#but yeah. every time i try to load my page on my ipad to look for drawing ideas it takes a good 20-30secs to load every single page

[shirogane-oushirou]

turns out the playlist on my blog makes everything load like ass, so i have to remove it. :( so much for having a non-big-website listening option sklkdflksf. ;;;

[folerdetdufoler]

if mondays at sixteen even had picked (i guess he didn't really pick BUT anyway) a different way to propose, how would he have done it?

hah, now i gotta write an au for my au? niiiice.

i sort of entertained a different proposal here. but now that i reread it it doesn’t feel right, and it also doesn’t fit anywhere into the finished timeline. but i do like the idea that even would’ve loved isak so much he wouldn’t mind a public proposal like that, and that he would do it while isak was still camming, literally. he would say “this man, in this exact moment, exchanging sexual activity for money, is who i want to be with for the rest of my life.” no shame in this game.

but the way i wrote it, we also know isak would never reveal his face on camera, so this level of exposure of their relationship probably would have only come if isak kept camming and made it his career.

anyway, let’s try a different proposal that wasn’t based on “oh god i forgot that i love you my bad.” if he had to think about it, plan something, i think he would have gotten quite stuck. he’s seen and heard so many proposals, from the couples he worked with to the couples he researched. sometimes he would want something different, to stand out from his work. other times he would want something cliché, just so he could say “our love is just like any other love and deserves the same pomp and circumstance.” i think he would spend years getting caught up in these conflicting desires.

that wouldn’t be a bad thing, of course. isak is happy because he has what he wants and needs as they are. he doesn’t feel pressure from anyone else to be married, and it isn’t a fairytale he was raised with. so he’s not watching the time tick by waiting for a wedding, nor is he planning to make one happen on his own. he has zero expectations, which means the smallest surprise will still shake him to his core.

so, years later, they still meet up at helene’s café on mondays at sixteen. at this point christian knows how important that time and place is, so his work schedule allows it. it’s also a convenient excuse for delivering any prescriptions in that neighborhood. isak hangs up his white coat, leaves early, and drops off bags of medicine on his way. sometimes he arrives before even, sometimes after, depending on how long he spends chatting with the customers he sees. this time he got there first.

“i’ll probably have a heart attack if you ever order something different.”

“I probably will too. my heart wouldn’t be able to handle any variation on this specific amount of caffeine or sugar.” isak swiped the cup of iced mocha off the counter and swung around to his usual seat. he didn’t say anything about the missing bun but helene knew he was expecting it.

“i’m pulling fresh ones out in a minute.”

“my heart thanks you.” he settled in. helene disappeared to the back. isak pulled out his ipad, ready to start a case study that sana had sent him a few days ago. the link was in his email but he quickly realized nothing was loading. “helene? your wifi?”

“new password!” she hollered back. he heard her oven door slam shut. then he looked over his shoulder at the chalkboard.

the password hadn’t changed for years, but one day even noticed how slow the wifi had gotten when he was working, and between the two of them they figured out that helene’s new neighbors were hogging her bandwidth. “while i’m actually trying to hog it myself in this moment, i’d like to point out that i’m a paying customer. you should change your password whenever it gets bad. make people come into the café and buy something if they’re so desperate for the internet.” even then proceeded to write up some excellent (his word choice) puns for helene to use, which would make both the password and the café memorable to the customers. this gave him an idea for a humor instagram account, where he could post latte art and the chalkboard puns, but he never got around to it.

helene changed the password though. sometimes they were even’s puns, sometimes they were whatever she could think up on the spot. they rarely made sense, and this new one fit that description. isak typed it into his ipad’s settings and waited for his inbox to refresh after it connected. once he was able to click the link he felt relieved. he didn’t realize how anxious he had become by not feeling connected, and it was silly considering that he had data he could use instead. but all of those feelings were brushed aside when he saw even walk in. then he just felt light. “hi hi.”

even didn’t say anything, he just walked right up to him and kissed him on the cheek. helene brought out a plate with a steaming cinnamon bun on it and a glass of tea for even. she set them on the counter in front of them and exchanged a look with even before walking away. their small nods were probably an agreement on who was paying for that afternoon’s treats. it was even’s turn.

he settled in too. isak let his bun cool but started caffeinating, warding off the headache that would come if he went too long past sixteen without a daily hit. he got through a couple of pages of the study before even leaned over and whispered, “do you have wifi?”

“oh, yeah. there’s a new password. will you marry me?” isak said it all without looking up, not wanting to lose his place on the page.

“yes.”

“you’re connected?”

“not yet. but that’s my answer.”

finally he looked up, since he was confused. “answer to what?”

“you asked me if i’ll marry you, so i said yes.”

“no, that’s the wifi password. will you m—” that’s when isak noticed. his eyes slid over to the counter where helene was practically shaking by the register, watching them in rapt silence, her hands clutched in front of her mouth. even was twisted on his stool facing isak head-on, a small smile twitching on his lips. “did you just….”

“no, but i think you just did.” 

of course even would do this. of course he would turn it into a trick, a joke, something he could tease isak about. of course this is how even would propose to his boyfriend: by getting him to do it first.

“do you want to get married?” isak still wasn’t sure how earnest the trick was supposed to be.

“yes. hence the earlier ‘yes.’ i think this means you’ve proposed twice.” even had unleashed his complete smile now, letting the joke ease his nerves, letting his answer speak his truth.

“no, i mean i’m just asking in general, like a conversation. do you want to marry me?”

“third time is the charm, eh?”

“even!”

even laughed. “yes.” isak could see it in his eyes now, that the joke was over, and he was saying what isak wanted him to say, answering the question he wanted to be asked. and because even knew all of this, because even knew isak, he asked him in return. “will you marry me?”

isak wanted to say yes. but he also couldn’t resist: “that’s the wifi password.”

even laughed again. he grabbed at isak’s chest, gathering a handful of his shirt to tug him closer. “i know. fuck, this is like the worst abbott & costello gag. but isak,” even leaned in to meet him, resting their foreheads together. they were close enough that all they could see was the other one. all they could see was the rest of their lives. “will you marry me?”

