lol, sometimes I overlook the biggest bits of news.

I've decided to move to Charlotte, North Carolina :)

I'm really excited about it, too :) I chose Charlotte for a lot of reasons. Of all the places I looked at, it has the most to offer me, and what it offers trumps pretty much anything any other place had to offer.

I will be moving back on or around July 1st! That's only one month!!!! God I can't wait to be back home in beautiful, friendly North Carolina and hug my friends and family again. I was a retard for moving so far away. I'm coming back a little older, a lot stronger, and, hopefully a little wiser.

So, Charlotte folks, know anybody looking for a roommate? Or, know of any cheap places I could get a one bedroom place?

Disc golf anyone? Trivia? Hmm?

See y'all real soon :)
-P.

My trip home to North Carolina this weekend was awesome :) Many thanks to everyone who I was able to visit with; it was awesome to see you :)

The drive back to NC was LOOOOOOOONG, but fine. I stopped in Greensboro, hung out with Josh, Laura and Say-Tay, before heading back to Raleigh and giving my mom a big hug :)

The weekend was great. I relaxed, ate good food, slept, played a bunch of frisbee golf, got some clothes fixed, spent a ton of time with my friends, mom and dad. I even got to see my Brother and Emily and my nephew Simon!!!!

It was... the most Up I've felt in a while. It was a good recharge.

More soon. Just wanted this to be its own post :)

<3

So, a few weeks ago, I realized that I'd never printed my name to any of my shirts, so, to remedy that little problem, I whipped up a little name drop for myself, carved it and printed it to all my shirts I'd made. It came out looking pretty neat (pictured right). Basically I drew my name out in charcoal on a scrap of paper, transferred it to a block by burnishing the back of the paper, then carved the original charcoal lines as best I could, giving a cool chewed up look.

While I was at it, I made few vids documenting the process and just posted them to YouTube. Sorry for the shitty quality, but my camera's old and wasn't ever intended for video.



And don't forget Parts 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.

Hope that was educational! And now, I have the flu, and feel like a bag of assholes. I'm going to bed. Good night.
-P.

I went back to North Carolina for a week and a half over the holidays. Oh god it felt so good to be back in NC! I do love that place. The drive there was good; 7.5 hrs from Auburn to Raleigh is fantastic time. In that week and a half, I spent time in fully five cities, visiting family and friends. After how depressed I was feeling about work, it was really a huge lift. I felt relaxed, and loved. One of Angiashears's friends had a great term for it: growing your soul back.

I feel lame mentioning gifts, but they were exciting, so I will. My folks got me my very own paper cutter (FUCKING SWEET!!!), a wok and some chinese/japanese cookbooks (*droolz*), a bunch of highly useful tools, a bunch of printing paper and some great music. Ooooh man, I needed the exuberance of Stevie Wonder's greatest hits back in my life :)

Speaking of the wok, I cooked up some sesame tofu the other night, but it didn't come out that great, partly because of the recipe. It *does* taste good, but it's basically just tofu, veggies and noodles stir-fried in sesame oil; it wasn't the stuff you get at a chinese place, drowning in that gooey glaze.

Now, let me talk about beer for a second. Yes, that's right, beer. No... it needs more emphasis. BEER. As I've mentioned, Alabama's beer selection SUUUUCKS. You can't get anything in sizes larger than 16oz, or anything above 6% alc/vol. Moreover though, I think people down here just don't have a sophisticated palate for beer. You can get a handful of good ones, but none that really shine. So, before I returned, I took a trip to Total Wine with Devinsoundholestar and purchased 80 fucking dollars worth of beer. Seem excessive? That'll last me probably two months. I picked a few bottles of things I'd never tried before, but by and large I got beers I knew to be fantastic, and beers by breweries I respected. Some highlights include: Bell's Two Hearted Ale, Smithwicks's, Wychwood's Hobgoblin and Fiddler's Elbow, Framboise Lambic, Aventinus, Fuller's London Porter, Taddy Porter (OH FUCK YES), Bridgeport's Black Strap Stout and IPA, Highland's Oatmeal Porter and Kashmir IPA, and three of Mendocino's Hawk-named ales. I am--quite literally--salivating just thinking about these delicious libations.

I spent New Years with my dear GSO and Charlotte friends in two parts :) I spent New Years Eve with Devin, Dirk, SJshinychocoholic, and Devin's sister at the Green Burro. Heh, I kissed Devin's sister, which I'm pretty sure weirded her out, alas. The following night I spent in Charlotte with Joshjoshtothemax, Lauraalethalruby, 'Nessa, 'Manderpurple_fridge, Glenndepressedba, and Count Rossulahellblazer99. Drinks were had, games were played, innuendos were innuendoed, and it was so great to be there :)

Some pictures, for your enjoyment:

Phew... there is much much more I'd like to post, but it is getting late, and I must be up early, so for now good night, dear friends!

