Diddle Doodle

I'm feeling too lazy to even give you a stick drawing.

Phone pic 01-15-08

And speaking of fog...

Barnes & Noble Sketch

A sketch from last night at Barnes & Noble.

Camera Counter Culture

I never wanted a camera phone. I bought this crappy chocolate back in March and didn't notice it had a camera until a few days later.

So why did I start doing this photo-a-day thing? Because my phone's memory is already filled with photos. After careful erasing I've got 200 photos left.

Everyone has those, "Gee, I wish I had a camera," moments. When I was an undergrad at ND I was returning to my dorm one day from the student center and I stopped mid-step in astonishment to look at the library. It was painted neon-pink from the sunset. It was one of the coolest natural lighting phenomenas I've ever seen. I had one of those moments then, and after a minute of being frozen in place by awe and indecision I ran like mad to my dorm to grab my camera. Of course by the time I returned the light was gone and I wished I'd just stayed to enjoy it. Then, a few years ago, driving in downtown Cleveland I was struck by the beauty of the buildings rising out of the fog. Not that I could have taken a picture even if I'd had a camera handy, but still, it gave me that feeling. Fortunately, fog and Cleveland are pretty constant bedfellows, so I've had many opportunities for further cool shots.

And now that I've GOT a camera phone, whenever I get that feeling, it's slowly followed by the realization that I do have a camera. Often my reaction is too slow to catch the moment, but I get it far more often then I did before.

This all made me think about the next generation, the kids that are growing up in the information age. This statement makes me sound pretty old I guess, and I'm not that old, but I'm not a child of the information age. I remember not having a computer. I remember not having a cell phone, much less a camera phone. Hell, I remember having a walkman that played cassettes. My point is that although people of my generation are generally very adaptable, we're used to rapidly changing technology, we're not quite as used to it as the new generation. We adapt, but the kids change as rapidly as the technology.

Soon enough, everyone will have a camera, all the time. Unlike me, these kids won't have that half second hesitation that makes them miss the moment. I'm just curious as to how this change could affect the face of photography, of imagery, and of art.

Phone pic 01-14-08

Seen at a gas station:
Well can you blame them? Would you trust a company with a some-trillion dollar debt? Yeah, yeah I realize that's not actually what it means, but it's still funny.

End Weekend

Just got back from a weekend in Cincinnati visiting family, Matt's mom, sister and nieces. Back to normal blogging tomorrow. I am however also back to novel writing schedule tomorrow, so "normal" blogging may get a bit less coherent. Don't say I didn't warn you. And I have a feeling there will be far more stick figure drawings.

On an unrelated note, Matt (my fiance) just started up his own blog, Security Second Thoughts. This is a blog focusing on computer and physical security so it will probably run the spectrum from things like Diebold voting machines to Kryptonite bicycle locks.

Quack. Or whatever they say.

Here's a penguin.
What? I said I'd (try to) post a drawing every day. I didn't say they'd be good. At least I inked it.

Hosting

Yesterday I finally changed hosting for my art portfolio website, which means I can update again!

I'm not sure when I'll actually have time to update but here are a few things I'm hoping to accomplish:

On the main page, I'd like a real hadesarrow logo instead of just type reading: "logo logo logo logo HADESARROW logo logo logo logo" although that is rather fun to say if you imagine it to the tune of "Bager Bager." I've actually grown rather attached to it, but I realize it's not very professional looking so I'll probably leave it as the scroll over title to make myself feel better.

The Gallery is badly in need of updating. I'd like to have more than one gallery, with different types of artwork. The artwork on there is also pretty old, but I'm not sure how much new finished stuff I have. I guess we'll see, either way the gallery needs an overhaul.

On the bio page, I'd like to replace the pomegranate images with paintings of the same. On that note, but actually for this site, I'd like to come up with some kind of image for the title. I do like the image that's up there now, but it needs to go. It was the stock art that came with this template and since I'm claiming to be creative it's a bit sad to have something up that I didn't create. Once I get rid of that there won't be any imagery on the site that I didn't create. Except of course for all the photos I steal from flickr.

