Winningest

I just saw a headline, as I was headed to my blogging post, that said something about Michael Phelps being the "winningest" Olympian of all time. First of all, who knew "winningest" was a word? Not me. When I see it I think it has something to do with birds...but that's just me.

So that got me thinking: What can I be the winningest at? Or the most winningest of? Not sure how to use this newly-learned word in a sentence at this point. I am hoping that me and the winningest-ness can work together in some way with office supply art. Like, winningest office suppy arter or all time? That doesn't have much of a ring to it, we'll have to work on that.

My orinigal intentions for today's post were to say that I have recovered from my second rejection letter and I'm doing well. I decided that if no one will pay me to write, maybe I can get paid to make modern art:

I call it "Winningest Styrofoam Meets Losingest Cardboard Pieces". A new printer was recently installed in my office, but I found the packing materials much more interesting than the new office equipment. Probably because I haven't figured out how to turn the printer (scanner/copier/frozen margarita maker) on yet...candles and a backrub, maybe?

Back to my piece. It's modern office supply art, right? I just looked up what modern art is and apparently I'm out of the historical time frame for it to be real modern art, but I think this part of the definition applies: "Nearly every phase of modern art was initially greeted by the public with ridicule, but as the shock wore off, the various movements settled into history, influencing and inspiring new generations of artists." I think that is pretty much my life story, right there. Especially the influencing and inspiring new generations of artists thing.

See, I'm cocky again, which means the universe will be knocking me down very shortly. For now I'm the winningest though.

R-E-J-E-C-T-E-D Find Out What it Means to Me!

After my boisterous, pompous and positive feelings yesterday concerning the fact that I had received no more rejection letters, it was obvious that the universe needed to knock me down a notch.

I got home from a long day and saw it: The letter addressed to me - in my own handwriting - with my own name as the sender. It was immediately obvious this was one of the self-addressed-stamped-enveloped I'd sent along with a query letter to a publisher. I could tell there was no monkey doing the hula with a check in its teeth inside this particular envelope. I took the letter to the bathroom to flush it down the toilet. I mean, to open it all by myself. The postmark said "Fox Valley, IL", so I knew it was a rejection from Sourcebooks, my number one choice. I knew it was not good news, but I hoped for another positive rejection like the one I received from Kensington, perhaps something along these lines:

Dear Jen,

You are incredible, but we can't even think about publishing your book because we could never contain or fully represent your awesomeness or pay you enough. Good luck in your search for someone who can!

But no, it was the dreaded form letter, basically patting me on the back and saying that even though I suck, so do thousands of other people who are trying to get published. I folded it up and stuffed it in a drawer. I took a shower. I ate enough dark chocolate to kill a family of Labradors. I made up funny phrases out of the letters in REJECTED:

Really Evil Jen Encourages Cats To Eat Ducks. Rigorous Exercise Justifies Eating Cookies, Tarts, Eclairs, Doughnuts. Reasonably Empathetic Jackrabbits Eating Christians Try Every Dish. Rejected Ejected Jens Evolve Continuously, Trying Everything Differently. Revolving Elderly Jazz Entertainers Cause Turtles Envy, Dude. Responsible English Judges Ever-Changing Tastes Evoke Distrust.

I could tell you more, but I think you get the idea. My plan now is to a) try to get query letters out to some other publishers before I get another rejection letter so I have a reason to live. Whoops, I mean, so I feel like I'm accomplishing something, b) design a logo for my blog, c) post said logo to blog and try to get more traffic pointed towards the blog and d) get more dark chocolate.

Not Very Funny Mondays

I'm back. My friend left and it's a Monday - not a very good combination. However, I lifted my spirits creating some office supply art:


It's a flower (or pinwheel? Circular saw? Pizza roller-cutter thingy?) made of business cards. Not my business cards, those don't have very many pretty colors. This art is great because it's quick, doesn't use up any office supply for more than a few minutes and distracted me from the fact that it's Monday and my friend is gone. Whoops, I just reminded myself again. Dammit.

While Christy was here I did come up with some intriguing new ideas. On Friday night I was driving her around, taking her to touristy stores that I have never even been to even though I have lived in this area for four years (perhaps because everything in them is cheap crap?) After she located the item she needed (something made in China) I drove her up a mountain to see a ski resort. One that won't even be open for 4 months. Just to pass the time. This is when I hit upon the concept of: "Jen's Pointless Tours". Do you think that would fly? Most tours involve history, ghosts, bars, sites where animals have mangled people, churches, battles, etc. These tours would be...pointless. You know, just for "fun". I'd show people where I go to the dentist, which grocery store I like, my favorite aisle in the library, where I used to park when I lived on Main Street, my Doc Marten collection, the restaurant where they put bacon on my salad when I told them I was a vegetarian, etc. At the end they could come back to my house and pet my cats and I could sing.

