In which I sum up

Four years. Has it been so long? I had to resend my password and I’m staring at this template, trying to clear the dust off how to do all this. I haven’t stopped writing. My brain is an incessant hamster wheel spinning posts constantly. I just don’t write them down. Such is the grief of a writer, to find that magical balance between being a miserable lonely person and having the confident to think people want to read what you, such a wretch, think and feel.

I had so many questions. I did so much research. I tried so many things. I sewed like crazy!

I’m a different person, now. Experience and grief will change you. The world is a different place, Facebook is god. I have a cellphone. After five times and a gazillion more regionals, I feel pretty confident about what works for me, at the burn, and enough people have confirmed this that I feel like maybe striking up the ol’ blog.

Still written mostly for me (so it’ll be personal and rambly).

Thank you for reading and bringing some of that confidence back.

HODOR.

The pros/cons list from the job I wanted so, so very, very much.

Packity Pack Pack

Well, I’m not using either of the two compression bags I got, despite overloving the first one. My new phone took awful pictures, but the final result was a huge brick

Just like the plastic bags. Last night I took everything out and redid it the normal way and freed up a lot of space. I’m feeling pretty ok on space, but not on what’s in there. I feel I need more sensible (read: boring) stuff, but I don’t own any!! I don’t even really wear jeans, IRL. I am, thanks to Mod Mischief (whose lamps would be a gorgeous, gorgeous night time installation piece, imagine hundreds of them all over deep playa), experimenting.

Local honey, local peaches, some peach pie spices and vodka.

I went to the $1lbGoodwill, found some sparkly jeans to size down

(that went amazingly well)

Tried to work more on the sparkly top…

My priority was to try and find some fabric to enlargen the Perfect Coat I bought in Asheville months and months ago. Black wool, cherry red lining, nips in at the waist and then flares out…and of course too small. And what did I find…

A perfecter coat except for the non-cherry red lining. I thought it fit…it’s also too small so there was that saga (making it bigger). FINALLY got that figured out and started on patches. How ’bout that collar, eh?

I totally feel like Captain Harlock when I wear it.

So, I just learned this, finding that link:

 In Japanese culture, the number 42 is associated with death (the numbers, pronounced separately as “four two”, sound like the words “shi ni” — meaning “to death”).

Did Douglas Adams know that?? Is that his secret meaning, the true meaning of life is death? We all live, to die.

That reminds me, I forgot to pack a towel…

Distractions

Wait for it….

The Gorgonist has lovely lovelyinspiring prints:

LOOK at the hair accessories…very clever and inventive.

Sorry Eplaya, Regretsy is the non-gendered, all-empowered Snark ruler of the internet in both word and image.

Ooo, speaking of Vietnam, let’s see how my listing is doing…everything’s sold, not for as much as I’d hoped, but still. Sold. And it’s all profit, since it’s stuff lying around the house. If I can just sell 50 things a month for $20, I can totally quit my job. Which I’m doing, anyways. I’ve had it. I was telling my bossish lady about what happened last week, and she said she’s been applying elsewhere, and the third woman has been “sending out job applications left and right.”

Yesterday I got virused. Took them alllll daaaaay to fix it. This morning I arrived to a bookmark, document and picture free PC. ARGH. So I’m trying to remember my bookmarks.

The will power to do a preBRC get fit plan finally kicked in…yesterday…it’s not too late, right?

The Smith mini-doc is making me very happy.

wow

The West Memphis 3 are going free today. I had to see what the filmmakers say – Paradise Lost was one of the first movies that really had me recognize how much I love documentaries – and the Berlinger/Sinofsky oeuvre is unmissable. It’s one of those movies that, after watching, I had to learn everything there was to know. It also portrays what it’s like to be a misfit in a small Southern town that considers a kid who wears black t-shirts to be evil and a murderer. Yes, because he wears black t-shirts. Though they did become somewhat of a cause celeb…cause de celeb? it is beyond easy to identify with D.E., accused of atrocities simply because of his clothes.

Also not to be missed: Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis. I’m fairly astounded I’ve never heard of him. Beautiful work and a corresponding cinematic biograpy. And, lastly, Bonk. I’m finding it much more enjoyable than Stiff; I skipped several bits of that one.

 

HOW EXCITING!!

Aren’t you EXCITED!!! I know I AM!!!!

 

 

 

 

I can get NYAN CAT as wallpaper on my new phone!!! And Cordelia and Spike are getting married.

 

hahahaha…what…it’s the little things. I got a new phone that’s alright except I CAN’T TYPE ON IT AND IT IS MAKING ME CRAZY. Seriously. Near tears.

Today I’m cruising the free applications, the major themes seem to be food and booze, sex and Jesus. In just one row, there’s “Rate My Breasts,” “Holy Bible” and “Erotic and Sex Hub.”

I’m trying to get Sky Map (I love constellations), the Ebay app and a game or two (Tetris and Bejeweled)…maybe Google books? But I can’t figure out how to do it. 95% of what my phone can do I will never use. Assuming I could figure out how to use it.

There’s a stadium horn. Where’s my vuvuzela app??

Oooo…my phone could be a scanner. I also don’t know what uses data and what doesn’t. Should I get some sort of battery saver? Kindle? Aldiko? Nook?? oh, and it’s an HTC Inspire.

I like the fireworks wallpaper and thunderstorm… but I’m one of those who deletes everything not used, cleans out Sent and Deleted Items at least weekly, so I don’t see myself cluttering the phone up with a bunch of memory sucking apps. Found my word game! Hm, Job Search…movies are reasonably priced.

Now…I just have to figure out how to work it. It’s going to be incredibly great to have while I’m on the road, sitting for hours on end!!

Some learnin’

I found this to be one of the best explantions of neurotransmitters, and how certain psychoactive drugs work, I’ve ever read. It’s all so completely fascinating, how inextricably link every facet of our human experience is (what we see, eat, hear, feel, smell, think, etc.).

More on this later, but for now some hyper-sentimental drivel.

Gah. I just lost everything I typed after that. !@#$%^& It was funny, too. /sigh

Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art…. It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival. ~C.S. Lewis

“We can sit together in front of a mirror, or a television set, or a window, for hours on end, and everything that passes between us seems to be recorded—giggles, silences, commentary—in the annals of righteousness.”

—Rebecca Wolff, The Beginners

If I never go to Burning Man or a regional burn ever again, I will still have the most precious, important, wonderful thing about them: my friends. I’m 33 (blech) and for the first time in my life, I have people I genuinely consider friends in the best sense and meaning of the word. People who like me how I AM, not in spite of it. People who show they actually care about me through word and deed. I still get lonely, sure – and feel alone. But not as much or as often as I used to; how could I? I have some amazing and awesome people in my life that make me happier than I thought I knew how to be. From the real-life friends who come to visit me on my birthday to the internet friends who send me a well-wishing, hope you’re OK email…it’s staggering, how thoughtful and generous people have been to me. I really just had to publically thank you all and tell you your friendship and kindnesses towards me are not taken for granted – from the slightest comment on a blog post to envelopes full of cash. 😛

Thank you.

And now, an example of one such awesome gesture that has just made my year:

An innocuous posting of a picture of a dude with a crochet beard led to a stranger offering to make me one. Isn’t it FABULOUS?

The double-boned corset, not so much! Not without a minion, anyways, to fetch and lift! And now, just for FF, gratuitous KITTEH!

There has never been a cat
Who couldn’t calm me down
By walking slowly
Past my chair.
~Rod McKuen

FEROCIOUS BEASTIE!!!

It is impossible to keep a straight face in the presence of one or more kittens.  ~Cynthia E. Varnado