I had a consultation with my tattoo artist about my next piece, which will be the biggest piece I've gotten (the same hours as my leg piece, but covering more skin). I'm so excited! We spent an hour designing it, and I absolutely love it! It's based on my favorite poem:
We're not going to be able to start it until June, partly because he's booked pretty much until then, and partly because I need to save up the money. But I can't wait! I might not be able to finish it until September though, because I'll be leaving for the summer in July after being a bridesmaid at a friend's wedding.
Which brings me to my next subject: bridesmaids dress shopping. Scary! This is the dress:
I went out to David's Bridal with a friend of mine who is also a bridesmaid in the wedding to try the dresses on (for size and all) and we nearly got thrown out of the place. It was just too much chiffon and bright orange and sequins to take seriously - we walked in and burst out laughing. The rest of the night I was giddy, so I think chiffon actually makes me high. What's terrible is that the smallest size the dress comes in is still too big for me and if it didn't have the boning it would have fallen off. The groom said to me when I came out to show them "See - you do fill that out!" and I had to explain to him that that was all the dress, not me. But it was fun, and I think the wedding will be nice - I will likely never get married (no one can stand me long enough) and even if I do it won't be a traditional wedding, so it's nice to live vicariously through my friends.
So I did a really fun shoot with a great local band, Gene Dante and the Future Starlets - kind of glam rock. Here's one of the pictures from it:
I'm not actually drunk, or passed out, but they didn't want my face in the shot. We had a blast though - I'm going to the cd release party at the Middle East in March - should be fun. There were two other girls at the shoot, much younger than me and quite drunk (because they provided booze) who were complaining about how there were no good local bands in Boston. To which I took offense - I mean, people don't realize it but we have more local bands here than any other city, and a lot of them are fucking great. The problem is we have no good venues. If I were wealthy, and were to make an investment, I'd open a new venue in Boston, one that is a combination of what the Rat was, what the Middle East downstairs used to be and what Liberty Cafe was. And if you know what all three of those were, then you officially rock my world.
The due dates for my thesises are swiftly approaching: I just finished ordering my manuscript for the Creative Writing Thesis and have to hand it in on Tuesday. Scary. I realize looking over the work I've done in the past three years that I hate most of it. Out of some fifty poems I've written, and more than that translated, there were only eighteen that I happily included in my thesis, and out of those only about seven I would even consider publishing. Two of which are being published by a local press in the next few months, so that's exciting, but also makes me feel terribly unproductive. I know that Elizabeth Bishop only wrote 100 poems in her lifetime, and she's one of the greats, but I want to be closer to Neruda than Bishop. He had three books published by my age, and who knows how many written.
And my darling Kelli deployed this morning. She just called me from Afghanistan to let me know she got there all right, and that I should send her knitting supplies. I've been sporadically bursting into tears all day. Saying goodbye to her last night it finally hit me that she's actually going. I know she'll be ok, she's strong and smart and capable. But I miss her so much. Even though she's been on post for the past two years, she's been reachable. Now, who knows....
But thank you all for your reassurances - and to answer someone who asked she's active duty Army, not Reserve. So all that bullshit about pulling out the troops (which just meant they were sending more Reserves in their place) is just that - bullshit. Don't believe their filthy lies. And on that note, military personell pay more taxes than anyone I've ever seen. You would think at least their meals would be subsidized, but no - apparently all the billions of dollars we allocate for military spending goes to Cheney's friends. Asshole.
Oh, and Alito getting confirmed? Well, there goes Roe. There goes any chance of a constitutionally guarenteed right to privacy. Damn him. Although at least he voted against the death penalty in that recent case. That must of pissed Bush off something terrible. Ha! Silver lining, I suppose.
I'll leave you with my favorite image from the shoot that I did with
ChristopherLee so far:
