26-30/365 (Patreon)

My Daily Ritual:

-Alarm goes off at 8am. 

-Shower and take one pill each of Fish Oil and Oil of Evening Primrose. (Even though it sounds like hippy bullshit, the Primose one has done WONDERS for my PMS and keeps my cystic breasts from forming lumps)

-Exercises in reps of threes. Today was leg lifts, which I do as a replacement to sit-ups/crunches, because they're too hard on my back. Tomorrow is dips and day after is push-ups. I really, really want to make some muscle definition this year. 

-Clean up downstairs, wash dishes from last night.

-Make lunch.

-Put on bike clothes.

-Kiss Matt good bye while he's still groggy/asleep

-Begin biking to the studio at 9:30

-Get to the studio at 10

-Change into work clothes.

-Work!

I like having a routine.

27/365 - January 27, 2011

This is my desk at Periscope Studio. 

Been thinking about my mom a lot. Or, really, my relationship with my mom. Lack of relationship. 

It was my doing. I cut her out. It needed to be done, I am 100% sure I made the right decision. My life has been happier and saner and healthier since I blocked her number and didn't give her my new address. 

The relationship I have with my mother is the main reason why I'm so repulsed at the thought of having my own kids. 

It was so damaging to keep her in my life and excruciating to cut her out, I can't even imagine what it must feel like on the other side. To have the child you carried inside of you, the daughter you raised and love, reject you like that. ...I mean, to be fair, I probably (maybe) wouldn't be a bipolar, abusive, violent, compulsive liar, so I'd have that going for me in case I ever give birth. My friends are always quick to point that out, as if it's an argument in favor of me becoming a mother.

But it's not necessarily that I'm afraid of turning into my mother or that I'd have an identical relationship with my children that I had with her that scares me so much. It's the realization that  blood family relationships are only as permanent as you choose for them to be. You can throw away your mother and life goes on. Life gets better, in fact. 

Family is supposed to be the ultimate bond, isn't it? No matter who can come and go in your life, your blood relatives are supposed to be there for you through thick and thin for the sole reason that you were born into that family. 

Blood is thicker than water and all that. 

But it's not. It's just fucking not.

28/365 - January 29, 2011

Such an exhausting week. Working really hard; pushing myself artistically, business-end-edly and physically, so I have the double-whammy of being both brain-tired and body-tired when I get home each evening. 

It feels so good.

29/365 - January 30, 2011

Finally got a haircut today! Bleach-bombing it tonight and then in the morning I'll add color. 

Today Matt and I:

-Met Terri and Stewart at 8:45am for breakfast at Petite Provence

-Went to the Cat Show with them and suffocated on the fumes of Cats and Their Owners

-Were dropped off at the Art Institute so Matt could help the Game Jam participants (they're all making a workable video game from scratch over the course of 72 hours) if they needed advice from a working game artist. But they didn't, so we were only there about half an hour.

-Serendipitously ran into Lindsey and Dewey outside Periscope so had lunch together.

-Bussed to Hawthorne, where I got my hair cut at Bishops while Matt picked up some groceries. 

-Bussed home, did laundry while Matt worked more on the Bucko site.

-Bleached my hair.

-Dicked on the internet and we're watching "Witches of Eastwick" right now-- it's Matt's first time! I grew up with this movie, my dad and I watched it a million times together. ...which, in hindsight, I realize is a completely inappropriate movie for us to have watched together a million times.

30/365 - January 31, 2011

Wow. Vera Katz, former Portland mayor, complimented my hair while Matt, Brendan and I got chocolatey desserts at Petite Provence tonight as a reward for working so hard on Grimm all evening. 

Madame Katz was mayor from 1993-2005 and has never had a driver's license. The Eastbank Esplanade, which is named after her, has a statue of her-- though I've never noticed it, despite the fact that I bike on it daily. I'll keep my eyes peeled next time

She said she always wanted to dye her hair pink, but they wouldn't let her while she was in office. I told her she should do it now!