ARRGgghhh!

I'm having the type of day artistically where everything I touch turns to crap. On these days, my brain, eyes, and hands don't function together. Each one has its own agenda. My brain is off on a tangent, thinking about something that's bugging me, my hands break everything they touch, and my eyes won't "see" properly, therefore the clay dogs just don't look right.

My furnace is banging for some reason, and every time it kicked in, I jumped like I was being stalked in a horror movie. When swearing became the most productive thing I was doing, I just decided to just pack it in.

So I left the studio and came upstairs. Sometimes, no matter how much a deadline looms, it's best to just give it up and go do something else, before the neighbors start to wonder who, or what you're screaming at...or if they should call 911.

What better way to calm myself down than to write about the dogs? I can't think of one. Tuck has been up to his usual weirdness. I'm not sure where he thinks the bone in this picture will go, but in typical border collie fashion, he's not giving up until the work is done. I wonder if he's swearing? ("Why won't this bone MOVE?" "SHIT." "MOVE!" "Dammit.") They do say people pick the breed of dog that is most like them.

I was spending a good part of one day this week preparing for a program I was teaching on anger management (Yes, I see the irony in this) by reading the book. At one point I got up to check my email and put my book on the coffee table. I heard the book shooshing across wood and looked up just as Tuck nosed it off onto the floor. He then pushed the book around to the end of the coffee table where it was hidden from my view. Hmmmm.

He's also taken to standing in my front windows and watching the bar action across the corner of the town square. Front feet on the window sill, back feet on an old trunk with the front half of his body under the matchstick blind. There's a lot of interesting action going on over there. In summer I like to sit out front and watch it myself.

Finally, I figured out how he's opening the back gate. Front feet on the top of the gate, walk backwards with the hind feet ----and he's off to herd cars and hassle the neighbor dog.

Thanks. I feel better now. I'll work on the pottery tomorrow.