Is it possible to have such intense anxiety that the entirety of my musculature aches? That I've been so tense I'm getting muskelfiber? I've been doing that thing again, when I try to find humour in horror, but as we all know, that usually results in me detonating over a jar I can't open or the cat sneezing too loudly. 

Or it could be I showered yesterday and sat with moist hair in a room with the window cracked open. Sounds way better. 

You know, if it just so happens that it turns out my mum can't live without my dad, imagine the poor dude in heaven, just about to embrace his newfound youth and freedom, and her voice coming up behind him, reprimanding him for chasing tavern maidens. It would give only half a positive meaning to the phrase: they're together in heaven now. :))

Ye, that's my humour in horror. There are just some things you can't steer no matter how hard you try. 

Everyone: "Yay, 2020 is over!!" 2020: "Hold my beer."

 Fuck these earthquakes. I mean, we're just jumping, but poor Zagreb/Petrinje are 200 km away! And why - there are no tectonic shifts there, no volcanos. Why do they keep jumping??

"Nocturnal" series.

 

I gotsta say, if life ever turns in a direction where G just so happens to marry again someone else in the future, he'll be more than fully equipped to deal with any kind of mental disarray. Good news for me, not so for him, as having to hold someone's sane soul like a frail egg in your hands is a bit of a bummer.

But ye. He manages me perfectly. Whether he is just that good or whether he just sees me as a small child, either way. We had sorta Xmass dinner up at mum's place, as sis is keeping her distracted by cooking and baking to no end. Which is great, except they set the table in the living room, where, you know, dad lived out his few final days and where I haven't been able to even peek inside, yet alone step in. Sis tried to bait me by hanging my favourite chocolate on the makeshift tree, and mum snapped at me to stop making a fuss. But I had 20 days to try and work a way around it and it wasn't happening. If I had a say, I would never go into the room again. My brain is fully able to paint over certain stressful stuff, but it does have an uncanny ability to not only remember a certain thing to painstaking detail, but it also tends to fill in the gaps like a supercomputer. 

So, asking G to help me, as I am not very good with walking into spaces yet - where the heating furnace is, is also a problem - a million little items there that dad brought, used or touched. Or turned to charcoal. G took my hand and said alright, let's go. And we went around the living room, to the corners, around furniture, rounding the central fireplace, to the sofa pretty decorated tree, everywhere. Dispersing demons, making sure they don't grow. Nipping symbolism in the bud.

There's an inner G, as well. A voice of reason within me. I had an urge to secretly start buying things I know dad would love, and store them someplace secretly. Not unlike eastern religions have little shrines for their ancestors. But an inner G commented: that would solve absolutely nothing, it would just make you feel weirder. Quit acting like a freak. 

Am still not allowed to get a comfort animal, though. He says I have a bunch of animals and all they do is manage and irritate me. Fair enough.

 Hello solstice, my old friend :)

The memory of my father is now a large white ship

(each suite a memory)

A large, white, gleaming modern cruise ship,

moving away from me on a windless day,

gliding down a flawless ocean

Under a flawless sky.

Far from a crushing affair, 

his passing was a dignified, tranquil conclusion

to a friendship 

by the wildest of mentors. 

I wonder if, as he was leaving, he went to check up on his vineyard one more time and count the bees and he saw that one of the hives was withered, so he picked it up and took it with him and he's a beekeeper now, on top of vintner? You can make quite a good mead if you know what you're doing and have a large enough glass jar. Can you imagine? A winemaker beekeeper old commie storyteller in heaven. Naa, he's with my brother now, somewhere in their homeland open fields, talking shit about politics and chasing women, eating all they can, smoking the good old brands without a filter. I told mum if she ever happens to hear an odd noise in the middle of the night, coming from the pantry, that's just him sneaking back to steal the good sausages. 

Well ... that much about that ....

 

Some more 'cruel strikers' ...

 As I've mentioned before, the concept of a 'cruel striker' is what I call a fake letter or a fake message, designed to make someone feel better, even though it is a very thin, transparent lie. not for the piece of paper itself, but for the sense of it. To write 'cruel strikers' is akin to giving someone a bullshit faith experience or somesuch. A tiny, private matter. Criminally arrogant, engineered for pure good. 

So. My gran will be a 100 tomorrow. I've not seen her in several months and they don't allow visits even though a window, as they did in the spring. There isn't much I can buy and send her, except perhaps fake flowers, which would be allowed and easily disinfected. She can't hear or see well enough for the phone, which we've tried, and all that stuff we used to gift her - blankies, perfumes, toiletries, sweets, room decor and so on, none of that serves her any longer, half because she's always kept her room minimal and just gives clutter away, but mostly because the caretakers already provide all the bath products needed and the retirement home is really taking great care of her. Materially, she lacks for nothing. Much of the rest she can't really see. 

