nothing to say but what a day

power outage forced me to sleep last night. bought a new phone, should arrive tomorrow - perhaps it will suck less. making a lot of lists - a fake sort of order. made a list of things i used to enjoy but have since lost interest in (pretty much everything). printed a list of psychologists. clearly i need a second opinion on my mental state (first opinion being mine, naturally, and totally unreliable). i have all this divorce paperwork to deal with and it's very intimidating. i've gotten as far as addressing envelopes. still to do, copies, notarized signatures, mailing, crossing my fingers and hoping the "respondent" as he's called does the same. each step is like tooth pulling, a carnival of anxiety. for which there are drugs. so that's good, at least. as a nurse once told my mother, "where there's dope, there's hope".

i am guessing no new art for a while. i can't force it and it's just not coming.

my plants are mostly doing ok though. so yay.

ad hoc laws of brain physics

first law

there is no up without a down. there is no stable without an unstable.

second law

the most preferred state is stable, for life, relationships, and happiness.

third law

there is no complete happiness without creativity.

fourth law

there is no creativity in the state of stable.

fifth law

you. are. fucked.

ideas without motivation are just shooting a capgun at godzilla. from far away. inspiration in short supply. there's no forcing it. trying to find the balance is... well, i'll make sure to docment it if i ever figure it out.

also

I hate the word "hip" when not referring to a part of the human body. It makes me feel mildly queasy.

We do what we must because we can

Welcome to Steam

Parking permit - want.

mutants traitors and thieves

First:



Silly experiment in selective blurring


Last night was first game night at Chuck and Chris' house. Risk 2230 - good game. I almost had to shiv Snow for his betrayals, but I got over it. Kinda. Next time I'll be more ruthless - what was I thinking? Also, land war? Asia? Hullo...

Cold last night. Slept on the couch fully dressed because I couldn't bear the thought of either undressing or getting in a cold bed. I would never, ever survive outside of California. Of course, outside of California I'd probably have a reasonably working heater. So there's that.

Stained glass night tonight - grinding! Everyone likes to grind. Yep.

diagramatic

Snapped a picture of the new BART map, since I couldn't find one online anywhere. Seems to be secret!

So cool.

nerves

I feel so well rested. Falling asleep next to someone you love and actually continuing to sleep through the night - amazing. And due to my sleepfucked state, rare.

I think I'm suffering from some kind of loss of nerve, creatively. I managed to churn out some work I was really happy with a few months ago, and then I just sorta... stopped. I wanted to blame it on winter, but I know it's not true. Intimidated, that I might not be able to do it more.

So I'm going to try to go out this afternoon and shoot a full card on each of my cameras - that's about 500 shots total. It's ambitious, but it'll shake me out of my rut I hope. It should also get me out on a good long walk, which I need. So, eating my oatmeal, having some tea, charging up my batteries and getting ready to open my eyes for a few hours.

I managed to nerve up to look at my resume last night though. It wasn't in bad shape, I was happy to find. I cleaned it up and posted it a few places.

Despite being at my parents house this weekend, also known as "snack hell", I managed to be reasonable. Weighed myself this morning - 3 lbs less than Friday. Blood sugar 10 points lower. Getting stronger all the time. I will beat this life, someday,

Borosilicate

Stained Glass class was very successful. I really enjoyed it. Cutting glass is not as hard as I'd feared.

Pros:

* The glass is amazingly beautiful, and it's an honor just to work with it. Seriously.

* Breaking glass *incredibly* satisfying when successful.


Cons:

* Stab wound on my thumbmeat creating copious blood. (Pro: blood on pattern gives "cred"). Other minor wounds not worth mentioning.

* Picking glass grounds out of nose kinda disturbing


As an aside, I have a burning desire to somehow create cat ears to put on the roof of my car (not of glass - I imagine a carbon fiber or fiberglass molded piece). And maybe a bumper sticker that says "DO NOT WANT". Which is usually how I feel when I'm driving.

Stop me before I kill again.

chezburger. we has them.

I was sort of disturbed when I found out my boyfriend had a whole bunch of lolcats on his iPhone.

Then somehow I landed on that site and started scrolling through them, and now I am both sick with laughter and deeply ashamed.



*sigh*

Update:

Then I did this. And now Snow will kill me.

“On a bad day, I have mood swings - but on a good day, I have the whole mood playground”

Today was actually productive. Glory glory. I did laundry. Which I hadn't done in... insert number of days here.

In the afternoon Snow and I went to the stained glass studio and picked out glass. Which was glorious. It indulged all of my love of color, in a very pure way. I bought more than I needed, but it was all so *pretty*. I am really excited about how it's going to turn out. There's just 4 weeks of work between now and then.

