The hippies are right: everything IS connected!

So a couple of months ago I scratched my eyeballs all up in a freak incident and I've been periodically checking in with a specialist who monitors the healing process.  She inspects the amount of damage by dripping neon yellow liquid into each eye, which pools up in the scratches, and then she shines a blacklight into each eye to make the yellow stuff glow.  It's like there's a rave on my corneas and everyone's invited!

My latest eye appointment was a couple of days ago.  On my way home, I went to blow my nose (I still have that cold and it's in the "five thousand pounds of watery mucus trying to burst from my head at all times" stage).

Apparently some of the Magical Raver Eyeball Juice had slid down my tear ducts and into my nose.  I ended up with a tissue full of poisonous-looking electric-yellow snot.

The eye specialist also prescribed me some special drops to help speed the healing process.  A minute after I dripped the first dose into my eyes, my mouth filled with a medicinal flavour: once again, liquids were moving all through my head without permission.

I always knew that there are tunnels deep in the human head that connect the eyes, nose, and mouth (and ears) but it grosses me out to see proof.  Pleh.

Also: the medicinal eye drops were milky white and I was afraid they'd make me look like a blind lady from a really cheesy Lifetime movie.  They didn't; however they did sting like a bitch.

Confidential to the Eye Specialist Lady: in future I'd prefer that you explain what you're about to do to me instead of just holding my chin with one hand while using the other to jab tools or lights toward my squishy, glistening, wide-open eye.  I thought maybe you'd catch on to my need for exposition the first or second time I shrieked "GAH!!! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!?" but alas, no.  So, I'll try to be more clear: most people - including me - find it alarming when someone lunges at their eyes without warning.  Especially when the lunger is holding a toothpick with yellow stuff on the end of it.  A heads-up would be nice, y'know?  And while you're at it, feel free to mention the fact that the instrument you're using won't actually be touching my eyeball.  This may seem like a minor piece of information but it is in fact crucial to my emotional well-being.  Thanks!

Sick

The Boy recently had a cold, and now I've caught it.  I'm in the very beginning stages where I'm not sick per se but my skin feels like it doesn't fit right and there's something wonky going on with my teeth.  Also, I have the phantom sweats...do you know what I'm talking about?  I feel like the back of my neck is sweating but when I touch it, it's perfectly dry.  It's disconcerting.

Call me cocky, but I really didn't think I'd get this cold.  My immune system is kickass and The Boy has had a few different colds and flus during our cohabitation that never took up residence in my body (and I took no precautions...I would continue to kiss him, share silverware with him, etc.).  The Boy has an interesting theory about this: he says that if I still had my office job (and therefore interacted with hundreds of people every day) my body would've been exposed to the germs little by little and had a chance to produce antibodies.  As it is, he's the main person I have contact with, and that contact involves makeouts, so the germs ambushed me.

I'm gonna go lie down now.  It feels like I have spiders inside my face.

In Which I Amuse Myself

I couldn't resist combining a badass tattoo design with a whiny caption for comedic effect.  I am all about hilarious juxtaposition over here.  Behold!

Oh yeah.  I'm gonna Zazzle the shit outta this.

I know you guys have ideas for bitchin' tattoo captions, too!  Please share them in the comments.

Old-School Tattoo Art!

I suppose you're wondering just what I spent yesterday painting.  Well, for quite some time I've been wanting to do some paintings inspired by old-school tattoos.  I made three (one of which I haven't scanned yet) and started a fourth, bigger one as well.  Here are the two that I scanned:

(The third one is just a heart with a banner going diagonally across it and nothing else.)

Actually, these aren't quite finished; as you might have guessed, I'm planning to paint words on the banners*.  I scanned the paintings with the banners blank so I could Photoshop a few different versions to put on Zazzle merchandise.  In fact, I've just made a Zazzle keychain and necklace with the following image (go see!):

What phrases would you like to see 'shopped into the blank paintings?  Give me your ideas!  I'm open to all kinds of suggestions, whether they're funny, profound or profane.  Just remember that the phrase has to be fairly short in order to fit into the allotted space.


*...when I started these paintings I knew what each one would say, but then I got some alternate ideas and now I'm having a hard time choosing.

Diary of a Trailblazer: That'll Teach Me.

So as mentioned in a previous post, I've been working like mad to get my Artfire store into shape - until Canada Post started having labour disputes, and then I switched most of my energies to Zazzle instead.  Even when I wasn't scanning/photographing/editing artwork for either of those things, I was aware that I should be doing it.  And as a result, I haven't been able to paint in a while because it felt like goofing off.

