Things that defined my day

Shiba Inu puppies, live on webcam. Honestly, I spent about two hours on that.

Writing a false memory for a friend.

Having a decently long talk with my mom. Despite proximity (uh, living in the same house), we don't communicate much. She told me about what's been going on at school; I showed the quick paintings I did a few days ago and talked about my renewed somewhat interest in poetry.

Other than that, today was mostly ebb and flow of information. I think most of my words were spent on that false memory fiction bit. Last night was another 6 hours of sleep, and I'm going to attempt 9 tonight.

I'm not going to be anything but myself for Halloween. Here's some of the doodly stuff I do when I think nobody is paying attention.

Bold moves

The last thing I will do tonight is fetch a glass of water for Reagan.

The last thing I will do tonight before closing down my laptop to begin the ritual of going to bed is close all these tabs and mark everything in my feed reader as "read".

This isn't because I'm running out of free scrawling space in my scratchbook (though I am, and it distresses me), but because all those brains out there in blogland are way too sexy. I'm falling hard for you and we need boundaries before this relationship destroys me. It's not you, it's me.

Really. Running out of room in my rough and cozy hand bound book of random paper. What kind of wisdom can I fit into 14 pages! and where will the thoughts go when those are done with? I suppose I could use the backs of the pages which were earmarked for sketches... No laughing. This is a real threat.

I'm getting punchy and posting very late. Another occasion of pushing myself despite lacking a clear reason to. (Other than cramming before taking drastic measures.) But this is a tired topic that I've just come round to again with a different solution to try. Like ants (except my interrelation with blogs has the potential to be beneficial!)

In the past couple days I've shaken my self in slow motion and wondered why I do this nightly posting. When was the last time I gave the practice a critical eye and demanded I account for this will to update daily and to include art as often as possible, ideally every night. The first shake came from a bona fide art blogger (or several) examining their own relationship with the form, and how the practice had become a downer. I looked in the mirror and wondered if I was being disingenuous to myself by "forcing" such regular posts.

Right now this is flow for me, not forcing. Large or small, I like recording things every day and doing my best to have something creative to show... a proof of self-concept.

Another, even less happy, part of the shake when I stumbled over the mention of "professional blogging". This infirm form of writing has become the new journalism, a new norm with a low barrier to entry. I like parts of the theory and the practice, but there are aspects about a lack of quality control that rub me wrong. Ironic, i know, to criticize blogging on a blog. A Blogger blog, no less.

Quality control only comes into play when the discussion turns to the meta-form, though. At the day to day, personal level quality control comes in the form of one's own freedom to choose what to read and what not to read. Much easier to cut people out of a digital life than an analog one. Getting dangerously close to a long winded talk on meshing the two or keeping them utterly distinct.

I should have been bringing the topic around to drawing or daily practices instead, because--resorting to another stop-gap measure though it is--I'm sharing a different side of both today. Since the 23rd of August I've been depositing the first sketch of each day (often the first action of a given day) in one particular sketchbook, always with one particular pen. A blue one, because it matches the cover.



That's actually from this morning. :)

Now to turn down the volume on these tubes so I can hear myself think...

Producer/Consumer: Circle of Life and/or Art

Somewhere near the heart of art is the spirit that makes what we're doing more important than heat or food or sleep. It happens on both ends, for creators and audience.
But, like anything else, this spirit can be a source of downfall and destruction as well as a source of uplift and creation. Our humanity is found in things that lift us beyond the animal here-and-now and moves us to a place of thought + ideas + imagination.
These things are difficult to say because they are not complete definitions or exclusive applications of the ideas.

It happens on both ends, for creators and audience.
One side of the experience, the creator side, is the cosmic current that pushes and pulls at our psyches, perhaps an aspect of the Muse, although not personified inspiration herself. Inspiration gives us direction, but the spirit I'm talking about compels the process, the journey following her. The audience side, in its base form, is called escapism, but the same taking-leave-from-reality can happen when avoiding things of this world is not the goal.

For most books I read, I reach a point at which finishing the story is the most important thing to me. Famously, I read the first three Twilight books by Stephanie Meyer in about 72 hours. The lamp is at the foot of our bed, and most of the sleep I got in that period, I got upside down. (To read in bed right-side-up requires a booklight.) Nap, read, nap, read. This also happened with Midnight's Children, The Scar, and many other books in the past. It occurs, too, with other mediums, though is not as noticeable since the consumption rate for movies can't be accelerated, and even as I burn through DVDs of a TV show, I'm also doing other things.

Before writing the original snippet, I'd never connected the pull to create and the pull to (for lack of a better word) consume. Deep down I don't think they're the same thing, and maybe not even as connected as siblings, but there is undoubtedly a sense of stepping into the same river, whether I'm hungry to consume art or create it.

Due diligence

Blog-wise, I'm having an in-service day for spousal illness.

But I'm a compulsive artist, so here's a 5 minute self-portrait I took 30 minutes to do:

It's actually very accurate, except for the fact that my head is far lumpier in person.

Pushing the Last

I've made my art post for the day, and am high on hours, but want to attempt this parcel of thoughts anyways so I don't neglect it completely.

The whole of Sunday was delicious for my brain on at least three different threads, and I hope to visit all of them eventually, but for now I focus on the things I discovered about the human spirit.

The big ideas I like to approach often involve tacking words onto concepts that are uncomfortable being defined; following where I am headed requires being open to overlaps and intersections and omissions. Even though it doesn't start the journey from wholly common ground, I open with a quote straight out of my sketchbook:

Somewhere near the heart of art is the spirit that makes what we're doing more important than heat or food or sleep. It happens on both ends, for creators and audience.
But, like anything else, this spirit can be a source of downfall and destruction as well as a source of uplift and creation. Our humanity is found in things that lift us beyond the animal here-and-now and moves us to a place of thought + ideas + imagination.
These things are difficult to say because they are not complete definitions or exclusive applications of the ideas.

What a cobble's knot to untangle.

Somewhere near the heart of art is the spirit that makes what we're doing more important than heat or food or sleep.
Most directly, this ties in with Goldworthy's comment in Rivers and Tides about not feeling the cold when he's working with icicles in the snow and the work is going well. The impulse to engage with something that has meaning, while not a basic need of subsistence (food, shelter, etc), dampens those needs. A neuroscientist could probably tell you a particular chemical is being pumped into the system disrupting biological systems. I am not an expert on such things.

But I am an expert on this feeling of being unable to let go when I have something to express. Right now, for example. If I laid down I would be exhausted. If I went to the kitchen I would be ravenous. But I am neither of those places, and many times over I would rather be here, trying to explain myself, than taking care of those things. It doesn't always happen with "explaining" things. This happens whenever I want a project to reach the next stage. I get tunnel vision, and coding or drawing or writing or knitting or sewing... all these things have the potential to be more important than eating or sleeping.

I don't believe this phenomenon is unique to art or a requirement of art, which puts me in a tricky situation as I want to make sweeping, generalizing statements. Balance this on a knife: forces more potent than instinct are involved when creature comforts are forgotten.

to be continued...

Bridging the days

Today (Monday) ends where Sunday began: with Mark Chong

Early Sunday I came across this post (via the marvelous gorilla artfare, I believe), and was greatly inspired. I took my camera along on my walk intending to do my own photo referenced speed paintings, and finally got around to them tonight.

Exhausted from a long day of this-and-that, it was easy to follow Mark's "burred eyes" advice.


