Hi.

This is how I know I’ve been really tired, mostly due to allergies, I think…this morning, when the alarm went off, I decided it was far too early and reset it (didn’t just hit the snooze, actually reset it) for one half hour later. I was pretty angry about a minute later when it went off again and I thought I must have set it wrong. But no, it was actually a half hour later. It only felt like a minute. I never sleep THAT deep or THAT soundly in the morning. Mostly due to the endless construction on the building across the street. Or possibly the endless landscaping of California. Or maybe the dude at the window repainting the trim…yeah, that’s always a fun one. I had my breakfast with that dude the other day as he was painting the kitchen window trim. It was rather shocking to walk into the kitchen for my coffee and encounter a mustachioed man in the window. He seemed nice enough but there wasn’t enough coffee for him too.

My point? Tired. Allergy ridden and tired. Ah spring!

So, in lieu of actually doing anything here, I’d like to show you a few links.
Pride and Prejudice conducted on Facebook made me laugh out loud.

I find Ecofont amazing. No one else seems as thrilled as I do. But people, with this font, you use 20% less ink and it’s very nicely designed, totally readable and you can’t see the holes at normal point sizes. If you have to print things out a lot for say, proofreading purposes, don’t just tell me you print in draft mode, try this. It’s all kinds of awesome. Seriously.

Also, love this palette generator. It’s a nice way to change the way you look at things and it generates a usable palette, so if you particularly like the look of a picture of piece of art, you can adopt the colors to play with at will.

And in a similar vein, this lovely blog captures personalities and feelings in a CMYK palette. Very nice. I am feeling kind of like this at the moment…


(The green represents my allergies. ewwwwww.)


These happy clouds are changing my outlook though. Although, I think if I actually saw one in the sky, not knowing what it was…dude, I’d freak.



Boxed water is better for the earth. So simple. So practical. Interesting.


Finally, I find this endlessly entertaining. Through it , I created a great poem, but then I forgot to save it, so you’ll have to take my word that it was creative genius. GENIUS!

I'll be back. I have other posts a-brewin', I've just been feeling a little 75/50/73/23 lately.

Toast.

I am going to be completely honest with you here. I am burnt. And crispy. Like toast. Burnt, crispy, toast. Or bacon. Overdone. Uncomfortably crunchy. No, let’s go with toast. I like toast. I don’t care so much for the bacon. I am toast.

It’s been a busy three or four weeks around here. Traveling, birthdaying, premiering, Felt Clubbing, and having a cold has taken it out of me. Add on the poor air quality due to the fires and I am left a crispy outer shell with very little inside. But you know what? I am left, and my home is intact (messy, but intact) and all my people are ok, so I guess being burnt out, is a lot better than some of the alternatives around here right now.

Felt Club was good. I think we were pretty successful. We always get nice people visiting us and this time was no exception. And hey, there were also people we sort of know. Friends and internet buddies stopped by and that was lovely. I bought stuff that I don’t need but want anyway and that too was lovely. An adorable “soap dish” that is destined to become a display stand for the perfect cupcake, a very excellent print of a bat, a charming watercolor, a nice little bag…probably some other things that I am not remembering. It was big and it was loud and it was crowded and it was fun but on top of everything else, it was pretty exhausting.

And besides that, I had, AGAIN, this weird blushing problem. See, I am pretty shy. I do blush quite a lot when I have to talk to strangers but usually, it’s like, in a classroom situation, or being singled out from a crowd, which I guess is not really that strange, right? That’s a normal reponse, to blush when put on the spot. But here, it happened twice, no…three times during conversations that I instigated. And when I blush, I get really embarrassed. Which is kind of the opposite of how it’s supposed to work, right? But yet again, while talking to a very pleasant artist that I am fond of, I felt my cheeks flare red and I hightailed it out of there. And again when I spoke to a handbag designer and yet again while talking to a cartoonist. Now, partially I can say that I get bashful because these people are good at what they do and I feel a wee bit tiny next to them, but you know, I feel a wee bit tiny next to pretty much everyone, so…I don’t know. Any one have any ideas on combating that creeping flush?

