Ramblings of a crackmonkey

First off I'd like to apologize, if anybody's had any major stuff happening and I haven't replied about it, it's not because I couldn't be motivated to, it's because I haven't even seen it. This past month or so has been utter and absolute chaos. On the plus side, lots of odd jobs, which means enough cash to keep us going. On the downside, I feel like I've been running around nonstop. There've been trips involving puppetry that put me in hotels, there's been house-sitting that put us sleeping in a strange house (me on the couch, because I could not physically sleep in the bed provided), there's been chauffeuring a teenager to and from school and other stuff, and running Bridgie to and from classes. I've been through two different anti-depressants, one of which made me almost non-functional (although I still had to drive everybody everywhere), the other of which made me nauseous all the time for over a week, so that I lived on very little food... and I have yet to see an actual psychiatrist, just a doctor who insisted on a blood test when I tried to tell her I don't take street drugs, and who got snippety when informed I'm a lesbian. It was a free clinic, and apparently you get what you pay for.

In between all this stuff, what free time I do have puts me into a vegetative state. I have free time right now, because Bridgie is now horribly sick. She refuses to go to the doctor, and I'm sitting here listening in case she throws up again.

My mental state isn't in a good place these days. Also sorry I still haven't sent out coloring books... I'll try to catch up with life as I can.

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Thanks to all those who wished me happy birthday! We've been major busy lately, which is part of why I haven't posted much. When I say busy, I'm talking about chauffeuring a friend's teenager to and from school and getting him fed, and sleeping over at their house, which meant I had no computer access. Also chauffeuring Bridgie to and from different classes and seeing a helpful 'free therapist' who turned out to be an annoyed doctor who told me, and I quite, 'you've been unemployed. You should be depressed.' and then stood there giving me this look of 'what do you want me to do about it?' Then she, and this should come as no surprise, wrote me a prescription for pills that make me feel like a zombie much of the day, which is really great when I spend my days driving other people all the heck over the place.

But hey! Speaking of zombies! We did have a good time on my birthday! Literally the day before, we found out Richmond has a zombie walk. This is the fifth one, and I'm not sure how we never heard of it until now. Next year I want to be in it. It. Was. Awesome.
I took a lot of photos.
The fun thing about zombies, you see, is that they're not just the walking dead, they're often the walking dead with a theme! There are some damn creative people in this town.

( Cut for a bajillion photos of awesome. )

The very start of the parade was heralded by one guy with a couple minor injuries, stagger-running up the street yelling to us to run because there were zombies coming. Next came a bloodied guy with a lead pipe, and a couple of resistance fighters with loud capguns. We followed after the end of the parade (They were easy to follow, because they literally left a trail of bloody footprints and sometimes bits of intestine/skin on the sidewalk), and at about the halfway point were protesters with signs like 'we are not a snack. I got my best photos when we ended up against a light pole at a crosswalk. Here the zombie crowd would get stopped up and have to wait for the lights to change, while groaning things like 'traaafffiiiiic!' and 'Doooon't waaaaalk!' There was another guy beside me with a camera, so a lot of zombies helpfully posed for us both while waiting to cross the street.
Next year, I'm doing the zombie walk.

Busy weekend, did the mentor thing Saturday and the kid is pretty cool and all, but I don't have the kind of energy to keep up. And Sunday we went on the gay bus. That. Was awesome.
( photo )
Today, we're just physically trashed. It's taken me this long to get the energy to post.
Baby-sitting type stuff this week, and working on the white stag costume for Hallowe'en. Planning to do very little, today.

Comp is up and running, and I even managed to pry a copy of WSFTP from Ipswitch without repaying them or anything. It's... different, but it works.

