tagged by galoot

My ex...is eddie vedder. (of course that relationship was all a figment of my imagination)

Maybe I should... eat more vegetables.

I love... a freshly painted room.

People would say... "who's shannon?"

I don't understand... math.

When I wake up in the morning... i'm happy.

I lost... $200 in Las Vegas a few years ago.

Life is full of... choices.

My past is something... I prefer to block out.

I get annoyed when... my son makes raspberry sounds for 7 hours on a road trip.

Parties are... fun when I throw them. Toga party. July 11th. My house.

I wish... that all my favorite people would come to my toga party.

Dogs... are unpredictable and bite people.

Cats... poop a lot more than you would think.

Tomorrow...I am going to Ikea.

I have a low tolerance for... Katie Holmes' movies, green peppers, filthy rich celebs who want me to donate my money for their causes, bugs.

If I had a million dollars... remodel my house.

I'm totally terrified of... something bad happening to my children.

tag. YOU are it.

my door

I am part of a group of local artists who occasionally do some group projects for downtown. It's been a long time since we've done something and my ability and motivation was really tested. It is true "use it or lose it."
The "assignment" was to do something with a door which would be placed at various places in our downtown. "Doors of Downtown" was installed today and here is my finished piece.

I really struggled with my conception. My very first instinct was to do "knock knock" jokes (it's a DOOR, get it?) I groaned and then decided to do "Star Doors" and do some kind of Darth Vader type door. I thought about "Adoornment" which led to "AdornAment" and I was going to glue Christmas ornaments all over it. Groan again...I kept going back to the knock knock jokes and that is when I decided it would be clever to insert them into Superhero Comic strips.

Here is a close up of my Incredible Hulk sneezing strip. When it got put up, it became blocked by the lamp post. The entire backside is painted with chalkboard paint and I hung giant pieces of chalk so people could write down their own favorite knock knock jokes.
I'm going to have to make some trips downtown over the next few weeks to see what people have drawn or written on the door. I imagine there will be plenty of profanity and some rude comments, I'll take pictures and report back. That might be more clever than my door.

Backside of the door, this side faces the street.

other doors

these are doors for our downtown art project. these are just a few of the other artist's doors. maybe i'll post more of them later.


This door was a 3-D piece with a girl popping out the front. Her foot is also popping out the back side of the door. Then it's covered with newsprint. The artist who did this door is my "art idol", joanE ~ she can do anything.

Another door from joanE. This one is funny. It says "Thus creating a false sense of security" and it has numerous locks and bolts along with a peep hole. Just funny since it's a screen door.

This door is from another local artist named Barb. She does these amazing little sculptures and pictures from found objects. She primarily works with white. She did two doors, both with the theme of "Leonar Door DaVinci"

Click on this one for the close up. It's a good example of her found object creations. Several years ago we did a window with the theme "Water Water Everywhere..." It was a window installation featuring designs inspired by Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner and Barb's piece was a beautiful white on white albatross in a shadow box. (My contribution was hours upon hours upon hours of writing the entire poem which is very very long onto a long sleeve tee shirt. I used three shades of blue fabric pen and black marker and made the words into a raging sea that travelled across the shirt and sleeves)

sunday at duncan manor

This magnificent home is called Duncan Manor and it's huge and old and up until today
has been quite mysterious. It's located far up a looooong lane in the middle of nowhere.
It is so huge that it's easily seen from the highway though and I swear every person who lives around here has uttered these words when driving past:
"I would love to see what that house looks like on the inside."

For years it was rumored to have been part of the underground railroad. I have done my part to perpetuate this myth, only recently hearing the truth (that it was not built yet during the times when the underground railroad would have been effective.)

This home has sat empty for as long as i've been alive. A couple of months ago a couple purchased the house. The woman is the president of the local "Old House Society" and the husband is a contractor. They plan to restore it and make it their residence.
I read in the paper that due to such a huge response from local residents that they were going to offer tours of the home in the "before" stages.

We drove to a nearby school where a bus picked up all the curious people and paid our $10 per person. (The money was all being donated to the Old House Society). They did the tours two days and had hundreds of people go through the house.

In the bottom photo you can see the back of the house and the amazing open air patios between the two sections of home. There is one on the main floor and the second floor. This was the coolest thing about the house (close up photo on wikipedia). You walk from one bedroom out onto the patio and then into the master bedroom. All of the windows (something like 65) were ceiling to floor (10ft), of course they were all busted out and graffiti lined many of the walls but good bones are good bones.

Each bedroom had a massive ornamental fireplace, the doors in the parlor were still in tact and massive. Up the winding staircase there were niches with marble bases (can't believe they were still in perfect condition). There was a second staircase that was much more narrow (the servants stairs) and it went all the way up to the third floor. In the third floor attic (which a very cool room that the new owners son told me he wants to convert into his bedroom) was a ladder leading up to the roof balcony thing that can be seen in the top photo (that is the front of the home). We weren't allowed to go up the ladder for safety reasons.

The couple have said that they are going to offer another tour when the project is finished.

toothless, braless, garage sale

it's june again and the heat is here. it made it into the 90's yesterday. i'm not complaining about that (yet) though because it's been so cold here all "Spring."

my mom, neighbor, and i had a garage sale this past weekend. i sold a lot of crap...i mean...really great stuff. i cleared out some space in my garage, basement, attic, and closets and that feels good. i'm not crazy about getting ready for a garage sale but i actually enjoy having the sale itself. socializing and chatting with people all day, friends stop by because they see me sitting outside. donuts.
you also get the crazies. this year a toothless, braless woman purchased my mom's lounge chair (the patio chair that reclines) and then she bought a small table because that "would go perfect with it." she paid $6 for both items and carried it off to the end of my driveway where she had her BICYCLE waiting. her bike had one of those kit carriers attached to it and she pulled out some chains and rigged that table and chair up onto her bike and rode off.

my neighbor's husband sat with us for awhile and chatted. he was highly entertained by all the "lovely" ladies that a garage sale brings out. braless, toothless, dirty, scabby, sausage rolls, and yes, even one lady wearing an all crocheted petticoat and matching beanie hat.

we packed up and had a cookout. i played some after dark hide and seek with all the kids and that was lots of fun. when i came inside, i got drunk dialed by preppygirl. she and galoot were in cleveland with her brother and a friend to see kids in the hall. i told galoot that i was the coolest mom on the block (for playing hide and seek) and he informed me that preppygirl was the coolest mom on his cock. Niiiice.