I’ve tried a thousand times to make some words happen this morning, but everything I want to say sounds hollow and wrong. I thought about blogging about nothing in particular, but that felt disrespectful in a dozen different ways. In the end, my words are as self-serving as always – I’m trying to make myself feel better, the only way I know how.

The universe is a little less awesome today – last night, Derek K. Miller lost his battle with cancer. Derek was widely loved throughout the entire Vancouver online scene – everyone I know either knew or knew of Derek and had nothing but glowing things to say about him. He was, in all possible ways, a good egg: funny, talented, inspiring. To say that he will be missed is a vast understatement: Derek brought so much to everything he did. It was incredible to watch the energy around him and see how he could make a huge impact just by being present – he was truly respected, and I wish – especially for Airdrie and his two daughters, from whom he was taken entirely too soon – that we all had more time with him to learn how to live and love as selflessly as he did.

I am in awe at the grace and dignity that Derek and Airdrie both showed throughout his entire illness. I can only hope that when it is my time to go, I can do so with even a tenth of the strength they had.

If you haven’t read Derek’s last blog post, I implore you to do so.

We love and miss you, Derek.

This is what I’ve been working on for Got Craft for the last month:

forever in debt to your priceless advice

Heart-shaped necklaces made of genuine LEGO pieces and assorted shiny metals – it’s the ultimate in geek chic. They come in a bunch of different colours and combos, and are $10 each. Come find me at Got Craft next Sunday and get a piece of awesome to wear around your neck! Each necklace is made with love (and pliers)!

I’ll also have Smuttons available for you to paw through, AND as a special treat to cheer myself up, I’m doing a giveaway: come check out the Sassy Contessa table (which is Miranda’s gig; I’m just riding her coattails to sell LEGO and porn) and say the SECRET PHRASE, and you will receive two free Smuttons to shock and titillate your friends and family. Free stuff! Hooray! Are you ready for the SECRET PHRASE? Here you go:

WINDMILLS DO NOT WORK THAT WAY!

It’s a line from my favourite Futurama episode, and it makes me laugh. Say it to me at Got Craft on Sunday and receive some free Smuttons! Hope to see you there!

support indie crafts! buy some heart shaped blox!

blue and copper

If you’re interested in a LEGO necklace and aren’t in Vancouver/can’t make it to Got Craft this Sunday, email me at kimli at delicious juice – they are mailable! :) I might also be at other craft shows this summer, but I’ll post about those when I know more!

The good news is that I likely don’t have vitiligo or hypopigmentation. Hooray! The bad news, however, is that when someone tells you to use hydrocortisone cream sparingly, you better fucking listen.

I’ve been using a prescribed steroid cream to combat my zombie face, which is considerably better these days. Unfortunately, I got used to slathering the cream on at the first sign of dry skin to avoid an outbreak of full-fledged zombism, and this reckless abuse of prescription drugs has left me with three noticeably lighter patches of skin on my face – one on each side of my chin, and between my eyes.

When I first saw the white patches, I didn’t think much of it. It was only when I realized they weren’t going away (and that there was more than one, all in areas that were the most undead of them all) that I started to panic and immediately jump to conclusions mostly involving leprosy and syphilis. After I calmed down and stopped trolling Web MD, I thought a little harder and realized the likely culprit was my gleeful overindulgence of steroid cream, a theory confirmed by additional internetting. I’m now slightly whiter in some places than I was a while ago, and it will be very interesting to see what Cuba’s sun will do to me – will my skin tone even out, or will I turn additional colours? Exciting!

I had a very productive weekend, becoming a honky aside. On Saturday I was up ridiculously early for an extremely fruitful jaunt to America – with Shan, Miranda and Heather, I stocked up on Trader Joe’s, travel items and gifts for Cubans, and all the dresses in the world (including an honest-to-Stan prom dress with so much tulle I couldn’t possibly pass it up). I had to repack for our trip when we got home, but as we were home by 5pm I had the whole evening to pack and repack to my heart’s content. I am now really, really ready for our trip. Let’s go!

On Sunday, my house will filled with estrogen as we crafted the afternoon away. I made more stock for Got Craft and finalized my awesome display – all I have left to do is make some signage and I’m all set. People often laugh at my anal retentive tendencies and gun-jumping ways, but I’m calm and have ample time to tackle whatever challenges the week may throw me because I don’t have to scramble to prep for next Sunday’s Epic Adventure. Yay!

I really wish I didn’t have this massive boner of a headache, though.

printer pinata!

No wonder guys hate wearing ties so much – how can you show any cleavage if you’re all bundled up in a tie?

no talent ass clown

This is the most covered up I’ve been since .. um .. before I got boobs, probably. 1979 or so.

We’re having an Office Space party at work today, complete with printer scene. It’s gonna be awesome – pictures to come, I hope.

I’m Out vs. I’m In – what’s the difference?

I’m Out has a long list of excuses things that have more meaning in his life than a night out drinking terrible beer with strangers, whereas I’m In has a long list of casual acquaintances who wouldn’t be able to tell you his last name.

I’m Out has paperwork – mortgage papers, offers of employment, ticket stubs from concerts and games – and well, so does I’m In: paternity tests, final notices, citations for public drunkenness, STD medication, phone numbers from desperate women who are a hard-ridden 4 at best.

I’m Out is up bright and early to go to his awesome job that pays him the salary that funds his comfortable and fun life and allows him to go on trips or buy new toys, whereas I’m In is still out (cold on a bench in a park and moments away from being asked to “move along, sir” with the help of a beat stick).

Sure, sometimes I’m In makes it home in one piece and with all his clothing intact, but he’d have way better stories .. if he could actually remember what happened last night before he blacked out in a puddle of someone else’s vomit.

I’m In is a total collar-popping douchebag who has no respect for anyone (especially himself).

I’m Out, by virtue of not wanting to go to the bar to drink Bud Light on a fucking weeknight, is somehow supposed to look lame in comparison.

I know which one I’D rather mount at night. How about you?

Last month I stumbled upon Hatchcraft, makers of bamboo shadow boxes to display your Instagram photos. I immediately ordered a bunch of them, because getting prints of my iPhone images makes me very, very happy. They arrived last week, but I’ve been too busy admiring them to mention it until now:

click to embiggen the pretty

Besides the delicious irony of using Hipstamatic to take pictures of my Instagram prints, the boxes are *gorgeous*. Hatchcraft prints your images on special photo paper of extreme fanciness for long lasting pretty, and the boxes themselves are made of bamboo and come in three shades of woodiness. I ordered four, but one was a print of this picture of Hobbs that I ordered specifically for Ed, since they are completely gay for each other. The other three are for my desk and feature some of my favourite Instagram shots I’ve taken. I’m really impressed with how they turned out – if you’re looking for an awesome way to display some of your pretties, get some Boo Boxes from Hatchcraft. Your images will show up on the Gallery – you can see what I and other people have ordered. Fun!

Hipstamatic also does photo printing – they come in sets of 9 in a neat package that doubles as a display. I’ve decided that I am doing an Art Installation, so I’ve ordered a bunch of Hipstamatic prints that all fall into a theme – I’m going to mount them somewhere, and call it Art. I can do that, right? I am a sensitive artist!

I like iPhone photography.

sequins, strips and ruffles - around here, that's business formal

I caved and bought myself a pair of black sequined suspenders, figuring that I could never have too many sequins and sometimes my skirts do fall down. They’re not exactly what I was looking for (and I’m still short 4 pairs), but if I’m gonna dress up as anything I’m gonna do it my way – and my way includes sequins. Besides, I can wear them at the Expo 86 Party (to which you all must attend coz it’s going to be super fun). I assume I’ll have to wear them WITH something, which I will have to figure out soon – I try not to remember what I looked like in 1986, let alone revisit the era.

That’s all I got. It’s a dull Tuesday around these parts.

Ed said I should keep my Got Craft display under wraps until the show, but that is considerably less fun than showing everyone immediately.

So, a compromise: here is a piece of my new display!

fun with lego !

Fun!

I will not be at the following locations on Wednesday:

• At home nursing my celebratory/mourning hangover
• Army and Navy’s annual shoe sale
• Anywhere, caring about the Royal Wedding in the slightest

That is all.

It’s not that I don’t CARE about hockey, and I do want the Canucks to win so I can shake the theory that they’re the Team Abuse of the NHL (you won’t get that analogy unless you were a hardcore competitive gamer in the North American Quake 3 scene circa 2002), but .. y’know, I’m busy. Too busy to drop everything and worry myself drunk over hockey. Ed has informed me that we’ll be getting NHL Center Ice again next season, so I’m kind of really looking forward to the end of the playoffs so I can have a couple months of peace and also stop wearing Khabubulin‘s goalie mask during sex.

