I Look Again and Consecrate

Consecrate means that means I made a solemn commitment of my time to some cherished purpose. Yeah okay really all I did was take some time out of my day to remember and to try my hand at something I used to be good at. I haven’t drawn anything in years, not since high school, that’s a long story that isn’t worth my time to type out but I will say; no, Mrs. Fox, I will not put any gold in it.
So I was sitting at my desk twirling a pencil in my hand and thinking about how I never really use pencils anymore. It was one of those nice real wood pencils that smudge really well and I though “What the hey lets give it a go.” Then I thought “What is the most difficult thing for me to draw? What will get this out of my system in a way that will make me not want to try it again for a long time?” The human body in an awkward position! So I Googled “body positions” and as you would imagine a lot of sexual positions came up. The one I decided on was the raised missionary but I couldn’t find any body types I wanted to try to I basically winged it. And this is what I got out of it. You'll have to click on it to make it bigger, it looks better bigger.

Not too shabby for someone who doesn’t draw if I do say so myself.
Sorry she's naked Mom.
And up yours Mrs. Fox. Up yours.

Let's Play a Game

Open two Internet windows: in the first go to http://www.flickr.com/ and in the second go to http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/mosaic.php. Take this survey...
1. What is your first name? Amanda
2. What is your favorite food? Popcorn
3. What high school did you go to? Westminster
4. What is your favorite color? Yellow
5. Who is your celebrity crush? Jason Statham
6. Favorite drink? Coffee
7. Dream vacation? Greece
8. Favorite dessert? Lemon Bars
9. What you want to be when you grow up? Librarian
10. What do you love most in life? Literature
11. One Word to describe you? Imaginative
12. Your flickr name? aprosendahl

...and then search your answers at flickr. Copy the URL (the http://www..com/ address) from the picture you like best from the first page and paste it into one of the options at the mosaic place. When you are finished you can leave it as a comment here or post it yourself, just let me know so I can see it too.

1. Flower of Milkweed, 2. morning after, 3. LONDON EYE, 4. House nestled in Vineyard, 5. Jason Statham, 6. Cookie splash! v6, 7. Greece, 8. lemon bar, 9. RETRATO - A LA ARCIMBOLDO - PORTRAIT, 10. Literature, 11. beauty, 12. red rose

I love the randomness of it. It's my favorite things and pieces of me but you wouldn't know that unless I told you. I'm pretty sure I'm going to make a whole bunch more, I'm already coming up with new questions to be answered by flickr pictures.

Its fun to take the time for yourself to do things like this every now and then. Spending time with myself on myself is something that is important to me, and that makes this mosaic important to me.

We Be Jammin'

Every good road trip needs a good soundtrack that has music to keep you alert at the wheel, to bond you and your co-travelers, to get you safely to your destination and to lock into your memory bank the entirety of the trip with certain moments linking to certain songs from now until forever.
There are a number or questions that must be answered to even start the compilation of a good road trip soundtrack. It’s important that you don’t throw together songs willy-nilly and expect that to be tolerable, because let me tell you, if you are riding with me, it isn’t.
The first question to be answered being who I am riding with. It’s just dense of you to assume that whoever is in the car with you will want to listen to exactly what you want to listen to for the whole trip. I don’t care how tolerant you’re friends are, no one is indulgent enough to listen to fourteen hours of nonstop Johnny Cash. I don’t care how big a fan they think they are; it’s unconscionable to think to force someone to endure such torture (David Hayes). This weekend I will be traveling with my mom. So that means that music which is overtly suggestive, has blatant sexual overtones or has any profanity are to be left at home. I don’t have much of that but it’s still wise to include that proviso in my list. It would be nice of me to include music that I know she enjoys listening to, not just music that I think she might like listening to. I’ll be taking into account that my daughter will be in the car and it might be fun to look up music from November of 1981, being as that was the first road trip my mom and I ever had together. There are also songs I remember her singing along to when I was young and I’ll add some songs from 1999, that being the last year we took a road trip together.
The second question to be answered being what is your destination? If you are on your way to go fishing in the Tennessee woods then I’d suggest leaving the Greatest Hits of the Banjo Brothers at home seeing as how you wouldn’t want to freak yourself out before you were even halfway there. If you are on your way to a concert, don’t listen to nothing but the band you are going to see, that will just burn you out and you’ll be disinterested once you get there and end up drinking too much to compensate for your boredom and then you’d have to get your co-traveler to take care of you and then you’d be screaming out the window all the words to the songs that your friends just heard live and you’ll ruin the entire experience for them(You know who you are). This weekend I’m traveling to my Aunt’s funeral. Now, considering that it is a long drive there and back and we don’t want to be all weepy the whole way, a little disco to seriously lighten the mood would be a good start. Songs that will make us want to bop our heads and sing along are defiantly getting added, but not too much of it, we don’t want to roll up to the burial site doing the twist and giggling like adolescents. That wouldn’t go over too well. So we can add in some late 70’s hippy stuff, Simon and Garfunkle and Peter Paul and Mary should be mellow enough.
The third question to be answered being are we planning on talking over this music. If there is one thing I hate in life it is when people talk over good music. I will turn that music off and wait for you to finis… who am I kidding, I’ll stare at you with the stink eye until you shut up and then I’ll start that song over. So, if I choose to bring new music that I want to introduce to my mom then there will be no talking or else I will have to keep starting the song over every time she says anything and considering that she talks as much as I do I am going to opt for not choosing to bring new music. So I’ll need to choose music that is well known to the both of us and music that isn't something that I need to sing along to. It needs to be music that can easily be turned down and spoken over. So no story telling songs needing to be followed in order to be enjoyed can be added to the list; sorry Justin Timberlake.
The final question to be answered being is this trip really worth spending the time to make a soundtrack for. Because lets face it, sometimes a road trip is just a radio road trip. When you are driving in the country, on back roads, or across state lines you need a CD to keep a constant flow of music with no static. Static is the number one cause of road rage in this country, did you know that. True story. However, if you are driving from one suburb to another and you do not leave the big city or the range of its radio stations then there isn’t a need for a soundtrack. Oh man! This weekend I will be going from League City to Spring to Beaumont and never leaving Houston’s radio stations range so there isn’t a need for a soundtrack at all for this trip. JEEZ!

