Moving and I Moved.

Tonight we spent a glorious time moving Kristine and Pip's stuff out of Amanda and John's upper floor. We got to enjoy Amanda's wedding scrapbooks which were really well done. Wow, she got such beautiful cards. Anyhow. It was a 3 car convoy, 2 trips full to the brim. K's room is on the second floor of her new apartment/townhouse and so we climbed stairs around thirty times or more. That was nice because there are no stairs in my grandma's house and I have weird romantic notions about ascending and descending them.

K & Pip have a two story apartment they are sharing with a friend. It has 1.5 baths, laundry room inside of their apartment, huge kitchen and great storage. The staircase is open to the living room and I think it would be great to hang a rope there, so one could swing off of the stairs into the living room with a rose clenched in one's teeth and a rapier at the ready. Oh and there is a huge brass conquistador in the living room with a removable axe (uh, he's taller than me, so seven feet tall?)

A lovely black cat befriended all of us at A&J's and at one point got in my lap, wrapped it's paws around my neck and kissed me square on the mouth. *smile* Oh! And there is a huge colony of bats in the trees outside their house. *yes, yes* There were some lovely nights in highschool where I would leave the building late from some function or practice and bats would be circling above the parking lot. A&J live close to the h.s. so I guess that's were our town's bats hang out.

After moving, the whole crew and K&P's new roomie convoyed over to BJ's restaurant (haven't been there in years upon years). Wow. The food was great and so rock bottom cheap. I mean a breakfast plate for $2. Oh thank you God!

This whole night has made me reflect on how grateful I am for everything in my life. I'm glad I'm here in my hometown, but I miss what I thought my life would be like at this point and I miss LA and I think I always will. At least here the festivals are all free and there are so many friends and relatives that my life overlaps with now. Nights like this make life so enjoyable. Simple things. I was yearning for this feeling to return to me. I listened to Keane's song "Simple Thing" obsessively because it captured the loss I felt and it still resonates with me. Something in me is gone, but I sort of enjoy the ghost of it haunting inside of me. Somehow I am as Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 6:10 - As sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things.

This only because I possess the joy of knowing that God is the greatest of all things one could have and that wisdom is the to be desired over riches. That God is the creator and knower of all and that I can trust that no matter what happens in life I have God to rely on in Love and the assurance and peace that comes only from such relationship no matter how close I teeter to not paying my car insurance (october. . . ) or no matter anything in life. Amen.

" I walked across an empty land
I knew the pathway like the back of my hand
I felt the earth beneath my feet
Sat by the river and it made me complete

Oh simple thing where have you gone
I'm getting old and I need something to rely on
So tell me when you're gonna let me in
I'm getting tired and I need somewhere to begin

I came across a fallen tree
I felt the branches of it looking at me
Is this the place we used to love?
Is this the place that I've been dreaming of?"

(lyrics copyright Keane) complete lyrics here

Henna Tatto

Finally! I have gotten a picture of my henna tattoo that I had for a couple of weeks. I grew quite attatched to it and pondered whether I should get an actual brown tattoo on my wrist, but I am not convinced as I know myself too well to think I can be satisfied with something in the same spot until I die (that I was not born with).

Rats! Prof. Snape Will be Disappointed. :(. . .

Ravenclaw

"Here in wise old Ravenclaw,
If you've a ready mind, Those of wit and
learning, Will always find their kind."

The Sorting Hat Quiz
brought to you by Quizilla

Steam Show

Imagine a locomotive built for off track work and you have the steam engined 'tractors' of yesteryear. Each mammoth creation has a long, black barrelled body and puts off that distinctive coal smell.

Our fall festival has every year featured a living museum of glorious by-gone machinery. Threshing demonstrations, steam tractors, newer tractors and more. We visited a re-built general store resplendent with turn of the century advertising, a very early operator switch board, and an antique ice box. Across the dirt path from the general store was a working blacksmith's shop. Huge warehouses hold steam powered fire trucks used in our city a hundred years ago and a myriad assortment of massive (think a couple stories) turbines, engines, water wheels, and of course antique autos. One can ride on a quarter scale or a daringly 1/22 scale coal burning train or browse the aisles of wares in the flea market.

Perhaps the most enjoyable thing was the old church that was moved from its original location and lovingly restored. Organ music piped serenely out of it all afternoon while across the way a replica of a frontier school house stood complete with authentic desks culled from across the US, a surprisingly ornate pot bellied stove, and walls filled with the stories and pictures of people who went to and worked in one room prairie school houses. *swoon* It was so perfect like a movie set or better yet, the real thing!

