This journal is now largely public. About half of my posts are about Asian Ball-Jointed Dolls (ABJDs), and the other half are about random things like books, art, and knitting. All BJD posts are filtered - comment if you would like to be added to the filter. Comments to this entry are screened.

Thank you!

Interviews approach, which means I have to start extruding my hypersensitive, mollusk-like innards out from my cozy calcareous shell of ambient fantasy and general hermetic tendencies, in order to present myself as a Confident, Intelligent Individual with Specific (but not too specific) Interests.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh (squelch squelch squelch).

But damn the wibbles! Full steam ahead! Carpe fishem!

aaaagh.

It is a sad time when brushing your teeth becomes the highlight of your night because hey, it feels kinda good, and it's not reading a paper about models of capillary flow or new production. Why do I always get these delusions of grandeur during which I convince myself, "oh, yeah, yeah, I LOVE biogeochemistry! and models! give me more models!" And normally the models wouldn't be so bad, because I like reading the conceptual parts fine, except that now I actually have to understand the math to a certain extent. [profanity]! (I am learning Matlab, though, and that's kinda cool.)

I had this enormously clever scheme tonight that involved me rewarding myself with samosas (oh god samosas, why are you so delicious) and dark chocolate if I just Finished Reading This Paper Without Distractions. And it worked! Except I still have more to read, and I could have stood to be in bed, oh, three hours ago. Someone buy me a new metabolism.

I just want to read. And write. Friday is supposed to be my day for writing writing writing but even as it draws slightly more nigh, it's looking increasingly distant, and fogged by Other Things I Should Be Doing. Stop shaking your fingers at me, things.

We had some extraordinarily violent windstorms the other day, so much so that my awning at home was knocked down, knocking down in turn the birds' nest that was built there this spring.


I wasn't entirely certain who had built the nest on my awning this year, since it's a pretty popular property, and has in past seasons also been staked out by a mockingbird couple. But this one proved to be the Carolina wrens'. I was working at my desk, heard some unusually loud chirping, and looked up to see the male wren clinging to the windowscreen and making a "MY GOD WHAT'S HAPPENED; HOW COULD YOU DO THIS, WORLD" kind of commotion; he flew away when I started to get up, then flew down to the deck, where he and his mate proceeded to exclaim loudly over the fallen nest.

It's too bad as it had been built in such a sheltered location, but I assume they'll get through the winter safely, if less comfortably, regardless.

( + close-up )

Sometimes. Occasionally. :P


heck yes more birdfaces. Finally catching up on overdue art - this was for an ACEO trade with Renee Nault. I'm getting something cute and foxy from her. (Involving an actual fox, I mean.)

The goal was to make it as weirdly twee as possible, and I think I succeeded. Stuff learned: painting multiple layers of white to cover up mistakes can end up making really nice tinted/faintly glowy white. Useful.

( journal sketches and other bits (some nudity) )

PARTY CAT
Adorable, and then weird.

• Completely destroying your sleep schedule for the 50th time: -50
• Living on rice cakes, chocolate, and bananas for a week: -20
• Accidentally scattering rice cake crumbs into knitting drawer: -5
• Only results, two mediocre papers and a body that thinks sleeping more than 3 hours a night at any time earlier than 5 AM is weird: -75
• Celebratory Thai dinner afterwards: +15
• Marathoning 30 Rock and Flight of the Conchords while painting faux stained-glass windows based on children's books: +60
• Doing so under a twelve-hour deadline that ends up with you blowdrying said windows because they're not going to dry in time to be transported: -15
• Crying during Dexter finale and agreeing with stuffu that the fourth season was inarguably the best season so far: +60 (incur -10 penalty for twist-related trauma)
• Grad school interview offers: +100
• Energy involved in getting yourself excited about grad school again (boo hoo, I know): -20

Conclusion: sigh.

Stress eating, what can I say.

Random autumn-winter bits from here and there...


The marshmallows at fault were the last of this surprise care package that stuffu sent me from whimsy & spice when I was in the midst of freaking out over grad school everything. mog. Everything was smaller than expected (but then, I've probably spent too much time fantasizing about the stuff in their shop), but sooo beautifully presented, and all the flavors were so delicate and... thoughtful, for lack of a better descriptor.

( Read more... )

Except not. At all! Amidst my, stuffu's, and axoloti's absurd escapist fantasies about opening a bookstore-cum-dollshop-cum-café-cum-boutique-cum-everythingelsewe'reobssedwiththat'snotacademic, some thoughts gleaned from skimming Etsy's Quit Your Day Job interviews, on commonalities among Etsians actually successful in making their hobbies into full-time business ventures.

