Wicked Whimsy

Archive for the ‘Life’ Category

Geddit? Goal post?! Oh, I crack myself up sometimes.

So, my goals for August and how I did on them:

• do more yoga – yes! I did well on this one. Went from almost no yoga to 3ish times a week. I’m still improving on it as well, which is a good thing.
• meditate for ten minutes, 3x a week – ehh. I did it probably once or twice a week, so I made progress, but I didn’t manage 3x a week.
• swim once a week – TOTALLY failed at this one. Barton Springs is close, and it’s cheap, but it’s also always freezing cold – and it’s been so hot outside that I try to stay inside most of the day, only to remember at seven or eight PM that I was planning on going swimming. Whoops.
• sketching regularly – better on this one, but not as good as I could have been.
• make progress on Valkyries – oh man, I totally dropped the ball on this one. I made progress but not near as much as I was supposed to. Must remedy.

Goals for September:

• I think I’ll carry over the meditation & yoga goals, with goals of at least 3x a week for both of them.
• Sketching regularly is something I’d like to keep doing.
• Definitely need to get the first chapter of Valkyries done. Planning this to be done before the 13th, actually.
• I’m submitting an essay to issue #4 of hoax zine that needs to be done before the  31st.

Trying to keep them a little lighter this month, because of the work that needs done on that essay & on Valkyries. I’m pretty confident about being able to get most of these done. I just read Refuse to Choose by Barbara Sher (review coming next week!) and there were some nifty scheduling & time management tools suggested in the book that I’m hoping to make good use of.

If you set any monthly goals, I’d love to hear them and how you did on them! Wishing you luck for this month as well.

Like I mentioned on this Monday & last Monday, last week I took an internet break. Or attempted to. My goal was to do internet for only 30 minutes in the morning and 30 at night, which I surpassed by ridiculous amounts. But my overall internet usage was much lower than normal and it made me think about the ways I use the internet, how it affects me, and how I should plan my internet usage from here on out, knowing those things.

My head is kind of a noisy place, most of the time. And the internet only augments that. I think it’s something about having access to so many viewpoints, often opposing, at the same time, combined with multitasking. All I know is that when I’m on the internet too much (I still haven’t figured out what, in hours, “too much” is, but I know it when I’ve hit it), it feels like there’s constant static in my head.

Unlike some people, I think the internet is more good than bad. I generally feel it’s an amazing tool, I just need to figure out how to successfully moderate my usage. Chocolate is awesome, but you’d get sick eating it every meal, every day.

Here’s my new plan:

• At least every other day, only use the internet in the mornings and in the evenings, as far as “social web” is concerned (like, writing or working on the comic is all right, tumblr/twitter/Google reader is not).
• No internet at night before bed! I think I’m going to start trying to get off every night at or before nine or ten o’clock. Matt & I are trying to get up earlier and it’s so easy to while away a few hours at night on the internet – and suddenly it’s one in the morning.
• No getting on the internet very first thing in the morning. Do yoga, if not up for doing yoga that morning, at least sit and meditate for a few minutes, then eat breakfast, then the laptop can be opened.

Although not 100% internet-related, I’m also trying to do less multitasking. I’m a natural multitasker, but there’s a certain point where it gets a little ridiculous and just leads to distraction. I want to purposefully make space for activities not focused around the computer – mostly, reading books. I’ve got a mile-high stack of library + borrowed books right now, all calling my name, and after those, I can get more. In fact, between Amazon and interlibrary loan, I’m pretty sure I could probably disappear reading for years at a time. Mindfulness is another thing I’d like to work on – I tend to be a bit spacey sometimes when it comes to things like eating. I’d like to be a little more grounded and a little less on autopilot.

Is there a particular internet schedule you stick to? How’s that work out for you?

Recently on Twitter, Alicia and I talked about the whole “anyone can do it!” phrasing that’s incredibly common in several groups (off the top of my head, the groups that come to mind are minimalism, lifestyle design, “green”, and even some vegan groups). I can’t recall what sparked the discussion, but I remember that we were talking about one example that is everyone’s favorite – just ride a bike instead of using a car! It’s so easy!

Except that…

• in many parts of the country, riding a bicycle everywhere puts you at risk of a heat stroke for a good chunk of the year.
• many people don’t have bicycles. They can be obtained fairly cheaply, to be sure; although one article I saw that suggested this commented on how an inexpensive bike could be obtained for $150 or less, acting like that was a minimal investment. Suffice to say, I don’t think it is for many people in the current economic times. And that also leaves out basic essentials like lights (which are required by law in Austin when riding at night), a helmet (a good one can run $50+ new), and a lock; even if you manage to get a bike for $50 used off Craigslist, you’re still probably looking at a good $200 investment when all is said and done.
• lots of people live in places where cycling is just not an acceptable form of alternative transportation. In rural areas or suburban sprawl, it doesn’t work nearly as well as it does if you live in the center of a city.
• are you ready for this? I know it’s a total shocker. But. NOT EVERYONE CAN RIDE A BIKE. A wheelchair or cane user would have a hell of a time on your average bike. People with chronic pain or fatigue conditions, or temperature or light sensitivities, probably wouldn’t find riding a bike worth the amount of energy (aka spoons) it would take.

