Getting Away With It......

and then....that song came on....and I cranked the volume so loud.....it's the beat...and the catchy-awesomeness of it....and Bernard's singing...

and because...hell, yes....that's why.  This song came out when I was a senior in high school...and today there was fresh snow on the ground....and it all came together....you know...that time of year, where it's warmer...but you still get some good snow...and there's hope....hope for spring...so the snow isn't so bad...

and because...Electronic.... brings me back to sunshine....and makes me smile...it's that combination of upbeat-pop-electronic-neworder-petshopboys sound-  with a touch of sad-ish undertones...that kind of stuff feels so good to me.

it reminds me of spring snow....snow....and thaw....I'm sure I'll talk more about this later...but there's a happy/sad combo that fits me so well...can happy exist with sad?  yes, yes it can....exhibit A. Morrissey.

anyway....

Electronic...and Getting Away with it....
if you like New Order...no doubt you can appreciate the collaboration of the New Order dude, Bernard Sumner....and the Smith's, Johnny Marr....and the Pet Shop Boys dude, Neil Tennant...and until...just now...I had NO idea that this song was a parody of Morrissey's public stereotype.  wow.  and now...I appreciate it even more.

it goes like this:

I've been walking in the rain

Just to get wet on purpose
I've been forcing myself
Not to forget just to feel worse
I've been getting away with it all my life
(Getting away)

That I love you more than you love me
However I look, it's clear to see
I love you more than you love me
I'm an original sinner but when I'm with you
I couldn't care less
I've been getting away with it all my life

(Getting away with it)
All my life
(Getting away)

That I love you more than you love me
However I look, it's clear to see
I love you more than you love me
I love you more than you love me
(More than you love me)

I thought I gave up falling in love...
A long, long time ago
I guess I like it but I can't tell you
You shouldn't really know
And it's been true all my life
Yes, it's been true all my life

I've been talking to myself 
Just to suggest that I'm selfish
(Getting ahead)
I've been trying to impress
That more is less and I'm repressed
(I should do what he said)

and...

I love this song.....it's just the kind of happy/sad that makes me happy...of course....I do love Morrissey (at times)....the upbeat, sexy, and brooding one.


peace...and love...and getting away with it....and Morrissey.  

#gettingawaywithit
#electronic
#watercolors

if you love someone, set them free....

free free....set them free...Sting....

the man is brilliant...

freedom....

If you need somebody, call my name...

if you want someone, you can do the same...

if you love somebody, if you love someone......set them free.... 

You can't control an independent heart...you can't tear the one you love apart....(Sting, If You Love Somebody, Set them Free) 

sometimes we live with invisible chains...I may have mentioned this before....once or twice...

as I took out my watercolor artillery.....and spread the stuff out on the small table in the coffee shop...

it hadn't really occurred to me that I was about to paint what I was about to paint....to me....I was just painting.....

it really could have been an elephant.  :) I realize it isn't...but I'm just saying...


and I realized....I had no fear or weird self-conscious bullshit to keep me from doing it....to paint whatever the hell I wanted to paint... without being weird about it...ha....yesssssss.  who the eff cares, anyway?

sometimes you have to set yourself free....and if you love yourself.....set yourself free.  get out of your own way...yeah....that's right....the person who keeps everything in a box...

you- know....


of the greatest, inspirational people, in the history of time, famous or not.... who stood up and gave a damn about what they wanted........which ones gave so much of a fuck that they decided to do absolutely nothing about anything.....

right?



totally right.




also....I really like the saying... "in my wheelhouse".....I don't really know sports stuff...but....

this shit is in my wheelhouse....


watercolor.




peace...and love.....and sweet freedom....hell, yes.  

sex and candy and disco lemonade....

hey!

