Sooooooo June. Great month, for starters. There was all kinds of stuff that happened and kept me scootin' around for the most part. We shall start, dear reader, with a brief account of my trip to Texas.
Side note: I just bought a new desk chair and threw out my old one, but the new one isn't here yet so I'm sitting on this wood one that's just KILLING my ass.
I kicked off the trip on a Thursday with that dear gal you see up above. Admittedly I was a little stressed out about this trip because it'd be spending a lot of time with my mom and something that I hadn't done in a very long time. The last time we'd even flown together was for my brother's wedding back in 2001 and even then, we didn't sit together on the plane. There is always an initial feeling that I'm going to get annoyed with someone but I'm always pleased as punch to discover it doesn't really apply to family members. Parents, siblings, yadda yadda. And from the minute we took off, it was great.
The flights went as planned, no drama or anything like that. When we got to Austin I checked in with Hertz and upgraded my car from whatever it was supposed to be and to a 2014 Chevy Cruze. I personally would never buy one (I'm too tall for cars like that) but it was a fun vehicle to scoot around town in for a few days, and being my first rental car I was happy with how it turned out. Josh called it a stormtrooper car (it was white with black details). I was super stoked that I was able to navigate us all the way from the airport to Josh's house WITHOUT the GPS. I'm weird when it comes to directions anyway but that's usually only when I've driven somewhere myself before; I just remember.
Seeing as I'd never driven in Austin myself, I was waaaay proud of the accomplishment. We went to a fun place called Chuy's for dinner (TexMex food, outdoors of course) and then I think just farted around the house that evening.
The next day Josh had to work and the kids were in school, so mom and I drove around the city all day. Chatting, stopping for food, shopping and sight-seeing. It was refreshing in a weird way to go about the day with her because I was able to see the city with someone who didn't really know it either, and it was a chance to experience it somewhat "on my own" without a guide like my brother.
That night I went out to dinner with my former sister-in-law and her new fiance (is it weird we hang out? I don't think so) and then we met up with my brother to go to Master Pancake at the Alamo Drafthouse downtown. Master Pancake is sort of like a live Mystery Science Theatre thing, where there are a few comedians that make fun of a movie the whole time you're watching it. Last summer Josh took me to one for ConAir (hiiiiilarious) and this time it was for the first Hunger Games movie. It was funny, but you could definitely tell there's not as much to make fun of when it's a good movie (compared to a Michael Bay terd).
And honestly the rest of the trip just flew by. We saw Maleficent as a family unit, visited Zilker Park, checked out a few Whole Foods on the search for mesh bags, visited out a town/tourist trap called Gruene (Green) that was fun, and then the trip was wrapped up and mom and I were headed home with a four hour layover in Atlanta. I will say we got to experience the lovely Terminal F, which was international departures and quite nice from being remodeled, and thus not a bad way to spend such a bulk of time.
A week or so into the month, @caitcd and I decided to kick off the summer and go tubing up in Crivitz on the Peshtigo river (the usual haunt) and drove up on a Monday morning. It's an 80 mile drive, takes about an hour and half but it's always worth it because the water is decently deep and you never run into people on the river. THIS time, however, was a no-go. That mean old bastard that runs the campground you rent the tubes from was the most unapologetic shit ever.
Sean: "Hi there, could we get two for tubing please?"
Old Fuck Head (OFH): "We're not doing it today."
Sean: "...what?"
OFH: "We only do that Friday Saturday and Sunday now."
@caitcd: "Does your website say that?"
OFH: "Not yet."
Sean: "We... drove 80 miles from Appleton."
OFH: ::shrug::
No apology, no remorse that even though the website says they run it everyday, they don't. We were both liiiiiivid. So we took off, I burned rubber (not really) and decided to head over to Marinette because it wasn't far and neither of us had ever been there. And y'know, it ended up being an okay day. We went to a couple state parks and got to walk in the water of Lake Michigan (above) and just be outside. It was a little chilly anyway and I think we would've been kinda cold if we had ended up actually in the water. But a few Gin & Tonics, plus some chips and assorted treats and we were right as rain.
And also aware not to try to go tubing outside of the weekends.
Towards the end of the month I got a bug up my butt to start working on a new furniture project. Maybe 8 years ago I bought the above desk from Target as a floormodel. I paid like $30 for it, the back panel was shattered and the thing had been put together wrong. But I bought it anyway and used it for a few years before deciding I wanted to fix it. My awesome dad was nice enough to step in and take over for me, fixing the back panel and sanding the whole thing down so it could be staind this mahogany color I had purchased.
He did the staining and varnishing and all that, and while I loved it at the time, over the years I disliked it more and more because it was always so damn shiny and red. A few days ago I noticed these weird bubbles on it and picked at one of them, only to have it peel off in a huge chunk of dried polyurethane. So I decided to give it my "headboard treatment" from last year. I disassembled the desk and took it over to my parents' house, sanding it down in about an hour.
I took a chain, a metal file, and an axe to it, beating the hell out of the top of the desk and the drawers so that I'd get that great "reclaimed" effect I have come to love so much. I actually had the whole thing stained and varnished that very day, working quickly when I got home to stain the entire base ebony and then the top and drawers walnut. I'd have left the walnut raw (like I did the ebony) because I don't really like how the polyurethane makes the stain look, but I knew with it being a desk I'd have to otherwise I'd fuck it up somehow and be pissed at myself.
No one likes being pissed at themselves!
And lastly we come to tonight, June 30th. Tonight, tonight... and it was a big one, actually. I put out a post on Facebook a couple weeks ago announcing that I was looking for some models to shoot a new version of my book cover. I'll go more into depth on the cover in a blog a few weeks from now, but I'll give the gist of it here. The cover as it exists right now is celebrities. And there is a silly thing called "copyright" that I rarely pay attention to, but when it comes to this I'm afraid I must.
Because I don't want to be sued.
I'm gonna keep the models anonymous because the whole point of using silhouettes as I do is to allow you to put whoever you want in the shadow. Picture whoever you want. I had @markstyleme come over to assist with hair and wardrobe, @caitcd there to be the photographer extraordinaire, and of course @klreynol because she's taken this journey with me from the beginning and seeing as the first book is dedicated to her, it was only fitting she experience this. So everyone came over and we had some champagne to celebrate, and then we got down to taking some pictures.
I haven't gotten around to tinkering with them yet, I'll have plenty of time tomorrow to do so, but so far I am ecstatic with how they turned out. Once assembled, the silhouettes go off to my brother and he'll assemble the final cover. Then, ya know... bing bang boom I'm a millionaire.
Or something.
So what else happened in June? Saw what felt like a million movies: Edge of Tomorrow was excellent, How to Train Your Dragon 2 was fantastic, Maleficent was great, Transformers was shitty-awful. Busted out new songs at karaoke, celebrated @klreynol's little boy Noah turning one, and GRILLED OUT LIKE A CHAMP. I got some fancy new glasses, absolutely and completely finished my first novel, got some wicked awesome tan lines that I certainly won't regret (...), and finally, spent quality time with all of the people that make me me. Ya'll know who you are (c:
Ciao for now!
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