Going Backward Through the Day, Some Things

So the Valiant had been undefeated this stage, but just got beaten 3-1 by the Dallas Fuel. They're still the Pacific division leaders, but Fuel now have a shot at the playoffs. 

Had an engagement photo session with Hannah and Kaellen this afternoon.  I enjoy it and am good at it and despite my lack of formal training it's not like I've had no training; the art degrees furthermore at BYU-I are emphases rather than distinct degrees themselves, so my emphasis in graphic design is just as much a BA in Arts as someone's with an emphasis in photography. So far I haven't been paid for any of my photography work, but I do have something of a portfolio of photographs. Job? Job.

Tennis at noon. I'm burned to a crisp.

It's a Thursday Post!

http://whateveriwant7.blogspot.com/2018/06/aint-been-posting-much.html

Forgot to mention this blogpost, guest post on my brother's blog. According to the schedule there I should be, what, posting on Instagram today?? Man I'm so bad at this; I'd forget to eat if not for getting hungry.

Last post here title mentioned three hiatuses, mine being the third. Andrew used the word hiatus to describe what had been happening on his blog; Alex's blog there's a lot of twenty one pilots Hiatus stuff. So thought it would be, like, worth calling it a third hiatus, my YouTube stuff.

Financial Breathing Room; Explaining the 3rd Hiatus

So I'm basically financially settled, enough to... hold on let me check, alright it doesn't look like it's gone through yet but...

Once the refund of the money from my college i-card back to my bank account goes through, I'm good, all my subscriptions can float through for the next couple months and I'll be able to pay for them. After tithing, which I've calculated the exact amount for, and which I'll finally be able to pay, thanks to grandparents' monetary donation upon my graduation. I'm not making any money, and there's only a remote possibility that my position at Camp Fleischmann this summer is going to be anything but volunteer, but I am nonetheless at least not in any sort of debt.

My debt to my sister, from putting me through that last semester, is paid, as of today. I have no debt from college loans or anything. Monthly, I do pay $59 to my Patreon causes; there's $4 or $5 in other monthly subscriptions as well. Those are covered for the next few months. No longer the $29 a month from Adobe, for now... 

I meant to cancel, upon graduation, but only bothered to learn how a few days ago; $60ish had already gone through by this time, paying for a subscription I wasn't using. I meant to get a refund of that money, if possible; even if I had been using Adobe services I would feel skeezy for paying like $40 a month less than I owed now that I'm out of college, so I'd consider it fair if I couldn't get the refund.

I didn't ask for that refund though. Chickened out I guess? There's a 90 day free thing they entice you with if you threaten to quit them, which I accepted but won't be able to use much. Not that I'm using my Adobe anyway, but especially not when I'll be at camp without computer. Still I'm not paying for it; still it's just a palliative.

Urgh. So I had the Adobe this whole time, access to Premiere Pro, the ability to edit a vlog of last month. I only got a few photographs, and no video coverage, of the furry convention, but that still would have made fairly decent vloggage. There's time this month to vlog before setting off to camp, and next month we arrive back with one day to spare to edit and put up a vlog... but no I don't really want to do that. I wonder if I would had I vlogged last month, but the idea that I would only have one day to slap something together was in the back of my mind when I hiatus'd the YouTube channel.

YouTube content for the sake of content is one of the saddest things in the world, so I wouldn't go that route, even with all these content ideas that teem from my brain. Not as easy as that either; I have the ability to write, host, and edit content, but it's one of those triangles where you have to pick two legs of the three, as you'd burn out otherwise. Which...

Weakly Post

So 2.1's been on, the whole time, just in sleep mode, while we were in Oregon, and it hadn't crashed at all, sitting there doing nothing. Now I'm doing something on it, but doing so gingerly. So.

Turn my back for a week and now the comments are swarming with spams. That's great. I'll fix it later.

Leaving for scout camp in about a week, and being gone for a few months, but there's got to be a better blogging solution than just, not posting, the way I've been doing. I could try writing it all up front and scheduling it for later, like that ever turned out well... Every weekend there's time for a trip into town, and town has wifi, so writing it all up front and scheduling it for later on a weekly basis is another possibility... but what computer would I use? The only reason I can use this one is because I'm keeping it exactly where it is, in its spot on the floor, and not moving it or even jostling it too roughly. So I don't know.

