Update on Piece for Yaoi Magazine

UPDATE!!!!!

The finished pencil lineart!!!!



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And here's the updated version with Faris actually drawn in. Gotta a LOT to do with his face, mainly his hair and those blasted glasses.

This amount of detail TOTALLY one ups my Harry x Draco commission I did a while back. Gawsh.

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So here's the new and muchly improved sketch for an upcoming story I'm currently working on called +--Live--Wired--+

The character that's visibly drawn is Mykha, a bio-android in the story who is taken care of, and eventually comes to love and be loved by his counterpart main character Faris, who is still in sketchy sketch uber sketch mode behind him. Faris is going to be wrapping his arms around Mykha's waist, and won't be wearing anything either, and he's going to have his head kinda nuzzled over Mykha's shoulder, looking almost as if he's either going to whisper something in his ear or take a nip at his ear either one. Kinda a more "aaaaawwww"/"wannabe-seductive" pose.

This WILL be finished tonight as I have the whole day off and am doing nothing but this for today.

image and sketch

Sketches and shit

Haha! I made the STUPID mistake of just titling this and not even posting anything. How DUMB lol.

So I ACTUALLY have some sketches to post for you all meh?

meh.

Nothing much. pretty much ALL of these sketches were done in a 15 minute time frame before work. So. Nothing solid...whatsoever.

I can guarantee that I'll not only be finishing the grand majority if not all of these, but they'll look a ton times better once I actually get there sketches underway. They're about 2"x3" thumbnails avg. size each, and normally they're about 7" and above.

Anywho.

On to the posting.


So this one is a fanart of Zack and Cloud from Final Fantsy VII: Crisis Core. Even though I haven't finished the gameplay myself personally. I have seen the ending, and already know that Zack is like, dead. Which makes me a sad fangirl.....cuz I like him more than cloud (he's got the most GORGEOUS eyes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! link link). Anywho. He's gorgeous, and Cloud's just too damn adorable in CC.....and Aerith is just an uncalled for annoyance! (and she is a totally clueless ditzbrain it seems in CC....she was so much more intelligent in the original game......sad......sad sad sad And don't EVEN get me started in on Genesis...........he was nothing more than a media hog pass for Gackt, that's all. He had NO plot relevance, and no real connection to the story whatsoever........quoting poetry at every spoken moment in the game.....bah! You ask him a question and he spouts rhymes. I want answers bitch! Not limerics and sweet-nothings!).
I digress.
So I was listening to my itunes as usual today and the song "WHY" by Ayaka for CC came on and this little diddy just popped into my head and I just HAD to get it on paper before I lost it.
This will probably be done by end of next week. I already love it too much to not finish it. It's a young Cloud lost in thought after Zack dies at the end of the game (sorry for the spoiler for those of you who DON'T know by now), and he adores Zack, almost literally in my opinion (giving way to of course mass fandom and wannabe-real-thoughts on how it really should be lol...I WISH). So he's standing there, and looking up at a feather which is floating in the wind/sunlight/blah, and has his left arm down and his right arm kinda up touching his heart. And there's a transparent/shadowy/spirit-like Zack hugging him from behind, and his right arm is reached around interlacing fingers with Clouds hand that's over his chest, and his head is resting on his shoulder and he's smiling kinda like "it's gonna be okay buddy". Yah I KNOW. TOTAL CHEESEFEST!
But bah. It was a cute thought, and I was all "awwwww" for the moment, and it looks like it'll turn out loverly anyways.


This one is what I'm mainly working on right now cuz it's kinda due at the end of the week.
If I want a chance at getting it published that is harharhar.
Yaoi Magazine
Yup, that's what I'm aiming for. And this will be the first full concept piece for either the cover or the centerfold piece.
It'll most likely be done in both color AND ink/manga tone not only to mess around with it, but to give them an option.
It's also going to be an introductory piece to an upcoming manga story I'll be working on after all this called +--Live--Wired--+
It's the story of this medical school student Faris, and a bio-android named "Mykha". Faris is this punk kid who is really only in school because his parents sent him there to become a doctor, and he slacks off. A LOT. As in...he's suprised he's made it to his Masters Degree soon to be Doctorates a lot. So he runs into this restricted lab that only the professors use for their personal research, and comes across several empty cryogenic freezing chambers, only one of which is occupied. He stupidly sits down on the control panel, unlocking the chamber, resulting in a half-frozen and completely naked young man lying there staring at him on the floor. As the boy is still unresponsive from the cryo-freeze, and not wanting to just leave him there exposed, Faris takes him home and then finds out that he's a bio-android. Blah, blah blah story goes on and he falls in love with him blah blah blah not gonna delve read more here blah
So in this piece it's going to have Faris in his lab attire, holding "Mykha" who is completely nude. Gotta work on the proportions majorly, but this is just a 5 minute if that sketcheroo before work today, just to get a basic layout down.
This will be submitted for the coverpiece/centerfold, and if I can't make those, just a regular artpiece to gaze at if they'll still take it.
If they like the story well enough I'm hoping to launch the comic through Yaoi Magazine. it's quarterly so I'll be able to get around 15-20 pages in each issue, or whatever increment they'll take it in.


