steampunk at the renaissance faire

so this weekend i went to the renaissance faire in bristol, wi. it was tons of fun. i did some letterboxing, walked around, ate, spent lots of money and watched some really cool shows. while jeremy and i were there eating a guy and a girl walk by with really cool costumes on. i continued to stare at them and i realized that they had steampunk outfits on. so it didn't really fit the renaissance faire, for all the steampunk i've read and read about so far, fits in the victorian age which is the 19th-20th century. but it was still really cool to see. espically with me just getting into the reading the literature (which i've read 4 stories now and i'm totally into it. woot woot for steampunk as literature). so i thought i would share the outfits with you guys to show you a little bit of what the steampunk outfits can look like.

a lighted carousel - the final frontier

so today at work i brought my friend who took the carousel picture - i brought him the poem i had written to go with the picture. he said that he liked the poem. and he said he really liked the first line "safe in the dark" for that's not a normal thing. people don't normally say they are safe in the dark. i'm so glad that he liked the poem. and i'm so glad that he liked that line. it's one of my personal favorites of the poem and i think it's perfect for the beginning of it. so i gave him the poem since it was his picture that inspired me to write it. i just love that photo! all of his photo's were great but that one i just can't stop loving. just amazing! and just because i can't get over the picture i'm going to share it again.

jeremy also read the poem and he said he liked it. he didn't want to judge the photo yet for it was a picture taken of a picture. but he said that the poem made him think of a person who had died and their spouse is waiting for them on the other side and then at the end the couple are together. and even though that's not the thought i had behind the poem, i still like to hear what he thinks. it's always fun to hear what a person thinks a poem means. for you never know until the poet actually says what it means. i'm going to be stingy and not share. but hey that's ok. that's just how i roll (i can't believe i just wrote that).

ok i'm going to stop gushing about the photo. i just love it so much! and just so amazing that it inspired me. so my thanks go to my dear friend for letting me have the photo that has inspired me so much.

rak visual poetry

sorry this is a little late, but i'm sharing it now. see jeremy was nice enough to buy for me a collection of art from this guy at c2e2. yes i know c2e2 was a month ago. the art that was from this guy was called visual poetry. art that inspires thought. which to me is all art. the artist is RAK. and i saw his stuff last year at wizard world and bought a card that was one of the visual poetry called drifting away. on that card there is a picture and a poem. i really like the picture and thought that the poem wasn't that bad. so when i went to c2e2 this year and saw the guy again and i got all excited. i bought one of his superfreak cards for my mom (it was lucy for my mom loves lucy). jeremy and janell bought stuff from the guy also. well as the day went on jeremy had some surprises for me and his sister. he bought janell some comics and surprised her with them (she got one signed by the editor and chief of marvel) and he surprised me with the everyman visual poetry collection book that RAK had.

some of the pictures in the collection are so amazing i fell in love with them right away. for me, some are a little too obvious with what they mean and stand for. but either way i thought it was really nice of jeremy to buy it for me. and i think it's really cool of this guy to do it. its definalty different art from his superfreaks. and the art definatly inspires poetry - in my mind at least. i espically like the one picture that actually has a poem right with it. it's not the best poetry i've ever seen, but it's not horrible poetry either. one thing that i'm not a big fan of with this collection, is that with every drawing he adds a little message with them. like with the picture 'the great depression' he adds in there if you are feeling sad do this this and this to feel better. it's nice that he is trying to help others but, i don't think that is needed. just have the art speak for it's self and the message will get out there. over all though i like the colleciton. so here are some pictures of the collection. sorry the quality of the photos are bad. my point-and-shoot camera is old and i need a new one. hope you like them.

this is the cover of the collection.

some pages in the collection. i really like the locked away picture (on the right).

the great depression (the picture on the left) is one i was talking about that is just a little obvious with its message. i don't think that the sad face is needed in the background. drifting away (on the right) is the original card i bought last year at wizard world and what got me interested in this guy.

the betrayal is one of my favorites of RAK's. i really love this drawing.

c2e2 - for reals this time.

so c2e2 was amazing! i had a blast. it was a new convention this year for the chicagoland and so jeremy and i decided to go to it instead of wizard world. i'm really glad we decided to go to this one. i liked it much better! there were bigger named people there and it was in a bigger place and less crammed. i'm all for shoving as much as you can into one place, but i also hate having the feeling that there are people all around me and i can't escape.

so i got to meet some artists and some authors. i geeked out hardcore with all of them.

this is jeph jacques that creates questionable content. here he is doing a drawing for jeremy. he was the only one charging for a drawing but i didn't think it was that big of a deal. it was only $5 and he did the drawing on special paper that said chicago 2010. i mean he can't use the paper again except for wizard world, and that's only if he goes.

