Recycle.

I woke up feeling a little out of sorts with a bit of a cough, but decided to power through and do the Shred workout. It was actually only hard at the end. My mind kept wandering while I was working out so that made it go by faster, though I had to keep telling myself to focus on doing the exercises correctly.
I figured out how to make the sit-ups more effective only recently, by keeping my eyes on the ceiling as much as possible, literally trying to look at the ceiling somehow makes me use my neck muscles less and my abs more.

Now to shower and head to a coffee shop to get some work done.

I fucking love this terrible song and the ridiculous video that accompanies it. At the end she actually shows us the sleazy, dirty rape-fest house party she was talking about for the whole song, complete with many a dude rockin' that sweet pederast mustache. Something about this being a sort of valley girl talking dirty talk in her pop-y hip hop song is compelling to me. And that chorus is to-die-for catchy - oh oh woah oh.
I want to fall asleep in a bathtub at the end of a long day of hitching a ride to Cory and James' Totally Badass Kegger 2009 BYOB like Ke$ha.

Here it is - my Sequential Art final project from last year. We were to make a 4 to 6 page comic about, well, whatever we wanted. I choose part of my study abroad experience in Germany, summer of 2007.


Das Krankenhaus

It's been about a year since I sent this to the printers. I got the final printed comics this August and I never really shared the final product. Das Krankenhaus is German for Hospital, but directly translated means "sick house".
I've uploaded the scans from the printed comic (not the best quality but pretty decent). I've included a detail view as well as an overall view. It's short, but I liked playing with all the different media.

( Read more... )

I did the shred workout earlier, but forgot to post in the midst of getting ready for our Thursday show. I felt lots of endurance today while going through it, even though I hadn't eaten anything. Well, that meant I started having lots of muscle pain towards the end. I need to figure that out, eating before working out but not too close.

I'm trying to let the negative feelings and energy that slither into my brain like a succubus slide away, but it's easier said than done. How can you change years of fear in a snap? Mostly I'm tired of the "I-wish-I-were-dead" feeling I get after awkward improv shows. It's so pressing and deep it drives me insane. Like someone's pinching me and I can't get away. hardy har har tormented artist. I hate that too. I hate myself for hating myself.
I feel like I can't really tell anyone how I feel, at the root, because they don't actually just want to hear what I have to say.

I cannot get enough late night partying/hanging out these days. Oh man. I love it.

Interval training is the best for me. I get the results I want, in a short amount of time. I just have to keep it up!

Bleeeeehhhhhhh exercise. The Shred workout has you do lots of jumping jacks in the workout, and that reminds me of elementary school PE. I dreaded PE as a kid, especially in Graham, Texas where the PE teachers would mostly just make us run around a track every day because they were too damn lazy to come up with creative ways to exercise. And then they would stand off to the side drinking Diet Coke while yelling, "Pick up your stride, Beeler! Hustle! Hustle!" I silently cursed them and continued to make up little stories in my head as I kept up a weak jog around the track. In later years when we moved onto Team Sports I often had enough pent up aggression to pull from, but at some point I became afraid of the ball hitting me and so I'd move away from it. The best PE class I ever had we just played 4 Square every day, I was good at 4 Square. In high school I took dance instead of PE, which was fun, but once again it was, "Stand behind me, Beeler, watch my feet, Beeler!" I had no rhythm until I discovered my hips at age 16.

I excelled in a lot as a kid, but never in PE, dance, ...or math, for that matter.

How could I forget about the importance of living in the moment? Everything I love to do is best done while living fully and completely in the moment. But I did, I forgot.
And I suffered for it, pointlessly.

No more. Today is a new day.

It's been a good week and a long but overall good weekend so far. Almost every night this week Roy and I hung out with friends and drank, watched movies, played boardgames, jumped around, or took on an ill-conceived project (like recording a drunken podcast). We had friends sleep over at our house and it was great. Sometimes I feel like I take life too seriously and that we are all on a race to grow up into "adults", but really, spending time having fun with my friends is more important than any of that to me. Life brings strife naturally, might as well have fun with the people you love when you can.

Unfortunately, I still get stressed out and worried over all the improv shows we do. I want so many things to happen in them. I want the audience to have a good time, I want the players to have a good time, I want people to challenge themselves, I want to break new ground, I want to play with both comedy and drama, I want to present shows as theatre - with themes, philosophies, ideals, I want the narratives to be smooth and to wrap up nicely, I want a wide character variety to be showcased, I want some historical truth, I want people to be playful, I want people to act well, I want the audience to laugh and I want them to gasp.
An audience can absolutely love a show, can be blown away with it, and I can still be unhappy. But I'm reaching for something. I know it's possible and I'm trying to get there, and lead a bunch of people there with me. It's so hard sometimes. I feel so sick on Saturdays I have a hard time eating and then by the end of the night I'm starving. I did shows at 6, 8, and 10pm last night and by the end of it I was just drained.
I really love directing improv shows, it's just hard to have expectations for your friends. I can't give notes after shows because I don't want to drag people down to a negative place right after we did a good show, or a great show. I have to let my thoughts stew and then present exercises and explanations for the next rehearsal. It should be constructive and helpful, not bitter and frustrated.
I wear my emotions on my sleeve and everyone is always around.
I suppose caring a lot and having a vision is important. Even if my vision is never fully and completely realized I have gotten very close and presented something completely new. I just wish I could turn off my emotions sometimes. I guess it's something to work on.

There's still lots more to do. I got more Christmas shopping done yesterday with Val, that was fun and productive. A dress that I loved but was too expensive before was on sale and I snatched it up. Work looms on the horizon. I am trying every day to be grateful and happy.

This cold front we've had roll in makes me want to do absolutely nothing, so I'm trying to fight that. I forced myself into my workout clothes today and did the Shred workout. I'm getting tired of the level 1 workout but the level 2 is really hard on the knees so I'm definitely going to buy a new DVD soon. A livejournal friend of mine posted a video of cute little Korean girls dancing in a music video and it was adorable and motivating (cause they look so tiny and fit). Maybe I should watch something like that everyday for motivation.