velma

Wooo, so, I got back home around 4:50pm yesterday. Our flight arrived early! There was a skycap there and even though mom said she could handle pushing me, he insisted on taking me over and he was a really smooth ride, haha. He could pop wheelies over the damn speed bump things so it was really nice. He took us all the way out to Kim's car, too. Really nice guy. That was cute. :P

As for my trip... it had been WAY too long since I last visited my hometown!! Seeing two concerts in a row, spending time with family, and seeing some great friends as well ... best vacation ever! I really needed that! I just wish my videos would upload... I need my new computer ASAP. :P Lynn gave me a flipvideo camera and got me a new phone...a phone that ACTUALLY WORKS! The video cam works on its own, it just kinda refuses to work with my computer. I have been needing to replace my computer for the last year or two anyway so I'm not worrying too much. Just wish I could share the videos I took with everyone!

Ahh man. I got to visit my aunt Kay and she's at this farm with my cousin Ashton and Trish and they have a horse and chickens and stuff and Trish has a dog sitting business type thing, I felt like a dog whisperer or something with this huge herd of dogs following me everywhere. Very polite dogs. It was awesome. That house is amazing. It's in Morgan Hill and rocks. So lush and green. Railroad tracks and hills and...yeah. People riding horses down the road and such. Wonderful place.

I got to see THE MAGNETIC FIELDS on Thursday night. Herbst Theater is absolutely stunning. A wonderfully intimate place, very friendly people there. I got different seating than I'd bought, because they had handicapped seating they transferred me to because it was still available, and when I got there to pick up the tickets, the girl told me that she had put me into seating that was "way better than the seating I had originally" ... and she was right. Oh my gravy, it was so wonderful!! I was right down there, so close to the stage! The opening act was amazing. INTERSTELLER RADIO COMPANY is who it was. They'd been doing performances of Telltale Heart all tour but for the date I saw, they did a different story revolving around a misfit company that rescues people from disasters. Parchuting onto haunted planets and imaginary monsters...man. Best ever. One guy does voices and storytelling, the other guy has a table of objects for sound effects and a PC with wind and water sounds for background noise, and a third guy who does the music with an accordion. It was the most amazing thing. So clever. As for the main course, awesome. There was audience participation with Daniel Handler. Oh my god that guy is hilarious on stage! I wish I'd been able to see him touring with Stephin during the whole Gothic Archies Tragic Treasury book tour thingy a while back. Seeing an entire audience run and die during the Scream And Run Away performance was PRICELESS.

On Friday, I got to go to Berkeley with Lynn, Jess, and Ma. Turned out Billy's show was in this crazy yellow house on the top floor. It's a converted house with an art gallery in the people's main portion of their living quarters. Very intimate setting, nice environment. It was SO great to see him, talked a lot, then got to watch him play a pretty long set of acoustic tunes. He did a rendition of Danny Boy which actually made me love the song. It's just sad I got to see him for such a short amount of time 'cause I would have liked to have hung out with him more. It was his birthday, turning 9 (leap year...) so I gave him that framed pic I did for him. He really liked it, I felt realllllllly good about that. I got tons of hugs and that's all that matters! Yay hugs!

Oh, and then the rest of the days, well, I was pretty busy. Saw Jim and Ro, that was great. I REALLY needed a treatment(Jim's my chiro from there), and I felt amazing afterwards. Got some gelato with the girls by the movie theater. I am now in love with gelato and need to find somewhere here that has it. SO delicious. I had double espresso bean. Yummo.

Met Stephanie's boyfriend Nick. A very sweet guy, wears ties and knows the Who's On First? skit by heart. Gold star material, he gets my approval. :p Steph gave me a present, and...AMAZING. She started writing this story we both talked about extensively when she was visiting me in Vegas a few years ago. She had about 3 pages done so far, but oh my god, it touched my heart. It was so awesome to read part of this story we'd both talked about so much back then. I can't wait to read more of it. I did some character sketches in my book too. :P

Lynn and Fred got a house, so while we were there they were in the process of moving in. At first it gave off an INTENSE silent hill vibe. Really. The room Stephanie chose has hooks all over the ceiling...we're guessing they were for model airplanes or plants. I still say it could be used for S&M but who knows if it's weight bearing?! It seems a little haunted in general, the backyard, when night time and with a flashlight out there, feels like Silent hill hardcore. It's great. Not a scary haunted, just... doors open and shut themselves as well as windows and things are shoved over on their own. Go figure. I love it.

Due to this busy-ness, I didn't get to see Jaz or Tab but I saw Dave and his girlfriend Shannon. It was so great to see Dave again. I'm glad he's well. Shannon was sweet, very interesting and fun person. I told Dave that he, Stephanie, and I are all part of a Broken Heart club. They were both a little confused about what I meant but I pointed out we all have heart defects, heh. Gotta look on the bright side, right? I'm going to design a club logo.

I didn't get to go to any art museums 'cause of the craziness of everything going on... yeah, I wildly miscalculated everything that was going to go down while I was there so time was limited, but I'm planning on coming back to visit town again in the near future. Giving serious thought to the idea of moving back to the area sometime, but we'll see. I really enjoy Arizona. It's hard when there are so many places I want to visit or live or whatever. Now that I'm feeling so much better, I just want to get out and devour the entirety of everything everywhere. Petaluma has cleaned up a lot in some ways, and it was so great to see everyone... just made me think. It's something to put on the list of possibilities again, right? Yep. More time in San Francisco and Berkeley the next time I'm in the area FOR SURE. Mmm...

