Category Archives: Drawings

Bringing Sexy Back (Yet Again) This Halloween

woman wearing a sexy debit card costume and asking for Jell-O shots

You’ve seen them. We’ve ALL seen them. They bring forth in us, depending upon our outlook and motives, either outrage or appreciation. Sometimes we put them down but we all know that, no matter what, they aren’t going home alone on Halloween night.

It’s the Sexy Ladies of Halloween. Women who can turn any costume into a wonder of titillation.

Not all of us have that ability, you know. We don’t have the body or the will or the drive. Some of us would maintain that we don’t have the cheapness, the sluttiness, required to take part in such a thing.

My days of slutty Halloween-ness are long gone. Let me amend that – my day of slutty Halloween. For I only attempted sexy once, as a freshman in college, when I went as a hooker and my then-boyfriend went as a pimp. I know. They took away my Take Back the Night card for that one. I never, ever mentioned it in any of my Women’s Studies classes. Don’t ask, don’t tell, was the sexy Halloween policy back then.

But now it’s rampant. “When did sexy Halloween costumes become a thing?” Keith asked me the other day. “It seems like there was a time when that wasn’t the case.”

I’ll tell you the very first time I realized that Halloween costumes could be sexy. It was while watching E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. In the Halloween scenes the mom, played by Dee Wallace, dresses up as a sexy cat. And when I say “sexy” by today’s standards it was actually very demure. She’d be shunned at the club for dressing “all Amish and shit.” But, yeah, I thought she looked kinda hot.

My friend JoEllen has a tumblr called Miss Guised that pays “homage” to sexy Halloween costumes. Each day  this month, she’s posted yet another ridiculous sexy costume, from Sexy Sriracha Sauce to a sexy highlighter pen – she’s truly found the best of the worst. Go take a look if you need some sexy inspiration – I think you’ll find that if you can’t think of a sexy costume, you’re just not trying hard enough.

As for me, I’m struggling (yet again) to come up with any costume, let alone a sexy one. But whatever I come up with I’m pretty sure I’ll be fully clothed. Just call my Sexy Otter.

Me dressed in a head-to-toe otter costume.

 

 

In Our World, There Lives a Little Mountain

I’ve shared my portrait of Bob Ross before but I want to revisit him today.

I’ve been in a weird sleeping pattern lately. I go to sleep easily only to wake up at 3 or 4 in the morning, wide awake and thinking. It’s the low-quality thinking, repetitive, that accomplishes nothing. I’m certainly not solving anything.

But it’s hard to break the thought cycle on your own, especially at that time of night.

So I’ve been trying to think of things to help me get back to sleep. Suddenly I remembered Bob Ross because of his voice. He had one of the calmest voices I’ve ever heard. I thought, “If I could listen to Bob Ross in the dark, I could fall back asleep.”

I finally got around to Googling “Bob Ross mp3” tonight.

BINGO.

Someone in the world is super awesome. Because they put up free mp3s of a full season of Bob Ross’s Joy of Painting TV show right here. I’m listening to an episode called “Blue Winter” now.

So if you’re ever having one of those nights, embrace Bob. Put on the headphones and lie back. He’s no longer physically with us but he’s so with us.

Happy little clouds this Friday.

I Got Your Whimsy Right Here

An elephant driving a Mini Cooper convertible.

 

I’ve noticed that many successful blogs are built upon whimsy.

If you know me, or even if you’ve read some of these posts, I’m not very whimsical.

I would not, for example, bite the pattern of a heart into an apple and then cup it in my hands and take a photo of it to post here.

I don’t have any cute kids I can press into blogging service.

I could take photos of delicious food, or show you how I delicately dab butter onto my pastry dough with a pastry brush. If only I had a brush. And some dough.

I’m not obsessed with the color turquoise or white (which, when I was in school, was not even a color.)

I don’t even enjoy coffee, so I can’t whip up a late and draw a picture in the foam (another heart?) for you to enjoy with the caption “I love love”.