This was the first concept for Faris and "Mykha" and they aren't kissing, but "Mykha" is rather unresponsive and blank-faced through most of the beginning parts of the story as he hasn't acquired the ability to express/feel emotions and most physical/mental/emotional anything yet (he's a prototype and his programming is incomplete). So he's just staring at Faris with a blank look and Faris is kinda looking at him with a mixture of curiosity and slight affection (towards the middle of the story kinda).
Will be done later once I work on Faris's design more.


I can't wait to do this one. If I can crank it out in enough time I would like to get at least the pencil art done for this by the end of this week as well if I can so that I can submit it along with the piece near the top (cover/centerfold potential #1)
It's going to be a completely nude "Mykha", just as he falls out of the cryo-freeze chamber. He's still half-frozen and so he's lying in a pool of the cryo-ice stuff, which has started to melt off of his skin so his hair and skin are all wet and shiny yay.
No you don't see his junk (sorry girls, and guys if there are any). He's kinda in the fetal position on his side and has his left arm spread out and above his head, like he's reaching out toward Faris "who are you, where am I?" half-dazed like that, and his waist is turned and his right arm is slouched over his waist, covering his unmentionables. It'll be a total mess with perspective. But even if I can't get it done in enough time to submit, I still want to do it for a future submission anyways. Maybe a chapter entry cover piece for the beginning of the manga yay!


And this one is another one featuring "Mykha". It'll be probably another chapter starting piece with him from the waist up kinda hugging himself and his face tilted upward with his eyes closed, surrounded by binary coding and wires and whatnot. I took the piece idea from Outlaw Star where Melfina is floating inside the computer network of the ship The Outlaw Star and is connecting to the mainframe, and also where in the anime she asks the question "Why was I made? Who made me? And what did they make me for?"

It's kinda the idea I got for this story. It's this bio-android that is just a prototype, can't feel anything much physically/emotionally/mentally/etc and doesn't have a place in the world at all. He's literally just an experiment. So the point of the story is for him to find his purpose through the aid of Faris, a belligerent university student who has no social skill and is not one for friendship or anything. So they kinda help each other out. Faris gives "Mykha" not only his name (his real name is some looong uber computer code...urr.....*looks at notes* BA200806PT0013 [stands for Bio-Android made in 2008 in 06/June, ProtoType number 0013], or better yet as the lab technicians call him "Unit 13" Faris names him "Mykha" because his eyes are colored in a prismatic purplish-black way like the stone Mica looks.

But I took the main story's setup with the character designs and stuff from several examples.

The bio-android concept came from both Melfina from Outlaw Star with her initial design.
And the overall storyline of both Outlaw Star, and most certainly Osamu Tezuka's Metropolis.
The storyline mainly comes from Metropolis because it starts with a boy named Kenichi who gets lost in the expanse of sublevels in a city known as Metropolis. In a fire at a laboratory, he finds that there is somebody still inside and goes to rescue her, only to find that it's a girl, and she's naked. Although he doesn't find out until much later that she's a bio-android. She has no knowledge of anything. She doesn't know much about common language, how to eat/sleep/dress/etiquette/anything!
He literally spends the majority of the movie traveling the city with her and running from a group of thug authorities who want to use her robotic powers to control the mainframe of a building called "The Ziggurat" that she was made specifically for it turns out, and he teaches her everything. Just as he accomplishes this, they are captured and she is hooked up to the mainframe and it drives her insane, turning her into a mad-power-crazed death machine that is hellbent on destroying the city and all who live in it. Kenichi finally is able to reach her just as her power systems overload and her actual body starts to overheat and literally fry, but just as she regains her senses she lets go and plummets to her death in the city slums hundreds of feet below.
In Outlaw Star it is very similar as Melfina has been kept in cryogenic freeze state for god knows how long and is rescued and unfrozen by the combined efforts of Space Outlaw "Hot-Ice" Hilda and her new temporary protege/combat-buddy Gene Starwind and his sidekick Jim Hawking of Starwind and Hawking Enterprises. Melfina wakes up and immediately starts crying asking why she was even created (and she's completely nude here too btw). Hilda dies shortly after that, leaving Gene and Jim in the control of the newly awakened bio-android Melfina, and a hidden space ship built by Space Forces and Pirates called the XGP15A-II, which they name The Outlaw Star. It turns out through the story that Melfina was created by the makers of the XGP for the sole purpose of piloting it, as she is able to directly connect to the main computer, and can navigate it herself effortlessly as the ships navigational system. She is also it turns out created as the "Maiden of the Leyline". The XGP was built to withstand the outer reaches of space and programmed with Melfina to be able to pilot through deep space and reach, and be able to navigate through The Galactic Leyline - a treasuretrove of riches and boundless information awaiting all who seek to and claim it. They reach the Leyline and it is revealed that she is the key to the Leyline "The Maiden of the Leyline", and she is taken into the Leyline's ancient computer system, being forced to merge with it so that it can grant the final quester's ultimate wishes.