-P.

*Sigh* Free to good home?
This has been on my mind a lot lately. It's... just not working out having Nehai down here with me. I guess he's lonely, and bored, with me gone all day, and a roommate who stays in his room all the time. For every one moment where he's a sweet and playful catten, there are ten where he's a righteous pain in my ass. He's been getting increasingly aggressive with me, scratching and biting my feet without provocation, more aggressively trying to get into whatever food I'm eating, and more disruptive when I'm working on anything. Some have suggested getting a second cat, and that may well help, but I'm not sure it's the best solution when I anticipate the next 10 years of my life to involve a hell of a lot of traveling and moving around. I need to think about it more, but... I may start looking for a new home for him soon. If you know of someone who would give him a happy, loving, permanent home, ideally with other cats, let me know. Mm. This makes me kinda sad... but that's why this came first. The rest of the entry is an upper.

The Prodigal Son RETURNS!!!!
Hey Folks! I'm gonna be coming back to North Carolina for a few days this week! I'll be in town Thursday through Sunday. I *reaaaaallly* would love to see you guys while I'm there. So who's gonna be around and would want to get together? Also, would any of you Greensboro-ites be willing to collect me from Raleigh? I realize it's an hour and some change drive, but I'm going to be flying into NC, so I won't have my car. Anyway, comment, message, or call my cell to make plans!

PARTY OUT IN THE COUNTRY!!! SKEEEEEEEYEEEWWWW!!!!
Heh, so work is throwing another one of our big shindigs SATURDAY, DECEMBER 1ST!!! It's going to last all day; we're having 12 bands in 12 hours, including several I've seen live already and they're fucking great! All folk/bluegrass/rockabilly stuff. Papa D will be there grilling up his special brand of southern home-cookin' and my friend Susan will actually be helping him, and making some vegetarian chili. I'm postin' this because if any of you want to come down and visit, check out 'Bama and see the show, this would be a great time to do it, and I'd be glad to put you up for a night or two or three :) Come on down!

-P.

I dream--in every sense of the word--about living in a house like one of these.

-P.

PS - Does anyone have mp3s of the following songs?
Eames Era - Got your note
That Dog - Minneapolis
Histrioniks - Underneath it all
Wonderful Smith - Hard alcohol
The Sounds - Much too long
Dressy Bessy - You stand here
Stars - Elevator Love Letter

I have a soft spot for indie girly pop. It is my secret shame.

So, it snowed this morning, about an inch or two. I feel it needs to be pointed out that it was 70 fucking degrees two. days. ago. Oh North Carolina weather, you are so manic.

I'm dong yoga about once a week, thinking about maybe stepping it up to twice a week. Oh man it really hit the spot yesterday morning. I felt awesome all day. Not going to the gym as often as I should, but once a week is better than nothing.

I finally got started screenprinting this week. So far, I think I like it. It's... different. The results I've gotten thus far have been pretty shitty, but I'm not really disheartened; I wanna figure it out. So far I've done two colour layers of a three colour print using stencils, and I think they're part of the problem. For the last layer, I think I'm going to do the screen fill method and see if that gives me better results. I wanna burn some marker drawings into the screens later on, too. Thankfully we've got that exposure unit now. Pictures in a few days.

It's been nearly two months now and I'm still LOVING living here :) Angie is t3h bestest roomie EVAR! Seriously, how often do two people with identical life-styles end up living together? It's just a really awesome situation.

Anyway, Imma go eat some soup and go to class. Later!
-P.

Hey everyone! My New Years celebration started off with a reunion of old friends. My friend Beccahatevslove, my longest lasting friendship, who now lives in Chicago with her fiancé Chris, was in NC visiting with family and decided to drop in. Damn it was fun seeing her again :) Another of our old friends, and one of my old roommates Ryanmindwater came into town at roughly the same time and we all got to hang out for a while.

( Pictures, Pt 1 )

Sadly, Becca and Chris couldn't stay for the party, but another of my good old friends dropped in shortly thereafter. One Ms Sarah Riggspolyksena (pictured above, and more below). The rest of the crew dropped in fairly late, hehe, at about 20 till midnight. Our dear friend Sarah Coatesnightsiren51 had a little surprise in store for her at the party. Sarah and her boyfriend Scott presently live in Orlando, FL where they work as performers for Disney (correct me on that if my facts aren't right, guys). Sarah flew back up to spend New Years with her family but Scott 'had to work.' Scott surprised her by flying up and arriving at the party about five till midnight where he got down on one knee and proposed :) She said yes and quite teary-eyed the two rejoined the party :) Pichars below!

