These are my Brakes.

These are my Brakes.

Cars are all about maintenance.  You change your oil, you rotate your tires.  You check your fluids and replace your filters.  Well, after my brakes had gotten so bad that the entire truck would rumble every time I hit the brake pedal, I decided it was about time to get down 'n' dirty with some long awaited and much needed maintenance.  As I sat there using my spare tire as a makeshift bench, busting my knuckles trying to break the bolts that held my brake caliper to it's bracket, I began to think about how just about everything in life requires some degree of maintenance at some level.

Life Maintenance

I recently read an article on a somewhat well known blog about how difficult it is to make the transition from teenage internet-monger to responsible adult.  Y'know, the whole mix of catching up on e-mails, watching your finances, housekeeping, etc.  But I realized this weekend that all of those things can be summed up under the title "life maintenance."  You're just taking care of all the things that keep your life moving forward, much like what changing the brakes or flushing your transmission fluid does for your car.  House cleaning, doing dishes, taking out the trash, grocery shopping, laundry...these would all be considered home maintenance.  Then returning phone calls and e-mails and setting appointments and things would be social maintenance.  Eating, working out and hygienic practice would be personal maintenance.  Then if you developed a system to organize and plan out all your maintenances, that would be maintenance maintenance.

Work vs. Home

I think I'm much better at keeping up with my stuff at work than at home.  My work space is immaculately organized, everything on my desk pad calendar is color coded with highlighters, and my inbox is perpetually empty because I immediately respond to all of my e-mails, then file them in the appropriate folders.  But then at home, I've got a speeding ticket that I've been dragging my feet on until about a week ago, our financial filing cabinet is overflowing with unfiled bills and pay stubs, and I have no idea where I stand with my fall school schedule at UTA.  I need to figure out a way to get more on top of my home stuff.  I would join FlyLady, but there's just one problem with that: it's called FlyLady.  They should make a men's version called Shark-Raptor Man.  Their tagline can be "Take care of your crap or the Shark-Raptor will kill your face."

Go-Kart Relationships

Back to the auto-maintenance thing.  If you don't keep up with your car, it will eventually fall apart and all you can do is hope you're lucky enough to not be inside it when that happens.  Same goes for relationships.  Granted, some relationships take a little more work than others, but they all need upkeep from time to time.  We normally call this "hanging out."  One of my mechanic friends once told me that "everyone wants a go-kart."  What this means is that you buy a go-kart, you drive the go-kart, then you forget about it until you want to drive it again.  There is little to no maintenance to be done.  It made me start thinking about how many relationships I've had in the past that I've expected to be go-kart relationships.  That was clever when I thought of it, but now it's just cheesy.  But I have a rule against backspacing when I blog, so it is what it is.  It's kind of like how I sketch using pen instead of pencil so that I can't erase the stuff I don't like.  I feel it's more honest that way.  And more sloppier.

All in all, there is a myriad of applications for this whole life-is-maintenance idea.  I guess the message behind it is that maintenance must be done if we want things to run smoothly and efficiently.  Every time you find yourself doing some kind of menial task that you hate doing (in my case, folding and putting away laundry), think of it as life maintenance, and understand that it will inevitably need to be done again sometime in the future.  It simply must be done in order for your life to run smoothly.  You might get a few busted knuckles and a shirt stained with motor oil in the process, but there's nothing like the sound of an engine that just got fixed up, roaring extra loud as if it knows it's in good hands, and it's happy to be there.

This is all for now.
-R.

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These are my Keys.

These are my keys.

They used to all be on one key ring until I organized them today.  Now, I've got a ring for my car keys, one for work, one for home(s), and one for the keys that I have no idea what they go to.  I never realized how many keys I actually use in the course of one day.

My Apartment Key.

I use it to lock the door behind me when I leave for work.  We recently got the wife's key duplicated because I lost mine, and driving to Walmart to spend the last of our spare cash on a new key just seemed easier than looking between the cushions on the couch.  We still haven't found my old key...mostly because we haven't looked for it.

