Henna

I was at an Open House of my friend's beauty salon (Flaunted Curves Salon) last night. I enjoyed meeting and talking with her friends and other clients, but it was also fun to watch a Henna artist in action. Nicole (AKA Scarlet Bee Henna) was among the vendors/artists who were there to make it a multifaceted event. My friend, Brenda, put her name on the list for a session, and with the artist's permission I took pictures.

As Nicole worked she talked about making her own paste, how the recipe changed with different conditions. Humidity and temperature played a part as they could directly affect how the paste behaved. She said she received some from a fellow artist in Nevada, but it just didn't perform well in Central Texas. She talked about the essential oils she used in the recipes – lavender with this batch for its soothing effect. Different oils/scents work for when she's feeling sociable, more introverted, stress or any other feeling that she thinks she and/or her clients might experience.

Below are some pictures of Nicole working.

Thinking, contemplating, imagining the design

Beginning

Adding glitter

Getting closer

Nicole with her work

Brenda asked if I was going to get henna as well. Nicole added, "I love working on men!" That was all the inspiration I needed. When she called my name... well, when she called my name Brenda jumped in to have Nicole fix the "accident" that happened when she reached into her purse. Then I sat down. 

Nicole asked what I did, so I told her that I work at the state. We discussed where to put the Henna. She thought the palm of my hand would be best because there's fuzz on the back of my hand and arm. I showed her my simian crease and we discussed that a bit. Then she took her time to imagine the design, and how to incorporate the crease that now called to her since I had pointed it out.

Eventually her husband sat down near us and we all talked about archiving, art, writing and all sorts of other things. She is, apparently, a professionally trained photographer doing social media promotion for Austin Community College. He also works for ACC – Associate Professor of Religion and Philosophy, and the Department Chair. After a while she commented, "I thought you were a creative type, but when I asked what you did you said you worked at the state." My answer was that I had to pay the bills somehow, a feeling we all share.

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My design (sans glitter)

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This morning I looked at my design. I had slept with it on my hand to help darken it and make it as permanent as possible. (She said it would last around 2 weeks.) I had closed my hand at some point during the night and the design jumped over my simian crease, but I think I did pretty well for a first-timer. 

TomCat felt that he needed to supervise this photo session going on in my backyard by the morning light.

I have kept hand salve on it, which is actually kind of a treat. I love my Henna and I'm looking forward to the next session with Nicole. Every party should have a Henna artist, just like parties need a DJ. 

Looking Up

Outside on break at work today, I sat my mobile on the table with the camera on. This is what I saw looking at me from the screen. 

I do love where I work. 

Mobile

A few years ago I wrote a little piece about how some of the apps on my mobile device were kidnapping my mind. It would go something like this: I would be writing and want to look up the definition of a word, so I'd pull my mobile out to open the Merriam-Webster app. I'd see the little red number indicating that I had Facebook notifications and I'd immediately check them. Then I'd chat back and forth with people, do another couple of things and then put the phone down to get back to what I was doing. Then, I'd come across the word I needed to look up and I'd reach for my phone.... That could go on for hours if I let it – and sometimes I did. 

But one can learn. I have learned to love my mobile phone for what it allows me to do, namely – be mobile. I always have a camera with me. It's not an SLR and it does funny things sometimes, but it's a darn good camera, and it's my camera. If you look at my website, most of the pictures have been taken with a mobile. For a long time I thought that I would grow up one day and learn to keep the SLR with me. 

More recently I have decided that these are the pictures I take. I will never be what the world thinks of as a professional photographer, and I don't even want to be that. I want to be a writer. And, I have developed a little bit of a style of my own with them. Barry Perez was telling people the other day that I'm the one who handles most of his social media, and more to the point I am the one who had recently posted a photo album for him, including work of a lot of artist friends. One of them said, "I know. They have Earnie written on them. I mean, they have your name, but they have Earnie's touch." I like that she could tell from looking at the images that Earnie Painter was the one who took the pictures. They may not be the best pictures in the world, but (to steal an idea from Sheryl Crow) they are the most Earnie Painter pictures in the world.

