ans99

So I haven't been making any real LJ entries in some time, and I'm not really planning on making any more real LJ entries, because I've determined that only one or two people even seem to notice I've said anything here. And this is not a complaint, merely a notice that only one or two people are even going to read anyway, but I think it's about time I closed this thing up.

And I hate saying this knowing how many years I've been here (since 2001!) and how things were very very different in the past, when I felt more of a connection to so many of you and you know, that I wasn't such a ghost here I guess. When I felt what I said was interesting and mattered. But I haven't felt that way in quite some time. I guess it's the trend of the internet, or maybe I wasn't very good at keeping up with any of you, or I don't even know. It's not even so much that I feel I haven't been interesting-- this year I've produced some of the most interesting stuff of my life. I have a band now, and an album, and I'm starting to put a business together to sell my drawings and photographs, and those things are HUGE to me. Maybe not to you.

I have other journals, mainly for RP and fic, so I'm not leaving LJ forever. And I do want to keep some people here on my list so that I can keep up with your lives because as far as I know you aren't anywhere else with any regularity. So I guess not much is even changing. But if you're hanging on to my name in your friends list there's really no reason to pretend anymore. I give up. If you still want me to read your entries keep me on, but I won't be making any more and I'll probably be dropping a fair amount off my own reading list, because it's been at the point I can't keep up for several years now. And I don't think it's fair keeping up with some of you when my comments and posts go ignored. *shrug*

I don't like leaving on such a bitter, nothing note, but I feel sort of bitter and nothing today so I suppose it fits.

In closing, just so at least this entry can't be ignored:

GOODBYE LIVEJOURNAL!

Heh. Nobody ever said I wasn't a complete child.

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Suddenly, I found myself without you
One day, someday, you will be alone, too
For now, I see you walking down the street with him
And I will smell your breath on every gust of wind
Why do you do it to me?

The last time I went shopping
I bought your favorite kind of ice cream
It's still sitting in the freezer
It's screaming, "You still need her."
Why do you kiss so softly?

I love to watch you on the stage
You sing about love; you sing about rage
But your song is fading so fast
You didn't write this kiss to last
Why do you do it to me?

I can't help but notice the way you kiss her
It's so much like the way that you sing
You couldn't be any prouder
When you kiss me, kiss a little louder
Why do you kiss so softly?

you know what?

i love you guys.

really and truly, i do.

even some of you who aren't reading this.

me being drunk right now has absolutely nothing to do with it i promise.

it occurs to me, while lounging upside down on my futon, while there is a cat napping feet from my head, while several warm bodies identifiable easily enough by infrared inhabit my immediate shared space... that maybe i am too content to feel the oncoming advent of death, of forgetfulness and usefulness, and thus feel no drive to create beyond "oh yes, that would be nice to see manifest one day from my rampant imagination."

i have had several things to drink tonight, coerced ken into making me multiple batches of s'mores, and i'm watching something truly horrid on a&e. it's taking me about three times the amount of time to type this as i'm correcting mistakes i happen to catch with my analitude (which has only been honed by my job as a copy editor, but i'm sure i'm still missing tons, forgive me). but whether that's influencing my mood or not, it still stands that my life is pretty damn good right now. i don't have much to complain about. worst thing that's happened to me in a while that is actually concrete is betrayal from people i never fully trusted. worst thing that isn't concrete is the possibility i may have MS (fun!). the only reason i'm really telling the internets that i might possibly by any stretch of the imagination have MS? well, two reasons really: first, i told my coworker, and i'm sure there is some sort of law, named or unnamed, that states that once you tell a coworker anything you've basically told the world. srsly, thus it is written.

second: i'm pretty sure that the odds are all of us have the spare potential to harbor MS, so is it really that big of a reveal anyway that i may possibly have it.

and i'm sure i don't. god. if you had heard me on the piano last night you never would have believed i have recurrent tingling and numbness and loss of coordination in my left hand. it never would have even crossed your mind, because during the few hours i actually practiced piano i was possessed by the ghost of something far greater than i. and my hand was pretty okay, really. what is really going on is hard to tell. i definitely have PROBLEMS, but i don't think MS comes and goes. i have physical therapy monday. i hope it will help the situation.

what i want most of all right now is to create a) a graphic novel and b) a film / tv series.

i saw harry potter 6 today and pretty much agreed with notemily-- everything was PREETTTY good except for a few niggling parts. like The Scene where... you know... happens. all wrong. but there were some moments in there i honestly thought must have been translated from my own brain, they were so close to what i'd expected and hoped for.

