Currently

Currently Reading
I'm not reading anything in particular. Now that I don't have to study whenever I go to the library, I can just pick up whatever comics and manga look interesting and dive in. It's nice. No, I'm not reading "real" books right now. What are you gonna do?

Currently Writing
Lately I've written a spattering of dumb poetry. What I've been wanting to write is blog posts. And I haven't been. Because tumblr. But now I'm cutting back on that. I need to write and draw more.

Currently Listening To
Owl City, like always.

The past couple months I've had a thing for Adam Young, but I'm putting that on hold right now, because as much as I from my limited knowlege think the two of us could get along and hang out for like, life, I don't have the pleasure of knowing the man personally (...yet???), so I don't need my imagination running away with those ideas. From experience, I speak. Results can be disastrous.
Nevertheless, my roommates are all sick of hearing Owl City. They've told me. Yet I cannot stop. One of those things I just can't seem to get tired of.

Paramore. If I was a more musical type person, I would be the lead singer of a punk band. When I am alone I like to belt out some strong girly vocals. Once Peggy heard me from outside and downstairs.
oops? Sorry, neighbors...


Twenty One Pilots is a band that my roommates told me about that was supposedly obscure. I bought the album because it was one of iTunes' most downloaded for the year or something along those lines. It was 8 dollars, so I was like...

I think it's kind of hilarious when people think nobody knows about something. I've thought it about things. I was wrong. That's usually the case. If you know about it, there are many people like you. Anyway, the music didn't catch my attention the first time. It's one of those things that grows on you. Lyrically, I liked it, but rap, especially "white rap" is not my genre. Twenty one pilots is pretty ok though.

Currently Watching
I started an interesting anime called Kyoukai no Kanata, and I'm still in the middle of Attack on Titan, but I'm taking a break from TV now because I don't want to waste my break and I need to create more.
I saw The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug on Saturday, and Frozen on Sunday. Both of them just made me want to make stuff and use my imagination more. In different ways. The Hobbit made me want to work out and be a cool hero in my head.

Frozen made me want to collaborate with Disney one day. Just be involved in the making of movies I guess. Going to the movies in the theatre really inspires me. I should do it more often.

Currently Arting
I still haven't made a post of my recent multimedia sketchbook... Or my shoes! Maybe I should do that tomorrow. Remind me? I'll go into more detail there.
I'm trying out a wacom intuos tablet! It's really fun and I definitely want to get one of my own. Here's something I "inked" and colored this evening:

That young man is Pace and he stars in Fledge Fighters which I have probably mentioned on this blog before. Good news in that area! Before, I didn't really have a direction for the story to go, you know, a plot, or a setting that "felt" right. Now thanks to a 3 AM idea rush, I have both of those things and I'm probably going to do some more background work before starting over (since I only got 6 panels in before school took over my life this year).

Current Mood
Bah Humbug. I don't really get Christmas this year, because the restaurant I work at is open on Christmas. I get to work from 9:30 to 6:00. What fun. I won't get to go home to my family until like 8 at night. The next day we're shipping off to the coast for my cousin's wedding. Which is gonna be great, because I am looking forward to long walks on the beach with my favorite person in the world (me) and hanging out in the cool house I went on a retreat in once. Christmas is just going to be... sorta passed over. I'm not much of a holiday person anyway, except that they're an excuse to take the day off.
Not if you work where I work! -tries not to grumble for five years-

Pinpricks

PINPRICKS
 
I imagine that God, on high in His infinite splendor
lifts the fabric square of space to His eye and squints.
There, slipping in and out of focus, are the stars:
pinpricks
in the universe.

I am on a dock, feet hanging above the water
and I lift my eyes to squint at the vast canopy of space.
There, giant, fiery, but far away, are the stars:
pinpricks
in the universe.

I am at least a hundred times smaller than God
so why am I allowed to share a metaphor, squinting at
(give me grace to see more often through Your eyes)
pinpricks
in the universe?

Where WAS I?

Hello, blogreaders, loyal followers, my minions. For once I am sitting with my computer with some time on my hands and no school I should be doing with it. Yeah, that's right. The end of the semester is finally here. My review sheet for my only remaining final is all filled out, and I feel pretty good.

I've hardly blogged at all, and I have indeed missed it. I've been spending a lot of time over on tumblr, and while I occasionally make posts about my personal life, I just don't feel as much freedom to do it there. People on tumblr care more about funny posts and pretty pictures, and I like those things too. There are just certain places for certain things in people's lives, I guess. Just like I'll rarely make a blog post for a 3 sentence thought, I won't ramble on in detail about my life hardly anywhere but here.

I haven't had a lot to write about. I only got 25k on NaNoWriMo this year but I'm okay with that because I was working a job as well as 12 credit hours of college classes. And at least I wrote something, even if it ended up being a mishmash of journaling and freewriting.

I've gotten more into Owl City again. I mean, it's not like my like of it ever left, but I never bothered to get into Adam Young as a person or a musician, I just listened to the music a lot. Now I listen to the music a lot AND keep up with the fans on tumblr, participate in the twitter Q&A's, want to draw pictures based off of like every song and well... daydream a lot. Why can't I know Adam personally? I think we would get along swimmingly.

...I'm okay.

What else? I've been making a lot of art. A lot of my doodles end up on instagram, if you care to follow at mangapasta. I'm probably also going to make a megapost of what I've been working on in my sketchbook. I could make individual posts. Then it would look like I've been blogging more. But maybe that's not fair...

It's been cold for the past week or so here in Austin. Almost nobody spends time outside and it's hilarious to see people all bundled up. I like the cold and don't get cold as easily as my roommates, so it's giving me hope that when/if I move more north, I will survive.