My Truck Key.

This one really counts as two because I use the fob to unlock it.  I've always called it a fob.  In my college years, I would mention my fob and people would think I was talking about the band Fallout Boy, because that's their initials.  Then when I met the wife's Asian friend, I learned that the letters FOB also stand for the slang term, "fresh off the boat," which is commonly used to derogatorily describe Asians who haven't been in America very long.  Being Asian myself, whenever people toss a FOB joke my way, I quickly remind them that it actually stands for "frequencies of brilliance."  And if that doesn't shut them up, I usually throw things at them, then storm out of the room, screaming and knocking over random objects on my way out.

My Key Card.

Yes, I've climbed high enough on the corporate ladder to be one of those vest-wearing D-bags who carries a key card around in their pocket, just for the rare occasion that they might actually have to use it.  I must admit, though, that the feeling of waving your wallet like some kind of magic wand in front of that plastic panel on the wall, hearing the click and seeing the red light turn green as the building doors swing open automatically...In my head I always hear the voice of Jerry Orbach as Lumiere from Beauty and the Beast singing "Be Our Guest."  It reminds me of the day I went with my dad to his job at EDS back in the day.  That was also when I found out that brief cases are like ties: they serve no legitimate practical purpose, yet they make you look ten times more professional.

My Suite Key.

And what a sweet suite key it is.  It's extra long so that even if you duplicate it, it still won't work on the door. In fact, the one I have still decides not to work sometimes.  It took me a good solid two weeks before discovering the secret.  When they gave me the key, they forgot to mention that I would have to turn the handle counter-clockwise as far as it would go, then turn the key slightly to the right, and release the handle to let gravity do the rest.    I've always wanted to ask my coworkers if they have the same issue with their keys, but there's always that fear that they'll have no idea what I'm talking about and somehow find a connection between my apparent deficiency in key-using skills and the fact that I was home schooled.

The Mail Key.

One day, I sat in the office of our center director, having our weekly catch-up meeting.  She looked at me and said "Ryan, I think the time has come for me to pass this along to you."  She grabbed something off the top of her filing cabinet, and set it on her desk in front of me.  It was a key.  As she moved her hand away, a choir of angels sang in perfect harmony as the florescent light from the ceiling panels cast a magnificent glow which glistened off it's pristine golden surface.  To what new heights had my job position just been thrown?  What mysterious wonders would be unlocked at the feeble hands of this humble man, a mere operations specialist??  Through what golden gates of endless possibility would I pass by way of this new addition to my plethora of keys???  ...It was the mail key.  I now check the mail at work.  Mostly it's just bills.  Bills and bills and a letter and bills.  I now pay the company's bills.  Yaaay me.

The (apartment) Mail Key.

I check the mail when I get home from work.  We have a care's team.  There's always a flier posted on the inside wall of the lil' mail center thingy.  It's always for an event that already happened.  Like a month ago.  Every afternoon I see a flier for free breakfast.  It's got a clip-art-esque picture of some bacon and eggs with smiley faces on them.  I always think to myself, "Man, that sounds good.  I think I will show up to grab a free breakfast this coming Fri--ummm yeah, that was May 2nd.  It's July now."  I guess it's all for the best, considering my newfound pescetarian lifestyle.  All I would probably walk away with is a glass of orange juice and a tortilla.


Well, those are all the keys I used today.  Still on the carabiner are the key to my parents' house, the key to the storage unit we don't use anymore, a key that I think goes to the Dallas branch of my company, and some other small key that I fully intend to stick into every keyhole I come across until I find a match, or until it gets stuck, in which case I will promptly break it off and run away like my life depends on it.  Because that would make a great story, and we Asians like telling great stories.

This is all for now.
-R.

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These are my Flip Flops.

These are my flip flops.

The wife got them for me a long time ago.  They're my favorite.  Although they look ridiculously old and worn down, they are the most comfortable things I've ever worn on my feet.

