She only sees what she wants to see

I find it somewhere between vaguely amusing and hair-rippingly infuriating the things my grandmother sees and says about my appearance.

For years she has nagged me -SO kindly, of course, you almost can't say anything because she's so well-meaning...- about my glasses. My black, rectangle-frame glasses, that look just like the ones before. "They hide your pretty eyes," she says, "You look like you're hiding behind them." She thinks I should get other glasses or contacts. No. They make it easier to communicate without words, they fit well enough, they match everything in my fairly utilitarian wardrobe, and provide me with adequate peripheral vision. And contacts dry my eyes out like mad.

My grandmother dislikes the way I have from time to time kept my hair in the past, short butch cuts that I used at school to swing around the gender-variant scale. I have had to pass these off as the result of a "$10 haircut," not a stylist who did just what I wanted, in order to keep myself in the closet to that half of the family. I finally have long hair again, and she commented this past weekend that I looked "So much better with your hair long, dear."

One of the main benefits of long hair is that it provides a veil, a shield to hide behind when I need it.

I want to scream.

In other scream-related news, Le Batard called me. I was not ready for this. I don't remember if I mentioned this here, but the last interaction we had before we left did not go well. Basically, he was an utterly insensitive, probably a manipulative jerk, did not pay attention to specific things I spent a long time explaining, and attempted to go against my wishes on a few counts. We had not spoken from before Sept. until yesterday, and I'm still not sure how to talk to him. I'm shaking and angry, even angrier after talking to my Dad last night pointed out a few more points where he'd been a jerk and I'd been too gracious to title it so at the time. Monkey and I are going to talk to him on Boxing Day, and I'm not sure how this will turn out. I don't know exactly how I want it to turn out. I wish he'd grow up and stop using people.

Wish us luck bashing his head in.

(metaphorically, of course.)

I'm also running at odds with my gender again, but not much I can do about that right now. 4 days of forced femininity have really warped my cycle of fluctuating gender ID & presentation. Whenever I've done this "forcing" before, it's rather fucked up my system, hormonally, but that's probably also due to the stress inherent in such exercises. I hope that a few days to settle down and let myself be 'male' or 'female' at will will reset me.

~Brill

Brains are leaking out of my heeeeeeeeeaaaaaaad

I started to comment, but it was a little long for that.

Visit was good, overall. Our car is WAY too small to have that many large people in it at one time, but we handled it well, I think. We got to meet my uncle's fiancee, and she's a sweetheart. They're goofy; it's cute. I wasn't able to fit any of my work into the car, which rather bummed me out. Buster's portfolio is much smaller than most of my work, so he brought that. There's a decent chance that I'll be able to go with Da when he goes back in a month, and then I can take some work to show, as well as the Christmas present for the grands.

On a less overall upward note, last night I looked more into grad schools that I will be applying to next year. This is scary. As my wonderful friend The Flower texted me when she was sending off applications, "Don't apply to the scary grad schools!" There was more, which I believe waxed eloquent about the benefits of living in the Alaskan wilderness versus applying to grad school, but I've deleted to text since, unfortunately.

Of the ones I had looked into thus far, University of Oregon and University of Mass at Dartmouth looked the best, program-wise. I did some more picking around their sites and looked at cost of living in those respective places. People are crazy. I am not paying 600/mo. for a 1Bd/1Ba. It is something "up with which I will not put!" (A phrase from my Mum, which I believe she got from her Grandmama. Not sure.) Ugh. I need more than the two schools on my list, so I kept looking and found this and this. I've looked more at the former than the latter, but they both look promising. One of my main sticking points is that I am poor, and am not exactly going into a field that's going to make me rich anytime soon, unless I get unbelievably lucky, so I don't want to exit grad school with more debt than necessary. If I can I can get a teaching Fellowship, Assistantship, or whatever the school calls it, I would be very very happy.

Louisiana looks like a very good program, but I really don't want to stay in the South, much less enter more deeply. Edinboro has an added benefit of not being very close to any large cities, unlike U. Mass. (WAY too close to D.C. for my comfort). I want to visit these places, but I don't know if I'll be able to. I think 5 or 6 colleges on my list would be a good number. Some part of my doesn't want to go to grad school, but mostly that part is the over-analytical part that worries about money.

The rural mountain roads in NW GA are very pretty this time of year, if you are ever able to drive them. Of course, they're gorgeous pretty much any time of year.

I can't figure out how to interpret the thoughts in my head, so bye for now.

~Brill

Ook.

Da, Buster, Klepto, and I are all heading down to GA today for a pre-Xmas family visit. We're leaving pretty much as soon as Da's finished getting ready. I am not quite sure how I feel about this. I enjoy visits, love my family, but playing 'good little straight conservative Christian GIRL' is exhausting. We'll not be the only family there; my uncle and his fiancee will be there, and probably my aunt and her new hubby. It's a happy thing and a stressful thing, this family-visit business.

I'm rambling. I should shush.

In other news, I pierced my ears. Rather odd considering some aspects of me, but I've been toying with the idea and decided to get it done last night. I will have pretty little white gold balls in my ears for 6-8 weeks, at which time I can switch them out for some of the others that I've bought in the past.

As much as I hate the movie West Side Story, this feels rather apt at the moment: "I feel pretty, oh so pretty. I feel pretty and witty and gay!"

Yes, Maria. Very gay.

See y'all later.

~Brilliance and Light

Wahoo!!!!!

All my grades are finally in, and the nearly sleepless nights and hard work paid off! I have, for the first time in college, a straight run of As for every class this semester! I am so bleedin' psyched!

*happy dance, happy dance*

Let's see if I can do that next term, too, eh?

why, blood, why?

