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Friday, May 11, 2012

Day 5: anthropomorphic mouse taxidermy on Yvonne's birthday or my girlfriend beats your girlfriend




What would a woman like for her birthday? Take a guess. Flowers. A new dress. Shoes. Jewelry. A dinner in a nice restaurant. An intellectual girl may like an interesting book. A musically inclined one would prefer a ticket to Metropolitan Opera. In spring, a romantically inclined girlfriend would want a trip to Paris.

But, what does a woman do if she has already tried all of this boring stuff and she is searching for something new and exotic, unique and different?
If the woman in question is Yvonne, she will ask her boyfriend (i.e. your humble servant) to accompany her to a four hours workshop on...

Anthropomorphic Mouse Taxidermy

Honestly, I had no desire whatsoever to go there. My interest in mice = my interest in taxidermy = 0. My interest in mice wearing human-like costumes approaches to absolute zero.

Still, it was Yvonne's birthday and saying "no" was not an option. So, at 5.30pm, I embarked an A train on a long journey to the end of the world, i.e. central Brooklyn.

We walked into small building on the corner of Union and Nevin streets. It looked like it started as a warehouse a few dozen years ago, then was abandoned, then acquired a second life thanks to the Brooklyn revival. An assortment of science fiction posters on the walls, an incomplete set of moose bones in a cabinet, a bunch of random arts and crafts books on the shelves and rusty one foot thick white pipes running along the ceiling made the place, "Oh my God, it's so Brooklyn".

A short forty year old woman named Sue ran the workshop. Numerous tattoos over all exposed body parts hinted at one of her professions. In fact, she did work for a while as a tattoo artist before moving to Massachusetts. However, since the American freedom state banned tattooing, she migrated to taxidermy. Oh, well the loss of one becames a gain of the another. Along the way, Sue figured out how to cut corners and expenses making taxidermy a surprisingly simple and affordable endeavor. She also fell in love with an original Victorian taxidermy master who specialized in stuffing animals to look like humans.

Hence came Sue's workshop on the antropomorphic mouse taxidermy.
Sue explained it all while her assistant was bringing the mice. Twenty five of us, taxidermists-in-waiting, were crammed in a 500 square foot room with five tables. Numerous props, brought by Sue and her ex-students filled shared the space with us and with taxidermy tools.

At first, Sue established the rules. "I am very serious about this," she said. "Better make sure that the mice look classy. I will not have Lady Gaga and pop music guitar mice in here. Use the props to create timeless and inspiring art, be thought provoking."

"I used to teach children with special needs till I burned out. It still shows," Sue explained her presentation style.

We mulled around the props, picking up tin castles, coffee cups, and various dresses. I looked at all this stuff feeling completely lost. Why the heck did I come here, I wondered... Suddenly, my muse whispered an advice in my ear. I saw a candle holder and I knew what I wanted to make.

Then, Emily, Sue's assistant arrived, carrying a tray with two dozen dead mice. She walked around the tables handing out a mouse to each student, like an appetizer at a cocktail party. I carefully picked it up. The mouse listlessly lay in my hand. White, frozen, mercilessly killed cute little thing with closed eyes and a drop of dried blood on the tip of the nose. I gently pet it on the back.

"Play with the mice a bit till they warm up. But don't handle them to much - they'll get too gooey," Sue told us.

She borrowed a mouse from one of the students and started demonstrating the art of taxidermy. Following her, I slowly cut the skin along the back and gently pulled it off.

"Be careful when you get close to the belly," Sue said sharply. "You really don't want to cut the shit sack. The smell is like, eh, really shit. We will have to evacuate the room and ventilate it for an hour."

I was careful. With the skin removed all the way to tiny mouse feet, the base of the tail and the base of the skull, the body hang down like a purse. I used the scissors to cut the body off and pulled the tail out of the skin. Then, I cleaned all the meat and brains from the head and removed the eyes. Now, I had a perfect empty husk.

As builders use steel re-inforced concrete for construction, I stuffed wire re-inforced clay into the mouse and sewed the skin on its back. My little pet acquired a proper shape and a surprisingly strong body. I carefully attached the mouse head down to the candle holder with the tail proudly sticking towards the sky.

Finally, the most difficult part approached me. I needed to make a flame. See, the mouse was supposed to become a candle. By far the most tempting idea was just to glue some fabric to the tail and burn it. Like a modern art style installation in action.

