I feel like my internet presence has been disjointed and confusing, so I've been trying to merge more things together. I'm going to run down a list of things I have to make it easier to follow what I've been up to. For those who have been playing the game to win, this list will (mostly) seem a bit redundant:

1. MUSIC

First off, my band's sites. We've just bought a domain name:

http://neverrightnow.com

Among other things, news, pics, press kit, videos, a link to our Tumblog, Twitter, Youtube, Bandcamp and mailing list sign-up can be found here.

Our Twitter:

http://twitter.com/neverrightnow

Our Bandcamp:

http://neverrightnow.bandcamp.com

We've also got a Myspace at:

http://myspace.com/neverrightnow

where we'll be posting song samples and gigs (when we have 'em) and where you can friend us if you have a Myspace.

You can become a fan of Never Right Now on Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Never-Right-Now/326417010926

For good measure we'll be uploading our songs and announcing gigs here as well. There's also the added community aspect of Facebook, because we get to post discussions and links, which I find so super neat.

Our Youtube:

http://youtube.com/neverrightnow/

Our Tumblog:

http://neverrightnow.tumblr.com

2. ART IN GENERAL

I have a new site that I'm slowly adding all my artistic stuff to:

http://ansatejones.com

My official portfolio, from which I soon hope to be selling prints and things, is at:

http://ansatejones.com/graphic

My nifty-difty (it's a word now that I've typed it) art blog, Hieratic, is at:

http://blog.ansatejones.com

Here I'll post tons of photos, drawings, fanvids, writing, and of course any developments in the band or music in general. It's DEFINITELY worth following if you like what I do at all, because it'll probably all get mentioned and then linked from there.

I've also got Hieratic updates being crossposted automatically to Twitter.

3. TUMBLR

My Tumblog is at:

http://ans99.tumblr.com

I used to have to ship Twitter to LJ (which is apparently an incredible social faux pas) in order to bring my Tumblr posts to my friends list. Now I've created a direct LJ feed:

http://ans99tumblr.livejournal.com

In my personal Tumblog, I reblog and post all sorts of things 'round the Internet that make me smile, weep, get angry, and, last but not least, think. It's a nice collection of what inspires me on the 'Net, but also of interesting tidbits from sources that might not make the mainstream news. I also tend to post pertinent updates from my other blogs when I remember.

In addition, because of all the inane book covers I used to run across in the course of my job (which at least in part had me putting up book reviews on a website), I created an additional Tumblr mocking said book covers:

http://wtfbookcovers.tumblr.com

The LJ feed is here:

http://wtfbookcovers.livejournal.com

Some of these seriously have to be seen to be believed.

Then, inspired by something snowgrouse did a while ago, I decided to make a Tumblog that drew parallels between owls and Doctor Who (it's better than it sounds):

http://orly-doctorwho.tumblr.com

And finally I help mod the Advice Master Tumblog here:

http://advicemaster.tumblr.com

4. TWITTER

My Twitter is at:

http://twitter.com/ans99

Twitter is kind of a dumping ground and I'm scared to go there much because with my day and my rampant Internet addiction as full blown as it already is, I really cannot keep up with what kind of sandwich Adam Savage ate for lunch or what Neil Gaiman said to Amanda Palmer over the phone. So this is not used for much more than notifying any readers of Tumblr posts, and now Hieratic posts, that I've made. OCCASIONALLY I will do an actual Tweet. Also our British cell phone has texting capabilities so when I go overseas I'll probably use it again for trip updates.

I think that's it.

OH. Before I forget:

If you have a site (for art, or writing, or whatever) and you'd like to be linked from any of my sites, please let me know. I'd love to include you. I'm especially interested in rebuilding the blogroll for Hieratic. Most of the links from Digitalis will be rolled over but I know some of you might have some new stuff you want to share.

Looking to expand my newly formed graphic design business by taking commissions for icons, banners, and fan art! The examples shown here are from fandom but I can do hand-drawn/digitally painted or shopped graphics featuring your OCs as well.

