My Muse Finally Woke From Her Long Slumber!

I’m not sure which muse it is because none of them preside over “art” specifically, rather “the arts”… Anyway, she finally decided to wake the fuck up, lazy bitch that she’s been… Or, to be more specific, I gave her a shove and pushed her the fuck out of bed. You see, I found a shop owner that loves my work and is happy to display it for sale, but I wanted to give her more than just one or two pieces. But the dry spell I was in wasn’t helping. That was when I decided to revamp some of my older works since I know I can do better now. I thought it might help get me going again. This was one of those works. I like it enough, but… I still think I can do better. I knew that was going to happen. My first piece diving back into the waters is always one I look at after I put all that hard work into it and say, “Meh…” So I’m sure I’ll revamp this again and again until I’m happy with it. But that’s okay! I have an excellent reason to revamp it again so soon…

I’ll try tp make a long story short… When I opened my program to revamp that drawing, I saw they had a deal to upgrade to the latest version for $148 (regular $229, so it was a good deal), but when I got to the website, it was $137! Even better! But I had to wait for the funds, so in the meantime, I downloaded the trial… Oh my god!!! Brushes they had omitted years back that I loved were back! New brushes and features I loved were added! I was positively giddy! I needed this upgrade! Sadly, by the time I had the money, I was literally a day or two too late. And Corel is not forgiving… The best they could do was knock $23 off the $229 normal upgrade cost. Ooh… could you be more generous?! And this woman, who could barely speak English, kept asking if I took a screen shot of the offer. What in the blue fuck does that matter?! If I’m calling you about it, I obviously saw it, moron! Well, that was too much money. I was so upset, I cried. I really wanted this upgrade, really wanted to stay inspired and create new and wild things again. The muse had woken and I didn’t want her nodding off again.

I had already moved onto a new drawing when all this was going on (the one here to the left) and I was so hoping to use some of the new brushes in Painter 2022 to finish it up, hence the reason for my sadness. Well… when I opened Painter 2021 the following day after all that bullshit with Corel, don’t I see that same message about upgrading for $148… Okay, my curiosity was piqued. I decided to click on the link and, sure enough, it was back down to $148. Good thing I didn’t take their offer the day before or I’d have been calling and raising Cain! So I jumped on the offer before anything else weird and stupid happened. When I was done purchasing it, I immediately started working on finishing my drawing. I think she turned out fairly nicely! And I think this one will sell well in the hippie-dippy shop I got to agree to display my work for me. I’ve been trying to think of some more new age/hippie concepts to draw so she can sell them there, but that’s not exactly easy. If I push my brain too hard, it’ll push back and give me nothing and I’ll be screwed. Like literally, it’ll give me absolutely nothing…

“Wear Your Love Like Heaven” (c) me, lyrics (c) Donovan

This was actually the drawing that started it all… I figured since I was in a hippie-dippy store, I should show her one of my hippie-dippy drawings. She absolutely loved it. I was going to put it on a stretched canvas, but then it stretched too much of the drawing around it and I don’t feel like fixing the issue. I also don’t have money to pay for prints on canvas right now, so I’m going to do framed posters. Honestly, I wouldn’t mind having one of this one framed for myself. I’ve loved this one since the day I finished it. I think it will do really well there. I hope it will, anyway… I have to admit, I’m very frightened about having my work out for display. What if no one likes it? I’ll feel rejected and want to give up…

This is another one she seemed quite taken with, so I guess I’ll be making a print of her as well…

Still, I’m taking a huge risk, here… If no one likes my work or buys my work, that may be discouraging enough to make me stop creating art altogether. I can’t handle that… Art if life to me. It’s all I’ve ever known, all I’ve ever done. I’m miserable without it. I suppose that’s why I never took such a big risk before. But without risk, what do you have besides nothing? You have… well… nothing. So I guess I’m going to do this thing. I’m going to see if she can hang them right away once I get them done and down there, maybe get some pictures with my art… That sounds silly, but it’ll be the first time my work will be hanging on the wall of someplace for sale and that’s a pretty big deal for me. I think that at least calls for a picture, right? Right…? Well, either way, I shall keep you posted, dear readers. Please send positive vibes and thoughts. I’m going to need them. And look for shots of my ugly mug with my work in the near future…

I Do Believe My Cheese Has Slid Off My Cracker…

Raise your hand if you remember Bartok the bat from Anastasia! I still have a talking Bartok plush I got from… Pizza Hut? McDonald’s? I forget. But it was back when the movie first came out when I was in my early 20s. One of his lines is, “Stress… it’s a killer.” That one was always my favorite, but I don’t know why. It’s really not funny; it’s actually quite true. Although if it’s due to it raising your blood pressure I’ll be good. Mine has always been so low I’m practically a god damned corpse. And that’s with drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes…

I’m beginning to think Baxter is telling me something with that tongue…

I’ve been under a lot of stress for months (unfortunately it’s something I can’t discuss) and the pressure is starting to take a toll on both my physical and mental health. Like I’m beginning to wonder if Baxter is telling me off since he’s always sticking his tongue out at me…

