WIP Wed: All right, I will!

The internet has a way of making me laugh. What should happen right after I post a bit of self-indulgent whining about nobody seeing my blog? I get a tiny spike in views! People really do read my whiny crap! Oh dear, I guess I better step up my game ;)

Work in Progress Wednesday

This hasn’t been the best week for making progress. There is still lots of behind-the-scenes stuff going on with family and relationships, and I really feel like it’s interfering with blogging. I’m also just not entirely sure I’m very good at this blogging thing – not that it matters, “good” has always been a subjective thing, and I’m known to stubbornly persist at making a mess just because it’s fun. Not as much as Lover though, good grief. He’s not allowed to have Oreos and milk after the last time . . .

But anyway, it’s Wednesday and we all made it here, so let’s at least get on with what I’ve been doing this week.

I made a pic board in bored irritation at an article I read, an interview with an 18 year old high school senior who is purportedly “addicted to going to raves”. I won’t even link it because it was so horribly written and the author and hosting publication do not deserve more attention and traffic for that trash. Anyway, what annoyed me so much was the interviewer (most decidedly male) kept gushing over her outfits made of Hot Topic tutus and electrical tape X’s on her boobs, going so far as to say she works on putting together her costumes “like a part-time job”.

Um, no. Just no. Buying from chain stores and raiding your dad’s tool box does not make an amateur costumer. THIS is making your rave costumes like a part-time job:

And it started me thinking, why don’t I make this my job? I love it, it’s what I already do, I keep saying “Oh yeah, maybe my art will make me some money some day”, but then I just keep futzing around and never really doing anything about it. I mean, yeah, I am perpetually broke, so it makes it hard to get good yarn to get started, but I’ve got a change jar like everyone else and I’ve been collecting my pennies. So I have to ask myself, what’s really holding me back?

So I’m working on a new set of wings. This set will be for me to wear, but I’m also treating it as a sample piece to show of my skills, so even though I don’t have the best materials right now, I’m still really putting my time into this. Here’s the tentative beginning:

MoM: Is Anyone Listening?

Music on Monday

Phhhhttt. Why bother today? The only reason I do Music on Monday is to share the music I love and that is keeping me pumped up during the week, and hopefully expose others to amazing music they may not know of.

But honestly, I know the scope of my reach, and right now it is not far. My stats tell me that people are at least seeing the blog, but I am a far-cry away from having any sort of regular readership. Honestly, I’m happy with one view a day, it’s sort of like the bare minimum confirmation that I actually wrote something. I don’t mind never getting comments (with the lovely exception every now and then) because I myself am a terrible commenter.

But it makes it really hard to make a post for the purpose of sharing something if I’m fairly certain my sharing audience is 99% imaginary. So for anyone who has made it to my blog today, I offer the song that is currently stuck in my head, because even though it’s not a top favorite, it is really effective for drowning out obnoxious family members, like the ones that woke me up by screaming over a dirty pot lid left in the sink, even though all the rest of the dishes were clean and put away.

Rob Zombie – Sick Bubblegum (Scrillex remix)

SuS: Reset, refresh, remix!

Starting Up Sunday

I’m baaaaaaack!

I retroactively declare last week to have been my spring break, and man, it was kind of needed.

So, a quick recap of last wekk, and then forward on with the new week:

