Everything is Horrible, AND good news!

I feel like crap. 

I actually have an entirely different post for you planned, but I decided to do this first, so I have a reason to explain my ailments. 

My body, especially my head and neck, feel like it's just full of wet cement. 

I move, and the slow goop inside shifts to become extra heavy on the bottom.

Laying down, my bed is sometimes made of rocks…
 

Sometimes I get lost in the too-fluffy…ness. 
 

My toe keeps cramping. 
 

Just the one.  I don't know why.

My chest is a giant knot of flesh.
 

When I shift to my back, an invisible sandbag materializes directly onto my face.
 

My arms feel… flat. Two dimensional?
 

I can't even explain this one.

My nails are brittle.

My eyes are itchy and horrible.
 

They cry at nothing now.

My ass has turned to lead.
 

I'm told this is a head cold, brought on by the weather and pressure changes.

I hate this.


*ahem*

On a much LIGHTER note, Oh Hell Donna! is now in a countdown until the first comic is posted!! 

Go here to check it out: 
Oh Hell, Donna!
(If you wanna buy the Fleyes pictured in FULL COLOR then just clink one of the links in the journal part.)

Birthdays!

Again, being back at my parent's house is odd on many levels.

For one, I forgot about what my mother does for birthdays.

...My mother keeps things. Like... Everything. I'm not sure if it's a security thing or what, but it means that she'll reuse decorations like a really environmentally aware crazy person, rather than just a regular crazy person.

As such, I get bombarded by every birthday I ever had upon walking into my old room.

So, I had a troll birthday once.

I really, reeaaalllly liked trolls. I had hundreds of them, but they've since all been given away. Well, not all. I kept a couple really neat ones, like my Egyptian guy.

I'm awesome.

Shut up.

So the birthday party... How old was I? I don't even remember.

I had a troll birthday ice cream cake, troll plates, decorations... Oh yeah. I was trolled up, and apparently, this one fragment survived to say hello today.

Next up was a balloon attached to the inside of my door. Meaning, a deflated balloon. My door is kind of disgusting because I used to have a lot of stuff all over it, then tore it all down when I moved, aaaaannnd it still has gunk from all that crap.

So this is what that looked like:

Real classy.

My window is now sporting a bikini, 

and there was also a banner on the stairs.

What I'm not showing you is this foldable thing that involves a cupcake with eyes. Not only was this particular item kinda creepy as a kid, but as a now 27 year old adult, it was a little funky having it at the head of my bed... lookin' at me.

I asked my mother if she minded it's removal.

She thought about it.

She got me a couple tops and an action figure of Otho to add to my Beetlejuice collection.

Otho is kind of a big deal in my brain, just as Mayor Maynot of Nightmare Before Christmas. They were both played by Glenn Shadix, who has passed on.

In any case, the figure was wrapped in metallic silvery paper. I opened it up and realized that it was the inside of another wrapping paper made for Hannukah. I thought that was a smart way to re-purpose the wrapping paper.

Actual quotes below:

My mother is actually a very intelligent woman.  

She is also a nursery school teacher and I think somewhat in denial of the entire world.  So...  There is that. 

In any case, my father gave me a cold for my birthday, and I started my morning with a nose bleed. 

As I told my friend and my mother, it was like my face was trying to participate in the festivities.

“HERE! HAVE A NOSE BLEED! LOOK! I MADE IT MYSELF!”

My mother was looking on the bright side, as always...

My eighteenth birthday was a fun one. It was a Bruce Campbell party. I had all my friends dress up as various characters of his, while I was the man himself. This meant I wore a Hawaiian shirt and glasses.

I quickly questioned my assignment of Ash to a friend of mine when she said “Oh, that costume will be easy! I'll just go to my father's workshed, get the chainsaw and-”

We even had a cake with Bruce Campbell's face printed on it. ...Yep.

Most of my cakes over the years were either ice cream cakes or actually pumpkin pies.  I have no use for normal cakes. 

By the way, I actually sort of met Bruce Campbell in person once. 

I'd say he was solidly unimpressed by me. 

Nice enough guy though, so it didn't help my fangirlness. If anything, it just made it worse, because then I could say “ZOH MUH GUH HE LOOKED AT ME FOR A MINUTE!!”

I'm sure I'll try to relate that whole story sometime. For now, back to birthdays.

Lesse...

OH!