(oh shit, i figured out what the crappy thing is on a&e, by the way; it's the sopranos.

this is pretty hilarious, actually.)

anyway. we're starting to try to integrate the rats into one cage, but wilson hurt himself tonight by mysteriously losing his balance and losing a nail while trying to regain it, and i barely caught him in time before he hit the floor. he's been... semi-aggressive with the youngster newcomers, but i honestly think they are being ultra-histrionic on top of it all, so i'm not really sure what is going on. i think maybe they're just too young and inexperienced to realize that this is a normal part of rat life. hopefully they will come around.

(what the hell is wrong with this show. a kid is trying to relate DNR to DNA. is this show supposed to be funny"??///)

ugh. i really want to create and stuff. it's just so hard when i'm so happy. being happy is often joked as being the antithesis to creating, but i think for most people it's true. there is just no impetus for doing anything other than existing and just drinking in the win. ugh.

oh, i'm really considering roleplay again. i will nvr tell you where. NVR

since twitter is down for maintenance, you all will get the gem of the hour i was planning on posting there:

came into the middle of a st:tng episode and therefore currently trying to figure out why riker made troi cry. posted 29 minutes ago via web

in other news, today i had an adam savage moment (read: failed majorly) while trying to make my "mount the curb" shirt. basically it's a case of MAH SCREEN IS TOO BIG" and it doesn't fit on the multicolor press frames (or any frame really), therefore making it impossible to line up colors effectively. now the craft center will be closed for two weeks, which gives me enough time to try to buy some smaller screens and try again. one for each color this time. there's a damn reason it's done this way.

so my shirt will have to wait til the end of the month. this makes me sad. it'll get done, but i was really hoping it would be as easy as it was the first time, when i did a proof on paper and it came out brilliant. the instant i tried putting it on the shirt, of course, is when it failed. basically the ink dried in the holes of the screen, gumming it up. and by that time also i couldn't line up by looking through the screen because there was too much damn ink on it :( i spent the next 45 minutes trying to wash the screen out-- this was after the craft center was officially closed, by the way. ugh.

i pretty much just wanted to crawl into a hole and die at the end of that, i felt like such an asshole for wasting everyone's time. what is the worst about it is how long it took, and all for naught. i worked so hard to get it done by tonight and it just didn't happen. i even came in yesterday and tried to do it then, but there was a class all evening. yes, the last week and the day before closing, a class. that is not supposed to happen! so i made the screen but that was all i could do. and i was in such a rush i made the screen in a non-helpful way, which really made things extra difficult today.

but i learned something, didn't i. ugh.

1) must get rid of this screen. maybe i can reclaim the screen part, restretch it onto smaller frames, and ditch the big frame, or come up with some other use for it...

2) plan better. the frame was too big but it would have worked if i'd just measured first.

3) don't wait til the last minute. if it is almost closing and i run into a problem i should quit rather than rant for like an hour and make everyone upset with me and get upset with everyone. it's not worth making a fuss over, it's just a shirt i got for 5 bucks and a screen made with free emulsion/uv and squeegeed with free paint. and there is always next quarter.

at least i can take solace in the fact that, judging by this episode, really i'm no more emotional and self-ignorant than someone on star trek. god, counselor troi is so dense for an empath, it's incredible. it's like watching someone who got chauffeured around her whole life having to learn how to drive a stinky bus. at 40. i just can't relate.