I still think that I should've done it but the peer pressure from my neighbors prevented me from taking such a drastic albeit expressive action. So, I disassembled one yellow and one red fake flower and sewed a flame out of their petals. My little candle proudly stood on its head. Its mischievous eyes (two small black pins) looked sideways. The fake flame was almost burning on the wick aka the mouse tail.

Meanwhile, Yvonne finished her project, a fat 007 bowtied mouse lounging in a designer chair playing with a gun.

It was the most impressive birthday party I've been to, in many years.

Good bye Jesus, welcome Environment



Inspired by a recent article in NYT:


Welcome to the Environmentalism - a new wave religion that came to supplant Christianity. It is interesting to see how Environmentalism has upgraded Christianity:

garden of Eden ->   Earth,
Devil                 ->  technology,
original sin        ->  destruction of the environment,
Apocalypse       ->  well, eh, Apocalypse
atonement         ->  getting rid of technology

The Environmentalism is the Truth.
The Environmentalism is ethical, therefore it is scientifically valid.
The Environmentalism does not have scientific opponents, it has skeptics, i.e. heretics, sinners and unbelievers. Together with the other evil forces they plan to destroy our Environment and bring us all to a horrible death.

Monday, May 7, 2012

Day 4: Pain




Here I lie, on my back. My eyes are staring into the ceiling, my mouth is tightly shut, my breathing is shallow and laborious.

"How much?"

"Eight more minutes."

Only two minutes of pain have passed and I have eight more to go. The pain keeps changing. At first it feels like being cut with a dull knife. At the same time, my chest is so tight that it's difficult to breeze. I don't feel like I am drowning, not quite. But, it's close. A minute passes. The muscle are stretching and elongating, the knots are relaxing, the pain is getting slightly more bearable.

"Yvonne, more vacuum?" it's difficult to speak since breathing is hard.

Yvonne starts pumping. I can feel my muscles getting sucked deeper and deeper into the cups. I make small controlled breaths and try to imagine that I am somewhere far away. My chest is burning now.

"How much?"

"Five more minutes."

"Tell me something..."

"Ughh, it looks disgusting! There are droplets of liquid forming and blood is dribbling into the cups. Ugghh. It's spreading."

"Shut up!"

"You asked me to talk..."

"Now I ask you to shut up. How much?"

"Three more minutes," pouting.

I am counting seconds with every breath. The chest is burning, tearing, being squeezed and pulled apart.

"Time."

Yvonne starts releasing the vacuum and taking the cups off one by one. Extra spikes of pain, a little bonus, accompany every removed cup. Finally all cups are off and I lie there in a happy bliss of almost no pain. That's what happiness is - almost no pain.

Part two starts. Yvonne is happily digging her small hard fingers into my muscle knots.
I writhe, scream, and try to crawl away from her.

Life is so much fun!

Day 3: Guardian angel



 If only I could meet Yvonne's guardian angel... If only this angel had balls and asshole. What incredible pleasure would it bring to me to slowly twist and tear off the angel's balls and, one by one, squeeze them up the angel's pure white asshole. I never bothered plucking a chicken - I just don't have the patience for it. I swear by my life and sanity, that I would have enough patience to slowly, leisurely pluck every feather out of this angel's wings. I would start with the right one. Just because I would feel like it. Then proceed to the left one. Then, I would skin the angel alive, saw the skin in a sack and make a big feather pillow that the angel would have to sleep on for the rest of his eternal life.

Unfortunately, there are no guardian angels. We make our lives, we ourselves and some dumb luck. And dumb luck doesn't have balls, asshole, feathers and skin.

Hatred and despair hopelessly twirl inside my mind. But there is nothing I can do. On Monday Yvonne will go to our family doctor, an orthopedic surgeon. He will take a look at her and make a surgery appointment. Another injury, another surgery, another half a year of recovery, another wasted climbing season.

I just painted this scar on Yvonne's shoulder, with a few magic markers. It looks stupid and fake. Unfortunately, in three weeks, she will probably have a real scar here. Why is life so unfair? It just seems so utterly wrong.
 
2007. Torn ACL. Surgery
2008. Unjured wrist. Surgery.
2010. Both shoulders hurt from wear and tear.
2011. Collarbone broken, one full year of recovery.
2012. The right shoulder hurts again.

