Haunted Fire Studio :: Marlena Hall

Ben sent this to me from bittbox.com and I about lost my shit when I read it. If you're a designer, you should laugh and/or cry at reading these. And if you're not a designer, then you should read these and feel my pain. This is the second edition, the first edition can be found here.

1. You've had a client that thought they knew more about design than you.

2. Your clients pay you for your professional expertise and skill, yet you've run into one of 'those' clients, that refuses to take the advice from the very person he/she is paying for advice (you).

3. You've had a client that insisted on using the font "Papyrus," and you had to hold in your barf as you prepped it [the design] for printing.

4. You've requested a vector logo from a client, and instead, they email you a 72 dpi image they grabbed from a website.

5. You've used typography as a texture.

6. You don't have a favorite font because you love "Typography." Not Fonts. Choosing a favorite font would be like choosing a favorite child, it's just wrong.

7. You collect as many free stuffs from the interwebs as you can on your hard drive, hoping that one day, that cool project will come along that you can actually use some cool shit on.

8. You'd rather have a free font than a free gallon of gas.

9. It's hard to talk about frustrations at your job with a group of friends because they have no idea what "Vector" or "DPI" is, just to name a couple.

10. You've had a client ask you to "Make the logo bigger."

11. You've had a client that insists on "filling up the space."

12. You've learned to over-price web design projects because most clients are more picky about their websites than a high school girl picking out a prom dress.

13. You feel like you're "On Call" half of the time because clients procrastinate so much.

14. You know keyboard shortcuts that require 4 fingers.

15. You've lost hours of work because an application crashed, and you had to start over from scratch because you were in the "zone" and forgot to save. Basically, you were having so much fun being creative that saving was the last thing on your mind at the time.

16. You've "Live-Traced" something.

17. You spend more hours per week looking at CSS showcase sites than you do at the gym.

18. The only thing that would make you happier than the demise of IE6 is world peace.

19. You've done everything but give up a body part to talk a client out of a "Flash Intro." Yeah. I said it. Flash Intro. Sad, so so sad. (goes along with #2)

20. You have enough fonts on your hard drive to last you for: 1 font per day for about a decade, give or take a year or two.

21. You know, explicitly, what a "Flourish" is.

22. You worry about negative space as much as the content area.

23. You get phone calls from friends and family members on a regular, sometimes annoyingly-frequent basis, wanting your services for free or extremely cheap. (and the "portfolio" line makes you want to throw something across the room)

24. You've had a client that wants a website they can "update" on their own, but doesn't know shit about websites.

25. You're never more than 99% happy with your final product because you believe that EVERYTHING can be improved upon. (especially with those tight-deadline projects)

So Ben heard from his internet nerdery that some of the MST3K guys (and gal), who are now known as Cinematic Titanic, were coming to Dallas for the USA Film Festival and they were going to do a live riff of a movie! Ben, being one of the biggest fans of MST I know, immediately called upon our BFF Chris to score some tickets. This past Saturday was the big event at the Angelika (SP?) theatre in Dallas.

They did a panel before the top secret unannounced movie where they discussed why everyone eventually left the show and it's humble beginnings. I'm a pretty big fan of the show as well, so I had a great time hearing all about the back side of it. And we got to have popcorn during it!

The live movie riffing ended up being done to the tune of The Wasp Woman, which was AWESOME. I didn't know how cool it would be to hear a live version of the show we love so much, but it ended up being really cool. A lot of laughing, and some really zinging jokes.

My crowning moment was almost mowing down Joel Hodgson in the hallway of the theatre because I was juggling a mountain of movie snacks so Ben and Chris could hold our seats that were procured with a little bit of geek drama. Joel was standing in the dark hallway and I didn't notice him and barely stopped myself from covering him in hot nacho sauce and Coke. Thankfully I did and wouldn't be remembered as "that girl who ruined Joel's fancy suit".

All in all, it was a really fun time, and there was even a guy there that had made his own Tomservo prop. It was cool, and weird at the same time.

I always knew reading comics would lead to the horrors of real science!

So Griffin is about to be 3 months old next week.

Where has the time gone? I look at him and he seems SO big now. I can't imagine he's grown that much in such a short period of time, but here I am, packing up clothes that he can no longer fit into.

The clothing of a child is an awesome racket, and one I'd like to get in on. We buy him clothes, some that he has on for the span of five minutes before he's either spit up or peed on it and then he needs to be changed, and he has a small window of about two weeks where he can fit into them. He has several outfits that the only time he wore them was for me to take a few quick pictures of, and then they were in the hamper, never to be worn again.

It wouldn't be so bad if baby clothes weren't spun out of pure gold and laced with platinum buttons. Or you'd think that by how pricey they are. I find myself wanting Griffin to only have one week's worth of clothes just so he can wear something more than once.

But then I look at him in one of his outfits and my frugal heart melts. I immediately want to pack him in the car and head to Target or Babies R Us and buy him another $200 worth of clothes he'll never wear. Speaking of Target and Babies R Us (from here to be referred to as BRU)... I now spend most of my time outside of my house at either one of these stores, with the occasional pop-in to Costco.

I'm totally a mom.

And with that, comes the death of comics. At least, most likely my career in comics. Well, once Ben becomes the famous comic artist that he's destined to be and I no longer have to hold down a real job for a paycheck, then in a dream I might be able to find the time to put stylus to Wacom and color some art. But as it seems now, this parenting gig leaves me time to cry, eat, shower and sleep. And that's about it.

I will say that I think the c-section is probably the greatest medical marvel ever to be conceived. There's this show on TLC that documents the journey to motherhood in 30 minutes called A Baby Story and I've been watching it in the mornings while I feed Griffin to get a sense of what I "missed out on" by not going into labor or having Griffin the "natural" way.

And let me tell you... I didn't "miss" much. No pain during, just the after pain of recovering from surgery to get him out of his dark, squishy hotel. But I honestly had the BEST birth experience EVER. I'm telling you ladies right now: C-SECTION IS THE WAY TO GO! When we have our next baby, I'm totally going to elect for another one. But I think the rule is no more than 6... yeah, nothing to worry about there.

Griffin's head didn't come out cone-shaped, my vajayjay is still intact, no tearing or incontinence and I've got an awesome battle scar to hold over Griffin's head for years to come. My only complaint is the pain afterwards, but everyone's going to have pain afterwards. I'd just rather mine be in my stomach than my hooha.

So yeah... my life is upside down and around the corner right now. But at least I've got probably the best husband in the world. Sorry ladies, but it's true. Ben IS the cat's pajamas and the best Dad ever. Without him I'd be speaking in tongues and running through the streets mourning the loss of my sanity by now.

It was good knowing you.

It's official. I'm OLD.

Well, I'm almost old. I just turned 29 on Thursday and boy do I feel it.

This was my first birthday as a mom. And it was really cool and surreal. I still feel like I'm too young and stupid to have a child, but I also feel like I waited too long to have kids.

So thanks to my friends for making it an awesome time. I know I haven't seen much of you in the past year. (Pregnancy makes for an annoying drinking buddy.) I know most of you came out just to meet the baby, but that's OK.

I thought it was way awesome that most of the gifts I received were of alcohol. Everyone knows the first thing a woman who's been pregnant for 9 months wants to do once the baby is out is toss a few back.

Here's to mourning the end of my twenties, and the beginning of my awesome new role as: Mother.