Anyway, now it’s on to one more craft show, this one a smaller deal, but a very nice one, I am looking forward to that. And there’s a little bit of work to be done for it, but nothing too scary. And there’s thanksgiving. Which I thought was two weeks away. And I was wrong. So…yeah. And apparently I am cooking for all of you, so I guess I need to go shopping. And for the record, we usually have Pilsbury orange rolls from a tube for Thanksgiving breakfast. Years ago I would make beautiful cinnamon rolls or muffins or something lovely and take it to my girlfriend’s house. We would eat sweets and drink coffee and go off to our alma mater’s football game and it was a lovely tradition. Until her husband said “Wow, these are good cinnamon rolls, way better than yours, honey.” Thus ended the Thanksgiving breakfast…well and I moved away so…you know. But it’s orange rolls this year, so come early if you are into that (Brenda).

Weak.

What a strange few days. Not even counting Comic-Con. I mean, that was strange but…well, let’s do that first.

Comic-Con was, as always, by turns, infuriating, fun, exhausting, exhilarating, exhausting and…exhausting. I am working at about 60 percent power right now with 75 percent of my voice. It will take me a week or so to catch up with myself but that’s to be expected. Sales were good, response was great. All was fine. I didn’t sell to a celebrity, which is always my goal, but I did meet an artist I am rather fond of, which was pleasant and I did talk to millions of people. Well, it felt like millions, I don’t know…dozens? I didn’t take a single picture, and I probably only saw about half the floor. I work two jobs at Comic-Con, so it’s not a vacation for me. And the weeks leading up to Comic-Con are equally as exhausting and frustrating what with trying to get prepared to do both jobs. So, you know, it’s this love hate thing. At the moment it’s more…eh…then either love or hate. I guess I am too tired for emotions.

Perhaps more inconvenient than con was the trip back. Ran over something on the 405 and blew a tire. Luckily, AAA showed up without much problem. I got off on the closest exit and lo and behold, there was a tire store. They hooked me up and I was back on the road in less than 40 minutes. It wasn’t a tragedy, it was a minor inconvenience, but it was indeed inconvenient.

And now, today, back at work, achy, tired and getting crankier by the minute and oops, rattle, rattle…earthquake. A long one. 5.2 on the Richter scale. Maybe not the biggest earthquake ever but big enough to scare my whole office. And when the giant glass pendant lamp above your desk starts swinging around…I think fear is the appropriate response. So, you know, it’s gonna be one of THOSE weeks. It already is.

Returned.

So, you don’t really need to know the details of where I went or what I was doing but I will tell you this. I made:

2 large lasagne with sausage
1 large pan brownies
2 pans of chicken stew topped with biscuits
2 pans of chicken and stuffing with gravy
2 pans of pasta with meatsauce and cheese
1 dozen cupcakes
1 dozen biscuits
1 dozen raisin scones
1 large roll of sugar cookie dough
16 deviled eggs
2 dozen deviled clams
2.5 large containers clam/vegetable soup

...and I am thinking there was more, but I don’t honestly remember. It was all a blur. I cooked a lot, I cleaned a bit, I slept amazingly well. And there was no internets. None. It’s a little like visiting the Flintstones. But you know, it’s do-able.

And now it’s back to this reality and there’s a lot of printing and cutting and folding and drawing and…what else? Ironing…bake and shrinking…framing…cleaning. All that stuff. This week there is the Handmade Brigade (if you are there, stop by and say HI! I’ll be the tired one.) In less than two weeks there is the comic-con. And if you are THERE please bring me a coffee (soy milk, little bit of sugar) because I will be the really tired one.

Mild?

I am currently that kind of tired where I think something like “Gee, my stomach hurts, I think I’ve had too much caffeine.” And then I think “Caffeine? You’re soaking in it!” and then I chuckle softly to myself but then…THEN…I realize that my joke to myself made no sense and I try to defend my joke, “You know, like Madge and the Palmolive? Mild? It’s more than just mild, you’re soaking in it!” and then I realize that when I have to explain my own joke to myself and then defend it as being valid humor, something has gone terribly, terribly wrong in my head.

