Happy 31st to my sweet boy, whom I adore, and deserves all the well-wishes in the world today. I squee over your continued existence, I promise.

I cleared out my garden space, so that I could finally replant it with some pretty flowers. Weeds and dead plants everywhere, and rotten straw and all sorts of things. It felt good to get everything cleared out, to just have good black earth tilled and ready again. I moved the little outdoor table into the back and found an old tablecloth for it, and had breakfast outside that morning. I am eternally grateful for our little woody buffer zone between our place and the awful apartments behind us. At this time of year, all the brambles have bright white little flowers, and the leaves are thick enough I don't have to worry about feeling observed.

It was all done on a whim. I woke up, and I looked at my to-do list, and I went into my closet and looked at my well-ordered system for which clothes I am supposed to be waering oday, tommorrow, and onwards, and was just like "fuck-it". I ended up getting moredone that way than I ever would have just going by the list.

I am the messiest, least organized OCD person on earth. I can leave dishes in the sink for days, but god forbid I wear the same type of pants two days in a row. :p

Have some art.

Starreach
Fearmas

R.I.P Stinky-butt. You were a very good ferret.

In happier news, this is why our Exalted game is awesome: tonight, we travelled to New Orleans, where we decided to clear out the Black Spiral Dancer hive that had settled in the Ninth Ward. 74 BSDs. One round. Our Dawn caste and his combos rock so hardcore. Oh, we also found the tomb of The Lover Clad in the Raiments of Tears (Marie Laveau's grave, natch), made friends with a living house, and rescued 12 imprisoned fallen angels.

Busy. Generally hateful. I should post some art someday.

Also, there are adorable kittens. They like eating dice.

I am in Chicago Land being a good Maid of Honor and learning to navigate the strange, otherwordly driving that is the endless suburbs. What a foriegn place. I'm enjoying getting the tours around the southside, especially the areas that are actually up closer to the city proper. Lots of very proud Irish and friendly people, and pretty houses. I can understand the appeal of a place so closely knit, tied together by traditon and family for generations. It's a glittering prospect for someone trying to find a tribe-- you have a place, and a family, and evryone knows who you are an what you're up to.

I could never, ever live there. Living in such close emotional proximity to so many would drive me crazy. I don't place the importance on blood ties that living in neighborhood like the south side seems to require, and frankly, I don't think I could stand the racism and cloistered xenophobia of people who have never had to press their boundries of comfort to find those to care about them (I am generalizing, of course; I also recognize the irony as everything I'm writing is essentially about how foriegn that lifestyle is and how uncomfortable it would make me).

Mostly what we're doing up here is wedding stuff, wedding stuff, wedding stuff. We've met with the baker and the florist and called the limo company and looked into the location and planned the chair arrangements and tommorrow, there will be TWO showers, and, and, and . . .
this all further convinces me that in no uncertain terms, no way, no how, no shape and no form will my wedding be like this. Oh, I get that it will still drive me nuts, that I will still be foaming at the mouth by the end of the process, but the idea of relaxing on a boat for 4 days and letting my paid consultants take care of all those silly details is temptation too delectable to deny-- cranky mother and aunts be damned.

In other news, I have A Fabulous Hat (omgomgomg it is big and white and has a ribbon), I miss my Coconut, and HGTV makes me stupidly happy and ready to do spring cleaning.

The scent of sap is in the air. A couple of weeks ago, you could catch it if you were mindful, if the sun was on a grass. The rainstorm yesterday was the last little push it needed, and now the bushes behind my house are flush with the green glow. Soon, the garden will need planting and the patio put in order so that I can spend the days outside, sucking up delicious warmth. Sun: the best mood-enchancing drug I know.

Winter passed easier this year than some, until about mid-february, when The Crazy came home to roost. Every year, I pace nervously in my mental attic, waiting for it. "Maybe not this year." I'll think. "I've been good so far, this year. I've kept it together! There has been cheer! I've been productive!" Sometimes, there isn't much of a wait before it comes at my inner door with e sledgehammer (Heeeeeeerrrreee's CRAZY!). Some winters, however, it's sneakier, and waits in the bushes outside, watching me through the windows, *stalking*. I always know it is there; at night, it comes in and saps my energy and will to move. But when the strike happens, it's like Hobbes tackling Calvin: it is EXUBERENT in the hostile takeover. This time I only lost half a month, just a little over two weeks, despite the lurking beginning in November. I call that a win in general, the severity of the spell aside.

