Blather, rinse, repeat

Fairly normal Friday, except for one of the shadow kids keeling over in surgery today. (The shadow kids, as I call them, are high school kids that come by to shadow the vets, for career day or something.) Most of the kids get queasy or fainty when they see surgery for the first time, but this one actually hit the floor. It was my friend's boyfriend, too, a real cutie. I felt kind of bad for him. (And it's weird calling them "kids" when they are taller than I am. Aren't "kids" supposed to be little?)

Hula is cancelled for tomorrow, so I can sleep in a bit, then hit Kung Fu. Then home to clean the house, for TRICIA is up for the weekend and is coming to visit! So it's going to be Tricia, Kim and I, just like old times (and by old times I mean, like, a few months ago, before she moved away.)

Oh, so, yay for me, I got Advent Children yesterday. I promised myself I'd get to bed early last night, and that I'd just watch a bit, honestly, just, like, the deleted scenes, and then hit the hay. Oh yeah, right. I forgot how much I am in love with this movie. I sat there by myself, on my sofa with some pudding, just fanpoodling over Cloud. The dubbed voices are not as bad as I thought they were going to be. Steve Burton does all right by Cloud, I guess, and even Mena Suvari isn't as awful as I thought she was going to be (read: as awful as she is in KH2.) I couldn't believe my ears when they actually had Barett saying "foo'" a few times. Your'e kidding me! "Foo'"?! After all these years of trying to pretend that he was not, in fact, supposed to be Mr. T.? But what kills me is what they did to Cid. It's just plain awful. Cait Sith's accent was, uhh, confusing (Scotland? In Midgar?) but Cid's voice is just bad and wrong. In fact, it's badong.

In other geek news, the new Nintendo game system--you know, you thought it was going to be Revolution?--is now Wii. Pronounced "we," or, hell, let's be honest: "wee." Oh, this is going to be swell, when I am forced to buy Twilight Princess on the new system because of the SUPER SPESHUL extra features, and I have to tell my friends, "Don't call me, I'm playing with my Wii." Because, you know, geeks are too popular as it is, and they need something to make them less socially acceptable. WTF?

And speaking of WTF, I'm trying to post a drawing, and photobucket is down. I'm using the LJ scrapbook, but you know what, I'm not wild about it. I'll try photobucket again in a while. Ahh, here we are. ( Picture here if anyone wants to take a peek at it. )
That's just the original sketch. I thought that the Calabi Yau space was going to be a bitch to draw, but it wasn't that bad. Admittedly, I traced some of it. Although if I could draw a Calabi Yau on my own, I'd probably be getting pretty good at drawing dimensions--pun more or less intended. I colored this, or began to, anyway, in hopes that colors would make it look cool and mysterious and whatnot. As it happens, it looks like he's standing in front of a screensaver.

And I think he looks a little too feminine for my taste. Proportions seem wrong, too.

However, this is one of the only drawings I've done that I've deliberately named, as opposed to just thinking of any old thing because I had to call it something. This one is called "Can I get the door for you?" We'll see how it turns out if and when I finish it.

Well, I just watched an episode of Buffy ("Go Fish,) the one with the swim team,) and now maybe I'll head off to bed.

"Wii" indeed. >_>

ETA: David Byrne's journal. Interesting.

There's very little that makes my day--hey, my entire week--as much as getting a drawing that someone has done for me. I know a lot of people tend to not think much of this; especially people who have talent, maybe because they can whip something out any time. If it's in their head, they can put it on paper if they really, really want to. Me, I struggle with every line I draw. I don't actually enjoy drawing; I just do it because sometimes I have to illustrate what's in my head, and hey, usually no one else is doing it, so I've got to step up. The results are often godawful.

So when someone who can draw really well takes the time to put something on paper for me, it means the world to me. And once again, my lovely friend voodobaby has done just that.

( Maryna by Ida )

Isn't that beautiful? She looks so kickass! Ida is one of those rare folks who remembers the stories I'm writing, and she's actually done a few drawings in the past for me. Drawings by Ida:

( A beautiful one of Irissa: )

( One of my favorites ever of Maryna, because this is exactly how I see her: )


( Lillia looking fittingly sultry (and nakie!) )

Those are all wonderful, and I'm so grateful. Thank you so much, voodobaby!

Preview:


( Full picture. Come on, that preview looks so bizarre, you know you want to click. Look at me not be able to draw grass, even fake grass! )

Comments? Helpful tips on how to make it suck less? Questions?

I wrote today; in fact I was on a freaking buttered roll. Haven't written this much at a go in a long time, and what was best about it was that I did what I was supposed to be doing in a first draft: I made a huge, frigging mess. But I loved it. (For my own future reference, the section I'm talking about here is the Leander / Khinegrek-Ivy section.)

So there I was, clicking away at the keyboard, making great, huge typos and writing grand, stupid, self-indulgent nonsense and loving every minute of it, when I got interrupted. Well hey, no big deal, I am in the zone and I can just get right back in. So, unlike what I usually do (which is check email and surf the web for a while, pretending that I will get back to writing which I don't actually do until the next day or so,) I actually did go right back to writing.

