Reasons For Coughing Blood At 2AM

Sometimes (sinetune, awesome) I draw myself from another person’s point of view. It used to be practice of positions (I sit AWESOME) but I suppose, as much as it still is practice, it’s getting to be habit. I tend to draw myself a lot, in such a manner. And then I made Phileas Fearin’ Forme, who looks like my drawings of me but not really. I mean, the KILL IT WITH FIRE shirt developed over time but the first half of me-doodles in my drafting notes for this semester have me in my jeans and TMNT hoodie, with my tats, piercings, dreads and some chin fuzz.

Phileas well… you’ll see Phileas, but he lacks the fuzz and tattoos, has some different piercings.

Any ways, working on that pdf of my entire sketchbook, but it’s a bit of a pain figuring out all the kinks. So it’s pending.

The week: Monday was Charlee, awesome fun. Introduced her to White Collar. Tuesday Ren. Star Trek. Amok Time and Tribbles. All’a the tribbles. She laughed her ass of, despite not generally watching anything but the original Star Trek (DS9 temporal stuff ep). Wednesday was Squeek. Thrift store run (I ten-times-ed my vinyl collection, noting that I only had The Kiltlifters from that ska show I went to in Vancouver with Charlee. Vinyl list (as I remember it) is below, it’ll be missing things. Also got new CD rack thing, holds over 200 CDs, was fifteen bucks. Then off to Ricke’s for random talking shits with Ricke y su hermano y amigo. Good shit. Ended with watching Ricke play FFXIII which was killer. Tonight I picked up Kea from the skytrain and did some errand-ies and then dindin and tea at my place.

Vinyl list:
Pretenders
Flock of Seagulls
Tommy – The Who
Cargo – Men At Work
Benefactor – Romeo Void
The Unicorn – The Irish Rovers
The Long Run – The Eagles
Macho Man – Village People
Eye of the Tiger – Survivor

Found my tablet pen in the obvious place, so I’ll be finishing the unfinished Uri drawing and eventually Arcc zombie and all (ref my dA) but there are a bunch of things from my sketchbook I’d like to do; some of which super shiny and some just for it. Quick an’ easy.

I’m in a couple o’ awesome RPs but, as much as they are sweet and developed and shit, responses are pending and shit so it’s like: now what do I do?

Gonna update my Things vlog eventually. Was going to do it with Squeek but didn’t. Might do with the guys, but that’d steadily degrade (awesomely).

Up and coming: DREADS, I swear! Redeye Empire CD release show with Rude City Riot next weekend, followed by Multi-Cultural Pride March as put on by Ridge Radicals and associations the next day. Gonna be sweet. If I get those hours off work like I asked for.

Reminder: Ren owes me o’er two hundred bucks.

You know what’s fucking sweet?

Well, lots of shit, but I’m going to regale to you the tales of the last… I’unno, thirty-six hours or so.

So, I’ve moved gas stations, right, lotsa training stuff. Friday was my last training day. Friday night was a ska show in Vancouver. Saturday morning at nine was my first solo day. Those are the parameters. Good stuff.

Charlee jumped on the ska show wagon on Thursday, so super psyched at having someone go to the show with me. I get off work, buy some used boots from the military supply store for twenty five bucks (dude gave me a frequent buyer card, fskin’ sweet), go home and prep, prep… take forever trying to find my skinny tie… ahem. Grab Charlee.

Bit back, I snagged some plaid pants for eleven bucks (five ninety-nine and up rack, shweeet), have my boots strapped on over them. Got me my Popeye shirt, skinny tie, suit jacket (hello Midsummer Night’s Dream and Dropkick Murphys buttons on the lapel) and crazy checked hat. It has storm trooper helmet button, chibi Mickey Mouse button and a Pokémon one. Crazy hat.

Whatever, drive out to Vancouver, new stereo in the car and everything (got it installed Friday morn’).

Parking is ridiculous.

Shark Club, where The Valuables, followed by The Kiltlifters (of whom remind me of some Community Records bands), followed by the headlining Rude City Riot, is two blocks from the library, where Charlee had to do some shit. Pass by Pat (singer of mi hermano’s band), loading shit up into the Media Club, kiddy corner to Shark Club. Library’s already closed. Whooo. Hang ’round and grab some Japanese fast food… mmmmmm, tempura.

Drop off shit, grab tickets just in case, from the Shark, swing by Media Club to watch The Turn set up. That was cool. Charlee hadn’t seen ‘em live ever, yet, so yeah. And we grabbed some free tickets from mi hermano when they were done, farkin’ awesome.

