After I post a couple of things to prove that my skills with the digital stuff have grown, including that redo and the contest(s), I will be doing a few free digital commissions. Simple shit (little or no background, single character), three maximum, because I need to get back on the ball and making something before I get told to go walk Ponce & Boulevard in a miniskirt, and I don't have the money for physical supplies, currently.

Just a heads up. Hell, if you want to contact me now, that's fine. But I may not get around to it til later, so be warned.

The rosemary cuttings seem to be growing tiny, translucent roots in the water I've had them in. I'm leaving them a little longer to be absolutely certain, but small things like this make me happy. All goes well, they get their own little yogurt cups, soon.

wolven is seriously beginning his search for a PhD home. This makes me uneasy, the prospect of moving, possibly even further from home than I am now. Moving is usually a fairly hopeful thing for me, but the not knowing is where I lose it.

Something is terribly wrong with me. I want to bake.

Oh, almost forgot. The Universe gave me a birthday present in the form of winning a copy of the new Melissa Auf Der Maur album out of nowhere. Apparently passing on the free song download on Twitter entered me. It hasn't arrived yet, but if the first one is any indication, it should be full of awesome. And if you missed it the last time I mentioned, the free song is still up somewhere at that link, back there.

Stupid limitations of stupid media. I won't ever get as comfortable with digital drawing as I am with physical if I don't do it more often. But I always end up wanting or needing to do it when I have to actually leave the house. You know, where the computer lives.

THIS is why I need a Tablet PC to fall out of the sky/off the back of a truck.

But, today is for working on something, digitally, for as long as I can, as i've got a contest to enter and at least one old digital commission that i feel could have been done better, for hooking up the new scanner/printer that lord_of_smoking's coworker sold us for stupid-cheap, and for meeting wolven at work to go take care of kitties.

I dreamed of trying to hang out with my dad last night, and of him avoiding it because he was going to the movies with the ex-Fuckhead. Which is weird; Dad HATED him. But other than that, and having to wrestle the covers back from the kitties once or twice, I slept pretty well.

Herbal how-to Guide. On making decoctions, infusions, soaps, etc.

From kar3ning, via spiritualmonkey, on how Twilight's portrayals of romance stack up against the National Domestic Violence Hotline's signs of an abusive relationship.

needcoffee_rss, creepily continuing a conversation that was had in the car earlier on supergroups.

I thought I had more, but I think between the jasmine green tea and the way too much pasta (others have problems with stopping when it's sweets, or chips...for me, it's pasta-based foods; spaghetti, tortellini and ravioli, noodles of most kinds), it might be bedtime.

Woke up, made oatmeal (instant organic so it's not over-sugared, but doctored with ginger and cloves and cinnamon, so the end result is like a bowl of hot ginger snap) and before I was done, before the pot of coffee was finished, the Internet had failed me.

When the Internet 'fails' in this house, it's not the same as it being out, not working. It's more like all my usual places-that-are-interesting on here are not, that day or hour. So, after retrieving coffee, I did what I usually do when this happens and I am determined to spend a little bit more time on here while I caffeinate and cycle up. I window-shop on EBay.

I started out looking for some cheap, non-suck sunglasses, which is relatively difficult for me. Normal-size ones look enormous on my face. Most of the ones I can find in stores right now make me look like a bug. But I'm very conscious of my vision, currently, so it's something of a priority.

I noticed that a lot of the ones I liked had 'steampunk' somewhere on the description, so I started just looking up 'steampunk', despite that it made me feel kind of dirty doing so. Results range from the laughable (oh, fuck, more watch movements that someone on Etsy is going to glue to something and then sell for fifty bucks?) to pretty fucking awesome and reasonably priced. Enough so that I can maybe hope to pick it up later, so I'm not linking it here.

I did find some pretty spiffy eight dollar sunglasses.

Today is for picking up tsarina_bomba and her husband from the airport and bringing them back here so they can have their car back. And going to DeKalb, as we didn't make it last night. Currently, it's time to check my bank balance, and then get a shower.

