FEELING BLAH

I've been really blah and unhappy lately. I haven't been able to make enough money selling jewelry to fund my half of our expenses, not even close, and so have been looking for a new regular job. I'm not happy about it. The idea of spending that much time and energy on something I don't care about really gets me down. I don't have a choice though. I can't expect Jon to shoulder all the costs of living with his student loans and per diem job at the mental health clinic. My family is helping with money but my mother is constantly complaining that she's broke so I don't expect much help from her. Everything my family does is very helpful monetarily. They're not the most pleasant bunch if you need emotional support but when it comes to money they can be helpful.

I'm not having any more luck finding a new job than I was selling jewelry. Actually I'd say I'm having more luck with the jewelry even though I've only made one sale in the last couple months. I've come to accept that only a very few people want my jewelry. There are so many resin artists on Etsy and most of them make more interesting stuff than I do. I can't compete. The resin thing just isn't working so it's time to pack it up and move on. I'm trying to put my efforts towards building a portfolio for graduate school but it's hard not to feel depressed over my failure. I was so excited to start making jewelry full time but it's so hard to maintain that level of excitement when you're losing money and no one is interested in what you're doing. It's really hard not to take something like that personally and it really messed with my head. I've been feeling worthless and directionless for a while. It's really hard to sit at home while my boyfriend goes to work, class, and his internship. He's building a career and I'm sitting on my ass looking for a part time job that I don't want in a place I don't like. So far our relationship hasn't suffered but I can't say I'm not even a little bit resentful. He's on his way to bigger and better things and I'm sitting around waiting until it's my turn to go to graduate school.

My mood is made more sour because my electronics keep breaking. My DSLR broke when we moved here. My computer's battery crapped out a couple months ago and now the computer itself is breaking down. Slowly but steadily it's losing function. Now it's making this awful grinding sound when I boot it up and I have no idea what's causing it. All I know is I can't afford to fix it or replace is without help. I've asked or help from my grandparents and mother to buy a new computer for my birthday this March. I've gotten a very wishy-washy "I'll talk to your grandmother about it" from my mother. Nothing more concrete than that. Every time I start my computer I expect it to refuse to boot up. It's not long for this world and the idea of not having a computer is pretty scary in a world where everything requires a computer. I have my iPhone for simple internet things like checking email and searching for simple things on the internet but I can't download applications to schools on my phone. My little notebook mouse just crapped out too so now I can't even distract myself with World of Warcraft. I'm feeling very what's the point of it all these days. Applying to grad school for 2011 seems very far away and it hasn't been enough to sustain me. I'm stuck in a rut and I don't know how to get out. It doesn't seem like any amount of positive thinking is helping me. I can't seem to force my brain into happy thoughts while I sit here and waste two years of my life in Massachusetts.

THIS IS WHY I HATE MYSPACE

Because of people like this:

Hello,how are you doing ? well am a new member on myspace. just looking 4 a woman of my life...
i was browsing through profiles now and i got your profile.I found your profile page very interesting,you pictures look cool.Indeed,I can tell You are so beautiful!!Anyway,i wouldnt mind talking to you so i can get to know you real well and may be know what you want as well...You can send me a message on here ,i will be pleased to see any message from you.

Regards!

And this:

u r realy my wife and realy realy my wife and i want u . plz plz plz its reqeust plz marry with me ,

I was going to reply to these people but I'm just gonna let it be. I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings because I'm so squishy-hearted... I also don't want to open the lines of communication with these people. There's no point wasting my time or hurting their feelings. Nobody grows as a person from something like that. This is why I hate Myspace and usually avoid it. I hop on there once every couple of weeks to say no to 99% of the people who friend request me and to see if anyone I know is doing anything interesting. Social networking isn't really for people who hate to be social I guess XD

There are some people that it's really important for me to keep up with, even if "keeping up with" is just saying hi every once in a while and letting them know that I think about them a lot. I hope my friends know that just because I'm not a fan of emailing or talking on the phone that I DO thing about them almost every day and I love them the mostest. <3 <3 <3

LAME

Gotta finish this hat! It needs a second ear flap and maybe a brim?

My cute little babies!

Some stuff I've been working on. Cupcakes, mini pies, afghan, hats... Also gratuitous cute animals picture!

