FUBAR!!

So my computer is totally borked. Hopefully not irreversibly so, but irreversibly under current circumstances and conditions. I will be scarce at least for the next 40 days. After that... who knows.

I'll still have email access and may post from time to time, but I'm mostly looking at this as an opportunity to do lots of art with fewer distractions.

I will miss you, internet.

woohoo

*runs through blogger, tossing paper into the air, leaving random images in her wake*



(I don't know why the crop is so odd, everything fit fine on the preview!)

been having lots of fun with these tonight. Cross your fingers that I'll keep up the momentum tomorrow!

pondering about identity

just a short note (I'm twittering enough today...)

Why do I default to using "itesser" as my username/pseudonym on the internet (LiveJournal being the notable example). I never take great lengths to hide my real name, but so more and more often I notice people using their real names for email addresses and usernames... on sites like twitter.

For the most part I'm in favor of this move (I see it as a change, anyway). It goes a long way towards encouraging people to own what they say online and realize that engaging in social activities of online is just polishing another facet of humanity in the modern world. I see it as a sign of honesty and forthrightness. Plus using your real name is a lot "cleaner" than a craptangular username that's unpronounceable and has numbers or special symbols involved.

But I don't know if I'll ever do it myself, ever voluntarily drop "itesser" for "annierush" (or "annielodge"). I've been presenting myself as "itesser" as long as I've been on the internet, and in another year or so I'll have been self-identifying as such for over half my life. It is one of the most consistent parts of my identity, especially the one I've had a say in creating.

Partially this musing comes from hearing Chaz of YOGAmazing read one of my tweets at the beginning of the recent Yoga for Abs podcast. (And did he give me a fistbump?) Hearing myself quoted made me laugh, but it was definitely a new experience to hear someone say "itesser" out loud and mean me, personally, not just my website or brand.

It's a statement, a description, so itesser makes for a bad pen-name (comes from a daydream about performing stand-up poetry), but thoughts about this are still bouncing around in my mind.

also bouncing around in my mind... scanning, vectoring, and modifying an illustration from Wrinkle In Time to make an iTesser graphic, riffing off the iPod ad meme that's so 2007

Rejoicing

An odd word for me, but it flew down and alighted on my hands Monday night, rubbing my face with its feathers.

I was in the moment, in the flow of drawing more deeply than I've felt in quite a while. Since then I've experienced the elation a few other times. Painting Tuesday, drawing again last night.

An infinite measure of peacefulness and happiness welled up within me in these moments of rejoicing, and in a letter to Reagan I wrote that my mindset during the first onset of joy was obviously far more than a sum of the evening's parts that I'm sure it came from God.

I felt it again this morning, reading a spare bit of poetry on my blogroll. I don't think the specifics of the verse are important, but the joy came from putting on those familiar reading-shoes (specifically the poetry ones) and wandering the scenic wilderness. The only poetry I've experienced in the past month has been performance poetry, and while I'm glad I discovered it, it will never be as mine as written words.

Oh, how i've missed you

I took a lot of last week off from painting and blogging... unintentionally.

Now I'm taking a week of from painting (at least painting for my storyline)... intentionally. But it will mean more time for writing! I'm so excited.

Too excited to sleep.

NOT!

Keep it goin' keep it goin' keep it goin' full speed

Tomorrow Lily begins her second day on the road.
Below is the beginning of Day 1, with a link
to the rest of it at the bottom of the post.

And you can go here to start at the beginning of the story.




The chilly dawn seeps over the sill to illuminate a gift
from Wyett: a physical echo of his voice saying her name.

Lily smiles.



Lily also finds a scroll tied with a yellow ribbon.

Wyett had left a map.


Click here to read the rest of Day 1