In the Forest

"We live in a forest of unspoken expectations."

A great quote by my favorite advice columnist, Cary Tennis.

**

I ate fried bread today and it was wonderful. It wasn't exactly vegan (fried in butter, friends) and so definitely not healthy, but certainly delicious.

**

Penelope Trunk has a great post on her experience with postpartum depression that is shockingly honest.

Up too late

It's not yet 12, but it's still too late to be up on the internet pretending to work (it's amazing how long that lasts. It's as if by virtue of the fact that I'm sitting behind the computer, some part of me actually believes I'm working. That part is a dumbo).

So, I sort of had this mini blog identity crisis. Such a nice problem to have really, if you think of all the problems you could possibly have (better not).

Is it a vegan blog? Is it a writer's blog? Wannabe artist? Just a personal me n' my friends blog?

Should I try to diagnose myself with something from the DSMIV so that I can jump in the boat of some blog niche? HSP? Borderline, maybe?

For now I'm making peace with the fact that it's a personal/writer's/artist's blog. After all, writers can write about whatever they want, no? And if it's a personal blog, then it's still fair game. As for art, well, I did used to post a few sketches here once upon a blue moon.

To indulge this newly found laissez faire attitude, I wanted to link to some of the websites I have been spending too much time checking out of late. Most of them are vegan blogs.

I have discovered belatedly that it's VeganMoFo (vegan month of food), the vegan version of NaNoWriMo. Who knew? So decreed Isa of Post Punk Kitchen fame.

So I found:

Vegan Dad
Vegan Fat-Free
Pickled Treats

plus there's Yeah That Vegan Shit, which I already knew about. (Where I found this great recipe for chocolate peanut butter shells, which are as amazing as they sound).*

It's just nice to know that they're all out there.

And just so you know, it's not all blogs and no action. I recently tried out a pumpkin pie from Vegan Fat-Free blog, pumpkin bread (veganized by replacing eggs with flax seeds), pumpkin soup, and even roasted the pumpkin seeds, all from one pumpkin. I even made a pumpkin pudding from that pumpkin! It seems pumpkins will feed you for life, at least in autumn.

Today I found another cool blog, this time not vegan: will draw for cookies. It's an art/sketch blog.

Okay, it really is time to sleep now.

*Writing this I remembered once upon a time I intended to have a vegan links round-up, but apparently I never got round to it. But maybe I'll do a follow-up to this post with the other food/vegan links I like with the information I wanted to include.

Writing Link; Paper Chinaman

I made this happy-looking Chinaman with my origami class yesterday.

**

Good link for the writerly-inclined: How to Become a Famous Writer. An excerpt from a book of the same title at the No Media Kings website, where she advises to publish as much as you can, however you can. One suggestion: "Print poetry on stickers and post them around town and in train bathrooms." Ariel Gore, the author, also has a cool blog.

Educational Comics, Finding Your Life Purpose

***

It's funny how a job confers life meaning. It shouldn't; shouldn't there be things I want to do naturally?

But there aren't. What I want to do is eat cookies and watch Sex and the City and check my email a hundred times a day.


I'm thinking about the dreaded life purpose.

There's the obvious "make the world a better place," which is all very nice and good, but incredibly vague. All kinds of tiny and humongous actions would fall under this broad umbrella of leaving the world better.

A most interesting website, Anxiety Culture (they have features about why phoning in sick is the best thing you can do for the economy and how to avoid responsibilities, all written in complete earnest), offers something more specific in an article entitled, "How to Find Your Own Purpose."

They offer a simple formula:

1.		Identify what you like about yourself.
2.		Identify how you most like spending your time.
3.		Imagine your idea of a perfect world.

Your purpose is what links these three things together. In other words, it is the way you can use your favourite characteristics, abilities and attributes in activities you like best, to manifest your vision of a perfect world.

====================================================================

I've never seen it explained so succinctly.

Here's another web page I liked with information on finding your purpose:

Finding Patterns to Find Your Purpose at the blog Success from the Nest.


I've already tried answering these questions quickly, (both from Anxiety Culture and the 'Finding Patterns' post), but have yet to tie them all together to discern my life purpose.

Guilty Liberal

Some cool links I've come across:

• Life Remix, a frequently updated collection of interesting blogs (I found it through the Happiness Project, one of the featured blogs).

• No Impact Man, another of the blogs in the Life Remix collection, is the blog of a man who is trying to live a zero (net) environmental impact existance for one year while living in New York City. He classifies himself as a "guilty liberal" who basically decides to put his money where his mouth is. So far, his posts are honest about what's involved (one of the first posts ends with, "God save me, please, from myself and this crazy project." I really admire his guts and the lack of nambsy-pambsy approach, it's not just about "two paper napkins a day less" but a hardcore thorough attempt. The existentialist ideal of having the courage of his convictions, in other words. 'O'balna.
  