Happy Friday!

yesterday, I heard a song on the radio.....a cover.....Maroon 5 covering a song....and...


my mouth- literally watered....and I smiled....and I almost forgot where I was driving.....


it was

Sex and Candy.... 

yeah...I know....the song is just...so-so.....kinda boring song from the 90's....yes.  I agree...


but then....Adam Levine slowed it down...and his voice, makes me just.....glow-y-giddy...and shimmer, like my new watercolors.  :)


and so....that is all.  just....music....and the rapture of it....so good, you forget your name...where you're going....what you're doing...

and the pure enjoyment of experiencing something for the first time...that first note that Adam sang....soulful....smooth....so good.

and when I got to the end of my watercolor pad of paper....I thought...huh....maybe I use this cardboard...that might be fun.....


so that's what happened.....

peace...and love....and making the most out of what you have....and smooth, seductive surprises on the radio.  

and there she was....like disco super fly....
say, mama....

that surely is a dream.  

#watercolor
#creativityneverends
#sexandcandy
#helloadamlevine

macrothumia...a minor form of despair, a virtue in disguise

the word for 'patience' in Greek is, macrothumia, which means long-burning....aka, you have a long ass fuse...and can endure a lot- aka, long-suffering.   

also,
the quality of being willing to bear adversities, calm endurance of misfortune.....suffering, etc.

from Latin, patientia, endurance, submission, also submission to lust...from patientem- bearing, supporting, enduring, tolerant, but also- firm, unyielding, hard- used of persons as well as of navigable rivers...

(etymonline.com)

patience...

also said, a minor form of despair....or a disguised virtue....well, how about that?   hey, patience is a virtue... hey- good job for suffering so long!  :)   hahaha, that's bullshit.


we endure....longsuffering....don't we?   eff that.


like.....the three and a half minute excruciating song you can't turn off...


I've been meaning to go check out these new watercolor paints by Daniel Smith....ever since I saw someone's blog, testing out a wash of Lunar Blue.   I was hooked....

and finally....I went today to a proper art store....it has been awhile since I've been....and it felt good....

it felt SO GOOD not to walk into Michaels for art supplies....like....an assassin going into some high-tech spy geek store, or walking into Q's lab....after spending way too much time having to deal with Cabela's or some subpar place.... you get the idea.  of course you do.  :)


anyway....

I had to restrain myself.  


a lot.


and I ended up getting a few that I thought would be fun.....and these paints....I took them for a spin tonight.....

and it was.....like Q had handed me some crazy ass contraption.....it takes a bit of time to figure out....hahahaha, sometimes you pull the wrong trigger and shit backfires....

these paints have real crushed up minerals in them....like hematite....HEMATITE?   shimmer....

SHIMMER.....


and dangerous.  

peace...and love...and new watercolors....which completely blow my mind.  

intoxicating....

I remember when....I lost my mind.  :)  

there was something so pleasant about that place...

even your emotions had an echo, in so much space....

(Gnarls Barkley, Crazy) 

I'm going to try to sound less crazy than....I'm sure I will come across... :)  

sometimes I feel like I'm living in a Fringe episode...

but I'm going to try to present this somewhat rationally....as much as I can, anyway....I-

at the end of it all, i can usually just chalk it up to, a bunch of hippy crap....wrapped up in a crazy artist shell, dipped in weird...and that... I'm ok with...that kinda of intoxicating endearing quality...I'm ok with...  :)  the one that makes someone....a little strange...a dash of surprising... 

I am a mediocre gift wrapper...

I can't for the life of me read directions...

I prefer to have a picture illustrate the crap I need to follow....

and....

I can feel what other people are feeling.  

It doesn't mean...I actually, have empathy for them.... :)  all the time...

HAHHAHAHAH.  I am an empath that lacks empathy.  I belong on the island of misfit toys.  

seriously though....I can actually feel what some people are feeling.  I know that sounds, or may sound weird...

and sometimes it takes me a second to figure out why I'm feeling something that makes no sense to what is actually happening to me....

it's just that...I clue in on heartbeats? breathing? language choice?  tone?  yeah, I think all these things help me be more observant...on a regular basis...but-  no...that's not all of it...because I can sense what someone is feeling when not even with that person- or given any other tip-off clues about their mood...i FEEL what they feel.  

i know...weird...but...it's just like, smelling...or seeing, or touching....or hearing....it's just another sense....one that can be quite helpful.....and sometimes a pain in the ass.  :) 

and like I said...just because I can feel what someone is feeling...doesn't mean I actually know how to be empathetic to them. :)  I know...sometimes I'm an insensitive asshole.  :) 

  

anyway....if you believe in the power of the brain and whatnot....and that there's whole shit loads of stuff we can't quite explain yet....

this shouldn't actually sound that strange...and I'm not even sure how it works...I just know...