“yes.”

helene cried. she tried to stay quiet while isak and even kissed and hugged in the window. she grabbed a napkin to wipe her nose and cursed the noise that the paper made. then, to hide her face and look busy, she turned to the chalkboard and erased the proposal. she picked up the piece of chalk next to the register and wrote their answer: yes.

she left it there for a month, and proceeded to propose to every customer who came in and asked for the new password.

[peterkayscarshare]

Life in the Slow Lane Chapter 3 by OvertheRainbow

She hated arguments. Mainly because she was completely rubbish at them. She couldn’t do confrontation and inevitably ended up in tears within minutes. This time was no exception. It didn’t help that her journey back to Mandy’s had been to the soundtrack of Forever FM’s “Sunday Love Connection With DJ Danny Love”. The whole thing was cheesier than an extra large Margarita Pizza, with stuffed crust, cheese bites, cheesy garlic bread and maybe a fondue thrown in for good measure. She’d held it together through Van Halen’s “Why Can’t This Be Love?” but by the time the late great Whitney Houston had finished belting out the first chorus of “All The Man That I Need”, played with “All my love always” from Leanne in Oldham to Richie in Southport, she was a blubbing mess. That it triggered her memory of John, on their first official “date”, telling her about his dedication to her, that she’d missed by moments, really didn’t help her situation. Try as she might, she found it impossible to be angry with him. Frustrated yes but angry, no. Even if he could never bring himself to fully open up and give her any more than they currently had, even if he could never actually say the word “love”, preferring to make hints and coded references, even if this “thing” was never going to work out, even if he was destined to break her heart beyond any and all repair, it was his to break. It always would be and that was that. 

 As she finally parked up in front of the house that never really felt like home, Kayleigh took a moment to compose herself. Steve was in his usual location, doing exactly what he always did. Rain, hail or shine. Mandy was on the front step next to a large ladder, looking exasperated, gesticulating wildly and intermittently pointing up at the Christmas lights, which had been hanging precariously from the roof for the better part of a year. As Mandy’s tone varied from a “not in front of the neighbours” whisper, to a socially acceptable outdoor voice, to a full on bollocking, Kayleigh caught the general gist of the conversation, even from inside the car. It was best summed up by Mandy’s final, very audible declaration, “You’re a useless dickhead!” Mandy never had any qualms about venting a sense of anger in her relationship. Throughout the entire tirade, Steve had remained his usual sanguine self. Saying nothing and wiping a spanner on his oil stained shirt. She’d never fully understood the dynamic between her sister and Steve. Mandy had the Kitson feisty gene. Steve was utterly passive to the point of comatose. She wasn’t entirely sure how her sister hadn’t strangled him, or died of boredom by now and yet, somehow it just worked for them. She knew how this latest incident would play out. Steve would leave Mandy to “simmer down”, then eventually fix the lights, at his own pace and in his own time. He’d give Mandy a cuddle, whisper something doubtless filthy in her ear, she’d giggle and smack him on the backside and before long, they’d be disappearing up the stairs. Kayleigh would settle on the sofa with a brew, open her iPad, load up Netflix and put her headphones on. All while contemplating yet another night alone in that tiny box room with a cross trainer, 36 pairs of shoes, a set of Babyliss Crimpers and a plastic heart shaped lamp for company. At least now she could add in another pair of shoes, yippee. Steve tapped on the passenger side window, “You gettin’ out sometime today or what?” “You fixin’ those lights sometime this year, you lazy sod?” came her terse reply as she opened the drivers side door. “Don’t you start. I’ve already had it off your sister”. “I know. I heard. I‘m guessin’ they could probably hear it in Dundee!” “Yeah well, Mandy’s got no volume control.” “She’s got more bloody patience than I’d have, that’s for sure. You said you were takin’ them down the day after New Years! They’ve been hanging up there like an afterthought ever since. They almost came down entirely after that bad weather last month.” By now Kayleigh had retrieved her bags from the car and was heading up the driveway. Steve was still surveying their “festive light display”. “I don’t know. Maybe we should leave ‘em as they are. They look like...what do they call it?… shabby chic”. “They look like shabby shit. Mandy’s right. Get ‘em fixed”, with that Kayleigh went inside, leaving Steve to resume his avoidance of the inevitable.

 As she entered the hallway she could hear Mandy “negotiating” with Chloe and Alfie over the evening’s dinner options, “We’re having a roast!” “We want chicken dippers!” “I want a fortnight in St Lucia, all inclusive but it’s not gonna happen.” “It’s not fair!” “No you’re right. Unlike many others, you’re going to bed tonight with full stomachs and a roof over your heads. It really isn’t fair.” “Yeah but we won’t have chicken dippers!” “Your suffering is noted. I’ll call Simon Cowell, see if One Direction want to reform for a benefit gig.” “So, can we have them then?” “Eh...let me think about it...no.” “Muuummmm” “Chlooooeeeee. Both of you, zip it. We’re having a roast dinner. Any more complaints and it’ll be with extra veggies and no Yorkshire’s.” That appeared to do the trick and the pair retreated in defeat. Kayleigh smiled at her exasperated sister. “One of those days?” “Let’s just say it didn’t improve after you left. Sometimes it feels as though I’m tryin’ to manage three kids.” Looking at her bags Mandy asked, “D’ya get what you wanted?” Now there was a question. “I got some shoes and a couple of bits”. “Well then. Let’s see!” Kayleigh produced her purchases to much ooing and ahhing from her sister. “Those shoes will make your legs look incredible! You’ll knock John dead!” Kayleigh’s reaction, or rather lack of it, spoke volumes. “Oh no. Please tell me you haven’t gone and binned him off.” “No! Course not! We just had a difficult conversation earlier.” “Define “difficult””. “I sort of, off loaded on him. I was feeling frustrated and I did exactly what I always hate. I just let it all build up and then got stroppy with him. I don’t think he had a clue what was going on, I didn’t even give him a chance and it all just spiralled out of control. I’m ruining everything!” Suddenly Kayleigh burst into tears. Mandy immediately rushed over and embraced her sister, “Aw, sweetheart.” As she offered what comfort she could amid the loud sobs, Alfie wandered through the hall and declared, “See! Even Auntie Kayleigh wants chicken dippers.” Mandy’s response was swift, “She’s crying because I’ve just told her what’s going to happen if you mention them again!” Kayleigh found herself laughing despite herself. “Listen, I’ve got a roast on. Needless to say, our resident food critics approve. It’ll be an hour or so yet. Why don’t you have a lie down. I’ll give you a shout when it’s ready.” “Thanks Mand.” “You really do need to talk to him Kayleigh. This isn’t fair on either of you. You need to explain your feelings and try to get some answers and he needs a chance to understand you and give his side of things.” “I’ll give him a call after dinner.” “Good idea. It would be such a shame to throw it all away when the two of you just need to get on the same page.” “You’re right sis. I can’t lose him because of this. You know, talking’s always been so easy for us. We’ve never done awkward silences. Now we’ve found the one topic that’s guaranteed to be a conversation killer and it’s the one thing we actually need to talk about.” “Well, get some rest and then take on the unspeakable Wonder Woman.” “I’ll fetch me golden lasso and cuffs.” “Now that’ll definitely do the trick.” Mandy grinned and Kayleigh headed up the stairs in the hope that a quick snooze might help her formulate a plan.