Fan Art
Rate: $15/hr
Can do stylized/cartoon or realism! 

Examples:

1 hr ($15)



2 hrs ($30)

3 hrs ($45)


Contact me via PM, plurk (kindaxscary) or e-mail (artist at ansatejones dot com). And don't forget to check out my website at http://ansatejones.com for more awesome things!

Every day feels like a battle. I have to will my body to do anything. Today I lay in bed for a good hour debating whether it was worth doing something about my stomach growling. Stuff like that.

I'm not sure how it got this bad. Things were good for a while. I was on Zoloft, I was feeling more confident. I was able to articulate what I wanted and I was able to be kind and patient. And then it all started falling apart again. I started reverting.

My depression has not been this bad for over a year, when I first started taking Zoloft. I've even done an increase in dose but nothing's really happened yet. The worst thing of course is that my life is not that awful, just... filled with nothing. I don't do anything with my day. I don't work toward any goals. I feel like nothing and nobody. My friends are there, and I know this logically, but not emotionally. They never seem to be there enough. I don't think it's humanly possible.

Today I looked up BPD and realized that I fit almost all of the symptoms eerily well. Rather than make me feel any more in control of anything, or hopeful that a different treatment might help me cope better, I just feel like I slid another dozen feet into this pit. I might never be able to climb out.

All days aren't bad. Sometimes I can actually appreciate what's going on around me, sometimes I can have fun, sometimes what I have at the moment is enough. But when I am not appreciative, when I am deep in one of these funks, it hits me with excruciating awful clarity that it isn't enough. That living for the few bright times in my life is not enough of a carrot for me to chase. And that's when things get scary. That's when my mind starts racing with anxiety and my head feels like it's going to explode from all the crazy and that's when I realize I'm not getting better.

There are situational things that have triggered me recently into this depressive state, sure. But even if these situational things resolve, which I don't think they will, they are built on patterns. These patterns have been repeating my entire life. I push people away and then I feel bitterly lonely. I expect constant adoration and attention or else I feel abandoned. I can't have a superficial relationship because at one point or another I can't hold the crazy in, I need to be understood. I need to be loved. And I need to feel like I really matter in someone's life. I don't want to be someone's superficial friend either.

I get angry, and despairing, and nihilistic and then that emotion pours outward because if I keep it to myself I will lose it completely. People accuse me of being aggressive, not seeing that what I'm really doing is beating myself to a pulp. Beating life to a pulp. Telling them to look at me, just bloody look at me, and understand that right now I am in mental anguish, that I don't expect them to fix it but I need them to listen. I need someone to get it. Because if nobody gets it I'm invisible. It's just one more part of me that screams into a void, or is swept under the rug, and I have to deal with it alone. It's killing me.

I think I've figured out something else that really bugs me about The Girl Who Waited, besides Eleven's pathological compulsion to protect this ideal of a fairytale existence for Amy and Rory (really, that speaks volumes to his psychology right there, doesn't it?). But there's something else, something that I've finally recognized as pervasive in at least New Who. Not just Moffat's run, mind (though he does it a lot). And not even just Who-- it's symptomatic of stories everywhere and it's likely the product of centuries of not-so-subtle sexism. It's called Putting the Girl in the Box.

( courtesy cut for the spoilers ahoyCollapse )

So, that's Putting the Girl in the Box. Basically a trope whereby whenever a woman shows individuality, or too much power, the narrative swiftly puts her in the cupboard where all the scary, dangerous things belong. I'm sure there are many more examples of this sort of thing all over the place, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised it shows up in Who. But that it does so this rampantly suggests to me that there are definite problems with my favorite fandom, and that makes me sad.

