Life-Upgrade Update!

Last month's budget numbers were a little weird, due to my birthday celebrations and putting cash down on an improv class. But still hopeful.

My weekly discretionary budget is staring to work out, my habits need more tweeking than the budget itself does.

Cutting back on junk at the grocery store has significantly lowered my grocery bills. Fruit is a lot cheaper than cookies.

Pina Colada Sorbet was a wonderful idea for homemade. I don't feel the need to keep eating it until its gone like super rich homemade ice cream. Am trying to hack the recipe so I don't have to add any extra sugar.

I may try to kick my daily chocolate habit all together. I can't have just one piece, and too much makes me feel super yucky. This is freaking out my friends more than quitting alcohol *and* caffeinated drinks.

I GOT MY BALCONY BACK FROM THE RENO CREWS NOW I CAN PUT MY GARDEN TOGETHER AGAIN OMG YAY!

Still trying to figure out when I have time for making jewelry. That's super important, both for potential extra income and occupied alone-time.

Also trying to streamline my online presences to make it easier to promote all the weird stuff I do. May have to trade jewelry for another website, but this one will be super simple.

Allergy shots seem to be working *crosses fingers* along with all my new prescriptions.

After reading some of the blogs I posted about last week, am trying to talk to more new people. Not total strangers, but other people at the theaters I frequent whom I have not met yet. Seems good so far.

Figured out how to watermark/tag my improv show photos. I don't mind other people using them, but I like my credits.

Also figured out how to wire my Tumblr feed in advance to post improv photos. Back to obsessively photographing shows :-D

Money On the Side

So cash is tight right now, as I try to slay the credit card monster. I could take a second part-time job but I'm not sure I have enough energy. And my many-faceted social life would suffer. And EVERYBODY is looking for jobs right now, whereas I have a nice library job already.

But there are some extra things I'm doing on the side for extra money. I run a small jewelry business (on Etsy) and I do fortune telling with tarot cards (around NYC). I also take photos of a lot of local improv shows, and for that I sometimes get free drinks and/or my cover charge waived.

I'm learning that to get recognition for any sort of skill you need to promote the hell out of yourself. And never underestimate the power of Twitter to get more hits on Etsy, ZOMG.


Potential roadblock: I've heard it said that to really promote your skills you have to focus on only one to pimp out like crazy. But I don't want to be any less than a jewelry designer, fortune teller, photographer, blogger, AND improv performer. Trying to figure out if people would want to subscribe to a Twitter that inundates you with all of the above.

What do you do for extra money on the side? I'll probably describe each of my experiences at length sometime soon ;-)

Taking Requests!

It is summer in my world and things are slowing down. There is more time for blogging and reading, but my brain is slowly turning to mush thanks to an NYC heat wave.

So, any requests? What would you like to see me blog about? Is there a topic you expected to see related to Spinster-ism that I have not yet satisfied for you?

Or something more off topic, maybe suggested in a previous post but not really fleshed out. Perhaps a specific question about the world we/I live in? I'm not infallible, but I am a professional librarian with fantastic Googling skills.

Camp Magnet 2010!

The weekend-before-last (I set up a lot of blog posts ahead of time, can you tell?) I went to

CAMP MAGNET!

Waaaaazaaaaap!

And it was good.

The Great Kayak Race!

Um, except for the panic attack I had when I couldn't sleep because it was too cold, but that wasn't the camp's fault. And it didn't seem to effect my performance that much...

Playing pretend.

Otherwise it was a really fun mixture of camp activities, improv workshops with some of the Magnet's best teachers, and people being drunk over 4 days. It was weird being at a camp where we were allowed and encouraged to drink.

Red Team, Go!

Would very much like to go again next year, hopefully with a much warmer sleeping bag or much stronger sleeping pills. I feel a lot less frustrated about my improv-ness after spending the weekend there :-)

Welcome to the Freakshow!

Pictures of Camp Magnet 2010!

DRAGONCON HOOOOOO!

Yaaaaaay! Less than 100 days away! DragonCon!!!

Fandom! Science! Cosplay! Ice cream made with liquid nitrogen! Music! Singing tesla coils! Celebrities!

