3 Things

1) My bangs, fringe, that hair that grows in your face, is getting too long and stabbing me in the eye. I want to grow my hair out, but it's going to get really hot, and there's the whole eye stabbing thing. Dilemma.


2)I bought a bag from Gilt Group. It was expensive and a good deal at the same time.


3) I'm obsessed with candy, mostly Leone Pastiglie candies and Pucho Shuwa.

There's Nothing Wrong with Milk Chocolate

I just finished off a pretty good, considering what I paid for it, milk chocolate bar. I'm a bit of a pig, and really love chocolate in all shapes and forms, but this makes me think of all the people I know who wont go near the milky stuff. These are normal liberal people, but when I tell them I like milk chocolate they gasp in horror and start to think I'm either an idiot or missing taste buds. Being thought of as less of a person just because I have different preferences in foods is offensive, and I in turn think these people are idiots because they're so quick to judge a person based on taste in chocolate (or anything else for that matter).

I could go on about intolerance and why I think it's immature, but that's for another post. Instead I'm going to enjoy the lingering taste of smooth, not too sweet, milk chocolate. Yumm.

My life has lulled into boring to blog about.

My roommate seems to have abandoned our apartment for a girl on the other side of the state, so I'm taking this opportunity to spend as much time as possible naked and cleaning. Tyler is of course doing the same. I think I am meant to live alone, or with a maid, because I have such a hard time dealing with the lack of control I have over messes. I think in all roommate relations, there is always "the messy" one, no matter how clean each party is. I happen to be the clean one right now, and it's driving me a little batty. I think when/if my roommate comes back we'll have to have a talk about this.

Finally got my tax refund. Credit card you are so paid off. :D

Tyler and I are going to see Corteo in a couple weeks. My mom has always really been into Cirque Du Soleil, and I've seen a few in Seattle, and one in Vegas. They were all fantastic, and I'm really excited about this one in May.

Keep and eye on me on twitter if you want to know what I'm up to: http://twitter.com/aimeeisdrawing

New Computer

I got a new computer a couple weeks ago, and it's about freaking time. Poor little laptop was lame, and I was thinking about taking it out back and putting it down. That thing really pulled its weight though, and I'd have to say that the 12 inch PowerBook was a quality product.

My new computer is a 24 inch iMac, and I can't tell you how wonderful it is to double your screen space. Though this wasn't my first choice for a computer, I'm really loving it. The hard drive could be a little bigger, and I need another gig of RAM, but those are 1) my only complaints and 2) easily fixed. I haven't had a chance to really push the machine yet, as I don't have Photoshop installed, but I'm confident in this things ability. I installed World of Warcraft on it for Tyler, and the graphics look really nice.

Oh, and it has a built in camera with stupid little effects. The mirror is my favorite.









I'm quite happy, and I'd like to thank my parents for helping me with the purchase.

Here is a picture of me about to eat the biggest taro chip ever.

Yeah...

Caucus Part Deux

I went to the second caucus today, and It was way more organized then the first caucus, but I still wasn't much into it. After standing in line for half an hour I signed in and cast my vote for Obama. Then I sat in the high school's gym for an hour waiting for something to happen. I got a lot of hand outs and post cards from people "running" for delegate. After that hour, I got sick of sitting around, and decided to leave. At this, and most (i think) caucuses, you only have to sign in for your delegate vote to count, so I did my duty. I got out of there and took the bus home, now I'm waiting for Tyler. The process is interesting, but at this point I don't really care what happens, I just don't want McCain to win.

Couple Camera Phone Pictures:




Dog who's voting for Obama.

I fail at posting right now.

I have nothing to post about right now, and I don't even know why I'm bothering to write this. I have a post started about my tip to NY, but I can't get the pictures off my camera right now, so that gets to wait. My life is pretty boring right now. The most exciting thing is building the readymade meat cart bed, but it drops down to zero excitement with no picture. Rolling my eyes.

I'll be gone for a bit.

Tomorrow morning I wake up at 5 and get carted off to the airport. I'll be boarding a plane for New York City where I will be sleeping on my sisters floor. :D Be back monday!

I hope I'm not the only one who forgot it is St. Patricks Day.

I've been so fixated on how early Easter is this year, that I forgot about St. Patrick's Day, and I don't really care. It's Monday! Even if I did like beer I have the good sense not to start the week hung over. So I'll drink water in honor of the man who drove the snakes into the sea... or whatever.

