Dulcissime

Wow, so... "new livejournal." It's pretty Tumblr-esque. I'll have to see if it grows on me.

Today, I am having a relaxing day. This weekend was about hunting for a new place to live (hence why I skipped the Transcendence performance at Fez Tones), and then some chilled out social time afterwards. Unfortunately, nothing promising yet on the living space front, though I am making some calls and tracking down private rentals to visit for next weekend. But social time was good! Saturday night, we played Cards Against Humanity with Brooke & Tim. Sunday was Thai food and another fun card game, Gloom, with Jenn & Todd. Gloom is, essentially, Edward Gorey meets Aubrey Beardsley: The Game. If you like the Lemony Snicket books, you'll probably like this, too. Anyhow, really fun! Will have to get a copy.

What things have I not talked about in my flurry of activity? Well, Spoutwood went well. I made enough $$$ to dig myself out of the financial hole that being too sick to work for two months caused. I may not have much left over, but that's infinitely preferable to being in the red. Performing with Transcendence was good, as usual, but I preferred last year's stage to this one. We were mainstage performers this year, which is exciting, but that meant we were sharing the stage with large bands and all of their equipment. Even when they did their best to clear room for us, I was still tripping over mics and trying not to run into drum kits. I never felt like I was entirely focusing on the performance aspect, and so next year I hope we can figure out a better workaround or go back to a less-cluttered stage.

The cats are doing well. Nox is putting some weight back on and overall being less fussy about food. The chemo regimen is greatly bettering his quality of life. We have been spending a lot of cuddle time together, he and I. He is a very happy cat who takes his pills and gets on with his life. I love him so much sometimes I think my heart will burst.

I am NOT looking forward to packing/moving. I have SO. MUCH. STUFF. in my studio that all I can think is "noooooooooooooooo."

My nephew is at that five month old stage where he looks like the Michelin Man. It is very likely my parents will try to attain custody after some preliminary legal hurdles are out of the way. The further away that child is from my sister, the more functional he will be.

My brother is being moved to Hawaii for three years by his job. I am intensely jealous. And sad, because I genuinely like hanging out with my brother. Genuinely liking hanging out with any member of my family is such an anomaly that I'm pretty bummed. But happy for him.

Fandom is good right now. If you're not watching Orphan Black, ye gods and little fishes, you ought to be. The Emmys need to be just a shower of awards for that show, and a crown for Tatiana Maslany. Anything less is a crime.

Jason is adjusting to his CGMS. It's working well as an early warning system, but he's having other health issues right now that are still complicating his efforts to keep his blood sugars consistent. Diabetes sucks not only because it sucks all by itself, but because it causes other, seemingly unrelated things not to work, too. Fuck diabetes, is what I'm saying.

I've been less consistent with the beauty blog, but back to posting this week. I bought myself a really pretty lipstick at Sephora that should be delivered tomorrow, and I can't WAIT to write about that. /magpie

So, there you have it. Nothing terribly interesting. But after the winter I had, uninteresting is okay by me.

I posted my Art of the Belly wrap up over on the beauty blog!

It's raining. Not even good, cleansing rain. Or a thunderstorm. It's humid, sticky rain.

My water is turned off for "routine maintenance" until noon. I have neither showered nor had coffee. My dryer finally got fixed yesterday (it was actually the ducts, not the dryer), and so I have a literal mountain of household things to wash that have piled up over two weeks. But I cannot wash them 'til noon. I am grumpier than GrumpyCat.

Still, dancing happened this past weekend. The Dance Your Heart Out Hafla was on the smallish side, but the stage was very nice. Flissy and I did Natacha Atlas's gorgeous cover of "It's A Man's World" followed by a turbo-fast Raquy drum solo. Then we had to run to our second show with Transcendence completely on the other side of Baltimore, at Stadium Playground. It was a very warm, receptive crowd. However: hardest to dance on surface I've ever been on. It's that recycled tire stuff that they use so kids don't hurt themselves when they fall down. Its whole purpose is to absorb shock. Guess what that does to shimmies? You feel like you're shimmying in quicksand. It was mildly hilarious when we circled up and a brief look of "oh shit" passed our faces. Also given the 97 degree heat and humidity, I felt a bit like a wilted flower after that set, but the audience really loved it.

Also, there's this.



We never did get a chance to get a picture of all of Transcendence on the swings, but at least J got one of me throwing up the horns and scream-swinging.

