The Highlights Of Cupcakedom

It was my first time scraping out my own vanilla bean.
Sorry this picture kinda sucks.

Don't these look bigger in vanilla ice cream?

Those were some de-fucking-licious cupcakes.

I swear I'm not crazy.

I keep hearing other 23-26 year olds lamenting over how all "the good ones" are already engaged or married, since the first of our friends have started both getting rings and thinking about cake like crazy (hey, I'm halfway there...caaake...).

But I thought, "Wait! Have you seen the divorce rate in this country?!"

So basically my plan for life is catching some poor, emotionally-tormented sack on the worst kind of rebound. Perhaps my other flaws won't see so detrimental once they see that I'm actually sane, a characteristic they will have forgotten exists (even in themself).

Okay, done.


In other, crochetier news, two more hats have been thrown in the charity mix. Erika finished her lovely green scarf and last I heard had "made a circle" for a hat! We wondered why our scarves looked so freaking different, but figured out days later that I was doing double crochet and she was doing something like double crochet, except instead of pulling through two stitches and two stitches again, she pulled through one and then three stitches.

Perhaps to a more seasoned crocheter that sounds really dumb, but it was an exciting mystery for us. Erika had a coupon to the craft store today, too, so hopefully she will be swinging my way with another skein. I think after another hat I'm going to try my hand at mittens. Kinda nerve-wracking, even though the worst scenario would be froggin' it.

P.S. This is my first time getting to use the yarncraft phrase "froggin' it", and I feel it went pretty well. Thoughts?

In addition to new Pom & Clem today, I'm currently playing around with some ideas for another webcomic or two (that may involve LEGOS). It'll be neat. Well then, off to draw, write, explore, and eventually watch my own brain explode. If I'm not back in three days, send hotties. Please.

Signs Of An Afternoon Well-Spent:

Updating the handsome webcomic Pomegranate & Clementine, baking/eating chocolate stout cupcakes with vanilla bean cream cheese frosting, drinking the leftover Rogue Shakespeare Stout, and watching a ridiculous/amazing video of Bettie Page and cohort tying up a random woman to the Peter Gunn Theme. Cupcake pictures to be posted later.

Now I'm off for "beer in the shower" time, to be followed by more "me being irrationally awesome" time.

Happy Thursday!

Mail's Here! With Pictures.

Erika's class has been reading "Why We Need Mail Carriers" this week. Being a mail carrier would be freaking tasty, as long as you lived someplace...well, not here. Too much cold for me to celebrate walking outside for hours. But somewhere warmer it would be terrific to experience all seasons and get paid to be outside. I don't know what the monetary benefits are, but I would be content with free stamps, particularly if they were of the orange variety. Also, if you're a mail carrier, you don't get the demanding customers you would if you worked inside the post office. Plus!

But, alas, there are gigantic icicles hanging off all sides of my house, and my feet remain cold most of the day. So, at least until Spring, I am content to simply receive mail, and this week has been delicious regarding teh packages:
1. A few months back I sent a self-addressed, stamped envelope to You Are Beautiful, and subsequently completely forgot about it. So it was both confusing and awesome to have an envelope with my handwriting come in late last week. You Are Beautiful is this campaign that puts up fabulous art installations are all over the country (have they gone international?), reminding people of their sexiness regardless of constructed societal definitions. Anyway, they send you stickers and you glitter your community with positive thoughts. Stay tuned for photos!

2. Some of us don't have shame anymore, as a consequence of Quaker colleges and friends with no concept of boundaries. Mix that together with a little Girls With Slingshots, and you've got Kymba wearing a bright pink shirt with an empowered vagina on it. Right now it's cycling through the washer, but here's the design (from Danielle Corsetto's amazingly ridiculous mind):

You guys should seriously read GWS. It's superb.

3. As if I don't seem liberal enough from the rest of this mail sharing, I decided to go ahead and support pro-community, anti-corporate Anarchists by purchasing the Slingshot Organizer 2009:

Next to my bag with the ghetto embroidered tree and Obama pin. What?
Yes, I realize it is kinda anti-Anarchic to have a political pin.

The Slingshot Collective is epic, and puts out its own radical newspaper and these great organizers filled with doodles, guides, and a handy-dandy menstrual calendar! Normally I would play "Support Your Local, Independent Bookstore" for such an item, but was a couple months late to the game and they had all SOLD OUT. But Microcosm Publishing is quite a wonderful independent business as well, and managed to send a lovely orange one for me and green one for Erika. Thank you kindly!

Erika doin' some Anarchy book-learnin'.

It's a hilariously embarrassing time to be from Illinois.

Thanks, buddy!

Do people in other states find it as funny as I do that George Bush had an approval rating of 22% when left office, and Rod Blagojevich had an approval rating of 13% BEFORE THE SCANDAL? Damn, dude.

On the plus side, the federal government has been awesome this week! And, hey, when was the last time we could say that? Repealing the Global Gag Rule, passing the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, halting the "11th hour assault" on Yellowstone wolves, etc, etc, etc. I mean, QUA?! For the first time in forever I don't feel like I'm fighting my government! Is that even legal?