 “Christ! Take it easy Lewis Hamilton!” John exclaimed, as he swayed precariously in the front passenger seat. “I thought you wanted to get there quickly, Miss Daisy!” “I do! I’d just rather it wasn’t in a bloody body bag.” “Can I assume we’re not heading to Bury for you to have a long overdue booty call.” “Not unless it involves her sticking her boot up me arse.” “Well, if that’s how you like it. I make no judgement. Each to their own.” John gave Jim some vicious side eye. “Where’s your sense of humour these days?” “I’m just finding it hard to laugh at the general fuck up that my life has become.” “I thought we sorted this back at Big Bob’s. You love her, you want her, you just need to get over feelin’ awkward and you can crack on.” “You make it sound so easy”. “It is John. You keep on makin’ it complicated and you may as well forget it. Have you ever actually told Kayleigh how you feel about her?” “She knows. She’s got to.” “How? She a mind reader on the sly?” “I wrote her a song for Christ’s sake! It was all about hearts and journeys and colours and shit and I meant every word of it too. What more does she want!?” “Hearts and journeys and colours?” “Yeah, you know, she walked away with me heart, made my journey through life lonely and turned my world to colour from black and white, that sort of thing.” “You’re no Gary Barlow mate.” “That’s not what she said.” “Yeah, well she’s your number one fan.” “You make her sound like a friggin stalker!” “Has it ever occurred to you that maybe she doesn’t want theatrics and riddles. Maybe she just wants to hear you say the word.” “What word?” “LOVE! You bloody idiot!” Why does that matter so much!” “Because it’s a small word that’s about as big as it gets. It doesn’t mean “Iike”, it doesn’t mean “fancy”, it doesn’t mean “You’ll do for now until something better shows up”. It means, you’re feeling it where it matters, where it counts and not just between your legs! It says you could hurt me...maybe even more than I could ever hurt you. That’s what’s freakin’ you out. Isn’t it?” John sighed, “Yeah. Yeah it is. I’d never cried over a woman until Kayleigh. I mean, I’ve been sad before, I’ve even gone off me food.” “Jesus! When were that!?” “Oy!” “Sorry”. “I know now that she can hurt me, more than I’ve ever been hurt before, because she did”. “Now there’s a lyric. Seriously though, do you really think that by just not sayin’ it, you can somehow not feel it. Do you think it’ll protect you? Cause if you think that’s the case, I’ve got one question for you mate...how’s that workin’ out for you?” John put his head back against the headrest and momentarily closed his eyes. It was a silent answer, which somehow spoke volumes. 

 The rest of their journey was spent in companionable silence, interspersed with occasional instructions on which direction to take, from John. Finally, they arrived on the familiar road that led to Mandy’s house, or as John always thought, to Kayleigh. His heart and his brain were currently competing in a race to the finish that neither seemed willing to concede. “It’s up here on the right. Number 25. It might have a green gazebo.” “A green gazebo!” “Yeah. Her sister’s fella Steve’s into fixin’ bikes.” “That still doesn’t explain the gazebo.” “Fuck the gazebo! It’s not even up!” “Alright John! Calm down.” “Sorry, it’s here with the shitty Christmas Lights. Right, this is it.” “D’ya want me to come with you or wait here?” “Christ! I hadn’t thought about that. I don’t know how long I’ll be. She might kick me out before I can get a word in edge ways. Either that or I’ll be here for ages. It’ll be a feast or a famine.” “Well, let’s take it as it comes shall we? You need me to make meself scarce for a bit, I’ll find a Maccie D’s. You can text me when you want me to come back.” “Cheers mate.” “Is that Steve?” “Yeah. He’s sound”. Steve was already waving at John. John and Jim both got out to greet him, “Alright Steve?” “Hey John mate. I wasn’t expecting to see you today!” Furtively looking back at an amused Jim, John attempted a casual reply, “Well, Yeah, we, eh, happened to be in the area and I just thought I’d stop by and say hello to Kayleigh. She about by any chance?” “Yeah, she’s just back from the shops. Front door’s on the snib. Go on in.” “Thanks pal. This is my mate Jim by the way. Jim, this is Steve.” “How do mate.” “How do. Nice bike. Ya can’t wack a Triumph. John’s Dad were into his bikes if I remember rightly. He had a Triumph at one point and...aw what were it called? John! What was the name of that bike your Dad had?” John was already heading for the front door as he replied, “A Land Devil. Steve knows. I gave him some bits from the garage”. Steve replied, “That were very decent of you by the way”. “No bother”. With that John disappeared inside as Steve and Jim stood awkwardly like two spare parts at a wedding. Suddenly Steve produced a flask, “Fancy a brew mate?” “Don’t mind if I do.” Steve poured the tea into the plastic cup at the top of the flask, then refilled his Robocop mug”. “Nice mug.” “Thanks”. Steve looked up to Kayleigh’s bedroom. Jim watched his gaze and followed it upwards in the direction of a window with a heart shaped lamp at its centre. “He in the dog house again?” “How did you guess?” “She gets in a right mood when she’s pissed off with him”. Jim sighed before ruminating, “I think they just need a good talk.” “You ask me they need a bloody good shag!” For a second nothing was said as the two men simply looked at each other, in silence, before they both simultaneously broke into laughter and toasted each other with their mugs. Steve reached down into an ancient biscuit tin and brandishing it in front of Jim enquired, “Hob Nob?” With that, the male bond was firmly created. 