There's a Pun in Here Somewhere but I May Not Have Enough Time to Find It

2.1 still bound to crash at any moment. It takes five bootups, one of them will be successful, and maybe it'll take a few hours to load. And then maybe you accomplish one thing. And then it crashes. Still, I think I've gotten done what I needed to. I've got Google Docs, I mean I can login and open up on other computers but then it'll send me an email asking if that suspicious activity is me, and that's obnoxious. Not that I've read any of my emails in weeks. And/or I have the Alphasmart. Though the keys are a little hard to press on it. Still, this crashing and everything; I DON'T WANT TO HAVE TO DOC IN FEAR MICROSOFT YOU HEAR ME.

Another thing like Michael's season 5 homecoming is, I'm getting my bedroom back with the foreign exchange students gone. The house seems so spacious now, and not even my stuff is cluttering up... that much.

Season 5 is like season 4, meaning, it takes three or four episodes for things to get off the ground and get really good. Only, season 5 only has eight episodes. So.

But now it's getting good, and it is awesome!

Making This Quick

Okay so my laptop may crash on me at any moment so I'm making this quick, but I got the laptop back up and running again at least, though it's still prone to BSoDs and incessant opening on BiOS screens. I also found my sketchbook again, so I can start doing the art thing I'd planned on doing. 

Arrested Development Season 5 came out today on Netflix! It's only like 8 episodes long, so I guess I'm a quarter of the way through it already? But being on this laptop again (maybe 2.1 this time) feels like Michael being back in the old house and old attic and old apartment where he'd spent so much of his time before working at Search. Is what I've got so far.

No visual art for you today I guess. We'll even see if we'll even have posts anymore anytime in the near future.

These Pins

Laptop's touch-and-go right now; this is my first time busting out the Kindle in weeks. Can't scan anything, but luckily there was a bag of Theatre pins I (half-) designed sitting on the kitchen counter, I could snap with the Kindle's camera. Tomorrow are the Glennies, so I guess that's why they're out.

(artplans)

And with this new thing with the art putting up, it was an idea of already having, but I'd be able to put the art itself post it up to Instagram, and link and say, hey I make a new post, and get so many clicks it gives me fat in the wallet. However that works. I assume it's magic, right?

oh look a photo of a horsey I took, am I rich yet?

I'm home now and the idea that I'm going to be home for a while I do need to get serious about settling down here, and if not, work on this land as if for years, even if there won't be years themselves. Finally get myself an art studio space, and work out of it (tax law regarding artists now provide deductibles for work expenses, the way tax law do, but the studio space needs to be used exclusively for the purposes of making the art, in order to qualify. I don't have space for everything in my room anyway. (Which I'm getting back soon, school coming to an end and the foreign exchange students thus moving back out.)) My paints and stuff are in the garage, in a box, and so it's like, I want to paint. Yep.

Not Danish

Hm, turns out the post I'd pre-scheduled to go up yesterday while I was at the wedding had actually accidentally been scheduled for today... so I've got like two days here, big old cracks in the wall without posts in 'em. Which is fine, because I've got the wordpaste to fill 'em with, but it's easier to keep on top of the ball instead of trying to catch up. This is why I never get anything accomplished, I'm always trying to catch up.

Great new idea which I should implement henceforth: make a something of visual art each day, scan in or photograph it, and it's like, boom, I'm doing arts again. My emphasis was in applied arts, but those are SO BORING, fine arts are totally a valid profession!

And I always start these posts so tired, but then it's like, nope, writing these wakes me back up again. Nuts, bed sounded so fun right about now...

Posting vs Anxieties

I'm not really under any obligation to post, though there is a daily deadline, and so I'm able to get the post in, by that or like slightly after it. Usually, past few days that is, I'd be in bed by this time, and posting this is the only thing keeping me up. Reading a book which I want to read, but feel like I'm under the obligation to do so, a non-fiction deal, I can't get very far into it (measure that in sentences, not pages.) Anxiety.

I'm not sure how it worked, on my mission getting things done no problem, no anxiety. Work was in its own space, own little cubicle, could be it; separate spaces allowing me to focus on the task at hand. Or maybe my anxieties have only blossomed after my mission, I don't really remember having any back K-12, though I wasn't so hot at getting my homeworks done, and I guess I did blame "math anxiety" for my mathematics-based issues. But I really think it's the idea that I wasn't the final line in PPO, pre-publications operations, and that someone would be there after me to make sure things were publication-fit? And there's a lot of publishing in graphic design, one of the many reasons it wasn't a good fit (in the other sense of the word fit)?

