ARTICHOKE CAROUSEL

Blog Catalog

Wed, 10 Sep 2008 20:10:48 -0400

Blog Catalog: Yeah joined Blog Catalog!

Pulled this from Mark Jenkins site. He’s a genius. ...

Tue, 13 May 2008 19:49:00 -0400

Pulled this from Mark Jenkins site. He’s a genius. He’s seem to found a way to thoroughly disturb me. I’m pretty sure I saw one of his tape babies in Los Angeles.

MARK JENKINS

This is what it feels like walking around in a big city

Tue, 13 May 2008 19:47:21 -0400

This is what it feels like walking around in a big city

These men are shaped to look like god dudes

Wed, 07 May 2008 15:02:00 -0400

These men are shaped to look like god dudes

He looks like a totalitarian dictator here.

Tue, 06 May 2008 16:11:25 -0400

He looks like a totalitarian dictator here.

Here’s the rest of it—the mural style kinda reminded...

Tue, 06 May 2008 16:10:43 -0400

Here’s the rest of it—the mural style kinda reminded me of Diego Riveria. Well, sort of. Either way, the one damn thing that’s good about having a home-bound illness is it influences a person’s perception of the things he/she sees everyday. It’s pretty excellent to run into these things on a daily basis, and I’m glad I’m able to show people these things (if people are reading at all…)

Here’s more of the painting I saw on the street—I...

Tue, 06 May 2008 16:08:00 -0400

Here’s more of the painting I saw on the street—I saw this on the way to the doctor’s office, and I thought for a brief moment, that maybe this is how the doctor would make me feel: orgasimcally blue.

I have good news and bad news, and both pieces of information...

Tue, 06 May 2008 16:06:00 -0400

I have good news and bad news, and both pieces of information are the result of one man: a Doctor.

The bad news. The jackass kinda upped my dose of Synthroid and Valacroxonin so now I feel drunk and dizzy a lot, and my lymph nodes are as senstive as prostates. This goiter has become a mountain I have to climb—a beast mother that I have one day euthanize.

The good news is I discovered this lady looking down at me as I walked into the doctor’s office. Really fun art, she has an unreasonably long back though, and the green dress made me wonder if the artist matched it to the awning. I’m sure he or she (I’m not a crazy feminist) did. Anyway, I like the idea of fitting art in whereever you can.

Had an idea for a drawing the other day. Now all I need is a...

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 14:47:00 -0400

Had an idea for a drawing the other day. Now all I need is a melting clock and a mustache that a bird could land on.

Feeling a little less medicine-loopy today. Less vain about my neck, though because of the swelling it feels like a person’s hand is around my throat at all times. I guess you could say…I sense it all the times. It’s this blurry and blunt thing in the corner of my vision, like a car following me in the distance. I finally mustered up the personal strength to leave home without a turtle neck, and even so I got stares at Ralphs.

I went walking this morning because my neck felt more bloated...

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 14:44:13 -0400

I went walking this morning because my neck felt more bloated then usual. No one tells you that when you have a goiter, and you’re on Synthroid, the decrease in blood iron for some reason has psychosomatic consequences: where you can somehow FEEL the blood iron leaving your body. I took pysch 1301 in college and the theory is a chicken or egg thing: does the person feel angry and THAT causes tension and clenching of fists? Or does the person BECOME angry because he or she clenches her fists and tenses up.

All I know is that I had high blood iron, and developed a nasty goiter, and now its getting lower.

For all that are concerend, the goiter is about the size of a golf ball right now. Really annoying looking.

Anyway, so I went walking and decided I would show everyone where “Homeless Cove” is: this picture is where a new homeless man/woman stays every night. It’s like an Inn, except no continental breakfast.

Is it weird that the first thing I thought about this was...

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 14:39:33 -0400

Is it weird that the first thing I thought about this was Hiroshima? The burnt melted shadows on the stairs? It’s weird to think about how many shadows would be burned on the ground if a bomb hit a major city. Ok, now I’m worried about that.

