The irony of my existence is, I can actually prep for an E.L.E and would survive it, but if I start building that bunker, I will die of something like cancer before a meteor hits.

I cannot find a single happy memory in which my mum would be willingly in my company, sober, and I would not be tense as a billiard ball. Not a single moment like that exists. Though G took coffee to her today and she tried to engage him in a friendly, slightly "I probably deserve her anger" debate. He didn't stay to listen.

Things I cannot understand, excuse, avenge or repair, eh. I imagine it is easier to be mean to a kid and then be a shitty parent and claim the kid's always been messed up, that it would be to drink and act how she's acted and still claim you love the kid. Or something. I dunno. Dunno why I will never be able to prove to them I'm a good person and a good daughter. I could win a Nobel prize and they would still belittle and mock me. 

So I untether. There are no positive feelings relating to them anymore. I tried, and they wore me out. There are kingdoms of darkness and ice which I would much prefer to this one that's been thrown at me. To think they will only continue to try and make me feel bad is a good way to approach the future - if I am wrong, I will only be pleasantly surprised. 

Fuck. A hot celebrity replied to my comment on instagram and I didn't even feel a thing ...

 Stupid depression.

Sometimes the only reason I don't stab myself or break my face by running into a wall is, that I don't want to spend the whole night at our town's disgusting ER. 

Trying to break the door to get out of the nuthouse ...

 Literally.

So, yesterday we were supposed to go to a sit-down with mum and sis and two other rehab patients and four shrinks - we sat in a circle. I took a bus because I don't like mum's driving and she finds it funny I am uncomfortable when people swerving out of our way honk and flail. 

      It went about as fun as you would expect: ran out in tears, while the two screamed at me. Was not prepared for how much they think I am the worst part of this family. How *I* am the malignant narcissist and how mum drinks because I am crazy and not that I'm crazy because she's abused me for 20 years while being drunk. The things they said, and how they rolled their eyes and smacked their tongues when I talked, and how they belittled and gaslighted me, it was cute for a while, but after about an hour, they both started shouting and calling me insane and, since I was already hot and dizzy (when I tried to take a sip of juice, they sent me out, because that's against the rules. I was going to say: please don't talk to me like I'm the patient here, I am a guest. But I stopped myself. Alas, they came to get me after a few minutes.), I began to suffocate. It was a shock, really - they genuinely, truly believe I only liked dad and that I am the hateful one, the one who is making everything else bad. The one who won't let go and forgive mum, even though she is trying so hard. You know, again. This time. 

      Well, since they claimed I am hysterical, a drama queen and a quitter, my panic attacks always a source of entertainment for mum - and since this WAS a mental institution, I figured, fuck it. G is away for the weekend, he won't know if they lock me up a little. I certainly could use a break. I walked out, saying 'fuck this', but the main entrance was locked and I was trapped. There are only a few modes during a panic attack, flight being the strongest, and I was bouncing off doors, trying to find an unlocked one. The main one was glass: I began to consider breaking that. (You don't see Kill Bill fifty times and not know how to punch a plank.) But some of the staff came after me and were asking me to come back in. I spurted and raged a few more minutes, until they unlocked and asked if I'm fine getting to the bus. 

       There was a moment of revelation - I mean a positive one, not how ugly my mother and sister think I really am, inside and out, a fat nerd because nobody wanted to date me, so I turned to books, and how I make excuses for failing everything and how I married a loser the first time (Because, you know, the fifty dude's my sister's fucked were all Nobel prize winners) - when the main psychiatrist asked which one of us was the younger. I explained I appear younger because I am, emotionally, on the level of an eleven-year-old child. She said that may explain my anger, grief and reactions and if I would consider doing something about it. I said no, because those emotions may be deep, but I also have the curiosity, wonder and cheer of a kid. 

      What I need to do, is distance myself from their kingdom of ice and darkness - they don't need me, they think I am the problem our family is crap. There are no good days between us any longer. They were rare before, they are just dark now. The trick to rays of sunlight in a kid's life is a thousand tiny joys. And I have a thousand tiny joys. Even in the worst lonely hours, when G is away. I can do this on my own. I can. I feel them tinkling all over, look: stickers. Books. Brushes. The feel of handmade watercolour paper. Inventing a new paint. The sound of cats purring. When my dog obeys me for a change. Cool-looking clouds. Shitty popcorn and a good movie. A good Netflix show. Learning something awesome on YT. Fog over the fields or marches. Old trees. Acorns. Seashells. Non-toxic spiders. Little forest frogs. Pink paws. New Blizzard content. Wearing a woolly cap. Macro shots of grass. Photographing mushrooms that don't run away from me. Finding a new type of moss. The taste of cinnamon cookies when kissing G. Mixing inks. Not burning milk when making pudding. Trying to find familiar stars after months of cloudy weather. Warm drinks after a cold day out. A new mug.

