malangelene

this profile is no grocery list of things i want to get from people. i just really like lists. they remind me of things i am or was. of things i like and like to be surprised by. a little girl on an arthur episode, a live action little girl, she said, "if you follow the map of my heart, you'll find what i love." sometimes, for some people, lists really are a way to know a person. maybe mine is too.

when i was little i thought i would be a writer, then an artist, then a writer and then a doctor. now i'm an artist writing a book about being an artist obsessed with medical oddities. life is funny sometimes.

i'm in philadelphia. this city is loud and big and hot and a little angry. i never imagined any of this but now that i live here it makes a great deal of sense. if you've never been, do visit. if you do, let me know and i will treat you to a cup of coffee* and a tour through my museum. i'll even take your picture in front of the rocky statue if you insist.

i study anthropology and hope that i soon find a huge pile of money so i can go to a university and study it there.

generalikes

• surprises. things i've never thought of, seen or tried before
• robots and machines
• handcrafted, homemade, altered things
• big, chunky jewelry you find in thrift and dollar stores
• strange, beautiful and/or ugly dolls and toys
• cheap-o tissue paper lamps you clip to bare lightbulbs
• ephemera, old postcards and cabinet cards, old photographs
• vintage pin-up and nose art
• sharks, giraffes, snakes, especially cobras. camels. rats, doves, barn owls and bees, bees, bees
• bones, medical imagery, teratology. sideshow culture. freaks
• kerchiefs and thick, fat braids
• lotion for keeping skin soft. insanely big sunglasses for keeping in-cog-neato
• crazy-fun socks. also bare feet
• clean scents. eucalyptus, grass, fresh linen
• blueberry, gardenia and pink grapefruit
• knives, blades. beautiful in their efficiency
• chopsticks, especially ones i can also stick in my hair
• small, plain spoons and toasters
• breakfast! and fake food
• dark chocolate, red plum candy, green tea ice cream, coconut, ginger, lavender pastilles. sea salt and vinegar kettle chips
• vintage print ads, especially for food, and retro & vintage cloth oddments
• typefaces, typewriters
• old cameras, polaroids
• mary. mary magdalen
• iconography, specifically catholic, and milagros
• screen and block prints
• interesting t-shirts

i have a cat, manhattan. her hobbies include shedding, throwing my pens and pencils under the bed where i can't find them, and play-hunting her pet rabbit, charles xavier.

i peek in people's houses when the doors are open on a hot day. i'll let anyone read my journal. i don't lie despite being really good at it. i speak fluent pop-culture, maybe too fluent. i feel a kinship with crows. i'll try anything twice. i'll put anything in my mouth; i ate a button once. i use little kid toothbrushes, the kind with spiderman climbing up the handle. i have a problem with driving which i blame on all the accidents i've been in. i have a four-inch dent in my head and fall down a lot; these two things are probably connected. both of my tattoos are things i've learned to live by. i am pierced but not really part of the body modification culture.
i use exclamation points very sparingly.
i don't use the word 'love' unless i mean it.

*in fact, i mean most of what i say. that was a genuine offer.

i am not a big fan of modern country and "cookie monster" heavy metal but i listen to almost everything else.

i really like surprising covers of well-known songs.
i am not a music snob. in fact, a lot of my favorite songs are sort of home-grown, practically crappy, á la moldy peaches. few things can bring a smile to my face as easily as getting a mix cd (or a new book). i know all the words to busta rhymes' "gimme some more" but i always start laughing part-way through.

i've struggled against the word "craft" for ages. i don't think of myself as a crafter. it has something to do with the consumer side of the word which doesn't describe me at all.

i call myself an artisan.

that being said, i do a lot of handcrafting.