But yah, my biggest influences on story and character design were that.


Until next time folks.

Internal Scream Of Frustration!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's just one fucking thing after another isn't it?

First some jackhole decides to email me last night and be a wise ass, giving no information as to their business and only to tell me that my debit card has been temporarily deactivated.

Duh jackhole!!!!!!! You emailed me at my other email address. I only use yahoo for banking information dumbass!!!!!!!!!!!! Not Gmail. So even though I was already aware as to the fact that not only was it not Bank of America, the only bank I use currently, because they would have:
A.)emailed me at my Yahoo mail account
B.)not been so dumb as to not give any further information as to why other than please call us at our 800 #
C.)would have definetely used their standard layout which has their logo and title at the top of EVERY email they send me updates with.

Neither of these were present and it was at my Gmail account, which I only use for my artsites ONLY.

So still fuming at the thought that "someone is trying to fuck with me..........AGAIN!" I wait patiently until morning being as it was going on 11pm-midnight and whatnot.

I call the number and it's Wachovia's automated card activation service.

I have no affiliations with Wachovia no?

NO

Luckily I was able to get in touch with an actual person instead of a stupid automated teller thing, so she thought it was odd too and told me it was probably an error and I shouldn't have anymore troubles.

Thank Gawd.



Then, I get another frustrating bill in from my student loans service. They raised my tuition payments AGAIN!!!!!!!

It's not riding at $350 a month!
that cost, including a $150 car payment, upcoming insurance this month AND license renewal which totals at $350 (car payment/license/insurance). Thankfully that's not monthly on the insurance and licensure. License is annually and insurance is bi-annually in July and Dec.

Then to make matters worse gas is tougher than ever and thankfully my job is close enough to where I can walk even when it's raining cuz I get there in literally 2 minutes being as I live not even a block and a half from it.

Mail postage went up so when I first priced my commissions as being only $2 to ship. Just to send it out in a sturdy envelope on the slowest sendout possible cost me $4.50, that's 75% of my initial commission price!!!! Not to complain or sound greedy but that's the equivalent of doing time-consuming artwork for less than $2 or $3 a pop. I can't afford that!
Luckily at work I get 50% off on most everything in the store so I was able to find a cheaper alternative by buying $0.99 cent bubble and cardboard manilla mailers, which cost me about $0.45 or so, then the stampage which is about 2 stamps worth to mail that out. I can do that. It's slower, but it's now budget condusive and the last 3 commissions I have will actually hold out on their profits for me no sweat.
That's been a hard lesson learned on the first 2. A real hard lesson learned.

And back to tuition, even though I...IIIIIIIIIII have been cutting the checks for almost 2 years, the accounts are still under my dad's name and information since Federal Government won't let me sign for my own tuition loans until I'm either married or 24 years of age (HOW FUCKING RETARDED IS THAT!!!!?!??!?!??!). I've been paying it off so far WITH NO MISSED PAYMENTS I might add, and I'm fucking 20....TWENTY. If I can do all that on top of other expenses, and still pay that shit tuition off and STILL hold my job and keep my social life and relationships under control, and STILL pass ALL of my classes (I'll admit to failing 3 overall in the past 2-3 years, but I took them again and passed with almost flying colors!). I think I can sign for a loan and pay for my own goddamned tuition without having to involve my parents before the frickin age of 24 or all of that jazz. I'm suprised my dad could even sign for those loans. By the time it's all said and done I'll be over $100,000 in debt, and I don't even have book or lab or campus room and board fees, which is an extra $15,000 a year!
And that's just my first major. I don't even have a minor lined up yet for crissakes. I don't even have room for a minor.
My mom took my dad to the frickin cleaners. Financially he tells me he doesn't know how he even makes it now, especially with both food and gas prices rising, and the economy going to shit and back.

I'm beginning to see a very very bleak future for America my friends. And I don't like it one damned bit.

On top of this I STILL haven't recieved my stimulus check in yet. Everyone else I know both friends and family have gotten theirs.

It's all ridiculous.

Then I just now got word that my FAFSA was processed. I'll be in touch with my advisors next week to get all the paperwork for MORE loans.

I've given up on scholarships. Why waste hundreds of hours filling out paperwork and writing essays that will NEVER be looked at.

I've done it countless amounts of times since my junior and senior year in high school. I've applied for literally hundreds of these scholarships and grants and pell grants and the latter.

Nothing.

Not even FAFSA helps me in the grant and scholarship department. I got only $400 last year, for the entire year! That didn't even cover my tuition deposit! So hello again to my dear friend Parent Plus Loan, another thing to start paying off in the next 3 months. And that's the downside, it's not a student loan in the student's name so you have to start paying it off 3 months after the start of the year, which is WHY I have to pay tuition now instead of waiting until after graduation.
But I've been told that if I postpone applying until after July 1, then anything after the 1st will not have to be paid off until after graduation, just like everything else that's normal. So no more tuition payments after that. Well, at least not anything higher, cuz I really couldn't afford it then.

It's like I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place really. I hate it.

And I can't really talk to anybody about it.

I bawled like a baby over the phone about it for over a half hour to my girlfriend, and I really think deep down that it disturbs her. She's still in high school, and doesn't have to worry about shit like this yet, but I still talk about it anyways.

I hope it won't become annoying or troublesome. Or maybe I shouldn't talk about it at all.

I'd hate to lose her over something like that.....which ties in with my previous journal entry (below) somewhat.


Then there's this:

"Sometimes i just wish that i was already 18 and that i could move out of the house and be out on my own and so whatever i wanted 2 do. i am tired of parents getting on me all of the time over stupid stuff. and sometimes i even think that they don't want me 2 be happy with anybody.....cuz anytime that i get a boyfriend or i am with someone for a long time then they always say....."you need 2 get a new boyfriend"....."he is lieing 2 you"....hes not right for you"......."he just wants 2 talk 2 you when he feels like it". i am just so tired of hearing that all of the time from them. its like they just don't want me 2 be happy at all or somthing like that......I AM SICK OF IT!!!!!. i am just ready 2 move out of the house and be out on my own. and movein with somebody already and just do whatever i want 2. and when i am 18 i am goin 2 move out who ever i am dating i am goin 2 move in with them, and then i am goin 2 go and get my belly button perised.....and do anything else that i wasn't allowed 2 do when i am living with my parents. but yeah as of right now i hate my life and i am ready 2 be out on my own already!!!!"

That was a journal entry titled "I Hate My Life!" by my little sister.


WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON??!??!?!?!??!


I feel like I've failed now.

Maybe I should have tried more. I was never the most supportive older sister, yet she still followed me around as a kid following my every move and mimicking me all the way up until I graduated.

She's changed way too much in the past 2 years. Some of the stuff I've heard.........it's like I'm watching/hearing about my teenage self on a more mentally traumatized and higher status level. That meaning to the fact that I went through high school with 2 parents, but was a societal reject throughout primary, middle, and high school. She's actually been the popular one in the social status. A Prep nonetheless, with very high standards, and has become quite snotty with her clout over the past 2-3 years. That and she's gone through end of 8th and all the way through high school with one parent, who is now remarried, which restructures her entire memory of MOM and DAD until the age of 14. I myself have not forgiven my own mother for getting remarried, and to this day cannot fully look her new husband in the eye. Not that I have any beef with the guy, cuz overall he's very quiet and sensitive, and a very nice and easy guy to talk to, and I trust him to take care of my mother and sister.
He's just not dad.
And my mom is no longer my mom.
I'll address that below later.

It worries me.
Months ago she was fine, had all these dreams and ambitions and kept telling me and everyone that she was going to go to college immediately after high school and study culinary arts and become a cake decorator and design party and wedding cakes and sweets and chocolates (pretty much anything involving cakes and fine/complex desserts). And I'll admit it, if there's one thing between me and mom that we accomplished teaching her at a young age it was cooking, which was something I delved into a lot as a kid being as our meal plan was always "fend for yourself" half the time. So I drug out cookbooks, and started from there, and when in doubt asked mom. The only thing I have a problem with now is cooking meat. I have no qualms with seafood and chicken, but heavy meats I don't eat cuz of my diet so I never cook with them.

I digress.

It truly worries me. I actually came close to crying for a second time today while reading her journal entry.
What can possibly be going on that would drive her to act JUST like that.

Just like me.

I'll admit I wasn't the most quiet-mouthed teenager. Well, I was quiet, but I let it be known that I was rebellious.

I guess I reflected a bit too much on her.

She's acting just Like I did in 2005 when everything fell apart for me.
EXACTLY like me. Except she hasn't attempted suicide yet or anything. I know she's too strong to do that.
But then again.

My biggest fear of this is when dad sees it.

I'm not going to show it to him. But he checks her account every couple days or once a week whathaveyou, and she didn't make it a privatized journal entry. ANYONE can view this entry on her page.

I KNOW he's going to ask me about it. He always does.

And I don't have an answer.

Then he'll confront her about it.

Then she'll start in on him and bring mom and her new husband Kevin in on it.

Then EVERYONE will get involved and something that may have been just a trivial teenaged rant fest out of angsty hormonal pressure release like so many other times, will get twisted into a damn near familial issue that will drive her, them, me, and everybody else insane. Because nobody and everybody can go a day without fucking up other people's business.

And back to my mom......just to get that one off my chest.

