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WELL. I suppose it's probably a good thing that I didn't realize DreamWidth doesn't save post drafts. I started a post a few days ago about living without Oliver, but it's, like... I don't even know what to say about it. I think I was getting somewhere... about how I feel his absence in every door I realize I don't have to close, or every wrapper I find myself hiding, but it's not in any tangible way. I keep touching the fur I took home and his little bow tie, trying to conjure some memory of what it felt to share my life with him, but I can't, and that kind of scares me. Like, at what point do I become completely hollow?

BUT. All of that disappeared when I closed the window, and I can't even seem to bring those feelings back either, so I guess onwards we go, to the land of bullet points, because that's apparently all I can manage.

  1. I am newly obsessed with Woo Dohwan. Did we see it coming? Absolutely not. Should we have? Y-yeah. Probably. He is beautiful. He is weird. He is soft. He has a freckle on his nose. He cries really beautifully and makes the most wonderful sad little noises. I just. I am not used to being this feral. I want to eat him up and lick the crumbs off my fingers. Ahh.

  2. I can't stop watching K-Dramas (see above). My favorite so far is My Country: The New Age, which has major Chengxian vibes, but, like, elevated and deepened and fulfilled. These two fuckers carved me out, and I'll never be the same emotionally. I also really enjoyed Mad Dog despite the copious amount of corny dog puns and really bad German. It's a great story of trauma and found family, and I think the character development was well-paced. Who knew life insurance was so exciting!

  3. I'm taking a writing class, and our first assignment was to write a list story. I tried to explore a relationship from meet-cute to divorce through a list of the things they might have named their children. I really like the idea of a list story, but I think I ultimately failed in execution, which is such a bummer. I got too distracted, adding details and trying to develop characters for the main couple, that I lost the original structure of the list. So I'm kind of disappointed in myself, and it's really hard to share it with the class knowing I didn't do a good job. But I did it anyway. Because I'm a brave little toaster.

  4. I accidentally deleted my Tumblr account as I was trying to cull old side accounts and unfollow people from college, which ironically created the opposite problem on the new account I had to create. Now I'm only following one person, because I don't remember anyone's username, and I feel like it's sooo weird if I use Tumblr to talk about or share anything, because it's like I'm sending it directly to them... Which. The whole point of posting art/writing/whatever on social media is because I'm too chickenshit to share it directly with friends! Like, yes I will get sad when my friends don't see what I post, but to ask for feedback in an emotionally-mature and direct way? What? I could never!

On that note!

I'm away.

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When I look back at the event I pulled off last weekend, it's really hard to believe. When I was reaching out to various agencies in November, I was intending to plan for 2024. I certainly didn't expect one agency to respond that the author they represent was already going to be in our state in February, and she was open to tacking an extra day onto her visit to speak at our public garden!!

Our institution really isn't set up for hosting big speakers, so I practically built the process from scratch in less than four months. From convincing the CEO/President, to communicating with agents, to coordinating a room reservation, to working with Marketing on publicity, to finding a sponsor, to testing the AV, to planning a pre-talk luncheon for community leaders, to coordinating scholarship tickets, to working with Retail to get copies of the book, to writing an professional introduction, to coordinating transportation, to assisting the author when she arrived, to making a recording for staff, to invoicing, etc. etc. etc... I don't want to say I did it all, because no one at a non-profit works in a vacuum. (But I kind of did it all.)

In the end, we had 130 people in the room to hear Carolyn Finney, author of Black Faces, White Spaces: Reimagining the Relationship of African Americans to the Great Outdoors. And many of them were first-time attendees of a class/program at our institution!

I'm really proud of myself! I'm also really tired. It's been three days, and I still feel like I haven't fully recovered. On the one hand, it makes perfect sense. You don't run (at times literally) on a single granola bar for an entire day and then feel great the morning after... But I wish I felt energized by the atmosphere and inspired to do more. Sadly, I really wasn't able to absorb any of the intellectual joys of hosting an author I admire because I was too busy running to grab extra chairs and all that. I didn't even get to say hello to my parents, who had driven 3 hours to support my efforts.

Okay, okay, okay... but what matters is the community, and I've only heard good things! We sold over 70 copies of her book, which is amazing and really important (should be required) reading! My old director (the one who laid me off during the pandemic lol) was there, and she got to see me thriving and pulling off miracles. And my new director and all of Leadership Team (our equivalent of C-level management) was mega impressed. So I'd love it if my brain would let me be happy about it! Or relax for a minute! Because it's over! And I did it!

