Day 12 - Sleeping Acorn
Day 13 - Timpa the Squirrel

In order to make myself use up this embarrassment of tshirt material, I am instituting a Plush a Day Challenge to myself. Essentially, I have to make some sort of plush creature every day.

I couldn't help it, I thought these two made such a nice picture together that I waited until today to post them!

We've been waiting for that acorn to wake up for six days! I don't think Timpa can even think of eating it now - she thinks of it more like a pet.

If you want to see them by themselves, here's Timpa and here's the Sleeping Acorn.

Cross-posted from blog Leah's Stuff

I have a 7-Day Link Pass that expires November 28. If you want it, you just gotta pick it up tonight by 9 p.m. (Brighton) or tomorrow (at BU). E-mail me at pasqua (at) bu (dot) edu if you're interested.

... of Boston, but hopefully not b0st0n.

Have you ever rented a vacation rental home in or near the Berkshires? If so, can you recommend a house or a rental company? I'm looking to rent a bigger place with a bunch of friends, and would love to hear your recommendations.

Thanks!!

Hey everyone,
I screwed up my hair pretty badly the other day and I need emergency salon help. Any recommendations? I'm looking for a place that will be able to turn my newly brown hair back to blonde, and can fit me in anytime before Thursday. I'm willing to travel anywhere that's accessible by T since I am very desperate.

SO I have some big secrets I have been sitting on for a while, but I don't think I can sit on them anymore! I've known about this for a couple of weeks, but I didn't want to announce anything until it was final.

People have been asking me for a long time if there will be a Chester comic to purchase soon. I've felt bad that I hadn't had the time to provide one but now I am pleased to announce...

Top Shelf comics will be publishing Chester 5000 in 2010!!!
AND Top Shelf will also be publishing my time travel memoir, We Can Fix It!!!

I'm so excited I can hardly contain my own bodily functions.

I'm ridiculously happy because Top Shelf has always been my favorite publisher. In high school I read whatever semi indie thing I could find at the comic shop, but when I got to college my Professor Tom Hart's first book assignment to us was Craig Thompson's Goodbye Chunky Rice (published by Top Shelf). It was a book that blew my mind completely away, it changed forever the way I looked at comics and how I wanted to make comics and it remains the closest a book can get to my heart.

I suppose it's kind of silly to dream of being published in the age of web comics, but it's something I have wanted since I first picked up a comic and somehow I couldn't let that dream die. There was a moment when I thought We Can Fix It would just be a self published book that I didn't know how to sell and didn't have a venue to sell it from. I'm so happy it's going to have a home among some of my favorite authors and artists.

It's been a really rough couple of years for me where nothing seemed to go right. I made an entire comic book for a band, worked myself to the bone and even got talented artist friends to contribute pin-ups, only to find out when it was done that they had no idea how to publish it and I would have to do all the work submitting it to publishers and trying to negotiate, all WITHOUT ANY PAYMENT WHATSOEVER. The book still hasn't been printed and I haven't been payed.

I've also got a ridiculously demanding and frustrating day job that requires long ours and lots of hair pulling. All this stuff just made me feel like I couldn't hack it and I was failing at making comics my real job. So this influx of good news all of a sudden has sort of held me in shock.

I've had a hard time talking about this with people because it's one of the best things that's ever happened to me and I don't know how to express that without feeling like I am bragging or a douche. Maybe I'm just so used to complaining!

Anyway, if you want to check it out the books are listed in Top Shelf's 2010 publishing schedule! EXCITE BIKE!!!

http://www.topshelfcomix.com/news.php?type=5

Anyone have any suggestions as to a physical store in the area where I can find a decent selection of swimwear this time of year?

I have a car and am willing to drive.

I'm debating character names for the romance novel. How do Simone and Dmitri (his mother was watching her stories when she went into labor and named him after her favorite character so he goes by DJ) strike you? He's hood made good, while she's the smart girl who got out in the world and promptly did the dummy in her first adult relationship. They dated in high school, but Dmitri did something stupid (trying to make fast money) and broke up with her when he thought he was going to jail. Now it's 10 years later and neither one is looking for a relationship. I can't write too stupid to live, so she's going to get caught up in her ex's problems and DJ has to save her. It's pretty much bog standard, but I threw in some twists and a best friend who's 6 feet tall and terminally single for her, while his best friend is a thug who took the fall for the crime they committed together and learned all the the ways to be a better hood in jail. Good plot? Bad plot? Talk to me people.

