Hey gang!

I had this idea for my Renegade booth to put product photos in picture frames and sprinkle them throughout the booth (it goes with the general theme). But all the photos I have are mostly of ME, and I don’t want to bombard my booth with MY FACE.

I know you some of you guys have sent me photos before, but if you could do it again, so I have them all in one place, that would be awesome. The higher resolution the better, for a better print out. The photos won’t be humongous. I bought some cute 4×6 frames from Target for them.

If you don’t want your face in my booth, I totally understand! But if you do, that would be rad!!

You can email them to me at twinkie @ twinkiechan.com or leave a link here in a blog comment or my contact form.

Thanks, guys!!!!!

Email sent to Manda early in the a.m.:

Sorry about all the typos. I think I sent it at like 6 in the morning after crocheting a painting all night.

Txt sent to Manda early this evening:

So I have this dream idea of what I want my booth for Renegade SF to look like. I had a few options. Buy an already-made set-up and customize it (for more money), or try to build one from scratch (for less money). Manda and I got really ambitious one day and decided to try starting from scratch. At this point, I feel like maybe this was not the best choice…but… we are 2 weeks out from the event, and I think we have to stick with the plan!

I am going to buy fabric to make walls tomorrow, so I wanted to try to put up the PVC frame in the backyard and trim everything that needed to be trimmed.

On the internet it’s like, “PVC is awesome and you can just cut it with a saw!”

I found it really difficult! We are using 1 1/4″ pipe, and after trimming 8 poles, I never want to saw through PVC ever again! I didn’t have a great set up, though. I was on the ground in the yard, sticking the end of the pole over a dirt ditch, sawing with my right hand, holding the pole with my left hand, kneeling on my right knee, using my left foot to step on the pole to stabilize it while I sawed. I wish I had a photo for you guys, but I was by myself!

I tried putting the frame together.

And realized that 8 feet tall is REALLY REALLY TALL, so I trimmed the vertical poles down to 7 1/2 feet so I could at least reach the top on a step stool.

However, I couldn’t figure out how to put the whole thing together alone without having poles fly everywhere. At some point, I tried to roll it over on its side, and all the poles started going every which way, and, as I mentioned above, some of it crashed into the lemon tree. At this point, I decided to stop!!!

So I still have no idea how strong or how weak this thing is. I don’t want it to come crashing down on people at Renegade!!! We’ll keep working on it!

I was texting my buddy Alek yesterday (apparently he was in Daiso, and clearly that means you text your Asian friends with pictures of Asian things), and I mentioned I had this blog entry queued up in my Drafts, but I hadn’t hit “publish” yet, because, while it felt good for me to write it,  it also seemed like a RANT that nobody else would give a flying fishfinger about. But that’s sort of what the whole blog entry was about, too….so I decided to push the button! Anyway, it’s Saturday. Most of you are probably outside enjoying the real world!

***

In the very early 2000s, I had a deskjob. I was an assistant, and I answered phones all day, took messages, faxed things, wrote letters, and read manuscripts. I’d often be the only person in the office, and I’d listen to my CDs quietly – Kitty Craft, Dressy Bessy, the Gerbils, to set the scene. I was a very GOOD employee. I didn’t surf the net on personal adventures, and I hardly used the computer at all. But I remember Yahoo’ing something for work (we used Yahoo then not Google!) and randomly stumbling across somebody’s Diaryland diary. It was bland, written poorly, and completely inane. I WAS HOOKED!

What was this? People sharing their personal lives on the internets? Everyday, boring-ass people nobody would care to read about? You ate chicken today? I FIND THAT VERY INTRIGUING! I was in publishing. I was looking for GOOD writing not CRAP writing, but I was totally intrigued by the REALNESS of blogging. Who was this person? Why were they eating chicken? Would I blog about eating chicken? I signed myself up. My blog had a bright yellow background, plain black Times New Roman text, and no pictures. We didn’t have pictures back then. Blogging was about writing.

My best friend at the time had moved away. I thought this blogging thing would be a cool way to K.I.T. with all your pals. You could share a story once and keep it fresh and funny and not have to repeat it over and over to different people. I was an English/Creative Writing in Fiction major, and blogging also seemed like a good way/excuse to exercise the muscles everyday, even if you were writing about the stupidest things. Well, I’ll tell you: NONE of my “IRL” friends read my blog in the beginning. It just became something I did to entertain myself, make myself laugh at my own self, and maybe draw strangers in to laugh with/at me. It was fun to form little blog posses (that word looks really weird right now…did I spell that right??? POSSIES?? POSSEEZ?) and keep up with the adventures of your invisible internet buddies (Carlyn of Canada….WHERE ARE YOU NOW!?) who were probably all 45 year old men.

Back then, I was trying to out-me me. I wanted to be the funniest, smartest, wise-crackingest me, the cleverest me. I’d write about a night of drinking on the town and start the blog entry from the end of the evening and recount all the events backwards to the moment I decided what to wear, when I knew it would be a bad night, because none of my outfits looked good. I’d write snappy, bullet-pointed lists of the day’s adventures. I’d talk about who I was dating (with code names) and what it was like to be ME. It was personal (with code names). Blogging was supposed to be personal, right? That’s what made blogging good, right?

Fast forward a few years, and I got busted for writing too personally about somebody and revealing things I was not able to reveal in person. (I guess that ended up working out for the best, but it was still mortifying to be busted. Hello, The Turnip, if you still read my blog, and I hope you don’t!)

Fast forward another year or so, and I got busted for writing about another somebody else, not even someone I was dating, and not even anything negative about their character (still using code names). Yet this somehow led to online passive-aggressive threats of violence and the fact that I should go back to China. Anyway. I deleted my blog. Blogging was powerful…AND EVIL! Drama is like a black hole. Sometimes you don’t see yourself getting sucked into it. I wanted to be rid of it.

