A tale of elephants who wrestle at night

As many of you know, I am severely annoyed with my upstairs neighbors at all times. Not only do the  floors squeak so loudly that I can be awaken from a sound sleep by them, but the people that live up there are the most inconsiderate asses I've ever had the displeasure of living under - ever.

The week I moved in, I heard the floors and a bunch of ruckus, so I went up to introduce myself. "Maybe they don't know someone moved in," I thought. So I let them know that I was living down there now. I guess, me being silly, assumed that they would use some sort of consideration and think "Oh, ok, maybe we shouldn't turn up our surround sound here in the 600 square foot apartment so loud, now that someone lives down there. Or, maybe we could hold our elephant wrestling tournaments until later in the morning and not at 6:30 a.m. like we have been. Or maybe we should not have our computer monitors or tv plastered to the windows we leave open ALL the time so the crap we have up at unbelievable volumes won't travel out and bother everyone outside our apartment at odd hours of the night and day."

None of that happened and that is why I call them inconsiderate asses. Because any time I went up to say "Hey, I'm trying to sleep (or read or study) can you turn down your drive-in movie theater quality sound system while you play Call of Duty or whatever you're doing?"- they kept doing it, as if another day meant I couldn't hear them. They would say "It's normal apartment living noise."

Really? Because any time I've ever lived in an apartment (or dorms), sure I hear some stuff, but it's not enough to complain about. So if I'm complaining (religiously), that means you are exceeding the allowable noise limit for close quarter living and that makes you an inconsiderate ass. The videos I made and put on YouTube do not even come close to doing justice in showing what I deal with.
I posted on Facebook about it a lot and at one time I had a whole committee of comments and suggestions on what to do. It's nice to know my peeps got my back.

Now, after months of this going on, I told management that I can no longer live under these beings for fear of me going to prison for stabbing them in the face.
I don't know if that was the comment that pushed me to the head of the line or not, but they eschewed my lease penalties and I will be moving into a new, squeak-free apartment November 22nd. I know I will be dealing with a new barrage of noise, like cars passing by, but that is noise I can handle.

If anyone would like to help me piecemeal my move, let me know. I'll make a casserole.

Hot like wasabi when I bust rhymes

Ok, it's been more than one week since you looked at me. 
I been busy, ok?
oh, and lazy.
I am lazy, I know this.

We'll I'll get to my school stuff later, for now, let me tell you about this Midtown ART walk .
I did pick up a few inspirations and a couple conversations. One of the first galleries I went into was Samuel Fine Art. The amazing oil portraits drew me in.
As I stood admiring the beautiful portraits, the artist stood next to me and said,
"oh! you are an artist!" 
                I asked, "How can you tell?" 
He had an African accent and said, "Artists always look at the painting differently. You stand in admiration, wonder -- not just a pleasing glance."
So, how cool is that? Even without tools in my hand and a crazy outfit, I have that artist look about me.

Next, at Misspent Muses, I found a bunch of fun, very interesting collage art - one piece in particular was arranged in the shape of a daisy using metal objects and I wondered, "Where does one get metal anteaters?" Margo, the artist, told me
"The Rock Barrel."
So, I may need to find out where that is and see what they got. Maybe I can make some weird collage art thing.

 Over at Cleos-Creations, Cleo Boone is fun to talk to. He said to one guy walking through the studio, "You have an interesting face. I paint faces from memory so don't be surprised if you come back and see your face in one of my paintings."
He's got a gruff yet pleasant carnival-like voice. In looking at his paintings, you first think you see a bunch of rocks or falling water, or in my case, an orange uterus - but look longer, further and you see human figures. Beautiful figures that slowly reveal themselves.

Husband and wife team, Doug and Kiki at Sky Pony Studio has put out some interesting pieces to look at while you stroll around the shop in search of cards, magnets or necklaces. He specializes in trees and she in horses. Sounds boring and cliche, but they have a style that is so each their own that you could put Kiki's painting in a store in Oklahoma and I would recognize it as one of hers.

Kiki Winters talking to a customer

the entrance to the studio

Kul âme Studio  almost seems out of place here. It is very sleek and white and seems pretentious with it's large Jackson Pollack-esque pieces in front and elegant yet funky photography studio in back. A sign posted out front read that there would be a live sculpture performance at 8:30, but all I saw milling about was important looking men with arm candy that wore six inch platform heels and too much make-up. Then there was me. I began to think "Maybe we are the sculpture. I wonder what my section of this would be called? She's the Picasso of the Monet setting, they might say."

As I stood among the "Monets", a few performers dressed in Dia de los Muertos costumes fluttered in and buzzed around everyone creating a stir among the soused. Then a pretty lady in green pants started to announce things like, "Thanks for coming to our gallery" and "welcome our soft sculpture performers." 

A lady named Shannon, who is one of three artists at this studio, was once an actress in theater around Dallas. The fabric hanging in the picture was sewn from several costumes she wore. The dancers entered the space and creatively disassembled the hanging dress-like sculpture. The way the performers worked their way through the garment reminded me of the beginning of a CSI episode. I kept waiting for something to go wrong and thought about how we'd all be held for questioning once the police showed up. 

But, they found their way to the end of the performance. 

Another interesting gallery I visited was The Art of Leroy. 

Leroy looks like Samuel L. Jackson, especially with the hat he was wearing. I didn't get a pic of him, but I did snap a shot of his assistants. Apparently, Leroy does body painting and photographs you in the studio. I saw some of the works and it reminded me of the Midnight Summers Dream party at the Playboy Mansion, only classier. 

I found a few pieces at different studios I'd like to go back to and buy...but one at a time. I, myself, am a poor art student.

Texas air-conditioning

Today would be a great day to stay cuddled up on the couch and watch movies: It's cool outside, rainy and to top it off, it's the first day of my period.

But NO...I have to go in to work....for 8 hours.

So, looks like it's gonna be a good day. (this is where a sarcasm font would come in handy) Not only do I feel like hammered dog shit, I also look it and I still have a ton of homework to work on. I really don't want to go to work today.

My classes on Friday should be switched around because my teacher for my 1-5 class lets us out early and my teacher for my 6-10 class likes to stay late and give lots and lots of homework because, you know we don't have any other classes.  This is also the same teacher I had before where I would usually have a beer before class so I could tolerate him and not freak out at the assignments. Since I didn't have my beer before class yesterday, I was freaking out during the Photoshop assignment...and we all know how I feel about Photoshop.

Here is what I managed to do in Photoshop yesterday, yay me:

practice using pen tool, selections, paths and brushes.
I did ok with the bird, but gave up by the time I got
to the dog.