 John announced his arrival by calling out, “Hello! It’s John”. Mandy was in the kitchen up to her neck in carrots. She was shocked to see him but couldn’t deny that she was also delighted for her sister, “John Redmond! As I live and breathe. What brings you to the bright lights of Bury? Could it be a certain red head by any chance”.  Offering her a kiss on the cheek John smiled, ‘Hey Mandy. You rumbled me. She accepting visitors?” “She’s having a lie down upstairs.” “Any chance I could....?” “I’m not sure if I want you to finish that sentence”. “I just want to talk to her Mandy. We need to sort a few things.” “Do me a favour. Try to sort them in a way that doesn’t disturb the neighbours or traumatise the kids.” John smiled and looked suitably sheepish. “Up the stairs, first on the right.” “Thanks Mandy”. “Oh and John, do ya want a bit of roast?” “I’d love to but me mate Jim’s here with me. He’s outside with Steve.” “He can join us too if he likes. I’ve got half a cow ‘ere.” “Thanks Mandy, you’re a good ‘um.” With that, she smiled and retreated to the kitchen as John took a deep breath, climbed the stairs and knocked on Kayleigh’s bedroom door. She’d been lying on the bed with her headphones on listening to an old eighties mix tape. She hadn’t heard the knock at the door, so when it opened and John’s face peaked in, she literally shrieked, “JOHN!” Misty immediately started barking from the back garden. Only Kayleigh could reach that octave. She pulled her headphones off and immediately jumped off the bed. John stood in the doorway, his eardrums struggling to recover. “What are you doing here?!” “Well. I remembered it’s Sunday and I thought you might like a cuddle and a Chinese....or a cuddle and Mandy’s roast...or maybe just a cuddle.” Kayleigh stood so still, that he began to be concerned about what was to come, then without warning, she threw her arms around him and promptly burst into tears. “Oh John. I’m sooo sorry. I was so horrible to you. I didn’t mean to be such a nasty cow.” “Hey, sweetheart. Don’t get upset. It’s ok. It’s ok. You weren’t a nasty cow. You don’t have a nasty bone in your lovely little body. Don’t cry love.” “I just love you so much John”. “Look at me.” With that Kayleigh pulled back and faced him, wiping the tears from her eyes. “I’ve never said this to anyone before and it’s because I’ve never meant it until now. I should have said it to you weeks ago. The truth is, I probably knew it months ago...but I’m absolutely bloody certain of it now...I love you too Kayleigh Kitson. I love you more than I ever thought it was possible to love anyone or anything in this world and I’m scared. I’m terrified because for the first time in my life I’ve realised that something was missing and that something was you. If I lose you, I go back to who I was before and now I know that who I was before wasn’t complete. I had a Kayleigh Kitson shaped hole in my heart and in my life and I don’t want to go back. Not now, not ever.”...and there it was. He’d finally said it.

[artistemmaduehr-blog]

Graduate School begins

I started graduate school this week at Portland State University. I am really looking forward to what is going to happen over the course of the year. I feel that I will change a lot, my artwork will change, and my inspirations will span from all over. I am taking 4 classes, and PSU does a trimester set up which is really nice for going back to school right away.

The first class I want to share is called Contemporary Art 1. I chose to share this class first because one of the assignments for this class is to run an online progress report, I have chosen to do blog format. I have always wanted to start a blog for multiple reasons: I like to talk and I like to share what is on my mind but ……. no one likes to hear someone talk all about themselves and their ideas. Luke, my boyfriend, is wonderful because he likes to listen… sometimes… ANYWAYS. this blog will be nice because it will force me to organize along the way. This blog will consist of what experiments I am currently working on, the inspiration that drives my work, important articles that coincide with my research, and just be a place that will organize all the crazy ideas that are floating around this art brain of mine. I think I decided right now at this very moment.. right now. that I am never going to edit my blog. soon maybe that just makes it a journal, oh well its whatever it is going to come out of my mouth…fingers….typing….. anything I just need to write or says aloud to someone… I'll write it here. but yeah. I’m gonna let this thing be natural, responding with all natural instinct, I'm not going to allow me to proofread or edit my thoughts, they are just going to come out and help me organize my thoughts and be a mess for you to try to read, but if you are really interested in me and what I am doing every week maybe you can see past all my incorrectly placed commas and incomplete sentences. whoops.

Back to the point now, I guess that was an introduction? haha.

Contemporary Art 1 is the biggest workload of homework, all for excellent reasons. We will be focusing on the last 20 ish years of contemporary art to try to focus on what is being made currently instead of focusing all our attention on dead people. I always look to the dead painters for inspiration, all artists do, but for this class, Tabitha is trying to make us learn about art we probably haven’t been very familiar with in the past. I look forward to it. We will have readings every week and come to class ready to engage in thoughtful conversations relating to anything that drives our personal artwork and contemporary art that surrounds us. We will have papers, and desk homework, all that yada yada yada stuff, but I think it is important that we have at least one class like this that is just LOADED with inspiration and conversation about current art practices. I am going to learn a lot and evolve a shit ton. I AM GEEKED.

