owie flippin
Geez. I’ve gone like months without hurting myself but the past like 2 days I’ve been banging myself up on everything, or at least x-acto blades and my bed. Sorry, I just feel like bitching cause I just smashed the side of my hand in my stupid door, which you have to body check in order to get it shut. I don’t think I’m usually this clumsy.
In other news, someone just contacted me about possibly making flipbooks for their next little film project, which I think is pretty cool and kinda weird. I dunno, I never thought anyone would seek my flipbooking skills. I like this whole “people coming to me and asking me to make things-I-like-to-make-for-fun for them.” It’s cool and makes me feel kind of useful or something. More and more I hope I’d be able to make a living just freelancing. That would be the good life for me. But the closer I get to having to enter the real world and makeing a real living the more I want go to grad school.
dreams
(click it for a better/bigger version)
Illustration Friday: Dreams.
As nice as flat vector illustrations are, I’m a little bored of them lately, especially cause that’s all I’m doing for Sean the next couple of months. So I’m sorta just experimenting and messing around with stuff, mixing photo, hand drawn line art, and some photoshop magic. The texture in the background is a photo I took a while back of the 6 oclock shaddows in my room. I originally wanted to do a big panoramic illo, sort of along the lines of what kozyndan do. But I got tired of trying to think of what to add and didn’t want to figure out how I was going to scan it all in.
I dunno, I kinda like how it turned out though. Not as crazy as I had hoped but still pretty dreamy.
bonus hours
Erg. I’ve woke up at 6 am and couldn’t go back to sleep. I guess since I hadn’t had anything to eat since 3 pm yesterday my body was ready for breakfast. But at least now I have all these bonus hours. So… now to waste them.
Last night the band Jesse Sykes & The Sweet Hereafter made a guest appareance in my dream. Or at least some people I thought were them. I actually hadn’t ever seen or heard them, and in my dream I swore their band name was Jesse Sykes & the Wayward Spikes (which I actually think sounds cooler). And apparently in my dream they were a hip-hop band, which they really aren’t at all.
I don’t know if I saw The New Pornographers at the free In-store on Tuesday. Well, I know I didn’t see them play cause it was so damn packed. I didn’t feel like just listening from outside of Sonic Boom so we went to the People’s Pub and I got food while playing Sorry instead. But I’m also not sure if they were part of the clean up crew afterwards. Are any of these guys in the band? Someone should tell me. I wanted to ask them, but I would have felt dumb.
The closer I get to being 21 the more I wish I already was. It sucks knowing cool older people and not being able to really go out with them cause I’m still underage.
I’ve also been feeling really awkward around pretty much everyone lately. I wish I wasn’t.
wacom monster
Also, why is the unattainable all the more desireable? It’s frustrating.
reflection
There’s this thing called Illustration Friday. They post a topic every week and people illustrate it just for fun. Seems like a good way to keep me drawing. So here’s my first one. I suppose it’s “reflection” cause he’s looking in the mirror and thinking.. but I also just really wanted to draw a gerbil in pants. (you can tell it’s a gerbil and not a mouse cause his tail is furry)
A&F
awesome:
I went running this morning and made it past Gasworks, all the way down to Aurora bridge, and back with just a little water break at Gasworks on the way back. I think that’s a total of at least 3ish miles. I wanted to keep going to the Fremont bridge which isn’t much further but I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to handle the trip back. I wasn’t even that tired when I got back to The Wall of Death so I think next time I’ll go to the Fremont bridge. I’m not sure if I need that stop at Gasworks either, cause I think it actually throws me off to just stop and drink water.
I like that I can say my run starts and ends at The Wall of Death. If I make it to Fremont (aka the center of the universe) then I’ll be able to say: I start my run at The Wall of Death and turn around at The Center of The Universe and end at The Wall of Death, all before breakfast. It’s almost lyrical.
frustrating:
This whole iPod thing is really annoying. I got back from my run this morning and walked past my apartment manager’s window, which was open (unusual). I look in and it looks like no one is even living in there any more. So I go around and knock on his door and turn the door knob, and it opens! I say “hello??” as I step in and turn on the light and sure enough, it’s cleaned out. No one lives there any more, which would explain why I haven’t been able to get a hold of him for the past week or so I’ve been trying to.
So I go over to the main Coho office and ask if they know any apartment managers by the name of “K Coomur”, and they say they don’t know anyone by that name. And then Joseph (my ex-apartment manager) walks in and I ask him about it. He says he never signs for packages for this very reason. He’s also quitting. Supposedly the new apartment manager is living on the 3rd floor somewhere temporarily. But as of now I have no iPod and no apartment manager.
So I call DHL to be like “My manager doesn’t have it.” And of course I get some customer service guy who clearly does not want to be on the phone, and really shouldn’t be. He puts me on hold like 10 times, and each time I get this recorded voice with cheesy music in the background saying stuff like “DHL guarantees hassle free door to door delivery!” I just laughed. And he’s all like “Well, it’s been like 9 days all you can do is file a lost claim.” So that’s what I’m doing. Man, fuckin DHL and “K Coomur.”
Jack Kerouac attack
Oh man if feels so good to finally be on a real break from school and stuff, despite the whole iPod thing.
I’ve already started it off by being quasi productive: dancing, selling things, running, practicing, and reading. The reading thing wasn’t really part of the original summer plan, but I was walking back from selling back my $45 Japanese text book for $10 when I thought “I should read Orwell’s 1984.” It’s sort of one of those books I feel like I’m suppose to have read at some point, and apparently the time is now*. Perhaps it was inspired by these hijinks. Whatever it was I picked it up for $1 at a used bookstore.
They also had a Jack Kerouac book, Dharma Bums, in the window so I picked it up too. I’ve never read any Jack Kerouac but 1. I alwayas hear people talking about him 2. His name came up in Cranium once 3. Cool people seem to like him 4. I’ve always liked the sound of Jack Kerouac. It’s got such a nice ring to it. So really it was mostly because of #4 that I picked it up…
But tonight I was at the chai lounge, reading Dharma Bums, and listening to Erin Jordan playing when she mentions Jack Kerouac in one of her songs. And then I’m reading and the main character says “Pretty girls make graves.”** And I don’t know that I’m especially fond of Pretty Girls Make Graves, I can’t really even remember what they sound like right now. But it was a nice little epiphany finally being able to get where their name comes from cause I’ve always wondered about it.
But yeah, I’m not very far into it yet but I like it so far. I’ll wait till I’m done with it to really say anything else about it though. 1984 will have to wait a while…
*The Time is Now is an awesome Moloko song.
**his reasoning being “…lust was the direct cause of birth which was the direct cause of suffering and death…”
kidnapped
Dear “K Coomur”
You are such an ass. Seriously, who steals other people’s packages?! I mean, that’s just fucked up. I’ve patiently been waiting for Spandy2 (the replacement iPod) for days. I kept thinking “Well, maybe it’s just taking them a while to get back.” But then today I find out that she’s been in Seattle since SATURDAY! That’s almost a whole week. At first I thought, maybe you signed for the package to be nice. But you’ve had it for like 5 days, which would be plenty of time to deliver it to it’s correct location. No, I’m pretty sure you’ve kidnapped Spandy2, which makes me really really sad. I don’t know, maybe you haven’t really stolen her and you’ll bring her to me soon and this whole post will be moot. Or maybe the DHL people will hunt you down for me (unlikely).
I miss my iPod. *sad face*
goal*
I’m so close to being done with this ridiculousness. Just 3 more days… oh man, I’m so excited. I can’t wait till Friday, I don’t know what I’ll do but I’m definately celebrating somehow.
And then, to start running again. I haven’t gone since the 5k on the 4th of July, and I feel bad about it. But with a whole month between quarters this time, I think I should be able to do it more often. I had pretty lofty goals for the summer and I’m pretty sure I won’t be getting to quite a few like learning Adobe After Effects or screenprinting (but I’m taking screenprinting this fall anyways, so it’s okay) or painting that damn giagantic canvas. (I dunno, maybe I will. I really should cause the underpainting creeps me out everytime I look at it.)
I guess even though I won’t get to do everything on my list, I’ve done a lot and still have time to do quite a bit more before fall. But to make the most of my last month I’ll simplify my summer goals down to 3 main things:
• Draw: I will probably be doing a lot of this anyways, since I’ll be starting to illustrate a story for someone who is actually paying me. But I just feel like I’m loosing it or something. Too much Illustrator and mouse, not enough lead and paper.
• Practice: I’m going to try focusing on just Banji (the banjo) for now. The piano, guitar, and bongos will just have to wait till later. I want to master Banji cause I paid a lot for it.
• Run: I want to do the Dawg Dash this year. Apparently you can do either 5k or 10k. Now that I know I can do 5k i wanna shoot for the 10k, but I’m not sure… 6ish miles is a lot for me. I guess I have like 2 months work up to it.
So yeah, that’s what I’ll be focused on once class ends. I guess as crazy as the class has been, it is pretty much my style of doing things, quasi-intense but condensed. Like how I get really into an album, repeating it everyday for like a week or two then moving on. Probably because I know my attention span will get me.
It’s weird that I have to make these things goals though, cause they’re all things I actually like to do. It shouldn’t really be that hard to do things I like, but somehow I manage to just waste my time doing nothing. I don’t get it.
*for some reason I was really tempted to title this “goalnads and strife” but i didn’t.
mosquitoes heart me
I like this “fresh bananas” theme. It’s cute but simple, and reminds me of icecream.
Last weekend was like one of the best weekends I’ve had in a while, which is saying a lot considering how many awesome weekends I’ve had this summer. Camping was so much fun and relaxing, and has made it on my list of favorite mini-vacations cause it was just so laid back and all. And really different than any of the stuff I usually do.
We: watched a meteor shower from the dock on the lake, had lots of tasty food, played guitar (and banjo), went canoeing, swam in the lake, played yahtzee, made smores, chilled on the rocks, and just hung out in general. It felt so good to just be out of the city and in the water and under the tall skinny trees. I think a lot of it just has to do with being in good company. I love when people are really passionate about things, be it hobbies or lifestyle. Mosquitoes were the only thing that drove me crazy, cause they killed my legs. If it weren’t for them life would be so much better.
And then on Sunday we went to my folk’s for a hodge-podge of tasty thai food… which I have leftovers from, so I think it’s dinner time.
Oh, pictures from camping on the Flickr set
