GJ Willis' Art Notes

Yesterday, I’m sad to report that I lost my bus pass for the month of June. I think that someone must have lifted it out of my pocket while I was in Rite Aide yesterday shopping for mouth wash. I thought it was odd that this woman brushed by in the not so crowded dental aisle and excused herself. I thought, hey that’s very polite she said excuse and there's really no reason for it. I didn’t think anything of it until I checked my jumper pockets after I left the store. I searched in horror to find that the pockets that used to contain my bus pass were empty.

So today for the first time in years I had to pay actual bus fare on the bus. I don’t know how I’ll make it through the rest of next week. Thank God/Goddess I will be receiving a new bus pass next Friday!

WHAT I’M WEARING:
Today, I’m wearing an outfit that looks as though it was cobbled together by drunken severely disabled elves.

I’m wearing a turquoise A-line skirt that is literally being held up by safety pins. It’s a skirt I made years ago. It appears that the elastic waistband became unexpectantly disengaged this morning. I had to find a way to quickly realign it, hence, the safety pin solution! Also this morning I have on a short sleeve floral blouse that has a string tie front.

This morning I caught the #2 bus the #20 bus was fast on it’s heels. The driver to the #2 bus reminded me of black female version of Divine. She had the hairline and the outrageous penciled in eyebrows and very long finger nails. However, I can’t recall if Divine had long fake fingernails or not.....

WHAT I’M WEARING:
Today, I have on a yellow ochre top under a dark blue jumper that has a yellow ochre X design all over it. In the US a jumper is a dress that has these broad straps on it. In the UK a jumper is a sweater. Since it’s summer I’m sure you can guess which of the two I have on.

Yesterday, to be 100% safe I called work to remind my supervisor that I have two days off this week. I did this because I was afraid that he forgot that he gave me clearance to take Monday and Tuesday off. I didn’t want him thinking on Tuesday that I had up and quit. I always feel a bit unnerved when I have two days off as opposed to one.

The reason why I decided to take two days off is that I noticed that some calendars have June 20th and others June 21st as being the first day of Spring. As I’ve written before I like to take the First Day of Summer, Fall, Winter, and Spring off.

On my first day back from vacation my ID badge did not work. I immediately became stricken with unbelievable gut wrenching panic and fear. The lack of entry into my workplace made me wonder if I had been unceremoniously given the boot. Who knows maybe my Supervisor wasn’t in on the day I left the phone message? Did I leave messages in vain to a machine that no one would ever listen to?

To my relief it turns out that we were all issued new ID badges. There was some type of a security issue going on. As I understand it our old badges were somehow encoded with our social security numbers.

Right now I feel very relieved and happy that I am still employed and have a working ID badge.

WHAT I’M WEARING:
I’m still continuing on with my skirt theme. Today, I have on a dark paisley skirt with a royal blue short sleeve top.

I wonder if people at work think that I went out and bought a lot of skirts as opposed to the truth that I own a lot of skirts.

The big event of the day was that today, I went grocery shopping. I can practically see all the shocked and amazed faces out there over the internet...

As I wrote yesterday after I left my father’s house on Sunday I watched back to back Volume I and II of Doctor Who. I obtained these disks legally by buying them from the UK on sendit.com

Overall, the show kicked ass. It was phenomenal! I hope that it makes it to the US very soon. Volume I and II which consisted of episodes 1-6 have been dubbed the vanilla disks. I don’t know why but that’s what they call them over on Outpost Gallifrey. The next slate of episodes to be released on DVD come out in August. I’m not sure if I’ll get them or wait until November for the box set to come out.

2005 DOCTOR WHO QUICK REVIEW

Christopher Eccleston as The Doctor
Billie Piper as Rose Tyler

VOLUME I

ROSE
When Rose Tyler meets a mysterious stranger called the Doctor, her life will never be the same again. Soon, she realises that her mum, her boyfriend, and the whole of Planet Earth are in danger. The only hope for salvation lies inside a strange blue box....

Watching this episode makes me wonder if the reason the series was rejected by US networks is because Rose’s boyfriend, Mickey, is Black. I’m trying hard to think of any other major American TV show that has the white female lead in a relationship with a black man. I can’t think of any... If they do an interracial relationship it’s usually a secondary character. So perhaps this little twist scared the hell out of US TV execs..... I’m only mentioning this because this is the only reason I can think of as to why the show might have been rejected. Overall, it was a pretty good romp. I really loved Rose’s chubby sexpot mum. She was simply hilarious. Overall, the episode was ok.

THE END OF THE WORLD
The Doctor takes Rose on her first voyage through time, to the year 5 Billion. The Sun is about to expand, and swallow the Earth. But amongst the alien races gathering to watch on Platform One, a murderer is at work. Who is controlling the mysterious and deadly Spiders?

