I just watched a great video from F.D Signifier about Black wrestlers and he spoke about how people of color, in particular Black people, are only in the good graces of white companies until they aren’t. I immediately recalled how the only people laid off from my prior company in my department were women of color, myself included. Sad but not unsurprising.

I’ve been hard at work on my portfolio and have begun putting my Figma mocks together on Framer, which is UX/UI design platform speak for I’m getting closer and closer to being done. My main motivation? I want to get back to finishing editing my latest video while I submit for day jobs.

Historically, people of color who went into wrestling were often not allowed to be victors or be interesting characters, but instead were reduced to racial or ethnic stereotypes. For example, even the most talented and hardworking Black wrestlers, often who had more accomplished athletes or charismatic personalities than white counterparts, were relegated to lower tiers or forced to lose to predominantly white, star wrestlers. Wrestling might be fake but the echos of reality loom in their dramatic bouts.

Years ago when I was a professional actor in LA, I had an improv teacher who was a well known Japanese American comedian that I had watched on shows growing up. We talked candidly about racism in the industry and how my agent at the time suggested I drop my Japanese surname, as I could pass as “inoffensively ethnically ambiguous.” I told her there was no way in hell I would do that, thinking there would be some solidarity between us for “standing against the system.” She smiled kinda sadly and told me I was gonna have a harder career by doing that.

Maybe she was right, but for me to water down myself or appease an antiquated industry frankly wasn’t worth a career, which made me appreciate hearing the stories of Black wrestlers like Kofi Kingston, Big E, and Xavier Woods, who faced the long standing racial barriers in professional wrestling but frankly changed their industry by not following what their horrible boss (cough, McMahon) typically wanted, and instead gave something new and more humanly authentic that the audience ended up fully adoring.

I think something similar is why I’m working so hard on this portfolio and also my videos: to show something that is authentically me while showing how I care about quality and craft. I feel pride seeing my surname (or a representation of my surname/heritage) emblazoned on my work and showing in my words and art pieces.

I guess what I’m really saying is fuck the system. Be unapologeticly you. Make good work and make good art.

I got laid off today from a job I had for 5 years. I’m feeling a torrent of emotions: fear, exhilaration, exhaustion, but most notably heartbreak. I loved my day job and who I worked with. However, my nice job at a nice company represented something more profound than that to me. It was the proof I had achieved a level of success in a career I built completely from scratch. I crawled from poverty to earn a title of Senior Designer in product/UX design and to earn a secure enough living to return to my true love: filmmaking.

Another feeling that is prominent in my mind — gratitude. Here are just a few reasons why:

• I have been spending the past few months returning to passions and spending time with loved ones, including my terminally sick cat, Mr. Business aka Biz.
• I have been expanding my skills that are relevant to my personal and professional life. I’ve been refocusing on my overall health.
• I didn’t destroy my physical or mental health for a job, something which I am prone to doing as the daughter of a workaholic and as someone who has been destitute.
• I didn’t get fired or was driven to quit, but instead I got laid off. I have severance and so many coworkers and friends are now shopping my resume around.
• I have some time to figure out what I really want my career to be.

Right now, I’m sitting with how scared I am and learning that feeling like that is totally okay.

I’ve always been afraid of failure and I failed last night. Long story short, I was hoping to do some close up shots that would require my hands to be “aged up” with foam latex prosthetics (adding swollen joints to mimic arthritis). First, I underestimated how long setting up the shots would take. Second, I underestimated how long the prosthetics would take to dry. Third, I never used PAX paint (a combo acrylic paint and proaide adhesive that you can use to color and seal foam latex prosthetics) and didn’t realize how sticky it actually is and how it needs constant powdering, particularly tricky when you don’t have someone assisting you aka another set of hands.

When the early morning hours continued to creep in, I not only noticed the amount of time I had for shots dwindling but that my hands were sticking together as I worked, ripping and tearing at the arthritic prosthetics. A bit heartbroken, I made a decision to take off the prosthetics, clean up, get some shut eye, and reassess later the next day or at least after I got some rest. However, my brain kept telling me what had happened — the thing I had feared most: I had failed.

