Painty clothes and bruised knees, essentially.

It's been too long.  I feel an agonizingly long-winded UPDATE ON MY LIFE twitching in my finger tips! Can't... can't!  Too laaaaate!

So.

Hello, my name is Kelsey.

I am 22 years old.  I go to college, which is fun about 57% of the time.  I think that's not a bad percentage, really. Lately I have been making things like suits made of dried-out sanitizing wipes and fake wooden moose heads (like the sort hunters mount on their walls after they've, uh, shot them.)
This is art, apparently.

(This shoe made of wire is art also, from what I understand.)

Recently I realized that I will never make good art if I try to force myself to be all serious and deep about it.  I like funny things. And if, by some chance, the stuff I make gives somebody else a laugh... well, I can't think of a reaction I'd enjoy more. 

One of the weirdest things that's kind of happened, and which I have not even mentioned here, is that basically I rock climb now. 

See? That's me a few months ago. Climbing (not particularly well, but climbing) at a fancy schmancy gym in St. Louis. 

I never would have imagined that someday I'd get into this sport. Heck, I didn't know it was a sport. 

But I think I can consider myself into it. I have shoes and a harness and a chalk bag and a carabiner from when my dad climbed in the 80's that makes a horrible "skree" sound every time you open and close it (and, as a result, is never actually used).  I'm getting better at it. I go at least three times a week when I can.  I rattle off jargon. It's bizarre. Mainly because I'm, quite honestly, a deeply lazy person.  

I think one of the key factors in the quite miraculous way I've stuck with climbing, besides that it's not competitive and doesn't require spandex, is that climbers are fantastic. And when I say "fantastic" I mean WEIRD.  Climbing is kind of a fringe sport, and so it seems to attract the oddest array of characters. At the local gym I climb at, we have a 16-year-old yoga instructor (who only began yoga because he broke his back playing serious football), a linguistics-anthropology major who talks like a moronic surfer, and a 40 year-old Frenchman named Jose.  Basically, it's marvelous.  I'm becoming intimately acquainted with the "lower leisure class" as my boyfriend calls them - people who work just enough to fund weekly trips to climbing areas and the purchasing of gear. They're a remarkably happy lot. 

And it seems to be doing me some good. Besides climbing with a fair amount of frequency and going vegan a few weeks ago, I've changed nothing, and I've lost 20-ish pounds.  Today I wore pants I haven't fitted into since I was 15. They were a little tight, but it was worth it. 

SO! That's where I've been lately. It's been very, very good. 

What about you, mate?