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4.10.2012/20:06 something vicious this way comes It seems like every year I get it in my head to build a new website that nobody ever goes to. I bought depravity's edge dot com (twice) and got bored with that, and this year it happened again.
You'd think I'd learn my lesson.
But I haven't really learned anything at all, as if that realization hasn't been fleshed out in full by some of the other decisions I've made as of late. Anyway, this time around I wanted to make a website for Vicious Magick--so I did. It's viciousmagick.com, of course. Here's a neat-o sample for those of you who care:
And I guess some other stuff's been happening, too. I quit one monkey job for another one. I took a trip to Philly. I published a few more books in the aforementioned Vicious Magick series. I learned some new songs and forgot some old ones.
That has really been about it. I'm getting older, and that restless thing that lives inside of me naps more frequently, biding its time, waiting for that picture-perfect moment to emerge and turn everything downside up.
2.10.2012/19:45 let's build a bar, baby So freaking emo, so hipster-chic to bitch about my problems on the internet, although, to be fair, I was bitching about things on the internet waaaay before it was cool. Which probably isn't something to boast about....well, none of that today. Today was a day reclaimed, a day off, as it were. Although, all I really wanted to do today--indeed, the impetus for the whole idea--was to fix my car, and that didn't happen.
But this DID happen. I bought barstools for my newest project: a bar. I've been working in my makeshift workshop for the past few evers, cutting boards and putting them together and sanding and painting and cutting up floorboards and...well, you get the idea.
This is something I've been wanting to never have to do for a long time. Actually, I would've been quite content to buy a bar, but after years of searching furniture stores and the internet as a whole, I realized that they only sell fucking kitchen-island-style tables. And I didn't WANT a fucking kitchen island, I wanted a fucking bar.
So I bought tools, and I bought wood, and I built...bookshelves.
You see, I needed a practice project, a starter project in order to teach myself basic carpentry. Now, I'm not saying this bar is perfect--far from it--in fact, there are a lot of little things about it I wish I could improve, but without the experience I gained from the Tetris bookshelves, even this level of assembly would've been impossible. Also, I didn't know how to paint. So it was probably good to practice doing that as well.
In conclusion, if I know you IRL, come have a drink at Jordan's Bar. We're open past 2am.
2.7.2012/21:45 words in the sand Well, my furry little son is dead. You had a good run, Cinnamon Bear, you almost made it to six. Well, not really dead--a stuffed bear can't die--but the idea of Cinnamon Bear, well, that's dead.
You spend so long defining yourself a certain way, as a person who likes orange shoes or a person who listens to a certain kind of music, and you kind of take it for granted that these qualities will continue to define you forever, never stopping to think that your orange shoes might fall apart or that the band you like might start producing terrible music, or, even worse, you might realize that they weren't that good to begin with.
Am I surprised? No. This was inevitable. It was like being stuck on a set of train tracks and watching the slow-moving train come steadily barreling forward, its whistle frantically a-blowing.
And I get that it's always theoretically possible to revive Cinnamon Bear, to gather up his stuffing and sew him back together. But things like this are like Ikea furniture: made to be assembled once. Should you take them apart and try to put them back together, you can, but they'll be a little crooked, things that fit perfectly before will feel a little forced, edges will be scratched, etc.
C'est la vie, right?
I'd like to be bitter, to be angry, perhaps even jealous. Maybe I'm all those things at the same time and their effects are cancelling each other out. Maybe I just haven't had enough time for it to really hit me. Who knows? Maybe I've spent so long pretending not to have feelings that I no longer do.
Or, maybe, Cinnamon's been dead for a few years and I don't feel anything because I've already gone through the grieving process.
It's cool, though, right? Airing my dirty laundry on my blog. It's been quite a long time since I've put up a post with any meat on its bones. Everything I've put up here for the last who-knows-how-long has been so lame, so generic. I'd like to say I've been depressed, but that's not quite it.
It's the way a doctor sees people as fleshy systems of nerves and arteries destined to fail, to sputter, to react in predicable ways to the stimuli constantly bombarding them from every direction. That's the way I feel about other people. There was a time when I felt the spark, that tingle you feel when you've just barely brushed up against the edge of something magical, something intense. And it's a cool feeling. I've felt it standing in a crowd watching a great concert, at a deserted park at two in the morning, in the parking lot of a movie theatre--it's a feeling that says 'this thing I'm doing right now is the exact right thing, in accordance with the blueprints of my life'--and I don't think it has anything to do with age.
That's it. That's all I've got. I guess I will eventually have to go to the store to get a new Cinnamon Bear, but right now I don't really see the point. Maybe tomorrow I'll feel differently.
1.23.2012/22:01 cupcakes and hot fries It's been a strange week for me. Hell, it's been a strange few months. Being back in Pittsburgh has really forced me to re-examine what I'm doing with my life, and I have to say, I'm not super-thrilled by my progress.
Which is not to say there's been no progress. The large piece of furniture I'm building in the middle of my room is coming along nicely. Book sales jumped from 30 dollars in Q2 2011 to around 150 dollars in Q3 and for Q4, it's looking like we might break 300. For books that only cost three bucks each, that's not bad.
Pictured above is my original 3D schematic. I've been able to match the shape almost perfectly, which is to say that the actual construction phase is pretty much complete, but making a professional-looking countertop and producing some kind of wood panel texture will be a challenge.
Also, I played some ukulele in front of other people, which is something I've not done in a long time.
Translating and editing is actually going pretty well, in that the quality and quantity of the assignments I'm turning down are increasing exponentially.
And I've been writing up a storm. The next book in the Vicious Magick series, Knives and Needles, is getting very close to completion, so I'm looking forward to unleashing that monster upon an unsuspecting world.
Before I forget, if you're looking for the posts that were here before (because you haven't been here for the last two years) you can find them by clicking here or checking out other past goodies in the good ol' archives.
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(c) 2003-2012 jordan baugher send comments or questions to jbaugher[at]rocketmail.com |
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