Lending Voice to Thoughts

Okay, so, like, for the first time in SIX WEEKS I am completely, utterly, totally ALONE.

*CACKLES HYSERICALLY*

... except for the cats.

*sighs* It's only for a half hour, then I go help friends. But still! Alone time! Alone! Wheeeeee!!!!! (not that we don't love spending time with friends, but... yeah. -alone- time. ^__^)

So. Has anyone seen my pencils?

Um... People we met and promised art to:

yume_no_kage: Four Horsewomen of the Apocolypse.
joisbishmyoga: ... I can't remember...
dogmatix_san: Pr0n ficcage.
kosaginolegion: Train/Creed art. (need to finish shading, 95% done)
Partner in Crime: ????
candy__chan: Cute Kaito/Aoko (sketched)
socchan: Think we promised you fic instead-?
fyliwionvilyaer: Kid/Hakuba & handcuffs. (sketched)
ytak: Hakuba and Tamaki
wmchichiri: ... I can't remember...
wren_chan: I don't think you said...
jheen: We owe you two, and I don't think you've said what yet.
ciceqi: Tentacle something
btailweaver: Um... something out of your ficcage-?
poe_nui: ... I can't remember...
tdei ?????

Anyone / Any art I've forgotten? Please remind me!!!

And we still owe ladyorla and sakurazuka_jae art from when we were in NZ. Still need reference material from Lady Orla.

-we leave for the Grand Canyon tomorrow, afterwhich, the roadtrip is officially over. ^^;;

People don't believe me sometimes when I say I came from a large household.

Current roster under my Folk's roof tonight:

Me.
Allie.
Mati.
My Dad.
My Gigi.
Aunt Debbie.
Nephew.
Niece.
Younger Brother, unexpectedly arrived from San Diego.
Youngest Brother.
Next Youngest Sister.
Next Youngest Sister's Husband.
Next Youngest Sister's under a year old Daughter.

My Folk's Three Dogs --including new puppy--, Younger Brother's puppy, Next Youngest Sister's puppy, Next Youngest Sister's two cats.
The puppies are all siblings, American Bulldog/Aussie Shepard mix. Five months old and act like they haven't a brain. Big sweeties tho.

All we need now is Older Sister, her Boyfriend and her other two kids and my Youngest Sister and we'd have a full house reunion. ^^;; (and people wonder why I'm an introvert...)

Think we're staying at tdei's house tomorrow night. Meeting her tomorrow in Downtown LA for lunch and wanders. Yay!!!

Had a good time at 'Neechan's this afternoon before heading down here. Introduced Mati and Allie to Kyoei Treasures, the local Kimono shop and to the nearby Book Off -a used manga shop. Lost them for a while there. *snerks*
I got Magic Kaitou Volume 4 for $3!!! *Squeeeeeeee*

And now the LA air takes it's toll and I'm gonna go crash. Later!

Tezuka Osamu on Manga:
"Manga is Virtual
Manga is Sentimental
Manga is Resistance
Manga is Masterbation
Manga is Bizzare
Manga is Pathos
Manga is Destruction
Manga is Arrogance
Manga is Love
Manga is Kitsch
Manga is Sense of Wonder
Manga is ...

There is no Conclusion Yet."

-from an interview with a newspaper in 1969.

I want that on a shirt. ^_____^

After arriving in San Rafael, went down to Peir 39 and Fisherman's Wharf for dinner (clam chowder! yum!) and then wandered down to Ghirardelli Square for dessert and watch them make chocolate. Not to worry, Ysabet. I'm bringing back souveniers. ~_^

*Wind picks up as we walk down the street*
*Icka! holds skirt down as it threatens to thwap her in the head*
Icka!: Stop it, Skirt! You're supposed to be hide my tentacles!!!
*Little boy walking ahead of the group turns and stares with wide eyes*

Also met the Bushman of San Fran who was quite amusing.

Yesterday was spent at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco. They have a Tezuka exibit at the moment, which is where the above quote was found. Spent a while wandering their permanent exibt, where I got into a conversation with one of the security guards. Found a statue of Krishna dancing with a Star of David in the background. It turns out that it's also a common symbol in Krishna, but as a representation of oppisites.

