Days of Shades

Both of my potential new tenants declined, I think I'm coming down with a cold, and Erik and I are taking a red eye flight to Connecticut tomorrow to spend the week with his parents, which is sure to be extra exciting since we're so close to the election.

All that aside, though, I've had a really great morning. We've still got our crisp, clear indian summer weather -- hell on my garden, but beautiful to bike in. I made it to yoga on time (it's a miracle!) and then went to Orca books armed with the list I gathered yesterday. I narrowed my selections based on price and thickness (since I'm traveling), with a preference for authors I'd never read or read very little of. I ended up with The Bridge of Birds by Barry Hughart, Greenwillow by B. J. Chute, Northshore by Sheri S. Tepper (not a comfort read, I suspect, but on the $1 rack), Sandry's Book by Tamora Pierce (Oddly enough I've read almost no Pierce, but YA with magic + crafts is right up my alley) and Bellwether by Connie Willis (there were two Willis books recommended; I bought the one with sheep). I make take Dealing with Dragons along, too, since that's always been one of my favorites and I was thinking it might be fun to try drawing the characters. All that and a cup of coffee for $25 -- and I got to pet the store's cats, too.

I spent awhile wandering the antique store next door (it's a friendly one, and you never know). Luckily for my wallet, the only things I were interested were either glass or cast iron -- neither of which I can feasibly handle in my bike panier. Then I toddled across the street and scheduled a service call for my gas fireplace. My wallet won't be thrilled, but, eh, maintenance.

There's a new antique/vintage shop right next door to the fireplace place, so I checked that out (I mean, I'd visited every other business on the block, I had to be fair), and that's when the Very Strange Thing happened: I saw a piece of mid-century modern furniture that I... kind of liked.

Now, I'm sure that in reality it's as fugly as every other piece of mid-century modern furniture, and any vague notions otherwise are delusions brought on by my nascent illness, which is clearly worse than I thought. This is why one should visit antique shops with friends -- you never know when you'll need an intervention. "You like that? Here, sit down. I'll get you a glass of water. There there, dear. You're clearly not well." Thankfully it's irrelevant (except as a health diagnostic tool) because I don't have one hundred extra dollars and I was riding a bicycle.

I have a short list of things to do before the flight tomorrow night which all seem very achievable. Laundry. Get four or five plants in the ground (the spots don't have to be permanent). Pay the dental bill.

Oh, yeah, and perform at a concert downtown. I'm really glad it's tonight; cramming an extra rehearsal in means I've had ONE quiet evening at home with my sweety in two weeks, and ONE quiet night to myself. When combined with the room-mate roller coaster it's not surprising that I'm getting sick, really. The upside is that going to Connecticut is starting to feel like a real vacation instead of an obligation. The fact that I won't have to DO anything much helps make up for the fact that I'll be constantly trying to avoid getting roped into political 'discussions' by E's dad. And I can sleep in! FRABJOUS DAY!

Every year in Oly people dress up as plants, animals, fungi, bacteria etc, and parade/mosey/dance through downtown to the beat of not-quite-marching bands and samba drums.

I don't know why every city doesn't do this, but I suspect it's because they're boring.

I've only been in the actual parade twice*, but we've got a little tradition of showing up early and making use of my family's natural ability to be, basically, a mobile party kit. This year we brought my fiddle, dad's drum, the new face-paint kit I put together, and some indescribably hideous balls shaped vaguely like distended animals which mom found. She also gathered vetch from the side of the parking lot and made head-wreaths. Dad and I played a few tunes, then I painted Kiyoko's face, then two little kids I didn't know asked shyly if I'd paint THEIR faces, then a few more tunes, then mom is gives away the hideous elephant balls (heh) and everyone's having a pre-parade party.

Dad might have better pics, but until then, here're crappy ones from my phone. I don't take or post pictures of strangers' kids, so you just have to imagine lots of hello kitty cheek art, one faded cheetah, and a pretty spiffy dragon.

( Procession pics! )

The evening kinda fell apart after the parade -- there was a complete and total snafu** and the less said about that the better -- but I got to sit in with my friends' band at Cascadia for a few sets, and they had the place hopping. During their last set there was clapping and dancing in a cleared space.


*I have danced along with the parade for less than a block on numerous occasions. Audience participation is encouraged.

