maybe if I listen to "I feel better" I will...

I'm going to try this "going to bed early" thing. Going to read a bit. And then tuck in. I keep staying up late and then having a hard time going to bed. No good.

I had a horrible day when it comes to productivity. I treated myself to some Lush Dream Cream body lotion. I had a left over container of this sample which gave me a discount and I noticed the discount was close to expiring. The cream is great because you need so little of it. But I think I'm preaching to the Lush Choir here.

My stomach kept coming and going. It would feel better and I would start to get a burst of energy and go do something and then it would stop feeling better. And I have a hacking cough. All that phlegm I inhaled is coming back out. UHHHGGG! I sat in my studio trying to be productive but nothing happened. I'm hoping a good rest after a day with a satisfied appetite will give me the energy to face tomorrow's now immense tasks.

Inspiration review, walk cycle for animation, and three little paintings. Erk. I'll do it. I always do it. Don't I? Yeah. I do. Because I'm Trillian. I get things done. Eventually. I just don't do well with being sick, though if you think about it I have a really good health track record these past three years.

For breakfast I fried onion, last nights rice, cheese, and two eggs together! It was so good. I had a burrito for lunch. Then some pasta for dinner. Carbs! Beans! Beef! Protein!

Also it has been furiously raining all day. Legitimate rain.

hula hoops, polish people, and the up and downs of being ill

My health keeps bouncing up and down and I didn't get a good nights sleep, but I have two days of happenings to report so lets get to it.

Thursday

Good night sleep. Woke up feeling good. Went to school and loaned Acey my copy of Blankets and deposited my check into my bank account. It was a horribly muggy day. The kind that looks cold but is actually warm and humid and you just sweat and it never evaporates.

And my bike tire ate my tote bag. It slipped off my arm and got caught and trapped in the tire under the fender. Thankfully I was stopped at a food line and some lovely people came and helped cut my bag out from my tire. No damage to the bike! Hurrah!

Treated Dom to Scott Pilgrim for his birthday. Even matinees are pricey. BT, Lacey, and Karen came as well. It is fun to have a crew to watch movies. I enjoyed it a lot the second time around, as did Lacey. Karen and Dom liked it. BT wasn't too enthused. He just isn't into silly I guess. Dom left to meet his brother and BT and Karen left for whatever they were doing. Lacey and I grabbed pasta. My sickness was coming back so I had to take leftovers.

We parted ways. I spent the rest of the day feeling icky and keeping hydrated and medicated. I forget what else I did. Just tried to eat here and there. Keep healthy.

Guantanamo Baywatch! I put on short pants and a Hawaiian shirt over a bathing suit, stuffed flip flops in my bag, and departed for the east side. I felt a lot better once I was exercising. The Works was pretty vacant looking on the outside. Mel and Jay were there. Morgaine came. Craig and Liv were right behind us when we were getting our tickets ripped. I was still a little frazzled from the bike ride for a bit (and probably being sick). I just drank water and loitered with assorted friends. There was a hula hoop in the beer garden and I played with that. The show started late. The first act was not Guantanamo Baywatch, but was some sort of caveman dressed group. The stage had a stage on it, and the rest of the stage had the sand floor that I worked on, and a giant dinosaur sculpture, and tons of little papier mache artifacts. It was awesome. People were encouraged to get on the stage and dance in front of the stage within a stage as sort of a performance for the people too shy to dance who sat in the audience. Anyway, it was super fun. Surf punk. I danced and danced and danced. Not very good. But I did.

Then it was a break time. I caught my breath outside. Then GB went on, and I grabbed the hula hoops from outside and hula hooped on stage! And other people did as well! WHOO!! I think I hulaed for about half the time, and danced a merry jig the other. I got so sweaty and energy and enthusiasm and just general free spirit and well being poured through me. It was GREAT!