(It is truly too much to ask.)

I realized the other day that part of the reason I've been so antsy and tired is that my Mohs surgery is tomorrow. I hadn't forgotten, but I hadn't had time to dwell on it until the Carolyn Finney event was over. It's not an intensive surgery in the sense that I'll be incapacitated, but I'm still anxious. I think I've done the best I can do. I bought some groceries and care supplies, changed my sheets and washed my purple plush blanket, and spent some time at the ice rink as a treat... I even asked friends to send me letters to give me something to look forward to, and my friend H sent the best thing!!

It's not often someone speaks my love language so directly back at me. I really try not to let myself think of Jiang Cheng as cute or delightful, but these stickers (perhaps because they were so thoughtful and came when I needed them) really pulled at my heartstrings. I mean, look at how little he is!! I'm besotted! I have them next to my bed, and I might even bring them with me in my fanny pack tomorrow to look at while I'm waiting, ahahaha.

Anyway, fingers crossed and here's hoping the surgery goes quickly, and I don't have to go in for too many rounds before they find clear margins. I'm not sure I have it in me for a 4-6 hour experience...

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The thing about being diagnosed with basal cell carcinoma is that people love to tell me it's Not That Bad. This is both true, and meant to be reassuring. But it honestly isn't reassuring, because I really don't know how to process this whole thing. Even though it's not an aggressive type of skin cancer, and I'm having it removed soon, it's still skin cancer, and I'm only 32. It's a totally mind-boggling thing to have a very Adult Disease when there's so much about Being An Adult that I haven't done yet. I've never been in a romantic relationship with another person. I don't own a house. I can't cook to save my life. I haven't started a family/found family. I can't even define my own sexuality. And yet. And yet...

Even though it is true that this isn't really a big diagnosis in the sense that it will hugely alter my life or future plans, I still want sympathy. I still want people to bring me food or send me mail or take some burden off the chaos of living or just generally feel bad with me!

Anyway, I guess where I'm struggling here is trying to hit the emotional nail on the head somewhere between minimizing a cancer diagnosis and giving into my melodramatic tendencies. It certainly hasn't helped that the medical anxiety I'd tried to rationalize away was literally exactly what I was worried about!

I got the biopsy results just a few days before heading to Pittsburgh for a trip I'd been looking forward to for months, and I did my best not to let it hang over everything. On Sunday, I saw Ray Chen perform with the PGH Symphony, which was the main point of the trip. He played in Chicago in 2021, and I'd just had my car accident, so I couldn't attend that concert. When I saw that he was going to be even closer this year, I had to snatch a ticket.

the sound of dreams coming true )

I did other things on my trip, too, even though I was plagued by anxiety and fatigue. The rental unit I'd booked turned out to be in a super convenient location that made driving in Pittsburgh (something I was afraid of) easier than I'd expected. I set up a networking meeting at Phipps and enjoyed seeing their beautiful bonsai and orchid exhibit. I spent Valentine's Day with my friend, and we hit up the History Center (I'm inexplicably obsessed with Heinz as a brand), got crepes for lunch, walked around some parks, then got dinner at a cute Korean restaurant downtown. I drove home today, but managed to walk around the Mexican War Streets and hit up the Mattress Factory before leaving. Proud of myself for Doing Stuff when all I wanted to do was sit in bed and feel bad.

I have work tomorrow, and I'm not looking forward to returning to the stress of this big event I'm planning. There are only 10 days left, and I'm honestly completely out of stamina. But I suppose I'll write more about that later.

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I don't have the patience, precision, or practice for fiber arts, but I love them in theory. When I worked at the living history farm, all my skeins of yarn were so bad I got to keep them rather than having to sell them in the museum store, but I kept spinning yarn anyway. The same goes for natural dyes. I've never been able to get the result I want, but that hasn't stopped me from playing around.

My first attempts at dyeing were at the farm, in a big pot outside over a fire. "You can pick any color you want but pink," my co-worker said when we offered to dye his socks. We tried madder root, but something was off either in our dye bath or the material of his socks, and instead of a rusty red, he ended up with... well... pinky salmon. (In hindsight, I'm not sure we used a mordant...) I got a do-over with madder when I worked at the parks and was in charge of the heritage skills event. I dyed some of my old yarn a beautiful, deep orange, and with that success under my belt, I turned my sights on cochineal.

