Stephanie Cake

Argh. Apparently Mother Nature knew it was Memorial Day. We went from beautiful, almost chilly, spring weather to stifling summer oppression.

Thank god for the pool. Didn't make it there today but Connor and I went last night. Ahhhhh. What a relief!

What isn't a relief is the crap they are putting on TV now that all the Season Finales are over. This is on UPN tonight. Not that I expect much from UPN but still, are they serious?? Note the comment on IMDB: "My Baby's Daddy is not worth the time or money to watch." I don't even know why I thought it was worth the time and energy to blog about. Sheesh.

....yes, it pours. The proverbial sun has not been shining on us in the last 24 hours. I'm holding my breath because, you know Murphy's Law and back luck happens in 3's and all that jazz.

El spent the weekend with us and since Rob had to work, he decided to mow the grass to help out while I was at the grocery store. A very sweet gesture. Except he hit the oil pipe outlet in our yard and seized up our not very old lawn mower. Looks like he bent the drive shaft and its completely f'ed. He felt really bad. Poor guy. .....poor us since we now need to go buy another lawnmower with that money we don't have.

And then at the crack of dawn this morning Rob stomped into the bedroom and informed me I had ruined all his work shirts. Apparently there was a black ink pen in the laundry that I tossed in the dryer before going to bed. And it was a huge load. Connor's jeans, Rob's work shirts, miscellaneous other articles of clothing.... all covered in black streaks and blotches. The inside of the dryer is covered too. Frown. I now need to go research stain removal. Although it may be a lost cause since it occured in the dryer and everything is probably heat set by now.

I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop.... wondering what the 3rd bad thing will be. I keep telling myself not to be negative but it never fails. Hopefully its just a little sandal and not a huge workboot.

I have been thinking a lot about religion lately. From a very detached perspective I suppose. I'm not interested in getting religion or participating in religion. But I'm not actively resisting religion in any way at the moment.

Recently Rob showed me a snippet from Time magazine about the XXXchurch. They are a Christian organization which targets people who want to leave the adult film industry and/or people who are addicted to porn. The blurb was about some trouble they had because they wanted this religious publishing company to create bibles with a something to the affect of "Jesus loves porn stars" printed on them. The publishing company was unhappy about that. I think the whole thing was funny. I can appreciate what they are trying to do and the irreverant lengths they are going to. I can appreciate religious people with a sense of humor.

What really gets my dander up though is the hippocracy that many religions (errr... can you tell I'm talking about Christianity here?) espouse when they get all joyful about Christ's love but support discrimination and hate. I'm also terribly creeped out by the gleeful proselytizing that many really devout Christians (errr.... BAPTISTS are the worst) tend to do. They seem drunk with this culty emotion and it really makes me uncomfortable. I'm brought to joyful tears by the birth of my son. I am not brought to joyful tears by the resurrection of Christ.

Don't get me wrong. I believe in God. Well, at least some higher power. And I think the teachings of Christ are admirable. If everyone truly lived by much of that morality, we'd live in a much better place. But so many people are liars and cheaters and only out for themselves at any costs. And some of these people call themselves Christians. I remember the Young Life group when I was in HS. The youth minister who headed it all up was a subsitute teacher as well. I think his name was Scott. I'm sure he thought of himself of hip and cool and turning kids on to the word of God and whatnot. But at the one YL meeting I went to, there were several girls giving blowjobs in the bathroom and pretty much everyone else was there to figure out the logistics of hooking up afterwards or buying drugs. The few kids that were there for the "word of God" were these saccharine sweet, holier than thou robotrons who spend their days in school tormenting anyone who was different than them. I'm the last person to pass judgement on cattiness, sluttiness or drug use but I think the failure of Christian ideals is that no one who is living in reality takes them seriously.

I've been asked many times over the course of my teenage and adult years if I have accepted Jesus Christ as my personal savior. The answer is always no because I am in charge of being my own personal savior. It is up to me to live my life as a good person. My code of conduct tends toward that of Libertarian politics. No one should bug me about doing whatever I want provided it doesn't infringe upon the rights and freedom of anyone else. If my beliefs coincide with those of any particular organized religion, that's great but if not, oh well.

The other nite, I went to the Found and PostSecret event at Golden West Cafe in Hampden with Isabel and Derek. What I riot! Frank Warren from PostSecret is kind of a serious guy. While some of the postcards are hilarious, he kind of has this sense of reverance and awe about his project.

The Found guys, Davey and Peter Rothbart, on the other hand, are more performance based... Davy has done with with NPR/This American Life and Peter is a musician and they have a great stage presence. Davey read a bunch of of funny found notes and stuff and Peter performed a remake of "The booty don't stop", which was a "song" (term used loosely) on a cassette tape found by one of their friends.

