Holy mixed tenses batman!*

Dream House! I was talking with someone about dream houses, like on Cribs, and mine is a gypsy caravan. I suppose mansions are more popular, but I would need a *lot* of shetland ponies to cart it around, and you know what? My ponies are not really labor animals, they are just going to do their pony thing and hey! my caravan will follow them.
okay, imagine this ^ caravan shape but if Sergey Tyukanov designed it:Um, I will try to draw a picture and scan it in, as mossy flying boots are not really quite right.
Oh, wait, this is more like it. Same artist.

I will wear a peacoat when I take my caravan to freezing cold places but my little animals will be safe because of terraria.


such as these.
Also, this.
And in the terraria will be tiny animals, like threadsnakes, geckos, and very small frogs.**
And also these monkeys, although they can also be in the living space as long as they are not aggressive.
This is a kennel. I think the monkeys might like it, but it would not fit well in the caravan. Maybe it can go on top.

The caravan needs a lot of windows, clear so the sunlight comes in but stained glass instead of clear because that is more private.

I will have a lot of dinosaur stuff, like bronze skeletons and olden times sketches. The caravan needs a nice bathroom, because it is my imagination caravan and so it can be impractical. This is heat sensitive ultraglass. In real life I cannot have ultraglass because I would waste away sitting on the floor pressing my hands and face on it and spraying it with the showerhead and eventually I would die, all pruney, on the floor, the heatglass gradually turning black beneath me.
This is a cloud cover showerhead. It is meant to feel like showering in the rain. Um, the floor would have a corresponding forced air panel, which would feel like the mojave breeze.

Um. I really like daybeds. I think this bed is kind of not cool enough for my caravan but I do like the silhouette. Probably there will just be a built in wooden platform and I will put a little mattress on it. Actually my bed is the part of my life that already matches my dream house.

* I can barely differentiate between my life, my future life, and stuff I am just making up.
**also I will buy some of Thomas Doyle's bell jar art to mix in.

Lent

Well, I am not celebrating lent this year, but I think the fasting from the start of spring until the warm part of spring is just something circadian, because I am not feeling like eating anything. Yesterday I ate like it was a friday in lent; a handful of peanuts at breakfast so I could pay attention at my midterm, and then some milk at dinner time. And that is not too substantial, so I put a potato in the oven but after a while of waiting for it to cook I got bored and put it away for later. I went grocery shopping and bought pork loins and brought them home and I have to use them or freeze them.

Then today I had an apple at breakfast but then the hostel was going to buy the staff lunch because we had a crazy long staff meeting. And I was like, "no thanks, I won't be hungry until Sunday after mass." Ugh.

Unicycling Day 5

Now I can pedal for like 8 feet just like yesterday but instead of starting from pedaling with assistance I can start from standing.

Unicycling Day 4: oh, I am sore.

Tonight I went to juggling class with my unicycle (I cleared it with the coach first). I got several comments wheeling the unicycle from the bus stop to the gym and I felt like a poser. Because yes, I was just wheeling it, but I am sure everyone thought I could ride it. However, soon enough I will not be a fraud, for lo*, I think I have done something that can be called unicycling. I brought my unicycle to juggling, which was an awesome place to do it bc 2 of the members can unicycle (one amazingly, and one just pretty well) (even though I swear that is not what they said when I was asking about uni brands)and they gave me a lot of tips, such as the supports are there for side to side balance, so if you are not falling side to side, balance yourself by pedaling. Also, look ahead. And, pedal slowly instead of picking up speed as you get going. The other good tip was to pedal smoothly, which I thought I had been trying to do but when I tried consciously I got much better. Actually they inflated my tire a bit more too. As I said, it was a good place to learn.

And the gymnasium floor is wonderful. I fell over and over all splayed out but it wasn't scary to do because the floor is laminated wood and will not scrape me up.

So yeah, by holding onto some one's shoulder as I got the pedaling going, and then having them walk away, I can pedal for several feet. Well. It is hard to say how far I am going but if you judge by how far away I land from where the person stopped walking, it is quite far.** Also if you go by me doing about 3 rotations of the 24" wheel, that seems like it is 6 feet. It takes about 1 second.*** So, still not "real" unicycling but everyone said I was very good for a beginner.