this is joe quesada, the editor-in-chief of marvel. i was really surprised there was like no line to get his signature. but i'm not complaining, it was really cool to get it. he was an artist before he became editor so he does have some skills. here he is signing a comic that jeremy bought for janell. jeremy had bought it without janell or i even knowing and then he pulled it out and surprised her with it. janell totally geeked out and was like well joe will be signing this then. hehe. it was really cool. and of course he's signing a captain america cover!

this is sam humphries, he's the writer for the fraggle rock comic. honestly i have never read the fraggle rock comic, but i'm a fan of the old show. and my friend lindsay is totally in love with the old show, so i thought she might like to have a signed poster from this guy. so i got it for her. it was still cool to meet the guy. he was really nice. and his shameless plug for his products was a for a free comic on free comic book day. so that was cool. i liked it also because c2e2 didn't just have the artists at the convention they also had the writers of the comics, for alot of the times that is two different people.

so one thing that happened that was a little wierd was that at one point we found peter david who is the writer for the dark tower comics. (ps, sorry this is center aligned, for some silly reason it won't let me change it back to left aligned) so i went to peter david and he had a stack of scripts for one of the comics, and then he had a stack of the comic for that script. well i just wanted to comic for the scripts were $15 and there was nothing cool about them. it was just a word document. i mean its cool cause it's a real script and all, but if your going to charge $15 make the script unique somehow. so i asked peter david if i could just buy the comic and have him sign that. i was willing to pay for something just not the a silly script that i could go type out at home. he said he only gave the comic when someone bought the script. and i just anwered oh, well never mind then. and he just looked at me and then said, ok here. and i was going to pay and he told me to keep my money and he just signed the comic and gave it to me. so i thought that was really nice of him. he could have been a totally dick about it and given me nothing and demanded the $15, but he didn't. he let me get it for free and i still got it signed. so i was really happy. i now have jae lee's signature and peter davids signature for the dark tower comics. i only need two more and i have then all. well three more if you count stephen king.

so all in all it was a good convention. i had tons of fun and i'm already counting the days until next year.

c2e2 quick post

quickly i just wanted to say that i went to c2e2 this past weekend with janell and jeremy and it was amazing! i will share all my geeky awesomeness later. i just wanted to say i had tons of fun. here's a picture to hold you over until i post more.

there was an auction at the convention of props that were from the first iron man movie. here's just one of the props.

poetry coat

this past weekend jeremy and i went to the milwaukee art museum and saw two new exihibits (and as a side note, we also become members of MAM. it's really a good local museum). one of them was the Scholastic Art Awards: 2010 Wisconsin Regional Exhibition. the show is a collection of art from kids ranging from the grades of 7-12 in categories of architecture, ceramics & glass, comic art, design, digital art, drawing, fashion, film & animation, jewelry, mixed media, painting, photography, printmaking, sculpture, and video games. jeremy's cousin had a dress that she made that had won a gold key in the competion which means that she will go on to the national level. while we were looking at all the other works of art, there was a coat that i fell in love with on display there. honestly i don't remember if it won a silver or gold key or who made it but, i was totally in love. the cool thing about this coat was that it had poetry written along with the design on the coat. you can't read the poetry in the pictures but i still thought i would share the coat with everyone. it's amazing! it's made out of felt, if it was just made out of wool, i would totally buy it and wear it! i love when fashion and poetry intertwine with each other! just goes to show that fashion isn't this frivolous thing and that poetry can be cool and in style (no pun intended, well maybe). so here are the pictures of the awesome coat!

decisions

so i've finally decided what i am going to do with at least one of the books that jeremy won for me. i'm always reading about differnt books and then writing them down making a list of books i want to buy and read. but i always write the book list down  in different locations and loose the list. well now since i have nice hand bound writing books, i thought i would use one of the smaller ones to keep my list of books that i want to read.

books, books and more books!

so jeremy's family was getting rid of some old books and they asked if i wanted to take a look at them before they sell them to half price books. well of course i did! so i looked through them and i banked on a bunch of books. i got:
the red badge of courage and four great stories by stephen crane
nine stories by jd salinger
the grapes of wrath by john steinback
the stranger by albert camus
a million little pieces by james frey
the truth about the irish by terry eagleton
and a classroom literature book that jeremy and janell had used in their english 101 class.
then when we were waiting to see how much money half price books would give jeremy for selling back the other books i picked up four more books for myself. i'm totally in love with these teen books called the dear america and the royal diaries. i can only seem to find them at half price books for some odd reason. but i found 3 more dear america books and 1 more royal diarie. and i got one more book at barnes and noble this weekend. i got a poets market. it's a book filled with different places to send your work to get published. a must have for writers who want to get published. i already have a writters market, but i wanted a more specialized one for poetry. so hurray! so i totally banked on books this weekend. where i'm going to put them i have no clue, but who cares, i have more books!

