Coloring Books and Gray Areas

Today I've got two spreads to share with you.

The first one is for WEEK 10-COLORING BOOK INSPIRATION:

"Whether we color outside of them, blur them, or draw our own, it would probably be wise to keep in mind that every once in a while, they're there for a really, really good reason."  I love, love, LOVE that stamp set!

And then there's this one, for WEEK 11'S "JUST WRITE" PROMPT:

"I just wish I could remember how not to hate the gray areas and the ever-present in-betweens."

My spreads look as blah as I feel...  I don't know what happened.  I must be overly tired.  Sometimes when I'm sleep deprived, I get these super creepy thoughts that I can't shake, and it makes me get a sick stomach...that's what happened last night.  

When I was younger, I did not mind the unsettled, slightly chaotic feelings of things changing.  

The older I get though, the more I hate that feeling of waiting to see what happens...I wish I could fast-forward through it and get to the settled part a little more quickly.

But I don't want to be like that...wishing huge chunks of my life away because of the small discomfort of shifting around.  I want to remember how those times are exciting because anything could happen...not the current pessimistic view that causes me to doubt that anything good will come of it all.  

How do I get back to feeling like life was an adventure to be had, not a punishment to be endured?  I don't always feel like that...not always...but when I do, it seems to want to stick with me and cast a fog over everything.  And then there I am again, wishing away pieces of time...a bitter cycle.

Oh well.  I know from experience that, as quickly as it came on, the haze of depressing thoughts will lift away again, leaving me with a brighter sky and a little more hope.  Until then, I will just muddle through as good as I can.

Journal 52, Week 4 - Building Character

First, I just want to thank everybody for taking the time to leave such sweet and heartfelt comments on the last post.  I remind myself over and over that when something is hard to talk about, that's the thing I need to say the most.  You reward me with your kind words and lift up my spirits.  Thank you all so much. <3

Today, I just want to share my Journal 52 page for this week.  You can read more about J52 HERE.  The prompt this time was to create your own character for your art journal, and here's what I made:

"Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow.  The shadow is what we think of it, the tree is the real thing."
-Abraham Lincoln

I have to admit that after having such a bad time this past week, I was initially just going to draw horns on my girl and say something to the effect of "being the hero of your own story might make you come across as the villain in someone else's"...but I thought better of it.

For a while now, I've been dealing with a frustrating situation at my job.  For the most part, I can handle it and not lose my temper, but with being stressed out and emotional over Nu Nu...well, you can only deal with so much before you start to crack...I feel like I'm at my breaking point.

I have a co-worker...or I should say a person who sits in the same office as I do all day long without doing much actual work...and I hate her.  My other co-workers also have...let's say...very low opinions of her.  I do my best to keep quiet at work about how I feel about this woman, but not everyone else tries to practice "if you don't have anything nice to say..."  I try to maintain a professional attitude, one, because I was raised that way, and two, because if I do say something off hand, I will be the person that gets caught and probably fired over it.  I might have a big butt, but I always keep it covered...

I'm sure everybody either works with someone like her or did at one point.  The person who does the least work, that complains the most about how hard they work...  The person who makes the most money, but complains to the others about how much she 'struggles' to make ends meet...  The person who always tries to one-up everyone else...if you broke your arm, she knows someone who had both their arms bitten off by a shark...  The person to whom you just want to say "I'm sorry, did the middle of my sentence interrupt the beginning of yours?"   All these great things and more are wrapped up into one evil succubus at my job.

And since I'm ranting, she lies...she lies about things that don't matter.  She lies to garner attention.  And the worst part of all is she doesn't do it well.  I personally am a fantastic liar...my own mother can't tell when I'm lying.  I try not to lie, I'm not proud of the fact that I'm so good at such a bad thing, but for Pete's sake, if you're going to do something, do it right!  And the second to worst part of all is that she believes her own lies.  The woman is completely delusional.

The really frustrating part for me is that, at first, everyone loves her.  "Oh, she's so sweet..."  Gag.  The only good part about it is that eventually, people see through her act...  My father was like this to a tee...I think it's a big part of the reason I really can't stand my co-worker.  Just because you know someone is going to get their just desserts eventually, it doesn't necessarily make it any easier to deal with at the time...

And I was thinking about this when I started to make my character page this week.  How my co-worker has the reputation of being a nice, sweet old lady but the reality of it is she's a lazy, racist jerk of an old woman... Shadow vs. Tree.  People eventually see it, but it takes them a while sometimes.

