Queen Mediocretia of Suburbia

Putting the TMI in absentminded

Month: June 2020

  • Herb Tower

    Last year I grew some herbs in the backyard. Every time I crossed the 10×10 patio pad to pick fresh herbs I was annoyed they were ten feet away. i’d been considering how I could have a garden of herbs right outside the patio door, so I could just lean out and snip off some…

  • Garbage Disposer Rules

    I heated up a sausage that had lived in the freezer entirely too many months, stabbed it with a fork, and I took a bite, and then I pulled it off the fork, and introduced it to its final resting place in the garbage disposal. Gary saw this, and said, and I quote, “AAAAAAAAAUUUUUGGGGGHHH!” “What?”…

  • Weekly Paint Progress: 6/18

    So here’s the next big project. Mainly grey with some hints of color. Three colors. How hard can that be? Here’s the start: For the small painting I have gone through all of the projects in the book that appeal to me, so now on to the others. I know the drawing below looks skimpy,…

  • An Old Bad Penny Turns Up

    Had I any outstanding debts I would gladly cop to them, but we have none. Still, a debt collection agency named Portfolio Recovery began calling me twice a day this past month. Of course, you can never call them back, because they call from a variety of numbers so that you can’t call them or…

  • Guitar Progress

    Following my miserable day in which I forgot how to play the low B note on my guitar, I seem to have leapt forward and found new challenges. In the past, every once in a while, I’ll need to turn a page while I’m reading the music and I’ll know what the next note is…

  • Baby Skunks, doo doo do do do doooo

    They are best visible on at the beginning of the video, but below you will see why Gary loves the skunks. Sometimes they’re babies. We have yet to see the money shot: the Baby Glamour skunks (known to the rest of the world as Hooded Skunks, lately of Mexico. They shouldn’t be this far north,…

  • New Drug Day One

    So, you have to titrate your way onto this new drug. “Huh,” I thought, “I didn’t have to do that with my old drug. Then again, I had to spend a day at the hospital under observation.” So I shrugged, and popped the first pill, which is one tenth what my final dose will be.…

  • Novel Update

    I see many parallels between the “loose” cenote painting from yesterday and Jerry’s Novel. In both cases, I’ve had trouble creating because I have too much freedom. With the cenote it became harder and harder because I didn’t want to be representational. But if I can paint what I like, then what is my goal?…

  • Weekly Paint Progress: 6/11

    This week the cenote was finally “finished.” It was this… … and then I took turpentine and “erased” the tree, and left reality behind entirely, and eventually it ended up like this: … and really, I am calling it. It all looks kind of gaping and hairy now. Kind of … evocative. I don’t know…

  • Gary Takes a Brief Turn for the Worse

    Gary woke me up at two in the morning to come in my room and complain about a sudden hip and ribcage pain that was keeping him awake. I grabbed the iPad. I knew enough about ribcage pain to look for shingles. I typed “hip pain in shingles.” I told him, “Hip pain is an…