Phone Pic 01-10-08

Today I have two pictures for you. The first is of the moving sidewalks in the Houston Airport, which are shockingly wide, about twice as wide as normal moving sidewalks. It's actually quite nice, especially when you're in a hurry and trying to get past someone. It does make me wonder though...

Are the double-wide sidewalks at all related to the fact that THESE were more common than restrooms?Cause Everything's bigger in Texas. Even Hearts.

Waterbird

Sheesh, I thought a heron would be less complicated than a hawk. NO.
I'm not sure whether to abandon birds because they're a huge pain in the ass, or keep working on birds because they're a huge pain in the ass and with any luck I'll get better (faster) at them. Of course I'm strange, and have regressed to my old habits of using a hard pencil (5h and 6h... what am, I freaking kidding?), it goes much faster with a soft pencil. On the other hand, even with the hard pencils I'm being lazy; I haven't inked anything in ages. Inking takes me even longer than the hard pencils so I guess it doesn't really matter.

Affairs of the Eyre

I finished reading The Eyre Affairby Jasper Fforde on the plane ride to Oregon (and let me tell you, that was annoying, I thought it would take me longer). Most of what I read isn't exactly literary, and in spite of extremely literary content, The Eyre Affair was no exception.

You see, the story is about a detective who specializes in literature crimes and a criminal who tries to take over the world (or something) by kidnapping Jane Eyre from the original manuscript, and therefor removing her from the Bronte story. It's very silly and fun, even an interesting concept, but it's not particularly deep or thought provoking.

Not that it needs to be, I'm not sure The Eyre Affair was quite my thing, but I can't deny that it was entertaining. I've always called Terry Pratchett TV for readers but even Pratchett, silly though it is, often touches deeper themes and makes you think if you're not careful. The Eyre Affair seems to be humor plain and simple. If you really wanted to argue that it was literature, I suppose you could claim it as a satire, but satire by definition attacks something, and I'd be hard pressed to say what The Eyre Affair could possibly be attacking.

I think the reason this wasn't my thing is more because of the weak story than it was because of the depth or lack thereof. Maybe I would have enjoyed the parody a bit more if I were into crime or detective stories, as it is I felt that even with a occasional side plots, (an estranged boyfriend, a kidnapped uncle, weird science) the crime chase wasn't gripping enough to keep me entirely engaged. Again, I don't really think it's intended to be, the story, along with the horrible puns (which are surprisingly inoffensive, I think because Fforde moves so quickly past them) and the ridiculous fantasy devices (a basketball used to plug up a hole which would cause a space-time divide) is meant as a light farce, not as a novel.

I'd read the second book, and the following ones, but it's not exactly next on my list. I think these are the sort of books I'll pick up when even my favorite children's books seem like a bit too much of a chore.

I did enjoy it, I got the occasional chuckle and had to appreciate some of the sillier ideas (true silliness inspires a certain respect). My favorite part about the book was the universe Fforde created, an earth where art and literature are less elevated to the point of being a part of popular culture. The main character is part of the literary division of the government/police because literature is so important that original manuscripts are frequently stolen (and people actually care!) and there are entire gangs and underground organizations dedicated to promoting various literary (and art) theories. People, people who aren't bored undergrads, engage in bar room arguments over literary techniques. There are machines outside grocery stores and airports, like the plastic egg machines, only instead of giving you a toy for a quarter they quote Shakespeare.

And I guess that's the greatest thing about this book. Who would have though, in today's TV society, anyone could get away with a silly light book about Jane Eyre?

*Pics are linked. You know.

Phone Pic 01-09-08

This is just a picture of some sauce from our favorite Pho place, Superior Pho on 31st and Superior. I think it's hot sauce and hoisen sauce (made from real hoisens according to Matt) but I'm not really sure. I just think the colors look neat.

Tree City

One of my favorite things about Eugene is the greenery. The downside of course is that it rains almost constantly (though not as often as it used to as I mentioned in a previous post) which is what makes it so green.