Being eleven is awesome. It' when you feel like a wild west bandit for eating most of the cake. 

 Yes, I may have a bit of a problem: I stole all of the tea mugs we bought for our neighbours and replaced them with slightly less cute and a little cheaper alternatives. The originally-bought were just so damn ... me!! 

      I need some cheer in my life. I'm coming down with something, though I think that's just one of my emotions-overload. By emotions I mean negative emotions, but not, like, horror. Just, a lot of them and none too upper-y. I was supposed to go to Florence, which fell through, thanks, Omicron lockdowns. I was supposed to go visit a friend with another friend joining, but what was planned as a cute afternoon with baked potatoes and yummy cake girl's eve in, minerals museum and shiny city lights, also cancelled. My sis got some unpleasant news regarding real estate, which I just know will snowball into an all-family nightmare when the time comes. Mum wants me to go to her shrink session tomorrow, but I really don't want that. Even her shitty driving appals me so (and she finds my fear funny, so there's that fark joke of our relationship) I will rather take the bus. But I just know I oughtn't to speak at those sessions. It really sucks not being able to trust someone you are supposed to care about. The other of my cats is somehow sick, and could be I ODed on instant Knorr soups. There is a LOT of salt in those and I drank far too many today, to get warm. 

  

       G  is going hunting for a few days. He deserves it. But I hate every moment of not being able to bother him with my shiny shit. The wisdom old as time: women need attention, guys just need some air. 

    On the plus side, the first cat seems to be doing great, restless and angry and eating, and I received some awesome stickers in the mail today, thank you Monika Mitcute!

Ex Machina movie ... cleaning lady?

From time to time I watch bits of Ex Machina - I've never seen the whole movie start to finish and there are parts I've never seen, it's just too uncomfortable. It's a great movie, love the messages, but there is one thing that's been bothering me from start to finish of every scene, every time I watch it. 

That dude lives alone ... In a house the size of a hospital. He turns iPhones into sexbots. Which are clumsy. He's a drunk and kinda dismissive. And yet ... the entirety of his home is beyond spotless. Like, clinical. Every window, every step, every table, every glass, every sink, every shower, every bed is spotless. So, who cleans the place? Because, trust me. There is no empty hotel in creation that would stay this clean after a week. Glass walls that would look that clean after a rainfall, yet alone relentless deposit of mist from a waterfall. And even if he has a horde of roombas, those don't clean shelves and tables. And he certainly didn't look like someone who would spend two days of the week with a mop and a bucket. 

Pavla Horakova: Theory of Strangeness

Gonna go hands down and say the best book of 2021 I've read was by this lady. And special kudos to the translator, because she nailed it. 

So now that I know what an osteosarcoma is, I have a three-legged cat.

 Did not know that. Ew.

Well, hopefully, it was localised to just that one leg. A three-legged cat is a thing. A two-legged cat is not a thing. 

Taking the cat to the vet tomorrow. G thinks it's a tumour, I think it's an infected dislocation, we bet oral sex on it. It costs way too much, way more than we can afford (it actually costs as much as G makes in a month), to fix a cat's broken leg, but we'll at least know what we're dealing with and if nothing else, amputating part of it is an option. (For me. G doesn't believe in amputations. Funny, since none of the farm cats at his parents have all the assigned limbs and neither did most of the cats I grew up with.) It's an old house-cat who hasn't been using that leg anyway. We've been giving her soft food and some old dog painkiller drips, but the vet said to please stop doing that, as her kidney may fail for it. Whoops. But at least she's been eating some, these past few days. Anyway, it's a mess. Hoping tomorrow is a good day.

LoL, by the way, there is an app I came across, where you try to focus on something for XY time, and if you succeed, a little cartoon tree grows. I set the timer to 15 minutes and then tried to a) read or b) play Pokemon, c) write a poem, d) chat online, e) cook something that isn't insta ramen, f) deal with customers, g) read some more ...

All of my trees withered. All of them. I was being honest. There is nothing I can do for 15 minutes. I can do THREE things simultaneously for 45, but just one? Nawh. My brain gets away from me like a beagle after a butterfly. Which reminds me ...

