helicopini

Hopefully!  Let us all cross our fingers.  He hasn't texted me at all today, which means he's likely moved on to harass some other woman.  Yay Gavin Becker for being very clear on the 'NEVER EVER respond to stalkers' rule.  If you just *don't* respond to their calls, texts, emails, etc, they get starved of the emotional payoff from bothering you, and wander off.  Yay Pavlovian behavioural science as well, I suppose.

I've decided that this is very simple.  I haven't dated in a while due to health problems (which make it completely impossible), and before that I tended to date my friends.  I did run into many boys like this, but I always had a boyfriend who would step in.  Every single one of those little stalkerboys of the past- who fancied themselves so tough and commanding in calling me an evil bitch for not sleeping with them because they were friends with one of my friend's friends, say- would get very quiet and slink off as soon as a guy told them to stop. 

But now that I'm going out with near-strangers from online- and I really do enjoy meeting people, so online dating is okay by me so far- I can't produce the Actual Human Being (re: straight male person) that a Nice Guy sees as able to actually have a valid opinion.   I suppose I could ask a guy friend or my brother, but still.  Nice Guys seem to only react in fear and guilt to a boyfriend.

Funny that.

But at bottom, it is very simple. I operate under the fact that I own my own sexuality, which means that it's entirely 100000% up to me whether I like someone, go out with them or sleep with them.  There is nothing I can do, say, wear, etc that would mean I'd have to like, talk to, go out with, or sleep with someone.

Of the seven dudes I've met so far, six were able to accept that.

What characterizes Stalkerboy is that he was not.  He quickly began trying to find things I'd said or did that 'meant' I now could be forced to go out with him. 

'You talked with me, therefore only a bitch wouldn't go out with me now.'  
'You agreed (I hadn't agreed in fact, I'd only said I'd consider it)  to go out, that means you agreed to have sex with me too- only a lying whore would go back on her word.'

Etcetra.

I really do need to find a way to rapidly discern other Nice Guys before they can even get that far.  But I guess given that this one was able to blow a 10 minute polite conversation into a supposed agreement to come to his house immediately and fuck him, even glancing at a Nice Guy would probably get you in trouble.  ('You looked at me!  That means you have to give me a blowjob!  What?  But you agreed to it by looking, you whore!)  But without knowing where I live, and having been blocked on PoF, this one could only howl into my text message inbox, and I deleted his messages unread. 

Still, unpleasant all around.  The six guys who could handle the fact that either one of us could back out at any point were pretty decent.  More of that, please.  

I also would like to write an entry on what I've learned about drawing- properly- from NaNo and subsequent months.  But the more you draw, the less you want to talk about drawing.  You just want to draw.

Also!  I have begun watching Black Lagoon!  (Although I still need to find more time to watch movies and tv and etc rather than burning all my computer time on political blogs.  But I'm working on it!  The political blogs are more addictive than crack, I swear.)   

And I like it!  All the immediate characters are wiseass, finely drawn (in characterization, but also nicely drawn! xD) and fun.  I do like Rock, he's sort of adorably out of his element and stealthily snarky.  I can see why Revy likes him.  Revy herself, naturally, is just as ridiculous as your average male action hero- which is good!  She's what Protagonist A wants to be, and would be if I'd let her actually star in an action story. Or shoot people.  The series has kind of a Tarantino vibe, and it's enjoyable in the same amoral escapist-fantasy kind of way.  

I also, randomly, appreciate that it's not set in Japan proper.  I like seeing places other than the US (from American media) and Japan (from anime/manga.)

Of course, I never get tired of seeing things set in CANADA.  Because we just don't get enough exposure.

Coffee date with Vegan #2 yesterday.  Really nice guy and very intelligent, but no chemistry.  Sadface.  Coffee date today with the software developer from Montana who has a six year old (with a Dora obsession!  I heard all about it.)  Wish me luck.

So, as I transmogrify myself into an animator who makes comics, and I cease to be a writer!writer, I'm trying to sort out if I want to write fanfic or not.

Because on one hand, I'm no longer a writer!writer. (Not that I ever was, given that I'm wired for images more than words, and in fact I see words as typographic images.  But yeah.)

