A forested path.

Practicing environments~ \o/

40 mins in Painter 12

Black Cat

Had to put one of my cats down a couple of weeks ago. Miss Seven came down with kidney problems rather suddenly, and it was either that or let her suffer through it for my benefit.

Fuck that.

Two weeks later, I'm still having dreams that she's still there. I keep hearing cat food rustling in the bowl, and little claws tapping on the hardwood while her sister is curled up next to me. Then I wake up and remember that she's not there. She was my buddy for twelve years, so I don't know how long it's supposed to take before I don't feel shitty about it any longer.

I miss that high-pitched, irritating meow that couldn't be quieted no matter what. I miss her incessant cuddling at the most inconvenient times. I miss her commandeering my pillow and purring me to sleep. I miss catching her stealing our socks at 1:30 in the morning, every morning, like clockwork.

It never gets easier, does it?

Fuck.

FFS #1

Welcome to the first edition of "For Fuck's Sake!", a list of shit that annoys me in my dad-to-day dealings!

For Fuck's Sake: "ombre" is a card game, not a gradation of color.
For Fuck's Sake: it's pronounced "new-clee-ar" not "new-kyoo-lar."
For Fuck's Sake: you CAN turn right on a red light in the state of Wisconsin.
For Fuck's Sake: "irregardless" is not a goddamn word.
For Fuck's Sake: being nice and/or courteous to people is not hard. Just fucking do it.

<3

The Room at the End of the Universe

While digging through some old notebooks of mine, I found the moleskine (grid-lined paper FTW! \o/) that I took to the hospital with me when I had my gall bladder taken out. I don't remember writing this at all, but I found a story scribbled into the back of the book in my handwriting. This was very likely while I was under a little morphine haze, heh.

The Room at the End of the Universe

Once, long ago, a man was sentenced to his doom. Rather than remove the man from existence through conventional methods, the leaders of his society constructed a machine to rent his body asunder at the molecular level so as to be completely, utterly, entirely rid of him.

Whether or not his crimes merited such a sentence -- or if he committed a crime at all -- has long since been forgotten. All that is certain is that the man still remains, regardless of this machine.

It is a little known fact that if one were to travel to the end of the end of the universe, to the place where time falls apart, the place that only the most fanciful minds can dream of and only the maddest of minds can comprehend, there is a door.

Behind the door is a room, and the room is infinite. It is devoid of light, sound, color, air, good, evil, silence, and all other things we as mortals simply cannot exist without. Still, this room is populated by two things: a single mortal, and the Strings of the Universe.
It is unknown how the mortal arrives in this room, but it is certain how long they stay. They remain mortals when they enter the room at the end of the universe, and so their term there is limited by their mortality. When the mortal's time is expired, a new one is brought in to replace them.

It is further unknown whether the Strings of the Universe are indeed multiple strings, or if it's a single string infinitely overlapped upon itself. The strings are likewise as infinite as the room they occupy, and they control the universe, as their title suggests.

The Strings of the Universe are time, space and circumstance manifested in a malleable form. They can be formed, plucked, gathered, tangled and combed; and when they are, they change the known universe. They are the nerves and tendons that put every that was or ever will be into motion.

I've been here for eighty-seven years, in the room at the end of the universe.

I didn't know where I was when I first arrived. I doubt anyone does. I was surrounded by countless sinewy pillars that reached into nothingness with the same grateful stretch that a tree makes for sunlight. They were the Strings, twisted into familiar shapes and resonating memories of the previous mortal who formed them. Touching them explained everything, and the feeling of the Strings beneath my fingers made everything clear.

Morphine's one helluva drug, kids! Only use under medical supervision~

Collected Curios #2

I found this song and was moved by it. I couldn't find the lyrics anywhere, so I thought I'd make a transcript:

~~~

Kalai - "I Am a Man"

(?) ...to my birth
Unaware of my worth
Benign and absurd
Silent and unlearned
I fell down to the earth
I was cursed and immersed
But I rose up from the dirt
Free

(chorus)
I am a man
In a no man's land
And a native son
Of my sovereign
And I'm forming a line
And I'm making a stand
And I will not comply
Or disperse or disband, child
Because I am a man

You can't take what I am originally
You can't bind and amend
The powers that be
Cuz I believe that I'm led
And I'm led to believe
That I was commended to be
Free

(chorus)

I'm free as a bird on a buffalo's back
Always ready to ride when I'm under attack
I was handed the truth now I'm faced with the facts
And I'm willing to fight for a living
So I'm forming a line
That's right, I'm making a stand
And I will not comply, disperse or disband
I may be a man in a no man's land
But I'm a native son of my sovereign
Oh yes I am a man

~~~

Huh. This song reminds me of my dad.

===

I need to read more; there are SO MANY BOOKS out there that demand my attention. Stacks, piles, scads, ganders of books, all waiting to influence my imagination and having to take a number. It's like my imagination is some kind of DMVish hell for literature.

I haven't been reading quite as much lately because I've been writing and drawing more. I guess that's not a bad trade-off, all things considered.

===

I'm still struggling with some... feelings. I'm still trying to decide if these feelings are as simple as me being selfish, or just phase that will pass, or something natural and instinctual that is at odds with how modern society works. Or, perhaps, all three. I'm sure psychology, being the pseudo-science that it is, could argue for or against all three suppositions flawlessly.

===

Having a fresh tattoo on my wrist makes it very difficult to pwn at computer games without a little bit of physical pain involved XD

Permanent

Finally, after 9-ish years of deliberation, I've gotten my long-overdue tattoos!

The top is a David Byrne lyric on my right forearm. The second is Leeloo's element markings from the Fifth Element on my left wrist.

That's one itch scratched... now I just need to go on a vacation of some sort or another, and I'll be good to go!(?)

Gestures

Wooooooo gesture drawing! Look at all that delicious spine stretching and posture exaggeration!

I have to say, for not having done gestures for several years, I did a pretty damn good job with this first bunch :3 Each of those poses took me roughly 3-5 minutes to work out, so I've got some refining to do with my process. As well, I have five days to finish the other ninety gestures, so... this'll be a short post, I think.

The instructor's method of teaching, as well as the format of the class, is working in tandem with the way I process information very nicely. It took me three hours to get through the first hour-long lecture, which I consider to be a good sign -- it allows me to digest the information in bite-sized chunks so my mind doesn't wander too far from the subject at hand.

And now it is time to dance.

I mean... work. Now it is time to work.

>.>