Apparently that chick from Gigli fell down while jumping off a guy during a live shoe commercial? IKR. But anyway, I saw the video and I couldn't tell it wasn't some kind of dance move like the kids are doing these days. I wish I was that good at standing up.

But the most important thing I learned today is that, in Chihuahua, Mexican Mennonites dominate local cheese production.

My baby lappy is a toshiba NB 200 with a nine hour battery.
I did not expect to get nine hours from it but did think it would be close to seven.
i think i was getting that in the beginning but not so much now. It seems closer to four.
Any tips for increasing the battery life?
I try to let run down until it complains before charging. And not living it on charge too long. Over night the longest. Today I let it go completely flat.

Any thoughts from the nerds?

trying to create some meaningless beauty

• 10:04 twitpic.com/qiack - Sunday mornin handsome Cat boy!!! #TiltShiftGen #
• 11:04 it is a sweet day!/walking with teacher and wife/then getting butt kicked #

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Yesterday was the first rehearsal I had at this big Reunion Concert/Show my high school's drama and music alumni are all throwing. I'm one of two alumni who are stage managing -- coincidentally, we both live in New York, although Wendy lives upstate now. She kindly drove us both out for the day for rehearsal (and back the same day, which made for an adventure).

The whole day was a bit overwhelming, as I wasn't just being thrown into a rehearsal of a sudden, it was also the first time I'd seen the building -- and the town itself -- in nearly 15 years. It had also been 15 years since I'd seen some of the people -- but I had to suppress a lot of the natural "holy crap, I haven't seen YOU in forever" instincts because I was too busy trying to tell them all "so, we need you all in the orchestra room to rehearse the finale...." I wasn't the only one who was struggling with that -- my old drama coach, one of the six teachers the class tracked down to be involved with this, came looking for me when he first came in, took me aside, and began, "I heard you were running the show, so we should probably talk about your operators because -- " but then he stopped himself, broke into a grin, and said, "wait, I have to do this first," and gave me a big hug.

But there was one sweet little moment at the beginning of the day. We opened the day with a rehearsal of a kids' choir -- a lot of the alumni have kids who are also similarly star-struck, and so one of the numbers is a parents-vs-kids version of "Anything You Can Do". As they all assembled in the old chorus room to run the number, our director Jim introduced me and Wendy, the other stage manager, to the kids before we ran things. "Everyone, these are our stage managers," he said. "They're going to be running the whole show. So that means, when they say jump, what do you do?....You jump!" Ten pairs of little eyes peered at Wendy and I, in varying degrees of awe and skepticism.

Wendy chuckled. "Okay -- standby to jump!" she joked, causing a couple of the other kids to look at her curiously. But when she gave the cue to "jump", only a couple kids did, while the rest looked at her, confused. The adults were moving on to tracking down the sheet music, while the kids stood in a small confused group.

I addressed the kids. "Okay - 'stand by' is stage manager talk for 'get ready.'" Most of the kids turned to look at me now. "You wanna try that again?" I asked, and no one spoke, but a few started smiling a bit. "Okay -- standby to jump....aaaaaaaaand JUMP!"

And it wasn't quite synchronized, but eight little kids dutifully jumped at my cue. "Awesome!" I cheered them. "I like you guys already." They were mostly still confused, but a couple did giggle a bit as they were called back to running the song.

Woke up this morning to the husbeast's computer acting up. It's fine now, but I'm starting to give all the technology in my house the side eye. In fact I think the side eye is just my new face. You?

The car is for sale.

so my TV shoot for today got postponed, they got backed up with all of the other stuff they needed to film this weekend and they wanted more time to be able to shoot my segment than they could've fit in today. so i get to wait for a little longer.

no big deal, i guess that's just "reality" huh?

anyway, here's another shot of Anna from the other day

Okay this is very badly out of date: http://www.cjcurrie.com/whois.htm

Suggestions of what to put in would be nice. I am at a little bit of a loss where to start.
I am going to prune the website down to gallery, blog, bio and front page. How does that sound? I do wish it was swisher.
I have deleted the colonial steele etsy store. that was sad.

Spending the next four days in Ballarat, relying on public transport. This will be fun. I think.

Taken up at mum and dad's in the sweltering heat today.

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