Art

New post on SpendLocally.ca profiling Rachael's art and the two shows she's opening this week!

So about that sick. I said Tuesday that things were pretty bad, but Wednesday they got worse. I ended up at the doctor's again, as it had gotten so bad that I was feeling too lightheaded to really do anything. That was the most scared I've been for my health in as long as I can remember. I got a really good doctor (surprisingly) at the walk in clinic Wednesday evening and he figured that my intestines had become pretty inflamed as a result of the virus I'd had, and that's why I wasn't really digesting anything properly anymore, and also why I had become so tired/weak.

He prescribed me a medication, Lomotil (which is actually kind of interesting, it's a opiate based narcotic...ya crazy), and 3 days of a diet of potatoes, rice, and chicken broth. The medication made a big difference, as soon as it kicked in, my stomach cramps really eased off, and things slowed down. And as a bonus (at least I think I'd call it a bonus), the stuff seemed to make me slightly buzzed. Being someone who's never been fond of any substances (alcohol, pot, etc.) it's been a strange and interesting experience. I imagine it's what pot does for most people (relaxed and a little out-of-it). That was more significant the first couple days, and I seem to have gotten used to it now.

So that definitely improved how my stomach was doing, but my energy is still the pits. I was feeling a bit better yesterday, but today I felt like passing out when I went grocery shopping (only two blocks away) and have been shaky most of the day.

I'm really glad I had the sense (or moreso, the sense talked into me) not to try and go to Portland today. As much as it would have been lovely to see people, and to stay with nice gals who would have taken good care of me, I was definitely not up for traveling. I'm not sure why I felt worse today, but I'm hoping having eaten a bit of protein finally today now that I'm off the mush diet, and a few more calories overall will help, and tomorrow I'll be a little better again.

This might be the worst I've been for an extended time, it's about a month since I picked up the virus initially, and though I had a few days in the middle where I started feeling better, it's been slow as heck recovering from the aftereffects. I'm really thankful to the friends who have helped me out and come by to visit; being stuck at home has gotten pretty old. Oh how I long for my usual icky feelings where I still have enough energy to do fun things like go to work and get groceries. Sigh. (Yes, I am wallowing a bit. Whaccha gonna do about it?)

At least I got some time to work on my blogs yesterday when I was feeling up for it, and hopefully will feel well enough the next few days at least to work from home a bit. It's hard taking real sick days when you actually like your job, especially if you're a project manager, and want to be on top of what's going on all the time.

But as long as I keep slowly getting back to "normal" I'll just be patient and go with it, this was way too scary to push things. It's been a serious reality check of how bad things can get when you have a pre-existing condition that gets exacerbated by a virus attacking the same part of your system (which admittedly was already a bit under stress when I got the bug). I suspect it's going to be a little while before I really feel like myself again, but I am just trying to stay positive and have faith that my body can and will heal as long a I keep giving it what it needs.

And I can't say it enough, how thankful I am for the support I've been given. I am usually incredibly stubborn about my independence, but at this point, I will take all the help and good vibes anyone wants to give me.

And now, after all that seriousness, from the Hot 1" Action show, here's my BUTTONS!!!

(Blue bird w/"ihaveacrushonyou"; His Holiness making devil horns; heart in a toilet, green fox, blue fish, rooster, boy with head cut off, alien/bug by Malcolm; heart collage, alient guy, Johnny Cash, "spread eagle" in a jar, and last but certainly not least crows by Rachael!)

A bunch of things have inspired me and lifted my spirit this past week, so I wanted to share:

An awesome A Softer World ... this one's pretty great too (remember to read the hover text!)

An awesome photo/paste-up by Basco5 (don't look if you're scared of barfing)

An awesome video by Oren Lavie (just watch it, it's amazing)

Ridiculously awesome beatboxing and flute-beatboxing (c/o @adrian_ng)

An awesome photo diptych by Rachael (read the poem she paired with it on her blog for extra awesome)

More random goodness:

1. Seeing The Weakerthans and The Constantines at the Commodore with Greg
2. The rain actually smelling like rain
3. Make It craft fair at the Roundhouse and free comic book day at Elfsar in Yaletown with Rachael and Boris
4. Second (and third?) chances
5. Work being awesome and working with rad people
6. So Delicious coconut ice cream (but why can't I find the yogurt in Canada???)
7. Getting my sewing machine un-jammed
8. Being reminded my friends love me unconditionally
9. Patting the awesome dog at my massage therapist's
10. Being okay at the end of the day

