Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
I've ordered from Amazon 6 times now, and all 6 times something went
wrong from their end. Maybe it's just me and Amazon. Or maybe it's the
number 6. I'd just rather not go their if I don't have to. 
***

Meg- Scarlet's Walk is Tori Amos' new album. There's some limited
edition version of it coming out (released at the same time as the
regular CD), which is also a DVD (does anyone know what's on it?)If you
go to Thedent.com you can find out everything you want to know about
it (except what's on the DVD) and more...
***

Janell- Hello. Oh your poor foot! I hope it gets better. I'm glad I've
never met Harlan. I love his work, but he sounds mean. I'd love to eat
sushi with Neil, though, and discuss the weirdness of Sea Urchin. 

***
I could have white hair. I wouldn't know, though, as I dye it too
often. When I get old I hope I get white hair as opposed to grey. That
would be bitchin'.
  

    
I think when I get old enough so I look wierd with non-grey hair - ie
OBviously too old for the color to be natural, I think I'll dye it that
pale lavender blue my Granny had her hair all the years I knew her. I
loved that silvery blue shade. I wonder if the dye for that is even
still around. It wasn't until I was in my late teens before I realized
this color wasn't exactly natural. I've seen the silvery white hair of
some older women and rather liked that. I think I'll just switch from
whatever color I have now to the white or gray or even the pale blue
without waiting to grow it out and see what it looks like in between.
  

    
I look forward to grey, but then, my mom has the most lovely white
hair you've ever seen.  It's the getting there that worries me.  It's a
medium red right now (not carroty, but not true auburn either) with
the beginnings of a Bonnie Raitt streak on my left side.  I don't want
to dye, but some of the redheads I've seen go grey.......yuck.

Perhaps I shall dye it emerald green, like I've always wanted to
(blonde? that's easy.  *Anyone* can do that  ;-) ).

I wonder what it will be like to no longer be "that redhead".  I'll
bet it's going to be weird.  I have rather more of my identity tied up
in my hair than I'd like to admit.  How odd.

How is it possible that *both* Jackie Chan & Bono were in Chicago
yesterday, and I didn't know?  Neil has spoilt me with his clear and
up-to-date schedule.  He's much too easy to keep track of.  ;-)

Mary (still reading Drums of Autumn, and wondering how long she'll be
able to hold out before buying Fiery Cross)
  

    
I know what you mean about the identity thing. I had long long hair
for most of the years of my life and cut it this year (donated the hair
to Locks of Love) and now although I like the appearance of my hair in
a well-done cut and like how easy it is to keep, I still miss being
the one with hair longer than anyone in the vicinity. I even had a
teacher at the Art Institute MEASURE my hair and get upset because it
was longer than his. 

But. Things pass.

My sister has that gorgeous auburn red hair and hers is getting grey.
It DOES look awful. My aunt (in her 90s) commented when she saw me last
that obviously I would be like her and never go grey (she dyes her
hair also). That pulled me up short. Then I saw this EXTREMELY
obviously elderly lady. Very wrinkled face. Walker. Etc. with JET BLACK
hair so obviously fake it screamed.  That's when I decided to start
using the lighter hair colors so that the gray hairs would be picked up
as blonde because the brown hairs never picked up the blonde very
well. It only lightens them a very little. It does help me a bit
because my skin's so pale that the lighter hair color is not so much a
contrast that the chocolate brown was. I tried black once. Everybody in
art class at Community College loved it.But then. They were mostly
artsy goth teens. Which I liked. we got along well. With my very pale
skin, blue eyes, the black seemed so very wierd. I took to wearing dark
red or burgandy lipstick too. It was fun but not me.
  

    
I'm currently in mourning for my blue hair.

http://www.fullriotpussycat.org/pics/sio/hair/P1010324-r.html

I've had blue hair for nearly 8 months, and I've gotten really used to
people stopping me on the street about it, or being instantly
recognizable by shopkeepers. 

But, I decided that I just didn't want to deal with the possible
orneriness of potential employers about my odd hair color, so I've dyed
it all black again. Getting a job is currently more important than the
hair color. I'm just hoping I can find yet another tech job where no
one cares what I look like, and I can go back to the blue. I got more
compliments on that color, than anything I've ever done with my hair.
  

