Pointless photo of the day:

Just to let you know that I'm still here.

Busy today and tomorrow -- maybe an actual post after that.

Pointless photo of the day:

Yes, yes, the blog has been somewhat lacking in content this past while.

I realise it.

I guess I just don't have any bees in my bonnet at the moment. Or I'm getting lazy. Or... something.

I suppose it could be partly the time of year, if I wanted to blame things on seasonality. The days are getting shorter, the view is getting blander, and the blog is getting boring.

Or maybe just the blogger.

I'm sounding much more down than I really am, I promise.





I sooo have nothing today, but I bet you'd already noticed that. Ah well, at least you got a pointless photo of one of my favourite things in the world. Yes, I like grape leaves even when they're dead. They twist into such interesting shapes, you see.

Um, and with that... I'll try harder to be blathery tomorrow? Well, we'll see.

Ah, the lack of blatherage

I'd say I'm sorry for the recent silence, but as I said not that long ago, I'm really not anymore. Better an empty blog than a lengthy whinge about the weather or my lack of sleep or my screwed up digestion or... well, anything that you've already heard too much of, to be honest.

Not even the fact that my three primary canvasses still have nothing on them but primary colours. Man, when I get blocked I get blocked. I mean, I even know what I want to do to finish those canvasses and it shouldn't be too hard, but they're still just sitting there. Ah well, maybe tonight I'll get out my lamp and do something about it.

Have I ever told you about my lamp, she says knowing full well that this is now going to become her post topic even though there's almost nothing to say about a lamp? I have a drawing lamp. Not a swing arm type lamp that I'd attach to my non-existent drafting table or anything exciting like that, but a stand lamp that I use for drawing. My apartment has crappy circa-1970 lighting (as do most crappy circa-1970 apartments, really), and it didn't take too long after I moved in to realise that if I wanted to do anything arty in the six months of the year when the sun goes down at stupid early in the day, I'd need a lamp.

So I went to Wally World and bought myself a floor lamp. I think it cost me twenty bucks, if that. It's one of those three-headed dealies (like this, but think mondo cheap) that I don't think you'd ever want to use for general room lighting, because unless you put the weakest bulbs in the world in it the glare would be absolutely unsettling. Not mood lighting, for sure. In fact, even with my apartment's virtual darkness I never even have the lamp plugged in unless I'm using it for drawing.

So why would I even want a harsh lamp, then? Especially for art? Well, it does have the advantage of having adjustable heads that I can angle to make interesting shadows, so it's actually kind of handy for still lifes. Or plants, which is what I'd use it more for. Time was, to get myself through the winter blahs I'd buy myself a cheap bouquet or flowering plant, set it on my table, and then just draw it every night as it changed and withered (well, not so much the live plants. I'd try to keep them going for a while, naturally). It always made for an interesting exercise in shape and shadow, the contortions flowers would go through before they gave up and dropped petal entirely.

It was good practice. I should start doing it again this winter.

Incidentally, a few years ago when my bathroom light switch broke and the managers took three months (no, I'm not kidding) to get someone in to fix it, the only way I could light the bathroom was by plugging the drawing lamp into an extension cord and parking it in the doorway (the cord wouldn't reach any further). Fun times, paying rent for service like that.

Does this win for Most Useless Post Ever yet? It's got to be getting close.



Aaanyway, I should be getting back to work. As a measure of how much social media has changed my job, work today for me partly involves tweeting about stuff coming in for a swap meet. No, I'm not kidding. Check the work feed, for which I've never given you a link...

Pointless photo of the day:

And that's all you're getting, since my head really isn't into it today.

Oh, and by the way? It is way too early in the season to be having such crappy weather. If I'd taken today's featured photo this morning, the grapes would have all been wearing toques...

Chapter 1652: Wherein... Deer!

Yes, the pointless photo isn't of a deer. I do know the difference between a deer and a ladybird beetle. I just didn't have the camera out when the deer were in the yard this morning.

