ARGH!

I am SO frustrated. I want to post pics of my paintings, but I get too much reflection off the surface of the paint. I tried grabbing a polarized lense from the 35mm and holding it in front of my digital camera, but it won't work. If I couls adjust the shutter speed (or exposure time, whatever), then I'm sure I could get a better pic, but that is apparently not an option on this camera.

Well, if you can tell ANYTHING through the fog of reflected light shining all over this darn thing, here is painting #3. The subject matter is plenty simple, but I was just playing around. This is just on a 5" x 8" canvas board. It's little bitty.

1) My boyfriend and I seem to be getting along much better.

2) I get to go to see Tom Waits after all. An old buddy of mine said his wife wasn’t super-into Ol’ Tom, so she’s willing to sell me her ticket. (Is she awesome or what?)

3) I’m having TONS of fun painting and now…

4) my boyfriend’s father, whom I’ve yet to even meet in person, actually sent me a bunch of paint and some canvases. That’s one of the most thoughtful gifts I’ve ever gotten, that’s for sure.

Things are looking up a little bit for me, just in time to keep me from completely loosing what was left of my sanity (which was very little). I have to admit, I was feeling pushed to my sanity limit for a while there.

:)

I’ll post more pics of paintings soon.

Trying to paint for the first time since the 90's

This first one is a really crappy picture (blurry and light reflection being a problem) but this is just so you can get a general idea of my first painting in forever. It looks much better in real life, of course. Still, there are many things about it that didn't turn out right. But hey, it turned out better than I expected it too, and I learned a lot in the process.

This second painting is frustrating me. It isn't finished, of course, but I'm having a hard time finishing it because I hate it. I'm still working on it, though, and will finish it whether I like the painting or not. There's a light reflection making a big glow around the head, but there's no sense in working for a great photo when the painting isn't even done yet.

I'm not great at keeping the house in shape.
I can't shower you with gifts.
You don't need the expressions that I give freely, the sort of thing I need.

But I can do one thing.

I can fill your life with colorful expressions of who I am.
I can paint for you.
I'm not the most skilled artist,
But I can create images for you that will hopefully make you proud.

Whatever art I've ever done, I've always done for myself.
But, with every stroke I've made,
since I picked painting back up again recently,
I've been thinking about you.
Hoping to create something only I can.
Hoping to give you something only I can.
Hoping to make you smile a little bit.

Because, after all, what more beautiful image can I give the world than that?
Like I said, when I look at you and the art that you are (inside and out)
"my brushes retire, inadequate".
No work of art I ever give to this world, can compare to the beauty you bring to mine.
________________

I hope I didn't make anyone ill with my cheesiness, but what can I do?
I have never been one to shy away from the truth, just because it can be ugly.
Niether will I withhold the truth, just because it sounds sweet enough to kill a diabetic.

I owe huge thanks to several people.

To an old and distant friend, for talking to me when I needed it most.
To another friend, and his wife, for letting me buy her ticket to see Tom Waits (oh, man... what could be more worth seeing?)

But also, to Richos, for the art show that has awakened an intregal part of everything that I am, when they had an art show yesterday (and let me have a few peices up in it).
And to Lisa, who gave me some oil paints in preparations for leaving the country again to do her missionary work.

Today, I bought the few colors missing from the oil paints she gave me. Since Lisa had supplied the majority of them, plus the lindseed oil and turpentine, and the show yesterday reminded me of what I do, it only took a few bucks to do what I have not done since the 90's.

Today, for the first time since the late 90's, I spread sweet oil paint on canvas. I can't possibly express what that sensation is for me, so I wont bother trying.

All I can say is, thank God, and thanks to those of you who played a part.

I don't want to ever stop, but I'm already running out of some colors and need canvases pretty badly. If you know any local artists who no longer paint and have a few neglected canvases laying around, you might send them my way. I've started two paintings just today, and am letting them dry a little before moving on to the next steps. In the meanwhile, I intend to start up a third, if I can find another old canvas around here. The second one I started today was rotting and had holes in it, but I don't care. I just want to paint.