Oh, and then I skank through the madness of The Valuables and Kiltlifters, meet some people, have a lot of fucking fun, hellooooo covers of Bob Marley fok’ yeah, and we grab some swag, drop it off, and Media Club. The Media Club’s like a shoe box, in shape. Bah. Turn’s setting up, find my cousin (s’cool), and friend I knew of his. Listen to some awesomeness, rush back to the Shark for Rude City Riot. Rude. City. Riot. That was awesome. Even Charlee danced some and shit. Farkin’ sweet.

New boots = fuck my feet.

Show ends, one in the morning.

Work Saturday? Nine in the morning.

So I’ve traded numbers and infos with people, which is awesome, met people. Saturday hung with Ren and watched shows and shit (B, double E, double R, U, N, beer run!) ’cause we were both tired, drive her home and Joe comes over for out-of-the-blue late night jam session. Which was sweet. ‘cept I thought I had work at nine in the morning.

I don’t.

I just got home from showing up at nine in the morning.

Got time to read my steel module now, wooo.

New place of work = lots of hours. Crazy awesome amount of hours. I’m psyched. I have today through to Sunday. Which means I have to work at nine in the morning after being in Vancouver until two in the morning at a ska show (Rude City Riot @ the Shark Club, with The Valuables and The Kiltlifters).

Today’s accomplishments: Bought four glass bottles of iced tea from cafeteria with ten dollar voucher awarded for taking math test in class.

Steve: Are you planning on having a tea party?
Me: Yes.

Listening to: Airborne Toxic Event

Updating….

Things we’ve missed:

Taboo Sex Show. Band shows. Hockey game (glass broke). All kinds of crazy things. Metric concert. Hanging with Joe. Passing Drafting Core semester. Hanging with Bones y Squeek in the craziest ways (ahem, icing incident?). Gettings awesomes clothes, recently too (TMNT sweatshirt). Not crappy Christmas (first in a while). Pool in Joe’s basement for New Year’s. Watching Sherlock Holmes FOUR TIMES. School starting up again.

A lot.

A lot of cool and awesome things.

But also lotsa shit, of course. I got left alone for a week. And Ren kept ditching plans so… uh… suckage as soon as the sun dropped. Which sucked for queueing up to school and forgetting to take happy pills (they gave me happy pills) and blablabla. But hey, I’m updating my blog so… uh, stuff:

- Working again. Jennings primarily but it’s slow going. I’mma rereading My Boyfriend’s A Rugby Player right now.
- Practised a shit ton of piano, mostly. I got stuck a bit on a part of a song while people were away but yeah.
- Doing a 100 themes challenge. Hey, let’s improve my arts! But I ran out of sketchbook pages… fark!

Got some cool shit, got some new CDs. Squeek put me on Mother Mother. Read a few books. Got to see the relatives’ place up in Kelowna (cool digs). Mi tio Danny is calling me by my pref’d name. Charmsies is moving to Seattle soon, an’ then I can visit her! I reaaaaally need to send my letter to well… multiple letters. And I’m expecting mail, but I’m pretty sure some of my mail is indefinitely lost. -sigh-

Updating with video blog too.

Monday wasn’t so bad, really. Plane home, got to work on NaNo in the airport. Hilarity with the tired things. Honestly. “So, what did you spend the ___ on?” “Uuuh… I remember a sweatshirt… a book?”

Okay, Tuesday, late for school. I hate that. Really. A lot. Afterwards, Metric show. Lots of running around in the car getting stuff, filling up gas and all. Getting told the wrong address for the Orpheum… might punch someone for that one. Got to the show before Metric started, ‘course. The other band was going, Joe and I didn’t really get to hear them because of these chiquitas behind us talking significantly loud (weren’t even their seats ad far as I know).

Uh, lets see. Bones, friend of Joe, Keith… as in Breast Fest dude, lot guy from work.

Metric was good and all. Of course. Not a lot of talking to the crowd until later. Mah. I was already down for the count by then. What little dancing we did (Orpheum = seats, and we were on the upper balcony) got my shoulder to ache. Left. Like a bitch, honestly. Used my sweatshirt as a sling. Went around after the show wandering, eating some food, drove Bones and Joe home… little to no one on the highway that late… sooo much fun driving. Honestly.

Uh, shit, snagged a shirt and poster. I’unno, posters are getting to be a thing. Prints too, rather. Posters are for band rooms. Prints get put behind glass… which I gotta do yet.

So, right now, just finishing off the movie (Sex and Death 101), going to write s’more NaNo.

