Neighbors

Folks I gotta say this quite frankly...

People can be DICKS. Holy Goodness. So I got two stories about my neighbors one ends happily, the other not so much.

The hub and I take our Pup, Gala, for walks most evenings. We like to traipse around the neighborhood and take many different routes and see different things around us.

Well Evan and I both have separately taken the same route and had the same thing happen. There is this guard dog (I'm thinking it was Cerebus...you know the guard dog of HELL) and it likes to throw it's entire 80 lb body weight against the bottom of this gate/door thing. And it was only clasped in the middle...so this quite frankly, RABID looking dog was almost getting out and would try to kill us through the door every time we went past.

Well Evan decided he was going to talk to the guy about it. He apparently had a very frustrating 20 minute talk with the guy about how dangerous it was and if the dog got out how deadly it would be. The guy brushed him off and told him nothing would happen. Evan's parting words? "Yeah we'll find out won't we?"

Well we went on a walk a week after that and went past the house and what did we find besides the hell beast? I length of chain holding the bottom of the door together held by a padlock. A 5 dollar fix that probably prevented some mauling in the future.

Yay, win for us!

Now the losing story.

We have this 20 ft Mexican palm tree in the back corner of out house. I never liked the thing because it's ruining the back wall, the roots are pushing it up. Well a while back our neighbors behind us saw Evan on the roof and talked to him about the leaves from the palm falling into their pool. They said they would go in for halfsies for trimming or whatever and Evan said to come over and we would talk more about it. They never did so we forgot about it.

Well, Friday I got home from work and went to look outside and I was greeted by a 5 ft tall x 5 ft wide pile of palm tree leaves that were thrown over our wall. Umm...I don't think they are allowed to do that in the first place and what dicks they are for being so passive aggressive about it. They never talked to us and it looks like they saved a bunch of them just to make a point. We got the HINT. I called a guy to give us an estimate and he came out and we said we would talk to the neighbors about getting half. The tree guy called me on Saturday and said he's knock a hundred bucks off if we did it Monday morning. So we are just doing it.

Thanks dickwads.

ERG.

Borders

Hey look a bum! :D Just practicing my life drawing. This woman appears a lot in my book and I love her curves.

Well, I am super sad that Borders Books has declared bankruptcy and is closing 200 stores across the states by April. There are two on the chopping block that are near and dear to my heart so I am a bit crushed at the prospect of losing them.

The first is right near where I currently live. UGH. I liked having a bookstore so close but my area is just dying economy-wise. There's like 4 areas on this stretch of road near here that just have abandoned buildings and this Borders is going to make another one.

The second is back home in MI. My Ann Arbor Borders is closing. That is the one I grew up in essentially and it makes me sad. It's also on the corner of this strip mall thing and I have no idea what they would put in such a huge location.

So nerdy book reader platypus is sad.

In other news...we went and saw Bodyworlds at the Science Center. I had seen it before in Chicago on a vacation and gotten ill. It's PEOPLE, folks. PEOPLE NOT FAKE PLASTIC, PEOPLE.

Anyway I took Evan on Friday and he really enjoyed it and I didn't get sick. We examined the body and all these things and it was really educational and enjoyable. Evan really liked it and that was the important thing, I knew he wanted to see it so I made it happen. Cause I LOVE him. <3

Mirror World Preview Page 2!

Mirror World Saga Preview Pg.2 by ~SyntheticPlatypus on deviantART

Mirror World Saga Page 2 Preview!

Since I am almost done with page 3 I thought I would get page Preview up.

I'm trying to drum up interest once Miss Connie starts posting again!
MirrorWorld!

Read and catch up with the story so far!

Disasters and Other Good Things

Random sketch from breaking in them markers!

Alright so a few things. If you live anywhere near Scottsdale please go to SMOCA (Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art) and go to the "Wishes" exhibit. It is amazing. The walls have all these holes poked into them and in the holes are ribbons. On the ribbons are someone's wish printed on it. You take a ribbon and you can leave your own wish on a rolled piece of paper there. The ribbon has to be tied around your wrist and knotted three times and you wear it until it falls apart and it should come true for you (if it's your wish or if you're wearing it for someone else). I am currently wearing two ribbons.

"I wish to be recognized as a great artist" and "I wish to be skinny" both are knotted three times and on my left wrist together. Hopefully this will help!

Next I went to Ignite Phoenix last night. It was AMAZING. I loved it. My friend Shauna Stacy did a fantastic job with her speech about Shaun of the Dead. There should be videos posted soon, you should go check them out...especially the 10 year old who did the speech on 3D printers, this kid was epically AWESOME.

This did make me get inspired and I'm thinking of trying out for the next Ignite Phoenix in May. I have a topic in my head and just need to outline it. Maybe...maybe not. We'll see.