Hell, I don’t even live each day in the moment. Like a lot of humans, I’m usually living in the past or contemplating a fantastic, fanciful future.

So. Here. Here is the whimsy I can give – a drawing of an elephant driving a car that may or may not be a Mini Cooper convertible.

Ta da!

Monday In the Woodlands

I drew these sketches of woodland animals over the weekend and then it occurred to me that they all have a very deadpan, It’s-Monday-morning-I’m-so-over-it expression on their faces.

FOXY

Line drawing of a bored looking fox.
"I can't do any work before noon today."

SQUIRREL

Line drawing of squirrel.
"So, ah... Only five more days until the weekend, huh?"

RABBIT

Line drawing of rabbit.
"Meh."

RACCOON

Line drawing of a raccoon.
"It is what it is, guys. And what it is, is Monday."

Thanks, C. Ramirez

The best thing I got on our recent trip to NYC was a belt purchased at the Brooklyn Flea.

Leather and brass belt, made in Italy, purchased at the Brooklyn Flea.

I saw it sitting on a table and grabbed it in one of those “this is totally mine” moments.  The buckle and the decorative front piece are made of brass and the belt part is worn brown leather. Someone wore the hell out of this belt already.

Actually, I know who had this belt, at least for awhile. On the inside, in marker, it says “C. Ramirez.”

I could have stayed at the Brooklyn Flea for an entire day, looking at all the clothes (I also got a skirt). The prices were “meh” – you’re not going to find great deals here – but duh.

What I didn’t enjoy so much were the overflowing Port-O-Pots. An old man opened the door to one, looked inside and walked away shaking his head. I really had to pee so I went in holding my breath and keeping my eyes level with the door.

Still, my cool belt is worth a minute of crouching over a pile of shit.

My belt raised security concerns on the way home. It was in my suitcase but the pointed and crossed brass horns raised the alert and my suitcase had to be searched, the belt extracted and run through the x-ray on it’s own, to make sure the horns weren’t really poison daggers or knives or tiny guns.

Which needs to be in a Bond movie.

 

The Disrespectful Centipede

Yesterday morning I went into our basement and saw a big centipede but I didn’t kill it because I couldn’t deal.

Yesterday afternoon I went back down there and the same centipede was hanging out on a ledge. He did not run away when I turned on the light and came down. He moved his legs (antennae? who can tell) like he was waving hello. Then he watched me feed the cat and clean out the cat’s box. Like we’re friends or something.

A drawing of a centipede.

Centipede’s are disgusting. Grosser than millipedes. Plus, I read once that centipede’s can bite. It won’t hurt very much but imagining something like that chomping on me makes me uncomfortable.

When centipede’s reach a certain size, they get a swagger. They think they’re Big Bug on Campus and don’t have to worry. About anything. I wonder if centipedes and spiders ever get into epic battles, like giant squids and sperm whales.

One time I was working at the computer in the basement of our last place. I was alone down there but I suddenly had the feeling that I was being watched. It was the weirdest thing. There were those little basement half-windows and I kept looking up at the one over my desk, thinking I’d catch someone peering in.

Then I looked down at my feet and saw a big centipede  along with a beetle friend.

A centipede and a beetle at my feet, watching me.

They were both watching me. It nervous-making. I don’t think bugs should take up so much space that you can sense their presence without them making a sound.

Abiding With the Buddha & Books

A drawing of a joyful Buddha, arms raised over head, laughing.

“We realize that all the ways we’ve kept ourselves asleep have led nowhere.” – Sakyong Mipham

When I first tried to sit down and draw something again, since not trying to draw anything since high school, I drew a statue of the Buddha that I have. Drawing it just made me very happy.

I have some books, many of them with a Buddhist bent,  that I always turn to in times of trouble or depression or even just moments of feeling lost. Suddenly, while looking at my bookshelf, it occurred to me that I should share some of that list here, with the idea that we’re all looking for good books that can serve as a guide when things get rough or even if it’s just a particularly bad day.