    
Erynn - Aaah, that's right, thank you! I've been hearing one of the
tracks on the radio and its absolutely lovely! I'm really looking
forward to her new album. I really -wanted- to enjoy Strange Little
Girls, but I just couldn't get into it. 
  

    
That was such a beautifl shade of blue! Where did you get the dye for
it? 

Maybe you could get a wig of about that color and wear it when you're
not actually AT work. Or, the other way, get a wig of normal color and
wear that while you ARE at work and wear your own hair blue when not.
  

    
Meg,  That is a gorgeous shade of blue! I found that Strange Little
Girls grew on me, while I wasn't looking, in a very sneaky way. I
listened to the album when I bought it, and didn't like it very much
(except for Raining Blood, which gave me the chills), and put it away.
Then one day I was craving something specific, and I went through maybe
a dozen cds' first tracks before I realized that what I wanted was
something I had decided I didn't like, and now I listen to it every
once in a while. And I like it. Strange Little Girls is sort of like
pot stickers. For me.

Neil, re: your journal entry plug for Three Fingers -- I bought it
through the artbomb.net off-shoot orderingcomics.com, and just loved
it. Seriously twisted, and almost disturbing, but funny as all get-out.
I gave it to Tara to read last week. Artbomb.net is a great little
tool.


So, I might get a job this week. I have an interview, and I've never
not been offered a job after an interview. It would be good if I could
get it. I only need a job for about three months, though, and employers
seem to frown upon people who admit that they'll be leaving after
three months. Maybe I should not admit it. The upside is that I've
started reading The Dragon Waiting, and the no-job thing is conducive
to reading. The downside is, of course, a lack of food, but that could
also be a very good thing. I was talking to my brother, and he
mentioned that in a handful of months, he might be ready to invest in
my imaginary comic cafe, which would work a great deal toward making it
non-imaginary. That would be neat.
  

    
Ooo, Meg, preeeetty!

Maure--yay!  job.  Perhaps you shouldn't mention the 3 month thing.  I
used to feel guilty about that sort of thing, but the older I get, the
less I feel any obligation to treat Corporate America with courtesy. 
Did you check out the temp services? They might have something.  I
*loved* temping.  No office politics (you're not there long enough) no
managers with vendettas (ditto), no feeling that you're in hell and
there's no way out (this is becoming waaaay too about me, isn't it?)
Anyway, break a leg!

I have rediscovered my love of Minesweeper, and it is *not* a Good
Thing.

Dodge--go you for donating your hair!  I think that is so cool.  I
wish we had planned better before we cut my waist length straight hair
before my first perm a few years ago.  We took off 12-18 inches in
spots.

Mary (off to try her hand at Free Cell)
  

    
oohh, I miss having blue hair. Mine goes between dark auburn to black
now. Jobs. I had to take out the nose ring too. Apparently it's a
"health code violation" to wear one in restaurants. 

I liked SLG right away, although the Doogie Howser piano took a while
to grow on me. But that's what I like about Tori. There's a different
sound, feel, and mood for every album. And different clothes too.
Sonically and lyrically  songs once not very prevalent seeming cling
somewhere deep inside of you at odd random moments in your life. 
Tori needs her own topic here. I know it won't happen, but one can
dream.
  

    
Speaking of temping, HAIKU TUNNEL!  All must watch!  Fun and laughter!
 Office mayhem!  Lots of exclamation points!

I'm a temp, and going a bit crazy today.  After a YEAR AND A HALF I
have been upgraded to an actual Warner Bros. cubicle.  The sad part of
this cautionary tale is that I am THRILLED to have my own cubicle. 
Thrilled.  For a cubicle.  
  

    
Wait, Doogie Howser piano?  Did I miss something?
  

    
Thanks for the compliments, everyone! :)

The blue dye I use is called "Blue Mayhem" and its made by Special
Effects. There are several places that carry it online, a store in SF
called Ebony (near the Safeway by JapanTown) and Hot Topics all over
the country. (I'm sure there are more, but I don't know them.)

Sadly, the black hair seems to have done the trick. I went out today
to look for a basic retail job to get some cashflow going, and people
took me a lot more seriously now that I look normal. Ah well! The
computer industry will pull itself together eventually...
  

    
Erynn -- re BBC -- that's how WE CAN GET THEM FOR YOU WHOLESALE
happened.


Mimi -- it was great seeing you again. And the photo was astonishing.
(Mimi does art.)

JaNell -- you're welcome.