We leave for Cuba in 13 days, and I have not yet started packing. This is an extreme show of restraint on my part, as I take chronic early packing to a whole other level (I usually start two months before departure). That ends soon, though – my suitcase is hideous and ready to be stuffed, and I’ve already started hording portable toiletries to bring for cleanliness purposes. I remembered that solid shampoo bars from Lush are amazing, and I’ve got my other various lotions and ointments in smaller jars for travel time fun. I don’t plan on wearing pants the entire time we’re in Cuba, so that should help – pants take up a lot of room, but dresses and bathing suits are small and squishy. I have a bad habit of over-packing, so I should probably get my vacation wardrobe sorted out .. like, tonight. After I vote, I will pack. If I don’t pack now, I might forget everything and that would be horrible. I’m starting to panic about it, actually. I wonder if I could go home early to pack? Oh god.

I do have a question for you, internet: do we need shots before we leave? Ed and I have never vacationed tropically, so we’ve never had to get shots for various terrifying diseases such as:

• Yellow Fever
• Tetanus/Diphtheria/Aacellular pertussis
• Polio
• Hepatitii
• Typhoids
• (Love in the Time of) Cholera
• Meningococcal Meningitis (quadravalent & conjugate C)
• Japanese B Encephalitis
• Tick-borne Encephalitis
• Rabies
• Influenza (Flu)
• Measles/Mumps/Rubella
• Pneumococcals
• The Pox
• Shingles

AHH! All of those things sound horrible! Do I need to get needles to keep the nasty bugs away? Will I come home with a thousand tropical and communist diseases? Or should I get us to a clinic immediately and be pumped full of Super Soldier DNA in the hopes of keeping the foul toxins at bay?

Seriously, I’m kind of lost here. Advise me, internet!

The Friday and Saturday of my long weekend were fantastic, but Sunday is proving to be a royal pain in my ass.

I had a huge list of things I needed to do/find this weekend, and I left most of it to the last minute. This wasn’t for lack of trying, but all previous attempts were met with complete failure. I was confident that Sunday would be My Day (move over, Jebus) and I would knock all my objectives out of the park and into my plans, which included a well-deserved Mexican Scramble (with extra salsa) from Deacon’s Corner.

Did you know it is completely impossible to find suspenders in this town? And LEGO?

I need 5 pairs of suspenders for work. I didn’t think they would be difficult to find, but just in case I had a big list of places I could look. I started on Saturday morning with the first and surely last of my stops – Dressew. I had never been to Dressew before, but I was assured they would have all I needed and more.

I don’t know that I’ve ever been quite so overwhelmed by a single store before – my GOD there was a lot of stuff in there. I didn’t even begin to look at fabric; there was just too much else to see. I spent a goodly amount of time in there looking at everything, and found many things I didn’t even know I needed:

• A pair of slotted sunglasses for the Expo 86 party
• A black lace tutu
• A roll of ivory tulle to go with my silver and black tulle – I have grand (yet undefined) plans
• 45 feet of silver chain, which has all been used and now I need more
• Two $0.25 tape measures and a pin cushion shaped like a tomato
• Two large pieces of scrap leather in a gorgeous shade of spring green
• Three pieces of fabric ends (green glitter flowers and two Hello Kitty prints!)

All awesome stuff, and all completely unnecessary (except for the chain). I failed at suspenders, though – the only ones I could find were sequined, which would be perfect and awesome at any other time but not suited to my current needs. Disappointing and ultimately the first of my 5 suspender-related failures this weekend; I am without the ability to hold up my pants (or the pants of my co-workers) and completely vexed at the lack of suspenders in this stupid city. I did find two pairs at Value Village, but they were baby-sized and mysteriously stained – not what I was going for. I did manage to hit the suspender jackpot at Zellers, but I need 5 pairs for an 8-hour joke – $20/pair is way, way outside my budget. So close and yet so far!

Suspenders were only part of my weekend failure – the other is LEGO. I need to buy or borrow a LEGO base board for Got Craft on May 8th, but I can’t seem to find one anywhere. They’re all over the place online, but I don’t want to tempt fate and the shipping gods this close to the show – I need to source one locally. Shouldn’t be too hard, right? Except stores don’t seem to sell LEGO pieces; just complete sets. Second-hand stores is a good idea, but someone out there is hording all the suspenders and LEGO pieces that come in and leaving none for anyone else. FIE on that person! He or she is a jerk.

The weekend wasn’t a total wash, though. I managed to make almost 50 pieces for Got Craft, get my hands on a black lace tutu, find Easter candy on sale, enjoy two gorgeous days of riding, have brunch with fun people AND pop my Dressew cherry. Add in Friday’s Top Secret Elopement and my plan to be naked until at least 8am tomorrow morning, and you’ve got a relatively satisfied (if somewhat frustrated) Kimli. Can’t complain, really (but I will anyway because goddamnit I need suspenders and LEGO).

ed's breakfast: the pancake bacon burrito (with syrup)