In the iPod today, or should I say headphones..."You're Not from Brighton" - Fatboy Slim - incessantly.

Again and again and again and again.

Downloading stock images today. Then I get to convert them and stick 'em in place. Whoo hoo! But I can knock out thirty pages this way.

Must do cover scans. We got so much good stuff that I am scanning shots from all three setups. It's phenomenal. And great when you have to pick from the best of many instead of scraping for the One Shot!

Loving my job (you're not from brighton),
MG

Photo editing today, can only find black photo pencil. Doesn't work for contact sheets.

Can't find anything interesting to post. I have a horrible headache. Think it's the weather - hour long commute in snow and ice (usually 15 minutes) plus still feeling a tad under weather from earache.

Took a friend's hubby two hours and he nearly wiped out a fence.

My high school art teacher emailed me back! I sent him a note last week - after 15 years of silence, he finally gets to hear that I made it...largely due to him. Some days when I am sketching and the graphite is in my nose and all over my hands, I think back to those days, the console stereo, the stacks of 50s magazines, drawings all over the walls, the model standing on a table with the yardstick, the Sex Pistols blaring away, my hands stained with a thousand mistakes. I almost feel like I can look up and see the practice field out the window, the first sun of spring coming in; my whole life is ahead of me and I have no reason to think it will be anything but happy. And it is.

(big smile)

A nice, relaxing weekend at home with an ear infection. Finally today my left ear opened up, but right one is still ringing madly. Trying to take it easy.

I was bored and online wayyy too much, though. I have been meaning to watch the Lawrence of Arabia disc my folks got me for Christmas, but I just never got around to sitting on the couch for four hours straight.

My friend sent me a picture of her daughter, strapped in to the high chair. What's funny about it is it looks sort of like an old Hanoi Hilton photo; she's strapped in the chair and making a hand signal...kind up like an upside-down bird.

This song is playing in my head today:

I'm thinking tonight of my blue eyes
Who is sailing far over the sea
I'm thinking tonight of my blue eyes
And I wonder if he ever thinks of me

Maybe I'm just feeling moody today, but there are two friends I miss very much, both far away. One I wish I could smile at and shake his hand; the other, I'm not sure what I would say. Somehow I made this all sound about romance when it really isn't; it's about missing people who you consider important, and it's not really related to the song.

Cover shoot today. Must work.
MG

I am an utterly f-ed up human.

A shout-out to my homeboy David, for whom black is the new pink...

People who are on my company's military prayer list (they are active duty military):

Military prayer requests

This is how obituaries should be written. Bindy Lambton sounds like an amazing woman.

From the always wonderful James Lileks:

The Spartacists won’t prevail; I’m not suggesting that we saw Western liberal democracies dissolving before our eyes. There are millions in Europe who hate the US - oh, stop the presses. There are millions of people who believe that tyrants should always be handled with the delicate tongs of democracy - well, blow me down. “It is time to think about human rights, not money” I heard one French protester say on the news. “War is not the answer to war.” If it weren’t for the autonomous nervous system, some of these people would die because they’re too stupid to remember to breathe. War is always the answer to war if war is brought down upon you. Evil requires resistance. If a man in a crowd grabs your child from your arms, you do not wonder what brought him to this moment, or petition the city council for a resolution requiring him to hand over the skeletons of his previous victims. You stab him in the eyeball with your car keys.

Somehow I got a giant raise this week because they decided to raise the base salary for all the designers. How did that happen?

I realize again, God is good to me because He is good, not because I am.

There she is.

Did my second Pilates workout tonight. This time I didn't feel like I was going to yark afterward.

The plan is, 20 min video x 3 for the first week
20 x 3 plus 50 x 1 second week
20 x 3 plus 50 x 2 third week
20 x 3 plus 50 x 3 for the next seven weeks

then reevaluate.

I have to work up to this because of my wretched neck. Doc said anything over five seconds of flexion can quickly turn to crank; avoid crank at all costs and keep neck flat if it starts to hurt.

Much easier to sleep on The Hated Traction Pillow, though.

Argh.

I spent half the day today doing contracts, and the other half working on a new mark. I really need to finish this redesign soon.

Like tomorrow.
Argh.