Keeping up appearances

That I'm alive? Still actually doing this blog? Sure. I actually hate it when people start off their post, video, whathaveyou with yeah I'm still alive, sorry I haven't posted blah blah blah. Despite commenting on it at this point in time, I will never do that. One because it's a waste of time. Why? Because I actually have a life that doesn't involve thinking about what I should blog about next. I blog when I have something to say.
I am currently abroad.. You could say. It would be awesome to say that im actually in a foreign country on a top secret mission... But alas, I'm not that cool, and it would be too easy to trace me anyway.
Fact is, I'm typing this on my iPod touch ( which is a pain, I might add. So if there's weird spelling things, I'm blaming autocorrect now.) whilst sitting in my hostel in Naples, Italy. One thing that I'm finding is that I almost blend in as a local. Almost. I recently got bored when I was in London (yes, I get around) and dyed my hair a wee bit darker, mostly to even out my roots... But also cause it gave me something to do to try and keep myself awake. Yay for early enough flights that you need to get to the airport at 4 am. ANYWAY... Point, I dyed my hair. That said, most italians are naturally dark haired and dark eyed. What gives me away? My eyes. I've never been able to describe what colour they actually are, cause they seem to change, but they are a mix between blue, green and grey..so, light enough. I've noticed that people will go to talk to me in Italian, make eye contact and sort of pause, and ask English? Well if my backpack with my flag on it didn't give me away, yes.
I went to the grocery store today and the cashier spotted my bag and purposely didn't talk to me, then roughly jabbed the screen once she was done then stared at me. I don't mind being pegged for what I am - a tourist - but just a " ciao " woulda been nice... I know that much Italian. but, I guess that I'm forgetting that customer service isn't as big of a deal in other countries.
I just find it interesting that the locals go to talk to me in a friendly tone, see that I'm not actually a local then act like I'm the biggest pain in their ass. Tourists aren't that bad, are they? heh... I guess you're opinion all depends on whether or not you've worked in retail.

Goodbyes

First, I am going to start this off with a poem.

"After awhile you learn
the subtle difference between
holding a hand and chaining a soul;
and you learn that love doesn't always mean
learning and company doesn't always mean security.

and you begin to learn
that kisses aren't contracts
and presents aren't promises
and you begin to accept defeats
with the grace of an adult
and not the grief of a child.
and you learn to build
all your roads on today because
tomorrows ground is too uncertain
and plans have a way of falling
down in midflight.

after awhile you learn that even
sunshine burns if you ask for
too much.
so plant your on soil
instead of waiting for someone to
bring you flowers.
and you learn that you really
can endure;
that you really are strong
that you really do have worth
and you learn and you learn

with every goodbye you learn."

-Adam Ricker,  Goodbyes.

I have always found truth in this poem, it has always floated in and out of my life;  my mom printed it off after the divorce and it was up on my fridge at the old house for the next 12 years.. kinda like a mantra to keep the both of us going. Goodbyes can be hard, or unexpected, or seen from a mile away and denial has just blinded us until BAM it happens and forces us to deal with it. These types of goodbyes have been sneaking up on me for awhile now, and I have been trying to push them from my mind.

Recently, I said goodbye to my mom's horse - whom taught me how to ride through patience and tough love. My mom felt that it was best if "we" found her a new home because she didn't have the time to ride her.  All bitterness aside she couldnt've gone to a better place and we still keep in touch.  I pushed this event out of my head for as long as I could, as I was sad and annoyed that after 16 years we were just giving her up.  But as this one passed me by, another one is sneaking up.  My dog.  He is now 12 - his breed's life expectancy is 8 years at best so he's doing well on that note, but I don't think that he will live to see the winter.  His hearing radius is down to 3 feet, and sight is probly round there too, and his back end doesn't keep up with the front anymore.  It's horrible to say that its cute and funny when he gets going then just biffs it in all his excitement to see me, but alas... my mind is warped.

Another goodbye is the physical and emotional removal of myself.  I am leaving for Europe soon, and though I have not left yet, I feel like I am already gone, or a lost entity in my friends lives.  I will physically be across the world from them and will have little contact apart from email [as I am attached to my phone and don't want the huge bill from taking it with me] But, who is to say what will happen when I return? After a few months will all be the same, or will they have continued on with their lives and the place that I once was has been filled with other miscellaneous trinkets and dust?

But.. with every goodbye you learn...   you learn that what doesn't break you will make you a stronger, more independant person who can look the world in the eye and say "fuck you" instead of running away screaming. And you learn that the people in your life who truly care will always come back out of the woodwork when you have crashed and burned.