I think when I visit Oregon, I'm going to fly as well. It was amazing how much less pain I was in with flying. Plus, I just flat out enjoy flying. I think my favorite part is landing, when the plane touches down and everything SLAMS. Mmm flying rocks. The whole transportation of the wheelchair was completely easy, as was the security checks and stuff. All in all, the travel part was totally hassle free, even getting luggage both times was easy as pie. :) I had such a feeling of peace the entire trip. It was wonderful.

I have this giant urge to just hop a plane to somewhere. I want to get my passport. Seriously. Where do I want to go first?! I can't even decide. Oh man. Life is open. Let's walk through.

Oh, and well, I took more videos with my phone and with my flipvideo cam thing than with my regular camera, but since my video cam is being lame, I can't show you the theater or the houses of my sis or aunt but I have some cool traveling photos of nature crap and people...so, photo time!

<
( Read more... )


One sad thing about the trip is we went to the Converse store for Jessica, and I found a pair on sale for $10, got really excited. It was art deco flowery design outside in orange with white flowers, and inside it was this light bluegreen... had one box of my size, but get this: Only one shoe in the box. The display shoe was my size, so I got excited, but...it was the same foot as the one in the box. So in my mind, somewhere there's someone who bought a pair of that style but they have two right feet and the left feet are still at the store. Damn. Thanks universe. :P

Also I'd just like to point out that everyone was so friendly on my trip. In the airport, on the plane, in stores, just people in general...it was so lovely. Mmm mmm mmm mmm.



p.s.

Kim graduated from nursing school, so she is now an OFFICIAL NURSE! WOOHOO! CONGRATS KIM, I AM SO PROUD!! :)

Geez, I haven't posted for a while... here's a little glimpse into what I've been working on these days: Art stuff for Brian. :p

Click for screen shot

- - - - -



Paying bills is almost fun. I like writing checks...haha.
Speaking of money, as a birthday present to myself, I will be purchasing a new pair of headphones from AudioCubes.



I think I've been tight enough with money this year(as with all years) to be able to buy one thing for myself, yeah! Haha. *fights off guilt* Still gotta save up for that computer...wheee. Excitement never ends in my life!!

Also, happy late birthday to Yai. :p

In other news, I suggested that Lynn and the girls meet us in Santa Barbara when we finally get things together to go on the trip I've been wanting to go on for months, as I think they all could use a vacation as well. They all think that sounds like a good deal, so we're hopefully going to all meet up there next month! I AM EXCITED! I hope this works out, haha.


Dude, I know I say this every month, but I can't believe it's June already. This year feels like it's just flown by. Family and friends mentioning registering for Comic Con over the last week or two... dang, I didn't realize it was getting so close, yikes!


p.s.

Thanks VH1 for bringing this video to my attention:
Radiohead - Knives Out

Ok, so, the router bit the dust and I cannot connect to the internet with my PC, so I am posting this from my mom's computer which apparently has a better wireless card than mine because it actually picks up a decent signal from the neighbor's house wayyy down the street. Ha.

Basically, I'll be missing in action for at least a few days because of this, so, if I haven't replied to you or whatever, that would be why. Over the last couple days I've been disconnected in the middle of moderating queues on songmeanings, while typing PMs, and while attempting to carry on conversations in AIM, so it dying today wasn't really that unexpected. This sucks, but whatever. I've been listening to music and drawing all night so it's all good! Got a rough draft of some CD insert stuff in the works.

We're probably cancelling cable TV tomorrow and stuff and as for getting a new router or whatever...we'll see what happens. Money's not flowing in, as always, so it's just icing on the cake, of course. I feel bad because I wanted to order some things for my mom as late mothers day stuff and now I can't even do that... so mom, sorry about that. I know you say it's the thought that counts but I had something neat planned and...well. I'll try and get to that later! Look forward to that!



I found out the other day that I was promoted to moderator on Niko's paintchat, hehe, that was a pleasant surprise! I just feel bad that I can't actually be around to draw/mod there now, haha. Geez. It was great to see you in there yesterday, Tia! You just kick the pants off of me more each time I see you in there. :p


The temps have been rising here in AZ, 'bout swimming time for me. We cleaned up my desk area today and I'll be going through stuff in my room soon too. Still thinking about moving, where to move, how to move, when, blah blah blah...I'm pretty excited about the idea, actually. It feels kinda good to get things organized. Putting paperwork in nice little folders, finding sketchbooks I forgot about, weeding out things I don't need. I just wish I could find a steadier income somewhere. I really keep thinking about working at painting more and seeing if people'd hire me to do wall art or something. It's an idea. People seem to like my abstract stuff...I dunno. Lots to think about. I still want to take more classes, too. Another part of the puzzle of moving. I'd like to move somewhere with a nice college nearby and just see what happens.


Billy, a friend of mine in San Diego, mentioned that he's going to have some concerts in July, and Toxi mentioned wanting me to go to Comic Con... well, I can't guarantee comic con because I really do not think I could afford that AT ALL this year, but maybe I could arrange a trip to the area sometime in July! I haven't been in a while so that'd rock. San Diego, mama's comin' home! ...Maybe. I've been wanting to visit there so bad lately. Mmm, seafood place near the pirate ship thing! We'll see what happens. Another piece up in the air, who knows how it will fall but whatever. At least I've got high hopes about a lot of stuff. :p

I feel like such a ridiculous gypsy caravan or something. I always get these great ideas for trips, but I'm spread so thin it's hilarious to conceive of me being able to go on either one of them, let alone both...I CAN DREAM THOUGH, DAMN IT. Especially with my computer being internetless!