the new typographer.

i have decided that i want to pursue a career in typographic design. yes, i want to do graphics and all that good stuff, but i want my emphasis to be in typography. i want to be a complete font nerd (moreso than i currently am). i want to create my own fonts, i'm assembling even more ideas for decorating my room, which i posted to my design blog a few minutes ago. it's going to be tedious but such delightful work i am so excited. i'm to design a font which screams ME. it's going to be sarcastic, a control-freak, and pretty gangster.

i finally have 2 days off in a row now, aka a set schedule, so i can get things like decorating and designing accomplished. i have no problem getting hyped about this stuff, it's getting motivated enough to do it that i'm promising myself i'm going to do. here comes a lot of research, staring at my computer screen, and obsessing over line weights and curvatures.

i'm stoked.

a little home decor.

ok, so i am halfway moved into my new place and i have decided to decorate using a very minimalist, linear theme with paint, lines and artwork that i am going to do myself. knowing me, all of the art going directly on the wall will be typographic- meaning that i need to figure out what text i'm going to use. inspirational? sarcastic? hopefully both. i want my space to be 100% ME. here are some themes i'm thinking of:

thoughts? either way i'm going to do it so i guess it doesn't really matter what anyone thinks or says. i want to try a more illustrative approach as well, maybe incorporating a little pointalism into my type. i bought several pieces of canvas as well to get started on the wall pieces, which are going to be more organic as opposed to the rigid and linear art being painted directly on my wall. hopefully joe will help me, seeing as he has an eye as well for this kind of interior design. i'm going to try and be done with everything by mid august, seeing as i'm still in the process of moving in! pictures posted as soon as they're available. :)

organizational woes.

yesterday and today were days of organizing my life. figuring out what i'm doing right and what i'm doing wrong, looking at what i need to change to make it right.

things i am doing wrong:

-spending more than double my rent's worth of money per week.. on nothing long-term.

-not actively looking (hard enough) for a design job

-drinking too much

there are more but nothing i'm going to delve into at this point. the money issue is the biggest one for me, although that's directly related to the amount of alcohol i choose to consume. seriously though, i started keeping track of my tips and everything, and i made over $650 in 4 shifts in tips alone. how much cash do i have on my person? like $150. ridiculous. i should be a millionaire by now if i had been even slightly NOT retarded... fired amy, fired.

in other news, i applied for a credit card yesterday (mildly ironic seeing how i have money issues), but i need to build my credit, and i get 30,000 miles through united airlines with the first $250 i spend! i've had a credit card before and never had issues with debt or anything. i guess that's how i end up justifying the amount i have been spending.. i'm still, by far, completely debt-free. i mean i haven't used my debit card in almost 3 weeks except to pay my phone bill. i just want to kick myself for not saving all the money i just wasted getting wasted. i just signed up with mint, which is basically a free financial advisor that helps you budget and monitor your spending. umm, yes please? commence save mode now. check it out. ok, enough about money. promise.

i saw an ad on craigslist for a design position at a place called fine art digital printing. PRINTING! that is definitely my medium of choice, as opposed to web. i'd love to get more experience with video though. i need to update my web portfolio and write a cover letter, but i meet all the requirements they listed, so that could be really exciting if things start to work out for me.

i need to buy a new camera. i'm currently sitting in muse, a coffee shop a couple blocks away from my house, and they have photography all over the shop. plus with photoshop and everything, how cool would it be to go on walks and just take pictures? or of friends? i'm talking artistic pictures, not facebook ones.. i know, look who's talking. i just want to get "back in the game" and not stay sucked into the service industry black hole, as fun as it can be.

ok, good pep talk. time to re up.

happenings.

yet another large gap between writing. oh well. i guess you could say a lot has happened in that gap.. i had a boyfriend for a hot minute, decided that was a terrible idea so i ended it. it's kind of funny how slapping a title on something that was totally fine to begin with will fuck things up. i told myself from the very beginning to not raise my expectations just because he's now my "boyfriend", to keep things exactly the same as they were before, aka casual. maybe i just needed the title to secure exclusivity? who knows, i can't say i didn't know from the very beginning it wouldn't be a really long-term thing, but was just the natural progression of how things were between us it seemed.

luckily things between us are totally fine now, nice and back to normal. he turns 25 on sunday, which would be cool if it wasn't the day after the 2 year anniversary of his dad's funeral. i can't imagine losing a parent, how absolutely heart-wrenching and awful it would feel. it's hard enough watching someone else suffer from it 2 years later. all i can do is be there, like i always [sometimes very frustratedly] have been.

bonnie, my dog of almost 16 years is fading fast... my mom just wrote a blog about it with pictures of her and everything. she has dementia and is losing muscle control. poor girl can barely eat, although the vet says she's not in pain. i NEED need to get home soon to spend some time with her and my parents. i miss non-work friends too. whitney, sarah, kate, michaela, chadly... it's those people who keep you sane sometimes when you spend your time with people you work with and talk primarily of work.

the apartment search continues, although i'm pretty sure i'm going to move into jay's building on denny and dexter. hardwood floors, practically downtown, next to a gas station, liquor store, 24-hr subway, whole foods, the market? golden. and i'm living ALONE :) the only person i'd live with is whitney. period. that was flawless, although i think it's important to experience living on your own, see what kind of a roommate and how responsible you really are. i already know i'm not the easiest person to live with so i can cross that off right now.