This is mostly a post to wave and say hey we're back online, and most especially to point and flail and wave at amethystlight who has her birthday today, and who I've known for... twelve years maybe? Thirteen? You'd all damn well better wish her happy birthday, because she is pretty much the whole reason I came to the wonderful land of intarwebs in the first place. My first online friend who taught me not everyone on the internet is scary (we've stayed at each other's places several times over the years), my first teacher of HTML, my inspiration for writing my first fanfics, my introduction to IRC, and just an amazing person for so many reasons. Even if you don't know her and only know me, you should be grateful to her. She's why I'm here.

She's also an amazingly patient person since I owe her a commission from way back months ago. Working on that...

Posting this from the new computer, which was actually online as of last night. Once I got it up and running, though, Bridgie needed it to catch up on classwork stuff. That means I still don't have everything going because I haven't had a chance to work on it.
It seems like I can always find more stuff I need to do on it... the scanner drivers need to be yoinked off the old computer still. A lot of crap needs updating, such as Mozilla (currently downloading in another window). Have to update Mozilla so I can use LJ login. AIM and mIRC still need downloading. and WSFTP which is driving me nuts because I just know they'll try to sell me the latest and greatest when all I want is the reliable old program I paid for and can't find on disk now... The list goes on.

But! Took a break and saw a Bruce Willis flick called 'Surrogates' yesterday. I hadn't heard of it at all, until we looked to see what movies were playing. It. Was. Awesome. Clearly whoever came up with it read a lot of Asimov, yet the whole premise had a new twist to it. There were some predictable moments, but predictable in a satisfying way. You should go see. Because Rey says so.

Okay, going away now so this will download faster...

Comp update:
Old HD backed up (OMFG that took forever)
MP3 player/dig camera/Wacom art tablet on new comp
IE and Mozilla with bookmarks and Flash updates on new comp
Music on new comp (Also a long process)
Kitten entertained for hours by cursor on big new comp screen

To do tomorrow:
Hook up scanner
Install ISP/import connection
Find my @&*^&$(& FTP program.

To do tonight:
Sleep

Update for the household, particularly to RP friends. There may be a lack of online-ness for today, possibly the next couple of days. This computer is starting to kick it's last or something, in the form of randomly rebooting, sometimes in the middle of doing things. It could be a virus, it could be a lot of things. I can't be bothered to fix it when there's this pretty new computer sitting here waiting to be set up, without the need for the USB hub (which has been having issues all by itself). Today I'll try to do HD backup and set up the new comp, which involves a lot of switching over peripherals and getting the internets to work on the new one, with old software. Wish me luck!

Feeling a little better this afternoon, partly because the appointment we had this evening got moved. I also just got Squeaks back from the vet, and not only did she NOT have an abscessed tooth, but they also way overestimated the bill when they showed it to me this morning. First it looked like it was going to cost $50 more than the original 'highest' estimate, and then this afternoon when I picked her up, they told me it cost several hundred less. The vet came out and talked to me a while, and said there was major plaque and tartar and gingivitis, huge chunks, but then the teeth underneath were solid. She's got a clean bill of health and we talked about her 'geriatric senior' status, and how siamese mixes tend to live longer. She said Squeaks didn't even take anesthesia like a senior cat, and woke up feisty. The care sheet said she might have little appetite tonight and not to worry. When I let her out of the carrier, she immediately went to where her food bowl sits and demanded to be fed right the hell then and there. She's got a nice little shaved spot on her leg from the IV, but otherwise you wouldn't know she's been to the vet.

Color me relieved. To make things better, the recycling people have heard through Bridgie's dad about the finances situation, and are rushing my payment process. This is awesome of them, and more than I expected. The other bright shiny moment of the day is I got the printed copies of the coloring book today. I'll try to sort 'em all out and send off copies this weekend.

( The bleh... )

Edited for cute happies. ( Have some Froggy photos. )

So I missed wishing dragonwhishes a happy birthday, and I missed talk like a pirate day. Yargh.

