Lost in da Interweb Forest & Ran Off with the Wastebook Misteress

Uh, yeah definitely better at being the worst blogger ever. What seemed promising to be a blog post per week turns into a blog post per month.  And uh, almost per year. (Maybe I’ve said this before already but forgot). The upstart of a new career in 2009 has time sucked the focus in my brain. Alas, I also didn’t renew my domain name and Flickr account. Real Life Rent holds a much higher precedence than Internet Rent (and Sallie Mae) and have neglected my web presence soon after with the prolific collection of pending comments like snail mail collecting in the mailbox. I guess I’m sorry but as anyone knows who tries their hand of juggling an offline life versus their online presence, it’s pretty fucking hard. Despite time spent on the interwebz with insomnia, it’s so easy to surf, get lost and be enchanted in the internet forest of knowledge, weirdness, and stupidity than to go back to your online home and take care of the digital kids: YouTube, Twitter, WordPress, etc. Since getting a Wastebook account in 2008, have been more dedicated to that private life than a public persona. Then there are times I want to overhaul this blog site again because I’m not happy with the linear timeline, prefer a graphic approach like The Oatmeal’s format or a Tumblr template used in some blogs. If I ever get around to it, I hope not to be accused of copying it but yet that’s like a site copying a menu navigation page when it has become standard. I wouldn’t say I have an Internet addiction per se, I still pay (most) of my dues and still go to work and observe the basic practices of eating and hygiene (with a tiny bit of gaming). Yeah, I’m not the social butterfly like I used to be but then I’m also a natural born introvert as well. A few personal things came up too because life always happens and loves to interfere with one’s business.

So on another note, what did I do somewhat creatively while I was AWOL? Okay working backwards, I did the Écorché class again at Vitruvian Fine Art Studio in January thru May 2011. Prior to that, I did buy a Rye & Ginger Waist Cincher Corset Kit at Vogue Fabrics and actually finished it to wear for the holidaze in 2010. I became confident in constructing the waist cincher after retaking the Corsetmaking workshop in the fall of 2010 at Vogue. I’m not quite sure when I will actually sit down and document these projects so I cannot promise that I will do so.  Much of that time spent is  job searching, training and basic human offline upkeep. Those are the recent things I can think of right now in this sleep deprived, over caffeinated brain.

Despite my lack of public online upkeep, I opened up WordPress because I am considering opening another blog that will connect to this one. I want to call it, “F*** the Great Recession, I’m Growing My Own Damn Food!” The Purple Thumb Garden. I’ve been quite obsessed with gardening again and I tend to berate myself that I have a black thumb but I realized recently at Adams & Son Gardens that I did have a green thumb once in Florida. I just forgot about it somehow. I guess the memories of numerous failed attempts in the past overwhelmed the memories of growing Purple Queens, Fuschias, and other plants in central Florida. What started with a purchase of sweet basil from Gethsemane has exploded into an obsession in May.

I’m still keeping this blog, just trying to figure out an efficient way of organizing my thoughts and documentation. I would probably treat this blog as a central hub that goes out into other categories and subdivisions. That way if someone is interested in my corsetmaking process they won’t be bogged down with my gardening (mis)adventures or my Chicago architecture rage. I will mention it briefly in this site then link off into the other blog. Like having a giant collection (which is COR) with different sections labeled off (which is The Purple Thumb Garden and future blogs).

So what else happened since the last entry of claiming to try to change my life (or something like that)? Eh, it seems I say that “changing my life epiphany” script almost every year or so. I was very despondent that I haven’t made much progress in creative endeavors in the past couple years and that feeling grows prolifically stronger closer to my bday. I have to resort to the cold fact that I won’t be able to do everything I want to do due to lack of funds, manpower, staff and a non-eternal lifespan. Which is a damn fucking shame, I don’t know if I can become the jill-of-all-trades that I want to be. I’m just running on survival mode like most people nowadays, hand to mouth. I’m also paranoid about the theft of intellectual property, the high cost of copyright protections ($35 online * amount of artwork = !$!$!$!$!$) and business fees, but then sadly that’s probably part of me living in Shitcago, Illinoize, the land of infamous corruption. And please don’t quote the cliche, “If you don’t like it then leave/change.” If a grant was thrown my way to GTFO of town, I’d leave ASAP believe me. Home is where the pain is.

Speaking of home and pain, tomorrow on May 30, will mark the 8 year black anniversary of the childhood house that burnt down and destroyed most of my artwork, rendered me more insane, derailed my academic life and linear graphic design goals, gave a douchebag catsitter the opportunity to steal my cat, and killed my spirit further. Thanks PTSD! So ironically when people will be grilling on Memorial Day over hot fires tenderly charring various meats and whatnot is also the date that hot fire has royally fucked me up. A part of me wants to revisit the site tomorrow, the house was not demolished unfortunately, it was rehabbed.

I was away at school when it happened, but my imagination gave weight to how horrifying it was. Like having a lobotomy by fire. I’m not traumatized by fire, I still want to try poi dancing, but I had anxiety around candles for a while. It’s so easy to take them for granted until it burns your creations. She said muttering under her breath that “I only care about my possessions,” but she doesn’t have a creative idea in her body to understand that I wasn’t crying about material effects, it was my photography, drawings, paintings, documentation, sculptures, films, videos, childhood photos. Irreplaceable. Those aren’t possessions, they’re ideas manifested physically. Burned a part of my brain off.

Like many creatives, I expressed my pain by drawing and journaling. And like any emotionally volatile adolescent, immersed myself in music listening, encased in the room, screaming my lungs out inside pillows. I listened to my good ol’ standby Skinny Puppy and flipped that with Bjork for hope. And then that strange magical moment where you listen to something that finally clicks in your head. The kind of thing where the music is in the background and you hear it as a sleepy dreamwalker not paying attention while the people surrounding you are aware walking normally, then it clicks and you get it and you love it and you walk along or run freaking out. Yeah, I ran totally freaking out to Radiohead’s album, Hail to the Thief. Then I ran off to France for Eurockéennes de Belfort to see this British band on America’s Independence Day. Ran back Chicago to go to Alpine Center in Wisconsin. Clicked the “Refresh” button (before auto refresh was around) furiously on Waste’s downed servers for several hours to finally get tickets in the orchestra pit in Florida. Yes I ran. Then thought it be cool if I dressed up as their logo for Halloween, and it became the first thing I created after that stupid fucking fire. An on again, off gain project that lasted 5 years with the result worn for the In Rainbows tour. King of Limbs? Yes please, best Valentine ever. “Little By Little” listened approximately 70 times according to iTunes give or take a few listenings from roommie.

Okay, I gonna stop this post now so I can give online birth to another baby: The Purple Thumb: “F*** the Great Recession, I’m Growing My Own Damn Food!”

Now I know why I don’t blog consistently, it takes me HOURS to write and proofread this shite, and that’s without pictures. Thanks OCPD!