The Plight of A Starving Artist

Jenni: "I noticed you sell alot of great cards here. I actually make cards, my name is Jenni...I'm a local artist...would you like to see a few examp....(cut off)"

Store: "We aren't buying right now."

Jenni: "Understandable, you probably get people like me in here all the time! (awkward laughter)"

Store: (mercy laughter)

Jenni: "When do you usually buy cards for the season?"

Store: "Yeah, email me some shots of your stuff and I'll get back to you."

Jenni: "Sure, I'll absolutely do that, but I actually have my work right here and it's easier to see the layout of... (cut off)"

Store: "(doesn't look) Great! email me your stuff...but I'm going to be out of the state for awhile so I might take a long time to get back with you"

Jenni: "Right..... okay. thank you for your time and I will get that email sent out as soon as I can...would you like a business car....(cut off)"

Store: "No thank you."

Jenni: "Well have a nice day, you have a beautiful store. I come in a lot (I actually do)"

Store: "mmm hm."

*thanks to anne bocci boutique for buying 4 of my cards and selling me the cutest dress ever. And for treating me like a human.

*special thanks to the sales clerk at presents of mind who actually let me finish my sentences and looked at my cards even though she had absolutely no authority to buy them...and for laughing at the ones that I, too, think are funny.

**extra special thanks to mom for being my best client and buyer :)

***extra extra special thanks to Lavenda Memory, Amy Rispler, Staci Janssen, Erin Underwood, Caylan Wagner, Crystal Berry, Rachel Short and Tracy Zaits...whom whether they knew it or not were the muses for all my pregnant lady designs.

****extra extra massively important special thanks to Kenny Kupelian and Beth Winstead for manual labor, moral support, and inspiration behind my drawings of umbrellas, walkmans, unicorns, stickfigures, nintendo controllers, hugs, and wine glasses. You guys are my two favorites and I wouldn't want to watch "Joe Dirt" with anyone else!

oh how i miss things

A Very Good Year

My mother has always made reference to "my good year". This is an inside joke that we both find very funny (so please, PLEASE understand the sarcasm and do not mark my mother insensitive).

I was born, quite literally, one of the most beautiful of all children. As well as the most humble. Corkscrew curls gathered around my head like a halo....wait okay hold on. Afro rather. Yes, a frizzy Afro. But it's was utterly adorable. I looked like one of the girls from the peanut gang...the one who was nice to Charlie Brown and then threw a rock at his head for fun when his back was turned. Did I mention my hugely giant brown eyes? Yeah, I was pretty much the cutest kid ever.

Then...THEN.

Fourth grade, (or maybe even before) somebody (mom...was it you?) started beating me with an ugly stick. What's worse is I wasn't one of those happy, ignorant children that don't know they've gone ugly. I KNEW it. And it was very sad.

I remember my mom trying to help, in vain. My dad and her would encourage me to try new things, like basketball, art, or actually trying to make friends. She'd offer to take me shopping to get a cute shirt only to deal with my bad attitude as she drug me through Mervyns. She bought me tame, little girl make up (think bonnie bell) and I would break into dramatics saying "nothing can help me! besides, make up is for shallow people!"...and then I threw my Easter basket against the wall and ran away for a good 5 years until I was picked up by a nice family named the
Plonkers. They raised me in the woods aided by 2 fairies until I turned about 13....it was only then that I returned to society...

Wait, no. No that's not all what happened. Let me gather my thoughts...

I did throw my Easter basket, but I think I just ran in my room.

Anyway, long story short I didn't actually start to sprout out of that awkward girl stage until about 8th grade. I shot up, therefore losing all that baby fat....my hair de-frizzed, I got my braces off....I gained a waist and some other womanly attributes and boom....bring high school on baby. I am SO ready.

Until junior year hit that is. Suddenly I had acne, and coarse defiant hair....weight gain, no confidence...retainer lost resulting in crooked teeth.......

And as I shaved my head, covered myself in ashes and wailed to the heavens, I wondered,

"Will this cycle of on again off again uglyness ever end?"

Today as I return from Target with a bag full of skin cleansers and tooth whiteners I can honestly tell you...it will not. We each have our good year, and then become average like everyone else. Unless you are Heidi Klum of course. And I suppose I'm getting to the point of realizing that there is so much more to life and I really need to work on just being okay with that much loved ugly stick.

