Hair-raising!

"No one really understands how simple and plain and predictable I am...now I'm just losing my hair and I'm learning how to smile like I just don't care..."

Man I REALLY hate my hair right now. I should note that picture was taken November 2008, don't w'all go panicking that I shaved my head again! I was washing my hair earlier on and was ever so slightly freaked out by the amount of hair I'm losing. Now, I'm absolutely rubbish at taking care of my hair. I don't brush it every single day, I wash it when I have to, and I'm incapable of styling it cos I just don't know how! So it just kinda gets tied back and forgotten about.

But now I'm getting traction alopecia on the corners of my hairline and I hate it! I dislike my hairline and forehead as it is, so I really don't want to make it any worse! I have this weird compulsion that whenever I tie my hair back, I start pulling it out of my bobble a clump of hair at a time and because my fringe is shortest and comes out easily, it gets it the worst. I need to get a bloody hair cut so my fringe is too short to tie back so I don't do this!

I really want dreads again :'(

Holy Graded Unit, Batman!

SO, I'm doing my Graded Unit in college right now. Basically it's a really intense unit where we're given a choice of briefs which we then have to complete in 3 sections: Planning, developing, and evaluation. We're given a mark for each and then given a grade, either A, B or C, at the end. The brief I chose is "Book and Box - The Human Body". Considering how interesting I find the human body and anatomy etc, I thought I'd find this not easy, but easIER than other subjects.

WROOOOOOOONG!!

Basically, I've drawn myself into a corner. My subject matter is body modification and what it has to do with the human body. My problem is I'm honestly struggling to think what to actually put in the book! As it is, my sketchbook is full of research on hand-bound books, what kind of book I want to make, research on the human body and soon it'll have my body mod research in it too. I'm just really not sure what to do WITH the research when I have it! I was thinking about putting in stuff about tribal modification, irreversible modification, amputations, that kinda thing. Not necessarily just piercings and tattoos! And I still have NO idea what to do about the box...and I need to have ALL THIS DONE BY WEDNESDAY MORNING.

Argh.

So yeah I have a favour to ask of all my lovely readers :) if you have ANY ideas what I could do about either the content of the book or the box, let me know! Also, another idea I had was putting in pictures of peoples tattoos and their reasons behind them (completely anonymously of course), so if any of you have a story you wish to share about your inkage, again let me know! You'd all be doing me a HUGE favour!

I also thought I'd share a few photos of what I've done so far, and a couple that are just me being a total artfag :D

Painty swirls

Stuff about "Coptic" book binding

Stuff about handmade books

Human anatomy on treated paper

Human body stuff on treated paper

Pages from a book that I "altered". Every element is from a story about Thomas Chippendale

Muscles of the face in coloured pencil on treated paper

Painted muscles of the arm


*phew* there we go!

And I hate everything about....me?

Ok, not really! Just couldn't think of a title for this post so I thought I'd quasi-quote some Ugly Kid Joe :)

So I wasn't actually tagged to do this, but after reading Amys blog, I took it upon myself to do it anyway. Cos I love talkin' bout myself y'know? K k I don't really. I just felt like it :) So. I have to tell you 10 things about myself. I actually DO like this kinda thing...I feel you can learn a lot about people when they do things like this. So here goes!

1. I'm completely phobic about a few things. I know a lot of people have at least one phobia, but I have like 4! They are: daddylonglegs (different from what I think most Americans would consider a daddylonglegs. I think they're just called craneflies there) moths, butterflies, and starfish. There's a story behind the starfish, but the others I'm just terrified of. Even the sight of one sends me into a blind panic.

2. I'm a hopeless romantic with music. Almost every song on my ipod reminds me of something to do with a relationship, be it good or bad, and sometimes it gets in the way of me listening to my favourite songs.

3. I'm a roller derby fanatic., and although I love getting people interested in it, I'd be gutted if anyone I know started playing it. Ridiculous I know. Leave me be!

4. I'm very very arty. It's just about my only real talent! I have no idea what I'd like to do with it in the long run, but I'll more than likely try and go into teaching.

5. I think I'm boring. I know you shouldn't compare yourself to other people, but when I think about myself compared to my husbands and previous partners exes, or to most of my friends, I honestly feel like thee most uninteresting person in the world.

6. I LOVE continuity errors in movies! I seriously get so excitied when I notice them and love pointing them out to others (whether they like it or not!)

7. You all probably already know this, but my wunnerful Woody and I got married at Viva Las Vegas Wedding Chapel by Elvis on the 13th of August 2009 :D and as a wee claim to fame, the chapel was featured in an episode of CSI AND was in the background during a scene in "The Hangover".

8. I hate the how trendy it is to say certain 80's cartoons were your favourites. I don't doubt most people are being genuine, but it's still irritating. For the record, my favourite cartoons when I was wee were Dogtanian and the 3 Muskehounds, Around the world with Willy Fog, Mysterious Cities of Gold, and the Muppet Babies. Fuck the Thundercats!