I need to paint. I need to sing. Sometimes, I need to write. Sometimes, I need to eat. Some people may have more talent than I. Most artists spend more time developing their talent. But every real artist knows that life just aint worth much without that lucious sensation of bristles vibrating against the nearly undetectible texture of taught threads, and the paint responding to the threads, the bristles, the movement of the hand... just sweetly, silently, languidly, sensually ... finding it's place, blending with the pigments beneath, and swimming into a new creation.

-Like some sleepy muse creating a fervent fire in your soul while only lazing into casual recline...
Paint can fall into place so carelessly, responding to the brush like a sleeper barely reacting to noise in the night, and yet fall into perfection, without even trying. I love paint. Whether my hand really knows how to move it or not, I love paint.

Why couldn't I have been born one of those cute, dainty, waifish, short and petite women?
Why did I have to be born a hexagonal peg in a game of squares, circles, rectangles, and octogons?

There is no where that I belong.

There is no where on this earth that I am ever good enough.

I try. I swear I try to make myself better, and I love others as they are.

But just once, why can't I be good enough?

There's a limit for anyone.
A limit to the cold before hyopthermia sets in.
Like Nina Simone says, although reworded, 'love her or don't', eh?
Or like the old song, "Try a little tenderness".
Without that, what the hell is there?
Nothing but frostbite.

My mom didn't like cooking the fish dad caught, so she'd leave it in the damp, dark freezer until she could say "Oh, too bad... it's freezerburned" and throw it away.

I feel like I'm just waiting in a tiny dark space until it's time for me to be tossed in the garbage.
I honestly can't handle it anymore.
I'm crumbling inside and can feel the crackle on my skin, but I'm never taken out and thawed for use. I'm just not appealing enough for the hassle. Like dad's bluegill fillets were to mom.

I've hit my limit. I can't handle it another day. I hardly feel human anymore.

What can I say about July? It was the month I was born, the month in which I lost my virginity, the month in which I add a tack to my age each year... but what do I hate about July, at least this July? Well, let's see... I've managed to get myself desperately in the hole financially, I am now in serious fear of my job, since the clique seems to have the power to vote coworkers off the island and they also hate me, no matter how hard I work or how nice I try to be.

in other spectrums... I feel like an untouchable fucking jolly green giant, except for the jolly and green part. I don't know... why even go into it?

Eh... how do I feel? the hardest question on Spock's test, wasn't it? I don't know. I feel like I desperately wish I was incapable of feeling. But hey... what's new. Happy soon-to-be fucking birthday to me.

Whatever.
Happy July, y'all.

I was wanting to get up and be productive this am, so around 9 I stumbled into the kitchen, had a little caffiene, then went to bed to wait for it to set in, then I was going to get up and walk the dog and start my day. But, I forgot one factor... if I actually fall back to sleep before just before the caffiene kicks in, I have the most awesome dreams. I had some huge epic dream where I was some sort of mystical deer (weird), but I've forgotten most of that one. I had an EXTREMELY awesome dream about my boyfriend, but that isn't g-rated enough for the internet he he he. Then I had an extra freaky one about Stephen, which was also good, and definitely not g-rated. I ended up sleeping till noon, but damn it was a nice sleep. :) Now I'm weak and shaky from having caffiene and no food, and trying to start my day rather late, but hey... it was worth it. ;)

Friday night I went to a party, although I didn't stay long cause I was worn out. My sister was there. We have a crazy love for pun humor in my family, and I laughed a lot. My sister was sitting in an adjustable office chair and it was up at full height. She was talking about something, and joking with some attitude, when the chair snapped, dropped, and went down to the lowest setting, seating her lower than all of us. It stopped her mid-sentence and I said "hah, took you down a notch" and we laughed. Then she said "that made me dizzy", and I said "coming down off your high, eh?" and she laughed again. Then, moving around in the chair, she knocked my ash tray over. I said "Ok, sorry... you didn't have to kick my ash." Then, she got up to find the pool rack, and asked if anyone had seen it, but only I heard her. So, I said "Has anyone seen Rebecca's rack?" and there was a chuckle. Then I said "actually, Rebecca, in that shirt I think we've all seen it" and everyone laughed, including Rebecca (it was a very busty shirt). Then Jeremy said "Speaking of racks, where's Tracy?" and Rebecca said "I don't know why she hasn't shown up. I talked to her on the phone and she said she was coming", then at the same time, Shane and I said "Well, that explains why she didn't show up".

