Triple Tangent Tuesday!

I know everyone loves it when I whine about how chubby I am and how crappy my runs are, but perhaps I should spice things up a bit sometimes... enter another Triple Tangent Tuesday!!

#1
It's lucky that I can sing and act because I have zero artistic talent.  My stick figures are awkward.  There's actually only one thing that I can successfully draw that looks pretty, and it's really just a random doodle, but it looks cool.  It was on an Urban Outfitters catalog many years ago and I just copied it over and over until I finally had it down.

This is from 2005, and it's pretty much exactly the same to this day... I still doodle it in notebooks when I get bored.  Weirdly, now that I look at it, I realize that I actually tend to draw the little tail as curving to the left now, but that's the only significant change.

In case you think I'm kidding about my inability to draw things and not have them look like someone with a serious head injury made them, here is my horrendous attempt at "recreating" a painting for an art history class in college.  I remember this taking me hours... hence why I took a picture.  So I could remember the pain.  I'm masochistic like that.

Please.  Avert your eyes.


#2
Speaking of singing (um, kind of)... my mom still really likes to tell the story of how she found out I had any vocal ability.  I actually didn't talk a lot as a kid, and while I definitely was never an introvert, I was usually a band kid, not a choir kid.  Freshman year of high school, unbeknownst to my parents, I had started writing poetry and even tried writing a couple songs.  When the drama department announced that they were putting on a talent show, I decided that I wanted to sing one of the songs I had written.  So I came home and told my mom, and this was pretty much the exchange:

Jessica:  I think I'm going to enter the talent show at school.
Jessica's mom:  What are you going to do?
Jessica:  I'm going to sing.
Jessica's mom:  You can sing?  What are you going to sing?
Jessica:  A song I wrote.
Jessica's mom:  You write songs?!!

As corny as it sounds, that talent show was the beginning of a serious blossoming for me, and even though it shocked everyone, I'm glad I learned I could sing!  It's a little unrealistic, but if I could someday make a career out of my voice, I would be the happiest little clam that ever was.  Not necessarily a record deal, but something.  Still figuring that out.


#3
I knit... sometimes.  It kind of comes in waves, like many of my obsessions: I will knit every day for months, and then I kind of forget about it.  Like right now, I have a tank top on my needles that I don't think I touched for the entire month of May.  Actually, I feel bad writing that, so it looks like I've got some knitting to do tonight!  :)

I learned how to knit my freshman year of college... I had truly awful roommates (that's a story for another Triple Tangent Tuesday) and would pretty much use any excuse to get out of my room, and one of the professors started a little knitting club in my dorm, so I went.  The first thing I ever knit was a long scarf made of white acrylic yarn with silver sparkly tinsel in it.  It had a million mistakes, but I gave it to my mom because I knew she'd appreciate it, and she cried when she opened up the box I'd wrapped it in.  She never wears it, but she still has it, which makes me feel super loved.


I promise I learned how to knit much better after that and have knit all sorts of pretty things, including, but not limited to:

This shawl, which is a very cool, yet super simple pattern called the Boneyard Shawl by Stephen West.

This shrug, which is a variation on a lovely free pattern called the Ribbed Lace Bolero, using a different lace pattern called "Lacy Columns."

As well as another shrug based on the same pattern that I wore to my honors graduation ceremony.


I was pretty psyched about graduating.


And that, kids, is today's Triple Tangent Tuesday!  I hope you enjoy reading these... I'm really enjoying geeking out and writing them.  Especially since you all know how much I love to talk about myself.  It's kind of my thing.

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