The original journaling, which sound pretty negative, actually describes the situation really well.  In my story, I'm the hero, of course (I mean, it is my story...come on!), having to silently combat this frustrating situation day after day, without a resolution in sight.  

On the other hand, this woman is the hero in her mind...which makes me her villain.  In her mind, she works hard and struggles to make ends meet and she wants attention and praise and sympathy and pity.  By being the way she is, she doesn't get the things she wants...she constantly fishes for it and if people do give her the reaction she's hoping for, it's only because she's backed them into the corner about it.  I really did try to pity her for a long time, because she's constantly defeating her own purposes.  If she could just be a decent person, she'd get all the things she wants...or else, she wouldn't want them anymore.  But she's not a decent person, so much so that I've quit trying to pity her, and am reduced to trying not to throw a computer monitor at her face...anymore, that's all the energy I can muster in this fight.

The extra funny thing about it is that, as her villain, I'm getting all the things she wants.  For the most part, my co-workers like me, they joke with me, they offer to help me without being asked...because they know I do the same for them.  I get commended because of my good work by my boss...because instead of talking about how much I do, I just do it!  I totally understand that as an employee, I'm not doing anyone any favors.  They PAY me to do my job.  I also understand that no one is irreplaceable.  I work hard because I need a job, and it's part of the deal...I work, they give me money to buy art supplies (and, to a lesser extent, food)...  I am not there to get praised, I'm there to make money, but I get praised because I actually do work.  No matter what it is, work wise or socially (or artistically even), I do the best that I can...that's the most anyone can do.  If you want to see the least anyone can do, I invite you to come meet my evil co-worker...

I didn't mean to have such a rant today about this.  I really do try not to talk bad about other people...I don't always succeed as much as I'd like, but I do TRY!  I just had to get it out, before steam started shooting from my ears, making steam engine whistle sounds like in the cartoons...  

What do you do to deal with the 'villain' in your story?  Do you think someone looks at you like you're the bad guy in their story?  Are you the bad guy in someone's story (you naughty monkey!)?

Panned out a little so you can see the edges of the page...the first layer of this page was various book pages, including a word search...you can see on the left hand side that "journal" was one of the words in the word search...I was very excited by that, and had to leave it showing...  There, now I feel like that was a more positive way to end a post... :)

Journal 52 Week 1

I finally finished my first Journal 52 (J52 for short) spread!  You can read more about J52 HERE.  Last week, I appropriately dubbed 2014 so far to be the 'Year of Challenges'...I think it's a given...but so far, I've kept up with all of my self-imposed commitments.  So goody, goody gumdrops! 

When I remember, I try to take pictures of my pages in various degrees of completion...it actually helps to improve the page, I swear!  It can look great to me with the naked eye, but I take a picture and I can suddenly see that something's a little wonky...and then I can fix it before I move on to the next stage.  I'm sure there's some science-y explanation for this, but I don't know what it is, and mostly, I just care that it works for me...  

Here's my J52 Week 1 spread for the prompt "Up, Up, and Away" (side note: I hope all of the J52 prompts are as interesting to me as this one was!): 

Here it is in the rough sketch stage.  I used a circle template for all the balloons, which felt like a stroke of genius to me...you have no idea how misshapen those poor balloons would have been otherwise!  I messed up on her left hand, and since I used colored pencil, no erasing could occur...but it's ok, I fixed it eventually!

Here is the beginning shading page.  I'm still working on my colored pencil shading skills...more Prismacolors, please!  Thanks to this picture, I noticed how wonky her eyes were...in real life, it didn't seem that bad, but when I took the picture....WHAM!  Those eyes were REALLY off...

(Sorry for the blurriness!)  More colored pencil happening now...also Aquamarkers were added for the balloons and in the hair and dress...and Distress Stain in Tumbled Glass was used for the sky  color of the background...I like how the Distress Stain came out a little patchy...it made it look like a more realistic sky to me.  See how much better the eyes are now?  Still not perfect, but WAY less weird looking!

TA-DA!  Here's the finished page...YAY!  Added some shading on the balloons with a water-soluble pen   Side note: I use Artist Loft (Michael's store brand) Illustration Pens as my water-soluble pens...they claim to be 'water resistant', but they resist ZERO water...not even a little...which I was really disappointed about when I first got them...then I realized I could just go with it and make that work for me...and with a coupon, they were way cheaper than buying on purpose water-soluble pens.  Win/win situation!  Some more shading on the girl done with Aquamarkers.  Highlights on the balloons and the girl with white pen.  And a few touches of Micron to the girl's eyes.  Also look at the hand...it's much better now!  I added some journaling in the strings of the balloons...not much, just the title "Up, Up, and Away", the date, and my signature.

