Category Archives: circus

circus, moe, pictures, tattoos

a bunch of stuff

okay, there has been a WHOLE BUNCH of stuff going on in the last few weeks, and i haven’t really felt inspired to write about them, or anything, for that matter, but whatever.

the “normal” big news is that we are now the owners of a dog training facility in south king county, and moe is BUSTING HER ASS getting things ready, and making sure all the instructors know what the deal is, and substitute teaching for instructors who are sick (or something, so many things are happening that i haven’t been privy to…), and moving equipment around, and finagling different equipment from other folks, and, and, and… it’s ultimately supposed to make it so that she doesn’t have to work so hard, but, for the moment, anyway, it has had exactly the opposite effect, and i don’t know when it’s going to get any better.

260531 snake-camel tattoo
260531 snake-camel tattoo
HOWEVER that is NOT the reason i’m posting today. the REAL reason i’m posting is… you know that tattoo i got a few years ago, the one of the “snake-camel”? i got the tattoo a few years ago, and the overwhelmingly drunk/high week at the beach which the original “snake-camel” came out of, was a few years before that, but the tattoo was never really “what i wanted”, because “what i wanted” was a tattoo that glowed under ultraviolet “black” light, and the tattoo artist that did it for me was unable to use UV-reactant ink, because of some state regulation, or something like that… it’s not that it’s “unsafe”, it’s just that “regular” tattoo shops are reluctant to use UV-reactant ink because of… some reason. 😕
260605 UV-reactant tattoo ink!!
260605 UV-reactant tattoo ink!!
naturally, they sell UV-reactant tattoo ink on amazon, and, as long as i can find an artist that will do it “under the table”, there is absolutely no reason why i SHOULDN’T get a UV tattoo…

so, last week i played substitute trombone for the Fighting Instruments of Karma Marching Chamber Band/Orchestra, for the 100th anniversary of the Lincoln Theatre in mount vernon… it was a New Old Time Chautauqua benefit show, and i performed on the same stage as the Flying Karamazov Brothers, and Artis The Spoonman, along with Kevin Murphy (with whom i went to college, in the late ’70s and early ’80s), and a bunch of other familiar folks. it was there that i ran into a clown friend i have known for a few years; originally met through the moisture festival, and i visited him when i went to orlando in 2015. he now lives in bellingham, and, unbeknownst to me, he is a tattoo artist, so i asked him if he would do a UV tattoo for me, and he said yes!

so, TOMORROW i am going up to bellingham to get a 30 minute “touch-up” and change my green “snake-camel” into a GLOWING “snake-camel”!! 😎👍👍

it’s rare enough, when i say “i’m excited”, that i can’t actually think of the last time i was this excited about something… and the finished result is going to be SO COOL!!!

260606 UPDATE:

260606 -- UV glowing tattoo!! 😎
260606 — UV glowing tattoo!! 😎

anxiety, circus, depression, health, stress, TIMMAH!

sigh…

i think things are going fairly well… but i’m feeling REALLY tired and cranky, and i’m having a really difficult time not letting it spill over into my interactions with other people.

i THINK things are going fairly well: i’ve reached a satisfactory plateau in my office reorg, which is to say, basically, it is the same as it was last week, but i’ve fixed the wireless charging pad in my new sit/stand desk, so i can get rid of one more cable. i located a box of “questionable” albums (the albums, themselves, are questionable. the content on them is the only reason i have been hoarding them all these years), including quite a few albums that i have had on my “wish list” at discogs for a number of years, because i thought the copies that i had disappeared… they didn’t disappear, they’ve been in that box in the garage for four years because i haven’t had the appropriate space to set up my turntable… i am on the verge of writing out an arrangement of Galizianer Tans for the philharmonic… the only reason i haven’t started yet is because of laziness, and a vague fear of being successful at it… and, despite the fact that i did a 100% FACE PLANT at my cicrus class last week (the first one i have ever done), i THINK that i have finally figured out how to free-mount my unicycle — it has only taken me FOUR YEARS…

TIMMAH!
TIMMAH!

