so i've been getting pretty good feedback so far on my rachel maddow stencil, which pleases me. it's hard to say, though, if it's just that people are so totally into rachel and appreciate and hunger for rachel merch/art, or if they really like what i have done specifically. but either way, it appears that it's a market that has not yet been very tapped, and i stand to benefit from that. wish i would have acted on this idea a while back, cuz now i only have a week before i hit the woods for 3 weeks and am completely out of touch with the rest of the world til the middle of august. by the time i get back, someone else will probably have jumped on the bandwagon. (etsy and flickr are filled with copy cats waiting to pounce.)

maybe not. but regardless - these are now up on my etsy shop:







i think the reason i like doing stenciling is because it's a challenge. i like figuring it out without the aid of a computer (i mean, i often find images to work from on the computer, and sometimes i'll do some preliminary layout on the computer, but the bulk of my creative process is by hand, using tracing paper, a light box and lots of sheets of paper/cardstock), the trial and error of it all is engaging. i'd like to get better at it so it doesn't take me so long and so that i feel like i know what i am doing, but whatever. i enjoy the old-schoolness of it. the diy-ness of it.

after dinner i will post up a few prints on paper that i managed to finish while working on the above canvases. i like how the prints turned out too, in a totally different way, but not sure anyone else will care since they are on paper and would need to be matted/framed for display. (the canvases are ready to tack on a wall as-is.) i haven't exactly had much luck selling the paper prints in the past. but i sorta like making them entirely with spray paint, and not silkscreened. makes them more one of a kind.

i want to make a bunch more of these but not sure i have the time to before i leave. fae is off on her adventure w/twoofspades - last i heard they had made it to kentucky and were stopping in at the zappos outlet before hitting louisville. i have til the 25th to do a million things, including but not limited to: writing yet another music column (yes, i did just turn one in), cleaning the entire house (it's a wreck), hunting/gathering supplies and then packing for my trip, and the small matter of hustling up another coupla hundred dollars before i leave so's i can pay the bills and actually pay for gas on the way up. (i did finally get my curve paycheck that was late and my dad sent me an early birthday check so i'm at least most of the way to paying the rent at the moment, but damn i hope i sell some art in the next few days!) the to-do list is actually much longer than that, but those are the highlights.

ok, well, that's a little update. i'm sure i'll be writing more in the coming week cuz it's just me and the pets over here and they mostly sleep during my waking hours so... i'll be craving a little human interaction, even if it is on the interwebs.

Just wanted to let everyone know, that a new version of MemcacheD has been released. We will be rolling this out to the memcache nodes during the week of July 20th to 24th. This should have very little impact on the stability of the website; however users may see a slight increase in load times as the cache is re-populated with entries.

The software has been tested and verified to be working just fine with the application; so we perceive this to be a very minimal risk in regards to updating, and the stability of the website.

Thanks...

New Notes Feature
Automatic Detect Location
Pingbacks for All
Birthday Wishes

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You may know that John Klima, editor of the award-nominated Electric Velocipede, has taken the month of July off from blogging. Instead, he's solicited posts from a variety of folks, including Jeffrey Ford, Chris Roberson, and EV assistant editor Anne Zanoni so far. We've all submitted material that's been going up bit by bit over the course of the month.

Next week is my week, and things will kick off Monday morning with a brand-new short story, "A Strong Premonition of Death Struck Me This Morning." I hope you'll check in at the Electric Velocipede Blog next week, and if you enjoy what you read that you'll consider grabbing a subscription to the fine print magazine.

http://feeds.blogthings.com/whatfrozentreatareyouquiz/

What Frozen Treat Are You? - What frozen treat best matches your personality?

we're coming back to europe in november!
look out lock up your pets
and your valuables!

for uk friends,
we won't be there till early december i think! i know when the snowflakes hit your face
and we put the kettle on 10 times a day.
if anyone has contacts in Prague, TELLLL MEEEE i wanna go there.
and spain.
and italy.
i just went to the community swimming pool five minutes from my house.
it was awesome and i'm going back tomorrow.

this is the summer of new york city festivals.
oj all day
brooklyn tea party
we're doing citysol and huggabroomstock on saturday.
i'm wearing the ghostbusters jump suit i got at the oj all day swap.

and look at this.
matt and i did this in koln...

http://www.99matters.de/schwervon/

Eight years ago, an old and dear family friend gave Laura and I two $50 gift certificates to Trader Joe's as a wedding present. We were delighted with the gift, having heard rumors of the legendarily magical contents of that high-end grocery chain, but we were somewhat handicapped having no access to an outlet in New York City. (This, children, was back in the days before Trader Joe's came to Manhattan, though I hear tell it's no easier to shop there now than it was before the locations opened.) The gift certificates went into the bottom of a drawer and were, for the most part, forgotten.

