Saturday, January 19, 2002
victorious iq day
So IQ is essentially finished.
Can you hear my sigh of utter relief?
I've got to cut a few pages apart and put them on new stabilizer paper after laying them out incorrectly, but other than that and one dinky little article to stick some pictures in...it's -donedonedone-.
Well, I mean, then there's the printing, collating, stapling, addressing of the envelopes, making the postcards for renewal and getting the postcards to stick in there as a little giftie, but I'm not thinking about all of that right now. I'd rather settle in on the victorious feeling of finally getting this damn issue DONE. (I actually love this issue, compared to the others, but I've been futzing with it and procrastinating about it for so long that it's taken the name 'this damn issue' in common parlance.)
I can't wait to get it out and see/hear the reaction. Really, really different from previous issues, it is.
whew.
---e
Posted by beth @ 02:35 PM PST [Link]
Friday, January 18, 2002
lightbulb on
Y'know, I realized something.
Whether I'm motivated or not, if I get started working on something, even if it's something I'm not particularly excited about, the ball starts rolling like a ... well, a ball. And I get things done.
Yes, I know some of you are now saying, "Well, duh." It's a realization for -me-, at least. I thought that if I started something when I wasn't totally motivated that it would just be all crap. And the first few minutes -are- crap. But after that...it really gets going.
And if I break things down into steps, and only do the first step, or commit to doing the first step, the other steps start looking more appealing. I forget all the distractions.
(a look in my head, for instance, would reveal: okay, so I need to do this issue of IQ's layout....did I floss?....I didn't eat, why do I need to floss?...I wonder who invented floss?....I wonder who first thought, 'gee, I should stick waxed thread inbetween my teeth and move it back and forth'....I bet there's a book at the library about that....I wonder where the library is, or what bus will get me there....I bet all the librarians will look at me funny if I ask about a book on floss.... And I bet you think I'm kidding, too.)
Ah, for simple revelations.
Half an hour until my meeting. Wish me luck.
---e
Posted by beth @ 12:59 PM PST [Link]
seattlestories
I love Seattle.
I haven't posted it yet, since I seem to have put my password in the same place as all the extra socks from the pairs that disappear in the wash go when you're not looking. I hate that. But I've got two, count 'em, TWO stories to go over there. Both took place on the bus.
One's about a homeless lady named Angel that started out as a journal entry and mutated into a personal narrative essay, and the other is an anecdote about a renegade bus driver who nearly got into a physical alteration with Ben, calling him "buddy" in a whiny, Mike Tyson-esque voice while giving us statistics on his vehicle. ("This is a TEN FOOT, SIX INCH BUS, buddy....that's an EIGHT FOOT LANE!") It really was hilarious, and kind of scary.
Can you tell I spend way, way too much time riding on the Seattle buses? I love them. Even the crappy drivers are better than the best ones in L.A., and the riders have infinitely more personality, cultivated by years of living in a dreadful rain-filled climate for eight months out of the year. (Or more. I haven't been here long enough to judge.)
I'm also almost done with IQ. Finally. I'm putting the last of the illustrations and collages in it today, then razoring some of it apart to attach to the master sheets. (I put some of it together wrong when I was text-blocking, and it messed up a whole section's numbering. Argh! More work.) I want to print it this weekend, and send it by the end of next week. Only a month late. I'm pretty proud of my bad self.
Off to draw my fingers to the bone,
---e
Posted by beth @ 11:01 AM PST [Link]
Wednesday, January 16, 2002
moment of panic
I had a brief moment of panic last night.
I gave in to the urge to re-buy one of the books that I had in CA. It's one of my very favorite books on design -- Interior Alchemy. They had it used for $12, and since it's way more than that everywhere else in the -world-, and even that they HAD it was amazing, because I -never- see it anywhere, ever. I had to.
The whole thing is about this kind of rag-bag, eclectic style of decorating. There are six different scenarios that range from "Attic" (the collector style) to "Sparse" (self-explanatory) to "Exotic" (think of Sherilyn Fenn's room in "Boxing Helena" and that's it) to "Ecclectic" (which is kind of fusion-like), through "Explorer" (kind of a mid-19th century naturalist/adventurer type thing).
When I first got this book, back in CA, it captured my attention, totally. My imagination. I wanted to do this in my house. I wanted to make my house look intricate and interesting and to have a meaning behind all the weirdo stuff that I keep for no reason. (And I do. Trust me. I have a wooden FOOT at home. No, I don't know why. I just liked it. So I bought the wooden foot, brought it home and have had it there ever since, planning on doing SOMETHING with it, but never having done so.) I LOVED this book.
Last night, when I got home from Elliott Bay, where I bought the book without so much as cracking the cover to see if all the pages were intact -- I was that excited, I flopped down on the couch and started reading. Well, flipping through the pictures. But that's close to reading.
I hated it. The cluttered rooms made me want to drive over to these houses and clean them up. Even the sparse style had me in twitches. (Less than the rest,of course.) I wanted to highlight parts of feng shui manuals where it says to throw out seven things a day in each room until you could breathe again. I actually felt -anxiety- while looking through the -book-.