So I made a coloring book, and I should be feeling good about that, but I'm just... not. I feel like I'm walking around with a big knot of stress in my stomach. I'm having insomnia compared with nightmares that cause me to wake up yelling. I'm glad for the comic book but I didn't realize I wouldn't get paid for a month, which is my fault for not asking, and now I don't have the funds for Squeaks' vet appointment tomorrow. We've been doing... a lot. Church choir and apparently we'll be helping teach the youth group and then there's the kid we'll be mentoring and then appointments of dentist and doctors and vet for both cats and I'm just... unreasonably stressed. I'm not sure I'm really busy enough to warrant being this stressed, when it comes down to it, but there's a feeling of being busy that's invading my brain at every moment, waking and apparently sleeping too.

Anyways, trying to pull my misfiring synapses together and do art, because it should be a relief to work on some other stuff now that the coloring book is done.

Arr.

So if anybody is still watching here, especially RP buddies, possibly to see if I'm dead or fell off the face of the planet or something: The coloring book job ate my brain, ate my soul, devoured me alive. I just handed over the final files today, and now I'm squirming hoping I've done everything right because it's been so damn long since I did real professional graphics work. Not that commissioned art isn't professional, because it is, but it doesn't involve the people at the other end asking for specific file formats and DPI. But hopefully tomorrow I'll get to see the proofs (which I am NOT the one signing off on), and once I see that the little coil of anxieties currently making threatening twanging noises in my system will melt.

Anyways. Going to go try to catch up on RP threads, and Shiri I am seriously sorry your commission got derailed by this. The image has been sitting solid in my brain while I've been drawing soda cans and pieces of crumpled paper for the kiddies to color.

Also, copies of the coloring book will be available for any friends who ask.

Somebody stole our garbage can. WTF. Who steals garbage cans?
It had our apartment number written on it.

Yurgh.

Just got back from seeing '9' which was awesome and Morri is bouncing. Going to go ink coloring book stuff now.

Wheee life is one fun big merry-go-round. I've been feeling a little better, new kitten, coloring book job, life might be on an upswing. Then this weekend Squeakers lost her voice.
As anybody who's ever met my cat can attest, Squeaks without a voice is a pretty hard thing not to notice. Now she croaks, and grunts, where she normally has a varied and bizarre vocabulary which she uses to test the acoustics in every room in the house on a daily basis. This is a cat you can hold a conversation with, and you might have trouble getting a word in edgewise.
She was also making horking noises like she had a hairball, only not quite, and a couple times an hour. I checked the usual suspects like her stomach and her throat, and then dragged her to the vet, where they checked something I didn't think of. She has what is probably an abscessed tooth.
The irony is I was thinking I could maybe afford to go to that six-month check-up at the dentist, which they say they'll drop me as a client if I don't do. The potential bill for this whole thing comes to about a hundred dollars more than I get paid for the coloring book.

On the upside, I asked my parents for money, which is something I've only ever done once before, and that was when our car was about to die permanently, and they very kindly actually said yes. So! I guess I still get to/have to go to the dentist. Just wish Squeaks luck. They need to do a blood test first, which is over a hundred all by itself, to be sure there's nothing else going on and she'll probably be okay under anesthesia. They also gave us antibiotics and soft food, yesterday. She was actually eating the dry food just fine, and has been acting healthy apart from the no voice and horking, but she's more than happy to eat special wet food. The main problem is Froggy would be happy to eat it too, so we have to juggle things so she's shut up in the bathroom while Squeaks eats.

Anyway, to make a long story short (too late), we might still be breaking even here, as long as Squeaks comes through this okay. The coloring book money means dentist, and not having to spaz over the bills, and maybe we can go see that new Tim Burton flick this week. Breaking even is a major step up for us.

Art! Not great art, just some sketches from before/during the MI trip.
Magneto in the Morning, proof that Rey should not be allowed to read House of M while under the influence of coffee. Also, I need to go grab some Excalibur or something so I can balance my Magneto sketches with some of Nightcrawler.
The Shadow sliding along the floor or something in super action pose. If it all looks half-assed, that's because I drew it on the airplane.

