The Winamp is being dramatic and whiny for me. Har Har.

I guess I understand why to a point, but it still confuses and annoys me that the magic stuff rears it's head most when I am bleeding profusely and feeling like arse. I'm planning on making something of an important nature in that area, and it's been spinning around my head off and on. Collecting bits and pieces of an informational nature; I've got all the physical components to hand.

I have so fucking much to do this month, before going up North, and I have no idea where to begin.

Though the TMI showed up last night, it came on in earnest this morning. Not just cramps, not just bleeding, but apparently my body decided that everything must go, which was uncomfortable enough that I had trouble eating breakfast, hell, even making myself want breakfast, between running for the bathroom. It got better, though, and I got breakfast in me so I could then get aspirin in me along with my coffee, and now, most of it's peachy except for the normal out-of-it, and the persistent feeling that whatever D was sick with is trying to force it's way into me.

I need to do sketches for ideas for the surprise commission, mix up and apply the background wash for the painting for my dad, clean up all the game cards and send off small versions of those, and the Wacom Dreams contest is due a few days earlier than I thought. It is absolutely fucking miserable outside, and the upstairs is actually warming nicely thanks to our trusty little space heater, so I may be leaving the office/bedroom areas as little as possible today, let alone actually venturing outside, and what I really want to do is to sit here and browse absurd libraries of magical links for idea fodder.

However, I might actually feel up to a workout if I get another cup of coffee in me, and I've still got Internets to check, and then we'll see where things take me.

So Dorian fell down the stairs yesterday while I was screwing around with him, and appears to have twisted his leg some. He's limping, and I've been beating myself up over it all day, but the former vet-tech roommate insists that he should be fine as long as nothing's open or broken.

I have sketched out the loon painting for my dad (he likes wildlife, and Maine), for Giftmas, on the second-largest canvas I have so that I can tell him I made the big one his because he's old and can't see so good. The really large one is too big for me to want to screw around with right now. I tried to start on other family things, but I'm still working out what to make them, and some may still be getting bought gifts. I'm also slowly convincing myself that giving people artwork is not the ghetto way out, like I've often felt in years past. I've got another commission, but it's a surprise, so this is likely the last you'll hear of it.

Picked up a jar of that paint-on-glazed-ceramics-and-bake-in-your-oven paint last night. There were no white or black of the pens left, and I wanted something simple to experiment with, so I got the jar instead. Haven't tried anything yet, maybe later. It does need to dry for 24 hours.

I dreamed of a water slide, last night, of having to go on it in normal clothes. I think the slide and tunnels were in a city, a replacement for a subway system. On the way up, a series of steps, several tiny snakes tried to bite me, but I stepped around them.

On the way down, because it turned into a kind of pathway for inner-tubes, while floating along I found an egg, hatching on the dirty, whitish tiles. It was a baby anaconda or python, something that would grow up to be huge. The baby's head was already two-thirds the length of my hand, it's body a little less long than my arm. I tried to find someone to help me with it, while I kept it warm, but a big, kind of fat guy, reminded me of Comic Book Guy, told me it would be my responsibility.

It's colder, today, and I'm still feeling off, unsure of whether it's the impending TMI keeping me a bit droopy, or me catching wolven's terrible plague. I've got Mythos Cults on the brain, especially the Starry Wisdom and in connection to witchcraft kinds of things, and I want to figure out if it's to any purpose so I can move past it, because that's not conductive to working on nice presents for mine or D's family.

Also this spider plush is frigging adorable and I kind of want one.

I now have two three! baby pomegranates (found the third while getting more coffee). They're so frigging cute. :D

The second rosemary cutting got planted, and I now have one inside and one outside.

Yesterday went better than expected. I half-filled a jar with cute-little-girl appropriate beads, and some embroidery thread to begin with, as well as some other jewelry, like the butterfly bracelet and ladybug earrings from the Internet Yard Sale, and I'm going to paint the jar appropriately.

Got a page and a panel for thenowhere's comic, and I'm far, far happier with this one so far. I think I'm getting closer to losing the divide between my sketching/personal work drawing (which I think almost always ends up better), and my comic drawing.

The anthology I'm in is apparently out available for ordering, but won't ship for a couple weeks. Please overlook the cover design...I'm so not happy with it, but it's not my call. *coughgrumble*...random frigging Elvish for some reason...*grumblesnarlgrumble*

I didn't get to the woodburning because finding the stand to my woodburner so that I don't burn the fuck out of my desk took forever. By the time it was found, I was hungry and distracted. But I did find a saw with which to cut off one end that was splitting and had an in-the-way branch-nub.