Today, getting moving is kind of like what I'd imagine getting someone who was smoking opium to do anything would be like. I know once I get out of the house, I'll be fine, it's just getting there.

It's also one of those days where I look at most of my artwork and hate it, especially the physical media. But in a way where I am driven to make a whole bunch more, because I know I can do better.

Time to see what we can actually accomplish today, and get the fuck out.

Passed from lupabitch, please pass on, especially if you know someone in WI.

'Dairyland Greyhound Racetrack in Kenosha, Wisconsin will be closing on December 31, 2009.

900 Greyhounds will need to be adopted otherwise they will be euthanised, now is a great time to consider adopting a Greyhound. They are very loving and laid back. They don’t need the space people think they need. They are great for an active family because they have been crated almost all their lives and they sleep about 18 out of the 24 hours a day. They are just looking for someone to love them and supply them with a warm bed!!!!

They test the dogs to see if they are cat friendly and or small dog friendly. They also know if a dog should be a single dog or if they would be great in a 2, 3, or 4 dog house!!!

Please help me get the word out; we only have 6 weeks to get this task done.

Joanne Kehoe
Operations Director
P: 312.559.0887'

Edit: Okay, apparently this is crap. I'm sure no one would argue with potential adopters wanting to adopt, but the euthanisation and time limit are bunk.

So many things to do, so little want to actually do anything but sit here and make icons. Out of my cats, among other things.

There are two. contests. currently running on DeviantArt that I am interested in entering, the former because the subject is kind of a no-brainer, and the latter because the prizes are tempting as fuck. I'd like to go at these with the same technique that I did with the AFP tarot card (I SO can't wait to be allowed to post that), and for that i need to get some really good drawings to use as b&w underpaintings in Painter.

And there's that scene for one of the story-worlds that's been running through my head, that I mentioned yesterday and never got to because wolven and I were watching the last two chunks of the Prisoner remake that we had recorded on the TiVo and not yet watched (loved it til the ending).

But all I really want to do is fire up Painter and make icons. It is a disease. If all goes well, though, I'll write that scene, and then walk up to the coffee shop and draw those underpaintings.

Part of me wants to make a version of it that says 'Azathoth; the eternal omnomnomnom...' I want to make a gas mask icon, too, but part of me feels kind of dirty editing one out of any of the smut photos I have.

Made this one in part because I think it's time for the devotional work to start up again. I've reached a point where I'm fairly certain that I'm not going to question myself and my actions into a confused oblivion, again.

So I spent most of yesterday writing. Despite that I don't know if I'm going to hate the thing if I ever finish it, or if it's going to be what I want it to be, it feels pretty good just making this work. And I've got more in my head right now, though not in the same world. More and more, it feels like I'm going to have to approach the Angelsk stuff much like Jeff VanDerMeer did with his old stuff; a bunch of short stories, whose connection is the world they're set in (at least I think that was VanDerMeer).

I also owe momentai something for that writing meme.

I hate when I realise ways in which I am carrying damage from the Fuckhead. Like yesterday, I realised that I feel I can't voice liking male musicians, actors or characters, even ones I made up, because I am instinctually afraid of inciting jealousy, or the mockery of my likings borne of the same. it's nothing that D does. At all. It's...reflex, to tiptoe around such things.

Less depressed that i have been lately, today. I'm not sure if it's the sunlight or the regular working on something, anything, or the recent regular molestation or what (but it's harder to keep that up than you might think, even living with someone, when they work all the time and you're not quite up on yourself). Probably a little of both.

Or, I would be, were there actual sunlight here.

I've no plans for today, really. Beyond coming up with something interesting to do with chicken thighs and rice that I haven't already done, before dinner rolls around.

Spent yesterday forcing our way through season 3 of Dexter (almost done, but still kinda want to kick Jimmy Smits repeatedly) and picking at a story. The more I do the latter, the more things fall together and make apparent what will work and what won't. But I'll probably end up doing more of the same, today, minus the Dexter because wolven is at work.

The question of self came up in a conversation elsewhere. Of knowing oneself. And I'm coming to find that there's a difference between knowing and being certain in this knowledge. It's like the difference between having the directions memorised, and knowing the way so well that you could walk there in your sleep.