• Monday was my lover’s birthday, and relatively speaking it was a quiet day, but there was lots of food and some lovely time spent with friends. Also an interesting incident when I woke up in the morning from a nightmare to find my lover’s best friend hiding in the closet, trying not to giggle (the reason for this was Lover’s father had given permission for best friend to be over, but Lover’s mother is not a morning person, so we were all silently pretending he wasn’t there until she left the house).
• Tuesday – so quiet and boring I don’t really remember what happened.
• Wednesday – in an effort to reset himself to a daylight schedule, Lover did not go to bed with the sunrise, I got up earlier than usual, and we met up with friend getting off night shift. Then they taught me how to play Dungeons and Dragons. I am currently a level 3 elven Druid with a panda bear companion (this is what happens when you play with an indulgent DM. Stats-wise it’s just a black bear that looks like a panda). And the boys kept forgetting annoying stuff like calculating my range bonus and then teaching me how to actually roll for it and use it, because nobody remembered I had a sling I could use, and I being the newbie didn’t know any better. But now that I’ve at least been initiated, I foresee long happy evenings of knitting, dice rolling, and nerdish arguing.
• Thursday – Lover’s plan to get back to a daylight schedule didn’t exactly work, he slept all day and woke up around 8pm. But that was ok, I spent the day doing small things around the house, and in the evening we grabbed two of our other friends and went to see Small Town Zeros perform. That was . . . well, Small Town Zeros killed it like always, but there wasn’t much of a crowd to kill and I totally blame the venue. They totally marketed it as an upscale, glamourous event with VIP bottle service . . . for a Thrusday night, and a unknown venue. You can do that in LA, but here in the 805 we’re a bit more laid back, we buy shots, not bottles, and we dress up on the weekends, not school nights. The opening DJs weren’t bad, but everything they played was in our YouTube favorites list. It was the classic example of some over ambitious restaurant owners thinking they could just bust out with the new premiere night spot because they included all the superficial trappings. Nope, sorry, you actually have to have substance. I only made it to that place because I followed the Zeros there, and I will follow them right on out to their next venue (where hopefully they will actually get paid).
• Friday – I was supposed to have a gogo audition, but honestly, it was a bit of a bad day. After seeing STZ Thursday night, I didn’t go to bed until very late, Lover got a bit drunk and snappish, and I ultimately decided that as much fun as gogo dancing is, it is not exactly what I want to spend my time right now doing. I guess I was feeling pressure to make this audition because most of the gogo teams around here only hold auditions once a year (at least from what I’ve observed). But I really thought about it, and I was reminded of the end of Center Stage. If you haven’t seen it, or don’t remember, this the the scene I was specifically thinking of. This is the reason I am not in New York busting my ass for a major company, and this is also kind of the reason I didn’t go to the audition. I don’t really want to be another nameless gogo indistinguishable in our matching bikinis and fuzzy legwarmers, smiling and shaking my boobies and buns just because I was hired to be some eye candy. I love the EDM scene and the underground rave scene, but I want to be able to use my dancing, my art, and even my small popularity as the local fairy girl to spread ideas and open minds, and I think I can do that better as a solo fairy then as part of a gogo team. I just need to get my ass on it and actually do it ;)
• Saturday – another quiet day of getting stuff done around the house.

But I still have some things to show for the week! Secret knitting project number one was revealed to be a hat I knit for my lover’s birthday. Because he can be rather elusive around a camera, all I unfortunately have is really bad self-portraits of me modeling the hat. Sorry.

I also completed another Mochi blanket square, and started work on what I think will be the last square I get out of this ball. Sad day, I’ll have to find a way to scrounge up more Mini Mochi soon.

I also painted a new watercolor over the weekend, but as is usually the case I’m having trouble getting a good photograph. I’m really thinking I need to start experimenting with flashlights and other lighting sources to help illuminate my photos. Either that or start dragging everything outdoors to be photographed.

As for the upcoming week, I’m really working without a plan. I have lots of ideas of things I want to get done in a variety of time-spans, so I don’t think inertia will be the problem it was before my spring break. One thing I am definitively putting to bed is my other secret knitting project. It was to be a present for another birthday in about a month, but this project is cursed. Seriously. So badly cursed that I don’t really want to talk about it. It’s totally ok, because I have alternative birthday celebrating ideas in mind for this friend and everything will be wonderful. And when no one is looking, I will quietly take the cursed project out to the old condemned dairy farm, and drown it in the old duck pond among the algae and cattails. I’m almost not kidding, except I still like the yarn, so I’m going to give it one more chance, but I have seen the red flags, and I will not be afraid to do what I need to.

So yeah, working without a specific plan . . . Should be fun!