I commented that I didn't have a camera when I started sketching, and he said:

"You have the best camera. You have beautiful eyes, and a warm heart to store all in."

Which is a comment that I thought needed to be shared. *warm fuzzies to artists!* We later got into a discussion about art and how capturing the essance of the moment or emotion is more immportant than getting the anatomy right. (his comment, I just gawked, cause I still don't think my RL sketches are good)

Another good exibit was the Yoshitoshi one. Espeically loved his 'Hundred Ghost Stories' ones, which often were comedic. Such as the ghost making faces to the near-sighted old man, who couldn't see them

Currently spending time with Po'e and the Bratling, whom I haven't seen in years. Bratling is as cute as a button and is a happy child. ^__^ And then we're heading to the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum & Planetarium in a little while, to watch Mati geek out.

So we made the drive from Arco, Idaho to Craters of the Moon in good time this morning.

Must admit, out of all the National Parks we've been to, was kinda dissapointed in this one the most. For one thing, there aren't many craters, and there's lots of vegetation. Evidently, this changes in the seasons, we just hit the growing period.

But what it is, is a volcanic eruption about 2,000 years ago. Which, is kinda cool to look at, because you don't expect to find lava flow or rocks covering large areas of mainland America, you expect it someplace like Hawai'i. You see lots of it along the Snake River, then it goes back to shrub/grasslands.

-the Volcano has since moved underneath Yellowstone Caldera. Boom, baby.

Then we drove to Portland, Oregon. About 609mi/980km, not including getting lost. Was expecting to stop somewhere before Portland to sleep, but it didn't happen.

We did pass under the Bridge of the Gods, however. ^^;;

Gonna go fall over now, we're all tired and cranky.

Have somehow managed to add "There is no Honour with out Pie" to the running roadtrip running jokes, along with "Hail Eris!", "Falling Roxas! Roxas! Roxas! Roxas!" and, of course, the various types of deathss. ^_____^

Up next: Hanging out with Becky Tailweaver. (she does live!) All Hail Evil Twin!!! Then down to San Fran. ^^

We left Wren and Gen down in Colorado Springs, CO and made our way up to Yellowstone safely. Spent the night in Thermopolis at a really nice little motel that reminded me of most of the places we stayed at in NZ. Mom and Pop places really are the best.

Debated about having a sleep in there, but changed our minds and went to Yellowstone yesterday.

Biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiig park.

We saw Old Faithful, wandered around, cursed the skies for sprinkling and marveled over the lodge's carpet cleaning device, a tiny squirrel that sneaks in and steals the crumbs.

Saw Bison and Elk, and suddenly realising that yeah. You CAN ride elk. They're that big.
... is one thing to hear about it, another thing to actually SEE them.

Have also discovered that apparently I have been converted to Discordianism as "Hail Eris!!!" has replaced 'Oh, Shyte' in my vocabluary. Often to Mati and Allie's amusement.

We ended up getting an upgrade in the motel we've been staying at in West Yellowestone evidently due to the fact that we're a bunch of giggling twits.
Or the fact that we came in last night having a hard time finding a decently priced place to stay, gleefully announced that we loved the cabin the owner showed us, but the 'Shadow Pines' place across the street scared the crap out of us and we wanted to check it out because of that.
... we did. And gawked at the giant elk head that stared at us as we walked in the front, with it's mouth open. Or the thick-accented person at the front desk. Or the collection of various skulls decorating the building across the street. It looks like something out of a cheesy murder mystery.
-the motel owner here refers to us as 'The Happy Travelers'. ^^;;

The plunnies have been fruitful and multiplying, Allie's main fandom is Kingdom Hearts, Mati's is Yu-Gi-Oh and mine is Magic Kaito. So far we've gotten quite well along discussing KH/HP, KH/SG1, KH/YGO, MK/YGO and various other plots.

... and Mati is currently drawing Yuugi and Yuugi on Jounouchi to get me to write Yuugi/Jounouchi/Yuugi pron later as Allie attempts to explain how Yuugi-oh would be kicked out of offical tournaments for cheating. Is fun.

Up next is sleep, laundry and Craters of the Moon. Hail Hypnos!

impfics: Danny Phantom - Snapshots 4/?

I LUUUUUURVE New Mexico. I don't care what state I was actually born in, New Mexico will prolly always be my home state.

