Relocated Writing.

Welcome back, Leigh.

2010-02-09T19:24:00.003-05:00

There has been so much. I don't even know if it's worth it at this point to try and write it all down.

Nutshell: I'm single, looking for work, looking for help and support, drawing, playing guitar, writing less now than I was a year ago, reading more than I was a year ago. I'm still home schooling (both sisters now).

I've cut a couple of people out of my life recently and gained back a couple of old connections. I'm happy for those reincarnated connections. Both teachers in their respective ways. Though, I suppose everyone is a teacher if you look at them in the right light or have your mind open to any lessons life throws at you.

It has required (is requiring) a lot of growth from me and I appreciate that mostly. A lot of the growth is difficult and painful though and I don't always know how to handle it. I'm sure someone has said something wise about that and I could quote you something if I looked hard enough for someone elses words to use but I don't want to do that.

Actually, there is one quote that can pretty much sum up how I've felt for the past few weeks.

"I like things to be story-shaped. Reality, however, is not story-shaped, and the eruptions of the odd into our lives are not story-shaped either. They do not end in entirely satisfactory ways."
-Neil Gaiman "The Flints of Memory Lane" Fragile Things

I finished my book, just need to edit it at this point.

...and the South keeps calling me back like some old song I want to forget but can't push out of my head.

I don't want it to be a part of my identity. I couldn't tell you why either. We are a nice people for the most part.

I've been journaling a lot over the past couple of years. Even now, completely out of habit, my journal is less than an arm's length away. I think it was necessary for me to write what I needed to write in a place where no one else would see it.

I'm back now though. It might take me a while to fall back into the swing of things again but I want to start writing here again.

One Click.

2010-01-21T11:37:00.001-05:00

A few clicks will help @TWLOHA win $1 Million for suicide prevention. Please share this with others. Vote here:http://bit.ly/7si7Be

Call Me Al

2009-11-23T21:42:00.001-05:00

Chapter 13.

2009-11-10T01:32:00.003-05:00

So, quick update. It's now November which means I'm doing NaNoWriMo again. I'm attempting to finish last years novel and get a good ways into it's sequel by the end of this month.

Dark Circus, which is last years novel, is nearly finished. I have had some real trouble with my characters this go around. Perhaps it's just because I left them lying dormant for so long but they keep trying to ruin things. I had a nice neat outline all ready to go and so far have not touched it once because my characters keep running away with my story/fingers.

The book up until now has been something like a cross between Christopher Moore and Holly Black. This chapter that I am currently writing however has taken a drastic turn in style. I believe it's mostly because this is the first real chance you get to meet the villain, which is sad because I think this is the final chapter in the book. Anywho, I thought I would post this chapter. You don't really need to know anything about the story to get what's going on here. It's pretty self explanatory. Just thought I would share.

Chapter 13: In which something does in fact go horribly, horribly wrong.

A voice called Oliver out of his sleep. He could see the sky and a light emanating from something just out of his periphery. He was lying in long unkempt grass and dry brown leaves crunched under him as he shifted. He propped himself up on one elbow and picked a couple of stray leaves from his hair as he tried to make sense of his surroundings. “Where are we?”

“We are on the outskirts of the city near a very old, very deep lake called The Sea of Moons.” The voice was cold and slick like a river rock in shallow water.

Oliver turned his head a little and saw that the light he had previously noticed was coming from a small tinder lantern. There was a soft padding sound around the edge of the lanterns light.

Oliver knew what was there.

“The lantern is just for you. I can see perfectly well without it. I thought it would be good for you to finally get a good look at me. After all, our first meeting was a bit,” there was a short pause, “informal.” The wet sounding voice became more unnerving with every syllable that passed though its possessor’s mouth.

Oliver watched a hand move into the circle of light and was reminded; as he watched the fingers move down into the grass, of his grandfather’s hands, the hands of a man who had worked hard his whole life. The skin though, the skin was different. It was gray and flat looking even in the flickering orange light of the lantern as if the light was trying to keep from touching what was now whispering Oliver's name.

“You have no idea what I had to endure after you escaped that night, boy.” Another hand moved into the light and a small breeze caused the flame in the tinder lamp to sputter a little. The breeze died, the flame steadied and Oliver could now see the forearms of his captor. They were covered in a thin slimy looking fur with long tendrils of seaweed the hung limply off the wrists.

Oliver looked up and squinted through the dome of light from the lantern. Where the darkness began he could just barely make out the long lines of a horse’s head. The light caught in two milky eyes that reflected back a sickly yellow dancing glow.

The aughisky moved the rest of the way into the light. Another small breeze swept up from behind him making already strange firelight shadows dance eerily over his body.

As Oliver looked over the beast in front of him he caught a smell on the breeze. The smell of something that was damp and dying, sweet and utterly repugnant. It was nearly all to much for him and he waivered on the edge of fainting.

“You have caused me a great deal of grief since we last met.” Ondrot shifted a little so that the boy could better see his low set haunches that were now marked with welts and newly scabbing wounds. “Your disappearing act, as you can see quite plainly now, has been most troublesome for me. So tell me boy, what would you do if the tables were turned and it was your back that was marked because of my doings?”

Oliver only looked on in fright and panic as the aughisky moved a little closer to him. “I don’t know,” he managed finally.

“Do you want to know what I would do?” Ondrot only gave Oliver a moment to answer and when no reply came the aughisky leapt at him knocking Oliver flat on his back once more.

Oliver stared up and saw the face of something that only malice itself could have created. A sickeningly cold touch oozed up the side of his neck and damp fingers and strands of seaweed began to wrap themselves around his throat. Oliver dropped out of consciousness and retreated as far back into his own head as he possibly could.

....so yes, the chapter is not finished yet but like i said before, just wanted to share.

If you'd like a reference for the characters involved in this scene you can go HERE for picture of Oliver and HERE for a picture of the villain, Ondrot.

Wagon Wheel

2009-09-12T22:36:00.000-04:00

Wicked!

2008-10-11T14:22:00.006-04:00

Mom and I went here...

and saw this.

It was absolutely incredible. My first Broadway show on a big stage. Big bright and beautiful. and these two...

were absolute MAGIC together.

I, personally, would not recommend the book. I found it rather dry and rough and all together hard to swallow but if you ever, EVER, get a chance to see it on stage...DO!

For those of you who don't know much about it here it is in a nutshell. The first half all happens before the story of the wizard of oz and the second half runs parallel to it. It essentially shows that the good witch is not as virtuous as you thought and the wicked witch of the west is far more virtuous than most and justified in just about every action and decision that she makes.

I would never be mean enough to give all the intricacies of a story away but it truly is incredible.

OMG!

2008-09-06T16:37:00.005-04:00

OK...

A: I am not this stupid.

B: Something you will, but probably shouldn't, laugh at.

Scariest image ever.

2008-09-05T22:17:00.003-04:00

I am so amazingly glad that I have never seen a spider this big.

HEHEHEHE!

2008-08-31T12:25:00.003-04:00

Forgot to post this picture in the last post which sucks because it's easily the best picture we got.

This is Molly with Tony DiTerlizzi in the background.

HOLY CARP!!!

2008-08-30T19:10:00.011-04:00

Okie Dokie, so we went to the Decatur Book Festival and had a blast. I"m not going to tell you everything because I dont have that kind of energy...or memory for that matter, anywho here are the big highlights.

So after a minute or two of walking around we decided we were hungry (all about that book festival huh?) so we went to The Raging Burrito for lunch and had a wonderful time talking and chewing and hanging out. Then we went to Little Shop of Stories where we picked up a few new books including Tony DiTerlizzi's new work, Kenny and the Dragon. Much cool.

From there on we just spend the rest of the day at the Target Kid's stage because they had a bunch of really cool people on their line up. Story teller who did Uncle Remus/Brer Rabbit stories, a presentation by a lady who writes ghost stories and another presentation by two ladies who write historical fiction...and then the fun really started. I saw two of my most favorite authors/illustrators. Adam Rex was first up for his new book called Frankenstein takes the Cake. The book is absolutely incredible and the art is to die for. Yay Adam Rex.

And then there was Tony DiTerlizzi. For those of you who think you recognize the name but don't know where from, he illustrated the Spiderwick Chronicles. For those of you who have never heard of him before stop reading my blog right now and get your butt on over to his space. I mean it...now.He did a great talk about his new book Kenny and the Dragon, which by the by, is friggin incredible. He talked a little about basic dragon mythology, read from the book and gave away a couple of amazing marker sketches to people in the audience. Molly was one of the lucky few to get a picture. It's a sketch of Hogsqueal, a hobgoblin character from the Spiderwick Chronicles. After all of that was over we went over to get him to sigh our brand new copy of Kenny and the Dragon as well as Ysabel's and my sketchbooks.

This is Tony DiTerlizzi talking a little about dragon mythology.

Now we are home and content with our day and tomorrow there will be church and drawing and many other things I'm sure. For those of you who are interested or wondering or whatever I will soon (aka tomorrow) be putting some more stuff up on my sketch blog...not that anyone's really reading this anyhow...just thought I would throw it out there.

Now...PICTURES!!!

DECATUR BOOK FESTIVAL!!!

2008-08-29T14:27:00.002-04:00

It is that time of year again. Yay for the Decatur book festival! Everybody cheer!

There are going to be loads of wonderful people there this year. People like Billy Collins, Roy Blount Jr., Cheryl Klein, Hope Larson, Rich Tommaso, Ben Towle, Robert Venditti and ... and ... and ... TONY DITERLIZZI!!!

I'm excited...except for only this means that we have to clean house tonight so that mom doesn't go completely batshit this weekend. Well worth it though.

Yay for books and literacy and stuffs! WOOT!

I'm so going to get Tony Diterlizzi to sign my sketch book. *dreamy sigh*

OMG ... PUPPY TIME!!!

2008-08-02T18:20:00.002-04:00

Everyone, say hello to Roo. She is a 4 month old Aussie shepard/lab mix and she is the kyootest puppeh EVAR!!!

BTW...Sorry for the low quality pictures but we dont have a digital anymore so I had to do it with my webcam

Hmm

2008-07-09T11:00:00.001-04:00

This is an actual letter from an Austin woman sent to American company Proctor and Gamble regarding their feminine products. It'll probably make the women laugh and the men go "Ooooh, I get it now."

She really gets rolling after the first paragraph. It's PCMagazine's 2007 editors' choice for best webmail-award-winning letter.

Dear Mr. Thatcher:

I have been a loyal user of your 'Always' maxipads for over 20 years and I appreciate many of their features. Why, without the LeakGuard Core or Dri-Weave absorbency, I'd probably never go horseback riding or salsa dancing, and I'd certainly steer clear of running up and down the beach in tight, white shorts.

But my favorite feature has to be your revolutionary Flexi-Wings. Kudos on being the only company smart enough to realize how crucial it is that maxi pads be aerodynamic. I can't tell you how safe and secure I feel each month knowing there's a little F-16 in my pants.

Have you ever had a menstrual period, Mr. Thatcher?
I'm guessing you haven't. Well, my time of the month is starting right
now. As I type, I can already feel hormonal forces violently surging
through my body. Just a few minutes from now, my body will adjust and I'll be transformed into what my husband likes to call 'an inbred
hillbilly with knife skills.' Isn't the human body amazing?

As Brand Manager in the Feminine-Hygiene Division, you've no doubt seen quite a bit of research on what exactly happens during your customer's monthly visits from 'Aunt Flo'. Therefore, you must know about the bloating, puffiness, and cramping we endure, and about our intense mood swings, crying jags, and out-of-control behavior.
You surely realize it's a tough time for most women.

The point is, sir, you of all people must realize that America is just
crawling with homicidal maniacs in Capri pants... Which brings me to the reason for my letter.

Last month, while in the throes of cramping so painful I wanted to reach inside my body and yank out my uterus, I opened an Always maxi-pad, and there, printed on the adhesive backing, were these words: 'Have a Happy Period.' Are you f------ kidding me?

What I mean is, does any part of your tiny middle-manager brain really think happiness - actual smiling, laughing happiness, is possible during a menstrual period? Did anything mentioned above sound the least bit pleasurable?

Well, did it, James? FYI, unless you're some kind of sick S&M freak, there will never be anything 'happy' about a day in which you have to jack yourself up on Motrin and Kahlua and lock yourself in your house just so you don't march down to the local Walgreen's armed with a hunting rifle and a sketchy plan to end your life in a blaze of glory.

For the love of God, pull your head out, man! If you have to slap a
moronic message on a maxi pad, wouldn't it make more sense to say
something that's actually pertinent, like 'Put down the Hammer' or
'Vehicular Manslaughter is Wrong',

Sir, please inform your Accounting Department that, effective
immediately, there will be an $8 drop in monthly profits, for I have
chosen to take my maxi-pad business elsewhere. And though I will
certainly miss your Flex-Wings, I will not for one minute miss your
brand of condescending bullshit.

And that's a promise I will keep.

AMEN SISTER!

AHHH!!! IT'S SPICY!!! pant pant pant

2008-06-18T18:00:00.005-04:00

So dad and I went to go see The Strangers today. It was interesting. 2 people in a house are harrassed by 3 people in masks just because they are there. I'm not sure how I feel yet about the actual cinematography but the basic filming techniques definitely added to the horror element. Normally this sort of movie wouldn't freak me out but my parents are getting ready to go out of town so I'll be here by myself for at least the better part of a week. Hmm.

Oh, and there was a weird lady who was in our theater who was talking to me while I was peeing after the movie.

So, I then went to the newstand to get a pack of smokes and wouldn't you know it, they had Cocaine (the drink) which was taken off the market initially because some of the statements on the original packaging were false. It's back and damn it's spicy. If you've never had it and you buy a can be sure that your first taste is a small one. It reminds me of those hot little cinnamon candies. 600% B12, 300% B6 plus caffeine, taurine, inositol and L-camitine makes it pack one hell of a punch. Less then half an hour ago I drank half the can (mom had the other half) and I'm already feeling kind of jittery. Woo...jeez.

I didn't look nearly this badass after I took the first couple of chugs...oops.

So like I said earlier, mom and dad and the girls are going out of town for about a week. Down to Jacksonville for 3 days and then camping. I'm going to stay here and do a lot of drawing and work on my resume and getting a job and laundry and may possibly seeing some of my friends (who always seem way more flaky than I remember them being). It'll be nice to have the house to myself for a bit.

Well Hell's Bells

2008-06-07T17:20:00.001-04:00

Sometimes it is really a wonderful thing to wolf sit for Dog (strike that, reverse it) and this is most definitely one of those times. The place is quiet, I can read or draw or watch a little television or play the Wii or whatever and it just really...peaceful. *contented sigh*

So I have had the opportunity to watch a couple of movies that I've wanted to see. Cloverfield had the potential to be a really great movie but, as my friend Ben told me not to long ago, it has a bad case of Hollywood-itis. All the deaths move from the darkest person to the lightest person almost in exact order. Also, it suffers a little from Blair Witch Syndrome...that hand filmed look that can make someone throw up if they're really prone to motion sickness. Other than that it was wonderful and if you're up for a relatively intelligent movie that is also one hell of a ride then you'll probably really like it.

Stephen King's 'The Mist' was exactly like the written version down to the tiniest little bit of dialogue. A fantastic thrill ride and a really interesting outlook on human nature and religion. Quite fascinating, as King's worst typically is, and definitely worth watching.

Jackass 2 is most definitely, at least in my opinion, WAY funnier than the first one. Not for the faint of heart or tight of ass. Unless you enjoy watching guys doing really stupid crap then don't watch it. If you are a fan of Jackass or Wild Boyz then go watch it ... right now. Also, 2.5 was really funny. It's all about the stuff that they cut out of 2 'cause they had footage enough for almost 2 movies. Lots of interview too. Wee!!!

Last one. Hitman was absolutely fan-friggin-tastic, beautifully filmed. It is not as dummed down as everyone thought it was going to be, which makes absolute since because the game that it's based off of was really intelligent. The movie is the same way. The story line is layed out very well despite the fact that they fit almost 50 hours of game play into and hour and a half. The characters are interesting and very "3-d", lots of meat on the bones. Also, it's another roller coaster movie lots of action and great fight scenes.

I am now reading A Wind in the Door by Madeline L'Engle. This is one of the companion books to A Wrinkle in Time and so far is proving to be far more interesting, if that is at all possible. This is Quantum Theory for the young adult reader. Molly, who just turned 10 in May is reading A Wrinkle in Time right now and was loving it the last time I checked which was a couple of days ago now. I wouldn't be surprised if she had finished it already. We have to get Bella to read it next.

When we went to the bookstore a few days ago mom picked up another couple of books as well. Rick Riordan's new book "The Battle of the Labyrinth"( I can't remember if this is 3 or four in the Percy Jackson series) and another book called "The Calder Game" by Blue Balliett This is 3 in the Write series).

Rick Riordan's books are amazing. They're all about a boy named Percy Jackson who is half human half Greek God (Poseidon's the baby daddy). They bring Greek Mythology into the light for a generation that seems very apathetic towards literature of antiquity. Bless him for writing these. And don't think that they're only good for young adults either. Like the Harry Potter books these are popular among all ages of readers because they are simply amazing. I think there is link to Riordan's blog somewhere on my Sidebar, go check it out sometime.

I have not read any of Blue Balliet's books (chasing Vermeer, the Write 3 and now the Calder game.) but from what I know they are about a group of kids who solve mysteries having to do with art in one fashion or another. This is what I'll be reading after I finish books 2 and 3 out of 5 in the Madeline L'Engle books. Come to think of it, mom may have written something about these books over at her place.

In the next week or so I will be putting some new work up on my sketch blog as I am learning how to color with Photoshop CS2. It doesn't seem to be as user friendly as my last art program, Jasc Paint Shop Pro 9, but I still love it and being able to use a graphic pad with it really brings out a lot of the features that would otherwise be very difficult to use so keep your eyes peeled for some new coloring work in the next week or so. I'll be sure to put a little linky-poo here when they are up.

Bella's Mohawk

2008-05-28T15:30:00.001-04:00

Mmmm....Memorial Day

2008-05-26T21:35:00.001-04:00

   There was Much feasting today in the Rainey household. We had ribs and chicken and potato salad and real salad and banana pudding and good watermelon and beer...oh and the best deviled eggs in the history of ever.
   I know what you're thinking now...you're thinking "Gosh, I would really love to see some pictures of this person's family chowing down on some delectible food type stuff." Lucky you.

That me closest to the camera. Clockwise from me is Molly, Ysabel, Dad, Grandma Dot and our good friend Len.

Molly, Ysabel and Dad...oh and a plate of yummy food.

Hey look, more yummy food.

These are my mom's soon to be famous fallin' off the bone ribs. OMG...so good.

Best desert in the world = Banana pudding. ( the secret is that you have to use the cook and serve pudding and layer it like a parfait. Bananas, cookies pudding. That way the pudding really soaks into the cookies. NOM!

Touch my beer and I'll kill you till you die from it.   Terrapin is the awesomest local beer in the world.

Nommy watermelon.

The food was wonderful and the company was even better. I think the only thing that would have made it absolutely unbeatable in my book would be if Katya had been here. *sigh*

I hope that everyone out there who celebrates memorial day had a good one and if you don't then I hope that you had a good day anyhow.

I'm gonna go pass out now ... kthnxbai

Check it out!!!

2008-05-15T18:38:00.000-04:00

We went to the GA Renaissance Festival for Molly's Birthday (AKA tons of pictures)

2008-05-04T12:01:00.005-04:00

Political Thursdays.

2008-05-01T11:18:00.000-04:00

There's something in the air...

2008-04-26T12:41:00.003-04:00

It's one of those times of year again. My big creativity surges come in Autumn and Spring. Typically I like to do crafty stuff in the Spring and Writing in Autumn but last night I started writing a song, a song for someone. A song for Katya. While I'm not sure what I'm going to call it yet or what it's going to sound like I'm excited to have it finished. Maybe I'll be able to get it recorded before she comes down. Wouldn't that be nice?

