Negative space?

I really like how this one turned out. I didn't do the skull. Just the zombies and all that good stuff going on behind. I think the depth I created with three colors is very cool.

A More Painted Look

"Sunrise"

Also

How lame is it that nobody ever posts comments here?

Imagine me as a shivering puppy, with quivering brown eyes. Imagine I'm whimpering.

Yes. Some people just don't care what other people think. That's not me. I need praise and validation.

Remember: Shivering Puppy.

Quite the Evening

I was feeling crappy earlier today. Moody... On edge... I worked most of that out, lifting weights and throwing punches until my heart beat against my ribs. I took a shower and tried to leave all that negativity swirling down the drain. I dressed up in clean pants and a nice long sleeve button up. I tied a tie with precision sloppiness and left my cuffs unbuttoned. I styled my hair the way my barber had when I got my haircut last week; she made it look so good.

I felt good. I went out for Thai food with my roommates. It was a fine evening, with gorgeous weather and pleanty of people out and about. I was feeling significantly better.

I dressed to impress, but it didn't do me any good. None. All it did was draw the eyes of the table of gay guys sitting across from us in the restaurant. I don't need that kind of attention... I really don't.

When we got home, Jin and I decided to practice jumping off the kiddie playground--Parkour fantasies that will probably never take shape. It was fun, exhilerating. The adrenaline was flowing free in my veins, and my body felt alive, powerful. I jumped into a tree and hid in its shadows. I dropped down and sprinted across the grass... I was fast, I was agile, and I was quiet. I was totally fucking thrilled.

Old motions came to my muscles. I tucked my body carefully behind the tree, and peaked across the darkened park and visualized my opponents: I was playing paintball again. I fired my phantom at a head. It tucked in and the instant it was behind cover, I lept from my tree and sprinted toward the position. I would bunker him. Shoot him at close range and use his cover to take out his team mates.

It didn't work. He peaked out again, and saw me running up. He shot. I slid to avoid the ball.

I slide on my left side. Its my baseball slide that I learned so many years ago. I hit, I slid on the damp grass... My left elbow touched down as I slid and wrenched my arm over my head. Aww Shit. This, I realized, is exactly how I dislocated my shoulder the first time. I was going to bunker Anthony, I slid and popped the joint out. Shiiiit.

I don't think it was as severe this time, and it was not nearly as painful: The cherry was already popped. I still had some motion, and had a good sense of where my joint was in relation to the socket. I lifted my elbow toward my head. Abduction, its called. There was some crunching involved, and the gross feeling of sliding joints. It went back in, and my muscles tightened around the joint. Swelling would ensue.

It did, though the ice helped. So did the liquor. I'm bummed that I did it again, and worried about the recuperation process... But I am very glad that I didn't have to go to the hospital to have it reduced. I think the time it took to get the joint back in did serious damage, stretching muscles and nerves to the point where I was in a sling for a month (or was it more?) just to keep the joint from falling out again. I feel a little sore, but I reduced the dislocation quickly enough that there was little to no nerve damage, and the muscles are still tight. I will be staying off it for a while, though, to be safe.

I'm feeling fine now. I'm in a good mood again, and ready to beat life into submission.


Take THAT, Life.

"The Girl, Or the Weapon?"

She picked a sweet bung of a time to go helpless on us.

Wacom Zombie

"Black Parade"

You Might Know This Guy

"Dichotomy"

Yet Again

"Longing"

Thin Thin Air

There is no reason I could not mold myself into the model of physical perfection. I don't think I'm terribly far from my own ideal, relative to average... But this last bit of body fat is going to be hard to peel away. The muscle mass is easy to gain--it always has been. Trimming, though, is more difficult. It means I have to run, which I have never enjoyed. It means I have to stop eating the unnecessaries, though my diet is pretty spartan most of the time. And it means I have to run some more. Maybe I can fool myself into enjoying it. Maybe I can find ecstasy in the pain.

We shall see.

I realized recently that the perfect girl is out there... smart, gorgeous, interesting, confident, and quite possibly sane. I'd never believed it before, and if I ever entertained the possibility, I always dismissed her as taken, or out of reach. She is not. The truth is that I am pretty fucking incredible myself, as terrible as that sounds to say. She is attainable, if I am willing to make myself into everything I want in her.

Its not easy... Nothing special is easy. I can get whatever I want, if I'd just get off my ass and maybe comb my hair.

Words, Words

"You cause me so many tears, you know."