I really don't know how to take her anymore. Even looking at her in the face, I can feel the disappointment radiating out of her eyes.
She's resentful.
I turned her down at the LAST minute. Like. Seriously. It's the week of graduation. I'm in the middle of packing my bags because I have every intention of moving out with my mom and sister after graduation.
And I start to analyze the situation like so many other times that I do.
And I really get to thinking.
And I realize exactly what I'm about to do.
I was afraid of my dad. More so of the fact that I'm exactly like him in more ways than I can imagine.
I realized that I knew NOTHING about my dad aside from his name, profession, and birthday, and the fact that he's a complete motor/gearhead.
I wanted to know more about him. Maybe he wasn't so intimidating after all and I could learn something from him, give him a chance, maybe even grow to like and love him again like I did as a little girl.
I wanted that.
I then analyzed my future prospects in this.
He was moving to Greensboro, NC, and had a solid well paying job, and eventually a sturdy household for him (and me) to move into, and was welcoming me with open arms. And there were hundreds of jobs withing a 5 mile radius of housing, because Greensboro is such a highly populated and busy area and is very prosperous economically, and grows literally by the minute (there's ALWAYS a new construction somewhere for a new business or housing area going on every day of the week!)
Mom was moving to Charleston, WV, to live with her mother, who was unemployed and living off social security, and mom had no intentions of immediately getting a fulltime job, maybe a parttime. Charleston is one of the most economically depressed places I have ever seen. WV as a whole has over 17% unemployment rate, it's outrageous!. My chances for succeeding in both employment and college were very slim. And my living quarters weren't the most stable as I was given the choice of using the one room upstairs, or paying rent downstairs in the rat and bug infested and waterlogged apartment (the alleys flood a few times a year, sometimes so bad the people who've rented have had to put all their stuff up on cinderblocks and sometimes evacuate completely during the fall and spring, and it's sewage water......not just water.)
It was so hard to walk up to my own mother and look her in the face and tell her, with not even days to spare "No. I'm not moving out with you. I'm sorry, but I've changed my mind and am going with Dad."
The look in her eyes was fierce. I could immediately tell that she was angry as hell with me, probably the most angered I've seen in her eyes in my entire life, although her face was expressionless. I'm an empath, I can tell just by looking at someone's eyes, and can read them like an open book. I thought for sure at that point that she'd have nothing further to do with me and would stop short of disownment right then and there. I broke down crying, and cried so damn hard I started hyperventilating and apologising profusely. I don't even think I cried that hard for my ex when we finally called it quits one year prior to all this.
Graduation couldn't have gone worse after that.
Both sides of the family showed up and it was a total disaster.
NOBODY said a word. And I had to leave them alone in the same house for 3 hours while I went to graduation practice that morning. I was a total wreck!
I thought for sure someone would say something.
Sure enough though, I handed them all their tickets, and they went
In separate vehicles.
They sat..............on opposite sides of the stadium.
They left..............in separate vehicles.
Dad's family went to their hotel, and I went with them to hang out with Melissa, who was pretty much my only emotional support through the whole thing as everyone else was too silent.
Mom's family and her went with my sister to their hotel, then back to the house on base where we were living at the time, to pack up everything.
Dad and his brother my Uncle Scott went over later to help them with the computer.

They took everything.

I had fallen asleep because my head hurt so bad from all the whirling emotions.

I had left that afternoon for the highschool and had left my house intact, with everything in its place.

I came home around 1 in the morning to find the cupboard and pantry almost completely empty, all the pictures off the walls, the living room was nothing but a single chair, the couch, and the now empty entertainment system with no working cable lines. No computer. No dining table or china hutch, my sister's room was empty save for her empty bunk bed frame, dads room only had the bed and one dresser, and mine was the only one with everything still in it, untouched.

I didn't leave that room for days unless I had to. Dad was so upset I had feared I'd made the wrong decision when I misinterpreted his external anger tantrums for something I had done.

My mom and sister left me the very next morning. And she couldn't look me in the face, matter of fact she didn't, and I knew she was mad. Her words were blank and emotionless. She said "I love you baby", and she didn't mean a word of it.

Since then I think I've only seen her in person about 5 times, and have spoken to her over the phone just as many. 2.....going on 3 years. And I can count on one hand how many times I have conversed with my own mother.
And her attitude hasn't changed.
She certainly has. She's gotten more greedy and selfish, draining my father of every last penny that he's ever earned, which I will not delve into here. I'll just say my dad's lucky he gets by every month on what he has left, and no longer has any free time to himself hardly anymore because he has to work so many long hours just to make up for his losses.
She still looks at and talks to me the same. Blank and emotionless.
And has made no effort to support my education. Not that I want it as I stated about above. But I would at least have liked to hear her make an effort other than "I can buy you some sketchbooks or markers, but you know I really can't do anything for you financially" Hah. Like you can and dad can when you get over 1/3 of his entire income plus yours and your new husband's. She's financially high-rolling it and she tells me that she can't afford to even think about supporting my education, but instead tells me this, in these exact words:
"Can't you get your father to help you with it? You know I can't."

What the hell!

Not only does she insult me and my future career by exceedingly over the years showing nearly NO true appreciation for the work that I do by merely giving me a "oh that's nice" or "keep up the good work" in a monotone manner, not really looking at it but glancing over it then moving on to her next chore of the day as she considers everything else in life to be.

