What's Beautiful?

Sorry, this blog is in dire need of some artistic inspiration! I've been so preoccupied with my man dramas and life crisises that I've been holding out on my loyal readership! All one of you- if you are still reading.

How do you define beautiful? This came up tonight in a meeting to discuss revitalizing our downtown neighborhood. How do we determine what is acceptable? How do we convince business owners to clean up their property? Do we make money available to them to help in this task? Do we set standards for frontage, signage, etc. and force landowners to comply? And, how do we define all of this? Do we want to go for sterile, cookie-cutter or is some eclecticism okay? I got into a debate with a board member one day about this. One of the businesses across the street from his has a hand painted building. It has a wild mural on the side and is brightly painted to draw attention and decorate the rather plain brick building. The board member finds this absolutely distasteful whereas I find it cool, fun and charming. I think it adds a unique element to the neighborhood. Where their building doesn't have cool architectural detail, they've added their own, through paint!

My approach to all things aesthetic is the same way. I like offbeat, quirky, unique things. Most of the men I've found attractive weren't conventionally handsome either. Most have some outstanding, quirky feature, whether it's a big nose, Dumbo ears, etc. Many times, I failed to notice these "flaws" until someone else "kindly" pointed them out to me.

That's what I like about things in nature, such as the flowers pictured above. From a distance, they all look the same, but up close, the little idiosyncrasies reveal themselves.

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Anyway, I'm looking forward to Final Friday next week- seriously, where did August go? I have a couple of friends who are having shows and I've missed doing the Crawl for a couple of months. Hopefully the weather will cooperate.


Here are links to local artists that I have seen recently. http://leeshiney.com/ and http://stephanielondon.com/.

The above photographs were found on 37 Signals' website. I found them absolutely beautiful! They are pictures of Orchid Mantis plants.

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It's one week until my Birthday. I've been so busy, that I've nearly forgotten! I need to make a plan to celebrate with friends and sit down and do my "year in review" that I perform every year. Rather than be like everyone else and do the navel gazing and existential thinking on New Year's Day (usually too hungover), I prefer to do it on my Birthday. It seems more natural to ponder the past year and tally achievements and set goals for the coming year at that time.

With school starting in a couple of days though, I've just been too busy! I've had to scrap the whole "Sweet 16 Part deux" idea since I don't have time to clean or do laundry let alone host a party! But, I was reminded that 37 is the first irregular prime number while watching tv over the weekend, so... maybe I should wait and throw myself a big bash next year. That could be fun.

Talking to "V" has made me realize how out of balance my life has become once again. I haven't had time to even think about dating, let alone anything fun for a while now. As I look at my schedule once school starts and think about how I'm going to work work in around school, there is little time left for fun or even studying! But, it's just a few more months. Sigh...

It's gonna be worth it in the end, right? I kind of feel like the guy from that commercial "Time to make the donuts..."