Bottling up my urge to paint made me all kinds of wonky.  I've been feeling twitchy and restless all the time and my sleep cycles have gone all haywire and I've been  having kind of a panicky feeling in my gut.

But yesterday I forced myself to stop angsting on the store setup stuff and just sit down and paint.  By the end of the day I was all euphoric and giggly.  Imagine being in a threesome with two of the hottest people you've ever seen: that was approximately how I felt.  Now imagine telling your best friend every steamy-hot detail: that was my tone of voice when The Boy came home and I told him, "I painted today!" 

And last night I slept better than I have in ages.

Y'know how most people have certain life lessons that won't stick, so they have to keep learning them over and over again?  "WITHOUT CREATIVITY YOU WILL FALL APART" is one of mine.  I don't know how I keep forgetting it, but I do.

She Said Pop is now on Zazzle!!!

So as I mentioned before, I've done a lot of painting in the past couple of months and my next step is to set up a new store on Artfire so I can actually sell those paintings.  But the setup process is pretty intense, and I'm fighting some fear-of-failure and fear-of-success demons, and now stupid Canada Post is hovering on the edge of a strike and OH MY GOD I'M FREAKING OUT.

I will probably hold off on the Artfire thing until it seems like the labour disputes are resolved (I don't want to get orders for paintings and then have to tell customers that I can't send them!).  In the meantime, I've started up a Zazzle store so people can buy buttons, keychains, etc. made from my art.*

There are only a handful of things in there right now, but they're super cute and I will be steadily adding more!  Go here to visit my store, or just take a peek below at the handy scrolling kiosk thingy:


create & buy custom products at Zazzle


*Yes, I know Zazzle would also be affected by any postal issues - but probably not the same way I am.  They almost certainly qualify for some kind of special bulk shipping rate from courier companies, for instance.

Thanks, H&M!

As a girl who is both tall and leggy, I have officially given up on panty hose.  "Regular size" panty hose are a joke on me* - I can barely get them past my knees. "Extra tall" is apparently made for someone my height but with no ass or thigh meat whatsoever, and "queen size" fits my legs and hips but I can literally pull the waistband up to my armpits (and since I don't want panty hose with a built-in tube top, I would always have to roll the top part down into a thick elastic sausage/tourniquet thing around my waist.  Sexy!).

Anyway.  Today I was at H&M and saw that they had "leggings" made of sheer black leopard-print fabric.  These were packaged like panty hose, and hanging on the same rack as the panty hose, but they came in normal clothing sizes instead of "one size fits either a fat hobbit or an eight-foot-tall skeleton and if your body type is anything between those two extremes, you're screwed".

I took a chance on a pair in size 12 (for $18 or so) and I'm happy to report that they're actually big enough!  Also - and I never expected this in a million years - they're long enough.  My inseam is about 34" and these fuckers go right to my ankles.  Even my shortest pair of boots will still cover the bottoms of them!  I can look like I'm wearing patterned tights, just like normal people!  Yay!!! 

So, tall but curvaceous chicks take note: H&M sometimes has legwear that will fit you.  I'm definitely gonna check back periodically for more pseudo-tights in my size!


*But perfect on The Boy.  The little bitch can even fit into one-size-fits-all dollar store stuff.  I always wondered who one-size-fits-all pantyhose was meant for, and now I know: an average-height man with thighs the size of my forearm.

Caturday: an Open Letter to Birch

Dear Birchy,

You are a loved and valued family member and I respect your autonomy. 

However.

When I am walking from one part of the apartment to another, please GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY WAY.  I've got shit to do and you do not; when our paths intersect, it's because I am trying to get to a specific place to complete a particular task and you are wandering around aimlessly between naps.  Therefore, my ambulatory needs take precedence and shall continue to do so until you either start pitching in on rent or can prove that you're late for an appointment.

No, seriously, get the fuck out of my way.  Don't you dare start rolling around on the floor in front of my feet, Birchy.  Don't do it...don't do it...AW GODDAMMIT. 

Sincerely,
Me

Advice for Beginner Artists

The best advice I ever got about drawing from life* is: "Draw what you see, not what you know is there." 