But she tells me in everything, not just financial aid. Rent, credit card, car and insurance. When I was car hunting before I finally bought one I felt I could trust her enough to indulge her with my personal financial qualms about budget for the car and my job.

She's been so brazen as to ask me why I even need one "Can't your father just pay for everything?"

NO

HE BLOODY HELL CAN'T!!!!!!!!!!!

Where does she get the mentality that after taking him to the cleaners that he's still made of money. After paying her all her dues from HIS paychecks, along with child support for my sister, which is damn near $400 a month!. He has rent and his own insurance, then any utilities and food and his clothing etc expenses. After all of that he has NOTHING to his name every month and has come very close to hitting zeros before I can imagine, although I'm not sure as I've never questioned. But the look on his face every month implies his answers for me.

So No. He can't.

And frankly I don't want him to.

That's one mentality I DO have.

A sense of responsibility.

I pay for:
my own clothing
Car payment
Insurance
Gas and oil changes (which I can proudly do myself now I might add!) and upkeep (Yup, I can do that too!, even a tire change!)
Cat food and vet payments for MY cat pretty
any medical bills I encounter (eye doctor, checkups at the family clinic)
Cell Phone
Credit Card
Any other personal expenses such as books, games, personal amenities (bathroom and feminine products), along with any foods I eat myself (I eat organics so anything that I will strictly be eating, I go out and buy on my own time)
Postage expenses
Any and all travel expenses I rack up
Freelance and School Supplies
And Tuition

The only things I don't pay for at this time are rent and utilities, to which I have actually argued the point on with him but he flatly refuses saying I have enough on my plate and if and only if it came down to it financially for him, but for now I doesn't want my money on the matter as long as I pay for the above listed.

And that really pisses me off that she has the gall to ask me if I just considered laying back and putting it all on him.

I think I'd sooner shoot myself than do something like that to a man who has give up EVERYTHING, to make sure that me and my sister can succeed in life.

THAT is a real parent my friends.

And he gets treated like SHIT by someone he's laid down his heart and soul for, for over 20+ years just so she can go behind his back and cheat on him, and rob him of his time and efforts and money, chastise him and call him names and make him out to be a fool who knows nothing!
He's MUCH more intelligent than that. He's actually very wise and philisophical. He's actually taken me by suprise MANY times with just how insightful and processive he really is.
He's a good man, and a damned good father.

Thing is, I know EXACTLY what she and everyone else in her family wanted out of me. I'd heard it over the years but I'd never believed it to be fact.
Their plans were for me to live with them in WV, so they could send me to WV State or Marshall University JUST like my Aunt Donna and Older Cousin Samantha, so that I could become some great Doctor or Phyician who would stay in college for over 10 years and rack up some gigantic student debt that I would have never seen because my father would be slaving away paying for it while I had no idea because I would have become so snide and pigheaded I wouldn't have cared, and would just have left him in the dust and paid no attention to him for the rest of his life.

I've thought of that scenario many times. The fact that I could have fallen into that nightmarish reality of a future and doomed my own father to a near eternity of servitude, denial, and abandonment. He'd have probably offed himself before too long.

There were actually times during the first year of the divorce, and some of the months following it, and even now the threat still stands where I've feared that I'd be either at work or out of town and I'd get some phone call telling me that my father was dead. Either by suicide or some friek accident. It's been a heightened fear that has plagued me on and off to think that if the situation would have become any worse over the past 2 going on 3 years, that my dad was actually being slowly driven to this point, and I was watching it happen, and that there may just be the chance that I'd get that phone call. I don't think I could have dealt with it either.


But it just pisses me off!

No appreciation for me or my father.

None whatsoever!

He busts his ass to keep her happy, and I slave away just as hard at a cash register by day and a computer desk and drawing table by night just to slowly work my way up the social ladder to earn some rank in the art work and one day hold some respect, which I will never earn in her eyes on a true level.

Yes, she thinks my work is impressive and beautiful.

But does she APPRECIATE my efforts.

I can see that in her eyes when she looks at my stuff.

She'll compliment and say "I really love the color. You're so talented, I don't know where she gets it from! Just keep doing your thing baby and you'll go far"
She's started to come around partially because I think the hints I've sent her way are finally settling in.

But sometimes, sometimes I can catch the glimpse in her eye when I show her my portfolios. That small glimmer when she asks me about my schoolwork and where I plan to go from there that implies "Ugh, could you have wasted your time AND money on anything WORSE! Art.....ART!? Who makes a living off art!? Should have gone to medical school like the rest of the family and MADE something of yourself! Instead of wasting your time and days doodling in a notebook!"


There IS more I'd like to say, but it's like 3 am, and my mind is starting to muddle.

And I think I've lost the initial point I was trying to get at. If there even was one before.

I'll continue this at a later time when I remember what I'm all about here.

Toodleloo folks.