Sometimes I really miss writing poetry and lyrics but as of late it's been hard for me to find the right inspiration for it. Even through Autumn, when I normally write all the time, I couldn't find it in me. Part of me wonders if it was living in Virginia that made me want to write so much. I've always had a propensity towards it but it seems so difficult most of the time. I know that I said I was going to post some stuff on my sketch blog last weekend and that I didn't. In truth I was drawing. I got my big pad of paper and worked with chalk pastels all day and I did this great picture but I can't scan it in because the paper is so big and I don't know how to cut it all together. However I did do some more drawing during the week while Ysabel was taking her CRCTs so those will be going up today. I did an ambigram, which for those of you who don't know, is a word that looks the same right-side-up as upside-down. I like doing them because it takes a lot of planning and organizing to get it just right. the funny thing is that now I have Photoshop CS3 so I could just do ambigrams there without so much of the hassle but I don't think it would be as satisfying as doing them by hand.

Anyway...I'm done for now. I'm going to go make the post to my sketch blog now.

Politcal Thrusdays.

2008-04-23T22:18:00.000-04:00

Whether you're a democrat or not.

Political Thrusdays

2008-04-17T15:16:00.001-04:00

Our aim is to make to LOL relardless of party.

I wouldn't drink 'em.

2008-04-15T14:50:00.002-04:00

I always knew that there was something funny tasting about those Rockstar Energy Drinks...they taste of hate...interesting. Actaully I dont don't know if that's true or not because I'm not sure if hate has a flavor but if it did then it might taste like these energy drinks.

Russell Weiner, CEO of Rock Star, is the son of Michael Weiner, known better as extreme right-wing radio talkshow host Michael Savage. Savage expresses extreme viewpoints filled with anti-immigrant, gaybashing, intolerant, hate-filled sentiments. He has applauded the abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, opposed aid for tsunami victims, and called for the dropping of nuclear weapons on an an Arab country, any Arab country. He was fired from a brief stint at MSNBC after telling a gay caller to "get AIDS and die". He runs a group called The Paul Revere Society, which among other things, calls for the imprisonment of anti-war activists for sedition.

I know, I know. You can't accuse someone of something just because other parts of their family support it because sometimes the apple does fall very far from the tree and Russell could have been one of those cases. Unfortunately he is not.

Rock Star is a family business. Michael helped formulate the drink, drawing on his long-time background as as a botanist and herbalist. Wife and mother, Janet Weiner handles Rock Stars finances. Russell has toured with his father, helping to promote his father's extreme beliefs. By all accounts, he seems to share these beliefs enthusiastically.

I don't know about you people but the Savage/Weiner family is a good way to get everybody in my household really pissed really fast. I wrote a paper On Michael Savage/Weiner for my Intro to Journalism class during my freshmen year in college and I don't really know of anybody who can get me so amazingly angry just with a couple of words.

Ok...now I'm done.

Updates.

2008-03-22T11:57:00.005-04:00

Things, in general, are good.

We've had a stomach virus making the rounds but other than that everyone is healthy. Ysabel and I are doing great with her schooling and she's nearly caught up after starting a month and a half later than the other kids. We're working on the European Age of Enlightenment and how to form Algebraic equations from words problems and What it is, exactly, that makes the water move around the earth. Oh, and she's reading, alot. But, because this is all stuff I know already know I was having a hard time keeping my brain occupied so I took up learning sign language again. I had forgotten how much I love it. I'm not very good with oral things but I am good with my hands so signing is good for me. I thin I annoy people though because I practice during conversation. Oh well.

The wonderful thing about this K12 academy is that each individual gets to choose when their breaks are. That said, I made our Spring break the same week as the rest of the family with the hopes of being able to have the house to myself and maybe a couple of friends for a couple of days. Turns out that's not going to happen because, well... I'm going to Las Vegas to take care of my girlfriend after her surgery and then celebrate her birthday with her after she is no longer laid up under doctors orders.

Much different than my original plan and WAAAAAAYYYYY better.

Ooh, ooh...I'm also reading a really great book right now. It's called Good Omens, written by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett so duh, it's awesome.

By the by, happy Vernal Equinox everyone, once again from your pagan friend in Atlanta.

Vernal Haiku

Georgia is yellow,
covered in springtime semen.
I will sneeze freely.

Something you should see.

2008-03-19T21:48:00.002-04:00

I know that video posts often feel cheap and lame. So, no, I'm not just scraping the bottom of the proverbial barrel for random stuff to post here and if you take the time to watch them you may learn something about the kind of people I adore and respect and want to be like when I grow up.

Why did I not know this?

2008-03-04T10:38:00.001-05:00

Voice: Did Dumbledore, who believed in the prevailing power of love, ever fall in love himself?

J.K. Rowling: My truthful answer to you... I always thought of Dumbledore as gay. [ovation.] ... Dumbledore fell in love with Grindelwald, and that that added to his horror when Grindelwald showed himself to be what he was. To an extent, do we say it excused Dumbledore a little more because falling in love can blind us to an extent? But, he met someone as brilliant as he was, and rather like Bellatrix he was very drawn to this brilliant person, and horribly, terribly let down by him. Yeah, that's how i always saw Dumbledore. In fact, recently I was in a script read through for the sixth film, and they had Dumbledore saying a line to Harry early in the script saying I knew a girl once, whose hair... [laughter]. I had to write a little note in the margin and slide it along to the scriptwriter, "Dumbledore's gay!" [laughter] If I'd known it would make you so happy, I would have announced it years ago!

How in God's name did I miss this? I am ashamed. *hangs head and walks off dejectedly*

An interesting thing to think about...

2008-02-18T20:16:00.002-05:00

It occured to me while I was using the bathroom today that a lot of the conversations that go on in this house invove relating previous conversations to one another. What occured to me next(still in the bathroom) was that this is a pretty recent thing and that this relating of conversation conincides with a real shift for the better in our family's communication.

I just wondered if you guys notice a lot of relayed conversationr or not and whether you think it has a serious effect on your communication.

That's all...just a little social experiment.

Valentine's Day Blues.

2008-02-14T14:52:00.005-05:00

I've always disliked Valentine's Day. Even if I am "with" someone I still find it rather stupid. I suppose it just because I am of the mind set which tells me to do special things for the people I love every day. Why set aside just one day for it?

The people you love should merit extraordinary things on a daily basis. Not just once a year.

Still, while dad is taking the rest of the family out tonight for Valentine's Day. dinner and a movie I will be staying home and cleaning house as my present to my family, which is all I have at the moment. We have extended family coming in from out of town this weekend so I am going to make tomorrow a little easier on them by making it so that they don't have quite so much to do. We all have assigned things that we take care of around the house because there are five of us and it just works better that way. Tonight, while they are gone, I am going to do all of my stuff plus everyone else's hardest/most time consuming chore, at least in theory. I'm going to have about 4 hours to get it all done...maybe five. I figure that this should be ample time to accomplish everythng on my list.

On a slightly more cheery note, today's quote of the day is brought to you by Molly M. Rainey (sister, age 9)

"You know, there's something going on in my stomach that's making me kinda happy and kinda sick at the same time...I think it's all the candy."

Hello!

2008-02-08T09:22:00.000-05:00

Har har har!

2008-02-05T14:35:00.000-05:00

Yes, this is my cat and yes my cell phone does emit R2D2 noises whenever someone calls me.

2008-02-03T20:05:00.000-05:00

Alright, so I made a new blog. I had to because the demand to see my art work was overwhelming. Well, not really. Really, I just wanted to put it somewhere separate because I like for my writing space and my drawing/photography to be different...well...spaces. So, yeah. If you are interested then you can just go ahead and get yourself right over to http://sketch-sketchily.blogspot.com/ .

Right now I only have one post up, but some of it is some of my older stuff and that's kind of neat I think.

All right,
Y'all sleep well now, ya hear!

Hmm.

2008-01-27T16:23:00.000-05:00

Alright, so I was listening to the NPR station out of D.C. and I ran across a show called interfaith voices. This is an awesome show. It's not all sitting around and having diluted discussions about one person's religious beliefs. This is really interesting stuff. You can learn more about the show and listen to today's show if you go Here.

For me, personaly, this was a very interesting introduction to this program. Not because of the main points of the show but, rather, because of the guy that they interviewed in the very last segment. His name is Brad Warner. He spoke to Interfaith voices about one of his books called Sit Down and Shut Up (which I haven't read) and his other book Hardcore Zen (which I have read). He has an interesting way of talking about Buddhism. I guess it would be very near accurate to say that he came into Buddhism through being a punk rocker, so there's a P.O.V. that you wouldn't typically here from someone who practices Buddhism.

I loved Hardcore Zen. It gave me a link to Buddhism that I couldn't seem to gain before. It came from someone that I shared a cultural background with and that made a big difference in the way the material was presented to me, a difference that made it seem a lot less daunting and bookish. His writing was able to turn Buddhism into something recognizable for me.

During my brief stint in Virginia, the woan that I was living with was taking a class on Buddhism in college and Hardcore Zen was one of the required texts for the course. My theory on reading is that if there is a book near me I will red it. And so it came to pass that I read this book.

Being with this person while they were in this class was a very interesting thing. I was learning a lot just through helping her study for the tests and discussing her class periods with her. It was wonderful. During one of these discussion she passed along a joke that they had been told during class. It is an attempt (and I pretty good one it seems, with as little as I know about it) to sum up the philosophy behind Zen Buddhism. The joke went like this.

Now, like I said, I know very little about Zen Buddhism as compared to some but from what I learned, vicariously through living with a person who was studying it at the time, it's dead on.

What I heard is that Buddhism is something you do. The entire philosophy behind it is based on action. Antoher important aspect, and what this joke portrays, is that Zen Buddhism isn't about the outcome of a situation, it's about the situation itself. Pretty nifty. I like this philosophy.

Ok, now I don't really have anything left to write so humor me, go read the book.

A side note.

2008-01-24T18:46:00.000-05:00

Art is not dependant on human needs.

I heard Jonathan Messe say this on a TV show called No Reservations. It occured to me right after I heard him say it, that this statement would lead people to believe that art isn't necessay which simply isn't true. Art is a human need. That's why it isn't dependant on them.

I draw all the time so this is particularly meaningful for me I suppose. And that's all I really have to say about that.

An general update which turned out to be mostly about books.

2008-01-24T17:17:00.000-05:00

First things first, I don't know how many people stopped coming aroundbecause I wasn't updating, but for armed is forewarned, I will be updating daily or every other day from now until who knows when. So if you were bored with coming back to my blog and seeing the same thing up for a weeks at a time then fear not, for I have new blog fodder.

Ysabel and I were a little bit behind in her school work so I changed her lesson plans so now she's doing two or three lessons in every subject every day. This puts her projected end date for this school year right around the beginning of May. They were in August before and that wasn't going to work out because my parents and my sisters are supposed to be moving up to Kennesaw this summer so I wouldn't be around to get her through the rest of the school year come the end of May or early April.

Even doing two or three lessons a day in each subject, Ysabel is still finishing up her work really early on in the day. I am wondering whether or not I should up the ante again and possibly bump her projected end dates up to somewhere around the end of March. I don't think I will because then she would probably be bored for the remaining two months or so. Plus, I don't want to over work her. It's kind of a thin line between challeging someone and over loading them with work, you know?

She took two unit tests today and scored a 94% on each. Good work Bella.
We just got finished with a literature unit on Greeak and Roman mythology which she slurped up every bit of as if it were the nectar of the gods. Now she's reading The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. (C.S. Lewis, duh...)

In other news, I am brushing up on my history and grammar. The latter of which I was never very good at in the first place. I tend, to go a little, crazy, with, my commas.
I have a few books to help me a long with my brushing up.

Eats, Shoots and Leaves and Talk to the Hand by Lynne Truss
as well as I love Paul Rever Whether He Rode or Not and Ledgends, Lies and Cherished Myths of American History by Richard Shenkman

These are all excellent reads and you would do well to pick any one of them up.

I am also reading a books called Very Nice Ways to say Very Bad Things: An unusual book of euphemisms by Linda Berdoll which is also very worth reading. It gives you interesting little bits of information such as...
"If one believes that a woman is of accommodating morals and decides to say so publicly , one has bewhored her (or, depending on one's 'hood, possibly beho-ed her). Be certain that she doesn't mind the advertisement or have your affairs in order for it is said: 'Hell hath no fury like pussy with a pistol.'"

It's also smattered with great quotes such as "Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer." -Mark Twain

All of the books that I have listed this far are mainly my new blog fodder, I'm reading The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy(the late, great Douglas Adams) for my just for fun book. Wonderful thing because it has all the books all piled into one.

All in all there is a lot of reading going on in this house hold right now and that is a wonderful thing.

All that said, I would like to know what you are reading right now. So tell me already. Go on, what are you waiting for? Surely I don't have to prod you along every step of the way do I?

Answers and Photos

2008-01-21T20:55:00.000-05:00

The last post turned up some great questions. I'm going to post the ones that really stood out to me. If you'rs isn't here then don't worry, I don't hate you. Some of these just really struck a chord with me. Also, I am going to edit these answers a little bit to include some more info. If, for some unknown reason, you are interested in seeing the original answers with typos and everything then you should check out the comments in the post previous to this one. Also, you can thank (or smack) ~easy for my doing this as it is per his request. Unfortunately there is no blog associated with his profile so you'll just have to wait until you see him around.

Janet-Are you voting in the next election? And if so, why will you choose the candidate you'll vote for? If not, why not?

Me-Yes, I will be voting in the next election. The big thing for me this time around would be tax reformation. I am a very strong supporter of the fair tax and would love to see it set into action so a supporter of that (like Huckabee) would be someone that I have very stong leanings towards. However, I also base my votes on a lot of different things so if I find a candidate who supports many things that I believe in but doesn't support the fair tax then I would may go for them. I guess this is what you call sitting on the fence, hmm?
I do not run with one party or the other so my vote could swing any way depending on who is running. In any case, as it is with most voters, it's all about picking someone who stands for the same things as you and, in the end, picking the lesser of two evils. There is no such thing as a perfect politician.

Carmi-If you could write one book, what would its title be and what would it be about?

Me-I think I am going to call my book "Like I am the Coyote". It is a memoir/collection of personal essays based around the theme of my lies and gender identity. This particular aspect of my life has become extremely relevant over the past year or so even though I started writing my memoir almost three years ago now.

Dara-What is your happiest childhood memory? And what is your happiest memory from 2007?

Me- Well, I'm going to call under 20 my childhood because it's a very relative thing but I think my happiest memory is coming out to my mom and having her be really open and accepting.

My happiest memory from 2007? Well, the crap stuff from 2006 ran over into more crap stuff from 2007, but I think my happiest memory is spending new years eve with two of the coolest people in the entire world. You can see pictures of that Here.

Catherine-What is your favourite season, and why?

Me-My favortie season is Autumn. The reasons may sound a little corny but I do mean them whole heartedly. I have so many good associations with fall. My birthday, renaissance festivals, starting back to school, coming out to mom and dad as a lesbian (not something you would typically see on a list of good associations), parties, my favorite holiday (Halloween), good music, all sorts of wonderful times with friends and lovers and family and the list just goes on and on and on.
On top of all of that, I tend to have all of my creative surges during the fall because there is something about the season that makes me think about things that I have and things that I have lost and that triggers a lot of emotion and lots of emotion makes for good art.
This is an wonderful question and I'm glad you bothered to ask it because a lot of people ask "What's your favorite season?" but very few people ask "Why is it your favorite season?" and for me that's kind of sad because there is so much that I could say.

Kenju-What do you think was your biggest mistake so far in life, and have you been able to rectify it?

Me-The biggest mistake I've ever made? I've lost a great friend and lover to my lies. I will likely never hear from her again and that is a very sad thing. I have been working very hard to better myself but have been unable to apologize to this party in such a way that allows for any closure. I have been carrying this around with me for nearly a year now and it's kind of eating me from the inside out.

Aprilbapryll-What are you most scared of?

Me-What am I most scared of? I m most scared of losing people that I love.

Now, in honour of the new digital camera, you can have some pretty pictures.

It's almost as good as Easter Island.

Where do the children play?

Fence post person.

The train lines.

My eye, let me show you it.

Loving Graffiti.

The Junkman's Daughter.

I have no idea what this said, but the colors are wonderful.

The underground movent.

Parking Rails.

Questions?

2008-01-16T09:52:00.000-05:00

Because we never really know each other as well as we think, in response to this post I'd like you to ask a question. Anything about which you are curious, anything you feel you ought to know about me. Silly, serious, personal, whatever. Feel free to ask as many questions as you like.

Then consider yourself tagged and copy this to your own space, and see what people don't know about you. It doesn't matter if you don't copy this to your blog but it's an interesting way to see what people want to know about you.

I don't get many hits to this blog so I am planning on leaving this post up for a while because I am interested in what people will ask.

::EDIT::

Look at the snow!!! This started at about ten this morning and it is supposed to keep snowing until late this evening. I am very pleased.

New Years Eve.

2008-01-03T00:46:00.000-05:00

So...maybe you shouldn't ask about the details of this but this is what happened on New Years eve.

That's Caity and Ben in the top one and me and Ben in the second. That's Caity's bra in both pictures.

Holiday greetings from me and my friends.

2007-12-24T12:46:00.000-05:00

jibjab.com is the coolest ecard place ever!

Don't send a lame Holiday eCard. Try JibJab Sendables!

Why I am a bad queer person. (AKA: How's about some civil unions here!)

2007-12-22T23:05:00.000-05:00

Alright, first and foremost, this post is initially going to sound like the big piece of hypocritical weirdness that you'll ever hear. Please be sure to read this all the way through. There is a little bit of rough language and a lot of personal beliefs so just take it all with a grain of salt if you're having trouble swallowing it.

Marriage. Most ancient societies needed a secure environment for the perpetuation of the species (perpetuation of the species is a lot of the reason that they said being gay was wrong in the first place). Marriage is an institution which was almost solely created around the idea of bearing children and a safe way in which to do that. I don't care what kind of loop hole you can reason out of it two women or men simply cannot produce a child of their own accord. I feel so much like a traitor saying this but gay couples don't really need the institution of marriage they need the civil rights that the institution of marriage has amended and ratified into itself and those are (or at least should be if the separation of church and state were doing it's job) two entirely different things. And if they could just pull their heads far enough out of their asses to see the light of day then they would know this already.

On a slightly more personal note, I do not want to have anything to do with an institution that has been completely surrounded and infiltrated by ignorant, mean spirited, candy-assed, self-righteous, politician-esque morons who think that it is within their power to tell other people how they may or may not live their lives. If they want the institution of marriage all to themselves then fine, I honestly don't give flying rat's ass. I'm not asking for marriage, I'm asking for the pursuit of happiness and, damn it all, that's written into our constitution. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I want to be able to see my partner in the hospital or adopt a child or own a house together without having to find some legal loophole. Hell just the right to hold hands in public without the risk of dying would be a good start don't you think?

This is the same reason I don't like the term "homosexual", because the only people who use it in their day to day lives are the people that are trying to push us into the background (AKA Fred Phelps).

At this point in you're reading you have officially heard a 21 year old lesbian say that she does not believe in gay marriage so tell me what you think. Am I wrong? I know I'm not nearly as well educated as I could be so please tell me if there is some crucial aspect that you think I am missing here because you have no idea how horrible and confused I feel about this right now.

Civil Unions, great! Marriage isn't necessary. We're trying to win this with the wrong point of view.

By the way,
Happy Solstice Everyone!

Holiday Traditions.

2007-12-20T00:15:00.000-05:00

Coming up on that time of year. Christmas is kind of like a month long period for me when I'm at home. It's starts the day after Thanksgiving and ends on December 27th. All that shopping around and trying to figure out who's house we're going to on Christmas Eve or Morning. All celebrations are going to be at our house this year which is either going to be way more stressful or a lot less stressful dpending on if anyone actually decides to drive an hour and a half to get to our house.

