There I said it.

Potters and elementary schools have the worst websites. They're where all the bad 90's web designs still live and breathe.


Hey, I'm still here. I'm coming back to post more soon, just you wait.

notable

I haven't had a pleasant dream in recent memory. But I had one this morning so I'm going to document it, even though I hate reading about other people's dreams and here I am forcing you to read mine. Sorry.

In the dream, N and I were sitting in a park that was up on this cliff that wasn't too high, but high enough and there was a projector and a screen and a park bench and we just put on some bluetooth headphones and watched Stranger Things on this park bench. I don't recognize this park in my awake life, but I'm totally comfortable in the dream. He turned to me and said, "After all this is over, you'll have to fix it." and I said, "Okay, I'll try."

"Some days are good, baby"

Best thing today:
Today I got a out of the blue thank you note plus a gas card from my Aunt that pretty much said thanks for always being helpful. So incredibly nice.

I gotta think of something nice to pass on to somebody else.

BTT

Best thing today:
Golden Flake cheese curls
Refrigerated Coca-cola
Homemade chocolate chip cookie

Less than three

Best thing today:
No A/C sucks, but it's forced me to spend many a day, windows down music up.
There's something about clearing your mind and singing as loud as you can. I forget how easily I can change my mood by listening to my music.
Also, B jokingly proposed to me so that was weird.

"All rights reserved. Lefts, too."

I'm smack in the middle of the JSU library's copy of Aaron Draplin's book Pretty Much Everything & I'm eating it up. It's a big, dense book, full of tiny type. I've borrowed it for about a month now. It's taken me so long because I know that when I aim to flip though only a few pages, time stops & I get sucked in for an hour, or 3. (I'm not disciplined in the slightest. Sometimes I feel guilty about it, like when I mess up other people's lives, but mostly I just wallow in my chaos and disorder.) Draplin's definitely in my list of all time favorites. His humor blows me away, page after page. And I'm hoping that by reading his book, some of his strict self control & wisdom will rub off on me. I'm saving my pennies now to snag a copy of my own to cherish forever. Until then, the library is my best friend.


Best thing today: Even when I'm being a total piece of shit, people are nice to me. I don't deserve it, but I notice their kindness and I'm thankful for it.

our time is now

As much as it appalls me, I think my love language is actually gifts. Like geez, how superficial can I get? But it's true. Gifts make me feel loved. Also, hugs. But, also, gifts.
I think I've realized this because today a friend brought me this book that they picked out especially for me. It's incredibly thoughtful. It's old and full of ceramics and it's great.

I just took that love language quiz and it confirmed my suspicions. 

//MY RESULTS//

Physical Touch A person whose primary language is Physical Touch is, not surprisingly, very touchy. Hugs, pats on the back, and thoughtful touches on the arm—they can all be ways to show excitement, concern, care, and love. Physical presence and accessibility are crucial, while neglect or abuse can be unforgivable and destructive. Appropriate and timely touches communicate warmth, safety, and love to you.

	Receiving Gifts Don’t mistake this love language for materialism; the receiver of gifts thrives on the love, thoughtfulness, and effort behind the gift. If you speak this language, the perfect gift or gesture shows that you are known, you are cared for, and you are prized above whatever was sacrificed to bring the gift to you. A missed birthday or a hasty, thoughtless gift would be disastrous—so would the absence of everyday gestures. Gifts are heartfelt symbols to you of someone else's love and affection for you.
	Quality Time In Quality Time, nothing says “I love you” like full, undivided attention. Being there for this type of person is critical, but really being there—with the TV off, fork and knife down, and all chores and tasks on standby—makes you feel truly special and loved. Distractions, postponed activities, or the failure to listen can be especially hurtful. Whether itʼs spending uninterrupted time talking with someone else or doing activities together, you deepen your connection with others through sharing time.
	Acts of Service Can helping with homework really be an expression of love? Absolutely! Anything you do to ease the burden of responsibilities weighing on an “Acts of Service” person will speak volumes. The words he or she most wants to hear: “Let me do that for you.” Laziness, broken commitments, and making more work for them tell speakers of this language their feelings don’t matter. When others serve you out of love (and not obligation), you feel truly valued and loved.
	Words of Affirmation Actions don’t always speak louder than words. If this is your love language, unsolicited compliments mean the world to you. Hearing the words, “I love you,” are important— hearing the reasons behind that love sends your spirits skyward. Insults can leave you shattered and are not easily forgotten. You thrive on hearing kind and encouraging words that build you up.