I bought a deckled edged ruler which I've wanted for a while but couldn't find. We came home, and Snow cooked for us. And then we traced and cut out our stained glass patterns while watching endless episodes of Law & Order: CI (the flavor of preference).

While sketching out (!!) some ideas for future glass projects, I got an inspiration from my rail maps book - it would be wickedly cool to do a big glass panel of the BART map. Of course it'd be a bunch of pretty small parts, and it'd be tricky... so maybe in a few projects. It's still a fun idea.

Being functional kinda rocks it. I might even sleep before 2am. 2am! Practically apocalyptic.

(quote : Charles Rosenblum. No idea who he is, but damned if it isn't true.)

Transit Maps of the World

Transit Maps of the World is the first and only comprehensive collection of historic and current maps of every rapid-transit system on earth. Using glorious, colorful graphics, Mark Ovenden traces the history of mass transit-including rare and historic maps, diagrams, and photographs, some available for the first time since their original publication. Transit Maps is the graphic designer’s new bible, the transport enthusiast’s dream collection, and a coffee-table essential for everyone who’s ever traveled in a city.

Snow encouraged me to buy this, as I gazed at it longingly. It wasn't a wrong decision. It is the coolest. Book. Ever. Seriously.

And, I'm pleased to report that BART has entered the 21st century and is remaking some of their maps - I can't seem to find any reference online, but their in-station schedules have a small non-geographically bound map that clearly shows the lines and connections. It is lovely and modern, more akin to London's, and it makes me really happy.

I love rail. I love heavy rail, light rail. I love monorail. I love high speed rail, and to a lesser degree, slow old railroad. I wish I knew more about it, but just the pictures make me giddy.

So yeah. Rail porn. Love.

doo dee dee

We're sorry the brain you are trying to reach is not quite functional. Please hang up and try your call again.

Exercise regimen is lending to lots of pain. Trying to cowboy up and keep with it, at least for a few more weeks.

Thirsty. Out of sorts. Not doing things that ought to get done. Definitely not creative.

Give it a few days. Reconnection is inevitable.

why we fight

further meanderings: "Why We Fight"


(none of these are anything like a finished product. just sketches)

second prototype

"Quiet at Last"

new image rescue project, gratuitous zombies

It occured to me that there are tons of still images just waiting to be found and loved in public domain movies. So naturally I started with zombies.



What I really want to do is pick through the (many!) public domain films for shots that someone loved, stories that the movie didn't tell. To re-contextualize, to make new.

More to come on that.

More:

Having framed through most of "Night of the Living Dead", a few observations:

1: Framing through a movie with no sound is really fascinating. Not totally frame by frame, but fast forward and reverse and focusing on tiny details.

2: I have a better idea of what I want to do with this, but it needs a bit more work. End result will not be anything as vulgar or obvious as above. Right now I'm liking the idea of settings without characters a lot - before entrances, after exits...

3: I don't know how I forgot, but Night of the Living Dead fucking rocks.

Sleep, the final frontier...

Hot-Topic pink dreadlock weaved bitches ain't got nothing on sleep test electrodes. Seriously, were I ever to try to get close to that scene again (hahaha) it'd be rainbow Medusa electrode cascade.

The test itself wasn't too bad. The room was better than some motels I've stayed in. They put me to bed at the unfathomably early hour of 10PM - and remarkably, I actually fell asleep. For a while. Woke up at some point and stayed awake for a long time, trying to remember how to sleep. Funny how that is, it's one of those resistance things.

When they woke me I was dreaming about sleep studies. I would have killed to get into the control room and check it all out, but of course there are cameras into patient rooms, so that's no-go. I won't know the analysis for a couple of weeks. I'm hoping for something weird. Then at least it'd be worth it.

PS -

The amount of goop on my hair and face as a result of said electrodes can best be described as "bukkake without tears". Bleah.

PPS -

I just discovered that my alias for zoem |@| operations.net wasn't so much working. Now it is. K.

And to clear the monsters from the closets

This video by Ghost Robot for RJD2's "Work it Out" just makes me smile.

sleeping lessons

Tonight I'm headed out to some clinic which looks eerily like it's in the middle of nowhere, on the map. There, I will get wired up to machines to find out what the fuck is wrong with me while I sleep.