And, wow, I like doing things alone because I can focus (I had to put on my ipod to keep from the jugglers talking to me continuously) but I managed to unicycle off and on for 2 hrs, vs. my usual 40 minutes.

*yeah, it's a word or something. No, I can't define it. II can add it to my serenity list of hard words to tattoo on my body. "what does that word mean?" people will ask, and I will tell them, "I don't know!" however I have forgotten the other words. let's see- how about lo, carboniferous, and molecule? Although it is really bothering me that I don't know what molecules are so I will most likely look it up.
**relative to yesterday's distance of most of 1 rotation and then pitching forward to my death. (that is not a real unit of distance)
***Or, 4mph. Yeah, mathin' it up, tearin' it up. Right. Did I already explain about ridin' dirty? Because I did.

Papercraft: ice village, iceberg, sky castle

One thing I have always struggled with is finishing pieces. I tend to work on them until I can see definitively in my mind what the outcome is, and am pleased, because I have gained a skill and -could- produce the outcome at will for the rest of my life. But one thing artists should be able to do is show their work to other people, even people they are not psychically connected to. For that reason, I have bought a lot of fancy paper to make my papercraft scenes match the imaginings I superimpose on them.
This is an ice village.


This is a cloud castle. The paper is very hard to work with so I am not totally happy with how it came out. It's hard because at the seams there can't be any overlap because it would show.


This is my favorite one so far. It is an iceberg I made by tearing up old library catalog cards, and a golden monster ensnaring a ship. The ship isn't finished (I am still bad at completing things!) because the sail I made looked like it was sailing along happily, not being pulled under arctic water. It's hard because it is a brave little ship, not an old decrepit one, but the sail has to look battered. And be a centimeter tall. Ugh.

Anyway, I really like how nicely and cleanly these come together. I have plenty of paper to make lots more. I am planning a standalone rocket ship, a few space scenes, a meadow, more icebergs, and a forest.

Unicycling Day 3

Well, I went to the co op and they showed me how to hacksaw the seatpost. Very neat. I took off 2 1/2 inches and now I can reach the pedals properly. And if it turns out I am babying myself and it is supposed to be higher I can still raise it like 5" higher. Last night we had three boys at the hostel with their dad, and when they arrived at 10pm they immediately went out again on unicycles. They had little ones though. They have paid through tonight, so perhaps I will ask to try their unicycles. I will at least ask how they learned.

So, progress report: I am progressing quite slowly! I got the hang last time of pedaling along next to the fence holding on, but toward the end when I tried to pedal next to the fence without holding on I fell and hurt myself because there are so many things to fall into or onto. So this time I went to the parking structures where there are concrete stopping bricks beside the wooden support posts for the rain roof. I used the brick and post to get on the unicycle, the post to balance there for a bit, and then tried to unicycle away from the post. I can travel about 3 feet by unicycle. But it doesn't feel like real unicycling because I am falling the whole time even though it takes a few rotations before I actually fall -off-. I came inside before I was tired because I stopped improving and was discouraged.

I have found the very loveliest place to unicycle, but it is not accompanied by stopping bricks and posts. Less that 25 yards from the parking structure I was using there is a lovely cement walking path* that parallels the drop off hill, so there is a terrific view of really steep forest and the sky, and a good view of the town and water. It is soooo pretty, especially because the weather today is really nice. (But it got cloudy while I waited for my camera to charge)


you know what, I am going to go back out and take pictures and at least try until I am tired.

*the sign forbids lots of things on behalf of pedestrian safety, but luckily not unicycles.

Unicycling Day 2

Today went well. I can get on with only one hand on the fence to steady myself, and I was letting go of the fence and then grabbing it when I started to fall. I still can't ride without the fence, however there must be lots of paved roads with a wall alongside, so I can imagine myself traveling happily along them. I find myself skipping forward to Chamillionaire's "ridin' dirty" on my ipod when I ride my bike sometimes. It's ironic because I am obeying all of the laws and police aren't targeting me. Today I noticed that I skip to the same song when I am on my unicycle... that's not even irony. That is so far beyond ironic. I made myself listen to Britney Spears' more appropriate song "circus" the rest of the session. Then, I fell into a planter and scraped my shin on the edging and went hobbling inside, because I am not really a gangster in real life. "because I am not really a gangster in real life" can be attached to everything I say. Now I am going to go to the bike co-op to get my seat post shortened.