You learn and you learn....

She paints pictures of her dreams but tonight it doesn't include me

Dreams.

Do dreams mean something? Do dreams reflect things that are stuck onto our subconscious? Do they reflect what we do in life and what we think about? I think so.


I recently watched a movie called "Waking Life" which was basically about dreaming and lucid dreams. Very interesting, once you get past the trippy animation that keeps warping throughout the film. The few things that stuck with me from that was, one, that every sensation that you feel in the dream is exactly the same as it would be in real life. Like, when you jump in your dream and your legs reflexively jolt and wake you up. Or when you feel a sharp pain of someone stabbing you only to wake up feeling the same pain. All places and sensations are real to you while dreaming..no matter how skewed the landscape is, the textures, smells, ect are as real as they would be if you were awake, as long as you've experienced said things in reality. Another was that time and space are skewed. Ever hit your snooze button for 10 minutes and fall back into a dream that seems to last forever? One part of the dialogue the woman said she felt like like she was observing your life... from the perspective of an old woman about to die; Like she's looking back on her life. Like her waking life is the old woman's memories. One second in reality is infanitly longer in the dreamworld. There was a study done that once you die, there is still a few minutes of brain power before everything shuts down...so who's to say that that isn't plausible?

Did you know that you can only dream of people that you know? You'll actually only see people who you know, and who you interact with. All the others in your dreams - say you were in a crowd - are just projections and they may have a face, but you'll never be able to recollect them; or, their features won't be distinct. Like in my dreams, if i remember a dream, its always the same people for the majority of it. My friend Tink, my ex Ty, a few other close friends and....V. As I mentoned earlier, I believe that anything that you've thought of that day, or has been on the back of your mind, will show up in your dreams. For me, any dream I vividly remember, I am plagued with her. I won't get into huge backstory, but I have an issue when it comes to not getting closure and will dwell on something until I get it. This is why she is there. The first dream I ever had with her was quite awhile ago now...I had sent her a message wanting to talk and sort things out, but no reply. In the dream she was filming a video of her wedding rehearsal and all of our friends were there and she was going on about how it was going to be perfect cause she had all these super ideas (which were mine) and how glad she was that everyone that mattered was there. I was going along with it, walking around with her and Tink when I realized, I was invisible to everyone. I felt like a ghost that no one knew was there...and in the background a song started playing; Please Read the Letter by Robert Plant. Fitting, no? "please read the letter, I nailed it to your door.. there's nothin' here that's left for you, check with lost and found..." drifted over the hill on the wind, which picked me up and helpless I drifted away on it.

That dream, and the others that followed it still bother me, cause I'm always an invisible bystander, and always wake up in a funk that lasts the whole day. Some times I think she sees me, but then I turn around and there's someone else there, or she's just talking to herself. Its like she's completely blocked me out of her head and life so much that its reflecting into my dreams, and taunting me. I have no interest in being friends again, I just want this..limbo.. to end. I find dreams fascinating, but at the same time, one's subconscious can really be a bitch...

Who I am

As an artist, I am constantly asked what I do, what my style is, and what I intend with my work.  I really want to strive for creative, dynamic, refined work. Not necessarily "photo-realistic" but detailed where needed, and loose where it's appropriate.


 I love painting - using mainly acrylic, but will draw with pretty much anything.


 I am expressive by nature. I'm transparent, but multifaceted, revealing some contrasts and mysterious ways. You can't see all of who I am from any one angle, so, in my quest for relevance, I am trying to expose as much as I can bare to. My goal is to be a tattoo artist.. this stage in my life is fairly new, so I've only been striving for technical ability... just to be good at manipulating paint or ink or whatever, doesn't send any message besides being disciplined and methodical. 


I am ready to see what's inside, what my talents really are... though it leaves me vulnerable to disappointment, both in myself and in everyone else... I am still ready.  I don't think anyone lives completely honest.  We all hide that which we are ashamed of.  Desiring to minimize our faults and maximize our strengths. I'm no different, but I'm willing to see how honest I can be. I'm sure it will take time, since all I know is just that. 

Rant

As the title states, the purpose of this post is solely just to rant.


Recently, I put in my notice at the place I worked, and Saturday was my last day. Brief history, I worked at a local grocery store, as a cashier..but was usually scheduled as a packer; essentially the packer's duties are to pack customers groceries into bags, keep the front end tidy, and to get buggies.  It's as tedious as it sounds. Why was I scheduled as such? Because I was good at it, and cause my boss thought I liked it, so I was told.  Sweet.