Sadly I only got to go to one day of the all weekend festival because I'm feeling severely depressed and slept all day yesterday until nine pm. There's always next year. I have so many photos I did not get to take.

BABY DEDICATION - SUPER RAINBOW WARRIOR BABY

Quinn! Mighty Eskimo!!

We are so saddened that we cannot be with you at your dedication today. We love you and your parents! You are such a sweet little guy! Today is a special day because you are being dedicated to Christ. Your parents will teach you about God and his love by their caring example and wisdom. They always take time to show others the love of God!

Missing this hurt us. We hope that sometime soon the choices we have made will be worked for good. We came back here to be with those we care about and help my family so it's a double sting that we cannot come up there.

Hopefully soon that thin blonde guy you met earlier this summer will have good news and we will pop up to see you and your parents!

I hope that you get lots of delicous formula to drink today!! (and maybe some presents?!)

For now I have commemorated you as a little comic book super baby!!!

Cemetery, Screaming, and Blood

Currently I have 19, yes 19, awful mosquito bites. This matches my record for bites in one day's time which happened in China. . .

However, let us not dwell on such things. Today was an exciting day because I hit 208 pages on the story I'm writing. Then I was met up at the coffeeshop by Kristine and Phillip. Oh, and I had a job interview to work a few hours a week at a social welfare place as a mentor.

Kristine, Pip and I spent a lovely evening in the park on the gazebo writing, talking, reading and watching the green trees dipping and swaying gently. Lovely. A pleasant time broken up only by the ehcoing screams of someone in the sanitarium. Yes, our park has a large sanitarium complex, I know we are to call these mental health centers, now, but too bad.

We spent some time discussing local history. Really we live in an amazing place. Underground railroad, Grant's camp-out, the sanitariums, the colleges, the theatres, ferris wheel, blah! Lots to talk about. Our discussion prompted me to mention the unmarked grave field at a nearby cemetery where sanitarium residents are buried.

At the graveyard we walked amongst the browned, toppling stones, each heavily weathered and bearing no name, but a few had a number. At the end of the grave field there were five long rows of people buried from 1947-1953 and they all had names and some even birthdates on tiny copper plates that had long since turned green. Visiting cemeteries always bring to mind the quote on a famous English churchman's grave. "As you are now I once was and as I am now you will be".

What a most pleasant day.

PURPLE HAIR YES, YES!

So I have some purple hair framing my face now. Jeremy brought home some L'Oreal Color Pulse as a present while he still had a temp job. This stuff is so cheap ($5) and I think I used so little that I can re-do my hair several times. I didn't want to do my whole head though because I'm quite happy being a reddish-blondie by God's gift.

This is the third time I've dyed my hair. I've gone red, and in one fell swoop black/purple/blue.

Color Pulse is supposed to last through 8 shampoos, so roughly a week. However, after a few days it had already faded so I re-did it today. So I've done three applications and still have a good portion of the container left. Since this isn't true dye it doesn't have a lot of chemicals and smells like citrusy, not like dye. So that's nice.

When some job stuff happens maybe I'll get some manic panic and go for a slightly more permanent burgundy or purple on the framing hair. I figure I can always just dye that back to match my true hair color or cut them to have bangs and then re-grow my natural blonde out. As you can see by the photo I purposely did not dye a inch or two of my roots. This photo also shows my recent and tragic weight loss. Oh well.

LIQOUR STORE BASEMENT!

Tonight we had some excitement.

As we were dropping off job applications with dear Mr. Phillip the tornado siren started its high pitch moaning. It just so happened that we were near a spirits store and the worker was in the doorway urging us to come in. So we raced through the rain, pouring down in sheets, and then found ourselves ushered down a rickety staircase (the wood was aged to gray). For the next twenty minutes we spent quality time with eight strangers in a very old brick built basement surrounded by cases of wine and mysterious rolled up brown sacks. Yep. Sometimes these things happen and most often they happen to me.

SURPRISE!

What would you do if you woke up and found 50 eggs strewn about your yard and then on your drive-way dried to hardened husks black beans. Then you find a sign that screams "The birthday buzzard flew by and laid you 50 eggs."

Hahahah. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO JEREMY'S MOM!!

We attened a great surprise party; the first one I've been to since highschool and maybe only the second or third one in my life. There was a lovely margarita, ice-cream cake, food, and black balloons. There was even a huge balloon that sang a song when you punched it. . .

Of course dear Becky was the start of the night, posing for pictures and hanging out and having fun. I hope you like the photo of the button! Sorry you can't see her lovely face, but privacy you know!!