So the only thing I could think of, is to write a bunch of cruel strikers. I used different pens and different writings and I'll admit I could have used a lot nicer handwriting for mum, as that one is probably the only one she'll care about, but G helped me deliver a dozen of them to the Home's address, so in my mind, when today the caretakers visit her, she'll have a dozen different greeting cards. I will probably buy and write and send some more, so they keep coming for the next few days. I sign almost everyone I can think of, from people in this building to people who work in the bakery across the street. I am of half a mind to sign my late brother, but I desire none to post it that far. I'd even sign the president, but he's an asshole and she would just get angry if he wrote to her - though I think the major does congratulate the centenarians. Some signees know of this, others will never find out. It matters too little, I think. I think she will only care that her room is suddenly full of best wishes and greetings. That's the idea, at least. Cruel strikers never really work. 

Just wiped my nose and then spent 20 minutes googling what medical condition causes your snot to be orange, before the General woke up and said: mulling french sienna without a face mask last night. 

Sometimes the brain just won't brain. 

Am so nervous about this stupid fucking virus I just ate a bagel which was accidentally unsalted and freaked out - two people had to try a piece to confirm it's not me who's lost all taste, but the bagel. 

         Nine days in dad still has no symptoms at all. I am beginning to suspect his test was a false positive and they just wheeled him to a Covid ward in the middle of the night and left him there. Had I not gone batshit hysterical and kidnapped him from the hospital, he might have actually contracted something. I think I will hold onto this version, as it makes me sound heroic and everyone is fine in the end. Three days to go and they can get their dog back. Not that much will change, mum will just return the furniture and curtains and paintings I took out, and won't have to get upset so much when she finds crumpets in the morning. That is not a metaphor, he literally sneaks into the pantry to steal the good food in the middle of the night. As I said, we've calculated that into the risk factor and mum disinfects everything regardless.  

Had one of the worst panic attacks of late, last night. I had to truly explain to the General, that I am not a crazy person, I am just really really freaked out and I have been acting far too calm and brave lately, because I really am not and I haven't the strength to be anything but myself in front of this one fucking person in the whole damn world. 

But this morning he had three missed calls from dad's number very early and he felt it, too - that sinking horrific sense of panic, right up until the moment it evaporates like a soap bubble - like a tense scene in a horror movie, when the creeping shadow turns out to be some random mailman or something ... Dad urgently needed to cancel his request for bagels and instead asked us to bring him burek. (Meaty pastry alternative.) It was so important - like in the mind of a very small child - it was a life and death situation, because he was starving and everyone needed to drop everything and deliver that to him. a) he is far from starving, in fact he's getting fat and b) for fuckssakes. He isn't half as senile as he acts. Now the General knows how I feel all the time. It feels like that all the fucking time. 

It's really creepy actually, all we do is wait and worry and wait and worry and try not to read statistics as they are gravely unfavourable, and I was told even the retirement home where gran is, even with all their strict precautions, got back two ladies from the hospital who got infected there. I have no fucking idea what they are doing in that fucking place, do they go around licking these people or what the fuck. Dad was in the INFECTIONS ward for chrissakes. ALONE in a room. There are safety guards with GUNs station at the gates. One is safer anywhere else at the moment. 

 Okay, so far, so good and we've arranged for a makeshift safe zone for dad to stay in and mum to avoid .... if only he wouldn't secretly break their rules. which we've taken into calculations. The problem is, he seems to be asymptomatic because of all the medicine he's already taking for his heart and diabetes - as I understand people like that show no symptoms, they just go at some point. I need to find a way to monitor his blood oxygen. I wonder if Samsung Health is at all reliable, or even just a little bit indicative? Geez, if only doctors had cars and would be able to visit their quarantined patients at their homes to measure these magical bodily functions, eh? 

Do those fancy sports watches you get with fancy phones work like that? Measure O2? they should. I am fairly certain we have one of those somewhere... around here ...

Okay, think. 

Fuck.

Okay. There is only so little we can do, but I think the first thing to do is get him out of that fucking hospital. And then hope for the best. I am so scared I have to shit five times a day. But this is like being in a wakeful nightmare and my brain keeps trying to help and keeps erasing my memories, so I walk around and think: but why am I shaking and feel so anxious? Oh, right, dad has covid, I forgot. 

 Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck

Being worried about dad keeps shooting pellets of intrusive thoughts at me, regularly, and it can cause me to have mini anxiety episodes that I fail to pull myself out of fast enough. To combat this, to have ammo at a ready, G and I have been talking about baby spiders (or small spiders) a lot and - do not ask how my brain works - that is something that soothes me thoroughly. There are rogue concepts firing at random in my brain that just cause certain emotions. There is STILL a trigger of two words - as an impossibly random combination as you could imagine - which causes me to start laughing. Granted, there have always been more which cause me to cry. 

Being able to shop online rather vastly of late, I've gotten myself tons of material and even some treats - like a curious brush or a ... well, obviously, a few more books. Been a busy girl, too, constantly feeling mildly nauseated when outdoors, so I mull new and new paints. For all the German-company pigments I've purchased - and I plan to buy a lot more, now that I know they are trustworthy - I've made the primes and now am making the duals. Of what remains, I'll mix threes and scraps. What I really need, though, is a new phone, because mine has been acting up, lying to people about my availability, but I love my ancient phone and cannot be sure it's not the ancient sim card which is the source of the problem. Though I really do miss playing Pokemon, so g will probably get something superlative and I'll inherit his left-behinds. It's scary how fiercely capable phone cameras are these days. I used to dream about a street-smart Fuji and now for that price you get a phone with five cameras, one of which takes an absurd macro, another specialises in portrait and the last can take photos of the moon the size of a pizza plate. Fuji just has one lens and for all its retro charm, feels less and less like an investment and more like a hipster vanity toy. 