If you're into nonfiction, I highly recommend A Perfect Red: Empire, Espionage, and the Quest for the Color of Desire by Amy Butler Greenfield. Cochineal was always fun to talk about at the farm because you got to shock people by telling them it was in their modern cosmetics and food (it's a dried beetle), but this book made me want to know it first hand. I ordered some, crushed it with a mortar and pestle, dropped it in the bath... AND DO YOU KNOW WHAT COLOR I GOT? Well. I got pink. Because plants/animals have so many different chemical compounds, the way they react to their environment is highly variable. The type of pot, the type of mordant, whether the water is soft or hard, etc. etc. All of that can change the tones and shades you get out of your dyestuff. I never fully mastered cochineal before I was unceremoniously laid off during the pandemic, but when my friend went to Mexico, she shared a video with me of an artisan working with cochineal that got me closer to red. Fun fact: make the dyebath more acidic and you get a more vibrant red; make it more basic and it veers toward purple. Another fun fact: I think cochineal smells kind of sweet and pleasant when it's simmering.

(There was an interlude around the same time where I also experimented with making my own black walnut ink, but it weirdly didn't coincide with my era of making my own quill pens, so it didn't yield too many exciting results. I'm pretty sure I left the remaining ink in my old office after they...you know, you know...)

Anyway, this is all to preface the main point of this entry, which is to say that my new natural dye adventure has been in indigo. Synthetic aniline dyes are molecularly identical to natural indigo and more widespread, so most of my past experience has either been natural indigo as an overdye (on things like onion skins or goldenrod to brighten/deepen the green) or synthetic dye kits. I used a dye kit with one group of kids in summer camp, and we made a lot of mistakes. I was too ginger with the vat, so afraid of allowing oxygen in that I didn't let the kids massage the dye into their pieces or soak them for long. (And then I dried them in the sun, oops.) I also didn't realize how non-aggressive indigo is as a dye. It doesn't penetrate more than the first layers of a fiber, so when your ties/folds are too tight, only the parts that touch the dye directly will be blue, and the rest will be white. This allows for some cool stuff to happen with block patterns, but it can also lead to major disappointment when you go to unwrap your bundle.

Today, I taught an adult workshop with a vat of natural indigo (from Dyer's Knotweed, which doesn't have as high a concentration of indican in the leaves as True Indigo, but can be grown in our general region), and I've been really stressed about it for weeks. Not only is working with natural indigo a more difficult process than a synthetic kit, I'm still in the learning/experimenting stages, so I don't have the consistency of a master dyer. There's so much that can go wrong, and adult learners tend to have high expectations for themselves, which can be easily disappointed. (Hello, I am an adult learner.) To mitigate some of these expectations but still encourage them to have fun, I set the price of the class low, I was open about being a newbie myself, and I framed the class as an opportunity to (essentially) fuck around and find out. I think some of them still had higher expectations than I would have liked, but I really emphasized that, no matter what happened, this would to prepare them for success if they ever took a class with a master dyer or if they want to try a kit at home.

Even still, I've been nervous ever since they took their pieces home this afternoon. Because the classroom only had two sinks, I gave them instructions to do the final untying and rinsing at home and asked them to send pictures when they were finished. I still had a relatively healthy vat after they left, so I quickly threw together two dye bundles for myself, but neither of them turned out well! I know a few of the class participants used similar techniques, so I've been worried that I accidentally misled them. Immediately, I understood why what I tried hadn't worked, and I wish I'd been clearer about the fact that indigo literally only dyes what it touches. If anything is clumped or scrunched too far inside the outer folds, it will be blocked from the dye. Every time this happens, I think: I should try dipping a gradient pattern with no ties. And every time I forget until the next time. (Alas...)

My friend, Emily, is an artist who often teaches adult workshops, and she saw me panicking on social media and sent me the sweetest message about a time she tried something with an adult class that didn't work perfectly. She reminded me that persisting through disappointment is an important part of learning and improving when you're a beginner, so any experience, whether it's successful or not, is valuable. I've been struggling with negativity and perfectionism a lot (this week has been especially hard), so this was a good call back to what matters.

Okay, well, I've been up since 4:30 a.m. (to prep the dye vat and give it time to mature before the class), so I'm going to bring this to a close. If you want to hear more about the actual process of dyeing with indigo or some cool indigo facts, let me know! It's antimicrobial! It's an insect repellant! Okay, okay, okay... I really will stop now...

