aza aza faiting!

Beginning to find that breather I mentioned last week. Although I did have to postpone the maternity session I had scheduled in SF for last weekend, because of teenage domestic drama here. (Don't ask - we were all purveyors of teenage drama at one time.) So, I've got to find time for that this week or next. But I'm looking forward to it! And that's a good thing. Me and Obligation never work well together.

And Phil Dalhausser? Yes. Please. Click his name. Now. OMFG.



Uh, so, yeah. Totally supporting Nude Olympics. Totally. Don't let anyone convince you that the Female Gaze isn't a Real Thing. We've been Looking at the Male Creature for ten thousand plus years and it is part of our Sexuality.

Doll rearranging going gangbusters here. Two dolls sold in one week. Go, me. Now I need to sell an Elysium head and an Unoa faceplate and then....consider letting go of another whole doll or two. I don't think I'll ever sell accouterments again - just putting a box under my worktable and tossing the odd wig or shoe in there until GoGaDoll 09 when I can sellsellsellsell at the Yard Sale. (I know that's not what it's called but I'm trying to type this and google/ogle the Thin Beast at the same time. Can't think.)

I have opened my Alain and I'm in mad passionate love. I feel a bit badly for the Big Boy because the Darkling Satyr has essentially pushed everyone out of his admittedly strange light, so the SD17 is sitting patiently on a bureau upstairs awaiting my renewed interest.

I'm going to try to hit the fabric store on Wednesday and see if I can't find the perfect fun fur - I want curly Tibetan - to create the perfect leggings. These black prototypes are fine, but I know what I want/need now. The other option is to commission some leather jerkin style leggings and remove the hooves to permanently put them on him and then leave them. Or the wooded Great Kilt....He's wearing a long, black jpopdolls today and it suits. He is distracting me sitting here on the computer tower looking very...contemplative. I love the Sard face - just love this mold!!!

Reading - not much. Watching - Phil Phil Phil. Listening - Damien Rice.

What about you, flist?

I am surprised how "dark" this boy is becoming. Not really what I had imagined....but it's working for me!!!



( The Darkling Satyr )

Today I made a pattern for a top and got it finished.....after the second attempt. 

So, here's the first item for the Idollize table at the convention.....

Two big boxes, two big boys. One I've been "shelling" in one form or another since I was eight years old and first became Aware of my Muse. The other I just fell madly and hopelessly in love with at Dollectable - so, I opted to open my Muse first. And I'm floored and overcome with joy. This doll is just exquisite. I cannot gush on enough about Soom and their creative team. He's proportionately perfect and his face is just gorgeous, hauntingly gorgeous. I'm not quite sure, yet, what I will be ultimately doing with my blank boy (my face-up and brushed boy won't arrive until the end of the month) but for now he's just wearing MP feather eyes and blushed lightly black and grey. I do have a fantasy about having a fully freckled ginger satyr...but we will see.

These are only head shots - I'm working on his minimal "costuming" and should be done this afternoon!






( The Muse )

I have much more to say about Sard and his arrival and the hours long preparation in regards to the re-stringing and magnetizing. But I won't spoil any flisters own experience! Just be prepared - glue and a string puller!!!

Just as a general note: after this weekend, i should finally - hopefully - have my brain back. Work has been a bear, to many things to do at home, etc. We should be caught up, though.


I say this only because i feel like i have been neglecting peeps and only barely apprehending what's going on, which makes me sad; apologies if i've vanished from your vicinity.


And now i flee for the shower and rufus's Life In Boxes. Will be back Sunday evening.

They actually redelivered the box this morning early enough, so i was able to get pics. woot.


The whole set.


I took a shot of each in shade and broad-noon sunlight, since there were questions about color last time; between the two, you should get a pretty good idea. Also, they may seem overly shiny now, but i find that settles down as the urethane and gloss cures over the next few weeks.


The two Korean-side colors are gorgeous; i must recommend them.

