no one tagged me, but it looked like fun. xD

song+ When It Rains- Riot!- Paramore
book+ my for-real journal
scent+ strawberries and cream creme savers
quest+ i'm not really sure
upper+i love sit-and-do-nothing weekends
downer+ i have to go back ot work tomorrow
attire+ pajama bottoms and a tank top
drink+ milk. <3

10 Years Ago:
hmm.. i was in sixth grade, mom and dad had just split up, and i pulled a ligament in my ankle about this time of year.

5 Years Ago:
i was an upperclassman in high school, dealing with the drama of shedding excessively toxic friends, but kyu and i were dating, so i was much happier than i'd been in a long time.

5 months Ago:
let's see.. gearing up for holiday season, at home and at work. i'd just taken over my current position and i was terrified i wouldn't be able to handle it. xD turns out i'm awesome though, so it's all good.

5 Things on my To Do List Today:
1. eat something
2. finish logging my comics into the cataloging program i downloaded
3. go through april previews (since may comes out next week)
4. talk to dad about his driving X.x (that should be fun)
5. bug kyu until he finishes the drawing i asked for earlier. xD

5 Snacks I enjoy:
1. gummy anything
2. fudge-dipped chocolate chip granola bars (they're addictive)
3. creme savers
4. twizzlers
5. baked lays cheddar and sour cream chips

5 Things I would do if I was suddenly a billionaire:
1. buy a house
2. buy a car ..and learn to drive it xD
3. go to art school
4. send kyu to the kubert school
5. go on a real vacation

5 of my bad habits:
1. i internalize a lot
2. i overuse italics, underscores, bold text and emoticons xD
3. i tend to hide who i really am from a lot of people
4. i listen to the same few albums all the time, depending on my mood (i'm sure it drives everyone else crazy) right now it's Kelly Clarkson's Breakaway, and Britney Spears' In the Zone
5. i'll yell at inanimate things. xD i punched my sewing machine when it died because i wasn't done with it.

5 Places I have lived:
1. irving, tx
2. fredericksburg, tx
3. alvaredo, tx
4. arlington, tx
5. (i've spent summers in morgan mill with kyu's paternal family, but that was just visiting)

5 Jobs I have had:
1. customer support for verizon internet
2. warehouse monkey
3. subservice slave
4. mailroom minion
5. assistant manager of subservice! whoo (the last four are all at lonestar though xD)

5 Things People don't know about me:
1. i totally believe in supernatural things like vampires and werewolves
2. even though i didn't read any comics for a long time, my comic collection is bigger than kyu's and he's been a lifelong fan.
3. i make hugely elaborate plans for all kinds of thing i never follow through on. for example, if i pulled out all my clothing designs and just made them, i'd have at least a year of work ahead of me. and that doesn't touch on other types of plans.
4. if i spend 30+ hours on any one project and even one person complements it, i don't feel like i've wasted any time at all.
5. my single worst fear is abandonment, and i've felt abandoned at least once by everyone i know.

5 People to Tag:
i think everyone who will do this has already been tagged. xD

ugh. are things normal yet?

song+ Walk Away- Breakaway- Kelly Clarkson
book+ nothing this week really
scent+ bacon
quest+ trying to be un-depressed
upper+this week has had a relatively light workload (excluding FCBD)
downer+ this week has had a ridiculous drama threshold
attire+ jeans and a wwTX volunteer tee
drink+ sprite

blarg. this week has just been one bad thing after another for most of the family, i guess. X.x there's monday's super secret(ish) moose-related drama, and tuesday nothing went super-wrong really, but we got in about 13 thousand comics for Free Comic Book Day '08 on top of our usual tuesday workload..

today poppa's stupid choices caught up with him, inconveniencing me, kyu, tiff and snappy, mom, and jenni. kyu and i had to have tiff and snappy take us to the parking lot where dad's car was to pick up harley, or they were going to send her to the pound. (rude!) i'm thankful that they were willing to help, especially since tiff lives in either grand prairie or mansfield. (she lives in one and her mom's in the other and i switch them) she even offered to take us home again tomorrow if mom couldn't handle it. kyu went to get mom to help retrieve the car, and they pulled jenni in from there. go dad. -.-; i'm so frustrated with him that at this point i have no desire whatsoever to even try to help him. i feel bad for making kyu take care of things, but i'm at the point where i just can't handle dealing with anything else that matters. tomorrow i'm gonna go in to work (ridiculously early since we'll be catching a ride from mom. thanks though, mom!) and i'm gonna operate almost entirely on autopilot. fortunately it doesn't take much cognitive effort to slap labels on FCBD books, i labeled 440 issues of jughead in 35 minutes this afternoon. *sigh*

