minor setbacks...

Ugh!  Art is HARD!!!  I spent Tuesday evening all by myself, working on my sketch for the Erotic Art Competition, and my image turned out to look anything BUT erotic!  I erased it completely and switched to a better angle of perspective.  After roughing in the eyes of my figure, I think things are back on track.  Hopefully this weekend I'll make some significant headway on it.  Especially if this suddenly rainy weather holds.  If things go back to being sunny and summery-- forget it, I'll be outside, maybe doing some beachcombing or something like that.  I keep swearing to go outdoors more, and here summer's already halfway over!  My bf's crowd has decided to get together Saturday for their annual "meat smoking day," where everyone gathers to... smoke meat?  (Such interesting customs these folks have!)  But bf's in charge of dessert (he always is), so he'll be making his special Banana Split Pie (never had it, but boy, does it sound nummy!)...  I wonder what, if anything, I should bring?

Last night bf and I went out to see "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory."  I kept expecting it to be a remake of the first film-- had to keep reminding myself that the screenwriter had never seen the original.  And since I couldn't remember many of the details from the book (I read it so long ago!), it was nice surprise for me, overall.  Kudos to the makeup artist(s) for doing such a wonderfully hideous job!  And they certainly put the Oompa-Loompa actor (Deep Roy) through his paces!  The musical numbers?  Ehh... not so much.  Except for the "Veruca Salt" scene, the music seemed a little bit out-of-date by maybe ten years...  (and speaking of Veruca, those squirrels.... *shudder*)  Nice to see Helena Bonham Carter slumming it, though.  Even with stained teeth, she's still exquisitely lovely...  But even before the movie started, we really got revved up by the previews for "Corpse Bride" and "the Curse of the Were-Rabbit" (Wallace and Gromit are back!  Yayy!!!).  I think the next movie we'll see will be "Murderball," and maybe "Mad Hot Ballroom".... 

Anyway, when we got back to my car (the '68 Squareback), I had left the headlights on!  The car still started (thank God!), but apparently the lights had burned themselves out.  Now I have to replace them.  Gggrrrrr!  Other car troubles?  My '66 Bug is having starter issues, so I'll have to do some parts-pulling and -cleaning.  Hopefully I won't have to replace anything outright... but if I do, it'll be no biggie.  I may finally have to replace my flasher relays, 'cause I completely lost my turn signals!  Still, they might come back on... this has happened before.  At least these are all small things.  If a transmission blows up or something, Heaven help me....

Alright!  I should be working.  Two tie-dye patterns to reconstruct from scratch....