Page 3 of Mirror World is almost finished. The inks are done and I am in the middle of coloring. All that is left after that is shading and I'll be adding just a few textures to the mix on this page. It's especially exciting because on this page is our first look into the Villains! OOoooOOoooh. The next 2 pages are in Alice's apartment and I am really super excited about that and can't wait to use some airier colors!

My disaster of an extra bedroom and the closet has been completely tackled. It's done and I'm done and I am so happy. The office furniture has been moved around in the other room and I am actually working in it again and getting things done. It is much more conducive to creativity now.

I lost my phone the other night at the park. It was night and I lost it sometime on a walk I was doing with my Geek Girls. So it was gone gone gone. And I was sad. I started looking at new phones and changed passwords to a bunch of things cause I was logged in to a bunch of stuff and that was all I needed was for someone to start mucking about with things.

BUT

a very nice gentleman named Brandon and his dog found my phone and called my mom. He called Evan and he went and picked up my phone. Brandon didn't even take any money as a thank you. I called him and told him I appreciated his honesty in giving it back. He has restored my faith in humanity a little bit. I'm glad my phone is safe and back with me!

Self-Portrait and Avatar and User Pic

Synthetic Platypus by ~SyntheticPlatypus on deviantART

Not on the art list but I needed to create a user ID for several functions so I knocked one out finally.

So here is me, Synthetic Platypus in all my glory.

I wanted something simple but fun and poppy. This is the current style that I am using for the comic I am working on [link] (my stuff is not showing yet, but read it anyway!)

I am a big fan of wearing scarves so I thought I would incorporate the platypus into it for my pop of color. The platypi are nicked from my business cards sans the polka dots, I wanted it a bit more simple.

Now here is the issue. I desperately want this scarf to exist in real life!

Belongings

I wanted to title this blog post "Stuff" but opted for a better vocab word.

Why do we all own so many things?

Seriously, what is our need for all the many different things we have?

Hobbies? Interests? Results of boredom? Things we need to live such as cooking supplies and somewhere to sit in our living room?

Why do we need all of this?

I've been on a journey to get rid of many of my belongings. I read minimalism blogs and drool over bedrooms that have a simple mattress on the floor and one armoir for clothing. I long for clean lines and simplicity.

and yet...

there are things that I really just can't bring myself to get rid of. Things that have absolutely no purpose in my life but are there for the "just-in-case" and the "guilty" and these things are currently driving me up the WALL. I can't stand that I can't get rid of them and I just keep hanging on.

I have a bin. It is full of toys, dress-up clothes (that my grandmother made me), yearbooks, and misc. that I cannot bear to part with. My excuse is it is for my future children. But what if I have a boy? There is nothing in there but my Mr. Potato Head that would be of any interest to a boy.

What about my smaller bin of baby clothing that was mine? This was recently bestowed upon me by my mother. A box full of frou frou dresses with lace and long sleeves and velour onesies. I will never ever dress my child in these but I'm keeping them. Why? I don't know. The fabric is pretty...maybe I'll get a quilt made from them all. When? 20 years from now? Next week? I don't know and yet I'm keeping them all.

I have a bin of my sewing stuff (corralled from 2 bins and the floor) but I like to sew so I'll keep that, it's useful.

What of the giant mirror box in the back of the closet filled with old giant art? That I never look at? There's pictures that are framed that I'm not hanging up in the house and there is big watercolor paper that I will eventually paint on. So just a bit of paper could be saved and the whole box could be gone, but I can't.

This is currently frustrating me beyond belief. I've been cleaning and organizing the extra bedroom and walk-in closet and keep getting stuck. I'd like this space to be completely empty...we don't use it so why store things in it? We should live comfortably in the spaces we do use and not just put random things in this room. It's been a catchall since we moved in and a blight in my wanna-be-clutter-free soul.

This is also not being helped by my parents. My dad gave me part of a coin collection and my set of the license plates he has collected. I love the plates but what do I do with them? They are in the garage right now...I had an idea to hang them in there but I was looking at my garage and enjoy the bare walls we do have. The coins are already packed up to be sold somehow and eventually (they are worth the change that is encased in the plastic. I've checked.)

Then my mom just sent me a box of random stuff. Colored dividers, articles, a file bin and a noise machine. 20 dollars this cost her to send. I perused the articles and am going to truly read two of them (out of 20) I have no need for a file bin (we have file cabinets) and have no use for the dividers. The noise machine is a particular annoyance because she knew that I couldn't sleep with these...in fact I just got off the phone with her (literally) and asked if the noise machine was for Derek and his family and she said no it was for me and Evan and I reminded her that I can't sleep with those. She told me to save it! But then dad said to send it back in a box I need to send them. BINGO. Precisely what I'm going to do.

I feel thwarted right now though. Maybe I'm burned out on cleaning but I just feel like there is no winning against our consumerism and need for stuff. Le sigh.

Now off topic:



Random sketch from sketchbook. A party girl this is from a bit ago but I had gotten new markers and wanted to have some fun.