I should probably post some photo evidence of this, but no camera in site. I'm not a complete dumb ass who only cuts her own hair. I got my hair cut over the weekend, and it's a fabulous choppy bob. I absolutely love it, and I think it makes my face look thinner and my neck longer. My hair stylist always does the best job.

Tyler and I were supposed to have gone skiing on Sunday, but my knees have been bothering me. They've been extremely soar, and I'm worried that I may be injuring myself at the gym. I'm going to take a break from the heavy lifting this week and see if it helps.

I've been playing Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings quite a bit. So far I like it, but the real time battle aspect of it is hard to follow in such a small screen.

Skin Update

This is just a short little post, mostly for me, about how my skin is doing. Today is day 7 of the meds! and I'm seeing a difference already. My skin isn't clear by any stretch of the word, but the pimples I am getting are closer to the surface, and less extreme. I've had a few cystic zits, and after a night of Retin-A Micro they get small and less swollen. The oral medication doesn't really seem to be doing much... other then getting rid of all my retained water (I went to the gym today and I've lost 3 pounds of water! Weird!), but I'm going to give it 3 months because I think these hormonal things take time. The only thing I don't like, is how oily my skin is. I used to use all kinds of stuff to keep the oil at bay, but I'm not supposed to use anything with the Retin-A, so I'm a total oil slick. I guess you could call it dewey, but I just think it's gross. :P

The War on Acne!

This post isn't really a war on anything, I just thought the title might drum up some google hits. Before I get to the point! Did you know that my website is getting three or four hits a day off searches for "www.drawing.com". Crazy!

Mmmmk. At 21, a college grad, and financially independent; I am a pizza face. I'm sure I've had acne since I was pubescent, but for some reason it didn't seem that bad. I don't remember my skin in middle school, which makes me think it wasn't that pimply. In high school I got the occasional zit and drug store products were enough. College was me just flat out not caring, I was grumpy and emotionally unstable, and I'm sure people where more fixated on my bad attitude then on my skin. Now that I actually care about my appearance and, you know, want to act my age, my skin is terrible. Two weeks ago I had at least thee gross, painful, and extremely swollen pimples. I'm not sure if cystic is the right term, as ever website seems to have it's own definition, but this was severe. I kept op with my face washing and used the strongest products I could buy, but nothing was working. Finally I said fuck it and did what I knew not to do, which was poke and prod till the zit did something. I consider myself extremely lucky that my skin doesn't scar really badly because I think that could have left big pitted marks in my forehead. Enough grossness! At that point I called my sister's dermatologist and set up an appointment for today.

I think I should point out that I don't have poor hygiene. I wash my face twice a day, I tone, moisturize, etc. I do wear a little makeup, and I think Bare Minerals may have had something to do with my cystic acne (obviously I've stopped using that stuff). I really do my best to stick by this even when I'm at the gym or someone else's house. So this trip to the dermatologist was basically out of frustration. I was doing everything right and I was still getting pizza face.

So this is what the dermatologist told me (and she was really quite nice about it too): The acne I have is most likely hormonal and this could also be the cause of my oily skin. I don't have exceptionally sensitive skin so I have a few options available to me. The most obvious being balancing my hormones, with some kind of medication. OK I'm all for that! So I got a prescription for a diarrhetic that some how binds to the hormone that causes acne and expels it from your system. My other option was switching birth control pills, but the brand suggested doesn't have a generic. She also suggested a topical treatment, Retin-A Micro, which I'm supposed to use at night. I'm not sure how this works, but it's not an antibiotic so I'm down with it. I didn't get the oral prescription filled today and I got some samples of the Retin-A so that all I'm using right now. I'm going to be very disappointed if I don't wake up with dry peely skin tomorrow.

I'm hoping this doesn't turn into a long quest for the perfect acne medicine. So many blogs I've read recently have gone on an on about how the author used x amount of products before seeing any results. Fingers are crossed.

Life update? I think so.

Tyler and I have been spending way too much time at University Village recently. For those of you outside of Seattle, this is an expensive and bloated version of a strip mall. I think the only reason we end up there is because it's close to where Tyler's parents live, and he thinks of it when it comes to shopping. Personally I'm more of a downtown person, but downtown doesn't have free parking. Anyway, I need to stop going there.

Last weekend I went downhill skiing for the first time. Tyler had been threatening to take me since we started dating, and now that I'm finally comfortable being semi athletic (we also live in the same city) things have come to fruit. I didn't really know what to expect, but any time I think of mountains, snow, and falling down, cold and wet is my first assumption. It really wasn't that cold for being in the mountains, and I had lots of water proof cloths so it wasn't wet either. :D I started on a really gentle hill covered with 3 year olds learning to ski, and much to my pleasure, it was really easy. I wasn't carving or anything, but I learned to control my speed and turn. The rope toe was closed, and hiking back up the hill with skis gave me more of a work out then skiing. After lunch we took the chair lift up an intermediate hill, which wasn't that great for a few reasons. First, I hate the chair lift, almost enough to try and hike up the hill next time. Just because you can stand to slide down hill, at say 12 degrees, does not mean you're ready for 45+ degrees. That mountain was way too steep and it completely freaked me out. I was pretty much paralyzed till I realized there was no other way down. Then came the slow decent of screaming, Tyler snow plowing backwards, and falling down. We made it down, and I now understand trust exercises better, for pretty much the entire hill, Tyler skied backwards while holding ski poles in front of him, I held the poles too and tried to follow him. Thinking about it I'm quite impressed that he was able to do that. We're going again next weekend, and I'm hoping something stuck and I'll be able to ski a little better.

I've almost completely transitioned to my new job, and I'm really enjoying it. Most of what I'm learning is color correction, and I think is working the left side of my brain which hasn't been getting much use lately. I'm much happier with this job.

Aimee the Grouch

So I haven't been blogging much because I've been a huge grouch since getting sick. For the last week I've been either incapacitated by phlegm or fighting off the urge to attack someone. Now that I'm feeling better, I'm still fighting urges. I can't talk about it on a public blog, but dear readers, you can assume it's the usual BS that happens when people are locked in the same building for 8 hours a day.

I've been experimenting with makeup a little bit recently. When I was younger, I didn't wear makeup because I didn't see the point, then my skin got all gross and oily and makeup just seemed like a way to aggravate that. My skin really hasn't calmed down much, but I'm learning to cope with it, and eye shadow doesn't normally give you pimples. So that's fun.

My life is boring...

Edit: 2 things!

1) Lunar eclipse was awesome, I only wish I didn't live in the middle of the city so I could have seen it better.
2) Everyone at my work is white, and they're not very sensitive to the Asian in the room. A couple days ago one of my coworkers called me my sisters name, it was weird because Miya worked their for a couple weeks, but didn't really talk to anyone. I laughed and told her that's what my mom does, but another person in the room was like "WTF? Aimee's worked here way longer then Miya ever did." So my coworker explains that her sister in-law/aunt/some kind of relative is both Asian and named Misa. I really couldn't believe it, what kind of rock do you have to live under to associate your one Asian relative with your one Asian coworker. This kind of thing makes me ill, I was too shocked to say anything, but I should probably start calling her the names of all the middle aged white women I know and see how she likes it. I (and Misa) have both been reduced to our race (HALF MY RACE!) and if that isn't racist I don't know what is. Seriously guys... WHAT THE FUCK?! I've been spending a lot of time flipping through Japanese fashion magazines in the last month, and I know for a fact that if you put me in a line up of Asians, I'd stick out like a soar thumb. Of course white people are too wrapped up in their superiority to notice the fact that I actually do have some of my dad's genes, some of THEIR GENES. Ignorance is not an excuse anymore, we live in 2008, in a city full of different races. OPEN YOUR FUCKING EYES!

Oh boo hoo my life sucks so much.

This cold is a major drag. I stayed home sick on Wednesday, and that has to be the sickest I've been in months, I'm basing this mostly on the fact I was too exhausted to use the internet. Now I'm just congested and a little disoriented, which makes work all kinds of fun. Speaking of work, people need to grow the fuck up, myself included. I'm really sick of all this petty BS and I really hope it's only getting to me because I'm sick. Grrr mother fucker, GRRRRR!

I remember being really distraught in middle school about how people acted and how I couldn't do anything about it. My mom, being the picture of compassion she is, told me to get used to it because people are going to be that way the rest of your life. She was right, and I'm not used to it. It feel like crap when someone you work with treats you badly, and I'm sure it will keep feeling this way. This whole being treated badly thing caught be a bit of guard, but now I guess, I'll be ready and expecting the behavior.

