Dye, Dye, Dye, My Darling

I couldn't quite get the picture to look like the painting (how often do you hear that one?) but I think it's pretty damned close. As I said last night, I'm still kind of boggled that this came out of my hands. Boggled and happy. I think that's a sign that I need to paint more. *bounces*

After a few different discussions I had at Hot Damn, I finally decided to get off my ass and start painting again. For real, this time. ((wry grin))

It's been far too long since I've had a brush in my hands. If I was born to do anything, it was make things, be it via painting, sculpture, or sticks and string. Unfortunately, I just haven't felt that inspired to do much of anything lately. *mouth quirks* My brain and its ever-so-helpful chemistry to the rescue, I guess. But the conversations I had convinced me that I needed to ignore the fact that I wasn't "in the mood" to work and just freaking do it.

I'm currently seesawing between indecisiveness and the other end of my crazy scale, which is a near-manic, giddy obsessiveness with getting things done.
It's kind of a head rush, to be honest. ((wry grin))

I'm almost done with the self-portrait I started right at the end of the semester. Another hour and I think it'll be finished.

I can't stop staring at it and being a little amazed that it came out of my hands. On the down side, that means I also kind of want to set my previous work on fire for not being good enough, but it's not like I haven't experienced that before. ((laughs))


For my next painting, I'm either going to finish another one of my pieces from this past semester, or I'm going to paint a deep-sea angler fish, possibly as a wedding present. *arches brow* Though hopefully I'll remember to work on knitting somewhere in there, too. I still have a pair of socks owing.

So I've finally made it back from the Oregon coast.

There was, er, less knitting than I had hoped, since I managed to break most of the DPNs in my sock without realizing in my backpack. *sighs* There was also rather more drinking than I had hoped, since I managed to spend my first evening hugging the porcelain god I've had since the night of my 21st birthday. There was also less sexing, but let us not talk about that. ((wry grin))

It was a week full of friends, both old and new, and a reminder of why I haven't run off to live in a cave in the woods somewhere with a whole lot of sheep. It's hard to describe the type of geeky camaraderie that is inherent at E2 meets, but it's a feeling that's hard to leave behind once you've had it. Almost painful to leave it behind, in fact. *mouth quirks*

There were some down sides, like the fact that my flight itinerary changed between the time I last checked it and when I printed out my schedule, leading me to have to pay $350 I don't really have to get a new ticket to get back to Buffalo.

*headdesk headdesk headdesk*

But, for the most part, it was the most fun I've had in years. Quite possibly since the last Hot Damn. ((wry grin))

More details later, maybe.

One of the funny things about living in Buffalo is that on some days, when the wind is right, you can smell Lucky Charms for hours.

I'm still not sure whether this is a good thing or a bad thing.

So, I, uh, halfassedly set a goal for myself of a hundred miles this week. As in, "100 miles, do not go over," with the assumption that that would be fairly easy to manage, as most people do not cycle, walk, or run a hundred miles in a week.


Apparently I am not most people.


Monday: 20 miles by bike and my second yoga class.
Tuesday: 16 miles by bike and about an hour and change of weight training.
Wednesday: My “rest” day, which means I only did about 8 miles by bike and 1 on foot.
Thursday: Went to the closer gym (4 mile round trip) and ran 6 miles.
Friday: 18 miles by bike, 2 on foot. Plus another Zumba class. It was less horrible than the first one, but I still prefer spinning. Either kind.
Saturday: Thus far, 18 miles by bike and an hour of weights at the gym. It turns out that I can leg press 350 lbs., not 220. ((wry grin)) I’m going to see if I can move that up to 400 next week. Wait, no. Make it the week after that, given that I am attending teh E2 gathering in Oregon next weekend.


The grand total, distance-wise, is 93 miles, with another day to go in the week to rack up those last 7.


I maybe am kind of a crazy person.

Though I still haven't started my 100 Pushups routine properly. ((wry grin))

The following statement may or may not make sense to you, depending on how well you know my, ah, mental quirks.

Today I wore shorts. In public. Willingly.

It's still a ways away from thinking I look good in shorts, but hey, a step is a step.

Also, watching the way my muscles move under my skin as I ride my bike is both distracting and really cool. ((grins))

It's weird how something as small as this can effect you. I still feel self-conscious about the way I'm built, but right now I'd rather be comfortable physically than worried about how I look. This coming from the woman who used to run in sweatpants, on the beach, in the summer, in Spain.

