most loved nutcases

The store is back up!

It now has both YU+ME and Lesbian Pirates stuff!
Here's some of the new stuff:



New stuff will get added later, like posters, and yes, shot glasses. But for now, you can order everything at once! There's a lot of stuff for preorder, but they all come with free sketches! Here's hoping I have to do a lot of sketches!

I've spent my free time at work looking for reviews of Lesbian Pirates. A lot of good, some bad. The bad keeps me from getting a big head and thinking I'm hot shit. It bummed me out a little, but then I remembered that most reviewers have no writing/art skills and even if it's not perfect, I'm out there doing it, and they're just sitting around whining.
And there's actually quite a few places online to get copies of the print version.

More house news. This time bad.
I was supposed to close tomorrow. Keyword: supposed.
The credit union denied my mortgage. They forgot to tell me. I had asked them if I was all set to go, and they said, no. They said it wasn't my credit or anything having to do with me, it was the house. It's in really poor condition.
So I decided to not go in to work (I worked from home) and I cried a bunch. No house for me. Shit.
But then I got a phone call. The mortgage expert I had been working with at the credit union had a friend at another bank that gave 203k mortgages (which are mortgages made for fixing up shitty houses). Things look promising. And if it works, not only do I get a loan for the house, but I get money to fix it up, too. Which is important.
And then it turns out that the sellers of the house were just as disorganized as everyone else, and they needed to postpone the closing! Which is great, because I desperately need the time!

So it's been a crazy up and down batch of emotions today. Gonna go home, eat some food, and finish working on the YU+ME/Lesbian Pirates store so I can make money again.

Lesbian Pirates not available in stores in your hometown? Too shy to be in public purchasing a comic with the word "lesbians" emblazoned on the cover? Want 20% off the cover price?
Lesbian Pirates can be bought online!!

This site is cool, and is going to end up making me break my promise to save all my money for house stuff and not on buying more comic books. You can subscribe to a printed comic series. Every time a new one comes out, they ship it to you for free, and give you 20% off the cover price. I'm not quite sure how they make a profit, but if I'm getting cheap comics without having to get off my butt and go to the comic store (that smells like hot dogs and nerds), then I don't care how they do it! They just do.

Sigh. I've got a phone interview today, with the telecounseling office at SIU. I need the money, although not urgently. Nor is it really an iffy thing; apparently the telecounseling office has high turnover (understandably, since cold-calling can be a bitch) so they're always looking for people, so I've got a pretty good chance despite not being Federal Work Study. Still, cross yer fingers for me.

It turns out that I've done all my reading journals in my class WRONG (too short, insufficient detail) so thanks to the good graces of Dr Halliday I'll be redoing/adding to them, tonight.

In other, bizarre news, I checked out the Animorphs article on Wikipedia today (it was for dot_pagan_snark, I swear!) and am pleased to report that I have finally been proven correct in an argument I had with my little sister 10-odd years ago, and large portions of the Animorphs series were ghostwritten. Take that, side in a debate that I no longer care about!

ETA: Just finished up with the phone interview. I think it went well, although I guess you can never really know. (In the first few minutes I was doing so much of that forced smiling that I could feel my back vowels distort and unround, something I've never noticed before. God damn it, phonetics class, why do you ruin everything?) I was very hyped up afterward and it was very difficult to sit down and go back to studying. It was very strange to sit through an interview talking peppily with a perfect stranger about entirely boring and non-interview things, like how I took a guitar class in high school, and what I'm thinking of specializing in in grad school. (To see if I'm decent on the phone, natch.)

If this works out well, I'll be called back with a time for an in-person interview, which seems excessive, but hey, not my decision. Keep those fingers crossed, I guess.

ETA x2: Aaaaaand in-person interview tomorrow after my classes get out. Keep 'em crossed! :)

Current Mood: anxious
Current Music: A/C

How's that for classy!
It'll either be etched or printed in black.
I'm working on shot glass designs now.

Faerie Nation Mag has extended its deadline for submissions for its seventh issue. Looking for art and short articles (a few paragraphs, nothing too long).

Writing submission guidelines are here but please send submissions to fnmsub at gmail dot com rather than the listed email. Art submission guidelines are here.

We can't wait much longer for material, so hurry, hurry, hurry!

Current Mood: sore
Current Music: TG, calling paypal to register a complaint

If I can get at least 25 people to want a Lesbian Pirates engraved Zippo lighter for $30, I will order them. Let me know if you would seriously want one. (Either through comments in this post, or email me at yume.comic :at: gmail.com)

Come on! It'll go great with the shot glass!
There is even a drink for the occasion!

I was gonna illustrate this post, but I'm waaaaay too tired and zombie-like. I may illustrate things later.