I'm S-U-P-E-R (say it cheerleader style haha) excited with the way this page turned out!  One thing I wish I would have done differently is to make the stings between the balloons and the girls hands be taut instead of all loosey goosey...I mean, physics...come on...  But I guess the idea of balloons being able to carry a girl away is enough of a stretch that I can forgive myself some magical balloon strings that don't follow the laws of nature...

One of the things I really liked about J52 was the lady's suggestion of using a 3 ring binder as your art journal...hence the holes punched in the page.  The reason I'm excited is that I want to make some heavily textured/3-D pages, but I never do, because it's hard (aka too much of a hassle for me personally) to work in the rest of your journal after you put a good and bumpy one in the mix.  Now I can just work on loose watercolor paper with holes punched in it and make the page as thick and juicy as a person could ever want it to be!  I'm kind of excited about that...oh, the possibilities....

Now I've just got to get to work on making my binder pretty...

Documented Life Week 2

Before I get to the art stuff, let me just tell you, I had an AMAZING discovery today...I am at 10,000+ page views here on the blog.  WHAT?!?

 

This was my face:

Oh.My.Goodness.

 

 

And then it went to this:

 

Yeah, just a little....talk amongst yourselves, I'll give you a topic...

 

That's right, two SNL pictures almost encompass the fantastic feeling I got from seeing the more than 10,000 page views...I can't believe it!  Thank you all for making that happen!!!  Smooch, smooch, smooches for everyone!!! <3

 

Ok, I'm better now...SQUEAL OF DELIGHT!!!  Alright, on to the art...

 

The prompt for Week 2 of Documented Life (which you can read about HERE) was to incorporate a selfie (aka a self-portrait) into your planner.  Blurg, I hate selfies (my own, I like to see your gorgeous faces...), but luckily there are ways around just putting my dorky picture on the page, so YAY!

 

Here's what I made:

 

Two-page spread of selfie inspired goodness

 Before we go any further, I just have to say that my favorite thing about this page are all the Sweet Red Clovers pasted in.  They are all written by different friends who have sent me happy mail art and I, being the extreme art hoarder that I am, kept the envelopes...and, clearly, for good reason.  I LOVE having everybody be a part of the spread in this way.  Full disclosure: I have several more Sweet Red Clovers (from envelopes) still in my stash for future similarly awesome usage!  So if your SRC didn't make it to this page, please know that I will most assuredly use yours in the future!

 

 

Left page close-up...so much fun stuff on this page!

For my selfies, I had some left over self-portrait pictures from when I was doing Inner Excavations and so I used them...I am currently out of printer ink, so new photos were out of the question...it's ok, my face looks the same as it did...my hair is just longer (now you're in the know...).  I just added a light coat of gesso to the pictures and then went over the major outlines with a Micron.  My face is there, but it's so much more...I don't know...artsy (?) now! 

 

As I was cutting to get the SRC's for the page, I was also swiping the cool stamps that were on the envelopes as well...that's where the stamp of the Queen came from.  As I was going through my box of ephemera, I saw the little 'you are the queen' paper (I think it's from Jackie, my honey) and I thought it was a cute coincidence and added it to the page...it kind of makes me wonder what I'm the queen of...

 

The little baker guy with the mustache came from a tin of butter cookies that I swiped from work (both the tin and the little paper with the man that was inside it...I left the cookies)...I wanted to write about how I was always 'cooking up' something, but I couldn't decide what that something was...it will kind of be a secret joke that you and I are in on...I like that his eyes are looking at the girl on the right page!

 

Right page close up...more fun stuff!

 

I drew my little non-self portrait lady on a page from a book of Robin Hood stories that I got from my sister, Marian.  (Drawing on book pages makes me so HAPPY!)  By complete and total accident, if you notice, the title at the top of the book page says "Robin shoots before the queen"....AAAH!  Talk about crazy serendipitous moments!  I didn't see that until after I started gluing down all the ephemera stuff!  And, yet another bit from an envelope from a friend, the little 'conquerer' logo... I like the idea that I am an active and conquering queen/cooker-upper of something!

 

 

Close up of girl's face!

This (the girl's face) is my Prismacolor blending practice page (for the Supplies Me workshop) that I mentioned last post.  Oh, baby!  This one page makes me KNOW that more Prismas are in my future!  I think the best part of the face is her lips, especially the bottom one.  That bottom lip was one of the last things I did, and I  think it's the point where I really 'got it', where I understood what I was going for and what it was possible to achieve with colored pencils.  Hubba hubba, that lip makes me giddy!