MoM: Happy Birthday

Music on Monday

Today is my darling lover’s birthday, and so I give you a short playlist of songs that he is fond of, and that always make me think of him:

Moondog – Pastoral

DJ Arne L II – Acid Pill & Gravediggerz

D.R.I. – I’d Rather Be Sleeping

Hulk – Party Kids

Shpongle – The Dorset Perception

SuS: Rain and rambling

Starting Up Sunday

I should’ve taken advantage of yesterday’s bright sunny energy and made Starting Up Saturday, today is grey and rainy, and seems more appropriate for “Cozily Keeping On Sunday”. I had been thinking of walking to the library today, but it’s six miles round-trip and all my shoes sadly let in water. So badly in fact that I normally just wear flip-flops on rainy days because if I’m going to have wet feet anyway, I’d rather not deal with wet socks. Mother-in-law has hinted that she may be taking me shoe shopping soon. That will be nice.

BUT . . . I digress. I blame the cozy rain. I just don’t feel like proceeding with any plan or order.

I guess the only thing I want to really make an effort to do this week is get started on my second secret knitting project. The first is almost finished, so I’m running out of an excuse not to work on the second. That said, I am going to finish the first before I touch the second, because the deadline is tomorrow, I only have five more rows, and it’s sitting literally inches away waiting for me to be done writing. Then I will simply have to face the music and get going on the second project.

I’m not even going to write down any other projects just now, because if I let myself think they have any priority over the secret knitting, it’ll never get done.

The other big thing going on this week is I have a gogo audition at the end of the week! This is the same group I was trying to audition for at the beginning of the year, the ones that told me to come back for a second audition, and then due to lots of reasons it never happened. I’m slightly concerned about the flakiness level of some of the girls in the group, but at the same time I really want to do it for the fun, and this group will get me exposure that could lead to other dance gigs.

SB Saturday: For the Bleeding Hearts

Soapbox Saturday

If you’re an activism minded bleeding-heart like me, or really just watch mainstream news, you’ve probably been hearing about this whole Kony 2012 thing. Yet despite being a bleeding heart, this is one activism issue I have been rather reluctant to touch, because I think this is a prime example of how bleeding heart activists can be manipulated into supporting radical and even violent actions. To explain it more eloquently than I ever could, I direct you to my favorite news program, Rap News:

Rap News 12 – Yes We KONY?

Bad people are out there doing bad things, and this is terrible, and I feel that if there are ways we can help, that we must. However, it is vitally important that we do our homework, make sure we truly understand what is going on, double check the facts, make sure statistics are being interpreted correctly and not sensationalized, and ultimately do everything we can to make sure the aid we give actually reaches the people we intend it for. Do not let anyone convince you that going to war in Uganda is going to help any sort of humanitarian effort.

FwF Fri: The Spirit of the Thing

Finished with a Flourish Friday

As fas as tangible projects go, everything is still in various states of progress. But I feel I can safely say I kicked inertia’s butt while it wasn’t even looking and got a lot accomplished – more than just some knitting and blogging.

Work on the cotton top and its pattern continues, though I’m giving it a brief rest. I tried on the top as it currently is, and I’m having minor issues with the fit. I think if I had blocked my pieces a little, it would be better, but I have an idea I want to try out. I’ve decided I definitely need to get more cotton and make a few more of these tops. I’m thinking the end goal be less a pattern and more of a “beginner’s guide to freeform”. We’ll see, I never really imagined this growing into the undertaking that it has, but it’s turning out to be quite fun.

The Mochi square has not been touched since the beginning of the week. I’m relegating this to the same background status as the bag of finishing. Secret knitting continues well, still only working on just one of the two projects, but seeing as the deadline for the second is about a month after the first, that should be just fine.

I’m afraid this is a terribly unexciting post, but most of what I feel so accomplished about really took place behind the scenes this week. So even though it means less to show off this week, it does mean lots of little stressful things off my plate so there will be more time and energy for creating next week!

Just so I don’t leave you completely empty-handed, here’s a shot of my blue winter pixie wings. I truly am terrible about getting good pictures of my two wing sets and then remembering to share them. They are probably the two projects I am most proud of, and I even have an idea for a third set that I’ve been turning over, so I’ll have to make a point of getting some good photos.

WIP Wed: Can’t think of title

Work in Progress Wednesday

It looks like my plan to beat inertia is working, but don’t tell it that. One of the first things I got done was putting each project into its own project bag. I had put this off because I didn’t really have anything to use, but then I remembered there were perfectly good freezer bags to be had, and since I only needed three it seemed silly to stay chaotically disorganized.