Pink Comics

A veritable smorgasbord of comics - discovered yesterday in the treasure trove that is keri smith's archives (think way back, I started from the beginning, 2003): Drawn and Quarterly. Clicking on the 'Artists' tab will lead you to little rooms for each artist where you can see previews of their work. Check out Joe Matt's. (Everything is in PDF).

Beware Greeks Bearing Gifts

Cool stuff:

Naptime Writer blogeress wrote an interesting post about blog inhibition: "...trying to be clever and funny and insightful in every post....it's inhibiting, unless you're having a particularly clever, funny, and insightful day." Leading people not to post.

I'm attempting to get over this by posting more often.

Jean Railla of the Get Crafty website mentioned how much she liked Ethan Lipton's music on her blog. I loved the song Pirates of the Heart on first listen.

Heat and Hatred in Cairo

The heat of the summer seems to have gotten everyone around me in a bad mood. Or at least definitely me. S. thinks it's the lack of escape from chaotic Cairo, which everyone seems to agree needs to be escaped on at least a semi regular basis.

The heat hasn't let up, but my hatred has, for at least a little while. Long enough for me to, in the little cracks between hating, think of ideas of things to do in an upcoming zine workshop I want to conduct.

No, I haven't conducted a workshop before, and yes, I'm excited.

I think the idea was at least partially inspired by finding my beloved missing "Invincible Summer" zine anthology by Nicole J Georges.

Also (this is kind of to a side) I am really loving Summer Pierre's blog these days. She just posted a variation of her 'traditional' fliers that she does - leading me to dig into the archives of other wonderful fliers she's done - an illustration a day combined with stories from her past. Very inspiring and just cool to look at. Plus they're cross posted on her blog itself (the archives link takes you to flickr).

Back to battling the heat. And Cairo.

Keeping a blog

According to Ryan Healy who writes for Penelope Trunk's blog The Brazen Careerist (whose blog I actually read very often), who blogs about the "intersection of work and life," keeping a blog is a smart career move. Not a blog like this of course. A proper blog where you choose a subject and focus on it til eventually you become an expert. (Think Ramit Sethi's blog, or the Happiness Project. Or 52 Projects.)

Alas, my blog is far from that, but besides from the career impact, or lack of it, I often find myself not posting at all because I just don't know what to write about.

In a sense, writing is selfish. Or writing about myself is selfish. Who cares?

Nobody needs to care; my blog hurts no-one. Very few people are even aware of it's existence.

Anyway, check out my delicious list here. Basically bookmarked links I found interesting.

Oh and check out Scott Adam's blog, the man behind the Dilbert cartoon. His blog is serious and funny, and sometimes both at once. Check out his "Meaning of Meaning post." There's something I think about a lot.

Til I can figure out a decent direction for blogging or just make my peace that I can't/won't.

Screen Time & Links

Well, seeing as I'm currently rendered brainless from too much TV (ouch, yes, I know, TV Turnoff Week* - I'm sorry gods of Intelligent Media Land or Adbusters and my own higher self), I may as well forgo my pretentious pseudo-intellectualism and just deliver a few links to my one reader out there in cyberspace (thanks A!).

One of the best new finds was the funny and educational Things I Hate blog by Ramit. Alas, the last blog entry is dated sometime in July of last year, and an email from Ramit in response to my query revealed he is now too busy to blog there. However, Ramit also runs an up-to-date blog about personal finances, I Will Teach You to be Rich. RIP Things I Hate. The (blog) love affair was brief.

Other blogs -
Get Crafty founder Jean embarks on a personal challenge to host 25 dinner parties in 12 months based on the idea that dinner parties build community. Pretty entertaining read so far. And nearly inspired me to throw my own dinner party. Alas, still too lazy.

Also check out Naptime Writer, a recently-signed book author (and literature Ph.D.) who writes while her three year old son naps. Clever and feminist (check out the discussion on chick lit in the archives).

Finally, I love the website design of Clock Crew. I actually have no idea what this website is about, but the design is really cool. (Note: link from Dinosaur Comics, where the site was attributed to one Zombie Lincoln, who designed this poster).

* TV Turnoff Week is this week, from today until April 29. Good luck observing.

Pix n' Linx

Websites I've visited recently and liked:

• The Happiness Project blog.
  
• Planet SARK
• Adbusters' accounts of Buy Nothing Day events
• One of two spin-offs of Nano, DrawMo
• Woolgathering: nice artist's blog of daily drawings
• Gaswaternothing: same idea.
• Hyper Death Babies: very cool web comic which uses retro cartoons
• Ink Finger: another artist's blog...
  

photo on left: the exhibition from outside.

About SkethCrawl

• SketchCrawl: "a world wide sketching marathon event."* According to the website:

  The basic idea: to record nonstop everything I could around me with my pencil and watercolors. A drawn journal filled with details ranging from the all the coffee I drank to the different buses I took.

Upcoming on Saturday December 9... again you can let me know if you're interested in such a thing. You can also check out the Sketchcrawl blog. So every three months roughly a day is chosen when we all come together and sketch. Holding hands optional. I've never taken part before. *The founder of Sketchcrawl Enrico Casarosa describes it as such on his personal blog...

