What was happening this time last year?

What were you doing on March 25th 2008?

Were you working?  Unemployed, but looking for work?  A student?  Talk about what you were doing on that day, and why you were doing it.

The days all run together, but by the end of March last year I was a huge ball of stress. I was working full time, teaching part time and attending university part time. By my calculations I had been enrolled in school of one form or another for approximately 27 years. I was just a month shy of completing my master’s degree and I was TIRED. I never wanted to open another book, see another exam, or sit through another lecture in my life! My husband remarked to me during this time that he knows I will eventually go for a doctorate. “No!” I say, “Noooooo! How could you suggest such a thing? I am not crazy! Look what this master’s has done to me! My once organized and creative brain is drained and tired, TIRED I tell you! No!”

Thankfully this stress ebbed out of me and I happily continue working and teaching, often open books, see many exams and wouldn’t mind attending interesting lectures if I could fit them in. That doctorate? Well…we’ll see…

What do you eat when you’re alone?

Write about what you eat when you’re alone.  Is it any different from what you eat when you have friends over, or even when you’re eating with your s/o or kids?  Why is that?

It is an interesting thing, eating. We have to do it to survive, even though many of us have a love/hate relationship with food. Our most beloved traditions are nothing without certain meals, and life isn’t the same without our favorite snack. Why does food play such a large part in our lives?

I admit that when I eat alone it is a completely different experience from when I cook meals for my husband, family or friends. When I am alone I do not sit down for formal meals. I rarely eat what would be considered a “balanced meal”. I think the term most fitting would be “grazing”.

When I am alone I don’t generally think about food until I am about an hour past ravenous, then I search the cupboards for that one thing that sounds “good” at the moment. I eat whatever I find with my head buried deep in a book, a paper, a computer screen or an art project. A while later, when my body has decided that “good” food didn’t quite fill me up, I venture out again to find something else.

Repeat this cycle over the course of a day, week, month… and there you have it, one horrible eating pattern.

Finding Food…

What’s the farthest you have traveled for food?  Did you fly across the country just so you could have the perfect bowl of clam chowder?  Did you cross the state line just for a scoop of ice cream?  What was it, how far did you travel, and was it worth it?

I live in the Northwestern corner of the middle of nowhere. The towns out here are sleepy, quiet and operate on farmer’s schedules. If you are a hungry college student with no cooking facilities you generally turn to restaurants for the majority of your meals.

It is after 7 and you are hungry for something other than fast food. Sorry, you are out of luck. If you are hungry for anything, including fast food, after 9, you are REALLY out of luck.

So… What does one do when this happens?

You start driving.

70 miles to the Southwest you can find food. 70 miles to the Southeast you can find food. North will require 90 miles and a transition into a new state. The upside of this is that you will have a better range of choices. 90 miles is usually worth it.

Ugly Header Graphics

I am a bit distressed that I started out my ART blog by uploading the mother of all ugly header graphics (see above). I hope to have the problem rectified in the near future, but for now, it will have to do. I hope this blog will give me an outlet to discuss art, technology and all the gory details that go into merging the two into a happy union.