So my 21^st birthday was a hoot. I had a vampire masquerade. We rented out a space in the firehouse for it, and my friends acted as a live band. I invited everyone I could sort of call a friend at the time. It was like Facebook but in person.

“I vaguely know you! You don't know this person... but you should! BE FRIENDS NOW.”

I still have my giant blow up grim reaper. The decorations over all were pretty freaking awesome.

My birthday last year was actually a lot of fun for me, even if it ended kind of horribly.

See Birthday Bashing

Now, there is one special birthday I should mention here.

My 19^th.

It never happened.

I'm not saying it was bad. Not at all. It was a very peaceful day. So peaceful, in fact, that I totally missed that it was my birthday.

...as did everyone else.

It was my first time really away from home, off at art school three or so hours away (depending on who was driving). I had a cellphone for the first time in my life and I didn't really know what to do with it, I had my computer... I had ways to tell the date.

I did.

But I didn't have any clue that it was November 17^th.

And neither did any of my friends or family.

I had been in a minor car accident (this seems to be a theme?) with my mother, and being over 18, the insurance guy called me to hear my side of things.

What else? Ah. My 16^th.

I called it my “Sour Sixteen” because I was a creepy goth kid even then.

A costume party, as most of mine are, I told everyone to come dead. If they didn't come in a ghost/ghoul/zombie type costume, we'd “kill” them. ... With makeup.

We had people drown, be slapped to death, strangled... It was a lot of fun.

I was thinking of not posting this right away and saving it all till tonight, because tonight is glow golf... but I'll just add an edit after the fact. 

TO BE CONTINUED 

...
EDIT: 
 Here is an image of one of my friends, to give you an idea of how the rest of the night went.  

The glow golf is at the mall around here, and we had about ten people playing.  Mom stayed for a bit and then fled... Which was fine because a couple of my buddies came home with me.  We played a couple ridiculously long games of Batman UNO, because I'm an adult and I do what I want.  

In any case, glow golf itself was a ton of fun, and I wasn't the only birthday-haver present.  A gaggle of children were seated in the little party corner, and when they started singing "Happy Birthday", I decided that they were very nice.  Well, clearly, they were totally singing for me.  

After all, I am the Empress and it was my birthday. 

The whole place is divided into two sets of golf, but it doesn't make any sense since there isn't another entrance.  You can't actually play the other one unless you've gone past the first... so the fact that it starts over at "One" is stupid. 

We all behaved rather well until that second "One" showed up.  Then it was chaos.  

It was a good chaos though.

The music was hilariously awful.  A friend (who I call Xena for probably obvious reasons) described the people in charge of the music as "a bro and three *giggles like a valley girl*"  Another friend decided later on that this made them "sises"...  

They didn't know who Queen was.  We all felt a bit old, but...  Really?  Really you don't know Queen?  

I wanted to slap their parents. 

Xena described "Under Pressure" and got it played in honor of the fact that the band played that at my 21st birthday.  Nostalgia for the win!

Even sitting on a bench afterwards and hanging out while mini Christmas trees were fisted was fun.  

Yes, you read that correctly, and no, I'm not going to elaborate. 

Winter is Coming

And I don't have a dragon.

So, something I've been neglecting in my “I have time to get better, and I'm getting there...” is that Winter is coming. I live in an area where when Winter hits, it HITS HARD.

This is a problem for a few reasons.

One:

Winter = cold and cold = pain for me. I have a harder time drawing and painting when it's cold, and those are the things currently keeping me sort of okay. I also avoid going outside when it's cold, so the fact that I just started wanting to actually DO things with my friends is ...Well it's bad timing, really.

Two:

I certainly get my own milder style of seasonal depression. It never gets as bad as some people have it. Still, I already have this anxious, crippling, whatever-the-fuck funk cloud constantly above my head. What the Hell is this going to turn into? Or will I not even notice?

Three:

As sad as it is, I typically have a somebody around in the Winter. This is either a boyfriend or a good friend that I can cuddle up to for warmth and talk to when things are down in order to pretend it is not a season of never ending frozen night.

Well, I've got some friends for that, both new and old. This is good because I'm currently single (the longest I've been so in a long time) and my traditional cuddle buddy is on the other side of the country.  

I've even rekindled a friendship or two out of my realizing what I really wanted and missed in my life. 

My weeding out of some of the awful influences made a nice gap for the people I was too shy about to come back.