His face was tired, shadows staining the vivacity behind his eyes. He looked down into his coffee, black, bitter, steaming into his face. He looked up again into her eyes.

"I'm trying so fucking hard to be happy."

Her eyes shone and wavered again, threatening to spill tears once more, to smear her mascara beyond repair. He reached across the table and took her hand into his, the first time they'd touched since that final hug a year before. A tear splashed on the table.

"Just make it all worth it. Make my pain worth it. Make it the cost of your happiness, or it was all for nothing."

He let go of her hand. She stared into his eyes, and their gazes melted together, old and familiar.

"You have to be happy. You fucking owe it to me to be happy."

He looked down at his coffee again and took a sip. It was salty.

Leaps and Bounds

Another one:

"Fudoshin"

Fudoshin is "The Immovable Heart" if I'm not mistaken.

And his pride swelled and pulsed like a pimple

I just finished this:


I must say I am terribly proud, and excited to see what happens if I keep practicing. Look at the progress in just a day!

A New Distraction

I got my hands on a tablet for almost nothing--Its an old model Wacom with a very small space, but it works fine. I've been spending some time at iscribble.net, trying to convert what little artistic talent I have over to the tablet. I just finished this:


I must say, I am fairly proud of my first attempt... Of course, if I was not, I would have deleted it and pretended like it never happened.

Its rough, I know. Drawing one place and looking another is totally foreign to me.

Such Great Heights

I must say, I am, and have been for the past several days, in the best of spirits. My classes, while time consuming, are not terribly difficult. Conversely, though still positively, they are proving to be interesting, and I find myself actively taking notes in my classes. Perhaps my classes truly are interesting, or maybe my conscious effort to enjoy my education has done some good. In either case, classes are going very well, and I could not be happier.

My bed problem has been resolved. I purchased a queen sized futon, and got a bargain. The owners were trying to move it, maybe for the floor space, maybe simply because nobody wanted it. The pad, I was told, was inferior to most of what they sell, being 100% cotton fill rather than a mix of synthetic padding, cotton, and memory foam. While their other pads certainly were comfortable, I got my queen set for less than half of what I would have paid for one of their softer full size sets. Having spent the better part of a week on the floor, with my collection of blankets as padding, the “not soft enough” pad is heavenly. Truth be told, I like my sleeping surfaces firm.

I’m also excited to have the couch aspect of my Megatron futon in my room. It’s wide enough to seat four or five people comfortably, so I can have company over. It also gives me a more comfortable place to sit while studying or practicing guitar. My computer chair has arms, making the arrangement claustrophobic and makes guitar playing difficult and awkward. The ass padding is getting thin too, something I think I’m going to fix.

As mentioned above, I have been practicing guitar. I learned a little in a city college course over one of those forgotten summers, but managed to lose everything I accrued in that class. Its coming back, quickly, gloriously, and I’m excited to see my ability increase so rapidly. I’m actually excited to get home and practice more.

Guitar Hero has made a difference in my ability to read music, a skill that has always given me trouble. I also require myself to practice real guitar an equal amount of time I play GH, which is spurring my improvement further. I think I’m going to require real practice before I play, and force myself to earn video game time.

Kendo is going fantastically. The first practice back, I pushed myself a little too hard, and found myself fighting down, eventually swallowing vomit. I was worried I’d be put off, but this last practice was perfect. I kept the physical, mental, and spiritual intensity high and powerful throughout the practice, performed well during our sparing sessions, and managed, to a small extent, to impress my comrades and earn the praise of my sensei. I feel myself improving here as well, and it pleases me greatly.

I think that’s it for now. I’m going running tonight, and I want to sign up for another stretch class, though if I make a point of doing it myself, there’s no reason to oblige myself to a specific time slot.

I feel powerful, unstoppable again.

Great. Now I need an alignment.

My inflatable bed has had a leak for the past week. I have patched it several times, but no matter how many slabs of rubber or slatherings of rubber cements, I can't keep the air under me. The patch itself is not leaking--there are no bubbles. This means there is more than one breech in the outter hull. The great vaccuum of space will destroy the entire crew, and though the great loss of life causes me unending grief, I must admit I am more upset about waking up on an ultra-soft pile of deflating back-ache. I'm going out today to consider other sleeping options, and possibly to spend money. I have been sleeping on the ground these last two nights, my entire collection of blankets folded beneath me, save my thick comforter, which is serving as my only actual blanket.