I like our Christmas traditions though. We (mom and me) spend all day on Christmas eve day baking and then everyone gets new pajamas at 8 o'clock and then the girls go to bed and the adults (I'm included in that this year) stay up and get to play Santa. All of the santa gifts are left unwrapped on the hearth of the fireplace and all of the stockings are filled. Oh, and we hide one pickle ornament somewhere on the tree.

On Christmas morning we usually all get up pretty early but no one is allowed into the living room (where all the presents are) until every person has breakfast and/or coffee in his or her hands. We sit down and eat breakfast and then the two younger girls look for the one pickle ornament hiding in the tree (this is an old German tradition) and whoever finds it first gets a special present.

We always pick one person to pass out gifts and they have to pass them out kind of equally so no one gets a huge clump of presents all at one time. The rest of the day is spent wither at relatives house(s) or just at home with the immediate family.

Written down it doesn't look like all that much, but coupled witht he fact that I am supposed to be dogsitting sometime over the holiday break and we may or may not have friends and family coming up from Florida the well, I guess you could say it's beginning to look even more like Christmas than ever.

And now for some Chritmas Spirit lolcatz style.

and this one just 'cuz the picture is awesome.

A letter.

2007-12-15T20:52:00.000-05:00

Dear world,

Just for future reference my personal gender identity is as follows: Human. That is all you need to know so you can just stop asking now. Really people shouldn't have to ask anyway. I'm not going out of my way to present as something else and I have boobs the size of the arctic circle ( I just wish they were shrinking at the same rate). I have a feminine face, noticeable breasts, feminine hands and a feminine voice (though it is a little deep). Why am I continuously called sir?

I suppose I shouldn't complain because typically it doesn't matter to me one way or the other but, when I do go out of my way to look girly you should at least have the common courtesy to not call me sir.

It really seems to me that at this point in time you would be better at accepting people for who and what they are. Seriously now, are you having that hard of a time learning from your past issues. I guess I shouldn't really be that surprised because many of your other inhabitants haven't learned to get past the things that they can see with their own eyes (eg: color).

So, World, what have you got to say for yourself in response?

Your frusterated inhabitant,
Leigh in Atlanta

P.S. Please let my grandpa live through the holidays because that would be nice of you.

More Designs from Random Rabbit.

2007-12-08T09:55:00.001-05:00

I've been working my tail-feathers off and I"m not going to post everything but here are a few of the latest ones.

2007-11-30T21:13:00.000-05:00

1 (2-pound) blade cut chuck roast
2 teaspoons kosher salt
2 teaspoons cumin Vegetable oil
1 medium onion, chopped
5 to 6 cloves garlic, smashed
1 cup tomato juice 1/3 cup balsamic vinegar
1 cup cocktail olives, drained and broken
1/2 cup dark raisins

Preheat the oven to 190-200 degrees F. Place a wide, heavy skillet or fry pan over high heat for 2 minutes. Meanwhile, rub both sides of meat with the salt and cumin. When the pan is hot (really hot) brown meat on both sides and remove from pan. Add just enough vegetable oil to cover the bottom of the pan then add the onion and garlic. Stir constantly until onion is softened. Add the tomato juice, vinegar, olives, and raisins. Bring to a boil and reduce the liquid by half. Create a pouch with wide, heavy duty aluminum foil. Place half the reduced liquid/chunk mixture on the foil, add the roast, and then top with the remaining mixture. Close the pouch, and wrap tightly in another complete layer of foil. Cook for 3 to 3 1/2 hours or until a fork pushes easily into the meat. Remove from oven and rest (still wrapped) for at least 1/2 hour. Snip off 1 corner of the foil pouch and drain the liquid into a bowl or measuring cup. Add some of the "chunkies" and puree with an immersion blender. Slice meat thinly, or pull apart with a fork. Serve with sauce.

Served with fresh mashed potatos with shredded cheddar and fresh garlic and green beans cooked in a little bit of vinegar with plenty of fresh ground pepper.

I made Peppermint Pie courtesy of Paula Deen and that recipe is as follows. It's very easy and fairly quick.

1 envelope plain gelatin
1/4 cup cold water
1/2 cup heavy cream, plus
1 1/2 cups heavy cream, whipped
8 ounces peppermint candies (soft or hard but the soft ones melt faster)
1 prepared chocolate cookie crust
Crushed hard peppermint candies, for garnish

Soften gelatin in water and set aside. Put 1/2 cup heavy cream in a small saucepan with candies and cook over low heat until candy melts. Add gelatin mixture and mix well. Let cool and fold in whipped cream. Pour into crust, sprinkle with crushed peppermint candies, and chill thoroughly

My dad who has been working in Alabama all week long came home to an excellent meal tonight, and that is a wonderful thing.

More Dreams.

2007-11-17T15:24:00.000-05:00

I don't know what it is but I seem to remember my dreams more as it starts to get colder.

I just recently wrote a post about my ex and about how sometimes I can go without thinking about her and other times it's Hell because she seems to pop up everywhere and I miss her.

For the past two nights I have dreamt of her and it's been kind of strange.

Night before last I dreamed that we were living together and that she was with child and gave birth to a baby boy who she named Joshua. There was a part where we layed down with baby Joshua between us and she said something (I can't remember what though) that prompted me to say "But, he isn't mine" to which she replied with something like "No, he is ours."

Sometime later in the dream I asked her what had prompted her to name the boy Joshua.
She replied, and this I can fully quote, "I don't know maybe they just heard the wind blowing through the tree's saying Joshua. I don't know what she did when she said it but it sounded just like wind blowing through leaves and it still does to me when I say it to myself. I also don't know who "they" refers to because there wasn't any reference (go figure) but it felt... Devine or something when she said it. Not malicious or ominous

The dream dictionary that I have says that birth or a new child could represent a new outlook on life or new physical projects and the name Joshua roughly translates to salvation. All of this sounds like a very positive thing but I am leary of believing it to be so because I know how much our last fiasco screwed with her life. I don't want to be too optomistic, it seems unwise.

Last night I dreamt that I was in a mall, which is a recurring theme in my dreams, and I walked into a store and she and two of her friends, Juniper and Sally, were working with her as well as one of our old family friends, Diana. I saw my ex behind the counter and I immediately froze up inside and left the store and went around to the side of the store where Sally and Diana were working and Sally told me about how rough things had been for my ex and how she was moving away. There was also something about my ex selling a red, striped sweater and only wanting a deposit on her house so that she could move on.

Sall was crying by the time she finished telling me everything but I was glad. Not relieved, you unerstand, but genuinely happy for my ex that he was moving on to other things and newer places.

I haven't looked up any meaning for this second dream because I didn't feel like I needed to.

It left me with the distinc sense that I would possibly be hearing from my ex in the (not necessarily near) future and that this was enough.

Oddly though, our old family friend Diana (from the dream) popped by for a visit this afternoon. We haven't seeen in her since early this year so it amplified the feeling that I had from this dream. Reunions.

I don't want to get my hopes up , but I do feel that there is a lot to resolve between me and this ex and so I guess that all I can do is hope for the best even if the best, in this case, will be extremely difficult.

I'm feeling a little out of it now.

Birthday.

2007-11-16T21:31:00.000-05:00

It's been a slow, relatively uneventful, 21st birthday, but things are good.

My dad made it back from Birmingham sooner than he thought he would so he ate dinner with us. Despite my cold, I have had two beers and that is plenty.

Things are good.

I gots clothes and tattoo reference stuff and that is a happy thing but now I am going to go to bed.

Hi there!

2007-11-09T13:46:00.000-05:00

Hey people.

Sorry it has been so long between posts. I have been extremely busy. I'm home schooling my sister, trying to put together a 450 piece portfolio of tattoo designs and doing NaNoWriMo.

I have over 13,ooo words for NaNo so far and I thoughtI would share some of them with you and see what you people honestly thought about it. Don't worry about hurting my feelings because NaNo is all about quantity and not at all about quality. I just wondered if there were any suggestions that I might want to take into account for the remainder of my novel.

This excerpt is completely character building stuff but eventually there will be a were wolf and possibly some cool time travel stuff developed fom the writings and theories of Robert Heinlein and Stephen Hawking.

I'm kind of shooting for some weird hybrid mix between Christopher Moore and Stephen King.

So tell me what you think already, GEEZ!

~EXCERPT~

Carrion
You would think that any town named after road kill would have to be at least a little interesting. This town is the exception. Carrion is a tiny little town, surrounded by woods on every side. If you go north a piece you’ll eventually run across the slightly larger town of Sea Breeze, which, incidentally, is nowhere near the coast. In fact, the nearest town of any significance was Valdosta but that was a ways further than most people in Carrion ever went in their sad, insignificant lives. But, the schools were ok, the people were decent, and the yards were pretty.

Gary
Gary lived just off of Main Street in a nice little ranch house. He lived a pretty ordinary life. He worked and ate and slept and went grocery shopping and smoked the occasional joint, which he bought from the lady next door. Today was his free day and he was taking the time to sit around and relax. He was doing an awfully good job of it too. His weekly Coca-Cola perspired in his hand while he watched a movie. Jamie Lee Curtis had managed to evade Michael Meyers yet again. Horror movies were his thing. He stuffed his hand down into the bag of Cheezy Doo’s, grabbed one and examined his processed, cheese-powdered catch. It looked a little like Elvis, had the hair and everything. He popped The King into his mouth and crunched merrily away as the killer on the screen took another turn through the hospital in agonizingly slow pursuit of his next victim. He left the movie running and got up to make water for the porcelain god. Through the window in the bathroom he saw Sherriff Duvet pull up into his driveway and start towards the front door. Gary flushed the john, zipped his pants and went to answer the door but he didn’t have to. The Sherriff was standing in his foyer-with his gun drawn and Gary’s mail in his free hand. Gary, needless to say, was puzzled.

“Sorry, the door was open and, well, I heard screaming.” He looked at Gary a little uncomfortably and shifted from foot to foot.

“That would be the poor victim of a deranged serial killer playing out their final breath in my living room,” Gary basked in the glory of the antsy Sherriff for a second and then added, “ I’m watching a movie.”

“Oh, well…yeah.” He holstered his gun and stood there for a moment looking stupid as usual.

“Well, here’s your mail. Looks like you got a package. It’s heavy.” He handed Gary his mail quickly and walked out the door closing it firmly behind him.

The mailman, Anderson, was in he hospital being treated for a serious ‘bout of Pneumonia and Duvet was covering for him until he was up and running again. This annoyed Gary to no end. He liked Anderson. He was a good ole down south boy but he was kind and always willing to chat for a minute. Duvet, on the other hand, always seemed a little uncomfortable around him. He had a feeling that the Sherriff was equipped with Redneck Gaydar. Perhaps it was instilled in him by the ever ‘Holier-Than-Thou’ Southern Baptist upbringing or maybe he was suppressing his own natural urges. In either case neither liked the other very much.

Gary pondered this as he walked into the kitchen to find a package-opening-knife-type-thingy. He found said thingy and set the package down on the counter. It was from New York, his dad again. Gary and his father both had an interest in strange artifacts, odd findings and other novel doohickeys. He often received packages from his father containing blessed crosses or authentic dream catchers or cursed rings along with a postcard from where ever he had traveled to most recently.

He slit the tape on the box and took it over to the couch. Beneath the brown packing paper there was the ever-present post card, this time from Anchorage, Alaska. There was also a large tub of hand salve made from some sort of blubber that accounted for most of the weight of the package. There were also two authentic Eskimo spear heads, an extremely small book of local blubber recipes, and a carton of American Spirit cigarettes. At the very bottom of the box there was a small wrapped thing. Gary took it out of the box and unwrapped it. It was a bead, a very large bead, but still a bead. This bead was about as big as a walnut, fashioned into a double-faced skull and made of some sort of bone or horn. It was beautiful and it held Gary’s attention in a vice grip.

Mason
From his living room window he had a perfect view of Gary laid back on his couch staring at some kind of small, seemingly insignificant, thingamabobber. Mason was a little bit of a voyeur and therefore was one of the few people in the town of Carrion who knew anything at all about Gary. He knew that Gary got packages with strange things in them, he knew that Gary was gay and he knew Gary’s name which meant that he knew at least 5 times more than just about everyone else in town save maybe the mailman, who knew who the packages came from, and the Sherriff, who had access to Gary’s police records, if there were any.
Mason’s voyeurism was focused solely on Gary, not in that strange stalker kind of way, but rather Gary’s was the only house he could see from his own. In fact the only thing he had seen out his own living room window, aside from his unsuspecting neighbor, was some mid-sized creature that looked a little like a badger and a little like a dog and very, very sick.Presently, Gary was still lying on his couch admiring the small insignificant thingamabobber so Mason put down his binoculars and went to get something to gnosh on. Gary’s Cheezy Doo’s had given him the munchies, but perhaps it had something to do with the pot as well. His kitchen was a mess as was normal and he half-heartedly considered cleaning the speck off the counter but his thought train was derailed by his niece who came into the room screaming “UNCLE MASON! UNCLE MASON!” which damn near scared the piss out of his weakened, 50-year-old bladder. He turned around just in time to find himself in a strong, wiry muscled hug that turned his face red and made a sound that was something like a muffled sledge hammer thwacking a large bag of socks. Leslie kissed him on the cheek and let him go so that he might change back to his normal color. He hadn’t even heard her come through the door. “What a face.” Said Leslie through a smirk.

“Yeah, if only you had had a camera, right?” Mason was still a tad winded but glad to see his niece. She’d gone to a thin, wiry muscled woman from a pretty chunky sized teenager.

“Oh no, I had one. I’ll remember this moment forever.” She flipped through the pictures on her camera phone and pulled up a shot of a red-faced man with a look of distinct horror on his face. Somewhere between the black dots that had been floating around in front of his eyes she had managed to get him in focus and capture him forever in digital media.

“Great, I look wonderful. I’m sure your mother will approve.” He said thorugh a laugh. Leslie’s mother was a photographic artist (pronounced: arteest) and found snapshots completely offensive to her work. So, naturally, Leslie, ever the rebellious daughter, emailed her the picture via the handy-dandy cell phone with the message “Uncle Mason says Hi!” attached to it.Leslie took a six-pack of Pepsi from her bag, Yankee that she was, tore one off and put the rest in her uncle’s refrigerator.

“I see you still haven’t gotten over your cleaning problem.” She said, looking around at the spotless kitchen and sipping her Pepsi.

“What are you talking about? It’s filthy in here!” Mason was scanning the room looking for visual clues that would tell that he had OCD. He didn’t see any, in fact, the speck was still there.

“It smells like Windex and Comet in here, so either you haven’t touched your kitchen since the last time I saw you and you’ve been sniffing house hold cleaning agents, which I wouldn’t put past you by the way, or you still clean it four times a day. I’m willing to bet it’s the latter, hell I’ll even put money down for your shoes still being arranged by color.” She was giving him that “I-know-everything-about you” smirk again.

“Actually I rearranged them alphabetically by brand name.” Great, that helped.

Leslie snorted a little and gave her uncle a softer hug. “It’s good to see you again.”

“It’s good to see you too.”

Leslie
Leslie lived on campus at Berkley where she was currently double majoring in Architecture and Music Theory. She was tall (roughly six-two), lanky, covered in tattoos with napalm orange hair cropped down to about two inches. She was half trans and half lesbian if that makes any sense and had recently, after many long years of deliberation, had top surgery and was on testosterone and had decided that is was as far as she was going to go. In short, Leslie was something of a character. Life, needless to say, was stressful and instead of going home to Phoenix to be with her mother for the summer she had asked Mason if she could stay and he had said yes. Thank God. She and Mason both knew her mother could be a tad bit crazy, especially during the summer when it got so hot and it was hard to keep the humidity just right in the dark room.

She sat down to dinner with her wonderful uncle in the middle of bum-fuck Georgia and ate dinner as they discussed the finer points of her mother’s insanity and what exactly the two of them had been doing for the past 5 years. They hadn’t see each other since Leslie had graduated high school here in Carrion with the one and only four point oh GPA. Now, after having taken a year off between high school and college to get settled in a new town and find a job, she was a senior at Berkley with plans to get her Masters in music education while she looked for her dream job in architecture.

Hello.

2007-10-31T21:50:00.000-04:00

First of all I just want to send out a Happy New Year from your coolest-ever pagan friend in Atlanta.

I hope that all is well with everyone.

I have made my samhain offeringsand been trick-or-treating.

What that boils down to is that the gods are pleased with me and I have loads of candy in order to keep me up and writing through tonight for the first hours of NaNoWriMo.

That is all.

Blessed be.

WARNING: Post might contain angst and brooding.

2007-10-23T20:41:00.000-04:00

I know it has been a while since I have written anything containing content about my last ex and for that I am pretty happy.

Here's the skinny on the 411.
I did something stupid and immature, she left and will not speak to me anymore. Fine I can get behind that, kind of. I would love to be able to say that if I were in her shoes I would act differently but I can't say because I'm not her. In any case just because I was the one who did the stupid thing doen't mean it doesn't hurt. It does.

This specific hurt comes and goes in waves just as things naturally do but the swells of hurt seem to be a lot more prominent the the troughs of contentment and that just doesn't make any sense to me at all. As a matter of fact I am pretty sure that the visual effect of this would destroy ones sense of reality because it isn't physically possible, I don't think.

I go through periods when I am fine and happy and worrying about normal things; what subject to do for school, filling my tattoo sketch quota, what to make for dinner etc... and then all of a sudden she pops out of nowhere in the form of a hat or extra copies of photographs of her or a livejournal post, or all three (such are the current circumstances) in the space of a day, and I just get overwhelmed. I expect I might feel a tad differently if the contented times and the not-so-contented times were alternately placed throughout the fabric of my existence but as it were I tend to have short periods of contentment and the really long periods of overwhelming frustration, during which she just won't her face or name of my second-by-second train of thought.

So last night we were getting the girls halloween costumes ready (they and their two friends are going as gypsies) and Bella came out with this beret that my ex had given to me when her friend Elliot diedand I almost broke down righ then and there but ended up going all stoic on myself instead.

The first time we broke up I burned a set of pictures of her that I had taken and hated myself for it later. I misplaced the duplicate copies and so I forgot I had them and then I ran across them today while I was cleaning out my photograph cabinet. Then I broke down and cried.

Then, later today I saw that she had posted on Live Journal about some new poetic form, calleda minute, that she's fallen in love with and the only thing I could feelwas contempt (and it was thinly veiled contempt at that) because I felt like Iwould be violating her boundaries somehow if I decided to give this new form a try. I love writing poetry. Sometimes it's one of the very few things that keeps me sane.

IT HURTS.

...and what do I do to tell her all of these things that I have to tell her? How do I say that I think that she's a really amazing person but that I don't understand what's holding her back from doing what she really wants to do with her life? How do I say that I have written letter ofter letter after letter and poem after poem after poem and song after song after song for her? How do I tell her that I wish she would workshop some of my writing because I know she's good at it?

How do I tell her how upset I am that she decided tht it was within her power to sever all of her daughters ties with my sisters? How do I tell her how torn apart I was when I came to the revelation that Ysabel and Molly weren't going to be able to send her daughter a birthday card?

Those aren't questions that I expect to have answered by anyone in the near future but dammit, what do I do?

It makes me so sad that she doesn't want to see me. Especially now that I have all my shit together.

If by some odd, off-beat chance you are still reading this and are in fact the party in reference then I want you to know that I am not a terrible person, but I, like you, had problems of my own to sort out.

No, my problems are not healed over. I assume that like most serious issues, mine will have to be dealt with for the rest of my life.

No, my loss of you is not healed over and like my issues that will have to be dealt with for the rest of my life.

I can't say that I will never want to be "with" her again but I can say that I would at least like to be a friend and to have her be the same to me.

I am asking for friendship.

That's all.

Join us friends, join us!

2007-10-14T23:34:00.000-04:00

I just had to tell you all that I am officially signed up for NaNoWriMo.