Man, are we a corny bunch. I never get tired of silly pun humor.

There's a lot of ways to make people hate you. Be rude, be egotistical, be whiney, be a two-faced. But, there is no faster way to make everyone hate you than to get sick too often. I should know. That was a major contributing factor to the demise of my marriage. I was sick alot, then the toxic thyroid nodule and the emergency endometriosis surgery, etc... next thing you know, he couldn't stand me.

I've been sick a lot lately. One thing after another, all totally mostly unconnected. The closest person to me has seemed to hate me for some time now. It's been killing me inside, but I can only hope that it will pass. I may not get the commercial position I wanted at work because my health has made me undependable. Now my coworkers are making comments one cubicle over about me missing work. They know I can hear, but they talk about me like I'm not 3 feet away. Everyone in my daily life, except my dog, hates me because I get sick too much.

I eat healthy. I walk 30-50 minutes a day. I take vitamins and avoid prescriptions whenever possible. I wont touch anything with a molocule of anything I'm allergic to in it, even though that means I will probably never eat cake again. I don't bring this on myself. I tough things out. Heck, I drove myself around for three days with internal bleeding and didn't ask anyone to take care of me. I'll go to work and stay there even if I'm throwing up, as long as it isn't too bad to be productive. How is this my fault? How does this make me a bad person?

I'm no angel. I'm not perfect, but this is not a reason to hate me. But then, I hate myself for it, so how can I blame anyone else?

Anyway... best get some work done.

Ok, NOW I'm depressed

Of all the musicians, alive or dead, there is one at the very top of my list of wanting to see live. That would be Tom Waits. If you could resurect Nina Simone or Mozart, those would be fairly close seconds, but none could tie with Waits.

He rarely ever tours, but suddenly, out of the blue, he is touring. And, who'da thunk it, he is actually coming to Louisville. And who's the biggest Tom Waits fan in Louisville? Yours truly, since I first heard his voice back in the 80's.

Tickets went on sale at 10am. I was dialing and redailing on my cell, my work phone, and trying to get tickets online all at the same time. I was not about to miss my chance. I snagged two tickets online, but when I went to pay for them my card didn't go through. It's probably because it is a 5th 3rd card, which in some places only works as a debit card, and at others only works as credit. 5th 3rd sucks. So, I lost my tickets. The show sold out in 15 minutes. The Akron, Ohio, show is also sold out. So is Atlana, Georgia. I'm not sure about Detroit, yet. LiveNation said I'd made too many page requests, so it wouldn't tell me if it's sold out or not. I will drive ANYWHERE in the US to see him. I can't afford to fly anywhere. But it wont matter. I missed my window and will miss the one most important live music opportunity in my lifetime.

I gotta stop talking about it before I start crying in front of everyone.

rambles

I was so sick of being sick, that it was great to feel human again this week.

Sunday I was finaly able to leave the house. (Well, I guess I did leave the house briefly Friday, to bring some teabags to Steve at work, but that didn't much count, and I probably shouldn't have gone out. I probably looked like $#!t and drove like I was totally out of it.) Anyway, Sunday was nice. I didn't feel great, but I wasn't trapped on the bed/couch all day. I went to someone's house, hung out, got to assemble a grill, and was bitten by his pet snake.

Monday I was no longer in terrible pain from the stomach thing, so I:
Walked the dog in the am
Worked 9 hours at the office
Walked the dog again
Watered the flowers
Changed the litterbox
Filled holes in kitchen baseboards
Filed/formed counter corners on kitchen island
Sanded wood edging on island
Sealed grout (2 coats)
Washed dishes
and Cooked dinner

It was nice to have a productive day. I wanted to paint in the kitchen Tuesday, but had band practice. Band practice is always fun, so that was nice.