Three cups of coffee, and I'm still not sure I'm awake. Time to make the doughnuts, anyway.

I dreamed that I was out somewhere with plantyhamchuk, that we stopped in a bathroom (it looked like it might have been in a school, all yellowed fluorescents) before leaving wherever it was, and while talking about spirits (I don't remember context), I realised that I had to introduce her to Chaos Himself/Nyarlathotep. That I wasn't certain what her reaction would be, or what He'd wanted of my friend. Both of these things made me nervous, and I never quite spit it out.

I lost much of that dream because wolven's phone rang several times, as a coworker tried to arrange for him to trade shifts with her, but there was much more, there. Fragments of a conversation with Him, admonishments for giving up on something.

Was up until roughly 4:40am, between Dorian having found (in a weirdly intermittent fashion) a roach to play with, that I could not find when I went to see what was so interesting under the bed, and worrying about the cover to the anthology I'm going to be in, Women's Voices in Magic. I'd originally contacted them wanting to do the cover design, ended up writing something, and never heard anything about the cover again until last night, when I was emailed a proof. I am unhappy enough with what was emailed that if I hadn't signed a contract already, I'd seriously consider pulling my writing (LENS FLARE MAKES ME WANT TO CRY.).

I'm more unhappy that I keep putting myself forward for these kinds of things, and I keep getting ignored, because art and design, and not writing, is what I spent four years in college, and now practically owe my nonexistent firstborn for, and I think I'm pretty fucking good at it, but when this happens I wonder if I should even bother.

There are some good names in there, though. I'm in pretty interesting company in it, so when I start pimping it here, don't let the cover fool you.

Speaking of writing, I've been trying to figure out how to write someone who lives Lovecraft's consequence, who belongs there, without making it nice or pleasant in the slightest. How to portray someone who's opened their life to the Other, who's finding the Other in themselves, without making it either a clichéd warning, or a cheesy paranormal romance kind of awakening.

So, that's where my head is, today. I'm currently kind of bitter, but maybe all this is overreaction or something. Maybe checking today's comics will help.

All but one of the garlics are now dead and gone, and I don't yet feel like fiddling with stratification of seeds, so I'm starting pomegranates (some Googling showed me that they're deceptively easy), oranges and lemons (as the grapefruit worked well enough) in those pots.

Asterios Polyp surprised me. The design references and the thoughts on memory are great, and the utilisation of space is very nice, reminds me of more experimental manga like Clamp's Clover, which I've read but never owned, but is still one of my favourite examples of minimal, negative-space heavy comics. The colour scheme(s) irritated me until I realised the limited palette was a way to keep track of flashback-versus-now-time portrayal. I'm still not a fan of the very cartoony style. There's something specific about it that bugs me that I can't place, but I also can't see it being done any other way. The plot is very simple; you can still be a boy at fifty. You can also still grow the fuck up, at fifty.

Had some chips and what the Mediterranean Grill calls hot sauce, but I would qualify as a perfect salsa, left over from last night's calamari, and some apple tea. Finding that the latter needs about a half teaspoon of sugar to be palatable, and this seems to be a trend with non-citrus fruit teas.

Set what I thought was chicken to thaw, until it thawed, for dinner. When I went back to put things to soak it in, into the bag, I saw that it was actually pork chops. Which is okay; they work equally well with the teriyaki-bourbon concoction I put in there.

I feel somewhat more enthused (or something) by having finished the small amount of things I set out to do today, and may either go try to find a name that I actually give a fuck about for a main character, or go dick about in Painter and make more tea either way.

This cold is affecting my sight. My eyes are itchy and watery. Focus is difficult, making work even more so. That said, I think I've finished the sketches for the game cards, for l_the_fangirl, though I need to scan the last few and clean all the scans up.

I started rewriting an old story I never finished (which? that's nearly All of them...), last night, about a city that grew out of nowhere, a city that was not subject to entropy, but rather one that kept growing. I got a paragraph in before realising that I wanted parts of the old one, and I wanted it there to refer to, and as Gmail and Google Docs were both being assholes before I left for the coffeeshop last night, I didn't get to send myself all the work I wanted to. So, that got stuck there.