Vampire Game

I'm playing an online vampire game that is very simple. If you click on this link you can play too! Let me know what name you choose. Hahah. I'm the vampire Rasberry. No one else had that name and it's the first thing that popped into my head. Just go to the link and to become a vampire you just need to think of a name and password.

http://quiz.ravenblack.net/blood.pl?biter=Rasberry

Rainy Day Kitten

Temperature: 61 F

A steady drizzle fell on this lovely gloomy day. The air outside was brisk with promises of the coming Fall. Deep within her chamber slept the vampire girl. Suddenly her door was thrown open! In the next room the window revealed a low-lying sun to the west, its rays softened out of focus by the silvery grey clouds, the light shining dully in. To the vampire, however, it was a blazing terror of unbearable brightness.

"Argh. Shut the door" she cried.

"Emily today is the day we get the kittens!"

*****
So most people who live in a house with only two cats must think to themselves. Wow, it'd sure be awesome to have a cat for each room of the house. Doubling our cat population was our intention on this gently raining Thursday. We set out late in the afternoon (as you can tell from the placement of the sun) and I immediately found it too bright, but so nicely gray! Animal control is interstingly enough near our town's high school. . . It was surpisingly small and quite bleak, but I was glad to see that there weren't that many animals in there. We stepped in the little building, barely more than a shed, and then through a small entryway to get to the animals. A chorus of vicous barking broke out, but I bravely ignored it. I did want to take the three cute puppies home. . . and all of the cats. Unfortunately they only had one female kitten in the whole place. Already possessing (or possessed for one of them) two male cats it was the majority opinion of the household that we procure a female. I was the minority, especially upon syping an active fluffy orange tom kitten and a creamy cat with silver siamese style pointing. Cruel world!!

Well our one new kitten is pictured above. She is Luke's new cat. Sadly we didn't get a pet for Kirk, yet, but we will. The kitten's name is Gabrielle. The little thing is 3 months old and is all neck and legs and tail. Very skinny. Also she is incredibly brave and affectionate. Only an hour into our home and she was sleeping and purring on Luke's legs and seeking constant attention. Strangely she runs to all loud noises, ran to Smokey's hissing monstrous snarling form, and ran to the window when the very loud growling lawm mower went past. Wow! She's going to be like Sunny and attack the vaccuum. Anyhow. We gave her a bath and she forgave us, so all's well.

If you live in the area come by and visit the new kitten and the two lovely male cats too!

Labor Day Rally Continued.

Here are some more photos taken by Jeremy's family at the Labor Day Rally. The left top has Jeremy's dad on stage at the far right. The next shows Gov. Rod with camera crews. There were a lot of cameras there. The bottom is the labor rally singer on the left and the big march on the right. We had the pleasure of being in front and shouting 484 at the cameras. Dad kept talking about the FBI. . By the way did you know that you have a legal right to write to the FBI and obtain any records they have on you. Some of it may be blacked out, but still, I think I'll do that soon. <:P

Amanda and John's Wedding!

SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 11.

Congratulations to Amanda and John!

Today two of our friends were married at Salem Lutheran Church. Last time I was in that church I was ten years old! It's a very beautiful and classic setting for a wedding. The ceremony was wonderful. John's father officiated and gave a humourous and thoughtful homily about marriage that was very true. Good advice. The colors were red and black and the bridesmaids looked so pretty. Amanda was beautiful in a dress with a train and a veil! After the ceremony we stayed to take pictures. Then we walked over to the catering hall. It was really a cool place with an indoor fountain, lots of nice plants, and big awesome rooms. Good food.

There was a DJ service. Wow, that was great. Yes we danced around and were among only a small handful of adults willing to dance. Hey, have fun people!! I do seem to have, uh, messed up my neck, however. Too much head banging to Metallica.

It was nice to see so many people that we hadn't seen in awhile or only for a few moments here and there.

Website Update

Hello!

My website has been updated with a new photo heavy page and the deletion of another page. I re-did the home site too. So check it out please!

http://www.freewebs.com/violentshrinking/index.htm/

Also. As long as you are at it please visit my art website too! Here I post several times a week new pieces of art that I've done either by hand, through a digital means, or just plain photography.

http://violent-shrinking.deviantart.com/

If you do art yourself then join deviant art and give me a shout out! I started out just making humourous stuff, but now am really into it and doing some serious work.