Whatever.

And Another Thing...

Just because you can philosophize on the negative ramifications and impractical significance of believing in a higher power doesn’t mean that your rationalizations are superior to the commitments I have to my convictions. I am not misguided, my beliefs are not erroneous; and your assumption that I need to further develop the maturity of my certainty of faith is unacceptable and inappropriate.
I can use big words too, you unexceptional son of an under-evolved primate. My childlike faith suits me perfectly and it is absurd for you to presume to call me naïve.

I do what I do

I can’t file just one nail; I must make all of them even if I start at all.
Sometimes I have to listen to a song all the way through with no one talking and if you speak I will start that song over.
If a song is playing that I do not like and I am unable to leave the room or turn the station, I will get a headache, swift and fierce like.
Every time I change my pants I have to put on clean underwear, even if I am just changing my mind about my pants. New underwear with new pants and that includes in the morning, even if I put on a new pair right before bed the night before.
I cannot eat an orange. The stringy flesh catches in my throat and I feel like I’m dying.
Same goes for bananas if you don’t get all the little stringy's off.
I cannot eat lima beans or black-eyed peas because they are too dry and I feel as though they are sucking the moisture out of my body.
I hate little doors and if there is one near me it must be closed. Evil things live behind little doors.
I don’t like being alone in a dark house. All the lights in the house must be on if Erik isn’t home, evil things are scared of the light.
And if I have to go to bed without Erik then I have to be completely under the covers, evil things can’t find you if they can’t see you.
I can’t fold socks if they aren’t in a matching pair. If there is no match for two socks they both get thrown away rather than folded together.
I hate the feeling of hair on my neck but I like to wear my hair down and long.
I cannot start reading a book until after I have read the last page first.
I hate to wear makeup but I wear it every day because if I don’t then I’m not fully dressed and I don’t like walking around half naked.
I hate my arms but I insist on wearing tank tops more often than not.
I refuse to clean my car and I don’t know why.
I cannot just hang up on telemarketers; I have to let them know I am not interested first.
When I meet new people I don’t typically give them the benefit of the doubt, I just assume I won’t like them, especially if they are female.
I have issues with watching a movie before I know how it ends.
I don’t like to be told no. I react like a two year old child when I am told no.
I know I am a sore loser and still I play games I know I lose at.
If I’m working, reading, cooking or doing any thing at all and someone interrupts me its not that big of a deal, but if I’ve been staring into nothing for long enough for my imagination to jump start and I’m interrupted I feel as though my space is being invaded and the my walls come crashing down like Jericho.
If I make dinner and it isn’t perfect the first time, I’ll never make it again.
The fact that I know these things about myself would make you think that I would actively try to change them. And yet I don’t, because I do what I do. Right BColleen?
Srsly.

Breakfast

This was my breakfast this morning. Well, this was part of my breakfast; I also had sixteen Wheat Thins and a banana. That may not sound like much but I feel satisfied.

Sometimes I Have To Share

I love finding new music. It makes me feel like I’ve found some buried treasure; and I download most of my music so… buried treasure… piracy… it fits. I like knowing that no one I know has discovered my music before and it’s only me that knows these bands exist so that when I do tell someone about them I am doing my friends a favor. But I don’t like sharing my new music all the time. It seems whenever I do it goes main stream that much faster. A bit arrogant of me to assume I have anything to do with it but how should I feel when I discover Silversun Pickups three months ahead of anyone else and then all of a sudden they are in the MLB playoff commercials. I know in my soul it’s because I told all my friends about them and one of my friends secretly has a friend that works for MLB marketing. Bastards. So I reserve the right to not tell my friends about good music until it gets to the point where I HAVE to share my melodious discovery because it’s just embarrassing to dance alone. Does that make me a music miser? Maybe. Will I ever change? No.
I will tell you one of my discoveries here though considering there are only three of you readers. As long as you swear on a stack of Rolling Stone vinyl’s that I’ll never hear of you sharing this gift I’m giving you with any major sports marketing team.
Shadwell. I wouldn’t mind hearing these guys on the radio. If only we could get them off their Myspace arses long enough to get a label. Their song Fire, literally makes me want to hunt down the singer and tear his underclothes off, I don’t even know what he looks like and I really don’t care, not with a voice singing words like that. Sigh. And Short Breath, if you listen to that song you will be satisfied in ways no man or machine could do for you, however you can’t find them anywhere other than Rhapsody and iTunes. Meaning you have to buy each song. Which I refuse to do; no matter how much I love the music, if it’s not the real CD I’m not paying for it. This band does tempt me though. I swear Aaron is singing to me sometimes. Hey, a girl can dream…
This will hook you up with some rhapsody links. Go there. Be happy. You're welcome.