Wexford Girl

Lyon Street Steps

Between Broadway and Green Streets, Lyon Street becomes a block of steep cement stairs. The Lyon Street steps are popular with wedding parties for photographs; the City and the bay are laid out in a stunning panorama from the top.

They are also popular with those who want a good workout. Run up and down the steps several times and you'll feel the burn in your quads and calves. My friends Ashli and Alisha reguarly do their workouts there, and this morning Alisha caught me in a weak moment and persuaded me to go with her.

We ran up and down and up and down. In between we did tricep dips on the stone wall and other exercises for arms, shoulders and abs (still a bit hard for me; those muscles have not needed to do any work for months). We did it for an HOUR! It was SO HARD!

It was fun with Alisha though. We cracked each other up:

Annie: "You know what? I bet all these other people think you're my
personal trainer."
Alisha: "I should be really mean to you, like 'move that fat ass, you
pathetic wimp!'"
Annie: "I could be trotting down the steps in front of you, crying my eyes out."
Alisha: "Man, I would get so many clients."

Five Years

Yesterday, Eric and I had our five-year wedding anniversary. Half a decade ago we got married in a castle in Ireland with all our friends and family present (or 65 of them anyway; it was a small-ish wedding). I just can't believe how quickly the time has flown by.

I am so glad I married Eric. I couldn't imagine life without him now. He inspires me, makes me laugh, and provides endless love and comfort. And he's the best cook in the world.

Here we are (taking a break from photographs) peering in the window of the castle bar, where our friends were enjoying cocktails. We pleaded for pints of Guinness and they were handed out to us! What a smashing day it was.

I don't have a good picture of how we looked last night, but here are our anniversary feet leaving Bix restaurant after a wonderful dinner.

I love you Eric. Here's to the next five and beyond!

Back at Work

After my long convalescence, I'm finally back at work. Everyone made me very welcome and thoughtfully (!) had several projects lined up for me. I'm still ramping up but I'll soon be back in the swing of things. It's funny to be back. I kind of miss my time off, although the last week or two I didn't use my time wisely and in fact I was a little bored.

I'm thinking again of what it would be like to open a little store, kind of like Egg (now joined with Urban Mercantile) in Cole Valley here in San Francisco, or Motel in Portland.

But a couple of things give me pause. San Francisco rents are so high, making it difficult for any store to make ends meet. The cooler the neighborhood and higher the foot traffic, the higher the rent. And in order to make your rent you always have to be there; you're tied to the store. Unless you have a really good staff, but to get the good ones, you have to be willing to pay top dollar, which reduces your margin.

It's funny that I keep thinking of what it would be like to open a store, because working in a store doesn't appeal to me. Maybe it's the same as it is with kids; they are endlessly fascinating when they're your own, and a little boring and irritating when they are someone else's (any of my friends or family with kids reading this, I do not mean your kids!)

Anyway, this won't happen for at least another year or two, if at all. It's just something that sometimes sounds appealing, and this is one of those times.

And now a picture I love. This is Eric in front of an awesome painting at one of the galleries at 49 Geary. We spent a Saturday afternoon there recently and then went for pints of Guinness at Foleys.

I Learned to Draw Hair

Time for a poem. I wrote this one a while ago about a memorable event in my development as an artist!

I learned to draw hair

It used to be a solid thing.
Hood of clay molded to the skull, braids of wood.
The day my pencil found curls, waves
looked real, girls I drew unburdened
from their frozen head-shaped lumps.
Now they moved in wind. They stood in gentle drafts
with secretive graphite smiles.

 
    It’s an ordinary day in a sea of them for the rest,
    one that won’t be remembered:
    In the sitting room after supper,
    slippers and pajamas. Crooked Christmas tree.
    Cup of coffee by my father’s feet.
    And my mother talking with Mrs. Gibbons, who has brought cake.
    Liz wrapped in the striped towel after her bath.
    Rain outside, and here the glide of my tireless hand
    as I fill page after page with ponytails, and girls
    with curls all the way to their ankles.

Carded!

You know how as you get farther and farther away from legal drinking age, how it's wonderful to be carded? And you know how as you hand over your ID, you want the clerk to make some comment about how great you look but they never do? Well today it happened! At Trader Joes buying wine I was asked for ID, so I showed proof I was almost TWICE the legal age for buying alcohol. The guy behind the counter (it didn't hurt that he was 24 and gorgeous) looked at me and said, "wow, you're doing something right. Keep it up!"

Then we made out.

How Do I Translate This?

This is the best blog ever and I can't understand a word of it! It's a design blog much like Design Sponge, which is also one of my favorites, and I couldn't even tell you what language it is in. Danish? Swedish?

While I'm sharing favorites, Camilla Engman is an amazing illustrator based in Sweden. She has an English language blog where she often posts links to other artists I would never find on my own.

And now, some crow pictures. On the beach the other day I saw a murder of crows feasting on a dead seal. They looked ravenous and a little scary.

Annie Get Your Gun

I saw this cool sign painted on a wall the other day. According to Vogue, Domino and Lucky, guns are a hot motif in fashion and home items this season (so are skulls). I think I should paint some portraits of revolvers and pearl-handled pistols, maybe surrounded by swirls or flowers, kind of a sweet-but-deadly thing.

Chairs

I re-covered our dining room chairs with this cool fabric. I used the reverse of the fabric on two of the four chairs. This was my first project like this and I'm quite proud of myself, although it wasn't at all difficult.

Collage

I made these collage cards over the last couple of nights while watching TV. They are quite relaxing to make, although I end up with sticky fingers from the glue stick. I used origami paper, magazines, and fabric.

In other news, Eric informs me that the cartoon I posted yesterday from the New Yorker must require an Irish sense of humor because he does not find it remotely as funny as I do. Thankfully he does not find Howard Huge funny either.

In other other news, I got the best birthday present from my brother Michael. It's a collection of songs that he titled "The Top Forty" and it's every British number one for each of my birthdays over the last 40 years. It's very cool listening to it.

First, there are songs like, "These Boots Are Made for Walking" or "Daydream Believer." I know these songs but I wasn't aware of them when they were in the charts. 1979 seems to be the year I first became aware of music as it was happening; Blondie's "Heart of Glass" was number one on my birthday that year and I remember seeing them perform on Top of the Pops.

Then follows a decade or so when I was very tuned in to the charts and an avid watcher of ToTP, (I was wildly in love with Adam Ant). But by the early '90s I was kind of out of the loop again. I also wasn't living in Ireland anymore, and in the U.S. there is less interest in what number a song in on the charts, perhaps because there are so many different charts.

Overheard and Baffling

On Sunday Eric and I went to Zuni Cafe for lunch. The couple next to us were trading sections of the Sunday paper back and forth. The woman picked up Parade magazine and said, "Let's see what Howard Huge is up to today." Then she actually uttered the following sentence, "He gets into such kerfuffles."

Seriously. That you would know that this lame cartoon regularly appeared in this lame magazine is one thing. But to verbalize a certain eagerness to read said cartoon is beyond belief. I studied her face for a smirk or ironic wink but there was none.

Here's the cartoon in question. Hilarious.

This, on the other hand, is a funny cartoon. I cut this out of the New Yorker a couple of years ago because I could not stop laughing.