1. The basic pattern for my cotton top is written, and I’m glad I got it down before I forgot, but the project has taken a left turn, as projects tend to do. I’ve come to the conclusion that my “basic” shape that I was going to further embellish upon was too basic, so my original design is getting slightly altered. There’s been no actual progress in yarn, so no new photos yet.
2. Only one of my secrets projects has gotten any attention, and that’s fine. Both have a sort of deadline, and I got started on the slightly more urgent one. I’ll let you see it, but I’m not giving away details yet. Ironically, I make no effort to hide this from it’s intended recipient, and they haven’t really noticed, but still, no reason to spell out all the details and completely ruin the surprise element.
   
3. And finally, I did start another Mochi blanket square as intended, but as you can see, not much progress. The knitting is serving it’s purpose just fine.
   

TT: Story Time

Tangent Tuesday

So . . . what’s distracting me from my projects now?

Happily, not much. In fact, my projects are distracting me from the last of The Winter Funk, Moody Family Members, and Stupid Things Idiots say on Mainstream Television that make me want to do Things I Really Shouldn’t. You’ll get to see all my nice progress tomorrow with WIP Wednesday.

The other thing that has been distracting me from the Rest of Life, and helping me get progress made on my projects, is stories. I don’t think of myself as a television watcher, but more of a “serial watcher”; I prefer to wait until I hear about a show with a good story, then find it online and devour the whole thing over a period of time (wow, that kind of makes me sound creepy now that I read that). Anyway, this week I find myself particularly drawn into two stories:

Once Upon A Time – the basic premise is an evil queen has taken all the fairy tales characters and trapped them in our modern world without their memories so she can control all the happy endings. I am a die-hard fairytale addict, and this show does not disappoint. There is a fair bit of deviating from Disney, so while it’s family appropriate (as far as I can remember) the littlest ones might get freaked out seeing their favorite characters (no pun intended) break character, sometimes in rather dark ways. I’m no purest, so I love dark twists on my classic tales, and the ingenuity with which all the stories are woven together is elegant, clever, and totally captivating.

Little Dorrit – I was never terribly crazy about Dickens, and I had never even heard of Little Dorrit before I found this, but I was surprised at how much I fell in love with the story – it’s almost like a Jane Austen plot line, but still with the austere and almost cooly analytical style of Dickens. I’m thinking I may have to give Dickens another chance, it’s entirely possibly I’ve sort of grown into his writing style by now.

Finally, today is the Spring Equinox, spring is truly here, even if your thermometer doesn’t quite agree yet. We’re having what I call “spring wind season” right now where our weather is starting to warm up to be perfect for short sleeves and walks to the park, until the chilly wind picks up and you have to pull your hoodie on again. And then a short while later the wind dies and the sun warms you up, and you pull off the hoodie and rejoice in the beautiful weather . . . And then the chilly wind starts again and you pull the hoodie back on. For someone who tends to always be a bit on the cold side, this gets really annoying. However, when the height of summer gets here, it can get very still and hot, so I’ll take what enjoyment from the breeze I can now!

MoM: my newest discoveries

Music on Monday

Last week was pretty rough, I had several moments of needing to just sit with my headphones on, letting everything just go. This is my new favorite song for doing that:

ArcticMonkeys – Don’t Sit Down ‘Cause I’ve Moved Your Chair

But last week I also discovered a new happy-feel-good song:

Gym Class Heros – Stereo Hearts (Remix)

It’s unclear as to who did the remixing on that (people, please, when uploading shit it’s really nice if it’s labeled with all the pertinent info). Anyway, the same user that uploaded Stereo Hearts (whether they remixed it or not) also has this one in their playlist that I’m awfully fond of:

Moonlight Sonata

Turns out I’m rather partial to Beethoven and a strong baseline, as this one also got added to my favorites:

Beethoven – Figlio Perduto (Axiom Crux Remix)

And because I’m a shameless fangirl for Small Town Zeros I just had to share this glowing review written by a French blogger. Last summer STZ had the thrill of their song Secrets being selected for the trailer of the indie film Bellflower, and now the film is opening in France later this month. The post is written in French, and though my translation skills are rusty, it’s clear the author has found a new musical love, and I may have some French fangirl competition later this year ;)