White Female Seeking Short Term Relationship Furniture

I've been checking out the prices on "disposable" furniture at Ikea and Wal-Mart, and I'm not thrilled. There's a ninety percent chance that whatever furniture we buy in New York will STAY in New York long after we've moved back south of the Mason Dixon, so I don't want to spend a fortune on a bed/ sofa/ table that we'll only be using for one year, 2 years max. If you, dear reader, or anyone you know (that lives in NYC/ Queens) has any cheap used (infestation free) furniture please let me know.

Dude, that's like sooo nineties.

It's been several years since I experienced cool weather, and I've never spent a winter someplace as cold as New York. To prepare I've been rounding up all the warm clothes I can find. I had several boxes of sweatshirts and other stuff of the sort from high school that I stuck in my mom's basement, so I rolled up my sleeves and dug into the mountain of boxes down there. I found a bunch of old stuff I hadn't thought about in years, like 11 years worth of church camp t-shirts, and a box full of Lisa Frank stationary. My favorite box of all though was the box full of the most ridiculously ninetiesish stuff ever. It had my Mario Bro's "Duck Hunt" gun, a couple Spice Girls cds, a rainbow's spectrum of over worn w.w.j.d. bracelets, and several Blossom-style hats. (That's a woven fiber hat that looks kind of like raffia, with some kind of giant flower glued onto the front). You would not believe how cool I thought I was in a hat with a huge sunflower glued on. (That's Blossom, not me- just in case you weren't a fan of the show).

What's a sugar glider?

I've always liked to keep unusual pets- for ten years I had a pet turtle. (I gave him and his incredible custom built terrarium to a local kids museum when we moved to the Caribbean). Now my new favorite unusual animal is the sugar glider. They're native to Australia, but they're starting to become popular over here as pets. They're kind of like flying squirrels, except much smaller. When fully grown they're about the size of a chipmunk. I almost bought one of the adorable little critters, but then I found out that they're hundreds of dollars. Also it pooped on me when I picked it up. I made this little painting of a sugar glider meeting a dwarf rabbit. I call it "You're Strange, But I Like You". Either of the subjects could be the speaker of the title. I imagine a tiny rabbit might be strange to an Australian flying squirrel. I adore this little scene, but I've been told it's a waste of paint, that I should paint over it and use the canvas for something else. I posted him for sale in my etsy shop (www.loveaboveall.etsy.com) so maybe someone will come and prove mom wrong.

The T is silent.

Apparently MJ moonlights at a law firm when he's not making underwear ads.

We took a day trip up to Waynesville NC last week and I couldn't help but take a photo of this window. I was about to walk right by it when I asked myself WWPKD? (That's what would Paul Kyser do for you non AUC-blogger folks). The answer? Take a pic and post it on the internet.

Moving vs Storing

Since we're moving in less than two weeks I am really getting quite desperate to sell some paintings- mainly so I don't have to make the decision between whether to leave them behind or sacrifice some of our very limited car space to move them with me. So, with this predicament in mind you would think I would have stopped painting, but no. Stressed out as I am about everything that's going on, I find myself nearly sleep painting at 3 am. Fortunately my classes aren't very time consuming, and there's not much I can do for the move just yet so my penchant for putting on head phones and drowning out the world in pretty swirls of color doesn't do much harm... except that now I have several more paintings that I'm torn about what to do with. I've changed the etsy prices from rediculously low to rediculously high and every where in between, but I think the problem is that my page just doesn't get much traffic. I'm just not very good at marketing... which is frustrating because I constantly see really crappy stuff sell on etsy- things the "artist" couldn't have spent more than five minutes on, but the paintings I spend hours and hours and sometimes days and days on won't even move for $40. I am so frustrated! Make me an offer!

But aside from all that I really have been enjoying painting a little extra lately. It is so consuming. I don't know if any other artists out there have ever noticed, but to me at least, painting feels very similar to praying. Both have a tremendously calming effect.

I have to thank Jane DesRosier for one of my favorite new things to do, which is use gel medium. It adds so much texture, which I really enjoy. It really adds another element to art when there isn't just color and composition to consider, but also the texture. Here are a couple of my favorite paintings that make good use of gel medium- they're not very figurative like most of my paintings are- they're really just color studies of hot and cold, with a bunch of gel medium swirled in.

Night Owl (cool) Summer Sky (hot) Seriously, no offer will be rejected if you want one of my paintings. Go to www.loveaboveall.etsy.com or e-mail me @ a_bedealia@yahoo.com

If I Can Make It There, I'll Make It Anywhere...

Trying to find a good apartment in New York is like trying to find a needle in a haystack. The good ones are completely unaffordable... the cheap ones are completely unlivable... and the ones in that happy medium area just don't tend to be pet friendly... not that there's been much in that happy medium column. We met with a really nice real estate guy on Monday to check out an apartment that had looked really promising on the web, but it turned out to be located on the corner of Hellfire and Brimstone. For example, we were standing on the sidewalk waiting for the realator to arrive when a policecar peeled up onto the side walk and arrested a guy five feet from us. He seemed pretty cool with it actually. They were putting him in cuffs and he was just kind of like "eh, you caught me". We decided not to live in that neighborhood.

The place that we did decide on is actually pretty swanky. It's a little more expensive than we had planned to spend, but other medical students live there and have nothing but great things to say about it, plus it's really pet friendly. We've still got a little paperwork to sort out, but I'm pretty sure that's where we'll end up living. It's so perfect for students- there's a library with wifi and a game room with pool tables and playstations. By far this is the best place for anyone with a pet- not only is it a pet friendly building, but theres a fenced in grassy area behind it so you can play with your dog without a leash. I didn't take any pics while we were there, but you can check it out at www.theopalny.com . It's centraly located near all of AUC's clinical sites in NY, so any AUCers looking for a place in NYC would definitely be happy here.