9. I collect dummies (or pacifyers, whichever you prefer). When I was small my mum picked one up in the street and couldn't tell if a child had dropped it, and she thought this was sad. Ever since, I haven't been able to walk past one lying in the street or in a shop without picking it up and taking it home! I also gladly take ones off people whos kids have outgrown them, and my sister even bought me one with my name on it! If any of you have any you want to get rid of, just lemme know ;)

10. I make REALLY REALLY good sushi!


Ummm who to tag? I think Lisa because she's a genuinely interesting person and I'd love to see what she would write!

Derby is as derby does...

So. I've been going to roller derby practice since 04/10/09, so that's been 3 months so far. 3 months of the toughest workouts and hardest tests of strength I've been through, which might sound like an exaggeration but if you knew just how unfit I really am, then you'd know it isn't. I really am a complete wreck. Just the other day I had to tell a girl I can't to "The Plank". Not because I'd hurt my ankle so couldn't put the weight on it, but more because my arms and toes just can't take my weight and I slump down instantly! So that was a tad embarassing. But I'm working on it. Healthier diet, exercising as much as possible, attending practice every week, positive attitude, etc etc.

But I'm struggling to maintain the positive attitude. I always knew it wasn't the easiest of sports to take up, and even just learning how to skate is hard (at least for me it was), but I didn't really plan for the effect it would have on my mindset in general. I'm not the neediest of people, but without a certain level of encouragement, I get disheartened pretty quickly, but in roller derby the attitude seems be "well, cry if you must, but tough shit, get your skates on". It's not like anybody is actually SAYING that to me though. That's just the vibe I'm getting. Like I can't get upset that I can't do something, or that I've hurt myself, or cos I'm jealous of the people that started at the same time as me that are strides ahead. Perhaps I'm just too damned sensitive, but there's not a huge amount I can do about that. I'm trying my hardest, but it'd not exactly easy. I honestly spend 2-3 hours a week feeling like an idiot, because I can't do what I want to do, which is skate well and occassionally communicate with people. I know I'm a quiet person, and I'm even irritating myself with talking about this, but it's honestly like I don't know how to make friends anymore. I watch the people I AM friends with being chatty with everyone else, but when I try it's like the conversation dies. But it's not just derby practice that's happening with. That just seems to be the case everywhere right now. Perhaps people are picking up on the way I feel, and it's making me hard to be mates with (which is perfectly reasonable). But sometimes, seriously, I feel like Michael Scott.

Anyway, you'd be forgiven for thinking after reading this that I was thinking of giving it up. Well I'm not. I seriously love it. It's only because I love it so much that I get so upset by it. If I hated it or wasn't enjoying it, I wouldn't be stressing over it and I'd stop in a heartbeat. But it's become part of my life, the way everyone that's involved says it does, and if for any reason I had to stop going for a while or give it up entirely, I'd be heartbroken! I just want to enjoy it more. I want to do well. I want to get along with people a bit better. I want to spend more time skating and less time wanting to cry. And I don't necessarily want, but wouldn't really mind either, the occassional pat on the back when I manage to go 3 laps without falling over.

Knitted brows

I'm an arty type. I like to experiment with different types of arty and crafty stuff, but find I get down pretty quickly if I don't pick something up as quickly as I'd like. A lot of the girls I know are very crafty and come up with the loveliest things, and I find myself quite envious at times, so I wanted to make more of an effort this year to get better at the things I struggle with.

My friend Susie has kindly offered to teach me how to knit properly! I know how to KNIT, if that makes sense...but that's about it! I'm rubbish at reading charts and counting stitches, so I can knit a mean square, hell I could probably knit a whole scarf or blanket! But a hat to go with them? Not so much. And what the hell is felting? I thought I knew but after checking out Loraines blog I realised I don't have a freakin' clue! THIS is the sort of thing I want to do!!

So I have loads of needles (plastic unfortunately) and wool and I'm gonna see when she has time. I've been seeing some of the stuff friends have been making and it's making me itch to get something going. I hae 2 awesome knitting books so I'll see if she'll take me through some of those patterns to get me going.

There's a LOT of stuff I'm interested in improving on, but for some reason knitting is stuck in my head ATM, so I might as well grab it and run with it. It'll probably be yet another of my flash-in-the-pan interests (again. This isn't the first time I've tried to take it up!) but meh. If it keeps me occupied and gets me spending more time with friends then it can only be a good thing :)

New Look

I also changed my layout. Not keen on the dreadful bevel-and-emboss effect on the drippy black thing, but I'm quite a monochrome mood these days so it'll do for now :)

A long December...

...and there's reason to be believe maybe this year will be better than the last...

I remember thinking of this song in Dec 08 and thinking "Yes, next year HAS to be better". Was it? Well, it wasn't worse, that's for sure. Better is debatable. So these lyrics are in my head again now, in Jan 10, because Dec 09 was truly the longest December of my life, but this time I really do believe that I have reason to be believe that 2010 will be a better year. Again, perhaps this is because I feel it couldn't really get much worse, but also there are new things and new hopes for 2010, so maybe it's for a positive reason after all!

I desperately want to get back into blogging properly, but I didn't feel I could without broaching the subject of the past few months at least a little. As I'm not quite ready to talk about most of it, I wont go into detail right now, but now that I've partially broken the silence I might just update regularly and revisit this post if/when I am ready in the future.

For now, I hope all my readers had a very merry Christmas and a very happy New Year :D


xo