And look there I go, hitting publish two seconds late, and I guess this is WEDNESDAY'S post instead. Tasks were discrete, was maybe how I could fit deadlines on time. But I don't know.

What I wanted to say was, writing these posts seems to be something I'm good at, so, well I don't know, pay me money or something, my thought sort of fell apart; either way, my post starting out with the idea that writing these is something I don't get anxious about, if I were obligated to post, would that change?

So a Few Funeral Things from the Funeral

So the oldest male of each of grandma's children's children were selected to be pallbearers, one from each of the six families, but Bryce the oldest grandson and indeed eldest grandchild of all of us couldn't make it, and since he's the only Loveland son, it somehow King Ralph'd to me (a second son) to be a pallbearer this morning. So I was one of those.

The funeral service was exquisite, just the perfect wet/dry eye combo. It was like tearing into a freshly baked panera flatbread, Goldilocks warm with the crispness and the moistness in sublime harmony, and with just the perfect amount of honey drizzled over it. Panera? I think I'm getting my flatbreads straight. Whatever.

People seemed to notice my lapel pins on my suit coat for the first time ever, though I've had them since halfway through last semester. Dad this morning even thought I'd gotten them at the BLFC. There is one pin, a big one amongst the little ones, that I'd worn to that which I don't wear to formal occasions, and yet a different big one which had been part of the ensemble back at school (advertising the McKay library,) but those are all different stories.

As a pallbearer there was this flower that got stuck in my lapel, and when the grandchildren all arraigned flowers in a line on the casket after it had been placed at the site where it was to be buried, that's the flower we six used, each from our respective lapels or shirts.

I Shot Some Deer!

Wildlife photos I took within the past month, mostly around the house. And cropped the heck out of just now, to improve their composition. No particular order, alphabetical by file name, though coincidentally they also arranged themselves into the order of the sizes of the creature depicted, from smallest to largest.

April 26th

May 5th

May 9th

May 5th

April 14th, on the roadtrip back from college

There's also some photos of, less wildlife and more, wild life, but precious few of my photos taken yesterday at the furry con turned out worth very much. There is one, though, that got me thinking, as unrelated as it may be.

May 12th of course (I also cropped this one; the guy in the background was a lot more distracting in the original cut.)

This isn't a suiter or anything, it's just a head for sale at the Lemonbrat booth. Lemonbrat are ~basically~ my favorite fursuit makers, if I ever get a professional one it'd be through them I mean look at those teeth look at that snoot the whole thing's just a perfect match for my 'sona, but that doesn't have to do with anything (thought I'd just put in a plug for them.) But looking at the photo later, scrolling through all the shots I took at the convention, is the important thing, the reason I'm bringing this up; I told you that it wasn't a suiter, but just passing by the photo thumbnail quickly, I forgot that fact, and it took me a few moments to remember the context of this photo and how the heck I was able to actually keep the thing in focus. But: even if it were a suiter, it's this thing that's full of life on its own; I see it making an expression but that's just a form of anthropomorphism itself, its face is frozen like that, and if it looks like it's giving you a cockeyed glance, that's just because they design the fursuit to have eyes sunken back so that they always appear to be following you. And all that.

And at the viewing this evening, strangely I felt the same thing. We're unused to seeing the human form so absolutely still, so it felt like Grandma could have moved at any moment, though she didn't. I had to remind myself, it was just a suit, and an empty one; there was no suiter, there was no suiter. It was just the suit.

BCRF

I want to talk about Overwatch, and breast cancer, and really how I actually did get to hit BLFC for a couple of hours but BCRF sounds enough like that that it could be really misleading and fun, like with the Nancy stuff and the fact that my grandmother also named Nancy died yesterday. Fun for her at least, and we all know that certain 7-letter word that starts with those certain 3 letters... 

These four letters I'm going to discuss now, while similar to BLFC, are completely different from ERAL.

BCRF stands for the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. Continuing till the 21st Blizzard is teaming up with them with a new exclusive Mercy skin, the purchase of which has 100% of its funds donated to said charity. Furthermore, there are charity livestreams every day on Twitch.tv, the watching of which unlocks (providing your twitch account be linked to your Blizzard account) exclusive and adorable breast-cancer awareness sprays in the Overwatch game.

I just realized that I am dressed entirely in beige right now.