This was an extremely excellent episode! It was rollicking good fun. I laughed out loud several times. I wonder if had this been the episode they showed first to US networks the show might have been picked up sooner. Watching the very flat last Earth woman who kept saying to her flunkies, ”Moisturize me! Moisturize me! “, reminded me of a certain co-worker who constantly applies lotion to herself several times a day. Favourite line in the episode is when Rose refers to the very flat woman as a bitchy trampoline. I also loved it when greeting the others aboard the ship Doctor Who realized that he forgot to bring along a gift. He improvised by simply breathing on them saying, ”I give you the gift of breathe!“ I also loved how the Doctor arranges for Rose to talk to her mother on her cell phone while Rose in the future and her mother is in the past. Then he jokes that she should see what the phone bill for that is going to be!

THE UNQUIET DEAD
The Doctor takes Rose back through time to 1869. But in Victorian Cardiff, the dead are walking, and creatures made of gas are on the loose. The time travellers team upo with Charles Dickens to investigate Mr. Sneed, the local Undertaker. Can they halt the plans of the ethereal Gelth?

This was the most scariest episode I saw. I was actually hiding behind a pillow while watching this episode. I also really loved the very familiar looking man playing Charles Dickens. Right now I can't think of his name but he's been in a lot of good movies.

VOLUME II

ALIENS OF LONDON
The Doctor takes Rose home. But when a spaceship crash lands in the Thames, London is closed off and the whole world is on Red Alert. While the Doctor investigates the alien survivor, Rose discovers that her home is no longer a safe haven. Who are the Slitheen?

I loved this episode because in a way it felt realistic as to the effect of going away without notice would have on loved ones. I also kind of felt sorry for the faux alien pig.

WORLD WAR THREE
Downing Street announces mankind’s first interplanetary War. But the real danger is more closer to home. The Doctor, Rose and Harriet Jones race against time to unmask the villainous Slitheen, but only Rose’s boyfriend and mum hold the key to salvation. Can the missiles be stopped?

I really liked the way that Mickey and Rose’s mother played off of each other in this episode. It made me feel that they would make a really great couple. I also found it funny that the Slitheen had a flatulence problem.

DALEK
Beneath the Salt Plains of Utah, the billionaire collector Henry Van Stratten holds the last relic of an alien race. When the Doctor and Rose investigate they discover that the Doctor’s oldest and most deadly enemy is about to break free It’s a fight to the death with Rose caught in the middle.

The return of the Daleks! er Dalek! With this episode you learn that there was something called a Time War and that Gallifrey was wiped out thus leaving the Doctor the sole Gallifreyan left alive. You also learn that the Dalek in Dalek is the sole Dalek left in the entire universe.

I can’t believe I was watching this episode feeling sorry for the Dalek. Scariest part of the episode is seeing a thin scrawny Christopher Eccleston shirtless. He could have at least worked out a little....

This Father’s Day I went over my old man’s house. I went over to wish him a Happy Father’s Day, drop off my nephew’s birthday money, and pick up my Doctor Who DVD’s from sendit.com My visit didn’t last very long because it wasn’t even five minutes before my sister came into the room my father stays in to relentlessly beg him for money.

My sister is pushing 50 and has a serious drug dependency problem. In fact she’s had this problem for quiet some time. She was half afraid that one of children would be taken away from her when it was born because her drug problem was that bad. One of her children was this close to being a crack baby.

Hearing her relentlessly beg my father for money reminded me of why I had to leave and get a place of my own.

I only wish I could have visited longer because I love my father but hate my sister’s drug dependency problem. If she wasn’t there I would have stayed longer.

Another thing that was going on was that my father was constantly worrying me about how much money I was going to leave my nephew for his birthday. He kept asking me, “How much are you going to leave the boy?” “Don’t give him too much money!” “You know you got bills to pay!” I know that he was deeply concerned that I was giving away my entire life savings as a present to my nephew. But this was far from the case.. I had only saved up $115 to give to my nephew for his 15th birthday. All my bills were paid up and I was not in danger of going to debtors prison.

In the end I was afraid to give my nephew the $115 I saved up for him. The reason was the ferocity of his mother’s begging. I do not know how strong his resolve is against her. I ended up I giving him $40 as I ran out of the house. Yes, my sister’s begging troubled so much that I actually ran out of the house. I felt that in order to have stayed longer I would have had to have held up a chair and a whip to her and say, “Back I say! Back!”

When I got home I calmed down by watching Volume I and II on DVD of the new Doctor Who series back to back. I’ll give a review of what I saw later in the week.