Have I mentioned this? The current plan is to move to Portland Oregon for at least a year, probably in 2015. I hope to eventually do housesitting jobs so I can live all over the nation, and pare my possessions down so that they all fit in say, a Honda Fit or something. Swap out a futon or a bedroll sort of thing for my comfy mattress, own just a few dishes, and of course I'd keep my art stuff. I already don't have a lot of stuff I don't use, but I bet I could cut down on it more. I could probably contribute all but my favorite manga volumes to a library, for example.

I wonder how much cutting down I'd need to do on clothing. I'd need enough to account for multiple types of weather, and stuff that was simple enough that people wouldn't care how many times I wore it. Maybe it would mean getting rid of some T-shirts. I do have a lot of those. I have just the right amount of pants already (4 skinny jeans, 1 pair of corduroys, and 1 pair of thin pants for layering etc.) I have a good amount of shorts too. I could use more skirts, though. This girl can always use more skirts. Preferably just over knee length, twirly, and patterned with designs and colors that I like. Probably only need one, two dresses, tops. Short (above the knee) dresses pretty much count as shirts though. I PROBABLY don't need so many sweatshirts and jackets. Then again if I move up north long sleeves will be more commonly found on my arms.

I just feel like I have too much stuff all the time. I always want to get rid of some of it, but then I use most of it. I just have this stubborn minimalism streak in me that conflicts a lot with the artist in me that has a zillion hobbies, but I want to satisfy them both?????

STOP TALKING ABOUT YOUR DREAMS, CLAIRE, you yell at me, WE WANT GOSSIP. WHAT ABOUT YOUR APARTMENT LIFE????
Mainly my struggles with apartment life involve dishes. I've become almost as guilty at the others at this, but dishes get left in the sink even when the dishwasher is empty and ready to receive. And me and Emma are usually the ones to clean it when it gets to the point of topple-potential. Or inability to use the sink. I seriously want to try putting most of the dishes in storage and having specific dishes for each person, so that we have to wash our own when we want to use them. To see if it works, you know?
When it comes to general mess it's mostly not mine, so that can be frustrating. But in my room most of the mess is mine and not emma's, because I throw my laundry on the floor.

I'm really happy that after Thursday I won't have to get up at six fifteen in the dang morning. I am nOT a morning person, and my 9 AM class this semester has only had the pleasure of my wakefulness because I am a good student and try really, really hard. Yet still today I literally fell asleep sitting with my chin resting on my hand. It was probably only a minute or so, but it was definitely at least the second if not third time I drifted off despite every effort not to.
Today, I skimmed a book about sleep and definitely show signs of being sleep deprived, but I knew that anyway.

I start feeling tired around 1 AM usually, so I'd like to be able to sleep until at LEAST 9 if not 11.
Next semester I have a 9 AM class again, but at least Emma's in that class too and she will already be driving. If I don't have to take the bus, it won't take nearly as long to get there.

TWIG had some massive error and we're having to start the site sort of over from scratch. Fun times. We all lost a lot of work. If you're a young writer looking for a forum community, try twigwriters.com. We could definitely use new members and content right about now. 

UMMMMM there's probably much more to update y'all on but you're probably remembering by now that I'm not good at sticking to a theme when blogging. "why did I ever miss her blog posts," you're thinking. "Plus now that gifs work on blogger, we'll never see the end of them."
(I'll try to do better. But the gifs may not stop)

Pros and Cons of being at home.

I mean at home at home. In my parents' house.

Good:
Much food. That I'm not buying.
Time with family. Hugs, building stuff. Teasing everyone and arguing for fun
Driving the 15-passenger van again. Just for funsies. I'd ask to inherit ol' Buster if it wasn't such a gas guzzler.
Can use printer for important school

Uhhhh:
Like where do I sleep? Couch or couch?
Thanks for doing my laundry I hope I get all my underwear back
Going to work is an hour driving instead of four minutes walking
Brought schoolwork and did hardly any

Traffic Signals

Over a week ago (on a saturday, I believe), we were running low on groceries, so I thought I'd go out for lunch. It was two days after halloween and I trekked to walmart to check out discounted wigs (did not purchase any). After that I went to Chipotle and ordered my usual: Vegetarian burrito with pretty much everything except a couple of the salsas (I feel like mixing them all would be a bad idea somehow). Yummmy.
Burrito clenched in hand, I walked home thinking nice things, listening to Owl City, and daydreaming. But then, when I was nearly there, I saw in the shade of a tree by the intersection, a homeless guy with a shopping cart. Immediately the thought came to the forefront of my mind: Give that man your burrito.

BUT I WAS LOOKING FORWARD TO IT I GOT IT FOR ME NOOOOOOOO

I knew it was God, but I tried to weasel out of it. After all, I had purchased a burrito with the intent of eating it. It was vegetarian, what if he wanted meat? I did have food at home, but not much... if I just kept debating it until I got past... and I did. Oops, too late I guess. If God really wanted me to give my lunch away, I thought briefly, then the crosswalk signal wouldn't change or something. But this light, unlike others in the city of Austin, was reliable and always moved on a certain cycle.
And it didn't change.
sigh.
I turned around all friendlylike and presented the paper bag. "Would you like a burrito?" I asked. He thanked me multiple times and even said "ooh, it's a big one."
Of course I had to wait through the whole traffic cycle again before it changed to "walk" and I went home to eat plain leftover pasta with frozen vegetables.

I guess the point of this is that God indeed does physically intervene in our world, and also that I am not a perfect generous human being. I have a long way to go and need the grace of God (and sometimes some shoves) to get there.