The greatest Geek Bacchanalia of North America!

The Snuggie Cult, with Griff McGerbil.

To Do Before:

• Figure out who is staying in my room. Its coming together.
• Room is booked at the Hilton, back in October. Yeah, it's like that.
• Change my room reservation, can't stay the extra night in Atlanta as planned this year.
• Costumes? I may be lazy this year.
• Dusk's first DragonCon :-D She's a fuzzygoth, the Cruxshadows booth will be thrilled.
• Budget. No dealers room this year. Maybe no art room or music either, those always get me.
• Get my plane tickets!
• Don't break my camera two days before the event.
• Set up the txt list for "I'm here! Where are you?" messages.
• Closely deconstruct and highlight the programming once they put it online.
• Pack!
  

Mad Scientists League Bake Sale, with Griff again!

Why Spinsters have an awesome time:

• Flirting with all the Earth Force and Narn cosplayers.
• 24 hour parties, maybe this year I'll find the orgies too?
• Can wear whatever I want, as little or as much.
• Not keeping track of someone else's purse/badge/program.
• Don't have to bring back anybody a present.
• Not getting called long distance in the middle of panels.
• No weird conversations about who's staying in the room.
• Staying out as late as I want without having to check in.
• Smaller ratio of persons stuck in the Cult of Pairs.
  

Everybody's got somethin' to hide, 'cept for me and my gerbil!

Pictures of DragonCon 2007

Pictures of DragonCon 2009

Friday Links!

Things I found on teh interwebs recently:

Succeed Socialy dot Com : Free social skills advice for adults. What a great idea :-D I like a lot of these articles.

30 Sleeps : Open source personal development. "I’m a 31-year-old, Vancouver-based adventure capitalist on a mission to help others grow." Thanks, dude :-). I really like the Social Skydiving series :-)

Welcome! To the Menaissance Festival! Yikes. I don't watch Mad Men, I'm starting to think that show would frustrate me somethin' awful.

Marriage, kids, adulthood, but why? Interesting look at the changing values of family life and independence in American culture. However, it also smacks of middle-to-upper class privilege.

Where the Smart People At? Calculating the "smartest" concentration of people in the U.S., by measuring college degree holders per square mile in several cities.

How to keep someone with you forever. This article disturbs me on many levels. In that "Awesome, I'll never fall for that ever again," way.

How to a roast chicken, fast! Because roasting chicken is f'ing easy. I got my 90 minute recipe from The Pink of Perfection, and I usually use the long cooking time to make other dishes. Or stare blankly at Facebook.

The Pink of Perfection, a thrifty girl's guide to the good life. Perfectly awesome in every way.

20 things I wish I'd known at 20. I don't think anybody's ever photographed me almost-topless, does that mean I come out ahead?

Building a Comedic Mystery

I am now a member of the Cult of Improv.

It's hard to pinpoint when that actually happens. Some say it's when you start classes, some say its when you perform regularly in groups or at jams.

Another friend explained that improv comedy is 90% attendance, so it may go back further than the seven months of classes to when I started going to shows all the time. The improv scene is like a Pez dispenser of entertainment. Or a a bag of nachos - crunch all you like, we'll make more!


Responsibilities of the Improv Cultist:

• Perform long form improv comedy. With a team or at mixers and jams.
• See lots of other people's improv shows.
• Send out lots of Facebook invites to improv shows.
• Start lots of teams and practice groups that don't work out.
• Start a few teams and practice groups that do work out.
• Name drop all of your teachers.
• Start a Tumblr blog.
  
• Hang out at the bar whenever you're not on a stage.
• Smoke like a chimney.*
• Drink like a fish.*
• Live in Astoria, Morningside Heights, Harlem, or the trendier parts of Brooklyn.**

*I am a bad cultists for not participating here, but I think I make up for it by taking tons of show photos and telling fortunes for other cultists. Or maybe you can't be a real improviser until you get cirrhosis or a respiratory disease? Does asthma count?

**I bought property in Queens before I knew the Cult of Improv existed. They have not yet told me to sell it and give all the profits to the cult, but I'm sure that talk is coming...