Feeling worn a bit thin this week. Finally, finally seeing some space - physical, mental, emotional - opening up mid-week next and I'm moving towards it as though it were a mirage and I the crawling, parched figure lost in the sands. Trying not to come off with a big whinge, so I'll just stop there. Life IS ups and downs and I'm trying to find my "life sea legs" on this current swell.

Yay - two distinctly different metaphors in one very small paragraph.

Ahem.

Okay - would someone please please please confer with physicists and philosophers and get back to me regarding how it is that no dolls arrive for months and months and then two arrive on the same exact day???? I want to understand the time-space continuum that allows for such strange synchro.

Sard and Alain. More later. In the meantime - how are SD17 keepers dressing their boys???? I want either a suit or jeans and buttondowns. Not having a lot of luck finding stuff for my soon-to-be Ginger ModernDay Poet, Finn. And I've begun contemplating the pleating and sewing of wee kilts. Satyrs and great kilts - perfect combination, eh? Hmmmm....tartan choices....Actually, in considering it just this moment, I think I should hit the quilting store and buy some small print calico with wood motifs...leaf motifs...yes?

Here are some props I'm looking for, if anyone has links or leads for 60 - 70cm boy sizes, please let me know -

tea set - particularly teapots
bow & quiver
tankards
chairs

Selling dolls and contemplating what I've still got here in the way of accoutrements and clothing. I must be wanting to seriously organize doll stuffs because of the fact that there is so much chaos reigning in regards to finishing the pool and working on the inside of the house. I've got Control over these little resin peoples and I need Control over something. *rules resin with iron fist*

Pool is coming along gangbusters and its current look is just breathtaking. The stamped concrete deck was finished yesterday and I've got a zillion landscaping ideas zipping through my brain now...I'm also finishing the wedding album for my contractor and will threaten him with a severe head and shoulders beating with said album if he doesn't get over here and finish my staircase. We're going to have to put the French Sleeping Porch on next year's list.

And I'm scouring local landscape hardscape folks for black beach rock. My concern here is that with my obsessive/compulsive tendencies, landscaping is going to shove writing and dolls out of the equation for a while....and I don't want that, but it's hard for me to balance my obsessions.

Not writing a single fookin fictional word. That is all on that front.

Considering upgrading to the D300 - any Nikon shooters on the flist interested in this D200?

I've got a maternity session this weekend! I shot their wedding about five years ago - I love that sort of continuity. I've also got another maternity session next weekend so for someone who isn't actually working, it appears I'm, yes, working.

Pulled out all my The Spectral Light & Moonshine Firefly Snakeoil Jamboree yesterday. Trying to turn a musician friend onto some "darker" bluegrass. milk_eye generously shared some very unusual and rare folk music with me some time back and we listened to those discs as well. Thanks, C!

Dear Wednesday 13,
You are henceforth wiped from my memory. I wish to have nothing more to do with you and the trouble you rained down on us. Your behavior was shocking and will not be put up with again. Should I receive prolonged grief over the events of the day you will be hunted down and made to pay.

That's it today, you and me are through.
Thursday and yes even Friday will treat me better than YOU did.

Yours sincerely

Amy




WORK HELL

Things are kinda hectic here just now. Watch_the_angels_fall and I are doing a table and a doll meet at a convention in november and everything is on hold while I make stuff for it to sell. We are buying some things in to pad the table out a bit, but currently I don't have much. I did manage to find a few things I'd already made though. I have some designs in my head and even with the amount of fabric I already have I still managed to spend £26 in mandors in Glasgow and another £20 on Henry Alexander prints from ebay  >.>
I've made a Loli skirt pattern for CP girls, though I guess I should see if it will fit CP boys too [rolls eyes] Going to try a different way of doing it though cos it's an elasticated waist and theres a fair bit of fabric in it making Reiko look....chuncky. I like the other method of making the pattern. I might actually make one for me for work. I saw a really nice fabric on ebay that would be appropriate for working in a fabric shop. I really should make more of an effort for work. I can't be arsed with make-up in the morning. 
Anyway, back to the point.....*Everything* is on hold while I make clothes for Idollize. Face-ups, re-roots, all other sewing etc....all on hold. I'm only making stuff for the table. I don't think the website is going to be up before the con, so I guess the con is going to have to be a preview rather than the launch.