Mini weekend of low and gloom

The week so far has been too much work and too much tension and so when Professor's request to cat-sit for two days came out of the blue, I was, like, oh, gods, yes, please, I need to log out. And so, for the first time since... ever, I packed nought but the phone charger, extra socks and a toothbrush, and switched towns to ... not exist. The universe seems to appreciate this, as in the first hour I came upon a book I couldn't stop reading until I got home earlier: Pavla Horakova's Theory of Strangeness. What a revelation these new wave female authors of the eastern Europe pool are... Following my Olga, who came and conquered the literature world like a warm fragrant wind, here is another magnificent author. I even sent a DM to the translator for doing an exemplary job. I'm sure she gets it plenty, but I just needed to share my gratitude :))

Well, they made Bebop into live-action and I wish it didn't look stupid, but it does.

Not that I watched half of it, I just checked out what Vicious looks and acts like and, well... He doesn't look or act like Vicious. He acts like a 40-year old Joker frat boy with daddy issues (John plays the rich abusive father, how shocking.). Don't get me wrong, had I not known the original, I'd watch it twice just for the bad guy - good actor, remarkable face, great body, they didn't make him shave head to toe, points for that, but fuck was that terribly casting choice vis-a-vie the original... And Julia, a botox bimbo in a shitty wig is the head of the syndicate now ... like, what in the everloving fuck? That is supposed to be Gren?? Gren, the saddest character of the lot? Have those people even WATCHED the anime? Or did they just hear it's about cowboys in space who fight a lot? Did they not comprehend what those walking emotional corpses in a neon graveyard were about? That is one of the saddest anime out there, and I watched the fucking Grave of the Fireflies. But, hey, at least we get ten seconds of Ed in the last scene. If that young actor stays in the business, that scene alone is a heck of a jump-start. 

Not saying he doesn't have an interesting face, an awesome body and a cute dick, but that's a blonde Joker, not Vicious. 

Appreciate the fact Julia is dressed as part of the furniture, but pay attention to what a barren, shitty room the two have in the anime, and what a 19 million apartment they have in the show.  

Lemberg castle and some golden hour G's parent's valley pickies

 

 Uu, I take it back - I DID buy some books, six, to be precise, for the price of around 10 bucks a pop, all of them art tutorials and one Tank Girl comic. Great deal, secondhand. My month is complete :)))

Enough for today. You did good.

Twenty-nine new singles were finally listed and sales and coupons everywhere! I have tremendous momentum and am ready to keep working, even though I've done enough. At least for today. Should probably make the gold-indigo I promised a customer, but I am totally not feeling shimmers right now. 

October was such a deliciously 'dirty' batch: Rotty family (Rotty peach, Rotty pear...), and Mouldy duo, and some Misty and Forlorn attempts. (I bought several samples of 'student' grade pigments from a German provider, of which some are fairly useless, but others make for this wonderful, lifeless, dull paint, which I can pepper with some pizzazz and create a broken, dusty hue, wonderful for old map and spidery castles themes. 

Next stop: Winter Avalon, moody winter theme :)

This reminds me I have not yet bought any books this month. It took a LOT of self-restraint not to spend my peanut money on stickers and books, but I am genuinely saving every dime for the new camera. Oh, and I signed myself up for some trips. Was going to go on a three-monastery trip this Saturday, but the weather forecast blows, and I'm not really in the mood to drag my gear around wet cloisters. Uu, bought a new camera bag, did I mention?? It's huge. Got it second-hand, 50% off, basically unused - the Peak Design 30l Everyday. I could use another to go along, a small one, just for the camera. The one I have now is, well, great, but nothing really fits. The camera doesn't fit, the phone doesn't fit, the keys don't fit. I want something slightly better shaped - not bigger, not at all, just more anatomical. Uu, and I need some more compartment buffers. Peak Design is kinda stingy and thin on the dividers. I like carrying my stuff very neatly packed. The drone backpack is great, its foam gaps are tailored to the specific elements. So, tight like that. 

Not to mention I have only just now started paying attention to flea markets. People are starting to treat camera gear like their phones: Oh, switching to Sony, selling off all my lenses! Or, Oh, switching to mirrorless, no need for 20.000 bucks worth of old stuff. yeah, dude, they have converters for moments like those. I certainly desire a fat new lens worth almost as much as the camera itself, but I have three wonderful ones already, and the ring to merge them is 99 bucks. I'm not saying Sony doesn't have magnificent bodies these days, but photo gear is hardly something you just switch between, like network providers. Not saying if Canon totally sucked balls. It doesn't. These aren't phones, of which January miracles are ancient trash by November. 

Not that I'm complaining, of course. It's more good news for me. I've always wanted a 400mm for a 1oth its price. Or a nice sweet workhorse 85mm. 

While life continues to kick me in the balls, here's some more mushrooms and flowers and lichen and beautiful, mellow stuff :D