But I hadn’t.

Success sometimes isn’t crossing every “t” or dotting every “i”. Sometimes it’s just taking a step forward and learning from setbacks. I had never used foam latex prosthetics before and I had done a good job initially applying it: success. I had set up the camera and discovered my tiny green screen setup would work: success. I made PAX paint and matched my skin tone pretty closely on first try: success.

I created, ran into some issues, learned from the issues and pivoted: success.

Our brains our funny. They often make us fear failure and then create the single perfect scenario that it would deserve the label of success. If we don’t achieve that often lofty goal, then we’ve failed. All of this is an ass backwards way our brains try to “protect us.” Our brains set ourselves up to “fail.”

Unfortunately, I didn’t take a photo of my hands for I ripped off the latex but I wanted to share the set layout. It was great seeing it all my props together.

I FINALLY dusted the rust off and filmed. Exported it to Premiere (since I can do a quick key and see if the footage is believable on stock footage with quick color adjustment), and I was pleased to see how well it came out in just 10 minutes of rough keying work. Frankly, it felt amazing. I was energized, excited and even exported stuff into DaVinci. Gonna hopefully shoot some b-roll today (don’t think I’ll have time for the main stuff), but it feels so damn good to be back.

I just wanna say that I’m proud of myself. ADHD be damned. I got a lot done during my vacation for my family when I was in Atlanta and even managed to get a makeup test done on the last day of my vacation. Self back pats all around.

My first attempt at an aged hand without any arthritic or vein prosthetics. What I’ve learned as a complete amateur:

• Liquid latex is EXTREMELY temperamental and needs to be layered quickly. Not recommended if you’re trying for aging accuracy unless you are a pro.
• Green Marble Sealer is fucking awesome for aging fx.
• Alcohol based makeup is awesome and even great for beginners.
• Cream based makeup SUUUUCKS but good for blending.
• Making a fist is the best way to create wrinkles on your hands as Green Marble cures.

I am so excited for this Thanksgiving and the following weeks afterwards. Only working 8 weekdays in December (didn’t take a vacation all year) and devoting it all to video stuff. FUCK. YES.

The eternal ADHD battle of doing the laundry, including the finale of folding and putting it all away, and the threat of more laundry looming on the horizon

I love micro.blog because I can post the most mundane, boring shit alongside other people’s mundane, boring shit and because you can’t see “likes,” you can just post, smile, and walk away.

It fucking rules. Mentally healthy boring posting is seriously underrated.

Hell yeah, Earthworks replied super fast and my mic is still covered by their warranty. In the meantime, I am gonna set my old Elgato back up. Also may have discovered why my channels were messed up (everything going out the same channel on OBS). Hoping for a test stream this week.

Spent my Monday evening setting my streaming stuff up and discovered my beloved Earthworks Icon Pro mic basically died. Perhaps I should have stored it while I waited for the temps to change so I could stream again. Perhaps it was just bad luck.

However, the Fates winked at me after basically slapping me in the face. The Rode wireless mic I bought for my teleprompter works flawlessly with my Rode preamp and sounds pretty decent. If the repairs to my Icon Pro take longer than expected, a Rode mic I use as a boom mic can act as a nicer streaming mic that I can attach to my wireless mics or I can pull out my old Elgato Wave, which was a fine USB mic.

Come hell or high water, I will stream on Twitch again.

Spent my Sunday evening finally setting up my OBS with a new cat cam (and minus cat cam) layout. I wanted to make it possible to not be as reliant on a green screen (as bright lights required to light a green screen can be headache inducing), while keeping my layout 1970s-tastic.

At CVS currently getting my meds (which I am lucky to be able to get due to the continued shortage), and despite how understandably problematic he is, I still think of this Louis CK bit every time I gotta make my monthly CVS pickup.

You know, I hate CVS. But sometimes you gotta go in there. That should be their slogan, CVS. Sometimes you gotta come in here.

