Slightly Less Barren Walls

When I headed out to my car this morning on my way to do some proper grocery shopping I found that the tire had pretty much deflated again.
I broke out the fix-a-flat stuff, but it didn’t appear to do much of anything.
As the tire wasn’t totally flat, and experience had shown that it would stay inflated long enough for me to do what I had to do, I headed to a gas station and aired it up.
I then opted to head to my car dealership, as I needed to make an appointment for an oil change, and I figured that I could get an appointment to have the tire taken care of at the same time.
On the way there I stopped at the ghetto Wal-Mart, thinking that I’d seen a tire shop there, but found that I was mistaken. I did go in and buy some frames for two of the posters I had made at Zazzle, then headed to the dealership and made my appointment for tomorrow morning.
From there I went to the grocery store, then came home and opted to put the spare tire on to, well, spare me from having to air up the tire again tomorrow morning to drive to the dealership. In examining the tire I found that the cause of the leak is a nail that I must have picked up somewhere along the line.
After finishing that I put the pictures in their frames and hung them up.
By then it was time for lunch and I was going to just nuke something, but decided that since it’s a nice day, I need the exercise, and there are a couple of little plazas with stores and restaurants within walking distance, I’d go for a little walk and pick up lunch somewhere.
Just as I was walking into one of the plazas and was preparing to see what sort of food I could get there I thought I heard Brian’s voice, sounding rather muffled, saying, “Maki.”
At first I thought maybe he’d been driving by and said my name from his window, but then I realized that it had come from my pocket, as he was pinging me on the Nextel.
In an excellent bit of timing he was checking to see if I wanted to get lunch somewhere and ended up suggesting a place that was just across the street from me.
Shortly after he arrived and we’d ordered one of his friends from the fire department stopped in to talk to him, so I spent most of the time sitting there totally out of the loop as they talked about people I don’t know and various fire department things that were basically Greek to me.
When we left, I opted to get a ride home from Brian rather than walk back.
I checked my mail and found that the third poster I had ordered, which had been mailed separately because it was a custom size, had arrived.
One thing that’s kind of cool about the mail here – though the fact that all of the mailboxes are in one location, which is pretty far away from my place is irritating – is that there are these “parcel lockers” located by the mailboxes. If a package arrives that’s too big for the mailbox, the mail carrier puts it in one of the lockers and puts the key to locker in your mailbox.
I find that preferable to the method used at my old place, which consisted of the mail carrier walking partway up the stairs and bouncing the package off my door.
(Of course, I did have the advantage there of just having to go down the stairs to get my mail)
I gave that guy with the HVAC company a call back today to quote him my rate for logo design. When I first called, a secretary answered and I realized that I didn’t remember the guy’s name.
What followed that realization was an explanation of why I was calling that was so awkward you would think that I was calling to ask someone out.
“I’m calling for – Tony gave my number – the person’s name escapes me. Um. I’m returning a call to…someone.”
It wasn’t quite that bad, but when she managed to slice through my rambling and speculatively supply the person’s name, my response was something like, “Yuh, yuh, yuh. Him.”
He wasn’t there, but I left a semi-coherent message and eventually he called back. For whatever reason my phone skills hadn’t improved much.
Still, I got the point across and he seemed to think that my rate (which I just totally pulled out of my ass, though basing it in part on what they used to charge on my behalf, though I didn’t make that much, when I actually did design work for a living back in Minnesota six years ago), but he had to confer with his partners.
Brian suggested that this sort of thing could be a good side business for me. The thought had occurred to me, of course, but given my less than stellar history of trying to make a living off of my creative abilities, I’m a bit leery of getting too invested into this sort of thing.
I guess we’ll see how this goes, though.
In any case, I think that will do it for this entry. Here are some pictures of my newly mounted art.


“Kiki,” my Nagelesque portrait of Kirsten Dunst, got the sweet spot above the mantle, as it’s one of my favorites of the various images I did in the style of Patrick Nagel a while back. FYI, the bowls and the clock on the mantle were made by my dad, who is EXTREMELY talented. Eventually, if/when I ever get an LCD TV, everything will have to be moved elsewhere.


Though it probably deserves a more prominent display, the picture of Rachael Leigh Cook as Death really couldn’t be hung anywhere other than in my bedroom. After all, it’s as close as I’ll ever come to having RLC – or probably any woman – in my bedroom.


I now have a picture of Death up on my wall, but I have yet to find a permanent home for my Death action figure.