**The only reasons this isn't going down in history as my greatest failure as a host ever is A) I've been a truly craptacular host at least once in the past and it takes a lot to live that down and B) I'm pretty damn sure it wasn't actually my fault. I'm so sorry, westrider.

Over on ontd_political there was an article today about an empathy disparity between the rich and poor.

In the comments at the source of this article, someone explains that they show empathy by hiring a maid, gardener, and pool boy. The money these people get is money they wouldn't have otherwise, therefore charity! Or something like that.

Not 15 minutes after I posted to ontd_p joking about my non-existent pool boy, I biked home, and a few blocks from my house I saw a kid in a swimsuit crouched inside an ice chest while their friend sprayed them with the hose.

THAT'S HOW WE ROLL IN MY HOOD, YO.

Artswalk, or Music Shuffle with occasional visual art, or Biannual-holy-shit-I-know-half-of-Olympia day, was awesome this year.

The we-know-everybody vibe was enhanced because Kiyoko was along with us, and nothing makes you more aware of the fact that you're getting up from dinner every five minutes to hug someone than being watched by someone who isn't part of the community.

Me: "Really, Kiyo, Olympia has fifty thousand people! It just feels small!"
Mom: "That's because you know forty thousand of them."

At the same dinner...

Me, to mom: I just learned that 'paradiddle' is a percussion term.
Dad, to Erik: 'paradiddle' is when you get lucky twice!

and sometimes people ask if my boyfriend gets along well with my parents...

I finally checked out the Olympia Comics Festival Saturday. It was small and only featured independent creators, which was nice. They ran the gamut in skill and professionalism, and got me thinking about comics as an art form and industry again. Not thinking much that was new, however. It still boils down to one problem: Comcis does a terrible job of presenting itself!

You can see it at all levels. The Danger Room (the shop which kick started the festival) is a fantastic store in terms of selection, customer service, and knowledge. From the outside is looks run down, skeazy, and permanently closed. Good luck enticing people new to the media with that.

The artist tables were at the Vault, one of the shadier clubs in downtown Oly. It's a horrid place for any kind of visual art expo - the space is oddly laid out for it, there isn't a big friendly encouraging entrance, and there's no LIGHT.

I did get to run into old WWU classmates, one of whom remembered my art, which was a huge suprise. Also drew a panel in the comic jam, photos of which are supposed to be online eventually. The best part of the day, though, was catching up with fenmere, who was down from B'ham to check out the con. That was rockin! Hope I didn't cramp his networkin' style too much -- I know it can get difficult to do your schtick with an extra audience, so I tried to always have my nose in someone's work.

Speaking of which, lets go back to the wide-ranging quality of the work. Fenmere wrote an excellent post about it, so I won't go over that, but here's something he didn't call out:

Little things make the difference in production.

My new pet peeve: self produced books which haven't had their pages trimmed. For the unfamiliar: You decide to make a book, so your print off several spreads, fold them, and put them one within the other to make your book! Great, right? Except that the center pages stick out at least an 1/8 of an inch beyond the outer pages; frequently more. This problem is solved by triming with a guillotine paper cutter, and you can hire the copy-lackies at kinkos to do it for a buck a cut. Three cuts. Should be able to do a stack of fifty lil' books at one go without a problem, and it makes a world of difference in the apparent professionalism of your product.

The other thing I noticed is totally personal to me -- there's an art style* which has only one line weight and lots and lots and LOTS of scratches and scribbles. I tend to find it in the very self-conciously indie or subculture comics most often, and I'm sure there's GREAT narative work done with it...but I can't read it. It makes my head uncomfortable. It's just too much visual work for me to bother getting to the meaning. I finaly have to acknowledge that I'll just never, ever want to read those.

I will want to read DAR, though. Fenmere introduced me to it, and I'm enjoyin' it!

I'm on the front page of The Olympian!

Heh. That's two years in a row I've been in their spring arts walk coverage. First ATTACK OF THE 50 FOOT FIDDLER photo, though.

It's snowing, and the entire Timberland district is closed, which means no going into work, and no official call to do any work. I'll probably get some stuff done anyway, because I brought enough home thursday. I really need to get working on my new years card, too.

But...

Xbox.

Morrowind.


