Daily Drawings

One of my personal drawing exercises is to draw what I'm wearing every day.
This has the added bonus of helping me not wear the same outfit too often, as I'm a creature of habit and can't remember what I've worn from day to day without some visual reference...
Normally these sketches go in my day-book/FieldNotes, but the papers too thin of the current one so sketchbook it was.

.studio move.

Back in November, I approached my Mister about switching out studio spaces. I've been in the much larger basement space pretty much since we moved into the house - going on 7 years now - and he's been in one of the much smaller first floor spare bedrooms. 

Originally, this worked out really great for me, because all of that extra space was perfect for setting up as a dance studio, and as I was dancing more plus teaching regularly, these things all made sense.

In the last year I've been dancing a lot less, purposefully not teaching at all, and in general loathe to be in a dark cold windowless basement.  Taj on the other hand, likes dark and cold and windowless, and has turned the basement garage into a painting space anyhow, plus garage basement game nights; and the real crux of it - he's never been able to fit himself into that smaller studio anyhow.

For about a month now we've been working ont he change over - packing everything, moving one set of things, moving another set of things, removing that first set of things - we're getting closer to completion, but it's a process.

And as soon as that process is done, I'll having small perfume sample bottles back for sale in my etsy shop. But right now, it's such a mess, I'm barely aware of where all of those sample vials are.

But soon.

the monster at the bottom of the stairs. addendum

The other thing about having a dog, which I really didn't expect, is that in walking the dog you meet everyone in your neighborhood who also has a dog. And because they are dog people, they assume that in walking a dog that you too are a dog person.

And the first part of that - I've been taking walks - long walks - in my neighborhood for as long as we've lived there. And I've maybe gotten waves or nods ten times. Ever. Since I started walking Sherlock, I'm had conversations with more people than I know what to do with. And some of them more than once - because of the dog they recognize me, or at least him - and say words.
And it's unsettling. Suddenly not being faceless.

Also there's that dog person assumption - which I suppose it not totally unreasonable. Because why would you be walking a dog if you're not a dog person. But I'm not a dog person. And I'm convinced that someone, eventually, is going to figure this out.

And I don't know why I feel like there will be some kind of Dog People of Kansas City retaliation for posing as a Dog Person, but there it is.

Also, while the cat may not play with most any of the toys I buy him - at least he doesn't eat dirty Kleenex.

.the monster at the bottom of the stairs.

Meet Sherlock. The now almost 9 month old lab-hound mix puppy my Other and I adopted from Great Plains SPCA back in September. We hadn't intended on adopting a puppy - I was looking for a nice, calm, older, seasoned dog - but the Mister fell in love with this floppy face and I've brought so many cats home over the years I couldn't say no.

I refer to him as the Monster at the Bottom of the Stairs, because he's a puppy with all of that crazy puppy energy which I was totally unprepared for, and because he's not allowed up stairs for two reasons. He's still not fully potty trained, and that's where the cats lives now.

So this dog has taken over our lives.

And I've spent the last two days home with him, sick with some kind of bug that made it almost impossible to get off the couch, and it's not all bad because he's a very good nap buddy aside from peeing in his sleep sometimes. Because our new puppy is now a bed-wetter.

And our nice calm lives, which neither of us thought were very orderly, have become chaos revolving around a whirling land seal goat shark ball of chaos that eats rocks and bobby pins and wants to be friends with a cat that wants to murder him.

And we're both exhausted and nothing is getting done anymore.

So, that's fun.

.perspective.

From the beginning of it, I've been referring to 2014 as "The Year That's Trying to Kill Everyone." For me (and most everyone I know) this has been true. I did start out the year after all, recovering from a car accident, followed by an ongoing sequence of horribleness that seemed to be without end.

Except.
It really hasn't been that bad. Painful, but mostly in a growing and figuring out what's what kind of way (except for the wrist - that fucking hurt. also the car accident, that still hurts.). I figured out a lot of my priorities, my husband is happier as a freelancer, and in a way things are calmer though not less busy at all. I'm not teaching any more, and that's good. For me. And for the other teachers in town, of which there are plenty for my former students to choose from. I'm taking dance classes and getting back in touch with my base technique. I'm drawing and journaling daily, which means a lot less time spent wasted on social media and this is also excellent. I rejoined my gym which is much less awful than I thought it would be and I'm finally starting to feel a little bit balanced.
And perhaps this year I might even finish that mermaid painting...

So perspective - it's a funny thing, and this next half of the year is going to be even crazier than the first.

I am an American Bellydancer (pt1?)

This was originally intended as a response to a certain article by a certain woman, but it got away from me - and honestly the whole situation was so exhausting and then there are at least two other responses that put everything so much better than I ever could and in the end...
...I'm mostly just really sad that in an opportunity to write a feminist article, she chose to attack other women.
#1 - I'm a white woman and I bellydance. 
#2 - Why I can’t stand neo-segregationists.

                                                           

Just in case you hadn't noticed yet - it's right there is the title.
While I believe my ethnicity has little, if anything, to do with it - I am as far as I know of European descent. Polish and French if it's important to you.
And if that is important to you in the judgmental kind of way, please just exit my life right now.

