Painting and Dancing Party

There is something very wonderful about spending the evening (and wee hours of the morning) painting and dancing to Katy Perry's album in your pajamas. Just sayin'.

I'm sleepy now, but I just had to show you my little spitty faced love:


Oh, and have you been watching Project Runway? Yeah, I'm a bit underwhelmed with this year's cast, too, but you gotta love Suede. And if Kenley would just sew her mouth shut, she could start getting higher marks in my book too... Ha! ;)


I just finished reading Random Family by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc last week, and I still have not been able to shake the characters out of my mind. Just WOW. I am blown away by this book, and even if it's not something you'd normally read, you should absolutely give it a try. I came out of it amazed by the author's dedication to her craft (She spent eleven years fully immersed in the lives of her subjects...if that's not process art, then I don't know what is!) and by her deadpan and just-the-facts-ma'am ability to leave the reader walking away with a whole new set of strong opinions about poverty, drugs, violence, welfare, the prison system, and the state of government funded social programs in America...things that some of us don't often give a passing thought, unfortunately. I got sucked into this book by its juicy, gossip-laden opening pages, completely immersed in the middle, then I began yelling at the characters out loud at one point, and, ultimately, I left feeling completely befuddled by which character, at the end of the novel, emerges with a better understand of themselves and their life, deciding to push forward toward education and a future of providing for their children and loved ones. Just where and how this character came to these life decisions is the true irony of whole story, in my opinion. You'll just have to read it to find out who this character is and to learn about the roundabout way in which this person was able to rise out of their circumstances and face a future that just might be a little bit brighter than what one would initially expect...

After finishing the novel, I immediately started pouring over the internet, trying to find information on where these characters are now, but all I could find was a whole lotta nothing... Just more people who were also scouring the internet looking for answers. I think that is part of the poetry and artistry of the book - the author isn't giving us any answers, I suppose, though she does say she is still close friends with several of the characters. Their futures are up in the air, and we are only left to speculate.

LeBlanc is currently immersed in a different subculture now (struggling stand-up comedians), and no matter what subject she chooses to write about in the future...even if it takes 20 years before we see another publication from her, I know it will be well worth the wait and will gladly hop to the bookstore immediately on her next release date!

Happy Labor Day weekend to those Stateside! And, by the way, I really hope hurricanes would just magically vanish from our ecosystem... ;)