Made a tea before bed last night from hibiscus, (my home-grown) catnip, chamomile and lavender. If I wasn't already in the time of PMS insomnia, I'm sure it would have knocked me right the fuck out. And it was tasty, in a flowery kind of way. As it was, I dreamed for what seems like all damned night. I forgot all of it, after being startled awake alternately by cats and by wolven's coughing fits and fever-breaking sweats that forced him to change his clothes twice.

It's about time to work out, wash my face and get dressed. There are errands to run, tickets to meet Neil Gaiman to pick up, lots of scans of various kinds to clean up that I've been putting off, and designs for Giftmas presents to work on. I may just use my credit card to pick up those pens and maybe some canvases...need to think on it.

I've found yet another blog-as-craft-inspiration, and they have some fantastic ideas I'm going to borrow for making presents. Like the hand-painted mugs; I didn't know those ceramic pens existed. Maybe D will let me borrow the money for one or two.

And that brings me to another idea; maybe one of D's younger cousins will like some of the beads I have. I don't use plastic myself, but I have a goodly amount of them, leftover from when my mom ran my sister's Brownie troop.

I need to get dressed, and go take care of the cats for the last time of this session, today, but other than that, I'm not sure what is going to get done. I'd like to finally restart thenowhere's comic, as it was on my mind last night, and get some woodburning practice in, and maybe the sorting of those beads, too. And trimming my sage plant before the cold kills it off too much.

I've reduced my showering from daily to every other day, in order to help save hot water, and thus the gas bill. I already wasn't washing my hair every single day. It's going to take some getting used to, though, to get moving without that on the between days. Which might explain why I was so sedentary yesterday...

Okay. Time to do stuff.

I'm glad the earlier post made people happy to be included. In truth, I mean to do that kind of thing more often.

Yahoo Mail wants to be Gmail so very badly, but it keeps missing valuable things that make Gmail better. Like that forced upgrades suck. Not having an option for just HTML sucks even more. And embedding an open Yahoo Messenger as part of it is Teh Suck.

This post was meant for some more involved things, so on to those.

One thing that kept me up last night was the thought that if I'm going to get anywhere with this art thing, I don't only have to consolidate my self-promotion, my name, my work. I have to consolidate what it is I want to do, a graphic novel artist and cartoonist and whatever else, all at once, but I have to stop flailing at each one that happens along in turn. Effort, in one, will further the whole thing, because while specialisation might be for insects, I'm not sure being a dilettante ever helped anyone get very far in anything except being a dilettante. Precision, aim, care, is just as important when presented with multiple targets if you want to hit home.

And a (rather subtle) clue-by-four, in the form of a post on nonfluffypagans, where I've recently begun lurking, that is particularly relevant given some recent musings on my own path. In short, 'Your true path is the one that calls you to walk naked in a hailstorm, and you can't figure out why anyone else has a problem with it. You get bruises and frostbite and you remember them fondly as "the fun parts".', but the whole post is well worth reading, and a boost to the actually-critical eye (as opposed to the pseudo-critical-but-really-actually-self-hating eye) that I've been giving these things, lately. It's something else to chew on, but it helps the whole process.

Watched Chronicles of Riddick and Gladiator at various points, along with bits and pieces of other things. Took care of wolven. Washed sheets, all that.

And to top the whole thing off, I'm all. about. moths. tonight. WTF?

Yesterday was Black Friday...I know a lot of people are going to end up doing some holiday shopping, regardless of what holiday it's for. So, here's a bunch of people who I know, even liminally, that would appreciate the funds more than, say, your local Wally World.

In no particular order:

raoin makes lovely jewelry and will likely do custom work if asked nicely. She has an Etsy, which is probably a good place to start for the custom work.

mahajarabali draws commissions, writes and makes comics. Two of them. AND makes dolls and things.

oletheros writes occasionally mind-bending comics, and gives me work drawing them.

primaldog makes totem jewelry from legally-obtained bones and teeth, and donates much of the proceeds from said to charities involving wolves and coyotes, or veterans' benefits.

raidingparty makes crazy games.

greygirlbeast is possibly my favourite author, and as such writes books that I cannot recommend enough. Check out her Ebay auctions for rarities, and her partner humglum is making cute Cephalopodmas ornaments from paperclay.

