My first attempt to represent this is pretty light in terms of the individuals it encompasses and some of the links and visualisations have been simplified more than I would like, but it’s the genesis for constructing a family-tree-of-choice.  That said, while the number of individuals is not large, the vast majority of you spiral out from the people in the people in the drawing, or from the social hubs there.  (At some point I may have the time and ambition to construct a much bigger and more detailed version, but my relationships with others are something of a moving target since they seem to be stuck in a state of expansion.)

The blue boxes are active social hubs filled with people I care about.  The green boxes are individuals who have connected me to hubs, tending to result in me meeting a whole lot of new people at once.  And the purple boxes are my big damn hero connectors who have individually linked me to three or more other individuals in the chart.

I discovered a few interesting things from this exercise.   Firstly, all of my most active social networks and best loved people spin out from beginning architecture school in 1997.   Secondly,  Siobhan and Sky are unusual in having connected me to both individuals and social hubs.  Thirdly, my brother Dave is a unique and special snowflake (sorry Dave, you are not a unique and special snowflake; you know what you are) and is the only person here that doesn’t have links in or out, although he knows many of the people in the picture.

Most amusingly though, is that The Man With The Hashtag is sitting in equal first place when it comes to connecting me to individuals.  In the face of this evidence, I must humbly concede that he has indirectly been responsible for so much love, support and happiness in my life.  Bless.

The first is a picture of something I’ve been working on since January; namely, the idea of sovereignty.  The idea is a work in progress, and the map is one of many spanning that progress.  I am posting it for Nathalie and Jaunita, who are right there with me when I need them.

The second is a picture of change.  Once upon a time I was the girl who could not walk across campus without tensing every muscle for fear people were looking at her.  The girl who would blush and stammer rather than hold a conversation.  The very queen of awkwardness, the non-phone-answerer, the one who declined every invitation.  Twenty years on, I am the woman who will pounce upon a friendly looking stranger with a ‘hi, I’m an enormous introvert; pleased to meet you!’  How did this happen you ask?  Still trying to work that one out, and I am posting this map for a dear friend who is on the journey too.

Pictures make me feel less mopey about the ten half-finished blog posts in my notebook. Let’s all forget about those posts and enjoy the shiny.  Or else.

Playing with Google Analytics, and I see that most people who find this blog through a search engine are specifically Googlestalking me, or want to know about demand resistance. Although one person wanted to know about ‘awesome Zazzlers’, which was flattering.  (Hi there, flattering person.  Apologies, people who were looking for information about demand resistance.)

The great medical experiment rolls onward. I was pulled off fluoxetine last week, because I appear to be one of the minority of the population who are hypersensitive to it – it makes me vomit, shake and become incredibly anxious. Sunday, coming off it, was pretty much the worst ever. I don’t have the energy or even the desire to write about it, with all the broken communication, misery and generally implosive overreactions that it entailed, not to mention the numb, dizzying, drooling 50km bike ride, from which I’d been too much of a stubborn jerk to withdraw. However, new week, new experiment: I’m trying a very gradual build up to taking sertraline, going from a quarter of a tablet to a full one over a fortnight. So far, two relatively stable days, no vomit. Perceived improvement. Trying to fix the things I’ve broken and let slide in the interim. Drinking a lot of water. Hibernating. If I say ‘shhh’ to you, it’s not you, it’s me.

Slowly negotiating the possibility of working in Russia next year. Envious of everyone around me travelling for non-work, in the wake of a realisation I haven’t taken more than a handful of days’ leave at a time since I was in Iceland & Scotland in 2008, nor down even been down to Margaret River since last Christmas, largely due to the year of study-separation-housemoving being a major money and time limiter. Want to roam, to not think, to sleep and to read and to play.

Cooked omelettes on the weekend as Boomer and Six have started laying (‘bok bok bok ba-gawk!’ goes the Egg Song each morning) and Sarah (who is new and lovely and very good at telling stories that make me laugh) helped eat them. The possibility of bunnies with earth moving machinery was raised, and so, tiny art was of course required:

Feeling inarticulate.  I think that is all.

Jellyfish Dreams

Jewel Deer

New tiny art – Jellyfish Dreams and Jewel Deer are on Flickr and are of course being pimped out on my Redbubble and Zazzle shops. (For the massive $2 I make when someone buys one!)

Additionally – and not for sale – here are Walter Cronkite and Reinette hanging out on the couch. The new phone actually takes a surprisingly decent photo:

Walter and Reinette Disapprove

Last night I posted some new random sketches to Flickr as well as to my Redbubble and Zazzle shops.  It’s very motivating, having tiny shops, and making tiny sketches into t-shirts and mugs!

The Kitty Pile is available as a stupidly expensive tie, because if one ever sells I’ll laugh my arse off.  Metaphorically speaking.

I’ve also promised Rashas to attempt to find an affordable way to make The Map of WIN into a quilt cover, which may or may not involve me sewing.

When I was feeling spendthrifty – that is, after a few drinks on my birthday – I picked up a (relatively) cheap Nikon D5000 camera body which is destined to become an off-hand body (and possibly lighter body for birding) when I inherit velvetbutter‘s old D300.  It’s no good for my prime lenses (which have expanded to include a 35mm, a 50mm and an 85mm ) because it won’t autofocus them, but it’s a lovely lightweight body for my beloved 70-300mm birding lens, annihilating my old D70 when it comes to noise, metering, focus and indeed just about everything.  (Incidentally, the D70 body will shortly become a dedicated IR camera, because unlike the newer cameras it actually allows enough light at the IR end of the spectrum through.)

Ahem. Enough geeking it up; there are a lot of new photos on my Flickr from the last few weeks:

And finally, I learned to solder and made a light dalek from a cup and some fairy light bulbs I found at Target. When I press the button, it creates a diffuse soft glow which will in theory provide a gentle, non-directional light sources for the times when I’m photographing people in the dark at parties.   It may or may not be pretty crap at this – I’m yet to have an opportunity to try it out – but it sure was fun to make!

A number of people have poked me to say ‘hey, you know all those little sketches and happiness maps and ligers and octopodes and things you make – put them somewhere people can buy them!’ (Many thanks to Ju and Amy who have been stubbornly supportive and mentioned this repeatedly, in the face of my procrastination.)

And so I have.

There are t-shirts and matted & laminated prints (including the requested Map of WIN) for sale on RedBubble.

And there are magnets and mugs at Zazzle.

I’ve done some research as to quality and so forth, but the reality is that I have no idea how these will turn out. One day, I feel I should buy some to see for myself. But for now, there they are, roaming free on the internet!

Sketches from Meetings & Bus Stops #1

Sketches from Meetings & Bus Stops #2

Sketches from Meetings & Bus Stops #3

Uploaded by flyingblogspot on 5 Aug 09.

I don’t really know where this stuff comes from, or what it’s about.