P.M.

Update, Internal Serious Thinkings, and A Commission

been a while eh?

Well I've been up to no good lately.

Got a new job and had a blast at AZ '08.

That, along with doing a helluva lot of thinking finally brought me around to realizing my own potential.

You can thank that entirely to the hard efforts of My Beloved Muse.

I really don't know what I'd do without her.

I've been a major ass over the past year and a half to 2 years that I've known her, and to many others along the way as well being a whiney emo bitch-face about how my art "sucks" and that I should quit while I'm ahead and I'll never get anywhere.

Just being a regular emo-pants I was.


Finally got to sit down and think about it. And I really don't believe that any amount of sincere apologies I can lay on anyone will be enough to earn me the forgiveness for being such a lameass all this time.

But in good news I've finally gained the majority of the confidence that everyone has wanted me to realize for myself, and things have been looking up. Although it's few, which I really really don't mind at all, I have a lovely group of fans whom I've come to love dearly. And slowly but surely my art and stories are making their way into knowledge circulation in the art and writing community, which is all I've ever looked for. No fame, no glory, no nothing except just honest recognition for my achievements and hard work.


But enough of my BSing.

I've been balancing stuff pretty well lately between art and work, and I'm getting ready to add school into the equation once again come this september, which I'm really excited about.

I was really extremely morbidly depressed for the longest time thinking that I wasn't going to be able to attend next year or ever again, but I pulled through barely, and I'll tell you I'm NEVER going to let that happen again.
It'll be smooth sailing from here on that note.









I'll admit I've fallen once again into a personal depression. Although it has nothing to do with art or work or anything.

I guess it's all just to prove to me once again that I am indeed human.


It was brought up in conversation lately, and on more than one occassion with more than one person, that I need to get out more.

I also have determined myself that I need an apartment.

Be that as it may given the circumstances that tuition and a monthly car payment suck up 3/4 to almost all of my current wages, and are driving me near the broke meter, have disheartened me once more in even the slightest attempts at moving out by next summer.

I told myself 20, no later than 21. That even if I had to live next door to my dad or grandparents, I would be officially out of the house, no longer under the roof of a blood relative.

and damnitall if all the affordable places in the entirety of greater Greensboro, Winston Salem, and High Point aren't all uber expensive unless I chance the ghetto. And I've tried contacting student housing for local universities, none of which I attend. No answer or a straight "no you must attend this uni to live in student apartments."

It seems I cannot live on my own at the moment without the aide of a roommate. Unless I can manage to talk my tuition dept. into lower payments and finally kick my car bill, which is almost entirely paid off.

Which moves me onto the main point of previously aforementioned conversations.

I don't really know ANYONE at all on a personal level anymore.

outside of my immediate family, in which my sister and mother currently live in a separate state than me.............I have NO friends at all to hang out with. I'm literally alone in greater Gboro as far as social interaction. Not even my work buddies ever hung out with me. I got invited out several times, but most of them were out drinking, which is something I both cannot and care not to do (being as I'm both underage, and dislike drinking at the moment)

I just don't know anybody. And it gets me everytime just HOW reclusive I really am when I'm asked "so, who do you hang out with" or "whatcha up to this weekend" and when I answer it's like "oh.....really?"

It's disheartening really. Very depressing. I really don't like doing anything without anybody else there to share it with me. I view it as pointless. And most of if not everything in Gboro consists of the party atmosphere. In fact Gboro IS a party city.
Malls, movies, shopping, dining, clubs, you name it. Everything here relies on social interaction. Even grocery shopping and getting the dumbest of shit at walmart or something.

And I've noticed that I've once again become a boring person. I wake up, take a shower, go to work, come home, eat something, go on a walk, come back home, do some house chores, check email and web accounts, start on school or freelance artwork, talk to My Muse, stay up to the wee hours of the morning drawing or thinking or reading.

I'm so boring. So monotonous.
Scheduled, predictable.

DULL.

and that's the one thing I've been afraid of becoming.

I'll even go so far as to admit that I've come to deeply realize that others around me DO in fact have lives.

My Muse for example. It's one thing after another and it's been hard to keep her on the phone for more than 5 minutes for the past month.
I know I'm going to sound selfish here, but it's the one thing that truly brightens up my day, even if we don't talk about jack shit. Just hearing her voice and hearing about what she's been up to, even if she think's it's pointless makes my day, and also lets me know that the world is still spinning and I'm not just stuck in some day-to-day ring-around-the-rosey lifestyle that will eventually kill me with it's monotony.

I want to be near her every day so badly it almost kills me sometimes.
I honestly am starting to hate it here in Gboro.
It seems I never live in the same place as everyone else I know.

If I could find a decent place to live on top of a well paying job over there, you bet your ass I'd be moving to her town ASAP. Hell I'd overnight myself in a FedEx box if I could.

Then I remember my true place in life.

I'm the older of us, and she's going into her senior year of high school. She has so much to look forward to. So much to hope and aspire for in the future.
She has dreams and ambitions, things she wants to accomplish, and I know she will.