Another class is called the Visiting Artist Lecture Series; I am taking this class with Lisa Jarrett who is full of energy and instills positive thoughts into the setting. She is well known in the community and is familiar with all things Portland Art scene. I am really looking forward to working with her. The class is centered around learning from other artists. Throughout the course of the Trimester, we will be hosting four large Artist Lectures planned my Lisa, and the students get to plan three visiting artist conversation series. The artists are chosen by us graduate students and we are in charge of reaching out and hiring the artists to come to talk with us. We are also responsible for advertising the lecture and hosting the events; this means asking all the questions and sparking the conversation at all times. I am looking forward to this professional experience by getting to know many local artists and learning about their progress, process, struggles, and more. Being able to have conversations with the successful local artist will do a lot for my personal development because I will learn a variety of different successful techniques and get to know more artists in the community. Also in this class, we are in charge of updating the Portland State MFA program website. This means writing summaries of events happening at the University and updating the community on what we are working on in our studios. We are in charge of all social network that has to do with the program. I am looking forward to sharing my work on a larger network.

Another class is Studio. Just working in my studio. I will be here all the time, I am here right now. Catch me on the 5th street staring at the sunset currently. I have my own studio space. It is about 15ft x 20-25ft ish? with a massive window that serves for great natural lighting. On the walls, I have a United States map, of course, with a heart around Dubuque, Iowa & Epping, North Dakota & Portland Oregon & Kalaloch National Park. All my favorite places. I also have a lot of embroidery hoops on my walls…. haha only 5 have color and I probably have like 20. I just like them and I want to have color on all of them, but I am obviously going to focus on other things that hoop embroidery. Um, I have a bomb ass wooden desk that has all my sharpies, my favorite plants, sketchbooks, yarn, thread, pencils, and water bottle. Um, on my desk, while I am working I usually have my honking laptop out on this nice pull out cutting board thing and my iPad mini. My iPad usually is fulling my tunes while my phone is dying on the charger because Apple sucks and I can’t charge my phone and listen to headphones at the same time .. same with my iPad. But my iPad has a longer battery life so that's why I use him for music. Ummm I have a comfy chair in the corner for whoever decides to visit m,. come by whenever! um, I have a lot of plants because they bring me joy and make me feel like I’m not alone in this white blob. I have paintings on the wall. I didn’t want to decorate too much because I am going to be working on work, messy work in here as well. gotta have room for my enormous creations. So I am really thankful for this studio I am going to be in this spot every damn day. The class: Studio consists of critique. it is designed that we are in critiquing each other's work every week but we are rotating every week. SO my work will be under critique by my classmates every other Wednesdays. I love critique tho. My cohort is full of 6 students and 1 professor for the class, Laura. Looking forward to hearing everyone's ideas and progress throughout the year.

Last class is meeting with 2 mentors throughout the semester. So the professors of the term are Erik (sculpture) and Lisa( from my other class) I meet with both of them at least 3 times a term. I invite them into my studio and I tell them my thoughts, ideas, where I am currently and where I am thinking about going with my work. It will be nice to have thoughtful conversations with inspirational people in my favorite workspace. I think I will be writing about these meetings quite a bit because I do think they will be crucial to my personal development. Professional criticism every week. I feel very thankful that I will have that.

That's my classes. I probably didn’t do it justice because half way thru I wanted to stop writing and pick up my yarn but I didn’t. stay tuned for more, I will be more thoughtful. I just wanna get this blog going without thinking too much about it. Its gonna be a mess, I think, but it will really help me out along the way. I hope you enjoy checking in and seeing what I am working on and different things that inspire me in different ways.

For my class, we need to update this thing once a week, so I promise.. there will always be something new going on on this page. Whether it's really bad like this one or it's really professionally written and thought about. The goal for school is to document everything, that's the way you get to really get to know yourself in the larger spectrum of things.

ok, that's it. I think I’m going to look for all my favorite things now. && post all the things I have started this past week. let me know what you think! contact me at eduehr@pdx.edu or em.duehr@gmail.com whenever! just to talk or ask any questions! I like to be challenged and spark conversations about any subject.

I hope you had a beautiful sunny day today and did something for someone else today. quit being so selfish, do me a favor, next time you don’t like your meal or couldn't finish it, box it up and give it to someone on the street. Ask people how their day is going. If someone walks onto the bus on crutches and a leg brace and is holding 5000 bags, go help her. if someone is short on change, give it to them. If someone puts back a snickers bar in the grocery store because she decided “she didn’t need it” buy it for her… because I did this once... a little too late. I watched it happen. she put back her Snickers bar and I said: “Hey girl, go on, treat yourself” (yeah I’m a freak sometimes) and she said “thanks!! yeah I think I do deserve it” and she picked it back up and she I guess was short on change, but I didn’t know that until it was too late. I shoulda bought that snickers bar for that woman… because she deserved it.

[dorothydelgadillo]

The 5 Most Common Website Bugs Found After a Site Launch [Interview]

Launching a site is one of, if not the most, exciting parts of the entire redesign process.

Seeing the product you and your team worked on so hard come to life is nothing short of sweet.

After you celebrate the launch, however, the one thing you never want to happen occurs…

You check your email and find users complaining to you about issues they are experiencing.

Pages and links are 404ing, certain pages aren’t set live, functionality isn’t behaving, etc. And just when you thought everything was perfect!

I know no one wants to encounter these sorts of issues, so I decided to sit down with two of our developers Tim Ostheimer and Kyle Sheldon, to detail the 5 most prevalent bugs they find once sites have launched.

1. Browser Compatibility Problems

CA: People use a lot of browsers. There is Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer etc.

Your website does look differently across all browsers.

Sometimes it's just font thickness and spacing (to a slight degree), but it can also be functionality, especially if a particular browser you're optimizing for doesn’t support sections of your site.

Why do some browsers show our website differently, and which should we be checking to assure ourselves our site works for most users? I want to go to you Tim first.