For those of you who don't know NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month. That would be the month of November.

I could explain all of this in my own words but at the moment I am short on time and high on activity levels so I'll show you what they have to say aboutt them selves and write more on this subject later. This will also lead to he creation of my third blog to which I will link once it is created. Provided that it doesn't break any rules for NaNoWriMo, I will post all of my story there plus how many words are in each post. So here it is--

National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.

Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.

Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It's all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.

Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that's a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down.

As you spend November writing, you can draw comfort from the fact that, all around the world, other National Novel Writing Month participants are going through the same joys and sorrows of producing the Great Frantic Novel. Wrimos meet throughout the month to offer encouragement, commiseration, and—when the thing is done—the kind of raucous celebrations that tend to frighten animals and small children.

In 2006, we had over 79,000 participants. Nearly 13,000 of them crossed the 50k finish line by the midnight deadline, entering into the annals of NaNoWriMo superstardom forever. They started the month as auto mechanics, out-of-work actors, and middle school English teachers. They walked away novelists.

Or just visit nanowrimo.org. Join us friends, join us!

**Edit - My friends love me**

I have convinced one person to join us in NaNoWriMo, she also bought a t-shirt for my tattoo fund. Yay her. Many props.

A quick word about tattoos.

2007-10-09T10:24:00.000-04:00

There are a couple of articles on the MSN homepage about tattoos. One of the articles states that you would have to be hopped up on any number of drugs for a tattoo not to hurt like hell or that you would just have to be "into" pain.

Pardon the French but, BULL SHIT. Anyone who's ever gotten a tattoo or even has a lick of common sense knows that this is 98% determined by a person's individual physiology. Duh.

The other two percent go to where you get the tattoo and how good your artist is.

Some skin is just naturally more sensitive. I have a tattoo on the inside of my left wrist, one above each breast and one above my right outside ankle and they all hurt like hell because the skin is thin and sensitive. I also have a snake on my upper left arm, a phoenix on my left forearm, writing on my left shoulder blade, a little piece on my right shoulder and a rainbow colored, celtic knotted moon on my right bicep all of which hardly hurt at all because the skin is thicker and generally less sensitive and I have a pretty high pain tolerance.

Don't get me wrong, I'll scream and cuss as loud as the next person if I drop something heavy on my foot or if my cat decides to suddenly attack my leg for no apparent reason. So much of getting a tatto has to do with getting yourself ready for it. If you go into it knowing that it will hurt then you can prepare your brain for it. Certain studies also show that the overwhelming majority will say that getting a tattoo hurt less thn they thought it would. Go figure. I would one of those many people.

I'm not saying that tattoos don't hurt because they do, what I am against is the fact that people insist on portraying people with tattoos as brainless druggies or kinky people who are into pain for sexual reasons.

Just one more thing to add. The same woman who wrote this article said that tattoos hurt more than a C-section procedure. This is just a shot in the dark but don't all good practicing doctors anesthetize you before they do a major "I'm-going-to-cut-you-open-and-pull-out-an-eight-pound-human-being" surgery (like a C-section)? And if so, then wouldn't just about everything hurt more than a C-section since, you know, YOU CAN'T FEEL IT!?!? Duh.

Am I wrong? Do most doctors keep you awake and feeling for this kind of procedure, and if so, the WHY?

Alright, I'm done now.

100 Things about me.

2007-10-03T19:33:00.001-04:00

1. I’m turning 21 on November 16th.
2. My all-time favorite movie is Pulp Fiction”
3. I am an aspiring tattoo artist.
4. I used to have a very serious problem with telling the truth. I’ve gotten better and I haven’t stopped working on it either.
5. I identify as a gender queer lesbian. That means that I am a biological female who likes other women and doesn’t identify with either extreme of the gender continuum.
6. I have a deep love for all things that have to do with physics, quantum theory and quantum mechanics even though I can’t do the math that is involved with any of those things.
7. Right now I am home schooling my younger sister and soon we will be starting up with the k12 program which is essentially public school done in the comfort of your own home with none of the hassle of stupid kids with raging hormones and therefore no crying when you come home from school.
8. I currently have a never-ending booklist because every time I finish a book it seems that two more have made themselves known to me.
9. I write at least five pages in my journal every day.
10. I love algebra, but I couldn’t tell you why.
11. I am the only living member of my “blood family” who has brown hair and green eyes.
12. My favorite games are Scrabble, Balderdash, Trivial Pursuit, Boggle, Scattergories, Dirty Words and online games that have to do with unscrambling letter (eg. Text Twist on MSN games)
13. I like RPG’s as well. Dungeons and Dragons is my favorite though I haven’t played it in a very long while.
14. I have never witnessed a tornado, typhoon, tsunami or monsoon but I have witnessed a blizzard, an ice storm and a hurricane which is kind of odd because I live in a warm landlocked place.
15. I have a strange heritage. I come from the lines of Robert Bruce and William Wallace who didn’t like each other very much as you would know of you pay attention to your history or have ever seen the movie Braveheart. I also come from a line of Scottish horse thieves called Sparks, a clan that’s traced to long before William Wallace and Robert Bruce. Sparks is the earliest line of heritage traceable to my family.
16. The first chapter boo I remember reading is "Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret."
17. My favorite writers include but are in no particular order and certainly are not limited to: Stephen King, Mercedes Lackey, J.K. Rowling, Susannah Clarke, Cornelia Funke, T. Cooper, Stephen Hawking, Garrison Keillor, Robert A. Heinlein, Christopher Moore, Barbara Kingsolver, Colleen Redman, Mara Robbins, Fred First, Douglas Adams, Kazuo Ishiguro, Bran Froud, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Amy Tan and Richard Shenkman…oh and Lynn Truss.
18. I have three desks in my room right now. All of them are functional and must be kept that way.
19. I have two younger sisters and currently live with them and my parents while I try to work my way into and through a tattoo apprenticeship.
20. I have nine tattoos, six piercings (all ears), and 2 piercing scars (eyebrow and ear).
21. I love trying new foods.
22. I have eaten shark, alligator, jellyfish and seaweed salad, blowfish, bull testicles and a bunch of other strange things.
23. The channel I watch most on TV is the discovery channel
24. I collect pretty rocks and other cool nature stuff.
25. Sometimes I play the guitar but I’ve kind of stopped over the last 6 months or so.
26. Sometimes I knit just to make people wonder.
27. I love very easily.
28. I was born on November 16th, 1986. On that weekend (I was born on a Sunday) Crocodile Dundee topped the box office charts, Ronald Regan was the president and the average gas price in Georgia was $0.74 a gallon. Remember?
29. I once stuck one of my nostrils over the head of a nail just to see if it would fit. I was six and I got a nosebleed, quite possibly the worst I have ever had.
30. I eat with chopsticks every chance I get just to make my brain try a little harder.
31. I am currently learning how to draw pin-up girls.
32. I have been to Louisiana, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina, New York, Florida, The Bahamas, California, Kentucky, Virginia (existed there for about 9 months), and just about all over England.
33. Eventually I want to live in Virginia because it is the one place that feels like home no mater how far away from it I am.
34. Every once and a while I write some pretty good poetry.
35. If I had the option I would furnish my house entirely from IKEA
36. Sometime I make 20 minute long techno songs on ACID (not the drug, the computer program)
37. I am addicted to icanhascheezburger.com
38. I worked at a renaissance festival for two seasons doing the beanbag toss.
39. I have also worked as a low-class accountant.
40. I smoke roughly 5 cigarettes a day down from about a pack.
41. The most commonly used word in this post so far is “I”, go figure.
42. I miss my last girlfriend a lot. I lost her to my lies.
43. I was accepted into Hollins University but would never, EVER go there.
44. I am still working on my memoir/personal essays.
45. My favorite food is eel sushi.
46. My favorite musician is Amy Ray.
47. I typically use up a 100 page journal in less than a month.
48. I make dream catchers when I feel lonely.
49. Sometimes, when I don’t feel like I can really talk to anybody, I talk to my pillow instead. 50. My favorite candy is DOTS.
51. My favorite drink is Coke but I don’t drink it often.
52. I used to be mildly addicted to caffeine
53. I associate music with seasons.
54. I associate anything or anyone who has made a serious impact on my life with music.
55. My favorite holiday is Samhain.
56. I am a practicing solitary druid.
57. I am bad about bottling up my anger.
58. It very rarely takes me less than an hour after I have laid down to actually fall asleep.
59. Autumn and Winter are my favorite seasons.
60. I have been officially diagnosed with chronic asthmatic bronchitis.
61. I do not have asthma.
62. I have only ever had a crush on one of my teachers.
63. I would like to go ghost hunting at some point in my life.
64. We have 3 pets. 2 cats, Mario and Odei (Oh-Day) and one Guinea Pig named Moose.
65. I eventually want a pet snake.
66. I love to sit on the porch with my mom after it has gotten dark and talk.
67. I have a knack for photography.
68. I know how to change the oil and replace a tire on a car.
69. I’m pretty sure I have only been in one car accident but it may have been two.
70. I typically have really interesting dreams but every once and a while I dream about really common place dreams like going to the store or being in a car crash which is why I say that I may have been in 2 car crashes. I can’t remember if one of them was a dream or not.
71. Over the last nine months I have lost 32 pounds.
72. I have only ever been really drunk once, that number is going to go up this year on November 16th right after we go se Beowulf.
73. I like white chocolate about as much as I like telemarketers or a poke in the eye with a short stick.
74. My mom and I have both had the same recurring dream.
75. My Native American totem animal is the snake, I am also a scorpion, a tiger and a stag according to three other zodiac sources.
76. I have had three MMR vaccinations which is one more than you’re supposed to get.
77. I have also had to get a shot because I was bitten by a squirrel when I was five or something. I don’t remember what kind of shot it was though I do know that it wasn’t a rabies shot.
78. I have moved 4 times in my life.
79. I live just outside of Atlanta in the city of Stone Mountain.
80. Sometimes I shower 2 or 3 times a day for no other reason than that it calms me down.
81. I have given serious though to the possibility that I might be trans-gendered. I’m pretty sure I’m not though.
82. By the age of 19 I had slept with 2 people, that is 53% lower than the average American 19-year-old girl.
83. I really love Broadway and off-Broadway musicals, my favorite is either the Fantastiks or the Producers.
84. I have never witnessed Haley’s comet and won’t until the year 2064. I will be 78 years old. I have witnessed a comet though, but I don’t remember which on it was.
85. I have a 2 dollar bill hidden away somewhere in my room. I have had it since I was eight I think and none of my family members know.
86. On average I draw 2 tattoo designs a day.
87. I doodle when I take notes on something.
88. I went through a phase in which I was really interested in serial killers. Istill am but not to the same degree.
89. There are 50 candles in my bedroom that I know of.
90. I started this blog as a place to keep notes for my personal essays/memoir.
91. I believe in reincarnation.
92. I believe that there is no such thing as a necessary war.
93. I believe that this would be a much happier place if we were all expected to know the workings of all the major world religions.
94. I can’t listen to music and draw at the same time.
95. I do not enjoy doing yard work anymore.
96. I do a casting of the runes twice daily.
97. I don’t really do tarot anymore, it started to scare me.
98. I own four pairs of pants, 5 pairs of shorts, 31 shirts and 7 pairs of shoes.
99. I practice yoga twice a day, right after I wake up and right before I go to bed. I also meditate every night.
100. This took me entirely to long to write, I hope you found it mildly interesting.

HOLY COW!

2007-09-30T10:14:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was the best day ever and it can be described in two pictures.

WOOT!

It was great to hear Christopher Moore speak. He was really funny and great with the audience. He talked about writing his book Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christs Childhood Pal. He didn't come to the south for the tour for that book because he was scared that there would be too much conrtaversy surrounding it because it a comedic look at the missing 33 years of Jesus' life.

But because he didn't come here on that tour and indeed hadn't been down to the south since 1999 he was willing to talk about all of the books because we all had so many questions and so yeah.

Like I said he was really funny and really random and really disorganized. Great stuff.

So he signed my book and he signed my mom's copy of Coyote Blue and it was a lot of fun.

Everyone could come to the talk but there were only 200 tickets for the signing. We were there at six thrity in the morning and we ended up being two of 20 people there and by the time the talk started at seven forty five in the evening they still hadn't given all the tickets away but it was worth it being there early because...

you see wherew it says Steve on my ticket that means we were part of the first group that got there and that meant that we were the ones that got to have our books signed first and that was good because since we were up really early we didn't want to get home to late.

Yay.

In other news I am going to be putting up a new blog for all of my tattoo artwork because a lot of people here have been saying that they would love to see some of my artwork. Some of my artwork is already up on this sight but I understand that a lot of people don't want to scroll down the page to see it and all that. It just seems that antoher "sketch" blog would be easier.

By the way, if you like seeing some cool art you might wat to check out my friend Caity's sketch blog. If you do go over to her place then be sure to leave her a comment on some of her artwork because she's quite fantastic. You get there by going HERE. That is a good thing go and tall her how wonderful she is with a paper and pencil.

Alright now I have to go draw some more.

Peace peoples,
Leigh in Atlanta

Howdy folks!

2007-09-18T22:25:00.000-04:00

I am here. Drawing and teaching and all the like. I am working like crazy to get a portfolio together. I wish I could just put a bunch of my old tattoo designs together and call it done sometimes but my old stuff is pretty horrible so what I can do with my old work is take it all out, look through it, and redo and redesign some of the better stuff that I have stashed away. So that is what I am doing. I'm letting my shop on cafepress.com because I was spending to much time on getting images scanned in and stuff and I have to spend almost all of my free time drawing.

I've been doing a lot of Octopuses or Octopi or whatever it is, dunno why really 'cept for they are really fun and one of my friends wants me to design hers. Yay.

To get:

Skin pens (markers that won't dry out when you draw on skin with them).
Cigarettes.
New shoes.
New pants.
Some tattoo flashes.
Tattoo artist sketch books.

It's really starting to cool off here. For the last few days it hasn't gotten over 85 and at night it has been getting down into the high 50's. Quite a wonderful thing really. I love cooler weather. Yay.

Alright leaving to draw now. Bye y'all.

Open for business...maybe.

2007-09-10T00:08:00.000-04:00

Since there has been more then one request for T-Shirts and stickers and the like I went ahead and set up a shop on CafePress.com. This is mostly T-Shirts with my designs on them but there's a sticker a magnet and a messenger bag and boxers as well. I will add more, and infinitely cooler stuff, as time goes on but this is just one day's work with a retarded computer.

If you have any special requests for something specific that you would like then just let me know here or email me if you have my address. I can change any of the designs and which item they are on any time so it isn't no big thang.

If you are interested then come on over to Random Rabbit Designs.

All proceeds go to tattoo equipment as stated in my last post.

More Tattoo Designs from Random Rabbit Designs

2007-09-07T20:30:00.000-04:00

So I finally told my parents what it is that I really want to do, which is be a tattoo artist. My mom greeted it with open arms 'cuase she know that it will mean free tattoos for her and she's good with that. She also said that she will also support me in it all the way in any way she could. Dad was pretty indifferent to it, whih is pretty much what I expected him to be. I think he really wants me to be a musician but it's his dream and it's not what I really love.

All that said I just went and had one of my tattoos repaired 'cause the coloring was all messed up and I talked to the artist, Ben, and he said he really wants to help me with my art 'cause I apparently have a lot of potential. The biggest thing he told me to do with my artwork was to start doing all of my sketches in colour pencil first and then go back and hardline them with a regular pencil. So that is what I have been doing. and I have the sketches to prove it. here are a few.

So in order to make some kind of money and get myself off the ground I am thinking seriously about continuing my "Random Rabbit Designs" line on cafepress.com and using my tattoo designs for T-Shirts, Stickers, Buttons, etc... Who's with me?

Brick wall or The End.

2007-09-01T01:54:00.002-04:00

This is what I see myself turning into again. Hard, unmoving and opaque. I can see my feelings starting to slip away again. A slight change from the last post hmm? I read something of mine from back in February not long ago and I haven't been able to get it out of my head.

This unsent letter is not being friendly to me. The box that it is put away in is now glaring at me as a matter of fact the box with the letter in it actually started to "lurk" on my desk. What the heck do I do about that? How do I make that go away? I don't want to burn anymore letters, especially ones that I took the time to write out in ink on beautifully handmade stationary. It feels like giving up and what's worse is that when I look in the mirror it looks like I don't care anymore. That's not a good thing.

What the hell do I do? Part of me wants to just send it off, but the rational side of my brains says that sending it is a stupid idea because there's no way that I can be sure that the receiving party would actually read the damned thing. It wouldn't mean anything if they didn't read it. It would turn into a letter equivalent to Schrodinger's Cat. I wouldn't know if it was alive or dead until I found out for myself and I don't have the means of doing that. So, what then? Should I just hold onto it unil the time comes when I could be sure that the receiving party would read the letter or do I get rid of it now and have it continue to linger around, floating in my subconcious much like it is now and then not be able to do anything about it if an appropriate time ever comes around.

This is me becoming what I was in January all over again. I've built my walls all over again and not only are they near unbreakeable but I am starting to withdraw from them as well. It's like having a huge brick wall surrounding me and a tiny little hole of a cave right in the middle of it so that even if someone does manage to see over the bricks they wouldn't be able to spot me anyways. Sorry for getting all angsty on you. It just needs a forumand it isn't something that I can easily talk about at home because as far as everyone here is concerned it is better that I don't have contact with afore mentioned party anyways. They are far less than willing to listen to me yammer on about this particular subject.

I suppose, in retrospect, that this is in fact why I have not gotten over this to the degree that I would have hoped to by now. Simply not being able to really talk to anyone about it means that it isn't getting out in the way tat it needs to. I could write about this all day long and not feel like I had gotten anywhere. So why am I writing then? Because no one is listening at the moment and it is frusterating.

All that said, I am not the kind of person who ever completely lets go of something. Especially if that something has made a significant impact on my life. I am, in fact, of the philosophy that letting go of something that meant a lot to one is simply not possible in it's entirity. Things that make an impression on me have a tendency to end up embedded in my skin and this particular set of memories is going to end up just below the base of my neck right between my shoulder blades and it will look like this.

I have had it in mind since March and I won't be waiting much longer because if I can't talk about it then it will end up in my skin much sooer than it would have otherwise.

Now I have to go to bed because it is after 2 in the morning. Is this the end? I hope not because I miss a lot of things but I miss the afore mentioned party and I didn't mean to mess things up to this extent. I didn't want this to be the end, and I still don't.

Right then, Update!

2007-08-30T13:01:00.000-04:00

So Ysabel and I just started a religious studies class and it has been going extremely well save my dad who doesn't seem to be too terribly thrilled about it. I don't think that it's that he doesn't want her to learn about other faiths I think it's just that he's scared that she'll find one that suits her better than Christianity like I did.

The funny thing is that Ysabel has expressed to me numerous times over the period that we have been doing this class (two days) that she finds it easier to believe in the Pagan ideals of animism than she does to believe in the humanity based faiths (i.e. Christianity). I am desperately trying to find a way to make sure that I am strictly teaching her he facts about each religion that we cover rather than giving her my opinions, which isn't terribly hard to do since I know scarce little about most religions and therefore have not formed and opinions about them.

We started out covering some Pagan beliefs/faiths/spiritualities like Buddhism, Druidism, and Native American spiritualities per her request and have been comparing and contrasting them to Christianity for the sake of being fair. Today seemed to really strike a chord with her though when we started to compare and contrast the two relligions she found that is was harder for her to name differences between the two than it was to find the similarities. Yay.

Ysabel is currently learning how to write a narrative essay and afterwards she will be moving on to the more traditional accademic essay. She has chosen to write her accademic essay on Druidism based on what we have learned over the course of two days. I think that this is a truly amazing thing for an 11 year old to decide. So yeah.

