About Me
That says ARI plane. Not Air plane. ARIplane. It's my clever little opening joke -you know -to tantalize you into reading my exquisitely-crafted essay, after which you will fall madly, uncontrollably in like with me. Well, in any case, I couldn't think of a really good profile name or an opening line that would knock your socks off, so this solved both problems. Do you realize what's happening though? You're just now being sucked into reading my very lengthy, possibly entertaining blurb about me. Or is it myself? Myself. Yeah, let's go with that. So, "allow myself to introduce ...myself" (that's from Austin Powers):
I'm not going to tell you I like to laugh a lot. I mean I DO, I do like to laugh a lot (well I guess I just blew it). But I think it's funny when people write that they like to laugh a lot. I just don't know anyone who doesn't like to laugh. Why not also write "Something I really enjoy is haviing my skeleton inside me, I mean, that is F-U-N *FUN*." Sure, it's a totally valid statement, it's just that I think it kind of goes without saying. If you ahppen to be one of the "I like to laugh" people, I hope I'm not offending you. Maybe you can explain to me why you include it in your profile. Maybe there's some purpose I'm not seeing. Seriously. Well, anyway ...I guess I should try to describe myself. First of all, I think I'm probably crazy. Not in any sweaty-toothed kind of way -it's just that I seem to have millions of ideas. I have ideas coming out of my @%*&ing ears and they won't leave me alone. But I'm not at the wearing-tin-foil-on-the-head stage of my life yet, which is good. I have ideas for graphic novels, video games, movies, sandwiches (actually no, not sandwiches ...yet). Sometimes I have an idea for a joke they could make on The Simpsons or something, and what am I supposed to do with those. So I have notebooks full of notes for stories and things. I tend to spend most of my time thinking. No, that's wrong -I tend to spend most of my time drawing and being surprised that I'm not freaking out about being a poor freelance illustrator. The rest of the time is for thinking about things. I illustrate children's books for a living, but I want to do more than that, because with so many ideas of my own swirling around in my head, that the job of illustrating someone else's story isn't always enough for me anymore. Finding time to write stories is hard, though, because developing them happens in little bits and pieces of free time, which makes everything take much longer all around. Any sort of creative process is fun for me. Put me in the middle of a staff meeting in a suit and tie (I HAVE been stuck in such situations) and I'm a complete mess -seriously, I'll come apart. Ask me for creative input and suddenly I'm functioning on all cylinders. I don't like to spend time watching sitcoms or reality TV because I feel like I could be thinking about stuff instead. It seems like there are so many things to do with ideas and thoughts and pictures and words, why would I decide instead to watch some guy on TV take up a dare to eat a pair of buffalo's testicles for $50,000 -or not even that -only the chance to win $50,000 (Fear Factor ...sigh). When I'm between projects and burnt out though, I start eating lots of ice cream and watch 5 seasons straight of something like The Sopranos. Also -certain movies I'll watch over and over again. I've seen Amadeus at least forty times. Probably more.