But on the other, I wouldn't really have to freak out about writing either.  I could aim all my perfectionistic bullshit at drawing.  And therefore, I could just write fanfic (generally of Bishie A and Bishie B or possibly Hot Guy A and Hot Guy B getting it on, I'm very much in favor of slash) and just enjoy it as fluffy relaxing funtime.  I'd only have to be an adequate writer, which is so much less pressure than having to be a GREAT WRITER.  

In particular, I could write, say, Hetalia slash.  The out of control 24/7 express train that is hetalia is providing plenty of instructive examples.

But I'm confused about whether the countries are.. well, people or nations.  I'm aware that this is sort of the central conciet of the series- pretty boys as personifications of world nations- but how the hell does that work logistically?  They all have 'houses', which seem to be within their 'nation's' borders, as if they were the patron saint of those countries made into a flesh and blood person; a personified spirit of nationalism maybe.  But how does that all work when they go to visit one another?  They aren't the political leaders of their countries, as their various prime ministers and presidents sometimes call them or consult with them.  They aren't the nation itself.  And.. yeah, maybe I'm overthinking this.

But the mangaka never really seems to sort this out either.  

To be honest, I think I want to write Hetalia slash just so I can giggle like a 12 year old at the World section in the newspaper.  The COPE15 conference would have been a goldmine of slashfic ideas right there.

This was the title of a poetry book at the BC ferries onboard bookshop. It was quite substantial. All those pages about the intricacies of being depressed.

I looked at it and thought: fuck it, I'm tired of defeatism. I wanna be happy.

Just as an FYI. It's still me.

I wanted to give this journal a flower name, but livejournal users have been very, very diligent in investigating all the flower names, including just about every subspecies of Asteraceae, which is the family where all the chrysanthemums and dahlias live. So, having run out of flowers, I decided to go for a butterfly name. Helicopini is a subset of the metalmark butterfly family. Metalmarks are very pretty in person. They have a metallic glitteryness to them that doesn't seem to photograph very well. They're the Edward Cullens of the butterfly world.

Plus, some of them have really loltastic common names like 'Carousing Jewelmark' or 'Fatal Metalmark.' I was thinking that an entirely different kind of butterfly, a Hoary Goatwing Comma say, would be the best LJ butterfly username for a writer EVER. Or maybe just 'Hoary Comma'? Either way, I'm a graphic novel-type, so I thought I'd leave that one for a writer-writer.

Jim Carrey's website is AMAZING.  Check out the Origins page in particular.  (I'm not sure what's better, the bird belching his tweets word by word, the kid with the gigantic hockey puck or the audio juxtoposition of the national anthem with animal sounds.)


56/200 pages!  Quota today is 63.

So, it turns out that I am not yet bored with U2, I am still a fangirl, because I don't mind their new album.  I agree with the general sentiment that if it had been made by a skinny hipster band, Pitchfork, Stylus, Rolling Stone, NME (which is just as bitchy as the rest of the British press)  et al would be raving about it. 

So.  Naturally I should join some U2 lj communities, right?

SO IMMEDIATELY I FOUND THIS:

u2slash

And I'm having one of my ZOMG NOBADWRONG EW NO THEY'RE ALL PUSHING FIFTY ZOMG WHAT IF THEIR KIDS SEE IT EW NOOO sudden irrational onsets of prudery.  I'm honestly okay with RPS in most cases (though I think I'd have an issue with writing it myself).  But this just smashed my surprise!prudish attitude button.  Weird.

I had a raging crush on Bono and Larry Mullen when I was 13.  But not WITH ONE ANOTHER.  Though, come to think of it?  Why the hell didn't I fantasize about them together?  Why not?  Clearly I just wasn't enough of a perv back then.   There was no internet in 1993, no yaoi or slash online for me to look at and logically extrapolate to my favorite rockstars.  I don't think yaoi even occurred to me.  Gah.  I am so lacking in natural pervitude.  I think I've missed out on so many golden perving opportunities. 

Okay, so it turns out that I kind of still have a really raging crush on Larry Mullen Jr.  He's still pretty hott for a 47 year old dude.

Still don't want to see him make out with Bono.  Who really hasn't aged well.  Woe.  He was so pretty around 1991-1993, between the Mullet Years and the Yellow Sunglasses.

Now, maaaaybe I'd kind of enjoy seeing him make out with Trent Reznor, just saying.  At least Trent doesn't have kids old enough to be computer savvy.  Imagine finding RPS about your dad. Ew.