So I'm sitting here eating Nutella and feverishly trying to figure out bus schedules and bike parking and trying to avoid watching more episodes of Roseanne and I realized I never really updated some of you on the San Jose Saga. Rest assured, we did indeed find a place to live. And it is a nice place to live. It comes with a landlord who reminds me of Jeff Goldblum and a guy who rents out the garage and shares the same name with the landlord (no, it isn't Jeff though) and is a film major. And it's all hardwood floors, which the cat has great fun slipping across trying to chase her toys. And it's a bit smaller than our old place, and more money, but that's just the way it goes.

I kind of like it cozy, anyway.

I'm going to try my best to get back into gardening while we're here. The weather is absolutely fantastic here and I've inherited a bunch of plants, mostly succulent, from a friend who just moved to New Zealand. It was basically everything that didn't die from lack of watering between the time she left and I took the plants. I also got some new basil from Ken, in lieu of flowers, after I completed my first dance recital this month. So far it hasn't died, and I've even got to harvest a little, but there was a heat wave recently and it is starting to flower-- in other words, 'go to seed'. Which is BAAAD for harvesting purposes. I wonder if the Internet has any wisdom for me as far as preventing that. Then again, basil is an annual, so maybe seeds are a good idea.

If you're curious about my dance recital, you can see a vid of the rehearsal here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuPYFCtfUZ4 . The dance was choreographed by Pamela Trokanski, who is one of the few things about Davis I miss. She's a great teacher and I highly recommend her to anyone in the area who hasn't figured that out yet. She's just amazing. Luckily I think I've found pretty good candidates to substitute for the PTDW here, and I'll hopefully be checking one of them out this weekend.

The reason I'm looking up bus schedules is because tomorrow I am going to try to get into some film classes at De Anza College (where our garage-neighbor currently goes). I say 'try' because I am waitlisted for both of them (of course). But hopefully the instructor will take pity on me and I won't have taken an hour-long bus ride both ways for nothing (not to mention stayed on-campus for ten hours since both classes happen to be the same damn day). Oh but who am I kidding, there's an Indian buffet and a Quickly across the street from the college, so it's not like I haven't concocted my own delicious rewards for tomorrow's efforts.

On the music front, Ken and I are trying to finish a 'video song' (see Jack Conte's stuff on Youtube for examples of what the heck that is) for Hypermobility, for some contest he wants to enter. We recorded the piano tonight, and it was just.... oh god, we don't record enough, so it's rare I get to play without having to sing at the same time. It was so freeing to just embellish as I wished and really get into it and focus.

We recorded the strings before we left Davis, with the Dolancs (one half of the Dolanc String Quartet, and just an amazing amazing couple). We'd been subsisting on canned synth crap for so long that it was an absolute joy to hear live cello and violin in our house. I was in awe, and the recordings came out wonderfully. They'll be featured in the song, which hopefully will help all of us get a little more exposure with cross-marketing and such.

The cymbals are also real, since Ken's dad is slowly shipping his drum set to us now that we have a good place to set it up (did I mention this amazing house has a basement?? Well, in California that's a huge deal.). So Ken's learning how to play them as well :)

I'm really proud also of the lighting I've been doing for it. I know next to nothing about lighting, but we have a couple of lamps and bulbs with decent wattage these days, and some 'color gels' (they're really just sheets of colored plastic, wtf, oh yeah, and they MELT) so I've been experimenting and the results are really neat. Everyone has a two-color combination that's somewhat unique, and the lighting is dramatic and moody to match the song.

Anyway, all that's left to record is the guitar and vocals and then we have to put it all together. I can't wait til it's ready to show off.

Besides music I've been trying to draw more. I still have a couple of Art Exchange pieces for 500year_diary to do, which I'm woefully behind on. But then I also signed up for the best_enemies calendar project.... which is due at the end of this month. I started two different drawings before I came up with the idea I think I'm going to stick with. Er. Just in time I guess.

Oh, and I'm trying this all on tablet. It's amazing! I got it for Christmas, but hadn't gotten a chance to really play with it til now. I am probably going to work on the calendar piece some more on the hour-long bus ride tomorrow.

