| more fair |
[17 Dec 2009|02:22pm] |
I did a tiny craft fair at Jason's workplace this week and had a pretty good time. I think my favourite moments were the guys that came up and said "There are all these jewelry sellers...but I think that my girlfriend would really appreciate a monster."
Jason was rad and kept me company and did a pretty fantastic job pitching my little monsters to all his friends.
Here's a picture of my table setup - it looks a bit sparse, but I can only sculpt so quickly! I've got a lot of stuff to photograph and add in 2010, though, judging from the pile of unpainted specimens and tentacles plaques I have on my desk!
I'll be home for Christmas, which generally means I'll either be too busy to blog, or have plenty of time on my hands to blog. There's really no inbetween.
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| Year's end meme! |
[17 Dec 2009|01:33am] |
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mood |
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 contemplative |
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01. What did you do in 2009 that you'd never done before?
Studied abroad; met my soulmates (romantic and non); rode a camel; climbed a dune; rolled down a hill in Scotland; made out with a gay boy... this list could go on and on...
02. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
Didn't make resolutions last year, but I did have areas of focus that I focused the HELL out of! :D Already set some goals for next year!
03. Did anyone close to you give birth?
( More inside! )
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[14 Dec 2009|11:48am] |
The work craft fair was somewhat mediocre, but it was also free, so I can't complain.
These two guys are on Etsy right now - Specimen7! I have 10 more to photograph and list. Yikes.
Other than than, I had a fantastic and (sort of)productive weekend!
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| Movie Review and Weekend, Too |
[14 Dec 2009|12:13pm] |
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mood |
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 chipper |
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music |
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Lo Fidelity Allstars |
] |
So I'm sure this will draw the ire of the usual haters, but I don't really care. I finally saw Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day this weekend. It was fun; not great, but fun. I love the first film, and I rewatch it all the time. The sequel will end up in my collection, but the rewatch factor isn't going to be the same. Sure, it was a movie purely for us fans. Just about everyone, down to the minor characters, from the first movie are in the sequel (minus William Dafoe who was replaced with Julie Benz). There were in-jokes, referring to events from the first movie, and lots of allusions to the first. But it didn't work.
Why didn't it work as well? For starters, it was too stylized. Troy Duffy tried to build upon the things he did (and that worked) in the original, but some things shouldn't be overdone. Fight scenes went for way too long, and the FBI-agent-inserted-into-the-murder-scene-recreation sequences were unnecessary. Another reason is that some of the humor seemed too forced. In the original, the humor felt natural, and I felt as if I was listening to a conversation between people I knew. The sequel tried too hard for laughs.
But the main reason it didn't work was that it was missing the crucial theme that made the original a good movie. In the original, the boys are called to the life of vigilantism; it's a holy crusade of sorts. It justified their actions. The sequel was missing that. It just became a revenge flick, with action for the sake of action. The heart of the story was missing.
But like I said, it was a fun movie, and I'm glad I got to see it. And man, the ending was awesome! If you've seen it, don't spoil it (don't even give MINOR details about it), because the revelation is totally worth the wait.
Movie reviews aside, here was the rest of the weekend. Friday night Chris and I got loopy and had brother-to-brother talk until about 4:30 in the morning. Saturday was "chore day", although we didn't quite get everything done because we were wrestling with the Christmas tree (long story...). And Sunday was a typical art day. Nothing overly exciting, but we were productive.
Tonight we'll be having beef stew (which is slow cooking in the crock pot at the moment) and then decorating the tree and the house finally. And maybe we'll top it all off with some Bailey's. Sounds good to me.
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| 2009-2010 New Year's Post :D |
[11 Dec 2009|12:58pm] |
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mood |
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 excited |
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Oh my! Is it already that time of year, when the New Year's LJ posts start rolling in? If the nasty, bitter cold and white-out weather we've had the past few days is any indicator, then yes, yes it is that time.
Last year I didn't state goals so much as themes I wanted to explore and emphasize in 2009. They were Love, Honesty, Expression, and Identity, confidence, and audacity. Did I successfully embody and explore those themes? I think I can safely say YES to that. I made new friends, I did new things, I have discovered who I really am and lived that person's life as she would live it, and I have found the love of my life. What a year! Travel, adventure, love, and, hey, finishing college after 6 god damn years. The year of the Maddie? Possibly. But what will we call next year?
Next year holds some interesting events! Namely: OMGWEDDING. Hee! That will, I'm sure, be one of the main events of 2010 in my life. But I'm going to be brave and, this year, set some personal goals for myself:
Obtain an income. I don't want to say "get a job" because that's not what I want. I want to get published, and whether or not that "realistic" (when have I really concerned myself with "reality"??) I don't care. I am looking for a job only for income between now and publication. It will happen, I know that- it has happened, already, in some metaphysical way that I just need to relax and allow to manifest- now is as good a time as any.
Write The Tower. I realized when I was half-way finished with the first draft of The Hierophant that I needed to write the sequel. I was so passionate about the sequel that I almost put the first draft aside! That would have been a mistake, of course- but I have had some difficulty getting that passion back. Granted, I've been so distracted lately by True Love and finishing school... I think, once things start to balance out and I can get grounded again, I'll get that passion back soon enough. It's going to be a tough book to write in some ways, it's very dark and emotional, but it's going to be a mind-blowing triumph when it's done.
