I Now Own a Black Velvet Painting: My Life Is One Step Closer to Being Complete

There is a particular package I have been waiting for from Jett's Etsy shop, 256 Eclectica. I didn't even have to go shopping for it, because Jett knew it should be mine and told me so.

As with watching water boil, packages will always take three times longer than normal if you are excited about them, but after many moons, it came today!



The Palinode hasn't seen the loveliness of what I ordered yet, but when he does, he's going to be so excited, except probably not so much, because I don't think he's wanted a black velvet painting as much as I have for as long as I have.

Also? I don't think he's going to be as thrilled as I am with just how poorly the waterfall is rendered. For me, this was the selling point of the whole painting. It gives me great joy to see how the waterfall's spray is painted to follow completely unnatural, ruler-straight lines in a spot far away from and to the right of the actual falls. Is drunken painting an art form?

Its terribleness is its winningness.



This is how I roll, though. I like ugly. Do you remember the psycho salt shaker or the lovely Desmond here?



I think my painting will fit right in.

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PS. This is the best paint brush ever to exist. Imagine the damage to beauty I could do with this thing?

"Magic" Digital Video Brush - The best bloopers are here

It's Good To Break Open

I've been in Mississippi for a few days with a small band of merry bloggers: Deb, Laurie, and Jett.



I left my Saskatchewan city, dull and grey, filmed over in lumpy ice, and I was glad to go. It's an ugly place made uglier with each new development. It forces human detachment as a survival technique.



I'm not going to lie. I came to Mississippi with an agenda. I was looking to come clean a bit, scrub myself up. I felt an anxiety ground in deep like a fevered sweat.



Did you know that I'm funny? I'm funny. And these ladies I'm with? They're funny, and we've spent this entire weekend laughing our damn heads off. We laughed even when we thought the bumper was falling off the van and when we couldn't find where we were going and after the tears about the sad shit we can't always change.



And, as is my usual thing after connecting with my people, I have the urge to burn all my world down, commit a drastic general cleansing, and wander like a nomad, dragging my yurt behind me.



Last night I dreamt that I called some men to load up all of my furniture into the back of a truck. They took it all away, and I swept all my bare floors and sat down on the hardwood and revelled in how uncomfortable it was, because it meant that I didn't have to carry all that ugly stuff on my shoulders anymore.



It feels good to have these thoughts. It feels good to want to kick everything down. It feels good to be a scratched seed.



It's good to break open. It's good to want to empty everything out. It's good to write it on the walls.



It's good, it's good, it's good.



I'm going to miss these ladies in our Mississippi shack.

Good Morning, Mississippi!

So, I've flown down to the southern United States. Don't ask me why, because, frankly, I don't know. It seemed like the right thing to do.



I'm hanging out with some delicious ladies of the internet — Deb, Jett, and eventually Laurie, whenever she gets here — enjoying Secret Location, Mississippi. The first three of us just arrived in the middle of the night last night, so mostly my trip has consisted of flight delays and cancellations, finding a new friend in my airport buddy, Helen, and eating at this Canadian's first IHOP.

First lesson of this trip: don't look at the napkin you use to wipe up spilled water on a United Airlines airplane seat, because, before you know it, you will be wondering just how much fecal matter is coating the entire inside of the little metal tube you're presently trapped inside.



If you're lucky, though, you'll have a Helen, the nicest 85-year-old with which to spend hours weathering sitting on the runway, flight cancellation, and giant deli sandwiches.



Tittie bar!



They're hiring, FYI.

I'll have to leave off at the tittie bar, though, because I have to shower 18 hours of travel grunge off myself. The inside of my mouth tasted like the wrong end of this thing:



Good morning!

Go Watch Me Play The Ukulele And Sing Over At Jett Superior's Place

When I started out on this internet with this blogging gig, I was shy. I was completely anonymous and faceless and panicked at the mere thought of being identified.

Times, how they change. Now I've been on television and I've spoken at both BlogHer '08 and Blissdom Canada '10 and, the latest icing on my trickling publicity trail?

THERE IS NOW A VIDEO OF ME SINGING AND PLAYING THE UKULELE ON JETT SUPERIOR'S WEBLOG.

I've been told that I have a lovely singing voice, so maybe that will divert your attention away from my pathetic attempt at chord progression and the terrible lyrics I cobbled together over four cups of coffee and an anxiety attack.

So, go watch me perform while I do that eating-potatoes-and-hiding thing again and pretend that you're not watching me totally violate a perfectly decent church hymn.