I feel weird stuff sometimes.....stuff that isn't MY usual stuff.  :) and I don't have any problems with anxiety...so when I feel weird anxiety that is random....

I'm like....whoa...this isn't mine...is it?  

sometimes you discover something about yourself....that is so mesmerizing and surprising...like hearing a remix of a song you know by heart...and love...something that just flips it on it's edge and you get to hear a whole new side to it...and you feel a sense of wonder...a wonder about yourself....huh.  that's awesome...right?  because once you know everything about yourself....

where's the sense of discovery?  

oh, and recently a story about swans....totally proves my point.  

 :)  anyway....

peace...and love....and a beautifully perceptive mind.  :) 

tempestuous...

I was in a funk yesterday....really funky- super funk.

Today...I'm smoothing out....the winds have died down....a bit.

my husband chases tempests away, with only a few sweet words....gone is the storm :)  


...and sometimes he stirs up new ones.  :)  which I secretly love...but he'll never know that.  :) 


This pose....just want to play with the lights and darks as I continue to strip it down-slowly abstracting away....as I keep playing with it...it will be reduced down to very simple shapes...of light and dark...with the exaggeration of form....so even though the drawing is not exactly what I want in this stage....I know I'm just finding my way....

sometimes the simplest version....is the best.  usually...in linguistics- as with most things, it is the most elegant, simplest, solution with the least mechanics....is the best one.... when you have to create too many rules....or force something into looking a certain way....

it is no good.  

and sometimes....something that might not look like it makes sense....makes the most sense, in other words....

the abstraction....in it's simplest form....is the truest to the heart of the thing....

primordial love.


and I adore.....the charging of brown and blue together on my watercolor paper....

peace....and love.....and the taming of tempests with organic solutions...

#adamlevinesugar
#watercolors
#redvelvet
#yesplease

shazam!

i'm fighting a cold....I think...I'm not sure....


or I just feel funky.  and not a good funky.....

anyway....not even the "mood booster" playlist on spotify worked....and usually music works...huh...it just actually pissed me off more.

and then....


I painted....which helped....and started to listen to Adam Levine's voice.....hmmmmm, it's a start.

and realized...like most things....I am the source of my mood boosting....so, eff it....but I feel like i'm fast approaching some kind of weird....pity party.  HAHAHAHAHAHA.....oh....god.  I know.  lame.  totally lame.....my stupid sunshine has a stupid ass cloud parked right....front....and center.


that mo fo cloud.....  (gtfo, cloud) 


then....I had to break out L. L. Cool J.   that's right.  I did.  I either need some serious TLC....or I need to punch a punching bag....either way.... L.L...usually has it covered....


and.....then.....

shazam!  

there's nothing like picking up your mood by rocking some watercolors.

right?   i mean.....RIGHT?  

anyway.....


that makes me feel better.  



peace.....love....and shazam...mama said knock you out.   

lemon, chocolate, creation and destruction...

today...is a U2 sort of day....sort of homecoming day....sort of lemon day....sort of beautiful day....

yesterday, I painted this....and just....love it....and as I painted, I listened to U2....Lemon...


she's gonna make you cry, 
she's gonna make you whisper and moan
and when you're dry, 
she draws the water from the stone...

I feel like I'm slowly slipping under....
I feel like I'm holding on to nothing... (U2, Lemon) 

and today, such a Beautiful Day....bright, hot (for January), sunny....

brilliant and clear....

"you're out of luck, and the reason that you had to care, the traffic is stuck, you're not moving anywhere, 

you thought you found a friend, to take you out of this place, someone you can lend a hand, in return for grace...

it's a beautiful day, don't let it get away....touch me, take me to that other place, teach me, I know I'm not a hopeless case...

after the flood, all the colors came out... it was a beautiful day...."  (U2, Beautiful Day) 


and this...

"Every act of creation is first an act of destruction" - Pablo Picasso 

sometimes....it's crucial to destroy- then create.....destroy existing fears...and false beliefs in order to make way for....create a new path...one free from the debris...stuff that is limiting, not liberating.

sweep away the debris and let yourself walk freely without being tripped up by this noise....

"he can who thinks he can, and he can't who thinks he can't..." Pablo Picasso

it's as simple as fear or love.  fear motivates people to act with fear....the behavior, the language, is fear based.....

love.....love motivates people to act with love...with grace...no judgements....embracing love....allowing people to be free on their path...helping them remove the debris, instead of putting more there....blocking their freedom, to live...and to be who they are.

limit or liberate.....

it's hard enough trying to find your path....and when you find it...you notice it full of so much crap....

destroy the crap....create your clear path.....the one to your dreams.


and chocolate....because chocolate.  :)


peace and love and.....sweeping your path...free....the heart is a bloom, give it some room.  :)  

blossoming....opening the flower

an opening, blossoming....burgeoning flower.... full of freshness...a celebration of life....

funny how browsing over something simple today....sparked a whole bunch of stuff to say.  

today...I read, 

"There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you."  - Maya Angelou

may your story be heard.....the authentic one...the one that makes you the amazing person you are...and may someone hear it....in it's totality....and love...every...single...word...and embrace your verdurous truth.  

open your flower.....and reveal your story...take off the mask....get out of your own way and blossom.

"untold stories are not intended to be swallowed in death, they are to be expressed in life." 

(johnhembree.com) 

keeping your story to yourself....makes me think of a flower....closed so tight....protecting itself from the world....not blossoming....not living....not growing....

and this from Anais Nin- "And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom." 

and in Buddhist tradition, a blossoming lotus flower, emerges from a murky pond..and it's opening represents enlightenment...rising above the murkiness, to become self-aware...a rebirth of soul...rising out of the mud teaches us to take the right path....not the easy one.   

and sometimes....opening yourself up means...not everyone will understand your story...or why you're trying to tell it....

and some people might not even be on the same channel to hear it....to them, it might seem discordant and undecipherable...and it might be unacceptable to them....

but....there will be someone who will listen....and hear....because they will be hearing you....as the sweetest music...

and your song.... will be loved.  

it will be music to their ears because they will be singing the same song.  

someone actually said something to me that wasn't really nice today....because I think they just didn't understand my song....that's ok.  But remember, not everyone is singing for you, so maybe just move along quietly and respectfully.  I've learned not to let these people bother me too much- *delete*.  :) 

if you don't see the beauty and uplifting awesomeness here....just move along.   

peace...and love...and blossoming flowers.....and singing your song, loud.  

#watercolors

#lotus

#anaisnin

#embracethelove

love....the sun and the moon

doing some research on gestalt... and whatnot....you know...every day...random things....I started down a rabbit hole and found myself reading about the love story of the sun and the moon....and when reading different versions, I came across this beautiful piece of writing...

it's absolutely beautiful and I have to share it...it's on a site called Booksie, by jimbo1975, I hope he doesn't mind me sharing it here....because....when you go to the site, you can share it all over social media...and....since i'm properly pointing everyone to it, here.... (A Magical Story)  I think I've got it properly covered.  :)  cheers?   :) 

A Magical Story...

The Sun and Moon were once beautiful forms; much like you and I. 

The sun was an extraordinary man, steadfast and strong.  

honorable and strong, he possessed a heart filled with passion and desire.  So much so that he felt it might one day consume him should it not one day be shared.  

He was the son of a God and in so being was destined to become one himself.  Guided by his Father he was to follow in his footsteps until the time came.  That was the order of things.  

Dearest reader, you will of course have guessed by now that the Moon did indeed inhabit the most fascinating of all shapes.  

as delicate and as beautiful as the falling snow there aly inside of her an ocean to be discovered.  She looked with almond eyes and her voice knew only the sweetest of songs.  

Their eyes met in a breathless glance, their skin but barely brushed.  Endlessly intertwined they became, such an effortless thing.

Their love declared itself without permission for as it was the kind that simply could not, should not and would not be hid.  

For the God's son to fall in love in such a way meant he broke a golden rule that all sons of Gods and obeyed by for as long as time itself.  His father was inconsolable but he loved his son indeed and so, rather than see him punished as a mortal he cast both of them far away where no harm could befall them.  That was the order of things.  

So it came to pass and the sun and Moon were banished above Earth, becoming guardians of her nights and days.  The sun became all powerful and giving.  His golden breath sweeping over all below him, bringing life to all he touched.  Nurturing and immense.  

The moon shimmering and serene, her magnificent light a gentle seduction.  The vast seas beneath her danced this way and that.  

and so they remained above, apart from one another.  Never to observe again the others body rise and fall in slumber, its geography breathtaking and infinite.  Valleys and ridges of the human form fading from memory.  Its gorgeous contours mapped deep in the heart.

Dear reader the tale doesn't quite end there and you'll sure be glad to know that their paths do indeed cross from time to time.  When he is tired, aching limbs and heavy heart he falls into her arms and they embrace with smile and sigh.  She mends him as he holds her close.  He whispers in language only she hears an aching, soothed.  

Their love begins to speak and becomes an explosion of color in the evening sky.  

Deep oranges and tinged crimson reds slowly begin their silent magic, a rich glow as they melt and melt.  

(jimbo1975, Booksie, 2013) 

poetic, romantic....just...perfect, eloquent...for a person to write this...so much love....as if that isn't enough...if you really want to bathe in some, warmth...

I'm listening to my new favorite voice....Daniela Andrade...amazing...amazing....amazing...oozing with loveliness.

La Vie En Rose.  :)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ba_WoSZXvw


love...and peace....and angels singing....and a dose of happy warmth.  

intonation...language's music

so, today...I'm in my artistic brain...and my linguistics brain...which makes me feel like I just ate all my veggies and the wind is in my sails....

I'm working out an idea for future linguistics research...keeping with my dissertation, I'm interested in the intonation of politeness as played out in Hawaii Creole English.




this brings several different things into the picture...things that need to be identified and planned for....so I need to design my experiment keeping in mind what I know about interactions and speaking styles...pragmatics and social implications.


anyway....

it's a start....and I'd love the chance to start writing something again.



like always... I'm looking at a universal thing that manifests in different ways cross linguistically -this time.... politeness....to see how politeness overlays upon and utterance via intonation.  What is interesting in HCE is that....there's a certain level of informality which is inherent to the language....in addition to this...HCE tends to drop words that either disrupt the prosodic rules...or are not necessary to the message...for example.... a question ... Do you wanna go to the beach?  ends up being,  "Eh, you like go beach, brah?



My question is....given what I researched with regard to the declarative/interrogative distinction... (Murphy, 2013) what would a polite question look like?  what about a polite declarative?  How would different utterances be perceived?  what is the distinction made?  is this a salient distinction?


so....there it is....looking at linguistic stuff to contribute to the growing knowledge of human language.

bam.


peace...and love....and linguistics....and intonation, the music of language.

Dr. Murphy :)

have a dream...

hold fast to dreams 

for if dreams die 

life is a broken-winged bird 

that cannot fly. 

Hold fast to dreams 

for when dreams go

life is a barren field 

frozen with snow.  - Langston Hughes.  

dream.  

dream when you are asleep....dream when you are awake...take all boundaries out of your dreams and dream of limitless possibilities... unrestrained, unbound beauty.  

spread wings and soar over all of your land....soar great heights....

get some perspective....rise above all the self imposed fences and survey all that could be.  

have a dream.  

peace...and love...and having dreams....and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.  

#dreambig

#mlk

venomously jilted catfight....

lips....

because sometimes you need to indulge in a pile of cheetos...and not

veggies and granola...

.and sometimes you just need to rock some...

really

brazen

lip

color.  

