comfortably busy

Almost a week behind at this point, I think barring my road trip I've never gotten this behind.

So where do I begin? Oh! I think I'm going to get my own internet because it's much too difficult to troubleshoot when I'm boosting it from Celia's and a reliable connection would be awesome, and then I can move my wifi booster to the garage so that it extends up there for guests!

Work was fine. Did I cover that I double teamed rooms with Ginger? We did it so fast when we worked together! I also did some gardening. Simple weeding. And a deep clean on one room and now it looks so good. The main offender was removing scuff marks. I need to learn how to make spam musubi. It's so good.

The power went out, and I remembered after the fact it was scheduled. The batteries in the big lamp are dead so I got the propane going no problem (barring maybe turning it up a bit too much to start).

I decided to go down to Portland for Bridgetown Comedy Fest. I want to see more comedy this year and the shows seemed fun and there were some people I wanted to see perform (Eliza Skinner mostly) so I thought, why not take a day and go see a few things? And then since Doug Fir was close to Mel, I asked if she wanted to see a thing with me and she said yeah! So I left at 3 and got to a very warm Portland at 6:30. Parked in residential, met up with Mel and off we walked down Burnside to the Doug Fir, which is a venue I've been to before for a Violent Pink show.

The first show of the night was Baked! which was a combo music and standup thing. Steve Agee and Brendan Smalls fronted a band and did some jokes and there was a bassist and piano guy and drummer and they jammed and I left the program I grabbed at Mel's so I can't double check the names. So they played songs and mashed some up and joked and had doughnuts as it was National Doughnut Day and an audience member tried to stuff one in her face on a dare and she couldn't do it.

Eliza Skinner killed it. She was hilarious and she sung a song with the band and it was AWESOME. Sara Schaefer also killed it. Both excellent hilarious ladies. Julian McCollugh wasn't such a great follow up, though it's interesting to see someone not do totally well. But hey, Portland isn't the best city to make moderately racist jokes in. He wasn't booed but he did get the light (the timing light) and I wonder if that made it so Jonah Ray couldn't do a set. He stilled jammed with the band and was an excellent drummer AND singer. But I'd have liked to have seen him do a set (limited time at the show, ya know). Still, it was excellent and I was happy to have Mel there with me. She's an awesome person!

We hugged and I hoofed it down to Yamhill to see the Competitive Erotic Fan Fiction show at Refuge PDX. A bigger space and I met Evan Dumas there (one half of Man's Face Stuff) who had a pass to the show and is such a great guy that he'd be willing to see a very filthy comedy show with me. The eight comedians were divided into two rounds. One half had prepared material, the other half had suggestions and went on later in the show. So they read out loud written fan fictions about different topics. Slaughterhouse Five, DB Cooper, Party of Five, Star Wars...and it was raunchy and gross and hilarious and awful and amazing all at once. Sabrina Jalees won for her Party of Five piece (which was well deserved and I hollered for her the loudest). Star Wars though, by Dan Telfner (Tenfler err I could Google but I'm lazy) was a close second.

The next round had Gus from The Simpsons by Bill Dwyer. Jurassic Park by err... John F D'Onnell. Another guy did Pantera and he'd obviously not heard of the band and had wikipedia'd them and it was a pretty brilliant piece of writing with lots of references to their song titles followed by "like our song?" "yes, like our song". And Moshe Kasher, you know...from NPR, closed it out with an eloquent narrative about Cthulhu that was...yeah. It was pretty gross and visual. He won. Tried to get Madeline to come to the show but she was tired.

From there, Evan and I walked back up to Burnside for the late show at Doug Fir. We had a nice chat and he ended up not watching the show due to being tired. But it's all good. I sat in the front and sketched and had a blast. Zak Toscani was MCing and he had a nice jacket. Matthew Brossaud Brossard Browhatever is MY AGE and recorded a special. He had really nice hair and a few good jokes. Andy Wood informed us that Ali had died. The murmur of us not knowing rippled through the audience. Bill Dwyer had kinda basic marriage material. Wasn't into it. Nick Youssef was hilarious and had a very tight and well paced set. I tweeted the drawings I did of him and he's retweeted him so he's pretty much my favorite right now, haaa. Sabrina Jalees was on this set too and she was great! My alarm went off during her set and thankfully it was timed well. I felt bad though. Totally forgot it was going to go off (it's a daily regular alarm reminder). Brooks Wheelan was drunk but in his defense it was after midnight in a fun city. And while he also got the light, he wasn't a total mess and did get some good jokes out. Dwayne Perkins closed it out with some kinda dated material about Americans not knowing the PM of Canada. Now they've got that dreamboat Trudeau...we know who their PM is. Still funny. A great set to end an amazing day on. I walked back to Mel and Alain's and we chilled for a bit then went to bed (they have a guest bed). In the morning Mel made AMAZING oatmeal with coconut and bits of apple. And her coffee was great.

