Rawhide

I’m late with this update and I’m pretty tired, so my attempt at clever witticisms may be a tad lacking. But it’s my blog, so if you don’t like it – suck it.

Tuesday, 28 July

My lil homey from Manchester left Berlin. I’ll miss the little bastard.

Wednesday, 29 July

I feel sad for fat girls today. The trends are just not forgiving for wide-thighed ladies. But I understand, because I lived through the first leggings epidemic of the 80s and let’s just say them and my thighs did not get along.

Friday, 31 July

I am no innocent when it comes to the crazies, but this dude, well, he’s losing it and it ain’t pretty.

Saturday, 01 August

Some people like to get their faces right down into their plates when eating. Why? They need to inspect the food closely before eating? It allows them to shovel the food in faster? They’re afraid they’ll spill food down their shirts? Maybe they’re worried someone else is going to come along and try to snatch their food away? Who knows, but they’re rather interesting to watch.

Sunday, 02 August

It was my mother-in-law’s birthday on the 4th and we’re giving her tai chi lessons. We’ll head down there tomorrow to visit them and celebrate her birthday. I made this drawing for the “coupon” we’re giving her.

Monday, 03 August

I’ve made a coloring book and now I’m getting my lady friends to color it.

Tuesday, 04 August

Start of the work week – not much to say about it except sometimes those days suck.

Wednesday, 05 August

First physical therapy session and I wore tennis shoes without socks and had to take the shoes off and man, my feet stank! But other than that it went pretty good.

Thursday, 06 August

Understandably so, I am a little preoccupied with disabled people and canes and walkers and crutches and wheelchairs.

Vacation is cool

Vacation is over, but it was wicked. I did some fun stuff, some arty stuff and lots of relaxing. I skimped a little on my daily drawings, but managed to eek out a few…

Monday, 20 July

Sunday we went out to breakfast and then had planned to do some more futzing around but my back was bothering me from putting all my weight on one side. I realized that I would have to start using 2 crutches again. I was a bit frustrated that I wouldn’t be as active as I had hoped during my vacation. It made me remember the summer I got chicken pox.

Tuesday, 21 July

Monday was really productive. Tuesday? Not so much….

Friday, 24 July

CUPCAKES!!! It was my birthday on Thursday and this was just one of many awesome treats!

Saturday, 25 July

On the way to the orthopedic surgeon’s office, we took a cab and as we got closer to the destination I saw 5 old people in a row using walkers. I hoped this wasn’t an omen. It wasn’t, the surgeon was AWESOME!!! I feel totally comfortable about having the surgery now that I found a good doctor.

Too Ra Loo Ra Loo Ral

I’m off work this week and thoroughly enjoying sleeping in, relaxing and generally doing whatever the fuck I want to. Here’s last weeks drawings:

Sunday, 12 July

I’m a little obsessed with old people. I’m not sure why. They used to scare the hell out of me when I was younger, but now I feel so sad for some of them I see who look so lost and lonely. I also think they make for interesting subjects and would love to find some old people to pose for me some day.

Monday, 13 July

Normally I have Mondays off but I worked this Monday so that I could have Friday off. On my way home I had a nice looking young fella ask me if I needed help onto the tram.

Tuesday, 14 July

I went to get an MRI done of my knee. The ACL is completely torn, so now I have to have surgery. It was my second MRI and I’ve decided that I don’t like them very much. Point of fact: they suck. It’s really hard for me to stay still that long. I get a little panicky.

Wednesday, 15 July

Humidity strikes again. My hair becomes a whole different beast when it’s humid.

Saturday, 18 July

My husband had a friend offer him a free ticket to a show, so I had the whole night to myself. I got an amazing amount of shit done.

Sunday, 19 July

My birthday is this week and my husband gave me one of my presents last night. Dancing shirtless while hanging his laundry to Pump Up the Jam (my choice). It was honestly one of the best birthday presents EVER!

Bonus

I decided to scan some of the quick sketches I’ve done over the last weeks. These are also done daily in the morning but I try to spend only 5-10 minutes on them..