1. They work a hell of a lot. Like waking up at 7 AM and going to bed at 2 AM a lot.
corollary 1: this work is also extremely solitary, minus contact with significant others and postal service workers.
corollary 2: said work is also sufficiently time-consuming to require help from others (parents, significant others) at times of high demand (holidays).

( Read more... )

Also, a completely unrelated recommendation: when you momentarily have a brainfart and can't remember whether or not to hyphenate phrases combined using "cum," do not, in a further moment of sheer absent-minded insanity, type the preposition in question into Google without any other search terms. That is all.

I wasn't lying when I said I knit a lot of gloves this year...


Gretel Fingerless Gloves - available

( And a panda hat snuck in there somewhere, too. )

Aure faces the great unknown.

( A year in review, + resolutions )

Happy New Year! Bonne année!

( I want all of these, even/especially the ones that are sold. )

And now... I am going to open Google Scholar. And read about bees. yep. I am going to.

( +4 )

Knitting. Homework. Considering term paper proposals. I haven't finished a book for weeks, though I've been drifting in the middles or almost-ends of Virginia Woolf's Orlando, Konrad Lorenz's King Solomon's Ring, Tanith Lee's The Book of the Dead (re-read, partly because I lost my first review of it), and Robert Stone's Bear and His Daughter for weeks, if not months. Arrrrrrgh I just want to finish something. (of course complaining about it will help!)

I also owe someone on devart an ACEO trade (not to mention some incredibly overdue art for stereophilic and silencestation), and I have some new Microns in sepia that I'm dying to break in... but tonight I must read papers about bee decision-making and immunology. :B Beeees.

1. Cousins + family
2. Cousins + family + food (+ more food + more food)
3. Going to parks with cousins (and playing Monopoly, and watching Ninja Assassin...)


We've had a mild autumn, but I was still impressed by the resilience of these roses. Also, beautiful little green beetle.

( +4 )

Also, a meme from scylladakylla:

• Leave me a comment with the name of your favorite song.
• I'll respond by asking you five questions so I can get to know you better.
• Update your journal with the answers to the questions.
• Include this explanation in the post and offer to ask other people questions.

1. If you could only wear one scent for the rest of your life, which would you choose?
I'd say Selkie, for the olfactory love + sentimental (...pun narrowly averted) value, but on the basis of sheer wearability, it'd have to be Black Opal. (also, scylladakylla, I demand your answer, too.)

2. If you were to be an animal (real, fictional, extinct), which would you be and why?
When I was about 8 years old, I had this complicated and extended fantasy about being a silver cheetah. lol. Ummm... I don't know, I must say I'm pretty fond of being a human, but I must also say that bacteria are so freaking cool that I wouldn't mind being one, assuming I could somehow maintain enough consciousness to appreciate my awesomeness. If we're going to go for fictional, being a cryptid and scaring the crap out of people seems like it would be fun. Is Mothman an eligible target for reincarnation?

3. If you suddenly got really rich, what's the first thing you would do?
Invest it? boring answer, next.

4. I've already used this one, but it's a fun question, so: If you could slap anyone in the face really hard with no consequences, who would it be?
Uhhhh. At the moment, either my roommates' more reprehensible exes, or people who don't flush the toilet.

5. A nuclear holocaust kills every human in the world except you and a male. WHO WOULD YOU REPOPULATE THE EARTH WITH.
SOMEONE WITH NO DELETERIOUS ALLELES. Or an obstetrician?

It's unseasonably warm, I'm almost done with grad school applications, and I just want to sewwwww. (or should it be seeeew?) My new scarf makes me want to get my hands on a heap of vintage doilies and ribbon and trim and buttons and make tons of drapey, tattered, layered scarves.

*fidget!*

For a while now on Etsy (actually they're the first thing I started selling) I've been selling various receptacles filled with the thousands of stars that I folded in high school. (For the many of you who undoubtedly also folded thousands of stars at one point in your lives or another... yeah, you'd be surprised what people will buy when 1. you photograph it well and 2. they don't have the time to learn how to make it themselves. this is practically the Ultimate Truth of Etsy.) This is the last of the ornaments that I bought last year to fill up with stars; someone requested an ornament with more festive, holiday colors. in my usual fashion I put in all the icy colors first... this is what it looked like when all filled up.

( plus some random photos from this autumn )

One of our lab members is having a dinner party tonight. He and his wife are Indian, so I am soooooo stoked for the food. mmmarrrrrgh I'm already hungry.

Don't these look 1. interesting and 2. nommable? I spotted them growing at the base of an oak tree on campus last year (yep, once again I'm epically slow in editing photos). They're chanterelles, which are in fact edible, but I didn't learn that till after the fact. Oh well.

( a few more, plus randomness )

and all the fairy ladies dig her. :B

Crossing my fingers that I'll have the chance to recolor her sometime because lol wtf. Doing some stuff again for the children's library, whee.