And then a terrible thing happened. Not only was I writing big, retarded stories--which is all right for a first draft--I started to just get dumb about it. What had started out as a dramatic "OMG he must fight the woman he loves in the Multiverse whatever will he dooooo! And also it's SEXY!" kind of thing had suddenly turned into Mars Needs Sperm. I mean, I was this close to actually writing in a sperm bank. I really need to leave my own issues out of things.

awakesoon had to go and post about FFVII, which made me decide to go look once more at one of my favorite pages ever, My Slumbering Heart which is a web page all about Cloud Strife and how awesome and stupid and flawed and beautiful and faceted and fascinating he is, (and god, don't I wish I could write a character as interesting as Cloud Strife.) The author of this particular page gets into nearly every aspect of him, from his upbringing to his psychosis to his sexual preference (and bastardization thereof in fandom,) and I think I agree with everything on she writes. Then she mentioned a story called "Case Of Tifa" and I had no idea what she was talking about, but apparently it is part of a canon novella, and in the chapter called Case Of Tifa, Cloud is in some parts the canonically hilarious doofus he could be in FFVII, then later gets full-on drunk and Tifa sends his sullen ass to his room, or so the writer of this page says. So now I'm off to read that, and I can never seem to find Leander in my head again after I've spent some time with Cloud and co.

Whine, angst.

ETA In this story, "Case of Tifa", it almost seems as if Cloud and Tifa are sleeping together. Tifa talks to him while he's asleep, and he wakes up and answers her. I mean, sure and Tifa could have just crept into his room and everthing, but there is no mention of that. The section just begins, "After making certain that Cloud was asleep, she spoke to him." All right, so I'm starting to sound like a squeeing 'shipper, but I just like to think that Tifa's getting herself some blond-boy action, that's all.

A few days ago I was pissing and moaning about how this second book of mine was actually shorter than the first, and how that was a bad sign and all. So today I was outside with the dogs, thinking of this and that, thinking how having metal earrings really makes your ears freeze when it's cold outside and wondering if I could somehow work that into a weird little section of the story (I store all useless and weird details of daily life away for writing reference,) when I had a Writer's Epiphany:

The entire section I was mentally trying to cram into the third book, wondering how and where I could wedge it there, actually, logically belongs in the second book. TADA!

Of course, that's going to take some bending and rearranging, too, but I think it's doable. Now I'm excited!

But still lazy.

I have skipped out on Kung Fu tonight OMG! I had been reading about this massive storm we're supposed to be getting tonight (cold front moving in, and finally, I mean it was 73 degrees here today, how the hell am I supposed to feel all Autumnish with this crap going on, I ask you,) with hugely gusting winds and all of this nonsense. And as some of you might remember, the road I take is not the safest in bad weather. And then someone on the West end got totally creamed by a falling tree through his windshield. On top of it all, I had a really bad feeling about driving tonight, and so here I am. And it's just mildly breezy, with a ghostly waning moon, whispy clouds kind of drifting by all storybooklike. Where the hell is this violent storm that was supposed to start, uhhh, seven minutes ago? Jaysus.

So a few weeks ago a friend of mine told me about these cool flashy-flash LED dog tags, you know, so cars can see your dogs at night if you walk them. Now of course, I've got a fenced in yard and all, but it's been a problem for years that I can't find my damn dogs at night. Two of them are black, you see, and they are very crafty about not wanting to come indoors when I call them. In fact, I've had to hunt them down clued in solely by the jingling of their various tags. Not fun at any time of the year. Although sometimes, if some lights are on, I can see Trisky's white tail tip. So I says to myself, I says, "Self," I says, "you should get you some of those flashy-flash LED dog tags, so you can always locate your dogs at night." THen last night I had a dream that all my dogs ran away down the North Road, and then I had another dream that I bought them all flashy-flash LED tags. So today, I went to the pet store and I bought them. Thinking, you know, how practical this all was, although I was strangely giddy about the whole thing. Then it occurred to me as I got in the car, Hey, is this really a practical thing? I mean, I'm still going to have to call the dogs indoors and they will still probably want to remain outdoors. After which I realized that this flashy-flash LED tag thing was probably more the idea of the thirteen year old girl that lives in my brain, the one who thought how cool it would be to have sparkly dogs!!

But I put the tags on anyway, and just before I had to take Haku out and I decided to light him up, as it were. I had no idea that these flashy-flash LED tags could light the entire goddamn neighborhood. Not only will I always be able to locate my dogs, but so will all the neighbors, and probably any airplanes flying over as well. I only hope they don't mistake my dogs for a landing strip. Again I say, jaysus.