Tread lightly and carry a big gun

This week was spent hobbling around on my bum knee. I eventually got crutches which helped take the weight off my knee but introduced a whole new set of issues. The main issue being that crutches SUCK! Man, there were the blisters on my hands, the soreness in my arms and trying to maneuver through throngs of summer tourists both on the transit system and on the sidewalks. And don’t even get me started on using those things to walk up/down stairs! But I managed it all with a smile on my face…most of the time.

Here are this weeks drawings…

Saturday, 04 July

Friday night I was putting dishes away and fell off a chair, thus the aforementioned knee injury. My mother-in-law told me that I shouldn’t use a chair as a ladder.

Monday, 06 July

The orthopedic, Dr. Rotz, told me he thought I injured my ACL and that I  needed a MRI. I also adhered to the treatment for this type of injury which is RICE – “Rest”, “Ice”, “Compression” & “Elevation”.

Tuesday, 07 July

I live a 50 minute commute away from work (door to door). This means changing trains at least once, which also means walking up or down at least 2 sets of stairs (not including the 5 flights from my apartment) and then having to do a 10 minute brisk walk from the subway to the office. I tried to do it the first day without crutches which proved to be very awkward, slow and painful.

Wednesday, 08 July

On Tuesday night I was supposed to get crutches at an orthopedic shop by my house, but when my husband got there, they were just about to close. The shop lady was needless to say not very accommodating and told my husband she would have to order the crutches which could take a week.

Friday, 10 July

The crutches came Wednesday afternoon and although they helped, my knee was usually pretty sore by the time I got home and so most nights I spent laid up in bed with a pillow under my knee and an ice pack on top. My husband was a real peach about keeping me comfortable.

Saturday, 11 July

Sick of drawing myself, I opted to draw my boss instead.

Jump Up, Jump Up and Get Down

I injured my knee yesterday when I jumped off a chair. Think I may have torn my ACL or some other ligament. Bummer. It’s been that kind of week, but the funny thing is that I haven’t let any of it get to me. Mostly I think of it as material for my daily drawings.

I’ve decided this week to include brief  written summaries for each drawing. So without further adieu….

Sunday, 28 June

On Saturday, 27 June, we went to a barbecue. It was pretty awkward, weird and I found myself thinking how much it felt like being at a work meeting, which always makes me feel like driving ice picks into my ears.

This drawing was my first attempt at using watercolor pencils. Besides the ink running a bit on the face, it was a decent first attempt I think.

Monday, 29 June

We got our tax shit back from the tax accountant and found out we owed quite a hefty income tax. We weren’t expecting it at all. It made me want to punch something really, really hard. So I exercised and got out some of the aggression by punching the air and felt better.

Tuesday, 30 June

I made a stupid mistake at work and wiped a photographer’s external harddrive clean of his photograph and footage productions. I was lucky he had them all backed up on his computer at home.

Wednesday, 01 July

It was hot. Like really hot. Like sticky humid, take one step and get drenched in sweat hot.

Thursday, 02 June

Wednesday night I dreamt about “The Cubano”, who was this crazy former Mexican mafia dude I knew when I was homeless in the desert.

I gave my love a chicken

Drawings from the last couple of weeks:

10 June – Big Mama

14 June – Sick Bed

16 June – Dream House

17 June – Panic Ride

21 June – Oops.

22 June – Paddy Carrier

24 June – Macaroni Somersault

25 June – Judge & Jury

Drawing 101

I keep a daily paper journal which isn’t by any means prolific or even interesting it’s merely a vehicle for emptying my head of bullshit and an opportunity to be my own cheerleader. In recent months I decided to start adding a drawing to this daily journal. So instead of writing 3 pages a day, I now write 2 pages and do one drawing. It’s meant to be a quick sketch and like the written part not meant for others’ eyes. In addition to this I’ve put myself to the task of completing another drawing a day, which I put a little more effort into. The following drawings are a selection from both tasks.

Popping my cherry

As an introduction, I am a lady who likes to make shit. I like a good story. I like interesting faces and people who are characters. I like people who have the balls to do their own thing and do it well.