Author: Keiran

Moonlight on canvas, midnight and wine

Brighten your spirits by livening up your surroundings. Sometimes you can curse the soul by means of the senses, and vice versa. Figure out what you can change, throw out, renew or purchase.

Funny that the above is my horoscope for yesterday. I’m in the middle of renovationg my bedroom, from the floor up. Well, technically, from the ceiling down, since we’re redoing the floors last, but either way, it’s going to be livened up. I’ve had the same Native American theme to my room for way too long, and I’m starting to get very bored with my mauve/grey/orange room. (Yes, mauve and orange can work together if you’ve got the right shades.) A couple of weeks ago, I ordered the Designer Combinations paint kits from Behr in their Eastern Fusion color scheme. I tested all but the New Brick out on my walls, and for the most part didn’t care for them. I don’t like that the paint samples they ship you are in flat – I prefer a semi gloss. It gives the room a little nicer look, plus it feels better to the touch. I don’t care for Winter Garden in the flat, but it would look nice in semi-gloss.

I finally decided that I’m going to use their Seaside Sand on my walls, with Winter Garden for the trim. I also got all inspired, and am using the New Brick to create my own art. I started last week, painting canvases with the New Brick as a base. I’m going to go back and use the Seaside Sand to paint the Chinese characters for various words (happiness, serenity, hope, love, etc) on the canvases. I’ve also got an idea for a larger canvas to take up most of one wall. I even know how to write my own name in Chinese for one of the canvases for a uniquely personal twist.

I’ve been feeling highly creative lately, and I fully blame that on Emily. I believe that the people around you can have an impact on your creativeness. For too long I was around people who used me, and sucked me dry of any creativity. Now that time’s passed, and I’m around her so much, I find myself inspired again, wanting to create. More specifically, wanting to paint, which is pretty much out of my league. I can do smaller projects like the paintings listed above, but anything with more detail (and that I can’t use a stencil for) I’d make an absolute mess of things. But I’ve got this deep-seeded need to try and experiment lately. I might. If for no other reason than to see how much of a mess I can make.

There isn’t any name that you can’t rhyme

Friday Five – Name Game:

1. Are you named after anyone? If so, explain.
Yes. I am named after one of my mom’s exboyfriends, Kieran, who, last I heard, is a sheepherder in Australia. My parents “feminized” the name by switching the placement of the I and the E.

2. Do you have your children’s names picked out already? If so, is there any significance?
I have a name picked out for a little girl; but I don’t plan on having children. If something changed, though, my daughter would be Keila Renai. (Keila is the first half of my first name, and second half of my middle name, Mela.)

3. If you were born a member of the opposite sex what would your name have been?
It wouldn’t have been much of a change – I would’ve been Kieran if I was a guy.

4. If you could re-name yourself what name would you pick and why?
I like the names Chloe and Naomi. Naomi was the name my dad wanted for me, and I do like the name. Chloe – I just like the sound of it.

5. Are there any mispronunciations/typos that people do w/ your name constantly?
God yes, constantly. Almost no one can spell or pronounce it correctly. The true Irish pronunciation of my name is (kee’-ron); but my parents have always pronounced it as (KEER-uhn). Not much of a difference, really. Karen is the most common mispronunciation. Karen has an “a” at the beginning, as in “apple”, whereas Keiran is more of a softer e, as in “ear”. (When I was in elementary school, I used to try to teach people to say it by telling them to sound it out by saying K, then ‘ear’, then ‘un’; then put it all together for “Kear un”.) If people aren’t calling me Karen, then they’re trying to say my name as Kiernan. I don’t know why people think “Keiran” is pronounced with two n’s, but people seem to think it makes more sense than the true pronunciation.

As for most common typos: Karen, Kevin, Kieran, Kiernan, Keirnan, Kristin, Kerian, etc.

And, since this whole entry is about my name, I might as well take a moment to pimp out a namelisting I run for my name. I need to spend this weekend creating more graphics for it.

Baby write this down, take a little note

My email has gone nuts. My host has been having some massive issues for the last two weeks. (First time they have since I’ve had service with them.) Currently, I can send emails from my webmail account – but I can’t receive them. Kind of. The webmail portal itself doesn’t update to show any new or received mail. But if I have that email address also forward to a different account not hosted with them (say, my old hotmail account), the emails show up there. So I don’t show receiving any mail in webmail, but I actually do get it at hotmail. At least I know the auto-forwarder is working? I logged a ticket with them last night. Getting tired of waiting – I want my normal email back! It’s REALLY starting to piss me off. Not too long ago I was bragging about how good my service is via that host — and now boom. Absolute crap.

And on a completely random note – I actually dislike the song that gave me the title of this post. It’s from “Write This Down” by George Strait. Why do I dislike it? Check out the lyrics for the song. He’s upset that he’s losing his girlfriend/wife/whatever; yet he treats her like a damn secretary. If he wants her to have in writing how much he loves her — wouldn’t it mean more if HE wrote it down, instead of dictating for her to do it herself? If he’s that lazy that he can’t write down a few words, he’s probably pretty lazy in every aspect. No wonder she’s leaving him, he probably expects her to do everything. That’s one of those songs I’m just never going to understand the appeal of, I’m sure.