That's right, kids: I'm workin' from HOME!!!one!

Can anyone offer any insight as to why a stagecoach and four, with mounted escort, just trotted by my place on Capitol way?

ADDED: Here we are, then. There's a gallery of pictures, but they're mostly in scenic rural areas, not busy mostly residential neighborhoods between the state capitol and safeway. Also, the one I saw was green!

It's that perfect crisp shiny kind of autumn day, and I took myself, some postcards bound for Japan, and a few frame-less art pieces downtown to run errands. My print of Hangover by Justin Hillgrove is now at the shop awaiting it's frame, and my wallet is $50 lighter (it would have been $100, but I had a gift cert for acting as shop translator awhile back). Now I go to the website and see that he's offering stretched canvas giclee for $100 - damn, I could have had a limited run hangable pieces for less than my little paper print will have cost to frame. Oh well...

I also stopped in at Radiance while I was downtown. I didn't mean to, but on the way from the post office to the bus station I walked by Jefferson and Legion, and therefore Planned Parenthood, and every single corner was staked out by multiple people on both sides of the abortion debate. The shock of the mutilated fetus pictures was such that I immediately had to run to the most feminist, goddess-worshiping, lesbian-owned shop in town and spend upwards of thirty bucks, just to bring my day back into balance.

Seriously, though - I feel really sorry for the PP patients, especially the ones there for other services. Come on, people - the majority of people there are getting their bc prescriptions, annuals, and STD checks, and they have to walk through THAT. For the record, I'm anti-abortion but pro-choice, which is to say that I think it's nasty but should be legal. Really, we ought to be focused more on avoiding the whole unwanted pregnancy thing entirely, but that wouldn't have gone over well on the street-corner (I'd have more sympathy with the anti-abortion protesters if they were PRO birth control, and if they weren't, y'know, such god-awful jerks).

Bile aside, I saw Celia (of the days of yore at Columbia street session) in Radiance and Erik in Otto's (He came out from behind the counter to hug me, prompting the other lady in line to complain that he never hugged HER. So he did. I think she was a bit surprised...). He has a car now and pointed out gleefully that he could abscond with me. Wish more people threatened to abscond with me...

So that's a beautiful day, a nice walk, and chance encounters with two friends, none of which I would have enjoyed if I'd had a car.

I hate to distract from the potterdamerung, but I thought it might be cool to point out that the first day of Washington State Domestic Partner Registration was yesterday, and it went really well! I drove by around 8:15, and people were already in a packed line downt he stairs and out to the loading dock. Saw a few veils (one lady had a sign that said "I'll wear the rest of the dress when I get the rest of my rights" - good on her). There was a 'just registered' convertable and a general atmosphere of festivity. The protest booked in the park was cancelled weeks ago, because the group planning it is attacking with a different strategy, but they haven't made their move yet.

Ask madalchemist for details, as he was workin' in the actual building. I just got tidbits from Dad, who set up the registration system and trained* people and ran it**, and who hopefully will get more sleep at night now everything's actually going. Dad's favorite moment of the day was when two 86 year old guys tottered in to register. They'd been together since 1957. It's a good thing this is only domestic partner registration, not marriage, 'cause obviously they don't take their relationship seriously.

So, Dad expects a challenge to the legislation, and then a lawsuit, in a matter of weeks. The lawsuit he's expecting will come, supposedly***, from a heterosexual couple under 62 (not allowed to register under the law), as an equal-protection case. It's quite possible that this suit would win...but. Because it's challenged on those grounds, it could actually end up being a political step forward for civil unions for anyone who wants them, which I'm all for. Of course, it'd take time, and that'd be MORE time when gays couldn't be assured of seeing their partners in the hospital.

Thank you for your time. You may now return to your regularly scheduled Potterdamerung.


*training mostly consisted of what not to say to newly registered couples. For example, asking the pair of guys whether your shoes really go with your blouse? Well meant, but probably not so good.

**Because domestic partnership registration is being run by the secretary of state's office, corporations division. Don't ask.

***A religious-right backed couple. This is the tack they decided to take when they canceled the park protest, because they're not strategic idiots. Registration gives very few rights, really, and trying to keep partners away from hospital beds on 'moral' grounds makes them look like monsters...which they are, but y'know.