deathboy makes awesome darkwave breakbeat-based musics. Along with being the only person I've known who has fully conjugated the word 'cunt' successfully.

fetishpunk writes industrial and fetish fiction, and it's all pretty awesome. He's got a new n*vel (his spelling) up for preordering.

diosa_en_disfra takes lovely nude pictures (that means that link is not worksafe), and has a book of them out.

lupabitch works for a small press and makes crafts from fur (scraps and upcycles from thrift store finds), leather and bone.

moonvoice makes lovely totem and faerie tale art.

karmazain makes traditional hoodoo oils, soaps, candles, jewelry, and other things as well. She has an Ebay store and her own site for readings and the like. And if you live near me, she's local.

If you're going to use Amazon, go through the links at Need Coffee, as then it benefits someone other than the Big A, sign up for their feed at needcoffee_rss, or become a member.

And, of course, I'm open for work, too. Digital or physical, but get to me soon if the latter, because shipping takes time. :D

Here's hoping I haven't forgotten anyone. If I have, it's not personal. I just didn't sleep well. :D

Dream. I'm in an abandoned factory. I think there might be someone there, exploring with me. We don't have flashlights, and it's night, but we can see. There's some light, like street lights, in most of it. Old emergency lights. Things like that. I know, somehow, it's a glass factory.

We go deeper and deeper in, until I'm not sure I can get out again with ease, but I'm too fascinated. I see a wire cage, around a vent or crawlspace opening. It's in a recessed area in the floor, like a cement pit. Where that crawlspace goes is not known; it's utterly black. As I watch, a claw, like a larger human finger, curls around one of the wires of the cage. Something attached to that claw may or may not try to speak to me.

I run to whoever I was there with. I find them in the largest area of the place, and after jibbering a bit about 'claws', I realise that they're watching a play. It's pretty loose; you can sit somewhere in what they are using for scenery, and watch. The performers are all young men, dressed in *real* industrial wear, not the Lip Service kind but foundry boots and welding leathers or grey Dickies, some bare-chested. They're performing what I just did; the finding of the monster in the depths of the place. The monster is an attractive young man, shaved-head and baby-faced, who is actually a monster. The claws were real, his whole arm's covered in scales, and they've all lived here for years.

They want us to join them. Creativity is part of the deal; I wonder if there's a place for me to have a studio, somewhere in there.

There's a story in here. Pickman's Monstrous Industrial Art Collective, or something.

Slept okay once I got there. wolven's coughing kept him restless, which kept me having to wrestle blankets back or something. The moment he wakes up and gets bored enough to move downstairs, I'm opening windows, lighting incense and washing those sheets. It smells like sick in there.

The soup made from the leftover turkey legs was a huge success. A reminder for next time, though; even if the bones and tendons and such are going to be part of it for the broth, pull the meat off beforehand. Don't just drop whole drumsticks in the crock pot. It's much harder to get it off there when it's too hot to hold.

wolven has been laid out by surprise-SARS. Or something. He managed to find someone to take his shift tomorrow, but by the time it had become more than an annoying maybe-thing that wouldn't go away, anywhere that might help was closed. I don't think it helped that he was freaking out, trying to find that replacement, and that his mom was freaking out because he's sick, but after we took care of the cats, ran around town trying to find an open Minute Clinic or similar, and stopped at the Kroger for a couple of things, he pretty much just ate a little soup and steamed himself in the shower before passing out.

I'm avoiding going to bed because, well, he's sick. And I don't want to sleep downstairs because downstairs is cold. Although I guess should be okay if I face away from him. I have a feeling that what he's got is an elevated form of the coughing almost-thing I had a week or so ago.

Was woken early today. I don't think I can keep myself up much longer.

From here.

( Late but still awesome. Thanksgiving night flowchart. )

Post-thanksgiving was traditionally, before I moved here, a night for stupid adventure with a bunch of equally restless post-dinner friends. So, appropriate.

Okay, if I've tried to talk to you on Google Wave, you've responded, and not heard from me in over a week, it's because my computer is 'speshul', and it's only recently behaving again with the Google Wave. It *was* freezing and crashing on that page before it could even load conversations, when I tried to use it. I think a recent Java or Firefox update helped it behave.

I have invites. Eight of them. Let me know if you missed out on wolven's set. I'm too lazy to divide them between here & Twitter like he did.