Also:

 

Today I work on earring wardrobes. I'm still waiting on supplies to pour my next batch of resin, and then I get into heavy wirework. So today it's a lot of straightforward, perfunctory stuff. And making more rose copper headpins.

But! Sale at Sihaya Designs. Through Sunday night, use coupon code RAINYDAY20 at checkout for 20% off your order.

Spoutwood happened. I'm still in a state of post-event exhaustion, so I have a lack of eloquence. It was a massive undertaking, a lot of work, and I owe a debt of gratitude for everyone who helped: Jason for manning the booth and aiding in tear down. Meredith for getting me there in the first place. Sarah & Jenn D. for taking shifts while I was dancing. Amy for brainstorming a wonderful solution to display my wings. Jenn H. for painting me an emergency banner when it looked like my vinyl one was lost to the USPS. Flissy for caring after my furbabies. The list goes on.

Overall, I had very, very little time where I was not parked at my booth or dancing on stage. Something like roughly two hours total, and I spent most of that stuffing my face and hurrying from errand to errand. I did pick up one souvenir for myself, a new Dancing Pig Pottery mug, and I saw 1/2 of Cu Dubh's final set. But it was definitely a solid three days of work, so I didn't get to spectate or revel as much as I would have liked. On the other hand, I learned a lot just by jumping in and adapting, and if I decide to apply next year, I have an idea what to do differently so I can have more space for myself. I want to have time just to let the magic soak in.

Transcendence danced three hour-long sets. Day one was colorsplosion day, and my favorite parts were Eugenia reprising her fan veil flamenco piece (sooooo beautiful!), Anne's tray dance, and the energy of our first crowd (because the first performance is always the toughest while you wake up your brain and work out the kinks, like OH HEY I FORGOT THAT PART OF THE CHOREO). Sunday we did our Bal Anat-inspired costumes, and the finale piece was far and away my favorite. We danced to SJ Tucker's "Firebird's Child," with me starting solo, and then swapping out for groups of the other dancers before gathering all of us up in a big spinning frenzy and extending out to the crowd. Sunday also made me quite happy that we all have roots in improv-- one of our dancers had a severe allergic reaction Saturday night and was unable to come on Sunday, so there were a few brief moments of "oh! She was supposed to be dancing right now!," but someone stepped in on the spot and it all worked out.

I also really enjoyed collaborating with Meredith on her vision of a duet to the Medieval Baebes' "Scarborough Faire." Though I admit the song is not my favorite, I have long wanted an opportunity to work with Meredith on a dance piece, and I hope this was not a one-off, and that we can create something else together in the near future.

Business wise: I didn't quite know what to expect, so I don't know how to gauge what I made. I suppose I had hoped to sell a bit more, but from what I gather, my sales patterns were exactly on par with other similar vendors', including the well known vendors. Friday was slow, which was expected. Saturday began slow, but picked up steam by later afternoon. Sunday was gangbusters. If I had made Saturday what I made on Sunday, I would be thrilled. I'd estimate I sold about half of the huge batch of wings I made for the show, and several pieces of labradorite that I made for that purpose, as well. I sold my top dollar item, the Rani collarpiece, on Sunday, and I am thrilled about that!

One thing I did NOT expect was to battle allergies. I've never had allergies before! I suppose with 30 looming, hormones are bound to change. Friday and Saturday were absolutely miserable. I wept uncontrollably all day long, and trying to keep eye makeup on was a total lost cause. By Sunday, enough Claritin had made it into my system that I felt like a person, and not a human water fountain. At least the weather was beautiful.

So, now I'm home. I've had a full night's sleep. I've cuddled the furmonsters. I've replenished my empty refrigerator. I have to clean the place and vacuum, but not today. Today is for being lazy. Thursday, I begin the process of photographing unsold inventory created for the show, which basically means lots and lots and lots of wings. But for now: nap, dinner, tv catch up.

I do not recommend one ever do a full-day trunk show on 3 hours' worth of sleep. Especially after one has been getting, on average, 4 hours of sleep for over a week.

I mean, it was fine. It was a little slow, being a Thursday and all. But I easily made 3x what I needed to for variety's sake, and what was not sold will go up on my site later this week. Overall, it was a good experience to have under my belt, even though the lighting in the shop was, as one sales associate put it, "so bad the man who installed it clearly detested the idea of selling jewelry." But you know what? I can say I have shown and sold my jewelry at a fine art museum, and indeed a very nice one at that.



  

I did take an hour to peruse the VMFA's awesome Art Nouveau collection, which was absolutely stunning. The Mucha bust! The Favrile glass! Gah! I die. Plus there was an AMAZING stag-horn beetle mirror. I am not even overly fond of mirrors, and I WANT ONE. I also saw the Bold, Cautious, True exhibit, which paired Civil War-era paintings with inscriptions from Whitman's 'Leaves of Grass,' as well as an original copy of the book. My English major-y, history geeky heart was so happy. Plus a recreation of an 1880's Rockefeller bedroom. OH MAN, how much do I love historical room displays? Let me count the ways. Oh! And Diana Al-Hadid's Trace of a Fictional Third was just stunning in-person. Absolutely mesmerizing.

  

On the way home, I sang Motown at the top of my lungs to keep from falling asleep. Pandora also randomly threw some Eric Hutchinson in the mix, so I smiled and thought of evergleam83. Got home at Ungodly O'Clock in the morning.

(In other jewelry news, someone really cool and well known in certain circles bought a bunch of earrings from me last week. I don't think I should say who right yet, but if she ends up wearing them in pictures, I will probably squee a little.)

Dragged myself in to Terra Firma anyway. Bill took one look at me and told me to go home and sleep. He is the best of bosses, I tell you.

Today, I did all of the Father's Day salutations deemed culturally necessary, then hurried on to Pride where I danced with Transcendence. Aside from the set (which went smoothly and easily!), there were two notable things-- one was that my brother Matt came to watch me dance, and gave me a ride in. As we were pulling up, he was like, "so what is Pride?" and I was like "you know, gay pride," and he was like "OH." I think he thought it was part of the 1812 festivities that have taken over the city this weekend. He was basically the straightest straight boy who ever straighted at a Pride event, but I think he enjoyed himself. The other notable thing was that, due to the 1812 festivities, the Blue Angels were doing fly-bys and they flew right over our stage while we were dancing! Exciting!

Anyhow, Pride audiences are the best. They were so excited to see us dance, and smiled a lot and gave us great energy. The organizers were really happy to have us back and told us how much they enjoyed our set last year. Plus a photographer for City Paper was allllll over us after we danced, so fingers crossed for some good publicity.

(Also notable: I got into costume in a RECORD 45 minutes.)

Came home, took the BEST shower, de-glitterified (well, mostly. I am never entirely free of glitter somewhere on my person), and changed into my brand spankin' new Transcendence Tribal tee-shirt. It's cut to fit over cholis just like the FCBD ones, and it's got greyish-pink sparkly letters. Anywhoo, I love it. Well done, Jenn & Brooke.

Tried to read Sunshine but ended up ranting about it instead. Going to try to get back to it until I fall asleep. That should be in, oh, ten pages or so. Tomorrow, I have to work on 7 poetry pendants for the Poet's Talisman series, v 2.0. I have a few more Prayer of St Francis ones, a few more 'I Hold With Those Who Favor Fire,' and a couple of surprises. That and the remainder of the Wanderlust collection, plus a few odd Faerie Moons & Faery Wings, will go up on site later this week.

I leave you with a Bean in a bag:

-- LAVENDER CUPCAKES from The Busy Bee. I had one. It was amazing. I want to write it sonnets.
-- I got an amazing sari-fabric bag from Father Dunn for $20. I also bought some soapy things that smell great and tea (Lavender Caramel, Faerie Dust (with edible glitter pearl), Creme de la Earl Grey, and Lemongrass Mint. Because yum. Resisted an elven pottery mug. Might have it shipped at a later date.
-- I also bought a parasol because I had left mine at home and it got bright and sunny and hot for approximately 15 minutes-- which was just enough time for Ann to convince me to buy a parisol because it was Christina Pink with gold filigree painted on it. The minute I paid? Overcast for the rest of the day. Figures.
-- That awful grass from yesterday? Well, a stickly prickly thing in the grass wrapped itself around my ankle and stuck me. Drew blood. I have made my ritual sacrifice to that damn grass, and now it shall plague me no more.
-- I sucessfully used a port-a-john twice, with over 40 yards of fabric on my lower half. There needs to be a merit badge for that.
-- Caught Telesma's set and watched Miss Layla Fahada dance with them. Prettiest natural smile, that lady. So jealous. Also caught pictsy dancing in the air in her silks. The little kids were so wide-eyed watching her flap her "wings" far above their heads.
-- Our set ROCKED. It just flowed so well. The crowd was giving us such great energy, and it just worked. (Also Eugenia's flamenco fusion piece with fan veil? BE MY YODA, EUGENIA FIERCE.) I duetted with Amy, which I have never done before, and it was spinny spinny spinny and though I think at times a trained eye could tell we were negotiating lead, etc, it just reinforced just how very awesome improv is. Overall, everybody brought their A game and the solos were great and and and if I keep going I'm just going to start word-vomiting love for my troupies.
-- Hi Carmen!
-- SO GUYS. THE LITTLE GIRLS MULTIPLIED. We were SWAAAAARMED with little girls after the set during the "free dance" songs. Meredith and I led a shimmy circle with all sorts of fun arms, like so:


Because bellydance makes you strong.
They were just SO AMAZED and OMG SO MANY HUGS. There was one little girl who also saw us dance yesterday that just kept running up to me for hugs. Like, I was in line for food, talking to someone and felt a WHOMP and it it was this little girl, hugging my butt. FREAKING ADORABLE. They were ahead of us on our way out, and WHOMP, hugged again. She got something like six or seven hugs over the course of the day.
-- Best question from an extremely inquisitive munchkin: "Do bellydancers have a queen?" Almost replied "yes, and her name is Carolena."
-- HOW MUCH DO I LOVE MY TROUPIES, LET ME COUNT THE WAYS. Seriously, dance sisters, I love you all.
-- Showered. So tired. So sore. But Olive gave me a billion kisses when I got home (even grabbing my face in her paws because I had the audacity to try to pull back), and I have lavender caramel tea and comfy stretchy pants and a new ep of Game of Thrones tonight. Tomorrow is a trip to the post office, then it will be bath time with epsom salts, doing a load of dance laundry, un-fucking my habitat (my office looks like a sparkly bomb went off in there), and giving myself a proper manicure. Yep.

Dancing: The big thing in my world this week was the Art of the Belly festival in Ocean City. I was there to dance with Transcendence & also to shop and watch others dance. I had planned on a superchill day. Flissy & I left at around 5:30am to get down to Carousel in time for her morning workshop-- we were greeted at the door by Naimah, who asked us to dance a fill-in slot because one of her students had to drop out. The cool thing about improv: it makes filling in SO easy, because I can dance to literally any ATS-able song I know at a moment's notice. So we performed twice: once as Transcendence and once as Verve. We were sandwiched between some of the best dancers around, too-- I was too busy watching from the wings to get real stage fright. So that was awesome.

Here's Transcendence's set:

Transcendence Tribal at Art of the Belly from Spiral on Vimeo.

( Other highlights & dance bits. )

Hair: My hair is now suuuuper bright. I let Jason pick out my haircolor-- a true red-- that, once on my hair, looked like a $5 Bozo the clown wig, no lie. It a flat ketchup red that made my skin look yellow. I went over it with an auburn demipermanent and now I have a still super bright red, but more of an orangey red-- kind of like the little girl in the Brave trailer. This I can live with.

Cats: ( Mim is ridiculous. )

The Hunger Games: I saw it! I mostly loved it! Discussion in another post, probably tomorrow.

Retail stuffs:

-- After I saw it on Vampy Varnish, I decided to give the Physician's Formula Youthful Wear Foundation a try. Touted as sort of a BB cream, with SPF and a lightweight formula, it's definitely appealing for warm weather. I don't really need it for the youthful aspects, as I don't have many wrinkles, but I have to say: I love it. It blends in velvety smooth and then you can't feel it at all. It looks very natural, and evened my color out with a minimum of additional concealer needed. It's sheer so it blends with your natural coloring, but unfortunately (as usual, sadly) darker skintones are SOL here.

-- I also tried Revlon's new Falsies Flared mascara formula, because I was out of my regular mascara and ready to try something else. Another winner! Apparently, this is a definite improvement over the original Falsies formula, because I didn't get spider lashes-- just very long and defined but still natural ones. Very happy.

-- Oh Beautyblender, how much do I love you? Let me count the ways. It makes my face look airbrushed. Amazeballs. Other big rec? Orofluido hair elixir. Makes my hair smell amazing, and delivers on shine big-time without looking greasy. And volume! Overall I love it. I just acquired some of the conditioner by the same brand & will report back. Both of those, by the way, were Birchbox finds. This month's Birchbox had Essie nail polish, a full sized Tarte lippie, another hair oil, and a few other things. I am seriously digging my Birchbox subscription, dude. For $10 a month, I've gotten to sample some pretty awesome stuff.