 

2014 looks like it's going to be the year of challenges for me...I didn't realize it until today, but I've got a lot of (crazy fun!) irons in the fire project/challenge wise! 

 

Here's what I've got going on so far (and it's only the7th!): Morning Pages (this one is indefinitely long...possibly for the rest of my life even...hehehe...we'll see), Root 30-day journal challenge (you can read more about it HERE), Documented Life (link is at the beginning of this post), Jane Davenport's Supplies Me (going on now...you can see all JD's workshops HERE), Jane's Express Yourself workshop (starting live in February), and Journal 52 (a year long, free art journal workshop that you can read more about HERE) that I just found out about from a friend on Facebook and the first prompt for this challenge is one of my many current WIPs. 

 

In the spirit of today's Root prompt, I'm thinking of 'gently' easing into some gardening when spring gets here.  We'll see what happens I guess.  I like flowers and I need to get some kind of physical activity happening before I need a crane to move myself from place to place...plus fresh air never hurt anybody(...with the possible exception of Bubble Boy...).  Maybe its the sub-zero temperatures (seriously, -15 F with the wind chill today...I like cold, but even I have limits!) making me subconsciously wish for warmer weather...but the thought of digging in the dirt and helping beautiful things come to be (without using a piece of paper...because my art is beautiful to me!) has been sticking in my mind for a while now.  The key for me is going to be gently starting to garden...instead of letting my all-or-nothing attitude destroy my green thumb ambitions like the last time!  I've changed a lot since then, and I'm getting better at sticking to things, so maybe it's time to have another go at it!  We'll see how I feel about the whole idea when spring is a little closer...

 

Do you have any big projects in the works?  What about your 'dream' projects...those wild hare ideas that are floating around in your brain (like my dream of gardening)?  I'm interested to know! 

Fun with Sweets and Jane

I worked the dreaded Saturday this week.  Overtime is always a mixed bag for me, because I'm never sure which I would rather have, more money or more time.  Usually time wins, but this week the choice was made for me and I ended up working...I got off easy though, because I didn't have to work today like a lot of the other people I work with.  I missed out on getting paid double time, but, as I always say, money does me no good when I am in the mental institution from having a nervous breakdown.  I need to be away from work and work people so that I can be pleasant and sane during normal working hours.  If I don't have that break, I very quickly descend into madness and could very easily end up stabbing a co-worker in the neck with a pencil or throwing a stapler at someone's face...and that's just not very nice at all, now is it?

 

I have been doing my Morning Pages still!  Every single day, although I confess not always in the morning...but every single day of 2014 so far!  That's right, five whole days!  (ha ha) It might not seem like much, but I have stuck with it to this point and hooray for that!  Lisa Sonora Beam's Root challenge (which you can read about HERE and see if you'd like to participate...it's free to do) has been giving me some prompts that are helping me along.  Despite the fact that I've looked at some of them first thing in the morning and thought they were too woo-woo hippy dippy for me, I find that I keep coming back to them and having something to write about concerning them when I do my pages.  I've said it before and I'll say it again:  I'm becoming very good at hippy dippy as it applies to me! :) 

 

I think I might have mentioned that I am taking Jane Davenport's  (JD for short) Supplies Me workshop...if not...  Guess what?!? 

 

 

You can find all of JD's workshops HERE

 

I am having so much fun.  Faces are my favorite thing to draw.  Not too much time goes by without one creeping into my work...probably not even a single day...  From the very beginning of my artistic endeavors, I've just loved them.  And JD has such great faces and ways of teaching that it isn't hard to spend all of my free time practicing.  ...even things that I've resisted (I'm looking at you ball-on-a-board shading practice...which is coming up in one of the lessons as homework...ugh...), I find myself willing to do for JD's classes.

 

I'm on Week 2 of the Supplies Me class (although I have been scandalously watching videos ahead...I'm such a rebel!), and it deals with colored pencils.

 

After I watched JD's Whimsical Faces video from Cloth Paper Scissors, I have given myself over to drawing with colored pencils instead of graphite ones...it has been one of the best things I've done to improve my drawings, I swear it!  I've just been using my Crayola set, and they work just fine for the beginnings of  drawings...BUT...today I was practicing blending with my Prismacolors and let me just say...I need to get more colors of the Prismacolors...possibly all the Prismacolors in the world.  I got the basic set a long time ago (I think 10 or 12 colors) and a few flesh tones along the way, but haven't really used them much because I wasn't a fan of shading with colored pencil...until now!  These things are like magic wands of awesomeness encased in wood.  I don't have the piece I was working on today ready to show you just yet (probably tomorrow or the next day), but I do have my other homework type drawings, which are face practice (and done in Prismacolors):

 

 

The Oval Face

The Circle Face (Left braid, you turned out so well...I don't know what happened with you, poor right braid...)