My mom told me this when I was twelve or so.  I'd just finished drawing a portrait and couldn't figure out why the eyes looked all creepy and stare-y.  Mom helped me to realize that it's because I'd made the whites of the eyes pure white - which is generally a weird look on a person.  When I looked at my source material more carefully, I saw that the eyes were actually in shadow and nowhere near white - despite my brain insisting otherwise.

Later, in high school art class, I learned an exercise that helps us to "draw what we see": draw a picture from a photograph that's upside-down.  That way, it's harder for your brain to make sense of what it sees and to impose your assumptions all over everything.  Upside-down, most things are reduced to...shapes.  And then you can draw what's really there.


*Or, as the case may be, drawing from a photo of a lady in a magazine...

My ass may be fat, but my ears are a svelte size 6.

I stretched my ears up a size the other day - I'm a size 6 now.

Some tips for newbies to gauging: skin is stretchier when it's wet, and sea salt helps with healing.  Ever since I learned that, I stretch my ears in a hot bath with sea salt in it.  First I immerse my head far enough for my ears to be under, and soak for five minutes or so.  Then I do the stretching and put in my new larger-sized plug with my ear still under the water.  It's so much easier this way!  I think this was my least painful stretch yet.

Also, metal is about a billion times more comfortable to stretch with than acrylic, so I'd recommend paying more and going for metal tapers like these.  Or, if you happen to be at a 6-gauge right now, do what I did and use a metal chopstick.  I found some at a store that sells kitchen stuff; when I hold one up to my gauge card from Body Art Forms, it looks like the small end is about a 6 and the big end is about a 2.  For this stretch, I wrapped a bit of tape around the chopstick at the appropriate width so I'd be able to feel how far to wiggle it through my ear.  I guess when I go up to a 2 I'll be passing the whole thing through the piercing.  Anyway, the chopstick is saving me a considerable amount of money on stretching kits and the fact that it's metal means it's comfortable and can be sterilized.

Eventually, I want to get coloured titanium eyelets.  Fuchsia ones!  But, y'know, only if I plan to stay the same size for a long time.  They're pricey enough that I can't be buying new ones every month.

More adventures in tv-watching

I saw a commercial today for a credit card with your choice of custom photo: you could have a credit card where the whole background of the card is a picture of your kids or your dog or whatever.

You might assume that if I were to get such a card, I'd use a picture of lingerie-clad Boy drizzled with maple syrup, but no*.  I'd opt for a nice G-rated photo of myself...holding a sign that says, "If someone other than me tries to use this card, please call the authorities immediately."

What can I say?  I'm a practical gal. 


*Those pictures** are for t-shirts, mugs, and Christmas cards.

**I'm kidding; I don't actually have any photos of The Boy drizzled with maple syrup.  But now I totally want some.  And also I just made myself crave pancakes, which I can't have because they contain gluten, so I guess the joke's on me. :(

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BOY!!!

Today is The Boy's 27th birthday!  He was worried he might be getting too old for me, but I put him at ease by telling him it's like being with two 13.5 year olds.  No creepy.

Anyhoo, I have a Caturday post I've been wanting to do for a while, but it's picture-heavy and labour intensive so it shall have to wait.  Today I'm focusing all my energy on giving The Boy a glorious day!

I am very happy that he was born. :)

This is why I don't watch tv.

I just saw a commercial for a tooth-whitening product where an attractive woman with great teeth was all "As a professional photographer, I really want my subjects to have white teeth."  And just as she said this, a fine-print disclaimer popped up that said: Paid actress.  Not a professional photographer.

This brings up so many questions for me.  Such as:

-Doesn't the disclaimer destroy the whole point of the commercial (which is that this woman is an expert and we should listen to her)?
-Wouldn't it have made more sense to let the woman play herself?  ("As a spokesmodel, I find I get a lot more work - and a lot more admiring glances! - when my teeth look their whitest!")
-If they were stuck on the idea of it being a photographer, couldn't they have found a real one?  Or do real photographers all have yellowed, crumbling teeth?
-Why did they think a photographer would be the ultimate authority on white teeth, anyway?  I'd've gone with a sociologist quoting actual studies on nicer teeth getting people better jobs, more friends, etc. (I'm sure there must be studies that show this).
-Do commercials without fine-print disclaimers actually feature real dentists/doctors/etc.?  Because I always kind of assumed they were all paid actors.

So, yeah...every time I try to watch tv, I get baffled and infuriated and have to turn it off again.  This time was a record, though: I reached my breaking point within 30 seconds.

It's gonna take a whollllllllle lot of Futurama to cleanse my palate this time.