Today Mom and I saw ducklings and cygnets! As I was sifting through the photos I took, trying to pick out good ones so I could post them here, I found it’s almost hilariously impossible. Baby birds, especially ducklings, are fuzzy and fast, so there aren’t many photos I took that are good considering I used a Point & Shoot camera (Canon Powershot SD1400 if you’re curious) and not a DSLR with a fancy lens that can capture quick-moving animals. I don’t keep it on Auto settings and hope for the best, but there’s still only so much you can do.

It makes me think of that Mitch Hedberg joke about Bigfoot… “I think Bigfoot is blurry, that’s the problem. It’s not the photographer’s fault. Bigfoot is blurry. And that’s extra scary to me, there’s a large out-of-focus monster roaming the countryside.”

Three seconds after I took this picture, that goose chased him up the hill. If you’ve never seen a Canada goose chase a fully grown man at top speed, let me just tell you, it’s a hilarious thing to see and I wish I’d gotten a video of it. Both goose and man were perfectly okay, the guy was a little shaken up but just as amused over having just been chased by a bird.

When the signs say “Beware, geese are nesting,” you should probably pay attention if one’s coming right at you and get your ass out of there.

Pentel has become one of my favorite brands for pens. One of their products I love is the Clic Eraser. I recently needed a small stamp in the shape of a circle, and immediately thought about using the eraser to make one. It worked beautifully, I used an X-Acto knife to carefully hollow the tip of the eraser, and since a brand new Clic Eraser has a flat tip, it was exactly what I needed.

I ended up using the circle stamp for a list I made, using it as the checkbox for when I completed a task. I decided to make two more stamps in the shapes of an X and a checkmark to use for the list as well. I made an example to show you:

I’d actually messed up when I made the check, I’d carved it the correct way which of course meant it stamped backwards, so I had to cut it off and carve it again. Luckily these erasers are about five inches long, so there’s plenty for when I need to re-carve them. I had to fix the X after one of the legs fell off, I’m not sure what happened but I’d started to use it only to realize I’d broken it somehow.

I decided to take this opportunity to show you how I did it in case you want to make your own stamp using a Clic Eraser. Specifically, the ones I used are the Clic Eraser Grip. I love these erasers, so I have a stockpile of them and had plenty to spare for this project. If you’re reading this tutorial out of curiosity but don’t plan on doing it, I still recommend buying a Clic Eraser, they’re well priced and erase cleanly.

If you’re starting with a brand new Clic Eraser, skip to step three. If it’s used, start by using an X-Acto knife to slice off the top. Be sure to cut evenly across or the stamp won’t work properly.

When you’re done, it’ll look something like this. It probably won’t be perfect, but like I said, make it as even as you can so it’s flat.

Use a pencil to draw the shape you’ll want the stamp to be. You want to use a pencil so if you mess up, you can just rub the eraser clean instead of making it dirty with pen ink. Remember to draw the shape backwards so it’ll face the correct way when you stamp it. Obviously with an X, it doesn’t matter since it looks the same from any direction.

Carve out the negative space around the shape. Don’t cut too far down, but don’t leave it too shallow either.

Test it out on a piece of scrap paper and see if you need to fix any part of it, such as trimming a little to make the shape even. If you like how it looks, you’re done!

And before anyone tries suggesting I’d be less tired if I took naps, naps don’t work for me for some reason. First of all, it always takes me around an hour just to fall asleep, I guess I never really learned how to self-soothe, my brain is always running a mile a minute and unfortunately I tend to get some interesting ideas right as I’m attempting to fall asleep. Then when I do finally manage to fall asleep, I can’t just take a quick nap and be done, I have to be asleep at least two hours and even then, I rarely actually wake up feeling refreshed. More often than not, I wake up actually feeling worse than I did before, just a total crankypants. I will forever be envious of my maternal grandmother’s ability to take a half hour nap and wake up feeling fully refreshed. So I just don’t do naps. I’m less irritating (and less irritable) if I just deal with being tired all day as opposed to attempting to take a nap.

This entry was actually going to be about something but I ended up on a tangent, so maybe I’ll save the original topic for tomorrow’s entry. Or the next day. Whenever. So today’s entry is “I’m sorry I haven’t written here in a week and these are the reasons I don’t take naps.”

• White bread (Italian)
• American cheese
• Turkey breast
• Tomato
• Extra olives
• Cucumbers
• Mustard
• Oil & vinegar
• Salt & pepper

Sometimes I’ll get lettuce, if I do then I ask for a little bit of spinach too. I used to get pickles but I stopped because that’s just a lot of sodium.