Anyway, after the pet store I went down to Green Earth, and lemme tellya why. I mean, well really because I had to get my supply of soap and toothpaste and other non-animal tested things, but also because I wanted to buy any kind of organic lotion or oil. Anything, really, that didn't have parabens in them. ...The chemical preservatives called parabens—methyl, propyl, butyl and ethyl (alkyl-p-hydroxybenzoates)—displayed estrogenic activity in several tests. This means that these chemicals mimic your body´s own hormones and can have endocrine-disrupting action when they are rubbed into your body or washed down the drain into your drinking water. These disruptors interfere with your body´s endocrine system: your hypothalamus, your ovaries, your thyroid—virtually every system in your body." Seriously, any obsessive-compulsive health conscious people reading, go and check out whatever lotion you use. It's probably got parabens in it. This sucks for me, because I use lotions almost constantly. I've got a bottle of skin lotion in every room. I use it every night after the shower, and first thing in the morning. I put that crap everywhere, and have been for years. Sure, I've got nice skin, but now I'm all paranoid. So I decided to look for organic stuff, because lately I'm obsessed with putting as few odd and random things into my system as possible.

So I was at the health product store looking at a 12 dollar bottle of mixed oils for the skin: olive oil, peanut oil, and a drop or dab of a few other kinds. 8 ounces, I think. I was about to buy it and then I said, "Huh? Can't I just buy, say, a liter of olive oil for like ten dollars and then mix in any other thing I want?" Which I then did. Then a little while ago I mused, how neat would it be to buy some cocoa butter, melt it, and mix that all in, too? How neat would it be to make my own damn skin lotion?

As well as being obsessive, I get weirdly ambitious sometimes.

So, when I came home from the stores, I sat down and decided, you know what, screw it, I'm going to write. The thought of it made me sick, because everything I've written has been total stink for the last few months, but I realized I had to stop censoring myself, to stop thinking whether or not editors or agents would even look at this crap, and to just have fun again. Some of the stuff I used to write wasn't all that godawful, but more than that, I loved writing it. And I haven't, not since I went all "OMG I would like to get published someday!" So I'm going to tell myself that I'm not going to get published, that I will just write the entire series for giggles and the occasional comment. That I will be the same self indulgent writer I used to be when I wrote fanfic exclusively.

And then, I did. I sat down and write a grand total of three paragraphs. Which, hey, is a lot more than I've written since September, I think.

Yeah, yeah, I say this every few months when I get discouraged with myself, and then it works for a few days, and then I start to hate it again. Blah blah. I suffer for my "art" and so now you have to, as well.

I think that Spencer and Meghan are coming out Friday night so that we can all take Gran to see Harry Potter. Harry Potter on its opening night, god help me. Hopefully Tricia will come, too.

Anyway, that's the news for right now. I'd better get back to listening to voice clips on GAFF writing now. Yes.

Yesterday, when I put up that link to a file and impertently demanded that everyone in the world download it? Uhh, yeah, I actually made a huge mistake in that video clip. I left out a section of it and I didn't realize it until today when I looked at the folder and saw that one little left out clip hanging out. Uhhh, duh!

I know that two of you took the time to download and watch it already, and I so appreciate it. It's not a huge difference; just 49 extra frames that I did a few months ago and forgot I had. It's neat, but I used it in the other silly video clip I did.

I tried to get the music to match up on this one, but even though it worked just fine on MovieMaker as I was doing it, the timing actually got frigged up when I saved it. WTF, I ask you.

But anyway, give it a whirl if you haven't already.

Incidentally, there are two hidden messages in this that I forgot I put in there, and then consequently forgot to take out. How moronic. But now I think it's kind of neat. One of them is behind Sahrek when his necklace swings, and one of them is in Krislar's window towards the end.

You guys who downloaded this, thanks again. ^_^ That meant a lot to me.

Please download me, I am a lousy 4.17 MB file, that's really not much, is it?

Anyway, it's a little, wee animation thingie with creepy music that I made today. Some of the animations I made bit by bit over the last few weeks--an hour here or there. Many of them were already made over the sumemr and I had used them for that gag "commercial" I made back then.

The first person who says "Wow, I wish I had some time off work / free time like you do" gets a smack to the head, because I hate that crap. Everyone has free time, we just all choose to do different things with it. We have H-O-B-B-I-E-S, you get that? And this is one of mine, crappy though it is. And honestly? It really does not take me that long. 45 minutes on most animations once the painting is done. They're not difficult, do not take a lot of talent, and do not take a lot of time. So get right over that. Yes, I have a "real job" as most of you know, and no, I am not forever sitting on my butt and drawing. And before anyone wonders why I'm getting defensive, it's because the last time I sent out a stupid little animated thingie, someone did say "wow I wish I had that kind of time." And I just think that's lame. Anyone who knows me knows that I am not one of those people. I do know some people who do have that luxury--yes, and they are adults--but I am not one of them.

*huff!*

So anyway, but I did take some time to make it, so, damn you, someone had better look at it.

(PsstPsst!Sahrekisinitokay!)


Oh, and the music in this is the ending of "Fairytales of Slavery" by Miranda Sex Garden. Now I've said "sex", aren't you all so interested? ;)