• The films I've seen so far at the film festival have been great. Finally the first year when I was free to go (in previous years exams prevented me).
  
• Finally this was something I felt a strange compulsion to make. I actually made it two weeks ago so it is Old, and it's kind of boring to post Old things on my blog, but I haven't been taking pictures, and I haven't really been drawing either (bad!), but oh well. So there you go, Old Stuff. Maybe the SketchCrawl + Open exhibition will change all that, or at least be some kind of catalyst for change/ interesting diversion.
  

Where I want to go

Hi kids.

This is where I want to go, really badly: Charleston, where the Bloomsbury Group used to go to chill out... (Virginia Woolf was one of the most famous members of the group). Unfortunately Charleston is in Sussex, England. So yeah the cool thing about this house is that Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant painted the furniture and walls... I have a small pamphlet with a few photos and it does look really nice.

If you want to live in the trees, this article at Supernaturale could help.

There was one more thing but it's gone. Flew out of my head.

Till later then.

Long Distance Tripping

Hey kids.

So. Now, yes, this is a common long-distance traveling sight. But don't treat it as such. Think what it might be, instead of just another communication tower. Look at it aesthetically, like someone created it with artistic intent. I kept tripping out on them on my long-distance ride back yesterday.

New interesting links courtesy of 52 Projects:

• AEzine/Life Artist Newsletter. I skimmed through the first issue and it looks promising.
  
• JPG Magazine: Upload your photos, send them in under certain titles like "Intimacy" or "Loneliness" and possibly get them published. Plus vote on other people's pictures (and maybe help them get published).

Still Nanoing but that's not going too great.

High Speed Car Chase

I forgot to add yesterday that I found the knuckle tattoos website featured at 52 projects. You can read more about the project here. Nathan Black, who created the project, explains why he started it.

And this is old news, but this article at BBC finally gave me a proper explanation of what happened downtown in Eid.

Reading: I am actually reading again. The reading fast is over, thank God. It was very beneficial (and so recommended) but also highly irritating. So I'm reading officially now The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O'Farrell (a novel). Pretty nice so far but haven't gotten very far.

I was going to say I wish I had more exciting things to say, but I realize I do: I witnessed briefly a real high speed car chase while driving home tonight that looked really really dangerous. Very don't try this at home, kids. Who knows what was going on, but this guy was driving like a maniac (not stopping at all while driving at a very high speed through an intersection), followed by another car backing up quickly, stopping to pick up a passenger, then driving back down super fast. It sounds boring but it was exciting I swear! Oh well you had to be there; I was in awe.

f(x)=1/x

Check it out: A site that collects photos of knuckle tattoos with accompanying stories. I love it. This is my favorite tattoo so far.

keri smith asks: Who would you be if you stopped trying so hard? I think there's a lot of fear associated with both trying and not trying.

Nano is going well (well it is going, which is my intention for it, not necessarily for it to go well. So in that it is going it is going well).

Oh and if anyone is keeping track (or not) I did eventually find both my glasses and the dog. Both were fine.

Dog Outta Control

Some new photos of Daboor, trained dog extraordinaire (can't you tell from the photos?). Check out that photo of him where he looks rabid. And the last shot is an art piece: nails hammered into wood with black thread.

Ok, links time:

• If you're looking for a new religion, why not become a pastafarian? It's all about the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. (Thanks for the link M.)
• Article on Radiohead and carbon dioxide. (Thanks Y.A.)
• Finally, if you need to know all about world hunger and obesity, quiz yourself. (Thanks S.) Click for quiz on obesity.

Well happy eid to all where applicable. Enjoy your food.

Dancing M&Ms

NaNoWriMo. Wanna write a novel? In a month? Next month? Sign up with NaNoWriMo, write 2000 words a day and you're golden. Oh and by the way it stands for National Novel Writing Month.

On My Desk. Pictures of the creative spaces of creative people. That is, if you believe in the myth of "creative people." Pretty cool actually.

Middle Eastern Super Heros, Fighting the Man, & More

- "First Middle Eastern Super Heros" - apparently some of the creators are AUC alum. An interview with them if you follow the link.

- "Independent Bloggers" - You too can start your own blog. Plus you can type in Arabic. And rate people's posts.

- A great article! How to fight The Man - strategies to resist corporate control. "25 Simple Things You Can Do To Keep Your Money From The Corporations." By Jeffrey Yamaguchi, who also runs the 52 Projects website.

and... Zinebook.com. Lots of stuff about zines. Including what they are & how to make your own. Check out the interviews with zine editors (I love interviews).

I guess that's it for now. Take care everyone in blog world.

Gido sketch

• Goats.com: interesting webcomic. Start at the beginning. (It started in 1997).
• Draw Daily. I'm not the only one (far from it).
• Collection de l'Art Brut. As recommended by Thom Yorke, no less (via Radiohead's blog, see the August 14 entry).