In other news...ummm, not much else. Things here are good. Not as hot and certainly not as dry which are two fantabulous things. My bed is made, my room is neat and mom has almost gotten all of Ysabel's papers together in order to enroll her in the k12 program. Woohoo.

I"m signing out for now but I promise I will post again very soon lest the dreaded thunderbolt of nonblogging strike me where I stand or sit or whatever.

Peace Out.

My most recent tattoo projects. Some of these are still extremely rough.

2007-08-24T23:04:00.000-04:00

The one on the bottom right is my most recent addition to my skin. It has pink hair.

No rain yet.

2007-08-24T18:08:00.000-04:00

Even after the big lghtening storm last night there was no rain. There is a nice little surge heading our way though and it thundering like all hell's broken loose outside.

I have ben having trouble sleeping which isn't terribly abnormal a I tend to go through bouts of insomnia periodically. The thing is that usually my bouts of insomnia mean that I can go to sleep but I wake up in the middle of the night and can't get bac to sleep. My current sleep problem is that I can't seem to get to bed at a decent hour and then when I finally do I wake up again and can't get back to sleep. I think I can attribute my not getting to sleep at a decent hour to the weather. It hasn't rained here since July and it's been hot as all blue blazes with highs in the hundreds and the heat index on top of that. I have no AC in my room so that isn't good. I hope it rains while I am going to bed tonight. Rain always makes me sleep better.

Please, let it ... HOLY CRAP IT"S RAINING! WOOT!

Wow. A lightening storm, the first draft of a poem and a quote of the day.

2007-08-23T20:42:00.000-04:00

I wish I could take some video of this lightening storm to post here. It's easily one of the scariest things I have ever seen.

The clouds appear to be moving away from us but the lightening is getting closer. There is an almost constant rumble of thunder and the lightening is coming roughly every five seconds. No exaggeration there. It's really creepy. It would be a really good night for watching scary movies but I think it would be a miracle if we didn't lose power so I'm gonna skip on the movie and watch the storm.

To one person in particular: I wish you could be here to see this. I would give you flowers in a lightening storm just like the Dar Williams song says.

To a separate person in particular: I am glad that you are here right now.

To a different separate person in particular: The lightening says that I still love you, and that I always will no matter what you think of me.

In, Over and On.

summer rolls in
heavy and flashing
forks in the sky roads
to fast to see but

they linger on the backs of your eyeballs
you can see where they were
only when
you shut everything
out

heavy and flashing
summer rolls over
constant rolling rumbles
that never go away

it lingers on certain waves of air
waiting to be caught by
your ears
when you shut everything
out

heavy and flashing
summer rolls on
distant as it moves on to
another town that isn't ready for

what lingers, heavy and flashing
senses tuned to other
passing times when
you shut everything
out.

Quote of the day: Are we politics or democrats? - Molly Rainey, age 9.

Well crap.

2007-08-23T12:14:00.000-04:00

Teaching Ysabel how to write a narrative essay is a lot harder than I thought it would be.

At this point we're working on what makes a good opening line and like the home-school program that we are using I am taking the Montessori approach and letting her work a lot of it out at her own pace. That said it is probably going to be a while before the actually thing is done.

I want her to have a reference point for what good essays are but I think it is extremely important that these reference points are her own work so we're going to do the narrative essay until she has a damn near perfect one so that she can look back on it and have a fabulous reference point that SHE created so that she can also gain confidence from the experience. That is going to be a major part f this project, getting her to see that she can do something and do it well the first time through and also that doing things right the first time through takes time and effort.

Alright now we are going to go do art and I want to make this fun so I'll talk at you later.

OMG...

2007-08-21T13:07:00.000-04:00

I totally forgot I had this until I started rummaging aroundon my PC for some wrtiting to work on. This is the beginning of a basic plotline for a graphic novel that I started working on about 4 years ago and never rememberee to work on. Mind you this is rough and like I said only the first part. I'll draw it all up soon and post it for you to see here but for now here is the basic storyline so far.

Eden.

There was quiet…that was about it. Eden was pretty sure that she was lying on her back but she couldn’t quite tell. It was dark out and she saw vague shapes on what she supposed was her ceiling. She had a headache, that’s what she had. This was not fun. She stumbled out of the bed to the bathroom took four aspirin tablets and stumbled back to bed. There was soft patter, it was so soft, almost inaudible. Snow. She laid on her back for a while and drifted in and out of sleep.

RING. Eden scowled to herself, reached over and put the cordless phone up to her ear. RING. She pulled the phone away and pressed the “talk” button. She was not a happy half-conscious camper.

“Hello?” Eden’s voice was horse and sore and angry. She was tense with the lack of sleep and she had a charley horse. These circumstances assured her that the hello was not as friendly as it might have been. Oh well.

“Well, I’m glad that you’re in such a peachy mood.” Mick’s tone was harsh. “Do you know what time it is?” There was a pause; “It’s three A.M. Ede. You were supposed to be at the warehouse an hour ago. This guy called me and jumped all over my back because you weren’t there. I think he has little man syndrome or something, he’s only like five two. Anyway, get up and get down to the warehouse. NOW.” Another pause, “I try so hard to help you Ede. You’ve got to keep up with this, I can’t always save your ass.” CLICK

“Fine, Mick, I’ll be there in no ti…” She rolled out of bed, slipped on some jeans a tank top and her pilot’s jacket. She walked out of the apartment and looked down the street. It was only three blocks to the warehouse. She hurried through the chill buttoning up her jacket. There was a truck with a small trailer and a very large man. They were incredibly out of proportion to each other. The person was the larger of the two. Eden could tell that he was looking at her and she stopped for a moment and the tall figure walked away down the street without saying a word. Eden looked around for the truck driver. Mick had said he was a small guy. She shrugged it off, unloaded the trailer and went home. Lying in bed again, all she could think about was the absent truck driver. She picked up the phone and dialed Mick’s number.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
“Hello?” Mick’s voice was rough with the first tidbit of sleep. “Mick, its Ede. Something’s wrong. I went to the warehouse and the driver wasn’t there. There was a big guy, I mean really huge but I didn’t see the driver. All of the crates were there and I unloaded them. I counted them there were only supposed to be five right? I loaded them into the warehouse and locked them up and it went smooth other than that the driver wasn’t there. Something’s wrong Mick.”

“Ede, slow down. As long as the cargo is safe it’s all right. We’ll go down and check it out in the daytime all right?” Eden was confused, how could he be so calm about this? This felt wrong. “Mick, shouldn’t we go see now? I mean, what if he’s dead? Shouldn’t we go now? Won’t that look bad to the authorities?” Click. “Mick?” The line was quiet. “Shit.” Eden sat for a moment and mulled things over in her head and eventually decided that it would be better to wait until it was light but she didn’t sleep.

Ffffffffdomp. Eden jumped at the sound and the cats came running into the room. She looked around the dark room and her eyes settled on a heavy flashlight. She walked around the corner into the short hall of her tiny apartment. She took a few cautious steps into her living room. Standing against the counter of her tiny kitchen she could see across her barren apartment to her small windowed office. The office had a little porch off of it. Eden walked over to the sliding glass door and opened it. Under the light of her flashlight she could see a body…and feathers. Feathers? She slid the door all the way open. Feathers and blood.-----------------------------------------------------------------
Eden ran the light over the naked body on her porch. There were big black feathers sticking to the blood that was splattered on the sliding glass door and porch. As she looked over the body again she noticed that the back was propped and as she watched the body fell a little. Whatever was propping it had given way. Eden went back inside her apartment and gathered a blanket and two pillows. Back on the porch Eden laid down the blanket and put the two pillows over it lengthwise. She managed to get the body onto the pad, wrapped the body, and carried it in to her couch. Eden sat in the chair and stared at the couch across from her and the body on it. Deep breath. Eden ran her fingers through her hair and watched the injured body breathe shallowly.

Eden saw her cats slowly come into the room. She trusted her cats more than any person. They came and sat on her for a moment watching the couch with her before they got up to examine it more closely. Eden kept a close eye on what they were doing and how they were responding to the body on her couch. The cats sat on the table between her chair and the couch. They looked at the body and looked at each other as if they were talking about the strange circumstances. They were in fact, speaking with each other, but Eden wouldn’t have known, as she did not speak feline. “Well, they told us she would come.” Jasper said matter of fact like. “I wasn’t expecting her to fall in front of me. You jumped too, so you can stop laughing now.” Sushi flicked her tail in the most irritated manner she could. Jasper just laughed a little and jumped over to the couch and curled up into a comfortable ball on the stomach of the body. He was shortly followed by Sushi who curled up next to him. Eden was assured a little by seeing the cats sleep on the body. They knew what was good and what was bad and they were very cautious. Soon Eden curled up into a comfortable little ball as well and slept.-----------------------------------------------------------------
Mick looked outside and saw the horribly huge flakes of snow. Something felt funny. He took a look around. The clock was where it normally was, the bed was below him, the cover above him, and the room was still around him. The room, in fact, was not around him and had he taken the time to really look he would have seen that his walls were misty, essences of the walls that they represented. The snowflakes that fell were not large, they were merely blurry and so they appeared that way. Mick was being watched, in the corner of the represented room was a figure that kept its eyes fixed on the man in the bed. He was large, abnormally so. He had seen the girl at the loading dock she wasn’t what he had been sent for. This man, He was the one that was supposed to be at the loading dock. The large man put Mick back in his room and let him be. He left the apartment and looked back at the door. “I know who you are Mick.”

Dear Diary...

2007-08-18T11:08:00.000-04:00

The following is the essay that inspired me to write a memoir. The essay was turned in for a women's studies course but all of the little pieces that come into it are all pulled from my journal at the time. Little snippets about my body parts and this is what I came up with.

Writing This Body.

This body has made me aware of many things. My form gives me my perception of my gender or lack thereof. It feels like a cop out for me to look down and say, “Oh, I have a cunt. Well then, this is how I am supposed to act.” An examination of my body tells you that I am a biological female, fine, but the perception of my gender relies on a whole lot more than what is in my pants. I am not saying that this is true for everyone, certainly, there are those who think that your sex has an effect on your gender and others that would argue that your biological makeup is the sole factor of your gender. This is not my truth. While this realization is fairly new to me, and the terminology even more so, I have never felt as though I truly fit into any particular gender. Certain body parts have been instrumental in this particular discovery, so I am writing not just about one experience but about many experiences. These stories involve my shoulders, breasts, legs, armpits, ears, hands, eyes, hair, voice and my phoenix tattoo and the roles they played in unearthing myself as gender queer.

Shoulders.

At my tenth birthday party, there were three other girls. There were hours after the cake and presents when we pretended to be unicorns in my back yard. I was the prince unicorn. When I asked why I was the prince, one of the girls responded by saying that I was the most boyish. When I asked why I was the most boyish the girls tossed blank stares at one another before one girl volunteered that it was because I had the widest shoulders and all good-looking boy unicorns had wide shoulders. I took this as a solid truth and indeed, I do have wide shoulders. What did I learn? I make a very handsome unicorn prince. To the best of my knowledge, this is the first point at which I can remember taking the time to sit down and really consider gender roles and where I fit into the scheme of things. I did not know what to think when I came to no real conclusion about myself. I did not know what to do when I could not figure out where I really stood. If everyone had his or her place, and I could not see mine, then what did that make me?

Breasts

In the fourth grade, I had very noticeable breasts. This is common of women in my family. At this point, breasts were what really set me apart as a girl. I was very aware of them, as I was the only girl in class who had developed to any extent. They were an object of marvel for the other girls and classmates often asked me questions regarding my chest.
I went to a performing arts school and we spent a lot of time in the dressing rooms. My most prominent memory of my breasts takes place here. As we were readying ourselves for a performance, I lifted my shirt and a flock of curious girls surrounded me almost instantly. I did not particularly care that they wanted to know, feel, and see my chest as I have always loved enlightening those who are curious. It occurred to me during this time that I was able to hold my breasts as a point of pride; they were something people admired about me. Later that night while sitting on my bed, I found myself considering once again the idea of gender roles. If I had breasts and that made me proud then that put me into the gender most closely associated with breasts, right? Apparently not.
I eventually became very interested in strapping my breasts down. I loved the idea of people thinking that I was a boy so I was often found in the men’s clothing section, breasts strapped to my rib cage. I suppose this fascination sprouted from male privilege but it grew into a personal love for gender bending. I felt much more free and found that I was able to express myself in ways that had been previously untapped. Karate, visual art, music; these were all things that sprouted from my ace bandages and compression shirts. I was very proud of myself for finding this outlet and being able to fight social norms in a way that made me stand out.

Legs/Armpits

I have hairy, stumpy legs. I love them to death, but they are hairy and stumpy. While I was playing at school, a boy told me. “You have legs like mine. You should not have legs like mine you are a girl. I‘ll bet you have hairy armpits, too.” This sort of thing has constantly confused me. It was very difficult throughout my early teenage years to distinguish between what is personally comfortable and what is socially acceptable. I started shaving my legs and armpits after my talk with the boy on the playground. This never felt right to me but I did it for the sake of my acceptance and it was almost eleven years later when I realized that shaving was not really my kind of thing, but rather what everyone expected from me It was foolish of me to think that changing one piece of myself, such as whether or not I shave, would grant me the acceptance of my peers. At that point in my life I was surrounded by people who did not care about who I was but rather what I looked like. Most people, even now, have a hard time seeing around the aesthetics to where the gender really lies. My gender is not in my armpits.

Ears

When I was three my grandma took me to get my ears pierced. My grandma had tried numerous times to convince me that it would make me much more feminine, so I obliged. I hated the earrings for knotting in my hair and the care that they required. So I got my mom to take them out early and the holes healed. When I was twelve, I told my mom that I wanted to get one ear pierced. Why just one? Well, in truth, it was a spiritual piercing, but I told my mom it was because I wanted to be a pirate. Now, seven years later, I have three holes in each ear all of which are spiritual. The piercings in and of themselves are not masculine in any way, but the earrings that I wear through are ones that I pick from the selection of “men‘s“ earrings. I gauged all of the holes in my ears myself, stretching them to the point of a very distinctive ache. The pain and infection that ensued was all part of it. My intent was not to be masochistic, but rather to prove, in some small way, that I was as strong as my male counterparts. The experience of stretching the holes in my ears has made me tougher, more rugged somehow.

Hands

These hands have done a lot in nineteen years. My hands are deliberate hands: they have learned to defend themselves and me; they write poetry and play music; they have pushed people away and drawn them in. I have made love with these hands. My gender identity plays in here. The sex that my hands engage in makes them feel powerful. Throughout all of my active sex life my hands have been the most crucial physical part of me. When I nearly had sex with my first boyfriend my hands saved me from doing something that I did not really want. This is perhaps the most powerfully feminist action my hands have ever taken. While I was with my first female sexual partner my hands began to know themselves and how they were related to my gender. The intensity of sex with her transferred itself to my hands because they are what I use. This potency, transduced to power, made me much more aware of my hands and what exactly they could do. Now there is an incredibly erotic connection between my hands and the skin of my current partner. That my hands have the ability to bring her to orgasm without much effort is perhaps one of the single most satisfying aspects of my active sex life. Before me there were male partners in her life and it thrills me to know that I, in some respects, am better than they were. The difference in sex between my first female partner and my current partner is the difference between stroking someone and being inside of them. It never really occurred to me that penetration was something that was lacking from the previous relationship. This sounds very deeply gendered but it really does not feel that way to me. I consider the sex involving my hands to be very androgynous. I suppose that this is because hands are natural to humans. Potentially, anyone could do what I do with my hands.

Eyes

I have always considered my eyes feminine. Lined with dark lashes, they have a shape to them that always strikes me as very womanly. I suppose that looking only at my eyes one would be able to tell whether I was a man or a woman. Many people tell me things about my eyes, but most commonly people call them beautiful. This, I suppose, is the other major reason that I call them feminine. Beauty, at least in our culture, is a word that is most closely associated with that which is female or has overwhelmingly feminine aspects. Since this is the case, it would make sense that I would label my eyes as such. I know that many people can tell my sex by looking at my eyes and it is because of this that I have taken to doing the same thing. What has occurred to me, however, is that sometimes it is possible to determine ones gender by looking at their eyes as well. An eye can give away a lot of information about it‘s owner, especially when adorned by makeup or something else of the sort. If this were the case then I would expect that I have very gender-neutral eyes, as I never make them up to be more than they really are.

Hair

When I was young, I had golden brown ringlets that fell past my shoulders. They remained that way until I was five or six. Ironically, my grandma, who is still constantly trying to convince me that I need to be more feminine, took me to her hairdresser and got all of my haircut down to about three inches. My mom was furious with her and my hair grew out for a long time before I got another haircut. I was thirteen when I made the decision, completely of my own accord, to cut my hair short once again. My hair was shaggy. When I bandaged my chest down, which I did quite often then and still make practice of on occasion, it was difficult to tell whether I was a boy or a girl. I loved this; it was a great sense of empowerment to know that I was able to make people question my sex and gender. The first school year after I cut my hair short was perhaps one of the happiest I have had. At my request, and before my knowledge of gender-neutral pronouns, friends and teachers always referred to me as Leigh, never with pronouns, and those that did not know me tended to follow suit. It is very easy for me to thrive in a place where I am not coded by my sex or gender. Everything about my physical appearance was gender neutral from the shoes on my feet to the hair on my head.

Voice

It has been hard for me to associate any gender with my voice. I have never had an issue with telemarketers knowing what sex I am yet when I go to a restaurant people insist on calling me sir. Apparently, my voice is feminine enough to the point that when someone who does not know me talks to me they can identify me as female, but when you put my voice and my form together, it becomes more masculine. This situation is not one that I try to create, it simply happens.
When I sing, however, I often make a conscious choice to sound masculine, feminine or right smack in the middle of the gender continuum. When I sang Romeo and Juliet to my partner, Mara, the first time we met I made a point to sound as distinctly male as I could. I wanted to be Romeo and singing. Some months later, as I put the youngest of our family to sleep, I sang Red is the Rose. My voice was higher then with a maternal Irish lilt. When I sing my favorite love song, Rodeo, I try to sound as gender neutral as I can. I only wish that I could sing it to a telemarketer to see what they would think.

Phoenix

Though my phoenix is an addition to my body it symbolizes much of what I have been talking about in the previous sections. There are two reasons for the bird on my arm. One of these has to do with gender, the other has to do with my body and so I thought it would be appropriate for the work at hand. Half of the reason I chose to imbed this mythical bird into my arm sprouted from being the victim of a hate crime. The forearm where the avian kin makes its home is the one place on my upper body where I suffered no damage. This phoenix is a reminder that I have the ability to become new again and work through the times that come to pass with the knowledge of my history. The other half of my reasoning finds its place within the idea that a phoenix has no set sex or gender. This marking is solely mine. It represents two of the most crucial aspects of my life and with these two reasons at hand, it gives me the reassurance that I am going to find myself and be comfortable when I get there.
I have questioned my gender since I was 10. It was not until I was 19 that I was able to find the term with which I was truly able to identify. I am gender queer. I have never liked labels but it often seems that they are necessary in our society. I assign myself this term so as not to cause too much confusion among the herded masses.

Another piece.

2007-08-12T22:41:00.000-04:00

Actually his is partially another coming out sotry but the second bit is pretty funny. Again any constructive criticism would be great. Personally I think this piece flows a little better than the one about my 10th birthday but my opinion matters very little at this point. What do you think?

After my move back down to Atlanta in January of 2007 my mom and I started having some pretty amazing conversations. To the best of my recollection it started not long after a particularly difficult break up.

“You want a cigarette?” she asked. That was a definite affirmative. I did want a cigarette very much. So we stepped outside to sit at our porch table and we talked until close to one in the morning. Not about anything in particular, just talked.

My mom has always been really open with me sometimes to the point of a flaw. Revealing too much information at one time. Such a time often sent me into shock or allowed me far to much of a look at her own sex life or something else that might have been far too much for any other kid to take. I am not scarred. Well, not badly anyway.

