’d want to do everyday.
2.) Because you are an expert, you are asked to give a lecture at Harvard. What is your field of expertise (real or imagined)?
Lucid dreaming and how it fits in the scheme of consciousness on an evolutionary scale is my narrow/broad field.
3.) This is your midnight or midday confession. Do you have an embarrassing vice to share?
Between 2:00 and 3:00 at three times a week, I watch the soap opera As The World Turns.
Post your URL in the comment.
Factorial Design
Well that’s going to be pretty boring!
Maybe to you it’s boring, but to me at the moment, it’s what my cup unfortunately is only half full of, or maybe I mean full of it. The critical memory that eludes me is how to do analysis of variance with groups of unequal size. You’re right that’s pretty damn boring! So without further ado, I say to you [adios amigos] meaning me goes to do what I must do without dragging you through the details.
Have you really got to go?
Yes, it’s another one of those times where I must not allow myself internet access for a couple of days. Thus I give you the five rules for success in things not connected to cyberspace, or other places of social gathering.
1.) Thou shalt remain patient in the face of confusion.
2.) Thou shalt not, utter or type thy password.
3.) Thou shalt not, use thy computer for connection.
4.) Thou shalt not use or covet thy neighbor’s connection.
5.) Thou shalt not succumb to the temptations of happy hour.
“Nobody ever died of laughter.”
–Max Beerbohm
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Rethinking Oprah
No I didn’t get a phone call from the family. The brother of my brother-in-law was once on Oprah though; how far removed is that? He wrote a book titled The Cliff Walk.
Rethinking why?
Because I realize as a blogger and as an artist I’m a filter of sorts as well. I filter, sift through, digest and evaluate what I perceive “out there.” I just do it on canvas, paper and the internet. Now if somebody said, hey girl wouldn’t you like to do that on television? Why of course I’d say no.
Who’s fooling who here?
Yesterday’s post has a self-righteous quality to it. I mean really, who the hell do I think I am anyway? The great buffoon of bazoogabezonk I guess.
Who do you really think you are?
I’ve been known to spout a bit of pop psychology more than once. I’m a person who would rather not be self-righteous, and I’m aghast when I find that I am. I’m sarcastic and end up with my foot in my mouth more often then not. Probably I have a higher opinion of myself than others do. Sometimes I should be knocked down a peg or two. Most of the time I’m just striding confidently through the world as if I knew all there was to know, and really don’t know shit when I see it. I have a sense of humor which keeps me ticking.
“It is always the best policy to speak the truth, unless, of course, you are an exceptionally good liar.”
–Jerome K. Jerome
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