I got quite a bit more done on something else, something I've tentatively called 'November', because it's easier to have something to call it than not. No actual writing, beyond the fragments I've tied into it already, but I'm getting closer to knowing what it is I want from this work, as a whole. But because I can't keep anything simple for myself, I also can't help but wonder if it would work better in a visual medium. As a comic. Which would require a whole other layer, and twice as much work.

I'm probably going to sit down today and read Asterios Polyp before I convince myself not to, completely. oletheros sent me a review, to help me want to, but it's only made it worse. Because I already am not a fan of the art style. And the review (in my admittedly not-quite-awake and slightly surly state) tells me that it's the kind of book that knows it's smart. That is maybe trying to be smart. And that is a put-off. Works that try to be intelligent generally bug me in the same way that people who pointedly use seventy-five-cent words, or obscure literary or philosophic references, or the word 'postmodern' to one-up others bug me. In the words of Yoda, don't 'try'. Because it seriously shows.

So, before I find more reasons not to do so, I'll be reading that and hoping it pleasantly surprises me. And I'll be checking the contents of the pots I have in the windowsill, to see if all but one of the garlics have actually died, and to retrieve the rowan seeds because they apparently require some amount of fiddling with and intermittent freezer time in order to sprout, being nowhere near native here in the South. And I'll replace whatever isn't working with magnolias, or the pomegranates I've recently collected/eaten, or something, after I look up more information on all of them.

You love my new icon. Made from that awesome alteration of that ridiculous right-wing nutjob painting that was making the circuits. I think it needs more contrast, though, and some sharpening.

Not on long. Or, well, not here, anyway. I've been a bit dissatisfied with the internets lately. Ironically, it started briefly before I got a Google Wave preview token. Email me at the addy on my profile and I'll add you. We can all figure out what the fuck it is for, exactly, together. But I don't think it's that so much as there hasn't been anything new and interesting going on with it. It just kept bringing me bad news and procrastination, and not even fun procrastination.

So, I'm going to get a shower and head up to wolven's work after I get lunch, in the hopes of getting either some drawing or some writing done. I need to shower, and upload the things I've been working on to Google Docs (useful thing!).

I did go to the thrift store yesterday, though the trip across town to the art store was beyond how I was feeling. I got an ankle-length flowy-but-not-too-hippie black skirt, a pair of densely black jeans, and a black short-sleeve button-down suit type shirt, all for less than fifteen dollars.

Watched Luc Besson's Angel-A last night. Not what I expected from the cover. Funny, interesting, very French and very, very Luc Besson, though I went to bed after it feeling short and ugly and dumpy because the main actress was, well, ridiculously tall (which I've always wished I was) and smoking hot.

Meh. It's not time to dwell. It's time to wash my hair.

Twenty-nine doesn't seem so bad. Thanks to everyone who wished me well yesterday; I'm still too groggy/tired/lazy for individual responses. :D

There were hairy moments, mostly when I realised food hadn't been planned for nearly enough, and I was also partly expecting the same amount of things-brought-by-guests as had happened at wolven's party. Even if it was a reasonable expectation, never expect things, because it always goes tits up.

I don't know why I'm still on the computer, right now. I took my clothes out to get dressed, and then, bam. Inertia. It's irritating, because of the overwhelming urge to go thrift-storing or to the art supply store. I got some money from my dad, the really urgent bills have been dealt with, and now I want to get canvases and root through (formerly) other people's clothing.

There was fire, despite that I hadn't made it into the backyard to collect wood for drying in the past week. There were boobs shown. There's still lots of booze, including a pecan liqueur that sounds better than it actually is, though it was a hit for the people who like the sugary stuff. And people actually brought me things. A couple of books, including A Field Guide to Surreal Botany. Markers and a canvas. A HUGE bag of seeds to root through (Root? Get it? I should be hit for that one, unintended as it was.). I believe tsarina_bomba invoked Loki at some point, but I'd had a goodly amount of Jäger by then and may have constructed that memory or misheard things.