A couple times I changed it up and ordered the Subway Club instead of the turkey. The reason for this is because the place where I used to work is across the street from a Subway, so I got lunch there a LOT, especially on days I felt too lazy/pissed/sick to walk any further since everything else was at least two blocks away or required me to call ahead. After a while I started getting sick of turkey so I decided to try the Club, it’s okay I guess but turkey will always be my true love.

March 11th: Been watching a lot of Homestar Runner cartoons lately. Dreamt that I found out Strong Mad died and I was the one who had to break it to Strong Bad. Walked around what looked like a convention center trying to find him, woke up before I did.

March 13th: I recently read the first three Bernie & Chet novels (and I can’t wait to buy the fourth one) which mention Slim Jims a lot, I ended up craving one. I dreamt that I went to the supermarket to buy a few, but they’d expired in 2002. I tried letting the cashier know and her reply was something about how the market had purchased them in the 90s and it’s okay because they don’t actually have a shelf life.

March 14th: I barely remember this one at this point. I was exploring a huge house and found myself in the backyard, met a couple who for some reason decided to take me with them, I guess they thought I was an abandoned child and didn’t realize they were kidnapping me. While we were driving, I found a container of cream in a grocery bag at my feet and discreetly poured it out the open window, because apparently in that particular Dream World, pouring cream out a car means “Help I’m being kidnapped.” I turned around to see an Asian young adult on a bicycle, he waved at me to let me know he got my message. That’s all I really remember, though I seem to recall I managed to jump out the car.

March 16th: Dreamt about my friend JJ, we’d gone to high school together and although we keep in touch on Facebook, we haven’t actually seen each other since high school (10 years ago). I can’t remember if we’d made plans to hang out or ran into each other, but we were at a restaurant catching up. This is about as much as I remember, though I told him (in the dream) that his friendship is one of the few good memories I have of high school, which is true.

March 18th: I’m always dreaming about going back to high school, I guess because it’s the only school I was at for so long. The majority of the schools I went to, I only spent one or two years there, but high school I was there all four years. This dream involved a recurring theme, I’ve restarted school and have just finished a class, and need to dig in my backpack to find my schedule to see where I need to go next. My next class was with a teacher I’ve actually gotten back in touch with on Facebook, which is just funny. I walk into the room which is just HUGE, and the layout’s more like a library than a classroom. I head toward the front of the room and have trouble finding a seat because most of them are taken, I end up sitting at a table full of people who obviously never liked me much. A nearby table has a few of my friends and I wanted to move there, but it looked like the other seats were taken because there was stuff like papers on the desk though nobody was sitting there. Then class started, and it was something about a “carnival dog” which is a breed of dog with all-white hair except for a few blue patches. Yes, blue. And the teacher had one to show us, it looked kinda like a Maltese. Then I woke up.

March 20th: My last job was at an art supplies store where I met all sorts of people, including artists like Retna. I was checking out some of his art online, so I guess he was stuck in my subconscious, I had a dream that he visited my house. Never did find out why, it was a short dream.

March 21st: I don’t want to go into details because I don’t really want to remember them, but this dream revolved around racism, and I couldn’t understand why everyone was acting that way.

March 23rd: Another dream involving my high school. I had a really horrible crick in my neck and was trying to find the nurse’s office for an aspirin or ice pack or something, but the layout had been changed and her office was at the other side of the building. I managed to get lost but finally found it, and practically half the school was in there. She gave me a handful of pills to take, most looked like the vitamins I take on a daily basis, then had me sit by the window to wait my turn. I woke up with a slight crick in my neck, which made me wonder if it’d been worse in my dream because I’d been sleeping in an odd angle or something.

March 25th: Another high school dream. I was trying to get a soda from one of the vending machines, but it wouldn’t take my money. I went over to another soda machine, the first sold cans and this other one sold the plastic bottles, they cost $7 and I walked away bitching about how expensive vending machines have gotten and how none of them would take my money anyway. While trying to find a working machine that sold cans (which didn’t cost $7), I went through a doorway that for some reason was the entrance to a parking garage. I got lost and ended up battling weird monsters who were trying to chase me out.

March 26th: Short and simple, I was trying to find something in my bedroom and realized it was really drafty, and looked up to notice someone had obviously broken in through this half-window at the corner of my room. (I have three regular-sized windows, and a half-sized window which I guess is for when you only want a slight breeze. I haven’t actually opened it in like 20 years.) The odd thing is the window (in my dream) wasn’t open in the sense that it’d been raised, it was pushed in like it was on hinges.

