I couldn't sleep last night omg. I don't remember the last time that happened! I ended up laying next to a slumbering Court until 3am, reading a trashy romance novel. I think I'm excited for New Years and also dreading my birthday on the 1st. You wouldn't think that these two things could coexist, would you? Maybe that's what's up with the no-sleeping.

I did have the most awesome Girl's Date yesterday. ( Downtown adventures and birthday worries behind the cutCollapse )

In other, happier news - the baby kitten I got for Christmas is adorable. She sleeps with a different padawan each night and she may be starting to come to our call. She's cuddly and playful and fits perfectly into our family. :)

I went caroling for charity tonight and it was awesomely random. Like most of the crazy ideas I get, it turned out not to be as scary as I anticipated but much more out-of-the-blue. Tonight involved:

Horridly cliche bad Christmas sweaters made worse (if such a thing is possible) by duct-taped-in blinking Christmas lights ("Is that a battery pack in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?"); a girl in a miniskirt, bare legs, and totally tanked coming out to carol with us in 30 degree weather; a booklet of words to Christmas songs typed in impossible-to-read, gray-colored, 10 point font; a boy wearing a blinking red light-up Rudolph nose, a lucha libre (mexican wrestling) mask, and christmas-light festooned antlers over it all; beer from the wagon we took with us to hold the canned goods we were collecting; a girl wearing a red with white polka dot One Up Mushroom hat; no flashlights to see anything whatsoever we may have wanted to see or read; a man dressed as Santa, only with no beard; a crowded restaurant full of businessmen all staring at the ridiculously-attired people parading through the bar to get to the back room, where they shut the door between us because we were so loud; three carols sung over and over and over; many people in elf hats; some darn amazing artichoke dip; a girl in a Cindy Loo Hoo type pompom-festooned spiral hat; a red wagon decorated like a children's Christmas parade rejected float (rejected for being too likely to explode, a la Christmas Vacation); a man dressed entirely from red clothing purchased at Goodwill earlier that day; beer from random houses we caroled to ("Do these count as donate-able canned goods? No? Well I have a way to get rid of them then..."); knocking on random doors to ask for donations (in aforementioned One Up Mushroom hat); The Boss' rendition of 'Santa Clause is Coming to Town'.

Good stories today, friends. Thanks to those hearty souls who came with me and well-met to my new friends!


PS. Doing good feels good.

Hello there, friends! Jme and I just got back from our first road trip, a couple days to Fairplay and Buena Vista and the hot springs there. We did not, obviously, go by car. In fact it would have been silly to go by car when we both had supercool helmets and jackets on. We rode his Triumph Thruxton 900 and it was very Jack Kerouac and late 50s and pared-down adventure. It was amazing!

( Adventure ho! (with more pictures)Collapse )

I have stories, ohyesIdo. Let's get together soon around a table and I'll tell you the story of When Jme Got Cranky... and he'll likely follow with the story of When Skye Got Really Cranky. Both stories end in a pool at the hot springs, though - so let that be a lesson to you, I say.

More road trips, motorcycles, beautiful vistas, cowboy cooking, livin' simply, and hot springs for us all!

So The McLandsborough and I had some bonding time the other weekend with his dad and dad's girlfriend.

( I may be that girl.Collapse )

I haven't seen many old pictures of my mom, but those that I have seen, of her as a freshman cheer-leader in high school in the 60s when she and my dad met, look just like this top picture. I'm hoping that she actually has some pictures of herself in high school so I can check my perception. I am pretty sure my dad has pictures, but I wouldn't be so cruel as to ask him to go back through old photographs of he and his ex-wife's courtship days.

In related news, divorce sucks. D-, Would not go again.

I think I'm going to take myself on a date to this art instillation this Tuesday to distract myself from OMG NEED MOAR PEOPLE SCHOOL NAOW PLZ. I don't know if I'll draw or write on that big long sheet of paper, honestly, and am trying not to make my decision (of which to do) mean anything - though of course I'm afraid it does. This brings to mind a story Sir Kent told me about his best friend in art school. It seems that for most projects that they had to do, and this one big one (maybe a final project?) specifically, his friend's projects involved more writing than actual visual art. Sir Kent's friend is an author now, and has been a talented writer for as long as I've known him. Gives me a little hope, this story: maybe the genesis of all I'm meant to be is already inside me, no matter what I pursue out here in the world.

...of course if that's true? I'm meant to be a hell of a lot of things.

In related news, Jeopardy! time:

Answer:

Final Cut Pro 6: Visual QuickPro Guide,

Little Digital Video Book, The (2nd Edition),

Creating Motion Graphics with After Effects: Essential and Advanced

Techniques, 4th Edition

</ul>
Question:
What books are required for just ONE of my classes at CU this semester?