-that said, last night, picking up supplies at WalMart, I got greeted to the state, cause I obviously wasn't from around here. *face palm* (granted, i get the same thing in los angeles, despite my having lived there for 20+ years, but it does get old after a while)

( Carlsbad Caverns )

Detective Conan Fandom Related:
Kaizou is celebrating 1 year, and so the Detective Conan Translation Project just released six things today. OVA 7, episodes 238-239 (Osaka 3K, from vol 29), episodes 240-241 (bombs on the shinkansen, Sato & Takagi, vol 30) and a two-hour special, episode 263 (Heiji's first stand alone case, with Okita, vol 31), which is very much yay.
Check their tracker for torrent listings.

56%Mingle² - Free Online Dating

Well, today has certainly had it's up and downs.

It was warm enough last night that I slept in a sports tank and pj pants without the usual night shirt. Woke up this morning to hear knocking. Stumbled to the door, open it and lean forward. "What?!"
Guy in hotel uniform pauses in knocking on the door next to us. He looks down, looks up, goes a little cross-eyed trying not to look down again. "Sa-Sorry."
There's a 'whoa' from down the hall.
I shut the door, lock it, stumble off back to sleep. The guy resumes knocking next door, adding 'housekeeping' to the sound. Eh. Gave him a cheap thrill at least. ^^;;

When we woke up for real, went to the The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, which was a nice museum. Good Japanese and Chinese section. Think I'm starting to get casual about the Rennisance art and armour, this is the second museum we've been to that I just wander around going 'seen it, seen it, seen it'. The giant shuttlecocks were kind of amusing too.

Two of the exibits had those fuzzy felt stickers that you put on the bottom of tables or chairs glued to the inside of the glass. Evidently people had kept walking into the glass, so they'd stuck them there to prevent it. *chuckles*

Unfortunately this was the day my period decided to start up. Not in the usual mellow way, but in one of those 'I hate being female' days. *sighs* i'm sure y'all needed to know that too

We attempted to eat lunch there, but the cafe had closed. We'd skipped breakfast to get there. >P But one of the cafe workers took pity on us when I asked if we could beg some bread and gave us a scone that they couldn't use, cause it was broken.

Massively good scone. *purrrrrrrs*

Museum decided to close an hour early, so we got out just as it decided raining. Which was kind of funny, since as we looked out the back door, it was almost impossible to tell the difference between the flat pond in the back and the sidewalk around it.

So got food, got on the road and started heading south. It was wet and rainy for a long time, then it calmed down and we had some gorgeous clouds. Mati and started talking about a YGO/SG-1 and then we got caught in a Speed Trap in Talala.

ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHH. Turns out the whole city is locally known as a speed trap. But what gets me is that the cop said that we'd been driving 56mph in a 45mph zone. 55mph was the last posted speed limit we saw. We were pulled over outside of the city, in a 65mph zone after having evidently ignored the TWO 45mph signs that we never saw. ~_~

... if we wanna argue it, hafta be back in Oklahoma in June. *sigh*

So curled up in a hotel, mind kinda blank. Being highly paranoid about road signs currently. just because you're paranoid....

But hey, the Art Museum had glowing cones in the basement. ^_______^

Guh. Brain dead. Crashed with Allie's folks for the night.

So evidently the The Children's Museum of Indianapolis is one of the world's largest Children's Museums.

... boy, can we feel it.

Ran around like little kids, which amused the staff. First exibit we checked out was the Spymaster thing, where you ran around doing various activities (dress up in costume, hacking, defusing bombs, petting the large angry kitty in a box) to get the passwords to decode more information to prevent Oscorp from releasing a virus that will destroy the wireless networks.

Then there were dinosaurs, and the 'Dracorex Hogwartsia' skull, the only one of it's kind. (it's a real dinosaur, btw)

They have a really cool glass display, it's called 'Fireworks of Glass', but it really looks like drunk tentacles. With the occasional random cupid.

There was also the Eygptian mummy in the 'What If' room. Real mummy. Wow. Although we thought that the jewelry was wrong. Something about shiny pearlesant beads in Ancient Egypt.

Then we went and rode the antique carasol in the top floor. Love Carasols. We got to ride three times because there was no line.