On one particular day when I had a meltdown, I called my sister in tears. She’s good at listening and calming me down and we do that for each other. Anyway, after listening to me vent and relieving some stress, she asked if I thought it might help me if I got a job. Not for financial reasons, mind you, just so I’d have a sense of purpose. I reminded her I actually did get hired, at a record store. It would have been perfect. The employees, even ones older than me, knew so much less about music it was pathetic. But then I got sick and had to get a COVID test done. It was negative, but I was still pretty sick, so I quarantined just to be safe. When I was done with quarantine and I could start, my anxiety went berserk. That’s when I realized I’m not ready…

But it brought about a conversation the other day about what brings us purpose in our lives and I honestly couldn’t think of what would make me feel as if I had some. Then it dawned on me… I felt I had purpose when I would go sit in my little art corner at my drafting table and work on my comic. You’re probably wondering how I got any work done with all that mess… And these are really old pictures! It got much more cluttered… And there are a few of me, selfies I took when I was working just for shits and giggles. Man, do I love those red shades. I don’t get to wear them since I need my glasses to see distance, but I can see fine close up and decided to put them on. And I was wearing my favorite Poison shirt that belonged to my bestie M&M (yes, I still have that since high school). It’s one of my favorite selfies for some reason.

It’s been such a long time since I sat in my little art corner… Now my drafting table is just something I throw shit on. It’s lost its purpose much as I’ve lost mine. That’s really sad, actually…

And the thing is, it’s not that I couldn’t clean off all the junk I’ve piled up on top of it, sit my ass down and start working again. I could… But the problem isn’t just the space itself. The problem is me…

Granted, even when I wasn’t on my meds, I had issues. If I was too manic or too depressed, either no ideas would come to mind or I couldn’t manifest them correctly because they weren’t clear enough images in my mind. But when I’m on my meds, well… They really fuck with your head, you know? I mean, yeah, I’m feeling better most of the time. But the trade off is a rather high price. I seem to lose all my inspiration completely. I literally haven’t sat at my drafting table in probably about five years or more. Worse, the only digital art I’ve done in those five years were mostly self portraits with a few random drawings thrown in here and there. And still, no matter what I did, my supposed friends on Facepuke couldn’t be bothered to hit that like button and out of all the intricate shit I drew, it was a My Little Pony drawing that had the most likes. What the fuck… Makes you want to give it all up, so I did…

Ditty-bopping and hanging out with my favorite guy, Punchy

And just to drive home the point that your life is pathetic, meaningless and you have no purpose, you find yourself getting excited when you’re playing Animal Crossing and your favorite villager shows up to visit your house for the first time. Yup… My cheese has finally slid off my cracker, dear readers… Of course I’m not alone in this. I spam my mother with some of these screenshots, so I texted her the last one and told her Punchy came to visit and she replied, “Looks like you had a good time.” Um… alrighty then…!

To be fair, my visit with Punchy was actually just what I needed. I know, that sounds really stupid and childish. But there’s a reason he’s my favorite character. He’s the only one who runs around my island almost constantly playing airplane with his arms out and the biggest smile on his face. And he says the weirdest things that make me laugh my ass off. That particular day he was commenting on my chairs and said he tends to get too comfortable in chairs and his legs fall asleep which is how he got stuck on the toilet for a week… I just stared at the dialogue on my screen for a second or two, then burst out laughing. I’m not sure why toilet humor is funny, but it is. And I needed that laugh.

Yes, I did all this work for a dumb reason…

And since I’m pathetic anyway and seemingly without purpose… I decided to create one that’s totally stupid and bat shit insane…

So I watch a lot of YouTube videos created by people who visit other people’s islands and do a walkthrough to showcase them. In the game, you have a dream address, which means you can save the way your island looks at a certain time of day during a certain season. People can visit anytime, not just when you allow them entrance and they can’t mess with your stuff or ruin your flowers, shit like that. Anyway, these YouTube people find islands to visit by seeing pictures on certain social media and one thing that really seems to catch their eye are custom maps. So I took a screenshot of my island map and colored over it, marking certain particular sites of interest and created a walkthrough guide. I also took a shit ton of pictures from all over my island. Now I have to create certain accounts again (since I deleted mine) so I can showcase all my pictures in the hope that someone will want to do a video on my island. I realize how sad that sounds… And in all honesty, my island is nothing spectacular in comparison to the ones I see in these videos. But it would make me feel like I accomplished something and I need the ego boost right now. Besides… I’ve spent so many hours playing this fucking game, a little recognition would be nice is all.

