Our Lives, Our Coal...

The favorite lyrics nod this week goes to Jimmy Eat World for "Bleed American". Check this high octane rockfest out in the player for an instant energy boost.
So many good lines, "I'm not crazy 'cause I take the right pills, every day..." "Our hearts, littering the topsoil -- Sign up, the picket line or the parade, Our lives, Our coal."

The band got it's name from unassuming front man Jim Adkins' little brother. When they were kids he got mad at Jim and drew a picture of him as a monster and wrote that caption under it, "Jimmy eat world." Great band name huh?

Still working towards the next show. Tomorrow may have pics to post of the latest-- earings and necklaces with steel pendants. I like-y.

Yesterday's run was even more exciting than usual because there was a mountain bike race being held at the course. Where I run it's an advanced level course that is about 7 1/2 miles. I run about 4 or 5 of it. It twists and turns mercilessly through thick forest and brush and is mostly either accent or descent, usually on a steep rock and root strewn embankment-- so you have to remain totally alert the entire time to maintain your agility and so you can jump out of the way of the bikers.

Last night the race hadn't started yet, and I had plenty of time to get my run in, but didn't anticipate all the guys taking practice runs. I know this sounds crazy, but this heightened the fun factor quite a bit for me. Having to stay so completely focused for a good 40 minutes, all while running-- throw in a few thrilling near misses. Let's just say by the end I was totally jazzed.

I know, probably a sign of something off. But it feels really good to feel so "plugged in". "My life, my coal", being burned my way....
Anything get you going like that? Any other adrenaline junkies out there?

Back To Slag Hammering

Here's another pic from my slag hammer collection, soon to be appearing on my new Moo cards.

Today will be spent welding and jamming out, and researching an air cleaner for the new shop (fascinating! - not really) . One of my favorite clients (Super nice couple, Wisconcinites, like art, are Unitarian-- What's not to like?) allowed me to push their commission back for the umpteenth time until after my show Nov 7th, so I can concentrate on getting ready for that.

I'm not super awake yet. I'll let caffeine and "Johnathan Fisk" do the job (check it out in the player, Spoon tune.) Later -- a run with the crazy, fearless, indestructible mountain bikers sounds good. Time to weld. I need to turn this up. Lead me to the Diet Coke.

Above And Beyond The Call Of Kitchen Table Duty

Ok, Here's what accumulated on and around my rather small, unassuming, uncomplaining kitchen table in a mere week's time;

-- A dust mask
-- 2 pairs of safety glasses
-- A whisk broom (new-- this could change our whole lives!)
-- A xeroxed picture of a giant spider (for identification purposes)
-- A jumbo 10,000 candle unit rechargeable flashlight (for the nightly cat round-up)
-- A can of "off"
-- My leather work gloves (they give me super powers-- ask Dan, my might increases tenfold!)
-- A draft of query that elicited the comment, "well, you never know what people will be into" from a friend (I revised it immediately)
-- 2 books on cd's, that my parents couldn't remember who the author was or what they were called, but thought were good.
-- 2 reusable trader joe's bags
-- Half a bread bag of old bottle caps from a friend (I want to cover my picnic table with them)
-- A "current" radio button from state fair
-- Some "math" (shudder) (mysterious numbers on scraps of notepaper)
-- An assortment of Menard's receipts
-- One of those weird round t.v. antennas (? I think this, the math, and the receipts were part of a "Dan-pile" that got engulfed by the larger "mega-pile")
-- A batik Indian bedspread (from the day I edited in my "branch office" -- the lawn chair)
-- My bike helmet (that's kind of where it lives)
-- My camelback (a backpack that you drink water out of when you bike, but come to think of it, would be awesome for margueritas too....If only I was still a semi-pro partier.)
-- Two bags of Doritos Dan was supposed to bring to work
-- A mystery bulb-- don't know if it's burned out or what
-- A shrink wrap dispenser
-- Another smaller flashlight (also for cat rounding up)
-- The fourth Stephanie Meyer book -- (AKA literary crack)
-- A mix cd for my sister and her rockin' kids (ting tings, duffy, hurricane, evil urges)
-- My niece's birthday gift (art supplies, nice ones, shhhh, don't tell)
-- Two bills-- oops, (not late yet-- whew)
-- A pen (something productive went on at some point when there was still exposed surface area)
-- My sunglasses (oh, that's where they went. Fortunately I have several back up pairs)
-- 5 pairs of shoes (on floor)
-- A crescent wrench
-- A cooler with 4 assorted beers (all different kinds) in it and 2 fake beers (for me) from a bonfire party sat night (woo! party down with those fake beers sue!)
-- One box of cat food

Quite amazing huh? I can hear you out there silently judging me. To me this isn't just a mess, it's evidence that I have a life. Judge away super clean people. (As if any of you would read this anyway) (I have a feeling slaghammer fans are more simpatico with me actually.)
Did you ever notice there are no "messy freaks" , only "clean freaks"? Hmmmm.

Hurricane

That was the first song that came on my iPod during this morning's awesome, rather cosmic run. Check it out in the player. I don't know much about this guy, but looked his video up on youtube in case I wanted to post that too, and it was horrifyingly dorky and bad. I can only hope he was trying to be ironic. The song is cool though, good to run to.