Then I had a crying fit (won't go into why) which triggered a migraine. I tried to ignore it and go to bed, but never could get to sleep. It just got worse and worse until the pain was unbearable and I had to go to the ER at 6am. I was hoping to get a shot and recoup in time to make it to work, albeit without having slept. But, they mixed phenergan in with the migraine shot, curse them. Admittedly, I was puking my guts up (including in the hospital parking lot, which was embarrassing), but if they had cured the migraine, then the nausea would have gone away. Instead, they gave me phenergan I didn't need and I was completely sedated all freakin day. So, I missed work AGAIN. I got a stern talking to at work today because of having so many absenses.

Anyway... I walked the dog this morning and have worked 10 hours and am about to go home and paint the baseboards. Hopefully this can be another productive day, although all I really want to do is hang out with Brandi and slug the f*#$ out of a heavy bag. Life has been downright shitty lately, on a personal level, except for Harry the Wonderdog. Thank goodness for Harrison T. Harrier, Wonderdog Extraordinaire.

Ghost

Silent,
Slipping inside out, so as not to face me,
You fade and cool
Like steam sapped dry by an icy draft.
Nothing remains of you but ghosts pacing in the distance
Unaware, as if on a different plane.

I find myself murmuring the same cliché’s,
The pep-talks of a clinched-jaw survivor,
While sucking up metal from the cold cell around me,
And wrapping it around my vertebrae.

I stare unblinking until blue resigns itself to grey,
As I endeavor to harden.

How many times must I transition…
Shed metal for flesh to be a woman for a man,
Only to again make of myself a machine
When that man is for himself?

Phase or precipice of decline, who can say?

Only you,
But you are silent.

Flourishing when lit,
But shrinking in dismal disregard,
The lotus blooms just as fervently
As situation allows.

She rises to the respect
Her warden wills to share,
But, kept in shadows of cold disdain,
Will always come up bare.

Well, the doc gave me 4 prescriptions to fix what that first one caused. I stopped the steroids that I was taking for the poison ivy (and by the way, I have a few tiny spots of that coming back, now -wonderful), but it had already started some nasty inflamation in my stomach lining. I never imagined that stomach-lining inflamation could hurt so much. I'm managing not to take the phenergan so far, though. I wont take that unless I just can't keep food down. That's just a nasea medicine, so it isn't needed for healing, and it knocks me out cold. I haven't managed to do anything productive the past couple days, but I don't want to be unconcsious either. The pain medicine (codiene) I'm taking only when I can't stand the pain or want to sleep through it, and am taking it in half-doses, now. Then, he gave me some pill I have to take 4 times a day that coats my insides so they can heal. Of course, I have to take it 2-3 hours after eating and and hour before eating again. Anyone who knows me knows that asking me to go 4 hours without eating is like asking a dog not to sniff anything. And, I'm on some sort of daily pill that keeps stomach acid production down, again so my insides can heal.

Fun fun fun. What a waste of a weekend. Plus I missed two whole days of work. Aint life fun? I'm bored with laying around, but whenever I do much I start feeling worse again. So far today, I've taken the dog for one walk, burned myself in the tanning bed, and cleaned the garbage out of my car. That's not much to accomplish in a whole Saturday.

Anyway... on a happier note. Here's some pics for you. :)

As much as I think that dogs are good for almost all people, most people are certainly not good for dogs. It pisses me off when I take walks with Harry and see all these miserable dogs cooped up and going crazy-agressive because they have nothing to do with their lives besides bark. No one walks them or plays with them. Then, their masters get mad when they don't behave. I really just want to smack those people around. I really do. Either that, or cage those people in one tiny room with absolutely nothing to do all day, leave them there alone 80% of the time, then beat them when they want to so much as speak at the site of another human being. Let them experience that for a bit.

Well, I have got to lay down again because I am worthless today. I managed to take harry for a walk, and that alone spent me. I hate being sick. It's just so boring.

