Friday, March 16, 2012

Fairies-It's This Year's Harry Potter, Yo

This one time, I was having a conversation with Steph, and said something offhand like, "I don't know...things are kind of crazy for me right now." She replied, just as offhand, "Yeah, but things are always crazy with you."

And it really stopped me in my tracks.

I didn't know it, but it's true. It's not the bad kind of crazy, where you are living out of a car with your two cats because you didn't renew your lease and you have to go ask your friend Steph for $200 to pay to get the boot off of your car/home again so you can go to work and pay to get your phone turned back on....no. Not that kind. None of that stuff is me. My crazy is more like the kind that tenth graders have when they are so used to having straight A's, then they join field hockey, color guard, drama club and lit. mag, and are suddenly getting B's instead of A's, and wonder why they are totally crazy and their friend Steph is standing there like, yeah, duh, you are the one who wanted to do all of this stuff. Does it have to totally take over your soul and eat your face, though? Crazy head.

Except you know. Now with grown-up stuff. Mostly. Point being-

Here is my current chaos tornado.
I told you that last year I made moves toward making "real" money with my "business," which is how I ended up making 87 custom Harry Potter robes in 2011. I should probably actually start calling it a business and not "that thing I do for fun on the side-you know costumes and stuff-not really that big of a deal-is that a squirrel over there, or do the bunnies around here bury nuts?"

A couple of months ago, I decided to really do this thing, which means to take it on the road. I hesitantly and nervously applied to the Sproutwood May Day Fairy Festival, fully expecting mean and jerkish rejection. The kind where Tinkerbell shoots you out of the sky with poisoned arrows, and Rufio totally humiliates you on the skateboardball court. Then the Fairies told me I could come, and I have paid the vendor fees and now...I am consumed with plans and ideas and the Fairy Festival is kind of taking over my soul and eating my face.

I am going around sketching bad cartoonish pictures of these AMAZING visions that I have in my head, sketches that look to me like magic flying elf princesses, but to others look like elephants farting on doghouses. I am writing lists entitled "Oh My God. Get This Done or You Suck," and "Stuff I need to be a Real Business Girl." (Items include a sign for my booth/show space, a business checking account, and six or seven bags of Milano cookies to shove into my head because they make my head feel calm inside.)

I am making stuff like this:




and like this:



And all kinds of other stuff that is leaking out of my brain. I am doing my best to not let the anxiety get the best of me.


I am not succeeding. However, the 15 year-old Assistant Editor of Traces of the Mind/junior varsity mid-fielder/stage hand/flag girl/A+ student in me is making it happen. MAKING IT HAPPEN, PEOPLE.


2012 is totally the year of the fairies (eating my face).