So I've been exercising again. ((wry grin))

Monday: Started attending a beginner's yoga class.
Tuesday: Joined the gym. Ran for about 45 minutes my first day. Also did my first day of 100 Pushups.
Wednesday: Break day, which means I only rode my bike about 5 miles. In the rain.
Thursday: Rode my bike about 18 miles, took a spinning class, and did a little weight training.
Friday: Another break day.
Saturday: Treadmill for about 20 minutes, then a "Zumba" class, which further cements the fact that I was not born with rhythm.
Sunday: Break day. Though I'll probably restart my 100 Pushups routine on a lower level tonight.

Not surprisingly, I'm feeling better now that I've stepped up the physical activity.
I'd love to lose weight, and while that's pretty damned likely in the long run-- all it takes for me, in general, to drop is a steady regimen of exercise-- right now I'll settle for better posture, better health, and having a brain that's less inclined to try and kill me.  Before, it took me a year and a half to lose 70 lbs. It's not going to go any faster now, and I need to remind myself of that.

To be honest, I've got two real goals; everything else, even losing weight, is secondary at best. They're the same ones I've had for about 4 years now: someday, I want to run a marathon, and someday, I want to participate in a triathlon.  I will be as healthy as I can be, and I will appreciate my body for what it can do, while it can still do it.

Maybe if I repeat that last part often enough, I can convince myself  I mean it.

As I mentioned a while back, I went camping this weekend. There were trees.



There were also rocks.



Also, waterfalls.



Did I mention the rainbows and dead deer?



For the curious, I've posted most of the shots from the trip over here on Flickr.

Just got back from camping.
Legs are sore. Neck is sore. Think I have a sunburn.


God, it was fun.

Two better shots of the masks I'm making.





And one of the mask I'm keeping for myself.

All right, when last I posted about work, the form for the masks I'm making looked like this:



With ( a 'few' intermediate steps... )which bring us to this:



Which is still about three steps away from completion. I tack on the headdress to the hat and mask by hand, then do the same to the ears, once I've taken all the pins out. I still haven't figured out what to do to make the ears stand up straighter, but I'm working on that. I'll see if I can talk one of my co-workers into trying one on tomorrow to get a finished object picture.

I may have to change my stance on wanting a haircut. *mouth quirks*

I'm not a fan of long hair. It's a pain in the ass to take care of, and I generally forget to brush it more than once every 2 or 3 days. (And yes, I'm aware it shows, before one of you smartasses says anything.) I've been cursed-- or blessed, depending on how you look at it-- with extremely plentiful, extremely fast-growing hair, so my usual zero-maintenance approach to dealing with my appearance... doesn't work so well.

I've been threatening to cut it all off for months now because I'm tired of the minimal effort I have to put into dealing with it. But what I just saw in the mirror just now has swayed my opinion, just a little bit:

My hair, when its natural curl is allowed free rein, looks more than a little bit tentacly at this mid-chest length.

Words cannot describe how awesome I find this.

So, as I may have mentioned earlier, I've been working on costume construction for this year's production of "The Tempest" for Shakespeare in the Park. It's been going pretty well, though since a good portion of the clothes we're using for the show are off-the-rack, there is relatively little sewing for my fellow stitchers and me to do. *shrugs*

I'm the crafts person, more or less, which means that things that aren't strictly clothing tend to be under my purview. For the past couple days, I've been working on sculpting a jackal headpiece (more than a little reminiscent of Anubis) that I'll use to pull about 6 or 7 copies off of with plaster gauze. It looks a little like this:



(The eyes are a bit large, for the observant, but that's because these masks will need to be seen from a minimum of 20 ft away-- just like stage makeup, the farther away your audience is going to be, the more you need to exaggerate the features.)

I have a few shots of the build in progress ( behind the cut, ) for people interested in the step-by-step process.

Tomorrow I talk with Ann to confirm that this is how she wants the head to look, then proceed to make the copies. I also need to find out what my next project-- making gargoyle masks out of papier mache-- is going to entail.


..Did I mention I'm getting paid for this? ((wry grin))

*sighs*

Add a new vacuum to the list of things I really didn't want to buy right now, but had to. My current vac, which, granted, has lasted 3 years, just gave up the ghost as I was attempting to clean my room.

Thank Cthulhu for Amazon, I guess.

Notes to self:

-Clean your room. No, seriously. You've had more than a week to get this done, and you've stalled out halfway through.

-Do your damned FAFSA. Because you want to get surprised by Financial Aid bitching at you this year sooner than later.

-Renew your passport. You idiot.

-Find an apartment with Ana.

-Go back to the gym, you lazyass. But don't overdo it and run 10 miles your first day back.

-Keep working on your swappy partner's socks. Cables are not scary, or the devil. Just do them one row at a time, like any other sock.

-Cook yourself more than breakfast. Yes, the kitchen's a mess. No, it's not your mess. Clean off a corner and make yourself a stir-fry, dammit.

-Keep up the good job on incorporating veggies into your daily diet. Your body thanks you.

If you were a phone charger, where would you be? *sighs* The answer, by the way, is not "hooked up to the outlet, like you should be, dammit."

ETA: I just bought a new phone charger online as it seems my original one is MIA, despite an extremely thorough room search. Will post if my phone runs out of batteries before the new one gets here. *sighs*

In Awesome news, my friend Tom managed to score tickets to a "ghost-hunting" event in the Central Terminal this Sunday. Hopefully this won't interfere with the Bill & Ted/Wayne's World marathon Kelly/Marc/I've been trying to get set up this weekend.

In slightly less awesome news, the room cleaning progresses. I've thrown out about four bags of crap, which is a good start. I really need to get about 3 or 4 rubbermaid tubs for art supplies because I don't trust the cardboard boxes they're in currently to hold up forever. My desk is clean, at least, and the printer that's been sitting on the shelf collecting dust is out in the hall waiting for trash day.
I'm not entirely sure what to attack next, the couch or the area behind my bed. Both are kind of layered in stuff that is not entirely crap, but needs to be organized. My goal is to have everything set up in a condition that makes it easy to move out and into a new apartment, so organization is key.

Room cleaning is about the most exciting thing going on, unfortunately. Since I've been putting it off for the last few months due to the batshit-crazy that was this past semester, the situation, as I have expressed before, has become dire. I'm also trying out a new veggie-heavy, non-processed foods diet as my eating habits were in similar condition. *mouth quirks* I'm not turning into a vegetarian or anything-- I think the world would implode if such a thing were to happen-- but I'm trying to eliminate all high-fructose corn syrup, among other things, from what I eat, since I'm pretty sure that stuff is made from Satan's ball sweat.

So yeah, that's what's going on. It'll probably be another two days before I have anything to report besides cleaning, I'm afraid. ((wry grin))

To clean:

PHASE I-- picking crap up:
-Desk
-Couch
-Fiber area behind bed
-Makeshift art table
-Fridge
-Bathroom shelf
-Floor

PHASE II-- sorting crap:
-Bookshelf-- Find books I don't need anymore, offer them to friends. Whatever's left on the "to get rid of" pile goes to Amvets.
-Closet-- Go through all the clothing in there and cull everything I haven't worn/will never wear again. Toss out all pairs of jeans with holes in the crotch. Only keep two pairs of jeans in ranges too small for me and two pairs in ranges too large for me in case of weight shifts.
-Cupboard-- Separate out all the food with ridiculous amounts of HFCS. Offer it to friends who need food.
-Freezer-- Toss all food that should have been used last year.

PHASE III-- organizing crap:
-Buy more plastic tubs to store painting and sculpture supplies. Buy one more tub for fiber.
-Reorganize fiber tubs
-Locate and organize my DVD collection. This may necessitate buying another binder.

My room looks like it was hit by some sort of monster that vomits out art supplies.

This... is not so good. Especially if I'm planning on moving soon.

Tomorrow morning and afternoon, I begin my cleaning campaign. There'll also be a trip to the gym (my first in well over a month) and the post office (to mail off perfume I'd promised to send by yesterday. d'oh.) in the works. I don't expect to get everything cleaned up in a day, which should give you some idea about how big this mess is, but I'd like to get at least one side of my room in walkable condition.

In the evening... No clue. Knitting, probably (finally), and maybe seeing if the usual suspects have plans for the night. There's a midnight showing of "Repo! The Genetic Opera" a couple people have expressed interest in, but I think it's in Hamburg. Still, it'd be fun to watch on a big screen. ((smiles))

I'm slowly finishing up all the stuff I have left over from this semester-- the finishing touches on my corset, my self-portrait, the less-than-successful paintings I've got waiting to be worked on. It feels a little strange to no longer be working under a deadline, but I'll get used to it. I sewed on some bright green trim by hand tonight. Along with the placket I installed this afternoon, it's starting to look a little spiffier. I'll try and get photos up tomorrow, if I can find a clear space somewhere in my room.

And like that, the semester is over. ((wry grin))

You all have no idea how much I am looking forward to cleaning my room right now. Cleaning my room, going back to the gym, looking for a new apartment, and knitting.


*sighs in relief*