I attempted fabulosity 3 weeks ago and beige mediocrity finally ensued!

So remember 17 years ago when my living room looked like this?

Then I painted it and then went away for awhile and you totally forgot about how much you couldn't wait to see it?  


Well here it is in all its Benjamin Moore's Elephant Tusk glory!!

Let's have a vignette convo next time, huh?!

Wow!  It's so.... so.... beige.  I mean, Champagne Truffle Elephant Tusk Sunrise!!!!  It might appear super boring but I assure you it's the color of virgin angel wings (is there another kind of angel?) in person.  The room grew three times its original size and it feels so fresh and so clean clean up in hurr and not even the barest hint of zombie pit stain. 

A lot of people hate painting but I love it like I love organizing a closet or eating half a pizza.  All are tasks that require hard work and dedication but are so worth it.  The prep work makes me cranky (and I'm not talking about the special joy I have in choosing the paint color or deciding what toppings I want) but after that I can get into my zen space and I'm good until some part of me starts cramping which is usually my delicate lady hands.  The rollers with a 1.75 inch shag carpet nap that I need for my super textured plaster walls can hold up to twelve pounds of paint and that shit gets heavy.  

There were several life-altering pro tips gleaned during this painting party of one that you will no doubt want to record in your diary for future generations:

I used BM's ben paint which I actually really liked.  It's their low odor, low VOC option.  Normally I only go for the chemical-laden cheap shit because I can't afford $65 for a can of earth-hugging paint and I don't need some corporation making me feel guilty for not spending a few dollars extra. But this is their low-priced option too so I get to feel superior AND save some bank!  Only needed two coats (No primer. I'm a rebel like that.) over my cratered walking dead-colored walls and I was good.  This was also nice because it took me almost 24 total hours to prep, paint and edge the space so a third coat would have meant certain death.  

At about hour 20 things start to get fuzzy - the drip cloth gets tangled and left behind because fuck it, I'm awesome at this and don't even need a drip cloth, cat hair makes its way into the paint tray and I'm tired of squatting.  Having to sit on the couch in the middle of the room is really fucking up my feng shui too.

This time I also upgraded from the lame ole blue painter's tape to the cult classic FrogTape.

I don't know about y'all but I thought it was fantastic.  And lemme tell ya, I can edge like a motherfucker - drawing for a living has its benefits - but I have to tape off the baseboards.  I just do.  DON'T JUDGE ME!!!!  But my excellent taping skills are known throughout the land - possibly more than my edging abilities.  I have an old putty knife that I use to 'seal' the edges and I sit on a special taping off pillow that I scoot around the floor on and sing the "I have no legs song" like the guy from Kids except I don't beg for money.  You will just throw money at me though because I'm just. that. good.  If you look directly at my taping you'll cry from the sheer beauty of it.  Truth. 

Speaking of edging, I also upgraded to a nicer angled brush.

In the past I've used the little purple guy with the funky rubber handle because that's what someone gave me when I first started painting but they were looking rough after many years of abuse.  I don't know why I didn't get a Purdy this time other than I didn't want to be all boughie.  I thought the brush above worked great except I accidentally left it out when I was done and it dried into a giant hard paint stick.  Dammit. In my defense I was sidetracked by the 9/11 memorial coverage so I think that was a good excuse.  Small sacrifice.

Next time - Purdy.  Because I'm worth it.

Apparently I was only worth FrogTape this time.  I like to treat myself luxuriously like the fancy beige Madame I am.

Why am I not a movie producer, y'all??!

Between the vacations and tangents I feel like I haven't posted any good old-fashioned interiors porn in a long time.  You know, just like your grandma used to blog about back in the day while drinking her Vitameatavegamin and riding on a buffalo or whatever people did back in the olden times.


Aren't you a little surprised that I refereneced Vitameatavegamin and Crime Mobb within 24 hours of each other?  Even I am.


But I needed more than normal interior porn - Lonny wouldn't do for what I had in mind.  I need to go to the good stash - big, bold positively indecent kinds of spaces.  In this case one of my fave tumblrs enochliew had the goods.  Unlike many of the other deviants on tumblr, this person actually credits the images (mostly) and that makes me exceedingly happy.  I squee hard for manners.

here

I also squee hard for this hallway that looks like glitter.  Some serious dancing and jazz hands would be passionately but mediocrely executed there.  Just sayin.

Bell Lloc winery by RCR architects here

Winery or post-apocalyptic prison hallway?  Who cares!  It's pretty bitchin and would be fun to skip down.

ice hotel

I'm not sure if I ever actually want to go to an ice hotel but I'm just grateful to look at some spaces where I can't name the store where each piece of furniture and art came from.  Spaces that are EXPERIENCES are what I'm feeling right now.

White Nothing Happens by Ernesto Neto here

I kinda want to lay under that installation!  I bet I could recreate it in my dining room with some old pantyhouse filled with a few rocks in the toes draped off my chandelier...  hhhmm....  *strokes beard*  I honestly think the weirdest part about that plan is trying to find pantyhose.  I think they quit making that shit in 1978.

Welsh Assembly by Richard Rogers here

I hate mushrooms but I wouldn't mind hanging out underneath this giant one in some swan chairs.

I'm loving all these big neutral spaces but they are kinda putting me to sleep...

Birkbeck College by Surface Architects here

Zoinks!  I don't know what I'm looking at but I want to experience some stuff in here.

here

I know even less what's going on here but oddly I want to go there more.  I'm an enigma wrapped in a riddle inside a strangely colored box...

Leviathan by Anish Kapoor here

Double zoinks!  Even odder, creepy red lighting is my most favoritest kind of lighting!  Specifically the red from brake lights when you're sitting behind a car at night in the middle of the country and there's that super creepy moment when you lock eyes with yourself in the rearview mirror and feel like a spy or someone in a B murder/mystery movie but not the girl that dies - the other girl.

Or possibly the actual murderer because too much red lighting makes one feel rather stabby.  Good thing that car ahead of me is driving off...

Rainbow Panorama by Olafur Eliasson here

This is decidedly less stabby.  I bet this is just a normal hallway but we're somehow looking at it through Karim Rashid's forever pink-tinted sunglasses or something...

Dreamspace by Maurice Agis here

Maybe this is what the inside of Karim Rashid looks like???!!!!!  If we all put on a kaftan, were miniaturized and then injected into him just like the 1987 Martin Short/Dennis Quaid powerhouse Innerspace it would be just like this!  Don't remember Innerspace??  Your loss.  It was only the greatest movie of the eighties.

Except for Big Trouble in Little China of course.  Cinematic masterpiece.  

I can't remember if there were any creepy red brake light scenes in it but that's the only possible way that movie could have been improved upon.

Unless Lo Pan could be played by Karim Rashid...

*strokes beard*

They don't make sunscreen for your soul.

So as of last week I’m now a 31 year old specimen of humanity (yay!) and still going to keep the “freshly 30” in my bio because I’m only 1 year through with this decade and that’s only like 7% of my thirties which is still small enough to count as fresh.  

I'm like milk that is no where near its expiration date!  Well, I should stay away from milk analogies because I drink almond milk now (FUCK YOU CASEIN!) and that shit lasts forever so I should change my bio to say “fresh like 3 week old almond milk and just as nutty!” [Insert nut and sauce joke here]

Unfortunately it looks like your math skills don’t get better with age...  BUT other things are definitely improving. When I hit 30 I discovered that the fear and anxiety of my youth were on a dimmer and I got my metaphorical hands out of their metaphorical boxing gloves and learned how to turn that switch down.  And NOT how I used to turn it down with booze or gummi bears or booze-soaked gummi bears (although those are still rather nice from time to time).

Last year I was finally able to conquer my drive-thru bank teller phobia and now I’m confidently depositing checks and picking up prescriptions like a boss.  Fuckin BOO. YAH.  (Ok but erry time I still say a little prayer/warning to the undergound pneumatic tube monster to not fuck up my Gringotts deposit.)  

This year I’m going bigger and badder than evil pneumatic tube goblins.  I’m turning inward.  *shudder*  I’m coming after YOU, Self!  And my boxing gloves are off in case you didn’t read two paragraphs before this one.  And I’m going to be proactive because apparently not all of my crippling neuroses were left behind in my twenties - it’s a dimmer after all, not an off switch.  

I bet the same electrician that fucked up my undercabinet lighting also installed my emotional wiring.  Asshole.

I’m already doing good - seems like forever ago I needed a shot of liquid courage, an hour’s worth of gangsta rap or a Nepalese strength mantra courtesy of Oprah and the Moon Goddess Emporium to find enough swagger to get me to mow my front yard in plain sight of gawd and everybody because I KNOW my neighbors were just judging my lawnmower tracks and state of my yard work clothes or... or... just looking at me.  *GASP*  The horror!

I think that person in the car just drove by and looked at me - for the love of gawd how will I go on???!!! *hides behind holly bush*

Rockwell, where are you when I need a good theme song?

Why are you looking at me Mr. BibleThumper??  Do you really keep sending me your missionaries to question my eternal salvation or are they secretly measuring my height/weight for the correct amount of roofies you’ll need.  No I do NOT want to see the new paneling in your bonus room!

Hey, keep your eyes in your own yard Mrs. SmugPansy. I see you over there in your church slacks and fancy hat on your hands and knees taking the scissors to your grass edge - do NOT think I won’t decide to quit cutting my grass just to spite you and your fellow rose bush retirees.  I’ve seen Hot Fuzz so I know what a group of seniors can do when their community aesthetics are threatened but y’all go ahead and come at me.  I’m tipsy and been listening to Crime Mobb for an hour so knuck if you buck, grandma.  Knuck if you buck.

After several years it appears my neighbors will not be bucking and are most likely not sex offenders or serial killers.  So now I just need oversized sunglasses, a hat, a long-sleeved shirt buttoned up to the neck and ski pants to feel normal while I do yardwork and protect my tender soul from their stares and possible honking.  Progress!  

And if I can conquer all that without getting trapped in Mr. BibleThumper’s newly panneled Bonus Room of Depravity I think I have the mental fortitude to be able to give up a little bit of control and walk into the daylight in other areas.

There is nothing douchier than taking a picture of yourself for your own blog.

Well helloooo, interwebs.  I’m Lacy.  You might know me as Madame Sunday, the HBIC of this here blog.  My turn-ons include long walks around Denver, eating mashed potatoes without wearing pants, fucking shitty contractors in the face, keepin it real and privacy.  I know that last part may come as a surprise since several times a week you read my most secretest inner monologue about saucy things like my bladder, other lady person parts, my shithole house and its devil magic, imaginary monsters and slew of other possibly embarrassing facts about my life.  I’m totally fine with all that - if anything, the intricacies of lady person parts imaginary monsters really aren’t discussed enough in this world.

It turns out that having an online pseudonym is really great for sharing your shameful love for cheap alcohol while still protecting your privacy.  It’s not that anything the Madame does is different from me - sometimes “she’s” more me than me - but I ain’t dumb!  Real life wants to get all up in my biznasty sometimes and we can’t be having that.  

But what the hell. Maintaining my special military-grade privacy doesn't require a pseudonym. Fabulosity might but we'll worry about that later. My name will now forever be associated with cheap alcohol and I’ll just have to live with that.  Sorry, real life job/family/friends/future self.  

It’s a good thing the 7% of my thirties helped me develop a glittery layer of over-sized sunglasses, long-sleeved shirt buttoned up to my neck and ski pants to protect my shy soul bits from the scariness of internet freaks.  Not you, the other internet freaks.  

However, Mark Zuckerberg can kiss my cartoon ass and you still can’t google me and get any results anywhere - bwahahahaha!  Except if you work at Google and then you know EVERYTHING about me and all my monsters and WebMD searches but I’d really rather not think about that...


Sometimes those monsters are real and they live underground, in your front yard or in a computer server somewhere cataloging your every interweb move. I've got my eyes - cartoon and otherwise - on you too, Big Brother!
And don't get it twisted - I'm still the Madame of everyone's favorite shithole ranch of amazing awesomeness. Now you just know for sure that I don't have a humpback. (Anymore.)


And in case you were wondering...

I decided to get all exposed today for the Let's Blog Off blogging challenge.  This week everyone was supposed to discuss their views on privacy and I totally hijacked that topic for my own selfish and nefarious ways.  Mwahahahaha!  Make sure to read all the other participant's commentaries about privacy because they will probably discuss important newsworthy things and not conspiracy theories and monsters.  

This makes me exceedingly happy.

all images via The Selvedge Yard

I'm still on birthday time for the rest of the weekend so I'm blogging lite.  Also, I'm busy practicing my hip check for the roller derby event I'm going to see Saturday.  I can't roller skate but just in case someone needs a little help I'll be there with a muffin top or an elbow.  

My derby name is Madame Thunder btw.

I just made an appointment to get that tattooed on my FACE!

Better yet - my VAJAYJAY!

Straight.  Up.  Class.

A glamorous vacation befitting a Madame. On a stick.

That's what I'm talkin bout, Denver.

After too many cocktails consumed and never enough city blocks walked (or is that the other way around?), I have returned to the Ranch after my adventure in fabulosity to Denver!  

Well almost... this post began at a Grey Goose Martini Lounge in the Detroit airport.  It was a circuitous route home.  


But for the sake of continuity let's just say I'm at home lounging on my couch and the "chef" at the GG Martini Lounge didn't just tell me he made my overpriced panini with love.  I hope it was the spiritual kind and not the penis kind.

Sigh...  I love traveling. *sips overpriced dirty martini hopefully not made with love and cursing my stupidity for ordering so much salt which my ankles will certainly thank me for in a few hours*  

Walking bridge over somewhere that's named something designed by someone...

Most normal people like to vacation by going to the beach and doing nothing or hanging out in a cabin and doing nothing but not me!  Being lazy is already my way of life so when I vacation I want to do shit UP.  (spoiler alert: I don't do shit UP anywhere)  

Living in the bumfuck buckle of the bible belt (say that three times fast) makes me reeeaaally want to see a city where hanging out in the parking lot of Applebee's isn't considered a rousing Friday night.  And a real city too, not like Atlanta which is just a clusterfuck of neighborhoods and makes urban planners want to commit mass suicide Heaven's Gate style.

Insert super fantastic friend with a couch just waiting for my sleep smell to get all up on it!  

By sleep smell I mean glitter of course.  

That smells like my armpit.  

Which smells FABULOUS!!!!!!  Don't ever think otherwise.

Click to make pics bigger because I know you want to see mortuary goodness up close.

I like Denver - you can be as glamorous or as hippie as you want.  Or even AT THE SAME TIME.  It's a beautiful city, the people are super nice (probably because they're high all the time) and no one made condescending remarks about my accent.   

I felt like a real urban dweller when I could look out the window and see shopping and bars and restaurants and not the Baptist parade that normally runs down my street.  You spoil me, Big City, with your super liberals and modern conveniences.  One day I will get to live with you and we will have a deliciously salacious long term affair.  Until then it's these brief encounters that leave us both wanting more.

I had no agenda other than walking around in the city, maybe walking around outside the city, maybe laying in a park and reading a book in or out of the city all in between the most important thing which was eating and drinking my way around the city.  Boom.  Done.  

*insert night picture to indicate partying is getting ready to take place place*  

Is this what a real city looks like at night???!

I can't show any of those partying pictures so use this lame substitute I don't even remember taking for the happy hour hopping montage that's playing in my head right now.  

Except this one because I'm the loser tourist who goes to a bar and takes pictures of the light fixtures.

But I also did things outside of bars and restaurants.  You have to do something before 3 pm (that's not brunch).  So we got our cultured smart on and visited the contemporary art museum.

Looks saucy!

Yarn art by Fred Sandback

Guess which art I paid money to see and which art I found for free in an alley?!

Unfortunately, due to weather I didn't get to go outside of the city and get my Rocky Mountain goodness on.  I was rather ok with this since I just saw 127 Hours the day before I left and I had to admit to myself that even though I could totally saw through my pasty angel skin, I could not break my own bones should I get in a sticky situation.  A sticky situation at Buffalo Bill's grave and gift shop which is probably the only kind of roughing it on top of a mountain I can handle.  


And I already did that on my last visit.

But on top of the art museum there was this:

This totally counts as roughing it, right?!

It's pointy just like the Rockies! 

This could be in the mountains - you don't know!!

Ok, yeah... no mountains.

Just in case you are intimidated by the fabulosity of sleeping on a couch, bar photos, farmer's markets, brunching and art museum cavorting I assure you my whole trip wasn't so glamorous.  


Because I'm a nerd I also did nerd things on vacation like help my historic preservationist host document endangered buildings around the city.  But not just any historic buildings - THESE historic buildings!

Bladow!

Well hello, former convenience store chain known as Big Top Circus now home to Asian markets, dry cleaners and multiple Cricket phone and lotto centers around the city.  Be still my heart!  I must be easily amused because I had a pretty awesome day driving around to every ghetto in the city finding these suckers.  

But wait - it gets better!  

And by better I mean worse.  Much, much worse.

Sweet baby jeebus in the manger, that's glass blocks AND an oak door!  We need a Jerry Lewis/Madame Sunday telethon to save this retro fabulosity from shitty remodels.

 I seriously couldn't get enough of these guys.  

Slightly obsessed with the tips of these beams...

I didn't Photoshop that - that's what the sky looked like.  Also, I don't know how.

You didn't want to see any more pictures of the city did you?  Good because I didn't document half of what we did but I took 1200 pictures of these.  Normal, right?

Ok just one more...

It's a BIRD!!!!!

I'm done.  I swear.

But this trip wasn't all about Asian ghettos and yarn art, it was educational too.  I learned there is a beer on this planet I enjoy, Ben and Jerry's new ice cream flavor is Shweddy Balls (I shit you not - someone please buy it!) and according to Tam, our Vietnamese redneck sushi chef from Wichita, KS who liked to frequent Denver's finest strip clubs, sea urchin will make you horny.  

Well, just the dudes - apparently all it takes for the ladies is a hot guy, so says Tam.  I think Tam has it backwards...  But we'd all been drinking sake together at this point so maybe I'm the one who got it backwards. 

But even though I'm home the party ain't over yet.  Wednesday the 21st is my birthday which means I'm just going to keep on partying Denver style through the weekend.  Hell, I may do it the rest of the month.  


Kanpai, y'all!