Til the wheels fall off

I've been working hard on making my first zine in four years.  I've felt really great about it for a few days.  I started working on the cover design last night and I had this brief stab of melancholy, which seems to happen with many things I work on creatively.  I was in the last stretch of finishing this painting after I had a mental breakthrough, then stab.  I looked at it and I didn't like where it was going again.  Then a few hours later I thought of a quick thing that made it all work again.  I think I'm at that point now with this cover but I won't know until I get my hands on it again.  I'm not at home right now.  I'm on my lunch break thinking about zines and Googling zine cover designs and clip art.

I also keep hoping my Target curtains are going to arrive by UPS today.  I hope I don't need to sign for them!  I love the sunshine coming through my window in the morning, but too bad that it wakes me up.  By happy coincidence I got a call back from my sleep study person at the clinic today, so maybe I'll be sleeping with electrodes on me this week.  Just like E.T. and Elliott.

Step into my office...

I'm hanging art in my studio office, do you approve?

 
Much of it is stuff my friends made!  Sean Christensen, Aron Nels Steinke, Ian Collazo, Amy Kuttab, Tony Remple, and even one I made (the tiny girl in the upper right).

The dollhouses show a small portion of my large and exciting collection of miniatures (sorry they're messy right now, no time yet for the mini housekeeping).  Sadly I missed both the miniatures shows in both Portland and Seattle, but it's probably for the best.  I don't need more little things, but it's so fun to find them.  Note to prospective collectors: elderly ladies are freakishly competitive at the dollhouse shows.  Don't give in!

The Out-of-Doors Me

For the last three months I've been putting more energy into getting full-time work, even though I'm putting just as much as ever into the whole organizing thing.  Today I had the first job interview I've had where I got it myself, and an employment agency didn't set it up for me.  People are really reading the resumes I'm seemingly sending out into thin air!  And today I got a postcard from another potential employer to say that they are reviewing my qualifications; that's something, even if it's a form letter, more or less.

Fraulein Sophie Von Prieser by Florine Stettheimer, 1929

I took up a volunteer position at the art museum to help me get more comfortable with working around people I don't know all that well.  It's been all right so far, and it's even brought some unexpected benefits.  I can visit the museum for free, and I can get into film center movies for free.  There's also a model drawing night once a month to which volunteers and employees can attend at no charge, otherwise there's a small fee.  Alas, I have not been able to attend on my last two chances.  Another great thing is that the Portland International Film Festival is happening now, and if I volunteer I get free standby passes.  I’ve always loved the museum, I’m glad I get to spend so much time there now!  The art pieces I like are friends.

I forgot to mention yesterday that I put that free box on the sidewalk that I was talking about doing.  I had just put it down and was getting ready to back out of my driveway when a man stopped to look through the box.  When I got home later it was gone!  I want to add that while putting out free stuff is excellent in so many ways, when it’s left in the rain for days on end it becomes garbage!  People should take their stuff back indoors if no one wants it!

Sleep in heavenly peace

Today was an anniversary of sorts and I didn't even realize it until it was almost over.  I spent part of today with my dad at the Clark County Fairgrounds walking around an antique show.  A year ago I was at this same antique show and I began thinking how fun it would be to do a blog about thrifting and the old stuff I use to decorate my apartment.  A few months later Fitzrovians was born.  As I think I've said before, this was going to be a different type of blog at the start.  I'm glad it's come as far as it did!

For now, the basement is just a basement and I'm using it to store stuff while I work on the rooms upstairs.  It's been so cold, I don't even like going downstairs for long.  The time I've put into my bedroom and office have paid off and here is a look at my new sleeping space, before and after:

The perspective makes it look cramped, but it's very comfortable.  You can't really see it but the walls are a very pale yellow now.

A peek at another corner:

I proudly showed a small group of friends around, partly to explain to them why the living room and kitchen are such horrors.  They were very appreciative, but after they went home I noticed I had left a box of feminine products on full display. ¡Estupida!

You'll be very interested to see what I got at the antique fair: this fabulous cuckoo clock made of solid ceramic.  It doesn't tell time and frankly, the cuckoo doesn't even look much like a bird.  I got it partly because I thought it looked like a moray eel shooting out of the door.  If you have ever seen Robert Altman's movie Three Women, you will understand why it's perfectly appropriate to have these items together on my bathroom wall.

Every day in every way...

...things are getting better and better, said John Lennon to Sean.  Here's a corner I worked on for about two hours this afternoon.  Does it show?

I had to crop it, you can see in the lower right a portion of a porno-graphic novel that I culled from the Bad Apple's stock.  Whoopsie!

You can see some of the great art I've got downstairs.  The piece in the yellow frame is a painting by my friend Sean Christensen A.B.T.  I made it a note on my to-do list to start finding frames for prints and think about moving my art around again. 

I'm reading one of the latest novels by Juliet Marillier, Shadowfell.  She usually does fantasy fiction that takes place in more or less a real time and place in history, but this seems to be pure fantasy.  I like it but it's more on the juvenile side of her genre.  I've read all of her writing so far and I have another of her new works on hold at the library, where it's getting processed as a new book.  I'm in it to win it.