the search for a companion

yesterday we went to the sac spca shelter looking for rats and cats-- a rat as a companion for wilson and a cat because we both agree it's just time. finally. unfortunately we got there a half hour before closing and there was not enough time to drink in the cats and their personalities. also, they don't want to adopt out singleton rats, which makes sense but our wilsy could sure use someone. so we said we'd think about adopting a pair. it makes the most sense, because then when wilson dies we'll hopefully still have the two who'll have each other, and nobody will be alone. i guess i'm just worried about wilson getting ganged up on by the other two or something. and two rats having to be returned if things don't work out, as opposed to one. i know how to introduce them after being counseled a little, and really hope that they all just get along when we do this. i feel bad for waiting for more than two months to get this shit started. wilson seems to have bounced back and doesn't act depressed, which kinda enabled our procrastination-- but i can't be there for him all day anymore with my fulltime job, and i don't think interaction with me can really take the place of another rat who shares his space anyway, as rewarding as it seems to be for both of us.

music

today i got up early and actually practiced piano, which was an amazing feeling. i really need to do more of that. among my various twiddlings was figuring out optimal fingering for "chain reaction", original renditions of damien rice's "rootless tree" and amanda palmer's "have to drive", and slogging through this finger exercise book i got when i was 10 and have recently cracked open again to get up my finger strength and agility. i suppose it's not entirely amazing i lost much of my groove from my lapse in practicing, but it's similarly amazing how quickly it can come back if you've had enough training consistently through formative years. so i think if i just practice more i can improve and maybe get back to where i was when i was 14 and whizzing through "cristofori's dream."

at any rate, i'd at least like to be able to play the parts i *write* :/

free food and photo geeking

after that we jetted with aj to a free pasta buffet and wine tasting in shenandoah valley, which seems to be more like napa before napa was napa. it's beautiful out there, and the winery holding the buffet has some of the best wines i've ever tasted. wasn't a huge fan of their zins though, which is strange.

people have been asking me about why the buffet is free, how we heard about it, etc. ken's parents signed us up for the winery's club-- which, after tasting their wines, i have absolutely no problem with. one of the perks besides free tastings and discounts on bottles and cases is that they occasionally give their members free meals. the winery (toscana?) is super neat, and it even had keg tastings while we were there. keg tastings are apparently sneak previews of wines to come, so several of them weren't "done" yet, but to be honest they were pretty awesome already. we bought some port and a viognier.

on the way home i made ken stop a couple of times so i could take pictures. it's a lot of beautiful farmland up there. i am sure i looked like a total geek jogging down the road from the car to get a shot but i'm starting to care less and less as i age and become progressively less attractive anyway. fuck 'em, i like taking photos.

i'm not sure what the funniest part of the day was exactly-- whether it was pie in a jar, the kinda overly threatening "we can get to the fence in three seconds" beware of dog sign, aj's reaction to the chorus of "rootless tree" (a literal "WTF"), the people parked on the side of the road that we soon realized were there to couple-fight in the car rather than enjoy the scenery alongside us... so many moments. i love my friends.

polyethylene at last

after we dropped aj off at kdvs (and i had finished chasing squirrels with the camera) we went to lowe's to pick up *****!!!!!!Hooping Materials!!!!******-- i don't think i can express my excitement on that enough-- both finding the materials and the thought of getting started, yey! i was telling ken that i think this is the first thing i've been this obsessed about in a long while. since film editing maybe?

then we went out for a short run/crossfit workout. my arm is almost 100% but very obviously not, so i've been taking it easy with pullups and pushups, but i'm thinking of starting weights up again soon.


i've been playing with the gorillapod mike gave me, finally, and it is AMAZING. tonight i saw the moon and had to try it out, so there i was lying in the grass aiming the thing as people walked by staring at me from the sidewalk. it came out beautifully though, not a jiggle or a jostle. i love this thing.

i guess am a teacher (and you can too)?

thurs is my last drawing class of the quarter. i'm consistently amazed at the attrition rate of these things, especially this quarter where i've felt spread so thin that i haven't had time to do much more than read the notes i made last quarter when i rehauled the course syllabus a little. but then that syllabus was a labor of love, so maybe it's just... good the way it is? maybe it's good that i don't get a chance to think before i teach so that i can avoid getting stressed out? god, last quarter i remember the first class i taught while in the throes of a panic attack; that was something to experience for sure, although obviously not something i'd ever recommend.

one of ken's and my little rituals takes place after drawing class, when we go to burgers & brew for dinner. this pretty much started because it is the only decent thing open past ten on a thursday night, but i've really started to look forward to it. still, i'll be kind of glad to have my thursday nights open again until next quarter. i've been teaching at the cc but i haven't actually DONE anything in there yet, and that's kind of sad. i think there's only two weeks left; who's going to make that gary oldman shirt if not me???

