Tag: soap

Creativity Is For My Health

The days have been a challenge and I can only hope that means better times are on their way. I haven’t been my best self lately.

I went to the doctor on Thursday to get an EKG and some blood tests. There doesn’t seem to be any huge concerns other than my sugar being a little high, but they want me to come back soon and do a stress test in a couple months.

I stopped on the way home to mail about 40 press kits and drove by Spy Pond where the sun was sparkling on the water. I’m still struggling to get out. I really should have driven around or went for a walk to take pictures, but I’m struggling with agoraphobia and institutionalization after being kept indoors almost two of the last three years.

I took some photos when I was out, and when I got home, I found that the free editing program I’ve been using was no longer working on my phone. Technically the app went down in 2018, but it still worked on my phone until the other day. I asked for suggestions of good free photo editing apps and was told to try Snapseed and PicsArt, so I gave them a go.

These were the photos I took…

Jymi Cliche in a johnny

I thought that one was kind of cool with the grunge effect. It would make a cool book cover for a psych ward book.

That same day, my parents went to the beach and my mom sent me a picture of her wrapped in the towel I gave her for Mother’s Day from my Wicked Cliche Store.

I did some work on the Wicked Cliche Creative Friends page that features art by a very diverse group of artist from around the world who I call friends.

Please check that out.

I got a gift in the mail from my friend who makes soap. She’s listed last on the Creative Friends page under WickedSoftOrganics. This is the Trans flag one.

I listened to my favorite Nas album, God’s Son on vinyl.

and I cooked this delicious meal….

I cheated and got pre-made sour cream and chive mashed potatoes, but I made the chicken which had salt, pepper, and fresh thyme on it, and was cooked in a sauce made from honey, pineapple juice, Dijon mustard, garlic, and cornstarch, plus pineapple chunks and cashews. It was delicious and easy. I’ll do it again for sure.

Here’s an inspiring song from the God’s Son album by Nas…

Happy Juneteenth, if you can really say that. It seems more like it was made a holiday to shut people up while actual actions to fix systematic racism are not being taken.

Peace

Pride Is Time To Be Grateful

I have a lot to be grateful for, despite the last few days which have been kind of awful. I won’t get into it all right now but my anxiety and stress are through the roof and the shit that’s been happening is not fair to me and it’s my life story and I’m tired of it. It’s a constant fight that gets me seemingly nowhere. BUT this entry is going to concentrate on some of what I’m grateful for, because although I said I’d throw these last couple days away, there was actually some good too.

June is Pride month and I found a few of these old photos from Boston Pride in the 90’s. Fun times with old friends, most of whom are still in my life.

I got some pride soap from my favorite soap maker WickedSoftOrganics

That’s it below. It smells delicious.

I got this mask in the mail the other day. I bought a set of 2 Bob Dylan masks for my dad for Father’s Day, but I know he wouldn’t wear this one. I dunno if he’ll even wear the one I’m giving him, but I kept this one and took a selfie in the heat…

I made some new stickers for my press kits and sold 2 packs of 6.

And I got my pack of 250 stickers of my logo in the mail and they came out better than expected…

I texted about 50 people for addresses to send press kits to and got to talk to all kinds of people I hadn’t really talked to much, some of whom are interested in the book, so that is good news!

I started editing “I Write the System” by reading it aloud because that’s something highly recommended to people who edit their own books, and it’s been great, because for one thing, I can tell how it’s far better writing than The Godchild and everything flows naturally and sounds great, but there were a few very minor things that I definitely wouldn’t have even noticed were wrong if I hadn’t read it aloud, so I think it’s gonna be worth doing. I’ve also been trying to figure out what chapters I might be able to read from it if I were gonna do a book reading, and I found a couple so far that I think might work. It’s been good to get that done.