There's probably much more to tell. Time to go to bed, though. Big scary day tomorrow!

Might as well make it official-- Ken got a job in San Jose so we're moving down to that area in a month or so. Yesterday we went down there to check out a couple of rentals, mostly just drive-bys since trying to get in touch with these craigslist people last minute never seems to work. Not many places floated our boat, though there was one we really thought worked well and that was in a decent neighborhood. A property management company owns it though, so we'll see if we ever get an appointment and if they check out. Also, housing is a little more expensive down there, but we're also spoiled from our current place and are looking for non-duplex, detached single families with three bedrooms, garage, and yard. Not a lot of those floating around in our price range.

The one place we got to see the inside of was a front-to-back duplex and it had some very nice features (floor vents? I haven't seen those since I was a child living in Utah, so that was awesome. I have no idea why people go for ceiling vents if heat rises!). But the landlady seemed really ignorant about the upkeep and even the next-door tenants. I mean, I noted the kitchen had a dishwasher and she was like "yeah but I'm not sure if it works." Seriously?

There was one place we saw the outside of and driving down the street it was literally like, "Nice, nice, nice, GOD WHAT A DUMP oh wait that's the house we were considering." It was rundown, had junk stacked on the patio, and to top it off a couple of cats hanging out on the piles of junk (obviously cats aren't bad, but it really did add to the whole motif in quite an amusing way).

Another place seemed ok from the outside, though the description mentioned pool service and there was clearly no pool. Also, the back area was the parking lot of some industrial building and it was just bizarre. Walking back to our car, we passed a little boy who lived two houses down. He was kicking at something on the wet concrete walkway to his house and going "Come On! COME ON!" At first I thought it was a branch. Turned out he was kicking a dead mouse.

And then there were a couple of pretty good places. But they were all at the extreme upper end of our price range, of course. I guess you get what you pay for. One of them did piss me off quite a bit-- not because it was bad but because it looked like it could be a really nice place but the tenants were clearly treating it like shit-- even parking on the lawn right in front of the door. Seriously?

For lunch we tried out the Iguana Burritozilla, a taqueria in downtown SJ with, oh my lord, papitas flautas for $1.50 each. I just about died. This is definitely my kinda place.

I'm going to miss Davis though, despite myself. I spent so long wanting to get out and now it seems that things are finally picking up here. I'm going to miss my friends, obviously, but also my kick-ass superhero therapist, and my dance teacher, and Davis Media Access. Since the job doesn't start til mid-June, I decided I'm definitely going to at least participate in the spring recital for dance. Which means that if we (hopefully) move to SJ by June I'll have to drive up for practice and so on. So there's that, but it's still one of those "why can't I move you with me?" moments. Pam Trokanski is the best teacher I've ever had, not just for dance but for anything. She's amazing and I don't think I'll easily find her like anywhere else.

To make matters even more depressing, the other day I got taken aside by a producer at DMA and was told that she thought I had real potential and she wanted to help me succeed in whatever I decided to do related to television production. And that I should come more often, and tell her when I wanted to start producing my own stuff for the channel. I didn't have the heart to tell her yet that I'm moving but if I'm going to be kicking around til June hopefully I can get some cool stuff done with her first anyway.

Oh, and soon after Ken accepted the job, we played two shows as Never Right Now-- one at a Steampunk Bohemian event (you can read more about that and see pics I took here) and one at Karma Cafe up in Folsom. Both times we got an unbelievably positive reception, were asked back, and made more money selling CDs and making tips in one show than I think we ever have.

So yeah, it'll be tough leaving Davis after all. But I think Ken will be much happier at his new job, and I'll probably be able to find something to do part-time down there, and being closer to SF and the surroundings is something we've wanted for a long while. So mostly I'm just excited, thinking about future plans and looking forward to exploring new surroundings. Could be just the kick in the ass we need.

So this is really just a test post, to see if my dreamwidth account is properly synced to LJ. I said I wasn't leaving LJ so this is my compromise for now.