TO:  I think, specifically, you're asking why Internet Explorer looks bad.

KS: Haha! Yes, Internet Explorer is certainly the most issue prone.

TO: Yeah. Browsers are all built by different companies using different code and really the only reason that your website works in most of them is because of standard practices ways in which the code is actually rendered.

But, each browser is different and contains varying features that render your code in different ways.  

You might have heard the term ‘WebKit,’ which is a particular engine pertaining to newer browsers, Chrome and Safari in particular. These browsers accept more code selectors, while browsers like Internet Explorer and Firefox may not.  

Before building your website, you should check your analytics to see where how your browser traffic is distributed.

For example, if the majority of your traffic is using newer browsers, but .5% is on Internet Explorer 9 and below, you could get away with not optimizing for it, especially if optimizing for it would take more time without a chance of increased business.

There are situations where some companies are required to use older browsers.

Usually, this is for some sort of internal reason. Maybe they have some software that doesn't work on newer versions from Microsoft. If that's the case, then you want to make sure the company can still use the site, even if it is modified.

Do the best you can to optimize as you go. If there are certain bits of code that you know won't work in certain browsers, then try researching a different method. Otherwise, you're setting yourself up for error later on.

CA: What's the best way for people to test browser compatibility when the sites ready for QA?

TO: When you're ready to actually begin optimizing for other browsers, the best way is to view the browser in a real browser but there are other solutions like BrowserStack to create a virtual environment.

What that will help you do is actually see what users using those browsers would end up seeing. Then, you can use their built-in development tools to optimize and figure out which code needs to be adjusted.

One of my favorite JavaScript plugins is Modernizr which allows you to add CSS based on the browser's compatibility.

So, if you're using certain ‘fancy’ CSS3 selectors that Internet Explorer can't read, Modernizr will add some selectors on the page that you can target to style the site differently.

This means your experience on that browser could be different from the modern ones, so keep that in mind for the end-user.

KS: Everyone should be using an auto-prefixing plugin whether it's a sublime plugin, compass mixins, or an online tool like Pleeeeseplay. This will help generate the appropriate vendor prefixes which are a caught of the majority of cross-browser issues.

2. Responsive Website Mistakes

CA: All of us know at this point that you have to make your website responsive. But if you're still in the dark about what that means, you can check out this nifty article to learn more.

When QAing our site, we sometimes get stuck looking at just a couple screen sizes we believe are the most popular and ditching all others.

For example, although 40% of your traffic could view your site on a standard laptop screen size, you could easily be getting traffic from those with viewports as large as 2560px or 4k resolution. If your website looks broken in these environments, it can be pretty embarrassing to discover later on.

So, Kyle, I want to go to you for this point you know. What sorts of mistakes happen with responsive websites and how can you make sure that when you're QAing them that you're not having like little issues say on like mobile, tablet, etc.? 

KS: Well, there's really no substitute for having an actual physical device. If you have the budget for this, I’d recommend an emulation/device lab. That's really the way to go, but it's very impractical even for like mid-level agencies such as ourselves.

Browserstack is very good. It's affordable but can get pricey if you want to have multiple users using the platform at once. Occasionally, Browserstack can be very painfully slow to work with. You can also use the Device Toolbar in Chrome to resize the screen and look at different viewport sizes.

TO: Another thing to point out is there are two types of mobile websites. Usually, you only see responsive websites now, but you may remember seeing adaptive sites in the past.

With a responsive site, you could open it up in a browser and resize the window and you would see the layout change immediately. An adaptive website is either one that loads a completely different set of code based upon what the screen size is on load. You’ll see this with mobile applications and older websites where you may have gone to an e-commerce store.

When it comes to testing responsiveness, I like resizing the window in Chrome. That usually shows me how the site responds at every single pixel size so that I can tell if there are any specific awkward combinations. But as Kyle said there's no substitute for a real device.

You can also inspect element on iPads and iPhones using Safari on the computer. You just have to make sure that you have development mode on or the development toolbar enabled and a wire connected to your computer.

You'll be able to inspect elements and hover over everything and view the code just like you would on the computer, except you can see it all on your phone which really helps to fix certain bugs if there's one that's really troubling.

3. Links and Site Forms Aren’t Doing Anything

CA: Obviously there's a ton of functionality problems that can happen on your site regardless of what kind of thing you're trying to integrate, but I think one of the smaller issues that we tend to overlook is checking all our links, buttons, and forms.

So, Tim do you think you could talk about how thorough you need to get when checking your pages and what you tend to see is the most common linking issues?

TO: Sure. So, a lot of times during the development build out a website the developers will use placeholders for buttons and forms. They're just in there to make the layout look like it should.

This is one reason why linking tends to be forgotten because the page looks right but you actually have to click on buttons or check out the hyperlink to make sure that it's pointing to the right place. The best way to do this is to simply click on everything, but that can take a lot of time and even so you may not necessarily be able to check it in an ideal way, especially if you're using something like a staging environment.

If you are in a staging environment, then that button is most likely just pointing to a URL that doesn't exist until it's live. So, obviously it's a little hard to test because you’ll be sent to a 404 when you click it, but that doesn't necessarily mean the page is or the URL is wrong.

There's always going to be certain situations where you can't completely test something until it's live. So, you’ll want to do the best you can before the site goes live, and once it does, you want to have a team of people combing through the site, making sure everything looks right and functions correctly.

Then there are also tools that you can use to automate this process. One that I would suggest is Screaming Frog. You can also use it to check broken links and 404s when your website is live.

What this tool will do is crawl your entire site, check for any metadata anomalies or invalid properties and return any errors to help you troubleshoot and fix those bugs.

4. Noindex Codes Haven’t Been Removed

CA: So, the next bug I want to talk about is having a ‘NoIndex’ code snippet still on your site after launch.

To preface this section, a no index code is a little snippet of code that you can put on a live page that prevents the site from being crawled by search engines. In development, this snippet can be useful for testing live pages you don’t want others to find but is extremely harmful if left on your site.