This one took 20 minutes. (Photo on the left, painting on the right, naturally). I don't think it was the best first choice for working on things like color picking and color blocking. It was a very high first hurdle, and even on things as basic as composition I made mistakes.


Second hurdle wasn't much better. Took 20 minutes on this one, too. I time myself with a randomized playlist that limits itself to less than 22 minutes, but the over/under is almost always within 10 seconds of exactly 20 minutes.
This photo isn't from my walk on Sunday, but almost all of the pictures I took then were terribly lame and poorly suited for this exercise. I think it comes from mid-July. Water is difficult but fun.


Sunday Sunset. This was such a good choice of photo to reference that I actually did only take 10 minutes on it, and it would've taken quite a different thought process to spend twice as much time on it.


I'm still pondering where this exercise fits in the scope of my art practice. It has the same feeling of fun as the pencil sketches of naked people I did last week. A little more hyped up and frantic, but I think that has more to do with my pushed-to-the-limit state of mind than the actual artsing. Suffice to say I look forward to pushing around more digital paint.

Shattered somehow

After my day of trekking around town, the good mood shattered like hot glass dropped in a cold bath.

I did hardly any drawing today, which pains me, but I did much thinking about drawing and scribbling about it in my scratchbook. Yoga and walking were victories, too.

There's a war going on in my brain between the arguments in favor of throwing together some art and pretty words for posting, and the faction of arguments that want to relax, let it go, and store up Desire and Energy for tomorrow. Actually, the debates are over and the "No Art" faction won the election, but without a mandate of the vote (third party candidate, Photo Post, took 8%, spoiling No Art's landslide victory). Now there are riots in the streets as the conservatives, who supported Art Every Night, are unready to have their figurehead leave the seat of power.

I guess that means this is a lame (duck) post.



... okay. Enough of this nonsense. I'll be better in the morning.

Goldsworthy

I managed to watch all of Rivers and Tides this morning, and doodled in my scratchbook.

WONDERFUl experience. While I was taking mental notes and screen captures all the way through, I think the most important thought came to me at the very beginning:


What is the objective?
To reach the destination as fast as possible?

Or to fertilize the most ground possible?

Looking at Goldworthy's rivers (the winding style he has an affinity for), my left brain piped up asking "what is the land like that the river crosses that land in such a serpentine way? isn't the tilt of the land such that the river would rather flow in a direct line?" That gave rise to "what is the benefit of a winding path?" My answer "more fertile soil" was rather practical and maybe not correct, but it was easy to draw a metaphor between that river form and how I travel through life.

Even yesterday I was pondering over my objectives and how I partition my energy and time. I want to see where "Slow. Wandering. Fertile." as a mantra takes me. I want my brain and soul to have richer soil.



Black roots: below the soil line is were the earth transfers nutrients into the plant (bracken in particular), and that point of energy transfer leaves a mark on the stalk. (VERY paraphrased from the movie, but a thought I want to keep)

Cliffs and pillars in the sea: Amazing. Not something typical to the SoCal coast.

Wooly cow: So cute.

Mondrian tree: Sarah posting this clip from the film is what drew my attention to Rivers and Tides recently. When I got to that part on my own, I was reminded of my beloved Piet Mondrian trees and did my own, after a fashion.

And other forms and ideas. :)

Scannies couldn't make it...

I send her instead.



Reagan's taken slightly ill and I don't want to bother mucking about with his computers to scan things, so I (mis)spent an hour learning how ignorant I am about PHOTOSHOP. Really, it's not as simple as you think.

I was partially inspired by this song [youtube] conceptually (though it doesn't show) and Alida Saxon visually.

My painting skills are immature. Something that's somewhat lacking in my drawing, especially because I spend most of it working from static references, is a good grasp of lighting.

Most of today was spent hanging out with a sick husband (oh, he is so toasty warm), chatting/commenting/tweeting on the internet, and occasionally writing things in my notebook. Things like "cities in canyons as primordial Manhattan" and "illiterate rural communities; postmaster+ reads (aloud) and transcribes letters as well as delivering them".

Today's deep thoughts award goes to part of the email I sent to Sarah Frary:

Despite the limitations of my situation, I still feel overstimulated
in a lot of ways. The kinds of ways that don't leave me open to
playing or exploring as much with my creativity. I spend so much
effort trying to make up for lost time. So much to see that I let it
pass before my eyes without taking the time to really look. So much to
hear I don't listen. So much to read I don't understand. So much to
draw I don't create. So much to know I don't remember.

At the end of the day I think I did play some (though I cared to make the output post-worthy), and I was listening to music (randomly) for the duration, but can I really plant a victory flag when I accumulated a dozen open tabs? Tabs I really want to read and give critical attention to?

Besides all the intensive internetting, a mild quasi-toothache has been a distraction from doing mass quantities of straight-laced drawing. I doodled for 40 minutes, but no references were involved and nothing broke the barrier from doodling to sketching.

I just realized my painting is missing eyebrows. Time for bed.

Everything! Everything!

Despite the crumbling feeling today started with, it ended much improved. Quality time with Reagan included long slow walks across the parking lot between the bookstores we frequent. Very relaxing. Draco made a surprise visit as we watched the first episode of Heroes third season. There was some enjoyable hanging out at home, then a brief trip back to the bookstore so he could pick up a graphic novel. Lots of little things that accumulate and remind me things aren't all that bad.

Today is a data point that moving around makes me feel better. Despite being up 18 hours, I'm still bright eyed and not looking forward to bedding down.

Personal Cosmology

Or: Things In My Orbit, Natural and Unnatural.

First thing this morning I read the "paper" (my livejournal friends page) with my tea. One post in particular got me thinking about my identity and how I work on myself, plus how my head is a place of such conflict and contradiction.

This year I've been working harder than ever to codify myself, and fortunately I've been presented with a tripod of personal philosophies that I lean on and build from.

Aspect number one that I brought into my orbit has been a part of me for many years and comes from Mary Schmich by way of Baz Lurhman (youtube). Nicely in the form of a song, the words have been a great source of comfort to me since I first heard the song, probably around the time of it's release.

While I agree with most everything in there, one piece I try to hold onto the most from the column/song is this: Do one thing every day that scares you. It's hard to argue with. Step out of your comfort zone daily. This influence was the most instrumental in my decision to take a long early morning walk last week.

An offshoot inspiration to this bolder aspect of interacting with the world is the character Veronica Mars. "What Would Veronica Mars Do?" Many of the things she does, the easy way she interacts with people, especially strangers, are way outside my comfort zone. She is my role model for being less self-conscious and more self-possessed.

Second in my list of personal influences is Randy Pausch. I didn't put a ton of weight on his lecture video the first time I saw it, but watching it again earlier this year it seemed more in tune with my wavelength. (Just being exposed to the first 30 seconds as I retrieved that link hearing his voice brought tears to my eyes.) Also, I'm glad I read the book when I did because as I read about Randy's life and philosophy in more detail, I could hear the words in his voice. Very special.

The two keystones I take away from Randy's lecture are "go after your dreams" and, to use his phrase, "brick walls are there to stop people who don't want it bad enough". Surely these ideas aren't unique to him, but Randy's attitude of a relentless pursuit of fun makes internalizing his philosophy irresistible. He's very much "whistle while you work".