After breakfast and chatting, I got in my car and headed north. I used the spare change of clothes I've had in my car for emergencies for several years. Always good to have a spare, and the pants fit better now than when I decided they would do in an emergency pinch (they were a bit tight at that point but not something to be thrown out). So in full pants and a black shirt I drove north and melted and got sweaty and gross and hated everything. I swung through Silverdale and ran errands and went home and stripped down and stood in the Hood Canal for a while to cool off. Then I napped and drew and cleaned house and went to bed.

So I think that brings us to today? Yeah Sunday. Baby shower day. I tidied up a bit. Did some laundry. Went up to Port Townsend for Raechel's baby shower. Coworker, ya know! She had the baby very quick. Early by a few days. I got to hold him for a second. The shrimp I gave to the boss were turned into the meal at the shower. A nice sort of ... shrimp thing to put on toast. Mixed with basil and tomatoes. Really good! Got compliments on the quality of the shrimp. Glad I could contribute. Cake was lemon curd and raspberry and was yummy. It was a nice turn out of most of the crew and everyone was nice. I like my coworkers and bosses. They're a good bunch. AND they said I could put stickers on my work bucket, huzzah!

I helped tidy then I went to QFC and managed to remember all the ingredients for the curry I want to make (I left the list at home). Took me a while to find the coconut milk. At home I got that crock potting, and I washed the car because it was getting a bit dusty and bug splatty. And now my curry is smelling pretty good. So I think on that note I'll go have a bit for a late dinner (actually I need to get the rice going) and tomorrow starts another work week. Then a four day weekend that includes a wedding!!! Then more work. Then might go to Seattle to see John.

My life is comfortably busy and I love it.

From Portland into Problems

Well I forgot my charger at my parent's house and the battery I have remaining is not much and I won't get it back till Thursday (I could go see them tomorrow but I can manage without my computer for a day, assuming it dies tonight),

So I'll blog, then internet a bit, then turn my computer off and do tonight's comic.

Scratch that, my computer died and the monitor wouldn't activate on the bootup, so I went back to Seabeck at 10pm, grabbed the charger, and got back here at midnight. I decided to just go to bed at that point. Come morning, yeah it needed to do some fancy restart because of all the hard restarts it has been through. But it did get the monitor connection and it's been running fine.

Well fine considering the monitor no longer works and I'm borrowing a larger one, which is actually kinda fun! Nice having a big screen.

Today (the 20th) I drew comics and got caught up on the Internet.

So, what have y'all missed?

Portland!

Went down to my fair second city of Portland, Oregon. Had a rainy drive down, but all in all it was fine. Rolled in about 2:30ish. I had coffee with Katie down in the Woodstock area. Nice gal that Katie! I had a mug of coffee, black, with sugar and drew a comic while she also sketched and we talked art and music and art supplies. Really nice!

From there I went to meet Trillian for dinner. Other Trillian. I desperately needed a salad because I've been vegetable deprived for a while. We chatted life and death and art and things and noted our similarities. She's so nice! A really swell gal indeed.

Then it was time for me to head to Mississippi Studios to see Rhea Butcher record her album! She's a comedian that I like a whole bunch so yeah! Nice little venue. Room for people but not overly large, and because I was by my lonesome I was able to secure a spot almost center in the second row! I could have spat on Rhea if I wanted to, but I didn't want to. Cameron Esposito opened and introduced and she was great. It was honestly so surreal to be SO CLOSE because their faces are so familiar from television and Instagram and stuff like wow here's these people I admire a whole bunch and they are right there. Goodrich Gevaart opened, but I'm not familiar with him.

There was a "no recording" warning. No photos or audio or anything. Though I always go for the sketchbook loophole. No one bats an eye at the person with a sketchbook. I'm pretty pleased with how some of them came out, though Rhea is REALLY hard to document properly in a way that looks like her. She is very distinct looking. But yeah, great show!