Anyway, really my "in" to this post is that it's the first update at birb blog in, like, a year or however long, talking about Overwatch (and spoilers for the first five minutes of Infinity War,) and the breast cancer thing, and this game I spectated, and everything.

You guys really would have won had anyone actually gotten on the objective.

And there's probably something symbolic in that.

Nancy

Nancy, Nancy, Nancy...

A month ago on Wednesday, the comic strip Nancy got a new writer and artist (on Monday, a month ago from Wednesday two days ago, I mean.) It's... How do I describe it?

It updates the setting to modern day, with social media and cell phones and everything, but keeps the same blandish minimalistic humor; the juxtaposition is Nancily g-rated, but so incongruous as to be almost subversive, coming across as more like a parody of the classic-style oldentime humor and by extension of newspaper comic humor in general. In other words, it is brilliant, and fully aware of that fact.

https://www.gocomics.com/nancy

And that is what I have to report on today.

Though it's not really a report, as such, as such...

Nancy Audrey Adams Perazzo gave up the ghost today, though, which is why I'm bringing up this other Nancy. If she'd died two days ago, maybe things would be turning out a lot different, and I'd have brought up the comic strip thing on the actual mensiversary, but that's not the way it happened. I'm not shaken or torn up about it; I don't think any of us are. The problems and complications were sudden, yet it's been so long coming; we've had our chances to grieve; we're going to see her again anyway. 

Had she died even a day earlier the funeral would have been tomorrow (is that the future perfect subjunctive I do believe it is,) but it was today so the funeral's on Monday, which are cheaper at the cemetery anyway, burials-wise. Happy Mother's Day!, ha-ha.

It feels kind of selfish not to have this be affecting me more. Really. To be able to talk about the comic strip Nancy first and foremost. The comic strip character, who's going to remain young forever, probably, even as the world changes around her. 

I found my old journal in the garage, from 16 years ago, and I cried more at Nancy's brother's death (whom I'd met maybe four or five times in my life) than at the news that my grandmother herself has finally, finally passed. It was the funeral, mostly, that did it for me there, so... Monday it is then. And a viewing Sunday evening for those who can't make it.

Substitution Here

As I am not attending BLFC at all/this year/right now/ at all this year right now, I find it helpful to point out some comparable bits of my day:

1. No furry convention, but we did have a "furry" "convention" of sorts playing League of Legends when my entire group decided we should all play as Yordles. Corki, Rumble, Teemo, Tristana, aaaand, Gnar I think? We were trounced thoroughly, but we had an absolute blast doing so.
2. Didn't make it past the mailbox today much less go to Reno, but the season premiere of season 3 of Arrested Development partially takes place in said Biggest Little City. I'm, maybe 2/3rds through the season now.
3. It crossed my mind how e.g. NeopetsLover88 could hypothetically be someone's screen name? 

And that's it.

Subjective Infinity War Now??

Trying to avoid spoilers. I think I manage it. Just by being as vague as possible?? Like you haven't seen it yet, but just in case...

Spider-Man: Homecoming, you know the villain twist? I figured it out about 15 seconds before it actually happened, just by thinking about how I would have tied the plot threads together had I written the script. There's a similar reveal in Infinity War, which I figured out beforehand by about the same length of time, but just by recognizing the character's voice the first time he speaks.

Anyway, this same scene marks about the time where the film gets good, for me. Not that part of the scene, but the way that that scene ends. Maybe there are cuts to other places while all this is going on, but it would be wickedly appropriate to label it as, the french scene, with those characters at that place at that time. I saw this coming as well, by a margin significantly longer than 15 seconds, but the fact that they'd be willing to do that is what marked the turning point. Up till that point, Infinity War had just been characters meeting each other and interacting in fun and interesting ways, the way we knew they would. Everything had been leading up to it, and it went about how we expected. After that point, Infinity War could start telling its own story. What happens the moment after the moment everything had been leading up to.

But yeah that's basically it. I seriously flipped out during the stinger scene, start to finish, and after its finish reacting to the final reveal. The post-credit sequences, they're a lot more informal or something, make me feel comfortable cheering and gasping out loud and everything. (Another thing I saw coming/hoped to have coming: the actor's catchphrase being used there, or the g-rated half of it at least. Sweet how they could fit that in.)

