It's very funny, I was looking at my bff's LJ and mine through Wayback Machine but neither of us much used the various mood/music/etc. Though I was a more thorough tagger than her.

I did remember I'd imported my blog entire over to my *actual* blog, which has been WP for about one million years (I actually just dug into my email and it's been bzedan.com since 2007, before that it was bzedan.us). I'm glad I did. With Twitter I just did the mega-erase, didn't import a thing to Bluesky. What's done is done. But my blog posts? My wretched little written memories from as far back as 2007? Can't tear them away. I'm not sure what happened to posts from 2005-2007, but that's fine, we can't remember it all.

Anyway, point of this is to see what the bells and/or whistles look like.

A friend of mine is doing a project called “Secret Chicago”, which now has a wider-ranging LJ group.  They’re ultra-short vignettes that open little mind-doors of (often dark) magical realism into whatever place the writer is from or holds dear.  Some places have strong existences, once you’ve lived there a while and you go past that shop that has been closed for years or take public transit daily it can start your memory reeling into possibilities of whys and what ifs.  Secret Cities is a fascinating project, expanding pocket worlds from chance impressions.

I’ve played with the idea of writing a couple myself, but I think what magical realism I’ve found in the Portland metro area is already being tapped in a couple of ways.  The area in and around where I live I photograph.  Yes, rural suburbia is weird, but in a way I mostly enjoy by living in it.  The city I work in I have a love-hate relationship with and I’ve already got the place drawn up in a different genre of writing experiment.

Besides, the magical realism aspects of the city are, for me, incredibly tied up in someone else’s work.

If I’m waiting for a bus and start a cigarette, I think of Jo in Anvil (#6).  Ghost bikes have a new dimension.  More or less, when I’m looking at the city I’m either wondering what it would look like if the plants went un-battled or if that’s the Safeway in book eight.

It’s a kind of nepotism, I guess.  I am of course fond of my own ideas and I know the writer of City of Roses, who is damned charming—except maybe for how his saga totally overwhelms my impression of the city and keeps me waiting for the next instalment like my own personal narcotic.

Which is still rather charming.

Mirrored from Journal of a Something or Other.

Mirrored from Journal of a Something or Other.

Mirrored from Journal of a Something or Other.

With my craft things packed up for the move, I’ve only a few scraps of fabric to embroider on during my commute.  So I’m focusing on lots of detail.  Lots and lots and worked over and over itself.

This thing is about two and a half to three weeks of commuting (about 30 hours). This is all the stitches I could think of offhand, which means mostly buttonhole and chainstitch variations.  There is also a lot of gathering and netting and weird things done so that the haphazardly pieced-together bits lie flat (I did piece them together weird on purpose, to give myself a challenge).

It is worked on pieced-together bits of velveteen, bleached muslin and stretch lace hem edging—stuffed in places with acrylic felt and with black and white cotton print on the ends. This is going to make one weird wrist warmer thing.  When I unpack and can get to my Velcro and snaps again.

Mirrored from Journal of a Something or Other.

A long, long time ago I used to be a painter. It was what I did. I had a mural background and everything. And I discovered sculpting and printmaking and there was a nice time where all those traditional things were meshed nicely and whatever. I grew out of it, because seriously? Committing to one media? As if. Nonetheless, some things stick. So, even though modern tradition in embroidery calls for a (beautiful, tasty, delectable) rainbow of colours as a palette, I still have the mentality of mixing one’s colour so it doesn’t look like it’s straight out of the bottle.

I’m missing a good green, but the plan is to slowly replace the last couple of colours (blue and brown, primarily) with hues reflecting the palette I used when painting, mixed with the palette I currently stock for my random attacks of paint. The colours on the outside wheel (pink, purple, light olive and light turquoise) are novelty ones that are just useful to have.  First off, I need to find a nice <a href=”http://www.goldenpaints.com/products/color/heavybody/colors/1454infopg.php” rel=”nofollow”>Hooker’s Green</a>.

I know I have my old colour wheel from school somewhere, once I find it the process will go easier. It’s hard to remember seven-plus years back.

Mirrored from Journal of a Something or Other.

Stereography. Holy cow. I think because it is a simple pleasure that I am just fascinated by it right now. Chase just got a sweet camera that is made to shoot stereographs, but it is film and I want to play now, so digital to the rescue. The bummer about these and Flickr is that one has to view an image at “Original Size” to get the animated aspect.

And here is one of me.

Mirrored from Journal of a Something or Other.

Mirrored from Journal of a Something or Other.

Sneak peek at part of an epic project Chase and I are working on. I finally finished this outfit for him and got him all dressed, so portrait time, etc. Last seen publicly here. He’s the first 1:12 scale doll I’ve ever made (about 5.5″ tall), so there are a lot of problems and he looks more like a doll than a person (the face of his buddy is much more human), he’s a little wall-eyed and oddly proportioned and I am never lining the sleeves of a miniature coat again, my God. But we love him in his awkward glory.

Mirrored from Journal of a Something or Other.

That I wore to work, because I have no social life.

But! I got to wear that wig I made. And I made the vest and pants too. The shirt I’ve had forever and the socks (Pink Knees) are, of course, from work.

Mirrored from Journal of a Something or Other.