In the past year it's become more clear to me that being capable in creating images is a dream-quality goal. Drawing isn't something that's been a part of me since I was a child (although writing is), but my convictions that I want to pursue this path has grown exponentially. Randy's words of wisdom give me more confidence and assurance that if I mean it, it's worth it to climb over the brick walls, and doing so will get me closer to where I want to be.

I don't come away with the idea of "the power of positive thinking", but with an understanding of the values of optimism and genuine joy. "It's not easy, but it's worth it." I love the vision and the appreciation for struggle and determination. Having this resource at hand helps me get over discouragement at slow progress.

Speaking of progress... The most recent to this group of influences is Keri Smith, who I have mentioned before. And, yes, perhaps she is too new to be a fully tenured member of this pantheon, but her influence is currently in residence.

"Progress" is a segue to Keri Smith because it's something I don't associate with her. Where Randy advocates journey towards a destination, Keri seems to prefer journey with twice as much focus on journey as destination. I might be misrepresenting her ideas, but in the pantheon she is the goddess of "This, Here, Now".

I'm noticing that while these influences are arranged by when I picked them up, they are also ordered by pragmatism. I'm trending from very basic, grounded, scientific advice, to teachings about personal goals and trajectories, to encouragement to seek, accept, and express beauty. The nugget I get from Keri Smith is "disregard nothing". (Another aspect of progression: Single column/song, to 60min lecture/book, to multiple books/extensive blogging and linking.)

The nuances beyond and behind those broad, basic strokes on my interpretation of Keri both comes full circle, connecting back to Mary's advice, but also moves completely away from it speaking in terms that needs the midpoint of Randy's philosophy and the butter in the cracks of my thought process to draw a line between them.

Another sound bite iteration of my version of Keri's philosophy is "Try anything; be uninhibited; nothing is beneath you." The direct link to Mary's column is "do scary things"; I've mentioned before how reserved I am. But I have the goal (buzzword!) to be a person with more aspects, more experiences, and more varied thoughts. Actually, I don't know if I need more aspects or more varied thoughts (I'm scattered and complex as it is!), but I definitely want more experiences, so I mentally keep Keri at hand so I hope I can step up and be willing when opportunities present themselves. Internal Randy tells me to create my own opportunities. :)


Part two: Barriers to me conceptually discipling myself to these ideas.

I have no issue with Mary's advice. How could I? Both practical and helpful.

Randy's ideas I don't wrestle much with either. I'm not fanatical about it, or an extreme evangelist (although I do like to recommend him to people when it's relevant). The latter would be annoying to other people, the former would be annoying to me because it would have the potential to create difficulty between Reagan and I. Recently we've had quite a few discussions about our approaches to life, specifically how I'm more aggressive about trying new things and how it's less natural for Reagan to leave the computer without a specific need to. If I was religiously gung-ho about dreaming and pursuing goals, I'd want to be married to someone of the same religion.

The influence I am most likely to reject in the event of a transplant is Keri Smith. Blame my balanced brain.

I long for the ease of a wholecloth philosophy that doesn't label, doesn't judge, doesn't reject, doesn't rank, doesn't devalue, but I can't get there. I want rainbows and sunshine and nonprofits and sharing and things without downsides, that do no harm. I want single solutions. But I don't. I want to believe that everyone is an artist. But I really don't.

Humanity is flawed, and I feel like a lot of the culture that Keri Smith represents disagrees with me, or at least turns away from that idea. (This is the point in the discussion where I sit rubbing my head for minutes at a time, pondering.) More than a cynic, skeptic, rationalist, or pure realist, I see myself as a person of counter points, of seeing the other side. I believe there are always more factors, more points of view, and also that some arguments are more valid than others.

That scattered viewpoint aside, I think the reasons I can't become a Keri Smith acolyte is the exact reason I reach out to those kinds of philosophies. I need the goodness and warm-fuzzies and proselytizing for arts and creativity as an offset to my support for progress and acceptance of globalization and industry.

Professional Grade Confusion

Am I allergic to proper rhythms or something? Ten hours of sleep, 14 hours of being awake, 5 hours of sleep, 9 hours of drawing?!?! Is this some kind of joke?

In any case I have nothing of interest to say. Consciously, I can't even remember most of what I 'watched' in that nine hours, but the drawing experience was one of the best I've had in a while. I spent phase one (fig. A) doodling out whatever came to mind, phase two doing some basic referenced drawings (not pictured), then moved into phase three.

In phase three I pulled out the pose reference book Reagan gave me for my birthday. it came with a dvd that has 35 2-person poses, each from 20 angles. I grabbed my RED sketchbook (a birthday gift from Carol <3) and a pencil and spent time doing sketches more wild than I usually do (fig. B). For some reason "life drawing" inspires me to relax and do more expressionistic sketches.

With cartoony subjects, or people with clothing, or animals, I control my lines more tightly, push myself towards images that "read", that are representational. Even when I'm doing something abstract, I still try to make it tidy. Drawing the pure human form, however, my subconscious unlocks and tells me "we know what that is, we understand the subject, so capture it in your way, instead of capturing it 'right'".




Maybe, in a small way, this exercise was an experiment in shifting more emphasis to the process of drawing from its outcome.

Still: Pointless

Or maybe I'm doing it wrong.

I tried to be still and zen out while taking a shower. While I managed to zone out enough to shampoo up my non-existent hair...



... other than that it served only to grow a pebble idea into one the size of a baseball, but I feel incapable of playing with it. Like the kid with a broken leg who gets a bike for a birthday. I'm not good enough for my own ideas.

When that idea, nurtured by the heat and the water, reached that perfect 150 word size, I kept repeating the key facts to myself until I was able to write them down. Writing them down, however, necessitated that I was out of my sweat lodge and back in the warmly cluttered den. At my laptop, which has its own clutter.

I tried being still again once I had cleared thoughts of clones and hyperdrives out of my head, but a cascade of things I could be doing (neglected to do today, even) poured through my head. There are so many ways I could be moving forward. I could tidy up the clutter (or do the greater cleaning task of sorting all clothes in the room and refolding them). I could read things and make notes about them. I could draw. God forbid, I could even open up negotiations with one of those good ideas I'm afraid I can't do justice to.

Fear is actually one of the themes I was considering going into my think-tank. I think Carol was the one who brought it into our conversation today, asking if I was afraid of finishing things. "Very, very likely" was my reply.

What I'm actually afraid of, I think, is that finishing things will not change anything. I'm afraid that my work won't actually matter to anyone else. I'm afraid that when I'm done with it, nobody else will want to take over the care and keeping of my baby. I'm afraid that I am the end of the line in the life of my creation.

I am fairly certain that these things are true. How difficult it is to put words to the complex emotions and understandings of a human being!

This isn't a personal self-esteem matter, it's closer to "am I creating a bird without wings?". If a project can't fly when I push it out of the nest, into the world beyond my influence, it doesn't get a second chance. I do. A lost or failed idea is not the end of it all for me, my brain is still fertile and active and curious. But the idea, once so full of promise, is a cold broken heap at the foot of the tree.

Am I being silly? Do I need to get over it and realize that failed projects aren't dead animals, and can be picked up and rejuvenated? Although once something has a life of its own (as many creative endeavors do), isn't it at risk of losing that life?

I feel better about all this. Maybe I haven't evolved my wisdom, but putting feelings in the mold of a metaphor helps me understand a little more.

I still want a mentor, though.



Until then, I'll try being still again.