I sat next to a nice person and afterwards, Josie and Jess, two fans who flew in from COLORADO for the taping (!!!) loaned me their phone to google maps Madeline's place. Why did I have to do that? Well my phone, the ZTE I moved over into, suddenly went dead! I clearly had a large enough chunk on my battery remaining right before the show and it just went out of no where BLOOP DEAD. How frustrating!! And after a week of the phone being slow and not responsive enough to my touch the awful battery life was enough to confirm I needed to move back into my Motorola. But yeah, J & J were so nice and I figured out how to get to Madeline's! I did accidentally get on 84 in the wrong direction but I knew how to turn around and get back on track.

Madeline made chocolate chip muffins and they were delicious. We talked for a few hours till it was her bed time (work in the morning ya know). I snoozed and come morning I hugged her goodbye and went to meet Heather and Daniel for my "leaving Portland" brunch time.

Their choice was Cafe Broder and we had a bit of a wait but we were sat at the bar and oh man was it good food! I loved being in direct eye sight of the aebleskiver pans and watching them just ladle the butter in. MMM!! It was a Nordic based restaurant with lots of Swedish and Danish menu items. I had the spiced apple fritters which came with a sausage and fried eggs (made in a square pan so that they were square) and it was easily one of the best meals I've ever had. The waiter was kind and coffee was plentiful (though I only had one cup). We talked family and work things and silly stories and serious stories. Love those two so much.

Then I was off north! Less than 24 hours but I got a lot packed into that time. Easy drive up. One potty break right before the turn to 101. Back early in the day with enough time to chill and then I went over to Celia's where she had made a scrumptious steak with mushrooms and a baked potato and spinach. MMM!!! So much good eating on Monday. I drew my comic and she read out loud from a New Yorker article. I bid good night and then late at night my monitor started flickering and then it went black. Can't really troubleshoot a black monitor and I didn't have the energy to pull it apart so I went to bed.

Went to Seabeck in the afternoon (my computer's monitor was back for some reason, but I had car stuff to do at the garage). So I set my computer to reboot (it needed a hardy scan after so many hard restarts) on the table at home and helped Dad rotate the tires and swap out the spark plugs. I didn't help with the oil change (got up too late to the garage) but yeah! 262k miles and my car is running fine. It was raining and we both got pretty soaked, thankfully I still have some clothes in Seabeck so I changed into pants and a shirt and we had salad and I troubleshooted. My computer went black again when I booted up Chrome (what???) and I plugged it into their monitor. They said I could borrow it till a replacement computer (generously gifted by Nathan, one of his old laptops) arrived! Whoo! So I scooted home and got it all set up only to notice I had left the power cord at home. I thought I'd just use it for a few hours, let it die, and collect the cord Thursday morning. But then the computer turned off and I just got so frustrated that I returned to Seabeck because I had too much stuff to get through (just trouble shooting and getting a chance to mellow) to wait till Thursday night so yeah, drove home and back a second time. Bluh,

But now it's running and it's 2am and I've been 28 for two hours.

Got plans for tomorrow!!

So here's the comics you have missed:

Emily Heller, Brett Hamil, and Elicia Sanchez at the Eclectic Theater in Seattle, WA

Emily Heller, Brett Hamil, and Elicia Sanchez at the Eclectic Theater in Seattle, WA.

5/16/15

Micron and ink wash in moleskin.

hetch ee double hockey stick ee arrrr

Saturday:

I was browsing through my old blog posts and I used to write such long entries all the time, but I was also doing so much day to day. Going to this class, then lunch, then another class, then hanging out and doing this and that, or going to First Thursday and seeing all this art. I've been out of college for four years now! Wow!

So today was a really fun great day! Saturday that is. I got to sleep in a little bit, then I had some scrambled eggs with chopped up bacon and cinnamon toast. Put on my stripey tights, my pineapple dress, my black hoodie, my leather jacket, my black Palladiums (though thinking about it, my orange high top Palladiums could have been a great way to bring the colors of my dress out, hmmm next ensemble!), and did shimmery eyemakeup with brows and no winged eyeliner. Just a nice look for being out on the town and hanging and being recognizable. I like to dress worthy of being illustrated, if I'm going to be fancy. Can only wear a tee and jeans to so many functions.

I was originally going to take the Bremerton ferry, but reviewed the Bainbridge times and that was equally as good. On the way there I swung by a coffee drive through and got a coffee to break a $20, not knowing that the parking lot at Bainbridge Island has gone automated. When did we stop having to shove dollars into a numbered slot in a metal thingy to pay for parking? Do we still have to in some places? I finished my smoothie (raspberry) and got a coffee at the ferry dock and finished the coffee by the end of the ferry crossing and felt right on the verge of having had too much coffee. I did a drawing on the ferry ride over, but the drawing was a birthday card for Chris (into which I included a shark sticker because that is how I roll).