(Just kidding! One more... This was one of my favorite sources I stumbled across, and I can't wait to go back and read it more carefully. Alaro: Indigo & the Power of Women in Yorubaland by Stephen Hamilton )

I could go on... :)

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My work stress levels are reaching capacity, and I'm not even at work today. A few months ago, I was reaching out to various authors/speakers to inquire about costs, so I could put together a potential budget plan for next year, when one of the agents I emailed responded with an ~immediate opportunity~. [Author Redacted] was going to be speaking in a nearby town in February, and if we had that same weekend open, we could book her for a discount on speaker fee and split the travel! Her speaker fee is ordinarily $10,000 + travel, so it really seemed like something worth doing!

AHAHAHA, WELL.......! )

On top of all that, I've got my normal job stuff: patrons asking questions about classes, coordinating all the internal/external instructors, putting classes on the website, creating Zoom meetings for virtual classes, being present to facilitate all classes, ordering supplies, coordinating volunteers, coordinating the Speakers Bureau program, planning and teaching my own classes, coordinating/leading private tour groups, working on the sustainability and accessibility committees, helping with summer camps (unfortunately), assisting with events/exhibits, keep my budget up to date, approve and send invoices, and any other petty thing I get roped into.

And all of this is across two separate campuses. Meaning I have to know the ins and outs of the gardens as well as the arboretum.

The more classes we offer, the greater a burden 75% of my regular duties become, and I don't feel like I have anyone to help me. The person who held this role before me had a seasoned administrative assistant, and three staff members working under her that she could use to coordinate and facilitate classes while she focused on bigger picture things. I feel like I barely have time to breathe!

Anyway, sorry this is so incredibly boring. I guess, to end on a positive note, I'll be going to Pittsburgh in about a month to see Ray Chen play Mendelssohn, and I'm going to stay overnight a few days so I can see my friend, Gretchen, and visit some museums (and do a networking thing at Phipps). It's the first time I'll have left the state since 2021, and Ray Chen's recording of Mendelssohn is one of my favorites. Hopefully that will be just what I need to revive for the final push before the Big Author Talk.

Fingers crossed...

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In March 2022, I wrote in my journal that "nothing seems worth remembering," and it's true that I didn't do much remembering this year. Between buying a new car after my accident, catching Covid, Oliver's kidney diagnosis, the giant blackhole of summer camps, turning 32, moving offices (again), starting a new job (again), learning I'm laughably vitamin deficient, demoralizing results at work, and the rest of the misery soup I've been floating in, recording anything ~for posterity~ felt pretty pointless. In many ways, it still feels pointless, but I've done a bit of last-minute introspection to help me leave 2022 with a better sense of what the fuck happened, and I was surprised by what I realized.

With the help of The Gentle Tarot deck, I did a seven-card reading on the year past and the year to come. I was a bit skeptical at first, because it was the most positive spread I've ever drawn, and I had no idea how it was going to apply to my life. Turns out, things are A Little Bit Good, Maybe.

image

CUE LAST-MINUTE INSTROSPECTION )

One thing that brought me marked levels of joy and frustration this past year (as opposed to general flat malaise) was the reading goal I set for myself. I went in with the idea to try to read 52 books this year, knowing that I almost certainly would not achieve it. I wanted to see how close I could get, and it turns out, I read a lot of books and only liked a few of them. Which is a useful reminder for next year's goal that quality over quantity often holds true.

I'm posting the list, organized by how much I enjoyed the books, but without much commentary. Partly because (see above) I can barely remember anything that happened this year. Partly because it feels unnecessary. If you want to hear more or talk about any of these, feel free to ask!

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2022 BOOK LIST )

Anyway, thanks for bearing with me! That's a wrap on 2022~

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The saddest thing about embroidery is that, no matter how hard I try, I probably won't ever be able to take a photo that fully captures the shine and dimensionality of the pieces I make. A few months ago, my friend was in town for our college reunion, and she came over to my apartment to meet Oliver and watch Great Men Academy. Before we could watch any TV, I made her hold each of my embroidery projects. She actually has one of my pieces (Xiao Xingchen), but it made me really happy to share my more recent work in person, and she said A-Xiang is really pretty (I agree).

It's so silly, but I always feel like I have to share my work The Right Way online or I'll miss my chance. Even though I've gotten better at staging photos, nothing ever takes off nearly as much as I hope it will, which can be a little discouraging. But if I don't share, I know I'll just feel sad. There's nothing quite so lonely as working hard and no one seeing the end result.

Today, I finished Yu Ziyuan, and I've shared with a few friends here and there, but I still haven't gotten the itch out of me yet. So, since this won't ruin the reveal on Twitter, I thought I'd give it a go on Dreamwidth. No one really follows me here, but I am hoping it can keep me sated until I've gotten a new phone and figure out how I want to take the good, outdoor pictures.