scratch the big screen tv. i am debating whether or not i even want cable. i'd rather get a massive monitor :) ok enough about my apartment dreams, i'm going to a coffee shop because for some reason i have been awake since 6:30am and it's 9:43 now. disgusting. since when are sunrises something you wake up to as opposed to taking a hint that it's time to go to bed?

welcome home.

i need to make the trek to u village pretty soon and pick up art supplies at the bookstore, i.e. a few canvases and paint. all i can think about these days is moving into my own place. i'm nowhere near my financial goal at this point but that was over by about 4 or 5 grand, so i still have enough to get by. i'm .5 seconds away from buying a 50" plasma screen tv.. totally unnecessary, but i've never been extravagant so i'm deeming it as ok.

i'm really going to use a lot of discretion in choosing my next apartment.. i want hardwood floors, a cool view- preferably of the water, which i miss like crazy- somewhere where i can walk to work and to friends' houses, modern yet very comfortable, all appliances working as opposed to my apartment right now where our dryer hasn't had a heating coil for about 3 or 4 weeks [grrr], and most of all just to have alone time. i NEVER get alone time unless i close the bar and no one's awake anymore. i guess i don't understand how at least one of us is home all the time..

i need to start walking to work like joe. get away from even the people watching activities on the bus. i can actually have secrets that other people don't observe because they live with me, where they don't hear any news in my life at the same time i do. moral of the story, i want privacy when i need it- and i am NOT a very private person. if i want to run around naked, i will be able to come mid-july or august.

i'm not sure where exactly i want to live: capital hill, eastlake, south lake union, waterfront... but those 4 areas are sounding the most appealing as of this point. close to downtown yet removed enough for me. the water aspect of it all is becoming more and more of a priority the more i think about it. i can just imagine sitting on my balcony or standing and just staring at the water with a cup of coffee.

i'm a huge list person, so i'm making a wish list of things i would ideally, although expensively, have for my new apartment:

+ that 50" plasma screen

+ king sized bed so my feet won't hang off once in my life

+ new bedding

+ sectional couch

+ a plant :)

i'm assuming when i acquire the bed, if at all, will be later on but a girl can dream, can she not?

i always have a mixed reaction when people encourage me to not focus too closely on money. part of me is like well yeah, obviously don't let it consume you, blah blah blah, but the other half says why not? i'm the type of person who enjoys spoiling friends, being in a position where i'm able to help if needed, and just feeling secure in the fact that i earned for myself financial security as a result of a series of good decisions. but enough of further proving that i am a walking contradiction.

give me a break.

i am being resented for being good with my money.

i just think you think you're better than everyone.

what? you really feel like that?

when it comes to money, yeah, i do.

sounds tame and harmless enough, but at the time it was probably the most hurtful thing that could have been said considering the circumstances and all the shit that has gone down. a

for the first 2 months of our lease, 2 out of 4 of us were getting payday loans every paycheck. i was in a position where i was able to help out, so i begged them to borrow money from me so they would have a chance to catch up without being charged up the ass with interest rates and whatnot. i have paid all 3 of their rent portions, 1 on more than one occasion, only asking to be paid back when they could. i purchase the majority of the groceries, so the other day i suggested that someone else could buy them this time and i'd be totally fine with it..

que resentment.

i come home the other night to find one of them drunk, and the other 2 busy playing wii. i come to find later that they had just had a heated discussion about what a money-hungry bitch i was, and some fairly shitty things were said. and then as soon as the light bill is brought up, which is outrageous, i'm told that it has not been paid because i have not written a check. because I have not written a check, really?

everyone i talk to tells me to break my lease and move out. everyone. it's so tempting but i wouldn't screw them over like that. i am never home on purpose because i hate being there. i guess i'll keep the cheap rent and just never be there... you can bet your ass though that i'm done buying groceries.

the hair of the dog.

thinking about what might have been lost, i choose to lose it. you simply cannot create something that does not exist. i continue stand correct thus far on the issue of the severity of putting logic before emotion, as a typical aquarius does. emotions, i have come to find, are an equivalent to alcohol. all logic goes out the window because you are now being led by a substance that should not, despite various cliche sayings such as "follow your heart", be making your decisions for you.

no.

alcohol knows no logic. your heart knows no logic. trust me. my employee appreciation party was this past wednesday, before which i downed a half of a fifth of jameson from the bottle via a straw. when one of my bartenders arrived at the party, i was apparently humping a speaker. tell me the idiot that says one can be logical under the complete influence of alcohol, and let them try and drink me under the table. we'll talk after the 2-day hangover and re-assess.

back to my point: i guess i'm just realizing more and more that there is less and less of a reason for me not to be guarded. i would love to be able to take people for their word and assume the appropriate actions would follow, but i cannot. i don't want to think of how many times i have been guilty of the same, but i see so many people around me succeed at this whole game of falling in love and i, for the life of me, cannot walk myself logically through those steps to be able to justify it.

besides my relentless brain working overtime, i've been helplessly in overtime for the past month straight at work. i just got a promotion [yay] and now have over 10 positions to clock in under. my manager just laughs at me. he grills the shit out of me, but we're cool. i can't wait until i never have to work at a restaurant again. i want to write, i want to design, to draw, and take pictures and work with developers while pouring all of my time into this screen.

moral of the story, i am in desperate need of social interaction outside of work, and therefore less time to analyze.