Presenting Problems

I've done a lot of terrible presentations in my time.  If you ask my mother, they were all genius.  

Well, I'm not delusional.  I know what horrors I have committed, and I've decided to share some of them (the ones I remember) with you.

Sometimes, I'm fairly certain, I actually based some presentations on whatever I had around me.  

For example, I had these ridiculous slippers that looked like fuzzy muppet bird... horrible... things.  

I decided they looked a little like the guys from the Labyrinth.  

You know, the David Bowie/Jim Henson movie.  

They looked like the red bird horrible things that take their heads off and sing "Our Gang" right?  

So I did that. 

I stood up there, in front of a class, and danced in those slippers to that song.  

Yep. 

Moving on. 

The next one was also a musical, stupid ass thing.  

Simon and Garfunkel began to play with, "I am a rock, I am an island" as I moved cards which each sported a drawing of a personified rock and island respectively, illustrating the song as I went.  

It gets worse. 

You see, I loved Happy Days.  

LOVED Happy Days.  

I used to watch it right before bed as a way to tell myself what my bed time would be.  

Somehow, I managed to rope a few of my friends in... what?  

Fifth grade?  

I managed to convince them to don poodle skirts, use hula hoops, and lip sync to "Rock Around The Clock"... Which, by the way, is sung by a man.  

Some tiny little girls, lip syncing to a man voice.  

I remember being incredibly nervous.  

I don't even know why I wanted to do it at all.  

I hate going on stage for anything.  

Perhaps, part of it was that I didn't have to speak.  

A lot of my stage fright does have to do with my voice, after all.  

Along those lines... 

A mandatory stage play in the third grade meant that I got two parts.  

You know, since I didn't want any at all.   

My teacher decided I was going to be two different birds, because, and I quote, she thought I was very, "bird like"...

Having low self esteem meant that I took this to mean something about me having a beak of a nose and squawking a lot.  

I will say, my mother was brilliant here.  

She made one costume work for two by simply having a removable red chest piece. 

 During a poetry week, I recited a poem I had memorized... 

Poe's The Raven.  

I was always that kid.  

I did presentations on serial killers about a bazillion times... 

Of course, I did presentations on Alice's Adventures in Wonderland...

 The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, as well as presentations on Robert Louis Stevenson himself...

Actually, that one kept getting interrupted by two rude girls right in the front of the class.  

They weren't scolded for it, but I was for stopping in order to try and get them to shut up.  

It led to a very early Deddrie strip, in fact.  

Of course, there were presentations I didn't do... 

I didn't have a Bat Mitzvah, even though I went through all the schooling for it... 

I also took ballet, jazz, and tap all at the same time. 

 

I was best at tap dancing and I liked jazz the most.  

I was terrible at ballet and I hated doing it.  

I chickened out of the recital, unfortunately after my parents had already paid for the very expensive (and very itchy) costumes.  

...I'll have to do an edit eventually once I figure out how to illustrate the Little Mermaid thing.  It was a dance with a sheer green fabric.  I was told the dance was very pretty.  

At some point, I was roped into this fish based play that I only vaguely remember at all.  

We were to make our paper costumes and then kind of hold them in front of us... somehow. 

Mine was a clown fish.  I was super happy about it.  

That isn't sarcasm.  I really wanted to be the clown fish.  

Sadly, I was seated by an idiot.  He sloppily splashed blue paint on a bit of my fish.  

I sighed, realized that once it was dry, I could just paint over it.  

The teacher's assistant saw this and decided I was in crisis.  

...

THEN I was in crisis.  

She said I shouldn't be sad and that I should just splash more blue all over the fish.  "SEE???"  

I'm still angry.  

*breathes*  

I was also in choir for a few thousand years.  

My family is known for singing, so even though I had some issues with my speech, it was assumed I would also go in front of people and sing.  

They'd give me solos without even asking me to audition, and I'd hand them over to my friends who had talent or at least a want to do this thing that everyone but me seemed to want me to do.  