I know I've been really slacking... I've let everything slide, from my resin pieces to work for my portfolio so I can apply to grad schools. I've been wallowing in this unhappy mire. It's not OK. Success doesn't come because you were sitting on your ass and it's time I realize that and get my act together. It's hard, I know, but sometimes you have to do the hard thing. The problem for me here is this: Just because I know how to fix the situation doesn't mean I'm motivated to do it. There is a possibility that I'll continue to sit on my ass and do nothing but make hats and work on this granny square afghan. While I'm still being productive it's not in the areas I should be. I need to be working on resin, I need to be coming up with new designs for jewelry. I need to work on pieces that I can actually be proud of and call art so that grad schools will want me. I want to be able to make a living from crafting and arting, not folding clothes and answering questions about return policies or if we have a public restroom (we don't). I want to be recognized for my hard work and talent, not my ability to sell gift cards. I want my life to matter. Right now I feel like it really doesn't. That sounds really angsty but it's true. I feel like I have no purpose, no meaning right now and it really depresses me.

I don't want much from life. I want to make a living off creativity. I want to be with Jon. I want to maybe squeeze out a couple kiddies and have a family. I don't need to be married, rich, kept... I just want to be loved and happy. So I guess it's time to try and make some of that happen for myself. The kids will have to wait until Jon and I have stable jobs and a steady income. I need to be out of school before I even think about having kids for real. It would be too much to have a new baby while still working on my MFA. Not to mention the fact that I usually work with some pretty toxic stuff (resin, oil paints, solvents) so that would be a bad thing to expose my pregnant self to.

What I'm saying is I want to work for myself. I want to be my own boss, make my own rules and be whoever I want to be without these 8 hour chunks of my life being taken over by The Man.

SLACKER

I haven't been doing much of anything out here. It's like being marooned on a deserted island. I see about as many people as you would see on a desolate little island in the middle of the pacific and there's about as much to do. So I sit, I read, I do stupid stuff online. I ran out of pink yarn so I can't finish the scarf I was working on. It's too hot to cast any resin. Thank goodness for the Harry Potter books or I'd be a pathetic blob of pudding sobbing on my bed.

It takes so much WORK not to go totally nuts. Being bored is getting on the express train to Crazy Town. Having nothing to keep you occupied while you worry about stuff you can't do anything about isn't healthy. I've had way too much time to think about everything and that leads to doubting myself and other people in my life. Most of me knows that it's temporary, it'll be over forever once I get to Boston. There's this little part of me that keeps saying that I'll never get there. This little, evil, nagging voice keeps telling me that things will be different between Jon and I. That I can't trust him. I keep having to fight down this feeling that he's sick of me. I don't know if it's because having a relationship over the phone is one of the hardest (and worst) things to do... Or maybe I'm sick of myself - and feeling like this - so I expect everyone else to hate my attitude too. I know I haven't been easy to listen to. I know it's hard to be Jon in this situation. He can't help me at all accept by finding us a house, and he's working on that.

I just can't shake these yucky feelings that everything is wrong. All I can do is hope that I'll feel better once I'm not in Moab Utah anymore.

CROCHET

I'm learning the ancient and awesome art of crochet! I've learned how to chain, how to single crochet, and double crochet. I learned how to start an amigurumi ball and if I just kept going with it I could probably finish and amigurumi ball. I understand the CONCEPT of decreasing but I haven't tried it myself yet. It's the neatest thing I've learned in a long time! I've been experimenting with making circles different ways and sizes with different stitches. I learned that by increasing the circle way more than you need to you end up with ruffles! That's really good to know. I bet I could make a circle with ruffly edges now.

I have this problem though. I want to do EVERYTHING. I want to be able to crochet any shape I want at will, I want to be able to make awesome resin jewelry, I want to design and sew clothes. I've always been the kind of person with a lot of interests and one medium has never been able to satisfy me fully. I always want to know more, do more. That all takes TIME though and I hate being a beginner! I get frustraited and have no patience for myself and the time it takes to actually learn something. The upside is that I know how to do a lot of basic stuff in a lot of different media. The drawback is I don't really know how to do much of the fancy stuff that takes years of practicing that one medium until you know EVERYTHING about it. Of course, if I keep up my dabbling eventually I'll have enough experience in all these skills to do the fancy stuff. But it'll take me twice the time it would take someone who was just focusing on that one craft. I'm ok with that though.

I think crocheting is a great thing for me to learn. My mother and her mother (my grandmother) are both master knitters. I tried learning to knit on several occasions but it never stuck. Maybe because knitting is too structured. I think crocheting will stick with me because it's more free flowing and intuative. Most of my understanding of craft is intuative so that works for me. Now I can cary on a yarn craft and not feel like an ass for not being a knitter. I just wish someone had taught me when I was little. Imagine the strange concotions I could whip up with that kind of experience! I'll get there though. I can just imagine four years from now I'll be able to crochet all kinds of things and I'll be amazed that I was ever an akward beginner! I hope XD