-- I got a Soapbox Co order today! All of the soaps in my soap pantry are winter leftovers, and I am so ready for light, fresh, spring-y. Went with Villainess's Sol Baccio, Arcana's Ambrosia, Sweet Olive's Satsuma & Mint salt bar, and Paintbox Soapworks' The Olive Branch. Will report back. Also tried a Wicked Soaps rollerbar of Morgana Le Fay perfume... I can't tell if I mildly like it or not. When first applied, it smells weird, like shampoo or something, but after a moment there's a strong hit of citrus. Which is nice, it's just not at all what I'd pictured. Three hours later, it's almost gone. Meh. I do have one big soap rec for you though: Paintbox Soapworks' The Englishman. Soft leathery deliciousness, omg. I love it.

-- Also, I need to rave about a peacock feather headband I bought from The Faerie Market on Etsy. It's iridescent, which I did not expect but LOVE. It is also SO well made, and the packaging was nothing short of stunning. A+++.

-- To finish up, The Fable Tribe (formerly Glamourkin) did an Etsy update today. Go forth and browse!

So, ten secrets. I feel like I've been blogging so long I don't really have secrets anymore. I don't tend to be an especially secretive person. So I guess this will be a mix of 'secrets' and maybe 'stuff I haven't articulated.'

1. I have a really hard time remembering peoples' names. I remember faces, and unless I've seen someone's name written down, it doesn't stick in my short term memory. It's not uncommon for me to have to meet someone more than once for me to remember their name. I will remember details about them or what we talked about, but names just poof right out of my brain.

2. I am a very impatient person. I'm impulsive. When I have an idea, I want to do it immediately. I like action, and have a hard time with anticipation.

3. Unpopular dance (costuming) opinion: I HATE those fluffy white pantaloon thingies. With the firey passion of a thousand burning suns. They make people look like Little Bo Peep. Who the hell wants to look like Little Bo Peep? It is the trend I wish would just die. (However, I do like the non-white variations of these tiered dance pants, but only under 25 yard skirts, as an alternative to pantaloons / salawar.)

4. I can't cook. Mostly because I don't really like to. I find it tedious and boring and am grateful I married a man who can cook.

5. I am really loving The Complete Guide to Not Giving a Fuck. It's interesting how I'm trying to merge living compassionately and mindfully with the doctrine of Not Giving A Fuck. Basically, it comes down to prioritizing what matters to me, and fuck the rest. Anonymous internet troll calls me names? Fuck their spineless asses. People hate that I care about my cats? Fuck 'em, they can fucking scroll. Suspect someone might be shittalking? Fuck 'em if they can't say things to my face. My people are the ones who matter. The people who hold me accountable, who build me up and make me stronger. Everything else is just a distraction.

6. I have found myself re-evaluating what the word 'friend' means. I am guilty of applying it far too liberally. I have noticed that I use it to mean 'acquaintance I admire' a lot, or 'person I used to be friends with but now rarely speak to.' I have been thinking about that word a lot more before I use it.

That said, I think I'm in the best friend situation I've been in in a long time. I still have my old friends-- My Ariel, my Anna, my Abby-- who I love. I have other friends who I don't get as much face time with but could call up if the sky was falling. But dance has had an unexpected side effect in my life: I am now friends with a group of women I love unabashedly, even if I don't always say it that way. Our hangouts leave me feeling uplifted. We don't backbite each other. I don't leave gatherings wondering what they're going to say behind my back. Hanging out with them has even reduced my own gossipy tendencies. (Um, with one notable exception.) They make me a better dancer and a better person and I lurve them and finally feel like I have a place.

7. It drives me nuts when people tl;dr to me, demonstrating lots and lots of obvious info I already know because I'm already discussing the topic at hand. Example-

Me: The sky is blue.
Hypothetical person: The sky is blue because molecules in the air scatter blue light from the sun more than they scatter red light. Bladdity blah blah hoopty doo five paragraphs blah.
Me: No shit, Sherlock. Feel better now?

My annoyance at this is probably part vanity-- why are you assuming I don't know this?-- and also part ingrained annoyance at people who feel like they always need to prove how smart they are. I get that it's an insecurity thing for them 95% of the time, but it seriously annoys the crap outta me. Like, if I'm wrong about something, by all means, please correct me! But please don't run on about facts that need not be expounded upon just to show me that you, too, have some basic knowledge about the topic.