Sure, most cities have intentional sections of greenery throughout (most cities I'd be willing to live in anyway) but in Eugene it's as though the intention of the city planners is secondary. Nature kind of takes over in Eugene, so that the lawns and gardens look wild and raw, moss lines the cracks on the sidewalks, trees planted downtown are as big around as the ones you'd expect to find in the middle of a forest, fences are overgrown with viney plants and more moss (the difference between moss and mildew is that mildew is gross whereas moss is soft and pretty. That and some scientific classifications) and the domestic flowers look like wild flowers. It's as though everyone started growing things three years ago and then forgot about them, leaving them to take over. It sounds graceless, but it's wonderful. There's an energy in Oregon cities that doesn't seem to exist anywhere else. Like the people there are living in nature instead of trying to control it.

How Anal is He?

That's how anal. :)

Lock the Doors

For today's drawing I... well... yeah.I'm sorry little girl, I only buy cookies from cute children.

I started with the teeth. I thought it was going to be another creature but it just sorta grew into poor little scary girlscout. How can I possibly go wrong?

Creature Feature

Here's a quick critter sketch from my imagination.
This is just for filler really, I'm working on something else right now that I hope you'll get to see on Wednesday. Keep your fingers crossed.

Where's the Winter Blues?

Today I went for a walk, and I didn't even have to wear a coat. It's sixty five degrees! Now! As Matt said yesterday: "Global warming? Bah! The trees always bloom in January."

Now I'm not an idiot, I realize that by next week it will be frigid again. I'm not even complaining, who would? But it's surely some weird weather. Over Christmas Matt and I were hoping to have a break from winter in Eugene, but by the time we left Cleveland it was in the low 40s here. Unseasonably warm, almost sweatshirt weather. I'd hoped for the high 40s in Eugene, but it stayed mid 30s for most of the week. A few years ago (ok like seven) when I was at Notre Dame we had kids sunbathing in the middle of December. I think temps were in the 70s. Just to clarify, that's South Bend Indiana, the most miserable place on earth (weather wise anyway). A year later we had school closed over finals because of excessive snow, something that hadn't happened in something like thirty years (not because they don't get the snow, but because they rarely get enough that they can't deal with it quickly).

When people hear I'm from Oregon, they say, "oh, rain all the time huh?" And mostly I say yes, until I stop to think about it. It did rain all the time when I was a kid, but it's not raining quite so much there anymore. As is true in California, forest fires are increasingly a problem because Oregon doesn't get the normal amount of rainfall, then in the winter, it doesn't get the normal amount of snowfall, and then in the spring, there's not enough runoff and everything is dry dry dry. I told someone this, and added ruefully, global warming, and they laughed, as though I were making a joke.

I'm not claiming that any of these changes are proof or evidence of global warming, and at this point I hope we don't need any more proof of global warming, but taken all together weird weather is always a little alarming these days. A sixty five degree January day in Cleveland certainly isn't the end of the world, but I hope it makes a few more people nervous. For my part, I think I'll just enjoy the nice weather while I can.

*The second picture is mine. The first picture is from flickr, linked.

phone pic 01-07-08

I promise, most of the time I'll spare you the cat pictures.I couldn't resist with this one though. It looks like they're reading a book together which I found entertaining, particularly as the book in question has a picture of two cats on it. Maybe those cats are reading a book too, kinda like those mirrors that go on into infinity. If you haven't figured it out from previous posts, Chyna's the orange one, Tricky's the tabby. I'm glad they're friends now.

Phone Pic 01-06-08

Consummate Vs! Sheesh. Guy wouldn't know majesty if it...
Here's a picture of Matt's hand that I decorated with bits of straw wrapper. If these pictures aren't giving an insight into my psyche, I'm not sure what would do it better.

EmpTV mind

Today's drawing is for Illustration Friday Night.
The topic is: "How I eventually came to know nothing at all." I was going to draw a picture of someone eating their own brain, or something along those lines, but several someones beat me to it. Ah well.

Dance Sticks

You know I'm feeling lazy if I resort to stick figures.