It was mule deer again as usual. A couple of them, from what I could see. It's the first chance I've had to see deer in the yard this season. They've probably been here before, of course, but from a combination of me not coming home to visit my father for a couple (hmmm... three, actually) of weekends and the fact that noticing the deer involves accidentally looking out of one of the bedroom windows at exactly the right time, this became the first sighting of the fall for me. We don't see the deer much in the summer time because they have plenty of other sources of food, but come the fall and winter they start hanging out in the neighbourhood a fair bit.

I'll probably be seeing a lot of deer between now and the spring.

I admit it -- I still geek out over the deer. I see them at least a few times over the course of the winter, and I still get excited. I work at a nature centre where deer and moose are by no means uncommon, but I'll still run to the window if I see one go past the office.

I'm not the only one.

I'm not entirely sure what it is (I know that for me at least the whole Bambi thing doesn't enter play. That's not how I see nature), but there's something about the fact that such large mammals are still around in urban environments that's somehow thrilling. Maybe it's a sign that we haven't  (yet) screwed things up so much that they're gone. Maybe it's a feeling that we're not as disconnected from the natural world as we generally think we are.

Maybe it's just that seeing a deer is neat. I dunno.

I was reading (well, skimming) an article the other day that said that large predators like coyotes were on the rise in urban areas. The article's headline, at least, made it sound like some invasion that we should be wary of. Why? In many ways, the presence of large predators indicates the health of a system. Large predators need prey. Prey need food. Without food for the prey and prey for the predators, large predators disappear. And if it so happens that an urban area can support large predators, that's... it's cool, dammit.

And if it so happens that large predators are living on stray cats and dogs and that bothers you, then do something about making sure that there are less stray cats and dogs.

Anyone want to start singing The Circle of Life with me right about now? Um, on second thought, no. And I'm so not linking to that. Find it yourself if you want that song in your head all day.



Aaanyway. There were deer in the garden this morning. I was glad. I was glad even though they eat plants that I'd rather see survive the winter. I'm good that way, though. Plants vs deer? Ok, I'll allow the loss of a few plants if it means I can tell Dad that there are deer in the back as I'm getting dressed in the morning.

Wouldn't you?

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I've realised that I have a new pet peeve. I realised it as I sat here eating leftover turkey with crackers for breakfast this morning. The pet peeve isn't turkey, however, despite what you might be thinking now. I definitely approve of turkey. What I don't approve of is Canadian Thanksgiving.

Sorry, let me change the emphasis there: Canadian Thanksgiving.

Why do we Canadians say Canadian Thanksgiving? It's Thanksgiving. Here in Canada. Do we really need to spell it out? Oh sure, we're just differentiating it from American Thanksgiving, which is later (and, as usual, louder), but unless you're explaining that to a group of Americans do you really have to say Canadian Thanksgiving?

Interesting fact, by the way (according to the internet, anyway, so take it with the usual grain of salt. Or bucket of salt, as needed): First American Thanksgiving? 1621, by the Pilgrims. First Canadian Thanksgiving? 1578, by Martin Frobisher. Yes, Frobisher as in Bay.

For non-Canadians, I'll leave you to look that one up. For Canadians, too, considering how good we generally are at celebrating or even remembering our own history.

I suppose I've just read a few too many Canada-based blogs saying Happy Canadian Thanksgiving this morning, but it started to get annoying. It's so stereotypically Canadian apologetic, after all. Hi everyone, we're having Thanksgiving. I know it doesn't seem like the right time to be having Thanksgiving, but I guess that's how we do it up here in Canada. It's Canadian Thanksgiving. Sorry that it's not the same as yours...

Ah well. For those of you in the States who still have a ways to go before your pumpkin pie, I will tell you that there's one distinct advantage to having an earlier Thanksgiving: avoiding holiday overload. I don't know how you folks do it, to be honest. To go from a big family holiday straight into the hassle of shopping for another big family holiday? My head would explode.





Good lord. I've just looked at how long this post is. Maybe I was trying to make up for the lack of post tomorrow, since I won't be near a computer? Let's just go with that. I'll see you in a couple of days.

In the meantime, Happy Thanksgiving.

That's right, just Thanksgiving.



Dammit.

Again.