this just drives home the whole needing some time to myself thing. i don't care how utterly selfish it makes me, all this is happening all around me, and i want to be strong and be there for people, but i'm at my limit. i need to melt down, and i can't do that with people around me. i need a week of time where no one needs me for anything so i can stew and think and melt and vent and rebuild, and if i decide i want company, i can ask for it, but if i don't want it, everyone will leave me alone. that's what would be wonderful to me right about now.

on an unrelated almost-upper, i've been working on a series of dolls of black canary's costumes through the decades. i'm having fun with it. it might even get done enough to post by the end of the month. who knows. xD

ooh! AND recently buddy (who owns lone star) bought this guy's lifelong action figure collection for super cheap, in it was this amazing set of the birds of prey, oracle, huntress and black canary. the set does for between $160 and $200 on ebay, but buddy said i can buy it for just 100! xD i know most of you are probably thinking "? $100 for a toy??" but it averages out like buying three separate figures at retail after tax. the best part is that he said he trusts me enough that he let me bring it home today, and i can pay him in a week when i have the cash. i have the most awesome boss ever! i really wanted the set because i'm like 95% positive it's the only oracle figure ever produced. considering when it was made, it has really good articulation too! xD

this will be short

song+ Defying Gravity- Wicked- Original Cast Recording
book+ batgirl fanfiction. thanks kyu! xD
scent+ cheddar and sour cream baked lays.. my che3at for the week.
quest+ getting to where i don't suck at dolling again.
upper+it's almost the weekend!
downer+ i still have to work tomorrow
attire+ pants(!) and a black undershirt
drink+ nothing.. i'm out of milk.

i finished the 'surprise' doll for mom, but it's been a while, so i was a little dissatisfied and did another one. xD it's the colouring on both i'm not thrilled with, but the animation on the second one turned out pretty cute, i think.. and very mom. i already slowed it down as much as i could, so i hope y'all can tell what's going on with it. xD they represent the two activities mom talks about most: knit night and dances.

anyways, the left doll is the original. i don't know what mom's "don'tcha" shirt looks like, so i made one up since i wouldn't be able to fit the whole phrase there anyhow. knitting purple socks, because i'm sure it's been done at some point.. the right doll is the second one. i'm not thrilled with how the compression required of an animated gif messed with the shading i slaved over on the dress, but there's nothing i can do. *shrug* i tried. it's the "famous red dress" that was retired some time ago. i also tried something different for the hair. mom, your hair is really hard to doll, just FYI. it's supposed to be mom flirting, i just hope that's what it looks like. xD

credit for both mom bases goes to apitchu orchard. i got the base for my new icon from here, it's heavily edited by me, but credit is still due.

new art soon, but for now, oldies!

song+ ah. the theme song to America's Next Top Model..? xD
book+ hmm.. nothing at the moment, though i may reread narnia before Prince Caspian comes out
scent+ nothing whatsoever
quest+ watching batman season three
upper+it's getting easier to resist the siren song of junk food
downer+ i still need a vacation
attire+ my chocolatey brown summer pajamas
drink+ nothing.. i'm out of milk.

a while back mom said she only wanted me to doll her if i could find a base that resembled her body type. while i still haven't found it precisely, i found something a lot closer, so i'll be working on a surprise something for mom for the next while. xD i also found a new portrait base, so i'll be reworking a profile image too.

i find dolling to be the single most relaxing exercise in tedium i have ever endeavored. it takes hours of precision effort, and frequent saves to get a doll just how you want it. using a dollmaker is fun sometimes, but there's no element of customization at all. even if someone can't see the however many hours i put into making a doll, i look at it later and i can remember how much fun i had doing it, even the difficult ones. it's a lot cheaper than therapy too. xD i don't have anything new to post, but i think i have some of my old dolls floating around somewhere, and i'd love to share them with y'all.

this one's poison ivy (from Batman)

this was the result of a psychotic break where i decided doing an animation would be fun. boy was i wrong.. xD the mouth originally moved with the lyrics, but when i had to up the frame rate, she looked like she was having a stroke.

this is my current portrait, and one i did for nakuru on the same base a long time ago. before i learned how to alter skin tones or anything xD i did change some things between them though.