Kyle, I want to get your insight on this, what are other scenarios where you’d want to use this?

KS:  The best example of where you’d want to use this is on a Thank You pages where you don't want these pages to show up at search engines. You’d want someone to convert on the landing page attached to these, then arrive on the thank you page with the offer after they convert.  

As Christine mentioned, you can put ‘no index’ when you’re in the middle of developing a site. For example, if you don't have a staging environment, you may need to add that code to live pages to work on the site without people finding the unfinished version.

Right before launch, you want to make sure these tags are removed, that way search engines will immediately begin crawling it and ranking those pages in search results.

Again, you could use a tool like Screaming Frog or SEMRush and check your entire site to make sure that only the pages that you want no index on are no indexed. The same thing applies to your sitemap, any pages that aren't in that are indexed should also be in your sitemap otherwise search engines may have trouble locating those as well.

TO: Internally we actually have a little code snippet which gives us a small notification when loading a page in HubSpot in editor mode that will let us know if the no index tag exist on the page. That way we can easily identify any pages that have the no index tag that should. This is just a little snippet of code that was pretty easy to write. For anyone interested in it, you can reach out to us or comment below and we could send it over.

5. Slow Site Speed Speed

CA: The last bug we’ll be talking about is site speed. I tend to find that this is something people do not think about when they're reviewing their site. They look through it, they think it looks okay, but then they put their site live and they discover their pages have high bounce rates, or their analytics say their site load time is very high.

I heard an interesting statistic actually on ConversionXL. It says ‘47% of people expect a web page to load in two seconds or less’. That is really scary. That means that you like need to have your site incredibly fast and two seconds is a really, really hard number to hit.

Tim, I think you had a lot of experience with people asking you what they can do to speed up their site. What are the things that are making a site slow and what is a quick list of things they should check to make sure their site speed fast?

TO: There are actually multiple checkpoints you want to optimize for. In general, you want to make sure that the page is loading as quickly as possible so the user is able to begin using the site in under two seconds or less.

Usually, the cause of a slow load time is going to come down to media and usually by media I mean images, but on some sites that may include video as well. Media is probably one of the more prevalent resources on the site that will slow your site. When reviewing your site, you’ll want to make sure all that media is as compressed as possible so your site is loading 100kb images, not 1MB ones.

Another thing to be aware of is numbers are requests your site is making, So, these are things like image, media scripts, fonts, pretty much anything that that page is requesting from other web pages to load. If it's requesting things from other servers, this can make an even greater impact on the load time because the user’s browser is not requesting all of the information from a single server. It actually has to reach out from to multiple servers.

You should also compress your JavaScript and CSS files as a way to squeeze out any additional space. And if you don’t know how to do this, there are many tools out there that can help.

KS: Another option is to use a CDN (Content Delivery Network). What this does is post all of your assets on one cached server so that even if you have a bunch of different HTTP requests that would be coming from multiple locations the CDN is able to cache it on their server.

This helps increase the time to render the page because everything is coming from the same location and it doesn't have to download them each time the page is refreshed.

CA: Awesome, that brings us to the end of this interview! Before we close out, I want to ask you guys, are their other bugs you typically stumble upon during QA? How do you make sure they don’t happen? Let us know in the comments below!

from Web Developers World https://www.impactbnd.com/blog/website-bugs-after-site-launch

[mykiiliu]

My colleagues at Photofocus have heard me and seen me say some very choice words during a time, not so long ago, when I had a monitor that wouldn’t or couldn’t calibrate! At first, I couldn’t tell if it was the calibration tool I was using, or the monitor itself!

Monitor Calibration

Now color calibration is super important– it makes it simple for you to edit your images on your machine and basically have it be seen on other color calibrated devices they way that you intended it to. There’s a standard called sRGB that was developed to help a bunch of different displays, printers, devices, cameras and so forth, all see, print, and otherwise display the same color.

I’m sure you’ve seen the differences in colors for a picture that you’ve edited and displayed on a TV, laptop, or another machine. I see it all the time– try hooking up an iPhone to a Samsung TV. The colors are all sorts of wonky. And basically, that’s what I was dealing with.

For that very long and frustrating time, I had a 29″ LG Ultrawide monitor 21:9 — which is great for the horizontal space and interesting resolution for gaming (if you’re into that sort of thing.) When I first bought it, I noticed that it was exceptionally darker than my other monitor– an Apple Thunderbolt Display (a now discontinued display which calibrated really well.) I calibrated it with my Spyder Elite and went on my way. After my first gig with it. I decided to finalize everything and export images from my computer to my iPad Pro (which is relatively close to what I see on my calibrated machine.) That’s when I realized that all the time that I had put into the edits was a complete waste.

The images were nothing close to what I saw on my iPad, or even on another calibrated MacBook (that’s the joy of having calibrated machines, you can tell when something is off because they all look the same). I was furious. I spent hours trying to recalibrate the monitor with the Spyder Elite.. then tried all the different viewing modes on the LG followed by a calibration. Then I tried manually tweaking the color to hopefully make it look closer to a calibrated screen (I used the MacBook I had as a reference and iPad Pro as a second reference). I tried another calibration system– and it didn’t help either.

ViewSonic to the rescue!

My new pair of displays. The ViewSonic VP2468 is pictured on the left.

Did you know that ViewSonic has a professional line of monitors for photographers and videographers?? And they’re pretty dang affordable and packed with a bunch of features!

I found a 24″ professional 1080p IPS display (IPS technology helps a screen be more consistently viewable from different angles), called the VP2468 at $250 from B&H… and boy is it pretty!!

A ViewSonic VP2468 ended up arriving on my doorstep shortly after I boxed up my LG to sell. This little VP2468 is fascinating for a couple of reasons, and those reasons are why this is one of my favorites.