Today was Wednesday - my shipping day, but I wanted to keep mulling, setting up the pigment jars on the table in the morning. I have to pack the orders tomorrow, otherwise, I get thrown out of cadence. Not that I've written, painted, read or seen a whole movie since Batch 6 began, but I am ambitious now. Batch 6 has been a very well oiled machine, still rolling. 

Revendreth

A corrupt, miserable, treacherous realm, led by a scheming, hypocritical elf and his sycophant sadistic posse. And they have Garrosh and are torturing him for his anima. 

I think I've just found my covenant. That blonde bitch is going down.

 I cannot for the life of me understand people. It didn't use to bother me as much, but it has been bothering me lately. As a hitchhiker, I used to be pretty good at reading people and besides - almost everyone is exactly the same, everyone's got issues and anxieties and ambitions, it's really kitchen-sink psychology. Yet, recently, I just don't get it. My sister and her boyfriend, who last time we interacted shouted at me and forbade me to bring home a puppy for dad, shrieking she will prevent me - which she did, easily, as mum does anything she says ... and suddenly nice to me. Like, extra nice. we're talking a sibling capable of holding a grudge for a decade. wearing her face long around people in a passive-aggressive attitude for YEARS. Or being super smug, having achieved me having to give the puppy away. But no. Yea, okay, dad's in the hospital, but he's often at the hospital. And yesterday G and I go up to take some stuff to dad and the pair tried to give me a phone. Like, a fancy phone. Saying mine's been acting up (I have a Samsung 4, it's as old as most people's feet, but I am oddly fond of it and have no real need to replace it.) 

        I just don't get it. Preventing me to bring home a puppy because dad's old and mum can't handle another load, okay, I could get that, even though it almost looks like they've thought it over and perhaps saw I was right - a puppy Labradoodle WOULD cheer everyone up. But being nice to me, trying to give me a phone? Er .... G says to not linger on it. 

        But, dude, I honestly don't get it. Like, I know I'm half autistic, but this is ridiculous. 

My tummy aches. I've not bee eating properly - protein bars and some spicy street food last night - as dad had to go to the ER, again and again, that is a seven-hour ordeal. Even if I come prepared and G brought me a power bank and some more protein bars, it's still a tedious mess. Most of the hospital is Covid occupied - it's actually rather freaky when they have to transport a Covid patient though the general part of the hospital for some reason, like a CT scan or something, the staff look scary and they have their own security to move people out of the way. The ER was moved to paediatrics admittance ward, which made them move not an iota faster. six pairs of people sat there, waiting, miserably, for gods know what. 'Your paperwork is being done'. It's past seven. We arrived at quarter to two. Dad was in fairly good spirits, as he wasn't in any pain anymore, though his legs look horrific and are leaking all kinds of impossible things. We actually chatted all kinds of pleasant things, some stories, some memories, some summaries of documentaries we've watched or YouTube clips. It's always so awful when they take him away, such a mess. But hopefully, they find some balm or magic pill and help him. 

         The cutest moment was when I offered to give him a protein bar and he asked if the vendor has any meat. No, alas, no ribs or steaks or T-bones in this vendor. (Awesome fucking vendor, though, I must say.) Eff off with your fruity protein bars, that's not food. Hah! But then I gave him one and for a man with no teeth, he sniffed that bar. He said: now that I've had a mean, I will probably fall asleep. "Good, do sleep, the time will pass faster, I said. He replied: Okay, now I've slept, can I have another fruity protein bar?" :D :D :D

         I made an effort to find those with least fruity sugars and most calories. He ate three. telling him that's almost a 1000 calories he just input mattered little, as it's the volume which counts with him, not value. The General has recently invested into vitamins - something I am usually not a fan of, supplement - because he discussed with people who probably know this shit, how food lately is actually truly poor in D3 and Vit C and so on, so getting some B complex, Zinc and Magnesium won't hurt, but may help a little. Prophetically, I also traded some acid-soothing and digestive enzimes from my My, so today, feeling like there's a rock in my gut, I get to down more capsules than an old junky in a loony bin. 

Thinking about awful things doesn't help one bit and it will just make me sick again. It's best to focus on getting some magazines, crossword puzzles and a phone to dad, in an evidence bag, possibly hurling it tied to a brick and through a third-story window. It almost worked the last time. Damn, we have so many stories taking place in that damn building. Here's to praying to serpents and wine gods that we generate many more. 

Apricot poodle

I am just saying, this needs to be my fucking next dog. Not a boar on a leash, not a neurotic hound, not something whiny and needy. A golden poodle. 

For once a good dream

After a few days of dreaming of cub velociraptors loose in a petting zoo (am not even joking) and people being sick with Covid, finally a good dream for a change!