Spring has come, and I live again!

To post positive proof, I have art. Here are two pictures from what I worked on over the killing months. I'll let more trickle out later.

Belcraft
Verlayne, Orion, Keoffry

Southland Tales if you are not familiar with the mythology that it is working with = stuff happens.
Southland Tales if you are = stuff hapens-- and why, how, for what purpose, and what happens afterward.

I need to watch that again, several times, after doing some reading. I'm not sure how I feel about that as a movie-- I think, in some ways, a piece of art can fail if you have to know a "secret" language to interperate it. On the other hand, that might very well be the point.

Whatever the case may be, I now know what I can say myself at any point I feel like shattering is despair:

I am A Pimp. And Pimps don't commit suicide.

IU killed my email account at long last, so I desperately need people's email addresses back. My new addy (without spaces, of course) is a l i e l l k ok @ g m a i l . c o m. Leave addresses in the comments if you want. They're screened.

THHHBBBTTT, I say.

I have not updated my journal regularly since the summer before I left for Florence, and this displeases me. In the wake of the latest staff upheaval here on LJ, I read through some of my old entries, trying to decide if they were worth backing up. I was pleasently surprised by how comforting and engaging some of my entries are in retrospect; they are clear markers of times in my life that I don't remember very well any more, good or bad, and I really enjoyed browsing a snapshot of my (slightly) younger life. I started my journal at 17 when I was working on my grad project, and my only LJ friends at that point were people from the Jackie Chan Adventures fandom (citizenjess, you will always be my first!)

Then, suddenly, the nostaglia stream is dammed, and there's only this sad, muddy thing that shows up once a month or so, up until now. I won't guarantee to myself that I will update regularly, because I'm bad at keeping promises if they don't invlove other people's expectations. I do want to try however, if for nothing more than the sake of my future self, whose memory will be undoubtably just as bad.

Then, there's the need for communication. I love my life right now, but I have a tendency to hermit out of habit, and working from home-- on my art, and my day job-- severely limits my human contact. If I wanted to, I could never leave my home save for a once-monthly game. It's a strange social place, because I still shun actual human contact for the most part. At this point in time, when I'm still learning my patterns and tweaking my discipline, directly interacting with people can be too easy an excuse for me to avoid the troublesome picture sitting on my desk. Alternatly, making frequent social plans leaves me feeling disrupted, without the focus for the work I want, need, to be doing.

The internet appeals to me, though-- I can talk and debate and learn, and when I need to, I can say no, which I find very difficult face to face. It's tough to say "I love your company, but I have to go home and draw. Like, right now."

I wonder who else is out there, who I haven't seen or don't yet know, who needs connection like that.

Cha$e, one of two new Sci-fi channel reality shows, is kind of bizarrely amusing. The concept is to have a bunch of players, called Runners in the game, spend an hour sprinting around various filming locations ("game boards") while dodging professionally trained Hunters-- fantastic athletes specializing in everything from stealth and sprinting to Parkour and endurance running. It's like the most souped up game of Tag ever. You can solve puzzles throughout the game to win extra money and protective gadgets that can be used against Hunters. At the end of the hour, the exit opens up, and the first one through wins the cash.

It's *fascinating*. It has the player tension of other reality shows, which I don't really like, but it also has the pyschological stress of constantly, constantly trying to run, hide, and stratgise.

Others shows of particular awesome note this week: Chuck, with a Casey episode (Adam Baldwin less-than-three!), and last week's Pushing Daisies. On the movie front, I watched Saving Face, a cute romantic comedy about innapropriate pregnancies and lesbianism with a strict chinese-american community. It was, well, cute. I enjoyed it, but I wouldn't spend money on it.

I, bweh. I haven't anything else really to say. Just . . . talking about television. THIS IS WHAT I AM REDUCED TO WITHOUT MY SNARK SITES. :(:(:(

I will probably appear more frequently on LJ over the next few weeks, as it's one of the few places I am allowing myself to putter on the internet (and I feel bad for never updating-- not for other people, but I've always rather liked keeping my LiveJournal for my own memory recording purposes). My time spent on the interneet has passed from recreational into detrimental-- I don't just procrastinate, I lose hours to the great devouring black hole that is the world wide web.