I first saw bellydance back in 1999. I was seventeen, and stayed late after a Swing Dance class to talk to the instructor. Then the bellydance class walked in, with veils and hip scarves and at the time it was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen in my life. I sat there with one shoe off and one shoe on and my jaw slack until the teacher came up to me and asked if I wanted to join in.
I asked when the beginner class was.

.about yesterday.

Texts between my husband and good friend Michael Byers, who does morning announcement stuff on NPR, including the weather...

 

Used without anyone's permission, but he's my husband which make ownership half mine and if you really want to complain Mr. Byers you shouldn't have posted it on Facebook in the first place.

.unacceptable.

That is not a temperature.

.luna.

Merry Christmas!

.confessions.

When I was little I wanted to be an astronaut when I grew up.
Or a painter.
Or Mary from the Secret Garden. Not "contrary" like Mary was (though really, she had every right to be), just to have a secret garden out on the moors.
Some time later, I was fairly certain I wanted to work in genetics, but then I went to art school anyway and majored in illustration and ended up where I ended up.


I am not an astronaut, though there was a brief moment when I sincerely considered trying to join MarsOne (except for that not coming back part, and I've become fond of lots of things I have here on planet Earth, like ice cream). I get motion sick in planes and my anxiety makes rollar coasters difficult nowadays.

I am, quite by accident, a painter. I took one actual painting course in college - I had extra time and needed credits to stay full time and retain my health insurance and somehow snuck into the 500 level Advanced Painting course which nobody there was very happy about including the instructor but there I was anyhow, taking up space. I suffered from a severe lack of using green pigment in skin tones, completed more work than the instructor had thought was possible (quite literally, she told me a the beginning of the course that there was no way I could complete  9 portraits in one semester and two months from the end was sitting there, finished and bored), and passed despite my having been a complete and total jerk about it. Meanwhile George Zimmerman is selling what I consider to be the most horrible bullshit on ebay for upwards of 100,000 dollars and I can't even get my carpenter to finish the work he promised me in exchange for that mural I did during the summer.

I do have a garden, though not on any Irish Moors or even with beautiful walls, and I've been so busy lately that I'm not even going to work in it next year other than to continue my battle with the mint that keeps trying to overrun it again.

I am technically an illustrator and designer, though not really of any merit or achievement. I don't consider the work I create at my day job to be real work (more in the realm of college assignments) and my ability to get freelance work doesn't exist - aside from the occasional request of "Will you illustrate this children's book I wrote and by the way I don't have any money so I need to you do it for cheap or free and when it's published I promise you'll get paid."
I fell for that...once.


I've been moonlighting as a semi-professional bellydancer for a while now but even that is losing it's charm - dealing with people (other dancers and clients) becomes more and more tedious and the idea of early retirement is becoming more and more appealing.

I have a moderately successful etsy business, mostly selling geek inspired perfumes; though even that started out a far cry from what it is today as I was originally making bindi's (the first bindi seller on etsy in fact) but when everyone and their aunt figured out how easy the stupid things were to make quitting seemed the better part of valour.


In short - I am very much looking forward to my winter break where I don't really have to work on anything except for trying to make there two cats be friends (or possibly re-homing Luna) and maybe finish that painting for my godmother. Maybe I can, once again, rethink my priorities and figure out what it is that I really want to be doing. In reality I may have more interests an activities than it's reasonable to be able to focus on and excel at - something may have to go, and the garden may not be enough.
Goodnight.

.just because.

.tuesday.

 

Running late this morning and it's all this puffy guys fault.

.things that happened.

the Khal and the Khaleesi

Happy National Cat Day!

.tuesday.

boycott tuesday?

.thursday.

World Cat Day!

 

My moggies when they were tiny kits.

Elvis on the left (now lives with my mum), and Byrd on the right.

.things that happened this week.

• I made a plan, and I'm going to need a dumpster. And some nails. And some pallets.

• I cracked an egg with a double yolk in it which is supposed to be good luck. I call bull doodey.

• I burned the begeezus out of both of my hands (baking the thing with the double yolk in it no less). I thought I was going to be useless for weeks, but I somehow magic-healed myself so I'm only a little bit maimed (or is it a magic egg?).

• Dance classes! (I taught them - they're back to being at my house! More double egg bull hockey?)

• Our refrigerator died (EGG!).

• It was my last chance to hang out with Kevin, my college friend who's decided that New York is the better answer. Wish him luck! (Or hire him, if you're in the area).

• The beastie had angry carrier time. Then angry vet time. Then more angry carrier time. Now we're both exhausted.

• Oh yes....more circus dancing.


Really it's too bad it wasn't an egg in an egg - because that's actually spectacular...

.i should have gone into advertising.

I was in Orlando for work for the last several days and was stuck eating all of my meals at a mall which was awesome let me tell you all about it - three days of mall salads, which around day three my body roundly rejected all of.
By the time we got to the airport yesterday I was glucose deprived and probably crazy and devoured half a bag of Swedish fish, which got me wondering about the history of Swedish Fish, which got me searching, which eventually led me to this:

And that about made my week.