All the flowers!

Lewisia catyledon

Most days my one connection with beauty and creativity is looking at flowers and sometimes taking pictures of them. I walk around Slabtown on my breaks and see a lot of wonderful things.

I think I long for this process to compensate for the chilling absence of any plant life in my home. It’s a rather bleak landscape for the daughter of a nursery-woman.

But alas, my rather inventive/bored/eccentric cat likes to eat them to stubs, block his intestines, and rack up epic vet bills. Also, I have no yard.

And this botanical emptiness in my life has led me to the only real solace I can find; taking thousands of pictures of plants.

Which I am now sharing with you at my new blog Mouselet!

Because how else am I going to present the endless flood of flower pics I take?

The neighbor’s wisteria

Dreaming of Fabric

Blue Kazakh Pattern

I’m still sick, so I spent most of yesterday napping and trying to figure out if staying hydrated was worth all the trips to the bathroom. Since my graphics card is wonky I can’t watch movies or play games so I spent my waking moments combing through old sketchbooks from as far back as 2005. I found some gems and here is one of them.

I’ve got a cache of these and I’m dreaming of printing on fabric. I think its time to set up an account on Spoonflower. I’ve wanted to do this for a long time and at this point I’m really not sure what I’ve been waiting for.

I got the inspiration for this in 2007 from a tapestry my sister brought back from Kazakhstan.

And it’s been ignored in my sketchbook since 2007.

From my sketchbook

Ghost Mice Make Their First Appearance

 

So, as you may have guessed, I’ve been struggling for inspiration and motivation again.

It all came to a head last night when I was so sick I drank a (small) glass of wine and tried to watch The Hunger Games through Amazon on a really slow wi-fi connection. A disappointing experience, but much nicer than staring blankly at a wall trying to remember if I’d eaten in the past 6 hours or not.

But as it turns out wine + distraction + fevered sickness + underlying frustration = something pretty nifty.

 

And so the Ghost Mice were born.

 

This is DEFINITELY about my relationship with life and art. Hopefully their rhythmic rodent dancing will awaken something good. I could use it.

Ghost Mice Dance Before the Seed of Creation

Ghost Mice Rekindle Me

 

Prometheus and OKCupid

Now that I work in management and nearly every one of my friends is married or in a serious long-term committed relationship (and so are all of their friends), I have accepted that if I want to look for a partner, its time to try the internet.

So a couple of weeks ago I went on my first blind date with an okc’er. I put on a dress and some make up, went to a bar and sat myself down at a table to hopefully meet someone interesting, and didn’t manage to meet anyone at all. I was stood up.

But I had an IPA, my sketchbook and two unexpectedly free hours to kill. So I enjoyed my beer and drew the soul sucking lamprey-cobra-manta rays from Prometheus. It seemed like the most appropriate subject matter for that session.

Please be kind and remember that this is barely 2″ wide and less that 4.5″ long. It’s a teeny tiny drawing. So if the lines look rough, trust me, it looks fine in person.

New Sketchbook

I have a new tiny purse sketchbook. This is the first page.

 

I’m studying for my GMAT.

It’s the entrance exam for all master’s of business programs.

My brain is goo.

Stars and Spirals

 

Stars and Lines

Everything is stranger than it should be and I feel like I’m watching my life from a dark theater full of distracted teenagers and sincere unwed women. For extra clarity, the movie seems to be a Katherine Heigl RomCom. I suppose it could we worse; it could be ‘The Raid Redemption.’