We were gonna head to lunch and ended up heading into the science area and playing with the water flow things, then went over to the map of the local waterways and tried to flood Indianapolis. *Cackles* Was fun.

So while everyone else was in the Gift Shop, I got lost looking at dinosaur bones and had to run back. ^^;; whoops.

Then on the way back to Allie's house before heading towards Kentucky when we realised that gas prices had suddenly risen from $3.27 to $3.58 in the space it had taken us to drive the museum and back.

Starting to re-work the trip to save on gas milage due to that gas prices will prolly reach about $4 a gallon before too long. (and the ones from out of the States point and laugh. ^^;; )

We have gotten lost no less than seven times today. Prolly closer to ten times.

*Icka Starts Talking About Saguru being Jealous over Kaito in an TGA chapter WIP.*
*Radio Starts singing 'Hey, Jealousy'.*
Icka! & Mati: ....
Icka!: ... I have told you about my radio karma, right?
Mati: No?
Icka! *points to radio*: That.

This has continued throughout the trip, songs either following local landmarks or lyrics following the conversation. (as Icka's typing: "where's your story, where ya going?") Other really good one was Elton John's 'Benny and the Jets' as planes take off next to us as we're driving past an airport. [Edit: Passing by Mt. Zion Rd "What if God was One of Us?"]

The songs that are following us are Smashmouth's 'All Star' and Third Eye Blind 'Semi-Chamred Kinda Life'. Highly amused by this.

Icka!: What does it say that we're on a Country Music channel and I'm not inclined to change it?
Mati: That we've been in the South too long.
Icka!: ... Right.
*leaves the channel playing*

-We're noticing that we get more country stations the future north we get. The accent and polite hostility of strangers (although the ladies at the Cave Town Farmer's Market were sweethearts) seems to increase the closer we get to the Mason-Dixon line. Waiting to see how it gets in Ohio.

Cannot get over how green it is here. Yeah, okay, been living in Tucson for a while now where the palette is kind of muted, but there's just like TREES everywhere. It's not as green as the South Island of NZ, but it's close. Different greens, there is more Green-Yellow here, rather than Green-Blue. Kinda neat seeing the granite rock next to the sides of the road. Way cool, neat texture too.

We keep running into odd city names, like Warsaw, Sparta, England, Verona, Lebenon, Sonora. It's kinda like a mini-world tour. On a water tower: 'FLORENCE, Y'ALL'

We also ended up driving past this Giant Jesus.

Then we had lunch with kosaginolegion and Partner in Crime, which rocked. I need to draw more Black Cat now. >D

Got lost on the way to joisbishmyoga's place, Jo ended up having to talk us through the freeway system and yume_no_kage walked to the end of the street to direct us from there.

And then we stayed up until three am talking. ^^;;

G'night!

Okay, I lie. It was 20 hours on a bus, because we had an hour layover in El Paso Texas.

BTW? Ysabet in full-blown Mommy-mode is amusing. And a life-saver. Thanks, Ysabet. As promised, checking in.

The way out of Tucson was kinda interesting, kept seeing flashes of light that I thought were either tricks of the light or halucinations. Kept watching anyway.
Then we had a small break in Lordsburg, New Mexico. And there was rain in the wind.
Then it started to rain.
Then after I got woken up sometime around dawn by Border Patrol, who wanted to see everyone's IDs and then hauled one guy away, there was snow on the ground.
Which grew into more snow. And puddles. Large puddles, as I found out while getting tossed around in the tiny lav. ~_~

... TGZ plunnies started biting hard too. *sighs* Although the TGA meets Guard Dog plunnie was amusing.

Anyway, currently at Mati's house feeling completely stoned and showing each other porn and pretty pictures.

BTW? Curse you Ysabet, I've got that damn lyric "He tastes like you only sweeter" stuck in my head the entire damn trip.

ROAD TRIP ITINERARY.
(aka proof that we are completely utterly totally nutters)

[Proof that Icka is Tired:]
tdei .::fiat lux::. says:
...omg. what does USGS mean?!
i saw that acronym on my midterm today... well, i know it has to do with gasoline, but...
Icka!: PLEASE DO NOT FEED THE PLUNNIES. says:
Untied States Gas Supply?

impfics: Danny Phantom - Snapshots 3/?