Running off of less than 2 hours of sleep today, damn insomnia, tried everything. I first thought it was my nose being stuffy, took medicine, hot shower, etc, the nose was clear, but sleep was yet to be found. Started reading, to make myself sleepy, but the book was really getting interesting (Elven Star, Volume 2 of The Death Gate Cycle, by Weise/Hickman for those interested, 7 in the series) so eventually I had to put the book away. Again tried sleeping, got a charlie-horse in my leg, had to walk around for a bit. Tried sleeping on the couch, woke up an hour later, went to bed and slep for almost another hour. Woo hoo!

But at least my weekend was cool.

Original plans for Saturday night were to go to a party of a friend that I have not hung out with in ages. It sounded like it was going to be a big techno/space/disco/costume bash. But then, I was surprised with awesome tickets (from my awesome boyfriend) to Alanis Morissette at the Greek, so even though I've managed to miss many a party, I had to go to the concert.

And I must say, it effing ROCKED! I saw Alanis at the Greek several years ago with the Jagged Little Pill album tour. She did a great job then, but wow has she progressed in her performance skills and style. She looked so gorgeous, her hair is so amazingly long, I regret ever cutting mine short. She was such a wild one on stage. She was all over the place, and has a lot more style and a lot less nervous energy showing through her hands and movements, they are all concious and fluid movements. Another thing of note was her voice. She sang stuff from Jagged Little Pill, and the two since then. She has done a LOT of work on her voice since Jagged Little Pill, and when she sang from it, she sounded amazing. Her whole set was over two hours, two encores. An excellent show.

Sunday I worked on the beginnings of my 2nd attempt of an oil face portrait. my black and white of Nicole Kidman turned out fairly well, this attept is going to be a color portrait of Tori Amos. I have the picture that I will be doing my third, black and while again, already picked out, and that one will be Alanis. Tori Amos has a fairly interesting set of features that will make this an interesting portrait. It should be fun. I am enjoying oil painting more and more, and have found that it works a lot better in the look that I am trying to get. It is the medium that I have finally decided on for a long time in the works project of mine, to become a long overdue gift.

Another thing of note this weekend, that took up my entire afternoon yesterday, was my stroll down Hollywood Blvd. I started around Hollywood/Western and ended up around Hollywood/Highland. I started at the Aaron Brother's art store (where I got some paints, mediums, and a travel easel that's just what I've been looking for) stopped at a few of the coffee shops, book shops, etc along the way, and ended up at the Hollywood and Highland, where I got a great ice cream sundae and saw a mediocre, but not too terrible, movie Swimfan. All in all, definitely not a waste of my day. I had actually hoped that I would have been tired enough to get some sleep, as I went to bed at 11, but, as you can recall from my first paragraph, it didn't turn out quite that way.