I am starting to get rather freaked out. In the past 3 days (t/w/th), I have had 4 nosebleeds of not insignificant time/amount. The last one was tonight after the Christmas service on campus. I blew my nose -lightly!- and suddenly teh bluddz attaked. It took 15 minutes for the bleeding to stop enough for me to even try pinching it. I am going to the campus clinic tomorrow during lunch (and have been told by Monkey that if I don't go, she'll "bash you over the head and take you myself, Mmhm-mhmm.") I tried a number of methods earlier in the days to get them to stop, but apparently to no avail. I hope it's not serious. I had a cold at the beginning of the week, and I know it's partially connected thereto, but this didn't happen last time I got sick!

We'll see tomorrow.

On a lighter and less bio-hazardous note, the annual Holiday Art Sale is tomorrow (Fri), and I have 35 pieces up for sale in it. I've also finally joined the Art Club, and am helping out with the sale for most of the afternoon. Already one piece has been put on reserve for purchase tomorrow, and another girl was very interested in another when we were unloading work earlier. I hope I sell a lot of stuff, and that I can get feedback on my work from buyers, not just teachers and fellow Ceramics students.

Finals next week. I am SO not ready! GAH!

Sleep now, and another layer on my reduction linoleum cut tomorrow morning. My Women Studies and French professor has been very kind and is showing a movie all this week instead of work. I have a paper to do for the former and a brief oral interview/evaluation for the latter next week, but otherwise I get to zone and watch the movies. We're watching "La Vie En Rose" in french, and "Iron Jawed Angels" in WST. Both fabulous.

'Night, au revoir, auf weidersehen, et cetera, et cetera.

~Brill

As promised...

...pictures from ATL Pride, in no particular order:

(I have 105 pictures, so this is simply a smattering.)

These guys and gals were marching with sings for "Save the Ta-Tas," "Domestic Partnerships/Benefits," "Gays in the Military," "Youth Pride," "Unity," and "Love." One of the signs has Trans-something on it, but I can't read my pic, and my memory fails.

(Sorry, I do not know how to do the wonderful "click to embiggen" that Java does so well.)

Fabulous rainbow peacock people. I did get a front shot, but this has the better view of the spectrum. (I am peeved that indigo is no longer in the rainbow. First no Pluto, now they're taking my colors away. grrrr)

...IDK. Seriously. But it was an interesting sight nonetheless.

More people with signs! Honestly, this section was one of my favorites.

These guys were with the same group as above.

Here's one of the better drag queens that was in the parade. There were 2 or 3 others with him, but this is the best shot.

Many, many drag queens, as well as some of whose gender of origin I was not certain. This made me happy.

The bar/club the Atlanta Eagle got raided less than a month before the parade. The manner of the officers towards the patrons was absolutely horrid, and their float focused on that.

Awesome rainbow skating super-dude! He was going back and forth from end to end of the parade the whole time.

I just realized this one is crooked. And I have no idea how to fix it on here. Oh, well, take a gander at (a sideways) St. Mark's United Methodist. Woot! The insie was decked out in rainbows as well, but my camera died before I could get a shot.

There are more, but "les devoirs et le deuxieme examen francais disent a moi, 'ETUDIE!'" ('my homework and the secon french exam say to me, 'STUDY!'" Review while blogging, probably not the best way, but useful!) It makes me sad that I can't get the accents on here with the same key combos as in Word.

Enjoy the pride-tastic pics.

Laters,

~Brill

Reconnecting

I am a Ceramics III student this semester, the only level III student in a class of II, III, and IV. There are only 4 assignments for the entire semester, and Mr. Sir does not grade until the final day, so I have the whole semester to complete the requirements. The assignments are:

-Mix a glaze (he shows how, and then I mix another from the dry chemicals in the studio)

-One dinnerware set for two that matches/goes together. This includes 2 large plates, 2 small plates, 2 bowls, 2 cups, 2 saucers, and 1 or 2 something else (i.e. a casserole dish, a gravy boat, 2 tumblers, etc.)

-A sculptural series of four

-A choice series, number determined individually (I am doing 4)

Of these, I have completed the glaze mixing. Keep in mind that there are 1.5 weeks left of school, and I have 4 other classes to work on as well.

I have not been lazy. I have only the "something else" to do for my dinnerware set before it is complete. That life-sucking project has consumed the bulk of my class time since the second week of classes. I have accomplished a lot to that end, but at the expense of my other 2 projects. I started working on my sculptural series, trees, just after midterms, trying to use combined wheel-thrown forms that I then altered. It failed. At life. Repeatedly. I talked with a classmate from the IV class yesterday, and she suggested I try coil or slab methods of hand-building. (She's doing practically nothing but hand-building for her individual objectives, and has some fabulous stuff. I can't wait for the shows this year!)

I decided to give it a try; I've been doing nothing but wheel work for the last year, though I really enjoyed building things by hand. I tried a tree done with coil method, and Joy! Elation! SUCCESS! Something that vaguely resembles an arboreal entity! Not only that, but I really felt closer to what I was doing than I have for a while. Though I am focusing in both drawing and ceramics, recently I have felt a kind of malaise in ceramics class, closely linked with not producing anything I really felt "in to" or anything that could go towards my show next Spring. Working with the clay tonight, not trying to force it around on the wheel, I felt that start to dissipate; I felt excited and connected to what I was doing.

I hope I can keep this up, and finish my projects, but mostly keep that connection to my work that I seem to have strayed from. I knew the other methods were there, I just had spent so much time on the wheel that my brain wasn't processing anything else. I need to keep the cerebral cortex firing on ALL cylinders, and connecting thoughts. D'oh.

Night.

~Brilliance and Light