Usually when these suggestions – ride a bike, get rid of your car, buy fair trade, ask your boss to let you work at home – get thrown about, it’s from someone who seems to either not know or care that there are others out there who have different circumstances than they do. It is really not that hard to think of situations other than your own before assuming everyone else has the same options you do.

I don’t have anything against any of these groups in particular, but I think it’s incredibly disingenuous to claim “anyone can do it!” and then spout off a list of things that not everyone can do. It’s just plain silly to claim your advice applies to everyone when it clearly doesn’t, and what’s more, to act like people who don’t implement your advice are merely lazy, mindless consumers (switch out as needed for environment haters, omnivores, cubicle wage slaves, etc.), instead of people who have valid reasons for not wanting to. That doesn’t always happen, but I’ve certainly seen that straw-person get bandied about before and I’m sure I will again.

I felt the need to write a post about this because it seems like it’s been everywhere lately and it drives me up the wall!

This is what I wore to go see Scott Pilgrim vs. The World yesterday (I wanted to see Inception, but Matt thought that the trailer looked too pretentious.). I actually wore this a couple of weeks ago at one of the blogger lunches, but the pictures from then turned out shitty and I really liked this outfit, so I documented it (slightly, jeez camera) better this time.

Rundown:

Fluevog engineer boots, Hot Topic dress, vintage skirt-slip, H&M lace top via eBay, Tarina Tarantino bracelet, secondhand amethyst necklace. Which broke later last night. Boo, hiss.

My thoughts on the movie: (slight spoilers ahead)

…

I haven’t read the comics, so I don’t know if they’re any better. I didn’t think it was AMAZING, but I didn’t think it was really terrible either. I was mildly annoyed by the fact that Ramona (the love interest) had a total lack of agency through most of the movie; I mean, she obviously wanted to date Scott, but the movie revolved around how her exes all decided to make it difficult for anyone else to date her, no matter how she felt about it, Scott had to fight the exes for/over her, and at the end of the movie one of the exes literally puts a chip in her brain so she has to be saved yet again. As Matt said, it’s essentially a “save the princess” sort of deal. Also, I am kind of wondering when Michael Cera will be too old to be the go-to guy for movies like this. I think he’s adorable, but I’m also pretty sure he’s played essentially the same character in EVERY MOVIE he’s been in, EVER, in the history of the universe, and I mean, there’s only so much cute-awkward-geeky-skinny-indie-kid shenanigans you can watch. Or I can watch, anyways.

It was pretty funny at parts, though. I’m pretty sure there was some sort of Jungian archetypes thing going on but I was never much into Jung so they went right over my head.

The avatar maker is also pretty cool:

They even had my hair color! Which I guess makes sense, seeing as how Ramona’s hair goes from pink to blue to green throughout the film…

Speaking of hair!

It is LONG, y’all. Or at least for me; this is the longest it’s been in ages. I kind of forgot how to take care of it when it’s this long, I probably  need to take a few pokes around the Naturally Curly site or something. Not to mention figure out something else to do with it other than pigtails, since that’s currently how I’m wearing it every other day. The movie made me want to cut it short again BUT NO, I shall persevere. If nothing else it needs to be long(er) so I can have a majestic teased mess of hair for my Halloween costume.

As for general state of the me things; I’m doing pretty well. I’ve been feeling inexplicably burned out lately so I’m mostly holing up in a Hogwarts inspired hole; I’m reading my way through the HP series again (between books three and four at the moment) and planning on watching all of the movies too (I never saw five or six at all!). The cover story is that I want to be caught up/refreshed for when the next movie comes out in November, but I think I also just needed some comforting nostalgia. Although the trailer is pretty fucking awesome, amirite? I think I need to take another short internet break & that’s tentatively planned for the 22nd-28th at the moment.

Anyways. Hope your weekend is off to a good start, dear reader. I have more Harry Potter planned, myself. Because I am an adult and that is how I deal with things, dammit.

Earlier in the year, I was really good about keeping track of my monthly goals. I’d mentally check in halfway through the month and keep track of my goals in lists around the house – namely, a large dry erase board on the ‘fridge and daily to-do lists on TeuxDeux. Not surprisingly, I’ve fallen by the wayside, as tends to happen as the year goes on and stress levels spike. I haven’t logged into TeuxDeux in forever, and the dry-erase board now houses “your mom” jokes that we take turns filling in. (Maturity FTL!)