It would be different if what I was finding was useful, inspirational or at all increased my happiness, knowledge, or well being. Unfortunately, the only things I'm seeing-- actively seeking out, even-- are the latest statisics on how much the world sucks. Oh, unjust rape cases, infuriating racist assholes, cruel examples of human malice. I don't know why I crave exampes of you so, but I am done. I have been caught in an outrage loop for monthes now, addicted to bad news and helpless rage-- so, I'm severing it, cold turkey. No Jezebel.com, no sf_drama, no Fox News, no checking the livejournals of people I hate, just to get me angry. My internet time is limited to work, LJ, email, and art.

Art is, in fact, the only thing I am allowing myself to actively explore the net for. Any kind of art will do, and any resource for it-- as long as it feeds my desire to LEAVE the computer and go do something creative, instead of sit and seethe (and then let that anger color the way I think of people outside the confines of the computer screen. It just ain't healthy to wonder if the guy across from me on the bus is A Bad Person, and what punishment he probably deserves).

So, LJland. Hello. I hope you have not spawned too many Llamas lately.

See you soon.

Fall finally seems to be meandering it's way into Bloomington, and I'm delighted. This is my favorite time of year on mnay counts: I love Halloween, the cooler weather is a great boon, the autumn colors, and, of course, the fashion. Fall is th time of year I get to pair my short skirts with my cute jackets and tights, scarves with peep-toe pumps, boots and jeans; when I can wear my hair up, down, in a ponytail; and when the swishiness of long skirts echo the windswept leaves. I am ignoring the fact that popular fashion includes so many ridiculous 80's silhouettes this year. Also, tiny vests: could be cool if they didn't cut curvy girls off at the waists and give the distinct impression that they been ravaged by a deranged seamstress.

There has been lots of art. Some of it can be seen here, here and here, if you wish. There's been the general weirdness of being out of school when everyone else is returning, though less of that than I thought there would be.

Also, I appear to have secured a job that A. pays my bills and then some, B. Doesn't interfere with art time, C. does not include me leaving the house. I am pleased with this development.

July slithered by, I swear to god. It was just the beginning of the month, like, two days ago, and now I've got overdraft fees because I blinked and August is almost here. Bills, like time, are slippery things.

This ate a lot of my time, what with my love of nitpicky details. I'm not exuberently proud of it, but I *am* proud of what it represents: My first piece of art for a gaming book, with contract and EVRYTHING. (I am allowed to display it-- see, see, I have to worry about copyright! Squee!) It's for Silvervine games, a start up company run by some really, really cool guys whom I know through Impossible Dream. I am going to be doing a bunch of landscape and scenery art for them, which is *fantastic*, because that's a place where my portfolio really needs to grow.

Outside of that, life is mrrrr. I have a garden that has so far produced two peppers, lots of herbs, and two tiny, shriveled green beans, but the tomatoes are finally showing up, and the Marigolds are exploding. it smells really good, too. I have not so much been out of the house this summer, which is a shame, because I'd like to be out in the woods more-- but art has a tendency to eat your life, and inertia keeps me in front of the TV or computer when I've finally worn my fingers out. I also haven't been swimming once, but that has a lot more to do with embarrassment over my wobbly thighs than anything else.

Thursday, I leave for two weeks for a trip, and then Gen Con. In the mean time, I have dishes to wash, laundry to do, and motivation for both to ferret out.

There seems to be a theme running through almost all of the recent essays I see, on or off LJ, that tackle either writing or art: that the act of growing, learning, and expanding in either is an inherently painful experience. Lots of adjectives like "shredding", "tearing", "agonizing" and "depressing" are used to describe the experience. It seems like there's this miasma around the act of creating, as if to grow to the next stage, to get better at what we do, is an excerise akin to flaying the skin off our forearms and gleefully rubbing lemon juice in, all the while chanting "It's for the art, baby!"

Don't get me wrong . . . I do believe that the act of growing as a creator and as a crafter has rough patches, that there are pains, and that sometimes, suffering is good for us. I used to be *all* about growth through pain. But now, I question: How much of that creative pain is actually born of the process, and how much of it is self-flagellation?

I'm guilty of it. When I know I'm having a tough time of it, when I know that I need to work on my discipline or that I'm on the verge of something breaking through, my thought process is always the same-- it sounds like my muse is giving birth. "Come on! You can do better! You can BE better! Just push, push, push harder! Shove it through, rend yourself to pieces, make it WORK . . . and if you can't, well, you just weren't made to be one of the greats. It doesn't matter if it's good enough, it should be PERFECT."