...So it's unfortunate that I'm still a loon.

I'm lonely and I want physical affection as well as time spent with people I care about... but I'm still just as freaked out about people touching me or breathing on me as I am about eating most foods, regardless of who or what is involved.

There are very few circumstances where I'll suck it up or even relax enough to forget. I'll still panic before and after, but these calm moments of not giving a shit are precious to me these days.

And then my self esteem comes in to fuck up my day.

I wonder why anyone would want to spend time with me until I convince myself that no one really does, despite the HUGE AMOUNT OF EVIDENCE to the contrary. 

 ...Even you, Sign-Pointing-Guy.  You are so not into this. 

So I picture myself as this burden, and I either shut up, afraid to say anything, or I over-share, afraid that I'll be misunderstood.

Normally, my best buddy would be getting all this crap. To a certain extent, she still does, but she is busy being an adult type person and I don't want to bother her with my insane-child shit.

...See? See, it's that logic again. The fuck.

Instead, I've been not so silently putting it on an old companion who I've dragged rather forcibly back into my life, fully aware that I'm about fifty cards short of a deck.

I find him comforting and supportive, and I know I can be the same for him.  He reminds me of who I was years ago, and also who I was in the time when he barely even knew me anymore.  

...And then I just feel guilty that he should have to put up with me at all.

Below is my depiction of the whole thing. Feel free to click on it to enlarge it in order to read my lunatic rantings.

...Right.

The man is not so much of a pushover that he couldn't just ignore me and walk the fuck away if he wanted to. None of my friends are. These are all people who actually *gasp* care about me.

Why would they?

It doesn't matter.

I should just be thankful and move on.

Mind you, in my case with him specifically, we have basically abandoned each other before on some level, though even then, it was with good intentions.  As odd as it sounds, we were trying to avoid hurting each other.  We just did it... wrong. 

Still, I now know that one phone call would have fixed it. 

I chose to assume he wanted nothing to do with me, just as he chose to assume I wouldn't miss him.  

We are the same kind of stupid.  You would think this would mean we'd each give each other the benefit of a doubt as friends.  

...

We don't. 

But, it's nice when we are just relaxed and together.  We have a history and we know each other pretty well, but we also were apart long enough that there are still things to learn.  I have other friends who would fall into this category, and they wouldn't necessarily have the added complication of my physical attraction, but on some level, I suppose I'm just thankful that I'm still capable of having said attraction to someone.  Even if it doesn't amount to anything, it's comforting to have. 

 

No expectations, just honesty and friendship, knowing we care about each other.  That's pretty freaking cool, and something I've been needing.  Being someone I've had a relationship with in the past, we also avoid that nagging "I wonder" feeling on many levels.  We already know to a certain extent, even if it didn't last very long.  There are still "what ifs" but not enough that it would hurt anything.  

This is all pretty damn cool.  

...Until I over-think it. 

...

Shit.

What is this bullshittery?

Okay.  ...guh.  Fook.

Guuuuh.

Right.  I'm SO not okay in the health department at the moment.
Mind you, I've had allergic reactions where I could have died, and I've had pieces of bone refuse to grow... but some how?

This right now is worse.  I'm going to draw this when I feel like it won't come out like a giant glob of black ink instead of a coherent drawing, but right now my head is titled back in a sad effort to desperately not drip snot on my keyboard.

EDIT:  Okay, here's the drawing:

I sneezed and the snot got everywhere.  A head as small as mine should not have so much snot.  It does not scientifically, medically make sense.  Something the size of a bowling ball should not be able to fit an entire liquid slime elephant inside of it's tiny frame.

OH my god.

It's everywhere.

It's in my hair and on my arm and on my PANTS it's on my PANTS AND IT'S WET and it's SNOT ON MY PANTS.

...Jen took an instant Tide stick thing to my pants.  I feel like a small child who needs Mommy to clean up her shit.  ...Oh god.

Oh my fook I have class tonight.  I can't even call out.  Did that last time.  What the Hell am I going to do in class???  I'll be drippy and sleepy and I'll snot on a girl sitting next to me and she'll cry and everyone will hate me and they'll call me snot-girl forever and even if I get famous, that'll be my nickname until even my own mother calls me Snot-Girl for the rest of my life.

Oh muh guh.