Spending most of my time these days drawing the happy triangle recycling mascot of googly-eyed doom and hoping he doesn't terrify the children. The costume is a little scary. I feel comfortable saying this because even the people I'm doing the coloring book for agree. They're also beating their heads against the wall trying to come up with a name for him/her and I haven't got any good ideas either. I end up calling him 'triangle dude' in my emls. But he's colorful. And his shoes are kind of fun to draw, big doofy chunky sneakers. Ah, small joys.

Signing off now to watch Froggy try to sneak up on her reflection. If I never reply, it's because I've died of cute.

You guys asked for it, so here's a photo post. These pictures are way better than the crappy cartoons, but feel free to compare. These should be in roughly chronological order.

( Postcards from MI )

Aaanyways, I always end up putting up way too many photos in these posts, and I just hope nobody'd be annoyed at me for posting them.

Additionally, I just may have broken my toe on Bridgie's laptop. It's swollen. The next day. I'm not sure whether or not there's any point in making a doctor's visit that I can't afford anyway.

Okay, so I've actually been back a couple of days, but life has been busy. Good things! I got the project doing the coloring book for the recycling company (That's CVWMA to you), so that's some financial help and portfolio help. I may be pretty vanished for a while, since I need to focus on that and Shiri's already overdue TF commission. Drastically different styles, so the one will give me a nice artistic break from the other.

Bridgie had her first class last night, which was apparently as dull as it gets (And on page 5 of your textbook it says...), but hurrah for ejamakayshun. The kitten is still adorable, and has learned to be a menace to Squeaks, and this morning knocked Shad's breakfast tea over while fleeing Squeaker's wrath for basically attacking her ass. *sigh*

Happy Birthdays to zora113 and motherdragon!

And now, because I love you all, although I mostly did it for my family:
Rey's adventures in MI by badly drawn cartoons. I was sleeping on grandma's couch, which means not sleeping much, and I had to have something brainless to draw late at night...
( this way to cartoons... )

There may be a photo post later, if people want one.

Well, the other day we got an eml from the Reverend (that still feels weird to say, but we've done cat-sitting for her twice now) about the lady in the office having kittens she's adopting out. We went with the understanding that we might or might not get one. It's awfully soon, and Bridgie said if she burst into tears on seeing them, that means it's definitely too soon. But we went, with the empty carrier in case. Damn good thing.



Comparing this to pictures of Spider is... amazing. Even the color split down the face is the same. This was the first one they brought out, and runt of the litter. I'm a little concerned she's got two different medicines, one for her eyes (mucus-y stuff, not for wall-eye) and one for some gastrointestinal thing the whole litter had. On the other hand, the woman sent us home with those, half a bag of kitten food, and a spare toy mouse. We talked a while and she's been real careful about knowing the situations of people she's adopting them out to, which is cool. The mother is a feral rescue, a very young pale orange cat missing an eye. Apparently a bunch of the cats rescued together had major eye infections and they had to remove it. They were going to spay her too, of course, only... it was too late. It looked like most of the kittens were grey tabby, one the same coloring as mom, and then this one.

She's exhibiting a lot of Spider-like physical behaviors, too. When we were deciding about Spider, Bridgie asked me a lot of stuff about reincarnation in pets, about them coming back. The reason for this is I had a cat named Isis. She got very sick not long after I got her, and she actually pulled through when the vets thought she wouldn't, but she had worsening seizures in which she would violently attack anything and everything near her, sometimes including herself. I still have scars. This was about fifteen or more years ago. We had to have her put down after I'd had her maybe six months.
Years later I got Squeaks, and the coloring is a little different but I've come across old photos and not been sure which cat was which.

So, we've now got a wall-eyed tiny ball of fur upstairs, who is currently making a piercing racket because Bridgie had to put her in the bathroom so she can eat dinner. She's probably going to be named Frog, although we're hoping she'll grow into those eyes before they pop out of her head. She has hissed and arched at Squeaks, but Squeaks just laid down and looked at her skeptically, resigned to the whole thing. I figure that's a good sign, and maybe it being so soon, she hasn't had time to think of herself as the sole cat in the household so she's blasé about it all.

It's a good thing, but I'm a little jealous I only get a day and a half to get to know her before I get on a plane for MI.

Bridgie's post.

It bugs me they never even figured out what was wrong with her.



( more pictures )

Last night... oh god. It was a night. There was some thunder earlier, and one of those periods of ten minutes of pouring rain, in which I ran out and rolled up the car windows. Came back in, wondering over whether Squeaks was out or in. When there's thunder, Squeaks usually goes straight under the bed. The rain didn't last, and there was RP and stuff, and we didn't think much of it. Then it got later, and there was more thunder, and more rain, to the point where it seemed necessary to shut down and unplug the computer. Aaand couldn't find the cat. A thorough investigation of under the bed and all over the house and there was no Squeaks, and I figured she would have come in during the gap between thunderstorms, so I was worried. Worried enough to go out in the rain and call for her... and call, and call, and wander the neighborhood. Most cats don't come when they're called, I know, but she does, very reliably. my cat is not very catlike, I know. After getting soaked down to the underwear, we came in and sat waiting out the worst of the storm. She'd been gone for probably three or four hours by then, which is really unusual, and I was imagining her running across the road in the dark and the rain and getting hit by a car. She's been hit by a car, once that we know of for sure. When the rain had let up to a light drizzle, we went out again, calling, jingling keys (she responds to the sound of my keys), circling the back of the house and checking trees, even looking under cars. By this time I was half looking for a body. At one point I went by to check the porch again, which I'd been doing regularly... and there she was. Looking like a drowned rat. She even ran off the porch into the rain again to get to me.
It took a while for her to get dry again, but I sat up with her purring and demanding my attention until after five in the morning. Woke up today with a terrible headache and I think the day is pretty much shot. That was... stressful.

Yurgh. So, this feels anticlimactic or something, but some art.
Forgot to upload this before, but here's the full image of bartender Thorny for the Dark! plot. Couple of icons got made from this. Just your friendly bartender.
Been trying to photograph this for a couple of days. I totally made a doll. Actually I started it a long time ago, but the drawing thing wasn't working real great lately, so I started working on dolls for the sake of still doing something creative. Random jester doll.
I've also been working on a Dirk Gently doll but I'm a little stalled on the jacket.

Anyway, there's your update of the whenever. I'm gonna go pet the cat some more.

I'm sure I meant to update sooner. Let's see how this goes when I haven't had coffee yet.

Highlights in the week include the neighbors having an argument that involved one of them calling the police. At one point there were three police cars, a sherriff's car, and a k9 unit van that stopped by with the driver working on a slurpee, basically asking what the fuss was. What the fuss was, apparently, was that the woman involved in the argument is a spaz who calls the police for no real reason. cops drove away one by one, leaving a couple who, near as I could tell, berated her for wasting their time until she was finally willing to let it drop.

