2009 in quick review!
The year started strange. I was visiting Evansville for Christmas, when my dad broke his ankle. I ended up staying nearly three weeks to help him out.Returned by bus in mid January. My New Year's resolution was to face all of my fears head on.
Fears I successfully faced: vomiting, flying, failure, strangers, ocean, heights, driving on I-5. Whether or not I'm magically cured now wasn't the point. The point was that I wouldn't run from them. I feel like this was a major success.
Jan. 27th: I go down to see my west coast best friend and she puts my hair in dreadlocks. I am an official hippie now.
February: The Decemberists hold a poster design contest. I slave over it for a week, only for the band to choose another poster. They didn't even put me in runner-up position. But my spirits are raised by the support of the fans who made it known via a voting system on the contest site, that I was their preferred artist.
March: I did a commission sale and began volunteering at the Tacoma Art Place, which gave me good exposure and gave me more faith in myself, as other well-known Tacoma artists paid for my art!
April: Planted a potted garden and had huge success with it! Spent the month feeling very zen-like, spending a lot of time outdoors, humming to my plants. I began to set up the idea to screenprint shirts for the Decemberists' messageboard.
May: I began screening and shipping the shirts. Batch number one saw 53 shirts sold. I have about a dozen leftover after I gifted a few to my closest friends. We wore them to the Decemberists' show in Eugene, OR, on May 19th, and that began the shirt odyssey. The day after the show in Eugene, we packed up, picked up two more friends from the airport, and drove through the night with the Jimmy stuffed to the gills to the Gorge in George, WA. Quaint name for a town, right? The Gorge was... well, gorgeous. We went for Sasquatch music Festival. Three days of my favorite bands all packed into one lovely, sticky-hot outdoor desert. I saw 20 bands play, including the Decemberists again(#2 for the Short Fazed Hovel tour).
Early June: The Decemberists have been on tour for 2 weeks, when Colin Meloy, the lead singer, stops someone wearing one of the shirts I screened, and asks where he can get one. I end up making shirts for the whole band!
June: Sold wands at the Freemont Fair, saw Rent on tour, visited Portland a lot. Began really fancying the idea of moving to Portland before the end of the year. Went and got an IUD put in me, painfully insuring no unplanned babies for the next five years.
July: Flew to North Carolina to visit Nick's family. Got drunk with a bunch of retired right-wing old ladies at a party and had a complete blast. These ladies LOVED me for some reason. They all played with my dreadlocks and had me tell them stories of the west coast. Haha. Went kayaking and boogie boarding. Had a wonderful time.
Mid July, I had a couple of board members come visit from across the country. We saw a Decemberists' show in Seattle (#3) and two in Portland (#4, #5). Through an arrangement between a friend and the band, I was surprised with backstage passes, and at the second Portland show, we spent the night getting trashed at the after party and hanging out with our favorite band. Spent most of the evening chilling with Andrew Bird's band and Shara Worden. Was a magical night and it will remain one of my favorite memories forever. :)
August: Spent a week at Hidden Lake with a large group of friends. Every day we spent naked on the rafts in the middle of nowhere until the sun was too low to keep us warm, then we went back to camp and sat around the campfire, playing music. I tried mushrooms for the first time, and had a really pleasant experience. Not something I would do too often, but I wouldn't mind doing it again sometime.
September: Through the help of good friends, I got a ticket to NYC. Flew out and spent 4 days visiting my old stomping grounds, seeing old friends and making new ones. Conveniently scheduled the trip around the Decemberists tour, so I saw them out there as well (#6). Colin Meloy was all "it's so strange to see you out here! wtf?" when we met them at the tour bus for some group photos after the show.
The flight back home was nice enough, but I arrived just in time to have find us a place to live. We had though we landed a house down in portland, but then the man bailed on us at the last second. Our lease was ending in a week, and I had to desperately fix the situation... which is the perfect time to have caught the SWINE FLU. I started feeling sick on the plane. Somehow, I managed to handle the flu and get us an apartment in a suburb of Portland called Beaverton. We moved on October 3rd.