It's the weekend and I'm going to eat burgers and get fat! :D

XP

Nothing better then randomly getting sit. Yuck.

Audrey Kawasaki

I know this is going to sound super bitter, but I am over Audrey Kawasaki. I used to really like her work because it was esthetically pleasing and I guess the imagery was something that I felt some attachment to. Conceptually, her works never done anything for me, but when I first started seeing it that was ok. Kawasaki had a solo show opening over the weekend at Copro Nason Gallery in Santa Monica and pretty much every art blog I read creamed their pants over it. Here's the list of evidence: Boing Boing, Cool Hunting, Right Some Good, and NotCot.org. There's also an announcement and after opening post on Kawasaki's blog, but that can't be held against her or as a part of the collective cream. I think Kristen Anderson says it best (on Right Some Good), "More of the same of her slightly sinister, enigmatic girls, but so incredibly well done." Yes, Kawasaki is a great painter, but I'm sick of conceptually dead, pretty pictures. In the grand scheme of things, my opinion doesn't really matter, but some times you just have to bitch.

WTF is a Caucus Anyway?

I went to the Caucus on Saturday, and it was a zoo. This story starts a few weeks ago though, when a freshly printed voter registration card arrived at my parents house. I never told the government that I moved to Olympia, so moving back was no issue, however, they got wind of my move away from my parents in some way that is not known to me or anyone I've asked. I thought that I could just stay registered at my parents address till the moment hit when I realized that I was finally broken free of that whole deal, but some how the county got one up on me. So the card that was mailed to my parents address has my new address on it (umm what?) and I got to scamper around the web trying to figure out where the hell my caucus was supposed to be.

Anyway, found it, got dropped off, wandered around looking for the actual room for a while, and found one woman sitting with a sign for my precinct. She was not the PCO, but apparently we don't have a PCO, so she was sitting in. She had no idea what she was doing or where her glasses where. Eight more people tricked in, the last being a woman who did not trust the stand in PCO because she was wearing a Hillary Clinton sticker. I chatted with the people for a while about the neighborhood and then we got down to business. When it was all said and done our three delegates where divided 2 Obama 1 Clinton and I ended up being a delegate for Obama because no one else would.

Here's something weird that happened: One of the people I talked to before the caucusing happened was an older man with gray hair, glasses, a frumpy sweat shirt, and a quiet demeanor. He asked me and another young couple about the building I live in which was also the building they used to live in. He seemed extremely interested in our experiences with the neighborhood and what the building had to offer. He also mentioned the remaining condos being a good deal, and being familiar with the building. All the middle aged people I know talk a lot about housing prices and deals and all that jazz, and I thought being familiar with the building meant being a contractor or plumber or something. I live in a pretty large structure, and the ways you could be familiar with it are many. However, after the caucus was done with and I was leaving, he called me over and admitted to living on the floor above me. That was a little weird, it's not that I think he was dangerous, but it was creepy and I'm not sure how I feel about him knowing my name and apartment number. People are weird.

Overall the caucus was a positive experience, but I think it's true that most caucuses are filled with middle class educated people. The whole system is not very accessible to people who don't speak english or have mobility issues.

BORING!

I'll post something of substance eventually. Right now though, I'm thinking I should make a new tag called hair because I can't seem to shut up about it.

My bangs are too short, duh, that's what was said in the last post. However, they're not as ugly as I though now that I've washed them, and slept on them, and let them calm down. I still don't think this was a good idea, but the point is, I've come to terms with my mistakes, and now feel much better about this whole thing. Note to self: Youtube videos are not worth it.

Does winter make anyone else act like a hermit? I've been locking myself in my room, and refusing to go anywhere but work and the gym (which is on the way home). I've been talking to the same five people, and anyone outside that group seems to be shunned. Normally I'm all wigged out about not seeing Tyler as much as freaking possible, but today I barely noticed we didn't phone. My social skills seem to by hibernating and I really hope this doesn't keep up because all I do is laugh at peoples problems (accidently! I'm not being intentionally mean) and knit till my fingers fall off. Oh crap, I'm totally an old lady.

I had my first cheese steak yesterday night. It tasted ok, but the idea of eating another one is really grossing me out. They're way to greasy for me to eat more then once a month I think.