The Squared Face

I am eventually going to put my shading skills that I am learning to good use and color these girls in, but for now they are just basic outlines in waiting.

 

I did do another face, using the Crayola colored pencils and, to a lesser extent, Inktense pencils, Distress Markers, and Sharpie Paint Pens:

 

 

I used a Painters (that's the brand) paint marker to try to 'white' out the face's guidelines, and it worked really well but in the photo it sticks out like a sore thumb.  In person, you can't see those lines at all (or hardly at all)...and from across the room, this girl just GLOWS...I tell you it's almost eerie! 

Possibly my favorite bit of face practice is this page:

 

Squeal of Delight!  Squeal of Delight!

 I loved doing this!  I stole the idea right from JD (not really stole, she suggested it as practice), and I had FUN with a capital F-U-N finding out what kind of girl was living in each circle of paint!  The only thing I did differently than JD was I used a black pen ( a Micron on some and a regular old ball point pen on others) to make the facial features instead of using colored pencils.  The reason I did this is that I used Martha Stewart Pearl paints on some of the circles and that paint is glossy and colored pencil won't stick to it.  That happened to be the first spot of paint I tried to draw on...so then I forgot to switch over to colored pencil and all my girls ended up being done in black pen.  It was a HAPPY accident though, because I LOVE how the page looks!  Part of me wants to take a dot stencil and fill in some of the white space with tiny non-face dots of paint...and part of me wants to leave it as white space...what do you think would be better?

 

My two favorite faces ended up being right next to each other.  The one at the top left in the periwinkle-ish color (incidentally the first girl I did...can you tell it's glossy paint?) who's got the turned face and the bun is my favorite, and the girl below her in the light blue is a very, very close second.  They're such different styles of face, but I LOVE them both... HUZZAH!

  I've got another page of paint circles opposite this page, but I had to stop drawing these little faces as my hand was cramping...now I'm not sure if I want to draw more faces on those blank circles or if I want to turn them into journaling space...hmm...decisions, decisions...

 

Oh, I did manage to make one face in colored pencil, the girl at the bottom left in this picture...she's all pencil and I love her fantastic lips.
 

I'm in the process of finishing up this week's challenge for the Documented Life project, and that's what I'm using my Prismacolor shading page on...ooh, I'm so exited for you to see it!  So, if I want to get done and ready to show you tomorrow, I better go finish it up right now! 

 

 

By the way, what have you been working on over the weekend?  Are you keeping up with your new year challenges? 



Life is for Learning or Art From Start to Finish

Wow, I may have fallen off the KIOS wagon, but three days in a row with art to share...way to go Sweets!  *pats self on back for an obscene amount of time*  

So...as a present to myself, I am taking Jane Davenport's (known as JD from this point on) Supplies Me class.  I had gotten her Whimsical Faces Video from Cloth Paper Scissors (when on super sale...egads, I love a good sale) and it was such a good video, probably the favorite one I've bought from them (so far...hehehe), and I knew I really wanted to take another of JD's classes at some point.  I just didn't think it would happen anytime soon.  But then, surprise Xmas bonus at work (HUZZAH!)=me getting to take one of her classes!

This is my Week 1 (Texture) homework for the class, from start to finish:

Light gesso layer, followed by washi tape, tissue paper, fancy napkins...

Followed by more washi, tissue paper, fancy napkins, and sheet music...and a coat of gesso where I smooshed the pages together while the gesso was still wet (for added texture)...

Followed by Dylusions sprayed through two different Heidi Swapp stencils.  Can I just tell you how much I didn't want to add anything else to the page at this point?  It was so vibrant and glorious...the picture just doesn't do it justice...GORGEOUSNESS!  ...but I was good and added more, starting with a layer of clear gesso...

The gesso faded out the Dylusions background a little bit...making it, as Donna Downey would say, touch worthy (hehehe)...  So here's where I started sketching in the face (with colored pencil...Trust me when I say to start sketching with colored pencils if you don't already.  I swear that was one of the best tips I picked up from the Whimsical Faces video...as a former compulsive eraser, I can testify that I LOVE not being able to erase now!).  Then a light coat of craft acrylic in a flesh-ish tone for the face and a light gesso wash in the hair area.

