Run up.

New project. Yes, I know, I need to ease up on the projects.
200 Portraits, the untitled Beast project and now a new thing. Fortunately, I can work on the other projects within this one.
It's a 12 hour art webcast.

Watch this space.

Now you're (over)thinking with portals.

I imported all the stuff from my other blog to this one.

Yesterday I finished Portal 2. Oh my.
What a wonderful game. Seriously. Although...I started it on Tuesday in the afternoon and played for about an hour and then I finished playing it over Wednesday and Thursday (yesterday). The only time I left the house during this was on Wednesday to see 'Your Highness' with my boyfriend (NEVER see that movie. It sucked).
In a way, I think the game sucked me in a bit too much. The protagonist, Chell, much like in the first version, does not see sunlight for the duration of the game. And I started to feel weird when I even thought about going into the sun. Only today, knowing that I had finished the game, was I able to comfortably leave and walk around.
Portal 2 is the sequel to the incredible game Portal. In Portal, you play a 'test subject' called Chell who has to navigate a series of test chambers in the Aperture Laboratories facility using a portal gun (shoots two portals that you can use to get to places that you can't just walk or jump to) overlooked by a robot named Glados. I don't want to give away what happens in case someone who hasn't played it actually reads this, but as you go through the game and learn how to use the portal gun, the story gets a bit more complicated and...It's such an addictive game.
Portal 2 is set CENTURIES after Portal and Chell is back. At the start of the game, you are met by a new character. A 'personality core' named Wheatley (Stephen Merchant) and you find that Aperture Laboratories is screwed. It's falling apart and everyone is dead.
This isn't a games review blog and I don't want to give any spoilers away, but you should definitely play it.

If you get Portal 2 on Steam, we can play co-op.
So do it.

Johnny went to Northern Ireland to see his family this morning and I went to see 'Arthur'. I liked it. It was funny and cute. After that, I walked to the 'international market' that's going on in the city centre and bought myself a strawberry tart before sitting down in front of the cathedral to enjoy it. I also ended up covered in sticky strawberry sauce. Super cool.
After that, I mostly just walked down lanes and streets around the city centre and near where I live that I didn't know or hadn't seen through before stopping at Sainsbury's to buy some fruity mineral water and lemons. It was a really sunny day, so it was nice. Didn't need to wear a jacket, didn't have anything much to do. Just wandered around listening to Zoe Boekbinder's album 'Artichoke Perfume' and remembering how good it is.

a hell.

I'm in Kent with my family. I came down for my birthday. I've been here...not long over a week, I suppose. I'm not sure how many days. I could have been here any amount of time (time tends to be like that with me). It's weird because my family live with my mum's new partner and I've only been to this house once. In Summer. I slept in the conservatory on the couch in my jeans every night for nearly 3 weeks. This time because it's winter and my mum doesn't want me to freeze, I have been sleeping on my 7 year old brother's bedroom floor on an inflatable mattress.
My laptop broke. The whole 'blue screen of death' thing happened so I called Johnny and asked him what I could do and he told me to do somethings and I did them and it worked again...for about 2 minutes. Now it won't switch on at all. For my birthday, my mum bought me another laptop that turned out to be more of a netbook, which is a really long story that I don't feel like writing down. It works fine though. Right now I am waiting for my brothers to finish watching Misfits so that I can watch Ace of Cakes. My food obsession seems to be rearing it's ugly head again. I just watch cooking shows all the time. My favourites are the cake ones. I may as well be a 40 year old woman with lots of cats.
What else I am doing:
-Working on the whole Maisy Peters thing:
        ^A collection of writing about mental health
-Illustrations for a graphic novel about sexual abuse, anorexia and the connections that can exist between them (still in planning stages so don't expect to hear about that one any time soon).
-Illustrations for a writing magazine called 'Beautiful Scruffiness' (which is the most exciting thing on my list)
-Commissioned portrait.

I was meaning to go see some friends in London this week but I suck at planning and I don't care enough. I don't want to go out. I just want someone to talk to who can vaguely understand what is going on. Last night it got to the point where it seemed like emailing Samaritans was a fantastic option. Then I slept. I felt a little better but not by much...I recieved a response. I'll never be doing that again, let me tell you.
I don't know! I feel like a ball of messed up right now and maybe talking to someone wouldn't really help but I still wish I could because maybe it would get rid of the feeling that I have. It feels like I've been screwed into a paper ball really tightly and it's also noisy on the inside. That doesn't make sense!!!!

Sunday Superlist.

 Also known as 'crap I found in my notebook and in my twitter feed'.

