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2004-05-02 @ 4:53 p.m.
the shed that led to hockney

The work was a little physically demanding for someone with fibromaylgia, but the rewards were so worth it, when I stopped to help out a friend this morning.

A girl from my Survivor group is moving into this house which is in a bad part of town. She's not totally happy with the decision, but the decision is made, and this weekend, she was having a large shed delivered for all her tools and yard machinery.

At group she had dropped a heavy hint about having a Shed Party this weekend (as in, can you guys come help Saturday, when my shed gets delivered), but nobody took the bait. But I've been in her position before. Moving someplace with little or no help available and its rough, so after hitting a few garage sales on the way there (none of which were stellar), I finally found her all alone on the empty lot next to her new house (which is also owned by the owner).

She's a tough girl. Likes to show off the fact that she owns and uses a chain saw. But she looked strangely lost at the back of the lot, which is about 150 feet deep and filled with tons of garbage and crap from the local gangstas who don't know the meaning of P-U-T-T-I-N-G YOUR G-A-R-B-A-G-E IN A G-A-R-B-A-G-E CAN. She wanted to clean out an area, because Home Depot was going to be delivering her new shed.

I personally think she should put it directly behind her house rather than out in an empty lot NEXT to the house, and I tried to convince her of this (this neighborhood is BAD), but she is very determined and had already made up her mind, so I just helped her with the clean-up. And it was considerable.

Unfortunately I wasn't quite dressed for heavy duty labor. I had on my girlie sandals, a low cut white shirt and Capri pants. And here I was knee deep in broken glass, food wrappers, plastic beverage containers, rusted fencing, possible needles, sticks, branches, old shoes (and I was truly hoping that there weren't any bodies attached to them as I dug them out with a rake).

My friend did most of the heavy work. She was truly aggravated that Home Depot had promised an A.M. delivery and it still wasn't there by 1 p.m. But we got quite a large area cleared out.

We also got to talk quite a while doing it. We're both single and we thankfully realized that the men we're both interested in are at the polar opposite end of the spectrum.

She wants a big bubba-type guy and I want a more intellectual Woody Allen type (minus the Soon-Yi fascination).

So we were happy about that, especially since I know she could kick my ass.

Actually worked up quite a sweat despite the fact that I was just mildly raking up crack pipes and heroin needles. We did finally stop around 1:30. I was feeling a little weak from low blood sugar and she decided to just call it a day and call Home Depot for about the 5th time and rip them a new asshole.

So I just hit few more garage sales. The second one turned out to be the Bonus One of the Week. It was really close to Zenshrink's house, so I had to make an elaborate re-route, so I wouldn't have to drive by his house (I still saw it however, ick).

The Bonus one didn't necessarily have great stuff, but I got to meet an interesting guy. No, not that kind of interesting, just an older guy, who I think had Parkinson's Disease or something. He was very friendly and said he was enjoying the garage sale experience because of all the interesting conversations he had had with people all day. I was as friendly as I could be, although I'm pretty shy.

Then I stooped down to look at some Portfolio Magazines, which is a magazine that features the work of artists of all persuasions. The second one I peeked at was David Hockney, who I really like. The guy saw my interest and said the magazines were free! I said Really?? And then of course I had to launch into an elaborate reconstruction of the last 4 months of my life as "(ahem) AN ARTIST". (ya impressed...oh I'm sure).

Turns out he OWNS an art gallery!

SCORE! Not that he was offering to see my work or anything, but we started talking about art, and he was talking about the business of art (his gallery is in Florida, not here, unfortunately). He said it was not real lucrative, but that he enjoyed it anways.

And than I said I was going through a Mexican Art phase right now on my work and he said him and his wife had just visited Frida Kahlo's actual house in Mexico this last year.

I almost fainted. I've been channeling good ol Frida the last couple of weeks at the Crazy Crazy place. Two of my last three pastels have been based on Frida paintings. I absolutely love her work! We also briefly talked about Diego Rivera. He's another favorite Mexican artist of mine.

Then as I was leaving, I had been looking at some unusual hand hammered Mexican tin light plate switches and he said to just throw them in with my magazines for free. He even offered to carry them out to my car, but I declined, but he did walk me out to my car.

What a nice guy! So those magazines should keep me busy and maybe David Hockney will become my new muse in the coming weeks.

Yay for garage sales! And yay for nice art gallery owners who give art girls their old art magazines for free.

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