Two Years

I've been doing this blog for two years now. WOW!

After reading some of my old entries, I've noticed that I've kept the idiocy and general goofiness levels about the same for the past two years. I may not be as great a blogger as Uncle Eddie or John K because I don't aim to be educational, but I've been having fun with it.

Speaking of fun, I've updated the Entropy Project.

Joe Riley

...was a helluva artist. Apparently he died this week, but I don't know what happened. He wasn't old, so I imagine whatever it was wasn't supposed to happen at this date. I hope to find out more tonight at dinner. I'm sad. Cos he was good.

Anyway, his blog is here, and he even mentioned my pathetic self on said awesome blog here. Check out his paintings and sculptures! Freakin' AMAZING.

Social Secretary

Still furiously drawing away on freelance. The light at the end of the tunnel is getting brighter though, I think. I can't wait to get my life back, albeit for a short amount of time.

Was a conspiracy formed so that there's too much cool stuff going on the weekend of October 13? I have to be in Jackson, CA for a par-tay and Las Vegas for a wedding(which I need to get a dress for. Lourd help me on that shopping excursion!). Also scheduled is a Derby Doll bout, an interleague bout featuring the flat-track league in town and the Bay Area league. Aaaaaaaaaaaaand, Lebowskifest West is going on. Ja-heezus, enough already!

So I'm slightly pouty about this.

This week is social, too. Tonight I'll be catching up with some of the folk I worked with in Texas. We're eating at Vitello's, which is the restaurant where Robert Blake's wife had her last meal. Woohoo! Tomorrow I see some of the Scooby people. Saturday we visit our SoCal biker friends, where drinking and eating in mass quantities will ensue. I'm gonna have to go on a severe diet next week!

In the meantime, here's some funny stuff I found on the interwebz:

What I Do Online...

Here's a silly post inspired by my online perusing today...

I religiously read quite a few sites every day I'm near a computer. Today's perusing had me catch up with Uncle Eddie's Theory Corner, where a particular topic got me thinking about things I see on one of my other fave sites. Btw, if you're in the animation biz, you should be required to read Uncle Eddie's blog. If you're not in the animation biz, you should read his blog to know that more people like him should be in charge of the animation biz.

The particular topic (WARNING: clicking on the Particular Topic brings up some photos of nekkid girls. NSFW) started with Uncle Eddie's taste in nekkid girls. He apparently doesn't mind underarm hair on girls. Read through the comments, and you'll see various people commenting on underarm hair. And pubic hair. Which got me thinking. Oh no. It's now commonplace for most women to shave, wax, or trim their pubic hair. I have mixed feelings about it, but more on that later.

Here's where my perusing and thinking cross each other's paths...

One of my other fave sites to check out constantly is Craig's List. Alright, I'm absolutely, COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY OBSESSED with reading Craig's List throughout the day. Rants and Raves. Missed Connections. Creative Gigs. The bulletin boards. And, of course, the personal ads. Men for women, women for men, men for men, t-girls for men, strictly platonic, casual encounters, misc. romance...I read them all.

Something I've noticed about the personals...guys sure like to show their junk on Craig's List. Two immediate thoughts come to mind whenever I see a pic of some guy's junk when he's advertising for a date/hookup/LTR on a m4w board. One: do chicks who aren't total skanks really go for that? I always thought women liked a little mystery in that department...at least at first. Two: why are men starting to totally shave their pubic hair? Trimming? OK, I can kinda-sorta understand that. But shaving?!?!?!?!? Especially when the guy has chest hair?!?!?!?!?!?!? It looks RI-GODDAM-DICULOUS when a guy has chest hair and then shaves his pubic area. Just sayin'. Makes me glad I'm not out trying to get a date on Craig's List, I tell you whut.

OK, got that off my mind. Discuss.

Anyway...

My two new favorite sites, because they combine two wonderful things...roller derby and lolcats:

I Can Has Lead Jammer?

icanhasderbygirlz

And yes, I've been making lolskaters for both sites, as evidenced below:


































Here's something I'd like to see more of...

