Hold up

Found another one: How on earth am I going to do art (artify? articulate?) when a good number of the colors I would need don't actually exist?

With time and patience, I might be able to mix a couple of them, but some I'm pretty sure I would not be able to replicate or approximate with paint. Lights and prisms maybe, but not paint.

A conundrum.

Paintacular update

Bogged down by inability to find fingerpaints in more than eight colors. This will not do.

Considering getting oil pastels instead. Many colors, but not as fun.

Work is busy.

Oh, co-workers

I did not come in for a daytime shift because I felt left out of your daytime conversations about your children's plays or whatever. I know you don't see me often, but I have not learned Spanish since the last time you asked. Oh, and no, I cannot do your work for you now, because I am here to do my own work. NOW GO AWAY.

I am so glad I do not work a day shift normally. I think I would go insane with all the people who come in and talk to you like you don't have something better to do. Especially at the asscrack of 10 a.m. or whenever the hell I put on my headphones to drown out the damned morning people.

Kind of sad

I haven't been on a dig in at least two years. Closest I've been is visiting museums and historical sites (Sutter's Fort and Chaw'se are my favorites) and reading the trade magazines.

Yet I can still spend over half an hour at the hardware stores looking at Marshalltown trowels.

If the painting thing doesn't work out, I'm gonna go find somewhere where I can volunteer to dig up dead people stuff again. I miss it.

(I am so freaking bored at work right now. And yet Tuesday through Friday I will not even have time for breaks, just watch.)

A secret

I enjoy typing my blog entries with my eyes closed and then re-reading them for errors. It's super relaxing. But sometimes I'm off one key, and so it's all gibberish, like this:

O emkou tu[omh n;ph emtroes wotj ,u eues c;psed.

Whoops. I fail at being a smartass.

Creative outlets

So I made this blog for stuff that doesn't fit elsewhere, and now I have no idea what to write. I've been compartmentalizing my life a LOT lately, for a lot of angsty reasons — my sister's issues have been in and out of our lives a lot lately, I made brief contact with my bio-dad with poor results (rejection really doesn't feel good), and other random craziness.

But I don't really want to write about that. I've been working through that stuff on my own for a long time, and while writing about it can occasionally be cathartic, it's not what I need right now. What I need is a creative outlet.

I used to be a writer, and I loved it. It was such a wonderful way to take a break from whatever was going on in my life for an hour or two and completely lose myself in another person, another world.

I haven't written a word of fiction in months. I've done world building, character design, horrible poetry — but I am just not getting the pleasure from it that I used to. A big part of it is that I am a copy editor — and don't get me wrong, I adore my job — but it has taken my passion for writing away from simply getting the words onto the page. Instead, I prefer the editing stages, to the point where I will find myself poring over a sentence for half an hour, trying to word it just right. Plus, I write for my job, I blog on my own time, and up until a few months ago, I've been writing student papers. I write ALL. THE. TIME.

It's not an outlet for me anymore, it's the default, and sometimes it just feels too much like work.

A friend and I had planned a few years ago to do a series of her art, my synesthesia, but (and this is my fault) it never went anywhere. E. is amazing and probably my favorite artist of all time, but frankly, I just couldn't figure out how to translate my experiences to words in a way that she could art-ify them. And I still can't.

But, while I am a shitty artist, I do think that I could get the point across myself, maybe. Not perfectly, and not as well as she could, but I could at least get stuff on the page. And I think it would be very fun and relaxing to just sit down with some music or some yummy food (my two main triggers) and paint them. Maybe E. could go from there, or maybe not, but I think this is exactly the outlet I need right now. One where I don't have to think too hard and can still create something beautiful (to me, at least).

Hmm.

Blogging goes personal

I started blogging in 2000 with a LiveJournal account. I cancelled my account in 2006 and have not had a personal blog since — I had a current events/social activism blog for a year and a half (currently on long-term hiatus due to burn-out), a half-finished book review blogging project, a very short-lived travel blog, a work-related blog with two co-workers, and most recently a World of Warcraft blog (yes, I am a geek), but despite all of these projects, there are things that I would like to blog about that are not "on topic" for any of them (except the work blog, but I would rather be anonymous to most of the Internet).

Thus, a personal blog.

And now I'm freezing up about what to write about! So I guess I could do a quick intro, but warning — I suck at these.

I'm a hapa chick from California, born in the Bay Area, raised in the Central Valley, lived for a while in Queens, N.Y. I like writing, history, genealogy, archaeology, and general research. I'm a huge SF/F geek, I play video games (well, Tekken, WoW, and an Avatar spin-off), I'm a grammar fanatic due mostly to my job as a copy editor, and I have a fondness for long sentences with lots of parentheticals. Oh, and I also like cooking and food in general, scrapbooking, and languages, particularly Latin.

I guess the rest will come out on its own as I write.