         I've mentioned how my brain looooves splaying tricks on me, right? How in the micro-millisecond between the time my senses pick on something and the brain analyses it, a part of my cortex forces possible alternatives right to the front: a Rolodex of horrific images and warnings. It only lasts a heartbeat, but it is designed to freak me out completely. Last night example, as Lyra and I were walking down the town square - which is slightly declined, so like a pleasant wide ramp and there was almost no people - it was already dark (to combat light pollution city lights are very dim.) I see something wildly bizarre crawling at some speed towards me, maybe about 30 cm high but about a meter wide, using four limbs to push forth, like a weird insistent spider. My brain screams: OMG it's a creature from the Thing!!

          Er ... no. It's a small kid lying flat on his skateboard, pushing himself up the slope with hands and feet, playing. But thank you, brain. I needed that blood pressure jolt. 

          It's been a long day, rather melancholy, as of course there's no way you can have a puppy for three days and not fall madly in love with it. Fuck but he was awesome. (I gave him to a young family with a country house and small kids). I keep seeing him everywhere, the idiotic bundle of enthusiasm, following me on every step, usually pulling on my shoe lace. It's really hard to poo when a puppy is biting your toes, just so you know. We've gotten rather good at walking on a leash, with Lyra leading, even if most his energy went for chasing dry leaves as they tumbled in the wind. The moment he wore out and I stopped anywhere, outdoors or indoors, he just gave the long heavy puppy sigh and passed out on my feet. That sigh, by the way, actually relaxes and settles your whole body, so now I'm doing it as well, after I lye down. 

         It's gotten a tad warmer, too, tonight, so, to cheer me up, brain gave me an Owen Grey dream - he's the ugly porn star with a spectacular dick I'm a fan of on Pornhub. In the dream he's this tall thin slimy-looking rogue, wearing all black, except for the inside of his jacket which is an odd pepita dull beige dull brown pattern, that makes him virtually invisible in a forest environment. We're standing on the edge of a dangerous, steep woods, with time to kill. We seem to be some kind of assassins or something. I propose we play-hunt and if we catch anything, it'll be a nice lunch, but if we don't, we can just fuck. The General's bought me a hunting knife recently, so I had that in the dream. And so, me in lead, we parkoured, jumped, slid, climbed, bounced and swung alongside the crumbling terrain, for the better part of the dream. It was great. I was good at it and had no desire to impress, which made me the boss. Plus, getting a guy hard at the very beginning is an excellent way to ensure no animals are harmed during a hunt :D

          Ultimately we had to climb up to the lege and interrupted some farmyard dog and drew the attention of the people, but even though we were muddy, we just amenably pretended to be looking for mushrooms. The farm woman gave us tips and her two sons, who were working on an old car, were sort of wrestling, wearing no shirts, sweaty and very large and handsome-looking. (It was a VERY nice dream.) The Grey rogue character and I made fast return to the woods, because we were both getting wildly horny by then, and started with oral, although by then I was shivering with pleasure and woke up, alarm sounding off a minute later. Pity the General has to go to work at 5 this week (consequently leaving the alarm as late as humanly possible, down to a minute, alas.). I'd have loved to tell him about this dream I just had. 

no good deed goes unpunished

Today was an odd day - scary, exciting, pleasant, overwhelming and depressing as fuck. The scary and exciting - I'm talking so scary that at some point I had to drive into the woods and poo - part was the fact we are not allowed to leave our city limits. There is almost no traffic and there are a lot of roadblocks - I saw three, yet, Hermes' fortune, always on the other side of the road. These are anti-covid precautions, as the virus is still spreading and killing people, more than those in charge can explain or act cool about.

The most pleasant part was the moment I found the perfect doggo for dad - a small brown mix with lagotto romagnolo, for almost no money, a boy, ready for pick-up. It was the perfect dog and I got so excited, I called instantly. There is a problem, though. My mum isn't too thrilled about having two dogs, even though the hole left behind by the death of their old rottweiler is palpable. But that was, in my design, going to all vaporise once she sees the adorable joy bundle. The General thought it was a tremendously bad idea, because the penalty for crossing city limits is 400 euro and I needed to cross more than one. Both ways. This stubbornness of mine caused him to lose complete control over my wellbeing and that does not sit well with him: he hates it.

I drove, petrified, for hours down the most pleasant, sunny, abandoned roads and it was lovely. The puppy was slightly less like the lagotto, but we liked one another instantly. A soft, clean, fluffy, calm, trusting puppy. He cried for a little bit, once we started driving, hating the transport box, but after five minutes of my humming and talking to him and listening to pleasant jazz, he calmed down and would just look at me or sleep in the nest of doggy toys I stuffed in the carrier.

More luck than brains, not a single patrol stopped me. I kept wondering if I should use the smaller roads, but every time I could see the smaller roads across the valley, more cops were there, expecting it. Once I reached my city, I called dad to ask, hypothetically, if he had a dog of his own, what he would name it. I wanted to keep the puppy for a couple of days and teach it some basic fun commands, but we were due to go uphill tomorrow, so that was the plan, to surprise them then.

At home, the puppy was awesome. Still too young to comprehend almost anything, but the stress of travel caused it to sleep, so once he rested, ate and drank and peed and pooed, and watched a movie in the General's lap, full puppy mode came on: he found all the old socks from under the bookshelves, he found that there is nothing more desirable than a whole box of packing peanuts and he really wanted to prove he can murder most of the toys hitherto serving as his pillows. He's sleeping now in the next room, with Lyra, the lights turned off. 

Alas, my sister reacted to the photos of the doggo like an onslaught of unexpected diarrhoea, forbidding me to take the dog up, calling me selfish for imposing more stress on mum, telling me to go visit them sometimes (er...), and see how old and unable to even take care of themselves they are, how I should take care of the animals I have (as opposed to what I'm doing now?) and how I'm making her furious with these crazy ideas of mine. My response that it is a dog designed for elder people, that it's a good one coming from someone who leaves her own dog up with them for four out of seven days a week to go party, and how I can decide for myself whether or not they can or cannot handle a Labradoodle.

But of course she called mum and that was that. If she allows it, then it's allowed, if she suggests it, than it's the right thing to do. Otherwise, door stays closed. Mum called not to even come up tomorrow. Of course, dad doesn't pay for her anything and thinks she should get a job, so, guess that explains most of her actions regarding him. 

Am not really interested in being a part of that family at the moment. Fuck 'em. I do miss dad and feel like shit about being treated like shit by a pair of reject side characters from Misery, but the next time he tells me how lonely he is and how much he misses his old dog, he should probably consider I'm the kind of a person who drives across the country to get a puppy to make an old man happy

Bitter glitter and the glitteratti

 

I managed to unhinge my brain the other day: I got so upset and roared furiously, my blood pressure either skyrocketed or plummeted - either way, I nearly passed out, started seeing double and nigh vomited. This was also when I was one foot in the bathtub about to take a shower, so it was extra tricky. The General had to try and balance me whilst I was wet and collapsing in slow motion. 

             Only I am able to get pissed off so much I damage my own neurological blueprint. 

Something isn't quite right - it's not Covid, even though hits have been landing close to home aplenty - but it is something. Maybe just simple vertigo. Strong coffee helps, and being careful with how I move. Sex has to be minus tussling. (Ah, the sweet, sweet simple missionaries...) Food can't be greasy. Salty, though. So it is pressure. Have I forgotten to eat salt again? Hm ... On the plus side, I am too tired to get upset again. But I have to find another coping method. What fun is being a tempestuous bitch if it makes me queazy? 

             -----------

        Delicious books have been arriving at my doorstep all week: I've re-ordered my long lost Mr.Punch, several illustration tutorials - usually regarding plants or fairy tales; some poetry, comics and a fancy paperback. Should I get everyone books for Yule? The same book? A Nightmare Before Christmas pop-up? :D 

          I've also discovered two shops for tiny packagings: one more serious and one more girly and the girly one has the precise minute boxes I need, together with pretty silk paper and decorative paper bags. I ordered 30 of each, so we'll see if my customer-service gets any classier. So far I've been keeping my "dug out from a necropolis" style intact. 

 

Aaah, the first hunt of the season. The one after which I usually look like I've been dragged twice around Troy. Yes, I did get lost and ended up in full Sleeping beauty-land, so entangled in thorns, I am now literally perforated over all parts of my body bar torso, which was clad enough. From neck, ears, to my fingertips - at the time in gloves, mind, and my head was in a hat - all covered in tiny stab wounds. I've a bruise and a thorn in the middle of it, right above my knee. The dog got lost towards the middle, failing to follow us across a wet field, so she kept going back and forth the first forest. We had to look for her afterwards, and did find the poor old thing frantically trying to find us on the trail, so exhausted she couldn't make it up the stairs as we got home. The forest is packed full of mushrooms, even some edible ones, I think, I just didn't have anywhere to put them. Some truly majesty moments, walking onto moss-covered clearings, or some small grassy swamps, or wonderful leaves-covered forest roads. Everything is orange and ablaze. SO beautiful. The General argued, as I was in a bad mood because they managed to shoot a bunny, (our time-old argument about me being a hunter who refuses to hunt and a soldier who refuses to follow orders) if it bothers me so much I will opt-out in the future. I asked if he agrees to come explore the woods for six hours every Sunday, which of course he won't. So, alas, I have to suffer through the gunfire to enjoy it, searching, wishing we cross paths and have secret sex. Ironically, I did come into his range today and he could see me, but I couldn't see him and couldn't properly hear him whistling. That's what you get for catcalling a deaf chick. 

The prodigal princes of Batch 6: Old Iron, Illyria and Fire

 

Batch 6 is here

 

I'm in love. He's been dead for about a 100 year or something, and albeit I am categorically against men wearing make-up unless they are a thoroughly-body-shaved Arnold Vosloo in a gold loincloth coming down a dune in a swagger, I am making exceptions these days. His name was Connie, he was a silent movies actor, German, I think, and he is magnificent. He's just as striking as Klaus Kinski, just not quite as psychotic, and he's utilised masterfully in some of the early horror flicks - when I say early, I mean the first. I need to implement some of the Dr. Caligari and Man Who Laughs scenes into the garden nightmare where Morphei and Kay confront one another. I think if Morpheus looked like that, I'd shit myself. Damn, but Germans made good movies once, a long long time ago ...

Plus you can't tell me that dude wasn't gay. I know a gay boy German ballet dancer in tragic makeup and tight black costume when I see one. 

LoL, dad was telling me how when he was a kid, his cousin and himself got their hands on some machine guns and ammo from some revolution or the next and were messing around, target practising... But the cops found them and took the guns. So my dad, the cocksure genius that he was, came up with a plan, citing his standing as a prominent member of the cultural youth community, walked into the police station and said he is putting up a tribute play and needs props. The cops gave him four bigger machine guns, two of which were perfectly functional. (But where did you get the ammo, man? Oh, Hungary was just undergoing another one of their civil wars, you could get baskets of ammo from the streets...)

Never mind dad doesn't exactly have all his fingers - how the fuck did that kid survive into adulthood? 

 I watched, I think after 20 years, Indiana Jones again and damn but is that a reckless sense of dealing with archaeological artefacts. And what's with the gold? I'd suck my own dick for a shard with glyphs from Vinca, even if it was made of dry dung. When Josie gives me palaeolithic shards to work with, my hands shake. Gold is such a petty, prissy metal, meant for nothing but cosmetics. Give me iron a lock-and-key mechanism from 800 BC and I'll literally see treasure. 

A fan!

 Someone wrote me a fan letter! Like, a properly unknown individual who read my book wrote me how much he liked it. I had no idea people actually did that! I just like to print my shit! Never expected anyone will actually read it!

Fuck, I had two great ideas for short stories, plus and interesting sex dream, but I just have no time. I wake up and mull, eat, nap, wake up and mull, mull, mull some more, G goes to work, I drink another coffee, muuuuull. I made SO much new paint. I have more. I ordered more supplies. Should have posted by now, and really must as I am running out of money, but I am just loving it. Haven't even gotten to the 'school grade' yet, yet alone the shimmers. Fuck my hands are cracked so badly and my eyes are a mess. I weep like a little bitch every night to wash them out, watching shitty puppy rescue videos or something. 

It just occurred to me I have never been to Louvre. No idea how that happened. I think I may have just forgotten such an obvious mishap. Emotionally extorted G into promising to come with me. I think of all the shit humans do, cause, promote, cash in and sign themselves under, once, just once, art is a tribute to a pursuit of grace and elevated beauty. Even if half the art depicts slaughter, rape raids, conquest and trickery. 

 I think my biggest worry about buying a Roomba, in case we ever build our own house and it will have a flat floor, and we also have one of the out-door self-charging electrical Roomba grasscutting robots, is that the two will fall in love, but will never be able to actually meet. I worry I would come home one day and find them parked sorrowfully against a glass. One should consider building them a neutral ground, where they could meet. 

Yes, I have been inhaling pigment over the past three weeks. Pigment and coffee. I aimed to mix 9 orange paints and ended up with seven orange and about thirty brown ones. But also, humbabalugamop. 

Wear a mask, kids. Pigments puff.

2:22

I'm SO tired. I am getting a lot of work done, but fuck I'm tired. My forearm muscles - showing - are beginning to warn me, and a tiny capillary in an eye popped. Don't think it's the fact I'm mulling all the time; it may be the fact I am mulling larger piles. 

A few seconds before happyness

My eyes are so dry from spending whole nights working with pigments, the only thing that helps is watching 'puppy surprise' videos on YouTube, of kids weeping like little bitches when they realise they got a puppy. The overabundance of sheer joy is so funny. I should know. I cry like a little bitch if I get books in my mail, let alone a warm fluffy creature. (There are only so many you can fit into a downtown apartment.)

Needless to say this is one of my favourite photos of all time. "A few seconds before happiness". There is no metric to describe the bond a boy and his dog develop, like it's the most natural thing in the world. No other animal achieves this, either. There may be bonds, but ... nothing compares. 

Awww, just received my very first Ali Express wristwatch (1,39.- free shipping, takes less than 7 months to arrive!) It's adorbz! I can finally see why people love shopping at Ali Express so much! It may fall to pieces within a week, but looks damn hot so far. Now excuse me while I go to a jungle to find ancient Aztec pyramids. 

But where do all the bobbypins go?

 Good thing I'm too lazy to truly be convinced by the joys of lack of sleeping, because, you know, one MAY claim to only require 5 hours a night to exist, with perhaps an hour of nap after lunch, but then a few days into this treatment - as it happens every time - I sleep through two alarms that would wake up a firefighter's station, standing the General up and now have to either hop on a bike and rush after him, or alternatively, try to catch a Saturday train... 

The problem is I have too many awesome things to do and I really want to be doing them. All of them. Now!

     I've more-less successfully finished my very first box of bronze finds from the museum, which I have been asked to sketch for the purposes of a catalogue. I am now, almost officially, an archaeologists' apprentice. Nerdy stuff nobody else wants. The idea was to learn how to do a proper sketch, using the comb and the beak ruler, but alas, I am restless and I've just learned to take a photo, draw off the photo and then adjust the mini discrepancies in measurements. I also tend to try to really PORTRAY the bitch, whereas my job is to just outline it. I really REALLY like side views of things, often drawing several from various angles, which will later be entirely useless. So a lot of lines within or entire drawings are just a waste of time, but they are just so damn adorable. There's a movie coming out, some dikey whine-fest about Molly Anning, which is the opposite of how I feel. There may even be talk of me going out into the field. Whaaaaaa O.O

Finishing college, majoring in archaeology, has ever been on my list, it's probably even in my blood. After the new car, new house, new camera and walking the PCT, I can totally see myself doing something as wild. Abstract enough to be densely plausible.

