I’d hoped to get the book finished by this weekend, but no dice. The stupidest things kept standing in my way. Some aren’t totally my fault. But not all.

Most of this shit is just bad luck. However, I wasn’t paying attention to some of my measurements as closely as I should have been, so that’s on me. For shame!

Some of it was good luck. Like the button issue, for instance. Had that seller not been so unresponsive, I wouldn’t have ordered back-up buttons, which turned out to be the better size. But that didn’t erase the fact that I ordered a new ribbon that was too thick. I ordered one inch instead of 5/8. Gah!

So, I ordered the right size, but we’d put a hold on our mail for being out of town for a few days. Since Monday is a holiday, we couldn’t do a 3-day hold (or something like that) unless we included Saturday. I didn’t think that would be an issue because Amazon usually comes by UPS. But no. It was going to come by USPS, and no mail came yesterday. When I realized that I couldn’t finish this weekend, I was pretty disappointed.

I still don’t have everything I need, dammit.

Not the end of the world, of course. I worked on my floor sculpture instead. Now, I’m waiting on a frog to decapitate, which is coming UPS. It’s the last piece I need as far as the animals go. Here is the basic mock-up on its armature:

The frog head goes on last at the top. From there, a small dinosaur will be sewn on top of the frog’s head. A thread will be coming out of the dinosaur’s mouth, and a stuffed fish will be dangling on the thread below that.

Sticking up from behind the elephant’s head will be a Victorian-style parasol that I’ll be decorating with some pompoms and gaudy jewels. Then, the entire sculpture will have hanging, tattered threads, as well as ribbons and embroidered notes.

But I will still need to enlist Hannah‘s help in securing the base (the drums) and making the parasol sturdy. She’s more mechanical than I am.

Another thing I’m working on is the little medicine installation that’s going in a cubby corner in the middle of the main gallery. I have a few concerns about it, but in my mind, it’s cool and interesting. I don’t have a title for it yet, but more of the items than not are appropriated from Zulu shamanism, or what is called Sangomas (healers).

I have a few concerns about the appropriations of that and a couple of the actual items in the installation itself like an antelope hide that many of the items will be sitting on top of. I didn’t kill the antelope myself, but some people might be weirded out about it. I’ve seen a lot of art exhibits with taxidermy before. This is not quite that, but for some, it might seem that way.

I first saw taxidermy artists (besides Damien Hirst) like Carlee Fernandez some ten years ago. But since then, it still seems to be all over the place with Catherine Coan, Sarina Brewer, and Enrique Gomez de Molina. There’s a number of more artists that do it. That’s just off the top of my head. If no one has a problem with them, then I hope a deer skin doesn’t offend anyone.