I've had lifelong sleep problems, ranging from insomnia to parasomnia (sleepwalking/sleep talking/other sleep actions). Most of it is terrifying - the kind of thing that were I to develop a means of torture, I'd channel that. It is a primordial kind of terror - pure adrenaline, heart pounding and a metallic taste in my mouth, once I emerge (shakily) back into waking world. Sometimes, I can barely stand, grasping a doorframe, trying to convince myself that there is no threat.

Most people can't remember their night terrors, I'm told. I do. Mine are tortured incursions into my space - tentacled creatures that emerge through the ceiling lamp. Harmful entities, reminding me that I am dead. Mirror-world monsters, ready to eat me. Vengeful upstairs neighbors, spying through my closet. Imminent building collapse - by fire, flood, earthquake or unknown force.

My dreamworld is, in a word, fucked. And I don't know if the sleep study will be able to dissect that from the little skitters on tape that my brain will produce. I can't even count on it happening. Monsters don't write themselves into your calendar.

I'm actually for the first time ever concerned that the cerebral demons won't show their faces, that an overnight in a strange sterile place will be for nothing, and that my neurologist will give me that look that says: "You are unsolvable. Stop trying. You span worlds. Learn to live with it."

Frontiers in sleep.

boring boring boring

I hate things that are boring. grinding.be is pretty boring right now, from a conversation perspective. I keep returning only because it gives me a good excuse to spew small amounts of writing - which is good practice. I haven't been good at writing since I started doing more photography (which my brain just wanted to write as "alphebetting" - clearly crosswired). It seems maybe I can only do one at a time? I used to do some integrated stuff (This is just a nightmare being an example - though that's other peoples words).

I like this poem. No, I didn't know about Pinsky from Stephen Colbert. An old friend sent me this when I needed it badly. I posted it to my MySpace blog, but I will probably forget about that blog pretty quickly...

Samurai Song - Robert Pinsky

When I had no roof I made
Audacity my roof. When I had
No supper my eyes dined.

When I had no eyes I listened.
When I had no ears I thought.
When I had no thought I waited.

When I had no father I made
Care my father. When I had
No mother I embraced order.

When I had no friend I made
Quiet my friend. When I had no
Enemy I opposed my body.

When I had no temple I made
My voice my temple. I have
No priest, my tongue is my choir.

When I have no means fortune
Is my means. When I have
Nothing, death will be my fortune.

Need is my tactic, detachment
Is my strategy. When I had
No lover I courted my sleep.

Mundanity

I've been checking out Grinding, the new bit of community exploitation spurred from the warpo mind of Warren Ellis. So far? Boring. I've been trying to kick in where I can, but so far it looks stillborn.


I have a pretty good idea of what sort of tattoo I want, eventually, where it will be and how it will be extended over time. What I didn't know was who I could trust to do it. Then last night while browsing I found this amazing studio of women artists,
Diving Swallow Tattoo

Their work is absolutely perfect for what I want. But that's a ways off - i have things to accomplish before then. Ultimately I want a vine that starts on my lower back, and winds around my waist to flowers in bloom, with bees. I want to be able to add bees over time, as I accomplish more in my life. It occurs to me I could have the roots done now - they are the rough hewn parts that represent all I've been through, all the groundwork I've laid so far. I've also been doing research on what sort of flowers I want - something that attracts bees, preferably something that grows on a vine, and something beautiful.

I signed up with the Jillian Michaels website. It seems pretty good - well structured workouts on a daily basis. I'm keeping really organzied, and I'm hoping this kind of structure will help me keep to it.

During a long layover at the Seattle airport, I realized I'd forgotten to pack shampoo, so I went to the local Body Shop and bought myself some Honey Moisture Shampoo. It is now my most favorite shampoo ever, and I can even blow-dry my hair without it looking like some kind of science experiment. So. Awesome.

Without going into drastic detail, my hormone situation is much relieved. I spend $200 a month on drugs and very few of them are any fun at all. Cheaper than crack, I guess.

What happens when I have too much time

Got it in my head that there's a natural cycle to culture/subcultures, tried to capture some of it. Kinda ugly.

Holding down the fort

It's really blustery out. I can't sleep - some caveman part of my brain wants me to be alert in case the windows blow in. Which they shouldn't. But given the general disrepair of this building doesn't seem impossible.

I've finally buckled and set up a myspace - http://www.myspace.com/sevenbridgesstudio

I'm adding bunches of Etsy folks, but anyone can friend me, I imagine. This whole myspace thing makes me feel like an old person.

Revolve, resolve

First:


Then:

** Don't let it get out of control. Don't let the self-created pressures grow too great. Don't let it make me cry. Don't let it fly into the wind in little pieces.

And:

* Divorce

* Job

* Fitness

Happy new revolution.