News

Walgreens Senior Beauty Advisor, Alice H, has done it again! After winning a slew of small contests and the trip to Barcelona this year she has nailed another huge contest. Hear! Hear! Mom won a fabulous Royal Carribean cruise in the Mediterranean. She sold the most Schick razors in the country to win this. Her ship will sail from Barcelona to Marseilles, Nice, Rome, and somewhere else. Cool! We're proud of you! At her store in AZ Mom does incredible sales. While we lived out there she spent her days off with us eating great food and watching movies and doing lots of fun things. I'm looking forward to visiting there soon!

***

Everyone around here is at a loss when it comes to the Hurricane. A lot of local relief efforts have sprung up and apprently the IL government has started an initiative to move Hurricane sufferers up here with IL families. This is such a weird situation.

A Very True Labor Day

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagovich, Sen. Dick Durbin, and a thousand or so people spent a hot, sunny Labor Day afternoon with our families at the Meredosia High School.

The workers of the Celanese Factory were locked out about three months ago before they could vote on a contract. Scabs had been holed up in a local hotel and were unleashed on the factory. Since then the company has brought more and more dire contracts to the table, slashing jobs, and decreasing wages by an incredible margin. Jeremy's family is fighting hard, alongside the rest of the Union, against the unfair labor practices and bad-faith negotiating tactis of Celanese.

The rally was great. Apparently, the newspaper believed there to be only 700 there, but the place was packed. We about doubled the town population, so at least 1000. Gov. Rod was helicoptered in, but was at least thirty minutes late (recently he was 40 minutes late for an important funeral). All the speakers were appropriately full of passion.

Some of the participants, a large portion of them, marched about a mile or two through the town to the old train depot for further demonstrating, fundraising, etc. In the local paper is a picture of the marchers. We were all out front right behind the banner and are discernible in the picture. Does that add to my FBI file?

For more information on this situation go to Boilermakers Local 484.

AWK

During Trekkies 2 there is an eerie and discomfiting scene between the woman who insisted on wearing a Star Trek uniform while on the Whitewater jury and one of her minions.

The minion is a seemingly, typical sweet, old lady type. However, when she takes out a sketch of an alien and opens her mouth the horror breaks forth. In her hands she explains that the sketch is a portrait, like a photograph and not a 'picture or drawing'. She says it is AWK, aware and knowing. Luke and I love to laugh about that to this day and when discussing something may say "It's aware and knowing"

SEE THIS MOVIE!

Moview Review.

In 1974 Brian De Palma had not yet made "Carrie", "Scarface" or "The Untouchables". In 1974 glam rock, death metal, goth rock and Webber's "Phantom" were years away.

But in this year Brian De Palma's musical "Phantom of the Paradise" was unleashed on a world that turned a cold shoulder to its biting, social commentary and deadly serious theme disguised behind glitter and great music. This sort of film would have been lauded if had been made after say, 1983, but it was absolute cutting edge for '74. It prophetically features a whirl of music sub genres that would explode in the following years, the intensity and nearly religous/satanic devotion of music fans and properly skewers the media, in this instance focusing in on the sweating, swine-like grotesqueness of a pop music industry machine.

The story is a brilliant fusion of the book "Phantom of the Opera" by Gaston Leroux and Christopher Marlowe's "Dr. Faustus". It is updated to be set in the 70's, but is timelessly true for our ever so corrupt world.

I don't want to spoil anything for someone who has not seen it. I went into this expecting something like the "Rocky Horror Picture Show" (which came out a year later) but where "Picture Show" is so bad it's good, this movie is just plain good.

An idealistic and talented songwriter auditions for the opening of the new rock theatre "The Paradise". He is told he is the one they are looking for, but in reality his thick sheaf of sheet music is all they're after. What follows is the bitter fall of this songwriter and the subsequent out of control machinations of a betrayed and broken soul. There is no hero, only anti-heroes. Each character is tainted by evil at a different level and thus makes for a fascinating, if grim, study of human nature. Perhaps the most shocking thing is seeing a main character, an anti-hero who has many of the same physical features as Darth Vader down to the breathing, costume, etc, but years before Star Wars went into production and was released! George Lucas you have an uncredited source!! And I know Vader's features were not nailed down until very shortly before shooting that film!

All of this is framed between amazing musical numbers that span nearly every genre of music, some that barely or just did not plain exist at the time.

Really this film is a must for any fan of music or a fan of classic literature!!

**by the way all of this site is copyrighted Emily McQuillan.

Back Priming is Real

We spent this afternoon and very early evening down at the Empire priming cedar board after cedar board.

