A Perfect Circle Recap (my reason for lack of posting)

My apologies for the lack of posting lately.

I spent the whole of last week distracted by the A Perfect Circle concert that we attended in Atlanta on Wednesday. The first half of the week was in anticipation of the event, and the latter half was spent recovering from the trip.

Atlanta is supposed to be a 4 hour trip for us, but lets just say the traffic gods had other plans. The trip was well worth it over all, but exhausting nonetheless.

Daniel and I met one of our very best friends and her boyfriend in Atlanta for the show. A Perfect Circle performed at The Tabernacle, which is an old church turned music venue. It is, by far, the best venue I have ever been to! There is not a bad seat in the house. I highly recommend anyone within a days drive to Atlanta see a show there. You won't regret it.

We stayed at the Hampton Inn downtown, which is literally right around the corner from the Tabernacle. I was expecting to have to walk a few blocks based on the map of downtown that we had, but I could literally see the Tabernacle from our hotel window. I took some photos with my phone, but wouldn't you know that they won't upload properly to my computer! Drat. I can highly recommend the hotel as well. It's pricey, but on the reasonable end of anything you can find downtown. The staff was super friendly, the other hotel guests were happy, and they have a continental breakfast that includes a waffle maker! That waffle was as big as my plate...I could only eat half! So yeah.

Ok, back to the concert. The performance was amazing. I am a huge Maynard fan, as anyone who knows me at all will tell you. I've seen Tool in concert twice, and was thrilled to see APC. My only complaint (as are the complaints of many who saw them tour this time around) was that the set list included all of eMotive, which is my least favorite album by them. I could get into the reasons why I am not a huge fan of eMotive, but I'll spare you the details. I'm not here to write a full concert review anyway. Overall, I am happy with the experience, and they DID play some other songs off their other albums, and one brand spankin' new song debuted on this tour, called By and Down. A recording of it can be found here, if you are interested in hearing it. I can't wait for a studio version of it to come out!

I hope everyone's week is off to an awesome start. Expect more posts from me on a more regular basis, as I've some things to share with you!

Juxtapositions

I wandered down to the water this morning. I couldn't help but try and catch a photo of a sight I found to be very amusing: ducks hanging out on an old inner tube that has been tied to the dock and forgotten about:

Of course, they fled as soon as I approached. Little did they know I came bearing gifts of bread. I managed to snap this shot before they were all off of the raft though, which I came to find out is actually called Big Mable. I find it nice, in a way, to realize how nature will appropriate things when she pleases. That raft had obviously been there long enough to be incorporated into the ducks' environment and no longer deemed a human "threat".

While I realize this appropriation can be a good thing, I also realize it can be dangerous. In the same way our feathered friends might make use of the things careless humans leave behind, they can also become entangled in things like fishing wire. We live an existence of opposites. Juxtapositions.

Once I was down to the deck, a little lady came up to say hi. She wasn't with the other ducks and was actually quite friendly. She got the bread all to herself (well, except for a few pesky fishes who attempted to snatch it away from her). I really enjoy how quirky ducks are. It was peaceful on the lake with just her this morning.

More Randomness

I hope everyone had a happy 4th of July! I know I did! We made another trip down to Alabama to visit family and had way too much fun, as usual. Sadly I left my camera at home so there are no photos to share, but I'll leave you with a painting I finished last week instead.

I love the succulent from this post so much that I decided to paint it. Our walls are pretty bare, esp. for an artist living here, so I'm working on fixing that. However, most of my paintings will end up being for sale at the Monte Sano Art Show and Art on the Square in September (my thinking is that I can always make more, right? AND buy other peoples' art with my potential earnings). I kind of like the idea of art rotating out...

I'm having trouble getting back into the swing of things here at home. I blame the visit to Bama. I spent a whole weekend with people I love, visiting and chatting and catching up; and now find myself alone for most of the day. Sometimes it is a hard routine to fall back into. I'm working on getting through it (spent all day yesterday "deep cleaning" the kitchen to make it feel more like a place I want to cook in)...cleaning generates creativity, sometimes, if I'm in the right mood. It's funny what can trigger the creative spark...seemingly mundane household activities really do it for me. Haha.

Well, the week is halfway over. I hope you all are feeling much more productive than I am!