Our talks on the porch became very frequent until they were a nightly ritual. We would clear off the table, put the food away, clean the kitchen and maybe watch some TV until it was bedtime for the little sisters and then we would go outside and just talk.

Our talks ranged from what happened that day to just about anything else you could possibly think of. Aliens, the Pope, poetry to heavier subjects like her relationship with my dad to nasty break ups to gender. Gender, that was an interesting one.

Mom and dad and my sisters had all been out of the house for some reason that I can’t remember. They probably went up to see my grandmother or something. In any case I had the house to myself and when such is the case I usually at least check to see what’s on LOGO, our one gay channel in our cable package. There was a show that was following the lives of three gender queer people. By this time I had been identifying as gender queer for some time so it obviously caught my attention. People just like me on the television. I was all over that like shit on Velcro. So I watched and these people were all in various stages of coming out to various loved ones.

Coming out as gender queer hadn’t ever really struck me as something that I needed to tell people. I just was. If someone asked me if I was a girl or a boy my response was usually, “Yes, I am.” However, watching these people made me very aware that if I didn’t come out then I was really likely to be mistaken for trans-gendered when the issue finally presented itself.

So I thought about this throughout the entire day and because I was dwelling on it in such an intense way I got “coming-out” paranoia all over again. I was positive that my mom would really not be able to get her head around it. This was a silly thing to think since mom was the person who introduced me to quantum physics and quantum mechanics through the movie “What The Bleep Do We Know?” and had been the first family member that I came out to, to which she pretty much responded with “Well, DUH! I’ve known since you were, like, eight.”
They got home while I was in my room posting on my blog. They had been gone for a long time and it was pretty late as it goes for a house of people who usually have to be up pretty early. My sisters went almost immediately to bed, dad found something interesting on TV and mom and I stepped out onto the porch for our nightly chat. It all came rushing out of me at that point. I was so scared and felt so pent up. She looked at me for a minute and said, “I think you just came out to me all over again but say it all again, slower this time please.” Well of course she wasn’t going to be all weird about it. Duh.

So I ran it by her again. I told her about how some days I feel more masculine than others. Some days I feel like I really need to bind my chest down in order to feel comfortable with my body and some days I am really pleased with the fact that I am a biological female which does not necessarily mean that I will be feminine since I never really have been in the first place. I told her all about how you have to be able to look at gender as a continuum and not two boxes. There are women and men and trans-folk and then there are other people who don’t really fit into any of that. People like me.

We ended up having a pretty long discussion about what exactly it meant to be gender queer. What the difference was between being gender queer and being trans and as I figured tat was a pretty good-sized portion of the conversation. Thank a higher being that my mom is a smart, open-minded person. The conclusion that we eventually came to is that there isn’t a specific group of people that can be labeled as gender queer but that it’s kind of a relative thing. It doesn’t have anything to do with your sexuality or sex but it has everything to do with what you are comfortable with.

!@ $ & * # ! ^ $ @ * & !

During another one of our nightly talks we got onto the subject of how kids do some really stupid shit. Mom was regaling me with one of my all time favorite stories. She and her two little sisters had gone with their mom, my grandma, to run some random errands throughout the day and had been out for a long time. My grandma decided to take them to a place, now pretty much forgotten, called Farrel’s. They placed their orders and mom had something equivalent to a smoothie or a milkshake. While they were having their snacks mom’s little sisters were being big pains in the butt and my mom was being very sweet and refined. Their mom pointed this out with something like, “Now see how nice your sister is being, she is behaving so well,” which is a line that often leads to disaster especially when young children are involved. Sure enough my mom’s head swelled up to the size of a hot air balloon and as she went to take another sip of her treat she missed her mark and stuck the straw directly up her nose. The result of this, as you might well imagine, was two younger siblings and a mother who nearly died in fits of laughter.

The immediate thought that came to my mind was, “Gah, I don’t remember ever doing anything so stupid,” which was quickly followed by another thought, “Oh wait, yes I do.” As I went on thinking about what was easily the most embarrassing moment of my life I inevitably started to laugh.

“Geez, the story can’t be that funny after all the times that you’ve heard it,” mom said, looking a little confused.

“No, it’s not that. I just realized hat I’ve got you beat out,” I managed through fits of giggles. So I told her my story, which I have modified for your reading pleasure.

This takes place when I was five or so. We were living in a different house. It was a nice ranch-style house with a good-sized front yard. There was little walk way that went along the front of the house to this little side yard that had a lattice fence that separated it from the front yard and that was my favorite place to play because there was a crazy lady who lived next door to us who had four or five dogs and a llama or three. I was frequently over in the little side yard trying to get the dogs to eat worms. Not in a mean way you understand, I just wanted to see if they would. Anyway, it was a warm day when said embarrassing moment took place. I was walking out to the side yard to play when I noticed that there was a head and about and inch and a half of nail sticking out of one of the posts of the charming little lattice fence. I stood there for a while contemplating the existence of the nail and whether or not I could reasonably fit one of my nostrils over it. I decided that I could probably do it without causing myself any harm so I gave it a try. It fit. Who knew?

So there I am with my young, stupid little self attached to a fence post with the head of a nail stuck up my nose and damn it I was proud. I had calculated correctly, it did fit and I didn’t hurt myself. I slid my nose off of the nail and I was fine. I wasn’t stuck, there was no need for firemen or police there wasn’t any blood. Blood. There was suddenly blood everywhere. I had just induced a horrible nosebleed. Now, I was pretty prone to nosebleeds when I was younger and therefore used to them so I immediately cupped both of my hands under my nose. This was more blood than I was used to. I walked to the front door so as not to splatter any blood from my nose/faucet onto my clothes. I got to the screen door, removed one hand from underneath my nose and wiped it as best I could on the side of the house before opening the door and slipping inside.

“Mom?” I inquired, “MOM?”

My mom looked up from the dishes saw me and my bloody hands and face and came over to me with a wet rag. As she walked over to me this thought alone ran through my terrified little head. “She can never, never know how this happened.” She didn’t find out until March of 2007 I believe but when she did she too almost died in a fit of uncontrolled laughter. For at least a week afterwards she couldn’t look at me without smirking, though I don’t think she knew she was doing it.

Hmm.

2007-08-11T19:44:00.000-04:00

I would like some help please. The following is the newest addition to my memoir type thing. At the moment it is very, I repeat, VERY rough. Therefore I would like to know what you think could be made more funny/readable/accesable/personable/whatever. Read it through and let me know what you think. Thanks a bundle. No comments on puctuation or anything, I can fix that by myself just what you think I could add or take away.

At my 10th birthday party, that was 1996, there were four girls. Me (duh), Katie, Faven, and Becky. That morning I was a nervous wreck for no reason in particular except that I was turning 10 and was about to have the biggest birthday party that I could remember, three whole friends spending the night at my house. Eventually, they came. I say eventually because I have very clear memories of being up around 6-ish that morning seeping anticipation from every orifice that my body had to offer. Katie, who had been my best friend since 1st grade, was the first to arrive with a package. Let it be noted here that I never really intended to make that big of a deal about my birthdays but presents were a whole other thing. Packages with my name on them were, and usually still are, a very good thing. Becky was next to arrive, also with a package, and Faven, despite living almost directly around the corner from me was an hour and a half late and sans a package.
I had a choice about the food; mom would either buy a cake and fix dinner or buy dinner and fix a cake. My mom is a fabulous cook so either would have been wonderful but I opted for the cake. She made a chocolate cake called a Black Beast, I don’t remember the entire recipe but I do remember that it calls for three entire sticks of butter and pretty much nothing else except crap-loads of unsweetened and semi-sweetened bakers chocolate. It was so amazingly dense and rich that if you cut yourself a slice that was more than an inch wide you were not likely to finish it. So we shoveled one and a half extra large pizzas into our young gullets and proceeded, unhindered by the grease of Pizza Hut, onto the cake and ice cream after which we laid on the living room floor and watched a movie, no movement required. Once the sugar started to kick in we played everywhere and made a mess of everything that we touched. It was a typical ten-year-old’s birthday party. Here’s an off-hand point for ya, I was born and raised in Atlanta and I hate hot weather, those don’t mix well for those of you who weren’t aware, so I have always considered it a blessing that my birthday is in November, when our weather starts to cool off, otherwise all of my birthdays would have been completely miserable. Anyway, my mom eventually kicked us out of the house and into the back yard. We sat idly on my back stoop for a while before Katie said, “Let’s pretend we’re unicorns.” So we did, for hours we pretended to be unicorns in my back yard, constantly interrupting each other with “and pretend…blah blah blah”. Anyone who has kids or pays attention to the swarms of kids that seemingly come out of nowhere and into the daily lives of many, will recognize this phrase. However, I was removed from the game because while we had been making up the basic plotline for our nice little unicorn adventure I had an epiphany shoved down my throat. We decided, in our own miniscule 10-year-old fashion, that there was going to be one unicorn price and three female unicorns that were all vying for the prince’s affections. I was the prince unicorn.
“Why am I the unicorn prince?” I was confused.
Faven responded with, “Because, uh, you’re the most boyish.”
“What?” You can insert a mental image of a very confused 10-year-old girl here if you like, but you probably get the idea. “Why?”
“Well you do have the widest shoulders and all good unicorn princes have wide shoulders, duh.” This was Katie piping in her two pennies.So I went along with it. I actually have pretty slender shoulders for someone my size but then I probably did have the widest shoulders of the bunch. What did I learn? Well for one, I make a very handsome unicorn prince. Secondly and most important to my future was the fact that I was really okay with being the boy and liked the idea of having girls vying for my affection and that had it, under some strange twist of events, been that I was playing a princess and all of my friends were playing boy unicorns I would not have been okay with it. As a matter of fact that idea of having boys chasing after me, or even waiting patiently for me to cross their paths, made me feel, well, icky.
To the best of my knowledge, this is the first point at which I can remember taking the time to sit down and really consider my sexuality and where I fit into the scheme of things. Thankfully, I have the most amazing mom in the world and therefore had a book called “A Kid’s First Book About Sex” and from that book I learned that I was not freak, just a lesbian.

Soooo?

I finished it. Warning lots of pictures of books.

2007-08-05T18:31:00.000-04:00

Yesterday around 7:30 pm we got the last installmant in the Harry Potter series and my mom graciously allowed me to read it first because she wanted to read the sixth one again before she read the seventh. I started the book when we got home around 8 and read until 2 in the morning at which point I was 300 and some odd pages into it before I had to go to sleep. I woke up got coffee skipped breakfast did my house work and started reading again around 11 this morning. At 5:30 this evening I finished it. 12 and a half hours give or take some for geting up for something to drink or having to read some bits a few times over. I am extrememly pleased with the last book. The ending was perfect.

So I must say the following: J.K. Rowling you are an amazing woman for writing such a fantastic series. Your books have inspired so many to spend fewer hours in front of their televisions and simply lock themselves in their rooms and read. That is a truly astounding accomplishment. Congratulations on making the world a better and infinitely cooler place thorugh your art. Please continue to write. The fate of the world could quite possibly, at this point, lay at your fingertips.

Also saw the fifth movie yesterday and was quite impressed with the book to film translation. Dolores Umbridge was about as accurate as is humanly possible without the actor themself being completely evil. Also for those of you who have read the fifth book and have not seen the movie yet (dont worry no spoilers here) Harry is not, at least not to the same magnitude, the whining snivelling little prat that he was in the book. Radcliffe played him beautifully, and with a whole lot more punch than Harry had in the book which makes the movie quite an amazing thing in and of itself. The parts that they leave out (which simply has to happen for the sake of our poor butt cheeks and short attention spans) are not the extremely crucial parts that they have made a horribly horrendous habit of skipping over in the past movies. Well done.

In other news I also got the newest Augusten Borroughs book yesterday, it's called "Possible Side Effects".

If there are any of you out there who have not any books by this incredibly amazing author then I suggest you get busy laying your grubby little hands on everything the man has ever written, most especially his most popular book "Running With Scissors". If there are any of you out there who have seen the recently made movie and have not read the book then you are in luck because the movie was rather like The Shawshank Redemption in the it was the book almost verbatim. I strongly suggest that you both read the book and see the movie. Most especially because simply seeing the book would leave you sorely lacking and reading the movie would not be half as funny. Anyhow, now that I have finished the Harry Botter book I will start in on Possible Side Effects.

The remainder of my reading list for this year is as follows:

Stardust - Neil Gaiman
Fragile Things - Neilf Gaiman
Smoke and Mirrors - Neil Gaiman
Time Enough for Love - Robert Heinlein

I Will Fear No Evil - Robert Heinlein
Citizen of the Galaxy - Robert Heinlein
The Number of the Beast - Robert Heinlein
The Salmon of Doubt - Doulas Adams

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency - Douglas Adams
The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul - Douglas Adams
The Bonesetters Daughter - Amy Tan
Saving Fish from Drowning - Amy Tan

Jonathan Stange and Mister Norrell - Susanna Clarke
The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
Like Water for Chocolate - Laura Esquivel
Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

And
Lipshitz 6, or Two Angry Blondes
by T. Cooper

What's on your reading list right now?

Homeschooled Chicken!

2007-07-31T12:59:00.000-04:00

Yes, the moment you have all been waiting for. Ysabel's homeschooling blog is now up and running with three brand new exciting posts for you to read. You'll laugh, you'll laugh some more, and then you might laugh again because all three of the posts up there are the limericks that we worked on in creative writing today.

Any posts made on her blog under the display name Homeschooled chicken are written by Ysabel, the display name 'Lil Sis is Molly and Leigh in Atlanta is still me. All three of us will be posting on Homeschooled Chicken from time to time so I will put links up here every tim there is something new to read over there.

In case you missed it before here's that link again.

An interesting dream (AKA long post).

2007-07-28T15:12:00.000-04:00

I have an interesting relationship with my dreams. In common terms my dreams are just about always very vivid and I typically suffer from a lot of nightmares. I think the nightmares are a kind of lay over from the night terrors that I used to have when I was small. My dreams very rarely mean nothing and when they do they are all in very dull drab colors, almost like a sepia tone.

I think I mentioned this in a post not to terribly long ago, but I just recently went through a spell during which I was not remembering any of my dreams. Needless to say this scared me a bit because I typically I have them so frequently and they usually so vivid. I keep a notebook set aside just for my dreams which is something that almost no one knew about until now. Even ex-lovers and good friends and my parents don't know. I always keep them hidden because they seem so personal. I will talk about them though.

(Quick note: all people that I reference in my dream are naked.)

Anyway, this period of no dreams was broken last night. I dreamt that I was and walking up a mountain to some kind of temple in the side of a mountain. I was on the way to my wedding but I couldn't remember who I was getting married to. Once the ceremony started the two of us, another woman and myself, walked down the aisle next to each other. There was no one else in the temple but as we walked down to the altar, low stone pews started to appear in front of us one at a time and as we passed them they filled with people with no eyes. There was a really young child indeterminable sex (no mouth or eyes) and a phoenix at the stone table altar. By the time we got to the altar all the people that had previously appeared were gone and the temple had become very small, almost claustrophobic. The child poured salt over her head and the phoenix at both mine and the other woman's eyes and we turned to face each other. I could see her and I knew she could see me and we both realised at the same time that we had been together once before (she was my first ex, Allison). The way that I saw had changed, obviously, since I no longer had eyes. It was like seeing lines of light, I don't really know any other way to put it but for reference (for those of you that have seen the Matrix movies) it was like how Neo saw at the end of the third one. I'm sorry if that reference doesn't make sense for some of you. The temple was gone and we were on some sort of desolate plane that shaped itself into a roughly middle class American suburb and then I woke up. For the entirety of the dream, there was one song playing in the background. That was 31 and Falling by Chris Pureka, which you can hear if you press the play button on the video below.

This is a hell of a way to start dreaming again.

Now, I'm kind of a novice at interpreting dreams. I have only been seriously studying it since January but I know a little. For reference to any of you out there who are interested in this, Dream books are a good way to start out but you also have to apply your own current situations and take everything that you read with a grain of salt. That said, things that stood out to me in the dream mean a very interesting combination of things.

First things first-
Nakedness: Expressing something that is not typical in societal norms or wanting to be seen for who you really are. It could also possibly represent natural feelings or sexual desire but that's a debated theory.
Marriage: Most commonly means you want to get married or are thinking about it but it could also be a visual metaphor for bringing two aspects of yourself closer together (i.e., intelligence and feelings, or intuition and practicality)
No Eyes: Despite all the books that I have on the subject I could not find anything about something simply not having eyes. So eyes in general are typically referring to the soul or psyche and a lack of eye contact or closed eyes is a way of avoiding intimacy...so I'm kind of fuzzy on this one.
No Mouth: Again nothing on the complete absence of a mouth, but again in general they typically represent desire and language. I'm fuzzy on this one too.
The Temple:What takes place inside a church or temple often represents what we find fundamental and therefore eternal. As far as my personal religious beliefs are concerned this mainly has to do with the cycles of nature (i.e., life cycle, water cycle, rotation and orbits of space and time, etc...)
And last of all-The Phoenix: Like this isn't self-explanatory enough for you. The phoenix represents the ability to make something new out of something old, regeneration, the ability to find new passions or impulses, new strength etc, etc, etc... I dream about these guys a lot, I mean a whole lot. I have one embedded into my arm.

So yes. This is probably way more than you needed to know and if you actually read the entire thing well then, that's a-whole-nother interesting thing isn't it.

Randomness.

2007-07-19T17:36:00.000-04:00

Today Bella and I did Language Arts and Science. She is studying Greek mythology and Genetic Ethics in those two subjects and loving every minute of it.

See the thing is that it's really hard for a lot of teachers to keep Ysabel's attention for any extended amount of time because
a) she's really friggin' smart
b) they have to deal with other kids
c) she assimilates things by making jokes about them which is entirely too much for most teachers to deal with
d) they only teach her what she "has" to know (for testing and the like) and most of that stuff is really boring
e) even the "specials" (i.e., art music, etc...) are boring so she has nothing to look forward to

The good things about me home schooling Ysabel are
a) I know just how smart she really is
b) I can give hermy full undivided attention and she can give it back to me in return
c) she got a lot of her sense of humor from me so I know how to cope with the jokes (plus i think that making jokes to assimilate is probably the smartest way to do so)
d) I am teaching her more than what she "has" to know for testing because I know how fast she can cover things
e) she chose her own "specials" this year so she's doign stuff that she really loves (art, creative writing and music) the difference being that she is being taught by someone who has real passion for all three

The next thing that she will be doing in creative writing is creatng a blog for all of her creative writing work...go and show your support once it's up ok?

We're stdying cartoons in art and she'll be posting some of that work on her bog as well because we will be mixing the creative wrting and the cartooning. (scripts and plotlines and the likeness)
so you'll all gett o see what a fantastic artist she is as well.

Bless...I really love this.

I'll be posting links to her blog from mine every time she puts omething up so, like I said, be sure to show your support.

13 Thursday.

2007-07-19T17:23:00.000-04:00

Hmm...Birthdays

1. Ysabel is now 11.
2. Mom is now 44.
3. I will be 21 in November.
4. I don't know how old my dad is turning this year.
5. Molly tuned 9 in May.
6. Of all the birthdays in our immediate family mine is the most frequently forgotten. That's because I tend not to make a big deal out of it.
7. I will be making a big deal out of my birthday this year.
8. The most frequent forgetter of birthdays in the family is my dad which is quite depressing.
9. The biggest birthday party that I remember thus far was not in my family. It was last years birthday party for my ex's dad. I have never seen so many people in one house before.
10. The smallest birthday party I remember was mine last year. It was just me and my ex and her daughter. We shelled and ate our own oysters.
11. The most depressing birthday I remember was my mom's. Her dad died about a week before hand. We were in Florida for the memorial service.
12. The scariest birthday I remember was also my mom's. 11 years ago she went into labor on her birthday.
13. I used to really hate birthdaysbut I have found that I grow fonder of them as I get older. I think that has to do with me not wanting to make a big deal out of my own. All I know is that after my sisters were born I started enjoying them more and more.