What a BAD idea.

So let's just say you're feeling a bit stressed, a bit crazy, and a bit impulsive. The number one thing you should not do (if you're me) is pick up the scissors and cut your own bangs. This was such a bad fucking idea. I've cut my hair more then a few times before, and the results didn't look terrible, but this? This is like a lawn mower attacked the front of my head, the hair is really uneven and sticks out in the front. This is terrible and the only good thing about it is that my hair isn't stabbing me in the eye. D:

Oh, and in the spirit of recording my dumbness, here's a video:



The eye cream I got seems to have made a difference already.

Decompress

Something that was not a new year's resolution, but seems to have been born about the same time, is an overwhelming need to be in control of my emotions. I feel like I've spent a good portion of my life letting people and situations govern how I feel, and though it's easy to sit back and be an emotional wreck (because they'll never think what they should about you) I've had enough. I've been trying to reflect on the way I feel and why, and it's working. "Yeah this really annoying thing happened, and it's a big inconvenience, yes you're right for being upset even though there's nothing you can do about it, but don't dwell on it because you're going to waste time and spend even more time dealing with it, just get it done with and move on."

Unfortunately most negative things in my life are coming from work. I'm not going to go into it on a public blog, but things at work are weird and really putting my practical optimism to the test. I'm not on anyones shit list (as far as I know, eep!), and I know all this stuff will be packed up with a nice bow on the top in the end. Some days it's hard though, I feel like I try really hard to make progress, but there's always more to do, and understandably management expects it all to get done. I strive for a high level of performance, but I think that it's very important to take time for yourself and to forget about work on the weekends.

If I keep typing about this I'll probably end up divulging some secret or opinion that shouldn't be known. I'll end on a happy note though: I promise, to myself, that I will do my best to choose my emotions. Things can be stressful and dramatic, but allowing yourself to let go allows you to be happy and approach the situation from a calm perspective.

Man, I need to get more art on this blog!

The War on Fresh Air

Here's a story: The hallway outside my door smells like smoke, very strong probably smoking in the hall smoke. This bothers me to some extent because on bad days, the smell can drift in to my apartment. I know I'm not the only one bothered by this, because one day a plug in air freshener, and fan were positioned in the outlet right out side my door. The fan was on and the air freshener was turned all the way up. I loath air fresheners for the simple fact that they are full of dangerous chemicals. The smell was noxious, so I unplugged the air freshener and turned the fan off. Next time I walk by, the thing is plugged in again, so I unplugged it. I think you can see where this is going, and I played the game for a lot longer then I should have. When I got sick of unplugging things, I left a note next to the unplugged air freshener asking the owner to remove it. I'm glad my neighbor was considerate and took their chemicals back, because this could have escalated into all out tenant war.

The story doesn't end their either! My room mate picked up a phallic air freshener to leave on the toilet. AND!!!!! Today at work I walk into the bathroom at work and there are TWO!!!! of the same phallic air fresheners open all the way filling the bathroom with fake floral doom. I guess I missed the memo that bathrooms smell so bad that we have to kill our sense of smell with dangerous chemicals.

Yes that's right, air fresheners are dangerous! Volatile organic chemicals are a given, they're in paint, they're in pretty much anything with a sent, and there is no escaping them. Here are some health effects of VOCs from the EPA's website Eye, nose, and throat irritation; headaches, loss of coordination, nausea; damage to liver, kidney, and central nervous system. Some organics can cause cancer in animals; some are suspected or known to cause cancer in humans. Key signs or symptoms associated with exposure to VOCs include conjunctival irritation, nose and throat discomfort, headache, allergic skin reaction, dyspnea, declines in serum cholinesterase levels, nausea, emesis, epistaxis, fatigue, dizziness. No that does not sound good, and air fresheners pump all that stuff into our air.

This is rather fantastic as well, Apparently air fresheners contain phthalates (link to pdf). Phthalates are used to soften certain plastics and rubbers, they're probably in your shower curtain, carpet, and mattress. Babeland has a short FAQ about phthalates in sex toys. They recommend covering the toy with a condom before use so the phthalates can't be sucked up by your mucosa membrane. The wikipedia article on phthalates has a brief list of health effects, and to back this up, I heard an interview with a doctor on NPR blaming phthalates for sexual mis-development in boys (can't find the link). I have no idea why rubber softeners need to be in air fresheners, or why they need to be blown into the air at all.

