asjjohnson

[asjjohnson]

#aww :)

[asjjohnson]

(Long post, sorry y'all)

A little more than two years ago now, my grandmother passed away. She and my grandpa had moved down to my home town a few years before so we could take care of them. I brought them groceries once a week, helped them write checks, fixed tvs, and found lost things. I was really close with my grandma.

In addition to her hilarious personality and dry wit, one of my favorite things about her was that she was a painter and a crafter like me! She used to crochet, and I took her to the craft store a couple of times so she could get more yarn and books on crochet. But her arthritis and the shaking in her hands kept getting worse, so she eventually had to stop.

She kept her most recent project, a granny square blanket, safely packed away in a plastic bin. She told all of us she was going to finish it one day.

Her hands never got better, and when she got sick, and we found out it was cancer, she rapidly deteriorated.

After she passed, I went to work helping my mom clean out my grandparents apartment so we could move my grandpa in with her. In our frantic cleaning, I found that bin again:

DOZENS of granny squares, dozens of half used skeins. I asked my mom what she wanted me to do with it, and she said she didn't care. I set it aside and later took it home.

Maybe a month later, that tumblr post about the Loose Ends Project was going around. It felt like a sign--I was never going to learn to crochet in order to finish my grandmother's blanket. But they might be able to help!

So I filled out the interest form. They got back to me SUPER quick. And maybe 2 weeks later, I was paired with volunteer in my state (only 2 hours away!) and the box of yarn, granny squares, and my grandmother's crochet hook were in the mail. That was at the end of January this year.

Over the next couple of months, my "finisher" emailed me regular updates on her progress, and asked me questions on my preferences for how she constructed the final blanket.

At the end of August, the blanket was done!

I had always intended the blanket to be a gift for my mother. So I cleaned it up, put it in the only bag I had big enough to fit it, and drove to my mom's. I gave the blanket to her and she was gobsmacked. I explained to her all about Loose Ends, and how someone volunteered to finish the piece for us. She was speechless. (I was quite pleased with this, because I am not the best at giving gifts, so this was a pretty exciting reaction!)

She said that it was the most thoughtful gift she had ever been given. She said "your grandma would love this". To which I replied, "yeah, I know she really wanted to finish it a couple of years ago". But that was when my mom dropped the bomb of a century on me--she told me that my grandma had started making those granny squares OVER 30 YEARS AGO. She had started the blanket when my grandpa was staying in the hospital, but that was back when my mom was younger than I am now! My grandma had packed them all away, planning on finishing it, when my grandpa was sent home from the hospital. Then it went from house to house, from condo in Chicago to their apartment in my hometown. All that time and my grandma had wanted to finish it, but couldn't. First because she was busy, then because she forgot how to do it, then because of her arthritis, and then because of the cancer. My mom said she had given up on expecting my grandma to finish it. 

She said I brought a piece of her childhood with her mom out of the past.

And really, all of this is to say, if you have seen or heard about the Loose Ends Project and have an uncompleted project or piece from a loved one who has passed away--these are your people. They were so kind and treated my project with such care. That box probably would have been found by my own grandkids one day if I hadn't heard about Loose Ends.

Five stars, absolutely worth it!

(From what I understand, you can sign up to volunteer too! If you have time to share, it might be worth checking out!)

[asjjohnson]

YOOOOOO

[asjjohnson]

Felt like sketching something, and (not thinking of another idea), decided to redraw a Valerie pic I did before.

I glanced at a few screenshots from the series for quick reference (I didn't look at my original pic or photos of real people).

I was trying to go for the Suitless Darth Vader stare, haha. And decided to draw her in her upgraded suit this time. I've also been wanting to try figuring out Valerie's hair again. (hmm... I think I still need to work on drawing hair.)

(original pic: https://asjjohnson.tumblr.com/post/677635760595386368/i-tried-drawing-valerie-details-shot-under-the I'd focused hard on painting details for it.)