However! Earlier this week, I saw a great post by Fajr on the subject of goals with some great tips & ideas for maintaining them. I’ve been intending to do blog check-ins on goals for a while now (see #2 on Fajr’s list, make yourself accountable!), and what a coincidental kick-in-the-rear that post was.

SO, that in mind – here’s my goals for August:

• Meditate for 10 minutes a day, at least 3x a week. Ideally, this would be every day, and at one point it was, but sometimes things get in the way (and/or I forget to do it until I’m already tired, but can’t realistically fall asleep at that time, in which case ten minutes of listening to wave sounds is a bad idea). So I think 3x a week is a reasonable goal for now, since I know that I’ll benefit from it just by doing it regularly at all.
• Swim once a week (for exercise). There’s really no excuse not to do this more, since it’s always warm enough outside & Barton Springs is all of $3 admission.
• Finish the prologue & first chapter of Valkyries and make the website presentable!
• Do more yoga. I’m being a bad goal setter with this, because I’m not setting a quantifiable number, but oh well.
• Keep sketching regularly – I’m trying to remember to keep my sketchbook in my purse at all times so that it’s accessible when I inevitably get bored.

Expect a mid-month & end of month update!

Do you set goals for yourself? What’s your goal setting process?

Jeez sun! Way to be all bleachy-outy! (Also: woah, my hair looks super bright in these photos!).

Breakdown:

The tank is from Buffalo Exchange, it’s one of the items I mentioned last week. It is made out of rayon and is super super light and I’ve been practically living in it since I got it. It was in the “dress” section – sorry, I don’t think so! For the record, I’m 5’2″ and it would most definitely be chocha-licious on me. Since I don’t want to be on Winona’s blog for that reason, I wore a vintage slip-skirt underneath it (forgot where I got it. Cream Vintage I think?). The belt is F21, the necklace is secondhand, the Tarina Tarantino skull bracelet is from BX. And so are the Guess Marciano boots, which were also mentioned last week in the Buffalo Exchange saga! They’re breaking in pretty well, and as far as I can tell their retail would have been something like $150-200 new…so $25 is a frickin’ steal, considering they’re in like-new condition. Especially considering I didn’t actually pay cash-money for them and that it’s a bitch to find cute flat shoes.

Here you can see the back of the ensemble, including more of my terribly-in-need-of-a-touch-up roots. Lots of bra action, but I really can’t be arsed to care. Maybe next time I’ll wear one of my black ones and make it super scandalous!

This was worn for another Ladies Who Lunch (more photos there) – there were a ton of people there this time! We went to Somnio’s and took up almost the entire restaurant (that place is tiny). I felt bad for being late; the guy in front of me at the ATM took literally ten minutes and then when I got there I drove around the block three times panicking and looking for parking. Oh well, (sh)it happens sometimes.

I then came home and after watching some Battlestar Galactica with Matt (we’re Netflixing it), proceeded to start working on this and forget about, oh you know, eating anything or what time it was until some four or five hours later. I think it turned out pretty well, all things considered (like that it’s only my second piece of computer worked on artwork, ever!). Which makes me feel better about tackling the webcomic (which is still in the thumbnail stage, whoops).

Matt is going in for his CO (correctional officer) screening/testing next Tuesday, wish him luck! I’m really hoping he gets the job, it will make things a lot easier for us. Although he’ll have to go for five weeks of training or camp or whatever, boo. Our new roomie (who turned out to be awesome, by the way) can keep me company. And the cats.

How’s your week going?

Hmm, probably sounds better as Ladies Who Lunch, doesn’t it?

This happened yesterday. From left to right: Grechen, Megan, me (my hair is in pigtails, I swear), Sandhya, Amy, Diya, Joanna, and Anslee. It was a LOT of fun and laughs were had by all!

I felt like kind of a slob next to these lovely ladies – I had intended to go home and change before this, but didn’t get the chance. See, we went to Buffalo Exchange on Wednesday evening, experienced some truly crappy customer service, and came home without selling or buying anything – but I did spot some truly awesome pewter motorcycle boots that I wanted to come back for before anyone else got them. So I got there right at 11 the next morning, thinking that was when they opened (because that’s what Google told me, the lying bastard), but apparently not! I had to wait in line to sell my stuff. It was okay though, because the boots were still there. Of course, me being me, I waffled incessantly, and decided to get a BCBGeneration dress instead. By this time, it was about ten after, and the lunch was at twelve thirty – yikes!

So, I went ahead and went to the lunch. Then I got home and started wondering if I should have got the boots instead. Because that, my friends, is how I roll. I tried on the dress to convince myself and then in short order I started feeling itchy all over and Matt told me I looked like a Vulcan. Lesson learned: check the fiber content before buying, and don’t listen to Matt.