On top of all this, the government doesn't regulate what chemicals go into household products (similar to cosmetics), and EPA has been petitioning for some kind of government regulation.

Now I'm completely exhausted on this subject, and even more pissed off. I feel like these huge companies are filling our bodies with horrible chemicals, and when we die of cancer and our children have no sex, they'll get away with it. No one is making us buy these things, and if you are going to buy air fresheners, at least be informed about what you're exposing yourself to.

Random link I couldn't fit in anywhere else to a Science Daily article.

Power Outage

The power for my entire block went out last night at around nine. It was super erie because first there was a pop down the street, then the lights went out, then a bright flash on the telephone pole outside my building, and then everything was quiet (minus the freeway). The moon was full, and I could clearly see the people in my building walking out on their balconies and leaning out their windows. Cars continued to pass in the dark, and all around us you could see the lights still on in buildings a few blocks away. Eventually the fire department showed up and stood around staring at the telephone poles, but the lights didn't come back on till five this morning.

Every since I've moved here all kinds of crazy stuff has happened: My neighbor's door was kicked in, and TV stolen, the range hood in the restaurant below the condos here caught on fire, which called five fire trucks and five fire SUVs, and last night with the power. I'm not sure if I'm happy with all this excitement, on one level I'm happy life is happening, but on another, I like quiet and I don't like danger.

I think I'm living in the wrong neighborhood sometimes. This part of Seattle has a lot of low income housing, shelters, and services for people who need them. I don't think I'm being classiest by recognizing that some of these people are not well, and could be dangerous. Being a woman and alone in the dark here is disconcerting; a person could just be walking behind you on their break from washing dishes, but they could also be a mugger or a rapist. I'm not enjoying this uncertainty. :(

On a happier note, Kinokuniya was having a magazine sale, I took an excellent bath and sewed a case for my makeup brushes.

Life Without a Salad Spinner

I have a confession to make: Today, is the first day in my life that I have purchased lettuce in not bagged/boxed form. My excuse it pretty lame as well, I've only recently started eating salad on a regular basis. When I moved out, my pallet really made a point of shifting away from all the foods that my mom insisted I eat that I didn't like. Salad was a probably the biggest. Now, however, I'm starting to be more health conscious, and with so much processed food in the world, a pile of greens sounds pretty damn good. Salad in a bag was really easy for me and had decent results, but it's too expensive so today I said "NO MORE!" I bought a head of red leaf lettuce, radicchio, and some kind of butter lettuce. All this had to be rinsed in cold water, and then I went though half a roll of paper towels trying to get the leaves dry. Excuse two for not buying unbagged lettuce: no salad spinner. I had absolutely no idea that a salad spinner was so important to the whole salad experience; dressing doesn't stick to wet leaves, toppings get soggy, and so on. I refuse to accept this, and I refuse to spend $30 on a salad spinner, so I turned to google. I wasn't expecting much, but there it was! A no cost salad spinner. The author cites this invention to a cooking show off the food network, in which the host wraps the salad greens in a towel and spins them to extract the water. One commenter said that she did the same thing with an old pillowcase, and I happen to have a pile of those. I grabbed a clean white case, threw the radicchio in and gave the thing a whirl, and hot damn! it actually worked. There is no need for me to buy a salad spinner, and there is no need for me to buy bagged lettuce ever again! I'm quite happy about this.

Fits of Nostalgia

For some reason that I'll never be able to explain, I logged into my old blogger account from 2002. I couldn't believe it was still there, public, and extremely embarrassing. Now I'm downloading all my old LJ entries via LJ Book. They are also still there, public, and yes, extremely embarrassing.

Was anyone else a moron from 2000 - 2006?

p.s. I wonder if I'll read this in 8 years and think it's extremely embarrassing.

p.p.s. I'll be posting some best ofs once I get through this angst. :)

HAIRS!

I need a hair cut, and this isn't me exaggerating a "want" situation. I walk down the street, and because it's a little windy, I can't see because my hair is blowing in my eyes. The mohawk is grown out, and now I've got a pseudo mullet with stabbing fringe of pain. I'd run off and get my hair cut in an instant, but the problem is I want to grow it out. I want hair that goes past my shoulders, and that I can tie on top of my head like a Japanese girl.