new books

so recently jeremy's school's (the university of wisconsin - parkside) art club had an art raffle and i won some awesome stuff. i got a cool coat and i also got hand bound books. i think they look amazing! i don't know what i'll use them for yet but i'm excited just to have them. here they are:

bright and early: whore of the 18th century

good morning everyone! i woke up today at 3am but oddly enough, i still got 7 hours of sleep last night. i went to bed early for i had a killer headache. but now the pain is gone and i woke up with ideas! i have been playing around with an idea i had gotten from jeremy that i posted about in this post. when i woke up this morning i just knew what i would write and finished the poem. i have it written out, but i don't think it's ready for final layout. but i will post what i have for now. and then if i decide that it needs some fixing, i will post the fixed/finished product. so here it is so far. i named it: whore of the 18th century.

I put a feather in my hair,
letting the world know who I am.
Let them stand and judge
for
I do the same to them about their profession.
While they scoff and laugh at me,
I will smile and wave my fan.
For they come home every night hating their job
and hating their life
while
I come home every morning
and enjoy my job and enjoy my life.
Life is too short to not have a little fun.
No,
I didn’t choose my profession,
but I’m not complaining about my lot in life.
I cannot change what has become,
so I will use it to my advantage.
I will pleasure those around me
and have a splendid time.

snow day

today it is snowing and i'm taking a personal day. i had already taken the day off from the comic shop so i could go to wisconsin, but the weather was bad last night so i didn't make the trip. so now i have the day off and it's snowing. there's nothing more fun then running around in the snow. or just watching the snow fall. so since i'm having a snow day i decided to do some of my favorite things. i'm going to drink lots of hott chocolate, watch movies, read my books and write until i can't write anymore. i'm sure many of the poems will be winter/christmas themed, but i'm ok with that. tis the season for things like that.

right now i'm reading the last book in the tamuli serious by david eddings: the hidden city. its a great fantasy story. with some love in it but it's the action that drives the writing. and the humor is great also. david eddings does a great job of writing believable people. i feel like i could meet these people in my every day life. i'm sad that david eddings won't be writing anymore, for he is dead. he died earlier this year. but he will live on in his wonderful books he wrote!

i'm also watching the mini-series band of brothers. it's a great series that hbo did. it's directed and written wonderfully. it based on the book written by stephen e. ambrose. i've loved the series for a long time and it's been out on dvd for awhile now, but it was too expensive for me to buy it. but i have an amazing boyfriend and jeremy bought it for me for christmas. he gave it to me early for fear of me buying it for myself.

well that is my snow day, i hope everyone else has a great snow day. or if you don't get snow where you are, just take a personal day. have a day where you do things that you love and that make you happy. there's nothing more fun. : D

edits part 2: the revenge

what i normally do when i write a poem is first i write it down on whatever is handy and right in front of me. whether its a piece of scrappaper, on the computer or on my hand. and then when i like it, i write it out on a fancy notebook that jeremy's sister janell got me. it's a really cool notebook personlized with all different pictures and stickers of things that i enjoy and inside jokes. well this morning i was putting my poem the peoples hero into the notebook. well as i was doing that i decided to rework my poem and found that i liked the reworked version better than the version i sent the people. it made me kinda angry for now i have big doubts about them picking my poem to get published. but i'm glad that i've reworked it and have a poem that i like now. not that i didn't like it before, but now i like it even better. if it doesn't get published, i will share it here with you guys so you can read it.

edits

so for the poem i posted yesterday i thought i would share a line i decided that didn't need to go in the poem. i was going to add it at the end, but then decided that the poem was fine how it was.

"with your truthiness and your
scrubs marathons
you stole my heart."

i thought the feeling was already convayed and it didn't need to be repeated.

the truthiness comes from the word stephen colbert created; which jeremy and i watch all the time; stephen colbert that is not truthiness. how do you watch a word? and then the scrubs marathons is from in the begining of our relationship we used to watch all his scrubs dvds, for i had never seen the episodes and scrubs is jeremy's favorite show. so here's some ideas behind the editing process.

one year

this is a poem i wrote for me and jeremy's one year anniversary.