I once knew a guy in high school who always wore his favorite flip flops as well.  Only, he literally wore them every day.  They were so broken in that there was a hole in one of them, right where his big toe went.  The bottom of the other one was completely covered in duct tape because it literally would've fallen apart otherwise.  I asked him why he didn't get a new pair and he simply replied, "because they wouldn't be these." He and his flip flops had been through so much together that every blemish was a story - a memory.  He wouldn't trade them for the world.  I find it difficult to get that attached to mine, because...well, they're freaking flip flops.

I could understand the sentimentality if they were, say, puppies.  Or some kind of mythological creature that you just happen to stumble upon in your back yard.  Like a gryphon or something.  That would be flippin' sweet.  I would totally make it a saddle and fly around with my shirt flapping in the wind like Atreyu did on Falcor.  That is, if it didn't try to eat me first.  And there's a good possibility of that happening, especially if I covered it's belly in duct tape and punched a hole in it's face with my big toe like that dude did with his flip flops.  You should never treat your pet gryphon like a pair of flip flops.  That's totally not where I expected to go with this.

If you look at the picture, you'll see that one is more worn down than the other.  I just can't figure out why.  Maybe it's because I walk heavier on my left foot than my right.  But usually you walk heavier on whichever foot corresponds to your dominant hand, which in my case would be my right.  A childhood mentor of mine taught me that to figure out whether your cat is right- or left-handed (or would it be left-pawed?), you put them on a sheet of carbon paper, and make them pounce off of it.  Whichever foot makes the darker impression is their dominant side.  I thought about testing this, but my cats have a habit of trying to eat everything that I don't want them to.  I'm not sure what would happen if they ate carbon paper.  But wait a second - who actually has carbon paper just lying around?  I guess I could use my checkbook...

This is all for now.
-R.

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I really need to get a Phoenix tattoo.

I realized something.

Remember how I was talking about that idea floating around in my head that was put there by my improv-troupe friend?  Well the foundation on which that idea was built is the concept that we humans have an innate burning need to add form and organized structure (or would it be structured organization?) to things in our lives, whether or not those things need it.

For example, when I started at the Fort Worth center, I rearranged my desk to make it more organized.  Everything was put in a place and those places were stacked and positioned logically and strategically for the most efficient use.

Yet, it's not any better.  It just matches me more.

What I saw as chaos, the person with whom I share my desk saw as order.  And now my "order" has created a chaotic workspace for my partner.  I felt the need to add structure and organization to my workspace, even though it didn't need it.

Well I think I've done that with this blog.  The Facebook Fridays was a good idea when I had it, but this most recent post has proven to me that it's just turned the blog into a predictable, formulaic record of my life, lacking any kind of artistic exploration or emotional connection.  It might as well be called Ryan's Weekly Update, because I'm starting to feel it's just gotten that bland.

So, instead of continuing down my current path of obligatory unabridged Facebook status articles, I think I have a good idea of what phase 2 of Project RoboDog will be.  I'm still taking a daily picture every day on my iPhone and uploading them to my Project365 app.  Instead of stocking up on random ideas as they come to me, only to have them explode into my blog once a week with no semblance of continuity or overarching thought process, I will post up a photo and wrap my post around it.  Not just any photo, though; it must be the photo I take on that particular day for Project365.

I'll still collect ideas as I go about my day-to-day life, but the real challenge here will be relating my thoughts to the photo.  I only managed to do four Facebook Fridays before running them into the ground.  Hopefully my Photo Philosophies will last a little longer.

Onwards and upwards, my friends.

This is all for now.
-R.

I was born a poor black child.

Ev'reh fowth o' Joo-lah growin' up, I 'member askin' mah mamma, I said "Mamma?"  An' she would say "Yes, child?"  An' I said "What in cotton-pickin' tarnation is dis donzerly light dat everyone keeps singin' 'bout?"

An' she would jus' smiiiiile like she always did, 'n' start singin' some ol' song 'bout Jesus while rockin' back 'n' foath in her rockin' chair on our ol' wooden poach.  It was dat soft quiet smile dat said "You'll figgya it out soon enough, son."