Click to see her! )

Whenever I feel discouraged, I remind myself that I'm not a real fan artist who has worked hard to cultivate a following and generates good, consistent content. I'm just some guy with a little hobby, and I'm grateful for the cool new friends this journey has brought me! As I come to what I think is the end of my inspiration/energy for this fandom work, I'm really proud of how much I've improved and the new skills I've developed.

So, anyway, thank you to anyone who happens to see this before I have the time/sunshine to stage the actual final photo for Twitter!

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Okay, this is it. I'm (tentatively) committing to Dreamwidth again. There's something comforting about seeing the little icon I pilfered from my old LiveJournal, from a manga series I doubt anyone remembers, although it did have a little resurgence a few years ago because the author finally finished it and they released a couple of movies to wrap it up. I half-heartedly watched the movies in 2020, but there were too many new characters that I didn't care about, and, hey, there were already so many Shinsengumi members to keep track of, anyway! But, about a week ago, I started reading the final manga chapters, and I did start to cry.

There are so many iterations of Okita Souji out there, but this is the one I connected to the most, and you really get to see him die. It's both amazing closure and also something I didn't expect to be so painful... I mean, I'm pretty sure I watched a series where Okita turns into a vampire or some shit. For all the Peacemaker series dabbled in the supernatural, the way they handled his death was so visceral and human.

And all of this was inspired because I was watching Ouran High School Host Club while I was embroidering some gifts for people, and they had a Shinsengumi cosplay that really did not have to call high-school-me out like that! It's true! Apparently, I'm still a real maniac!





Anyway, speaking of embroidery, I think I've only completed three projects this year. I finished Cao Weining in February, and then I'm pretty sure I didn't do anything else until the Eastern helmock and Virginia opossum minis I made last month. I've been working on a new fandom project the past few days, just in time for Twitter to burn and for me to have nowhere to share it...

Well, I suppose I've been fairly spoiled since I started my account. I remember the first Jiang Cheng I embroidered was when I only had one fandom friend, and I kept sending her, like, text updates throughout the day, and she kept encouraging me. I guess it might soon feel more like that again, or maybe I'll exclusively post finished things on Tumblr to avoid spending too much time there but to still get some dopamine out of my hard work... We'll have to see how I feel. (Tumblr was a Bad Era in the History of Jen,)

In any case! What makes me most excited about finishing this new project is that I can finally do that "your skill in 2020 vs. 2022" meme I've seen fiber artists posting online. I could always use Cao Weining...but (as much as it pains me to say it) there are some flaws in the stitching that I find hard to look at. And I just think it would be really cool to be like "Faceless Jiang Cheng 2020" BAM "Yu Ziyuan + Irises 2022".

Look at me, already dreaming big...
 

Pics behind cut.... )


Today was a nice day off, although I didn't do much! I woke up at 2am and couldn't fall back asleep, so I read a bit of fanfiction, made myself tea, listened to a podcast, and finally started reading MDZS vol. 3. I've been trying to finish A Thousand Ways to Pay Attention by Rebecca Schiller, but the way she imagines history has been driving me up a wall, so I'm glad I decided to put it down for something more entertaining.

This volume, in particular, includes the only chapters I've already read, so I'm excited to see a slightly more edited translation and also to relive Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian's youth/tortured adolescence. And Yu Ziyuan's in this volume, too. Truly, I am eating well tonight! (Metaphorically. I dropped most of the literal food I was cooking this afternoon.)

There were a few times on Twitter when I posted some thoughts about Jiang Cheng, and a wild stranger appeared to tell me I had poor reading comprehension and tried to school me in canon. I think maybe I took what they were saying too seriously, though. I've been telling people all along not to listen to anything I say because I have "poor media comprehension," but I'm beginning to think those strangers were just being mean, because I'm reading the actual novel now, and, your honor, Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian love each other. So much.

And I don't think I'm dumb for saying it!
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I'm standing at a very strange intersection of emotions right now. Today is the first anniversary of my "indefinite furlough," which means it has been one full year since I was suspended from my job as an environmental educator. It's a cold sort of feeling to wake up to. I cried for an hour after a job interview on Friday for no specific reason, but today, when there is a very real event upon which to hang my hopelessness, I feel flat, dull, numb.