Pointless frustration of the day:

Some stupid woman needs to remember to wear a smock while painting. Pulled one of my shirts out of the washer this morning and surprise! Speckles of red, blue, and yellow. I mean, sure, it was just a tank that I'd been using as a pyjama top, but still. Primaries on Lime Green Tank Top will NOT be entered in the staff art show.

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Not-so-big points to anyone who guessed that today's pointless photo isn't a recent one. Good luck finding anything flowering in the yard at the moment. We had a couple of hard frosts this past week, and as a result I'm going to have trouble finding even colourful leaves to take photos of this afternoon. Yep, we've already entered the wonderfully dull days of autumn around here, boys and girls. Not that our leaf-colour season is terribly brilliant in this area (our forests are mostly aspen and balsam poplar, so the colours of fall that I grew up with were yellow, yellow, and hey isn't that more yellow?), but it looks like even that will be done with pretty abruptly.

It makes it hard for me to be terribly enthusiastic about autumn yard photography, to be honest. I'd better get at least a little in, though, because as my two fans know I'm even less enthusiastic about winter shots. And that leads to very weird and unbelievably pointless indoor shots, as you'll (sigh) soon enough notice.

On the actually fall-colourful side, good news about Alan the Pumpkin. No sign of bottom softness so far, and it's starting to orange up. Right now it's in that awkward teenage stage where the orange bits on the green look suspiciously like pumpkin acne, but it's getting there.

I suppose I should take a picture of Alan. That'd give me something different from the pointless leftover spring photos currently residing on my nerdstick, at any rate. I should also make sure that I take the shot just as it is now: a mostly green pumpkin sitting on an ugly pink scrap towel in one of those metal fruit basket things you get chocolates and mini jams in at Christmas. Alan's a true decorator's dream, you know.

Oh, and for anyone who just reread the post I linked to above, I still haven't talked to the pumpkin.

Yet.





Just changed laundry loads and completely lost what little train of thought that I had, so I guess I'll call it a post right here. A post about laundry and colours and a pumpkin.

You're an absolute blogging wizard, Dee.

Pointless question of the day:

If I paint one canvas red, another blue, and a third yellow, can I call it art?

It could be Primarily Effective, maybe. Or Primarily Subjective.

Or, considering this blog, Primarily Pointless...



Yeah, in case you'd forgotten (or in case you follow the other blog and have wondered why it's sooo active lately), the upcoming staff art show here has, as usual, got me completely blocked. Knowing that my stuff might be on display is hard enough. Knowing that anything I get accomplished in the next month is VERY LIKELY to be on display? Totally keeps me from doing anything.

I've had things on display here before (here being the art gallery at work, of course). More than once. I haven't got used to it.

Or comfortable with it, obviously.

This year's show starts at the end of this month, so I still have time. I even have a couple of ideas. What I don't have, though, is the will to really start anything. I'm a doodler, ferpityssake. I don't ever take my things seriously. Putting them on display, though, necessarily indicates that you're serious enough about things to want people to see them.

That freaks me out.

Every single time this comes up, it freaks me out.




Yeah, I'm such an artist. That's why I found myself painting canvasses at nine o'clock last night. One red, one blue, and one yellow.

I wasn't kidding about that question.

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I'd say I was sorry for unexpectedly disappearing this past week, but really I'm not. I've been blogging for a long time. Even though I deleted years' worth of posts when I switched the other blog to artsy things, it doesn't change the fact that I've been blogging for a long time. I sometimes -- well, often -- feel like I've been talking about the same three topics for most of my internet life, even if the posts are long gone. I occasionally feel like you need a break from it, and I know that I do. It used to be that I'd force myself to blog anyway at times like that, but I've reached the point of screw it, to be honest (and anyone who knows me in person is welcome to uncensor screw it in the appropriate way). If I feel like disappearing, then I disappear.

Um, so there. That was a bit more emphatic than I was intending, but you get the point. It's not a pumpkin-worthy point, but it's there nonetheless. And that means?

Just time for me to get back to work, really. Type at you later.

Maybe in red. Or blue. Or yellow...