This is a type of figure I started playing with when I was twelve or so. This one was actually drawn sideways, so that it looked like the figure was doing a backbend (hence the two heads) but I liked the look of it upright better.

Phone Pic 01-05-08

Here's a picture from the Eugene Holiday Market (kinda like a one off winter version of the Saturday Market only it's indoors at the fairgrounds instead of outside downtown).My favorite part of this picture is that the rainbows hide the faces of the people running the booth. It just creates kind of a neat effect.

Fans of Clubs

Having a little trouble with the inking process.Mainly they look kinda creepy. I seem to have this problem whenever I resort to realism. Something about the teeth I can't get right. And the eyes. Normally it works out ok because I'm happy with creepy, but I don't actually want this to be creepy. Odd, I know. Anyway, yeah I know the kid's face is kinda fubarred and that they all currently look like floating heads. Here's hoping it won't by the time I'm done.

Another problem is that when I shrink it I'm gunna loose crap loads of detail. I ought to have, and was even planning to, start smaller because I tend to do crazy detail once I get started and I know it gets lost in resizing. This gets shrunk to an inch and something by two inches and something though, and even twice that seemed way too small to work with. Ah well, once I get an initial inking finished I can shrink it down and see where I need emphasis.

Market Days

Whenever I go to Eugene, I try to get to the 5th street market at least once. Since it's only a couple blocks from the grill (where my mom tends bar), this isn't hard.
I love the open feel of the market. While it's not quite as lively or quintessentially Eugene as the Saturday Market, the 5th street market has a relaxed atmosphere and wonderful, recently upgraded design. One of the downsides to the recent renovation is that they consolidated what was an entire wing of the market into a single shop, this is for local crafters and artisans. It's a shame that the local artists get less of a footprint there, but at least the new shops are still locally owned.

It's a bit more upscale than it used to be, which may be a response to Eugene's aging hippie population. If I wanted to be judgmental I'd say it's more yuppie now than hippie, but since I enjoy the shops that do fill the market I'd rather not go there. The second floor has a fantastic little shop of African imports, which is at least some replacement for an imports shop specializing in Egyptian items that used to be across the way. I don't mean to imply that the content is at all similar, it's only similar in that it's unique and exotic.

Just below the African shop is a furniture store with some of the coolest toy chests I've ever seen. It's way out of my price range, but I've never seen anything quite like the colorful creations. On the third floor, in kind of a crappy location, there's a funky little witchy store with little pagan and gardening decor type stuff. The Elephant's trunk, a somewhat expensive but very nifty local toy store, and Destinations, a quirky travel shop, are across the bridge, over a Japanese furniture and decorations store and a pet accessories shop. It's a good assortment with a fantastic layout that encourages leisurely browsing and enjoyment of the surroundings rather than the rushed aggressive shopping usually pushed in our consumer culture.

The wing which used to have all the artisans is now almost entirely foody stuff (I think theres an outdoor shop or something in the middle). Up top are a bunch of little express versions of local restaurants. Below there's a huge coffee/wine/gift shop that merges naturally into a neighboring flower shop and gi-nourmous kitchen store. As in, I've never seen a kitchen store this big outside of outlets or NYC.

I think what I love most about this space isn't necessarily the shops, which are always good for entertainment, but the care taken to make the space comfortable and pleasant. The combination of indoor and outdoor allows you to enjoy the air without getting too wet from the almost certain rain. During nice weather there are sometimes stalls set up in the courtyard and tables and chairs arranged for lounging. They're not associated with any of the shops, and this space has none of the usual pressure of buy or leave. This is a space created for the users, not for commercialism.

Phone Pic 01/04/08

March of the Frosted Penguins.What? I can't take pictures just because something's cute? Cookies from Starbucks.

A Lion of a Cop-out

I did this drawing from a zoo pic because I didn't really have time tonight to draw anything else.That's the busy busy life of a procrastinator.

The Demon Barber

I got a chance to see Sweeney Todd last week with Matt and my parents.

