A few random thoughts about the art car weekend:
-The yellow T-shirt for Georg was a mistake. It looked great, but the volunteers all wear yellow shirts so he looked like one of them. We didn't have an escort for most of our trip to the line-up, because they saw Georg inside our car and assumed he was our escort. Whoops! Next time we'll do his shirt in a different color.
-This year they made us pop the trunk to inspect our fire extinguisher! It was buried under a bunch of stuff, Georg had to jump out and dig through the trunk to find it. Last year the guy didn't want to see it, just asked where it was. Tim told me later that they usually want to see it. He had his in the front seat so he could more easily show it to them. Whew, I'm so glad we still had it!
-The best moment of the weekend was definitely meeting Ben, creator of Student Driver, who immediately said "Oh! I love your website!" Wow. That's one of my favorite art cars ever. What a thrill that he not only knew who I was, but had seen my site!
-Another fine moment was at the Art Car Ball, seeing a woman who was working a very similar late 60s look to mine. She had a big bubble flip hairstyle with a little bow above her bangs. Her hair was a lot bigger than mine, and I was feeling like my hairdo wasn't as good as hers, until I got a better look and realized that it was a wig! Her hair may be bigger but at least mine is real!
-A less excellent moment was making the mistake of telling some guy the real reason I had gotten my tattoo -- to celebrate getting back to my preferred size -- at which he went on and on about how good I looked (even suggesting that I must get up every morning, look in the mirror and congratulate myself for being so hot. ew!) and kept touching me. I was like "hello? my boyfriend is right here!" Any suggestions on what I should say when people ask why I got the tattoo? I don't want to have that conversation again.
-I love my camera (a Nikon 995) but there's only one thing I don't like about it: the lens cap isn't attached to anything. So you have to put it in your pocket. If you don't have a pocket (as my nice clothes rarely do), you either carry it in your hand or put it down somewhere and risk losing it. Which was what I did constantly during the week. I tried to remember to put it in the camera bag or the little shelf between the car seats, but I have a bad habit of setting it down on the car, where it's really hard to find among all the decorations. At the start of the Main Street Drag I was sure I had lost it. Which would be annoying, though not as bad as having to replace the lens itself. But when we arrived at the first stop, Georg lifted up the trunk and the lens cap fell off onto the ground. It was sitting on the trunk the whole way there! Whew, lucky that it didn't fall off while the car was in motion. Actually I confess that I do that all the time: leave things on the car, drive somewhere and find them when I get to my destination. As long as the ride isn't too bumpy, the toys and carpet tend to keep things from falling off.
-I thought the Bojangles fast food chain was all over the Southeast, but we only saw them in North Carolina. Bo's is my favorite, but I almost never eat it anymore because I try not to eat fast food. I was hoping that on the drive back, when I was resigned to eating fast food anyway, we'd get to stop there for some chicken and biscuits. But we didn't pass a Bo's until we were so close to home that there was no point in stopping.
4 Comments
you could tell people that you'd always wanted a large-scale piece of body art of your own design, and this was the time when the idea for what to do and the resources to make it happen came together. they don't need to know that one of the resources was the appropriate-sized canvas on which to put it. after all, time, money, and finding the right tattoo artist were all factors as well.
you should make a special holder for the lens cap that can be glued to the car! like a little pocket or something. that way it's always in a safe place, so even if you forget to pick it back up, it won't get lost.
you could also sew a little garter pocket for yourself, to wear under dresses. it might be a bit risque to reach for it, but it'd be handy! (like, the kind of garter that goes around your thigh-- with a little pocket on it.
Sarah- they make lense cap holders. It's a little string thingy that attaches to your lense and to the cap. Kinda like "eye glass" holders. You can get them at camera shops like Sam Bass.
Bojangles is, indeed, spread out over much of the South, though not in Alabama, Mississippi, or Lousiana at all. (There's a store locator on their web site, http://www.bojangles.com ). There's still not one more convenient to me than Hempstead, Long Island, alas, although there are now two in NYC proper (one in Brooklyn and one in Staten Island).
I have the same camera model and there's a little loop on the side of my lens cap... I was able to just run a string from it to the loop on the camera where you are meant to attach the camera strap. I guess there are design differences even within the same model? Weird.