Nearly Frameless Design

I’m a sucker for sleek aesthetics — so this is top on my list. Would any customer trust someone who is using a really clunky and out-of-date looking piece of technology? It really makes all of my technology look out of date now that I think of it…

This thing is nearly frameless! It really is just so pretty. I can see myself getting another one or two of these displays and having a super stunning setup on my desk. I think the bezel is about 3mm or so thick– or that’s what it feels like.

Image of the monitor shot with one light, just to give you a feel of the beauty of it

Sometimes the bezel can distract from the image displayed on the screen (especially if it is super thick, all black or even worse, silver). Since colors are perceived to be to be brighter or darker than the surrounding colors, it is relatively important.

When I asked around, some people were more affected by things like that than others. If you don’t believe me and you have Lightroom, try changing the background color from gray to white or black, and tell me that the perceived brightness of don’t colors change because of background.

Color Calibration

The most important thing for a monitor (besides awesome looks) for a photographer, videographer or digital artist, is color rendition! These monitors come pre-calibrated out of the box. A print-out of values from when the factory calibrates it comes with the monitor. The pre-calibration is pretty dang nice and it matches my other monitor that I bought at the same time– which also happens to be another ViewSonic.

Image provided by ViewSonic – color.viewsonic.com

This monitor displays 99% of sRGB according to ViewSonic, but my calibration kit says 100%, so… believe what you will. Having a screen that shows all the colors that I expect it to sure makes my editing headaches go away. Since every display will have a color shift over time, it is important to have a way to recalibrate the screen. Thankfully this monitor provides a method of hardware calibration via their Colorbration Kit — which is developed with their partner for this series of monitors, X-Rite– a company that is known for their tools that help devices display consistent color across all sorts of devices. You can also use X-Rite’s CS-XRi1, I1 Display pro, and I1 Pro2 calibrators instead of the Colorbration Kit.

One specification that is really neat to know about this display is the Delta E value, which is the measure of change in visual perception of two given colors. It basically is a term for how the human eye perceives the difference in two colors. The Delta E value is less than 2 for this display.  Basically, that just means this display is really awesome. For comparison, EIZO displays, for instance, ship a Delta E value of less than 3. So yeah… that reinforces that just means that this display is really really awesome for the price point.

Connectivity

Lots of monitors in the price range of this ViewSonic, support HDMI– and only HDMI (like the happily sold LG I had). Kind of a bummer if you have other methods of connectivity from different computers. So to me, it was a surprise when I saw all these ports:

4 USB-A 3.0 ports that stem from an upstream USB-B port to the computer– So that’s a 4 port USB hub! A Headphone jack (I guess if you were getting audio from HDMI) DisplayPort out as well as Mini DisplayPort and a regular Display Port, which support daisy-chaining! HDMI of course, just in case you want it to– but not just one! Look! There’s two!

Ports for days… or lots of wires… or whatever you need!

I’m seriously not used to having a 4 port hub built into the display at this price point! I feel that every monitor should include those extra USB ports– I HATE bending under my desk to plug in a USB flash drive, calibration kit, mouse, keyboard or even Apple’s Lightning cable to charge my phone.

 Screen Rotation

This monitor is able to rotate from a horizontal position to a vertical position, both in clockwise and counter-clockwise rotations. If you like shooting portraits, like me, having the portrait orientation image displayed full screen on a 24″ monitor is ever so helpful. I use this as a second display for Lightroom and having the secondary display available to show quick previews of whatever I’ve selected in my Library makes me so much more efficient.

90º or 270º– you pick!

Besides having it work in Lightroom, having the vertical position makes it easy for me to keep my distractions isolated on the side. When I’m working in Photoshop, the VP2468 holds my Facebook page open allowing for endless scrolling when I need a break. While this isn’t something super new, it is nice to see on a sub $400 monitor.

#gallery-0-5 { margin: auto; } #gallery-0-5 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 50%; } #gallery-0-5 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-0-5 .gallery-caption { margin-left: 0; } /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */

Convenient handle– it’s pretty light weight as well. This is the column that raises and lowers depending on what you need.

A solid and pretty base plate anchors the display and provides the ability to swivel.

Suggested Uses

If you’re looking for a stand-alone display, by all means, this absolutely works well! Where I think this display really shines is in the role of a secondary display to a laptop or even a desktop. Because of its weight and size, I’d probably use it in the studio when I want to shoot tethered. The IPS panel provides great and clear imagery from ridiculous angles so that you and your subject can see what is going on.

Currently, I’m using it as a secondary display. It fits so well when I work with apps like Lightroom (when it doesn’t blank a screen out– more on that sometime else). I’ll tend to have a grid view on one of my screens, and either the Develop panel or the Library panel open depending on if I’m culling, editing or searching through images.

Using that Secondary Display in Portrait Orientation, providing a larger view of all those portraits I shoot.

I’m happy with this display– like SUPER happy!

It may seem that I would be super happy with any display after the horrible LG display I had, but the VP2468 really surprised me with all basics I cared about as well as a bunch of ridiculous advanced stuff I could change if I ever needed to. It is more advanced than I ever need it to be.

The display looks super crisp the frameless design is pretty dang sweet. The stand is pretty nice as well since it can rotate to be vertical, tilt, swivel, and the display can change height– so if you don’t need a vertical display, you can at least adjust the display to be an optimal height!

This is the column that raises and lowers depending on what you need.I know that some people would argue that I opted for a smaller display as a replacement. Well, yeah, they’re right, I did. But I’d rather have a display that I know I could rely on to display colors correctly and has a boat-load of inputs than a super wide and ultimately strange display that only had inputs for 2 HDMI, for $230.

At a price point of $250, this is almost a no-brainer. 24″ is adequately large enough for most people out there, but if you’re itching for something bigger, you can get the 27″ bigger brother that includes a whole bunch of other features that I haven’t had a chance to play with! Perhaps in the future, when I find the need, I’ll pick up one of those too!

Check for the lowest price here.

Finally! A Monitor that Displays Colors Correctly! My colleagues at Photofocus have heard me and seen me say some very choice words during a time, not so long ago, when I had a monitor that wouldn't or couldn't calibrate!