Holy bovines! This is an incredible piece of graffitti that...

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 14:10:00 -0400

Holy bovines! This is an incredible piece of graffitti that almost caused me to soda can crush my car against the nearest phone poll!! At first I thought the rat had a bloody stump. Pretty neato that this stuff is near my house.

I had to get out and take a picture.

When I was standing there, a truck drove by with “Film Central” written on the side and they honked at me and said “DAMN BABY”, and then I heard laughter. I wonder if he felt unique or better after that. I remember my eye twitched with anger.

Interestingly , or more symbolically, I was also stepping in a fresh dog dump while taking this picture.

Sometimes because of the goiter I feel like this

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 03:59:15 -0400

Sometimes because of the goiter I feel like this

Brilliant video I ran across. I used to have sex dreams about...

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 03:56:00 -0400

Brilliant video I ran across. I used to have sex dreams about Kurt Russel’s mustache.

This is the mosiac of my butt

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 03:12:13 -0400

This is the mosiac of my butt

Ok, so as I said, I have a terrifying goiter. It looks like...

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 03:10:44 -0400

Ok, so as I said, I have a terrifying goiter. It looks like there’s a snake coiled up in my neck. Since I have so much free time working at home, I wanted to post some of the stuff I’ve been seeing. Los Angeles seems to have its own seperate ecosystem: at night the glow worm people and homeless fanged crazies come out, and during the day it is a wasteland. Earlier this morning, I walked outside for a run, to get some sun on my goiter, and I saw a homeless guy squatting against a wall waving at me. As I got closer I realized he was shitting.

Glory!!

Anywhoo, what I decided was I definitely need to show people what I get to see during the day when everybody else is staring at keyboards and mind controlling water coolers.

Ok so…I have a confession: I have a huge goiter. My...

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 02:51:00 -0400

Ok so…I have a confession: I have a huge goiter. My husband and I went to the doctor and he said I have an iron deficiency and looked at me weird when I asked if iron was even something we could eat. I now take something called “Synthroid” but it doesn’t seem to be working—but now I’m thinking I should share what I wrote about it: I reversed the names because I don’t want him to find out, but this is about me entirely. Oh and my name is not “Erin”, and it’s me who has the goiter, not my husband.

Last Easter, or a few weeks earlier on Palm Sunday, when the fever temperatures showed up again in Jacksonville, Erin sat impatiently in an overcooled church with Lewis and his mother. Erin’s socks were lacey like lingerie, and she wore a dress that was frilly enough to be something out of Anne Rice. She’d only been to a few Catholic churches in her life, and most of those had been with Lewis and his mother Randy, and the only reason it bothered her was because Lewis was the kind of a la carte, macaroni Christian that could go with anything on the menu.

The priest asked everyone to lift their hearts up to the Lord and Lewis and Randy stood. The wood carving of Jesus above the priest was beautiful but light enough to make one think that Jesus was Caucasian, and Erin couldn’t help but imagine Jesus walking in during the mass, shouting “Stop stop!” The entire congregation would turn, some would stand, and Jesus would point to his wiry black beard, and say “can’t you see? I look more like Osama Bin Laden than like you! Don’t you know where I’m from?” As she watched the statue, it seemed to move, to shake his head, and Erin looked around to confirm the miracle but saw no other gasping responses.

Lewis was handsome in a rented suit that was too big for him, and made him look swollen and uncomfortable. Randy, a real touchy mother, occasionally took Lewis’s hand in her hand, and attempted to align the two. Lewis’s hands were bigger by inches.

“Where did you get those hands? And those veins?” She ran her hand along his thick blue cable veins, and Erin wanted to whisper, “hands off,” but Lewis wasn’t looking good. He was swollen and his lips spotted and lost color. Erin leaned over to him, bored from the drone of the church air conditioning and the bad teenager choir,

“What’s wrong with you?”

“I feel terrible. All over my face and neck.” Erin stared at him for a moment, his chubby neck and pouted out in pain lips, and diagnosed his health. He was fine. He was just being a baby and was tired.