The trip was ok. Oh, what am I saying? It was way too long! I was ready to go home by day three! Once I've sat in the sun on a boat for a day and a half, I'm done. Take me home. The trip was geared toward either families, or single people who wanted to party.

Mostly, the hard thing was the grief I got from my aunt and sister about missing Laura so much. My aunt has never been married, and my sister is single. They didn't have anyone waiting for them at home. My sister had a fun time going out dancing with boys, but I am not interested in that.

Another hard thing is that I lost a $1,000 commission job I was working on because I ran out of time to work on it before the trip. And while I didn't have to pay for the cruise, there was food to buy, and cab fare, not to mention all the money I lost not working for two weeks. All in all, the supposedly "free" trip cost me $1,500. This is not a good time for me to lose that much money. I am supposed to be buying a house in two freakin days!

I like being at home. I can go places so long as I have someone with me who can keep me company, especially if it's Laura.

Current Mood: tired

Heather: I would shoot myself if I thought you were sexy.
Me: ;o;
Heather: The truth hurts, doesn't it?

Current Mood: unsexy

I'm moved in! Well, ish. About two-thirds of my stuff is still at CG's place, since we're sharing the house three ways with a menagerie of animals. Despite my lack of crap here, it's a tight squeeze. Not as tight, though, as I'd anticipated. Possibly only so tight because I'm working very hard to not take up space. But anyway...

I had my first day of classes yesterday and so far so good. It's a TESOL class, Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages. On a good day I think it's a valid field that I have no real interest in, and on a bad day I think it's a field for the braindead. (There are a lot of perfectly intelligent people in TESOL at SIU's linguistics department, and a whole lot of ditzes, too.) Thankfully since I'm in the thick of it I think I'll be able to swallow my elitist contempt. I have never taken a TESOL class before and I'm pretty overwhelmed by how dramatically different it is from what the Applied Linguistics students do, with studies and theory and a billion papers. (The TESOL/Applied distinction only really kicks in in grad school, but there's an undercurrent of it in the undergraduate program, based merely on what kinds of electives you take.) I think I'll be taking a TESOL class next term. Not sure. Right now I'm just drowning in acronyms and my textbook--seventy, eighty pages a day? In MY summer course? It's more likely than you think!

We JUST got internet working--TG couldn't remember the password--but regardless I don't think I'll be sitting online like I used to, for the very simple twin reasons of utility bills (power, bitches) and time. Thankfully, though, I think I'll finally be able to come back to Suspire again, now that finals are over and I'm moved in. Hooray!

I've swiftly befriended over half the animals here--the dogs will come over and sleep next to me while I'm working, and the shy puffy cat, despite extraordinary hesitance early on, now comes over and trills as she tries to tangle herself up in my legs. It's pretty cool. No cat's ever taken to me that fast before.

As the token linguistics major, and 'master' (ha, not really) of all things register and tone, I've already been roped into writing cover letters and editing essays. Heh.

If you need my new mailing address for any reason, nudge me. Phone number's the same. God willing I'll be here until the end of next summer, save for the perennial trip home, and I'm very happy to say that's the case. (As in, hooray for secure living situations!) I've got some pipe dreams right now about doing some gardening out front, but one thing at a time...

ETA: This weekend I got told again that I look like the daughter from Roseanne. As in, somebody thought Sarah Gilbert had gone and walked into their store. ARGH. GUYS I DON'T LOOK THAT MUCH LIKE HER

Current Mood: awake

HOLY CRAP HOUSE!

um, that is all.

/goes back to writing. And Gaia pinball.

I went home yesterday - my mom thought of it as a Mother's Day present, but I would have come home anyway. ;] (I still got her candy as a present, so shh.) Before picking me up yesterday, the 'rents went to an orientation for parents of students who are studying abroad. I am SO glad they went to this! It's much easier to talk to them about this all now that they're more informed. They got to talk to Val, & now they're both really excited for me after seeing her pictures. ;] Plus! They were talking about getting me all these things like getting a camera, an inexpensive laptop, etc. I'll probably still buy my own camera since the one I want isn't too expensive, but it's cool to think about going to Japan with my own laptop. ;]

Also! On the way home, we stopped at Old Navy to get my sister a birthday present, & I bought myself a cute white dress that was on sale.

Home was nice, too. After cleaning my sister's house, my mom brought up the idea of doing the same thing for our house once summer starts. As much as I hate cleaning, the pay is pretty good for the actual amount of cleaning done, so I took up her offer. $100 a weekend sounds pretty cool to me. ;]

Being at home finally allowed me to finish downloading the first part of Arashi's Time DVD & to start downloading the Proposal Daisakusen Special. About time! BTW, KAT-TUN's latest video? Full of LOLs. Well, mainly Akanishi's hair. The song has grown on me, but his hair. I do like Taguchi's short hair, though. The glass shattering stuff is pretty funny, too.