My friend Kenny has a fun blog and he knows a ridiculous amount about films and film making. He knows alllll of the cool old films from Back in the Day, and he watches Turner Movie Classics a lot. On my own blog he gave a great little list of Rosalind Russell 101 films to see. Which I have to get on and watch when I'm done with my current freelance hell. I'd like to see other actor 101 lists. Start basic, and see where it goes. You know I've never seen a Gary Cooper film? I've barely scratched the surface of what Clark Gable did. Barbara Stanwyck? I know she's cool, but what are her best films? I finally saw Bette Davis in Of Human Bondage last week. Why the hell haven't I watched it before?! What about all those character actors from the 30's and 40's? Jeez, it's almost overwhelming what's out there. People like Kenny help out the staggeringly ignorant such as myself when it comes to finding stuff like that.

And now, back to my freelance and my mixed thoughts on women getting rid of their pubic hair. Thank you and goodnight.

Onwards and upwards...or not.

Haven't had time to draw up anything worth posting, so here's the first hit one gets if they google my name under "images". Pretty damn cool:

Still freelancing away. This script is multiplying like yeast! It just keeps going and going and going and going and going. At least most of the battle sequences are over.

The remaining cats have figured out that the Angriest Cat in the World hasn't come back. So there's been an adjusting to their positions. They have figured out that there's more attention to be given to them. So both of the little furry bastards have been coming up to me more often to be petted. I had no idea that the fatass diabetic cat could be so demanding. Apparently he knew that I belonged to the Angriest Cat in the World before, and now he's moving in on her former territory. The big dumb cat is now being more affectionate than before. He's always been prone to acting as if to say, Look at me! I'm cute! I'm a damn CUTE KITTY CAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! but it's kicked into a higher gear. I'm going to end up with diabetes by the end of next month if he keeps this going.

I found the Angriest Cat in the World's collar and put it on my Divorce Desk. It's comforting to have it there. I decided to have her cremated, and so should be getting her ashes soon. Originally, I thought about taking them to the desert around Joshua Tree to scatter the ashes. Why there? I don't know...probably because it's a weird looking place and I had a weird cat. Now I don't know what I'll do. I may keep them for awhile until inspiration strikes me.

In the meantime, I'm doing a lot of skating at the beach when I'm not working. The weather's perfect and I enjoy the distraction. I can't wait to get done with my work so that I can get back to goofing off properly.

*sigh*

This was a sh!tty weekend.

Friday started out OK...I turned in the first half of the current freelance hell I'm in, and the supervisor liked what I did. Yay!

I then tried to make lunch plans to no avail. Boo! That came back to bite me very severely in the @$$ later in the afternoon.

I came home, put the murdersickle away, and went to tend to the Angriest Cat in the World. As you know, she was diagnosed with lymphoma late last year. As you also know, her eating habits as of late have been abysmal. As of this past week, she wasn't herself at all.

She stopped growling at the diabetic fatass cat.

She stopped being able to jump up to my computer table to lay on top of my computer monitor.

She stopped eating.

She stopped using the litter box.

She stopped waking us up early in the morning to be fed.

She stopped curling up in a ball in my lap.

She stopped sleeping next to my head on my pillow at night.

She stopped purring.

She stopped sleeping.

She stopped walking around with such force that I could hear her little feet stomping on the hardwood floors.

Basically, all she's been doing for the past week has been lying in one of two spots in the back of the house, keeping to herself. Not sleeping, not doing much of anything except lying uncomfortably. She'd let me pick her up and carry her to the kitchen to give her medication and try to feed her. She'd let herself be put on the bed. She'd let herself be placed in the den. However, she didn't stick around for any of that for very long, and she'd stumble back to her semi-hiding place.

So I figured it's off to the vet she goes.

I pack her up with little resistance(a big red flag right there)and cart her off to the vet. She meows plaintively a couple of times in the waiting room, but she's suprisingly quiet otherwise. We wait for about 45 minutes in the waiting room and then go in for her exam. The vet checks her out, weighs her (4 lbs, 4 oz...skin and bones), and takes her temperature. He feels around her abdomen and notices that one kidney is way bigger than the other(one kidney has probably shut down functions altogether), and there's a large mass in her intestinal area. The same area where the lymphoma started.

There's nothing that can be done for her.

Being the strong, stoic individual I am, I do what any badass would do.

I fainted dead away in the examining room.

I scared the bejeezus out of the vet staff, but they've dealt with fainting people before and had me sitting up with a cup of water quickly after I came to. I have one helluva goosegg on the back of my noggin as a result though. Hurts like hell, too. This was the only time I heard the cat complain, as the staff had to try to put her back in her carrying case. She doesn't like the vet, to put it mildly. When she was in full force, she'd make the Tasmanian Devil look like a fluffy baby chick. Her ferocity was legend. Not this time. When I sat up, I saw her scowling at me through the bars of her case, as if to say, Good going, moron!