October was mostly setting up the new house. A friend from the message boards moved from Kansas City to live with us. Nick couldn't get a job down here in time, so he had to stay in Tacoma, and commute down on the weekends. This made me really depressed. I felt I didn't really do much productively. Got stuck with artist block. Drank a lot more than I'd have liked. At the end of the month, I began having problems with my dreadlocks. It turns out they were too heavy for my head, and it was breaking the skin on my scalp. Having nothing better to do, I decided to not shave my head, but to attempt to meticulously undread my hair. It took a little longer than a week, but my hair surprisingly survived. And survived well!
November: Joined my friend's band and performed a nice set at a coffee shop. Nick counldn't land a job. Continued drinking too much. Became very disgruntled and grumpy. Decided to do another batch of shirts, and set the orders of 35 more tees, including three for Colin Meloy's mum, who emailed me, wanting to get some for stocking stuffers for Carson and Hank (Colin's wife and son). That really boosted me out of my funk a bit.
December: Nick still has to commute. I miss him a lot. I finally put my foot down on the alcohol and have limited my intake. I can still enjoy a good beer, but I don't feel dependent. Really started making art again. Felt stranger about myself. Put my foot down about my goals. Didn't go anywhere for Christmas, but got to share Christmas with Nick and my roommate and had a grand time. Had the honor of helping The Decemberists' Shoppe (were they package and ship all their merch) a couple of times when they were really overloaded with the Holiday sales. Making connections is good. And Here we are, Early morning, December 27th.
New Years Eve plans include a party at the Laurelthirst where 3/5ths of the Decemberists will be playing (so I will count that as #7, thankyouverymuch) and toasting the New Year to a new and prosperous venture. My New Years Resolution is to get my art off the ground. This is a goal that can and will be met.
The past year has been full of enjoying good music (not just the D's. I only emphasized them so much because through they're messageboards and fans and music, have I been so inspired and motivated and been given faith in myself), and wonderful travel. Many nights sleeping in tents and days climbing on mountains. I've stepped foot on several planes, puked for the first time in a decade, and handled the rejection of my art by a group of people I admire (which was hard, but I'm glad it happened that way). I swam in the ocean and ate lunch with my feet dangling off the side of a mountain. I spent a full week naked and felt natural, I allowed myself to try new thing that I'd been intrigued but afraid of my whole life. It was a year full of adventure. :) Maybe the best year of my life. :)
Fears I successfully faced: vomiting, flying, failure, strangers, ocean, heights, driving on I-5. Whether or not I'm magically cured now wasn't the point. The point was that I wouldn't run from them. I feel like this was a major success.
Jan. 27th: I go down to see my west coast best friend and she puts my hair in dreadlocks. I am an official hippie now.
February: The Decemberists hold a poster design contest. I slave over it for a week, only for the band to choose another poster. They didn't even put me in runner-up position. But my spirits are raised by the support of the fans who made it known via a voting system on the contest site, that I was their preferred artist.
March: I did a commission sale and began volunteering at the Tacoma Art Place, which gave me good exposure and gave me more faith in myself, as other well-known Tacoma artists paid for my art!
April: Planted a potted garden and had huge success with it! Spent the month feeling very zen-like, spending a lot of time outdoors, humming to my plants. I began to set up the idea to screenprint shirts for the Decemberists' messageboard.
May: I began screening and shipping the shirts. Batch number one saw 53 shirts sold. I have about a dozen leftover after I gifted a few to my closest friends. We wore them to the Decemberists' show in Eugene, OR, on May 19th, and that began the shirt odyssey. The day after the show in Eugene, we packed up, picked up two more friends from the airport, and drove through the night with the Jimmy stuffed to the gills to the Gorge in George, WA. Quaint name for a town, right? The Gorge was... well, gorgeous. We went for Sasquatch music Festival. Three days of my favorite bands all packed into one lovely, sticky-hot outdoor desert. I saw 20 bands play, including the Decemberists again(#2 for the Short Fazed Hovel tour).
Early June: The Decemberists have been on tour for 2 weeks, when Colin Meloy, the lead singer, stops someone wearing one of the shirts I screened, and asks where he can get one. I end up making shirts for the whole band!
June: Sold wands at the Freemont Fair, saw Rent on tour, visited Portland a lot. Began really fancying the idea of moving to Portland before the end of the year. Went and got an IUD put in me, painfully insuring no unplanned babies for the next five years.
