What if I'm far from home? Oh, brother I will hear you call.
So, I have had a rough couple of days.
Pain, first off, from the stupid IBS I was only diagnosed with in the summer, but which has been a problem for a couple of years now.* It went into more or less total remission for a while, but it's flared up again and made life less than fun. It hurts most days at least a little, and sometimes it's astonishingly painful. It hurts right now, in point of fact. The doctor can't see me again until March -- not that there's really anything that can be done for me that I'm not already doing* -- and even though he's supposed to call tomorrow, I doubt he will. I have sympathy for busy and overworked, I just wish I wasn't having to suffer for it.
I haven't been sleeping well at all, either. It's not getting worse, but it's not getting much better. Probably not being helped by awful money fears and anxieties about everything from other minor medical problems to my likely untimely death due to, basically, the long-term effects of poverty.
And then there's frustration with various art projects that aren't going well at all. For one, I had to strip two ponies today, and will have to redo their base coats because they were just looking awful. I may have to strip and repaint a third tomorrow. I tried to take photos of another couple and had no luck whatsoever. Last year I moved my bed into the studio "temporarily" because of a mildew problem we had to take care of in my bedroom, and when I did so, I moved the art table I did my photography on. I haven't been able to replicate the lighting, which was a mix of three different lights and natural light, so I've been kind of winging it. Badly.
Yes, I know the recent stuff I have posted looks fine. What you aren't seeing is the 20 photos I have to take to get one good one. Normally it's more like 5 to 1. That's an entirely reasonable fail level. But 20 crap photos for each good one is not okay. I have never liked the photography part of what I do -- I actually hate it, though I love posting the results -- and this has made what was already a trying process simply intolerable.
So I spent money today that I would rather not have spent buying a desktop photography setup off Amazon so that I can take the pictures I need to take and sell some of these goddamn ponies. Hopefully this will make the process a lot less painful, and I can go back to doing the parts I really do enjoy, instead of spending two hours at something that ought to take thirty minutes frigging tops.
But I have this:
Rocket ship birdhouse.
Every once in a while one of my imaginary people is like "I WANT THAT." This was one of those times.
It's . . . kind of horrible. I suspect my girlfriend thinks it is atrocious. But I love it. I have no idea what I'm going to do with it yet. I found this, which is an incredible woodburned birdhouse by a really awesome pyrographer on Etsy. I don't have a good woodburning kit -- mine is shite -- so I can't do that, but I was thinking something like this only with a stars and moon theme. (It will not be used as an actual birdhouse, of course. I love birds and I love their precious singing, but I don't love it in the morning when I'm not yet in bed and feel like a failure at life because I cannot even successfully sleep.)
Cross your fingers for me. Just . . . cross your fingers that things get a little easier and I can get back to making forward progress again. Because that was a nice feeling while it lasted.
* No health advice, pleeeeeease. No, not even that. No. Nope. Stop. Stop right there. Go write it on a piece of paper and light that piece of paper on fire and forget about what you were going to say entirely.
X-posted from Dreamwidth. Comment count:
Pain, first off, from the stupid IBS I was only diagnosed with in the summer, but which has been a problem for a couple of years now.* It went into more or less total remission for a while, but it's flared up again and made life less than fun. It hurts most days at least a little, and sometimes it's astonishingly painful. It hurts right now, in point of fact. The doctor can't see me again until March -- not that there's really anything that can be done for me that I'm not already doing* -- and even though he's supposed to call tomorrow, I doubt he will. I have sympathy for busy and overworked, I just wish I wasn't having to suffer for it.
I haven't been sleeping well at all, either. It's not getting worse, but it's not getting much better. Probably not being helped by awful money fears and anxieties about everything from other minor medical problems to my likely untimely death due to, basically, the long-term effects of poverty.
And then there's frustration with various art projects that aren't going well at all. For one, I had to strip two ponies today, and will have to redo their base coats because they were just looking awful. I may have to strip and repaint a third tomorrow. I tried to take photos of another couple and had no luck whatsoever. Last year I moved my bed into the studio "temporarily" because of a mildew problem we had to take care of in my bedroom, and when I did so, I moved the art table I did my photography on. I haven't been able to replicate the lighting, which was a mix of three different lights and natural light, so I've been kind of winging it. Badly.
Yes, I know the recent stuff I have posted looks fine. What you aren't seeing is the 20 photos I have to take to get one good one. Normally it's more like 5 to 1. That's an entirely reasonable fail level. But 20 crap photos for each good one is not okay. I have never liked the photography part of what I do -- I actually hate it, though I love posting the results -- and this has made what was already a trying process simply intolerable.
So I spent money today that I would rather not have spent buying a desktop photography setup off Amazon so that I can take the pictures I need to take and sell some of these goddamn ponies. Hopefully this will make the process a lot less painful, and I can go back to doing the parts I really do enjoy, instead of spending two hours at something that ought to take thirty minutes frigging tops.
But I have this:
Rocket ship birdhouse.
Every once in a while one of my imaginary people is like "I WANT THAT." This was one of those times.
It's . . . kind of horrible. I suspect my girlfriend thinks it is atrocious. But I love it. I have no idea what I'm going to do with it yet. I found this, which is an incredible woodburned birdhouse by a really awesome pyrographer on Etsy. I don't have a good woodburning kit -- mine is shite -- so I can't do that, but I was thinking something like this only with a stars and moon theme. (It will not be used as an actual birdhouse, of course. I love birds and I love their precious singing, but I don't love it in the morning when I'm not yet in bed and feel like a failure at life because I cannot even successfully sleep.)
Cross your fingers for me. Just . . . cross your fingers that things get a little easier and I can get back to making forward progress again. Because that was a nice feeling while it lasted.
* No health advice, pleeeeeease. No, not even that. No. Nope. Stop. Stop right there. Go write it on a piece of paper and light that piece of paper on fire and forget about what you were going to say entirely.
X-posted from Dreamwidth. Comment count: