After nearly a month of being a law abiding citizen and a really boring person, I’m finally back out on the tracks working on a new project. Nothing too intense but I’m excited about it. That and I have people requesting to get pictures with my wing painting – which I’m pretty sure means I’m famous now. Like Banksy.
Wall conquered.
Also, my new paints smell like chocolate scented markers. How cool is that??
My super cool brother-in-law graduated this past weekend. Which meant going up to the in-laws. Which meant having another damn anxiety attack. So far I’m 3 for 3.
Its not that they’re harsh, or cold, or anything but super nice, which is what makes it so hard for me to deal with. Because I can’t face their kindness. But I have to. I have to pretend everything is normal, and ok, and that I’m not terrified of them. And it’s completely exhausting.
If it weren’t for my wonderful nephew and our wild adventures of bear hunts and conquering mountains of pick-nick tables, letting me get away from everything and everyone for a few moments, I’m not sure I could keep going back.
Right now I’m just hoping I wont have to go back for a good long while.
I’ve been on a quest to collect gay best friends, and failing terribly at it. I mean, I sort of have a guy whose “gay for me” but otherwise totally loves boobs. And another one who apparently shares the same taste in men as me (I nearly got the guy’s number for him), but unfortunately he also shared his disappointment at finding out I was married.
So on Friday, when Rory and I were meeting up with a friend, ‘Stout,’ and his girlfriend for dinner, and there was another guy there – I got super excited. Not to say I assume every guy I meet is gay – because then I’d totally deserve half the messes I get into. But Stout’s girlfriend is in theater and I thought it was her friend, and he was dressed so well, and he totally hit on Rory a few times – so I knew he was definitely gay.
And we got along so swimmingly- we glared at each other incessantly, declared war after I stole his entrée choice and he stole my beer, and just all out hurled insults at each other through the night. It was perfect. I even felt a bad for him and his attempts at Rory when he looked at me surprised with a, “wait… wife?”
But then, after finishing our meals, we were talking, and swing dancing came up, and then his girlfriend came up.
!!!!!!!!!!!!
First thing I do is text Stout, “WTF. Wait. He’s not gay?!”
Which was sent as a text because blurting out that I just spent the whole night thinking kid-that-I-just-met was hitting on my husband doesn’t make for polite dinner conversation.
Luckily Stout was quick to wipe out any misconceptions by shouting his response across the table that, “NO Amelia, HE IS DEFINITELY NOT GAY, I’m glad I could clear that up.”
I hid my face for several minutes, during which not-actually-gay kid glared at me a lot and I couldn’t stop laughing or get my face to turn from its tomato red to a more natural hue.
So now I have a new friend. A very disappointingly not gay one.
Work has been eating my face off and I’ve been alternating between office and sleep which makes for really boring posts; the highlight of my day – the rubber band propelled airplane a sales director and I threw around the office, we didn’t even get caught by the boss.
So, in the mean time, a black-book sneak peak of my next project…
Monsters in the Dark
You know how you’re sitting in the sand and all of a sudden a giant wave is coming your way but then you realize its not a giant wave, its a tsunami and you start freaking out and grabbing all your sand toys and getting ready to run but then someone pulls the plug on the ocean and lets half the water out and its just a normal sized wave again. Yeah. Today was kind of like that. Which means I’m getting hit with a giant wave of crap, but I’m super happy about it.
Also, I went to alpaca shearing this weekend which gives perspective. Because at least I don’t have to deal with the laughter that accompanies looking like an over-sized poodle with hideously long teeth…
And on alpaca festivals, this may have been the best alpaca shearing experience of my life, because of this…
And because its the only alpaca shearing festival I’ve ever been to.
PS – That noise is totally not the shears.
My mom is a wonderful sweet church-going Miss-Marple-esque missionary lady. And she will likely be the one to land me in jail.
Last week, on one of our catch up calls, I finally broke down and told her about my newly acquired hobby. Because, aside from the obvious, I’m usually pretty terrible at keeping secrets. Also, she’s out of the country so there isn’t too much she can do.
Mom (at start of call) – “You mean, you get permission and do murals on people’s walls?”
Me – “Nope, I just paint walls.”
Mom - “Oh dear! But…”
…By the end of the call…
Mom – “Keep up your graffiti art! But don’t get arrested.”
After looking at some of my work on my alternate instagram, she even sent me this e-mail:
“Wow, Babe! I love it, and the other ones you have on instagram as well! Keep up the good work, and I’ll start a small savings for bail money! 
”
Which is pretty awesome and sweet of her.
Except she didn’t stop there.
I don’t post any of my work on my main facebook or instragram for obvious reasons, with exception to one piece, which, given the amount of exploring I do – most people would just assume I had found on one of my adventures.
…until she posted the comment – “So proud of my grown up girl!!!! (and ready to pay bail when she needs it)”
Which doesn’t only reveal my recent activities to all my 400+ friends (including work guys), but also, since it’s my cover picture, informs the whole of the internet that cares to look.