Derek mentioned that Found made him think about the fact we are such a disposable society. He thought about stuff that he had as a kid or in the past - pictures, letters, toys, etc. - that are no longer around and how its kind of sad to have lost those things. He said it gives him hope that there are people who act as the gatherers and sharers of the mundane moments in stranger's lives.

Afterwards, we went to Cafe Hon and I had chocolate cake. Overall a fun and profound evening.

I'm only slightly abnormal.

You Are 28% Abnormal

You are at low risk for being a psychopath. It is unlikely that you have no soul. You are at medium risk for having a borderline personality. It is somewhat likely that you are a chaotic mess. You are at low risk for having a narcissistic personality. It is unlikely that you are in love with your own reflection. You are at medium risk for having a social phobia. It is somewhat likely that you feel most comfortable in your mom's basement. You are at low risk for obsessive compulsive disorder. It is unlikely that you are addicted to hand sanitizer.

I found this while I was going through some photo albums. I wish I knew when I ceased being photogenic. Cuz clearly in 1975 I was the cutest! hehehe.

I've been whining a lot lately, haven't I? And I have absolutely no excuse.

Right about now I am very tired and would loooove a nap. But as you can see from the time stamp it is about 12:15 pm and I really should be doing something marginally constructive. Actually I got a bunch of long overdue stuff done this morning - conference call, layout for client stuff going to the printer completed, blabbityblabbityblah. But I still have so much more to do.

I think I will whine some more so that I can get on with my day. Here goes: My hair is a mess. I have something stuck in my teeth. I'm hungry. Its cold in here - why won't the sun come out?! Why isn't it warm yet?! Why has May been so cold and rainy? Waaaah! I have a bunch of errands to run and I don't wanna. I have a conference call in 40 minutes and I don't want to talk to the guy. I'm tired. My head and my stomach kind of hurt. Probably because I haven't eaten. My neck is also stiff - I think I slept on it wrong. My bank account is empty. There is bird poop all over my car. My house is messier than my hair.....

Ehhh. Ridiculous whining. Not even worth it. I think I'll go floss my teeth and brush my hair, take some Excedrin and eat lunch. That should improve a few things.

Driving home from Philly tonite I passed one of those big car transport tractor trailers full of cars. But these weren't new cars. They were smashed up broken cars. Reminded me not only of my current heap (poor old Toyota) but also my other 2 cars who died terrible deaths at the hands.... er bumpers... of other bad drivers. And I got kinda sad.

My very first car was 1986 Chevy Chevette. Lovingly known as the Shovette. It was in terrible shape when it committed suicide on Lafayette Blvd when I was a sophmore in college. All the trim had peeled off the driver side and the trim bonding glue that was left had melted and run down the doors. I had to spray some flap on the carburator w/ WD40 quite frequently so it would start (and sometimes even had to douse some filter w/gas when the WD40 didn't work). It was in a sade state. It ended up stalling in the middle of the road and I got t-boned by a '76 Chevy station wagon. I hit my head and blacked out - I couldn't remember what actually happened until much later - so I got charged with causing an accident. Once my memory came back it was too late and I ended up with minor traffic violation charges, points on my license and had to pay a fine. The guy that hit me was much worse off, I guess. His car survived (it was a frikkin tank) but he was driving without a license and insurance so he was totally screwed.

My other car, a Chevy Cavalier, survived 2 hit and run accidents but got punked by the 3rd. The first accident did so much damage that it could have been totalled but it was only 3 weeks old and have about 1200 miles on it. Some stupid woman ploughed into it and broken the rear axle. It was parked in a parking lot at my job. I was no where near the car. The second accident was about 9 months later - a true hit and run. They demolished the whole driver's side in the middle of the night when it was parked in front of my apartment. That was a nasty suprise when I came down one morning to go to work and went to put the key in the door. It finally died in 2004 while parked on the street in front of my current house. Another stupid woman "fell asleep" (she was definitely drunk but the f'ing cop didn't bother to breathalyzer her) at the wheel and turned it into a Chevy accordian.

My current car has never been hit (*KNOCK ON WOOD*) other than door dings. But it rattles along like its got Parkinsons. The radio and clock stopped working over a year ago. It randomly comes back for about 5 minutes every month or so. Just long enough to annoy me. This past fall the switch to the fan for the heat/AC went haywire. It works but only on super high. At that requires some jiggling and balancing. And a little swearing. In the past 8 months I have gone thru a radiator, a clutch, a set of brakes/rotors (ok, so that could have been totally my negligence), a set of engine seals (we bought that car with that unfortunate problem), a battery and 2 alternators. I think there may be another radiator problem. Possibly from the pulley flying off the first (faulty!!!) alternator while I was on the Capital Beltway. I also have wiring issues due to some jackass mechanic who didn't know what they were doing and that no one seems to be able to remedy.