--

I think I've finally come to terms with the rain. The mere absence of the sun used to depress me beyond belief. And while it still has a tendency to make me more sluggish in the mornings and oversleep an atrocious amount, there's something so damned comforting about it. The world quietens, slows down, and life becomes about self-nurture. Right now I'm decompressing from a therapy session, listening to good music and contemplating my next task.

Without music I think I'd be lost. Not just because it's my current career choice, but because it soothes me, galvanizes me, and makes the world manageable. Even beautiful, sometimes. There was an article I reblogged in Tumblr a few days ago theorizing that some people get a prolactin rush when listening to 'sad' songs, for instance anything in a minor key. The feeling is supposed to be one of comfort, as if someone had their arms around you and was whispering to you that everything would be all right. I've never had anyone so accurately describe what happens in my brain before. It's like music itself takes me to its bosom and just... holds me there. Like when you learn how to float in water as a child and you realize you won't sink like a stone but it's going to actually hold you up. Something about that release is absolutely necessary. You're surrendering yourself to a connection with something much larger.

I feel a little bad for people who don't get this rush and only feel the pain of sad music. I wish I could explain to them that it's all going to be all right. Sometimes when people come up to me after a show and tell me that I've inspired them, I feel like I have sort of done that. It's my number one goal, even beyond all the ambitions of success and popularity and moneymaking. Just to know that what I did mattered to someone.

Forgive me for being so... urgh, I dunno, earthy and flowery or whatever. I'm just lately in a pretty good mood, thanks to my cave-in about anti-depressants. It's amazing the good one little pill every day can do, and I never imagined that I could recover quite this much. The high hasn't worn off all the way yet. I'm sure it will, though, never fear: people are already becoming much more annoying.

I've also been delving into my childhood a little and thinking about nurturing in general, the gentleness and emotional acknowledgment I never really received as a kid. Sometimes it's so hard to reconcile all of it, and the last few months have been a proper convalescing period for me. But I think I'm finally coming around to the idea that I need people, at least every once in a while. Annoying as they can be. And I shouldn't feel wretched about asking for or receiving support. I can maintain emotional independence even while socially or financially dependent. That's a big step for me.

Fuck it, I'm not leaving.

So I haven't been making any real LJ entries in some time, and I'm not really planning on making any more real LJ entries, because I've determined that only one or two people even seem to notice I've said anything here. And this is not a complaint, merely a notice that only one or two people are even going to read anyway, but I think it's about time I closed this thing up.

And I hate saying this knowing how many years I've been here (since 2001!) and how things were very very different in the past, when I felt more of a connection to so many of you and you know, that I wasn't such a ghost here I guess. When I felt what I said was interesting and mattered. But I haven't felt that way in quite some time. I guess it's the trend of the internet, or maybe I wasn't very good at keeping up with any of you, or I don't even know. It's not even so much that I feel I haven't been interesting-- this year I've produced some of the most interesting stuff of my life. I have a band now, and an album, and I'm starting to put a business together to sell my drawings and photographs, and those things are HUGE to me. Maybe not to you.

I have other journals, mainly for RP and fic, so I'm not leaving LJ forever. And I do want to keep some people here on my list so that I can keep up with your lives because as far as I know you aren't anywhere else with any regularity. So I guess not much is even changing. But if you're hanging on to my name in your friends list there's really no reason to pretend anymore. I give up. If you still want me to read your entries keep me on, but I won't be making any more and I'll probably be dropping a fair amount off my own reading list, because it's been at the point I can't keep up for several years now. And I don't think it's fair keeping up with some of you when my comments and posts go ignored. *shrug*

I don't like leaving on such a bitter, nothing note, but I feel sort of bitter and nothing today so I suppose it fits.

In closing, just so at least this entry can't be ignored:

GOODBYE LIVEJOURNAL!

Heh. Nobody ever said I wasn't a complete child.