Turning the Mind Into an Ally – Sakyong Mipham
Running With the Mind of Meditation – also by Mipham

The Not So Big Life – Sarah Susanka

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running – Haruki Murakami
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle – also by Murakami

A Buddha Walks into a Bar –  A Guide to Life for a New Generation – Lodro Rinzler

The 6.5 Practices of Moderately Successful Poets: A Self-Help Memoir – Jeffrey Skinner (I just discovered this and it’s a fantastic book – if you’re not a poet, like me,  just put in a different word for whatever kind of art or venture you’re engaged with and it still all makes sense.)

Just Kids – Patti Smith

The Freedom Manifesto – Tom Hodgkinson (kind of silly but also a breath of fresh air)

 

Floating

A woman floating underwater, surrounded by bubbles.

I did this drawing working from a photograph by a Minnesotan photographer I admire very much named Rhea Pappas. A few years ago she had a show called Beneath The Surface at Ice Box Gallery in Minneapolis – large scale photos of women underwater. Although I couldn’t afford to buy one of the photos, I have a postcard of one of my favorites that I’ve kept on my bulletin board ever since.

There is something about being suspended underwater that appeals to a lot of us. Perhaps it is best summed up by that very famous scene in The Graduate, when Dustin Hoffman sinks to the bottom of the pool just to hang for awhile and escape the pressure of the adult world. When you’re underwater, you’re in a liminal space, neither here nor there. It’s an in-between state and it can be a welcome respite, a chance to hit the reset button.

But it’s also a way, for just as long as you can hold your breath, to get lost.

Mannequin

Some people in Grand Marais love to perch creepy mannequins or dolls in upstairs windows.

I’m not sure if this is suposed to be funny, frightening or transforming, as in – “I’m lost in time, visiting this little town and, oh look, there’s a person in a nightdress looking out at the harbor.”

What I mean is this:

A creepy mannequin looks out a window in Grand Marais, Minnesota.

This is a mannequin that was perched in a second-story window over a shop. It was a male mannequin, which perhaps my limited drawing skills don’t portray properly, that had a long-haired, white wig perched on its head.

Ben Franklin?

Norman Bates?

My cross-dressing neighbor?

The mannequin was wearing a very fancy nightshirt and grinning out to sea; Lake Superior to be more exact. In my mind, I’ve made a scenario in which these shop owners were hoping to create a tableaux in which a wistful wife waits for her sailor husband to return from a long voyage. Unfortunately, they only had a male mannequin and a wig from some long-ago Halloween with which to make it happen.

When I see things like this, I imagine  the particular day someone set this up in the window. Think of the time involved. Get the wig, dress the dummy in the period-appropriate nightgown and then run down to the street to look up and see if it’s placed to your satisfaction. And then… wander off to watch TV or something, I guess. Judging from the dusty look and the faded nightshirt, this all happened in 1991 and has remained, frozen in time, since.

Baked Good Monsters

When we were in Grand Marais, we pulled up at a cafe at the same time as a pick-up truck. Two couples, probably in their 60s, jumped out and hustled in so they could get ahead of us. In their haste, one of them got left behind.

The other three descended on the bakery case, pressing against it with their girth. It was 10:00 in the morning but there wasn’t much left in the way of baked goods. As they barked out possible orders to the Eastern European help the fourth member of their group straggled in and his wife yelled at him.

“What do you want? What do you want? What do you want?” she said. “Cherry Danish? Caramel roll? Doughnut?”

“Cherry Danish!” he said. “Caramel roll. Doughnut.”

The other couple chimed in, “Cherry Danish, caramel roll, doughnut, nut roll, muffin!” like a chant.

Cherry Danish, caramel roll, doughnut, nut roll, muffin. CherryDanishcaramelrolldoughnutnutrollmuffin.

It was like this:

 

Baked Goods Monsters eating baked goods in Grand Marais.

 

We were lucky to get out of there with the last two caramel rolls and our lives.