A depressing pick me up.

This is my favorite chapter from my favorite book, Futureproof by N. Frank Daniels

"We were never here.
We are a blip, a mass of energy dissipated in a matter of moments, a flash in the pan, a twinkle of the eye, a prehistory lost in the passing of millenia, the minutiae of nothingness, a blink, an afterthought, a shallow stream evaporated in the first light of day. We are the misunderstood. We are the unclassified the oversimplified the target market the failing demographic. We are all already dead, the untalented, the ugly, the wasted, the underused, making way for the new. We are the bleeding. We are the profusely complaining, the overfed. We are the holes. The empty. The vacant. Carved out and hollow. Blankly starting. Echoes. Not ourselves. Not anyone."


I absolutely love this paragraph. In context, he is sitting in a basement with a group of people, all are on LSD, and he is tripping but observing them in this magnificently beautiful way. I wrote this in the front of my sketchbook, and whenever I need some inspiration or need to figure out what to draw I read it again, just for the visual.

I found a use for illustrator.

So, I have this friend who is really good at directing and musicals and such, and he is now working at our high school doing just that. They are doing "Zombie Prom" this fall and wanted me to make a poster for auditions. Which, is cool. My instructions were "I want, like, purple and green, and 11x14, and an atom, something that will get high schoolers' attention" along with the information of course. I usually draw things up by hand, copy them, outline them, then scan them for use in photoshop. However, I came home from college this weekend for a doctor's appointment and didn't have my scanner. Thus is my life. Before last night I had never even opened illustrator, I thought it was just this weird confusing thing, and why would anyone use it when you have photoshop? But, I had to make an atom. That is when I turned to illustrator, and I have a whole new appreciation for it, though I still do shading and everything other than "drawing" on photoshop, illustrator does exist for a reason.

Design Inspiration.

Fingers and Toes. No, no, just fingers.

I am obsessed with potted plants. Not your grandma's potted plants, but, surreal 'pots growing things'. I have sketched them since I was in middle school and just love them, my newest has a finger on it.

As I mentioned 3 seconds ago, yesterday, I love fingers. Which kind of saved me in trying to place the layout of my 'foam core display for good design thing'. And that's cool. Moral of the story: The finger has saved me yet again.

Books take so much time to write.

Today was fairly uneventful. PT this morning, class, waiting for my friend who goes to USC to ichat with me, and... what else? OH! Dan the bus driver is the coolest person ever and I love him with my soul.

The biggest part of my day is the last three, well, three and a half hours, which I have spent reformatting the novel I am working on called Rhino Lips. Before, it was just in a word document of 'la la la, I'm a creativity fairy full of creative thoughts and know nothing about what writing a book entails'. And I don't really, I just kind of write and see what happens, but today a publisher-y woman named Melanie (kind of funny because my favorite English teacher's name was Melanie)(...well, I thought it was funny) so I figured I should look into it, and I found a wonderful template that you can write in and it makes it... right. YAY! So, that was the last part of my life I will never get back again ever in my ever.

I really want to paint. I want to paint a finger. I don't know why, but they are so useful and they are really nice to me all the time. They hold my pencils and brushes, and type my papers and hold incriminating evidence if I ever murder someone or steal a kitten... Well, that last one was kind of a negative about fingers, but overall they are wonderful. And I love them. I love them for all day.

When did this happen?! And why is the love of my life being covered by Tori Amos?

Thinking of my studio project of good design I have decided one thing about my life:
I want to be the LOCTITE Super Glue Dispenser of the human race.

When creativity creeps up on me.

Today, I had a rather interesting day. By that I mean, not at all. It was hot and I walked to my first class of the year. While walking, I listened to Amanda Palmer singing a Radiohead cover drunk somewhere. I was tired and fantasizing about Scooby Doo mac & cheese and non-existent hot dogs. When I got to my class (30 minutes early, which is surprising, I don't think I was ever even on time in high school) I sat. Just, sat. I didn't really have anything substantial to do, I didn't have a laptop like the girl beside me, and I didn't want to look dumb, so I pulled out a notebook and my ROTC papers (that I already completed) and pretended to look productive.


After about 5 minutes of just looking from the papers to the notebook, trying to appear I was diligently studying the profound formations of words, I decided I should at least pretend to write. The girl beside me was typing, typing, typing. Actually, she was just on facebook stalking some weird guy, insanely common in this day and age, but I imagined her writing a short story about a small homeless boy in Seattle. Anyway, she was using her hands, and I have always been entirely fascinated with hands, fingers, muscles. So I somehow began writing a poem in my Army 101 notebook. What started out pretending I was doing something as to not look awkward and lonely in front of my peers, turned into something I highly enjoy doing. Usually in awkward situations like that I pretend to text, or actually text people who happen to be unable to text back.
This is what my mind gave me:

i extend my hand to Yours,
offering complete protection
from everything my alternative has done.

Your words lighten as
Your hand hesitates.
You want to believe me
but all instinct tells You
i will let Your fingers fall through
when temptation glistens in my irises.

"It's fine." i say,
with my fingertips beginning to numb.

Usually I spend many hours writing and editing my poetry, and this is just a start if I decide to actually finish it. We'll see. I'm not much of a "Yay Poetry!" person. I prefer art and short stories, but I do like the freedom of format. I can honestly say, every halfway decent poem I have written in my life came about while I was doing anything other than sitting at a computer or looking down at my journal. It's an inspiration that hides from me until I'm not looking for it anymore, then ambushes me when I least expect it. Just like that matching sock, only a mutant, carnivorous, terrifying sock, that happens to be extremely beautiful.

The most authentic thing about us is our capacity to create, to overcome, to endure, to transform, to love and to be greater than our suffering. - Ben Okri

I love this man.