The big news, I guess, is that I'm going for over a week to MI this August. I debated for a long while about this. It's not that I dislike my relatives, it's just that I feel like I don't know them, and they don't know me, and we can't really find a lot to talk about. Going up there to see them feels even more awkward now that I'm getting to the age where you get asked 'Any serious boyfriend? Wedding bells? Kids?' Pointing out I've been living with another woman- the same woman, happily, for nine years, is not what they want to hear at all. I grew up sometimes hearing about my mother's cousin, who is incidentally named Ray. There must be something about the name. I've met him a couple times, and he's an awesome guy. He's also ostracized from most of the family, and no they don't want to hear about his partner. With a history like that, I'm suppose to look forward to visits.
On the other hand, my parents will be visiting up there and that's the whole reason they offered to buy me a plane ticket, really. These are my parents who still live in WA, who moved across the country after they were married to be away from family and raise me. Now they want to move closer back, partly to not be across the country from their only kid. And then there's my uncle, my dad's older brother, who will be visiting up there too. My dad's side of the family... is just him, his older brother, and his twin sister. I've only ever had the one set of grandparents on my mom's side. My dad's family doesn't talk much. I've met his twin sister a couple of times.
I met my uncle once, apparently, when I was two months old.
I don't think that counts.
It's a weird thing to meet your uncle for the first time when you're thirty. It's even weirder for reasons I don't want to go into unless I know you.

But to make the trip awesome, Mel and Karen are going to come abduct me for a day and a half or so. Don't get me wrong, I look forward to seeing my parents, who I love dearly even though they're very weird (this is true of everybody's parents). But it'll just be me going, and...yeah. Looking forward to seeing you guys.

Not sure what else to say. Went to a bug lecture this week, and HP. Both were pretty awesome, except the bug lecturer's wife is kind of a friend, and she told me a really neat woman I used to work with just died. There's a memorial Sat. and I'm trying to decide if I knew her well enough to go, or if it'll be an embarrassing course of 'who are you??' Memorials are for the living. I know she wouldn't mind one way or the other as long as I remember and honor her myself.

Sorry to end on a downer. I'm hoping sometime next week I'll be able to say I got a professional art commission thingy but I haven't had the interview yet. I'm likely to get it, as near as I can tell, thanks to both connections and the fact that I undercharge for everything. Wish me luck!

It's like I have to beat somebody up to get a shot at the keyboard lately, I swear. I am so far out of the loop RP-wise...
Aaanyways, working on drawings, but not stuff I want to show off right now, because it's prelim proposal work for a possible graphics job. Not a long term gig, but something that would get my art a little exposure and give me something nice to put in the portfolio and on the resume. We'll see how that goes. I have to put in a bid and I'm always inclined to way undercharge.
Which I'm sure somehow hooks up with my weekend/Monday adventure in which my bank account was overdrawn. Because of the fee the bank extracts for my having an account. Yergh. They've also raised the overdraft fee more than I thought they had.

In the good stuff field, though! We went to Shenandoah last Friday, very spur of the moment trip. It was just a day trip but we saw lots of deer, twin fawns, a raccoon (I can't believe I took photos of that. They used to come up on the porch and stand a foot away from you in B'ham, begging for food.), and most spectacularly a bear cub. It was while we were driving, and I did get out to take a photo over the roof of the car, because I'm not a dumbass. But there were other people behind us who were dumbasses and wanted to go closer, and then the park rangers came around and blared sirens at all of us. Whee. Oh well. I still need to dl the photos.

In the hysterically weird stuff, last night I was about to go to bed, Shad was wrapping up on the computer, there were strange rattling noises in the AC unit, and the next thing we knew there was a bat crawling across the kitchen floor. Grabbing of cats and frantic searching for a box ensued.

Rey: Runs upstairs with cat and shoves it in bedroom Stay there!
Bridgie: Mmmmgh?
Rey: There's a bat! In the kitchen!
Bridgie: Okay. Nods contentedly

I just love adding these little surreal moments when she's not awake, but this is the same girl who wakes me up in he middle of the night to tell me there are birds on her neck or a hanger floating over the bed.
Anyways, bat was captured pretty easily, and released outside, although there was a moment I had the edge of the box on its wing which I feel pretty bad for. It made some funky noises about that, but it was in the livingroom by then and I think the carpet cushioned things so it didn't really get hurt. It flew away, outside, after sitting on the sidewalk a minute going 'ohshitwhatwasthat???'

Kitchenbat. LOL. I feel like I should draw a bat anthro thingy in homage.