these were commisioned dolls on gaia, back from when i was first starting out. xD the blue one is Shadowcat (kitty pryde from the x-men in her lame-tastic 80s costume), followed by Troia (donna troy, the first wonder girl, wonder woman's little sister), and the last one is Power Girl (karen starr/kara zor-l an alternate-universe supergirl)

this one was my very first animation. the one that made me think i could totally handle that other one xD blowing a kiss = easy to do, sparkles? cakewalk! timing scrolling lyrics? not worth the effort.

my very first portrait doll. in some ways far more awesome than the later one

stuff i never posted before..

song+ Behind These Hazel Eyes- Breakaway- Kelly Clarkson
book+ april previews xD
scent+ lemon yogurt
quest+ getting all the stuff i never got around to posting up
upper+i've been keeping to my diet
downer+ i've been craving junk food like crazy! X.x
attire+ pinstriped pajama pimpness xD
drink+ milk

i do things frequently where i think "you know, i should totally put this on my blog!" and i never do, so now i'm gonna add some of those things.

a while back, moose went to the birthday party of a friend. there was an alice in wonderland theme, so she came over to get advice on what to wear. naturally we wandered over to the dollmaker where we discovered there's no top hats, so we made her the march hare.. after she was gone i googled top hats and edited it onto the doll. xD the outfit she actually wore resembled the doll in no way, shape, or form, but it was still fun, so here they are. the texture of the hat totally stands out, but i still think it's cute. xD

in other stuff, a while ago, roro and i were talking about how there's nowhere nearby to take good outdoor photos of the dolls. i said that maybe i could take them over to mom's and use her houseplants as background stuff and she replied with the most absolutely brilliant thing.. then she made it into an easily postable image for me. xD if you don't get it you need to keep these things in mind: a) mom's not a cat person, b) neko means cat in japanese, and c) star trek is totally awesome, but the music for star wars is so much catchier.. the third thing is there because the star wars theme was the one i thought of xD

in regards to my frequent lamentation that i really need a vacation, i've been (infrequently) talking to umi (infrequent is better than not at all though, right?) and she might be coming to visit in early june. i'm taking off a week then, whether she comes to visit or not, but i'm not asking for a specific week until the end of this month to give her time to figure out a) if she really wants to do it, and b) which week works better for her. it kills me that we haven't seen each other in so long, but i'm trying to be a good friend and not expect or ask for more than she's capable of giving.. or willing to give, as the case may be. i get that a lot of people have walked all over her for a lot of her life, and i don't want to be one of those people, but it's hard to tell where the line between respecting her need for space and being totally abandoned is.

i get that i can be a totally selfish needy person. i get that that's not an ideal kind of person to be, but when i've been otherwise to please others i've been completely miserable. that's why i get that she's going through a similar thing. i'm just selfish enough to wish that her going through it didn't leave me so alone. i know i'm not really alone, i have all my family, and i have kyu, and my brilliant friends james and naku.. but none of that means anything next to not having my very best friend. i'm stuck standing here because i'm terrified that if i move for my dreams without her here i'll either fail, or i'll make it and the gap between us will get bigger.. so i'm not going anywhere.

i have a job i like 95% of the time, working with like, 8 people that are totally awesome and a ton that are totally not. i go every day, i earn less than i'm worth, but enough to get by. i give dad enough to cover slightly more than my share of the bills. i spend my money almost as fast as i earn it, because if i don't have it, i can't use it to get closer to what i really want to do. going for what i really want is terrifying because it means risking everything i already have, and i don't want to end up with nothing. i spend so much of my life terrified to go for what i want, and the only thing that has ever helped me past the fear has been more or less cut out of my life for close to eight years. umi was the only reason i was able to push past my fear enough to try attempting any kind of relationship with kyu beyond the friendship he managed in spite of my best efforts to protect myself.

i've never had a lot of friends, because if you don't let people in, it's harder for them to hurt you. i was doing fine with only one friend (who wasn't really close enough to hurt me after that one time) then i met her. umi seriously changed my life, after meeting her i suddenly had all these friends. while that was nice at first, every one of them eventually hurt me in some way. and most of the time, i was able to excise the toxic friends from my life and heal.. i can't cut umi out though. she has hurt me so much without ever trying and no matter how she hurts me, i can't bring myself to stop caring about her and wondering if she's okay. wondering if there's anything i can do to make her life easier. i want it to be easy for me! i want to be happy! why can't i be happy?