#danny phantom #valerie gray #asj post #asj art #...I need to think of like... actions I can draw. #instead of just drawing stationary people all the time. #My thought process for pictures: 'I wanna draw Character.' 'Okay. Doing what?' 'Draw them... Staring... at something.'

[asjjohnson]

“It was worth a wound–it was worth many wounds–”

- Sherlock Holmes, the Adventure of the Three Garridebs

Full text and individual pages under cut:

In an instant he had whisked out a revolver from his breast and had fired two shots. I felt a sudden hot sear as if a red-hot iron had been pressed to my thigh. There was a crash as Holmes’s pistol came down on the man’s head. I had a vision of him sprawling upon the floor with blood running down his face while Holmes rummaged him for weapons. Then my friend’s wiry arms were round me, and he was leading me to a chair.

“You’re not hurt, Watson? For God’s sake, say that you are not hurt!”

It was worth a wound–it was worth many wounds–to know the depth of loyalty and love which lay behind that cold mask. The clear, hard eyes were dimmed for a moment, and the firm lips were shaking. For the one and only time I caught a glimpse of a great heart as well as of a great brain. All my years of humble but single-minded service culminated in that moment of revelation.

“It’s nothing, Holmes. It’s a mere scratch.”

He had ripped up my trousers with his pocket-knife.

“You are right,” he cried with an immense sigh of relief. “It is quite superficial.” His face set like flint as he glared at our prisoner, who was sitting up with a dazed face. “By the Lord, it is as well for you. If you had killed Watson, you would not have got out of this room alive. Now, sir, what have you to say for yourself?”

[asjjohnson]

do y’all remember usernames??? from back when every fuckin website didn’t need your email phone number home address social security number just to join/sign up for something?? when you could make website-specific accounts that weren’t linked to literally anything else??? they tried to boil us like a frog slowly switching to “username/email” and then just asking for your email. but I remember. I remember usernames.

[asjjohnson]

Last night I dreamed that someone invented a new version of chess called Rookmeo and Juliet where two rooks are in love and trying to run away together. To achieve this they have to make it to the other side of the board, but these rooks don't have any visible signs to differenciate them from the rest, just a small mark in their base. Neither of the players knows what rook from the other side is in love with their rook, so they have to play a regular game of chess, fully aware that they might unknowingly kill the lover of their rook. If they kill it, the game keeps going, but their rook betrays them, switches sides and turns into a second queen for the other player. People wrote a ton of essays about the symbolism and metaphors of that version of chess and the creator didn't have the heart to tell them that he simply invented it because he thought Rookmeo was a great pun

[asjjohnson]

#Sailor Moon #though I didn't know it was anime until years later. I just recognized that it had a very unique art style. And oh look so do these... #I might've watched a few other anime things before Sailor Moon but I'm not sure. It's not like anything was labeled as 'Japanese anime'. #So I may have seen some little-known less stylistic 80's anime or something. #I might've seen Interstella 5555 and an episode of Dragon Ball on TV one day while visiting someone before I saw Sailor Moon though. #But... in the spirit of 'first anime' I think Sailor Moon would definitely fit that the best. #When Digimon & Monster Rancher & Beyblade & Yu-Gi-Oh! started they all caught my eye channel surfing because 'that looks like Sailor Moon!' #(Interstella 5555 was my first music video though. I'd never seen something that used music like that before.)

[asjjohnson]

Many such cases

#huh and here I thought they were just forgetting to take down the listings

[asjjohnson]

I think one of the funniest things I’ve accidentally taught my parrot is yelling “WHAT?” The best part is that if he says something weird and and someone else says “what???” he usually repeats what he just said. Like just now, I was cooking in the kitchen and he heard me boiling water so he asked “you wanna noodle?” but I couldn’t quite hear him so I yelled “WHAT” and he repeated “you wanna noodle?”

Mostly he just likes yelling it, though.