Two shoves forward
one fall
back

When will I be afforded
more
than a moment to heal

Body, mind, spirit
divided

Each step wobbly
each breath short

Each night I lay down
unsure
what strength will tomorrow give

Or take

Determined not to lean too hard
on any strength
offered

Ready to fall
over and over

Reminding myself
I will survive

If only
I can keep a single vow
to myself

I've been meaning to post this for a while, but kept forgetting.  It's from the Scenes from a Movie project that Stephanie organized back in late fall (?).  I only posted it publicly more recently, because originally there was talk of having a show of everyone's photos somewhere, but it's been long enough that I don't think anyone's going to bother organizing that.  If you click through the photo to its page on flickr, I've got links to a couple other people's (if I missed any others that are posted, lemme know and I'll put up the links for those too, I know there were some other great ones but I don't know where they are!).  There's also a link to the original movie poster that I based this on.

How the project worked was a bunch of us got together and picked directors' names from a hat and had 3 weeks to take a photo that represented the director's work.  I got Tarantino, and thought and thought about what to do before settling on this.  Mostly I was stuck on the idea of getting a bunch of guys to dress in suits...  but that seemed a little complicated, and I've been doing self portraits a lot lately, and realized maybe there was a way to combine the two.  The first female character that came to mind was Uma in Pulp Fiction.

I looked through lots of photos of her from the movie, but couldn't figure out how to somehow interpret that into something I could model myself.  That was, until I started looking at the promotional poster for the movie.

All of a sudden it clicked, and I started putting the scene together.  Making it into this pose repeatedly in a matter of seconds was certainly something that made me wish I had a remote for my camera, but I got triggering the timer and hopping into this position just in the nick of time down to an art, and managed to get a good shot.  After that, I photoshopped the heck out of it to mimic the style of the poster and make it look like a pulp novel.

Threw in some customized text, and tada.  Oh, and if you're curious, the list of names are people who I feel gave me their support last year.  A time capsule of sorts.

If you like Portland, be sure to read to the end!

I really like zines [Wikipedia].  And more than that, I really like Shawn Granton's zines.  In fact, I'd say he's probably my favorite zine writer/illustrator--sure I might relate more to some of the more personal zines of authors like Taryn Hipp, or Pagan Kennedy, but Shawn is an awesome, AWESOME illustrator/cartoonist, and writes about lots of cool things like biking, Portland, and living on the west coast.  Not just that, but he is one of the few zine writers whose work I never find self indulgent or narcissistic, which is one of the inevitable pitfalls pouring your heart out in written/illustrated form seems often to lead to.

So, I had picked up a bunch of Shawn's zines last year at Spartacus, but since then, hadn't been able to find any more, and resigned myself to just getting treated to the occasional piece in Momentum. But then I was like, fuck this, I wanna read more awesome zines!  So, I sent Shawn an email, and after a few back and forths and missed connections, he offered to send me a bunch of whatever he had around for ten bucks.

This already sounded like a great deal for me, so I sent it along with a card and an extra little surprise of a handmade felt patch for being so generally rad.  About two weeks later, a parcel arrived in the mail:

It felt heavy.  It felt full.  It felt like a lot more zines than I was expecting... and Shawn surely did not disappoint!  Check this out, he wasn't kidding about packing up one of everything he had around--this included some posters, flyers, stickers, many, many zines ranging back about 8 years, and a copy of the Zinesters Guide to Portland.

It was like Christmas, only handmade...and unlike Christmas, with a little rationing, this will likely last me a good chunk of the year.  I plan to start with the oldest stuff and work my way back to present times.  You seriously can't imagine how overjoyed I was when I opened this package up and saw how much stuff was in it! Thanks Shawn!!!

Now here's where your love of Portland comes in.  I had given Shawn a list of zines I already had so I wouldn't end up with any duplicates, but I didn't realize The Zinesters Guide to Portland was going to be considered part of the collection...and I happen to already own it.  It's a great little guide to all the awesome and cheap things that you can check out in Portland, written by Zine writers and other great people in the community there.  It's sure to help you find some gems next time you head down there, and make you fall in love with Portland even more...

So, here's the deal: I'm gonna give away my extra copy.  If you want it, let's help solve Bill's mystery: comment and tell me why Portland is so awesome.  Whoever comes up with the most satisfying answer will be the winner.  If you don't think that's fair, well tough shit.