I have been hanging around in a jewelery store on Larimer lately and man - wow, that is SOME PLACE. Possibly the most awesomely random yet comfortable place I have ever had the pleasure of being welcome in. Just as a side note: they get characters, I tell you, and NO LIE. I have stories that would make you laugh in surprise and I'm only there for a little while once a week or so! Today I saw a crest-pin being made for a man who's going back to the homeland because he's inherited the leadership of a clan. This man has a heavy cane but not for locomotion, oh no: it's in case of skulduggery on the byways of our fair city! He's also been a mercenary and he has been known to wear spats around town. Unironically. Now, I didn't get to meet him in person but today I did chat up an older lawyer who wanted Jamie to make him a necklace of sharks' teeth which the lawyer, himself, had collected on his most recent diving trip to Tahiti last week.

...omg what?!

If ever I do turn out to desire a career in writing believe me: it's only going to take me about two more months hanging out at the jewelery store and I will have material for yeeeears. And this isn't including the hijinks of the actual employees of the place nor the tale of what exactly I did to now be welcome to play around with shiny lovely pretties hang out in a jewelery store!

...you know, it's really only when I sit down, usually confused over some stupid relationship issue, to write about how nothing really is going on in my life that I realize how awesome an adventure my life is. Thanks, f-list.

My friends have been at NDK - hello and welcome back, friends! Your pictures are funny and v. awesome!

I have been doing school liek whoa. I am also Gary now, woodworking up a storm for my 3D Design class. Brought home a bunch of planks I cut thursday and I gave them all a long hot bath and then a massage before I stretched them on a curve I made myself on the jigsaw. That is not a metaphor - I really did that. I have been drying and shaping wood all weekend because I am making a boat. Of course, this cannot be done with the kind of wood I'm using but *shrug* I'm doing it anyway because my muse is a bitch. I MUST HAVE A BOAT.

Speaking of muse, I did some photo montages today in class that were SO AWESOME: ( (and of course I'm going to tell you about it.) Collapse )

I have a feeling all of my schooling is going to be about me saying what sounds like ridiculous things and then writing "...no, really." after them and meaning it.

takumi and I used to see each other once a week at least, and life (as it does) moved on and we both got busy, seeing each other for awesome hockey games regularly. But this summer we didn't see each other anymore. This? Not. Ok. So we fixed that! I took the day off on Sunday, the only Sunday I have ever taken off (other than for a long vacation) - just a random Sunday of leisure to spend with my friend Steve. And do you know what we did? Let me give you a hint:



A HA! FOOD ON STICKS! BEER! HAPPY HAPPY FACES! IT MUST BE...

The Colorado Renaissance Festival!

( We had a good time, and we know that because Gem went home with nuts. Takumi had a GREAT time; he went home with MY nuts!Collapse )

I'm off to register Paris for school. Middle school, to be exact. Paris is on vacation until next week or else he would be coming with me and we'd be going about the school finding classes - the same thing I did when I started High School and suddenly I had classes in all different places. I like to know where I'm going, and I like my school to be somewhat familiar cause it's hard enough dealing with new people and teachers and classes - feeling lost in an unfamiliar social and emotional world - without also feeling lost a the physical one.

Not unrelated, I am then going to go to the Park-n-Ride and I'm going to take the bus downtown, timing how long it takes. And then I will somehow find the right lightrail line to get to my new school the University of Colorado at Denver... or another bus? I don't know. Anyway, I'm going to go on campus and take care of some details - college ID card, transportation passes, change my name with the registrar (Skye; do that first, silly). And then I'm off with a map in hand to find MY classes on that campus somewhere.

I have a bento and lots of water, a sketchbook, my cellphone (with a few local friend's numbers on Quickdial), a Hershey's bar and my Iron Nerve. I'm ready.

...wait, where did I put my Iron Nerve again? Hm. Well I've got to go now - I guess Chutzpah will have to do for today.

Wish me luck! *waves hello from the bus window traveling down I-25*

By any meaning or requirement of the term (whether a friendly meeting with a girl or boy or a romantic date), I was stood up tonight. ( 'TK-421, why aren't you at your post?!'Collapse )

So my evening? It was lovely and darn near perfect. I love it when a plan comes together ;)

If you have called or txt'd me in the past two days I have not gotten them and I didn't know there was a problem. I have phone service for both now so feel free to re-send or call.

In related news, thanks to a kind and knowledgeable friend who's willing to answer dumb questions and walk me through unfamiliar situations, I am working on getting my own phone and account which I should have by next week. I think for the help involved (and the amount of money he's going to save me) it's a small price to start calling Dave "Daddy". Well, and of course I'm positively stoked to have lenaen as an otouto!

As a side note, I'm so nervous about being in the charity fashion show I could throw up. I want to support this, but maybe I should have volunteered to, like, set up lights and fuss with people's clothes backstage. I am VERY good at saying, "You look perfect *nodnod*... now GET OUT THERE RIGHT NOW YOU'RE LATE *push*."