Today's awesome

I got a few things brewing in my mind, but I've been dosing my brain with old movies so I can keep drawing drawing drawing, so I'm not quite sure what they are.

I'm not sure why, but I'm watching Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, and it's amazing. These sweet musicals with dancing have gone out of fashion, and it's a crying shame.

Discombobulated

I'm going to type slow so that Reagan has enough time to scan and send sketches. Thanks to Eve, every month I have to endure 24 hours of pain. I feel like mentioning that breaks some kind of taboo, but every time it comes around it has very good odds of being the defining aspect of a day. Normally, surviving the 24 hours involves pain killers and extra shut-eye, but something about my sleep schedule being haywire made the rest I got most recently seem ineffectual.

I slogged ahead on a couple projects, namely Halloween Costume of Doom and the next P08 page, but focus is lacking. The most interesting part of my day was probably listening to Sigur Ros and News from Lake Wobegon through the odd haze of painkillers. My brain involuntarily tries to pick out English words and phrases out of nonsense lyrics, with some interesting, poetic results.

News from Lake Wobegon isn't enlightening or inspiring in the same way. Garrison Keillor just has a soothing voice.

The second most interesting part of my day was watching Mad Hot Ballroom. Documentaries are seldom what I expect (I often want more editorializing or exploration of "so what?" than they provide; the Enron documentary being a rare exception), but Mad Hot Ballroom pleased me. I wanted more footage of dancing, but I always want more footage of dancing (it's a documented character flaw).

Still typing slow. Need a haircut.

I've been doing okay at keeping away from the internet. Mostly I've been avoiding things involving RSS feeds, as those are my galactic time-sinks. I miss... keeping up with the people who keep up with me. The bloggers I am a "fan" of I miss a little bit, but they're not in my digital suitcase that I'll grab if the internet ever catches on fire.

I think that on Sunday I'll go through my LJ friends list and I'll do something on gReader to catch up with the blogs I really care about, then take another week away from those things. One week isn't enough to fully smooth out the wretched habit of frequently checking favorite sites for updates. Once I wean myself off the need, I'll try to let myself check every day, and see if I can keep out of old habits.

Ding! scans are done.

Do-over, please?

Yesterday was a tough act to follow. Aside from accomplishing some drawing practice, a tiny bit of time with Reagan, and a couple nice emails, today was a tour of negative emotions. It ran the full alphabet from anger to frustration.

That lacked the impact I expected. The other two emotions that defined the first 15 hours of my day, crankiness and despair, both fit neatly in the first six letters of the ABCs.

Oddly enough, what redeemed today at the end was meticulously going through our bank statements and crunching the numbers on getting through the next six months.

Sorry, nothing deep or meaningful or astoundingly creative today. You have six restless hours of sleep, waking up cranky, and spending the first 3 hours of my day on the presidential debate to thank for that.

Something colorful to cheer you up:

Good Morning

The first time I see the sun she is reflected off the back window of an anonymous suburban house. The encounter is so brief that I hardly realize it has happened until I have finished taking that step on my slow walk around the neighborhood, and by that time the sun (and the house) are both out of sight. In fact, it hardly seems right to say that I "saw" the sun. She likely saw me, but on my end it was a glancing blow; I was the victim of the encounter. No, that isn't fair. The sun didn't mean to hurt me. She was just... enthusiastic. Those thoughts--and forgiveness--are the ones I ponder as I wait for the sun to gather herself together and say hello properly.

She's taking her sweet time, so I catalog the earlier signs that signaled to me that running into the sun on this walk is inevitable.

Minutes ago I stood at the base of a tree shaped like a tuning fork and looked straight upwards. At its tip the leaves were bathed in warm golden light that the lower foliage lacked. Those shaded leaves shivered in the cool currents of air and turned their faces towards their highlighted kin, impatient for their own chance to photosynthesize.

That tree was late to the game, compared to the mountain peaks off to the north that threw sharp craggy shadows; or the plane, bottom-lit, looking so strange in the early light that I first took it for a flying sculpture.

Even on the first leg of my walk, the outward-bound stretch, I knew the sun was coming. The sky was lighter closer to the horizon, and blushing peachy pink. I couldn't see the edge of the earth itself, with the crops of houses and pet trees springing up so tightly together, but I knew that somewhere to the east daybreak was straightening her costume, almost ready to burst into our lives.

But that wasn't the first thing that reminded me of the sun this morning. Mere steps out of my front door I saw a polished silver moon hanging aloof in the western sky. I squinted at his brilliance for a moment at the end of my driveway, wondering how he could feel so close to me when he was far enough away to glimpse his sister over the Earth's shoulder.

Aah. Now, miles later, the sun finally greets me properly. She beams at me from between two houses. I deliver my apology, eyes bashfully averted, and continue on my way. I take deep breaths and admire the world coming to life in the sun's warm gaze.

Birds chirp in greater numbers, and I notice them winging from tree to tree. They're the day shift predators of insects, taking over for the night-working bats I had seen before sunrise. At last I see a small bird land in a birch I'll soon reach. I slow my already lazy steps and fixate on its restless shifting 20 feet above. A larger bird, a jay, I think, lands nearby in the lower branches and I stand still to watch.

After observing the jay for a second, I shift my gaze back to the first bird. I don't spot it immediately, being unpracticed at spotting what movement is arboreal and what movement is avian, and also unpracticed at remembering where I saw something the first time. I practice now. Back and forth. Jay to songbird. The jay is closer to the ground and closer to the sidewalk, so I move underneath it and wish for my camera.

A cry from the jay, the loudest sound I've heard all morning frightens me with sudden sharpness. I jump involuntarily and decide it's time to continue my walk.

Along with the birds, more humans are awake. One here polishing a motorcycle, two there walking, and many in their cars growling past me in Mazdas, Cadillacs, and Toyotas. I'm walking faster now, observing, observing, observing. I've been prowling the pavement for more than an hour now, and it's not as silent and solitary as when I set out. I'm ready to go home.

Two long blocks later I'm three corners from my front door and I remember the moon. I'm walking west at the time, so I look for him, but I only see bright sky and trees, but see nothing. Smiling inwardly, I imagine the dynamics, tired older brother, having watched over us through the night, slips silently away as the animals shake off dreams under the warming gaze of his sister, the sun.

My smile slips two corners from home. I break out of the residential maze for a moment and stand beside a busy street. On the other side is a slice of undeveloped land and enough open sky to show me the moon. He doesn't look the part of watchful guard anymore, his face is white, ashy, and in some places I can see the blue sky behind him. Duty done, the moon is fading away.

I don't care if people look at me while waiting for the stoplight. I stand and watch the moon slip into the haze over Los Angeles. I love the sad poetry of it. Two hours ago I could not have imagined I'd be on this corner listening to the freeway traffic and watching the crumbling moon.

Rounding one corner more, my home is in sight. Time to wrap up this adventure. I duck my head and shield my eyes from the rising sun.

***
Over 900 words and I don't even mention what was possibly the part most worth mentioning, and the motivating factor on me going for such a long walk: Fresh donut!!

At different times I wished for binoculars (for birds), camera (for pictures, duh), and pre-stretched muscles (for jogging. in my condition running would've cause unpleasant soreness (as opposed to the other, more wonderful kind)).

Want to hear a joke? I planned on not writing more than a couple sentences today.