At the exact same time, today is the day I get my second Covid vaccine, and with it, there is a tiny sense that maybe--maybe!!--this could be something to propel me back into the world, that maybe I can start collecting goodness again. I miss art. I miss music. I miss walking in unfamiliar, far away woods and eavesdropping on strangers in coffee shops. I've always been alone, but being alone has never felt so deeply lonely in the way it does now. I have shrunk so much during the past year. I'm yearning to grow again.

So, today I'm experiencing a very painful pandemic milestone, and I'm also actively taking a step towards future joy. That these two events randomly coincided has got to be significant. Something has got to come of this.

I've hit a wall with so many things: journaling, viola, exercise, getting outside, applying for jobs, reading, my CQL rewatch... I want to be able to write again, but I'm also trying to be gentle with myself, because I know that loss/fragmentation of language is part of what happens when I'm in the pits. I still have this little fic I was working on for a MDZS Rarepairs prompt, and I did manage to finish it on a good day. I'm grateful that there's still a little bit of time to edit. Right now, I'm too embarrassed to even look at it. It's pretty terrible! And I don't know if I can make it better! But as much as I want to treat myself gingerly, I know that finishing something will be a good little triumph, so I'm hoping I can push through and make it to the end.

I did manage to do a few things over the past week, which I hope will help keep me moving. I finished Return of the Thief by Megan Whalen Turner. I had a lot of guilty feelings about not really liking it, because it's a series that has been incredibly important to me for 20 years (one whole third of my life!!), and I know what an authorial effort it was to have completed the work finally! I may write more about it later, but I'm still thinking through all the reasons it didn't hit me in the same way as the other books, so that's TBD.

I also finished Ace by Angela Chen, which, for different reasons is taking a long time to process. I came out as asexual super casually at 16, and the reaction of my family and (most of) my peers was so skeptical, I went right back to pretending. I came out again about a year ago, again super casually, at a DEI workshop with a bunch of strangers (because it wasn't like I was ever going to see them again). Since then, it's just been one thing after another as I've been trying to reframe how I think about my sexuality. This book was such a balm. I literally can't stop crying over it.

And I started journaling again after about a two week hiatus. A friend in Scotland sent me a new deck of tarot cards with an artsy botanical theme, so I've been using them as prompts, which has been great motivation. They're beautiful and shiny and clever, and I love them. I know three days in a row is far from becoming a good habit, but three days in a row is a big deal for me, so I'm going to celebrate it!
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I've been more socially engaged with fandom over the past couple of days, and that's been exciting for me, but also anxiety-inducing. I'm posting more. I'm commenting more. I almost did a meme...!

I don't know if I can turn all of that energy into a coherent post, but I did want to mark it down somewhere to look back on later when it inevitably becomes hard for me again. I just want to get a few things down before the intense perfectionism brings me down again. So, I'm going to let this post be a bit disorganized, and I'm going to go as far down a random list of things as I can before I get tired.

1. I want to try answering a few questions off the 31 Days of The Untamed meme that [personal profile] jo_lasalle made and [personal profile] littledust has been doing.

Day 1 )

2. The meme I did and then deleted (Twitter and my brain are pure chaos together) was about posting WIP file names and inviting people to ask about them. I'm always so afraid of posting things like that, because they require outside participation to function. In my heart, I know no responses probably means bad timing/bad luck with the algorithm. But my brain always manages to convince me that it's because I'm dumb or boring. I did legitimately have fun tracking down all my WIPs, so I thought I'd just post them here. Not because I expect anyone to be interested, but because they're eating a hole in my brain, and I have to do something semi-public with them or I'll never get any peace!

Does this count as a WIP Wednesday??? )

3. Speaking of fanfiction! I finished a ficlet to fill a MDZS rarepairs prompt, but I'm not sure I'm confident to post it in any way that will link back to an account that is me. My AO3 account isn't linked to my Twitter or Dreamwidth, so I think I'd be comfortable posting it as part of the collection there and then linking to it in an anonymous comment on DW. If I do that, though, I definitely need to get started on my goal of doing a bit of maintenance on the one fic I finished/posted back in September. I reread it a few days ago, and I'm still pleased with the overall idea, but I don't like the title, I don't like the description, and there are just a few annoying inconsistencies/repetitions between the chapters I'd like to clean up before bringing any attention to the account. I don't know anyone to help beta, so it ultimately turned out pretty rough, despite my best efforts... ANYway, I've been meaning to give it a little sprucing up for ages, so this is good motivation!

4. I finished my Xiao Xingchen embroidery gift and sent it to my friend. I got the notification that it had been delivered at the same time that she posted on Twitter about driving home from the grocery store, and my breath literally left my body. It was, like, ten minutes of pure agony before she posted on her account about it, and I could finally relax, because she actually liked it!!