It's always interesting to see a musical go to the movies. In my case I often see the movie version before I ever get a chance to see the "real" musical (and sometimes I never do) so I get to go in with no pre-conceptions. It's like not reading the book before seeing the movie; Jurassic Park was bound to be better if you never read it. I've done this with Evita, Chicago Rent, and Hairspray, just to name the most recent (and the ones that I can remember without much effort). In each case there was a great deal of hype before the movie, a whole bunch of: "How can they ever make it work?" And in each case I at least have been satisfied.

Sweeney Todd was a bit different, not because I didn't enjoy it, but because the film makers made no attempt to distinguish between the musical sections and the plot sections. They did this in the movie of Chicago for example, by turning the singing sections into sort of fantasized sections, where the characters are either performing or day dreaming. The musical aspect of Chicago was almost metaphorical. Evita and Rent didn't go this far, but the songs were certainly divided from the story. They were for emphasis rather than explanation perhaps. Even Hairspray, a full out townspeople dancing in the street parody, draws the line at actually putting the story into the music. Instead they give us: story story story... BIG MUSICAL NUMBER.

In Sweeney Todd it was immediately apparent that there would be none of this distinction. The conversation that begins the movie, held on a boat between Sweeney Todd and Anthony is sung. In fact spoken parts were comparatively rare in the movie and seemed to serve more as filler and transition rather than essential plot points. A bit of a switch for movie musicals: the songs were the story and the spoken parts were everything else.

I'm not sure how else it could have worked. The songs in this musical are so strong and striking that making them a secondary element would have seemed almost patronizing. One aesthetic complaint about the movie I have will sound a bit silly considering the context: there is something extremely disturbing watching people get their throat slit (even with the excessive Tim Burton blood to tell us it's a movie) once, much less repeatedly without pause. Matt laughed at me in the theater because no matter how many times Todd killed his customers, it took me by surprise. The story is about a murdering barber, so it's not like this should be unexpected, but I think my reasoning is sound, if he kills EVERYONE who gets on his chair, wouldn't someone eventually suspect. We did actually see him cut one man's hair, but if nine out of ten men never leave his barber's shop you'd think people would start to wonder. Still, it's a musical, so I guess I can't hold it to normal standards of logic.

The constant slashing of throats was effective however. (Spoiler ahead, skip to next paragraph if you don't want to know.) When we get to the end, and Todd returns from hunting Toby to find his daughter, disguised, I was actually convinced that he was going to kill her as well. The costumers did a fantastic job of making the girl look like the boy without any disguise beyond what could be reasonably believed.

There's not too much I can say about the music since I'm not very musical, except that I loved it. The guy responsible for the music is the same person who wrote the music for Into the Woods, a satirical faerie tale musical The music from Into the Woods is a bit more traditional, but every once in a while it goes off on a wonderfully quirky direction that makes you sit up and listen, Sweeney Todd was full of these moments but the context is so different that although the similarity nagged me slightly as I watched, there's no chance of making the connection. The style actually works much better with this dark, angry singing, and Johnny Depp's rough, so-so singing voice is actually the perfect vehicle for the central part. I'm always surprised that celebrities can sing (I know I shouldn't be, for many it's a part of their training) but in addition to Johnny Depp, Alan Rickman and Helena Bonham Carter both do plausible or better jobs. Don't get me wrong, when I say Johnny Depp has a so-so voice and that the others do plausible jobs I'm not saying they couldn't carry a tune, or even that they weren't pleasant to listen to, I just suspect that if I'd gone to see the production in a Broadway theater (not that I can afford to go to see anything on Broadway) the singing would have had a different quality. Broadway quality or not, I loved everything about the music.

The quality of Depp's voice did have one interesting effect. Johnny Depp's voice changes with the characters he plays (mark of a good actor that) and this rough character is apparently similar enough to Jack Sparrow that the voice was identical. I couldn't help the occasional jarring thought that Sparrow'd seen better days. It doesn't help that it started on a boat (sorry, ship) I suppose.