I blame the fainting on my not eating lunch. I should've known better. It's not like I didn't know what the outcome would be for the cat. It shouldn't have been the shock that it was. Argh.

Anyway, the vet gave her a vitamin B shot and some general fluids since she was so dehydrated. They sent her home with me, saying that if there' s no improvement Friday night, to bring her back in Saturday.

No improvement.

So Saturday was The Day. The Day that I had to put my first cat to sleep.

I've been with my sister when she had to put one of her cats to sleep. It's an awful experience. It's doubly awful when one goes back to the place where they fainted the day before to do it. Ugh!

I'm very lucky in that my sister returned the favor and was with me and the husband when we took the Angriest Cat in the World back to the vet in the late afternoon. I've been a big crybaby since Friday. I haven't been this sad in an incredibly long time. To be responsible for taking away the doomed life of a pet that's been in my care for her entire life hit me very very hard.

She went peacefully.

It was the right thing to do. It was a painful thing to do, and I haven't slept right for days. My eyes hurt from crying. My back hurts from tossing and turning in bed.

But she went peacefully.

And it was the right thing to do.

I'm still miserable for now. I cleaned up her food area and threw out her litter box. Cried while I did it. I cried when I came home from the vet's and fed the two remaining cats, because I wasn't feeding three cats.

But she needed to go peacefully when she did, and I just have to keep telling myself that.

She was an incredibly ill-tempered cat. But she was my incredibly ill-tempered cat, and I miss her horribly.

My Cary Grant moment

I've been thinking about how far I've come job-wise. Apparently my hatred for my current freelance got me pondering this. So, what was my first job?

Working at a crop-dusting company as a flagger. What's a flagger? you may be asking yourself.

A flagger is a low-paid dipsh!t who gets sent out to the fields that need to be sprayed with pesticides wearing coveralls, respirator(that would hardly ever get used), hat, and plenty of sunblock. The flagger is given a crude measuring device called a "widget" that was 3-feet across at the base. The flagger turns the widget a certain number of times from the edge of the field to be sprayed and then waves the flag they have in their other paw for the cropduster plane to aim for. The plane aims for the flagger (one flagger at each end of the field, forming a straight line for the pilot to follow), sprays the field, then turns around to come for another pass. The flagger moves their little widget, waves their flag, and moves on as soon as the plane goes by. This whole process ensures that the field getting sprayed got something resembling even coverage.

There are many reasons why this job is an incredible anomaly in my life. It was outdoors, and the peak season was summertime. SO prime for a vampiric pale pasty person such as myself! I would have to get up at around 3 in the morning so that I could ride my bicycle for six miles in the dark to the cropdusting headquarters and get my assignment for the day. I had to work with men who tended to be rather crude. I rarely got access to indoor plumbing when it came to having to use the bathroom.



















I was 18 when I got the job. Actually, my mom got me the job. Anyway, I was paired with an old guy named Harold for most of my tenure the first summer I was working there. Harold looked like a more bulbous version of Michael Moore. He lived in a small trailer on the premises of the cropdusting company. He was also a dirty old man. He talked constantly. About the weather. About politics. Work gossip. Backstories about the company owner. Anything about the local flora and fauna that came across his line of sight.

The "dirty old man" aspect really revealed itself on very hot days. Harold would talk about Stupid Pilot Tricks(a favorite trick of the pilots would be to take the planes down on the Sacramento River and buzz low enough to get the landing wheels wet. A highly illegal move, apparently) and other flaggers. He'd then casually mention how previous girl flaggers would do their jobs topless on really hot days. WTF?!?!?!?!? I would just roll my eyes at this. He'd try to convince me that this was standard practice with girl flaggers at other cropdusting companies, too. I'd just stare back at him. I was never afraid of him, ironically enough, because a)I was quicker than he was and could definitely outrun him if I had to, and b) I looked like his daughter, and as a result I think he actually kept a reasonable physical distance from me most of the time out of some form of respect. Working with him was actually a good base for learning to deal with rollergirls, who never cease to amaze me when it comes to being crude!

I learned something important working at this place: pilots are crazy. They may not look crazy when you meet them. In fact, the pilots I worked with tended to be very mild-mannered. Get them in a plane and all of the sudden you have the Red Baron coming down on you...literally!

