Tough shit

"My mom used to say that I became 

a fighter and a scrapper and a tough guy 

to protect who I am at my core."

-- Vin Diesel

Self portrait 10-24-13

"If they didn't call you a tough guy, then what else would they call you?

Something worse than that?

I'm playing parts, and if they call you that, it's because I played the part right."

-- Ray Winstone

Self portrait (2) 10-24-13

"When major badasses greet each other in movies they don't say anything they just nod. 

The nod means 'I am a badass and I recognize that you too are a badass' 

but they don't say anything ... because it would mess up their vibe to explain."

-- Cassandra Clare, City of Bones

Self portrait (3) 10-24-13

"They don't know you're
secretly a badass?"

-- Rachel Caine, Fall of Night

Badass neck tattoo!

Two summers ago I learned how to ride a motorcycle. And then I bought one. Riding my motorcycle lets my inner tough guy out to play, it frees my inner badass like nothing else. 

So for today's self portrait "disguise," I let my inner tough guy show on my outside.

I wore a ponytail wig (even though you can't really see it), bummed some sunglasses  from my son,  trotted out my costume facial hair and got a sweet dagger neck tattoo for 50 cents out of the Drug Mart gumball machine.

Just for the record, the leather motorcycle jacket is mine. It's the one I actually wear it on my actual motorcycle. It is covered in bugs to prove it.

One of the coolest things about riding a motorcycle is when other motorcyclists give me a discreet little wave when we pass each other on the road. It's like a secret handshake, just a little drop of the clutch hand, often with a peace sign, that communicates, biker to biker, badass to badass, "I ride, you ride, ride on." 

I love that shit.

Aaaaaarrrr! A pirate's face for me!

"Life's pretty good, 

and why wouldn't it be?

I'm a pirate, after all."

-- Johnny Depp

Self portrait 7-17-13

“A taste for adventure is by no means a masculine monopoly.”

-- Lloyd Alexander

“I do not see, for there is no I to see. 

That is what the pirates know. 

There is only seeing and, 

in order to go to see, one must be a pirate.”

-- Kathy Acker 

"I have a pirate fetish --

 I just always thought eye patches were sexy."

-- Michelle Branch

So, remember how yesterday I said I might start wearing an eye patch to hide my fluttering, twitchy eye?

To quote myself, I said,

"I'm thinking about wearing an eye patch.
A really cool-looking, bad ass eye patch.
It could be my thing.
I could be that cool, bad ass chick with the eye patch."

Well, I went one step further and made myself a bad ass pirate eye patch.

And once I'd made the pirate eye patch, really the only logical next step was to actually dress up like a pirate and wear it for a self portrait. Besides, it was a perfect excuse to try out my tarantula neck tattoo.

Granted, I don't look much like a chick, but I still think I look pretty cool.
Pretty bad ass.
And that fluttering eye thing?
You can't even notice it behind the skull and crossbones and dozen metal spikes.

I totally love it that my kids don't even flinch when I do shit like this.

While I was finishing up this costume, my 18-year-old son, Sam, came home from his responsible, normal, grown-up, big kid job.

I should have been fixing supper, but instead I was upstairs blacking my teeth when he came into my bathroom.

He was like, "Hey, whatcha doing?"
And I was like, "Dressing up like a pirate."
And he went, "OK. Do I have time to mow a couple of lawns before supper?"
And I was like, "Sure."

I love my family.

I mean, you know, when I'm not at sea, swashbuckling and avasting ye hearties and plundering and getting booty and lots of other super-adventurous, dangerous pirate-y stuff.

Mix-n-match

"My insides don't match up with my outsides."

"Do anyone's insides and outsides match up?"

"I don't know. I'm only me."

 -- Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Self portrait 4-28-13

“I was not ladylike, nor was I manly. 

I was something else altogether. 

There were so many different ways to be beautiful.”

-- Michael Cunningham, A Home at the End of the World 

Cheerio!

Self portrait 3-11-13

A little rebellion

"I'm not going anywhere. 

I'm going to stay right here 

and cause all kinds of trouble."

-- Suzanne Collins, Catching Fire

Polymer clay face with paper eyes and cigarette 3-10-13

Polymer clay face (2) with paper eyes and cigarette 3-10-13

A little face.
A little attitude.
A little trouble.
A little bad ass.
A little rebellious.
A little defiant.
A little insolent.

Totally adorable.

Thomas Jefferson said "A little rebellion,
now and then, is a good thing."

I agree.

I made this face from clay and paper scraps while I was supposed to be cleaning out my office/studio/workspace.

I didn't get much cleaning done.
But now this little rebel exists.
And I definitely think that's a good thing.

Takin' it lying down

Street face 2-13-13

Winter in Cleveland is rough -- snow, salt, plow trucks. It takes some serious chutzpah to slog through it. You can't take a Cleveland winter lying down. Or can you?

I stepped over this little dude (literally) lying flat on his back next to the crosswalk on Euclid Avenue on the campus of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, where I am currently in rehearsal for a play. I don't know who made him, who decided to place him there in a traffic lane, kitty-corner to the storm drain among the dropped cigarette butts. He is made of tape, I think.

Street face 2-13-13

I walked over him for a few days (every time I crossed Euclid to get to the Starbucks on the other side), and grew very fond of his anguished little face. I started crossing at that crosswalk on purpose, like a good luck ritual, just so I could see if he was still there. Hoping he was. Hoping nobody had peeled him from the tarmac. So far, he's still there. Pretty tenacious little dude.

One of the boys

Tapping my inner cool dude.
Wait, what? Everybody doesn't have a latex rubber crewcut wig?
That's a real shame.
Cuz everybody should.

Self portrait 2-1-13