Ok, no, I did not mishear, because I now distinctly remember her asking me for permission to do so, and being thoroughly puzzled by this.

wolven left at some stupidly early point while I was asleep to deliver tsarina_bomba and her husband to the airport, so they could go visit his family up in NY. I woke at nine-thirty, worried that he wasn't back yet (he was) and laid there until ten convincing myself that even if he weren't, he could fend for himself, when I passed out again until eleven thirty.

He is still awake, against my better judgment and advice.

Oh, and yoinked from lupabitch, for raoin and probably others, the Litany Against Kittens:

'I must not come home with kittens.
Kittens are the common-sense killer.
Kittens are the little fuzzballs that bring "deth by cute".
I will face the kittens.
I will permit them to climb over me and on top of my head.
And when they have fallen asleep in my lap I will carefully give them back to the shelter volunteers.
Where the kittens have gone there will be deflected cuteness.
Only I will remain (sad and now kitten-less).'

As I have a metric asston of things to do, including finishing the hairdye process (I was too tired post-cleaning and bleaching my hair, and doing part of raoin's hair to finish mine) and errands, and my free Vortex meal, and a little more cleaning. Mostly getting that frelling tarp out of the yard (we forgot) and making the living room not suck.

Someone bought me a six-month paid account. Thank you. It's all I can do not to go sink a bunch of time into looking for a crapton of icons Right Now. I'm sure it's got much more features than that, and I'll probably find them little by little, though I'm also sure it would've taken me days to realise that the ads weren't there anymore.

I will not crawl back into bed. I will Not crawl back into bed.

Something I did learn in what I've done of the technical rereading of Tales of Pain & Wonder, is that I am very, very impatient, creatively.

Okay, maybe not so much 'learn' as 'was reminded and shown the extent of just how fucking impatient'. Because reading anything with the mindset of looking at how it was created makes obvious the time that is spent on such a thing.

When I sit down to create something, I often expect, whether it is reasonable or not, to finish it that day. Or at least enough for the returning to it in the next day or two to be a revision and refining stage, and not another full workday. This is why the comics I've done so far have driven me nuts. This is part of why I don't often get past writing vignettes, scenes and descriptions (the rest of it is that I don't think I'm good with plot & pacing). And this is why I do Not Do Oil Paint.

Sometimes it's a good thing. It breeds tenacity, and the willingness to put in ten-to-twelve hour days on a project when it calls for it. It also makes my turnaround pretty good. But I know if I want to do any kind of large creative project, anything like a book or my own comic book, or even just get to a better level of digital painting than I am already at, then I have to learn patience.

Which takes forever.

Why is it when I'm the most broke, things like paid LJ and DevArt accounts sound the most sensible?

Took a full dose of Sudafed today instead of my usual half, in the hopes of kicking this thing (or at least mostly) before tomorrow. The weather shifted sometime last night, so the amount of goo in my head seems to have doubled. Or what was there has become more...mobile?

Plans for today; hairdye and kitchen cleaning are the only solid things. raoin is Swiffer-ing the floor in there right now, thank fuck. The smell always makes my head ache abominably if I'm around it too long. I plan on making the rest of it fucking sparkle. Including the awfulness that is the cabinet doors. And the silverware drawers. And our fridge. And the top of the stove. And...well, you get the point.

I try my damnedest to set aside money for the hairdye because it is often a sizable boost to my self esteem. I feel more 'me' after doing it, and I've been feeling down and like arse lately. Flattened by a sense of ineffectuality, whether I can actually do anything or not, because I don't see that I can.

The money charm-bag I made for the household comes across, mentally, as a small green snake. And speaking of ineffectuality, I don't think it's working. It's been up for a month, and things only seem to have gotten worse.