Finish The Poppet and the Lune. Oh TPaL! How I've neglected you so! I should be writing you today, but, then again I should be writing essays for school, too... I love this story so much, and it is so unlike anything else I've written. I think it has a lot of potential for publication because of its originality. My only concern is, I have no idea what to pitch it as. YA? Childrens? Who knows.
Read more. I am ashamed to admit that I don't read much, at least not as much as a writer probably should. A few books a year, perhaps. I can't say it's entirely my own fault- I begin plenty of books, but never finish them because they don't hold my interest. And that's saying a lot- I finished Twilight, and it was terrible, but admittedly it holds your attention. I like to get sucked into a book though, the kind of devouring that makes you want to stay up all night to finish it, or skip class, or something like that. I try to write books like that. My other problem is that I try to read YA to see what other peeps in my genre are doing, and I get enraged because they're terrible, or just jealous because it's okay, there's no reason why they should be published and not me... which brings me to:
Allowing. I want to allow and appreciate the success of others, and myself. Jealousy, indignity, judgement, pride, comparison- these aren't thoughts or emotions that help me. I need to appreciate, not hate. I might write better, or I might not, it doesn't matter. I really need to feel that, though, because all of those emotions show that I don't believe the Universe is going to deliver- that I don't believe I can have, do, or be anything I want. I used the art of allowing to find Jared, in a way. I wasn't trying to find my soul mate, I just knew what I wanted when he did decide to show up, so I wrote it down and allowed it to come into my life. 2 months later I met the love of my life. Now, if I could be so easy about publication...
2010 is going to be the Year of Maddie! Again! Every year is really my year... it just took me 20 or so years to realize that ;D
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| My Goals |
[11 Dec 2009|11:32am] |
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mood |
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 determined |
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Huh... So I thought that I had listed what I wanted to accomplish in 2009 back at the beginning of the year, but I can't seem to find the list in my LJ archives. Maybe I'm thinking about the previous year's. Oh well, either way, I'm putting a list of my goals (not resolutions, because those never get achieved) down here to check back on in a year.
- Improve my artwork. It's a basic one, but I need to keep plugging away so I can look back on my work in a year and see a difference.
- Finish my current untitled work in progress. This thing needs to be done. I don't care if I finish it and it's not great; that's what rewrites are for, and finishing it is 70% of the battle. Oh, it'd be nice to finally come up with a name for it, too.
- Get my untitled short story published. Speaking of untitled works... yes, I need to shop this around and get it published somewhere. There's no reason for it not to be. I have that much confidence in it.
- Do a couple more paintings. The itch has been strong, and I need to scratch it with some brushes and paints. I've been holding off on a wonderful fairy design because I want to do it in paint, and the wait is killing me.
- Get Bardsworth back up to a Monday/Wednesday/Friday update schedule. This is super-important to me. I hate doing two-day-a-week updates, but I'm still not prepared to make the jump to three. But I need to work double-time on preparing so I can make that jump and land comfortably.
- Up my Bardsworth readership to 5,000 per day. It's a long shot, but I think if I can get back to a three-day-a-week update schedule, update consistently, and do some targeted advertising, I can do this.
- The obligatory lose weight goal. Not just lose weight, but be healthier. I've made small steps, but I need take longer strides - less junk food, more healthy foods, smaller portions, getting back into yoga, and - if I have my druthers - getting back into weight-lifting.
- Pay off my credit card debt. The REAL long shot. Katie and I are pretty confident we can do this, though. And I want the satisfaction of making that final payment, calling to cancel the card, and chopping the hell out of it. That will make 2010 a wonderful year.
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| Winter is Here, and So Am I |
[10 Dec 2009|01:50pm] |
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mood |
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 indescribable |
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They said after a while I wouldn't miss it. "They" being people in California, and "it" being the snow. They were wrong, as I told them at the time they were.
The snow has been with us for a couple of days, but I didn't officially acknowledge it until about 10 minutes ago. I was walking back to work from the Winter Garden and took a look around me. The wind was in full force and snow flakes were descending, riding the currents. It felt like being in the middle of a snow globe that had just been shaken up. And in that moment I realized how beautiful winter is and how much I missed it.
Say what you want about it. Bitch and moan about shoveling and being cold and slippery roads. Winter is beautiful, it's pure, and I'm happy to be able to experience it again.
I'm home.
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| A Whole New World (now its in your head, mwa ha ha) |
[09 Dec 2009|02:58pm] |
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mood |
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 calm |
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music |
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Lamb of God |
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I am currently sitting in my new area at work. I can't remember if I mentioned, but my position was recently transferred from IT to marketing, so I'm at a completely different desk on a completely different floor which houses a completely different department. They're lucky I adapt easily. It should turn out to be good, though, considering my background and skills.
Oh, and I have a window now! Granted, it's behind me and it faces a busy street and I can hear the traffic clearly (well, not at the moment; death metal drowns anything out), but it's still a window.
I'm in that post-con mood right now (if you missed it, my con report is over at Bardic Musings). It's hard to come back from an environment like that, even when it was a financially bad weekend, and have to slide back into the role of "normal job". I would give anything to be able to travel around and make money off of my artwork. Yeah, that would be a hassle in itself, but I would much rather be doing it than sitting at a desk for 8 hours.
Someday, Pete... someday...
Crap, I just realized there's no bathroom on this floor... I'm gonna have to run upstairs every time I have to go! Blarg.
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