Time to waste another couple hours of my life on a movie I've seen 100 times, then I need to play some sort of smell and find game with Harry. We haven't developed the whole tracking thing with him, yet, and he obviously feels the need to use that skill.

Time to watch some more sci-fi. Don't be surprised if I use words like "frak" and "Gorram" when and if I cuss in the next week or so. :P But, I promise not to go into Richos ordering romulan ale.

I suppose there has always been a couple things to fear in the woods... poisonous snakes, although we don't seem to have a problem with them on our land and I keep away from rotting trees and all that jazz. I fear black widows a bit, but how often do you see those, anyway?

Nah, I love the woods too much to ever think much about things to fear there. Too much to love that balances out the few little dangers. There's far more danger on a city block.

However, I'm getting a bit jumpy about the poison ivy, now. Since my body can't shake it on its own, apparently, I had to take steroids. The bad thing about that is the cure was worse than the illness. I waited too long, after complications arose, to quit the junk. I've been in some of the worst pain of my life. Last night I was up debating whether or not to go to the ER. But, I HATE the ER. I generally have to be pretty convinced that whatever I have will kill or permanently disable me before I'll go to the ER.

I took my morning dose of Dexpak yesterday (although I took it late, because I was already so sick from it). I never took the evening dose. I called the Urgent Care doc to make sure I could discontinue it, since stopping it abruptly is supposed to be bad. I'm finally feeling a little better right now. I got a couple chips and a few cherries down just a few minutes ago. I heaved a lot, but nothing came back up. Don't you love the TMI you get on this blog? Still, it feels like there is an alien lump between my stomach and my heart. It wont budge or shrink or let food past. But hey, I'm not in all the pain I was last night, and that's liberating. That was pain beyond pain. If a broken pinky finger is a 1 or 2, and a burn that leaves a toasted flap of skin hanging off is an 8, then that pain yesterday and last night was a 10.

Anyway... on a happy note... Harry is cute as always. Stephen is sweet and cute, as always. Sheba is elegant yet menapausal, as always. I was fortunate enough to get the last Firefly DVD in the mail last night (from netflix), so I had some decent distraction to watch. I sure wish that show had lasted longer.

I wish I had some new comics to read. I got some Sunday but went through them all too fast. Being sick is SO BORING. I need something good to read or watch. Mostly, I need distraction from my stomach.

Woke up with a nasty battery-acid-like vurp. My stomach is apparently not handling the steroids well (that I’m taking for the massive poison-ivy outbreak). So, I took something for my belly, reset the alarm to go off in another 15 minutes, and went back to bed. Well over an hour later, I woke up to see that my alarm never went off again. So, I had no time to take Harry for a walk and I was sure to be at least a few minutes late for work. I tossed clothes on and didn’t even brush my teeth (gross). Then, there was a wreck on the way to work to hold me up more. So, I was 14 minutes late in getting to my desk. If anyone out there is bored enough to follow my life, they know that I simply can’t afford to be late to work. Ack!

Not a good morning, thus far.

My holiday sucked because the steroids have made me sick. I was excited about working on the house, some, but was too sick to get to do it. Right now, I feel like someone has twisted my intestines tightly around a wrench and keeps shooting them with a spaz-ray. I am nauseous, anxious, occassionally panicky-feeling, dizzy, and tired (apparently, this stuff causes insomnia too). But, enough whining.

At least I have the greatest pooch in the world to go home to. He’s always happy to see me and thinks I’m the greatest thing since fresh chicken and tracking rabbits. He makes a day better, always. :)

Well, Harry has a friend. I took him to the comic shop to play with the owner's dog. They ran and played like mad until they were both worn out, then they wrestled in slow motion. Harry had a great time. I'll have to make it a fairly regular thing.

I am switching him to Nutra, and off the science diet. Since the shelter fed him science diet, I've been mixing the two together for a gradual change. He's a healthy boy, I think, but eats a LOT of grass. Nutra has more fiber, and is all natural. I don't think anyone should be eating tons of preservitives and crap.

Well, that's my boring post for the day. Have a lovely night, folks, and try not to blow any appendages off with your fireworks.