( Pictures Pt 2 )
Hope everyone else had a very Happy New Year!

-P.

It's monday morning, still chilling in Raleigh, coming back this afternoon.

*mmmmmm* it has felt SOOOO good to be home. My mom reorganized my room a bit, and I like what she did with it. Been relaxing a lot. Mainly christmas shopping, watching discovery channel and reading. Last night my mom made a *really* effin' good dinner: pork chops with rice and black eyed peas (puerto rican style), with apple sauce and avocado on the side. Holy hell I haven't eaten that well in a while. In a little bit I'm gonna go have lunch with my dad, which will be awesome because I haven't seen him in too long, and I wanna talk art stuff with him.

Got a new cell phone last night. Since I'll likely be travelling more in the coming year or two (and because I'm using TXT messaging like a fiend), my mom switched me to a new plan, which came with a new phone. I got the LG 9900 enV. After $50 rebate, only $50. Sweeet! This thing is badass, man. Looks like a normal bar-phone on the outside, then flips up to reveal a huge hires screen flanked by speakers and full qwerty keyboard. It's got a 2MP camera, too. Lol, Angie described it is a geekgasm phone. And, she's completely right.

Moved into a new place where I feel comfortable, getting to see my family again, getting full nights of sleep, playing with my kitten all the time. This is what I needed. This is my reward for making it through that semester. And I'm feeling much, much better.

-P.

I spent all day yesterday working with John Gall in his studio. He's got these little ~2x3" etchings that he prints up for Clark Whittington's Art-O-Mats. He needed to print up a new batch to send in so I helped him out for the day. He wants to print up about 200 and we did 60 yesterday. There were six plates in all; we each took three, inked, wiped and laid them out on the press, then cranked them through all at once. It was a ton of fun and really beneficial to get that kind of practice printing with a professional printer (he scoffed when I called him a master printer, hehe). He does his final wiping with the heel of his hand, as opposed to with newsprint/phone book pages, which was a new way of working for me. It doesn't get all the plate tone off, but leaves a really nice even tone which looks like a subtle collé. (Click the John Gall link on this page and you'll see one of the plates we were printing.) I'm going to head over to his studio again next Thursday for another round of printing. Should be awesome :)

I'm now done with three of my classes: etching, photography and colour theory. I'm all but certain I've got an A in etching, even though I suck and didn't turn in a fourth project. I got a B+ in colour theory (score!) and much to my surprise I've got an A in photography. This is a teacher that says she doesn't like to give As, so double score! Just gotta finish up 3D Design, now.

Now that school is mostly over, I'm finding that a lot of my energy is gone. Not creative energy; I've actually still got plenty of that, I mean physical energy, I feel tired all the time. It's nice to relax, though.

The new place is really nice. I like it here. Still getting settled in, though; this afternoon I'm working on unpacking the kitchen, plus buying some things we need for the house. Little things, like shower curtains, cleaning supplies, drano, etc. Maybe some bean bags, too. Bean bags would rock.

OH!!! Speaking of which, We're having a housewarming party on the 15th!!!!! Come! See our new place! Eat, drink, be merry! Our hallway should be lined with artwork, and there will be homemade guac, and kittens. It shall be great.

A week or so ago, I started writing an LJ entry about the history of the old house while I was there, seeing if I could detail what happened there and why things got so bad for me. I'll finish it up and post it (friends only) in a couple of days. It's hella long, and I doubt more than 2 or 3 of you will really be interested, but, it'll be there, and be cathartic for me.

Anyway, I'm off to unpack and shop.

Ta!
-P.

Hey everyone, I'm writing this from my new apartment. Luckily for me, someone in the neighbourhood has an unsecured wireless network which is giving me a pretty good speed.

I'm moved into the new place, and so far I really like it. There are a few rough spots that need work, presumably damage from previous tenants, but that's ok, I like home improvement projects. Poor Nehai, though, he's so freaked out. Last night he stayed under my bed for a long time, but finally came out, and started exploring. He still seems pretty freaked out this morning, but I think he's going to be much happier here without constant commotion from people... and dogs.

I really should be in the studio right now, but decided to sleep in after the long move yesterday and I wanted to finish setting up my desk. I think in a few minutes I'm going to get ready, go to Adams and buy a huge stack of printmaking paper, then head to the art building and get to work. I've got two huge projects to finish and a day and a half to do it in. Fuck. Me.

The date went ok. She wants to go out again. I'm not opposed. Not going to go out again until after I'm done with photo and etching, maybe colour theory, too, we'll see.

But, for now, PEACE BITCHES!!!!!
-P.