Found object... step 2... written response

When I see corn I think a variety of thoughts. One of those is grits. Not the acronym of girls raised in the south but yet the popular southern food served with breakfast or as a side item with seafood. Grits is ground up corn. My most memorable moment of grits is back in 2007 I worked for a seafood restaurant that served grits. My roommate wanted to go to Ruby Tuesdays for drinks; she was friends with the bartender. It was a Saturday night in a college town and we were typical college students. So we ride together to Ruby Tuesdays sit at the bar and each order a margarita. Beings the bartender was her friend the margaritas were stronger than usual. We spent an hour or so socializing with the bartender and one another. We were consuming several shots, most of which were bartenders choice and on the house. But being a restaurant bar it closed early so we headed home. Altered logic when we got home we decided to do some shots and go to a house party we were previously invited to. We arrive at home, each down 4 consecutive shots of Bacardi superior, which we probably didn’t need, and head to the party. I was wearing boyshort underwear, which covers more than my swimsuit, jeans and a tank top (which will be important shortly). We arrive at the party of about 15- 20 people most of whom we previously knew. They had beerpong going so we signed up to play. When our turn came around me and one of my roommates Monica was on a team. Drunken logic she looks at me and says “we need to distract them.” At that moment she takes off her shirt and I take off my pants. Both of us were drunk beyond aim and of course lost. We continued drinking anyway! At this time I had this weird habit or routine, especially when drunk, of picking people up and spinning them around. So after we lost being funny I picked up this older guy and spun him around. After setting him back down I was introduced to him, he was our friends Zach and Russ’ dad. He just looked at me and then looked at his son and said “your friends are going to get me in trouble.” Mind you at this moment I am only wearing boyshort underwear and a tank top. Shortly afterwards I ended up getting sick. I spent the night on their couch with my head next to a trashcan and my other roommate Lauren taking care of me. I wake up suddenly at 7am disoriented and realize I am still at the party. I wake Lauren up hurriedly, “Where’s my keys? Where’s Monica? She had my keys. ” Monica had hooked my keys to her belt loop so we wouldn’t lose them. After repeatedly calling her and texting her she answers. She had left with some guy after I passed out. I beg her to wake him up and come back with my keys, I had to be at work at 10am and still needed to go home shower and get my uniform. She arrives back and we all go home and I frantically get ready and rush to work. I was extremely hungover and serving seafood was the last thing I wanted to be doing or smelling for that matter. I thought maybe I should eat to settle my stomach but what could I eat that was mild and soft. That’s when I decided to eat grits. Plain grits should be fine. Wrong! Shortly after eating I got sick. Most of you probably have not experienced getting sick after eating grits but it is not pleasant. They stick in your throat; it feels as if you have swallowed sand, thick grained sand. But sometimes when I see field corn I think grits, and sometimes when I think grits I think of this fun but rough weekend.     

After looking at these gourds my very first thought was maracas. My mom had been to Mexico before I was born and brought back a sombrero and a set of maracas. I remember playing with them as a child. They were emerald green with metallic flake. They had some little Mexican design hand painted with acrylic. They were so much fun and I’m sure I drove my mom crazy with the noise but I loved them. I asked her how they were made and she explained they were made out of gourds. So anytime Halloween rolled around and you would see aside from the pumpkins decorative gourds. I remember always wanting to make maracas every time I saw them.

This horse bit brings my niece to mind. Her name is Kristin and she is 12 years old. I grew up and randomly encountered horses and opportunities to ride them. I was always so nervous, which is part of a weird feeling, which I don’t like; I get around animals bigger than me. My niece on the other hand has always loved horses and has taken to them naturally. Since she was old enough to ride she has been. Also since she was old enough to ride I would and will only ride on the back and let her control the horse. This is one of the few situations I, at 26 years old, feel safer in the hands of my 12 year old niece than my own. She doesn’t mind one bit, in fact she enjoys it. She recently saved up and bought her own horse with her own money that she did not have to share with her brothers. She completely takes care of him and used her Christmas and birthday money to pay to have him gilded, which I just happen to unknowingly show up in time to witness. Kristin and I are close. We have a pretty strong relationship and she resembles me both in looks and personality more than my sister, her mother. Anytime I see or think of anything to do with horses I think of her. 