“You’ll be fine, just relax.”

The church was getting warmer, and the stained glass windows behind the priest made the light coming in Mars red.

On the way out, Erin declined a church newsletter and Anne looked at her funny.

“Wasn’t that a nice thing? What a presentation! I believe the choir had a twelve string up there!” Randy exclaimed. “And did you see those poinsettias on stage? I can smell them from here. Ugh! Maybe I can ask your pastor about them.” She was a strong stride of a woman, big physically in the butt and legs, built like a horse in that way, but had a softer, more feminine face. When she smiled, you could see years of uncomfortable braces work coming to life. Erin noticed a stitch in her stocking, a jagged scar rip.

“Yeah mom.” Lewis obsessively cleared his throat, until Erin had to slap his back hard and almost shouted, “Are you not feeling good?” He looked sick, but not that sick, and at his age, vying for attention from his shiny-faced mother made Erin angry.

“I did like the band. I thought they were great too.” Erin said to change the subject, a peace accord to show Randy she was in on what was going on. The wind kicked up dead brown leaves pooled in the parking lot, and gray clouds rolled in the sky.

By the time they got to the car, it had already started to mist and Lewis’s neck had a belt of swollen skin around the Adam’s apple. Randy patted Lewis on the back and asked what was wrong, but Lewis couldn’t answer. He finally mustered,

“I..I don’t think I can swallow.”

“Oh God, Erin. What should we do? Is he allergic to Eucharist do you think?” Erin shrugged her shoulders.

“He’s fine he probably just needs a glass of water.”

In the car, Lewis’s neck swelled up more and it began to shower outside. Lewis looked scared. Erin leaned forward in the backseat rubbing Lewis’s shoulder. She didn’t know what to say, and felt a knife of disgust.

“I really can’t breathe.” Lewis whispered dramatically and gripped Erin’s hand. Randy gunned the car around corners following hospital signs to the highways.

Erin tried to calm him down, but she was uncomfortable. His neck looked terrible and puffed to the left of his Adam’s apple, and she imagined a snaked coiled just underneath the skin his chin, folded up in a peaceful sleep.

After a long wait at the emergency room by a guy who coughed like he was swimming in acid, a Doctor Royce Wayne finally called them to a bed. Erin’s white shoes clicked dorithly on the pale green floor. She was painfully aware of her drink coaster socks in front of men with pustules and dark stained bruises beneath their eyes. Many of the them watched Erin walk. Anne was crying.

The doctor diagnosed Lewis as the bearer of a rather large goiter. He said Lewis didn’t have enough iodine in his diet, which Erin didn’t even know we already consumed, and prescribed a small diamond-shaped white pill with a cute little “S” on it for “Synthroid.” The Synthroid would give Lewis the right thyroid hormone he needed to reduce the swelling from a bunched up snake in his throat to a golf ball, and back to the neck Erin married.

It was a simple treatment, the doctor said, but a year later Lewis still had the goiter, and had made no attempt to fix it. His mood started to change. He drank more when they were out, and sometimes at home in a way that crossed the line from fun to the commercial where people deny problems, and occasionally grabbed her when she was working on the computer and wrenched her head back to kiss her upside down. Erin saw the goiter at all times, a blunt and blurry melon in the corner of her eye.

Recently at a New Years Eve party at a friend’s house, Lewis got drunk on champagne and danced in the middle of the floor to Auld Lang Syne. Erin was in the middle of doing jello shots off of an aluminum tray when Lewis pulled her into a dance and swung her around awkwardly.

The sudden exercise rocketed Erin into drunkenness and she pushed away from him.

“You look like a retard Lewis, you look like elephant man.”

Is it bad that I kind of wish I was at the Bauhaus, with all the...

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 02:41:52 -0400

Is it bad that I kind of wish I was at the Bauhaus, with all the german dick head guys? I think I would kick their ass, listening to my ipod and screaming back at them when they ask me what I was listening to and then have to repeat it because I can’t hear them, I would say NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS ART DOUCHE.