What was my good year? I cannot say for sure. As mentioned before I was an adorable child. However I believe my actual good year was 23. I mean it had to have been. I punched that age in so many times on the treadmill (which is probably why that year turned out alright...exercize made a short stint into my daily routine) that I actually still think I'm 23.

So let's go with 23....or 3. I'm fine with either.
____________________________________________________________________

Me : "blah blah blah complain complain...sigh....."

Mom: "still waitin for your good year?"

Me: "Yep."

(laughter)

_____________________________________________________________________

Final pretentious deep thought of the evening:

Maybe ugly isn't actually ugly. And maybe a good year is what you make it.

well us women....

Wells us women always want to visit far off places. Be it Africa, Europe....or just a field where you could lounge in nature making daisy crowns for your friends, we all crave some great beautiful unknown.

I believe it was Belle, from Beauty and the Beast who first said, "I want adventure in the great white....somewhere, I want it more than I can tell. And for once it might be grand. To have someone....understand. I want so much more than they've got planned."

(and then some twirling, and the peasants burst forth in song...but you get the idea)

Now, there are times when I'm content with a top raman adventure. In fact, not moments ago I took a trip such as this. In my car, I went down to the plaid pantry at the late hour of 11pm (quite out of my typical schedule I might add) to purchase such a fine noodle cuisine.

And I later sat in bed thinking....
"Has it come to this? That's it? That's what I'm proud of in regards to "epic" travels for the week?"

You see, I am at war with the rat race. I hate it. And my hatred for it only enables it's control over my life ending in a guaranteed dominance over me.

What about the "great white...somewhere!" ?

I will be the first to admit that a person unable to be at peace and content in the present is forever an unhappy human. Always in want. Always gnashing away at life. Always clenched at the fist. I would not recommend this outlook on earthly existence. Trust me, I speak from experience.

However, there must be a happy medium between, ingratitude and complacency. I think my next journey is to find this unknown balance, and linger there awhile.

More to come.....

Hypothetical Sigur Ros Situation (Metaphorically Speaking)

If you ever find yourself in the midst of a crying fit (not that it would ever happen to me) for no apparent reason on the freeway (hypothetically of course) and your mascara is running down your face (for you shallow gals who wear make up) while on your way to a wedding in which you produced a plethora of wilted bridal bouquets (something I'd never let happen) in 92 degree heat which so happens to be messing your perfectly straightened hair into a humidity curl nightmare (I of course can't relate) then....you should know (just in case) that Sigur Ros is a wonderful band to aid in calming you down, thus keeping you from entering social functions like a crazed emotional voodoo woman (again, metaphorically speaking).

Consider yourself informed. Thank you very much.

For Jello Club

when the Jello craze first began...back in 1880 or 1989 or something...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XX1H9Lq0438

At LAST!!!

After much toil, blood, sweat, tears, financial ruin, techinical difficulty, back pain, car accidents, break ups, baby spit up, failure, paper cuts and painters block...I give you.....

JARFLY BOX SET ALL OCCASION CARDS

asking price: 1200.00

(yeah, I wish)

I grow tired of the game....

" We are satisfied by our decent little life. We are pleased with our good habits; we take them for virtues. We are pleased with our little efforts; we take them for progress. We are proud of our activities; they make us think we are giving our-selves. We are impressed by our influence; we imagine that it will transform lives. We are proud of what we give, though it hides what we withhold. We may even be mistaking a set of coinciding egotisms for a real friendship"

- Michel Quoist

I-POD Death Match Round 1- in honor of Emily Moyer

Fight starts an 8pm, Saturday September 5th, 2009. Pacific Standard Time

Reigning Heavy Weight Champion

Jolly "Green Machine" Giant Defends His Title

name dropping and so forth

As requested. (sigh) Kenny is rad. Bethany Winstead has AMAZING hair and always smells wonderful.

Are you now, both satisfied? The 2 (maybe 3) people who read my blog are now fully aware of your existence.