Day long entry

I'd been awake maybe 30 minutes when a friend asked me how the "Keri Smithing" was going. That question plagued me the rest of the day, in every spare minute I didn't devote to actively avoiding answering: "How is this different?"

Even without freedom to browse the internet, how is my life different? It still took me four hours after getting up, if not longer, to do anything really worthwhile. Even though I am an infinite sculpture, my position is still binary. Desk or bed. How seldom I spend time, at least by my own whim, anywhere else.

On the one hand, my work is here. On the other hand, does my work have to be here?

I did take a longer-than-usual walk with Reagan today to parts of our neighborhood never explored. In between the distracting little affections he can't help but lavish upon me while we are together, I considered both the "work" and "here" aspects of my predicament.

Space is at a premium, both in our room and on my desk. If I want to shake up the deep structures of my days and habits, altering my physical situation would help. Unfortunately, I can think of no change that would be equally functional, much less more functional than my current setup.

And the "work". After all that pondering meaning and where the importance of a thing is, I gave the artistic things I'm doing a hard look. Day by day, the things I draw have no importance other than practice. This is so day by day that I said the same thing in my post yesterday. If I believe "meaning" to be how something gives back to the world, the experiences it offers to the audience, the essence that proves it to be more than the sum of its parts, then meaning is something I can't achieve right now.

In many ways, the pieces of paper I have drawn upon are empty. After I've finished one sketching exercise and moved on to the next, each previous doodle has been drained of all its usefulness. Hopefully it contributed to my skill, but if it did, that (unproven) contribution was in the doing, and the doing is in the past.

I save my old sketchbooks in case this isn't true. In case I can look back at them at some unknown point in the future and both understand my improvement as fact and glean new ideas from my own old experiences.

For all I advocate and agitate for change, even after I come across significant revelations and believe I'm implementing new policy, I look back and say, "Same as it ever was." The things that were different about today were small. Cosmetic, even, and so new who know if they'll last another day.

Some of my dream-changes about doing more even seem like they might be counterproductive, might set me back from my real goal of acquiring artistic skills. I lose sight of that sometimes.

I am the infinite sculpture
made of butterflies
and math and dust.

I am refracted light
and feedback loops
and I am the soup
du jour

You never meet me
twice the same
I never meet
myself
at all

I am
I am
the tesseract

Early October, getting cold

Sometimes I wonder if I was permanently scarred one day when a high school English teacher told me I was interpreting a poem wrong. Maybe that one comment damaged my sense of wonder and I subsequently have difficulty approaching works of art with high rates of abstraction, those creations only as objectively descriptive as the stars in a constellation.

Or maybe I don't like creating meaning for someone else's work because I spend so much time creating meaning for my own. Unless I'm speaking for myself, I mostly want to listen. And when I want to listen to silence I'll look in nature or for art that is overtly calming.

But that's just my way.

I have a firm belief in the subjectivity of art, that every opinion, every way of approaching it is valid. Is that going to cause me problems? (Besides leaving so much room to over think things. I already do that. Everywhere.)

But in a case when there are no wrong answers and all of them have equal value, is there any point to having an answer?

Well, I suppose that doing so separates us from the animals.

***
Earlier today I was trying to come up with a way to approach art. Foremost in my mind were the concepts of why something exists (for the process or the outcome), and where its meaning comes from (the author or the audience). I noticed that both could be put on sliding scales (because I like bringing a bit of science to my art). Of course, the placement is subject to opinion, but brings up the always fascinating question: Why?

Seeing that I had two spectra on my hands, I imagined a grid for creations: the X axis has "Process" on one end and "Outcome" on the other. The Y axis has "Provided Meaning" at one end and "Inferred Meaning" at the other. Spontaneous collages would be at the outer edge of the "Process/Inferred" quadrant, and Hollywood blockbusters would be opposite it at the outer edge of the "Outcome/Provided" quadrant.

It's a brand new idea to me, doubtless has some flaws, like subjectivity, and that there is not really any correlation between meaning and which-part-of-the-art-is-more-important. And it would definitely leave out those grand installations which involve the audience as part of the process.

Still, I copied the diagram into the notebook I carry with me. The plan is to introduce my friends to this aspect of approach and get them to play along.

***
Today hasn't felt much like a Sunday. Weekdays and weekends lose a lot of the feeling you expect them to have when the wage-earner works consistently on Saturday and Sunday and other days on an irregular schedule. But as has been established, there is nothing regular about my schedule.

The earlier section of this post was mostly written earlier in the day, mainly in email format. I'm returning to post-typing now to report a marginal success in returning to yoga. The success is only marginal because as soon as I stopped thinking about how to balance the sacred and practical aspects of my creativity and started thinking about "Hey! this is the most yoga I've done in months!"... that thought was closely followed by "I must report this marginal success!"

Most of today's successes are marginal. The more I think about it, the more it feels acutely normal and mundane. Those grand ideas about artistry and how I interact with the world, even if they present me with new understanding, do nothing to impact stressful conversations with my mother, or compromise-forging with my husband, or the fact that I have to vacuum in a couple hours. Even my drawing isn't affected. I still spend hours with my sketchbook drawing from photos, training my hand and my brain an my eye to all cooperate.

Recently my nightcap, my very last thing before bed, has been an episode or two of indulging in a shallow sitcom. I don't particularly like the characters or the writing, but it's silly and talks about sex, so I go to bed feeling rebellious and superior.

That was supposed to be a lead up to "I'm going to listen to music tonight instead", but the sitcom sounds appealing again. I'll see how I feel when the (bed)time comes.

***
I might run out of things to say as I continue to stay away from the internet this week. Anyone want to lay odds?

Additionally...

Although I already made my "daily" post (lack of art nonwithstanding), I must journal a bit more.

Immediately before uploading that last post I read it aloud to Reagan. Doing so helped me notice some bad word choices and bad flow choices. I fixed the former, but neglected the latter so I could keep reading and engaging him.

Nothing in the post was astoundingly new to my listening audience, but he was a good sport about it and responded well. The practice of speaking my words (something I've often heard recommended by teachers and writers) brought flaws in my writing into sharp focus. It was much more obvious that I tend to write in a stream-of-conscious way, and the difference between my blogging and good writing was very very clear.

I wonder if I go much longer without fresh human contact... will I lose all coherency? Will sentences lose structure and letters lose their places, and everything come tumbling down into a quivering mass with the consistency of jello crossbred with pudding? Fortunately, the kick in the ego was more a wake-up call (kick?) than something woundful. (It's very late, my brain is deflated. I refuse to apologize even though this proves the shoddiness of quality.)

In any case, after the posting I kept talking with Reagan. It was one of those great discussions (second one today!) that highlights how well we fit together. In canine years he's muuuuch much much older than I am. It doesn't have anything to do with human age, and I hesitate to link it to human maturity, and hesitate slightly less to link it to human put-together-ness.

He's an old hound, comfortable in his skin and comfortable with what he knows, and I'm a young pup eager to investigate anything and everything I can stick my nose into. We tolerate each other very well, though. He doesn't mind when I yap yap yap about all the new things fascinating me, and occasionally pull him along for an expedition. I don't mind that he's not always on my tail, and I'm happy to suspend my wanderings from time to time. We curl up in the shade together and swap tales about what things we saw apart.

R's not that much of a homebody, though. He wants to travel as much as I do. We just have different mental/philosophical styles.