March 28th: I was at the top of a cliff with a huge group of people, no idea what was going on but I found a tennis ball and was trying to throw it over the cliff into the ocean below. But my throw was hilariously weak and instead of going into the ocean, the ball bounced off a fence surrounding the edge of the cliff and smacked me right in the forehead.

March 29th: I was lost on the side of a mountain, it started to rain. I found a cave to duck into and was sitting just at the mouth of the cave (something I learned to do as a kid in case a bear or something was living further inside the cave) when I felt a gentle tap on my shoulder. I turned to see a young man looking at me curiously, and motioning for me to follow him. I was scared but it was too cold to stay in front of the opening of the cave, so I trailed after him down a wide tunnel that made a sharp left into a larger cave, where a bunch of people were gathered around a fire. I couldn’t understand their language and nobody seemed to understand me, but their expressions and body language made it clear I was welcome to join them. The young man who originally found me came over and gestured that I should follow him again, we walked through another tunnel that opened into what looked like a gigantic cave covered in white cotton candy. It quickly dawned on me I was looking at spiderwebs and thought I was going to see a whole bunch, only to look up to see one gigantic spider who appeared to be fast asleep. I thought I was going to be the spider’s lunch and the young man could read the fear on my face, and dragged me to one of the far walls where he pointed at heiroglyphics carved into the wall. I realized the group considered the huge spider to be a deity and lived in the cave to help protect it. I wasn’t food for the spider, I was being given the honor of saying hello to it. In an effort to show I was appreciative, I took off a ring I was wearing and placed it on a small table full of small offerings. My ring stood out from everything else considering most of the rest were edible things the spider might want, but the young man smiled and bowed just the same.

April 2nd: It was raining really hard, and I came into this room to find it was flooded. Woke up to hear it was really raining, and half expected to find water on the floor in here, but everything’s fine. I dream about this room being flooded with rainwater rather often, I’m assuming it’s because there’s a few small water stains on the ceiling so my subconscious is worried they’ll get worse someday. I think they actually came from when we had issues with the central air a while ago, it rains often enough that the water stains have never gotten any bigger.

April 5th: I have dreams like this a lot. I was in a huge hotel with a ton of floors, and was trying to get to my floor but people kept getting on and the elevator would take them to the floor they needed without stopping at whichever floor I was trying to get to. The elevator went VERY fast, so fast it’d make my stomach jump into my throat like I was on a roller coaster. Eventually I gave up trying to get to my floor and instead would try to get a picture of the view outside the elevator, since I had a great view of the cityscape especially when the elevator was at the top. But every time I’d try to focus my camera, the elevator would start moving again.

April 8th: Last night I had a dream that I was out looking for a job, and walked into one place asking if they’re hiring. Apparently I was dressed in a dinosaur costume and had forgotten until they looked at me with an amused expression. I looked down at myself and said “Oh… Oh yeah. Well, you sure have a great story to tell at home tonight, don’t you? …ARE you hiring?”

April 11th: Dreamt I walked into my bedroom to find it filled with Red Vines. I’m thinking this is a good enough sign that I shouldn’t eat them right before bed, I guess the taste was still in my mouth even though I’d brushed my teeth.

Assuming I didn’t lose steam or decide the idea sucks, I feel pretty good about myself.

At some point I start to second-guess myself and wonder if the topic is actually interesting. This is about the time I start rewording things and driving myself nuts.

After some editing, I’m forced to calm myself down.

Finally I’m satisfied with the blog entry, it’s taken me anywhere between 20 minutes to a couple hours.

I click Publish and wait for my brain to decompress. This is why most bloggers only write one entry a day.

This week’s featured blog is The Daily Coyote.

© Shreve Stockton

The Daily Coyote is run by Shreve Stockton, you can read about her and her “farmily” at her About page. I found this site of hers a few years ago, it’s so amazing to read about her life. She’s been a huge inspiration to my way of thinking for a while, I’ve never actually worked on a farm but I’d love to give it a try someday. I have confidence in myself that I’d at least make everyone else laugh, even if I turn out to not be much help. I’ve lived in Los Angeles my entire life, but Shreve’s photos and writing definitely inspire me to try something new someday.

I recommend checking out her blog as well as her book of the same title, she has a way with words that makes you feel like you’re right there experiencing everything with her and it’s just a really fantastic book.