"come to the faire!"

we're going to the maker's fair this weekend. i've never been, but it looks exciting, and also i'll see sara and karl and that'll be nice :)

when did my life get so busy? oh well; i guess i like it that way. doesn't give me time to get too miserable. someone once told me that one of the reasons i got so depressed might have something to do with boredom, and i'd believe it. it's so easy to forget about all the bad things in life when you're rushing around, but if you have too much downtime suddenly everything's all emo-town for some reason.

keep yourselves busy, folks, even if it's just staring at the moon or laughing at with your friends.

yesterday was my birthday, so i had a joint celebration with ken (whose bday was earlier in the month). we went wine tasting in sonoma valley with a few lucky people who could happen to make it. it was a pretty epic time-- i had a mushroom burger with mushrooms, we visited ravenswood and got a bunch of free swag (including a button in french that roughly translated to "no wet chicken wine"-- "wet chicken" is apparently an idiom for "wimpy" in french!), ken made us look even more like tourists with his (sometimes mischievously misleading) tom-tom, several of us trespassed on a piece of machinery, aj and james saw a hummingbird fight, i sang depeche mode's "enjoy the silence" for a cheesemonger, james and i molested marilyn monroe, gretchen got told she looked like she was 12, we bought some truffles, alan almost got raped by some casual wine guys, everyone posed for pictures with odd statues (including a dogdragon, a t-rex and a bronzed redwood tree root), and we tried many, many wines-- among them a zinfandel port that was hands-down honestly the best wine i ever tasted (much like the woman in keswick who had the best chips ever, the guy at the counter did not believe me. i might have looked very drunk at this point, but still, have a little pride and faith in your product yo). i also took many many pictures with the nifty new lens ken got me (a canon 18-55 mm with image stabilization). it garners more light, takes less blurry pictures in the dark, and has a wider angle of view-- all wins for indoor photography, which is the bane of my existence normally).

after all that, we went to kathmandu for dinner where even more people showed up, and i clumsily introduced everyone to each other, and we had a nice meal. then back to our house for the best birthday cake in the world (a two-layer ice cream cake from cold stone, with a koala-guinea pig hybrid drawn on top-- the thing weighed at least 15 pounds). i finally met alan's girlfriend, and anna gave me yarn, and mike gave me a gorilla pod for my camera. james gave me the dianetics book on tape (?) and some sort of sheep knitting needle holders (guess which one i appreciated more, lol). :) sara and karl came up too, yay! and everyone met wilson (karl was constantly being tickled by the little guy walking all over him, and in one case the poor thing made it down the back of his shirt! karl just has bad luck with animals i guess). toward the end of the evening, our party of course degenerated into watching youtube videos, mostly the doctor who fanvids we'd done with james. ken made the apt point that they're sort of like our version of slides-- y'know, the kind that people used pull out when they had unwitting guests.

i had a wonderful day yesterday. my philosophy has long been that there is no point to doing anything if there is not a touch of the absurd involved. thanks for helping me fulfill that, guys, by making the day as unique and fun as possible :)

guess which song just came on again!

several things i've observed in the past few days:

1. nick cave is a total drama queen.

2. i think aaron eckhart looks ten shades sexier in his two-face makeup. also, i'm aware i'm the only one in the universe who thinks that, and that it probably easily lumps me in the "psychologically ill" category, but there you go.

3. peaches is sort of female trent reznor, in heat.

wilson's slowly adapting, i think, to life without house. i'm firmly in the denial stage, however, and i keep expecting him to be there when i open their cage. it's a pretty harsh reality check i keep smacking myself with.

ken's parents took us wine tasting in napa when they came out to visit. it's a pretty impressive area with some pretty impressive wine. although heck if i can back that up, i was drunk by noon.



i think this batch of wine might have been bad.




outside of v. sattui.



inside of v. sattui.





i kind of wonder what i must look like sometimes, always electing to take photographs of the ground in such a picturesque place.

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add my feed to see more artsy things more regularly, because i'll be damned if i'm going to keep this double-posting business up forever!