Arrived to a gray Seattle day, but no rain! And I was glad it was a bit chilly because it it was hot while I suffered up the hill to Capitol Hill area, ohhh that would have sucked. I strode up Marion in full awesome force. Peed in the bathroom at Seattle Library because that coffee went through me like a champ. Nice library. And continued up the blocks. My fitness app actually was like "wow you did some good exercise today!"

The venue wasn't open (The Eclectic Theater) so I met Chris at Stumptown and we hung out on a bench in a park and chatted podcasts, coffee, life stuff. Hungry, we went down the street a bit to Pike Street Fish Fry and both got the battered cod and chips. Scrumptious. Can't beat a good fish n chip. Catching up with Chris is always great. No matter how long its been, we are always able to talk. It's a really good friendship to have. Had a couple beers at Saint John's Bar & Eatery, which featured a bulls head that was shaped out of Rainier cans. Nifty. I was never one to know all the different places to hang. I've always relied on other people's suggestions. I guess in Santa Cruz I knew maybe, like, one place? I know theaters. If there's a theater near by, I know it. That is what I seek out.

With still time to kill, we got shmancy cocktails at Cafe Pettirosso. When am I ever having a fancy cocktail? Almost never. Treat yo self!

Then, finally, venue time! I saw Emily Heller inside the venue and made eye contact but was far too shy to say anything at that moment. Still, how cool! And she, like my Wentworth Miller sighting almost a decade ago, looks exactly the same in person.

The venue was small. Seating for 20ish people. A guy was solving a Rubik's Cube and I complimented him on his nice cube choice (solid colors, no sticker). Nice friendly crowd. Brett Hamil opened. Funny guy. I liked his jokes about forgetting you ate beets the night before. Elicia Sanchez was next and was hilaaarious! Great stage presence and jokes and rhythm with the crowd. I don't think I've ever seen stand up like this. I saw an open mic in Santa Cruz, but that was a series of 2 minute sets. Very different. I liked this size because everyone was there to have fun and were supportive. I don't know if I'd enjoy being in an audience where someone antagonized the performer. I'm here to have fun and enjoy myself, and fighting against the person trying to make that happen seems...weird?

Anyway, Emily Heller was aweeesome! I love her Baby Geniuses podcast that she does with Lisa Hanawalt (hence why I lugged myself all the way out to Seattle for this show). How do I review comedy? She had good jokes. Relevant, relateable, well transitioning jokes. I dug her. And I talked to her a little bit after the show and bought a poster and she signed it and she recognized me from this Instagram post I made earlier in the day about boating to see the show, so THAT was cool! I had a nice moment (I felt) of banter with Mr. Hamil. "Where did you come from?" "Brinnon." "Where's that?" "Near Quilcene." "Where's that?" "Near Chimacum." Heh heh heh. Small towns.

Absolutely wonderful note to end on. Chris hooked me up with the proper bus to take downtown (the 12) and I caught the 9:55 back to Bainbridge Island. It's probably been three years since I last saw Chris. We should hang more. I should go to Seattle more. It's not a bad city. It just takes time and effort and timing and money to get there. But parking in Bainbridge ain't bad.

I didn't drive all the way back to Pulali. I stopped in Suquamish and stayed over at Aaron's. Not too far out of the way. Banjo is a sweet cuddly doggy, but is prone to chewing noisily on a bone in the middle of the night.

Sunday:

Aaron and I got brunch at The Oak Table Cafe in Kingston. I had the eggs casey (and our server was named Casey) which is chopped bacon in eggs on a croissant, drizzled with mushroom sauce. But the side of pancakes was overkill, but Aaron is a good guy and helped finish those off. Well sated, I took a nap while watching Anthony Bourdain on Netflix...still at Aaron's. So polite of me to just hang out with someone and spend the time napping. Hahah. Then I read a bit about geology from Aaron's illustrated copy of A Short History of Nearly Everything. Learned stuff about the weirdo English dudes who started that whole geology as thing stuff. Then I returned to Pulali.

Did laundry, got shows queued up, Interneted, watched Mad Men and was like "well, that show is gone now." A very good full fun weekend. I love getting out of the house, and really need to do it more often. I just can't think of things to do besides watching movies (in terms of activities that get me out of the house. I also scanned my sketchbook.