What other intriguing ideas did I come up with? I know I said ideas, plural, above, but now I'm stumped. It could be because I spent the last three days on one of my own pointless tours and it has left my brain shriveled and fried. Or it could be the usual: I was trying to impress you and was hoping I'd come up with something else cool before the end of the blog.

Changing the subject, hoping you'll forget that I am not creative today, the three-week mark is up and I still haven't gotten any more rejection letters from ye olde publisheres. I'm going to take that as a sign that they are simply deciding whether they want to tell me they want my book by sending a check for 6 million dollars to my house or if one of the editors actually wants to take one of my Pointless tours and suprise me at the end with a singing monkey doing a hula dance, holding my check for 6 million dollars between it's teeth.

I Wish I Had a Cot. And Some Grape Juice.

I'm so sleepy right now. The cats have been waking me up early lately. And I am silly and think: "I'll get up with them and exercise! It's so wonderful to rise with the sun!" (That sentence made it sound like perhaps we were exercising all together. Me, the cats, all in leg warmers and headbands. Not true. Only they wear the leg warmers, I stick with sneakers and a sports bra. And if you're lucky I put on a pair of pants.)

Back on the subject: Fast forward to me in the afternoon, drinking my third cup of tea trying to get part of my brain (any part at all, even if it only remembers sitcom theme songs) to wake up. So in this semi-awake state I thought to myself: Why don't I try to write a witty blog? Good plan, Jen.

I haven't had a lunch break the last two days, that's why my blogs have been absent. Also, I haven't created anything. Oh, I did create a beautiful vegetable lasagna to feed to my friend, Christy, who is in town. That's art as far as I'm concerned. I also created irritation for my poor boyfriend. I won't bore you with the details.

Christy flew in today and boy are her arms sore! (Feel free to stop reading this blog because my jokes get worse on a daily basis. But remember how sleepy I am from working out with the cats. They're like drill sargeants.) and I was so, so excited to see her, we've been friends since we were 12 and she dressed up as a cow for Halloween and walked around kissing everyone on the cheek. I always look for people who share a love of farm animals and same-sex PDA.

Before I dig myself in any deeper, let me just say that there will be more office supply art to come. But maybe not tomorrow, as I have to give a presentation. In front of the board of directors. I doubt I'll be making paperclip art during the meeting, but you never know...

Does a Jen Make Art in the Woods?

I know you're on the edge of your seat to see the pictures from my camping trip. I'm talking to the one (no wait, two!) people who read this. You know who you are. Isn't this the most beautiful campsite ever? What's not to love? Oh, maybe the fact that you have to walk up and down those steps with every single bit of your camping gear, food, booze, wood, and emotional issues, not to mention the fact that you have to stumble up them in the dark in the middle of the night to get to the bathroom, and then back down them when it's even darker because your eyes adjusted to the light in the bathroom. Which really isn't such a good thing, have you ever seen the inside of a bathroom at a campground? Yuck. Which is why I got so in touch with nature while on the trip. The trees are much cleaner. It really was a lovely site though, perfect for making art:
Oooh, mosiac art. Made using the long-forgotten ancient art known as "ripped-up-pieces-from-the-box-containing-that-cheap-and-sort-of-icky-tasting-macaroni-and-cheese." It's true, I gave in and bought non-whole wheat and non-organic mac and cheese for this trip - it even came with the *gag* pre-mixed "cheese" sauce to put on it. That stuff was impossible to get off the pot and the dinner dishes, I'm assuming in 2079 when I pass away at 100 the robot-doctor/anthropologist/reality-TV-star that performs my autopsy will still be finding remnants of it in my intestines. But the art I made from it is cool, yes?

This is a new media for me. I call it...hmm, think of something funny, quick..."Art of the Damned." That's horrible and completely off base, let me try again: "Nature's Touch". That sounds like some sort of feminine product, but let's roll with it anyways. I made this down by the lake out of pebbles and rocks and leaves. I guess it won't stand the test of time, which begs the question: "If an art piece falls into the lake and nobody is there to see it, does it still get wet?" I'm losing my touch here, it must be home sick with my metaphors, so I'm going to move on to not my art, but my sweetheart's art:

In the immortal words of Beavis and Butthead: "FIRE! FIRE! FIRE!" I cannot believe I just used a Beavis and Butthead reference. In case you haven't figured it out, this was our campfire and as Anthony pointed out a few (dozen? thousand?) times, it was pretty awesome.

All in all a lovely trip that I thoroughly enjoyed. The "cheese" sauce told me to tell you it enjoyed it, too. Eww.

Published! And Back From Camping!

Let me begin by saying: I'm published! I finally got my hands on a real-life paper copy of my article on Friday and it's also posted online now. You can (better!) read it here.