EDIT:  I drew these in class:

OH! Oh.  And... and Genericon is this weekend.  YEAH I'm working the Artists Alley and I'm going to sell prints of Deddrie and stuffed cats and skull keychains and I'll be by my buddies and there will be SNOT EVERYWHERE and no one will buy anything because I have SNOT COOTIES.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHGUH what am I doing?  This is terrible!  Why now?  WHhhhyyyy?  I was JUST at the ear, nose and throat doctor.  He said I looked fine.  ...and now... and now I'm full of snot.

Oh, and I was totally illegally in a thing that was not really a study but it's okay cause now my medication for my allergies that works is available to everyone... and I'll never get any money back even though insurance covers it now.   BUT!  But now I can get the medicashuns for my allergeees.

Fuck my life.


UPDATE:  I just sneezed so hard that it felt like someone punched me in the eye.

EXTRA UPDATE:  Genericon went fine... but I was sick for SO MUCH LONGER because of it.

Of Dentists, Sick and School

Even though I have a brand new sketch done for yet another girl for the "Girls in Cups" post, you don't get to see it.  I've been sick.  I don't mean that I've been coughing or a little lightheaded either.  No.  I've been sick.  I managed to catch one of those 24 hour stomach bugs and I am currently praying that the title is accurate.  Comin' out both ends kind of sick.

At one point, I found myself crying in front of the toilet.

At another?  I stood up, my head started spinning, the room went dark and then I woke up on the floor.  I checked for pain or bruising and determined that I had had the sense to lay down, rather than just collapsing, so that's good at least. 

Another "oh thank the powers that be" moment, was when my dentist's office called to tell me all appointments were canceled.  This was because of the weather.  I was happy to not have this appointment as it was for a very tiny hole that is threatening to be a problem.  Had a cap fallen off or something, then I would have been more upset.  Instead, this was a blessing.

...but then...  I started thinking about it.  On the phone, she had stated that my dentist would still be in today for emergencies.  That means that he had the sense to say "I don't want any of my patients to die just for the sake of a cavity" but then he braved the weather himself, ice and all, to be there "just in case".  The man has children. 

So, in my already ill state, where I personify objects and make up ridiculously dramatic stories in my head (and outloud) about where the people in commercials come from, I pictured my dentist, for whatever reason, walking through an ice storm, with no winter coat, just desperately trying to make it to the office in case someone's cap fell off.  I will not draw this, for it will upset me.  Serial killer's birthdays are fine to draw.  This one?  Not so much. 
Edit: Okay fine.  Here.  

Being sick and thinking  of my dentist suffering made me less than happy.  That's "< <3" for those who only speak in fancy computer language.


Lastly, there is school.  I want to get this degree... but I don't want to have to go to class.  Mind you, I haven't even met this teacher yet.  It'll be my first day with him.  My other two teachers are my adviser and a guy I've had for other classes.  I like them.  ...But I've been ill and unhappy and ick.  I do not want to meet someone today and have my first impression be ick.

Yesterday, school was canceled.  I have no classes on Tuesdays.  ...Yesterday was a Tuesday for those who did not piece that together.

My horse and I will still be picking up my last book, but tomorrow.  Today... Today is a crap day.  It's a leftover sick day with snow that I may have to trudge through.


OH!  But!  Okay, so, one of my pieces was donated to a benefit, and a few others may go up in a place in North Adams MA!  I'll keep you all posted on that!!

And, come February 11-13th, I'll be selling prints and stuffed cats at Genericon.  That's a convention (Genericon= generic convention) at RPI.  Woot.

Edit: School was fine.  My teacher is very nice and there is a funny girl in my class.  I remember liking her in another class, but never caught her name.  ...I failed at that this time around too... Whoops.

Me vs. Winter

A word on Winter

First off, I'm so used to being sick during the cold Winter months that the moment it snows, I curl up in a thousand blankets in front of the computer or TV and start eating ridiculous foods or just utter crap or just so much chocolate that I shit the sick out.  

So, as I write this, you can go ahead and picture that.

I've never been great at retaining heat.  
It just does not want to happen with my body.

When I was a kid, I didn't do much playing in the snow.  

We were forced to go outside for recess and I was forced to wear snow pants, because... 
I was a child and therefore logically I would be playing in the snow. 

This is not what I did.  

Snow is cold and wet and all things that make me uncomfortable, so I avoided snow in much the same way that I avoid all things that make me uncomfortable when I have no reason to be near them.