Blurry picture, why you so blurry?!?  As you can see (hopefully, despite the blur...), I started adding in more color and shading with Inktense pencils and Neocolor II's.  On a side note, I want the entire sets of both of those things now...especially the Neocolor II's.  Then more shading with some Distress Markers (which I got on clearance at Michaels...yay for clearance) and a little bit of Winter White acrylic paint for the eyeball whiteness...

Close-up of texture-y goodness!   This picture makes me so happy I could squeal!  Why can't all my phone pictures turn out so awesomely?  (I'm looking at you, blurry picture above!!!)

And because it worked so well the first time, another EXTREME close-up!

Finished face...used a Micron, a few gel pens, a Sharpie paint pen, Distress Markers, and Bombay India ink for the finishing touches... 

"Life is for learning."  (Quote from Joni Mitchell song which you can listen to below)  Finished spread!  I used Distress Marker, Bombay India Ink, Recollections Signature markers (which I've had FOREVER) and Sharpie paint pen for the lettering...and then splattered some of the India Ink on the page for a finishing touch...  On a side note, most of my desk is now splattered with India Ink...including my computer screen.  I am writing to you around dots of color...  I'm hoping it will come off (at least from the computer screen!), but if not, it's ok, my stuff is just extra decorated now...

And here's a photo collage of all the pictures above, just because I made it for the class, and because I feel extra technologically advanced for making it! *more shameless back patting of self*

 I LOVE this spread!  Aside from the hair (which I will be practicing thanks to an AWESOME video my friend Boo sent me the link for) and the lettering (which I will be forcing myself to practice...for real this time...), the thing is just swoon worthy!  Even the hair and lettering being less than perfect doesn't really bother me horrendously...I'm still self-swooning!

As promised, here is the song that I got the "Life is for learning." quote from (Woodstock by Joni Mitchell):

Aah, Joni, my love for you is boundless...I swoon for you...and this journal spread...and you...le sigh...

Now I'm off to start Week 2 of the Supplies Me class...colored pencils! Enjoy your creative life, wherever you are on this fine day...

I Can't Say It...

I'm feeling so productive today!  I've been working like a busy little bee on art every day this week...I feel like (fingers crossed) I've got my mojo back!  Hooray for mojo!!!  

I went through some of my paper scraps and said good-bye to the minuscule pieces I've hoarded...keeping small paper scraps is ok, but if you need a microscope to see them, it's probably ok to just toss them...

I also cleaned my studio desk...again...and did some reorganizing so that maybe it won't be such a terrible mess so quickly.    I have to fess up to being a bit of a person who piles.  There's not a HUGE amount of space in my studio...so I pile things.  This works because I do know where things are when they're in piles.  This doesn't work because the thing I need next is always at the bottom of a pile.  So I made a yard sale score a couple of weeks ago and got some little wire shelves to sit on my desk.  They are not fancy, but I think they'll work...it's the same principle as piling except I don't have to move the stuff on top to get to the stuff underneath!  I finally put them to use (after procrastinating about cleaning for so long), so we'll see how it goes...

Here's my most recent work...I hate to say it, but I think that my mojo came back for the clean desk:

"I can't say it..."
 I'm sad that I can't get my phone to pick up the extreme awesomeness of the colors on this page!  In reality, the background is a beautiful teal, her hair is a nice grassy green, and her eyes are a deep sea blue...apparently I need to use some kind of app to make the red tones chill out...  But, just let me promise you, on my honor, that the true colors of this page thrill me to the core!

Have you ever felt that way?  Like you really want to say something, but you know you just can't?  Maybe you know it's not the right time, or maybe you question the other person's receptivity to what you want to say, or maybe you feel like it won't make any difference...but for whatever reason, your instincts tell you that you shouldn't go there...

Today, while sitting among my co-workers during lunch...an interesting conversation occurred.  Whatever started the conversation, I do not know...but at some point during the conversation, I got told that I was blunt...which kind of made me laugh.  I've never thought of myself that way!  In my head, being blunt is a negative thing...like a person who shoves it in your face without giving a hoot about civility.  But the exact statement was "I wish my girlfriend was more like you...you know, blunt..."  (First time anyone's ever wished for a girlfriend to be like me, I can assure you...haha) A discussion on my 'blunt' ways followed...apparently a lot of the guys I work with were waiting for the opportunity to talk about me to me...  It's weird to be involved in a conversation that you're the topic of...at least it was for me...