In other exciting news: I don't really have any. I did take a fun camping trip this past weekend, though. I took pictures of the campsite and even made some art on the trip that I'd like to share. Unfortunately, last night I was too tired *coughlazycough* from the exertion of spending a weekend reading and swimming and looking at a campfire to upload my pics. But, you know me, I have an illustration to share just the same:

These are some of the things my trip held in store for me; I used the only media I could find: Highlighter and pen on scrap paper, to illustrate them. Very advanced. Let's go over the list:

• Barking. On the first night we were lucky enough to be camping next to a couple of girls and guys who had a beagle. These campsites were on a lake; everytime the girls and guys went in the water, Mr. or Mrs. Beagle got very upset. And barked about it. To everyone. Lucky us, Girls and Guys were in the lake very late, well after it got dark at 9:00 pm. The dog barking complemented the peace and the quiet of the fire like a...well, my metaphors are still camping, apparently, I can't find them. Use your imagination.
• Fire. That's pretty standard: Anthony loves his campfires. He pokes it, prods it, talks about how great it is. I should start using this technique concerning dinner, since I cook it all the time: "That's one nice fajita, huh?", "Wow, awesome mashed potatoes, do you think anyone else around here has mashed potatoes as great as these?"
• Swimming. Well, not really. The lake was about as cold as a side of beef on the gas grill. Hey, my metaphors are back. Sick and ready to leave work, but back none the less. Anywho, the lake was kinda warm to refresh us, so we mostly looked at it.
• Corn on the Cob. Cooked on the fire. Yummy. We also cooked Portobello mushrooms over the fire, also tasty. We toasted some bread over the fire and it made our Portobello sandwiches taste kinda funny. But earthy.
• Nature. Pretty hard to escape nature when you're camping in the woods. In fact, see that tree? In the middle of the night I had to go (you know) really bad, and I didn't want to walk all the way to the bathroom. I went behind that tree and I got very in touch with nature, if you know what I mean.
• Reading. I brought a copy of WNC Woman so I read my own article about 12 times. I also read some other stuff, including some magazines and a book about health and exercise. I know, on vacation! What is wrong with me???
• Ants. Not too many, but one was on my foot tickling me. I hate to be tickled. But since I'm a vegetarian I just shooed it off me, I did not harm it. Very Buddhist of me.
• Tent. I can tell you right now that illustration is not a fair and accurate representation of our tent. First of all, ours is some dark colors, I can't remember which ones (As an artist I am very observant, as you can tell.) It's not pink. At all. Do they even sell pink camping gear? I can tell you that they sell pink Highlighters, which is how my tent ended up this shade. Also, it's BIG. I think it's advertised that you could sleep 8 or something in it, but that would be very stinky. It was kinda stinky with just two, come to think of it. It's a nice tent. There wasn't even any swearing when we put it up this time, we've gotten pretty good at it.

Tomorrow I hope to post some real pics and art from the trip, but for now you're just going to have to go read my article and pine for me.

Grumpy Bunny

I am a grumpy bunny today. Which would be a good name for a bar, don't you think? "The Grumpy Bunny"? Also, "The Laughing Duck". There are a few reasons I am grumpy:

1. Today I wanted to post the link to the August issue of WNC Woman magazine, where my first (and only) article is being published. It's about office supply art and creativity, because that is all I am capable of writing about. Also, I haven't been able to find the real life mag, either, so I haven't had a chance to see my article.
2. Because I have been unable to view the article, I dreamed about it all night. About it being cut from the magazine, about it being shortened, about it being changed, about it being received poorly, about it being eaten by zombies, normal dream stuff.
3. There is a new phone system at work. It is not working for me. There are still some glitches. It makes me bitches.
4. Two weeks have passed since I submitted my book query to Ten Speed Press and Sourcebooks. This does not make me grumpy, I just wanted to make the list look more impressive. I do take the fact that I have not received a reply as a sign that the publishers did not laugh and throw my work away, simply based on my funny last name and poor spelling skills.
5. I am going camping this weekend. This also doesn't make me grumpy except one of my friends, the one who initiated the trip in the first place, can't go because of her job.

When given grumpiness, make grumpy-ade, isn't that what they say? This is my grumpy-ade:

Why is this bunny grumpy? No one knows for sure, but here are some possibilities:

Because...

1. Bunnies shouldn't have eyebrows?
2. He/She is being forced to jump through what appears to be nuclear waste?
3. He/She has no rear legs? Or possibly those rear legs are being gnawed on by badgers? And republicans?
4. There is some damn kid playing the recorder nearby? (Okay, that's happening in my life and making me grumpier.)
5. Pink ears make him/her look fat?
6. He/she isn't sure if he/she's a he or a she?
7. It is worried about it's carbon footprint?

I asked Amy, coworker and bunny-analyzer, her thoughts. Her suggestions were:

Because...

1. The grass is not edible.
2. It's really a dog, not a bunny*
3. It hasn't found God.
4. It has too much chest hair.

*Let's see you try to draw a bunny from memory, while under phone-system-related-duress, missy.

Happy August