1.  By the time a person feels thirsty, his or her body has lost over 1 percent of its total water amount.
2. My mum can turn both her feet backwards.
3. According to twitter, Jeremy Kyle got hit on the head with an envelope and people have decided that it is newsworthy. That's just special.
4. Taylor Momsen like, JUST tweeted this: 'Get the new issue of Revolver Magazine, there's a free centerfold...I mean poster of me inside...' ....Interesting. Taylor Momsen is a 17 year old in a band called The Pretty Reckless who dresses in...well...not very much. She seems to say a lot of provocative things and this seems to get a lot of people talking. I don't think she's really doing anything different to what other 17 year olds are doing. Maybe just different to what other popular 17 year old singers are doing.
5. This could be useful. http://www.angelfire.com/me/marmalade/mathtips.html
6. I believe this to be interesting: http://www.huffingtonpost.com....prostitution-experts-vers_b_756845.html
7. I had a discussion with my friend Sophia about the idea that it's okay to judge someone for saying they're straight and later dating someone of the same gender or saying that they're gay and later dating someone of the opposite. It's not. You don't get to choose who you want and neither does anyone else.
8. I am pretty sure we've managed to skip Autumn. Apparently the weather is going to be in the single digits this week. What is going on with you, earth?!
9. Always a good idea to figure out how to take the ideas of others into consideration without getting into a huff. Something I am trying to figure out now (so far to no prevail).
10. Is twitter brutally murdering my braincells? All I know is that I couldn't think of anything else to type here for a minute until I got distracted by EchoFon (the twitter app I use on firefox).
11. No matter how many things I say about twitter murdering my brain cells, I do love it. All my friends have email addresses. If I feel like climbing into the bin and staying there forever or whatever, all I have to do is send an email and suddenly someone else knows exactly how I feel.
12. I am so happy to be able to try to draw and paint and put my feelings into something visual. If you can make someone feel something or know how you feel from looking at a picture, that's special and that is my goal.
13. Kanye West tweeted this picture: http://twitpic.com/2ykw3f Apparently it's a rejected album cover or something. Johnny described it as 'shocking and crap'. I laughed.
14. This site has some really gorgeous and occasionally inspiring images. http://dreamwalking.tumblr.com/
15. The kitten is sitting on my lap. He has been crying almost non-stop since Johnny went away on Friday but he has finally stopped freaking out and is now purring happily.
16. The less you argue about small things, the more likely you are to get what you want. If what you want is peace and quiet. Which it should be, if it's a small thing.
17. This joke has been going around and I love it:
    Q: How many hipsters does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
    A: It's a really obscure number, you wouldn't have heard of it.
18. If you're in the UK and have to do shopping sometimes, this might actually save you some money. It was a good thing to come across: http://www.mysupermarket.co.uk/
19. There are too many below-par fashion bloggers. I will never be a fashion blogger. I don't care enough about forcing my terrible dress sense on to others (that's not to say that all fashion bloggers suck. My favourite blogs are fashion blogs).
20. This is a really wonderful blog: http://fuckyeahillustration.tumblr.com  Through it I discovered how awesome James Jean is.
21. The more people see this, the better.'Being A Dickhead's Cool'

Aaaaand that is all I currently have to say to anyone about anything. I'm going to go to bed now. 

Quick rush post.

This week:
Johnny and I went to see 'The Social Network' on Wednesday. I have been listening to Birdeatsbaby's new EP 'Bigger Teeth' and Chapter Three of Kim Boekbinder's album in 4 parts which is titled 'The Impossible Girl'. I have been obsessively staring at James Jean's website.
I read 'The Accidental' by Ali Smith and 'Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close' by Jonathan Safran Foer

The Social Network is fantastic. I was, I admit, rather surprised. It is, of course, a movie about a website. But still, it was very interesting. Also, Justin Timberlake was in it and his acting was passable enough to make me not feel like hurting him for inflicting 'Sexy Back' on the world every time he opened his mouth. Well done, Mr. Timberlake. Well done. Jesse Eisenberg who played Mark Zuckerberg (the creator of facebook) was pretty good. I feel that the real stand out, though, was Andrew Garfield as facebook co-creator Eduardo Saverin. You should go see it. Apparently the movie isn't very accurate, though. I don't care.

Bigger Teeth by Birdeatsbaby is something I looked forward to for a very, very long time. I pity the fool who doesn't go right to the link at the top of the post to listen to them. As usual, it's perfectly reasonable to say 'if you like The Dresden Dolls, you'll probably like Birdeatsbaby', but that's not to suggest that they don't have a completely different sound belonging entirely to them Go listen to it. Go listen to it. Go listen to it. Also listen to their album 'Here She Comes a-Tumblin''. Last year, Birdeatsbaby came to stay with us on their way to Glasgow. It was very exciting. I was very shy. Johnny played one of their songs (which is also one of my favourite songs ever, called 'I Always Hang Myself With The Same Rope') with them in our living room. Amazing.

