Behold ye the floating buffalo!
He was originally:
I didn’t want to bother doing the detail in the front or on his fur. It was too boring back in the day. Now it’s the best part.
Putting the TMI in absentminded
-
Weekly Paint Progress: 5/14/2026
No comments on Weekly Paint Progress: 5/14/2026
-
Again, my face betrays me
I was watching a friend teach a class recently. Poor thing had a cough, so much so that I walked up during a prolonged hacking fit and gave her a cough drop I’ve had in my purse since last winter. Then I returned to my seat in the back of the room among random women who had already announced they were giggly with exhaustion.
A few minutes later the giggling was directed at me. I turned my head and the woman to my left snickered, “Your face!”
I already knew what my face was saying, it was saying, “Oh God, my friend is teaching this class drunk off her tits on cough medicine.” There was just a reeling kind of cadence to her voice. “Not too noticeable,” I told myself.
“You looked so worried!” my classmate said. “And then you thought no one could tell. And then there was just the touch of a slur and you looked horrified.”
I primly folded my hands on top of my purse and admitted that perhaps our instructor had overindulged on the cough syrup a bit.
-
The great misremembering: a breakthrough
Recently I posted about a conversation I had that could not possibly have happened, and commented that “after this story went from the psych counselor to the psychiatrist, the neurologist wants to have me come in.”
So I was all mentally prepared for my appointment this coming Friday. I was ready to have the neurologist’s physician’s assistant say, “the memory does weird stuff sometimes” just as everyone else had.
Then I was in the garage and suddenly, randomly remembered the old days in the nineties when I had my two episodes of depression. One, in which I was A Very Bad Person Per the Unrelenting Voice in My Head, and another in which I was in some way responsible for the war in Bosnia Herzegovina. (Detailed here. I was convinced I was responsible for that conflict. I just couldn’t put my finger on exactly why. I knew it in the very core of my soul, though. I mean Wikipedia would disagree about my involvement, but I knew the truth. )
So first depression, hearing voices and guilt, second depression, inserting myself into European wars and guilt. Yesterday it occurred to me that maybe I’m having another delusional depression. A guilt-free depression though: I am notably, exceptionally blameless in this one.
And they did cut my MS meds in half in January, so it makes sense that my brain chemistry is off.
I am going with that until Friday, when I meet with the physician’s assistant. He may well say, “Memories do weird stuff sometimes.” I really hope I’m depressed though, otherwise I have no idea what reality is.
-
Eye contact: the best part of the on-site
Two teams have merged and I have a new co-worker who shares some of my personality traits. She speaks up about the brutal truths. Of course she prefaces them with a prologue about how we’re all working toward the same goal, she means it with the greatest respect, blah, but still the same honesty.
We were in entirely different rows on different sides of the auditorium when the speaker mentioned the importance of speaking the truth. We both simultaneously swiveled, looked for each other, made eye contact, nodded, and went back to listening to the presentation.
It’s especially nice that someone sees me as honest while my memory seems to be lying to me.
-
TWIL: New version of Cape Fear
I managed to avoid watching the 1962 film version of Cape Fear by hiding in my Mom’s womb. Once I was out I continued avoiding it until a few years ago, when I saw it as a part of our Film Noir binge.
Then there was the 1991 remake by Martin Scorsese. I read it was more brutal, more violent, and I don’t know if there were any raw eggs in it, but the ads creeped me out so much that I couldn’t imagine seeing it.
So now I have learned that there’s another remake coming out in June on Apple TV. Child rape and bullying for the 21st century.
I know I’m giving off grandma vibes about You Kids Today, but every thirty years we have to put up with this? Really?
-
A second chance at Choir! Choir! Choir!
Remember the Choir! Choir! Choir concert I passed up in February because it was in a sketchy neighborhood? There’s another one December 17 in the entertainment distict in Chicago. Hotel right next door! Obama museum open! December in Chicago! Woo!
-
The “end” of the underwear box saga …
My room is small and is easily cluttered, so everything on the desk has to earn its place, and the underwear box had lost its novelty.
I was tossing it in the trash when I saw this on the back.
Underwear box has earned his keep and lives on another day.
-
Weekly Paint Progress: 5/7/2026
Well, the remaining errors stared me in the face and I realized I had to correct them. The bottom left and right of the lampshade have always been wrong and the size and slant of the glow on the wall was wrong.
So this is the previous …
This is the progress …
And this is the goal.
It doesn’t look like I spent an hour on that wall glow. It looks just the same. And I tell myself that wall will dry darker. it So I am done, really.
Pink Ball pitcher of peonies is next, or maybe the floating buffalo.
-
I don’t know how to respond to that
Things have been quiet here at the house. I think I said two sentences to Gary today, both regarding imminent house maintenance work.
Neither sentence was hostile. This is what I call progress.
A few weeks ago he complained about his health, and I knew:
- If I was sympathetic he’d snap “Don’t condescend to me!”
- If I wasn’t sympathetic then he’d say I was heartless.
So I said, “I don’t know how to respond to that.”
Met with “WHO SAYS SOMETHING LIKE THAT TO A SICK PERSON WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU,” plus accusations that I was being contolled by the counselor.
Of course, time has passed and now it’s our go-to phrase.
“Where did you put the scissors?”
”I don’t know how to respond to that.”
-
Shout outs
Today was another one of our required attendance days at the office. Again, I got to see fifty people in person whom I haven’t been with for ages. It’s usually very gratifying and I feel seen.
This time I felt far too seen.
- A leader remembered an exchange on her first day when I groused that I hoped she’d last longer than six months.
- People laughed and agreed this was very on-brand for me.
- Others remembered when I refused to speak to them until they passed their licensing exam.
All these things are true. Had it stopped there I might have been fine. But then on break, a well-meaning person said they watched my face exhibit the five stages of grief when when a presenter suggested there would be a change in how we construct user objectives.
I tipped past “I feel seen” to “I feel overexposed.” It seems hard to believe … but I think I hit maximum attention overload.
I have a limit! Good to know.