Here's the catch: it never, ever works for me. Maybe it does others, but . . . any baby my muse bears under that duress turns out premature or missing its proverbial brain pan. Technically, it won't be bad, but burbling life that could be in it has been left behind somewhere in the grinder of my subconcious. I'm left exausted, self hating, and drained of any desire to continue save for one: do it again. Make it better. NOW.

How much of that could I strip away by just . . . letting go? Letting it be?

And I notice this in other creative types around me, all the time. Not everyone, but enough that it piques me. Where is that line between natural pain, and the agony and angst we project onto the process?

I think it happens for a lot of reasons. Many creative types are also "outcast" types in other ways. Some of us never really fit in; maybe that's why we still can't feel comfortable even doing something we love. Perhaps it's the cultural myth of the artist or writer as crazy, depressed, or tortured. A big part of it for me is feeling *unworthy* of what I'm creating, or that to make something magnificent, there's a price to be paid. My suffering is the blood tithe to my muse (which is inherently unfair and counter productive-- my muse is NOT a vampire, thanks, and she becomes hurt when I try to pretend she's one, and tends to go away).

Whatever the cause, the effect is the same. My breakthroughs, the pieces that really stand out, the writing that connects best with my audience, are always the ones that are created in joy and inspiration. So why do I, why do we creators, hurt ourselves so much for what we do?

I'm offering a character commission at livelongnmarry, if anyone is interested. Look for tooth_and_claw in the tags. Bidding starts at 10 dollars, and you can buy it now for 30.

A longer post on life and Origins tomorrow.

Every time I contemplating posting something to LJ, my attention span skitters off under the desk, and I become enraptured by news sites and Jezebel.com and a plethora of other things that usually, I don't want to or shouldn't read anyway because they just leave me upset. I need to take a break from the bad internets, and start putting my time into far more creative things-- like updating my livejournal. Hey, at least it's *some* writing.

Life has been good in a quietly productive way over the past couple of weeks. I do my best work on days where I wake up at 9:30 and putter until 10, which seems to be the time of day my body wants to wake up, bedtime be damned. Any earlier than that (the stray day where I awake at 6 AM aside), and I am non functional until, hey, 9:30, at which point I perk right up. I don't know *what* I'm going to do when I get a real job.

The two things I'm most proud of finishing are the long overdue Baroness Elenore Elise picture #2, which can be seen here, and a fanfiction which has been sitting unfinished on my hard drive for probably five years: Winter's City, the sequel (and finale) to the Enforcer-angst series I wrote ages past.

Other than that, I get up, I draw, I clean, I watch DVDs and sometimes I go outside. I spent a great Wednesday at my Dad's little plot of land, which was rejuvenating in the way that only the country can be. There is a certain vitality to the city, but once I come to the place where the fields outnumber the houses, my heart sings in recognition and my breathing becomes easier. I miss hearing whippoorwills, and listening to nothing but the soft rustle of leaves caressing each other. I'm also *aching* for a good storm.

In other aching news, we've acquired Wii Fit, and it is kicking my *ass*. My back and arms were so sore two days ago that I apparently woke deadmanwade up everytime I rolled over in bed by yelping in pain. I don't remember this at all of course; there is no sleep as deep as one where your muscles are healing. I haven't dropped a pound, nor do I see a difference, but goddamn can I feel it-- and since I'm running the equivelent of 2 miles every day, along with push-ups, sit-ups and hula-hoop madness, I know something is going to change. I'm 10 pounds away from my goal of 145, which is annoying because a month ago I was 4 pounds away from that. Then descended upon me the glory of graduation, and cake, and no longer being stuck on campus with nothing to eat.

Eating! Eating is good, and I've been good about it. There have been too many Baked! cookies in my diet, and maybe a little too much ice cream-- but there has also been lots of fruit and cottage cheese and wheat bread and whole grain pasta and other wholesome things. I like having applesauce instead of candy for a snack-- my body feels so much better.

On the downside of health stuff, I've been suffering from dry-air nosebleeds: 10 in the past two weeks of the wow-I-can't-get-to-the-bathroom-before-I-look-like-a-trauma-patient variety. They subsided with a humidifier, but humidifiers give me horrible sore throats, so I'm sticking to the nosebleeds for now-- at least they look totally cool. Doesn't help my anemia at all, of course, but I have attacked that in the past couple days by having STEAK, of the little Zagreb variety. Oh em geeeeeeeeeee . . .

