(no subject)

Today has been such a freaking mixed bag. On the one hand I did a whole bunch of drawing work, attended a study session even though it was my day off because study sessions do not respect days off, and that helped me feel more like the project was tackle-able as well as giving me some stuff to take notes on that might help me in the future. I got an aardwolf and a blue-footed booby drawn for my aunt in San Francisco.

Which is part of the mixed bag, seeing an alert on Twitter that San Francisco is probably coming in for an earthquake in the next few days based on recent tremors and where they're coming from and other seismological predictive things. I don't know how accurate it is? Someone I trusted RT'd it and someone else I trust reasonably well said it's bunk science. But goddamn if there's one thing California doesn't need more of it's Bad Shit, and yet that seems to be most of what we're getting this year.

And then one of our ferals has developed a swollen lower jaw. I'm not sure if it's an insect bite (there are sleepy wasps still around, I think), or an injury, or a bad tooth. We're going to try to get the poor bastard to the vet tomorrow, so pray for our and the vet's structural integrity and, you know, no major bites or clawings. Especially since he is a feral, I really worry what their protocol for treating ferals is. And I don't want anything to happen to my boys. And. Ugh.

I did get some drawing done today. I finally cracked open my Illo sketchbook for the first time in, um. Almost a year? I tried Tombow brush markers and Copic markers on it, the Copics bled through as they do but the Tombows didn't at all, as they... don't as much? They are streakier. I'm not sure which I care about more. But the paper was nice, so that'll make a nice color-drawing sketchbook and then I have an asston of Canson Universal Sketchbooks for pencil and ink sketches for The Drawing Holiday That Shall Not Be Named. Which I've decided, to hell with the prompts, I'm just going to do human anatomy for all of it. Allll of it. Feet and hands and gesture drawings and bodies and knees and wrists and heads. The last week should be devoted to faces and heads on bodies because augh. Hopefully if I draw a bunch of terrible things and maybe 30 decent ink drawings I will improve. At the very least it will be practice. And I can practice ink shading techniques.

I'm tempted to get another art supply subscription box, but that's only because I've been watching art videos all day while I draw things. Even if? when I can afford it I don't think I want to do that, I wouldn't know what to do with all the art supplies I'd get. I still don't know what to do with all the art supplies I get from the one box, but so far I've found room for it all. Even if I haven't found time to try it all. Maybe this weekend if we don't have to worry too much about Cassius.

The writing continues. I'm getting better about rotating between projects as I go through. I'm doing some background work for other things, I... have a lot of work I need to do to get even vaguely current with everything I want to get done on that one project, but bit by bit and day by day? Page by page, chapter by chapter, research by research. Next up: books or documents or text or information on the Greek Orthodox church. I think I just need to do the work and stop feeling overwhelmed by it all. Remember to just do a little bit each day and not try to put a deadline on it. It's not like all the deadlines haven't been overturned anyway.

I was doing a lot better. And then stuff happened, mostly the cat stuff, but now I'm worried and tired and sad. And cold. My feet are cold. I need to remember my socks more often, the temperature's dropped again and it's cocoa and hoodies weather.