Plans to hide from Black Friday aren't quite happening. Groceries are needed, and kitties need to be fed and taken care of. Two leftover turkey drumsticks, as well as many leftover potatoes and mushrooms, are going into the crockpot with more veggies and some hot stuff tonight (red peppers, chili powder, etc.) and getting turned into spicy stew.

I dreamed of living in something like The Village, but one with a much simpler kind of trickery in which they either forced you to pay exorbitant prices for water, to have a garden, or for the produce required to stay healthy. So, 'Whole Foods' The Village'? Of discussing with someone how to pirate water, enough to keep plants from drying up within a day in the desert.

Trying not to vent about spite-filled, passive aggressive people here. It's not my workplace, it's wolven's, but it's been stuck in my mind, and the early-PMS apathetic and mopey me is morphing into the later-PMS more driven and aggressive me. So, you know, any punching bag in a storm, but deserving ones first.

Or at least for it to be time to start cooking green beans. There is no curry in the turkey, but there is a metric fuckton of rosemary, garlic, wine, ginger and even a little cumin.

And, as per usual, click through for the fullview mode.


Done for shits & giggles. I started this wanting to practice cel shading as well as drawing in Painter. As we all can see, that didn't quite happen.


Done for opheliastorn's online fiction mag, Semaphore.

And Dorian will not give up on the bottle-cap fetch today. O_O;

New userpic slightly related. Because dinner may or may not end up with curry in it. There is a better-than-half shot of anything I make having curry as a component. So, I thought this only appropriate for a cooking icon.

All-natural, freerange turkey drumsticks achieved, and the whole dinner (turkey, potatoes, mushrooms, fresh green beans and canned cranberry jelly thing) will still cost less than the last time we did this with an entire turkey from the Kroger. Also, less than ten bucks. We didn't get pumpkin pie, which is kind of a travesty, but between the expense and already having a shitload of leftover pastries that wolven brought home from work, pie can happen later. When it's on sale.

A discussion last night, one that started out bemoaning the lack of interaction on here, led to the conclusion that the Internet is widely becoming less and less of an interaction medium, and more of a self-presentation medium. It was only proven by the seeming lack of interest on here, as well as the growth of abhorrent things like MySpace, and the prevalence of unelaborated retweets on Twitter.

Prove me wrong. Engage with one another. We're not just here to stroke our own egos or cower in our own spaces writing to ourselves. This is as much a reminder for myself as for anyone else. It's very easy to convince myself that I don't have anything worthwhile enough to say to merit hitting the 'reply' or 'comment' buttons, and that's a habit I need to get out of.

And it figures that as soon as I try to upload things to DevArt, that it craps out on me, either acting like it doesn't exist, or timing out.

I did some leaf-raking, mostly off the walkways and into the garden bed, where once the winter rain comes more often, they'll do some good. I broke a large branch of marigolds off in doing so, so I put it on my goetic altar. The potted plants got moved to somewhere they'll get more sun, and where a couple of them can also be protected from wind by the trashcans. I pulled some dead shit, lugged some stuff to be burned into the fire pit, and planted one of the two rosemary cuttings, the one that has more roots. The other gets a little more water time.

Fuck! Left the shed unlocked!

Has anyone seen this week's Metalocalypse? DRUGS. Lots of them. HO-LY SHIT.

Ok, time to go lock things back up. :D

I have a baby pomegranate! That cup has a tiny, straggly little seedling in it, as of this morning!

It's a nice day, nicer than it has been all this week. By which I mean it's not chilly and wet, and there's actual sun. I think I'm going to try and spend at least some of it outside. There's leaves to sweep into the yard, and some weeds to pull, potted plants to move to a sunnier location and probably other things to prep it all for winter that I've forgotten or missed.

Later, once wolven gets off work, is for a trip to DeKalb for turkey drumsticks, and other dinner fixings. Which I'm still trying to decide on (yams, or roasting potatoes in the pot with the drumsticks? green beans or what?). We're making ourselves dinner here, and possibly visiting Brandon and his family later that night. We'll both probably call our respective families, but I think my dad is still in the middle of Nowhere, Maine, and my grandmom is probably also somewhere I can't precisely get ahold of her, at an aunt's main house or her beach house.

Yesterday's digital doodling, among a couple other things, should get posted soon. I've just been feeling particularly lazy and kind of apathetic in that respect. It may be the impending TMI talking, but I spent yesterday, when I wasn't working, looking at the post I made about the free commissions, and thinking 'Well, fuck, I can't even GIVE this shit away.'.

Today? It means more time for my stuff.

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.