I put the hula hoops back where I found them and chilled. Then hooped some more and got some free fries from one of the food carts! Then I hooped some more and this guy hit on me while I hooped. Finally I bid farewell to my friends and arrived home a tired sweaty mess.

I thought I would pass out but...

Friday

I didn't. I had a rough and restless night sleep followed by a horrible morning of intestinal issues. I took it nice and slow. I love have a five day weekend. I can take the time to recover and spend three days working hard as opposed to working hard for four or five days and having no time to recover while I do the work. I have no more TBA obligations Saturday-Monday. That is solid studio time right there. Booyah!

So I spent the day taking it easy. Ate here and there. And as my appetite grew back, I ate more. For dinner I went to Fred Meyers and got beans, rice, cheese, and tortillas. Cooked up my beef and made 10 burritos. I ate two and froze the other 8. Now I have a good thing to eat in a jiffy! It has dairy and protein and whatever the hell beans count towards in it! Healthy!

I watched Top Gear. Ate food. Rested. Regained health. Feeling good I went to see Radoslaw Rychcik/ Stefan Zeromski Theatre present In The Solitude of Cotton Fields. It was in Polish, but that was okay because the live performance had subtitles. There was a raised strip of screen about 15 feet above the stage (Winningstad Theater, not The Works) and the translation projected onto it. Two guys performed the play. They sort of danced and sort of broke down. They had a band which gave them a score. I couldn't quite keep track because I kept wanting to think it was a concert. It was amazing. Just very solid and dynamic. I only cried a little. I thought the video segment detracted a little, but it did break it up a little.

Yeah. Amazing performance to end the festival with. I wish I could have seen more, but I don't think I had the time for it.

Got back home. Now to try this sleeping thing and here is hoping it goes well this time.

tired but enthused

just spent 30 minutes on my bike after dancing and hula hooping and I'm super tired so I'm going to pass out now because I'm still not fully feeling well, but exercise probably will help gaawd I'm so sweaty.

Guantanamo Baywatch at TBA WAS AWESOME! Just showed up and danced. Didn't feel like drinking because I wasn't feeling well and had to bike home. Just had a good old time!

UHGGG

Bleh. Felt like bleh all damn day and it was a long damn day.

Animation was critique for the first, before lunch, section. Got some good reviews on my can. Some really interesting hopping cans in class. Yup. Got a thing of soup and some bread from Safeway. Ate half and saved the other half for dinner.

Back in class we got lectures on Avant Gard cinema and its relationship to animation. And some Muybridge. And some McLaren. I did my best to stay focused through stomach pains, nausea, and fever. Obviously I would have left if I felt it was that bad. Just enough to stay. But it did get better. Our next 45 drawing assignment is a walk cycle! Whoo! It just keeps getting more complex. But pretty soon it will be not drawn animation. Groovy. Have a lot of illustration stuff to produce over the next five days. Thursday is recovery day though.

Sketches during break. Illustration was a sketch review. The assignment is 3 mock illustrations for New Yorker articles. I'm excited. Paint some. Whoo! Finished my soup. We talked about layouts and idea generation and stuff. Class dragged.

Tomorrow I'm catching a matinée of Scott Pilgrim! Yay! Also my check came for the business card I designed for Ben. Money! Yay!

Sleep time. Last night was very restless.

New Yorker Mock Article Illustration Thumbnails

Colored sketches for mock New Yorker articles.

A sketch for Mrs Warren's Profession, a story about an old piece of traveling cheese (turn your head), and a portrait of Andrew Garfield for The Red Riding Trilogy.

Sketch and photoshop.

drip drip drip blegh

I just took an antihistamine and I think I forgot to get the non drowsy kind so I'll make this quick.

I'm rubbish at getting up when an alarm goes off. But I guess it is good to get my clock running on a certain time. I think as my projects start to pile up, I'll be getting up on a regular basis.