• knitting with exquisite wooden needles. also knitting with crappy, aluminum needles (and hooks) my grandmother used. living history.
• crochet. this is the one i've been doing the longest, since i was four or five. i wasn't good at it then. i am very good at it now. i've made a fair number of amigurumi in my time including an adorable block of bacon-wrapped tofu. i make organs these days. i'm to the brain which, living up to real life, is proving complicated.
• macrame, tatting (just learning), sewing (i'm better at hand than machine).
• crewel, embroidery, candlewicking, needlepoint and cross-stitch. these all fall under the heading of embroidery but i tend to think of them as discrete. different types of people tend to favor different styles of needlework and it is hard to separate the craft from the person who taught it to me.
• papercraft. karakuri and origami. papel picado, which i'm pretty good at, and silhouette-style papercutting, which i am really not.

i'm always looking for new patterns for unique stuff, like prawns and platypusses and milk cartons. i like a challenge, have miles of yarn and like to keep my fingers nimble.

if you've got any stitch markers you're dying to get rid of they'd be put to good use around here.

i gift them, i read them, i write them, i find them on the street on trash night. i tear them apart and put them back together (in the wrong order). i cut them and mend them, bind them and buy them. i lived in them for a number of years when real life and real people were too scary. i grew up with them lining the walls of my room, spilling out of the closets and heaped on my bed.
my relationship with books is complicated. books make me cry and very few things are allowed to make me cry in this world. i truly love reading but sometimes i just can't. sometimes i tear through five, six books at a time-- hundreds of pages a day, thousands of pages in a week-- and sometimes i don't make it past the flyleaf. i read just about everything i can get my hands on though lately i've been partial to non-fiction texts about sociology and math.
i feel the need to buy every 75-cent book on half dot com and i am addicted to used book stores, the kind where kids have to be accompanied by adults or they're not allowed in.
i am a true believer and have a not-so-secret crush on nightcrawler. dave cockrum, swashbuckling, dashing, circus performer nightcrawler-- none of this pious, regretful, sadness. comics and/or graphic novels are art and literature. sometimes they involve a race of moondwellers called the inhumans or a fighting team called "sgt. fury and his howling commandos" and sometimes they address the complex social issues in post-revolutionary iran.

i have a deep and special relationship with the main public library in salt lake city, ut; i even send it mail now and then telling it i wish it was here.

• dense patterns. paisleys, pinstripes, non-christmassy plaids. anything described as "retro".
• corduroy. knobbly, knubbly things.
• brightly colored anything

my favorite colors come in groups and pairs.

red & white & gray.
this is at the top. my favorites of the favorites.

blue & brown; pink & brown; green & white; red & yellow. orange & olive & white. strange yet pleasing color combinations that make my eyes dance.

colors for me are easy. i can think of fifty things i like about every shade.

• back and foot pain. nobody likes foot pain.
• dolphins. i'm a shark girl.
• southwestern art and berenstein bears-style country home. i don't necessarily hate it, i just grew up with the stuff and kind of got overexposed. i do like the chicken theme kitchen stuff though. i like the cocks.
• kids acting and dressing like grown-ups
• accidentally hurting people's feelings with my blunt, sometimes brutal honesty. i'm working on that.
• licorice, especially black. ugh. and i'm just learning to like onions.
• clowns. i have a deep-seated aversion. although i like to study the history of circuses, go figure. also, i really liked the cellophane number in chicago - that was a clown, so... it seems i am an enigma; an enigma wrapped in a riddle, rolled in mystery and smothered with secret sauce.

i don't think i'm allergic to anything but i can't really use incense anymore or those wax tarts. my cat seems to be sexually attracted to fire and melted wax and i don't really handle smoke so well.

my favorite swap i've taken part of here was a newbie swap way back when i first joined up. we just studied each others profiles, which helped make sure we had filled them out really well, and sent a little box of awesome things. (i got a picture of two spidermans kissing... rad.)
i miss newbie profile swaps but i guess i understand why nobody really hosts them anymore. (unless they do and they're just hiding from me.)

anyway, profile surprise swaps (especially when it involves something handmade) are my favorites and i am open to occasional one-on-ones with newbies or who-all-ever. that said, i don't really swap lots; heck, i don't even have lots of internet access. i rarely sign up for more than three at a time.

it's over!