Unmentioned highlights of YaoiCon: Transish (?) person walking into the bathroom and doing the bathroom sign check “that’s the first time I’ve ever had to do that”, crazy awesome people hanging out with in the lobby, Superman, eating an entire thing of mashed potatoes, totally NaNo canon photos, Wiiiings awesome, awesome shit from the dealer’s room(s), awesome shit from the fan market (Reboot pin anyone?), networking, promo-ing ATB. Also, remember ’bout wanting to do entire Justice League costume thing.

Note about photos: they’ll be up before the end of the weekend.

Oh, and I didn’t go to school today. Fssssk.

It’s lunchtime, I’m at school, and I should be doing dimensioning.

But it’s lunchtime, so I don’t have to do dimensioning, so I’m writing this… bloody Monday class… need peoples’ notes… ANYWAYS, it’s officially ’squee’ time. Honestly. Tomorrow, after school, after my endo appointment, I’ll be on a plane to San Francisco… DUDES, CHECK THAT SHIT OUT. I’m all squee-age and excited and whatnot.

So, here’s the upload. I’m bringing shiny, probably try typing ongoings, probably from my notes, but yeah. I bring notebooks to cons… was actually rather useful at VCON ’cause I know I won’t remember shit but some of those panels were bloody interesting (who knows the first vampire movie ever?

I do!), and awesome shit that’d pop into mi cabeza for writing. Which, by the way, is what litters bits of papers and notebooks all over my house and school work and I have to redo the filing system for my ‘rough’ folder.

Which brings me to NaNoWriMo, oddly enough. This year, I’m doing it. Mostly because I’m actually aware of it this year. Hah. I’m also not working on anything specific at the time (read: five different stories but haven’t actually written on one for a few days). My plan is to go with the costume I’m wearing at YaoiCon, throw in aerial ship things, some foggy steam, crossed up tech, and anything that’ll fit from the fifteen-twenty or so ‘filed’ files in my Rough folder. I mean, there are non-file system files in there, but they’re like… boats. Boats is great.

So, leaving to SF Thursday, coming home Monday, going to miss my appointment with Dr. Hay… which I’ll ask about at the endo appointment because I still don’t know what Dr. Hay does. And I still haven’t phoned about that. Woops. Tuesday is the Metric concert, I’m driving with Muphen. Other people will be there, allegedly. And then that weekend is the Taboo Sex Show.

Today… today I bike home from school, grab my notebook that I FRAKKIN’ FORGOT THIS MORNING, do all the shit I have to do. Meaning drive around and shit. Need to get a lens cap (people at mi madre’s trabajo lost mine… yes… yes, horrible… mi madre estare reimbursing me), talk to the bank about my balance and my trip, buy some last minute-ish things from the mall or wherever (hey, it’s open until 9pm today!) and do a load of whites.

Oh, and eat. Eating’s important.

I haven’t really been eating the last couple of days.

I blame sleeping in… which sucks when you have school. Honestly, s’not cool.

Conclusion: FUCKING EXCITED.

It’s been a really long time. Yes, I know. I suck.

Right now I’m on the ferry, so I don’t actually know the date of my last blog post (no internets), but I remember the gist of what was in it and man, it’s been a while. I’ve done tons of stuff! Honestly. Here’s one: my birthday. That’s a whole tale of its own.

Woke up, regular morning, nothing special. Went to work, there was construction going on (they just put in metal security shutters), happened to mention to one or two of the lot guys that it’s my birthday. So there’s one of the Talius security guys working on some wiring in the ceiling right over the counter… so the ladder is propped straddling the counter (that was fun to work around!), “You’re working on your birthday? Oh, man, that has to suck.” Hah. Oh, and then I dislocated my shoulder.

Whoops.

I was changing the sign and everything too, good fun. Reach up to take down a number and pop. Ow. That hurts by the way, y’know, the your shoulder pops out of its socket, and you’re standing on the step ladder with your eyes bulging out as your mind is trying to think of the best and most efficient way to put the damn thing back in, while you’re kind of prodding it with your hand to see if it’ll go back in at all. Woohoo. Go inside, tell Kathy my shoulder popped out. No, Kathy, my shoulder came out (and went back in). It was funny, ’cause my priorities sounded a bit more like changing the sign mattered more than dislocating shoulders (and by now the Talius guys were gone). Woo.