And it’s a pathetic tired because what kept me up was a very simple problem, which I believe I may have solved but if I come back tomorrow and make more Palmolive jokes, you will know I haven’t.

The other thing that my mind spent way too much time processing today was the six degrees of literary separation of Shakespeare and Audrey Hepburn. It’s actually way less then six degrees…any idea how? And for the record, it does not involve Audrey acting in any Shakespearian plays.

I also only just realized that Palmolive probably comes from those two words…palm and olive and suggests the moisturizing properties of the olive on the palm. Duh.

Soy.

So, that long threatened essay on why I hate a tv show that no one watches anyway? I am still working on it. It’s taken on a life of it’s own really and I am thinking it’s much closer to dissertation than blog entry now. The thing is, and this is slightly embarrassing, I have a deep and undying love for vampire stories. And not for the reasons that you might expect. Actually, I don’t know what reasons one could give for such a love that isn’t embarrassing so I am going to go with “metaphor for…” um…I don’t know. I like vampire stories but I don’t have any real interest in the “erotic” nature of them. I don’t want to be a vampire or to be bitten by a vampire or anything like that. It’s much like SnarkyDork might say “I like stories about dogs” or how someone might like mysteries or romances. I like vampire stories. So this is why I have such strong feelings about Moonlight, and why I thought I had so much to say about why it didn’t work for me. But the more I talk about it the weirder it seems.

Aw jeez, and now I am really tired and I don’t feel like writing anymore.

Oh but just in case you were wondering, there have been cupcakes, chocolate with vanilla frosting, that were dubbed “Awesome” and “Better than Sprinkles” (which frankly, isn’t hard) by a multi-millionaire (no kidding). So I can’t finish an essay on the importance of the history of the vampire legend and how taking away his weaknessness does in effect, leave him toothless but I can bake some kick-ass cupcakes. And my secret? Boiling water.

And now, my hands smell of soy sauce so I am done.

(No drugs were involved with any of this. I am really just that weird. And Sarah? Now that you have been outed as the secret reader from Ontario, do you have a blog? I’d love to stop by.)

Back.

I don’t know how to explain the last week to you. And I never got the chance to take any pictures but I don’t know if that would help. I have been attending the San Diego Comic-Con for about ten years now and I still can’t describe what it’s like.

First of all, and this is the part that most people don’t seem to understand. I am not really there as a fan. Yeah, I read comics and I am a fan of sorts but if I didn’t work in the comic industry, I probably couldn’t really afford to go to comic-con. The hotel, the food, the passes and then all the stuff you end up spending money on that you really didn’t think about, it adds up. So I am there. And I enjoy it. But it’s not exactly fun. On the other hand, it’s not NOT fun either. I love it. And I hate it. And there are wonderful people, both fans and friends, there and there are horrible people there. And in so many ways it’s just incredibly overwhelming. The sensory overload is intense. The noise of 100,000 people, the heat of the lights and the bodies and the sight of the crowds is enough to make any sane person run in the other direction. But I am there to work. And I do. I worked two jobs again this year and it was…tiring.

Now, I have worked in retail before. And this is retail. But it’s taken to a whole new extreme. I have also worked in an amusement park and at that time, I thought there would never be anything worse than making and serving pizza to thousands of people on the fourth of July, in New Jersey, on a hot day, in a tiny, unventilated building that had 4 pizza ovens working at about 500 degrees each. But comic-con is…something else. I currently have only about 70 percent of my voice because I had to talk, all day, every day. I had to answer questions and pitch products and sell, sell, sell. And yes, sometimes yell, yell, yell. NO, THOSE ARE NOT FREE! But, I do love it. When I am not hating it.

It’s fun and it’s terrible and it’s everything you could ever think a group of 100,000 people with strong opinions and obsessions and no clue and too many clues could ever be. And although the news and the media would have you believe it’s a total freak show…well, there is an element of that but in general it’s people you know and like and sit next to at work and school and it’s your neighbor and your brother and your sister and you. You are all there. And I probably spoke to a lot of you.

I got back to L.A. yesterday afternoon and I was tired. Today I think I feel even more tired. I am hoping by tomorrow to be somewhat closer to coherent.