I don't have much luck with cars. I try to take good care of them but I always seem to end up with the short end of the automotive stick. I wish someone would buy me a new one. 'Cuz I can't swing car payments right now. Well, it doesn't have to actually be new. Just new to me. I don't need luxury. Just A/C. And a CD player would be nice but isn't crucial. In fact I've gotten used to jerry-rigging my ipod & some laptop speakers for travel music. I will even drive manual transmission. In fact I prefer it. I just want something that runs reliably and doesn't threaten to leave me stranded on 695, the Capital Beltway or Northern Parkway (does it sound like I'm speaking from previous experiences? you would be correct.)

Alright. I'm done whining for tonight. But if you wanna buy me a car, I'd be grateful. Super grateful. Indebted forever. Think about it.

So I've been making mosaics again. Of the pique assiette/picassiette variety. (for you non-Francais speakers, that loosely translates as "plate scrounger" or something like that. In the world of mosiac related creativity it refers to mosaics made with bits of broken plates, china, glass chards, yadayada.)

It's grueling work but I really enjoy it. Breaking the plates and china involves more than just taking a hammer to them. I also have to use tile nippers to snip the shards into attractive and useful pieces. Some plates are a real headache to nip too. Lotsa blisters on the nipper holding hand. And lotsa cuts from all the little broken shards. And then there's the grouting. Worse cuts from working the grout into the seams... and yes, I do wear gloves but those plate shards are mean sons-a-bitches. Grout gets into the cuts (ouch!) and overall turns my hands into crusty old granny hands.

But its so worth it once the piece is done. I really love mosaics and I'm so glad to be making them again. It's been over two years since I've produced anything and I'm working on some really cool pieces now. I'll post pictures soon... but I'm sure you're wondering what else there is to the sad little tale. You know shard cuts and grout hands can't be all. You know there's more to the story.... ;o)

So, once upon a little time (to quote the great Laurie Miller)....
I started making mosaics a few years ago on a whim. I had seen pique assiette work in a magazine by an artist who used a lot of three dimensional china items. She made these cool picture and mirror frames and had mosaic-ed her bathroom in teacup shards. As always I had one of my brilliants inspirations and thought "I can do that!" This time I actually finished not just one but 2 projects. They were little dresser trays, painted in pastels, with buttons and keys and pastel colored plates shards in the mosaic design. One had a 3D lemon from a vase (hooray for the $ Store!) and the other had a dolphin/Flipper head from a figurine (yay for Goodwill!). They were really cute and I was proud of them.

I posted images of them on my website and ended up selling one (the dolphin) and giving the other (lemon) to my mother-in-law for her birthday. And then I got a call from a lady who had seen my website and was nuts over my work. And this is where it all spiraled down the proverbial toilet.

I won't name names because I'm sure this woman didn't really mean me any harm or at least I want to keep thinking that. It helps me sleep at night, ya know? I also have to take responsbility for my own misery. But anywho, lets call her CC. CC lives in the southern midwest area... not Texas but one of the states near TX if you get my drift. She is an interior designer and was getting ready for some majorly huge home show and thought my mosaics were the bee's knees.

I worked out a deal to make a sample for her (it was a vase) and sold it to her at a reduced retail price - because I had come up with wholesale minimums and one piece didn't meet it. Keep in mind, she didn't haggle with me over this reduced price. My dumb ass had come up with it as a policy in hopes of hooking shop owners' interest so I could land some flat out sales and not deal with consignment. The reduced price was a little more than what I had planned to charge for wholesale and I figured I was going to come out ahead regardless - if she decided not to work with me I had still made a little money and if she did place an order than it was worth it in the long run. Bad move. Offering someone a price reduction right off the bat in an art related B2B business deal is just like bathing in a bucket of blood before tripping blindly through a lion's den.

She received the sample and called to oooh and aaaah and coo over it. She wanted to talk about a major commission. Her customers were going to LOVE my work! I was going to get GREAT exposure! She wanted to take my work to the home show where it would be seen by some very important people. And on and on and on.

And then she wanted to talk about volume pricing. My wholesale price was great and all but could we maybe find cheaper bases (I was using galvanized tin buckets and potting vases) to lower the price? And what if she sent me some china, would that help? Could we knock off some of the cost if I didn't have to work so hard to find or purchase china and plates?? She chipped away at me over a period of time about this stuff. All the while blowing smoke up my ass about how great my work was and how she wad going to help make a big name for me.

