The other day, when I decided to throw caution to the wind and paint again, this happened – but, you’ll be relieved to know that I put a stop to it as soon as I could.

First it became even more hideous – in a mocking sort of way, but I had the last laugh when it found itself in the trash.

Don’t mess with me!

So, coward that I am, I went back to the old faithful.

Which bored me.

And threatened to put me in another funk.

But, I plodded on,

Making stuff just for the sake of it,

 Which bored me more.

Until finally I gave up and sulked myself further into the funk.

Is it the same funk? I wonder to myself.

Or, is it allergies? Stranger things have happened. I do live in Texas you know, and suddenly, all that green stuff is laying about, conspicuous in its innocence (to the trained eye), on all available surfaces.

This, and those wind turbine things, remind me of the late great science fiction books. The turbine things are the new and improved War of the Worlds aliens. Sleek in design yet even more sinister in their silent, never moving way. They just bide their time, collecting the wind so to sniff out human happenings, looking, but not looking, and, all the time multiplying until, before you know it, they’re everywhere, like in Sweetwater, TX.

See!

(Actually, that’s not Sweetwater, but yet another example of alien infiltration on the outskirts of a doomed Texas town. Who will be next?).

And the pollen? Well, that’s obviously some kind of insidious microorganism waiting patiently for us to inhale them into our bodies, so that they can use us as a weapon to fight the wind aliens and continue their quest to take over the universe. Some of them will be wasted, of course, but it’s a sacrifice they are willing to take.

For them, failure is not an option …

As for Inspector Lynley, I was finally allowed to see the connection between the baffling – why are you telling me this – sub story, and the main story. I must admit it was in a bit of a ‘duh’ way, like I really should have seen it coming. But, as I’m not really that invested in the story the connection caught me off guard and it ended up more as the ‘boom boom’ part of a bad joke. (Can’t really sound that out in words so you’ll just have to work with me here).

I still haven’t finished listening to the story, but we all have to suffer in our own way.

On a lighter note: I burnt a hole in the studio counter when I put the nitric acid into a ceramic dish, (don’t judge me – it said I could). It was obviously not the right kind of ceramic dish, I think because it was old and crackly. I just thought, wow, that nitric acid evaporates quickly, but no – it had seeped right through the bottom and now I have a humongous area of molten formica counter top to forever flaunt my failures. It’s as though one of those alien versus predator things has dribbled its caustic saliva onto it.

And, the moral of the story is …

Never play with acid when you’re in a funk!

I’m telling you, this mood better change quick otherwise I’ll have no studio left.

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Be afraid. Be very afraid …

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