So, my babysister left for an Interrail tour around Europe. She'll be gone for three weeks or so. I'm kinda worried, because she is my babysis. My dimwitted, daydreaming, cute as a button babysis. She's in Berlin right now. At least five minutes ago she was still alive and well.

Disturbed and Three Doors Down are coming to Helsinki. I'd rather love to go see both of them, but concert tickets are expensive and then there's the trip to Helsinki and back. The train tickets are not really that expensive, but still.



Draiman's voice is love. And yeah, the guitars and lyrics and the entire raw emotion on Disturbed's songs is just what I want. And need. Especially since work has been full of crazy drama lately. And uni stuff... let's not even go there.

RULES:
_ Pick your birth month.
_ Strike out anything that doesn't apply to you.
_ Bold (or italicize) the statements that best apply to you.
_ Copy to your own journal, with all twelve months under a lj-cut.
_ Tag 5 people from your friends list.



APRIL: Active and dynamic. Decisive and hasty but tends to regret. Attractive and affectionate to oneself. Strong mentality. Loves attention. Diplomatic. Consoling, friendly and solves people's problems. Brave and fearless. Adventurous. Loving and caring. Suave and generous. Emotional. Aggressive. Hasty. Good memory. Moving. Motivates oneself and others. Sickness usually of the head and chest. Sexy in a way that only their lover can see.

( The Months )

I finally hit the Hill again today.


After three solid weeks of complete exhaustion from the new commute, two and a half weeks of missing out due to one injury or another (i'm supposed to be climbing it twice a week) and finally breaking in a new pair of shoes, i was Ready.


The Hill, at first, doesn't seem like much. It runs between the train station and the office; from platform to doorstep is exactly one mile. Normally, it takes me about 15-18 minutes to walk a mile, and it's not especially tiring in good weather. Yes, it's steeper than most, but -


Well, let me put it this way: The Hill starts with five flights of stairs directly up the face of a cliff, and it only gets steeper from there. Within that mile, there are three switchbacks (not counting the stairs) surmounted by a nearly straight climb to the top. And then you have to cross the street and - mount another hill.


And the damn thing is dangerous. It's heavily wooded and unmaintained along a good half of its length, scattered with slippery rocks and debris from cars ditching out around the curves. Vines grow over the path; i just had to bring a pair of loppers this morning to cut back one that was causing pedestrians to have to hop over the ditch and walk in the street - behind a blind curve on the steepest part - to get around it. namfle tells me that climbing it in winter is like trying to get a nut in Ice Age. I believe him.


There is a section you could go up on your hands and knees if you wanted to. If you were unlucky, you could probably be seriously injured. In short, this "walk" is no joke.


It only took me five extra minutes today. Not 40 minutes like the first time. Not 35 minutes like the last time. 23 minutes. VICTORY.


Did you know there's some tremendous asshole who runs up that hill?

More satyr!crack fic over at bjd_30minfic.

http://community.livejournal.com/bjd_30minfic/41190.html

Written for the prompt - Diamond. But believe me, this is a rabid plot bunny and it's already arced out with characters and motivation. Yes, I'm working with more mythological satyr ideas - even though "fantasy" is difficult for me. I'm really not imaginative enough to create worlds....unknown. So, imagine Arcadia meets King Arthur's Court.

So the resiny-woody thing; i'm still not sure about it. grumble. I did finally pour some test bars, though, so i'd like to work out my issues on you get some fresh noses on this and see what you guys think.


I need about six to eight piggies, preferably in the US unless you're wiling to split shipping with me. I'll send you a sample of the new scent, with and without sandalwood; all you have to do is tell me if it's foul or amazing within a reasonable timeframe.