There was Joe, who flew in Vietnam and was incredibly cranky most of the time. He didn't give a damn about how much pesticides the flaggers got sprayed with, and the few times I was on his crew I used the flag as a cover as much as it was used as a marker. I think he was the only one who crashed his plane while I worked there. He came out OK, but the plane was toast.

Rich was a little better, but he'd get impatient with the flaggers sometimes.

Wayne was practically blind, but he still flew. He'd usually get put on actual crop-dusting detail as opposed to spraying pesticides. Literal crop-dusting in our area was dusting tomato field with sulphur. Flaggers weren't needed for this, as the sulphur dust held in the air long enough for the pilot to see where he's been, and can dust evenly accordingly.

Harry was a former sheriff and was the most quiet of the bunch. He was also the most daring pilot. I heard more stories about him than anyone. I didn't see too much in the way of aerial acrobatics from him while working, though.

TAD was the youngest(he was around 40 at the time), smoked a lot of pot, and was the best to work with when it came to getting crap sprayed on me. The most amount of workplace gossip was about him, as apparently he was quite the Lothario. All I know is that he almost killed me with the plane one time(Wayne was responsible for almost killing me another time), and gave me a ride in the plane another time. Both were fun!






















So here's the Cary Grant part...the times I almost got killed while flagging. One time the field foreman thought it'd be a great idea to stick a flagger(me) on top of a levee that was under some huge powerlines that the plane(piloted by TAD) had to fly under to spray a field. So, TAD had to fly the plane over a levee and under huge powerlines while avoiding me waving a damn flag. No biggie, right? Right??

WRONG. Things started out OK, and I thought I was moving my little widget fast enough to get out of the plane's way as it headed right for me. Technically I was, but I felt the wind of the tip of the wings push me even further out of the way. TAD made one pass, turned the plane around, landed, and screamed at the foreman to get me the hell outta there because he almost hit me. Oopsie. I thought the whole thing was kinda fun, but I'm an idiot that way.

The other Cary Grant moment came when I was placed between two very small fields to be sprayed. I got set up, Wayne was flying, and I waved my flag accordingly. He came right at me, and I started to move out of the way. I wasn't fast enough. He didn't raise the damn plane up at all when he came at me, and so I literally had to hit the ground when he went over my head. The fields were tiny enough so that Wayne got himself turned around and came back for pass numero two-o before I could get up and run, so I got sprayed again while on the ground, laughing my ass off. The rest of the crew had a great time telling the rest of the company how I almost got splattered across a field in Dixon!

















I worked on and off at the cropdusters for a couple of years. I perfected my ability to drive a standard-transmission vehicle on that job. I saw a lot more of the local topography than I ever would have otherwise. I worked with people I NEVER would've dealt with otherwise.

I still love seeing cropdusters out and about. There's something poetic about watching them swoop around.

My Mood

Freelance has me in a bad mood. My general expression is much like the one below:
















Grrrrr.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!!

IT'S ABOUT TIME THE HEATWAVE STOPPED.

Seriously, I was getting concerned about the stoopid cats again. The Angriest Cat in the World hasn't regained the weight she lost during the last heatwave when the husband and I were in Vegas for Rollercon. She's now a delicate little creature, and I don't know how much longer she'll be with us. Sucks.

I might be able to get some work done now, though. It was too hot and humid to draw over the holiday weekend. Seriously, one would think that drawing wouldn't be uncomfortable under most circumstances...that is, until they try to draw when the graphite in their pencil is practically melting. I'm now so far behind on my freelance it's obscene. It doesn't help that the project is driving me nutso. Any excuse to step away from my desk, and I take it. Baaaaaaaad.

Here's a drawing I did for a skate company that found me drawing on people at Rollercon. It's for a new line of derby-specific skates that they're coming out with. The skates are called, "Rebels", so they wanted a mean-but-not-too-mean girl for the ad. I haven't seen the final ad, but apparently they made the skates and her hair black. Fine by me.






















The Derby Dolls might have found a new home. Woohoo! Which means I get to help move the damn track again as soon as this weekend if things go right. Not looking forward to that. But having a home for 6-10 months sounds pretty damn good right now, so whatever.


Not much else is going on. When I'm done with this round of freelance I want to take some serious time off and clean out the closets in the house. Doesn't that sound exciting?!