Before I go, I'd like to add this little gem from P.K. Winsome's segment on The Colbert Report, which is kinda how I've been feeling about the question "Did you think you'd live to see this day [when a Black man would become president]?"

Call me stinky liberal idealist or whathaveyou, but I agree...and wish this shirt actually existed.

Craft Craft Craft Craft CRAFT!

This photo is mine. Please respect that and credit me.

Yesterday, I was talking to Momma about crocheting and my "crafts".

"Don't say that word," she said.
"What? Crafts?" I asked.

This quasi-disgust at the concept of "crafting" came from her boyfriend, an avid oil painter who has transformed a frigid corner in our dingy basement into a painting nook. He's somehow given her this idea about crafts being these reproducible, unoriginal items. Perhaps too much cold air or huffing turpentine all day has lead him to this concept where only art is truly unique and crafts are vastly inferior, mundane wastes of talent. Now, anyone who identifies their handiwork as a "craft" knows that this is, in fact, bullshit. Many of the crafts existing today are skills passed down through generations of people over endless cultures for a variety of purposes, telling the story of our rich history and our promising future. They have some basic instructions and elements, sure, but the pieces become inevitably infused with the extremely creative ideas and characters of their makers! The ingenuity is incredibly evident, especially in this age of bright minds and designs.

So, crafters, whether you work with yarn, wood, steel, twine/hemp, ribbon, paper, glass, cardboard chunks or even empty fucking ice cream containers with needles, hooks, soldering irons, Exacto knives, ovens, pieces of grass, scissors, or a freaking pocket knife - and, of course, your two hands (one hand...feet...NOSE...) - TAKE PRIDE. Infuse yourself into your work and it will be as UNIQUE as any painting or drawing.

That is all.

Chaining For Charity

One of my best friends, Erika (also known as my Mexican Best Friend, or MBF to David), and I are in the process of shedding our lazy, taco-eating ways to contribute to our community more...besides being sexy and campaigning for the 'Bama like last year. I mean, we still eat tacos, obviously (we honestly have a taco schedule), but we've started crochet projects for charity and want to do some soup kitchenin' or Food Not Bombsing. When Canada stops farting ice in our faces, I'll begin the annual battle against buckthorn, garlic mustard, and other douche invasive species here as well.

Anyhow, Erika's doing scarves because she's a wuss, and I'm makin' up some pretty fine not-as-much-suck-as-usual hats, as you can see (above: Inauguration Day, getting my charity hat and my President Obama on; below: finished, obviously). Vury nice, eh? Also, I'm in a crazy middle-aged ladies knitting ministry at the Unitarian church (where I was "affirmed" but haven't attended in years) as the token loser twenty-something who barely knows what she's doing, and we're working with the Warm Woolies project. I'm having trouble finding some really chunky wool yarn, so this is one of the goals of the day. They have a pattern for a crocheted vest that doesn't involve a gauge. Uh, yes please?

New Year, New Blog, New Job, New President, New Craft.

I've decided/discovered that it takes me a year and a half to adapt to new situations enough to let out my complete awesomeness. I cite high school, college, and after-college adulthood as evidence. Just crossing the year-and-a-half-after-college line now, we'll see how things keep developing. Obviously, proof of the effective transition into exploding people's minds with my awesomeness is my recent dive into voluntary unemployment. Unlike other people who actually wanted to keep their jobs, the record unemployment rate for my lifetime seemed too cool to fly over safely. The new year seemed like a good diving board, as perhaps other spectacular idiots such as myself actually believed in the cleansing power of the newest last digit. So, here I am. It's like a grand pool party where no one knows how to swim, and I grabbed a pina colada before getting in...basically, I plan to make this look good.

The decision for a new craft was not born out of similar delusions, but rather a higher understanding of my inner self...I'm terribly lazy. Or, more positively, knitting was going nowhere for me. I was knitting and purling, but never seemed to get any better. The monotony (diotony?) of these two stitches left me wanting, since I could only make hats and scarves that took weeks while other people took hours. Oh, sure, one could point to the fact that up until November of last year I was on a cotton-only yarn strike as a tribute to my eczema-suffering brethren, and the size 7 martyr needles that went along with that, but the conclusion is that crochet is now my yarncraft of choice. In addition to swifter hats and neat knots, I have ability and courage to test the limits of crafting! One soiree of knottery was so intense it required me to wear goggles (plus, undiagnosed possible wool allergy).

In an effort to be egalitarian towards both halves of the yarn revolution, I often brag the positives of both knitting and crocheting and swear my allegiance to neither. However, for the time being, the better results of mutli-colored yarn and undeniable resilience of knitted things is simply not enough for me to call off this current hiatus.

As a quick last note, the fabulous Barack Obama became our new president yesterday, among an air of new possibility and the release of the new Reel Big Fish CD. It's definitely a proud time to be a ska-loving American citizen, and I plan to take advantage of the new opportunities (to serve or to skank) these outstanding people are providing me.