These antique Gulf signs make me think of the actual Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Florida. The fact that it says “good” and it was a gas sign is kind of ironic. It makes me think of the oil spill by BP in the Gulf of Mexico back in 2010. A disaster that killed 11 people, injured 17, dumped 4.9 million barrels of crude oil into the gulf, and had an 80 square mile “kill zone”. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepwater_Horizon_oil_spill)  

One thing I noticed about this tag was its sticker, which revealed that it is older than me. The other thing it brought to my attention is the amount I drive. My friends and family say I always have to be “ass in the road.” I commute 100 miles roundtrip three times a week to work. In addition to this I take random short term roadtrips such as driving to the keys once or twice a year. I have had my car 3 years and 3 months and am about to reach the 100,000 mile mark. My car had 19 miles on it when I bought it. I am not sure if this is common or not but I feel like it’s a lot. On top of the amount I drive I hate driving. I would gladly be passenger all day long but hate to drive. Driving puts me to sleep. Something about driving in the day when the sun hits my face it’s a fight to keep my eyes open sometimes. I’ve been in two accidents falling asleep at the wheel. Luckily both only damaged my vehicle and not me. It’s not something I’m happy about Its just a thought that came to mind when I see this tag that has so much history that I know nothing about.

Red glass is a rare thing. If you think about it your most common glass is brown, clear, or green. Then there’s blue or cobalt, then red. I was walking down the beach with my mom one day and found a piece of glass that was still sharp and had not yet became seaglass. Part of me wanted to leave it so it could finish becoming seaglass but this was overridden by the part of me that hates littering and I picked it up and added it to my bag of trash that I had picked up. As my mom and I were walking I explained my fascination of seaglass to her and how it made me want to make things with it. I’m not even positive what I would make, but jewelry was one of my ideas, which I had gotten from an art walk I attended in Jax beach where an artist had made earrings and pendants with it. During this conversation I asked my mom if she thought it was possible to make my own seaglass by putting ocean water, sand, and glass in a jar and shaking it every day when I come home and randomly when I’m bored. She agreed it was possible but probably would take a very long time. I told her I wasn’t in a hurry. After our walk on the beach we returned to my apartment and I thought no more about the conversation. Evidently she did. A month or so later my dad gives me a call and explains my mom had told him about the conversation and he had an idea. He wanted to (and is in the process of) make a contraption out of a drum and sand and a motor that would constantly stir mass amounts of sand, water, and glass to produce a lot of seaglass. He then goes on to tell me he has been collecting glass to put in it. A week or so goes by and my dad calls me again all excited. He had gone on a walk while he was in Alabama and came across an area that was previously an old junkyard. At first he found a couple pieces of red glass so he began to specifically look for it. The junkyard had been there a long time ago (no longer there) back when vehicles had glass taillights. So he found a lot of broken pieces of red glass. He ended up picking up a gallon bucket of red glass, just to make seaglass for me to make stuff with. When he got back to Florida he called me to come visit, the first thing he did was show me all the red glass he had found.

The feathers obviously make me think of birds. But not just bird=feather, but of freedom, flight, and beauty. I have always loved birds, although at times they can be very annoying. But as I write about them I think I love the idea behind them. I remember having parrots when I was really young and cockatiels when I was a little older. But the biggest thing I remember is the messes they made. They pooped everywhere, and slung seeds everywhere. They are as messy as having a kid. My grandfather stayed a couple months with us and would always wake up early. Being the only one awake he would go talk to the bird and whistle with it. By the time he had left the bird was on a schedule of at approximately 7am every morning it would begin whistling the theme song to the Andy Grifith show, which my grandfather had taught it. I found this super annoying especially because I am not, nor have I ever been, a morning person. So I started thinking maybe it’s a caged bird that hits my nerves until I remembered a different bird situation. An even later instance was when I lived in Casselberry in 2009. We lived in a neighborhood that had free roaming neighborhood peacocks. At first I was in awe at their beauty. They really are amazingly beautiful. After living there a short amount of time I began noticing all their annoying habits. Aside from the fact that they would get on top of my car and scratch up the roof, and poop everywhere, they would get on the roof of the house above the bedroom and constantly make their calls. Usually early in the morning when I was sleeping around sunrise. They have a very distinct sound that you cannot sleep through.

These Soda bottles raise several thoughts in my head. These thoughts range and stray. One of these thoughts makes me aware of my own soda consumption and consumption of beverages from bottles. I noticed I drink soda mostly when I work, I guess for the caffeine and because it is readily available. I rarely drink soda out of bottles, not even plastic. I drink a lot of bottled water, more than I should because of the impact of its plastic on the environment. I consume a lot of bottled beer especially at home however I do recycle which doesn’t fix things but it helps not to make them worse.