Cosmic? -- you ask. Yes! -- First of all I was uncharacteristically zippy (every song that played was like rocket fuel somehow. Thanks universe.), and not only that-- story #2 began telling itself to me again. This was somewhat surprising since I've been consumed with revising and proofreading #1 for the last couple months. But prior to that I had started #2, and am a good 30,000 words or so in. the stuff that came through was so good I wrote two pages of notes when I got home. God, I love this job! Now if someone would just start paying me.

In other news-- I had a "brush with cleaning" today. (shudder) A friend called and wanted to bring someone over for me to meet. My house looks like a hurricane hit it so I told her to give me a half hour so I could pick up (what an optimist). I knew I couldn't get it better homes and gardens clean in that time, but was only aiming for "not crazy".

I put on some music to help motivate me, but the first two songs that came on were so good (Broken Bricks and Gimme Stitches-- both in the player) all I did was kind of shuffle things around while I jammed out. Broken Bricks required full-on head whipping. What could I do?

Then my kitchen was so monumentally messy, I really thought I should document it for posterity, treating it kind of like an archeological dig. So I began listing the things that had collected on and around my kitchen table over the last week. Prepare to be amazed.... (see previous post actually. I guess that should be past tense. "Prepare to have been amazed" --just kidding- really, it's a writery joke. It's just not super funny.)

Luckily my friend called after only about ten minutes and said, "Never mind, just meet us up at Panerra." Whew.

Sex On Fire

What a gorgeous weekend it was! Anybody else having a hard time believing summer is supposedly over? The pic doesn't really have anything to do with anything. It's just "summery".

Ok ok, so the post title was quite a teaser. What? -- It's really hot out... It's the name of a new Kings Of Leon number. Check it out in the player. It builds from buzzy opening guitars into a slow burn then explodes. Great rock tune. On another rock note-- The Black Keys played the state fair Sat. night, opening for the Black Crows, which to me is weird. They shouldn't still be opening for anyone -- hello? Apparently the Star Trib's music critic agrees. See his review here. Also, check out "10 am Automatic" in the player (one of their numbers from sat night)

Today Dan had to work. It was too grossly hot to weld so I did more proofreading. You'd think I'd have found everything by now, but horrifyingly, every time I go through it I find more typo's and errors. I'm almost done, and am finished with the revision, the actual writing. Things are looking promising. I've gotten some fresh nibbles, (requests for partials and even a full-- writer speak for "agents have asked me to send them more"). This thing may see the light of day yet. I think it will. You'll hear about it here first people.

Ok, the laptop is baking my legs and it's super hot and humid, so I'm going outside now.
Rock on dudes.

Bad Seed

Behold one of the weirdest and tackiest and most anticipated (for me) art shows all year-- the MN State Fair Crop Art exhibit! All of these pieces are made entirely of seeds glued onto some kind of panel. What I like most about this whole thing are the juxtapositions.

First of all, very few art exhibits use peg board as a display method, and to find this, you have to go into the horticulture building, about as far from the fine arts building as it can be within the confines of the fairgrounds. It's held in a room off to one side that's walls are lined with of ears of corn and vintage feed sacks. You have to navigate the scarecrow competition and make your way to the back of the room where all the "art" is hung.

Then there is the obsessive nature of it, while at the same time , in some cases, making fun of it. Sorry about the quality of this first one, but check it out -- Bo Diddly, very well done, made of a million tiny seeds, rockin' out-- not very down on the farm. See what I'm sayin'?

This one really embraced the medium thematically. Awesome. Way to go Linda Wing.

I thought this was Cleopatra as portrayed by Dumbo, but I guess it's Ganesha.

Twin Citians of a certain age will remember these guys.

Of course there had to be a Mary.

This one is actually good-- and bonus points for them eating corndogs.

Never has Abe gazed so smolderingly--
"I tell you man it's gonna drive me to drinkin' , I can't stop mackin' on Mary Todd Lincon."

This is atrociously blurry. I really apologize, but this is a perfect example of the whole OCD tongue - in- cheek thing. It's Gnarls Barkley -- which is a very hot hip-hop duo right now most of you have never heard of because you're over twenty-five, and the artist has portrayed them as "American Gothic" stand-ins, and done so by spending untold hours squinting over a board gluing teensy seeds.... That's a long way to go for a joke people.
Props for the crops, word to your mutha.

This one is probably meant to be serious, but it's so cloyingly sweet it nearly nudges over into the creepy zone.

This one was categorized as "wearable art". "Um, ok. You first."

When I saw this I was stunned, Bo Diddly young and old, in this relatively small display of obscure art? But then I remembered, he died this year. I still think this is just mind blowing, the effort involved, and there's no way whoever did this took it super seriously.

And last but not least, "Drop the chalupa pappie."

Hope you're enjoying your Labor Day Weekend. "Dirt Nap" has now officially become "The Crimson Cord", and yesterday all I did all day was research agents and query. Wish me crazy irresistable writing mojo. I'm about jumping out of my skin due to lack of movement, so right now am going to take the bike out for a fast and furious ride. About fifteen miles of Weezer and Jack White ought to do it. Later, maybe a nice loooong kayak with trusty Pam. We'll see.

Cat House

Ok it's official. I'm not overboard having one cat per acre. Actually I totally stole this post from agent Colleen Lindsey's blog (see literary links). The videographer is right; people should know about this.

This would scare the absolute crap out of my sister's husband. she's already a humane society board member and avid volunteer/ activist.