Cloud-to-ground Lightning Strike, Owen County, Indiana, 28 June 2006
It’s storming, with rumbly thunder and lightning. And, there are workers on scaffolding on the side of the building. Scaffolding which is connected to a giant metal tower. Doesn’t that sound like something that might end in tears? Aieee!
The Terrible Hours: The Rape of Io
collage (anatomical illustration, child’s dress pattern, and magazine clippings)
9 1/4 x 11 3/4 inches
I posted this to several Flickr collage and works on paper groups without thinking that it contains nudity. Oops! Hopefully, I won’t get my hands smacked for it, but I went back and looked at the group descriptions, and I didn’t see any “no nudes” requirements.
Isn’t he cute? I love his itty bitty ears and his bright beady eyes. He usually comes out of his hole in the early morning, and spends a few minutes sitting and scoping out his domain. There are a lot of birds and other predators around, so being cautious is a good idea. He picked a great spot for his den, though. He gets a little bit of protection from the balconies overhead, because the larger raptors aren’t likely to come that close to the buildings.
I also saw a yearling deer this morning, moseying along just off my patio. I wasn’t quick enough to get a picture of him, though.
My new favorite song.
I’ve been listening to it over and over and over again this morning. The album can be downloaded from their website, for the thoroughly reasonable sum of $10.
The Terrible Hours: Familiar Letters Betwixt a Gentleman and a Lady
collage (map, anatomical illustrations, bottoms, child’s dress pattern, library catalog card, stencils, mirror, and yearbook photo)
9 1/4 x 11 3/4 inches
The Terrible Hours: Cradling a Dream
collage (map, anatomical illustrations, skeletonized leaves, button, child’s dress pattern, and altered Polaroid)
9 1/4 x 11 3/4 inches
The Terrible Hours: The Map Maker
collage (map, anatomical illustrations, and brass brads) with Neocolors II, gesso, and pencil
9 1/4 x 11 3/4 inches
I have way more to do this weekend than I would like. And, in between everything else, I’m trying to get laundry done. I thought I’d take a minute to photograph some more beautiful peppers from my coworker, though. Next week, she’s bringing me green tomatoes. I can’t wait!
I also had to run some errands this morning, which means I finally found Hobby Lobby. This is not good, folks. It’s right around the corner from me. But, they had the black paper photo corners I wanted, as well as ink, fat glue sticks, and a few other odds and ends. Boy, is there ever a lot of junk there, though! It’s not quite as bad as Big [and] Lots, but it also is lacking in Big [and] Lots’ festive garage sale atmosphere.
Oh, and the UberKroger is next to Hobby Lobby, as well as Showplace East, which is where the new Harry Potter movie is playing. I was way better off not knowing where anything was.
During one of my many recent midnight wakings, I started thinking about landscapes and time. Specifically, time and the places I’ve lived. Whenever I’m asked where I grew up, I have to stop and think. When I was really young, we lived in southern Indiana. When I was five, we moved to a house on Lake Michigan, staying in that area for a few years, before returning to southern Indiana. Of course, the moves seem more frequent than they really were, and the time spans in each location seem lengthier. That’s the magic of childhood memories, I suppose. They are forever compressing and expanding.
Aqueduct, Metamora, Indiana, where we used to swim
We moved to Metamora when I was nine, and to Brookville when I was 13. We were only in Franklin County for five years, but sometimes it seems like we lived there forever. It doesn’t seem possible that so much living could be packed into such a small, finite compartment of time.
Along Patricksburg Road, Owen County, Indiana, a spot I used to pass every day
And then I started thinking about moving back to southern Indiana a few years ago. Six, to be exact; I left Muncie in the spring of 2001. After 18 years of flat earth, I just couldn’t stand it any longer. Every time I visited southern Indiana, I felt like I was coming home, and every time I returned to Muncie, I felt homesick. I missed the hills and trees of my childhood.
I stayed in Owen County five years before moving to Bloomington, where I’ve been for nearly a year. It doesn’t seem possible that I’ve been in back in southern Indiana for six years–a year longer than the time I lived here as a child.
Sunrise, Owen County, Indiana, January 2006
I woke up this morning with a sore throat. I think it’s just allergies, but that doesn’t make it any less annoying. Ugh. And, I don’t imagine that the lack of sleep, from which I am only slowly recovering, has helped one little bit. Even though I tried to go to bed at a reasonable hour on Sunday night, there were so many fireworks (still!) that it was a lost cause. It started with the Bumpasses, who were lighting bottle rockets in the back field, and ended up with someone from the other side of the court setting off ginormous wads of firecrackers in the parking lot. Every 30 minutes. Until 2am. When I went out to walk the dog Monday morning, there was a mass of red firecracker debris in the parking lot, mounded up right behind my car.
Now, tell me, what sort of jerk sets off firecrackers in the middle of the night, in a densely populated area, right next to someone’s car? I’d be seriously pissed off if my car were damaged by fireworks.
And then, of course, because I only got a couple of hours of sleep on Sunday night, Mr. Upstairs kept me up most of Monday night. Aieee! He does seem to be getting a little better, though, so I’m trying not to let myself get too irritated with him. He’s not blasting his television quite so loudly, and when he does have it on, it’s during sane hours. He’s also stopped jogging on the treadmill at 3am, for which I am deeply grateful. That said, he spent most of last night stomping around, and even with a box fan on high for white noise, he woke me up several times.
Which brings me to my amusing link of the day: The Astoria Notes. I read these awhile back, when I stumbled across a link to them on another blog. They were mentioned again, in comments at Passive Aggressive Notes, so I thought I’d share.