I made my new Livejournal account friends-only for a while. No drama for me! But when I started my crafting and my business, I wanted to share news with everybody, so I’d make the non-personal, craft-related entries public. Soon, all my entries were non-personal and craft-related and public. I think that’s where I am now. Non-personal. Public. And sometimes craft-related.

I’ll read my old blog entries from 2002 and think OHMIGOD I USED TO BE SO FUNNY WHAT HAPPENED TO ME!!? What happened, is that I didn’t want to get in trouble anymore, didn’t want to step on anyone else’s toes, didn’t want to offend anybody or hurt anybody’s feelings (blogging about eating chicken can get you in trouble now!).

I felt like blogging suddenly came with RESPONSIBILITY, because people were ACTUALLY READING IT. Once I discovered that more teenagers and pre-teens AND THEIR MOMS were reading my blog, I didn’t want to cuss anymore or mention alcohol or reveal that I might have mean thoughts sometimes. I drop the F-bomb a lot in real life. Don’t even be eavesdropping on me when I’m driving in the car alone and swearing at every driver on the road! I’ll call people “dick hole” and “dick butt” and hope they have diarrhea that night. My mom was driving me somewhere the other day, and the car in front of us was about to do something scary, and I just blurted out, “OH SHIT!” and realized, that’s not the greatest thing to say in front of your mom, but she was like, “Good thing you said, ‘Oh shit!’ cuz I didn’t see that guy.” But I digress.

I am very aware that my blog has become kind of a ghost-version of me, for all the reasons I rambled on about above. On a similar note, I sometimes do get bummed that I am not fully 100% a crochet blog, or craft blog, or DIY blog, and I wonder, do I want to be one of those things? Those things win awards. They sound so much more important, like they have a reason to exist, for the good of mankind and to save the planet and its small cute animals.

I have to go back to the year 2000 and remember why I wanted to blog in the first place. It was for me. It was completely selfish and self-serving. It was to delight myself and maybe by doing that, delight my readers. My blog was supposed to be for me, and I know that we should allow ourselves and our goals to change, but I want to keep my blog pure, not forced. I still have to figure my way around how sterile I need to or want to be. Now that I am starting to work with other companies, I’m afraid they will be like, “That girl said ‘Oh shit,’ to her own mom. We don’t want to work with the likes of HER. Plus, I THINK SHE MIGHT EAT CHICKEN.”

So I don’t have the answer. My blog has also never been about answers. I always ask the questions! My blog will never be an advice blog, because I don’t know what the heck I’m doing ever. I’m just here. Blogging. And maybe you’re here. Reading.

I was going to close this entry by referring back to “the neutering of my blog” in the blog title, using the metaphor of how I hoped it would grow its balls back without hitting anyone in the face, but, my dad reads this blog, too, so I’m having 2nd thoughts. One time in high school, I said the word “crap” at a restaurant, and he told me I was being too proletariat.

Hey guys! Now that it’s summertime, it’s your last chance to grab a crocheted chain link neckwarmer or heart chainlink sweater from the collab by me and Michael Shirley of Doctor Couture. You’ll have until July 11 to put in an order, and then they will  go bye-bye forever!

Longtime blog readers will remember that that TWO years ago, we did a giveaway for JujuChan Texture Powder Styler when it first launched.

Now we’re doin’ another one in case you missed it the first time! If you’ve ever been curious about dry shampoo but never committed to buying it, this is a great chance to try it for free!

As you can read in my previous giveaway blog entry, Jules “Juju”Chan is my hair stylist and has been for a bazillion years. I followed her around all over the city from salon to salon.

When Texture Powder Styler first came out, I really only wanted it to take the oil out of my bangs, since they got oilier before the rest of my hair. But to be honest, I now use it ALL OVER! This powder/dry shampoo is designed to give your hair texture (hence the name), which is what I CRAVE, given that I have stick-straight, super coarse, FLAT Asian hair which I call “Pantene” hair. So if you want slick, shiny, smooth Pantene hair, this may not be for you. If you want texture  and volume and body – plus getting away with an extra day without shampooing, which is a blessing for those of us who color our hair – then you need to check this out! I use the light/blonde formula in my pink hair.

I have tried a few other brands of dry shampoo (not all of them, mind you) since our first giveaway, and so far, this is what I prefer about JujuChan’s:

– It’s small and cute! You can carry it in your overnight bag or even your purse. It’s great for traveling.

– You get a lot of bang for your buck! The Bumble&Bumble spray-on dry shampoo is, I will say, pretty awesome, but I used up a whole can in no time, and it just wasn’t worth the big price tag. My little bottle of JujuChan lasts a few months, and I use it a LOT.

– It doesn’t have “make your hair shiny and flat” stuff in it. I tried some other brand and wondered why my hair wasn’t getting the texture I needed to tease and fluff my hair.  Oh. It had “smoothing” or “silkening” proteins in it. NO THANK YOU! I want rock n roll hair!

– It isn’t smelly. It has no scent. Some hair stuff out there SMELLS REAL BAD.

– I get to support my friend, a local & independent business lady, talented hair stylist, and overall supercool person!

So here are the giveaway deets!

Jules is giving away two bottles so we can have two winners! There’s a light/blonde formula and also a darker/brunette formula. If you win and are unsure of which formula is right for you, you can tell me your hair color and texture, and Jules can recommend the right one for you.

I’ll be using Rafflecopter again, because it seemed to work best for most people. The giveaway will end at midnight on Friday the 13th!