Weather, art, and religion.

[reymonkey]

It was over 80 degrees earlier this week, just a couple days ago. This morning I wake up and it's snowed enough to stick in the grass and on the cars.
What the monkey??!

I have art I need to work on, I need to do a new concept sketch for Courtney because I've got something good and gerbil-y in mind, and I passed 5,000 pageviews on DA! The chick that caught it wants a picture of her gargoyles OC, so that's doable. In the meantime I've been catching up on older sketches I'd started and meant to finish. Today we've got some of Melene's people, the amoye, doin' a little voodoo dance ritual thing. My newest character gets a sketchpage gone mad in full color. Meet Oracle, and try not to look too close at the bottom right image. Yagh. What was I thinking? This was the only part I had drawn just in pencil and then it sat around a while. More info on the DA page.

In the household Etsy shop, the Steampunk Sloth Mechanic is up for sale, and thanks to Shad there's two sets of bookmarks, a shell themed set, and a wordy themed set. Spread the word people! Because I fail at advertising the shop. We only have two sales. Ever. I must be doing something wrong.

Lots of arting and jobhunting and going outside before it snowed. A friend directed us to a job opening at a unitarian universalist church. I went, 'Church? No thanks. Organized religion scares me.' and then Bridgie pointed out exactly what unitarian universalism is, because I wasn't familiar with it.
Basically it's... disorganized religion? I dunno. They're GLBT friendly and open to all kinds of stuff and... it almost sounds like my own supposedly undefineable beliefs. So they've got my resume and I've talked to them on the phone, and even if I don't get the job it might be kind of interesting to go see them...

SO there's the Friday morning update!

Comments

[janewt.livejournal.com]

Unitarian churches are generally awesome. I mean, individual congregations vary and I hear there are even a few conservative ones (how? I don't know), but UU churches are the only ones I'd ever feel comfortable attending. I went to one for a couple of years when I was living in Cambridge; it was really neat timing because it was right when Mass. was legalizing same-sex marriages, and our church was all gearing up to perform some of the first ceremonies. Everyone was so happy. I mean, the whole congregation was just....it wasn't smarmy or self-congratulatory or ostentatious, the way things can (understandably) get when some Big Deal Improvement In Life finally happens; but with this there were just a lot of really happy people there who were looking forward to their own weddings or weddings of friends or just...yeah, happy. There are plenty of Unitarians who also identify as agnostics, atheists, Christians, Jews, pagans of assorted beliefs, etc.

Uh, anyway, sorry for that diversion, I'm not trying to sell religion. But by and large yer UU stuff is good.

I'll get the sloth mechanic up on Skyrates when I can--I'm down in Baltimore visiting Viv, and just doing drive-by internetting for a few days, and I'd feel weird posting a link on the forum there and then not being around to reply to any questions. But once I'm back it'll go up. Because oh, man, that sloth is fabulous.

[reymonkey.livejournal.com]

LJ is being issuey...

It doesn't sound like a religion sell. ;) I'm leery of those, because my own beliefs are so... unaffiliated. It's not that I don't know what I believe, it's just that it doesn't fit neatly under any particular religious description. It's hard to find a way to explain that stance briefly that doesn't sound wishy washy.
The UU thing sounds interesting, and I wish I'd heard about it years ago.

No rush, I appreciate any advertising! I feel like my art is good enough to sell, I just suck at getting myself out there and advertised. But, you know, have fun with Viv Shaw first!

[janewt.livejournal.com]

Posted it!

[reymonkey.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I appreciate it!

[placeboweek.livejournal.com]

UU is a church for people who don't like organized religion. I've never been, but they are typically liberal, gay-friendly, and very interested in exploring different religions without pushing anyone's beliefs on anyone else. They're big here in Boston (their headquarters are here).

[reymonkey.livejournal.com]

If ever there was a church for me...
I actually watched the evolution of an organized religion, which was probably a bizarre and unique experience, but it really left me wary of the whole thing. I also feel like being raised by New Agers who said 'go explore and pick your own religion!' when I was so young I barely understood what it was kind of biased me.

UU

[myfeeddogsaredown.blogspot.com (from livejournal.com)]

Agreed about the UU thing. In Madison, they don't even call it a church. It's the Unitarian Meeting House. I kind of wonder if they need "church" in their name because it's Virginia and in order to get various funding, they need to call themselves a church. I don't really know though. Anyway, I'm a capital A atheist (though I technically consider myself a Humanist) and I would go if I had the time. I got married at the UMH in Madison (designed by Frank Lloyd Wright).

Re: UU

[reymonkey.livejournal.com]

That's probable, when I was reading about it there was some stuff about legal decisions where they were accused of not technically being a religion at all.
I think we've had some of that discussion before. You know I don't have a problem with it. ;) But my upbringing was just so wacky, spiritually speaking...

So anyway, I called and got an eml that wasn't on the website, and she emled me back right away, but they're interviewing and stuff. I really appreciate the heads up!

Re: UU

[myfeeddogsaredown.blogspot.com (from livejournal.com)]

So are you going to get an interview, did she say?

Re: UU

[reymonkey.livejournal.com]

Err... she said they'd call or eml me in the next week, so I don't know yet.