Best thing today:
Drove home while the sun was setting, which is my absolute most favorite time to be outside. I continue to be amazed at the sky during sunset. It was pink & orange & blue & purple all over the place this evening.

Overly emotional

Best thing today:
Having 3 pairs of shoulders nearby to lean on feels pretty nice.

"I'm having a weird day."

I tweeted this almost exactly a year ago and this whole week, it's been so relevant. Is it that summertime sadness? Things have just been off this week.

I've been going over in my head all day all the ways I've fucked up and it's really bringing me down so I'm gonna stop. I'm going to take time to be grateful. I'm starting up a daily habit. Something so small that even I can keep up. I'm going to remind myself of the best part of my day, everyday. I'm not being unique. Lots of people do this. Supposedly it'll change my life. And maybe it really will. I'm hoping it'll make me feel less lonely. Power of positive thinking, right?


Best thing today:
A co-worker came in to the office and said to me, "It was so nice to hear your sweet voice answer the phone this morning."

Part one: Friends

It's funny how it sneaks up on you, but sometimes you're just floating along and then one day you realize that you're not sitting at home alone as often as you used to & there are people who seem to like you enough to want to spend time with you outside of forced togetherness, like class or work. It's really hard to be patient and go through the process of making friends, but in my experience it has proven to be worth it.

I have been spending as much time as possible (as much time as they'll let me) with W, H, T, N, & O. When we're all together, we form the dream team 'What? No.' and it's the best way to describe us. I haven't mentioned most of them all that much on here, with the exception of N, who I have previously referred to as "handsome coworker" {x}{x}{x}{x}. {Please keep in mind that I'm SO embarrassing and I know, but I am also embracing the fact that there's nothing I can do about it because I am just that kind of person.} I am still amazed that he and I are kind of actually friends now. Like, astounded. I mean, after this post we may not be. It was nice while it lasted. The lack of mentions to the rest of them (W, H, T & O) has nothing to do with my love for them and everything to do with how selfish this blog is. I adore all of them very, very much. And so I'm making this huge post that is mostly comprised of all of them to gush about how awesome they are.
It's hard to pinpoint how it all got started, but I'll try. I knew W from way back in 2013 when I took ceramics. I became more involved with clubs last semester and I became treasurer of Kappa Pi. So O & H were in Kappa Pi and W joined as an alumni so we were all acquainted. We had that proximity friendship. O asked me one day if I wanted to go out to eat with them after Kappa Pi and it snowballed from there. We started going to Struts for trivia and O's bf, T, came along, too. Then I went to this poetry reading that the Arts Collective put on and N was there and we got to talking and I invited him to trivia. To my surprise, he came. And now we're all friends.

I can't remember how many times WHOA had hung out at that point, but I think it was only a handful. One night at trivia, I made everybody from WHOA+T sign my planner because I had been talking about signatures with TD and CMD earlier that day. I'm super interested in signatures. 

Jus goofin'.

My parents and bruv drove down to visit while O and I were hanging at the Cheaha Challenge.

I have other friends, too, okay. This guy is not in 'What? No.'; he's part of #HASHTAGTEAMTEARBAR. We look so OG here.

This is my "wogging" buddy, PA. Running is not quite an accurate term for what I do. We've taken about a 3 week break from wogging recently, but we're starting back up bright & early in the morning. I might die.

This was from when 'What? No.' went swimming. H got to play with a dog. We all ate hot dogs. It was a great day. N would be highly displeased with me if he knew I posted this, but I'm the one that looks like an ogre. That jerk is sitting over there looking like a handsome prince. And plus only like 3 people read this blog so... It's fine.

#blueteeth

HANGOUT FEST WAS SO GOOD.

These party animals celebrating W's bday. Lmao. Honestly, that was the worst cookie cake I've ever made. They were generally pretty nice about it and didn't complain out loud, so it makes it hard for me to decipher whether they're being honest because I'm used to my best friends giving me shit. (cough Smells cough cough)

This is one of my favorite pictures of all time because you can't plan that kind of candidness. O is a great photographer.

There's the thing about snapchat... It's a funny coincidence that these 2 sent me these independently of each other, probably without seeing the other's snaps. Or maybe W saw O's and mine's and made his? That's the thing. Regular group messaging doesn't exist on snapchat. 