Mind you, these days, it would be nice to be able to sing, play piano, play guitar and all those things.  The only thing stopping me is my own blind fear based on shit (mostly just in my head) from when I was a kid. 

I remember Cats more than anything.  

Anyone without solos couldn't wear tails.  

I wore one anyway because I had been handed a solo and my giving it up did not mean I was giving up my right to a tail.  

By my fourth and final undergraduate college, I was presenting crap like this: 

I swear this was for a fashion course.  

Etsy Shop!

The etsy is finally back up! Soon, prints, jewelry and so much more will be available too! Currently, we have Screamers and “Dead Records” so have fun!

 Shop here! 


Find things like these: 

YAY! 

Thankful for Alcoves

The temple I grew up with is very different now, 

yet eerie and comforting in how little it has changed.  
Entire wings have been added, but some areas remain the same.  

Since I grew up there, even though I had hardly ever attended services, 

I still get a bit defensive when people who have been hired since my leaving 

make jokes about me invading “their temple”...  

It's my temple.  After all, I know all the best hiding spots.  

I even found a new one.  It's an alcove. 

I thought it had an IOU plaque which basically stated that it will be... 

something, but apparently it's just a giant hole for the plaque itself.

It states the new name of the Hebrew school. 

People had spent a lot of money to have random things named after their family 

(and to help the temple)...
I thought it would be a display case, maybe?  Nope.

Well, it displayed a rare, rowdy Rowyn.

I even ignored my own thoughts!

I adjusted early on when someone passed me. 

He was questioning why I was hiding, 

but I assume my “possibly about to take a dump” pose didn't help. 

Thankfully, I've learned that smiling pleasantly tends to make people just smile back

and go away. 

Even as a kid, I was generally avoiding services to go make out with girls in the classrooms,

but I would sometimes sit just outside of the sanctuary, 

or on the stage in the room just across from it all, 

in order to listen to my father sing. 

The room itself, 

the expectations I felt, 

and the “community” environment that I never felt fully a part of 

kept me from wanting to participate. 

I thought “cult” whenever the congregation said things together, 

and I thought “fake” when a person I didn't know would hug me because of who I was. 

I had a lot of trust issues even then, 

and I knew that I was supposed to keep anything I was going through or living with a secret. 

These people weren't going to be my friends, 

even if some may have genuinely cared about me if I had given them half a chance. 

I didn't want a Bat Mitzvah. 

It didn't feel right to have one. 

Going up in front of everyone was horrifying to begin with, 

but add the idea of them all listening to me speak and chant 

when I couldn't even stand to hear myself, KNOWING how strange I sounded... 

How mumbled, quiet and awkward... 

And on top of all this, 

morally, I could not bring myself to lead a service for believers 

when I didn't really have faith myself. 

This is not to say that I didn't believe in things. 

I did. 

I had a lot of beliefs. 

They were just really negative 

and involved the idea of believing in the Devil more than a caring God, 

which is ssoooooo not a Jew thing. 

To this day, whenever I write a story about the Devil, 

he is mostly a victim of circumstance. 

Cocky, but was once a loved angel. 

The fact that I interpreted this character in such a way may say something. 

One day, if I remember, I may write a whole entry for this. 

In any case, “faith” implies something more positive and hopeful. 

It's that feeling of “I KNOW this going to be okay” and I didn't have that. 

I knew that I prayed and I followed the rules and did everything I was supposed to,

but nothing got better. 

In my little child brain, there was no future, 

and so if nothing got better RIGHT NOW, it was never going to. 

(The allergy incident in Israel probably didn't help, 

though the fact that I survived it should mean something.)

My love for temple then meandered to only a love for the camaraderie of my friends

and one for the building itself and all its hiding places. 

Somewhere in there, I did grow a kind of faith. 

It's small and strangely shaped, 

but it has helped me when I needed assistance, 

which means it has done the job just fine.   