but for the past few days i have been really cranky, and kestrel bit my hand last night (which she has never done before), and my arms and legs are COVERED in bites and scratches from TIMMAH! who has developed this habit of purring and rubbing up against my legs, and acting all “soft-cuddly-kitty” in order to get me to pick him up, at which point he instantly transforms into a velociraptor. and, because of the fact that he’s still got all his primary teeth and hasn’t developed his “adult” brain, yet, he’s a SHARP velociraptor. 😒

also, i have to get my flu shot, and at least one COVID booster, and i really SHOULD get a shongles shit, which, in fact, is two shots, which cost around $400 a piece, and are NOT covered by medicare… and, if you really want to get technical about it, i really should sign up for a “yearly” healthcare check, which i haven’t done since before covid… 😒

busking, circus, depression, frustration, medication, microdosing, mushrooms

meh… 😒

since 240214 i have had 5 circus classes, 4 unicycle classes, 3 moisture festival rehearsals, 2 counseling sessions, 2 dentist appointments (my first in over 20 years, and they STILL couldn’t find anything wrong with my teeth), and 1 eye appointment.

17 days, nominally (the only evens that were MORE THAN an hour were the dentist appointments), worth of “stuff” and 20 days of “no stuff”… almost A MONTH of sitting around reading what passes for social media these days (i still haven’t quit reddit, although i’m closer to it than ever), or taking off and playing a lonely, solo game of “this way, that way” (which is best played by three or more people), getting lost, and ending up in orting — and when i mentioned it in one of my circus classes, the coach said “orting? what’s that?”

😒

okay, i’ve done “routine” things, like splitting firewood, taking care of laundry, washing dishes, shopping, and that kind of thing, and i’ve done “important” things, like upgrading the NAS, and building a rack for the kayaks, on top of everything else, so i wasn’t REALLY frowsting on the internet tubes ALL the time, but there has been a SERIOUS LACK of things to do, recently.

plus, the glasses i got from the aforementioned eye appointment are WORSE than my current distance glasses, and they’re supposed to be reading glasses (which means that they REALLY don’t work), and moe went to bellingham today, and i didn’t, after spending the past two weeks saying that i wanted to go (and then, deciding at the last minute, last night, that i would stay here with the pets), so now i’m here, alone, with the two ADULT dogs (moe took the annoying puppy with her), a cat, a snake, and a parrot, in this REALLY QUIET house, and all i want to do is make noise and pretend like there’s somebody here… so i can hide from them in my office, because i don’t know how to interact with them like normal people.

but, for some reason, i haven’t even played other peoples’ music, and have just been sitting here with the silence, the sound of my keyboard tapping, and the occasional bong hit…

AND i haven’t been out busking AT ALL since february 14th, which makes my new micro-tuba REALLY sad… i’ve got to renew my pike place market busker permit before the 15th of april, which means going through the whole rigamarôle again, only this time it’s with new folks in charge, who i have never met before, and, what do you know? the “official rules” STILL say “no brass instruments or drums allowed” in one place, and “muted tubas will be accepted on a conditional basis, and added to the 2018 rules” in another place… except they weren’t, and nobody has bothered to define EXACTLY what they mean by a “muted tuba”, and nobody has bothered to update the rules since then. 😒 and that’s not to mention the fact that i’ve been hankering to go out with my harmonic flute, my hindu drum machine, and my electronic rig, to some place OTHER than the pike place market, but i haven’t done so for reasons which come down, basically, to paranoia and self-doubt. 😒

this is one of those “i’m feeling grouchy and out-of-sorts” experiences that, in the past, i would have solved by taking mushrooms, but… well… i’ve been taking ≈250mg of mushrooms, every other day, for the past 8 months, i have absolutely NO clue what “the protocol” is for microdosing, and, at this point, if i have a trip that isn’t at least partially decent, i’m going to get even more frustrated than i already am. part of what i’m doing about it is, the next batch of capsules are going to be 200 mg, rather than ≈250mg, but i still have ≈100 250 mg capsules left, so it’s going to be a while until i get to them. the weather has been playing around with being nice enough that hiking in the forest sounds feasable, but the weather is also hit-or-miss whether it’s going to be nice or rainy, and it’s probably going to be that way for the next few weeks.