Three moves later, with all the jumbling of one's stuff that entails, we live on Chicago's North Side, and Trader Joe's is a frequent shopping destination. In particular, it's about the only place where we buy coffee beans. I make my own Bilmo Blend by grinding together the Trader Joe's House Blend and Trader Joe's Bay Blend in equal proportions. In any event, Laura dug up the gift certificates a few days ago in the course of looking for something else. There was no expiration date, so I took one to our local store this morning and filled my basket.

When I presented my gift certificate at checkout, my cashier was good-naturedly stymied. So was the bagger, who had been working there much longer. "I only know the kind you can swipe," the cashier said. "I don't know what to do with an analog giftcard."

In the end, it took three Trader Joe's employees to figure out how to deal with a gift certificate dated 2001. The nice thing was that they treated it as a challenging puzzle, not an analog annoyance. And I ended up forking over a mere $1.96 for my basket of groceries.

As a postscript, I must confess that more than half that first gift certificate from our dear old Mormon gentleman went toward the purchase of coffee and beer. Sorry, Uncle Lee! It wasn't a deliberate irony.

http://feeds.blogthings.com/doyouhatetobesinglequiz/

Do You Hate to Be Single? - Do you have to be in a relationship? Take this quiz to know the real truth

today is so much better than yesterday. ohmygod, i can't even tell you.

yesterday was like the worst day i've had in six-eight months. or maybe more. i started bleeding, sort of, last sunday. and then it stopped for a few days. and then it started again on thursday. and then yesterday, i apparently tried to birth an alien. ohmygod. i'm sure you are all sick of hearing of my uterine woes, so i won't go into too much detail, but really, i could barely walk or move from the sofa due to fatigue from the blood loss, and i was almost as hormonal as i was a few years ago in the woods at mich when i was on birth control, trying to regulate these periods. almost. i kept feeling like i wanted to burst into tears all day. and then i did, several times. i was not fit for public consumption in any way. i had to skip swimming (for the 2nd day in a row, sadly), and then had to miss out on celebrating for macdaddyval's bday, which made me really sad. but really, there was no way. i was such a mess. by the end of the day, i felt like i had quite literally run a marathon: my muscles were all sore, i felt absolutely anemic, just wiped the fuck out. (it of course didn't help that i hadn't gotten good sleep for two nights in a row, partly because of the period and partly because of the cats.)

so last night, i guess i was exhausted enough to actually sleep through most of the night. i woke up at like 6 having to pee and with cramps. took an aleve, we locked the cats out, and i was able to go back to sleep for a few more hours. woke up at like 8:30. it was glorious. i was a new woman. and today, the bleeding hasn't been so bad, strangely enough. i still feel a little weak but in general, a million times better than yesterday. so we actually went to the pool party at the plex for a little while. i did not, however, swim. still bleeding too much for all that. but i dangled my feet in the pool and socialized and wore my jazzfest hat and lots of sunblock and stayed in the shade and ate some fine grilled food. and then got tired and we came home. the beauty of a party 4 blocks away.

fae is napping but i am too hot to nap and was keeping her awake flopping around in the bed. i think we will have a chill night at home probably watching some lame 4th of july thing on tv. and maybe i will go out into the street and see if i can see the fireworks from our house tonight. fae will, of course, not. (she hates fireworks.)

oh, and i sold a clock a tshirt today, making it my biggest sales day in weeks. (which is pathetic, i know. but hey, grateful for what i got!) woot! oh money... why do i have such a contemptuous and elusive relationship with you? i wish i knew.

that's my update for today. hope everyone's having a great 4th.