With the collarbone almost healed, Yvonne finally started climbing again. I was so happy. We did a few easier slab routes. Yvonne's brain and footwork were recovering amazingly fast. We climbed 5.7 slabs in Roger's Rock, we climbed 5.9-5.10 slabs in Owl's Head. The sun shined on us and the life was smiling. We were finally climbing together again. We hadn't climbed since 2008. We already planned a trip out West for the spring and possibly another one for summer.

And, then Yvonne told me. Her shoulder hurt, sharp tingling pain, twinges, the same stuff again. Most likely she will have to do surgery to remove a bone spur that is tearing her tendon.

WHY?!!!!

So many of my friends climb for years and years, push themselves hard, and... don't have any injuries. Why is the person most important to me in the whole world so fucked up?


Day 2: Bubbling.













Earlier this morning, I was trudging across midtown Manhattan. Everything was gray and wet, the clouds had just finished ejaculating water and hung there, just above the buildings. Gray light was seeping from the gray sky to sparingly illuminate gray-white, gray-red, and gray yellow buildings. In various hues of gray and black, Manhattanites were hurrying to work. Even the New York taxi cabs had lost their bright yellow color, blending into the gray world of 8am.

My head hurt from not enough sleep, my elbow hurt from too much exercise and my soul hurt just because it felt like it. I stared grimly ahead as I moved the right foot ahead of the left one only to immediately move the latter ahead of the former, like a hamster in a wheel.

With each successive step, I could feel the gloom descending on me, enveloping me, covering me like a blanket, surrounding me in a bubble. I stopped at the intersection of 6th avenue and 23rd street, waiting for a gray-red pedestrian light to turn into gray-white pedestrian light.

A bubble, I thought suddenly. What bubble? Why bubble? I don't usually think about bubbles. Then, I realized that I just saw a bubble floating past me. A huge soap bubble, almost a foot in diameter, was slowly drifting towards me, through still humid air. Alone, in the gray world, it shined with a delicate light. It was so fragile and yet it was not afraid of changing, flowing from shape to shape. It reflected cars and people around it, playfully distorting the boring world around it, creating a realm of its own.  I stood there fascinated, looking at the bubble, the colors and shapes running endlessly on its surface. And, then it popped.

The another bubble followed and another. They drifted, they danced, they twisted and changed, they shined. They changed the world. I stood there fascinated, like a little child, staring at the rainbowey spheres. The gloom was slowly lifting, the grayness no longer felt as oppressive. The world acquired colors.

The pedestrian light changed to white and I walked across 23rd towards the source the bubble stream. Who was it, the bringer of all delights, the destroyer of gloom, the light of Manhattan morning? A fifty year old black guy without half of his front teeth, was selling $10 child toys - a propeller driven bubble makers. Needless to say, I bought one.

So, I walked towards the subway trailing bubbles, took the train, walked to work, came to the lab and, to the incredulous delight of my colleagues proceeded making the little spheres of delicate delight.


Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Day 1. How it all started: boobs.

As a budding writer, I get lots of, eh, helpful advice from my friends and neighbors. A good Samaritan has recently suggested to my girlfriend that I take a picture each day and write a paragraph about it. Like a personal picture I can relate to. Like it's gonna encourage my shy writing creativity and discipline it at the same time. My supportive sergeant of a girlfriend happily endorsed the idea and told me to use the blog to maintain my writing progress.

As she was telling me all these important things, my attention kept wandering towards stuff that matters. Unfortunately, my eyes gave me away (next time I'll wear sunglasses, I swear). Yvonne pulled her blouse up to hide her not insignificant cleavage.

Y (annoyed). Why don't you concentrate on things that matter?
Me (sincere). Well, yeah, that's what I am doing.
Y (more annoyed). You are such a jerk! I mean writing.
Me (even more sincere, like for real). That's what I am doing. You told me to take a picture that I can connect to, right? There are few things in the world that I connect to as well as this!
Y (annoyed but smiling somewhat). Fine, fine whatever, go ahead.





Why does a serious cleavage have such an existential significance?
If only for a short period of time, but still, the real issues like problems at work, injured elbow, impending parents' visit, impending real estate decisions and all the other mature sensible important stuff just disappear, driven way by two 5lbs sacks of fatty tissue partially supported by a loose T shirt. I still don't know the answer.
Do you?