This gift to myself also came yesterday, which cheered me up. I can’t afford to buy myself much other than a couple little things under ten bucks, but I put most of my money towards stuff I hope will turn into money coming back to me at some point, like the stickers, envelopes, printer ink, and stamps for my press kit and I’m thinking of buying my own ISBN numbers for my future books rather than using the free one on Amazon that keeps you limited to them for life. Unfortunately it’s $200 for one ISBN or $300 for ten, so it makes sense to go for ten since I already have plans for three book releases in the next year and I especially don’t wanna get stuck with Amazon for the children’s book because I heard the quality of their children’s picture books aren’t great….but, I can’t afford $300 for anything right now so I’m hoping to ask for the money as an early birthday present. But yeah, this Funko Pop of Hitchcock was too cool. I still wanna direct a film some day and he was one of my earliest influences.

What else? It’s hot as fuck, for one thing. I need a vacation from the stress.

BUT I’m grateful to be alive. I got my medicine and took a cold bath with my pride soap, I have the AC in the bedroom, music playing, food to eat, a bed to sleep in, friends, family, etc. Speaking of family, my sister helped me learn how to do something new with my web site. I’m using it on this page. I’ve been reading from an incredibly helpful list I got on LinkedIn about how to make a web site that actually gets seen. Obviously that’s the goal of making a site, but of course it isn’t easy… at all, but I’ve already learned a few things and redid the front page if you wanna check it out here.

That’s all folks.

Here’s a random song I’m in love with for the road…

New & Improved Book Cover, Queries, Soap, Medicine, Clouds & “The Most Valuable Poet On the M-I-C”

I’ve had a busy day today. I woke up at my parents’ house, showered, packed, ate a bagel, and drove an hour drive home. The drive wasn’t bad at all. Now that I take an exit to avoid part of the highway that I don’t like, and I know the exit numbers have changed, at 3PM on a Spring day there’s no traffic or blinding sun, and there was no rain like I’d anticipated. It was just a beautiful Spring drive.

When I got home, I comforted my cat right away. She’s an anxious cat who needs to constantly be comforted and she has a hard time when I leave her but I was only away from her for one full day. Still, she’s howling like crazy in the other room as I write, but I’ve given her some food and attention… maybe not enough…

I got some popcorn teriyaki chicken for dinner, talked to my mental health worker and my boyfriend, and I re-did the cover for my upcoming memoir while waiting for my weed. I’d made one yesterday, but I felt like I could do better. I definitely think I improved it a little bit, even though it’s the same basic idea.

I liked this idea of a claw machine representing a very flawed and rigged system, pulling my androgynous baby picture out of a pile of photos of me from various stages of my life. They are the same photos I used in the one I made yesterday, but I added the 8th grade, big hair photo, since 8th grade is an important part of the book and it’s probably the furthest from my true self that I ever was. I also changed some of the details of the person I drew, who is supposed to represent a young soldier.

As soon as I finished, my medicine came…

This is one of my favorite strains. LA Confidential. It’s recommended by Snoop. You can read about it here…

https://www.allbud.com/marijuana-strains/indica-dominant-hybrid/la-confidential

I saw that my soap came from my favorite soap shop on Etsy. This was one of them. Gorgeous!

https://www.etsy.com/shop/WickedSoftOrganics?ref=profile_header

I took out the trash and took a couple photos of the clouds…

I’ve been listening to music, took a bath with my new soap, smoked a little bit of my new weed, and I sent out a few more queries. I got another encouraging rejection today, and this one included a link to a web site kind of like the other two I’ve been looking for people through, but this one has a bunch more people I haven’t tried yet, so I researched four of them who were looking for memoirs and sent them each what they wanted, which were all different. It was hard work as usual, but maybe it’ll pay off. I feel like maybe I’m giving up too early. Now that I’m editing again and fixing a lot and am halfway through, I feel like it’s worth trying some new people. If I was close with a few like they’ve said, maybe this extra edit will be enough. I thought I was out of people, and I haven’t heard back from them all yet, but I don’t know what to expect. I only know what happened last time. This book is stronger in most ways. I do believe in it. Even if I self publish, I think this one might get read more and a little more buzz. I can only hope it reaches the people I’m meant to help with it.

I listened to Big L in my car on the way home. He was a brilliant artist. Some of his lyrics are potentially offensive if they didn’t make for such beautiful poetry.

And that is that.