Well, mamma, I still ain't quite figger'd out what in the blazes dat doggone donzerly light is, but one tang's fer sure: dat nat'nl anth'm is still one gosh-dern purdy sawng.

Happeh Foath, y'all.

Facebook Fridays: 2am

So this was a pretty eventful week.  Comedy clubs and Deep Ellum bars, midnight movies, deep paradigm-shifting revelations...oh, and my wife thought I was dead today.

It seems like everything significant this week has happened at or around 2am.

Saturday, at 2am
I'm sitting in a bar with an old friend, catching up on life and talking about the structure of the church.  He's part of an improvisational comedy troupe for whom I designed a poster quite some time ago in exchange for free tickets to a show.  Well, we went Friday.  It was loads of fun.  Our wives hit it off.  After the show, as we sat in an otherwise empty bar in Deep Ellum, he brought up a concept that I'd never previously considered.  It hit me like a ton of bricks.  Actually, no it didn't.  It hit me like...scalding hot coffee in my face.

Whenever someone says something hit them like a ton of bricks, I always want to respond with "So you're saying it killed you?  Wow...[insert something awesome and sarcastic that I'm too sleepy to think of right now]."

But seriously.  I walked away from that conversation with a new thought hovering in my head that would change everything I thought about the Body of Christ if I let it.

Tuesday, at 2am
I'm walking out of the Studio Movie Grill in Arlington, debating with my wife about the differences between the movie Edward and the book Edward.  People kept asking me "How did you like Eclipse?"  And my answer of choice: "I like seeing my wife happy."  If I have to paint her a shirt and go to the premier to make her happy, then that's what I'm gonna do.

I read a book recently about keeping a beginner's mind when learning things.  The whole concept is that you learn most when you understand that you are a beginner.  Once you get comfortable in your aptitude, you lose your thirst for growth and you stop paying attention to things from which you might learn.

I've begun to apply this principle to every aspect of my life.  It's gone pretty smoothly so far, but it's the marriage and the Christianity parts that are really proving to be challenges.  Surprise, surprise.  It's amazing, the things that pop into your head when you look at your loved one and think to yourself "I need to re-learn how to love you."

Wednesday, at 2am
Well this wasn't really at 2am but I'm going to pretend it was because I'm already this far into the post and I pretty much have to stick to the theme, or else I think like a fairy somewhere will die or something.  So at 2am on Wednesday morning, I was walking out of the Movie Tavern agreeing with the wife about how terrible The Last Air Bender was.  But after the heated Twilight debate the night before, it was refreshing to agree just as strongly on another movie.

Highlights of the experience:

 - The guy in front of us in line who was able to pronounce M. Night Shalaman, Shominom and Shakala, but for whatever reason couldn't wrap his head around the concept of correctly pronouncing Shaymalan.  Granted, it's not an American-friendly surname.  But most of the time, people who can't pronounce it don't even try.  They just mumble it, much like that Millajovavovavich woman from the Resident Evil movies.  Most of the time it just comes out sounding like "Emnashomanon."  And that's okay.  It's a respectable and humorous way to say "I have no clue how to pronounce that freaking guy's name."

 - My Facebook post warning fans of the cartoon series against seeing the movie.  This is a highlight because several people whose tastes in movies (and really, most media-related artistic mediums) closely match mine, posted comments showing respect for my opinion.  They were along the lines of "I'll wait for it to come out on DVD then" rather than "I don't believe you and want to see it for myself."  Well, one person did say that second one, but I'll let it slide...because his wife can hurt me.

Saturday, at 2am
I'm blogging about my week.  I normally do this during the day on Fridays, but today I had a root canal and we were also taking care of my stroke-surviving mother-in-law.  Oh yeah - on my drive home from the dentist's office, my phone remained on but decided not to ring or alert me when people called or texted.  The wife freaked out after me not answering my phone for an hour straight (while driving on the freeway in the rain in a truck with bad brakes, mind you), so she decided that I was probably dead and proceeded to place panicked phone calls to just about everyone in her contact list, as well as 911.  I got home, and the dialogue proceeded as follows:

  Mother-in-law, lying on couch: "Hey, cutie!"
  Me: "Where's Glennda?"
  Glennda bursts in: "Where have you been!!?!?"
  Mother-in-law: "Someone help me up, I gotta pee."