And she wore me down. Admittedly my self esteem wasn't great at the time. I was finally back in the corporate world but still a little shaky (I guess I never really got unshaky at that paticular job... but that's another story altogether). I still wanted to make things happen with my creativity. I still had a pipedream about figuring out the perfect cottage industry which would get me written up in Mary Engelbriet HOME and Martha Stewart LIVING and make me a minor celebrity. So I agreed to a riduculously low price per piece. In hindsight I wouldn't make ballons animals for this price much less something as labor intensive as pique assiette mosaic.

She broke my resolve to never undersell my artwork. She really had me convinced that it was a mutually beneficial deal. So I said ok. She did send me a huge box of plates and china and other doo-dads and I have to admit that was a good thing. She sent me some beautiful stuff. But it was nothing unique. In fact it was all from TJ Maxx and Marshalls and she left the price tags on all of it so I can estimate what her net cost was and hind sight being 20/20, it wasn't really a fair trade off.

Her first order was a trial - 15 vases for the upcoming home show (because I couldn't promise the dozens she really wanted in a short period of time - I think she must have thought I wiggled my nose and made mosaic-ed vases appear). And I started working. And I worked. And I worked. And I worked. I had bleeding blisters from cutting china. It was winter so I was working in my kitchen (never a good idea) and I was constantly stepping on little china shards. I worked over 18 hours straight 2 weekends in a row. Not to mention working on them every night after work. I was getting odd looks at work because I always had grout under my fingernails and bandaids on practically every finger from all the cuts. What a nightmare. I was the sole employee of a little mosiac sweatshop. I also sunk a considerable amount of time tracking down cheaper galvanized tins (ended up resorting to trips to about a dozen Wal-marts because they happened to have them) and Capodimonte style 3D china flowers ($ Store saved the day once again)

So I finally finished and shipped them to her on time. She emailed to let me know that they had arrived but that a couple of them had gotten chipped in transit (despite tons of bubble wrap and newspaper, I suppose the capodimonte style flowers were fragile). She mentioned that she would send them back. Maybe I could fix them or something. I imagined perhaps being able to pop out the ruined flower and grout another one back in. oh my brilliant ideas!

And then she ordered a few more in another style for a spring show. And again I cranked out more (actually not as many this time because she wanted to see what I had done with a theme request). And then she got a little spotty with communication. And then I got a check for about half of what I had expected - net 3o days payment terms on the first shipment. And then I got a box from her. A box containing the damaged vases. Except it wasn't "a couple" of vases and it wasn't just chipped roses. It was approximately half of the vases I had made and all but 2 or 3 of them looked like someone had stood on them. Literally. The tin was bent, the grout cracked beyond repair and the flowers destroyed. I felt about as crushed as those vases when I opened that box.

And then she questions me about the invoice I sent her for the second batch. She insinuated that we had agreed on yet a lower price for that particular batch. I lost it at that point. I told her in no uncertain terms had we ever discussed any price changes and that I was on the losing end of the deal even at the higher price. She sent me a check for the total amount of the second invoice and I never heard from her again.

So I stopped making mosaics. I was totally burnt out and got a pain in my stomach everytime I looked at my tile nippers. I also spent a lot of time kicking myself and second guessing and blaming myself and over analyzing what I could have done differently. But I finally came to the conclusion that, other than being incredibly gullible and naive, I didn't do anything wrong. She took advantage of me. I needed to stand up for myself. Instead I let a fast talking shrewd business woman who had absolutely no clue about the creative process to get one over on me.

Since then I have seriously worked on my confidence and self esteem with regared to my artwork. I have turned down several commissions if people weren't willing to pay what I think I'm worth. I'd rather make something and have people admire it and keep it for myself than slave over something and send it out in the world for a pittance.

The mosaics I'm making now are for me. I'd like to have a show at some point. But until then I will have a wonderful collection of pique assiette. Unless I get a good offer, of course. Grin!

On a related note, anyone who wants to unload their broken or unwanted china on me - please feel free! You can send to my attention @ PO Box 423, Reisterstown, MD 21136. Plates, bowls, mugs platters, vases... its all good! Antiquey/flowery looking stuff works great - like blue willow knockoffs. Gaudy little figurines and chopstick rests are super too. (Note: Correlware is no good because it is actually glass. Really thick stoneware is also a hassle because its impossible to break and cut.... not to be choosy when I'm out here begging but, well, you know how it is...)