After which, I went back to Buffalo Exchange for the third time in twenty four hours. With the credit from the dress, plus a $5 off $20 coupon that my truly awesome friend who works there gave me, plus the $3 voucher I found in the bottom of my purse…I got the boots (Guess by Marciano for $25!), a lovely flowy tank that is super breezy, and a screenprinted knit dress for a grand total of $18 spent. HECK YEAH.

That was my Thursday. How was your’s?

I have very suddenly become quite the busy bee. Here’s what my current to-do list looks like:

• write an article about Njord for one of my new projects, the Odd Gods, within the next week
• finally, FINALLY get the Bandit Printing website up and running and shop-able – hopefully within the next week or two, I have no idea how long it will take!
• and I am also finally getting my arse in gear about the Valkyries – I’ve got the prologue thumbnailed out (as you can see above) and would like to get at least the prologue/first chapter sketched, inked, and colored within the next week or so. And continue at a steady pace – I want to have at least a month’s worth of backlog before I start posting pages. My goal was to get it up & running before the end of summer, which in Austin I could probably push until October, but I’m going to go ahead & say August 15th. Let’s hope the learning curve isn’t too steep.

Did I mention that I’m going camping this weekend? And that I started a twice a month study group? That I…have to come up with topics/lessons for? (Didn’t think that one through, did you Michelle?!)

Yeah. And then there’s the usual things – library books to read, floors to sweep, etc. etc. Life.

So – I will probably be sparse around these parts for at least a week. I imagine it’s just a matter of getting into a new routine, which will hopefully happen fast. In the meantime, I might not be commenting on others’ blogs quite as much, but I will still be replying to comments here/on Twitter/via email.

If you’re a long time reader, you’ve probably noticed the lack of fashion posts as of late – at least, compared to times past. Admittedly, part of this is due to my short attention span and me wanting to branch out to other topics, but part of it is trying to figure out how to take part in fashion when my accessibility to it has changed. Among other things, shoes over 2″-2.5″ tall are right out for me, at least for the time being. For someone who used to regularly lust after shoes along the lines of these, that’s quite a change! And now, in general, I’m unwilling to wear anything the least bit uncomfortable (no matter how cute!) because really, why add to discomfort/pain when I’m already feeling it?

So how do you enjoy something when, whether intentionally or not, you’re left out of it? Good question – one I’m still trying to untangle in my head, while re-tooling my wardrobe so that it realistically fits my wants and needs, but still has some sort of aesthetic that I like. And here’s another one – what would make for more accessible fashion? This is what I came up with (psst, retailers! pay attention!):

• More sizes! Smaller sizes, larger sizes, easily available fully or partially custom sizes (like eShakti) to cater to a variety of heights and proportions. (I know eShakti’s prices are not 100% accessible to everyone – but I firmly think retailers going down that road is a step in the right direction.)
• More knits! Especially in soft and breathable things like cotton (polyester knits = the devil!). Knits can handle weight fluctuation much better than woven fabric can and have less tendency to be scratchy, which is an important factor for those with pressure/skin sensitivities.
• More elastic, instead of button/zipper closures! This can look sloppy if not done well, but I don’t think it has to look bad by any means. If someone is sitting the majority of their day, whether because they have a sit-down job because they can’t stand all day or from being a wheelchair user, hard buttons can be unnecessary and uncomfortable. See also: extensive beading or pretty much anything that adds unnecessary plastic bits to clothing. Not to mention that some closures (like one skirt I have with a hook and eye + zipper closure up the back) can make clothing very difficult to put on by yourself.
• Better online shopping options! Better photos, accurate size charts, a detailed text description of the item for those on braille or text to speech computers, video of the product in motion – these things should be implemented at pretty much any online store that sells clothing, if at all possible. Shopping in a physical store is unnecessarily taxing (physically and mentally) for many people, and let’s face it, online shopping is just a hell of a lot more convenient. If it’s to be a viable alternative, not only should these suggestions become the norm, but the return process (whether online or in store) for online purchased products should be made as painless as possible.
• More comfortable shoes! I’ve covered this before, but it can stand to be said several times. There are some brands doing it right but a lot of others still look like Victorian schoolmarm shoes, and not in a cool steampunky way.

I’m trying to incorporate all of these things into my wardrobe more – not only is it pretty much a physical necessity any more, but hopefully if something sells well, similar things will be restocked. Of course, this is not a comprehensive list, I’m sure it’s biased to me and my experiences – anything else you’d like to add?

I’m taking the day off – hope you had a happy 4th and are getting your week started off right! (Doubly so if you have today off!) And for everyone not in the USA – well, I hope you had a good weekend too