They're all going to kill me for posting these. :D

We've paused your regularly scheduled programming

I know you are patiently awaiting those posts I was talking about, but I'm still compiling so here's this to tide you over.

I decorated these glasses for my uncle's stepdaughter's wedding! And I got paid! Actual money! A momentous occasion indeed.

When we were sitting around, after we had made the transaction, my uncle's wife asked, "So what else can you do?" and everytime somebody asks that I'm just like duhhhhhhhhh idkidk. So I feel like it would be in my best interest to document better. 

P.S. Rocket Power is the best and I'm so glad that it's on Teen Nick at night now.

All these things that I've done

April has been the busiest month of my entire life. I was hoping May would be chill, but it's already the 22nd and it hasn't slowed down yet. That's okay. It's been pretty great.

So I have a lot of stuff that I want to remember. I'm going to divide it up into 3 posts,

Part one: Friends
Part two: Ceramics
Part three: Screenprinting

but there's still a lot of crossover, like even though I'm doing a separate friends post, I'm going to include friends in the other posts, obviously.  And I'm going to work backwards in time as much as possible, because that's easiest for me to remember.

I'm posting this pre-post post to force myself to get going on these other posts.
Okay so get ready!

bear ass but not bare ass

It has been so nice waking up at 11am every day this week. I spent some time visiting Smells in Clarksville this week. While she was at work, I spent my time running errands. I went to the Clarksville public library on Monday to do some bear research. I was pleased to find that they had a ton of art on display. They had this awesome quilt.

Look at that delicious type!

Also, look at this cute bear I found while doing research.

Also, I had a good hair day while I was in Clarksville. Face is questionable.

this is a long post

I'm taking a few minutes to write this post so I can remember this time in my life. I'm currently sitting in the attic-like area of Hammond Hall. The time is 10:36pm. I'm fairly sure I'm the only one here, but I haven't gone to check because these jeans are making my legs chafe and I'm doing the least amount of walking I can today. I need to remember to wash clothes when I get home. And also, get rid of these pants. I should be working on an annual report for my internship, and I'll get to that. I'm waiting on my other emulsion coated screen to dry & if everything goes as planned, it'll be done at midnight. I mean things never go as planned for me, but I remain hopeful. I keep missing a phone call from Rosh, which makes my heart hurt. (Rosh, I promise I'm not intentionally ignoring you.)

Today was a good day. Nothing was too great. Nothing was too bad. I got to sleep for an extremely long time. I'm finding myself, this semester, really admiring people who can go for days on so few hours of sleep and not completely shut down. I know that sometimes you (and by 'you', I actually mean me) have to stay up all night. Sometimes that just has to be done to get things accomplished. Usually though, when I've stayed up all night one night, I figure out any way possible to get the most sleep possible the next day. It's not possible to catch up on that missed sleep retroactively, I know this, but I do it every time. I will shirk all responsibilities to be able to sleep. I will even skip food. Haha jk I will eat first and then sleep.
But anyway, I got to the university later than I wanted to, but nobody was waiting on me so that was okay. I walked in the door to see TD's lovely, smiling face. Hah. Then I got my transparencies printed. And I got to spend some quality time goofing off with some of my favorite new friends in a teeny time room. I've never felt more stressed in my life, but I know that I've found my people. I can go to these people and tell them my stupid art things and they understand and still like me pretty well.

I finally screen printed my first color for my monster print. (I did not have a good day yesterday.) We're making a book in class, exchanging and compiling all of these prints to make an exquisite corpse type piece. I love this. I love that we're working separately & together at the same time. I can not wait to show it off.

It took me longer than I wanted to get my prints done, but they all turned out so, so nice. The ink was smooth and I only had like 2 where the ink didn't go through all the way & that was definitely because by print 9 or 10, my back was KILLING me. I am so unfit. And I was sweating and everything. Very attractive. But everything else was going so well. I feel like I really know how to screen print now. My registration has gotten so much better. I've figured out that I can get really lined up if I make a right angle with my tape and then have another piece up the side to keep it even more secure. And my ink is coming evenly and smooth ever since I watched this how this guy from my class screen prints and also I watched a youtube video about the best consistency of ink.

I had a flyer for Kappa Pi that I really needed to go to work and print and give to H. I was supposed to meet her at 2:30, but like I said, was running behind, and I didn't get over there to meet her until 3:10. So in turn I was late to my printmaking class that starts at 3. It was really sucky of me to keep someone waiting, but she didn't seem too upset about it. And Prof S was totally cool about me being late.