I actually enjoy sleeping on the floor. Maybe the Japanese in me is once again making its presence known. Maybe all those sleeping bag nights from my camping days have predisposed me to this more primal arrangement. Maybe its because I'm fucking sick of sleeping on this sinking piece of shit, and anything that won't sag is a beautiful thing to me.

A fine excuse for liquor and stew

It was rather cold today. Not frigid by any stretch, and in fact a beautiful winter day in Davis. The temperature stayed around fifty all day, with occasionally gusts that were strong enough to draw away all my body heat, and frequent enough to keep me from ever warming up completely. My classes are warm, however, which helps me enjoy going to class... Or at least pretend to.

I will be cooking a beef and vegetable soup tonight. I have never done this, but I think I managed to glean the general idea from my mother. I guess we'll see how it comes out. I picked up another cabernet sauvignon whilst shopping for vegetables. A 2002 napa valley, if that means anything to anyone out there. I've been keeping a little journal of the wines I've tried, but my palate is untrained, and the terminology is esoteric; mostly I'm keeping a list of names for future reference, so I don't buy the crappy ones again. Self teaching will always be one of my main modes of education, no matter how lofty my education may (though probably will not) become.

That's all for now. I need to begin dicing onions and browning beef.

Slacking

Megan and I have not written anything for The Looking Glass in quite some time. We should get something up, for the sake of the new year.

Also, I changed my archive format. Spiffy. No, but seriously, Blogger Beta is so much better.

Augury

My first day of classes have made me confident that I will be able to achieve the diligence and academic excellence that I have never before pursued with anything resembling fervor. My creative writing class should not be difficult, and promises to improve my ability-- if not by instruction, then by practice alone.

I was late to this, my first class--an inauspicious beginning to a quarter for which I hold such high hopes. I suppose I could be blamed for simple absent-mindedness; my brother's bike had flat tires, which I realized as I loaded it onto the back of the truck back home. A more meticulous mind might have remembered that this, the main mode of transportation, was unuseable. Mine is not a meticulous mind. I had to walk it about a block to the nearest air fill station. Thankfully, Davis is a bicycle town, and has many such facilities. I was ten minutes late. I suppose if I'd dragged my ass out of bed when my alarm went off instead of hitting the snooze [who knows?] times, I might have been on time... Oh well.

The professor teaching my creative writing class also teaches my Short Story lecture. She is an energetic young woman, playful and friendly, with a tendency toward unusual similes and random bits of floral language. She smiles, which is nice. She's not yet had the life drained from her. It strikes me as important to make a good impression upon her, because she holds two of my grades in her hand. With the careful effort I am putting into my classes this quarter, this should not be a terribly difficult task. I only need to make a point of contributing during lecture.

I have found that once a teacher is convinced that I am brilliant, I need not put as much effort into my work. This is not the goal, but its nice having people assuming my work is good, rather than wondering just how painful it will be to read.

My third class is 18th Century British Literature. The reading will be the most difficult, due soley to the overwhelming quantity. My schedule shows at least two hundred pages of reading a week, sometimes more-- a total of five novels packed into three months. Heaven help those who miss a day of reading. This class has an interesting dynamic of its own. The professor taught my Medieval Literature course last quarter, and I was noticeably absent and behind for most of the quarter. She says she knows my potential, and understands that I was dealing with...issues... I was going to drop the class because I'm not particularly fond of her teaching style, but part of me wants to prove that last quarter was nothing near representative of me, my habits, or my ability. She has no way of knowing my potential, unless she has read papers for other classes.

She is friendly and seemed genuinely pleased that I was in her class again. I think my pride will spur me toward excellence, if my determination alone fails.

I am also taking a Late Shakespeare course, which I took once, but sacrificed for the sake of my other classes. Because it is the same professor, and the same course, I am well ahead of other students. I have already done most of the reading, know what the quizes and tests look like, and what to look for while rereading the texts. There is no excuse for anything lower than an A.

I am working only Tuesdays and Thursdays now, from 8 to 5, with a short break to attend my Shakespeare class. Last quarter, I worked Monday through Friday from 2 to 5, and while the short shifts were more bearable, the scheduling made homework difficult. I had classes from 10 to 2, then work til five. After work, I would take time to relax and unwind, and then either go to Kendo or make dinner. At that point, I am not in any mood to work. It was unpleasant, and resulted in many late nights.

This quarter, I am working during "dead time", or time that I would have wasted if I was not obligated to be working. My morning would have extended to 1:20 pm. Why not be productive and make money? All I need to do is stop dicking around on the internet and actually go to bed at a reasonable hour.

My, what a long post.