:)

Running from Technology (and the robots and the androids...and and and)

dedicated to Bethany Winstead, David Walker and Kenneth Kupelian

I do not exaggerate when I say that my laptop can be directly linked to the amount of time I spend laying in bed. This is a phenomena I have only recently experienced as I have been much behind the times. Let me take a moment to explain my apathetic relationship with technology.

It all began at the age of 8 when our family purchased our very first Nintendo. If you remember correctly...the controllers on the Nintendo were pretty basic. They consisted of two red buttons, and a little cross looking...thingy.

Anyway, my brothers and I would plug away at "Chip n Dale Rescue Rangers" for hours on that thing. Most of the time, my brother David would purposefully kill me in the middle of whatever level we were in. Correct if me if I am wrong...but Chip and Dale were not enemies, but rather brothers with a common cause. So why did he keep throwing me off cliffs? Weren't we working together to defeat "fat cat"?

All that to say, if David didn't do me in, the Nintendo would simply freeze up. This lead to endless hours of blow drying the dust out of the bottom...and pointing the gun ridiculously close to the screen to shoot any one bird down in "Duck Hunt". I had finally had enough and my little heart was forever frozen to any video game, or electronic device. Forever would I harden myself so that I could be no further troubled by the pain of technology.

So it's no wonder when I was 23 I had no cell phone. What would I possibly do with a cell phone anyway? I much liked my nomadic, secluded lifestyle. I could not think of any reason to allow anyone and everyone to get ahold of me whenever they wanted to. I had to keep my hermit ways somehow right? So next to my bed, on an old nightstand I kept the most rustic of things...(dadada, dramatic horrifying music)

A LANDLINE TELEPHONE

On this landline phone I kept a voicemail. I had no caller id, no fancy nothing. It was a shot in the dark...and dangerous decline into the old ways. I had no idea who was calling me, and better yet they had no idea if I was home or what I was doing. Joyous, mystical, and terrible was this landline phone. And my heart grew to love it.

I remember the adrenaline rush of parking my car in front of the house and rushing up the stairs to check my voicemail at the end of a long work day. The possibilities were endless! Maybe that boy called, maybe I got a telemarketer...who knew? Nobody! Wonderful wonderful and wonderful again. I soon memorized all of my friends phone numbers due to being without a "contact list"...I was like the "Rain Man" of our group...randomly spouting off numeric orders for the entertainment of all.

However, this sweet time could not last. Because with a job comes responsibilities. With friends come social opportunity and I soon realized that I had to get a blasted cell phone or forever be behind the rest of the world. And so I did...and the rat race that descended upon my life with that simple purchase will forever be regretted. Let's not even get into text messaging.

So, I'd avoided video games, almost held out for the cell phone...what piece of robotics was still out to get me? Well, I'd already had one ipod go kaput on me and had two others stolen. So it would have to...ah yes. The computer...or better yet, laptop.

I had successfully avoided these strange creatures, for many years in fact. After all, what was so bad about checking email, shopping and balancing your check book at the local library? That's what I had always done. I felt a little warmer inside, walking to the library to share a computer with the community...maybe even a little green, if you will (will you?).

However, upon the start up of a artwork website, college plans and other ridiculous endeavors... (like Facebook) I soon realized I needed to buy a laptop. It was time to jump in the pit with everyone else. I mean, how bad could it really be? It's not like the computer I buy will break down within 16 days and I would lose hundreds of dollars because of a bum return policy at Best Buy!! Right?

Yeah that's what happened.
And so, for 6 months I regrouped and made a plan of attack.

As Karma would have it, I would even go onto date a hacker...which is so ironic it's laughable. Also, I've become a bit more 2009 savvy. I was given an ipod that weighs about 5 pounds. I don't mind, It may be old but at least I can drop it and it will keep playing all those ace of base songs I have downloaded on my work out mix. I own a cell phone that has only one crack on it, and is holding fast throughout my clumsy lifestyle. It is not an iphone. I prefer to dial on buttons, not air...Beth. And in the end I did purchase a laptop with the help of that good ol' hacker buddy of mine and it seems to be stable so far.

Except for that now, I stay up way too late fiddling around with another source of great technological power...THE INTERNET. Which is what I am doing right now...on this damn blog.

Sigh.....

My next purchase will be a pager and disc man. The pager is so you can get ahold of me where ever I am. The disc man is so I WONT hear it vibrating.