I was in big trouble at first, and my wife had that look in her eye that makes husbands immediately stop talking and start indiscriminately cleaning random things around the house.  But once she found out that I was in fact alive, and that it was my phone's fault for not ringing, she cooled off and just wanted a hug.  But, you guys, this is just one more reason why I need an iPhone 4 as soon as possible.  I'm jus' sayin'.

So what does this have to do with anything?  Nothing really, but there are some things that you just don't not blog about.  This is one of them.

Well, I started this post at about 1:30 thinking that I could finish it by 2, and keep with the theme of the post, but here we are at 3:43 and I've had to wake myself up about 87 times during the course of writing this post, and I'm pretty sure I have the impression of my laptop keyboard plastered across my face.  So that was my week.  How was yours?

Good night.
-R.

Facebook Fridays: Look But Don't Touch

Whenever I buy something from a vending machine, I always go through a moment of slight panic, where I am convinced that my snack is going to get stuck and I'm going to starve to death.  I've been using the vending machine a lot at work lately, and thus I've been panicking at least once a day.  It's worth it when I get my Cheeto's.  I wish I could grow a Cheeto tree.

Humility vs. Hatred

My sister was recently in a theatrical production of the musical, "Titanic." Among the other cast members was a particular young man whom I've spent the past few years strongly disliking.  For stupid reasons.  Reasons so stupid that I would've felt ridiculous explaining them to people.  Of course, I was able to make my loathing more dramatic and mysterious by stoically saying "I don't talk about him" when people asked me about it.  Well, I recently realized that I can't move forward in life until I let go of what's behind me.

So I went up to the guy after the show and made an effort to sincerely congratulate him and tell him he did a great job.  Because he really did. The feeling of letting go and putting myself in a vulnerable position was truly infuriating.  But the feeling of freedom after the act was well worth it.  So worth it, in fact, that I went back to Mamma Raine's house that night and had a heart-to-heart with another guy I didn't particularly care for.  The conversation wound up being very deep and meaningful, and at the end I asked forgiveness for writing him off before getting to know him.

I don't ask forgiveness.  There's a reason that humility is my biggest struggle.

But, learning humility is the task at hand - I've known that for a long time.  Only this week I acted on it...and it is truly a liberating feeling, being able to be in the presence of these people and not dwell on the reasons I hate them.  Because really, I don't hate them anymore.

Looking vs. Living

A friend of mine recently posted approximately four billion photos from her/our childhood.  I say 'our' because I've known her since she was like 4.  Nostalgia and sentimentality are a dangerous combination for me, because I don't just look at the photos - I relive the experiences captured therein.  When I hear certain songs, they send my thoughts to certain places.  Good Riddance by Green Day will always remind me of Richard Raine.  Regina Spektor's On the Radio will always make me think of my awesome desk from the place I worked when I discovered that song.  Ahh, mail clip robots and staple stacks...those were the days.

Well, when Champagne Supernova by Oasis comes on the radio, expect me to get lost in a daze, reminiscing about my childhood days when doing nothing was the order of the day.  It's never good to live in the past because you miss out on the present and the future hits you like a ton of bricks.  But at the same time, life is like climbing a mountain: most of your attention is in the present, on the current task in front of you; you look upwards every so often to continue planning the route you'll take to get to the top; but you'll never be able to gauge how far you've come until you look back down at where you started.

And that's when you say "whoa, we're really high."

I didn't realize it until just now, but it looks like I've spent the past week subconsciously pondering the idea of moving forward in life.  And it also looks like I've stumbled upon the idea that I have to let go of everything in my past that I've been holding onto, but at the same time I need to remember enough to learn from it.  It's kind of like a "look but don't touch" kinda thing.  I think that will be my new motto for when my actions are motivated by sentiments and values that I once held dear.  From now on, I'm allowed to look at the past but not live in it.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot...