I quickly deleted the comment.
Minutes later I get a notification that she’s shared the picture on her Facebook with the header “My darling rebel artist.”
Now I totally appreciate the support and that my mom is absolutely crazy. It’s why I love her. But quite honestly, I’d rather not tap into that savings fund at all, a huge part of which involves keeping the link between my art and my identity wholly off the internet.
So far – complete fail.
I’ve been super remiss on posting, mostly because I was busy being a lumberjack. Except I didn’t do any lumbering, so basically I was just living in a cabin and getting lost in woods. Really wet woods.
Apparently this is what trails look like during flood warnings.
It was great.
And on the way to said cabin in the woods, I found this…
Solid proof that the Doctor and the TARDIS and everything BBC has ever told me is real.
Best vacation ever.
************
The week with Rory was good. And I had some time alone. And that was also good. Which is a huge step from not being able to stand being around myself.
The only bad part was where my phone reached the 2k photo mark and absolutely refused to take another picture until I underwent a mass spring cleaning. Which inevitably turned into the picture cliff-note version of the past year. Not as fun.
Here’s a picture of The Glass Potato. 
The one I was attempting to convince the glass blowers to sell to me when I got the life-exploding climatic-arch text informing me that everyone (on his side) had found out, thereby naming that day forever Glass Potato Day.
They never sold me the potato. I’m sure I would have thrown it out some ten story window by now if they had.
**************
Instead of turning this into a super long rambling post, I’ve decided to break it into pieces. Though I don’t have to much to post on since, excepting the 90-some speeding ticket I nearly got (nice guy brought it down to 82), I managed to stay relatively out of trouble whilst on vacation. Which is less impressive when you consider the fact that all I really had at my disposal were trees and loads of rain most of the time.
On a side happy happenings update of the internets while I was gone – my favorite blog writing personalities is back (hyperbole and a half), and making me laugh through a really good post on depression. Because laughing at depression – always a good thing.
Also, I don’t really know how to end this post so I’m just going to stop now. Right here.
Good news, after planning out many more hours of getting poked with a million little needles (i.e. expanding my tattoo) I am now no longer paralyzed by anxiety and can finish my post. The one where I bitch about a bunch of crap no one really cares about.
Worst week to lose a friend – I really need to get better at this whole life-shit scheduling stuff.
Every day at work I keep thinking it can’t get any worse, then it does. And now the thought of taking vacation come Monday has become worlds more stress inducing than the thought of not taking vacation. Which is completely stupid; and scarily something my boss would think. I should get out now. Before I turn old and British.
I have however acquired a new exploring/climbing buddy (coffee shop girl) and I’m pretty sure she’s basically the same person as me. Which means she’s absolutely awesome and might have ADHD.
Also, after discovering this:
If you throw the boomerang 20 degrees south of west you’ll notice a slight leftward shift caused by the solar system’s movement through the galaxy.
I’m considering taking up a new hobby. Namely, finding yahoo questions and answering them as creatively and wrongly as possible. Because that’s what the internet is for. Disinformation. To throw North Korea off our trail. Or something like that.
Yesterday one of our sales guys offered to buy me lunch for my help on his hell of a proposal that nearly killed me last week. I probably shouldn’t have picked my favorite local sushi joint because both the guys there started having a go at me and being absolutely ridiculous, pretty well killing all pretense of my being an adult. Of course, over the weekend I had pulled out my rubber-band propelled plane and we were throwing it around the office – so it might not have been all on the sushi guys.
The exciting part though is where the sales director had to sit on the booth side, to face the door. And no, he isn’t an ex-spy, I asked. But he totally was an intern-PI. Which is super awesome. And apparently requires you do things like hide out on a toilet for 8 hours waiting for college kids to sneak in and start smashing toilet seats. Which, while I may not have the best track record for sitting in one place for more than 5 minutes at a time, I’m sure I’d be awesome at it. Especially if there were donuts and coffee and I could log the full 8-hours of my experience via Instragram. I’m sure loads of people take a dozen donuts and a Box-o-Joe in with them to the toilet. For hours.
Apparently the pay is pretty bad but it is still infinitely times more than I would get paid in my dream job of being a train hopping gypsy (aka homeless bum). So on all accounts it’s a pretty good gig.
I think I’m in. Especially since my job is currently trying to murder me. With an ice pick.
I made the ice pick part up. But the rest is totally true.
Fuck that was so damn hard.
I just lost a really good friend today – I owe it to Rory, but it didn’t make it any less difficult.
I kept putting it off. I thought that maybe, if I just let our lives slowly drift apart, it would be easier – that the loss wouldn’t be quite so felt. But in the end it was all the same. And I hate myself for the things that led to this – led to loosing the support, and the laughs, and the late night talks. That friend who cut through all my jokes and my nonsense, because he honestly wanted to know how I was doing behind those walls. That friend that was never not there, no matter how busy. That friend that always always took care of me when I needed it most.
My dear rooftop friend… you will be sorely missed.