5. I started watching Word of Honor, and I absolutely adore it. Once again, no one specifically recommended it to me, but I did see a Twitter thread comparing Wen Kexing to different flavors of KitKats, and I took the dive. It hasn't consumed my brain in the same way as CQL, but I did watch 21 episodes in less than three days, and I did cry actual tears into my morning tea yesterday. I'm genuinely having fun. Favorite character by far is Gu Xiang. I can't help it. I'm a sucker for a spunky kid in purple.

Okay! I think that's all I can squeeze out of myself for today. More thoughtful, organized posts in the future (maybe)!
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A very quick update, just to have my little proud, accomplished moment. Xiao Xingchen is officially sealed in a box (oh my god, this feels wrong) and will be en route to my friend as of tomorrow morning!

I'm always incredibly self-conscious of giving gifts I've made myself. When I was very little (maybe six or seven), I spent some time drawing my friend, T, who I thought was the prettiest person I knew, but when I gave her the drawing, she was so offended because she thought I'd made her ugly on purpose. She honestly may have just handed it back to me, but I remember her crumpling it up and throwing it. Ahhhhhh!!! Was that a life-defining moment for me? Yeah, I think so...

a very beige boy under the cut )

Anyway, I'm just trying to remind myself that whether my friend likes it or not isn't the point. Whether she posts it on her account or remembers to thank me privately or doesn't say anything at all, whether she loves it or puts it in a drawer, throws it away or regifts it...none of that is going to change the intentions that drove me to make it in the first place. I just wanted to send her some unconditional love during a difficult time, and, whether or not this piece is "good" or "bad," I think it gets the message across.

(And I do think he looks really lovely with the cemetery flowers.)
hatpinvigilante: (Default)
Today was tough. Overall, I think I'll remember the better things, like daffodils in the sun, wearing my pretty new mask, being on campus again, my first mocha in a year, blooming witch-hazel, a rare leucistic squirrel, a breakthrough in my research project, etc. Objectively, those things were all very nice. But they didn't fill me up enough to make it through four hours of research in a museum basement and then a 1.5 hour long, in-person interview for a part-time temp job at a park. I was flagging by the time I got home, and it all just went downhill from there.

I tried taking a bath, but the water came out disappointingly cold. 

I tried making dinner, but I'm out of cooking oil.

I gave up on everything and decided to work on my embroidery project, and then I ruined it. 

I honestly think I jinxed it by being so pleased with how it was going and assuming I'd already finished the hardest parts. Faces are hard, and so is trying to figure out the right direction of stitches in jet-black hair. All of that had gone so well that I truly thought I could finish all the filler colors tonight and have it in the mail by tomorrow afternoon...

Alas, the fabric had other plans. I can usually forgive a little wrinkle here or there, but I ended up with a huge wrinkle right across his neck. So, I cut out all the stitches and tried again, but it just kept happening. I'd already cut out those same stitches multiple times due to poor color choices, so maybe the fabric was just fed up with me. I was certainly fed up with it. The seventh or eighth time I went to cut the stitches, I cut too much, and I just couldn't keep going. The stabilizer was shifting and everything was a mess.

I should have known not to work on this tonight. I work better in the morning as a general rule, and I was feeling the same buzzing, frenetic energy I felt when I ruined Jiang Cheng. I was just not in a calm or patient headspace, and I ultimately ended up committing a devastating act of violence with a pair of sewing scissors. 

(And then I absent-mindedly brought those same sewing scissors into the bathroom with me and put toothpaste on them instead of my toothbrush?) 

Anyway, I won't commemorate this tragedy by posting a picture of Xiao Xingchen in my trashcan. It's really horrible. I'm obviously upset. So little good has come up this past year that I rely (probably too much) on finishing these projects and the nice attention they get. It's been especially neat using embroidery to create fanart, because there's that extra layer of feeling like you're giving these characters a spa treatment or something. It requires such close, detailed care, and I just think they deserve that.

But the flipside of that very real emotional high is that every failure hits so hard, and I don't have any solid coping mechanisms at my disposal right now. (All my coping mechanisms are busy with, you know, the Big Stuff.)