Music, Insanity and Ponies

First of all, here is what happened the first time I ever came in contact with a male mosquito:

They are horrible. I can understand why the blood sucking females do not resemble the males though. If they did, we would have found a way to kill them all many years ago.

So. Yeah. 

My anxieties.

I've been eating better (for the most part) but my diet is pretty limited. It mostly consists of the following:

The occasional rice, green pepper, onions... Random things are thrown in too.

As far as the status of my brain goes, oh my crap.

On the advice of a good friend, I had started hearing Spock in my head whenever I had a panic attack:

This was mostly to try to counteract the voice of Leo from The Producers:

Because, let's face it.  THIS is what I have become.

After a while, nothing made sense anymore and it was all just Freakazoid:

...And while that one was fun, my sanity began to drift even further from me:

Today was particularly bad because it was like they were all having some kind of disco themed tea party in my skull, and Edgar Allan Poe was also there, but just sitting in the corner moping.

To keep my brain occupied, I've finally begun doing some artwork again.  

A lot of tentacles:

They all glow in the dark and react to black light.  The pink one is over twice the size of the other three.  I have since found more canvas...es... canvi... whatever to do more.  Wooo!

And then some fan art of my two favorite blondes: 

 There was no reason.  

It chilled me out though, and I needed that.  

Oh?  Rowyn is full of panic and despair?  Not to worry.  She can just draw Beetlejuice picking his nose and Alice hating everything. 

This one is actually old, but I don't know if I've shown the internet yet so here 'tis.  How I personally celebrate Xmas:

And finally, Music.  The first one was done a couple (few?  How old am I?) years ago.  The second was done as a way to replace the first after my ex decided to take it.  I plan on making prints of each to go side my side.  Maaaaybe flip one?  

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In other news, I'm back to drawing Deddrie and Helenore:

as ponies:

...I have no explanation. 

 Nothing.

Guitars

I realized something awful about myself today...

I think I only wanted the nylon string guitar, because I wasn't touching the steel string guitar.   If you read the edit below, you'll see that I'm just being crazy here and that there are a lot of reasons for having both guitars.

...and I think the only reason I don't touch either now is because other people play them.  I realize how crazy that sounds.
It seems, the more others play my guitars, the less I feel like they're mine.

I go from being really protective of them, but playing them all the time, to giving in to other people when they want to play... to actually feeling bad when I DO play, as though I'm stealing someone else's guitar.

In response to, "you're better at it than I am", a friend (who often enjoys playing my guitar) said, "well, I've been playing for a year.  You've only just started!"
...I've had that steel string for about a year.  I had it from way before we moved...  and my parents have been "teaching" me from long before that.  Just sayin'.

...then it becomes just letting my parents down because the guitar was pretty much the only thing I had in common with them.   I hope that we go back to a lesson a week.  That would help.

EDIT:  Apparently just posting this was helpful.  My boyfriend's support also helped quite a bit.  I know I can be scary and depressing, but luckily, he loves me.

I am now obsessively playing one of my guitars.

EDIT:  Okay!  To explain why I have two guitars beyond the weirdness above: 
1)  My mom got me the steel string and my dad got me the nylon.  They aren't divorced or anything, but it was two separate "lets bond" trips.

2) There really is a difference between nylon and steel.  My friend has a six and a twelve string. There are just LOTS of different types of guitars in the world.  My steel string is also an acoustic/electric, which means I can plug it into my tiny little amp and make it louder.

3) The neck on a steel string is actually thinner.  However, the strings of a nylon are a bit easier to pluck and hold down. (That almost sounded very sexual)  As a result, one is easier on my wrist, and the other is easier on my fingers.
One day, I also hope to own a full electric guitar just for the sound.

EDIT to the EDIT:  The steel has since been replaced by a full on electric guitar... that is too heavy for me.  It's awesome and has an inlay of skulls and crossbones in the neck, but I can only play it while sitting down.  

...Also, new fancy braces on my ring fingers will take some getting used to.  They are made of silver, so...  Hmm.