Why, without fail,  does every apartment building in this city, including those I have rented within and those I have visited, have 'fuck you' (or sometimes 'FU' or 'Fuk U' is popular) scrawled on it's elevator doors somewhere within said building?

Emily Carr (local art school) suffers from fuck yous carved into a number of it's inner doors as well.  (UBC and BCIT, from what I've seen, do not.)

I see this, and I picture some jilted ex-boyfriend or girlfriend tearfully waiting for the elevator in the dead of night.  And then, on rage-fueled impulse, whipping out their keys to wildly scratch FUK U into the doors.

A Vancouver thing?  We're supposedly rude in an extra-special passive-aggressive Canadian way here. Do Seattle people do this?  I can't remember seeing a whole lot of this in Calgary.

It's like last may, when some (freaking awesome) person was writing huge chalk messages of PLEASE GOD LET US GET RID OF GORDON CAMPBELL down sidewalks and park pathways around Main and Broadway.  Except less fun.

Then again. When I was 20, (2000! zomg, I'm old)  I had this summer night habit of wandering out to deserted neighbourhood sidewalks and drawing ornate chalk octopi and fish by streetlight.  Cops only noticed twice, and apparently had better things to do than arrest me for drawing on concrete after midnight. 

Random thought: it would be really cool if everyone in this city walked around with paint or markers or chalk, and just unexpectedly drew things on sidewalks.  Or doors.  Things more interesting than FUK U.

Hey flist. I R better.  As of about yesterday.  I'll write a proper post about it, including the tale of the Stalin Doctor tomorrow. I'm just too tired and have had way too much sun to do y'know, work like that.

So please have some pictures of the parade instead.   It must have been about 3.5 hours long.  I ran out of memory (and then my batteries died, from a full charge this morning) by about hour 2.  But I got lots of picturessss.  It's hard to take good photographs of people who are moving in full blazing noon sunlight, so these are not super-artsy and brilliantly composed photos, but they are v. colorful.  At least!

As usual, click through on each thumbnail to see the full view.

( Picturesssss )

Yup, it's that time again.  It's time for me to squee like the most irrational fangirl possible over, wait for it... flowers.

I <3 flowers.  I make most of my illustration money from botanical illustration, which is not cool like animation, and mostly appeals to people older than your grandma.  But, it's lucrative.  And I <333 flowers anyway, I don't just do this stuff for the money.  (That said, I very much like money and I ain't complaining.)  I visited the Buchart Gardens yesterday with my mom, which is a 100 year old project to make something pretty out of the hole an abandoned quarry left on the landscape. I must have taken 300 pictures. 

I was thinking about whether flowers qualified as a fandom.  They definitely are a fandom for me, but I was curious if there actually was a fandom of flower people out there, having wanky arguments over the finer points of horticulture or something.  Aaaaaand...

...you bet! xD  I visited the Vancouver Rose Society's forum and found lots of wank. Heated arguments over which variety is best, whether blue roses are crap or not, 'omg you hor how could you say that about MY favorite hybrid tea', 'stfu! Hybrid teas sux, lol', wank about who had gardened the longest and knew the most, over who had grown what, over how Van Dusen gardens in Vancouver totally betrayed the fandom flower enthusists by planting a certain two varieties together.  This is definitely a fandom.  But given that the most batshit wank imaginable goes down in knitting communities and foodie forums, I guess I'm not suprised. 

My wanky flower opinions are:
1)I do not like orchids that much.
2)Hybrid teas are awesome, step off U HORS
3)I'm too busy lazy to have a garden of my own, I just like to look at other peoples' flowers.  And I don't care, lalala.

So, not too wanky just yet.  But I'm sure I'll get there eventually. 

Anyway, pictures.  Click twice for full view.
( Flowerseseseses )

A few things didn't turn out in the photos, like the Solomon's seal plant and the Japanese maple leaves.  In a lot of places, the sun was just too intense for good photography.  But I still got plenty of good pictures and it was worth the $26 to get in. 

Highlight of the day was when the two old ladies behind us got into an argument over whether this tree with big floppy white flowers was a dogwood or not. 

I'm moving to a new place which will have morning sun, so I can grow my own chrysanthemums!  Zomg zomg!  I'll probably be squeeing over that by late August.