I finally got rid of my massive and extravagant bottle collection.

I know, right??

This is all for now.
-R.

5 More Minutes

Sometime in the fall of last year, I had a day at work that was abnormally stressful.

I'll start with that.

I woke up with a headache, I was behind in my work, and it seemed that every customer in the building was hellbent on keeping me from catching up.  I took a 5-minute break to meditate outside and find my "happy place."  It was London in the 1800's.  Sitting atop that roof inhaling the cool, clear breeze as I looked down upon flame-lit street lamps and horse-drawn carriages really put my mind at ease.  It put my spirit at ease.  I was able to finish my day with grace and efficiency.

Well, yesterday I needed another 5-minute meditation break.  It was a very similar situation.  Only, due to the change in my job title, it was the likes of event coordinators and booking managers and our billing and accounting departments that kept me from my to-do list, rather than whiny customers.  Either way, I needed to escape for five minutes to exist somewhere not work-related.  This time it was an empty classroom.

I sat in the dark, legs crossed, with my hands strategically placed in front of my sacral chakra, palms facing inward.  I practiced deep breathing and calmed my mind.  In no time at all, I found myself sitting on Big Ben, looking down on the same scene as before.  Only this time, as soon as I began to relax and enjoy the breeze, the scene was ripped apart as if it were an image printed on a sheet of paper that was being pulled in 12 directions at once.

I heard the rip - I felt it.  Other scenes of tranquility that I've used in the past began to flash in and out of my mind's eye - a glass dome in a rain forest, a tree house in the heart of the jungle, a solitary island in the middle of the pacific.  Each scene appeared for a fraction of a second, only to be replaced by another.  Finally, I landed in the desert.

The earth beneath me burned my feet.  I saw a stone about 2½ feet in length, sliding across the rocky desert surface as if being magnetically pulled across the expanse of sand - or perhaps it was moving by its own will alone.

I thought to myself "how is this supposed to be a happy place?"  As soon as the thought left my mind, the sky turned to night as if a deep blue blanket were suddenly thrown over the sky.  The moon glowed with the intensity of the sun, and the stars screamed out for attention as they painted the earth with a soft blue glow.

I laid back and began to take it in, when all of a sudden, more rocks like the first one came out of nowhere, glowing with a bright white light.  There were seven of them.  They circled above me, then exploded into different directions.  I stood, bewildered.  They had gathered behind me.  One stone swept my feet out from under me as the other six cradled me...catching me.  They lifted me up toward the sky and the stars shone brighter and clearer than ever.

It was amazing.

Once I realized that I had been ascending for quite a while, I looked down to see how far I'd gone.  The instant I began to ponder my height, the stones lost their glow and dumped me out.  They didn't disappear, they didn't just move out from under me - they dumped me out.  As I fell, the lights in the sky faded and darkness swept the surface of the sand.  Just before I landed, my eyes opened and I awoke with a gasp.

I was sitting in the classroom...in the dark.  My hands were gripping the floor next to me; my fingers had dug themselves into the carpet.  I was out of breath and I had tears streaming from both my eyes.

I took a few moments to gather myself up.

It was supposed to be relaxing.  I rationalized that I probably fell asleep and was dreaming.  If so, then it was the most vivid dream I've ever had in my life.  Dream or not, I cannot help but think that this radical meditative experience has to mean something.

And here's the strangest part: I understood.

Just like before, I felt a peace.  But it wasn't a relaxing peace.  It was just a...peace.  When people said things, I understood what they meant.  But it wasn't just that - I understood them.  I could see what they were trying to communicate.  I could hear their intentions.  I continued to return e-mails and handle my responsibilities, but everything seemed to fit into some grand scheme that for some reason I had never noticed before.

It's like if someone painted an immaculate painting across the entire Wall of China, and I was walking along looking at it up close, one detail at a time - never thinking that if I were to take a step back, I could actually see what it's a painting of.