[asjjohnson]

When you accidentally remove the load-bearing pierogi and the entire contents of the freezer come spilling out

#...huh. I guess my mom's not the only one to stuff a freezer that way. #My freezer's actually pretty full now though. But I think it doesn't work like that because of the type of items I have in it. #I mostly have boxes and I avoid frozen things in bags. Bags tend to make things unstable and take up extra space. #I do have a few small freezer Ziploc bags but I always have them on top. As well as the ice cube tray on top. #I also have some frozen milk in bags but I put those inside an empty box. #So... I don't actually have any load-bearing things. #It's neat to hear about how others' freezers work though.

[asjjohnson]

#aww congrats on fatherhood Bort. :) #Is Bort the same species as this bird? https://asjjohnson.tumblr.com/post/748124397739573248/joematar-naamahdarling-thecutestcatever

[asjjohnson]

I hear my mom shrieking downstairs, shouting up to me about “THE CATS! THE CATS!”

I run downstairs, thinking someone has died or something and see THIS:

I FEEL LIKE I NEED TO PUNCH SOMETHING TO GET OVER THE ADORABLENESS

[asjjohnson]

[video by emersonbrophy. caption: no celery was wasted in the making of this video (very sick of ants on a log)]

#Neat song haha. Nice job. #Every so often I think of how nice it would be if I could buy like two servings of each type of produce. I could make and eat so much stuff #But I actually don't usually go for smaller portion sizes. ...Because they cost a lot extra. #Like 'Ooh look at this cute single slice of watermelon. Too bad it costs the same as that entire watermelon I can barely lift.' #Lately I've been buying mushrooms bell peppers green onions and tomatoes and then cooking it all at once and freezing most of it. #It actually works really well (...as long as I didn't freeze liquid in with it and make it hard to separate out). #If I feel like an omelette or want to add a little something to some pasta I can just break off a portion of it. And it warms up quick. #...But as for celery... I'm usually okay with eating it throughout a week or two. #It's easier if I cut it up and wash it in advance and put it in sandwich bags for the following days. #Also I try to save the leaves because I found out they're edible and are great in salads. #They taste just like the sticks but are easier to deal with within a salad. #I haven't bought celery for a while though. #I think it might've been a year ago I started to cut up some celery I just bought and there were two German Cockroaches in it. :( #I'm not sure when to start buying it from my store again. #Oh did you know you can separate out a handful of grapes or cherries instead of buying a whole bag? (At least at my store.)

[asjjohnson]

listen like... in my opinion the pov character should be wrong or contradictory or unreliable sometimes. this is third person limited they're not supposed to have all the information or always be right. the narrator doesn't stop being a character

#It's more fun writing the pov of someone completely confused. :) #I mean they can be sure they know what's going on but still completely wrong too. Or they can be like 'what in the world is going on'. #In 1 of my fanfics none of the pov characters really know what's going on. So when I switch pov you get different views on what they think. #And there's the times when something doesn't match their idea of what's going on so they think up new possibilities. #hmm... if a character is always right then it would make a shorter story. A story needs a little excitement here and there. #The protagonist needs to struggle for a story to reach readers emotionally. #Tho there is the camera pov where you only see the facts on screen. ...I find it really hard to write but want to sometimes. #...It's hard to describe details when there isn't anyone doing the describing. So that type of pov is complicated.

[asjjohnson]

When I say "Birds are Dinosaurs" and you say "No you know what I mean, when we say dinosaurs we mean Something Else" I think like... you don't know what I mean.

There's sort of a constructed category of dinosaurs as these scaly, powerful, outdated animals, and birds as these delicate modern animals, and I want you to understand that these ideas are based on outdated science and human biases. That birds can and have grown huge and predatory, that dinosaurs were a hugely diverse group that had grazers and small arboreal animals and fast intelligent ones.

Birds are a category of dinosaur, the only one we have left around. Appreciate them, demythologize dinosaurs, and destroy the boxes you put nature into.

[asjjohnson]

i want 60 thousand votes by next thursday

#should I share this on ff.net?