Thankfully two of our many ailing houses provided shadow cover from that thing called 'sun'. Faye's house needs over thirty new cedar planks installed (and they are eerily like a long pirate plank that you must walk and then spiral to your death in a sea of primer).

As it was going along I painted a little edge of one side and then the entire other side. As the side I was painting all of was very finished looking and had a little decorative indent in it I gathered it was the side facing out, after all why else would we prime only it and the edge? Dad came by and noticed that while I was painting the edge some had slopped out onto the rest of the unpainted side.

"What are you doing! That side faces out". Dad exclaimed.
"WHAT! No one told me. This is the pretty side over here!" I defended.
"Well that's not how the house was built!" He retorted.

Blah, blah. Dad said we were perfectionistically painting only the back and that this was called BACK PRIMING. Well, I had scarcely heard something so made up sounding in nigh on to five weeks.

Tonight I googled back priming and... folks this is serious business.

Jeremy and I also plundered two of the houses in the Empire and searched for some of our stuff. I have such a treasure trove of decorative items that I collected while in highschool. A set of dramatic brass scales, mountains of sci-fi and horror paperbacks, random pictures, it goes on. I found my cherished book of Jacque Louis David paintings and the entire stash of prom and party dresses. Picture shoot for deviant art. YESS!! I can create a stock gallery from them too and become a model for other people to use in their own twisted fantasy works.

** As I was sitting here Luke's cell phone did a little buzz, beep thing and the overwhelming scent of primer spilled over me, I think because I used Dad's phone while I was painting earlier today. See, messed up genes. **

Oustanding, Dark, and Fanciful

Review of Andrew Lloyd Webbers "Phantom of the Opera" Film Version:

When I heard this was in production I desperately wanted to see the finished results. Having seen 'Phantom' at the Chicago Opera House I knew that even a big film spectacle would feel somewhat contained. Now, I did not actually go see the movie once it was realized because I relied on the views of others and because I listened to the soundtrack at Barnes & Noble and was really put off by the voice of the Phantom and in parts the voice of Christine. Plus I had the usual money woes at the time. . . I figured I would get around to seeing it at the re-run, discount house, but never got the chance.

Last night we watched the movie version on DVD. From the moment the grainy and surrealistic auction scene started I became entranced. The transition from this to the full color was, aside from the entire Return of the King, the only time I have experienced a strange, sustained out of body sensation from a visual and audial stimulus. (But you must understand that Luke and I both go through that thing where due to a DNA error one will sometimes see music, or smell a word, or hear a color etc. and not in a metaphorical sense, but in an acutal, literal concrete weird out. The senses sometimes blur into one another. And now you all think I am am even weirder than before. . .)

I realize that Webber cribbed a lot of chords and progressions to patch the songs together, but that is not at all uncommon in the creative world. Originality is a big fiction. Shakespeare, anyone? This film does suffer from a somewhat weak phantom in terms of singing, however, the actor has a very arresting physical presence (and I don't mean his subjective 'looks', either) that makes up for his singing when you are seeing his image. I would not and do not enjoy listening to his singing on the CD. Furthermore, some of the filler is really obvious and a bit strained if you've seen it on stage, but movies don't have overtures and intermissions unless they're "Gone with the Wind". So, although it is understandable why it is done I think the Phantom's back story is a sort of jerk in the momentum of the story. And what's with all the random drinking? Moulin Rouge-esqe. A few other scenes evoke other films, but see the second sentence of this paragraph.

All in all though the film maintains a wonderful dreamy quality that blends fantasy and realism perfectly. The actual instrumentation is accompanied by superb visual cues that mimic what one is hearing.

Perhaps my favorite performance in the film is Minnie Driver's, but everyone does a very good job of acting in this, coming just close enough to being over the top, but pulling back to keep from making the whole thing into a big, messy mockery.

WOOHOO!

For really cool Phantom trivia go to:
trivia linky linky doo

Out Back Steakhouse, You Drive a Stake of Goodness into my Heart.

Tonight the men and I ventured to Outback Steakhouse. The owner has a wife who has Celiac Disease, a disorder in which one cannot process gluten and must eat an entirely wheat free, barley, and sometimes oat free diet. As you know I'm allergic to wheat. This restaurant features a dedicated gluten free menu. Wow!

I had half a Cesar salad, five fat and lovely grilled shrimp, a piece of grilled pineapple and a few veggies and then we split four ways the lovely WHEAT FREE brownie ala mode. Everything was bursting with flavor and I enjoyed the whole thing!

If anyone ever wants to hang out and go eat. . . I know this great place. . .