Meg -- Scarlet's Walk is really yummy.

Maure -- how would your comics cafe work?

Adriana -- cubicular congrats...

Pamela -- good seeing you at the signing.

...

I enjoyed the Book Soup signing -- felt like Stealth Signings are
definitely the way to go for a while, at least until I'm 100% healthy
again. Held out well until almost the end, signing the dealer piles,
when everything started to stop making sense (poor Holly, trying to
explain to me that the birthday book she'd picked up had fallen open to
her birthday) but luckily some nice person (I never found out who) had
brought a gift of sushi, and I got into the car back, and nibbled it
(actually mostly ate all the bits I didn't want, as Holly had first
choice) and got blood sugar back up to human levels...

Anyway, it was good to see everyone. Wellies and Thingies alike.
  

    
Adriana Roze: "Haiku Tunnel" is very funny--especially for anyone
who's ever been a temp. Revewed it for audiorevolution.com a few months
back. 

I just watched "Donnie Darko" and spent the last half hour at
donniedarko.com following the bread crumb trail. I'm still in a state
of euphoria. yay! Now I have three movies on my list of time travel
moveis that work! I'm all giddy and stuff.

meg: will the blue dye work on dark hair? or only light?
  

    
Neil - So I see, from your blog :) I can't wait to hear the rest of
it. I keep hearing "Sorta Fairytale" on the radio, and its delicious!
(All of this foody descriptors are making my tummy rumble...)

Tara - Sadly, dark hair cannot be dyed over. In order to turn dark
hair a lighter color it must be bleached or (this is bad, avoid it if
you can) stripped of the darker dye. Sometimes, too, lighter hair has
to be bleached in order to use the crazy colored vegetable dyes. The
bleaching process damages the hair folicle enough that it become more
porous and sucks in the hair color. These vegetable dyes aren't
chemical, so they don't bond to the hair in the same way as your
typical grocery store hair dyes.

The black dye I used was Feria, which I got from the beauty salon so
that I could also get a 10 volume developer, which is pretty mild. This
dye will eventually fade and wash out to a lighter color, and
fortunately for me it mixed in with the blue that was already on my
hair. So I have some nice blue shimmeries when I stand in sunlight or
halogens, and I think when this black fades it will fade to dark blue.

When I go back to electric blue, I will use the same process I used
the first time: as the roots grow out, bleach them and dye them with
the Blue Mayhem. So as my hair grows out, I end up with blue roots and
black ends. Its a really neat effect.

I would pay good money to be able to just swallow a pill at night, to
change my hair color for the next day. Patterns I would pay EXTRA for,
but I suppose that would lead to advertizing, especially on, say, the
heads of basketball players. It would be REALLY cool if they could also
make the patterns blink...

Hmm. Perhaps it's time I went to bed after all...

*shuffle*
  

    
Neil- Ha! That's amazing. And not surprising. 

I love "a sorta fairytale" too. I can't wait to hear the whole album. 

Adriana- No. You probably didn't. That new piano/keyboard 
thingy--ahh- I don't remember what it's called. It's not even new. She
just started using it. I really, really like it now, but at first I was
like, "weird. An 80's keyboard." But now, listening to the songs, I
don't really know why I thought that. It fits the mood of the songs
perfectly. I'm just weird.  

Tara- Donnie Darko is very addicting. I love it:)
  

    <scribbled by dfowlkes Tue 3 Jul 12 10:14>
  

    
I remember in Andromeda - the Kevin Sorbo thing - that Bekka
Valentine's father genetically altered her hair so she could change the
color whenever she wanted to. So, thinks I, WHY did she pick this
dishwater sludge blonde stuff she runs around with? She demonstrated
this ability to one of the others by changing her hair to pink and then
to purple. Ah, there's an ability I'd pay big bucks for.
  

    
I'd give my left something-or-another to be able to do that.
  

    
ack. Other. Not Another. I need to stay off the coffee. 
  

    
Adriana - sadly, I just couldn't get into Haiku Tunnel, which is a
bummer since I know someone in the film, and several of my friends know
the author/director/star. the thing I couldn't get past, though... was
him. Lots of the side gags I loved, but I just wanted to bitch-slap
him half the time.