I like this hair, but i think it's chopping too much off. I also don't think it would solve the stabbing bangs of doom either.


I think I look better with short hair, but I want long hair because I haven't had it since I was little. I don't want another short hair cut, because not buying make up and feminine cloths + looking like everyone's Korean bother = BUTCHY! I can't have long hair now, because my hair is mostly short. I need this freaking hair cut before I walk into traffic. :(

I think I'm just going to go in and have Janae do whatever she wants.

Sentimental 1s and 0s

Lifehacker brought up the fact that social networking sites like Myspace and Facebook don't allow you to backup. This is probably where I fail as a social networker, but I put very little weight on things that exist on Facebook. Now suppose the site(s) go down and all the photos and notes, and blogs and whatever are lost forever, for me, it's not like the party never happened. I still have my own memories of these events, which usually have better composition and color then Facebook photos.

Maybe I think this whole thing is melodramatic because I've lost sentimental things on the internet, and even though I was disappointed, my life wasn't ruined and I still had my happy memories. I met a boy off the internet, and after emailing and IMing, we met in person and dated for a few months. This was in high school, and last year I tried to find those emails, but they were deleted with all my other really old mail. I also lost an web page that had photos of all the boys I've had crushes on, the actual website could be resurrected, but I never saved the photos. That was more upsetting then losing the emails and I'm not sure why. Most of the photos were stolen from Myspace pages and couldn’t be found again.
If something is really important, you should save it, but if you're worried about losing pictures of your drunk friends, you have the wrong priorities. Not only do your drunk friends have the photos saved on their computer/camera, they will continue to have drunk parties to create more fun photos at. I'm mostly disgusted that Lifehacker expected me to be worried about all the crap on the internet that could go up in flames. I think the only thing I'd be upset about losing are journal entries, and I've even let go of hundreds of those.

Santa Claus Is a Perv

Every year my sister and I have out picture taken with Santa Claus at Macy's (previously The Bon Marche). When we were little, it was cute, but now that I'm in my 20s and Miya is almost out of her teens, Santa is looking a lot like a perv.



I think in the future we're going to have to ask to stand behind the chair, because this is just getting weird.

Here's an article about a woman who groped Santa, I guess the perv goes both ways.

Transdermal Implants

For anyone that doesn't know, the summer of 2005 I had two transdermal implants added to my list of body modifications. Here's a picture of me right after the procedure was done.



The implants are a flat base which lays under the skin, and a piece of whatever size sticks out through the skin. If you're lucky the skin with heal, and scar tissue will form a pocket around the base of the implant. Here is the BMEZINE wiki for transdermals if you want to know more. At the time mine were done, it was still a fairly new thing in the modification world and I'm pretty sure I was at the beginning of when artists started to go public about offering them. I knew this was an advanced technique, but no one in the community had any idea how dangerous the implants could be (see this entry on modblog blood warning!). I went to an excellent artist in Seattle (he has now moved on to other locations that are unknown to me) who treated me with the utmost care and did a fantastic job. It was expensive, painful, and really hard to heal, but I've kept the implants all this time.

Times have changed though, and I think it's time for the implants to come out. I really enjoy their look, but certain things are more trouble then they're worth. One of the ways I've managed to be so successful at keeping the implants in, is constant care and babying. Nothing but clothing gets within an inch of the site, and I've trained myself, and anyone who would touch that area to stay far far away. Even with all the precautions there are moments where they go back to being less healed, and I have knocked them before with bloody results. I'm not into DIY, so I'm going to get a referral to a reconstructive surgeon from my doctor some time this year. I'm hoping it wont be too expensive and I also hope they'll be able to keep the jewelry intact so i can make a necklace out of the implants.

I'm excited for this new phase in my life, and when it's all done with, I might get a memorial tattoo.

Happy New Year!

First off, to clean up the archive pages, I moved all my previous posts to today. Sorry if it things end up on your RSS twice, or you get very very confused.

My room mate, Elliott, threw a New Years Eve party. I got kind of weird early on and stole the camera. Then I stole it again to make this post.


Here's a picture of me dressed as a man, looking kind of sleazy and gross.


Elliott ended up looking quite fabulous. Of all the men who I've seen cross dress he was the most convincing in the face.


Tyler put on a sweater dress and ended up looking like a bearded hipster girl.