You still make my heart go pitter patter
as if the world didn’t matter.
A year has gone by and
it’s still you and I.
With your toothy smile
and your
worn blue shoes,
you’ve danced your way into my heart.

less than three

so this weekend jeremy and i celebrated our one year anniversary (which is tomorrow). and by celebrate he was sick and i was taking care of him. he has strep throat, so that sucks major balls. he was amazing though and got me some amazing stuff. he bought me the new poets & writers magazine, which looks like to be a good issue. it has a list of the 50 best mfa colleges. so that will be cool to look at and see what the magazine lists as the top ranking colleges. he also bought me the latest poetry literature magazine. i would love to one day be published in there. it's my dream to get something in there one day. and i know i will one day! so it was just awesome that he got me that for our anniversary. he got me a couple other things, but it doesn't have to do with writing. so sorry guys, i'm keeping those details to myself. either way jeremy is amazing and i love him to death! i'm very excited about reading the too things he got me and i'm excited about all the poetry. i really have an amazing boyfriend. <3

memories

so this past weekend jeremy and i went letterboxing and walked around a beautiful forest perserve in romeoville, il. we found a bunch of different stamps and had a grand old time. jeremy stalked some animals so he could get some pictures. he got some good one's of a woodpecker and of a hawk. while we were at the park there was a swing set and since we are both kids at heart, we totally went and played on it. of course i was there with my point-and-shoot camera and took pictures of our day. and while looking at the pictures yesterday night it reminded me of some old (and i mean old, these were before i had any formal training) poems i had written many years ago. i remember when i wrote those poems. i was having a blah day and so i went to the park and took a notebook with me. i wrote a little bit about the what was happening around me and how i felt. so i thought i would share some new memories (the photo's from this weekend) with some old memories (the poetry from years and years ago). the first picture can explain its self. the second picture is jeremy stalking the woodpecker.


-one is never to old to play on the swings.

-a nice day brings all kinds of people outside. father and son. mother and her little ones. the swings creak as loud as the see-saws.

-when does a father decide that they are just your parent and not the one to push you on the tire swing?









-why does the woodpecker peck at a tree? is it for truth? or does it just look to make a hole in the tree's life. does the tree want truth? or does it just want a hole in its bark.

...called it macaroni

so last night i was talking to jeremy on the phone and he was telling me about renaissance art. he was saying that the reason you barely ever seen people smiling and showing their teeth is because their teeth were usually rotted out. so if you do see someone with their teeth showing then it means that they are probally in their teens. he also said that the prostitutes of the time would tell everyone they were a prostitute by wearing a feather in their hair. both of these tid-bits i didn't know and he said that he learned in art history. well when he was telling me about the feather in the hair (i keep wanting to write cap. hehe) i couldn't help but write a line or two of poetry in my head right away. it was too cool. i love when things like that happen. i have no idea what i'll write about, i only have a couple lines, but i think it will be fun just to finish what jeremy had started in my head. so now i'll be thinking about the poem at work all day and when i come home i'll probally have it all written out. woot woot for getting inspired just by talking on the phone about art history.

letterboxing

this is me letterboxing. it was such a nice fall day that jeremy and i decided to go and look for some. that day i had found 3 different stamps. one at carthage college (where the picture was taken) and 2 at the racine zoo. this is tons of fun to do and is great for all ages. and 9 times out of 10 you get to see some beautiful landscape. like lake michigan in the background of this photo.

what does this have to do with writing? well i've been reading more and more magizines and there are a bunch about the outdoors. well i was looking to see how they get their articles and a bunch of them have at least 50% freelance articles. so i've decided that i'm going to write an article about letterboxing and the great outdoors. i think letterboxing will be a great article for an outdoor magizine. espically one that promotes different things you can do out doors; like a state magazine.

nature

well this is me with my awesome new camera. i've taken about 4 rolls of film with it already, and i'm itching to do more. last weekend i was in wisconsin and i took a really cool one of a tiger, a kangaroo, and a tree with lake michigan as the background. well the tree one, jeremy kept a copy so that he can use it as a starting point in a painting he is going to do. which i think it just amazing! i feel touched that he liked my photo so much for he's an amature professional photographer. and it's really one of my favorites i've taken so far. it's really inspired me to write about nature in some poetry. eventually i'll put some of the photo's that have inspired me to write on here. because i use a film camera it's more work for me to put photo's on the computer. not hard work, but more work then i'm always willing to do. so when i have a bunch i will show them to you guys.

photography into poetry

so i've recently bought a new camera and i've very excited about it! it's a film version of the rebel ti slr. i've always loved taking photo's with my kodak point-and-shoot but i've also always loved the fancy photo's that artists take with their slr's. so jeremy has been letting me barrow his family's old slr camera so i can take some nice black and white photo's with it (i just love[!] black and white photo's!). And jeremy is an amature professional photographer so it helps a bunch when i have any questions. this is me using the old camera.

so you're asking why am i posting this here. well i'm posting this here because i'm excited about the inspiration the photo's will give me for my poetry. in one of my poetry books it says to look at photo's to try and get inspired. so i already have some photo's i can look at. but now i can take photo's whenever i want, without having to wait until i see jeremy again so i can use his slr, and take all the photo's i want. whatever strikes my fancy that i might get inspired later about i will just snap it and take it home with me. later on when i'm looking at my photo's i might get inspired by a photo i took and write a poem about it. so besides just being excited that i can take more photo's on my own with a fun new camera, i'm also excited about the poetry implications there are!