SO, my last shift was a closing packing shift. 2-10:30. I was kinda looking forward to it cause a few of my friends were also working that day and cause I intended to cause a little bit of light hearted mischief. My good mood didn't last long, though.  Why? Maybe my expectations were too high. Maybe I thought that I was truly liked by everyone at my job.  Maybe I thought I was going to be missed.

To back up a little bit, during my time their I've seen my share of  'last days' as the summer students cycle in and out of the company and usually, what happened was that they'd get a card, maybe a lil gift of a gift card, and a corsage to mark the occasion.  Kiiinndaa figured that this was kinda standard procedure to show appreciation of said leaving person.

I got nothing.

Ok, not nothing, I got a card, with like 5 or 6 names in it from friends and a few hugs from them.  Nothing from my boss, hell, she didn't even talk to me after I put my notice in.  No we'll miss you, you were a hard worker..ect. Nothing. At this point I think that I'm just being a bit bitter but really, a little recognition goes a long way.  It makes a person feel good, appreciated, liked, even.  It was kinda weird, cause I'm pretty damn sure everyone knew that I was leaving, and yet it wasn't acknowledged in the slightest. Since the store was bought out by a franchise sure there were some changes, probly not for the better but this one really takes the cake.  Its good to see that managers, and companies still value their employees. Well done guys, well done.   You really made my last day end on a good note.
Thanks for nothin.

Make up and masks

"Cardboard masks of all the people I've been
thrown out with all the rusted tangled dented god damn miseries
you could say that I'm hard to hold,
but if you knew me, you'd know..."
-Jann Arden's "Good Mother"

   I don't know about you, but when I get bored I draw on things...    which can translate into drawing upon myself with make up.  I remember hearing a quote from a random youtube video that was something along the lines of "recently, Ive been wearing lots of like, neutrals, and browns, and dark smoky looks...and I was like, you know what? I wanna look like some fuckin' crayons attacked my eyes today."

    Make up and its whole concept is an interesting thing if you think about it, really.  All the slogans that are out there like Maybelline's "maybe she's born with it, maybe its Maybelline" are familiar, but really, all make up is, is a mask.  Some wear it to cover up blemishes - blank, camouflaged masks.  Some wear it to stand out, to use it as an extension of their personalities - bold crazy coloured masks.  Some wear it to contour their faces to look more appealing, such as making ones cheekbones look higher, or their nose a little thinner. Or, like myself, some put it on to hide the wariness of facing another day.  Warpaint. ( Not trying to sound depressed here, but I have mad allergies that make the "tired circles" under ones eyes, like 3 times worse. Yay for overactive sinus capillaries)

     But, no matter how you look at it, they're all masks. We (as women, don't think guys deal with it so much when it comes to make up) are constantly being slapped in the face with the medias you need to look like this!!!  Make up is basically a dishonest, confidence builder that allows us to show any face we want. Or at least, what we think we want. I find it funny how celebs are making the front pages of the gossip magazines for being "sans makeup" but really, thats when they are for once being real and the media penalizes them for it.

Like I said, tis an interesting thing...

Begin at the End

...and End at the Beginning.  Begin at the beginning and go on until you come to the end.  Then stop.  We're all mad here.  (Alice and Wonderland)

This quote was the very first thing I ever scrawled into my sketchbook that I started in the month of June, 2008. Said sketchbook is a lightweight, handmade book that has seen a lot of wear and tear, but also a lot of love.  To me, sketchbooks are almost like diaries, but with pictures.  For some reason the scene from Beauty and the Beast where Gaston takes Belle's book and says "how can you READ this, theres no pictures?" and she replies with, "Well, some people use their imagination..."  Or something like that.
My imagination is a strange thing.. I tend to draw my thoughts, and there is one page in there that pretty much sums it up: Its an elaborate drawing of a koi fish suggested to be a tattoo on a persons back with one sentence: "If one doesn't have anything to say, is the page wasted? Or merely just used up."   It's a good question, really..  because just looking at that page I remember drawing it, and what I was thinking. And yet, to someone else its just a drawing. All the content in this sketchbook would just be drawings to someone; potential riddles, if one would take time to actually look, use their imagination..  but then again, my imagination is a strange thing. As are my thoughts...

They start out like cob webs; delicate, and yet, still deadly.
But, feelings grow and the webs turn into thick silky ribbons...
their luster distracting one as they slowly twist around, contracting like a boa would.
You never know how caught up in thoughts you truly are...
and once you notice, you're bound and blinded by their complexity.
Tis a dangerous thing, to get lost in thoughts.
Round and round you go, where you stop, nobody knows....