So I got to leave work half an hour early, after working a while with the injured shoulder and all. Yeah, when Wallace came he asked me to leave, for the betterment of my own health or something. Got mi madre to come pick me up (she wasn’t working at the time), bike fit in the back of the truck, go home and ice my shoulder. Sounds fun and all, meant I couldn’t skateboard to the place. Which is great, because Hans phoned me about not being able to make it to the pub because his dad took the car or something (despite it being a night where he didn’t have work the next day and blablabla the whole reason why I was going to the pub both nights, c’mon people). Blablabla, orange tic tacs.

Get dropped off at the pub, sit in the pub, not order anything, talk to the apparent live in kind of patrons, talk to someone with the band, find out the band plays later than I thought, water. Have no one show up… Have Charmsies phone me and thus I fucking love Charmsies (we already know this). That was great. Uuuuh, rawked out to The Dreadnoughts. Hung with the Dreadnoughts during their breaks. Downed iced tea the entire night. Before the band and all, had a guy from the Oregon (who oddly enough looked like a smaller stature version of mi hermoso… huh) come over and chat and we hung the whole night, which was mostly dancing to the music. You can’t help but dance to Celtic-y punk music like The Dreadnoughts. Got the seventy year old guy (it might have been his birthday), to dance with us. Oregon guy had his last cigarette (supposedly). Grinned and got along with the punk guy and female accompaniment, who I think figured out I was trans and told me she thought I was beautiful or awesome or something and hugged around my back… so she must’ve felt the safety pins. No clue.

Walked home (woops), crashed.

Next night, more of The Dreadnoughts, this time actually got ID’d, but just going into the establishment (I’unno, Saturday nights or something). By the way, it was bloody full both nights. The Dreadnoughts are just pure awesome (yes, of course I bought merch)… practically became their merch guy for a bit there that night. Talked some more with the band and all, and with Ren (right, Ren came, drank and all). Bassist dude thought my name was Ben not Fen, s’not a common name, hah. Awesome conversations and all.

I like being the sibling of the lead guitarist from that other Vancouver band, a bunch of ‘em knew, so that’s all cool. And then knowing the other bands. And telling stories about Kyle from Incura (”I love your mom!”), and random shit and…

I have to clarify something. The Dreadnoughts are just bloody fun. And funny. And just great.

You have to love a band that things sea shanties, plays My Heart Will Go On, a Johnny Cash cover and the mother fucking Hockey Song (all of which they played the second night excluding the Johnny Cash cover), the bassist is six foot something, the mandolin player has dreadlocks and the violinist has a mohawk. Gawd, that Kyle was was hot. Trading sodomy jokes at the end of the first night with him was like ‘yeah… totally awesome…’. And then there’s that one song that’s just a giant tribute to cider and the only lyrics are CIDER CIDER CIDER CIDER, CIDER CIDER CIDER…. CIDER CIDER CIDER CIDER… CIDER CIDER CIDERRR!!! Whereas Kyle, the fiddler-violinist, gets on the bassist’s shoulders with the mic and man they were wild.

And that was my weekend. And my birthday.

The next weekend was VCON. Got to hang with with Devon again and the girls Ren y yo met while with Devon the last time at AE, Schumie was there (it’s Schumie right? Not nuu…?) from HoneySyn, Camilla d’Errico-ness was there (and I wore my Tanpopo shirt the first day, the merch woman was psyched to see someone in the know). Lots of chatting, getting tight with people like that, the GLBT panel was the best. Got my pentagram ring and some Celtic-ish design headband, my Camilla stuff. Didn’t get Looking For Group stuff (sold out fast and then the guys were just gone the rest of the weekend from panel to panel or something). Couple of fun panels, Why Is The Umbrella Licking Me?, Using the Pacific Northwest as a Setting etc. etc. I took a shit ton of notes, went to a Tanya Huff reading… made a few friends and ate Chinese with them the first night, got emotionally attached to the sight of the most. awesome. drag-transwoman ever. Gawd, she just looked fun. And she was great at drawing (because they illustrated the Turkey Readings…). Ren wasn’t there the second day, got to hug Lar from LFG (I’m awesome like that), grabbed some food, went home.

I have photos but I haven’t even taken them off my camera yet. But, oh, the memories. And they were filming something at the Convention Centre that was set in Germany (the irony after going to the Pacific Northwest as a Setting panel), so there were all the signs in German and whatnot. That was cool, got to walk by that.

…what else?

I swear, other stuff has happened. It’s bad that I don’t remember weekends.