A random update.

2007-07-16T17:52:00.000-04:00

Today is my mom's birthday. She is turning 44. Wonderful thing.

Ysabel is turning eleven the day after tomorrow. More wonderul things.

Molly has finally deided on whether or not she want to go back to public school. The answer is yes So I will only be homeschooling one sister and mom will be going back to her job with the school system. Yay!

I get compensated for teaching Ysabel...a working cell phone and money. WOOT!

I'm going in to retest for my drivers lisence on saturday. I wont miss the stop sign this time I hope.

On a different kind of note. I have not had a dream that I can remeber for close to amonth now. That scares me a little bit. I used to thrive on my dreams and look into what they meant and the like so it's rather disconcerning that I haven't been able to remember any of them.

13 Thursday.

2007-07-12T10:27:00.000-04:00

Homeschool.

1. So far I enjoy teaching mysisters at home every day. They're being great about taking it seriously and still being bale to make it interesting and fun at the same time.

2. Mom and I are pretty good at making it fun and interesting too.

3. In literature Ysabel (soon to be 11) is studying E.A. Poe and Molly (just recently turned 9) is reading Gulliver's Travels.

4. I know alot more about sexual and asexual reproduction than I thought I did.

5. After living with a creative writing major for nine months this last year Iinadvertantly picked up a knack for it. As such I am teaching both of my sisters basic creative writing stuff. Right now they are both writing sily villanelles. Lots o fun.

6. Ysabel is amazing me with her crazy-mad math skills. She complains about it alot but she already understands lengthy algebraic expressions that utilize the more complex order of operations (parentheses, brackets, exponents, square roots, subponents multiplication division addition and subtraction) which is mor than most sixth graders in the U.S. could boast.

7. Molly does not like geograpy at all but she loves history and can retain a seemingly unlimited amount of things that happened over a hundred years ago.

8. Along with their classes and regular electives like art and music we are also teach the afore mentioned creative writing class and a humanities class.

9. We have classes from 8-10 ans 11-12 with a study hall from 12:30 to 1:30 for five days out of the week.

10. I love my sisters and I'm glad they're enjoying themselves.

11. For anyone else out there who is considering homeschooling their kids or knows someone who is homeschooling their kids I would reccomend looking into this series of book called the Core Knowledge Series...you can find it online but I dont have the link handy I will post it later though.

12. be warned that if you are thinking about homeschooling the school system will doeverything it possibly can to make you not want to do it at all. Dekalb County School System sucks big donkey dick...sorry I just had to say it.

13. If you want your kids to be well rounded, extremely well educated people then you might want to consider this option. Lots of people complain about homeschool kids not getting the social feed that they require. If you hear this from anyone then remind yourself and them that it's only halfway commited homeschool teachers that make that mistake. Even living out in the middle of nowhere there are always playgroups and often your kids will become more socially rounded from that because they will be dealing with lots of varying ages and circumstances. So yeah...'nuff said.

2007-07-07T14:13:00.001-04:00

Sorry for the lack of a 13 Thursday. I was in a place with no computer.

in other news...

I Scored a 100%!

Mingle² - Free Online Dating

So yeah...I going to go clean house now and write some more later.

Sunday Scribblings

2007-06-29T16:31:00.000-04:00

Sometimes I believe very stongly in astrology but it tends to be that when it proves itself wrong I let go of it only to pick it up agin later. Astrology is not my religion but it is a very large part of it and so I have to at least look at it sometimes. I have found, thoug, that it is better for me to take it with a grain of salt since I don't have a professional to consult.

So this is a really long post after this little bit and if you care to read it then that is wonderful and if not then I will simpy have it on my blog to remind me of my time of birth the next time I need it since I tend to loose track of that tiny piece of information quite frequently.

Name: Rosa Leigh Rainey
November 16 1986
4:22 PM Time Zone is EST
Decatur, GA

Rising Sign is in 02 Degrees Taurus Calm and deliberate, you hate to move quickly or act hastily. Very practical, every effort must count or you can't be bothered. Patient, persistent and steady, but very stubborn -- you can't be pushed or pressured into anything. You seem outwardly self-assured because you tend to repress your inner tension and turmoil. You exude an earthy warmth, friendliness and charm. You demand comfortable surroundings and appreciate the good life. Be careful of a tendency to be overly self-indulgent. At times, you are lazy and difficult to motivate. Overcoming inertia is a problem for you and, because you are not by nature a self-starter, it is often necessary for you to receive stimuli from others in order to get moving.

Sun is in 24 Degrees Scorpio. Intense and complex by nature, you have extremely strong emotional reactions to most situations. Feelings are often very difficult for you to verbalize. Therefore you have a tendency to be very quiet - - to brood and think a lot. You seldom get overtly angry, but, when you do, you are furious and unforgiving. When you make an emotional commitment, it is total -- you are not attracted to superficial or casual relationships. If you are challenged, you take it as a personal affront and tend to lash out and fight back in a vengeful manner. You love mysteries and the supernatural. A good detective, you love getting to the roots of problems and you enjoy finding out what makes other people tick. You are known to be very willful, very powerful and quite tenacious!

Moon is in 28 Degrees Taurus. Warmth, comfort, security and familiar surroundings are necessary for you to feel at ease. Very loving and affectionate, you prefer a steady, patterned way of life. Patient, calm and steadfast, you are not easily upset. Others look to you for support. You tend to be a slow starter and a slow mover -- others may try to rush you, but they will never succeed. Emotionally, you are quite stubborn -- your attitudes about people and things were firmly set in your youth and will change very little as an adult. You are also very cautious and conservative about spending money. It is not that you are selfish, you just need to feel secure. Beware of a tendency to become overly complacent and too self-satisfied.

Mercury is in 15 Degrees Scorpio. You are a born investigator. You are fascinated by secrets and mysteries and unanswered questions of any kind. When you become upset or angry, your emotional reactions are overpowering -- reason and logic disappear in an uncontrollable passionate outburst. You tend to keep your thoughts secret and bottled up and this makes others regard you with suspicion. It is not that you are trying purposely to be evasive, it is just that you would rather not deal with the explosions and hassles that often occur when you reveal your true feelings and opinions. Your sense of humor tends toward sarcasm and irony.

Venus is in 06 Degrees Scorpio. Your feelings about others are deep, powerful, intense and complex. When you like someone, you do so totally and obsessively if you do not like someone, they do not exist. Your faithfulness and loyalty to your lover is unquestioned, indeed at times it is too much so -- you get so possessive that you almost smother your partner. At times, your feelings are kept deep within you and, because they are so complex and intense, they frighten you -- this is the way that you try to ignore them. But the more you try to do this, the more explosive things get when you eventually do express them.

Mars is in 23 Degrees Aquarius. Your ideas and opinions are usually inventive and original, but sometimes they are merely eccentric and offbeat. You are altruistic -- you will work hard for the attainment of group goals, as long as they meet your high standards. You tend to resent traditional authority figures because you think that your ideas are better thought out and more valuable than theirs. Very idealistic, you are a rebel WITH a cause!

Jupiter is in 13 Degrees Pisces. You are at your best when you give of yourself and what you have -- try to avoid being a martyr about it, though. You're a true idealist, but you must learn not to be upset when life does not cooperate with the way you think things should be. Very concerned with spiritual truth and growth, when you practice what you preach, you make an excellent role model for others. You are so devoted to altruistic ventures and concerns that you tire easily at times. It then becomes necessary for you to go off by yourself to recharge your batteries.

Saturn is in 10 Degrees Sagittarius. Basically quite conservative, you respect traditional authority figures and are very thankful and supportive of the laws and institutions which govern your life. You learn and accept new ideas only after having very thoroughly examined them. Ideals and abstract concepts are important to you only if they can be used in some practical fashion. You are so practical and so orderly that you have natural skills in planning, administrating and organizing.

Uranus is in 20 Degrees Sagittarius. You, and most of your peers, have the tendency to think that all ideas, customs and traditions from the past are outmoded and irrelevant. You are attracted to radically new ideas, philosophies and religions that will, hopefully, cause sweeping changes throughout the world.

Neptune is in 04 Degrees Capricorn. You, and your entire generation, will idealize work, practicality and the ability to attain reasonable goals. But, because you will also stress the need to be selfless and giving, you may find it difficult to attain your goals unless you have lowered your expectations on all fronts.

Pluto is in 07 Degrees Scorpio. For your entire generation, this is a period of intense research and discovery in areas that were heretofore considered mysterious, remote or taboo. The root causes for many complex occurrences will be unearthed due to the intensity and thoroughness of the search.

N. Node is in 20 Degrees Aries. You're at your most comfortable when involved in group activities outside of your immediate family circle. You delight in getting involved with others in neighborhood civic or political activities, especially if you can be a part of the leadership of the group. Your zeal and overabundant energy bring out your real creativity when you can work toward tangible results -- things that will immediately benefit those around you. You have a real gift for getting the most out of charity drives and community benefits. Take time out between projects though, because you tire out easily and your effectiveness becomes greatly diminished when your energy is depleted. Also, don't even think of trying to get involved at a peripheral level -- you need a total commitment to feel personally fulfilled.

That's the skinny on my astrological stuff...most of this is actually pretty accurate its just a matter of finding what contradicts what and which of the two overpowers the other. That's te way I see it at least.

13 Thursday.

2007-06-27T23:56:00.000-04:00

Half Way
Bella on the train going to pride.
Yummy.
Now spice it up a little. BAM!

Self portrait. This is what I've looked like a lot lately.

Lonely.

Sea of pavement...there's even fish, see?!

Mom with her "nicer than mine" camera.

Pride Hiking.

Oppressive heat.

Midtown.

Gossiping.

Glorious

Good spontaneous work. Yay me. I have the guts to take pictures of random people.

Top 40 Pictures.

2007-06-27T01:21:00.000-04:00

Alright. I think that the neatest way to do this is going to be to imbed the slideshow into my blog so we'll try that and if it doesn't work then I'll just put up a link.

These are only our 40 favorite pictures. None of them were horrible , actually they all turned out fantastically I just dont want to upload 15 rolls of film and then try to make them accesible to all of you. It seems to me like something is bound to go wrong in the process if I try to bite off more than I can chew. Anyway... here goes something.

And just in case you do want to get a really good look at them HERE is the link for such a thing.

Have a dandy time with that. I'll probably post more later but right now it's 1:30 am and I need to go to bed. G'Night all.

Alright, I have a question

2007-06-25T13:57:00.000-04:00

But first:

Me and mom and my 11 year old sister Ysabel went out to the gay pride parade yesterday. We went through 15 rolls of film before Ysabel almost passed out from the heat and we had to leave. All of that film is being developed through today and tomorrow because even though it's one hour photo processing it's still 15 rolls of film. 15 hours of processing. We're getting them on CD a) because it's cheaper b) because it's easier to upload them that way and c) I can get the prints of the ones that I want instead of dealing with lots of crap prints. So I will post a few on my blog and actually try to start one of those stupid onlinge photo sharing thingies like Picasso or Flickr so that I dont have to post them all here.

Roughly 250, 000 people turned out for the parade. That's a 75% jump from last years 175,000. YAY US!

I volunteered on Friday and Saturday...that was harsh. The was lots of moving big tables through Piedmont Park in 99 degree Atlanta heat. I did get to sell t-shirts on Saturday though and that was nice due to the shade, fan, cold drinks and wonderful people.

Now time for the question. The Southern Baptist Convention pushed the City of Atlanta for more flexible rules regarding where protestors could be in relation to whatever it was that they were protesting. In early May the city passed the action and now allows protestors within the boundaries of any and all conventions/festivals/whatevers. As a result of the poor publication of this action there were a few minor altercations at Pride this year because a lot of the staff didn't know that it was legal for the protestors to be in the park (last year they were required to at least be on the other side of the street). This new law now puts any two parties that probably don't like each other very much in very close proximity thus increasing the chances of riots and other violent behavior. Do you think this is OK? I'm actually kind of split on the subject because I believe very strongly in the freedom of speech but at the same time it seems like a real lack of authoritative effort on the city's part simply because things are far more likely to get out of control especially if you are not going to up security (like this year at pride).

What do you think?

Sunday Scribblings.

2007-06-23T23:27:00.000-04:00

I have a secret but it's only a little one. I'm not crazy and you have to know that before you read this.

scritch scritch scritch

I hear noises in my walls scritch and sometimes if I listen really hard when it's really quiet it isn't just the scritching. Sometimes if I listen really hard when it's really quiet there are tiny whispers and little metallic clinking noises. scritch clink scritch
scritch whisper clink

The doctor thinks I'm crazy so I take the medicine but it doesn't help.

Sometimes I have a really hard time sleeping. Sometimes I stay up until dawn and then, well then I'm just up. I guess that's called insomnia. Sometimes, when I stay up like that, I get lost in the pixels on my computer screen. Sometimes I go into trances. scritch scritch I know they're there. I know that when I do manage to drift off to sleep every once and a while that thye're watching me and waiting for something. I know they see me with my morning wood. They know that I draw a smiley face on my dick before I jack off. clink scritch They knoow that I have steak and orange juice every morning and that I have to brush my teeth three times before I leave the house. They know because they watch. They are Legion for they are many. Soemtimes I'm even pretty sure that I can see them looking out of the AC grate above my toilet when I take a piss. scritch whisper

They're little. Only about six or seven inches high with they're stupid little puffy outfits and their tiny little axes. scritch whisper clink All white faces with eentsy-weentsy red noses. They scare me. I'm not crazy.

They watch me when I leave too. They poke their tiny clown faces out of the storm drains while I pedal furiously to get to work on time. Sometimes they laugh at me and hide their faces behind the nubs of their hands. They don't have fingers just little nubs with holes in them. Always with the axes. scritch snigger scritch clink clink Always with the malicious, needle toothed grins.

I'm positive that they want me.

we want you we want you we are in your walls and we're waiting for you just for you all for you we're only clowns Mark we're only clowns we wont hurt you at all

Sometimes I wake up with chunks of skin missing and then the voices go away for a while. It's all like something out of The Pit and the Pendulum. Torturous and vile. scritch scritch

(This is actually part of a short story that I am working on based on a conversation had last Christmas between A and B. B was taunting A about how much she (A) hates clowns. I share the same fear actually which is part of the reason that I am writing this. No, this is not the whole story. Yes, it does actually have an ending. Yes the story is finished for the most part I just have to edit it now. I used this for my Sunday Scribbling because of the opening line.)

In Honor of Pride Weekend and Thirteen Thursday!

2007-06-21T15:34:00.000-04:00

13 Pride Day.

1. I figured out that I was at least some kind of queer when I was about 9. It was my birthday and in playing with my friends I was the unicorn prince.

2. For you who may not know queer is generally an OK thing to say it's the word homosexual that we tend to have a problem with mostly because of the people that use it like Falwell or Bush or just about any other homophobic person you can think of.

3. I will be marching for two flags at Pride this year. The rainbow flag and the transgender flag.

4. I am not transgendered in the way that most likely comes to mind. I'm gender fluid (can feel one way or the other or right in the middle) and that falls into the transgender community. Kind of like a 3rd cousin 8 times removed though, we're kind of out there with the transvestites.

5. This will be the first pride during which I spend any of the three days alone. All of my friends are out of town.

6. I'm getting in my volunteer time for pride this year. I'll be working tomorrow and saturday. That makes me happy.

7. Most of the family( me, mom, ysabel and molly) is coming out (no pun intended) to Pride on sunday for the big parade. We are hoping for no rain since we're supposed to see a few showers on saturday.

8. My dad will not be going and he has made that very clear.

9. Pride is an interesting time to use public transportation in atlanta because once your on the train you are positive that you are not alone. Atlanta has a very high queer population.

10. I get to take pictures this year and that makes me happy too. I might be able to get some good freelance work from it.

11. I do NOT get to perform during the yoth pride entertainment block because I did not get my form in on time.

12. This will be the first time in a long time that I have actually taken MARTA (metro atlanta rapid transit authority) anywhere.

13. This could easily led to some more activism work for me and that's a great thing. I've been slacking off for a while.

11.

The Queer Pride Flag

And the Transgender Flag

Photographs.

2007-06-17T17:36:00.000-04:00

Josh.

Where it Belongs.

Feathered Friend.

Soundtrack of Life.

Sunday Scribblings.

2007-06-17T01:48:00.000-04:00

Eccentricities.

I keep a large piece or butchers paper taped to my wall.
It has writing all over it.
Sometimes.
I write.
In small.
Sentences.
That aren’t really sentences.

I have 2 composition notebooks on me
at all times.
Black and white marbled.
One for the story.
The other for the public.
And sometimes.
Lyrics.

Sometimes I generate a twitch in my right eye
just to see how it makes people react.
Sometimes I like it when I’m too edgy for someone.
I make them just a little bit nervous.
I randomly laugh during the middle of a conversation
just to make sure that other people are paying attention.
You can tell if someone isn’t.
They laugh at something hilarious
….that didn’t happen.

I punctuate my days with meditation.
I punctuate my nights with nothing.
I over punctuate for safety’s sake.
I under punctuate to be reckless.
I don’t punctuate when I am a rebel.
That is most of the time.

I talk to my pillow regularly.
I like to think about the most ideal way
that a conversation might go.
So I talk to my pillow.

I take pictures when I can.
I try to make them nudes as often as possible.
I love the human body.
I love everything small or intricate.
I like to make funny faces at random people
when I take pictures of them
you get good pictures that way.

I only sleep on my stomach
and I can only fall asleep
if I am in a place where I am comfortable.
Fortunately for me all that requires
is a bed and four solid walls.
I am usually comfortable.

I sing songs from broadway musicals
when I am depressed.
I take time to watch the news every day
so I sing songs from broadway musicals
quite often.

I sing along with my MP3 player
on public transportation
I sing along with my MP3 player
when I clean house
I sing along with my MP3 player
all the time.
I never leave home without it.

Oh,
and I don’t shave either.

Maybe I am not eccentric.
Maybe I am just random.
Maybe I’m just odd.
Whatever the hell I am
It’s fun.

Hoax?

2007-06-16T12:50:00.000-04:00

Help me out someone. I'm pretty sure this is a hoax but could anyone tell me for sure?

The article to the left reads as follows:

GERMAN'S NOT AMUSED
LONDON: (AFP) British tourisits have left the residents of one charming Austrian village effing and blinding by constantly stealing the signs for their oddly named villageWhile British visitors are finding is hilarious, the residents of Fucking are failing to see the funy side.

Only one kind of criminal ever stalks the sleepy 32-house village near Salzburg on the German border -- cheeky British tourists armed with a sense of humor and a screwdriver.But the local authorities are hitting back and with the signs now set in concrete, police chief Kommandant Schmidtberger is on the lookout.

"We will not stand for the Fucking signs being removed," the officer said."It may be very amusing for you British, but Fucking is simply Fucking to us. What is the big Fucking joke? It is puerile.

Local tourist guide Andreas Rehmueller said it was only the British that had fixation with Fucking."The Germans all want to see the Motzart house in Salzburg," he explained,"and every American seems to care only about The Sound of Music (the 1955 film shot around Salzburg).
The occasional Japanese wants to see Hitler's birth place in Braunau, but for the British, it's all about Fucking."

Gesthouse manager, Augustina Lindlbauer, described the village's breathtaking lakes, forests and vistas."Yet still there is this obsession with Fucking," she said."just this morning I had to tell and English lady who stopped by that there were no Fucking postcards."

Ok really, any British or German or Austrian Bloggers out there couple you tell me if this is real or not. I have to know because if it isn't a hoax then I have some questions. I don't mean to sound like a smart ass I sincerely want to know. Throw me a line.

I am craving...

2007-06-16T11:34:00.000-04:00

SUSHI!!!

I don't know why but I am. I really want an eel roll and some good tempura.

This is random and I don't care.

Do you eat sushi or sashimi or do you mostly avoid raw/mostly raw fish? Do you have a favorite food?