On a similar note, Tim Burton's presence was a sort of constant obvious undercurrent. It's not that it didn't fit the play, it's that it fit so well that it almost didn't work.Let me explain that. If this film hadn't been directed by Tim Burton, the gothy darkness, the showy next to the gritty, and the sometimes cartooney gru, would have seemed to fit the story and movie just perfectly. But because I am familiar with Tim Burton, and because I LOVE Tim Burton, instead of thinking: "wow, that's very fitting," all I could think throughout was, "Wow, that's so Tim Burton." This isn't necessarily a bad thing, and it's certainly not the fault of Burton. In fact my favorite scene in this movie, which fit the movie beautifully, was very Tim Burton.

In a song where Mrs. Lovett (Carter) is daydreaming about what her life might be like if she and Sweeney Todd settled down together, the background and costumes switch from scene to scene while Mrs. Lovett and Toby dance around looking happy. Todd meanwhile, stays in prominent staging, snuggly on Mrs. Lovett's arm, with an unchanging zombie expression on his face. It works very well, both in expressing the ridiculousness of Mrs. Lovett's fantasy, and in disrupting what could otherwise be a fairly sappy disjointed area in the movie.

*Pics are linked, you know the deal.

Phone Picture 01/03/08

Here's a picture of a peeled head of garlic. I thought it was pretty and had to take a picture before proceeding to break it up into cloves.

3 of Clubs (preliminary)

Here's a preliminary drawing for an entry to Custom52.This seems like a pretty cool idea. I stumbled on it through Sugar Frosted Goodness, where a member posted his entry. If nothing else it gives a good starting point for a drawing. I promise I'll finish this one this time.

New Feature: Phone Pics

As a new feature on my blog I'll be posting a picture from my cell phone every day.
These will be pictures that I took just because I thought they were kinda cool. Sometimes I'll alter them to make them cooler. This one is just a picture of my jeans that I took while at the airport, but I like the folds of fabric and the way the line of the seam winds up the center like a river.

Flights of Crappy

I hate flying.

I realize that's fairly common, but I'm not really afraid of flying, and I do it so frequently that I'm more than used to it. I've been flying on my own since I was thirteen, multiple times a year since I was sixteen, so I ought to be. Actually I lied, there is some fear involved in my dislike, but I recognize that it's irrational (most fears are). I know that the odds of being in a plane wreck are incredibly low, but then I think, by flying as often as I do I'm surely upping those odds at least a little. Then there's the fear that comes from looking out those tiny little windows and seeing the wing bounce all over the place. Sure sure, I know that for physics sake it's better that it do that, but I can't help but think it's about to break off at any moment. Or that one of those puny feeling plastic windows is just going to break. Or that the laws of physics are going to let us down (ha!) and decide to just drop us out of the sky. There are any number of perfectly natural, if irrational, reasons to be afraid of flying.

In spite of all that, the fear is pretty low on the radar. What really bugs me about flying is the extreme discomfort. In some ways flying with Matt is much nicer, because traveling with someone makes the trip easier. There is one key difference that makes it worse however: Matt is six foot four, and as such, gets automatic dibs on the aisle seat. Bastard.

When I was a kid I loved the window, but as I got older I preferred the aisle. It's not that I need the leg room, it's just that it allows me some freedom. Stuck in the middle, I inevitably need to use the bathroom pretty much incessantly, simply because my brain is perverse and wants me to suffer. Even if I do make Matt move so I can use the bathroom I pretty much need to use it again immediately as soon as I sit down because I'm STUCK AGAIN. And of course in the middle you're fighting two people for arm wrests instead of just one. At least because I know Matt I can lean on him, or feel less guilty about growling while fighting over the middle space (strangers look at you strangely and hit the call button if you so much as bare your teeth at them), but no matter what, the middle seat sucks.

