I've been way, waaaay too busy this last week with worrying about the whole gallery thing.

We met in the jewelry lab on Wednesday. "Hi," my most recent glass beadmaking instructor said. "Practiced any lately?"

"Nope, haven't gotten to it. Maybe I will later."

He was there, as was my previous instructor (you should have seen the beads she made on her torques- holy crap) and the jewelry manager, all of whom do beads. Also there was another guy who did stuff with pearls and wire. And the teacher who got all of this together, Stuart.

Much to my surprise, the gallery guy turned out to be Choi, one of my TA's from Design 1 waaaay back in the day. "Hi! I remember you! You were laughing at my pictures for being crappy!" Yes, I did say something like that, but he thought it was funny. Didn't remember me of course because it's been seven years (seven years?! holy fuck), but did pass on what the prof and other TA were up to. He asked what I was doing for a job (nothing interesting) and asked the usual question of "Why aren't you going to grad school?" It was kind of embarrassing to admit that I wasn't using my degree in any way, shape or form.

Anyway, Stuart had said something like "bring samples of your work so he can check out your style." So I brought various pieces, including ones I had no intention of selling. Er, oops? Anyway, Choi seemed to like my stuff and everyone else's, so he said to bring in whatever we wanted to sell along with a list of items, artist's bio and picture, by next Wednesday. Fine and dandy. Oh, and can you do a CD of pictures of your work?

Oh, wait, can we make that Saturday at 1?

At which point I did my usual chicken-running-around-with-its-head-cut-off for the last few days, hence lack of updates. I made another sea necklace and another patriotic necklace (which you haven't seen yet), and tried to make an amulet bag, but ran out of time in between getting a better picture done of myself, scrambling to find a color printer, running to Jess's to get the pictures taken and get a CD of them, figuring out how to package the stuff, etc., etc. I even did some beading at work because I was the only one there and I was too panicked that I wasn't going to get it all done in time.

Fortunately, I did. I was amused to come into the meeting and finding Stuart and the guy with the pearls (Adam) Baggieing and labeling still. Hell, Stuart was still attaching cords to his pendants. Dustin (bead instructor) came in late and was all, "Anyone have any stickers?" Adam and Dustin didn't have any decent pictures of themselves either. Then there was me, sitting smugly with my printouts and my shoebox full of work.

I showed Choi the forms and whatnot. He wanted the picture and the text next to each other... so I spent a fun half hour wrestling the crappy Macs in the CC's computer lab and desperately trying to get something to print. But in the end, he seemed happy with it. Said my picture looked like a real artist (aww). I've got three months in the gallery to see if my stuff sells or not.

I have to admit, it's a little freaky knowing my stuff is going to Southern California (La Crescenta, if you have any idea where it is, which none of us do, really). I sent out the best of the best, except for one necklace that's going to Jess's mother-in-law. Amazing.

This gallery thing is SO COOL.

In other artistic pursuits, I was going to show you my attempt at making an iPod holder. I was trying to design my own crocheted one with a neck strap (because the armband I paid $30 for is Schwartzenegger-sized). This is how it came out (minus neck strap):

Now, if you look at it empty, it looks fairly good, for something that has to accomodate the new-school iPods with the extra buttons. I got a lot of compliments on it with the case empty. But if you look at the two together...

it's Crochet on Drugs. Good lord.

I am starting version #2, the "let's try to sew a tube with some holes in the front" version.

In another sick artistic pursuit, I have decided to enter this contest. If I have to go to Montana, I need to do SOMETHING to entertain myself. And as you may have noticed, this requires purchase of a gerbil. Which I did a few days ago, and miraculously, the gerbil arrived today. With an adorable note.

I named it Snickerdoodle, because that's her color. (Incidentally, Snickerdoodle is also the name of my iPod, but it's more appropriate of a name for the gerbil, really.) I brought her along when I went out to eat with Jess and her husband and son. They are going to Monterey for a few days starting tomorrow, and much to my surprise, Jess liked the idea of bringing along an animal to take pictures with on the trip. That hadn't even occurred to me. So Snickerdoodle is already on her first vacation, and I hope she comes back in good condition and with X-rated photography that I can put into a photo album :)

After eating and watching Julian (her son) chase them around for awhile, we went into one of the record stores here. I have to say, it ain't my favorite store usually. They keep all the CD's locked up and you have nothing but the front and back of the laminated CD cover to look at, which I think is frustrating. Plus they give off KDVS/Championship Vinyl-kinda vibes to me, i.e. Too Cool For The Likes Of Thou, You Musical Nerd, You. (It was kind of amusing to me to watch Julian protest going into the store the entire way there. Until he got a video game, anyway. I had to tactfully not show that I felt a bit the same way. But then again, I'm at least tall enough to see the CD lists.)

Mortifying moment of the day: letting out a big ol' stinky pesto crepe fart RIGHT as Jess called over one of the store employees to open up one of the cases. Which involved bending down. Even worse, I think I had drama class with the guy my freshman year here. Even worse worse, he was the one that rang me up later after I found a John Mayer thing that I (shock of shocks) didn't already own. It's this 7-minute DVD of random conversation of his and songs, I guess, but what the hell. It was $5, it was cute, and I needed change in case I go out to the bar tonight.

As for the bar, Warp 11 is playing in town tonight. I nearly talked Jess and Mike into going with me, except their show isn't even starting till like 11 and they're leaving at 4 a.m. I really want to go, and I want to pick up their CD's (I have a request in from Mike for one should I go), but I'm afraid of the Crazy Magnet thing kicking in if I go to a bar alone. Plus there's, you know, in a bar alone Nerd Girl issues. Guh. Too bad I'm sure Heather's got to have some kind of plans going tonight already when she gets off work

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