I might be willing to slip in other samples if there's something else you wanted to sniff, too. :3 Just ask.


First come, first served, yadda yadda. rufus and angsty_os do not need to volunteer, as they have already been drafted, whether they like it or not, really.


Edit: Full of piggies! Thanks, everyone.

( Quick ones )




Charon <3 And J-P Leppäluoto looks positively utterly edible. Mmmm~

Fandom birthday. Right

Here's the story people - this is a lot of info about me and why I am really really shit at being a friend and why you should probably de-friend me.

( what a wonderful charicature of intimacy )

There we go folks. More than you ever wanted to know about me.

So, (even if you didn't read the ramble), what I am proposing to do is not to postpone the birthday. I don't want to do that and I really want to do it. I'm just...taking my time with it, is that okay? Because I really want to do well by you lot and I want the gifts to be good and I don't want to give out slapdash presents. Because I adore you lot and want to do right by you. Is...I mean, are people okay with this?

And there we have it.

A *gasp* doll post. Heh.

I'm going to upload my Dollectable Photoshop Workshop notes on DoA. I'll let the flist know when I've got them up over there. I might also begin a thread about Catchlights. Because I have so much time. Just time time time. Yeah.

I am very soon to unveil two Big Boys! They aren't *ahem* actually here, but they will be this week. The problem, however, and it's far from slight and far from just about dolls, is that we get our mail at the village store. And the village store owner is currently experiencing some kind of business meltdown - no electricity, no phone, no stock outside of beer in coolers on the floor and smokes, keeping hours that are haphazard at best, ridiculously laughable at worst. In order to get our mail at the house we need a locking box and packages won't be deliverable as the USPS has standing protocol not to ever get off the main road in this....somewhat dangerous community. Ugh. Not the end of the world, but highly inconvenient. So, I'm worried about my incoming packages.

I need dollie monies! So, I'm going to be listing my Dollstown oriental skin Sia on the 7girl body in the MP this week. If any flisters are interested, email me! She didn't come to me in her DT box, but she will be shipped safely. I can include a pair of silicone eyes and a cute outfit. She is blank but has eyelashes. Pictures soon! Also, still wanting to sell the gorgeous, gorgeous ooak modded unoa faceplate. Kaye Wiggs outdid herself - modded exotically and painted beautifully. Pictures soon, too.

More Mad Mad Hatter pix this week, too. If I can find the time to set up the shoot.

fandom birthday and right now i'm so far behind i think the idea will last forever. hard to justify sitting down to write, to draw, to create when outside the closed door (a barrier in it's own right) tension vibrates, heavy and breath-catching like the string of a violin plucked in an empty auditorium, the note ringing off the walls and the air and the metal of the strings. The tension is like that but without the beauty of sound. I need the noise otherwise the tension tightens in my chest, like screwing my courage to the sticking place, like adjusting an out on tune guitar string.

what do you do with this tension? I cannot ignore it, i can't when i feel it shaving my skin. I try to sooth it with a frantic melody, obnoxious and maybe not the most melodic but an attempt at such.

maybe i'll just lie back and play my own melody for a while

I sat down this morning intending to write a piece for bjd_30minfic and this week's prompt "Cornered." I don't even have my satyr boys here yet and this story jumped out of the ends of my finger bones! I stopped at thirty minutes because it was quite obvious I wasn't getting anywhere close to the "cornered" part of the tale. Yet.

Totally inspired - obviously - by the brilliant short serial satyr-crack pieces kiyakatori has been gifting her horn-lusting flist with this week. Her work is so erotic, so immediate. She has slain me with her fantastical characters!

We need MORE satyr crack!fic - so I think I'll try to contribute, at least until kidlings are back in school and I get back to work on my ManBoy Original.

( untitled satyr-crack )

Been stolen back later












Work: meh
Uni work: meh
Life: meh
Dolls: no time meh
Birthday: you forgot didn't you grandma?