I'm Still Here {Updates}

I've been pretty absent from the internet for a couple of months, but now that I'm starting to get back into my more normal routine, I plan to return fully to this blog and all the future projects I have planned. It has been a long time, but I'm excited to be returning to some creative endeavors, exciting upcoming events. It was a really wild and strange summer.

I left for New Jersey in late June. I had to secure a clinical internship with a veterinary hospital. I had to try to see all my greatest friends. I had so many plans for things I planned to do, and overall, I disappointed myself. I didn't achieve the goals with which I had started the summer. To be honest, I'm pretty glad the summer season is over (and will be officially this coming weekend). I miss everyone in Jersey terribly, and Kentucky doesn't have much that thrills me, but I'm glad I'm back down here.

I'm graduating the university in December, and hope to have my certification by March or April. I'm thinking about job searches, where to go, how to be a real adult. It's completely terrifying and I feel the procrastinator in me starting to shut down my motivation, but I'm so afraid of allowing that to happen. I recently had to write a list of personal, educational, and professional goals for a professional development seminar, and it challenged me to think about all the things I could do. If I get off my ass and do them.

The same thing goes for art. I hardly took any photographs the entire summer. I didn't work on a single piece. But there is one serious project in the making that has already begun: it's a musical/film collaboration with my best friend Sean. He's writing a song, the lyrics to which are the words of the poem featured in my short story Vultures, and I'll be doing the vocals. I'll be working mostly on a video to go with the song, but of course Sean will be there to help film and edit, and he will be in the video as well. I've already begun gathering filler/inbetween film for connecting scenes, and Sean has come up with a rough draft of the music. It's entirely electronic, very synthy (what else would it be). We haven't come up with any name to give ourselves, but lists of ideas have also already begun for that. I'm really excited to continue this project and hoping (!!!) that we can finish it before 2014. I will continue to update about that.

I've also been coming up with lots of ideas for photoshoots and have been scouting new locations. I have some ideas saved for more short stories and maybe some more poems. Those will be posted as they become realized and finished...

Some other events happening for the rest of the year:

• Hoodoo Festival with my Pagan church! It's the third annual festival celebrating rootworker, voudon, and other African diasporic and American folk traditions. This is the first time I will be able to attend all five days of the festival -- I'm leaving Wednesday afternoon and won't be back until Sunday. I can't wait to show photos of the different costumes I have planned and all the great workshops and music I'll be able to see and participate in. Hoodoo Fest is one of the highlights of my entire year.
• After that, a true dream of mine is coming true: I'm seeing Nine Inch Nails in concert, finally!! I have always wanted to since I was a teenager and have never been able to afford it. A few years ago when Reznor said that NIN would no longer be touring, I was crushed. I can't believe that he decided to start work with the band again and release their new album, go on another tour. I was enjoying his other projects with his wife, but nothing he does compares to NIN, in my opinion. I am so unbelievably overjoyed and cannot wait. Makeup and styling plans have already begun for that evening...
• Resuming the 52 Week Self Portrait Project. I think I was way too ambitious starting such an exercise at the beginning of a summer that I knew would kick my ass. So I'm going to rewind and try it again, now that summer is winding down into fall and I have the lowest class load I've ever had. Stay tuned for those...
• Lastly, Hallowe'en, of corpse! My absolute most favorite holiday, the finale of my most favorite month. I have my costume totally decided on and construction of some of the elements of it have already begun. I'm still gathering some makeup and effects supplies, and figuring out the wardrobe. I think it's going to be one of the best costumes I've ever had. I will definitely be talking more about it and letting little bits of it slip as we get closer. 

So, in the next couple of weeks I hope to write about some of my internship experiences and about Hoodoo Fest, as well as share my new art projects. I missed blogging. I need to stop disappearing every year. To sign off, here's the first photograph I made since being back in Kentucky:

I've made a new friend -- there's a Praying Mantis now living in one of my windows! ♡

Thank you for reading.