you really don't want to know

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.

“Say it’s only a paper moon sailing over a cardboard sea,
But it wouldn’t be make-believe if you believed in me.”

I don’t know if the garbage truck broke down, or what, but it sounds as if they’re walking up the street dragging huge plastic bags to collect everyone’s recyclables.

Either that, or a metric shit-ton of people have “just married” cans dragging from the backs of their vehicles as they leave for work today.

But I’m too busy to investigate further.

I’ve always had stage fright when I’m tackling a project or artwork that obviously isn’t my strong suit. If I’m not the best at doing the task, I really get nervous. In college, it was my drawing classes. When the page was blank, I’d sit there forever, just trying to convince myself to get started. Once I started, I continued as best I could…but my marks on the page were very, very light. As a result, my drawings were….good….but didn’t have the tonal range they would have if I weren’t so timid.

The same goes for programming. Over the past month or two, I’ve stumbled through some web projects, learning more and more CSS as I go…but at the outset, I didn’t know jack. So it took me a long time to get comfortable.

Now I’ve got an Actionscript-heavy Flash project in my lap. It’s the sort of thing I could have easily tackled back at eCornell, but it’s been YEARS since I’ve done this shit. I’ve been trying to study, but it hasn’t really come back to me yet. Anyway, this project is the sort of thing I’d definitely want a few weeks to complete. The client needs it tomorrow, it was put in my hands two days ago. They understand it’s not an easy task, and they are completely willing to take an “incomplete” piece just so they can launch the site, and then we can update as soon as the real complex scripting is complete.

Honestly, this is perfect. Once I’m finished with this project, I’ll pretty much be totally comfortable with Flash again. It’ll help me immensely to get this under my belt. But I’ve got to get there. There are a lot of abstract, object-oriented thought patterns that I need to re-introduce into my way of thinking.

FUUUUCK I hate being nervous.

Our cat is a nut-job. But occasionally, we get opportunities to laugh at him.

This went on for the better part of an hour.

It’s hard to believe you’ve been gone almost ten years. Ten years! I can’t even fucking google you.

I wonder if there will be cake at your grave this year. It’s been so many years since I’ve been able to go and see. I miss you, man.

I’m talking about the dog. She’s dreaming. Get your mind out of the gutter.

Anyway, yeah, Rascal’s cute as could be. She’s 12 years old, doesn’t ever bark (unless the cat pisses her off), and has always been mellow as can be.

But she’s one pissed-off little bitch when she’s dreaming. Barkin’ all over the place, growling and baring her teeth, pickin’ fights. And usually, she goes directly from barking to drinking/eating/swallowing. Careful Rascal, your Id is showing.

Aaaahhh, the life of a dog.