Even today things have been making a lot more sense.  It's to the extent that I feel stupid for going all this time without seeing how some things in my life are connected - how they influence each other.

I've always been a "big picture" thinker, but what do you do when you find that your entire big picture can fit between the pixels on the HDTV of the universe?

I am such a geek.

Well, it's 11pm and this geek has a lot to process.  Be sure to check back tomorrow for my Facebook Fridays post.  It should be good.  If not, I'm just gonna make stuff up.

This is all for now.

-R.

Facebook Fridays: Painting. Kittens. Green.

So it's not quite Friday, but I'm sure it will be by the time I'm done writing this post. It's been a pretty crazy week. I think this method of microblogging is really working because I don't feel like I have to store up all these things in my head until the next time I get around to putting them down. I can pretty much update my status from my phone and forget all about it until that coming Friday.

The Perplexing Practice of Portraiture

I said last week that I'm choosing not to display my recent art to people unless they contact me with serious inquiries.  I'm still standing firm on that, but I had to go out with a bang.  So I put together a YouTube video of the creation of my most recent piece: Marley & Me.  The video got 25 hits in the first few days, and I've already had a serious inquiry about it.  The thing about this painting is, though, that the face actually looks nothing like Bob Marley.  You know it's supposed to be him because of the reggae-esque music playing in the background as I paint using only the colors red, yellow and green, leaving the black background in the shape of dread locks.  Yet without the context of the piece as a whole, the face is just a face - it's not his face.

That's the weird thing about doing portraits.  It's ridiculously easy to make it look like a face.  Picasso painted a veritable Mr. Potato Head atop the body of each of his subjects, yet they still pass as human faces.  However, recreating a specific person's face is much more difficult.  They say that to make a face recognizable, accentuate the prominent features.  I've found that it's the exact opposite when it comes to painting realism.  The familiarities are in the subtleties.  I decided to do this painting upon finishing another portrait of someone with whose face I am extremely familiar.  It turned out fantastically.  I guess I got prideful and thought that if I could do one face, I could do them all.  Every time I make noticeable progress in my skill as a painter, I'm inevitably reminded of the long way I still have to travel.

A Tale of Two Kitties

When we got the twin kittens, we had just seen my little sister's performance in the musical Cats.  The whole premise of the musical is that every cat has not only the name by which humans choose to call it, but also another name with which it is innately born, and no two cats have the same name.  So although we named the kittens Max (short for Maximus) and Appa, they showed us through time that their true names are Leopoleon and Alistasia.

And Leopoleon peed on me in my sleep.

I can't really blame him though, seeing as how I'm dead-set on toilet training them.  We are currently in phase 3 of the process, which involves a bowl of litter set inside the toilet seat.  I think it's brilliant because I love the thought of never having to buy (or clean up) litter for the rest of their lives.  However, one of their lives is en route to a screeching halt unless he finds a better way to show his disapproval of my toilet training methods.  Appa's a good girl.  I feed her bacon.

Accidental Activism?

I'm not sure if being eco-friendly is considered activism...I think the term these days is "environmental awareness."  I didn't mean to go green, honestly.  It was a completely selfish transition, fueled by frugality and the desire for more money.  It all started when I woke up at 4:30 one morning with the burning urge to check my Facebook on my phone.  The screen was blinding in the midst of my otherwise pitch-dark room, so I turned the brightness on the screen all the way down.  I've left it that way ever since.  It's done wonders for my battery life (and surprisingly, my eyes).  In the spirit of battery saving (and thus less time spent sucking power out of my wall to charge the dang thing), I also turned off my 3G network.

Then, our best friends just re-did all the lighting fixtures in their house, so naturally we did what any good best friends would do: we took their old fixtures from their attic when they weren't home.  Mostly because they have fans, and we live in Tejas, where it's stupid hot.  So now that we have fans in our ceilings, we don't use the A/C as much.  And speaking of A/C, we also went out and bought a digital programmable thermostat with an Energy Star option which essentially programs the thermostat to use the least amount of energy and save us the most money possible.