…wait. Last weekend, I was sick to hell. I missed pretty much an entire week of school (I went to school the Tuesday but practically died biking back up the hill home, good plan Phil, good plan). After waking up barely able to breathe Friday, I went to the hospital at two in the morning on Saturday (because I couldn’t get to sleep having to focus so hard on just breathing and then being afraid I’d suffocate in my sleep), whereas they put me on ventolin and all (asthma meds), took some X-rays, put me on more ventolin, and sent me home when I could breathe almost normal like. Spent the rest of the weekend recovering and all. All of this meaning that I didn’t go to work and I missed school and… well crap. But I went to school the next week (after missing the Monday at work), Friday I told Wallace and them about my plans to go to YaoiCon at the end of the month… which I would have the tickets paid for and everything already but mi madre was working late-ish on Friday and so we didn’t get to do that when she got home and, guess what, I went to Pender Island this weekend.

Well, I’m on the ferry, so… obviously.

Friday night, though, had Joe over and hung out some, had to pick up mi padre from the pub at a hotel down the number ten (he got guilted into going because some guys were down and they used to be part of his crew and all)… and then had to drive back down again con mi madre in the truck so she could drive dad’s truck home. Got the ECU back for my car, got it put in over the weekend (mi padre) and so it works now… but last phone call I got on Sunday was all ‘Dad’s doing something about your back brakes and some rotating of a drum or something…’ …? But hey, now my car is going to work! SWEET!

Almost panicked not having a ride home today (Monday) from the ferry to the house, but got mis abuelos to do it (so I’m excited-ish to meet up with them in half an hour or so).

Oh, and the weekend rocked. Hanging with Rel was fun. Eating food, sleeping, eating food, watching Ssaum ui-gisul, s’more sleep, watched some Detroit Metal City way back, uuuuh… more eating, watched a TON of Storm Hawks, until we were tired and figured we ought to go to bed. …got distracted by my stories and read for another couple hours instead of going to sleep… finally went to sleep (at about three in the morning). So here I am, on a boat, tired as ‘ell, about to go to work in an hour and a half. Woot. But it was super fun, and Pender Island is cool. And I like ferry rides. And sleeping on couches. And Rel’s stories and all. So super shiny awesomeness.

I might pass out when I get home from work though. Heh.

So I have enough time now to fit in an episode of Storm Hawks (maybe), so I’mma go watch that and then get driven home and all. Mmm… ferry food. Y’get a funny look when you order a side of fries and a side of dills.

…what?

BREAST FEST! WOOOOO. Oh, wait, my car stopped working. Yep. Picked up Jillian after grabbing Ricke, turned onto 88th off of 192nd and BAM engine stops turning. Park on the side of the road, push the car into the driveway, tell the person ‘hey, my car stopped, y’mind if we keep it in the driveway a bit and all?’ but took a bit for her to answer… kinda funny suck.

Got a jump that we didn’t needed, got the CAA guy who figured out what it mostly likely was but couldn’t fix it, got a tow back to my place, took Ricke, Jillian went home and got a ride to my place via her mom. At my place, found out Ren wasn’t going to BreastFest, had to get a ride there from Jillian’s mom, which was cool, her mom’s cool.

Got to Breast Fest, Basilisk was playing, Kreig was there. Another band, and then Familia (pretty awesome, got merch) and it was raining raining raining. People were dancing in the rain to Familia. And then Ninjaspy. Ninjafuckingspy. And a new shirt and everything. I love them.

Moshing, some of the moshers sucked and were kinda not cool, but there was a bunch of skanking, which was cool. And hardcore-y skanking that was cool. And… come on, it’s Ninjaspy. Doesn’t get much better than that.

Kreig gave us all a ride home, super awesome. Listened to Natalie Portman’s Shaved Head, pretty awesome too.

And right now, Breakfast Club is ending. I have food. Hot chocolate. Some new shirts and it’s all just super shiny.

Tiiiired. Tried to have an Astroboy night tonight but failed-ish. Just so everyone knows, there were more board games, whenever all that happened, and it was awesome. Also, I can’t remember anything, but I’m pretty sure some stuff has happened since my last post.

…Supernatural con… Ramadan starting… my cat getting attached to me… stupid… friggin…

To(day)morrow is BreastFest! Woooo, breast cancer! Ninjaspy is playing! S’going to be great! I should prep my camera and all, but I’m pretty tired and need to snack down some food and then set my alarm to blast music through the surround sound… Things I can do when there’s no one home.

Like watching Astroboy and Supernatural really late and really loud, with lots of laughing (so, so much laughing) because no one is fucking home. It’s just brilliant.

Meantime, tired, ranting, crap.

Also, I want the last panel of this on a shirt… honestly.

Oh, wait, it exists.