This nearly made me panic, as I really believe that I'm changing. Not that change is inherently bad, but I didn't notice. I didn't even feel different. I still got excited when I saw the book, but I'm thinking that it's because I felt a sort of nostalgic love, like when you see pictures of your old room from grade school and all the ephemera therein. And if I didn't even NOTICE this sort of subtle transformation, how much ELSE has changed without my acknowledgement? Do I need to do some sort of likes/dislikes assessment and try to figure out again who I am and what I love? I'm so tired of self-analysis that I'm not sure I'd even be effective with something like this.
Evolution is natural, I know. You aren't going to like the same things at thirty that you do at thirteen. But this seems too rapid, too profound, to be coincidental evolution.
I feel like someone's carved out a piece of my psyche and has it under a microscope, trying to determine if it's worthy to be included in this in-progress human being. Obviously, the part of me that loved "Interior Alchemy" was tossed out like an unused turkey innard on Thanksgiving.
I'm being rebuilt. Let's just hope it's for the better.
-----e
work-in-progress
Posted by beth @ 01:00 PM PST [Link]
Tuesday, January 15, 2002
urges
See, now that I have my last check, my first urge is to go buy that book I cannot live without at Elliott Bay books, but I'm really scared to death that this is the last money I'll ever make.
Silly fear, I know.
Kelly, the owner of the place, told me the door was open, and said we could talk, AND thanked me profusely for coming forward about the drugged up employees. But I was in this sort of panic after seeing one of the guys' friends on the floor and feeling about two inches tall.
Ann was wonderful. As always. I really like her in a kind of maternal way.
I've got so much to do. I can't decide where to start.
---e
Posted by beth @ 03:07 PM PST [Link]
oh, and...
Update on all the mail goodness:
I also got a zine I'd ordered a long time ago and forgot about, Pomegranite #3, which I heard about on the panderzinedistro message board and, of course, couldn't resist for a buck and stamps. It's a felt envelope with a bunch of little booklets, just like the subscriber edition of IQ was going to be before I moved across the country, leaving everything at home. I think the writing is kind of on the surface a little, but the form alone is worth the buck.
AND, as if my good mail day wasn't enough, I went down to Elliott Bay last night with the intention of just up and buying the last copy they had of Vein of Gold, even if it -is- $20 for a softcover and kind of beat up. (I have $37 to my name. But I -really- wanted this book. This block was worth starving for.) On a sort of intuitive whim, I went into the used section.
I found a HARDCOVER copy that looks like it's never been read, for $10. $9.95, to be exact. I about fell over.
I also found a copy of Interior Alchemy for $12 and a hardcover copy of a book on Jersey Diners that includes a few where I used to hang out for the same. I squirrelled them away behind some old Betty Crocker cookbooks and plan to go back when I have some time and money.
Speaking of -- I should have a check in the mail here today. I hope. I don't want to have to go down there to pick it up. They're going to try to get me to come back and I want to go back, if only for the paycheck, but it's going to be uncomfortable. Ugh.
If it -doesn't- come today, I'm out of xenadrine, and god knows what kind of awful depression will ensue from -that-. It kind of scares me, really.
Anyway, I'm off to smoke and hope the universe takes care of this little cash flow issue. :)
---e
Posted by beth @ 08:33 AM PST [Link]
Monday, January 14, 2002
cool list!!!
Tricia, dear, if you're reading this, I want you to know that you are my new hero.
Not ONLY did you send CRAYONS, and COOL ONES at that, but also PARADISE TEA that I've been craving for so long that I'm staring at the box like I've just come into posession of the Holy freakin' Grail.
I don't know whether to play with the art stuff or make the tea first. Maybe I'll make the tea, and while it's brewing, draw and color things to send in the mail back to you.
What a faaaabulous mail day. I so love mail. The postman is eternally on my Cool List. Forever and ever, amen.
Now that IQ is officially all textblocked, I'm going on a walk, actually. Mrrrowr.
Posted by beth @ 04:17 PM PST [Link]
Sunday, January 13, 2002
in the groove
So I got about half of it laid out before going into meltdown and just picking up some slams that I got in the mail yesterday and working on those instead. (Playing with them, more aptly.) Ben got here and was talking about seeing a movie with Lisa (his ex, whom he's still friends with, and whom I've met precisely once and sat there like a bobbing-headded dog in a car window while they talked computers).
A perfect excuse not to have to lay anything out. Ah, bliss.
We ended up just going downtown to Barnes & Noble since the movie we wanted was sold out, and then over to Lisa's house, and on to Charlie's (a restaurant/bar, not a person). The tech level of the conversation stayed to a relatively easy-to-understand minimum this time, and I had a really great time, actually. She's really cool.
Back athome, I was still pretty awake, and...*drumroll*...I pretty much finished placing the text. So now it's just embellishment and artwork and I'm a set camper. Life's good. I'm ready to start on the next one.
----e
who's trying to sound
as upbeat as she is, despite
it being 9 a.m. and despite
being slightly nauseous from
that almost-bad salad dressing.
Posted by beth @ 09:03 AM PST [Link]