July: Flew to North Carolina to visit Nick's family. Got drunk with a bunch of retired right-wing old ladies at a party and had a complete blast. These ladies LOVED me for some reason. They all played with my dreadlocks and had me tell them stories of the west coast. Haha. Went kayaking and boogie boarding. Had a wonderful time.
Mid July, I had a couple of board members come visit from across the country. We saw a Decemberists' show in Seattle (#3) and two in Portland (#4, #5). Through an arrangement between a friend and the band, I was surprised with backstage passes, and at the second Portland show, we spent the night getting trashed at the after party and hanging out with our favorite band. Spent most of the evening chilling with Andrew Bird's band and Shara Worden. Was a magical night and it will remain one of my favorite memories forever. :)
August: Spent a week at Hidden Lake with a large group of friends. Every day we spent naked on the rafts in the middle of nowhere until the sun was too low to keep us warm, then we went back to camp and sat around the campfire, playing music. I tried mushrooms for the first time, and had a really pleasant experience. Not something I would do too often, but I wouldn't mind doing it again sometime.
September: Through the help of good friends, I got a ticket to NYC. Flew out and spent 4 days visiting my old stomping grounds, seeing old friends and making new ones. Conveniently scheduled the trip around the Decemberists tour, so I saw them out there as well (#6). Colin Meloy was all "it's so strange to see you out here! wtf?" when we met them at the tour bus for some group photos after the show.
The flight back home was nice enough, but I arrived just in time to have find us a place to live. We had though we landed a house down in portland, but then the man bailed on us at the last second. Our lease was ending in a week, and I had to desperately fix the situation... which is the perfect time to have caught the SWINE FLU. I started feeling sick on the plane. Somehow, I managed to handle the flu and get us an apartment in a suburb of Portland called Beaverton. We moved on October 3rd.
October was mostly setting up the new house. A friend from the message boards moved from Kansas City to live with us. Nick couldn't get a job down here in time, so he had to stay in Tacoma, and commute down on the weekends. This made me really depressed. I felt I didn't really do much productively. Got stuck with artist block. Drank a lot more than I'd have liked. At the end of the month, I began having problems with my dreadlocks. It turns out they were too heavy for my head, and it was breaking the skin on my scalp. Having nothing better to do, I decided to not shave my head, but to attempt to meticulously undread my hair. It took a little longer than a week, but my hair surprisingly survived. And survived well!
November: Joined my friend's band and performed a nice set at a coffee shop. Nick counldn't land a job. Continued drinking too much. Became very disgruntled and grumpy. Decided to do another batch of shirts, and set the orders of 35 more tees, including three for Colin Meloy's mum, who emailed me, wanting to get some for stocking stuffers for Carson and Hank (Colin's wife and son). That really boosted me out of my funk a bit.
December: Nick still has to commute. I miss him a lot. I finally put my foot down on the alcohol and have limited my intake. I can still enjoy a good beer, but I don't feel dependent. Really started making art again. Felt stranger about myself. Put my foot down about my goals. Didn't go anywhere for Christmas, but got to share Christmas with Nick and my roommate and had a grand time. Had the honor of helping The Decemberists' Shoppe (were they package and ship all their merch) a couple of times when they were really overloaded with the Holiday sales. Making connections is good. And Here we are, Early morning, December 27th.
New Years Eve plans include a party at the Laurelthirst where 3/5ths of the Decemberists will be playing (so I will count that as #7, thankyouverymuch) and toasting the New Year to a new and prosperous venture. My New Years Resolution is to get my art off the ground. This is a goal that can and will be met.
The past year has been full of enjoying good music (not just the D's. I only emphasized them so much because through they're messageboards and fans and music, have I been so inspired and motivated and been given faith in myself), and wonderful travel. Many nights sleeping in tents and days climbing on mountains. I've stepped foot on several planes, puked for the first time in a decade, and handled the rejection of my art by a group of people I admire (which was hard, but I'm glad it happened that way). I swam in the ocean and ate lunch with my feet dangling off the side of a mountain. I spent a full week naked and felt natural, I allowed myself to try new thing that I'd been intrigued but afraid of my whole life. It was a year full of adventure. :) Maybe the best year of my life. :)