Robin promised to treat me to lunch so at 12:15 I went to drop my haul off at the studio and when lunch rolled around, Robin, Karen, Kristen, Tabitha and I went to Sushi Land. It took a while for a booth to open up and we gobbled down sushi. Mmm. Then we hauled butt back to school. I went to the studio, did some writing, did some analyzing of my 10 pieces, and before I knew it, it was time for class.

For the first half we discussed project ideas. Jon had a rad one about making faux civil war relics with soldiers fighting dinosaurs. Beth had a great idea about the novelty of the naming of groups. Leo was thinking about the pasts idea of the future (aka now). Chase is between lucid dreaming and concept art of this planet. And there were some other cool things. My nose was running like crazy. Bleeeh. All this phlegm is nasty nasty.

Second half was all about pricing, dealing with clients, contracts, and all that jazz. A lot of the stuff is sort of dry but it is good to know some of the terms when it comes to the real deal.

Went back to the studio. Chilled a bit. Got some antihistamine and a sprite to settle my tummy and some lip gloss. Because I wanted to feel pretty. And it was marked down uberly. Forgot to buy shower soap. But just as well because Rite Aid tends to be over priced when it comes to certain things.

Went home. Ate some frozen Trader Joe's food. Drank water. Still felt gross and feverish. Where did this come from? I'm pretty clean and haven't been too cold...

Going to review the articles and then crash. My body isn't up to a late night. Gasp, I'll be in bed before 2am!

OH! Also I got my animation all captured and it looks great. I'm very pleased with it. Once I figure out how to make the files smaller, I'll post them.

left early, that no good

I started getting ill during Gare St. Lazare and had to leave early. I felt bad about doing it, but my stomach wasn't up to the task and I felt really hot. I couldn't stand sitting there any longer and I was missing bits of the performance, which admittedly I wasn't liking so much. An Irish monologue about love and death. Some good turns of phrase in it, but ehh I wasn't up to the task tonight. I should have eaten more. Oatmeal, snacks, and a couple pints. Not a good days eating that is.

Had my oatmeal. Had my shower. Lounged. Went to Trader Joe's. Mango slices were cheaper so I stocked up. Went to school. Finished my animation. Nearly finished my little thesis idea write ups. Dominic stopped through and we went to Yur's for some drinks. Hung out with his friend Mark. Josh and Janessa showed up. Went back to the studio at 6:45ish. Left the studio at 7:45. Went to the play. Yeah.

Tomorrow got some writing and stuff due and gotta scan in my picture. I'll go to school early and all that. I feel crummy now. I had an enchilada from Trader Joe's and that isn't doing so well in my tummy still.

always and forever jerome bel

Saw my third Jerome Bel piece tonight. Saw a performance of his a few TBA's ago and a video as well. Brilliant little choreographer. It's hard to do the "I'm going to stand and look at the audience and be really minimal" thing right. But that wasn't what Cedric Andrieux was about. The piece was named after its sole performer and I was almost front row center for it. Just a little off center and it was an amazing place to be. For 90 minutes we heard the story about the career of Cedric. How he started dancing. Auditions. Joining companies. Joining Merce Cunningham. He gave dance performances as well. Some of his old auditions. The warm ups. I tell you what, I've never been so close to a man in a unitard before. It was amazing and he made near eye contact with everyone in the audience. So talented. So...cutely accented. So so blonde. Tee hee.

But anyway, it was amazing. I was sad the audience wasn't fuller. I think most people just don't know how when Jerome Bel's name shows up in TBA YOU GO SEE IT. Just brilliant. Hearing about 20 years of a life, and how 8 years of hard work can be so minimalized into a chunk. It is interesting that every day is different in someway, but all the work you do in months and years has the potential to not be notable outside of a whole concept of the years...I mean when you have to boil your life down...what gets removed is fascinating.

It was a nice ride to and from the Winningstad Theater. I really love my bike. I feel like I can feel every little grit and piece about it. Like when it goes shuffly for a bit then stops. Like a twig gets caught somewhere and dislodges. It is so much lighter and I can just cruise through town on it. Really lovely.

And I love my studio as well! I just go down to it. Put on something...and the hours melt away. I'm pretty much done with my animation. I want to get it photographed tomorrow so I can see how it moves and if I need to change anything. I also have some writing and more sketching to do. But that is okay because the studio just oozes productive energy. I don't have Gare. St Lazare Players Ireland till 8:30 pm. So that is a good amount of time. I'll bring down some lasagna and headphones because I don't think everyone nearby (see: Joey and Israel), even when it is down, wants to listen to Top Gear. Haha.

Yeah. So I slept in. Ate some oatmeal and salad and snacks. Went to studio. Drew drew drew. Ate some toast. Went to show. Enjoyed it so so much. Relaxed with True Blood (ohkay lame ending, could have been so much more) and Mad Men (odd monologue but good episode).

Now to...sleep I guess. I'll set my alarm because my body needs to temporarily get back on schedule. Having a private sanctuary on 14th&Johnson really makes it easy to be productive. It is my place in a me color and it is mine to make art in. I can't wait to return to it. I need to spend more time there. Even with a computer and wifi, I feel less distracted. And the table is a nice little size.

Things are good. They really are.

This studio, my new apartment, my beloved bike Margaret, and the Time Based Arts Festival are resetting my emotions and it feels so very good.

twice my age, four times as fit

Last night was long and fun. I just came back from a 2.5 mile bike ride across an unfamiliar bridge. I am tired. I just want to tuck into bed, but I'll do my best to write this stuff up.

So we three got primped and waited forever for a streetcar and then when we did get downtown, we ended up one stop after where we should have gotten off. Still, we arrived on time and Mel was there looking fabulous. We reserved a big table and with just four people there, it looked very unused. Robin came, Phil came, Jim came, Dan and Tabitha and Kara came. I think that was about it.... Huber's has very fancy drinks and so people were not enthusiastic in their ordering. I ordered one and a well drink later to pass the time till happy hour. Because that is when 3$ burgers happen! So good. Calamari and all sorts of good things. People plopped cash down and magnificently the remainder was just what I owed. Nice! I stopped spending money for the rest of the night, but we ended up going to a ton of places and I mooched some drinks.

CC Slaughters included dancing. Brian, Tabitha's friend, showed up. I danced and chatted. We moved onto The Tube. Which is a cramped little tube of a club. Way too stuffed full of hipsters. No room to really dance beyond simple moves. I got a lot of fresh air instead. Then we went to Boiler Room or Billiards room...Bsomething Room. That was a lot of fun. Outdoors, heaters, good tunes. Danced till 2:15am. Then we walked home, the ones of us that were still there. Got home at 3am. Drank water. Went to sleep. I was happy to be sober through most of the night. Someone needs to have wits about them.

*****

Kristen made us cinnamon rolls! I had some tea and did the dishes. Mel and Mark came over. Gabbed and chatted. Kristen and Mark left. We four walked downtown. We three walked back up. I packed up my computer back and hauled some art supplies down to the studio. Worked on my animation for a few hours. Half way through the sketching phase. Well I have some stuff to add to it still, but it is going well.

It's nice to be using my studio in a nice and proper fashion. I need some stuff on the walls though. Even with paint it feels barren.

Went back home. Had some lasagna. Got a jacket. Went to see Ten Tiny Dances! Such beautiful work. Sink, A Version, Dayna Hanson, and Clearly Another World were my favorites. The 10 dances are all choreographed around a 4x4x1 stage. Mike Daisey was even there. It was a cute performance. Dayna Hanson's was hilarious and Clearly Another World had me almost crying.

The place for the show was across the river. I went down Stark to Morrison Bridge on the way there, and it was nice. And I went up Grand and across Burnside Bridge on the way back. Also very nice. About 30 minutes both way, but it went really fast. Things don't feel long on a bike.

Tomorrow is time for more work. But it is fun work.