The world just became a better place. 

I have been putting off writing a livejournal entry because.... I don't know?  Something about waiting for more to happen or not having a need to share.  Maybe? 

I have access to cable and I'm watching a lot of Chopped and it's making me hungry.  As soon as I get home I am searing the hell out of some fish, let me tell you.

I'm currently in Nebraska for a couple weeks to visit family and look after my grandma who came with me.  A side reason for being here is that I should be writing.  In the past I had attempted to come here so that I could finish writing my shirt story "Empty" under the guidance of my aunt Lynn, who is a great writer.  I've mostly finished empty on my own, so I'm thinking I will get started on the sequel.

Nebraska is very bland, particularly after it has snowed.  All plant life is either dead or hibernating.  Everything else is flat and grey. 

I was sick from right after thanksgiving to just a couple days ago.  I had some kind of cold that wouldn't go away and then briefly felt better until relapsing into a sinus infection which also lasted way too long.  Antibiotics didn't work for it.  Either waiting it out, or the regular doses of raw garlic i took finally ended it.  It's hard to tell which.  I've had trouble sleeping lately, which is unusual for me. I'm haunted by thoughts when I try and sometimes stay up, wide-eyed in bed trying to will my body to sleep.  Something is not right. 

Drinking liquids, getting lots of sleep, relaxing, eating well, nasal sprays, sinus rinses.  This is all bullshit.  At least in regards to my body.  None of it helps.  Either I stumbled into some kind of super mutant cold or my body's immune system is incredibly slow to react.  Either way makes me sad.  Sad because i see friends who smoke, live off coffee, sleep terribly and don't know what a vegetable is, and seem to get bye without problems.  

In better news I bought myself a mandolin recently.  I've wanted one for a while because i need to learn a proper instrument to improve my song writing abilities and i like the look and sound of the mandolin.  Since I didn't get one for christmas, I saved up and got myself one.  It came in the mail a week ago and I'm very happy with it.  I try to practice every day with a how-to book, but the fundamentals of music theory are still lost on me.  I always want to know why. Why are frets and keys arranged this way?  Why are sharps and flats a thing?  Why is the tuning of these strings this way?  These questions are never answered for me and instead I'm told to memorize these patterns and letters and the placement of keys and the names of this and that and wait for muscle memory to kick in.  Maybe learning the true root of why music is music and why instruments are assembled this way just really isn't the way to go?  That's not allowed?

I've sent in a portfolio/application package to CalArts, finally.  I'm still hesitant about the location, but I know that i need to increase my skill and greatly improve.  It's always in the back of my mind, prodding me.  If not this school, then definitely another one. Calarts is ridiculously expensive and I don't want to be in debt forever, and I don't really like southern california all that much, and the town of Valencia in particular is pretty lame.  I'd have to coop myself up in this school for four years straight.  True improvement doesn't come without commitment though.  So anyway, I will wait to see if I'm even accepted, and then make a decision.  In the meantime I'll keep doing what I'm doing and look into other animation and language programs. 

Also in the meantime, as soon as I get back from Nebraska Adam and I will be taking a road trip up north, mostly backtracking the route I took back from Montana, in search of somewhere else to live.  I'm growing hesitant about this plan as well because I only have so much money, and I fear after a lengthy road trip I won't even have enough to get a place to live.  I wish I had a big, fat, obvious reason to be anywhere else right now.  I would just pack up and go do it.  That is how life works best.  You don't sit around thinking and pondering things for years in hopes of reaching some perfect ideal situation. 

I keep thinking about posting an enormous art dump here, but I'm not sure it's worth it.  I've done a lot of work lately, but I'm mostly content just churning it out on my own and sharing when projects are completed.  I don't get much feedback here (or anywhere, really).  

I will post this though.. After years of wanting to be a model for this very particular photoshoot concept I have, I decided to take the reigns and be the photographer, and asked Alex to be the model.  He's an excellent model.  I only wish I had better equipment.  I brought my digital camera and a manual camera.  I forgot to load film into the manual, and don't know how to get the most of the digital.  But I did my best and came away fairly satisfied.  Alex burned his leg on the motorcycle's muffler but continued modeling valiantly.  These are my favorite shots:

"So free yourself from care. To become cheerful and carefree is your revolutionary duty as a freedom-seeker. Stop working, stop buying; start living. Feast, drink. Eat capons and good hams. Drink spiced wines and fine ales. Make your table groan with food. Make jam and chutney. Play the hurdy-gurdy. Get a piano. I have just converted my home pub into a music room. We found an old honkytonk piano which was practically free. So now we can have sing-songs round the old Joanna. Just as your anxiety is a product of your imagination, albeit influenced by the commercial world, so your imagination has the power to replace it with good cheer."

-Tim Hodgkinson

I like the style and content of that paragraph.

My hard drive died. Five or six years worth of music and art virtually erased. Thank god the internet has copies of much of my work. I'm trying not to think about it and instead use this as a reason to make even better stuff, from a clean slate.
To ease my sorrow lately I mostly draw horses.





Caggage updates sometimes, but you know where to find that. 

It is strange to come across something I've written and not remember I wrote it.

A drawing I did as an exercise in lighting. It took me way too long and I didn't use a reference, so I decided to forego a background.



Also I made this today.

Something about this zoomed-in work in progress I actually like better than the whole, complete image.



I'm trying to draw more.

My last two songs before I gave up and felt sorry for myself forever. (LOL I AM PARTLY KIDDING. This is how I humor. Do not message me saying STOP BEING EMO. k thnx)

Siren


Without Memory

Lyrics to a song I just wrote, which is technically finished, but I've become overwhelmed by what it needs to be truly polished and play smoothly.  It is incredibly difficult to find people who can give real honest feedback and suggestions.   I don't know if it's because I am terrible at making music or if it's because the music I make is so niche (and I'm not even sure what genre to classify it as)  and people just aren't interested in this sort of electronic.. stuff.  Either way, I'm sort of afraid to know the answer so I think I'm gonna give music a break for a while.  

Aaaahhhh I am constantly assaulted with my favorite bands in my favorite genre (electronic industrial EBM WHATEVER) consistently releasing new amazing albums.  I feel very lucky.  
This past months has seen the release of new albums from VNV Nation, Imperative Reaction, and God Module.  Next month will have albums from SITD, and Aesthetic Perfection.  And then in January Mind.in.a.box is releasing their new album.   In an unrelated genre, Abney Park also has a new album this month.  And at the moment I can't afford most of these.  D:

And I'm continuing to learn my way around music production as well.

I was gonna post this on facebook but it's simultaneously too bitter and sentimental, and facebook can't handle either of those things. 

I've returned to the bay area, (where it's always just cold enough to be annoying, everyone acts like privileged assholes and everywhere smells like the inside of a safeway.) Thank you to Eric and Audra Bergman, Mckenzie, Erin and Cindy in Great Falls, Montana. To Branden and John in Spokane Washington. And to my uncles Pat and Mike in Oregon. And all the people who were wonderfully kind and accommodating in between. Six weeks wasn't enough time. And facebook isn't enough.. I should send thank you cards..

Now that I'm home, all I want to do is leave again.  But I'm totally broke.  So ... something else has to happen first. 
In semi-related news I liked Spokane, Washington a lot more than I probably should and I want a Mandolin really badly. 


Taken at Schubert's ice cream in Chico just hours before getting home.