I realised something yesterday, or maybe the day before. The Ick and lack of doing much is making my days run together. But I think I stopped trying very hard to stand up for myself because feedback that I saw about That Me, from people around me, told me it was just me being a bitch. That wolven is more diplomatic, so I should just shrink back into myself and let him deal with it, if I now care about being seen as a bitch. Unfortunately, I don't think it's helped that, either. It's just made me sullen and passively bitchy because I hate the me that doesn't speak up, and kind of apathetic, instead of active and getting it the fuck out there and over with.

...I'm turning into my dad. Fuck.

New Melissa Auf Der Maur. You know you want it.

People I know have been posting. entries. on what they want, and it's making me want to do the same (the first link is friendslocked. It's more for me than it is for anyone reading this). It's also making me realise that currently I just Don't Know what it is I want. Making this contest over at DA even more difficult, because the theme is 'dreams', and not the kind you have while you're asleep, but the kind you want to be wide awake for. Fulfilling things. Life things.

(Oooh. Idea. I've been dreaming of a House.)

I've started rereading Tales of Pain & Wonder, and am trying to look at stories the way I look at the work of artists I like, to see the mind and the technique behind the work. I've never read in this fashion before, and I think it would be even more productive if my focus wasn't fucked up by being sickish, but my mind just isn't up to it.

Speaking of, does anyone in the area know where I can get dried rose hips?

Feeling better today. Most of the 'ick' is just the stuff in the back of my throat, and not so much of the full-body something-is-off feeling. Going to continue what I've been doing, only switching up the DayQuil for the Sudafed.

Time to do something useful. Maybe I'll feel up to cleaning after I get a shower.

Rain and incense are preferable smells to the sick that is threatening, so I've opened the windows and lighted something. The sticks were in an unlabelled bag. Everyone in the house is verging on plague-ridden in some way. Except for lord_of_smoking. I think he has pretty much made himself uninhabitable to disease.

My sister has graduated to super-ghetto. While living with my mom, the water bill was her responsibility, but she's moved out recently due to disagreements between them. She told my mom when asked directly about it, that it was dealt with, only to have my mom find a shutoff notice on the door a day or so later. It hadn't been paid since April. My mom also has to get the locks changed because she's been sneaking in while mom's at work and stealing food. Not leftovers, but entire bags of frozen chicken.

We're not making it up north for Thanksgiving, unfortunately. It's surprised us again, and now there's no time to plan for it. And money situations seem to be imploding rapidly and without surcease.

Speaking of, I'm open for commissions, and I'm also looking to get my stuff up and sold at wolven's work. If there's anything you've wanted to buy or have me make, now's a good time to let me know. Though, fair warning, if it's a non-digital commission, I may need an advance to pay for something for it to be drawn/painted on.

I don't feel up to any of the cleaning that needs to be done before Friday, still, so today's probably for more dicking about in Painter.

Okay, so whatever this is, is still trying to become the plague. Nearly ten hours of sleep did me much good, and extra vitamin C, spicy food and DayQuil should kick the rest of it, though.

The whole birthday thing is kind of looming at this point. I'm not sure if I still want my Very Own Party(tm). Part of me keeps trying to convince the rest of me that people are only coming because it's an excuse for a party, and because they feel sorry for me. The latter of which is usually a sign that *I* want to feel sorry for me. For some reason.

Blargh. I'm going to finish that damned magazine cover and send it off today.

Reeeeeeeally craving some damned carrot juice. I need a juicer, because the pre-juiced stuff is so frigging expensive, but carrots are actually pretty cheap.

Been having a clothing crisis lately, the kind that makes me want to toss the bulk of what I own now and replace it, based in a want of Cayce Pollard Units, so, likely it's more a want of simplicity. I'm getting bored of my clothes, and am relatively uninterested in trying terribly hard at any kind of 'scene' style anymore. I don't often go anywhere that merits it, and I generally end up feeling like a tool even if I do.

Also, all of my jeans are faded to no-longer-black, and have patches on the butt pockets. It's kind of irritating.

Finding packs of v-neck t-shirts like that in black is a pain, though. I've tried. Not impossible, just a pain. If anyone knows of any cheaper than Calvin Klein's 3-for-thirty, let me know? But that's the cheapest so far, better than AA's (12 bucks apiece, I think), and Hanes' only comes in white.