I'm not going to describe the rest but keep in mind I don't know most of these people, and the pictures are out of order.

Grrrr... (and not in a good way.)

With my help, my phone kicked it last night. Some aspect of the firmware is broken so I couldn't and still can't access most of the settings for the phone. Not to mention the fact it's super buggy. I really can't understand why a product can't work well when it's released. I went through this with the Sidekick and now I'm going through it with the Nokia, and all I want is a phone that wont randomly flip out. I'm thinking about ditching the smart phone and looking into some kind of internet tablet thing. Not that that's not going to be super buggy, I just wont loose all my phone stuff when this happens. I'm sure there will be more of this later.

Christmas Eve

Even in my most spiritual moments, I consider myself agnostic at most, so Christmas doesn't mean much to my life. The consumer in me does have a good time though, and now that I'm out of school and have a real job buying gifts is less of an issue.



Like the pictures says, I got Tyler a toy helicopter for Christmas (I didn't pay 80 dollars for it, wtf amazon?), and this is basically the nerdiest holiday ever because he's also getting Super Mario Galaxy. I'll admit that while shopping for gifts for him, I wanted to get something a little more... mature? cultured? not something my bosses 8 year old son would want? I did break down and face it though, Tyler would appreciate a subscription to Smithsonian, but it would not bring joy to his life, or spawn naked drawings. He was super excited when he opened the box, and then we had to rush off to the store to get batteries, and then (this was the really hard part) we had to wait half an hour for the thing to charge. The first flight was rocky, but full of grinning and edge of seat sitting. Seeing how happy Tyler was made me understand why parents are willing to go into debt over Christmas. There's a substantial wave of pride that washes over you when you know that the perfect gift was picked out, and it's making the person you love almost pee with joy. We'll see how mario does, but I definitely win this Christmas.

That picture with the helicopter is the first thing I've drawn in weeks, and I feel horrible about it. My new years resolution is to spend at least half an hour drawing everyday. Work and the gym take up a lot of my time, but I can stand half an hour less sleep!

ZOMG!!!1!!

I've spent the last three days trying to solve a puzzle that Tyler had gotten for Christmas a million years ago. The basic principle is simple: arange the pieces into a pyramid on the little board thing the puzzle comes in. The other four puzzle styles in this toy were easy, but the final pyramid with all the pieces really hurt my brain. It was driving me up the wall that I couldn't figure it out, and I had been working on it so much that when I closed my eyes all I could see were multi colored circles. But now?! Now it's done! I did it today after eating Pho with my Dad and Sister. Life is great.



In other news, I was messing around with the lolcat maker at icanhascheezburger.com. This is probably the one that makes the most sense, and it's also my favorite.



When a woman I worked with told me about how her 11 year old daughter loves lolcats, a little piece of me died. It's like when your mom gets myspace, or when The Queen gets a youtube channel; the internet isn't that confusing, but there's plenty of stuff that "normal" people don't see, and then it goes main stream, and a little piece of you dies. Being the love of 11 year olds aside, lolcats are past their prime. Most of the pictures either revolve around inside jokes (buckets and monorails and invisible nouns) or are not stupid enough to be funny (and some people would argue that they were never funny). Oh well, all things come to an end, but I'll always love the onomatopoeia "Nom nom nom".

To Start Anew

I am leaving Livejournal and venturing out into the wide world of blogging. This isn't the first time I've tried to abandon LJ, in fact my original blogger account was from before Google was even thinking about buying other companies, and part of me thinks it could still be unearthed (not that anyone wants to read that). Anyway, unlike previous attempts, I'd like to think this will stick because of the worlds new found respect for self publishing and my own maturity. I'm hoping to venture away from the super personal content that usually gets posted on LJ, and mostly focus on art and random snippets of things I find on the internet. I hope this blog will be an Aimee oriented/moderated version of Boing Boing. Who am I kidding though? There will be plenty of personal stuff, but I'm going to make a point of not letting it be anything that has to be deleted the next day. :)

I'm not much a fan of filling out profiles, so here's a little about me: My name is Aimee and I live in Seattle, WA. I was born here, and will probably die here, though I'd like to think that's a long way off. I went to a liberal arts college and studied studio art, and now I work for a fine art publishing company. Besides geeking out on art and comics, I like reading, watching movies, listening to music, and eating good food.