So there you have it.  I managed to pull off painting a portrait of Bob Marley without actually having to paint his face, our kittens are blog-worthy because they pee on people, and we have effectively reduced the amount of energy we use on a regular basis.  I hope it shows in our energy bill.  But if not, at least I can take comfort in knowing that we are one step closer to being "that couple."

This is all for now.  See you next week, and remember to avoid the Noid.
-R.

P.S. Hey look at that, it's Friday.  I win.

Facebook Fridays: Changing Gears...Again.

Let's get down to business.

I passed up my first opportunity to do a Facebook Friday post because last week I was too busy taking my wife to see Wicked.  Then the following Saturday, I did my first performance painting as part of a dance recital.  So it was a pretty busy weekend.  This weekend will be just as eventful (we've got Glennda's mom for the weekend), but there are some teenagers having a pool party right outside our bedroom, so I can't sleep anyway.  It's 1 in the morning, by the way.

What's in a name?

I find myself occasionally checking the App Store for new apps I can download for free and then hardly ever use.  I found an app called "Robot Unicorn Attack."  While not free, I was still tempted to buy it purely on the basis of its ridiculous title.  This made me start noticing...okay, looking for...crazy titles everywhere - especially Netflix.  With titles like Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla and The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living And Became Mixed-Up Zombies (which is actually the one and only film to officially fall into the horror-musical genre), who actually needs to watch these movies?  Scrolling through the titles is entertainment enough.

The painter behind the curtain.

So, that show I did really jump-started my painting.  I've done a lot of new work, but am hesitant to post them up online.  I want to sell them, and the hush-hush nature of the whole thing adds an element of value - like each piece is a well-kept secret that only a select few are allowed in on.  Plus, I don't want to be one of those approval-hungry artists who constantly needs people to tell them how remarkable their work is.  I know how good I am, and how good I'm not.  The ultimate compliment would be to tell me how much you'd pay for one of my paintings, and then to buy it.  So if you're interested in buying, let me know and I'll show you what I've been up to.  Some of them are actually pretty freaking cool.

As a man's wife thinketh...

My wife believes in me.  She read one of my recent posts and said I should be a 'real' writer.  I joined a group of freelance writers who submit articles and then get paid based on how many people actually read them.  We'll see how that goes.  I've also taken every single post since the beginning of this blog and put 'em in a Word document.  I've gotten myself an official ISBN that I will use to publish it as a book and put up on websites like Amazon and Barnes & Noble for people to purchase.  I shall call it A Fool's Gold: One Man's Ignorance is Another Man's Bliss.  So that's that.  But then tonight, once I'd finished painting my first portrait (which turned out alright - the first painting I've been happy with since the cherry blossoms), she suggested that I become a tattoo artist.

Wait a sec, hold up.  What the heck of it?

You have to be an apprentice for at least a year before you get your first paying customer.  Plus, tattoo parlors are rarely in the best part of town, and your income is based on the frequency of your business, which means it's fluid and never steady.  This is not something into which most wives-of-two-years will generally suggest that their husbands invest their time and energy.  Usually it's more along the lines of moving up some sort of corporate ladder and creating a stable financial situation upon which to build a home and a family.  I mean, don't get me wrong - being that there are about 15 more tattoos I plan on getting over the next couple decades, I just about freaked when she actually suggested that I look into it.  But I guess I just never pictured her being supportive of that kind of job choice.

Although, there are a lot of people I could spread the gospel to in that field.  And, if I were to work in a tattoo parlor, I'd be able to get my dreads and labret piercing (and of course, tattoos) without my employer complaining about lack of the appearance of professionalism.

It really is crazy, the things I'll consider doing when my wife says she believes in me.  Her opinion outweighs the rest of the world to me - if she says she thinks I can do it, that's all it takes to me to believe in myself as well.  She just said it in passing, and probably had no idea that it completely rearranged my view of our future.  I guess we'll see how it all plays out.

Well, I think this Facebook Fridays deal might work.  Let's see what this coming week has to offer.

-R.