It's all going to be fine tomorrow. I just need to talk it out somewhere so I can move on and try again. I'm still really excited about this thing. I still really want to surprise my friend, even if it takes a little longer than I'd hoped. The benefit of using a stabilizer is that I still have the original pattern, so it's not a total loss, and my second Jiang Cheng definitely came out better than the first anyway. I'm gonna drink some water. I'm gonna get some sleep. I'm gonna re-up my supply of the proper greys/whites/silvers. And then Xiao Xingchen is coming back to life whether he likes it or not.

(Xue Yang would be proud.)

buzz buzz

Mar. 23rd, 2021 08:20 pm
hatpinvigilante: (Default)
Yesterday, my friend found a stirring hibernaculum of garter snakes, a bunch of little heads peeping out of the grass, a ripple of tiny tongues tasting the air. He sent me a video, and I sent him a video in return of four male wood frogs trying to out croak each other, their vibrating bodies creating ripples in the otherwise stagnant water. I've found three separate species of wildflower on my walks (skunk cabbage, harbinger-of-spring, spring beauty), and I sat with seven great blue herons on the bank of a quiet pond last week. It really is spring again.

Everything seems to be moving right now, including me, which is a surprise, because I have been so deep in it for so long, I was worried I'd sunk into something tricky without realizing. On the first sunny day, everyone was posting that their seasonal affective disorder was over, and I was like, "welp, I guess this is how I know it's just my regular, for-all-seasons depression." But I am feeling lighter this week, and I'm taking advantage of it by testing my limits and doing as much as I can.

Yesterday, I went grocery shopping, scheduled two job interviews, walked to drop off my library books and get quarters from the bank, did two loads of laundry, had a college library council executive meeting, practiced viola outside, cooked a real dinner from scratch, and watched an episode of The Untamed as a treat. Today, I completed the judging comments for half of my assigned History Day student projects, admired some moss in the woods, practiced viola, started a new embroidery project, and then read some more of May Sarton's Journal of a Solitude in the bath.

As for the embroidery project, that's the real reason I'm posting tonight. It's meant to be a surprise for a friend who is going through a pretty rough time right now. I was so excited I thought of the idea that I started right away instead of going on a late afternoon run. The only problem is that I like to have constant feedback (or at least share my process in semi-public spaces) and this person is aware of me across multiple platforms, so posting it anywhere is risky. But then I remembered I can log my progress here!

Click to see! )

Okay, that's it for now. I have another busy day planned for tomorrow, so I hope I can keep following through with tasks. We'll see!
hatpinvigilante: (Default)
In the process of deciding to start a Dreamwidth account, I went deep into the archives and unearthed my old LiveJournal account. I've done this before, and it is always a surprise when I fall in love with my teenaged self. The journal is such a beautiful and wild catalog of my adolescence that I can't help it. I was melodramatic and easily excited, bold and unafraid. The things I loved, I loved without shame. I wrote literally everything down, whether it was the flavor of a cookie I was eating or the length of an orchestra audition or my results at a dance competition. I kept trying to convince myself I was "horny." Honey, baby, sweet child, calm down! I regularly posted original writing, and people commented...or they didn't. Either way, it didn't seem to bother me.

Anyway, I've had this DW account for two days now, and I really wasn't sure what to do with it. How do you drop yourself into writing about a life that has already been ticking away for so long? It seems insurmountably complicated, but I found my very first LJ entry, and it really was as simple as just typing "hello."

So, in an effort to channel some of that rogue, carefree teenaged energy: Hello! I'm Jen!

Seventeen years ago, a bunch of friendly online strangers on an anime forum convinced me to get a LiveJournal, and I really had a great time. It's weird, because I truly thought it was friends from high school who had given me the idea, but I suppose they found my account later and brightened the experience. In any case, I like to think of this as history repeating itself, pleasantly. After watching a few people on fandom Twitter talk about Dreamwidth, I grew curious and finally took the plunge. I lifted the default icon and journal title from my old LJ, even though these things mean close to nothing to me now, because I wasn't feeling creative. I'll come up with something more relevant to my adulthood soon, but these are good, comfy placeholders for now.

I'm not sure exactly how I'll use this space, but I'm optimistic I will use it. Some topics I may mess around with: nature facts! women's history facts! classical music! books I'm reading! anime reactions! CQL headcanon thoughts! unemployment and depression yuck!

I'm active on Twitter, but very shy [twitter.com profile] hatpinvigilante. I'm more comfortable on Instagram but almost exclusively nature oriented [instagram.com profile] hatpin_vigilante. Still not ready to link anyone to my AO3 account, because it is so sad. When strangers find it and leave me kudos, I panic, which is both tragic and hilarious.

Okay. That's all for now. I'm excited to see where this goes...

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