I also always have music with me. As long as this world of ours keeps it together and our technology doesn't come crashing around us in a pile of apocalyptic rubble I'll have tunes at my fingertips. I have the music that I buy, which is kind of a lot, but not really, and the music that I stream from YouTube, which I financially support. I can sit in a coffee shop and envelope myself in a world apart from everybody around me. This is particularly useful when the people around me are loud, jarring or otherwise unpleasant. 

And, social media is becoming a more important part of our careers – Barry's and mine. This is where the mobile phone really saves the day. I would imagine that the vast majority of people looking at Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are doing so from a mobile device, so doing my social media work on a mobile device is the ideal way to do it. On my breaks during the workday I can sit quietly and check in. After work, sitting in a coffee shop I can add a few posts and answer some questions. 

All of this is a boon for my life – or an enabler, depending on your point of view. I have a tendency to not be home. I've mentioned this before and I need to explore it more pointedly. But, for the moment I'm going with my nature and living my life in my car, in coffee shops, walking around graveyards or driving to visit people. I'm slowly learning how to make my home more appealing, but even when I get there I think I'll still be on the road. I'll still be living outside of my home, more than inside it. It just seems to be who I am, and my mobile phone has been very accommodating. I don't think they were thinking of people like me, particularly, but we fit into that market nicely.

Halloween Dictionary Entry

Oh, how I've missed watching these videos.

Autumn 2017

Autumn is in the air. It was this morning, anyway. This is Central Texas and the temperature is still in the 80's – if not the 90's – during the day. But, we can pretend. I lift my head and try to get a whiff of that technicality in the air, the one that says that the autumnal equinox has already passed and it's time for the leaves to change colors, the temperature to drop and the nights to grow spooky. I can almost taste the nostalgia. It is October.

Being that it is under 100° I felt compelled to be outside today. I love front porches and I live in a house that has one. Oddly, I never use it. (Actually, for reasons I can't comprehend, the front door is nailed shut, which speaks volumes for why I don't use it. But, we're gonna let that go before we start a fight.) So, this afternoon I dragged the two rocking chairs and glass-top patio table to the driveway and swept the wooden floor and tried to get the cobwebs down from the walls and ceiling. There was one wasp nest that I didn't want to disturb, (and I didn't want to get sidetracked by getting rid of it.) I then turned my attention to the much-neglected rocking chairs. 

They are nice chairs – made from wood and painted white. There have been a couple of storms that blew rain and dirt on them, though, so only the residents of this household were aware that they were actually white. To most people they were a dull brown. I had more success cleaning the one that was further away from the northeast side of the porch. The storms that came tended to blow the dirty rain from that side, as wind blew across the dirt driveway/parking area. As I was cleaning I saw a spider and before I could catch myself he had been washed off the chair. What if that was my father trying to visit? Sorry Dad. 

After all that I poured lime-flavored Topo Chico over ice and sat on the newly cleaned chair on the sort-of cleaned porch with only a few mosquitoes and a tiny wasp nest that I hadn't disturbed so I felt comfortable that they weren't angry at me. Tired. I'm probably still anemic; that much activity should not have made me as dizzy as it did. However, let's lose about 30 pounds and see if we don't feel better. I hope I do; I'm running out of possible reasons for the anemia.

As I recovered I sat thinking. I thought about what I would like to do with the shrubs, how to trim them to make the house look better and keep from blocking the view from the porch. It was hot, but a breeze came by every once in a while and felt very nice. I got up to refill my Topo Chico and saw Dad again on the door. This time I just said, "Hi Dad" and kept going. I didn't knock the spider off.

The family across the street was cleaning a building in their back yard. I know this because the woman was "directing" activity the entire time I sat outside. She was yelling almost nonstop about every conceivable thing – related to cleaning or otherwise. Next door to them a Mexican man rode up on his bicycle and leaned it against a tree near the house. After a few minutes another man rode up and they sat together on that porch, chatting quietly. 

This is the small town I live in. This is what I call home. I'm not really used to it. I need to take tips from my friend, Tamara, who is a yoga master at keeping things tidy and de-cluttered. For the most part it's easier to take a nap and forget about it, but I could learn to love being home so much more if I spent a few minutes a day keeping things up. That's a lot of work, though. I need a nap just thinking about it.

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Glass for refreshing beverage next to my ever-present notebook. And pen. On the Front Porch.