She the kind of person who doesn't really like to, and in fact hates thinking about anything other than the day as planned.
Haphazard in her schedule, as opposed to my planning things out months and sometimes years in advance, forever setting goals and deadlines and planning events that may or may not even happen at all.
She goes with the flow, a real believer in the term "Carpe Diem" (Sieze the Day).

As a matter of fact, our relationship is solid proof that opposites do indeed attract:
She is hot (temper/personality/just plain hawt), while I am cold
She is bright and outgoing, while I am dark and reclusive
She is positive, while I am her negative
She is haphazard, while I am cautious
She is one-tracked in her methods, where I am dispersed to the 4 winds and back
She is my Fire, and I am her Wind (our elemental natures, which ironically coincide)
She is my light/day, and I am her dark/night (and literally, our initials are AM and PM too if you can believe it)

Frankly I'll add that there is also one thing about our relationship that I've stated several times before, even to her, that truly scares the bejeezus out of me.
The overwhelming fact that she may not see a "me" or even an "us" in her future agendas, frightens me a little.
Then I remember my place once again and that I'm selfish and should just accept it if that be the case later on down the road.

Then there's concerning personalities and relationships.
Although she's younger, she's dated far many more people in number than I know (albeit most were schoolyard relationships, nothing more). I on the other hand have dated one other before her.

It ended rather violently I might add.
I'll say it now that there is no greater insult to the human ego and overall mentality than to stand in front of your partner, your lover that you have shared everything with over the past 2.5 years and watch and listen as they berate you and smear your reputation as a decent human being across the ground like a washrag in front of everyone you had believed was you friend. On top of this only to learn that not only did more than one of your best friends dated and/or slept with (there are 4 I can name in a 3 month period) your significant other, some at the same time as you - proving that you were nothing more than a toy. Then to hear this verbatim from their mouth coldly, with no emotion, that it was all you had become good for, and that you had become the following: boring, dull, fat, ugly, a turnoff, just didn't do it for him, useless.

This piled on with years of disappointment from other people I've befriended and confided in, ALL ended in ruin, save for 2 or 3, and even then those connections are kept on a short leash at my convenience.
There has not been one close connection I've had since childhood that has not gone unbetrayed at some point or another.

All of that in itself has driven me away from social interaction over the years. What once took me minutes now takes me months.

It's the one TRUE fear that I currently hold in any and all aspects of my life.

REVOCATION and ISOLATION, along with a dash of FAILURE.
These have mixed inside my soul into a wonderful concoction that constantly tears at my mind and heartstrings, baring its fangs and drooling over my being like a madman possessed, clawing and biting his way out of his cell, threatening to overturn any and everything that I have fought and stood for.
Sometimes it has won.

While I DO NOT fear this kind of action from My Muse, I DO, however, fear myself in the idling thought that I may one day do or say something that would provoke her everlasting hatred and disapproval.

In a way you could say that at this point I technically fear losing her and/or her love/affection/approval/etc more than anything


I guess all this fretting has been getting me more riled up about her senior year than even she is, and it's not even mid-June yet. Her school year JUST ended for crissakes and I'm fretting like a ninny.

It just proves the fact that LOVE is indeed the most PAINFUL emotion you can or will ever feel.

Then I remember that I am yet again a very selfish being.

That and I tend to worry and look into things too damn much.

And if she saw this and read all the way to the bottom she'd jump through the internet line and strangle me senseless for being so damn cotton-headed.

Even if my current fears, which loom over my head, threatening to suffocate me like a warm pillowcase, and if at the end of this coming year when she walks across that podium. She will be an adult.

She can make her own decisions, think for herself and all.

If when that time comes around and she doesn't want anything in the world to do with me.

I'll just have to suck it up and press on, just like before, regardless of how badly it may hurt.

I love her endlessly and that's all there is to it. Be it that I share her future or not.



...................





Although I don't believe this will stop my thoughts from gnawing at the back of my mind like starved hamsters.








Sorry to write you all a novel here.

It's just been on my mind a lot lately, and has really been bugging me.

Yes.....I know

I know.

I should really be talking to her about this.

But for certain reasons:
1.)I really prefer to talk about this in person, and that does NOT include a phoneline
2.)She's currently having fun at a friend's graduation sleepover, and I wish not disturb her

I will definetely talk to her about all this in the near future. Just not right now. It's a personal matter that I feel needs to be addressed on a face-to-face basis, so it will have to wait for that.

I don't believe anyone reads this other than her anyways.

I also realize that this may have seemed like an internal rant or something, and might be taken the wrong way.

I assure you that it's not and I'm just trying to clear my head.

Typing just really helped me get this off of my chest. And I wanted to type it all out and get it all down as clearly as I could make it (and TRY to make it all make sense in writing), and it helps me build up the balls to even address it down the road.

So yah. There you have my excuse for giving you a novel.

In the meantime enjoy some of my latest commission work: