ans99

I feel like I haven't updated in a while and I guess I have a lot to say, although none of it is really all that good past about a month ago. So, fair warning that there is a whinefest ahead.

In fact the only really good thing I can think of is that music has been somewhat progressing. Although not the speed I'd prefer. We did an open mic back at the end of March that was .... thrilling. Successful. Everything I wanted from it we got. We networked, we didn't screw up, people loved the song. I had really high hopes.

( BUT THEN: The first time I tripped )

So after that I just gave up on the codeine. That's my funny illness story. What's not so funny about that illness is that it took me two weeks to feel halfway normal, and even then I just barely got my singing range back last week. So, no open mics for us since.

( The second time I tripped (not as funny) )

Oh but the news gets much worse.

( and the consequential fallout )

So now I guess I'm fired from my part-time art teaching job, which I loved, and I feel like this is thinly veiled discrimination. Not sure what to do next. Part of me just wants to say screw it because it's not nearly the only problem going on in my life right now, and everything is slowly spiralling down the drain and I'm almost ready to say seriously that I want off this ride.

I don't even have a therapist anymore guys. Not to mention that the roleplay game I was enjoying so much issued me a reprimand on my birthday because someone apparently has it out for me and made up some bogus complaints that don't even make sense. And now with those three safe havens gone I sort of feel like I have nowhere to go. Doesn't help that I've been going crazier than usual and really need these things much more than I might have at another time. I dunno. Feels like everything is abandoning me the instant I find happiness with it. Maybe the universe just doesn't want me to be happy.

Sorry for the moping, lj but I'm sure the three of you that might read through all this will forgive me :/

I feel like my internet presence has been disjointed and confusing, so I've been trying to merge more things together. I'm going to run down a list of things I have to make it easier to follow what I've been up to. For those who have been playing the game to win, this list will (mostly) seem a bit redundant:

1. MUSIC

First off, my new band's sites. We've just bought a domain name:

http://www.neverrightnow.com

which right now just redirects to our BandCamp site:

http://neverrightnow.bandcamp.com

The BandCamp site has better quality streams of our music, and you can also download the songs we have up there (and when we have an album, it'll be available for download/purchase there).

We've also got a Myspace at:

http://myspace.com/neverrightnow

where we'll be posting songs and gigs (when we have 'em) and where you can friend us if you have a Myspace.

You can also become a fan of Never Right Now on Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Never-Right-Now/326417010926?ref=ts

For good measure we'll be uploading our songs and announcing gigs here as well. There's also the added community aspect of Facebook, because we get to post discussions and links, which I find so super neat.

We hope to get up an actual site soon at our new domain, with lyrics and bio/press kit stuff and blog links and such. In the works: a blog (probably Wordpress, Twitter, a spot at ReverbNation, and (once we begin to amass some video content), YouTube.

2. ART IN GENERAL

My nifty-difty (it's a word now that I've typed it) art blog is at:

http://ans99.wordpress.com/

And there is an LJ feed located at:

http://hieratic_art.livejournal.com

Here I'll post my photos, drawings, fanvids, writing, and of course any developments in the band or music in general. It's DEFINITELY worth following if you like what I do at all, because it'll probably all get mentioned and then linked from there.

I've also got Hieratic updates being crossposted automatically to Twitter.

3. TUMBLR

My Tumblog is at:

http://ans99.tumblr.com

I used to have to ship Twitter to LJ (which is apparently an incredible social faux pas) in order to bring my Tumblr posts to my friends list. Now I've created a direct LJ feed:

http://ans99tumblr.livejournal.com/

In my personal Tumblog, I reblog and post all sorts of things 'round the Internet that make me smile, weep, get angry, and, last but not least, think. It's a nice collection of what inspires me on the 'Net, but also of interesting tidbits from sources that might not make the mainstream news. I also tend to post pertinent updates from my other blogs when I remember.

In addition, because of all the inane book covers I run across in the course of my job (which at least in part has me putting up book reviews on a website), I created an additional Tumblr mocking said book covers:

http://wtfbookcovers.tumblr.com

The LJ feed is here:

http://wtfbookcovers.livejournal.com

Some of these seriously have to be seen to be believed.

4. TWITTER

My Twitter is at:

http://twitter.com/ans99

Twitter is kind of a dumping ground and I'm scared to go there much because with my day and my rampant Internet addiction as full blown as it already is, I really cannot keep up with what kind of sandwich Adam Savage ate for lunch or what Neil Gaiman said to Amanda Palmer over the phone. So this is not used for much more than notifying any readers of Tumblr posts, and now Hieratic posts, that I've made. OCCASIONALLY I will do an actual Tweet. Also our British cell phone has texting capabilities so when I go overseas I'll probably use it again for trip updates.

I think that's it.

OH. Before I forget:

If you have a site (for art, or writing, or whatever) and you'd like to be linked from any of my sites, please let me know. I'd love to include you. I'm especially interested in rebuilding the blogroll for Hieratic. Most of the links from Digitalis will be rolled over but I know some of you might have some new stuff you want to share.

****

So in other news, today I've got some sort of eyelid swelling going on. It's burny and obnoxious, and I don't want to go out in public. I woke up this way, so I'm not sure what happened. Took some Tavist, which did NOTHING, and applied an icepack to the eye. Nothing is really beating it too well though :(

Also, all my Neko Case arrived, as well as the Doctor Who 2009 specials. The Neko Case is of course awesome, and I've been listening to it all afternoon.

But the specials artwork... ugh. Ok, First off, not enough Master! I'm rather incensed that Wilf gets the other CD for End of Time (Doctor gets the other of course). WTF. The story is about TIME LORDS. Not some doofy old person who... well, maybe that's a spoiler. But he doesn't deserve the Master's place, that's for dang sure. He just got in the way the entire story!

Also, the inside cover art for it is just entirely too melodramatic:



Give me a flippin' break.

If you see this, you'd better post some goddamned poetry in your muthafuckin' lj. Or summat

Today's little slice of life vignette comes from John Lennon and is entitled, "Good Dog Nigel":

Arf, Arf, he goes, a merry sight,
Our little hairy friend,
Arf, Arf, upon the lampost bright
Arfing 'round the bend.
Nice dog! Goo boy,
Waggie tail and beg,
Clever Nigel, jump for joy
Because we're putting you to sleep at three of the clock, Nigel.

notemily has got me thinking about figure skating again, something I hadn't been hooked on since I was in high school. I figure skated for about a year in high school but after I grew out of my skates I never picked it back up. I'm not really sure why; I just got distracted by other things I guess. It was a little different with dance class and gymnastics; I quit those on purpose. Some sort of thing I thought at the time was justified proto-feminist rebellion but was probably much more a product of my frustration and pride. You see, when I don't pick something up right away I do tend to drop it. I like things that I can do, and that come easily to me, so that I can feel accomplished. Many people probably feel the same, particularly if they have an issue with overly competitive behavior.

While dance class never really seemed difficult to me (the reason I quit it was that they wanted to hold me back a year and I'd thought I was doing better than that), gymnastics was painfully difficult. Keep in mind I was a 12-year-old going up against kids as young as 7. There was really no way I couldn't feel like a complete chump for not being flexible, strong, or even brave enough (backbends tend to terrify me because of the surrender to gravity, and HOMG the balance beam). I also just didn't like forcing my body to do things it was screaming at me I should cease immediately. It's one of the reasons I like yoga much better, actually; there is no sense of competition or forcing going on there, but just relaxing and doing what you're capable of doing in that moment-- and then maybe pushing a little more.

Now that I'm taking dancing again it seems much harder. In fact I don't know what I was on when I was younger, or if I was really even properly paying attention at all, because I surely do not remember learning all the shit I am learning now. Especially posture-- OH. The posture just kills me! There's this great 9 Chickweed Lane comic (yes, I read 9 Chickweed Lane, deal with it) where someone visiting the main character, a ballerina, has decided that she's going to quit grad school and become a dancer too because of the glamorous and graceful life she's sure her friend leads. After watching her friend practice to exhaustion, however, she changes her mind. "Your lives aren't glamorous," she sputters. "Your lives are the Iditarod." And it's true. Dance may look so effortless and carefree in the hands of a professional, but it is surprisingly restrictive, in posture alone, never mind many other factors (costume, long practices, the inevitable foot and pelvic injuries...). I didn't realize that until I started again, I suppose because I finally decided to actually try to learn it properly.

Anyway back to my main point. Every form of art seems effortless from the outside, if done right. And we look at it from the outside and all we see is the end product and how beautiful it is, and we think that is all there is. But there is the flip side of that-- the effort, the frustration, the worry, the struggle and indecision, and the pain that goes into making that art appear beautiful and effortless and inspiring. So it's really easy to say "I wish I could do that" but not many of us will end up doing that, precisely because we'll hit a wall at some point that we just won't want to make the sacrifices to climb. And we'll realize then that particular thing is not for us.

I happened to catch a couples skating routine tonight. One of the skaters was 15 year old girl. Her routine was, to my eyes, flawless. The two of them smiled at each other as if they were having the time of their lives but I could see the posture and the calculated precision now that I couldn't when I was 15. Figure skating and dancing are not so dissimilar. They were smiling and they were graceful but they were working their asses off to do it. And I know that I could never do that for a living. And I think today I was finally okay with it. I couldn't do it, but these people can. These people not only look like they are having the time of their lives, but despite the effort they actually are. Eventually if you're lucky you do find something like that, that is worth it to you.

Today I realized that music does that for me. I've loved music all my life; most of us do. It is rare I am able to get through a day without it. And I've always played music. I've been at the piano since I was 8 (my parents started lessons when I happened across one and just started tooling on it) and when I sit down and start I get sucked into a deep hole that sometimes doesn't spit me out for hours. I used to be so tied to regular playing, in fact, that when we went on vacation somewhere I'd have to find a mall with a piano store just so I could play one. I've been singing for even longer than that; my parents tell me I used to just constantly sing cheesy love songs as a 3 or 4 year old (it must have been young enough that I don't really remember it). I am practically incapable of stopping myself singing along to whatever happens to be playing now. But it never occurred to me that this is what I'd be striving towards as a life thing, you know? Even though I've been singing and playing and writing songs for a very long time I never put the pieces together until now. But I think this is my figure skating. This is the thing that takes hard work but is totally worth it, that I smile through because I am thoroughly enjoying it despite the discipline and attention and effort it requires. This is the thing I want to be doing, and Ken and I have both remarked to each other that when we go to shows now we get extremely jealous that we can't play. I just want to jump onstage and just take it over.

And maybe we will, LiveJournal. Maybe we will.

Hi Live Journal (Live Journal? Really? That's how the site wants to spell itself? I'd always thought, like probably 90% of users, that it's Livejournal or LiveJournal or even good old plain old LJ, but whatevs).

Lots of things have been going on for me, and thus there has been a fair amount of change. Some of the simpler ones:

1. No more Twitter feed straight to LJ (as you could probably tell by the subject line of this post)

Yes. Hopefully, unless I fucked it up, I unsubscribed from Twittinesis. Why'd I do that? Because I now have an LJ RSS feed for my Tumblog. How I got that will be explained a little later, as it's not quite as simple but it's so damn clever it makes my teeth hurt. And yes, I do say so myself.

So yeah. If you've ever been curious about Tumblr, or want to know the awesome things I look at all day when I should be working (they really are awesome and inspiring), but can't be bothered to cart your ass off to a different website, this feed is for you: ans99tumblr

2. No more all-lowercase funtime extravaganza (if I can help it, and as you also probably noticed if you pay attention to that sort of thing)

And why this? I dunno. I work at a job now, I suppose, where I need to converse in normal-speak, and I also rp a fair amount of time (I log into my rp journal faaaaar far more than I ever do this thing), where if i typed like this all the time people would probably throw me out and then i'd be sad and say fuck you lj. So that's sort of prompted a habitual switch from "no caps" to "sometimes caps". But also? It just really seems to annoy some people. Enough that I was beginning to get the feeling some of them would actually refuse to read what I read at all. Yes, this is capitulating to snobbery and to the status quo in some sense, but I think it's more important to make friends at this juncture than to stubbornly stand by some half-assed philosophy I basically made up when I was 18 and typing nonsense into Microsoft Word and realizing it was correcting all of my lowercase "i"s for me. Oh the nerve of that program.

3. In addition to my Tumblr feed, say hello to my new art blog feed.

hieratic_art is the RSS feed to hieratic, my new WordPress blog, which replaces my old B2evo blog that recently got shat upon by spammers. I won't be updating my Livejournal regularly with art, because I still don't find it highly reliable. Plus, I'd also like to keep my whining and my art at least a little separate. Just makes things less embarrassing.

4. I may actually start writing here again.

I'm pretty busy, so we'll see how it goes, but I have felt the urge now and again to jot down some thoughts that have seemed inappropriate for hieratic (so very unprofessional), Tumblr (too many shallow connections), Facebook (family members), or Twitter (too restrictive).

We'll see, LJ. We'll see.

Now you may be asking yourselves (probably not, but maybe one of you is asking yourself this-- I've got to have faith), "Why all the RSS feeds, Freyja? And HOW?"

( Wherein I am clever for once? )

Well, that's my story. If any of you are still reading, kudos and hello!