I was informed that my bluntness is very much appreciated by the masses...at least the masses of my manly co-workers.  I guess I can understand how blunt could be a good thing, I just never looked at it that way.  I looked at it as 'blunt = rude'.  But apparently the group of co-workers look at it like 'blunt = honest'.  I'm pretty happy to be known as honest.  Part of the discussion about all things Sweets was that, while I'm honest, I'm also nice about it.  I guess that's true...I don't generally just smash the truth in people's faces if it's something I know they don't want to hear...I try not to anyway...

And then there was a point where the conversation turned to the age-old question: "Why can't women just tell you what they want?"  ...which makes me laugh...I don't know how I got to be the spokesperson for women everywhere...especially since I apparently (at least in the eyes of the dudes I work with) don't act like a 'normal woman'...  Which I pointed out.  But, being pressed into the position of womanly knowledge administrator, I did at least try to answer the question...with a multiple choice answer:  D) all of the above.

The answer to this question is so vast and different for each woman that it's hard to answer it in the confines of part of a half-hour lunch...

I think a lot of women (like me), learn at an early age that what they want 'doesn't matter'.  I grew up with an extremely domineering father...it was his way and there was no other way.  After my dad was gone, I had to do a lot of things for the good of my family...again, it didn't matter what I wanted because there wasn't a choice.  And that's what you get used to...everyone else is more important than you, what you want doesn't matter, so why even mention it?  Somewhere along the way, I realized that what I want is important too...and I very gradually changed.  I got to the point where I would have rather been completely alone than to have to stay on the back burner for the rest of my life...  Not every woman comes to that realization...or they're not there yet.  That's not to say it's all ME! ME!ME! in my life now.  In a lot of things, I still don't say what I want...which leads to the second point.

Sometimes we don't say what we want because we really don't care either way.  This one is especially hard for my husband to understand.  Just because it's a big deal to him, it doesn't mean it's a big deal to me...  For instance choosing between cable and satellite...I don't give two flips about it.  But for him, it was this huge life altering decision.  It took me forever to get him to understand that I just didn't care!  I honestly thought it was idiotic for him to care so much...in our almost 10 year marriage, we've had both...they're pretty much the same to me...a million channels and there's still nothing good on!  ...but I digress.  

I think another big reason we don't say what we want is that we want our significant other to pay attention.  We want to know they really listen to us...so instead of saying what we want, we give them subtle clues that even Sherlock Holmes couldn't follow...just so we feel like they listen/pay attention/care.  But dudes have tiny caveman brains...er...I mean...brains that work differently than ours...they don't know what clues are!

Personally, I am annoyed by those girls...the extreme subtle hinters...because I hate to be subtly hinted to myself.  Just tell me already!  The subtle hinters are also the kind of girls who say things like "I hate it when I tell my boyfriend about a problem I'm having and all he does is try to fix it...I just want him to listen!"  Stupid girl, I smack your ignorant face!  If you want somebody to listen, tell your lady friends...most men are just programmed to want to fix things!  The difference is love vs. respect.  Women want to be loved...so when you tell a woman your problems, she thinks "I hear her problem, and I want her to know I understand how she feels so that she will know I care."  Men want to be respected...when you tell a man a problem, he thinks "I hear her problem and I will fix this for her...that will show her I care...and she will respect me for my manly problem solving abilities."  For the most part, women want to be heard/understood, men want solutions.  Of course, there are exceptions to the rules...I totally lean towards being a solutions kind of gal.  Don't get me wrong, empathy is nice, but I'd rather just know how to fix the problem.

This goes back to the original point of "why can't women just say what they want?"...women want you to do things because you love them, which is emotional; men want you to do things because you respect them, which is more mental.  As a woman who now acknowledges her emotions, I've realized that I've started to put more of the 'why' of things into my choices...what will doing/not doing this make me feel...I'm learning to be more intuitive...there are a lot of grey areas with intuition.  As a woman who was resistant to emotions for most of her life, I also realize that many of my prior decisions were very analytical...here are the facts, black and white, this is the answer.  I think that's the difference between men and women in this regard...we women want to explain ourselves...and sometimes we just don't manage to get back around to the point...and the point is all men are interested in.  If you don't believe that, think about foreplay and how men and women differ there...yeah, see told ya so... (Again, I acknowledge exceptions to the rule...hehehe)

Anyway, that was my interesting lunch time conversation.  Clearly men are desperate for advice...I mean, they're coming to me for it...CLEARLY DESPERATE!  In the end, all I could really tell them was to listen and pay attention...because that's what I would want...someone who cares enough to listen to what I say.  And so to be fair, my advice for ladies: be more direct.  If you really want something, just say it.  Don't be an enigma...be an adult.  Those are my words of wisdom for today.