My mind is weighty with all the input it's taken in today, about being a writer and being an artist, and so many different thoughts to synthesize and see which way I land. I hope I remember enough.

Re-Evaluating

The first time I came across Keri Smith I did not like her at all. Not one bit.

I was in Hot Topic, which may have influenced me to be judgmental*. (I'm still judgmental, but not about this, and I'm getting better in general.) The book I was (but no longer am) judgmental about is Wreck This Journal

The instant, knee-jerk reaction was that it was dumb. I looked through several pages and the only message I got was "be subversive! be destructive! be edgy! do something different! oh, and do it like this".

8. place journal open on the floor. drop media onto it from waist height.
9. tear page into tiny little pieces. glue in envelope to put them in.
10. use page as a napkin while eating.
11. cut through several pages.
12. drag a page through the mud.
- from the official site

Those are examples of instructions on different pages of the journal. I'm not sure if all of them are in the published version, but I think you get the idea. (Although it's possible I'm editorializing by choosing those 5 entries in particular.) Flipping through the book my mind went into a feedback loop. The instructions were to do things differently, to break the norm... but to do so by following the rules. That tweaked my brain and made it unhappy.

An important thing I didn't think of at the time is that wrecking (or using) the journal is not an end in itself. Or at least it doesn't have to be. When I managed to reorder my perspective and see the journal as a starting point, it made more sense to be enthusiastic, even if some of the ideas in the book were beneath me. Actually, more recently I've become attracted to Keri's philosophy simply because the things she mentions doing are beneath me (and wrongfully so).

For whatever psychodynamic reason, over the course of my life it's become important for me to feel sophisticated. I want to know how to handle myself in whatever situation and be able to do so correctly. While it has never explicitly been a desire of mine to go through life unnoticed, I am deathly afraid of being the subject of the "wrong" kind of attention. I loathe the idea of being told I'm doing something wrong, especially by a stranger. Is this a flaw of my empathy? my relativism? Any time I attract negative attention, I believe the nay-sayer's opinion is correct in their own world and I course-correct so I don't bother anybody. Those criticisms are taken very personally; I made a poor first impression, and now someone's only opinion of me is negative. That's not sophisticated.

Similarly, I don't like doing things in a half-assed way, or seeing things done in a half-assed way. I recognize and appreciate high production values and good design choices, and don't like to be involved with things that don't live up to these standards. This goes a long way to keeping me inside my comfort zone.

Now, however, I'm trying to consciously break these too-familiar paradigms, as I realize they are limiting my life experiences. I need to do things that are unsophisticated and get over my fear of strangers. I want to be comfortable doing things that may draw attention to myself, even if some of that attention is unfriendly. I understand that anything I deem as "beneath me" I've probably never tried before. If I do it now, I'll be having a new experience. Not all new experiences will be good, but I'm okay with that.

Once I let Keri Smith teach me this radical new idea that following directions is not necessarily an end in itself (much like cooking food is not the end of the dining experience), I relaxed my mistrust of her and let her talk to me about a few other things. Through that process I discovered a number of other things about her philosophy I like. (If you click that link and read about HOW TO BE AN EXPLORER OF THE WORLD, be warned that page 8 skips to page 13, so you have to put page 9 in the URL manually.) A comprehensive list would be too much, so I'll give the top 4 tidbits she gives me:

1: EVERYTHING is interesting. (Look harder.) This fits nicely with what I call my own 'lack of tast', wide variety of interests, and weakness vs. enthusiasm.
2: Alter your course often. She says in another place that she does 'experiments', and while cutting out TV and cutting back on internet are specifically mentioned, I'm sure that goes much farther. If you know me at all, you probably notice how this resonates with my affinity for (non-senseless) change and chaos in my life. (Anti-limbo!)
3: Her favorite artists and designers are collectors This is something like license-to-packrat. I like. :)
4: OBSERVE, OBSERVE, OBSERVE, OBSERVE. Use all the senses. There is always something new, even in old/familiar places

Speaking of familiar places, I feel like I haven't done much stepping out since, well, since I got married. It really isn't a causal relationship. The past 27 months I wouldn't trade for anything, and there have been epically wonderful times with Reagan and other people.

But for the entirety of it we've been living frugally on less than one regular, full-time income. Combine that with how comfortable we are in our room at our desks, and there's a chronic lack of means, motive, and opportunity aligning. This isn't the time to enumerate my struggles. This is the time to work on burning into my brain that it is possible to find value in my surroundings here and now. It is possible to generate enough curiosity to make it not only interesting, but engaging. Even without the internet, I bet. I am setting my sights to facilitate moving in that direction.

A thought of Keri's that marks how my path diverges from hers however, can easily be drawn from this: My current fascination with it [guerrilla art] stems from a belief in the importance of making art without attachment to the outcome.

I have a hard time separating process from outcome. A really hard time. This reminds me of a brief exchange I had with a blogger/writer by the name of Jim Murdoch a few days ago that touched on process, in that hands-in-the-clay, fingers-on-the-keys, the creating part of being a productive artist/writer is the part that is most important.


*deep breath* My essay (of sorts) is fracturing. I'm having a hard time sticking to any thesis. I wrote thirteen words on a post-it note. I don't know who to discuss them with.
collage, indeterminacy, poetry, control, writing, art, design, process, communication, meaning, audience, medium
I wonder if I'll remember the proper thought-lines and context when I manage to find a curious mind to discuss this with.


The most important part (to me) of an entry like this is the "what now?" bit. And it's early Sunday morning, so this is a good opportunity to give myself a week-long experiment: walking and yoga are in, constant internet (all but posting, email, necessities, and limited AIM) is out. It's time to break this unproductive habit.

I want something different. Let's try this and see what happens.


---
* On the way out of Hot Topic on the same day I told Draco that despite Hot Topic being all "sold out" and "not punk rock", a case could be made that it is still serving the underground/subversive community by offering an alternative to the more mainstream shops nearby. The quality or credibility of the store isn't the important part, the fact that it's different is. To the people who matter, it will be a gateway to something that speaks to them more than Macys and Abercrombie and American Apparel do.

Good Idea/Bad Idea

When Reagan started working I came up with this idea to take the bitter edge off of retail work.

"While you're working you're actually going about 60 miles per hour!"
I came up with that approximate number by taking approximate wage, dividing it by gas price, then multiplying the result by our car's mpg.

I wonder if there's a market for a fantasy travel kind of website where you put in your stats (wage, mpg, hours in shift) and then you can vicariously go places while you work. Suppose Reagan wants to spend the day taking a trip down Route 66. Each hour he's at work he gets an update with a description of some landmark roughly 60 miles from the last one. There would be options for picking your destination (as your range per shift would calculate how far you could go), or simply entering your location and let the site take you somewhere within your mileage parameters. There would be options to print out an hour-by-hour tale of your alternate identity's trip (to read at work when you don't have internet access), or you could get hourly text messages about your progress, or you can go to the website and see a more detailed description.

Then when it's popular, we'll introduce fictional worlds, make it more of a "role playing game" that's hardly a game at all. More like a text-based game where stats from "real life" are converted into stats in the game. But there's no heroic advantages to be had. So you tell the site you make $400 an hour (which gives you 40 gold an hour). The quality of the 'noble' sphere in the 'game' is not better than the 'lower class', just different. Because it's all fiction. (As I read over this I realize it's quite convoluted.)