Oh, Johnny's. ♥

& OH! Almost forgot! Eri got me to watch the first episode of Last Friends, & holy shit! Domestic abuse is some scary shit. I haven't decided if I'm going to watch anymore of the series just because it was so emotional - I don't know if I can take another episode. We will see.

Current Music: "DON'T YOU EVER STOP" - KAT-TUN

I finished it. Wow.
I need to write some comic relief now, or I will go insane.

Title: I'm not the one who built you up
For the record: 5,391 words, 11 pages.
Teaser:

She says, “Everyone has their share of shitty co-workers. I just happen to only have one co-worker, so statistics roll in her favor.” They share a short laugh.

I am in Florida, trying to sort through the oodles of mail and messages I've got. And I've got a lot. Wow.
I can't wait to be home. I'll sketch out some of my adventures upon my return.
One cool thing is that when I was on vacation, I figured out what the next chapter of Lesbian Pirates is gonna be! So I'll try to draw it up quick so there won't be too much time between updates!
And it sounds like the printed books are just flying off the shelves! Here's hoping the rest do too, and I get officially renewed for more chapters! (I'm gonna draw 'em anyways, it's just a matter of, will I get paid?)

Just in case you aren't sick of my whining about writing:

1. I've reached the end of this piece. Since its longer (you know, for me) I'm doing a read through and marking sections to rewrite because I flew through parts.

2. I figured out a rank structure, and a hilarious scene that'll happen because of it.

3. Which of course, my long headache is over. Except if I ever have to justify my decisions, because hell if I know.

4.  I have starts of other stories too, particuarly of Caledon and his cousin, that I can work on. But I really want to write the hilarious "Wait, what rank am I" scene as a moment of levity in this story.

5. Of course, writing that also means I have to think of a name for the colonies once they aren't colonies anymore.

Meh, I'll do more editing, titling, tomorrow. Tonight, I'm just gonna read some smut and go to bed.

100_2238, originally uploaded by margaretsbakery.

6"x6" Tiramisu
9"x9" Red Velvet
12"x12" Tiramisu
16"x16" Neapolitan

This cake was a monster to make. We were basically handed a photo (not a very clear one) and asked to recreate it.

I think we did an exceptional job at doing so.

The whole cake is covered in fondant with a total of 88 handmade fondant flowers on the 2nd and bottom tier with silver bead in the center of each one.

The top and 3rd tier have piped on flowers spaced out with small fondant florets placed randomly with a cream ribbon at the base of each tier.

Delivered to the Santa Clara Marriott for 175 people.

~Joe

100_2224, originally uploaded by margaretsbakery.

Top 6" Red Velvet
Middle 10" Red Velvet
Bottom 14" Red Velvet

I guess they really like the red velvet.

buttercream covering with henna design brushed with silver. Delivered to the Hayes Mansion for 100 people.

~Joe

100_2220, originally uploaded by margaretsbakery.

Here is a cake that was made to emulate a placemat that was hand painted.

1/2 sheet neapolitan with red buttercream.

fondant sheet hand painted to make the background of the placemat.

All flowers were hand painted and cut out separately and later fit back together like puzzle pieces.

All in all this took about a day to complete, but I think it was worth it.

For 50 people.

~Joe

I'm nearing the end of the latest piece of Sing Nothing But Sky. Just sorta transitioning from this piece into You Gotta Stand Sometime. This one has been a challenge because once again, it's LONG. 5k words and could add another .5 if I'm gaging right. I'm missing something in the scene that wants to be bad melodrama, and there's some lines I have highlighted to rewrite. They tell far more than they show.

Then I have to sit down and really think of rank structure again. Cause I hate it, and hate the idea that I might have to do a lot of search and replace.

Of course, the reason that I have to do that is to incorporate the second for the station, Serafina Medina, who will have a small roll. Diplomacy is not Nalko's strength, but it is Medina's. So I need to figure out her background and how she got there.

It also introduces Riverstall, who was Lesley's character. Riverstall isn't even physically present in the story yet, but she makes life hell for Ari. I needed someone to balance the trust in Ari that everyone has.

I'm babelling, I suppose. I really love what I'm doing, although once again I left my story notes at work.

I worked out today: Just 25ish minutes cardio and stretching. Nothing major. That's okay though. Lori and I are swimming tomorrow. Which means we'll swim for 15 and sit in the hot tub for 15, but thats okay, my back really needs it.

I'm tired, yet can't drag myself to sleep. I feel like something needs to happen.

kinokofry
Art and comics by Rebecca Clements