The second thing  is painting cityscapes, or at least learning to, in a tiny Hahnemuhle sketchbook, following a purchased online course. Or two. The promise was to paint something every day. Mostly I make copies, but sometimes I make original things. I am not yet very good at painting buildings - I cram too much of everything and have little to no control over how much brightness or how much shadow I want to deploy. But, practice.

Addicted to purchasing Daniel Smith paint - and also genuinely a LOT of expensive drawing material like brushes, paper, pencils, pods, palettes and other P-starting words, I've unsuccessfully tried four times to buy another Kindle, eventually just spending the money on more Jackson's Art Supplies stuff. I keep buying theirs, just so that I can sneak in more and more DS paint. As a result, I now have enough supplies to last me two lifetimes. I have enough to open my own store, haha, if only I wasn't so territorial. It's mine, all mine!! I may stab someone if they reach for a single pencil. Like Smaug on his treasure. I know totally how he felt.

I have SO many beautiful books I've not yet even flipped though. A lot of them have pictures. Most, to be fair. Survival guidebooks and ancient text catalogues, Watchmen comic and Paradise lost in graphic novel version, tutorials and poetry and almost everything I could find by Walter Moers in two different languages.

Third thing, of course, is the Goose. Beckoning me almost daily, in small hints. Like a young horse coming to my cottage window to remind me he was purchased for outdoor adventure. I know, I know.

Fourth thing is the harvest, which is tomorrow. Then I really have to go and see gran. Really do.

And finally, in two days, I have promised to start Batch 6. Right after harvest. 

But first, catching a train, crossing a region and trying to catch G. If I miss him, he will be back home by the time I get there. Stupid circle. It's a principle of the thing. Better take the bike helmet, in case I need to borrow a bike to get home again, just in case. He has been known to abandon me in places for disobeying him. Though I usually get back faster than him in such cases, just to annoy him further :D

Uh, and there's a hive I'm trying to salvage. Story for another time. Fickle bees. 

I have to say, though, it feels good, when you start a new project, to already have absolutely all materials required in your stack :D

Lagging behind, I know, I know ...

Have I ever mentioned how freaked out I am by K-Pop bands? I'm sure I must have. Luckily the algorithms rarely bring them up, but I get physically repulsed by seeing a K-Pop boy band. Something in my brain - a brain which would otherwise ADORE a hot Asian youngster of any gender - just fails to comprehend what it's seeing ... A band of cloned mannequins without any individual feats, all in makeup, looking like 9-year old girls, thin as if they've never been fed since they got off the tit and moving in this weird, sideways way, like a broken gyroscope, often in synch. It's just ... Too much plastic on a human? Too much nothingness in a theatre? The notoriety of their psychotic fans? The fame gained for an absolutely abhorrent, instantly forgettable product? Dunno, I can't pinpoint it. 

I know I thought of them today when we were leaving a grocery store, a heavy bag full of shitty delicious food which I love and is just really unhealthy (maybe one salad in the whole bag), and there was a young man sitting outside, begging with a paper cup ... I know him to be there often and he, other than being probably ill in four or five different ways and severely addicted to cheap stuff, would have been young and handsome in another life, even a little bit of a rascal. We've established he doesn't mind me buying him protein bars and natural juice extracts and the like. The General usually just gives him money. But we decided to also buy him a cheese burek, and handing the little bag to him, I said: I am sorry, we didn't know whether you are vegan or not.

The look on the man's face. A man, filthy and diseased, who could have been a K-Pop creature a decade of substance abuse ago. Like he hasn't had anyone consider him human in so long, he had no idea how to react. 

Anyway. I shot Drej by an overcast lake yesterday, having another photographer there to ensure Drej gets 'shiny glorious' profile pics, as I tend to do the 'gloomy bitch' pics more often than not. Ironically, when the other photie's turn to shoot was and I was the one holding the shiny thingie, I took some over-lit closeups and that's the exact one Drej selected. 

.. and the photie:

    

Some pickies.. (Rogla and Zrece)

 Day 1 I was off to Black lake, while G chillaxed with a book and Tv in the hotel - the day started very nice and sunny, but it soon began to drizzle, it got super windy towards the top and then, at the lake, it just rained like a bitch. My trenchcoat proved to be slightly less water-resistant than I had hoped. 

I missed the hilltop I was after on the first try, so had to drive around a bit, but I had no complaints, as the region is magnificent. On the drive down the weather got sunny and hot again. In the afternoon the plan was to go to the Konjice castle and it began to drizzle again as soon as I parked. After a coffee and cake in a delicious little cafe, waiting for the rain to stop, it started pouring like there's no tomorrow. That stopped, too, as soon as I threw in the towel and returned to the hotel. 

The path to the Black lake is this chunky wooden ramp through a slightly aired-out conifer forest, really really pleasant stroll. 

This is a small pond behind the hotel, with a neat evening walking path. 

Days 2 and 3 The next day the General bit the bullet and joined me, although we weren't quite dressed for how cold it got: the plan was to poke around a bit and climb a watchtower, situated within a tree-top walkway. The view was awesome, if cloudy, and although the heights made me dizzy, going down the slide twice turned my tummy back the right way and I was fine :D Luckily the gift shop was so overpriced, I bought absolutely nothing, even though there were many super cute plush animals supposedly representing regional fauna. 

That afternoon, too, it rained as I tried to drive to the stupid castle, but ultimately I just gave up, wrote a bad review of the Tourist information center, which dismissed me, and tried to paint a little. It's not like I had 458 watercolours with me. I'm not even kidding. 

The third day I offed to explore the other direction, the smaller hills south of the hotel. the plan was to locate some lost ruins, but I walked too long and too far and by the time I found the correct hill, I was already too tired to bother climbing another. Did go through an interesting town, though. Should probably check that one out again some time in the future... 

Hotel 1: On the subject of people who tidy up their hotel rooms to perfection upon leaving ...

You know how those really cool rock stars, those hip young folk in weird black fake leather clothes with long hair and tattooes and sweaty makeup, who do drugs and drink from the bottle and roll with lots and lots and lots of teenage pussy, they get extra points for how awesome they are if they trash hotel rooms and make the life a living hell for cleaning ladies, and throw things out in the street, damaging cars and traffic?

       Well, meet the General. The man who would vacuum the room if he had the option. Who brooms the balcony. Dusts the surfaces. Who cleans everything up, folds the towels, makes the bed, arranges the curtains as they were when we came in. We kept the 'do not disturb' sign on the door thorough our stay, as we didn't want the housekeepers to bother with us and we never really use much of their towels and we take out our own waste.

        I'm just saying. We are about to switch hotels, going from one location to the next, and the General is as neat as a serial killer :D This hotel was very pleasant; it wasn't as posh as the one we're off to next, but they try hard. Tons of snow white towels, really super clean room, a tiny fridge that actually works, beautiful curtains. Really good bed, too, and really good food bar. 

I'll report and post a ton of pickies later ;)

 Am glad I never read too much of I am thinking of ending things. Didactically morose. I would not have liked it. Am reading Animal Farm, though. maybe it ends well? 

:P

Birthday notes

I am sooo behind with everything I want to say. We're off to a vacation, so a thousand things need to be done and I won't even manage to get half of them through, let alone a proper journal entry.

As always, my birthday was awesome and calm. There was no real party, just a chill family picnic (one balloon, store-bought cake, charcoal-done BBQ...) on a flawless day, and bits of fore-and-after-shocks in the form of all the shit I bought myself, things G made me, our cafeteria meal (I like the shopping mall cafeteria and I love going there on special occasions), a big book mum and dad bought, Instax film coupon from sis, a huge tip from one of my clients, and last but not least:

the crazy gals I've been hanging out with threw me a mini surprise party!! This happened on Tuesday as I was off to get some more archaeology sketch lessons and after a few hours (had to catch the 5:20 train to get there in the bright morning), the bell rings and in comes the third of our trio, with a lap full of mini cakes from the best chocolate shop ever! And then, after I almost cried, they gave me each a prezzie: a miniature knit fox cub for my sleeping fox in a box, and felted baby Hermes!!! I will make some pickies to demonstrate the wonders these things are, because ... really? Foxes and Hermes? I should be a world traveller with all these charms, although perhaps instead now my paints travel, while I order online and the world comes to me... :))

The cutest moment, if the most violent one, was in the middle of the night on Monday, as I climbed up to bed where G was sleeping. Some background/reminders: our bed is elevated and we have two mattresses, so there is a bit of a ditch between the base and wall, where I sleep, because I cool myself against the wall. G goes to sleep a lot earlier and he sleeps on the other side - it's still far too hot for regular sex, waaaaay too hot for any kind of touching. So I climb up, see him turned away on his end, I dig myself into my ditch - it's about 2 in the morning - and start to yawn, my eyes still not accustomed to the darkness, when something huge and black reaches over me ... and I smack it in the head, letting out a scream ... 

An insulted little voice mumbles: Happy birthday, my love ... as the General turns away and retreats back to his end miserably, like a kicked puppy.

I was so sorry I almost peed myself laughing. If the poor sod came for some romance or a pretty pretty kiss, and got beaten up instead ... Oh, my poor G. My poor G, how you probably shouldn't soundlessly climb over someone who hasn't slept since forever :)))))

Leading ladies (and their hairstyles) of the 80s on iMDb

I'm looking at this photo gallery of famous actresses in some of their most famous roles of the 80, thinking, I cannot relate to a single one of these women. At all. They all seem either so impossibly fake or so impossibly dumb or so impossibly damaged, there is nothing realistic about them. Their roles are either fo super victims or super sexy or super supposedly romantically humorous. In real lives, too. Like the image they were told to portray in their public persona 'act' is either Fake, Forced or Dumb. Nothing even remotely 3-dimensional in any of their roles. Not saying these aren't all very tall, flawlessly engineered women, all wildly acceptable to the general public and many sporting a lot of hair, but ... Not a single one of them seems ... me. Just doesn't.

Forced to look Fake:

Forced to look Forced:

Forced to appear Dumb: