Who knows. I’m sure there’s a name for the obsession I have with drawing lately. It’s been almost 10 years since I hit the pencil this hard. The monkey on my back is a good feeling. I missed it. I always knew it would jump back on, just never knew when. I’ve been creating things for most of my life and now I’m about ready to take a new giant leap. More on that soon…
For now check out a few of the better things I’ve created lately:
Koi #1. sharpie.
Two details from a design I did. pencil
A close up of a samurai and dragon battling to the death.
Some hardcore lyrics from 95′. sharpie.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
Nordic means “northerly†or “northern†and usually refers to a region of Northern Europe called the Nordic countries. However, there are several other related meanings…
* “a physical type characterized by tall stature, long head, light skin and hair, and blue eyes.â€
And, according to my definition…
* “someone who self-destructs in temperatures above 81 degrees Fahrenheit.â€
It was more like a semi, or a 747. Think big. (Here’s a race report from Caesar’s Creek.) When the race started it was 88 degrees, when it finished it was about 92. Now, we all know Andy doesn’t do well in heat. In fact I just promised Angelique I’ll never do another race over 85 degrees again. Yup, never! So about mid way through my chain went into my spokes. Nothing major but I guess it bent a few links. Bad news, I couldn’t put any serious pressure on the pedals with out the rear derailleur jumping all over the place. Poop. It’s going to be a long slow day walking up all these damn hills. I was so slow. It was going good when it was flat or downhill but every up hill. TING. TING. TING. (Cursing). But I finished and didn’t feel to bad, a little dehydrated but no cramps or anything. Just a long finish to the race. So I immediately head for the water cooler. Empty. Crap. Bright idea: chug down some Pepsi. Soda gives me hick-ups and messes my stomach up when I drink it just chilling. But my dumb ass decides to chug two of them after almost three hours of a sweat-fest. Not wise. So feeling brilliant and smart in my 33 years of life, I get the genius idea… BEER. Mikey brought some Stone Ruination IPA! Yummy stuff! I down it nicely. Starting to not feel good as I get the low down from Bridget on her win! Well done! I’ve got to get out of these bike clothes. I feel crappy. So hot. I was probably in space while trying to carry on a conversation. So I change, chill and head to the pasta bar for some yummy post race pasta with extra tomato sauce. More acid in my already icky stomach. Maybe five minutes pass. Cold sweats. Yup. Dizzy. Yup. Icky stomach. Yup. Gotta sit down and chill. These cold sweats are killing me. I sit in the car. Yeah, it’s hotter in the car. I sweat more. Another wise move. I feel super gross. It’s coming… More sweat. More feelings of being ready to pass out. Ready? Walk out to the soccer field. HURL! Ha ha! Yeah, I puke four times. Turn white as a ghost and cold. This isn’t good. Mikey gets me some water. I feel slightly better after the puke fest but not much. We decide to head home. Btw. He won his age division! Good job mister! On the way to the highway we’re sitting in traffic. More good stuff. I puke three more times. The racers behind me are laughing. I give them the thumbs up. Hell yeah! this is heavy metal! I proceed to fight being cross eyed, I don’t know where that comes from. But I was seeing double most of the way home. We stop to get gas. I almost puke again but decided to go shit (two diarrhea sessions). To graphic? yeah. sorry. Not good stuff! Mikey tries to strike up a conversation. “Dude, I can’t really talk now.” Are the only words I muster. I veg out in complete cross eyed outer space for most of the ride but start to come around as we get closer to the C-bus. Man, I was starting to get nervous. Thinking of getting some IV fluids at the local ER. That would suck. So I get home. Take a hot shower and weigh myself. Fifteen pounds. Thats what I lost in sweat and puke weight! Damn, that’s a new record. FIFTEEN POUNDS in three hours! So yeah, it wasn’t a hurt bus. It was a jumbo 747 that came and took me for a ride. Damn it.
So yeah, no more races over 85 degrees. That’s the cut off. I need to find more races in 30-45 degrees. I’m a fucking nordic as Angelique likes to say. She’s right. Thanks Mikey for taking care of me. Bring on cross and cold weather…
Hairspray. The 1988 version. It’s on TV right now, and I’m embarrassed to say that I haven’t seen the whole movie until today (I know! Duh! It’s awesome! ) And all the furniture, little figurines, and sheath dresses are making me want to go out looking for some of my own treasures.
It’s funny because even though the 1960’s is probably my favorite era aesthetically, I wouldn’t want to go back to that era as it was. Sometimes, when I bring something old into my house, I think about the fact that this object existed at a time of segregation. Intolerable. I like to think that by using this object in my house now, I can redefine, in my own head, the time from which it came. That may not make much sense, but hey.
I’m loving polyvore.com. You basically pick out whatever you want from the web to make outfits. I made up this one today because I would wear it if I could. (I didn’t take into account that I don’t wear leather…this is just for kicks!) It’s fun to play around with it. I’m thinking the plaid shirt is a little matchy with the bag, so that might need to change…but anyway, this is the bomb!
…for now. For Marissa and Neil’s wedding present, I decided to make them a Babette blanket. It was the biggest project I’ve done yet. And it took my a long time. I liked how it turned out, and I hope that they liked it too.
For as long as this took me to make, now I want to make another one!
So we’ve been back for almost a week but I wanted to share more of our little vacation. Andy and I finally visited the falls at Watkins Glen State Park. We did not hike up to the top. Rather, we copped out and rode the shuttle bus up to the top and proceeded to walk down the falls. Lazy? Perhaps. But at least it was enjoyable, treacherous as it was. Andy visited these falls as a young child and proceeded to have nightmares about the experience. The heights, the cliffs, the slippery surfaces! Yikes! And I’m sure that Andy’s mom didn’t have them the shuttle bus up to the top. They would have hiked uphill. And once they got up to the top, they’d come down and do it again. Ha ha!
I liked this heart-shaped pool.
In some places, the water was a very deep teal/green shade that I thought was very pretty with the hues of brown. Thought it would make a nice scarf.
So, with all that extreme down-hilling, we felt it necessary to reward ourselves with vegan soft serve. The flavors at The Great Escape were peanut butter and chocolate. It wasn’t bad. Rather, it was awesome that they offered vegan ice cream at a regular old dairy bar.
“Soft vegan” at that!
At least that’s the working title. I don’t have monster cross tires on it currently, but hope to throw on some 700×40cc IRC Mythos CX tires for fun. Maybe I’ll see if the Bontrager 1.8 inchers fit on it. The frame looks like it has some good clearance. I’ve got to trim the gear down a little also, currently running a 46×16. Think I’m going to try a 42×16. I’ve got to get a longer stem also, damn it’s a short top tube. I bought the 62cm but I’m going to need a 130+ stem! Ouch. So with out further babbling, I introduce the Big Orange Vegan Monster:
Well, I’ll try my best. But it’s nearing the 9 o’clock hour, and you know how Lucy gets if we don’t go on our walk right at 9 pm. Anyway.
After we left Ithaca, we went north to Savannah, NY, to visit Andy’s family. They’re great people. Aunt Mar Jane made the most fabulous (and vegan! thanks Mar Jane!) corn and squash soup with sandwiches of white eggplant and other veggies from her garden. It was sweeeet. (And way, way, WAY better than our meal at Moosewood a few days before. Moosewood was such an utter disappointment to us. If you look up “overrated” in the dictionary of Ithaca-centric terms, you would see that restaurant. But I digress.) Aunt Martha also took us to nearby Lake Ontario and we had a lakeside picnic. That was also very nice.
After we left there, we headed to Watkins Glen for a couple of days. We stayed at the coolest vegan bed-and-breakfast ever, the Ginger Cat. I can’t say enough about this place. It’s vegan. It’s spotlessly clean and cozy. Gita is a great hostess and is an overall cool and inspiring person. And a great cook. I would recommend that everyone stay there while you’re making your pilgrimage to Farm Sanctuary.
Gita has 8 cats. She let us go into her part of the house to visit with them whenever we needed to. And we frequently needed to.
She had a bunch of Maine Coon-mix cats, and they were therefore very, very Carlos. So that was great. I should have taken more photos of the cats, but I took this cute one of Wally, for whom the Ginger Cat Bed and Breakfast is named. He was a hunka burnin’ love. They all were. It was awesome.
I still have to go over the rest of our time in Watkins Glen and then my high school reunion. But I can’t help it, people, it’s quarter after 9, and Lucy and I need to go outside!
Back to the real world. Arrived back in Columbus on Sunday evening. Awesome trip. I was scared it would leave me drained and tired but I think we both came away relaxed and unwound. Upstate New York will do that. It was great. Someday I think we’ll move there. We always talk about it when we visit. Sooner or later this housing slump will end, right? And we’ll be able to sell our house and not loose $20k. ouch. More pictures and stories are coming. Hopefully Angelique will give us a report from her high school reunion.
Check out this guys art collection! tons of inspiration.
And I think Angelique will like this as much as I do:
sweetyumiko.com
The really good stuff is down at the bottom (show 19-21).
And if anyone’s counting, I’ve gone from biking 10-14 hours a week to drawing 10+ hours per week and biking 6-8 hours/week. Yeah, we’ll see how it goes…