One Day More

I spent about half the day (24-hour period) sitting in with Mom (Grandma.) She's had the rattle since last night, which means the end is close, but sometimes they hold on for weeks after it starts. Hope not; the funeral arrangements have already been made. We'd figured it would be today, and, well not so far. Not to my knowledge at least.

I realized that I didn't really need to be there to see it happen. It's quiet, and kind of boring, and could happen at any time, and I don't think the actual death itself is going to change anything; I've already cried the tears I've meant to. A lot of the times they won't go until they're alone; they're always holding onto something. She hasn't opened her eyes since this morning, has been comatose since then, but they're still aware of everything around them and everything, they say.

So I got to tell her what happens in Infinity War. That's something to get done while she's still alive, and I did it. Not everything that happens, because it's a long movie, but I went over all the plot lines and stuff. I did talk about the ending and what it means. And maybe I could use this opportunity to go in-depth about how this movie made me feel, but I won't.

Another while-still-alive opportunity. So I'm not afraid of clowns, and I think it's patently ridiculous to be afraid of clowns, and one time we met a clown and it was pretty freaky, but only because the clown was a real person, and apparently knew grandma, because she's the one who took us to meet him. I only asked about this when she was already in the coma, but everyone there said she knew no clowns, so.

But those were the two things I think needed to be done. There was a stretch there where she had her husband and all her children in the room, even the one in Nova Scotia over speakerphone, and that would have been a great opportunity to die, and she didn't. I really don't know what she's waiting for.

Wants/Needs/Needs

I need a driver's license. I'm the only one in this family without one, which is something I only realized just now when I wrote, "I need a driver's license." I also think contact lenses would be pretty sweet; my gaze is a lot more intense and smoldering unobstructed by glasses. My new healthcare plan doesn't cover vision. Or dental.

I don't get around much, but if I did I'd be able to do it by myself. In Rexburg I could walk everywhere, another reason I'm putting on weight here.

I have an idea where to put my art supplies and set up a studio-deal. 

Hearing a Fly Buzz

Maybe I WILL get to a subjective review of Infinity War at some point...

My poor dome's abuzz. My poor frame's fatigued. There's so much I want to get done right now, but nothing at all really. Just things I need to do. I want to blog, but not really because I'd rather be writing my feelings someplace more personal. I want to write in my Google Docs diary, but not really because I want to go to bed. I want to sleep, but not really because I napped for an hour and a half today. Nonetheless, I am nodding off here.

Am I looking ahead to anything? The numbers on the calendar are a meaningless grid to me right now, as random and dead as the rows of headstones at a cemetary. I guess I've been seeing that a lot lately; looking over the chapel after church today, from the back of the chapel looking forward, the little green hymnbooks set in their cubbies in the pewbacks all looked like gravestones to me. I'd thought I'd finally make it to a furry convention this year, but that's something trivial and missable compared to the inevitable forthcoming funeral; Ryan's and Angeles's wedding, next week now technically, is more solidly affixed as a landmark this month.

It's weird/funny how we have to go over the ethics of dealing with death and the dying each time it happens. Grandma's stable, but she's not eating; she's on morphine, which Dad fears might take away her appetite and thus be killing her. He seems so upset when he talks about this; I see my face in his, the face I make when I'm on the verge of tantrum breakdown, and realize how similar I am to my father. Out of all siblings, he seems most cut up.

There's more peace than sadness in that room, though.

And heck I've woken myself up, writing about all of this.

So it's fast sunday, and testimony meeting at church I got up since nobody else was, I was the first to get up and I had nothing to say so I just said that, and said it again, and noticed how the podium was made of wood, and said nature testifies of divinity. Later someone told me that that was the only testimony her son could remember of today, so there's that. It's true, the testimonies today were all pretty boring. But anyway.

Camp Perks

I've seen the figures for how much money staff members make at Camp Fleischmann, and it's... well, to me it'd be a lot of money, though it's not quite as much as I'd calculated it could be. Yes it may look like Assistant Commissioner is a volunteer position, but hear this: if some other staff member drops out for some reason, I'd have to take their spot; hence, there's this paperwork I've got to fill out, those being the application forms.

There are reasons besides money to get into this, of course; I've gained, well maybe five pounds at most, ever since getting out of college, and I think my ideal weight would be, maybe twenty pounds lighter than this? Or have that weight as muscle weight or something; they say muscles weigh more than fat. I've just been trying to like take walks lately and eat salads, but change of lifestyle doesn't come without change of lifestyle.