I first learned that I liked sushi when mom and one of her friends took me out for ...ready? Sushi. Go figure.

I tried sushi sashimi and calamari and I fell in love with all things seafood-ish and chewy. It's a textural thing. While on the subject of texture I used to have a real problem eating yogurt then, not to terribly long ago I saw "George Carlin: Live at Carnegie Hall." and he was talking about all these foods that you wouldn't eat ... like yogurt. I think ewhat he says is "I can't eat anything with a Y and a G in it. It sounds like it's coming up again." I haven't really had a problem with eating yogurt since then. That's a really great thing for me since I have a really sensitive stomach.

And yes dammit...I did take the Activia Challenge...and then I bought a pair of Crocs. I am a total sell out.

However--The Activia Challenge worked and the Crocs are easily the most comfortable shoes I have ever owned.

So the lesson is this: if you have a sensitive stomach eat plenty of yogurt and if you have sore, poorly arched, or smelly feet you should get a pari of Crocs, and no they aren't all beach shoes can get some that are completely closed and good for wet or cold climates and even one's that are good for office work.

Now that I am completely finished being a commercial I would like to say that I am volunteering at Pride this year and that makes me wonderful....on top of that there is going to be a run of queer comedians at "the laugh shack" and I a totally going. However I think it is odd that the only comedians that can talk about queer rights or queer people in general are queer comedians. I have only heard on straight comedian touch on this kind of thing frequently in his stand up is Louis C. K. . If you have not seen him you should, but only if you have an extremely crass since of humor.

Alright...so why do you think that is? I want to know what you thing about why black comedians can make fun of white people and vice versa but no-one can really throw queer people into their sets. This sounds incredibly wrong, I know that but I would like to think that I am smart about comedy and I appreciate comedians who can make fun of anybody because I think that's what makes them worth listening too. Someone who can see the humor in everything instead of just one thing or another.

13 Thursday.

2007-06-14T17:39:00.000-04:00

Thirteen Random Things.

1. My most favoritest movie in the whole wide world is either Labyrinth or Mirror Mask
2. I make hemp jewelry for no other reason than to wear it but if you ever wantto buy some just let me know. I do really great pieces.
3. I used to paint but that never seemed to work out well for me so I just kinda stopped. Photography is my weapon/drug of choice.
4. Whe I was 6 I stuck my right nostril over the head of a nail that was protruding from the top of a fence post just to see if I could. It didn't hurt but I got a wicked nosebleed. I ran inside with my hands full of blood and as I stood there with a worried mom hovering over me the only thing I could think was, "She can never, ever know how this happened.", which was easy to fulfill because I was prone to dry weather nosebleeds.
5. I told her that story about a month ago...she damn near died laughing.
6. I also guzzled half a bottle of hot sauce on a dare....that was followed by a week of acid poo shooting from my rear. It was not worth the $20.
7. he strangest foods I have ever eatern are jellyfish salad and grilled bull heart. Both are extremely yummy.
8. Oysters are my favorite food. Funny that they are chucked full of aphrodesiacs, makes me rather unbearable for the following couple of hours.

9. The thunder storms in Atlanta are all talk and no action. They'll turn your power off but your plants will still be dry as a bone.
10. All Hallows Eve (Samhain) is my favorite holiday followed only by Beltane.
11. The one band that can always make me happy is Jethro Tull. This has been the case since I was very young.
12. This year we are homeschooling ym sister and mom and the girls and I are all very excited.
13. I am not the most random person in the world that would be the next youngest sister, Ysabel.

Wednesday Pictures.

2007-06-13T20:27:00.000-04:00

Can you say OUCH, DAMMIT!

Went to go see two horror flicks last night. Saw Bug...it was amazing. Kind of "student film" but the premise is not what you expect it to be at all. If you like great psychological horror movies you'll love this. The we went to go see 28 Weeks Later. Lots of fun but not great. If you like zombies and gore then you'll love this one and it's prequel 28 days later.

Today moma nd the girls and I spent the day out of the house just piddling around and that was great fun. Always nice to get out with the family.

Oh...PERFORMING AT PRIDE THIS YEAR! Spoken word here I come. I am going to be having so much fun this year.

Oh...I got this fortune in a cookie on march tenth that said something amazing was going to happen exactly 3 months from that date. That would be 3 days ago. I found my friend,I've been looking for a friend and I found her. Michelle, you are amazing.

For Carmi.

2007-06-10T11:53:00.000-04:00

So I told him that I did some cool line work when I still had my digital. I wanted to post them so he could see and I thought you guys might enjoy them too.

Tagged by meme.

2007-06-10T10:24:00.000-04:00

Halen tagged me with the "eight useless things about meme". So here you go.

Eight completely uselss facts about me.

1. I make hemp jewelery. I use lots of fimo beads and shells and wood beads and the like. I lke natural looking pieces. I'm not great but I'm pretty good at it.

2. I had my first kiss on a church retreat with the preachers son. That was interesting to say the least. It was a dare.

3. I first ate raw oysters when I was 7 years old. When the first one was half way down my throat my mom told me think of it as a really gigantic booger. I gagged but I kept it down. Now they are my favorite food.

4. I was addicted to caffeine for a while but I got over it. Now I don't get headaches when I don't have caffeine in my system for an hour. It's nice and now when I DO have caffeine it gives me a nice little buzz.

5. I have two DVDs out from the library right now that I will just have to pay for because I have had them for so long.

6. I despise Talapia and Cod and Catfish. I cannot stomach them it's something baout the texture. I used o have a textural problem with yogurt too but I had to get over that because I have to eat yogurt in order to keep my insides working properly. I have a sensitive stomach.

7. I like musicals. The Fantastics used to be my favorite but now it's RENT 'cause dammit Anthony Rapp is the best.

8. Oh and I write crap poetry. Yesh. Very bad most of the time but everyonce and a while I come up with something that has a lot of potential but never progresses and even more rare is when I come up with something that is stunningly amazing. It works the same way with writing music which is also something that I attempt now and again.

Sunday Scribblings.

2007-06-09T10:22:00.000-04:00

Sorry, this one's just a tad bit silly but it is based on a true story. I have a pretty sensitive stomach. This is a poem about the first time I really figured that out.

In the end there was only my
head against your hand and
waiting for your breath to
come around again

you called this interesting
you called this spicy
you called it that burn that lingers at the back of your throat
or the tingle on your lips that won't go away

you were never much for mexican food
you were never much for owning the mistake
of getting jalapenos with that
of telling them that extra chile sauce was fine.

You'll never do it again
will you
will you?
no jalapenos
no chile sauce
will you
will you
No i didn't think so

My name.

2007-06-09T00:20:00.000-04:00

I recently read Kenju's blog and she made a reference to a post of Rosemary's about names. Convoluted enough for you? Good. In any case I commented on on Kenju's blog about what I thought about my name and I thought I would share that with you.

My first name is Rosa. I don't like my first name and I never have. The people outside of my family that have either been asked my me or volunteered the information themselves all agree that it doesn't really fit me. My middle name is Leigh which I loe and suits me just fine. It makes me happy when people call me Leigh.

I changed schools in the 7th grade. The principal gave me the option to have myself introduced as something else if I wanted so I went with my middle name because no one could ever get my firstg name right. It was always rose or rosie or something else other than Rosa. Leigh is better about that sort of thing because I don't care if people misspell my name I justwant them to pronounce it right.

I will eventualy change my first name to Leigh and eliminate my middle name entirely.

I considered the possibility that I might be transgendered but I don't think that I am, instead I think that I am very fluid in my gender and I want to have a name that could be me no matter what end of the gender continuum I'm on that the time.

So there you go.
Leigh

Letters I never sent you.

2007-06-07T22:58:00.001-04:00

Dear...

You really loved me and I know that. I would be willing to bet that you still do to some extent because like "she" said you never really stop loving someone. I am so incredibly sorry for the lack of respect that I gave to you and your family. That lack of respect makes me a fool and I have no way of expressing how that makes me feel.

I hope that you are well and I hope someday to have contact wih you and yours again because I have never met anyone outside of my parents and sisters, who have loved me so completely and unconditionally.

I hope that you are glad to have your book back. I will be sending you everything else as soon as I have the money for postage which should be in the next couple of days.

I want you to know that I still love you just as completely aand unconditionally as you did once. I am so sorry.

Love always,
The lying idiot you thought you knew.

13 Thursday.

2007-06-07T07:56:00.000-04:00

13 Cemetary Pictures.

1. Cherub

2. An awesome grave stone.

3. Peek

4. Tiny Angel

5. Like a little city

6. Gray

7. Angel at Sunset

8. The famous Lion of Atlanta in memory of unknown confederate fallens.

9. Statue Boy

10. Bird

11. Johnson's Angel

12. Lonely Prayer

13. Tombs

Picture Perfect Wednesdays and New Tattoos.

2007-06-06T23:33:00.000-04:00

Alright...I am goning to start doing this for a few reasons the most important being that if I have something that I know I "need " to do on my blog I am far more likely to do other posts that are just plain old regular posts. The other reason is that because I am such a visual person images are an incredibly important part of my life and photography is my drug of choice. These won't always be photographs though which leads me to my final reason. I have not put up any of my hand drawn stuff yet and I want the opportunity to do that(like I didn't have one before right?) so yeah.

This Wednesdays picture is this:

No, I did not take this picture. It came from Iowa so far as I know but it doesn't matter where this came from what matters is simply that it exists.

Come on, that's funny no matter what.

Now...today mom and I went down to Little Five Point and got new tattoos...I can't show it to you yet because I dont have pictures of it yet but I think I might be able to get one sometime on Saturday but that may not possible either but i will publish one as soon as I can... I promise. I'll tell you what it is though...we both got new school jolly roger symbols...they have mohawks. Fun stuff.

Good week.

2007-06-05T13:27:00.000-04:00

Well...I just have to say that this week is turning out to be a particularly good one. I'm at Wolf and Vickie's again to watch their babies. The sisters spent the first night with me and we watched Happy Feet (the movie about the dancing penguin) and played with the dogs and had a grand old time.

Mom and I are sdupposed to go down to Little 5 Points tomorrow assuming that she is able to get all of her stuff accomplished at work. We're both taking our cameras and some cash. I might even be able to get my next tattoo tomorrow and if that is the case then I will post a pivcture of it as soon as possible.

Ben and Caity are supposed to be coming over Thursday and we're gonna eat pizza and watch movies and just hang out. We haven't been together as a group in a while and we're looking forward to it a great deal.

I'm working on some jewelery and have been doing a couple of tattoo commissions. Wolf actually gave me an assignment right before they walked out the door. I suppose I should start posting those too. You guys don't really get to see a whole lot of my hand drawn stuff. As a matter of fact I don't think I've posted any at all. I'll make a point of doing that when I get back home because while I am here I don't have access to a scanner and that would be neccessary.

I'm working on an octopus for my mom and a frog and some other random things. I'll post them I promise. You'll see.

In other news I found three grey hairs on my head this morning. I know they have to have been there for a while but what I percieved was that I had some how sprouthed 3 grey hairs over night. It was a little disconcerning. Dammit I'm only 20....grrrrr......

So yeah.

I hope that you are all having a splendid time doing whatever it is that you do.

OH OH OH!!! One morething. I think I might be able to get a spot on stage at pride this year doing some spoken word for the Youth Pride Entertainment Block YAY ME! We'll post pictures of that too! YES!

Sunday Scribblings.

2007-06-03T00:10:00.000-04:00

You know this is interesting. I'm in quite a dellima as far as this is concerned. I have lived in the city all of my life...Atlanta and then not too terribly long ago I spent a brief nine month stint in rural Virginia...Floyd to be exact and I loved it. I want to own a farm but live in a place where I'm not terribly far away from the city. I think after being raised in it that I at leasat need to be infused with it every once and a while. I want to live in a place where the air smells like air not like car exhaust.
There is something incredibly enchanting about the hills of Virginia and I want to go back and have a life there. I want to live in close proximity to an awesome city that's about a third the size of Atlanta...namely Roanoke or Christiansburg or Blacksburg or Radford...yes and live in the country with a hourse and a couple of sheep and goats and a cow and some chickens. The farm isn't something that I see happening in the near future but I will be working towards it. Yes. In the end all I really want is to be happy and I think that requires a farm and some animals. Yes.

13 Thursday.

2007-05-31T09:22:00.000-04:00

13 Photographs.

1. A photograph I found of me in the square in Decatur. I like this picture a lot

2. Mom at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens.

3. This is the major landmark that I live 5 minutes away from. The largest piece of granite in the entire world right in my back yard.

4. This was taken right out side of my old highschool.

5. I once worked at the Georgia
Renaissance Festival. These were
some of my co-workers.

6. A great picture from Ysabel's 8th birthday.
From left to right Ysabel Emily Molly and Lydia.

7. Another funny picture from Ysabel's 8th birthday.

8. My grandma used to be a stripper/dancer on Bourbon Street in New Orleans.

9. Pride, anyone?

10. Some friends from highschool from left to right Drew, John, and Pedro

11.Christmas a few years back...mom and the left and my aunt Edie on the right.

12. My dad's a goofball too.

13. Oh...and this one time I died my hair pink. I liked and I think I might do it again somedeay.

Proud?

2007-05-28T20:58:00.000-04:00

There’s such a bittersweet beauty to anything that makes us remember our souls.
-From Colleen’s blog.
She first heard it
from a friend of hers

I’ve decided that all I really need in order to keep me in check is for someone to tell me that they are proud of me. I have only ever lied to make myself seem worthy of praise and pride. It came to me rather suddenly as mom and I had one of your increasingly frequent porch talks. I told her about the possibility of a fellowship at Radford University and how it never really was. I told her about my jump from a major in education to a major in psychology or counseling to, now, something more practical for me, a major in graphic design or advertising or hopefully both. I can’t be a teacher because I don’t do well with groups and I can’t be a counselor because, while I work well one-on-one, I think that I need too much help for it to be healthy for me to pursue such a thing…but I could be a tattoo artist. With a major in graphic design or advertising would allow me to work myself through the necessary apprenticeship. Being a tattoo artist would allow me to help people and do something that is already such a big part of my life.

Success is knowing that you’ve made someone else’s life even just a little more bearable. I have succeeded already. I’m going to talk to my tattoo artist the next time I go in to have some more ink put in my skin.

I told her all of this and I asked “…but would you be proud of me?”

Her response was this, “ I would be proud of you no matter what but I would admire you if you ended up somewhere you love doing something you enjoy. You’re already a hero to me because you want to make people’s lives better and that’s noble no matter how you want to do it. How could I be anything but proud of you.”

So I cried because that was what I needed and she meant all of it.

I once told my lover that the most amazing feeling is the telling of something that needs to be heard and it being sincere no matter which end of the telling you’re on. Did you need this? Did you want to hear thins? I hope so because I meant every honest word of it.

Sunday Scribblings.

2007-05-27T11:25:00.002-04:00

I wrote some simple poetry.

Haiku-Syllable sount per line 5/7/5
I dont like pencils
for writing. I want solid
steady sticking words.

Tanka(similar to Haiku)-Syllable count per line 5/7/5/7/7
Simple poetry
is never easy to find
so I write my own.
Verses and stanzas find room
in the spaces between me.

Limerick-I'm not explaining this 'cause everyone should know what these are.
There once was a wretched young poet.
If you ever read her work you'll know it.
With poems so full of lameness
she'll never be famous
so don't get her published nd blow it.

Belated 13 Thursday.

2007-05-25T23:47:00.000-04:00

Time.

1. I dont like time generally I think it is a stupid thing but it has been made necessary by the will of mankind and that upsets me.

2. It took me until I was 12 to learn how to read an analog clock not because I'm stupid just becaus I was under the impression that it wasn't worth anything.

3. I realized that time was worth something when I lost my first girlfriend. It became appalingly clear to me then.

4. I have watsed a lot of time trying to build lies and keep them untangled. That was a stupid thing to do, I see that now and Ihave lost a lot of people because of it.

5. As a result of number four I am currently reconstructing my perception of time and taking the ever present moment to reconstruct my reality into something that truly is.

6. My faith tends to wipe away time for a little while. I can get lost in prayer or meditation for hours even when I am up and functional which is all due to my reconstructing my perception of time. This is no small feat and I a proud of myself.

7. I have come to the conclusion that laughing takes way to much time. If it took less time then I could do it more often and perhaps be a little less serious for a while.

8. Being serious takes up a lot of my time...perhaps I was wrong in number seven...maybe I am just too serious too often. If I was seriuos less of the time then I would have more time to laugh. Hmm.

9. When I go to sleep it doesn't feel like I am asleep for long enough which is a sign that I'm about to have a bout of insomnia again. That means lots of music and meditation and prayer.

10. It annoys me sometimes that time goes by so fast it doesn't feel like my sisters should be as old as they are now. It scares me sometimes. On the bright side of that note them being as old as they are means that I will be 21 in November. Yay for legal aged Scorpios

11. I am usually very good at being "on time". I learned that from having to ride the crappiest public transportation system in the world. It teaches you to always allow 2 extra hours to get when you need to go and always pack something to read or do or listen to.

12. I like the idea of this moment. "Now" is easy for me to wrap my head around.

13. There is too much time between now and when I move back up to Virginia.

Quote of the day: Eagles may soar , but weasles never get sucked into jet engines.

Funnies.

2007-05-25T13:44:00.000-04:00

So my mom got an email from Ysabel's 4th grade year that said this.

Haiku's are easy
But sometimes they don't make sense
Refrigerator

Which is great in and of itself but one of the people she sent it to replied with this:

ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha

Which makes it way so much better.

My mom's interest in poetry doesn't extend very far at all but she got this email and sent it to me because I have been working alot with Haiku and Tankas lately.

This really made me laugh whitch was long needed and well deserved.
I hop it made you laugh a little too.

Relocated Writing.

Welcome back, Leigh.

One Click.

Call Me Al

Chapter 13.

Wagon Wheel

Wicked!

OMG!

Scariest image ever.

HEHEHEHE!

HOLY CARP!!!

DECATUR BOOK FESTIVAL!!!

OMG ... PUPPY TIME!!!

Hmm

AHHH!!! IT'S SPICY!!! *pant pant pant*

Well Hell's Bells

Bella's Mohawk

Mmmm....Memorial Day

Check it out!!!

We went to the GA Renaissance Festival for Molly's Birthday (AKA tons of pictures)

Political Thursdays.

There's something in the air...

Politcal Thrusdays.

Political Thrusdays

I wouldn't drink 'em.

Updates.

Something you should see.

Why did I not know this?

An interesting thing to think about...

Valentine's Day Blues.

Hello!

Har har har!

Hmm.

A side note.

An general update which turned out to be mostly about books.

Answers and Photos

Questions?

New Years Eve.

Holiday greetings from me and my friends.

Why I am a bad queer person. (AKA: How's about some civil unions here!)

Holiday Traditions.

A letter.

More Designs from Random Rabbit.

More Dreams.

Birthday.

Hi there!

Hello.

WARNING: Post might contain angst and brooding.

Join us friends, join us!

A quick word about tattoos.

100 Things about me.

HOLY COW!

Howdy folks!

Open for business...maybe.

More Tattoo Designs from Random Rabbit Designs

Brick wall or The End.

Right then, Update!

My most recent tattoo projects. Some of these are still extremely rough.

No rain yet.

Wow. A lightening storm, the first draft of a poem and a quote of the day.

Well crap.

OMG...

Dear Diary...

Another piece.

Hmm.

I finished it. Warning lots of pictures of books.

Homeschooled Chicken!

An interesting dream (AKA long post).

Randomness.

13 Thursday.

A random update.

13 Thursday.

Sunday Scribblings

13 Thursday.

Top 40 Pictures.

Alright, I have a question

Sunday Scribblings.

In Honor of Pride Weekend and Thirteen Thursday!

Photographs.

Sunday Scribblings.

AHHH!!! IT'S SPICY!!! pant pant pant