It's nice when airlines take a little trouble to make flying more comfortable. There's not much they can do about the side to side room, so the middle person probably forever be screwed, but the last time I flew Continental on an international flight I saw an interesting solution to the upright problem. To fit as many people in as possible, seats are far too close together for comfort and that extra two inches you can get by putting your seat back doesn't really do much beyond pissing off the person behind you. On the continental flight however, the seats physically swung forward as you put your seat back, allowing your seatback to recline another several inches. It's AMAZING what a difference that made. Suddenly you can actually lean your head back, without fighting gravity. Brilliant. You don't really lose much leg room, unless you've got something stowed beneath the seat in front of you. These days I usually travel with my laptop stuffed down there and my backpack up above, which worked well since my laptop doesn't take much vertical space. I wish more airlines would do this, but I get the feeling that airlines just don't care.

I know airlines are losing money around the board, and can't give quite the luxuries that they used to, but there are so many things they could do that wouldn't cost them any money at all. Running on time would be a nice step. We flew USAir this trip and it was dreadful. The only reason we didn't miss any flights (we had three) on the way to Oregon is because ALL our flights were late. There was no weird weather outside to justify it, they were just late. On our final flight we had a plane waiting outside and the pilot waiting by the desk. I went to ask when our expected arrival would be (since we were already running about an hour late at that point, and I'd just arrived from my flight which landed two hours late) and the pilot looked a bit shifty. "Well," he admitted, "I'm not sure where my crew is, so that depends." Ridiculous.

And if they're going to be late, the least they could do is try to be helpful along the way. Remember when they used to list during landing, all the connecting flights of people on the plane? Why on earth did they stop doing that? It doesn't cost them a dime and it would up my opinion of their customer service. It also would have been helpful, on those constantly late flights, not to have to stop and find out what gate we needed to run to. On the one really late flight, where Matt and I ought to have had about ten minutes to get to our gate (that's the one with the missing crew though so we really had an hour) it would have been nice too if they might have announced that our plane was delayed so we could have waited and let those with tighter connections go. They might also have mentioned those who had already missed their flights (about a quarter of the plane) so those people also didn't have to clog up the aisles. Sheesh.

It's not fear that's hurting airlines, fear of flying, fear of terrorism, fear of crowds or any other kind of fear. It's lousy planning and thoughtlessness. Honestly, put in a little effort, and those of us who have to fly will at least dread it a little less.

100

This is my 100th post, something that I find extremely fitting since I managed to hit 100 pages in my novel/thesis today. True, I had to cheat a little to get there, but the "filler" is legitimate chapter planning that will be expanded as I go, a normal part of my writing process. Without it I have a very real 95 pages of story and the page count at the bottom says 102, so standing by my claim of having finally reached 100 pages.

This has been a good year. Matt and I got engaged which, while I can't exactly list it as something I've accomplished, does make me very happy. I'm almost finished with classes towards my degree, this semester I'll be taking my last workshop and thesis credits. Next year I'll have a single thesis credit left to complete. On a related note, I also started a blog for the NEOMFA community. It's not exactly hopping with popularity, but we've got a handful of authors and I suspect we'll have many more join next semester.

Last year in March, we adopted Tricky. She was pregnant with six kittens, all of which were born healthy and thrived, much to our exhaustion. To Chyna's dismay, we kept the kittens until June, when went to Scotland to see our friends Greyson and Amy (different Amy than I've mentioned before, that Amy was taking care of our cats) get married. Once we were back in town we moved to the condo, a smaller space than Matt's apartment, and started working on consolidating two spaces to one at the same time as introducing two angry, female, adult cats. Surprisingly, they're good friends now, though the space is still a mess.

This year marks the first time I've felt that I had some kind of skill set that might actually allow me to get a job. I've also lost 20 lbs which makes my doctor happy, and doesn't exactly get me down either. All in all I'm feeling pretty positive about things. I do live with the constant fear that I'm a bit too happy and something horrible is bound to happen, but here's hoping that gut clenching paranoia is a karmic payment?

Sleepy

We missed our cats...

Back from Oregon

After spending a week in Oregon, I'm ready to start a new year of blogging, thesis and whatever I decide is part of my ever-shifting ambitions. The next week or so will be blogs inspired by my time in Eugene, so there will be a handful of green design posts along with a good number of movie and book reviews.