Circles

I don't know what a psychotic break feels like...but I'm pretty sure I am having one.  I think the fact that I kind of giggled to myself as I wrote that means that it's probably true...but, hey, at least I can laugh about it, right?

I've told you before how I've basically denied all existence of my personal emotions for my entire life.  And then I discovered art journaling.  And all these emotions kind of poured out of me...or exploded out of me really...like Mentos dropped in a bottle of coke...geyser style...

That was a total surprise for me.  I didn't know I had all that stuff locked up inside.  SO MUCH STUFF!  But it felt really great to get it out of my head.  I could feel the weight lifted off my shoulders...it was like I finally breathed out and it made me twenty pounds lighter!  It's been a huge relief.  I think I've been learning to handle it all in a pretty good way...especially since I've never done anything with emotional stuff besides try to suppress it.

But this week, and I think (without knowing it at the time) probably most of last month, aka Crap-tober, I've been having some new-to-me issues.  I've come to realize that, much like everything else in life, some emotions are cyclical.  We don't just feel them, acknowledge them, and move on from them.  Somethings you can do that with...but not everything.  Ugh.  I guess I shouldn't be so bewildered at this, but I am.  Actually, I'm a little shocked about the whole thing.  

I've been thinking a lot about my friend Leonard.  I miss him a lot.  I know I always will.  That's not new knowledge for me.  But these big circle emotions that I seem to be having right now...that's a different kettle of fish.  

I've dealt with the loss of him...carefully.  In a detailed way...maybe that's the right way to say it.  Each time something new came up, I've analyzed it...over-analysis is my specialty...I feel like I've let myself run the gamut of grief.  Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, ...been there, done that.  I've felt all these things so strongly.  I was...almost proud, I guess...of how I let myself go through all of those stages.  They overlapped, they repeated, they ebbed and flowed and overtook me.  It didn't happen quickly, but eventually I got to a point where I felt like I could breath again.  I thought that was acceptance.  I naively thought I was done with the worst of it.

I've been seeing that's not true.  I've put a spread in Gregg about how I feel:

Repeat.

"This feeling is happening again and again."

"Where does it end?  When does it ever get easier?  Does it ever stop?  Or does it only repeat, repeat, repeat?"

I'm learning that some feelings are big circles.  Like other things in life, they live, they grow weak, they become dormant, they emerge again.  Flowers, butterflies, the seasons...add emotions to the list.  

They aren't exactly the same feelings.  Or at least there are some new ones thrown in the mix.  I'm still sad, I'm still angry, I still don't want it to be true.  But I find that I'm also upset that my memories are fading.  Maybe that is some kind of self-defense mechanism.  We have to lose them, otherwise we'd go crazy...but I can't stand it.  I don't want to forget.

I think it's hard for me because I don't have anyone to talk to about how I feel.  I don't know anybody who I can be completely honest with about things...and someone who would understand how I feel.  I think dealing with suicide is different than dealing with other kinds of death.  Not harder, I don't want to say that, because death is always hard to deal with...but it is different.  

With suicide, you not only have to deal with the person being gone, you have to deal with the fact that they chose it.  He wasn't taken from me.  He wasn't stolen from me.  He made the choice and he left on purpose.  

And I blame myself.  In my head, I understand that it wasn't my fault.  But in my heart, I feel like it is.  I can't seem to find a way for my mind to overpower my heart in this matter.  Having to blame myself for not being able to see what was happening...for not being able to stop it from happening...that only adds to the pain of it all.  

I know that letting myself feel what I need to feel is good for me.  I know that talking about it is helping me.  I understand that I'm still learning too.  I know that I'll always miss my friend and that at least a part of me will always hold onto guilt and self-blame.  I know that I just have to learn to not let it overpower my life...maybe that's an ongoing process, not an end game.

I've lost someone I love very dearly.  I don't get him back.  I don't ever get to hear his voice or his laugh ever again.  He doesn't get to know what life had in store for him.  He doesn't get to know that things would have gotten better.  His life is stopped and  mine did too.  

I just want to say that there is ALWAYS another choice.  Talk to someone.  Life is not easy, but there's good to be had.  So long as you're living, you have the power to change your life.  There is always a different way out of a bad situation, and choosing death is not the answer to any problem.  I wish I had shown my friend how much he was loved.  I wish I could tell him I love him and let him know how much he meant to me...how much he will always mean to me.  I don't get to tell him.  He doesn't get to hear it.  We don't get to have a life together now.  Don't take that away from yourself.  Don't take that away from all the people who love you.