Personal Digest Saturday: July 8 – July 14

Life news this week: 

• Saturday was the live show of Welcome to Night Vale: All Hail! I spent the morning getting ready for the evening, and then my friends came over and we ate at Taco Bus before heading over to the show. I was feeling pretty dizzy and weird but still had a good time. The performance was really fun and the musical guest was great. At home I hung out with Jeaux a little before going to sleep.
  
• Sunday I got up late because I went to bed late. Did some ukulele and karaoke stuff, and I finished my Bismuth comic that I've been working on and posted that online. Had a chat with a new online friend as well, and felt pretty crappy all day.
  
• Monday it rained bucketloads so I got stuck at work until really late. (A co-worker took me home which was nice.) The proposals I was working on were bouncing around--one got postponed and circumstances got weird on another one so we weren't even sure if we could submit. I went home and pretty much just went to sleep. Also I shared my cute comic on Amino and hoped they would pick it for featuring on the front page, but they picked A DIFFERENT POST OF MINE that wasn't really very special and put THAT on the front page. Hmph!
  
• Tuesday I was incredibly dizzy and had other really super weird symptoms but I went to work anyway but it just got so bad that my co-workers were like "you should go home." I decided they were right and let one of them take me home. I had a doctor's appointment already scheduled for the next day but I called my doctor again to see if I should take it more seriously and he said take Benadryl and go to the ER if I got any worse. Eh. I just toughed it out and tried to enjoy the cool new book I got in the mail: Steven Universe: Art and Origins came out! My mom came over and brought me a few things to eat, and she also gave me a sick toy, haha. I spent the whole day reading and reviewing the book.
  
• Wednesday I went to my doctor's appointment and the doctor decided I should have a CT scan and an X-ray. I decided I didn't want to go to work after that and just went home, but I did some work from home on some of my proposals. The one we thought we couldn't submit on ended up getting back on the agenda, so I worked on that and then had Jeaux over. He picked up dinner from 4 Rivers so I wouldn't have to go out. We watched Wrecked and looked at the art book together.
  
• Thursday I felt significantly better so I went to work. I busted out some stuff for the proposal and went home. I also contacted a realtor about my upcoming move and he sent me a list of houses to look at for renting! I'm going to go through them soon. Talked to Victor on the phone and drew my webcomic, and that was it.
  
• Friday I still felt a little better, and went to work to do proposal stuff and go to a meeting. I only worked until about 2 PM because I had to leave for my tests. I got my CT scan and my X-ray and went home. Posted my comic and then just kind of sat around doodling and playing online.

New reviews of my book:

• Amazon Customer gave it a one-star review on Amazon and all it says is the author is a homophobe. 'Kay then. I'm sure it's because someone on Tumblr is telling people I think gay men aren't oppressed for not being able to give blood, even though they had to take my comment out of context in a screenshot to do it.

Incidentally, that discussion actually 100% acknowledges that LGBT people are oppressed (sometimes in different ways than we are; sometimes in very similar ways), and that the prohibition against gay men giving blood IS OPPRESSIVE. (LOL at the idea that I would ever, ever say gay men aren't oppressed over this. Oh my god.) My point was that some LGBT people--lesbians, in particular, among others--don't have this prohibition, but no one would ever say their ability to give blood proves they aren't oppressed. And yet, that HAS been said to me--"talk to me when you're barred from giving blood!"--even though I have been excluded from giving blood for a completely non-oppressive reason (being under the weight limit). They tried to say I was equating those things, too, which is really underhanded of them because that was not at all the thrust of the conversation. If someone has a question or comment about this, feel free to ask me for my position.

Reading progress:

• Finished this week: Steven Universe: Art and Origins. Five-star review.
• Currently reading: The Ancestor's Tale by Richard Dawkins.

New singing performances:

This week I performed "These Are the Days of Our Lives" by Queen.

 


New drawings: 

I made a little mini-comic about a character named Bismuth from Steven Universe. In the show, she basically teases the main characters about stuff they're actually pretty sensitive about, but it's sort of in a reclaimed-slur way if you can sort of understand that? Anyway, even though she was dishing out teasing comments at Pearl and Garnet, they never did it back to her. I thought it would be cute if they did, so I made a comic about that happening. (Bismuth's role in society is to build things for the Diamonds, and she defied them by making weapons for the rebel army instead. That's what they're teasing her about.) Sorry if it doesn't make much sense for those who don't watch the show. :)

Webcomic Negative One Issue 0635: "Yes Sir."






New videos:

Another unlisted ukulele video: "Tower of Mistakes" from Steven Universe, a melancholy little ditty about regret. It's got a sort of complicated chord situation and I'm not that good at executing it. Sorry about that. Here's the original song from the show if you're curious, but . . . if you don't watch the show, this won't clear up any context, because it's weird.




New photos:

Here are some from the Night Vale show:

Me with my tickets

Friend group on the way to the show

Victor and Jeaux having Taco Bus before the show

Katelyn, Meghan, and me at the show

Me and Meggie in our seats

The theater has a starry sky ceiling

Eliza Rickman was the quirky and wonderful musical guest.

Cecil doing his Cecil thing

Cecil is possessed by a glowing cloud

Cecil and Tamika deliver the Glow Cloud's message
(Cecil is played by Cecil Baldwin and Tamika is played by Symphony Sanders)

Night Vale cast (Meg Bashwiner in the front)

I got my Art and Origins book!

Mom brought me a sick toy--a slime dispenser to squeeze onto candy.

Jeaux enjoys the art book

Social Media Counts:

YouTube subscribers: 5,290 for swankivy (lost 1), 645 for JulieSondra (2 new). Twitter followers: 874 for swankivy (3 new), 1,334 for JulieSondra (5 new). Facebook: 295 friends (I friended Michael G.) and 206 followers (no change) for swankivy, 656 likes for JulieSondra (1 new), 55 likes for Negative One (no change), 127 likes for So You Write (no change). Tumblr followers: 2,494 (lost 1). Instagram followers: 114 (no change).