I forgot to print off my design for printmaking so I spent all of class clicking on things in photoshop and gossiping and creating inside jokes with my friends. I'll have a lot to do this weekend, but that's okay. I always have a lot to do on the weekend.

Went to Jack's with TD and was super pleased with the hamburgers and french fries I had there.

I came over here to Hammond after class and got everything ready to print my second color, and coated my screen with emulsion. Everything went really good with my second color. Like unbelievably good. So here we are. Now I'm going to put some pictures on here to either thank you for reading all this, or to give you something else to do besides read.

See those black rectangles? That's my secret to okay registration.

It's nice to work after hours because I can spread out everywhere.

These colors in this photo do nothing for the actual colors in this print. They are so vivid & nice in real life. See that little faint blue mark on the side of the paper? That is a bit of dark blue ink. That exact splotch is on every single print. It really shows the tiny intricacies that a burned screen can provide. This is my best print that lined up as perfectly as possible. I have 3 that I think turned out so perfect. The other 17 are pretty okay. And I am pleased as pie about that.

These are bowls that I'm working on. The bottom ones that look like they're still made of mud, are waiting to be bisque fired and the three in the back that look like they're made of some kind of weird white stuff, are waiting to be glazed.

Captured John Donovan making a hilarious face and Adam Paulek sticking his arm in a pot. These photos are from a visiting artist workshop that we had last week and it was super fun to meet these guys and learn from them. I really want to make a post that just talks about what I learned from those two days, but even if I never get around to it, here are the pictures.

The artist's doing their thing and a bunch of unwillingly photographed students. Plus my new favorite Professor, John Oles.

This is from the last day of the workshop and I just thought it was cool to have the artist that taught us how to make this art holding the art that we made. 

I haven't felt like I've had a lot of time to do big things with AIGA JSU this semester, the little club that could, that my graphic design friends and I started last semester. But in reality we've done some pretty cool things this semester. We talked to the legend Jude Landry one night. One meeting, we met at Java Jolt and drew on this poster. Which turned out so nicely and I only fucked it up a little bit. (And then I promptly fixed the part I fucked up.) I just really like how it turned out and I may take it home and hang it up on my wall at the end of the semester.

This is from Java Jolt and it's less about who's in the photo and what they're doing and more about the fact that a table full of designers are sitting around a sign that says RESERVED in papyrus type. We did not do that, but we couldn't have planned that kind of irony.

This is my teapot sitting right next to John Oles teapot (!) and next to other students work at the Gadsden Museum of Art. 

This is my wine bottle design that won honorable mention in the 2016 Student Juried show at JSU.

And this is me looking dopey near my wine bottle.

"I like your shirt."

You know how sometimes people will comment on things that you are wearing and you'll just flippantly say, "thank you" like you designed and sewed the thing? Well that happened to me today & I just said thank you, but this time I felt it was deserved, because I actually did design this shirt. Somebody else printed it, but still. 

Slacker

I keep scrolling through this website geyserofawesome.com/tagged/overindulgence and as much as I'm disgusted, I also keep saying to myself, "I would put that in my mouth."

How To Be Single was really good.

Here's my cat from the snow storm in Madison a month ago:

1- The Hunger Games, Twilight, or Harry Potter?

Harry Potter.

2- what is your least favorite color?

White.

3- who is the famous person you would MOST like to see disappear?

Donald Trump.

4- what song could you listen to on repeat for the rest of your life and never go crazy?

Oh dang. Shiver Shiver - Walk the Moon?

5- would you rather be bald or never be able to cut your hair?

I hate restrictions so bald.

6- what is your favorite word?

Pretentious.

7- in which city would you prefer to attend Fashion Week: New York, London, Milan, or Paris?

London.

8- what movie have you seen the most times in theatres?

I honestly can't remember the last time I saw a movie more than once.

9- what is your favorite concert that you have ever attended?

My second Walk the Moon show.

10- if you had to return to any grade in school, which would you choose?

Tenth.

In love with my prof's pottery. This picture does them no justice.

Tumblr's that are good:
mikeyburton.tumblr.com
rainbowrowell.tumblr.com
tumblr.austinkleon.com
doloroustroke.tumblr.com


Over Christmas break, I spent a lot of time looking at old notes. This note was apparently after SS realized that I love arrows.