8. I am re-evaluating my food. I don't know if I'll ever go vegetarian. Probably not. But I am giving serious thought to where my meat comes from. I am doing my best to cut out meats that are not free-range, and eating whatever organic I can afford. I don't eat a lot of meat, but when I do, I want to eat meat that was not horrendously mis-treated when it was alive. I think it matters.

9. I struggle with my body image every single day.

10. I am finally at peace with my 'what ifs,' and things I thought might be regrets actually turned out for the best in the end.


...also, marinatempest's husband, Steve, got some FANTASTIC pictures of the Transcendence foursome who performed at the MAC hafla yesterday. I think Flissy & Amy win the prize for most photogenic... a lot of their shots look so perfect they could have been posed. (ETA: after careful consideration, Amy wins the battle of the cuties, July edition. Here's why.) You can see the full album of his shots here. But here are a couple of my favorites:


Fading Arabic with Spins

( A couple more )

I feel like our set went ok. I felt a little bit off during it... I didn't realize until afterwards that I was dealing with serious low blood sugar stemming from not having eaten since breakfast. While I was dancing I honestly felt like I was on a two second delay or something, and yet everything was moving faster than normal. I'm a dummy. I must eat next time. I reviewed a video of it earlier, and luckily it didn't seem bad. Or maybe the camera angle concealed a multitude of sins. It definitely caught when I had a mirror-image issue and turned the wrong way on the wraparound turn during dueling duets though, haha. I cannot tell my right from my left, sweartogod.

Loved the hafla, though. Highlights: the big smiles on Shems's students' faces, many of whom were performing for the first time. Also, Samira Shuruk is awesome. She understands her music so well and is so expressive without ever looking cheesy. I <3 her.

Working on custom orders today. Hammer hammer hammer. At least I have hazelnut coffee. I don't have a ton else to talk about today, so I'll just leave this here...

Transcendence Tribal at Tribal Cafe, June 2011 from Spiral Dancer on Vimeo.

Video from last week's Tribal Cafe, featuring Transcendence Tribal dancers Flissy, me, Lyra, Spiral, Jenn, and Amy. Aside from the pujah opening, the entire thing is improv, which was... challenging... for six dancers in that teeny space. Flissy and I busted out our three new improv combos that we've been working on for Verve. I have a few little nitpicks for myself, but aside from that, I'm pretty pleased with it!

1. Weekend: was good. Friday, Jason and I went on a date to Ellicott City. Had dinner, then some truly spectacular cappuccino and tiramisu. Saturday, I started Spring Cleaning in my studio and made major headway. I got 4/5 through the massive fic I'm reading. Yesterday, made pancakes for breakfast, then we saw my mom for mother's day.

2. Dancing: also good. It seems like Transcendence Tribal will be dancing at the June Tribal Cafe. When the details are cemented (which of us are dancing, etc), I'll post about them. In the meanwhile, I was able to edit last week's performance videos into several smaller bits.

( A couple more. )

At any rate, there are 18 pieces over on my youtube channel-- both sets from Saturday.

3. Work: good. Going to be busy later in the week. People who purchased purple and rainbow labradorite: it's begun to arrive. I will be contacting you with pictures in the next few days. You can tell me what you'd like done with your piece, and I will a) buy the silver it takes to complete your commission, and b) invoice you for the balance.

Also good news: silver dropped $15/oz in the last week. BUT. It's holding fast at $35/oz. It should be more like $18/oz. It's still double what it was when I began Sihaya Designs.

AND! I found a way to make my next batch of faerie wings super super special. I am really excited.

4. Pagan: Part of the reason I'm cleaning my studio is because I'll be working on something major for the next six months, and it's my space in the apartment. I'm going to set up a special altar and everything. I still need some supplies, but I've made my intent clear. I'll be courting guides I've never used before, and that takes time.

5. BPAL: I did a culling of the BPAL and here is my sale list. I desperately want to buy Ninon before it goes away on the 19th. It smells AMAZING one me.

6. Phone: My phone is being wonky. Sometimes it won't turn on. I didn't get several of the text messages Jason sent to me this weekend. I don't know what's up, but it needs to go back to Best Buy. If you need me, please send me an email.

7. Today: my hands are largely tied, as I am waiting on supplies for commissions. I will be working on my BOS today, and maybe going for a walk. It feels like the right thing for today.