That wonderfully, grandly awful idea gives me the (more manageable) idea of a choose your own adventure site. It would post 100-ish word installments of a story and a "what should happen next" poll several times during the day, and the audience (by vote) can pick what direction the story goes in. Tales would go at least a day, at most a week.

Smallest manifestation of this idea: Serialized fiction via twitter (not an original idea, though).

---

For a myriad of small reasons (the largest among them being that no pages were scanned today), no art to post. I'll make up for it tomorrow, I promise.

My style is persecuted!

Yesterday I remembered why I stopped doing the comics. Only two days into the project I came against an immense wall of frustration. Apparently I have a tendency to script and thumbnail shots that I can't draw. Or at least not draw easily or the first time around. On top of not being able to get what was in my head on paper, Reagan had a tough time of the angle, too, when I asked him for help. Since he can't draw what's in my head either, his assistance was taking more of his time than I wanted, and I sent him away before the comic panel was looking much better.

After a breather (that might have contained a nap), though, I searched Getty Images for some references to practice with so I could get the pattern of construction down for extreme-angle people.

Thusly, I am over the first brick wall for page 9. It was probably optimistic to think it would take me only two days to finish the comic, and definitely optimistic to dream I could get it done in one.

Today has a wide swath of low-impact company, and tomorrow promises a more acute application of different flavor, but I should be able to press forward in these times, and do other drawing if not.

But what has me moderately worried today is a string of sleep related articles at Science Daily.

All the sleep articles there seem to tout measurable values of early-to-bed-early-to-rise and a strictly regulated sleep schedule (following the sun's lead, of course). I don't do either of those things very well. Looking at those articles (that did research. With SCIENCE) freaks me out. I want to rush into a sleep lab and let scientists observe me and tell me if I'm going to die if I keep living like this. Or, much worse, contract an organ disease. =/

If there was a pill to cure nocturnalism, would I take it?

Too much of one, too little of the other

I have an estimated 30 days of unheard audio (music and podcasts).
There are 322 books, 87 CDs on my Amazon wishlist.
451 DVDs in my netflix queue.

And, dear friends, there are only 24 hours in each day.

Unbelievable

6am. (nearly.)

Reagan wakes up in a few minutes (work at 7).

Lots of digital work for me today, so I think I'll kick back and do some fun sketching for a while before going to bed. (I am soooooo responsible.)

After letting it languish (and fester) for 8 (ha!) months, I finally posted another Pieces of Eight comic.



I think it'll become my Wire project. If I'm watching the Wire, I'd better be comicking or eating during a comicky break. (That was somewhat of a campaign promise. There are two episodes left in the first season, and I need to listen to *something* while I draw...) No, you're right. There are plenty of podcasts and This American Life episodes I could use for my purposes.

At some point in the P08 process tonight I had a very strong sense of deja vu.

Yesterpost

Type. Retype. Proofread fragments. Start over.

Is this a symptom of posting early in the day, or does it have to do with my mind being evenly split between P08, F&F, and the episode of The Wire that I'm in the middle of?

Pieces of Eight is becoming more and more prominent in my mind as I look for something solid to work on and realize I conceived of it more than a year ago and gave out on keeping up with it so quickly. And haven't returned to it (yet). A week or so ago I took the file off my shelf, and a few days ago a pingback-stranger commented on the last page I posted. Every time I enter my website's URL somewhere I'm conscious of the frontpage that links to P08 without indicating that it's on hiatus.

F&F (Fate and Fortune) is this new something or other that I'm sketching in the evenings and pondering before sleep. Due to the game design background, I'm accustomed to knowing how everything works in a setting or situation. Specifically, if there's magic, I like to know the rules behind it. The lead (as of yet unnamed) character in this story is a fortune teller of sorts, but I've struggled as to how her "thing" will manifest.

I don't want for her to be a proficient cold-reader/sleuth who can give fates and fortunes just by covertly picking up clues, and I don't want her to have "the gift of sight" or whatever, and mystically "see" things about people or situations. Both solutions feel too overpowered for the story/setting. It occurred to me earlier today that I don't have to explain her readings or abilities, and let the actions speak for themselves in the story.

That idea is against my nature, but so is visually designing characters before I know what the bigger story is.

I had several clever titles planned out, but...

Net gain today. (But no scans, as the scan-keeper went to sleep before I was ready to relinquish my sketchbook for digitizing.)

I played foolish in running hopeless errands on an empty stomach, so that by the time food made it to the top of our to-do list the tiniest "offense" would get under my skin. But my husband puts up with me well.

Drawing difficulties assisted in pushing me towards a flare up with a friend which actually ended up clearing some of the toxins in the air between us.

I broke my so-called-tv-fast, after managing to avoid my usual habits for a full week. In some ways it was nice to do it (almost) all at once. Maybe I'll do it again this week.

The artistic dry spell was also broken, but I don't think it was related to the show-viewing. I think it was related to picking my references more carefully and relaxing my strangle-hold on the new, "improved" pencil-then-ink process that's had a strangle-hold on my creativity. It's another tool in the toolbox, not the only tool, and even if I want to improve my proficiency in it, all the bones are connected.

After a few pages of normal-drawing, I ignored the parade of potential references across my laptop's screen and doodled concepts for one of a trio of characters that's been poking around my head lately. I don't know what their world is like, though. This I will ponder as I go to sleep (at 8am).

Flail

I'm having another day of being wound up and burnt out.
Restless, endless, sickening searching searching searching.
Can't the world hold off, hold still while I find one one one truth.
No questions, no questions, I don't believe in advice
if, out there, there was help, hand up, hand out, steading hand
I would have already found it.
So lonely struggle. So. Lonely struggle. So lonely. Struggle.

My eyes are too big or too small, I'm not sure which.
I take in too much, there is so much to take in.
The problem must be with me, in me, wrapped tight around me.

Why can't I focus on the here and immediate.
Hopes, thoughts, curiosities roam, thirst, lust.
Let enough to survive subsist be enough.
Why care about depth and understanding
Why mind interworkings and interplay
Why search and search and search.

I'm aching. Hellbent and aching.
Crushed under weight misbalanced, aching for a revolution.
In history is there a model I can photocopy and fill in.
Teach me the outlines of overthrow.
Map out how to change my world, the branching roads to a single future.
Single, stellar future.

Searching, searching, searching and empty.
Exhaling between vacuums
Unless there is air outside I'm too weak to breathe
Too weak, too blind, too lazy.
All coming down to internal faults breaking me apart.
Cracks I can't fill, tears I can't mend, wounds I can't bind.
Or haven't succeeded with yet.

And, remember, I'm empty.
So I'm searching, searching, searching.

-----

Desperate for some kind of connection, I poached a couple dozen blogs from the reading lists of friends, somehow under the impression that if I immerse myself in the words of other people I will be less alone.

I may remove them again in a few days as I feel myself pressured to eat everything on my plate, and this brief database acquaintanceship was seeing beautiful faces in a crowd, then losing track as the bus arrives and it's time to move on.

Does it matter to fish when they are caught and released? I suppose that's a poor metaphor as being caught, as a fish, surely involves pain, blood, and at least temporary asphyxiation.
Does it matter to birds or elk or rabbits when they are photographed? Does it make an impact for their likenesses to be scanned, downloaded, uploaded, replicated, duplicated, parsed, cropped and commented upon by lifeforms unnoticed?