I have an appointment with my shrink today… I’m feeling a bit apprehensive about going. He’s not like most shrinks who spend about two seconds with you to find out if your meds are helping, adjust if necessary then send you on your way. Oh no, we actually talk… I think they should talk to you, but right now I’m not sure I want to tell him what’s been on my mind. I don’t even want to know what’s been on my mind lately…

Stop The World; I Want To Get Off…

Have you ever seen these works by Toby Allen…? He made a plethora of them for all manor of mental disorders and they are absolutely brilliant. The drawings and descriptions perfectly depict whatever disorder they’re describing. Some are deceptively cute, like this little guy, here. He’s the one currently plaguing me to the point where I’m actually making myself physically sick. The last time I got this bad, I ended up in the psych ward at the hospital and I’m not doing that again. It’s pointless, really. Your problems are still there…

My new glasses, a gift from my villager Shino

The thing about the psych unit… It just sucks. I don’t know how it is everywhere, but the one I was in was awful. I was nearing 41 at the time, yet I was being treated like a toddler who was in prison. I couldn’t have a pen because it was dangerous… Yeah, because clearly I couldn’t take out someone’s jugular or an eye with one of those little golf pencils they had us use with much more ease than I would a piece of fucking plastic… No iPods, no stuffed animals even if they were brand new from the store because they had a case of bed bugs once. So I had no comfort whatsoever. And then there was Nurse Ratchet… Literally, the woman screamed at you for no reason. It was like being in the 7th circle of Hell. I think that’s where the creepy masks in this picture came from… In any case, I eventually flipped shit because of all that after I’d been there two days and hadn’t even seen a doctor. I was just given pills and was told to take them. Nice… And when I was finally released, I came home and found that all my problems, stresses, fears and anxieties were all here to throw me a welcome home party. It was such a great time… I actually didn’t feel better until after the two week outpatient program. But the point is, I can feel my anxiety spiraling out of control again and I don’t want to end up back in the whacky ward in that same scenario.

One day, while taking down Christmas decorations, I had to crawl under the tree and realized why the animals liked it under there. It looked really cool! And it was kind of cozy, actually, as if it were a nice place to hide. I thought that would be fun for a child to do and wondered if I’d ever done that as a child, but I couldn’t remember. That seemed to set me off and I spent about a half hour under the tree crying hysterically because I couldn’t remember something so simple. I remember everything! When I mentioned this to my mother yesterday, even she agreed I remember everything and she told me I used to play in a little empty spot behind the tree. But I don’t remember that…

That’s when you find yourself so troubled that you decide to make a vacation home in your game for the dick-nosed, rug selling Saharah. Since she’s a specialty character, I got to pick the theme and name it which is when it hit me… “Midnight At The Oasis” like the old 70s song because, you know “Send your camel to bed…” Get it…? You don’t get it….

Sesshomaru vs Condor Joe… Who will win…?

And then you find yourself setting up some of your favorite Funko Pop! figures against your new blanket that looks eerily like the carpet in The Shining like they’re about to do battle… Probably because the transmission that is your mind is starting to slip a little from all the stress and anxiety lately… And I’ve always taken to heart one of Captain Kirk’s lines in a particular episode of Star Trek: “The more complex the mind, the greater the need for the simplicity of play.” It’s true, actually… Try it the next time you feel stressed or anxious. Play a game, play with toys, go to Walmart and get yelled at for having a lightsaber battle with someone in the store (I did that once). It’s good therapy.

I think a great deal of this stress and anxiety started when Penny went into the hospital and it hit its peak when I attended her viewing. I wasn’t going to go because I was concerned it might make my anxiety worse, but I was talked into it. I should have listened to myself… Not seeing her still allowed me that ability, however so slight, to think that COVID wasn’t a killer. Now I’m more terrified than I was when she died to leave my house and I feel like hosing down everything in Lysol… or bleach… or kerosene and a match… I don’t know, whatever the fuck will kill this damned virus. Paranoia is setting in and it’s not fun, let me tell you, dear readers…

They’re starting to talk like me. Creepy…

Penny’s viewing, however, seems to be only a portion of my issues, however. I also have Morticia constantly calling me to freak the fuck out and dump all her shit in my lap when she causes most of her problems herself. That seems to be a big part of the problem… Every time I talk to her, I literally either have an anxiety attack, burst into tears when I get off the phone with her because I feel overwhelmed or I end up getting physically sick because I just can’t handle any more bullshit than I’m already facing in my own life.

“Hi, I’d like to talk to you about how to get your mommy to dress you funny…”

And there’s a loved one I’m concerned about… Said person is bipolar like myself and also suffers anxiety, albeit not as bad as my own. But this person refuses to take meds as they do tend to alter your thinking in negative ways (I myself have found myself less creative on my meds). So this person smokes pot. Hey, I’m all for it! I self medicated with it back in the day and this person is no longer a monster but the sweet person they once were. But now they’re moving onto ‘shrooms and having bad trips and I worry something bad will happen.

I know I can’t control other people and their actions, but I also can’t handle this amount of stress and anxiety. It’s not healthy for me.

Please send some good, healing vibes, dear readers… I seriously need them right now. Or if you have any tips on stress relief other than going off grid or going postal, I’d really love to hear them. At this point I’ve pretty much run out of ideas and things that have worked before aren’t working… I feel so lost and alone…

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