That's about it. I should have some new art soon, and as always, there is My Name is Might Have Been. (which recently was discovered by the guys at Harmonix, who seem to love it).

Tuesday, June 10th is Jason's birthday. For those who want to go with us (if you can get off work, of course), we're going to GameWorks in Indianapolis for their 10 dollar play-all-day deal, and probably go out to dinner at Buca's. If you can't come that day, we're consdering a dinner sometme that weekend. Who wants to come, or, what day would work well for those who couldn't go to Indy?

I will actually have a substansive update sometime this week. I hope. Life is just good.

I've been AWOL pretty much entirely due to school, though the worst of it is over: one presentation, two tests and a project to go, none of which worry me. Still, it does occur to me that it is under two weeks until I, at long last, graduate.

Which is where all of you come in.

Sunday, May 11th, at a time to be determined, I am going to King's Island in Ohio to celebrate my freedom. This is an open invitation to any and all who might wish to come. King's Island rules, and it shall rule even more if we have a big group going-- not just because of rollarcoasters and elephant ears, but because group rates are cheaper. There is also a possibility of, if we have enough people, renting vans to save on gas, or at least carpooling.

So, to reiterate:

May 11th
King's Island

Leave a message, so I may count you in.

So who here knows about the Orphan Act? Anyone? If you do, and you know it's current state, than I'm sure you're probably just as upset as I am. If not, well, read on.

The Orphan Act is legislation that failed being passed last time through the house, and is now being redrafted with some interesting (read: Horrifying) new additions. Originally, the intent of the bill is a fairly honorable one-- open up orphaned artworks to the public domain for archiving purposes, orphaned artworks being those that have long been abandoned by their creators or whose creators and heirs have long since passed away. Problem being that this is a very hard thing to define, so the bill was not enacted.

This time around, they are trying to define it . . . by submitting something that could be devastating to visual artists in all mediums, break with international copyright law and sever more than a few international copyright treaties. As it works now, passive copyright laws mean that as soon as you produce something, it is under your copyright, and you may sue in the case of misappropriation (if you have registered your artwork under copyright, you win the right to sue for damages, as opposed to simply for removal or loss of income incurred). Under the new Orphan Act being put together, to ensure your copyright you would have to register EVERY piece of work you want protected with newly established commercial registries. If you don't, your work would be legally defined as orphaned. This includes: thumbnails, sketches, final pieces, in progress works, storyboards, doodles, etc. These orphaned works are then open to use by anyone, from some tween bastard stealing your character design as their new Pokemon avatar to major corporations appropriating mass amounts of artwork without paying the artists. The ever ubiquitous They are trying to formulate and pass this new bill by summer session.

This article is not terribly well written, but sums most of it up.
This page is running updates as they come through and providing information. I especially want to point out this article about the consequences and this one about the use of the registries.

Please pass this on if you at all care. This sucks, a lot.

Yeah . . . a meme. I haven't done one in ages, and thought this was fun. Plus, i played on somebody else's journal.

Comment on this post. I will choose seven interests from your profile and you will explain what they mean and why you are interested in them. Post this along with your answers in your own journal so that others can play along.

1. enforcer love-- My adoration for the Enforcers form Jackie Chan Adventures knows no bounds. I like them because I have always adored secondary characters, I have always adored bad guys, and for two-bit cartoon villains, they were a lot more fleshed out than most. Yeah, when I choose a fandom, I go for the obscure and ridiculous.

2.glowysnatch-- The nickname for my longest running RP character ever, Liza. Named such by my current beau, deadmanwade32. Refers to her magically-delicious vagina.

3. gypsy knife fighting -- Stabbing bitches . . . with flair. I'm not sure where I picked this one up.

4. inara's interior design-- I used to love Inara from Firefly, until I realized that, in truth, I actually despised both the character and her fangirls. What I *really* enjoyed was her gorgeous interior design and fashion sense.

5. small town domination -- World domination is a pretty lofty goal. One step at a time . . .

6. spontaneous massage-- There's nothing better than just hanging out with friends and one of them decides (or you do) to start absently rubbing shoulders/feet/whatever. I find this a true measure of bonding and friendship.

7. sayid/jack/sawyer ot3-- Three hot guys have hot guy sex in a sweaty, sexy jungle. That's all.