*sigh*
  

    
Mary,  I didn't like temping when I did it, but that was NYC, and I
got placed in some pretty shitty offices. I'm crossing my fingers for
my interview tomorrow. I already told the manager about having to cut
back hours a lot when I start school (he called me at home, apparently
to chat, after we'd set up the interview -- is that a good sign?), and
he didn't seem too worried about it. I want this job -- having to
budget is killing me. There's so much great stuff happening this fall,
I have to be able to afford it.

Adriana,  I'm thrilled you have your own cubicle too! When you start
living a real life Office Space, I'll quote lines from it with you. ;)

Neil,  I've been slowly rolling different concepts around in my head
since I was 18. I didn't want to go to college after high school, so my
godfather offered to lend me the money to open a coffee shop. I
declined, because the idea terrified me at the time, but since then
I've been mentally planning one. In my head, it sells collected issue
books only, but I don't know how viable that is. Warren Ellis has been
hooking me up with retailers who've been in the business for a while,
so once I'm more sure of the availability of the capital, I'll start
looking into how feasible it would be to forego selling individual
issues. I'd like to make it more of a book shop, with the books being
graphic novels. If at all possible, I want to include a small raised
level in a corner, for readings or signings (and Megan insists that her
one-acts will be a big hit, but I don't know about that). The cafe end
will specialize mostly in teas, but we'll do the coffee thing too. At
this point, it's more of a vaguely conceivable idea than an actual
plan, but every once in a while, something falls into place which makes
it more do-able. Ideally, people would come in for a tea or coffee,
sit down, flip through one of the reading copies of a graphic novel,
like it, and then buy their own copy. Like I said, I don't even know
whether it could ever in a million years work, but I'd really like to
try it. Some day. 
  

    
Maure - vaguely concievable or not, it's definitely a place I'd love
to patronize! [In the nice way where I give you lots of money and hang
out there until you kick me out, not the other way :) ] As with
everything buisness, I guess it comes down to how much money is going
in and how much is going out. Would it, I presume, be based in Chicago?
Any areas around town you think would make it viable?
  

    

This is from inkwell.vue co-hst Linda Castellani:




Hi Everybody -

I've been in self-imposed exile from the WELL for about a month now.  I had
them change my password and not tell me what it was, and <cdb> has graciously
taken over my hosting duties until my return.  I had to do this because I
really want my jewelry business and my Web site to succeed and I needed to be
removed from the temptation to log into the WELL obsessively all day long
whenever I felt the slightest bit bored or...just because I felt like it.

I haven't even been peeking into inkwell because I figured I'd just miss you
all too much, but when I saw the ad in today's San Francisco Chronicle that
said "Congratulations Neil Gaiman, Winner of the 2002 Hugo Award for Best
Novel" I shrieked, took a look at the hundreds of responses posted since I
was last here and saw that you all were posting about this 100 responses ago.
 I'm already way out of the loop, but I wanted to send e-mail saying,
"Woohoo!  Neil!  Congratulations!  You rock!" and various and assorted
congratulatory messages in that vein.  And also to ask, in all seriousness,
how do you remove yourself from distractions and actually focus on what you
are trying to achieve?  What's the secret?  I desperately need to know.

I also wanted to add my two cents to the recent thread on temping, having
spent quite enough time, thank you,Jin that glorious profession myself.  I
thought that perhaps a brief anecdote about something that happened the last
time I temped would illustrate why I probably shouldn't do it any more.

I had a three-month assignment at North American Rockwell in a division
headed by this very imposing colonel.  He had the habit of coming into work
wearing a casual jacket and changing into a dressier jacket and tie when he
got to work.  You could always tell whether or not he was at the office by
glancing at the hook next to his door.  If it held the casual jacket, he was
at work, the jacket and tie indicated he'd gone home.

So, one afternoon, his wife calls and asks for him.  I glance at the hook and
see the jacket and tie, and inexplicably blurt out, "I'm sorry, I know that
he's gone for the day because he was dressed when he left."

There was a long silence as she absorbed that information, while I
simultaneously realized how very wrong it sounded.  Unfortunately, as soon as
I did, I started to laugh uncontrollably.  I couldn't even get stop long
enough to try and explain, and after a few seconds, she hung up.  In the
meantime, I'm on the floor making a spectacle of myself.

Shortly thereafter I switched careers.

Anyway, I miss you all and hope you are all well and wonderful and having
lots of fun adventures in my absence.  If you need to reach me, castle at
well.com still works and all my mail gets forwarded to me.

Love,
Linda