Bad Nights

Weeping Nymph - Jean-Jacques Henner

There are nights when I try to sleep, and all I see behind my closed eyes are the awful things that have happened - even if I didn't really see them happen. Tonight, it's the writhing, agonized convulsions of the injured squirrel in the road I saw on the way to work the other day. It'’s what Trey must have looked like, after the stray piece of metal sliced into his head before he launched through the windshield and landed far from most of his car. It's what Caleb must have looked like inside the makeshift tent with the gas line from his stove tucked inside. It's what Carrie looked like in her coffin, the livid purple mark on her forehead where she must have hit her head when she collapsed and died.
There are times when it's not good to have a vivid imagination, when I am sorry I spent so many years processing accident and autopsy pictures. when I need pictures of my friends nearby, when I wish I had a list of good thoughts to turn to. There was a list of compliments from friends, which in moments of depression and loneliness I would read over. It was on the laptop that crashed, and may yet be recovered. There is a photo Ferris wheel by my bed, full of pictures of me with various friends and family members, to remind me that I am loved, that I am not truly alone.
I'm sure that part of my insomnia is due to my being unable to shut my mind off, to redirect the negative without getting up and doing something. I am sometimes afraid of what might appear in my dreams, on nights like this. If my waking thoughts are of pain, loss, and death, how much worse will it get in my dreams?

Fun With Two of my Favorite Girls

So, I've been playing again, using small pictures of Carla & Elaine, the Perception Laboratory's Face Transformer (http://www.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~morph/), Corel Draw 2, and Paint Shop Pro 9. I'm still learning, that's for sure. The first image is the original, the second one is the transformed image, and the third one is the one I tried to refine, with varying results. Two things: I'm not familiar enough with Manga as a drawing style, and I'm still learning at a crawl on the image editing programs. These are cute (how could they not be?) but I hope to be able to get better with all of the techniques. To all of my friends whose pictures are not up here this time, I'm still working on several of these, and hope to post more next week.

First Lines Meme

Okay, this meme was fun to do. Put on you media player, select "random" or "shuffle" and write down the first line of each song that plays, then post those first lines, without the song name or band. Post your guesses in the comments, and remember that using google is cheating :)

1. If there’s a prize for rotten judgment, I guess I’ve already won that.
2. You don't have to be beautiful to turn me on
3. All the birds have been blue, they don't know what to do
4. All around the country and coast, people always say what do you like most
5. When you're walking down the street and a man tries to steal your business
6. As I sit here surrounded by people and lies, along with my drink at the bar
7. I wrote her off for the tenth time today, practiced all of the things I would say
8. There's a lot of ways of saying what I want to say to you
9. I'm feeling nothing but all alone, just missing someone I don't even know
10. This is the one situation I wanted most to avoid
11. I had no choice but to hear you, you stated your case time and again
12. You know your old man was with me last night
13. Every finger in the room is pointed at me
14. You think you're gonna take her away, with your money and your cocaine
15. Hold on, hold on to yourself, for this is gonna hurt like hell
16. My friend the communist holds meetings in his office
17. As I walk this land of broken dreams, I have visions of many things
18. I can see you were right about this place, I can make a perfect likeness of your body if I trace
19. We've all seen the man at the liquor store begging for your change
20. Coming out of my cage and I'll be doing just fine

Wilbertina, my personality pig

The cut & paste code didn't work, and I don't know enough about html to understand why. So, here are my results:
You drew the pig:
Toward the middle, you are a realist.
Facing right, you are innovative and active, but don't have a strong sense of family, nor do you remember dates.
With many details, you are analytical, cautious, and distrustful.
With 4 legs showing, they are secure, stubborn, and stick to their ideals.
The size of the ears indicates how good a listener you are.
The bigger the better. You drew large ears, you are a great listener!
The length of the tail indicates the quality of your sex life.
And again more is better! You drew medium sized tail.

HA! if my sex life is medium good, I'd really hate to see what bad would be...
Here's the link, let me know how your pig turns out :)
http://drawapig.desktopcreatures.com/gallery/large.asp?id=1087078&p=0&hof=1&q=personality+test

I Am Half Sick of Shadows

Waterhouse, I Am Half-Sick of Shadows, said the Lady of Shallot

Just like the lady of Shallot. I want to believe in love and romance and forever; however, these things seem less and less likely in the context of my life.
Tennyson's poem, The Lady of Shallot, is the story of "Elaine of Astolat, a maiden who falls in love with Lancelot, but dies of grief when he cannot return her love" (according to Wikipedia). Also on Wikipedia, this statement: "Some consider The Lady of Shalott to be representative of the dilemma that faces artists, writers, and musicians: to create work about and celebrating the world, or to enjoy the world by simply living in it."

I should not have to choose.


Meteyard - The Lady of Shallot

D-Day (Part One)

So, if this were a fairy tale, and I was the princess looking for my way home, today would be the day I meet up with the wise old woman (who may or may not help me). In the fairy tale, they'd be interested in ascertaining whether I was kind, loyal, and helpful... None of that will help me in this one. I'm lost in the dark forest, and feel very alone and scared; knowing the wise old woman is going to test me gives me only the chance to worry about the test. And it won't be the end of any of the bad things, just - maybe - the beginning of the right path. And it's very hard to be hopeful, because this has been a excruciatingly bad last several days. My wise old woman interaction has not been good to this point, either.
My life isn't much of a fairy tale, despite being named princess. I do, however, have some of the most kick-ass friends on the planet. I haven't been particularly good at keeping up correspondence lately, but I want you all to know that the memories of you are what keep me going, what keep me fighting for everything.