12.5.99

    Here it is, 11:20 in the morning and I continue to while away my day in front of the computer. Another hour surely won't matter.

    T. and I went downtown yesterday and did a little holiday shopping. We got something for his mom and my parents. I'm so excited to give the gift we got for my parents. It's such a grown-up gift and I think they'll like it. We bought some millennium postcards and browsed in The Museum Store which I think is the best store for inventive little knickknacks. I got two new paper masks to add to my collection, one of Mona Lisa and the other of Albert Einstein. You've probably seen these types of masks, they are facial reproductions from the eyes-up of various stereotypical characters. I bought a bunch of them when I lived in England. They have eyeholes and if you pick one that closely matches your skin color, they can look realistic and very freaky. I have ten of them and they're currently stuck to the wall of my den, making a border around the room. They are all pretty worn since I've had them for around six years but I really love them. Maybe I'll scan one!

    Let's see, we also got a small thing for my older brother and bunches of wrapping paper and Christmas lights. The Christmas area of Target looked like it had been ravaged by wild dogs. It's only the first week of December! In L.A., T. and I were a little late getting our Christmas act together and I think we went looking for lights a week before Christmas and people were fighting over them! Ah, the holidays — full of good cheer and goodwill towards men.

    After this buying spree we went to see Toy Story 2 which was really, really enjoyable. We talked and laughed about it the whole way home. Some of the effects were truly amazing. There was a closeup on the bad guy and his skin and beard looked positively real. If it weren't for the shape of his face which was a little blocky, I wouldn't have known. There was also a trailer for a movie called Dinosaur which was an amazing combination of photo realism and computer effects. They had a bunch of scenes both in and out of water which is an amazingly hard effect to create. It's right up there with believable skin in difficulty but I guess they can do that now.

    The digital design animation stuff really intrigues me. I wish that I could point my career in that direction. I just have no idea how to get there. I think I'd either have to be an engineer or simply incredible at freehand drawing. I'm not a bad drawer when I set my mind to it and when I sit down and really put myself in the vibe. I'm not, however, one of those people that simply sits down and sketches things out that look just like the real thing. Maybe it's not something I'd like doing. If I couldn't draw then maybe I'd get stuck just rendering water bubbles over and over again on the computer. That might be boring. I think I just made a vast leap in my career direction right here before your very eyes. Wow.

    If you're a long-time reader of this journal you're probably well acquainted with my feelings of career wishy-washyness. Although, I don't actually think I'm "wishy-washy" I just am not sure exactly what I want to do (I may never know) and I'm ultra-paranoid that what I'm doing now is going to land me at a dead-end. The thought of career boredom wakes me up at night in a cold sweat. Because, you know, what I really want to do is dance....

    Time to get stuff done. I've got to clean the apartment top to bottom as it's languished since our Thanksgiving holiday. I've got some shopping to do and some wrapping of presents. I also have a proposal to write and some organizing to do on a Flash piece for work. No rest for the weary, right? Who am I kidding, it's almost 1 in the afternoon!