Hindsight Is My Co-Author

Hindsight is my co-author; she tells a better story (and is a bit more humorous about it too). I don't mind. I like her point of view.

Truth be told, I've never considered myself a writer. Sure, I can do it - I learned the rules, paid attention in school. I knew I'd need it; it's a foundational necessity, like math. (Math didn't come as naturally, but I suppose I considered them equally exciting.) Writing is not the same as storytelling - it's much harder.

Why I Am So Colorful

I am re-posting an entry I just wrote for KT Fabulous, a blog started by someone with K-T about K-T. Most of you don't know it, but I was born with K-T -- and most of you don't know it because I didn't want you to know. So it is my honor to write a bit of my story to share with Arianna and her readers, as she and others have shared before, and finally let some of you know another side of me as well.

(She is running my post on her page now, or over here. Even though you can read my words below, I urge you to visit the blog. K-T is an ugly, painful little syndrome that isn't "glamorous." Nonetheless, Arianna started the blog to discuss it in her life, which is far braver than I was at her age.)

Corporate Ramblings And Photoshop Phun

I learned the more involved facets of graphic design, print prep and typography in mid-2005, just after the kiddo was born. In mid-2006, I needed to find a new job because life was moving in a divorced direction, and my graphic design job with the soon-to-be-ex-in-laws was getting a little awkward for us all. 

Shoulder Cat Or More Than You Cared To Know About Ocicats

Truth be told, Coda was a bit of an accident. Wait, let me start at the beginning: I have two Ocicats.* Ender is older by three days, male, and colored cinnamon. Coda is younger, female, and colored tawny. 

Graphic Design(er) Of The Future(r) (Err...?)

I'm bored and Sassy isn't at the computer (say, like, working or something). I don't even think she's in the building; I could call out, but that sort of ruins the mystery now doesn't it?

Kid Vampire (For Anne-Marie)

Someone thought this was a good idea. Sassy encouraged the idea. 
I was then forced to bust out my 
MAD PAINT SKILLZ.

This is uncaptionable

I'm Cuckoo For Cuckoo Clocks.

I've been a little bored. Not much, because I've been too busy to actually think about it. And now that I DO take a moment to think about it, that's probably not the right word for it. I believe I'm feeling boring, not bored. It's that familiar plateau -- the thing you feel when you need to shake up your inspiration, push your boundaries, challenge your abilities and make something new. In order to stay interested, stay interesting. (Or maybe it's the other way around?) Either way, I need to search out some sort of spark.  

It's Been Slow

Before I get into anything else, here's a picture of my neck in its present condition. It looks good, the doctor says the scar shouldn't show too much. Now, it actually hurt a bit to tilt my neck back like this, but the scar wouldn't be visible if I didn't get a little light on it, and I did this to show all of you.

My Normal Is Her Small

We're not simple folks. We can't have butter on our toast, because chances are Sassy wants to put garlic in that butter, and Kid wants to punch garlic in the schnozzle. We also can't have one browser on this computer; we are a family of multiple browsers.

So, Is It Dingle Balls Or Dingleballs?

What's inspiring me today? Fabric arts and Mexican dingle-ball things. Go figure. If you Google image search "Mexican dingle balls", you get the image below. I think that's really great. Sometime in the future, I plan to make a chair cover for one of our papasan getups.  I'll get the blankets from Mexico because I love the plaid, wool ones (so soft), and I can't resist adding dingle ball (dingleball?) trim: it's *just* my kind of obnoxious.

My Soul Is Screwed (In)

This is the handiwork of science and surgeons (not sturgeons, which taste terribly fishy, and fish is not something that will be going down the gullet you see here). There's some screws, a metal plate, and a cadaver bone betwixt them.

I Can't Decide, Please Help Me.

In my "free" time I'm setting up my long-overdue portfolio website. It's a process I've been spreading out over the past year, building the site, deleting the site when I thought it was stupid, rebuilding it again, and creating/collecting content in the meantime.  

It's a lot of work. I'm constantly surprised by this, but I'm attempting to create a portfolio site that's not going to be a pain in the ass to maintain. Let me be super clear about this: I. HATE. ADMIN-WORK. I've just realized this recently, in fact; I always thought I liked it because I'm fairly good at it. It turns out:

 Not having admin-work to do  >  Having admin-work to do

Partial Redemption In Full Color

Before I spilled the black paint on the carpet, I managed to finish this piece. 

Thankfully, it distracts from the stained floors below. 

Here's The Thing

#1. My shoulders aren't tight because my "core" needs tightening, and I'd appreciate you not rubbing my belly when you make that proclamation either. Well, no, to be fair, I liked it when you rubbed my belly, I just didn't like the words coming out of your mouth while my belly was being rubbed (I think you patted it once too, for posterity). I think we can safely assume that my shoulders are tight because I have a hole in my neck. See the post The Answer to Everything is My Throat Got Cut.

Sadly, I Am No Longer Awesome.

I spilled half a pint of high-gloss black enamel paint on the carpet yesterday evening.  It was tragic. My mind cringes because the recollection itself is bitter, like the taste of burnt garlic.  Which is much better than the smell of black enamel paint soaking into your apartment carpet, when what you really wanted to do was go get some cheap pizza and sing in the car the whole way there.

The pizza and the rockin' car ride never happened because it takes hours to unpaint the carpet.  I'm starting to think this was a really complicated way to get Kid to buy us new bath towels.  

I Am Awesome.

I can't help it.

I just am.

Oh It Didn't Bruise That Bad

This should serve as a lesson to our readers: when someone has been trained formally in defending oneself via counterviolent methods, regardless of that someone's present apparent limitations, don't attack said person.

No Robotic Parts

Here's a shot of my neck from this morning. It is a little reddish around the area because I just patted it down with a warm rag to get the dried blood off. I'm not sure what caused that vicious bruise on my chest other than something that must have happened in surgery. Same with the number on my left bicep. (They really kicked my ass in there. And took a disc. Bastards.)

Can't take this tape off yet

The Answer to Everything is "My Throat Got Cut"

I think being in pain makes my brain slightly lazy, because I'm finding that saying "my throat got cut" is a perfectly valid answer for pretty much everything. 

Puzzle Peace

I love my boys. 

Action shot

Dramatic monologue

One Day Later

Or is it two days later? I had surgery Tuesday. What's today? Today is Thursday, isn't it. Dang. I didn't sleep any Tuesday night, and when I can cohesively tell stories again, I will share the fun of that one. I slept last night, after four pain pills and two muscle relaxers. For some reason there are socks behind the headboard to keep it from making noise. I'm in a neck brace, don't look at me for explanations.