I told Draco earlier today that I wasn't quite sure if I was busy or not. I really don't know how to define the word right now. There are piles of things I should do, like laundry folding, carpet vacuuming, or costume sewing, and lists of things I could do, but nothing really vital.

While I wouldn't go so far as to call my actions slothful busywork, things I do merely to keep busy, they all feel feather-light to me. Anything could have meaning, but none of it goes the distance and fulfills that potential of value.

Swimming in a vacuum.
Spinning my wheels.

It takes fight and effort not to slander myself in times like this, to make self deprecating comments as to the nature of my thoughts and words. The phrases lurking at the corners of my mind aren't blatant self-hatred so much as things to undermine this blue streak by making a joke of it, or passing it off as inconsequential. Blame the rain, but for a change I'd like to embrace my moodiness. It'll be a joke tomorrow or next week, but right now I'm going to take the low road and brood. To abort the ennui by putting on a cheery face and plunging ahead into empty tasks wouldn't be helpful this time.

Let's see what happens when I wear this veil of anguish with a straight face...

More Static

Me: Drawing is like molasses today.
R: How is drawing like gopher butts?

This is what I have to put up with. All. The. Time.

This is also why I married him.

At no point today did I feel irresitably drawn to my sketchbook. I ground out a page or two anyways (and I'll do more with an episode or two of Kojak), because I've taken on "fake it till you make it" as my battlecry.

We didn't get to take a salsa dancing lesson tonight. While I'm partially relieved that I was spared the struggles and conspicuousness of Doing Something New, more of me is shaking a stick at that part of me now-relieved-that-one-was-scared. He'll get another Friday off eventually, right? And when he does, then we'll go and take a dance lesson, have some good, free fun.

Drawing was slow, but I put in a couple hours working in Illustrator, and now have two logos (for a paying client!) to show for my troubles. I also learned a thing or two about Photoshop brushes that will save me a good deal of time and effort next go round.



I watched three movies today. Pursuit of Happyness, Rounders (the one I always have trouble remembering when telling people what I did today), and Dial M for Murder. Happyness was cute, Rounders was good (but forgettable), and Dial M blew me away. I was riveted. RIVETED, I tell you. If my next few Hitchcock movies treat me this well, rest assured I will become a Hitchcock fangirl. Additionally, if those go well, I may go so far as to watch Psycho.

I just realized I'm wearing my shirt inside out and backwards.

Somewhere in the middle of all that vectoring and film-intaking, I wrangled Reagan (wrangled reagan, wrangled reagan wrangled reagan... hahaha) for a painting lesson. He gave me some advice, and we did a little hands-on with last night's "Static". Being taught by him brings out an oddly loud defensiveness, though. I get huffy with "I know how to use Photoshop" and "I can do that myself", bits of pride and wrestle-for-control that don't usually crop up in our relationship.

It's more amusing than problematic.

After he gave me a few pointers and we went to bed I played around with the image a little more:



Still not ecstatic with it. =\

As I do more painting in Photoshop, I more clearly identify things it does and that I wish it does (or at least I wish I knew how to achieve). I keep trying to get a digital program to act like an analog pencil or pen, which it doesn't do automatically, even with a tablet. Practice practice practice... even when switching mediums makes it feel like I'm taking two giant steps backwards...

Boys are in bed

Reagan and Draco hit the hay hours ago as they both have early days. I'm the hardy sort who won't be lured to bed at 1am, so I stayed up later to draw.

Or rather bash my head against my tablet.

After the VP debate Draco and I took a trip to the bookstore as his paycheck was burning a hole in his pocket. Besides two Gaiman books and The Difference Engine, he bought a steampunk anthology I put into his hands. The marvelous Marly has a story in there. :D

Wandering the bookstore stacks, I didn't get to read more than a couple pages of her story, but it did dump one vivid enough image into my mind. I sketched it later while watching a little TV, and tried putting color to it once I was back at my desk.



Not my finest work. The problem is partially a failure in vision, partially a failure in technique, and partially a failure in knowing my tools.

Inspired, in part, by a conversation with Draco as he was getting ready to pay for his purchases (how to make the creative? workworkworkworkwork!), I've decided to wave my arms at Reagan more in the next few months and make gains with my coloring chops by the end of the year.

While I had a fair bit (read: under $30) of green burning a hole in my pocket, I didn't spend any of it because I don't need another novel on my already towering stack, and nothing in the periodicals section looked like it would help me work more. I have inspiration aplenty already.

3:30 and the headache's not worth it

day in numbers:

1 box of brownie mix
2 sketchbooks broached
3 quick logos (spec ideas for a friend)
400 blog posts

Most of that last group were single images fed from flickr.

A couple hours were spent on that, but most of my day, especially that long stretch while Reagan was at work, were spent reading with intensity, catching up on a week or so of more intense postings.

I spend a lot of time thinking very hard, and at the tail end of that thinking I'm usually spinning my wheels wondering what the use is, wondering if my thoughts will be interesting and worthwhile once I leave my room.

Tomorrow, she is another day. Instead of me going out to find the debate which will engage my gears, the debate will be coming to me. Through my TV. And with that will be company, and with that will be a juggling of the normal rhythms.

(No, I didn't manage to do regular drawing today, but at least I'm scaling up again! And tomorrow I'll have the fear of nothing-to-post inspiring me once again. Here is the last of the reserves:)

Slow Revolution

I've reached the false-bottom of today, but I may suspend investigations in favor of sleep.

Three unusual things were accomplished, and three usual things were not.

Thing one:

Doodled out of obnoxiously pink and fuzzy (muppet-like) fabric, as a warm up to the larger, holiday-related project I'll be undertaking in October. Considering the ratio of plan-to-kludge, I'm impressed with it.

Thing two:
Reagan was not at work. I went to the bookstore alone. For... pleasure? I am alone--do things alone--all the time. This was the first time in recent memory I did something on my own. It's a subtle-but-distinct difference.

This On-My-Own idea is so obscure to my daily life that I was terribly out of practice with it. I browsed at one bookstore (reading a graphic novel), walked a long way across a parking lot to another, browsed there (seeing what looked like my high school English teacher in a meeting of a local writer's group), then took the long trek across the parking lot again to see if I could spend the tenner burning a hole in my pocket. (I didn't.)

While I didn't find the particular inspiration or relaxation I hoped for, I did encounter a hundred tiny messengers telegraphing to me "get serious. get to work." They're right. I need to get serious. I need to get to work.

Thing three:
I came home from that expedition (which, in my mind, I likened to riding a unicycle) and finished Midnight's Children, which I liken to a dream. It's run its course (and I was there every step of the way), I've woken up, and I'm not sure what I'll remember in the morning.

Also like a deep, intricate dream, I want to relive it so I can re-examine it, but I don't know if I can go back there again. The barriers to me revisiting the world and life of Saleem Sinai are not as absolute as those that prevent me from experiencing Monday night's dream again in the sense that the book is still there. I can pick it up and open to the first page of the first chapter (or even read the introduction again) any time I choose.

The barrier is more self-inflicted. I have trouble returning to a previously-read piece of literature (and I do mean that Rushdie's novel is of high caliber) when there are so many books, even in this very house! in this very room! within my line of sight! that have not yet been explored.

Catching my eye right now is Shabtai's novel past continuous which I can't recall knowing anything about when I purchased it from a discount bookstore five years ago.


Three things I didn't do today: clean my feed-reader inbox, d*ck around on Facebook, draw more than my morning Blue.