Got my new mics and they work with the teleprompter app 😁 While I have most of this long monologue scene memorized, it’s good to have a backup to cut down on takes (particularly since I don’t have a crew).

This also helps suss out what parts I need to rehearse more (or fix pacing).

That moment when you finally upload your script to a teleprompter iPad app, and you realize that iPad Pros don’t have 3.5mm ports, meaning your long ass lav mic you bought last year for your old iPad no longer works and you have to buy a wireless mic.

Hope everyone had a good Halloween. I celebrated by dusting off the makeup rust and doing another round of makeup for my ancient nun and realizing how out of practice I am. 😱😭

Tonight, I’m finally taking a page from The Anti-Planner by Dani Donovan (which I preordered months ago then promptly put it aside) and doing a time limit exercise: I do one task for 15 minutes then stop and work on another task. I am hoping it will stop with my perfectionism and how I freeze up when I think about my projects. My goal is to get my stream up and running again and a video posted by end of November.

Trying to minimize distractions (and mean people) while also letting people know I’m not dead. Oh social media, what a weird web you weave

Whenever I get a pang to redownload something like bsky, just “to cross post,” I go back on Twitter (I know it’s X but whatever) and then see an animation of a huge wolf deepthroating a Dalmatian Furry and I remember how bsky was a million times worse.

Taking my meds and vitamins can be a chore that I often forget to do, which is why everyone always suggests for me to get a pill container. Problem is I typically never fill them because they haven’t changed design in 30 years and they immediately remind me of my parents’ vitamin containers.

Because Amazon knows me so well (unfortunately), I saw this 1970s/Reese’s Pieces styled pill container and, because I love all things orange and tan, I impulse bought it (despite knowing that it would be relegated to a junk drawer). I am happy to report that I have been using it and I’d even go so far as to state that I look forward to using it, if only because I love opening those autumnal colored boxes.

Making things easy and enjoyable are key for getting any ADHD brain to do anything, and this silly little 1970s-tastic container worked for me.

After work, I’m gonna try this whole “do a tiny bit of creative work that’s been gnawing at you and then, reward yourself (but not with two hours of Baldur’s Gate 3)” thing that I’ve heard is supposed to help ADHD people with getting shit done. Wish me luck.

Working out doesn’t replace ADHD medication, but damn, I can’t deny that it does help when used along side it.

I’ve been experiencing better overall mental health and mental clarity these past couple of months while using the CoPilot App, which was recommended via How to ADHD on YouTube. Usually, I am skeptical of “sponsored content,” but having a customized workout with a personal trainer without going to a gym sounded perfect and honestly, it has worked out really well for me.

Also, I took the plunge and bought an adjustable (and collapsable) weight bench from GRIND Fitness, a well reviewed home gym supply company. We’ll see how well it holds up.

My health has always been fairly important, but this recent push for better fitness overall is in response to what I’ve seen (and experienced) from other creatives, particularly those with ADHD. We tend to push ourselves to burnout and then either take a long time to recover, or we never truly recover and inevitably burnout completely.

The older I get, the more I realize that I can’t abuse my body with video editing marathons and shrugging off sleep during late night filming sessions — the latter is what I am planning on working on improving next.

Hi, I’m Pine. I wanted to try out microblogging as a replacement for traditional social media while also sharing things that inspire me as a small video creator and this platform seems promising.

I wanted to share a little about a genre that has interested for a while known commonly as analog horror. As Wikipedia puts it, “analog horror” is:

A subgenre of horror fiction and offshoot of the found footage film technique, often cited as originating online during the late 2000s and early 2010s.

Gooseworx’s Thalasin is by far the best analog horror I’ve seen on YouTube and an inspiration to me as a video creator. It evokes the familiar (even comforting) feeling when watching old commercials and infomercials on VHS tape while also playing on the eeriness of the VHS’s gradual decay. Is what we are viewing in the Thalasin commercial what was actually recorded from nighttime cable TV or is the tape showing us the darker side of the pharmaceutical company’s intention?

It’s so well done and stands out to me within the genre.