...I avoid it like I would avoid a dirty hippy explaining the joys of eating things I'm allergic to.

Also, my Christian friends were hearing things like "If you're a good boy/girl, Santa will bring you gifts", which they interpreted as "my little Jew-friend does not receive gifts from Santa, which means she must be a bad person."  

Then, they decided to tell me this, in great detail.  

It was like a junior version of Jehovah's Witnesses.  
"Have you accepted Santa into your life yet?  No??  Then you will NOT be receiving joy or presents."

I went to my parents and asked them what the Hell this Christmas shit was all about and why it meant that my eight nights of Hannukah didn't count as getting presents.  

My parents responded with simply, "Oh!  It's the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ!"  
And I said, "OH!...  What?" 

I went on to assume that Jesus was a fat man who broke into people's houses in the dead of night to plant trees in their living-rooms as some sort of practical joke against all of nature and all that is sacred within the safety of one's home.  

Then there was something about nailing socks to fireplaces.  

This cued a Nightmare Before Christmas moment of "does it still have a foot???"  

This is what I picture when I think of Santa:

He knows when you're asleep...


Somewhere along the line, it was explained to me that most of the traditions involved didn't really have anything to do with the religious aspects of Christmas at all.  

They were mostly pagan traditions and other religious things from completely different areas of the world, all brought together in the spirit of joy and giving and love... 
...and forcing people to practice Christianity. 

Right.

SO, eventually I let that slide and decided that most of the population had no idea what they are celebrating and that was fine because it makes them happy.  

I learned to ignore the "Jews can't make snowmen" and "Jews can't look at the lights"... but was eventually made angry once again when someone tried to "explain" Hannukah. 

(By the by, Hannukah is spelled a thousand different ways because it's HEBREW, so please don't tell me I'm spelling it incorrectly.  The moment it's spelled with English letters, it's fucking wrong.)  

I was told that it was the celebration of the miracle of the oil lasting for eight days. 

...

What?

This is complete bullshit.

It's the celebration of the Macabees kicking ass.  

It was like 300 only they actually won.  

It was bloody and violent and about freedom.  

The end.  

Honestly, what's up with trying to lie to our children?  
Either way, fine. 

The new story is more kid-friendly I 'spose.

I'm still kinda stuck on how Jesus coming back from the dead has much to do with giant Harvey/Frank-like rabbits laying chocolate eggs. 

Really, if you're going to steal holiday ideas, at least force them to make sense.  
Make up a story.  
This is all I ask. 

How about... In order to deal with all of the sins for which he had just died, his old form was shed to reveal that of a giant rabbit-man.  

This way, he could sneak out with ease and deliver joy and love in handy egg-shaped carrying cases!

I rant about this now, because come Spring time, I won't be so cold and filled with hate. 

Cold = hate.

This year, I actually had a pretty good Christmas.  

We went to my boyfriend's parent's house.  

I was allowed to help decorate the tree.  

EDIT: "Allowed" was a good term to use here.  It turned out that the family involved was weirdly antisemitic and enjoyed watching me decorate the tree ALONE while mocking me.  

Except for the whole "oh my god I'm going to drop this and it's going to shatter and I'm going to go to some kind of Jew-Hell for breaking this sacred Jesus-tree decoration" part, it was very exciting and a lot of fun for me.  

The music didn't even get to me.

For those who don't know, I have a thing against most Christmas music only because of Hallmark.  

I worked there for a few months.  

It was fun work, but they found out that I don't celebrate Christmas.  

This was terrible.  

As a result, I didn't really know what I was doing, yet I was chosen to work alone ALL CHRISTMAS.  

To make matters worse, I was not allowed to change the music.  

It was automatic and I had no means of turning it off, besides maybe smashing the damn thing to bits... which I thought about. 

This comic came from that:
Deddrie: Hellmark

In case the site is down, here is that comic: 

 
At one point, a creepy man put a twenty dollar bill into my pocket as a tip for wrapping a gift for his wife... who was standing right there.  

I wanted to cry.  

Not only was it somewhat illegal for me to accept it, (so I tried not to and failed) but I have never been so very upset over receiving $20 before.

Also, I may or may not be allergic to pine. 

I'm not sure.  

I get itchy and eye-drippy around them, but it may just be Hallmark flashbacks getting to me.

Happy holidays everyone!