:) 

urban decay has some crazy names for their lip colors....like, Bang, Catfight, Venom, Jilted....and so on....

and I love them....they are the best lipsticks....and stay on forever....even after eating cheetos and dim sum... 

today....is Jilted.  

which is described as deep fuchsia shimmer with blue shift.  

who doesn't need a solid, vibrant....Eros- infused lipstick?   I ask you...who doesn't need that?    

I also have F-Bomb (see, Red Lips).  

maybe a Valentine's day gift for someone whose lips need some color therapy? 

and don't forget the chocolate....

peace and love....and super radical change of lip color....just because....

it's fun...and why shouldn't you have fun?  

sometimes you gotta 86 the boring stuff...

and get a little outrageous....and try the boldest most brazen stuff you can get your lips on, right?  why the hell not?  

wow...see?    I still managed to slip some uplifting stuff in there.  

the take away?  

embrace life...and live the shit out of it....starting with the smallest of parts....like, lips. 

¡No hay problema!

so...it's Sunday....

I got home from taking Zoey to a birthday party at an art studio....made sculpting clay fairies....

went to the grocery store.....regular stuff....

start dinner....playing some Pink Martini on the spotify....after stumbling upon them today....

get an itch to gesso an old canvas....dinner cooking....gessoing canvas...get another itch to start a watercolor....

head upstairs....start painting....in full swing....water and color charging nicely in their wet environment.....

me...in full on-multiple things happening....but everything under control...and then....

Zoey comes running in the room with glitter silly putty well stuck in her hair....by her ear...all glob of hair mixed with putty- hot mess.  

and me? I'm totally in the watercolor...like...inside it...

I turn to her...look at it... tell her to grab a hold of it and give me a sec....turn on some youtube video to chill her down...and change her focus....  and finish the water play...because...I mean...I couldn't just leave this prime environment in the middle of metamorphosis?   

and that's the thing.... she gets that.   she knows how important water marks are.  :)  and I love that she gets it. 

finished...water and colors doing their own thing....

I run downstairs with her....smelling rice burning... :)  grab the rice....throw some water on it...grab the peanut butter and start working it into her hair.....

rinse out the rice,  nicely saved... :) meh....burning it gives it a nice nutty flavor.  :) 

continue working peanut butter through the hair...loosening up the glob....head to the sink.....apply soap.....rinsing.....making progress.....more peanut butter....more rinsing...more soap...voila.  

finish dinner.  

and...what?  what is the point?  the point is..... no hay problema- it's not a problem.  

 roll with it....ain't no thing...

if you are chill with kids....they are chill....if everything is a big huge deal- and they see their role model lose their shit over small stuff.....that is what they absorb. 

once I was traveling with them from Austin to Calgary via Dallas....total mess of a travel day....delays meant we had to spend the night in Dallas....just me...and them....with no clothes...no diapers for the young man...no tooth brushes....no nada....just the load of crap I was carrying....dvd players and crap I would have loved to not have....it was a pain in the ass, but sometimes you have to head into a storm equipped with determination....taking each minute as it comes and making the most out of it.  

level head...

chill....

love...

and being smart....

(charging colors) 

when stuff like that happens...you should go into MacGyver mode...and it doesn't matter....a paperclip, an aluminum gum wrapper....some string....lip balm.....  and .46 cents....will get you far...when you're smart about the environment and the gifts you've got at your disposal...take inventory and see what you got to work with...and then make it work....godsake....MacGyver that shit.  

there's nothing more annoying than that person....on a show...in crisis...the one...who sits on the beach and sobs about the plane crash...too freaked out to be productive.  

it's the person who keeps their wits....and gets the damn drinking water....and starts the first fire....

a survivor...

no....not only a survivor.....a fighter....a fighter goes beyond just surviving....they kick the shit out of 'surviving'....and thrive.  

anyway...it's a metaphor....for a philosophy on life....and living...

86 the doubt  :)  fear and doubt get you sitting on the beach doing nothing....

peace..and love....and fighting...for the way you want life to be 

and 

not let life kick you in the kitchen...MacGyver the hell out of the shit you got.  

#nohayproblema
#smile
#graceandpoise