The Impossible Girl: Chapter Three by Kim Boekbinder contains large amounts of super-goddamn-awesome. Kim has released her album in parts on the August 15th, September 15th, today and the next part is due out on November 15th. The latest part includes one of my favourite songs, of which a live version was released some time ago, 'Rainbows and Unicorns'. It's so good. Go listen to that as well.

I don't really feel like writing about the books aside from to say that they're great and both well worth a read.

I leave you with this quote from 'The Accidental' which is also currently on the whiteboard in our kitchen:
'Eggs are beautiful', said Astrid. 'When you eat an egg, you are eating beautifulness itself.'

Uhhh.

I am not cut out for blogging. So I'm going to stop blogging here. Mostly. I might occasionally post something, but I wouldn't count on it.
However, I have a new blog. I don't intend on updating it much. It's mostly my own notes and things I've written and things people have said. Just a place to keep stuff. Feel free to follow it, but don't expect ALL THE WORDS EVER.
http://dastardlyloop.blogspot.com

Monster Girl's Interview with Yours Truly (June 2010)

Monsters, today I thought I'd fill you all in on a project my lovely talented friend Audrey is doing at the moment, called the 200 Portraits project. I've had queries about the portrait she did of me (it's my new facebook profile photo) and thought I'd fill you all in about how to score one yourself! Instead of me waffling at you about it, though, I thought I'd get Audrey herself to tell you all about it! She's pretty rad. So follows the first ever interview here at Monster Girl Writes!

MG: Explain the project in a nutshell!

AB: People (mostly people I do not know) send me pictures of themselves and I paint or draw them. I mostly use ink, but I also use some fancy markers (ProMarkers) that my boyfriend bought a while ago when we decided to make a webcomic (this did not make it past the ideas stage, by the way).

MG: What gave you the idea for 200 Portraits?

AB: I'm doing it for a few reasons...Firstly, I just found out that for a few fun and exciting reasons that I shan't go into here, I cannot get a job for a few months, so that means a fair bit of sitting around the house wanting to eat my own legs due to boredom. Secondly, I am going to be working at a festival for home educated families in July, so I figured it would be a good chance to go and do some art with/of/for some other people and faces are the thing I'm best at, so I thought it might be nice to do a bunch of portraits of the people I meet. THIRDLY, last year I did another project where I had to do paintings every day for a month, so I figured that if I was going to get something going, I might as well get something going where I do a certain number of things again. 200 seemed about right.

MG: What are you hoping to get out of the project?

AB: I think it will be pretty awesome when it's over and I have sketchbooks and things full of other people's faces. 200. More people than I can probably fit comfortably in the house I live in. I've had so many different people send me pictures too. One woman sent me a picture of her horse. I'm not amazing at drawing animals, but I fully intend on giving it a go.
Another thing that may or may not happen once I've passed the finish line is an exhibition. 31 Paintings had an exhibition in spite of the fact that it was far less ambitious than this, so that's the aim.

MG: How can Monster Readers get involved?

AB: By going to the website (http://200portraits.info) and sending me a photo! A question I've been asked a lot is 'what kind of photo?' and I have to say...it really doesn't matter (though if you have any other questions, my twitter username is audreyisanidiot). I can make something of most of the things I've been sent and I won't be leaving any out for difficulty reasons. OR, if you're not into that, you can tweet about the project to get people you know involved or donate to the project and I'll send you a pretty picture in the mail (the details for that are also on the site).

MG: Favourite scene in a Star Wars movie?

AB: I have a new love for the scene in the Cantina, with Han Solo being a cool motherf***er and whatnot, mostly because I am going to be production manager on a Star Wars fan film type thing sometime soon and part of it takes place in there so I've been thinking about that one thing more often than I usually would. I also enjoy Han responding to Leia's 'I love you' with 'I know'. My boyfriend does that to me though and it makes me want to murder him...
When I was about 8 or 9, I used to watch 'Return of the Jedi' every day after school and I always just loved that movie as a whole. I can't remember why I loved that one in particular now, though.

As well as the 200 portraits website, Audrey has a blog which you can check out here and you can follow her on twitter here and if you'd like an example of the photo to portrait process, here's the awesome portrait she did for me! It's so cute! Probably could have found a better photo for her to work with though :P

(pictures included at source)

Original version here:
http://monstergirlwrites.blogspot.com/2010/06/interviewing-audrey-bishop-of-200.html